Tuesday, September 30, 2014

13. Father Roman

They called themselves scholars because they gathered in the former quarters of Arcanist Whitefellow.  They would be hard-pressed to study much of anything, given the state of Whitefellow’s library.  Someone had pulled down the several volumes owned by the man and torn them to pieces.  The abused pages had been gathered together by the Scholars into a few stacks and tied together with string, but that was as far as they were willing to go with preserving their old schoolmaster’s library.

The four of them spent the afternoon baking apples in a thick clay pot in the fireplace and eating them.  Sour and hard when raw, they came out of the post sweet and soft and steaming.  After what the guards took and setting aside a few for the night shift, there were enough cooked apples for them each to have two.  The other scholars ate the apples in their entirety except for the stem and seeds.

While the food cooked Fernie told his story of his parents’ death by manticore, his long walk south to the town he’d never seen, and his mistreatment at the hands of the guards.  His audience didn’t gasp in surprise or lean forward in suspense.  They just nodded along as if the whole thing were expected.  Their own lot hadn’t been any better.  “I’m afraid I have bad news for you Fernie,” said the girl Tyra, “if you were getting away from manticores.  You kind of walked into them.”

“They belong to Sharn,” said Karl, the older boy.  “There’s a huge one he rides, it’s really terrifying.  He lets the whole pack hunt in the valley, so if anyone tries to escape this place...”

Fernie pulled his knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms round them.  “I should have gone North.  How many of these things are there?  And who’s this Sharn guy?”

“Sharn the Ruthless.  He’s got about forty elves and humans, and about a hundred goblins.  And the manticores.”

“We used to get along with the goblins,” Tyra said.  “Sometimes they would kill an animal, but the Captain could always work out a trade.  We weren’t friendly, exactly, but we never had any bad trouble with them.  Now they’re like in all the stories.”

“Small but vicious,” agreed Karl.

“I want them all dead,” blurted Wrenn.  It was the first words he had spoken since voting Fernie into the club.  “All of them.  They deserve it.  They took Mom and Pa...”

The group fell silent for a while, watching Tyra fidget with the coals around the pot.

“I made a mistake,” Fernie said, “I shouldn’t have come here.  I should leave.”

“No, you can’t,” Tyra insisted.  “they’ll drop you.  We have to take him to the commons,” she told Karl and Wrenn, “he has to see.”

There was a shared dread on the trio’s faces.  “I can’t,” said Wrenn in a whisper.  “someone has to watch the animals.”

“I’ll take him,” said Karl, “alone.  Nobody else has to come.  Anyway, nobody’s going to stop us.”

An adult wouldn’t have taken Fernie to the commons.  An adult wouldn’t have shown him anything so terrible.  But the Scholars knew most of what the adults knew, and they didn’t see a reason not to share it.  Karl lead Fernie east through the town right to the wall, then they climbed the wood scaffolding and stood on the defender’s walkway.   From there they could see the land sloping gently down for a mile before turning up towards Mt. Stamhead.

Fernie could see what kept the townsfolk so cowed.  His first impression was that of a grotesque garden where corpses had unexpectedly sprouted up from the earth instead of the expected runner beans and squash.  Sharpened stakes the height of a man were planted there, perhaps a hundred a few feet apart in a neat grid.  Onto these the citizens of Stamfield had been dropped from a great height.

“He gets his big manticore to carry people up high and drop them.  People who run away, or try to fight.”  Karl’s forced his tone to be casual.  “The minions place bets on how good its aim is.”  Fernie counted some corpses piled five deep.  Bodies sometimes lay on multiple spikes, and sometimes they fell between spikes and were killed by the fall alone.  A few had missed the target area entirely and lay like broken dolls, bloating in the morning sun.  “Some people are still alive after they get dropped.  If they live, you can’t help them.  Sometimes he makes us all stand out here and watch.

“I have a brother.  Had.  He’s in there somewhere, near the bottom.”

