Fiction River: Unnatural Worlds

by Fiction River

  Instantly Dval crouched low, lest any survivors spot him, and pulled his dagger from its hip sheath. The handle of his obsidian blade felt good in his hand.

  Near the carriage, trunks had tumbled open, spilling dresses and undergarments, while a pair of mangled horses lay broken over boulders. One animal struggled to breathe, while the other had given up the fight.

  The driver had been thrown far downhill and lay wrapped around a tree, preternaturally still. Dval wondered what treasure they might have left behind. He knew that he should run and tell his uncle what had happened. His uncle was the leader of their tribe.

  But the lure of treasure called. Dval bounded down the hillside, his leather moccasins whispering through dry grasses. The only sounds were the songs of cicadas among the scrub oak, and the distant screech of a burrow owl. Overhead, stars glimmered dully in a smoke-filled sky.

  The smell of smoke worried him.

  On the plains in the distance, crimson flames burned in a crescent, as if Fire itself had shaped a scythe to harvest the fields to the Mystarrians. Winds from the sea swept the scythe steadily westward.

  The sight of flames filled Dval with foreboding. He had not yet heard of the “grey fleet” that had been sighted near the Courts of Tide. He had not heard of the inhuman “toth” and their strange ways. Yet all the events that would shape his destiny had been set in motion.

  When he reached the wagon, Dval checked on the live horse; its cavernous breaths thundered in and out. Its back was broken, and it could barely lift its head, but it smelled him and stirred, a whinny that was part scream, then turned enough to see him. Dval rested one hand on the horse’s chest, to calm the poor creature. As its breathing eased, he peered about.

  Dval studied the fine carriage—black lacquered wood without any markings. He found a door on the ground. Silver inlay in the black lacquer outlined a man’s face with a beard and hair made of oak leaves. He recognized instantly the symbol of Mystarria.

  He found a guardsman near the wreck—a young knight in fishmail and helm. The fine steel would be worth a fortune, he knew, and the soldier wore a gold ring. Dval worked the ring free from the man’s fingers, put it on.

  Farther downhill lay another woman, a young matron, with glazed eyes peering up into the stars, as if to ponder eternity.

  Dval smiled. Keep pondering, woman.

  The wounded horse cried. Dval loved horses, so he drew the knight’s bastard sword from its sheath. The blade was made of strange metal—a dull silver, neither northern steel nor brass. It was extraordinarily light. Runes inlaid along its length were like nothing made by men. The strange geometric shapes gleamed like silver fire in the starlight. This was a duskin blade, at least four thousand years old. He tested the blade’s edge with a thumb. It pricked like a wasp sting. Blood throbbed out.

  Dval wondered where the blade had come from. Duskin blades were usually found at least a mile underground, in ancient tunnels.

  He addressed the dead knight. “You’re a lucky man to have such a fine blade.” Then he saw how the man’s tongue hung out between his teeth. “Well, not that lucky.”

  He strode to the horse, plunged the blade in its neck.

  The horse lay down its head wearily, as if in relief, and the scent of copper filled the woods as it bled out.

  He imagined its spirit galloping away in fields of dreams.

  Hoping for more treasure, Dval went to the overturned carriage, climbed the axletree, and peered inside.

  At the bottom lay a girl, cradling an injured arm. She looked up and gasped. Deep-red hair framed a heart-shaped face, cheeks stained with tears. Like some northerners of legend, she had brown speckles on her face. He’d never seen freckles before. Her large green eyes engulfed him, pupils wide and black, filled with terror. She was a daylighter—one who could not see in the dark. She could not have been more than nine, two years his junior, perhaps three. Her left leg lay askew, badly bruised, possibly broken.

  “Weir bisth dua?” she asked, trembling. Dval did not speak the uncouth tongue of Mystarria, but guessed at the question.

  “Dval,” he said, pointing at his chest.

  She tried to repeat it, using one of her own words. “Val?” Close enough. He nodded.

  She pointed to her own chest: “Avahn.”

