Child of a Mad God

by R. A. Salvatore

  The youngsters looked to each other uncertainly, then back at Innevah, and she saw more than a little skepticism painted on their faces.

  “Just get off Fireach Speuer,” Innevah told the boy pointedly. “And soon. We both know why,” she added to the young woman, drawing her attention to her young companion. Dunen Bloch would soon be a man, and thus a threat (and perhaps even a temptation to the Usgar women), and so his time grew short. He would surely be killed later that same year when the tribe returned to the winter plateau, and most horribly.

  Dunen Bloch looked back and forth between the nodding women, his expression growing desperate.

  “I d’not want to go alone!” he said, suddenly gasping for breath.

  “It is not just for him,” Sandashae said, and put a comforting hand on Dunen Bloch’s shoulder.

  “No,” Innevah agreed. “And even if he weren’t here, my counsel would be for you to run. I know what your life among the Usgar will be.”

  “You wish to come with us!” the boy accused.

  “I already told you that I cannot,” Innevah calmly replied. “But yes, I wish I could. So many times have I thought of running, even of casting myself from a high rock. Every day for eight years. But I cannot.”

  “Because of your son,” Sandashae said quietly.

  “The stupid one,” Dunen Bloch said, and Sandashae slugged him in the shoulder again.

  “Because of Thump, yes,” Innevah said. She looked Sandashae right in the eye, forcing her to lock stares, and added, “And that is why I have come to you.”

  Dunen Bloch seemed at a loss, but the young woman’s expression of surprise only lasted a moment.

  “You wish us to take your son,” she stated.

  “He will not be missed before you are missed,” Innevah said. “He is of Fasach Crann, his mother, Innevah, his father, Huana’kal. He will ensure your safety there until my people—his people—can take you home across the waters to Sellad Tulach.”

  “We can’no—” Dunen Bloch started to argue, but Sandashae hit him again to silence him.

  “Thump is swift and sure-footed, and he knows the ways of the mountain,” Innevah assured them. “I must get him away, before…” She looked at Dunen Bloch and winced, then closed her eyes to compose herself and find her courage. This boy who was almost a man sitting before her had waited too long, she feared. He knew his fate, and surely the Usgar knew that he knew his fate. They wouldn’t be surprised to discover that he had run off.

  It was a desperate plan, to be sure, and one riddled with traps, and so Innevah almost reconsidered asking them to take Thump along.

  But there weren’t many uamhas in between the ages of Thump and this boy, Dunen Bloch, and so Innevah feared that this might be her last chance to save her child, desperate as it seemed.

  “Take my boy with you,” she said determinedly. “I will lie for you when they come looking. I will say that one of the women came for you, all three, and sent you out on an errand to collect pinecones.”

  Sandashae didn’t blink, and Innevah couldn’t tell if she was getting through to the young woman or not.

  “Dunen Bloch and I will speak of it,” Sandashae finally said.

  “We can’t be slowed!” the boy interjected.

  Innevah started to plead, to argue, but Sandashae cut her short with an upraised hand. “There is much to consider. And we have time. We’ll not be leaving for many days still.”

  Dunen Bloch started to respond again, but Sandashae cut him off forcefully, with a look, a punch, and a growl.

  Innevah tried to decipher that, but she understood that there was little more she could do at that time. She nodded respectfully to the young woman and backed away, pausing only briefly to try to hear any residual comments.

  And indeed, Dunen Bloch started to speak, but again was cut short by his coconspirator.

  Worry followed Innevah all the way back to her tree-cave.

  * * *

  “She said she would lie to them to help us,” Dunen Bloch said when Sandashae scouted about and confirmed that they were alone once more. The boy was shaking his head as he spoke, though, clearly struggling with this new dilemma.

  “If we are being pursued, we should go to Fasach Crann,” Sandashae said. “Innevah helped us by telling us.”

  “So we should bring her stupid boy?”

  Sandashae cast a pensive glance in the direction Innevah had gone, and chewed her lip, hating her answer even as she shook her head.

