Night Born

by K L Reinhart

  The orc’s eyes were wide and flashing with hatred and frenzy as he pulled back one massive claw. Rukmol didn’t have any weapons, but he clearly didn’t need them. That was a hand that could snap Terak’s neck easily, and one swipe of those blackened claws could tear flesh from bones.

  “Hyurk?” A look of confusion crossed Rukmol’s face moments before there was a strange hiss from behind him.

  Terak looked up, wild-eyed, as first two, then three, four, six, seven, eight tentacles, each ending in tiny barbs, spread out from behind Rukmol’s head.

  Then the pain and pressure vanished from Terak’s foot as the Mordhuk flung the seven-foot orc high through the air, after driving its claws into his back.

  “You!” Terak yelled in terror and awe.

  The Mordhuk, with its snout like a wolf, opened its jaws wide and snapped at Terak, making the elf crawl back. But it didn’t pounce on the elf. Instead, it turned to snarl at the orc, who astonishingly pulled himself upright a few yards away.

  Rukmol saw the new enemy and roared back, just as fiercely.

  As Terak watched, the Mordhuk charged at the orc, just as the orc lunged at the Mordhuk. The pair of monsters met and went down in a hissing, scratching, biting tangle of bodies. Each was powerfully strong, and the blows they delivered would be enough to kill any regular human—or elf.

  What’s happening? Terak was frozen for a moment. Had the Mordhuk just saved his life? Had an imprisoned Ungolian demon just protected him, and was even now defending him?

  “I knew you were in league with that thing.” A low voice surprised Terak.

  A shape detached itself from the edge of trees and walked toward him.

  “Worm!” Big Mendes hissed in the dark.

  23

  The Night-born Novitiate

  “You killed Torin, worm,” Mendes snarled as he started down the forest incline toward the elf.

  Terak scrambled to his feet, wincing as his ankle pulsed in agony.

  “Mendes? What are you doing out here? We have to get to the Black Keep!” Terak stopped himself from saying anything about the elvish translator still snug against his aching ribs.

  Just put it in Jacques or Inedi’s hands—no one else . . . That was what Father Ella had told him. Dead Father Ella.

  Even though the growls and snarls, thuds and impacts of the fight between the orc and the Mordhuk were still clearly audible, Terak could see that he now had much bigger problems.

  There was something wrong with Mendes.

  Just like there had been something wrong with Torin. The novitiate’s heart sank. Mendes’s eyes glittered in the reflected starlight almost feverishly. As the light swept across his features, Terak saw sweat on his fellow student’s brow, and his bottom lip quivered.

  “Mendes, calm down.” Terak raised his hands in a placating gesture—although at the same time, a bit of Terak’s heart said, I killed his friend. Of course he’s not going to calm down!

  “Calm down? CALM DOWN?” Mendes seemed to shake with rage. “You’re a null! You fooled all of us into thinking that you could be one of us, but you were lying! You were always seeking to bring down the Enclave!”

  A spark of anger flared inside Terak.

  “You were never going to let me be one of you, Mendes.” Terak’s voice was low and dangerous. How could Mendes do this, now of all times? Father Ella had died saving him, Terak thought. All of a sudden, everything was so much bigger than whatever Mendes had dreamed up inside his head.

  “Lies!” Mendes moved, leaping from his spot feet away, spraying leaf-litter and mud left, right, and center.

  It was an inhuman leap, which Terak might have recognized were it not for the fact that Mendes had crashed down right in front of him, throwing both hands out in a violent shove.

  All air was expelled from Terak’s chest in an instant as Big Mendes hit him. Now it wasn’t the Black Keep falling on his head. It felt like the entire Tartaruk Mountains had just kicked him.

  Terak sailed through the air, hitting the trunk of the tree opposite and falling heavily to the forest floor. He spat out dirt and leaves as he wheezed for air. There was something really wrong with Mendes.

  “You’re working with that abomination! Both of you! I know it!” Mendes roared, leaping once more.

  Ixcht! Terak rolled, and just in time. Mendes’s knee smashed the trunk of the tree, causing it to topple heavily to the forest floor.

