Greg Keyes - The Born Queen

Muriele took in his speech without a hint of changed expression, then nodded slightly.

“Very well. Once we return to camp, pick the men who will accompany us. In the morning we’ll begin our journey to Hansa.”

Neil nodded and began thinking about who to take along.

More than ever, he felt like prey beneath a hunter sky.

Aspar White tried to match his breath to the faint breeze through the forest fringe, to be as still as a stump as the monster approached. It was just a shape at the moment, about twice the size of a horse and slouching through the narrow white boles of the aspens. But he smelled autumn leaves although it was high summer, and when its eyes glittered like blue lightning through the branches, he felt the poison in its blood.

It wasn’t a surprise. The world was made of monsters now, and he had fought plenty. Sceat, he’d met their mother.

A few jays were shrieking at the thing, but most of the other bird sounds were gone, because most birds weren’t as blind, stupid, brave as jays.

Maybe it’ll just go by, he thought. Maybe it’ll just pass on by.

He was already tired; that was the damned thing. His leg ached, and his lungs hurt. His muscles were all soft, and his vision kept going blurry.

Half a bell he’d been out there, at the most, working himself no harder than a baby taking pap. Just looking across the meadow.

Pass, he thought. I don’t care what you are or where you’re going. Just pass.

But it didn’t, of course. Instead, he heard it pause and snuffle and then saw the actinic flash of its eyes. It stepped from the trees and into the field, moving toward Aspar as he waited in the cover of the trees on his side.

“Hello, luvileh, ” he muttered, quickly thrusting four more arrows into the soft earth before him. No point imitating a stump anymore.

It was something new, not a monster he had seen before. From a distance, the thing resembled a bull crossed with a hedgehog. Bony spines bristled from it everywhere, and it was massively front-heavy, with colossal bunches of muscle above forelegs easily twice as long as the hind legs. Its head was blocky, with a single horn spearing forward so that it looked almost like an anvil. The eyes were set deep in bony plate.

He had no idea what to call it. Besides the eyes, he didn’t see anything that might be soft.

It bellowed, and he noticed sharp teeth. Were all sedhmhari carnivores? He hadn’t met one that wasn’t. “You make pretty babies, Sarnwood witch,” he grunted.

And here it came.

His first shot skittered off the armored skull, as did the second. The third lodged in the eye socket—or he thought it did, but after a heartbeat it fell out, and the eye was still there.

It was fast and even bigger than he’d thought. It bellowed again, a sound so loud that it hurt his ears. He had time for one more arrow but knew even as he released it that it was going wide of the eye. The monster bounded even faster, hit the ground, and crouched for the final leap, its forelimbs lifted up almost like a man’s, reaching for him…

Then the ground collapsed beneath it, and this time it shrieked in surprise and anger as it fell hard onto the sharpened stakes four kingsyards below. A catch snapped above Aspar, releasing a sharpened beam that had been suspended above the pit. He couldn’t see it hit but heard a fleshy thud.

Aspar let out a long breath, but an instant later a massive paw—a thick-fingered hand, really—clawed up over the edge of the hole. Aspar scooted back against a tree and used his bow to lever himself up. The other hand came up, followed by the head. He saw even more of a family resemblance to the utin he once had fought, but if it could speak, it didn’t. It strained, blood blowing from its nostrils, and began to crawl from the pit.

“Leshya!” Aspar snapped.

“Here,” he heard her say. He felt the wind as another massive log came swinging down, this one aimed to skim along just above the trap. It hit the beast in the horn, crushing it back into its skull, and it vanished into the hole again.

Aspar turned at Leshya’s soft approach. Her violet eyes peered at him from beneath her broad-brimmed hat.

“You’re all right?” she lilted.

“No worse than I was this morning,” he replied. “Aside from the indignity of being bait.”

She shrugged. “Should have thought of that before you went and got your leg broken.”

She walked over to the pit, and Aspar limped after her to see.

It didn’t know it was dead yet. Its flanks were still heaving, and the hind legs twitching. But the head was cracked like an egg, and Aspar didn’t imagine it would breathe much longer.

“What in Grim’s name do we call that?” he grunted.

“I remember stories about something like this,” she said. “I think it was called a mhertyesvher. ” “That the Skaslos name for it?”

“I couldn’t pronounce the Skaslos name for it,” she replied.

“Notwithstandin’ that you are one,” he said.

“I was born in this shape, with this tongue,” she said. “I’ve never heard the language of the Skasloi. I’ve told you that.”

“Yah,” Aspar assented. “You’ve told me.” He looked back at the dying beast and rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Well,” he mused, “I think it’s a manticore.”

“As good a name as any,” she said. “Now, why don’t we go rest.”

“I’m not tired,” Aspar lied.

“Well, there’s no reason to stay here. It’ll be days before the poison clears out, even if it rains.” “Yah,” Aspar agreed.

“Come on, then.”

He slung the bow on his back and looked around for his crutch, only to find Leshya holding it out for him. He took it silently, and they began walking back through the trees. It got harder when the slope turned upward, and they followed a little switchback trail up an ever-steepening way. At last it opened onto a rocky ridge that gave a good view of the scatters of forest and meadow below. A deep ravine fell from the other side of the crest, and across that, white-capped mountains rose against the turquoise sky. The western horizon was also bounded in peaks. With their back to the chasm and a view for leagues in every other direction, it was here they usually spotted the monsters when they came; that was why Leshya had picked the spot to build the shelter. It had started as a lean-to made of branches, but now it was a comfortable little four-post house with birch-bark roof.

Aspar didn’t remember the building of it; he’d been deep in the land of Black Mary, in and out of a fever that jumbled three months into a haze of images and pain. When it was finally gone, it left him so weak that even without a broken leg he couldn’t have walked. Leshya had tended him, built traps, fought the monsters that appeared more and more frequently.

The climb left him winded, and he sat on a log, looking out over the valley below.

“It’s time to go,” he said.

“You aren’t ready to travel,” Leshya said, poking the banking of the morning’s fire, looking for embers. “I’m ready,” he said.

“I don’t think so.”

“You came after me with your stitching still wet,” Aspar said. “I’m in better shape than that.” “You’re wheezing from a little walk,” the Sefry pointed out. “That ever been the case before?” “I’ve never been flat on my back for four months,” Aspar replied, “but I can’t spare any more time.” She smiled, slightly. “Are you that much in love with her?”

“None of your business,” he said.

“Us leaving now could get us both killed. Makes it my business.”

“I want to find Winna and Ehawk, yes. But there’s more to it. I have duties.”