Shadow Moon

by Chris Claremont

  “Deserves it, he does, that’s what I say,” Franjean said in his ear, without bothering to hide his disdain.

  “So quick to condemn?” Thorn replied, his own voice softer than the zephyr’s, pitching his words around to the brownie hunkered below the curve of his head.

  “To fight a pack of Death Dogs and not expect them to follow? Too stupid to live, y’ask me.” A dismissal emphasized by the flick of delicately laced cuffs from silk-soft doeskin sleeves.

  “Death Dogs, you say?”

  “Obvious from the cut of the wounds,” Rool said quietly, “if not the stench of their poison.” His two swords were carved from the fangs of a Death Dog they’d slain, and in among the tribal tattoos that decorated his face and torso were a set of scars left by that battle. He’d been thrown from the neck of one hound and another had taken a snap at him in midair, breaking skin and bones with a snaggletooth fang that came within a hair of ending his life altogether. The fact that Rool could still walk at all, much less with his old grace and ease, was due solely to the Nelwyn’s talents as a healer.

  “Leftovers from the old days, perhaps?” Thorn wondered. “A long way from home, if so.”

  “As are we,” Franjean retorted.

  “I’ll keep watch,” Rool volunteered, and was gone before the sound of his words had faded, skirting the periphery of the firelight as he made his way toward a higher perch on the far side of the clearing.

  “I thought we were done with them,” Thorn mused. “That those few who survived Bavmorda were long slain.” From all accounts, that hunt had been a brutal, bloody business, and while he had no love for those hell-touched beasts, he was also glad he’d had no part in their extermination.

  “Evidently not.”

  “Might just be a rogue band of wanderers.”

  “Like us, you mean, wizard?”

  “Except, in all these years, in all our travels, we’ve seen no evidence of them before now.”

  “Drumheller—this land has Daikini, like our own. They ride horses, they herd livestock, they farm crops, just like our own. Some of them, they call the Veil Folk by different names, but Cherlindrea’s scattered her groves across this part of the world, same as she did across our own. With so much else in common between us, why not Death Dogs? And if they are here, I for one wish to be someplace else.”

  “You’re too harsh on the boy, Franjean. He knows they’re following. Look at his choice of campsite; he’s defended himself as best he can.”

  “He’s asleep, isn’t he?”

  “He’s human. Subject to human frailties.”

  “True enough there, Drumheller.” A huge and mocking grin split Franjean’s face. “Some warrior, ha! Didn’t sense brownie fingers twist his hair to tangles or pick his purses clean.”

  They were remarkable thieves, he’d discovered that right at the start, with skills to shame magpies and pack rats both; if something could be carried, it could be stolen, and what they could carry often bore no relationship to their diminutive stature. In that regard, they were as much a surprise as Nelwyns.

  “Find anything of interest?”

  “Scraping of field rations,” was the quick reply. “More for horse than man. Him, he’s been living off the land.”

  “Lean pickings, then, if our own experience is anything to go by.”

  “No ease with letters.”

  “How so?”

  “Nothing to write with, nothing to write on.” A sharp contrast to Thorn himself, who was always scribbling in a dog-eared notebook. He’d taught the brownies during their travels, only to realize too late that he’d provided them with another means of expression, which they enthusiastically put to a use that was as eloquent as it was outrageous. They had as little respect for property as for person and many were the walls, and reputations, that had suffered for it. “Straight-ahead sort of man,” Franjean continued, “what he sees, is, an’ there’s the end to’t. Much like you.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you.”

  “As you like. See the device on his coat? He’s sworn to somebody’s service.”

  “The King in Angwyn.” Thorn nodded. “Another wanderer, then, far from home.”

  “Oh joy, that we have so much in common.”

  Thorn looked away from the fire and the mountains. “Angwyn’s mainly south from here, and west. It’s never had a presence in these parts, the few settlements don’t acknowledge its sovereignty. What’s he doing here?”

  “Ask him, why don’t you?”

