Starborn

by Toby Forward

  Starback waited till Sam let go of his neck. He rose up in circles, as a lark ascends. When he was so high that he was beyond the range of normal sight, he straightened and flew off.

  Sam didn’t know how to tell Flaxfield

  and Flaxfold how odd it all seemed. The three wizards, wrapped in cloaks, staffs in hand, faces set for work.

  “I’ve never been in this room with both of you at the same time,” he started.

  “When you were little we divided the teaching,” said Flaxfold. “It was better that way.”

  “But you left when I was only six.”

  “I had other things to do,” she said. “I came back, though. Didn’t I?”

  “You’ll get used to it,” said Flaxfield. “Think how hard it is for people to understand about you and Tam. And Starback.”

  “This was always my favourite place,” said Sam. The book-lined walls, the little fireplace, the blue and white pottery, and the table and chairs held the three wizards companionably.

  “If we succeed it will be yours, one day,” said Flaxfold.

  “I don’t want to think about any of that.” Sam took the door handle and walked through into the upper corridor of the inn. “It’s wrong,” he said.

  Flaxfield closed the door behind them.

  “We’re not going back.”

  “Listen,” said Sam.

  There was no noise of conversation. No clinking of mugs, no clatter of knives.

  “What is it?”

  Sam moved along the corridor. He held up his arm for silence, leaned his head to one side, the better to hear. He beckoned them on.

  “It sounds like pigs at the trough,” he whispered.

  “Pigs are noble animals,” said Flaxfield. “These aren’t pigs.”

  “I said sounds like pigs. I didn’t say pigs.”

  Flaxfold boxed Sam’s ears gently and rather more sharply boxed Flaxfield’s ears. “Stop squabbling, you two.”

  They grinned at her. She sighed.

  “I’ll have a look,” she said.

  She raised her staff and a bubble floated out from the top of it. The bubble drifted away from them, down the stairs. She rapped her staff on the floor and another bubble drifted out and hovered. The three of them gathered around and looked into it.

  They saw the downstairs corridor, the doors to the inn parlour, the kitchen, the snug.

  “Bodies,” said Sam. “Dead, everywhere.”

  The picture moved on, into the inn parlour.

  “Kravvins.”

  The kravvins hunched over the bodies of the customers. Their hands tore at the flesh. They pushed their faces into the open wounds, gouging and biting, gorging with the pig-like noises.

  “We’re too late,” said Sam. “We have to go back. Look for another way.”

  Flaxfold shushed him.

  “Is it just kravvins?” asked Flaxfold.

  The bubble moved on, taking in more scenes of death and feasting.

  “No sign of Smedge,” Flaxfield said. “Or anything else. It’s just a raiding party.”

  “Just?” said Sam.

  “You know what he means,” said Flaxfold. “I have a plan.” She explained it to them.

  Sam listened and backed away in horror. “We can’t. That won’t work.”

  “We’re going to try it,” said Flaxfield.

  The kravvins were becoming satisfied with their meal. Scuffles and crashes indicated that they were moving away.

  “Kill more.”

  “Move on.”

  “Eat.”

  A noise like laughter.

  “Eaten.”

  “Eat again.”

  “Eat more.”

  Flaxfold flicked her fingers at the bubble and it burst.

  “They’re leaving,” she said. “No time to waste.”

  Before Sam could argue, she ran down the stairs and into the inn parlour. Flaxfield was close behind her. Sam pretended it wasn’t happening and ran after.

  The kravvins, half-crouched, gorged and alarmed, were overtaken with the speed of the attack.

  Flaxfold speared two with her staff and they exploded in a spray of slime. She crashed herself against a third, shouting, “This one’s mine. Leave him.”

  Flaxfield followed her example and stabbed and swung his staff, bursting and snapping the kravvins. Sam ran in and, putting his head down, charged at a kneeling kravvin. He stabbed it in the neck and the creature’s head snapped off and went crashing through the window. After the first kill he felt better and set about the others with speed.

