Shard

by Wayne Mee

  "Scrapeskin's barn will do for now, Lady. Tomorrow they will be taken further into the greenwood."

  The Erg-Leath nodded, then reached out and gently took his free hand. "You have been through much, Thorn, for your trials are deeply written on your face."

  "I -- I was the one who wounded him," he whispered.

  She gently touched his cheek. "It was not you that wounded your friend, Thorn, but that which you now carry." Both of them glanced at the black blade still clutched in his trembling hand. "You must not carry it in your heart as well."

  Thorn sighed, then gently tried to pull away. "Lady, I will try to do what must be done; as for the other, however, I fear your advice has come too late."

  Narya smiled warmly. "With Erg's help, Thorn, all things are possible. Do not give up hope."

  Thorn shrugged. "Perhaps. But now we must away, for now it is the 'Watcher' that needs watching, and I cannot let him down!"

  ***

  As the shaken group of Kirkwean began to leave the Forge, Fernleaf pulled Thorn to her and gave him a warm kiss full on the mouth. Her green eyes promised much more. Then she was gone, shooing out the slower ones and scooping up a Wee'n babe from it's basket by the hearth.

  Granther led the way, while Twigg and Timin helped the more aged females. Thorn, Shard still naked in his hand, brought up the rear. As he stepped through the doorway, Shag struck.

  Like a great, hairy spider, Shag had waited, clinging to the carved squirrel that formed one of the crossbeams over the door --- waited for the hated Wee'n to appear. When he did, Shag dropped on him from the shadows.

  If the wretched little Karn had been smarter, he might have used his knife in silence; yet killing silently was not part of Shag's plan. In his twisted, demented mind he wanted, even 'needed' Thorn to know just what and who was coming. He wanted to look into his eyes as he shoved home the blade.

  As it was, Shag's hurtling weight struck Thorn square on the back, driving him to the ground as well as the breath from his body. Shard clanged on the flagstones a vel away from the struggling bodies.

  Cackling and hissing, Shag wound his long, clawed fingers around Thorn's neck and began to squeeze, all the while pouring forth his torrent of illogical filth.

  "Stinking Stoner's brat! Filthy Nimling! Thinks you can fool brave Shag, eh?! Thinks you can tricks bold Shag n' gets away with the Master's blade, eh? Never!"

  The wizened Karn's stranglehold tightened. Thorn thrashed about, trying to dislodge the creature from his back, but as the boney fingers tightened, Thorn's strength began to give out. Colors floated before his eyes as disjointed parts of the Karn's mad tirade reached his ears.

  "Rotten little Wee'n... take back... thief...Shag... important...others... not laugh..."

  Suddenly there came a grunt and the weight shifted. Air once again reached Thorn's lungs, sucked through what felt and smelt like a moldy animal skin.

  As his vision cleared, Thorn saw the white of an eye not a handspan from his face. His throat burning, he lurched back. Shag rolled off him like a great slab of boned fish. His bloodshot eye continued to stare vacantly into the night.

  Glancing up, Thorn saw Kel staring down at him. The Chin held out a his hand. One of his slender knives was in the other.

  "The Watcher bid me take his place. It seems good that I did. This one has lived long past its time. Shall I kill it?"

  "No!", Thorn croaked, though it wasn't till much later that he fully understood why. "If he's not dead already, leave him be. There's been so much killing already."

  Kel's left eyebrow shot up as he gazed at the small Kirkwean. Thorn, on his knees now, retrieved Shard and sheathed it. The black blade ran home in the scabbard with a final click.

  "Help me up, Kel. We must rejoin the others!"

  Soon both of them were scurrying into the night, while all around them the Slathers ran to see the spectacular fire and Shag, unconscious from the blow to the back of his head, lay dreaming of glory, laughter and red, iron-hinged doors.

  ***

  Chapter 52:'SOONER OR LATER'

  It was well past noon before Zoean emerged from the little room where Erin lay. Her face was drawn and tired, yet a ray of hope showed in her blue eyes.

  "Well, will he live?!", Thorn asked sharply, the guilt he felt over causing his friend's near death added a harsh edge to his voice. Zoean, though she had more than enough reason to blame him, tried to smile.

