The Mermaid's Tale

by D. G. Valdron

  “Like this. And beast or Vampire... then it is your time to die.”

  I’d been touched like that.

  How old? Perhaps four or five years. The herds had wandered to the edges of forest, and they’d taken me aside. There’d been another Arukh, the first grown Arukh I’d seen. The Cull had touched me on my forehead and they’d all walked away, leaving me with the Arukh.

  Only afterwards did I come to realize that I was dead.

  That in that touch, they’d killed me.

  “A Cull chooses who is to die. Stay away from the Cull,” I spoke intensely, with a shadow of fear in my voice.

  She stared at me, her eyes bright with incomprehension.

  Many Dwarves and Humans had surrendered. The Vampires held them for ransom price.

  As smokey fires burned, the dead were hauled this way and that. Arukh and Hobgoblins raped and beat the shrieking captured.

  Here among the clatter and argument of simple fighters, I began to relax.

  I replayed the conversations with the Cull in my mind, trying to find new meanings within her words.

  The small Arukh didn’t like the camp. She cringed and tried to sidle away from the rape piles. She stayed close to me, as if my presence would protect her.

  I watched indifferently, looking for signs of the strange madness that had been inflicted on Mira’s body.

  Nothing.

  Here and there, corpses were violated. A slave Arukh, garlanded in Dwarves intestines danced for laughing masters. Here and there, solitary Arukh furtively cut strips from the flesh of dead enemies to eat later.

  I asked questions.

  “Arrah,” a grizzled male told me, one of his ears was missing, healed over into a scarred lump of tissue, he bent his head so that his good ear was towards me. “These Horsemen like to kill. Cut, cut, cut they do. They stab a body many times, many of them. I’ve seen a lot of it.”

  A few had heard of mutilations that might resemble what I was looking for. They weren’t found on battlefields though. The information wasn’t especially helpful. Just a few more details.

  From their words, the mad Arukh may have managed to take perhaps seven Vampires. All since the Horsemen had arrived.

  And the Horsemen had their own tame Arukh.

  Interesting.

  We wandered over to a naked Human. He was cringing, huddled into a ball, crying out as a couple of Hobgoblins beat him with desultory enthusiasm.

  “Great Daughters,” one of the Hobgoblins said, “help us. We are trying to think of things to cut off.”

  Their mouths were red dripping grins. The Human was missing a couple of fingers. Blood and shit oozed down his thighs, but he seemed intact there, merely used.

  “Perhaps now,” I said to the man, “you will not ride so stiffly.”

  They laughed.

  He just cried out. “I don’t...”

  Grabbing the man by the hair, I shooed the Hobgoblins away and pulled him to his feet. A palm with but two fingers left to it slapped ineffectually at me.

  “Tell me,” I ordered. “Tell me of the Arukh who rides with you.”

  “I don’t... I don’t ride.”

  “Men ride,” I told him, “I have seen them.”

  “Other men,” he gasped. “Not me. Not my men. We’re just farmers, that’s all. Please, let me be.”

  “Tell me what you know of the Arukh.”

  “I don’t know anything. We’re just farmers. That’s all. I just want to live. I’ll go away and never trouble you.”

  I grunted irritably and shook him hard, almost losing him as whole clumps of hair tore loose in my hand. Blood welled up across his scalp as I let go and dug my fingers into a fresh handful of long hair.

  The Horsemen that I had seen wore their hair in braids.

  “Tell me about the Horsemen,” I ordered.

  “I don’t know anything,” he whimpered. “I don’t ride. I don’t. We’re farmers. They came. They were cruel. They said ‘We will rule now.’ They punished and killed...”

  He went on, begging and whining. I threw him back to the Hobgoblins.

  “Mercy,” he cried out to me. “Let me live.”

  I laughed.

  “Mercy from Arukh? Arrah, man you deserve to die.”

  I stalked off. The smell of meat wafted in my nostrils. I realized that I was hungry. We headed for the cooking pots.

