Everything Is Worth Killing- Isaac's Tale

by Alex Oakchest

  “Behind,” I said. “Rest against hill.”

  Tosvig, Harrien, and Malin got back against the hill. I kneeled in front of them, positioning myself so that the shield pointed at a slight vertical angle.

  Rocks dinked and thumped off it. One in every twenty sailed over it and almost hit us, but some protection was better than nothing. I just didn’t know how long it would last.

  “Harrien Malin? Can you cast spells to help?”

  Here was the thing. Not every clan member learned the same spells. Clan children learned a few basic spells like hrr-chare and hrr-eisre, but a lot of clan teaching was centered around survival without magic. In a world where magic was fueled by death, it made sense. Their magic was finite, and they needed to know how to survive without it.

  When they reached adulthood, they were given a clan job that suited their talents, and they would learn spells to match. Both Harrien and Malin were a year away from that. In a way, my status as an outsider had helped me advance beyond them in terms of learning new spells.

  I looked at the rock-throwing bastards, trying to see which one most deserved a hrr-chare fired at their ass.

  There were six naked guys on one hilltop, six on the opposite one. But if the chained humans were here, then their masters wouldn’t be far away.

  We couldn’t afford to get pinned down, but running was a risk. They were throwing rocks that could easily crack our skulls.

  So…which side of stone-throwers should get a fireball?

  Ah, yeah.

  I leaned toward Harrien and pointed at the hill. “See? They are on the edge of the hill, and the snow keeps them balanced.”

  “Huh? Ques?”

  “Hrr-chare the lip of snow.”

  “Okai!”

  Both Harrien and Malin formed the stances for hrr-chare, and even as rocks rained down from the hills, I was pleased to see that their movements were slower than mine. Was that petty? Probably. I guess I was just clinging onto any sign of hope for my survival.

  Maybe I was faster than them because I was new to this and I had learned it as an adult. It had made me question their ways, experiment with techniques. Harrien and Malin had grown up with it, and they’d learned in a much more linear way.

  One great rock thumped into my shield, and the light flickered. It wouldn’t hold long.

  Harrien cast a fireball away from us. It crashed into the hillside, melting some of the snow. Some, but not enough.

  Another stone hit my shield. It flickered again, stronger and for longer, but didn’t disappear.

  Malin cast his flames next. I felt the heat as they whooshed by me, and I watched as they smashed into the hillside and spread over the snow, devouring it.

  That did it.

  The six humans on that side of the hill had trusted too much in a lip of snow near the edge. When it melted, they completely lost their balance and they fell to the ground.

  It was a fall of twenty feet. Pretty high. I mean, I wouldn’t have wanted to jump that.

  One guy landed straight-legged, and he screamed with agony when his ankles shattered on impact.

  Another, a woman, tried to right herself but she was almost horizontal by the end of her fall. Her neck hit a stone laying on the ground. A big stone, one that she had thrown moments earlier. Skin and bone, multiplied by falling from a height and then divided by a jagged rock, equaled a dead lady.

  The other four landed without broken bones or fatal injuries, but that didn’t matter. Tosvig was up within a second, his sword drawn in another second.

  “Hungry, bastards? Feed your belly with sword!”

  “Yeah!” I called after him. “You goddamned nafurts!”

  It took him only two more to reach the naked guys. He kicked a man in the stomach, winding him so badly that he could only manage pathetic wheezes.

  The rest of the attackers were on the hill we were resting against, and the hill was curved so that we were hidden from those on top of it.

  Even so, my shield flickered again and then died. One elemental didn’t buy you endless protection, it seemed.

  I picked up my sword and joined Tosvig, who had rounded the four humans up into a group and he held his sword menacingly.

  I joined him and held my own, trying to show an equally menacing look.

  The men and women on the other hill paused now, rocks in hands, chains faintly rattling when they made the slightest movement.

  They were waiting to see what we’d do. Worried for their fellow naked humans, maybe.