  “Franjean, you think he’s following us.” The brownie neither spoke nor gestured in response; he didn’t need to. His certainty was as rock solid as the ground beneath their feet.

  “Drumheller.” There wasn’t the slightest attempt to leaven the full measure of scorn heaped onto that single word. “We’re here, he’s here, the Death Dogs are here. Coincidence? I think not.”

  “Will the pair of you be silent!” cried Rool, returning hurriedly from his scouting post on the far fire of the encampment. “Wood of the Maker, I can hear you, that wreck and ruin of a horse can hear you, the Daikini can hear you—except he’s too ignorant to comprehend it and far too happy in his dreams. Damnation, Franjean, why do you always have to make a speech?” His friend lifted his eyebrows most eloquently, as if to say, Look who’s talking? “You’re not impressing anyone, we’ve heard it before, you’re only going to make matters worse, can’t you just say what’s what and have done with it?”

  Franjean continued as if no one else had said a word. He liked his dialogue and was determined to speak it through to the end.

  “A pair of fools, that’s you,” he finished in Thorn’s face. “The one cleaving to the other, a toss to tell which is the greater.”

  Thorn knew better than to press the point until some time had passed, enough for passions to cool. It wasn’t the first time the brownies—one or both—had gotten upset with him; he’d long ago realized that the size of their bodies was no limitation to the magnitude of their emotions. Quite the opposite in fact.

  “The eagles are quiet,” he noted, taking temporary refuge in a discreet change of subject.

  “The eagles don’t want to give anything away,” Rool told him. “These Death Dogs don’t just follow their noses.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It isn’t a wild pack, Drumheller. They move with unnatural purpose. They’ve been trained. They’re being led.”

  “By two legs or four?” he asked, using the eagles’ own terms.

  “Bastian, he’s not sure. Him and Anele, they’re staying very high unless things here turn bloody.”

  “Is the pack closing?”

  “Not sure of that, either. Strikes me, though, that these beasties are as patient as they are stubborn, holding off maybe until they’re all gathered together.”

  “Very well trained, then. Why are they after the Daikini?”

  “Who says they are? There’s just the one path.”

  Thorn tweaked the side of his mouth. Point to the Wee Folk, yet again.

  “The mare can’t defend herself,” he said.

  “That’s the way of it sometimes.” Bastian’s voice sounded quietly in Thorn’s head. “Those who cannot fight and cannot flee…”

  “She deserves better,” was his reply in kind, silent to all save the eagles.

  “So do we all,” agreed Bastian. “How often are such entreaties granted?”

  “Her lucky night, then.”

  “That is so rude,” declaimed Franjean.

  “Bastian called me,” Thorn tried to explain.

  “It’s rude to leave us out. If those poseur pigeons—”

  “Say that to their face.”

  “—want to talk to you”—he wasn’t fazed in the slightest by Thorn’s challenge, any more than he was by the eagles’ beaks and claws—“they can fly right down and open their big beaks
like decent folk. You don’t see us using mindspeak.”

  No, Thorn thought, but thankfully kept his mouth shut, you’re too much in love with the sound of your own voices. Mindspeech is too private, there’d be no audience for your wit.

  He sensed no direct awareness of the Death Dogs but knew that meant nothing. They were bred to hide themselves from adepts of any kind—woodsmen, warriors, and magi. That, and their unbelievable ferocity, was what made them such fearsome hunters.

  “The Daikini has to be warned,” he told his companions, and stepped clear of the crack in the rocks that had been his hiding place. Though out of habit he moved as silently as he knew how, the moment Thorn stirred, the Daikini was out of his bedroll and into a combat crouch, drawn saber at full extension. It was a handsome blade, Thorn saw that right off, but as untested as the man who held it, without even the faintest taste of blood along its curved edge. Same went for the knife, at least as far as battle was concerned; it had slaughtered its share of dinner over time.

  “Stay your distance,” the Daikini challenged.

  “You’re being followed.” Thorn overrode his words, his arms open, hands visible, to reassure the warrior that he meant no harm.

