The remaining uninjured Tine fell from the sky, bringing his club down with the force of his descent. Fetch crossed her blades and caught the stone embedded in the head, arresting the blow. Fetch saw fracture lines appear on the glowing surface of the orb. N’keesos was rushing in from the side. Snarling, Fetch dropped one of her kataras and seized the club’s stone. The elf tried to pull his weapon free, but she held firm. And squeezed. Creaking a final complaint, the stone burst in Fetch’s hand just as N’keesos arrived. A blinding flash. An explosive final note as the club’s song gave a death cry. A spine-whipping jerk of weightlessness as Fetch was blasted off her feet.
She lay fuddled for a moment, ears ringing. Getting to her feet, she crushed the splotches in her eyes with hard blinks until her vision returned. She and the elves had all been tossed more than a bowshot.
Fetch was the only one standing.
Two of the Tines were motionless upon the ground. N’keesos was attempting to rise. Fetch’s anger gave way to a grudging respect. There was no time to see if he would succeed. The voices of Tine windtalk sawed through the air. Mounted warriors appeared at the far end of the valley. Even across the distance, Fetch could see the red tears on the war paint of the lead rider. She ran back the way she’d come, snatching up her fallen katara on the way. The Tines’ harrow stags moved silently, but she did not need her ears to know they pursued. A flung lance imbedded in the ground by her feet just as she reached the cleft, fleeing the defile.
Breaking out once more onto the precipice trail she heard shouts coming from the right, forcing her left. The hunters were closing in. Their calls came from behind and the ridge above. There would be scouts on foot tracking her from the high places, guiding the stag riders. If there were warriors ahead, she’d be forced to fight. For now, she would run.
A descending trail spurred off the precipice. Fetch hesitated. Shouts and arrows from above made up her mind for her. She took off down the path, fleeing the face of the bluff and the reach of the archers. Her new path ran straight and steep. Fetch courted a fall, a broken neck, as she sped down. At last the trail began to wind, continuing to drop farther into the embrace of the canyons. Fern and boulder began to insert themselves, tried to impede her flight, but she continued with her headlong dash. The dust at her feet darkened as the shadows deepened. The path turned to mud and then became the trickle of a narrow streambed. Fetch’s boots slapped the shallow flow. And still she could hear the chasing Tines.
At last, she broke free into a small hollow. The light drizzled in, timid and weak. Though the sun feared to trespass, its heat did not. Ahead, a cave mouth sat in the cliff face, sticky with shadows. The stream fed into it, a meager drink for the gaping black. The entrance steamed.
Otherwise, the hollow was a dead end.
Without a choice, Fetch hurried within the dank mouth, its throat receding into darkness. Without a source of light, Fetch accompanied the rivulet deeper down the gullet. Soon the sun from the hollow was lost to distance and a nearly imperceptible decline. Fetch paused while the keen visions of her mixed bloodlines coaxed scant details from the black, enough to pick her way along with a hand on the rough, clammy wall. The echo of the muggy air told her the cave remained as large as the mouth, perhaps it had even grown. She could feel the trapped void above. Sound wandered, realized it was imprisoned, gave up, and died.
There was a smell too. Faint. Lingering at the edge of her nostrils, teasing at the shallow beginnings of every inhale. It was an unpleasant, delicate odor. Not the fetor of spoiled meat nor the eye-watering offensiveness of fresh excrement. It was the slippery funk of linens in an old person’s bedchamber. When Fetch’s steps at last brought her back to light, to sight, it was not a bedchamber she had entered but a vast cavern.
The floor was an uneven hazard of strewn stone and eroded shelves. Fetch stood upon a low point, a rough, natural gutter wedged between the shallow slope that brought her here and a steeper climb of flat-topped boulders ending in the distant cave wall. A triangular opening, akin to those in the Tine canyons, was cut into the rock face. Shaped with skill and care, the perfect edges were embossed, puckering from the shadow-draped stone. This carven threshold was imbued with pale light, so subtle it took Fetch a moment to realize it was the reason she could see. Within the triangle, however, blackness reigned entire.
