The Woad to Wuin

by Peter David

  Yet I looked upon my life and saw no pattern at all. Once again, I found myself dwelling on the notion of gods and their ostensible plans for us. Why was it that people could not accept the notion that things happened for no good reason to people who didn’t deserve it? That there was no pattern? Just random events strung together until the inevitable conclusion that awaited us all?

  I felt myself drifting, wondering if sleep would indeed claim me. There were patches of raucous laughter, stories of great deeds told, but all of the noise began to blur together in a haze. I floated in that eerie realm that was just in the twilight place between wakefulness and sleep, and then realized that Mordant was no longer at my feet. Instead the strange birdlike reptilian creature had placed itself directly in front of my face, and was staring at me with those slitted eyes. I saw my face reflected in them. “What do you want?” I heard myself say.

  “What do you want?” returned Mordant. His voice was thin and reedy and had an air of dripping sarcasm and infinite superiority.

  It took a few moments for my fatigued mind to process what had just occurred. “You … you spoke,” I said. “You can speak.”

  I sounded rather stupid to myself. Obviously I sounded the same way to Mordant, because he snorted and little puffs of smoke came from the edges of his beak. “Brilliant observation. Now, how about telling me something I don’t know? Like what you’ve done to yourself. Why you’ve changed.”

  I sat up slowly, feeling that the world was lurching in a strange haze around me. “Changed? I … don’t know what you’re talking ab—”

  “I saw you vomiting up an entire day’s worth of food behind the bush,” Mordant reminded me. He had turned his head sideways and was staring at me in a most cockeyed manner. “And then you tried to take your own life, except you lacked the spirit to finish the job. All because Boar Tooth sliced that woman down. Back in the day, you would simply have laughed. And your aura’s different.”

  “My … aura.” This time I really didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. My mind was still trying to wrap itself around the notion that this … this winged thing had struck up a conversation with me.

  He gave out an annoyed squawk. “Yes, your aura. Everyone has a different aura that comes from a sort of bodily energy. You didn’t know that?”

  “No, but then I didn’t know that you talked, either, so there’s apparently a lot of which I am unaware.” I leaned closer in toward him. “Do you always talk?”

  “No, humans always talk. Even when they’ve nothing to say. Actually, especially when they’ve nothing to say. At times like those, they substitute volume for sense.” He glanced around a moment, apparently tracking something small flying through the air. Then his beak speared out and snagged what I saw at the last moment was some sort of insect. He chomped down on it and munched it. “Now, me … I only talk when it seems as if it’ll be of value. Tell me, do you have the faintest idea what’s going on?”

  I shook my head forlornly.

  “Didn’t think so,” said Mordant. He tapped the ground thoughtfully with one of his curved talons, making a loud clicking noise as he did so. “Guess I’ll have to do the thinking for both of us then.”

  “Hey!” I said in protest, starting to feel a bit illused by this insect-eating little monster. “I’ve been doing fine handling my own thinking until now.”

  “Uh-huh. What’s your consort’s name?”

  I stared at him.

  “Where exactly, geographically, are you?” he continued, relentless. He was drumming his talons harder on the ground, little sprays of dirt bouncing up from where his claws hit. “How many men do you have at your command? How long have you been Peacelord of Wuin?”

  The blankness of my expression obviously didn’t impress him very much.

  “Right. Excellent,” he said sarcastically. “You’re doing bleeding wonderfully on your own then, aren’t you. You know, I hooked up with you because you seemed a rather interesting individual, and also because forces for destruction tend to leave a lot of nice pickings around for creatures like me. But now, I don’t know. Something’s happened to you, and I’m not sure what it is, and I know you don’t know …”

  “Yes, yes, you’ve made very clear how little I know,” I said, my patience wearing thin. “But I can tell you one thing with certainty: You’re starting to annoy the hell out of me.”

  “Well, the hell in you is the problem, isn’t it.”