  If I crush her skull, he realized, they will think she died in the wreck. I can take their treasure. . . .

  He peered around for witnesses. Everyone else from the wreck seemed to be dead. He did not see any reason why she shouldn’t die, too. Their people had been at war since before either of them had been born.

  But he felt guilty. He was in their territory. One of his uncle’s blood mares had been high on the mountain slopes, grazing in the lush alpine grass, but had “wandered” down into the hills, as they did to give birth.

  When he’d told his uncle that the horse was gone, he’d said. “Are we not poor enough? Go find the mare, you fool.” Always that sneer in his voice.

  Dval hadn’t expected the horse to wander far from camp, but moccasin prints suggested that his cousin had actually driven the mare away as a prank.

  He was trespassing in this land; the penalty for getting caught was death.

  A cool wind blew down from the icecaps above, whispering over him, raising goose pimples on his arms.

  A mournful howl arose from the woods downhill—a low moaning sound that ululated, then tapered off. It was the hunting cry of a dire wolf. The wolves in the Alcair Mountains were as large as ponies, each weighing as much as three hundred pounds. In winter they followed herds of shaggy elephants that roamed the Kakolar Plains, but in the summers they often foraged into the hills to hunt for elk.

  Sometimes their cries were filled only with ravening hunger, but this wolf was telling others that it tasted the scent of blood.

  Dval crouched, frozen in indecision. If he left the girl and kept searching for his uncle’s lost blood mount, the wolves would finish her. He could simply come back and plunder the wreck later.

  A deep growl sounded nearby in the oak forest, not more than a hundred yards away. There was no time to climb a tree.

  Dval scrambled for safety into the carriage. The girl shrieked and shrank away. He was Inkarran after all, with skin and hair whiter than ice, and green-white eyes that could see in the night.

  He knew few words in her tongue. “Gud,” he said, pointing at himself. “I gud.”

  She nodded, and tried to rise, but startled at a low growl outside.

  They froze, trapped inside the carriage, while wolves began racing outside, panting, heavy paws mincing dry grass. A wolf howled, high and eager, inviting others to the feast.

  Dval raised a finger to his lips, begging the girl to keep silent. She nodded, then gently lay back down on the floor. Though she stiffened when her arm moved, she did not cry out.

  There was only one entrance into the carriage—the broken door above. Dval stood with sword raised upward, prepared to thrust.

  For long minutes dire wolves growled and ripped at the dead outside, sometimes snarling at one another. He could hear padded feet circling the carriage. Dozens of them.

  Let there be enough to feed them all, Dval silently prayed to his ancestors.

  He gripped the hilt of the unfamiliar sword so tightly that it felt as if his muscles melded with it. Long after he ached with fatigue, he stood peering up.

  To relax vigilance is to die, he heard his uncle’s warning.

  The girl hardly breathed.

  Suddenly heavy paws scrabbled against the frame of the carriage above, and Dval was unprepared for the wolf that leapt through—a large black one, with grizzled hair turned to mist by starlight.

  Dval stabbed upward blindly.

  The girl shrieked. The dire wolf yelped in pain, scrabbled backward, and blood rained down. The girl kept screaming.

  Did I kill it? he wondered. But the blow had not been deep. The beast would probably only be wounded.

  An injured dire wolf will a
ttack again, he knew, if only to prove its fierceness.

  Outside, other wolves growled and yipped excitedly. Some sniffed at the carriage while others raced around it.

  A second wolf put its paws up on the carriage and whined, sniffing at the opening. Dval jumped and stabbed hard, taking it beneath the throat. It leapt away.

  Wolves danced about the carriage and snarled in a frenzy. The girl shrieked some more.

  “Shut up!” he shouted. “Fear draws them!” But the girl did not understand.

  He slapped her face, shocking her into silence. “A rabbit screams like that when it wants to die.” He explained, but she did not know the ways of the forest.

  Sometimes, when one faces a bear, the best thing to do is to sing. It confuses the animal and shows that one is not afraid. So Dval shoved the girl and sang now, an old battle dirge.

