Vagabonds Page 8

  “A person does not abandon their life on a whim of curiosity,” Sejit said, sternly. This wasn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation, but to Sejit’s amazement, she was discovering herself worn down from the little human. Not much, mind, but weathering had occurred.

  “Yeah, sure, the exciting life of digging around in dirt. Oh!” Sophia clapped her hands together in mock excitement, “Sometimes I got to hang around people dustier than any fossil.”

  “Many would welcome a life of stability.”

  “Oh come onnnn, I was there when my parents gave you that weapon and I was there when they pulled it out of that tomb. Nothing should come out of a hole in the ground gleaming like new after a few thousand years, let alone the fact it’s made out of something no one has seen before,” she added, pointing a finger accusingly at the goddess, “And you haven’t even touched it since! Despite being so eager to get it! There’s a story here, I know it.”

  Something snapped. It was a small snap, something between a match stick and an old, dried up twig. Sejit took long, purposeful strides towards Sophia until she was close enough to loom sufficiently.

  “You would make demands of me?”

  “I make demands of you all the time,” Sophia shot back. She’d shrunk, but not by much. “What’s the difference this time? I just want to know why that’s so important to you,” she said, pointing to the case with her eyes, “If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t have let my parents foist me off on you.”

  Sejit’s paws flexed into fists and relaxed several times over. The insolence! How many mortals had defied her so?

  …Yet, she allowed herself a tiny snort of a laugh. Maybe the girl had earned it by now. Besides, it’d deflect her from considering there was another reason Sejit had accepted their request.

  “Fine,” she decreed.

  Sophia responded with a gleeful smile.

  Ambling a meandering path, Sejit came to stand before the weapon. The combined spear-point-and-axe-head capped the eight-foot-long shaft. The axe head was long and curved, perfect for felling dozens of men or removing limbs from an opposing god. Its keen, silvery edge sharp as the day as it was forged, save for a few nicks and blemishes from battle. For its time, not even considering what it was forged from, it was a brilliantly modern weapon. One dreamt up and shaped by a mortal.

  “To put it simply, this was crafted by the first man—the first mortal—I laid with, a bronzesmith with a passion for his work and, curious for a mortal, without fear. Much like you in that respect. He forged it a few thousand years ago,” Sejit said, her tail flicking side to side. She drank in her reflection on the glass, allowing herself to be carried away on the currents of memory.

  Arid winds blew, buffeting the workers with sand. As far as sandstorms went it was a small one, but still made repairs and reconstruction that much more difficult. Within the daunting template walls Sejit dozed in her mid-day slumber atop a heap of magnificent pillows spun from the finest cotton the city of Haspet had to offer. Scarcely aware of the storm outside, she stretched out, paws splaying in the air and let out a nice, long exhale of contentment.

  The sound of footsteps broke her placid mood. A young mortal, a brand-new acolyte garbed in a thin linen robe, kept his head bowed and steps short and deferred. Behind him was another mortal who kept his head upright.

  She scowled as they approached. They knew better than to show themselves during her resting hours, let alone be a disturbance.

  Someone was going to pay for this.

  The youth in the lead fell to his knees some distance away, beseeching her, “Oh mighty Sejit, our goddess…” he stumbled for the right words to say, “Or our savior, protector, beneficent one? I am sorry! I am inexperienced, how should I address our goddess?”

  “How dare you speak to me!” Sejit’s maw cracking as she roared in anger, “Where are the others?”

  Rising up on two legs, muscles bulged beneath her fur as her shape morphed, blending woman and beast together. “Summon them so I may learn why they have allowed you to disturb me.”

  The boy shivered. He may not have been the cleverest in the city, son of a mud-brick maker as he was, but he knew a conflict of orders when he heard it.

  “T-they are aiding the head apothecary, our goddess, our protector, our—”

  “Silence!”

  He whimpered.

  “Fetch them at once,” Sejit growled.

  The boy trembled and slid away on his knees until he was in a position he could bolt out of the room. That left one man standing there, forgotten by his escort. He’d been staring at her the entire time, now that she thought about it.

