EXILED: Lord of Cragsclaw

by Bill Fawcett

  One time he came across a dead thing, but it was small and decayed, and hungry as he was he left it alone. Its scent would confuse any pursuers, though its presence might attract vermin. He stumbled past because it took energy to decide to stop.

  Then unwillingly, before he could decide whether to continue or not, he slept.

  Talwe dreamed of his hut in the village. Inside it, he held Morian to him, and she put her arm around him and held him so tightly he could barely breathe. Then slowly she licked at the fur on his neck, and as her tongue worked its way down his body he felt his muscles relax and his world start to spin. Then suddenly he was upon her, and as he entered her, her claws dug hard in the earth and her moans and light screeches echoed in his ears.

  And when they were done, and Morian lay peacefully in his arms, the hut door swung open and three masked mrem entered. One covered Morian’s mouth with his hands, while the others held Talwe’s arms and beat his head with their fists. They tied him tightly with rope, and then they turned Morian onto her stomach and forced her open again and again. As they left, they spat in his face, and only now could Talwe see through the holes in their masks.

  Their eyes, he saw, were gold.

  He awoke in the forest to the shivering cry of the olna, the night-bird who signaled the coming of dawn. He smelled vomit all around him. Rising, he realized he had been sick while he dreamt, and he silently prayed to Inla to help him forget. His head pounding and his muscles on fire, he looked to the sun rising red through the trees. Turning his back to it, he marched in a straight line back to the west. He refused, out of fear, to think of his herd.

  •

  They were gone. All eighty-seven uxen. He knew this was the same spot, because his jacket and staff lay on the ground near the rock, but the uxen were nowhere in sight. Lifting his jacket, he found his jug of water, and after drinking what he wanted, poured the rest over his face. Then, with a deep, long breath, he brought in the cool morning air and started to follow the herd’s trail.

  It wasn’t difficult, of course. Like all the villagemrem, Talwe knew well the skills of tracking. In his youth they had been drilled into him, over and over again, just as had the skills of the Hunt as he grew older. Even girls were taught how to find a lost animal (but never how to hunt), because during a Hunt if the males were far from home they would often have to leave their own work and help a herder bring his herd together. And eighty-seven uxen leave a very easy trail to follow.

  As he began, Talwe realized that once again he had failed. His duty had been to guard the herd, not to wander into the forest. He had let his own boredom drive him. Behind all these thoughts lingered the image of those golden eyes.

  He ran. The trail was clear north across the plain, curving northeast where the foothills began their long, slow journey toward the gray-white mountains beyond. On the foothills began the first of the allgreen trees, and much farther north the sporass and the gold sporass fought to dominate the songomores. To the east, an hour’s run away, was the forest, and Talwe hoped the herd was not there. He had no desire to repeat his fearful night.

  In the distance the first of the mountains flattened against the sharp blue sky. Talwe knew it lay many days further, but as he watched a cloud break on its lime-white peak he thought he could touch it by reaching out his hand. The mountain was beautiful, and he smiled as he ran.

  “One day,” he said aloud, “one day I will see you much closer.” And then he looked down, and forced himself back to the job he had to do.

  He stopped. He had been following a path of trampled grass and hoofmarks in the ground. But now the path split many ways. To the right the ground was torn open in several places, meaning that the beasts had been frightened into running. In all other directions, the path continued among the still-sparse trees. In one way this was a problem, because with the trees the tracks would be harder to follow, but in another way it helped. The trees themselves would give him clues.

  He found the first eight uxen over a small rise. They grazed among the trees, and when he called them they looked at him and then resumed eating. Their tails waved lazily in the gentle breeze. Talwe dragged the bushes into a makeshift pen and hurried on.

  By midafternoon he had found over half of the herd. Using two songomore branches he herded them back to the first eight, then turned to the much more difficult task of finding the animals who had run. Herd animals, especially uxen, scattered when they ran. It was almost as if they were as frightened of each other as they were of the thing that chased them. Or maybe it was a way to protect the herd; if they scattered, a pursuer could only chase one. Talwe thought suddenly of a song he had sung as a child, where a young uxan led a hunter away from the herd and let herself be caught. The song was sad.

