Ru Emerson - Keep on the Borderlands

Mead stood with his back to the fire, halfway between it and the vast oak, staring up into darkness. Eddis looked in horror as a bloody Keep man fell from the lowest branches and lay unmoving at the mage’s feet. As sheset an arrow to her string and started toward Mead, the elf mage waved her back.

“No closer,” he shouted. “It’s a lion!”

Eddis swallowed sudden dread and backed away, eyes fixed on the tree. She was dimly aware of the fighting behind her-men crying out in pain,a clash of swords, and the bellowing of wounded enemy. There. Gods! Twice her height above the ground, she could make out see the green glow of narrowed eyes reflecting firelight. Then M’Baddah had her by the arm, dragging her away towardthe fire that their cook was working hard to build up.

“Three of the monsters are dead,” her lieutenant told her. Healmost had to shout to be heard above the melee. “The others won’t last muchlonger. Stay back from that tree, my Eddis. The beast came without warning and snatched him up before any of us could react!”

He knelt to wrap moss around one of the long branches, tied it in place, and poured a dollop of lamp oil over it. He turned away to look over the fighting as Eddis swallowed dread. The cat’s eyes seemed to hold hers.Willow moved past her, bloody sword in one hand, and took up a position not far behind his half-brother.

Jerdren’s excited voice rose above the clamor of fighting.“That’s got ’em, men! One more of ’em bleeding and-sure enough, there they go!No, stay put!” he ordered sharply. “No point in giving ’em cause to turn in thedark out there and come against us. We’ll clean up, wait for daybreak, and moveout. Willow, where’d that brute of a cat come from?”

Light flared from Mead’s outstretched hands, illuminating theoak and its occupant: A tawny, cream and black cat at least as long as Eddis was tall spat and snarled in fury from its perch.

“It should run from light,” she whispered. Why isn’t itrunning? Why, for that matter, had it attacked a lighted camp?

The beast vaulted onto a higher branch and edged out over the mage, ears slowly going flat. Mead fell back a pace and began another muttered spell. M’Baddah thrust one of his fresh-made torches into the fire and handedthe spluttering branch to Eddis. When he started across open ground toward the oak with another, Willow held up a hand.

“Stay where you are! It has already killed one man, and youcannot reach it with that anyway.”

“It’s not showing proper fear of fire or light,”Blorys said. “It just pounced, caught that man by the throat, shook him, andstarted dragging him into the tree. That’s not natural!”

“Arrow!” one of the Keep men called out. Eddis ducked down asan arrow sang over her head and buried itself deep in the branch just in front of the massive cat. The beast snarled and snapped it with a slap of one massive paw, but stayed where it was.

“Don’t flush it down here!” Jerdren ordered sharply. “It’salready killed once! If we can scare it off-!”

“And how do you plan on that?” Eddis demanded.

M’Baddah handed his torch to one of the spearmen, strung hisbow, and fished out one of his arrows with a thickness just behind the point. He held that in the fire until it caught, took careful aim, and fired, just as sparks exploded upward from Mead’s outstretched hands. The arrow just missed thecat, but Mead’s spell didn’t. Eddis smelled burned hair. The cat screamed,half-spun on its branch, and leaped for the ground. It was a long blur of gold and black, flying across the clearing, then it was gone. They heard it squalling, well to the north, then nothing.

Eddis’ legs folded under her. Her skin went chill and damp.M’Baddah dropped down next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“Everything is fine now, my Eddis,” he murmured. “The beastis gone and so are the orcs-the two who were able to flee.”

Behind them, someone was building up the fire, and she could hear Jerdren calling out sharp orders.

“We’ll search those brutes before we drag the bodies out ofcamp. Any gold or gems they might have on ’em-well, I’d say we’ve earned those,all of us. Eddis?”

“I’m here!” she called back, and for a wonder her voice wassteady.

“Just checking! M’Baddah, we need some of that salve of yoursover here. Got a couple nasty cuts.”

“I will tend the wounded,” Mead said as he came back into thelight. “Orc blades are sometimes poisoned.” He murmured something to Willow, whoset an arrow to his string and stayed by the oak, gazing out northward. The mage hesitated as M’Baddah helped Eddis to her feet.

“Are you all right, Eddis?” he asked. “You look pale.”

“I feel pale,” she said and licked her lips. “I hatelions. I really hate them. They eat people! I came out here to fight bandits, not to get eaten!”

Mead smiled briefly and squeezed Eddis’ fingers.

“I had forgotten that about you.” The smile was gone as heglanced back toward the tree. “But there are worse ways to die. That man-henever knew what struck him.”

She merely nodded, and the mage went on to deal with the wounded. Four men down, Eddis thought, and their provisioner was limping.

Get control of yourself, she thought. Jerdren would find it amusing, and she wouldn’t enjoy being the butt of his heavy-handed humor.

Sure enough, there he was when she turned around, grinning across the fire at her.

“Buck up, Eddis,” he said cheerfully. “We held our ownagainst orcs, and the big cat ran off, didn’t it?”

She glared at him.

“It may not have run as far as we would like,” Mead said ashe knelt to pour water over bloody fingers.

“It can’t run as far as I would like,” Eddis muttered.Jerdren didn’t seem to hear her.

“Ah look, Mead. The animal wasn’t sick, was it? Stubborn,maybe, or just simply hungry, but it did finally run!”

Mead shook his head. “It is not sick. It was startled, butonly when fire actually touched it. The one who controls it may send it back against us. If I am right about why I was not aware of it until it killed, why it came into the firelight, and why it did not flee the noise or my light spell…”

He shrugged and fell silent.

Jerdren laughed. “Control? Someone out here in the midst of thisgods-forsaken wilderness controls a mountain lion?” He held up a hand,forestalling comment. “Look, we have plenty to do between now and daybreak. Ifthere’s no immediate threat, tell us about this control later, when we re on themove.”

“I cannot tell, any more than I could sense the cat earlier,”Mead said. “What I felt earlier was the sense of cold, human purpose in thebeast. That is gone now, but I am no longer sure that I will even be able to detect that much, if it should return. The spell is human, I think, but turned. Evil.”

“A black sorcerer?” M’Whan asked.

“Perhaps,” the mage replied. “But I think the man is not somuch evil as mad.”

Jerdren stared at the elf in visible disbelief.

“Uh, mage?” One of the Keep men came forward. “It’s saidthere’s a madman out here in the wilds. Some have it that he was one of the oldLord’s priests, and others that it’s only a tale. No one’s ever seen him, or ifthey did, they didn’t survive it. But I know men who’ve come hunting out here,and they’ve heard wild laughter.”

“You didn’t tell us that!” Jerdren said. He soundedexasperated. “I asked for any information that any of you might have, and hereyou hold out on me…?”

“It’s fable,” one of the spearmen said defensively. “Justanother of those tales that everyone hears but only children believe.”