The wall housing the luminescent opening was not the only perceptible limit of the cave. A sliver of the roof could be seen just above the pointed apex of the triangle. She sensed walls to the left and right, perhaps a stone’s throw into the black.
With no other discernible path, Fetching resolved to climb up, inspect the glowing portal. Few of the shelves were higher than her waist. The ascent would be little more than a scramble. She studied the approach for a route that would most easily reach the wide ledge just beneath the bottom of the opening.
She took a single step and stopped.
A face appeared within the triangle, emerging slowly from the impenetrable black as if breaking the surface of ink. It was a woman’s face, possessing the angular features of a Tine, though her skin was pale and shone with the same light as the stone in which she was framed. The face continued to glide forward, revealing an ensconcing headdress of feathers, icy blue, argent green.
Tilting, the face regarded Fetching from above, frigid and pitiless.
Fetch opened her mouth, preparing to speak, but the words died dry on her tongue as the face pushed farther from the shadows, supported upon the sinuous trunk of a great serpent.
THIRTY-TWO
UNBLINKING EYES WATCHED FETCHING as the thing eased downward, pale belly gliding audibly over the lip of the opening. Swaying and slithering, it descended. Distance had played Fetch for a fool and she now saw the true size of this horror. The face was large as a wagon wheel, the slit, golden eyes large as Fetch’s fist. On it came, white scales glistening as the snake body flowed down the ledges.
Fetch snatched the kataras free, took a single step backward, fear sending a cold message down her spine from head to gut.
Run and you die.
The elf maid’s face, plumed and hooded with feathers, was a merciless grave mask, devoid even of a predator’s aggressive hunger. Its gaze skinned Fetching, rendered her naked and cold, extinguishing all fires of resolve, scattering her grit upon winds of hopelessness. The face hovered closer, level with hers, body still sloughing down the steps. Fetch could have spit and struck it between the eyes. So horribly near, the resemblance to an elf was made a mockery, leaving little but the monster. It drifted about her, seeming to both ignore and scrutinize her insignificance. As the neck and head came around to the side, rising all the while, the body continued to slink downward, heavy coils reaching the cave floor where Fetching stood.
Hells, it was surrounding her.
The snake-bitch’s head whipped down, body constricting closer with violent tension. It was close enough to kiss now. Unnerved and sweating, trying not to tremble, Fetch stood firm. The nostrils of the thin nose tightened, smelling. The eye-slits narrowed, the sinister gold surrounding them filling with malevolence.
Shit.
The jaw hinged open, showing translucent teeth. Two curved fangs extended from puffy flesh at the roof of the mouth, long as tulwar blades. A true serpent would have hissed, but this abomination remained as silent as a corpse’s dreams.
Fetch broke that silence.
“You know…for a cunt, you look an awful lot like a cock.”
She dove to the side, felt the rush of wind as the monster struck. Plunging one katara into the scaly flesh, Fetch made to vault over a coil to flee the living enclosure. But the trunk launched away as the snake moved, flinging Fetch to the side just as her feet left the ground. She tumbled, shoulder bashed by the stone floor, lost hold of the left katara. The head was coming again in a flat charge, crossing over its own body.
Too damn fast!
Fetch made a promise. To cut that obscene head off and witness the writhing corpse toss blood about the cave in its death throes.
