Clayton Emery - Runesword 01 - Outcasts

(VAPTER

1

Elizebith ran and fell and scrambled up and ran and fell again.

The fresh-fallen leaves and tilted slope were treacherous un-

der the slick soles of her boots. Naked branches of bramble

and scrub oak clutched at her, tearing and cutting, pricking

her a thousand times about the face and hands and neck. The

giri slipped once more on a leafy rock and fell, banging her

knee. She knelt, clutching her leg and crying silently. Letting

the tears flow helped the pain—in her knee. anyway. Her

heartache was something else.

Bith was tall and dark, slim and soft, with flowing brown-

black hair and eyes that were almost luminous. She wore a

dark outfit of shin and pants with a deep blue cloak over all.

Around her middle was a wide yellow belt that matched her

fine-tooled boots. The belt's grinning devil-face buckle and

dozen small pouches marked her as a magic user.

The girl tried to quiet her breathing enough to hear the

pursuit. Far down the ravine could be heard the cursing of

men as they thrashed through the dark underbrush. Bith didn't

know how many there were, but there were enough to comb

the ravine easily without missing her. She looked up at the

fading light. The days were short now. Scaly branches made

2 RUNESWORD ^LUME ONE

a spider's web that laced the overcast twilight. The brush was

so thick it was like looking up through a latticework basket.

Even where she crouched there were branches reaching for

her soft skin. She hadn't known how thick the brush grew up

this ravine. She should have found out, she berated herself,

she should have teamed her own neck of the woods' It was

stupid to not know what lay at the head of this ravine. Did it

open into meadow, or more forest, or drop down again to

more brush? She should have found out before now, now

when she was fleeing and learning the hard way. The lesson

for today. Live and learn, she thought bitteriy. Learn or die.

Somewhere below her a man barked an oath. Her heart flut-

tered. He was close. She pinched her knee into numbness

and crept uphill through the brambles-

In truth, she hadn't lived in her tiny ramshackle cottage

long enough to leam where much of anything was. Living

alone meant so much to do- Fetch water, tend the fire, check

the snares before the foxes got to them, gather roots. This

was why men had wives and the wealthy had servants. It was

an all-day affair just to keep fed and warm. There was no

time for exploring. Or reading or studying or having any fun.

It had been a long time since Elizebith had done anything

fun.

And here she had to minister to the wants and needs of the

peasants who sought out the "witch." More wants than

needs, but who was she to talk? The reason she was so clumsy

at fetching and carrying and cooking is that she'd never done

it for herself until recently. If only she'd known how happy

she was when she was happy! She had been such a little giri.

A spoiled little girl. Never wanting for anything. She would

give anything now, even her soul, just to be able to sit quietly

and not run, run,run.

Yes, the peasants had come. They wanted a cure for a

toothache. A love potion. A physic to flush a baby from the

womb. A curse fora prosperous neighbor. Elizebith did what

she could. A toothache received the inner bark of the slippery

elm. But it was only a temporary cure. A love potion was

camphor oil applied tb me hair of the loved one, accompanied

by "good thoughts." It was a nostrum. The physic to be rid

of a baby was mineral oil. The poison killed the woman as

well if she took it improperly. The curse could be anything

OUTCASTS 3

as long as it was vile: hate added the rest. But she had known

she couldn't keep it up for long. People hated witches. (It

was a mark of the peasants' ignorance that they couldn't tell

witches from magicians.) They hated what a witch could do,

even as they asked her. They welshed on payment unless you

took it beforehand. And they waited until the last minute,

and that had been Bith's undoing. While a couple had not

hesitated to make the long journey to her hut to save a cow,

they always waited until a daughter was at death's door before

lifting a finger. This time it had been too late. Bith had tried,

but the child had died within hours. The grieving parents had

blamed the witch. She should have known. Her mother had

warned her time and again that helping people always brought

punishment. But she hadn't expected it to happen so soon.

Here she was, fleeing for her life.

Bith rose and pressed through the brush, uphill. It was very

quiet up here, and there was no wind. Was the ravine closing

in? The slopes at either hand were not just grass and leaves,

but crumbly ledge. The sides were steep and not thirty feel

apart. Maybe she'd pass through this cut soon, then she could

run on the flat. Though she couldn't run much farther—she

was almost spent. A lifetime of sailing a cockleshell on a

lake and reading romances had not prepared her for a real

outdoor life. She put her hand against one rocky slope for

balance. It remained quiet. Had she lost them? She couldn't

see very well. The sky was faintly luminous but this ravine

was black as the inside of a bucket. Suddenly she bumped

her nose into another rock wall. An outcropping? She groped

with her hands. No, a turn in the wall. Then her heart sank.

