Of course, he had to stay alive.
“My own self’ll be taking your haunt as my own, I expect,” he called down.
He winced as Talmadge dived aside, whacking the lizard with his sword, to no apparent effect. Talmadge almost got away, but the creature bit him on the boot and held fast as he sprawled, and Badger grimaced again and looked to the lake, not wanting to watch the ugly lizard feast.
And he looked, too, to the cactus canoe, nodding with relief to see that it remained secure on the sand and rocks in the shallows. Some of the goods had fallen out when the lizard had tossed the boat aside, but they were still right there, up against the craft.
He thought that perhaps he should slip out to the boat and float away while the lizard ate.
His pondering fell aside, however, as another commotion stirred just off the shore. At first Badger thought it the crest of a wave, but no, these were fish, small fish in tight schools, breaking the surface with a series of leaps in a silvery display. And they were throwing themselves right from the lake, onto the beach.
Badger crinkled his face, not understanding, and stroked his long and scraggly gray beard, casting his gaze out farther onto the lake.
And his eyes widened and his jaw drooped open.
A huge shadow passed beneath the surface, not far out. The water rippled and Badger noted a series of sinewy, snakelike humps gliding through the clear lake. He couldn’t make out the exact shape of the thing, except that it was enormous, and dark—black like death. He never even saw the monster’s head, just that giant, serpentine body, but that was enough for him to understand that the thing could swallow him whole.
Badger understood then why the creatures of this small bay were rushing from the water, even formidable creatures, like dozens of these huge clo’dearche lizards, fleeing for their lives.
The shadow passed, gliding away under the deep waters of Loch Beag, and it took Badger a long time to remember to breathe.
Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure that he wanted to claim dead Talmadge’s items.
He looked down to see the man fighting bravely, and futilely. Talmadge limped as he moved about, his foot torn and bleeding. He had his sword back in his right hand, but he grimaced every time he waved it to block or to drive the stalking lizard back.
“Hurry up and be done with it,” the grizzled old fighter in the tree whispered.
“I’ll spit on your rot,” he heard the battling Talmadge grumble, and Badger could only shrug and reply, “As you wish,” under his breath.
* * *
The standing lizard swayed, snakelike, as if trying to mesmerize him.
Talmadge wasn’t falling for that! He didn’t let his short sword dip at all, keeping its fine blade ready to stab against any advance.
“Come on, come on,” he whispered under his breath. He glanced to the side, to the tree with Badger, and growled, for the man clearly wasn’t coming down to his aid.
And there was no way he was getting up a tree, for the clo’dearche was devastatingly quick. He still couldn’t understand why the other lizards had run past, and were, he hoped, still running, for they were nowhere Talmadge could see.
A sparkle down at the lake caught his attention briefly, and he knew it to be a wave of silver fish, leaping from the water, as they would to avoid larger predator fish. But he heard the splashing by the bank and realized that many had thrown themselves there and now flopped helplessly in the shallow water!
Before he could make sense of the suicidal flight, though, the lizard before him reared higher, and out came the winglike neck flaps, hissing, gathering another blast of spittle.
Talmadge didn’t angle himself to dive aside, and he didn’t roll away. He chewed his braid, watching the lizard’s yellow eyes—eyes that would roll to white right before the creature spat.
Talmadge counted again, silently, ready to spring.
Even as the lizard’s eyes rolled back, Talmadge leaped ahead. He ignored the pain in his arm, and stabbed with all his strength, with all his weight behind the blow, right into the middle of the clo’dearche’s chest, right between its waving forelegs.
He didn’t even know if the thing had a heart, or if his stab had a chance of felling the monstrous lizard. But he struck, with all his strength, a last, desperate try. Good fortune was with him, for he knew that had the beast not snapped forward at the same instant to launch its spittle, he never would have been able to pierce its hide as wounded as he was. The sputum flew over Talmadge’s ducking head.
Once the tip of the short sword got through the outer armor, Talmadge drove it home, plunging the fine blade in deeply, pressing it, pushing it, right to the hilt as he crashed into the standing lizard, driving it over.
Talmadge pitched ahead, the lizard falling over backward—not straight back, for the long and powerful tail countervailed, but off to the right, the two coming down heavily, the lizard’s forelegs snapping in tight, claws cutting into the man’s clothes and flesh.
Talmadge threw his left arm under the thrashing beast’s jaw, fighting to keep that terrible maw up too high to bite his face off!
And they thrashed and they rolled, and the heavy thing crushed down upon him. And Talmadge screamed out for Badger, certain that he was about to die, trying to cover, unable to defend.
It took him a long while to realize that the clo’dearche was dead as it lay atop him, and took him longer still to roll the thing aside and climb out from under it.
He came up to his knees, only half hearing Badger’s calls of “huzzah!” as the man at last slid down from the tree.
Talmadge was too busy inventorying his many scratches and punctures to take note.
“Ah, but you killed it good!” Badger said with a wheezing laugh.
Talmadge struggled to his feet, shaking, trying not to look at the man so that he wouldn’t reveal his outrage, and his continuing wariness.
