Realms of War

all thoughts of Cale's woman.

'Pretty,' one of his homunculi said, as it climbed back to its perch on his shoulder.

Shadows swirled around Brennus, his own personal Shadowstorm. He could hardly breathe. 'It was my mother's.'

He turned over the charm and saw there the inscription: For Alashar, my love.

'How did it get here?' the homunculi asked in unison. He closed his hand over the necklace. 'I do not know.' But discovering things was his gift.

WEASEL'S RUN

Lisa Smedman

The Year of Monstrous Appetites (-65 DR)

Weasel was going to die. And he was going to die sniffling.

He hated that.

He stared his hatred at the yellow pollen that drifted in lazy circles below him as he hung, face down, a quick-pace above the ground. The stinktrees were in bloom again, filling the air with a stench sharp as cat urine. He wished he had a hand free to grind into his itchy, weeping eyes. The pollen dusted his beardlocks and tickled his nose like flung pepper, clogging it with a constant, snuffling drip.

At least he couldn't smell the blood.

A hand grabbed his forelock and wrenched his head up. The Ghostwise cleric known only as 'The Beast,' his face blotched white with skull paint, inspected the magic-negating symbol painted on Weasel's forehead. The pelt of a dire wolf draped the cleric's head and shoulders; empty paws dangled against his scar-gnarled chest. Sweat trickled lines through the splashed blood that had congealed on his body.

The Beast gestured at the line of six trophy heads, impaled on stakes. 'Your warriors have been winnowed. Malar has taken them.'

Weasel almost laughed. His warriors? Weasel was a mere scout-the army's favorite boot-out boy. Barely a sword-slogger; nowhere near being a sergeant.

''Taken' them, has he?' A dribble escaped one nostril; Weasel snuffled it back in, priming his nose for a shot. 'Then he'd better give 'em back. The Stronghearts don't like thieves; if they catch Malar, they'll strip him and dip him.'

He trumpeted air out his nostrils, sending a wad of snot flying at The Beast's blood-caked feet. It missed by more than a quick-step. Flies stirred lazily, then settled again.

The Beast's eyes narrowed. 'Do not mock the Beastlord.'

'Or what?' Weasel sneezed. Snuffled. He twisted to get a look at the thongs that stretched from his wrists and ankles. They held him suspended at the center of a ring of human-high, claw-shaped stones. His hands and feet felt hot and numb; the raw leather thongs had dried tight. 'No, wait. Don't tell me. I'll be strung up in the jungle and left to dry, right?' He rolled his eyes. 'No, silly me-you've already done that.'

He snorted out another wad of snot; this time, it landed next to The Beast's broken-nailed toes.

The Beast shifted his foot aside. He squatted down, one hand still tight around Weasel's forelock. His fingertips bulged, nails turning to claws. His breath was rank, like a dog's. 'Take a good long look at your warriors,' he breathed. 'Tonight, you'll join them. This is the evening of the High Hunt-the only reason you are still alive. Tonight, we hunt.'

''We?'' Weasel sneezed. 'Why, I'm flattered. But if it's just the same to you, I won't stick around for supper.'

The Beast bared file-point teeth in a snarl. He stood, releasing Weasel's forelock. 'Try to please Malar; give us a good chase.'

Weasel flipped the forelock out of his eyes. 'How much of a head start should I give you?'

The Beast roared with laughter. Leaves quivered; a bird screeched and flew away with a burst of orange wings. 'Well spoken! A jest worthy of the Trickster!'

'Cut me down, and I'll dig up a sapling for you.'

The Beast laughed again-even he, it seemed, knew the tale of Kaldair and the Toppled Tree.

It was Weasel's favorite tale, the one that had always earned him a seat at the Stronghearts' ale tables. Kaldair the Trickster, disguised as a halfling, had challenged Vaprak, god of ogres, to remove a tree from the ground without tearing its roots. Vaprak had torn out one mighty ebon tree after another, damaging them all; Kaldair had dug the tiniest of saplings out of the ground. As a result of Kaldair's victory, the ogres had been banished to the Toadsquat Mountains ever after.

The Beast drew one of his bone-handled daggers from a wrist sheath. 'You're strong, for a spriggan.' Serrated steel winked red in the ruddy sunlight as dusk settled deeper upon the jungle. 'Let's see how strong.' The Beast stepped over a taut-stretched thong and walked to Weasel's feet. He teased the tip of the blade along the rough sole.

Weasel braced himself for the slice and the aching rush of blood that would follow. Steel flashed. Weasel involuntarily bucked..

The thong holding his left ankle parted with a snap, and his foot thudded against the ground. Tingling fire streaked into his toes as sensation returned.

The Beast moved to his other leg. 'Survive the night. .' slice, twang, thud 'and I'll spare your life-I swear it, by Malar's blood.' He moved to Weasel's right hand. 'But if my Hunt runs you to ground before the sun has risen…'

Steel flashed, parted leather. Weasel fell.

'… you're meat.'

Weasel lay on the ground, one hand in the air. He twisted and fumble-grabbed the thong an arm's span away from where it was tied to his left wrist. He'd been taught the strangle-snap as a boy, he'd used the trick on the Ghostwise, the time or two he'd been circled-round during a range-ahead and been forced to fight his way out, quietlike. But against The Beast, high cleric of Malar? Weasel might as well try to take down the Beastlord himself.

He drew the cord taut between wrist and numb hand, and offered it up to The Beast.

The Beast rested his blade against it. 'A wise choice.'

The leather thong parted.

The Beast stepped back and growled a word. The pelt he wore melded with his body, hairs shivering erect along his arms and legs. Magic crackled like a raging fire across his chest. A snarl burst from his elongating muzzle, and ears perked erect atop his head. His eyes grew yellow-red. Panting, he ran his tongue along jagged canine teeth. The dire wolf he'd become held Weasel's eye with a glare fierce and hungry. 'Until the sun has risen,' he snarled. 'Or meat.'

The dire wolf bounded away, up the trail leading to the clearing where the Ghostwise trap had been sprung. To the Ghostwise village where Puffpipe and Swaggerstep, Flashblade and Stomper, Chucklebelly and Headsuplads the sergeant had been run to ground, slaughtered, and eaten. The Beast himself had taken the first bites, ceremonially tearing open their bellies and bolting down great chunks of flesh from each soldier, one after the other, while Weasel had watched in horror from his hiding place, immobilized by the magical trap that had caught him.

Weasel glanced at the heads staked in the blood-soaked soil and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He glanced at the darkening jungle, wondering which way to run. Wondering if he could run. His feet were blocks of fire, as if he'd just stomped through a numberry bush. He clomped his instep against his leg, trying to bang sensation back into it. And sneezed.

He glanced again at what remained of his squad, and shook his head, thinking of all the close scrapes they'd been through together since he'd joined their army. He almost wished there was a seventh stake, with his head on it. Almost.

'Pray me some of Tymora's luck, fellas. I'm gonna need it.'