"You would disobey me?” Moving quickly, his father blocked the doorway. “Do you think you can?"
Scrornuck, realizing that the time had come, lowered his head and charged. His father caught him, threw him to one side, tackled him, and the match was on.
They fought through the night. Scrornuck was younger and stronger, his father more crafty and experienced, and when the first light of morning streaked the sky outside the cottage, the two men were on the dirt floor, covered in mud and blood, still wrestling, neither able to claim victory, neither willing to concede defeat.
"Will I have to kill you to make you obey?” Scrornuck's father grunted, wrapping his hands around his son's throat.
Scrornuck shoved a knee into his father's chest. “Will I have to kill you to make you let me go?"
"Would you do that?"
Scrornuck went limp. “No, I would not."
"Neither would I.” The old man released his grip and got slowly to his feet. “Clean yourself up. I will be back."
While Scrornuck dipped some water from the cistern and scrubbed off the worst of the fight's grime, his father disappeared into the dark, windowless storage room. A few minutes later he returned, carrying a dusty leather scabbard. He handed it to Scrornuck and said, “Know that I disapprove—but if you must do this, I will not let you leave without my blessing."
With something approaching reverence, Scrornuck fastened the scabbard to his belt and unsheathed the heavy iron sword. Its blade was almost three feet long, dirty and a little rusty, but still sharp.
"This belonged to my grandfather,” the old man said. “Your namesake. May your fortunes be better than his.” Fatherly concern crept into his voice. “Just promise me this, my son—if you must get yourself killed, make sure you do it for a good reason."
Scrornuck gave his father an enormous bear hug, and then ran all the way to the training session. To his disappointment, the Master was unimpressed with the family sword, calling it a piece of rusty junk. More disappointing, once he'd translated the morning's instructions, Scrornuck was banished to a spot near the stables, to do his training with a wooden stick and a collection of small children from the village. The Master had bribed the children, who needed no translator when sweets were involved, and they stood in a circle around Scrornuck, throwing stones and sticks as he, blindfolded, attempted to bat them down.
After three days of this, during which he had been bruised, cut and knocked down repeatedly, Scrornuck had had enough. As the children laughed and the Master's other students snickered, he tore off the blindfold and angrily demanded to know just what this had to do with sword fighting.
The Master stared at him with those piercing blue eyes. “Do you desire to replace me?” he asked softly. Scrornuck gulped and shook his head slowly. “Then I suggest that as long as I am the teacher and you are the student, you will do as I instruct. Do you trust me, Mister Saughblade?"
Scrornuck gulped again and nodded silently.
"Then let us get back to work.” With a sigh, Scrornuck put the blindfold back on and reached for the stick. As he did so, the Master jerked his feet from beneath him, sending him sprawling face-first into a fresh cow-pie.
"Eww,” Nalia said, making a face. “My dueling teacher would never do something like that."
"Maybe your teacher had a better student,” Jape suggested with a small grin.
"It's not my fault you could never teach me math..."
"Hey, you two,” Nalia interrupted. “I want to hear the rest of this story!"
"Good idea,” Scrornuck said. “The Master had been training us for a week. Then the Easterners raided our village and carried off a dozen people as slaves..."
"Your people kept slaves?” Nalia asked. “That's barbaric!"
"We didn't,” Scrornuck said. “Slavery is un-Christian. But these raiders from the east were slave-takers, and the Elder decided it was time to do something about them. The Master gathered his students, a few others who were good fighters, and me, and we set off in pursuit. We followed the raiders into their territory and set up camp that night, planning to attack them in the morning."
"Is something troubling you, Mister Saughblade?” the Master asked. He sat on a stone near the fire, seemingly undisturbed by the damp and cold of the night.
"No.” Scrornuck pulled the upper part of his plaid, already wrapped about his shoulders, over his head to form a sort of hood. He wished he were warmer.
The Master stirred the fire with a stick, sending sparks spiraling into the fog. “It is my business to notice when something distracts my students from the task at hand.” He looked Scrornuck in the eye. “Are you troubled that you are alone when others are not?"