The snake-demon mouthed another mute hiss when Fetching raised the fist-blade. The beast lunged, a lightning bolt with scales. Fetch leapt in response, legs surging with all her strength. They impacted with such speed, neither had the chance to strike. The woman’s head rammed into Fetch’s torso and she clung, her charge reversed. The ledge clapped into her back. Stone cracked. The snake rose, but Fetch held tight to its plumage with her unarmed hand and rode into the air. Dangling, she hacked at its neck, drew milky blood, but the stroke was far from deep, dulled by the snake’s flailing. Returning to the ground, it ran swiftly along, trying to shake her off. She bounced and scraped along the rocks, refused to let go, but the feathers in her hand tore free. The snake looped around, once again attempting to encircle her. Fetch sliced the white scales, forcing the creature to flee her reach, climbing the steps. Bounding up the ledges, Fetching pursued. The creature coiled tight at the top, head pulled back against the bunched body.
It lashed out as she closed, but Fetch backhanded the darting mouth with the katara. Again it attacked and again she swung to rebuff the fangs, but the snake had feinted, a bluff-strike that recoiled halfway to its mark. It had wanted her to swing, leave herself open, and now bit in earnest. Fetch only just managed to interpose her arm, shielding her face.
The fangs overshot, missed her flesh. Fetch grunted against the impact as the mouth clamped down, tried to wrench her arm free, but the jaws held fast, trapping her weapon. Desperate, she went for the bitch’s eyes with her bare hand, but the monster opened its mouth—freeing Fetch—and bulled forward, knocking her over. Crushed beneath the creature’s weight, she tumbled down the ledges, blinded by pain and scaly flesh. The snake rolled, spiraling along its length, wrapping her up. She found herself upright, fully entwined, arms pinned, bones and lungs compressed as the coils constricted. The woman’s face was suspended above, slack and uncaring once more, drifting ever so slightly to the side as she tightened her hold.
The edges of Fetch’s vision blurred, invaded by a glistering halo born from the banishment of breath. Still, she saw the mouth open, saw the neck go still, gathering for the kill.
“N’AI!”
The constriction slackened. Fetch drew air in an agonizing, ecstatic rush. The face was no longer looking at her but over her, beyond. As the coils relaxed, Fetch revolved in their embrace, enough to crane her neck and look at what now held the monster’s attention.
An elf woman appeared from darkness, coming down the slope, hands held up imploringly.
Starling.
“N’ai! N’ai! Nagan’ai, Akis’naqam!”
Pleading eyes locked on the snake, she spoke in elvish, too quickly and impassioned to understand. Hands lowering, she removed her garments, revealing a body heavy with child. Exposed, she knelt before the serpent, continued to entreat it, gestured with raw emotion at her swollen belly. Wits returning, Fetch was able to discern some of Starling’s words.
“Nagan’ai. Help her! She is not asily’a kaga arkhu. You know this! I beg—nagan’ai as you once did.”
The face appeared fascinated by its supplicant. It did not listen; it weighed.
Starling grew silent, hands clasped and raised. Her face was suffused with humility and respect, but there was the spark of challenge too, a courage that had no place on a battlefield and was therefore more potent. Fetch had only seen it a few times in life, mostly on the faces of Beryl and Thistle.
The snake turned back to Fetching, seemed to consider…
…and uncoiled.
Fetch’s breath returned as the snake’s retreating body spun her slowly in place, lowering her to the ground. The monster slithered up the rocky shelves and crawled back into the triangular cave.
Weakened and sore, Fetch remained slumped on the stones watching the last length of its tail vanish into the black. She shuddered.
Starling stood nearby, dressing. Her clothes were travel-stained. And of Unyar design.
“It was you at Strava,” Fetch declared.
There was no response. The elf woman merely stared.
“Fuck.” Fetch attempted elvish. “I saw you. Thought you were a…untrue sight.”
Starling took a pair of steps and leaned over her, placed a hand beneath her chin. She opened her own mouth, the way a mother does when she wants a child to ape her. Worried the snake creature had poisoned her in some way, Fetch complied.
Starling spit full into her mouth.
Shocked and revolted, Fetch tried to recoil, but was too weak to do much more than wiggle. Starling forced her mouth closed, made an exaggerated show of swallowing.
Frowning, Fetch did as instructed.
