Spawn of Fury

by Sean Hinn

  Barris had then been immediately dispatched to Mor to negotiate for the release of the dozen or so captured elves. Halsen was unapologetic when he explained to Barris and Sir Marchion that the elves would be executed, one by one each zenith, until Terrias Evanti replied to his letters. Word was sent to Thornwood, and before the next zenith a messenger had arrived in Mor with the queen’s reply. She did not bother to address the letter, nor sign it.

  Do not waste your devotion on me. I am in love with another and pledged to be wed. You shall never again dare to assume my affection.

  The army of Thornwood marches on Mor. You will release my elves immediately, or they will continue their march, and by the First Father I do swear that I have ordered my soldiers to take you alive, at any cost. I will make your death last years. Your screams of pain will serve as a warning to all who would ever dare offend the people of Thornwood.

  Only the return of my elves will prevent this. Should the forward ranks of my army reach the Morline before I receive word that First Knight Barris, Sir Marchion, and the innocent elves you have unlawfully seized are safely out of Mor, then your doom shall be sealed and unalterable.

  When Barris returned to Thornwood, Sir Marchion and the captured elves in tow, he fully expected Queen Evanti to confide in him that she had invented the story of her engagement to dissuade Halsen’s affections. He planned to proudly state that he had discharged his most recent duty, and finally, for good or for ill, he would muster the courage to tell his queen that he was in love with her. Instead, he arrived to find the Citadel adorned in pomp and gaiety.

  “Have you not heard, Sir Barris?” someone said. “How wonderful!” said another.

  What seemed like all the elves of the Wood had come to the capital to celebrate the announcement of the queen’s engagement to Paleno Greensward, a healer in the employ of the Citadel. Barris had known the man for decades and had never once seen him in the private company of his queen. She had never spoken of him. He had never spoken of her. Barris fell to a knee at the steps of the castle; a crushing despair threatened to drive him into the very ground as the realization took hold. Not only was he to never be wed to his lifelong love, but the woman he thought he knew best in the world, and who he thought knew him best, clearly had an entirely separate life to which he had not been privy, and in that life existed the one who did know her best, the true recipient of her love and affections.

  For the briefest of moments, Barris pitied Halsen. How terrible, to love someone who you knew would never love you in return… Up to that instant, there before the Citadel, Barris had always believed that the day would come, the moment would arrive when he would have earned his queen’s respect, warranted her fondness, kindled her desire. Yet the letter she had written Halsen – the first part, at least – might well have been addressed to Barris himself. It was then that the knight realized: she must have known he would be the first to read the letter.

  And that is why she did not address it.

  A small hand tugged at Barris’ long, black ponytail as he knelt, sobbing. Barris turned and looked up to see the young Mikallis smiling back at him.

  “Home, Sbarriz! Home!”

  Barris smiled through a cascade of tears. He wiped his face with a sleeve and replied to the child.

  “Yes, little one. Sir Barris is home. But I will not be staying long.”

  And I will never again cry over Terrias Evanti, he swore silently.

  ~

  “Sir Barris?”

  Barris shook his head, dispelling the daydream.

  “I’m sorry, what’s that Nikalus?”

  “Said I’m cold, sir. Can we stop and get one o’ them blankets out?”

  “Of course.” Barris urged Phantom to a halt, noting that the temperature had indeed fallen. The snow had ended the night before, and despite an overcast sky, Barris did not believe more was coming. The colder, drier winds from the east confirmed it. The knight scanned the sky to get his bearings; the grey extended in every direction, making it difficult to see where the clouds of weather and the clouds from Fang intersected, but given their pace, he assumed they were roughly a day’s ride from where they would make contact with the Rangers. It was late afternoon, and the dark of night would come quickly, particularly given the weather that had moved to the west.

  “Let us make our camp here, Nikalus. How does that sound?”

  “Right here? On the trail?”

