by Curtis, Greg
Meanwhile he worked every day from dawn to dusk as he always did, and the satisfaction he felt in his work continued to grow. His wares were improving in quality all the time, and he was crafting them more easily. Some days it almost seemed he didn't need a hammer and anvil any more. The metal simply flowed under his fingertips and found the shape he intended all by itself. His senses were sharper too. He could taste so much more in the metal. Smell its every perfection and flaw. And the enchantments barely required a thought. The magic simply streamed from him into whatever he was crafting so easily.
Harl had turned a corner in his art. He was no longer a mere arcane smith but a master. And while that had always been his intention, it was something that shouldn't have happened for a good twenty or thirty more years at least. His only lack if he had one, was that he did not have those additional twenty or thirty years of knowledge. Master Gallowgood had had an entire library devoted to the craft. The magic, the recipes and the shapes for everything he could craft. But even things that he hadn't learned Harl seemed to know, as much of that knowledge now dwelt within him.
A mewling came from the roof of the smithy, and he knew that it was lunch time. Where the little orange ball of fur had come from he didn't know. He didn't look much like a wild cat. And he wasn't really a very good mouser either. In fact he hadn't caught one yet as far as Harl knew. But he was exceptionally good at begging for food. In fact it might be the cat's best talent. That and getting into places he shouldn't. For instance there was where he was now. How the cat had climbed onto the thatched roof over his smithy he didn't know. It wasn't as if there were any trees beside it or ladders to climb. And he surely couldn't jump that high.
Still, he reached up his arms and the cat came to them, no doubt thinking there was food coming. And the sad fact of the matter was that there probably was. It was a pitiful thing to admit, but his heart was becoming soft of late. He blamed Nyma for that. Still, it was nice to have someone to talk to even if the fur ball didn't talk back. And something warm to hold when Nyma wasn't around.
“Inside, you. We'll finish off the rabbit.”
He didn't need to tell the cat twice. In fact the cat jumped down from his arms and immediately started heading for the house, tail high in the air. And when he reached the door he stood there and turned his head to look back at Harl, as if asking him what was taking him so long to come and open the door.
Harl dropped his tools and followed the cat across the yard, wondering if there was enough rabbit for the both of them. The cat was a vulture when it came to food. So much so that he couldn't work out why the little monster wasn't the size of a barn. Maybe he should have cooked a couple of rabbits.
Half way across the yard to his house the cat mewled strangely at him, and he instantly knew that something was wrong. Very wrong. He stopped and looked around, worried.
“Run you fool child!”
Someone yelled it at him, startling Harl. But instead of worrying about who it was, he worried about where to run to. Because he knew he was in danger. He knew it more when he saw a shadow racing along the ground as something flew over him. But then like a fool he looked up when he should simply have run.
She was a fury. Harl recognised her form immediately even if he'd never seen one of her kind before. Furies were cousins to the harpies but much more deadly. Where harpies had the faces and bodies of diseased women to go with their bat like wings and claws, furies had the parts of vipers as well. Snakes for hair, needle thin viper fangs in their mouths, talons for their feet and hands, and a hiss that could shatter eardrums. They were also trained assassins. Skilled at striking quickly and silently. She proved that an instant later as she struck, hissing to distract him and then diving at him, talons outstretched.
Harl barely managed to dodge the attack, and then he had to dodge even faster the other way a heartbeat later. She was even quicker than he'd feared. Fortunately she'd landed and she was a slow runner, and once he'd escaped her claws he was able to put a few paces between them.
But only a few. He discovered with horror that even though she couldn't run she could still hop. She leapt high up into the air – as high as a tall man standing – stretched out her arms and legs wide so that the leathery flaps of skins they called wings filled with air and then streaked for him covering the distance between them in a couple of heartbeats. Harl unexpectedly found himself having to dodge all over again, twisting desperately to the side as fast as he could and then spinning the other way even faster. He wondered how many others had been caught out by the surprise move.
This time he wasn't quite fast enough. Her talon caught him on the right shoulder, tearing straight through his robe and drawing blood. Drawing quite a lot of blood he thought as he ran for shelter. But at least none of her vipers had caught him. Their venom was deadly. Thankfully as far as he knew she wasn't diseased like her cousins.
Harl suddenly knew that he needed to get to shelter quickly. He needed a roof. Anything to stop her hopping so high. And as she was standing between him and the house he needed to head for the smithy.
Unfortunately it was a long run. Thirty paces even at a sprint. And he knew even as he ran that he wouldn't make it. She was too fast. So instead of sprinting there directly, he zigzagged. After half a dozen paces in one direction he turned sharply to his right and watched out of the corner of his eye as she landed lightly on the ground where he would have been and hissed angrily when she realised he wasn't there.
Then she leapt back into the air to try and cut him off from where he was headed. He turned to the left the moment he saw her feet leave the ground.
