Gods & Dragons: 8 Fantasy Novels

by Daniel Arenson

  “Father, the sheep are gaining weight.” There was no response, and he tried again. “Will we take the yarn to Three Roads to sell this year?” This was more than he usually said to his father in a week, and to ask such a foolish question—after all where else would they take the yarn—usually meant a clout to the ear. But any response, even a slap, would be better than this stretching silence.

  His father slowly turned to face him, but his eyes were as wide and staring as the cow’s. Garet felt his stomach knot. Then the dog yipped and shrieked right outside the door. Garet jumped back, turning his chair over. The only other person who moved was Allia, who twisted her head to look at him, as he backed up to the cabin wall, crowding the pots hanging on their hooks.

  The door latch started to rise, pushed up by a long, curved blade slid between the door and the jamb. The latch cleared its hook, and the door opened a crack. The thin blade was joined by three others, and Garet saw that they were not knives; they were a set of claws, attached to a bony, mottled arm. That arm now slid through the crack and felt along the wall. The door opened wider and a head out of a nightmare followed. It was narrow and ridged. Bony crests ran from a sloped forehead to the flattened crown. Instead of a nose, it thrust forward a leathery beak. Two black eyes, showing neither whites nor pupils, peered into the room. The mouth opened to reveal a narrow tongue flicking in a bed of needle teeth.

  The creature pulled itself inside, and now Garet saw blood on its beak and tufts of fur and feathers stuck to its spidery hands. It was skeleton-thin and moved quickly, sometimes like a child on two gangly legs, sometimes on all fours, like some freakish hunting cat. The small part of Garet’s mind that could still think knew what it must be: a demon! A demon where it had no right to be. This was the Midlands. Here all were safe from both the demons of the South and the dragons of the North. But the demon ignored the impossibility of its presence and climbed onto the crowded table, skittering over the dishes.

  A low moaning filled the room, and Garet’s horror increased. The man Garet had thought he feared more than anyone or anything else in the world could only whimper as the creature walked his table. His two brothers sat as rigidly as their father. As the demon passed the twins, the sharp smell of urine bit the air. The demon sniffed at it, seemed to grin, and continued towards Garet’s grey-faced parents. Its thin arm slowly lifted and reached, almost delicately, towards his father’s clenched face.

  “Nnn—Nnnn, Nnnno…,” his mother seemed to push out the syllable by sheer force of will. Her head jerked from side to side.

  The creature paused, as if surprised at this discourtesy, and the curved claws changed their course from the man’s face to the woman’s. A hot anger erupted in Garet’s belly, warming him and loosening his muscles. He began to burn with an incredible rage: anger at the creature for threatening his mother, anger at his father and brothers for doing nothing, and anger at himself for his fear of the thing. That last anger was the strongest. It fought with the horror that came off the demon like a foul wind. He hated this fear, and all the others of his life. He saw his terror of the demon as being no different from his fear of his father, his brothers, and his bleak future. A battle raged inside him, as if every fear he had ever felt filled his chest, and the anger boiled up to meet it.

  The curved knives were an inch from his mother’s eyes when Allia yelled. The demon paused. Though small, his sister could shake the roof when she wished. She brought her spoon squarely down on the creature’s other hand. She was no amateur at this, and the spoon hit a knuckle. The thing gave a piercing shriek. The raised claws now twisted to slash at the child.

  Garet moved without knowing it, without knowing that he could. His forgotten hand had been on a copper pot, heavy as a paving stone, and he grabbed the handle and flung it at the creature. It was more effective than he could have hoped. The heavy bottom of the pot brushed past the spindly arm and smashed into the side of the vicious beak. Garet heard a crack—he didn’t know whether the pot’s handle or the thing’s head was broken—and the demon was flung between his two brothers into the hearth’s crackling fire. His body now free, Garet scrambled over the table after the beast. He had no weapon or skill, so he did what he could. As the creature tried to crawl out of the flames that were consuming it, he used the long poker to shove it back in and hold it tight against the blazing logs until its hideous, whistling shrieks stopped.

