Akantha took his meaning and silently cursed herself for not making this obvious connection. “And the other problem would be?” she inquired.
Aetos sighed. “The other problem would be that my grandfather last tilled this ground fifty years ago, when he planted it in a strain of gold plum my forefathers had cultured and brought here when we set down roots during his childhood.”
“Your kin had earned Harvest Rights to the thicket,” she concluded with a knowing nod. The Code of Men permitted only women to own lands, but if a man was responsible for the care of a long-term crop like fruit trees, after twenty consecutive years of labor the man became entitled to a significant share of the revenues generated by it under Harvest Rights. At that time, he could do as he saw fit with that share, which would gradually decrease until the end of his life, at which time sole possession passed back to the woman’s line.
Aetos nodded absently. “Those plums have been our lifeblood for a generation, but now…”
Akantha’s eyes widened as she came to realize what he was saying. “But now,” she continued for him, “there are no plum trees.” She stopped and breathed quietly, taking in the scene. “I cannot even see a trace that there had ever been plum trees, or any other kind of trees here.” She turned to Aetos and saw tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Aye, my Lady,” he said with the slightest quiver in his voice, “not a single trace. Not even a scrap of root remains in the whole field, but you should probably take a closer look for yourself,” Aetos said as he moved forward, wiping the tears from his face as he made his way into the edge of the dirt patch.
Akantha looked on in wonderment as she performed calculations to estimate how many trees there must have been here. Fifty years of growth in this region made a plum tree something like three meters tall and three meters across, so if the entire patch had been covered in them, it would have been over four thousand trees. There was no way even a small army of men could chop them down, package them and transport them out of here in such a short time, let alone remove all traces of stump and root!
She remembered the old passage chronicling the scene believed to have been made by Sky Demons: ‘It was as if the sky had opened its maw and swallowed everything which interested it, leaving behind nothing but broken dirt.’ Akantha looked over at her companions and saw the same realization in their eyes, and it made her turn cold inside.
Leonora knelt down and seemed to take an interest in something she found.
“What is it, Leonora,” Akantha asked.
Leonora shook her head. “Perhaps nothing, my Lady,” began the freckled handmaiden. “But it almost seems as though a fire of some kind were here.”
Aetos shook his head. “I saw no smoke, Hold Mistress,” he said confidently. “Nor did I smell anything upon entering the remains of the grove for the first time.”
Akantha knelt down next to her friend and ran her fingers through the mud. She found herself agreeing with both Leonora and Aetos: there was most certainly no natural fire here, but the traces of what appeared to be a very fine ash were unmistakable, mixed in across the top layer of mud.
She shook her head before rising from her knees. “Another mystery, it would seem,” she said grimly.
After they had walked in the barren thicket for a few minutes and confirmed Aetos’ assertion that there was not even a trace of root, branch or leaf to be found, he drew their attention to the western edge of the patch.
“The other thing you should see is over here,” Aetos said evenly, having regained control of his emotions. Akantha couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the man whose entire livelihood had been ripped from him in the span of a night by forces he neither understood or could figure out how to fight. Yet she was also proud of him for doing his part to help protect others from the same fate.
They walked to the western edge as he had indicated and found what he was talking about, and Akantha found herself at a loss to explain what she saw.
There was a fresh trail approximately four meters wide with absolutely no grass or grass roots to be found in the soil. The dirt was shaped in a pattern of ridges as though a gigantic, irregular-surfaced wheel had rolled along the ground, picking up every trace of grass along the way.
“Well,” Persus said dryly, “it looks like we didn’t get dressed up for nothing.”
Chapter Seven: The Hunter
They moved quickly but cautiously along the odd trail, finding nothing of further interest for several hours. Aetos had taken his bow off his back and had an arrow in hand as they made their way along the makeshift path. Persus ran out front, Akantha behind him and next to Aetos, with Leonora bringing up the rear again.
