by J. C. Hendee
It was hard to know how much of the blood spattered over the shirvêsh was his own or his opponent’s, though shallow claw slashes ran through the side of his hair and bruises were already forming on the forearm of his empty hand. Above that arm, the shoulder of his hauberk was shredded, and his cudgel lay nearby on the ground. He had only his shield, now on the other arm, and the bottom edge of that was stained as well.
Not a bit of pain showed in Gän’gehtin’s rigid features as he stared blankly—coldly—down at the huge female.
There were gouges all over her, likely from the cudgel’s spike, and one deep tear through her belly that matted the fur of her whole abdomen in dark red. At least one rear leg was broken by its awkward angle. When she sucked air, it came out in wet moans through bloodied teeth.
Still Gän’gehtin just stood there.
Fiáh’our snarled something that made Karras flinch to awareness.
The thänæ stormed off, straight at the shirvêsh. Gän’gehtin’s eyes finally blinked when Fiáh’our slammed him in the chest. The shirvêsh stumbled one step back as the thänæ turned to the female and raised his axe high in both hands.
Before Karras could say a word amid confusion, the axe came down.
One stained blade cleaved through the female’s neck. She fell still and silent as her head rolled over and away.
A shriek sharpened over the valley.
Karras spun on that sound. Far up the near stone spine, the small, deformed one screamed as it raced back and forth in its limping gait. When Karras finally looked, the old man’s hard eyes were locked on the shirvêsh, who now glared back in silence.
An instant of disgust drained from Fiáh’our’s face as he turned away, and Karras’ own shock got the better of him.
“Why?” he shouted.
Fiáh’our glared at him as well, but the thänæ sighed through his nose, frowning sadly for an instant.
“When death is certain to come,” he said too quietly, “do not leave any who comes to battle suffering in waiting for it… not even an enemy. If not out of respect for those willing to face you, then at least for pity’s sake.”
Karras did not understand how that mattered for these monsters, but the thänæ then looked up the slope, and Karras did so.
The small one was gone and so was its noise. When he peered again at Fiáh’our, it was the first time he ever saw the old man grow so visibly weary.
“Come,” Fiáh’our said. “We must get off the valley floor and move camp again… before we tend our wounds.”
Karras was still numb and confused. As far as he could tell, the thänæ did not have even a scratch. He could not decide if or how to thank the old man for saving him in battle a second time. Not that he had ever wanted to see battle in the first place.
17. A Life Saved and Spared
Fiáh’our crouched in the dark near a low fire as he inspected Karras for any serious wounds. The kitten did not peer about and sat still and quiet with blank eyes. Fiáh’our found no injuries of serious concern on his shock-crippled apprentice, and in that, at the least the weapon he had arranged for the kitten had served some of its purpose. And for that, he silently thanked the Bäynæ.
Gän’gehtin was worse off, though he did not show it. The claw marks in his scalp were not as bad as they looked, which was usual for such a wound. But he had been clawed much worse in one shoulder and was bruised all over from blows that might have killed a human. It had taken most of the medicinal grease to tend to that shoulder.
Even now, the shirvêsh stood further down the spine with his back turned as he tried to watch the valley below. It was too dark for him to see anything down there.
Fiáh’our sighed heavily. He could only hope that what had been done that previous dawn would serve. Perhaps it did, for throughout the rest of that day, none of the pack reappeared in the valley. Not even to retrieve the bodies of their own.
They rarely left any potential food behind.
Watching Karras stare blankly at nothing, where he sat on a rock, Fiáh’our finally poked the kitten in the leg.
“You did… all right,” he said. “A good service.”
Karras blinked and barely turned his head.
It was no surprise to Fiáh’our; one’s first battle, no matter how short, was always the most horrifying, or so it would seem in times to come. That horror never went away, and it should not, but it had to be faced and dealt with to go on.
Karras’ eyes then wandered as if not hearing what Fiáh’our said, but his gaze finally settled on the shirvêsh standing down slope.
“Why is he…” Karras began in a whisper. “What is it about them that makes him…?”
Fiáh’our waited, but the young one never finished. “He has not told you?”
Karras shook his head, still watching Gän’gehtin’s back.
“Then perhaps it is not my place to do so.”
At that, the young one stared hard at him.
Fiáh’our grumbled in resignation. No doubt, for as long as the kitten had been in the temple of Skâpagi, he had heard something of Gän’gehtin’s mother—once a shirvêsh there and good one.
“Gän’gehtin’s father was a trader, the land-bound kind,” he began in low voice. “A very large caravan left for the long haul to the port of Almería on the eastern coast. There was enough cargo of importance that several shirvêsh went with it to supplement the private guards, including Gän’gehtin’s mother. That is as much as I know of it… except…”
Fiáh’our grew uncertain if this was the time or place for Karras to hear more of this. Even glassy-eyed, the young one still frowned at him.
“They passed through the Broken Lands,” Karras said flatly.
