Beyond the Moons (7 page)

The first lights of dawn were tinting the leaves of the wood, providing just enough light for Teldin to pick the path. Night birds whispered through the branches, telling the secrets of the trees. Teldin wondered briefly if they sang of the neogi passing. A few crickets sawed out their songs, and the frogs from the stream answered, only to fall silent as the pair neared. Behind them, the frogs reluctantly resumed their chorus. The air over the stream was chill and damp, but Teldin barely noticed.

“How far is it?” the giff asked, shattering Teldin’s growing anxiety. The giff seemed to march along with no appreciation of the world around him, the powers that surrounded them. He stomped along mechanically, easily avoiding the roots and tangles. The farmer guessed the giff was one of those blessed with the “elven-sight,” as his grandfather had called it, the superb night vision of that kind.

“Across the ridge and then just a little farther,” Teldin answered, somewhat annoyed with his big companion. He kept his voice to a whisper.

“What are you going to do?” Gomja asked.

Teldin wondered if the giff was just dense. “Warn Liam, of course.”

“And if he’s dead?”

Teldin spun about in rage. “He won’t be.” He snapped out the words through clenched teeth. “Now quiet. You don’t know what’s nearby.”

“Listen, human,” the giff pressed. “Give me a weapon – a dagger or one of the big knives. If we have to fight, I want to be ready.”

Teldin turned away as he spoke. “Why should I trust you?” he challenged.

“Because you’re a groundling farmer and I am a warrior of the giff,” Gomja answered plainly. Another might have made the words boastful, but from him it was a statement of fact. “If I meant to kill you, I could do it now. I could’ve killed you while you slept.”

Teldin bit his lip. The giff was right, but knowing that did not make his decision any easier. Finally he stopped, undid one of the giff’s knives, and passed it over to the alien.

Drawing the blade and inspecting it, Gomja pronounced, “Now I can fight. I only wish another of my people were here.”

Teldin, already moving again grunted with irritation. The creature talked too much, as far as he was concerned.

“If I fight valorously, who will know?” the giff explained, mistaking the exclamation for interest. “If we win, another giff could testify about my bravery. Then I could wear a tattoo of my victory with pride. If I lose, he could tell the others how I died gloriously in battle.” Gomja followed the smaller human, bulling his way through the underbrush. When Teldin did not answer, the giff at last gave up talking.

Dawn’s light was brushing over the rooftops of the buildings just as they reached the farm. Liam’s place had been here for years and was by now a mismatched collection of a house and several outbuildings, all built of wood and stone and fine shingles. The fences were in good repair, and the stone walls were sturdy. A pigsty divided the barn from the main house, while to the other side of the house was a stone wall that marked the edge of the fields. Although not wise in the world, old Liam possessed a special knack for farming.

The dark shape of Liam’s house was silent. Cautiously, the giff led the way into the farmyard. Teldin had fearfully expected the farmhouse and barn to be ablaze, the sty shattered, and the crops trampled. Instead, there was no sign of the neogi, or that they had yet arrived.

Relieved, Teldin moved to step past the giff. Just as he was about to take the lead, Gomja grabbed Teldin’s shoulder and pulled him back. “Should the doors be open?” he asked softly.

Teldin stopped short and scrutinized the outlines of the buildings. “Which doors?”

“Over there, and there,” Gomja replied, first pointing to the barn and then the farmhouse.

Teldin suddenly felt cold. Liam was a good farmer, too smart to let his livestock roam loose at night. “No. His cows would get out,” he said hoarsely, his throat choking up. Teldin stepped briskly through the tufted meadow. Dew splattered off the long foxtail stems.

Just beyond the corral fence was a damp shape. At first Teldin thought it was a pig nestled into the wallow, then the smell of raw meat started to come clear to his senses. “No!” he shouted and sprinted to the corral fence.

In a far corner he found a carcass, with bared bones dangling strings of hide and meat. Fence posts and walls glistened wetly in the growing dawn. Teldin’s foot kicked a fleshy lump. It squelched under his boot, and the farmer leaped back, crashing into the giffs rock-hard chest.

“The hogs,” Teldin offered in a hoarse voice. The dark corpses, huddled in the corners of the sty, were clearly not alive. The farmer gulped back his sudden disgust. “Neogi!”

