Salvation

by James Wymore

  "What is it?" Jewel asked.

  "Just a thought," he said. He didn't want to evade her question. He just didn't think it would be worth worrying her over. "I wish we had more time alone, before we had to deal with everybody else."

  "Me, too," she said. Her eyes said otherwise. She was anxious to get everything rolling efficiently again.

  "I don't suppose people will be happy if we have a whole cottage to ourselves, while they are sleeping in the barn."

  "No," she said. "But there's always the cellar."

  He laughed and started the goats again. They stopped near their cottage and unloaded the sleigh. Even though it had snowed recently, many feet had already packed the snow down again.

  At the moment, they didn't see anybody around. After they unloaded the sleigh, they went over to the big building. A huge crowd was jammed in from wall to wall. Several people were talking loud over the group to get their attention.

  "We need to build a hotter furnace," Vince said.

  Elwood pushed through until he could see the center. Drake held a serpentine sword, with a tip bent to one side. It was a copy of Vince's sword, but clearly not strong. Drake said, "It's not the fire, it's the ore. It's just too soft."

  "The edge can cut," Bowen offered.

  That was when people began noticing Elwood as he moved closer. Several women rushed over to Jewel and they all began whispering with great excitement.

  The men moved aside to let Elwood move to the group in the center. In a somewhat quieter voice, Vince said, "Drake is the unofficial blacksmith of Winigh when we can't wait for traders. He made a mold of the sword Bowen gave me."

  Drake held out the homemade sword. It was the same shape as Vince's on one side, but flat on the other side where he poured it into a mold. As Elwood took it, Drake said, "It's just a first attempt."

  "It's not bad," Elwood said. "Who bent the tip?"

  "Me. I was trying to pry bark off a log," Bowen said, "to copy what you did to the Hyzoi."

  Elwood ran one thumb against the edge, which was reasonably sharp.

  "We were thinking about molding both sides, and then hammering them together," Drake said.

  Jewel came over to join Elwood. In a kind, but raised voice, she asked, "Has everybody eaten?" People nodded. "Anybody not working on weapons needs to help bring enough wood out of the east hills to build all of Winigh again."

  "It's hard to cut wood in the winter, because it's frozen," an older man said.

  "We have to build a wall to keep out the devil's own monsters," Jewel said. "It'll take rocks and wood, and we have to do it in the winter. We live or die by the size of the wall and the weapons we make."

  The old man nodded. Three dozen people, mostly men and boys, began moving out through the door. Another dozen stayed to see if they could help with the weapons.

  "How many have a sleigh?" Jewel asked. A few hands went up. "We need to start bringing supplies from everybody's homes. Those with sleighs, get somebody to go with you and start taking trips. First, bring anything that needs to be eaten soon. Then, bring animals. Vince, can you get some people to take my sleigh and help out? You don't need to go, but whoever takes it will need to get a new team of goats so the ones on it can rest. Oh, and they'll need to fix the brake." She smiled and winked at Elwood.

  Jewel moved toward the kitchen as even more people emptied out, leaving just a handful of men standing around Elwood and the swords in question. Vince only pointed at his oldest son who nodded, and headed out to follow Jewel's directions on Vince's behalf. Then he turned back to the weapons, which he found much more interesting.

  "Excuse me," Elwood said. He rushed over to Jewel before she went back to the kitchen. "When you have extra people, we need to start training the goats for war."

  "Are you still comparing goats and people here?"

  He laughed. "No, you said you used magic to train the goats to pull wagons and sleighs."

  "Yes."

  "Well, we need to get some serious magic together and teach the goats to fight. We can rig them with weapons, chariots, and maybe bombs. They can have riders if need be. But we need every advantage we can get. If nothing else, if we can get the Hyzoi to attack the goats, it will give us time to kill some of them before they turn on the humans."

  "Bowen is really good with goats," she said.

  "I need Bowen," he said.

  "Macey, then. She can start some of the men working on it."

