The Spriggan: Adventures of an Amazon Hobbit: Part 9 By Zuiderzee (zuiderzee@yahoo.com) www.geocities.com/Area51/Dungeon/4535 The rollicking yarn of a scrapping she-halfling (of considerably tangled ancestry), reknowned bully-basher, and gifted with shifting proportions. Continuing from parts 1-8: Turmoil has erupted in the isolated, backward region of Crorgathal where the chieftans of two rival clans have died in the same day. Their respective wives protect their own interests as renegade members seek to loot the abandoned steading of the richer of the two lords. RhohG, an outsider is drawn deeper into the struggles of competitive forces. She is a spriggan, a halfling with a giant's soul who has abandoned her search for living giants in favor of turning into one herself--if only partially and temporarily. She now discovers that conceit is the key to unlocking her many latent powers...even at the cost of those she is foresworn to defend... ^ ^ The Spriggan held still, cradling Tholyff in her elongated and newly-muscled arms as if he weighed no more than a bundle of dry towels. "Is it still night, I can't see anything--" he mumbled, squirming in her hold. "One more day and night will come at last, the sun will set and the stars will be out. Until then, it's twilight, a big, mixed-up sky. A little darker than yesterday, but not much. I got rid of Crushfoot." "He hurt me bad--" "You won't be able to use your arms for much of anything, or see." "I'm cold. And how can you hold me for so long?" "I'm bigger, Tholyff--stronger. I'm have little to fear from those renegades now. But you do, I don't know if you're going to make it through the night." "You'll help me, I know." "Sorry to have to tell you like this, but I'm not really so good at helping others." she told him. That was an understatement. She didn't feel like helping a little, weak, injured human being. The transformation in her form had done something to her outlook and her inclinations. It had made her hostile and conceited. She looked at her bulging arms and legs, felt their power and saw the thickness of her joints and the veins covering her muscles, just under the skin like slender worms smothered under sheer drumheads. There was a power in her she'd suspected, but denied, opting rather to get what she'd wanted out of life through trickery. She could have gotten bigger, as big as Volmor Greenshoulders, but worrying about this idiot boy had held her back, severed the connection to all that sweet, infusing, transcending energy. It was very much to her liking. Better than love or lovemaking, more comforting and secure than her own home, more satisfying than food and drink, more vital than air or heat or mortal senses. Energy of a spiritual sort, she knew that now. And there was something to the old stories about little people inheriting the souls of dead, wicked giants. Wicked. What was so wicked about survival? And who were human beings to judge? No one! So, this is what I am, she thought. This is really what I was meant to be, and do, and think. And what a life I could make for myself. No more a stunted minch no higher than a pony's bunghole! I'll stomp anyone who gets in my path, like a bug. That'll show the ones who survive what a fearsome thing a spriggan is! Dwarf-witch--BAH! Tholyff was cold, wet, shivering and passing in an out of consciousness, murmuring in pain. The loud crack she'd heard when Crushfoot had broken his arm did sick justice to the tangled, eyesore that used to be mobile. Blood leaked from Tholyff's eye in a red tear from where Crushfoot had gouged in his nail, scratching the vulnerable surface of that eyeball. His bent-back fingers poked freakishly in angles that defied convention. Far back in the piney woods, but rushing to the steading with diseased eagerness for spoils both low and glorious came the berserkers; they sprinted over toe-dashing rocks and through whipping, skin-tearing branches in electrified fury. "Berserks! Well, I'll have to fix them, too." First, however, I'll send this clotted piece of dogyard filth on his way." "Tholyff, can you hear me?" RhohG drew a knife, which she now saw as Crushfoot's missing shiv and held it to Tholyff's gaunt groin, knowing full well a clean, smooth, and deep slice into the large artery there would bleed Tholyff steadily into numbness, weakness and helplessness and then sleepy death. A cut was all it would take-- "No--don't kill me." Tholyff looked up at her with one pleading eye. The other was an orb of red set in a gouged pink cup of flesh that lined the socket. "Don't you know berserks can smell your fear--and tear you to pieces while you're still breathing? My way is better than theirs!" "Who are you?" "Before I came here, I was called Moira. I am from Kladsch. Half a year's travel from here. Only now do I see my journey here wasn't a waste of that time. I knew I'd find something when I came here, I just didn't know I'd have to wait until the very last day to find it. I told everyone at home I was as honest as they day was long. I didn't think that up here, the days were quite so long." "Are there giants in this Claw-Dish?" "The folk there are anything but giants. Strong, many of them, tall, many of them, and plenty of people who like to fight. I joined a band of fighting men who defend common folk from armies. I was sent to draw more good men into the band when I was first sent here. Trouble was, twenty of them were put to death for turning against their general. Only one survived. They gave him such a beating as few men can endure, took everything he had and banished him into the wilderness. Still, he was one of those I was sent to fetch. I came too late to save them. The one who got the whipping...which was totally unfair and done just to warn others against mutiny... was named Brentho Bariouse." "That's the saddest thing I ever heard." "Wait'll you hear the rest. Bariouse became a Kriirling like me, a useful outsider. He knew how to mine and find his way to precious metals like silver. One day a mine roof fell in. Bariouse rounded up help, saying he knew a way into the mine that was quicker than trying to clear the filled entrance. He misstepped while he was on his way to the air shaft and dislodged and slab of rock, crippling him. While they were cutting his foot away from the rock that had wedged immovably, everyone in the mine died and the airshaft was blocked. Brentho Bariouse is the man who tried to kill you. And I am pledged to protect his life more than yours. And I must honor the agreement even though he doesn't know who I am or what I want with him." The spriggan sheathed the knife and carried Tholyff toward the kennels where at least there was fire. He felt heavier now. And she knew what that meant. Her gigantic strength was ebbing now that she was showing the sympathy for one who'd been victimized. She didn't imagine she'd shrink quickly, but she didn't feel as comfortable being a foot taller now. * They passed through the smoking ruin of the mews, following the tracks of Nubs and Toadhands as they'd scurried through. Taking a hard flask from her belt, the spriggan held Tholyff's drooping head up. The liquor container was ugly, miscolored and misshapen, whittled from an oak gall. It contained a mind-robbing juice that she had only dared to sip and taste. She drew the stopper and winced at the fumes wafting from the flask's mouth. "This is all I know how to do for the moment. It won't heal, but it will numb you all over. Before it works, you'll thrash. And that will hurt a lot with your injuries. She fed the bottle-neck between Tholyff's lips and poured the contents in their entirety down his gullet, making sure he swallowed before he could choke or spit out. And he did thrash, defying her efforts to keep him still. When the violence subsided, he came to his senses, unable to relate to his skin and bones. "Do you feel anything?" she asked, even as she repositioned his broken fingers and tied splints on them. "No...I feel like I'm floating." "You're going to have to stay hidden. But not here. Inside the cellars of the steading. There are heavy doors the berserks can't break through." Tholyff huffed and gasped, not in pain, but mild euphoria as his brain played tricks on him. Then she fixed his arm. She was growing smaller! Weaker. But she still had the older tricks left. And she would need every last one of them she knew as the berserkers burst into the yard. TO BE CONTINUED