Warautumn

by Tom Deitz

  Merryn backed up from reflex, even as she realized that what she should have done was move forward and slash the beast’s exposed throat while it was still groggy.

  It wasn’t groggy now.

  Faster than she could have imagined, it unfolded itself into a wary crouch. Merryn backed up again, and was shocked when her shoulders slammed against the wall to the left of the entrance tunnel. The helm rang loud. Reflex swung the shield in front of her, even as she tried to manage both sword and torch. The latter would probably stay lit even if she dropped it—it was that well made—but she didn’t need that concern, besides which the fire might keep the geen at bay.

  Something was, for it was full on its feet now, facing her, with the sword upraised in its fist and blood trickling down its wrist. It looked eerily human, too: The stance was not far off that of a swordsman at guard. Its eyes were the worst; normally yellow, they gleamed red in the torchlight, like some demon from the Not World come to haunt the solid lands. The thinnest of lips peeled back from jaws as long as her shins, in a frightening parody of a taunting grin. Perhaps it was. Forearm muscles twitched in a way she didn’t like.

  The birkit growled, then scooted right, distracting the reptile.

  The arm swung around. Merryn was certain the room was about to explode with lightning.

  But would such a move be wise? It would surely kill everything in range, including the geen itself. Unless the sword knew as much and forestalled it.

  Or maybe not, for the muscles were tightening again, the arm going up, the sword rising …

  “No!” Merryn yelled all at once. “Put that down!”

  To her utter surprise, the beast froze, then wavered where it stood. The tense arm muscles relaxed minutely; its head swiveled around to face her.

  “No!” she repeated, taking a step forward, shield to left, sword—and clumsy torch—to right. “That’s mine!”

  Confusion raged into her head—and not the birkit’s. Anger rode with it, then more confusion, coupled with the oddest confluence of thoughts Merryn had ever experienced, which carried with them much the feeling of being part of a pack, and then ruling that pack, and then losing it.

  “Give, give, give,” Merryn shouted aloud, while her mind demanded the same—and more. Her hand twitched onto the trigger that awoke the shield, even as the same reflex jerked the back of that same hand up to slam the helm into her forehead, which awakened that gem in turn.

  Power flowed into her—eager, but so unbalanced that she staggered.

  She didn’t care. She felt stronger, and the gem in the helm told her she was stronger, and with a confidence her normal self would have considered reckless, she shouted again. “Put that down now!”

  Whether it was the power of her voice alone, or the power of her thought, desire, and will amplified through the helm, the geen took a step forward, then another, so that they were barely two spans apart. It raised the sword again, and Merryn found herself wondering what would happen if magic sword met magic shield in confrontation.

  “No! Drop! Now!” She had no idea if she shouted or merely thought so loud she might as well have shouted.

  Whatever it was, the tendons in the geen’s wrists twitched a third time, and the hand sprang open. The sword fell to the floor.

  It was like a light gone out and a light awakened, and Merryn was never certain what happened next. All she remembered was the geen’s eyes going dark and feral as whatever intellect had fired them winked out; and then she remembered it leaping toward her—one leap, she thought, or maybe even a rushing stride. That, and raising the shield before her.

  A scream—and that scream ended as quickly as it had begun, as the geen thrust itself backward, flailing awkwardly, but with so much speed that it smashed against the far wall. The torch guttered where Merryn had dropped it, threatening to go out, and she could see little more than a flurry of furred motion as the birkit rushed the fallen geen, while a terrible, alien anger thundered through her head.

  She felt pain and anguish as well—though neither her own nor the birkit’s. And then the torch recovered sufficiently that she could see the geen lying where it had fallen, with its entire torso a mass of blood where the shield had wrenched its flesh away. Ribs showed, and enough muscles had been sent to that “other” place that it could move its arms but feebly. Teeth showed above bare jawbone, too, and the fronts of both thighs ran red with blood above bone. Dark liquid pooled on the floor.

  With a gurgling hiss like water thrown onto a fire, the geen expired. She saw its ribs rise one last time, then every muscle went slack.

