by Sam Bowring
Quietly Gredda spread the order that the blades were to stand in a circle around the bows, some of whom climbed up onto the log. Questing eyes went back and forth across the busy greenery. They’d barely got into position when Bel noticed that the birds had gone quiet.
They’re close.
‘They’re close,’ called Munpo. ‘Be ready, soldiers! No need to be too quiet now,’ he added to Bel, who stood next to him. ‘Noise will draw them to us.’
In the upper reaches of the trees were plenty of shaded hiding spots. As the leaves moved in the breeze, roving patterns of light gave the illusion of movement. Taut bows swivelled to a rustling in the trees, but it was just a bird flying away. Bel turned his sword in his hands, waiting for the moment that was sure to come soon. His skin tingled with excitement and suddenly he knew with certainty – this was what he’d been born to do. He was a warrior. The truth of it shot through him, concentrating molten in his heart. Shaking himself, he told himself not to forget the danger, as Munpo had warned, but as he sensed the eyes of the enemy on him, he found it very difficult to keep a fierce grin from his face.
They’re here.
Where?
All around.
I see nothing.
Look left. The palebark tree at the edge of the clearing. Halfway up.
Bel searched, his gaze falling on a spray of foliage in which yellow eyes glinted. ‘There!’ he said, pointing. ‘In the palebark!’
The bows looked but did not spy the target. Impatiently, almost eagerly, Bel pulled a crossbow from his belt and loosed a bolt. There was a thunk in the shadows and a furry body fell from the tree trailing gangly limbs, to land somewhere outside the clearing. Bel notched another bolt in the crossbow.
A sound like cats in pain filled the air from all sides and the forest came alive. Shadows gave birth to snarling offspring. Growths of moss on trees became the hairy backs of monsters. Huggers ran out onto branches overhanging the clearing and dropped, their limbs stretched in oncoming embrace. Arrows whizzed upwards and beasts twisted in the air, screaming as their brown blood rained down. One fell past the wave of arrows and landed on a bow. The creature wrapped its limbs about her and gave a mighty squeeze . There came the sound of ribs snapping and the beast sprang away as she toppled, vomiting blood. Hunna thrust his sword towards it, punching into the creature’s gut.
‘Stand fast!’ bellowed Munpo as more huggers bounded out of the undergrowth and swung through the lower branches. They were attacking on all levels, from all sides. ‘Let them come to us! Don’t break the circle!’
Bel found himself facing two of them on the ground, their baleful yellow eyes staring out from under tufts of brown-green fur, their wide mouths open to reveal rows of stubby little fangs. They prowled towards him, low to the ground.
The bigger one will leap first.
A moment later the larger creature sprang, a schick sounding as claws extended from its hands and feet. Bel slashed it to the ground, spilling its guts as the second creature darted in to swipe at his legs. Claws scraped the hard leather of his boots and it raised its head to snarl. There was a flash of metal about its neck and the head rolled away with snarl fixed forever. Munpo glanced at Bel, nodded, then called again for the blades to keep formation and protect the bows in the centre. Despite his shouts, the circle was breaking.
See the big male?
For a moment Bel saw it, stalking past a tree at the edge of the clearing, at least twice the size of the others. He pulled the crossbow free of his belt.
Watch out to your left!
Bel ignored the spirit’s cry and went to squeeze the crossbow trigger. A hugger crashed against his shoulder, knocking the crossbow from his hand and pinning his sword arm to his side as it encircled his torso with its grip. He staggered backwards as the creature gnashed at him, its foetid breath making him gag. As he gagged, the hugger tightened its grip, forcing the air out of his lungs. Bel strained under the furry embrace and the creature snarled in rage as he started to loosen its grip. It threw back its head and howled, hugging with all its might, and Bel felt a sickening pressure on his chest.
Come on, man! Use your free hand!
Bel punched wildly at the hugger, bruising his hands on its muscular body. He tried to suck in breath and failed, unable to open his lungs wide enough. His vision dotted and the world swam. His free hand flailed, searching for the creature’s neck, and found it. All his strength went into a squeeze of his own. The hugger’s howl cut off abruptly as he crushed its windpipe, its eyes bulging as the light behind them went out. It dropped away limply, leaving Bel coughing and gasping as air gushed back into him.
