One mystery was solved: XimXim was a monstrous insect, a mantis of truly gigantic size.
The monster gazed coldly at the Tarsan galley. In the center of its gigantic eyes, tiny black pupils tracked to and fro, following the movements of the terrified sailors. As more catapult darts whizzed by, XimXim unfolded stiff, bone-colored wings from its back. The wings didn’t flap or flex like a bird’s. They vibrated. The sound they made filled the air with the deafening, distinctive noise that gave the creature its name.
Tol wanted to shout a warning, but the men on the galley couldn’t possibly hear him. He and his companions watched open-mouthed as XimXim rose lightly from the bluff and flew slowly over the bay to hover over the ship. It was completely safe from catapults there; the machines could not elevate high enough to hit it. After watching the Tarsans’ futile efforts for a moment, XimXim dropped on them.
Slashing back and forth, the creature shredded the galley with its scythe-like forearms. Rigging and masts went down, entangling the hapless crew on deck. XimXim’s arms tore through the stout hull planking like a farmer’s blade mowing hay. After four horrible passes, the great ship was reduced to several large pieces, all sinking. By twilight’s glow, the Ergothians could see black dots bobbing in the water-the heads of the crew as they swam frantically for shore.
Not satisfied with sinking the warship, XimXim swept over the water, slashing the helpless survivors to pieces. When no one was left, XimXim climbed steeply into the evening sky and flew off to the northwest.
The teeth-rattling vibration of his flight eventually faded with distance. Soon, only the lap of waves and the steady sigh of the sea breeze remained. None of them spoke for several long minutes but simply stared in numb horror at the scene below.
“By all my ancestors,” said Kiya, breaking the shocked silence. “How can such a thing exist?”
“The gods’ ways are unknowable,” said Darpo flatly. His scarred face was ashen.
“Wizard, did you know about this?” Tol managed to say.
Mandes shook his head, whispering, “I’ve never seen or read anything about a monster like this in my life.” It was obvious he spoke the truth; he was as shaken and gray-faced as the rest of them.
“The kender have lived under XimXim’s threat for decades,” Darpo said. “They have a kind of understanding with it. It eats a few of them every year, takes their cattle, sheep, or pigs, but leaves them enough to live on.”
Tol remembered the day long ago when the kender delegation had come to Juramona to ask for Lord Odovar’s help against the monster. Odovar had chosen to send his hordes to fight in the Great Green, a choice that cost him his life-but probably spared the men of Juramona from wholesale slaughter such as they’d just witnessed.
It was clear now what had happened to Tylocost’s army, and to the eleven expeditions sent by the emperors of Ergoth to find the monster. XimXim had destroyed them all.
After years of equilibrium with the kender, the monster must have felt threatened by Tylocost’s army. Perhaps it thought the mercenaries were coming to attack it, so it struck first. Sorcerers in Tylocost’s pay raised a mist to hide their landing from Hylo’s Royal Loyal Militia, but the mist also hid XimXim. He had torn the invading Tarsans to bits, sunk their ships, and slaughtered ten thousand armed warriors in half a morning’s work.
“What now, husband?” Kiya asked.
“What can three hundred do against a beast that mighty?” Miya said. “We should go back.”
Tol’s response was immediate. “No,” he said. “The emperor himself chose me to deal with the monster, and I will not fail! First, we must catch Egrin before he goes too far. I don’t want XimXim doing to our people what he did to Tylocost’s!”
The Dom-shu regarded him with respect for his staunch words. Darpo was still shaken by what they’d witnessed, but didn’t question his commander. However, the reaction of Mandes, the city-bred sorcerer, surprised Tol.
For a man who had complained steadily about the pace of the march, his sore feet, and the bad food, Mandes seemed remarkably undisturbed by the prospect of facing XimXim. Once his initial shock had passed, his mood seemed more curious than afraid. “A fantastic creature, and a most unnatural one,” he observed. “The world is not generally populated with monsters so great. Someone, somewhere, may have created XimXim by magical means. Perhaps on purpose.”
His pale blue eyes were thoughtful as he added, “Sorcery that powerful should be studied. I would like to get a closer look at this monster, perhaps examine its lair. There may be much to learn from it.”