  She released the breath she had been holding, treated herself to another, then forced herself back to wary discipline—and eased over to retrieve the Lightning Sword, careful not to wake it.

  But the shield and the helm wanted it awake, it seemed, and it took all the will she possessed to shrug off the shield one-handed, then use that same hand to unbuckle the helm and remove it as well. Cool air rushed in to soothe her face and head. Sweat ran into her eyes in spite of the arming cap she wore, and she knew that her hair was soaked. Tired in mind as much as body, Merryn slumped against the wall and slid down to sit on the floor.

  She had won! She had defeated the geen and retrieved the sword! It only remained to collect her gear, secure the birkit, and return to her friends in time for breakfast.

  The birkit …

  The beast was somewhat calmer, now that it knew that the geen was dead. But it still evinced a certain restlessness. A restlessness that played around the edges of her mind in a way that worried her, when she wanted nothing for the next little while but to sit there and catch her breath. She could find her way out in the dark, if she had to—if the torch went out, which now seemed likely. If she could find the right cave by which to exit.

  The birkit, too, seemed to be concerned, and was now prowling from dark slit to darker opening with an almost desperate intensity. Abruptly, it paused at one and sat down. Her brain still sharp from gem use, she caught its thought as clearly as she ever had: Through here! Now!

  What it wanted, she had no idea, but it wouldn’t hurt to indulge the beast, at least briefly, though she dared not tarry.

  Sighing, she levered herself up, redonned sword, shield, and helmet but did not activate them, and limped over to join the birkit. Rather than precede her, however, it eased aside, as though it would have her enter what it had found.

  Very well, but only for a moment.

  A moment was all it required.

  The cave jogged right, then right again, and the second jog revealed true light—morning light, in fact, for the sun was even now in the act of rising. She blinked against the unexpected glare—a glare that seemed to come from two directions at once—from above the ridgeline she could dimly see beyond her, and from something that glittered below it.

  Water.

  A lake.

  And on that lake, approaching the nearer shore, a raft bearing figures.

  More than one of whom, even at that distance, she recognized.

  “Avall!” she shouted into what was suddenly quite a lovely morning.

  CHAPTER XVIII:

  LANDFALL

  (SOUTHWEST OF ERON–HIGH SUMMER: DAY LXXXV–MORNING)

  “Avall!”

  Avall twisted around, confused. His name had sounded twice—like an echo. Except that one voice had been an octave higher than the other, and there had been an overlap between the two, not a pause.

  But hard on those voices—and of far more immediate concern—came a second thump against the bottom of the raft. Myx yipped; Kylin cried out. Lykkon grabbed for the railing, as a third impact lifted the opposite edge of the raft half a span above the surface of the lake. More water sloshed in on the near side. The raft groaned. A binding snapped amidships.

  “Avall? What—?” from a wild-eyed Riff in the back, where he served as steersman.

  Avall glanced around frantically, even as one hand left his oar to seek his belt knife. He saw nothing
at first: merely the glitter of sunrise upon a froth of low waves. But then he made out more: a darkness beneath that surface, angling toward them.

  “A water-beast,” he yelled—as his name rang out again. But only one voice this time: Bingg, at lookout. Myx and Lykkon, too, were all vigilance as their gazes swept back and forth across the nearby water. Kylin looked quietly panicked, knuckles white as they gripped the rope bindings of the box on which he sat, staring blindly into nothing but murky light.

  Bingg, for whatever reason, was still pointing toward the cliffs that loomed before them, less than a shot away. Even in the ruddy light of sunrise, the boy’s face was bright with joy—which made no sense, given that they were under attack. Yet he was leaning precariously far over the rail, oblivious to the danger such recklessness posed to himself and the raft alike.

  And Avall’s name once more: the high voice, its tones thin and strained in the morning air.

  Avall spared an instant to scan the shore, noting absently that his companions were now doing the same in varying degrees of concern or excitement—all save Kylin and Riff—who was trying to watch the water and keep the raft in order all at once.

