Chapter 47

Timothy lay spread out on the floor in a haze of pain. Both from an overused will and the rod of fire poking his off hand. He was aware of conversations going on above his head, but their contents eluded him. In time the clouds covering his mind began to spread and the sun to shine once again.

“So, what did I miss?” He managed to mumble out, somewhat intelligibly he hoped.

“Welcome back Timothy John Mason. You missed quite a lot. In particular I would like to direct your attention to your brother. He managed to support the gate and kill two of the boss hogs WITHOUT MUTILATING HIMSELF!” Ma’s voice rose to a dangerous shriek as she spoke. With a shake and a clear effort of will she brought her voice back to a reasonable register before continuing. “I am sorry, that’s not fair. I am proud of the man that you are, that you could not just watch while disaster struck… but please have some mercy on your mother! I am going to see my son cut his own finger off everytime I close my eyes. To watch the blood spurt and the pain wrinkle your face.”

Timothy winced, he would prefer she had kept shouting. The dreaded guilt trip was a peerless weapon that could not be defended against. Already he felt it creep up inside of him. How dare he upset her so?

He did the only thing he could. He turned and begged for help. “What happened Arthur.”

Arthur was feeling merciful, but not massively so. “While you were skinning your cat the front gate was shattered. Regi dumped most of the Brotherhood bonds through a very brave surrogate. Harald Tompson, jumped onto a hogs back and held on even after life left him. Damn fine man, his like are far too few and we will miss him. Sometimes sacrifices are necessary for a people to survive.” Ma had the grace to blush. Timothy gave up a finger. This man gave up all he had to give.

Arthur pointed up and in back of Timothy, carefully turning his head he saw Regi lying down with a wet towel over his eyes. “It took it out of him too, if it helps. Wasn’t real pleasant for the rest of us either. I could feel it as he pulled on our bond. Asked for my help without saying a word.“

Arthurs expression relaxed from its habitual iron face into something that showed awe and perhaps even wonder. “I am not one for religious experiences, but he called and we answered. We were there for a few moments at the gates of Paradise. “His mouth twitched in self derision for the grandiose term but he didn't stop speaking. “We pushed together against the massed Hogs, and we could feel them pushing back. Our massed will against theirs and we carried the day. Punched through their wills and the lighting punched through with us.”

He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts, staring off at something the rest could not see. “Ask Reginold when he wakes up, he might have a better way to explain it. I understand this belief thing for perhaps the first time. We believe in the brotherhood. We marched together and pushed together, our belief in the men around us was stronger than what they could mass against us. So what we wanted to happen, did.”

“And they fried for it.”

He took a deep breath. “The normal hogs are like our norms. They believe but it’s too spread out to do anything. They need a squad leader to form it into a weapon. Or a shield. It’s what made them dangerous. We need to pick the leaders off ahead of time. Maybe hunt them down in the fields and jungle between waves. Without them a beast wave is nothing. With them-” he paused, “a lot of men died today.”

Timothy considered that carefully through the ringing in his head. It could work. He hadn’t considered the non leader boars as norms since they had inherent magic. But in some ways it made sense. Pack members believe in the strength of their pack and the pack leader uses that belief to protect them. Something to think about later, he had a much less pleasant matter to ask about first.

“How many?” He haltingly asked.

Arthur sighed, “Were not sure yet. There are a number of wounded that might make it through, Jenney is on the Nellie heading down with a full chest of her potions and brews. Even if they all make it through we are looking at over thirty deaths. We can’t let this sort of thing happen again.“ He reiterated, “We have to kill these leader beasts before the wave comes in!”

Timothy stared morosely at the empty waters of the scrying pool in front of him. That was far too many. Arthur was right, both as on the level of a human being with compassion and as a leader of a community. The number of pregnancies that were ongoing had to be seen to be believed but even with that, thirty deaths every three or four months out of a population of around 500… The math didn’t work. Not even a baby boom could make up those numbers. They had to get smarter, get better. And they needed to do it fast.

“Enough about that. How about you? You going to explain what you meant earlier about price?” Arthur shook off his own depressed mood and re-equipped his iron face.

“A bit self evident don’t you think?” He waved the bandaged stump of a finger above his head and instantly regretted it. Even the force of wind on the bandage hurt. “I was tapped out. Spent all the will it was safe to spend. If I wanted to do anything more I had to offer up something else.”

“That’s not going to fly, Timothy. You lost a finger! I don’t think I’m asking too much in wanting details. I hope your sister can mix up something to regrow it in time.” Ma, blush having faded from her pale skin charged back into the fray.

“Not going to happen Ma. I could regrow it. If I wanted to die from backlash.” Timothy shuddered slightly. Die might be an exaggeration… then again it might not be.

“So can you explain that?” Arthur picked up the thread with a neutral tone.

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“I swear I’ve already explained this before!” Timothy ground out with considerable exasperation. Moving his arms in he started to push up into a sitting position. “Gaaa..” He quickly yanked his left hand away from the floor, barely avoiding spewing a vile string of epitaphs into the air. They merely rang through his mind instead, a considerably less than satisfactory experience. The nausea and pain nearly had him spewing the contents of his stomach instead. It took him several long moments to regain control. Moments he spent in a fetal curl around his injured hand, until he felt a large pair of hands lift him back onto the pillow.

“You explain things sometimes, Timothy,” His Da’s deep baritone rumbled along his skin, “and you think it's simple and everyone understood. We didn’t and don’t. It’s only simple and clear to you. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to tell you this. What have I been saying since you were ten?”