Tol was pleased to have the sorcerer’s support and felt obliged to say so. “I’m glad to have you along, Master Mandes. You may indulge your curiosity, so long as it doesn’t delay our mission. But take care! My first lord, Odovar, marshal of the Eastern Hundred, sent a priest, Lanza, to investigate XimXim five years ago. Lanza ended up dismembered like a feast-day chicken. What he might have discovered, no one will ever know.”
“Knowledge sometimes comes with a high price, my lord,” Mandes said primly, adjusting his worn, dirty gown. “How else would you know its worth?”
Chapter 19
Toe to Toe to Toe
Tol and his scouting party rejoined the rest of his command by the mouth of the Lapstone River, which began in the Sentinel Mountains to the west and flowed down to Hylo Bay through the capital city. Hiding from Tarsan patrols, Egrin and the soldiers had not caught sight of XimXim, though they too had heard the drone of his wings.
From a hilltop five hundred paces away, Hylo City was the picture of happy chaos. The town was a warren of narrow streets, market squares, and half-timbered houses cheek-by-jowl with inns, taverns, and courtyards. A riot of colors-if they were painted at all-Hylo’s buildings ranged from sky blue to beet red. Fowl flapped and squawked, pigs ran squealing (pursued by squealing kender), and all sorts of commerce filled the streets. But as Tol’s men drew near, the Hyloites fled inside, bolting every door and shuttering every window behind them. By the time the Ergothians halted in the main square, not a single kender could be seen. “I thought kender were curious,” said Miya. “Such gratitude!” Egrin said. “Here we’ve come to save them, and they don’t even greet us!”
“They don’t view us as saviors,” Tol said slowly, as he surveyed the houses around the central square. “We didn’t help them years ago, when they first asked for it. On their own they had to learn to live with XimXim, and now I suppose our war with Tarsis has ruined their peace.” His pointed to the tallest rooftops. “Look there!”
All around the town, the tops of the highest buildings had been ripped open. Long parallel slashes showed where XimXim had raked his sharp claws over them. Every house above a certain height bore severe damage.
It had been impossible to convey the horror of the monstrous creature to the city guardsmen. They had snorted dismissively at the notion of a giant bug terrorizing the countryside. But the visible destruction throughout Hylo, along with the clear reluctance of the kender to greet them, put an end to their cynicism.
Egrin asked if they should pay their respects to Lucklyn the First, king of Hylo, whose residence, just across the square, was shuttered and silent like all the rest. Tol, after thinking it over, decided against forcing their welcome.
In the midst of the empty square, Tol held a council of war. All his captains, plus the Dom-shu sisters and Mandes, crowded around as Tol spread a large goatskin map of Hylo on the cobblestones. He pointed out the bay, the river they’d followed, and then tapped the tip of his sheathed dagger on the little triangle representing Hylo City. A short hop west of the kender capital were the brown, jagged lines of the Sentinel Mountains.
“Our best information is that XimXim lives in a cave, somewhere in the lower reaches of the mountains,” Tol explained. “The monster is said to be able to see the city from his lair, so we can assume his cave is somewhere here.” He traced a short arc in the hills west and south of Hylo. “Anyone know anything about this reg
ion?”
No one did, not even Mandes or Darpo, the former seaman.
Tol continued, “Then we’ll have to reconnoiter as we go. Given the nature of the enemy, I propose to disperse the band into small, individual companies-the better to stay mobile and hidden from XimXim. Each company will explore the region directly in front of it, and stay in contact at all times with their comrades on either flank.”
He arrayed the ten companies across the map from south to north. Egrin was given thirty men in the center, with Narren on his left flank and Tol on his right. Tol took personal command of Valvorn’s men, the Karad-shu having been slain by bakali. Mandes would accompany Tol, as would Kiya and Miya. Any group encountering the monster was to signal its comrades immediately, by bonfire at night or with rams’ horns by day.
