The Paper Sword

by Robert Priest

  Unfortunately for Smedenage, he’d charged into an old, overgrown part of a tunnel through the surrounding rose hedge. It narrowed as it proceeded and soon he was far too big for it. Thorns pierced and scraped at him as he forced his panicky way onward. Hardly aware of the numerous rips and tears in his portly torso, he barrelled at last out the other side, a ragged, bloody mess. But where was his boar? Desperately he whistled for it. It didn’t come. Fearful for his life, still whistling, he ran on into the darkness under the trees, Xemion in pursuit.

  “Stop!” Xemion yelled. But Rotan Smedenage didn’t stop.

  “Hey!” Smedenage kept calling for his boar in a hoarse whisper. “Here. Here.” But there was still no earth pig and he could hear Xemion’s sure stride coming closer through the undergrowth.

  “I’ll set the Pathan dogs on you!” Smedenage shrieked as he tore forward. And then his foot alighted on something that was not ground. It was, in fact, thin air. Rotan Smedenage had just stepped over the edge of a deep ravine.

  8

  An Unfortunate Fall

  In the front room of the tower tree, Chiricoru lay slumped beside the spindle, a wing extended to touch the floor where Anya Kuzelnika’s foot had once rested. Only a month ago she had sat here weaving a new cloak for Saheli. Its colourful threads, like those of an unravelled rainbow, still radiated out from the loom and over the carpet in all directions just as she had left them. Unable to comfort the bird, Saheli set about lighting the seasonal jack-o’-lanterns that hung overhead, but their strange orange grins seemed suddenly hideous and improper, so she removed the candles and arranged them in a solemn semi-circle on the table beside the sofa. At last Xemion returned, Rotan Smedenage’s sword still hanging limply from his hand.

  “He’s gone,” he announced, his voice still trembling with rage. “He fell over the cliff.”

  Saheli’s mouth hung open in shock. “That’s awful. Are you sure?”

  “Not entirely. I definitely heard him scream. I think I heard an impact. Then I found his boar just standing there in the forest, so I smacked his behind and sent him running away down the path. So, whether he’s dead or alive, he won’t be bothering us too soon. And even if he does, I still have his weapon.” With some distaste he leaned Rotan Smedenage’s bronze blade in the corner, forgetting the painted sword in the scabbard at his side.

  “This is terrible,” Saheli said.

  “How is Chiricoru?” Xemion bent down to look closer at the injured swan. Saheli shook her head and opened her hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  “It is lucky her neck isn’t broken,” she answered finally. “In the morning I will have to pick some comfrey and make her a poultice.”

  “In the morning,” Xemion said as gently as possible, “we will have to take Chiricoru and leave this place.”

  Saheli closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. “Oh no.”

  “Even if that man is dead, someone will come to find him. And when they do, it won’t be just one man with one sword. It’ll be many men with many swords — and Pathan dogs.”

  She shook her head and wrung her hands. But she knew he was right. “This is not a good time for Chiricoru to travel,” Saheli said, dread and desperation in her voice. “Her neck is all swollen. If it gets much worse I’m afraid she might not be able to breathe.”

  “I know,” Xemion said bitterly. “We’ll have to carry her.”

  “Well, where will we go?” Saheli asked. But she already knew the answer.

  Xemion shrugged. “There’s only one way to go.”

  Saheli frowned at this but she nodded in the affirmative.

  “At least we have a real weapon now,” Xemion said, nodding toward the bronze sword in the corner.

  All that night while Chiricoru gasped and rattled, they gathered supplies to take with them on their journey. Xemion collected anything that might be used as a weapon. He found an old copper rake and some cutlery, including a bronze bread knife. These he gathered in the corner with Smedenage’s sword, ready for their flight, while Saheli secured the locket and stuffed a jute bag with enough food for two days’ walk.

  Just before dawn they tried to lift the sleeping Chiricoru delicately into the second jute sack they had rigged to carry her in. Unfortunately, they must have disturbed the bird in the midst of some kind of avian nightmare for she awoke with a start and for a second her mighty wings flapped open and she came at them hissing with fury. This sent Xemion sprawling back against the table where the painted sword, still at his side, struck one of the candles.