  "The Lady Narya has stopped the foul blackness from spreading, though she cannot make it leave. Still the fool is alive, though he may yet loose the leg." With that she turned away and was comforted by Onooga.

  Fernleaf, sitting silently beside Thorn, took his hand and pressed it to her lips; her large green eyes misted over with tears.

  "I see the pain you feel, Thorn, but it was not your fault. You yourself told me how the blacksword takes control. On your own you would never harm a friend!"

  Thorn took a ragged breath. "Yet because of me my friend lies dying!"

  Fernleaf stood up, shaking back her fiery mane, her green eyes suddenly flashing sparks. "Now you listen to ME, Bramblethorn Higgs! I didn't wait and worry for over a year, not knowing if you were dead or alive, or worse!, just to have you come back to me and sit here feeling sorry for yourself! There's things that need doing and doing NOW! So, up off your backside and let's get to it!"

  Timin, tending the tanner's hearth, couldn't suppress a smile. Noticing this, Fernleaf turned her burning gaze and tongue in his direction. "And just what are YOU grinning at, Timin Goldenberry?! It was YOU that I was counting on to keep him out of harms way!"

  Timin stood up, a piece of toast in one hand and a teapot in the other. "Now don't be taking that tone with me, Fern. I'M not your 'intended', HE is! But if the truth be told, I AGREE with you! Thorn's been brooding on the black blade far too much for my liking, and I only hope he WILL listen to you, for Erg Himself knows, he'll not heed ME!"

  "Enough!", Thorn said quietly, though the force in his voice was enough to make all in the crowded room turn and stare. Zoean, though unable to follow the Kirkwean speech, needed no translator to see the anguish in Thorn's face. She came over and smiled down at Thorn and his beautiful, small bride-to-be.

  "Go to your people, my friend," she said in lilting Common." The women and children need to be taken further away from here. Even now the Slathers are probably on your trail. Take the rest of the Companions with you, Old Nob and I will stay with Erin and wait for Mythdarian. When all is well we shall join you."

  "I -- I can't just leave him!"

  "But you must," Zoean pressed. "He said so himself just before he drifted off this last time. He also said to take the Chin with you. 'Let Kel be the Watcher in my place', were his own words."

  Fernleaf, following the conversation easily, added in the same tongue. "The Nim princess is right, Thorn. Your OWN people need you now, for you are the bloody Wanderer Returned!"

  Onooga, sitting quietly guarding the door, rose to her full height. "I too agree with the Lady Zoean. That crowd of women and children you brought cannot long stay hidden in the tanner's barn. Take them swiftly away into the deep woods. I too will stay and watch over Erin till the wizard and the healer come."

  "And I'll be stayin' as well!", Roary put in. "I've had my fill o' trapesin' about in the greenwood, and good Tanner Scrapeskin here makes a fine, strong ale!"

  Silent for some time, at last Thorn spoke. "Very well, but I'll look for you all four days from now at the gathering of the clans in the Cat Woods!"

  "We'll be there, Thorn," Zoean said; "And that fool in the other room will be with us!"

  "You have that much faith in Mithdar's skills?", the little Kirkwean asked.

  Zoean smiled and pulled back her short tunic, exposing a tanned thigh. "See that scar? A wild boar got me when I was just a child. The healers of my own people couldn't stop it from festering and said the leg had to come off. Mythdarian happened to be visiting at the time. He called them a pack of old fools
and set about to cure me." She dropped the short hem and looked up with a confident smile.

  "He'll do the same for Erin."

  "I prey to Erg that you are right!", Thorn said, then, shouldering his pack, he headed for the door. Timin and Twigg followed. Kel, who had remained silent during the discussion, glanced once at the door where Erin lay unconscious with fever, nodded to Zoean, and quietly slipped out. Moments later they had vanished, gone to rejoin Granther Higgs and the waiting females and children.

  Less than an hour later Doffer arrived with Ergrain and Mithdar, the latter sporting a jagged scar down his left cheek. When Zoean asked him about his shoulder wound he made light of it, demanding instead to see Erin.

  All three were tired and hungry from their forced march, but the healer and the wizard went directly to their patient. All that night they toiled. It was touch and go for a while, but with the dawn's light the fever broke and Erin ap Conn was on the mend.