“How many manticores, did you say” asked Fernie?  

“Why?  You planning on killing one?”

Fernie shrugged.  “I just want to know is all.”

“Six, including the big one.  We think she’s the mother.”  The two boys turned away from the commons and retraced their steps.  Fernie seemed weighed down, hardly able to pick up his feet.  “On the first day,” said Karl, “one of the guards put a spear into the smallest one.  The really big manticore tore him to shreds.  Bits of him were everywhere.  That’s why we think she’s their mother.”  The walked on for another block, peering around corners for patrols before crossing streets.  “The whole time, Sharn was riding on her back, laughing.”

“Don’t you have a mayor or something?  Can’t he do anything?”

“The Captain was the only one who could do anything, but Sharn has him in a dungeon.  We have a Laird, but Kelowind is useless.  He tries to act like he’s in charge even though he’s been thrown out of the castle.  People mostly ignore him.  Father Roman is alright though, at least he tries to do something.  There’s not much he can do, but at least he tries.”

“Can I meet him?” asked Fernie, enthusiastically, “I’ve never met a real priest before.”

“I guess,” said Karl, shrugging.  “I’ll take you to the temple.  But then I have to get back to the animals.  People will be pissed if anything happens to them and I wasn’t there.  You can find your way back?”

The old temple building was still in use as such.  It was one great room dominated by a plinth in the center, on which should have stood four larger-than-life statues.  All that remained of the gods were their feet.  At the far side of the room the broken remnants had been gathered: big chunks of stone heads and hands and limbs and torsos.  Each of the four gods had been dismembered, painted plaster still shimmering in the sunlight streaming in from the high windows.  The stones were sorted into piles by color scheme, waiting for their followers to rebuild them.  A domed ceiling looked down on them, tiled in the same shade of deep blue inlaid with bright yellow stars.  The usual iconography required a sun and a moon often covered in real silver and gold, but maybe the bandits had taken them.  There were other signs of recent damage, too:  faces in the wall murals were gouged by sword marks; there was the lingering smell of fire.  Tad wondered what had been burned.

By some clever trick of the windows the light fell mainly into the center of the temple in a golden beam.  The rest of the temple was in relative shadow, and Fernie became aware of people moving about only gradually.  A man and a woman were sweeping, the swish swish of their brooms pushing constellations of dust motes into the light.  Fernie slipped to one side of the doorway, into shadow to watch.  The sweepers worked in tandem according to some long-standing arrangement, each overlapping the other’s work a little in a pattern that would cover the entire floor.  Another man, in a long priest’s cassock, stood by a mural with a paintbrush in hand.  A kind of little bookshelf on wheels was next to him, filled with jars and rags and other artists’ tools.  

Fernie padded closer to see.  The frocked man touched the face of some local saint with delicate stokes of a small brush.  The figure in question thrust one hand forward to abjure a pack of undead back to grave.  Fernie could see the defaced surface had been filled in with plaster, and the priest was smoothing a layer of flesh-colored paint over the damaged areas of the face.  

The priest’s cassock was less fine than Father Ambrose’s, and much more worn.  The cloth at his elbows was worn down to a shine and his buttons didn’t all match.  The man himself was tall and lean with a full head of white hair and a mustache whose corners drooped down to his chin to end in sharp waxy points.  His head tilted back slightly to look though the magnifying spectacles perched on the end of his short nose.  His face was wrinkled with age but he seemed less tired than patient.  Resolved. 

“Feel free to make yourself useful young man.”  The brush dipped into small bowl in the priest’s left hand and rose again to the mural.  “Find me some light, will you?”  He pointed with the handle of the brush to the altar.  A large bronze platter leaned, just inside its shadow.

Fernie shuffled over uncertainly and, after some experimentation, moved the platter to where it would shine light onto the priest’s work.  “Much better,” sighed the priest.  Fernie stood near him to watch, careful not to cast a shadow over the saint.  

