Ascendance

SUMMER HAD PASSEDits midpoint, with the eighth month nearing its end. The day was brutally hot, the air thick with moisture steaming from the many lakes nearby, Marcalo De'Unnero knew. The sun had been blazing hot every day; then, every day of the last week, great thunderstorms erupted in the late afternoon, shaking the ground and drenching the earth.

So it had been the previous day: a wild and windy storm. And thus, on this hot morning, De'Unnero - Bertram Dale - had to add considerable roof repairs to his chores. He had awakened long before dawn and had gone right out to the woodpile to do his chopping, trying to be done with that heavy work before the hot sun climbed high into the sky. Now, dressed only in his trousers, his lean, tanned, and muscled torso sweating in the midday sun, he perched atop a roof, tearing away the ruined thatch and working on the supports. He had to pause often to wipe the sweat from his brow, but still much slipped past the bandana he had tied there, stinging his eyes. Even in his superb physical condition, De'Unnero had to stop to catch his breath in the stifling air many times, often dousing himself with water. On one such break, he glanced around, and from his high perch, caught sight of a group of men - a pair walking and three riding -moving along the road toward Micklin's Village.

Though the approaching band wasn't close enough for him to discern features clearly, it wasn't a group of huntsmen, De'Unnero knew at once, for none of his fellow villagers had gone out on horseback. Wary, De'Unnero rolled over the edge of the roof, holding the wall top, and dropped lightly to his feet. Not many strangers came this way, and those who did were more often running from something than heading toward anything.

De'Unnero found a sleeveless shirt and pulled it on, then removed his bandana and wiped his face. He moved steadily toward the end of town nearest the approaching strangers. His eyes darted side to side as he went, studying the area closely, picking potential escape routes or advantageous defensive positions, and looking for any other strangers who might have slipped into Micklin's Village in advance of the approaching band.

He heard singing a moment later - from one of the riders, he saw, as they continued their approach. The bard sat comfortably in the saddle of the middle horse, strumming a three-stringed instrument and singing of faraway battles against dragons. A fairly good minstrel, De'Unnero had to admit; and that, plus the fact that this group was riding in so openly, gave him hope that these were not worthless vagabonds bringing with them nothing but trouble.

" 'The dragon's eyes, they gleamed like gold,' " the bard sang. " 'Its fiery breath licked at the stone. But Traykle's sword was swifter still. Beneath the wing he found his kill.' "

"The Ballad of Traykle Chaser," De'Unnero realized, a well-known old song about a legendary dragon hunter who had braved the winter of northern Alpinador to go and wreak vengeance upon a great dragon that had laid waste Traykle's Vanguard village. De'Unnero had seen several different versions of the song in the library at St.-Mere-Abelle and had heard it sung many times by villagers who had come to the abbey for market. De'Unnero was still wary, though, for he thought it too simple a melody for a traveling bard to be offering.

Perhaps the rider wanted any villagers who might be about to believe that he was only a traveling bard.

Still out of sight, De'Unnero studied the group carefully as they neared, trying to gain a measure of this band's formidability by the way they rode and the way they walked. A practiced warrior had a gentle and fluid stride, he knew, while a simple thug often walked as if his feet were attacking the ground with every step. So it was with both of those walking: a bearlike man whose bald head shone brightly in the sun and a smaller man with a grizzled face and reddish hair, showing his Vanguard ancestry. Both carried large weapons across their shoulders, an axe for the heavy man, a gigantic spear for the other. One of the riders appeared no more refined, a gap-toothed tall man with long black hair; though his sword, belted at his hip, appeared to De'Unnero a much finer and more dangerous weapon. The remaining two, including the bard, seemed more sophisticated still in dress and hygiene, both having short hair and clean-shaven faces. One was of medium build, around De'Unnero's size, and he carried a short bow, strung and slung over one shoulder, with a quiver of arrows tied to his saddle, in easy reach. The other, the singer, was a tiny man with a falsetto voice and shining, light brown eyes that seemed all the more brilliant when he flashed his beaming, bright smile. He carried no weapon at all as far as De'Unnero could see; to the battle- hardened former monk, that made him the most dangerous of the group.

