Authors: Michael G. Manning
His voice trailed off. He didn’t have a name for the
magical creature. Since meeting back up with Moira she hadn’t had a chance to
fill him in on such mundane details. “I don’t know what your name is,” he said
apologetically, “but no matter, I can come up with one for you.” Cradling his
chin in one hand, he thought seriously about it, studying his subject.
Man-like
torso, horse-like body with some sort of weird concave back for carrying
people—hmmm.
“Damn, you’re an odd one, but I’ll keep it simple.
Let’s just go with ‘Horse-ass’.”
Stretch didn’t care much. He tilted his head to one
side as he thought but then nodded to indicate his approval. It was about then
that his limited magesight detected something. Turning his head, he looked
around and then pointed for the hunter’s benefit.
“What is it?” asked Chad in a softer tone.
The spellbeast pointed in a second direction, and then
a third. Then he closed one hand and put two fingers out, pointing at the
ground. He wiggled the fingers while moving his hand from one side to the
other. It was moderately clear he was trying to indicate someone running.
Stretch pointed again toward the darkness, marking three directions.
Chad sighed, “Three people, coming toward us.”
Stretch nodded affirmatively.
“Thanks, Horse-ass.”
The past day had shown him that for some reason the
people being controlled were following Gram, not him. He had already reasoned
that it must have something to do with magic, and having none, they had largely
ignored him when he was on his own. “If they don’t have true wizard sight, I
might be able to hide from them, but they’re being drawn to those two like
moths to a flame.”
The spellbeast pointed to itself and tilted his head
to one side.
“Yeah, and probably you too, Horse-ass, since you’re
actually made of magic,” agreed the ranger. He thought for a moment. “You go
stand over Moira. If anyone gets too close, kick them or something. I’m going
to walk a little ways off and test a theory.”
Stretch tilted his head again, obviously curious.
Chad smiled, “I’m going to find out if they can see me
in the dark. If they can, things will be harder, but if they can’t, I’ll teach
them a lesson or two.” He walked in one of the directions that Stretch hadn’t
indicated, fingering his knife sheaths, making certain the blades were still
there and that they could be easily drawn.
After thirty feet he began to circle his friends’
position in a clockwise manner for a moment before stopping. Then he waited,
listening. The starlight wasn’t sufficient for illuminating much more than
dark shapes and sudden movement. He crouched, trusting the short grass to keep
him unseen. If he was wrong about the perceptual abilities of his enemy, he
would be in for an unpleasant encounter.
His ears warned him of the first to approach, and he
smiled as he took note of the sound. The poor bastard was trying, with very
limited success to run in the dark. A lot of squelching noises punctuated by
an occasional heavy thump told him everything he needed to know about whether
his enemy could see in the dark.
A dark blob moved against a grey backdrop, and the
ranger rose to his feet, walking carefully to intersect the stranger’s course
toward his unconscious friends. He stopped once he had found the right spot,
and seconds later his nearly blind opponent tried to run over him.
Ten inches of cold steel went in under the man’s ribs,
ripping upward to cut through lungs and arteries. The poor bastard thrashed
for a moment, but the hunter was thorough, shifting his blade until he had
found the heart. The dead man grew still, and Chad moved away, circling a
short distance before waiting again.
He caught the second one in similar fashion, but then
he heard noises coming from where his companions lay. Rushing back he found a
heavyset woman attempting to drag Gram’s limp body in the direction of the
city. Stretch remained dutifully standing over Moira’s form, making no attempt
to interfere.
The woman heard him coming and turned to face him.
Neither of them could see well, and she threw up one arm to ward his first
strike. The blade sank into her forearm, passing completely through and
catching between the bones. Her other hand caught him solidly in the stomach,
driving the wind from his lungs, but it was worse for her. His second blade had
found its mark, and he shoved it home, entering from her shoulder, beside the
neck.
He fell beside the dead woman, coughing and wheezing
as he tried to catch his breath. The night air was cold on his skin, so he figured
he was covered with blood.
Or mud,
he corrected silently.
Some of
the shit on me is probably just mud. No need to be excessively macabre.
Glancing at Stretch, he saw the spellbeast was
pointing again, marking four new directions.
“More of them, Horse-ass?”
Stretch nodded.
“This shit is getting old fast,” complained the
hunter.
Or I am.