  It’s magic. It has to be. Terak dove around the nearest tree.

  There was an almighty crack as the tree he had sheltered behind shuddered and split. Mendes had hit it, but this one was too wide to explode in half. It merely creaked alarmingly. Terak was already running, though—moving to the next tree, grabbing onto its trunk to change direction as he ran.

  Suddenly, Mendes hit the dirt in front of him, this time creating a furrow as he came to a crouching halt.

  Terak gasped, skidding to a halt. Mendes stood up from his crouch very slowly.

  “You can’t run away anymore, elf,” he said victoriously. “I’m faster than you now. Stronger than you.” Mendes took a step toward Terak, forcing him back down the slope.

  I don’t even have a weapon! Terak thought in alarm, and then he wondered what good any weapon would do him right now.

  “The Chief Arcanum has favored me,” Big Mendes boasted, holding up his forearms to show the elf his bronze-colored gauntlets. “You see, if you are loyal, if you are a true brother or sister of the Enclave, then you get rewarded.”

  “You’re insane,” Terak said. It was clear that he didn’t know half of what there was to know about the Enclave, but he knew what Father Jacques and the Enclave-External had taught him.

  That the Book of Corrections isn’t a set of ideals. It’s a training manual, Terak thought as his feet slowed. The Path of Corrections teaches nothing at all about reward. Only about pain. Only about how to embrace pain.

  There was no way that Mendes was going to let him live through this, was there? A few possibilities flashed through his head. He could try to appeal to Mendes’s better nature, if he had any. Maybe Mendes would take the translator to the Enclave-External, or the magister . . .

  No. Father Ella had said not in anyone else’s hands.

  There was only one possibility left. In the words of the Book of Corrections, Terak knew that he had to let the pain sink down into his marrow and teach him from there.

  Terak had to fight.

  “You think you can best me, huh?” Mendes laughed when he saw Terak square his shoulders and settle his center of gravity, feet shoulder-width apart.

  “I’m going to try,” Terak said in a low, cold voice.

  “You think you’re good enough to kill me?” Mendes’s smile widened.

  Terak remembered Father Jacques’s answer to that question when he had asked something very similar.

  “If need be.” Terak raised his forearms wide in the air before him, the classic hand-to-hand fighting stance.

  “Oh, I’ve no doubt that you’re quick, elf,” Mendes sneered at him. “And I am not the fool you take me for.” One of his hands went to his side. “You see, the Chief Arcanum also gave me this . . .”

  A hiss of steel as a curving shortsword left its concealed scabbard and filled the air with a dull red glow.

  Great. Now he’s got a magic blade, too! Terak growled. He lunged.

  It was a simple maneuver, and that was probably why Mendes didn’t see it coming. Terak thumped the outside of Mendes’s sword-arm, while at the same time bringing up his other arm in a blow that should have locked his arm out.

  The move worked perfectly, with Terak holding Mendes’s forearm in two of his own, angling his weight to twist the elbow and then the shoulder joint.

  “Ragh!” But Mendes flicked with his arm and broke the lock as easily as if Terak had been a newborn.

  Huh!? Terak was thrown back a few steps. Mendes shouldn’t be that strong. No human should ever be that strong. By now, the enraged Mendes was pounc
ing, swinging the glowing red blade in a deadly arc.

  Terak dropped to one knee and twisted his torso, the blade sailing past the side of his face. He jabbed upwards, pushing Mendes’s sword-arm on its outward curve, adding to the momentum and causing Mendes to stumble to one side.

  I can’t overpower him, but I might be able to tire him, Terak thought, already prepared for the returning blow.

  Mendes’s counterstrike came as expected, a returning lunge that would have skewered Terak had he not seen it coming. He had sidestepped out of the way, this time kicking out with his undamaged foot on Mendes’s side.

  The larger novitiate grunted in pain.

