9 Tales From Elsewhere 8 Read online

  9TALES FROM ELSEWHERE #8

  © Copyright 2016 Bride of Chaos/ All Rights Reserved to the Authors.

  First electronic edition 2016

  Edited by A.R. Jesse

  Cover by Turtle&Noise

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  9TALES FROM ELSEWHERE #8

  Table of Contents

  THE RUNT’S RITE by Matt Hlinak

  RESPECT FOR THE DEAD by Andrew Knighton

  KRISH’S NEW PET by Charlie Allison

  THE GNOME IN THE ROSEBUSH by Priya Sridhar

  BRIDGEWORK by Judith Field

  HAFGAN’S HORN by Kenneth O’Brien

  ALL OR NOTHING by Jim Lee

  ONEZZELLOTT’S SEARCH By Shawn P. Madison

  PLACED by George Strasburg

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  TALES

  FROM

  ELSEWHERE

  #8

  THE RUNT’S RITE by Matt Hlinak

  Snow fell on the slight boy, his beardless face reddening in the cold morning air. It was the last day of his seventeenth year. Clad in buckskin and shrouded in a thick cloak of rabbit pelts, he stood barely five feet tall and weighed but eight stone. Though the son of an ironsmith, he was allowed only the weapons of his forefathers: a flint-tipped spear, a bone-bladed knife, a stone-headed club. He hoped not to need them.

  He was called Wardric the Runt, and he was trying to become a man.

  Looking over his shoulder, he could still see the breakfast-fire smoke from the settlement rising above the frozen farmland he had already covered. The sun would set twice before he saw a sign of his home again. The path he trod stretched through the Grayfell Peaks to the sea, and he could not return without a piece of limestone struck from the Monaleoht Tor that stood guard over the bay.

  The iron-hued clouds heralded more snow. It already came to his ankles. Ceahhetung and the other boys-who-were-now-men had laughed at him. They did not think him strong enough to pass the Ordeal, not when Snaw the Winterlord ruled Hrim. Wardric’s father had begged him to wait, said there was no shame in walking after the Thaw. But the Runt could not wait for spring to become a man. The boy pushed thoughts of home from his mind and strode on.

  By midmorning the settlement was gone from view, the hills of his homeland but brown lumps on the skyline. The boy stopped in a thicket of trees to seek shelter from the snowfall. He pulled a fur-lined glove off with his teeth and rubbed his frozen face with his bare hand. Then he dug a strip of dried deer flesh from a pocket sewed in his tunic. He ate, drank from his waterskin, pulled the glove back over his chilled fingers and walked on.

  The rocky dale stretched for miles each way. Snow clouds poured over the fell to the south, blurring the way ahead. Wardric kept to the left of a frozen stream called the Lagu to be sure he headed south. To get lost would mean death.

  The year before, Hnifol Rignanson had failed to return from his Ordeal. He, like Wardric, had not waited for the Thaw. A hunting party found what was left of Hnifol a week after he walked. The rendwolves had torn the meat from his body and splintered his bones to eat the marrow. His clothes lay in a neat pile several yards away. The cold had been so great that Hnifol succumbed to snow madness, the curse of Snaw the Winterlord, when the bite of the frost burns like fire. Thinking himself hot, Hnifol cast off his clothes and hastened his own end.

  Wardric crouched down. Faint paw prints crossed his path. They were large, wider than his hand, and clawed. A whitcat, he thought. The tracks must have been fresh or the falling snow would have filled them in. The beast was near. Wardric stood and looked around, clutching his spear in both hands.

  A whitcat in winter was a most deadly beast. Wardric’s brother, who was called Ceorfaex the Mighty, had told him of seeing a bull-ox brought down by a whitcat. The whitcat had locked its jaws on ox’s neck and used its hind legs to dig out the ox’s entrails while it stood. Ceorfaex shot the whitcat with an arrow, and the beast ran off into a thick wood. Ceorfaex let it go. Not even Ceorfaex the Mighty was willing to go alone after a wounded whitcat in winter. Now Wardric the Runt would face what his much stronger brother rightly feared.