This was the head of the ravine. A rocky wall all around,

a stone box. A dead end. The slopes had to be twenty feet

high on three sides. The only way open was downhill.

Bith jumped at the stone cage around her and found no

purchase. Her fingers were too weak. And she couldn't see

anyway. What to do? Jump like a mountain lion? Fly away?

She almost laughed. Her mind was playing tricks on her.

Nothing useful came to mind. Nothing. The slim giri fell to

the ground and sucked air in great wracking sobs.

She was trapped. Her captors might as well be running up

a tunnel at her. Except they weren't captors. They would kill

her when they caught her, probably tear her to pieces. They

4 RUNESWORD VOLUME ONE

wouldn't even drag her back to the village to burn. Was that

better? She doubled over, fear and fatigue overwhelming her.

She hugged herself and sobbed.

A horned owl brushed overhead with a hoo, startling her.

Had she been asleep? Was that possible? Bith wiped her face

with filthy hands and took a deep breath. She felt strangely

better. She was all cried out. Did that mean she was ready to

die? On the contrary, she was beginning to feel angry. Angry

at these stupid, ignorant people who hunted her for no rea-

son. The peasant girl had died this morning, true, but not

from Bith's lack of care. She simmered with fury until her

ears grew warm. She'd get them if she could, with the black-

est magic she could conjure. But where were they?

She cocked an ear down the ravine and listened. All was

quiet. Crickets chirped far off, the last before the snow.

Somewhere a badger hissed. The air was full of the smell of

leaf mold and crushed teaberries and red sumac. Where was

everyone? Bith rose softly and felt along the stone slope. No

sound. Then she heard them. A thrashing of brush. The gut-

tural growl of men after blood. And a new sound.

Ha-rooooo! Hark. hark'. Ha-roooooo!

Dogs! They'd brought up dogs' She was surely done for

now. Never mind. There was one thing both men and dogs

feared. And she'd teach them to fear a sorceress, too.

She found a small overhang of rock and bumped her head

getting under it. She felt in a pouch with delicate fingers and

plucked out a'fuzzy lump that crackled under her fingertips.

With the other hand she touched the bole of an oak tree per-

haps a handspan thick.

And she waited - . .

As the darkness grew deeper and the sound of pursuit

louder, Bith, daughter of Morea, thought of her old home and

what it had meant. Her old home was a musty castle wreathed

in mist. Lake water had stretched away behind the castle, and

the front looked out over a hard expense of scrabble and low,

tough bushes. Brimstone bubbled from fissures along the

shoreline. Water leaked into all the lower rooms of her moth-

er's castle. A rusty iron gate with iron spikes guarded the

door. Every battlement had the cracked skull of an enemy

mounted on it- That evil place had been her home for sixteen

years. How strange that she had been content there. Would

OUTCASTS 5

she rather be there right now? She couldn't say. How strange

the way her mind worked, the mind of a spellcaster. No won-

der mortals didn't understand them. They didn't understand

themselves.

Hark. hark! Rowf! The bark of the dog exploded almost

under her feet. Bith saw a white branch whip aside, low down,

at the height of a dog's shoulder. A growl sounded off to her

left. There were two dogs. They stopped. Having found her,

stood still and sounded.

Ha-rooo! Rarf, rarf! Park rark, rark! In between calls the

beasts snapped and snarled at her, foam splashing from their

jaws. They kept her in place and notified their undeserving

masters. The noise was ear-splitting in the narrow defile.

Bith's hands were busy, as were her lips. She chanted, low

and intense.

Shouting oaths the crowd of men burst into the ravine.

"There she is!" "Hold her fast!" "Don't let her get away!"

Someone called for a flint to spark a torch.

I'll give them a torch, Bith thought. She finished her chant

and with her thumb crushed the dried firefly against the young

oak tree.

FWAASHHHH! Instantly the tree was ablaze as if it had

been steeping in a hot wind for an entire summer. The dogs

howled in fright. The men swore and shielded their eyes with

their forearms. And Bith, who had kept her own eyes tightly

closed, bolted towards them.

Hot sparks and ash floated all around them as she ducked

between the cowering dogs and into the crowd of men. She

got between two by scooching low. She had her knife out and

she poked at another to get him out of the way. He shrieked

as if he'd been bitten by a dragon and tumbled backward,

though Bith's tiny knife had barely nicked him. The man fell

against his neighbor and both went down thrashing. Bith tried

to jump clear. How many of the bastards were there, anyway?

