In some societies this would be a peculiar image. Georgia spent the cooling evening checking her snares for treasures. No, she never had a need to hunt or gather back in Gryphonton. She has had plenty of experience at it over the past four days, though. Ariadne, you see, had imparted to the two young children a gift unlike any they could have wished for, a desire to thrive.
It took her two hours to convince Gus that she no longer wanted to kill herself. Then he taught her how to make string. It seemed his subligaculum had outlived its shelf life, especially when it’d spent the last two weeks covering two different kinds of bodies. The game he’d played with Ariadne didn’t help them, either. Just one problem, he could make string, make that string into a belt or sling or strap or all three at once. The squirrels, however, still laughed at his hunting skills. No amount of begging would get them to shed their coat for him to wear. So, Georgia took a day to learn how to make snares while Gus gathered berries and fish. Needless to say they ate well, though I’m sure a gnome would consider it appallingly sparse, no dis-consideration intended, of course.
That’s not what he did now, fishing that is. Until he has enough skins tanned and ready to wear he needed that subligaculum and needed it clean enough to be comfortable. Well, honestly, at the moment he studied his reflection in a calm section of the river. His physique had improved over the three-and-a-half weeks he’d stolen himself from his slavers. But the fuzz on his jowls, sparse as it was, fascinated him. Surely at thirteen he’d be too young for that. Was it the wolf? He had a tail, even now. That didn’t exist before that fateful, no, liberating day. “I’m free, now,” he said to his reflection. “Now what do I do with that?” He reached for a stick he’d wadded out for and jumped when he heard a splash.
On the far bank, staring at him, were two creatures before which time he’d never seen. The shorter one looked regular enough, though a bit stocky for a child. Never seen skin that dark on anyone. The thickening fur on his jaw made him wonder when such things really do get started.
His companion was, to say the least, very different. Four feet and hands. Each covered in thickening fuzz. Though the head made him think of a horse, it was too shallow and round for that.
The two said something to each other, quickly, and the four-footed one chuckled. Well, not a horse if nothing else proved that wrong. The youth stepped out into the river, staff in one hand, both hands lowered, what looked like a smile on his face. Greetings flowed from his mouth. He stepped in the middle of the river and looked back at his friend, “What?”
“A bit deep.”
“Not even up to my knees. Don’t think…are you afraid of water?”
“Nay, Khen, nay. Just of drowning.”
“Same here.” He returned his attentions to the naked boy. “We’re just looking for a camp. If you’ve settled one, can we share?”
“S’pose” came the answer from a girl.
Gus lowered himself and gathered his subligaculum close.
The girl shook her head and rolled her eyes, “Boys.”
Gus just growled through a smile, “Girls.” They turned to the intruders, “The wood is free enough. Where’re you headed?”
“The Vale of Arianrhoth.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Neither had we ‘til a couple weeks ago.”
Georgia lifted a brace of rabbits, “Hunting’s good, here.”
After three splashes Shagra added, “So’s the fishing.” He glanced at Crav while tossing two trouts to her, “You okay, Brother?”
The dwarf just grumbled about loose rocks while climbing back to his feet and taking the next step forward.
• º •
Crav deftly shaved a stick into kindling. “If there’s nothing a dwarf don’t know, fire ain’t one of them.”
“And water,” Shagra added while trying not to notice the burgeoning wolf stretching on the other side of the fire pit. After all, it might be rude.
“Nay, just as important to the forge as fire.”
The qintari smiled at the evasion while setting the next rock down.
Georgia seemed distracted. Oh, the rabbits skinned just fine. The string rolled very well. And Gus’ transformation seemed regular enough it barely raised her curiosity. Shagra just couldn’t figure if she were more worried over the dwarf or the qintari. This was the third time she tried tying a trout to a skewer. That seemed to add to her frustration.
Shagra continued his project, piling rocks and dirt around Crav’s fire pit while testing his theory on the dwarf’s relationship to water. The mule willow they set their camp near seemed unnerved by it all. No, it didn’t have the same sort of nerve with which he was familiar. If asked he’d call it the scent they gave off.
Just as he would comment Gus stood up and stretched, groaned, and yawned. Then groaned again.
Shagra answered, “Free wood, and all. Just,” how to say stay close without sounding like an over worried grandpa? “Be disappointed if you got into a fight without inviting us.”
The youths seemed to laugh at the wolf’s answer.
Georgia studied the youth, “You understood him?”
“Sure, why wouldn’t I?”
“All I hear is groaning and moaning.”
Shagra studied her for a moment, a moment that seemed to make her nerve sharpen. And that lead him down a deeper trail. “Qintari, here. Sensitive to the nerves,” he glanced at their sheltering shrub, “even of the trees, it seems. Me, just a bit more special in that way. So, I understand him even when he talks like a wolf.”
“That’s…,” she watched the dwarf arrange sticks and dried leaves around the one he’d just shaved down, “interesting.”
He eyed her, “Not always welcomed. Qintari, I know. Thanks to Crav here I understand dwarves okay.”
The dwarf growled.
“Not saying I understand the words, you see. Just the nerve.”
“Have yer flint and strike?” the dwarf asked.