  I had never been so close to them before. Not back in the village, and not when the ogres had come to camp. I bet they hadn’t even realized that I was human, too. Maybe if they had, they wouldn’t have attacked.

  This was a chance to talk to them.

  Trusting Tosvig to keep the four prisoners in check, I turned to address the naked guys atop the hill.

  At first, I was lost for words. What’s the right thing to say to a gang of naked, chained, stone-throwing people who have lived with ogres for god knows how long? Small talk doesn’t cover it.

  “I’m human,” I said. “I suppose you didn’t notice that. I look like the Lonehills, skin aside, so we’ll forget about the rocks. No harm, no foul. I think it’s time we talked about getting you out of those chains.”

  One human looked at another. Naked guys looked at naked girls. Chains rattled.

  I could almost read their thoughts.

  He’s here! The savior that was promised!

  The breaker of chains! Feller of ogres (maybe).

  I just had to make sure I didn’t bask in their thanks too much. Accept their gratitude, sure, but don’t overplay it.

  First, though, we needed to get these guys loose.

  “Adak. Ma. Fu kalek,” said one human. He was a man, but his voice didn’t sound like man’s. It was animalistic, almost, his vocal cords producing words in a tone unlike anything I’d heard before.

  He raised his hand above his head.

  And then launched a stone in my direction. I stepped to the side, letting it skitter beyond me.

  Ducking back under the hillcrest, out of sight, I shrugged. “I tried to help them. What was that?”

  Harrien answered me. “Lamb raised with wolves thinks it is a wolf. If another lamb visit, how you think wolf-lamb act?”

  So the humans thought they were ogres?

  No. It couldn’t be lost on them that they wore chains, and the ogres did not.

  What, then? Stockholm syndrome? Had they formed bonds with those who enslaved them?

  Who cares? I tried, that’s all that matters. Screw ‘em. Way back when I saw the chained humans at the cottage and then in the ogre camp, it had hurt me to know I couldn’t save them. It turned out that they didn’t want to be saved.

  The only other thing I could guess was that the ogres represented safety to these poor people. Being saved, having their chains broken, was the opposite of safety in their minds. I had to abandon the idea of breaking them free.

  “Guys, let’s go. We head back to the clan.”

  Tosvig didn’t betray any pain as a stone hit his shoulder. He was too far away for the humans to do any real damage now. He shook his head at me.

  “Na, Isaac. Na go back. We find Pendras.”

  “He’s dead, Isaac.”

  “Yap.”

  “So why find?”

  “Because a man goes to land beyond. A good man. Deserves respect. Rot in the wilds? Shit on by deer? Eat by wolf? Na. Nat he who joined me to clan.”

  “Seriously? You want to go find his body?”

  “Nat want. Will.”

  I heard rumbling sounds now, thuds that echoed overhead. The humans stopped with their stones.

  Ogres. The ogres were coming.

  Pretty simple to work out their idea here. The humans had watched Siddel as he lay dying. It was their job to keep a lookout. If anyone else came here, they had to keep them busy until the ogres arrived.

  Maybe they knew someone would come l
ooking. They wouldn’t know who, but they wouldn’t care. Every dead mage weakened the Lonehills.

  One of the humans must have gone to give a message to the ogres when they first saw us, and now their masters were coming. An ambush, pure and simple.

  Well, I sure as hell wouldn’t be here when the ogres arrived. Ten seconds. That’s all I would give Tosvig. Any more than that, and he could die alone.

  I marched over to him. “A body is vessel. No soul, no need for body.”

  “Deserves respect.”

  “You’re being stupid. He’s dead. This isn’t what Pendras do. If Pendras here now, if you dead, he leave you.”

  “Bastard!”

  All I saw was a green fist flying at my face.

  And then, darkness.

  Only for a second, and then I was awake again. The humans watching from above tittered, and the ogres' great footsteps boomed out, sounding even closer.

  Nauseated, my face singing with pain, I got up.

  I snapped. Hate to say it, but I snapped.

  I walked over to Tosvig and slugged him in the face.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t fall down, so my punch had less impact than his.