  I looked blankly at him, which seemed to be the only expression I was capable of having anymore. Every bone in my body felt achy, as if I was being weighted down by my own carcass. The world was starting to thicken around me. I could have been a swimmer who was sinking beneath the waves, drawing his final breaths of air and knowing that it wasn’t going to last him very long.

  And Mordant was looking away from me, actually studying his talons like a casual human examining his fingernails before delivering some final, parting shot. “But you’ve made it clear. You don’t need my help. That’s fine. That’s perfectly fine. I won’t open my mouth again. You can just take care of everything, while I sit by and watch this entire life of conquest you’ve built collapse around your ears.”

  “Yes, well you just do that,” I said, but my voice sounded within my own head as if there was the rushing of the wind accompanying it. I was slumping over to one side, and the next thing I knew my head was hitting the ground as I became overwhelmed with the desire to go back to sleep …

  … presuming that I had ever woken up to begin with.

  I awoke just before dawn, just as the sun’s rays were beginning to filter over the horizon. I propped myself up on my elbows, and the first thing I saw was Mordant lying there, by my feet just as I’d initially recalled. “You!” I whispered as I shoved at him with my foot. “Wake up! I’m not done talking to you yet!”

  Mordant opened one lazy eye and raised his head, looking rather put off that I had rousted him from his slumber.

  “What did you mean, the hell in me? What hell? How is it in me?” I demanded. “If you want me to admit I could use your help, fine, I admit it! There! Happy?”

  Mordant opened his mouth, and I thought he was about to speak, but all he did was widen his beak in a powerful yawn and then start to rest his head back upon his talons, which were neatly crisscrossed over each other upon the ground. I shoved at him again and his head snapped up once more. This time he really looked irritated. But I was too incensed to care.

  “You want me to beg? Is that it? You want me to beg for your help? Do—”

  “Peacelord?”

  For a moment my heart jumped as I thought that Mordant had spoken. But then I realized it was Slake’s voice. I sat fully up and turned at the waist to see that Slake was seated on the ground nearby, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and looking at me most oddly. “Peacelord, are you … talking to Mordant?”

  “Yes,” I said guardedly.

  “But … Peacelord … Mordant is a drabit. Drabits don’t talk … as a rule.”

  “I know that. Of course I know that,” I said quickly. “But … sometimes … when I’m trying to think things through, I talk to whatever’s near, however incapable of speech it may be. Just to … say things out loud, see how they sound.”

  “Oh,” said Slake, clearly not understanding but also not wanting to make his confusion so evident. “Well … as you wish, Peacelord. Shall I rouse the troops? It’s still early, but …”

  I looked at the sea of snoring men, and considered the notion of waking them from their slumber prematurely, thus certainly annoying every one of them.

  “I hardly think that’s necessary,” I said quickly. “Go back to sleep, Slake. I … wish to be alone with my thoughts.”

  “As you desire, Peacelord,” he said uncertainly, and he settled back down to sleep … although before he did so, he cast one final, wary look in my direction.

  Mordant, in the meantime, smoothed his feathers and settled himself back down at my feet. As softly as I could
—so softly that I was reasonably sure Slake wouldn’t hear me—I muttered, “You’re going to leave me wondering if I dreamt it all, aren’t you?”

  The drabit (for such was his species called, apparently) looked at me with a sideways glance that told me absolutely nothing, and then settled back down.

  “This is just getting better and better,” I muttered and went back to sleep.

  The rest of the trip went uneventfully. Mordant did not open his mouth again, although every so often I fancied that the looks he was giving me were filled with the same judgmental contempt that he’d displayed when he’d vocalized. By that point I was so utterly confused that I truly had no clue whether he’d spoken or I’d dreamt the whole thing. Which, if he was capable of speech, was exactly what he was hoping would happen.

