by Deck Davis
Near to the cave.
Is he watching us?
Gone now, Bear. But scent still lingers. One man. Alone.
Bear remembered old faces, old battles, old sadness now. Old man?
No. Scent is young, Bear.
Then we will eat. Follow him, Pup. When legs wake up, I will make up the ground and join you. Do not let his scent stray.
CHAPTER 14
What was that noise?
He couldn’t see anything stalking him from behind, and he was certain that he would hear a bear if it had caught his scent and decided to follow him.
No, he was too tense. That was why he was hearing noises in the night; he was wracked with tiredness and pain and dehydration, not to mention that although his layer of bison-hair insulation saved him from freezing, it didn’t stop the numbness in his feet.
“Did you hear anything?” he asked Ben, more to hear his own voice than expecting an answer. “Grunt if I’m being stupid and should try not to worry.”
Ben grunted in return. It was a comforting sound, this snort made by his only friend, but its reassurance was short-lived.
Why couldn’t he have woken up with an eagle crushing his legs? One he could reanimate and have it scout miles and miles of the wasteland. Or maybe a friendly coyote that could skulk the shadows around him and use its superior senses to notice danger, and then warn him about it?
At least Ben was strong. That might come in useful when he found the caravan wreckage and started salvaging. He was loyal, too, in the way that only reanimated bison could be.
If Jakub had enough essence, he could have summoned Ludwig right now. Ludwig would be able to see in the blackest of nights. He would sense whether anything was following. And if Ben was loyal, then Ludwig took loyalty to godly level. There was no person, no animal, nothing Jakub would trust as implicitly as Lud.
Determined not to start thinking of what-ifs and wishes, Jakub brought up his map. He kept it visible and to his left so that he could still see it as he walked, but without compromising his vision.
He reached the area where the caravan should have been, but it was impossible to see if any of the wagons or the people remained. The stars gave little light, and he was getting weary of wandering in the dark now. There was no telling what kind of potholes were out there, and if he twisted his ankle without having essence to heal it, he was in trouble.
Similarly, he’d pictured it in his head, and he was certain that accidentally stepping on a cobra or python or scorpion nest could go badly for him.
But the wind meant that he couldn’t just stop. Even his bison hair insulation was struggling to help now. Walking kept his limbs from freezing up, but it had been hours since he’d had anything to eat or drink, and he was feeling ready to drop. He began to wish he’d taken his chances with the desert bear.
It was a hard thing to reconcile in his head. This place was beautiful. He’d never, ever seen such a vast starscape back in Dispolis. He’d never experienced this kind of tranquility. In a weird way, this was the exact thing he’d been looking for when he refused the academy’s offer of a job and went traveling instead.
Careful what you wish for, he told himself.
A sound behind him pricked his attention. Out here, noises were bad. Each one could herald some new, awful shit coming to ruin your evening. Was it the swirling beginnings of a dust storm? The howling of heat-leeching winds?
This sound was none of those, but it got his pulse hammering all the same. The sounds were slight and out of rhythm, and they sounded for all the world like footsteps. Pattering ones that something or someone was trying to hide.
If it was a person, they’d approach him. Maybe they’d watch for a while, but they’d come closer eventually. They’d hail him.
These footsteps sounded like they were circling him, and the idea made him feel sick. There was only one answer; the desert bear had caught his scent after all, and it had following him, and now it was prowling around in the shadows.
Jakub didn’t have the strength to run, never mind outrunning a desert bear, which was impossible. Those things could charge like horses.
Nor could he fight it. Growing up as a necromancer, his training had been magic-based. Even so, since necromancy was fieldwork, he’d been given training with swords, daggers, spears, and rudimentary bow handling.
He’d pawned one of his swords to fund his travel, which left him with his vagrant blade and his dagger. The vagrant blade was blunt and more use for hammering things than for killing. While his dagger would be superior when fighting a man, it wouldn’t help him kill a bear.
Neither would his necromancy magic have helped, even if he had the essence to use it. Most of his spells assumed that death had already occurred and was quite useless in creating the state of death. A drawback of being a necromancer, really, even if the clue was in the name.
He couldn’t run, couldn’t fight, and he had a bear circling him.
This wasn’t his night.
CHAPTER 15
If he couldn’t escape from it and he couldn’t kill it, there was only one possibility; drive it away. Every single living creature in the world had survival instincts, some of them woven so deep into the core of their beings that the use of them was instinctual.
The bear was acting on one of two instincts, Jakub guessed; either hunger or protection of their cubs. There was every chance this was a mama bear who had been sheltering her cubs in the cave, and catching Jakub’s scent in the wind would send her into a protective frenzy.
Or it was a lonely bear who was hungry. A simple, understandable reason to stalk Jakub through the desert and kill him, but not one that he wanted to see have any success.
Lacking the ability to kill a bear with just a dagger, and since even at his physical prime he had no chance of outrunning one, Jakub’s only way of surviving this was to change the bear’s instinct from protectiveness or hunger, to fear.