“Who is he, Father?”

“Don’t you know?  Haven’t you been paying attention in temple?”  The priest admonished Fernie with a look, given by elders everywhere to their young charges who seemed incapable attending even the most elementary of lessons.  The boy caught the barest glimpse of his white brows before they shot up into his bangs.  “Good heavens!  Who are you?”

“My name is Fernie, sir.  Son of Willis.”  He offered his hand for the priest to shake.  “I came south over the hills.”  

The priest put his brush behind one ear and took the boy’s hand.  “Whatever for?”

“I was running from manticores, Father.”  “But I guess I ran in the wrong direction.”

“So it would seem.  I am Father Roman.  Missus Clay, would you get a plate and a mug of cider for our guest?”  The priest sat Fernie down on one of the benches along the wall with the promised food and left him there for a few minutes.  Fernie enjoyed his second breakfast of the day: jerked meat, a boiled egg, a hunk of tangy cheese on a wooden plate.    The cider was scented with valley flowers.   He wolfed it down like he hadn’t eaten properly in days.

Fernie was about to ask where he should put the plate and cup when the priest returned.  “Leave it for now.   Come into the light where I can see you properly.”  Roman looked him over, asked if he was injured, and where he had come from.  Fernie was just starting his story when a group of men walked through the temple’s doors.  

The man in the center was of an age and height with Father Roman but broader.  Behind him loomed four more in hardened leather armed with clubs.  By his steps he came in anger.  As Roman turned his head to face the newcomer Fernie slipped out of view.

“Why did you tell them not to fight, Roman?” The leader was dressed in silk trousers and doublet overlaid with an embroidered coat.  His clothes must have been impressive at one time but were presently faded and threadbare.  They covered a man struggling with his indignities: his mouth turned down; his shoulders sloped; his hands clinched on nothing by his sides.  He stopped just inches from the priest’s face.  “You’re undermining me.  Again!”

“We don’t have enough men to win.  If we fight now the town will lose.”

“We have to do something, before he kills us all.”

“Not suicide,” urged the priest. “As long as the treasure room stays locked Sharn has a reason to drag this out.  Help may still come.  Something may change.  We have to wait for an opportunity.”

“I am Laird here!  I say when people fight.”

“Not any more,” observed the priest.

Fernie thought the man, who must be Laird Kelowind, was going to hit Father Roman.  The men behind him shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to choose between their Laird and their priest.  One closer inspection, they didn’t seem like the regular fighting types.  They didn’t seem very well fit to their armor, and the clubs were clumsy weapons.   “You’re going to regret this.  After this is over, I’m going to make you pay.  Brother or not.”

“Your enemy isn’t in the temple, brother.  He’s in the castle.”  Father Roman said it without a trace of rebuke but it had an effect on the ex-Laird.

Kelowind backed up and struck a more relaxed pose.  “My point exactly.  Let’s work together in these difficult times.  For the good of everyone.  Convince the soldiers to fight, and we’ll forget all about this little disagreement.”

“They’ll fight when there’s a way to win, or when there is no other choice.  The captain wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“The captain isn’t here.”  Kelowind didn’t say goodbye or excuse himself.  He just turned and left.  Father Roman stood for a while watching his brother’s back recede, his forgotten paintbrush tucked behind one ear.  

They boy made his decision then.  He retrieved the gem he had smuggled past the guards and stood in front of the priest.  He threw off the frightened bearing and tremulous voice of Fernie and exchanged it for the confident poise of a gentleman adventurer’s apprentice.  “Father Roman, help has come.”

The old man’s eyes looked down on him sympathetically, “You’re a good lad Fernie, but you’re too young to fight bandits.”

“I’m an advance scout, sir.  The Duke of Corak sent help.  The rest of us are still in the hills.”

The priest paused for several heartbeats,  then took Tad by the arm and lead him into a curiously shaped alcove.  “A stranger out of the north.  I should have guessed!  How many in your army?”

