It turned to face him and Simon stopped short. Its orange hair grew everywhere but the palms of its hands and on its face, where the skin was dark and smooth. It had a wide mouth, animal-like, and a flat nose, and eyes with orange irises that seemed human and peaceful.
Breath heaved in and out of Simon's lungs. He and the giant watched each other.
"Hi," Simon said at last.
The giant spoke to him.
Tlal, it said.
Tlal, non trofos, galdo hama.
"I don't understand."
Tlal. Galdo hama wren fono sam clochos. Chenoo.
Simon wanted the words to make sense. He was missing what the giant was saying, and that scared him. He tried to calm down and be still. The giant sat on the ground and its dark face was level with Simon's.
Kath manack lalo feldus nok-toth. Non trofos. Galdo hama. Sloros Ahm.
It rose smoothly to its feet and stood there, treelike.
Tlal.
Its enormous hairy body pivoted away, starting into the forest, building speed to its walking pace. Simon ran after it. The giant wild man was too fast, though, and it gradually pulled away until Simon could only catch glimpses of its orange-brown fur through the trees. He was going to lose it in these trees, and then where would he be?
Then it stopped.
Simon caught up. It stood at a ridge overlooking a clearing at the bottom of a hill. There were three men down there, kneeling around a fourth, who lay unmoving. Simon couldn't see them clearly, it was too far.
The giant wild man raised a hairy arm as long as Simon's body and pointed.
A cooking fire burned a short distance from the men. Their backs were to it. There was a fifth man there, tending the fire. Something was roasting on a spit over the flames.
Simon caught his breath. It had arms and legs, like a tiny person.
Tlal. Chenoo. Sloros Ahm.
Simon nodded, uncertain what the message was. "Tlal," he said.
#
Some kind of noise kicked Bogg out of his happy sleeping. It was the pup, rolling another log to the fire, wrestling it in with his skinny arms. The log was wet and it hissed as the fire dried it out.
No rain falling at the moment. The sky was starless and dark as a cave, though, and the air felt heavy with water. The fire had survived the rain, Bogg reckoned, and the pup had restoked it.
The little feller sat with his legs tucked under him, sideways to the fire.
"Here now, pup," Bogg grumbled. "Can't you sleep?"
The pup's face was pale and serious in the firelight. He propped his book in his lap. "I'm reading."
Bogg frowned. "Long day tomorrow."
"I just want to look something up."
"What?"
The boy wore an uncertain expression, like he was just beginning to feel a bellyache coming on. "I'm not sure." His mouth hung open a little, and Bogg waited for him to decide if he would say more. The boy didn't. Instead, he opened the book and peered at the pages with his magnifying glass.
Bogg lay there, listening to the fire crackle anew and watching the pup read. The pup was a wonder. He held his glass steady as a stone. It drifted over the page like a sail over a calm sea, bending the firelight into orange spots that glowed on the page. The brass frame that held the lens was tarnished, and the wooden handle the pup clutched in his small fingers was worn smooth and smudged dull gray with printer's ink. Bogg reckoned the glass was twice the boy's age, or more.
Reading was a neat trick, Bogg had no doubt. But he couldn't see a body trading sleep for it. And he had never heard of anyone doing it with a glass like that. "That glass you use. What's it do?"
The boy didn't look up. "It makes the print bigger."
Bogg's jaw worked back and forth. He drew his hand from under his cloak to scratch at his beard. "Why not make a bigger book?"
The boy looked at Bogg and sighed. He passed the lens to him, its old handle extended neatly out. "Not everyone needs to use a magnifying glass to read. Only some people."
Bogg took the glass and looked at the campfire. Flames splashed up at him through the lens and he jerked back. "Jupiter's boots, would you look at that!"
Bogg peered around the lean-to. Most everything was blurry, more blurry than the drunkest Bogg had ever been.
The pup ignored him. In fact, the pup went back to his book.
Bogg considered the glass in his hand and scowled. "What are you doing, pup?"
"Reading."
"Without this?"
"I don't need it to read."
Bogg was flummoxed. He stuck his tongue in his toothhole. "Then why in tarnation do you bother hauling this thing along?"
