by James Beamon
The big man motioned for the others to clear away from Melvin. They all backed away and Melvin took a hard swallow, feeling more alone than he'd ever felt in life. Then the big man walked north of the weagr and Melvin until the three formed an equilateral triangle. He extended his arms out and pointed at the two of them. Then he brought his hands together to meet and yelled “Akhta!”
The weagr charged. Melvin didn't even have time to draw his sword. The weagr's open hand came up swift and caught Melvin on the cheek.
The smack sounded like thunder and felt like a truck. Melvin screamed and tumbled to the ground. He scrambled to get up, holding his stinging face. The weagr smiled and advanced slowly. The other weagrs yowled with glee.
He’s already making me his bitch, Melvin thought as he backed away. He reached for his sword and brought it up with a shaky hand. The sword trembled like it was still recovering from the weagr’s smack.
Can’t let it win. I am Zhufira.
Melvin charged. The weagr sidestepped easily and smacked Melvin’s ass with authority. The force of it lifted him in the air and sent him crashing back down to the ground. The weagr yowls sounded out again.
He was bruised and cut from the hard landing. He got up and set his jaw.
I am Zhufira. Zhufira. Zhufira.
The weagr rushed in and gripped Melvin’s face in his oversized hand. He picked Melvin up off the ground and let his legs dangle before tossing him like a half empty sack. He tumbled and skidded across the grass.
It was a miracle Melvin was still holding the sword. Fear and despair washed over him like tidal waves as he fought to get up and steady himself.
The weagr took a moment to stroll over to the other weagrs and laugh with them about the fight. He made more pumping gestures with his waist and they all got to yowling.
Humiliation consumed Melvin. His body stung and his face throbbed where the weagr had smacked him. He tasted his own blood on the corner of his mouth. From somewhere deep within, his frustration boiled.
The weagr saw him standing and charged.
Melvin would be damned before he spent the rest of his life beaten and raped as a weagr toy. His frustration boiled over into red hot rage.
He charged to meet the weagr.
A cry rushed from his throat as if dying to be released.
“Ildasleen!”
The weagr threw a hard punch. Melvin side-stepped and his sword met the fist at the wrist, loping the hand off. It was effortless, and he spun with momentum and kept the sword moving. Moving and cutting and piercing in strikes so precise and quick the sword seemed a natural extension of his arm. He put no thought into it other than his anger; the sword translated it into pain.
When he stopped, the blade was red and the weagr staggered two steps before crashing down. Melvin faced the crowd. The weagrs looked stupefied. His friends and brother had their jaws hanging open. The big man had a smug grin on his face.
Rich ended the silence.
“Beautiful...”
As if that broke the spell, Jason and Mike cheered and rushed over to him.
The big man started yelling at the weagrs, who trudged past and collected their dead comrade.
Rich was still stuck where he stood, shaking his head. “Beautiful...”
“Good fight,” the big man told him. “Would have hated tracking the weagrs down later to put an arrow through you. Never sits right, killing a helpless woman, megrym brother that you are and all.”
“Uh, thanks,” Melvin said.
“Right thing to do. Believe me, I know. Name is Runt. Runt Half-weagr. Come in and I’ll see what I have to offer the lot of you.”
Chapter 3
Lunch at Runt’s
Runt was a broad man of about six foot three who kept his hair prickly short and his face clean. The furnishings in his home were simple: a bed, a chair, a table. It was not made to accommodate guests, but he accommodated them anyway, offering the chair to Melvin while the others found space on the floor or bed. Rich made use of a bucket to wash Jason’s blood out of his face and beard.
Runt prepared a stew in a small cauldron suspended over a hearth. Set in the middle of the room, the hearth was little more than a raised platform of bricks where a bed of embers quietly glowed. Melvin recounted their story as Runt made trips back and forth from table to cauldron.
“Magic of a powerful kind.” Runt said while stirring and adding spices to the pot. “Likely leads to the Hierophane.”
