by A Van Wyck
It came at him and he lashed out again but missed. It slipped around his blow and a gobbet of flesh disappeared from beneath his arm. And then sharp claws were digging into his back as it climbed him like a tree. He whirled, trying to throw it off but it clung obstinately. Razor jaws closed about his neck from behind.
“Aaagh!”
He reached back with large hands, trying to get a grip on it but it was slick with blood and he couldn’t get a firm hold. He caught his breath as those jaws started to work back and forth, sawing through his tough flesh. He stumbled forward as he scrabbled at it, tearing loose bloody clumps of fur. It growled around a mouthful of his muscle, its jaws strained tighter. Bunching. Bunching. It shook its head violently and he dropped to one knee, gasping, struggling for breath. His questing fingers caught a handful of hide and he pulled savagely. The thing growled thunderously, talons digging deeper into his back to hold itself in place. The teeth in his neck sawed painfully as he pulled at the beast. He strained again, weaker this time.
No! This was impossible! He would not lose… He tried pulling again but his senseless hand fell limply to his side. His vision was dimming.
The crack of his own neck was a dull shock in his ears. He experienced a moment of sickening motion as his vision seesawed back and forth in time with the sawing of the hard teeth at his spine. He pitched forward, rolling strangely on the ground. Something landed heavily beside him and he was staring at his own headless corpse. Its huge hands twitched spasmodically, thick green blood spurted from the jaggedly severed neck. He could feel his flesh rotting swiftly, melting into the ground as it was pulled inexorably home.
Finding the situation suddenly very funny, he smiled and would have laughed out loud if his lungs hadn’t been over there.
His mouth gaped soundlessly.
The creature straightened, shaking its head to clear it of the taste of the foul green blood. It roared its victory. Its blood was up. It needed another challenge. It wasn’t done killing yet. It would never be done killing.
“Marco…”
Its head whipped around at the sound. An old one. Blind. Lame. Weak. The weakest of this pack. It had no interest in the weak. It would kill him quickly and be on its way. It padded over.
“Marco…?”
He was having a nightmare. He was trapped inside a monster. And it was slaughtering people. He screamed, only peripherally aware of his own limbs inside the pitch blackness of the monster’s mind. He battered at the invisible bonds that held him, staring in horror as face after face screamed its terror at him… and disappeared one by one in a swirl of bloody carnage.
His nightmare reached a fever pitch, face to face with another monster: an enormous, moss-skinned ogre, much larger than the monster that trapped him. Alchemical eyes flaming green above a fanged maw, the ogre thundered unknown words at him.
He screamed again as the monster went for its throat. But the ogre was quick and it closed both hands around the monster’s neck, squeezing the life from it. The monster scrabbled at the ogre’s belly with all four feet, trying to disembowel it but the ogre tossed it away.
The monster closed again. A heavy kick rocked it back and he felt the deep reverberation of it. The monster coughed through its damaged throat, clearing it to circle the ogre once more. The ogre tried to meet the next charge with a hammer blow from one huge fist. But the monster was cunning. The head-on attack was a feint, to slip beneath that enormous arm. It tore a large chunk from the ogre’s flesh as it passed. Behind it now, the monster leapt up onto the ogre’s shoulders.
He sobbed as it closed jaws around the ogre’s neck, steadily chewing through the wooden flesh. Large hands grabbed at the monster but couldn’t dislodge it. He could feel the monster’s wild glee as the ogre stumbled. His stomach turned. He could taste the life leaving the ogre through the monster’s mouth. The big head parted with the neck and rolled from the wide shoulders. The ogre collapsed. They tumbled to the ground together. The monster shook out its fur, pulled its lungs full of air and howled.
Defeated, he wailed in the background.
“Marco…” he heard through the monster’s ears and shock ran through him.
It whipped its head around and there was the keeper, looking much the worse for wear, crawling and bleeding across the ground. The monster snorted and he could feel its deadly intent as it turned to the old priest. It took a step towards him.
