FSF, October-November 2006

by Spilogale, Inc

  As he slowly straightened to his feet, there was a rustle on the slope behind him and a slashing fountain of pain as something hit him in the back.

  The quiver smashed into the nape of his neck and he soared off the trail, tumbling head over heel into brush fifteen or twenty feet below. The branches of the small trees tore at his skin but broke his fall. He dangled upside down for a second, then disentangled his legs and dropped to the ground. When he rolled over, he saw, up on the trail where he'd been standing, a pair of eyes shine greenish gold in the darkness.

  A panther. Returning favor for the trick that Maggot had played on its brother. It too must have been stalking the deer. Until it found other prey.

  Maggot stumbled to his feet, shouting a wordless challenge at it. He'd lost the arrow, and considered grabbing another from the quiver as he stared up into the panther's eyes and tried not to blink. He was off-balance on the steep hillside, so he took a step backward for better footing.

  The panther slid over the lip of the trail, slinking low and fast through the underbrush. Maggot took another step backward and the panther leapt, a tawny blur bursting out of the darkness.

  Maggot thrust out a hand to catch it by the throat, but its momentum sent them both somersaulting down the hillside to a level spot. They briefly rolled free of one another and then the panther pounced at his head. This time Maggot met it straight on, springing back at it. As the two of them crashed together, he caught a handful of the fur on its face. The two stood toe to toe, Maggot batting away one paw while he thrust his thumbnail into its golden eye. The cat snarled, swinging its head so violently his thumb slipped loose without doing any damage. When it jumped in an attempt to disembowel him with its hind feet, Maggot thrust it away, leaping back from its claws, and they both fell apart again.

  Even this close, the cat was little more than a dark shadow crouching among the vague shapes of bushes. The moon had risen early and was hidden behind the rim of the giant trees. Maggot would have liked more light, anything to give him an advantage.

  He stared at the panther, and pounded on his chest with cupped hands, beating out the troll's challenge. “Go away,” he yelled. His voice was hoarse from screaming.

  For an answer, the panther emitted a low rippling growl and padded forward. As it jumped again, Maggot grabbed a wind-blown branch from the ground and swung at the panther's head. The log cracked over its skull, breaking its stride but no more.

  The panther shrugged off the effects and stood staring at Maggot from only a few feet away. This was the biggest panther he'd ever seen, more than match for him.

  "Run,” Maggot screamed at it, raising the shortened stick to strike another blow. “Run before I kill you!"

  The panther crouched, as if to pounce. Then it laid back its ears and hissed at Maggot, opening its mouth, showing all of its teeth. All it had to do was fasten one bite—

  "Run away!” he screamed at the animal, stepping toward it and swinging his rude club.

  His blow whiffed empty air, as the panther turned and disappeared into night.

  Still tightly gripping the branch, Maggot watched it depart and slowly walked the other direction. With his free hand he felt the back of his neck, where the crushed quiver had absorbed the panther's first, and otherwise fatal, bite. His other wounds bled and burned, but were not the worst that he'd ever received. They'd heal in time. So long as he was not attacked again.

  He moved from trunk to trunk to take advantage of shelter. He would be safe in the city, at least from the panther. By his estimate, he ought to be nearly on top of buildings by now, but he saw no fires, heard no voices, no barking dogs, nothing.

  The ground under his feet became rocky, uneven. As he kept a lookout for the panther, a stone shifted beneath his foot and he stumbled. Regaining his balance, he saw around him the remains of a ruined wall. The stone was cold, and perfectly smooth to his touch, a white color veined and clouded with shades of blue. It almost glowed in the dark, where it thrust through the vegetation that buried it. He pulled aside some vines that snapped as they parted. The top layer of stone revealed the sinuous, continuous form of a carved snake.

  He spun around. He was inside the city but the city was abandoned.