They proceeded for several kilometers until Persus motioned for them to stop and assume a low posture. Akantha knelt down and crept up to Persus’ position at the top of a gentle slope leading down to a stream a few hundred meters away. He directed her to look near a bend in the stream and when she did, she felt her heart quicken.
Near the edge of the running water, she saw two figures which were clearly not human. The first was as tall as a man, and resembled one inasmuch as it had two arms and two legs, but the similarities ended there. It was wearing a complex suit of dark brown armor that almost looked as though it were a part of its body, the way it moved in perfectly jointed segments like an insect’s carapace. Its hands were not hands at all, rather its forearms ended in long, deadly looking pincers like a crab has, and its head resembled nothing so much as a highly-stylized wedge-shaped helmet with multifaceted eyes on either side.
The second figure was smaller and didn’t even vaguely resemble a human; this one was clearly an insect of some kind. It was about a meter tall, had a meter and a half long segmented body like a wasp’s, and six multi-jointed legs supporting its weight. This one also had two more appendages that closely resembled human hands, however, bringing its total limbs to eight.
The larger, humanoid one with the claws was standing in about a half meter of water, with its pincers poised just over the surface. As Akantha watched, one pincer snapped out in a motion almost too quick to see, and came back up with a large fish gripped in its claw. Almost immediately, the other snapped down into the water and also came up with a flopping fish.
The smaller, delicate one was a few meters from the water examining a fruiting razorberry bush which Akantha had learned as a small child was incredibly poisonous. She watched with a mixture of curiosity and horror as it cocked its head side to side, examining the fruit. It then began plucking the fruit with movements that were far too quick and accurate to have been made by anything she had ever seen.
Her curiosity gave way to grim satisfaction as she watched it devour the berries as quickly as it could pick them. Anything that ate those berries raw would die within minutes from spontaneous bleeding and bone-cracking convulsions, and her satisfaction seemed vindicated when the monstrous being began spewing bits of green fluid in bursts, which must have been the creature’s approximation of emesis.
Surprisingly, after it had ejected a liter or so of the foul-looking fluid, it shuddered for a few moments and moved away from the bush, focusing instead on some of the smaller shrubs which thrive on the riverbanks near the mountain. Its movements appeared sluggish and considerably less coordinated, but amazingly it had survived consumption of the most deadly natural food Akantha knew.
Akantha crawled back a few meters and beckoned Persus to follow. When they were back with the others, she described what she had seen, careful not to let her voice rise above a whisper. They were further from those monstrosities than any human could hear, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
“We could flank them,” Persus suggested, “You, Aetos and Leonora move behind them, while I take them head-on as they are flushed toward my concealed position.”
Aetos and Leonora nodded their agreement, but Akantha was uncertain. “I don’t know if our weapons will even harm them, Persus,” she said doubtfully.
Persus grinned sa
vagely, obviously overcome with the potential of impending battle. “My Lady, we came to deal with the Sky Demon threat. I know not if these are them, but I do know that whatever they are, they have no place in Argos! If we fail to do battle with them when numbers, terrain and surprise are on our side, then we are nothing but the wild animals of which you spoke earlier.”
Akantha bit her tongue as her bodyguard’s rebuke stung more deeply than she had expected possible. After a moment’s consideration, she nodded firmly. “You are right, Persus, in both your assessment of our tactical advantages and the importance of dealing with these foul creatures, whatever they are.”
She turned to Leonora and Aetos. “Lea, Aetos, we are to quietly make our way around to the opposite bank of the stream. When we arrive there, Aetos is to fire an arrow at the small one with many legs,” she looked at Aetos and continued, “Even with the finest arrows in the Citadel, I doubt you could wound the larger armored one, but a well-placed shot might be able to harm the smaller one. Lea and I will then charge down the bank at them with myself in the lead, and you will fire as many arrows as you can before we close, at which point you follow us in.”