  Another impact—from directly underneath. The raft rose straight up for nearly a quarter span, then jolted back down in a froth of spray that drenched what little of their clothing was still dry.

  “Gawk, row, or fight,” Riff bellowed. “But not all three. Now what—!”

  “Avall!”

  Again the high voice. And this time Avall saw the source.

  The line of cliffs before them was split and fissured all along its face by ridges, shafts, and chimneys running from the water’s edge to the summit. But it was stepped back, too, in terraces and ledges, most of which sported some degree of foliage. Even so, some sections were too steep to support more than ferns and mosses, and at the juncture of one of the vertical flutes and horizontal ledges, someone was standing.

  Balancing perilously, more precisely, by the way the figure was clutching a swag of clinging vines that depended from the ridge a quarter shot above. Unfortunately, the rocks there were vitreous, and the sun was hitting full upon them, so that they glittered too brightly for Avall to determine more than the fact that the figure glittered, too, as though it were wearing mail.

  And might—by the voice—be a woman.

  But there was only mail-wearing woman he could imagine meeting in this part of the world—only one who would know his name, at any rate.

  “Merryn!”

  He hailed her aloud without realizing it, but by then Rann had likewise recognized her—or drawn the same conclusion.

  A scrape against the bottom of the raft reminded him that they still faced a threat that would grant no quarter even to happy reunions. “Bingg,” Avall snapped, sliding his oar on deck. “Give me the distance lens.” Bingg looked confused for the barest moment, then loosened the ties that secured the instrument against loss. An instant later, he stretched across the thick-cane deck to extend it to Avall, who had to strain to reach it.

  Praying that no fresh impact would wrench it from their grasp, Avall snared the object quickly and raised it at once, swearing as the focus blurred. But then he found it. It was indeed Merryn, standing on a ledge no wider than her feet, gripping the vine with one hand, and waving frantically with the other. She wore mail, as he’d suspected, though no surcoat, and her hair was plastered to her skull with sweat. She looked tired—and seriously alarmed. With reason, if she had seen the raft heave upward. “Everyone,” he shouted, “it’s Merryn. Up there on the cliff!”

  “Merryn?” Riff was the last to respond. His gaze never left the water.

  “You’re joking!” From Rann.

  “The Eight I am!” Avall pointed to the shore, and by then everyone had seen. Without prompting from their nominal captain, they all picked up their oars and shifted their course as directly toward Merryn as they could manage.

  But the water-beast had other plans and was evidently tired of playing. A shadow Avall could barely distinguish from the raft’s wake suddenly shifted directions, becoming darker and denser at it approached. Then, before anyone could react more than minimally, the beast smashed into the back of the raft, right beside Riff’s steering oar. More alert to the raft than the rest of them, Riff jerked the oar toward the exposed hump of back, even as he stretched down to stab at it with the dagger that had appeared in his free hand. A thin line of blood showed across what looked like wet black leather, and the beast dived instantly.

  Avall alone of the crew saw that happen, and however enthralled he was by Merryn’s arrival, he knew that it would be the ultimate caprice of Fate if no one survived to give her welcome.

  “Stand to attack,” he yelled. “Forget Merry—for now. Watch every side, and prepare for anything. If it moves, hit it. Stab it. I don’t care, but kill it.”

  “It” was not cooperating, however. Yet for a long moment, the lake stilled. The ripples in their wake subsided as they drifted. He could hear Merryn yelling, but her voice was faint.

  And then, like the world’s largest sword rising from the depths, an enormously attenuated head and neck shot skyward right beside Lykkon. Reflex made him release his hold on the rail and flinch back—which upset the balance of the raft. It tipped dangerously. Bingg lost his grip and slid into Avall, which further skewed the weight distribution. A box broke its bindings and tumbled past Avall’s feet to lodge against the lowest strip of railing.

