by Kevin Hearne
The Nentians nodded, and Ghurang added, “He has three children.”
“I’m sorry it ended like this. I didn’t realize what was at stake. But I understand now and thank you for speaking candidly with me. I assure you that I’m engaged and will be in touch soon.”
Rölly took his leave, and Fintan and I followed close on his heels, leaving behind the Nentians, their sumptuous feast, and the body of Jahm Joumeloh Jeikhs in the middle of it.
When Fintan took the stage the next day, he had two additional musicians with him, both with lutes—one bass and one rhythm. He lifted up his feet one by one and pointed at them. “I got new shoes!” he exclaimed, and I felt unobservant for not noticing earlier. They were simple brown leather but undeniably new. “I wanted to sing about them, but sadly I don’t know any shoe songs. Fortunately, the Nentians have a celebratory song about boots, and I was reminded of it by a Nentian bootmonger I met briefly yesterday. We’re going to perform that for you today.” The musicians launched into an up-tempo tune, and Fintan picked a blistering melody above it on his harp until he began to sing:
My hens all died and my plow is broke
My well is dry and my yak just croaked
My farm’s all rotted straight down to the roots
But I don’t care because now I can wearrrrr—!
My worldwide, superglide, yellow-dyed, verified,
Certified, ratified, justified and dignified,
Qualified ironside, fortified and purified,
Bona fide, amplified, khernhide boots!
“Let’s begin today with Abhinava Khose, who has a contract to fulfill at the Hathrim city of Baghra Khek.”
There are so many bones to the north of the Hathrim city. Charred, blackened, and some with strings of gristle left on them, but mostly just helmets and mail draping skeletons. An army’s open grave. I remained far out of range. If that mass of men could be burned at such a distance from the walls, I could be, too. I came upon another battlefield first where some bodies were burned but most had been halved or quartered by huge blades. There were still some scavengers in the neighborhood, but they left us alone. Murr and Eep hunted some of them for their next meal, and I led the horses around to the east, planning to circle the Hathrim city at a healthy remove until I reached the foothills.
I saw the reflected glare of glass boats down by the shore but no actual giants until I’d nearly reached the bottom of the Godsteeth. I’d never seen one in the flesh before because they had little reason to visit Khul Bashab. I saw a group from a distance that was clearing the timber closest to their walls on the forest side, the south side.
More than their stature—which was awesome, to be sure—I noticed their skin and hair. So pale you’d think they’d burn up in the sun. And their hair wasn’t just dark like ours; some of them had light yellow or red hair. I did see at least one who was bald, except his—or maybe her—skull was on fire. Definitely one of the lavaborn there. I doubted the others would be so helpful in identifying themselves. I’d never heard that fire skulls were how you could tell a blessed giant from a merely huge one. I think it was a woman, and for some reason she wasn’t pitching in but rather talking to the workers. Perhaps I could figure out more if I watched, but I couldn’t just stand there and be spotted.
The sawgrass was high and I could hide myself completely in it if I crouched, but the horses could be seen above it. Before that crew took a good look around to the east, I dismounted and asked the horses to lie down for a few minutes so that I could think in safety.
“Murr. Can you smell the large people near here? I mean, do they have a specific smell?”
The bloodcat tipped his snout into the air, and his nostrils flared as he took in a few deep breaths. Then he looked at me and tossed his chin in a nod.
“Can you smell any of them closer to us than they are?” He checked again and nodded. “Where? I mean, in which direction? Can you point with one of your paws?”
He turned south to face the Godsteeth and lifted his right front paw in that direction. I rose somewhat from my crouch so that I could peek over the grass. A hundred or so lengths away, the plains gave way to hills that rose to mountains, and they were covered in shorter grasses, shrubs, and grand moss pine trees. Tans and browns and some leafy greens mostly, so the gray and white movement among it all caught my eyes.