Everyone nodded their understanding of her plan and Akantha added, “There is no need for unnecessary sacrifice. We are here to gather information first, and deal a blow to them second.” She leveled her gaze at Persus, then Lea. “If any two of us go down, the survivors are to flee in opposite directions in the hopes they can evade these things and return to the Citadel with a report of we have seen here.”
Leonora snickered, and when Akantha snapped her attention to her, she smiled innocently. “Oh, it’s nothing, my Lady,” she said as she pulled a pair of razor sharp, black obsidian daggers from her belt and twirled them in her hands a few times. “Ask me again after the battle,” she said with a wink.
Akantha rolled her eyes and grinned. “Alright, if we’re through playing around, let’s get to it. As soon as we’re in position, we make our move. Make sure you’re in position before we are, Persus,” she ordered.
Persus nodded. “Of course, my Lady,” he replied and made for the opposite direction Akantha’s team set out in.
Akantha unslung the pike axe she had carried with her and tested its weight in her hands. She had practiced for years with such a weapon, as it was forbidden for a Land Bride to ever carry a sword that she had not accepted from her chosen Protector. To accept a sword from any man under any circumstances would automatically and irrevocably signal that she had become his Sword Bearer, and the bond between Protector and Sword Bearer is incredibly complicated to dissolve, even if both parties are agreeable.
The haft was a meter long, and one face of the weapon was a third of a meter long, slightly curved spike. On the opposite face of the weapon was a long, executioner’s style axe head. It was her weapon of choice because it was not a subtle instrument. There was no hiding in the shadows with a weapon like this, and that was how she wanted to meet these foes: head on.
She led Leonora and Aetos around to where they would start, and she crept forward on her belly until she could see the two creatures again. They had moved further upstream, which only worked to Akantha’s advantage, having brought them closer to her position, bringing the total distance to less than fifty meters. Persus would have to adjust and come further toward the action, but there would be plenty of time for him to close distance once she initiated her charge.
When Aetos was ready with his bow, Akantha counted back silently from three and gave a chopping motion. Aetos stood tall, took aim and fired an arrow with a hunter’s practiced manner. The shaft flew true, but fell short by nearly a meter and clattered on the rocks. Akantha stood and Leonora followed.
The heads of the two monsters snapped in her direction, and they began making chittering noises at each other. The larger, armored one bounded toward Akantha’s position with inhumanly large strides, easily covering ten feet per loping step.
Cursing the creature’s incredible pace, she screamed a battle cry and raised her axe above her shoulder as she charged down the hill to meet the beast. Lea matched her cry with one of her own and was not far behind, while Aetos nocked another arrow and let loose when he had again sighted his target.
The arrow flew overhead as Akantha met her quarry on the near side of the bank, bringing her axe down in a savage sweeping motion which the creature avoided, and it lashed out at her with its pincers, obviously aiming for her arms.
She let the weight of the weapon she wielded bring her arms down, and she rolled along the ground to avoid a follow-up attack. The monster tracked her movement, but was distracted when Leonora came at it from a flanking angle, and she slashed with her left-hand dagger at the creature’s protruding ‘abdomen,’ if it could be called such, that stuck out behind its legs in much the way a locust’s does.
Gathering herself, Akantha moved to keep an opposite position from the one her handmaiden had adopted, hoping to keep their quarry trapped between them where they could easily pick it apart.
Her hopes were dashed as it snapped its head side to side, then without warning leapt at least three meters in the air and hurtled over Leonora, landing with perfect balance on the other side of the red-headed woman.
Akantha was already in motion when the beast had unexpectedly leapt over her friend, as she was determined to not let the foul thing gain the upper hand. Leonora fell back, avoiding a rapid series of snapping pincers with a display of balance and grace that only a dancer could truly appreciate, and before long the two women found themselves shoulder to shoulder. From the corner of her eye, Akantha could see a look of bloodlust on her friend’s face, and it surprised her somewhat. She also heard a strange, high-pitched squealing sound coming from where the other monster was located.