The pup shrugged. "I don't know."
"What? Sure you do."
The pup was quiet, and seemed to consider it for a time. "It belonged to my father."
Bogg's first thought was that the pup's answer weren't no answer at all. Then Bogg thought that maybe it was indeed.
Just then, a heavy drop of rain slapped the book's open page. The pup stared at the black sky, looking cross. More drops pattered down, some hissing in the fire.
Bogg felt an icy drop on his cheek. "Well. That's that."
All they could do was bundle up in the lean-to and try to stay dry. It drizzled off-and-on like that, uncertain, for the rest of the night.
#
Tiberius Bogg dreamed of walking a thousand miles.
The trees were thick and green and a type he didn't know. His new boots were wore out now, his food long gone, and his gut shrunk and skinny.
He didn't have his black cloak, and couldn't remember what might have happened to it, but at the same time its missing didn't bother him much.
He had never been so hungry.
Bogg stopped pushing through the brush and listened. There was no sound of any living thing bigger than bird or bug, not for miles around. He had no memory of the last time he had seen a human. He took in the silence for a spell, waiting, hoping for a particular noise. Not yet.
He pushed on through the green. It seemed thicker and tanglier than woods had any business to be, and it took all his effort to fight through it. In time, he listened again.
There was breathing now, under the silence, deep and peaceful. Ahead, through the green brush, he could see blue sky. He pushed his way to it, and when the branches gave way, he found himself at the top of a cliff. It was a drop to a rocky beach, and the surf of the Hestern Sea breathed its steady breaths on the rocks below. Blue sky and bluer ocean met at a perfect line in the distance. It was bigger and deeper and more beautiful than he could have imagined.
He stepped over the edge and, somehow, slid his way down safely. At the bottom, he climbed over the rocks of the beach. They pressed hard and rugged under the thin soles of his boots, and their dusting of sand felt gritty on his palms. He crawled boulder-to-boulder toward the water like a lonely crab, and leapt from the rocks to damp white sand. Waves crashed and shot up spray, hiding that distant perfect line, then settled into a flat layer of water that rushed over the sand to him. He waded out. Water pushed into his boots, and the Hestern Sea touched him at last.
The coldness of the water shocked him, and he felt alive.
#
Chapter 14
Uilleam lay in the gentle rain with his back against a tree. His soaked gray hair matted on his forehead, and he wondered if the links in his chain mail were rusting yet. The anguish in his left arm pulsed from the shoulder to the fingertips and back, as if all the muscles and tendons were being gnawed by demons. As a warrior, he had felt pain before, but this was the worst.
The darkness of the long night was lifting. Dull, shadowless light came from clouds so low that they hid the tops of the trees. Wisps of fog flowed between the trunks, sinking, masking colors and details.
He closed his eyes.
He was too old for this. He should be captain of his own privateering
vessel by now. He had hoped that by casting his lot with Tyrus that he would catapult to power. Tyrus was the best natural leader and fighter that Uilleam had ever seen. Surely, Uilleam had thought, this was a man to follow if power was the goal.
Uilleam knew now that Tyrus was too indomitable and left a vacuum of power around him. Within Tyrus's miasma of absolute domination, Uilleam had no chance of leadership.
It didn't matter now. With this arm, Uilleam was destined for early retirement, or worse.
Heavy footsteps crunched their way to him, and Cadogan's sardonic voice: "Breakfast?"
Uilleam could not escape the pain and danger of his situation, and wondered why he had to endure Cadogan as well. He opened his eyes.
Cadogan offered a vivet arm. Its green skin had charred black over last night's fire, and split to show roasted white flesh. Cadogan grinned, showing crooked teeth in a mouth surrounded by wiry red beard hairs. "It's good. It's a bit like rabbit and a bit like sweet potato. I don't know what to make of that, but quite nourishing--"
"Get that away from me!"
"Well, now." Cadogan withdrew the limb. "That's gratitude in Uilleam Land, is it? Let me take a moment to work this through. You four lacked the insight and resourcefulness to keep our rightfully taken prey yesterday. I did not. You four are hungry. I am not hungry. I have the goodwill to extend this, er," Cadogan considered the limb, gripped it by the shoulder stump and thrust the little hand, now a blackened claw, at Uilleam. "That is, the hand of friendship..." Cadogan snickered, lost control and guffawed.