“Not an army, Father,” whispered Tad.  “Heroes.  They’re not many, but they’re powerful people and they’ve sworn to fight your enemy.”  Tad opened his hand to show the flawless clear gem lying in his palm, “Have you seen one of these before?  It’s a speaking stone.”

“I’m familiar with them,” said the priest wonderingly, “but it has been ages since I’ve used one.”

“I’ll make my report and then introduce you.  You can talk to my companions.”

“Yes,” said Father Roman, louder than necessary, “let’s pray for guidance.”

Taking his cue from the Father, Tad bowed his head with the gem clasped between his hands at his chest.  The priest put his hands around Tad’s and together they bowed their heads.  After a minute of silence the priest asked, “Is it not working?”

“No Father, I’m just thinking about what I’ll say: These things don’t last very long, and my master values concision in any case.”

“By all means, take your time,”  encouraged the priest. To Tad, he didn’t sound entirely earnest.

When Tad thought he had all the important parts covered he reached out through the gem with his mind and looked for his master.  In theory he could contact any one of the three other stones mated to his, but as Mr. Brightstar was the person he knew best he was the easiest to reach.  Tad imagined him, writing in his journal, sitting on a log somewhere in the hills and suddenly the halfling’s mind was present.  Tad could sense himself too, as if from Nolan’s perspective, which was the most confusing part of the experience.  

“You’re early, Thaddius.”

“I’ve made some progress, and I have a report.”  The magic felt like conversing with someone and at the same time remembering that the conversation had taken place.  

“Break, while I get the others.”  Nolan’s presence popped like a soap bubble.

“My master is bringing the others into the conversation, Father.  My report will only take a minute, then I’ll include you and make introductions.”  Just then a whole bunch of somebodies crowded into his head at once and Tad lost sight of the alcove and temple around him.  He was was with the entire party, paired us in twos to share stones. 

“Report, Thaddius.”

Tad efficiently summarized what he knew of Sharn and his forces then tried to explain the political situation.  “We’re short on local leadership.  There was a captain of the guard, but he’s being held in the castle dungeon.  Sharn lets the old Laird run around free, as a kind of joke.  He’s powerless.  People here put their trust the temple priest, Father Roman. Also, I think the priest is hiding fighters somewhere, but he won’t use them unless the situation changes.”

“You think we should work with the priest,” stated Nolan.

“Yes sir.  The Laird isn’t coping well, but the Priest seemed to be expecting us.  He’s been playing for time until help arrives.  He’s here with me now.”  

Tad could feel flashes of emotion from the party members.  Constrained impatience from the sisters.  Aggravation from Minzerec.  Earkey was concerned for the innocents in the town.  Nolan was pleased.    Most astonishingly, there was Familiarity and Danger from Basil.  A pulse of thought from Aidan, querying whether to include the priest in the conversation.  Impress him and he would be more open to them then he would be to their envoy.  Nolan: there is more to know from the priest.  Agreement from all sides.

Tad realized there was a lot for him to learn about this kind of communication, where one could use ideas without words.  Then he was embarrassed to realize his thought was leaking into the mindshare.  Then the embarrassment was received by all parties.  From Minzerec, the word “Practice” appeared in Tad’s mind as if they had been written in chalk on the inside of his skull.

“Give the stone to Father Roman,” ordered Nolan.

Blindly, Tad released one hand and folded the priest’s around the stone.  As the temple swam back into view it was a relief to lose contact with his party.  The talking stones were a little more personal than anyone had told him.  The old priest stood head and shoulders taller than Tad, with his mouth open in amazement.  After about a minute, tears welled up under his closed eyes.  Occasionally his lips moved.  Whatever they were talking about, Tad could see the hope grow in him.  

Roman’s eyes opened suddenly.  “Bless you, son,” he said laying one hand on the top of Tad’s head. ”You’ve journeyed far in the embrace of the gods.  Trust them as you have been, and they will continue to guide you.”  

