Heroes or Thieves (Steps of Power 2)

by Sherwood, J. J.

  Jerah rose to his feet. Above him, the creatures hung still. Whatever had roused him moments before—if something had—was gone. He stepped around his pile of goods taken from the city and walked to the entrance of his home. He crouched down before the light, letting his vision adjust before he cast his gaze outward.

  He had not climbed very high in the mountains—perhaps about as high as Kinraeus’ ceiling had been tall. Narrow ledges had helped him make his way up, but his long, slightly hooked nails had been his most useful tool for the ascent. Despite his relatively low position, the scene around him was quite nice. The view was rock and tree extending all the way to the horizon. Occasionally, Jerah would see large and small winged creatures swoop and soar around and through the mountains’ alleys before they vanished into small crevices in the rocks around him.

  But now, his hole was eerily still. He rubbed the wounds on his chest nervously. Had the city’s guard found him?

  He withdrew a little in fear. He wanted nothing more than to stay in the mountains in peace!

  A tiny creature with spindly, scaled legs was clinging to the opening of his cave. It popped its head out and looked about. Jerah inched a little closer. ‘Is it safe, little freewing?’ he thought to the creature he had named. It offered a little toss of its head and then hopped out to the side of the mountain to stretch its wings. Another freewing confidently followed it.

  “You’re just overreacting, Jerah,” he told himself. Emboldened, Jerah stepped out into the light, stretching his cramped wings. The torchlight in the blue void above warmed his bare chest and the ache of his muscles faded. He would have to get new clothes one day. He smiled, watching the little freewings take flight toward the ground below.

  Jerah suddenly noted that the warmth had left his flesh. His instincts stirred, driving him swiftly back into the mountain.

  It was not smoke that blocked the torch, but a winged creature far greater in size than the freewings. It swooped low in the void, dipping between the peaks of stone. Jerah had seen them before, but never so close. Elven in shape, and yet covered in the strange fur that likewise covered the little freewings. A woman in the city had worn some of the fluff sticking out of a stiff piece of clothing upon her head, and Jerah had overheard them called feathers. They protruded as great wings along the base of the creature’s arms.

  The creature landed on the face of the mountain not far away, screeching loudly. Talons curled into the stone from its long, scaled fingers and toes, while beady, yellow eyes flicked up and down the mountain’s alleys. Its long tail thumped against the stone in a steady drumming.

  Jerah pressed a hand to his naked chest. Like him, the creature wore no upper clothes. Instead, feathers crept from its scaled legs and invaded its torso.

  Another screech, a chilling shadow, and a second of its kind landed sharply beside the first. This one was a bitch—as naked and round-breasted as elven and human women.

  The two screeched in unison, regarding the mountain’s floor with what Jerah thought were distinct expressions of frustration.

  What were they looking for?

  Jerah crouched down, hoping the darkness of his home sheltered him from their sight. Yet he didn’t withdraw completely: curiosity held him near. What were they? Were they dangerous? Could he kill them? Could they kill him?

  Then a distant screech echoed through the mountains and they let go. With a flap of their long wings, their bodies twisted behind the stone and they were gone.

  Jerah straightened, slowly stepping back into the light. “What shall I call them?” he pondered as he gripped the side of the mountain. He began to move alongside it in the direction they had gone, tugged into pursuit by his thoughts. He could hear the distant echoes of screeches around him.

  They were certainly quite loud. Loudwings? Hm. That did define them well. “Loudwings.” His brow knit. What a ridiculous sounding name when spoken out loud. “Not clever, Jerah,” he reprimanded himself.

  He dug his talons into the stone as he stepped wide over a gap in the ledge. “Brownwings?” After all, most of them did have brown wings.

  He slid further along the mountain, crossing the wide gaps and clambering up small ridges. He paused along a long, unbroken ledge to cock his head in the observance of a great shadow that swooped up the face of the mountain without a source.

