Rise of the Retics

by T J Lantz

  “That dang fur tailed . . .” the sheriff’s insults trailed off before he said something in front of Jaxon that he regretted. “He’s had it out for your boy since he arrived here.” Jaxon could see the annoyance on the sheriff’s face. Quicktrigger was a man of the law and certainly believed that lawbreakers needed punishment, but he also strongly felt that those punishments needed to fit the crime.

  “It’s not Alastar’s fault. The Florensians are a very proud race. Jaxon’s look reminds them of their greatest humiliation. They may have grown to accept their curse, but they still blame the demons who did it to them.” William’s voice sounded almost compassionate. Jaxon noted that he would need to remind his foster father that the demons were the winners in that little history story. You’re not supposed to feel bad for losers, you’re supposed to laugh at their weakness.

  Jaxon decided he wasn’t going to worry about Captain Bushytail’s reaction if his daughter got hurt. This whole thing was the Forest Folk’s idea anyway; no one could get mad at him just for publically proving his innocence at his own trial.

  “It’s really no big deal, Sheriff. Didn’t you hear him? I’m fighting a girl! It’s going to be hysterical! I wonder if she’ll wear a pretty dress or maybe fix her hair up. It is going to be a big event after all.” Jaxon laughed at the thought of his opponent dancing around the arena in a pretty powder blue evening gown as he playfully stabbed her with a sword. Jaxon assumed that would be the part where she started crying.

  “Jaxon, as usual, you speak of things with which you do not understand,” William snapped. “Samantha Bushytail is Alastar’s only child. He has trained her since she was old enough to walk to one day be the first female member of the Acorn Guard. She may be young and small, perhaps even smaller than you are, but she’s just as deadly as her father. You are a fool if you choose not to take this seriously.”

  “Listen to your father, boy. He’s been around a lot longer than you have,” declared Sheriff Quicktrigger with authority. “You should just be lucky that these trials aren’t to the death any longer. I mean accidents still happen, but it used to be you couldn’t stop the fight ‘til one person was gone, but now you can yield and accept your loss at any time. Much less barbaric that way. Punishment for your guilt is then decided by the Lord Protector himself. Might not be a bad idea to yield right away upon entering the arena, Jaxon. Better to just take your punishment than the beating little Ms. Samantha Bushytail might give ya.”

  For the most part, Jaxon was annoyed that he wouldn’t get to kill the squirrel, but strangely enough, he also felt a tiny bit of relief. Jaxon brushed off that feeling, assuming that he was just a little worried that he would stain his clothes with her blood.

  “C’mon Sheriff, you must be kidding,” Jaxon responded. “There’s no way some three foot tall rodent girl is gonna get the best of Jaxon Miniheart. She’ll be the one begging for mercy within seconds. No girl has ever beaten me in anything.” Jaxon neglected to include the part about no girl ever being willing to spend enough time with him to have the opportunity to try to beat him at anything.

  William let out a long, deep sigh. “Whatever you say, son. Just promise me you’ll concede at the beginning and not do something stupid like try to fight. Nothing good can come of it, even if you were to win.”

  “Sure, whatever you say,” replied Jaxon as he practiced shadow boxing with the wall behind him.

  “Now Jaxon, go get some rest, you’re going to need it. Good luck tomorrow, I’ll be there to watch, but I doubt Saan will be willing. It would kill her to watch you get hurt.” And with that, the annoyed satyr turned and left the sheriff’s office, muttering to himself about the ignorance of children.

  Jaxon, however, was so busy running through his list of victory poses that he didn’t even notice that his foster father had decided to leave him in jail for the night.

  Chapter 7:

  Just like fish in a barrel

  Tyranna

  Gluesk Port, Poland

  October 26, 1503

  The sights and sounds of the harbor city were magnificent. As Tyranna entered the town, action exploded around her. Many overlapping conversations took place in languages she had never heard. Men and women loudly haggled over prices, merchants screamed over crowds, and children ran around seemingly unsupervised.

