by J. C. Hendee
The man's soiled helmet sill glinted under the falling sun as he raised a loaded crossbow. He fired off to the left as a third figure sprang up to the archer's right.
Fiáh'our threw himself up the trunk's curve—and slipped back down. Gän'gehtin vaulted up, using his war-staff with one hand. The old man smacked his great axe into the trunk's top to pull himself as Karras finally caught up.
Without time to catch his breath, Karras slammed a shoulder into the old warrior's buttocks without warning.
Fiáh'our swore in surprise. Even for his bulk—greater than Karras'—he slid over the downed pine and out of sight. Fortunately he lost his grip on the embedded axe.
Karras snatched the axe's haft and used that to pull himself up and over. He slid down the trunk's backside headfirst atop Fiáh'our.
“A'ye'ous!” the old man snarled. “Get off and get up.”
Karras floundered and tumbled off, landing facedown in the dirt.
He barely raised his head to find a pair of muddy, booted feet right before his eyes. There was also a big pile of stones, each as big as his fists. He pushed up as a dark-haired, scruffy-bearded man in deerskins bent down and glowered at him.
“No time for rest, short-shanks,” the man sniped.
Karras had no a chance to reply, as if he could. The grungy human snatched up a stone for another pile, set it in his sling, and rose as he whirled that. Karras grabbed one of the bigger stones and clawed up the pine's trunk as Gän'gehtin shouted out.
“Left—the scrawny one—heading for the trees!”
The archer turned and fired again as the one in the soiled helm set to re-cocking the crossbow. Only then did Karras see the “scrawny one” and all of the others.
Sluggïn'ân charged at them everywhere across ravine's floor.
Fiáh'our shoved in beside him, grabbed the head of his axe with one hand, and wrenched it out of the downed tree.
“You going to throw that or fondle it?” the old man growled, and ducked around to grab up a heavy stone for himself.
Karras scowled, eyed the stone that he held . . . and then the back of Fiáh'our's head.
Rughìr did not carry bows or crossbows, not usually. One was too long for most of their kind; as to the other, only a half-wit thought he could pick up, load, and use as a whim. But a large stone in their large hands at close range was something else.
“Noses and knees, my little cat,” Fiáh'our shouted with glee, and he slung his stone with so much force that Karras hear its quick rush in the air.
A crack came followed by a squeal.
Karras, shortest of all, could barely see over the downed pine, so “noses” it was. Up on his boot-toes, he spotted one of them scampering in on all fours.
The sluggïn was covered in a scavenged, lashed-on hauberk split at the sides to fit its bulging torso. When Fiáh'our slung another stone, that monster lunged sideways around a mounded bramble.
Karras watched for it to reappear. When it did in a final charge, he launched his stone with all of his might.
The stone shot over the creature's head.
“Oh, Blessed Bäynæ,” Fiáh'our grouched. “Maybe lick your paw first, next time.”
Karras fumed even in exhaustion and ducked down to grab another stone. One of the others shouted, “Watch it!” and he whipped upright.
A snarling sluggïn stood above him atop the pine's trunk. With a battered shield clutched in a paw-hand, its feral yellow eyes fixed on him.
Fiáh'our's bulk rammed Karras in the side, almost knocking him over. The great axe came across the trunk’s top like a whip, but the sluggïn merely hopped with a snarl, and the great blade passed cleanly beneath its clawed feet.
“Down!” Gän'gehtin shouted behind them.
Before Karras could react, Fiáh'our collapsed atop him.
They both hit the ground as something wooden shattered, and the impact on the trunk carried down into the earth. In a blink, bark chips rained down with fragments from a shield. When Karras cleared his face and looked up, there was Gän'gehtin above him.
The shirvêsh faced the tree's trunk with his war-staff raised and waiting, but there was no sign of a sluggïn.
Gän'gehtin did not strike again or look down. As always when facing sluggïn'ân, his plain features were twisted with an obsessed hate.
