Mortal Consequences

by Clayton Emery

  “Worm food!” the archwizard retorted. Hanging out of sword’s reach, she flicked both hands while hissing like a dragon.

  A tingling possessed Sunbright. An itch like severe sunburn crawled over his skin. At his inner elbow, tanned skin curdled like birch bark in a fire, split and broke and bled and itched abominably. He felt it elsewhere, under his chin, behind his knees, in his groin, between his toes. A skin curdling spell? Was this her worst threat? Or did more elven charms, feathers and lace and owl bones, stop the worst effects?

  Nor did Sunbright ponder long. He didn’t trust his right hand to keep the sword, so used two hands to hoist Harvester high, and charged across the winter grass.

  The monster fell back, and raised a long, crooked arm to block the blow. When the truesteel struck with an awful shattering noise, Sysquemalyn suffered a slice in her forearm long as a man’s little finger. Sunbright didn’t hesitate, but caught the sword on the backswing, and hauled it through the arc and around to strike again. Another fearful clang, and a chip like obsidian spun from a clawed hand. Sunbright cut again, and again, and each time the monster fell back. But the hero was too winded to deliver another blow. They were almost useless anyway. He’d spend his strength and only whittle off chips like sawdust. Sobbing for air, the warrior tried to think what to do.

  And thought of nothing. He had no battle plan, no strategy, and little hope. Deep down, he’d never expected to survive this long, let alone win. The monster was too powerful, and he was, after all, only a man.

  As if reading his mind, Sysquemalyn planted her dark, splayed feet like condor claws, and gargled. “I know every spell of every creature in the nine hells, for I conquered them all! Taste this!”

  From one hooked palm, there spat a fan of liquid, a flood of putrid rain stinking of sulfur. The spray spattered Sunbright from head to foot, filled the air, and rained on the prairie grass, which shriveled and curled black. Some spots puffed into flame. Sunbright felt afire himself, for the acid burned on his cuts and bruises. His eyes smarted, he gagged on the stink, he smelled leather and wool, and even his own hair corroding. Yet native strength and elven charm protected him, and so he attacked.

  But as he slung Harvester sidelong for a rib shot, the fiend’s hand soared in an arc. Sunbright smashed a ringing blow on her gaunt ribs, then felt heat all around. His boots squished in something soft that wasn’t grass.

  The prairie cracked in a hundred places to ooze foul black tar that bubbled and boiled. Within seconds, Sunbright was ankle-deep in gunk. He sniffed burning moosehide. Unable to see clearly for sweat and blood and heat waves, he ignored the threat. Some curse would kill him eventually, but until then he’d fight. With a different attack, if possible.

  Waving Harvester high, he spun his hands in midair, took a new grip, slammed the blade down. Enchanted steel crashed on Sysquemalyn’s shoulder and grazed the stone ridge. The barbarian heaved the blade sideways and yanked. The barbed tip of Harvester snagged her scrawny spine behind the bald head. The barb had also been welded with truesteel, for it bit, and hung on.

  Sysquemalyn staggered, thrown off-balance, and almost toppled into the shaman. Sunbright jerked his feet free of boiling tar, danced sideways, and yanked again. By hanging on and levering, he could steer the fiend where he willed. Now he wanted her down in her own foul mess. “Down, damn you!” he screamed. “Go down!”

  The monster sliced the air, dug claws into seeping wounds on Sunbright’s arms, clenched, and held. The hero felt his warm blood spurt. The foes were locked. Then Sysquemalyn leaned her great weight, as great as any boulder’s, to drag him down.

  Sagging, Sunbright crashed on one knee, felt a sear of hot tar, smelled crisped flesh, but the charms of the generous elves still worked, for otherwise his flesh would have split and caught fire, crumbled in chunks to leave scorched bone. Taking advantage of his new stance, Sunbright levered an elbow against his knee and pulled until his muscles cracked and jumped. He could do nothing more, and prayed it was enough.

  Sysquemalyn sagged with him. Bubbling tar grew deeper around them, as if they’d blundered into a tar pit. Sunbright was spattered with the stuff, as was she. The sword pained her, bit the nape of her neck like a vampire, and she couldn’t reach to dislodge the hook. She’d have to kill the man first. Dragging up a tarry hand, the monster aimed a palm at Sunbright’s straining face.