“What’s the Hierophane?” Melvin asked.
“You should know,” Jason answered. “We ran a campaign around it once. It’s the body of human arcane leadership, located in Ardenspar.”
Runt nodded. Melvin tried to think back to the Ardenspar campaign and saw only fragments. Ardenspar, Seat Esotera, people in robes, an illustration of a marbled promenade... that was about it.
Everything he remembered about this world was just bits and pieces. Before now, it was all disposable information, just a way to play with the few friends he had. He wished he had paid more attention to the scenarios and settings instead of being so impatient to jump ahead to the action.
Runt left the ladle in the pot and got settled on the floor with his back to the wall. “You all have time before this is ready. Should probably use it for rest.”
As if on cue, a light snore came out of Mike’s mouth. He was sprawled across the bed and drooling a little. The run had been the hardest on him and his little legs.
“How far away is Tirys?” Jason asked.
“Little over a day, due south. Not much in Tirys for you. Few mages, if any. None I’m sure powerful enough to help.”
“I need healing, for my arm.” Jason said.
Runt looked at Jason with steady eyes. “Jason Cephrin, your arm is dead. No healing to be done for it.”
“How would you know? You’re not a healer.”
“Seen enough battles. Arm is gone. Should bury it before rot brings creatures.”
Jason’s face reddened. “You underestimate the power of magic. It can do anything. All I need is a good healer.”
Runt said nothing. He just leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.
“What he’s saying kind of makes sense though, Jason,” Rich said, dabbing his beard with his robe sleeve to dry it more. “Heals are used to augment the regenerative qualities of living tissue.”
Jason’s oscillating eyes looked Rich up and down. “Now you’re an expert? Are you sitting here trying to scientifically analyze magic?”
“Just because it’s fantastical doesn’t mean there aren’t rules and mechanics to it.”
“I’ve played the game enough to know any rule can be bent. It’s just a matter of figuring out the angles.”
Rich shrugged. “I just don’t see how you can bend the rules on healing living tissue.”
Jason shook his head and sighed. “Can’t read spell one and you’re already so quick to discard twenty-first century knowledge. Let me explain for all the slow mages out there.” Then he spoke with deliberate care. “From a medical perspective, the ability to save appendages directly correlates to how much time has passed since said appendage was severed. Why? Because the appendage still has living tissue. It’s just been cut off from the life source. Rejoin it to the life source and it’s back to life again. But you’re right. So stupid of me to think magic trumps needle and thread.”
Rich was clearly getting mad. He didn’t say anything else, though. Melvin knew why. Jason was understandably bent out of shape; he had been hacked out of shape. He just wanted to save his arm.
It was quiet in the house for a few moments. Jason spoke to Rich.
“I need to put it on ice. Let me see your spellbook. I can teach you some spells while we go through it.”
They began to go over the book. Rich held the pages and Jason told him what things meant and what the spell was likely used for.
Mike was asleep. Jason was teaching Rich. That left Melvin, Runt and a simmering pot.
/> “Are you asleep, Mr. Half-weagr?”
He kept his eyes closed when he replied. “Only relaxing. Have to stir the pot every now and again.”
“I just wanted to say thanks again for helping us out like this.”
He nodded.
“So... uh... what’s your story? Why are you out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“You should likely rest now, Miss Melvin.”
“Kind of hard to. So much has happened. Besides, I’ve never met a half-weagr before.”
“Hmmm. Likely never meet another. I never met one.”
“Why are you guys so rare?”
“Human males don’t take a liking to weagr women. Big. Hairy. Smelly. Aggressive. And human women almost always die birthing half-weagr babies.”
Melvin was about to ask what kind of woman took a liking to a weagr male. Then he thought about what the weagrs had wanted to do to him and he thought better of asking. He knew how Runt had come to be.
“Guess, uh, your mother was lucky enough to survive it.”
Runt opened his eyes, stirred the stew. He looked into the pot as he spoke. “Depends on how you see it. I was lucky. She didn’t think herself that until years later.”