  “Them damn wolves again.” The man rose to his full height. Thorn hated that; it guaranteed that even the most casual conversation would give him a cricked neck. He’d been assessed as a potential danger and dismissed, the warrior turning his focus to the preeminent threat. “Took care of ’em the first time, do the same again.”

  As he spoke, the Daikini gathered up his crossbow; the weapon was built for cavalry use, an artful blend of power and portability. He braced it against one palm and pushed the cocking lever to draw its string to full extension, before nocking a wedge-shaped broadhead bolt into place. The feathers would make the projectile spin as it shot through the air so it would strike its target like a corkscrew, allowing the barbed triple head to do the worst possible damage.

  As he worked, the Daikini shot Thorn a sideways glance, followed by a chuckle rich with self-mockery.

  “Damn me,” he said, “ain’t it always the way? From yer trail, small steps an’ all, figured yeh was some young’un, got cut loose from the family. Figured maybe them damn wolves done fer yer folks, figured I’d get ta yeh first. But yer no kid a’tall, are yeh, graybeard?”

  “Not for a good while. I’m sorry.”

  “Not to worry, little fella,” the Daikini told him, with a confident wave of his bow. “One good hit’s all this lovey needs. Broadhead bolt don’t kill right off, it’ll sure make the mark wish it had.”

  All well and good, was Thorn’s answering thought, assuming you get that hit. And assuming the Death Dog bothers to even notice. They didn’t live as normal creatures and, Thorn knew from brute experience, in no way died as them.

  “Ones I tangled with, figured ’em f’r outriders, like,” the Daikini continued. “They were proper raiders, ’steada dumb beasties, I’d call ’em scouts. One caught my girl a wicked slash across the rump.” He patted his left leg. “Damn near got me in the bargain. Pretty sure I did for him with a bolt, pretty sure I did for ’em both, but my girl she din’t want ta stick about ta make sure. Put the frighteners into her, they did, never seen an animal run so fast, all I could do to keep my seat. Bin walkin’ ’er slow, all day, ta make up for it. Got my doubts, though. Think she’s broke.”

  Not quite, thought Thorn, she’s stronger than you know. But she’s on the edge.

  Aloud, he said, “They aren’t wolves.”

  He thought of casting wards but didn’t see the sense. The hounds would simply wriggle through the cracks in the energy fields. Or worse, turn out to be immune. He’d seen both happen.

  “Are they coming?” he heard from Rool, accompanied by the click of fang swords being drawn from their scabbards.

  Thorn didn’t reply, though he held up a hand to forestall further questions. In memory was the image of the Death Dogs he’d killed; he tucked it around his spirit, pulling on the essence of the beasts in the same way he would a coat, dimly aware of the Daikini losing his own balance and tumbling away in startlement as a roiling cry burbled from somewhere below the bottom of Thorn’s throat. The Nelwyn didn’t need a mirror to know that his eyes were glowing, or that they’d turned a milky amber. He knew it was illusion, but he still couldn’t help reflexively tucking his tongue back in his mouth as his teeth appeared suddenly to grow much longer and a whole lot sharper; in concert, he flexed fingers that seemed to end now in wicked claws. His heart quickened to a drumroll pace—this, regrettably, no fantasy—and felt every scrap of life about him, arrayed in his mind’s eye as portions at a feast.

  With swift, jerky motions—as though the commands were being issued to a wholly different body—he described a circle, right where he stood, surveying the campsite. The Daikini was scrabbling to his feet, bow leveled, but Thorn ignored him as his mind filled with a score and more of ways to slaughter him. It wasn’t a physical transformation, but a spiritual one. It wouldn’t help him detect the hounds; instead, it allowed him for this brief while to think and feel as they did, to view the world through their eyes and as a consequence perhaps anticipate their actions.

  The moon was occluded behind a scudding line of clouds, turning the landscape light and dark in a random sequence, blurring further the distinction between what was and was not. This was the time, he knew; the hour was right, the sky was right, the energies were right.

  With a wrench, Thorn tore himself loose from his trance, tasting copper as he spoke from a slice taken out of the inside of his cheek by teeth that his thoughts were trying to manipulate as though they were in the mouth of a beast.