Two Hathrim houndsmen on patrol, returning to the city at a leisurely walk. Unbelievable to see a predator that size—the hounds alone were the size of kherns! I couldn’t tell whether the armored giants astride them were lavaborn, but either way they posed a challenge. I’d have no chance against them without my own kenning. Now that I’d seen the hounds with my own eyes, I reached out with my kenning to see if I could locate them. They weren’t native to Ghurana Nent, so I wanted to make sure it would work, and it did. I sensed the hounds, felt their barely contained ferocity, and knew that I could use it to my advantage. I suggested to the hounds that the lavaborn with the fiery skull was extraordinarily delicious but only one of them could get there first, and they took off at top speed, much to the surprise of their riders. One of them held on, though just barely, and the other toppled from his saddle onto the ground, axe and all.
The houndsman who managed to stay mounted yanked hard on the reins, but his hound fought it, twisting and shaking its head from side to side and then spinning in a circle to try to reach the rider on its back. That was certainly entertaining, but I wanted to see what happened with the free hound. It had descended from the trees and charged full speed through the grass toward the working giants next to the city walls. Kalaad, what power there! But it was not a stealthy charge. The Hathrim outside turned and saw it coming and raised the alarm, and one bearded giant stepped forward to meet the charge. He was not armored, but he did have one of those huge axes, and he set it aflame, demonstrating that he was lavaborn also. Though the lavaborn were supposed to be my targets, it would not end well for the hound and I told it to stop and forget it; none of those giants were tasty after all.
In fact, he should sit down until his rider could catch up, and I told the other hound to calm down as well. I knew that those hounds most likely would be involved in the battle later, but I could muster no more anger toward them than I could toward the horse that bore the man who shot Madhep. Let the king’s army worry about them: I hadn’t been sent to hunt hounds, only giants blessed with the First Kenning. But what could the Sixth Kenning do against fire? I knew of no fireproof animals.
The giant who’d fallen off his mount groaned audibly and clambered to his feet. He said some things that I assumed were curses and began to jog after his hound, his heavy footsteps crashing through the underbrush. The more competent rider was berating his hound in an angry tone while the lavaborn was standing in place, ready to defend the workers should either hound resume its charge. He was a valid target.
I searched the area with my new senses, hoping a solution might present itself. High up in a grand moss pine perhaps three or four ranks up from where they were clearing trees, a hive of moss hornets reminded me of something Hanima once said: if anybody gave her cause, she’d throw bees in their face. That might actually work. Moss hornets were supposed to be pretty nasty: it was said you felt only the first sting because their venom numbed your nerves and eventually paralyzed you. Didn’t know if that would necessarily be true for a giant, but if it didn’t work, that hive was probably going to be dead in a few days anyway. I let them know that their hive was in danger and that it was the guy with the fiery axe who had it in for them. It took perhaps half a minute, but a cloud of iridescent black and green descended on that particular giant’s head. He roared and flared up, burning some of the hornets, but then the toxins overcame him and the flames died, shortly followed by the rest of him. I supposed with enough moss hornet venom in you everything went numb, including the heart. He keeled right over, and the hornets departed, leaving a shocked and bewildered work detail behind him, and more than a few shouts for help.
“Huh. He must have been someone important,” I said to my companions.
“Murr.”
“Eep.”
The houndsmen went into the city, following everyone else, and for the moment we had the plains to ourselves. I told the horses they could get up.
“Let’s put a bit more distance between us and the giants,” I said to them all. “I doubt I’ll have enough hornets to do that again. Getting rid of the rest of the lavaborn is going to require some study. Preferably out of sight.”
With Murr’s excellent nose we identified where the limits of the houndsmen’s patrol route was in the trees and went a bit farther east to be safe. It didn’t matter if the hounds caught our scent the next time they came through; they couldn’t tell their riders about us, and I could tell them to go away if they got too close.
