This is the twenty-third chapter of the Fang & Bone serial; click here to visit the previous installment of Fang of Triseria. Please share your thoughts on the story in the comments, or visit the project hub for more information.
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“How long does it take for a werewolf to pee, honestly?”
“Child, do you not see the size of him? The last thing I would do is complain about the micturition rate of the thing that is getting us through these woods unscathed.”
Corea glanced over to Erryl. He was leaning against a gnarled old tree, with a small book, scratching something into it. She watched the featherless quill shift between his fingers.
“What is ‘micturate?’”
He glanced up from his writing.
“It means to pee.”
“I’ve never heard it that way.”
“It’s a scholarly word, the kind you learn from studies among mages, surgeons, and doctors.”
“How did you get in with them?”
Erryl paused for a moment, pinching the featherless quill between the pages where he was writing and folding the small book closed. He crossed his arms, and she could hear him tap the book against his bony elbow.
“I went to school for it at my father’s insistence. Then he died, but I was already deeply into the training, so I continued. I had planned to open a shop, but war came to Tradewind, and I worked on the battlefield. Never really stopped.”
He paused.
“I suppose to answer your question: I went to school.”
“Is that where you get one of those weird little featherless quills?”
Erryl paused for a moment. His face screwed up into a pinch, like he’d not understood the question. But just as soon as he had done that, he glanced down toward his small book and extracted it.
“This is a pen. Virtually identical to a quill, but you can keep it much longer.”
He held the pen vertically with pinched fingers and glanced at it for a while.
“It was a gift,” he added.
He shifted his focus to Corea and held the pen to her. She had begun to teach out to pluck it from his grasp, but she held back. It had been important to the man. Upon his wiggling the pen in front of her, she gingerly took it from him and began to examine it.
It was mostly wood, but there were bits of brass. A small plate showed something engraved, but what it was she could not read. The pen had a heftiness to it and was much heavier than she had expected. What intrigued her most was the point that was something between a spoon and a blade. It was like the end of a quill she had seen, only carefully made from delicate metal.
She had been so entranced that she hadn’t noted that Erryl had his book open to her on a page.
“Try drawing a line here, in the corner, where it’s blank.”
She could not recognize the words he had written on the open pages – they looked like scribbles – but there were pictures. There were local plants drawn in the gaps between the words, and she recognized several of them quite readily from her own experiences. The pictures were quite good.
She glanced up at him, and he nodded back.
“You have to hold the pen at an angle so that the ink will flow from the reservoir inside to the tip. Try it.”
The blank section was not very large, only about the size of a thumb, but she placed the pen tip near the top of the gap and began to drag the tip downward, angling the pen. In the first moment, there was nothing, but then suddenly bluish-black ink began to run from the tip to the paper. It was fascinating. She rolled the pen between her fingers and was alarmed to see that smooth line erupt into a splotchy mess.
Erryl pulled the book away and reached his hand out for the pen.
“Aside from the blot, the line looks pretty good. Perhaps we can make a writer of you, yet.”
She handed the pen back.
“What is it you are writing in there, sir? I saw nice pictures of some of the plants.”
Erryl was fiddling with his pen for a moment. He tucked it, and his book, into a pocket inside his vest.
“A trick I learned from hedge doctors I’ve met. I take notes and observe unique things as I travel and make a record of different places and what resources I might use if I ever return.” He tapped the journal where it rested against his chest. “This is my third such journal. I may write a book one day.”
“What unique things have you seen?”
Erryl leaned back against the gnarled tree and thought about it.
“Many things. I find I surround myself with unique things. I’ve met a mummy. I travel with a wolfman. I’ve seen the cousins of dragons – not dragons, mind you. They’re gone.” He thought a moment more and smiled. “I can also say that I have never quite met another Corea Gorse out there. The gods blessed me with a life that helped me to learn the letters and use them quite well. It would be a shame not to use them to point out the unique things out there.”
Corea was quiet for a few moments, thinking about words – the written ones. She’d seen they were useful, but had never had a chance to learn them. There really wasn’t much use to them in a dying down.
Maybe after finding Garen, she could convince the Wolf and the Barber to take her and her brother with them to a town where learning to read would be useful.
“Do you think I might be able to read and write like you one day?”
Erryl said nothing.
…
Corea had been asking Erryl questions for quite a while, with no sign of the Fang. After a time, the conversation lulled, and some noises came from the brush. Corea kept her hands near her knife, but Erryl continued to lean against the tree, unmoved by any caution. It must have been Fang.
And it was. The Wolf took heavy steps from behind a tree and emerged onto the road.
“Took you long enough,” Erryl muttered.
He glanced at Fang. Corea could not tell what sort of expression the Wolf had on his face, but Erryl did, and he moved from the tree and placed a hand on his rapier’s hilt.
“Come,” was all the Wolf said.
…
The corpse was, from what Corea could tell, a day or two old. She did not recognize him, no matter how many times Fang and Erryl had asked her or painted out some detail. She was just glad he was not Garen. She was content in the fact that she knew nothing of the man, given the state of the body. He was just a stranger who met with a grim fate and not someone she knew. The two roadmen spoke to one another in hushed tones, and Corea kept at a distance from the corpse. She couldn’t help but stare.