  ***

  "What do you mean they 'escaped'?!" Lucfelian, in the form of Alexis V, raged at the company assembled in the High Gnash's tent. Neither Nex nor Ragnol dared to meet their liege lord's gaze. As for the other three people in the room, each handled Lucfelian's tirade in their own way. Skatha remained calm and aloof; Shag huddled in the shadows; while Tusk, the towering Brakarn leader, shifted his massive form impatiently, casting his piggish eyes about for something to rend and tear.

  Shag seemed the most likely victim.

  The silence hung like a blood-soaked shroud, somehow worse than the angry curses. When Lucfelian did speak, it was directly to Nex.

  "I want them found. Double the patrols, lengthen the shifts. Do what you have to --- but find them!"

  Nex saluted and turned to go, but Lucfelian's voice froze him in his tracks.

  "Bring the one they call 'The Wanderer' directly to me; whole or in pieces, but bring him!" Lucfelian toyed with a dagger, his voice a velvet lash. "And if you fail me, Nex, don't bother coming back."

  Nex drew himself up and bowed, sweat trickling down his neck and into his armour. He glanced at Ragnol, expecting to see a sneer on the hated foreigner's face. 'Half-Hand' however, surprised him, showing neither pleasure nor his customary aloofness, but a rare, open expression of fear.

  ***

  Chapter 53:'THE GATHERING'

  "Do you really think Norgi can do it?", Fernleaf asked Thorn as they sat on a hill deep in the Cat Woods. Below them was the little stream where they had first met Norgi and his 'freedom fighters' nearly a week ago.

  Thorn managed a half smile. "Before I left I wouldn't have thought Norgi capable of convincing a bear to eat honey. But he's changed over the year I've been away. Grown. The other Wee'ns looked to him to make the decisions. If he can lead the Root folk he should be able to rally those in the other villages."

  "What about those in Del Lingus?", she asked. "They were always more worldly than us, trading and even fighting with the Manlings of Anon Hep. If we could get their help -- "

  Thorn shook his head, at the same time placing a hand gently on her cheek. "Del Lingus is outside The Wold, Fern. And even if they did come, they'd not arrive for the 'Gathering' tomorrow. I think we will have to count on ourselves more than on distant cousins."

  She snuggled in close, enjoying these few moments of privacy, for they had had precious little of that over the last four days. Always moving deeper into the forest, avoiding the Slather patrols and the even worse Brakarns that were constantly hunting them.

  They had taken the very old and the very young to some caves high up on Tol-Dyn, the sacred mountain in the center of the Wold. It's steep, rocky sides would discourage mounted patrols, and with Erg's help, the Kirkwean could live off the wild goats and other small game found there. Doubling back, Thorn had led the some two score of younger females who had willingly agreed to fight. Fern, their elected leader, had found little time since to be alone with her would-be husband.

  Suddenly Kel was beside them, his slanted eyes darting down to the glade with its babbling brook. "They are coming. Nearly half a hundred, with more following."

  "Any signs of Slathers?"

  "Not since yesterdays patrol."

  Thorn sighed and straightened his leather tunic. Shard hung innocently at his side. "Let's get down there. It wouldn't do to be late."

  Norgi's group reached the glade moments after Thorn's. There was a great deal of grinning and back slapping as old friendships were renewed and new ones began. Norgi had proved as good as his word, for he had brought Kirkwean from most of the smaller settlements scattered throughout the Wold, all armed with some form of weapon and eager to meet 'The Wanderer Returned'.

  By sunset there were over three hundred strong and still growing as band after band converged on the Cat Woods. A few seemed hesitant, but most were more than ready to follow Thorn in his fight against the hated 'Invaders', for not only the Root had suffered at the Slather's hands, but the other, outlying villages as well.

  Then the group from Del Lingus appeared.

  The evening meal was nearly finished when sentries brought in a group of oddly dressed strangers, all armed to the teeth and speaking loudly in a rough and brogue-ridden dialect. Their leader, a taller than usual Kirkwean, sauntered over to Thorn and looked him frankly up and down. He sported a gold earring and had lost two of his front teeth. On his head he wore a wide brimmed hat with a red feather; an iron breastplate partially covered a velvet doublet and a shortsword with a jeweled hilt swung easily at his side.