The next one was easy, but the last four of Moira’s
ex-servants slowed down and banded together before approaching. Chad let them
pass by in the darkness, considering his options. He felt reasonably sure he
could kill two of them before the others could get their hands on him, but
things would get ugly after that. People being controlled by the parasites
were stronger than one would ordinarily expect. He still had a persistent ache
when he tried to take a deep breath, which served as a constant reminder of
that fact.
What I wouldn’t give to have a quiver full
of arrows again,
he silently complained for what was
probably the tenth time.
He knew what he would have to do, not that he liked it.
This whole evening reminded him far too much of things he would rather never
remember.
The nightmares will be back and worse than ever, I expect.
Rushing forward in the darkness, he cut through the
back of the leftmost man’s leg, hamstringing him before leaping to one side and
racing away into the night. His enemies were slow to react, and by the time he
had gone ten feet he was lost to sight again. The cut he had given was a deep
one, and the poor fellow would likely bleed to death if it weren’t treated
promptly.
The wounded one remained standing, hobbling on one
good leg as the four of them arranged themselves with their backs together.
The parasites must have realized they were low on manpower, if they were willing
to fight defensively.
Which suits me just fine.
Chad moved closer, close enough to verify their
position before running away again. He hoped they would be foolish enough to
follow, but they disappointed him by remaining together. He’d have circled to
finish the wounded one if they hadn’t. Instead, he stayed far enough away that
he could just barely see their outlines against the dark horizon.
If that
fool stays on his feet much longer…
Several more minutes passed, and he saw a hint of
motion. He guessed that the injured one had collapsed from loss of blood.
Leaping up, he ran toward them. He planned to take one down in his charge and
finish a second quickly after. The third one would be messy.
The dim light almost proved his undoing, for he failed
to see, until he was already on them, that these three had armed themselves.
The one he had chosen for his charge held a modest belt knife as did the one to
his right. The third had improvised a club from what looked to be a piece of
deadwood.
Chad hated knife fights. Well, he hated them if the
other guy had a knife too, at least. The problem was that they never ended
well. Often the only difference between the victor and the dead was that the
victor just had fewer cuts on him.
And I’m outnumbered.
Ducking low, he tried to slip to one side to avoid the
first man’s outstretched blade, but the muddy ground betrayed him. Stepping
into an unseen hole, he fell forward. He missed skewering himself on his
enemy’s blade by pure chance. Hitting the ground, he rolled and kicked out,
striking the man behind the knee.
The knife-wielding townsman fell backward and landed
full on the ranger’s upraised steel.
The hunter was forced to abandon his blade, as the
dying man’s body had it pinned beneath him. Rolling, he avoided the club
wielder’s swing. Springing to his feet, he started to run. An escape at this
point would be a win for him. He could ambush them again in a few minutes.
Unfortunately he ran headlong into the other man with
a knife.
The force of their collision sent both men reeling
backward, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Chad felt the pressure of the knife
as it struck his ribs on the right side, accompanied by a terrible grinding
noise that he could only guess was steel on bone. A wash of dark fluid flowed
down his side. There was no pain, but that wasn’t unusual in the flush of
battle. The pain would catch up soon enough.
He’s fucking killed me.
Recovering first from the shock of their collision, he
leapt back in and drove his own weapon home, sinking the long knife in to the
hilt, once, twice, and then again just to be sure. “Godsdamned whoreson! How
does that feel!” he shouted.
The deadwood club landed squarely across his back—and
broke. It hurt like hell, but apparently the owner hadn’t been careful to
choose a solid piece of wood. Chad fell forward still cursing and rolled to
his feet. His back hurt like hell from the blow, but his wet side gave him no
trouble at all.
Feeling his side, he realized that the knife hadn’t
pierced him at all. Reaching into his shirt he pulled out the silver flask
that until recently had held six ounces of fine whiskey. “Son of a bitch!” he
swore, madder than ever.
He jumped sideways to avoid a barehanded lunge from
his only remaining opponent. “I was savin’ that!” he yelled. “What the hell
am I supposed ta drink now?!”
The townsman ignored his question, rushing him again.
Chad danced lightly to one side, cutting a deep line along his foe’s arm as he
passed. He was angry, and his anger lent strength to his weary limbs.
No,
I’m not just angry—I’m pissed! And now I won’t be able to get pissed after
this is all done.