  “I was born to blood and war,

  Like my fathers were a thousand years before.

  Sound the horn. Strike a blow.

  Down to death or glory go!”

  Wolves whimpered. One barked at the carriage.

  Faster than a serpent, a wolf leapt up into the doorframe. Dval lunged with his blade; the wolf bit it. Blood spattered, but the blade twisted in Dval’s hand. He lunged, struck the wolf’s shoulder, but the beast growled and snapped. Fangs sank into Dval’s shoulder, close to the neck, crushing more than piercing.

  Dval shoved the blade up with all his might, driving the creature away. His vision blanked; he stood blinking, blood in his eyes.

  At his side, the little girl began to sing in her own crude tongue. Her voice caught with fear at first. It was not a battle song, but a lullaby, such as a mother might sing to a child to frighten away imaginary wights, and as she sang, her voice grew in strength.

  Sometimes, a song does not just show courage, it lends it, Dval realized.

  He wiped spatter from his eyes. His shoulder was running thick with blood. He feared that it would only attract wolves, or that he would pass out.

  The girl continued to sing, and struggled to her feet. She put her right hand around his, as if to hold hands.

  In his land, when a woman took a man’s hand, it was a proposal of marriage. Was it the same among her people?

  They were both too young, only children.

  There was terror in her eyes still, and fierce intelligence. Her lower jaw quivered with determination.

  She only seeks comfort, he thought.

  She pulled up her skirt, drew an ornate dagger, its silver hilt crusted in gems. It was a pretty weapon, such as a wealthy merchant might carry. She peered up at the roof, as if to do battle.

  ***

  Avahn waited for the wolves and wondered at her situation.

  On sighting the gray fleet, her father had sent Avahn and her mother to safety in the mountains. But safety is an illusion.

  Avahn’s mother had been thrown out the door during the wreck, and the silence of the woods spoke eloquently of her fate. Avahn didn’t want to look outside, see the inevitable. Avahn’s grief was a tremendous weight.

  She didn’t know where she was, how to get home.

  She wished that she were a runelord, that she had an endowment of strength. Her father had suggested that she get one.

  Avahn knew little about wolves. The Wizard Goren said that a dire wolf is not afraid of a man. A lone man makes good prey. But he’d once said, “The smell of metal frightens them, especially if more than one man is near.”

  Avahn and the boy were vastly outnumbered, but she determined to show no fear, even though her heart pounded as if it might break. Perhaps someday, if she grew to become a powerful runelord, she wouldn’t be so swayed by fear. Today was not that day.

  The boy was bleeding badly. She knew that he might not be able to protect her much longer. There was nowhere for her to hide in the carriage.

  She studied him. Dval was not huge. Like most Inkarrans, he was lanky and pale in the starlight. Only his calves were dark, for they had been tattooed with a tree, one that bore totems giving the names of his ancestors. He wore little besides his moccasins—a summer kilt, a necklace of wood beads, earrings made of dyed cotton.

  Another wolf leapt up on the carriage and peered in; Dval lunged, but it leapt away so fast, it seemed a creature of mist and dreams.

  Once, from her mother’s castle at Coorm, Avahn had watched a silver fox out in a field on a green morning. There were mice in the field, and the fox danced about tufts of dry grass. Any mouse that stuck its head outside its burrow risked getting eaten.

  Their only hope was to stay inside. She thought about the Master of the Hounds, Sir Gwilliam. When given a new litter of wolfhound pups, he’d spanked the largest and explained, “Every pack of dogs has a leader. To control the pack, you must control their leader.”

  She tried to warn the boy: “Val, we must kill their leader.” She jutted her chin up toward the opening. He shook his head, not understanding.

  We only have to make it until morning, she thought. My father will send soldiers to look for us.

  But no one at Castle Coorm knew she was on her way.

  Her right arm and leg were so badly bruised, they were nearly worthless. She did the only thing she could. She sang.

