Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

“Uncle!” Karls leapt to his feet, lithe body twisting like a living flame. In Karls’s skillful footwork Ar’tor heard the sound of the pipes, the cry of a soaring hawk, the rush bubbling of ice-slushed streams. He writhed, and mimed rapid spearthrusts. “I will go, and 1 will climb the sacred rock, and bring you the berries which cluster there! I will brave all of the knives of the Steelteeth to bring you the sacred medicine. You will heal, and grow strong. You will fight again, Uncle, and gut this Flatlander lover of boyflesh!” Syman nodded his approval of this ritual challenge, the ceremonial promise. “And if the Winter sees fit to take me before your return?” Syman’s red-rimmed eyes were closed, his lips darkly crusted with blood. He rocked back and forth, trying to edge closer to the fire. Rollif held him back, kept him from charring his own flesh in a fruitless attempt to warm his worm-ridden bones.

“Then I myself will fight the Flatlander, and I will feed his liver to the wolves!” Karls whooped and twisted into the air, and the men and women of the Windrunners stamped their feet in appreciation.

Syman nodded his head. “And you, little one?”

Ar’tor wanted to shrink away. Suddenly every eye was upon him, and he knew what they expected him to say. I will bring the'hide of a deadly snake, or / will spy out the land of the enemy, or some other moderately dangerous and bold action. And then they would applaud politely. Syman would die, nothing could prevent that. And if Ar’tor completed his quest and Karls did not, then Ar’tor would be the Hollow’s champion. The Flatlander would kill him, and lead the Windrunners down to their fate on the plains. He gulped, and spoke in a rush, before he had time to call the words back.

“I will bring the skin of Old Cat.”

Only hushed silence greeted him as the people of the Hollow absorbed his words. For a moment he believed them himself. Saw himself stalking the wise and ancient enemy of the Windrunners, of cornering it in a ravine. Piercing its heart with a mighty cast of his spear. Freeing its feline spirit to walk the mountains, telling all of the mighty warrior who slew it.

Then he heard the laughter. Karls was first, and then some of the others, and spears dashed against the ground in appreciation of his bravado.

“Tell us,” Karls said when he managed to catch his breath, “tell us, Mouse—what will you really do to win the leadership of the Windrunners?”

Ar’tor withered, then looked across the firelight, and his eyes met Eloi’s. Her tongue flickered out and moistened her lips. Her eyes grew huge as she absorbed what he had said. The sheer braggadocio had, for a moment, swept her up as it had him, and her heart reached to him. She might be the betrothed of his brother, but for that instant she was his.

Ar’tor straightened up and glared at them defiantly. “I have told you.” The golden moment faded, and he knew his words to be a hollow lie, knew that they knew. Be that as it might, with Eloi’s eyes upon him he could not back down.

“Hold,” Syman wheezed painfully. “Do not laugh. Every boy becomes a man when he is ready, not when others mark him so.” Syman stretched his hand up to the body. “Take my hand, nephew.”

Ar’tor did.

There was still strength in Syman’s grip, but what Ar’tor felt most strongly, what he would always remember feeling, was heat, as if the essence of his uncle’s strength poured out of him like wine from an uncorked keg. Uncle seemed to be shriveling, draining, even as Ar’tor watched. “I see things in you,” Syman said. “I see things that others may not. There is in you the essence of a warrior. A great warrior, if only you will let it free. Do you truly have this thing in your heart?”

“Yes,” Ar’tor lied, and shame filled him for the cowardice.

Syman smiled through what must have been horrendous pain. “Then go forth, and prove yourself. Bring back the skin of the hellcat who has clipped our herd these many years. Today, 1 deem you a man, and not a boy. 1, Syman Windrunner, declare it so!”

The voices around the fire echoed the sentiments respectfully. “This day a man. This day a man.”

Karls slammed his spear against the ground, chanting with them. And across the fire, Eloi, too, stomped her feet. And Randii, and all of the others.

Never had Ar’tor felt such burning, all-consuming shame.

The morning sun hung low on the horizon, seemingly reluctant to rise farther and warm the air. Ar’tor was wrapped warm in shirt and buckskin cloak and leather boots. A waterskin hung on his back. His belt was laden with knife sheath and four pouches containing his pipe, flint, steel, dried goat meat, and other necessities. Ar’tor was ready to leave. Karls stood next to him, outfitted in the same manner for his own trek.

The gate closed behind him.

Karls searched Ar’tor’s face. There were so many things to say, and Karls could find no proper words. To speak his true concern would discount Syman’s proclamation. To speak now would be to admit what everyone already knew: that Ar’tor’s words were a lie, a sham. Instead, he laid his hand on his brother’s shoulder and said, “Good luck to you.”

