The Tale of Onora

Seldom What They Deserve-1

SELDOM WHAT THEY DESERVE

“HOW DO WE GET to Loff’ta’s unarmed?” someone asked.

Noam, a youthful but eager Amori boy, was too naïve to know better. “There are bows and arrows in the trader’s shop. We can give support while we make trips to arm ourselves.”

“We can’t risk our lives!” another voice said. “We don’t know how many of them there are!”

The Amori were courageous, but they were extremely cautious when it came to risking the whole tribe for any endeavor. Like penguins that crowd a body of water till one of them falls in, to make sure there are no predators below the surface, the Amori squabbled over who they should send to get bows and arrows from the shop.

Noam volunteered himself. “I’ll go.”

A brawny lad named Siigos stepped forward. “I’ll go with you. I’m useful with a bow.”

“They need distractions,” Loff’ta said. “Everyone must do his part.”

“Fire,” Ellia said.

Loff’ta tilted his head in curiosity. “What?”

“They don’t like it,” Ellia responded. “Least that’s what the old tales say.”

“Ha! Let us burn the demon fowl then!” Loff’ta roared.

The Amori scurried inside the tavern, breaking down whatever furniture they could to use as tinder. They formed supply lines and lit torches in the fireplace, then passed them out amongst each other. The lines diverged at the foot of the tavern’s steps, where they tossed the lit wood on the ground until they formed sizable bonfires.

A calloused hand grabbed Ellia’s and yanked her towards the tavern.

“Don’t let go, lass,” Loff’ta shouted through the din of voices. He shoved people out of his way. “D’issan! D’issan!” He turned to Ellia. “I ain’t leavin’ here without her! D’issan!”

“O’er here, love!” D’issan answered.

“Thank the Maker!” Loff’ta said as he embraced her. “We be sleepin’ hens to stay put. Ain’t there somewhere safe to hide these tenderfoots, where they’ll at least keep outta the way?”

“Xas,” D’issan replied. “We have cubbyholes in the attic and cellar that we use for storage. Could clear some of ‘em out quick like.”

“Everyone listen up!” Loff’ta shouted. “Time ain’t on our side so I’ll only say it once. Those who be unable or unwillin’ to fight, follow D’issan and help her make refuge. Bring all the food and drink ye can. Those who remain best not be cowards and best ‘ave a weapon in hand. If ye be seen wanderin’ around like a fool while others be fightin’, I’ll kill ye meself.”

He looked around. No one had anything else to say. “Right. The time’s come. Get to it!”

Not one second was wasted while the Amori stripped the tavern of its resources. The kitchen was the first target. Noam found a long boning knife and a gourmet meat cleaver.

“Siigos!” he called. “Over here!”

Siigos was delighted. “Good find, mate!”

Noam took the boning knife and Siigos grabbed the cleaver. Together, they made their way to the porch.

After the obvious blunt objects and cookware were taken, the Amori that readied for battle were utilizing everything from rolling pins to bottles and cutting boards. The rest took crates of meat, bowls of fruits and vegetables, and baskets brimming with loaves of bread.

They made makeshift barricades over the windows and anywhere else that a lokithor could pry its way through, but it gave little comfort to anyone. The lokithors would have to be eradicated. They could not coexist with the Amori, so every object that kept the lokithors outside also trapped the Amori inside. They couldn’t stay here. It was not a storm that would pass through. It was not some children’s tale where dawn would arrive and daylight would bring salvation. There was no one coming to save them. The situation was bleak and everyone knew it.

D’issan leaned in and kissed Loff’ta. “This village doesn’t need a hero and it already has its i***t. Don’t you go doing something stupid.”

“Ha! Everytin’ I do be stupid, darling,” he replied. “’Twas the path to your heart!”

D’issan eyes warmed over and she tenderly pinched his cheek. “My king.”

Loff’ta blushed. “Don’t soften me up now, love. There’s killin’ that needs doin’!”

She straightened his collar. “I know, my little strudel.”

“Er… I um, yea.” Loff’ta, stupefied, looked around at the other hardened Amori. A few grins pointed back at him.

