by Nelson, J P
“By Hades, boys, we have us a fight in the making here. What is it, lad? You wish to settle a score? Did he ram you to hard?” I heard them all laughing and I challenged Stagus in Quandellish so they could all hear, and know that I could understand them as well.
“You wanted a piece of this …” I sneered my words, “… prove to everyone who can see that you are less than a man. Come take me now and make me your whore you human …” I hissed the word human as if it were the lowest curse imaginable.
The catcalls and laughter among our captors made it clear my words were understood. And Stagus’s face revealed that he realized his very manhood had been challenged in the open. Before these bandits he was going to have to deal me my place, or be forever branded and scorned wherever stories were told. Even worse, he may be forced to become a ‘boy pet’ in the manner he had imposed on teens for so many years.
Among those captive I saw Hoscoe, Carrot and Bug. I thought a moment of Carrot and what he must have gone through. Stagus had been clearly caught off guard by this elvin boy he had manhandled two years before. “If you beat a man’s mind, you beat the man,” Ames told me. I didn’t know if I had beaten his mind, but I had definitely shaken it up.
Everyone in the camp was in an uproar and our captures were making a circle. Mahrq was working the group up and Stagus and I were each taken to opposite sides of the ‘ring’. These bandits were reveling in the spectacle and laying bets.
Our bonds were cut and my chain irons removed. Gingerly I massaged my wrists where they had been bound and flexed my fingers. Yet I stared at my adversary with hawk-like intent.
For the first time I was given the chance to meet my oppressor on even terms. The fire of my anger was strong and I reveled in it, welcomed it into every fiber of my being. There was no fear, no hesitation, and this time I was ready.
But I felt something else, too. I felt So’Yeth. Beneath my feet there was a pulsing energy, as if it were asking to enter my body. I opened myself and embraced the sensation and felt a rush of what seemed to be raw, primal essence wash through me.
A command was given and we made way to the center. The open space was about forty-five feet in diameter. All around us were brigands with crossbows at the ready, but I had no intention of trying to escape. Stagus now needed to beat me. In fact he needed to humiliate me, and I had invited him to prove dominance by raping me here in the open.
As we circled I saw that this time he was uncertain. He had been caught by surprise, first by the raid in which he lost, and now by my own actions.
I had been training daily for the possibility of this moment, but was under no delusions. Stagus was deadly. And in this state of mind he would not play. At the first mistake I made he would have me.
My physical maturity could be compared to a human of around sixteen years old. But I was more than half again as strong, with twice the endurance and three times the speed and coordination of a human boy my size and apparent conditioning. The human body grew too fast, as a result, most males spent their teen years fighting with lack of coordination and irregular growth spurts; not so with elves. We grew smooth and ever steady like a Blue Tip Willow Tree. I had an edge this time; an edge he wouldn’t, hopefully, wouldn’t be expecting.
On the other hand, Stagus had the years of experience, superior strength and size, and the psychological knowledge that he had whipped me only two years before.
My stance was like a cat and I moved with snakelike fluidity, searching for the right moment and the right strike. I wouldn’t have too many chances at this, and most likely only one. So it had to be right.
He, on the other hand, was circling careful, trying to figure me out. He started to get that evil smirk and he was recovering from his shock. The seasoned fighter was there and making his presence known.
Stagus began to move in a rhythm, working his feet like someone who had been schooled in the art of fisticuffs. I knew rhythm. I grew up with my momma’s music. I thought to myself, ‘Stagus … you step with a perfect four-four timing.’
Then it hit me, I knew how to win. I knew how to beat Stagus. It was cruel and I begged my momma’s memory for forgiveness, but this was war, and war began with the mind.
I felt the fire blaze from my soul and through my eyes as I asked in a taunting voice, “Did my momma like it?”
For an instant I saw his face register surprise and he stopped cold in his tracks. Then I darted in fast and low to my right side and hit him with a solid left cross into the wind. I followed with two hard rights to the kidney and spinning him around I landed an overhand left that shattered his nose and sprayed blood all over. The crowd went wild with yells.
