Black Harvest

by M. C. Planck

  One of the worst fights was over whether to grill or boil a chicken. Lalania stood helplessly while two men argued furiously, each holding a wing of the plucked bird. Jenny finally intervened and listened to the men state their cases for a while. Then she called Christopher over.

  He obeyed with a frown. This was probably some kind of test of his philosophical mettle. However, he was hungry.

  “What would you do?” she asked him. The two men stared at him, as if perplexed that his opinion could possibly be relevant. He largely agreed with their assessment.

  “Who bought the chicken?” he asked. Both of the men started to speak, so he interrupted them. “I don’t care about your arguments. Who bought the chicken?”

  “Neither of them,” Jenny answered.

  “Then how it gets cooked is up to the person doing the cooking. Let Lalania decide.”

  The man on the left, a tall, thin man with a regal nose and thick curly hair so black it was almost blue, objected. “You are unconcerned with the principle of the matter?”

  “It’s a dead chicken,” Christopher said. “What principles can be involved?”

  The other man, short and portly and sporting an absurd handlebar mustache that Christopher had always assumed was fake, explained. “If it is boiled, we extract the maximum nutrition from the carcass. And we shall need all of our strength for the task at hand.”

  “To do so,” argued the tall man, “Is to leave nothing for those that come after us. Foxes could crack the grilled bones for the marrow and ants feast on the scraps.”

  His opponent immediately objected. “What do we owe the ants? What bargain have we sealed with them?”

  “The ants play their part in the natural order of the world. If they did not exist, it would be necessary to invent them.”

  Christopher was sorry he had asked. “I reject both premises. The calories we gain from boiling are insignificant; the ants and foxes will do just fine without our chicken bones. The effort of cooking the chicken is less than the energy you’ve spent arguing over it. So: let Lala decide.”

  “How convenient,” the short one sneered. “The decision will be made by your own faction.”

  “You could do the cooking,” Christopher offered.

  Lalania smiled in appreciation.

  “Hmm,” Jenny mused. “I expected you to cut it in half.”

  “Why? They’re not the only ones eating it.”

  “It’s not about dinner,” the tall one said. “It is about principle.”

  “Look,” Christopher said. “Sometimes a chicken is just a chicken.” Jenny looked up at him inscrutably. “Sometimes, though, it is not.”

  “Do what you want,” the tall man said, letting go of the offending bird. “I’d rather starve.”

  “Starve then,” the portly one spat vindictively. “You could spare a meal or two.”

  Christopher frowned. “He’s the skinny one. You’re doing it wrong Both of them stared at him, confused and annoyed.

  “Never mind,” Christopher said. “Are we done here?”

  “We asked for your judgment,” Jenny said, “so we must respect your decision. Let the cook decide.”

  “We did not ask,” the short one snapped.

  Jenny shook her head in denial. “And yet he is here, my dear Oribus. We must play the hand we are dealt.”

  Both men left, equally angry. Christopher stared down at the girl.

  “Seriously,” he said, “are we done here? Have I passed your tests?”

  “The tests are not all about you,” she answered. “But have we passed yours?”

  He thought back over the trip. The troupe had been reasonably kind to the people they had met. They performed to the best of their ability, whatever that happened to be, which showed consideration for their audience. They treated each other with respect when they weren’t arguing. They hadn’t killed anyone and eaten their brains.

  “Yes,” he said. “Although it’s a pretty low bar.”

  She nodded enigmatically and skipped away.

  Two days later, they walked north through wilderness, no longer following track or trail. Christopher suspected they had left the kingdom. They camped that night in a forest without a fire, all of them huddled under the wagon for warmth, sleeping on and under the curtains from the stage.

  In the morning, Christopher was awoken by elves.

  They were not quite the elves he was expecting. Alaine had cast aside her disguise, her hair white and her eyes violet again. She was joined by three others, all male, two of whom were wearing silvery chainmail of delicate weave and bearing long, thin straight swords. The armor looked too fine to be more than decorative.

