The Blasted Lands

by James A. Moore

  He looked down at his hands and at the scars where his old hands had once been attached to his body.

  One adapts.

  He sighed and heard the sound come mostly from his throat, but also from the smaller mouth, the “Great Scar” that moved and existed where before there had only been skin.

  Andover did not understand all of the workings of the human body and he was exactly wise enough to know that he faced a mystery along those lines. His second mouth was a good deal smaller, and it could be hidden, he supposed, if he simply did not open his mouth. Mouths. That was going to take getting used to.

  The polished metal he used to look at his face was not perfect, but there was only a small amount of distortion. He knew that when he looked at the open scar and saw gums and teeth, they were real and fairly close to what he was looking at. He could even accept the change because he could see it. The parts he had trouble with were deeper than that. Below the surface as it were. He could feel the tongue in his new mouth. He could hear it speak from time to time.

  More interestingly, he could understand the words it said, though before the changes Durhallem had made to him he would not have heard anything but gibberish.

  “Are you going to stay in there all day? Or will you come out and look at the farms as we discussed?” Delil’s voice was without guile.

  He thought about the feel of her body against his, the way her hands felt when they ran across his body, the touch of her lips on his neck, and his heartbeat increased.

  “I’m coming.” He set down the silver disk Tusk had found for him and stretched, feeling the play of muscles under his skin. The air was cool and clear and he felt surprisingly good. Part of him wondered how that was possible with the changes he was going through but he suspected it was because of those changes, really. He had hands. The Sa’ba Taalor who had looked seen him as a stranger were now seeing him as an equal and that was an amazing thing.

  The Great Scar left on him by Durhallem was a sign that he was an adult in the eyes of the valley people. He didn’t understand all of their reasons, but he appreciated them.

  The bag he grabbed held his belongings. It was time to leave Durhallem and move across the valley. There were other kings he had to meet. There were other gods he had to meet.

  Gods.

  His ears rang at the notion.

  Delil stood in the daylight, her supplies already strapped across her back. She was alone. She tilted her head as she looked at him, squinting against the early morning glare. “You move like a glacier.”

  “A what?”

  She shook her head. “A glacier. A frozen river. Never mind. You have to see one to understand.”

  “Are there glaciers in the valley?”

  “No. There are three to the north of the Hearts of the Gods. Perhaps you will see them someday.” She waved the notion away. “Come now. We have far to go.”

  He slung his pack over his shoulders and shrugged the weight into the now familiar place it had held during his walk to the Seven Forges. “No one else is coming with us?” His obsidian he held in a bundle of leather that he carried wrapped around one wrist. His hammer was slung over his other shoulder and easily shrugged free if he should need it.

  Delil looked over her shoulder and shook her head. “I will have to be enough for you.” Her voice held a teasing edge and despite how much he had changed, he still blushed at her comment.

  Andover was not aware on a conscious level of how much weight he carried with ease, but had he tried carrying as much only a year before he would have fallen on his back like an upended turtle. He did not consider that the clothes he’d brought with him were for a smaller man, or how snugly they would have fit him now because he wore the clothes of the locals instead. A vest and breeches and boots. More than that would have to be unbundled from his supplies.

  Delil walked, heading quickly to the pens where Andover could see Tusk dealing with the massive mount he rode, Brodem. Even the animal eyed him differently as he approached.

  “It is time for you to leave.” The words were stated like a question, but the tone was conversational. Tusk knew the answer even before he spoke.

  Andover nodded his head. “Thank you. For all that you have done on my behalf.”

  “I have fed you and not killed you. Return the courtesy some day and we are even.”

  Andover grinned at that and the man smiled back, his broad face with its odd mouth-scars already becoming something Andover could easily accept. How quickly the mind adapts. “I think you are safe on both accounts, Tusk.”

  The king slapped his arm again and Andover braced himself for it, kept his balance.

  “Show me the obsidian, yes?” Tusk pointed to the rolled leather. It seemed the man knew exactly where the two pieces were kept.

  Andover crouched and unrolled the packing. The king squatted next to him and nodded. “What do you see Andover Iron Hands?”

  The heavy axe blade was clear enough to understand. The other piece, the gift that Durhallem had offered up, was a curved, twisted line of obsidian that looked like nothing so much as a simple club. “I think you’re right about the axe, of course.”

  Tusk laughed and slapped his arm again, his smile a broad, fearsome thing when all of his mouths opened and added their noise. And then the Great Scar on the left side of his face spoke clearly. “Durhallem has given you the handle for the axe. The Daxar Taalor agree.”

  The king gestured, silently asking permission to touch the pieces and Andover nodded his agreement.

  He raised the clublike section and placed it in Andover’s hand, moving Andover’s fingers until he understood what the king was doing. The obsidian was uneven, yes, but there was indeed a purpose. Each of the odd indentations matched up perfectly with one of Andover’s fingers. When he gripped the piece in his iron fingers the obsidian perfectly married itself to his grip. The heavier end of the club rested below his grip. The other end was not more delicate, but a but thinner and pointed upward.

