Fireshaper's Doom

by Tom Deitz

She paused in the kitchen, her finger on the light switch, then decided against it. It was awfully light out there already; a blue-white light was streaming into the kitchen. She crossed to the back door (open, except for the screen, to let the night breezes cool the house), and breathed a sigh of relief.

  He was there, all right. Standing in the yard.

  “Billy, honey, come back in,” she called softly, as she came down the steps.

  And then she saw the cross in the sky.

  “Pretty sight, ain’t it,” an old woman cackled from the shadows by the barn.

  Chapter XXXV: Toro! Toro!

  (The Straight Tracks)

  “So what do we do?” Alec asked, casting a dubious eye toward the sanguine surface of the lake of blood. “I don’t want to have to deal with this again.”

  Uncle Dale pointed to the left of the body of noxious liquid. “You may not have to, boy. This here Track leads into the lake, all right; but looks like ole Ailill’s trail kinda curves around to the left-hand side—right in front of where them funny-lookin’ animals is, I’d be willin’ to bet. Can’t quite make it out for sure, but somethin’s shore got them things interested over there. Gotta be that ole Crazy Deer’s trail. And if I’m not mistaken, that’s another Track over on t’other side, straight across from this’un. Prob’ly picked it up again over there.”

  Alec frowned, his cheeks puffed out thoughtfully. “Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “It’s not always that simple with the Tracks. And there’s still that closer one that comes out of the woods right where the Watchers are. He could have gone that way. Hell, he could have been eaten by now—those things are carnivores. But there’s no way we can find out unless we check, and somehow I don’t think the Watchers’ll just stand by and let us prowl around between ’em. We’re still a fair ways off and I don’t think they’ve scented us yet, but if they do—look out!”

  “Ailill is bleeding more,” Froech broke in from the ground beside them. He had been examining a line of blood that stretched along the sand in front of them. The droplets had fallen so close together that there was scarcely space between them.

  “God, how can he be?” asked Alec. “He’s been going on like that for twelve hours or more, our time. He can’t have that much blood in him.”

  “Oh yes he can,” Nuada replied hoarsely from where he sat in front of Regan, still beneath the eaves of the forest. “Do not forget that our bodies are not alike. Human blood clots faster than Faery blood, yet also flows more freely. But still, the Dark One must surely be weakening.” He broke off as a coughing fit wracked him.

  “He is not the only one weakening,” Regan said. “If we do not find rest soon, it will not—”

  Nuada interrupted her. “Ailill is not far in front of us now, and if we hurry, I think we may soon catch him. I would like to see that.”

  “Except that there’s a couple of small problems,” Alec noted.

  “Yeah, like the Watchers, for one thing,” Liz said. “And like the lake, for another.”

  “But we don’t have to go into the lake,” Gary pointed out. “If the trail goes around it.”

  “Do you want to face the Watchers, Gary?” Liz shot back. “They may seem slow and ponderous, but they can move a lot faster than you think, and they’re meat eaters. Just ’cause they look sort of like glyptodonts, doesn’t mean they are.”

  “So you’re saying we should cross the lake and try to pick up the trail on the other side?”

  Liz nodded. “It’s shallow. We can wade.”

  “Yeah,” Alec agreed. “We could do like we did before and use our iron-tipped staffs to keep the worst of the blood off.” He paused, looked around. “That is, if anybody’s still got theirs.”

  “I have,” Gary volunteered, handing his spear to Alec.

  “I’ve still got a knife,” Liz added, patting the sheath at her hip meaningfully.

  Regan’s face was grim. “We lost many a weapon in the confusion of Fionna’s attack.”

  “Well, maybe one’ll do it.” Alec sighed. “So let’s be off, before those things change their minds.”

  Nuada opened his eyes, his face a mask-of pain and weariness. “It is not as simple as that, I fear. I am wounded; and if you were to bother to took at Froech, you would see that his sides, too, bear some tokens of his encounter with Fionna.”

  Alec spared a glance at Froech, and noted that the Faery boy did, indeed, show deep gashes along his bare ribs, though they seemed to be well on their way to healing. Still, there was more than a little fresh blood to blend with that which was already crusted there.

