Will’s first acts as an incarnate
human were to stand up too quickly, get dizzy, topple over sideways, and vomit
some sort of cold bile onto the floor. Smooth move, Slick, were his first
incarnate thoughts.
He crawled over to the bench, belly-lurching
onto it like a prehistoric lungfish colonizing the land. Shivering fiercely, he fumbled with the knot
on the folded cloak that had been left for him, eventually undoing it with his
teeth. Burying himself in the thick
hides, he lurched over to the brazier and, with some difficulty, poured himself
a cup of tea. He emptied a bit of it
into his mouth and felt most of it drain out the corners, down his chin and
chest. A second mouthful stayed where it
was supposed to be. Eventually he even managed
to swallow it. Very gradually, his
shivering subsided.
Getting his legs under him, Will
took a short walk over to the stone basin, gripping its edge with
hairy-knuckled hands―really, he
thought, a lot more hair than you’d
expect from a sixteen year old.
Peering cautiously over the side, he saw a familiar face staring back at
him from the surface of the water―squarish, a bit broader than it might have
been, nose a bit too flat. Narrow eyes
with a slight epicanthic fold. Dark
hair. Lots of it. And…yep. Male.
Very definitely male.
Congratulations! It’s a boy! He tilted his head to the side, regarding
his reflection. Nothing to write home about.
The cheekbones aren’t too bad, at
least. Well, it’s what I’ve got to work with.
The ringing in his ears was slowly resolving
itself into sounds. Loud ones, in fact,
issuing from outside the Redoubt. He
shambled over to the mouth of the cave, secure within the folds of his
porta-tent, and took a peek. Dusk had
gathered, but the area immediately beyond the Redoubt was illuminated by the signal
fire above. Which gave him a good view
of the considerable number of people who were out there attempting to kill one
another.
It was as if somebody had dropped a
pork chop into a piranha tank. There
were nothing resembling battle lines; it was just a whole lot of scurrying, yelling,
and hacking with sharp objects. He got a
clear look at someone he thought he recognized as a Havenite, half-dressed in a
hardened leather tunic and carrying a spear.
There was a man in poorly-dyed wool using what appeared to be a frying
pan to fend off an attacker, who was wearing a leather breechclout, warpaint,
and not much else. He saw Really Big
Angus come running up out of the darkness barehanded, grab the wild man by the
throat, and pitch him backwards into a nearby bush. It was all horrible; there was no dignity to
be found in any of it. There was too much
smoke and too much fear. Will ducked
back into the cave, put his back to the wall beside the entrance, and begged whatever
Gods might be not to let any of those maniacs find their way inside.
Jason wore boiled leather, the skin
of a psychovore, the blood of his enemies, and a broad grin. From atop the hill that sheltered the
Redoubt, he stared down at the enemies of Haven, and he laughed at their folly.
Here there was no fumbling about
with menial tasks while older men shook their heads sadly and thought him
stupid. Here there was no deep-seated,
gnawing shame at his past and present, no trepidation about his future. Here there was no worry that he had misplaced
his trust, for here there was no trust at all.
Here there was only the battle, the smoke in his nostrils, the spatter
across his chest and the fury, always the fury, driving him onwards towards
greatness.
There were three of them now,
coming up the hill. He looked at them
for a moment and saw men; he blinked, the moment was gone, and they weren’t
people at all, only things. Things that
wanted to hurt Ben, who was somewhere behind him. Things that wanted to hurt Rosemary, and
Emily. One of them charged him, flint
axe raised for a killing stroke; Jason’s body drifted aside of its own accord,
a puff of smoke on the wind. His leg set
behind him, he drove himself forward in a killing thrust, his harpoon burying
itself in the man’s throat, the hot gurgling splash drenching his hands. Rosemary
was right. Haven needs me to be exactly
what I am, he thought, yanking the harpoon free. Who
else can do what I do?