  “You who would dare gaze upon me,” she said, voice rumbling like rolling thunder, “Many have died for less.”

  Most would fall to their knees and beg for forgiveness. Yet he did not budge, nor avert his gaze. “Oh yes, many have died. That’s the problem!”

  She stalked closer with fluid, leonine steps, “Do you value your life, mortal?”

  “I do.”

  “Yet you do not prostrate yourself.”

  Sejit was close enough that each exhalation through her big, triangular nose ruffled the man’s hair. He was toned, the body of one who labored for a living. Sand stuck to his body and in the crop of short, black hair atop his head.

  “Why? To beg you to do your job?”

  She swat at him with a paw, putting the same power behind it a playful kitten would. With a grunt he was thumped bodily against the stone floor and stumbled some ten feet in a half-roll, half-slide.

  Yet, rather than plead and beg, he stood, slow and unsteady, and laughed.

  “Hah! Some protector you are. If you kill one of the last smiths in this city, it’ll take us that much longer to rebuild. And rebuilding—” He winced and let out a cough, bringing an arm up to cover what was undoubtedly a cracked rib, “—Why do we need to do that anyways, Hm?”

  Sejit said nothing, instead giving him another gentle swat to the chin that sent him spinning to the floor. One paw flexed, long claws emerging from her furred digits, “And where did all the other smiths go?”

  It took him a few moments until he was fit to respond, rising up on shaky legs and unfocused eyes. He shifted his jaw in a hand, then plucked a tooth from his mouth and threw it away.

  “Where do you think?” He’d tried to maintain his bravado, but an aching chest and a rattled brain robbed the force from his words, “They died when they had to take up the fight because you were off playing with that other god.”

  A quick flick of her tail behind his knee sent him sprawling to one side. Somehow, he’d managed to avoid knocking his head, but the spills had taken their toll, for he was not so eager to stand again.

  Sejit seethed. She’d been so generous, so merciful to one who did not deserve it, and yet he still did not show her the proper respects.

  But, if he was telling the truth… Her claws receded. She even condescended to drag him out of her own chamber by a leg, tossing him away like a doll into the empty foyer—one that should be filled with priests.

  “Why did you come here,” she asked, off-handedly.

  “To, to ask, no, tell you to get… Get off your ass and help out,” he sputtered and wheezed upon the floor, “instead of just, just lazing about like some dumb animal all day!”

  Her claws slashed out, slicing the very wind, yet stopped short of reducing his face and head to ribbons. The tips pricked into his skin, drawing rivulets of blood.

  He looked out of one eye at her, the other clenched shut in pain. A wry smirk crossed his lips, somewhere under the agony.

  “Insufferable. Your insolence will be punished,” she said as she again grabbed his foot and dragged him, this time outside the temple. She threw him onto the ground beyond the steps of the temple, where he thumped into a tangled pile of limbs and cries of pain. A pair of startled workers who were fighting the blowing sand while laying brick to repair a collapsed section of wall on a granary looked from him to her. A glar
e had them immediately focused on their work.

  Without a word, Sejit set off to the head apothecary. The priests had forgotten their role. A reminder was in order.

  “That’s a bit… harsh,” said Sophia. She observed Sejit, unsure of just how far she could push. This was uncharted territory; the secretive goddess was spilling juicy tidbits.

  “Harsh would have been slaying any who dared look upon me while I was in my sanctum,” Sejit said, taking a tone of indignation, “I was merciful as befit their station and mine. Respect must be accorded.”

  Sophia swallowed. Excessive commentary would need to be kept in check for a good while after tonight to allow the reservoir of goodwill to refill. “So how did you go from mauling the dude to taking him as a lover?”

  “I next encountered him when a raiding force had attempted to make a name for themselves. He was a persistent, irritable thorn…”

  Shouts of men and the clatter of bronze and wood surrounded Sejit and the upstart that’d come to face her. Surrounded at a distance, at any rate—a fierce melee it may have been, yet the mortal contestants had the presence of mind to avoid venturing too close to the giants in their midst. Wherever she tread, the battle parted before her.