A rumbling question of “what killed him?” snapped her attention to Fang, who was staring at her. Not just Fang. Erryl as well. Their attention was upon her, and it appeared they expected an answer.
“I’m not sure.”
“Not good enough,” Fang responded. “Really look. Get closer.”
Corea felt she had seen too many corpses today, but stepped closer. They expected an answer. It was some kind of lesson, and this one was at Fang’s urging. The last thing she wanted to do was to keep him waiting.
The corpse was a man she did not recognize. He was against a tree, his head lolling down, chin on his chest. Blood had soaked through the top of his shirt just around the neckline. His arms hung loose, and his fingers twisted and curled over open palms that lay up from the ground where he sat. Before she moved closer to investigate his neck, she took in the state of the scene. He was not quite sitting in a camp, but it was apparent he had been sitting down and resting. His gear had been set aside, his weapons laid out within grabbing distance had there been an attack, but to no avail, clearly, given the fact that he was dead. She spied some rations that had yet to be picked up by a scavenger. Nor had the body attracted much beyond bugs and the ever-present maggots found around rotting meat. The denizens of the woods claimed the dead quickly.
This was beginning to feel like it was a matter of hours, not a day or so, since the man met his end. No slimes. No dismemberment. Just a dead man, alone.
Behind her came the sounds of muffled chewing, and she looked back to see Fang and Erryl observing the situation, clearly judging her, while eating some of their own packed rations. Fang had a rather large serving of saltpork and tore at it with vigor, and Erryl seemed to be picking at some croutons.
“How can you eat in front of a corpse?” she asked.
Erryl continued to pop croutons into his mouth. Fang looked down at her and shook his head as he chewed through his sizable bite of meat.
“You eat when hungry. You eat when you have a moment to spare.” He gestured back to the corpse with a nod. “Tell us what you see, girl.”
Corea knelt and paused for a moment. She took a breath, grabbed at his hair, and began to pull the head up from the chest. A sticky, unfurling sound made her uneasy and turned her stomach, but she continued to pull, shifting her gaze from dead, shocked eyes and staring at his neck. Several gashes came into view all over, just above the neckline. She’d thought, maybe, it had been a slit throat, but she hadn’t expected it to be so jagged. She was no stranger to butchery. With chickens, quail, and other birds, it was a quick chop. She’d bled goats and pigs for Mr. Gorten in the line of duty. You learned that a single, strong stroke was the way to go. This did not appear to be that. Those required a smooth slice at the neck to bleed them rapidly. The first time she was tasked to slaughter a goat, she’d fumbled it and got kicked in the face by a flailing leg. She didn’t let that happen again. The pigs still bothered her, though, and she was thankful pork was not something New Gordhurst had a lot of access to.
But this – this was clumsy and violent.
“He must have been resting, and someone snuck up and stabbed him several times. Would have been more proper to slice him.”
Fang grunted, nodded, and crouched beside her, still tearing at saltpork. He pointed to the wounds.
“Not unusual for bandits. Touchy ones at that. Dangerous places make dangerous men.” He sniffed the air and peered around before he continued, “I doubt they’re far.”
“Idiots at that,” Erryl added. “Took his gold purse but left just about everything else that would be useful for survival. I doubt they are locals and know what else lingers in these woods.”
Corea has risen to her feet and taken several steps back from the corpse to take in the scene, visually sorting through the scattered belongings. She noticed a knife.
Within an instant, Fang was within earshot, having risen without her hearing him. His hot breath near her face was like the steam of a boiling stew. His massive, snouted face snuck into her range of vision as she continued to look at the corpse.
“Take the knife. Take the short bow.”
She would do as she was told and pick up the knife.
“Good. Learn as you go.”
The knife had an accompanying wooden sheath that could be tied on one’s person with a basic cord, and she did just that. She didn’t really care to think about what the notches on the sheath had meant. Knife secured, she drew it, noticing the blade was blackened. It was roughly an inch or two shorter than her kitchen knife, but also slightly curved. This was a bleeding knife, and the man’s killer would have had a much easier time with this blade.
“A good knife,” Erryl remarked. Corea nodded and sheathed it, turning her attention to the shortbow near the corpse. Erryl had already been picking at what arrows he could find and had found the small quiver. He finished slotting a pair of arrows and handed her the quiver. He turned his attention back to the corpse, picking through what had been this dead man’s few belongings.
The shortbow was a small weapon of stealth, as she understood it, talking to some of the town guardsmen, but it did not have the power of a longbow. But then again, Corea was shorter than those men, and in her own hands, the bow did not feel very small at all.
Again, Corea was caught off guard as the Wolf crouched before her, as she had studied the bow. She had heard nothing, again, only just catchingt a sudden, massive form slide out in front of her. He looked at her with his large, yellow eyes. She could read his expression here, one of concern, his browline raised and curious.
“Ever use one?” he asked in a low, soft voice.
“Never.”
