The Vanguards of Scion

by Michael E. Thom

  Nazurek and Igneious were not too far behind. They'd said little to one another and Aeile had made sure to keep far enough ahead to be out of conversation range. All she thought about was checking in on Sheile. She might've pressed the dark magi to teach her how to do it earlier if it hadn't been so early in the morning. What would it be worth seeing through Sheile's eyes while she still slept? Sheile usually woke just after dawn.

  As de Nekros, Aeile would have to find a shelter from the daylight soon. Where did this Nazurek expect to find one in Red Fish Town? An inn? Not likely given their appearance, especially the scaly gold one.

  Sensations began to prickle up and around her back and limbs. Also, a strange uneasiness had crept into her inner thoughts. It prodded her as one who pokes a stick at a wild animal in a cage. She knew what it was. It was the hunger, growing as she expelled energy with every step. She tried to ignore it. She found herself grinding her teeth. It stoked her anger at the twisted magi Nazurek. She was not in a place to do anything about it yet, but she vowed she would express her gratitude when the opportunity arose. She would not be gentle.

  "Aha! Red Fish Town awaits!" Nazurek announced. "I'm so ready to be dry again. Aren't you, Igneious?"

  "My scales keep me dry enough," said Igneious.

  "Oh, good thought, my friend. We need to do something about that if we don't want the whole town trying to lock you in a cage mistaking you for a monster. I bet they don't see too many men with scales in this world. Little would they know we're all, the three of us, monsters." Nazurek gave a cackling laugh at his own remark. "I bet our new friend Aeile is starting to feel the monster inside her about now, are you not dear?"

  Aeile kept her eyes ahead. She wouldn't gratify him with a response.

  "Suit yourself with silence. It's all the same to me. Maybe you'll loosen up after our little lesson."

  "Why can't we do it now?" she asked.

  "There it is! Absolutely robust!" said Nazurek. "See how driven she is, Igneious? I like that. She was the perfect choice for us! Let's find a stable or a barn to stowaway and dry ourselves and start showing her the greater benefits of de Nekros."

  "What if we're discovered trespassing on someone's land?" Aeile said.

  "Well then, that's when things get exciting!" said Nazurek.

  Aeile shook her head. "I'll pass, thank you! I'm not going to torture some innocent farmer."

  "They always try to resist the hunger for the first few days," said Nazurek. "Look what conviction she has! What a show we're in store for, Igneious!"

  "Indeed," said Igneious. "I remember that one that screamed his voice to shreds. He was a mute after that. I found it odd how de Nekros did not heal his throat properly."

  "It sometimes regenerates tissue with much scarring, an unfortunate side effect," explained Nazurek.

  As they neared Red Fish Town, the rain thinned to a light sprinkle. They passed rows of corn and fields strewn with haystacks. After they passed by several dilapidated cottages and a few scant farms that revealed no secure shelter from daylight, they sighted a large horse stable with solid roofing. It seemed mostly abandoned.

  "Oh, look!" Nazurek said. "Our royal suites await!" He hurried towards the structure for inspection, his staff slurping through the mud with him. "It's like fate or something, our fate in this world anyways. They have three mounts waiting for us after our rest. I don't know about you two, but I'm quite tired of all the walking."

  Aeile sighed and crossed her arms. She disliked the idea of sneaking around on someone else's property, but she had to see Sheile if it was even possible. She did not want to steal some poor farmer's mules. She knew she needed to find cover soon, though. The indigo of dawn peeked over the eastern horizon, and her exposed arms and face had begun to itch.

  She relented silently and walked across the muddy field towards the stable while trying to stay clear from the view of the cottage. It was at least a hundred paces from the other side.

  She entered the stall farthest from the cottage side and the stalls holding the three mules.

  The two of them joined her, sitting in the stale hay. It was damp and smelled of mildew and dried manure.

  "Well, I guess now's the time. Are you ready?" Nazurek asked her.

  She shrugged, then scratched the nape of her neck. "I wouldn't be soaking wet in some stranger's stable with you two if I wasn't."

