The Hammer Unfalls

PART FOUR

4.53 Homecoming

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Eyes burning from the sun, Glim stumbled out of the glass house and onto the pathway. The view disoriented him at first because he rarely came this way. He thought he saw a window with a flowerpot resting on its sill just like his.

It was his. Ryn had probably been watching that bedroom window his entire life, from the shadows of the garden beds; a shadow herself.

Glim swallowed the sob rising in his throat. Ryn would have something to say to make him feel better. Or to make him power through it. But Ryn would never comfort him again. Cold anger clamped his heart. The sob melted away. There would be time to mourn later.

A guard cried out with the sound he’d been dreading only days before: discovery. Now, Glim couldn’t care less.

Before he knew it, Garrick had run to him out of nowhere, flanked by two guards who looked at Glim in relief. “Fetch the Mage-at-Arms,” he snapped. One of the guards ran off. “And you—”

“—I’ll tell the captain right away.”

“Good lad.” Garrick stormed over to Glim, eyes brimming with concern. “Are ye injured?” He started patting Glim down, looking for wounds.

“I’m fine, Garrick.”

“Lad, I have seen ‘fine’ before and you’re not it. Now where’d you take it? Not in the gut, I hope?” Garrick prodded at Glim’s belly.

“Garrick!” Glim shoved free of the man’s oaken arms. “It’s not my blood. It’s… It’s Ryn’s. Miss Daryna’s.”

“Not unless she grew claws,” Garrick said. He pulled a curved black nail from blood matted in Glim’s hair. It still had a bit of paw attached. “What in the name of Phyr’s flaccid prong is this?” Garrick looked at Glim in horror.

“Hyaenas. They set in on us in the mountains.”

“They? You fought more than one of these high knee-as?”

The gathering crowd parted. Glim heard a swish of silk and turned.

Master Willow stared at him, open mouthed. For once, at a loss for words. Concern flickered in his eyes as he studied Glim from head to toe.

“Are you drained?” his tutor asked, with more emotion than Glim had ever heard come from the man.

“No. I’m fine.”

“I’m not sure you understand the definition of the word ‘fine,’” Master Willow said wryly.

“Thank you, Mage-at-Arms!” Garrick harrumphed. “My words exactly!”

“Somehow I doubt that. Drink this.”

“But why?” Garrick said, eyeing the vial in Master Willow’s hand suspiciously.

“Not you, you drub. The boy!”

Glim chugged the vial of bitter fluid. His armpits started to tingle, which ran to his elbows. And finally his fingertips.

The gathering crowd around the initial gathering crowd parted. Glim heard the clink of metal on stone and turned.

Father stared at him, dark eyes brimming with concern. He wore a silver breastplate, full pauldrons, and a bow and quiver slung across his back. He glanced at Garrick and Master Willow, who nodded, then ran and scooped Glim up.

“You’re safe! Thank the Trine, you’re safe. What happened? Where have you been?”

“Didn’t Ryn… er, Miss Daryna, tell you?”

Father and the others looked at each other in confusion. “Tell us… what, exactly?”

“We had to check the filters.”

“What do you mean?”

Glim took a deep breath. By the looks on their faces, he guessed Ryn hadn’t told anyone a single damn thing. That conniving trickster. Glim started to smile, but thought better of it, given the circumstance.

He looked around. Every authority figure in Wohn-Grab stood nearby, looking at him as if he were a blood-crazed hinterjack. Or the victim of one. Glim stiffened in resolve. He’d not be a victim.

Sorry, Ryn. You’re taking the blame for this one.

“I… I’m not sure where to begin. I had a nightmare. A bad one. I went to my lesson with Master Willow. But he shrewdly guessed I was in no condition to ply. He listened to me, then advised me to take some time and recover from the dream. He gave me a Elderkin game to take my mind off of things, and asked me to figure out why the dream had disturbed me so.”

“I did, in fact,” Master Willow said, puzzled.

“I decided to go for a hike. To clear my mind. A plyer with a clouded mind is as useless as a blister on a rats’s eye.”

Master Willow snorted. “It’s more nuanced than that, but true enough.”

“On my way out of town, I happened to meet Miss Daryna. She’d taught me about compost and such, and asked how I was. I told her the truth. She seemed alarmed.”

“Alarmed? But why?” Garrick asked. He looked around immediately, embarrassed, hoping no one had noticed.

“She told me that something was wrong with the food supply. I asked her if I could help her with the garden beds, but she laughed at me. The problem was elsewhere. She said she needed an Icer to help her fix it.”

Glim glanced around to see if everyone was buying it. So far, so good.