They were up to the nearest buildings by then, and still making no effort to conceal themselves, so out went De'Unnero, stepping in the path before them.

"Greetings," he said. "Not often does Micklin's Village see visitors, so forgive our lack of any formal greeting." As he finished, he bowed low. "Bertram Dale at your service."

"Fair greetings on a fair day!" the singer said exuberantly in an unmistakably feminine voice. Only then, looking more closely, did De'Unnero realize that the singer was a woman, with short-cropped brown hair. "We are wandering adventurers, out to see the world," she went on with enthusiasm, "in search of tales to spin into great ballads."

Then why do you waste your time with the songs of children?De'Unnero thought. He wasn't looking at the woman, though he found her appearance somewhat interesting, because he was more concerned with the two walking thugs, who had slipped off to the side and were muttering quietly to each other. They were looking for other townsfolk, De'Unnero knew, and that told him without any doubt at all that this was no innocent band.

"We have food and drink to offer travelers," he said, looking back at the woman bard.

"I could use some fire in me throat," the tall man on the horse said in a peasant's accent.

"Not liquor," De'Unnero explained. "We have water, tortha-berry juice, and a fine mixture squeezed from blueberries and grapes. Nothing more. But if you will get down from your mounts, I will set them out to graze in the corral and then fix a fine meal for all of you."

The three riders looked at each other. They neither accepted nor refused, but, De'Unnero noted, neither did they begin to dismount. The other two, meanwhile, pushed through the door of a nearby cottage and peered in.

"Pray tell your companions to adhere to standards of privacy and decency," De'Unnero said quietly to the bard. "We are friendly enough folk, but some of our buildings are common and others, like the one in which they now seem so interested, are private."

"Just looking," the tall man answered.

"My fellows of Micklin's Village will soon return from the day's hunt," De'Unnero went on, growing very tired of this polite posturing. If they meant to attack him or threaten him, then he wished they'd get it over with. "I am sure that they will allow you to stay as long as you desire. And they will wish to hear all your songs and tales, trading good entertainment for good food and warm beds."

The bard, staring at De'Unnero in a curious way, smiled at his offer and, still astride, dipped a graceful bow.

"And perhaps they will tell me stories greater still, that I might put them to song," she answered

"All that I have heard you sing thus far is an old song known to every child in Honce-the-Bear," De'Unnero dared to say, wanting to see if he could bring a scowl to her pixieish face.

He didn't; she merely laughed and replied, "The world has gone quiet, I fear. The great wars are ended, and the plague is long flown."

"Bah, but she ain't no fancy bard," the tall man remarked, and he spat upon the ground. "Fancyin' herself the poet o' the world, with all her pretty rhymin' songs and big words, but she's just Sadye. Sadye the whore, and no better'n any of us." Even as the dirty man finished, the woman shot him an intense, threatening gaze, and De'Unnero found the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. He knew then, without doubt, that she was a formidable one indeed.

He couldn't watch that continuing exchange, though, for movement to the side caught De'Unnero's wary gaze. He noted the two men on foot now pushing into another building, this one the town's common hall.

"In my homeland, such words are considered quite rude," the former monk did say, and he turned back to find the tall man glaring at him from his high perch. And it was high indeed, for the man's horse had to be near to eighteen hands.

The tall man spat upon the ground again, near De'Unnero's feet.

The former monk did well to control his anger. Not yet . . .

The two men on foot moved to the next house in line, but De'Unnero decided that the time had come to put his cards into open view. "You will go not uninvited into any house," he called to the snooping pair. "We have a common room, which you have just seen and nothing more than that for any of you until the other folk of the village agree."

"We are merely curious, and have been long on the road," the bard remarked sweetly, her smile wide. "Be at ease, my friend, for we have come to hear the tales, not to make them."

De'Unnero turned to her - or at least, made it look as if he had turned to her, for in truth, he kept his gaze to the side, to the two men on foot who were emerging from the house. He saw immediately that they had moved their weapons slightly to a more accessible position.

This time, the spittle from the tall rider would have hit De'Unnero's leg had not the agile former monk shifted.

"We be five, you be one," the tall rider said with a growl. "We goes where we wants to go."