  CHAPTER TWO

  STRANGERS AT THE GATE

  Nothing was the same.

  The moon had passed from new to almost full, and the beast had been buried, twice now. The first time had been the night the demon invaded their home. Garet had dragged the charred body out the door, past the torn remains of the dog, and had buried it between the outhouse and the manure pile. Looking down on it in its grave, he was again struck by its appearance. He could not call it an animal, for what mere animal could have paralyzed a man like his father. Hilly claimed to have fought against the dragons in the North. His sons might have thought it a lie, but their mother had quietly confirmed it. She had met Hilly when he was a member of the brigades, men who climbed the sharp cliffs above the northern sea and hunted dragons among the rocks. Two years before, he had set three arrows in a charging hill bear that had been after the pigs and laughed as it collapsed and died a few feet from him. And yet this huge, violent man, who was three times the size of this gangly creature, had sat frozen while its claws reached for his eyes.

  Not an animal then, Garet thought, and not really human either. There were vague similarities. It had two arms and two legs. The spindly hands had four fingers and a thumb, although each was tipped with a sickle claw. Its general shape, although exaggerated, was similar to his own. Indeed, when stretched out in the cold moonlight, its torso and limbs were a deformed mockery of a young child. But all such resemblance ended with the head. The long, flattened skull was curved at the back, hanging over the spine like a round stone. Starting at the brows, the face narrowed into that cruel beak. Steeling himself, Garet had pried open its mouth with the shovel and seen that the thing’s tongue, swollen in death, was neatly split at the tip to give it a forked, snake-like look. Its many teeth fit together as closely as the blades of a pair of shears. He was glad enough to cover the corpse with a layer of concealing dirt; for even in death, he still felt a wrenching fear of it.

  The need for a second burial quickly became apparent. Only Garet could bear to come near the thing’s grave, though even passing near the spot made his stomach flip. This made its resting place beside the privy an urgent problem. Hilly and the twins had bolted from the cabin as soon as Garet had dragged the corpse outside. They did not return until the next evening, stinking of the rotgut liquor that Pranix, the owner of the Three Roads tavern, sold to the unsophisticated hill farmers and any ignorant traveller. Hilly was a friend of the tavern keeper; though hardly close enough to beg a free drink. Garet wondered where he had got the money. Upon their return, they had made a beeline for the outhouse, jostling and cursing each other. But a good five yards away, they had all shuddered to a stop and stood weaving and belching a moment before stumbling down to the bushes behind the chicken coop. On hearing that the demon was buried near the privy, Hilly clouted Garet’s ear, much harder than usual, and demanded he move the body before breakfast. There was a new look in his father’s eyes. The contempt was gone and had been replaced by something else—hatred?

  He had wrapped the stiffened corpse in an old, ragged sheepskin and dragged it to the far edge of the sheep pasture. The fear of being near it came on him again and he sweated from more than the effort it took to get the corpse up the hill. The new grave was shallower, due to the rocky soil, and Garet rolled several large stones on top of it to keep the animals away. He needn’t have bothered. When he brought the sheep up after breakfast to continue grazing off the last of the summer grass, none of the ewes would go within fifty feet of the pile of boulders. If I could bury a dozen of those things around this field, Garet thought ruefully, I’d
never have to throw another stone.

  For the next two weeks, life seemed both better and worse for Garet. It was now easier to avoid his father and brothers. Indeed, it seemed that they were intent on avoiding him. Not a word was yelled at him during meals. No sting-bugs or other practical jokes tested his finely-developed sense of caution. His brothers even gave up using him as a training dummy. But this new freedom was tainted by the way they looked at him when they thought he wasn’t looking back. He caught it from the corners of his eyes or in the reflection of the copper pot hanging again on its hook behind the table. Their eyes held fear and hatred. Fear? Of him? His mother’s and Allia’s treatment of him was unchanged, unless you could count a warm gratitude and pride that coloured every word or look his mother sent his way. His little sister seemed unaffected by these earthshaking events. She yowled and twisted, hugged and demanded as much or as little as before. After all, thought Garet, with one of the few smiles he had in those weeks, what was a mere demon to a child who risked sudden death a dozen times a day?

