by Ray, M. A.
“It’s not working! It’s his warlock enchantment on the tree!”
They don’t understand, he thought. They never would’ve. He started sort of laughing, sort of crying again—overall, kind of blubbering. It was so ridiculous. There wasn’t any such thing as a warlock anymore, and he wouldn’t have known how to be one if there was. He wasn’t any berserker, either. Berserkers leapt around in Grandpa’s stories, reaving and fighting with foaming mouths gnawing on the edges of their shields, oblivious to friend, foe, or death. Dingus wasn’t none of that. Mostly he was miserable, so miserable that the inside of his head sounded like one endless, angry howl. When the red came on him everything slipped out of his control into the world. Like coming—but better, so good it scared him. He could’ve done it again right now and never mind how little it’d help him.
People shouted knot-tying advice to Rogen while Dingus watched like he was a hundred miles away instead of underneath in a swarming mass of people he’d grown up knowing. Maybe he was a hundred miles away, or farther; he saw Rogen, clinging to one of Moira’s branches, and the mob, but he was also seeing his life go by. He saw himself growing from a chubby, solid kid into a too-tall, too-skinny, too-spotty guy with huge hands and feet. If the People had an awkward stage, Dingus never had seen it. Instead, all the awkward fell on his shoulders, and the injustice of it burned, that Aust’s face should stay perfect and smooth, without one blemish, all the days of Dingus’s life. From the first time Aust stuck out a foot so that Dingus landed face-first in a disgusting puddle and told him, “You’re where you belong, with the other shit,” Aust’s limbs stayed lean and strong, caught between child and adult. Dingus had been six then, and the taller he got, the worse it got, until he couldn’t escape the village without some kind of awfulness—literal shit, sometimes, like the day when he was ten they’d all caught him fishing. He’d tried to fight back at first, but they wrestled him down and the others held him while Aust pinched one off on his chest. He remembered lying there afterward, crying and hating perfect Aust, with the poison sneer no adult ever seemed to see. Dingus hadn’t told a soul what happened; next time would’ve been even more horrible if he had. He thought of Sassy, Ma’s prize black rooster, which he privately called Ass. Of hunting with Grandpa, hearing story after story over the campfire. Of kissing Moira in the cool leaf-shadow under her limbs, and of the slow realization that he never would be a man, that he’d always be an overgrown baby: no-good, no-account, dumb Dingus Xavier, the human bandit’s son. “Dingus, Dingus, half-breed thingus,” always and forever a Thing.
Moira’s tree creaked and lurched, like in a big gust of wind, except the night was calm. Rogen squawked like Ass and tumbled to the ground with a broken-bone crack. It made Dingus laugh long and hard, even though it hurt to laugh. One single, one solitary, one final victory in a whole sixteen years of nothing but losing; it wasn’t much, but it was sweet. They’d have to get their hands dirty. If they could’ve had Dingus deal with it, they would’ve. Kill yourself, boy, he could practically hear them saying, and then put your dead self on a midden heap someplace out of the way, ’cause we don’t want to be bothered.
Rogen lay groaning in a heap. Somebody, Dingus didn’t know who, said “What now?” in an exasperated voice.
“Get him off that stool!” Curran barked, or tried to—his voice still sounded kind of squeaky from Dingus tagging him in the eggs. Everybody holding him up let go, and Dingus fell forward into the dirt. Curran kicked him over onto his back and looked down at him like he wasn’t worth scraping off a boot. The torchlight caught on the cleaver’s blade. He swallowed hard.
“You never wanted me here,” he said, slurring it through his bloody, snotty, probably-broken nose, past his fat lip. Just once he wanted to say it, even though they probably wouldn’t understand the words, let alone what they meant. “But see, I never wanted to be here neither. I never asked to be born!”
“Shut up!” Curran snapped, and kicked him in his already-pounding head. Dingus moaned, but he let himself go slack. He’d said what he wanted to say. Whether or not they listened, he’d said it to them. He was done, and when they put the noose around his neck to strangle him he was way past fear. He was crying from relief.