Twist and turn. It was the only way he realised. The only chance he had without his sword or any armour. But it seemed to work. As long as he turned after she'd leapt. She couldn't turn as quickly in the air as he could on the ground. And little by little he made it to the pit. Somehow he even managed it without getting touched again. Which was good when he could feel the warm blood rolling down his arm.
Once there he instantly realised that his safety lay in always keeping the pit between them, and that was exactly what he did, much to the fury's annoyance. Under the roof she couldn't jump any more, not without hitting the roof and getting caught in the thatch. That meant that she also couldn't jump over the pit. She also knew enough to fear fire. In fact she kept hissing at it as if it was an actual creature threatening her and the vipers that were her hair kept lashing out at it angrily. But she couldn't go through it or jump over it and that left her with trying to go around it. Something that was incredibly awkward for her on those taloned feet. Harl was easily able to keep the pit between them as she moved to the left and right in awkward looking little hops.
That gave him a chance to gather his breath. To let his heart stop thundering quite so loud in his chest. And to think.
He was unarmed. He wasn't wearing any armour either. And Nyma was going to be upset about both of those things after he'd promised her he would be more careful. And he would be after this – if he lived. He was also bleeding. And the only thing keeping him alive was the fire pit between him and the hissing monster. Especially when she was clever enough to keep the racks of weapons behind her. That was smart actually. Smarter than any other chimera he'd encountered.
She was a true monster. A creature that made all the other chimera he'd seen look almost friendly. The writhing snakes she had in place of her hair were horrifying enough and the mouth with those huge fangs was worse. But then there was her skin.
Out in the sunshine it had looked normal enough, golden brown as if she'd been spending her days in the sun. But sheltered from the sun by the thatched roof and bathed in the light of the fire, it had suddenly become something else. Something unnatural. In that light her skin looked a waxy grey colour and it was covered in dark blue veins. It was the sort of skin you might find on a five day old corpse.
Or as he suddenly thought, on the thralls of demons. Everyone knew they decayed inside as they served. They hid it but the r
ot was there. Which had always made it seem strange to him that people would accept the denizens of Tartarus as their masters. They truly must want power to offer themselves to them. It also made him wonder: Could the fury be some sort of thrall as well? After all, if the false priests were then why not the chimera? And fire as every arcane smith knew, revealed the truth.
What the fire showed was that a part of what she was, was a lie. She was a monster, but even so there was something distinctly unearthly about her. As for her eyes they too were snake eyes he noticed. Yellow with dark slits in them. But by far the worst thing about those eyes was that they were staring straight at him. He was her prey. Her target – because he knew that she had been sent after him.
Harl felt unclean just standing opposite her. As if he'd been wading through sewers. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to bathe.
But not in water. He was an arcane smith and the cleanest thing he could think of to bathe in was fire. Fire was cleansing. Everyone knew that. And everyone knew that the best way to get rid of a disease was to burn it out.
Acting on instinct he reached into the pit and pulled out a stone. A large river stone that was burning beautifully with his magic. And then he tossed it at her.
Her response wasn't what he'd expected. He'd thought that she would dodge, but instead she reached for it. Acting on some sort of impulse she caught the burning rock, her long taloned fingers somehow wrapping themselves right around it. But then she screeched in fury as it burnt her and threw it away while all her snakes writhed angrily.
That gave him an idea. She couldn't stand the fire. She was under the smithy roof, unable to jump and only able to move from side to side and even then her movements were awkward. She was barely ten feet away. And he had an entire pit filled with burning stones between them.
Harl picked another one up and this time he hurled it at her with all the strength he had. He was certain she wouldn't make the same mistake again and catch this one. She dodged, hopping to the side as fast as she could, but not fast enough and the burning stone caught her on the shoulder, causing her to screech again. And then while she was screeching and trying to brush the stone off her he hurled the next one at her. That one caught her full in the chest and knocked her back a step. It burnt her too and she hated that. It also proved the best of the throws as it caught her in the wing. She'd reacted to the pain of the previous hit by opening her arms wide, and the leathery flaps connected to them and her legs made a perfect target.
After that it was more of the same. He kept throwing the burning stones at her and she kept trying and mostly failing to get out of the way. She kept hissing and screeching at him. And she kept burning.
Soon her skin was covered in scorch marks – an improvement in his view – and her legs weren't allowing her to move even as freely as she had. Worst of all for her, she was slowing down. The injuries were taking their toll on her. If she'd had any sense she would have run. Taken to the skies and safety. Or at least she would have gotten far enough away that he couldn't hit her with the rocks. But she didn't, and he knew that she wouldn't. None of the chimera ever backed away – not for long. Besides, she was an assassin. She no doubt realised that if she backed away it would give him a chance to grab some armour and a weapon from the rack behind her. There was no way she could let that happen. It was then that he realised he had the chance to finish her off. Harl grabbed a burning stone the size of his fist and hurled it straight at her face.
It hit, a smashing blow that shattered bone and knocked her down. And that was his chance. Even as she lay there on the other side of the pit, screeching and hissing, he leapt into it – a move he knew she could never have expected – grabbed a couple more stones, and ran for her. And then on the other side when he saw her lying there on her back clutching at her broken face, he threw them straight down on top of her.
