The Usurper

by James Alderdice

  “We had not gone far beyond the shoreline when we found two dead men. One had his head cut asunder by twin sword strokes and the other had no head, as if cleaved clean off by a tomahawk. Two arrow wounds were also in his backside. It took my getting some used to the idea but Chief Jon insisted these two men had been changelings or shape shifters and were in actuality the serpents we had so recently encountered. This was the wildest explanation I had ever heard but I could not deny the bloody truth at my feet as much as I truly wished I could.

  “Gathelaus was silent at this revelation, but neither did he say it was as impossible as I had first pronounced.

  “We hiked along the narrow cliff walls always with an eye to the sky above which gave us but a sliver of light in this dark canyon. Thrice rocks tumbled from somewhere far above nearly braining us in the process. Chief Jon said this was the work of the Nimerigar, or little people. He said they were cannibals and allied with Toohoo-emmi. Again I scoffed but felt a grim fear well up in my breast as I thought I saw some dark child dash behind a boulder. Sure that my eyes were playing tricks on me or that perhaps I had seen a child rather than a tiny man I expressed as much to Chief Jon who bid we prepare for an attack.

  “Gathelaus spit out a curse and I told him to remember who we were and what we represented, and he looked at me with those deep killers’ eyes and I found myself unable to continue speaking.

  “A shrill high-pitched cry echoed from the cliffs and the sharp twanging of bows announced the attack of the vicious Nimerigar. Tiny arrows filled the clearing before us and the miniscule shafts caught one of our braves in the knee. He had time but to shout in terrible searing pain and then he passed away while convulsing and foaming at the mouth like a mad beast.

  “Poison! A treachery most foul! Chief Jon warned us to avoid even a scratch from the deadly missiles. The tiny needle like armaments bounced and ricocheted from the boulders about us and soon enough it was clear that the diminutive assassins were flanking us as our cover from the storm diminished.

  “Gathelaus cursed again and said something to the effect of having enough and he would test his mettle here and now.

  “He stepped out into the barrage and yet, none of the cursed darts struck him, it was as if he bore the wake of a great wind before him and the missiles did swirl out and around him on a peculiar breeze, such could not be said of his attacks though—as he took the initiative at the Nimerigar and slew a score of them before they fled in terror.

  “Gathelaus even captured one, who was no larger than a babe in arms, though fully grown according to Chief Jon. The little man had an ugly head that was quite large by comparison though all of his tools, clothing and moccasins and the like were similar in fashion to the Picts, though just the size for a doll. I should add that he had wretched teeth and did spit and hiss furiously as Gathelaus held him by the nape of the neck.

  “Chief Jon was quite taken aback but did proceed to try and question the Nimerigar, who as Chief Jon later told us had never before been captured by any man, let alone a white man to whom they were usually invisible.

  “Bitter though he was, the Nimerigar, whose name he said was Pu’wihi, said he and his war party were to defend against the enemies of Toohoo-emmi, as he was now their true Lord and master.

  “I sensed that I was witness to the dying of a race that would soon be no more, as I understood some small amount of the exchange between Chief Jon and Pu’wihi that there were no longer any women left to the Nimerigar and that it made Chief Jon sad though they were his ancestral enemies. I felt I was uniquely disposed to feel that pain, as that very loss and decay is a part of my own religion and belief.

  “Bargaining with Pu’wihi seemed to make little headway but finally we were able to work an exchange of the tiny man showing us the traps his people had left on the trail balanced upon our word that we should no more harm his folk if they too left us alone. To this he agreed and he then did call out a sharp cat-like cry and yipping that was met some miles down the canyon and we saw no more of the tiny people. We did however keep Pu’wihi a prisoner accorded good treatment. Though his curious presence was unnerving to me.

  “We made camp for the night against an overhang in the rock, that would not allow any enemy to sneak up behind us and even gave good cover should enemies try and shoot more darts or arrows at us.