There was a low, low sobbing in the oak tree, like a throbbing beat on a hollow log. He took in one last, full breath, thinking, Moira, Moira, and wishing she didn’t have to watch. The rough hemp scraped painfully on the sunburned back of Dingus’s neck, and pulled tight around his throat.
Dingus
An empty public house right after dark was never a good sign. Sir Vandis Vail stood outside the only thing that could pass for a pub in this one-street, one-horse, sheep-smelling hick town, scratching his wide chest and scowling. The signs—the lettered ones, anyhow—were in hituleti: the People’s tongue, they called it, but almost everyone else called it Elven, and never mind that they hated to be called elves. As a rule, Vandis did not use racially biased language, but he fought a lifetime’s habits and his own culture every time he called them tulon and tulua.
All he’d meant to do was stop in, have a pint or two, and sleep in a bed for once. For most Knights, the Longday Moot was a holiday, but for Vandis, it was a frantically busy time, and every year he made it a point to take two weeks’ holiday after. This was Vandis Time, and now he’d have to waste it going to the next town over. Out here in the sticks, that would be miles away. All right—it wouldn’t take that long, not the way Vandis traveled, but he’d already taken off his cap.
He scowled again, hawking up a disgusted loogie, and stuffed the leather cap back onto his head. When he did, he decided he’d get his hair cut as soon as he found a barber, and like every time he decided it, he promptly forgot. He checked that his pack was secure and gave a short hop that might have looked awkward if he’d finished with his feet on the ground.
The sensation was routine, by now, the power his Lady had given him seeming to draw beneath his diaphragm, so that his body lifted airborne. Every so often Vandis wondered what it might have been like to learn priestly magic, but since he’d been about three when all the fairies died, the option was never available.
Besides, he wouldn’t have traded this gift for anything. He pressed for height, until the village spread out under him: the dark cottages tucked into the hills; the single street with its few businesses; and the torchlight from the top of the rise nearby. Vandis rubbed his stubbly chin. He hadn’t thought it was a festival night, but Wealaia was a little bit strange, the People and humans living cheek-by-jowl and hardly ever touching. It probably had something to do with the massive oak at the hill’s summit.
It tossed as if a storm wind blew, but the night was fair, and Vandis’s curiosity leapt. He forgot his plans for the evening. Instead of flying over to the next town, he went straight to the tree and zipped back and forth over it, lower and lower, to take a better look. At first, when the shouts came to his ears, he wondered what they were all yelling about, but then he realized: That’s not a festival. That’s a mob. His eyes narrowed. No Knight who valued his Oath could let this pass without investigation. He drifted down to hover above the treetop, looking down between the leaves just as a bone-thin redheaded kid took a tumble off the stool and stretched himself in the dirt. He really was a kid, too, though Vandis couldn’t tell how old—the tulon had beaten him that badly. They were all tulon.
The butcher in the bloody apron kicked him over onto his back. His face was filthy, but tears and blood cut new tracks in the dirt as soon as he landed. That one, Vandis, said the Voice at the back of his mind, right then. Get Me that one.
Oh, I’m getting him, Vandis thought at Her, grimly. He couldn’t make out whatever the kid was saying; he was blubbering through what sounded like a broken nose.
“Shut up!” said the butcher, kicking the kid in the head. Vandis winced in sympathy. The long, skinny body fell slack.
You mistake Me, She said, right when Vandis was about to drop himself on the butcher. Get him for Me. I want him for a Knigh
t.
Down below, the butcher slipped a noose over the kid’s head. He didn’t fight back; the fight was all kicked out of him. Tears ran freely down his beaten-in face, and he thrashed weakly when he started to strangle, but that was it. Are You sure?
Why do you think you’re here, you daft bam? Be quick now and fetch your Squire before he’s killed.
You know I don’t do that.
Oh, and would you fancy a wee case of leprosy?
Vandis rolled his eyes skyward. Thanks. Thanks a lot.
You’d have saved him in any case, My own, She said fondly.
Not the point. In the time it took him to float down under the lowest branches, his new charge fell unconscious. Vandis thumbed his sword loose. If he couldn’t scare them into leaving, he’d be ridiculously outnumbered.
