A Fray of Furies Read online

He knew – he could feel its rank breath on his neck.

  The city man seemed to shrink, some vital essence draining along with his bladder. His snarl of beard quivered.

  “Is it–?” he mouthed.

  He sheared apart, viscera scything a wide arc. Through the spray padded the People’s blighted past.

  On all fours, it matched her stare for stare, golden eyes burning bedlam. Gore was caught in its muzzle and plaited its pelt. Lean muscles bunched, levering it up to loom twice her height.

  Krin.

  Hope died, leaving a fraught calm. She would not disgrace herself, or her father, with a dishonorable death. Hers would be a storied end, fit for song, even if none knew to sing of it. Heart pounding terror, she readied herself to charge.

  Ancestors, witness! she prayed.

  It swatted her. Her momentum turned on her tenfold. A tree reared up to hammer her alongside the head. She sprawled, sliding down its rough bark as her feet refused to support her.

  Her winded heart dimmed-down and drummed-up her surroundings to its beat. Her awareness slipped with each knell.

  At least she’d not be awake for the ripping part.

  Her last act, before crossing the Ancestral Bridge, would be to glare her defiance. That seemed proper.

  But she’d suffered one knock to many. Her vision shivered – and the krin with it – making it appear afflicted and atremble. As the light waned, so did the embers of its eyes.

  A haunted howl broke over her, dragging her into its undertow.

  * * *

  Unnamed Village

  Western Barrier Range

  The Renali Kingdom

  It was a mud-hole village. A dozen dilapidated buildings huddled around a disused crossroads. One direction promised to take a determined traveler to the highway and Keystone, the Renali capital. The other was a goat trail into the hills.

  She came to it via the goat trail.

  The place stank of pitch a league off, leading one to suspect the grey drizzle was permanent. The proposed coach-inn leaned drunkenly, shored up by timbers. Her mount tossed its head in disgust, scattering droplets. She agreed. If not for the chimney smoke, she’d have thought the place abandoned.

  A dog, all ribs and mange, slunk across their path. It paused to curl its upper lip at them. At her glance, it yelped and bolted.

  Pooling prints gave evidence of life and led the way to the tavern. The horse gave her a reproachful look as she hitched it to the post. Both their coats were soaked through, though, and she’d be rejoining it in the rain soon enough. Squelching, she made for the improvised door – coarse sacking nailed to a lintel.

  The stench of pitch was even more pronounced inside. It overlay stale beer, sour sweat and sweet mildew. Not bothering to lower her hood, she muttered a quick cantrip. Her pupils strained wide, drinking in the light to bring the dark interior into focus.

  The rude benches and tables were a quarter full. Farmers. A scattering of trappers and loggers. What might be a wayward carter. No threat to her. She ignored the sudden hush and made her way to the bar – a simple plank balanced on barrels.

  The tavernkeep, his bottom lip a pink protrusion, stood swirling something in a dented tankard. He made no effort at greeting.

  “A boy fell into the river about two days’ ride upstream,” she said without preamble. “I’m looking for sign of him.”

  The tavernkeep’s jaws bunched and he found something worthy of spitting, stuck behind a back molar. “This is a tavern,” he told her needlessly. “People come here looking for drink. Not boys.”

  “Aw,” some wit commented. “Ask if she’ll have me, Col.”

  She waited for the harsh laughter to die down, “A drink then.”

  Her hand passed over the bar top. The fat, silver coin made a sound too rich for this place. She could feel it drawing eyes from the gloom.

  Moving languidly, the tavernkeep foamed up a tankard, spilling as he plonked it down before her. He reached for the crown. She was faster, pinning it with a fingertip.

  “And,” she added, “any information you may have on a boy, washed down the river.”

  He strained, trying to slide the silver out from beneath her.

  “Ain’t no boy come down the river,” he told her grudgingly. “Ain’t no word of no boy come down the river, neither.”

  Sighing inwardly, she relented. The silver skittered across the scarred plank and into his pocket. She left her tankard untouched.

  “Mistress?” a timid voice forestalled on her way out.

