Healing Wounds in Arabarb
By Charles Matthias
Soldiers milled through the streets of Fjellvidden in groups of four
and size, while the townsfolk stayed indoors as much as they could.
Whenever Calephas's troops were out in force it was always best not
to draw attention to oneself. Already rumors of what they had done at
Strom's paddocks and at Ture's tannery were spreading by whispers and
hand gestures through homes, trades, and quiet shops. Many peered out
windows afraid of what they would see next. Gmork's pets peered out
their windows to watch in delight as the city stayed hidden away.
With so many of the soldiers on patrol looking for innocents to
harass, it took them longer than it should have to respond to the
cries of alarm from the southwestern walls. Out of the forest to the
south streamed nearly two dozen men and that many large dos,
brandishing axes and spears, with another six carrying bows already
drawn. Their shouts of rage echoed across the sward as they hurtled
like madmen against the wooden barricades. Arrows flew through the
air, followed quickly by a handful of javelins. Of the half-dozen
soldiers standing on the wall when the cry went up, only two survived
the first volley and that by crouching behind the battlements and
shouting madly for help.
Jarl was grateful that he was amongst the first wave. Thuring had
given him a javelin and his struck one of the soldiers through the
shoulder. He'd hoped to fell the man, but that honor went to one of
the tunrda men whose arrow pierced the soldier's chest. As the axemen
hacked and tore into the wooden wall, Jarl kept his knives ready for
when they would make a breach. The dogs barked and circled madly,
their cacophony drowning out all other speech.
More men raced up to the top of the barricades, while Thuring and
three other lobbed grappling hooks. They connected with a satisfying
chunk. Jarl glanced from the wall to the woods and grimaced
impatiently. In combat, a few seconds were an eternity. But the
eternity came to an abrupt end when a whoosh of air echoed from the
edge of the forest and an arc of green light shot up through the sky,
crossed the meadow, and descended with like a fist into the wall.
The brilliant light splashed over the wooden barrier, soaking into
the woods and fading away. Immediately, the wood, solid and fastened
firmly together, began to fester and rot, opening gaping holes and
embrittling the entire wall.
Jarl jumped out of the way as did the other men as Thuring and the
other three yanked hard, digging their boots into the ground and
pulling back. The wood cracked and snapped where Harald's spell had
struck it. The men atop the barricade screamed as it collapsed
beneath them. One of them cried in anguish as he futilely pushed his
hands at the spar slowly impaling his middle. The rest were hacked to
pieces by the axemen.
The city wall breached, they and the dogs rushed in to meet
Calephas's soldiers rushing to the defense. Jarl gripped his knives
and charged in to find his first kill.
----------
He snarled at the timing. Just as the his newest pets relayed
Calephas's words of triumph to him, his pets in the city cried out in
anguish and fear at the attack on the city. At first he decided to
ignore the attack and let Calephas's army repel it as they were
supposed to do, but when his pets wailed of the magical blast that
had destroyed the fortifications, he knew it could not be ignored.
Who were these interlopers and how did they come by a mage? He
glanced at the boy curled into the corner, his eyes and lips
twitching in a dream. It was clear that he had not adopted all those
with magical talent in this land. Perhaps in a few hours he would
have another child.
Still, there was no time to waste. He rested his heavy hands, thick
with fur, on his eldest and his soon to be assassin and stirred them
from their slumber. "Arise, my pups." They blinked their eyes until
they were crisp and golden clear. His eldest quickly shifted into a
mostly man-shaped form, complimented by wolf's ears, a naked tail,
thin quivering lips, and a suggestion of a snout. The other, he whom
Gmork would soon fully have mastered, was still mostly beast and as
he rose gently licked the young boy across the cheek before turning
to his father and assuming a more human guise.
"Calephas has succeeded in creating a potion to turn himself into a
dragon," Gmork said when their eyes were upon him. His eldest growled
and allowed a little snout to press from his face. "He must die now.
Go and kill him. And kill his stupid tiger too. And that boy who he's
been experimenting on. Kill them and then return here. The Resistance
is attacking the city and I need to protect it."
Both of his pups nodded and strode from the room purposefully. Once
they were gone, Gmork took one last look at the boy still sleeping,
then closed the door and sealed it with a ward so that his newest
child would not be disturbed or in a fit of clarity escape. In his
most human guise he strode the empty hall heading for the western
battlements to see for himself this attack on Fjellvidden and the
mage who aided it.
The thought of having six pups again made his lips curl in a broad smile.
----------
Elizabaeg lifted her head and listened when the sounds of distant
cries and the ring of steel and splintering wood came to them. The
others all looked at each other in confusion, but not daring to
speak, even to ask each other what they thought it might mean.
After the initial shock, she looked at the castle walls and noted the
way the Lutins standing guard atop the eastern wall had all turned to
look at something behind them. And then, there was a torrent of
screams and the sound of some terrific crash. Elizabaeg felt her
heart lift in excitement and fear. There was a battle in Fjellvidden.
Had the populace risen up in revolt? Had Machias brought the tundra
men only to be caught by the guards? Had Jarl and Ture made it back
only to suffer the same fate?
Still, no matter what was happening, all eyes were on the west.