  Small fires burned under Orc pots, meat and blood boiling together inside. Trolls supervised the pots. Trolls were fastidious, we’d have to relieve ourselves away from the fires.

  I huddled next to a pot, holding out a piece of Dwarf breastplate as a makeshift bowl.

  “You are not a good fighter,” the Troll said, spooning chunks of meat onto the plate. “I watch.”

  I stared. He’d watched me?

  “I watch many fighters. You are strong. That gives you one blow. You are fast. That gives you another. You are clever, which may gain you a third. But on the fourth blow, you don’t kill. You die.”

  “I don’t need four blows to kill.” I grinned mirthlessly at him.

  “Good for hunting, perhaps. The ambush. The strike from behind. The surprise attack. Leap and kill and run away,” he shrugged. “No good in a war most times. No place to surprise, nowhere to run.”

  Damn, I thought. He had been watching me.

  The little female stared at him, eyes bright. She was too clever, I thought irritably. He shouldn’t talk like that in front of her. She’d find a way to use it against me.

  “I did well enough.”

  He grunted.

  “You were lucky. Maybe you’re a killer. Maybe. You’re not a fighter, and you’re past the age where an Arukh can be trained.”

  Was that true? I wondered. Did we come to an age where we stopped learning? Where we just coasted on what we were and what we knew until something killed us.

  “Not a fighter! Not a fighter!” the young Arukh screeched, almost upsetting the Orc Pot. Other older Arukh grunted irritably, and drew away, cautious of maddened outbursts.

  “Not a fighter!” she screeched at the Troll. Each word seemed to burst out of her separately, as if being spat. She seemed to gulp between the words, grunting each piece of speech.

  “Fighting is nothing! All Arukh fight! All Arukh kill! All fight Arukh! All kill Arukh! Fight, fight, fight. I know fighting.”

  She pointed at me.

  “This one fights! This one talks too! Talks to Mermaids! Talks to Kobolds! Talks to Gnomes! They talk to her. Not fight. Not kill. Talk!”

  I winced, flushing hot. She was going into her madnesses again, that screeching talking madness that afflicted her.

  She licked her lips, uncertain of how to continue. Shut up, I thought at her.

  “I follow her. Clever Arukh. Watch talk. People fight Arukh. People kill Arukh. Not her. She goes to them, they talk. They come to her. Mighty! Mighty! I follow her, not because she kills. I follow because she doesn’t kill.”

  We all stared at her, as she rocked back and forth. Her eyes rolled wildly. Words I’d said to her about the cripple, the experience of war, the last few days, all rolling around inside her, merging and erupting in bizarre fragments of conversations. Even the Troll was startled.

  She barked once or twice, trying to put words together.

  She made a whining noise deep in her throat, struggling to express herself. Then she pointed at me again.

  “Gambles with Gnomes. Maker of War. Killer of Devil. Rescuer of children. Talks to many.”

  White anger flared through me, so deep and fierce I was paralyzed. I wanted to strike her dead, but could not move.

  “Arrah,” I snapped irritably.

  They were staring at me now, not her. Worse and worse.

  “Arrah,” the big female grunted, her head bobbing. “
Gambles with Gnomes.”

  “High Gnomes,” another said.

  “Arrah!” I snarled.

  Getting to my feet, crouching warily. I rocked from side to side, sweeping my right arm in front of me. The metal of the bronze knife catching the firelight.

  The Troll looked dumbfounded. The Arukh present stared at me with frightening intensity. I could not meet all their gazes.

  I lowered my head.

  “Kill one,” I said growling, “kill two, kill three. Kill enough. I go. You follow, you die. One, two, three. Enough die.”

  I retreated, keeping my knife out, my face to them. The young female followed me. We moved away from the campfire. I watched warily as they stared at us. Sitting or standing.

  I backed away until they were just a small spot of light, among other spots of light.

  I stared at the young female. She sidled away from my glare, moving just out of leaping range, ready to bolt. She should. I should kill her. She was mad, too mad to let live.

