One-Armed Beasthunter, page 19
“I understand that,” Ayana said, her voice calm. “Which is what brings me to your son.”
Ma frowned, darting a look between them. “Who, Ferren?”
Ayana leaned forward, her eyes intent. “If you went with me, the Beasts wouldn’t be a threat anymore. Anything our passage dragged out of its den, I’m certain you could chase off or deal with. It would bring help, real help to the people of the valley. And I could get herbs from the wilds, instead of having to deal with what I can grow on my own or what meager bits the traders bring when they finally do come.”
With her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling like that, there wasn’t much Fer thought he’d tell her no over. Luckily for him, this was a fairly reasonable request. “Alright, sure.”
Ayana paused, surprised. “Really? You’ll do it?”
The way she was looking at him, like he’d done something amazing, made him a little uncomfortable. “Yeah. Why not?” It wouldn’t be a big deal to take her around to the farms, or pick some plants. “I’d still need to work around here, but we could plan trips out.”
Ayana’s smile softened her whole face, and Fer found himself smiling back at her.
“Wait,” Ma cut in. “Wait just a moment. You want Fer to fight Beasts? By himself?”
Fer froze. Maybe his downplaying of what he got up to when he went out into the wilds hadn’t been the best choice he’d ever made.
“What’s the trouble?” Ayana glanced between them, confused. “He’s fought them before. He saved my brother from a Beast, and the people from Rathbone said that he killed a monster almost as big as a mountain by himself.”
“He did what?”
Lisbeth twisted towards him, her dark eyes huge in her pale face. “You said you saved him from a coyote!”
Fer winced. “Well, in fairness, I never actually said that. I just didn’t correct you when you assumed.”
“A coyote?” Ayana laughed, her voice drier than the summer wind. “Sully said it was a bird made of metal feathers three times as tall as he was. Now, my brother can be fanciful, but that’s a bit far even for him.”
“Alright, well, three times is a bit of an exaggeration,” Fer said, quietly panicking. “It really wasn’t—”
“That’s the part that’s an exaggeration?” Lisbeth latched onto his arm, fingers digging in tightly. “Not the part that it was a Beast made out of metal?”
“I just don’t want people getting upset about it.” Ferren winced when her grip tightened, and started franticly patting the back of his sister’s hand. “That one wasn’t even that big.”
“That one?”
Ferren shrank back as much as he could with Lisbeth’s death grip on his arm. He’d never heard his mother’s voice quite that shrill before.
He thought he’d get some reprieve when the raised voices woke Remy, but Ma just scooped the wailing infant out of his crib and cuddled him to her shoulder, her fierce dark eyes never leaving Fer.
“Just how many Beasts have you fought?”
He opened his mouth to deflect, but Ma cut him off with a sharp, “Don’t you lie to me, Ferren Tael.”
Fer sank back in his chair with all the grace of a man walking to his death. “Six since I came home,” he mumbled to his chest.
“Ferren.”
“It’s not like I’m going out unarmed,” he protested. “And I know you’re worried, but I’ve actually gotten pretty good at fighting them.”
Lisbeth’s nails dug in so hard they broke the skin in a couple of places, and Ferren hissed.
“Ease up, would you, Bethy? You’ve got sharper talons than they do.”
He’d meant it as a joke, but she let go of him so fast that he was barely finished talking. Instead, she bunched her apron in her hands so hard he heard the seams protest.
“What else was I supposed to do?” He met his mother’s eyes, the words part demand, and part plea. “Ma, was I just supposed to let them keep running around and hurting people, killing people? I can stop them, so doesn’t that make it my duty?”
Ayana blinked, surprised. “You mean you’re actually killing them?”
He turned, frustrated. “What did you think I was doing with them?”
She shrugged, looking far too relaxed for the person who’d set off all the trouble in the first place. “I don’t know. Sully said you’d run his Beast off; I didn’t think that meant you actually killed it.”