  “Carry on,” shouted Flaxfield. He ran out of the room and took position outside the inn. As the kravvins dived out after him he picked them off, slicing and stabbing.

  “None to escape,” he called to Sam. “Are you all right?”

  “Five left,” Sam called back.

  Two kravvins burst through the window. Flaxfield swiped them with a flourish, looked through into the room and saw Sam kill the last one.

  The last but one.

  Flaxfold had one kravvin trapped in a corner. It was snarling and lunging out at her.

  “Kill. Eat. Stab.”

  She held it back with a barrier spell. Sam could see that it was taking all her strength. He stood by her, dripping with sweat and slime, and added his own spell to hers. She relaxed a little and nodded. “Thank you.”

  The kravvin’s attack faded. It still lunged, but less often, less forcefully.

  Flaxfield added his own spell and the three of them stood side by side, guarding the creature.

  “Can you bind him?” Sam asked.

  “Watch me,” said Flaxfold. “Stand back.”

  Sam and Flaxfield moved away. Flaxfold lowered her staff, drew it in the air across the figure of the kravvin. She stood back. The kravvin, free to move, lunged at her and was jerked back. Sam could almost see a thin cord around the kravvin’s neck, and another round its ankles.

  “Don’t forget the mouth,” said Flaxfield.

  “You do it.”

  He stood in front of the kravvin. Sam nearly called out when the old wizard put his hand to its face. The teeth were long, sharp and ready. The kravvin twisted its neck, but Flaxfield was faster. He put his hand on its forehead and drew it over its face to its chin.

  “That should do it,” he said.

  The kravvin whimpered, backed into the corner and sat, huddled and shivering.

  “I feel sorry for it,” said Sam.

  “It would kill you in an instant,” said Flaxfold.

  “Why do we want it?”

  “If we’re going to defeat Ash, we need to know everything about her. Everything she has. All her strength. All her weapons. For a start, we need to know if these creatures have any magic. Or even if they can channel her magic.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Sam. “All this slime.”

  Flaxfold tugged at the cord and the kravvin hobbled after her. Once outside it rushed at her, only to bounce off the barrier encircling it. It snarled and punched. She tugged again and it followed.

  “Where now?” asked Sam.

  “You know,” said Flaxfield. “Why are you asking?”

  Sam hunched up in his cloak and walked away. He could hear that the others had not moved, were not following. He kept walking. He knew it was the wrong way. He slammed the tip of his staff on the road as he walked, stamped his feet, kept his head down. For half a mile he clumped on, waiting to be called back. When at last he turned and looked, they were as he had left them. Almost out of sight. Standing. Waiting.

  He walked back in silence, without the stamping.

  The kravvin snarled at his approach and flung itself at him.

  “Kill.”

  The barrier held. Flaxfold tugged the cord.

  “Boolat, then,” said Sam.

  “Boolat,” they agreed.

  At the sound of the name the kravvin threw back its head and howled. Flaxfold snapped her fingers to silence it.

  “It’s calling the o
thers,” said Flaxfield.

  “No,” said Sam. “I think it’s afraid.” He leaned in to the creature. “Boolat,” he whispered.

  The kravvin lifted its head again and howled, long and silent under the spell.

  “Don’t tease it,” said Flaxfold.

  She tugged the cord to lead it away with them. It fought back, whimpering, but she was remorseless.

  They walked in silence until Flaxfold took pity on the kravvin and released the spell of silence. She slackened Flaxfield’s spell on its mouth as well, for it seemed to distress the creature, and the barrier was enough protection. For a while its whimpers disturbed them. Sam hated it most. He made a spell that just stopped him from hearing. That cut off all noise and he missed the sound of feet on hard clay, the birds, the rustle of trees and the swish of cloaks. So he tolerated the whimpering until the kravvin had soothed itself with sorrow and walked along with them in silence also.

  “There’s no one here,” said Sam.

  “We’re a long way from the inn now.”

  “But travellers,” he said. “No travellers. No one working the fields.”