  But the rest of the troupe was unchanged. He had expected them to drop their act, but they sat around eating a cold breakfast, reacting to the elves no differently than they did each other.

  Christopher pulled his boots on and stamped his feet, trying to warm up. Alaine noticed and started building a fire, piling wood together. While she was sparking flint and steel together, Jaime negligently flicked his hand from twenty feet away, and the fire roared to life. Alaine leaned back, her face neutral. Christopher trudged through the snow to enjoy the heat.

  “That seemed a bit rude,” he said.

  Alaine was unconcerned. “The fire is lit. Does it matter how?”

  “Of course it does.”

  She smiled innocently. “Sometimes a fire is just a fire.”

  Christopher decided to change the subject. “Lucien didn’t want to come along?”

  In response, Alaine rolled her eyes. Discreetly, demurely, muted almost to invisibility, but the most concrete sign of exasperation he had ever seen out of the woman. Christopher was too amazed at her lapse of sangfroid to follow up on the question.

  The unarmored elf came over to the fire. “Well met, Ser,” he said to Christopher.

  “And you.” It was the smallest possible response he could make. For once he would play his cards close to his chest, at least until he saw what the game was.

  “Please, call me Argeous.”

  Christopher nodded, but did not offer his name in return.

  Alaine laughed. “I see you have learned since we last met, Christopher.”

  “How shall I address you?” Argeous asked politely.

  “Christopher will do,” Alaine answered for him. “He was a terrible Califax, anyway.”

  Argeous nodded, accepting her judgment. “I want to confer strategy with you. And also my personal thanks.”

  Christopher raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  “On behalf of the aid and companionship you offered my daughter,” Argeous explained.

  Confused, Christopher glanced over at the troupe, looking for Jenny to see whether he could spot the family resemblance.

  “This should not be hard,” Alaine said. “How many elves do you even know?”

  “Wait,” Christopher said. “You mean Kalani?”

  “I do,” Argeous said with a nod of his head.

  “Then—you’re . . .” Christopher looked back and forth between the two elves.

  “He is Kalani’s father,” Alaine acknowledged. “Our association begins and ends there.”

  “Yes,” Argeous agreed. “I’m sorry, is this an issue?”

  “He wonders as to the nature of our relationship,” Alaine said dryly.

  Argeous answered seriously. “I assure you, Christopher, I have the highest respect for the Field Officer’s leadership. We have all agreed to follow her lead in this matter.”

  Alaine was smirking. She was enjoying this. He was still getting off lightly, however. Lucien would have been howling with laughter.

  “Maybe we should move on to the strategy portion,” Christopher suggested. He looked around for Lalania and Cannan. The big man was right behind him, startling him again with his silent shadowing. The bard was at the wagon, filling frying pans with bacon. He waved her to come over.

  Argeous nodded. “Understand you will not be the fron
t line, and yet the situation will be necessarily fluid. Look to your own security primarily, although we would not take healing amiss.”

  “He means we can’t spare anyone to babysit you.” Alaine helped Lalania balance the frying pans over the fire. “Try not to get yourself killed.”

  A piece of bacon slid off a pan and fell into the flames. Christopher thought it was an inauspicious omen.

  “I took some precautions,” he said. “I left a scroll with Cardinal Faren. If you can get any part of me back to him, then he can revive me.” Well, probably. Faren would have the same odds with his scroll that Fae had with the Wizard’s, for the same reason. He’d only made one, however, because the scroll had absorbed a ridiculous amount of tael into the ink. “And eventually I can revive the rest of my people. Or yours.”

  “There is nothing you can do for any of us after the fact,” Argeous said. “Let us hope it does not come to that.”

  “Okay. But you haven’t told me what you want me to do.”

  Alaine shrugged. “Kill anything that isn’t us. And don’t get in our way while we do the same.”

  “I apologize for the lack of details, but we actually know very little about what is to come,” Argeous said.