“Find us in the cellar or the attic if it gets quiet,” D’issan said. “Shade protect you. All of you.” She turned to the others. “Let’s go people!”

The first group of Amori followed D’issan to the cellar with their arms full.

Loff’ta turned to Ellia. “All right, lass. I think ye better go with D’issan, no?”

Ellia frowned. “Have you forgotten so soon?”

Loff’ta flashed a devious grin. “Never. The brave don’t need asking. Just bein’ polite.”

Ellia grabbed a torch and led Loff’ta outside. Amori Village lay buried in the dark of night. Noam and Siigos followed, but kept their silence. The forest was unusually quiet and still. They had successfully built enough fires to ward off the lokithors around the front of the tavern. They had begun to build a trail of fires towards the shop so that Noam and Siigos would have protection en route, but it was far from done and they were running out of resources to burn.

Ellia stared into the encircling darkness. “If I call them, they will come. But if they come, they’ll be as dangerous as the lokithors. Without the faelen magick, they could infect us all.”

“Can they be cured with the faelen equipoise gone?” Loff’ta asked.

“I’ve heard stories of Caliphians bringing remedies to the forest, witches even, in search of their loved ones, some successful at first,” Ellia replied. “But they are never rid of the disease. They lose control of it during certain periods of the lunar cycle, and Caliphians know them by the wake of bloodshed and broken lives they leave behind. As far as I know, once someone becomes a kal’daka, he is condemned to die as one. Only then does he know peace.”

Loff’ta was fidgety. His heartbeat raced. “If they outlive the lokithors, can you drive them away in peace?”

“I can,” Ellia responded. “But what if I don’t live that long?”

Loff’ta wanted to say something positive, that Ellia would be fine and that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her, but the truth was that he couldn’t muster the words. It was a realistic question and he didn’t know if either of them would make it through the night.

“It don’t seem right to replace one kind o’ evil with another,” Loff’ta said. “But one be from this world and the other from the next. There only be so many kal’dakas in the forest. Maybe it’s time to use the lokithors to cleanse it. If only we knew where the lokithors came from or if there’ll even be an end to ‘em.”

Ellia stared across the village and up at all the houses in the trees. So many of them had their lamps lit inside. All those Amori weren’t at the tavern and had no idea what had transpired over the last hour. She hated important decisions, but she hated them because she was good at making them. “We ought not to call upon beasts of the field unless we can warn the others. It’s bad enough as it is.”

“Unless we run out of options,” Loff’ta added.

“Right.” Ellia’s voice grew quiet. “Do you think Aithein is still alive?”

“No doubt,” Loff’ta said. “Ye think the faelen tree is still alive?”

Ellia flinched. “It’s met a terrible fate.”

Glass shattered just beyond their field of visibility. A bedlam of discordant shrieks mixed with a fierce sizzling noise ensued, provoking a feral alertness from everyone.

Loff’ta lifted his torch. “What the bloody hell was that?”

Siigos’ eyebrows were as raised as his eyes were wide. “Sounds like someone’s frying a bucket of pig fat!”

“Wit’ the pig still alive!” Loff’ta added.

An Amori boy approached Loff’ta. “We’ve got to get fires lit round back and below the windows.”

Others agreed and mobilized themselves.

Loff’ta nodded. “Careful, lad. Ain’t no second chances here.”

The boy contemplated the gravity of the situation. He slowly turned and led a few volunteers back inside to gather wood.

There were only a handful of Amori left on the porch to defend the entrance. They shuddered at the echoing screams in the distance. They stood helplessly while their kin met untimely, horrendous demises.

“We can’t delay any longer,” Noam said.

Loff’ta grunted with dismay, but couldn’t disagree. “We need more fire.”

“Don’t worry, old man. We’ll be fine,” Siigos said jestingly. “After all, fate doesn’t invite crabby old blacksmiths to save the world. It needs its heroes to be handsome.”

“The only thing heroes be is dead,” Loff’ta replied. “Unhappy be the people who need heroes.”

“We are those people, Loff’ta,” Noam responded. “But those bows will make us all heroes in the end.”