  The stick-figure of a man raised a deeply callused hand and doffed a shapeless cap. He cringed beneath her regard.

  “’Tis the hark of spring, mistress. Snowmelt’s coming down ornery and filled with river teeth.” He shook his head. “If’n your friend went in above the falls, mistress, chances are he’s not coming back out. And no guarantee it’ll be Kingdom-side, if’n he does. Stumps and stones’ll make overnight dams that wash away by morning. A fair amount of those spill Empire-side.”

  She acknowledged him with her stillness, then moved on. Somewhat expectedly, a large figure stepped between her and the door. Her arrival interrupted a flurry of looks passing between him and his tablemates.

  “Um,” he said, repressing a smile. “See here, mistress. I’m looking for some’un too. It’s my horse you see. Great grey beast he is. I’m heartbroken, without ’im, I am.” Suppressed mirth rolled from his table. “You’ve not seen ’im, have you mistress?”

  Her horse’s flank was clearly visible beyond the rude hanging.

  “That him?” she guessed.

  “Well, fortune bless me! That’s ’im indeed. You found ’im, mistress. I’m ever so grateful, I am.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Now that I think on it, mistress, I left my purse in my saddlebags…” He grinned to hear his friends’ brazen howling.

  “Of course,” she acknowledged. “Here…”

  Her rain cape parted, drawstring purse balanced on her palm.

  “Take it,” she dared.

  Humans were so stupid. The dog in the road had seen her for what she was. But people needed more of a hint: she nudged her shroud awake.

  The coiling wraith resented being up during the daytime. It abhorred even more being made visible against its inclination. Its darting tentacles filled her hood and writhed in the hollow of her cape. Its graveyard breath buzzed a low tone of annoyance.

  His friends could not see. They had no idea why he froze, why his eyes rolled white or why his wit suddenly stuck in his craw.

  She could see the sudden sheen of sweat on his lip, the tremble of his hands.

  “P– Please…” he pleaded with prescient eyes. “Don’t…”

  For a hard heartbeat, she hovered on the cusp of taking his head.

  Stunned silence buffeted them. She thought she heard the tavernkeep’s bottom lip smack into the bar.

  What was she doing?

  Quelling the shroud, she retreated within her cloak.

  “Move,” she commanded.

  He literally fell over himself to comply. Sackcloth tore as he took most of the door with him. It tangled with his ankles, pitching him face first into the muck. He wind-milled to his feet and into a hobbling run. Some of his friends came pelting from the tavern after him. Some halted in the doorway, muttering and cracking their knuckles at her. They melted as she vaulted into the saddle.

  It might have been the way her cloak’s billow revealed the barrage of weapons bristling her brigandine.

  She pointed her horse’s head down river.

  “The next village we come to,” she told it, “I wait outside and you ask the questions…”

  It whinnied agreeably.

  * * *

  Shivering, she huddled close to the last of the coals. Her hide jerkin and leggings had failed to dry during the night. Her fur coat had fared little better by the fireside. She’d have added her moccasins, if not for the knowledge she’d never manage to pull the one back on again, over her swollen ankle. She longed for the greatcoat she’d left with Thing, her pony, near the falls.

  Still, dawn was creeping amongst the trees and she’d soon walk herself warm. Or limp herself warm, at least.

  Her ribs were not happy with her decision to stand. Her head swam. Not counting most of a day spent unconscious, she’d not slept a wink.

  The same could not be said of the krin.

  It had twitched at every rasp of her flint and striker but had mercifully made no move since. She’d spent the long night listening to its breathing, starting at every hitch.

  Now, blinking away grit, she eyed it. The oldest tales said the krin could once don the skins of men. It had seemed an outlandish notion. It would take the skins of several strong men to hide something so large. But there was no denying the naked figure, lying blood-caked but otherwise unblemished in its hollow.

  Dishonorable as it was to admit, she’d seriously tried talking herself into leaving before it woke. Or, at least, into crushing its skull while it slept. But if it was truly a krin, she had a sacred duty. And the sifters needed to know. The chiefs needed to see.

