In Red Rune Canyon

  Chapter One: A Difference of Opinion

  The wind blowing in Kagur’s face smelled of rot. She started running, and the soft earth, boggy with the coming of summer, sucked at her feet. Her five companions ran as well.

  Eovath soon pulled ahead of everyone else. Like her, the blue-skinned frost giant was still growing, but he was already taller than any human tribe member, with longer legs and a longer stride.

  He slowed down, though, when the several bodies on the ground came into view. It was too late to help them, and prudent to advance with caution in case their killers were still lurking about.

  They didn’t seem to be, though, which left Kagur free to inspect the corpses. The shredded flesh, glazed eyes, and flies that buzzed up into the air at her approach forced her to swallow away the stinging taste of bile.

  Her squeamishness made her scowl. Like any Kellid warrior, she’d seen violent death before, and only one of the dead folk here had been a Blacklion like Eovath and herself. But they’d all become friendly since setting forth to hunt from a gathering of half a dozen tribes.

  Borog straightened up from his examination of one of the corpses. A member of the Eagleclaw tribe, he was the oldest surviving member of the hunting party, with deep lines etched in his sun-bronzed face, pouches under his dark eyes, and white hairs speckling a close-cropped black beard. “Like the others,” he said.

  They’d all heard tales of other hunters encountering the same grisly end. They just hadn’t let it deter them from roaming the prairie themselves. No true Kellid allowed fear to rule her, and even had it been otherwise, a tribe that didn’t hunt wouldn’t eat.

  “Not all the others,” Eovath said. His adolescent voice broke on the second word, but even then it was as deep as most men’s.

  Borog frowned. “How so?”

  “The way I heard it,” the frost giant said, “the first band of hunters fell dead without a mark on them. It was the latter ones that were torn apart.”

  The Eagleclaw warrior snorted. “And what does that tell you? That the first incident was something different than the slaughters that have happened since.”

  “Maybe not,” Kagur said. Turning, she counted the corpses. “Supposedly, every band, including that first one, had one member carried off. And one of our own is missing: Dron.”

  Those who try to protect Kagur would be

  better off protecting themselves.

  One of the other hunters hurriedly checked Kagur’s body count with the aid of a jabbing finger. Another touched the beaten silver good-luck charm hanging around her neck.

  “All right,” Borog growled, “maybe the same thing did kill the first party. At this point, what does it matter?”

  “It doesn’t,” Kagur said. “What matters is picking up the trail.” Studying the ground, she prowled away from the corpses, and after a moment, her companions followed her lead.

  She hoped it would be easy to find tracks in the mucky earth, and bent blades among the new grass, and in fact, it was only a short time before Eovath called out: “Here! The sign isn’t clear enough to tell what the killers are. But they came from the northeast and headed back that way, too.”

  “Let’s see,” Borog said. He stalked to where Eovath was standing, squatted to study the sign, then grunted in a way that suggested he agreed with the giant’s reading.

  “Let’s move out,” Kagur said, striding closer to the other two.

  “No,” Borog replied. “Red Rune Canyon is northeast.”

  Kagur blinked. That particular fact had momentarily eluded her. And while she’d only heard rumors about strange deaths on the tundra since the start of summer, she’d listened to tales about Red Rune Canyon her whole life. Every Kellid knew the place was cursed.

  But in the present circumstances, that didn’t matter. “We have to rescue Dron.”

  “Dron’s dead,” said Zorek, a lanky Eagleclaw of about Kagur’s age. Blood had trickled out of his sleeve to stain the back of his hand. Several days previously, a ground sloth had clawed his forearm, and he picked at the scabby gash when no one was watching to slow the healing and make an impressive scar.

  “You don’t know that,” Kagur said. “If the attackers wanted him dead, they could have killed him on the spot like they did everybody else. You don’t know they really came from Red Rune Canyon, either.”

  “They could just be orc raiders out of the Hold of Belkzen,” Eovath rumbled.

  Borog shook his head. “Smell the rot in the air. Our friends haven’t lain dead long enough to stink like that. That’s the smell of the unnatural things that killed them.”