We found cover for the horses among the trees, just slightly uphill from the great plain, and I made a dry camp and the futile offer of a belly rub to Murr. Bedding down with a blanket over some piled pine needles, I stared at the rising moon and stretched out with my kenning every so often, counting the animals to get myself to sleep. It was less effective than I hoped. Worry about what to do kept me awake until the moon was directly overhead, when I became aware of some new creatures moving into my range. That gave me an idea that could either work or get me killed. Since all my other ideas would just get me killed, I called it good enough and sighed, finally able to relax and drift off to sleep.
“So who was that lavaborn?” Fintan asked his audience. “Let’s find out!” He threw down a sphere and took on the seeming of Gorin Mogen.
The five children that Sefir and I lost to the boil in Olenik died as giants should: by forces larger, stronger than ourselves. Volcanoes, lava dragons, the axe of a worthy foe, or the ever-increasing weight of time—these are noble ways for a giant’s fire to be extinguished. We should not die in a cloud of blasted insects!
And yet my son is dead. Seeing him carried in on the shoulders of the work detail, I recognized his beard, but the rest of his face was swollen, blackened and purpled with poison, mountains of fluids and pus bubbling underneath the skin.
My legacy—hope for the future—oh, I will burn them! Burn them all. And dump their ashes in the ocean to dwell in cold darkness forever.
Jerin was an artist and a warrior, kind until the very moment he had to be ruthless, already showing that he could be a better man than me. I could not be more proud of him or have loved him more. And now he is ruined.
This city, all the plotting and killing I’ve done to make it rise from the grasses—what does it matter now? It’s all worthless, all for naught, because my son is dead. By triple-damned insects.
Someone had to explain to me what they were because I had never heard of moss hornets before. We have large and poisonous insects in Hathrir, but none behave as these hornets did. No provocation was given, yet they attacked a single target as if they bore a personal grudge: Who has ever heard of such a thing? It wasn’t natural. Someone was responsible.
Kill them all.
Immediately before this attack two houndsmen lost control of their hounds. Or more accurately, the hounds did their very best to charge the work detail clearing trees outside the south gates, one of them throwing off his rider completely, and then they both stopped as abruptly as they began. To have two such freakish occurrences happen suggests that it was planned somehow. Both occurred within or at the edge of the woods. I don’t know how they did it, but I’m sure it’s the Fornish. They must be in the woods, high up the mountain, and they have some kind of pollen- or plant-based devilry to drive creatures into a murderous frenzy. And they plan to attack at dawn or soon after.
Unless it was La Mastik. She might have arranged this to free Olet Kanek from her obligations. She’d be able to return to Tharsif without placing Winthir Kanek in my debt. And she was on the detail with Jerin.
I grabbed my axe and stalked over to her. “La Mastik!” She whirled around at the rage in my tone, and her eyes grew wide as she saw my axe, saw me raise it, saw my intent. “You killed him!”
“What? No, Hearthfire, it wasn’t me!”
She took a step back and said something else; I don’t remember what, and it doesn’t matter. I was going to have that shaved head separated from her shoulders. An inchoate roar ripped loose from my throat as I leapt for her, the axe raised high, already anticipating how much better I’d feel once I heard the crunch of it take her miserable life. “Graaahh!”
Someone rammed into me from the left side, unseen, and caught me off balance; the impact knocked me sideways to the ground, my axe hand trapped under me. Whoever it was followed me down and planted their weight on top of me, guaranteeing only that they would die shortly before La Mastik did.
“Gorin! Gorin!” the person shouted, and it took me a moment to connect that voice to Sefir. It was Sefir who had knocked me down and pinned me, and her hair dangled in my face as she spoke into my ear in lower tones. “You need to stop. La Mastik did nothing.”
“She did! She killed him!” I did not bother to modulate my tone.
“No, Gorin. She had nothing to do with it.”
“That was no accident! Someone killed him!”
“You’re right about that. But it wasn’t La Mastik.”
“No—” I turned my eyes toward the priestess, who was still backing away, guilt written large on her face.