  “You’re right,” said Flaxfield. “There should be someone.”

  The kravvin sniggered.

  “It can understand us,” said Flaxfold, who had been observing it all the while she led it on. “Every word.”

  “Be careful,” said Flaxfield.

  “It can’t harm us,” said Sam.

  Flaxfield moved to walk alongside him, more closely. He lowered his voice. “Usually — until you lost touch in the battle — you know what Tam knows and she knows what you know.”

  “Like you and Flaxfold.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So?”

  “The kravvins, and the takkabakks and other things, are Ash’s creation. They’re part of her. They came from the wild magic. It may be that whatever they know, she knows.”

  “Then she knows we’re coming for her,” said Sam.

  “She’s always known that. She just didn’t know when it would happen.”

  They passed a gate into a field. An old elm rose up in the centre. A ditch ran alongside the field edge. Beyond the ditch, on his side, the body of a man.

  Sam shuddered. Not at the dead man. He had seen much of death in his life. A crow perched on his forehead and was pecking at his eyes. Another, on his chest, tore into his throat, the white neck bone gleaming through the red.

  Sam kicked out at the kravvin. His foot bounced off the barrier. “You did this,” he shouted. “Your kind has destroyed this world.”

  The kravvin’s blank face betrayed no remorse. The guttural “Kill. Eat.” seemed full of a terrible joy.

  Flaxfield led Sam away. “It’s no more the kravvin’s fault that it kills than it’s the crow’s fault that it feeds on the body. Or the fault of the stoat that it tears the rabbit. It’s what it does. It’s what it is.”

  Sam listened and waited before replying. “I know that, really. But it makes me so angry. The death and the pain. The waste. And it makes me angry that things I loved are being destroyed. That the fields aren’t safe. The woods and the rivers are overrun with danger.”

  “I know.”

  “And the inn. I loved the inn. I have so many happy memories of there. It meant so much to me. And now it’s all gone. I’ll never forget the stink and slime.”

  “We have to put it right,” said Flaxfield.

  Sam thought about this. “We can fight back,” he said. “And we might beat Ash. Destroy her. But things won’t be the same. They’ve changed.”

  “They won’t,” Flaxfield agreed. “They have.”

  “What will we do with the kravvin?” asked Sam. “Are we taking it all the way to Boolat?”

  “I don’t know. It’s Flaxfold’s idea. She’s watching it. Learning about it.”

  “But you’re Flaxfold,” said Sam.

  “I know.”

  “You always annoyed me, with your tricky answers,” said Sam. “Always.”

  “I know,” said Flaxfield. “I taught you well, didn’t I?”

  Flaxfold called over to them. “What are you two bickering about?”

  Flaxfield nudged Sam, and the boy winked back at him.

  “We need to rest,” she said.

  She tethered the kravvin to a tree and they moved out of its hearing, to sit in the shade of a broad beech. She had brought food, of course, and water in flasks. The kravvin watched them without blinking, never turning aside.

  Sam was nearly at the end of a chicken pasty when a sharp scream made him turn his head. The kravvin had caught a rat and was biting off its head. Sam put his pasty down.

  “It’s the nature of the thing,” said Flaxfield.

  “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  “No. What do you think?” he asked Flaxfold.

  Sam glowered at him. “Don’t do that. Just tell me what’s happening.”

  Flaxfold explained. “I’ve been watching the kravvin all the time we’ve been walking. I released the spell of silence so that I could listen as well. We’ve learned all we need to know about it, I think. I’m sure that it’s more or less just a thing. Not connected to Ash. I don’t think that Ash can see or hear through it. Once they’re away from Boolat they just do what they’re sent to do, and if they live they go back until the next raid.”

  “What does she get from it?” asked Sam. “What’s the point?”

  “Terror,” said Flaxfold. “Just terror. And destruction. The more the people fear them and fear her, the easier it will be for her if she ever escapes. All she’ll need to do is threaten them with the kravvins and they’ll fall into line. She’ll rule all of this.”

  Sam picked up the last of his pasty, thought about it and put it down again.

