by Bruce Blake
None of the possible answers pleased Khirro; most of them frightened him more.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Morning sun peeked over the treetops as the forest ended abruptly, opening on a vast field of yellow grass standing higher than the top of a tall man’s helm. An unfelt breeze swayed the grass, sending waves across it like the surface of a soft, yellow lake. Suath strained to see over but found himself unable to determine how far the grassland stretched.
He stopped on the short patch of dirt and rock dividing the forest from the field and pulled some salt pork from his pack. For more than twenty-four hours he’d pushed on, uncaring of the tales of the haunted land Lakesh. He’d been here before and nothing happened to prove a hex hung over the land, as nothing happened this time. Companions had lost their lives here, but he saw that as a self-fulfilling prophecy-if one came to a place thinking it evil and dangerous, it would prove so. If you chose not to believe old wives' tales, as Suath chose, this was simply another foreign land of grass and trees and soil oblivious and uncaring of the comings and goings of man.
Suath chewed the tough meat and wondered at the strip of bare earth stretching away both directions, a natural border between forest and field. No plants grew on the dry, brown earth scattered with rocks of all sizes; the width of the border looked uniform, almost man-made.
Strange.
Suath swigged from his water skin, wishing it contained wine, then hung it back on his belt and touched the pouch hanging beside it to feel the hard outline of the vial hidden within. Therrador wouldn’t be pleased if he knew the bearer yet lived, but he’d never find out. If the cursed country didn’t kill them, he’d find them himself. Either way, he’d collect the entire reward; Therrador need not know if he swung the sword himself.
If he ever saw Therrador again.
Suath hadn’t cared what the vial contained when offered the reward, but he wasn’t a stupid man. He saw the blood, he overheard from whom it came. Others might pay more for such a thing.
Finishing the piece of meat, Suath crouched and rolled up the cuff of his breeches. In his haste to get away with the vial, he’d neglected something. He brushed his fingers across the flesh of his calf, tracing the bumps and ridges of the scars carved there. Finding an unmarked spot, he pulled his knife, gritted his teeth and drew the tip an inch along his leg, cutting deep.
“For the magic-user,” he muttered. His finger searched for and found another as-yet unscarred area. “And here will be for the rest of them.”
He nodded, satisfied, and pulled his pant leg back in place ignoring the blood trickling into his boot. After cleaning and re-sheathing his knife, he crossed the rocky ground to the edge of the field, looking up at the clear sky as he went. Overhead, a falcon wheeled and glided, its huge wings dark against the blue sky. Suath grunted. The bird had followed him off and on since he fled the beach. Some doing of the magician he left bleeding on the sand? Perhaps the counter on his leg was premature. Too bad if the magician lived, he had learned long ago the least dangerous magic user was a dead one. He dismissed the bird. It didn’t matter if they knew where to find him, they had to catch him.
And then they had to take the vial from him.
Then they’ll earn their cuts.
He grinned and stepped into the wall of grass, the tips of some blades brushing his cheek. Its toughness surprised him. Instead of parting easily like a curtain, each blade stood straight and strong like a reed, resisting his movement with the stubbornness of a living thing. After a couple steps fighting its firmness, he realized he’d have to cut his way across the field like a farmer harvesting hay. It would slow him, but his substantial lead gave him time. He stepped back from the grass and drew his sword.
As steel scraped leather, the grass leaned away, shrinking from the blade like a child seeing punishment coming. Suath blinked and shook his head to dispel what must be a trick of the light. The mercenary set his jaw, gripped his sword with two hands, and swung.
The sharp edge cut through the grass, though not easily, clearing a patch ten feet wide at the level of Suath’s knee. A sudden wind rose, sighing through the field with the low howl of an injured dog. The uncut blades around him whipped and swirled with the wind, lashing his hands and face. Suath swung again, hewing another patch, and the wind ceased as suddenly as it had risen. He paid it no attention and pressed on, each swing of his sword extending the path before him, each stroke leaving hundreds of fallen blades of grass in its wake.