“What happened years later?”
“I stopped being selfish. About her. About her life. Ended it for her.”
Melvin sat in mute shock. He looked over to Rich and Jason, who were staring open-mouthed at Runt, the spell book all but forgotten. Jason was the first to recover.
“Uh... as I was saying... we could go for the ice spell but I’m thinking the sleep spell would be even better.”
“I don’t see how casting sleep on the arm would do any good,” Rich said, eager to get back to something less awkward.
“It’ll act like stasis. It’ll put the living cells to sleep. It’ll also put any microorganisms to sleep. Since the cells don’t have a complex mind to fight off the sleep spell, it’ll stay in stasis until its reattached. And it’ll be much easier to carry around than a cold block of ice.”
Rich mulled it over. “That doesn’t sound half bad.”
“Half bad? It’s perfect! Plus you won’t have to keep refreezing it when it starts to thaw. Let’s do it.”
He reached behind his back and grabbed the arm by the hand, pulling it up and out like a club. He placed it on the ground and looked at Rich with expectation.
Rich stood over the arm. “Yorgun hal,” he intoned. The arm glowed yellow.
Jason pushed Rich. “Dude, it wasn’t hal. It was bolge. You changed the sleep from affecting a specific area to saying sleep and something I don’t even recognize.”
“No worries, I’ll just cast the right one.”
“Don’t be a nub. You know what happens when you start layering spells. Not on my arm.”
“Look, dude, I’m sure it’s fine.” Rich went to pick the arm up, but the moment he touched it he fell out on the floor, snoring soundly.
Jason and Melvin looked at each other then back to the arm and then back to each other.
“You touch it,” Jason said.
“No way. It’s your arm.”
“Nice going, Rich,” Jason said to the sleeping mage. “How is anyone going to carry an arm that induces sleep?”
“Maybe it won’t for you,” Melvin answered for Rich. “It is your arm, after all.”
Jason thought about it for a moment. “Guess I have to try. Runt recommended a nap anyway. Here goes.”
He touched it with a finger and nothing happened. He grabbed it by the hand, lifted it, waved it around a little. It did not move at the joints. Either rigor mortis or the sleep spell had made it very rigid.
Jason smiled. “Back in business.”
“Have about two hours before stew’s ready,” Runt said. “After we eat, we’ll clear out of here.”
“Wait,” Melvin said. “You’re coming with us?”
“A ways,” was all Runt said as he settled back against the wall. Melvin settled against the back of his chair as well. He closed his eyes to rest, allowing himself to focus on the sounds of stew simmering, fire crackling and hushed chatter between Jason and Runt. Occasionally a diminutive snore from Mike punctuated the air. The smell of the stew wafted to Melvin’s nostrils, a scent that hinted at exotic spices and game meat.
A person emerged out of the darkness. It was the weagr, the same one Melvin had killed at the forest. His body was mutilated, his eyes locked onto Melvin, a mixture of shock and accusation on his face.
“Aaah!” Melvin yelled himself awake. Jason and Mike looked at him as he nearly jumped out of his seat.
“Welcome back to the nightmare,” Mike said.
“How long was I sleep?”
“How the hell should I know? All I know is the stew’s gonna be ready in about half an hour. That’s why I’m up. Smells kinda like gumbo.”
“I can put you back to sleep if you want,” Jason said, waving his stiff, severed arm. “This thing rocks!” he pointed it at Rich, who was still snoring on the floor.
“Shouldn’t we pick him up off the floor?” Melvin asked.
“Sheeet,” Mike swore. “I ain’t giving up my seat for him. He’ll be alright. He getting better rest than you got.”
Melvin conceded Mike’s point with a nod. He noticed Runt, sitting on the floor, tightening the straps of a leather backpack. He remembered the big man had volunteered to come with them.
“Thank you for coming with us, Mr. Half-weagr. That’s extremely hospitable of you.” It would be nice to have a guide through the area to get to the mages and, hopefully, a way home.