“And good hunting to you, Karls,” Ar’tor said quietly. Without another word, Karls turned and set off by the western trail toward the border of the Steelteeth.

Ar’tor traveled east until out of sight of the village, then circled around and doubled back west, following his brother, staying far enough back to elude detection.

His brother was the one to win, there was no question about that. His brother would kill the terrible Tluman, and when he did, there would be no room for two chiefs. Ar’tor could be Bard, as he had always dreamed. To sit at his brother’s side, teaching the children and spinning his stories.

His brother moved swiftly but warily, never suspecting that he was followed, never knowing that his every movement was imitated by a smaller shadow. And when Karls slipped across the stream toward Steeltooth territory, Ar’tor climbed up into the hills, up into his cave, and hid himself there, and cried all night.

Toward dawn, Ar’tor smelled it again. It was a hot, gamy odor, and Ar’tor was suddenly aware that the smell had been with him all the night long. There was something in the cave with him, something alive, and oh, by the gods of Spring—

Ar’tor felt his pants moisten with the sudden shock of his fear, and he opened his mouth to scream a death-scream, and die fighting.

Before a sound could leave his throat, he heard something, only it wasn’t a sound that came through his ears. It came in through his head, directly through his skull, and he was stunned into silence.

Be quiet, manchild. Be quiet and we may yet both live. !!!

They hunt us. They hunt us both. If they find us, both will die. Be silent.

Ar’tor was shaking, yet something unexpected forced its way through the terror: fascination. Vvhat was this? What was happening to him? Legends had spoken of men who could speak to animals, but no man, or animal, in the hills had ever had such ability. Was he dreaming?

If it was a dream, it was a dream hot with fur and sharp with fang, and a dream that seemed a living part of the darkness.

There was yelling outside, jeers and obscene, threatening jests from across the stream. Ar’tor wanted to see, but was terrified to make any noise at all.

Come. But be quiet. Come and see.

Ar’tor wiggled up. As he stuck his head through the lip of the cave mouth, he was careful not to disturb any of the rocks.

It was dark, but in the valley below there were men with torches, and they ran howling. One man was in the vanguard, riding a great black stallion. Ar’tor was startled. Such beasts were rare in the hills! Their legs were far too easily broken in chuckholes.

At first he couldn’t make out faces, then he heard the voice, and it was one that made his hackles rise instantly.

Tluman Carpter.

“Hiiiiya!” he screamed, working his horse down the hill. He, and his men, were herding something. Something that stumbled on two legs toward the safety of the creek.

A word rose irresistibly up in Ar’tor’s throat, almost escaping before the dreadful presence in the cave crushed the breath from him with a paw that felt like the underside of a mountain.

Yes, it is your brother. He is a dead man. Do not cry out, or we all perish. Would he wish you dead?

As Ar’tor watched, Karls staggered to the stream and waded across. Ar’tor held his breath. He'll make it. He’ll make it. Just a few more steps and he will be on our ground, and the Steelteeth —

Tluman hied his horse down into the water, and his sword flashed overhead. Karls dove for the bank, stumbled, and then turned, defiant. The gigantic Tluman dismounted.

“So, boy.” The words carried distantly. “You stand and fight. The better for you.”

“You poisoned my uncle.”

“Of course. That is the end of him, and of you. Perhaps your younger brother will have the sense to give me what I want. In that case I may allow him to live as a figurehead.” He laughed speculatively. “He is not entirely without interest to me. You, however, must die. I give you first thrust.”

“1 see no honor to—”

In the middle of his words, Karls lunged forward, the tip of his spear flashing in at Tluman’s neck.

“Hiiii-ya!!” he screamed. That blow should have severed Tluman’s head from his shoulders.

Karls was larger, and, Ar’tor thought, stronger. But Tluman’s sword parry batted the spear aside effortlessly. With Karls’s second thrust, Tluman gripped his hilt with both hands and swung with preternatural timing. He clove the spearhead from the haft.

Another man might have frozen a fatal beat, but not Ar’tor’s brother.

Karls whipped the butt of his spear into Tluman’s ribs, and Tluman grunted at the crack of ironshod spear against bone. Karls spfln the haft like a quarterstaff, and the end cracked against knee and forehead, missing the temple by an inch.

The haft banged against Tluman’s swordhand, and the blade fell from nerveless fingers. Without hesitation, Tluman leapt forward, seizing the spear. The two men were frozen for a moment, exerting unimaginable strength against that length of banded wood.

Then Karls gasped. Tluman’s teeth glinted in the moonlight. Inch by desperate inch, Karls was forced down. He twisted the staff to the side, wrenched it from Tluman’s grasp. Both hands streaked for the shorter man’s throat. Together, they fell into the stream.

Two bodies rolled in the flashing wet, torqued to and fro, striving wordlessly. Then a great, balled fist rose and fell.