Reluctantly, Scrornuck nodded. The other ten men and women of the village's small force had already paired off into couples and bedded down just beyond the light of the fire, leaving Scrornuck by himself. From time to time he heard sounds—snoring, grunts, the occasional giggle—and felt envy for those who were neither cold nor alone.
"It is difficult to be alone.” The Master's voice suggested he had spent many lonely nights himself. “But sometimes the best gifts are saved for such people.” Slowly, almost reverently, he held out the beautiful silver sword. “A hero needs something more than a piece of rusty junk. It is time for us to trade."
Astonished, Scrornuck hurriedly pulled the old iron sword from his belt, nearly dropping it as he handed it to the Master. He jumped to his feet and danced around the fire, waving the magnificent silver weapon over his head.
The Master looked on, a thin smile on his lips.
* * * *
The morning dawned overcast and dreary. As the fog blew away, Scrornuck saw that many members of the eastern clan had arrived during the night, and the village's little army was now outnumbered at least three-to-one. Worse, the enemy had blocked the way back to the village. Scrornuck and his friends were surrounded.
As the sky brightened to a drab, lifeless gray, the raiders closed in from all sides, advancing slowly but purposefully. They were a fearsome sight—like Scrornuck's distant ancestors, they were naked but for a string around the neck, their bodies painted in grotesque red-and-blue designs.
"We're going to wind up as slaves,” one man said.
"If we're lucky,” another replied.
A third drew her sword, a determined look in her eyes. “They may take us, but they'll know they've been in a fight."
Scrornuck stared at the advancing enemy, wishing he'd spent more time practicing with a real sword instead of that stick, wishing he'd listened to his father's advice, wishing he were anywhere but here.
"Nervous, Mister Saughblade?” the Master asked softly.
Scrornuck nodded.
"You wanted to be a hero, did you not?” Smiling, the Master folded his hands together and let the sleeves of his robe slide down over them. “I believe your time has come."
Scrornuck drew the silver sword. Despite the thick clouds, the blade sparkled as if it had found its own private sunbeam. The warriors of Scrornuck's village stared, amazed that the Master had chosen the “bad example” to wield his magnificent weapon.
The Easterners paused as well, but only for a moment. Then the attack began, the barbarians screaming, jumping, slashing with their weapons as the defenders stood in a circle with the Master at its center. The villagers fought hard and well, taking down several of the raiders for each of them that fell. But the Easterners had too many men and fought with a suicidal zeal. Along with the woman next to him, Scrornuck was forced to take another step back, a little closer to the Master. One or two more steps, they'd be too close together to fight, and then it would be over, captured and sold into a life of slavery, if they weren't simply butchered like cattle.
"Stand close.” He heard the Master's voice from behind him and wondered what good that command would do now. Still, he obeyed and dropped back another step, to a point where he could do little to fight off the attackers as they swarmed forward.
A click. Not a clank of sword on sword, just a soft click, followed by a humming, like bees on a summer day. Instinctively, Scrornuck turned. The Master stood as before, his hands still clasped together inside the sleeves of his robe, looking for all the world as if nothing were the least bit wrong.
And as Scrornuck watched in horror, the barbarians attacked from behind the Master. Two of them hoisted a comrade by the feet and tossed him over the line of villagers. The raider shrieked a hideous banshee wail as he flew through the air, his axe heading for the Master's neck.
Scrornuck felt himself moving, not of his own will, leaping higher than he'd ever leaped before. His right hand shoved the Master down and out of harm's way. He felt nothing as the enemy's weapon opened a bloody gash in his right arm. His left hand raised the silvery sword, and its point, seemingly of its own volition, pierced the raider's heart in a spray of blood.
Gripping the sword with both hands, Scrornuck landed in the middle of the attackers. A howling, deeper and more primitive than the wails of the enemy, rose from his throat as he launched into a wild attack...
"You—you killed them?” Nalia, visibly pale, held a hand over her mouth.