  "Good," said Nazurek. He grinned wide, revealing white gums and gray teeth. "Now, close your eyes and put yourself inside the place you were when you last spoke to your sister. I want you to shut out the whole world, all other thoughts. Do not think of the smell in this stable, do not think of the rain, do not think of the itching of your skin. Shut it all completely away and think about your sister's voice, her smell, the texture of her skin on yours."

  Aeile closed her eyes. It wasn't hard to think about Sheile. That's all she'd been able to do lately. She didn't remember a time when she wasn't thinking of her. The sicker she'd become, the more driven Aeile was to save her. Her breath used to be warm, laced with the scents of the mint leaves she liked to chew and goat's milk. As her disease eroded her body, it had turned to the stink of putrefaction. Aeile remembered her voice being so full of mirth and excitement. She could easily trigger her giggling. Aeile remembered pinning her down and tickling her until she screamed. Aeile had playfully chided, "Be careful you don't giggle yourself to death!" Then Sheile would run away, then taunt her just within reach to come catch her again for another tickling. The rotting disease had turned her voice-box into a grating rasp. There was a threat of choking on her every word which happened often. So Sheile chose to stay silent most often and spoke only when in dire need of something. The last time Aeile had spoken to her, was before she departed on the most recent foraging expedition. She'd sat beside her on her bed, telling her one more story. Sheile loved to hear Aeile make up stories and begged for them often before she became ill. Sheile had ceased to ask for them. Aeile made a point before she left to go anywhere for any reason to tell her one anyway. She wanted to see the tiny sparkle in her eyes that had once been a full-blown smile.

  A voice sounding very distant in her mind told her to open her eyes, and she did. She was coughing. It tore at her throat every time she heaved. Mother was sitting at her bedside, holding onto her hand. It only had three fingers left on it, but it didn't matter because she couldn't feel her mother's touch at all. She had no feeling in her arms and was numb from the waist down to her foot. She'd lost her other foot from the knee down. She couldn't smell anything. That had gone a week before, or was it two weeks? She didn't know anymore. Mother had begun to frighten her today because she had stayed beside her all-night singing. Sheile knew this meant something had taken a turn for the worse, but she didn't know exactly what. She'd thrown up into the bucket more than ever before throughout the night. It had been a syrupy black and green color. She frowned when she saw it. Mother knew Sheile didn't like seeing it, so she'd kept it covered with a cheesecloth.

  A strange sense of floating came over her then. She was still in her bed, but the sores on her back and hips no longer burned when she shifted in the least bit. She turned her head to mother and said, her voice as clear as before she'd become sick, "Sissy is coming mother. She's coming to make me well."

  Mother perked up. She was a heavier woman with long gray hair and meaty jowls. She wore a draping one-piece throw over dress that had faded but was once bright yellow with pink flowers. "Yes, dear! Yes! Sissy has gone to find your medicine. She will be back as soon as she can, and she will make you all better." She patted Sheile on her stomach where she still had feeling. Her delicate knobby fingers were warm and soothing.

  Suddenly, Sheile arched her back as an intense tightness stabbed inside her chest. She coughed and began to dry heave.

  Mother tried to get up from her chair and hold her, but mother's old knees slowed her. Mother winced in pain grabbing hold of them before she finally made it to Sheile's side. She put her puffy arms around Sheile's
neck and brushed her blond bangs back. "Just be still, baby! Breathe for momma! Breathe in and out like momma told ya. Just real slow, now." And then mother began to sing again, a song she'd sang to both her and her sister as far back as Sheile could remember. It had no words, only a slow joyful melody she hummed repeatedly.

  Sheile tried to calm herself and breathe slow, but before she could, everything went silent and black as sleep took her thoughts from her.

  Aeile opened her eyes. "No, wait! Bring her back! She's going to die! I must get to her, now!"

  Nazurek cackled. "You won't get far without feeding."

  Pain seared through her chest and hammered at the back of her head. The skin on her arms and legs felt like it was tearing open over and over again, though when she glanced down at herself, she found not even a blemish. "Please! Make it stop!" she pleaded, rolling back and forth in the hay.

