by Jim Melvin
“We’d better check the meat,” Bard interrupted. “It should be cooked by now.”
“Let’s eat, then,” Torg said. “And while we do, I’ll tell you why I like the name Hana.”
They rushed outside in a fit of hunger, then went back inside with their meal. Torg chomped into the possum’s juicy thigh. The white, fatty meat was as tasty as wild boar. Grease dripped down his chin. He wiped it with the sleeve of his cloak before picking up the keg and taking a long swig. Ugga and Bard devoured both the hares and then helped Torg with the remains of the much-larger che-ra.
Afterward, the crossbreed and his handsome friend began to digest more than just roasted game. For most of the morning they listened as Torg recounted the events of the past several months, including the rescue of the noble ones at Dibbu-Loka and his imprisonment in the pit. He told them who and what he was. He even described the death of Sōbhana. But he left out the sexual encounter with Vedana. That was between him and the demon.
Ugga bowed his large head. “I understands why ya want us to call ya Hah-nah. Your Sōb-hah-nah was a great lady. Almost as great as the Bitch.”
“In some ways they were much alike—strong, brave and beautiful.”
“Ya speak as if Jord is dead, too,” Bard said.
“I don’t believe she’s dead. But I have no idea where she is or why she left. Who and what she is befuddles me, as well. Maybe now, you can tell me your tale and help me to understand. Do you believe what I’ve told you?”
“I believes ya, Master Hah-nah,” Ugga said. “Ya are not a liar.”
“I believes ya, too,” Bard said. “But does I has to call ya King Hah-nah?”
“Very funny,” Torg said. “But now I’m being serious. I’ve risked a lot just telling the two of you about me. But I trust you . . . as friends.”
“Then friends it is,” Bard said. “And friends we will be.”
“Yes,” Ugga said. “Good friends!”
The crossbreed smacked a hand the size of a bear paw onto the rough wooden table. Torg placed his hand on top of Ugga’s. For a moment Bard hesitated, but then he placed his on Torg’s.
“Good friends,” Torg said.
“Good friends,” Bard said.
“Goooooooood friends,” Ugga agreed.
Bard leaned over the table and stared at Torg. “I’m ready to tell the tale of Ugga, Bard and the Bitch. But first I has to tell Ugga something.” He smiled sheepishly at the crossbreed. “I’m sorry, Ugga, but I has uttered a white lie. Ya drink so much of the spirits, I sometimes has to hide some for myself. There is one more keg of wine hidden in the corner where we keep the potatoes.”
Ugga smiled broadly. “Some lies are good.”
And so, when Bard began his tale, there was plenty of wine to go around.
“What I says now will not be a lie. What I says will be the truth, as I knows it. When I first saw Ugga and the Bitch, I was a boy of just ten winters and . . .”
Bard lived in a small settlement hewed out of the wilds on the northeastern border of the Dhutanga Forest. The wide mouth of the Gap of Gamana was due east. Duccarita, known for its villains and outlaws, was a few leagues north. The Dark Forest lay west and south. And the Mahaggata Mountains, home to Mogols, trolls, and an assortment of bloodthirsty creatures, also loomed nearby. There was danger on all sides.
Many evil beasts dwelled in Dhutanga’s interior. The settlers constantly had to watch the trees, never knowing what might emerge. There were fewer than two hundred in the colony, and less than half were adults capable of putting up much of a fight. The elders met often about the perils surrounding their homestead. Though they were close to a large stream and plenty of game, they finally were forced to admit that they had chosen a poor location. Their only hope of long-term survival was to abandon the settlement and move south, nearer the Green Plains.
Less than a week before their planned exodus, a Mogol war party found them. Dawn of a cool spring day had not yet arrived when fifty warriors swept into the hamlet. They wore only breechcloths, but their wild faces and muscular bodies bore grotesque tattoos, and they were armed with clubs, spears, axes, and blowguns. The lookouts never saw them. In a short time all of the adult men and elderly women were dead. The younger women and the children were captured and roped together by their ankles.
