by Simon Hawke
The Guardian suspected. They were all born when the Child fled from waking life, which had become a waking nightmare. Now the Child slept. If he awoke again, it could well be the end for all of them. Perhaps even for Sorak; Sorak, in a sense, was not the Child grown. Sorak was the primary, for that was the nature of the agreement they had made among themselves, a compact that had been necessary to preserve their sanity. But Sorak, too, had been born after the fact, after the Child went to sleep. If the Inner Child awoke, there was a chance—the Guardian did not know how strong chance—that it might integrate with Sorak, and perhaps with some of them as well. But there was also a chance that Sorak, like the rest of them, would cease to be, and the body they all shared would revert to the Child it had been before. Not physically, but mentally. The Guardian often thought about that, and wondered. Kivara had no such concerns. She reveled in the night. She often catnapped during the day so that she could be awake at night, especially when the Ranger came to the fore and set out to hunt. Kivara was no hunter. She was purely a creature of the senses, mischievous and inquisitive, a sly young female who lacked the capacity to recognize any limits. Left to her own devices, she would indulge herself in whatever sensual pleasure was presented, or explore whatever fascinating new experience she might encounter, regardless of the risks. In that sense, she could be dangerous, for if the others did not watch her, she could jeopardize all of them—and flee, ducking under to let someone else bear the responsibility of safeguarding their welfare.
Tonight, however, Kivara was content just to remain awake and watch, and feel, and listen. Through the acute senses of the Ranger, the night came vibrantly alive to her. She would not intrude upon the Ranger, in part because she lacked the capability. The Ranger was much stronger, and if she made any such attempt, he would simply brush her abruptly aside and duck her under, the way he might shoo away some annoying desert fly or flick a sand flea off his breeches. But Kivara had no desire to come out when the Ranger manifested because through the Ranger, she could experience sensual pleasures far more sharply than she could when she came to the fore herself. And, of course, she was hungry, too, and none of them would eat until the Ranger made his kill.
Eyron simply waited… impatient as always. He wished the Ranger would hurry up and find some game for them. He never understood why it always took so long. His wryly cynical and pessimistic nature made him worry that, perhaps this night, the Ranger would fail in his hunt and they would have to go through one more day of Sorak and his druid food. Eyron found it maddening. Those silly priestesses had muddled Sorak’s thinking. He was part elf and part halfling—and both halflings and elves ate meat. Eyron preferred his raw and freshly killed, but any meat would do in place of the roughage Sorak ate during the day. What did he need with seeds and fruit and lotus leaves? That was a diet for a kank, not for an elfling! Each time they were in a city and Sorak passed a stand that sold cooked meat, Eyron would smell it and begin to salivate. Sometimes, Sorak also would begin to salivate from Eyron’s hunger, and Eyron would sense the primary’s irritation and sullenly withdraw to sulk. He wished the Ranger would be quick about it. He wanted to feed and go to sleep with a full belly.
The Ranger felt Eyron’s impatience, but paid no attention to it. He rarely paid much heed to Eyron. Such thoughts as Eyron had were pointless and of no interest to him. Eyron could not hunt. Eyron could not follow a trail. Eyron could not smell game, nor was he observant enough to detect its movement in the desert brush. He could not hear anything save for the sound of his own voice, of which he was inordinately fond. Eyron, thought the Ranger, was a foolish creature. He much preferred the company of Lyric, who was foolish too, but in a pleasant way. During the day, when the Ranger came to the fore, he would often allow Lyric to come out with him and sing a merry tune that he could listen to while he followed a trail. But listening to Eyron was a waste of time. And as the Ranger thought this, Eyron perceived the thought and resentfully kept his peace.
