"I don't suppose we can leave this place after we recruit him?" Fey Voletta asked. She pulled her hood back, revealing the intricate, geometric scarring on her face. Self-imposed, these graceful scars, covered her entire body and indicated her devotion to blade worship.
"We leave only if the city breaks the contract."
"How likely is that?" She didn't expect a favorable reply.
"Stagwater has violated their contract again and again. We won't forgive much more."
Non walked over to Fey Voletta. A massive metal finger touched her gently beneath the chin and raised her up face to look at his.
"If our recruitment of this man is upended, so is the arrangement. The contract is voided." Non's eyes glowed blue.
"Whatever," she said, pulling away. "We should be running this entire blasted world."
"Steel Jacks are guests here," Non said. "We serve our human hosts by enforcing their laws. If we chose to rule, that would make us invaders." Non's eyes grew bright again.
A silent moment passed between them.
"First thing in the morning, I'll see what I can learn from the guardsmen. Then I'll work on the magistrates." Fey Voletta smiled, gave a bow, and turned toward the door. She looked over her shoulder at Non. "I'll do my best," she said, then closed the door on the Steel Jack's grimy office. The thought of returning to civilization gave her a bigger charge than slaughtering this entire piss pot town.
Almost.
◊ ◊ ◊
Exotic taxidermied animals hung on the walls. Elaborately carved and heavily polished woodwork trimmed windows and bookcases. Tables and chairs of gleaming mahogany sat silent and solid on the sienna carpet, without so much as a hint of a wobble.
Kale, Haste, and Fitch convened at a corner table in a private room at The Stagwater Magisterial Club. Kale dropped Arden Voss' book onto the table between them. Haste plopped himself down in a chair and opened the book. Fitch, like the toady he was, snuggled right up to Haste. Kale looked over their shoulders at the tangle of papers and miscellaneous crap that was supposed to be a book.
The old man kept a lot of notes. But like all of these seer types, his organization was for shit. Voss apparently thought scrawling random notes any which way on the page was a good idea.
Haste paged through the volume while Kale puffed on a cigar. He flicked his ashes in the general direction of the freestanding stone ashtray. Such foolishness trying to decipher Voss' nonsense.
"Do you have to do that in here?" Fitch waved away the smoke from Kale's cigar. He pinched his face into a knot. "Filthy habit."
Kale started to speak, "How about I put it out on your —."
"Here it is," Fitch nearly fell out of his chair he was leaning over so far. "It talks about a witch named Shola that Voss put on his seer council." The corner of Haste's rubbery lip curled into a sneer at the mention of the witch's name.
"What about the traveler with the horns?" Kale pointed at the book with his cigar.
"I just found the entry, you dolt. Give me a chance to examine it."
Kale lunged at Fitch like he was going to throw a punch.
"If you can't act like adults, you are of no use to me." Haste said as he pulled the book away from Fitch.
Kale and Fitch locked eyes. As the pretend-preacher tapped his senfen in a subtle taunt, Kale fantasized about choking him with it. Not just strangling him with the chain, oh no. He would be ramming the pendant down Fitch's throat to block his airway.
"Hmm. Cast out for incitement and bound in exile," Haste read with a cruel grin on his lips. "What else here… Ah, she was screaming in the streets about 'a man… coming, bringing destruction, not many live,' over and over."
Haste clearly knew more about this than he let on. A seer and a liar – what a combination. Kale nearly laughed out loud. He didn't, though. It was too damn late, and he was too damn tired. All he had to do was break a chair over Haste's head and bludgeon Fitch with one of the legs, and then he could go home. And if he did that, why he'd sleep like an angel.
"What's this?" Fitch slid a crumbling paper from between the pages of the book.
Haste snatched it out of his hand and read aloud:
The Darkness Sleeps.
The flame shrinks as a widow weeps.
Shadows planted long ago find rich soil in which to grow.
A traveler comes from days long gone. Troubles dark are soon to dawn.
Heads shout to make their voices heard, but cannot comprehend the word.
The Darkness Stirs.
The flame flickers and dire death occurs.
Shadows planted in years gone by have breached the soil and seen the sky.