“I’m to keep this for now,” he whispered, “and give it to you later after we’ve made a plan.”

“Thank you father,” Tad said aloud.  “I’ll go watch the animals with Karl and the others.”

“Oh, you’ve fallen in with them already have you?  Off with you, then.”

Somewhere between the priest and the temple door, Tad disappeared and the orphan Fernie took his place.  

12. The Stamfield Scholars

Fernie son of Willis shuffled wearily down a dry creek bed, a threadbare bag with a few possessions slung over one shoulder and a nearly empty waterskin over the the other.  His tunic had seen better days,  and he had improvised a belt from a rope that frayed within an inch of its life.  He was too tired to go lightly or quietly: his feet scuffed on every few steps leaving a low-hanging cloud of dust behind him.

The boy’s destination was small pond that hadn’t yet managed to dry up in the autumn heat.  It was the only open source of water visible from the hills to the north, where Fernie had come from.  It was man-made, so it must act as a reservoir for livestock.  More importantly, it was screened from the town by a rocky outcropping and a stand of trees.  Grazing animals would gather there in the heat of the day and in the evenings some of the local children would be sent to fetch them back to their barns.  It was the children Fernie wanted: just someone to talk to about his troubles and get news of the town in return.  With any luck they would be wasting the afternoon away picking up the cool breezes that came over the water.

What Fernie found down by the pond was corpses: a bull, five cows, three horses.  They had deflated as the flies and buzzards did their work.  The lack of meat and the scattered scraps of hide said they had been dead for weeks, and the cause was hardly a mystery: the boy didn’t have to search long to find six manticore spikes.  One was embedded so deeply into a horse’s shoulder blade he couldn’t pull it out, but three of the others he retrieved and washed in the pond.  He saw they were half again as large as the one he already carried, and that caused him to scan the skies as he stuck them into his belt next to the pitted iron cooking knife he carried for protection.

Could the town be under siege by a pack of manticores?  That might explain the groups of armed men in the streets of town: they might be townsfolk gathered to keep the manticores at bay.

Fernie had passed a dozen farms so far, all of them empty.  At one farm he had approached the house loudly and knocked to avoid surprising anyone and thus provoke an attack.  Someone had lived there but they must have left weeks before. Two men and a woman.  They had taken with them clothes, perishable food and (judging by the barn) some tools, a mule, and maybe a few goats.  After that he kept his inspections brief: enough to verify they had the same forlorn silence of abandoned abodes everywhere.  In a few cases he found the remains of people scattered near their homes as if they had been killed while running to safety.

After the pond, Fernie decided the townsfolk of Stamfield would keep their livestock close, if there was any left, and their children closer.   He would have to go into town proper.  The boy filled up his waterskin from a farmer’s well, filled his bag from another farmer’s fruit trees, and picked up his pace.  Everywhere he looked he saw ripe barley and apples and grapes but nobody was harvesting.  A few plots of land had been harvested close to town, too few to feed so many.

There was a wall around most of the town proper, a stone structure only about seven feet high and too narrow for to walk on.  The wall did have a kind of gate that spanned the road and there Fernie got his first close look at the guards.  Like any newly homeless child hoping to find shelter Fernie walked up to the gate openly but shyly, unsure of his welcome.

There were eight men at the gate: humans in rusty chain mail and spiked clubs.  They gave Fernie a hard time for being out of town without permission and slapped him around the head a few times till he fell into the dirt.  The leader “taxed” him by dumping his bag of produce all over the street and taking all the best apples.  They took his knife (“But it was my mama’s knife, and she’s dead now” earned him another face full of dirt), but left him his manticore spikes.  Fernie gamely picked up all the apples left in the road and his clothes and stuffed them into the sack, all the while curious what happened when you stick a man in the kidneys with sharp objects.  They sent him into town with a warning not to leave until a harvest party was assembled, then he could pick all the apples he wanted.  They were definitely occupiers.