The faintness passed quickly and he felt even stronger for the adrenaline hit. He bellowed and ran at three huggers who were bounding for a bow, swinging his sword about him with gathering momentum. He flew through the huggers like a metal wind, their screams filling the air along with their blood. One managed to begin a leap at the bow, but jerked backwards suddenly as Bel caught it by the leg and swung it around like a sack of potatoes to dash its brains out on a rock. Next to it, a wounded hugger opened its eyes just in time to see Bel’s foot descending before its head was pulped.
Bel checked the ground for his crossbow and spotted it. He rolled towards it, coming up on one knee with the weapon in his hands, shooting a bolt into a hugger swinging from the trees. He slid it back into his belt and noticed Munpo, who had a gash in his arm but was otherwise unhurt. The troop leader was furiously glancing about for his next target. Around him soldiers were ramming their swords into the wounded or dying, but suddenly there were no fresh waves bounding in. The screeching in the trees began to dwindle – the huggers were retreating.
‘The big male!’ shouted Rokinin, pointing with one of the two longswords he carried. Bel saw the large hugger swinging away through the trees, followed by some of its smaller brethren.
‘Follow it!’ shouted Munpo, charging into the undergrowth. ‘It’ll lead us to the nest!’
Bel bounded after, slashing at plants in his way. Ahead he could make out the fleeing beasts, sometimes springing from tree to tree like cats, sometimes swinging like apes. He could hear other soldiers in pursuit and knew the troop had begun to spread out. Somewhere Munpo was calling orders – the nest had to be found and every beast there killed.
Bel stumbled over a hidden root, but caught hold of a branch and hardly broke pace. He heard a series of crashes to his side and saw M’Meska springing high on her powerful hind legs, spines raised along her back. Two bounds and she was away ahead of him. He rounded a boulder to see the Saurian sighting the big hugger with her longbow. Her arrow flew towards the beast, catching it in the backside mid-swing. It wailed and barely managed to catch its next branch. M’Meska sent another arrow and this one struck its shoulder as it was hauling itself up. It yelped and lost its grip, crashing to the bushes below.
Blade Bel –
Not now!
Bel found himself alongside Munpo, and together they approached the place where the big male had fallen. Somewhere nearby they heard Gredda calling for the rest of the troop to converge.
‘Be careful,’ puffed Munpo as they slowed. ‘There may still be some fight left in it.’
Blade!
Quiet!
They came to a stop before the quivering shrubs where the big male had fallen. Munpo raised a finger to his lips and tentatively pushed aside a fern with his sword. The big hugger erupted, white mucus streaming from its wide maw, yellow eyes blazing with hate. Munpo and Bel each raised their swords, but the hugger jerked in-leap and fell, a final arrow sticking in its neck. They turned to see M’Meska on a log behind them, scaly lips pulled back in a snarl.
‘Not even make good rug, smell so bad,’ spat the Saurian. Her eyes flickered and her nostrils flared. ‘Smell very bad here,’ she said.
She glanced up, and the others followed her gaze. As they did, their knuckles whitened on their weapons. They were standing in the middle of the nest.
&
nbsp; I tried to warn you.
In the trees above were row upon row of yellow eyes. Wide lipless mouths opened to reveal dripping fangs. Claws sheathed and unsheathed as the creatures began to hiss, the sound building as more joined in. Heads appeared from inside nest-like structures of twig and leaf as parents realised they had been invaded.
There were so many.
‘Arkus,’ whispered Munpo. ‘I’m a fool. We only fought a hunting party. This is the nest guard.’
A hugger slid partway down a trunk nearby, lifting its head to howl.
‘Come on,’ said Munpo softly, backing away. ‘We must regroup.’
As he, Bel and M’Meska began to move, more huggers descended. One landed in the undergrowth close by, and the three broke into a run, heading towards Gredda’s calls.
‘Regroup!’ yelled Munpo as they went. ‘Regroup!’