  Her opponent had been a mighty ox-god from a not-so-distant city, famed for his stout armor and invincible shield. For all his bluster, he had done nothing at all. Armor and shield had done nothing at all against her.

  It ended with a clean slice by a simple bronze sword, separating head from body. Before it could topple from his neck, she skewered it just below the chin. The tip of the blade protruded from the top of his skull.

  Claws dug into his chest through rent armor and clamped round his heart. With a sharp tug her bloody prize was pulled free.

  She held the still-beating organ aloft, drenching herself in triumph. Her paw clenched and the hunk of meat exploded into gore.

  A flick of her wrist slid the ox head free from sword, where it landed on the ground with a wet slap. A stomp of a paw reduced it to a pulpy mass oozing upon the sands. His body, freed from the grip of divinity, toppled.

  Another quick motion and the blade whistled, blowing away a line of sand and deposited what gristle clung to it onto the ground in a messy splatter. The bull had been big and strong, but as dumb and slow as they came and so shackled by the mortals’ preconceptions of strength.

  Sejit sighed and twirled the bronze sword. It’d bent some in just a few swings and the wooden inlays on the grip had cracked, but overall she was pleased with its quality. Mortals could still surprise her.

  One day, she’d find someone with some meat to really sink her teeth into. Couldn’t even be bothered to let out a nice victory roar or shout after that farce.

  “It’s Sejit!” came a voice from the throng.

  “She’s defeated the ox!”

  “Victory will be ours!”

  She marched through the thick of the battle on her way back to her temple. Though, in short order it’d devolved from a battle into something akin to a bunch of unruly mobs swinging ragged bits of metal and thrusting jagged sticks at one another. No tactics, no skill. Just frenzied, desperate mortals screaming and flailing. One mob appeared to have attempted to fall back upon the death of the ox, but they couldn’t disengage and so the display continued.

  Such vulgarity threatened to both enrage her and make her sick.

  She carried on, paying little attention until someone had raised a weapon in her direction. Friend or foe, it didn’t matter. Sejit swiped out in a wide, disemboweling stroke with her sword. Three more fell.

  The melee parted around her, coming to an abrupt halt. She snarled, eyes darting, daring someone to meet her. Some soldiers gawked at the bodies, others kept their gaze at their feet from both sides.

  Pathetic. They were all so pathetic.

  She needed a drink. The cache of wine from the territory they’d raided the other day was still well-stocked. Appalling it might taste, it was better than nothing. She tromped on until the battle was at her back.

  Just as she got to the stairs of her temple, a voice called out to her.

  “Where are you going when there’s still fighting?”

  She tried to hurl the sword at the source, but the battered weapon could endure no more. The blade broke away mid-swing and vanished with a glint into the distance. Sejit cursed and dropped the pommel to the ground.

  The man, bandaged and braced, frowned. “You’ve used that for what, a single battle? Do you know how long it takes to forge a sword like that one?”

  His face stoked a fire within her—the insolent one had returned. She stomped up to him, expecting, hoping for him to cower like a frightened animal.

  “If you’re going to kill me, then do it,” he said, spitting out the words.

  Sejit stared at him and blinked.

  Hah.

  Hahahaha!

  Where attempted violence had failed, her sudden burst of laughter succeeded in unsettling him. He shifted on the stick that helped him to stay upright.

  Ah, that’s it, isn’t it?

  They might fear a lion, but it was a fear they could conquer if they were stout of heart. Her flesh shifted and reshaped itself in seconds; where there once stood a lion that walked upon two legs, there was now a person with a face no longer constrained by a lack of expression. Where there was blood-drenched, sandy-colored fur, there was now a stark contrast of white skin drenched in crimson.

  She did so enjoy the faces she could make in the human shape, even if it robbed her of strength and agility. This was because she’d learned in her years that it took a human to make another feel true terror.