  “Gathelaus said he did not like the place but it was getting dark and there was no way to get the braves to continue on with us in the gloom. Not that I wanted to myself as this was a truly dark and frightful place. Strange calls filled the night and even Pu’wihi said he did not know all the creatures that made such awful cries.

  “Chief Jon blessed our spot and bid we always keep two men on vigil all night to ward against any evil dreams that might befall us.

  “I found it a hard place to go to sleep as the sandstone was both hard and cold and the eerie feeling of doom hung upon me thicker than my wet blanket. But sleep I did for some time in the early hours Gathelaus shook me awake saying to hold onto something solid and try to get to the highest point beneath the overhang.

  “I was confused and groggy with sleep but I heard an awful roaring that filled me with such terror, I wondered at what wretched demon was tearing down the canyon toward us with the speed of a catapult. It must have been a giant for I heard the snapping and twisting tree trunks shattered at its very passage and I wondered aloud how we could possibly fight this devil.

  “Gathelaus answered there was no fighting it, we should simply weather it out in the high ground.

  “I did not understand, but he had been so very nonchalant about all of our trials and now as a giant was thundering toward us he simply moved to the upper edge of the hollow and grabbed hold of a boulder. I shouted at him over the approaching din, that perhaps no arrow or blade could harm him but what was I to do against this new foe and who I asked was it?

  “Flash flood was his taciturn reply, and then a mowing demon of crunching twisted roots, brambles and tree branches’ turned end over end pushed by deep brown waters. We were all huddled up against the far side of the overlook as the scraping hands of the wood and water monster pawed at us, spit in our faces and took hold.

  “One of the Pictish braves was stuck through the gut and carried away into the morass, churned, chewed and swallowed before he could even scream. Pu’wihi had leapt onto Chief Jon’s shoulders and was the highest among us, not that it was entirely safe. Brambles crashed among us and clawed deep gouges in the stone and our flesh.

  “Then it got worse. I heard an even deeper sound of cracking stone as hairline fractures above our very heads spread like black lightning.

  “This is Toohoo-emmi’s black magic at work,” shouted Chief Jon.

  “What could we do? Be crushed by a hundred tons of rock above us or eaten alive by the flash flood below?

  “You a praying man?” asked Gathelaus, “better pray now,” he said, over the thunder.

  “We all did pray in whatever tongue was ours at birth. The cracks in the stone above our heads grew in size and the flood did not cease in intensity. I was praying with all my might and yet I did doubt that I would come thru this crushing predicament.

  “The waters were still churning like a death roll but what should fling itself at us but a massive log. Gathelaus and Chief Jon each instantly seized hold of the upturned thing and jammed it against our roof.

  “The other braves helped and we all did hold it steady against the great load bearing down upon our collective heads.

  “The grating force of thundering doom did not cease but the mighty trunk held but a few moments longer.

  “Pu’wihi cried aloud saying the waters were receding and in truth they were. Gathelaus cried that we all had to dive into the waters despite the torrent and make for just upstream as he gauged the cliff above us would fall the other direction. It meant trying to go against the current but that would be our only escape.

  “We dived into the dark muddy waters and I instantly felt dragged
away. It took all my strength to simply stop being pulled downstream. I caught a hand and felt myself yanked toward the far side. One of the braves had a handhold in stone and was pulling me toward him.

  “Gathelaus was the last to jump away just as the trunk was snapped like a matchstick against the stupendous crumbling cliff face. I couldn’t see for the splashing water and freed dust behind. I thought him surely dead.

  “Chief Jon and Pu’wihi had made it to the upper edge and called for the rest of us to make it to them.

  “The brave and I struggled but made it to waters only a couple feet deep and we trudged on, albeit on the opposite side of the torrent. It was then I realized I had lost every single possession I had brought with me. Even my shoes were stolen by the river in flood.

