by Rob Scott
Against all the odds, it worked. He felt the shaft tear through the milky fluid of the almor, rending it open and spilling its malodorous blood into the dirt of the Seer’s Peak ridge trail. The agonising cry rang in his head like an artillery volley and he nearly passed out at the shock wave.
Falling back, he watched as Garec fired into the creature as quickly as he could draw and release; shaft after shaft passed through the almor’s frame. And as he fell outside the demon’s grasp, Steven felt the blast of Gilmour’s magic slam into the monster, opening the wound further and casting the creature off the cliff and down to the forest below. It screamed inside Steven’s head as it fell, the terrified roar of a god’s fall, an immortal seeing the ash-grey face of mortality.
The force of the almor’s savage grasp tearing itself from Steven’s mind caused him to roll over and vomit repeatedly into the dirt. He felt the creature slam into the rocks below. It was a surprisingly soft thud. Then it was gone.
Steven’s head swam as he fell in and out of consciousness. He had done it. He had challenged and bested the demon. Dazed, he managed a smile – and realised Mark was supporting his head and shoulders. ‘Do not try that at home, boys and girls,’ he mumbled.
Mark laughed, a nervous chuckle to mask his fear and exhaustion. His voice cracked as he asked, ‘You reckless bastard, do you need some water? What can we get for you? Anything?’
He tried to give his roommate a drink from Garec’s wineskin, but Steven shook his head. ‘Need?’ he rambled on, delirious, in English. ‘Need? I need to go home. I need a howitzer, the defensive squad of the New York Giants and a tactical nuclear weapon. We’ll show that Nerak a thing or two.’
Garec leaned down to offer the young foreigner his hand. ‘Can you stand?’
‘Sure, I can stand,’ Steven looked up into the faces of his newfound companions. The relief in their eyes was in such contrast to the stark fear he had seen there only moments earlier, he decided that alone was worth the risk he had taken in summoning the almor to the surface.
‘I can stand,’ he repeated shakily, then passed out on the dusty, rock-strewn trail.
When Steven woke again, it was dark. He rolled over to find Gilmour sitting near a small campfire. Around him, the others slept, breathing the steady rhythm of those who were troubled by nothing. As he sat up, he found they were once again camped on the flat surface of the landing. Gilmour waved him over nearer the fire.
‘We’re back up here,’ Steven observed, stretching.
‘It was the safest place for all of us,’ Gilmour replied. ‘Brynne, Sallax and Mark had a long night reaching the ridge-trail. You slept most of the day.’
‘Versen?’ Steven asked, fearing the worst.
‘They’re not sure what happened. No one saw him taken by the almor, but then again, no one saw him along the trail either.’ Gilmour filled his pipe bowl with tobacco. ‘We will return to camp tomorrow morning to see if we can find his remains.’
Steven nodded, then changed the subject. ‘You know that staff is magic.’
‘I do,’ the old man confirmed, ‘but I have no idea where it comes from. It is not familiar to me. It’s not mentioned in any of the scrolls or spells I have studied for the past nine hundred and eighty Twinmoons. It is either very, very old, or essentially brand-new.’
‘Seems strange.’
‘If there’s anything I’ve learned, Steven, it’s that if it seems strange, it’s probably strange.’
‘You should wield it,’ Steven said. ‘Think of how powerful it would be in your hands. You’re the sorcerer, after all.’
‘It would do nothing in my hands, Steven. It chose you.’
‘Chose me?’
‘Of course. We both know there were no hickory trees in that valley. That staff found you, a half instant before you desperately needed it.’ He tossed a big chunk of bark onto the fire. ‘It found you for some reason, Steven, but I don’t know what it is.’
‘Why did it shatter that night but remain intact today?’
‘The power of the magic you wield.’
‘I don’t wield any magic,’ Steven said.
‘Sure you do. We all do.’ He thought for a moment, then asked, ‘Tell me, what did you feel the night you killed the Seron?’
‘Hatred,’ Steven said, remembering the experience with pain. ‘Hatred, and maybe fear that I might not make it home alive.’
‘And what did you feel today?’
