My brother. Long dead along with the others.
Except he was the only one whose body I had never actually seen. The only one whose death had been even the slightest of question marks.
My throat constricted. I was barely able to gasp out a name:
“William?”
The creature backed away from me, throwing its arms up to obstruct its face as if it was ashamed that I would see it like this. Then a howl issued from its mouth, long, high, and ululating, like nothing I’d ever heard. Like nothing that could possibly have been said to issue from a human throat, or even a throat that had once been human.
The cry carried throughout the entirety of Blackholm and every creature that had been attacking seconds earlier froze in response. All of their evil gazes went to the one that was by then clearly their leader.
The creature kept moving backwards, never taking its gaze from me. Slowly I followed, my sword up, and to an observer it must have seemed as if the monster was in retreat in fear of being carved up like a goose. The reality could not have been further from the truth. I had literally forgotten that the sword was in my hand. I wasn’t driving the creature back; I was drawn to it like a moth to flame. The nature of my surroundings, the reality of the danger that was still present all around me, all of that was gone from my head. Once again, the only word I could manage was, “William?”
It shook its head violently, responding to what I was saying. I moved faster, moved closer. “William . . . my . . . gods . . . what have they done to you? What’s . . . what’s happened to . . . ?”
The creature suddenly started vocalizing again. This time it wasn’t a howl; it was a staccato series of barks and grunts that was clearly what passed as a common language among them.
The others of its kind stopped what they were doing and cast bewildered looks around. I saw that one of them had Russell helpless and was about to disembowel him, but released him upon the barking orders of their leader.
One of the larger ones advanced on the creature that had clearly ordered them to halt what they were doing. The two of them exchanged snarling, barking growls, and the monstrosity that wore my brother’s ring lashed out with horrific speed. The challenger tried to block it, but too late, and seconds later the ground was awash with blood and innards from the beast, which toppled over stone-dead a moment later.
There was one final commanding, challenging howl from the alpha male that carried with it a clear message: Anyone else? Would anyone else care to challenge me?
None did.
Their leader then gestured angrily and, just like that, the rest of the creatures scampered through the main gate. They had left death and devastation in their wake, but they had also left a considerable portion of the population alive. Had the attack upon Blackholm gone even another five minutes, I would not have been able to say the same thing.
The alpha male was the last one out. He cast one final glance at me, and I couldn’t tell whether it was sadness or anger or what. We locked gazes for a moment.
And then he was gone, swallowed up by the very shadows that had provided them cover to get to the defenses of Blackholm.
There was a deathly silence as everyone looked around, scarcely able to believe that they were still alive.
Then Russell raised his rifle above his head and started to chant slowly, methodically, “Finn! Finn!” The others joined in, taking it up, and in moments my name was being cheered throughout the whole of Blackholm. Small wonder, that. They had no clue as to what had just transpired between me and the creature that was some bizarre, unholy incarnation of a brother long thought dead. To their perception, a horrific and devastating foe had turned tail and run because I had faced them down. Even as I felt a piece of my soul dying within me, they were singing my praises.
I had no patience for it. I gesticulated wildly, shouting, “Shut up! Shut up, the lot of you!” My motioning managed to gain their attention, enabling me to project my voice above their huzzahs. When they lapsed into silence, I pointed angrily, and said, “Fix the door! Reinforce the barricades! You’re sitting here offering your cheers, and in the meantime, you have your asses hanging out toward whoever might want to assault us next! Idiots!” Without further word, I stalked toward the barracks, their praise already a thing of the past to me.
I slammed open the door to the barracks. It rebounded back and would have hit me broadside if I hadn’t already been past it. I threw my few belongings into my knapsack.
“Where are you going?” It was Russell, standing in the doorway. There were deep scratches on his face, on his upper chest. The things had been clawing at him; he had averted death by mere inches.
“After those creatures.”
“You’re not serious.” There was a look of incredulity on Russell’s face. He moved toward me, and said with obvious urgency, “You’re not planning to leave us now? Those things . . . they’re afraid of you. You’re the only thing standing between us and complete devastation—”
“What do you expect, Russell? I mean, honestly?” I advanced on him, and deep down I knew that I was being overly harsh on him. He had just lost his father, and he had nearly lost his home and his life. This was no time to rail against him, and yet I could not help myself since I was so overwrought about my brother. “Did you seriously think that I’m going to stay here forever? Spend the rest of my life here, guarding your backs until I was old as Henry? Well? Did you? Don’t just stand there with your lip hanging out and a stupid expression on your face. Is that what you expected?”
He didn’t answer my questions. Instead, he asked one of his own, and it was not an unreasonable one. “Why are you acting like this? You saved us. You’re our hero.”
“Oh, am I? Am I glowing? Have I a halo? Wings? Do I smell like pomegranates and puppy dogs?” When he offered no answer, I said intensely, “Guarding this place is on you now. Bury your father, take his responsibilities, and remember everything I’ve taught you. I’m done here.”