The qintari handed them over. “But humans, I’m sure I’m missing something. Like the reeve stepping away like that. He could have helped, grabbed that knife. But no, can’t do that. Chief master warrior ….”
“…Not quite what he is, Lad. Just an accountant.”
“So, arresting people, holding the noose over their mouth, that’s a treasurer’s job?”
“Not all things of value are metal, my Khen. Civil peace, commerce, civil defense, ….”
“Peace and defense, that makes sense. Commerce, not sure.” Then something hit him. “Ah, but warriors may never be council or Marnomical. He didn’t like that.” He felt his nerve sharpen.
Georgia missed that. “Makes sense. Ambition is a good virtue, or a terrible mess.”
“Greed corrupts even the purest crown.”
They watched Shagra rise. Then shoot into the woods snatching his quarterstaff in suit.
He needn’t have hurried. They were too dead to fix. Maybe even a week or so from the way they looked. The qintari took quick stock of the scene, six men, shredded, one hanging high in a tree with a broken branch through his gut. It didn’t seem like a robbery, he answered Gus’ plaintiff moan. “Purses and weapons still here.”
“Who could do this?” Georgia asked though rough nerves.
“Not who,” Crav said eyeing a damaged fir. “I think he be a bear, a big one.”
After Gus groaned Shagra asked, “Is it right, though. They might have families.”
“Is what right?” Georgia’s voice wavered with emotions.
“The money, tools, weapons. Do we take them or leave them?”
“Take them,” Crav said. “We bury them. We ask, anyone can say what’s theirs.”
“Right. And we don’t even know where to find their kin.” Shagra studied that tree and in two steps mounted a branch where he could pull that one body down. The body didn’t give easily. The qintari just kept at it.
He looked down at the wolf, “You know them? …. Oh, guess they found you after all, then …. No, still horrid way to die. …. No one’s asking you to.” The body finally gave and dropped. The youth followed it. “Might not make a difference. Do or don’t.” He looked up at Crav, “Fire and water, each in their turn, and a better world we have. Even if it’s just from the way we’re looking at it.”
Gus went silent, pulled a belt loose and tossed it aside.
“Anyone bring a shovel?” Georgia asked.
“Pile ‘em in that dip,” Crav said, “cover ‘em as we can.”
• º •
Back at the camp, six sacks rested on a rock, ax, knives, slings all sorted out. Gus quietly secured a rabbit skin to a willow hoop.
Georgia just asked, “Why six? There are four of us.”
“Gus gets two for back wages. The last should we, as a company, want something.”
Gus rolled around and moved one purse over, “Two for the company. What of the rest?”
“Only one of us doesn’t have a knife. And Georgia’s looks helpless.”
“Wasn’t particular. A knife that cuts is good enough for me.”
“Now you can have better,” Gus said. “Just don’t understand why you wanted to kill yourself for.”
“Better than marriage.”
“Say so.”
“Salep do-Dare….”
“…The ‘prince’?”
“Of shit.”
“That stinks.”
“Shit smells better.”
“But ‘prince’.”
“And?”
“Power, wealth, position.”
“Marry him if you like, then. One master’s as good as another.”
“Saying marriage is slavery?”
“Looks like it to me.”
“Still, that one knife looks like it’ll hold in a fight. Yours? Maybe against a jelly bean.”
“Not those.”
“Georgia, slayer of the magic jelly bean.”
They laughed. “Gus, snarer of spiders, great and small.”
“She snared herself. I just encouraged her art.”
Out of the blue Shagra said, “Married.”
“Who is?” Georgia asked.
“You two.”
Now let me spare you the chorus of expletives and interesting words now addressing the subject at hand. After all, it’s getting past your nap time and your mother would not like me seeding your dreams like that.
I looked at the two in the fading firelight and knew two things before thinking about it: I don’t know either of these people and one looked sick.
I’d traveled far from my home and found little company with folks. They see my orcish ears and brow and at best yell obscenities we’ll not repeat lest they give you ideas. At worst, well, that’s for what the bandage is. Though, when I finished that fight and took them children home, their parents seemed grateful, though not hospitable. Suppose they felt caught between love and fear, or something.
Never mind that, children ought to be with theirs folk. And something tells me that’s what these be, children without theirs folks. Well, I stepped on that stick, made it snap. That startle them both, all right, but they have no fight in them.
I know now what be wrong with the one with the big tail. The stains about his mouth, the stomach juices on the ground, he ate somewhat he shouldn’t. The other? She smelled like a cold snake. Is that right, though? Well, drop them twigs on the fire, if that fix the cold one then I know.
I reach into me ‘copia while asking, “You know what I’m saying?” That get them to relax. I hand some fresh spiderwort to the tail, “Give that a kiss.”
The cold one asked, “What?”
“Kiss that. If it not worry you, we feed you a fist full. It clean you out, you be dandy at sunup.”
He do that. I spend a bit looking to the fire. Looks like they don’t know their camp lore. That tells me they not be in the field long. “Kidnapped?”
The cold one snapped up at me. Hit pretty close on that one, I did. That explains why they ate something they oughtn’t to have. Ignorance and hunger will kill you faster than hunger alone.