“We practice as we go. You fire past me. I collect them. I’ll point out the targets. You don’t have the strength to kill with it. But you can maim if you attack the legs. Do not fire at me.”
Corea heard Erryl cast a muffled laugh at Fang’s words. Her face flushed, and she felt a surge of shame recalling that morning. She glanced into Fang’s eyes, but there was no sense of annoyance. There was a softness that felt odd, but reassuring. She nodded.
“But ghouls don’t really get hobbled by arrows, sir.”
Fang rose to his feet and looked down at her.
“Not ghouls that worry me.”
…
Erryl had scrounged up cloth from the man’s pack as well as his small, thin bedroll. As the party moved forward, he would tear up cloth for bandaging, wrapping the scraps into tight bundles, and then tucking them into the bedroll.
As for Corea, she and Fang had been at work training her archery skills, which were far from satisfactory. He would point out a tree, she would miss, and she would inevitably empty her quiver. Fang would fall back from his lead position and return, handing over the arrows he had collected.
The first time this had happened, she had cracked a joke about playing fetch, and Fang told her that he would eat her. She had not made that joke since.
She was hitting the trees more often now, after what felt like a quarter-hour or so, but the problem was getting the arrow to stick. She was strong enough to hit the range given her life of choring, but the arrows mostly bounced off the bark, barring one or two instances of the arrowheads finding purchase and hanging loosely. Hardly a true success.
After the third quiver of arrows was returned, she asked for a break. Fang shrugged and obliged, darting back ahead. Erryl snorted.
“Corea, how do you expect to be of any use if you don’t push yourself?”
She didn’t answer.
“Children’s games, I suppose,” Erryl mused.
She felt a radiance of annoyance from behind her, the words lapping at her like a cold wave. It was just a break; what was the concern? She shrugged his words off and kept her pace. Besides, she had already contributed. She pulled the small slime bottle from a coat pocket. The pale green substance sloshed in the bottle, but the organ inside, the clear bubble, did not really move.
She had earned it. Sure, she was not as strong as Fang, nor as experienced as Erryl, but she was holding her own, and she was learning.
She put the bottle away, pulled out a strip of saltpork from another pocket, and began to eat as she kept up her pace.
…
“Godsdamn it, Corea, I told you to stay inside.”
Garen looked quite funny, wrapped in blankets and wielding a broom.
“These bats can give you the sickness if you’re bit. Go back.”
Most of the local bats were largely harmless, but a new, larger bat had begun nesting just outside under the shack roof, pushing the old bats out. Garen had asked around, and from what he could gather, this was a type known as an Iskaran Wraith. It was huge with coarse black fur and giant red eyes. Some in town even suggested they drank blood and preferred children and goats, specifically. There were werewolves to the north, and this could just as easily have been a vampire, as he saw it. It wasn’t, but if a vampire were going to take the form of a bat, then the bat would be an Iskaran Wraith – at least, that is what he reasoned to her.
The local Red Furs ate the insects of the area, and their guano helped fuel fires all over New Gordhurst. Their local cluster that lived under the roof was harmless and helpful, and Garen had decided that the Wraith had to go, for their sake, and definitely not because it was probably a vampire.
“What’s a broom gonna do?”
Garen looked over at Corea and shook his head.
“The broom is just to knock it down, dummy. I’ll stab it once it’s on the ground.”
“I can help.”
“You can help by leaving me alone.”
“I can go tell Mr. Gorten?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t need him.”
“But he’s tall, he can probably get at it easier than you.”
“I’m tall for my age,” Garen chuffed.
“Kent is taller than you, and he’s nine.”
“Kent stretched himself by tying his feet to a mule and hugging a tree. We all know that.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“He did. Now hush. I’m gonna kill it.”
Corea watched her older brother awkwardly wave the broom around in the gaps and corners where the roof met the shack walls. Shit, twigs, and cobwebs clung to the broom, which would be up to her to clean. What wasn’t trapped by the broom had now fallen onto the blanket armor that he had swaddled himself into. Again, it would be on her to clean that too.
Garen’s yelp snapped her out of her grumbling as she saw him frantically flap and toss the broom as the black bat was darting at him, annoyed.
“My knife. Shit! I’m tangled!”
She watched his swaddled form practically dance, his bagged body unable to get a grip on the knife, wherever he had been keeping it. This would go nowhere beyond some kind of sickness for her brother.
She dashed to her frantic brother and grabbed at a flapping corner of Garen’s blankets and pulled enough fabric free to arch it high above the bat. She pulled the fabric down and pinned the bat to the ground, trapped beneath cloth, as Garen lost his balance and fell, hollering and thrashing all the while.
The bat’s shrieks and chirps filled the air, along with Garen’s confused yelping. The creature would be going nowhere, and with all her weight, Corea hopped upon the rustling lump and felt the body shatter and squelch beneath her boots.
Garen saw what Corea had done and went silent. Then he vomited.
…
Corea swirled the substance in the bottle a couple of times, having fished it back out of her pocket, marveling at the remains of the slime she had killed.
She would have a fun story to tell Garen when she found him.
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