  It was a big candle and the moment its stream of molten tallow hit the carpet, it ignited. Saheli screamed. Chiricoru gobbled, terrified, as Xemion stamped at the flames. He might have succeeded in putting the fire out if Chiricoru hadn’t spread her wings and run fearfully for the door, sending the rest of the candles toppling to the floor, their tallow launched in ten different directions. Like starved beasts that had not eaten for years, the flames spilled across the carpet, ate their way up the threads, and ignited the half-finished cloak in the loom.

  “Take Chiricoru,” Xemion screamed, still trying to stamp the fire out. But even as Saheli grabbed the bird and fled, one of the flames ran along a green thread from the inferno of the loom to the wicker of the divan and in an instant it began to devour the sofa. From there it leapt across the floor and onto the wood and wicker of the other furniture. It consumed the tapestry on the south wall in an instant, its famished tongue darting up toward one of the high windows. Xemion yelled as the fire began to climb up his boots and singe his cloak.

  Outside, Saheli was still trying to secure the frantic Chiricoru in the carrying bag when Xemion burst out of the door, his cloak on fire, his boots aflame. By the time he managed to suffocate the flames in his clothing, embers were beginning to fall from the scorched, crackling canopy above. Xemion looked for a moment as though he might be ready to dash back into the house.

  “His sword is still in there,” he shouted over the increasing roar of the fire.

  Saheli shook her head. “No, Xemion. You’ll have to leave it.”

  “But we’ll have nothing to defend ourselves with,” he protested.

  “No! You’ll get burned to death in there.”

  Xemion clenched his jaw angrily but as the flames continued to rise he saw the sense in it. He touched the hilt of the mock sword at his side. “Well, we do have this,” he said.

  Saheli did not look the least bit comforted. She shook her head and frowned and hurriedly returned to her task, finally managing to get the bird securely fastened onto her back in the sling-like device she had turned the bag into. The two of them dashed toward the surrounding thicket and through the tunnel to the other side. There they turned to see the orange flames rising up through the branches of the tower tree.

  “I’m so sorry, Anya,” Saheli yelled in a choked voice. “I should never have moved those candles.”

  “Goodbye, Anya Kuzelnika,” Xemion called out sadly.

  Before they set off into the eastern forest they examined the edge of the crevice where Rotan Smedenage had ended his flight last night. At the bottom of the rock face they could clearly see a black Pathan boot emerging from the undergrowth.

  “Do you think the rest of him is down there?” Saheli asked quietly.

  Xemion bit his bottom lip and narrowed his eyes. “Well, he definitely went over the edge, but the only way we’d know for sure is if we went down there and found him.”

  Saheli shook her head. “I don’t think we can. It would be far too dangerous to climb down there.”

  “I agree. So …”

  “So, let’s depart then,” Saheli said somberly.

  With that the two of them, aided more by the light of their burning home than by that of the incipient dawn, proceeded into the forest in the only direction they could: East toward the ancient capital of Ulde. East toward the rebellion.

  Saheli rubbed her palm repeatedly down the side of her leg as she walked. “I really wish you had
not shaken that man’s hand,” she said.

  9

  Pathan Dogs

  Despite that imbalanced feeling one gets when one is missing a boot, Rotan Smedenage was at that very moment making his way on foot back to the village of Sho. It had taken quick reflexes and skill last night to grab on to the tree root that jutted out from the side of the crevice, several feet down from the edge. And then it had taken a quite commendable amount of strength to pull himself up so he could stand on the root and lift himself from there up to the forest floor.

  As he trotted along now, he clung to the tiny iota of pride this feat aroused in him just as desperately as he had clung to that tree root. But it was not enough. Below him yawned a great abyss of shame: Shame that he had been tricked. Shame that he had called out to a mere maid for his life. Shame that he had waited there trembling throughout the night hoping against hope that his earth boar might return. Only when dawn was coming, not long before the fire erupted in the tower tree, had he finally dared to set off on foot back to Sho. If he had only had the courage to leave earlier it would have closed the gap in his pursuit by several hours. Now he had to waste time walking away from them before he could re-arm himself and return to pursue them.