The traveler drags the darkness on. The weak are failed by the strong.
Leaders know not what's been stirred. They misread and misspeak the word.
The Darkness Walks.
The flame goes out and midnight stalks.
Shadows grow and bear dark fruit. Dark new seeds grow strong in root.
The traveler can save not one. The darkness brought can't be undone.
Leaders have all failed the herd. All is lost in the unknown word.
At the bottom, the words You have been warned were followed by a slashy signature: Shola of Scarecrows.
"Do you remember her? Do you remember anything about this?" Kale asked.
"No," said Haste said before he even had time to think about it. "Arden Voss did not discuss his appointments with me."
"Bound in exile?" Fitch asked, squeezing his senfen. "They tied her up in the woods?"
"Although why they didn't send her to the creature in the north…" Haste sipped his wine.
Seeing Haste drink, Fitch took a drink of his own wine. Kale fought to keep himself from slapping the ass kisser out of Fitch.
"She's long dead," Kale said. "Bound in exile? It means they chained her to a tree in the woods. Animals would have devoured her in a week."
"Of course." Haste put on a look of self-satisfaction. "But she's not the problem. The man in her prediction is. Soon enough, the Steel Jacks will be an asset, not a burden. Then we control everything. Increase opium pine production, increase exports. By the time I'm through, mothers will be feeding opium pine to their babies. Wealth and influence, men!"
Kale knew exactly whose wealth and influence Haste was referring to — none other than Haste's.
Fitch gazed down at his senfen. "Most importantly, Stagwater must find faith. Under my spiritual guidance, this city will become a true city of God, the last sanctuary in these end times."
"Even you don't believe that." Kale said. "When you tell people the world is going to end, they tend to notice when it doesn't."
"Thankfully," Haste said with a shushing gesture for both of them, "I'll be somewhere warm, managing the distribution of the opium pine. However you two run the day-to-day operations of Stagwater, I care little."
Fitch put a hand on the book in front of Haste. "What if Voss's seer council was right and the witch's predictions were all nonsense. What if this man doesn't actually bring destruction? Maybe we should take her words with a grain of salt."
"I saw him myself when I traveled the Pheonal Path. Was I was tricked by the trance?" Haste folded his arms, and scowled at Fitch. "Or are you calling me a fraud?" Haste's voice came out slightly louder that it needed to be.
Fitch's face flushed. "I'm not saying anything like that. Food for thought is all." He shrunk away.
"Our plans are near fruition now, but they're ever so fragile. This is a crucial time. We can't take chances. If the traveler returns, that's the end for him."
"I'll post men on the road to the south." Kale ground out his cigar. "That's what you saw in the vision, right?" Having men in the forest south of town for the next few nights meant delaying some plans of his own. He needed privacy to conduct his affairs in the woods. But sacrifices would have to be made. Kale chuckled at the double meaning.
Haste nodded.
"First thing in the morning, then." Kale ga
ve a stiff bow to show he was leaving, and that it wasn't up for debate. He hoped this damn five-horned drifter would come soon.
Chapter 5
Chuggie awoke the same way he always did — confused. A patchwork quilt of small animal furs covered him. He yanked it up over his head to block out the light. Doing so exposed his feet to the morning chill.
His feet, he decided, shouldn't be quite so cold. They should be snug and warm inside their boots. He tried to remember where his boots might be. Nothing came to mind.
Something dug into his back. Had he slept on a rock? He lifted himself and turned a bit. There they were; the boots that should have been on his feet. Rolling off the boots gave him such relief that he groaned like a sleepy walrus.
Eyes burning and barely open, Chuggie peeked from under the blanket. Nearby Shola screamed.
Everything came back to him then. He'd spent the night at Shola's Cliffside Resort. Yes, and he'd fed her plenty of wine the night before precisely so he could lie moaning in peace all morning. Perhaps she would know why he'd slept on his boots. He smelled smoke.
Chuggie threw off the blanket and sprang to his feet.
Flames roared as they engulfed Shola's storage shed. She swung a wet blanket at the blaze, but she was losing ground.
