Spawn of Fury

by Sean Hinn

  “So yeh kill ‘em?” Shyla asked, mortified. “Yeh kill your own kind, fer the crime o’ wantin’ to stay alive?”

  The Airies seated at the table gasped, expressions of terrible offense rising on their faces.

  “Kill? An Airie?” Lor asked, aghast. “Child, speak not of such a thing!”

  J’arn frowned, confused. “Wait, so yeh don’t… well, whaddya do then?”

  Lor turned to face J’arn. “We do not do anything, Prince of Belgorne. Our law is clear; the outlaw must leave the Eyre.”

  ~

  “You should have allowed us to bathe with you, Lucan husband of none.”

  Lucan offered a sheepish smile to Kithari, the scowling, flaxen-haired Airie who stood before him. On her left, sipping a chalice of plumwine, stood Fila, her hair and flesh each very near to the color of the wine. On Kithari’s right stood Kymi, her short hair styled and colored to exquisite detail, lending the impression of living rose petals, her lithe form hued green as a freshly cut stem. Identical eggshell colored shifts hung loosely from their shoulders, sheer and short, clearly fashioned to serve as no more than a perfunctory nod at the concept of modesty. Lucan could not decide which of the three was more appealing, and neither could he speak a reply, the renowned wit of the erstwhile tavern hustler laid waste by the intensely exotic beauty before him.

  A fingernail traced its way up his spine from behind, stopping to tousle his wet hair as he fastened the last button of his shirt.

  “Forgive them, Lucan,” purred Kal. “They are each in their loveyear, and prone to pouting when they are denied.” The dark Lady of Eyre slunk past Lucan to stand among the three. “Which, as you might imagine, is not often.”

  “Ah, well, yes, I would imagine not,” Lucan agreed. “But… what was it you just said? ‘Loveyear’? I don’t understand.”

  “You could have,” Kymi replied, eyelids fluttering.

  “You still may,” offered Fila.

  “Shoo, you three,” ordered Kal, gently but with clear authority.

  “Yes, Darklady,” said Kithari with a tone of submission. The three turned and departed the oversized tent.

  Kal turned to Lucan. “I hear the questions in your mind, Lucan. Come, walk with me to the Falls.” Kal offered her hand to Lucan. He eyed it with suspicion.

  Kal stepped forward, drawing Lucan’s gaze to her grey eyes. Her voice lowered. “I am no plaything, Lucan husband of none. To offend me would be foolish.”

  Lucan swallowed and took Lady Kal’s hand. She led him from the tent into the night, selecting a secluded path just within the light of the enchanted Elms. Lucan expected the air to be cold against his damp skin; it was not. They walked in silence for several turns, Lucan sensing that he must wait for the Lady to guide their conversation.

  “She is not for you, you know,” said Kal suddenly.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You are not sorry, Lucan. Do not play with words so. It is beneath you.”

  Lucan sighed. “It is an expression. I meant that I did not understand.”

  “Yet you did understand. Are you so in the habit of deceit? Ah, I see that you are. And it shames you.”

  “I…” Lucan bit his tongue, choosing his words cautiously. “I am unused to the way you communicate. Where I come from, it is considered blunt.”

  “Where you come from, Lucan, tongues are sweet, but sharp. We have no need to coat our words in honey here. We are connected.”

  “Connected?”

  “Our minds. Our hearts. We are linked, we Elves of Air. It is… it is much like your Bond with Hope. Which you would know, had your mother done her duty.”

  A chill rattled its way through Lucan’s bones. A truth was coming, one he had never thought to learn.

  “I did not know my mother, Lady.”

  “No,” replied Kal with disdain. “You did not.”

  Lucan walked on beside Kal, his hand beginning to sweat within hers. He remained silent for a turn as they crossed a narrow wooden bridge suspended over the Trine. They turned to their left, following a path that wound up a steep rise. The light of the celebration behind them had faded, but Lucan found that his eyes adjusted well enough to the dark to make his way.

  “Ask, Lucan. It would not be right for me to tell you without your asking.”

  “Did… do you know my mother?”

  Kal shook her head. “No.”

  “But you know of her.”

  Kal nodded. “Yes.”

  A heavy pause lingered before he spoke again.

  “Tell me.”

  Kal nodded. “I will. But will you wait a moment longer? There is something you must see.”