“It would seem so, sir.” Gomja’s small eyes were wide, filled with the horrible wonder at what had happened here. “The veterans of my platoon said the neogi liked their kills fresh.”

“Kills,” Teldin echoed. ‘Quickly, the house!” Without waiting for the giff, Teldin whirled and sprinted through the muck of the sty. Caution abandoned, he charged toward the house, the cutlass in his hand flashing wildly in the dawn light. Behind him, thudding footsteps echoed between house and barn as Gomja trailed after, unable to keep pace with the human’s wild rush.

Teldin ran through the open doorway of Liam’s house. A horrid shadow leaped out of a corner. With a howl and wild scream, Teldin spun about and swung the cutlass with two hands, chopping through the intangible shape to bury the blade into the wood of the jamb like an axe. The blow sent painful vibrations through his arms. Tearing away a chunk of the wood, Teldin turned back to face the enemy, only to find that it was his own harmless shadow, the play of light and dark from a small fire in a hearth on the other side of the room.

Outside, Gomja stopped short of the doorway, its frame tiny compared to his great bulk. Stooping and twisting sideways, the giff carefully squeezed into the room. Inside, his seven-foot bulk just scraped the ceiling.

Teldin’s heart failed as he looked about the parlor. The furniture was in shambles, overturned and broken. Blood was smeared across the floor, splattered over the hearth, and ran in streaks down the overturned table. It gleamed red and brown in the warm yellow light of the fire. Frantically, Teldin tore through the room, but there were no bodies among the mess.

Another doorway stood in the far wall. Teldin knew from his many visits to Liam’s that it led to where the family slept, the only other room of the house. The doorjamb to that room was soaked, like the floor, with wet reds and browns.

Choking on fear and rage, Teldin slowly walked forward. He clutched the cutlass with both hands and held it just before his stomach, the blade jutting outward like the prow of a ship. Even held so firmly, the tip wobbled and wavered. Try as he might, Teldin was unable to stop his hands from shaking. Gomja loomed behind him, the giff forcing his way past the overturned furniture.

From the doorway, Teldin and Gomja cast hulking shadows across the floor and far wall, partially blotting out the shapes in the room. Rays of the morning sun barely gleamed through a dirty window covered in oilskin. The bedroom floor was a jagged landscape: broken bedposts, slats, shattered chests. Among the jutting profiles were rounded contours draped limply over the sharper forms.

Teldin shook as he stood in the doorway, unable to make himself go any farther. The air was warm and thick with the smell of blood. Flies buzzed in the shadows. ‘Too late,” Teldin choked out. “There’s no point. I waited too long.” The young farmer sagged by the doorway, the cutlass drooping in his limp hands.

Unable to think of a comforting word to say, the giff squeezed past the human. His ears brushed the rough beams of the ceiling, so he walked half-hunched into the room. With exaggerated caution, Gomja knelt to examine the closest shape, gingerly pulling aside the thick quilt that concealed it. A swarm of flies flew noisily away. The quilt was warm and wet, heavy with blood. Underneath, Gomja could see a body, tinged red in the window’s weak light. It had been a woman.

“Oh, gods, Eloise.” Teldin let the stifled words escape. Teldin knew he had seen worse in the war among the fields of dead, but these people were his friends, his father’s and grandfather’s friends. Teldin slowly got to his feet, then moved to check the other bodies.

It took the giff longer to regain his composure. His face was ill and hollow, a look Teldin remembered on raw recruits after their first battle. Unsteady on his feet, the giff joined Teldin in the search. A brief look was all either needed. The pair hastily bundled the bodies in the bloodstained blankets.

That work done, Teldin retreated from the room. The giff leaned heavily against the doorjamb, his chest heaving, his skin ashen gray. “How many lived here?” the giff managed to ask.

“Four. Liam, Eloise, and their two children, Telvar and Cyndia.” Teldin looked at the dark shapes in the room beyond. His shoulders were shaking. The sword was still clutched tightly in his hands. In his mind they all were still alive and welcoming him inside. “Liam and Eloise tried for children for such a long time. Telvar and Cyndia were twins. They were so …” Teldin let it go; there was no point in saying any more.

The giff nodded weakly. “Four,” he whispered.