  ***

  Five more times that night, wolves attacked, and Dval managed to strike deeply and drive them away, but with each hour his strength waned, and Avahn didn’t know how long he could continue.

  Near dawn a crescent moon climbed overhead, spilling silver light down so that it glistened like a spiderweb.

  Avahn worried. The grey ships had come, and she’d seen fires in the valley shortly before dark. She did not know who set them.

  All that she could do was keep singing.

  When the sky began to brighten and the smell of morning dew filled the air, the leader of the pack came. It was a great wolf, larger than the others. It lunged through the doorframe without preamble, snarling and snapping. So quick was the attack that Dval struggled to repel it, thrusting his blade awkwardly.

  Avahn was thrown backward, and the wolf made it halfway into the carriage, shoving Dval to the ground. It focused on the boy, bit him on the head.

  Without thought, Avahn lurched forward and plunged her blade deep into the wolf’s neck. Its fur was so thick, she wasn’t sure how deep the wound was, but hot blood spurted from a vein at its throat, and the wolf yelped and snapped at her, and Dval scrambled away.

  The wolf’s strength was so great, it whipped its head sideways to bite her and slammed her into the wall of the carriage. She heard wooden struts crack from the impact, even as her ears began to ring.

  Unconsciousness came so swiftly and completely, it was like falling into a deep dark bottomless pool. She struggled to remain conscious, but struggling was no use.

  ***

  Dval stabbed at the monster wolf, though he was crushed against the floor. The light blade flickered up, and entered the beast’s torso as cleanly as if it were a sheath.

  The wolf growled and twisted its head away from Avahn, and he struck thrice more, slashing now.

  The wolf growled and backed away, leaving the entrance open to the starlight.

  Outside, the creature jumped about and growled ferociously, like a hart struck by an arrow.

  Other wolves yapped at it, and Dval waited for it to come back, for a wounded wolf was more dangerous than a bear.

  But it raced about erratically, then gave a lonely howl just outside the carriage, a howl that made the wood paneling shiver. The beast couldn’t have been ten feet away. Dval could hear it panting louder and louder, as if it were growing more fatigued by the moment.

  Dval’s head was bleeding now, along with his shoulder, and he could hardly stand, but he remained on his feet, fixed his eyes on the opening overhead.

  The pack leader is dying, he thought. But that seemed too . . . hopeful.

  He waited for it to leap into the carriage again, but instead heard it get up, panting heavily, and wande
r toward the woods.

  For many long minutes Dval stood waiting.

  He felt he could stand no longer and began to float in and out of consciousness.

  If they come for me, he thought, I will be standing still.

  So he held his striking pose, as morning came. Nuthatches chirruped outside in the forest, and mourning doves called. Flies began to buzz inside the carriage, spinning, spinning, in lazy circles, and Dval’s head spun with them.

  He waited, a monument.

  I am stone. He told himself. I am stone.

  ***

  The final attack came in the later morning. Dval must have fallen asleep on his feet. He wasn’t aware of a scuffle on the carriage or even a shadow filling the opening above him. All he felt was a tug as he was jerked from the carriage by his topknot.

  He swatted with his sword in vain. A giant had grabbed him, and now held him dangling with one hand, while he wrested the sword away with the other. . . .

  ***

  The giant hurled Dval to the ground. He rolled and struggled to rise, but the giant slammed one huge foot onto him, pinning Dval. “Stinkende theif!” the creature boomed in a voice more guttural than a bull’s.

  It was a hill giant, nearly nine feet tall, from the land of Toom. He had to weigh a thousand pounds, and no matter how Dval squirmed, he could not wrest free. Dval squinted up into the impossible sunlight. The giant’s hair was as blue-black as ink, and he wore rat skulls braided into his bushy beard. He stank of rum and sweat and unnamable nastiness.

  Dval would rather have faced more wolves. He closed his eyes, blinded by the sun. Other Mystarrians surrounded him, men with drawn swords, and runes of brawn and grace branded onto their necks. Dval smelled of woods and crisp mountain air. These men stank of ale and grease and cities.