It wasn 'tfair to send so many after one girl! Men swiped at

her and kicked out. A tangle of feet caught her and she fell.

Cries of "Got her now!" and "Hang onto her!" burst on

her ears. One man had her by the wrist. She stabbed with her

short knife but it tangled in the folds of her cloak. She bit

the dirty hand instead. It tasted of pig fat and woodsmoke.

The man let go, but brought his other fist down on her head

6 RUNESWORD VOLUME ONE

with a crash. Lights flashed before her eyes. Before she could

tumble to either side someone kicked her in the ribs. A laugh

stung her. Bith struggled and Sought but was powerless. Three

men flopped onto her and mashed her face into the leaf mold

of the forest floor. She might not be hacked or stoned or

burned to dead). She might smother. The panic came back,

so bright it burned her brain even as the tree burned the night

sky.

Far away she heard a man scream. It was not a laugh or a

shout, but a scream like a trapped rabbit's. Then it was cut

short. But another man took it up. Suddenly the weight on

her back was gone. A dog howled and she struggled to free

her face. What was happening?

In the flare of the burning tree Elizebeth saw a giant figure

raise a whimpering dog high overhead. The giant had the

dog's back legs in one hand and its neck in the other, and as

Bith watched, it ripped the heavy animal apart as if it were a

sheet of paper. Men howled—there was howling all around

her—as the black figure hurled the bloody pieces at them.

The chunks pinwheeled blood that rained on the villagers'

backs as they ran away. They pushed each another in their

mad scramble down the brushy slope. The figure gobbled and

croaked madly, berating and mocking them. Then it stood

still as a statue until the men's noise had faded.

Then it slowly turned towards Bith. *

The figure was huge, tall and wide. His shape was indis-

tinct under a shaggy bearskin and floppy hat- The creature

advanced over the rocky brushy terrain with sure steps that

pressed deeply into the ground. It came directly at her. He

can see ui the dark, Bith thought. Despite the wild dying light

and the smoke and roughness of the ground it could see her

as if it were daylight.

"How you?" the figure growled in the common tongue.

"All right? No hurt?'* Its grunt was painful to hear and must

be more painful to make. It reached out for her—

"I 'm all right,'' she stammered. ' 'Please don't touch me.''

The figure withdrew its great paw. Slowly it turned and

squatted and wiped its hands on the crushed grass. Then it

moved away.

Bith stood up and had to clutch at a tree trunk. She was

dizzy with shock and the aftennath of panic. Her knees gave

OUTCASTS 7

out and she sank down, grateful for even that small respite.

The oak was all but incinerated. There was only a burning

stump left, just knee-high. Bith didn't know many spells, but

the ones she knew she knew well.

Bith looked up. Would she be able to slip away from mis-

thing—when the light was gone? Should she, now that he had

rescued her?

The hulk kicked out with a foot and knocked over the bum-

ing tree. Then it half-dragged, half-carried a large dead tree

to the stump and crumbled wood onto the makeshift fire. Bith

knew that the tree was dead, but the cracking sounds told her

the creature was very strong. Strong enough to rip a dog

apart, or a magician. Stronger than any man could be.

The figure squatted again and blew at the fire. Bith saw his

face for the first time. A wide, flat nose in a wide face, small

eyes, thick brow. A hint of fangs behind the thick lips? She

knew now what this was. She had seen paintings in books in

her mother's castle.

"You're a troll."

"Hathor."

"No, you're a troll. I know."

"Me too. Me Hathor. Troll. Good one.'*

Sure, thought Bith, and I'm a fond witch. She stood slowly

and edged away from the fire, towards the downhill slope of

the ravine.

"Don't go," said the troll. "Eat."

"Eat?" Bith's stomach betrayed her. It rumbled at the

thought of food. "Eat what?"

The troll gestured with a thick finger. "Dog."

Bith shuddered. "No. I couldn't." Her stomach squeaked

so that it hurt. "Well, maybe a little."

The troll moved away from the fire. The blaze was glowing

merrily now, the only light for miles, probably. It made the

dark inside this ravine that much more intense. Bith's legs

trembled. If she didn't sit down she'd fall. Might as well be

by the fire, she reasoned. She straightened her pants and shirt,

drew her cloak around her and sat. Then she moved again to

plump her back against the fallen tree- It felt wonderful to

stop moving.

The troll came back to the fire with the torn torso of the

8

RUNESWORD VOLUME ONE

dog. He had an axe in the other hand. Bith watched warily

as he laid the carcass over the log not far from her head.

