Tarah Woodblade

by Trevor H. Cooley

  Tarah found herself looking back at him often. The whole time they walked, the troubled look never left his face. To her chagrin, she had a rising urge to break the silence. She ignored this feeling for awhile. She told herself to focus on what they would find when they reached her house. The silence stretched out, seeming more and more oppressive the longer they went.

  Finally, Tarah cleared her throat. Djeri looked up at her, but she froze. What should she say?

  Tell a story, Grampa Rolf suggested. A good salesman often finds that a tale or two sets a client at ease.

  “You know, I-uh guided a nobleman through this part of the woods a few years back,” she said lamely.

  “Yeah?” Djeri replied.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I took him out here to hunt a moonrat.”

  The troubled look eased somewhat. “You found a nobleman that wanted to kill a moonrat?”

  “Not exactly,” Tarah said. “He didn’t care so much about the killing of the thing. He just wanted to eat one.”

  A smile curled Djeri’s lips. “Really?”

  “Yeah!” Tarah said, encouraged by the dwarf’s change in mood. “I met him in Pinewood. He’d been boasting at the local tavern, see? Told folks he was a fancy eater. He said he’d eaten all the good meats of the world. Said he’d try anything that could walk, crawl, or fly. Of course some of the boys decided to call him on it.”

  “Of course,” Djeri said.

  “They asked him, ‘Have you eaten snakes?’. He says, ‘Yes sir I have.’ They said, ‘You eaten bugs?’ He says, ‘As long as they aren’t poisonous.’”

  “He liked eating bugs?” Djeri asked.

  “One of the boys asked him that. He said, ‘It’s true, my good man, that most of them don’t taste very good. But crickets are quite tasty. Snails can be quite good too if you cook them just right.”

  “Snails!” the dwarf laughed out loud.

  Tarah nodded. “Hey, don’t knock it! My papa was into teaching me how to survive. He made me eat some strange things growing up and I tell you that nobleman was right. Snails can be pretty good.”

  “No thank you,” Djeri said, waving a gauntleted hand. “I don’t think surviving’s that important to me.”

  “Yeah, well this nobleman wasn’t eating those things to survive. He was just eating ‘em ‘for the experience’, as he put it,” Tarah explained. “That’s when I heard one of the boys ask him if he’d eaten moonrat. He says, ‘Dear sir, I have eaten many different types of rodentia. Each has their own flavor and some are finer than others.”

  “Rodentia?” Djeri said, laughing again.

  “Yeah, that’s how he put it,” she said. “One of the boys had a clever idea. He decides to play a little trick on the nobleman and goes, ‘Yeah, but you ain’t eaten moonrat. Moonrat’s a delicacy.’ ‘Course everybody in the room understood the joke and no one told the nobleman any different.”

  “Who was the prankster?” Djeri asked.

  “Jono, son of Pell.”

  “I thought that might be him,” Djeri said, nodding. “He was one of the ones you saved during the attack on Pinewood, wasn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” Tarah said, her smile fading a bit.

  “I met him during the siege on the Mage School,” Djeri said. “He got himself into some trouble with his antics. I thought he was funny, but the leaders weren’t too happy with him.”

  “Yeah,” Tarah said. Jono wasn’t one of her favorite people. “Sounds like Jono.”

  “What was the nobleman’s name?”

  “He was from House Stots,” she said. “I think it was Wilson Stots, or something like that. It was a long time ago.”

  “Oh. I haven’t heard of him, but go on,” the dwarf said.

  “Anyway, so Stots says, ‘If anyone here has some moonrat I can try, I would be most happy to.’ Jono says, ‘Well the thing here is we have a local tradition regarding eating moonrat. See, you gotta hunt one down and eat it yourself.”

  “No,” said Djeri, his eyes wide with amusement.

  “Stots seemed kinda flustered. He says, ‘Well, I would do so if I knew how to obtain this beast.’” Tarah’s lip curled mischievously. “That’s when I decided there was an opportunity to make some money and I spoke up. I said, ‘I’ll tell you what, mister nobleman. I’ll take you out and help you find a moonrat to hunt.’ The boys went crazy laughing. Jono says, ‘Yeah! Take Woodblade! If anyone can find you a moonrat to eat, it’s her.” In truth that wasn’t the way he put it, but Djeri didn’t need to know all the details.