  A hand darted out to pick him up by the neck, bringing him to eye level, his brown eyes captured by her gleaming emeralds. He gurgled and strained but did not thrash. “Kill you?” She said, cocking her head, “You’ve gone beyond that mercy.”

  “Tyrant!” he said in a weak gasp.

  “I’ve been too soft, haven’t I, if you only now think of me as a tyrant,” she said, revealing her teeth as she spoke in a guttural whisper. Her hand squeezed. It felt good to watch him writhe.

  But something stirred deep within her. All mortals feared death, and why wouldn’t they? It was their mortal nature. Yet for all the wriggling his body was doing, his brown eyes blazed with defiance. The body, being a primitive, primordial thing, was terrified, but the mind wasn’t so quick to follow along.

  Before she could consider this further, a pair of arrows thocked into her back and another pierced her calf. Rather than cry out in pain, her head snapped around like someone had tapped her on the shoulder. She dropped the man and plucked the arrows from her flesh.

  Some dozen archers had taken up formation a distance away and were already nocking their next arrows. They loosed another volley, but Sejit bat any that’d have struck her from the air with a few deft hand movements.

  Despite landing in a heap of misery, the man still managed to force a laugh. “Battle finds you even when you try to run from it!”

  “Run? Hahaha! Do you run from a fight between ants? How rich! However!”

  All at once, her laughter came to an end and she vanished in a puff of sand and dust.

  Several of the archers fell in a heap, killed where they stood before they’d a chance to even comprehend their demise. Some tried to scream but could manage, at best, timid squeaks. One archer, having recently wondered if a bowstring could cut through a man, found the answer. Unfortunately for him, it was a lesson learned first-hand.

  With the attack force disbanded, Sejit returned to the insolent one. “Now where was I? Ah, yes. A god does not dirty their hands.”

  “Yet you just did.”

  She stamped on his injured leg, leaning into it with her weight. Bones creaked and he let out a cry.

  “Have you no shame in crying out like a babe?”

  “There’s no shame when it hurts, woman!”

  “Woman?” She sneered, bringing down more of her bulk. Based on t
he various sorts of noises he was making, she was close to snapping the limb. Thoughts burned in her mind and bloodied hands itched to tear him apart. Last smith or not.

  “O Goddess!”

  Again with the interruptions!

  She whirled in a snarl, ready to dismember the latest annoyance. One of her priests had fallen to his knees, forehead to the sand. A veteran, he prostrated himself far out of range, and somehow managed to yell across the distance with a suitable amount of respect.

  “Our forces have been routed on the eastern side! We implore you for aid!”

  A low rumble rose from her throat, “You dare?”

  “We are lost!” The priest pleaded.

  Mewling cubs to the last! Or… She glanced at the man still under her foot. His breaths were sharp and shallow, and it wasn’t the heat making him sweat so. So close to death, yet his gaze never faltered.

  Her nostrils flared.

  She would deal with him later.

  “I expect you will make this up to me.”

  “Of course, mighty Sejit!”

  Sejit took her foot off the man and stomped towards the east, re-adopting her two-legged lion shape, but not before giving him one last look out of the corner of her eye. Rather than relax or let out a breath of relief, he was trying to stand, but never made it further than a feeble knee before collapsing. Multiple times.

  “W-wait,” he attempted to say, but pain wracked his body, seizing any remaining words.

  What reckless persistence.

  “You liked him, didn’t you? You totally did!” Sophia squeaked out, eyes wide and glistening.

  “Not at that point, no,” Sejit said, shifting from one leg to the other, “I wanted to kill him, but only after breaking his will. I could not remember the last time anyone had been so disrespectful. For some time after, he was in my thoughts. Unusual, for a mortal.”

  Sophia giggled, “You had a crush on him!”

  “Perhaps so,” Sejit admitted without embarrassment, robbing Sophia of her amusement.

  “Aw, you’re no fun. Well, go on, when did you finally get together?” Sophia had stretched out on across the chair with her belly on the arm of the chair and her legs fluttering in the air. “When did he make that spear-axe-thing for you? Was it some kind of marriage present?”