  He ran north now. The foothills still sloped gently, and the songomores were still in command, but Talwe sensed a difference in the land. Stopping, he crouched and picked up a handful of ground. Its scent was strange, and its texture was thick. It reminded him of the swamps near the Targra. He had seen those swamps only once, and he did not want to see them again.

  But this land was not swamp. It was dry, and it was hard. But it had the smell of the liskash about it, and Talwe threw the handful of earth down in disgust. He had known he would find liskash in the mountains, but not that they traveled this far south.

  If the elders knew it, they never taught it.

  He found several uxen to the east, tearing the grass from the ground near the trees. They did not graze easily, these uxen, and they started when they heard Talwe’s voice. He went to them all and held their heads in his arms to soothe them. Leading them out of the trees, he waited until they calmed and then he started back into his search.

  By twilight, he had all but two. The sporass were thicker here among the songomores, and he could see the first of the pines raising their points high into the sunset. He ran now, fearful of the coming night, knowing that he was in the last possible hour of searching. If he did not find them now, he would have to wait until morning. By then, he would not find them at all.

  The western sky was on fire now, as the sun danced down over the hills to his left. He sang to Inla and then to the goddess of the sun, and he prayed as he ran that they would help him find the last beasts. The darkness was growing with each passing stride, and already he began to see liskash shapes among the black trees all around. The wind hissed, and Talwe’s blood froze at the sound.

  He thought he could smell them now. There was no question that here dwelled many liskash. He could see their split tongues knifing the air and their teeth sharp and cruel as they gleamed in the moonlight. They had hard, scaly bodies and stubby legs ending in deadly claws designed for ripping through soft mrem fur. All liskash eyes were black as the night they worshipped. And always there was that reek, a sickening, hateful stench, that Talwe’s ancestral memories warned was the harsh smell of cruelty and of evil.

  “If you do evil,” the elders said, “you will be found in the night by a liskash.” It was the warning given to all young mrem, and it echoed now through Talwe’s brain.

  He had done evil. He had lost two cattle.

  And then he fell. Hard on his face he landed, the twigs on the ground scraping his forehead and chest. For a second he lay unable to rise. He rolled to one side. Again he tried to raise himself, and again he fell flat. His head reeled with the blood-smell, and mixed with it now was another. He raised himself on his quaking arms, and he opened his eyes.

  Straight in front of him, inches from his face, were the ripped-open guts of a herd beast. Into the clawed-out belly he stared, and his hand touched the trailing intestines. Swaying with sickness, he rose to his knees, and around him he saw the other parts of the uxan. The legs were torn free, meat barely clinging to the bones, and the heart had been ripped from the chest. And then, through the murk of his tear-filled eyes, Talwe saw that the beast had no head.

  Quickly he s
pun. Behind him, up a small hill, lay the thing he had tripped over. It was the uxan’s skull, half the flesh torn from it. Empty eye sockets stared blindly out of its face, and black blood dripped slowly from its nostrils.

  Talwe ran. Back toward the herd he raced, and when he reached them he guided them quickly from the hills. He herded them through the long, black night, terrified to look behind and seeing nothing but eyes when he looked straight ahead. At last he chose only to look at the ground, and the long, soft grass that waved silently in the pale light of the moon. Just before dawn he came back to his rock, and he tumbled to the ground and slept.

  “YOU HAVE LOST two herd beasts,” Orrintar said sadly. “You may defend yourself, Talwe.”

  “A liskash killed both,” Talwe lied. He considered telling the village about the mrem who had chased him, but he knew he could not. They would ask many questions, and perhaps they would search. Somehow, they would discover the color of their eyes and the darkness of their fur. If that happened, he would be lost to the village forever.