  Chain lightning erupted from the palm, and splashed over Sunbright. The barbarian flinched, ducked his head. Lightning that could shatter a tree only sparkled on his skin, made his horsetail friz, and lit rings and buckles on his clothing with curious fire. Ignoring the tingles, he levered harder on his sword.

  Keening outrage, Sysquemalyn spat a bolt of dark energy, negative force that should have bored through the human like a auger. Sunbright shook off the blow like a mammoth shaking off a spear. Screeching, Sysquemalyn unleashed an icicle storm, then a pocket tornado, then a whirlwind of steel. Ice stung the shaman’s cheeks and drew blood. The tornado ripped hair from his horsetail. Phantom steel shredded his shirt and blistered his skin.

  Yet, grim as a statue, he hung onto the sword and pressed harder, and slowly crushed Sysquemalyn into the tar until she propped on one hand and attacked with the other. She gargled in his face, “What protects you?”

  Straining, grunting, grinding, Sunbright had no breath to spare, but answered anyway: “Love!”

  Her snort puffed his hair. Twisting against his stinging blade, she dug into his thigh with a clawed hand, inched to his belt, then his torn shirt, and finally snagged his chin. She would gouge out his eyes, render him blind and helpless.

  But Sunbright hissed, “It’s nothing you know! You live for hate and revenge and death. I live for love! I’ve the strength of a thousand folk who stand behind me. I’ve the love of a good woman, the respect of my people, the wisdom of my ancestors, the guidance of my mother, the friendship of people from forest and mountain. What have you to live for?”

  A strangled hiss answered. At the end of her arm, the monster inched a hand across his cheek, flicked a claw—and hooked his eye socket. Sunbright shuddered with pain, fright, and pure agony as the flint dagger bit his eyeball.

  Dimly, he heard the monster’s command, “Release me!”

  Growling, Sunbright tried to jerk his head back, but his neck was strained to the limit. His hands jumped and shuddered as he pried at Harvester. He was slowly rising as Sysquemalyn sank into the tar. Her deadly hand ground in his face like a stone spider. The jagged digit pressed harder on his eye. He’d only save his sight by letting go.

  But he didn’t let go. He groaned, “I’d give my life to save Knucklebones and my people. I’ll gladly give an eye to stop you!”

  With a roar like the ocean crashing on his head, he felt the claw puncture his eyeball. He rasped in pain but shoved harder downward. Blood spilled down his cheek and down the monster’s arm like a river.

  Sysquemalyn’s stone chin touched tar. For the first time, she felt fear. Sunbright held her trapped by the fearsome hook, then stepped on her back to drown her in the hellish tar she’d summoned. Stretched as if on a rack, Sysquemalyn couldn’t wriggle free, nor could spells free her. Only the volcano spell, to turn prairie into inferno, would loose the hero, but she’d die too. From her own death, she drew back.

  And so lost. For she knew Sunbright was right. She had hate and revenge and the powers of hell to drive her. He had more: the love of a woman and community, a love that made a person sacrifice all. She couldn’t defeat him, she could only lose.

  Strange, came an errant thought, she never used magic to restore her beauty. Or even considered it.

  Bubbling tar filled her gashed mouth, seared her bulging blue eyes. Lacking eyelids, she had no protection against the hellish stuff, and felt it burn deep, as Sunbright’s ruined eye must pain him. But he was atop while she was pressed into tar like a dying saber-tooth.

  Then Sysquemalyn felt his foot shift, and both sticky feet crush her back. Tar engulfed her, but s
he’d already given up the fight. If she couldn’t get revenge, she got nothing. Was nothing.

  Grunting, shaking all over, weakening from loss of blood, the mighty barbarian twisted Harvester’s enchanted blade into the gaping wound he’d inflicted on his enemy. Stabbing the thing was as difficult as prying open a mountain with a chisel, but the enchanted blade cut, and his native strength of arm and spirit bore down.

  With a final heave, he slammed the sword through Sysquemalyn’s spine. The tarry flint-hided monster writhed once, then lay still.

  Weaving, Sunbright let go the blade. The monster didn’t move. Sysquemalyn, a self-made monster, was dead.

  Finished with his grisly task, bleeding in a hundred places, scorched, seared, and exhausted, Sunbright had a sudden, dim vision.

