The Lore Anthology: Lore of the Underlings: Episodes 1 - 5 (3 page)

“Careful dear! Those are from the wild.” Morio
had a look of concern and turned to the young man for help. “John Cap?”

But John Cap was
way ahead of him. He had shadowed Jixy’s run and stood guard towering over her and the sons of Hurx on the battlefield. Quickly he lifted his mighty right arm and spoke four words of a tongue unknown to the puzzled youngsters. And to their wonder a blade-thin shield unfolded from that limb of his. It sprung into form as a curved oval shell that parried the ogs’ dual aerial blows with ease and the sound of heavy thuds.

“He is well armed,” said Ayron
the Innocent.

“Who is this warrior?” questioned Ayr.

“No Sylander,” muttered Pyr under his breath.

The assault was over
, order restored. Everyone seemed to let down their guard. John Cap’s armor rolled up and vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, and the two wild ogs came to land in a patch just in back of the tall young woman. They looked even more imposing aground, quivering masses of muscle and flesh as wide as a plainsman’s reach. But at least they were behaving.

She turned to them and spoke
in the tone of a mother to her wayward boys. “You’ve had your sport. Now off with you.” And she pointed to the north. “Go.”

The pair retook to the air but slowly, whimpering off as they climbed the night sky.
Each beast glanced back sheepishly once or twice but kept one another on course this time with just a gentle nudge. No fight. And so they disappeared in the distance, swallowed up whole by the eventide.

The young woman whispered her farewell.
“Your help will not be forgotten.”

“Goodbye friends!” called
Jixy Mox. “Until I see you again.”

A blanket of silence fell over the field as folk wondered what they had witnessed. But soon enough from that baffled hush arose a foulish murmur.

“We’ve been played for fools
tonight.”

“If only the Guard were here.”

“Right.”

“But maybe it’s them. Maybe they test us.”

“You are the fool, Boxbo. How could that be?”

“They are in disguise
I think.”

“What, as flappy flying things?”

“No, you woodwit. Them. Do you recognize those three?”

“Well, not the tall ones
certainly.”

“Isn’t the other your cousin Yoz?”

“Shhh! Do not speak that name. He was a leaver. Long gone.”

“Forgive me, Ixit. I didn’t know
! Just how long ago?”

“A score of seasons
or so I’d say. Five years after the Treasuror’s fall.”

“T
hen we shall not see him again…”

“Shut up all of you!
Silly fools. Open your eyes. These are strangers.”

“What?!”

“Oh my!”

“But…”

“Mother Mayly may be right. She knows her beans from stones.”

“Though if that’s so, then what’s to do?”

“And how, who?”

“Who knows?! But someone should do something soon.”

“Or the Guard will have us in a stew…”

“Boiled to hell with your cousin’s bones and a cabbage head or two like you.”

“Then this is it.”

“Yes, surely so.”

“The time is here.”

“Here we go.”

“But where are my manners…”

“Please, be my guest…”

“No, after you…”

“Oh, I insist…”

“Hold on. Could it be? What luck!”

“Here comes Bylo Hamyx. Look!”

“Good for him!”

“Bless the Finder!”

“Get them, Bylo!”

“We’re right behind you!”

A fleshy bald man had shoved his way clear and into the middle of things. He staggered, out of breath and blood-flushed, the red of a
rash or a snarl hog in rut. Sweat streamed off the big lumpy dome on his head as drops of it dripped from a furrowed brow to wet his huffing, puffy face.

“Where is it?” he growled, yellowed eye whites wide, flashing
this way then that. “Where is it?”

Someone called
from the crowd, “Bylo! What do you seek?”

He paid no heed and lurched ahead to search the circle of souls before him. “Weeds, all of you. Weeds to pluck from this blood-fed field.” He cast his glare across the lot of them, face to face to face. The tall ones. The fruit of Hurx. He spit on the ground. He spat at their feet.

“Weeds to pluck and boil…” He paused then suddenly raised a quaking hand that flexed an index finger gnarled and encrusted in a bark of scab and sallow pus. He pulled the foul finger to straighten it out then used it to stab at the air.

“You!” he roared, baring a row of broken black teeth. “You are the thief!” Again he jabbed a pointy nail and jerked himself that way, lumbering over a lonely wildflower of gold. “Now for your crimes you shall pay.”

Jixy backed away and looked for a gap to slip through the wall of watchers. But there was no escape from the ring of lights and lives that surrounded her. She cut behind John Cap and the boys and broke for the circle’s empty center. Bylo the Finder followed.

“Useless scrub! Soiled seed!”

“Quickly girl,” guided the tall young woman of gilded tresses. “Come here.” Her bright green eyes sparkled like precious jewelstones in the flickering torch light. “Stand at my side.”

Jixy ran to her as if they had known each other forever. As if they were blood.

“Surrender the sneak!” hissed the steaming Hamyx. “It belongs to me.”

The woman raised an open palm against Bylo’s
boarish charge. He halted and slid on the soft sweetgrass, landing hard on his hefty buttocks. “Oof!” Before he could pick himself up again, her two companions arrived as reinforcements. Morio planted himself on Jixy’s other side, John Cap three steps behind watching their backs.

The woman lowered her hand. “No harm shall come to this child.” Jixy gazed up at her with a look of wonder.

Bylo shook with anger, flinging droplets of stinking sweat all about him. “So this is the smelly cheese you sell? Well, as you wish. But know that the Guard have a garden of thorns ready for robbers of the Keep and those who harbor them.” He laughed bitterly and spit again, just short of the woman and girl.

“Oh I’m glad that’s settled!” chirped Morio, pulling out the boven sack of foods that Jixy had left on the ground. “Let’s all celebrate with a snack. I must say that I am
full of hunger after such a long journey.”