The second exchange opened the stranger’s belly,
spilling his guts onto the ground even as he wrapped his big hands around the
ranger’s neck. Bright lights flashed in Chad’s vision as the pressure mounted
on his throat, but his knife arm kept working. The brute’s grip slackened, and
Chad pushed him away, gasping for air.
Winded, bruised, sore, and exhausted he sat beside the
gory body of his late-enemy. He could feel the mud seeping through his
trousers, but he was beyond caring. Addressing the corpse, he spoke, “Serves
you right for being so fuckin’ ugly. Your ma would probably thank me fer doin’
her the service o’ puttin’ you outta yer fuckin’ misery.”
His anger was fading, but his irritation only grew.
Holding up the damaged flask he shook it gently. There was something left!
Opening the cap, he tilted it, careful to keep the torn side upward, and
managed to get two good swallows before it ran dry.
Patting the dead man beside him, he apologized, “I’m
sorry. I was just mad about me flask. I had no call to talk about yer mother
like that.” He paused a second before laughing, “Even if it was true.”
Briefly, he considered removing his shirt and trying
to wring the last of the spirits from the fabric into his mouth, but the cool
night air had already dried it too much. Doubtless he wouldn’t get more than a
drop.
He was still sitting there when a new group of people
emerged from the darkness. They had the same dead expressions, but they
weren’t the ones that Moira had captured earlier. This was a fresh group.
Chad counted at least ten and then gave up.
Smiling sadly, he eased himself to his feet, “Well
fuck me. This just ain’t my day is it?”
Running would have made sense. In the dark it would
be nearly impossible to find him, and he already knew they were homing in on
sources of magic. Chad could just melt away into the night, forget everything,
and keep moving. He could start over; he had done it before.
Hell, it wasn’t as though he had much anyway. Not
many people would miss him, the bartender at the Muddy Pig, maybe—and
Mordecai. But the Count was likely already dead. Moira had been fooling
herself on that matter. That left the Countess, and he had never had the
feeling that she was overly fond of him.
Only an idiot would try to fight. There was nothing
to gain. Moira and Gram were both senseless. They might be dying already for
all he knew. With so many enemies he would be throwing his life away for
nothing.
Glancing down, he saw a faint glint. That was where
his silver flask lay, empty and discarded. It had been one of his favorite
possessions, a gift from a fool, a fool whose daughter lay unconscious not far
away. Snatching it up, he slipped it back into his shirt before drawing his
long knife once more. He wished he had his other knife as well, but he hadn’t
recovered it from the body it was pinned under yet.
“Ye picked a bad day boys! I’m all out of whiskey,
and I’ve got nothin’ left to lose,” he said loudly. Not that the enemy had
paid any attention. They were almost on him.
Crouching low, he leapt forward, gutting the first to
come within reach. A hard slash to his right caught another, and then they had
him. Strong hands and heavy bodies bore him down. It was only then that he remembered
that they might do something worse than kill him.
Shit! I should have run.
Normal men would have beaten him while they had him
down. That’s what people did in brawls. It was human nature. People that
were riled up couldn’t help but kick a man once he was down. But these foes
didn’t do that. They organized themselves and held him still without injuring
him any further, and that terrified him.
A rush of air and the thunder of wings announced a new
arrival. Searing flames appeared, blinding Chad’s night adjusted eyes with
their brightness. The stench of burning flesh filled the night, a smell he had
never wanted to experience again.
The ones holding him didn’t let go. They were trying
to pry his mouth open.
Then the one sitting on his chest vanished, snatched
upward by vast scaly jaws. Cassandra tossed the man like a ragdoll before
bringing her head back like a battering ram to knock the ones holding his arms
aside. Talons flashed and suddenly the ranger was free. The dragon stood over
him and slowly turned her head, sending a steady stream of fire across a wide
arc in front of her.
Everything burned.
Chad didn’t bother getting up. He was tired.
No,
not tired, I’m fucking exhausted.
The cold grass and mud beneath him
didn’t seem so bad anymore. The inferno that had become the world felt like a
warm blanket.
He watched Cassandra’s neck and shoulders as she
continued to spew lethal flames. The muscles rippled beneath scales that shone
and glittered in the firelight. It was a surreal moment, beautiful and awful
all at once.