  The whitcat surely smelled him, surely saw his fur cloak as a great brown balefire in the snow. Food was as scarce for beasts as men in the dead of winter. It would be hungry. The snow crunched under Wardric’s boots as he walked on. Somewhere near, the whitcat padded without a sound, its pale fur blending into the snow. He would neither hear nor see it before it struck. His spear would be worthless against the beast. He shifted it to his left hand and drew the boneknife with his right.

  He did not know how long the beast stalked him. He held the spear over his left shoulder so the tip pointed back to ward off a strike from that side. The whitcat would likely come at him from behind his right shoulder. He gripped his boneknife in his right hand and looked back often.

  Wardric’s boots crunched loudly in the snow, while the wind swallowed the steps of the whitcat. Sweat poured from the boy’s brow and froze to his face. He tensed muscles already aching from the long walk. He prayed to Kottra the Huntress that her thrall would pounce soon. Kottra was deadly, but worse still, she could be playful. He feared a slow death.

  And then Kottra answered his prayer.

  The Nothrafolc were of hardy stock. They fought against the other clans and even Hrim itself, the blood craving land on which they dwelt. To be a Nothrafolc man was to be ready to lead in that struggle, and so all Nothrafolc men faced the Ordeal. Even a runt like Wardric.

  The Wise-Elder told how a great warband had driven their ancestors from the Ironlands in a long-ago age, and so they crossed the Mereflod Sea to icy Hrim. As their ancestors, who became the Hrimfolk, waded ashore, they clashed with the White Wretches, pale men who fought with clubs and stones. The Hrimfolk pushed the White Wretches into the Unthawing North and took their lands. Then the king of the Hrimfolk died without an heir. The kingdom split into four clans: the Nothrafolc, the Aexmathr, the Garwigend and the Isenhere.

  The Nothrafolc have fought ever since to live on this hard soil. On the last day of his seventeenth year, every Nothrafolc boy walked five score miles to the sea whence his forefathers came to honor their strength. He faced miles of rival clans, clawed beasts, harsh weather and even the dread Skulkwrath, though Wardric believed the fanged cave-dwellers to be mere legends. The boy who returned home with a piece of Monaleoht Tor had proved himself a man. Every two or three years, a boy did not return. For this reason, most born in the winter chose to be boys for another few months. But Wardric had lived too much shame to be called a boy any longer. He needed to become a man.

  Wardric was the son of Garcene the Ironsmith, the biggest of the Nothrafolc. Before Wardric came five brothers, each more bear than man. Only Ceorfaex the Mighty still lived, the others having claimed heroes’ deaths against the other clans and seats at the table of Aesetir the Irongod. Geradgefera, his only sister, was a stout and bold widow, mother to twin boys born without fear. Wardric, small and quiet, was a riddle
to his father, who called the boy his mother’s son. If only she had lived long enough to tell him what that meant.

  Like all Nothrafolc boys, Wardric had planned for this day. He hunted and camped and fought, but never as well as the other boys. As the nights lengthened in his seventeenth year, Garcene had spoken to his son about walking after the Thaw.

  “But Ceorfaex walked in winter,” he answered.

  His father shook his head and said, as if Wardric did not already know, that Ceorfaex was stronger than he. The old man was as big as two ale barrels, with a bushy black beard and scarred skin stained black from his work on the forge. No man could frighten Garcene the Ironsmith, yet the slumping of those great shoulders told Wardric how he feared for the life of his son.

  “But Father,” he said, “if I can pass the Ordeal in winter, I will be proved strong.”

  “And if you cannot,” said Garcene with tears in his gray eyes, “what then?”

  A day later, Ceorfaex spoke to Wardric. The older brother wore his long blond hair in a braid running down his back. He leaned across the table on arms like oak trees.

  “Not all men are born to fight, little brother. You need prove no more than any other. Do not worry—the Ordeal is hard enough after the Thaw. All will call you a man then.”

  “But none will call me a man till I do.”

  “True, but you have been a boy all your life. What are a few weeks?”