  Jerah shook his head and refocused upon his march along the ledge. He followed it for some time as he considered his options. “Largewings? Longwings? Darkwings?” He frowned. Maybe he should remove the wings entirely.

  He stepped around a bend and into a wide canyon. His eyes were drawn instantly to the sea of shadows swarming across the distance. Several of the… nameless… creatures were flitting and sitting about a very large ledge that jutted out of the mountain.

  But it was the darkness behind them that made Jerah’s blood pump and his eyes dilate. Behind their frenzy rose a hole in the stone, far, far greater in size than Jerah’s home. Something twisted and writhed inside the darkness.

  Jerah hunkered down, watching as the creatures swept in and out of that mass, shrieking as they went, pointed faces jerking back and forth across the canyon.

  He swiftly retreated into the safety of the narrow alleys. There were far too many for his liking.

  Still, Jerah found them, at least for now, preferable to elves and humans.

  They had never tried to kill him.

  *

  Jerah woke quite late the following day. It had been a long night. Not only had he made his kill, but he had found an entire building filled with clothes. A building filled with clothes! Now that was a good reward for pushing those useless, nameless creatures out of his mind.

  With great eagerness, Jerah had bounded across the shop, gathering everything in sight.

  Unfortunately, Jerah had given little thought to how he was going to haul his prizes up the mountain. He had been forced to spend a great many hours attempting to create a sack from one of the billowy black shirts. This had been somewhat successful and the losses during his climb were few.

  Now rested from his adventure, Jerah carefully inspected his earnings.

  What should he wear? There was such a variety! Master had always worn many different clothes and sometimes he had talked about buying his wife something nice to wear for the night. Should he likewise change once or even twice a day?

  Jerah frowned. No. That seemed like too much work. He scratched the stone beside him thoughtfully. “This shall be my shirt,” he decided, picking up a wide, green piece. He paused as it jingled softly.

  He shook it again. The same sound came from within.

  Promptly, Jerah scooted closer to the light of the void torch and looked toward the bottom of the shirt. How fascinating! Small metal rings protruded from beneath the fabric. He quickly peered into the shirt. And inside! In his hurried gatherings the night before, he had not noticed this!

  Jerah beamed proudly. What a magnificent shirt! Wouldn’t his master envy him!

  He smiled to himself as he pulled it on. Fortunately, humans were much fatter than their elven counterparts. It was certainly too large for an elf, but Jerah found it a little tight; it pinched a bit on his skin. Still, it was such a magnificent shirt that Jerah was certain he could stand the mild discomfort.

  He looked toward the other clothes piled in a careful heap. “Ah… those… mercenaries wore something like this…” he spoke softly, picking up a large piece of short leather. He pulled his arms through and wiggled it down over his head. Only, that was as far as it would go.

  “Doesn’t fit! Doesn’t fit!” Jerah grunted as he fell backward in his struggle to escape. After he had finally managed to toss it aside, he was far more careful about selecting a larger piece.

  What he found only covered the upper portion of his torso, but Jerah gave it a sharp and satisfied prod with his nail. Perhaps it would help protect him from more shafts of wood in his heart.

  He shivered at the thought.

  Then a loud scre
ech jolted his body rigid. He peered out into the evening light. Already the cycle of the bright torch had faded. How fast it sometimes seemed to move—and always when he was enjoying himself!

  Jerah grudgingly dropped his treasures and scurried for the city.

  *

  As Jerah twisted his way along the mountain floor in his return for home, he found himself attempting to imitate one of the melodious objects he had seen a man playing. The human had been seated before a window, strumming away, and Jerah thought it was a nice and happy sound escorting him from his successful kill.

  How did the object make such a sound without a mouth?

  He strained his voice to imitate its pitches. Damn, it was so difficult!

  He put a claw into the mountainside and ceased his poor attempts at mimicry. He had noticed something dark on the ground beside him.

  ‘What is that…?’

  He reached down and picked up a lump of fur. The feathers the nameless had. He turned it slowly in his hand, excitement building in his gut as his fingers ran over the stiff, weightless fluff—it was nothing like rat fur!