  The moon shed pale light over the landscape. Fewer trees grew within the circuit of the broken wall. Off to his left lay a long low building. Directly ahead, the manmade mountain rose into the night sky, its squarish bulk rising to a flat top outlined against the stars. Vines and shrubs flooded around the base of it, as if trying to pull it under the surface of the forest to drown. Other mounds surrounded it, too difficult to count in the night. Some appeared blockish, as if made of stone, while others were rounded. Ranged between Maggot and the great, squat tower, was a broad plaza with some sort of low mound in the center. Surrounding it, he saw the silent shadows of a herd of deer. He could just make out the new sets of antlers on the bucks.

  Without forgetting the panther behind him, Maggot began to creep toward the deer. A group of four animals grazed slightly apart from the rest. One was a fawn, a tiny thing, and one of the other does was swollen. She must have been almost ready to deliver; she could hardly walk. Pulling another arrow from his quiver, Maggot chose them for his prey. He'd try to separate the fawn, or run down the pregnant doe.

  He darted from a pile of rubble to a hiding place behind a tree, angling to get between them and the main group. Almost as an afterthought, he looked up.

  All the new, tender young leaves were stripped from the branches, maybe as high as twenty feet—it was hard to tell. Not a single branch of the tree was spared. The trunk itself was split open, and the heartwood chewed out like pith from a stem of grass. This must have been done by whatever animal made the frightening scream earlier.

  Maggot straightened, stepped away from the tree. The little group of deer jerked their heads up. One of them emitted a high-pitched whistle and ran toward the safety of the larger group.

  As he turned his attention away from possible danger to his present hunger, he saw a low rectangular pool in the center of the plaza. Water trickled from animal-shaped fountains carved in a wall at one end. The deer gathered on the far side on this pool, around a tufted mound of earth.

  While he watched, the mound of earth stood up and moved.

  Shaped like a bear, but more than twice a bear's size, it walked slothfully, but intentionally, in his direction, trailed by a small but visible cloud of buzzing insects that stirred the air as it moved. A vast stench rose from the beast. Maggot's empty stomach clenched and he retched.

  The creature stood up on its hind legs and staggered toward the noise to investigate. The thing was twenty feet tall, front paws tipped with claws the size of sabers. It started its weird keening, the same blood-curdling cry it had voiced earlier.

  Maggot did the only sensible thing. He turned and ran.

  He'd not taken ten strides toward the outer wall when he saw something that made him come to a complete stop.

  Ehren. Dressed in the clothes of the hunters. And he had a bow and arrow aimed at Maggot as if he meant to shoot him.

  * * * *

  6.

  Ehren's gaze twitched toward the renewed keening of the weird creature, giving Maggot a chance to dodge aside as the arrow was released. It whizzed past him.

  Before taking another shot, Ehren spun and dashed for the nearest building.

  Maggot raced after him. It could be no coincidence that he was also here in this abandoned city, and Maggot wanted to find out why. Besides, he ran away from the shaggy giant, and that was the same direction Maggot headed. The stone buildings promised some shelter impassable to the beast's great bulk.

  The animal's scream wavered in the air, and plummeted through the scale to its low-pitched reverberating boom. His front paws thudded into the ground, and his weight thumped after Maggot while the scream echoed off the stone structures. For a second, he mistook the echo off the wall ahead as an answering cry and his skin crawled.

  Glan
cing back over his shoulder, he saw the creature stop its chase. In that moment he lost sight of Ehren.

  The building ahead was long, straight, and narrow, and open along the side facing Maggot. A row of columns, more than a troll could ever count, supported the roof on the open side; below them a continuous row of wide, shallow steps went down from the platform into a grassy area thick with trees. The building stretched off into the shadows beyond the edge of the plaza, to an area surrounded by smaller mounds.

  Maggot dodged behind a tree, in case Ehren meant to shoot him again. Slowly he peered out again. The evenly spaced columns on the building might have seemed impressively thick and tall until one compared them with the randomly scattered trees. The combined effect was bewildering. The city had been empty for centuries.

  Moving from tree to tree, up the steps, to a column, Maggot neither saw nor heard—nor, wrinkling his nose reflexively like a troll, smelled—any sign of Ehren.