  Tusk raised the axe head of obsidian and slipped it easily onto the thinner end of the volcanic glass in Andover’s hand.

  “You will need to work a way to connect them together, but they fit. How do they feel in your grip?”

  Andover grinned as he looked at the weapon. There was no denying what Tusk had seen clearly. They were meant to be fused as one. The lines of the two pieces of darkness even matched up in the way their facets linked.

  “They are connected already, aren’t they?”

  Delil chuckled and Tusk smiled indulgently. “Try to attack anyone and the head of your new axe would fall right off. Durhallem has given you a gift, but as I have said to others of your kind, you must make your own weapons. That is what the Daxar Taalor demand. You must find the proper way to bind them into one.”

  Andover nodded and watched as Tusk carefully took the two separate pieces apart and then wrapped them back together.

  “What would you use to bond them Tusk?”

  “Me? I would use a good length of leather.” He stood up. “The gods say you have to make it work. They don’t say it has to be hard work.” He headed back to Brodem and turned his back on both Andover and Delil. “Go in health and walk with the gods.”

  A moment later they were on their way, heading down the side of the mountain. The journey was faster than the way up, but just as riddled with its own risks. Still, they made excellent time and before the sun was setting they had reached the edge of the valley proper and the farmlands that Delil had spoken of.

  The ground was harder than he’d expected. Seeing the lush greens of the valley he’d thought to see heavy vegetation and the sort of plant life he’d experienced on his way from Tyrne to the Temmis Pass, but instead there was little to see save hard soil and a short green moss that seemed to cover everything foolish enough to stand still for more than ten minutes.

  “This is the farmland?”

  Delil shook her head. “No. This is the ground when we do not till and work to make fie
lds.”

  “How do you farm for anything in ground like this?”

  “You say you have never farmed before?”

  “No.” He watched her as she stepped. Delil was careful about where she placed her feet, careful about how she settled her weight. A few missteps over the rocks told him why. The moss was solid enough, but the rocks it covered were often lose and he nearly twisted his ankle twice before he started paying better attention.

  “The ground is hard. You have to break the ground, and you have to turn the soil and remove the rocks. Then you have to add ash to the dirt, because the ash from the mountains makes plants grow better. Then you have to plant the seeds and keep the watered. Then you have to wait and you have to protect the plants.”

  “Protect them from what?”

  Delil stopped and looked back at him. “We are not alone here. There are other things that live in the valley and they are smaller than us and they fear us, but they are fast and they will eat the plants if we do not guard against them.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “I thought you wanted to know about farming.”

  “I do. I just want to know the other things, too.”

  She shook her head. “When I have told you about farming you may ask more questions. Hold them until then.”

  They traveled a long way the first day, and never lacked for things to discuss. Mostly Delil told Andover about the Taalor Valley and the local plants and animals. It seemed nothing went to waste in the valley. As proof of that, Delil hunted down and killed two small creatures the size of large feral cats, with thick hides and teeth that looked like they were designed to chew out a person’s spine.

  Delil held the jaw open on one of the creatures, and let him look carefully at the front teeth. “They are long and thin to allow for digging in the ground and for breaking the skin of the logga nuts.”

  “What is a logga nut?”

  “It’s what is farmed for in this part of the valley.” She dropped the corpse and reached into a pouch on her belt. There were four hard stones in her palm. No. He looked closer and saw the thin seam that ran along each of them. “Logga nuts.” Using the hilt of one of her knives she hit the nut hard enough to crack the surface. The meat inside the nut was sweet and heavy. “They are good for traveling. They also make the bread you had at your feast.”

  “They grow on trees?”

  “Vines. The only trees in the valley are much further down. You will see them.”

  As she was skinning the first kill – and showing Andover how he would skin the second – she explained that the very same creatures were the sort that stole from the farms.

  He contemplated the teeth on the corpse, and the wide-set claws capable of tearing through the heavy moss or a person with equal ease, and asked, “Are these particularly large ones? I was thinking something more along the size of a rat.”

  “No. They are barely even adults.”

  “Oh.”

  While he skinned his meal, Delil started a small fire. It was blazing properly by the time Andover had finished his task. They ate the food together as the sun set behind Wrommish. A few small lights glittered on the side of mountain. More lights came from the valley, enough to hide the light from the stars.

  Andover chewed at the meat. It wasn’t as tasty as Pra-Moresh, but it would keep a belly full. “What’s going on in the valley? I don’t think there were fires so close to us yesterday.”

  Delil tore one of the legs from her roast and looked toward the fires. “They are moving closer. Yesterday they were still closer to the foot of Truska-Pren.”

  “Who is moving closer?”

  “You were still visiting with Durhallem when we heard the horns.” She looked at his scar for a moment and smiled. “That is the army of Tarag Paedori, the King in Iron.”

  The timing was good. As soon as she finished speaking the first horn blew a long note into the air. The call came from much closer than Andover would have expected.