  Kal released Lucan’s hand and motioned for him to stand atop a rise.

  “Look,” she said.

  Lucan peered over the cliff, into the darkness. To his right, the light of the Twins over the mountains cast the hills in a shadow, slightly darker than the night sky. Before him, and to his left, he could see only darkness. “I… I don’t really see anything,” he said. “I can barely make out the falls, but–”

  “No, Lucan, husband of none.” Kal corrected. She placed a hand on the small of his back and whispered. “Look.”

  The strained expression on Lucan’s face softened into one of curiosity, then of wonder, then of awe.

  “Oh…”

  Lucan fell to a knee. He began to weep.

  “It is beautiful, is it not?” asked Kal.

  Lucan lifted his eyes to meet hers.

  “This… is my home?”

  Kal nodded, placing a hand on his head.

  “It is, Lucan. It has always been.”

  XXIII: NORTH MAW

  He’ll never make it, Sarge. Ye know it!” Kari was livid.

  “I know no such thing, scout. And neither do ye.”

  “Fury I don’t! I ain’t a fool, Sarge!”

  Jade turned, glowering at Kari in the firelight. A hand fell to her hip. “Are ye callin’ me a fool, Kari Flint? ‘Cause if ye mean you, ye might do well to reconsider.”

  “If ye think Oort can make it without our help, that be exactly what I’ll call ye! Ye wanna take that knife and stick it in me for sayin’ as much?”

  “Careful there, Kari,” Jasper warned as he and Fannor cleared the snow from their tent. “She might at that.”

  Kari stood her ground and held Jade’s gaze, anger burning her already wind-chapped cheeks. “Then she be twice a fool.” Kari shifted her stance and began to reach behind her back, where her uncle’s axe hung. Despite the dark, Jade knew. The sound of shifting boots in snow signaled Kari’s intent. The sergeant crouched, unsheathing both her daggers in the span of a blink.

  “Don’t ye do it, scout!” Jade warned. “I’d rather not kill my Cap’s niece, but if ye touch that axe, ye’ll taste this steel, ye can bet a bag!”

  Kari shook with fury but reached back no further.

  Jade turned to Jasper and Fannor. “Dammit, ye two, talk some sense into ’er!”

  “’Bout what, Sarge?” asked Fannor. “’Bout she ought know better than fight ye? Think she’s got that part down.”

  “About Oort! I packed ’im up good. Ain’t no reason he can’t make it, if he stays sharp. Tell ’er, Jas.”

  Jasper paused a moment before replying. “Nova was packed up good. Had us all to look after her, too.”

  Jade blinked several times before her shoulders sagged. “Aw, ye gotta be kiddin’ me. Ye didn’t say nothin’ when he left! And I know ye heard ’im go!”

  Fannor shrugged. “Figured we’d follow. Didn’t wanna leave just yet.”

  “Aye,” Jasper agreed. “Ah, don’t look at us like that, Sarge. Ye know soon as we got up, ye woulda had us marchin’ for a day and a half. Dwarf’s gotta sleep sometime.”

  “Ain’t gonna be hard to track ‘im, anyhow,” Fannor added. “Not in this. Twins are out, snow’s deep, ain’t no clouds, really. Probably just goin’ in circles, anyhow.”

  “And who says I’ll give the ord
er to track ‘im at all?” Jade demanded. “Am I still runnin’ this outfit, or ain’t I?”

  “Dunno,” Jasper quipped. “Ask Flint.”

  The women glared at one another for several breaths. Kari spoke first.

  “We can’t let ’im die, Sarge.” Kari paused before continuing. “I can’t.”

  Jade sheathed her knife. “Hmph. Well, at least she called me ‘Sarge’. The lot of ye be fools, ye know it, right? We take Oort back to Belgorne, ye’ll all be hung. Each of ye.”

  It was Jasper’s turn to shrug. “Then we hang with Nova and Lux.”

  “Aye,” Fannor agreed.

  “And what about ye, Flint? Ye feel like swingin’ from a rope?” Jade asked.

  Kari shook her head. “No. But I ain’t gonna do nothin’ and let a person die.”

  The sergeant had long shared an intimate relationship with guilt. She might as well have heard Kari’s unspoken thought – Not again.