  Most of the street vendors sold fish, but it seemed that many of the merchants that had come to ship out their wares were also selling excess stock right out of the back of their carts. She saw pots and utensils being purchased on one side of her while a man was buying a horse on the other. Tyranna hadn’t been to another place to compare it to, but she was sure Gluesk had to be the biggest and busiest city in the world.

  As her eyes took in her surroundings, Tyranna was abruptly knocked to the side by a man who rushed by her. She looked up at him, waiting for his apologies, but none came. The old man just turned his white-bearded face forward and kept going, as if nothing stood in his way.

  Tyranna shrugged. At least he wasn’t trying to kidnap me, she thought half kiddingly. She wondered if that idea was going to cross her mind every time a new person brushed by her.

  The image of her slain teacher jumped back into her mind. She had been able to keep from dwelling on it for most of the morning as she focused on what to think about Branchy and his stories. She fought to push it back out of her head, determined not to let her grief impede her ability to make decisions at the moment.

  She tried to concentrate on the ideas that Branchy had told her. Was there really a hidden city full of mythical creatures out there somewhere? Was she really one of them? It was so hard to believe. She felt so human, not that she really knew what human felt like. She supposed she could have been confusing the feeling with anything really. For all she knew, she was feeling like a puppy, or perhaps even a worm. She really hoped not, though. She hated worms.

  The fish monger closest to the western dock wasn’t as busy as some of the others. “The fewer people around me, the better,” she muttered to herself as she turned to approach the stand.

  As she got closer, the wafting smell of saltwater and fresh fish made her hands shake nervously. She’d never been asked to purchase goods before. She knew the basics from watching the brothers deal with visiting merchants. They would tell you how much they wanted, you would argue, and eventually a price would be reached and money exchanged. The concept was certainly simple enough, but like many things in life, until one actually engages in the process themselves, it was a frightening prospect.

  Making sure her cloak was wrapped tightly around her in an attempt to hide her muddy bedclothes, Tyranna walked up to the market stand. She tried to remain poised and composed, though the rocky ground was a great bother to her bare, scratched up feet, even with the remnants of Branchy’s mud wrap on them.

  The man working the stand was much younger than Tyranna expected, only a few years older than she was. He was tall and thin, and he moved with fine, fluid grace as he quickly haggled, took money, and cut and packed fish like he had been doing it for fifty years. Though the air was cool, with the crisp breeze of a new autumn, the boy’s chestnut hair dripped with the sweat of his labor.

  “Ahem,” she coughed in her hand, unsure exactly how to get a seller’s attention. He paid her no mind and continued wrapping the two silver fish in front of him. They were both very large, each over a foot long and easily weighing ten pounds. They had scales that sparkled like fine jewelry as the sun bounced off their bodies.

  “Excuse me, sir,” she said in a small voice, trying hard to maintain the politeness that she was sure a young lady would undoubtedly use at the market. After all, if a person couldn’t be polite when shopping, then what kind of person were they really?

  He continued to ignore her, even turning his back to her to grab his next load of fish. Tyranna began to get annoyed. She had always been taught to use manners and courtesy toward everyone she met and had always expected them to do the same. She wondered if anything i
n the world was the way she believed.

  Her patience began to waver. She decided to try a more direct approach.

  “I SAID EXCUSE ME, SIR!” This time she left no doubt that she could be heard. The tall brown-haired boy snapped his head up to look at her. He quickly darted his eyes up and down, taking notice of her disgusting clothes, knotted hair, and mud streaked face. Even as he glanced at her, he never stopped moving, continuing to do his job like she was little more than a fly landing on his neck—a minor annoyance, nothing more.

  “We don’t give nothing to beggars, little girl,” he snapped angrily. “Get outta here.”