Fear was the most powerful instinct. Didn’t matter if you were a man, bear, cow, cod, your body and mind worked in tandem to accomplish one thing; keep you alive. Fear was born from a perceived threat to your life, and this was what Jakub would use. Lacking the ability to kill it, he just needed the bear to think it might die.
He thought he knew how.
He got to work. First, he listened. It was hard to hear the footsteps above the wind, but he did, and he knew it was still circling. Good – that meant it was being careful. That it wasn’t so hungry that it would attack without caution. It meant he had time.
He licked his fingertips to test the wind, but his dry mouth made even that action a chore. After coaxing spit onto his finger, he held it up and felt a northerly wind.
“Ben, lie down here,” he said, pointing to get cover from the bison.
Next, he laid the vagrant blade, a bottle of firelick, tumbleweed, a handful of brush, and the flint on the ground. He arranged the brush as close to Ben as he could so that the wind couldn’t get to it.
“Sorry, my friend,” he told him. “It might get hot, but you won’t feel it.”
More steps came from behind. He wanted so badly to turn and look, but he couldn’t. The steps sounded far enough away that he knew the bear was still circling. To look at it, to meet its stare, would be the push that turned this into a fight, and Jakub wasn’t ready for that yet. For now, as much as it made the hairs all over his body stand on end, he had to work in feigned ignorance of the predator lurking nearby.
His hands shook as he packed the brush closer together and closer to Ben. He struck the pieces of flint and steel together above it, barely feeling each jolt and each bang through the cold-induced numbness in his fingers.
He hadn’t used the steel and flint much since his academy days when instructor Irvine had taught him the skill. Even so, after parting with a sword, two of his academy necromancy books, and selling his academy gown to a theatre troupe to fund his travel, there were some things he’d never considered selling, and he was beyond thankful for that n
ow.
Though it was a while ago, he remembered learning how to do this, and it was that memory that made him keep going even after striking the flint against steel twenty, thirty, forty times and getting nothing.
Fire came from a spark, and that spark was governed by mistress chance. An experienced outdoorsman might have deep conditioning that let him strike the pieces more effectively, but even he or she had to hope that chance assisted them.
“Come on,” he said, striking them again. “Just a spark…”
The footsteps were to his right now. Closer, but still lurking rather than attacking. Every inch closer meant it was growing in confidence, sussing Jakub out and deciding his meat was worth the risk.
His fingers were so numb he couldn’t feel them. If he closed his eyes, he’d have no idea if he was still holding the flint or not.
Another strike. Another absence of spark. He struck again, this time missing the steel piece completely and drawing blood from his index finger, but his flesh numbed out the pain.
With blood running down his finger, with steps getting closer to him, Jakub began to feel the worry at full force. He eyed the vagrant blade, wondering whether to use its bluntness because of the better reach it gave him, or whether to risk his dagger skills even with numb hands just because its blade had an edge.
It only took a second of thought to realize that blunt or sharp, the result would be the same.
Lacking the option to fight or run, he concentrated the way only a man with a bear prowling his vicinity can. Because he couldn’t feel the flint, he had to stare at it without flinching, commanding his hands as if they weren’t even his own.
The howl of the wind was stronger now, almost screaming, and the way it rushed into his ears made it sound like it was just for him. Ben was blocking most of it, but it wasn’t enough. He moved position, switching sides to give the kindling more protection. That was when he saw it.
Ten feet away, a figure in the darkness that spread ice in his veins. It was a coyote. Larger than a fox, smaller than some dogs, but with eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness. Its open mouth made it look like it was laughing at him. That would have been better, but this coyote was silent and it was watching him, its head bowed into hunting position.
Jakub reached for his dagger. He couldn’t feel if he’d picked it up. He had to look, and he saw that it was in his numb grasp.
Now he waited for the animal to rush him. The seconds dragged out, the air crackled with a cold tension that seemed to freeze in the wind and hover all around him.
And then the shape slunk further back into the night, pattering east until he lost it.
He didn’t even allow himself a breath of relief. The coyote would be back. Most animals in Toil faced a daily battle for nutrition, and Jakub was a walking banquet. The animal would return.
There was no way he could fight it. He was simply too tired, too hurt, too cold. He had to make the coyote believe that the fight was too risky.
Back to work. He needed a fire more than ever.
Setting the dagger beside him but within easy reach, he started with the flint and steel again. He struck them once, then dropped the flint. He struck them again and a spark was born, and Jakub’s pulse thrummed, but it died as soon as it left the flint.
He heard steps to his right now. Closer than before. Close enough that he heard the coyote’s breaths, hungry and excited. That was probably his mind conjuring danger to make him hurry. The steps were real, but it couldn’t be close enough to…
A growl by his ear shot a bolt of pure fear through him. In one motion, he dropped the flint and steel and he grabbed the dagger, holding it awkwardly thanks to the cold. He turned to his right in time to see the coyote beside him, teeth bared.
He was too late to avoid them.
It sunk them into Jakub’s arm. The pain was minute; the cold and the adrenaline turned it into more an echo of pain, but enough to make him drop his dagger.
He fought the urge to shake his arm wildly and he picked up the blade with his left hand. He struck outwards with it.
