by Barb Hendee
Dog and intruder had separated. The wiry little man—or perhaps teenage boy—dropped low as Chap charged again. The dog was in mid-air when the intruder lunged forward from his crouch, one hand swinging up with hooked fingers to snag Chap’s belly fur. Chap lost his trajectory.
Perhaps it was the dark or scattered ash floating in the air, or the flickering half-light of the nearly snuffed fire playing mock images upon the fight in the scrub grass. But Leesil could swear the little man somehow reversed direction while Chap was still in the air. Whether he had landed in a blink to turn back, or never actually left the ground, Leesil couldn’t be sure.
The filthy beggar’s feet kicked upward into the dog’s side, adding force to momentum. Chap snarled as he arched across the clearing, head over tail, and yelped in pain as he grazed the base of a tree and tumbled across the sandy ground. He was instantly on his feet again.
Leesil pulled the bowstring, trying to reload the crossbow, and nearly losing his grip when startled by a shout from behind him.
“Chap, no!”
Leesil turned his head just enough to see, but still keep the beggar boy in his view. Magiere was up, falchion in hand, though somewhat unsteady on her feet.
“Get back, Chap!” she shouted again.
Chap trembled and snarled, but kept his distance. Every muscle under his fire-singed fur tensed in protest, as if her order was not only unfair but incorrect.
No one moved.
The young intruder held up his hand and stared at the canine teeth marks on it.
“I’m bleeding,” the boy said in puzzled astonishment. “It burns.”
His dull brown eyes grew wide and uncertain. He was shaken for some reason, seeming to not have expected pain or injury. He looked no more than sixteen years of age and was built as if he’d spent half that time in near starvation. Calm appeared to settle upon him, but there was still apprehension in his stance as he shifted his weight lightly from foot to foot, perhaps caught between fight and flight. He grabbed the quarrel protruding from his abdomen, and pulled it out with a quick jerk and only the slightest flinch.
Taking in all of this at once made Leesil momentarily forget about reloading the crossbow. This strange youth should be dead, or near enough to it, and Magiere should be lying unconscious on the ground. But his partner stood beside him, gripping her falchion, knees slightly bent in a half-crouch, expression tense and purposeful. And the intruder who stood well out of reach across the fire was considerably less worse for wear than he should be.
“What’s your name?” Magiere whispered though the darkness.
“Does it matter?” the boy asked.
Leesil could see that neither of them even noticed his presence anymore.
“Yes,” Magiere answered.
“Ratboy.”
Magiere nodded in answer. “Come and kill me, Ratboy.” He smiled once and leaped.
Leesil dropped and rolled. He heard the thump of feet landing right behind him and glanced back in time to see Magiere spin on the ground, coming up behind her attacker with the falchion already in motion. The boy twisted to dodge, but the blade still cut a shallow slash across his back, and he screamed out.
The voice was impossibly loud and high. Leesil flinched.
Ratboy started to fall, but caught himself on the cart with both hands. He propelled himself around to face Magiere. She rushed him before he fully regained his balance and kicked him in the upper chest. Ratboy’s body arched over backward, feet leaving the ground, and Magiere’s blade came rushing down at him while he was still in the air.
Leesil couldn’t imagine the strength of an ordinary kick whipping someone’s torso over in the rapid manner he saw. And Magiere was maneuvering faster than he’d ever seen her move before. But Ratboy’s speed increased to match hers.
The blade cut deep into the ground where Ratboy should have landed. Instead, he now stood to the right of the fire, hissing and groping with one hand at his back where Magiere’s falchion had cut into him.
“It burns,” he screeched, astonished and angry. “Where did you get that sword?”
Magiere didn’t answer. Leesil pulled himself up from the ground and glanced at his partner.
Her eyes were wide, locked on Ratboy. Her lips glistened wet as her mouth salivated uncontrollably. Leesil wasn’t sure she could have spoken if she wanted to.
Magiere’s breath was long, deep, and fast, and the smooth features of her face twisted, brow furrowing with lines of open hatred. Her skin glistened with a sweat she hadn’t worked enough to build up.
Chap circled in beside her. A low tremble ran through his body that showed in the quiver of his pulled-back jowls. In his savage state, the resemblance between dog and woman was impossible to ignore. As Magiere’s lips parted, her mouth looked like the snarl of the canine beside her. Her eyes refused to blink and began to water until small tears ran down her cheeks.
Leesil could not turn his attention fully back to Ratboy. He held his position to keep Magiere in his field of view as well. This was not the woman he’d traveled with for years.
Dog, boy, and woman all stood motionless, tense and poised. All watched for the first sign of movement. Leesil couldn’t stand it all any longer and cocked the crossbow.
Ratboy feigned another charge, then darted away at the last second, absorbing the sight of Magiere and Chap, she armed with her sword and the dog with his claws and fangs. Ratboy’s back and arms were bleeding badly now and the fear was plain on his face.
“Hunter,” he whispered and then bolted for the tree line.