No!
“Marco…?”
Nooooo!
He reached out with both hands, seeing nothing. His fingertips brushed something warm and he lunged. Wrapping both arms around something large and furred, he clung to it. It bucked wildly, trying to throw him off. He crushed his face to it, trying to hold harder as the stench of the thick pelt threatened to gag him. Furious snarling echoed in his ears. His muscles strained to their breaking point as rock-hard flesh battered at his face and chest. He held on.
Justin!
He couldn’t hold it. It was going to break free any moment. He pulled backwards savagely, feeling his shoulders crack. His left arm dislocated. He gritted his teeth against the distant pain.
Justin, run!
His head was splitting.
The last thing he clearly remembered was standing outside the rickety old shack in the Narrows, facing down armed men. Jossram was dead. That he remembered. He also recalled the blow that had felled him. After that there had been some vague impressions. Draped over a saddle, bobbing with the motion of a horse, the heavy leather digging into his stomach. He couldn’t see.
Blindfolded.
Night sounds. Other horses nearby. And men. He thought he remembered a voice.
‘He’s coming ‘round’.
There had been pain and he’d lost time again. Then a room, smelling of dust and damp, filled with men. He’d heard the hoot of an owl outside and wind whistling through pine needles. He’d been strapped to a chair and they’d tried to force some foul weed concoction down his throat.
Poppy extract, loam brush and something else…
He’d resisted, earning another beating. Strong hands had held his jaws open while they poured it down his throat. Any thought of resistance had dwindled soon thereafter as the potion stole his will. He’d come close to consciousness once or twice, just to have more of the foul smelling brew poured into him.
The last time his thoughts had resurfaced, something had been different. Some kind of commotion. Men shouting, screaming – the sounds of battle. He thought he was back in the war. But no, they wouldn’t send a blind old man to war. Amid the shouting and screaming, the room had filled with the heady smell of blood.
A child was screaming for its father.
That wasn’t right. They shouldn’t let the children near the battlefield. War was no place for the young. Or the old. When they came to fetch him away, he’d thought it proper.
Yes, take the old man from the battle. I have no business here.
They’d carried him. Young men. Soldiers.
They shouldn’t be worrying about the old and infirm. They should be fighting the battle.
“I’m old,” he’d tried to tell them, “leave me.” But they hadn’t and he’d tried his best to walk by himself, not to burden them. And as his old heart starting pumping again, burning the potion out of his blood, his thoughts had become clearer.
Why was he blindfolded? He’d tried to reach up to drag the heavy cloth away and someone had slapped at his arm. Memories resurfaced then. These were not his people. He was a prisoner. Now he remembered. Jossram was dead. Killed by these soldiers.
They were crossing some sort of bridge that swayed alarmingly underfoot. He could feel the cold air gusting upward, plucking at his robes. From far below drifted the sound of churning water. A river. They left the bridge and shadows fell over him. Trees. He could smell the pine sap. They stopped and set him down on the ground. Heavy panting. Talking.
Words had started to penetrate the fugue crowding his mind.
“He weighs a lot
for an old man.”
“I’m just grateful we’re out of that scrap. Did you see those empire bastards? Fortune’s balding balls! Swordmasters every one, I swear!”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about! We could have taken them. I’m of a mind to go back and give them what’s what!”
“Is that right?” someone challenged. “What’s stopping you?”
“Orders, see? We was told to go, so we went.”
“And if you was told to fight you’d have gone as well, hey? Gone right in your pants!”
“Shut up, you!”
He listened to them banter, the tickle of their emotions, as his senses started to sharpen.
“Up! Up, you lazy sons-of-bitches, up!” He’d felt their sudden confusion, quickly giving way to fear. “We need to get away from here before those empire swine can find another way around!”
“Yes, sir!”
Rough hands pulled him to his feet, making his head swim. Someone grabbed him from the other side as well and they were dragging him along. He could smell their fear sweat, echoed in their emotions. All but one. From that one he felt a deep, burning hatred. It was somehow skewed and wrong. Alien. Their leader.