Padding nervously through town Fernie could hear people in some of the houses but the streets were empty.  Instead of a large gathering in the market square, a few people were going door to door to get the things they needed.  They moved quickly, shoulders hunched, not looking up.  The one woman who made eye contact with the boy recognized him instantly as a stranger and made the decision to move on.  He wasn’t her problem.  Maybe she had her own children at home who needed her and she didn’t want to get involved.  Every building’s shutters were closed. 

He made one detour to avoid a group of men on patrol.  They were loud and careless and easy to avoid.  Otherwise, he headed for the temple in the center of town.  Soon he could see the domed box down the street from him but then changed his mind to follow a street crusted in mud covered in hoof prints.  Finding the priest, if  would be good, if there was one, but finding children would still be better.  Children around Fernie’s age should be taking care of the animals.

The tracks led into a small square built around a well, milled all around the well aimlessly, then into a building that was most definitely not a barn.  It looked more like the typical residence for the local Arcanist: a large room on the bottom floor lined with narrow windows and a smaller second story to house the wizard and his personal study.  The front door lay in pieces in the street, and Fernie could hear then animals within.  A cart without a horse was parked to one side and held a sizable mound of manure.  The boy paused in the shadows of what must be tavern in better times to watch and listen.  The windows were all open in the schoolhouse to let the breezes in and the smells out.  Under the normal animal noises he could hear people talking.   Nobody showed themselves.

Convinced his situation wasn’t going to get any better the footsore boy approached and knocked on the empty doorframe.  One he was inside the doorway he could see the desks had been piled up against the walls to make room for a collection of goats and a couple cows which were doing what animals do: lying down; chewing; crapping on the floors.  A spiral staircase next to the door went up to the wizard’s apartment, where a fair-skinned human face popped into view.

“Who is it?  Hey, who are you?”  The face withdrew, “Someone’s here.”

“Well who is it?” asked a girl.

“I don’t know.  Some kid,” which was rich coming from someone who looked younger than Fernie.  “What’s your name?”  The boy had red hair, similar to the woman Fernie had seen on the street.

“I’m Fernie.  I came south over the hills.”

The face disappeared again, “says his name is Fernie.  He came over the hill,” he said, as if such a thing were barely heard of.

“We heard him,” said a third voice, a male one a little older sounding than the other two.  There was the sound of movement, then a second red headed face showed itself, “Are you friend or foe?”

“Friend,” said Fernie with the most confident tone he could muster, “and I brought apples.  What the guards didn’t take anyway.”

The girl’s face popped into view between the other two, “I nominate him to the Scholars if he shares his apples,”

“Seconded,” said the first boy with enthusiasm.  “All in favor?”

“Aye!” they said together.

“Welcome to the Scholars Club,” said the older boy, “you may enter.  Bring forth the apples!”

11. Westward

From the camp they turned East to face the edge of a ridge line of hills that ran east-to-west.  The road angled to follow the southern side of the hills and to Stamfield, but the party left the road to follow the North side of the hills instead.  The reason the sisters gave was that if Stamfield was in trouble then by definition the area was unsafe.  They could get closer to the city without being seen by approaching over the hills.

The next two days proceeded a little slower as they crossed overland through rising land and up gullies wedged between the hills, trusting Lady Calanth’s maps.  The hills were only a few hundred feet in height, but they were a steep and effective barrier between the vast grasslands and Stamfield.  Grass gave way to forest suddenly where the hills began, mainly widely-spaced specimens of oak.  Several areas were choked instead with birch.  Basil explained that there must have been a fire, probably by lightning strike, and after grass the birch trees were the first species to take root.

For two days the camps were cold and well-hidden, and watches were tense.  On the third day they rose early and, near dawn, crossed an unmarked pass that put them within sight of Stamfield.  Basil and Tad were the first over the pass, several minutes ahead of the others, and the first to glimpse the city in the valley below, peering between the trees.