Despite all sanity, he actually smiled. He looked excited. “I get it,” he said. “You’ve decided to track those things down. To put an end to them once and for all. Wait here; I’ll get some men together. We’ll accompany you. You can’t do this alone.”
I rolled my eyes in frustration. His worship of me was apparently indefatigable. No matter what I said, no matter what I did, he was going to put as positive an interpretation on it as possible. If I’d beheaded him, his last thought would likely have been, Thank you for relieving me of the sore throat that was bothering me.
Gripping him by the shoulders, I looked into his eyes, and said, “In the end, we’re all alone. All of us. We live alone, we die alone, and we spend our lives trying to deny either of those is the case. The sooner you realize it, the better off you’ll be.” I tipped my fingers to my forehead in a quick salute. “My condolences on your father.”
Then I was out the door. Quickly, I went to the stable, worried that I would find nothing but horse corpses there. I was wrong; there was Clash waiting for me, a defiant gleam in his eye. If he had been at all disconcerted by the earlier arrival of the creatures, he certainly wasn’t showing it. That was fortunate because if we wound up going where we needed to go, riding a beast that was easily spooked by them wasn’t going to do me the least bit of good.
I slung my possessions into the saddlebags, mounted up, and rode him out of the stables.
The townspeople were already scrambling to do as I had bidden and almost had the great gate swung shut. I snapped the reins and, just as they were about to close it, we galloped through and out into the darkness.
And as the gate slammed shut behind me, I heard the chant begin again: “Finn! Finn! Finn!” I thought, although I couldn’t be sure, that I could hear Russell’s voice above all the others, leading the chanting, keeping the faith, building the legend of a hero rather than just another flawed man who suddenly had other things on his mind than the fate of a single town.
Which just showed, I suppose, how out of
whack my priorities were. I should have been concerned about all those people who had come to count on me. Instead, I was willing to toss them all aside out of concern and fear for one man—a man who, by any reasonable measure, wasn’t even a man anymore.
Yet still they chanted my name.
Go argue with the voice of the people.
Chapter 7
Gnome Away from Gnome
I AM NOT A TRACKER BY TRADE.
That doesn’t mean that I was utterly deficient when it came to matters of forestry. I was adept enough at following someone, possessing sufficient techniques to enable me to follow a trail of snapped branches and trod-upon leaves. Some turned earth or bits of scuffed dirt could point me in the right direction, especially if I was pursuing a large group.
This, however, was another situation entirely. This was at night, the only light provided by the moon. Fortunately enough, the moon was full, providing me the maximum illumination that I could hope for under the circumstances. But it had the annoying habit of ducking behind clouds for extended periods of time, making it problematic to keep up with the trail.
So it was that in short order I found myself at a fork in the road and with no idea which way to go. I dismounted and walked forward, looking in one direction, then the other.
“Now what?” I said to Clash. Obviously, I wasn’t expecting him to answer.
As it turned out, though, I did receive an answer. Obviously it wasn’t from Clash. I’m sure you can surmise who it was.
“Why don’t you go both ways?” came the voice of the gnome. “That shouldn’t be anything new for you since you have both man and lady parts.”
I am annoyed to admit it, but I was visibly startled by his presence. I know I shouldn’t have been. Indeed, you probably saw it coming. The truth is that I was so distracted by the thought of my brother transformed into a grotesque creature that I had completely forgotten about my unwanted companion. I jumped a foot or so in the air and let out a startled cry, then landed and spat out a string of profanities aimed at the gnome. My aim was challenged, however, by the fact that I had no idea where he was. His voice was floating out of the darkness, probably from a tree, but damned if I knew which one.
“Plus you scream like a little girl,” he added, as I pulled myself together.
“You son of a whore,” I snarled into the gloom. I pulled out my pistol, which I had taken the time to reload since departing Blackholm. “Show your ugly face, and I’ll—”
“Renege on your promise? Toss aside your word of honor? I would have expected nothing less of you or your kind.”
He had me, the little creep. With a growl, I shoved the pistol back into my belt and tried to ignore him. “Look, you have a whole town’s worth of people you can go off and insult. Why continue to hector me?”
“I do what I wish and go where I want.”
“And it couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that they found you entertaining.”
“They were idiots,” the gnome said, making no effort to hide his irritation . . . which was admittedly nothing new. “Idiots and fools, and they deserved to die. And they would have if it hadn’t been for you. So do me a favor and die a few hundred times in their stead.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said. Determined to ignore him, I continued to study the split in the road, trying to find some clue as to which way to go. Then another, even more depressing thought occurred to me. Who said that they had stayed with the road at all? They could have broken off and headed into the forest that surrounded us. I doubted they were lying in wait because, if they had been, they would have been upon me already. That determination didn’t bring me any closer to figuring out which way to go.