“Something big swum by,” Badger informed him, walking over. “Big and dark, and chased them uglies from the water.”
Talmadge nodded, still trying to sort it out. Was it possible that the fabled beast of Loch Beag had come so near? The mere thought of it had Talmadge rocking and unsteady, and explained the clo’dearche exodus and the suicidal flights of the silver fish.
“The blood’s leaving your face, ha!” Badger taunted. “You killed the damned lizard to death and now you’re blanching?”
“The beast of Loch Beag,” Talmadge explained, his voice low, speaking slowly. “The lakemen sail hard to shore, any shore, to be away from it. It eats them. It eats their boats. It is a demon monster as sure as is the dactyl. How many lizards ran by us? Scores?”
“Seen plenty,” Badger admitted.
“And if all of them had turned to fight the monster instead of fleeing, they’d all be dead now. And if their flight hadn’t warned us, we’d be in the belly of the monster by now, bitten to pieces.”
The older man shifted uncomfortably.
“I knew you’d be beating it,” Badger said with a snicker, clearly nervous and trying to change the subject.
“You wanted my skins,” Talmadge casually replied.
“Wasn’t about to fight that thing!”
“You could have thrown me a rope.”
“Well,” Badger said with a shrug, still a few strides away. “We’re all to die, eh? And profit’s profit!”
“People do not survive out here alone,” Talmadge said, again with a level of complete composure. “There are too many things wanting to eat you, or rob you for their wares. Or sacrifice you to some god you’ve never even heard of. That you would care more for my wares than for my life marks the end of our arrangement and any pretense of friendship.”
“Friendship?” Badger replied with that wheezing laugh. “I paid yourself to take me, nothing more!”
“Well, that arrangement, too, is at its end,” Talmadge said, and he turned and started for the lake. “Take your wares and find your own way.”
When he faced away, Talm
adge brought his left arm in front of him and jerked his elbow slightly, dropping a wide cuff of treated, reinforced leather down over his hand. He sheathed his sword on his left hip, too, pointedly so, that Badger would take note. “I’ll spit on your rot,” Talmadge whispered again, under his breath.
Predictably, Badger closed the gap fast, deftly drawing his long sword, and he stabbed it for Talmadge’s back.
But the younger man had anticipated just that, and he swung about, left arm leading, the heavy leather covering his hand catching the side of the blade and slapping the strike aside. And his right hand moved with speed and practice, a single, simple attack routine he had practiced every day since he had first learned the art of fighting.
To draw and to stab. One movement, fluid and fast.
He saw old Badger’s surprised expression, shocked even, that he had been so easily goaded by this young man.
Badger wore that disbelieving look even as Talmadge stepped into the opening and slid the short sword into his chest, slicing his lung, cutting his heart in half.
“We’re all to die, eh?” Talmadge said, his lips only an inch from Badger’s face.
The man could only wheeze in reply, and Talmadge shoved him backward, let him slide off the blade, dead before he hit the ground.
The battered Talmadge rolled his head about and flexed his shoulders, stretching away the pain. He glanced around, figuring that the monster, or whatever it had been, was gone by then, and so the other clo’dearche would likely soon return.
Talmadge wanted no part of that.
He looked to the canoe, to the dead lizard and the dead trader, and noted that Badger did indeed have a length of rope looped at the side of his pack.
Talmadge shook his head, disgusted, and muttered, “So be it.”
He took what he could from the man, and now had a finer sword hanging on his left hip, his short sword on his right.
And he put Badger’s rope to use, as well, tying the man by the ankles and hoisting him up over a low branch. He struggled to get him fully off the ground, low enough for the voracious clo’dearche to reach him, but high enough to keep them busy for a while.
He thought to do the same with the dead lizard, but he knew he hadn’t the time, or likely even the strength to hoist the thing.
He gave a last look at the dead man, and took a moment to fulfill his vow and spit on the corpse. Talmadge went to the lake, loaded the canoe—and took a few flopping fish as well as they floundered about the lakeshore, including one that was as long as his forearm—then dragged the boat from the shallows and started away, his eyes always to the deeper waters in search of dark things that swam below.
He had barely moved from the spot when he heard the first returning lizard, its neck flaps slapping. It probably thought Badger was still alive as he swayed on lake winds. He heard the spit, then more gruesome sounds, the chewing and the tearing.
Talmadge could only sigh and shrug.
2
DEAMHAIN OF THE MOUNTAIN
“They’ll be returning, not to fear,” the old crone assured the child.
“But what if they don’t?” the girl asked in an even and clear-minded tone that belied her tender age, for she was only then a few months past her third birthday. She looked up at the older woman and locked her eyes, and gave a shrug as if to simply accept the possibility.
The crone smiled down at her, which elicited a grin in response. It was hard to tell with this little one. She had a slightly crooked jaw, the right side of her mouth a bit lower than the left, and the asymmetry became particularly apparent whenever she smiled, and so every smile seemed a smirk, and made it seem as if the child had a lot more going on behind the grin than simple merriment.