As he walked, his night vision as keen as any mountain cat’s, the Ranger kept a sharp eye on the ground around him, alert for any signs of game. All at once, he spotted something and knelt, examining some faint markings on the ground that any of the others would have missed. They were scratchings made by the passing of an erdland, a large, flightless desert bird that walked upright on two long powerful legs ending in sharp talons. The Ranger knew erdlands were related to the erdlus that ran wild in the tablelands, but were also raised by desert herdsmen for sale to the city markets. Erdlus were prized by city dwellers mostly for their eggs, though their meat was often eaten. A wild erdlu could be quite difficult to catch, for they were easily spooked and capable of running at great speeds. Erdlands, however, being larger birds, could not move as quickly. And while their eggs were not as tasty as erdlus’, their flesh could make a satisfying meal. An erdland would provide a feast, enough meat to fill their belly full to bursting, with still enough left over to make a meal for the desert scavengers. However, while an erdland did not move as quickly as its smaller relative, bringing one down posed other challenges.
A full-grown erdland stood as tall as fifteen feet and weighed up to a ton. Its powerful legs delivered lethal kicks, and its talons inflicted damaging wounds. Moreover, an adult bird, such as this one was judging by its track, possessed a large wedge-shaped beak, unlike young birds, whose beaks were small and not as dangerous. A full-grown erdland could peck so hard that it would shatter bone, and a snap of its powerful beak could take a hand right off.
The Ranger carefully examined the ground around the track. Wild erdlands generally roamed in herds, but this one seemed alone, and the track was fresh. The Ranger went back to the track and began to follow it, looking for any signs that might tell him if the bird was wounded. A few feet farther on, he found what he was looking for. The bird was missing part of one claw, not enough to disable it, but enough to slow it down so that it could not run with the rest of the herd. This one had been left behind, but it would still be no easy prey.
The Ranger followed the track, moving quickly, but not making any sounds as he trailed his prey. From time to time, almost like an animal, he would stop and sniff the air, not wanting to come suddenly upon the bird and alert it to his presence. And, after following the trail for perhaps a mile or so, he caught its scent. A human’s senses would not have been sharp enough to catch it, but the Ranger smelled the creature’s faintly musky odor on the wind. He quickly judged the way the breeze was blowing to make sure he was downwind of it, then moved forward at a crouch as he began to stalk.
After covering perhaps a quarter of a mile, he could hear it. It was moving slowly, its feet making soft, thudding sounds that would have been inaudible to human ears, but not to the Ranger’s. The Ranger checked the ground once more. There were no signs of other predators. Just the same, as he continued to stalk the bird, he took his time to make sure that no other creature hunted it. Erdlands were large enough to discourage attack by all but the largest and the fiercest of the night creatures, but it would not be smart to focus only on the game at hand and neglect another predator that might be stalking it. That could lead to an unpleasant surprise, and competing with another predator for prey would not only be dangerous, but a sure way to give the erdland enough time to make good its escape.
The Ranger felt the eager anticipation of the others and ignored it. A good hunter never rushed his kill. He stalked the erdland carefully and slowly. Gradually, he closed the distance between himself and the large bird. It was fully fourteen feet in height, with a long snake-like neck and a large rounded body from which its two strong legs sprouted like stilts. Its scaly collar, which it flared and expanded when attacked to make its head look bigger and more fearsome, was folded back as it moved slowly, scanning the ground ahead of it for food. The Ranger got down very low and patiently began to circle behind it, taking care not to make the slightest sound. He ignored the eager tension of the others, not wanting anything to distract him. His movements were lithe and cat
-like as he proceeded on all fours, pausing every now and then to check the wind and make sure it had not shifted.
It took agonizing patience, for the slightest sound would alert his quarry—the merest snapping of a dry twig on some low-growing desert scrub; the slightest crunch of his foot upon some stones; a sudden shift in the breeze… The bird would be alerted to his presence in an instant and either try to run or turn and attack. An erdland was most dangerous when one was meeting it head-on.
Slowly, the Ranger advanced, gradually closing the distance between himself and his prey. The bird was still completely unaware of him, even though he had moved up to within only ten or fifteen feet of it. He was almost close enough, but not yet, not quite. He wanted to make sure.