  “They’re here,” he croaked, using that knowledge as a goad to bully himself into motion. He scrambled around the fire, making for the Daikini’s mare, cursing the fact his stunted legs forced him to take a score of frantic, waddling steps where the Daikini could have been there in two.

  He’d barely begun when the poor animal shrieked in terror and pain, but mostly, he realized, defiance, and he heard a solid thud as her rear hooves struck home. Knew in that moment, as well, that it had been her hooves that had done the damage during the initial encounter, not her rider’s well-intentioned bow shots.

  A Death Dog sprang into view, charging straight up the slope, announcing its attack with the gobbling snarl that was their trademark. Part of the Daikini’s equipment was a scabbard of short spears; Thorn pulled one free, slamming the butt home against the earth as he’d seen soldiers do in the face of an enemy charge and used his own body to brace it in place. The hound twisted desperately in midair, bending itself worse than any cat, in gyrations that should have been impossible for any creature with a skeleton, and Thorn was swept by the sick surety that it would dodge him.

  Bastian stooped right then, throwing his wings wide to pull out of a tremendous dive; they struck the air with a resounding slap that Thorn felt as much as heard. It always amazed him that any living creature, even the eagles, could fall so far and fast and still survive. At the same time, Bastian lashed out at the dog with his claws. Not a fatal contact, the lunge was mostly to get the creature’s attention.

  It worked. The Death Dog took a fatal snap at the attacker from above, even as Bastian muscled himself safely out of reach. A moment later, as it realized its mistake, it impaled itself on Thorn’s spear.

  The beast still had life enough in it to make a try for Thorn, but he was already pitching his spear sideways, and the Death Dog with it into the heart of the bonfire.

  Across the way, the Daikini put a bolt into the breast of another, the force of the impact tumbling the beast onto its forelegs. Thorn was there before it could rise again, to hammer the point of another spear through its skull.

  “Your sword,” he bellowed to the Daikini. “Sever the head!” He wanted to tell the man to hurry, but it turned out there was no need. With a two-handed strike, the deed was do
ne. The trooper’s blade had taken its first life.

  A Great Hunt numbered thirteen. Thorn prayed they didn’t face that many; if they did, they had no chance. Two more exploded out of the darkness while he raced toward his own bedroll. He heard the tunk of the Daikini’s bow, followed by the kilk-klatch of the string being cocked, and allowed himself a small marvel at the young man’s poise. He stood his ground, he fought as he’d been trained, with a speed and accuracy that would do many veterans proud.

  Something bowled him over from behind, and he reflexively tucked arms and legs and head tight to his body, taking on the aspect of a hedgehog to roll like a ball before the Death Dog’s onslaught. He managed to catch it by the fur below the knob of its jaw, where his arms could hold its fangs clear of him. Its teeth sounded like metal as they crashed together, while it scrabbled for purchase with hind legs on the ground and forelegs on his tunic; its breath made him gag, its spittle burning like acid as it sprayed across his face. The creature was so intent on him that it didn’t notice Rool working his way over the crown of its head until the brownie reared back, fang swords in both hands, to plunge them into its eyes.

  Maimed, the Death Dog sent everyone flying, lashing out in its frenzy even at its pack mates. Thorn’s questing hands found his own sword and brought it around to thrust it to the hilt down the shrieking hound’s throat.

  He’d lost count of how many they’d killed. The battle was so fierce, and desperate, he hardly had time to think, certainly none to plan. Every act, every move, every response had to flow from the one before, the parry that blocked one Death Dog becoming the lunge that slew another. Here and now, his size proved an invaluable asset; he met the pack on its own level, able to thrust straight-on where the Daikini always had to stab downward. His short, strong arms could maneuver more quickly than the much larger man, and he was a far more compact target.

  A yowl to the side announced one he’d missed, as it collapsed onto its haunches with a severed hamstring. He didn’t need to see the brownies to know they’d saved him yet again, but knew as well he’d be hearing about it the rest of his days.