  “So what’s the deal, then?”

  “It is the quality of the lake of blood that if a wounded man enter it, and his blood once mingle with the substance of the lake, then the lake will suck him dry. I would prefer not to risk such a thing—nor, I think, would Froech.”

  Froech shook his head. “That is more than I am willing to dare.”

  “What about using the Track?” Gary suggested. “Use it to get around the lake by passing through a World where it doesn’t exist, or something.”

  Regan’s brow furrowed. “It might be possible, if any of us commanded more Power than would spin a wheel, and we could thus bend the Track to our will. But even were we to do that, it might take us long and long to return to the trail on the other side.”

  “Huh?”

  “The way might seem clear to you, but the distance could be deceptive.”

  “But we’ve got to do something, and soon,” Liz observed, a hard edge to her voice. “That closest Watcher keeps glancing this way.”

  “Yeah,” Alec added, “and if we don’t act soon, there’s a good chance that not only will we be attacked, but that the trail may be obliterated. I mean there’s always a chance it doesn’t rejoin the Track again.”

  Liz cast a hopeful look at Froech. “Isn’t there anything you can do, Froech? Surely this is all familiar to you. And you have more Power than anybody else.”

  The Faery boy shook his head. “I used nearly all the strength I had in my battle with Fionna, and what little the Track has added in sealing up my wounds. And as for the Watchers, Lugh alone commands the talisman that masters them. He showed it to me, once, when I first came into his service.”

  Alec took Liz by the arm. “Hey! Remember last time?” he said urgently. “Remember how the beasts didn’t follow us into the lake? They’d nose the stuff, but wouldn’t come in.”

  Liz’s face brightened. “You’re right, Alec!” She glanced at Nuada. “What about it, Nuada? Why is that?”

  “The Watchers partake only of fresh meat and hot blood. The blood in the lake is . . . dead blood, I suppose you would say.”

  Alec sucked his lips thoughtfully, his eyes shifting from side to side as an idea began to form in his mind. “Aha!” he cried after a moment. “I may just have a solution. It’s a little gross, to be sure. But it might just save our skins.”

  “So spill it, McLean.”

  “Easy. I think these things track mostly by smell, so we dip ourselves and the horses in the lake, so that we’re covered with ‘dead’ blood, or at least enough so that we smell like it, and then we simply follow Ailill’s trail along the shore, keeping to the shallows if we can. That way we can keep an eye on the trail and on the Watchers at the same time, and hopefully they won’t come near us.”

  “But what if we can’t follow the trail from the lake?”

  “Then we’ll just have to come back here and wait for the Watchers to leave.”

  “We cannot wait that long,” Nuada said. “Or at least, I cannot. We are close to success, I believe that. We have no choice but to chance it.”

  Regan cocked her head thoughtfully. “Well, the boy is correct about the Watchers—and I think, in the absence of any better suggestions, we had better give his a try.”

  “But what about Nuada and Froech?” Liz asked. “They can’t go in the lake.”

  “No,” Gary observed. “But if we were to leave Nuada’s shir
t with all the blood on it here, and we kinda clumped up around him while we passed the Watchers, maybe they wouldn’t notice him. Maybe it’d even draw them away!”

  “Likely this solution will displease both our horses and our noses,” Nuada said slowly. “Yet it seems the best plan.”

  “Yep, shore does,” Uncle Dale agreed. “Can’t say I’m too keen on takin’ a bath in a lake o’ blood, but I reckon it won’t be the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

  “Firearrow will certainly not like it,” said Froech. “He hates the smell of blood, and he hates the Watchers more.”

  “Snowwhisper does not like them either,” Regan replied, “and the other two are likely to be worse, for they were bred for duty in the Lands of Men.”

  “Couldn’t you blindfold them, or something?” Gary suggested.

  Alec shook his head in disgust. “You can’t blindfold their noses, dummy; even I know that.”

  “But if we were to lead them,” Regan continued, “and maintain strict control . . .”

  “And somebody’ll have to stay on shore with Nuada, in case they decide to attack then.”