  “I will not be ashamed one day longer than I must.”

  “You are not ashamed,” Ceorfaex said. “You are part of a proud family.”

  “A family proud of all but me,” Wardric shot back. “I have yet to bring us honor.”

  “Life is long, little brother. You will bring us honor in your own way before your days are done.”

  Wardric stomped off without answering.

  On the third day, Geradgefera spoke to him.

  “What are you trying to prove by dying, little brother?” she asked, her blue eyes twinkling, her hard jaw set in a smirk. Wardric had long ago wearied of his sister’s teasing.

  “I no longer wish to speak of the Ordeal. My mind is set.”

  “I see,” said Geradgefera. “I shall not change your mind. I only wish to know why.”

  “I am tired of being the Runt.”

  “It is but a name,” she said. “Were you to awake a giant tomorrow, you still would be the Runt. Look at Geaphand the Fair, who has not had a hair of any hue on his head for many years. You are called the Runt so we can tell you from Wardric the Fletcher.”

  “If the name will not die, I will prove it a lie.”

  Geradgefera smiled. “To whom would you prove this, little brother?”

  Wardric’s cheeks flushed.

  “I knew it,” she said. “Who is the girl?”

  “If I am to die, it matters not. And if I live, you will know her name soon enough.”

  Wardric had guessed wrong. The spear on his left shoulder proved less worrisome to the whitcat than his many glances over his right shoulder. It struck from the left, knocking the wind from his lungs. The beast’s first bite came down on the shaft of the spear. Wardric landed on his right hip and rolled to his back. Still gasping for breath from the sudden charge, the boy kept the whitcat’s fangs away by pushing up on the spear still clamped in its jaws. Its breath came out in a cloud of smelling of rotten meat. Its front claws tore his buckskin tunic and cut into his ribs. Its jaws clenched harder, snapping the spear in half, and then the growling beast went for the life-vein throbbing in the boy’s neck. With all of his strength, Wardric drove his boneknife into the whitcat’s belly. The beast wailed then like a hungry babe. Hot blood soaked Wardric’s glove.

  With an iron dagger, the boy could have gutted the beast and ended the struggle. But the bone-blade was not sharp enough to drag up to the whitcat’s heart. The beast brought its hind legs onto his thighs and dug its claws in deep, trying to push itself off the impaling boneknife. As the whitcat bowed its back, Wardric pulled the blade out and struck again, higher this time, and the beast was still.

  Panting and soaked in the whitcat’s soon-to-be-frozen blood, Wardric squirmed out from under the beast. He pushed himself to his feet and felt his wounds. They were not deep. He would live.

  None of the Nothrafolc had ever killed a whitcat by himself. Hunting parties could bring one down, but not in a snowstorm like this. The meat of this beast could feed his family for a month. He could trade the pelt for a donkey. But he could not take his kill with him. He had to finish the Ordeal. He could only cut off a paw as a trophy to prove the Runt had done what no man could do. This may be enough for her, he thought.

  He then recalled the Wise-Elder’s tales of beastmagick. A man who killed a beast on its terms could gain its strength, or so the legends said. Wardric placed little stock in legends, but saw no gain in doubting them now. He carved the whitcat’s heart from its chest. Steam rose from the hunk of meat in the boy’s hand. Following the Old Ways, he took a deep breath and bit into the raw flesh. Hot blood trickled down his chin as he tore a bit off and chewed it slowly. The meat was tough, and he smelled only blood. He swallowed and then stood for a moment, waiting to feel some effect. Then his gut tightened, and he retched onto the snow. So much for beastmagick.

  Geradgefera had been right, as older sisters always are. Wardric had long known the shame of being the Runt, and cared little for what other boys thought of him. But of late he found he cared a great deal what the girls thought. One girl at least.

