The Mermaid's Tale

by D. G. Valdron

  “No,” she said sadly.

  “Why not?” she said suddenly.

  We were wandering though the outer Kingdom, the cripple left far behind us. It was a tangled warren of fences and chutes and wooden sheds. Above our heads, water chutes ran here and there. Goblins clambered about up there, fixing things and running errands. In places, the water chutes leaked; I was drinking from a small leak, holding my head high for the water to spill down in my mouth. She was crouching several feet away.

  “Arrah?” I coughed and stared at her, wiping my mouth.

  “Why not?” she asked again. “The cripple?”

  This was where the lower Vampires, the Dead Men and the Arukh lived, where the tanneries and slaughterhouses were. Nobody paid attention to us, so long as we were suitably submissive and stayed clear.

  “Why bother to kill the cripple?” I asked.

  She shrugged.

  “It would have been easy,” she said. “Very easy. We could have done it.”

  We began to walk along. She led, she knew the low kingdom. We couldn’t go to the high Kingdom, of course. That would be death. But there were no Arukh in the high Kingdom, and no reason to go there.

  “Is that a good enough reason to kill?” I asked. “Because you can?”

  She grunted, her brow wrinkling with thought.

  “And... because you want to?” she asked.

  We came to a gathering of Tanners, old bent Vampires, wizened gaunt Arukh, a few humans, lean and bony, all taking smoke. I could see, by the way they maintained careful distances from each other, that they were not familiar with each other.

  We waited patiently until someone passed us a small clay brazier. We lifted the lid, took smoke and sat. Some watched for a moment, but everyone was loosened by the smoke.

  I listened to gossip. The talk was of war, of course. I waited. I wasn’t about to start asking questions about dead Vampires in the middle of Vampire Kingdom, not where such questions would travel on their own.

  Talk turned to these new men, the Horsemen.

  “They are bloody fighters, I hear,” I said finally, carefully. “I hear they like to cut.”

  That started the talk around about the atrocities of the Horsemen. Lurid fantastical stories about bodies mutilated on the battlefield gave way to other singular mutilations attributed to Men.

  I offered small observations, letting others recall similar incidents, and listened carefully.

  Among the Kobolds, Dwarves took the blame. Here among Vampires, they looked at Humans.

  Clever, clever my Arukh was.

  Or perhaps they were all just very stupid. I thought about that for a second. Were they so bound by their hatreds and prejudices that when hurt, they could look no further than the usual enemy? There might be a use for that.

  Then I thought sourly, my Arukh had found his use for it.

  “I’m looking for an Arukh,” I said finally. “Male, not too big. He carries an iron knife.”

  Nothing. Instead, the conversation drifted towards Trolls and iron.

  I sighed and got up. The female came with me.

  “Is it enough?” she said.

  I grunted, quizzically, glancing at her. I had no idea what she was talking about. She began to lead us through the warrens.

  “If it is easy to kill,” she said, “kill it.”

  “The cripple?” I said, recalling her questions. “Why are you so hungry to kill?”

  She grunted.

  “He lives five years like that,” I said.

  She spat. “Live like slave, die like slave.”

  “Ah,” I said, “slave.”

  She ducked her head angrily.

  “I will not always be a slave,” she said.

  “You should not be one now, yet you follow me.”

  She rocked from side to side. I could almost hear her grind her teeth with frustration. My words upset her.

  “Arukh live and die,” I said. “We are young, we are slaves. We grow strong, tell ourselves we are free. We grow weak, slaves again.”

  Strains of the end of the Mermaids song ran through my mind, that voice, once powerful, now broken and limping, pausing to gather the shreds of its strength, before finally dying. I felt a chill.

  “Not mighty?”

  “Arrah?”

  “He said he was mighty. You said he was not mighty. Never mighty?”

  “If all he had was strength, he would have died. He wasn’t mighty, he was clever to keep alive.”

  I glanced at her.

  “You talked to him because you thought he was clever?” she said. “Not clever to be crippled like that.”

  “A strong Arukh,” I told her, “doesn’t care. A strong Arukh does what she wants, takes what she wants, pays no attention to other Arukh.”

  She shrugged.

  “The cripple... all Arukh are stronger. To live, this one must watch all Arukh, he must pay attention and know them well.”

  I watched light dawn in her eyes.

  “Aaah,” she whispered softly. “To find an Arukh, you talk to him, rather than a strong one.”

  Strong Arukh don’t talk. We beat the ground with our fists, and show our fangs and swing our heads side to side and then we charge.

  I could just imagine trying to get information out of the grunting half-burned female that had confronted us at the Lodge. We’d still be grunting and spitting at each other now.

  “Why do you want to find this Arukh?” she asked. “The one with the iron knife.”

  “He killed the Mermaid,” I said with fierce resolve. “This must not be done.”

  I could tell from her blank look that she didn’t understand. One killing was just the same as another to us. Perhaps I didn’t understand myself. This killing was different, it was not right. It had a wrongness to it.

  But if all killings are the same, perhaps all killings were not right?

  I pushed the thought away.

  We walked along quietly for a moment.