  “Are we taking it with us?” he asked.

  “The kravvin?”

  “Yes.”

  Flaxfold looked across at the creature, then back at Sam. “You decide,” she said. “What shall we do with it?”

  Sam stood up

  and walked away from the two old wizards. He looked along the Boolat road, eyes scanning for people, kravvins, anything. It was deserted. They had passed two burned-out villages, some isolated houses, torched and charred. He leaned on his staff and thought. The breeze stroked the hay meadow, and Sam imagined he could smell the scents of grass, the cowslips and clover, bee orchid and fritillary. He walked back, ignoring the wizards, and stood in front of the kravvin.

  It had eaten the rat, all of it. Smears of blood glistened on its blank face.

  Sam looked down at it and was disgusted.

  “You’re wrong,” he called to Flaxfield. The wizard stood and joined him. “A stoat does more than this. A stoat plays with other stoats. It has babies. It suckles them. A stoat lies in the sun and cools itself in the shade. A stoat feels pain when its leg is caught in a trap. It feels fear. This—” he pointed to the kravvin with his staff — “is just a thing. Let’s get rid of it.”

  The kravvin stared back at them.

  “If you’re sure,” said Flaxfield. “Do it.”

  “What do you mean, do it?”

  “Get rid of it.”

  “You do it,” said Sam.

  “What’s the problem? You killed them at the inn. And back in the house when they attacked.”

  “That was to save my life,” said Sam.

  Flaxfield allowed a silence before he said, “Well, are we taking it with us, or not?”

  The kravvin turned its face away. Sam walked off again. Flaxfold was clearing away the scraps from their meal, repacking her bag, getting ready to move on.

  “What shall you do?” she said, with a smile.

  “Don’t try that,” said Sam. “You’re no different from him. So it’s the same person, asking the same question.”

  “And you still haven’t answered it.”

  “How do I know what to do?” he said. “How can I just kill something like that?”

  “But if we tak
e it with us, as we approach Boolat it will grow dangerous to us. It may call others. It may warn Ash. It may grow stronger. We can’t take it any further.”

  “You kill it, then,” said Sam.

  Flaxfold nodded. “Is that your decision?”

  “Yes. No. You decide. Why do I have to?”

  “Because you’ll be left, when we’ve gone. We are the past. This is your world, now. Your choice. Kill or not?”

  They walked together to the tree and the three of them stood over the kravvin.

  “Give the word,” said Flaxfield. “Better still, do what you have to do.”

  “We’ll leave it here,” said Sam. “Tied to the tree. It can catch rats. It will live. It won’t be a danger to us.”

  Flaxfield’s face was stern. “That’s a coward’s choice,” he said. “It’s no choice. You’re avoiding responsibility. If we take it, at least we can make sure it doesn’t hurt a passer-by. It puts us in danger, but it protects others. Or we could kill it now.”

  “We’re not going to kill it. I’ll bind it tighter here. I’ll put a spell round it to keep people away, let small animals through.”

  Flaxfold took his arm. “So, you’ll let the kravvin kill a rabbit, but you won’t kill the kravvin. Is that the decision?”

  Sam busied himself with the spell. The kravvin thrashed out at him, trying to grab him. Sam finished quickly and walked off.

  “Come on,” he said. “We need to get to Boolat.”

  It was an uncomfortable walk at first. No one spoke. Sam kept apart from the other two, who didn’t seem to notice that he was ignoring them.

  “You could have killed it,” he said, at last.

  They didn’t answer.

  Clouds were beginning to cover the sky. Sam sniffed and recognized the scent of soft earth that comes before rain.

  “We’ll need some shelter for the night,” he said.

  “What will you do, if you’re face to face with Ash, and you have the chance to kill her?” asked Flaxfold.

  Sam walked on, holding a small distance from them.

  By the time the light failed it was drizzling again and they were heavy with damp.

  “There’s a house,” said Flaxfield.

  “They’re all burned out,” said Sam. “We can’t breathe in them.”