  Her name was Aedelpryd. Like all Nothrafolc of Wardric’s age, she was taller than him, nearly a foot taller, in fact. Her legs were long, her shoulders square. She could run and wrestle with the boys, and was as bold as any. The other boys said a man would have to break her like a wild mare before bedding her. For all her strength, the way her blood-red hair coiled around her moonlit face made her the most beautiful girl in the settlement. She was also the War-Elder’s oldest daughter, which meant she was to be wed to the Nothrafolc’s greatest warrior on her seventeenth birthday. One week after Wardric’s.

  Most thought the War-Elder would choose Wardric’s brother Ceorfaex to wed his daughter. At two-and-twenty years, Ceorfaex the Mighty had faced many dangers and slain many foes. His brothers—all but the Runt, of course—had given their lives in battle. His father, Garcene the Ironsmith, was a great warrior in his own right and close friend to the War-Elder. Ceorfaex would gain power and honor with the wedding, perhaps even becoming War-Elder himself one day.

  But Wardric cared not for honor or power. And he did not seek to deny his brother these things. He simply loved Aedelpryd, for she was kind to him when others were not. Indeed, she was his only friend. Wardric was too small and quiet to fit in with the big and boastful boys, like the bully Ceahhetung. They were always slamming into one another like rutting elk, all the more so when Aedelpryd was there. She wearied of their endless boasting. How she laughed when Wardric mocked them. “Look upon me, fair Aedelpryd,” he would bellow, “for I have climbed many saplings and slain many horseflies to be here by your side.” She was clever and bored by boors. Aedelpryd was meant to be more than a warrior’s wife.

  In a dream, Wardric had seen himself coming back from his Ordeal a hero and taking Aedelpryd for a wife. Though much blood flowed in this dream, he saw it as a good omen. When he awoke, he vowed not to wait to become a man.

  As Wardric marched on, the whitcat shrunk to a red stain in the snow behind him. He used what was left of his spear as a walking stick to help him up the hilly path and tucked the tip into his belt. The sky darkened by the time he reached the tree line at the base of the Grayfell Peaks. It would not be easy going, but it would save him a day or more going through a pass in the Grayfell instead of walking around. Wardric had so far journeyed through lands claimed by the Nothrafolc. The Grayfell lay beyond their lands. The other clans sent raiding parties through here. They would not pass up the chance to kill a lone Nothrafolc and hang his body from a tree so all would know his fate.<
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  The snow fell ever harder, and he would need to find a cave if he was not to freeze to death. Finding a cave in the honeycombed Grayfell would not be hard. Finding an empty cave would be. Rendwolves, frostbears, boulder-beetles and, of course, whitcats laired here. And no Nothrafolc, not even doubting Wardric, would spend a night in a cave without first looking for Skulkwrath holes, which were said to lead to a lightless stronghold far beneath the earth.

  But with night upon him and no fire, Wardric could not see within to know whether a cave was taken or not. He came to one and poked inside with his spear-shaft. He struck it against the cave wall and listened. He heard nothing. Either the cave was empty, or what dwelled within did not wish to be heard. Wardric would test his luck here.

  He gathered firewood and stooped into the cave. He did not know how far back the cave stretched, but it was far enough that he could build his fire away from the mouth of the cave, out of sight of any rival clansmen who might wander by. With his back pressed against the wall, he squeezed a pinch of tinder from his belt pouch onto the cave floor and prayed to Alcyning, the Banisher of Darkness and Hearth-Warmer. Alcyning was a friend to mortals, but a fickle one. Some days he ignored their prayers. Other days he burned down their huts as their children slept within. In near blackness, Wardric’s numb fingers rubbed two sticks together till the heat lit the tinder. Wardric blew on the ember, and it became a flame. Then the wood caught fire, driving out the cold and darkness. Alcyning had been in a helpful mood.

  Wardric now turned to the rear of the cave, which stretched three yards back, with the ceiling tapering down to the furthest reach. He groped with his spear-shaft and found neither beasts nor holes from which they might arise. He settled against the wall, ate a strip of deerflesh and drank the last of his water. With a groan he rose and snuck out of the cave. He pushed snow into the mouth of his waterskin and poked it down with his finger. He did this again and again till he had filled the skin, which he then set beside the fire. Before the snow melted, he slept.