Fer raked his hand back through his hair, black nails sharp against his scalp. “Well, I wasn’t about to leave a big mangled corpse around for him to see, that’s horrible. I got rid of the body and told him it ran off.”
Ayana gave a considering hum. “That’s a good point. I think I’ll tell him it’s dead, though. He’ll feel safer knowing that it’s not going to hunt him down.”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.” Fer rubbed at the back of his neck. He’d just wanted to not scare Sully any further, but had he left the poor boy jumping at shadows, thinking the creature that attacked him might come back at any time? “Sorry.”
Blond brows shot up, and Ayana’s lips twitched. “Are you apologizing for saving my brother’s life?”
“No?” The conversation had gotten well away from him at that point. Ferren felt like he was in a runaway wagon with no reins, and his only choice was to hang on and hope to survive until the end. “Just for, you know, not realizing he’d be scared thinking it was still out there.”
“Of course.” She nodded, serious. “I understand.”
Fer couldn’t shake the feeling that she was mocking him somehow, but he let it go and turned back to his mother and sister, desperate for them to understand.
Ma was staring at him, little Remy tucked against her shoulder. The look on her face made his heart hurt.
“Ma.” He reached out, his left hand extended across the table towards her. “I didn’t want to worry you. But, if I can keep people safe, isn’t it the right thing to do?”
Ma took a deep, shuddering breath, a dozen different emotions rolling over her face like storm clouds in front of the sun. Finally, she stepped forward and took Ferren’s hand, squeezing tightly.
Ferren’s chest felt a little lighter, like someone had rolled a huge stone off of him and he could finally take a breath again.
The front door swung open, and Da and Bern came bustling inside.
“We’re back,” Bern crowed, swinging into the kitchen. “Did you miss us?”
Da took a look around the room, at Ayana calmly sipping her drink, at Lisbeth’s chalk white face, at Fer and Ma’s hands clutched together. His eyes sharpened. “What’s happened?”
And the chaos descended once again.
Chapter Twenty
When all the tears and shouting and arguments finally calmed down, Fer told Ayana she may as well stay for supper at that point.
She blinked at him, taken aback for the first time that he’d seen. “Oh.” She glanced up at the sky, at the position of the sun sinking slowly towards the horizon. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
Through some heroic effort Fer managed not to snort, or ask, ‘Since when?’ Instead, he squinted up at the sky, too.
“Stay, if you want. If it’s dark by the time we’re done, I’ll walk you home.”
Ayana relaxed slightly, the tension in her shoulders slipping away. “I do have Roddey.”
Mules were handy creatures to have, Fer could admit that. Smart like donkeys, but strong and fast like a horse. Temperament could go either way, but his brief time brushing Roddey down had inclined Fer to thinking he was very much a ‘kick first and ask questions later’ kind of mule.
Still, being out on your own once the sun had set and with no light but the stars and moon to guide your way, that was a different matter. A mule’s eyesight wasn’t much better than a human’s in the dark, but a light was practically a beacon to draw Beasts to you.
It wouldn’t be any real hardship for Fer. He’d always had good night vision, and the walk to the Cresin farm wasn’t all that far.
To Ayana, he shrugged. “Then I’ll walk Roddey home.”
That actually got a smile and a small laugh out of her, and Fer couldn’t help feeling like he’d won something.
It was going to be a tense meal as it was, so he’d be grateful for a kind of cover to duck behind.
Da had reacted much along the same path as Ma had, though he’d been more upset about the lies of omission than Fer going out to fight Beasts. He was more understanding of wanting to make their little corner of the kingdom safer for everyone.
Bern had reacted with excitement, and a thousand questions that Fer was trying to answer quickly and out of earshot of his parents so as not to kick the entire fight off all over again. Yes, having Ayana at the table would help him deflect some of the more fraught conversations. And then escorting her home would give him the excuse to slip out entirely.
Ferren was feeling a little smugly proud of his plan.
At least until the first shout went up outside.
