From: gdg019@cck.coventry.ac.uk (Ridley McIntyre)
Subject: STORY: RED (3)
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.misc
Organization: Ironpig Arcadia, Coventry, UK
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 13:54:08 GMT

                                    RED
                            by Ridley McIntyre

                                   - 3 -

                            25 Daethander 1222

Two things had happened to Aifam that morning: the rain finally slowed to a
stop at daybreak on her watch; and she woke with a start after dreaming of
headless chickens. The first could be blamed (thankfully) on nature. The
second was purely the fault of that damned troll and his antics.

 Now, the morning past, they were all moving once again. Aifam went up ahead 
with the outrider to search for tracks and Catan and the troll covered the
rear in case anyone tried to sneak up behind them. "Good," she thought. "Keen
can just stay as far to the back as he likes". 

 She was thinking how strange it was that Catan and Keen had become friends
despite their differences (not only in size - Catan stood a full man's height
taller than the troll - but in temperament, also) when Steiff discovered a
trail of heavy boot prints crossing their path to the river and back out into
the woods.

 "Made this morning," said Steiff.

 Aifam took at a look at the ground which had been pock-marked with what looked
like dozens of prints. They were filled with rainwater, but the mud ridges 
between them had not been marked by rain, which meant that Steiff was right. 
The prints were made after the rain had stopped.

 Landers swiftly joined them. "Tracks go in both directions," he observed. 
"Could just be a path for a water run. We made similar tracks last night getting
the water from the river for the potatoes. Took me ages to cover those up."

 Steiff followed the tracks into the forest with his eyes then shook his head.
"I don't think so. This was a one-time journey only. There isn't enough of a
path to make me think anyone uses it regularly."

 Landers checked the path down to the river. With the thought of keeping safety
in numbers, the elf girl went with him.

 "Looks like they took a wash here, Aifam. But there's too many tracks to tell
just how many."

 "Goblins," Aifam stated as she crouched down beside him.

 "Could be goblins. Too difficult to tell, what with them all wearing boots."

 The elf girl shook her head at him. "You humans," she said. "So much to think
with and you always use the wrong part. Your women think with their heads and
your men think with their balls." She took Landers' hand in a firm grip and
led it gently to cover his belly. "Where I come from, we elves think and feel
from the same place. Let go of your balls, Landers; think with your gut. Then
tell me these weren't goblins."

 Her deep brown eyes pierced through his entranced mind. Such beautiful eyes;
warm yet so dangerous, like a candle who could either light your way or burn
you with a touch. She let go of his hand, and he found himself unable to move
it; completely paralysed, yet utterly relaxed against the cold folds of his
mail shirt.

 A sound from behind them took them both by surprise. It was the troll.

 "Fire smoke I can smell," he said, pointing his short thick arm back along
the tracks. "Far up the path it is. Very far. But smell it I can. Down wind
we are."

 If there was one thing Aifam was able to trust about trolls, it was their
sharp senses. She'd heard tales of snow-blinded trolls in the mountains of
Abloviaq who had found their home by scent alone through treacherous blizzards.
Thinking with her gut again, Aifam stood up to follow him.

                                ----------

The woodcutter's cottage had been reduced to a smouldering skeleton of a 
building in a matter of hours. The charred remains of the stone and beam house
had become the foundation for a new fluid tower of wispy smoke.

 And there were tracks everywhere, too many to count. Traces of people running 
in all directions: up to the yard wall where strong legs had kicked down whole
sections of stone; into the burned-out house; around the yard. Yet what made 
Landers' skin crawl most were the two sets of bare-footed tracks - obviously
human - that ran from the door of the house to half-way across the yard towards
the now ashened gate. Footprints that just ended there; one set large (a man's)
and the other set those of a child.

 "Just what in dragonfire is this?" Steiff seemed to speak the thoughts of all
the travellers. "No blood. No bodies. The house is gutted. I mean, even the
gate was burned. Whatever happened here today, this was no accident."

 Keen pulled himself up to sit with his legs over either side of the yard wall.
"Goblin raid this is," he theorized aloud. "Steal food, set fire, take woodsman
and child." He raised his tiny childish hands as if this were the only possible
conclusion worth drawing. "Goblin raid."

 Landers looked at Aifam and caught the look of disgust he'd seen before. It was
as if all it took to irk the elf girl was the simple act of Keen opening his
mouth to talk. 

 She took one last look at the smouldering shell of the woodcutter's cottage and
spat hard into the ground before stepping over one of the breaches in the yard 
wall.

 "Come on," she called to the forest. "Let's see where they went from here.
Perhaps they'll lead us to Silthorn."

 And silently the others followed, looking for another set of tracks leading
out of the clearing.

                                ----------

After what seemed like five or six miles the tracks gradually became harder
and harder to follow. Not even Steiff, with seven years of experience as a 
tracker, or Aifam, who was raised as a boy elf to track down food on the
plains of Saskia, could fully make out what were prints and what was 
undergrowth in amongst the wet brown leaves and thick bracken of the forest.
Indeed, after a time, there seemed to be no difference between the trail they
were trying to follow and the cross-trails of the woodlands animals.