  “Why can’t he just stay on Snowwhisper, and somebody lead her in just a foot or so?”

  “But that still leaves Froech!”

  The Faery boy slapped Snowwhisper’s sleek gray hip. “I will sit behind Nuada, and hold him. It would be an ill thing were he to fall off.”

  Regan shook her head. “Not a pleasant possibility.”

  “Looks like it’s the only one we’ve got, though.”

  The decision made, they rode toward the lake, following Ailill’s trail as far as they could until it deserted the Track and arched away to the left. Fortunately, their earlier speculations appeared correct: the shell-beasts did seem more interested in Ailill’s trail.

  Though it had been his idea, Alec found himself suddenly reluctant to enter the lake of blood. Instead, he stood at its margin, staring dubiously at the wet copper sand. The stuff was inches from the toes of his Nikes, moving with a fearful sluggishness. The odor of corruption was almost overpowering.

  Liz did not pause. She simply set her mouth in a hard line and strode into the stuff until she was a little more than knee-deep in it, then sat down so that only her head showed above the surface. When she rose an instant later, her white jeans showed dull red. She wrinkled her nose in disgust, and slogged back to shore.

  The precedent set, the others followed her example, with Uncle Dale, Regan, and Liz leading the skittish horses, all except Snowwhisper, whom they left on shore with Nuada.

  Alec watched them return, their clothes dyed red in all its myriad shades from pink to deepest burgundy. Even the horses showed dark stains almost halfway up their barrels.

  Gary was the last to emerge. “Well, how do we look?” he cried jauntily as he dashed up to stand before Nuada. The Faery lord opened crusted eyes, managed a half-smile. “Red is how you look—red and wet, and smelling of death.” He glanced at Regan. “May I presume we are ready?”

  Regan nodded from the ground beside Snowwhisper’s head, and took up the makeshift reins as Froech climbed up behind Nuada, pausing to help the Faery lord out of his bloody shirt, which he tossed to the sand distastefully. The rest of the company closed in tight formation around the mare, with Liz and Uncle Dale and the reluctant Gary leading the remaining horses.

  “Now!” the Faery lady whispered. “And may Dana’s luck go with us.”

  Slowly, carefully, they began to move toward the line of footprints they could dimly see ahead. Alec found his breath coming slow and shallow, at odds with his pounding heart.

  Closer . . .

  One of the Watchers looked up, its nostrils dilated uncertainly, its horn-ringed head snaking in slow arcs from side to side. One of its fellows did the same, and then another, as agitation spread among the shell-beasts.

  “Damn!” Liz gritted.

  “And shit too,” Gary added, pointing toward the nearest Watcher.

  The creature had commenced waddling toward them, its horn-shod claws gouging into the copper sand. The pearlescent interlaced swirls lacquered on its shell reflected the moonlight in a way that was almost hypnotic.

  Alec found himself tracing one of those patterns with his eyes until they began to water. When he blinked and looked again, the beast had come twice its body length closer. It was now scarcely fifty yards away.

  Another beast took a tentative step forward. A clawed foot smashed down on one of Ailill’s delicate footprints, obliterating it.

  The leader looked up, nostrils flaring wide as it sifted higher breezes.

  “It has noticed us,” Regan whispered.

  Firearrow screamed, nipped viciously at Uncle Dale’s restraining hand.

  Bessie started, reared, eyes flashing.

  Cormac’s horse did likewise, jerking free of Gary’s grip.

  “Shit!”

  “Hold ’er, boy!”

  “Can’t.”

  “Ohh!”

  All at once the three riderless horses were rearing and stamping, white-eyed as the scent of shell-beasts and blood drove them wild with fear.

  “Damn things are getting closer, boys!”

  “Dammit, do something!”

  “It’s this friggin’ horse!”

  “Let them go!” Froech’s voice rang out. “Perhaps the beasts will follow them.”

  “But what about us?”

  “We can run.”

  “What about Nuada?”

  “He’s okay. Regan’s still got control—”

  “Can’t hold on—”

  “Damn!”

  “Shit, there they go!”