  He raised it to his face and sniffed. And it was covered in blood!

  Jerah looked around himself quickly.

  Why, there was more of it! He excitedly picked up another few pieces, moving away from the mountainside to follow the slowly growing trail. Had one of the nameless been killed? It would relieve him to know that was possible. He picked up another patch and dropped it into the pile wobbling in the crook of his large arm.

  The trail continued for some time, taking Jerah quite a distance off his usual path and into a place within the mountains where he had not been before. His collection was growing quite large!

  …Though he hadn’t figured out what he was going to do with the feathers once he had collected all of them.

  Finally, the source of the wondrous collection became visible and Jerah’s attention snapped up to the mountain sides, cautiously alert. For the first time, he realized that he was far from his home and covered in bloody feathers.

  Still, Jerah took a step forward. Up ahead, the body of the creature was easy to distinguish. Jerah could see the side of it, sprawled out in the dirt, surrounded by more blood and more feathers.

  He sniffed the air. It smelled oddly smoky, but he could detect nothing else unusual.

  ‘Is it dead?’ he wondered warily, inching closer. Even if it wasn’t dead, Jerah figured it could hardly be a threat in its tattered condition. He slipped a little closer and stopped beside it.

  With an intake of breath, he crouched down to examine his find.

  “What was it?” he breathed aloud, head cocked. It wasn’t an elf or a human or a nameless… and yet it embodied much of their qualities. The first thing he noticed was that it was naked. He had never seen anything naked so clearly before. Well, except, of course, for himself. This creature was much like him in body—with all the arms and legs and things in-between.

  ‘Is this what elves look like naked?’ he wondered, raising his brow. It had pointed ears like the elves. And no talons or scaled feet.

  But then he noted its wounds. Its dark-skinned body was covered in them—scratches and small holes and black marks. But many more were oddly red and bubbly.

  Jerah cocked his head to the other side, wondering what made such wounds and if it was what happened to elves or humans when they did not immediately die. Still, if it was healing, it wasn’t doing so very quickly… Far, far slower than Jerah.

  Strange.

  And what did the face look like? He leaned forward eagerly, but from his position he could only see the side of the creature’s body. He scooted his feet through the dirt, slowly circling around its body, until he came to face the front of the creature.

  And grimaced. What was wrong with it?

  He poked its face with a long talon. The hair was black and orange and red, vivid as the color of elven clothes, and cut in an oddly jagged fashion. The face was covered in the red bubbliness of the rest of the body where gashes had once been. The tongue lolled slightly to the side where several of its sharp, pointed teeth were missing. It had no lips, the skin was torn, and a gaping hole resided where a nose should be. The bone of its chin was exposed and stained red.

  Jerah looked down, following the little trail of blood leading from its mouth. He gasped in delight. A tooth! He picked it up and placed it in his pocket.

  Oh. Right. He had been distracted again. Looking back at the body, Jerah reached out and prodded the exposed bone once.

  The creature gave a slight jerk.

  With a shout, Jerah tumbled back through a cloud of feathers, taloned fingers flexing in preparation. But the creature did not move again.

  Jerah righted himself. “Are you alive?” he asked, and daringly poked it in the chest.

  It did not move.

  Jerah brushed the feathers from his head and looked around the mountain alley. Was this what the other nameless were looking for…? They had seemed so desperate. So angry…

  A soft thud caused Jerah to sit up straighter, his eyes wide. The heartbeat of the creature!

  It was alive. Alive!

  …What should he do? He stared at it, jaw slacked, head cocked.

  Then slowly, he put a hand to the place of his own wounds—now but little red dots. He felt a heaviness on his chest; it made it difficult to breathe. His chest hurt for the creature.

  Perhaps… perhaps this thing was like him. Perhaps something had hunted it. Perhaps it had almost died. Perhaps it had barely gotten away.

  Perhaps… it needed him.