Fiáh'our rose first and pulled Karras to his feet. And all of this went on though not much longer. The old man finally shouted for a halt as two last sluggïn'ân raced off after the others while dragging a third limp one by its rear feet.
Everything quickly quieted in the ravine. All that was heard behind the great downed pine were exhausted pants.
Gän'gehtin still vaulted up atop the tree, either astonished or furious or both that all was done.
Karras wearily turned around, toppled back against the trunk, and slid to ground.
“Eyes on the trees,” Fiáh'our rumbled, turning to look upslope.
Some of the others did so, but not Karras. How long did they wait there, listening to only each other's labored breaths? Not long enough for him to fully catch his own, and twilight soon deepened.
“We are losing the sun,” someone said.
Karras raised his head.
“Much as you chose to rouse them in daylight,” Gän'gehtin added, glaring at Fiáh'our, “they are nocturnal for the most part, and you still stink enough—”
“Stink?” the old boar barked.
“Yes! Enough that they can track us in the dark... even if they did not have superior night-sight.”
Karras ignored their bickering whispers. And as to Fiáh'our's stupid plan that had led to all of this...
For the last moon, the huge pack had raided, scavenged, and killed in the inland frontier beyond the borders of the coast's Numan nations. Three villages nearest the nation of Malourné took the worse of the growing, yearly surges of sluggïn'ân foraging farther into the west. Malourné did what it could, sending military squads beyond its border, but when winter came—a harsh one this time—those contingents withdrew to protect their own lands.
Everything—including Fiáh'our—had worsened and become more desperate. In that, by Karras' measure, the old boar's plans cost everyone around him.
Setting up the gauntlet they had run, in hope of breaking or whittling down the pack, had taken three days of skulking. As to why two humans and a Lhoin'na—an “elf” to humans—were not the bait, that was also about bows, crossbows, and slings. And what had been done to make the pack chase them into a trap?
Oh, that was Fiáh'our again!
The old boar had loaded a cow skin with dung and outhouse slop and then crept in upon the enemy. He chucked that onto one of their food caches of scavenged meat from their kills.
But not before dousing it in lamp oil and setting it ablaze.
Karras—and Gän'gehtin—had to run for their lives, after Fiáh'our made certain plenty of them were roused to see—to smell—what had been done.
“Shut up, both of you!” hissed the grungy male in deer hides. “I'll go have a look.”
Karras blinked and raised his head. In sulking, he had missed something in their bickering. Even in near dark, he saw Gän'gehtin glower before turning away from Fiáh'our.
The grungy human picked up his makeshift oak staff and vaulted the downed tree to vanish from sight. The one with the helmet re-cocked his crossbow, and the tall, bright-haired Lhoin'na fitted another arrow to his bow. Both watched off the way the first one had gone.
And Karras counted maybe three arrows left in the elder archer's shouldered quiver.
Gone was his life among his honored family of sea traders, though most rughìr—who could not swim and only sank—thought it a daft way of life. Everything that mattered to him seemed lost in the last year, as if dropped overboard. And since the day he had been trapped into apprenticeship to the old boar, he had been sinking in other ways.
Aside from the mad thänæ and a bloodthirsty shirvêsh, he had fallen in with two
humans and a Lhoin'na—a deserter, a convict, and a renegade. How much lower would he sink before he hit bottom?
How much suffering could he take for what Fiáh'our called good “service”?
The old man sat upon the piled larger stones, reclined against the tree trunk, and closed his eyes. Was he humming to himself? What in a human hell was wrong with him?
“And what were you laughing about?” Karras snapped.
At that, Gän'gehtin turned and eyed the old man.
“Hmm?” and Fiáh'our cracked open one eye.
“You got us into this,” Karras added. “You and your fool's plan! So what was so funny about it?”
“Nothing,” Fiáh'our replied.
Karras' mind blanked. He sat dumbstruck and lost, until Fiáh'our grinned at him through a thick, grisly beard.
“Why not laugh?” the old man snarked. “Did obeying your fear gain you advantage? Is it why you turned back when you thought Gän'gehtin faltered?”