Ellia frowned as she thought of Aithein covered in lokithor blood. “Not everyone thrown to the lokithors comes back a hero, Noam.”

“But no one becomes a hero by doing nothing,” Noam replied. “Are you ready, Siigos?”

The amber glow from the fires illuminated part of Siigos’ face and cast shadows over the other half of it. He bravely nodded. “Xas. Let’s move.”

Loff’ta handed the boys torches. “Take these just in case.”

The boys accepted the torches, gave Ellia and the other nearby Amori hugs, and then quietly crept down the stairs. Loff’ta accompanied them as far as the dead lokithor to retrieve his throwing knives. They looked at the gruesome animal.

Loff’ta approached it cautiously lest it still be alive. “Siigos, wedge that cleaver in there in case it closes its jaws when I pull me knife out.”

Siigos pried the jaws open with his cleaver. “At least it loses its beak before you lose your hand.”

“Ha!” Loff’ta shook his head. He reached in quick and ripped the knife out. There was no reaction from the lokithor. Loff’ta let out an easy sigh and smiled, then carelessly ripped the knife out of its eye.

The beast shrieked.

Loff’ta stumbled back and tripped onto his arse.

The lokithor clamped down on the cleaver, severing its own beak off. It writhed around faintly before laying still again, its head sagging limp.

Loff’ta’s face turned pale. “Witch’s t**s. Wha’ was that about?”

They all looked up to the shadowy heavens and then back at each other.

“Best be hurrying now,” Noam said.

Loff’ta gave a jittery nod. “Good luck.” He got to his feet and scurried back to the tavern. Once he made it to the porch, he watched the boys pass beyond the fire’s glow and into the blackness of night. There were no last words, for they meant to succeed.

Noam and Siigos felt their bodies trembling as they sprinted through the village. The crackling flames from the torches nearly burned their faces when the wind taunted the fire, but it was the only thing that gave them comfort in the eerie, deserted square. Dark shadows haunted them in every windowsill, around every corner, behind every fixture, and each step required summoning courage. Step by step, they made it to the trader’s shop. Lamps were lit and the door was open, but the boutique was deserted.

“Lock it behind you,” Noam said.

Siigos bolted the door. From inside the shop, the windows looked like they were made of obsidian glass.

“Here, hold this.” He handed Noam the torch, placed the cleaver on the counter, and then hopped to the other side. The bows were high up on the wall.

Noam saw a footstool. “Siigos. Use that.”

Siigos dragged the footstool beneath the bow rack and climbed it. He slung as many bows over his shoulder as he could. “This should do it for now.”

“Get some quivers,” Noam said.

Siigos climbed down and placed all the bows on the counter. He grabbed a quiver and ran to a barrel of arrows. He stuffed the quiver with them and then slung it over his shoulder. “Apparently the best deals are achieved amidst chaos, eh?”

Noam frowned. “Hurry up. They wait for us.”

“Throw those torches outside,” Siigos replied. “I need you to carry some quivers and be able to nock an arrow or two.”

Noam unlocked the latch and cracked the door open just enough to toss the torches outside.

As he was shutting the door behind him, a monolithic object plunged into the frame and shattered the surrounding walls. There was an explosion of dust and splinters. The door smashed into his head and brushed him to the floor, collapsing on top of him.

A colossal weight crushed his body from the chest down, causing a surge of pressure to pierce the back of his eyes while hot copper-tasting fluid flooded his mouth. The room went dark and silent.

“Noam!” Siigos screamed. He picked up a bow and nocked an arrow. The lokithor stood on top of the door that crushed Noam and snapped its jaws around in the dusty light, seeking flesh.

Say one thing about the Amori, it’s that they are love, and love is as tough as hell. Do not mistake the appearance of children, for they remain closest to the source of the pain that drove them into existence. Adults have drifted away from that source with each passing year, soon to forget that which propelled them into this life and the fires from which they were born. The Amori remain burned by such memories, and from this Siigos was not spared. He drew the bowstring and released it with all the rage of the Divine Ego.