Gutterblood 2 - Affray

The column had been travelling for two months, and in the minds of Carter and Left-hand Pierce it was almost over. They were only a day from the edge of the borderlands, if they pushed a little, and once in the centerlands they would not have to worry about chase. In a week of easy travel they would be at the slave blocks. However, in the end it was the weather that stopped them. The gentle rain that had started falling in the morning had, by evening, become a drenching downpour that made it unsafe to drive any farther. So, barely on this side of the border, they were forced to halt and circle up for the night. As was the custom, some of the men immediately erected a canopy under which to put a fire. Others locked down the wagons, and more scouted the area for danger. Carter retired gratefully to his own wagon out of the rain, and Left-hand Pierce rode the perimeter, looking for anything he could dress down the men for. Templeton was ordered to stand near one of the wagons and keep an eye out for attack. By chance, it was the wagon in which Treyvas rode. Tendry Alis watched from where he was chained to his seat on the next wagon back.
For Treyvas, it was too much. The thing was only a few feet away, and he could do nothing to it. He had watched it wrap its hat in oiled leather earlier when it started to rain, but he could still smell the lingering odor of blood around it. Unintentionally, he growled under his breath, and to his shock the thing turned around and stepped closer. In one stride it was almost touching the wagon, and it was less than a foot from his nose. He could see where the blood was constantly washing away from around its eyes and slowly oozing out again. The raw wounds were always there, he remembered his father saying. The half-fae desire for blood was said to stem from those wounds. He suddenly recalled that his father had always referred to them by the polite term ‘half-fae’ instead of the racial slur gutterblood, and the irony twisted his face into a grimace. He was working up his mouth to spit, but Tendry Alis acted faster.
Through the bars at the back of the wagon sailed a large chunk of bloody meat. It landed between Treyvas and the huddled child next to him, and the sharp acrid taste of fear suddenly made itself known in the wagon. Slowly Treyvas looked from the meat back to Templeton, and he would swear that he saw a smile, just for a second.
Then all hell broke loose.
With a jerk Templeton grabbed the bars and set himself. Treyvas and every other child in the wagon simultaneously started screaming and tried to push themselves through the far wall. A guard saw what was happening, and saw the meat, and swore in a loud voice as he spurred his horse towards the wagon. Templeton’s arms moved, and two bars popped from their sockets and clattered to the ground. He grabbed the next pair of bars out and set himself again.
The other guards who were near noticed what was going on and moved closer, yelling for Pierce and Carter. The drover chained to the wagon Templeton was attacking tried to throw himself over the side and was brought up just short of the ground by his chains. The other wagoneers all started frantically whipping their horses to get their wagons away from the danger, including Tendry Alis.
Templeton ripped the second set of bars out. The opening was wide enough now for him to squeeze through, but instead he grabbed the next set out and set himself once more.
Several of the children in the wagon fainted, others went catatonic, and still others kept struggling against the bars on the far wall. Treyvas realized the futility of their flight response instinctively, and stepped from the mass, standing only three or four feet behind the chunk of meat. He was determined to meet his fate as bravely as had his father, though he could barely see for fear. Carter heard people yelling for him while he was changing, and quickly began pulling on his wet clothing again. Left-hand Pierce was just spurring his horse around the rapidly dispersing circle of wagons when his horse was clipped by an axletree and fell over to the side. Pierce lost his seat and the horse reared up again and took off, leaving him to struggle to his feet and run through the muddy ground.
Templeton ripped the third set of bars out and tossed them away. He easily hopped up into the wagon, and faced Treyvas over the piece of meat. The men around the wagon kept shouting at him, or for Carter and Pierce, but none dared to try and stop him. The cook was even banging a set of pots together as if Templeton was a bear, but the half-fae ignored them all.
A long second passed, and then Carter slammed out of the door to his wagon, and the sound broke the uncertain tableau. Templeton leaped forward in a flash and grabbed Treyvas before he could react. Treyvas, sure he was about to die, fainted dead away. A quick jerk of a clawed hand and Treyvas’ chains snapped with a clang. Almost as an afterthought the half-fae grabbed Tendry’s piece of meat before springing back out of the hole. Pierce, finally rounding the last wagon to see what was going on, slammed into Carter and the two hit the ground.
In one bound Templeton jumped over the circle of warriors and raced into the woods, carrying Treyvas and the piece of meat. The soldiers stared after him, then slowly turned to face Carter and Pierce, who were just getting to their feet.
“Sir, you should … ”
“What the hell was that?” blustered Carter, cutting off Pierce in mid-sentence. “It sounded like…” Then for the first time he saw the wagon. “Good god! What did that?”
Pierce held back his anger at being cut off. “Your gutterblood took a child and ran off, SIR. I was going to say you should order him back here while he could still hear you, but it’s too late now. He’s long gone.”
Guards quickly rounded up the wagons, including Tendry’s. He went meekly where he was told, but inwardly he seethed. Why couldn’t the boy have struggled more? He had been hoping that the gutterblood would eat him on the spot. Then no one would have paid attention to Tendry’s wagon until it was done. And maybe it would have gone on to eat others and give him a good chance to get away. Oh, well, he thought. At least I can say that all the other drovers tried to run too. But that trick wouldn’t work again. The fate of the boy he passed off as nothing.
Others in the column also thought nothing of the boy’s fate, assuming he was being eaten already, but a great deal of thought went into the current whereabouts of the gutterblood. Guards nervously fingered their weapons and looked through the downpour at the suddenly menacing woods. To calm them, Pierce broke out their store of crossbows and handed them out, wrapped in oiled leather which could easily be pulled off in seconds. It worked to a degree, but everyone was nervous nonetheless.
Carter asked around in vain for someone to go out looking for his pet investment. Finally he asked Pierce.
“Sir, going after the thing in its current state is a death sentence. It will come back on its own after it has fed, or it will not. Frankly, I don’t care. I never liked that thing. But we’re only a day from the border at most, and we need to leave. What if the thing hits a town nearby? Search parties could maybe track us in the morning, and then where would we be? We should move out immediately, and damn the rain.”
Carter thought it over, and seemed hesitant. “But, I have the thing’s sister. It won’t go far. We need to retrieve it.”
Very interesting, thought Pierce. He had wondered why Carter trusted the thing so much. Family ties amongst the half-fae were supposed to be very strong. “Well, in that case it will come back. But it can follow our trail better than we can follow its, and we would be safer to move anyway.”
Carter seemed to accept that, and they set several warriors to work patching the hole in the wagon that Templeton had torn. When it was solid enough to keep the remaining children from escaping, they got everything ready and cautiously drove off. As they rode, the guards kept one eye on the treacherous roads and one on the woods.