  “Of course at this point, the man couldn’t turn you down,” Djeri surmised.

  “He had no choice,” she said. “His very pride was on the line. So he hired me. I took him out that very night. It was just me, him, and a couple Stots family guards. Now I could’ve taken him across the wizard’s road and found him one right away, but he was paying me hourly and like my Grampa Rolf always says, ‘Don’t let an hourly hire off early.’”

  Tarah paused, her cheeks reddening. Why had she said that? She knew better. Never say anything to a client that could make it sound like she’d cheat him.

  To her relief, Djeri just chuckled. “Sounds like something my uncle would say.”

  She cleared her throat. “So anyway, I took him out in this direction. It was a good area mainly because the moonrats were much fewer on this side of the road and I didn’t want to end up surrounded. You know, for his safety.”

  “Right,” Djeri said knowingly.

  “Well, we weren’t one mile from town before Stots hears his first moonrat moan. That noble went so pale, he nearly glowed in the moonlight. Let me tell you, he was ready to abandon the whole hunt then and there. But I promised him I knew a good spot right close where we could find a rat and do it safe.”

  “Yeah right. Probably five miles away,” the dwarf surmised.

  “Hey, let me tell the story,” Tarah said, then shrugged. “But you’re not far off. I didn’t find him a good one until I’d say maybe two hours after midnight or so. At that point, the moonrat moans had been echoing pretty steady for a long while and all three men were shaking in their boots. Now he didn’t know it, but I’d been doing my best to steer us around all the big groups of rats. This was my first chance to get him one all alone.

  “When he saw those glowing yellow eyes, I swear he nearly died in surprise. He wasn’t in no shape to battle the thing and I sure didn’t want a dead noble on my record. So I whispered to him, saying, ‘Hey, you can kill the thing if you want to. But if you’ll pay me one extra silver, I can kill him for you and I won’t tell anyone it was me who done it.’ He says, ‘My lady, I don’t care how the beast dies. I just want out of here.’”

  Djeri laughed again.

  Tarah continued, “So I pick off the moonrat with a single arrow right through one of its ugly eyes. Stots has one of his men carry the thing and it stinks so bad, he makes him carry it downwind of us. Now here’s the dangerous part. I knew the other moonrats could smell a corpse from far away. So I started leading the men all around the forest looking for ways to get back to Pinewood without being chased by a moonrat army.

  “It was a long stroll, I’ll say that right now. Stots gets nervous and he says, ‘Pardon my asking, my lady, are we lost?’ I say, ‘Naw, I know exactly where we are.’ Which was true. It was sunrise by the time we got back to Pinewood. Stots was so glad to see the place he paid double my asking price.” Tarah ended the story with a wink and kept walking, satisfied that she’d changed the dwarf’s mood around.

  All was quiet for a few moments before Djeri burst out, “Well, did he eat it?”

  Tarah nodded. “Oh yeah. He made a big deal of it. He brought out his personal cook and invited all the boys that’d been in the tavern the night before. He bragged about how dangerous the hunt had been and how fierce the battle. ‘Course everyone knew it was me that killed it, not him.”

  “And what did he think of the taste?” the dwarf asked.

  “Well it stank bad
when they skinned it. His cook tried all kinds of spices and herbs, but when it started cooking over the spit, folks started gagging. Whoo, the smell was so wrong. It smelled like skunk spray mixed with baby poop and garlic.”

  Djeri started laughing again, this time so hard his face went red.

  Tarah found his reaction encouraging and added some detail. “Not only did it smell bad, it looked nasty. The cook left the head and the tail on and everything. Then he started basting it with butter and somehow that made it smell worse. Folks started leaving at that point. I’ve gotta give it to Stots, though. He was determined. I left before it was done cooking, but Jono swears the noble ate an entire moonrat leg before he started losing it,” Tarah said with a disgusted shake of her head.

  “Anyway that smell hung around Pinewood for days. Stots got so sick that his guards finally had to take him back to the Mage School to see a specialist, but then he . . .”