  “He’ll slow us down!” Dunen Bloch went on, unaware that she was agreeing with him. “And he’s ugly. He looks like them. Like the ugly Usgar demons!”

  Sandashae turned and cast a glare of consternation at the boy.

  “Every time I see him, I want to kick him,” Dunen Bloch admitted.

  “He is not Usgar,” Sandashae quietly reminded. “He’s just uamhas, like us, and if we could take him, I would.”

  Dunen Bloch started to reply, but paused and looked at the young woman curiously. “But you agree we will not?”

  “I do,” she said. “And we go this very night.”

  “But you told the long-head woman—”

  “Exactly,” Sandashae said, and she sighed. She had lied to Innevah to give her and Dunen Bloch space to get away.

  She looked back in the direction of Innevah’s tree-cave, and toward the adjoining one of Innevah’s poor little boy, as well. Truly she wished she could get all the slaves out of the Usgar village and to the safety of the lake, even those who were of tribes that often battled with the folk of Sellad Tulach out on Loch Beag. No one deserved this fate, not the boys who would be worked to near-death and then tortured the rest of the way when they became men, and not the women, like Innevah, and now like Sandashae, who had to accept the violations of the ugly demon warriors.

  She wanted to take all the lakemen from this awful place.

  But she could not.

  She moved to the side and pushed a bed of needles out of her way, then dug in the soil to retrieve a bag of food she had cleverly stashed. Then, her expression grim and determined, Sandashae reached out for Dunen Bloch’s hand.

  It was time to go.

  * * *

  Quite a commotion greeted Aoleyn when she went out into the camp that morning. People hustled all about, whispering excitedly. To the side of the encampment stood the uamhas, in a line, and with a long rope binding them all together ankle to ankle. Aoleyn couldn’t miss the nervousness on their faces, all of them, including Thump, who seemed absolutely mortified.

  “A runner,” she heard the crone mutter, the woman coming out right after Aoleyn.

  “A pair of them,” came an answer from the side.

  It took Aoleyn a few moments to sort that out. “A runner?” she whispered under her breath.

  She saw the warriors gathering, lifting weapons, saw the witches of the Coven hastily blessing those long and terrible spears, and then she understood.

  Now she looked at the line of uamhas more carefully, and indeed, two were missing: a young woman only a few years older than she, and a boy of about her age.

  One of the men stepped before her, and it took her a moment to sort him out and recall his name, Brayth, a friend of the warrior named Aghmor who had been kind to Aoleyn through the years. This one was very different, she thought, with his bulging muscles and stern face—he never seemed to smile. There was strength behind his scowl, she recognized, and fire behind his gray eyes, and Aoleyn found an unexpected tightness in her throat as she looked at him then in the morning light.

  He glanced over at her and offered a grin she thought perfectly wicked, then nodded and hoisted his spear.

  He was eager to be on his way, she understood.

  He was eager for the hunt.

  He rushed off, sweeping up his friend Aghmor in his wake, the two of them moving fast to join the great warrior, Tay Aillig, at the western end of the camp, at the mouth of the trail that led down Fireach Speuer.

  It surprised Aole
yn when Tay Aillig looked over Brayth’s shoulder to her, his stare locking her gaze. She felt as if he was studying her too intently, as if he was looking into her heart and soul in his mind. She did not like that feeling at all, particularly now after the strange and unknown reaction she had felt in staring at the other strong warrior.

  She closed up a bit, moving her arms across her chest, and Tay Aillig gave a little laugh, nodded to his charges, and ran off.

  Aoleyn stood there watching them go, still postured defensively, unblinking.

  “Don’t worry,” said the crone, coming up beside her. “They will catch the fleeing uamhas.”

  Aoleyn nodded, but for her teacher’s sake only, because in her heart, she was afraid of that very thing, that the warriors would catch the runners.

  * * *

  Buoyed by the magic in their crystalline weapon tips, the small hunting party led by Tay Aillig streamed along the mountain trails, weaving through copses of trees and scrambling over boulder tumbles.