  Jaime came over, drawn by the smell of bacon. He sniffed several times and then bent down to where Lalania crouched, tending the pans. The man shoved his head to within an inch of Lalania’s chest and sniffed loudly. Lalania looked up in alarm at the intrusion. Neither Alaine nor Argeous reacted, which threw Christopher off-balance. Before he could figure out what to say, Jaime looked Lalania in the face, from inches away, and spoke seriously.

  “It has but one more charge. Which is likely to be consumed on this errand, whither you wish it to or no.”

  Lalania put her hand up and gently pushed Jaime away to a more comfortable distance. “It’s a bit late to leave it on the dressing table.”

  Obviously he meant the null-stone. Christopher had given it back to Lalania after the affair in the birch-wood. He was surprised; he had been told no one could know how much longer it would work.

  “I could hide it for you,” Alaine said neutrally, neither endorsing nor dismissing the idea. “And fetch it after.”

  Christopher shook his head. “I think you should hang on to it, Lala.” It had already won three battles.

  Jaime did not argue. He plucked the fallen strip of bacon from the fire and walked away, gnawing at it like a wolf.

  “Your companions are ill-mannered,” Lalania said to Alaine.

  The elf laughed. “They are not my companions. They are yours.”

  “I thought you arranged this,” Christopher said.

  “Only from my end,” Alaine replied. “And you have taken too long with breakfast. My companions are finally here, and we must be off.”

  A column of elves in gleaming chainmail marched silently out of the woods, three abreast and dozens long. They wore long swords and carried bows, sheaves of arrows peeking over their shoulders, and moved through the deep-packed snow without leaving a trace.

  Lucien appeared, reaching over Lalania’s shoulder to pluck a piece of bacon from the pan. “Dear bacon,” he said. “How I have missed you.”

  “Oh,” Christopher said. “You came after all.”

  “I was always here,” Lucien said with a grin.

  “You were a very convincing donkey,” Alaine said with longsuffering patience. “No one could tell.”

  “Is it true? You did not suspect?”

  Christopher thought about what he had seen. The donkey, pulling the heavy wagon without complaint, standing in the traces while they ate lunch, munching on bags of dry oats. Leaving behind little piles, as horses do, while walking down the road.

  “No,” Christopher said. “I never would have guessed.”

  The dragon in the shape of an elf smiled happily.

  “Put your armor on,” Alaine told them. Cannan immediately stomped over to the wagon, tossing aside the three cloaks he had been wearing.

  One of the newcomers offered Alaine a stuffed burlap bag. She pointed to Lalania instead. “We are of a size,” she explained, “and I think you will need it more than I.”

  When Lalania stood up, two elves began efficiently stripping her out of her winter gear and the leather armor underneath. Christopher would have objected, but an elf was gently pushing him away.

  Cannan threw a dozen folding chairs and a sack of wigs out of the wagon as he dug up their bundled gear. Two elves helped him put on the scaled armor, barely pausing at its ancient design. They did the same for Christopher as soon as Cannan was dressed.

  Alaine brought them hot bacon stuffed in cold bread.

  “I hope I chose the right spells last week,” Christopher said. He had not used magic since then, so his head was still full, but he might have liked to make a different selection. “I was expecting an hour to prepare.”

  Alaine stuffed the sandwich into his mouth. “That is a bad habit you must disabuse yourself of. Also, consider it is time they would have to prepare as well. They may even now know something is afoot, although they cannot yet know what. Once we chose to strike, it had to be within the hour.”

  Lalania joined them, tearing half of Cannan’s sandwich out of his hands. She was wearing the silver chainmail of the elves and a selfsatisfied smirk. It looked good on her, and she knew it.

  “Now that,” Cannan said wistfully, “Is chainmail.”

  One of the women of the troupe approached them with a makeup jar in one hand and a brush in the other. She handed the jar to Alain and pushed Christopher’s chin up. While she held him there, she painted something on his throat that stung. When she was finished, he almost reached up to rub at the pain but stopped himself just in time.

