“I’m finished,” spat the Owl at ElShua’s mountainous back. “I can’t take it anymore. Banish me if you must, but I’ll never carry another soul unless you tell me why. Well? Tell me, Lord. Why don’t you bring them here yourself? See them in their misery with your own eyes? Well? Who am I that I should stand in your place?” The Owl cast his fury at ElShua’s great shoulders, the shoulders that held up the sky. “I’m too small for this task. Too small, I tell you. It’s not my fault! And I can’t take it anymore!”
ElShua turned to face him, and suddenly the Owl could not speak.
Great rolling tears slid down ElShua’s face.
The Owl saw in those tortured eyes a misery larger than the universe. He saw the death of the shrew in those eyes. And not just the shrew’s, but every death. Every disappointment. Every stab of treachery and rejection and regret. As though the pain were burned forever in long, jagged scars across his mind.
“Friend Owl,” ElShua whispered at last, “listen carefully. And let my words give you strength and courage. Or if not strength and courage, then fear. For I will not tell you when this shall be, nor what form I will take when it happens. But one day you will come into my wounded world for a dying soul, and that soul shall be mine.”
“But—” said the Owl.
“You will not recognize me then,” ElShua continued. “You will see only a sparrow, or a fox … or a forgotten shrew. You will not know me until you have brought me here.”
“But,” the Owl said again.
“Therefore,” said Elshua. “you must carry each soul as though you carry me. For one day you will. Do you understand?”
ElShua held out his hand and the shrew leapt into his palm. And oh, what a leap the shrew made!
“Friend Owl,” ElShua said. “All this time you have been faithful. You have brought many souls to my side. You have seen them remade. You have seen their tears wiped away, their sorrows transformed into laughter. And yet you still carry their grief in your heart. Did you not know your burdens must be carried one at a time? Did you not know you must leave them with me?”
And ElShua reached out with his empty hand and broke the Owl’s neck.
The Owl gave a startled cry, his eyes widening in agony. But as suddenly as it had struck, the pain vanished. For ElShua had already healed the wound with his fingertips.
The mice of Tira-Nor say ElShua recreated the Owl that day. He made the Owl’s head to spin. He made the Owl’s eyes wide. Since then the Great Owl is always straining to see in every direction, looking for the dead.
They say, too, on that day the Great Owl stopped shifting blame, for it was not just his neck and eyes that were remade.
ElShua gave him a new heart.
Which is why the Great Owl asks every passing cloud where his next burden lies.
Which creature shivers at the point of death? Name a name, clouds! Name a name, trees! Tell me quickly!
“Who?” the Great Owl demands.
JaRed waited in the house until GoRec and his warriors returned to the sewers and the rat sentries went back to the burn pile.
Oddly enough, the one sentry who remained on guard did not seem any more attentive than Klogg had been. But then, JaRed supposed there was nothing more to fear from GoRec tonight.
It seemed the point of Klogg’s murder hadn’t been to punish him for his offense, but for the sheer sake of punishment. To kill just for the pleasure of it.
When the sentry appeared to be sleeping, JaRed slipped out the garage door and ran back to the hill, wondering if LaRish and JoHanan would still be there.
As he passed the burn pile he saw Klogg’s body lying in a broken heap across a crushed cardboard pizza box. He could not help thinking that even Klogg did not deserve such a death.
LaRish and JoHanan met him halfway up the hill.
“I’m hungry,” JaRed said, feeling he could eat barrels of food.
“You waited long, leetle one. This is good. It shows patience—something you could learn, Prince.”
JoHanan whistled. “Did you see that monster?”
“Yes,” JaRed said.
“And did you see his weakness?” LaRish asked.
JaRed frowned. “I saw his speed.”
“He was quick, yes.” LaRish spat. “Almost as quick as me, and that is saying something. But I mean something else. This rat, he has a weakness. What are you carrying?”
JaRed held up the nail. “A gift.” The nail felt heavy and awkward in his grip.
“Who is it for?” JoHanan asked.