Sefir’s hand cupped my cheek and forced me to turn back to her. “Gorin. We will find out who did it and cut them down together.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Together, you hear me? But now we need to set him free in flame. We have to say goodbye and let him go.”
No!
The rage boiled over, and I exploded in fire. Sefir joined me, and a plume erupted from us both, billowing into the sky as we cried for our son, his lost hopes, all the glass and steel he would never shape, all the battles he would never fight. And when we exhausted ourselves, we were just a bit older, the ground was scorched black in a circle around us, and we were alone.
We did not ask La Mastik to perform the rites. We did not invite anyone to participate in his last fire. He was our son. Even when Halsten approached, we shook our heads at him and he understood. He kept everyone else away.
Together we took Jerin’s body to our hearth and laid him out on the ground. No longer lavaborn, he would ignite now, his spirit freed from the confines of flesh, and nothing would be left but ashes and his lava dragon hides. We stood over him, and Sefir took my hand in hers.
“He made me proud,” she said.
I nodded my agreement and added, “He would have been a stronger Hearthfire than either of us.”
“He would have ruled well.”
“His art would have been the envy of the world.”
“Yes. That magnificent hound and rider he crafted showed the blaze of his gift. Glass of smoke and flame and amber, with blue steel for the rider’s axe. I wish we still had it. We lost so much to Mount Thayil.”
That was true, but I thought we had lost still more. To insects. Burn them all.
“Is it time to tell him?” I asked.
Sefir squeezed my hand. “Yes.”
We addressed Jerin directly, in concert: “We love you, Jerin, and your memory will forever burn bright in our hearts. And now we set your spirit free and bid your flesh farewell.”
Together we set him alight and watched in silence as he burned away in the night, a process of hours. I know not what Sefir thought during that time, but all I could think of was the vengeance I would wreak on the Fornish. For Sefir was right: La Mastik could not have done this. I had been seized by madness when I attacked her; perhaps I am still in its grip
.
I have not slept this night, and it has occurred to me that perhaps I am being alarmist, that the death of my son has banished my reason. But no: the naval watch reported moments ago that the Nentians are sending a significant army against us, marching through the night, and they’ll be here at dawn as well, coming from the north. I hope they will be able to see the bones of the first army they sent against me. The Nentians would not be coming unless their Fornish allies were waiting for them on the slopes of the Godsteeth. They no doubt see themselves as the hammer to the Fornish anvil.
I want to burn them all. And I will.
That may, in fact, be the smartest move. Before the Fornish can move against us, we should set the mountainside aflame and see if the light illuminates any greensleeves lurking in the brush. Let them choke to death on the smoke of their precious trees. Or let them run out of the forest and into the blade of my thirsty axe.
Volund is back from Tharsif, having successfully delivered timber to Hearthfire Kanek and secured enough food to last us for months. I will send him up the coast to harass the Nentians on the instant. Let them burn before they even get here.
It is time to armor up. Sefir and I will show them what it means to provoke a Hearthfire. If they want to end the Mogen line, we will make sure they all meet their end with us.
“If we turn back the clock just a wee bit while that was going on, we’ll find out what the Fornish were up to under the leadership of Nel Kit ben Sah.”
A successful garden blooms again and again, as the saying goes. Having confronted the Hathrim twice and survived, the sway decided that I’m to be Forn’s first Champion in three hundred years or so. Or rather, the First Tree decided. There was some argument at first about who was to lead a party against this city the Hathrim were calling Baghra Khek, with Rig Wel ben Lok of the Yellow Bats and Nef’s uncle, Vin Tai ben Dar, arguing strongly in my favor, among many others, but of course the Black Jaguars and the Blue Moths objected and were ready to die upon the hill of Anybody-But-Nel. After an hour of circular wrangling, another voice, rarely heard, spoke in the sway for the first time in living memory, though we all instantly knew to whom it belonged. Slow, rumbling, and strong, vibrating through my silverbark and in my skull, the First Tree said, “Nel Kit ben Sah. You are my Champion. Serve the Canopy well.”