  By the time he reached the perimeter of Sho, several hours later, Rotan Smedenage’s shame had begun to transform into something a little easier for him to accept: rage. He clenched his fists over and over as he stomped through the empty streets bellowing the names of the inhabitants. Regrettably for his plan to enlist a group of them and set off in immediate pursuit of Xemion and Saheli, all the able-bodied were once again out at sea and this time they’d either taken their badly beaten children with them or instructed them to hide in the forest. For a moment he was filled with a new panic. What if the boy and the girl got away? He doubted they were stupid enough to remain there in that hollowed out tree they lived in. They were probably fleeing right now. And they had his sword! And they would already be hours and hours ahead of him. And where was his boar? Shoving two meaty fingers between his lips, he unleashed a shrill whistle that echoed over the treetops and reached even the ears of Torgee and Tharfen who, in accordance with their parents’ instructions, were hiding in the shack in the forest where their family kept their fishing equipment. Torgee sat up immediately from the makeshift cot he was lying on. “That’s him!” This drew no response from Tharfen, who after a long night of pain and a deep rage of her own had finally fallen into a fitful slumber. Torgee’s own slow anger now gripped him. He got up quietly, grabbed the club his father used for killing fish, and furtively opened the door.

  To Rotan Smedenage’s relief his whistle was followed by a slight tremor in the ground, which increased as the massive boar, helplessly conditioned into subservience, ran to him. The examiner smiled his gentlest smile as the beast approached. Only when he had its reins in his hand did he punch it solidly on the nose. “Who told you to run?” He mounted the broad-backed animal and rode it to the kennel ship, which was anchored to a nearby dock.

  Still one-booted, the examiner boarded the barge and slotted the key into the keyhole of the kennel door. There was a creak and a reek and a long lean snout full of fanged teeth poked through the opening emitting a high-pitched whimpering whine. He gave the nose a good smack. “Back,” he commanded, his voice firm and unquestionable. Instantly the snout withdrew and as he opened the door the first streak of sunlight in three foodless days poured into the inner recesses of the Pathan dog kennel.

  Seeing those long fangs and hearing the racket from within as the other dogs began to howl in hunger, Torgee, watching from his hiding spot in the grass, knew that his plan, a plan to exact some instant retribution on the examiner for what he’d done to Tharfen, would have to wait. Trembling slightly with a mixture of rage and fear, he watched as Smedenage, dispensing a small chunk of codfish, allowed the first dog to emerge. Immediately its long snout sniffed at the examiner, seeking out those red hieroglyphs of blood written by the rose thorns all over his white garment.

  “Yes, I am bleeding,” the examiner acknowledged with an almost gleeful pride as the animal nudging up the edge of his robe began to lick at his lower shins and calves. The examiner enabled this by pulling his robe up higher, exposing his full leg. Another dog emerged now and it followed suit, licking the examiner’s other leg. “Yes, I have survived a vicious attack. They think they have killed me. But here I am.” As a third dog emerged, the first now abandoned the well-slathered shins of its master and leapt to the dock and the shore and began to nose about in the grass hungrily. “Now, I hope, my boys, that you are ready to eat. Because you will soon have two tender lambs to sink your teeth into.”

  Bred for centuries in the tunnels of the underearth to hunt the mole-kind, the dogs had long, white, almost luminous heads, crystal eyes, and deep, thin-lipped, snarling mouths in which the two sets of curving fangs interlocked at their tips like daggers. Once they fastened themselves to something it was highly unlikely it would ever be free again. Torgee thought of Saheli being caught in the grip of those hideous teeth and he had to take a deep silent breath to contain his fear for her.

  Seven dogs had now exited the kennel, blinking at the sudden light. Each one, after serving time licking at their master’s ravaged thighs and arms, nosed about in the wet grass looking for food. Finding none, they began to whine and release the characteristic bone-like howls that so terrified the tunneling creatures of the underearth.