  “Calling out, we found that we had only lost that gutted brave and Gathelaus. We gathered about a small rocky knob and tried to start a fire. There were now only Chief Jon, Pu’wihi, myself and three braves. I wanted to be happy I had lived but given the circumstances I was now hit with incredible despair. Surely this wicked man Toohoo-emmi would come for us now that we were beaten, disheveled and largely unarmed in his canyon. The wave of fear and anxious trepidation was staggering.

  “Then Gathelaus burst from the waters like the Kraken himself. His eyes glowed fiercely and I did not doubt any longer that he meant to kill this Toohoo-emmi and he was surely the man to do it.

  “Gathelaus still had one of his swords although he said his food rations were soaked and may or may not be any good. He also had his big knife. One of the braves still had a spear, another a bow with a few arrows and Chief Jon had a knife. It was a pitiful armory for what we meant to do but there was no turning back now.

  “Chief Jon explained that the sudden wave of despair I felt was more of Toohoo-emmi’s black magic and that I should resolve to will it away the next time it came. I wanted to believe that as strange as it may sound to those of a rational thought process, as I did not wish to admit that I could be responsible for my own melancholy arrest, but alas I did think it was likely my own self and not some black magician casting it at me from the great beyond. Too often that blanket of misery has rested upon my shoulders and caused sleepless night and gloomy days. I should overcome such but it is a road one must walk alone.

  “By the time the weak fire had almost dried us, it was near morning. Faint glows gathered in the crack of sky above and we felt as if we might have a moment of peace. But Chief Jon said he thought that Toohoo-emmi would send men down the canyon after us in an effort to sweep thru after the flash flood in the likelihood we would be weak and disoriented. I asked that if he had sent that wave of despair out like a cloud over us, did he not know we yet lived?

  “He said yes, he knows at least a few of us live but how many he could not be sure. He also said that Gathelaus’s life force may have given the impression that we had greater numbers than we truly had and we should be wary of a great force coming.

  “Gathelaus laughed at that and said he liked those odds.

  “I was not amused and took to finding stones I might use in a sling, which I fashioned myself from a torn shirt sleeve.

  “The other unarmed brave also hunted for something he might use as a weapon while Pu’wihi said he knew where a cache of weapons were though they were not for our size. We said we should gladly take them all the same.

  “He had us follow him upriver just a short quarter mile until we came to a small side canyon, we could not fit thru the entrance but Pu’wihi quickly disappeared thru it. I did doubt we would see the diminutive big-headed man again but he did return with a few of his peoples spears which were almost the size of regular man’s atlatl. I gladly accepted three of them as well as a tiny obsidian knife. The other braves received the same as I, but Gathelaus was not interested in such primitive weapons. He took to swinging his sword in his hand and complaining that he had lost his whiskey while I had no shoes!

  “The day had broken and we heard forces echoing down the canyon walls. Chief Jon said it sounded like at least a dozen men, surely the shock troops of this terrible magician. We made as ready as we could in a fork, where we thought it would be best to ambush them and strike first, hard and fast. It was not gentlemanly by any means what we planned to do but these are desperate seasons.

  “It was more than a dozen men, perhaps two dozen. And as I steeled myself to cast one of the atlatls in my hand, Chief Jon cried out, not in outrage or the call of the warrior but in joy. These were his friends and compatriot tribesman from further afield come to join us in the good fight.

  “They spoke quickly but with some enthusiasm. It seemed that some brave rafting downriver soon after us came across the dead snake men and went back and spoke of our victory. This so heartened the chiefs that braves were eager to join our cause whereas earlier the few who had come were indeed brave souls fully expecting to be killed in the struggle. There were some words I could not follow for the sake of the two men who had died, Two-Sheep and Antler Head. But now we had a veritable army to bring Toohoo-emmi to task.

  “Gathelaus was also quite pleased as they gave him some of their stores of drink and one of the braves had an extra pair of moccasins for me which meant the world in the sandy rocky ground.

  “We forged ahead up the canyon, I couldn’t help but hum my favorite tune by Sabine upon our march. This was indeed a glorious day and we would triumph I was sure of it now!