  The scattered feathers were forgotten. Jerah reached down, picked the creature up, and pulled it close. “I will take you to my home,” he told it in the chance that it could hear him. “You will be safe there.”

  With the creature slung over his shoulder, the path back up the mountain was very difficult for Jerah. The creature’s weight, though little, was enough to cause pain in Jerah’s nails. By the time he reached the top, his entire body groaned in rebellion.

  Jerah clambered into the hole and laid the creature down gently at the pool in the back. Then he chose a shirt and dipped it into the water to slowly wipe the dirt and blood from the creature’s dark skin. Yet no matter how intensely Jerah scrubbed, the strange, red, bubbly flesh remained. He ignored it and moved down the body, making sure to scrub every place on the creature until it was as clean as any elf Jerah had ever seen.

  Lastly, Jerah reached the fingernails—his least favorite part. He raised the creature’s hand and paused. He leaned forward and sniffed. ‘What?’ His lips parted dumbly, his eyes squinting. Its own flesh and blood were embedded beneath each of its nails.

  ‘But why?’ Jerah could not think of a time he had ever had his own flesh and blood on his talons.

  Were its wounds… self-inflicted?

  Jerah lowered the hand. “Well… it does not matter,” he told himself firmly. The creature was still in need of his care. He diligently cleaned the creature’s nails with the cloth, as he had once done to his own talons in the cellar of his master so very many nights ago.

  After he had cleaned them, he reached over for his next favorite shirt and pants and pulled them onto the naked body. With the remaining treasure of clothes, Jerah lined a section of the stone floor, away from his hanging winged companions, and then laid the new creature upon it.

  With a sigh and a tired groan, Jerah sank to the earth. Exhaustion buffeted him. When was it? He looked out of the cave, catching the faintest hint of light from the rising of the day torch. So late… He yawned, leaning against the wall of the cave with a grunt. He would just close his eyes for a minute…

  ‘Have to… keep a… watch… on… it......’

  *

  Palink.

  In the pool at the back of Jerah’s home, the slow drip of water sounded with a soft tink, just like in his old cell. He raised his head, stretching and yawning and breathing in the fresh scent left by the damp world outside. The voi
d must have leaked again.

  He leaned forward with a weary grunt.

  “Oh!” He had almost forgotten about the furless creature! He quickly looked over, relieved to find that it had not moved from where he had laid it the night before. But it was shaking slightly.

  Jerah’s chest tightened and he scooted forward. “Aw, you are cold,” he noted, looking for more clothes. Hm. He had used them all for it to lie on. “I will have to get you some more.” He stood, peering out of his hole. ‘But if I leave it here, the nameless might find it… Maybe they will eat it?’ He looked back at the creature.

  Damn it! What to do?

  Jerah paced along the length of his home, considering his options. He was going to have to kill, so the creature would have to be left alone. The nameless seemed sparse at night, so he would wait until dark to leave. Then perhaps the creature would be safe.

  He felt quite proud at his reached conclusion.

  Yet, worry followed him out to the city and back, the creature ever present on his mind. Was it still sleeping? Was it too cold? Had the nameless found it?

  But when he returned, he found it just as he had left it.

  Jerah smiled, dropping the pile of clothes beside the creature. Then he laid piece by piece across its body in a thick and careful pattern.

  ‘I wonder if it is hungry…’ Jerah’s brow knit. ‘At least thirsty?’ He pooled some water into one hand and carried it to the creature. He sat it up and put its face against the pool.

  “That doesn’t work,” he concluded after a moment. He raised the face out of his hand and laid it back down. It was still breathing deep in sleep, so Jerah drank the water and sat back to watch.

  Suddenly, its thin body jerked and with a brief shudder, its eyelids peeled wide.

  Jerah lurched forward eagerly, wondering what color eyes it would have.

  Yellow! It had yellow eyes just like his own!

  Jerah opened his mouth to exclaim his delight, and stopped as its gaze shifted toward him.

  It gave a venomous hiss.