  "There's only one thing that can do that, deary," Nazurek spoke in a soft mocking tone. "I'm afraid your little voyeur escapade has left you quite drained. Do you see, now, how it works?"

  She continued to rock back and forth on the ground, her eyes bulging. The tendons in her neck tightening.

  "Just nod, if you must," Nazurek told her. "Consent is what I want to see here. Then I might give you a small measure of relief."

  She screamed a scream that morphed into a growl, spittle flying from her teeth. She could bear no more. She even thought, for a fleeting instant, she wanted to die, regardless of everything she had gone through to get this far, this close to saving Sheile. Nazurek had said she was now immortal. She could not die. Still, in convulsions of pain, she nodded.

  Igneious shouted, "Yes! She's coming around!"

  "Perhaps," said Nazurek, turning away. "She's not broken in, yet, though. Watch her, I doubt she will be able to stand much less run away. I may be gone for a while." Nazurek exited the stable and left her writhing and flailing for what seemed like a long time. He returned with a wiry old man following him. Nazurek walked backward waving his hands and urging the man forward a few steps at a time. "Pick her up and hold her, Igneious!"

  Igneious slung her arms behind her and hoisted her up. He grabbed a fist of her hair and jerked her head up where she could see the spectacle that was about to take place before her.

  Nazurek raised his thick brows. "Thought you might die and alleviate your suffering, did you?" He giggled, twirling on the little bones tied into the black chin whiskers that hung down over his chest. "I wasn't away too long, was I? The whole time you squirmed and screamed. I could hear you all the way to this unfortunate sod's cottage."

  The wiry old man was bludgeoned purple. Blood filled drool streamed from his swollen lips. Crisscross cuts striped up both of his age-blotched arms. He wore only a sleeveless, linen shirt that hung past his crotch, stained with spots of blood.

  Nazurek grabbed a rope hanging from a rusty nail on a support beam in the middle of the stable and tied the man's arms over the top of the stall dividers. Nazurek locked gazes with the man then held up his hand and said, "I release you!" He snapped his fingers.

  The old man's face went from expressionless calm to wild-eyed distress, his split bottom lip quivering. "Please, . . . I've. . . no money," he wheezed. "Take what you want but. . . please, leave me be."

  "Oh, darling! We're going to do just that!" Nazurek told him, placing his thumb and forefinger beneath the man's chin. He traced his forefinger across deflated looking skin up the side of the man's face. "I promise! It's going to be so delicious! Igneious, sing us something joyful. One of the temple songs from our world, maybe."

  Aeile had stopped screaming, though her muscles still burned. Something had happened when she'd laid her eyes on the old man and seen his condition.

  Igneious tugged back on Aeile, tightening his grip on her before he began to sing a song in a language Aeile had never heard. It was a beautiful upbeat melody very much like one of the spiritual hymns her mother used to sing at the Kilawon Monastery.

  Nazurek slid a hooked skinning knife out from its sheath on his belt then and placed the hook ended tip of it on the old man's nose. Nazurek began to hum along with Igneious.

  "No!" Aeile screamed. "Don't! Let him go!" She kicked back at Igneious and tried to fall from his grasps to no avail. She was still too weak. Every dry scale on his hands felt like razors, though they were not breaking her skin. She was still too sensitive from the drain. Every movement burned deep within her bones.

  The old man snapped his head side to side, trying to escape Nazurek's skinner. He pulled himself upward and kicked his bony legs high as a feeble attempt to flip himself over. He only succeeded in allowing the rope on his arms to snag into his paper-thin skin, creating jagged little slits.

  Nazurek's nostrils flared. His pointy tongue shot out and brushed his upper lip. He grabbed the old man by the forehead with his left hand and placed the hook of the skinner inside his lower eyelid and carved down to his nose. "How about we open up those sinuses!" he said, then went back to humming the song with Igneious.

  The old man bellowed. Blood geysered from his face and sprayed Nazurek's beard.

  Nazurek turned to Aeile and held up the now wet skinner. "Want to have a turn? I bet you're feeling better already! It's so delicious!"