“Ye’re a lovely girl,” he muttered as she finally
closed her jaws and leashed her fire. “If you were a woman, I’d marry you.”
The dragon’s sharp ears caught his words, and she
turned her head slightly to one side to look down on him with a worried eye.
“Did you hit your head?” asked Cassandra in a deep rumbling voice.
His body ached, so he answered truthfully, “I think I
hit everything.”
***
Since everyone had been unconscious, Cassandra had
flown them one by one back to the hiding place where she had taken Grace. In
the darkness, Chad had been unable to discern much of their surroundings, but
now dawn was breaking, and he was surprised to see that she had taken them all
the way to the foothills, at least fifteen miles or more from the city. Their
camp, if it could be called that, was nestled in a low rocky depression that
sheltered between two sizeable hills.
Large rocks broke up the ground at intermittent intervals
and moderate tree cover shaded the area. It was as decent a spot as he might
have chosen himself, although if it rained they were going to get wet. There
were no opportunities for shelter from rain, at least not until they built
some.
Chad’s back started aching in anticipation of wielding
an axe to build a lean-to or similar shelter.
Correction, it was already
aching. It’s just speakin’ up to remind me.
“Damn, I need a drink,” muttered the ranger.
The dragon turned her head to gaze steadily at him
once more, “Didn’t you pack something?”
He grunted, “Yeah, but it’s in the big pack. Probably
back where we separated before entering the city.”
“No, it’s here,” Cassandra informed him. “Grace and I
scouted this place and moved everything here after you went into the city.”
A smile lit his features, “Bless yer dear heart!”
Standing, he looked askance at her, “Where is it?”
She ignored the question, “There’s a storm on the
horizon.”
“We can put something together after I have that
drink.”
The dragon answered with a deep rumble, “Or you can
take care of it now. I’ll show you where the pack is after that.”
Chad’s eyes narrowed, and he glared at her. “I need
the canvas and rope from the pack—the axe as well.”
“Those you can have, but no drinking until you’re
finished.”
He swore for a moment, giving vent to his frustration
in a long uninterrupted exhalation of legendary nautical prowess. Then he
added a more direct insult, “Yer a slave drivin’ bitch, ye know that?”
She snorted, “You said you wanted to marry me last
night.”
“I was bewitched by yer big beautiful dragon ass, but
it’s clear to me now that a marriage between us could never work,” he replied
with a bitter note of humor in his words. Glancing at their unconscious
companions he added, “I wonder how long before one of ‘em wakes up?”
“No way to know. Why?”
“Four young people over there, and this old man has to
do all the shit work. I’m startin’ to think some of them are just takin’
advantage of my overly generous nature.”
Cassandra smiled, giving him a view that included
entirely too many teeth. “I will help you, and you are neither old nor
generous.”
“Tell that to my back and shoulder,” he shot back.
Despite the dragon’s best watchful effort, the ranger,
a veteran of many a long campaign, plucked his bottle out of the pack and took
a long draw before she could protest. Cassandra issued a deep warning rumble,
but he ignored it.
“You weren’t supposed to drink anything until after we
had the shelter ready,” she complained.
Chad winked at her, tossing the bottle back into the
pack. He wanted more, but he knew himself well enough to know that any more
would be counterproductive. “No lassie, that’s what you decided.” The warm
burn in his throat and belly was a welcome distraction from his cold hands and
the various aches in his shoulder and elsewhere. “Let’s start over there.” He
pointed to a promising boulder.
The ground was almost level in the place he had
indicated, but there was a faint slope to the ground on one side of the massive
rock. He studied it for a moment and then cast his eyes about searching for a
suitable source of wood. There was a dearth of deadwood around, and that meant
he’d have to do a lot of work with the hand axe. Chopping down a sapling or
two would be work enough, and the additional chore of sawing it and its
attendant limbs into something useful would be even worse. He glared at a
nearby scrub oak with a baleful eye, as though he might wish a terrible fate
upon it.
“What?” asked the dragon.
“That damn tree is too fucking big,” he complained.
“We’ll have to choose one farther down, but that’ll mean more hauling.”
Cassandra swiveled her massive head to study the tree
in question. “It isn’t that big. If you use something smaller, won’t you have
to use more than one?”
“That ain’t the problem, darlin’,” he replied with a
sigh. “It’d take me an hour just to chop that fucker down, and then I’d have
to have you move it. Besides, I’ve no way to split a trunk that big, so I’d
still have to have another.”
