Quintessential Tales: A Magic of Solendrea Anthology (2 page)

"Aye, Sir. Give a shout if you need me."

Royce hoped that wouldn't be the case. If he needed to wake Torus, that would mean they were in danger. If they were in danger, they were as good as dead. No matter how skilled with a sword and bow Royce was, he had neither. Nor did he have a leg to stand on if it came to combat. Torus wouldn't fare much better. For all the work he'd done in keeping them alive and comfortable, combat would be another matter altogether.

A golden glow in the distant horizon was the first good news he'd seen in days. It looked as if the gale had finally blown itself out, only a thin band of clouds smudged the sky far out to sea. With nothing else to do, Royce settled on listening to the alternating sounds of breakers hitting farther down the beach and Torus's discordant snoring. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the nearness of the sea dulling his magical senses. Maybe he was just tired, hurt, and hungry. Whatever it was, Royce MacDungren, Captain of the Grand Army of the Imperium, didn't realize he was being watched until the beast crashed through the boxes and planks.

The shelter exploded in a haphazard rain of splintered wood. Royce saw a blur of orange and white before he tumbled backward, deprived of his support. Torus roared, though whether in pain or surprise, Royce couldn't tell. He couldn't quite get his neck turned in the right way to see what was going on behind him. There was a growl and a sound like water being thrown on a hot stove. Torus shouted and another crash came from the remains of the ruined shelter. Royce gritted his teeth against the pain and managed to throw his body over so that he could at least see what was going on behind him.

When he got his first good look at the war being raged among the broken wood of their hut, Royce almost wished he hadn't bothered to look. Not knowing might have been better. Torus was crouched on one leg, brandishing his plank as a weapon. Squared off against him, maybe ten feet away, was a huge, bulky mass of orange and white striped fur. Torus's opponent stood on two long, but stocky legs that led into a torso heavy with muscle. A long, slender tail was drawn up along its spine, puffed out in all directions. Triangular ears were laid back along the skull, orange eyes, like burning embers, were slit by a slash of vertical black. Jaws half-open, exposing long fangs, it spit and hissed at Torus as it circled.

None of this worried Royce so much as the three inch claws that tipped each finger. They were matte black and didn't reflect much light. They were also sharp as daggers. Royce's commune with the Quintessential Sphere hadn't been sufficiently dulled so as to prevent him from recognizing the danger Torus was in. If he stumbled or faltered in any way, those claws would make short work of his friend.

"Captain!" he grunted, feigning a lunge with his plank and driving back the beast with a renewed round of snarling and spitting.

"I see it."

"Do something!"

Torus wasn't prone to panic. They'd been together on enough fields of battle that Royce knew being caught off guard had set his Lieutenant on edge. The only problem was that there wasn't much Royce could do about it. With both legs out of commission, the best he could do was drag himself through the sand on his elbows.

Without a second thought, Royce took a handful of sand and threw it, willing it toward the creature's eyes. The grit went wide, but the thing twitched its whiskers and bounded backward. Torus was quick to leap on the momentary advantage. He drove himself across the sand, grunting each time he came down on his bad ankle. Through the grace of the Eternals, the joint held, and Torus lowered his shoulder, slamming into the creature's midriff. Breath whooshed out of it as Torus drove it to the ground, grabbing its wrists and forcing them down, keeping the deadly claws at bay.

Royce had just a moment to consider how lucky they were, when movement from the edge of the beach caught his eye. Two more of the feline creatures were closing on them. One was a larger specimen, mottled with black and yellow fur. The other was smaller, more slender, patched in white and gray.

"Torus, look out!"

The cry of warning came a moment too late. As Torus's head snapped up, a huge hand caught him by the chin, flipping him up and back from the supine form of the creature
that he'd managed to lay out. Torus landed in the scattered wood of the hut, groaned once, then was still. The orange and white beast that Torus had tackled regained its feet with a grace that Royce would have envied in any other circumstance. A furry fist caught Royce in the temple and the world went dark.