Fiáh’our nodded. “A returning caravan later found shattered remnants of wagons on a rolling plain of wild grass. Marks… teeth marks… on the bones left no doubt as to what happened, though bones are usually scavenged up as well. The bones were too scattered to even know who had been who.”
Karras’ eyes began to widen again. “How… how many would it take for…” And he began looking fearfully about in the dark.
Fiáh’our clenched his jaw; he should not have started this. “More than has ever been seen together before… or since!”
And still Karras peered about without blinking.
There was only one other thing that Fiáh’our could think of that might serve in taking the young one’s mind off of fear. He had not intended that Karras learn of this so soon, but it seemed the Bäynæ had other notions. Amid shock at his own survival, Karras had not noticed something new about his weapon, his so-called ku’ê’bunst, the “five-elements.”
There was a gouge, a chink, in the metal of its haft.
What it revealed was something Fiáh’our preferred no one else knew unless necessary. It could cost him even more if the wrong person learned this secret, but here and now he needed to do something for his apprentice.
“Did you ever really read your weapon?” he asked sternly.
Karras started slightly as he turned.
Fiáh’our gestured to the ku’ê’bunst leaning against the stone on which Karras sat. “It needs a bit of repair,” he added, his voice dropping again to a whisper. “But even wounds and scars tell us something about our closest allies. Have a look.”
The kitten let out an exasperated huff; at least that was better for the moment. He tiredly picked up his weapon in one hand, eyeing it with a scowl, and then…
Karras’ eyes narrowed as he leveled the weapon in both hands. He thumbed that gouge in the dark metal, dropped his head a little lower in peering at it, and then turned a bit more toward the fire. Almost too quickly, he dropped to one knee and thrust the haft closer to the flames for more light.
Karras looked up at Fiáh’our with his mouth and eyes gaping.
Fiáh’our put a warning finger across his lips, but he smiled just the same.
“I am not done with you yet, apprentice,” he said. “So do not get a
ny wild notions in your head. As to repairs, well, you will do exactly as I say. Perhaps by then, you will find your ally a proper name.”
Indeed, that last part mattered among other things versus what was more prevalent in Karras’ thoughts.
“You know suffering,” Fiáh’our added, “and now something of service. But sacrifice cannot be taught, only learned. As to what must be sacrificed, let alone why for others’ needs… or your wants… we shall see.”
· · · · ·
That night, as Karras tried and failed to fall asleep, it was not the aches and pains that made it so difficult. Nor was it all that he had seen, heard, and felt during the battle in the valley. It was not even what he had seen in the haft of his ku’ê’bunst that filled his head there and then. All of that would have been enough to banish sleep, but…
Past the mid of night, a high-pitched howl rose over the valley.
Karras was instantly on his feet, weapon in hand, as was Gän’gehtin. When he looked, the old man had not budged.
This time, Fiáh’our sat on a small boulder for his nightly vigil.
The howl kept coming, over and over, piercing Karras’ ears even for its distant echoes. It was unlike what he had heard when the shirvêsh flushed out the pack, or when those horrid beasts had come at him.
It was thin, almost frail for its noise, and so weakened with grief. There was a mournful change in the shrieks of the little deformed one that had raced back and forth at the death of the huge female.
Karras tried to follow the noise with his eyes and barely made out the forest across the valley and to the north. When he finally gave up and back, even the embers of the fire did not fully illuminate the old man.
Fiáh’our sat still in the dark with a face seemingly carved of expressionless stone. His head was tilted slightly forward, which made his eyes little more than pits of night darkness in his silence.
Karras did not remember how long those howls went on. He would only remember when they stopped. A pained shriek of fright came amid thrashing brush and some deeper snarl barely heard.
The rest of the night was far too quiet.
Karras backed away, settled on the ground beside Fiáh’our, and cradled his ku’ê’bunst in his lap. And not even Gän’gehtin said a word.
18. The Hands Upon the Weapon
Karras stood just inside the entrance archway into Chemarré, his home settlement in Dhredze Seatt. He stared blankly down the mainway tunnel of immense columns with their huge steaming crystals casting yellow-orange light that did not quite penetrate the tunnel’s greater heights.
It was barely nightfall, and Gän’gehtin had turned off for the tram station and the long ride back to his settlement and temple. Fiáh’our had remained below at the port, for some unknown reason, after one last dire warning for Karras.
“Do exactly as I said, and the way and when I said to. If I hear anything else—and I will—you cannot imagine what suffering will come from that! And I expect you back in the training hall by noon in two days.”
Too much had happened along the way back, and for Karras, it had taken this long for any of it to settle in. Especially so against what he had experienced before and up to that one night following the battle.
They had stayed along the valley for three more days and nights before Fiáh’our was satisfied that the pack had fled for the year. It would head eastward with whatever it had gathered and try to reach its homeland before winter. And by the time they had returned to Shentángize, Karras was worn down by confusion as well as fear and exertion. He tried not to think about what he had seen in the wound in his weapon’s haft, for it was too much to fathom. And Fiáh’our merely glared at him if he started to ask about it.
The one night in the village had left him even more conflicted.