“Oh,” she said. Walking over, she stretched up on her
hind legs and caught the upper portion of the tree with her forelimbs. Leaning
into it, she pushed and then pulled, rocking the tree back and forth until she
felt it weaken. When she felt it begin to shift she surged forward, and with a
massive ‘crack’ the oak’s taproot snapped. The tree fell over as the upper
roots sent gravel and soil flying into the air.
Chad let out a long appreciative whistle. “I guess
that’s one way to fell a tree.”
“What would you do next?”
He waved the hand saw at her, “Next I’d be trimming
the limbs away, but on a tree that size…” The larger limbs were as large in
diameter as the upper part of his arm.
The dragon smiled, which was an altogether unsettling
expression given her massive jaws and deadly teeth. Wrapping her claws around
a heavy limb, she ripped it downward, pulling it away from the main trunk. It
came free with a long strip of bark and tough wood trailing the end that had
formerly been attached to the tree. “Should I do the rest?” asked Cassandra.
“By all means,” he nodded, eyes widening.
For all her size and strength, it still took the
dragon more than a quarter of an hour to thoroughly de-limb the oak. Once she
had finished a large pile of twisted limbs and foliage lay to one side of the
wide trunk. The trunk itself was a mess, ripping the branches away had pulled
long strips of wood and bark from it. There was still an ungainly mass of
roots at one end, and a roughly torn top with twisted splinters and pieces standing
out from it.
Cassandra looked askance at him, “Is this good?”
He considered his words for a second, “It’s just fine
and dandy, but we will still need at least two more like it, and if they’re all
that big, we’ll have the world’s most overdone lean-to—unless you can split
it.”
“Does it have to be split in two? I don’t think I can
make it that neat.”
“There’s enough wood there to split it into twenty
pieces, if we was runnin’ a sawmill,” Chad laughed ruefully.
Cassandra opened her jaws and clamped down on one end
of the great log, biting into it like some giant dog that had finally found its
favorite bone. Razor sharp teeth sank deeply into the wood as the incredible
pressure she applied crushed it. She released her hold before the wood was
completely shattered and then moved her mouth down a couple of feet and
repeated the process. Working her way along the length of the log she rendered
it into a collection of heavy strips of wood still loosely bound together.
The ranger smiled, “Now that I can work with.” The
whiskey had warmed his limbs and loosened his tight muscles. Using the axe and
occasionally the hand saw, he began splitting the heavy strips of wood apart.
Some pieces wound up being too short, depending on where they came apart, but
in the end he had seven lengthy pieces that were almost as long as the original
tree trunk.
The dragon wasn’t suited for finer work, so she lay
down and watched him at his task. The hunter assembled a rough frame that
leaned against the boulder he had chosen and used smaller pieces to create a
series of cross pieces. Rather than waste the rope from the pack he tore long
thin strips of greenwood and used them to tie the framework together.
“Those won’t last,” noted Cassandra as she observed
his handiwork. “When they dry out, some of them will break.”
“That’s true sweetheart,” Chad agreed congenially.
The activity seemed to have improved his mood. “But some will last longer than
you think, and besides, once I’ve finished this part, I’ll be weaving the
little branches through it, like a wicker basket. The whole will hold together
even if some of the original joints come apart. Watch and learn.”
He continued working and the shadows grew longer.
After a few hours he had a passable lattice built from the small branches and
thin strips salvaged from the shattered remains of the main trunk.
“You have clever hands,” complimented the dragon, “but
it won’t keep the rain out. You shouldn’t have pulled the leaves off the small
branches.”
“Oak ain’t so good for that,” replied the ranger.
“It’ll do in a pinch, but if there’s more than a short drizzle, the water would
just start dripping through it. Pine would be nice, the needles make an easy
thatching, but we don’t have that luxury around here. Would ye mind flyin’ us
down there a ways?” He pointed toward a long grassy slope a half a mile down
the hill.
“There are no trees there.”
“It’s the long grass I’m wantin’,” he told her.
Cassandra gave him a short ride to the area he had
indicated. Once there the hunter took out his long knife and began cutting the
thick grass. The blades were long, two and sometimes even three feet, and he
collected it into clumps as thick as his forearm before tying them into bundles
with yet more grass.