Rhapsody: Child of Blood

20

By nightfall the two Firbolg had found their way out of the thickest part of the forest and were heading west to the sea. Achmed could taste the salt in the air, though it was still many miles away, like distant tears on the wind.

They found an abandoned barn not far from a small farming settlement and made camp there. Despite being a roof over their heads, the ramshackle shelter provided little comfort, as they decided they couldn’t risk a fire. The floor was strewn with hay, packed and moldy, lying undisturbed for years, and they burrowed beneath it, seeking warmth and finding very little.

Grunthor had gathered fallen branches of cherry and black fritten wood and spent the better part of the evening sharpening them into arrows to replace the ones he had spent in the fields so long ago and during his time within the Earth. More than once Achmed caught him humming one of the melodies Rhapsody sang to herself while they traveled, gruesomely off-key.

The next morning they set off to scout the village and outlying farmhouses, returning with a handful of eggs and winter roots from a variety of storage sheds, several horse blankets, and some clothes that looked as if they would fit Achmed. They had ranged far and wide, trying to steal only a little in each place to avoid being noticed.

“My, you look lovely, sir,” Grunthor joked, watching Achmed’s face as he discovered that the tunic he had stolen was actually a dress. He slashed a hole in one of the horse blankets to fashion himself a rough vest. “But you won’t be givin’ ’Er Ladyship any competition with the young bucks any time soon, Oi’m afraid.”

Achmed ripped the bottom of the skirt off, shortening the garment to the length of a long shirt.

“Unless I miss my guess, I doubt the collective charm of every occupant of Madame Parri’s Pleasure Palace could compete with her now,” he said, donning his new clothes. “Whatever that fire did to her has had a powerful effect; it may prove a valuable tool one day. I was initially concerned that the priest would attempt to compromise her, but he was too intimidated to try anything.”

“Ah, yes, Ol’ Madame Parri’s. Oi ain’t thought about them in years. Wonder ’ow ol’ Brenda and Suzie are doin’.”

Achmed chuckled. “Grunthor, I’m sure they miss you still. I doubt anyone they’ve come across since has measured up.” He tossed the giant a winter apple. “Come on. Let’s have a look around.”

The makeshift clothes, added to the tatters of their original garments, provided some protection against the frosty air. They had also stolen a few discarded reins and harnesses and had used the leather to patch their boots the best they could, though in this effort they were less successful. The snow still crept into their footgear, making their toes sting and cramp with cold.

A few miles to the west the settlement grew denser and the forest thinner until it could almost be seen as a village. Achmed and Grunthor found thickets to hide in, heavy with blackthorn brambles and scrub, and watched the comings and goings of the villagers, listening as best they could from far away.

Though not as proficient with the language as Rhapsody had been, they could understand enough of it to catch the occasional word or phrase. One word, Avonderre, seemed to be repeated often, usually with some sort of southwesterly directional reference. The Bolg decided that this must be the name of the neighboring area, though whether it was a village, a city, a province, or a nation all its own was unclear.

They had circled the whole of the settlement by mid-afternoon, and were preparing to move on, when a distant vibration on the forest road caught Achmed’s attention.

From his hiding place in a copse of silver-barked trees not found on Serendair he closed his eyes and concentrated on the road out of the village. It was no more than a beaten path, scarred with the ruts of wagons and hoofprints, muddy from the mild weather and melting snow. Rhapsody’s voice spoke softly in his memory.

Unerring trucker. The pathfinder.

He swallowed and held on to the nearest tree trunk, then loosed his mind. His vision of the road surged, then sped forward, following the sloppy path into the distance at a sickening rate.

Racing over the lightly forested path, his mind’s eye hurried along until it came upon the sight of horsemen, armed and drawn, galloping toward the village. There were a dozen or so of them, clad in greenish-black leather and riding roans, red-brown forest horses.

With a lurch the vision came to an end, but not before Achmed had a chance to make note of two things. First: even more noticeable than the strange armor and horses were the shape and coloring of the riders’ faces. High cheekbones below large, wide eyes, tapering to chins as severe as their blank expressions. Tones of skin and hair the color of the earth and its flora. Lirin.

Second: they were carrying torches.

Achmed uttered a Bolgish curse and turned to Grunthor.