Suddenly, Bylo looked puzzled. “Journey?” he mumbled to himself.

Morio reached deep into the torn sack but to his dismay came up with only a small Treasure Pie and a pickled billit egg. “It is somewhat short of a feast,” he sighed, pondering the items. “No matter.” A warm smile spread across his face as he turned to Jixy and handed her the golden, crusty pie. “This, my dear, is for you.”

Her innocent eyes grew wide as if she had never seen such a delicacy. She looked up at Morio and back to the pie. Then she snatched it from his soft, meaty hand and gobbled it gone in three wolfish bites.

Bylo’s jaw dropped. His oozing eyes bulged.

Morio displ
ayed the egg to the young woman then held it out to John Cap. “My friends?” The woman stared back, expressionless. John Cap shook his head. “If you are sure,” said Morio lifting the shiny reddish orb to his mouth, “then don’t mind if I… Ouch!”

Something hard and heavy sailed past Morio’s nose and knocked the billit fruit from his grasp. It rolled away into a thicket of long blades, lost.

“Stop!” screamed Bylo, scarlet as the egg itself. “Accomplice! Leech! Caught red-handed. You mock me to my face, gorging on the very meal this runt stole from behind my back.”

Jixy picked up the broken chunk of pummel stone that had landed at her feet.

“Now, now. There must be some misunderstanding,” assured Morio calmingly as he rubbed his sore fingers. “Let’s have a drink together and everything will become more clear. Does anyone have a drink? Some brewn ale perhaps?”

“I would just as soon shrink to a bloodless prune as drink with the likes of you. Ha! Or dine on a menu of maggots as sup at your side
…” Bylo squinted suspiciously. “And these two, these pretty treelings…” he sneered, turning to the crowd and bending both of his snaky arms to mark the young woman and man. “Ask yourselves… whenever did such tall and fair ones spring from the soil of Syland?”

The swarm of folk began to buzz like a poked pod of stingle wings. Then they and the night closed in tighter, breaching the arc of firestalks to flood the space with lightless heat.

“The Finder is wise!”

“He speaks an ugly truth!”

A gust of wind blew away the smoke of oil, wood, and meat that hung on the air.

“Explain yourselves!”

“What is the wormy fruit you serve?”

“Why weave this web of deceptions?”

The young woman stepped forward. “It was the only way. We had to be certain.”

“Reek and rot! This is grubbish you talk,” grunted Bylo. “Certain of what?”

“Listen and you’ll see!” chimed in Morio from behind. “Oh, you will not believe…”

John Cap cleared his throat hard and Morio
saw him shake his head.

“Oops… well…” he
went on in a whisper. “She’ll tell it.”

“I’m waiting!” fumed the Finder. “Spew!”

The young woman spoke again, her words measured, her voice clear and strong. “We bring news of the world and of worlds beyond. Long and far have we traveled to find you, but find you we did. Now there are tales you must hear, tales we must tell, before others find you too.

“A great peril comes to all who yet live
— the last children of the morning dew, masters of wood and field, elders of the hearth. We are few. The free, fewer still. And even here in this forbidding wilderness, lost in the heart of a floating land both vast and forbidden… even here where the shores of your island home have forever been under the guard of twin oceans, the seas of Syar and Mer’n… even here, evil comes for us. It comes for you…”

“Says who?” bellowed Bylo.

“Tall tales!” a second sang amidst a chorus of qualms.

“We don’t want or care for worlds.”

“Or evil things and such.”

“And if the Guard hear…”

“What we’ve heard…”

“No mercy.”

“No.”

“None.”

“Never.”

“So…”

“Just tuck your tales…”

“And go.”

Suddenly a brilliant flare erupted from the crowded grounds, shooting high into the night sky a silvery stream of dazzling sparks, lighting the faces of all who stood witness. “Wait!” called a voice, its owner obscured by a glowing cloud at the source. Quickly the flare faded and out from the blinding haze stepped Pyr of Hurx still clutching the broken ironwood of the elderwoman, now ablaze on one end. “In the name of my father and my uncle, I ask you please!”

All went quiet but for the cracks and pops of the irony firebrand. Pyr stuck the emberred end into a mound of soil and turned to look the angry Hamyx in the eye. “With all due respect, Finder…” He nodded ceremoniously and Bylo, baffled, wiped the tip of his clotted crimson snout and returned a halting half-nod.

Ayron and Ayr came to stand behind their brother as Pyr faced the great gathering with a quiver in his voice but purpose in his eyes. “Treasured ones, after all we have seen this day — ghosts that turn to battle birds, arms that turn to armor, saviors turned to strangers… now only blood can write the truth. Blood spilled or blood sworn, that is our choice. But it must be written and written red.”

He shifted his gaze to the tall young woman and their eyes briefly met. “The Semperors taught us to turn from the foreign face, even the most beautiful. But where did we learn to turn from the moment in fear? Or to turn blind to revelations that may save our Keep? These are not lessons known to my brothers and me.”

Bylo looked sideways at Pyr. “So what would young master Hurx have us do now?” He gestured toward the strangers with a slow sweep of his hand.

The elderwoman answered for him, elbowing her way out from behind the meater
and his apprentice, each of whom carried their long carcass knives. “Isn’t it obvious, Finder? Ah, this boy is every bit his father’s son. Ayryx would be proud indeed.”

“Um, perhaps so,” said Bylo, “
but what…”

“If I might make a suggestion,” offered a voice politely. Morio waved his hand to catch their eye. “Yes, over here. Do you think it possible to take a brief break from these proceedings? I find myself in need of… forgive me… a personal moment of relief.”

“Really?” whispered John Cap. “Right now? Really?”

The elderwoman seemed not to hear or not to understand. Bylo grinned and curled his lips to respond, when suddenly…