  “You wanted to say that,” I said, “to the Troll in the lodge. You listened to them talk about you. They talked like you weren’t there. Like you couldn’t understand. And you wanted to say that.”

  She stared at me, eyes wide.

  I spat at her.

  “You couldn’t. Words wouldn’t come. You sit, it boils in you. His words, over and over. You want to hit Troll, hurt him. But you can’t. You pull words, putting them together in your head, to speak to the Troll. You make them hold together in your head, thinking about how you will say them to the Troll. But Troll forgets. Words have no place to go. They burn and burn, like they want to get out on their own.”

  “That’s it?” I asked, “Isn’t it?”

  She licked her lips, swallowed, moistening her mouth, and nodded once. Jerkily.

  “You know,” she said, her eyes bright and burning. “You know everything.”

  I knew madness when I saw it.

  “I say it good?” she asked, as if seeking approval.

  I thought about it. She’d left behind a confused, startled band of Arukh. They hadn’t understood a bit of it.

  To them, it was just a bizarre insane outburst, like we all did now and then.

  Maybe this was what our madness was, a collection of maddened rages against ancient hurts, all but forgotten but still aching. It seemed suddenly a sad and tiresome thing to be Arukh.

  “You follow me because I talk to Kobolds?” I asked, the sheer, random pointlessness of it amazed me. She might as well follow a dog because of the way it lifted leg.

  Her head jerked, she nodded rapidly, as if relieved that I understood.

  I shook my head.

  “You are mad,” I said softly. “You are broken inside, in your head.”

  She looked disappointed.

  Mad, simply mad, I thought. I wanted to drive her away from me, but was suddenly certain that would do no more than provoke another strange outburst sometime later.

  Perhaps, I thought, I should just kill her.

  But I’d missed my chances. She was too wary around me now.

  “It’s just talk,” I said softly. “No magic. No power.”

  “Arukh don’t talk,” she replied enigmatically.

  She’d done a good enough job of talking herself.

  I grunted.

  “You’re like a strange bug,” I said irritably, “rushing along full of mindless purpose. You pick up useless things and turn them over and over. Its all meaningless and worthless. You are meaningless and worthless.”

  “Go away,” I snarled at her.

  She shrieked, and leaped in a circle, twisting, her face contorted into a strange mask of despair. Screeching and weeping, she ran away.

  Other distant Arukh looked up curiously.

  I stared as she vanished, listened to her howls of pain and anguish fade.

  What did she want from me?

  The Mermaid’s song crept into my mind, again I heard the strains of the child Ara, lonely and aching.

  What a strange pathetic mad thing she was.

  We all were.

  I walked away from the camp alone. I approached a bloody body near where we’d sported with the Hobgoblins.

  It was still breathing shallowly.

  I glanced at it, and then, triggered by a sense of familiarity, inspected it more closely.

  It was the Human I had spoken to. The Hobgoblins had tired of their sport for a bit. No matter, they would return to him.

  I kicked him, rolling him over. I could tell by his breathing that he wasn’t unconscious, only pretending. He still had one eye, one ear. His long hair was missing, his scalp shining raw patches where it had been pulled out. Most of the toes were gone from one foot, two fingers fingers missing on each hand. His genitals were intact. I smelled semen, blood and shit. All his.

  His body had spurted as they used him. His genitals betrayed him. A good joke. They’d save those parts of him for last, but they’d cut that away too.

  In some way he reminded me of the meat seller who had died on the battlefield. Humans, I thought, no good at war. Stupid creatures.

  On impulse, I grabbed his ankle, twisting it. I heard him suppress a grunt of pain. I dragged him off into the night with me.

  Eventually, I got bored and dropped him. There wasn’t really anything I could have from him that would justify the bother.

  He lay there, limp and bleeding, breathing shallowly. I nudged him with my toe. He gasped, and then went back to pretending unconsciousness. He wasn’t fooling anyone.