“Where your folks? You don’t belong out here, get yourself killed, that not make them happy, no.”
“D-don’t know h-how.”
“Lost, then?” I grunted the mountain song while them moons moved three fingers. Then when the big tail seemed to belch, “How be your mouth, it tingle, feel numb?” When he rocked his head I hand her them herbs. “Chew, just swallow them juices. You be dandy soon enough.” My hand brushed against the cold one’s coat. It was wet, ice cold. “What’s wrong with you? Have you no sense? Get them wet things off, let them dry while you soak up this fire.”
“T-too c-cold.”
“Wet makes it colder. Wet takes your heat away.”
That be odd. She take them clothes off. Skin be dark on the back with little bumps, light on the front, streaks of red like them horse babies. She not have tits, either. That belly knot tell me she’s natural enough.
I got the fire going, all right. Then I started with my camp lore. Sniff at the air, that tell me who the wind come from. I pull me hatchet and gather fresh juniper branches, building a shelter. Least they have sense enough to shelter under a fir. Maybe that just happen.
About five fingers later I see the Mouse rise. She be gray, says the day won’t mean much. I’ll teach them their camp lore, be theirs mama for a day or so. Maybe that buy me a friend, and something to hope for. Hope, that be like willow bark. Just enough will help, too much will kill you.
The cold one still shivers. Still, have cure for that. Place her closer to her friend, cover them with my blanket. After I hang her coat and, what is this shirt made of? Well, I set my coat just so, sit and tend the fire, sing myself asleep. Been a long day, and all that work to finish it.
I wake to ravens gossiping. They tell the usual, babies hatching, where the wolves be hunting, that sort of thing. Then I see the ‘tail’ tending the fire, warming water. Seems he knows better than I wager.
Her friend stepped under the boughs with two hares and a squirrel. That be unexpected, too. Maybe what make her that wet make her that stupid. That teaches me against haste. Well, I’ve somewhat to attend to.
When I get back I sprinkle kurgswode into the water, freshen our wits, it will. The cold one put some into a little box, then smile at what she sees. Quizzical, I ask what that be.
“A tester. Tells me if something’s safe to eat.”
What? “Why you not test that for her?”
“It’s limited, only knows my people.”
I grunted, I understood. I know more, but not everything. While we take in them animals two sets of people show up. The first three men looked beleaguered. The youngest look like his face be crushed. They ask if we seen a boy, give description— ash-brown hair, green eyes, turns into wolf. ‘Course we ain’t seen him. Not that I’d tell if I had. My new friends look like they couldn’t believe the skin changer story. Ha, well, no harm, there. The older one seemed confused. I hear them coming and set my hat, it covers my ears and brow. Don’t need no argument about what I am. But he keep trying to get a better look at me. Meanwhile, theirs captain insists on asking one more time, threatening to arrest us. That pissed me off.
“Who be the crown of these parts, Boy?”
Before he could pull his knife a new voice answered, “Nardo of the house of Whel, bears that honor.”
I note the tail look to the ground like she be a lowlife. I also note the speaker wear fancy duds and walk like he ain’t too used to it. Well, the man standing just ahead of him look like standing was too much for him. And he smells like he ain’t never washed after taking care of his somewhat. No orc smell like that, not after weeks of war, nor after weeks of losing all he can honestly claim.
I look the stinky one dead in the eye, “Who be ye?”
The man standing behind him answers, “Idiot, he is prince Whel, duke of Grantham, heir to the crown. Kneel, scum.”
“I be voluspo, I kneel only to woman in gift.” I gesture at them three, “You know them?”
“No. Voluspo?”
I skip a beat. Why’d I say that? Might start a fight. But I did, and there ain’t no taking it back. What to do? I touch you just right and break you? I see the fire in that one’s face that tells me he’ll die tomorrow from that wound? Maybe I can walk out of this with that.
“I be touched. I say you’re blessed, you’re blessed. And don’t ask for no curse, ‘less you mean it. Now get your friend on that rock and fetch clean water.”
The tail jump up and do that. She look like she was more than happy to help.
The one threatening arrest asked, “What are you going to do?”
“Your friend’s face is broke. The wound is sick. I might fix it. I might just ease his pain and let him die happy.”
“Die!?”
“Or do nothing, he die now, and suffer for your stupidity.”
“Why, I ought to arrest….”
“…when his face break?”
“Three weeks ago. Attacked by a bear.”
“Why you not get him help? Why you have no love for your mate and get him to a sintr?”
“A what?”
“What I am, a healer.”
“Figured we needed to get that werewolf first.”
The steward took in a sharp breath.
His master say, “No such thing.”
That’s when I see the way he’s standing. “Land too hard?”
He catch his voice, “Horse spooked at something.”
The expression on the steward told me that’s a lie.
The tail returned with the water, I ask her to put it to boil. I study the face better. Three weeks? Color of the bruise look like that. I pick the crust from the sore and watch it drain. It smells different. I don’t know this one. Bear? “Tell me about what did this.”
“Told you, bear.”
I just grunted, “So, tell me about him, what he be like, size, heart, that sort of stuff.”