  Kagur scowled. “Maybe, but it doesn’t change anything. Dron still needs rescuing, and our dead need avenging.”

  Borog took a breath. “Look around. There are fewer of us than there were of those who lost their lives already, and you, Zorek, and the giant are young and green. How do you expect to win where a stronger band of warriors already lost?”

  “We can make a plan when we know more.”

  “Here’s the plan,” Borog said. “We’ll return to our tribes, and the chiefs will decide what to do next. Maybe they’ll decide to hunt and fight the killers properly, and you can ask permission to join the war party.”

  “By then, Dron will likely be dead or tortured.”

  “But you’ll be alive, and Jorn Blacklion won’t start a feud with the Eagleclaws because I let his idiot daughter come to harm.”

  “It’s not for you to decide what the ‘idiot daughter’ will do,” Kagur said. “You’re not my chief, and I’m going after Dron even if nobody else does.”

  “No,” said Borog, “you aren’t.”

  If his voice changed, his eyes shifted, or his hand gestured to give a signal, Kagur didn’t notice in a conscious way. But the rest of the hunters had drifted up behind her to listen to the conversation, and suddenly instinct screamed that they were reaching for her.

  She tried to spring forward, but hands grabbed her forearms and held her back. She stamped on a foot and snapped her head backward into someone’s teeth and jaw. That loosened the grips restraining her, and she wrenched herself free and spun around.

  Spreading out to flank her, her three assailants came after her. Backing away, she reflexively reached for her longsword, and they faltered, as well they might. Young as she was, she was skilled with a blade, and they knew it.

  But, her anger notwithstanding, she knew drawing a weapon would be stupid. She didn’t want to kill folk from friendly tribes, especially when, as they saw it, they were only trying to stop her from coming to harm.

  She hitched her foot, faking another step backward, and when they advanced, she threw herself at them. She punched Zorek in the solar plexus and made the breath whoosh out of him, but then her other two opponents grabbed her. One kicked her left foot out from underneath her, and they dumped her onto the ground.

  Kagur thrashed but couldn’t break their holds. Panting, Zorek came up behind them with a length of rawhide in his hands.

  A big blue hand caught him by the shoulder and flung him aside. Then Eovath bashed the other hunters away from her with two sweeps of his fist.

  Grateful as she was for the help, Kagur winced. Eovath was stronger than any human, and he hadn’t held back.

  Fortunately, her assailants weren’t seriously hurt, as they demonstrated by scrambling back to their feet. Unfortunately, they too deemed that the confrontation had escalated from a scuffle to a deadly serious fight, and they snatched for the weapons slung from their belts.

  Eovath lunged, caught Zorek before he could ready his axe, and heaved him into the air by his throat and arm. The lanky Eagleclaw’s face turned red, and he made gurgling sounds.

  Borog hefted a javelin. The upper edge of the leaf
-shaped steel point glinted in the morning sunlight. “Let him go.”

  “You might kill me,” Eovath said, his yellow eyes gleaming like the spear point, “but not fast enough to keep me from killing your kinsman. One shake snaps his spine. One squeeze crushes his windpipe.”

  “No!” cried Kagur, leaping to her feet. “I mean, no to both of you! Borog, what’s the sense of killing us to keep us from risking our lives?”

  “I never threatened to kill you,” Borog replied without taking his eyes off Eovath. “Only the slave.”

  She put her hand on her sword hilt. “Eovath is my brother, and if you hurt him, you’d better kill me.”

  Borog’s jaw tightened. “Fine. Go. Your father must know what a stubborn fool you are. Maybe he won’t blame me.”

  Eovath sneered and tossed Zorek away.

  Once Kagur and the giant were on the trail and sure their erstwhile companions weren’t following, she asked, “What were you going to do if they called your bluff?”

  The giant smiled a crooked smile. “What makes you think I was bluffing?”

  “You wouldn’t really kill friends of the Blacklions.”

  “They didn’t seem much like friends when they jumped you.”