“Defend yourselves, but don’t try to fight this thing by yourselves,” Tol warned sternly. “XimXim is too powerful to be fought with sword and spear. Our purpose is to locate the creature’s lair. If you do, don’t signal. Hold your place and send a runner to me. If we can discover the monster before it knows we’re hunting for it, we may be able to find a way to trap it in its own den. Believe me, we don’t want to confront it in the open. This beast walks, flies, and kills with the speed of a whirlwind.”
“My lord?” said Darpo. “What about the Tarsans? What do we do if we come upon any?”
“Kill ’em quick,” said Narren, and the men laughed.
Tol said, “As far as I can tell, no Tarsans have made it across the bay. Small parties of scouts or spies may be abroad. Deal with them as you see fit, but remember Lord Urakan might appreciate a few prisoners to question.”
The company leaders studied the map a while longer, each noting his line of march. The countryside between Hylo City and the mountains was hilly and wooded, though not so densely as Ropunt Forest. The Lapstone River divided southwest of town, and the fordability of it and its two tributaries was unknown.
One by one, Tol said good-bye to his retainers. All Juramona men, they had known each other for a large part of their young lives. Last to go were Narren and Egrin. The younger soldier Tol embraced.
“We’re a long way from mucking out the stables for the Household Guard,” Narren said almost wistfully. “You, me, and Crake were quite a trio, weren’t we?”
Tol forced a smile at the mention of Crake. He’d never told anyone the masked assassin in Daltigoth was their old comrade-only that he had fairly fought and slain the fellow who attacked him.
After Narren gathered his men and departed. Egrin stepped forward.
“My lord,” he said, and saluted in the old-fashioned way, with his bared dagger.
Tol colored. “I’m not your lord. I’m still the stupid boy you trained to be a soldier,” he said.
“You are my lord and commander. And you were never stupid.”
Tol blinked, surprised at the warmth in the old warrior’s words. Clearing his throat in embarrassment, he took a sheaf of parchment from under his tunic and gave it to Egrin.
“Keep this for me,” he said quietly. “If I’m unlucky, will you see those letters get to the person named on them?”
Egrin tucked them away without glancing at them. They clasped arms. A hint of the old taskmaster came through in Egrin’s voice as he urged, “No heroics. The gods favor you, Tol, but this creature does not abide by the gods.”
“Never fear. My life is dear to me, but I shall do my duty.”
Egrin led his men out. All that remained in the square were Valvorn’s company of twenty-two, with Mandes, Miya, and Kiya. Tol told the sisters they were risking their lives by going, and should stay behind.
“I don’t want to go,” Miya said frankly. “I hate crawling things! Especially Mg crawling things! But I won’t stay if Kiya goes.”
Kiya’s face was implacable. “Our father, the chief of the Dom-shu, owes much to you, husband,” she said quietly. “Where you tread, we shall tread. Where you sleep, we shall sleep. And where you perish, so shall we die.”
She drew her knife and grasped her long blond horsetail of hair. It reached the middle of her back. She cut it off just below the thong she used to tie it back at her neck. Miya gasped. The only time Dom-shu warriors cut their hair was before a battle to the death. Hair was sacred to the god Bran, lord of the forest. By cutting it, Kiya was making a serious sacrifice to her patron deity.
Tol said nothing, but clasped Kiya’s arm as he would a fellow warrior’s. She took her place with the soldiers. Miya, still looking a bit shocked, followed her sister.
Tol ordered his company to move out. They shouldered their gear and marched away. He swung onto Cloud’s back and looked down at Mandes. The sorcerer had picked up the heavy hank of Kiya’s hair.
“Leave it,” said Tol. He explained the Dom-shu custom of sacrificing their hair to Bran.
“Strange ways,” murmured the wizard, fondling the sheaf of golden hair. “The other one, her hair isn’t very long.”
“Miya isn’t a fighter. Her sister was pledged to the warrior society of the Dom-shu while still in her mother’s womb. Boy or girl, she was chosen to be a warrior. Miya was not.”
Mandes let the hank of hair fall to the ground. Picking up the bindle containing his rations and magical paraphernalia, he departed the square, following Tol’s troop.