Starling released her, walked a few steps away, and hunkered down into a squat.
Fetch made a noise and spit to the side. “The fuck?”
“You are rid of a brute’s tongue,” Starling replied.
Fetch had no notion what that meant, but at least the elf was responding.
“What in all the hells was that thing?”
“Akis’naqam is a protector of my people. The last left to us.”
“I’d say you have plenty of warriors up to the task,” Fetch scoffed.
“Even the bravest of them cannot triumph over the orc filth.”
Fetch gave a bitter laugh. “Orc filth. Comforting to know that your people loathe me as much as the thicks.”
“You misunderstand.”
“Not as much as you think, point-ear! Your fucking tribe herded me down here. That N’keesos had some pride, tried to kill me himself. But I’m no fool! When he failed, the others harried me into this damn cave. Rustskins aren’t known for missing their mark or letting their quarry escape.”
Starling’s face grew regretful. “Ghost Last Sung conspired to deliver you here, yes. His brave-sworn arrived ahead of your true guides. This was not the will of the Sitting Young.”
Fetch let her face fall into her hands. “Oh, now I understand completely.”
“You mock.”
Fetch could only spill a second humorless laugh into her palms.
“Why did you come to Dog Fall?” Starling asked.
“My hoof needed help,” Fetch said, raising her head. “We were driven from our lands by a…”—she readied herself to fail at the name, found it came easy—“Asily’a kaga arkhu—”
She stopped, puzzled and taken off guard. In trying to recall the words, not only did she remember them, she spoke them effortlessly. It struck her now—all this time she had been speaking to Starling in elvish and had trouble neither conversing nor understanding.
Fetch opened her mouth slightly, raised a hand to her lips.
You are rid of a brute’s tongue.
“The hells did you do to me?” Fetch whispered in Hisparthan to make sure she still could.
“It will last so long as I am near,” Starling answered in the Tine tongue. “There is much to say that will be difficult to understand. Your crude elvish was a hindrance.”
“Fucking sorcery,” Fetch griped.
“It is why you came here.”
“To learn how to fight it! How to slay this giant thick that commands nigh-unkillable devil-beasts. But I see now I was right to avoid coming here.”
“Help was not given?” The question was heavy w
ith reproach.
“If exiling us to a gully and forbidding us from leaving is the Tine notion of helpful. Far as trying to kill me, I’d say that’s a long ride in the other direction.”
Starling looked at her archly. “Ghost Last Sung and his warriors defied our council. It was unwise. Fear led them to folly.”
“Ghost Last Sung. That the rider with the red streaks beneath his eyes? He didn’t exactly shit his buckskins when he saw me.”
“The way of our warriors demands they confront their fears rather than allow them to flourish.”
Fetch again thought of the way N’keesos—the name now came to her mind as Blood Crow—touched her at the falls.
“Why do they fear me?”
“Ruin Made Flesh,” Starling intoned.
“He won’t follow us here,” Fetch insisted, though she spoke with more conviction than she truly possessed. “And if he does, your people have the strength to fight him. We don’t! There was no other choice.”
“It is not him they fear. It is you.”
Fetch made a coaxing gesture with her hand. “We need to shovel this hogshit faster, elf girl. I’m only idling here because I just survived being squeezed by a feathered serpent with an old whore’s face and my legs feel like two limp cods. And I don’t know what is waiting when I leave this cave, so I’m content to laze for a moment or two. But I need to get back to my hoof before they do something fool-ass, so you need to start explaining.”
Starling nodded, just once. “Likely you care nothing for the long, death-filled conflict between my people and the orcs. We have lost most of that past ourselves. It is enough to say that the ancient elves lived in a great forest basin for time unknowable. What magic we have left is from that time, mostly relics we no longer understand how to wield. If the tales we hear as children are true, our ancestors worked wonders and lived in great prosperity. The orcs destroyed that.”
The True Bastards Page 44