Leesil raised the crossbow and aimed at the fleeing figure, not believing it would do much good. Somehow Magiere’s sword and Chap’s teeth had been more damaging than a quarrel through the body at close range. Before he could fire, Ratboy was gone in the dark. Leesil stepped quickly around the campfire to put its waning light at his back, but there was no sign of the fleeing figure. Chap started to trot in the direction of the trees, but Leesil called the dog’s attention with a snap of his fingers and shook his head. Chap whined and sat down with his attention still fixed out into the dark.
“Leesil?”
The sound of her voice was weak, barely a whisper. Leesil turned about, almost as on guard as when facing the vicious beggar boy.
Magiere breathed heavily now, as if exertion and injury had suddenly caught up with her all at once. Her features smoothed as wrinkles of rage faded, and her eyes cast about in confusion.
“Leesil?” she said again, as if she couldn’t see him. Then she sank to her knees, the falchion’s blade thumping against the ground.
Leesil hesitated. A small fear knotted in his chest. One unknown danger had fled the camp only to leave him with another he’d unwittingly kept company with for years. He’d seen a boy move with impossible speed and strength and his own dog savagely rebound unscathed from vicious attacks. He’d seen his only companion of years get up from a blow that might have downed most anyone, then slowly twist into something . . . someone he recognized only in the barest manner.
Magiere slumped over, head halfway to the ground. She’d dropped the sword entirely. Her weapon hand bent backward against the ground, unable to turn over to properly brace her weight.
Leesil had never touched her, except during their mock battles for money. The thought of stepping nearer to her now made his insides tense. Instinctively, he lifted the crossbow, holding it tight and pointed at Magiere.
How many times had she been the last one to sleep as he drank himself into slumber? How long had he wandered from theft to gambling table before he’d tried to lift her coin purse by mistake? How many people had he known in his ambling life willing to let him share their dream, even if it wasn’t one he particularly wanted? And he’d never before seen her need anyone.
He rushed over, dropping the crossbow as he caught her before she collapsed fully to the earth. Magiere crumpled and her weight was more than Leesil could hold in his half-crouch. He fell backward on the seat of his br
eeches, and Magiere’s shoulders and head toppled back against his chest, nearly knocking him flat.
“I’ve got you,” he said, pushing himself up as he steadied her, one arm around her shoulders. “It’s all right.”
He knew it was a lie. There was something very wrong with Magiere—about Magiere—and he was certainly not all right. Nothing was all right anymore. Now what was he to do? Would she come completely out of this—whatever it had been—by morning?
The heat of fear and fight was draining out of him, and the night air felt suddenly chill. He felt Magiere shudder, then go limp as she leaned against him.
As he sat there, trying to pull an old woolen blanket out of a pack and across her shuddering body, he thought he noticed a soft glow on her chest just below her neck. When he finished with the blanket, he looked again, but found nothing but the dangling amulets she wore half tucked into the top of her leather vestment.
Ratboy didn’t remember his journey back to Miiska. He only remembered growing pain and weakness, and wild bewilderment. Too injured to think or even rationalize, he felt the energy of his existence slowly dripping down his back and from his arm, weakening him. He’d been able to focus his will and remaining energy to closing the quarrel wound, but not his other injuries. The sword wound and teeth marks refused to close.
He’d been injured before, yet had never had a wound leech his strength like this, and lack of understanding only fueled his fear. Stumbling, he fell against the timber wall of a building, not even aware of what part of town he had entered. If he lost the last of his strength before reaching shelter, the sun would rise upon him.
In this early time before the day, the town lay silent. Rows of small weatherworn houses stretched out on both sides of him. He needed to get under cover before dawn, and he needed strength and life. He needed to feed.
A light feminine humming caught his attention, and the sensation of nearby warmth, flesh, and then blood filled his nostrils. Hunger and longing pulled him from his stupor, and he scrambled on all fours to the nearest corner of a house. There was also the smell of horse dung and metal, as well as coal and wood ash. It took a moment for him to piece together what his eyes saw. There was a woodpile to his right, and to the left around the corner were stable doors. In the rafters of the overhang hung horseshoes waiting for fitting.
Ratboy’s eyes widened as recognition came upon him. He was outside Miiska’s only blacksmith’s shop. Following the humming voice, he crawled to the woodpile with a fence behind it. He was as careful as possible while climbing the stacked wood to peer over the fence.
A girl of about fifteen years knelt by the family wood stack on the opposite side of the fence, her silky, mouse-brown hair tousled as if she’d risen from bed only moments ago. She wore only a white cotton night shift that Ratboy would have found enticing at any other time. Now all he needed was life, blood to strengthen him until he could find some way to close the wounds caused by the hunter and the dog.
The girl hummed gently again and then said, “Misty, come out of there. You’re the one scratching at my window to be let in. Stop playing games and come in the house.”
A soft meow answered her and a young tabby popped its head from out of the woodpile on the girl’s side of the fence. Ratboy saw her make a mock frown at the cat, trying hard to seem angry.
He did not weave into her thoughts with his voice, lulling her into forgetfulness so he could take what he needed and then disguise the teeth marks. Instead, he lunged.
The cat hissed and retreated into its hiding place.