  Aeile shook her head 'no' but still, she couldn't look away. She felt something akin to arousal in her lower abdomen. It warmed her from there up into her chest and soothed her pain. Weightlessness like no pleasure she'd ever experienced flooded her body. In the back of her mind, she was fighting it, but she couldn't stop herself from releasing a slight moan of ecstasy. She pulled in her lips and bit down in shame.

  "There! Yes!" said Nazurek, as he flailed the skinner back and forth across the man's sinewy chest, ripping his linen shirt away. He peeled back layer after layer of tissue.

  The man screamed until his voice was but throat noises and gasps.

  Aeile regained her strength and kicked back into Igneious's stomach. It knocked him back several feet and into the stable wall, his body busting through the wood. She charged Nazurek and tackled him. She took him down into the hay and straddled him, punching him in the face until his cheekbones shattered and his face caved in. She grabbed the skinner from his hand and slit the old man's throat. Though she couldn't help but enjoy his remaining death throes as the visual fed her even more strength, she had at least ended his suffering. She saw that Igneious still lay motionless in the hole in the stable wall. Nazurek splayed out in the hay with his face ruined, she ran. She ran as fast as she could to the old man's cottage to find clothing to protect her from the daylight. Then she would make her way home to help Sheile, hoping and praying to the Forest Father she was still alive.

  26

  IVANOS

  All around him echoed the trumpeting of seagulls. He presumed he must be on the craggy shores of the Rusted Sea. The soft roar of cresting waves soothed the rebirth of consciousness. He had no idea why he heard such things. Something had happened to him. His eyes would only open to slivers. Everything was fuzzy, indiscernible. A gut feeling compelled him to answer someone whom he hadn't remembered asking him a question. "Eh... Eh... Eh... I-vanos. M... m... m-my name is I-vanos."

  "Well. You're coming to?" said a woman's voice, with guttural vowels and rolling 'r's. Only the largest race of human had this accent; the trog. "Ivanos then. That's a start. You know who you are." Her voice sounded brazen and rushed, like the voice of a woman who had seen her share of blood. She spoke in quick bursts. "I'm Vendronia. Crone Mother to the trog. We're trog prisoners, now."

  "Y... y... y-you have a trog accent, but you're not trog." It was the red-skinned witch he'd seen on the platform. He knew it must be, though his vision was still cloudy. A cool breeze wafted over him, flapping a loose loincloth he wore. He wore nothing else. He shivered as the air chilled his groin and belly. Grit and sand on his ass crept into his crack, and he shifted, wincing from the intense pain this caused in his left leg. He remembered someone had put an arrow th
rough his thigh. He sighed in shame.

  "I'm not in flesh but in spirit. They raised me. That is of no matter to you. I put myself in dire circumstances to keep you alive," Vendronia said. "Now that you're coming around. I'd like to tell you why."

  "Because of my ss... ss... s-sword?" Ivanos asked.

  "Well, yes. It's about that, too." There were the sounds of Vendronia repositioning herself, brushing sand off.

  "W... W... W-where is it?" he asked.

  "Where is it?" She repeated back. "Oh, your sword? The Varl has it. He keeps it safe. The trog are a bit frightened of it."

  Ivanos laughed through his nostrils. "It's not ma... m... ma... it doesn't have power. Just an old longsword."

  "Oh? Well, then. I was hoping you might explain it to me. How you cut through all those knights. Why your own men?"

  Ivanos shook his head. He clawed his hand into the sand and tossed a handful of it out before him. "They were wicked. W... w... w... w-without honor. One of them killed my best friend."

  "Really? Why did you wait to punish them? I mean in the middle of a battle charge?"

  "I didn't wait. He killed her, then I killed him, and the lot of them."

  There was a long pause. She must've been thinking about what he said for a moment before she concluded, "Oh, wow! You meant that horse! The horse was your best friend!"

  Ivanos nodded. "Aye. W... w-we traveled together for over a decade, that mare and I." His vision had started to clear up some. He could make out Vendronia's form, sitting cross-legged in the sand. She was wearing a pullover cloth tunic. Now he could make out the grid of a large cage that confined them on the beach. He guessed about four by four feet squared, not even enough room to stand.