Broo Slayer
Copyright 2000 by Loren J. Miller
Imagine a man-sized carnivore that hunts in packs, a sharp toothed, devilishly horned incarnation of hunger and hate that dwells amid looming, rocky heights. It is supernaturally hardy, even hardier than the goat and not only magically immune to diseases but also infested with them, by its own choice. It is almost as smart as a man, and in its cunning it smears itself with vile substances and wears plagues like men wear clothes. It draws strength from evil, and some of its species have unpredictable and weird powers. It is always male. No females have ever been seen. It is magically fertile and can reproduce with whatever creature it finds available, female or male. Back-country wives state soberly that it has even reproduced with trees, rocks, and a bronze oven. The pregnancy is magically quick, and kills the mother or father. It is always in rut, and it hates everything in the world, even itself. This hatred drives it to kill its fellows, its young, its rivals, superiors and underlings with paradoxically predictable irregularity, and this is the greatest weakness of its society. This monster is called a broo. And men who kill broos are well regarded in the highlands of Worion, above the Esel valley, close to the border with wild Brolia.
Recovering his breath Cherkus of Rudjypeg dashed to the center of the open space and turned to face the thing that followed him. Scarcely a body length behind him a horror shambled out of the trees, humanoid but dwarfish, with a hideously horned and fanged head and a foul stench, solid and tangible. It was a feral broo, wild and stupid, but still dangerous. It screamed in its high pitched voice and leapt at him, trying to add a mate to the wound its fellow had put in his left thigh.
He shuffled to the right, dodging its charge, and readied his sword. Its scent was foul, a physical assault that rocked him as the creature passed him at an arm's length. He shifted facing. ``Die, foulness!'' he spat at it, and the duel began.
The broo scuttled away from him and he advanced, blade pointing at its heart. It darted to the left, towards his wounded leg. He followed and stabbed at it, missing. Again they moved. Cherkus feinted to the right and then spun around, momentarily leaving his back open and it was there, where he expected it. His blade bit into the manbeast's shoulder and it cried out in pain and hate. Gnashing its teeth, it jumped at him. He stepped back and stopped its horns with his blade, then chopped his blade into its belly, knocking it down and spilling its guts on the grass.
The monster howled in its high pitched voice, and glared at him evilly, cursing him insensibly, as its fellows answered from the woods around. Then it shuddered and died. The forest behind him was full of the howls and screeches of broos.
He backed away from the corpse, dragging his sword on the grass to clean the gore off. He was wounded too, wounded by a broo, and knew it was making him sick. He would die without one of the black robes, a healer who worshipped Queen Deezola.
He turned again and crashed out of the glade, now polluted with the twin stenches of chaos and death, and into the rapidly darkening forest.
Cherkus of Rudjypeg, trained in the science of tactics and the arts of warfare, was just twenty summers old when he blundered into broos while looking for a place to make his own camp. He heard laughter and bestial grunts ahead, and then barely two man-lengths away, in a clearing on the other side of a thicket, was a sickening sight. Nearly a dozen broos gathered around the carcass of a man that they had dissected and picked over. They were noisily sucking the marrow out of its leg bones. The dead man was middle aged, maybe fifty, bald and bearded. The beard might have been red once but now the color was unidentifiable under crusted blood and filth. The dead man's slime coated face was turned towards Cherkus, cat eyes and red-bearded mouth smiling eerily.
Someone yet lived. A handsome young redheaded man still writhed, moaned, whispered. He too was naked, belly to the dirt, his wrists and ankles strapped to stakes with bloody hide strips. Cherkus didn't think it would be wise to think too deeply on the source of the bindings. A broo lay on the man hunching its hips in its evil, orgiastic parody of lust.
On occasion, when people wished to address Cherkus with respect, they called him Khoopteny, which means Swordbearer in the Kaurmeiny language. They didn't call him Khoopteny out of their wild imaginations, but because he carried a sword, a khoopt, everywhere. It was a well-made blade, and he kept it polished and razor sharp. He whispered a prayer to the Sword King and his sword came silent from its scabbard, shining with the promise of death.
Throwing his better sense to the void Cherkus Khoopteny stepped out of the woods and acted, his stroke describing a perfect arc that decapitated the monster. The dying broo body continued to assault its victim as blood fountained from its neck and its arms collapsed.
One chop, two chops, three chops, four, Cherkus severed the man's bloody bonds and with a mighty surge from his leg pushed the headless, foul monster off him. He stalked towards the gang around the dead body and menaced them with his bloody sword.
Grunting, the broos rose, and backed away. One of the furthest away slipped into the trees.
The man just lay there, groaning. "Get up brother!" Cherkus shouted. He repeated, in New Pelorian, "By the Black Moon's Blood, get up!"