"Yeah, I ripped ‘em up, down and sideways—” Scrornuck stopped suddenly as Jape kicked him under the table.
"Ixnay on the ood-blay,” Jape whispered, giving Scrornuck's ankle another kick for emphasis. He turned to Nalia. “Let's just say that he whipped the bad guys and went home a hero. Right, Mister Saughblade?"
"Uh, yeah, right.” Scrornuck wondered why Jape wanted him to skip the best part. “I fought like I'd never fought before, and in a few minutes I'd pretty much sent the other guys running for the hills.” Those that still had legs, he thought. “Then I heard the Master..."
"Well, Mister Saughblade, it appears we've won. How does it feel to be a hero?"
"Hero? Me?” Scrornuck stared at the dead and fleeing raiders. He had done that?
The next morning, the Master inspected his little army. “I believe you have passed the audition,” he said. “My work here is done."
"You're leaving?” Scrornuck, like the others, was still hung-over from the victory celebration.
The Master nodded. “There is nothing more I can teach you. Use your new skills wisely."
Scrornuck sighed, and then slowly held out the beautiful silver sword. “I suppose you'll want this back."
"No, this sword has chosen you, at least for the moment. Use it wisely, also.” With that, the Master turned, walked quickly around the end of the stable, and was gone. Scrornuck pursued him, but just as before, the Master was nowhere to be seen.
He returned slowly. His head throbbed but his heart leaped for joy as he felt the wonderful silver sword in his hand.
"And that was my first big battle,” Scrornuck concluded, polishing off his beer.
Nalia applauded softly but enthusiastically. “Great story! Do you have any more?"
"Not now,” Jape said sternly. “We need to be on our way."
As Jape paid the bill, leaving a modest tip, Scrornuck and Nalia strolled over to the beer garden's fence. There they watched several young men and women practicing archery at a small target range. “They're good,” he said, watching one arrow after another find its mark, a red heart in a silhouette of an attacking dragon.
"They're okay.” A note of pride crept into Nalia's voice. “I'm better—I took second place in my age-group when I was fourteen."
"Congratulations!” he said. “You know, your people could raise one heck of an army."
"An army?” she said, indignation filling her voice. “You mean shoot at people? You could hurt somebody doing that! Archery is just for fun!"
Just for fun? he thought. Another arrow thunked dead center into its target. Still, if what she'd said was true, there were no battles in Taupeaquaah, and no need for armies. What a great place.
Jape sauntered up and watched the archers for a few seconds. “They're good,” he said. “I bet they'd make a pretty fair army..."
Scrornuck raised a finger to his lips. “I wouldn't go there."
They left the pub and continued to the west. After they'd walked for about an hour, the pavement abruptly ran out. Neat stacks of yellow bricks sat on wooden pallets alongside the dirt path, protected by plastic cones whose orange color had faded little in the last century. “End of the Road,” Nalia said reverently.
Scrornuck idly lifted a brick from the stack. Turning it over in his hand, he looked to the west. More stacks of yellow bricks stood at the foot of the next concrete tower, and the one after that. He dropped the brick and picked up an orange cone, holding it to his mouth as if it were a megaphone. “Attention, shoppers! Special on yellow pavers in Aisle Six!"
Nalia gasped, her face went white and she stared into the sky as though she expected something heavy to fall from it.
"Mister Saughblade,” Jape said, in a voice that allowed no argument, “put those back where you found them. Now!"
Scrornuck set the cone down, being careful to place it exactly on the little depression in the dust where he'd found it. Then, seeing that he still hadn't escaped Jape's icy stare, he picked up the brick he'd dropped and carefully set it back on the stack. “Just a brick,” he muttered. “It's not like they're sacred or something..."
"Yes, they are!" Nalia's words practically exploded, and Scrornuck took a half-step backward in surprise. “Don't you know anything?"
"We're not from around here,” Jape said. “As far as we know, a pile of bricks is a pile of bricks. Please tell us what we're missing."