  As the moon passed into its dark phase, word came from Three Roads that Demonbanes had ridden from the cities of Old Torrick and Shirath. They came to track the demons that had attacked not only Hilly’s farm but also farms and villages throughout the Midlands. Garet heard this from his mother, who had it from the tavern keeper’s wife.

  Returning from delivering eggs to the trading post, she told the family, “Trallet says there have been attacks all through the Midlands. Many have died. Pranix has gone to the Rivermeet.” She looked at Hilly. “Will you be going?” It was a direct question for someone who usually hedged her speech in ‘ifs’ and ‘perhaps’ to avoid challenging her violent mate. Since the demon’s attack, Garet had seen his mother become more confident, as if she too were tired of her fears.

  If it was a direct question, it was also a fair one. Hilly was the unofficial leader of the hill farmers near Three Roads, if only because his temper meant no one cared to disagree with him. The village of Bangt, where the North Ar was fed by the Plainscutter River, hosted the Rivermeet every year. The hill farmers would need representation, and none would trust Pranix, the tavern keeper who overcharged them for trade goods and underpaid them for their wool, to look after their best interests.

  Hilly, however, sneered at the suggestion. “What can a hundred fat Southerners do about,” and here he stumbled, for he never spoke of that fearful night, “…about anything!” He stomped out the door, and the twins slouched after him.

  His wife sighed and said, more to herself than to Garet, “They’ll be off to the tavern now, trying to get free drinks.” Her expression showed that this was unlikely, and Garet had to agree; Pranix and Trallet’s stinginess was legendary.

  Garet also sighed. With Allia taking up so much of her mother’s time, most of the work of the farm now fell on his own shoulders. His father and brothers disappeared for whole days at a time. He knew they did this to avoid him. He also knew that when it came time to dig up the root crops and store them, or plow the land in the spring, the farm would need their strength. Maybe he should leave, finally fulfil one of his daydreams and escape from this life. With so many said to be killed on the plains, there must be a place for a farm lad used to hard work. If their farm failed because he stayed, he would end up hurting his mother and Allia. He could not bear the thought of them with the pinched faces and bloated bellies of starvation. He remembered all too well the children of less fortunate farmers who came begging at the farm gate in the early spring when the poor suffered most. If Hilly was around he would chase them off with curses, but if his mother was alone, she would give them some of her gathered wild greens or a scrawny chicken to take back to their homesteads.

  Garet’s time in the sheep pasture was now spent considering possible, rather than imaginary, futures. These weeks were like living through the low part of winter, between the great events of harvest and spring. But in all the fantasies he had created on this boulder, he had never foreseen how frightening real change could be. Now that he had finally played the hero of his daydreams, he feared that his reward would be to lose all that he loved along with all that he hated.

  A week after the news from Three Roads, strangers came riding between the low hills to the gate of Hilly’s farm. From his perch on the sheep pasture boulder, Garet could see his father gesture angrily at the four figures, who had not bothered to dismount. The party consisted of an older man mounted on a tall black, a young woman or older girl on a smaller grey, and two boys, younger than Garet and riding together on a big, brown farm horse. The twins had swaggered over to join their father, and all three now seemed to be shouting at the older man. His father repeatedly pointed at himself and waved his arms. Whatever response he got must have displeased Hilly for he shook his fists at the unmoving figure on the black horse.