He concentrated most on that one, so he didn’t miss the brief surge of surprise. They’d dragged him out into the sunlight but now they’d stopped and he could feel how their fear deepened.
“What was that?”
They’d heard something he’d missed. His blindfold also effectively stoppered his ears.
“A wolf, maybe?”
“That weren’t no wolf...” said one of the men holding him, voice thick with fear.
He heard it this time – an uncanny, ululating howl that shuddered the air.
“There!”
“What the…”
He felt their fear drop sickeningly towards dread.
And then he felt another presence, all bloodlust and wild wrath and bestial fury. There was an indrawn breath and something wet spattered him. He tasted blood on his lips. Suddenly everything was chaos and panicked screaming. Something hit him hard in the head and he fell, the hands disappearing from his shoulders. Dazed, he lay spitting in the dirt. His head spun with this latest of many blows and the aftermath of the potion. The sounds of slaughter raged on overhead, unobserved. As if from a great distance, he heard another voice (deep and sibilant and not at all human) speaking in an alien tongue. There were the sounds of deadly struggle as two behemoths clashed. Unholy curses sounded, each one lapping at his mind like tar, threatening to stop his breathing. Wild growling and a ferocious snapping of teeth punctuated every utterance.
As he lay, struggling to stay conscious, a familiar presence brushed at his senses. He lifted his head, vaguely aware that the sounds of struggle were dying away.
“Marco…”
No, that couldn’t be. Mustn’t be. This was no place for children. He could feel Marco. But the sense was strange. Faint, as if coming from very far away but originating close to hand. He turned his head in that direction.
“Marco…?”
He reached up, fumbling at the blindfold. Sudden brightness, the world transformed into painful white. From that radiance stepped a creature out of a nightmare, climbing over the corpse of some green-skinned monster with its head lying nearby, grinning horribly.
The thing was furred and covered in blood. Angry welts stood out lividly where patches of fur had been ripped from the midnight skin. Its muzzle and chest were thick with some bright green ichor that dripped from its jaws on ropy lengths of mucus. But it was the eyes that held his attention. Golden yellow and insanely, terribly focused. On him. The thing padded closer. He read his own death in those eyes.
Please, goddess, he prayed, let this thing not find Marco. He cast his sense out, desperately trying to locate the boy.
And found him nearer than he would have thought.
Marco! His mental scream had the full force of his weakened powers behind it. He directed it straight at the slavering creature.
It froze, one padded claw hovering above the ground. As he watched, a violent trembling gripped it. His undivided attention on its eyes, he saw the moment the wild, unreasoning fire in them flickered. Flickered again. And died.
The creature pulled itself violently erect on its hind legs, as if in the grips of some seizure. Claw-like hands clutched at its head and it bugled, half bestial wrath, half human sorrow. He stared as it was thrown from its feet by some invisible force. It rolled in the red-flecked grasses, raking furrows in the dirt with long talons and biting at itself in frenzy, throwing up clods of dirt.
He took a step towards it and it swept a claw at him, snarling. He stumbled back.
“Marco!” he yelled, launching empathy-laden lance straight at the creature. He had no idea what he was doing, only that he had to do something, had to help somehow. “Just hold on! Fight it!”
The thing rolled erect, back arched and ready to spring. Its jaws snapped at him, the wild fire in its eyes again. It yowled as it was hit again by something he couldn’t see, pitching from its feet. Marco, he realized – fighting back. He shouted with renewed vigor.
“You can do it, son! Come back!”
The thing straightened, shook its head as if to clear it, took another step in his direction. Its eyes blazed but it was rocked back on its heels again, buffeted by another blow. He dogged it, step by step, as it was forced backwards. A steady stream of encouragement poured from him.
“Come on, son! Hold on!”
The thing rocked another step, stumbling.
“You can do this! Fight it!”