Only eight or nine feet now. If the bird turned, it could not avoid seeing him. The moonlight on the desert rendered him clearly visible, and it was only by stealth and by keeping directly behind it that he had managed to approach this close.
The bird suddenly stopped in its tracks, its head coming up alertly as its neck straightened.
In that instant, the Ranger made his move.
With a swiftness matched only by that of an elf, he came up from all fours, ran three quick steps, and leaped. As the bird started, he landed on its back, clamping his legs tightly around its body as he seized its neck with both hands.
The bird gave out a piercing cry and jumped forward, leaping high on its powerful legs as it tried to dislodge him, while at the same time, its collar flared out wide, and its strong, muscular neck twisted in his grasp. The Ranger clamped his grip with all his might as the bird tried to twist its head around and peck him with its beak. One blow of that powerful, wedge-shaped beak could break his skull. The Ranger resisted the efforts of the bird to twist its head around. He held on squeezing hard with his legs, as the erdland hopped around erratically, trying to buck him off.
The bird tried everything to fight free of his grasp. It lunged with its long neck, trying to pull him forward and off balance so that it could fling him off, but the Ranger held on tightly and pulled back, preventing the bird from extending its neck all the way. For a moment, the erdland fought against his pull, then abruptly gave in to it and brought its neck straight back. The Ranger almost lost his balance, but he managed to hold on.
The bird leaped from one leg to the other, doing everything it could to throw him off, and the Ranger felt his muscles burning with the effort of trying to hold on. The bird twisted its head first one way, then the other, but the Ranger would not loosen his grip. As the bird brought its neck sharply back once more to force him off, he went with the motion and used the opportunity to slide his hands up quickly under the erdland’s flared out collar, to the point where the skull joined the neck.
The bird screeched as he slowly started trying to bend its head straight up and back. Its leaping redoubled, but the Ranger held on. It tried to extend its neck out once again, but he pulled back against it, straining as he forced its head up farther until the bird’s beak was aimed straight up at the sky. It snapped that wedge-shaped beak uselessly and shrieked as he forced its head back, the muscles on his arms standing out like cords. And then, the neck broke.
The bird dropped like a stone, falling heavily to the ground, and the Ranger rolled free of it, landing hard and scrambling to get away from its legs as it thrashed several times, and then lay still. The others exulted in the thrill of it. The Ranger got up and removed the hunting knife from his sheath. He bent down and lifted one of the bird’s long legs and slit its soft underbelly open. The blood gushed forth, and the smell of it was heady. The Ranger threw back his head and gave out a triumphant cry. The others felt his joy and sense of accomplishment, the fulfillment of his purpose. They celebrated with him. Then they began to feed.
The Ranger did not hurry as he headed back toward the place where they had camped. They had all eaten their fill and left enough behind to satisfy a hoard of scavengers. Nothing would be wasted. Only the bones of the large bird would be left to bleach slowly in the desert sun, after its scales had dried up and fluttered away upon the wind. After a successful hunt, the Ranger liked to walk and feel the night, savor its sounds and smells, open up his spirit to the vastness of the desert.
Unlike the shelter of the forest on the Ringing Mountains, where he enjoyed the canopy of leaves above him and felt the closeness of the trees, the tablelands were wide and open, a seemingly infinite desert plain that stretched out as far as the eye could see. The Ranger felt a strong affinity for the forest, for it was and would always be his home, but the desert possessed its own sweet and savage beauty. It was as if he could feel himself expanding in a hopeless effort to fill it with his presence. The forest was comfortable and cozy, but here, there was room to breathe. There was a different sort of solitude out on the tablelands. A solitude that filled him with a sense of the vastness of the harsh world that he lived in, the majesty of it. For all the desolation of the desert, there was a serene quality to it that filled one with a sense of peace. It could be a brutal, dangerous, and unforgiving place where violence struck suddenly at the unwary, but to one who did not fight it and who could accept its ways it could be a place of transformation.