The shirvêsh took an angry step. “I did not—”
“No, certainly not,” Fiáh'our cut in, though he still fixed on Karras. “Did fear make you falter? Did it give your last little opponent the advantage... when you froze and gawked at the others?”
Karras was unable to form words amid his fury.
“And what good is fear if you fail... and die?” Fiáh'our growled. “What good would it have done for those you serve?”
Karras rolled his eyes as furry broke and left only exhaustion. He pulled up his knees and dropped his forehead on them. He was so sick of the old boar's credo.
More nonsense about to suffer, to serve, and to sacrifice.
The dead did not serve excerpt as a sluggïn's meal.
“And that is the point,” Fiáh'our snapped, as if catching the very thought in Karras' head. “The suffering of those we serve is more than ours in serving them. As to sacrifice—still beyond you—start by sacrificing your fear. Let it warn you and certainly listen up, but never let it command you... or jerk your leash, my little cat!”
Karras turned his head away, not wanting to hear any more, but he did hear someone settle quietly upon the back slope. It might have been Gän'gehtin, but disgust and spite overrode the last of Karras' fear as something else came back to him.
That something left him more lost and ashamed than anything the braggart could say.
“Laugh at fear if it tries to take anything from you,” Fiáh'our said with another chuckle. “And then, when death comes, it will laugh with you like an old friend... instead of at you for thinking fear could hold it off.”
Karras was not listening anymore, for fear had stolen something else more precious to him. He had not realized this until now, for it was only an obsessed thought of something he would never have. And that it made all the more sorrowful.
Amid this day's terror, he had not thought of Skirra even once.
Karras shriveled inside for forgetting her, though she would not accept him in marriage. Both of those were worse than another berating from Fiáh'our.
2. It was a Dark and Stinky Night
Fiáh'our paused among the trees as he lifted his beloved Burskâp—his axe—over his head. With a bit of fuss, he set it into its back-sheath between his shoulder blades as he listened carefully in the dark.
He heard nothing except the faint sounds of those with him in the night's deepening chill. Not liking that quiet, he crept on down-slope in heading back for Irin's Village.
Of three nearby eastern settlements beyond the Numan nations, it was closest to the tree line. So-called for the first family that settled where it now stood—what was left of it—he had known all of its last three generations.
Not one “Irin” was left in Irin's Village.
Effy, the grand-dam of the line, had been Fiáh'our's treasured friend for forty-three years. He had watched her children and grandchildren grow and strive for a good life on the frontier. Some had lived to flee in these bloody times. Fortunately, she had passed to her ancestors five autumns before the raiding became fierce.
Whenever Fiáh'our had passed this way since then, he had brought a small jug of the best rughìr ale that he could get. He would pause at Effy's grave, pour the most of jug over it except a draught for himself, and then drink to her. And lastly, he would always entreat the Bäynæ, the spiritual ancestors of his people, to keep her forever.
It did not matter to him that she was not a rughìr.
Dear Effy had made the nastiest corn whiskey he had ever shared with anyone. Almost as bad—as good—as rughìr wormwood ale.
Fiáh'our slowed to a stop among trees just short of the slope's bottom. The steam of his breath had already dampened his full and gray-peppered beard. At the sight of the grassy plain beyond the trees, he glanced back. All but one of the others followed behind, for that one had gone ahead to scout.
It was so dark that he barely made out their faces. The shortest among them was always the easiest to spot and usually kept to the middle.
Karras came last this time, which was odd for his constant fears.
Admittedly, the young one had done better of late but not better enough. Turning back in the worst of it to aid the shirvêsh was something new, surprising, and hopeful. Freezing in fright had still nearly gotten him torn up. Not for the first time, and it could have been his last.
The little cat still did not understand what it meant to be a “champion,” or what that had to do with what he wanted most of all.
Karras thought he knew suffering, assumed he understood service, but he did not know a wit about sacrifice. That was about more than becoming a champion. The young one did not see what his own want would cost him, let alone what he should willingly sacrifice for it without hesitation—for Skirra's hand.