  He turned his eyes away from her after he spoke, making her feel like she was less than nothing. She looked down at herself, so dirty from having spent the night sleeping in mud and marching almost non-stop for several hours. She smelled like she hadn’t bathed in weeks, though it had only been four days, maybe five at most. Her bare feet were blistered and bloody from being dragged around and stepping on rocks and twigs as she made her way through the forest. Her hair was so tangled it could have been mistaken by the wharf rats for their new home, and her mud-caked clothing was no better. It looked like she had lived outside for weeks rather than just one rainy night. Though appearing as a beggar was certainly not her intention, she clearly looked the part.

  Tyranna plunged her hand into the pocket of her wolf-skin cloak, wrapping her fingers around the silver coins that Sir Reginald had given to her. She was going to show them to the boy to make him understand that she was a paying customer, not just a beggar girl. Before she could, a single voice caught her attention. It had an accent that she certainly would never forget as long as she lived.

  She turned from the cart and sprinted toward the coast as Branchy had instructed. She could hear the scream of the accented man as he yelled his orders in a foreign language. They had seen her.

  She desperately tried to ignore the sharp pains running through her feet as she took each step on the rocky pathway. She grimaced from the discomfort, wishing she had found more time to play outside barefoot so that maybe she could have toughened them up a bit.

  Her feet breathed a tiny sigh of relief as she hit the sandy beach a few moments later. Despite the respite from pain, the sand made her feel like she was moving in slow motion. She could feel her pursuers catching up to her, as the clinking of their armor grew louder and louder in her ear. Even though her legs ached with pain and exhaustion, she pushed them harder than she had ever tried before, hoping that her increased effort would buy her the time she needed.

  Despite sweat and tears blurring her vision, Tyranna saw a welcome sight wading through the water. She screamed for help in between strained heavy breaths, hoping the giant tree-ent had good hearing.

  He did. She watched as he erupted from the water. He moved far quicker than she ever thought possible. The sight of her newfound protector rushing to her defense invigorated her body, giving her the second wind she needed to close the gap between them.

  Branchy reached toward her with his massive, gnarled hand and grabbed her solidly by the arm. He yanked Tyranna behind him in a single smooth motion, shielding her thin frame with his thick, rough body. For the first time Tyranna could see just how close the men really were. She knew that they would have caught her if she had been forced to run much longer.

  Looking around Branchy’s massive leg, Tyranna saw that it was the same three men that had taken her the night before, plus one more. The new man was the shortest of the four and walked with a hunch that made him appear even smaller. He wore no armor, just simple black cloth with a brown leather belt. He had the burning heart sewn onto the left breast of his garment.

  In his right hand he carried a lit lantern, though it was morning and quite bright out. For a moment no one spoke, each side waiting for the other to make a move. After a few moments, the man with the strange accent spoke.

  “Ent,” he said, the word dripping with insult as he stared at Branchy. “It seems that we have the opportunity to meet again. How utterly delightful. This time you don’t have the opportunity to sneak up on us, eh? No, no, no. This time it is I, El Jefe, that has surprised you.”

  El Jefe appeared like he had been traveling as hard as Tyranna. The large bags under each of his eyes revealed that they had moved through the night to set their ambush, just as Branchy feared.

  He stared past Branchy, right at her. He had the same look of hate and anger for her that he had for the tree-ent. To him, she was nothing more than another evil to exterminate for the world’s betterment.

  “You are not going to hurt this girl, Human!” Branchy growled in a voice that sent the seagulls fleeing. “Now leave us, before you come to regret this morning ever dawned.”

  Tyranna noticed how the word “human” glistened with hatred as it flowed from Branchy’s mouth. She had never imagined there could be something in the world that would harbor such hatred for humanity, yet here it was shielding her from harm.

  “Get to the water, Tyranna,” Branchy whispered as he took a step back into the sea. The rushing tide made it so Tyranna was already almost knee deep. She wondered when would be a good time to inform him that she had never learned to swim.

  “That is not a smart decision, Ent. My men will turn both of you into pin cushions before you hit the first breaker.” As he spoke, the two soldiers t removed large wooden crossbows from their backs and took aim. El Jefe smiled as he made his threats, obviously enjoying his work today.