The Child had almost died out on the desert once before, many years ago. Instead, the tribe had been born there, and had returned now and learned how to survive in it. And, on the tablelands of Athas, survival was no mean accomplishment. The Ranger dwelled upon these thoughts as he made his way unerringly back to the camp.
Then suddenly he stopped. All his senses were sharp and focused. An instant later, he knew what had alerted him, and he began to run, full speed, back toward the camp.
* * *
Ryana reached quickly for her crossbow, but in the instant she had taken her eyes away, the shadow disappeared. Rising to her knees, she quickly pulled the bow back and inserted a bolt from her quiver. She held the bow in front of her, ready to raise it on the instant, her gaze scanning the area around her. Perhaps it had only been her imagination, but she was certain she had seen something moving out there. Whatever that shadow was, it seemed to have slithered away into the night.
Ryana moistened her lips, which suddenly felt very dry. She wished that Sorak would return. She remained perfectly motionless, alert, bow held ready, her ears straining to hear the slightest sound. Off in the distance, the cry of some beast echoed. Something making a kill, or being killed. It sounded far away. She longed to throw some fresh wood on the fire, which was almost out now, but she hesitated to put down the crossbow. Could it have been only a trick of the moonlight? The chill night breeze ruffled her long hair as she crouched and waited, listening intently. Was that something moving, or was it just the wind, rustling the scrub brush?
For what seemed a long time, Ryana remained motionless, her crossbow held ready. There was no sign of movement out beyond their camp, and she could now hear nothing but the rustling of the wind in the dry desert grass and the pagafa branches overhead. The fire was almost completely out now. She expelled her breath, suddenly realizing that she had been holding it, put down the crossbow, and reached for some more branches to put on the fire.
A shadow suddenly fell over her, and she felt powerful arms closing around her from behind.
With a cry, she raised her arms up and slithered out of the attacker’s grasp, then rolled and kicked out in a sweeping motion behind her with one leg. She felt her foot connect with something and heard a deep grunt as someone or something fell to the ground, then she rolled to her feet to face whatever it was that had attacked her.
The dry branches she had dropped onto the fire suddenly burst into flame, and she saw what at first looked like a man getting to his feet. He was very tall and powerfully built, with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, long dark hair, and gaunt features. But the proportions were all wrong somehow. With his exceedingly long arms and legs, he looked almost like a male villichi, though, of course, that was impossible. She saw his pointed ears and thought he was an elf, and
then she saw his hands as he raised them up in front of him, fingers hooked like claws. The hands were very large, more than twice the size of normal human hands, and the fingers were at least three times as long. They seemed to flare out at the tips, and then she suddenly realized what they were. Suckers. With an involuntary shudder, she realized what she was facing. It was neither man nor elf. It was a thrax.
At one point, it must have been a human, but it was not a human anymore. It was a vile creature that had been created by another like itself. The first thraxes were abominations created by defiler magic as a scourge to direct against their enemies. But not even the defilers had been able to control them. They ran wild and escaped into the desert, where they stealthily preyed on travelers. Shifting into shadow form, the thraxes would creep up on their unwary victims and then solidify behind them, grasping them in powerful arms, fastening suckers on them and draining their bodies of moisture. They would inflict such pain that usually their victims could not even struggle, and they would die in agony, reduced to desiccated corpses.
Ryana had never heard of anyone who had survived a thrax attack. Even if the victim broke free somehow, as this one must have done, contact with those suckers would make the vile magic that created the vampiric creatures pass to the victim, and in time, another thrax would be created. The magical mutation would begin with an aching in the hands and feet, then in the arms and legs as the bones started to elongate. The pain would increase, spreading out throughout the entire body, and then the skin at the fingertips would rupture and begin to bleed as the flesh sprouted into suckers. At the same time, the raging thirst would strike, a thirst that could, perhaps, be initially assuaged by draining the moisture from small mammals, but that was not enough. The thirst would grow and grow, driving out all sanity, and only a victim that was humanoid or human could provide enough bodily moisture to slake it… and then only for a short time.