  They poised there for a moment, tilted at a perilous angle, with one side almost a span in the air and the other immersed half that deep in water. The crew grabbed at whatever they could find to keep from falling, and only Riff retained his footing—by twining his toes into a particularly large knot of lashings.

  As for the beast … it had vanished—or was invisible beyond the floor of the listing raft. Which was even worse, since that put it in a prime position to knock the unbalanced structure the rest of the way over, which would free it to choose its victims at leisure.

  A cacophony of shouts rattled the air, mostly “Avall” and “beast” rendered in varying degrees of panic at varying pitches.

  And then came the lightning.

  A pure white bolt of it rode down from that cloudless early-morning sky to strike the waters beyond the bottom of the raft—which was now rather more like a wall.

  The air shattered with thunder. Steam hissed. Vapor fled hot past Avall’s face. The stench of lightning bittered the breeze, mingled with the crisp scent of burning meat. Then silence, followed hard by a long, thin blubbering scream that no human throat could have uttered.

  Riff was the first to regain composure, the first to scramble toward the part of the raft that rose highest above the water. The first to bring his weight to bear (and he was heaviest of the crew by a bit), and the first to extend an arm to Lykkon, who was nearest (though lodged atop a jumble of boxes beside the mast). Somehow their hands met, and Riff jerked Lykkon up toward him. The raft promptly shifted far enough toward level for Myx and Rann to make up the difference.

  “Is it—?” Bingg dared, as he untangled himself from Avall, atop whom he had fallen.

  Riff scanned the waters on his side, then turned and nodded. “It is. It’s floating out there—in two pieces. But what—?”

  “Merry—and the Lightning Sword,” Avall replied, heaving himself to his feet, hands questing for his dagger, the distance lens, and his oar all at once.

  Bingg had reclaimed the lens, however, and was scanning the shore intently.

  “What’s she doing?” Avall called, as he settled on the oar and set it in the water once more. They had drifted, he noted—but fortunately the line of that drift was shoreward.

  “She’s trying to get down,” Bingg yelled back. “But she can’t. The vine’s too short and the ledge is too steep, or she can’t find handholds, or something. I think she’s—yes—she’s going back inside the cliff. She waved, and made a ‘wait’ sign, but she’s gone.”

  Gone
.

  Avall felt the word like a weight of despair.

  “She’ll be back,” Bingg vowed with conviction. “She has to. We just have to be patient.”

  “We have to make landfall,” Avall countered. “We have to get up there.”

  “We can’t—not there,” Rann told him flatly. “There’s simply no anchorage.”

  “Then we’ll have to find one!” Avall snapped.

  “We can wait,” Riff put in firmly. “If we have to, we can make a circle of this place and find a way up top. If Merryn’s inside the cliffs, she has to have entered somewhere.”

  “She looked as surprised as we did,” Bingg added. “And as glad to see us.”

  “She wouldn’t have left without good reason,” Avall conceded, somewhat more calmly. “Probably to find some way to get down.”

  “Or us up.”

  “She’s surely got rope somewhere,” Rann agreed.

  “So what do we do?” Kylin asked the group in general: the first time he had spoken.

  “Try to hold position,” Avall sighed. “And wait.”

  Holding position proved more difficult than expected, but in the end, they managed, though more than one set of eyes swept anxiously across the lake in search of anomalous shadows.

  Happily none were forthcoming, but most of a hand still elapsed in an agony of waiting before Merryn returned—with three companions in tow. Strynn was with her—as was Div and a worn-looking man they didn’t recognize. “Strynn looks bad,” Rann muttered, as he lowered the lens they all were sharing now.

  “Just be glad she looks,” Avall shot back, then glanced up at the cliffs again. Merryn was maybe a quarter shot above them, which was a lot of rope. Most likely, she would have to find a second landing and throw from there. Or a third.

  The latter proved to be the case. Merryn managed to find sufficient handholds in the vines to work her way to where a wider ledge jutted out a good eight spans lower than her initial perch: a ledge from which more vines depended. Div followed, while Strynn and the stranger remained behind: more proof that at least one of them was ailing.