I was doing something Ames said was extremely rare; I was fighting South-Paw style, which employed a right leading stance. This was something left-handed fighters did and left-handed fighters were very few and far between.
My onslaught staggered Stagus back as I came in hard with a thrusting left toe-kick into his groin. As his hands dropped to his lower region and he buckled over, I followed through with a snapping right kick up into his chin. He reeled from my blitz and I whipped a right-left punch combination to the cheeks, followed with another hard right upper-cut to the solar plexus. It doubled Stagus over and the wind came right out of him. Then I grabbed his hair and yanked hard back and down, as he had thrown me two years before. He hit the ground hard on his back and I followed up by leaping up into the air and coming down solid into his rib cage with my folded knee.
His hands and arms immediately covered his ribs for protection and I saw him buckle onto his right side. I mounted him then and grabbing his hair I measured several blows into his eyebrow ridges, opening the flesh in a long gash clear to the bone.
Now holding him by the collar, I began to methodically slap him across the face while screaming at him, “Do-you-like-it … you-filth … you-son-of-a-human-pig …” punctuating my words with alternating open and back-handed blows. Somewhere in the background I could hear the fascinated shouts of our spectators, but it mattered not to me.
Stagus managed to catch my timing and slammed me into the stomach and kneed me off of him. I rolled, but he had no authority in his blow. I had taken it to him early and so fast he had been caught completely off guard. Worse, he had severely underestimated me. He had taken it for granted I would be easy to beat again. It’s not something I would forget. Never underestimate anyone, ever.
He made his way to his feet and hunched over his right side. From under his brow he looked at me, and through a mouth frothing with blood he said in Quandellish, “You little slink … You really are crazy, crazier ‘en a rabid wolf. Cordis was right.” Then he started to laugh, an evil and sadistic laugh.
It was all I could take. Inside me something snapped. I yelled and growled like some wild beast and lunged into him. He tried to ward me off like he had two years ago, but it was no good. I caught his leg and carried him down. Falling into his groin and between his legs I pulled back and rammed my fist into his crotch, then again, and again a third time.
I did a dive roll over him to get free of his legs and came up facing him, my fists bloody but up and ready. He tried to get to his knees and I grabbed him by his matted hair and rammed my knee into his face, shattering bones. Then I cocked my right way back and struck wildly into his jaw. I felt bones break in my wrist and hand as pain shot through my arm into my shoulder. It was a badly delivered blow but I hesitated only a moment.
It seemed So’Yeth was humming beneath me and a quickening of renewed strength rushed through me. My hand and arm suddenly popped as I felt the bones come back together. I felt harder, stronger, tougher than ever before.
Turning Stagus by the shoulder I rammed my left fist deep and up into his solar plexus again, seemingly lifting him up off of his feet. Holding him in place I hit him thrice more with the same effect. He buckled to his knees and I stood behind him, holding the collar of his mantle I reached high into the air and brought my elbow down into his neck and shoulder,
all the while screaming like a banshee.
I don’t remember how many times I hit Stagus that way, but his bones broke every time and he was dead long before I quit. They had been trying to pull me off, but I wouldn’t be contained. My back and sides received all manner of blows, then something hard slammed into my head twice as I felt something break and splinter. Everything started to go in and out of focus and I staggered back like a drunkard to get my bearings. Then I was hit in the back of the head again.
Why was I always getting slammed in the back of the head?
The whole world was spinning and spots were everywhere in front of my eyes. My feet didn’t seem to want to go where they were supposed to go. Over on the side I thought I saw a stunned, but nodding Hoscoe. Then he seemed to wince and from the side of my vision I thought I saw a club moving my way, this time to the side of my head. My hands wouldn’t move and flapped uselessly by my side. An explosion of lights went off inside my skull, and then the ground reached up and slapped me hard in the face.