  Whenever they slowed in an area rife with hidey-holes, Aghmor brought his spear tip up before his eyes, looking through the green-tinged crystal, its magic transforming his vision into something that could see and identify the sensations of nearby life instead of simple physical forms.

  “There!” he announced at one flat area filled with towering stones, many of which leaned together to form small alcoves. He pointed to an apparent cave.

  “No, wait!” he corrected even as his friend Brayth eagerly started for the spot. “It is a bear.”

  Brayth backed away immediately.

  Tay Aillig looked to Aghmor, but the younger man could only shrug. He wasn’t detecting any human life beyond the members of the party.

  On they went with all speed, Tay Aillig leaping down rocky slopes and relying upon the witch’s levitation blessing upon his weapon to keep himself upright. Invariably, Aghmor found himself at the end of the line through such difficult and dangerous passages, his caution the result of a hard lesson he had learned on his first raid eight years previous.

  Another reason kept him near the back, as well, he knew, but wouldn’t admit, even to himself. Fireach Speuer was an enormous mountain, wide and uneven, with hundreds of valleys and miles of hidden ways. But with their crystals that could allow them to move so swiftly, that could sense life, that could grant distance sight, the size and complexity of Fireach Speuer benefitted not the runners, but the hunters.

  Surely the fleeing uamhas had deceived themselves upon leaving the camp the previous night by looking at the lights of the villages far below on Loch Beag. Those lights appeared closer than they were, and it seemed an easy run to them, no doubt. The height of the Usgar camp made it all look so tantalizingly straightforward, so obviously within reach.

  Aghmor and the others who lived up here and ran the ways of Fireach Speuer understood that deception.

  The runners thought they could sprint and slide, tumble and skip their way to the lake towns.

  They could not. Not in time.

  And that was why Aghmor secretly carried a great weight with every step.

  * * *

  Sandashae, dirty, exhausted, and bruised, stumbled into the small camp, one arm before her held high in surrender, one behind her dragging Dunen Bloch along, supporting him, for he had torn one of his legs badly on a slide down a stony slope.

  “Please, we need help,” she said, her voice choked and raspy. “Please.”

  Three men stood facing the two youngsters, their spears ready. A fourth hunter, a woman flanked about the side of the camp, just beyond the firelight, looking for more unexpected visitors. They all had the elongated skulls common for the village of Fasach Crann, and so were not kin to these surprising visitors—and they wore that fact clearly with their grim expressions.

  “Sellad Tulach,” Sandashae pleaded. “Sellad Tulach!”

  The nearest man looked at her curiously. “Sellad Tulach?” he echoed.

  “You’re a long way from home, girl,” said another man to the side.

  “I’ve not been home since I was…” Sandashae replied, fighting to hold her mounting emotions in check. She held her hand out at about waist height, to indicate that she had been just a child when last she had seen her home.

  “Where you coming from, then?” asked the third man in the camp, his voice growing weak with fear.

  Sandashae looked back over her shoulder, up the steep mountainside.

  “Deamhan Usgar!” Dunen Bloch blurted.

  The words hit the hunters of Fasach Crann like a punch in the gut. Even in the light of the low-burning fire, Sandashae could see the blood draining from their faces.

  “We’ve got to run,” the man before her whispered, as much to himself as to anyone else.

  * * *

  A few hundred yards above and behind the camp of the Fasach Crann hunters, Tay Aillig walked out onto a high, exposed rock.

  Looking down and to the right, as Aghmor had directed, the warrior drew out a crystal-bladed dagger and peered through its translucent, magical blade. His vision became removed from his physical eyes then, left his body, offering him a glimpse of a scene far below, a scene unfolding before the orange embers of a low-burning fire. He saw four hunters leaping up from their bedrolls, gathering their weapons, one rushing out into the darkness, the other three coming forward cautiously to meet the unexpected guests.

  Tay Aillig grinned wickedly, replaced his dagger, and lifted his spear. Now he looked through the magic of that weapon, envisioning the sight he had been offered by his dagger, and focusing on the man who centered the trio.