“We could make no sense of their gibberish,” Bard said, “but they beat us and made us watch their savage behaviors. They builded a vast fire and spitted my daddy and uncle and roasted them like animals. We begged for mercy, but the savages didn’t care. Instead they laughed and whipped us.”
Bard lowered his head. A single tear fell from each eye, splashing onto the tabletop. Ugga’s thick lips quivered.
The Mogols forced their captives to march northward. Because their ankles were bound, the going was extremely slow. The boy staggered along next to his mother and heard her whisper to another woman that they were being herded toward Duccarita to be sold as slaves.
“‘I’m so sorry, me boy,’ my mumma said. ‘If ya have a chance to run, ya take it, do ya hear? Don’t look back.’”
The boy cried and told his mother he would never leave her, but then a Mogol warrior came up behind him and kicked him between his legs. The boy bent over and gagged, and the warrior kicked him again.
They stumbled along for two days with little food or rest. The Mogols beat any stragglers and took the weakest from the main group to be clubbed to death. The boy wished he could find a way to die. But he also noticed the knots around his thin ankles coming loose. His mother saw it, too.
“‘Ya do what I says,’ she whispered. ‘If ya get free, I wants ya to bolt. It’s better one of us escapes than none at all.’”
The second night after the attack on the settlement, a skirmish broke out among the Mogols. The boy and his mother couldn’t tell what was happening, but a rumor passed among the prisoners that a warrior had taken a liking to one of the females and had attempted to carry her off into the woods. The leader of the war party became angry, not wanting to lose any more slaves than necessary. The Duccaritans paid well for young women and children.
“Mumma gave me a look. She said, ‘I loves ya boy, but now’s the time. I wants ya to run into the woods and hide till we’re gone.’
“‘But where will I goes after that, mumma? How will I lives?’” I said to her. “But she had no answer and turned away.”
The boy broke free of his bonds and rushed into the trees. It was not until morning that the Mogols noticed he was missing. This enraged the savages. A strong young male was worth even more than a woman. The Mogols sent five warriors to track him, and in less than half a day they found him shivering beside a swollen stream in a tree-choked cove.
The warriors rushed toward him with anger in their eyes. But then a black ball of rage sprang from the trees. The snarling bear leapt upon the nearest warrior and ripped off his head with a single swipe of a huge front paw. But the four remaining warriors surrounded the beast. The darts from their blowguns could not pierce its tough hide, so they attacked with their spears. The clash was violent. The boy was too terrified to move. Soon after, only one warrior remained alive, but the bear was grievously wounded and lacked the strength to continue. The lone survivor closed in for the kill.
“And that is when she arrived,” Bard said, taking several gulps of wine as if attempting to drown his pain. “From the woods she appeared, lookin’ just like she does now. The savage seemed to know her and was scared. He tried to run, but she caught him from behind and snapped his neck.”
The warriors terrified the boy, but there was something about the woman that did not seem threatening. He crawled to the dying bear and petted its coarse fur, which was soaked with blood. When he looked up at the white-haired woman, tears streaked his pale cheeks.
“‘I shall give you a gift,’ she said to me, ‘and one to this fine animal, as well. You both shall stay with me for as long as it takes to heal your wounds—not just the wounds of your bodies, b
ut also the wounds of your spirits.’
“‘The bear is dying,’ I said to her. ‘He is cut here and there.’ But she only laughed. And then she said, ‘For a beast to be reborn as a man, it must perform an act that lifts it beyond its instinctual behaviors. This bear, I believe, will be reborn as a man. So my gift to the bear is human form—in this lifetime. And my gift to you will be his friendship.’”
While the boy watched, the white-haired woman performed her miracle, lifting her arms and speaking strange incantations that caused a blinding green light to spurt from her fingertips. The boy could not stand the intensity of it and hid behind a tree, but his curiosity forced him to peer around the trunk. A whirlwind of sparkling energy engulfed the bear, lifting its massive body several cubits off the ground, as if it weighed less than a feather. The corpses of the warriors also floated in the air, and they began to spin around the bear—faster and faster—until they blurred.