“I told her I’d go get help, but she said there wasn’t time. I told her I needed to ask father or Master Willow, but she wouldn’t hear it. She told me she outranked everyone in Wohn-Grab. In peacetime, at least. Even the Mayor.”

Father and Garrick looked at each other and shrugged. “She’s got ye there,” Garrick said.

“So I followed her into the mountains.”

“Why didn’t anyone stop you?” Glim’s father asked.

“Stop me? From what? Going for a walk with the gardener? I’ve gone into those woods a dozen times to cut new swords. As you know, father. You took me there.”

His father sighed, then nodded.

“She took me down a trail I did not recognize. Straight down.”

“The eastern stairs?” Garrick asked.

“Must be,” Glim said, thanking Algidon’s frozen orbs that Garrick couldn’t keep his own mouth shut. “We reached a cliff with some tanks on it. Huge brass cylinders. With a walkway. We checked the tanks. I used essentiæ to study them. One was blocked. It had a bunch of weird plants in it. She said one of the filters lower down in the mountains must be clogged.”

Glim pictured the scene in his mind, and sobbed. Not a fake one, either. His face contorted, and his shoulders heaved, from the pain of it.

“And then…”

Glim broke down, crying. He sank to his knees, picturing Ryn telling him to run. Glim felt hot tears slipping between his eyelids. He knelt, unwilling to move, and let the tears hold sway.

He felt reassuring hands on his back, but Glim didn’t care. He cried, right there in front of every prying eye in Wohn-Grab, unable to stop.

Glim shoved everyone away. He stood and looked around the crowd. His checks itched from the sensation of warm tears carving their way through dried blood.

“She told me to run! I looked and… they were unlike anything I’d ever seen. Larger and smarter than hinterjacks. Not wolves. Something else. Something driven by madness.”

“’Twas that which left its claw in your hair?” Garrick held the bloody stump of paw in the air, with the long, black claw attached. The crowd murmured, pointing to it with anxious whispers.

“That was the little one. The others were larger.”

“Others?” his father asked, his voice cold. Taut.

“There were a dozen, at least. But they didn’t attack. They just watched us. To see what we’d do.”

“Smart hinterjacks?” Garrick scoffed.

“They. Weren’t. Hinterjacks!” Glim shouted. “I’ve buried my sword in a hinterjack’s throat. This was far, far worse. Massive. Fangs and claws and… intelligence.”

The crowd fell silent. Until now, hinterjacks had been the story they told their children at night to keep them in line. No one had explained hyaenas to them before.

“What happened next, son?”

“Ryn and I fought them. Side to side. They couldn’t charge us at once. The walkway was too narrow. She got a couple with her staff. I got a few with ice, and also…”

Glim unsheathed his sword. The blade shone dull, sticky with blood and matted fur. Several gasps came from the crowd.

“We ran to the doorway in the cliff and slammed it shut. She walked as far as she could. We took lots of breaks to rest. I dragged her after that. Then…” Glim curled back to his knees, a silent sob frozen on his face. He mouthed the words twice before his voice caught up. “…she died in my arms.” Glim broke down in tears. “I’m sorry, Ryn!”

“Alright, that’s enough,” his father said. “You, get a patrol and take the eastern stairs.”

A shadow fell over Glim’s father. “I wouldn’t advise that, captain.” The new gardener stepped forward, staring at him with steely eyes.

“What do you mean?”

She brushed her long blonde hair back. “As you know, Miss Daryna alerted us to a problem some time ago. We’ve been traveling here since. She did not take the eastern stairs. She took an older route. An Elderkin route. My apprentices have just scoured the old tunnels. We know where Glim came from. It’s closed off. There’s no threat. But if we run down there willy-nilly and open doors, we might do more harm than good.”

“How so?”

“Glim’s right: there is a broken filter. We need to fix it. It will take time. Nothing is coming to attack us. Starving and scared creatures in the mountains, no matter how deadly they are, are not worth foolishly disrupting our own food supply. This is why I’m here. We’ll fix it, together. But using logic, I hope? Not barging in, swords drawn?”

“Of course, Minerva. You have the support of the guard.”

“And you have our support, Captain. Whatever we can do.” She nodded to Glim.

“Right, then, Garrick said, clapping. “Clear the way so we can look after Glim, here.”

Minerva walked over to Glim and leaned over, so her hair fell across their faces. She pressed a packet of herbs into his hands while her lips whispered against his ear. “That was a vaguely specific tale you just told.”

Glim turned his own lips towards her ear and smiled, grimly, without warmth. “I learned from the best.”