  Barris nodded. “No one will harm us here, and I would prefer we not take the horses off the trail. We cannot see what is beneath the snow. You must remember that, Nikalus. Do not ride unfamiliar terrain in the snow if you can help it; you will almost certainly injure your horse.”

  “I know’d that, Sir Barris. Did ya forget I been workin’ with horses all my life?”

  Barris chuckled. “Oh, yes, forgive me. All your life, well, what was I thinking?”

  Nikalus shot Barris a look. “You’re makin’ fun.”

  Barris smiled as he dismounted Phantom and retrieved a blanket. “Only a little, young sir.” He laid the blanket at the base of a large oak a few paces off the trail and moved to help Nikalus from the saddle. “Come now.”

  Nikalus yelped as he climbed off Champ’s back and into Barris’ waiting arms. He looked away quickly, ashamed.

  “Sorry,” Nikalus said. “Still hurts some, is all.”

  “Your leg is broken, Nikalus. If it were me, I would certainly be crying.”

  “You would?”

  Barris set the boy on the blanket.

  “Without question. A broken shin is one of the most painful injuries one can have.”

  “Well, maybe, but would you cry? I mean, you?”

  Barris busied himself with their tent as he replied. “Nikalus, I have cried many, many times in my life. Not only when my body hurt, but even sometimes when I have been sad.”

  “No way! You? But… but you’re a knight! I mean, you’re the First Knight!”

  Barris nodded as he stomped a stake into the cold dirt. He turned to Nikalus.

  “I have but one rule when it comes to crying, Nikalus, and I will tell you my rule, but first, I would tell you a joke, if you will hear it.”

  “Sure, I love jokes!”

  Barris smiled and took a knee.

  “Why did the young strawberry cry?”

  “I dunno, why?”

  “Because his parents were in a jam!”

  Nikalus cocked his head as he worked out the pun, breaking into musical laughter when he did so.

  “That’s a good joke!”

  Barris chuckled as well, the boy’s laugh proving contagious. “Thank you. Would you care to hear another?”

  “Yes! Please!”

  “Very well. Why did the young strawberry cry?”

  Nikalus frowned, confused. “Uh, I dunno, why?”

  “Because his parents were in a jam!”

  The young boy stared at Barris as if he had been struck.

  “Uh, you feelin’ all right, Sir Barris?”

  “Certainly. Why do you ask?”

  “C’mon, now! You just told me the same joke twice!”

  “So?”

  “So? Well, it ain’t funny the second time!”

  Barris smiled. He stood and patted the young boy’s head. “And that, young Nikalus, is my rule about crying. If we will not laugh twice over the same joke, we must not cry twice over the same problem.”

  X: THE NORTH MAW

  Kari Flint lay awake in the cramped tent beside the snoring sergeant, contemplating the events of the past cycle. By all rights she should be asleep, she knew; the barkeep-turned-scout had never gone with so little rest as she had since she left Belgorne, but aches and pains kept slumber at bay. The agonies of flesh and bone, however, were the least of her woes.

  As it had nearly every waking moment since she had left the Hammer the night of the last quake, the young dwarf’s mind flitted between two scenes. The first was her last normal moment with Laine Gritson, Jr. as he sat acros
s from her at the bar. “Shut yer holes, ye impatient buffoons!” Grit had said. “Can’t ye see Kari be about to propose?” The strong, sweet man would never know how close he had been to the truth. Had a younger Kari known her kid sister Gennae was to someday steal the heart of her childhood friend, she would have professed her affections sooner; as it was, however, Gennae had always been the more precocious of the two, and certainly more cunning. No, that is not fair, Kari scolded herself. Not cunning. Smart.

  And she had been. Gennae Flint, who would become Gennae Gritson, wife of Laine Jr., mother of Laine III, was a brilliant woman. Despite Kari being two years her elder, the younger Flint routinely helped Kari study for her lessons. It was how Gennae and Laine became close; Kari had suggested that Laine join their study sessions as they prepared for year-end examinations. Kari had more than book work in mind; the studying had merely been a pretense to invite the attractive, new-bearded young dwarf to her home. Yet Gennae’s beauty and brilliance caught Laine’s eye, and Gennae never hesitated. The younger sister planted a kiss on Grit’s mouth at the end of that very first study session, and as far as Kari knew, neither Gennae nor Grit had ever gone on to kiss another.