The woman cried out. A radiant eruption caused the boy to cover his face. When all went quiet, he looked up and saw . . .
“Bard has told me the story many times, but I remembers it not,” Ugga said. “Before I met Bard and the Bitch, all I knew was hunting and running, blood and berries, worms and bugs. And then I remembers standing on my hind legs and being amazed by how clear everything was. I saw the boy, crouched on the ground. And when I looked down, my legs were different, long and pale like my fur had fallen off.”
After hugging his new friend, the boy begged the white-haired woman to save his mumma. But she refused.
“I remembers ’zactly what she said,” Bard recalled. “‘I could have saved all of you, but I am not here to rescue the weak or punish the wicked. I am a watcher—little more and little less. Only on rare occasions am I permitted to interfere.’”
The boy lay on the ground and wept, and his new friend knelt and comforted him. But the white-haired woman could not be swayed. She strode off without another word.
“I picked up Bard and carried him,” Ugga said. “The Bitch was our only chance. I didn’t know any words . . . yet. But I knew enough to want to stay with the lady.”
The crossbreed and the boy followed the woman for a long time, passing west of Duccarita, and journeying north almost to Nirodha. They then turned east, traversing steep mountains and remote valleys that were chilly even in early summer. They eventually settled in the foothills of Mount Asubha. Soon after their arrival, the magical pines began to grow.
“She gave us names from the ancient tongue,” Bard said. “Bard means liberated, Ugga means mighty, and she named herself Jord, which meant guardian. My old name, before the Bitch saved my life, is lost to my memory. Many winters have passed since those fateful days.”
“How many?” Torg said.
“I’m not sure,” Bard said, “but I would guess many thousands.”
Torg’s jaw dropped.
“The pines keep us young,” Ugga said. “The Bitch always told us to stay close to them. If Bard and I goes too far away, we start to feel old and lame.”
Torg took one last sip of the wine. Bard and Ugga finished the rest. Then they sat in silence for a long time. Bard’s tale had taken the entire afternoon, and night’s black breath was creeping into the forest. Occasionally one of them threw a fresh log on the fire. Otherwise they barely moved. Outside the hut it was as quiet as death.
Finally Ugga broke the silence. “Do ya know who the Bitch is?” he said to Torg. “Can ya tell us, pretty please?”
Ugga’s question prompted Torg to silently recall the ghost-child’s dream-like words spoken to him less than two weeks before, when he was the Stone-Eater’s prisoner.
There are beings beyond all known laws, natural or otherwise, and they have begun to watch the sorcerer with growing interest—and are making plans for his demise.
Torg gazed at Ugga and Bard. When he finally spoke, he did so with a tremble in his voice. “I believe Jord is who and what she claims to be. She is a . . . watcher. But don’t those who watch usually report to superiors?”
“Who is the Bitch’s soo-peer-eee-er?” Ugga said.
“An excellent question,” Torg said. “I don’t know the answer—and I’m not sure I want to.”
“I has another question,” Bard said, whose tone now contained a hint of anger. “Why does the Bitch favor Master Hah-nah?”
Torg again thought back to his conversation with Peta. There are three females on Triken who can abide you—and you already have met them. Vedana was one. He now knew Jord was another, though he had never met her before as far as he knew. But who was the third?
“I’m not sure favor is the proper word,” Torg said. “But I do know this: An evil has arisen that threatens us all. The fate of the land lies in the hands of a few. I am destined—willing or not—to play a role in the outcome. Perhaps the two of you are fated to join me.”
Outside the hut, the drums resumed their mysterious beat. Leaning against the far wall, the Silver Sword glowed like a comet.
Torg, Ugga, and Bard paid little heed.
Too much wine.
Too much talk.
The three men—good friends, all—succumbed to the lure of drunken sleep.
