by Franc Ingram
Leith’s initial instinct was to find the closest hole to hide in and stay put, but as word came that the yetis were heading into the market, staying seemed foolish. He chose to follow a group heading out the east end of the market, staying on the fringes of the group in case things went bad and he needed a quick getaway.
Yeti incursions always made Leith anxious. It wasn’t from fear. He’d experienced enough fear in his lifetime to know the difference. No, it felt more like when he had too much to drink at a rowdy bar, and the urge to fight burned its way through his veins. The yeti’s proximity set something off in him that was both invigorating, and disturbing. The connection gave him the advantage when keeping away from the beasts, one he intended to use to the fullest.
After shoveling the last bit of pastry into his mouth, Leith noticed an itch on his forearm. He scratched at it mindlessly, keeping his eyes on his surroundings. Things seemed all clear, but the further Leith and his group traveled from the center of the market, the more dread built in the back of his mind.
If they were moving away from the beasts, why did he feel the urge to turn around and go back? When the itch turned into a burning, Leith stopped in his tracks, puzzled. He rolled up his sleeve, and glancing at his arm, he nearly jumped out of his own skin.
“By the Twelve,” he gasped, fear racing through his veins like a freight train and cutting his usually strong voice down to a strangled squeak. Through the sprinkling of brown hair his arm was glowing like a dimly lit candle in a bright room. The world slowed down around him and nothing else matter but the unnatural weirdness happening under his own skin. How could his skin glow? Leith thought, shock making his body stiff and his mind slow.
Leith yanked up his other sleeve frantically, but saw nothing amiss. He scrambled to check his legs and torso just to be sure. Only the one spot was affected. His birthmark emitted a soft yellow light.
Leith was sure he’d picked up some crazy death worm. The fact that it happened to be under the mark had to be just a funny coincidence. But what happened next was not amusing. The mark rotated. Leith shook his head, and blinked rapidly, certain he didn’t see what he thought he saw. The parasite had him hallucinating now. It happened again, and all Leith could think about was removing the creature before it killed him.
Pulling his well-used dagger from the pocket against his chest, Leith was determined to put himself to the blade. No parasite was going to take over his body. He’d dig it out before that happened.
Leith took a deep breath, steeling himself against the coming pain, as he pressed the tip of his blade against his arm when a tingling at the back of his neck made him look up. Two yetis half-lunged, half-stumbled out of the doorway two buildings ahead of where Leith was standing. They both barred their over-sized, hooked canines as soon as their eyes locked on the crowd. Panic set in, and people scattered in every direction.
Indecision rooted Leith to the spot. The scattered people were occupying the yetis’ attention. Leith didn’t even come into their sightline.
Get the death worm out, then run for the hills if any approach, Leith thought to himself. It sounded like a reasonable enough plan. Let the scattered masses distract the beasts.
Focusing once again on the glowing worm, Leith returned his blade to his arm when he heard someone approaching from behind. He turned ready to fight
“Hey, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a young male voice yelled from behind Leith.
“Can’t a man cut his arm in peace?” Leith muttered in complaint, exasperated by the loony situation he found himself in.
He turned and assessed the two people heading his way. The young man, who couldn't be older than eighteen, wore excitement on his face, and held his sword high in attack, confidence radiating from every move he made. His light-brown skin and light-weave clothing marked him as a non-native of Solon.
The other, a stern-looking woman Leith’s age, had her hood pulled over her head, her round face cloaked in shadow, and her brown eyes narrow and intense. Her double blades were held close to her body, defensively as if at any moment, the world around her would explode and she needed to protect herself. She was average height, with an hourglass figure. Instead of being billowy, she was all lean muscle. Leith found himself intrigued by the oddity of the pair, distracting him from his own peril.
“I said, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the young man repeated his warning, slowing down enough to give Leith a once over, making him feel like a prized pig on display. “You're going to need that as we go along,” Lorn indicated Leith’s glowing birthmark with a nod. “Besides the mark is more than skin deep. It will just keep glowing, because it’s written in your DNA. I’m Lorn by the way,” he introduced himself with a smile and a tap on Leith's shoulder. “You have no idea how happy I am to meet you. Can you feel the…” he stopped short as the woman broke in.