She screamed in pain – a sound that would have curdled milk – and tried to wave him away. But she couldn't. Something was broken in her. Instead, she just lay there, struggling to get the burning stones off her, but failing. Her body didn't move well when she was lying on her back. Worse for her, her leathery wings acted as nets to catch the burning rocks while she lay there. So he grabbed a couple more of the bigger stones and dropped them on her as well, pinning her to the ground.
Then, when he was satisfied she was doomed, he stood in the fire above her and watched her die. Slowly.
It took time. She kept struggling for what seemed to be ages. But she couldn't dislodge the stones trapped in her wings, and so they kept burning her. Cooking pieces of her while the vipers on her head danced in agony.
Eventually though her fight ended, and she stopped struggling. The snakes stopped wriggling. And the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Coincidentally at about the same time the last of his clothes burnt away, leaving him once more standing in the pit naked. Not that he cared. He was just pleased that she was dead.
In time though he cared about something else as he cleansed his wounds with fire. A question. Was she alone?
Furies were assassins. Vicious and utterly deadly killers that were sent after particular targets. As far as he knew they were only sent out one by one. They had to be. They were very rare creatures among the chimera. Even their cousins the harpies were uncommon. But he remembered hearing stories about the furies being used to assassinate priests and nobles from other lands when the false temple had first appeared in the Kingdom of the Lion. They had been the first wave of killers the temple had sent out, before their other creatures had finally invaded those lands. And there had been a lot of them. Few had survived their attacks.
At the time he hadn't thought much about it as he met up with other refugees and they shared their stories. So many were dying then that the question of what particular chimera had attacked them hadn't seemed important. Gored by a minotaur's horn, slashed by the claws of a leonid, or bitten by the snakes of a fury, in the end dead was dead.
Still the likelihood was that she had been sent alone. He was an arcane smith. Why would anyone bother to send two assassins after him? One should be more than enough.
But then he realised there was another matter to consider. If she was an assassin of the false temple as he knew she was then that could only mean one thing. The temple knew about him. What they knew was the question. Because despite the warning Erislee and Dina had given him, he somehow doubted that it had anything to do with the bow he'd crafted. No one knew he'd crafted it. He hoped. But a lot of people knew he was an arcane smith. That he was crafting spelled weapons for the High Priestess' army. And these days they knew where he lived.
It seemed that there was an informant in town.
In the morning he decided, he was going to have to walk into town and give the commander the news – assuming that she was willing to see him. Ever since seeing him craft the bow and then the subsequent visit of Erislee and Dina she'd been keeping her distance, sending her soldiers in her place. Which reminded him of something else. Who had yelled out the warning? Was there a soldier somewhere nearby?
Desperately he looked around for the man, thinking that he must have taken shelter somewhere. From memory he hadn't sounded like a young man, so maybe he wasn't a soldier. But try as he might, Harl couldn't see anyone there. Not around the smithy. Not around the house. And when he called out to the man he got no answer. No matter how many times or how loudly he called.
Had the man run off? Dashed for the safety of the trees perhaps? It made sense. But at the same time Harl had to wonder if he had, why he was no longer in ear shot.
Still in the end he decided after calling out and looking for the man as much as he could from the pit. That was going to have to be a riddle to answer another day.
This afternoon he was going to be busy setting up some wards around his home. Things he should probably have done long ago. He hadn't done it then because he had thought living so far away and being hidden from the road would be his best defence. Plus there were some people who could
spot a ward and because of that would know to hunt him down. Now the fact that so many knew where he lived and what he did, whether they could spot a ward or not didn't really matter.
First though, he had to get dressed. In whatever clothes he had left. Then he had to bury the body of the fury. Before Nyma returned because he was certain that if she found out about the attack that somehow this would all end up being his fault. Most things were his fault. She was very clear on that. And this time he suspected she would not be distracted by a little bedding. Nor even by a lot of it. There was no doubt that Nyma was enjoying their time together as much as he was, but that wouldn't stop her doing her duty, and her duty as far as she was concerned, was keeping him safe. She would demand that he accept some guards the moment she had some evidence that he was in danger and thanks to his visitor she might find some.
He would get no sympathy for being wounded either. Instead she would just ask him why he hadn't been wearing his armour. And if she found out he'd left his sword in the house there would be much telling off.
Getting dressed and burying the body therefore had to be his priorities. After that he could think about other security measures. The things he had failed to do before because they had seemed unnecessary. Even though he'd promised Nyma that he would. Now that it seemed that the false temple had finally found him, those things had had just become very necessary indeed. And first on the list would be creating some wards. All the standard enchantments that would keep others away. Confusion, dizziness, fear and – considering he had just been attacked by a fury – unsteady air. He thought Nyma would be happy about that. After all, she'd been talking to him from the start about setting some up. And each time she mentioned it and found he still hadn't got round to it she had gotten upset. Now at least she wouldn't be upset anymore. About that anyway.