The Sword in the Cave
Tygg turned, with his dagger in his right hand, sword in his left, and surveyed the scene that had been behind him.
All of the monsters were standing on the ground now, not attacking, flying, or even moving. They stood, with their
fearsome talons in the dirt, beaked heads suddenly off-kilter, as though keening their heads for a signal, a warning,
some kind of sound. And as soon as that image became clear to Tygg, he heard it: a rumble cutting along the
ground, then billowing up into the naked air as a quake, a roar of the earth itself. Tygg turned again in the direction
of the sound and saw nothing at first, but then a great column of dust and smoke rose in the distance, exploding at
first but then sinking back down upon itself. Then the great noise, spreading itself in great echoes from the
mountains to the forest, gradually died out.
And behind him, the bird-beasts that pretended to be women sank gentle as leaves upon each other, whatever
tawdry souls animating them vanished from their bodies before they hit the ground.
*
*
*
Drea walked all the way back down the road alone. Her ears felt stuffed with wool. She did not really know where
she was going, but wandered through by dead reckoning. She did not, for that matter, understand how she was
alive. So far as she understood, the sword that was not really a sword had cut into the heart of the kethnod, and
then the world leapt and sprang about her, and then she understood nothing more. She had found herself lying by
an outcropping near what had been the mouth of the cave, but the cave and the sword and her three companions
and the monster that had betrayed them were gone. She walked around a bit, silent as a ghost, looking for some
sign of what had been, then gave up.
The sun looked ready to drop down over the hills when she reached the village again. She was not surprised to find
more of the bird-beasts in the village, and she was not surprised to find them dead. But to see Tygg sitting upon the
side of the hearth, holding a golden idol in his hands, this was a surprise, and a welcome one.
When she approached, they regarded each other in wry silence.
"You were right, of course," she said.
"Aye," said Tygg, "but you were not wrong." And he tossed her the idol. She held it in her hands. It was the figure
of a head, slavering with fangs, dripping with cruelty. It's eyes bored forward with deep malevolence. Drea felt sick
and dropped it onto the earth.
"You do not want it?" asked Tygg.
"We should take it," said Drea. "I can learn from it. But I do not want it. There are days, Tygg when I do not want
any of this. I just want..." and she trailed off, looking at the orange sun.
"Something pure," said Tygg.
Drea nodded, and as the sun went down they marched through the silent darkling forest to where Alorn and the
launch waited for them.UJ