  It was not for her to kill this creature. But it was a good thing her knife was winding its way down the river, even so.

  She’d considered using her spare bowstring to bind its hands. But if it could cast off its man-skin at will, she did not want to waste the effort. And if it could not, she was perfectly capable of defending herself against a half-starved youth.

  Krin, she reminded herself.

  Dawn penetrated the canopy. She held herself still as shivering assaulted it in earnest. Thin limbs drew into a tighter ball and an inhuman moan sounded from beneath its dirty mane.

  Aware of pain in her palms, she unclenched her fists.

  At len
gth, weak as a fresh foal, it struggled into a seated sprawl. Lank hair hid the face that swung to sniff in her direction. She made no move, not even to breathe. Long moments passed in mutual regard. It cast about, as if expecting the rest of her Hunt to ride from the trees.

  She cleared her throat and it flinched. She took some comfort in that but not much. Even a stag would attack a man, if startled.

  “You’re alright,” she found herself spouting nonsense, as if he were a strange pony she had to coax into a halter. “You’re fine, see? You and I are going to have a nice walk, aren’t we? Would you like that? A nice walk? Meet some friends of mine?”

  It stared at her, the glint of eyes buried in the dirty ropes.

  “Do you speak?”

  It cocked its head quizzically.

  She wet her parched lips with a dry tongue.

  “Do you understand me?” she indicated her mouth.

  It merely shifted its gaze from her lips to her hand. Apparently satisfied she was no threat, it climbed unsteadily to its feet.

  She got her first good look. It was emaciated, ribs and hipbones only thinly fleshed. Naked and male, the skin it wore had not yet matured into its full width of wrists and hips. With its burnished hide and dark hair, it could have passed for one of the People.

  She was not fooled. She’d seen its true face. And it was all fang.

  It hugged itself for warmth, teeth chattered audibly. If anything, it seemed as confused and uncertain as she. Its nostrils tacked towards first Lopside then Bird’s Nest’s remains. It even lifted its chin in the direction Sunburn’s screams had died.

  Ancestors’ hoary bones! She should have moved the bodies…

  Dark eyes, hidden in a tangle of hair, swung back to her.

  Unable to stand it any longer, she began to slowly retreat, trying hard not to limp. It watched her go. She measured a dozen paces before she could bring herself to turn her back.

  The skin between her shoulders crawled. But she knew better than to run from a predator. If it followed, fine. If not… Duty aside, her reserve of nerve could not stand staying a moment more.

  Building panic eventually forced her to look back.

  It ghosted among the trees some twenty paces in her wake, clutching its arms to its chest and stumbling worse than she.

  Good.

  She heard the falls before she saw them. As the trees thinned, she breathed relief. The People’s territory, and safety, was in sight. She picked her way carefully along the rock face, stooping to cup from an eddy. Her hand was numb before she’d drunk her fill.

  With firm bank beneath her, she looked for her follower. The krin had its face in the shallow she’d drunk from, its hair streaming in the current. She could not help but think it bestial. As it rose its dripping hair cut rivulets in the filth and through to its skin.

  It seemed content to follow her and she set about keeping a steady, if pained, pace. Hobbled as she was, she should still see Blackwater’s smoke before sunset. It would be a torturous long walk, with a threat at her back and no company but her own.

  The events of the previous day refused to quit her thoughts and she returned, again and again, to the loss of her bow. It was a trivial thing, to be sure, but keenly felt. Her father had cured and carved it for her himself. Woodsmen were rare among the People, where the Hunt favored crossbows. Woodswomen were rarer still.

  It had taken her a whole winter to beg, browbeat and otherwise bring her father around to her point of view. Victory had been a heady brew and she’d been too hasty to swear to his blood oath: to bring him the bough he picked, accepting help from no other.

  The next day, he’d led her to an ancient oak

  “Bring me that one,” he’d insisted, pointing. The branch had been as thick as she must have been, for agreeing to his terms.