"Liver?" the troll asked. "Haunch? Brains?"

"Liver."

"Good." The axe came down with a whack that split the

carcass. Two more whacks freed a good hunk of—

something—which the troll tossed on the fire. Bith watched

die flesh sear and blacken. Maybe she wasn't hungry. But she

bravely fished up a stick and sharpened the end and speared

the meat. She propped it up on a rock at the edge of the fire

and held the end down with her boot.

More cracking and crushing noises sounded closely, then

a sucking noise. He must be licking his fingers, she thought.

Another hunk of meat landed on the fire with a squishy hiss.

The troll whomped the axe into the stump. Bith noticed it

was not a war axe but a felling axe. A war axe was wide and

thin-bladed, chased with fierce insignia, light with a short

handle so a man could wield it all day. This was a simple

pole axe for cutting trees. Was that good? The troll sat by the

fire opposite her. He took off his floppy hat and set it beside

him.

Bith studied him. The troll was surprisingly human. But

she knew trolls were a type of human that had taken to caves.

Or never left them. This one's features were just too—swollen.

His lips were thick and protruded slightly. His eyes were

small and close-set and recessed. His teeth were large; so

were his ears. He had no beard, but a sort of scruffy mutton-

chops. His hair was curiously soft and fine and curly golden-

red. A strawberry-blond troll, she thought. He wore only a

peasant's smock tied around his blocky body, but over it he

wore a thick cape of brown—bearskin? His fingers were thick

and coarse, with dark nails, but were nimble enough as he

poked the fire. His hands had red hair on their backs, too.

His feet were bare and the soles thick enough to walk on

coals. He smelt, too. Not an unpleasant odor, but alien: musty

and cavish-

"You pretty." he said suddenly, and Bith jumped. Proba-

bly tasty too, she thought. But he said nothing more, and her

pulse settled back down.

Strange he should say she was pretty. It had been a long

time since she had seen herself. At sixteen Bith was still

OUTCASTS 9

developing, in all the wrong places first, naturally. She knew

she looked like her mother, and men thought her mother

lovely, so she might be. But she was tall and thin and gawky,

she thought. Coltish and clumsy. Her face was acceptable.

She had long straight hair of a color between brown and black.

Her skin was pale as milk from living in the north country,

sprinkled with freckles the way the northern reaches could

be sprinkled with cornflowers in spring. Bith knew her most

arresting feature was her eyes. She was the only human she'd

ever met—besides her mother—who had silver eyes.

"What name?" the gruff voice asked.

"Name? Elizebith, daughter of—Elizebith. Bith."

"Bith," the troll tried the name. "Easy."

"You are—Hathor?"

"Hathor. Thor. Hath." He followed these names with a

string of others she couldn't understand. He finished,

"Hathor."

"Hathor. Good." Wonderful, she thought. One night of

this and she'd talk like a troll forever. "Why did you save my

life?"

"Voice."

" 'Voice,' did you say?"

"Voice."

"What voice?"

He put a grimy clawed fingernail—or were they just natu-

rally black?—to his temple. "In head. Tell me come here,

res-cue you- Did."

"What did the voice tell you?"

'*1bld me. Come here, save you." He speared a chunk of

burnt meat from the fire and took a bite, coals, ashes, and

all. "Never hear voice in skull before."

Bith tended her own meat. She sliced off a strip and ate it,

suddenly ravenous from the smell. She had never eaten dog

before. It tasted sweet. When she could, she asked, "Did it

haw a sort of imperious tone, like a king's voice? Like this?

*Go. my child, hie ye hence and ye shall be rewarded.* Did

it sound like that?"

Hathor nodded vigorously. "Yes, that voice. Just like that.

Oood."

Bith pondered mat a moment, her mouth forming an un-

i' conscious pout. She too had heard a voice lately, mostly in

10

RUNESWORD VOLUME ONE

her dreams or when she was distracted. It had told her to wait

or to be content or to anticipate danger or a dozen other

things. She had largely ignored it. A few short months ago

Bith had been dragged from her mother's castle by some in-

credibly stupid men who thought she was Morea's hostage.

Once they had learned she was Morea's daughter they'd de-

serted her, abandoned her in open country, alone and un-

armed, without supplies. Even before then, Bith had been

haunted by ghosts, had her dreams ridden through and tram-

pled on, but since her kidnapping, night and nightmares were

synonymous to Bith. It came with spellcasting. She had ig-

nored this new imperious voice along with the screeching

ones and the giggling ones.

"You send voice?"

Bith shook her head. "Me? No. I heard it too, is all."