The wind freshened, shaking the trees. Dust scoured the faces of Tol’s party as they worked their way through a notch in the low hills west of the kender capital. They continued to find copious evidence of XimXim’s wrath-an earthen dam torn asunder, orchards uprooted, isolated homesteads smashed to kindling. Everything bore the tell-tale slash marks of the monster’s claws. They came upon a herd of cattle-some torn in half, others pierced by wounds strangely neat and precise. Equally precise and more horrible was the fate of the four herders accompanying the cattle.
The four were human, probably from the northern reaches of the empire. Nomadic herders often drove their cattle into Hylo to take advantage of the mild sea climate and abundant fodder. Usually the only risk they faced was from pilfering kender. These men had met a far worse fate. XimXim had struck off their heads and placed them neatly in a row beside their bodies.
Although he hated to leave the poor herders unburied, Tol could not delay long enough to do what was proper. He and his company had to stay in contact with the others in case there was trouble. They moved grimly onward.
The brown slopes of the Sentinel Mountains grew more distinct in the distance. Not a mighty range like the Khalkist, the Sentinels were called the Not Much Mountains by the kender. They were not much high, not much rich in minerals, not much inhabited, and not much of a barrier to trade and travel. However, at seventy leagues from end to end, they made a big pile of stone to shelter a monster.
Near dusk, Tol’s group paused in the shadow of a vine-covered ridge. Wind was still gusting over the mountains, gaining force as it rushed down the slopes to the sea. While they rested, Mandes opened his bindle and spread the square of brown cloth on the ground. He sorted through various knots of dry herbs and shriveled roots, putting a chosen few in a small agate pestle. With a small mortar, he ground the ingredients to a fine powder, adding pinches of other powders he carried in small wooden tubes. Sniffing the resulting mixture carefully, he nodded with satisfaction.
“What are you making?” asked Tol.
“Balm of Sirrion. It creates the impenetrable mist.”
“Like the one you gave the bakali?” The sorcerer nodded. “Doesn’t it work only in darkness?”
Mandes smiled smugly. “I put that limitation on the balm I made for the lizard-men. Properly compounded, the mist will work in sunlight or darkness.”
He warmed a plug of beeswax in the hollow of his hand. When it was soft, he pressed his thumb into the center, making a hole. This he filled with the balm powder. Pinching the wax closed, he rolled it between his palms to make a round pill the size of a hen’s egg. He likewise filled three more wax balls, using up all the magical
mixture. He presented the four to Tol.
Tol picked up one of the yellow wax balls, handling it carefully with the tips of his fingers.
“Tylocost and the Tarsans tried to land under the cover of a magical mist,” he said. “XimXim flew right through it and tore the mercenaries to bits. How do you know he won’t be able to see through your fog?”
“I don’t. But some things require experiment.”
“Experiment! You’re talking about our lives!”
The wizard put the wax balls away, repacked his paraphernalia, and tied the four corners of the cloth into a bindle again. “My lord, you’re gambling with all our lives,” he remarked. “My magic improves the odds in our favor. Why else did you bring me along, if not to try my means?”
A runner came crashing through the underbrush. Tol and Mandes stood, and everyone idling under the trees got to their feet, spears in hand.
The runner proved to be a soldier from Narren’s company.
“My lord,” he panted. “Narren bids me tell you, we think we’ve found the cave of the monster!”
“Are you sure?” demanded Tol.
“Dirt mounded outside the cave mouth is marked with huge claw prints. Narren explored a score of steps inside. He found many bones of cattle, pigs, humans, and kender. And this-”
The messenger reached inside his overshirt and brought out a dull yellow spike as long as Tol’s hand. It was hollow and light, and made of a hard, hornlike material.
“Narren thinks the monster sheds these spikes, my lord,” he explained. “The floor was littered with them.”
The cave was in the first valley beneath the Sentinel peaks, three-quarters of a league away. Tol sent a fresh runner to spread the news to Egrin’s company. Commanding all to be stealthy, he set his men on the trail blazed by Narren’s runner, who led them back through the woods.
Night had fallen when they found Narren. Crouching in a rocky defile a hundred paces from the black, gaping entrance to the cave, Narren greeted his commander in a fierce whisper. He held his helmet in one hand, letting the wind dry his sweaty hair.
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