The Other Death-Knower
1
Upon awakening, the first thing Torg noticed was the pervasive smell of sweat. Bard still sat at the table, but the side of his face was plastered against the splintered wood. Ugga had fallen out of his chair and lay flat on his back on the dirt floor, his massive chest—and even larger stomach—rising and falling. The fire had burned low, but the interior of the hut remained warm. Torg yawned, stretched and sat up. At least, he alone among the three of them had had the sense to crawl over to the bed of leaves, though he had no memory of doing it.
The Silver Sword rested against the wall near the door. Torg walked to it and grasped the black-leather hilt. He noticed for the first time that the asthenolith had damaged it a bit. But for reasons he could not understand, it had not disintegrated entirely. He touched the blade with his left hand, expecting it to be about the same temperature as the room; instead it was freezing cold. Heat had no effect on the supernal alloys. He vaguely remembered grasping the blade while in the agony of the asthenolith; even there it had been cool.
He put down the sword, opened the door and stepped outside. More snow had fallen during the night, and the morning sky had remained gloomy. The fire that had roasted the possum and hares was lifeless.
The downturn in the weather did not surprise him. As winter approached, storms would be frequent, and there would be snow on the ground for at least four months. Most of the people who dwelled this near to the northern mountains would spend the majority of their time indoors, wandering out only to replenish water supplies and to hunt for game.
Speaking of game, lying in a split-cane basket near the hut were the carcasses of two wild turkeys and a che-ra. In a second basket were purple berries, hickory nuts and three bloated skins. A wooden spear at least two cubits longer than Torg was tall had been thrust into the ground between the baskets. White and brown feathers attached to the staff hung lifeless in the dead air.
Torg had the feeling he was being watched, but when he scanned the surrounding landscape, he saw no movement. Whoever was out there knew these woods as well as he knew the Great Desert.
He understood one thing that Bard and Ugga did not. The Svakarans, along with the other native people of the mountains, were not “savages.” Some of their actions appeared brutal—especially where the Mogols were concerned—but their ability to live in harmony with their surroundings surpassed most of the “civilized” cultures found on Triken. Only the Tugars, who thrived on the blazing sands of Tējo, were as well-adapted to their environment as the so-called savages of Mahaggata.
Regardless of their reputation, the Svakarans were formidable. If they sensed weakness, they would take advantage. They cared most for their own people and tolerated others only if they feared or respected them.
Torg decided
to reinforce the fear aspect.
He removed his heavy cloak and laid it on the surface of the snow. Wearing only his thin gray robes so that his movements would not be restricted, Torg drew the spear from the frozen ground and grasped the center of its well-balanced shaft, admiring its sharp tip made of chiseled obsidian. He hoisted it above his shoulder and drew it back. With a hidden surge of power from the palm of his hand he engulfed the spear in blue-green flame, but just enough to strengthen it without making it too obvious. Then he let out a howl and heaved the spear with the might and precision of a Tugar warrior. It hurtled through the air like a bolt of lightning and struck the trunk of a dead oak more than one hundred cubits away. There was a booming sound, and shards of wood sprayed outward. The spear pierced the trunk, burst out the other side, and buried itself in a living tree several paces farther away.
Ugga and Bard stumbled through the doorway, tripping over each other.
“Here we come, Master Hah-nah,” the crossbreed shouted. “Do not fear!”
Ugga brought his axe, and Bard carried Jord’s bow and arrows. The pair scrambled next to Torg and stood ready, their haggard breaths coming in large white bursts. They scanned the edge of the clearing, looking this way and that. A long time passed before Bard finally spoke.
“What is it, Hah-nah? We see nothing but the trees. Were ya accosted by savages?”
“Someone or something is out there,” Torg said. “They left us a gift and then withdrew.”
Bard’s cheeks went red. “Are ya trying to end our lives with your wicked shouting? Next time, give Ugga and me some warning before ya go ’round hooting like an animal.”
Ugga, ever the opportunist when it came to food and drink, already was investigating the baskets. “We eat well today,” he said, with a smile that exposed his sharp teeth. “I likes having ya around, Master Hah-nah. Wherever ya go, food appears like mah-gick.”