Ratboy was over the fence and on the girl before she saw him at all. With one hand, he snatched her hair and pulled her head back to expose her neck, and with the other he held her body up against his. His open jaws snapped across her throat and bit down, tearing through the skin. Any cry she might have made was cut off as he crushed her windpipe. There was no time for her to struggle. Her hands merely shook, unable to act.
The first few seconds of warmth and life did not register, but soon his mind began to clear.
Red liquid covered his face and hands and shirt, but he didn’t care. The only thing on his mind was the pain in his back and wrists fading to a dull soreness as he dropped the dead carcass on the ground, leaving her there.
Cold never bothered the undead, but the luxury of warmth inside after feeding was a pleasure he never grew tired of, no matter how many times he felt it. It burned through him now, filling him up. It was more pleasure than he could ever remember, even when he’d been alive. And it washed away the hunger, killed the burning of his wounds, and he no longer felt his strength seeping from his body.
Sated and euphoric, he nearly lost track of the time, until a less pleasant tingle ran down the back side of his body across his skin.
There was a glow above the skyline to the east away from the ocean. Sunrise was coming.
Ratboy fled along the dock side of the town toward the warehouse. There would be a lot of explaining to do. Perhaps a little lying as well.
Leesil had managed to toss stray pieces of wood into the fire and kick it together, but it did little more than sputter a few small flames for the rest of the night. He couldn’t afford to drink now, so that also meant no sleep. Not that he could sleep, as this night’s events had been almost as unsettling as his never-ending dreams. It was not a hardship, as he’d gone as long as three sleepless nights before fatigue caught up with him. He remembered his mother could go even longer when the need arose, and likely his own ability was inherited from her. Something to do with her elven heritage that she’d so seldom discussed.
Chap had changed quickly back into his cheerful self, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Having found a comfortable spot on the ground near his master, he’d spent the night silently grooming himself and napping for short periods, only to stir occasionally at the forest sounds only he could hear.
Sitting quietly with Magiere sleeping in his lap, Leesil passed long, tense hours in the dark before he could look at her face without imagining it transformed into what he’d seen earlier that night. He had checked her for wounds, but she was uninjured as far as he could detect. By the time he could look at her face without flinching, morning twilight was just beginning. There should have been a black-and-blue patch and conceivably split skin with dried blood on the side of her face. He now saw only a light bruise on her left cheek. Instead of relief, he felt another surge of fear and confusion. As the sun rose just high enough that he could feel its warmth on his back, Magiere’s eyelids quivered and opened.
“Are you all right?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” she answered hesitantly, then added, “My jaw hurts.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said. Then he remembered she hadn’t been hit in the jaw but on the side of her face.
Before he could ask another question, he felt her body tense. She blinked wide as she stared up at him, apparently now realizing she lay in his lap.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Good question,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “I like that question. I might even ask it myself.”
Magiere rolled to sit up as quickly as she could without leaning on him for support, but her scowling eyes stayed fixed upon Leesil.
“You dropped in a heap last night and started shaking,” he explained. “I didn’t want you to get chilled in the night from exhaustion.”
“I’m not exhausted,” she muttered angrily, then climbed to her feet.
Her hand went instantly to the side of her face, and she wavered slightly where she stood. Leesil retrieved his wineskin and, taking a tin cup from his pack, he filled it with red wine.
“This is all we have for the pain. Drink it. All of it.”
Magiere seldom drank anything besides water or spiced tea. She grabbed the cup too roughly and slopped part of it on to the ground. She sipped it, winced, and then rubbed at her jaw. Leesil watched suspiciously.
“Do you want to tell me what happened last night?
” he asked.
She shook her head. “What is there to tell?”
Leesil crossed his arms. “Well, let’s see now. We were attacked without reason. I shot him, and he pulled the quarrel out as if it were a splinter. Then he acted like Chap’s bite was a mortal wound. Not to mention he seemed surprised that your sword could actually hurt him. And then you . . .” He paused only a moment, waiting for a response, but none came. “Let’s see . . . loss of the power of speech, kicking a man into the air and onto his back almost faster than I could see . . . not to mention your drooling maniacal expression. What exactly do you think—”
“I don’t know!” she shouted at him.
Magiere dropped to the ground next to the cart and leaned back against its wheel. Her head drooped until Leesil could no longer see her eyes. She let out a deep, angry sigh. Then a second sigh, weak and heavy.
In the years he’d known her, many words occurred to him that would have adequately described Magiere—strong, resourceful, heartless, manipulative, careful—but never lost or vulnerable.
“I don’t know what happened,” she said, almost too quietly for him to hear. “If I tell you something crazy, Leesil, you mustn’t laugh.”
“I wait in suspense,” he said, not understanding why he suddenly felt angry instead of more sympathetic. He was worried about her, but still angry. Perhaps it was the long, edgy night of sitting with no answers.
“I think we’ve been on the game too long.” She lifted her head, but did not look at him. “What’s real and what’s false are becoming blurred in my head. I don’t want to fight anymore . . . or at all or . . . I don’t know. All of this can stop if we just make a peaceful life. We’ll run an honest business, keep to ourselves, and this will all go away.”