  Kari had cried herself to sleep for weeks after that day. She knew she cared for Grit, but she did not know she was in love with him until she saw him kiss Gennae back, with enthusiasm. As time wore on, Kari told herself she would get over the infatuation, she would mature beyond it, she would meet another… but she eventually discovered that a broken heart required more than just time to mend; it also required space, and there had never been a finger of it between Kari Flint and Laine Gritson, Jr.

  For he loved her as well, Kari knew. Perhaps not in the same way he loved Gennae. Certainly not, he would go on to wed her, for Fury’s sake. But Grit loved Kari all the same, never once allowing his relationship with Gennae to distance him from his best friend. As to whether the entanglement brought discord between the sisters: the two had always been close, and Kari was forever vigilant against revealing her affections. Only on the eve of the wedding did the women ever speak of it, and only a dozen words on the subject had ever been whispered between them.

  “Kari. I know how ye feel about Grit. I’ve always known.”

  Kari kissed her baby sister on the forehead then before making her exit from the feast. She spoke but one word in reply.

  “Aye.”

  The second scene that occupied Kari’s mind, the one she was certain would remain etched forever into the very lenses of her eyes, was the sight of Laine Gritson, Jr. jumping to his death. Kari had, only a moment before, caught his waistband to prevent his accidental fall, but in that final bare instant, the moment when he bent his knees, coiling for that terrible leap into the fiery abyss, Kari had known he would jump, and she did not move to stop him.

  No matter how many times she reviewed the scene in her mind, seeking some detail in her memory that would absolve her inaction, she could find none. She did have time to stop him. She could have pulled him backwards, held him fast, bought him time to come to terms with what had happened before he made the decision to end his own life.

  He would have probably taken his own life anyhow.

  -Maybe.

  If he had lived, he would have lived in agony.

  -For a time.

  It was his choice to make, not mine.

  -He was in no mind to make such choices.

  It was not me place.

  -It was your place above all others.

  I should have jumped with him.

  -Yes, ye should have.

  “Ye should sleep.” The voice startled Kari; she had not noticed Jade’s snoring cease.

  “Aye,” she replied. “S’pose I just ain’t used to sleepin’ in the daytime.”

  Jade huffed. “No need to lie to me, Kari. It be your own business, though.”

  “Wait, lie to ye? What ye think I–”

  Jade sat up. “Easy there, scout. I been sleepin’ with dwarves in tents for goin’ on twenty-five years. I can tell just by how ye’re breathin’ that somethin’s rattlin’ around in your head. Ye ain’t awake because it be daytime. Ye be awake because ye be upset.”

  Kari sighed. “Aye, Sarge. Ye have it right.”

  “Do ye need to talk about it?”

  Kari hugged her knees to her chest.

  “I s’pose I need to, but I can’t. Not just yet, anyways.”

  Jade nodded and lay back down, turning away.

  “Fair enough. But then I expect ye to think about somethin’ else and go to sleep.”

  Kari frowned, preparing to reply that it was not so easy as the sergeant would make it sound, but an uneasy feeling in her stomach held the words in her throat.

  Jade sat up abruptly. “Ye feel that?”

  Kari took stock of herself; the nauseating feeling was not coming from within, but rather from without.

  “Aye, I feel it.”

  “Sarge, ye feel that?” called Ferris from the adjacent tent.

  “Stonecracker!” called Oort from his own. “Just a little one.”

  Jasper pulled back the flap on his sergeant’s tent. “Ye all right, ye two?”

  “Get yourself outta our tent, ye weasel!” scolded Jade.

