Chased By War

by Michael Wolff

  “It didn’t work, did it?”

  Nope. Money can make a man do crazy things. “After that...There’s not much to say. Locals ambushed us and left me for dead. I wouldn’t be alive if Stromgald hadn’t found me. I’ve been following him ever since.”

  “And what of the family?”

  “I don’t know. When I went back there was no blood, no signs of struggle. They just vanished.”

  Haley opened his mouth for another question when the creak of the door stole his voice.

  “What is he doing here?”

  Orson glanced at the figure dominating the room and suppressed a groan. This was Bethany Haley, all right. Were it not for the silver hair and the wrinkled skin, there would have been no sign ten years had passed. “Hello Bethany.”

  She gave no recognition of the greeting. Her whole world was her, her husband, and the rage she was going to beat him with. “I said what is he doing here?”

  “I invited him in, Beth.”

  “Then you can invite him out.”

  “He’s our guest. He’ll leave when he wants to.”

  Beth glared murder, but she went to the kitchen instead of flaying them both. The clatter of pots and pans was like thunder. When she returned with even more food she slammed the plates down so hard the table jolted. Her slitted eyes cast a roiling malice, ready and eager to strike.

  “So.” Thomas Haley had been married for thirty years; he’d long since developed an immunity to her wife’s temper. Most of the time. “Tell me about this Stromgald.”

  “Most annoying bastard I’ve ever met.”

  “And this Sylver?”

  “Most annoying woman I’ve ever met. They’re happy together, she and Stromgald, the gods know why. We’re ankle-deep in blood most of the time. Not exactly the place of romance.”

  “Love can happen anytime, my boy. What of you?”

  Something like shame pulled his gaze down. “No. Not for me. Not for a long while.”

  “Ah.” Haley caught the implication hidden in the tension. Desperately he hunted for the right response. “You’ve spoken of another compatriot. What of him?”

  “Short and cocky as hell. He reminds me of Va –” Too late he saw Beth’s face tighten with rage.

  “Reminds you of who? Van? The one you betrayed? The one you left to die?”

  “Now, Beth...”

  “Why do you defend him? You know what happened. The two of them went gallivanting off for the gods know where for months. Months! Every night I cried myself to sleep, not knowing if my baby was lying in a ditch. Then, this slug comes back and tells us my baby – your son – died!” The venom in her eyes was enough to kill with a look. “He never would have left if it weren’t for you.”

  Orson took his leave before Beth remembered she had knives in the kitchen. She could never know that he shared her doubts. Van had changed during the year they had chased adventure. He had danger for breakfast and violence for supper. Little by little the bloodlust grew, until Orson didn’t recognize the companion he’d known since the cradle. Not a day passed without Orson picturing him in a bloody ruin, glassy eyes staring at the silent sky. It haunted him all the way back to the inn where the rangers stayed, all the way through their confused questions and even the bed he had cosigned himself to, hoping that sleep would ward him from the cold of his doubts.

  IX

  “You are sure you can convince him to our cause.”

  “Of course, Master. He doesn’t belong here. He belongs on the battlefield.”

  “Make sure you can fulfill your promise. Kill him if he refuses.”

  “He won’t refuse, Master. I promise you that.”

  The Northborn ranger stirred at the sudden voice. His thoughts were caught up in a heavy fog, most certainly swirled from the encounter with Bethany. When he saw Van himself, crouched aside a small fire, Orson thought he was still dreaming. A particularly vivid dream. The boar meat smoking on a spit looked particularly tasty.

  “Good. You are awake.”

  Van Haley looked different than from Orson’s memory. His hair spilled downward without an ornament to hold it back in the warrior’s braid. The ranger snarled. That was the practice of women. It mattered little; this was a dream, after all. Still Orson picked out the specifics his scrambled mind chose for this phantom. The black leather vest, leggings and boots, traced in white. Odd, since Van would be completely exposed on their home’s frozen wastelands.

  Next was a ravaged left hand, with bits and pieces of the flesh blasted away to reveal naked bone. Orson remembered that injury. They had found this ancient cannon half-buried in the mountains of Es-Ic-Nu. For weeks, they had smuggled the necessary supplies to repair the weapon. They were too young to realize that ramming a shell was a good way to blow your hands off. As it was Van was lucky to keep all his fingers, though the flesh never grew back and the fingers felt as though aflame from time to time.

  Then Orson asked the question he was relatively sure he already knew the answer. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s you. It’s really you.”

  “In the flesh, so to speak.”

  Orson gaped in shock as memories flooded his mind.

  Running. Running through a forest. Running through brambles that sliced across the face. Running over gnarled roots that writhed and flowed beneath the feet. Running with an entire town on your heels. Running. Always running.

  “You know we wouldn’t be in this mess if you kept your dick in your pants!”

  “Oh, what’s the matter, Orson? So, what if she was the mayor’s daughter? I can tell you right now she wasn’t the delicate flower her father claimed.”

  Then suddenly they ran across a ground that was no longer there. Van flailed in a crude imitation of a clown, too late. Precious seconds wasted as Orson snatched him from the ravine. The glint of lit torches crackled with the rage of their bearers. The rustle of leaves as Orson found safety in a tree’s canopy.