  So you’re not invincible, Terak thought. He was about to hook his foot behind Mendes’s leg to overbalance him, but his opponent spun on his heel, swinging the sword in an arc straight toward Terak’s belly—

  Terak sucked in his stomach, and he threw himself back. For the briefest of instants, he imagined Torin’s face when they fought atop the altar in the Loranthian Shrine. It had been almost the same—only this time, it was a magical glowing red blade, not his own.

  The blade snagged Terak’s robe and tunic, separating the cloth like it was nothing but smoke.

  “Ach!” The elf felt a white line of pain as the tip of the blade scored across his abdominals, and then, a moment later, the wet, warm rush of blood.

  Terak snarled, punching out with a classic palm-hit to Mendes’s unprotected nose. He had never used his hand-to-hand skills in actual combat before, and certainly not against an armed opponent.

  There was a satisfying crunch and Mendes was staggering back, one hand dropping the glowing red blade while his other clutched at his shattered nose.

  The thing about nose-strikes, Terak knew–a well-aimed, perfectly-executed one should be strong enough to break cartilage. It would bleed a lot, and it would make your eyes water.

  They were also incredibly painful.

  Which meant that Terak had time to dive to the floor between them and snatch up the arcane blade, bringing it up in time to halt Mendes’s flailing return.

  “Don’t do it,” Terak growled, holding the blade that was heavier than he had expected in two hands. He was panting with the exertion of the fight and of all the recent fights he had engaged in.

  Mendes glared at the elf. He still held his hand over his nose, blood dripping between his fingers. Terak saw that even though he had won the fight, Mendes’s eyes still burned with a righteous fury.

  “Why?” Terak asked. A wave of exhaustion rocked him where he stood. “I didn’t mean to kill Torin. It was an accident!” He gasped again.

  “Still happened. Worm,” Mendes said, sounding surprisingly vehement even with a sword held against him.

  A deep bone-weariness settled into Terak’s soul.

  “Yes, I suppose it did,” he muttered.

  “And now, worm.” Mendes stepped back from Terak. “I get to watch you die.”

  What? Terak didn’t understand the note of triumph from his opponent until his eyes saw that Mendes wasn’t looking straight across at him but at Terak’s torn chest.

  Terak stared down in shock. Everything below his chest was dark and slick with blood. His blood. And it was still pouring out of him like rain from the keep’s rooftops. Suddenly, a deeper wave of tiredness clutched at Terak—his mind catching on to what his body had been trying to tell him.

  “You’re bleeding to death, you fool!” Mendes sounded happy as Terak’s vision blurred. “Even the slightest nick from that blade won’t ever heal!” he crowed. “Even if you are quicker than me, or smarter, or a better fighter, you’re still going to die. And you’re still a null!”

  Terak knew that he should take offense to that, but he was too tired to care. The glowing red blade in his hand started to lower, and lower, toward the wet earth.

  “You see, one of your kind can never win in the end.” Mendes’s voice had grown louder and closer as Terak slumped forward over his own escaping life’s blood. “You’ll always lose because you were never meant to exist in the first place! You’re all alone in this world, Terak! And now you will die alone!”

  Mendes snatched the red blade from Terak’s unresisting grasp.

  He raised it high—

  “Ssskrargh!” Terak heard the wet sound of a sudden, swift crunch, and then a thump. He tried to focus, but found that everything was very hazy, and very dark.

  What happened? His thoughts were groggy and slow. He wasn’t dead. He knew that much because he could still feel pain. But Mendes was no longer there, and the red blade hadn’t bitten into his flesh.

  The elf heard a low, rattling hiss. Something padded toward him. The elf could smell the horrid tangs of blood and viscera, as well as something like wet stone. A deeper shadow crossed his features, and he felt something whisper-light and damp flick on his cheek.

  Is that you? Terak thought, but he couldn’t find the words. The Mordhuk, he was thinking. It had killed Rukmol and had returned for him. Only instead of hissing and crunching, Terak felt that same soft tapping on his chest, and every time the Mordhuk’s tongue hit him, the white-line of pain diminished a little.

  Terak still felt weak, but his breathing pitched a little lower. He fell over to one side. He could no longer feel the throb of his own blood as it left his body, but he might already have lost far too much blood to make it through the night.