Half an hour passed. Suath’s battle hardened arms ached, sweat streamed from under his helm into his bare eye socket, irritating the scarred flesh, but he kept moving. The deeper he went into the field, the more resistant the grass became. His sword swung left and right rhythmically, opening the path before him. As time stretched on, his pace slowed. He wanted to keep going but had to rest and catch his breath if he was to make it across the field-he didn’t even know how much farther he had to go. He stopped, leaning on his sword, its tip inserted in the ground, and breathed deep, then stretched to his fullest to peer over the grass before him. He saw only more grass. He shook his head and looked back to see how far he’d come.
The sight behind him made his breath catch in his throat. The knee high stubs of grass were not yellow like the uncut field around him; instead, the trail of cut grass glistened crimson and rust. Suath’s brow creased.
Some fluid in the blades, he thought, rationalizing what he saw. Not blood, but like sap from a tree.
As he turned back to his task, the wind sighed again, whipping a blade of grass against his cheek, drawing blood. Suath whirled toward it, bringing his sword to bear and another struck him from behind, opening a cut on the back of his neck. He spun back to his right to face an attacker he neither saw nor knew how to fight. An unfamiliar feeling crept into Suath’s gut, curling up in the bottom and making itself at home: fear.
Heavy gusts of wind whipped the grass, flagellating his face, dancing away then reaching for his eye. Suath swung his sword, called on ingrained combat skills to quell the sickening feeling in his stomach. His steel swept left to right, right to left, each time cutting empty air as the wind pulled the grass away only to send it back with every opening. A grin crossed Suath’s face; he’d never have guessed a pasture would prove the most formidable swordsman he’d ever faced.
He cut at the grass again, but this time his sword halted in its path as though striking a tree. He pulled to free it, looked down and laughed throatily. Grass wound around his steel, hundreds of blades holding it. He wrenched it, cutting some of the grass. It fell away only to be replaced by still more twining itself about his sword. Suath planted his feet and pulled again, leveraging all his strength and weight as he’d done so many times on so many battlefields.
It didn’t move.
The wind rose higher, howling across the field. A wave crashed through the grass, tore the sword from his hands. He watched in disbelief as the weapon floated away on the tops of the grass as though passed hand to hand until it disappeared in the distance. The muscles in his jaw flexed; he pulled his dagger from his belt. He’d not die here-not in this country, not in this field. Too many worthy opponents had tried to take his life to die like this.
The mercenary spun, intending to retreat from the unearthly field, but nearly tumbled to the ground. Blades of grass wound around his ankle held him fast. He tried to move the other foot only to find it fettered, too. He swung his blade to free himself, but more grass caught his wrist, twisting his arm, forcing the dagger from his grip. The wind screamed, a banshee howl filling his ears, pounding in his head. The tall blades of grass bent and swirled, whipping his body, pulling him down. He fought against the impossibly strong grip, but the more he thrashed, the stronger it became.
The wind died, the howling ceased.
Flat on his back, Suath stared up at the blue sky. Tendrils of grass crawled across him, coiling about his neck and limbs, reaching up his sleeves and under his belt like so many snakes. The grip grew f
irmer still, pulling at him, crushing him. He laughed, the sound strangled as the blades around his throat tightened. Suath had known since the beginning of memory he wouldn’t die of old age, but he’d expected to be felled by a superior foe on the battlefield, or done in by a stealthy knife in the dark. What would he have thought if he knew he’d lose his life to a weed?
His laughing ceased, his smile fled. The mercenary didn’t cry out, he never had before this, he wasn’t about to start now. Instead, he looked up at the sky, unblinking and unrepentant, and saw that the falcon no longer circled overhead.
Chapter Twenty Nine
They stood around the body in silence, but not the reverential silence with which they’d gathered for Maes. Horrified awe inspired this silence.
Athryn refused to cross the bare ground and enter the sea of grass, though he didn’t say why, so he and Elyea waited for the others at the forest’s edge. Khirro, Ghaul and Shyn picked their way cautiously along the knee-high, rust colored path, aware the taller grass might hide anything or anyone. No wind stirred the uncut grass; each blade drooped near the top like heads hung in mourning.