“Don’t know that makes a difference. He attacked us. He didn’t roar or anything, just up and swatted my first into a tree like he was a rabbit. Then hit my boy, here and tried to rip Jed’s head off and tore his spine out, instead.”
I listen, hear everything, see what he remembers. Sure, done that before, just never so convenient as this time. “Sure you ain’t forgettin’ somewhat? Bear might have been sick. I need to know what make him sick.”
The steward smirked, “Some voluspo, doesn’t see the secret truth.”
I growled at that with enough menace to make him squeak.
Then offer, “You say he didn’t roar, did he growl, sing?”
The third one who hadn’t said anything thought about that. “Didn’t seem to have a tongue, eh, miss.” He rocked his head, “He hissed and seemed to gag.”
“Missing half his face,” the sheriff finally said. “Eyes were cloudy. How could that be important, we were fighting for our lives!”
“Yet he hit your boy, here, and didn’t finish him. That not right. Not if he be hunting to feed himself.” I looked into that boy’s eyes and didn’t like the look of them. They were cloudy and dazed. “You sure he be a fellow and not a mama?” I get the cold one to hand me a few leaves and start pressing on the sick wound.
The two grumbled, “Didn’t get that close a look at him.”
Whatever was in that wound I can’t say. Color of blackberry juice, thick, but didn’t spit out, even reluctant to drip. Old as it is and no care, why didn’t maggots not live there? It smell like old blood in vomit and stale meat. Worse, he don’t feel anything, not the sickness, not me working.
The duke sounds caught between disgust and fascination. Open view, what can I do? Don’t want to see it? Don’t look. Just about the time the sickness turn from black to blue the steward ask us if we knew how to find dragons’ egg, or the Hamlet of Hemeheim. The reeve told them to head north, find a road and turn west. As for dragons’ eggs, don’t know what they be, or where.
The reeve reached out to the boy, rested a hand on his shoulder.
The boy’s eyes stay cloudy, unfocused, but they turn to the man. I hear it. The noise in his head went quiet. I keep my eye on him and my work. Why that change? The reeve’s asking him if he’s okay.
After three weeks, now he’s worried? Stupid.
And it only got worst.
The boy lunges at the man hard enough to knock me down. My fault, I didn’t see that knot of grass. I look up to see them fighting. The boy shouldn’t be winning, trying to take that bite. He be maybe ten, no more than twelve. It takes everything for the man to fight him off.
Suddenly the cold one is standing where the boy was. I head a thump and a crack and look twelve tills away to see the boy double backwards over a branch, just settling. I look at the girl. She’s shocked at something. It looked like she didn’t expect to hit that hard. She’s rubbing her shoulder. Suppose she’ wasn’t that ready for it either.
I get up. I rest a hand on her shoulder, suggest she sit. Then I start looking the reeve over. He has a bruise at his wrist and a broken finger. He cut no skin. Maybe that’s good. Maybe that ain’t. I don’t know what was in that boy. I can say one thing, doubled backwards as he is he should be taking everything that’s truly his to the ashes. That ain’t happening. He’s still trying to get up. He’s broke, so it ain’t happening. But he’s trying.
The steward finally says, “That isn’t natural, that isn’t right.”
“No, sorry to say it, but maybe we put his remains to the fire,” says I.
“He’s still alive,” the reeve said, “still trying to get up.”
“No, he’s dead. Something else is alive in him, that’s what’s trying to get up. Remember him up until the bear kill him. Let no other die like this. And you, wash good, soon. Don’t want to die like him, no?”
The cold one spoke up, “How is that possible?”
The noise in her head, not that I could understand them words, say she’s wondering how she moved that fast, that strong. These people don’t need that kind of education. So, I answer the question like it sounded, “There be more in nature than what we know, that’s all. That bear has a sickness, pass it onto your boy. Your boy try to pass it onto you.”
The reeve looks at me. “So, why not you?”
I grumble, thinking. “I be voluspo, maybe they don’t like the way that taste.” Then I think to myself, because I’m less fragile, less likely to get sick like that. That, I know, is a gift from my folks. “That means I take care of the body, you get the wood.” I look at him, “Go on, and think about what’s really important. Some ulfgard whose only crime is worrying you over it, or yours boy who’s dying before your very eyes.”
Two weeks they traveled together. Shagra guided them according to the magistrate’s directions: cross the Hunter’s Fence by way of Eagle’s Pass; then follow the Eye of the Vulture until they reach the Scrub Bogs; there, find a rock that looks like an erect human penis. That made the two humans blush. No, they hadn’t got that far, yet. It’s just that Shagra thought it smart to share that map should they get separated, or worst.
This week they’d left the wood they’d been in and continued though ever drying grassland that soon became an odd patchwork of rock and bog-land. They didn’t just walk, no. It seems of the four of them Shagra alone had the skills needed to survive away from village or family. Neither Georgia nor Crav had to hunt, their families being middle to upper class villains. They could just buy what they needed at the market. Gus, too, never needed to hunt, and the garden he tended shared her bounty with him readily, even if the mistress didn’t approve. Shagra didn’t either. Expectations were, however, rather different. Anyone who wanted to graduate school had to know how to make string, rope, snares, find and catch game, and turn a field for rye and a home garden for carrots or cabbage or lomatia. Lomatia? Well, that’s a fruit, grows on a vine, sweet like a melon, tough like a squash. And if you let it get quite old in the sun you can hollow it out and bake bottles for the liquor you can make from the just ripe…. Um, sorry, wrong class. Where was I? Right! In the middle of the Scrub Bog.
