INBORN (The Sagas of Di'Ghon) (30 page)

The soldier was a man. But he was so much more. His long powerful legs resembled armored tree trunks. His chest was too wide and way too deep. In fact, the armor didn’t cover nearly as much as it usually did.

Questions bubbled up, demanding answers. What had happened to this man? How could he have undergone such a transformation in a matter of, how long had it been, a week or so? Why? Why would he… do that to himself? The whole thing felt wrong. Unnatural. Like a goat he’d seen born with six legs.

“How’d you get so big?” Thaniel’s head felt full of clouds. He was surprised he’d asked the man such a straight forward and awkward question.

“The Code sings, Caller.” The huge soldier went to one knee and looked him in the eyes as he ran two fingers across the white lines tattooed on his forehead. His eyes were as big as duck eggs. Thaniel heard it a hundred times if he heard it once after he called their dreaded dra. The sign, dragging two fingers across his forehead, palms up, meant that the soldier owed him twice for what he was about to do or had already done. It was thanks and a pledge at the same time. If his palms were up it meant that the man owed him his life, indeed, everything he was. It was also to show that his right hand wasn’t grasping a blade. If the soldier had showed him the back of his left hand, instead of thanks, it would be a curse. And the pledge would be an oath of revenge in this life and the next. It was insult, injury, and death to everything you held dear. He breathed a sigh of relief at seeing the man’s big light colored palm. Thaniel nodded in response, finally letting the man look away. At least he wasn’t going to die here today.

Thaniel knew what the man was already thanking him for. Calling another
dra. Why else would they ride out here all this way? They had grand notions of some stupid glory the dra would bring. The whole thing was a crock of…

Thaniel suddenly knew it wasn’t. He knew, he quaked, and he just didn’t care. He turned away from the man and stared at the long trail of blood, leading to the spot where Jorel’s limp rolling body flopped over the side.

Thaniel had been so close. He had him by a hand. It was hard to believe Jorel was gone but no one could survive a fall like that. Even if they did, at the bottom of that gorge was nothing but rock strewn white water.

“
Caller, the Mistress needs you.” The big soldier placed a heavy hand on Thaniel’s shoulder.

“And here I thought you rode all this way to give me the
thanks a lot
sign.” Thaniel started to mockingly run his two fingers along his forehead but the big man snatched his hand out of the air.

“Don’t do that. I haven’t done anything to earn it.” The man released his hand with a corrective shake of his head. “Come with me.”

Thaniel wondered if the man just wasn’t one for sarcasm, or if he really put some stock into his gesture, as if it would somehow bind the two of them in a way he hadn’t intended, but he decided it was better to just let it go.

Instead of grabbing him, the big soldier sidled up beside him. Thaniel looked up, expecting the man to be gesturing him to leave or be cuffed. Instead what he saw there was tenderness mixed with a steady dose of resolve. It didn’t look right on the man, a man so big, but Thaniel understood. The man was a soldier after all. He’d lost friends too.

His new found
ability
had already, according to Lars Telazno, come at great cost. The whole melting thing was his fault. Lars said that there would be devastation beyond anything seen in thousands of years. The old man liked to exaggerate.

Some big deal his
ability
was now. If he had been able to use this Jen’Ghon Lars was so fond of, maybe he would have been able to help Jorel. He didn’t have any problem killing the wolf. Or calling a dra… Yet this wonderful gift from the Creator, meant to be used as a force of good in this life, had proved useless when his best and only friend needed it most. Thaniel’s eyes filled anew with hot tears. Even if he really truly had a grasp of how to focus it, and was strong enough to stop Jorel from falling, it hadn’t even occurred to him to try.

Thaniel stared at Jorel’s blood as it ran down the wet street and disappeared into the gloom.

Somebody

He would never see him again. Never be the brunt of his sharp tongue or feel his knuckles in his side. Strange that their friendship had started, endured, and ended with violence. He would miss that.

Was he imagining it or was there a lot more water running down the street? The constant flow had already washed Jorel’s blood away as if he’d never existed. It trickled over the paving stones in steady and ever widening rivulets. 

“Caller.” The insistence in the big man’s voice pulled him from a world of dark thoughts.

What did it matter? Whether it was Lars Telazno and the Order, Ghile and the Guild, or the Ontar and her Dra, Thaniel would not be free. Thaniel knew that his life was destined to be spent at the whims of the powerful.

“I’m coming.” He answered, shielding his eyes from the falling water as he peered at the man.

He hadn’t come alone. Further back, two more, were still mounted. Thaniel squinted, trying to make out the two other rider’s features, but there was no use. They were definitely members of the First. Even in the wet gloom their bright crimson weave and shiny plate mail stuck out like a beacon. One of them had what appeared to be a little girl wriggling in front of him.

Ontar Hold, without apology, both bought and took slaves at will. They didn’t see anything wrong with taking a person’s life from them if it met the needs of the hold. They saw everything and everyone within their reach as subservient to their needs.

The little girl, whoever she was, didn’t seem to understand that there was no escaping these men. With the spirit of a wild animal, she wriggled around like she was lit on fire. 

Thaniel was admiring the little girl for what they would eventually beat out of her when he noticed movement behind them. As Thaniel watched intently, dark shapes stealthily emerged out of the murk. At least two dozen men crept forward. They were just villagers, but they were big men that normally tended the machinery powered by the great wheel or tanned the hides. Tanners, carpenters, and other types of craftsmen were armed with cudgels, pickaxes, hammers, and knives. A couple even brandished old rusty swords.