Chapter 14
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THE DARKNESS SEEMED to last forever. Then from somewhere, I thought I could hear someone singing softly. How long had it been since I had heard that sound? But it was there. Not loud, but oh so subtle. As if it were far away, but still so near.
I felt wetness on my face and head, and the taste of mountain soil. Where was I? The throbbing in my head hurt worse than anything I had ever felt.
My momma, I had found my momma on the refuse pile and someone hit me in the head. I was going to be beaten by Cordis. I wanted to face Cordis one on one. I wanted to …
No … no, that was long ago. But how long? I struggled to move and heard an elvin voice way up above me. Wait, not elvin, a voice speaking in Elvish, right down to the perfect accent. But who?
“Sed?” There it was, I heard it again, just a bit more clear this time.
“Sed? You are hurt. Can you hear me? Your head is in pretty bad shape.”
Gentle but firm hands sponged warm water over the back of my head and naked shoulders. The back of my head? I could taste dirt. I was laying on my stomach, then. Somehow I knew it was nighttime and in the far distance I thought I heard the howling call of a wolf.
Softly the voice came again, “Sed? Can you hear me? It is Hoscoe.”
I heard another voice, husky and deep but quietly speaking the Lohngish tongue, “Will he make it, sir?” I knew that voice too, but who? I couldn’t think.
A long moment passed, and then Hoscoe replied in Lohngish, “Mon’Gouchett, I do not know. See here? His head took an awful beating. I think his skull has been fractured. When I tried to clean it … here … I felt what seemed like a couple of pieces move.”
I heard the second person breathe in deeply through clenched teeth, and then exhale slowly, “Wheeewww!”
I managed to make the fingers of my left hand move a little. And I think I groaned a bit. My head, broken? A panic rose up within me. So hard to think and I could hardly make myself move, let alone speak. I was scared. I mean, really scared.
I heard footsteps softly padding away, but a presence was still near.
There was that music again. But where was it coming from? It was almost like a soft humming, mingled with the soothing notes of a baritone flute and the whisper of wind through the evergreen trees.
Again I tried to move the fingers of my hand … barely. My toes wiggled a little, but that was about all I could do. I couldn’t make the rest of my body respond and I wondered if this was what it was like to die.
I heard the first voice speak again in Elvish, “Sed? Can you understand what I am saying?”
What was his name again? Asho, Hosho, Hosso, something like that?
The world was spinning and everything turned upside down. Everything began to get gray, then black, then I felt the water on my head again.
I couldn’t see. Why? Where was my momma, I thought. I needed my momma and felt like crying, but I was too tired. I was tired and hot, so flaming hot.
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Gentle hands touched the cool cloth on my forehead. My little bed was drenched in sweat. My bed … where was I?
From somewhere a voice, an older voice with a strong but easy sound was talking to me in Gevardic, “Easy there, my boy. Your momma will return soon. She is singin’ for the Dukes. When she returns she will make it go away, she will make the fever stop.”
The hands were gentle but uncommonly strong. Why did I know these hands? The old man changed the cold cloth on my head and tried to feed me some kind of broth. “You must eat. Come on, now … open. Komain Joh …” the voice said, nicely but firm, “listen to me … you must open and take this. It will help you fight the sickness. It will give you strength. Ah … there you go. Good boy. E-e-easy as she goes and steady in the wind. We must beat to quarters and make to fight this wanton scourge. There you go.” I could hear but my vision was blurred. And the broth was good.
The old man, Roveir, his name was Roveir, stayed with me all night and day. I could hear him play the strings of an old guitar and he would sing ancient ballads of a land long past, the tunes steady and in a smooth rhythm, his voice a smooth and rich baritone. Who was John Henry in the song he was singing? It dawned upon me the old man was singing an old form of Lohngish. And then my momma came home and used the Family Secret on my burning head.