  He moved cautiously along the building, aware again of the fresh aches in his body overlying the old. He wondered why Ehren had tried to shoot him. Had it been a mistake? Did he mean to shoot the beast instead? Why, when he needed food and rest, could he find neither?

  In a section of the building where the roof had caved in, crushed by falling trees or weakened where columns had tipped beneath some shifting weight, in the shadows beside the rubble, Maggot paused. He wanted Ehren.

  Sometimes the best way to flush a prey was to remain still. Maggot quietly mounted a pile of debris sheltered by a more intact piece of overhanging roof, and then he sat there, wrapped in deep nocturnal shadow.

  He could see in all three directions—down the row of columns in the undamaged length of the building ahead, out across the grove of trees across the plaza, and over the jumbled piles of stone behind him. His fingers plied in the dirt of leaf mold covering the stones, smearing it across his face to reduce the shine from his eyes. His huge right hand rested on the rock he intended to use as a weapon.

  And he waited.

  A few birds called out. One of the deer made a barking sound. The half-circle of the moon floated silently in the sky and the stars formed a luminous river. A little blood trickled from a broken scab on his back where the panther had cut him. One drop rolled slowly down his spine, followed by another, both of them pooling, cool, around the cloth at his waist.

  He did not move even his head, but looked only out of the corners of his eyes.

  A vague shape detached itself from one of the trees, looking in the direction of the pool, and paused. The twisted shadows concealed its silhouette. Maggot held his throw. The shadow moved on—only another of the deer.

  From the direction he'd come, there was a clatter of gravel and a thud as some piece of fallen masonry shifted and resettled. He remained motionless, tensed to spring.

  The stillness extended until it seemed to grow as long as the building. He relaxed, only to find his muscles, especially in his wounded left leg, too sore to loosen completely. Maggot reluctantly admitted to himself that Ehren had kept moving. But how had he tracked Maggot this far, and why? It was opposite the direction he'd said he was going.

  As he squatted there, thinking about all of it—the panther attack, that weird beast protecting the plaza, and now Ehren, his legs began to tremble. He released an audible breath and stilled them. He really had no idea how badly the big cat had hurt him; he'd had no time to examine himself. But his face, and neck, and shoulders felt covered with blood. He needed food, water, someplace to hide and recover his strength.

  A small stone careened off the wall beyond the rows of undisturbed columns, and pattered to a stop somewhere on the marble platform below Maggot's perch.

  Ehren, after all.

  A feint to make him move.

  Maggot gripped the rock with his right hand and waited. He peered down the long corridor between the columns. Still crouching low, he shifted the rock for a better grip.

  Ehren skulked toward him then, sprinting from column to column and peering beyond them out into the darkness away from Maggot, until he'd come within thirty feet.

  Maggot slowly hefted the stone to throw it. He would use it as a hammer if the other man came close enough. One more column would do it, but before Ehren took that step, he drew something from the pouch at his waist, the one he'd taken from the camp. He lifted it toward the plaza, and whispered a few unintelligible words.

  A small flash of cold blue light, like the one he'd seen from the hillside.

  An answering flash, from within the pyramid, muted, but from a much larger source, reflecting from a hole.

  Maggot's slight gasp must have startled the other man too. Ehren staggered backward from the pillar and stared straight up the mound of debris at Maggot's hiding place.

  With a shout, Maggot pounced, leap landing into dash as he swung at the other man's skull. Ehren lurched sideways, but the stone glanced off his head and sent him crashing to the floor. Maggot hit the ground, losing his weapon on impact, but rolled to his feet ready to fight.

  As Ehren lay stunned, Maggot rose to his full height, drumming the “danger, death” tattoo of the trolls on his bare chest.

  A second later, the echo of it returned from the direction of the pyramid across the plaza. The shape of the building altered the sound.

  With a bow and knife Maggot would have no problem finding game. He bent to strip Ehren's still form of his weapons. As soon as his hands touched the knife belt, Ehren's hands shot up to grasp his wrists. Maggot pulled away, but Ehren kicked him, sent him sprawling.