  "Thanks." He kissed her cheek and went back to the group working on weapons.

  "Bowen said this kind of metal work has to be pounded," Drake said to catch Elwood up. "I've never done that kind of work."

  Elwood pulled out his sword and handed it around to the group. They all admired it. "We can't make these things here. They pull the metal from special mines, and smelt it in furnaces bigger than this great house. They hammer each one for a day, heating and cooling it."

  "Then what can we do?" Vince asked.

  "Hyzoi depend on their rocky armor for protection. However, it's organic. It has joints and weaknesses we can exploit. It takes two weapons, one to lever and one to cut. The levering weapon doesn't need to be fancy like my sword. It can be simple like an axe, a clawed hammer, or a prying bar. Then a knife or short weapon can slip in. Unlike us, they are weak on the inside. Most of their bones are fused to their backs, running along the scaled armor on the outside. So if you pry a plate of crust loose, you can easily slice up the soft tissues beneath."

  Elwood used his sword to wedge beneath the bar on Bowen's practice log. Then he whipped out his barbed hunting knife and jammed it into the wood beneath. "Selene weapons are made to do both jobs." He twisted his sword in his hand, showing the tip prying and slicing. "Even if we can't replicate the dual purpose weapons, we can make weapons to do the job."

  He put his own weapons away. He took a hatchet from the nearby woodpile and the new sword Drake made. He chopped into the log and twisted the bark loose. Then he jammed the tip of the softer, serpentine sword into the space. "Drake's method will work for the second weapon. We just need to design some primary leverage weapons."

  "What about this one?" Bowen asked. He brought out a long, thick pole with a curved spike on the end. "We took a shovel, broke the flat sides off, and sharpened the spike."

  Elwood hefted the weapon and examined the tip. "This is excellent."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Out in the open, Elwood revealed a full-scale model of a Hyzoi Bowen helped him build. Mounted on a wooden frame, leather hinges attached flat rocks in layers. Two eye-holes were sunk into the statue, between a prominent brow and cheekbones. Beneath the rocks, bags of leaves served as guts. Each arm had nails sticking out two inches from the webbed fingers. They could be moved forward and sideways to give a general idea of range.

  As the men examined the model, Elwood tried to gauge how long the snow would last. The sky was heavy, but the sun had been peeking out off and on all day. It was definitely rising in its track. They had precious little time to train.

  "Hyzoi are bigger, stronger, and faster than you," Elwood said when the men were finished. "If you try to face one on even ground, you are already dead. If that happens, you have to run for your life."

  "You said they are faster," Vince pointed out.

  "They are," Bowen said. Elwood happily let him take this one. "Some of them almost ran us down, going full speed on a sleigh. But even though they are faster, they have a short range. If you can stay ahead of them for a minute, they tire out and stop."

  "If you're running on flat land, it will be enough time for them to catch you," Elwood said.

  "How do we fight them, then?"

  "Weapons," Elwood said. "They have weak fingers. Plenty strong for slashing with the claws or choking a large man to death, of course. However, they can't climb because their bodies are too heavy for their hands, and they can't work weapons or tools well. They have some, but they don't use them to fight."

  He moved over to the model. "H
yzoi have strong legs, like a frog, only a hundred times bigger. They don't use their legs to kick, they use them to charge."

  "They came out of the water in one blink of an eye," Bowen said. "One second you see nothing, the next they are all the way up on land."

  "Young Hyzoi use that for their favorite attack," Elwood said. He raised one arm out to the side while Bowen raised the other. "They spring at you with more force than a rock falling from the cliffs. They hit like a stampeding goat. Then they tear your throat out with their teeth." He pushed the monster's hanging jaw up to display a row of nails on top and bottom.

  "Only the young ones?" Vince asked.

  "The veterans know humans have learned how to counter that attack. They train, the same as we do. Only the young ones will forget their training in the heat of battle."

  "Like animals acting on instinct," Bowen nodded.