He thought back to the moments before he challenged the almor to confront him one-on-one. ‘I suppose I felt fear and embarrassment, frustration and a lack of control.’ He hesitated a moment. ‘And cowardice. Mostly that. I felt acutely aware of twenty-eight years of cowardice.’
‘But that’s not all you felt,’ Gilmour said, guiding his thoughts. ‘At whom were these emotions directed today?’
‘At no one. It wasn’t like the Seron warriors. They were easy to hate. Today was different. Today, I was angry that we were all standing there waiting for one of us to die so the others would be able to pinpoint the threat.’ He reached for a wineskin, but it was empty, so he tossed it back to the ground. ‘I felt as though I needed to be the one killed so you all might live.’
‘Compassion?’
‘No. More like inadequacy. I looked around myself and thought, “Whose is the most expendable soul?” and I answered the same way.’
‘Yours.’
‘Yes, mine.’
‘So, compassion.’
‘I suppose so,’ Steven agreed. ‘That got me started, anyway. From there, all those other emotions took over and my course of action was inevitable.’
‘That, Steven Taylor, is the secret of your magic,’ Gilmour grinned, firelight dancing in his eyes. ‘You killed the Seron warriors out of fear for your own life. I heard you shouting, “We might not make it”, again and again. Today, you fought for others. Granted, your emotions were still very powerful, but today, you fought the way the staff wants you to fight, with compassion.’
‘It’s strange you describe it that way, Gilmour, because after killing the Seron, I promised myself I would never be so merciless again.’ Steven peered off into the distant Blackstones as something began to form in his mind. ‘I was angry with myself, because anyone incapable of mercy is the most evil enemy we can face. That night, I became that person.’
‘And your magic weapon shattered with the effort.’
Steven nodded before going on, ‘But today, it remained intact. It allowed me to funnel all that emotion into one furious strike at the almor.’
‘Because you were acting out of compassion. Today, you were not afraid for your life. There was nothing selfish in your actions.’
‘I suppose I was hoping to trade my life for yours.’ He peered around the campsite at the bodies thrown into sharp relief by the flickering campfire. ‘And theirs.’
‘Well, my boy, that is your first lesson in the use and appreciation of magic.’ Gilmour reached for a saddlebag. ‘Come, sit down here. You must be hungry.’
Back along the ridge trail, Jacrys kneeled down in the dirt where the battle had taken place. He dabbed his fingers in the thick, foul-smelling gore, the almor’s vital fluids. The young stranger was braver and more powerful than the spy had imagined. And although he was glad to see another of Malagon’s disgusting pets destroyed, Jacrys felt a momentary lapse in his confidence. The old sorcerer was surrounded by a skilled group of killers, which would make Jacrys’s task much more complicated. They had defeated the Seron beasts; now they had killed an almor. He had never heard of anyone killing an almor. Historically, the creatures could only be banished by the combined resources of powerful magicians and mystics – never by ordinary people, let alone one man or woman. That was impossible. Jacrys considered the dilemma another moment, then hurried along the ridge into the night.
Later, the dream came again; Steven watched it unfold on the broad canvas of his mind. It was the same Friday afternoon, and once again he was joking with Howard and
Myrna about his own passion for maths and her passion for Ja¨germeister. He watched himself come out of his office and catch her trying to fit diameter lengths around a circle. She was organising it incorrectly, but he didn’t tell her; it was fun to watch her struggle with knowledge she had learned in high school but assumed she would never apply. The circle itself was no help: she needed to use the shape to construct a rectangle. He demonstrated it once when Howard ordered pizza for lunch. ‘Like giant teeth,’ he explained. ‘Organise the pizza slices across from one another. What do they form? A makeshift parallelogram. Now, imagine ten million tiny pizza slices organised in the same area. What do they form?’
‘It’s a rectangle,’ she cried.
‘Almost a rectangle,’ he told her, ‘but close enough for Egyptian architects to figure out the area of a circle is basically—’
‘Length times width!’ Myrna nearly came out of her chair, especially when she realised the problem was still confounding Howard Griffin.
‘Exactly,’ Steven confirmed. ‘You see? There’s no reason to make it more difficult than it needs to be.’