  The girl urged her mount up beside his, crowding the twins back. The older man merely kicked the sides of the big black. Hilly jumped out of the way as the party rode through the gate and towards the farmhouse. For a long moment, Garet saw his father stare after the riders. Then, Hilly lifted his face to the sheep pasture. Across that great distance, father and son looked at each other. Garet ducked his head as his father spat in the dirt of the trail and turned away. With the twins following, Hilly walked quickly back the way the strangers had come, in the direction of Three Roads and the tavern.

  His mother appeared at the door of the cabin, waving her hand to signal him down from the pasture. Garet eyed the sun, still too high above the hill’s brow to bring in the sheep, and knew that he was being called to a meeting. Perhaps the new life starts here, he thought. A stray breeze played with the back of his neck. Nervously, he picked up a handful of stones and began the laborious process of aiming the sheep downhill.

  When he had corralled the sheep and reached the cabin door, he saw his mother seated at the table with Allia twisting in her lap, facing the older man. Garet slipped quietly inside and made his way around the table to his mother’s side. His back touched the heavy pot he had thrown at the demon, and for a wild moment, his hand itched to pick it up again and drive these strangers from the house.

  The old man gave no indication that he felt endangered. Stiff as a plank, he sat across from Garet’s mother and sipped his tea. There was no sign of the two younger boys, but the girl, tall, blond and no more than a year older than Garet, stood just as stiffly behind the grey-haired man. Garet couldn’t help staring. Their clothing was well made but dusty. They each wore a coloured sash over a long, purple vest, a black, high-collared shirt, and grey trousers tucked into high, black boots. The girl’s sash was green, the old man’s blood red. The girl noticed his open examination and gave back an icy glare.

  The old man put down his tea. “Mistress Allaina, at the tavern it is said that there was a demon slain here.”

  Garet’s mother straightened as if to match the posture of the man opposite and replied, “Yes sir.”

  Garet prayed that she wouldn’t expose his actions on that terrible night until they knew what these strangers wanted, but his worries were interrupted by an indignant outburst from the girl.

  “A Bane of the Master Mandarack’s rank is to be addressed as ‘Master’, not ‘sir’—farmwife!” The last word was delivered dripping with contempt. She took a step forward and Garet, less intimidated by someone so near his own age and size, stepped up to shield his mother from her anger.

  The old man raised his right hand, and Garet saw that the other hand lay twisted and curled in his lap, the whole arm seeming dead to use. The girl immediately stopped her forward motion and retreated to her station behind her “master”. She appeared to be grinding her teeth. Her blue eyes were blazing, and her blond hair, so typical among Southerners, shook in its braids.

  “Salick,” said the seated man, his good hand still raised, “Mistress Allaina is from the North, and has—or so it is said at the tavern—lived isolated upon this farm since she came south.” He looked a question at Garet�
�s mother. She gave a brief nod, and Garet was surprised to see that she was also angry. The old man continued, “It is neither surprising nor disrespectful that she is unaware of our traditions…or of how to speak in such a situation.”

  The older woman blushed slightly, barely noticeable against her dark complexion, but Salick’s fair skin turned dark red and Garet thought Master Mandarack’s comments were more for her benefit than for his mother’s. Having no other place to put her anger, the girl glared once more at Garet, but he had already returned to his mother’s side, his attention back on Mandarack.

  “I spoke to your husband.” Was that slight twist of his lips a judgement? “And he claimed to have killed the demon himself. Indeed, that is what we first heard in the tavern.” His hand rose again, this time to forestall Allaina’s protest, which was accompanied by the rapid banging of Allia’s spoon on the table. Mandarack patiently waited for the noise to end. “After a moment’s speech with him, it was obvious that he was claiming another’s due.” The man’s eyes, grey as a threatening cloud, shifted to Garet. “But I think the one who did the deed is in this room.”

  Garet felt his mother’s hand grasp his own and, with that encouragement, he stepped forward.

  “My lord,” he spoke as loudly as he could, “I killed the beast,” and here his voice faltered, “but I don’t know how…”