Fighting the fire alongside her, two scarecrows tried to help her by batting at the flame. One succeeded only in setting its arms on fire. It kept trying to fight the blaze, even as the flames spread to its painted pumpkin head.
"Chuggie! Help!" Shola had screamed herself hoarse trying to wake him.
Chuggie staggered barefoot to the shed with the fur quilt in tow.
They swatted at the blaze with their blankets as scarecrows arrived with buckets of well water. Chuggie flung the water at the burning structure as quickly as the scarecrows could supply it. Smoke rose in a column. He hoped they weren't sending signals to the Stagwater sentinels.
Chuggie and Shola finally managed to snuff out the fire by smothering it and throwing water on it. Chuggie examined the blackened husk of the shed. From the heap of burnt food, he pulled either a charred potato or a blackened turnip. He took a bite to see which, but he couldn't be sure.
The scarecrow that had caught fire burned down to cinders. It was now little more than a smoldering stick figure stretched on the ground. A stick figure with a burnt, busted-open pumpkin head. Several other scarecrows gathered around their fallen comrade.
Chuggie opened his mouth to comfort Shola when a burning scarecrow lumbered out of the forest. Its carved-pumpkin head sloughed off, broke apart on the ground, and smoldered with a smell like pie. The rest of it collapsed in the garden, a heap of crackling embers and burning flannel.
A drumming of hooves thundered from behind the burning scarecrow. The sound grew like a tidal wave. A snort and then flame shot from the underbrush. In its wake, a fireboar stomped into sight with smoke puffing from its nostrils. Its thick, soot-black mane stood stiff, impervious to the morning's breeze.
Chuggie snarled and darted at the hog, forgetting he wore no boots. As he sprinted, his hands unwound the anchor. Passing the burning scarecrow, he snatched up one of its legs to use as a bludgeon. Twirling the anchor furiously with his left hand, he brandished the scarecrow leg with his right. Chuggie charged the massive boar. Shola screamed at him, but her words were lost to the whoosh of the chain and the angry squealing of the fireboar.
It snorted a cloud of oily flames at him. With an arm thrown up to protect his face, he sprawled backward and landed painfully on his chain. By the time the flames dissipated, the pig was nowhere in sight.
Chuggie ran after the culprit. Thorns and brambles tore at his feet, but he paid no mind. He stopped at the edge of the woods and turned to wave at Shola. She waved back with both hands, apparently disapproving of his decision to pursue. When did women ever want their men to go hunting? He wished for a second he had his boots along for the hunt.
The fireboar had been easy to track for the first quarter mile or so. It had left Shola's yard in a hurry, leaving behind a trail of hoof-torn soil. As Chuggie followed it deeper into the woods, the tracks became less obvious.
Chuggie wanted to smoke, but he fought the urge. He needed his senses sharp. Also, smoking would betray his exact position to his quarry. He tried to be stealthy, but his feet kept finding leaves to rustle, hidden puddles to sploosh in, or dry sticks to crack. His chain and anchor made sounds of their own that, oddly, blended with the sounds of the forest.
This was no drakana, thankfully. Those monstrous, reptilian predators moved like lightning and could kill you twice before your blood sprayed the ground. Their compound, insect-like eyes saw everything. Delicate ears and sensitive noses made them near impossible to evade. As if they knew he could suck them dry in a heartbeat, drakana never got too close to Chuggie. That is, never under ordinary circumstances. If agitated enough, a drakana would attack anything.
Hunting a fireboar was nothing like hunting a terpeskoa either. Alien monsters, the terpeskoa slipped through the Tetracardi Rift just months ahead of the Steel Jacks. They attacked anything that moved. Some preferred the single life while others lived in packs.Oftentimes, seeing one meant several more lurked nearby, just out of sight.
The woodwolves of Haver Gesh required bait and ambush, a method of no use against a boar such as this. Scrathes, dordalises, bearfoxes and desert kingsnakes each called for different hunting tactics. None of those tactics was of any use against a fireboar.
Chuggie had hunted plenty of pigs, but never barefoot and without a bow. A gelfhound would be pretty nice to have right about now. A full hunting party of spearmen, bowmen, and booze bearers would be best of all. When a man hunts a fireboar, the hog hunts him back.