She released an exasperated sigh. “All right. But if you don't know this, what the hell do you know? The End of the Road is where construction stopped when Spafu's Helpers left. The Priests tell us that someday they'll return and finish the Road, and until then we're to leave things exactly as they were. So, yes, it's a sacred place, and you've disturbed it—for all I know, you've just cursed all of us."
"Well,” Jape said cheerfully, “we didn't get struck down by lightning, so I suspect we've escaped the wrath of Spafu this time. We'll be more careful, won't we, Mister Saughblade?"
Scrornuck nodded, muttering under his breath that the lizard couldn't curse his own butt.
They continued west, Scrornuck making a point of giving the piles of bricks a wide berth. The grasslands through which the road ran narrowed to a strip barely a hundred feet wide, separating the dense forests to the south from a parched white desert to the north. In the distance, a huge cloud of brown dust swirled and boiled, rising hundreds of feet above the desert. “I've been watching that for the better part of an hour,” Jape said. “What is it?"
"We call it the Perpetual Storm,” Nalia said. “It never gets any bigger or smaller, it never moves, and the stories say it's been there since the world was made. Some say Spafu cursed the land and made it a desert. Nobody knows for sure, because the sacred scrolls don't mention it."
"Maybe they were building a beach and forgot the lake.” Scrornuck set down his pack and pointed to an outcrop of white stone some fifty feet high. “C'mon, let's get a better look."
Nalia stopped at the edge of the grass. “I don't want to get any closer. I've heard stories about people who go into the desert. They never come back. Maybe they're attacked by unfriendly dragons.” She shuddered slightly. “Maybe something out there eats them."
"Or maybe they just get lost,” Jape said. “No need to invent monsters when confusion and dehydration will explain things. Still, Mister Saughblade..."
"On my way!” Scrornuck opened the pack and retrieved a short black tube with a clear jewel on each end. He trotted across the sand and scrambled up the crumbling side of the rock. Reaching the top, he put one end of the spotter-scope to his eye and turned to examine the Storm. “See anything?"
Jape, watching the spotter-scope's view on the softscroll, shook his head. Even in the magnified view, the swirling clouds of dust looked like little more than swirling clouds of dust. “Might as well come on down."<
br />
As Scrornuck started to lower the scope, he glimpsed a speck of light moving along the northern horizon. “Hey, Jape, have a look at this!"
Jape watched the speck flicker along among the dunes for a few seconds before it faded away. He looked at Nalia. “Are you sure nobody lives out there?"
She nodded. “Positive. Nobody lives there, nobody goes there, nobody ever came back."
Scrornuck swept the horizon with the scope, but while a few specks and sparkles appeared in the heat haze, there was no longer any sign of a moving light. “Whatever it was, it's gone."
"Probably an illusion,” Jape said, as Scrornuck scampered down from the rock to join the group. “You know how the desert plays tricks."
An hour or so later, they encountered a trail that led south into the forest. Jape again waved his hands in the air and studied the jewels in his rings. He sat on a comfortable tussock of grass and pulled out the softscroll, which became a rigid tablet resting on his knees. The map was now more detailed, showing every bend in the Western Road, along with a half-dozen purple spots, each with a straight line passing through it. He planted a finger on the point where the lines converged, south of their present location. “That's our destination,” he said, “so this must be our turnoff."
The forest trail was neither brick nor dirt but smooth, short grass that was perfect for walking. “Look at this,” Jape said, pointing to the trail's edge. “The grass grows on the path, there's this row of yellow flowers, then the forest begins. No trees on the path, no grass under the trees. How'd they do it?” He waved his hands over the grass and flowers, watching the flickering jewels of his rings. “There. I'll try to figure it out tonight.” He smiled, anticipating an interesting puzzle.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter Four
"Just a Fancy Name for Magic"
"This looks like a good place to spend the night,” Scrornuck said, pointing to a pleasant clearing about a hundred feet from the path. It was just big enough for sunlight to reach the forest floor, creating an oasis of soft green grass. A small stream flowed through the clearing, and a spring bubbled from a rocky place on the stream's bank.
The Last Protector Page 5