  “You are no good for fighting, Man,” I told him. “Best to stay away from it. This is not your place. Go far from here, if you can, and grub in the dirt.”

  He breathed shallowly, still pretending.

  “Arrah,” I grunted finally, and walked off.

  In a half dozen steps, I’d forgotten all about him.

  “Hai, Arukh!”

  A Goblin girl trotted after me. I kept walking.

  “May you die quickly by another hand,” she said, using the traditional Goblin address for Arukh.

  I glared at her. Usually this thing was said in the company of a great many more Goblins.

  “You press your luck, little sister,” I told her. “Go away before I notice you.”

  “Like you noticed the Mermaid?”

  I stopped.

  I turned slowly, so she could understand I was giving her my full attention. As I turned, my eyes searched the surroundings, looking for an ambush.

  She stood back, just out of pouncing range. I wasn’t concerned. I could catch her on a straight dash. Likely that she had some bolthole prepared.

  I squatted carefully, my muscles rippling. Ready to spring.

  “What is it that you know about the Mermaid, little one?”

  She grinned and danced before me, taunting. She was a Wild Girl, I could tell by her clothes. Not one of the Mothers Handmaidens.

  “A Mermaid dies, a Mermaid dead, a monsters deed, a monster hunts, who’s to say its not all the same.”

  She threw a bird’s egg at me. I caught it and threw it back at her, roaring and leaping, but she was already gone. I leaped upon the spot where she’d been, and then again, but she turned left or right, evading my every leap and disappeared under the foundations of a building.

  I snarled and kicked dirt into the hole.

  I settled back to wait.

  “Slow death by my hand,” I snarled into the hole.

  Something pelted the back of my head. I spun, reaching behind to feel. Another bird’s egg.

  A Goblin girl, dressed identically, but to my eye not the same individual stood a good distance away. Another Wild Girl.

  “You shame the Mother,” she said.

  “Is that the best you can do,” I growled. I scraped the gro
und for a handful of pebbles and flung it at her.

  I heard a scabbling behind me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the first Goblin girl scramble out of the hole. I roared and lunged at her, just missing, my fingers touching the edges of her tunic.

  I felt something strike at my knee, and almost crumbled. I swung, catching the second Goblin girl and hurling her through the air.

  I hobbled after her, my knee aching.

  “Come here,” I snarled.

  I was terrifically angry. But there was more. They knew something, that much was clear. I would have them and know what they knew.

  I roared and leaped, and leaped again, but always, they managed to stay just out of my reach. Finally, I blocked them from a warren and trapped them in a boxed alley, the buildings slow and close together so they had no escape. I’d reined in my temper by that time.

  “Little sisters,” I said puffing, as I advanced down the alley towards them, “tell me what you know of Mermaids.”

  “A short life to you, Daughter,” came a male voice behind me. “And a quick death by some other hand.”

  I recognized the voice. Not the speaker, but the race. Hobgoblin. I stiffened.

  “That’s more courtesy than an Arukh merits.” Another voice, more guttural but with Hobgoblin lilts.

  I glanced at the Goblin girls. Whatever they were doing, they’d led me here on purpose.

  “A poor trap,” I blustered, easing to put my back to a wall. “You’ve left no place to cut from behind.”

  I had a good look at them. My heart sank. There were over a dozen of them. Expensively armoured, adorned with sharp weapons. One among them was twice the size of the others, a female as large as I.

  “Arrah,” I said.

  “Rot you,” she said, hers was the guttural voice, “say that to me again and I’ll rip out your tongue.”

  Involuntarily I bobbed my head.

  “Mind yourself,” she snapped, “I know your ways and I know what that means. Do that again and die.”

  The Wild Girls moved forward. I growled and gave a lurch in their direction. They squealed and backed up against the end of the alley. I would not allow them to be safe.

  The Hobgoblins were advancing down towards me. I studied them, sliding down the alley away from them, careful to keep my back to the wall.