De'Unnero looked down and chuckled, then raised his face to look at the bard's. "What say you, then?" he asked.

"She don't say nothing!" the tall rider replied loudly, poking a finger at De'Unnero. "I'm talkin' now, and I'm tellin' ye to shut yer mouth!"

De'Unnero looked at the bard and shrugged, and she returned the noncommittal motion.

"Be gone from this place," the former monk said calmly.

"Draggin' yer carcass behind - " the tall man started to respond. He got no more than the first couple of words out before Marcalo De'Unnero exploded into motion, taking two running strides toward him, then leaping and somersaulting in midair, kicking his feet into the tall rider.

Off the other side of the horse he went with a great howl, and De'Unnero, his momentum slowed by the impact, fell lightly on his side but leaped back to his feet to meet the roaring charge of the two men on foot.

The bearlike man came in high with his attack - exactly as De'Unnero wanted - the great axe sweeping across to lop off De'Unnero's head.

Down went the former monk, the greatest warrior ever trained by the Abellican Church. He dropped into a crouch so low that his buttocks touched the ground, then around he spun, extending one leg, sweeping his heel into the back of the big man's ankle, taking him down to the ground with a huge grunt.

The man with the spear attacked the low-crouching De'Unnero, trying to impale him, howling with rage, excitement, and even glee.

And then howling with fear as De'Unnero, hardly seeming to move, got his left forearm up under point of the spear and pushed it away so that it missed the mark. The spearman cried for help, whining even, as the vicious De'Unnero leaped forward, before the man could reaim his cumbersome spear. The spearman wisely shoved the hilt across his body to block his enemy's charge.

De'Unnero's perfectly aimed jab snapped the spear, and the monk charged through in pursuit.

The spearman had a second weapon, though, a long dirk, and he pulled it forth and spun, jabbing wildly.

De'Unnero skidded to a stop and turned, then ducked.

An arrow cut the air just above his head.

He looked at the mounted archer and saw the man calmly fitting another arrow to his bowstring, and saw, too, that the bard was playing her three-stringed instrument again. He felt the charge behind him, the foolish spearman trying to score an easy kill, but he stopped him cold with a snap-kick that caught the man on the kneecap, shattering it.A subtle twist, and De'Unnero drove his foot to the side, bending the man's knee in a way that a knee could not bend.

The spearman fell to the ground, screaming in agony.

The advantage was minor and fleeting, De'Unnero knew, for both the tall rider and the bearlike man were back on their feet, coming at him in a coordinated manner. The archer had already proven he had little hesitation in using his weapon.

To any other man this would have spelled the end, but this was Marcalo De'Unnero, the fighter of fighters, the man who had launched himself into the midst of a powrie gang with abandon. He could find the best angles, the best attacks, could . . .

De'Unnero realized that he was not alone - the weretiger was with him, boiling up, begging for release. How easy it would be to let it come forth in all of its terrible splendor! They would run away, and he could hunt them, would hunt them and drag them down.

How easy - De'Unnero recognized that one of his arms was already convulsing in change. He was fighting it, automatically after all these years of battling the urges, but if he embraced the weretiger, just for a moment, then the transformation would be complete and the battle won.

De'Unnero growled away the temptation, though by that time, his arm had completely transformed. To give in to the beast was to lose, he decided, whatever the outcome of the battle.

He focused on the task before him as another arrow whipped by, narrowly missing him. He ran toward the two standing men, then turned quickly to the right and dove into a headlong roll, scrambling to get behind the now-riderless horse.

Both the bearlike man and the tall one pursued him, but when they came around the horse, they found to their surprise that De'Unnero had stopped running and now met their charge with a vicious swipe of a great cat's paw. The tall man yelped as De'Unnero nicked him on the shoulder, tearing his leather vest and his skin, then the claw slashed deeply beneath the man's chin.

He fell back, but De'Unnero couldn't pursue, for the bearlike man came forward, his huge axe sweeping wildly.

The archer and his horse swung around behind the man, so De'Unnero retreated behind the riderless horse, keeping it between him and the mounted bowman. The bearlike man came in fast pursuit, swinging wildly again; and the stubborn tall man was right behind him, sword in hand.