“I was too late,” Teldin said. “I didn’t save them.” He slammed his fist against the jamb, driving the shaking fit away. He ignored his bloodied hand and turned to go back into the room. “Come on, giff,” the farmer said grimly. “We can’t leave them here. We’ll have to bury them. There should be a shovel in the barn.”

“Yes, sir,” Trooper Gomja numbly replied.

Chapter Four

Work made things easier for both Teldin and the giff, blocking out the thoughts of what had happened in Liam’s house. While Gomja shoveled graves in the rocky soil behind the cabin, Teldin scrounged through the barn, looking for something to use as a marker. At last he split a clean wedge from a log and crudely carved “Shal” on it. Elegance didn’t matter since the board was only temporary. Teldin planned to come back later with proper headstones.

The giff came clumping around the house and stiffly announced, “The graves are finished.” The morning sun was already climbing into the sky and the dew was starting to steam away. The giff mopped his expansive brow with a rag.

Sitting on his log, Teldin kept whittling at the marker, not looking up. He was reluctant to get on with this burial, more than any other he had done. The knife pared away another strip of wood.

“Sir?” the giff spoke again.

Teldin bit his lip, then thrust the knife with a fierce jab into a fence post. “Let’s get it over with.” His voice was tight and grim, edged with exhaustion that was fast overtaking him. He stood slowly and followed the giff back around the house.

The bundled bodies lay in a neat row near the stone wall behind Liam’s house. Not too far away, under a scraggly tree, were four holes in the ground. The fresh earth was heaped in a great mound alongside. Teldin and Gomja lowered the bodies one at a time into the graves and shoveled the dirt back over them. Teldin worked slowly, letting the monotonous task numb his mind.

When they eventually finished, both stood unmoving in front of the graves. The giff simply watched the human, waiting for some sign of what to do next. Teldin stared at the fresh earth and tried to remember a prayer. During the war, when he had to work the burial details, the Seekers had chanted while they worked. He had never paid much attention to the prayers then and now none came to mind. “Good-bye, Liam, Eloise. Paladine protect you all,” the young farmer said softly. It was all he could think of saying. As far he was concerned, nothing more needed to be said.

“What about the neogi?” Trooper Gomja quietly asked. The giffs words broke Teldin’s trance. Without acknowledging Gomja’s presence, the farmer turned back to the house. “There, beneath Abyssal gates, I choose my way,” Teldin whispered, remembering a snatch of verse his grandfather had taught him. He didn’t know why the thought came to him now, but he could clearly remember Grandfather teaching him the words as they walked through the fields. Teldin couldn’t have been more than ten at the time.

“What will you do now?” Gomja asked again. The giff plodded to where Teldin stood, a spade still in his hand.

Teldin was tired, too tired to plan. “I don’t know. I don’t care,” he bitterly answered. “Go back to the …”

Teldin stopped. He had been about to say his farm, but he didn’t have one anymore, or at least not much of one. He needed money to buy supplies for rebuilding. Trooper Gomja’s expectant expression, turned attentively toward Teldin, forced the farmer to think, and he suddenly knew where to go. He had cousins in Kalaman, and they could help him. At any rate, it was better than staying around here – but the giff was not part of this plan.

“Sir?”

“Back to the farm,” Teldin hastily said. That was all the giff needed to know.

“And then what, sir?” Gomja pressed.

Then I leave you behind, Teldin thought with a shake of his head. He began to feel the strains of the last two nights. Labor, pain, terror, and rage had worn the threads of his mind thin. “I want to go home.” The giff nodded in understanding, his broad muzzle bobbing up and down. “Now, let’s get out of here before the valley folk show up.”

“Or the neogi return,” Trooper Gomja grimly added.

Teldin let the giff lead the way back through the forest, occasionally pointing out the right path. The morning birds were already falling silent in the midday heat. Squirrels chattered at their passage. In the clearings Teldin could look back and see the lonely buildings of Liam’s farm in the bright light. He was glad to be away from the site.

Once across the ridge, Teldin felt a weight lift off him. The terrors of the night were still firmly fixed in his mind, but he had left Liam’s farm behind. Both the fear of discovery and the shame that he felt eased. His brain became numbed, focusing only on the simple task of walking.

When they reached the edge of Teldin’s melon field, Trooper Gomja reverted to his old caution, halting their march in the bushes. The giff carefully picked his way to the edge of the field and knelt in the cover of some brambles. The big creature patiently scanned the shattered farmyard.