The one-eyed man’s body was so sunken into the shallow grass, they didn’t see it until almost upon it. Spatters of scarlet darkened the rusty grass around him. Khirro had never seen anything like this done to a man and if his companions had, they didn’t say.
The man’s head still clung to his neck, his scarred face laced with fine cuts. Both eyes were missing. His body lay open gullet to groin, all contents except backbone removed-organs, arteries, bones-everything gone. The husk of a man lay before them, a skin with only arms and legs and head. Khirro wiped the back of his hand across his lips and found his mouth dry as the beach they’d left behind, but his stomach didn’t churn, he felt no urge to retch. The extremity of the mutilation made it seem unreal.
“What do you think happened?” Shyn asked, his tone cold. None of them took their eyes from the carnage.
Ghaul shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We have to find the vial and leave before we find out first hand.”
“Where could it be?” The thought of spending time near the body searching for the vial sent a chill up Khirro’s spine.
“Anywhere.” Ghaul drew his sword and shifted a flap of skin-once part of the man’s chest-with the tip. Under it lay his shirt and hauberk, flayed open and laid aside in the same manner as his torso. “Pockets and pouches would be a good place to start.”
Ghaul and Shyn fell to the grisly work of shifting aside hanging skin and searching through blood soaked clothes as Khirro watched, his head shaking side to side slightly.
What happened here?
The sweet smell of the ripening corpse insinuated itself into his thoughts as his eyes surveyed the flaps of skin, the picked-clean backbone. Something wasn’t right about this; something was oddly missing.
Where are the bugs? He directed his gaze skyward. And the deathbirds?
No vultures or crows circled above, no animals appeared to have disturbed the body despite the time it must have laid here before they came upon it. Not a single fly alit on the grisly flesh to feed on spilled blood. If nothing came to feed on the corpse, where had the man’s insides gone?
Khirro turned from his companions and took a few steps back down the path of short, rusty grass. He didn’t know what he looked for, perhaps the one-eyed man’s heart, or a string of bowels, some bones, something to make sense of the gruesome scene. He saw none of them. No clue about what happened to his one-time attacker. He took another step, staring at the ground before him, when something off the path caught his attention: a patch of light brown, barely distinguishable in the yellowed grass. Khirro moved closer, crouched, then recognized it as a deerskin pouch.
“Have you found something, Khirro?” Shyn called.
“I think so.”
He reached for it, but somehow it moved from his grasp, floating a few inches into the air. He stretched farther and again it moved. Khirro pulled his arm back, puzzlement allaying fear for the moment.
“What is it?”
Khirro jumped. He hadn’t noticed Ghaul and Shyn come to his side. Heart hammering in his chest, he looked up at them.
“A pouch.”
He turned his attention back to the deerskin satchel. It had settled back on the ground, defying him to reach for it again-he didn’t.
“Is it in there?” Ghaul asked, impatience obvious in his voice.
“I don’t know. I can’t get it.”
“What do you mean you can’t get it?”
Ghaul pushed in beside him and bent to retrieve the pouch. His fingers brushed its surface as a ripple ran through the grass, moving it out of his reach. He cursed and reached again but the pouch jumped away as though tossed hand to hand.
“By the Gods,” Shyn whispered. “This place is haunted.”
Ghaul scoffed and drew his sword. “Weeds need to be cut, that’s all.”
A breeze stirred the tall grass, calling the drooping tops to attention as they swayed with its touch. Khirro watched it move, unease growing. There was something about the wind, something unidentifable that brought cold sweat to his brow.
“Hold, Ghaul.” Shyn touched the warrior’s forearm; Khirro wondered if he felt the same thing he did. “Let me try.”
He pulled his gauntlet on firmly and reached for the pouch like a cat stalking a bird. Closer and closer he inched; the pouch didn’t move. As his fingers touched its drawstring, a blade of grass coiled and shifted, bouncing it away from his grasp.