Uilleam prayed silently for relief.
Cadogan's mirth suddenly vanished. "And you feeble-minded scarecrows spurn me!" he roared. "Starve, then! Rot!"
Cadogan dropped to his knees and pressed his face to Uilleam's. "But think on this," he whispered, and his breath was foul with vivet flesh, "if you won't feast on my arm, then perhaps soon..." Cadogan sniffed deeply at Uilleam's wound. "Oh, it smells all right now, old Uilleam, but let's give it time. Time! Tyrus's sword will do the job..." Cadogan's greasy finger drew a line along Uilleam's shoulder. "Here, perhaps. And we'll have ourselves another meal. Maybe you'll have the sense to partake then!"
Tyrus stood behind him. "Cadogan."
Cadogan snapped to attention. "My lord."
Tyrus's cold eyes pierced Cadogan. Tyrus's eagle nose, his stature, the lionlike way he stood motionless, ignoring the rain coursing down his long brown hair, even his deep and powerful voice, all spoke to his destiny to command. It was a destiny Uilleam would have ascribed to himself many years ago.
"Don't speak of Blodleter," Tyrus said. "Don't speak to Uilleam, unless relaying a message. Tend your duties. We're moving."
Cadogan nodded and slinked away. Tyrus kneeled at Uilleam's side. "Zane is back."
"Did he catch anything?"
"Nothing. Settler's Pass is close."
Uphill, and soon in snow. Uilleam closed his eyes and readied himself for the march.
#
Chapter 15
Rain, Bogg thought, let's you know you're alive. It ain't common, as in every single day, and it ain't unhealthy neither. Perfect. Bogg loved rain. He put on the woolens and osnaburg trousers under his skins, fit his coonskin cap firmly on his head, and packed up camp while the pup boiled up a bit of rice.
They had food for today and no more, so he'd keep his eyes peeled on the trail for game. Hunting and trapping were easy enough when you stayed in one place -- Bogg had lived pretty high in the days when he'd laid out traps on a ten mile loop and kept walking it over and over. That was a pleasant life. But catching enough to eat when you were hustling to cover ground, well, that was different. More like climbing a greased pole with two baskets of eggs.
Take that coneybuck, for example. If he'd had a place to tan the skin, he would have made the pup a nice hat to keep the rain off him. As he was, his black hair was soaked all the time, hanging nearly in his eyes, making him look cold and sad.
Bogg didn't worry himself. If they had to stop and forage, then they'd stop. It meant his quarry would get ahead of him, and that set his teeth on edge. But at least, he cheered himself, the rapscallions must be right peckish themselves at this point.
Bogg and Simon lit out into the pines, their shoes kicking dew off the patches of grass as they walked. It was barely a mile before they hit the hill. The pines just kept on growing, a whole forest set on an endless slope, higher and higher.
The pup looked up there like it was nine miles of briar patch. "Are you sure they went this way?"
"I got a feeling." Bogg had no idea. This was vaguely the way to Settler's Pass. That's all he knew. If he didn't pick up the trail soon, Bogg wasn't sure what he would do. "Come on. Up we go."
After an hour, the rain seemed to run out. Drops still sprinkled from the wet trees. Simon called, "Can we rest?"
"Let's not lose them now."
After another hour, Simon's voice came from behind him. "Now can we rest?"
"Fair enough." Bogg dropped his pack and saddlebags and stretched out with his back against them. The sky was bright white. Bogg figured Whoever was up there would throw down another armload soon.
A flock of black dots sashayed beyond the treetops. Bogg watched them for a bit, unsure what they were. Then he had a guess. "Hey, Simon! Look at this."
The pup sat beside him and followed his pointing arm. "Where?"
"See those birds up there?"
Simon frowned. "No."
"They're nearly gone now. There! Six of them. Thunderbirds."
Simon's jaw hung down a little. "No way."
"Indeedy."
"They look like normal birds."
