The Errantry of Bantam Flyn (The Autumn's Fall Saga)

by Jonathan French

  The Corpse Eater hissed again, her beak hanging open as her words flooded Flyn's mind, dripping with venom.

  The stink of black elf. Upon you. Encased in their metal.

  “Yes,” Flyn admitted, undaunted. “I aid the dwarrow against you. You have wrought enough despair upon them, Corpse Eater. It must end.”

  The Corpse Eater's head jerked backward. She drew herself up, flexing her wings in agitation.

  It ends. With the last black elf!

  The bird's breast was now far above, but so was her head and that vicious beak.

  Flyn saw his opening and sprang, taking three charging steps before flinging his feet out in front, dropping to slide upon the ice. He heard a screech of alarm from the Corpse Eater and saw the shadows of her pinion feathers appear violently upon the snow as she spread her wings. Flyn directed his slide straight between the bird's legs. Coalspur was too large to swing from his prone position, so Flyn braced the blade against his vambrace, hoping his momentum would cause the blade to slash into the Corpse Eater's leg, hobbling her.

  The sword sliced nothing but empty air.

  Shooting a look above, Flyn saw the Corpse Eater had hopped upward, using her wings to give her lift, but she did not go far. She twisted her long neck, craning around and down to strike. The ice erupted just behind Flyn's head as the huge beak pierced the ground where he had been a moment before. Flyn's slide was slowing. She would not miss a second time. Digging his talons into the ice, Flyn gained his feet and spun, leading with Coalspur in a great, sweeping cut. The blade came around just in time, connecting with the Corpse Eater's onrushing head, her mouth agape. The sword struck her upon the bulbous front curve of her upper beak, the sharp steel rebounding off with a strident ring. Flyn felt the force of the blow reverberate down his arms. The Corpse Eater recoiled, her head jerked backward by her agile neck.

  Flyn felt his guts drop in despair. Coalspur could cut through rock, steel and the iron flesh of the Forge Born, but had failed to even crack the osseous beak of the Corpse Eater. Shaking off his consternation, he got moving. There was nothing to do but fight on and hope the monster's flesh proved less resilient.

  The Corpse Eater recovered quickly from the blow, giving Flyn only a few moments to close in. He was nearly within reach, preparing to thrust for the bird's guts when she flung herself backwards, flapping her great wings to push away from his blade. Flyn was nearly bowled over by the beating of air and feathers. No sooner had the bird danced away, she changed directions, seeming to suspend in the air for a heartbeat before rushing headlong directly for him. The beak spread wide, sharp-edged and wicked, hungry to spill his blood. Flyn did not risk another strike, but dove forward, trying to get under the path of the dreadful swoop. He avoided the beak and rolled to his feet, ready to strike at the exposed belly passing over. The Corpse Eater's feet slammed into him before his blade met flesh. Flyn hit the ground hard, pummeled between the ice and the creature's curved toes. He felt the Corpse Eater's claws open, attempting to snatch him up. Her rear talon scraped across his shoulder, but the dwarf-mail spared his flesh a rending. Fortunately, the monster's flight carried her past before she found a hold.

  Battered, Flyn stumbled to his feet. The Corpse Eater was now across the vale, close to the great tree, but she began to turn, tipping one wing earthward to come back around for another pass. Gripping Coalspur in both hands, Flyn readied himself. He was tired, in body and mind. He no longer had the stomach to scurry beneath this beast. One mighty swing, straight down between her eyes, at the last moment. That was all he could think to do. She might survive it, but he would never know.

  “Move aside.”

  Flyn whirled at the voice, finding Inkstain standing behind him. The chronicler's face was fixed on the Corpse Eater, as was that of the owl upon his shoulder. Something in Inkstain's face, feverish and wild, made Flyn do as commanded. He hurried over to stand at the man's side and turned back to the rapidly approaching bird.

  Inkstain raised one hand, palm up, his fingers curled.

  The Corpse Eater let out a horrible squawk, twitching in mid-flight. Her sudden convulsions caused her wings to draw inward and she lost her loft, careening off her chosen course.

  “By the Hallowed,” Flyn swore. “What are you doing?”

  “Causing her pain,” Inkstain said simply, his lips drawn into a thin smile.