  Tosvig gave me a glare of burning hatred, one so hot it could have melted all the snow for miles around. I could almost see the images forming in his head; I imagined him snapping me over his knee.

  But then he laughed. A deep, rumbling laugh.

  “Thankie, Isaac,” he said. “Sense returns.”

  “Jesus. Let’s go.”

  “Jesus?”

  “Gai, Tosvig! Now.”

  I didn’t care if Tosvig came with me or not now; I was getting out of there. I grabbed a few things from Siddel’s corpse.

  Items received:

  [Circle Child] elemental

  Siddel’s inventory bag

  Siddel’s medallion

  “Harrien, Malin, let’s go,” I said.

  The teenage mages stared at me in awe. “See?” said Harrien. “Human hit Tosvig. Hit Tosvig!”

  “Bastards speak this to clan,” said Tosvig, “And Tosvig hit you.”

  I led the way back through the gully, with both my and Siddel’s inventory bag around my shoulders. Given the bag’s magical construction, the weight was negligible. Harrien and Malin ran behind, glancing every time we heard the boom of an ogre footstep.

  Tosvig caught up to me just as we cleared the gully.

  “My thoughts were wrong,” he said. “Thoughts on Isaac; human no-color might be worth place.”

  “Thankie,” I said. “Thoughts on Tosvig; mind is still hazy.”

  Tosvig laughed, and it was then that I saw Pendras’ influence in him. Because although the older mage wouldn’t have laughed, he’d have done the same thing. He’d have forgotten about looking for a corpse, and just got the hell out of there.

  We got back to the Lonehill camp two days later, making it five days after we had first set out. As we expected, the rest of the clan were gone. Their tents were packed up, vegetables were harvested even if they weren’t ready yet, and anything worth taking had been piled onto a cart. No people, no bison, nothing.

  I felt empty when I got back. Weirdly, I felt emptier now than I had when Siddel told me Pendras had been killed and I’d watched the hunter die. I'd always thought that death hit hardest when you saw it happen, but maybe it was more like a poison, slow acting but working its way through you.

  If anything, I’d barely thought about it over the last few days because we traveled quicker than before. It had taken three days to get to Siddel, but only two to complete the same journey back. We walked so fast and traveled so far that the only thing any of us could think about was our aching legs. Maybe that was a blessing.

  One night, Harrien had held a ceremony for Pendras and the others. He had no wooden figurines so he used stones instead, and he and Malin said something about each person the ogres had killed.

  Tosvig said nothing and didn’t even seem to be listening. Only when Harrien spoke about Pendras, did Tosvig open his mouth. I have no idea what he said. I was so tired that I had trouble following it, and even keeping my eyes open felt like the hardest fight I'd had since I got to this crap-hole of a place.

  So now we were back at camp, just the four of us and Roddie, who ran around the camp sniffing the ground. Although, it wasn’t a camp anymore. Just an empty space with rune marks on the ground.

  “Sleep, bastards,” said Tosvig. “One shade. Na more.”

  I was beginning to regret teaching Tosvig what had now become his favorite word. He was giving them one shade to get a little rest. One shade meant one hour, so they didn't have long. Talk about a hard taskmaster, but that was something I liked about him.

  “Sleep where?” asked Harrien.

  “Ground! Where you think Tosvig sleep when alone in wilds?”

  “I’ll keep watch,” I said.

  “Thankie, Isaac,” said Malin.

  They took their sleeping bags from their bags and rolled them on the ground, Harrien and Malin close to each other, Tosvig on his own.

  I sat where the center of camp had once been, where there had once been a campfire. Before leaving, the Lonehills had removed every trace of their former presence here so they were harder to track. No point making the ogres’ job easier, right?

  I unslung Siddel’s bag from my shoulder and set it in front of me. It was bigger than mine and better made, and with lots of extra pockets that must have been more cosmetic than anything else, since the bag was magic.

  I opened it and took out what was inside.