The gnome continued to toss around insults, but I didn’t respond to them. Instead, I simply stood there and became more frustrated over my uncertainty. Even as I did, I was still trying to process what it was that I had seen. How could it be William? Why wasn’t he dead? Would it have been better if he had been dead? Wouldn’t anything have been better than being transformed into . . . into whatever he was?
No. No, where there’s life, there’s hope. All these years I thought he was dead, and so the notion of my having family was hopeless. But if that creature is indeed him, then that means I have a hope of restoring him to all that he was.
Finally, the gnome became as impatient with me as I was with myself. “Why are you just standing there?” came his angry voice.
There was no reason to lie. “I’m not sure which way they went.”
“Can’t you smell them?”
“No, of course I can’t . . .” My voice trailed off, then I looked in what I thought was the general direction that the gnome was hiding. “Are you saying you can?”
“It’s not the easiest thing to do because the stench coming off you is nearly overwhelming. But yes, I can smell them. For that matter, I can see their path as easily as if it were glowing. You, with your tiny nose and squinty eyes, can’t see them? Imagine my complete and utter lack of shock. Compared to how attuned gnomes are to the world around us, humanity might as well be deaf, dumb, and blind. I’ll say this for you”—and even though I had no idea where he was, I could practically see his sneer—“you’ve got the ‘dumb’ part down.”
I ignored his insult. I’d certainly had enough practice at doing so. “But you’re not saying you could lead me to them.”
“Of course I could! Are you stupid as well as hearing impaired?”
“I don’t believe you. I think you’re lying. That’s typical of your kind.”
“You know nothing of my kind,” said the gnome, sounding angrier than ever. “For starters, you obviously think my kind is as foolish as your kind. You seriously think you can trick me into doing what you want simply by challenging me? Have some respect for my intelligence. Just come out and ask me.”
“Fine,” I said in exasperation to the darkness. “Please help me track those creatures.”
“No!” This was followed by a sustained peal of laughter.
The laughter continued and didn’t seem to be ending anytime soon. So I called out over it, “If you don’t lead me to them, then they have no chance of killing me. But if you take me to them, they might well tear me to shreds.”
That stopped him.
There followed what I can only describe as a thoughtful silence. Then he said, wheedlingly, “Do you promise you’ll be killed?”
“I can’t promise it, no,” I said. “But I should point out that the odds are sorely against me.”
“Not necessarily. That one could have killed you, and instead, he made the others leave you be.”
So he’d noticed that. The little cretin didn’t miss a trick. I thought of spinning some elaborate tale to try to explain it, but it was quite obvious that the gnome was highly intelligent. I hated to do it, but the best approach to the situation was apparently going to be honesty. “I have reason to believe that one of those creatures is my brother.”
“Your brother? You mean your parents were insane enough to have more than one of you?”
“Apparently so. And I thought him dead for the longest time, yet he now seems to be as unrecognizable as any monstrosity that ever trod Albion. And I want to find out how he got like that and, if possible, retrieve him from it. The odds are long that I will accomplish it. Much likelier that I will die, either at his claws or those of one of his fellows.”
“And I’d be there to see it.”
“If you led me there, yes.”
Another thoughtful pause, but that one much shorter. “Very well.” And like a stone, he dropped from overhead. He stood there for a moment with his hands defiantly on his hips, as if daring me to suddenly pull out my pistol and shoot him down even though it would be counterproductive. When I did nothing save stand there, he made a dismissive snort and turned away from me. He crouched low to the ground, which certainly wasn’t all that far for him, and I saw the edges of his overlarge nostrils flexing.
“This way,” he sa
id decisively, pointing to the right.
I didn’t even bother to ask him if he was sure. It would just have given him something else to make a contemptuous remark about.
I mounted up. Clash looked with what I can only term as suspicion toward the gnome. I couldn’t exactly blame him. I snapped the reins, and the horse started after the gnome.
The gnome was meticulous, I’ll give him that much. Every so often he would stop, sniff around, reaffirm that we were going in the right direction. Then he would nod approvingly, apparently satisfied, and we’d continue on our way.
He continued to provide a steady stream of insults that I continued not to respond to. Finally, though, I tired of his voice being the only thing taking up the air. “Are all gnomes as ‘attuned’ to the world around you as you are?” I said.
That seemed to disrupt his flow of acrimony for a moment. Then he said, “What sort of stupid question is that?”
“I was just asking.”
“Pretending you care, are you?”
“I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say ‘care.’ I’m interested, that’s all. I know nothing about gnomes and nothing about you other than that you’re ill-tempered for no reason and that, if I’m to believe the rumors, you’re statues come to life or some such.”
“Hah! That’s how much you know, which is to say nothing. At least you’re being consistent.”
“So tell me.”
“All right, fine. But only to make clear to you just how pig-ignorant you and your kind are.”
The gnome never looked back at me as he started to talk.
“We were first,” he said. “Before the balverines. Before the hobbes. Before you damned humans set your oversized feet on the land of Albion, there were my people. There were gnomes. We were ancient beyond your imagining.