  The Corpse Eater's spasming form ripped a furrow in the ice as she hit the ground, veering away from where Flyn and Crane stood. As her stricken bulk skidded and plowed through the crust, she collided with Fafnir's fettered daughters. Flyn winced as the five wights were bowled over, quickly lost from sight beneath the crushing weight of the grounded bird.

  The Corpse Eater came to a halt a bowshot to their left, surrounded in a haze of upset snow and ice crystals. Flyn wasted no time, breaking into a run to reach the creature while she was vulnerable. He had not made it ten strides when her head rose from the trench of hoary earth. Flyn stopped, knowing he would not close the distance before she took flight once more. Inkstain drew up beside him.

  “So,” the chronicler said. “The old quim has some fight left in her.”

  Flyn frowned at the man's uncharacteristic crassness. “I see Gasten has returned.”

  “Yes,” Inkstain said, snorting through his nose. “It seems I am surrounded by stinking fowl.”

  Flyn ignored the barb and pointed at the Corpse Eater, now on her feet. “Well, old mother hen will offend your nose the worst.”

  “Oh, I do not think so.”

  Inkstain began strolling towards her. Flyn nearly reached out to stop him, but stayed his hand. It was unwise to hinder Crane when he was in this humor. Deglan had dubbed him dangerous and, of course, the old stoat was right. The stuttering scribbler had just brought down a beast whose power was wrought in the heat of creation.

  And she did not look pleased.

  The Corpse Eater stepped out of the rift, her vengeful eyes and hissing beak directed at the sauntering chronicler. She did not take flight, her movements betraying a lingering daze over whatever affliction Inkstain had unleashed. As her taloned feet emerged from the trench, Flyn saw one was entangled by the chains of the augurs. The wights were still attached to them, their shifts filthy and torn, their limbs twisted and broken. At least two still moved, and Flyn could just make out their song over the sound of scraping chains. Heedless of her impediment, the Corpse Eater screeched and thundered toward Inkstain, who raised a hand once more. The beast stumbled and weaved, but did not abandon her charge. Flyn saw her eyes squeeze shut against some phantom agony and she dipped her head, as if fighting against a current, but still she came on, bearing down on the chronicler.

  “Crane!” Flyn called out, seeing the inevitable. “Move!”

  The chronicler ignored him, not budging from the onrushing monster's path. The Corpse Eater's head swung across from the end of its neck, swatting Inkstain with the brutal curve of her beak. Just before the horrendous blow connected, Flyn thought he heard the man laughing. Inkstain was lifted fully off his feet, catapulted an awesome distance in the span of a heartbeat. He landed hard, not a knife-cast from where Flyn stood. Somehow, the owl upon Crane's shoulder had clung to him, only detaching and taking flight an instant before his human perch struck the ground.

  Flyn fought the instinct to rush to his fallen companion's side, instead keeping his attention on the Corpse Eater. The giant bird continued forward on her own momentum for a few seconds, then slowed, turning to face her assailants. She seemed cautious, taking sidling steps as she watched, her gaze flicking from Flyn to Crane, waiting to see if he rose.

  He did not.

  Flyn now stood between the Corpse Eater and her tree. He could feel the vættir approaching from the distant trunk behind, could hear their dirge drawing closer. Was that what the beast was waiting on, for the wights to come and tear them apart? The vættir did not attack coburn, but had their master lifted the ban, giving them leave to kill her progeny? Certainly,
Crane would not be spared.

  Flyn took a step towards the man, keeping his sword and eyes trained on the Corpse Eater. She made no move to stop him. Indeed, she was no longer looking at him. Her attention had shifted skyward. Continuing to creep towards Inkstain, Flyn shot a quick look up and over his shoulder, trying to follow the beast's gaze. Near as he could discern, she was looking at her own nest, high in the cradle of the boughs. The distance was too great for Flyn to see any detail. While turned, he took a moment to check the progress of the wights. There were too many to quickly count, and would soon be upon them. Even if they continued to ignore him, he would be stuck fending them off until Crane regained his senses, if the man still lived.

  He was only a stride or two away from his companion when the Corpse Eater began to flex her wings. Her eyes were still raptly affixed on the nest. She moved cautiously, as if reluctant to take flight, and Flyn was not certain whether it was the attack from Inkstain that fueled her uncertainty, or what she saw in her nest. Either way, she was moments from taking off, leaving Flyn and Crane to deal with her walking food.