  Tarah trailed off, slowing her steps. She looked at the forest around them. Djeri was laughing even harder at that point, but something didn’t feel quite right. The air smelled funny and there was a sound that bothered her.

  “Ugh,” Djeri said, wiping his eyes. “I’d feel bad for the poor guy if he wasn’t so stupid. That reminds me of the time two dwarves from Wobble tried to cook up a moonrat. Their names were Kharl and Broose. They decided that-.”

  “Shh!” Tarah said, placing a finger against the dwarf’s lips. She crouched, her staff at the ready. Djeri understood. His face grew deadly serious and he reached back and grabbed the head of his great mace, ready to pull it from its harness.

  Tarah focused on her hearing and finally she made out the sound she was looking for. Something was running away from them through the leaves. She took off after it, running hunched over, her staff held out parallel to the ground. When she caught up to its tracks, she ran alongside them, her free hand dragging through the impressions as she went.

  “It’s a gorc!” she said. “And it’s heading off to tell others we’re coming!” She didn’t wait for Djeri’s response, but picked up her speed, having a good idea where it was going. The evil thing was headed towards her house!

  Tarah had faced gorcs before, but this was the first time she had seen one in her forest. They were nasty creatures; one of the goblinoid races. Gorcs were larger and smarter than a goblin, but smaller and less intelligent than an orc. They were smart enough to make crude armor and weapons, but they preferred to fight with weapons and armor stolen from villages they raided or soldiers they’d killed.

  Luckily, Tarah knew the area better than it did. The gorc weaved around trees and plunged through undergrowth, trying to slow down any pursuit, but it couldn’t hide its intentions from her. Tarah took a straighter path. She passed the gorc unseen and stopped to wait for it on the far side of a long patch of tangled briars.

  The gorc was quite surprised when Tarah’s staff darted out from behind a tree. She struck it in the shins, sending it sprawling into the leaves. It recovered quickly, jumping to its feet and spinning to face her, its sword already unsheathed.

  Tarah’s staff struck its hand, knocking the sword from its grip, then she swung back around with the other end, striking the gorc’s temple. It crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

  She stood over it, glowering. The gorc was an ugly thing. It had yellow skin mottled with brown spots. Large bushy eyebrows hung over its red eyes and its face was riddled with various piercings. A tattoo of a moonrat eye emblazoned on its forehead.

  Tarah soon heard Djeri churning through the forest behind her. The dwarf plowed through the tangled briars, their wicked thorns doing little more than scratching the paint on his armor. By the time he caught up to her, Tarah had the creature bound.

  “Blast you were fast! I didn’t think I’d catch up to-.” Djeri stood there for a moment, breathing heavy and staring at her captive. “You used the Pross technique for binding goblinoids,” he said in surprise.

  Its two feet were bound together, pulled behind its back and tied to its left arm, but she left its right arm free. It was an old academy trick her father had taught her. Goblinoids had a terrible command of the common tongue and in order to be understood, they used a lot of gestures.

  “Yeah, I hope it gestures good, because I’m really tempted to simply kill it and move on,” Tarah said.

  “Hold on. Save your threats until the thing’s awake,” Djeri said. “Tell me, how do you know this technique?”

  “Papa taught me,” she said quietly, staring at its clothing. Its pants were cobbled together from animal skins, but its shirt was made of fine silk and fastened together in the front with silver buttons. Tarah’s lips curled up into a snarl. “It’s been to my house.”

  “How can you tell?” Djeri asked

  “My house is less than a mile from here,” she said and pointed. “See that shirt it’s wearing? That belonged to my grampa.”

  Djeri’s expression turned dark. “Right. Wake it up.”

  Tarah placed her boot in its belly.

  The gorc awoke with a spray of vomit. It coughed and grimaced and spat, then jerked its free arm about in alarm. “My armss! My legs!” It reached back and seemed relieved to find that its limbs were intact. It turned its panicked gaze on them. “Curse you, beasts! Lets Ursus go!”

  Tarah poked its chest with her staff. “What have you been doing in my house?”

