Nameless: Bones of the Earth I-III

by J. C. Hendee

  · · · · ·

  Karras peered about in the dark, not paying enough attention as he blindly fumbled with his bedroll’s ties. For the first time, having a weapon close by did not revolt him so much.

  The madman had led them across to the valley’s far slope but not into hiding among the trees there. No, he picked a spot out in the open atop a ledge above one spine of rock that tumbled sharply down into the valley below, now hidden in the dark.

  “What are you doing, old man?” Gän’gehtin asked too loudly.

  Karras flinched and looked northward along the valley slope toward the trees that Fiáh’our had watched when they first came upon the valley. He could not make them out clearly, but he knew they had camped much closer to whatever place the old thänæ had fixed upon.

  Fiáh’our was little more than a shadow in the dark where he stood watching off in that same direction.

  “We are in a bad way!” the shirvêsh snapped. “We have nowhere to fall back if they come at us in the dark… if we even see them coming.”

  “True,” Fiáh’our answered. “So light a fire, as it is a bit chilly tonight.”

  Karras fell perfectly still in shock. He heard no movement, even from the shirvêsh. Earlier along their climb up, he and Gän’gehtin had been told to gather wood, as well as dried moss and brush, for temporary torches if needed. But he had not known then where the old man would choose to set camp, right here and out in the open.

  “Are you truly mad?” Gän’gehtin whispered.

  “This is not a battlefield!” Fiáh’our growled in the dark. “We are not an army nor do we face one, though we are outnumbered. And here, they can only charge us from one direction.”

  Karras was uncertain if the last of that was good enough. It also meant they had nowhere to run if an attack came.

  “Do not assume you know how to handle this,” Fiáh’our added. “Now light the fire, but make it a small one.”

  Karras could only assume that was for the shirvêsh, though perhaps partly for him as well. He kept quiet, and it was not long before he heard and saw the clacks and sparks of steel against flint. Soon enough, Gän’gehtin tended a small fire on their stone shelf and set twisting moss and dried grass stalks into lengths to be wrapped around stout sticks. Karras tried to help, though the shirvêsh finished two before he was halfway done with one.

  All the while, Fiáh’our stood near the shelf’s end over the valley, facing outward into the night. When Gän’gehtin pulled a dry travel cake out of a pack and held it out, Karras’ stomach lurched at the thought of food and he shook his head. He dropped upon his open bedroll and stared about, but with the fire’s light too bright and near, he made out even less of his surroundings… especially that far forest north along the slope.

  Before he even realized, he reached out and pulled the ku’ê’bunst into his lap, hanging on to its smooth iron haft with both hands.

  “Have you named it yet?”

  At Fiáh’our’s question, Karras just stared, not knowing what it meant or even if it was intended for him.

  “He meant your weapon,” Gän’gehtin added.

  Karras could not see what that had to do with anything.

  Fiáh’our groaned almost pitifully. “How can it live in your hand, if it does not have a name?”

  Gän’gehtin let out a grating sigh, and before Karras could think to ask…

  “Shirvêsh do not name weapons,” Gän’gehtin grumbled. “There are some old traditions unsuited to the way of things now.”

  Fiáh’our reached over his shoulder, snatched the haft of his great axe, and pulled it out of his back sheath.

  “This is Burskâp, meaning ‘Shield’s Edge’ in the old tongue,” he said, looking only at Karras. “Like me, it stands sharply for those who cannot stand for themselves. Name your weapon, when you come to know it for who—rather what—it is… and let it live.”

  Karras was careful, like with his father, not to roll his eyes. He was also too frightened to do so.

  “Now go to sleep,” Fiáh’our said.

  Right then, that was more ludicrous than naming a weapon.

  The old man set the axe’s head on the ground and leaned its haft against his pack. He dug in that pack, pulled out an apple scavenged up while in the village, and drew one of the two heavy battle daggers on his belt.

  The triangular steel blade was as long as his forearm and as wide at the base as his big palm. Very unsuitable for peeling an apple, but the old man did so as if it were a puny knife.