  He’d forbidden her an axe, claiming it would ruin the wood. The saw he’d handed her was a spindly thing, with blunt iron teeth, its back braced with string. Seeing it, she’d glowered, finally understanding his game. But the blood oath had to be honored.

  It took her two days… to break her first saw blade. That forced her to barter with the tribe’s craftsmen for new saws and sundry tools. Having only her own time to trade slowed her, but she still spent every free moment in that oak. To this day, she suffered the nickname ‘cussbird’. A diminutive species with an over-loud and cantankerous call.

  That branch had drunk her sweat, blood and tears. Its downfall had been the sweetest sound she’d heard all that season.

  Her father had, of course, not cut her bow from that ludicrous limb. But, true to his oath, he’d accepted it in payment for the one he’d been fashioning, in secret, since the year before. More importantly, after a season spent climbing and sawing, she’d been able to draw it.

  That bow had been tangible proof of her father’s faith and foresight. And because it was the last thing he’d given her before he’d married her second-mother. The next winter, she’d found herself banished to a tent of her own.

  When she was frustrated or in pain, like now, that oak–

  Riders were cresting the distant hill.

  Ruthlessly reining in her relief, she thrust her hand high.

  Danger, she signaled. Danger.

  She saw them unlimber weapons. They must see her follower.

  Stay, she warned urgently.

  She saw their reluctance, even at this distance. They’d not wait long. How to convince them? The Hunt’s hand signals had never been meant for complex conversation and she was not a Hunter.

  Retreat, she signaled. Biting her lip, she caught her middle fingers with her thumb, little- and index fingers rearing skyward.

  Krin.

  That caused an uproar. Ponies pranced in agitated circles. She could imagine heated debate.

  Retreat. Krin. Retreat.

  After an eternity, they wheeled their mounts and disappeared. She’d asked them to go. She had no business feeling abandoned.

  Ancestors send they brought word straight to the sifter. Otherwise the next hooves she heard would be under a full Hunt.

  She glanced over her shoulder. The krin still followed, eyes on its feet and step unsteady.

  The sun had peaked by the time she got her answer, cresting a hill which hid a single hide tent. Hands hidden beneath humped furs, bent almost double with age, stood the sifter.

  She stumbled her way gratefully down the hill.

  “Behind me…” she gasped, her dry tongue refusing the rest.

  Wrinkles on top of wrinkles hid the wise man’s eyes and any possible expression. With a nod, he indicated the hide quilt, laid out for an afternoon meal. Obediently, she sat. His waist long braids swayed as he placed a bowl upon it. Strips of raw elk or caribou. Taking his seat, he waited with her.

  The naked thing paused atop the summit, sitting to subject them to wary study. At long last, it slunk down the incline. It came on all fours, face averted, though watchful. Taking the sifter’s cue, she peered from the corner of her eye. There was nothing human to the krin’s movements as it sat, nostrils flaring at the raw meat.

  The sifter’s gnarled hand reached for the bowl.

  It pounced, snarling like a mutt protecting its morsel. Face stuck among the gobbets of meat, it gobbled them without the aid of fingers. Or, apparently, chewing. Its licking upset the empty bowl.

  Snuffling about for more, it found a scent not to its liking. It shot to its feet in alarm… and sat down heavily. It moved oddly, head sashaying as though its gaze could find no grip on the green hills. It briefly fought to crawl away but collapsed and lay still after less than a half-dozen paces.

  The sifter grunted noncommittally.

  Somewhere a pony whinnied. A Hunt bore down on them, bearing chains and spears and crossbows.

  Relief threatened her collapse, like she’d been the one drugged. The blanket of terror that had been smothering her ribs slipped, exposing their pain. She hunched beneath the assault.

  The sifter’s hand on her shoulder steadied her, though it was ostensibly to lever himself up. As an afterthought, he drew her up after him. He was surprisingly strong for his frail frame and gentle as well. But she could not completely stifle her yelp. He’d moved so his broad furs hid her discomfort from the approaching Hunt.

  The dull gnawing of her twisted ankle set its teeth anew. She shunted her weight to her good foot. She had to stand tall for this.