  "So we will prepare for young ones first," Elwood said. "If you can counter their strongest attack, you will have a hope of surviving this war."

  He took out his knife, and pointed. "Hyzoi are soft underneath. Any time you can get beneath the armor or pry a plate of it off, you will have an easy target." He held up one rock on the monster's chest and poked through with his knife. "They can't move their arms across their chest, only their hands. And it's easy to stab straight through the webbing between their fingers."

  He sheathed the knife. "Don't try to cut into their legs. If you can cut into an arm, do it. But the real weakness is their body and eyes."

  "Not the neck and head?" Drake asked.

  "Try for the neck," Elwood said, "but their heads rest right on their shoulders. So it's really just here at the top of the chest. If you can cut a main artery or vein, they will bleed out in seconds. Hyzoi blood is slick, like animal fat, and clear, like chicken blood. So step carefully around fallen foes, because it can make you slip and lose your footing. If the dead monster's friend is nearby, that's all they need. They jump at movement, almost as if they can't help it. So if you have an advantage, it's easy to bait them to jump."

  Elwood moved six paces away from the model and drew a line in the dirty snow with his boot. "They can jump this far." Every man opened his eyes wide. "But they won't be any good after this far." He drew another line half way. "It's farther than the reach of your sword."

  "What about arrows?"

  "Worthless if you can't hit the eyes," Elwood said pointing at the two inch holes. "Most of the time they are covered with hard lenses. An arrow might stick, but it won't go through. You can only attack their eyes when they are moving. If one jumps at you, you stick it through the eye with the longest, sharpest weapon you have. If you get it two fingers deep, you'll hit the brain and kill the beast."

  "So arrows only work if the things are jumping?" asked a younger boy.

  "Yes. But their eyes are like black bulls-eyes, with a circle of clear goo around them. So they make a nice target. However, it's a fool's game at more than ten or fifteen paces." Elwood stood about twice as far as the jump line. "From this distance, they won't jump at you."

  "So they wait for us to get closer and we wait for them to jump," Vince said. "That's a dangerous game."

  "That's why we need the wall," Elwood said. "If it's too high for them to climb or jump, we can wait above it. We send out goats to charge them."

  "Goats won't charge in a fight," Bowen said.

  "Before I came to Winigh, goats didn't pull wagons, either. When the Hyzoi jump at the goats…" He pulled his knife out and sunk it up to the hilt in the model's eye.

  The current batch of men, excused from other duties to train, practiced attacking with paired weapons. Against trees slated to become part of the defensive wall, they drilled by chopping in with an axe and then stabbing with a long hunting knife beneath the wood lifted by the axe. Having discovered their pouring process resulted in daggers too soft for the thinner stilettos, Drake made heavier blades. They held up under pressure without bending, but they dulled quickly.

  While they practiced, Bowen helped Elwood suspend their Hyzoi model from a rope tied to tall trees. With another rope, they pulled it back to start it swinging. With a push, it resembled a charging Hyzoi.

  "Vince," Elwood called, "you want to take the first turn over here?"

  Vince nodded and moved forward. He wiped small beads of sweat from his forehead onto the back of his sleeve. He had a wood-handled hatchet in his left hand and the long, snake-like sword Bowen had salvaged in his right.

  Indicating the stationary reptilian dummy, Elwood said, "Please show us what you've been practicing." Vince swung the axe backhand, so it lodged between two rocks just below the model's chest. In the same motion, he followed with the sword's point, brought forward so it entered just below the axe.

  "Are you left handed?" Elwood asked.

  "No."

  "You'll need the greater strength on the levering arm," Elwood said. "Try changing hands."

  Vince switched the sword to his left. The motion was slower and awkward. "I haven't really practiced like this," he said.

  "I don't think that's it," Elwood said. He put his hand out and Vince gave him the sword. "The repeating curves of this sword are designed to serve as the prying tool. It's too long for an effective stabbing weapon." He sliced toward the rocks from the side, lodging one of the round curves between the chest plates. Then he quickly slipped his knife in below it.