  Still, she doubted their father would have approved. But if Kagur and Eovath had offended the Eagleclaws, Jorn Blacklion would make amends with gracious words and gifts. Meanwhile, his daughter and foster son had a hunt to complete. She paused to inspect the ground before them, then pointed at the clearest track she’d found so far: the unmistakable impression of a boot.

  Eovath nodded. “You were right. Dron isn’t dead. In fact, he’s fit enough for his captors to march him along.”

  For a moment, Kagur was certain that was the way of it. Then she noticed additional tracks a couple paces farther along. “I hope so. But look here. The ‘captors’ were wearing boots, too.”

  Eovath grunted. “Then maybe they are orc raiders, despite the putrid smell. Or Kellids turned bandit.”

  Kagur looked up at him. “You sound disappointed.”

  “Haven’t you ever been curious to see a ghost or a demon?”

  “I suppose. Is that why you agreed we should come after Dron?”

  “I agreed because no one should be dragged off into slavery.”

  Kagur frowned. “You’re not a slave, despite what Borog said. No Blacklion thinks of you that way. Not anymore. Not for a long while.”

  The frost giant shrugged his massive shoulders. “We should keep moving.”

  They did, loping across windswept tundra and past ponds surrounded by patches of yellow-green moss and stunted diamond-leaf willows. When the trail led near ripe red bearberries, they gobbled some and picked more for later. Gray-white hawks with crimson beaks floated in the sky, and wild mammoths trumpeted in the west.

  Animals grew scarcer, though, as the terrain became hillier and the trackers drew near to Red Rune Canyon. By the time the sun was sinking toward the western horizon, and the notch between two stony walls came into view, Eovath and Kagur were the only moving, breathing things in sight.

  “It’s nearly dark,” Eovath said. “We could camp here and head in come morning.”

  Kagur shook her head. “Let’s cover as much ground as we can.”

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t a great deal more, for when, peering about for lurking orcs and other dangers, they prowled into the mouth of the canyon, they found it was already twilight inside. They had to stop not long thereafter lest they risk losing the trail.

  They camped beside the creek that ran down the center of the gorge and supped on more bearberries and bison jerky. Kagur had swamp tealeaves in her pack as well, but it would be foolish to build a fire to brew a beverage. Someone or something might spot the light. So far, however, Red Rune Canyon had done nothing to justify its sinister reputation.

  Later, when Eovath was on watch and sleep continued to evade her despite the day’s exertions, Kagur came to a decision. “It’s just orcs. Orcs bold and cunning enough to hole up where humans are afraid to go.”

  “What about the rotten smell?” Eovath replied.

  “How many clean orcs have you fought?”

  “What about the first hunting party, slain without a mark on them?”

  “I don’t know, but—”

  Eovath suddenly peered farther down the canyon. “Something’s there.”

  Chapter Two: Among the Dead

  Tossing aside her blanket, Kagur sat up and looked where Eovath was gazing, but though she had keen eyes, he generally fared better in the dark. “I don’t see anything.”

  Eovath stood up. “Neither do I, now. It was just a shadow, and it’s shuffled back around the next bend. But whatever it was, it had two arms and two legs and was bent over like it was hurt. Dron, maybe, if he escaped.”

  “Or the bait in a trap.” Kagur smiled. “There’s one way to find out.”

  Her longbow was of little use when she couldn’t see targets at a distance. She left it unstrung and leaning against the canyon wall and drew her longsword instead. The straight steel blade made a faint hissing sound as it cleared the pewter mouth of the scabbard.

  Meanwhile, Eovath likewise forsook his pair of javelins in favor of his battleaxe. Jorn Blacklion had pulled the enormous double-bitted implement from the grip of a giant he’d slain in battle, and it fit the hands of his adopted son better than any little human weapon could.

  “Ready?” Kagur whispered.

  “Yes,” Eovath replied, and they advanced.

  The night was as silent as it was dark. Kagur’s pulse beat in her neck.

  She told herself she wasn’t nervous. She was a Blacklion warrior, well schooled in the use of the sword and tested in fights with orcs, wolves, and saber-toothed cats. Still, a ghost… or a demon…

  She sneered her anxiety away. Her father had taught her that if something could hurt her, she could hurt it back. That only made sense, and it meant a warrior need never be afraid.