“Me.”
LaRish stared at him for a moment, one eyebrow raised. “I think maybe you are going soft in the head, leetle mouse.”
Chapter Seven
YuLooq
HaRed son of ReDemec the Red muttered a long and heartfelt curse, full of hatred, directed more or less at the center of the universe.
Gray clouds marched across the sunless sky, empty promises of rain that made HaRed’s throat burn with thirst. Even nature taunted him now, reminded him again of his own, not to mention Tira-Nor’s, desperate need for water.
HaRed labored outside with the rest of the commoners, foraging for anything that might be stored and consumed later. King SoSheth was preparing for siege, and all foraging parties had been ordered to double duty. They had been working almost constantly for over a week without a decent rest.
All of which was Runt’s fault! Runt was the reason they all suffered, for he had destroyed Tira-Nor’s only escape route. Runt had trapped them in a massive grave with no better plan than double duty for the scavenging parties. While he avoided scavenging by posing as one of the kingsguard.
What a wretched plan! Wait for the rats to come. Wait to die of thirst or be torn apart by the claws of rats. Wait to die, because a thoughtless piece of garbage had destroyed the city’s back door.
HaRed clenched his teeth. Why had the king promoted the little scum? He looked around at the other scavengers. They were all tired and thirsty, he knew. They had all been forced into long days of labor with little to eat and little rest. Now even the elderly and infirm were working outside as scavengers.
I’ve had enough of that pompous brother of mine and his irritating self-righteousness. Surely by now the king would believe what HaRed had to say. Surely by now the king had seen through Runt’s posturing, his false humility, his incompetence. The little flea-biter wasn’t capable of ruling a chamber of mouse-kits, let alone a great city like Tira-Nor!
Time to see King SoSheth.
HaRed found, after an interminable search, a small cache of dirty sunflower seeds, which he pressed into the pouch of one cheek. Not much, but enough to justify a trip into the storage chambers off the Great Hall.
It would have been faster to go straight to the Royal Gate, but the kingsguard would never have let him through. What he needed now was a bit of trickery, something he—like every mouse of greatness—had always possessed in large quantities.
He found the blood-red berry he had buried in an empty walnut shell in preparation for this moment. He cast a wary glance around him, but no one paid him any attention. He put the berry in his mouth, and though it had dried out in the last two weeks, what moisture was left exploded in his mouth. He barely kept himself from swallowing it in his thirst. Instead he spat the juice onto his left paw, then swallowed the skin of the berry. He licked at his new “wound,” pleased with the effect.
It looks bad, but not awful. He headed for the Common Gate, limping.
The gate sentries barely noticed HaRed’s limp and waved him through when he showed them the sunflower seeds.
Inside, the smell of fear filled the city. The barracks around the Great Hall now billeted hundreds of conscripted militia from all areas of the city. Volunteers trained for battle in the tunnels and at defensive positions. New traps were being dug, new switchbacks and double-turns and wall stones installed. Passages were being narrowed to create more easily defensible posts. Some were being closed altogether, caked with mud t
o dry into a kind of cement that would be difficult for rats to burrow through. Most of the passages leading from the Commons to the barracks of the kingsguard were being sealed, as well as the tunnels between the Commons and the Families. The Commons, which lay closest to the surface, was apparently expected to fall first.
In a store room now bulging with seeds, cones, nuts, dried berries, and other supplies, he deposited the sunflower seeds from his cheek, then turned and shuffled back to the main corridor. There he turned right instead of left and hobbled to a side passage leading down.
He knew the way. A side passage to the Great Families, a section of Tira-Nor no Commoner would be allowed into without good reason.
The sentry at this guard chamber looked him over carefully. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” HaRed said, grimacing. “Just … just a thorn, that’s all. Hurts, but I’ll be okay.”
“It looks bad. You ought to have it looked at.”
HaRed let a hint of pain twist the corner of his mouth. “You think so?”
“No sense letting it get infected. We’re going to need able bodies soon.”