  Karras lay down, still clutching his ku’ê’bunst, its edgeless five-bladed top near his head.

  “Battle or combat is mostly about waiting,” Fiáh’our said, barely above a whisper. “It is far less like what is heard in tellings, including mine… or the wild notions of glory in the imaginings of the young. It tests one in ways that steel does not.”

  Karras scowled, but he did not close his eyes for a long while. Not until exhaustion forced him to do so, and later in the night, something made him stir. He flinched as his eyes snapped opened, and then he heard the shift of Fiáh’our’s heavy boots.

  The fire had burned down to little more than coals with a few flickering flames. The old man was still on his feet, though the apple was long gone, and he stared northward along the slope. Gän’gehtin was awake as well and up on one elbow, but before Karras could follow their gazes…

  “They will not come tonight,” Fiáh’our whispered. “Though now they will not be heading off elsewhere, either. That is good for the villages within reach. Now go back to sleep.”

  Karras was about to lie down, but still he had to see. At first there was nothing out there in the dark. Even when he thought he saw something, and then blinked…

  Tiny sparks, perhaps yellow, might have appeared in the distant forested slope. They were gone when he looked again, though always in pairs, two set close together.

  12. The Ways of Champions

  Karras awoke sharply as someone kicked his foot.

  “Get up and pack your bedroll,” Gän’gehtin whispered. “We must be ready to move when Fiáh’our… finishes!”

  The last word came with too much spite, and Karras blinked rapidly in a half-awake daze. It was still somewhat dark, but dawn had to be close for as much as he could see, because the fire was long dead. Everything but his own bedroll was collected and piled with their three packs, and the shirvêsh crawled away to the landing’s end and peered over the edge.

  Fiáh’our was nowhere to be seen.

  Karras came wide-awake and thrashed about, almost toppling on his ku’ê’bunst, which he had gripped tightly through the night. He scrunched up his bedding and lashed it haphazardly before he rose. He stalled in his first step, seeing Gän’gehtin lying low, and dropped to his knees to crawl after the shirvêsh, hauling his weapon along.

  Karras peeked over the edge. At first he could not find what Gän’gehtin watched, and when he did, his mind emptied.

  Fiáh’our stood far below, just beyond a broad gap between two rocky spines flowing down the opposing slopes. He faced away up the valley with his back turned, and Karras could only guess the old man stood with his hands resting on the upturned haft of his axe.

  Within arm’s reach to the old man’s left was a tall and crooked pole planted in the ground, as if made from a young tree stripped of branches. A bit of cloth, maybe dark red, flapped atop it like a crude flag.

  “What is he doing?” Karras whispered.

  “Waiting,” Gän’gehtin snarled in a whisper. “As if these animals could understand this.”

  Karras said nothing, hoping for more. “Waiting for what?”

  Gän’gehtin glanced once at him and frowned, as if Karras should already know.

  “He is calling out their… champion,” the shirvêsh whispered with disdain. “As Stálghlên did, and is now taught in his temple, to end battles or stop massacres… if possible, before they begin.”

  Karras wanted to bang his head on the ledge
. The old blusterer had received his thôrhk and become a thänæ at the temple of Stálghlên, “Pure-Steel” the Champion, one other beside Skâpagi among the three warriors of the rughìr Eternals.

  More tradition, more nonsense, and this time wrapped around another Bäynæ!

  “A fool’s notion for this situation,” Gän’gehtin added.

  Karras agreed though perhaps not for the same reasons. But Fiáh’our rarely listened to anyone, and recently that included the shirvêsh. So there they sat—or lay—in watching and waiting, and Fiáh’our never moved.

  The sun had fully crested the eastern, forested ridge when they heard the first shriek.

  Gän’gehtin twisted where he lay to look northward.

  Karras sat upright, clutching his ku’ê’bunst. He looked along the forested slope but saw nothing in the distance. Then came the sound of breaking underbrush amid growls, snarls, and howls that carried down the valley. When he glanced back over the ledge, Fiáh’our stood with his great axe held out and down in his right hand.