  Orrintar nodded. “You have not told all,” he said. “You say you found the dead uxan far to the north of your camp. How did it get there?”

  “It strayed,” was all Talwe could think of.

  “Herd beasts do not stray that far, Talwe, not if the herder is alert. You know well that you are to count the beasts at sunrise, at midday, at midafternoon, and twice more before dusk. Only a running animal could have reached where you found it. If it was running, you should have seen it.”

  The elder was right, of course. There was no defense at all. The only way the herd could have strayed that far away was if Talwe had been gone from the camp. And that, of course, was what had happened.

  He was silent for a long time. The villagemrem formed a wide circle around him, and from that circle Dalriatar now spoke.

  “You have not had an easy life with us, Talwe.” His voice was kind, his tone soft. “You have endured the taunts of the children and the hatred of the mrem who are ignorant.” Talwe could almost feel the eyes of the villagemrem turn toward Forun, but of course Forun was not alone. “Yet the village raised you from childhood, and it gave you the freedom of the Hunt. You have served it well, and it appreciates that service.”

  Several of the elders nodded. Old Dalriatar stroked his gray whiskers.

  “But now you have done wrong, and you have no defense. I shudder with the others to hear of the liskash, and I fear for you as you tell of the evil of the night. But you have lost two of your herd, and for that we can only weep.” He looked into the dark mrem’s eyes. “Do you have any other defense?”

  Talwe dropped his eyes to the ground. Again the urge to explain came to him, but again he kept it inside. Whatever happened, he had realized on the long walk back to the village, he would have to find those others himself. He could not use the villagers’ help at all. If he did there was no doubt they would banish him, assured he was an outsider.

  At last he looked up, and the eyes of Dalriatar almost pleaded. “I have no defense,” Talwe said. “I have only a warning. Whichever mrem takes over the herd, watch carefully for the coming of the liskash. And watch, too, for the power of the forest.”

  The circle cried out as one. “No!” came their shout, and Talwe felt his face flush red. Then he saw Forun rise to his feet and speak loudly above the noise.

  “The songomores do not betray,” he announced to the villagemrem. “They fight evil, but they do not betray. If they called Talwe, and did not bless Talwe, then Talwe must be evil.”

  Again the shouts began, and many agreed with Forun.

  “That is enough!” shouted Orrintar. “Forun speaks without knowing, and Talwe speaks without thinking. Both are wrong. The songomores bless our herds, but things can pass through the songomores that do not. Something passed through them and Talwe’s herd was their prey. He followed, as he should not have done. His punishment is only for that.”

  The circle stilled. Talwe looked at Orrintar gratefully.

  “You have been removed from the Hunt,” the elder said, “and now you will be taken from the herds. You will work with the young females, Talwe, helping them to tend the village. And you must live by yourself until the coming of the Dancer, when she will decide what else should be done. Morian will leave you, and go to another.”

  Talwe broke in. “But why is Morian punished?”

  “She may choose where to go herself. You have had your chance to speak,” Orrintar continued sternly. “Say nothing more.” Then he softened. “But I will tell you this. No female of the village can live with one who is disgraced. If she did, she too would be disgraced. Morian is not being punished, Talwe. She is being freed.”

  •

  The cave was ugly, and it stank. Talwe was almost sorry he had refused to accept the punishment and sneaked out of the village. He stood just outside, ignoring the chill air. The first day, he told himself he had followed the strangers for the good of the village. By the second day he was so far from their valley he could no longer deceive himself that this was the most important reason he followed them. Something drove him to find these mrem whom he resembled. Something he was not yet comfortable with.

  The light of the entrance was soon lost as Talwe forced himself to enter. Deep into the side of the mountain sacred to the Sky-Goddess this cave burrowed, curving and twisting as if trying to break free from the daylight. Talwe could track in the darkness by letting his eyes learn to see by the faint light that danced off the walls. He was choking, though, from the putrid stench.