  Long ago, the Shaman Owldark dreamed of Sunbright standing with bloody sword while smoke and fire filled the horizon. The reindeer were slaughtered, the tribe was shattered and defeated.

  Was this that vision?

  Then he toppled like a felled tree, and crashed on his back in roiling tar.

  Chapter 21

  Sunbright awoke in a strange place.

  Beams and planks stretched overhead, reaching a point at the top. A familiar ceiling, like the hide yurts of his childhood. Sunlight slanted through a doorway. His vision was oddly flat and tilted to the right.

  “Where am I?”

  “Uh!” Knucklebones grunted, startled. She had sat by his side, head on her knees, napping. “You’re awake!”

  “Yes,” he croaked.

  “Water, please.”

  Gently, the small thief lifted his head and helped him sip from a gourd. The tiny trickle extinguished a fire in his throat. A drink of water when you’re dry, he concluded, was the richest gift of the gods.

  Sipping, he studied his lover’s face. She was pale and worn with bright scabs on both cheeks. Her hair was disordered and lank, and burned short in patches. Her normally nimble hands were clumsy with bandages.

  Questions bubbled in his mind.

  “How long …?”

  “Three days. The elves helped with healing spells, and the dwarves brought a dark bread that gives strength, though we had to mash it to gruel to feed you.”

  “Your hands?”

  “Burned them pulling you from the tar. I thought—we thought—you were dead.”

  Sunbright laid his head back. “I almost was,” he told her softly, “but I had a lot to tell you, so I needed to survive. I had more than the monster. She had nothing.”

  “She?”

  “Sysquemalyn. Just a woman who’d suffered and craved revenge on the world. She wasted the powers of a goddess. Revenge is not cool and sweet. It’s a fire that burns you inside, and leaves a hollow shell.”

  Knucklebones wondered if he remembered his own brooding before he found his people. To change the subject, she spooned venison broth to his lips from a wooden bowl.

  “What did you want to tell me?”

  “Eh? Oh,” he stammered. “That I love you.”

  Tired, she yet smiled, and leaned close to kiss his forehead. He smelled her perfume: sweat and spice and wood smoke, and a breath of wildflowers. “I knew that,” she said.

  “No. Not just that.” He reared to his elbows and spoke intensely, “That I love you, Knucklebones, not anyone else, not the memory of poor, dead Greenwillow. I love what you are, a small sweet woman with a good heart. When I look at you, I don’t think of another woman, or anything else. Just wonderful you.” He flopped back, exhausted, and said, “Which is funny, in a way.”

  His kind words made tears stain her scabby cheek, but her mouth turned down. “Funny how?” she asked.

  “Something else I needed to tell you. The elven priestess, Brookdweller, touched your hand and read your soul. She learned that your father was Eaerlanni, but you were also a Moon Elf, of the Illefarni. I may have the names wrong, but that’s the idea. The clues confused her for a while, and you ran off. How the gods must laugh at us …!”

  His voice trailed off as he nodded. Knucklebones touched his shoulder. “What?” she asked. “Please, tell me. What of my ancestry?”

  “Hunh!” He blinked awake, and said, “After all my foolish chasing of Greenwillow’s ghost, it turns out you are Greenwillow.”

  “What?” she breathed. The thief’s mouth hung open, her single eye stared.

  “Reincarnated …” Sunbright fought sleep to relate the vital news, “You were born in the future, three hundred years from now, but all things return to their roots. Brookdweller read your past lives. A recent one was Greenwillow. That’s why you called me country mouse. It’s why I confused you and Greenwillow in dreams. It’s why we were attracted in the first place, because I was hunting Greenwillow. Fate brought us together, but I ignored you to find Greenwillow, when you were both by my side all the time.…”

  He blacked out. Knucklebones laid her tousled head on his chest, listened to his heart thump, and sighed with contentment.

  When next Sunbright awoke, the sun was gone, and cool night air bathed his face while a nearby fire warmed him.

  “He’s awake.”

  Sunbright shook his aching head, tried to focus, but still found the world curiously flat. An audience knelt around his pallet. Many elves in green and black, bristling with arrows and bows and knives, all strangers, yet oddly familiar. One was small and wore a green eye patch. With a jolt, the shaman recognized Knucklebones. She smiled shyly.