  The thänæ had turned slightly and now fixed upon the far upward forest from where those sounds had come.

  More noise followed, carrying along the slope and pulling Karras’ attention. By the crackle of branches and brush, it sounded as if more than one something broke through the distant trees to elsewhere.

  “Move!” Gän’gehtin hissed.

  Karras started as the shirvêsh took off along the ledge’s southward side and dropped over to scrabble down the slope. When he looked down, Fiáh’our’s tall pole had been knocked over and its flag was gone. The old man headed down the valley in an unhurried trot for the base of the rock spine below their camp. Karras quickly rose to follow Gän’gehtin over the side and downward.

  Gän’gehtin had already reached the spine’s base, his large cudgel in hand, when Fiáh’our arrived there.

  “I told you to wait!” the old man barked.

  The shirvêsh slipped around him to peer up the valley as Karras finally caught up.

  “What happened… out there?” Karras asked amid pants, and he noticed the scrap of dark red cloth now tucked into old man’s wide belt.

  “Some dispute,” Fiáh’our answered, as he cast a baleful glance at the shirvêsh’s back. “Possibly over whether or not to send one of them out to face me. We get back above, as I want to go have a look.”

  “What?” Karras gasped.

  Fiáh’our grabbed the shoulder of Karras’ hauberk and shoved him around toward the rocky slope.

  “Gän’gehtin… now!” the thänæ snapped.

  Karras went scrambling up the stone spine over loose rock, but he kept fearfully looking back. For the first time, the shirvêsh and the thänæ seemed of the same mind, hungry to get at their adversaries regardless that they disagreed about how. Either way, Karras would be dragged into it all.

  “Have you ever tried that before… with them?” he asked.

  “Several times,” Fiáh’our answered, shoving him upward again.

  “And it… worked?”

  “I am still here, am I not?”

  When they reached the top, Karras was too frightened to know what to do. He began picking up his pack out of habit as Gän’gehtin finally stepped up to join them, and the shirvêsh eyed the thänæ with open anger.

  “Leave the gear,” Fiáh’our said, and Karras froze. “We go light and quiet.”

  “What makes you think they all left?” the shirvêsh countered.

  “Because I listen!” the thänæ shot back. “There was movement before the first sound of fighting among them… and then many heading further up the valley through the trees. I want to know how many and if any split off from the main group.”

  Karras stood dumbly staring at Fiáh’our. He did not want any part of this, but there seemed nothing he could do about that. And the old man eyed him too long.

  “Stay behind me, and keep as quiet as you can,” Fiáh’our said firm but soft. “Do exactly as I say, when I say, for some may still be close.” Then he barely glanced at Gän’gehtin in adding, “And you… take up the rear and stay there.”

  13. The Ways of Beasts

  Fiáh’our led the way as they climbed higher upslope, until they entered the upper trees and cut northward, angling slightly downward through the forest. Often, he looked back to find the kitten tense and close behind him, and the young shirvêsh’s hard eyes watching him with too much fire and impatience. Many times, Fiáh’our swung his hand back to halt his companions as he listened and watched among the trees.

  He sniffed the air for the musky scent he knew well. Much as it grew the farther he went, it never sharpened in his nose, warning him of an enemy close by. And in those pauses, the kitten followed his gaze or looked about with wide unblinking eyes.

  Each time Fiáh’our moved on, he went slower. All of this was risky, but he needed to know if the oversized pack had split up or at least how many there were. At best, there would still be too many to face with companions who had never fought like this, most especially one who had not faced battle at all.

  And much as Karras tried to be quiet, his rapid breaths made too much noise.

  Fiáh’our paused again behind a large tree, and this time when he swept his hand back, he waved it downward. Karras followed him into a crouch, and Fiáh’our peered around the tree and ahead. Even low to the ground, he could see over the brush where the tree trunks were set wide apart in an empty space ahead. That musky stench was thick all around him.