  A moment later four more calls echoed and joined in on the sound. And a moment after that the entire valley seemed filled with the sound. From behind them on Durhallem and from Ganem and from Wrommish, they heard more horns calling to each other, the sound a powerful note that made Andover’s blood race.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Tarag Paedori calls to the other kings. It is almost time.”

  “Almost time for what?”

  Delil looked toward him in the growing night and her eyes once again glowed with a silver light all their own.

  “Your people attacked Tuskandru. The kings spoke together on this matter. Tarag Paedori will now go to meet with your Emperor and discuss the attack and what will be done about it.”

  “And all of the horns? What do they mean?”

  “Andover, the Daxar Taalor assign each king with certain tasks. They are prepared for those tasks by the gods themselves. Like Durhallem has given Tusk the order that he must always protect Durhallem’s Pass. That is his sworn responsibility.”

  Andover knew she was preparing to say something but had no idea what it was. He wiped the grease from his fingers and focused his attention on Delil.

  “Tarag Paedori is the King in Iron. He is the Chosen of Truska-Pren. Truska-Pren is the god of formal combat. He charges Tarag Paedori with ruling the armies of the Sa’ba Taalor.”

  “The armies?” He frowned at the notion. “I didn’t think you had armies.”

  She rose from her spot and looked around for a moment, scanning the horizon. “Come.” Delil moved quickly and he followed as she moved into a rocky area and climbed to a greater height.

  Within ten minutes they’d reached a level where she could show him what she wanted him to see. The lights they had seen were closer than he’d guess and far more numerous. There were hundreds of fires, most of them large enough to cook food as well as provide warmth. Large enough, surely, that more than one person sat at each.

  Andover’s throat was dry and he wished he’d brought water with him. Instead he worked his tongue around until he could speak again. “How many people are there?”

  “I do not know. But we will find out together.”

  “What?”

  Delil scaled down the rocks as quickly as she’d climbed them and Andover did his best to keep up. Her eyes seemed better equipped for moving through the darkness of the valley. The fires were near, yes, but there was enough vegetation and enough changes in the landscape to hide most of the illumination.

  “Where are we going, Delil?”

  “You are to meet the kings, yes?”

  “Well, yes, of course.”

  “If Tarag Paedori is to leaving the Taalor Valley now is your best chance to meet him before he goes to face your Emperor.”

  He shook his head, not at all sure that her plan was a good one. She either did not see or did not care. Whichever the case, she headed for the encampment. And after only a moment’s hesitation Andover followed.

  He’d planned to meet with Tarag Paedori, yes, but after a few more days at the very least and certainly not while the king was gathering an army to go attack or consider attacking the Empire he came from.

  Following Delil was easy. She made it easy for him, turning around from time to time and gesturing him forward.

  And then it was even easier as they came upon the first of the fires. There were soldiers up ahead and no two ways about that. The figures he saw were dressed in armor as varied as he’d have expected. It seemed that none of the Sa’ba Taalor shared the same designs for their armor. Like with their weapons, the individuals who wore them created each piece of protective gear.

  Delil looked at several of the shapes, each seemed more terrifying and less human than the last to Andover’s eyes, and finally ran up to one, a bulky shape in the firelight that Andover could scarcely tell apart from any of the others.

  Whoever he was, he lifted her into the air as if she weighed nothing and tossed her up and caught her twice before setting her back o
n her feet.

  Each and every one of the faces he could see wore a veil with the exceptions of himself and Delil.

  Several members of the group saw her, saw him and stared.

  He stared back, his pulse hammering in his chest and his hand resting near the release on his hammer’s strap.

  Delil pointed toward him and spoke quickly to the man she was with. He in turn looked toward Andover and nodded his head. A moment later he called out in a loud voice and several others joined in. Andover did not recognize a single word they said.

  Delil gestured him closer. Despite a growing unease he listened and stepped up to her side.

  Up close the man she was with was no less a sight. He wore heavy plates of armor strapped over a dense chainmail. The helmet on his head was not as ornamental as many he’d seen – certainly nowhere as elaborate as Tusk’s skull-like affair – but it covered his entire head, leaving only his eyes and his mouth clearly visible. His mouth was hidden under a veil. His eyes burned with that unsettling gray light.

  Delil said, “Andover Lashk of the Iron Hands, this is Ventdril the Unbroken. He is my brother.” The joy in her voice when she introduced them allowed Andover to relax a little.

  The voice was milder than he expected from the monstrous shape. “Delil says you come from Fellein.”

  He nodded his head. “I was brought here to meet the Seven Kings and to speak with the Daxar Taalor.” Both of his mouths spoke, the sound echoing oddly inside his head. He would likely never adjust to the change.

  Ventdril spread his arms and then crossed them. “I have called for Tarag Paedori to meet you. He will be here soon.” Andover studied the four knives strapped to the man’s thick forearm and nodded.

  “I am here now.” The voice came from a giant. He was bigger than Tusk, bigger than Drask, bigger than most of the shapes standing around, and as he approached, the warriors immediately dropped to one knee, many of them drawing swords or other bladed weapons, turning the hilts toward the giant striding toward Andover and offering the weapons to him. The move was so fluid that it had to be something done regularly.