The Family Secret … could I do it? Hadn’t I done it already? I couldn’t remember. Through the unnatural darkness of my mind I felt the wind, or was it the sound? Again I heard the far off music. The Family Secret … I had to try … I couldn’t remember why, but I needed to try. Something was wrong with my head.
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I felt something wet on the back of my head and shoulders again. And there was the voice with the Elvish words, but I couldn’t understand. It was as if the voice was speaking from far away, as if I were deep in a well, and it was slipping farther away.
“You must try” … I thought I heard a voice say … my momma’s voice? “Momma?” I barely mouthed the words but could not utter the sound. I needed to find my momma, she needed me, I had to …
My fingers moved ever so slightly but I could feel So’Yeth beneath me. I had to try … I had to try to use the Family Secret … my momma needed me …
I *Reached* into So’Yeth with my mind and fought hard to focus. I had to focus as I never had before. Deep, way deep I sought to embrace the warmth … the warmth which seemed to ever so slowly reach up to me. There, I had it. I held it, rolled myself in it. I let it wash through me and into the very core of my being.
Suddenly I felt sharp pain pulse through my body as things began twisting and popping inside. I convulsed and felt my head seem to burst from within and the back of my skull seemed to snap and pop, sending what felt like sheets of acid fire through my brain. I felt myself buck hard as I contorted in a spasm that rolled me over and into a near sitting position on my left side.
Hoscoe jumped back from his position of kneeling beside me, a cloth in one hand and spilling a pail of hot water from the other, “Mon’Gouchett” he exclaimed. “You nigh cost me ten years of life, ten years I can not afford to give up,” he said as he drew a deep breath, stared at me in near disbelief and regained his composure.
He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, slowly shook his head in that way of his, and studiously looking me over he said, “I thought we had lost you, Sed.”
Looking about me, I tried to get my bearings. My momma, I thought … she wasn’t there. I gazed all around as if I had just awakened from a very bad dream. Again I felt my momma’s loss and depression set in. My momma, family I had never met, my one true friend Jared … I really wanted to cry. Why couldn’t I have just laid there and died?
“Easy as she goes and steady in the wind.” Just what was that supposed to mean, and why was I just now remembering?
I was tired, absolutely exhausted and just wanted to rest.
For a long m
oment I looked at Hoscoe who was still holding the cloth and pail, a look of genuine concern on his face. Did the old man actually care; a human? I hated humans, all of them. Well, almost all of them; most of them then. Hoscoe was just an old guard who talked to me to pass the time and practice his Elvish words, his Elvish words with the perfect accent. Where had he learned? Why had I never asked? I had been busy keeping closed up and to myself, talking mostly with Jared and occasionally with a handful of others. Life was easier that way and I could cultivate my hate.
The look on Hoscoe’s face was one of amazement and he was studying me as if seeing me for the first time. It was his voice I had heard, his hands which had been cleaning my wounds. Why?
Touching my face, then around to the back of my head, I ran my still trembling fingers slowly through my hair and felt of my skull; hard as a rock and even more dense through the middle.
Still looking at Hoscoe I said, “You …?”
“May I?” Hoscoe asked, and he put down the pail and moved toward me.
I nodded slowly and moved my hand as he began to expertly examine my head, back and shoulders. “By Cherron’s Beard,” he said in a low tone, “I have never seen anything like it. I have heard of it, but never seen it. There are clerics out and about who can do a healing, but they are few and far between. And they have their religious training to boot.”
Heavy footsteps came near and a voice spoke out in Quandellish, “What’s about; he dead?” The guard saw me sitting up and said, “Damn me, boy. That was an oak club I broke over your noggin.”
Hoscoe looked to him and shaking his head exclaimed with a tone of sarcasm, “Either your clubs are not hard enough, or his head is thicker than the mountain.” Throwing a glance at me, then back to the guard he said with a hint of a chuckle, “Maybe both.”
The guard gave a grunt and said, “No matter. We leave in the morning. Pull any shit and we’ll fill you with bolts and leave you for the bugs and buzzards.” With that he turned away and left.