The Retribution of Thengon - Chapter Extract

   The first he knew was when his sisters Valmie and Turacaniel had come crying to his parents, saying that a Man had come and tried to capture them, and their little four-year-old sister Aratanie. They had been playing on the bank of the stream, when a golden-skinned man with a black cloak had suddenly appeared and grabbed all three of them. Tura and Valmie had been old enough to fight him off with the sparks their mother had taught them to scare off dangerous animals, but Aratanie was too young. Loosing the older girls when they had shocked him, he had carried the little blonde girl a short distance – and disappeared!

   It was enough to know that the man somehow knew about space-folding. He could be impossible to trace. The entire family, including minders and servitors, rushed to the site. Even Thengon’s mother Liriel, burdened as she was by her latest infant, Wilwariel, ran with them.

   No longer sobbing, but determined and clear-headed, the girls pointed out the site where the man had disappeared. Tomas and his seven sons crowded the site, looking for clues. Thengon gazed about: you couldn’t Travel anywhere you couldn’t see, so where could the filth have gone from here?

   ‘There!’ said Thengon, pointing. He saw a clearing in the bush, an easily-visible patch of land. It would be a bit of a hike. No-one here had the space-folding Ability. He took off immediately.

   ‘Wait!’ called Ben, the eldest. ‘I need to get my weapons!’

   Thengon never went anywhere without his hunting bow. He was already equipped. ‘Follow as you can!’ he called as he hurtled down the slope in the heat.

   Thengon was alone when he got to the place. Using the bushcraft of his apprenticeship as a Hunter, he could tell that the man had appeared in the middle of the clearing, a slight rise of the ground, and carried a kicking and thrashing bundle down the slope. There was an abandoned campsite, but apparently only two people had been there. He could see no footsteps leading away, so…? Did they space-fold again?

   Yes! The bastard did it again! Just here, through the trees, you could see another clear space. Thengon took off again.

   It was the heat of the day, and in civilised lands people would be seeking rest in the shade. Thengon’s six brothers all caught up with him at the second travel-site, armed as best they could be at short notice and away from home. Here had been a wagon. They followed the trail. It had been drawn by horses, not oxen, so it was moving quite fast. Eventually, winded and sweating, the seven brothers found the wagon: it was in a campsite full of brown-skinned Tsuna men. There were humans and eladi, all chained in a row, being given water and a bit of food by their captors. The araneladi lads watched them. There were too many to rush. Moving down and out of sight, they made plans.

   ‘If we only had elephants,’ Ben said. He left it hanging. The others had long tired of his obsession with elephants.

   ‘I’m going to work on those horses,’ Turondil said. ‘That should stop them nicely.’

   ‘You’re not fully qualified yet,’ Ben pointed out, but Turo had gone.

   ‘I want to work on those humans,’ snarled Andros. It was unusual of him, he normally tolerated the Younger. Thengon was glad. If there was one brother who was a match for himself physically, it was Andros. ‘Me too,’ he said.

   Randuron and Laitor, the brothers on either side of Thengon in age, were not tough or outdoorsy, but watched their brothers, waiting for their lead. They were good enough shots with their bows, and loved their little sister. They would follow as long as they could.

   The silence stretched a little, then Randuron said, ‘So, what’s the plan?’

   ‘I think,’ Ben said, ‘We let Turo scare off their animals, then slaughter them at night. Slavers were never permitted in Greystone of old, we really need to make an example of these.’

   Thengon was having none of it. ‘I’m not waiting four hours for dark,’ he said. ‘I say we lure them into an ambush, then stick them with so many arrows they look like porcupines!’

   ‘Where would we set it, O expert?’ Ben said, sarcastically.

   Thengon let it slide. He hated it when his sanctimonious elder brother was right.

   ‘All right,’ said Ben, ‘We hit them when the horses go.’ Thengon and Randuron moved wide on one side, Andros and Laitor on the other, to widen the field of fire.

   With a great whinnying, the horses broke their pickets and bolted. Turo was just visible as a furtive shadow through the bush, fleeing after cutting the traces. All of a sudden the black-cloaked Southlander appeared, shrieking at his hirelings to go and catch the horses. The humans jumped up, and Ben fired the first shot. Within seconds, most of the slavers lay dead or dying in the fine red dust.

   ‘STOP!’ Ben bellowed. Only five of the slavers remained. Everything stopped dead. The lead slaver had seized little Aranatie, holding a knife to her throat. She screamed, ‘Thengon!’ Thengon would remember that cry for the rest of his life.

   The lead slaver stared with the desperation of a hunted animal. ‘Back, off, monkeys! Or I slit her throat!’

   Thengon aimed very carefully. Confident as he was of his shooting ability, this could be very dangerous. Then he saw Turo creeping silently up behind the Southlander, and he relaxed slightly. 

   All of a sudden, a woman’s voice, a Southlander woman’s voice, wailed, ‘Neslos! Behind you!’ A fat, old woman had peered out of the wagon, and was pointing at Turo. The slaver spun round, saw Turo, and vanished. He re-appeared instantly on a bare patch of land high above the campsite, still holding little Aratanie. He was laughing. ‘Missing something?’

   ‘If you let her go,’ called Thengon, ‘I might not rip your testes out when next we meet!’ 

   ‘Namriye, monkeys!’ he shouted, and vanished.