Bogg grinned. "That's a common mistake. In the sky like that, it's hard to judge distance. Lots of times, thunderbirds are mistaken for smaller birds that are closer. Leads to the misconception that thunderbirds are rare and unusual."
"I've never seen one."
"Maybe you have and you don't know it."
Simon smiled and shook his head.
The birds were gone now, maybe heading aust for the winter, Bogg didn't know. "I understand they have rocs in Algolus. The thunderbird must be its Miran kin. They're too big to snare, anyhow. Let's tramp on."
They hiked until almost noon, hill and pines, pines and hill. Bogg felt hunger and decided to forget the feeling, like he often did in the deep wilderness, where he might miss a day's eating without much strain. But then, if Bogg was feeling it, the boy must be, too.
The shade of the trees broke up ahead, and the ground was lit with cloudy white light. A clearing.
As Bogg and Simon approached, they saw it was no ordinary clearing.
Twoscore-odd trees had been cut down.
Maybe more. All slashed at waist height, or chopped at shoulder height, and scattered every which way among the tall stumps, lying on their broken branches that propped the trunks off the ground. Bogg ran his fingers along the top of a stump and felt the stickiness of fresh pine sap. A day ago, maybe two. The cut was clean, made by something sharper than normal, with a more than healthy amount of power behind it. "This was cut by a man who eats his peas. I'd say we found the trail we were looking for."
"Hey, Bogg!" The kid pointed at the ground. "Is this blood?"
Bogg leaned close. It surely was. Human, or near enough, two splatters with a man's width between them. "That's a goes-inta wound and a goes-outa wound," Bogg said. "Somebody got shot clean through, with an arrow, or a firelock ball, or..." Bogg cast about, gandering for small traces.
It was such a mess of busted trees. He couldn't make sense of it. Bogg stretched his back. The clouds were thick and overcasting, and all the light was soft and shadowless.
He found a finger-sized hole in the stump of a tree that had been cut down at eyeball-height. He peered into the hole, then pressed his fang dagger into the wood. After a spell of whittling, Bogg cut out a golden bal
l the size of cat's eye. He tossed it in the air and caught it, hearing the sound as it slapped hard in his palm. He handed it to Simon.
The pup peered at it in his hand. "It's heavy!" It sparkled in the white light from the sky.
"It's gold. Vivets."
Simon's eyebrows shot up. "Vivets chop down trees?"
"Why, that's the most cockamamie flapdoodle I ever heard! You think vivets did this?"
The pup's adam's apple wheeled up and down in his throat as he looked at the mess. "Those men did this. I don't see why. Were the vivets in the trees?"
"Give it." Bogg stuck out his paw, and the pup dropped the gold ball in his palm. It surely was a treasure, but Bogg knew better than to keep it, or even hive it someplace safe. "This stays here." He pitched it away.
Bogg leapt onto a fallen tree and stalked along it, searching, weaving between the branches. The pup followed him. Bogg climbed onto a fallen trunk that crossed over the first, and turned right. Simon turned left.
The boy called out a minute later. "What's this?"
Bogg looked up, and was flamboozled for a moment at how dark everything was. Then the shadow lifted and the light was back to pale and shadowless. "What was that?"
"This!" The boy pointed at the trunk. He seemed to have missed whatever it was. Bogg swung between the branches until he could follow the boy's finger to the glistening white stain on the bark.
Bogg had seen greenie blood once before in his life. It had been at the start of some troubles, rather than near the end, and Bogg had the feeling it would be the same this time.
"And these." Simon held up something in each small hand. A greenie sling and necklace.
"Godzooks, lad, don't touch those! You'll jinx us."
A breeze picked up suddenly, and the shadow came back. Bogg searched the sky for the cause of the peculiar weather. He saw nothing but gigantic black feathers.
#
Chapter 16
The tree Bogg and the pup were standing on bucked up and threw them. Bogg flipped through the air, catching a glimpse of his boots over his head, his boots against clouds, his boots against black feathers, then a close-up view of pine cones, needles, and scraps of dead bark as his face hit the dirt.
He rolled over.
A thunderbird had landed on the far end of the tree they'd been standing on, the very spot Bogg had been when Simon had called him.
New World: a Frontier Fantasy Novel Page 8