But there were more important things to focus on as they quickly circled their opponent in opposite directions, careful to avoid creating too much space. When their movements were in harmony, Akantha brought the axe down in an overhand swing, and Lea slashed at the creature’s nearest leg in a spinning motion, bringing each dagger to bear on her target twice.
The thing actually caught Akantha’s axe by the haft with its pincer, but the metal extending down the length of the wooden shaft prevented it from being snapped outright, and that was all the opening Leonora needed to open a series of deep gashes on the monster’s leg, causing the limb to buckle and its grip on Akantha’s axe to be broken as it momentarily turned its attention to Leonora.
Persus came out of nowhere, charging headlong into the fray as he slammed his body into the monster, knocking it off-balance before chopping clean through one of its arms with his sword in a short, practiced downward stroke.
Akantha couldn’t tell what expression was on the creature’s face at that moment, but she liked to think it was shock. It lunged toward Persus and grabbed him by the neck with its pincer in a blindingly fast motion. Persus dropped his sword and struggled with all his might to pry open the claw, but it was a struggle he was certain to lose as his armor began to make popping noises under the strain.
Overcome with battle fury, Akantha screamed and charged with her weapon raised and swung it in a wide, unseemly arc that achieved her desired effect: the head and shoulders of the creature came flying off, and the arm which had gripped Persus’ neck was severed just below the shoulder as her axe cut cleanly through the beast’s armor. Persus’ and Akantha’s own armor was sprayed with a foul-smelling, yellowish green liquid which sizzled and smoked on contact, but fortunately none of it touched their skin.
Relieved, Persus tore the dismembered claw arm from his neck and hurled it into the riverbank. Aetos was just arriving on the scene, his sword drawn and his bow nowhere to be seen.
They stood there, silently coming to grips with the reality of the battle in which they had just partaken. Their reverie was broken when Leonora began to giggle uncontrollably as she wiped her daggers clean on the grass.
Akantha looked at her worriedly, fearing she had gone mad.
“What is wrong with you, Lea?” she asked cautiously.
The freckled handmaiden met her eyes and suppressed further outbursts. “You see, Akantha?” said Leonora, schooling her features into an innocent mask. “I told you that you were the hunter!”
There was a pause, and then all four of them erupted into a roar of laughter that was usually reserved for the late hours of the mead hall.
Chapter Eight: Recon
The trail the creatures had used to arrive at the stream was clear to see, and after only a few minutes of examination Aetos confirmed his initial impression.
“There is no doubt, Lady Zosime,” he said firmly. “The demons were alone, and judging from the direction of their tracks they came from the Stathis tuber farm to the south.” Aetos shook his head angrily.
Akantha nodded firmly. “Then the course is clear,” she said firmly. Her gaze fell on the corpses of the two monsters they had slain half an hour before. Persus had lost a knife to their acidic blood, or whatever it was that filled the innards of the two foul beasts. Eventually, Leonora had offered one of her obsidian stone blades to assist in the examination of the bodies, since they didn’t appear to be affected by the vile substance.
The larger one was essentially what it appeared to be: some sort of otherworldly monstrosity whose outer skin was as hard and chitinous as a wood beetle’s armor. The innards did not retain their shape or composition long enough for a more detailed analysis than to conclude they were decidedly unlike any animal the four had ever seen.
The smaller one had actually been speared in the small, delicate section between its abdomen and what must pass for its chest by one of Aetos’ arrows. Persus commented that he had made short work of it afterwards. The creature had been holding something which Akantha had originally believed to be a part of its hand-like appendage, but on closer examination it became clear that it was a tool, or a weapon of some kind. She had no interest in exposing herself or her party to its foul mechanisms or magics, so she stomped it and found the crunching noise it made quite satisfying.
Admiral's Lady: Eyes of Ice, Heart of Fire Page 5