  Faced with more than they could reasonably stand, the horses broke loose and galloped wildly back down the beach.

  Snowwhisper alone did not run. Regan had closed her eyes, and laid one hand firmly against the mare’s forehead, and though the frightened horse’s eyes were red and wild, she remained steadfast.

  One or two of the shell-beasts shambled after the frightened horses, but the bulk of their number remained where they were, continuing their slow approach toward the horrified knot of people.

  “Dammit!” Gary shouted suddenly. He grabbed his spear out of Alec’s startled hands, and began to run after the horses.

  Alec was beside him in an instant, caught him by the arm. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, fool?”

  Gary pointed to his feet where the tatters of Nuada’s bloody shirt lay upon the sand. He swept up the discarded garment and wrapped it around his hand. “Gonna be a decoy.” He grinned and inclined his head toward the beasts, which seemed to have slowed in confusion as they began to notice him.

  “God, no!” Alec cried. “You’re crazy, G-man, maybe Darrell could, but you’re—”

  “Not crazy, just fast—faster than anybody else here, I bet. I’m pretty sure I’m quick enough to avoid them on foot. Anyway, we’re not talking about the Peachtree Road Race, it’s just a quarter mile or so.”

  Gary grinned and took off, loping at first in long, easy, effortless strides toward the nearest Watcher. At the last possible moment he veered off to pass between it and the one closest to its left.

  He was behind them, then, and running faster, as the beasts whirled around, some tripping over each other as he flashed along at their backs. Sometimes he leapt over their long, club-ended tails, sometimes stepped on those tails, and once—to Alec’s dismay—he ran up onto one beast’s shell and vaulted from it to the next and the next before returning to the ground.

  “Christ, what’s he trying to do, kill himself?” Liz moaned, as Alec rejoined them and the company began to jog along the lake’s edge.

  “No,” Alec panted beside her. “Look. He’s swatting them with Nuada’s shirt—leaving a trail of blood. See? They’re attacking each other.”

  And indeed they were. One shell-beast had reared onto its hind legs and was trying to gnaw a hole in the blood-spattered shell of its neighbor, while that beast in turn snapped i
ts turtle beak helplessly, unable to twist far enough around to nip its attacker’s leg.

  And more were joining the fray.

  The company pounded breathlessly along the shore, keeping one eye on the trail, one on the beasts, and one on Snowwhisper, who was trotting along with the rest of them. Froech was doing his best to keep Nuada upright. Nuada himself seemed to be hanging on, though his face was almost white.

  Three-quarters of the way now, and Gary was waiting for them.

  No—he had turned and was running back toward the nearest beast. And as he did, he wadded up the shirt, and—when he dared come no nearer, for the beast had lowered its snout to meet him head-on—threw the bloody fabric at it so that it slapped across the Watcher’s eyes, effectively blinding it.

  The beast shook its head, but a sleeve snagged on one of the short horns near its eye and would not come off.

  “Toro! Toro!” Gary cried happily, and with that he raised his spear and thrust it into the gap between head and shell—exactly, had he known, as David had done during his own first desperate encounter with the creatures.

  Smoke welled forth, a foulness in the air, and blood came streaming out to hiss on the copper sand.

  One of its fellows saw it then, or smelled it, and bellowed loudly before it began a mad clamber across the wounded creature’s shell to clamp its jaws firmly in the loose, naked skin at the base of the neck. The others quickly joined it.

  “Gah!” Liz cried. “Gross!”

  “But he’s bought us the time we need,” Froech panted. “Hurry now. We have but a short way to go.”

  And so they ran, as they had never run before, their leaders pattering beside Ailill’s prints, the followers simply doing their best to keep up, with Froech holding the now unconscious Nuada upright before him.

  Gary joined them a moment later, a gloss of sweat sticking his hair to his forehead. He grinned, and raised hooked fingers to Alec. “You owe me one, kiddo.”

  Alec clasped the hand in the MacTyrie Gang grip. “Right on, bro!”

  “But did you have to throw away the spear like that?” Liz groaned.

  Gary looked suddenly contrite. “Oh, well, I kinda got carried away.”