  He handed both weapons to Vince, taking the hatchet and handing it to Bowen. Vince sliced hard with the sword and slipped the smaller blade in beneath the curved arch. Elwood could see it was a more fluid, natural movement.

  "That's much better," Vince said with a half-smile and knitted brow.

  Elwood took his knife back. "Talk to Drake and have him make you a knife if you don't have one."

  "He's out of ore," Vince said. "We didn't keep much of it around."

  "Maybe we can melt down some other utensils and tools," Bowen suggested. "I have an old plow we could recycle"

  "That's a good idea," Elwood said. "Until then, see if somebody will trade for your hatchet. After you drill with the new technique, we'll bring you back to this practice dummy."

  Vince nodded and went back to talk to the men still working on their trees. Most of them had ringed their first tree already, and were working on the next one.

  "Drake," Elwood called with wave.

  Drake had a heavy axe and the long stiletto short sword Macey had given him. He tried to return it after trying, unsuccessfully, to make copies. However, she told him to keep it because she was certain he could make better use of the fine blade. She had one like it from her cookware already.

  "Please, show us what you've been working on," Elwood said. It felt strange to use niceties to soldiers who didn't follow every sentence with 'sir.'

  Drake slammed the axe hard between the two plates, breaking a piece of the top rock loose. Then he poked the fine blade in.

  "Good form. That's a heavy axe for one hand," Elwood said. "Do you think it will tire you out quickly?"

  "It's not any heavier than the hammer I forge with," Drake said.

  "Okay. Let's try a moving attack. Remember to drop down. If you go right or left, the claws will just bring you back in. Put the axe in first, then drop and slip the knife under. Keep your hand on the axe, though."

  Drake nodded. His teeth clenched in concentration. Bowen and Elwood pulled the rope. Then they gave the model a quick push as it arced toward Drake.

  Drake's axe went by too soon, the head pushed by the heavy dummy. Instead of falling, he turned sideways from the odd force and the whole contraption crashed into him. He fell back and away, landing hard on his side in the packed snow. His face was red with anger.

  Elwood smiled and offered him a hand, but Drake refused, getting up on his own, picking up the axe. "That was just a first try," Elwood said. "It takes some practice."

  Drake nodded, letting the red drain from his cheeks. "I'll get it next time." Elwood planned to have him try sever
al times now. However, Drake walked back to the tree to work on drills again.

  They pulled everybody out, one at a time, to work with the monster-shaped pendulum. By the end of the day, several of the men could perform the maneuver accurately. The sun was going down and the sweat was starting to chill them before Elwood called them all together.

  "That's good work, soldiers," he said. "We will continue working drills against the pendulum for a few days. Keep practicing in your mind. If you can, make your reactions an instinct. When a child throws a ball at you, you should fall to the ground automatically. Tonight, sharpen your weapons. Do not take comfort from food or friends when you go in to eat. See them as if Hyzoi are attacking and you alone can prevent their deaths. Imagine killing your enemies until the thoughts bring nightmares."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Once a large, bellows-style pump was constructed, Bowen began sewing together long tubes of leather, to create hoses they could use to direct the spring water up over the ridge. After several failures, he gave up and began looking for new materials.

  Macey couldn't get the goats to fight each other, charge the Hyzoi dummy, or even charge another person. She eventually surrendered. However, Vince began to see some luck getting the goats to charge the dummy when he doused it with goat urine. So they built another dummy and he took over training the goats. He said it only worked when somebody helped him concentrate the magic, so Aunt Lanny agreed to assist him. Her wrinkled forehead stretched high when they finally found something she could do.

  Having cleared much of the spring meadow of snow, several men climbed into the rocks above. Tethered together, they hammered spikes in to break free large chunks of rock and send them rolling to meadow. Elwood carefully directed which rocks should be cut in order to make the cliff steeper in the north section, where they planned to build the wall.