The maps and lore of the academe inform me that this was once rich, fertile land, of soft rolling hills, trees, and farms. Yes, farms and the villages that go with them. Then a wizard built a dam. A good dam, too, they say. Except the trees and farms lost all benefit from the rivers that flowed and made the land so rich. The wizard would have got along just fine except for one, er, two things. Mind you, few things on Zairese are more terrible than a troll on the warpath.
Neither Gelden nor Thrond thought the dam a good idea. Too big, and who would it benefit? Where Gelden thought to negotiate with the wizard, they are sup-, ha- sorry. Supposed to be smart.
That’s rich. They know little that’s not found in a book. So, he read a book, built a dam to hold water and generate electricity, more of each to power Ärngwendor and Bloedwendor, and much to spare. And he did that just for himself.
Thrond, on the other hand felt the wizard, a vassal to the Mountains of Fire and Shadow, would see no reason. He was right, of course. Still, tearing that dam down in one yank could have its own troubles. But Thrond’s trees were dying, xe was desperate, and that made xer hasty.
Well, the dam came down, the wizard, the soil, farms, villages, and the very same trees Thrond feared for, and washed away to the Huron Valley. Those two trolls haven’t spoken to each other since then. Sad, for they are the last of their kind, and will need each other to change that.
Well, what do you care for the sorrows of trolls? That happened during the Wraith War. No, before your mother was born. Yes, before her mother’s mother was born. Well, put it like that, my great-great-grandparents might have known someone who was alive at the time. Today we have a land of rock and rotting soil to send our heroes through.
Right now conditions divide our fellowship. In one camp Georgia and Crav are competing for the misery of the month trophy. I did say bog, yes? Soggy, rotting soil that can make a privy smell sweet. Crav had trouble keeping his wool hose up, and for some reason Georgia didn’t like carrying her shoes. Shoes, by the way, made just for her wedding. Not three weeks traipsing over hills, through dales, or wading through a bayou.
In the other camp Gus and Shagra, neither of whom wore shoes, ever, seemed to be having the time of their lives. Gus’ feet would sink into the mud with a burp, then fart when it was pulled free. While the mud stained Shagra’s knees, hocks, and belly, his only annoyance seemed to be that braiding and tucking his tail mane meant that swatting at flies and gnats would be harder. Once, just for fun, he pointed at a bright red frog and yelled, “Eat more flies, will you?” Then he nearly lost his lunch as the little thing pushed a live worm back down his throat.
For the moment our fellowship worried over a bear print in the mud. Was it the same that murdered Gus’ hunters? Yes, murder. Didn’t kill for food, just to kill. What would you call that? Shagra felt hollow as he informed them it was less than an hour old. Change course, Georgia offered. The qintari studied the area while Crav studied the broader bayou.
The qintari just studied a tear in the nearby burn and asked, “Why would a bear kill for pleasure?”
“How could we know?” Georgia asked. “Ask him over mead, if you like.”
“Enough of that,” Gus said. “Knowing that could help us track or evade.”
“Would he be a bear?” Crav asked.
She studied him in disbelief. Then studied Gus.
Who shrugged, “Could be possible.”
“So, why …?”
Gus leaped onto the burn and sniffed.
Shagra said, “Anger, fear, pleasure, madness.” He stood up, “Think he went that way?”
“The nose ain’t so smart, right now, but I think it is.”
“Why not leave him be?” Crav said. “There be six dead back then. We be but four.”
“They be hunting a boy whose sole crime is being different,” Shagra said. “They beat their dogs and slaves that screams fear born from weakness. Had they a faithful dog they’d have caught him within hours. Would they know a bear track? Heard a twig snap? Did they startle him, or her protecting her young?”
Gus broadened his search for clues. It made sense. The sheriff and his pose did little but sing and drink and bully children, slaves, and dogs. But he rocked his head, “Bear smells like a guy, not a girl. And I only smell one.”
Again Crav wanted to know, “Why not leave him be?”
“Just might. But we need to know where he’s going to evade him.”
The dwarf grunted.
“No bonds,” Gus said out of the blue. “None of us are captains, here. We just wandering in the same direction.”
“Wandering with purpose,” Georgia added.
“But we each have skills,” Shagra said. “My Brother, Crav, knows the forge. Me, survival. Gus is good at laundry,” over Gus’ growling he added, “and Georgia hunts like a princess.”
“No, I don’t. Most of the princess’ couldn’t find a mirror at their toilet without a slave to point it out to them.”
“But a spider in a dark corner?”
She fought back a smile, “Yeah, that they’d find.”
“So,” Crav added, “we evade the mad bear, we keep together, like a family, each doing what we do best.”