From all directions came sounds of soldiers blundering through vegetation. Somewhere someone screamed. They came upon Gredda and found her with half the troop, still calling to the others.
‘To me!’ came Rokinin’s voice, not far off. ‘Face outwards!’
‘To Rokinin!’ shouted Munpo.
To Bel it did not feel like his feet touched the ground. As he barrelled onwards, the air sucked through his flaring nostrils had never seemed so fresh. A hugger dropped in front of him and he ran it through without stopping, trampling its corpse beneath him. Faced with death, he had never felt so alive . He burst into a patch of ferns just in time to see a soldier falling beneath them, a hugger wrapped about him and gnawing at his neck. The plants swished and settled, the soldier disappearing as if sunk beneath water. Rokinin and Hunna were standing with their backs to a large clawberry tree, holding off a seething mass of huggers under the ferns. Dimly Bel registered that they were hopelessly outnumbered. Beasts swarmed down the trees, and he heard them attacking those who followed closely on his heels.
Even as Bel charged to help Rokinin and Hunna, the huggers overpowered them. Hunna fell screaming under a mass of snapping fangs, while Rokinin grappled helplessly with a hugger wrapped around his chest. Bel pulled out his crossbow, fired a bolt into the hugger as it dragged Rokinin down. The creature twisted off, but Rokinin was already on his knees, shaking violently as he was torn at below the ferns, out of sight. Bel leaped, stabbing and stomping his feet, but Rokinin was beyond aid. As the town commander gasped and died, the huggers turned their yellow eyes on Bel.
Bel whooped and swung his sword. ‘Come on then!’ he yelled. ‘Let’s get to it!’
•
Iassia had never been so afraid. Death was not usually something that concerned him, a clever weaver being practically immortal, yet now he faced a fate worse than death.
He had come across a lost mind once. A ghost thing it had been, mad and unpredictable, unseen and unheard by most. He had listened to it for a while and it made no sense to him, though it was obviously in great distress. He’d had some sport with it when it had weakly tried to possess his body. If this Bel died, the pathetic torment that had once amused him would become his own living nightmare.
During the fighting he had been helping Bel as best he could. At one point he had whispered in the mind of a bow that a hugger falling towards Bel wanted to kill her. Consequently she had shot at it instead of the hugger that was above her, to her detriment. He’d sent thoughts to the huggers too, helping them perceive other soldiers as bigger threats than Bel. These efforts were tiring, but the huggers were simple-minded creatures, easier to influence than intelligent beings.
Now, however, Bel was surrounded, and against such numbers Iassia’s influence meant little. Bel was an impressive warrior, cutting bodies from the air and cracking crawling backs under powerful feet, but Iassia knew there were simply too many. In a panic, the weaver cast around for the mind of Munpo, and found him not far off. The man was standing with the remaining troop, their progress halted at a wall of snapping mouths. Frantically Iassia whispered to him that more soldiers were available at Bel’s location, that if they could break through they would gain the upper hand. The troop leader called out to those remaining to follow him, and they fought towards Bel.
•
Bel felt almost meditative. His movements had slipped into the pattern of the fight and he whirled like a leaf in a howling wind. Stepping this way and that, his sword was a streaking flash of light about him, carving huggers free of their lives.
‘Where are the others?’ shouted Munpo, as he and those with him fought their way into the knee-high ferns.
‘All dead!’ Bel shouted back.
Munpo had seven with him, including Keit and M’Meska. The Saurian hung back from the main fight, sending off arrow after arrow in search of shrieks.
‘How many?’ called Keit.
‘Must be over sixty adults!’ said Munpo. ‘Biggest nest I’ve ever seen!’
He jabbed a hugger through its shrieking mouth. Claws gouged at his side and he cursed, kneeing away another creature. Two of the remaining soldiers screamed and fell.