“Enough games,” Ghaul growled. Shyn stepped aside. “I’m in no mood for this. The sooner we’re away from here, the better.”
He drew his sword back and the wind rose, shuddering through the tall glass, shifting it, swirling it. Khirro understood the source of his unease-the wind didn’t move his hair, he didn’t feel it against his cheek.
“Wait, Ghaul. I think…”
His words came too late. The sharp age of the soldier’s sword cut stalks of grass. The pouch toppled to the ground at Shyn’s feet. He snatched it before it bounced out of his reach.
“Got it,” he said before a deafening wail rose about them.
Shyn tore his sword from its scabbard, ready for attack from some unseen animal, but Khirro knew no beast hid in the grass. The grass was the beast. It whipped and whirled about them forcing them together, pushing them back toward the man’s emptied body.
“We have to get out of here,” Khirro screamed. Ghaul and Shyn both looked at him; he didn’t know if they’d heard him. “Run!”
He pushed his companions ahead of him, urging them down the path toward the forest and what he hoped would be safety. As he ran, he dared a look over his shoulder and saw the wall of grass at the end of the path slam down, missing his heels by inches. Six feet of grass came down on the path from all directions, engulfing the one-eyed man’s ravaged corpse. When it rose, the body was gone.
They raced down the hewn trail but Khirro felt as though he ran in dream-time, his legs pumping but carrying him nowhere. Ahead, Shyn and Ghaul pulled away. He glanced down, thinking suck sand hidden beneath the grass slowed him, but it was the grass itself. Yellow blades reached from all sides, grasping at his arms and legs. He pulled away, but a few hung on, slowing him, and the slower he moved, the more blades that gained purchase. Panic flashed through his head as he realized exactly what had happened to their pursuer. If he didn’t free himself, the same fate awaited him.
Khirro called for help, but the howling field drowned his cries. He reached for his sword knowing Ghaul’s blade brought this upon them, so the weapon likely wouldn’t help, but what else could he do? His fingertips grazed the polished pommel before the grass wrenched his arm away.
He reached again, stretching as far as his bonds allowed, but his fingers only brushed it. Struggling and straining, Khirro stumbled on; a blade of grass finally broke giving him enough play to wrap his fingers around the grip. He drew the black blade, steel singing against le
ather above the grassy cacophony.
The sword didn’t reflect sunlight the way a normal sword did, instead sucking in the light, feeding upon it. The red runes scrawling along the length of the blade crawled and flowed like blood in veins below the surface of the steel. Khirro brandished the weapon above his head, readying to cut himself free, when the grass released him. He stumbled to the ground, disappearing into the rusty grass, then clamored to his feet with the coppery smell of blood in his nostrils. Ahead, Shyn and Ghaul reached the edge of the field and gestured him on as Elyea joined them, the concern on her face plain even from this distance.
Khirro looked back. The grass which had been holding him had retreated from the path. At the far end, where the one-eyed man had been, the tall grass on either side crashed together like waves colliding where opposing currents met. The line of grass surged toward him and he turned and ran, sword in hand, breath shallow and quick. At the end of the path, his companions moved aside, making room. He didn’t dare look back. If he let fear slow him, it would mean his life.
Thirty feet from safety, he felt a rush of air at his back as the wave of grass bore down on him. The sheer volume of air being moved pushed him off balance and he lunged forward, desperate to be free of the cursed field. His shoulder struck rocky earth and he rolled with the impact, coming to rest on his back, eyes closed tight, waiting to be crushed by the deadly grass.
After a moment, he opened his eyes to see blue sky above, and then Elyea’s relieved face. Her mouth pulled into a strained smile and her lips moved, asking if he was all right. He nodded as best he could then she leaned in and kissed his cheek.
Chapter Thirty
Shyn stepped from behind the tree, fastening the final button of his tunic. He was self-conscious about transforming and had only allowed them to see it the one time.
“Well?” Ghaul asked impatiently.