  “Don’t worry,” Alaine said. “It won’t come out for days.”

  The woman was painting on Cannan’s throat. Christopher recognized the symbol he had learned from the hjerne-spica and taught to Kalani. Lalania went next, wincing at the sting; Alaine showed no reaction. When the woman was done, she dropped the paint pot as if she had forgotten it ever existed and walked away.

  Christopher noticed that elves and people were disappearing. Argeous was next to two trees standing close together, his hand on one. Elves walked between the trees but did not come out the other side. Here, at last, was a gate, although not between worlds. It would take them the rest of their journey in a single step.

  The rest of the troupe shambled past, heading for the trees, dropping cloaks, hats, and, in one case, shoes. Jaime smiled crookedly at him. Oribus, the short man from the chicken argument, leered as he walked past. Jenny caught Christopher’s hand. “Be careful,” she said.

  “You be careful,” he retorted automatically.

  “I will.” She smiled up at him, and in that instant he wondered how he had ever believed she was a child.

  Lucien poked him from behind. “I have been assigned the rearguard,” he grumbled. “Let us not make it the home-guard. The gate will not hold forever.”

  Christopher trudged toward the trees. The noise was no more than expected from an armored man walking through snow, but in this company, it was the loudest sound around. Lucien opened his mouth to object, and Christopher cut him off.

  “I’ve got this,” he said, and cast his silence spell. Now he moved in a blanket of dead quiet. Lucien was reduced to pantomime for his commentary, which Christopher could ignore by not watching.

  He strode up to the trees and walked between them.

  On the other side of the twin trees was also a cold, snow-laden forest, although the air was thinner and the trees were covered in pine needles instead of bare branches. He could see the last of the troupe walking into a narrow cave entrance in the side of the hill, Jenny in the rear. The entrance was naturally camouflaged; he only noticed it because an elf in chainmail was directing people into it.

  When he reached the entrance, the elf held a flask up to his lips and tilted it, feeding him a shot of light wine. Behind h
im Cannan and Lalania did the same. No one else drank, however. As he stumbled deeper into the cave, the darkness in front of him became transparent. The elves had thoughtfully provided for the three members of the group who could not see in the dark. No more lanterns or lightstones. He was playing in the big leagues now.

  “Finally,” Christopher grumbled. “For once we’ll be on equal terms with the monsters.” Of course no one heard him because of the silence spell. He wondered whether Lalania could get the recipe.

  At least in the cave it was only cool, not freezing. They wound through narrow passages over clean stone. The passage was not easy even though someone had taken care to cut out the worst of the stalagmites. Jenny scampered along in front of him. He would have been horrified at following a child into battle save for that brief moment before the gate. None of these people was what they seemed. Unfortunately, no one had told him what they were.

  The cave floor sank beneath them with every step. Once again he was descending into the bowels of the earth. The journey lasted long enough for Christopher to become thoroughly sick of narrow tunnels. He ducked under a low-hanging lintel, and when he stood up he was staring into an alleyway full of small bodies slaughtered by swords. Jenny stood in the middle of the carnage, watching him.

  17

  UNDER THE DOME

  His stomach twisted. He had done his share of fighting children. He had come here to kill squids, not . . . whatever these were. He let the silence spell elapse and opened his mouth to object, but a second look robbed him of words.

  They weren’t human. The heads and bodies displayed scaled, thick reptilian tales and long-fanged snouts. They bore short spear-like weapons and crossbows, some still clutched in lifeless hands. Leather armor covered their torsos, studded with bronze rings.

  “They are not juveniles,” Jenny explained. “Merely small.”

  Cannan pushed past him, forcing his way to the front. He glanced over the bodies. “Dragon-kin,” he said. “Smarter than hobgoblins. They will have set traps. Stay behind me.” The big man started running down the alley.

  Lalania huddled behind Christopher as Alaine and Lucien slipped past.