Heretic

Chapter 5

Ylla ran from where the masked villagers where closing in on Isaand, out to where the copse of trees opened up on a beautiful vista of softly flowing grass. Panting with exertion, she slowed to a halt, dropped to her knees, and began feeling around in the grass beneath her.

“What do you think you’re doing, pup? We have to get as far as we can while they’re distracted.”

Ylla froze. The voice was gruff, deep, laced with a subtle growling sound beneath the words. Spinning around, she looked for the speaker but saw no one. No one except the long furry snake-like creature with his wings wrapped around him, standing on his hind legs so that he could see over the tall grass, looking her right in the eye. “Yes, it’s me. Now use those tiny legs of yours and get running.”

“You can speak?” she asked, amazed. Thinking back, she had heard Isaand talking to it before, when she was still recovering from the shock of being healed. “Why couldn’t I hear you before?”

“Isaand commanded me to help you and keep you safe. Implicitly, he named you my new master until he dies or returns. Therefore, I can now speak to you without expending an unpleasant amount of energy.” The creature’s snout didn’t move as he spoke, making him look like a trained pet performing a trick. Ylla wasn’t sure if he was cute or a little threatening.

“Good, then you help me find a stick,” she said. She kept feeling around the ground near the trunk of the nearest tree.

“A stick? What do you want a stick for?”

From back towards the village, Ylla could hear the sounds of hard blows as weapons struck each other, along with a meatier sound she feared was Isaand being struck. He wouldn’t last long. She chewed her lip in frustration. If she didn’t do something, Isaand would die. And then…

The bad memory rose up in her mind again, the feeling of having her skin and bones stripped away. She’d been caught in some violent stream, thrown this way and that, trying to scream without a mouth, her soul rocked and battered by many others. Parts of her had been torn away. She could no longer remember her father’s face clearly. Her mother she could picture with ease, but when she tried to think of her name all she got was a fuzzy noise in her head that she couldn’t say. Other parts of her felt wrong now, mixed in somehow. She remembered holding a baby in her arms, and knowing it was hers, when it couldn’t possibly be. She remembered big hairy hands aching, the knuckles splattered with blood, as she beat them again and again against a sobbing smaller man, begging for mercy in a language she’d never heard. She remembered other things, a press of flesh and sweat and strange feelings she didn’t understand, memories that made her sick when she thought of them, and which didn’t belong.

The priests all taught that when you died, your soul returned to the Churn, to be mixed up and turned into a new person. They talked about it like it was a good thing, a new chance to live. What she remembered made her shiver. It hadn’t felt like she was being made new. It had felt like she was being chopped up and ground together like herbs in a mortar and pestle. And it had hurt, worse than when she’d broken her leg falling out of a tree, worse than being sick, worse than anything she’d ever felt.

If Isaand died, the same thing would happen to him, and he didn’t have anyone to help him come back. All the things he’d told her in the inn were scary and confusing and she wished she could just go home, but all of that didn’t matter because he’d saved her from being ground up and torn apart. She was scared to go back to where those men and women with eyes on their masks where, but she had to help him. She owed him, she owed him everything.

“Here!” her fingers closed on a long, good branch, thicker than her thumb and solid. It was a little curved, and had a few small branches sticking off of it, but it would work. She plopped down, put the branch across her legs, took out the knife Isaand had given her, and then started untying her belt.

“Look, I don’t pretend to understand humans on a good day, but you’ve got to help me out here,” the weird little animal was saying. “What do you need a stick for, and why can’t you get one somewhere else? Away from the gods-touched fools who want to kill us?”

“You said I’m your master now, right snake-thing? That’s good, you can help me. Can you bite people, really hard?” Ylla asked. The belt was more of a sash, made of thick dyed wool. She folded it in half and began threading it around the branch and knife. Ylla knew how to tie knots good. She’d been weaving baskets and mending fences and shoes and all kinds of things since she was barely old enough to walk. With a few strong knots, she’d made a spear, three feet long and topped with the curved blade. She didn’t think spears were supposed to have curved points like that, but that was what Isaand had given her so it must be alright.

“My name is Vehx: use it. And yes, I can bite quite capably, but I don’t see how that’s going to help us in escaping,” Vehx said. Ylla got up and brushed herself off, going through a practice thrust with her little spear. She liked the feel of it. She’d seen the warriors practicing with their spears a thousand times, and it didn’t look so hard.

“Isaand needs help. We’re gonna go help him,” she said. She turned back towards the village and told herself to start walking. It wasn’t so easy. Now that she wasn’t busy, the fear came back. There were a lot of people back there, all adults, bigger and stronger than her, with weapons.

“No we are not. Isaand told us to run, so that’s what we’re going to do. Come on.” Vehx started away, then turned his body halfway around to look at her, growling. She glared back, waving her spear at him.

“Isaand told you to keep me safe, and you have to do what he says, right?”

“Yes, and that means-”

“Well I’m going to go help Isaand, and I’ll be in danger, so you have to come with me to help.”

“Wretched child, listen-”

Suddenly Ylla was running, her heart pounding in her chest. Running towards the village was scary, so she didn’t let herself think about it, she just kept running, counting each pace forward, thinking about her grip on her spear, thinking of anything but the danger that was coming. If she just didn’t think about it, she wouldn’t have anything to be scared of.

“Girl! This is madness!” Vehx was following beside her, running in the grass, then he flapped his wings and burst into a kind of golden smoke, flying up beside and in front of her. She swept an arm through the smoke and kept running, and she heard him grumbling as he followed behind.

She stumbled, slowing. The ground was shaking. Her heart beat faster, and she felt the urge to drop down and kiss the dirt, wait for it to pass in supplication, just like she’d been taught. But that was stupid, this was Tzamet’s land, not Amauro’s so the wolf goddess wouldn’t be here. The rumbling had to be from something else.

“Oh no. She’s back already,” Vehx muttered, and Ylla felt her stomach turn as the ground rumbled again. A loud howling sounded from beyond the trees, a sound she’d heard many times before.

“Amauro,” Ylla whispered.

“She’s come, and not alone. She’s brought her warriors. This is war, girl, and you are no warrior. For the last time, turn around and flee,” Vehx said.

Ylla felt as though her legs had turned to stone. She wanted to keep going, to help Isaand, but she was too scared to move. For a moment, she couldn’t move, and then a thought came back to her. She couldn’t remember her father’s face, but she could hear his voice. She’d asked him one time, why he had to go confront some farmers who’d cheated him out of his pay and threatened him if he didn’t move on to another farm, when he confessed to being scared that they would hurt him.

Fear is only a little thing, Ylla, he’d said. It doesn’t last. But if you know what you should do, and you let fear stop you from doing it, then shame comes instead. And that lasts forever. Just think about how bad you’ll feel if you don’t do the scary things, and fear is easy.

Ylla took a deep breath, and ran forward.