The urging of the weretiger continued, intensified, but an uneasiness even beyond that assaulted Marcalo De'Unnero, some weird sensation of being out of balance. When he took note of his two immediate opponents, particularly the tall man, he came to understand, for the man's wound was healing right before his eyes!

"What?" exclaimed the former monk, who knew well the ways of magic. De'Unnero glanced all around, but he saw no overt signs of any gemstones, nor did any of the rogues seem to be in the midst of spell casting. Nor did the tall man's weapon, a cheaply crafted old chipped sword, appear to have any magical gemstones set in it.

Then it hit De'Unnero clearly, and he groaned aloud. The song. He had heard of musical instruments encrusted with magical gemstones whose powers could be summoned through song. Now here it was before him, a song healing his enemies and making him uneasy.

Suddenly the fight seemed much more difficult.

And suddenly, the calling of the weretiger became much more tempting.

One of the thugs finally figured things out enough to slap the frightened horse on the rump and send it running away, leaving De'Unnero exposed to bowshots. The archer wasted no time, sending an arrow flying the diving man's way, scoring a hit on the back of De'Unnero's calf, cutting a deep red line.

He felt the pain, but it was the weretiger that demanded his attention, screaming for release. Marcalo De'Unnero believed that he could suppress that urge, but it would be at the expense of his life, for he'd have to stop fighting, stop everything, and focus completely on his internal struggle.

Another arrow razored by him; he heard the excited yells of the two men giving chase.

A new perspective washed over the former monk at that critical moment, a sudden realization that he was cheating himself by so denying this very real part of himself. Let it out, he resolved, in this specific instance or in any like it, when his enemies surely deserved to meet the darker side of Marcalo De'Unnero.

He went around the corner of a building and heard the thunk of an arrow against the wood behind him. Out of sight, he pulled off his shirt - how much clothing had he ruined during these transformations? - and undid his pants, then grimaced in pain as he allowed the weretiger to transform his legs into those of a great cat.

His attackers rounded the corner behind him, but he was already launching a mighty spring with a simple twitch of his powerful feline muscles and landing without a whisper atop the roof. He went right to the peak and crouched low, listening.

"Go round t'other way!" the tall man shouted to the mounted archer, and De'Unnero heard the pounding of the hooves.

"Where'd the little rat go?" the bearlike man roared. "Look fer hidden doors. Oh, but I'll be squashing him good!"

"We'll peg him up on the wall, we will!" said the tall man, his words barely audible above the renewed screams of the man with the shattered knee. That sound made De'Unnero notice that the bard was no longer singing her previous song - the one that activated the hematite - and had started a song of the woodlands and wild animals.

A moment of panic hit De'Unnero as his transformation continued, for he feared this song was aimed at him in his feline state. Perhaps she had noticed his hand or had somehow seen his cat-legged leap. Did she have a magical weapon to use against him?

Those fears went away as he became the weretiger in full, as his focus became the hunt. Now he heard the bard's song in a completely different way, one that excited him, that had him twitching, wanting to spring and to run, to tear into flesh and destroy his enemies.

He heard the screaming, he heard the song, he heard the archer's horse galloping. And he heard most keenly of all the continuing rumbling of the two men on foot stalking him and taunting him, casting insults and threats with impunity.

Belly low to the roof peak, the great tiger stalked one measured step at a time, coming into position above the two fools. The tall man with the sword was closer.

Down came the great cat, flying like a huge missile. De'Unnero's target was the bearlike man, but he kicked out as he flew past the tall man, his claws raking out his throat. He hit the bearlike man full force, knocking the air out of his chest and knocking him down hard on his back. All confidence and taunting were over now, as the man howled and screamed, crying out for his friends to help him somehow, flailing his arms wildly, trying to keep that awful fanged mouth and those claws from his face.

De'Unnero's great claws took the skin from the man's arms as easily as if it were dry paper, shredding him with every swipe. He hooked bone on the one arm and pulled the arm out of the way, leaving the man's head and throat exposed. Down snapped the tiger's mouth, clamping over the screaming man's face and crushing it brutally.

