James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

Tarrin put a foot down in a hole dug around the base of the stump, sunk his claws into the side of the stump, and braced his other foot against the ground. The young men all returned to their places, and the older man put his shoulder under his iron rod. "Alright now, all together," he said. "One, two, three!"

Tarrin felt his blood rush through his body and he put his inhuman strength against the side of the stump. It creaked, and groaned, and the rods and dowels used by the humans suddenly began to move, helping the main force of the movement, which was Tarrin, drive the stump out of the ground with raw physical force. The stump moved half a span with that first push. "Alright, again!" the farmer said, resetting his iron rod as Tarrin got a new hold on the stump. It groaned, and several smaller roots undergrond snapped from the strain. They stopped and reset the levering prybars, and Tarrin got a hand-paw up and under the edge of the stump. He set his shoulder against the stump and waited for the farmer to give the word. "This time may do it," the man said in his earthy voice. "Ready now. One, two, three!" Tarrin growled from the strain, and his vision blurred over as the blood pounded through his body. The stump shuddered, then there was a loud, deep snap as the main taproot broke. After that, the stump rolled out of the hole easily.

Tarrin sat down heavily on the edge of the hole left by the vacated stump, elbows on his knees and breathing heavily. That had been all he had in him. The farmer and the three young sons gave Tarrin sidelong glances, then the aged patriarch offered a hand out to Tarrin. Tarrin took it hesitantly, but the aged farmer just smiled and helped Tarrin to his feet. "The name's Kellen," he introduced. "My boys, Delon, Brint, and Ian."

"I'm-uh, call me Rin," Tarrin said. He didn't think it was wise to tell him his name, even though his physical description more than gave him away. "Why don't you have your horses pulling the stumps?"

The man's eyes hardened slightly. "Both my horses died last month," he said.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Tarrin replied. "Sickness?"

"Yah," he replied with a grunt. "Come on then, let's go see if Mother has dinner on the table."

The farmhouse was an impressively large affair, some three stories high, and it was teeming with activity. There were at least four generations of this family living in the house, two generations below Kellen the farmer and one generation above. The children playing in the farmyard all stopped and looked at Tarrin with undisguised curiosity, and the elderly woman sitting on the house's porch, with her knitting in her lap, eyed Tarrin suspiciously as Kellen brought him up to the front porch. Tarrin was filthy and matted, and he felt his indisposition keenly as the old woman stared at him with her hard eyes. "Mother Wynn, this is Rin," Kellen told the aged woman in a calm voice. "He helped us pull that big stump from the west field."

"That's nice," she said in a calm voice, continuing with her knitting. She was a very small woman, Tarrin noted, with silver hair tied back in a loose bun. Her hands were gnarled from age, but her fingers were still surprisingly nimble as they worked the knitting needles. She was wearing a plain brown wool country dress, and had slippers on her feet. Her face was very old, and wise, thin from the sunken cheeks of her advanced age, and she probably only had three teeth left in her mouth. But her eyes were clear and lucid, a chestnut brown that seemed to see absolutely everything with the most cursory of glances. "Your wife won't let him through the front door looking like that," she warned. "You need to clean yourself up, Rin," she told him.

"I know, ma'am, but I haven't had the time," he said shyly.

She gave him a calm look. "Ian, take him out back and show him where the wellpump is. Brint, he's about your size. You have a decent shirt and pants he can wear?"

"I think I have something, Mother Wynn," Brint replied respectfully.

"I'd appreciate the chance to bathe, but I can't stay long, ma'am," Tarrin told her, "so there's no need for me to get clothes. Master Kellen offered me a meal for my help. Once I get the meal, I'll be moving on. And I can eat on the porch just as easily as inside."

She gave him a simple look, and grunted in assent. "Have your mother fix Rin a plate," she told Brint.

Ian took Tarrin around to the back of the house. Tarrin was surprised that none of the children followed. There was a wellpump and a trough of water right behind the house, close to the door opening to the kitchen. "The water's not that warm, but it should be alright," Ian told him gruffly.

"Thank you," Tarrin said sincerely, taking off his shirt.

"Yer ribs are sticking out like branches," Ian noted.

"I haven't been getting much food lately," Tarrin replied.

Tarrin washed up as best he could in the trough, dunking his shirt and twisting out most of the smell and dirt, then scrubbing out the mats in his fur. His hair still had the same braid in it that Jesmind put in it, but he still tried to wash out his hair the best he could with the braid in it. He couldn't put it back, and it was much too convenient for it to stay in the braid. After he was done, he walked back around the house. Everyone else was gone, inside, except for the elderly woman Mother Wynn. She had a plate with roasted chicken and carrots in her lap. There was another such plate sitting on the porch by the steps. She motioned at it. "Have a seat, boy," she said.

"Thank you," he said politely. "You don't have to sit out here with me, ma'am," he said.

"Maybe not, but I always sit on the porch when I eat," she said. "An old lady has the right to eat wherever she wants." Tarrin sat down and attacked the large mound of roasted chicken pieces. It had been a very long time since he'd had a cooked meal, and even longer since he'd had that much food at one time. "Try not to swallow the bones," she remarked with a crooked grin.

"It's been a while," he said between bites.

"I gathered," she said pointedly. "Who are you running from?"

"I offended a large tribe of Dargu that decided that my home range belonged to them," Tarrin lied. "They decided to press the argument, even after I killed some of them. I decided to take a little trip into the human lands, since they won't come into the human lands, but I've not had much of a welcome from you humans either," he elaborated. "I have no money for food, and there's no game worth hunting so deep into the human lands, so I've had nothing to eat. Master Kellen is the first that's been nice to me."

"Kellen likes to feed strays," the old woman said with a shrug.

"I feel like a stray," Tarrin sighed. "I can't go back to my den til the Dargu aren't expecting me. Then I'll discuss the living arrangements with them one at a time," he said grimly.

"Sounds like fun," she remarked.

"Not for them, it won't be," he growled.

She cackled evilly. "I don't mind seeing a few less Dargu in the world," she told him.

"Try about fifty," Tarrin said.

"No wonder you decided to leave," she said.

Tarrin nodded. "I can handle three or four, but not fifty. I'm going to let them go back to my range and get comfortable, and then I'm going to start killing them one at a time," he told her. "Once I have them down to a managable number, then I'll start getting unpleasant. A few very messy and graphic object lessons should let them know that I'm back."

She cackled again. "I like you, strange one," she said. "You have a flair for the dramatic."

"Fear is a good motivator with Dargu," Tarrin told her, falling back on his many lessons from his father. "If I can scare them enough, they'll leave my home range without so much as a fare thee well. But they're brave in numbers, so I have to get rid of some of those numbers before I can start my little terror rampage."