Tortall Page 10

  Since it’s as hard for them to bear young as it is for most immortals, they like mortal children. Never fear that they’ll hurt a child. Even a merman with a grudge would never. They’ll take children for rides on the sea, play with them on the beaches, and bring them toys from their own craftsmen. They care a great deal about family and are very protective of their own children. Their pregnancies are slow, and their children’s youths are long. Their nurseries are in underwater caves, well hidden and guarded from those who murder merfolk for their tail skin and meat. If your stomach turns at the idea the way mine does, keep in mind it’s fair popular.

  Merfolk refer to whales as sea slugs. Whales despise them as a lower form of animal. I suppose it’s a comfort to know that whales are like that with everyone, though there are some merfolk and some whales that get along. They’re oddities and often mocked for their association with enemies.

  Ogre—They’re everywhere. They’re a good deal tougher than we are, with heights varying from five to twelve feet. Nine feet is about average. Their hair is thin and grows from their foreheads as low as their neck and shoulders in back. They’re aqua-skinned, with pointed ears that swivel, large peggish teeth, and big eyes. Most times when ogres fight with humans, it’s because the ogres are trying to take by force what belongs to others, not knowing there are rules or laws against doing so. Mainly, ogres are peaceful and prefer farming, building, and craftsmanship to fighting, though there are always a few in any given place that have a taste for battle and blood.

  They’re inventive and smart in most every craft they tackle: mining, smithcraft, fishing, glassmaking, pottery, weaving. They’re the craftsmen of the Divine Realms. Ogres produce the best work in the world, though they prefer practical designs to things that are pretty for pretty’s sake.

  Ogres are very strong. Even small ones can lift huge loads with ease or shatter tree trunks with one blow. They have an odd understanding of plants, from millet plants to them as are used for dye.

  The most famous ogre colony in Tortall is in Fief Dunlath. It’s overseen by Lady Maura of Dunlath and the ogre Iakoju. The farms stretch from one end of the valley to the other, alongside the opal mines. Lords send their farmers and overseers from all around Tortall and our neighbors to learn from them, miners come to learn about mining, and mages come to study how the ogres deal with plants. Dunlath’s become the center of Tortallan farming and opal mining thanks to the ogres.

  Spidren—Spider-bodied, human-headed nightmares. About five feet from rump to crown. Their teeth are sharp, a predator’s teeth. They’re furry, the females being mottled and the males black. Their spinneret is a light-colored shaft at the base of their bodies that shows when they rear up on their back legs to shoot web. They use tools and weapons and build fires, though they don’t cook their meals. Spidren claws snip through their own webs easily—the claws on their legs are vicious sharp. Even their blood is dangerous. It’s black and burns like acid.

  They live in family groups. Their young put up a fight if they’re attacked, but they’re only about a foot or so tall. The biggest worry with spidren hatchlings is being mobbed, as a family of spidrens often has more than thirty eggs at once. (I’m told spidren young have to be taught to be savage. I’ll believe it when I see it.) They don’t have the problems reproducing that other immortals do.

  Fortunately, they don’t have any real defenses against regular human weapons.

  Spidrens feed on blood, their favorite being human blood. They refuse to make any kind of peace with human beings. They usually take their prey home, biting off a limb or two and then binding the wound up with webbing so their victim won’t die right off. The webbing seems to keep out infection, too, based on the health of some saved from spidrens. They like others’ pain. The territories that attract them have a lot of trees and bare rock—woods and hill country. They vocalize with screams and keening noises when they’re angry, but they speak human languages, and they talk to each other in human tongues.

  Spidrens hunt in all manner of ways. They make web traps and hide them under sand, leaves, or other debris. These traps shift to hold a creature no matter its size. They hang web between trees to catch flying things and riders on horseback, but it can be seen, especially in the dark. They also shoot web across water and then reel in whatever gets stuck, like a fisherman with a line. Spidrens swim.