Bel found that he couldn’t remain in a single place, so couldn’t stay with his companions. This was a dance with death, and to survive it he had to lead. Time seemed to slow as he felled beast after beast, hacking paths through the brown-green mass. He heard a cry as another wave of monsters broke against his companions. A hugger dropped lightly from a tree onto Keit’s back and slashed his throat open with its claws. Bel bellowed, limbs and lives flying away from him, a dervish of destruction. A fierce joy burned in his breast. He could see the pattern of the fight, knew the steps he needed to tread. Sword there, fist here, boot now, elbow there … on and on until he did not know how much time passed, nor did he care.
Finally he swung at a hissing beast only to see it turn and scamper away. He leaped at another, but it was gone already, ferns quivering in its wake. His head snapped feverishly from side to side. The only huggers left were dead or in pieces. He rubbed the sweat from his eyes. The fight was over.
He tasted something foul and realised there was hugger blood in his mouth. It dribbled down his face and coated his clothes. As soon as he became aware of it, the smell was repulsive. He bent over and retched.
Someone groaned, and he staggered to where his comrades had made their stand. He found them all fallen, and sank to his knees with exhaustion. ‘Who is alive here?’ he asked. Keit did not speak, the hole in his neck being answer enough. Of the others, only Munpo opened his eyes. The old warrior tried to sit up, but grunted in pain and slumped back against the tree. Bel reached out to help him.
‘Don’t move me,’ said the troop leader.
For Bel, reality began to sink in. His friends were dead, his leader dying, and he had killed like one born to do so. He’d been consumed by the spirit of battle; meanwhile, his companions had been destroyed.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured.
‘Not your fault,’ managed Munpo thickly. ‘Blade Bel?’
‘Yes?’
‘Roll me some brittleleaf. In my top pocket.’
Bel nodded, and removed the pouch. With shaking fingers, he rolled brittleleaf into a paper. It was difficult because blood had made his fingers sticky.
‘I thought the hunting party was the nest guard,’ said Munpo, smiling bitterly.
‘I know, sir.’
‘No wonder the big fellow was with them, with this many mouths to feed. Must have been a big fire.’ He sighed deeply. ‘What did I tell you, Bel – never underestimate your opponent. What a fool I am, scattering my troop to pursue one hugger, like silly children chasing …’
But whatever Munpo’s children chased, Bel never knew.
He put the brittleleaf end in Munpo’s mouth.
From the trees above came a mewling and Bel forced his eyes upwards. Over the lip of one of the nests poked the hairy faces of hugger kittens, calling for their parents. He blinked slowly and reached for his crossbow. Through clouded eyes he slid a bolt into it, but the pounding in his head became overpowering and
he lost track of his target. Dropping the crossbow, he pitched onto his side.
The only other thing he remembered that day was the forest floor moving beneath him, a scaly tail swinging back and forth across it.
Twenty-one
The Deep Dark
The eel wound lazily through the murky water, pale grey with a long snout and eyes like copper coins. From his wide mouth jutted fangs at angles as crazy as the pillars of rock that protruded from the ocean floor. His skin was mottled and tough, scarred in many places. Sometimes old pains flared up and the eel ground his fangs in frustration, but he always continued to hunt. To stop and wait for wounds to heal was to invite starvation, or other predators. Lately the pain had become more general, and persistent. The eel had raised many broods, eaten many fish, fought many fights. When he saw baby eels swimming frantically along the ocean bed, he knew that he must have been small like that once. He did not eat the young eels, as he might once have, but instead used their fear to steer them into safer waters.
His senses were duller than they used to be, making it harder to search out prey. Stealing surreptitiously towards a school of fish, he burst from between rocks at speed, but at the pivotal moment his body failed him. Once the cramping stopped and he could swim again, he settled for an algal colony on a rock tower, swallowing it in hope of energy. Flesh was what he really needed.
He happened upon an eel nest amongst a cluster of rocks. Young eels darted into the safety of crevices as he approached, and a lone female flashed out. As the old eel drifted closer in the current, she turned her head from side to side, showing him her fangs. He veered wide, knowing she wouldn’t attack unless he came closer. He saw that she was young, but not healthy. Her stomach was sunken and she had a smattering of white discoloration. Where was her mate? Was he dead? She would have trouble providing for so many babies on her own.