“Not just that,” Gus said. “My hunting’s better because of Shagra. Geo’s snares, are better too. I hear water. Let’s find it. I, for one, can use a bath.”
“Thought you didn’t mind the mud,” Georgia said.
“Mind? And what would minding do? Can’t do much about it, so push forward.”
“Magistrate didn’t say anything about this bog,” Crav said.
“He came from the education we seek. Maybe he found a path, or the bog wasn’t so bad.”
Georgia leaned forward and dropped off her rock. She walked over to the burn, “Let’s find that water, then.”
“And your shoes?”
She held all three pieces of the one pair she still had. “Know how to fix these?”
Crav mounted the burn, “Leather’s not my department, Lass.”
“And your hose?”
“Lost them this morning.”
The water pouring into that pond had made it fresher than the rest of the bayou. They bathed, rinsed clothes off as best they could, and Gus returned from his hunt with two rabbits and a pheasant. Shagra rooted some cattail tubers from the pond while Georgia tossed her shoes and hose as far as she could. The turquoise sky melted into steal blue with the coming storm, which prompted Crav to craft a shelter from living trees near that pond.
Shagra found himself caught between skinning the pheasant and a flock of glowing lights lingering near the cattails from which he’d harvested the roots. He slipped into his mother’s tongue to ask Crav, “What are those?”
It took two moments to figure what his new brother meant. He shrugged, offered an answer, gas, and asked, “Why ask that way?”
“In case the answer breaches your education.”
The dwarf grunted and tightened his bindings.
“So, how are you doing?”
Crav just grunted again.
“Yeah, me too.”
The dwarf grunted like a question.
“Tired. Haven’t been through so much since hell week. Well, kind of better ‘cause I’ve got no enemies, not here.”
“What are you going on about, Khen?”
“Just minding my grandpa’s lessons. Count your friends and blessings and care for both. Then you’ll want for nothing in time of troubles.”
The stocky smith shook his head, “Maybe that trick of yours is more trouble than you know. You see enemies before they be one.”
The youth shrugged. “Maybe I need to practice forgiveness, more. Maybe with an aim to reduce the animosity I can’t help but feel at first greetings.”
“That what you felt when we met?”
“No. I felt the same lonely loss I felt. With them it was fear, then hope. Except she felt the same kind of … what does ‘heiss’ mean?”
“Don’t know?”
“If it’s an immature adult word you’d have to learn by accident, or a proper noun, no.”
Crav sat and let his naked feet rest in the water. “If they ask you to take a metal and makes something of it, you’ve made a ‘heiss’. Or you make a knife that is well below your ken, and you sell it as if it were standard or better, you’ve made a ‘heiss’.
“What if you’re just selling and don’t know better?”
“Then you’d better not sell what you don’t know.”
“A kid doing his mother’s shop.”
“Then she risks too much. Exile, outlaw, or worst, depending on whom you heiss.”
“That’s wrong.”
“Why? You heiss you shame us all.”
“Then it should matter little whom they heiss. Maybe the mother has robed her kid, does that get her a lesser charge?”
Crav grunted, “Nay, only if the victim has a temper, a violent one.”
“Oh, so child or crown it doesn’t matter, only if the victim kills you before judgment.”
“Aye.”
They watched in stark amazement as those glowing balls of gas flashed, then shot for the other side of the pond where they wove their way between reeds and cattails and crater pots.
“Not gas, Bro.”
“Nay, gas does not do that, they don’t.”
Just then the skies lit up and drums echoed across the skies.
• º •
Gus stretched, tail high, chest low. It felt good, that’s all he’d known for the last month. He then brought his chest up and his tail low. As he hung there he realized this was the first in a series of movements Shagra used when warming up. So, he followed through by leaning to the left, then right, rolling his head the other way.
Then nearly jumped out of his skin when Georgia asked his business. First, he settled, then tried to keep his eyes to himself. She’d been working on her dress. Using her maturing knowledge of string she’d built herself a respectable long sling and used it to tie the hem at her waist. That left quite a bit of her legs and scent out to air. Both warmed his loins, and him flopping in the wind. Sure, like any wolf that rested in a pouch. But circumstances like this could change that.
Hoping not to embarrass himself he stood up and stretched his right hind and left fore out into a circle.
“Oh, guess that makes sense. Is it just me, or does that dwarf worry you any?”
Gus, not ready to change back, just groaned, »Can’t be thought of as shallow if you ain’t.«
“Guess I’m just so used to the village life. You have to keep up appearances just to get along.”
»How’d that work out for you?«
“Not well. No one really paid any attention to me when it counted, or had anything sensible to say when it didn’t.”
Gus laid his hip on the ground and tried to rest the other shoulder down. He realized what I’m sure you’ve just figured out, that Georgia seemed to understand him just fine. A game occurred to him, see how long it takes for her to figure it out.
»Maybe you should have flattened their faces. That’d make them listen.«
“No it wouldn’t. They’d just call me mad, ask if I’m in that mood, and keep on in their stupidity.”
»With a bloody nose.«
“That’s true. So, why didn’t that work for you?”