~

Royce was getting tired of getting knocked out. Dull throbbing at the base of his skull told him, in no uncertain terms, that his body didn't much care for it either. He kept his eyes closed, instead focusing on only what he could hear. It was quiet, save for the soft crackling of a fire. The roar of the crashing waves was gone, replaced with the chirruping of crickets and the faint rustle of small animals moving through the underbrush. Wherever they'd been taken, it was a decent distance inland from the beach where they'd landed.

He opened his eyes and took stock of his predicament. Royce was in a cage that swung sedately about ten feet above and to one side of the fire. The cage was crafted of reeds about as thick as his wrist and lashed top, middle, and bottom with stout vines. With no blade, there was little chance of him getting free of his confinement. A glance across the clearing told him Torus was in the same kind of trouble. His huge frame was doubled over in the cage. Fortunately, he seemed to
be still unconscious. When he awoke, Torus would be rather uncomfortable. If he lived that long.

Three huge shapes crashed into the clearing around the fire. Six eyes gleamed in the firelight, looking first at Royce's cage, then at Torus's. The feline creatures spoke amongst themselves, the conversation consisting of a series of mewls, spits, and hissing growls. It was impossible to guess what they were saying. From their statures and body language, Royce could only assume that the other two were angry with the orange and white behemoth that had attacked them on the beach. Royce wasn't too happy with it either.

A renewed bout of spitting and hissing shattered the stillness of the clearing. Black-and-yellow let out a low, menacing growl that even Royce would have known better than to argue with. Orange-and-white looked at White-and-gray as if pleading for support. Finding none, Orange-and-white's tail drooped. It laid its ears back along its skull and slunk away from the fire. Royce knew defeat when he saw it. Though he didn't know what they'd been arguing about, Orange-and-white had clearly lost the fight and had been driven out because of it.

An unpleasant sensation passed over him, like insects scurrying across his flesh. Four luminous eyes peered up at him from the edge of the clearing. They knew he was awake. Black-and-yellow moved under Royce's cage and disappeared from view. A growing sense of unease gnawed at him, roiling his stomach, but Royce forced it away. Fear served no purpose. He wasn't sure what was going to happen next, but he knew that he needed to keep a clear head to get Torus out of this in one piece.

The cage jerked, slamming Royce against the wall. He braced for excruciating pain from his legs and was surprised when it didn't hurt as badly as he'd expected. Far enough from the disrupting effects of the sea, his bond with the Quintessential Sphere had been re-established. The forces that were slowly draining him of life were also mending his bruises and broken bones. As the cage was lowered into the light of the fire, Royce saw that the worst of the contusions had faded to a pale yellow shadow of what they'd been. The minor cuts and scrapes were all but gone. He was thankful that Torus was still passed out in his cage. He wasn't looking forward to explaining his miraculous healing. He’d taken great care over the years to hide his special abilities from those he fought alongside. Even going so far as to using cosmetics to take on the appearance of normal healing. He had no such supplies to work with now.

He touched the ground and for a moment, nothing in the clearing moved. Black-and-yellow peered at him through the bars. White-and-gray stood just beyond, also looking toward the cage. Orange-and-white was still nowhere to be seen, and that made Royce more nervous than the two beasts that were peering at him with what seemed like a mixture of hunger and curiosity.

Black-and-yellow stepped up to the cage and fiddled with it, his long claws scraping against the thick bars and sending a shiver up Royce's spine. His captors were well armed with fangs and claws. He had nothing with which to defend himself except his wits. He'd have much preferred a sturdy blade or spear. A door in the side of the cage opened and Black-and-yellow stepped back. He waited, his luminous eyes dancing in the firelight.

Royce had sprung many traps in his career with the Army. He'd found himself landed in several more. This smelled of a trap. They were giving him just enough rope to hang himself with. If he bolted, they'd run him down. It was a predatory instinct, to chase fleeing prey. They were testing him, to see if he'd run.