  "Spangle's me name!", he proclaimed for all to hear. "Spangle the Spike from down Del Lingus way. Perhaps ye've heard o' me?"

  Thorn smiled and shook his head, at the same time offering his hand. "Can't say that I have, but I'm pleased to welcome any distant cousins from Del Lingus."

  Ignoring Thorn's offer of friendship, the taller Kirkwean turned to his followers. "Told ye lads they be a might 'backwards' this far up the river", he drawled in a butchered form of the Common Tongue. "'Dull begets duller' as the saying goes!"

  Most of the Del Lingus group laughed at this, causing those from the smaller hamlets of The Wold who did not know the 'trade tongue' to wonder at the joke. Fernleaf however, standing beside Thorn, lifted her head proudly and moved closer.

  "And dolts from Del Lingus beget the dullest of them all!", she added casually in Common. "As the 'saying goes' here in The Wold."

  Spangle's toothless grin vanished and his hand went to his weapon, only to find the tip of Kel's a-sa suddenly pressing against his throat. The tallish Kirkwean looked into the Chin's slanted eyes --- and backed quickly away.

  "What's this?", he hissed, feeling somewhat bolder with his own well armed group at his back. "Does the famous 'Wanderer' let females n' foreigners do his fightin' for him? Me n' my lads came here to see if ye be worth joining up with. Now I'm not so sure!"

  Thorn sighed deeply, then spoke the simple phrase he seemed destined to repeat time and time again. "I can only say that I AM The Wanderer."

  "Prove it, lad!", Spangle demanded.

  "How?"

  "Fight me, here and now."

  "The Slathers are my enemy, not my bother Kirkwean."

  Spangle's gap-toothed grin came again, along with a mischievous glint in his large eyes. "It need not be to the death, 'brother'. The first to call for quarter looses."

  "Why?"

  "We o' Del Lingus put little stock in this 'Legend of the Wanderer' bilge, yet I can see by the number here that others do. I would but KNOW if ye truly be a leader that 'I' can follow."

  Thorn held Spangle's mocking gaze. "And if I win?"

  "Then Spangle the Spike n' his entire Trading Guild will be under YOUR command! In the port of Rush I'm considered both rich n' powerful, master o' a fleet o' tradin' ships n' several hundred stout lads to boot! Best me, buck-o, n' both they n' I will join yer cause!"

  Thorn sighed again, suddenly weary of all the killing. "Again I must ask 'why'?"

  "For 'trade', cousin! You backward bumpkins
this far up-river know little o' the REAL world! Trade be the life's blood o' all those who would raise themselves up out o' the muck! You here may be content to grub about in the dirt, or sit dozin' in yer queer 'tree huts', but me 'n my lads seek more! These Slathers would deny us that!"

  Warming to the sound of his own voice, Spangle continued. "Why, they've the sand to tax my ships, Erg damn their eyes! Me! Spangle the Spike!, n' demand either gold or the harder to come by black Twain as payment! When I refuse they burn my ships and beat or even kill my crews!"

  He struck a theatrical pose, head held high and hand on sword hilt. "I've come upriver with half my fleet to put an end to it!"

  "You and your ships are a long way from home, 'cousin'! You think you can find your way back?" Timin said, casually leaning on his three-pronged fish spear. There had always been a mutual mistrust between the Kirkwean of The Wold and their distant, more 'worldly cousins' of Del Lingus. Besides, he didn't like this blowhard's manners, and wanted Thorn to send him and his motley crew packing.

  Spangle laughed. "Well, 'cousin', me n' my boys have traded with the blood drinking Ishtar deep in the grasslands o' The Veld, as well as with the painted heathens in the forests of Dur and the highland barbarians o' distant Kith. Why, this 'tiny woods' o' yours be but a stroll after dinner for my hearty lads!"

  "Then you are welcome indeed," Thorn said. "But you'll not join without contesting my right to lead?"

  "I'll not," Spangle grinned.

  "So be it then, but only till quarter is asked, mind you, for I'll not have Kirkwean blood on my hands --- however distant the relation."

  Spangle's gap-toothed grin widened. "You're that sure o' winning?"

  "I am," Thorn said, drawing Shard. The dark blade seemed to blaze with an inner light. Many caught their breath and more than a few began to whisper among themselves, Spangle's group the loudest.