»Other end of the pecker, Lady.« His back gave out a mighty chorus of snaps, pops, and mops. »You punch an idiot, you go to trial. I look at one funny and to the pillory I go, no trial, no test to see if I really did it.«
“Oh how horrible. That doesn’t work. Do that enough times and what are you worth?”
»Pig food.«
She looked at him sharply and realized he still had his wolf shirt out.
And stared in disbelief.
He just switched positions. »That took you long enough.«
“How?”
»Got me, Lady. Maybe Shagra can answer that.« He took a whiff at a change in the air. »Rain.«
They watched a colony of glowing balls blow by.
“Maybe that shelter’s ready.”
The sky flashed, revealing their pond in stark detail. Gus wasn’t sure if he’d seen a bear or if that were just a clump of overgrowth. Just to be safe he nodded and offered to take the first watch.
Shagra studied the panorama before him. It reminded him of home. Except blues looked yellow, greens red, and everything else had a sharp gray scale. Sure, it’s a dream. Only he couldn’t remember one quite this, um, strange. Colors didn’t call for his study. Four people stood around a boulder caked with gore. One looked like Crav’s tutor, the one who gave him that recipe that exiled him. She sobbed in the arms of his grandpa. That wasn’t right because he’d died two years after his weaning.
On the other side of that slab stood a creature whose form refused to sit still. One moment she looked odd for a human. That was mostly in the face and hands. Her lips were broad and lean and her chin seemed to recede quickly. The next moment she looked odd for a dregagor. Not that he’d seen one outside his story keeper’s book. Their brow was smooth where hers formed ridges and basins. Her ears fanned out where theirs had fingers dangling from them.
Next to her sat a very large raven with a silvery white crown and white spots on his wings. How large, did you ask? Well, he’d tower over all but the largest gnomes without stretching it. He sang a sad tattoo. No, not quite like a bird. More like the qintari might if he had a bird’s voice.
Shagra approached the wake, curious and filled with dread. Why? Just one of those things. Death and decay have compelled and repelled you. Just one of those things.
Before he got close enough to see the stone’s continents, though, he shot awake. The echoes of panic sat at the back of his mind. He took inventory. Georgia and Crav enjoyed a fitful rest. Were they enjoying the same dream he’d just had? Gus sat at the entrance to their shelter, sniffing at the fine drizzle. He took in a deep breath and looked back at the qintari.
Who pushed himself up and out that opening. They heard it together, first a roar, dreadful and vicious. Then a yelp that changed to a scream that cut itself off short. A pitiful wail followed that screech, and the travelers knew trouble had a new victim.
Crav and Georgia joined them by that time, and seemed to agree that trouble should not find them. Gus seemed trapped between his choices. Does he run or fight? Shagra, however, fixed his dwarf-forged knife to his quarter staff.
Crav grabbed the hairs of his forearm. “No, too much for you.”
“Then stay, Brother. I sense eight left under that claw. Are we going to learn how to avoid a fight or win one?” He stepped forward and reared up, sniffing and listening, sensing for that mourner. She would have the loudest emotions to hone in on.
Gus found what he looked for and shot off. Georgia just cried out, “Not a spider!”
Crav watched them vanish into the shrubs and heard splashing. “Get themselves killed, that’s what they’ll do.”
“Or become heroes.”
The dwarf took in a deep, thought filled breath, “Well, don’t let it be heard a dwarf wanted to hear the story of his friend’s heroic death.”
“Not without me, you won’t.”
• º •
Now, take a moment to study this scenario. Up in a fair sized walnut tree clung eight very frightened gnomes. No, I don’t lie, here. That tree proved very much preferred to the ground, at that moment. For a very large bear growled there, one who could not quite navigate the tangled weave of branches that now defended that family. A rain of heavy, cold drops had joined the light mist, and the dreary gray warmed to dismal blue. Did I call it depressing?
Gus and Shagra studied that same battle and their hearts.
“Not hunting for food,” Shagra said. “Or he’d be eating the one he’d already killed.”
“Can you sense his thoughts?”
“No, it’s like his mind isn’t there.”
“Walking corpse? Doesn’t smell dead.”
“That could make his harder to do, though.”
“Still running on instinct. That suggests a plan.”
“Listening.”
“I change skins for speed.”
“Okay.”
“I get him to chase me to that bog. Maybe he’d sink into the muck, let them get out.”
Shagra studied his new friend.
“How we beat that spider.”
The qintari’s attention shifted to his pike. That inspired him. “No.”
“Yes, it’s a chance.”
“To let him kill again, and kill you.”
“But ….”
“Don’t make friends easy. Like to keep the ones I have.” He spied a rock and tested it. It moved. Then a root, it didn’t. “Lead him here, to me.”
“But, friend too.”
“Thanks.”
“He’s too big.”
“We use that against him.”
They watched the bear tear a branch down.
“Creb.”
“Yeah. Maybe now, or we leave before he notices us.”
Gus didn’t like it. Sure, the new plan was just like the other one, only worst. The bear tried again to mount that tree while the remaining gnomes struggled to get higher. Gus stomped his foot trying to think of another way.
“If you want you can hold the pike. Just aim for the hollow of his throat, anchor the heel on that root. Try to get out of his way once he’s skewered.”