“I suppose you’re right. But I have an appointment with Master YuLooq. And I mustn’t keep him waiting.”
The sentry waved aside his objection. “You’re in luck. There’s a doctor two chambers down from YuLooq. You can ask him to look at it on your way. Tell him OoRay sent you.”
A less intelligent mouse might have taken the direct route to the king through the guard chambers of the kingsguard. After all, many of the passages would be completely sealed soon. But HaRed knew such an approach would mean an intolerable delay waiting for an audience that may never happen. HaRed preferred subtlety.
After proceeding a safe distance, he stopped in the darkness and licked the berry juice from his paw. It wouldn’t do to be found wandering in the chambers of the Great Families with a blood-stained paw. Someone might mistake him for a common soldier.
The attack came late in the afternoon.
JaRed stood sentry atop the dome of Round Top, but he did not see the first rats until they were almost upon the skirmishers.
His position left him exposed to the sky, and the temptation was to look up when his duty lay in looking out. True, there was a tree to huddle against. But mice do not like heights, and they feel vulnerable when surrounded by too much open air. Captain Blang believed such vulnerability helped his sentries to stay alert. JaRed often found himself looking over one shoulder, half expecting to meet the talons of a hawk.
He focused his gaze on the western horizon, the direction from which any attack would surely come. Occasionally he glanced north or south, but his attention was always drawn back to the houses of men.
Beyond the houses lay the unknown lands, about which almost nothing was known. Even in the oldest stories and songs the realms beyond were rarely mentioned. Other than TyMin, who had come to Tira-Nor from the southwest, there remained in the collective histories only hints of the forgotten things from the far world.
He stared west at the peaks of new wood gables that pierced the dusty rim of the sky. He brushed one paw against the shock of white fur at his forehead.
The earth shuddered.
Fear rose in his chest, and all at once he seemed to be falling, the same sensation that had terrified him the night GoRec slaughter Klogg and left his body on the burn pile like a broken toy.
A scene unfolded in JaRed’s mind as the sky pressed down on him, suffocating in its enormity. The air grew heavy. He felt he was drifting away and down, sinking into the dirt and clay and gravel, into the bedrock and the hot molten heart of the world. The waking vision grew stronger as he plummeted.
Away to the north and west lay a vast prairie dotted by woodlands, rivers, and lakes. A sea of homes— the houses of men—flowed in a relentless current of wood and plaster and paint toward Tira-Nor. Beneath the current ran an intricate web of sewers, and in the sewers gathered a horde of rats.
But only for a moment.
Then the vision shifted. From sky to grass he fell, tumbling, and at the same time he seemed to be rising through water, as if to catch his breath after long submersion.
He passed through a vacant lot that lay like a missing tooth between two ancient brick buildings, and stood under a sign that towered above him on iron legs bleeding rust at their bolted seams. Red letters blistered and fell away from the white surface, leaving the faded outlines of words:
The Springer Meat Processing Plant
WELCOME
The vision at last slowed, drawing JaRed closer to the earth beneath the sign. For a moment he circled the ground like water going through a drain.
Overgrown with weeds and withered bluegrass, the earth here was littered with rotting plywood and bald tires. Empty liquor bottles glittered in the afternoon sunlight. A doorless refrigerator leaned awkwardly to one side, its stomach stained yellow by some longforgotten accident. Wild tulips grew here and there, as though in defiance of the ugliness around them.
At the epicenter of the vision all motion stopped, and JaRed saw a long, lean rat between the concrete feet of the sign. The rat was thin, a death mask of starvation stretching over its face. Long crescent ribs showed through a thin pelt, revealing sick legs and a neck no wider than a twig.
The rat’s eyes shifted nervously, and JaRed felt a sudden stab of compassion.
“Who are you?” JaRed asked.
The rat looked up, whiskers twitching on its gaunt face, its eyes black and empty and afraid. It did not reply.
On Round Top, JaRed backed into the prickly bark of the tree, blinking away the vision. To the south, the brown-leafed oaks of the Dark Forest marched into the distance beyond the White River.
