Forged In Death, Book 1 of The Death Wizard Chronicles (28 page)

“That’s the smartest thing I’ve ever heard you say. But first, come sit with me by the fire. I wish to meditate together.”

After Torg and Rathburt
disappeared inside the hut, the others went about their business. Bard and Ugga built a spit for the turkeys and a tripod to hang the iron pot. Elu dressed the turkeys and then went to work on the possum, scraping off its hair, carving out the musk glands, gutting it, and cutting off its head, tail and feet. After that, he carried the carcasses to the nearby stream for a good rinsing. On his way back he searched the woods for herbs and “ground potatoes” to further enrich the flavor of the che-ra stew.

As the turkeys roasted and the stew simmered, the three men sat down and relaxed. Although most of the morning had passed, Torg and Rathburt never once emerged from the hut.

“Do ya have more of this tasty beer, little guy?” Ugga said. “I dearly loves it.”

“Elu and Rathburt live in a longhouse half a day’s walk from here,” the Svakaran said, pointing westward. “We have lots of beer and can get more from my village, which is not far from our house. Elu doesn’t know how Rathburt will feel, but as far as he is concerned, you’re welcome to stay with us through the worst of the winter.”

“If there is lots of beer, I wants to go to your house. Do ya want to go, Bard?”

“I agrees with ya, Ugga. I’d rather go there than walk all the way to the Whore City in winter. It’s too shivery.”

“It’s not safe to wander in the woods, anyway,” Elu said. “There are bad men in the forest. More than there used to be. They come from the south with deadly weapons. Some among my people believe it’s time for our village to move even deeper into the mountains. But Rathburt doesn’t want to go. He has a garden near our house that he refuses to leave behind. When spring comes, he will tend it again. Even if Elu were to go with his people, he thinks Rathburt would stay. But Elu would not abandon Rathburt. Elu owes him his life.”

“Why do ya say that, little guy?” Ugga said.

“Elu was not always a ‘little guy.’ Elu was once a big guy
 . . .
as big as Bard. Rathburt didn’t tell the truth about the ‘poison.’ He made that up to fool you. But Elu trusts Ugga and Bard and would like to tell the real story. Would you like to listen?”

“I would love to hear ya story.”

“Me too,” Bard said.

“As would I,” came a deep voice from behind them. To their surprise Torg stood outside the hut with a weary-looking Rathburt at his side. “May we join you by the fire?”

“Please sit with us, Master Hah-nah,” Ugga said. “Elu is going to tell us a very great story about how he got to be so little.”

Rathburt didn’t look well to Torg. “I’ve heard this one before, gentlemen. I think I’ll go back inside and take a nap.”

After the stooped Death-Knower closed the door, Elu leaned forward. “Rathburt doesn’t like it when people say nice things about him. He wants everyone to believe he’s a coward. That way, they’ll leave him alone.”

“Truer words have never been spoken,” Torg said.

Elu seemed pleased.

“Tell us your story, little guy,” Ugga prodded. “I wants to hear it so bad!”

The Svakaran stood and pranced around the fire. Torg, Ugga and Bard sat on a fallen log, but even from that position they were taller than Elu. Torg guessed that the Svakaran was about the same height as a Tugar boy of seven summers. How could he have ever been big?

As it turned out Elu was an accomplished storyteller, changing facial expressions and tones of voice while gesturing with his stubby arms and legs.

The diminutive Svakaran had once been a proud warrior and renowned hunter, wandering far and wide and never returning empty-handed. During one fateful expedition, Elu and three other warriors set out in search of game. It was early spring, and food was plentiful, but the hunting party was in the mood for adventure. The foursome journeyed farther from the village than necessary, traveling along the foothills of the mountains almost to the eastern mouth of the Gap of Gamana.

“The game trails go on for leagues, rising along the sides of mountains before tumbling into hollows and coves,” Elu told the three of them. “One night, after we had slain a buck, we set up camp on a flat rock near a stream and built a fire to roast the tenderloins.”

“I loves the loins,” Ugga said.

Elu nodded at the enormous crossbreed, then continued his story. “While the meat was cooking, we began to hear scary sounds from the upper heights. We all knew what animals howled like that—black mountain wolves. In a panic we doused the fires and hid, hoping they wouldn’t find us. But we weren’t so lucky.”

Elu and his companions left their gear and jogged northward along the trail in the darkness, carrying only their bows, arrows, and knives.

“We believed the wolves would find the gutted deer and go no farther. We could hide in the bushes and get our gear the next morning. But the wolves weren’t interested in the deer. They ran right past it and followed us.”

The trail rose steeply and then flattened along a narrow ridge. The land dropped down on both sides into thickets of tangled vines with thorns as long and sharp as bear claws.

“It’s called mountain laurel,” Rathburt said.

Torg looked up in surprise.

“Sorry
 . . .
I couldn’t sleep, after all.”

“Come and listen to Elu’s great story,” Ugga said.

“I’ve heard it before.”

“Go on, Elu,” Torg said.

In the darkness Elu and the other warriors couldn’t see the approaching wolves, but they could hear and smell them. It was impossible to outrun them, but if they stopped and tried to fight, they would be routed.

“Our only chance was to brave the vines,” Elu said. “Bears can run through them very fast. There’s an open area beneath the laurel about this high off the ground.” Elu raised his hand to the level of his own shoulder, about two cubits tall.

“But the black wolves are as big as horses,” Rathburt said. “It’s difficult for them to hunch down low enough to get through.”

“It’s hard for men, too,” Elu said. “We can’t scrunch down like bears.”

