Wars of the Aoten Read online

  Chapter IV

  The chirping insects had ceased, and the birds had taken their turn at welcoming the emerging day. But Artur knew the time had come to pull himself out of bed only when he heard the clatter of metal against hard leather armor outside his tent.

  “Good morning, Arielle,” he said, looking at the blackness surrounding him. “Is Wyllem with you?”

  “No, he still sleeps. He rests heavily after a hard night,” replied Arielle, and the charitable darkness veiled her blushing. She handed Artur a steaming cup, and he drank of it deeply.

  “Just as well. Sometimes his best advice comes out of knowing the least. Let’s get going,” and Artur let the cup fall and started for the deeper forest. The journey would require some hours to make, but they should arrive plenty early enough to spy out the Aoten and count their numbers before any left camp.

  “I will go with you,” said a gravelly voice from the darkness.

  “Father,” said Artur, “shouldn’t you be resting about right now?”

  “No, I should be risking my life,” said Geoffrey. “If anyone should be risking his life, it is me. You two should protect your lives while they are still worth protecting.”

  Artur had not been trifling with Wyllem when he said his father wanted to die. Indeed, Geoffrey looked for a way to die at every turn. He had grown old, old enough to have seen many generations of middle-aged sons and daughters, and his life had been wrung by many wonderful and disastrous sights. His memory was a blur: Who were his oldest children, how to give bronze a greenish hue, just when did he begin counting his years with three numerals. His wife long dead, he had little reason to want to live beyond a mouthful of food and a fire to warm by. Geoffrey was tired in the way that only living can make one tired. So much did he long for death that he had cast aside his armor, wearing no more protection than a rough shirt and pants; much to his frustration, his days had become filled with a series of tragedies barely survived.

  A mane of thick, pure white hair topped his head, and his body had declined into a drawn, skeletal form, but his strength remained. His right hand no longer had its thumb, the result of a wound suffered so long ago he no longer remembered the battle or ever needing the digit. Geoffrey’s life had passed its usefulness, and he only wished now to leave it in a way that would be remembered.

  “Yes, Father,” said Artur. “We will be glad for you to risk your life, but for now we’d prefer you not risk ours.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” said Geoffrey, getting his dander up. “Do you think I can’t take a simple morning constitutional to a giants’ camp?”

  “Your desire to die is going to get someone killed one of these days!” retorted Artur, his temper rising in kind.

  This time Arielle acted to restore calm. “Come, you two. You can argue on the way. You’ll wake the entire village.” She took each one by the elbow and led them into the wood as they continued to quietly bicker. As the hike proceeded, Artur agreed that Geoffrey could come along, but only with the promise he would do nothing to attract the giants’ attention.

  Onward the three tramped through the thick forests, heading west until they came within smelling distance of the steaming pits. Then they headed north, toward the forests’ edge where Arielle had seen the Aoten the day before. They went at a half-running pace, slouched forward, their arms hanging low, smoothly leaving the groonits behind them. Only a few times did they stop to rest, and then only for a moment, before moving on.

  The sun still had not appeared when Arielle signaled the others to slow their pace. She stood straight, her unusual height giving her an excellent view of the landscape. Suddenly she scrunched back down, motioned to her left slightly, and crept forward. After a few yards’ progress she stopped short again, ducked her head low and pointed directly in front of them, eying Artur intensely.

  “Aoten!”

  Artur raised himself up slightly, stealthily, apprehensive of what he might see. They came into view, a vast number of them, truly at least twelve kronyn tall. Artur counted as best he could as they moved about in their morning preparations; more than a hundred, it seemed certain, milled about. Human in form for the most part, their backs seemed abnormally large, and hunched over toward their shoulders. Their rotund torsos bulged out. Each had a heavy brow, with eyes set deep, and their teeth appeared to be sharpened to a point. Dark and heavy hair covered their bodies, even on what appeared to be the women; around their mouths it was matted with saliva and bits of food. A few youngsters, less hairy but not much, wandered about, their large heads out of proportion to their bodies.