 Steiff was almost ready to give up when the trail suddenly became clearer.
Steiff had spotted a single set of boot prints running off to the north-west,
the same sort of boots as they had been following earlier. Leaving the vague
trail behind them, they continued after the clear tracks.

 And, after a mile or two, they ended. There were no signs of the trail being
covered in any way, or of any backtracking. The tracks just stopped after a 
certain point, as if some huge flying thing had taken the runner off into the
sky in mid-stride.

 "Well," Catan spoke, "what do we do now?"

 Landers looked at the ogre with a deep frown, and then at the others. No one
seemed to have any ideas. 

 "You stay here with Keen," he said finally to the ogre. "Steiff, Aifam and me
will have to make a circle around here to see if we can find any more tracks.
Sound fair? Good. Aifam, you go north. Steiff, you go south. I'll go west. Move
out about twenty-five yards or so and then make a circle to your left until
you reach either our tracks or theirs. See what we can find."

 The plan seemed sound enough, and it was better than doing nothing. Landers
walked out into the forest and began his slow circle, his eyes on the look out
for more tracks. But there seemed to be none.

 Then something further into the forest caught his attention, making him prick
up his ears to listen closer. The sounds of chirping sparrows and soft wind
rustling through the browning leaves of the trees had been all but drowned out 
by a chaos of buzzing insects. Despite the squeamishness which the sound of 
wasps and such like always seemed to produce in him, his own inquisitiveness 
drew him closer to the sound.

 Flies. Thousands or even millions of flies had congregated at the foot of a 
tree. Fat and easily agitated after a hot summer, they made the most horrendous
noise Landers could possibly imagine.

 The smell made him gag and he had to reach into his jacket to find a kerchief
to cover his face with, just so he could breathe. The stench had turned the 
forest into the back yard of one of the many abattoirs he'd passed in the 
various towns and cities on his travels south-west through the Middle Kingdoms
of Yarmovin, Marice and Temiscamin; only the screams of the calves and lambs
had been replaced by the relentless buzzing of these wretched flies.

 Kicking at the mound of insects at the foot of the tree, he saw them scatter
to reveal the pool of slick crimson they had been feeding on; blood too thick
to seep into the rain-sodden earth.

 His eyes slowly followed the tree-trunk upwards to meet two frozen wide-eyed
gazes. A man and his son tied naked to the branches, hanging upside-down with
their bloody innards swinging before their terror-filled faces.

 Landers staggered back into the arms of another body and yelped aloud. But this
body was standing tall and shockingly warm. He spun around to stare into Aifam's
deep brown eyes. She stood back from him and placed her hands on his shoulders 
to hold him and calm him down. Aifam looked at the bodies hanging from the tree
with a cold stare.

 "That's our woodsman and his boy," was all she said.

 Landers broke from her grip and ran as hard and fast as he could, only to fall
down onto his knees a few yards into the forest. Aifam heard him retching into
a bush.

 "Rauthorm's evil flames!" The voice was Steiff's. "What in her blazes did they
do to them?" The outrider had found the path again, but when he checked along
it, it had led back to the bodies. He reached for his own kerchief, wondering 
how the elf girl could stand to bear the putrid smell.

 "Marking territory," she said, a statement which solicited a very surprised
look from the outrider. "Look this is a dead end. We'd better head back."

 The Yarmovman was still shaking his head at the fetid stench when Keen and
the ogre arrived. For once the troll said nothing, too dumb-struck by the sheer
malevolence of the sight before him. He could only sit back at the foot of 
another tree and watch the others cut the bodies down.

 It was Catan's idea to bury the bodies (this surprised Aifam, who had grown
up hearing tales of similar atrocities being committed by Catan's race in wars 
against the elves of Winisk far in the northern lands) and the ogre took off his
Maricien steel breastplate to use as a spade with which to dig a shallow grave.
When it was over, Landers came out from the undergrowth. His face was as pale
and drawn as the two they had just put into the earth.

 Aifam walked away from the grave and leaned against a tree by where the shaky
Aszuanian had stopped to catch his breath. "You all right?" she asked him.

 He nodded slowly. "Yes... thanks. Dragonfire!" he whispered the curse. "I've
seen dead people before. I've killed with my own hands, but never -" he quickly
changed tack to keep the disgusting memory from returning. "You've probably
seen worse, being a Tehalish elf."

 Her eyes seemed to glow with memories of the atrocities she had witnessed as
a child. It was if, rather than feeling sickened by them, she was exhilarated.
"Yes," she said. "Yes, I have. Much worse." She walked back over to the others.

 Steiff said a simple invocation at the graveside. "May Camthorm welcome your
spirits." Then he looked up expectantly at Aifam.

 "We'd better head back to the river," she said. "We don't want to be stuck
out here when darkness falls."

 The outrider nodded solemnly. Silently, everyone collected their belongings
together and began the long walk back to the River Sow.

(c) COPYRIGHT RIDLEY MCINTYRE 1992


-- 
        	 **Ridley McIntyre - Ronin Ironpig**			
		     gdg019@cck.coventry.ac.uk
		 -----------------------------------
     	     "He's in a wibbly-wobbly world of his own."
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