Two more broos turned and ran into the trees. He heard the crisp rustle of steps on dry leaves to his right. They were circling around behind him.
Cherkus stepped backwards, warily watching the broos stalk him through the corners of his eyes. The man got to his knees, then stooped as he rose to his feet. Cherkus thought how quickly a healthy, handsome man could be wrecked by terrible circumstances. The man's mouth worked, but no words came out, grunts, then rapid laughter. He leaned to pick up a broo spear and cackled horribly. Cherkus stepped back, then the man laughed again as he stabbed his own throat. Then the blood came and, giggling, he fell to the forest floor. He jerked when he hit the ground and lay still, blood pooling around him.
He looked at the broos and the biggest one, with its skin dyed orange and a huge rack of antlers on its head, grinned at him, exposing rows of sharpened teeth.
"So pretty," it grunted in its bestial accent.
Cherkus glared. Then, an attack to his left. He dodged--too late. He felt claws rake his thigh. A smaller broo darted to his side and reflexively his sword found its heart. There were too many more. To stay here was certain death. He turned and fled.
As he ran he thought. It had wounded his thigh with its filthy claws. It was a minor wound, but who knew what plague festered in it? He had seen beggars in Ajaak hunched over, their faces ruined by broo-born sickness, chests horribly scarred, unable to walk, unable to feed themselves. Death was not the worst thing that could happen when broos were about. He would need to find a cure before the end of the night.
"Fox King make me quick, Swallow King make me nimble, Rabbit King
lengthen my stride," he gasped as he snatched up a charm that hung
around his neck and kissed it. He ran.
He ran, and as he ran the sun dropped, shadows grew long and it quickly became night, and still Cherkus ran through the forest, fleeing the broos and the howls of their delight in the hunt. He ran endlessly, passing into a timeless state of running. Even after they fell behind and he could no longer hear their howls he ran onward. If they all caught up with him, alone in the absolute black of the forest at night, he would be defenseless. They could track him by scent in this darkness and could see in less light than he. He needed to find a refuge, a defensible place where he could hide out. A chill ran down his back and he thought it would be nice if the refuge were warm too.
As he ran he saw the light of a hearthfire before him in the woods, to his left and he ran towards it. In these woods a small fire meant shelter, a country manse. He was safe. Once through its gate and safe in its hall he would find warmth, food and drink, and strong warriors to fight off the broos, and a wise old healer crone.
He crashed out of the edge of the woods and into the starlit field, and shouting ``Help, Broos,'' he ran towards the house. It was a small house with a thatch roof, not a fortified manse. There would be one warrior at the most, maybe none, and no healer.
He pounded his fist at the door, and gasped, ``Broos coming after me.'' Then he pounded again. He could hear the broos howling behind him. They were faint but they would get much louder. The broos were good trackers. Another chill shook his frame, and he leaned against the door.
Suddenly the bar scraped inside the door and it opened. Weakened by exhaustion and the chill he lurched in. The house had a single room lit by a fire in the middle, with a smoke-hole above, a woodpile opposite the door, cured hides to the right and clay pots to the left. Nobody here, he thought, and then a warrior's white robe appeared, something heavy crashed into his head and the floor came up and hit him in the face as the world went black.
He was running through a meadow and it was full of tiny white flowers, each one shaped like a warrior in a white robe, and there was a groaning sound all around him, buzzing and groaning, sawing and the clashing of swords against shields, it was the sound of war and wakening, and he turned and behind him arrayed in their white robes enemy dart warriors were chasing him but they were broos walking after him, not walking but running and gnashing their teeth and whispering come out of it to him, come here, and he heard moaning and the world started spinning, all the white robes flying around him in a whirlwind, rushing, and he was dizzy I'm sorry and there was a cup of water at his lips and a face resolved out of the confusion, sweet and pale, drink it, was he thinking it or hearing it, and he snapped into reality lying on his back looking into the face of a stunning red-haired woman with cat eyes who held a cup of water at his lips and wore a white robe in a land where white was the warrior's color and black the color for women.
She looked like the red-haired man's sister. If her eyes were not red from tears she would have been the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He felt his head. It was lumpy and hurt. "You make one hell of an impression on a guy," he said.
"They call me Ilmora," she said. "I'm sorry I hurt you. She gave him a
blue glazed cup.
"You aren't from around here, are you?"
"No, we're Sartar refugees."
He sat up straight. That explained the white robe, but he needed to know more. "Got a real drink?"
She had a jug of gin, the tax stamps brand new. He swallowed it: Balm for the soul. Then he went to the hearth and picked up his sword from where it lay.
[continued in part 2]
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