“I’m through,” said the butcher, dropping the rope like it was a venomous snake and wiping his hands on his apron. They hadn’t done the noose properly, at least, so it loosened right away, and the kid took a rasping breath, though he didn’t come around.
“Give him a minute more,” Vandis suggested, hovering in thin air with his arms folded. “It takes longer than you’d think to kill someone that way, even if he is only a kid.” Hostile eyes swung his way; frightened eyes. A terrified silence fell over the mob. Good, he thought. Let them squirm, the assholes.
After a long moment, one of them spoke up. He wore the bailiff’s heavy chain and he cradled a swollen arm against his chest. “What business is it of yours?”
Vandis shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
“Well, why don’t you—”
“What did he do?”
“He assaulted my son!” the bailiff shouted.
Vandis rubbed his chin again, affecting thoughtfulness. “Hmm. Boys beating on boys weren’t committing a high crime the last time I was here. I guess things have changed in Wealaia.”
“He’s a berserker!” another one put in.
“Oh, so he’s done murder.”
“No,” the bailiff said darkly, “but he will.”
“I’m sure Brother Hawk will be glad you took care of it, then,” he said, even though he doubted King Velrach would give a damn either way. “I mean—that one of his subjects could be a berserker who hasn’t murdered anyone! What’s this world coming to?”
There was an uncomfortable pause.
“Tell you what. You leave him to me. I’ll take him off your hands.”
A tulon with burn-flecked clothes and forge-corded arms spoke up, suspiciously. “What’ll you do with him?”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do with him,” Vandis said. “I’m not going to get a big group of my friends to attack him. I’m not going to scare the hell out of him. I’m not going to beat the living shit out of him—and oh, guess what! I’m not going to strangle him for something he might have done but hasn’t!”
“It’s justice,” the bailiff hissed.
Vandis laughed, but there wasn’t any humor in it. “I’ll tell you what this is. This is assholery of the highest degree, and justice would see you swing. I mean, what is he? Fourteen?”
“Sixteen,” said the smith.
“Does it matter?”
“He’s a warlock, too!” said another tulon, a boy with a high, thin voice, and angry muttering spread through the mob again.
“Probably,” Vandis allowed. “I probably am. Just look at me, flying around like a bird. What else could I be?”
A rock sailed his way. He spun gracefully, letting it pass through thin air where a moment before it would have thumped his chest.
“Warlock!”
Elves! he thought disgustedly, and didn’t feel the least pang of guilt. This herd of morons deserved to be slurred. “I might be,” he said. “Then again, it’s possible that I’m Vandis Vail, come to avenge this innocent kid in the name of my Lady.” He lowered himself until his boots touched the ground, cracking his knuckles. “In either case, do you really want to fuck with me?”
The mob started forward. Vandis drove his fist into the bailiff’s face, twice, hard enough to break teeth. The bailiff staggered back, clutching his mouth, and fell. The mob stopped mid-step to stare at Vandis, who laid a boot over the bailiff’s throat.
“Go home with a bailiff, or without one,” Vandis said calmly.
“Look around,” said the butcher. “There’s only the one of you. You’re outnumbered, warlock.”
“With a bailiff, or without one,” Vandis repeated, pressing down a little so that the bailiff gurgled and slapped at his leg. “Besides, assuming all of you can take me, I’ll take you first. You.” He jabbed a finger at the butcher. “I saw what you did, you piss-ant coward. How much mutton do you think you’ll joint after I break your knee?”
The butcher scowled and cracked his own knuckles. “Come on, let’s—”
“But Curran, what about Rogen?” said another tulon, this one with candle wax in his hair. The bailiff gurgled again, his nails scrabbling on Vandis’s high boot.
“Yeah, what about Rogen?” Vandis said.
The butcher tried to bore a hole in his head with a glower. Vandis suppressed a snort of laughter. He’d been glared at by the best. He met the look with an even, unblinking gaze of his own; he didn’t like to boast, but the Vail Stink-Eye was famous all over Rothganar with damned good reason. The staredown held.
“Dingus!” The shriek rattled Vandis’s eardrums. He winced; good thing the butcher had looked away. Someone small shoved in through the mob, jostling the tulon aside and cursing in sweet, feminine tones. “You fucking pigs! Sons of poxy whores! What have you done? What have you done with my grandson? Get the hell out of my way!”