The hill dropped steeply to a valley marked by long centuries of habitation.  Near its center was a squarish building with a peaked dome Tad recognized as a temple of ancient design, although its current purpose was anyone’s guess.  The temple made up one edge of a five-sided plaza ringed around with buildings only a little smaller.  From this center roads sprouted in five directions branching and retrenching and intersecting like an irregular spiderweb, the whole forming a village smaller than Walter’s Bailey.  The buildings were all gray stone and thatch.  Only about a third of the town’s chimneys were letting smoke into the sky where it lingered in a brown layer a hundred feet above the ground. From the edges of the town the spiderweb kept spreading as the country lanes and low stone walls subdivided the valley into ever-larger parcels.

Beyond the town rose another line of hills dominated by the mountain of Stamhed.  It was as tall again as the hills all around and its peak was well-lit even as the valley below lay at the edge of dawn.  From their position Tad and Nolan could see part of a road switchbacking its way up the gentler southwest face before it disappeared behind a spur of the mountain.  Somewhere on the mountain, Tad knew, would be a spring-fed lake whose waters lapped up nearly to the walls of a small castle.  

The town was ringed with a wall with at least three gates Tad could see: two for the main road running east and west, and a smaller gate facing them.  At each of these a fire burned for the watchmen gathered there.  He couldn’t make out an exact count without getting closer, but it could be ten men in each position armored and equipped with a spear.  Towns frequently guarded their guarded their gates at night, but something about them felt unfriendly to Tad.  Maybe that had something to do with the total lack of other people or animals in view.

Tad was on his belly peeing over the ridge, counting people, when something large and heavy struck his thigh.  Nolan rolled onto his back and fired a crossbow bolt into the air, dragged Tad to wedge him between a rock and a tree, reloaded, fired again from their new position.  While Nolan was thus engaged Tad managed to form a single thought,   “What’s that on my leg?”

The two of them were packed into a space the size of a camp cot.  Nolan had found them shelter were an ancient oak grew among large rocks.  The canopy and thick limbs gave them some protection from above, and they were surrounded on three sides by rock and wood.  Whatever attacked them would have to approach by ground and face their crossbows at close range.  Tad could hear the flapping of great wings, a heavy thump of a large body touching the ground, the roar of two (or three?) beasts.  Tad got his crossbow pointed at their unprotected side.  For several long moments they huddled waiting for the monsters to either attack or lose interest.

The attackers split up: one taking up a position at the front while the other circled around looking for another way in.  Tad realized anything larger than a goat could jump to the top of their meager rock wall and he swiveled his crossbow to point above the rocks behind them.  Whatever it was sounded like it had paws, not hooves.  It also had wings and could attack at range.  Tad thought to examine the wound in his leg for clues but decided he wasn’t curious enough to risk looking.  He would learn what the creature was when it tried to eat him.

Tad’s world was wholly occupied by a simple imperative: track the stalker by sound and put a bolt into whatever showed itself.  Though he was breathing heavily he felt calm about it.  The thing would attack him and he would fight back.  Either he would live or he would die.  His leg was beginning to experience the first throbbing pains, but if the attack came soon then it wouldn’t matter: it would all be over before the pain could debilitate him.

The attack came simultaneously from both directions.  The slightest rustle of dirt, a sudden shadow on the rocks, then a huge furry face like a monstrous cat appeared above him its mouth open wide and huge yellow fangs bared.  Tad pulled the crossbow’s release and was rewarded with a spray of hot blood across his face.  The beast yowled horribly and its face disappeared, to be replaced by a huge paw.  Tad dropped his crossbow and drew his sword to hack at the searching paw but there wasn’t enough room to get a good swing in.  He could score the beast’s hide but he couldn’t pierce it.  He reversed the weapon to point up and braced it against his body.  When the paw came down again it found a sharp point and impaled itself.  The creature drew back again and yanked his sword away from him.  Tad drew his dagger and set his mind to killing the thing, whatever it was called.  A mere nine inches of steel didn’t seem like enough but he wasn’t about to give up.