  Items Received:

  Hunting Knife

  Spellbook: Hrr-Arre: Un Gata fur Intermedien

  Spellbook: Hrr-Spee: Un Gata fur Novicien

  Tincture: Wolflust

  Tincture: Wolfbane

  Tincture: Harelust

  Standard Bow

  Wooden arrows x25

  Skill book: Fletching: Novicien Gata

  Dried nightwolf eyes

  Siddel’s Medallion

  This was great! It was definitely the best haul of items that I had found since I got to this weird-ass world. Shame about the circumstances, but I knew one thing for sure; reverse the situation, and Siddel would have looted my stuff, taken what he could use, and moved on. It was the Lonehill way.

  First, I checked out the knife.

  Hunting Knife

  A knife favored by those who hunt the forests for game. Wickedly sharp, but only useful in close quarters.

  Recommended for: Hunters, assassins, cutthroats

  Disadvantages: In some fights, if you’re close enough to your enemy that you could even use the knife, you’ve already lost.

  Ah, Siddel’s hunting knife. I’d seen him use this, but only to finish off a wolf he’d wounded with an arrow but hadn’t killed.

  It was another weapon in my growing arsenal, which right now consisted of a poker I’d looted from a fireplace in a cottage, and a sword that came from a guy killed by demons. Poker, sword, hunting knife. Better than when I started, sure, but pretty limited. Even more so by the fact I’d never used swords or knives before. I needed practice, and I needed a teacher.

  The knife came with a leather sheath and belt. I wrapped this around my waist, tightened it to the last buckle, since Siddel was bigger than me, and slipped the knife in. At least I always had a blade handy now.

  I quickly moved on to stuff that made me more excited.

  Spellbooks!

  There were two books, and their titles read, Hrr-arre: Un Gata fur Intermedien, and Hrr-spee: Un Gata fur Novicien.

  Just like with other spellbooks, there was no clue as to what the spells did, leaving me to figure it out by myself. The Hrr-Arre book was different from the others in one way, though.

  Un Gata for Intermedien.

  A guide for intermediate mages? Made sense. I flicked through it and looked at some of the moves involved in casting it, and…wow.

  There were four stances. Less than in other
books, so it should have been easier, right? No. Each stance showed a stick figure with four arms.

  What??

  I tried to figure this out. I had gotten this from Siddel’s bag, and I knew Siddel’s favorite spell; shooting arrows from his hands. Arre had to mean arrow. Come to think of it, I’m sure I’d heard Siddel say that before.

  As far as I could remember though, and I’m sure it would have stuck in my memory, Siddel didn’t have four arms.

  So, what did this mean?

  The depiction of four arms and four legs on the stance diagrams might mean that each stance had two parts, and both parts had to be done together. How could a person form two completely different stance at the same time?

  And then inspiration struck me like a slap in the face.

  Their medallions? Maybe they had something to do with it. Maybe the medallions slowed time or sped up their movements, or something equally crazy. Siddel always made it look like casting his arrow spell was so simple, and he barely moved to do it.

  But perhaps he was doing all the movements right in front of me, yet his medallion made him so fast that my eyes barely registered them.

  My pulse was pounding now. I felt like I was climbing the mountain of magic, and I’d just grabbed hold of another ledge, and I could drag myself higher.

  I took Siddel’s medallion from my bag.

  It was a silver circle attached to a length of chain. The silver was scuffed, probably from being so old. In the center of it, there were three simple shapes etched into the metal.

  Three balls of flame, or some kind of energy.

  Shards of ice.

  A volley of arrows.

  To compare it, I took off my own medallion. Mine was made from bronze, dull in color and with nothing carved on it. Now, the etchings on Siddel’s piece could have been for decoration, but that didn’t seem right to me. I was sure there was a purpose for them.

  I just wished I could compare it to someone else’s medallion. Harrien and Malin were asleep, and we’d traveled so long that they deserved rest. Tosvig was lying on his back with his eyes open, staring at the sky, but there was no point asking him. He was different from the Lonehills, and he didn’t have a medallion or a forehead circle.