In between backward steps the thing growled and snapped at him, huge talons raking the air between them as it backed toward the cliff’s edge.
“Hold on, Marco! You can beat this!”
For a moment the fire died in the monster’s eyes and they bore the most human expression. Sorrow. And apology. It took another step towards the cliff edge.
He gasped in understanding. “No! No, Marco, don’t!”
He made to lunge forward but the thing swiped at him, keeping him at bay.
“Marco, no! You can beat this thing! You can come back!”
The monster was pulled back another grudging step, though it leaned forward as if braving a gale.
“Don’t…!”
His arms were leaden. Every part of him hurt. If he could see, he was sure he’d be one solid mass of bone-deep bruises. But he remained blind, seeing only through the monster’s eyes. He didn’t even know how he was feeling his own limbs, only that he did and that he wished he couldn’t. He wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer. And when he failed, Justin would die.
He couldn’t allow that. Through the monster’s thrashing, he spied the cliff’s edge, where the mountainside ended as though cut by a knife. With its ears, he heard the river rushing far, far below.
A fall enough to kill even a monster such as this one.
He tightening his grip determinedly. With a heave, he sent the monster tumbling through the dirt, closer to the edge. Its fighting grew fiercer as it saw his intention and he locked one hand about his wrist in a deadlock. Bracing himself again, he heaved.
The monster tumbled end over end, fighting all the way.
Again!
They rolled closer to the edge. It fought him tooth and nail, talons digging into the dirt. Howls of unmitigated fury rolled through the dark landscape they inhabited and he felt its claws tearing at his mind. But he wouldn’t let go. He heaved again and felt the cold wind of the gorge ruffle the fur of the monster’s back.
One more. Just one more.
Sensing its own imminent death it redoubled its efforts, driving its frenzy to new heights. It became impossible to hold. He felt his grip slipping. Sensing his impending failure, it thrashed even wilder and he lost his hold on his wrist. He grabbed two handfuls of fur, his knuckles cracking with the effort of holding it tight. He felt the monster pulling away from him and he battened down all his abused
muscles. He couldn’t dare shift his weight or grip for the final push. The slightest movement and he would lose. And then it would rip through Justin.
It thrashed against him. He felt himself losing, his grip growing slack. Mere moments left. That’s all he had. That’s all Justin had – moments.
He felt like crying.
Finch broke through the scrub, coming up on a little clearing. There had been fighting here. The grass sported dark swathes where black dirt had been scuffed up. Small white flowers lay trampled, their stalks broken. Leffley crouched in the middle of it all, studying the ground.
He ambled over. It had been a while since he’d heard any fighting. Which meant either they’d won or they’d lost. He grunted. Fat lot of help that was.
Leffley looked up.
“Guess they high-tailed it over there,” the man jerked a lantern-jaw in the direction of the chasm. Finch squinted at the far side. An old bridge had spanned it, not too long ago. But if it hadn’t been a wreck before, it certainly was one now. Useless.
“Ain’t gettin’ over that way,” he commented. “They still got the keeper with them?”
“Looks like it. They were dragging someone, at least. Guess that would be the keeper.” The tall archer straightened, dusting hands on robes. “You come across anyone else?”
He shook his head.
“So what now?”
“Dunno. You found another way to cross?”
The wide jaw shook in response.
“I have.”
They both turned. The assassin woman stepped out from the trees but didn’t come into the sunlight.
“Far?” he questioned.
“Not far.”
He looked at Leffley, who shrugged.
“Alright,” he said, turning back to her, “show us.”
She disappeared into the trees and they followed her upstream. They skirted the curve of the cliff, stepping carefully and ducking low branches. He realized they were headed uphill as the brush became thick with scree from ancient rockfall. Up ahead, the assassin leapt nimbly from boulder to boulder. He and Leffley clambered after her as she led them up the rocky backbone of a hill to the protruding lip of the gorge. He was panting slightly as he drew up next to her, scowling as he looked around.