Howard reached for a slice of pizza, interrupting the quasi-edge of Steven’s impromptu quadrilateral. ‘There,’ he said, ‘figure that one out; I call it subtraction.’
THE RIVER CAMP
Brexan kneeled over the woodsman. He was alive, but he had not yet moved from where he had fallen after the demon’s attack. The Malakasian soldier removed her cloak, folded it into a lumpy pillow and placed it carefully under the big man’s head. Blood was coagulating around an open wound just above his neck: he had hit his head hard; he would be unconscious for some time. She counted his breaths, marking time as his broad chest moved up and down. She struggled to make out his features clearly in the half-light of evening, but she could tell he was handsome, although not necessarily in the traditional sense. This was a woodsman, a man to whom physical appearance meant little, but the unkempt, sandy hair, the wrinkled clothes and the short, scraggly beard did not detract from his striking countenance. His powerful hands rested on the ground and, acting on an impulse, Brexan folded them across his abdomen. From his belt she removed a battle-axe and a long dagger, afraid he might roll over on them and wake too soon.
Hearing a noise, she looked up as several horses wandered back into the remains of the Ronan camp. They had been frightened away by the almor, but had obviously not run far; now they sensed it was safe to return. Brexan took some comfort in that. Despite her confidence that the monster had pursued the others into the canyon, she couldn’t help but worry that it might come back at any moment. She was still surprised it hadn’t killed her on the beach that day after it had taken her old horse – maybe the almor was saving her for some later date.
She rose and walked as softly as she could, so as not to draw any undue attention to herself. Coaxing gently, Brexan corralled four of the animals, tethering them to nearby trees. She took particular care with one fiery mare, a strong animal who appeared to be looking askance at her as she looped the reins over a branch. Brexan stoked their small campfire into a blaze and rummaged through one of the abandoned saddlebags for something to eat. Finding a stash of apples, she removed two, bit into one herself and sliced the other into quarters for her horse. The beast whinnied once and took the fruit greedily from her outstretched palm.
She returned to the woodsman; he hadn’t moved, so she made herself comfortable on the ground beside him. A light breeze blew through the grove as she leaned back against a crooked scrub oak. Gnawing contentedly on the apple, Brexan took stock of her current situation. She was absent without leave from the Malakasian Army. Her stomach tightened, remembering the moment when she had stripped her uniform of its patches and epaulettes. She hadn’t wanted to be seen as deserting her platoon, but she wouldn’t live long travelling alone, in uniform, through Rona. Perhaps she would return to Estrad one day and explain everything to whomever had replaced Lieutenant Bronfio – maybe Lieutenant Riskett. He had always been more reasonable: he was willing to listen to the soldiers and actually responded to their concerns or suggestions, unlike Bronfio. Considering this option a moment longer, she laughed and shook her head.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said out loud, biting the apple as if to punctuate her thoughts. ‘You know you can’t go back there.’ Brexan could only hope Lieutenant Riskett had listed her as lost in the skirmish at Riverend Palace, although without a body to identify her, that was unlikely.
No, if she returned to Estrad, it would be in shackles, and she would be imprisoned, tortured, and hanged at the next Twin-moon as an example to all soldiers of Prince Malagon’s army.
She inhaled deeply. It was cooler here than in Estrad; she was happy to sit quietly and enjoy the evening. The road north had been challenging: Jacrys was difficult to track. She had lost his trail entirely several times, but he kept turning up and now she had no doubts that he was trailing this band of partisans on their flight north. Though she had not seen the enemy they had faced that morning at Riverend Palace, she knew this group had been involved. She was still struggling to make sense of it all: Jacrys had ordered the platoons to take Riverend Palace because partisans had been using it for meetings, as well as storing weapons and silver. That was fine. But in the process, Jacrys had murdered Lieutenant Bronfio and the family of at least one partisan, before taking off after the fugitives. Why Bronfio? And why this particular band of freedom fighters?