  “Mordhuk?” he managed to croak, but he heard nothing. The strange demon-statue that had been his savior had disappeared

  Which means I still have a job to do. Terak concentrated, but it was hard. His thoughts felt floaty and light and refused to do anything he wanted them to do.

  Concentrate! He berated himself.

  “Fortitude is the second type of knowledge!” he hissed, willing himself to think. He could hear the distant twittering of the pre-dawn chorus.

  Dawn. That meant light wouldn’t be far, he told himself. Was the path well-used? Would some friendly traveler find and trace the trail of destruction that he had been a part of that night?

  Unlikely, Terak thought. And he might not have that long.

  Birdsong. The thought arrived in his head. Birds.

  With great difficulty, the elf pursed his lips together and let out three pips of birdcall. He prayed that it would be answered. Threep-pip-pip! He repeated the refrain. And repeated it.

  And suddenly, he glimpsed a flash of red in the gloom as something settled on his shoulder. With shaking hands and eyes that doubled and swam, Terak very slowly drew the tiny message scroll that Father Ella had received from Mother Galda and, on the fourth attempt, tied it to the messenger finch’s leg with a scrap of his own robe.

  Then one long, rising whistle followed by a sharp pip at the end to dismiss it. That sends them back to the keep, he remembered Father Ella’s words.

  The messenger finch vanished in a flutter of wings, and Terak sank his head back to the wet grass. He had done it. He had found a way to translate the scroll, and he had proved Mendes wrong.

  A null like him COULD win in the end.

  Epilogue: The Hexan

  Terak awoke once again to that strange feeling of comfort, even safety. Bright, golden light came through the high, open window of his little room, with a refreshing touch of mountain breeze.

  “Ratachook!” The small (but surprisingly heavy!) body of Frebius bounced across his chest, which Terak realized didn’t hurt at all.

  “Frebius, I told you to leave him alone!” Someone else was in the room. The Chief External himself, Father Jacques, sat next to his bed on a small stool.

  “Chief!” Terak said, attempting to push himself upright, but his arms—and the rest of him—felt rubbery and slow.

  “Ah, salve of meadowsweet, mercurial water, and Inedi herself laid two somna enchantments on you, I’m afraid,” grunted the bearded face of Father Jacques. He looked tired, although a small smile played across his lips.

  “Magister Inedi.” Terak’s mind still felt sluggish a
nd confused. “I’m at the Black Keep,” he observed.

  “Ha! So, one enchantment you can shake off in a couple hours, but two will keep you down for a day and a night? Good to know!” Father Jacques stood with a yawn and a stretch that made cracking and popping sounds up and down his body.

  Did he keep watch over me for that entire time? Terak wondered. He sank back into the bed as the brindle form of Frebius scampered and leaped over him, attacking humps of knees or feet or hands whenever they moved.

  “You got the finch,” Terak said. But then, the horrible memories of the previous night cut through the heavy alchemies and enchantments that had been laid on him. The three orcs. Mendes. Father Ella . . .

  “Yes, I can see you’re awake now.” Father Jacques sighed as he scratched at the missing stub of his finger. “I got the messenger finch with Mother Galda’s message. I realized that if she had been delayed, then you two must have been, also. The Enclave-External rode out along the path she was to take.”

  Terak saw the chief’s eyes look at the floor.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I tried . . .” Terak murmured.

  “I know, elf, I know!” Jacques’s head snapped up, and he moved to the side of the bed. He placed his three-fingered, calloused hand over Terak’s own and clasping it in a firm fist. “Father Ella was well-trained and dedicated to the Path. She did everything that she had to do, wanted to do, could do. We must be proud of her achievements, not sorry for her.”

  Terak nodded as the father continued.

  “It is the Path of Pain, Novitiate,” he said solemnly. “We who walk it, we have to accept it, if we want to keep the entire world of Midhara safe.”

  Terak nodded again, or he thought he did.

  “But as well as those we mourn, there is much to be proud of.” The father released the elf’s hand and straightened once again. “We have the elvish translator, and we got to both you and Mother Galda before you died.”