  The gorc snarled at her and then its eyes widened in surprise. Its lips twisted into a grin. “You’re-! You’re Woodblade!”

  “You’ve heard of me?” she asked.

  “You wears the misstress’ children. You wields a staff of bloood. It’s as foretold! You’re Woodblade. You’ve come!”

  “Did you say mistress?” Djeri asked. “You follow the witch?”

  It ignored him, its eyes on Tarah. “Youu are marked for death!”

  Tarah felt a jolt of fear. “Not any longer. The moonrat mother is dead.”

  “She can’tss die.” Ursus sneered. “The misstress is eternal!”

  Djeri gave Tarah a curious look, then backhanded the gorc, splitting its lip. He grabbed its face with one powerful hand and turned its attention to him. “She’s right, gorc. Your mistress is dead. She was killed months ago, her dark forest destroyed. The war is over.”

  “No!” it cried, its eyes wide in denial. “No. She lives still! Clobber tells us the misstress’ words.” It raised a shaking hand and pointed to Tarah. “Clobber tells us of Woodblade’s coming! Tells us of the rewards.”

  “Who is this ‘Clobber’?” Djeri asked.

  “He is the mistress’ speaker. He has her great eye of command. He is the finders of the great sword, ‘Killer’, and he tells us of your coming!” It smiled at Tarah, revealing a mouth full of crooked and jagged teeth.

  Tarah pushed away the fear. “Tell me about this sword,” she demanded. “What does it look like?”

  “Killer is Clobber’s treasure. It shines! It glows in the sun. It cuts and burns!” it said fervently. “It was made to kills you, Woodblade.”

  Tarah’s face paled. She felt light headed with sorrow. “Where . . . did he find this sword?”

  “The misstress telled him where to finds it,” Ursus said, its eyes feverish. “She telled him it is his glory!”

  Tarah’s hand rose to her mouth.

  “How many of you are there?” Djeri said, turning its face back towards him.

  The gorc refused to look at him, its eyes focused on Tarah. “We have been waiting for your return, Woodblade. Waiting for such a looong time!”

  “Well I’m back!” Tarah snarled and thrust out with her staff, crushing its windpipe.

  The gorc gurgled, clutching at its throat. Djeri shoved at its chest, trying to help it breathe, but his efforts were useless. Its eyes rolled up into its head and its movements ceased.

  Djeri glared at her. “Why did you do that? We could have gotten more information out of it!”

  “We don’t need his information,” Tarah said, glari
ng back at him.

  “He could have told us how many of them there are and where they’re staying,” Djeri insisted. “He could have warned us of traps!”

  Tarah raised one eyebrow at him, her jaw set firm. “You worry about how many of them there are? Traps?” She stabbed the butt of her staff into the ground. “This is my forest and I have their tracks.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Hold on just a minute, Tarah,” Djeri said, standing beside the gorc’s corpse. “What’s going on here? What are we getting into?”

  “You heard it,” she said, glaring at the gorc, her face twisted with rage. “The mother of the moonrats sent a bunch of goblinoids to my house and they’ve been waiting for me to come home.”

  “I heard that, but why?” Djeri asked. “Because of Pinewood?”

  “Maybe. Partly.” She ran a hand through her hair and began pacing. “To tell you the truth, I was probably a thorn in her side for a long time before that night. I’ve been killing moonrats my whole life. Disgusting things. I’ve led folks through her territory a few times, maybe helped the elves a time or two . . . I don’t know.”

  “It said you were marked for death,” Djeri said.

  “Yeah, the moonrat mother told me that once. The night of the attack on Pinewood.” She stopped, her eyes staring into the trees. “I heard her voice in my head promising I’d die. Happened just before I killed an orange-eyed rat.”

  She opened her mouth to say more, but she stopped herself. What was she about to say? It scared her so bad she ran away? Did she trust this dwarf enough to start blurting out all her secrets? Airing her shames?

  Don’t tell folks everything you know, said her grampa and papa in unison.

  Her eyes locked onto Djeri’s. The dwarf was watching her closely, gauging something. She could almost see a set of scales being weighed in his mind.

  “How did you know?” he asked.