“Lorn,” the she warned in a sharp tone that immediately settled the strange boy. She’d taken up a defensive position in front of Leith as if her purpose was to protect him. Why, he couldn’t begin to fathom. He struggled to process the past few moments. The boy's words had come at him so fast his brain was still trying to decipher them.
“Sorry. Staying focused,” the young man apologized. Then he turned his attention to the yetis.
Two more had made their way out of the shop, and the last one seemed very intent on the trio. Leith was suddenly very glad to have the added protection of this odd pair. He hoped they were as tough as they looked.
“Flank them on the left, keep them from going after the human sheep,” the woman ordered the young man, gesturing with her hand. “I’ll go right, and try to push them back out into the field, and hopefully over the wall. And you,” the woman said, turning to stare at Leith, with brown eyes that held a sadness to them that Leith instantly connected with. “Stay here and try not to get yourself killed, because that would really ruin my day.”
Leith nodded in agreement, channeling his inner obedient puppy. Sit. Stay. Be good. He could manage that. Something told him getting on the intimidating woman’s bad side was something he never wanted to do. Now he could add ‘weird kid, and crazy lady’ to the list of encounters he’d had today. It wasn’t a good list, and he didn’t wish to lengthen it.
Then Leith had a thought. Maybe the pastry he'd stolen early had been laced with something, and it was all just a bad dream. Before Leith could ponder over it the pair took off, splitting up as the woman planned.
Staring at his arm, Leith shut his fear down and thought over his options. If what the kid said was right, that this mark was in his DNA, cutting into his arm would only leave him with a dangerous wound. Why he should he trust the word of some random stranger though? Leith wondered. Still, the kid talked with authority, like he’d encountered glowing birthmarks before.
Leith’s brow furrowed deeper, bemused at the thought that there could be more people with this phenomenon that just him. On top of that, Leith remembered the smell of his spilled blood would just excite the yetis even more. Leith was sure the odd couple could handle the yetis, or at the very least provide enough of a distraction for Leith to leave safely. He decided to make his way home, out of the path of monsters, and figure things out there.
Leith took three careful steps back, until he was aligned with the Caitlin Bakery’s door. It was cracked open, and he knew the rear entrance lead straight to an open field. He could cut across it, and end up on Tanner road, which lead past the market and presented the quickest way to his house.
Choosing safety over obedience, Leith opened the bakery door enough to let him squeeze through. Once inside, he took one last look back at his rescuers, if he could call them that. While they weren’t his concern, Leith did feel a twinge of regret at just leaving them without so much as a goodbye.
The woman already had one of the beasts down. Leith couldn’t tell if it was just knocked out, or dead. She had another backed up against a wall, looking hesitant to attack. The boy kept his two opponents at b
ay, lunging at them sporadically when they tried to approach. This gave what stragglers were left, time to make their escape back toward the market.
Leith didn’t see any need to worry about them. He couldn’t have done half as good a job in their place. He made his way through the bakery, picking up a few abandoned items as he went along. No need to let them go to waste, he mused as an addict of all things sweet and stolen. The apple popover was still warm, fresh from the oven, which kicked his salivary glands into overdrive.
Ignoring the birthmark became easier as he went along. The burning returned to a mild itch, which he countered with the warm goodness of a fresh dessert in his mouth. Mmmmm, so good, he thought, closing his eyes in rapture. His mind left the craziness of outside, and focused on what to do next. When he got home he’d take a nice long nap and forget all about weird strangers, and glowing death worms.
Leith pushed the back door with his shoulder, but it wouldn’t move. He looked down to see it was locked. He had to stuff a buttered roll into his mouth to free a hand to turn the lock. He shoved hard on the old door to get it open, stumbling out into daylight, and disturbing a yeti finishing its baymar meal.