The crone nodded, thinking that aspect quite appropriate for young Aoleyn, if she could even be rightly called “young Aoleyn.” This one was wise and perceptive beyond her years, possessed of an old soul and a calculating mind. Her large eyes were beyond brown, were black, like the thick wavy hair bouncing about her shoulders, and anyone who took the moment to look deeply into those inky orbs would glimpse their own reflection through a turned prism.
Some of the Usgar tribe didn’t much like the feeling of those reflecting eyes, for the child’s smirking glance sometimes provoked a feeling that the little one was judging them—or perhaps it was simply because they did not like what they saw. The crone, on the other hand, secure in the way she lived her life, had come to truly appreciate this different child.
“They will, child. They’re always to return.”
The black smoke from the bonfire curled into the air more thinly now, as the once-great flames settled into a hive of angry eyes. The tribe’s witches, who had been dancing fervently as the sacrifices burned, slowed their movements in graceful and coordinated fashion, and now stood in place, swaying gently, each whispering prayers for the success of the war party.
Outside the circle of witches, the warrior men milled about, no longer entranced by the magical dance. Some sat and shared drinks, relating stories of previous battles, while others preferred a solemn and solitary preparation, winding sap-soaked cloths about the shafts of their war spears or wrapping their hands and fingers with treated strips that would offer limited protection from the cut of a blade or the punch of a club. They performed their acts methodically, using the movements to bring them to meditation and a place of quiet readiness.
* * *
One warrior in particular paid very close attention. Barely twenty, Tay Aillig had been granted the honor of leading this war party on this most important raid, a position usually reserved for men ten years his elder or even twice his age. But he had earned it, he knew. He had been down the mountain on such raids and all about the mountain on hunts since his fifteenth summer, and had distinguished himself with his ferocity and fearlessness each and every time.
Now, finally, it was his turn to lead; he would finally garner the glories of all those successes he had helped the tribe achieve for five years.
On a sudden and sharp call from their leader, the dancing witches stopped their swaying and held perfectly still. All movement outside their ring halted as well, all eyes focusing on the women in their almost-sheer plain white shifts, and conversations became whispered prayers.
As one, so practiced that it seemed as if on command, the witches bowed low to the smoldering embers of the dying fire, then turned away, standing perfectly straight, arms at their sides, eyes closed.
The whispers ceased and the warrior men rose, dropping their weapons, their drinks, anything else they held. They waited, silently, until all were in place.
Tay Aillig glanced from man to man, studying, scrutinizing, trying to determine the weakest of those he would lead this day, trying to determine those most likely to let him down and cost him his proper due.
* * *
The strong men wore fear on their faces, little Aoleyn recognized, and was surprised by that even though she had seen this before. She had heard the cries of pain and seen the grimaces as the warriors completed the ritual. The child remembered what was coming and so did the strong men, and for all their outward bluster, for all their grim determination, for all their courage in even participating in this ritual, there was within each a measure of fear.
She heard a sharp whistle and turned toward the tribe’s greatest woman, Mairen, who was Usgar-righinn. The witches of the Coven stepped farther out from the hub of their circle, opening the way for the warriors, who, as one, approached the dying bonfire.
Aoleyn could see the slightest of hesitance in their steps, near universal among the group, indeed in all but one of the men, a tall and long-haired giant with fierce eyes and thick, sinewy muscles. They didn’t want to do this, but neither did they shy, and whenever one seemed to falter, he looked to that bravest man, the tall man, young and strong.
The men formed a ring around the fire. Each lifted his right arm out to the side and placed it on the left shoulder of the warrior beside him, and when the cir
cle was complete, the men bent forward and sent their left hands into the embers, reaching for the glowing crystals, red and blue and violet and shining with an angry inner light.
Out came the hands, trembling under the burn of the crystals, the men standing and trying to hold perfectly still, and trying not to cry out, and trying, most of all, not to drop the hot treasures.
Aoleyn got a slight whiff of an awful smell, though she didn’t yet recognize it as the smell of burning flesh.
One man groaned, another cried out. A crystal fell to the ground. Another man went to one knee, driven down by the agony.
Now it was more than a slight whiff, and all about the fire, people crinkled their faces, covered their noses, even turned away.
It was a mark of honor to take up the blessed crystals without cries of pain, but many of the men could not contain themselves, and several short outbursts sounded, followed by a longer tirade of cursing from a young raider.
* * *
Tay Aillig grimaced and gritted his teeth, but would allow no sound to escape his lips. In defiance, he tightened all his muscles, his chest rippling, his arms locking. Nor did he bounce the crystal he had taken from the pyre in his hand to try to lessen the burn. He sent his thoughts out from his body, to another place, another focus, that he could ignore the fiery pain.
He thought of his first kill, from his first raid, an ugly lakeman whose head was shaped into two huge lumps. Tay Aillig remembered the look in the lakeman’s eyes when he, barely a man, had twisted the spear in his enemy’s chest.
Tay Aillig had watched the life spirit flee the man’s body, so vividly, so clearly, the light of life winking out in the ugly man’s blue eyes.
What a fight it had been! For some reason he could not then understand, the magic in Tay Aillig’s blessed spear tip had failed him, and so unexpectedly that he had been caught off his guard and nearly killed by the lakeman’s long knife.