  “Aye. So ye ain’t. New plan, scouts! Chase a gnome around the Maw, freeze our gems off, then get hung for desertion. Who’s in?”

  “Kari ain’t got no gems, Sarge,” said Fannor.

  “Pssh!” hissed Jasper. “Gems enough! I ain’t never reached for steel on Sarge! Ain’t no dwarf, far as I know.”

  “Just one,” Jade replied, shaking her head. “Must run in the family.” She took a few steps towards Kari and leaned in, speaking softly enough to keep her words private.

  “But ye ain’t your uncle, Kari Flint. Not yet. Don’t do it again.”

  Kari sighed. “Sorry, Sarge. Looked like ye went for your dagger.”

  “Ye saw that? In the dark?”

  “Ain’t that dark,” Kari replied. A quiet moment passed.

  “Bah. I like me dagger. Don’t mean I’m gonna gut ye with it.”

  Kari nodded. “Now I know.”

  “Now ye know.” Jade stepped away. “Jasper! Ye like our tent so much, pack it up. Flint, help him.”

  “Aye, Sarge,” Kari replied, a snap of respect returned to her tone.

  Jade made her way around the fire to where Fannor knelt in the snow, tying gear to packs.

  “I know what you’re gonna say, Sarge.”

  “Do ye?” Jade knelt to assist.

  “Aye. I lipped off when ye needed me to back ye up.”

  “Ain’t what I was gonna say.”

  “Oh? What then?”

  Jade took a breath before continuing. “Ye think she woulda fought me?”

  Fannor tied a strap tight as Jade held the knot.

  “Aye. If ye pulled that knife.”

  “Ye know I wouldn’t.”

  “Aye, ‘course not. But she didn’t.” Fannor threw the largest of the packs over his shoulder. “Tough one.”

  “Aye,” Jade agreed. “Somethin’s eatin’ ‘er, though.”

  “Somethin’s eatin’ us all, Sarge. End o’ the world does that to people. Ain’t ye afraid?”

  Jade thought for a moment. “Not afraid. Angry, I s’pose.”

  “At who?”

  Jade shook her head. “Dunno. Guess that’s why I be angry.”

  “I think it be the same with Flint. Like I said, tough one.”

  Jade nodded. “Make a good scout.”

  “Maybe.”

  Jade shouldered her own pack. “Not so sure?”

  “Not so sure we live long enough, Sarge.”

  Jade nodded. “Well, one thing at a time. Can ye find Oort’s tracks?”

  “Already have. Snow like this, nothin’ to it. And we ain’t gotta take it slow as him, just gotta stay in his steps.”

  “Won’t be torches,” Jade warned.

  Fannor shook his head. “Don’t need ’em, long as the Twins stay out. We’ll catch ’im by dawn, if not sooner. Hope so, at least. Little guy like him, bound to be havin’ a time of it.”

  Jade turned to see Kari and Jasper rolling up the tent.

  “Fannor’s got point,” she called. “Hurry up with that tent and get on his heels!”

  “Aye, Sarge!” they called back.

  ~

  As he shivered against the trunk of the great fir and the light of the measly campfire faded to blackness, Oort found small pleasure in knowing that at least Mama would benefit from its warmth no more than he had. He knew better, of course. It made no difference; the silver fur of the beast was thick. Her hide was certainly immune to the cold. This was Mama’s land, her domain, and she was well equipped to survive the climate. Unlike Oort. He alternated his grip on the tree every turn or so, one arm wrapped around the damp trunk to keep himself upright, the other hand shoved into a pocket until the fingers of his grip hand protested too loudly against the cold.

  Oort could not be sure how long he had been in the tree. Long enough for the fire to die. Long enough for his legs to cramp. Long enough for the tip of his nose to burn, and then long enough for it not to.

  Not long enough for Mama to leave.

  If I freeze to this tree, she’ll starve to death beneath me.

  At some point, the dire beast had stopped gnawing and clawing at the tree, but she did not forget him. Every few turns she would whine, or howl, or growl, and never did she cease pacing. She hated him, he knew. He had not thought that a beast could feel such a thing as hate.

  “S’all right, Mama,” he called. “I hate yeh right back.”

  Mama growled.

  “I’m gonna kill yeh.”