  “Oh yes, my boys. They think I’m dead. They think they are out of danger, but you will soon be at their throats, won’t you?”

  Torgee continued watching as the examiner retrieved his second set of footwear, a pair of lambskin moccasins, from the cabin. Evenly shoed now, he gingerly remounted his boar and set off with his dogs for the roadway up to the plateau. As soon as they were out of sight, Torgee quietly and quickly made his way back to the shack.

  Tharfen was still lying on her belly with her mother’s comfrey cream glistening on the red ridges the examiner’s beating had left in her buttocks and the back of her thighs. The intense burning pain enraged her and her mind was full of a lust for vengeance such as she had never known. Every movement cost her, but when Torgee rushed in and told her what he had seen and she thought of those vicious things tearing away at Xemion she forced herself to rise. Torgee tried to convince her that he should go alone to warn them but she could not be dissuaded from joining him.

  “You can warn them on your own,” she said through gritted teeth, “but then you and them will kill him without me. And then I won’t have no vengeance. And I want my vengeance.” She dressed herself quickly and grabbed her sling along with a good handful of her sharpest stones. Torgee used the time to gather the leather pouch in which he kept his lures and snares.

  Even as the examiner once again flayed raw the hide of the poor boar, forcing it up the irregular increments of the old road, Torgee and Tharfen were rapidly climbing almost straight up through the narrow chimney of rock that led by a much shorter route to the plateau above. This would give them at least a two-hour advantage. The burning pain at the back of Tharfen’s thighs did not slow her down. If anything, when they got to the top of the plateau and began to run through the forest, she pushed that awful pain and that mounting outrage into her running and proceeded all the faster because of it. Even with their shortcut, it took them until midmorning to get to the tower tree, but by that time they had seen the rising plume of smoke above the forest and were not exactly surprised by what they found.

  “Do you think they’re in there?” Tharfen asked as matter-of-factly as possible.

  Torgee sniffed mightily at one of the tendrils of swirling smoke that streamed off the blackened branches of the tree about the tower. Exhaling, he shook his head. “I think they’ve run off.”

  “With their old Mum?”

  Torgee shook his head knowingly. “I don’t think their old Mum will be going nowhere with nobody.”

  “What do you mean?” Tharfen asked, a littl
e angrily.

  “Look.” Torgee pointed to the fire-blackened stone that Xemion and Saheli had erected at the edge of the clearing.

  “You mean …” As the implications of this sank in, Tharfen grew truly angry. “That Xemion is such a liar!”

  “I’m not so surprised,” Torgee said, sniffing the air. “I knew something was amiss. I think he was just keeping quiet to protect Saheli.”

  “Such a liar!” Tharfen repeated.

  “But not as good as he thinks he is,” Torgee asserted, with a tap of his nose.

  With a trained tracker’s eye he assessed the area as best he could, noticing outside the perimeter the examiner’s green boot at the bottom of the gorge.

  “That’s why they think he’s dead,” he said with great concern.

  “So they won’t know that he’s after them with the dogs,” Tharfen said, trying to keep the tone of worry out of her voice.

  Torgee just shook his head. “I’m going to have to go and warn them.”

  “Not without me,” Tharfen said.

  Torgee looked at his sister warily. He knew there was no use in arguing. He shrugged.

  “What will we tell mother?” Tharfen asked.

  “We don’t tell her nothing,” Torgee said authoritatively. “We run and we get to Xemion and Saheli and then we run right back and no one knows nothing.”

  Tharfen bent down to pick up one of Chiricoru’s feathers and Torgee saw the flicker of pain in her eyes as the motion stretched the skin on the back of her thighs.

  “Are you going to be able to bear it?” he asked, his eyes averted.

  Tharfen’s ambition was to be hard. Hard like her mother. And her mother was the hardest woman in the whole village of Cape Sho. “I couldn’t bear not doing it,” she shot back, a little offended at the suggestion.

  And so for the second day in a row, Torgee exercised his extraordinary tracking skills. His long, elegant nose flared mightily, sniffing the smoky air as he examined the grass beyond the ashes for tracks. And then he caught a scent and the two of them set off into the forest.