Timothy grimaced but obediently paroted out the required phrase “If people don’t understand it’s my fault as a teacher. Don’t get mad at them, get better at explaining.” He had said it for years, but still wasn’t sure he bought it. The old hoagie about bringing a horse to water came to mind. Still it wasn’t an argument he’d ever won. No point in refighting a losing battle.

“Fine, I’ll try again. If you sacrifice something you can get something back in return. You got that part right?”

“Don’t be a smart aleck. There is a bit of a difference from you living half like a monk and cutting your finger off.” The rumble had a note of displeasure in it.

“That’s the thing. There really isn’t any difference of type. Just magnitude. I store up the small things because I only have ten fingers and I need most of them!” His attempt at humor did more than fall flat, it incited a rage in his Ma’s eyes that he was all too familiar with. He quickly continued before it could explode. “Anyone can do it. Study, practice and work. People sacrifice their time for knowledge, skills or money. Hell it happened that way back in the old world. The main difference is that I get a better return on my sacrifice. If they pay ten units of something unrelated they only get back five where they need it. I use the rune you saw to get back a nine.” It was massively simplified, but it was the best he could do in a short time frame.

“That rune?” Arthur pointed at the still present blood rune, although slightly illegible with all the additional blood. “Why don’t we see you carving it all the time then, while you drink water instead of wine?”

Timothy pulled down the collar of his shirt. In the skin over his heart was carved with that same rune, drawn in very thin lines of scar tissue that were barely visible against the skin around it. Faded enough that standing behind the thin layers of chest hair no one in the baths had ever commented on them. “Carving it all the time would get ridiculous.”

“Harold sacrificed his life, did that boost the brotherhood spell?” Da asked.

“It probably did. How much is hard to say. What did he have to sacrifice? A life is not magically valuable. It depends on a number of variables. Let’s start with quality. What you give up has to mean something to you. If your life sucks and you want to die, the sacrifice of your life will be nearly worthless. A vegetarian giving up meat for lent has no value.“

“Next let's go into ownership and potential. How long would he have lived without his sacrifice? Would the boars have overrun the defenses and killed him anyway if he ran? Who knows, but if so he only sacrificed a few minutes of potential life. Not much power there. It has to be yours to offer up, a life that is about to be ended isn’t yours to sell. On the other hand someone else could have taken his place and he would have lived to a ripe old age. That would be a huge boost. My theory is that the world drains the magic from potential futures to fuel the chosen course. To set it in stone. The more of those futures he lived a long life in the more of a boost he can get. A natural probability average.”

“That’s also why you don’t want your finger healed?” Ma asked.

“Of course. There are no take backs. If you sacrifice a finger then heal it, what did you actually lose? Pain and annoyance for a few days is worth much less than the loss of a finger for the rest of a natural life.” He really hoped they didn’t pick up on that. A natural life vs his life span. He was trying very hard to avoid lying but that was not a subject he could discuss. “You’re making a deal with the very world, the terms need to be clear and you really don’t want to welch on it.”

Looking around he saw the room descend into silence while its occupants drifted off in thought. I still have it! I can confuse a room better than anyone else I know.

He left them be to think. Taking the time for himself to, for once, not think. Not plan. To simply sit and veg.The pounding in his head was beginning to feel like a natural state.

Much like poison ivy, natural did not mean pleasant.

He took a sip of tea and waited. Waited for the pain to fade, waited for them to finish thinking. Waited to find out how ‘himself-’

Shit

“So, you didn’t mention a fire breathing winged reptile with an inexhaustible appetite.”

Silence.

He waited, eyes closed for a response.

And waited.

And waited.

“Come on, out with it. You are beginning to make me nervous.”

He heard a deep sigh, Da from the sound of it. “He made an appearance. Scared the ever living hell out the Paradisians. Picture claws bigger than their gates reaching in to delicately grasp two boss hogs from the ramp. They were apparently a delicacy that he ate first. Don’t misunderstand me. It wasn’t just the boss hogs. He cleaned up several hundred tons of meat. I can’t begin to guess how much ‘he’ weighs, but that has to be more than his body weight. Magic.”

“It ate all the boss hogs? DAMN! I was hoping to take a closer look at them.”

“You’re not the only one, and you might yet manage it. ‘Himself’ ate the three bosses on the ramp, and even snagged the cat you killed on his way out.” Da shuddred, “A small flick of his tale as he flew away.”

“Three hogs and a cat. That leaves what, the hog boss that was crushed by a fall, and one more?”

“Yes, that one more is the kicker. Tucker hooked a pair of his hogs up and drug it away before ‘himself’ showed up. With the ramp blocked by bodies he took it back to the underground stable to the north west. A good thing for a lot of reasons.”

“‘A lot’ of reasons? I’m not hearing why you didn't want to talk about this and it’s making me nervous.”

“Haaaa, one of Tucker's boar cavalry was cleaning up the field when ‘himself’ landed. Apparently a dead hog and one too scared to move don’t look much different. It got eaten. Tamed hog and two riders. Gone.”

“Damn...” Shitty luck was shitty. Might as well call it an act of god. Like a hurricane or a lightning strike on a clear day. There was no one to blame.

That didn’t make it easier on the relatives. In many ways it made it worse.

The room descended to silence once again. Too many new things to think about, too much sorrow and grief.