“Wrong way,” Leith gulped, as he scrambled to close the door. It was too late.
The yeti tore the wooden door from Leith’s hands, knocking it off its hinges. Leith hurled the remaining rolls at the beast before turning and running. He ducked left into the kitchen where the large ovens were still cooking away at abandoned breads, filling the air with a bitter charred smell. Cowering behind a prep station, Leith, sweat dripping from his forehead and his breathing came in gasps, mentally begged the yeti to find some other toy to play with. He rooted around in his mind for a way out.
What tools could he find in a bakery that would do any good against the beast? Where did all the workers go? They had to have fled to a nearby shelter. Where could it be? Leith tried to reason quickly. Inside the bakery? Next door?
If Leith could just find the nearest shelter, he could hide there. After all, the shelters were made to withstand an all-out yeti assault. Leith knew all the alleyways and shortcuts in the city. Somewhere on that twisted map in his head had to be the location of the shelter. He just had to think.
The yeti burst in, its thick black claws clicking against the hard brick floor, banishing all of Leith’s concentration. The yeti crashed its way through the place, knocking over pans and other cookware. Flour sprayed in the air dusting the floor near Leith’s feet with little white splotches.
Leith looked at the dagger still clutched in his hand. It wasn’t his first choice of weapon against the deadly beast, but he knew how to handle it with enough skill to do damage, if it came to that.
Before the yeti could get too close, Leith darted up, jutting in between a large sink and the double-sized ice box taking up a quarter of the short wall of the rectangular room. The brick was slick with its fresh layer of flour. He fell to his knees, sliding out the door and into the display case, knocking eclairs onto his head. In any other circumstances Leith would have been thrilled to have such free access to so many sweet treats, instead they were just annoyances that he flung aside.
The scratching of claws against brick headed Leith’s direction. He took the hint to get moving, and vaulted over the counter. If he could get back out into the street, the odd couple could take care of this one as they had the others, and Leith could be peacefully on his way.
He stumbled out onto the unforgiving cobblestone street, knees first, sending a shockwave of pain up his legs and into his guts. Before he could clear his head enough to get his feet under him, something sharp cut its way into his back. Leith's breath caught in his throat as pain burned its way through his insides.
Instinctively, Leith elbowed his attacker and tumbled forward into a rough somersault, landing squarely on his feet, staring eye to eye with the snarling yeti. He could feel the beast’s hot breath spurting out of its flared nostrils. Looking at the yeti this close, his dagger seemed like nothing more than a toothpick. The yeti was six and a half feet tall, its shoulders as broad as the door they’d just come through. Coarse light-gray fur covered it from head to toe. Its deep black eyes with their striking diamond shaped white pupil reminded Leith of some of the alley cats he tumbled with in the dark, running from a house he'd raided. Its thin-lipped mouth hung open showing a purplish tongue and a double row of sharp teeth. Bloody bits of baymar flesh still clung to the edges of its mouth. The beast’s surprisingly long fingers ended in curved white claws that looked ready to cut Leith open.
The yeti charged, knocking Leith to the ground before he could brace himself. It took all his strength, and both of his hands around the beast's neck, to keep the massive mouth from chomping down on his face. The weight of the yeti pressed the grip of his dagger into his palm.
Leith pushed with every ounce of his strength, shaking with the massive effort of heaving the yeti’s heavy body up far enough to allow him to pull his knees up to his chest, taking the pressure off his hands. The yeti’s teeth snapped mindlessly, aiming for his neck and face. Leith banged his head against stone trying to stay out of reach.
He leveraged the yeti off his dagger hand, straining every muscle he had from the chest down, muscles he'd built over hard nights scaling brick houses and darting over rooftops. Staring into the awful putrid maw of the beast, Leith adjusted his grip on his small blade, then with what strength he had left, he plunged it deep into the yeti’s chest.