As Thaniel and Ghile approached the tannery that morning, Ghile had explained with an odd enthusiasm that the town was full of big strong men.
The work in the tannery was as grueling as it was dangerous. It paid well, was as about a secluded a place as a man could find, and the owners didn’t ask questions about anyone’s past. That combination brought a steady supply of rough men looking to try their hand at it. Even then it was hard to find men up to the task. The only ones that were, either started out as big hardened men, or if they survived long enough, the mill turned them into them. Not a one of them had a back that was any smaller than Gabril’s. They didn’t look as dangerous, of course. No one seemed to carry themselves like that man did. But the place was definitely full of large muscle-bound men. 

The way the small
band approached, there wasn’t any doubt they intended harm. They moved like a pack of wolves. The men caught up to the first soldier before he saw them coming. A woodsman’s axe fell in a deadly arc towards the man’s head. He shifted just at the right moment. The heavy axe blade missed his head and took one of his legs off instead.

Though they landed the first blow
, the soldier nearly responded as if it didn’t matter. In the blink of an eye, even as he was toppled from his rearing and wounded horse, his own axe spun into his grip. It came up fast, and down even faster. He managed to cleave someone in two from shoulder to hip in one swift chop. The man slid apart in a gush of blood and entrails, crumpling to the street in a heap. The soldier was trying to get up on his remaining leg when men crowded around him. Even in his state, he sent one of them flying with a lightning fast strike. The broken man twisted away, end over end, as if he were made of straw, and hit the stone at a bizarre angle, never to move again. 

All together, the group of big men rushed in from every direction, cutting and pummeling the
soldier with a shower of sharp tools and weapons. The noise of the gorge and the tannery, with its monstrous spinning wheel, was so loud that the soldier in the saddle not twenty feet ahead of the other, the one with the girl still squirming in front of him, didn’t hear a thing.

After a few agonizing moments the group turned their attention to the second man. Thaniel couldn’t help but watch as the rest of them crept toward the soldier with the girl. There were more than three bodies left behind. The warrior had obviously managed to take some more with him before they finally killed him.

The soldier in front of Thaniel, in spite of the insistence in his voice, had still been hesitant to physically force him to move. The look in his eyes said he was about out of patience. Yet, still, even then, he only squeezed his arm in a surprisingly gentle gesture that it was time to go.

Thaniel couldn’t take his eyes off the scene unfolding in front of him. He realized his mistake too late. The soldier’s oversized head cocked to one side, eyes narrowing with alarmed suspicion. Recognition flared in his eyes. The man had obviously seen people’s responses to such violence before. Every one of his oversized sinuous strands of muscles flexed at once. His head spun around. Two axes appeared in his hands. He moved so fast that Thaniel hadn’t even seen the man reach for them.

The soldier roared. Thaniel stood pinned to the ground in awestruck silence as the man leaped ten feet into the air. Like a giant cat, he landed lightly on churning feet, every powerful step sending him hurtling faster. Within a mere fraction of the time it took Thaniel to realize he was shaking, the man had transformed into a tower of muscle and whirling steel, heading straight for the fight.

The mounted soldier saw his comrade in arms running and heeled his horse in the ribs. He didn’t even bother to look back until he was safely out of their reach. He took in the mob and his man coming at them at breakneck speed and didn’t seem to be concerned. It was obvious that he didn’t think his partner needed help. He took the time to tie the girl over the back of his horse, and patted her bottom before he
rushed back their way.

The villagers didn’t seem phased in the least by the fact that two men were coming for them. They were obviously emboldened by their numbers and the fact
that their weapons were already covered in gore. Thaniel knew this encounter would be different. The villagers caught the first soldier by surprise. Now, they were about to face two hardened Ontar warriors, members of the First at that. It would all be over in moments. He knew the untrained villagers, even the rough sort they were, wouldn’t have a chance.

Thaniel stood peering helplessly out into the gloom as the huge soldier slammed into the wall of men, his sheer momentum throwing them back. Some of them fell right then, rolling awkwardly on the wet stone street. Legs and arms flailed wildly until their dead bodies slid to a stop. Weapons and tools went flying.

Then, the first head flew into the air, spinning in a wet red spiral. Men watched the grisly face, forever locked in a death scream, soar above them. Their hesitation cost them their lives. The soldier’s axes cut through the shocked men like a spoon through oatmeal. The head hadn’t hit the ground before the second man calmly walked through the carnage. With ice cold efficiency he dispatched anyone his partner only wounded.

Thaniel blinked. He stared at the two soldiers who stood a head and shoulders over the already big men the tannery was full of. The soldiers weren’t just bigger. They were massive by comparison. With every move they made
, it became more and more apparent just how unnaturally faster, stronger, and bigger they were. Thaniel knuckled his eyes, finding it hard to believe even though he was seeing it. The battle, if a massacre could be called a battle, looked like the two men of the First had casually decided to hack down a group of children.

Thaniel’s knees trembled with self loathing. Somehow he knew it had something to do with him. Something to do with the
dra he called for Lisella Ontar. He knew it like he knew his name.

The axes rose and fell in a raw display of
merciless methodical mayhem. A head rolled down the street, bouncing sickeningly before it salmoned over a disembodied limb. A man stumbled around on wobbly legs, trying to stuff his entrails back inside. Another stared at his bloody stump of a leg, trying to figure out why he couldn’t get his foot back on, until the second soldier hacked the top of his head off.

Thaniel stiffened as it occurred to him in a flash that the soldiers were really after him, not the villagers. A pang of guilt swept away his ability to swallow back the lump already forming in his throat.

He had to do something. 

If they thought he was escaping…

If he ran, maybe the soldiers would chase him and forget about the villagers.

Thaniel knew it was his only chance to stop the mayhem. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t think. He just acted.

Frantically he jumped up into the air, waving his arms up and down, in the hopes that either of them would see him. The first soldier was busy, but the second soldier noticed him right off.