  If they remained, they were doomed.

  Flyn darted for Inkstain, reversing his grip on Coalspur so that he held the sword point-down in one hand. The long blade drug along the ground as he knelt, scooping Inkstain's slack form in the crook of his sword arm. For all his height, the gangly man weighed little and Flyn managed to drape him face down over his forearm. Hearing the slap of wings, Flyn whirled to see the Corpse Eater push away from the ground, intent upon her destination. Awkwardly hauling man and sword, Flyn rushed to get directly beneath the giant bird's path, keeping his eyes on the tangle of chains still wrapped around her foot. As the immense shadow passed overhead, Flyn leaped upward, reaching with his free hand. Feeling metal slap his palm, he gripped hard and cried out in pain as he was wrenched off the ground. The shoulder bearing Crane's weight burned, threatening to tear loose. He had to fight the need to let the man go and allow him to fall towards the rapidly retreating ground. Through eyes tearing in the rushing air, Flyn looked up.

  He had grabbed hold of a loop of slack chain, one strand in the knot-work that entwined the Corpse Eater's claw. Fafnir's daughters dangled around Flyn, hung by their collars at the ends of chains now taut with the speed of the ascent. Three of the five still moved, their mouths open in a song stolen by the surrounding roar. They reached for him with fractured arms, eyes blazing with the need to kill. Flyn felt Crane stir in his arm, then begin to thrash, panicking at his predicament.

  “I have you!” Flyn screamed, his own voice sounding weak in the turbulent air. “Do not struggle! We will fall!”

  It was no use. Inkstain continued to writhe, weakening Flyn's hold.

  “Crane! Stop!”

  The man could not hear him. He tore free and slipped through Flyn's embrace.

  The sudden emptiness in his arm was horrifying and Flyn cried out in dismay. Kicking out, he snatched desperately with his feet and felt his talons catch something yielding. A sudden weight jerked at Flyn from below, causing his grip to slip further down the chain. Grunting with effort, Flyn looked downward.

  He had Crane. The chronicler's heavy cloak and the strap of the man's satchel were caught in his toe claws. The poor man was staring up at him, eyes wide and entreating. He was yelling something, pleading, but Flyn could not make out the words. He would need to let Coalspur go, if he had any hope of reaching down to pull his friend up to the chain. Then, beneath Crane, Flyn saw branches, layers of them stretching below, crisscrossed with formations of ice. The Corpse Eater's flight leveled out and she began to descend, towards a solid jumble of frosty debris. Flyn released Crane and waited a heartbeat before he let go of the chain.

  He dropped, landing upon the unforgiving surface of the nest. The wind was knocked from his lungs and he rolled to his back, sickened. Coughing and nearly retching, he stood, using Coalspur to help himself rise.

  A frigid miasma hung over the vile eyrie, limiting Flyn's vision. He found no immediate sign of Crane or the Corpse Eater. Haphazard logs, encrusted with ice and frozen droppings, spread out beneath his feet. He guessed the nest covered an expanse larger than a castle yard, but only the nearest edge was visible, not two dozen paces from where he landed. Flyn saw huge, up-sweeping branches rising from beyond the precipice, the curved fingers of the bole which supported the nest. He was certain he had dropped Inkstain safely, but scrambled his way over to the edge to be sure. Leaning precariously over, Flyn peered down.

  The bottom of the vale was barely perceptible, nothing but frighteningly distant patches of white peeking through cracks in the spider web of massive boughs. Anyone falling from the nest would likely never reach the bottom, their body breaking on countless branches and spurs of ice before coming to rest, shattered and pulped, somewhere in the vertiginous heights. Flyn saw nothing to indicate Crane had plunged to his death, though he did spy the movement of a few wights, slowly making the climb. Many of the branches were wider than ramparts, creating rime-covered avenues for the vættir to travel. At points, the limbs grew so far outward they nearly touched the walls of the surrounding cliffs and Flyn could just make out the black openings of caves high in the crags. Small processions of vættir trickled from the cave mouths, traversing the branches as bridges, bypassing much of the slow climb from the vale. That would be Flyn and Crane's egress from this dread tree, if they came down alive.