  “They have to be here somewhere! Keep searching!” The mayor’s face was beet-red, making the comb-swept threads of his hair even thinner. It didn’t take a mediator to know the mayor loathed his rotund appearance, nor his resentment of men adorned with those superior qualities. There’s no running from this one. Pride would keep the mayor running, if only for the salvage of his daughter’s name.

  Too late Orson saw the pebble falling from Van’s hand, saw the thing bounce off the mayor’s fat, bald head. The mayor turned into a deeper, deeper crimson as piggish eyes cut through the canopy to mark his quarry. The glint of satisfaction as he called his troops together rivaled Van’s hearty laughter. Idiot, Orson thought.

  Van’s stupidity proved deeper than Orson assumed. “We’re right here you fools! No, no not that direction! Over the bend! There you are! Now you’re on the right track! Keep running!”

  Orson dearly wanted to throttle his friend. Only doing so would give the mob more than enough time to cut them down. Orson rather liked his head where it was, so he kept running. Sometimes it felt like he was always running.

  Firelight glinted through the trees ahead. Dammit! “Van. Listen to me. We have to split up.”

  “Splitting up? That’s for cowards.”

  “This isn’t a game, you damn fool! We’ll be lucky to have our hides if the mob catches us! We’ll divide their focus by splitting up!”

  “Okay, okay.” Van sighed. “You were a lot more interesting when we started this little adventure. All right,” he said to Orson’s darkening face. “I’ll go west and you’ll go east. We’ll curve around the forest and meet at the mountain at daybreak. Does that sat
isfy your concerns, my Lord?”

  “Just shut up and get moving.”

  Despite himself, Orson found his attention wavered upon Van. Little adventure? Adventure had given Van a daredevil’s love of thrills. He’d bat a honeycomb just to see the bees rattled.

  Orson.

  It mattered not, in any case. As soon as this little adventure was done Orson was going home. Van wouldn’t go along with the idea, but the fool was going home even if Orson had to stuff him in a sack of barley. That would make for a rare sight.

  “Orson!”

  The Northborn grinded in a sudden stop. No. Immediately Orson launched himself through the pine needles and branches, running towards Van and away from the fear already slithering from his gut, strangling his mind with a thousand potential outcomes. Hang on, buddy. Pain was an afterthought. Concern for his own life, a distraction. And still Orson could go no faster. Run, damn you! Run!

  The picture was clear even in the leafy confines of the forest. Van slouched upon a wooden alter, raw cords biting deep into the wrists that looked so small and frail against the collected torchlight. The lacerations carved upon his chest were the handiwork of the cat-o-nine tails gripped in the mayor’s right hand.

  “Orson!”

  “That’s right. Scream for me, you little bitch! Scream like my girl screamed! No one’s going to help you!”

  Orson counted twenty, maybe thirty men. All were armed and all had the same, seething malice in their eyes. Only a fool would go against those odds. Orson knew without a second thought that plunging in now would mean both their deaths. “Just keep hanging on, you bastard. I’ll save you somehow.”

  Van’s screams flogged Orson in his retreat.

  ***

  “You shouldn’t have left me, Orson.”

  “I came back, you little shit! The town was empty. There was no one alive!”

  “Just as no one will be alive in two days’ time.”

  The sentence made Orson go cold. “What are you saying?”

  “There’s no escaping my master, Orson. He will destroy anything in his path. Go away, Orson. Run as far as you can. I cannot ensure your safety.”

  Orson lurched forward. It took a moment to realize his surroundings. Sylver and Raptor sleeping in their beds. He was back in the inn. Van was gone. Had he really been there? Despite Van’s answer he still doubted. But there was nothing to do but stare at the ceiling all night, and wonder at the fates that tortured him so.

  He was still up when the door knocked. The Northborn ranger stepped lightly to the door, cracked it open to see a brown-haired girl in the colors of the Council’s messengers. He motioned her back a step and closed the door. Getting soft in my own age, Orson scolded himself. It was probably due to this Van business. Thinking about him always added concern to his mind.

  “Our scouts have detected fifteen ranks of versi.” Her pixie-voice cracked at the demons’ name. “The Council seeks your assistance in defending the town.”

  Seeks? Seeks? Those bastards had the gall to dismiss him without a thought, and now they required him? Equal parts anger and satisfaction mingled in Orson’s guts. “Tell them I need their finest warriors. Everyone you can scrounge up. How close are the versi?”

  “Three leagues.”

  Three leagues. Orson darted a look at the window and grimaced. That meant the demons would reach the town by daybreak. The Northborn ranger sent the girl off, noticed the paleness of her skin. She’s never had to face versi before. Save for the boys and the rite, none of them had. It was not a pleasing thought.

  He re-entered the room to find Sylver and Raptor already preparing themselves. “You don’t need to join me,” he said. Mentally he was screaming at himself. He definitely needed their help.

  “No, we don’t,” Sylver answered. “But we’re going to.”

  “Because we’re a team,” Raptor added. “What affects one of us, affects us all.”