  Fresh, ordinary web is gray or gray-green, as thick as good rope. It floats. When it’s fresh, it sticks like tar. Impossible to get off unless you scrape it away with blades or sprinkle it with powders we’ve made that dissolve it. Pink web burns living flesh and leaves welts where it hits. All web glows yellow-green in the dark.

  The beasts shoot web ten feet or more, using it to climb cliffsides or trees as well as trap prey. When a trapmaker or a web spinner gets killed, their web turns liquid and dissolves. They have a small amount of magic, spells that shield them, which makes it hard for mages to track them or for any talismans or charms to warn of spidren presence. Human travelers have died from trusting faulty charms in spidren territory.

  Animals sense them. Even the steadiest of the People goes near mad with fear when spidrens are around. Big animals flee, and small animals hide. Dogs won’t hunt spidrens unless they’ve been specially trained. It takes days for animals to come back to a place after the spidrens are gone.

  Stormwing—Human heads and chests, with an immense hawk’s lower body, wings, and talons. They have sharp teeth. Their bird parts are fashioned from bright steel, though they look exactly like bird parts otherwise. Their feathers are beautiful but razor sharp. They look as different from each other as humans do, and they have their own view of what’s pretty. Feathers, bones. They wear things braided into their hair, sometimes necklaces or other bobbles, put on with the help of magic. They smell dreadful. They’re always covered in filth and nastiness from the battlefield—you’ve seen enough of their ways now to know. They see like hawks, very good long-distance vision, but there’s nothing magical about it.

  They dine on human fear and anger. They empty their bowels on the bodies of them that fall in battle, then roll around in it when they’re finished. They can go without a meal for centuries, but they don’t like it. Other immortals sometimes call them Eaters.

  They have a hard time flying low or in close quarters. They can’t change direction fast. They’re built to fly, and they can’t walk properly on their talons. They have to hop. It’s undignified as anything. It’s hard for them to take off from flat ground once they’ve landed. That said, they stay aloft for days with the barest help of magic. Tumbling from up high is dangerous—their wings oftentimes cut them to pieces when they hit ground. Those same wings are better than armor when it comes to deflecting arrows. Their feathered parts can’t be hurt, and they cut you if you touch them. Infections from Stormwing feathers are bad, very bad. Their talons cut stone easily.

  Their magic isn’t unlike ours. They have a thing called War Terror, fear that they force on their opponents. You fight it off the same way you fight through ordinary fear—willpower and stubbornness. Stormwings conjure up bolts of gold fire by pointing a claw, they scry as humans do, and they can see a mage’s spirit when it’s outside of the mage’s body. (Spirit projection, Numair calls it.) Human mages see Stormwing magic easily if they know what they’re looking for. The aura of it shows for miles, and when Stormwings work magic, it appears scarlet and gold. Any complicated spells need to be spoken aloud in the Stormwing language.

  They pass through most magical barriers without much effort. They’re drawn to places of strife when they sense there’s fighting on the horizon. Sometimes they help by joining one side or the other. Not all Stormwings, but some enjoy stirring humans up.

  If a human drives a Stormwing feather into their arm, they turn into a Stormwing. No changing back. Stormwings are vulnerable to human magic, but they shield themselves against it, too. The best remedy for an attacking Stormwing is an arrow in the throat, though the scent of onions is as nas
ty to them as Stormwing stink is to us. Numair’s onion bombs send them packing.

  They nest like large seabirds, in eyries made up of nations, as they call them. Their eyries in the Divine Realms border along the Dragonlands. Each nation is led by a king or queen or both, and consorts are known as lords and ladies. They have their own customs, their own laws, and their own forms of justice. When challenging a Stormwing king or queen for the crown, it’s dishonorable to attack from behind or without warning. Formal challenges mean one-on-one combat to the death. Breaches of honor and tradition are very grave. If you lie about it, that only makes things worse. They value noble enemies and take being indebted to others very seriously. At least those who believe in honor and tradition do. They hold grudges for a very, very long time.