A sting in his haunch reminded De'Unnero that at least two others remained, and he let go of the huge man and bounded away. A second arrow whistled past him, and he dashed around the side of a building. Behind him, the man with the shattered knee cried and the huge man groaned in agony. The song continued, and a moment later it was accompanied by the sound of galloping horses. Somewhere deep inside De'Unnero understood that melody was to give her horse the power to run more swiftly.

De'Unnero charged back around the building. The mounted archer was still in sight, galloping hard down the road in the direction the group had come, but the bard was nowhere to be seen - or heard.

The bearlike man groaned again, and the sound of him so helpless almost made De'Unnero stop and stay for his feast.

Almost, but he still had a burning sensation in his rump from that arrow, from that rider galloping away.

Off he went. The archer, so intent on fleeing that he had his head down, was taken completely by surprise when the tiger hit his side, driving him over the saddle. They came down a heap, the man screaming, the tiger clawing and biting. The archer's foot got stuck in the stirrup, and the terrified horse charged on, dragging both its rider and the scrambling beast. The tiger bit at the nearest object, the archer's thigh, and between the sinking and tearing teeth and the horse's pull, that leg was soon severed.

The man screamed and screamed, then his voice dropped to a whine, then a groan. And then he lay very still and the weretiger feasted.

Sometime later, Marcalo De'Unnero, in human form again and wearing only his tattered pants and a coating of blood, walked back toward Micklin's Village. He didn't know exactly how much time had passed since he had feasted and then fallen into a lethargy, transforming back to a human sometime during that slumber. He hadn't even tried to pursue the bard after his kill, for he hadn't thought of doing so, being completely engrossed in the mind of the tiger. Never before had the beast overcome him so completely, so consumingly. He had been more beast than man in more than physical appearance this time, had been out of his mind with blood lust and sheer hunger - for the feast and for the sport of killing.

Now he was tired and angry - at the bandits and at himself. Mostly at himself. De'Unnero had justilled the transformation, had willingly accepted it, not as a necessity but as a welcomed enhancement, another weapon to use against his deserving enemies. But the weretiger was more than that, De'Unnero knew, despite his sudden convenient revelations. The weretiger assaulted the very soul of Marcalo De'Unnero, took from him everything - all of the discipline and control that he had spent almost all his life perfecting at St.-Mere-Abelle and took, too, his sense of morality. In weretiger form, Marcalo De'Unnero could not find God, for God had blessed him and his human kin with the ability to think past the beastly urges, to weigh each movement and action before implementing them.

The weretiger was a creature of instinct and hunger, cunning to the kill. Marcalo De'Unnero hated it profoundly and hated himself for having failed again, for letting loose the beast he had thought permanently contained.

Cursing to himself and at himself with every step, De'Unnero walked back into Micklin's Village. There lay the tall man, his throat torn out by the weretiger, and next to him was the bearlike man, shredded upon the ground, a mass of skin flaps waving in the breeze. And blood, so much blood.

The sound of sobbing from around the building reminded De'Unnero of the other man.

He found him propped against the wall, crying. When the man saw De'Unnero, he tried to get up and flee, but fell back to the ground, clutching his knee and crying all the louder. "Oh, the demon!" he cried. "The demon dactyl's come to get me!"

Marcalo De'Unnero casually walked over, grabbed the man - the only witness - roughly by the hair and jerked his head back, exposing his throat. A stiff-fingered thrust crushed the man's windpipe, and De'Unnero shoved his head back down and walked away, pushing the sound of the futile gasping from his mind.

He wasn't thinking of that latest kill at all, anyway, for in his heart, in that curious moral code that Marcalo De'Unnero had always followed, he had done nothing wrong in executing the man. The fool, a thief and murderer obviously, had brought the stern justice upon himself, De'Unnero believed.

No, now De'Unnero was thinking of how he would explain to the villagers the types of injuries he had inflicted upon this group. He was even more preoccupied by the thought of the bard.

De'Unnero walked away, letting the fool die alone. He remained quite worried about the witness who had escaped. A bard! Of all the people to let run free.

Only then did he recognize how weary and wounded he was, and he slumped against a wall.

A bard! Of all the witnesses to let escape!