  “John would want us to do it.”

  Silence chilled the room. They all knew what they were thinking. If these versi had marched from their nest, then it was a very real possibility that John and Mykel had faced them; faced them and were killed for their troubles.

  The early hours of pre-dawn found the rangers dissecting the ranks of the home guard. They were dressed in the crests of their station, still and silent like good little soldiers. The wear upon their hilts described long years with the sword. Good. Another legion was on the way. Orson cautioned himself. It was ill to think a plan flawless before the first arrow was loosed.

  Their battlefield was a dusty stretch of road of no importance. The first wave of versi screeched their arrival, their fifteen ranks a long black cord on the horizon from tree to furthest tree. The rich stench of piss choked the very life of the ether. At least the Northborn were still standing. It read much of their spirit in the face of slaughter, though they were clutching that piece of valor as a man would a beachhead in the merciless sea.

  From every branch of animal stock, the demons came, from real to the depth of ancient myth, fighting with the savagery the mortals feared in their bones. Chimeras with poison breath. Ogres possessed by the bloodlust of the berserker. More. Too many to number; too many to defeat. The faux-army was making its final stand.

  “Orson!”

  Against the horizon there was a small shadow, dark yet always rippling with what seemed to be tendrils. The shadow seemed to feed off the sunlight, growing, shifting amidst the shades of a sick rainbow. The tendrils were in fact snakes, hundreds, perhaps thousands, slithering through each other, forming a kind of armada. The voice’s bearer was the last to be revealed, smirking upon the slithering engines of his makeshift chariot. He did not lose his footing despite the serpents’ constant motion.

  “Van.”

  Van reared his head and laughed the same hacking cry of a cat spitting a furball he had done since childhood. A gesture, and suddenly Orson noticed the versi, although deep with desires of slaughter, splitting around him like a river breasting a boulder. “There. That should take care of any accidents. I don’t want you to die while we’re talking.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.” Orson said grimly. “You have surrendered to these beasts. You lead them against our people. Our people, Van!”

  “Oh, come now, Orson. Do you listen to your own words? You’re no better than those fools prating an alliance with the outer lands.”

  “You’re here,” Orson said snidely.

  “As are you.” Van ran a hand through sun-streaked hair, and then brushed it back over his shoulders to flutter like a banner before settling. A woman’s hair. The man’s flaws did not match the betrayals he had committed, but Orson was willing to take in everything. His thoughts were bloody with the imagining of the traitor’s eyes lolling for long seconds after death. Anything that kept the rage alive.

  Van smiled at Orson’s fingers resting upon the grip of his steel. “Oh, so is it a battle we crave, is it? Very well.” The demon serpents twisted to create an imitation of a stairwell. Van pulled from hidden scabbards a longsword for one hand and a main gauche for the other. The smugness was so thick it was sickening.

  They circled like two vultures over the last scrap of meat. Their glares scorched the area, made barren by their hatred. The Northborn fought the versi with the berserker fury of their ancestors, becoming a storm of brutal savagery. Never once would others think to offer aid. A Northborn must fight pivotal threats on his own. He could not be a man otherwise.

  Ranger and traitor burst into action. Their charge was backed by such speed that their steel whistled through the air, moaned in pain when they crossed. They glided across the makeshift arena, darting and countering, withd
rawing and defending. After a moment, the stalemate was obvious to all. Neither one could overwhelm the other.

  The Lone Wolf Howls At The Moon. The Snows Buries The Fallen. Eye Of The Bison.

  Rumbling Avalanche. Winter’s Biting Kiss. Frost’s Numbing Touch.

  Orson growled. He struggled to his feet and set to a stance. No words of bravo, no patterns of steel flashing in the air. Just a stance and the eyes behind it, distant and sharp at one and the same time. Van scattered a few steps at the hot intensity of Orson’s eyes, then, red-faced with anger, screamed to the attack.

  Mountain Lion Jumps The Cliffs. Wolfpack Hunts As One. Bull’s Rage.

  Bear Stands Tall. Ice In The Veins. Hunter Prowls The Snow.

  The years have softened you, my friend. Rage left the traitor mindless of his pitiful defense. It was child’s play to put his blades through the other’s heart. Van stared at him with wide eyes. Orson knew that look all too well. It was the eyes of one whose fabric of truth was torn away, the impossible made flesh. Van’s last breath rattled past Orson’s ear, and then his weight sagged upon the Northborn’s shoulder.

  “You’ve bought us time,” said Sylver. Orson blinked. He hadn’t even noticed her presence, much less the battle itself. The retinue of versi was drawing back. A bloody trail, littered with jagged paths of skull and limb and half-eaten corpses. Hardly a victory, yet hardly a defeat.

  The cheers that Orson’s fatigue had muffled now exploded in his ears. The exhilaration, Orson felt not. He only heard Beth’s screaming, Hanley’s sobbing. The other villagers ignored their pleas. A Northborn given to the side of darkness was lesser than the scum he associated with. Days ago, they would have seethed at one of their own leaving the community they painstakingly built. Now they ignored Van, as though he didn’t exist.