“Lirin soldiers, armed with fire, heading this way.”

Grunthor stared at him blankly.

“Lirin? With fire? Are you sure, sir?”

Achmed nodded as he extricated himself from the underbrush, understanding the Sergeant’s bewilderment. Lirin had a natural aversion to fire, particularly the Liringlas, owing to the hazard it posed to their lands. With the exception of Lirinpan, the strain of the race that were city dwellers, Lirin tended to reside in places of forest brush and open field, where wildfires could easily destroy their settlements. Seeing a troop of them wielding fire as a weapon was a disturbing contradiction. But there was no time to ponder it now.

“Come on,” he whispered.

Hurriedly they moved through the bracken, taking care to remain hidden, in an arc to the southwest. When they came to a place where the woods were thick with evergreen growth, Achmed scaled a tall pine and hid within its branches, ten or so feet off the ground. Grunthor settled into the underbrush. When Achmed looked down again, he could barely see him.

They had just enough time to settle out of sight when the troop came riding into view. Screams rent the air as farmers and townspeople panicked, scurrying out of the road, dragging children with them. They scattered like a flock of birds before the oncoming mayhem.

Achmed watched, sickened, as the first few soldiers rode past the villagers still within reach, leaving them to their companions in the ranks behind, who clubbed them where they stood. The men in the forefront rode instead to the nearest buildings and torched them, setting the village ablaze within moments.

A few of the farmers fought back with whatever tools or weapons they had been able to lay hands on, but they had no chance against the horsemen. One of the men-at-arms bringing up the rear rode mercilessly down on a villager, the impact sending the child fleeing with him flying onto the roadside near their hiding place where she lay, limp and not moving.

Achmed was staring as the soldier stopped and turned, then started for the child when an arrow whistled near his ear, piercing the Lirin’s neck. The horse rode out from under the man as he fell, lifeless, to the ground.

He turned to Grunthor to find the giant nocking two more arrows, the Sergeant’s face as grim and resolute as he had ever seen it. Grunthor drew back and let fly again, and another soldier fell into the burning thatch of the roof he was igniting.

A birdcall went up from one of the remaining men-at-arms, and the horsemen stopped in the road. Words were shouted in the calm voice of command, and the soldiers turned and left the village, riding over the body of one of their fallen comrades as they went, without stopping.

Silence fell over the tiny hamlet. Then, as if something shattered, cries and moans rent the air. A sobbing woman ran to the child in the brush and gathered her up, laughing and crying in relief as the little girl opened her eyes, too distracted to notice the face of the Firbolg giant a few inches from her.

When she was gone, Grunthor lowered his bow and leaned forward to get a better look through the thick black smoke that was now beginning to waft their way. He shook his head in amazement.

“What in the name of all that is good was that?” he asked, incredulous.

Achmed shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe all those stories they told us as children about people on the other side of the world walking upside down on their heads were true. If you had told me when we got up this morning that we would witness a Lirindarc slaying party, armed with fire, torching a village in a forest, and leaving behind the bodies of their fallen in the process, I would have told you your brain had curdled.” Grunthor nodded in agreement.

They climbed down amid the acrid stench of burning thatch and the sounds of wailing from the village behind them, then carefully made their way through the patchy woods to the west. The smoke billowed over their heads in the wind, covering their exit as they left the scene of the carnage behind.

By the end of the eighth day of their scouting mission, they were all but certain their brains had not only curdled, but had fermented. In place after place, senseless and inexplicable violence erupted.

Sometimes the participants were Lirin, but more often it was humans savaging their fellow humans. The Firbolg were beginning to wonder if they had lost their place as monsters in common belief, to be replaced by those who used to relegate them there.

Equally inexplicable was the aftermath of some of the attacks.

In one town on the border of the forest and the open lands beyond it they observed in amazement the pillagers of the town return to their barracks just around the bend of the road, half a league away. A few of the soldiers from the same quarters even came to help tend to the wounded.

“What is goin’ on in this place?” Grunthor asked indignantly as they watched the cleanup from their hiding place behind the granary. “Don’t make no sense at all.”

Achmed shook his head but remained silent. He could handle war as long as he could tell what the sides, the motives, and the players would be. Here he knew none of these things.