  “Sunbright, I’d like you to meet some people who’ve journeyed from the Star Mounts in the High Forest. My—family.” To his dazed look, the thief explained, “They’re kin to Greenwillow. They heard of my ancestry from Brookdweller and came to meet me. Fashioned new clothes for me, too.”

  She made a small curtsy, the first Sunbright had ever seen. Cleaned and rested, in shining elven clothes of soft green and deep black leather, Knucklebones looked like a princess. The shaman sighed, “You’re beautiful.”

  Awkwardly, the part-elf made introductions. “My father, Marshwind. My mother, Pinemagic. My sisters Gracewealth, Butterfly, Earthstork, and my brother, Fullshrub.”

  Solemnly the elves nodded in turn, and Sunbright knew why they looked so familiar. They resembled Greenwillow. He chuckled, “I’m happy to meet Knucklebones’s family. She’s wanted one all her life. Pardon me if I don’t rise.”

  The elves smiled. A tall woman with Greenwillow’s eyes laid a hand on his chest and said, “We go. Rest. We’ll have much to discuss with our new brother-in-law.” Silent as cats, they padded from the room.

  Knucklebones lingered. Sunbright shook his head again, still couldn’t clear his vision. When he pawed at his face, she caught his hand. “Don’t, please,” she said. “It’s gone.”

  “Gone?”—then he understood—“My eye. The monster gouged it out.”

  “The elves healed the infected socket, but there was nothing to save.” She smiled weakly when she said, “You’ll need an eye patch, like mine. I’ll embroider you one.”

  Sunbright lay still. He felt no sorrow. One-eyed was better than dead. Suddenly he smiled at her.

  “We’d best stick together, to have one good pair of eyes between us, but our children will think anyone outside the family strange … with two orbs.”

  Chuckling, the transformed Knucklebones kissed his forehead. “Rest,” she said, and Sunbright blacked out.

  A day later he could sit up, propped by a wicker backrest. His mother fed him strips of meat, bread soaked in beer, and apple slices.

  “Your father would be proud. Your sacrifices have brought the tribe safety and prosperity. But I’m glad you lost an eye, for now you must leave fighting to others. I don’t want to lose my only son.”

  Sunbright smiled, munched, and teased, “Why the only? You’re still young and attractive, mother. Why not get married again, have another brood?” His mother tweaked his nose.

  With permission from Monkberry, Magichunger came to visit. Sunbright hardly recognized the war c
hief, for he’d finally shaved his scruffy beard and temples, reclaiming the traditional haircut of a Rengarth warrior. The blocky man rubbed his chin as if it itched, or he were embarrassed.

  He hemmed and hawed so much that Sunbright asked a neutral question to ease his mind, “What is this building?”

  “Hunh? Oh, this.” The war chief looked around and said, “We finally finished the common house. Just dropped other tasks and fell to until it was built. We’ve kept the council fire alive, too. It’s the same one you started. We figured there’d be lots of …”

  He scratched his white temples, scuffed his foot. “We’ve, uh, talked,” Magichunger finally said. “For five days now. And the tribe’s decided you aren’t banished for using magic. Shamans use spirit magic anyway, and you needed that enchanted sword—That was some fierce battle, Sunbright! I’ve never seen its like! You two clashed like mammoths, like gods! And you wouldn’t quit, even when she jabbed your—Uh, well, anyway … That was braver than I could be. And another thing. I want to, uh, thank you for bringing us here, and together …”

  Sunbright raised a hand that quaked, for he was still weak. Bemused, Magichunger shook. The shaman said, “I did nothing but recall who we are. The tribe decided to come here, and together came to safety, with a great amount of your help. I thank you for that.”

  “Oh …” The war chief actually blushed. He said, “Bashing ores in the head, that was nothing.”

  Sunbright asked for news, and the war chief gladly changed the subject. Refugees and raiders still drifted into the territory, but under control. Magichunger and Mightylaugh had arranged a warning system with Hilel’s horse clan.

  “Any decent folk we let stay, as long as they promise to work as hard as we do. Raiders we disarm and turn back. We’ve had to kill a few, but it’s been pretty peaceful. More than the empire can boast. Stragglers tell us there’s famine, and the One King’s ores are still raiding while the empire’s army is splintered and looting. People in the floating cities squabble over who should run the empire so much they’re assassinating each other. It’s a mess.”