  “We did not have to go more than a few miles to where the canyon widened somewhat allowing a fuller view of the sky. Here the canyon walls were incredibly high as black things circled far above.

  “Chief Jon pointed out Kai’Enepi and the cliff palace of Toohoo-emmi above and we did marvel at its ominous face. It was near the top of a sheer mesa, small black windows stood out from the angled towers of red gold stone and I found myself thinking that it looked like the eyes of a three headed predatory raptor. In all my wildest dreams I never saw such a cruel edifice and did wonder again at the circumstances of my place here.

  “Gathelaus alone was undaunted, spouting such raw words of courage as I did doubt the Picts save Chief Jon even understood though they did acknowledge the spirit of his good intent and were ready to follow him up the spine of sharp rock to the terrible cliff palace.

  “Here Pu’wihi said he must leave us for he could not engage in this open rebellion of his Lord’s people, but he did whisper that he hoped for our success and that if we should survive, he would be grateful as it would mean the dark lord’s mastery over his people must be ended. He seemed to express some trepidation in such being possible.

  “Gathelaus urged him to tell his people to join us and fight back against this common foe, but the Picts were indeed skittish at this suggestion having always regarded the Nimerigar as their sworn racial enemy. I could readily tell that the diminutive man regarded them in the same light.

  “Pu’wihi said he would speak with his elders but to expect no such help from his broken people that they were few in number and he did not know if even he might be shunned for his association now.

  “Fair enough, said Gathelaus.

  “High above we could see dark shapes of men moving about the citadel and we did wonder at their numbers and resolve. Surely there must be more of us, but it would be a far climb to the summit and even then we should be wearied and worn. The angle up looked to be quite steep and had just enough slant that a man might walk or crawl with his hands, but should he slip or tumble I did not think anything would stop him until he should hit the ground, and of that end, I am sure that man would be no more.

  “We prayed as a group and some of the Picts did sing their death song. Some smeared colored mud upon their bodies and hair and in so doing they looked positively monstrous, appearing more like golems of mud and clay than men of flesh.

  “We all drank our fill of water and did fill our skins. Gathelaus and Chief Jon did set us to go up the cliff face but to have some small amount of distance between the men so that if one should be s
hot with arrows and fall and roll he should not force the rest of us to tumble after. Also they had it in mind that a wave of our fighters might be able to loose arrows while one group advanced, then the other would cover them while the other climbed higher. In such a way we might minimize our possible casualties and save lives. I must say I was surprised at both Gathelaus and the savage’s tactical sense. It was wholly unexpected.

  “Gathelaus led the foremost group while Chief Jon should lead the second. I was with the second as I had no sword nor was I of any real experience with a bow or spear. I just hoped to find a useful means of assistance somewhere along the way.

  “Gathelaus became the point of the spear going forward and did find his way about some jagged boulders and did warn others coming behind of loose stone and what he perceived might be traps or purposeful rock slide spots.

  “Gathelaus had gone past a few of these hoolies when a catamount leapt upon a man right behind him, tearing the poor brave to pieces before Gathelaus and the others shot it to death.

  “It was indeed suspicious and quite unnerving to the men. It was also curious that the beast had not attacked Gathelaus who should have been the first to disturb it, passing within only a few feet of its now visible bone strewn lair.

  “That was when Chief Jon pointed out Gathelaus’s medicine pouch that he still wore given him by the squaw he had won. She had said it would protect him and now it seemed that it assuredly had come to pass. I now wondered after his previous encounters with the great serpents, the Nimerigar, the flash flood and now the mad catamount.

  “Gathelaus laughed it off, but neither would he remove the enchanted piece of leather and bead work either. He urged us on to the cliff palace, though to be wary of more traps.

  “We were perhaps halfway up the summit and in an area where there were no more large boulders for anything to hide behind, nor for us to receive any cover should the still absent enemies above shoot at us. As I came to this realization is when their missiles did fly toward us.