"Who is?"

"I have no idea. Someone who wants something for noth-

ing, I suppose. Isn't that always the way?"

Hathor bit into his meat and said nothing. He swallowed

noisily and asked, "Where bow?"

"Bow?"

He mimicked an archer and men pointed at her. Elizebith

had no bow. She had only the clothes she stood in, her magic

pouches, and an eating knife. "I have no bow."

Hathor grunted. He got up from the fire and walked into

the dark. He returned in a moment and handed her a shaft.

It was an arrow. A short one with long fletching: blue and

red-streaked feathers she'd never seen before. The wood was

smooth, almost like glass. The bead was of some clean steel,

longer and sharper man any razor. It felt no heavier than a

dandelion. She held it up to Hathor. "It's not mine."

"Not?" he scratched his chin. "Not mine either."

"Well, wait," Bith asked. "Where did you get it?"

The troll rose and moved off into the dark. Outside the ring

of firelight he bent over something. He lifted the bulky object

and pointed to it. "In him." Bith gulped. The thing was a

corpse, the body of a villager with a rusty dagger in his hand.

"Stuck here." Hathor indicated his throat. Bith shuddered

again.

With ridiculous ease Hathor hefted the body and threw it

OUTCASTS 11

up the side of the ravine and over the top. "Wolves get it,**

he said. "Not get us."

Bith looked at the sheer wall. "How strong are you, any-

way?"

Hathor grinned for the first time. Yes, those were fangs in

his upper jaw. "Strong."

Bith slumped back to the ground with the shaft still in her

hand. She looked at the arrow and tried to guess where it

came from. Who it came from. But her brain wouldn't budge.

It was felling asleep, and so was she.

"Sleep," Hathor told her. "I watch."

Sure, Bith thought. The dog was dinner and I'm breakfast.

She dragged her cloak around, lay her hand on the ground,

and lay her head on her arm. With the fire in front and her

back to the large log and its reflected heat she was very cozy.

This was a pleasant place to be: better than burning or smoth-

ering or being hung. She'd rest just a moment, then sneak

away when the troll dozed off.

The last thing she saw as her eyes closed was the ugly troll

peering at the beautiful arrow. A strange sight after a strange

day- . . .

CHAPTER

2

Bith wandered the halls of the castle looking for her mother.

Up and down the stone passages she went. She had to

climb, for the floor slanted crazily. It was very dark inside.

Though there was light at the end of the halls, the giri couldn't

reach it. Spiders as large as dogs passed by. An ore skull

turned to watch her go, its empty eyes lit with green. A door

sprang open and a pack of bloody dogs howled. They chased

her until her lungs burned. The daughter of Morea ran for the

end of the hall but couldn't get there. A rushing noise rose

and rose, and water poured down the halls after her. A door

changed into an axe blade ten feet across. It swept into the

sky over her, edge down, and dropped. . . .

Bith screamed as the monster with the axe loomed over

her, ready to strike. She screamed again and covered her

eyes-

When nothing happened she uncovered her face. The thing

was still standing there, axe poised, a puzzled frown on its

ugly face- Then she remembered.

She remembered the growly sound of pursuit close behind,

the rasping of her breath, the cold feel of the rocks as she

was trapped, the crackling of the ignited tree, the thud of

12

OUTCASTS 13

boots into her back, the thrill of rescue from a stranger. She

sat up with a shudder and mopped rain, or cold sweat, off

her face. An early morning shower fell around her and pat-

tered gently on the fallen leaves.

The troll continued to look at her. He looked even uglier

in the grey misty morning than he had by firelight. His skin

was pale but knotty and lumpy underneath. Bith wondered

how soon she could get away from him. He growled at her.

"All right?"

Oh, that's right, she recalled. He worries about me. And

saved my life. Because that voice commanded him to. "Yes,

I'm fine." In fact she was. Her body was wracked with

bruises and stiff muscles, but it was delicious to be alive-

It was a misty, wet autumn morning. Birds grizzled to one

another about me weather and ignored Hathor's whacking.

He chopped another armful of wood and poked up the fire.

Raindrops hissed. The troll spitted some white objects like

large slugs on a stick. Bith realized they were oyster mush-

rooms that grew on beech trees this time of year. He hadn't

Just thrown them on the fire. He must have learned to spit

things from me, she thought.

"Isn't there any more meat?" she asked.

"Sure," he replied. "Lots." He fetched some and spitted

that.

"Aren't you having any?"

The troll shook his ponderous head. "No. Don't eat meat."

Clayton Emery - Runesword 01 - Outcasts

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