  “He was just a cripple,” she said quietly.

  “You think you could live so long, crippled like that?” I asked.

  She made a face.

  “Eating excrement? Die first.”

  “Then perhaps you shall,” I said.

  “No.”

  “Arrah,” I said, almost laughing at her, “you will defeat our fate.”

  “I will make slaves,” she said firmly, “and make them stand before me. They will cripple, not me.”

  “Will they?”

  “I will beat them,” she said, “so they fear me above all.”

  I stopped and swung to face her.

  “I had a master,” I snapped. “Who I feared above all. Many times he beat me, and made me bleed. Many times he raped me. Many times he hurt me.”

  We walked along in silence for a few steps.

  “I killed him,” I said suddenly, “while he slept. I took a great big stone, and I crushed his head. I crushed it again and again, until he had no head.”

  “You were strong,” she said, with something approaching satisfaction.

  “I was twelve,” I said. “I was small. He was big. He was mighty. He slept. I crushed his head.”

  I stared at her.

  “You think slaves will make you safe. They won’t. Sooner or later, slaves grow strong, and you will grow weak. Sooner or later you sleep. You sicken. Your back is turned to their knife. Then what?”

  “I kill them first?”

  She didn’t seem all that certain.

  “Or they kill you,” I said. “Many masters are killed by slaves. Take a slave, sometimes you mistake it, think it’s weak when it’s strong. It kills you, because you have misjudged it. Misjudged strength, misjudged temper.”

  “Arrah,” she grunted, trying to
think.

  “Where do we go?” I said.

  “No slaves then?” she said.

  We found another gathering, this time a martial band of Arukh. After the customary snarling, we exchanged gossip and moved on.

  “Why didn’t you want to kill the cripple?” she persisted.

  She was so tiresome. She was like a dog with a bone: she couldn’t let it go.

  “It wasn’t necessary.”

  “But it would have been easy.”

  I shrugged.

  “You’ll find,” I said, “that there are many necessary things. If you don’t need to do something, why do it?”

  She cocked her head to one side, making a hiccing noise in her throat.

  “Besides,” I said, “he wanted to stay alive. He was good at it. He fought hard for his life, let him have it.”

  I shrugged.

  Again I thought of the Mermaids song.

  There was no reason not to kill, I thought. I should have killed him. She was right.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said finally. “You make too much noise,” I said irritably. “You cry and you hiss, and you carry on. You scream and screech and you talk too much.”

  She cocked her head to the side, staring at me.

  “Well, well,” the Sergeant said. He was a heavy Vampire, almost fat. He was backed by a squad of Vampires, armoured and carrying lances. “A big strapping Krohn and a ripe little Horr. You wouldn’t be trying to sneak off now?”

  I cursed silently. We’d almost made it through the outer Kingdom.

  “She talks to me,” the young female announced proudly. I rolled my eyes for an instant as they looked confused.

  “Noble Lord,” I said ducking my head submissively, “we hear that the Lords pay well for fighters.”

  He cocked his ear, listening to the accents of my voice.

  “Not from around here?”

  “Trolls house, my Lord,” I replied. “Iron Pants.”

  “That’s a Dwarves hiring place,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  “The Dwarves aren’t hiring.”

  “Sackunessar?” the Sergeant said, a Vampire came forward, armoured differently from the others. The recorder. “We getting any from the Trolls Lodges?”

  “There was a shipment from One Tusk’s lodge this morning. We’re starting to recruit there.”

  “We got separated,” I said in explanation. The female nodded vigorously in confirmation.

  “I think,” the Sergeant said, grinning with almost Arukh- heavy fangs, “I think you like thieving better than fighting, that’s what I think.”

  “We take nothing,” I said, holding out my hands.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “the chance hasn’t come. No one’s complaining and I suppose this isn’t the place for a hanging. Come along.”

  He turned. We had no choice but to follow; guards filed in behind us.

  I cursed silently.

  We heard the camp before we saw it, felt our chests vibrate with the beat of massive drums. Then the smell of roasting flesh and excrement.

  The young female was quivering with excitement.

  “You hear?” she said. “War!”

  I heard. I’d been in the last war. I felt no strong urge to be in this one.

  The camp came into view. For a second, it was just a corral of milling bodies, full of Arukh, Troll, Hobgoblins and Vampires.

  The Sergeant took us to another Vampire at the gate of the corral.

  “Another couple of strays,” the Sergeant announced jovially, to a thin Vampire making marks on paper. “One Tusk Lodge, or Greasy Thumbs.”

  “One Tusk,” the recorder said. “Registered?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Turn,” the recorder ordered, “let us see your bare backs.”

  We turned and pulled at our leathers, exposing bare flesh.

  “Not registered,” sighed the Recorder. “One Tusk will want his commission on these. Hold still.”

  Something touched the small of my back. I leaped forward, turning.

  “Just paint,” the recorder said, holding a brush up. “Now give me your back, or swing from a rope.”

  The brush waved. I looked, farther over the compound, four Arukh hung by their necks from ropes. Two were dead. One struggled frantically in the noose. We could hear him suck each breath.

  “For refusing paint?” I asked.

