Clayton Emery: Whispering woods

Shifting his axe, Gull trotted after a troll who dug like a dog, shooting dirt between his legs. The woodcutter grasped the thing around its thick neck. "Hey, you! Get away! We've enough trouble-"

He couldn't lift the troll. It might have been made of granite or lead. Gull changed his grip, but the troll shrugged it off. The tiny, almost-comical troll hopped to one side, lifted a big-toed foot, and kicked Gull in the leg-the bad leg.

For once, Gull didn't fall down. But he did gasp and rub his knee. The kick was like a mule's. Beady-eyed, the troll glared around its melon nose and spit, "Gwan! Goncher gummin gaflin baglit, nosher!"

It resumed digging. Within seconds, it plucked an oilskin pouch and tore it open with its teeth. Silver and copper coins reflected the dim sky. Chuckling, the troll stuffed the treasure into a pouch over its scaly belly. Then it scampered over the heap, big feet flying, vast nose twitching.

It must smell the metal, Gull thought in amazement. So these trolls were perfect scavengers. And there wasn't much Gull could do to stop them. A hundred or more had spilled from the hole. Gull doubted an axe could even dent the pests.

Hobbling, he returned to the hole. A timid cry sounded below. Hedgehog's family. Pulled out and brushed off, they'd been trampled under big dirty feet. Snowblossom reported the tunnel went on and on, the gods only knew how far.

"One more thing to endanger the crops," Gull groused. "It'll channel groundwater away."

They limped back to the main cluster of villagers. But Seal yelped. "Look there!"

Against the wet vault of sky, a human flew.

The villagers had seen miracles all day, but this seemed the greatest one. What could top a person flying like a bird?

Squinting against rain pelting his eyes, Gull watched the wizard soar, arms outspread like an eagle. It was dark, for dusk approached, but coming from the north, Gull assumed it was the brown wizard, the woman with glossy black hair. At least, he saw streaks like yellow jets. The woman was no bigger than his hand, looping, yet drifting in one place, riding the ether. Gull pondered her purpose.

Then, quick as an eagle, the wizard swooped. A flash of lightning seared the sky, blinding one and all. Above the rain and wind, Gull heard skirts flap over-head, like wash on a line.

And like the breath of death, fatigue suddenly smothered the woodcutter.

Gull's bad knee buckled and he fell. His axe dropped with a thud, his quiver and bow clattered as they struck a beam jutting from behind.

His mother gave a groan and collapsed. She fell face first into the mud, like one dead. Gull gave a cry and reached for her, but it was agony to lift his arms. He had to crawl like a salamander, had only enough strength to turn her head from drowning in a puddle.

She didn't breathe.

Frantic, Gull waggled his mother's head, pinched her cheek. Her eyes were open and speckled with mud, yet she didn't blink. Calling for help, he could only croak. He couldn't even cry, he was so tired. His eyelids drooped, his head nodded. Desperate, he shook his head but only made himself dizzier.

Squinting through a black haze, he found everyone else similarly felled. His father lay on his side, mouth open, rain dropping onto his tongue. Cowslip lay with one hand sprawled over her head. Was this the plague his mother spoke of?

Gull tried to roll, got halfway up.

A sharp blow made him cry out. A rock had banged his forehead.

Another struck his leg. His groin. His shoulder, foot, chest.

More stones fell.

A rain of stones like hail.

With a flash, Gull knew this was wizard's work. If one were flying in the sky, her enemy would conjure a stone rain to down her.

Even if it killed every living thing in the valley.

Slowly, so several more stones struck him, Gull dragged his leaden arms over his head, tried to cradle his mother. His father lay only five feet away, but it was too far. Gull was too weak.

Stones pattered all around him. All sizes, from pebbles that bounced to fist-sized rocks that plocked in the mud. Thick as rain. Deadly, as if hurled from the gods. Gull heard rocks clash on ruins, on other stones, on peoples' heads and faces. Impotent, weaker than a newborn kitten, Gull could only weep.

Then a large rock got past his limp arms. Images crashed in his brain, then plunged into a well of blackness.

Then he saw nothing, not even blackness.

Gull opened his eyes, but his vision stayed black. For a moment he panicked. Had a blow to the head blinded him?

Then he noticed, far off and faint, a pinpoint of light. The Glitter Moon, just rising over the tree line. He groaned with relief and instantly regretted it. Pain shot through his head like fire.

Slowly, carefully, Gull rolled over. He clenched his jaw against the skull pain, but his jaw hurt too. Exploring with a mucky hand, he found a bruise over his cheekbone, where a stone had struck. He found other bruises too. Yet that stone rain must not have lasted long. Even a few minutes of it would have killed him. Nearby, half-buried in mud, lay a rock bigger than his fist. Hurled from the sky, it would have decapitated him.

Then he remembered his family.

Shuffling, wincing at new flashes of pain, he groped for his mother. Cold mud lay all around, but something white was close at hand.

His mother's face. He was touching her.

She was cold and wet as the earth.

Tears leaked from Gull's eyes, salt burning the bruises. With clumsy sprained fingers, he brushed mud from her eyes. "Mother…" She didn't respond, and never would.

The others?

Crawling, he found his father cold, the same. A stone had cracked his skull above the ear.

It got worse.

Lion and Rainfall had both been killed by stones, Lion half-buried. But Angelwing and Poppyseed and Cub were alive, for Lion had covered his brother with his body, and other villagers had snuggled the girls close.

Gull enfolded Cub in his arms, grateful prayers on his lips. He shook his brother to wake him, though he'd have sad news.

Cub's head wobbled as if his neck were broken. His eyes remained shut.

Gull pressed his ear to the boy's chest. Yes. There was life, shallow breath and a tapping heart, but slow and quiet. The thready pulse resembled his grandmother's seizure, when she'd fallen and lain in bed, taken a week to die.

Crawling around and over bodies, he identified Angelwing more by her homey smell than anything, dragged her from the clammy embrace of a dead neighbor. He leaned close over her tiny mouth, his ear against her teeth, her breast. He shook his sister, called her name, but he couldn't revive her.

Wails rose all around. Cowslip and others, strong young folk, found they couldn't awaken elders or small children. They were alive, yet still as corpses.

Worse than dead.

Their souls sucked away.

Half-mad with grief, Gull staggered to his feet.

In the steamy dimness and chill night wind, he realized it was deathly quiet all over the valley. The battle was over. The soldiers and the monsters were gone, returned to wherever they'd sprung. Even the wall of thorns was gone. Even the clouds were gone.

Yet the village of White Ridge might have gone too. It was smashed, burned, and leveled, its people felled by sickness and stones and savagery.

All done by wizards.

Spreading his feet wide to keep from toppling, Gull raised both fists to the black sky winking with stars. He shrieked, howled, cursed magic, and wizards, and the gods that spawned them.

Despite a roaring bonfire-the remains of a house-the night was long and cold and miserable. The villagers were seared on one side and chilled on the other. No one slept much. Some folks wondered what to do, but they were shushed. "Dawn will bring enough evil," intoned Catclaw.