Ben was shouting orders, attempting
to impose order on chaos. Good for him! No doubt there were those who needed such
guidance, but Jason was not among them; he was a force of nature, magnificent
and ungovernable. He whirled his weapon
around and drove the butt into the temple of a passing hillman, sending him
senseless to the ground, then threw himself to the side, cartwheeling away
laughing as another swung an ill-fashioned blade. The boy inside him, the weak-willed fool
who’d cried the first time he’d brought down a deer, was gone, and good
riddance to him. The veneer of
civilization was gone as well, and with it, all of the pretense that manhood
might be defined in terms of knowledge or poise or sophistication. Here was the stripped-down truth of what it
was to be a man, and no one was more man than he. A slash this time with the harpoon’s serrated
edge, biting into the back of the neck of the warrior who’d charged him; the
enemy sprawled in the dust at his feet.
And the rage ruled him utterly; he was privileged to be its host, to be
the conduit through which it flowed.
Do
you see this, Ben? he thought.
Do you see the quality of my
service to you, and to Haven?
Do
I make you proud?
Having spent an indeterminate
amount of time huddling against the cave wall and shivering, Will suddenly
realized that if a non-Havenite DID come into the Redoubt, they would likely be
armed. He, of course, wouldn’t; that
meant he would die, quickly and horribly.
After a brief period of pants-wetting reflection, it also occurred to
him that he was, in fact, standing in a cave that had been stocked with a variety
of weapons. He heroically stumbled over to
a rack of spears, only to have his self-preservation instinct kick in,
overriding any heroic impulses by forcing him to procrastinate over weapons
choices. Am I a long spear sort of guy, or a short spear sort of guy? Will people make Freudian assumptions if I
choose wrong? Two hands or one
hand? Shield or no shield? Is there a helmet in here? One with sufficient coverage to protect my
cheekbones?
Emily
is out there somewhere in this.
Will froze for a moment. Then he grabbed the nearest spear and ran for
the entrance, and out into the madness.
And then he was spinning in place,
paranoid about someone coming up behind him.
He felt the hide robes come open in front as he spun, frantically clutched
them closed in a fit of modesty. He
looked up the hill towards the signal fire, trying to get his bearings, and went
immediately glare-blind. He felt
something whiz by his head, flinched away, dropped the spear, got his legs
tangled up in the hide, and fell straight on his butt. A man in face paint, wearing a sort of poncho
and wielding a wicked, double-headed stone axe, was sprinting towards him. The warrior raised the axe, got his first good
look at who he was attacking, lowered the axe, shook his head sadly, and moved
off in search of someone worth killing.
Looking back up towards the signal
fire, Will spotted a figure in silhouette, gesturing down the hillside. A row of Havenites with pikes were forming up
beside him. The figure was shortish,
thickly built, acted purposeful, and generally gave the impression of having
some idea what he was doing. Not far
away stood a much larger figure bearing…a harpoon? Gasping with relief, Will struggled to his
feet, grabbed his spear, and went racing up the hillside to lend a hand.
His legs had no strength in them; a
few strides up the steep slope were enough to turn them to rubber. Fueled by terror that someone might be
chasing him, he lurched doggedly on. To
his immense relief, he saw Jason give a start of surprise and come racing down
the slope to meet him halfway.
The ground at Jason’s feet was
strewn with corpses, and the air around him glowed with newly released
heartlights, and the rage was generous with him and sent him another gift;
another wild-eyed figure in crude skins was stumbling shaky-legged up the hill
at him, and at Ben behind him. Somewhere
a detached part of him was shouting to look more carefully at the skins, at the
workmanship of the spear the figure was holding, but the rage was all and there
was no hesitation, no stopping, there was only the task, and the glory of
service, and the thing before him was sounding a war cry and bringing up a
spear…
Will flung his hands out in front
of him, the spear still in them, and attempted to shout “WAIT!” But his mouth wasn’t working right, and what
came out sounded more like “WAARGGGH!”
And Will watched the harpoon came down.
Looking down at his chest, and at
the iron shaft sticking out of it, Will thought, That’s really a lot more blood than you’d expect from a sixteen year
old. Dimly, as through cotton, he
heard a voice from up the hill shout, “Oh my God! That’s an incarnation cloak he’s wearing!”
Strangely, there was no pain.
And then there was quite a lot of
it.
And then there was nothing.
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