Vandis remembered to release the pressure on the bailiff’s throat as the mob parted for a pretty blonde tulua wielding two scimitars that looked huge in her small hands. Her face shone red, and she threw murderous stares around at the mob. “Where is he?” she howled.
“Over there,” Vandis said, when nobody else answered.
She gave him a long, penetrating look.
“Still breathing,” he added. Her chin dipped in a scant nod and she walked stiffly past him, laying the swords aside to take a knee next to the still form. Vandis leaned over and grabbed the bailiff. It was almost like dragging dead weight, but he got the tulon standing, even though he rasped and wheezed. “Fun time is over now. Go home!” Vandis shoved him in the back and he stumbled toward Curran the butcher, who stopped him with a hand on his chest.
Curran fixed Vandis with another hateful stare. “You think you can come and tell us how to deal with our own business?” He cast a hand in the boy’s direction. “That thing is—”
“That is not a thing!” Vandis yelled. “That is a kid!”
“It’s dilihi! We should have destroyed it years ago!”
Vandis flinched at the word. It meant, loosely, “half a person.” It was the worst slur in the hituleti vocabulary, reserved for kinslayers, rapists, and half-bloods. “A kid,” he said, amazed, and not in a good way. “You’d look at a kid and say that.”
“I’ve always said so! That thing and its whore of a mother have been—” He glanced to the side, caught sight of the smaller, darker tulon at his side, and blanched. His mouth shut with a snap.
“Do go on, Curran,” the other said, in a quiet, poisonous tone. His accent wasn’t local. “Don’t let me interrupt. Or have you finished insulting my daughter and attempting to murder her child?”
“Oh, uh.” Curran swallowed hard. “Yes, Voalt, I’m done.”
“Yes, I’m sure you are. Go home.”
The butcher drew in breath, then turned and walked away down the hill.
“And you, Rogen. If I’ve told your brat of a son to leave my lad alone once, I’ve told him a thousand times. By his years Aust is very nearly a man, but the way he acts is a disgrace, and you’d have strung up a good boy for defending himself!”
The bailiff swelled, but before he could open his mouth, another one of t
hem, the smith with the burnt apron, put in, “He is a good boy, Rogen. And your Aust is a terror.”
“He’s a right little sod,” said the darker tulon. “I can’t believe I’m seeing you here, Adair! You know Dingus. It was hard work you put him to, but have you ever known him to shirk or complain? I can’t believe I’m seeing any of you here!”
Dingus? Vandis thought at the sky, remembering his old Master, with the same rotten egg of a name. Laying it on a little thick, aren’t You?
I have no idea what you’re on about.
He shook his head slightly and left the dark tulon to thoroughly shame, damn, and otherwise lambaste the rest of them. Vandis had more important things to do. “How bad is it?” he asked the tulua, crouching on the boy’s opposite side.
“What do you care?”
He lifted his eyebrows.
Closing her lids, she sighed and said, “I guess it could’ve been worse. They broke his nose, but his skull’s intact. I don’t know about his ribs. Or his throat…” She touched the deep, ugly mark on Dingus’s neck. “Poor baby,” she whispered, tears slipping from her eyes.
“He’ll be all right,” Vandis said after a moment, unsure where to look. The sight of the boy put fire in his gut, and the sight of the grandmother made him want to squirm. He pulled off his gloves and drew up the boy’s tunic, feeling of the ribs that stood starkly out of Dingus’s bruising flesh. He focused his eyes on the task, but spoke to her, too. “I’m going to take him with me when he wakes.”
“I don’t think so,” she snapped, shoving him back onto his ass. “Get your hands off him, you pervert! If you think for one second I’m going to let my Dingus leave with somebody I don’t know—”
“You might’ve heard something about me. It’s Vandis, ma’am.” He laid his right palm on his chest to show the little oak leaf tattooed between thumb and finger. “Vandis Vail.”
“Well, I guess I have,” she said after a moment. “You think you’ll make a Knight out of him?”
“If that’s what he wants.”