  Around the Aoten camp lay a disorganized collection of broken tree limbs and piles of rocks. Artur smirked at the sight of a smoldering pile of blackened logs, evidence of poor fire-building skills. A dead animal lay near the embers, apparently a thylak, and one of the giants busily skinned it with a flint blade. Artur could not make out their communication, made in low guttural tones.

  Artur squatted down again with the others. “I have never seen so dreadful and disgusting creatures in all my life.”

  “I could barely force myself not to rush down upon them yesterday, the first time I spotted them,” said Arielle.

  “That certainly would have been the end of you.”

  “Let me see them,” said Geoffrey excitedly, scurrying in front of Artur in his squatting position.

  “Now be careful. You promised, you said you wouldn’t try to catch their attention,” said Artur sternly.

  “Yes, yes, boy, I know. Just let me see them.” Geoffrey didn’t try to hide his impatience.

  He lifted his head to look, and Artur joined him. The Aoten remained completely unaware of their presence, and the three Rufoux studied them as carefully as they could from their safe distance. Artur noted their strong arms and legs, but also their shuffling manner and apparent clumsiness. Geoffrey saw them to have long necklaces of leather about their necks, hung with the sharp teeth of the thylak. Arielle noticed their clothing and shoes offered them little protection, their sandals in particular appearing loose on their feet.

  “Yes, a plan. We must think this one through, if we will ever defeat these monsters. We must study this carefully,” Artur said to himself.

  Suddenly the Aoten, each and every one, started and froze, directing their attention to the south. Artur and his companions heard it too: A loud, screeching cry from the cover of the wood to their left. The Aoten scattered and ran, hoping to find cover somewhere in the far distance.

  “Scaled ones! Deviltooth!” cried Arielle in a panic.

  “Run! To the east, run!” called Artur, under no pretense of trying to be quiet any more, and he sprinted away, but he could not keep up with Arielle. Her long legs put the ground behind her in a flash.

  “Deviltooth!” said Geoffrey, a gleam coming to his eye. “The end of Aric! Deviltooth!” He did not move.

  Artur had run a good part of a groonit before realizing he heard no footsteps but his own. Geoffrey was old indeed, but not feeble; he should be close behind. Artur skidded to a halt and looked back to see his father standing straight up, holding his arms out, craning his neck to see the oncoming deviltooth.

  “Fool!” Artur screamed, again to himself, and ran back to fetch his recalcitrant father.

  Artur plowed into Geoffrey from the back, wrapping both arms around him and bringing him to the ground.

  “Let go! Let go! Let me be! Let me have this glorious death. What a legacy, taken down at long last by a deviltooth! Oh, what a Rufoux legend will follow my name!”

  “Come on, you old coot! You swore!” Artur screamed with all his gusto.

  Geoffrey struggled to throw the larger, heavier man off him. “I said the Aoten! I never promised to stay away from a deviltooth!”

  “I don’t care, I’m not leaving you here, you ungrateful old bastard spawn of an egg-sucking Koinoni trader!”

  “You! Oh, when I get my hands on you! Let me up!”

  “You’ll be cheating the grave to
day, old-timer! You’re coming with me!” Artur untied the leather thong that bound one of his leggings and wrapped it around Geoffrey’s arms and body.

  “Stop it! Stop it! Let go!”

  The thud of heavy footsteps came crunching through the wood, and some great thing pushed aside even the stoutest of trees. Both Rufoux looked up to see a tall, shadowy form make its way toward the clearing the Aoten had abandoned. Artur heaved Geoffrey, tied up like a nice pork loin, upon his shoulder.

  “Let go! Let me go! Hey! Deviltooth! Over here!” Geoffrey continued to scream, and he kicked both legs and bucked his body from the waist as hard as he could, but Artur would not loosen his grip.

  Through the forests, in as directly opposite a direction as he could, Artur ran with his thrashing cargo. Dodging trees and standancrags, leaping over fallen branches, he churned along for a good hour before Geoffrey finally gave up and went limp in his arms. Only then did the Rufoux chief set him down and rest, panting heavily.

  Geoffrey lay on the ground, still bound by the leather cord. “I hate you,” he said.

  “You never were much good at endearments,” said Artur as his heaving lungs would allow him.