  Instead of drawing his weapon to attack Maggot, he searched the floor to snatch up something he'd dropped—the shining stone. He found it as Maggot staggered to his feet. Ehren did not stay to fight, but ran away, sprinting through the screen of trees toward the pyramid.

  Maggot pursued him, wondering why a man would chase him so far only to flee. Ehren was fleet, at fast as Maggot, and not so weakened by recent injuries. He stretched out the distance between them, drawing his sword as he ran.

  They dodged between the mounds, avoiding the pool, the deer, and their strange guardian. Ehren ducked behind the few ancient trees, but Maggot stayed after him. He tripped as he tried to leap a fallen tulip poplar, a tree so large it uprooted a corner of the base of the pyramid when it fell.

  Maggot grunted as he hit the ground and rolled back to his feet. Ehren ascended the pyramid, up one of the flights of narrow, flat steps cut into each side of the structure, flanked by stylized creatures carved from stone. He turned and pointed his sword at Maggot.

  "Go away, before I must kill you!” Ehren said. The accent was thick, but the words the language of the empire, the language that Maggot had spoken to him. Why had he pretended not to know it? Had he understood all along?

  "You were my friend!” Maggot said. He was angry beyond understanding. He wanted to smash Ehren, to crush him.

  "The Jewel is within my reach and once I have it—"

  Maggot roared and jumped for the corner platform, pulling himself up onto the first level of the structure. He had no clear intention other than getting higher than Ehren. He leapt, gripping the lip of the next ledge, and hoisted himself up. As soon as his knee scraped over the edge of the stone he rushed to the next flat wall and did the same.

  Ehren stumbled up the narrow steps, peering over the shoulders of the stone guardians, yelling in some incomprehensible tongue.

  When Maggot reached the fifth platform, his shoulders aching, he rounded the corner of the building, out of Ehren's line of vision, and vaulted the figures lining the stairs. Taking three steps in a stride, slipping, then two, still favoring his bad leg, he sprung to the broad flat top of the structure and met Ehren as he reached the peak.

  Maggot tackled him, catching his wrist and slamming it against the stone altar that occupied the middle of the platform. Sword clanged on marble, ringing as it skittered loose. But the other man clutched Maggot tightly as the two rolled to the edge and fell off.

  They t
umbled through the air, Ehren landing on top as they hit the level below. Maggot grunted, losing his grip, and the other man reeled free.

  As Ehren scrambled up the steps, Maggot grabbed his heel and yanked. Both men toppled backward, falling apart. Maggot smacked his left elbow on a corner of stone, hitting the bone that made his arm go tingly and numb. Ehren rolled past Maggot and cracked his head, crying out. He sat up clutching one hand to his temple. When he looked up at Maggot, his eyes went wide with fright and he started slipping feet first down the stairs.

  Maggot rose, cradling his elbow and grimacing as the throbbing subsided. He followed a step or two after Ehren, not understanding the other man's blind panic as he skidded, fell, regained his feet, and jumped blindly from the base of the structure to go running off into the night.

  Too exhausted, too weary and hungry to chase after him now and face yet another fight, Maggot decided to retrieve the sword dropped on the top of the platform.

  As he turned around, he half-saw, half-sensed some new danger, and dodged to the side as a heavy blow smashed him flat to the stone. His first thought was the panther, that it had returned. He twisted immediately, raising his hands in defense.

  And saw above him, squatting on the next ledge, a lanky-armed she-troll.

  * * * *

  7.

  Maggot grinned at his good fortune.

  She was about his own age. The protruding brow, deep eyes, and sharp slope of her head gave her a penetrating, intelligent appearance. Her height must have been close to eight feet, though it was hard to tell when she was seated on her haunches. She had broad shoulders and a nice round belly. Her thick, hard, and nearly hairless skin was a beautiful dark slate color. There was a big rock at the end of one of her arms, poised to smash him.

  He stuck his tongue out, like he had just eaten something that tasted awful. It was the troll expression for no, but lest she not understand he added, “Don't hit me, I'm a friend."