The blade met some resistance from the armor-like coarse hair encasing the beast, but the howl that escaped its lips let Leith know he’d done some damage. The beast reared back, taking the blade with it. Leith didn’t squander his opportunity. He rolled to the right, pushing off the ground with both hands and feet. He spun on the balls of feet, and came face to face with the angry yeti, the blade still sticking out from its mound of fur, blood falling onto the street in thick globs.
It charged, but this time Leith was ready. He took a running start at the side of the brick building, catapulting off it, landing a hard left-cross along the yeti’s jaw. Throwing all the weight of his stocky frame into the move, he followed it up with an equally forceful right hook.
As a teenager, Leith often used his ability to fight equally with the right or left to his advantage, catching the uninformed opponent off guard. But it had been some time since he’d had to fight his way out of anything, and even longer since he’d actually practiced. His second blow glanced off the yeti’s nose making a sickening crunching noise. Leith feared he’d broken his hand until blood spewed from the creature’s nose.
It took a shaky step forward and fell to its knees. Leith didn’t give it time to recover. He leaped over it, stepping across its back, and almost bisecting himself on the strange lady’s blade.
“I told you not to get killed,” the woman complained with a scowl. Her glare held a fierce anger that Leith didn’t feel he deserved.
“Yeah well, I tried very hard not to,” he panted, trying to catch his breath. He patted at his chest to reassure himself that all his parts were still intact. Leith heard a scraping noise behind him and turned to see the yeti taking off down the street, back towards the market.
The woman took off after the yeti without another word. Leith was relieved to see her go. The mean look in her eyes was probably what made the yeti run, and Leith was grateful for that, but her attitude puzzled him. He just didn’t have the energy to decipher it at the moment, though.
The boy, stealthier than a mouse, snuck up on Leith, startling him. He was smiling at Leith like a fool. “I saw that move you did at the end,” he exclaimed. “It was amazing!” he laid a hand on Leith’s arm, vibrating with excitement. “Stay here, we need to talk.” With those words, he too, took off after the beast.
In their wake, they left two yetis down, although Leith wasn’t getting close enough to check to see if they were breathing. There was broken glass and splintered wood strewn about the street, otherwise it was deserted. Leith felt
like a fool, having not tucked away in the shelters like everyone else.
There was no need to stick around. Leith needed to get home, tend to his wounds, and do whatever it took to forget about the day. He ran the opposite way of the yeti like his life depended on it.
CHAPTER FIVE: CORNELIUS
Cornelius stood deep within the latest branch of his growing ice cave network, pondering an expansion, when he heard someone approaching. He peeled his eyes away from his target and back down the hall he’d come to find his son, Tannin approaching. His fragmented reflection bounced around the rough ice walls like a thousand mini Tannins moving in for the attack.
“Father, I have news.”
From the etched lines around Tannin’s sharp eyes, and the deep note in his voice, Cornelius could tell his son’s news wasn’t of a pleasant nature. He turned back to the wall, not wanting anything negative to come between him and his work. “Speak,” he ordered.
“A group of eight yetis ventured into the city today in search of a change in food. Only four have returned. I fear the rest are dead.”
Cornelius slammed his fist against the wall, shattering the ice, and revealing the pitted rock beneath. “Why do they never listen?” he demanded. “They’re only supposed to go on approved raids to the city, and never make a direct attack on the citizens. They’re only to use scare tactics to keep people on edge, and test defenses.
“I know father,” Tannin agreed with a placating nod of his head.
“We aren’t strong enough yet to take on the Solonians,” Cornelius reminded him curtly.
“Yes father.”
“If they keep breaching the wall without cause, soon the rangers will send out hunting parties. What will the yetis do then?”
“Die I suspect,” Tannin suggested.
“Exactly,” Cornelius agreed, “and then the last seventy years of secretly building up our numbers will be for nothing. If those mindless fools force me to act before everything is set, they will regret it.” Cornelius loved his son Tannin. The boy was loyal, smart, dedicated, and strong. He tolerated the yetis because they were easy to produce and served a purpose. Of late, they were proving to be more and more unruly. He would have no need for them if they couldn’t follow simple instructions.