  “For disobeying. You want to hang? We need to set a few more examples.”

  I turned. With a few strokes he marked a design on my back that I could not see or reach.

  “After the battle,” the Recorder said, “show your mark. We pay you.”

  “Arrah,” I grunted sourly, pushing my armour into place. I could feel the mark smearing. The young female accepted her mark with more patience than I would have credited.

  “There,” the recorder said, “you want to eat, you go eat. You get weapons. You get armour. We’ll put you through drills and assign officers.”

  I grunted, nodding.

  “No fighting,” he warned. “There’ll be time for that after in the war. You fight here, you disobey here, you swing here. Understand?”

  “Arrah,” I said.

  We walked in, past a band of Hobgoblins with ragged goblin armour. Furtive Goblins darted around, fitting and strapping Arukh into the clay and straw plating. The female stopped and began to select. My own mixed armour was better, I ignored it.

  I wandered into the milling crowd, listening to the drums. A pair of Trolls were beating on a great skin drum wider than I was tall. I kept my head down, watching for iron knives.

  Trolls walked through the crowd on their errands. I joined small groups as they formed and broke up, listened to the tense, breathless exchanges.

  I looked up. A Troll strode by wearing a special harness on his shoulders. A Gnome rode him. The Gnome tapped the Troll, and he turned toward me. The Gnome and I stared at each other for a second. Then the Troll turned again and moved on. I chewed my lip, disturbed.

  “Get a weapon,” someone said to me.

  “Arrah?” I turned. It was a Vampire.

  “Go get a weapon. You think you’ll fight with teeth? That way.”

  He pointed. There was a group of Trolls dispensing weapons.

  I walked over. I passed the hanging Arukh. As I looked up, the one who struggled caught my eye for a second, his face a mask of terror and horror. He was growing weaker. His companion loosed her bowels, shit dropping from between her dangling legs, her body settling into the stillness of death. His eyes glanced that way for a second, and he renewed struggling.

  I shrugged and walked past.

  “What do you want?” the Troll asked as I approached.

  “You have knives?” I said.

  He looked me over critically, noting my bronze knives.

  “We have long knives, swords if you can use them well.”

  I couldn’t.

  “You have iron knives?” I asked. “I want an iron knife, not big, two edges. You have that?”

  He stared at me, shocked.

  Then he began to make a booming sound. I realized it was laughter.

  “Arukh wants iron?” he boomed. “Good joke. Perhaps we should inscribe it too? Maybe you want an iron suit?”

  I let him laugh.

  “No iron knife for you,” he said finally. “You can pick: Club, Lance, Sword, Sling, Bow.”

  I thought about it. We’d be facing Horsemen.

  “Lance,” I said.

  He looked me over.

  “You can use a lance? You have used lances before?”

  “Yes,” I lied. I’d seen them used. It couldn’t be too hard.

  “No,” he said. “A big Krohn like you, a lance would be a waste. I�
�ll give you a club. Don’t lose it.”

  Bastard.

  “Arrah,” I said, accepting it. “Thank you.”

  It was a sorry piece of wood, still green, with a cloth wrapped around one end for a handle.

  “Drills over there,” he said, pointing, dismissing me.

  I looked over.

  There was a forest of poles where instructors were demonstrating club techniques. They were trying to organize Arukh, to get them to move in formation, to attack as something more than a collection of individuals. They weren’t having much luck.

  I ignored it, and walked over to the stew pots.

  I began to recognize individuals from Downriver. Several from One Tusk’s Lodge, a few from Greasy Thumbs, even a couple from Iron Pants. We exchanged nods.

  A Troll fished me a good chunk of meat from the thick stew, a heavy bone in the center of it.

  I squatted near a circle. The half-burned female I’d confronted in the Lodge looked up at me.

  “They got you too?” I said.

  She shrugged.

  “Arrah,” she replied. “No matter, there are good places in battle and bad places.”

  One of the Arukh was telling a story. She turned back to listen.

  “....and the Forest Gnome sits, and snicker snack, snicker snack, go the Dwarves, his head goes rolling. All the High Gnomes laugh and laugh. It is a good joke.”

  The Arukh chuckled.

  “’He forfeits the high game,’ says the High Gnomes. ‘Who will play?’ So the second Forest Gnome sits, his eyes rolling in fear, and snicker snack, snicker snack, go the Dwarves, his head goes rolling and all the High Gnomes laugh.”

  “The last Forest Gnome, he tries to run away, squealing in fear. The High Gnomes laugh and laugh, it is such a good joke. They drag the Forest Gnome to sit in the gambling seat. The High Gnomes laugh at the Arukh who games, ‘Arukh,’ they say, ‘who will pay you when the game is over?’”

  “You know what she says?”

  “What does she say?”

  “She says to the High Gnomes, ‘You will pay.’ Then she sits in the gambling seat.”

  The Arukh around the circle roared.

  “They do,” another Arukh said loudly, “they pay. I hear. They come to her Lodge with gold, and she laughs at them, and flings it all over the Lodge. ‘Take it back,’ she tells them and laughs, as they look at all the Arukh and squeal in fear.”