“Think it could fail?”
“Only if he’s too smart to fall for it. Get his attention with rocks and a shout. Run the moment he sees you. He’s bigger and might run faster.”
“He’s been running like that all his life.”
“So, should I play bait?”
“No, just give me a moment.”
“Behind that bush. Don’t need them gnomes more nervous than they are.”
• º •
Gus crept as close to the bear as he dared. His heart pounded in his ears and tail, and every nerve begged him to bolt. He watched the bear dig at the tree like he meant to dig a hole. He heard the chatter from the gnomes. Except one who cried like his heart should break. He felt for him. He’d inspected the dead one. Her head rested several tils in a clutch of reeds while her body lay at his feet. He’d never met a gnome, but he was sure she was pregnant. If nothing else drove his feet into battle, that would.
He picked out a rock, fitted it to his sling, and slung. No, it flew fine. He’d been practicing quite a bit, over the last two weeks, in both shirts, and had gotten quite good. Not ready to win any trophies, mind you, and a wolf’s arm doesn’t quite move the same as a boy’s.
He slung and missed, just missed. The bear ought to have seen it while it bounded off several branches and his flank. Gus yelled. You, of course, would hear the wailing and whining of a wolf. The bear missed that, too. By that time the wolf shirt had another stone in his sling. Oh, you should have seen that one go. It bounced off the bear’s tail, off three branches, and clunked off the creature’s head before dropping to the ground. The bear missed that one, too.
Gus looked back at Shagra and shrugged. The qintari stepped forward and yelled at the gnomes at the top of his lungs to shut up and be still. Well, they did hear that. They might just have heard that back home, too. Yeah, the bear missed that, too.
Except with the quiet the bear seemed to lose interest in the family, and started sniffing at the ground.
Gus slung a fresh rock and yelled again. No, the bear did not miss that one. Though, the rock seemed to change its mind and flew left at the last second.
Nor did Gus miss what he saw, the bear’s face. The skin was all gone from the muzzle and top of its head. That couldn’t be right. That terrified him more than the bear did, and that nearly cost him.
The bear turned, ‘saw’, and bolted.
The wolf lost his sling while spinning to take off. Then ran off in the wrong direction. The panic screamed for him to run with abandon while the bear gave out a gnarled roar. That brought his attentions to focus sharp, and he began to remember the plan. He found Shagra and rolled under a shrub. Once on his feet he never ran so fast. He felt pressure at his left tail and tucked in, jumped to the right, and bolted to the left again. Don’t ask him why, he just did it and missed the bear six times. Again he landed and rolled to the left and headed straight for his friend. The panic had reached titanic proportions, spilling out in whines and whimpers as he prayed to whomever for a miracle. His legs burned and his vision became murky.
That’s when Shagra saw it, too, the bear’s face. He felt his heart get very large. Every nerve in his soul screamed for him to shuck it all and run. Every nerve except the one saying that won’t help. He didn’t have time to do both.
That dreadful moment of indecision nearly cost him, too. It took a moment to remember the plan, figure where that root was, and why he needed it. He anchored, squatted down, watched Gus leap at him, and, well, he picked the pike up just a second too late. That point slid off the bear’s sternum and embedded itself in the animal’s ribs. They heard the quarterstaff creak under the stress while it bent too far for its own good. That sent the bear overhead, and launched him toward a nearby plant in the swamp. The bear hit the ground and slid onto a wet patch of grass. Gus had enough wit to snatch the pike free and watch the animal slide into what he though to be skunk cabbage.
The bear didn’t wait. He tried to get back onto his feet. Except the ground was too slick. He scrambled and the water churned into a frothy, smelly soup. Meanwhile the leaves for that plant had become entangled about the bear’s haunches, making it hard for him to get purchase.
Gus felt a hand on his shoulder, and jumped, nearly biting that hand. Then apologize to Georgia, who held his britches in her hand. He agreed that now is a good time to leave. The plant had entangled the bear’s belly, by now. Gus watched in horror as the bear tried to claw forward, and had only bones for hands.
• º •
The gnomes stood vigil over their sister. So young, just married at thirty to her fist, and that her first child with her. They’d brought her head to her body and covered it with dirt and grass.
Our companions stood at a distance, holding vigils of their own. They studied their hearts. The fight landed well, but it came close, very close. Having lost only one didn’t make them feel better.
Quietly, and still in wolf-shirt, Gus just said, »Did you see the eye? Didn’t look right.«
“Half his face was missing,” Georgia said. “What’s right about that?”
»Maybe they’re related. What ate his face was working on its eyes. «
“Thank the Crowns for the orcbane,” Crav said.
»That what that plant is?«
“Not a plant, Lad, not quite an animal, though. It’s why orcs don’t like the water.”
Georgia looked at the dwarf, “So, you understand him in wolf?”
“Aye, ravens and jackdaws, too. You think I’m an idiot, Lass?”
“No,” she sang. “Why would you think I think that?”
“Dain.”
“Maybe if you got out more,” Shagra said.
“What?” “
“Then dain will know more about you.”
Crav studied his friend, then Georgia. Then the gnomes. “What we do about them?”