The coyote released him. He couldn’t see where he’d hurt it, but it was enough that it retreated away and into the shadows. Jakub watched its silhouette head to his left before it went just enough into the darkness that the sea of black hid it from him.
Again, he knew it would be back. Animals could sense weakness, and the coyote would have a hunter’s mind. It couldn’t have missed that Jakub was alone and hurt without much to defend himself.
He worked quickly now. The sound of the flint and steel rang again and again. Twice he made sparks that didn’t take, three times he heard footsteps around him, seeming to come from all directions.
He saw a blur in the darkness in his peripheral vision, and he knew he’d have to abandon the fire.
But with three last, desperate hits of the steel, the third made a spark that leaped to the kindling and snapped on it, and a tiny burst of fire flared that to Jakub’s eyes looked like the birth of a minute universe, a spectacle of pure salvation. He fed kindling to the other kindling in an act of fire cannibalism, careful not to smother it.
In seconds the burning was enough that he could smell it. The orange glow was the size of his palm, the heat negligible but it was eating the brush. That was all that mattered.
It must have given the coyote pause. If it had ever seen men in Toil, perhaps Gunar’s people in their yearly journeys through Toil, it would be wary of fire. Jakub hoped that instinct kept it from him now.
Whether it was his imagination or not, he felt warmer, as if it were a bonfire and not just a small flame that the wind could snuff out with one change in direction. He tore tumbleweed into smaller strips and fed these to the fire, growing it. When he judged it had enough strength and fuel to burn unattended for a few seconds, he grabbed the vagrant blade.
The vagrant blade didn’t look special. The craftsmanship was worthy of an apprentice blacksmith, and none of the weapon’s owners had even taken care of the blade. It was better suited for spreading jam than stabbing or cutting.
That didn’t matter, usually. The blade’s strength came from the magic that an artificer had etched deep into the metal. Within this shoddy-looking sword was an old and strange magic, one so curious that Jakub had often wondered why it was ever made. Who had needed the singular effect the blade caused, and why? Jakub would have loved to meet them. He’d ask one question; why did they need a sword that would turn a man into a vagrant?
That was the magic of the vagrant blade. When they held it for more than a moment, it would transform a man’s appearance, right down to his smell.
The last time Jakub had held it, the sword had torn and shrunk his clothes, spread food and mud stains all over them, and added a smell that made even flies avoid him. The magic wrinkled his skin and gave him a yellow pallor, as well as sprouting a beard on his face that wasn’t as well-groomed as the one he had now; this beard was patchy and half-black half grey, the strands wet as though permanently greasy.
Then, the second he dropped the blade, the effect reversed. Its magic was as well made as it was utterly unexplainable.
Now, Jakub didn’t need the blade’s magic. He guessed the coyote would eat him just as happily if he was his current self or a vagrant.
Instead, he opened the bottle of firelick. He had already cut a four-inch strip of cloth from the bottom of his shirt, and he put it against the bottle and upended it. He wiped the wet cloth on the vagrant blade, spreading firelick all over the metal.
Just as he finished, he heard two things. The first was the fire crackling as it ate the last of the tumbleweed.
The second sound made him feel like someone had driven a knife into his gut. It was the sound of footsteps running toward him, getting faster and closer each second.
Adrenaline washed through him, and Jakub acted on instinct. He grabbed the vagrant blade and held the tip of the blade against the dying fire.
With a whoosh, the flame leaped onto the
firelick and then ran all the way down it so that the blade was ablaze with a green flame.
The flames wouldn’t last long. He fed another pile of tumbleweed to his fire. Holding the sword in his dominant hand, he stood up now and saw the coyote just eight feet away, close enough that with one leap it would have been on him. If he had kept his back turned just seconds longer, that would have been enough.
He could see its confidence faltering and honestly, he empathized a little. Because what the coyote saw now was a man holding a sword made from heat and flame.
Not only that, but the man was changing into another person in front of its eyes. His hair was changing, his eyes narrowing. And the stink! Maybe that alone would dissuade the animal from trying to eat him. Jakub knew the change in appearance was just the magic of the blade, but the coyote wouldn’t be able to comprehend it.
The coyote retreated a few paces, its eyes never leaving his. He saw doubt in its stare. Its right hind leg shifted. It was ready to flee.
To make sure of it, Jakub raised the sword. He felt the flames on his face, the bright green lames made him feel bolder.
He shouted as savagely as he could. “Come get it, you bastard!” Waving the flaming blade, he took two strides forward.
That did it. The coyote fled, and it was only when he couldn’t see its rump anymore that Jakub relaxed a little. He watched the darkness for five minutes, scanning all around, taking testing steps to see if the animal was lurking. When those five minutes were up he waited for five more, and he stared at the black around him with intense concentration.
The flame on the blade had died, so he walked back to his fire and dropped his sword and he fed more tumbleweed to the fire, saving it just as it was dying.
As his breaths steadied again and the adrenaline left him, a great fatigue overcame him. He wanted sleep more than anything, but questions knocked around his brain. His first one was, how could a guy be so unlucky that the only shelter he finds is taken by a bear, and then he’s hunted by a coyote?