  Fiáh’our leaned slightly out, pointing with his whole hand. Karras tried to follow that line of sight as Fiáh’our swept his hand slightly left and then back, indicating the whole area beyond them. Karras looked, but only Gän’gehtin nodded in acknowledgement. Fiáh’our placed a finger over his bearded mouth as he eyed both of his companions.

  Karras swallowed audibly, and then clenched with a shudder as the shirvêsh pushed in close behind him.

  Fiáh’our stepped out around the tree.

  At first no steps followed him. When he glanced back, the shirvêsh nudged the kitten into motion. They finally pushed into an open space where brush had been torn and cleared away, though most of the leavings lay in patches upon the ground. And those were matted down by something not there anymore. There were many such spots, and Fiáh’our had found his enemy’s camp abandoned… supposedly.

  For several long moments, he stood at the clearing’s center in looking hard at each nearby tree. Karras remained quiet at his side as the shirvêsh softly stepped around the space’s edge. Fiáh’our saw no sign of claw marks on the bark of the trees, and still, he looked upward.

  Large ones were not fond of climbing, and if they did, they would stay in the thicker, lower branches that could support their heavy weight. He saw nothing above but the forest canopy and small patches of bright sky. When he lowered his gaze, the kitten was frozen in place, clinging to his weapon as he too looked upward without blinking.

  Fiáh’our peered about once more. If this was the pack’s stable camp, and it had returned with stores too close to dawn, there might be something else here. He drew one battle dagger sheathed at his belt and crouched to poke at a matted patch. He lifted bits of flattened leaves, branches, and wilting fir and pine needles, but there was nothing beneath them but unbroken forest mulch.

  Karras was staring again as Fiáh’our shifted to the next matt, and Gän’gehtin turned inward from pacing around the clearing.

  “What?” the shirvêsh whispered, jutting his chin toward the next matt.

  “You watch,” Fiáh’our returned in kind, cocking his head toward the outer trees. He then looked to Karras, adding “turned earth” as he pointed his blade toward an untouched matt at the kitten’s feet.

  Karras took a shaky breath and crouched to follow Fiáh’our’s lead in searching.

  Somewhere here, if not hung up in the trees, might be at least one recent cache from the pack’s hunting and scavenging. That it was not hung above meant it had to be buried.
Then again, they would not have gone off and left it in the way that they did. More often, they hid their main stores away from a camp, so they themselves did not lead adversaries to their food stuffs. Unless, of course, he had come upon them before they could go off to one such other site, and they had hunkered down in guarding what they had not yet hidden elsewhere.

  “If you find signs,” Fiáh’our whispered with a quick look to Karras, “leave it for me.”

  The last thing he needed was a spooked kitten unearthing what might be buried here. That went for the shirvêsh as well, though for a different reason. But again, Fiáh’our found little but dried tree needles and crushed weeds beneath the next matting.

  After what he had learned in Shentángize, he would have been better off on his own out here, even if outnumbered. There was nothing to be done about that now.

  Fiáh’our moved on to the next matting. At a crackle of brush, or some branch snapping, he flinched with a scowl and turned his head, looking for the reckless shirvêsh.

  · · · · ·

  Karras paused in spreading another spot of crushed branches and brush on the clearing’s floor. He looked closer, uncertain of what he saw, and then tried to quietly pull away another branch of wilting leaves. This time there were few brown needles, all of which looked too mixed in exposed dark earth.

  Karras raised his head and a hand to wave Fiáh’our over. The sound of underbrush roughly torn made him look the other way in a panic.

  Gän’gehtin stood inside the clearing but looked out into the forest.

  Karras turned back to look for Fiáh’our as the old man must have been too careless with a matt.

  Crushing weight slammed Karras to the ground.

  His face buried hard into the earth as he gasped and choked for air. Something struck the back of his head. Under shrieking snarls deafening him from behind, his helmet was torn off.

  “Above!” Fiáh’our shouted.

  Or that was all that Karras heard.

  He thrashed frantically but could not get his head up. Something like claws latched onto the back of his neck. He grew faint and numb all over in a black and airless world as he tried to push up. His right hand pressed down on the weapon’s haft.