Everyone froze for a heartbeat before shoving away from the table. Only Lisbeth taking a firm grip on the back of Bern’s collar kept him from darting out the door to see what was going on. As it was, Fer made it outside first, with Ayana close on his heels, and Ma and a limping Da bringing up the rear. Fer heard Bern’s whining protest just before the door fell closed.
There was a group of people, six of them, hurrying up the road towards the house. Or hurrying as much as they could while more than half the group seemed almost incapable of walking on their own.
The light had started to change as the sun sank towards the horizon, painting the rolling hills of the scrublands in gold and scarlet fire. The shadows stretched out, spinning together into a pre dusk twilight that made it hard for Fer to make out the details, only that some people were leaning together to hobble for the house, while one was being outright carried.
For a moment, Fer hesitated. His memories of the brigands preying on his neighbors were still too fresh in his mind for him to rush to their aid. He stepped forward to help, cautious, but not willing to dismiss people who might be desperately in need of a hand. If it was a trick to get his family to lower their guard, well.
Fer’s right hand clenched into a fist, claws pricking the scales in his palm.
He’d learned that people died far, far easier than Beasts.
As he stepped forward, the golden sunset fell over the person in the lead who was carrying another, and glinted off of pitch-dark hair and silver-chased armor.
Fer froze, his mouth falling open. “Sun Yi?”
The Blade Cultivator looked a mess, blood splattered over the side of his face and all down his side. None of it seemed to be his, at least, but Fer was shocked. He’d never seen the man be anything but effortlessly powerful.
The woman in his arms was another story. Her sable curls were plastered to the side of her head with dark blood, and her linen robes, emblazoned with the white hand of Mercy, were rent in places by no weapon Fer had ever seen.
The rest of the group didn’t fare much better, as far as Fer’s quick glance could ascertain. Two of the men were supporting each other as they limped forward with as much speed as they could. One of them, a man not much older than Fer, but with a shock of white hair, had thick metal cuffs around his throat, wrists and ankles, but they didn’t seem to hinder his movement in any way. Rather the bloody gash across his hip seemed to be the reason for his trouble, looking like something had tried to scoop him in half with a giant paw. His face was paper pale, and he was sweating with each step.
Little sparks of blue-white light leapt from his skin to skitter down his body with the faint crackle and pop of grounded lightning, as he clenched his teeth and pushed forward.
The other man, supporting and being supported in turn, had a rough sling that looked like it had been torn from someone’s clothing, keeping his right arm tight to his mail covered chest. He didn’t react when the other’s little sparks crackled and spit, skittering over chain mail until they finally flowed down into the earth, he just tugged an iron cuffed arm tighter over his shoulder and pushed forward. One of the errant sparks raced over the badge of swords crossed before a flame, and Fer sucked in a breath.
He might have only been with the King’s army for a couple of months, but even he knew the badge of a Knight-Enchanter.
It took him a moment to recognize that Leola the Druid was bringing up the rear of the party. Thick, woody-looking vines twisted around her limbs, biting into the dirt with every step, encasing her like living armor. The roots fanned up onto her face, curving around her head like a crown of antlers, but they couldn’t hide the dark circles like bruises under her eyes, or the way her lips were pulled tight with exhaustion.
The tough vines wound around her arms had snaked out, putting off hair fine roots, and wrapping around the… the person that she was more than half supporting.
Fer had never seen anything like the being stumbling along at Leola’s side. It looked like if an enormous suit of full plate armor could walk around under its own power. Silver light flickered in the eye holes in the helmet, down the channels carved into the breast plate and pauldrons. It glowed like a star, casting shadows on the ground around it.
It was almost enough for him to miss the way the metal on one side of its chest had been caved in, as though a tree had landed on it. The arm guard and vambrace on that side looked like they had melted, the metal running like water. The carefully articulated gauntlet had fused into more of an ugly club, fingers all run together in a misshapen mass.