  “I was just checkin’–”

  “Ye were just checkin’ to catch Flint with ‘er pants off, ye mean!” Jade threw a boot at the dwarf as he withdrew.

  “Ye think?” asked Kari.

  “I know,” said Jade. “Creepy little mongrel does it every chance he gets. Wolf howls, wind blows, ye name it, there’s Jasper, poppin’ ’is head into the womenfolk’s tents, ‘Are ye all right in there?’ Any excuse he can think of.”

  “Why do ye tolerate it?”

  Jade shook her head. “He’s a good soldier. Ain’t never harmed anyone, just makes yer skin crawl from time to time, is all. S’pose bein’ creepy is what makes ’im a good thief.”

  “S’pose,” Kari said, not quite agreeing.

  Jade called out to the others. “Get back to sleepin’. I wanna roll out ’round middlenight, no later, so get a wink while ye can!”

  “Decide which way yet, Sarge?” called Ferris.

  Jade took a moment before replying. Kari expected she had made her decision but was not ready to announce it. The sergeant surprised her.

  “Aye. West. I’ll explain when we pack up. Now get to sleep.”

  No one responded. Kari wrapped herself up tightly in her blankets and tried her best to do as her sergeant ordered: to think of something else and go to sleep. Eventually she managed as much.

  Several fitful hours later, voices outside her tent roused Kari awake.

  “Left sometime after dark, I figure,” Jasper said.

  “Aye. Heard ’im go,” replied Jade. “Gave ’im my pack.”

  “Did ye? And ye didn’t try to change his mind?”

  “I did not. And don’t stare at me like that, Jasper. I can feel ye judgin’ me in the dark. If he came with us, he probably wouldn’t have made it, anyhow.”

  “He might have.”

  “And fer what,” Jade asked, “to live to regret leavin’ his wife behind? He had to make his own choice, Jas, it ain’t me place to talk ‘im into that.”

  “We coulda gone with ‘im,” Jasper argued.

  “Aye. And died right alongside ‘im, either makin’ our way through the hills or down there in the Maw. Ye said it yourself: Lady Cindra said to make for the Grove. Good advice, and I plan for us to take it.”

  ~

  Oort tied the scarf Jade had given him tighter around his neck. The sergeant had been generous, filling her pack with several days’ worth of dried food, an extra blanket, a flint and steel, enough tinder to start a dozen fires, and three pairs of clean, dry stockings. She had helped him roll and tie the tent to the pack, and even found him a branch suitable to cut into a walking stick. He wondered at the fact that the others did not wake as she hacked off the branches, fashioning the wood into a staff. Eventually he decided th
at perhaps they had, and simply decided it would be best to remain in their tents; surely none would wish to feel obligated to argue him out of the idea of leaving.

  They could not have, in any case. Oort would not leave Thinsel. He had need to come to G’naath, to show the dwarves the way in, to try to rescue Cindra. Rightness demanded it. But he had done his duty and would be returning to his wife, as he promised he would. If she was to die in the Maw, be it through war or starvation, he would die alongside her, and without regret.

  The snow had finally relented while they slept, a fact for which Oort was grateful, but it had done its worst. Footing was treacherous; it was impossible to know whether the next step was on solid ground or merely a drift of snow. He would not have thought of making a walking stick, and had Jade not done it for him, he would have already fallen into unseen danger a half-dozen times in the hours since he left the camp.

  Jade had warned him that going would be slow. “Ye have enough food to last ye, Oort Greykin. A week at least, two if ye ration. So ye take it slow. Slow as ye must, and slower still. Ye have shelter; ye pitch that tent whenever ye get tired, or cold. Ye walk past deadwood, ye pick it up, tie it to yer pack. If ye can help not makin’ a fire in the daytime, then don’t, but ye have two jobs from now on: first, don’t fall in a hole. Second, never stop thinkin’ about the next fire. Never.”

  Oort knew he had a third job, one he and Jade tacitly agreed to not discuss in detail: listen for Mama. On that subject, the experienced scout leader had but one thing to say.