Fishing in his pockets, Chuggie found a small folding knife. He put it to use whittling branches into spears, and carving his initials into a tree trunk for no good reason.
The boar probably shared a den with a sow. And they probably had piglets. The boar could actually have more than one sow, as if one wasn't punishment enough. Each of them could have piglets. And them mama pigs would go absolutely berserk in defense of their young.
A female fireboar, he knew, would not pour flames out of her snout. Not enough to make a fuss about anyway. Her tusks, however, were longer than the male's. The two would work in unison. The male would spray a cloud of fire at the target, and the female would charge from the side. From there, a number of things could happen — mostly painful.
Chuggie leaned his head back and murmured, "Challenge accepted."
A drumming of hooves grew suddenly loud, and something heavy smashed into him just as he turned. Chuggie flew in the air and landed ten feet away with his spears strewn about. He fumbled for the anchor as he rolled. The hog, he guessed female since he wasn't on fire, snorted and glowered and lowered its head to charge.
"You shit-eating piss bag," he growled as he scrambled out of her path. The sow stormed off into the woods carried away by the momentum of her charge. "You won that round, bacon!" Chuggie raised his fist. "You wanna dance, piggies? I'll dance on your stinkin' hide while I eat your damn face-meat!" He spat twice at the pig's trail and kicked a bush. The bush acted disinterested, so he spat on it, too.
Chuggie gathered up his spears and froze, listening to the sounds of the forest. Off in the distance in the direction of the fleeing sow he heard a flock of birds take startled flight. He hunkered down and crept along the trail of churned up earth that led into the brush below. He could almost smell that pig all trussed up and slathered with plum sauce. He listened, sniffing the breeze.
A trickle of blood dribbled down his side. He'd take a look at that later. From the feeling of it, he'd need a stitch or two. A good job for Shola.
A gamy stink hit his nostrils as hog shit squished between his bare toes. He got low and ready to defend, scanning the vicinity. Dung piles of varying size dotted the ground. Big, adult-sized mounds and the tiny black droppings of hoglets littered the ground. It was a goo
d thing he didn't have his boots on. This would have been the farewell voyage for the old boots.
The bushes were lousy with wild berries and milkweed. He may not have been in the boars' lair, but he was definitely in their feeding ground. And, oh yeah, they knew damn well he was there.
Rustling and heavy animal breathing sounded nearby, no doubt an agitated boar. Chuggie scanned the area for water. It'd be mighty handy if a fireboar got in the fire starting mood. He saw no sign of water anywhere.
Chuggie picked up a handful of stones from the weedy ground. He lobbed one into the thick undergrowth where he'd heard movement. He threw another, and another.
"I know you're here, you rat-raping pile of…" He threw the last stone. It flew through the air. A demon-like squeal followed the thud as the stone struck the beast.
Chuggie crashed through the brush and sprinted toward the sound.
The sow snorted and thumped her hooves in retreat.
Another sow, gray-skinned and wild-eyed, charged from his left side.
Chuggie swung the anchor, planted his feet, and launched it at her, leaning backward against the swing. It smashed into the beast's face, spraying blood and tusk fragments into the air. She crashed off into the brush with a squeal like damnation itself, hurt but not defeated.
Another trample arose behind him. He wheeled and footed the back of the spear into the mossy ground, pointing it at the charging beast. It gored itself on the spear with a wet squeal. It flopped into the tall grass, twitching and convulsing. By its small size and thick coat of black bristles, he knew it was just a teenager in pig years.
The big ol' male from back at Shola's snorted its fireball at him. A blast of heat hammered into Chuggie and knocked him on the ground. He rolled and smacked out flames on his jacket, then scrambled to his feet just in time dive under the next fireball.
The mammoth hog charged.
Chuggie whirled and flung the anchor at the boar's face. His blow caught it on the snout. The force of it knocked the pig off course. It turned and shot more fire. It charged as Chuggie dove away, then charged again, planting the curve of its tusk in the small of Chuggie's back. Screaming in pain, Chuggie stabbed it in the side with a spear until it retreated.
Chuggie and the Desecration of Stagwater Page 7