Blood bubbled up and leaked out from beneath the faceplate, staining the beautiful shining metal with shadows, and Fer realized with a lurch of horror that there was a person inside that half-melted lump.
“Get them inside,” Ayana snapped. “Now.”
She, Ferren and Da all hurried forward to support a shoulder, or wrap an arm around an injured person wherever they could without causing more damage. Sun Yi, powerful, untouchable Blade Master that he was, almost sagged in relief when Fer carefully eased the unconscious woman out of his arms to carry her into the house.
“We couldn’t bring it down,” he said. The tremble in his voice scared Fer more than any monster ever could. “It’s stalking us. Won’t let us rest. It could follow us here.”
Fer heard the apology in those last words, but he just nodded and carried his burden towards the house. He nodded to Ma, who hurried inside to set up the ward generator that shielded the farm. It wouldn’t last forever, though. They needed to know what they were up against, and to make a plan.
Bern was wide-eyed and pale as the first of the injured were brought inside. Fer had never seen his brother quiet for so long, and it made something inside his chest twist to see him so frightened.
Lisbeth nudged Bern off to the side, instructing him to protect Remy. However effective he’d be at it didn’t really matter, as it got both of his younger brothers out of the way, which had probably been her goal.
As his sister scurried about, grabbing spare bedding and clearing beds and the extra pallet they had for emergencies, Ayana darted back outside. Between her and Leola they managed to wedge the giant suit of magical armor through the too-small front door.
“I’m going to need hot water,” she called absently over her shoulder. “And my bag.”
Fer was busy laying the woman in the Goddess of Mercy’s robes down on his parents’ bed, so it was Lisbeth who snatched up Ayana’s leather rucksack and started filling the biggest iron pot to swing over the fire.
As he hurried back towards the door, he heard the Knight-Enchanter speaking to Da just outside. “You’d better let me take him. He’s having trouble controlling the lightning, right now.”
Da held the door to make it easier for them to shimmy through sideways, the Knight-Enchanter half carrying the white-haired man by the end.
Once Da was inside, Fer stuck his head out for one last quick look, just to make sure there weren’t any stragglers in the group. He hadn’t seen any sign of Dariel, the fire-breathing Drake born that had once been grouped up with Leola and Sun Yi, but one look at their gray, drawn faces convinced him it wasn’t the right time to ask about it.
It was absolute chaos inside the house while they got everyone sorted out. The injured were laid out on any soft surface available while Ayana moved between them. Those who seemed unhurt and only exhausted, Ma bullied into sitting down and having a hot drink and a bowl of soup.
Leola stared down at the bowl in her hands as though she’d never seen anything like it, her eyes glassy and dazed. She looked up at Fer as she blinked, trying to focus.
“It hunts by scent,” she croaked. “It will be able to track us.”
Fer’s lips tightened, his expression grim. There wasn’t much he could do about that, though he might be able to give whatever was chasing them a bad turn.
He didn’t let himself stop to think about what it was that had managed to chase a party of six Powered individuals to ground like unarmed children.
Instead, he grabbed up his long unused work gloves and a carefully sealed jar from the kitchen, and jogged back outside.
Da and Lisbeth had always loved their food spicy. They could happily shovel back meals that made Fer sweat and cry and feel like he was dying. So, every year, Ma planted a very special crop in the corner of one field, and then she harvested and dried them to be used year-round. They were, without a doubt, the hottest peppers that Fer had ever had the misfortune to encounter. He couldn’t even smell them without his eyes watering and his nose burning. Bern had cheekily nicknamed them ‘Beast Peppers’, because given half the chance, they’d kill you. Ferren did not disagree.
He tugged on his old work gloves, careful not to split the seams on the sharp, black nails of his right hand. Then he cracked open the seal on the jar of preserved peppers. The burning smell immediately wafted up into the air, and Fer had to lean his head back or risk choking. He grabbed a couple of dried peppers, crushing them between his fingers and sprinkling them onto the ground.