Lowering his hands to his legs, he pressed on the skin above and below his knees. Pain blossomed, which was reassuring in its own way. At least pain was a known commodity. Though he was no healer, he knew the bones weren't fully mended yet. He could feel it. A subtle strangeness around him. The Quintessential Sphere telling him that he wasn't in peak form. Royce snorted softly. As if he needed the Eternals to tell him that. Even so, his legs felt as if they'd support his weight, if he moved carefully. Slowly.

With thick fingers calloused by years of abuse, Royce picked apart the expertly tied knots Torus had used to lash the splints to his legs. His captor's eyes tracked each movement, no matter how minute or innocent. He laid the bindings aside and moved the driftwood splints to the far wall. Though he'd like to have kept one as a weapon, no matter how primitive, it wouldn't do him any good to provoke the feline beasts. Even with his power returning, their claws were far better weapons. If only he'd had more time.

Royce grabbed the bars of his prison and pulled himself up onto protesting legs. He ground his teeth against the pain, and despite his best efforts, a little groan whooshed out of him. From the corner of his eye, he saw Black-and-yellow's whiskers twitch. He mewled something softly to White-and-gray, who turned with graceful fluidity and disappeared into the jungle.

Though one-to-one were odds that Royce much preferred, he had no delusions about being able to escape the muscular beast just outside his cage. He hated being at a disadvantage, but he couldn't see any way to turn the tables. Nor could he think of a way to keep stalling, to keep the bars of the cage between himself and those deadly claws.

With a sigh of resignation, Royce took a step sideways, toward the door. He put his weight down gingerly at first, feeling for the telltale buckle of a limb that wouldn't support his weight. Though there was a considerable amount of pain, it didn't feel as if he was in danger of collapsing. One hurdle down. How many to go?

Royce's progress was slow, both due to his injury and to the fact that he really didn't want to be standing face to face with Black-and-yellow, who made Torus look tiny in comparison. At over six feet tall and almost three hundred pounds, Torus was a mountain of a man who left most cowering in his shadow. By comparison, Black-and-yellow stood
about a foot taller and was graced with another fifty pounds of muscle, at least.

Standing outside the cage filled Royce with a feeling of vulnerability that both repulsed and fascinated him. As the Captain of the Great Army of the Imperium, he'd faced countless foes, leading his men into battle against them with the singular purpose of preserving the realm and protecting the One True King. In each of those battles, he'd been surrounded by men he knew and trusted. Men who, he knew, would sacrifice themselves to save him if the need arose. The same as he would sacrifice himself for them. It was a different feeling now, standing across from this impressive predator, to know that he was utterly alone.

Torus, of course, was still in his cage, swinging slowly above the fire, but even if he were awake, what could he do to prevent whatever was about to happen? Even with his best friend and most trusted adviser no more than thirty feet away, he felt abandoned, adrift and isolated in a way that he'd never felt before. He faced Black-and-yellow, tilting his head back slightly so he could look the taller beast in the eyes.

"Ish ash beeen lawng sime since shuumans shas sheffiled Shyraan lansh."

It took Royce a moment to realize that the hissing, spitting sound he was hearing was Black-and-yellow's speech. Longer still to realize that it was a badly slurred form of the common tongue. He guessed that with fangs that large dominating most of the oral real estate, things got lost in the translation. Now that he knew what he was listening for, it would be easier to understand.

"Our arrival wasn't intentional, I assure you. Our ship broke up out to sea. When my friend and I woke up, we were on your beach. We had no intention of trespassing. I am Royce MacDungren, Captain of..."

He trailed off. Royce wasn't sure that identifying himself as the commanding officer of a foreign army was the smartest thing he could do, considering the circumstances.

"Captain of the sailing ship Warhorse," he finished quickly, filling in the gap he'd left.

"You may call me Shreth. Of the Shyraan. My mate is Faarsh. My brother, Hsaan."

Shreth's speech was much easier to understand now that Royce knew what he was listening for.