“Bears can run
very
fast,” Ugga said proudly.

“Still, they would have escaped,” Rathburt said, apparently unable to resist joining in. “The wolves remained by the edge of the trail, helpless to pursue. But not for the reason Elu and the warriors believed. Something else lived in the laurel, and the wolves could sense it.”

Elu lowered his head. “The vines
 . . .
eat you.”

Rathburt nodded and then took a deep breath. “Most often, the thickets are harmless, except for the thorns. But there are places in the mountains where another kind of vine grows, hidden among the laurel, and it is anything but harmless. It feeds not on sunlight and rich dirt, but on flesh—usually the flesh of bears and other animals that enter the laurel, but it will consume humans too. At it turns out Elu and his friends escaped the wolves but not the vines.”

“I’ve never heard of these vines,” Torg said, “and I’ve journeyed in the mountains many times.”

“Few have heard of them,” Rathburt said. “They’re rare—though less rare now than before. Lately, they have been spreading. The Mogols call the vines Badaalataa, the plant that devours. And that’s what it does, gradually and painfully. The animal—or human—doesn’t always die immediately. Instead the victim becomes a living part of the plant and sometimes survives for as long as a week.”

“When Rathburt found us, it was the morning of the fourth day,” Elu said, visibly shaken. “We had gotten no more than twenty paces off the trail when the
Badaalataa
grabbed us. I felt like I was being bitten by an army of fanged snakes. The poison paralyzed my body, but it didn’t dull the pain.” Suddenly the Svakaran cast himself onto the ground and sobbed.

Ugga knelt down and lifted him in his arms, hugging him against his chest. “Don’t cry. I can’t stand it,” Ugga said, also bursting into tears. “Somebody help Elu
 . . .
please
.”

“There’s little help for such pain of the heart,” Torg said. “Not even the passing of time will heal it completely. Let him cry, but don’t let him go. Your friendship is what he needs more than anything.”

Rathburt also wept. This surprised Torg far more than Elu’s outburst. He had never seen Rathburt react to anything with such sincere emotion.

Eventually Elu’s sobs reduced to whimpers, but Ugga still held him close. Rathburt’s face was buried in his hands. Bard moved beside him and placed his arm around his shoulders.

As if in response to such tenderness, more of Rathburt’s words emerged. “I was wandering, as I sometimes do,” he said. “I too heard the wolves and hid in the trees, waiting for them to go away. But they didn’t leave, howling nonstop for three days. Something a ways down the trail was enraging them, though I couldn’t imagine what. Near the end of the third day, they finally gave up and loped back to their dark lairs in the upper heights. A pack of more than fifty passed within a few paces of where I’d cowered for so long.”

Rathburt looked at Elu, his stoop even more pronounced. “I wanted to be sure the wolves were gone before I investigated what it was that had befuddled them. I was curious, I must admit, but not enough to overcome my fear. So I slept fitfully through another night and didn’t leave my hiding place until early the next morning.”

Rathburt began to cry again, as if overwhelmed by grief too large to bear.

Elu squirmed out of Ugga’s arms and crawled into Rathburt’s lap, calming them both. “I don’t know how much better it would have been had I helped them sooner,” Rathburt said. “I suppose I’ll never know. But it will always haunt me. The Vasi masters say, ‘What’s done is done.’ I’m not so sure. When morning came I finally found the courage to start along the trail, and it didn’t take me long to find them—or what remained of them. The Badaalataa were enjoying their meal. I could see skin, flesh, hair. Lips. Teeth.

“I remember clearly—as if it just happened—seeing an ear stuck to the end of a pulsing vine. But what I remember most is their eyeballs—eight of them, isolated here and there, but still aware. They stared at me, pleading
 . . .
not to save them, but to end their misery.”

“What did ya do, Master Radburt?” Bard said. “How did ya save little Elu from this terrible thing?”

Rathburt looked first at Bard and then at Torg, as if begging for permission to stop. But Torg’s expression would not permit it.

Rathburt sighed. “You need to understand
 . . .
for someone like
Torgon
, magic comes easily. But for me it’s difficult—and sporadic. I can’t just
will
my power to emerge. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. One day I can heal a dying tree; the next I can’t save a blade of grass. I’m not like
him
.”

Elu hugged Rathburt even tighter.

“But this time
 . . .
this
time
 . . .
the magic roared out of me,” Rathburt continued. “I strode into the vines, and they parted as if I were their master. Blue fire spurted from my staff and fell upon the
Badaalataa
, withering them. The flow of the magic was addictive. I felt as if I could scorch an entire forest. But as suddenly as the bliss arose, the agony followed. The vines were tamed, but Elu and his friends were still there, ripped into hundreds of pieces.”

“And?” Torg said.

“And
 . . .
that’s when it
 . . .
came to me.” Rathburt then grew silent.

“Tell us,” Torg said. But there was no command in his voice, only respect.

“Very well. But only this one time, and never again. Because saying the words makes me relive it, which is more than a coward can bear. What I saw terrified me far worse than the vines. I saw the extent of my power, and knew I could save them. Or, at least, one of them. I could peel the plants off their flesh and mold what remained into a single being. But it would not be pleasant for me—to say the least. The cost to my own body would be immense.”

Rathburt placed Elu on the ground and stood up. Then he strode several paces away, his back to the fire, and whirled to face his audience. “It hurt me to exert the power necessary to mend a broken body. It hurt me to save them—to save him. Like being burned. Or frozen. Stabbed. Tortured. Dismembered. It hurt like madness.”