  Liskash. Seldom in his life had he known a liskash, but now he seemed to be smelling them wherever he walked. First they were in the foothills, where one had torn apart his uxen, and now in the mountain, where it was said lived the goddess. He wondered how she could abide his foul presence.

  He had been tracking the gold-eyed strangers, not liskash. He stood confused as to why even these mrem would choose to enter such a place. Every instinct told Talwe to run. To get outside to the sunlight and grass. He forced himself to continue.

  Several strides further into the wide tunnel, the mrem hunter stopped. He crouched and stared at a faint footprint in the thin layer of mud, then reached down, touched it, and brought his fingers to his nose. The smell was the right one, he said to himself. The strangely spiced smell of the gold-eyed mrem from the forest.

  But in a cave? Why would a mrem choose a cave? Of all the places to live, no mrem he knew would ever want a cave. Lizards dwelt in caves, not mrem. Especially not in a cave in the Sky-Goddess’ mountain.

  He followed the trail deeper. The further he went, the worse the air grew, and the dimmer the light from the distant entrance. The air now was filled with innumerable scents. The rocks smelled of slime, and to the touch they were slippery and damp. The mud of the floor bore the odor of decay, and from time to time Talwe saw an ill-defined lump off to the side. But overwhelming all the other odors was the reek of the liskash—how many he could not know—churning his stomach until he covered his mouth with his hands. He was a skilled hunter, though, and he managed for a while to follow the scent of the strange mrem.

  Suddenly it stopped. Talwe stooped and smelled the damp grit, and then he stood tall and inhaled deeply. With his keen eyes he searched through the darkness for a side passage. But there was no scent or sign of the mrem, nothing at all. He closed his eyes and held his nose shut, trying to refresh both his senses, but when he looked and smelled again he found nothing. The mrem had not been here, or at least they had left no traces.

  The liskash, though, had been here, many of them. The reek was devastating, and something had recently bled on the cave’s floor nearby. He followed the trail of blood, knowing there was too much of it for the trail to be very long. The blood was fresh, still moist enough to stain the fur on his hand.

  The body was curled up in a small niche in the wall. There was still a dagger in the mrem’s ha
nd. It glinted feebly in the half-light, the bottom dark as if stained by blood. The wounded mrem’s fur was dark, much like Talwe’s own. The body was sprawled with its face hidden. The hunter bent and turned it over. A large part of the mrem’s chest had been cut by a thick whip and the ribs around the wound were deeply caved in. Something had struck with unbelievable force.

  The pain the hunter had unintentionally caused must have revived the dark-furred mrem for its eyes flickered open. Seeing Talwe, fear appeared in them and the mangled mrem tried weakly to raise the dagger and failed. Then the eyes became confused. The strange mrem spoke breathlessly, almost mouthing the words without sound. Even in the silence of the cave they were barely audible.

  “We thought you had come for us,” was the gasped explanation. “We would not go back to serve them.”

  Before the mrem could say more, its golden eyes looked beyond Talwe and widened. A moment later the body went limp and the hunter knew it was dead. He took a breath, ready to begin the Chant of Passage.

  Then came the hiss. Loud and close, its rasp echoing off the cave walls and slicing at the silence. He stared into the gloom, straining to see the sound’s source, all the time unconsciously bracing his legs to run. But the hiss echoed all around him, and he could not tell where it came from.

  And then finally he saw it. The monster stood twice his height and was many times his weight. It came at him from behind. Whirling to face it, he drew out his sword and stared hard at its silhouette in the tunnel’s faded light. Its tail was not long, but when the massive liskash lifted it and slammed it to the ground, Talwe knew it too was a weapon to fear. The reptile’s legs were hard muscle; its arms were thick, its body covered with thick, dark scales.

  Then something came from its hand. Talwe ducked, but the thing glanced off his shoulder and fell at his feet. He looked down and saw the head of another mrem, its golden eyes opened wide in a half-eaten face. Talwe’s stomach emptied as he staggered aside. His former pursuers had gone no further.