  When she and Eovath stalked around the turn, it was only to behold another stretch of gorge that, as best she could judge with only starlight to see by, was as empty as the one behind her. But as she peered about, she caught a whiff of decay hanging in the chill night air.

  “Smell that?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” Eovath replied. “You were right. This is a trap.”

  “Dron could still be here.” Kagur raised her voice: “Dron! It’s Eovath and Kagur! We came to help you!” The shout echoed away, the sound bouncing off the canyon walls.

  In response, a dark form staggered away from the wall of the gorge. As Eovath had said, it was shaped like a person, hunched over, and had its back to the Blacklions. When Kagur squinted, she could just make out variations in the texture of it that might indicate the layered fur and leather garments of a Kellid hunter. She shifted her grip on the hilt of her sword, and she and Eovath headed for the shadow.

  A second black shape plummeted down onto the giant’s back.

  The dead were not meant to walk.

  Clinging to the giant like a child riding his father’s shoulders, his assailant ripped at him, maybe with a dagger, maybe with something else. In the darkness, Kagur couldn’t tell.

  She sprang forward to cut at the attacker, but Eovath reeled around and inadvertently shielded the thing clinging to his back with his own towering body. He dropped his axe to clank on stones on the canyon floor, reached back over his shoulder, and yanked his foe from his perch, smashing it down onto the ground with a bellow.

  Kagur’s belly tightened in loathing, not because the creature was hideous—although it was—but because she suspected it had once been human. It still had the general form of a man and wore a man’s garments. But it was so withered and shriveled that by rights, it should have had no strength at all, and its nails and teeth alike had grown long and jagged-sharp. The dark, slanted eyes in its pale face were featureless, without differentiated whites, irises, or pupils, and its ears were pointed. The carrion stench Ka
gur had smelled at the site of the massacre and at intervals along the trail emanated from its body.

  To her surprise, the creature wrenched itself free of Eovath’s grip and started to roll to its feet. She lashed out, cutting through the side of its neck until steel grated against spine. It flopped back down onto the ground, thrashed, and then lay still.

  Eovath was swaying, and blood from his claw wounds stained his tunic. “How badly are you hurt?” Kagur asked him.

  Nearly pitching forward in the process, he stooped and fumbled for his battleaxe. “Behind you!” he croaked.

  She whirled. More shadows were rearing up from the creek. She hadn’t realized it was deep enough to hide something the size of a man, but it evidently was.

  The things rushed her. So did their comrade farther up the gorge, the lure that she and Eovath had hoped was Dron.

  Hoping to surprise them, she charged the gaunt, pale things splashing out of the water. One surprised her instead by throwing a dagger, but she saw the gleam of metal just in time to twitch aside. The blade spun past her.

  A creature sprang at her with outstretched claws, and she cut at its head and sliced half its face away. It fell, but as she pivoted to meet the next one, it started to stand back up.

  No living man or beast could have shaken off the effects of a wound like that. She realized that if she and Eovath hadn’t found ghosts, they’d at least come close. For the foes rushing at her were almost certainly some manner of undead, perhaps the skulking, corpse-eating brutes called ghouls.

  She cut into the next one’s chest, and it snarled and lunged, driving her sword deeper into itself in its frenzy to reach her. She tried to jump back and yank the blade free, but the ghoul was quick and prevented her from opening up the distance. Its clawed fingers grabbed her leather-clad forearm, and it leaned forward and opened its fanged jaws wide.

  Using her off hand, she snatched a dirk from her belt and drove it into the middle of the living dead man’s forehead. The creature collapsed with her longsword still embedded in its torso.

  She yanked the sword free and cut in a single motion, barely in time to hold back another onrushing ghoul, this one discernibly female by virtue of its bouncing, withered breasts and swinging amber necklace. Without pausing, Kagur turned and slashed again at the one with half a face, which had by now regained its feet. It recoiled, and the attack fell short.