Tad spared a glance in Nolan’s direction and saw his master fit a bolt to his reloaded crossbow.  A mound of tawny fur blocked the opening behind Nolan.  Nolan motioned with his eyes to the rocks above Tad, meaning “pay attention there”.  Something large was by turns chuffing and yowling.  Maybe it was worrying the sword from its paw.  With any luck it was dying.  Tad’s leg was starting to hurt in earnest.  He wished the creature would hurry up and attack or else hurry up and run away.

Tad didn’t get to see the end of the fight.  There was a rush of hoofbeats, a shout, a dying roar, then silence.  The sisters had arrived to put an end to it.

“It” was a manticore, a monster like a giant cat with a flattened face, massive wings, and a tail full of spikes it could throw with deadly force.  Even dead they were scary to look at.  It was one of the tail spikes that had pierced Tad’s thigh and it might have killed him if it had been a few inches nearer the femoral artery.  Getting the spike out of his thighbone was the worst part of the whole ordeal.  Ambrose and Aidan held him down while Nadia twisted the thing and yanked it out in motion that hurt so badly Tad couldn’t scream.  He couldn’t even breathe.  He flailed like a man drowning and passed out.

Tad awoke later in a cold camp in a steep gully, all pain gone.  People around him were unloading and grooming the horses, and when they saw he was awake they hauled him to his feet.  They patted his back and whispered congratulations.   They gave him spirits to drink.  Nadia presented him with the spine that had almost killed him.  Tad took in his hand the slim spiral length of bone a foot long.  She had thoughtfully washed off all the blood.  Nolan beamed.  For someone who so recently was nearly dead Tad felt quite good, like he could do it all over again.

“So what are we doing next?” whispered Tad, because everyone else was keeping their voices so low.  They must be camped very close to the town.  They had come a ways down the hills which now loomed over their camp.

“We’re still discussing it,” said Nolan in a low voice, “Stamfield is occupied by some outside force, but that’s all we know.  Probably bandits.  Aidan and Nadia want to ride down there and hit something, they don’t care much whom.  Father Ambrose thinks there will be a priest here and wants to make contact with him.  The rest of us want to know more about what’s going on before doing anything.”

“I could find out.  It’ll be easiest for me.”   The entire group looked at Tad, over half of them with the look you get from a patient relative before they tell you that no, you can’t play with fire inside the house.  “It’s a human town, right?  Any non-human will be noticed.  You can’t send them,” he said indicating the sisters, “or the Father because they don’t know how to act normal.  They can’t walk down the street without being in charge of it.  They’ll get noticed.”

“And you don’t think a child alone will draw any attention?” Ambrose asked.

“The occupiers won’t see him as a threat,” Nolan offered. “But the natives will notice a stranger.  They’ll ask questions.”

“My name is Fernie, son of Willis.  I live with my family over the hill.  Or, I did,” Tad improvised, making a sad face and forcing his eyes to fill with water, “until a monster came ... it was so awful.”  He turned his face away and swiped at his face with the heel of one hand, as any boy would do rather than shame himself by openly showing tears.  “I didn’t know what else to do, so I came here.  Pops used to tell me about the town over the hills, so I thought I could find it.”

“Oh, you poor thing!” said Earkey, caught up in the act.

“I walked for days!”

“Ah,” said Ambrose acidly, “and pray tell, what kind of beast ravaged your poor family?”

“Manticore,” said Tad in a piteous voice.  He produced the manticore spine from his pocket as proof, “see?”


Maybe it would be that easy.  Or maybe he was high on the rush of surviving a surprise manticore attack.  Either way, he was walking into Stamfield as a Fernie Willison.