Runt grunted. “The magic that brought you here is too strong. Concerns us all. Besides, no longer safe here for some time. Weagrs will come back.”
Melvin’s heart raced with panic. “What? Why? I settled the akhta.”
“Yes. Akhta settled. Not coming for grievance. Coming because they want to.”
“If they don’t want to settle the score, what do they want?”
“You.”
“Oh.”
“There is a reason why no one lives within a day’s march of a weagr village,” Runt said, checking the compartments of the backpack as if what he was talking about was routine. “Weagrs take what they want. They will always want more women. No akhta can change that.”
“Well, shouldn’t we leave, like right now?”
“Road unpredictable. Can never trust when another meal will come on it. We eat first.”
Melvin got to pacing, “But, oh my god, this stew is taking forever. Weagrs could be right outside the door by the time it’s finished stewing.”
“You won akhta. Victory rules keeps them from harming you for another eight hours.”
Melvin only paced faster. “Rules? What rules? What if they don’t follow the rules? I’ll be getting dragged back to weagrland by my hair, and all because of stew. This is bad.”
Runt stood up. His massive frame gave Melvin pause. Runt’s look was serious, his tone was calm.
“Weagrs take what they want. But they have some few rules. Simple rules. They will follow them.”
“But how...” Melvin started to ask how he could be sure. But he was looking at a half-weagr. Runt knew. Melvin shut up.
Melvin sat back down. Mike was hefting his club, getting a feel for its weight and balance. Jason was looking outside, at a beautiful day and a horizon full of danger. Rich was still snoring; in about twenty minutes he’d be waking up to stew. Then everyone would be out of the door and making time against a very big menace.
Chapter 4
Fort Law
It was one thing to walk a couple of blocks to the store or walk around your high school between periods. This was walking for hours on end. All their feet were well tenderized by the end of the third hour. Except for Runt, who had tried to make the pace brisk but gave up after leaving them as indistinguishable dots on at least three occasions.
The sun was setting, turning the sky afire with purples and oranges. The countr
yside, still quite rocky, was now a touch greener with the occasional copse of trees and batches of colorful wildflowers on fields that stretched as far as the eye could see. Melvin had never seen so much nature all at one time and he so desperately wanted to see something else. Something that looked like civilization because that meant he could stop walking.
Mike voiced their concerns. “Yo, can we punch the timecard? My dogs are barking.”
Runt looked at them all and stopped. “Briefly. You all take your boots off.”
“I can’t believe you understood him,” Jason said.
Runt grunted. “Don’t have to. Mike Ballztowallz like most megryms. Overly wordy. Understood he wanted rest. You all want rest.”
They all sat down save Runt and pried their boots off with earnest. A concert of groans and ahs went up into the air as they began massaging.
“We make poor time,” Runt said. He stood with his back to the group, facing the mountain range on the horizon that was glowing gold from the light of the fading day. The sunlight glinted off of the unconventional weapon that ran the length of the big man’s back, a stout staff with axe blades facing in opposite directions on either end, like a deadly letter “Z”.
“Thanks for bearing with us,” Melvin said. “Walking’s a lost art for guys like us. And thanks for the stew earlier. It was really good.”
“No thanks needed, Miss Melvin Zhufira.”
Mike snickered. “Miss Melvin.”
Melvin felt his face grow hot. “Uh, yeah, Runt, about that. You can just call me Melvin. I’m not really Zhufira and I’m definitely no miss.”
“But you are. You are Miss Melvin Zhufira.”
“I don’t think you understood our story fully. I’m Melvin Morrow. I’m a sixteen-year-old guy. I’m just stuck in a woman’s body right now.”
“Understood story. Zhufira fights. Melvin walks. You are both. Miss Melvin Zhufira.”
“Speaking of fighting,” Mike said, “you still have a big ass hand print around your thigh from when that weagr spanked that ass. I noticed your nasty ass friends looking at it when we was walking.”