  “Alright, Human. You win. Let the girl go and you may have me. I will return with you as your prize. Certainly I, a Roune-Knight of the hidden city have more value to your superiors than a little girl.”

  Branchy slowly tried to shift his body mass to be more directly between Tyranna and the crossbows, careful not to make any sudden moves. Small waves crashed around them spraying foamy water into the air. Though both the sea and the air were extremely cold, Tyranna hardly noticed. She was far more engrossed by the arrows aimed at her chest. Crossbows had a way of doing that to a person.

  “Your time has come as well, Ent ,” proclaimed El Jefe in a loud, thunderous voice. “Today is the day that you will pay for the evil born within your body.”

  He nodded to the fourth man, who responded by smashing his lantern down in front of the two crossbow wielding soldiers. A small flame spread as the lamp oil poured out across the ground. Taking their cue, each of the crossbowman dipped their arrow tips into the fire. They came up blazing, like two tiny orange infernos. For the first time since they met, Branchy seemed uneasy.

  “I see your plan, my good lord, but I think more discussion is in order before you do anything you might regret.” The hatred was gone from Branchy’s voice, replaced by a cheerful and respectful new approach.

  “Ha! See that, men? I’ve gone from being a mere human, to a lord now! Amazing what a little fire can do to cleanse a creature’s soul. Why, it makes them downright polite at times.” El Jefe laughed so hard at his wit that Tyranna thought he might fall over. His three men joined in boisterously, no one wanting to be the person who laughed the least.

  “My lord, you misunderstand,” Reginald continued in his gentlemanly voice. “I merely want you to know that I have a ship waiting out at sea. Way out there, just beyond the horizon.” The ent reached his long arm out pointing in a direction just behind where he stood. Tyranna followed with her eyes. She thought she saw a glimpse of a ship bobbing up and down, but she couldn’t be sure.

  “If you allow us to go in peace, we have a large cargo hold full of gems and gold from the New World. They could all be yours. Riches beyond your wildest dreams.” Sir Reginald forced his thorny teeth into a smile in an attempt to show the men his sincerity.

  El Jefe did not seem convinced. The smile melted off as face immediately. He stared strongly at Sir Reginald, his gaze piercing through his bark, straight into his heart.

  “Stay vigilant men, as this monster is trying to corrupt us with his words of temptation,” cried El Jef
e in a loud voice. “We are stronger men than that, are we not?” Less than enthusiastic agreements echoed from his soldiers. Laughing at his jokes was one thing but giving up the chance at riches to appear loyal was a whole different story.

  “But Jefe, maybe we should at least consider his offer.” The request came from the shorter, fatter soldier. “He said gold and gems . . . not just one or the other.”

  “Shut up you idiot!” El Jefe snapped. Giving one more long look at the ent and the young girl behind him, only one more word came forth from El Jefe’s mouth: “Fire!”

  The words tore through the air, stunning Tyranna. She waited to be riddled with fiery holes, but felt only two rough bark arms wrap themselves around her torso. Sir Reginald covered as much of her body with his own as he could. He leaned in close to her ear and whispered, “Think only of the fish and swim toward the boat!”

  Tyranna could see flames bursting from his back where the two arrows had hit, as if his body was little more than kindling for campfire. Behind him, the soldiers were reloading for another salvo. Before Tyranna had the chance to ask to explain that she had no idea how to swim, her breath was stolen from her. She had been plunged to the floor of the sea by Branchy’s mighty hand. He held her down, pinned under two feet of water, as she kicked violently and tried to get her head above the surface. All she could see as she flailed around was a raging ball of fire above the surface of the cloudy water. Flames overtook Branchy’s entire frame.

  As her lungs began to burn and scream for air, thousands of images floated through her head—Lipkos, Brother Tychus’s murdered body, a giant talking tree telling her she was a shape-shifter, gaining her trust, and then trying to drown her . . . right after he told her to think of some stupid fish— some stupid, shiny, silver fish at the market.