  I kept mostly to myself on the sojourn back to wherever the hell we had come from. This was not all that difficult; I simply told Boar Tooth that I wished to be alone to contemplate future excursions against our potential enemies. No one questioned me. That was one of the advantages of being a supreme ruler, or whatever my status might be. It also benefited me greatly in that I didn’t have to spend all the time worrying that someone would say something to me that put me in a difficult position … namely having to admit that I didn’t recall something that was common knowledge to everyone around me.

  I knew enough about how these things worked, you see, to know the main reason for the downfall of people in my position. And that reason was weakness of any sort, be it real or perceived. I had awoken from what might have been some sort of lengthy, even mystical coma, to find that I was in exactly the situation in life that I had always sought to avoid: a target. There is no greater target than someone in power, because there are always those without it who want it, and perceive that the quickest way to obtain it is to kill you.

  My main candidate for that philosophy was Boar Tooth, who seemed deferential enough, but I didn’t trust him for a moment. Not that any of the others were more trustworthy. The only person I trusted implicitly within a ten-mile radius was myself, and considering I knew how duplicitous I could be, that left me feeling rather friendless. Oh, I might have had a friend in the drabit, except I was beginning to suspect that he was indeed just a dumb animal who had briefly occupied an odd place in my waking dreams.

  Nothing caused decay in one’s power base faster than one’s followers believing that one was incompetent to lead. I dared not leave myself exposed in that manner … not in the company of beasts so brutal that they could cut down a grieving widow and think nothing of it. If a hysterical woman elicited no mercy or pity from them, a confused and crippled warmonger was hardly in a better position.

  Well into the third day of travel, I saw people running toward us. At first I thought they might be people fleeing more of my army, but then I saw that they were calling my name and cheering us as if we were conquering heroes. I realized then that they were greeting us, welcoming us for the purpose of escorting us back to my stronghold. That was how I knew we were getting fairly close to it. Boar Tooth, astride his own horse, rode in close to me and grinned. “It will be good to be home, Peacelord. This has been a profitable and exciting campaign, but every so often it’s good to rest and replenish the spirit in familiar haunts, eh?”

  “Well said, Boar Tooth,” I said, and then mentally added the words, you murdering swine, while keeping a smile fixed upon my face.

  They were all about us, and not just men. Women were looking up at us, laughing and singing my name, and children as well. Children were smiling, skipping and dancing around us, and I wanted to scream, We’re murderers! Murderers, ravagers, brutes! We fall upon helpless cities and annihilate them as if we have some sort of right to do so, while the gods sit by and welcome their tortured souls because they couldn’t bother to help them in life! How can you acclaim us? How can you cavort about and treat us as if we are heroes when we are, in fact, bullies and barbarians of the worst kind!

  Naturally they didn’t respond, since they couldn’t hear me. But Mordant circled around once and then landed on my outstretched arm, staring at me coolly. I wished I knew what was going on through that birdlike head of his. Was he just staring at me in brainless anticipation of his next meal? Or was he somehow intuiting what was in my heart and mind, and feeling either sympathy or—more likely—pity for me?

  “Go find something to eat,” I told him and shook him loose, as children bounded about me and threw dried flowers upon me.

  Just over a rise I saw our destination, and I had to admit that even I was impressed.

  There was a small brace of mountains ahead of us, and literally built into one of them was a fortress. Towers stretched tall and proud toward the sun, flags fluttering from the uppermost spires. Rather than a wall having been built around it, the fortress—as near as I could tell—instead sat within a wide, flat crevasse, surrounded by a headwall that was a natural extension of the mountain’s ridges. Although naturally I couldn’t see it from where we were positioned, I had a feeling that the opposite side of the mountains were utterly sheer and incapable of being climbed by anything human. If there had been snowfall there of any size, the place would have been ripe for avalanche. But here in the fairly barren wastelands of Wuin, I strongly suspected that excessive snowfall was not a major consideration. In short, the placed looked …

  “Unassailable,” I said softly. A child pawed at my leg, begging me to favor him with a look. I pushed him away and kept my horse riding forward, resolutely ignoring the pleadings of others to speak kind words to them. The thought of innocent children worshipping the evil that I represented was repellent to me. I had just spent three days listening to songs and poems about all the barbaric, brutal activities that had been undertaken in my name. I didn’t feel worthy of worship.