He would never blame the villagers for wanting to be free of those creatures that had plagued them for so many years, and would do so again. But he could not forget the sound of wailing in the night following the battle. Though the villagers treated them as returning heroes, and Fiáh’our was hearty with laughter and cheer, and even Gän’gehtin was somewhat more the shirvêsh he had once been…
Karras began to see—know—better.
When no one was looking closely enough, Fiáh’our was strangely somber. It was a stark difference from the blustering braggart that Karras had seen once or twice strutting about a cheag’anâkst platform in some wild telling before a crowd.
He wondered if the old man would concoct another overly grand tale of all that had happened out here on the northern frontier. It seemed likely, considering the other high-handed glories the braggart had spouted out in the past, but Karras could not imagine it in that moment.
The trek back to Cantos took twice as long as the one out to the village, for they stopped for full nights. There was no sparring or training this time. The voyage down the coast seemed longer as well.
And now Karras found himself wandering down the mainway, his ku’ê’bunst in hand, even before realizing he was doing so.
Fiáh’our had told him to wait until well past the day’s end before taking his weapon to be repaired, but he could not wait that long for where he was going. That “where” was the last place he could have imagined. It left him so utterly confused… as he finally stood outside an open door spilling light from the forge within out into the dark narrow passage.
Why had Fiáh’our sent him to Skirra to repair the ku’ê’bunst?
Once again, she was hard at work with hammer in hand, but the first strange thing Karras noticed was the object gripped in her smith’s tongs. Not a horse or mule shoe in the making, nor some link for a chain or other iron implement.
The narrow piece of metal, perhaps the length of her forearm, was glowing hot, but appeared that it might be steel instead of iron. She was shaping it, though he could not tell what it would become. And there were other oddities as well.
Of the two assistants she employed, one was busy re-stacking iron ingots along the far right wall. Not many, but more than she could have afforded in barter using the meager rôtin she usually carried. Beyond her on the rear bench was a tilted wood rack of small compartments, each filled with mutely colored powders and other granular substances. Karras had seen such things in a few other smithies, but never here, and he did not know what those powders were for.
As to the other assistant, that one dug into one of three tin bins of fresh coal. Two of those bins were new additions as well. There were other differences Karras noticed, but so much had changed here that it all left him bewildered. He wanted to ask about these, but Fiáh’our had warned him to stick to only one question and neither say nor ask anything else.
“Can you… fix this?” he asked.
At first no one appeared to hear him over the wheeze of the bellows, the click of its chains and counter weights, and Skirra’s pounding hammer. But she paused on a final clank and raised her eyes.
Karras held up his weapon with both hands, one gripped over the haft’s wound to hide it. Not that this mattered, and he still did not understand why Fiáh’our had said to do so.
Skirra would have to look at it to see the damage, but now he only studied her face.
Dark fiery hair tied back, her clear and broad features were smeared with char. She scowled—as usual—in wiping sweat from her brow and then her too smoothly curved chin with the back of one forearm.
Perhaps she did not recognize him at first; he was still dressed in a stained and scarred hauberk and had beard stubble covering his face. He had not even been home yet to clean up before coming here after… how many days since he had bathed?
Skirra blinked as if she trying to clear her eyes, and then she stared hard, her slight scowl vanishing.
Karras held out the weapon again, this time with only the one hand hiding its wound.
“Can… can you fix this?” he repeated.
Then the two assistants noticed him.
Skirra cast each a quick, hard glance, and bot
h went back to their work as she rounded the forge. She snatched up a rag from a workbench along the way and came straight at Karras with uncertain surprise on her face.
And she quickly cast the rag over his hand gripping the weapon.
Karras looked at that rag for an instant before raising his eyes.
Skirra cast a wary glance toward each of her assistants. Both were still busily at work and not watching. When she looked back at him, she gently slipped the weapon out of his grip, careful to keep the rag in place.
Karras stared at her in shock, and she shot him a narrow glare. His breath caught, and this time not because of her face.
She had not even looked at the wound in the haft that she had hidden.
Fiáh’our had told him that no one was to know what was inside the weapon’s haft. On that night after the battle, Karras had been stunned and then disgusted when the old man told him again to read his weapon.
What a worthless notion that was after all that had happened. He had only been relieved, if astonished, that his weapon had not broken under the beast’s heavy blow with an old mace. But he had been too weary, and too cold inside, to argue with the old man.
At first he had been uncertain and dropped to one knee to hold the weapon nearer the fire. What he saw emptied every other thought from his head. And now, here in Skirra’s smithy, Karras’ mind emptied yet again.
Skirra had not even looked at the gray metal core of Meá—the Ore—inside the weapon’s haft.
She had hid that wound as if knowing what was there. The very same precious gray metal reserved for the seatt’s most important needs… and the anchor chains of Karras’ family vessel.
There were so many questions now in Karras’ head that he could not separate one from the others.
Skirra’s gaze suddenly shifted. She tilted her head a little to the left. Whatever bit of warning scowl was on her face vanished again, replaced by… something else. She leaned her head further as she paled right before his eyes… in fright.