Elizabaeg sucked in her breathna nd turned to the other eight hiding
in the small dell in the woods. "This may be our chance. If Gwythyr's
Lutin was telling the truth, we can get into the castle now. If not,
then they are distracted and we'll be able to escape. Is everyone ready?"
"Let's kill that son of a bitch," Brigsne scowled through his black
beard as his hands tightened around his axe.
She wondered which of their two enemies he referred to but ask. As
one, the nine of them rose from where they hid and rushed through the
trees, still taking care not to break too many branches or to
dislodge any stones, until they passed onto the sward clinging to the
declivity and across the old dirt road leading to the bridge. The sun
warmed them as they ran, the walls of the castle rising up before
them a silent edifice decrepit and fierce.
Atop the walls one of the Lutin guards turned his head from the
sounds of battle in the west, a yellow eye noted them, and then he
turned back to watch the fighting. Elizabaeg gritted her teeth in
hope at that sign as Brigsne and a trio of the larger men ran past
them to reach the heavy iron door. When they were only a few paces
away, the doors began to groan inward, revealing a torchlit hall with
eight Lutins standing guard and a familiar human soldier holding back
one of the doors.
"Is this all?" the Lutin closest to them asked as he surveyed them
with a careful eye. Around his neck was a necklace of human finger
bones, and he carried a quartet of wicked looking bone knives at his
belt. He did not flinch in the sight of humans twice his height, but
stood tall like their equal.
Brigsne and the other men glowered at him, weapons ready to strike.
"More than enough for your kind," he snapped with a growl.
The Lutin smiled around his short slightly yellowed tusks. "Blood
Harrow not fight you now. Come inside."
The other Lutins all backed up down the hallway at his command though
their eyes watched the ten humans warily. The human at the door,
Gwythyr, clasped hands with several of the men and Elizabaeg as they
passed through before shutting the door behind them. "It is good to
see you. We can hear the sounds of battle in the city."
"Do you know what's going on?" Elizabaeg asked.
He shook his head. "I've been waiting here for you. Calephas has your
boy in his laboratory; I don't know what he's doing to him, but no
one who goes there ever comes back."
She tensed and forced herself to take a quick breath before asking.
"What of the mage?"
"In his listening room with two of his pups. The other two he sent
into the city."
"We saw them," Brigsne replied with a wicked smile. "Luvig here made
sure they weren't a threat."
The lead Lutin's eyes narrowed at that news and he stepped closer.
"How did you do that?"
The young man slipped his pack around his shoulders and undid the
drawstring. "I have little jars with a very volatile mixture. The
scent is so foul it will make them run away, so don't open them until
you have to." He carefully removed the palm-sized earthenware jars
from his pack and began handing them out to a few of the other men.
The lead Lutin also held out his hand and after a bit of hesitation,
Luvig passed him one too. "Don't get them wet or on fire. It will be
very bad for whoever does."
The Lutin turned the jar from side to side in his hand and grinned so
that his thin lips split across sharp teeth. "Clever man. I take this one."
"Where do we go from here?" Brigsne asked with a grunt.
"I am going for my son and Calephas," Elizabaeg said without doubt.
"Gwythyr will lead me there. The rest of you go to the armory as we
agreed and secure the castle. Then we corner and kill Gmork. Agreed?"
The lead Lutin turned and gestured to another decorated with human
bones. "Khilaj will lead you to the armory. The way is clear. I go
keep Gmork busy."
"By yourself?" Brigsne snorted in amusement. "He'll crush you in a heartbeat."
The Lutin eyed him with hungry amusement. "Yajgaj no fool. But you he
make lick his boots before introducing you to his belly. No human can
touch him. I am a Lutin and his gaoler. He will let me get close."
"You had best be right," Elizabaeg said as she hefted one of the
jars. "This is our only chance to kill them both."
The Lutin Yajgaj gazed at the woman with a strange glint in his eyes
and countenance, before adding in a softer voice, "Your Alfwig is in
the dungeons. I have unloosed his chains and given him armor and his
sword. Now I must go."
Elizabaeg stared in shock at the Lutin and held out her hand to ask
more but Yajgaj slipped through the other Lutins and disappeared down
the corridor and out of sight. "How... how did he know?" Elizabaeg
asked the others standing around her, but they all shrugged or shook
their heads.
"No time for this," Khilaj, the other Lutin commander said with a
nasty glint in his eyes. "You want armory, come with me. They not
wait for family." So saying, he and the other Lutins started down the
corridor. Elizabaeg sucked in her breath and gestured for the rest to
do the same.
Gwythyr stepped beside her, feeling rather awkward, while the rest
moved swiftly and quietly down the castle halls. He stammered a
moment before asking, "Are you all right?"
She pressed one hand to her face and made sure that she wasn't
crying. Her husband was alive! But how did that Lutin know who either
he or she was? She shook her head back and forth to shake those
questions form her mind. There was no time to worry about such
things. She had a son to rescue and a blackguard to kill. "I'm fine. Let's go."
Gwythyr gestured down the corridor and the first turn to the right.
"It's this way."
----------
Out in the woods a trio of dogs howled in anguish and thought
furiously to their master about the nine humans who had entered the
castle by the eastern gate. They whined with all their heart of their
fear for their master. But there was no one left in the Listen Room
who could hear them.
----------
May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,
Charles Matthias
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