  Boar Tooth overheard my muttered comment, and he laughed loudly. “As the song goes, Lamalos thought much the same thing, did he not?”

  “Lamalos.” The name meant nothing, but I hazarded a guess. “The previous … resident.”

  Again Boar Tooth laughed. “The previous, until you dispatched him in his sleep! Haw! The look of stupidity on his face, frozen forever on his decapitated skull!”

  “In his sleep. Yes, that was … that was very clever of me.” I was relieved that I had had almost nothing for breakfast that morning, for it might very well have made a return engagement.

  “What a day of glory that was, when you captured Dreadnaught fortress. Although,” and he lowered his voice in a conspiratorial fashion, “there are some who still mutter that the Lady Kate was the instigator and developer of the great plan. The songs credit you, of course, but still … you should have a chat with the Lady to make certain—”

  I fired him a look that instantly silenced him. “Are you tendering advice to me, Boar Tooth, as to how I should conduct myself with my consort? You overstep yourself.”

  What I could see of Boar Tooth’s face beneath the woad flushed significantly. You’re angering a man who cut a helpless woman in half! Are you insane?! That fairly reasonable reaction passed through my head as the jeopardy of potentially antagonizing Boar Tooth presented itself, but the barbarian simply bowed his head slightly and said, “Forgive me, Peacelord. I overstepped myself. It shall not happen again.”

  “See that it doesn’t,” I said, impressing myself with how brazen I was being.

  A cloudless sky hung over us, and the air was so warm as to border on oppressive as we approached the stronghold known as Dreadnaught. I wondered how it was that I had managed to overcome this place. Indeed, even more than the method, I couldn’t comprehend the motivation. What in the world had possessed me to embark upon such a mission of conquest, even if I was not in my right mind? And if I wasn’t in my right mind …

  … then whose mind was I in?

  The way down from the plateau we were on was steep, but the horses handled the descent with surefooted confidence. All around me were warriors, my warriors, laughing and chatting and bellowing a
bout triumphs they had achieved in my name, while thumping their chests with their massive fists. In some cases women clambered up onto the horses with them, insinuating their bodies against them and half hanging out of what little clothes they were wearing. I did not get the impression these were overjoyed spouses greeting their returning mates, but rather former conquests who were trying to please random masters. Trailing behind our entourage were captives, tied at the wrists, young women for the most part who looked frightened and haunted. They saw what they perceived as their likely future, and they huddled together, pulling back reflexively and slowing down the entourage. That Guy, who was overseeing the captives, pulled a whip from the side of his saddle and cracked it with expertise near them. They cried out, cowered, and That Guy pointed angrily that they should fall into pace with the group. They did so immediately and meekly.

  At that moment I wanted nothing more than to order them all to be released. But if I did that, I’d likely be signing my own death warrant, and as much as my heart went out to them, I valued my own skin over theirs. So I, the Supreme Ruler of the group, said nothing out of fear.

  Once we descended from the plateau, the road leading up to Dreadnaught was fairly clear, except for the fact that it was lined with welcomers and well-wishers. Little bits of gaily colored cloth were thrown in our path, and names of various warriors were called out from people who were either family members, lovers, or simply fans of assorted individuals. One would have thought that we were conquering heroes instead of beasts and brutes.

  And yet …

  … and yet …

  I felt myself smiling.

  I didn’t realize it at first because, truth to tell, I don’t smile all that much. I allow myself a knowing smirk every now and then, or a wry upturn of the lips in observing life’s foibles. But for the most part I disdained full-blown displays of genuine joy, since I disliked such overt exhibitions of sentiment and because, well … I was almost never that happy. So a full-out grin upon my mien would find itself on quite virgin territory.