  He concentrated on a sense of attraction from the spear to a medallion the man was wearing, and though he couldn’t see that medallion without the far sight of his magical dagger, couldn’t even see the man or the camp, Tay Aillig surely could sense it!

  His free hand motioned, sending Brayth and Aghmor streaming down the left side of the outcropping on which he stood, the other two warriors skipping and rushing down the right-hand side.

  Tay Aillig steadied his breathing, and kept his focus on the spear tip, on the gray stone within it that was showing him the way. He brought the spear up high over his shoulder and cocked his arm, then paused, letting his warriors cover the ground toward the camp.

  He felt the pull of the distant medallion.

  He sent his spear soaring high and far into the dark night.

  He kept his mind connected to its magic, mentally drawing a line from himself to the flying spear and to the hunter wearing the metal medallion. He could feel the enchanted missile changing directions as it battled the wind to hold true to that line, for the gray stone within its tip had attuned to the metal of the man’s necklace, and sought that medallion.

  Tay Aillig nodded, satisfied with the throw, and drew his dagger and a crystal-bladed axe. He leaped from the rock, gathering the magic of the axe to lighten his weight as he swooped down, lessening the jolt as he touched the ground below into a swift, bounding run, each stride propelling him long and far down the mountainside, the trees flashing by him to either side.

  * * *

  “They’ll be coming, the demons,” the hunter said, glancing left and right at his fellows. “We’ve got to run!”

  The last word came out with a rush of air as a missile swerved to the magnetic call of the medallion around the hunter’s neck, the spear charging the last expanse to plunge into that medallion, through that medallion and into the hunter’s chest, through his backbone and out, driving him backward and down. He didn’t immediately fall over, though, for the spear buried its tip into the ground behind him, and held him there, briefly, right before the horrified Sandashae.

  The dying man craned his neck to look at the tail of the spear shaft, still protruding from his chest, and he looked past it, to the wide-eyed young woman, and with an accusation clear in his eyes.

  She had brought this doom to him.

  The dying man tried to grab at the spear shaft and the movement of his arm ov
erbalanced him.

  He rolled slowly to the left, then fell hard to the ground, blood quickly pooling about him.

  A cry of surprise farther to the left caught the attention of the four people still standing in the camp, and before the two remaining hunters could call out to their flanking companion, two forms broke through the perimeter.

  Usgar warriors.

  The nearest hunter drew a long knife and charged at them. The other turned around and ran out the back of the camp. Or tried to, for two more Usgar appeared from the right, charging in pursuit, one leading with a flying spear that impaled the fleeing hunter in the lower back, slowing him until the two Usgar caught him and leaped upon him, bearing him to the ground beneath them.

  Sandashae could only think of flight, could only hope the remaining hunter in the camp could hold back the fierce warriors—although she noted that he had already been stabbed once, and was again even as she watched! Still he fought on, and waved his knife menacingly, and got stabbed again by a long spear.

  “Run!” Sandashae told Dunen Bloch, and she tugged his hand.

  But he pulled free of her, it seemed, and she spun in surprise.

  And saw Dunen Bloch lifting into the air, a dagger in his belly, angled up for his lungs. With one powerful arm Tay Aillig hoisted the boy higher, and how poor Dunen Bloch cried and screamed then as the vicious dagger tore at his guts.

  Up higher he went, the powerful Usgar so easily lifting him, high enough so that the blood spurting from around the wound splashed over the mighty Usgar.

  Sandashae fell back step by step.

  The man to her side went down to the ground, the two Usgar stalking over him, stabbing down with their spears repeatedly, so clearly savoring every blood-splattering plunge.

  Dunen Bloch continued to squirm and cry. He even managed to plea to Sandashae by name, so pitifully.

  And she could only look at him, could offer no solace.

  Tay Aillig’s powerful forearm twitched, jarring the dagger, and it sent a jolt of agony through the boy, whose arms shot out to the side and stiffened, then fell limp.