Still she had no answers, nothing to explain why Jacrys had followed them into the mountains and ambushed them with a platoon of filthy Seron warriors, nor how he had managed to bring an almor along with him. He did not appear to have a sorcerer’s skills – yet the almor had appeared twice while Jacrys was near of this group of Ronans. Was he controlling it? She bit off another mouthful of apple and, finding it bruised, spat it into the underbrush. He might have some magic at his disposal, but magic enough to control a demon would have to come from elsewhere, from the north. Prince Malagon.
A strand of hair fell over her shoulder and she played with it absentmindedly. It was long, too long. She had meant to have it cut before the last Twinmoon, but hadn’t found time. She looked about the camp for something with which to tie it up. Among the putrefied remains of a dead horse, lying where the almor had tossed the husk of skin and bones after its attack, was an old saddle. Drawing a knife from her belt, she sliced off a thin leather thong tying up a tightly rolled wool blanket. As she cut it free, the blanket fell to the ground and partially unrolled across the leaves and dirt.
‘That’s better,’ she said as she tied her hair back. Night had fallen and Brexan was growing somewhat impatient. She kneeled next to the partisan and shook him gently by the shoulders.
‘Hey,’ she whispered, ‘wake up. You’re safe; wake up.’
The man groaned in response and Brexan spilled a few drops of water across his lips from a wineskin she had found.
‘Try again,’ she encouraged, ‘wake up.’
Versen opened his eyes and, grimacing, tried to sit up. ‘Rutting dogs, it’s you,’ he exclaimed as he looked at Brexan.
Brexan, taken aback, said simply, ‘Yes, it’s me,’ though she had no idea how he could know who she was.
Versen reached out and took her firmly by the shoulders. ‘I never told you … I should have told you. I love you.’ He pulled her to him and kissed her awkwardly on the lips before falling back onto her cloak and drifting back into unconsciousness.
‘Of course you do, of course you love me.’ Brexan leaned back against the twisted oak once again. ‘What else would you say, really? “Hello”, maybe. “Who are you?” perhaps. But no, not you, my brain-damaged Ronan buffoon, you open with “I love you”. Fairly direct of you, and I must give you credit for bravery.’
She drank from the wineskin and added sarcastically, ‘And I know it might be sudden of me, but I love you, too.’ Sleeping soundly, Versen did not respond.
Brexan pulled herself to her feet. As she collected logs for the f
ire she looked about nervously for any sign of the almor, but the energetic mare was still cropping grass complacently nearby, so she assumed all was well for the moment. She began spreading out her own blankets for the night.
‘Sleep well,’ she called towards the grove. ‘If you still love me in the morning, I might even brew you some tecan.’ The Malakasian soldier lay still in the firelight, watching the stars and feeling the ominous presence of the Blackstone Mountains behind her in the dark, ponderous, black as pitch. Brexan was not looking forward to the next leg of her journey: the Blackstones were renowned for their treacherous cliffs, razor-thin trails and uncertain footholds. ‘I’m not sure I have any choice, though,’ she whispered to herself. ‘I certainly can’t turn around now.’
The breeze along the river had grown into a gusting wind. She shook her head, then sat up, pulled on her boots and walked back into the grove where Versen lay asleep. Finding the blanket she had cut free earlier that evening, she cast it over his still form and started walking back towards her own blankets.
She stopped and set her jaw in frustration. ‘Motherless, inbred, whoring …’ she muttered and turned back towards the trees. When she finally lay back down to sleep, Versen’s boots had been removed and now stood side-by-side on the ground next to him; a blanket Brexan took from Brynne’s abandoned saddle had been carefully tucked beneath his back, legs and shoulders to keep it from blowing away in the chilly evening breeze.
Brexan woke in the grey pre-dawn light to a gentle nudging at her ribs. She kicked the blanket aside as she sprang to her feet, hoping to confuse her attacker and grab a moment’s edge in the coming fight. She had a dagger in one hand and her short sword in the other before reaching her feet then, blinking several times to clear the sleepy fog from her mind, she recognised Versen standing beside her, his hands raised.
‘Whoa, hold on there,’ he cried. ‘I’m unarmed and I think you had something to do with that.’ He lowered his hands slowly to his sides and added, ‘Calm down, please.’