  Stepping back from the edge, Flyn turned towards the interior of the nest and began making his way towards its center. Out of the stinking mist loomed large, bloated pods. At first, Flyn thought them to be eggs and a cold foreboding seized his spine, but then he came upon one which had split open. A grisly cascade of denuded bones and skulls was disgorged from the fibrous fissure, the pile spilled amongst the existing detritus of the nest. The pods were not eggs. They were regurgitated pellets the size of boulders, all that remained of the vættir once the Corpse Eater had supped upon their living carcasses.

  Flyn began to hear the dirge of the dwarrow and made for the sound. Through the mist, the bulk of the Corpse Eater took shape, her back turned. Taking shelter behind the loathsome pellets where he could, Flyn made his way closer. What remained of Fafnir's daughters was still attached to the great bird's foot, the living corpses feebly crawling about atop her talons. A handful of other vættir milled about in the bird's shadow, waiting to be eaten. Flyn could hear another voice, this one not singing, but speaking. The space between the Corpse Eater and him was devoid of cover, forcing him to creep closer with only the putrid vapors for concealment.

  A pair of figures stood before the Mother of Gales. She watched them with the same attentive brutishness she displayed during her brief discourse with Flyn.

  “Do you believe the elven patron still lives?” asked the taller of the figures in a voice strained and reedy.

  If the Corpse Eater answered, Flyn did not hear. Likely, she spoke directly to the mind of the questioner.

  “Thousands of years you have spent on vengeance and the dwarrow are far from extinct. Turn your hatred upon that which originally cast you out, on Magic itself.”

  Flyn could see the speaker more clearly now. His steps halted as recognition dawned.

  It was the husk from Castle Gaunt, the one who slew him and all his companions with dark sorceries before Pocket restored their lives. He had spoken with a different voice that day, the voice of a phantom girl who held him enslaved, yet it was the same husk with the same shapeless hat, Flyn was certain. The woman next to him was a stranger, however, so Flyn was bewildered when she suddenly looked directly at him.

  “Join us, Bantam Flyn,” she said.

  All eyes turned towards him, the empty pits of the husk and the turbid wells of the Corpse Eater. The great bird opened her beak silently, but made no aggressive motion. Warily, Flyn stepped so that both the strange pair and the Corpse Eater were directly in front of him, husk and woman to his right, the creature to his left.

  “My lady,” Flyn ad
dressed the woman, “you have me at a disadvantage. You address me with familiarity, but I am unacquainted with your name.”

  A wry, tired smile crept upon the woman's face. “You speak gallantly and well, Sir Flyn. So unlike your mentor.” Flyn's face must have betrayed some surprise for the woman's smile faded and she dipped her chin. “Yes, I know Sir Corc the Constant. I know the names of both coburn who failed to protect my son.”

  Flyn managed to mask his shock this time. He bowed deeply, allowing himself the risk of relaxing his vigil upon the Corpse Eater and the husk sorcerer.

  “I misspoke,” Flyn said when he straightened. “I am well acquainted with your name, Lady Beladore. I offer you deepest regrets, in the name of the Valiant Spur, for the loss of your son. Pocket was one of us, and was dear to me. I counted him a friend and a brother. I carry the guilt and the grief of his death with me, always.” He saw his words absorbed by the woman, her face softening with sorrow and hardening with bitterness. The lie came easily to Flyn's tongue, borne upon deep currents of truth. “But you should know, lady, it was the hands of the husk which now stands beside you that slew your child.”

  “As I have already revealed to her, coburn,” the husk said without emotion.

  “He was powerless to stop himself,” Beladore said, her voice struggling to remain steady.

  “As were we to stop him,” Flyn replied with courtesy. “Only such fell craft could have prevented us from saving Pocket.”

  Beladore flinched. “You make excuses?”

  “I offer the truth. Pocket was the only one with the power to prevent his end. But he chose to save us, his companions, whom he loved as family. I wish he had made a different choice.”

  “As do I,” Beladore replied, her voice nearly a whisper.

  “Now,” Flyn requested, “if you and your scarecrow would kindly step aside, I must dispatch this creature.” He turned his attention back to the Corpse Eater and raised his sword. The great bird bunched her furled wings and coiled her neck, hissing once more.