JaRed did not know what to make of the things he had seen. Had he been dreaming? Or was it something else?
He saw one of the foragers. Two dozen or so still scampered through the field, the last of the day, scurrying to get something—anything—to fulfill their quota and allow them entry back into the safety of a dark sleeping chamber inside Tira-Nor.
JaRed caught the flick of a tail in the distance.
Odd. The tail was too far west. Someone must have strayed dangerously far from his assigned position.
Except ...
The tail was too long to be that of a mouse.
JaRed took a deep breath and waited. No sense sounding a false alarm. The scavengers were tired and did not need to waste their energy running from a sentry’s mistake.
Then came another flick, another tail, and more movement from the west. Too far west. The dry, yellow, tall grass, bent over in death but still carpeting the field, seemed to move, as though the earth were caught in a slow shudder.
JaRed sat up, straining to see.
The earth indeed was moving, a slow current of motion too distant to be grasped but too large to be denied. It was as though a wave of dirt were washing slowly toward him from the far side of the field, on top of which the ground cover heaved and sagged like flotsam on the surface of the sea.
“JoHanan,” JaRed said. Then, louder, “JoHanan!”
The prince’s voice came from below. “Yes?”
“Something is happening.”
JoHanan’s nose appeared in the rocks below. “What sort of something?”
“I don’t know. I can’t describe it. Tell LaRish to sound the alarm.”
“Why? What do you see?”
JaRed struggled for words. He struggled for air. A cold shiver of fear crept upward along his spine. “I see … a wave,” JaRed said softly.
JoHanan sniffed the air below an exposed root at the ledge. “A wave?” He frowned. “What kind of wave?”
“I can’t describe it. I don’t know what it is.”
“Are you sure it’s not just the wind?”
“It’s not the wind,” JaRed shouted in frustration. The wind did not blow in a single line. And if what he saw was wind, the whole field of tall grass would be bent over.
“
All right, all right. No need to snap at me. But I can’t tell LaRish to sound the alarm because you saw something.”
JaRed took a deep breath. fighting back his old familiar insecurities. JoHanan was just like the others. Just like his brothers. Just like Horrid. They never believed him. Simply because he was small.
The wave continued rolling, slow and steady like the tide. It crossed a quarter of the distance of the field on the far side of Dry Gully. In moments it would break against the scavengers. And then what?
JaRed felt words come out calmly from a place inside himself he did not know existed. “Tell LaRish I’m not looking. I am seeing.” His voice sounded like someone else’s, as though he were a bystander listening in. “And what I see is the earth about to swallow up Tira-Nor.”
JoHanan’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Then he leapt down the closest side of Dry Gully, crossed to the far side, and disappeared in a yellow quilt of stalks.
Somewhere between the wave and the scavengers, JaRed saw a long, fat tail flick in a bare patch of earth. Skirmishers. Scouts. Raiders at the head of an army so massive that when it moved, the whole world shuddered.
Lord Wroth had unleashed his fury.
The rats had come.
HaRed stopped at the entry to the great house, which was expansively lit by glowstones. Green light spilled from the opening into the passageway in an obvious boast of wealth.
Not that anyone in Tira-Nor was ignorant of the owner’s prosperity. YuLooq’s opulence rivaled— perhaps even exceeded—that of King SoSheth, though of course his power lay not in birthright but in politics. YuLooq was a mouse of prestige, one of the advisors to the king, and a wealthy merchant who understood how to turn ordinary vice into profit. True, he had gotten old and fat, but what was power for if not to make you comfortable? Though he would not have admitted it, HaRed envied the old creature.
A servant came quickly, sniffing the air as though testing it for a sign of HaRed’s good breeding. “May I help you?”
HaRed stroked his whiskers with one paw. “I wish to see Master YuLooq on a matter of urgent business. Kindly let him know HaRed son of ReDemec the Red has arrived.”
Runt the Brave: Bravery in the Midst of a Bully Society (Legends of Tira-Nor) Page 8