Teaching Karras that would be harder than teaching stone to talk. He had to come to that en'nag—innate knowing—on his own, or, self-obsessed as he was, he would never accept its truth.
All Fiáh'our could do was steer Karras toward it, keep him alive until he found it, and perhaps make him worthy of Skirra along the way.
Oh, Eternal Ancestors, our Blessed Bäynæ... what have you put upon me?
“Last run,” came a whisper.
Fiáh'our looked beyond the trees to the bright-haired lhoin'na now crouched in the plain's tall grass. No one could pronounce his name; then again, why did his kind have such tongue-twisting ones? So they just called him 'yan.
All that marked 'yan for what he had once been was a silver metal ring that bound his long blond hair in a tail dangling from the crown of his head. This exposed peaked ears framing a narrow, caramel-colored face of slightly sunken cheeks. Too-wide almond-shaped eyes filled with large and bright amber irises always calmly watched everything. Daylight would have exposed creeping lines of age in his face, though likely he was not quite as old as Fiáh'our.
Even the Lhoin'na did not live as long as the Rughìr. As to that silver ring in his hair, 'yan had once been one of the Shé'ith—the “Serenitiers.”
Those guardians of their people's vast forests far to the south were not like human soldiers. They were more like the warriors of the Rughìr, serving by choice rather than the legal bond and oath of humans, Numan or otherwise. No one knew how this elder one came to be so far north, though Karras had asked.
'yan replied, “To see it.”
“See what?” the young one countered.
The elder lhoin'na's only answer was his typical slight smile.
Karras frowned, though maybe he understood a little in coming from a family of sea traders. Or maybe not. Either way, 'yan's bow had saved one or more them more than once.
Two other things still bothered Fiáh'our as he crouched in thought.
The first had been a dead sluggïn found along the way.
With its head caved in by a boulder released down the slope, it was odd that the pack had not dragged off the corpse as food. Even in the dark, and through its thinning body hair, it looked emaciated, as if it would have
soon starved to death.
Some unknown need drove the sluggïn'ân westward each early autumn in growing numbers. After such a long trek out of the Broken Lands, and a like long return, they remained longer into each year, this time into the edge of winter.
Yes, sluggïn'ân could eat anything living or once living, even the bark off of trees. That did not sustain them for long. They needed meat most of all.
The second thing that bothered Fiáh'our was the quiet in the woods.
The lack of wildlife sounds was no surprise with a pack nearby, but he had not seen or heard a sign of that pack along the return. Neither could he smell a trace of them, and he always could when they were close. Roused, rattled, and routed, some should have still wanted blood—and a bit of their enemy's flesh for supper.
Fiáh'our looked 'yan in the eyes.
The lhoin'na nodded and nocked another arrow.
Fiáh'our turned to the others in a whisper. “Onward but keep quiet.”
He stepped into a trot, and 'yan joined him. Both watched all ways in the dark, for Irin's was still a way's off. The cold breeze was worse in the open, and he heard sniffing and glanced up.
“Sniffles?” he grumbled. “I do enough wet-nursing with the young one.”
“You should bathe,” 'yan whispered flatly.
Fiáh'our frowned. “We all stink after so many nights. There is no water to waste on—”
“No... you stink. Please bathe as soon as possible.”
Incensed shock choked off Fiáh'our's response.
Why should he be singled out? He sniffed once and, well, so he had chucked a sack of flaming dung at a bunch of sluggïn’ân. It was not as if he had slopped any on himself—well, not much.
What a prissy old beanpole!
'yan froze and turned slightly rightward.
Fiáh'our thought he had slipped and muttered that last thought aloud, but the tall one peered across the dark, grassy plain.
'yan suddenly raised, drew, and aimed the bow in one motion.
Fiáh'our waved the others low into the grass.
“Where?” he whispered.
'yan did not answer, though he turned rightward an inch per shallow breath, as if tracking something out in the dark. Without warning, he lowered the bow but the kept the arrow drawn.