  She pawed at the ground. Oort recognized the gesture for what it was: a taunt. He suspected she already knew what he was coming to accept; this would only end one way. He would fall, in time, and if he were lucky, the fall would kill him.

  No! Yeh made Thinny an oath. Yeh’ll keep it, Oort Greykin!

  He could not, however, imagine how. He had his dagger, nothing more. Even if he could manage to strike her with it, even if it were thrown with all his might, even if it were not deflected by a branch, it would not harm the wolf. Perhaps a scratch, if it struck her point-first. Perhaps a bruise, or a bump on the head. For the fiftieth time he imagined the perfect throw, striking the beast in the eye… he did not imagine even that would deter her. Then yeh’d have one pissed-off, half-blind wolf.

  Oort had mostly resigned himself to dying. He considered his dagger, considered hastening the end with a cut to his wrist… but his own hatred for Mama had grown steadily, however, and the thought of watching her lap at his dripping lifeblood as he waited to die filled him with revulsion. He ultimately decided that when the time came, he would hurl himself from the tree, dagger extended, and do his best to stab the beast as his last act. He expected the knife would do little harm, even with the weight of his body behind it, even if he managed to land the blow, but perhaps, he considered, if there were any justice in Tahr, he would die upon impact and leave the wicked wolf with a scar to remember him by.

  Even that much, however, would require him opening a clear way to the beast through the branches. More than once he reached for his dagger, ready to saw himself a path. On the north side of the tree, there were only three branches thick enough to bar his way. The first he could reach, could saw off any time he liked. The other two would require climbing down a bit, the lowest of which would bring him perilously close to what he believed was the lunging-range of the wolf. He switched his grip as a gust of wind drove needles of cold into the flesh of his exposed hand. Again, he considered getting to work at the task, but fear held him fast. He could barely manage to hold on to the tree for long... what if he dropped the dagger, or worse, fell while sawing a branch? What if he succeeded in cutting the first two, only to be pulled from the tree by tooth or claw at the very end? What if he succeeded in opening a way, climbed back to his perch, dove at the beast, struck a glancing blow… and lived?

  And if a fish had feathers, it’d be a finch! Get on with it, yeh coward!

  Oort’s paralysis turned to shame, drawing forth the memory of the last words his Thinny had said to him.

  “I love yeh, Oort Greykin,” she had said. “
My brave, brave husband.”

  It was then that he decided: he would not die this night. Certainly not in vain and shame, if it came to that. He would not hurl himself to an easy death. There was another way.

  “I said I’d kill yeh, Mama! And kill yeh I’m gonna!”

  She did not return the taunt that time, or if she did, Oort did not hear. He drew his dagger and reached down and to his right, sawing at the first of the three branches. The strange sound elicited an anxious whine from the wolf.

  “Oh, I got somethin’ for yeh, Mama! Yeh just wait! I’m gonna kill yeh and wear that skin o’ yers for a coat!”

  Oort continued his cutting. The work was slow going; he repeatedly needed to withdraw his hand from the cold, or adjust his position, or rest a weary muscle in his arm. The knife, sharp as it was, was not serrated; it was the wrong tool for the job, but it was the tool he had, and despite a growing fire in his right shoulder from the strain, he continued to saw away until the branch began to sag, eventually snap, and finally tear free.

  Oort anticipated the moment when it would give way and stuffed the dagger quickly into his pocket, too little time to feel in the dark for his sheath. His hand darted out just in time to grasp the sawn bough before it fell out of reach. He managed a grip but did not anticipate how heavy it would be. The weight of the long, wet limb did its best to lever him from his perch as it fell, and quite nearly did, but he would not let go, could not let go. Mama howled at the commotion above as twigs and branches crashed against each other within the tree, loosening clumps of snow that dusted the enraged beast as they fell.

  The momentum of the falling bough was finally arrested against the tree, and Oort began to pull it back up towards him, a few meager feet at a time, only one hand available for the task as the other maintained his balance within the tree. Repeatedly, it stuck on another branch. Several times he thought he would drop it. At one point, he felt the dagger in his pocket begin to slip out, and he did the only thing he could think to: he bit down on a thick branch and lunged for the falling weapon. The weight threatened to tear the teeth from his mouth, and the bark tore at his cheek, but he saved the dagger, sheathed it, and continued to haul the branch upwards until it was safely caught within the branches above.