  Stormwings were dreamed by a woman traveler ages ago. She tired of the waste of death and the leavings of war. She dreamed of a creature that would make war so ugly that folk would balk at sending their children off to fight. Them that make offerings to buy Stormwings off are them that get defiled first.

  They’re temperamental and proud, but they’re not heartless nor evil. They won’t seek refugees, though they’ll go after the dead around armed camps. And they don’t touch the bodies of folk that died without fighting. It’s hard for Stormwings to have children of their own—they’re born from steel eggs that oftentimes kill the mother Stormwing who carries it, before it’s ever laid. They have a soft spot for the young. They’ve been known to save them from riots and attacks, and they look after neglected human children.

  It’s comfortable to think that they’re just monsters. But they’re thinking, reasoning, and feeling creatures, with their own beliefs and loyalties. Their nature makes them repulsive to us, but we’re repulsive to them. We kill more of our own than they ever kill of their kind. They scorn mortals, almost all mortals, even the People, but humans in particular. It’s just the way they are. The ones that take a liking to us are called soft and a lot worse. Stormwings are stubborn in their ways. Their nature is opposed to ours. That doesn’t mean they’re without reason. They can even be friendly, in their own way.

  Tauros—These are only male. They were born from women’s fear of rape. I told my da it was wrong that they were without women of their own kind. He told the Great Gods, who said there was nothing they could do. According to Mithros, it’s against the nature of tauroses’ being for females of their kind to exist, because of why they came to be. The gods did confine the tauros to the Divine Realms. The things don’t reproduce. Their victims don’t live. A woman caught by a tauros gets ripped to pieces. According to my da, as long as rape exists, the tauros will, too.

  They’re stupid. They can’t communicate with us but have their own way of talking to each other. They’re seven feet tall, with short, thick horns, a bull neck and broad shoulders, with a predator’s front-facing eyes. Their noses are more human, but flat and squarish, and their teeth look almost too big for their jaws. Their bodies are manlike, built big enough to support the bull head. They also have hairy legs with splayed hooves, ox tails, and a ridged spine, bad eyesight and a very good sense of smell. They find their victims by scent. Their blood is silver. They can be killed by ordinary weapons.

  Unicorn—They don’t like the cold, so they stick to warmer regions. There are deer-sized unicorns, boarhound-sized unicorns, and cat-sized unicorns. Often you find the peaceful unicorns in the company of deer herds, partly as camouflage and partly to stay warm. Both peaceful and killer live in abandoned barns and outbuildings for the same reason. The killer unicorns have fangs and claws as well as their horn. All come in horse-ish colors.

  Killer unicorns are hunters and meat-eaters. They live alone with their mates and any young offspring. They mate for life. The more peaceful sort live in small herds related through sisterhood. They’re grazers, herbivores, and have multiple mates. Both kinds foal easily, as the horn develops after birth. A unicorn’s age shows in the turns of the horn. They shed the outer shell of their horns like male deer shedding antler velvet. Unicorns of either sort do not shed their horns entirely. Unicorn horns are more like elephant tusks than many deer antlers. They aren’t for ornament. Other immortals have been found dead with injuries from a unicorn attack.

  People hunt both sorts for their horns, though unicorns are protected by law. Even the discarded shell is valuable. Horns and horn shells strengthen magical workings. They also get sold as curiosities for the wealthy.

  Unicorn hooves are incredibly sharp. They safeguard their young very well. If you come across a unicorn foal alone, be ready to run. Folk have died from being too close when a herd was around. Even a pair of small unicorns can put a human down. Grazing unicorns don’t attack human children. They have rescued children in the wild and kept the child with the herd until they found other humans. Some folk use children as bait when hunting unicorns. Unicorn magic is so powerful that children turn on such hunters. Killer unicorns will not touch children, but they won’t help them. They leave the area. Unicorns in captivity do not thrive.

  Winged Ape—Fair clever folk. They mostly keep to themselves and build their villages high up in trees or on cliffsides. Sometimes on castle roofs if they find a good place to nest. If you start finding big splats on your parapets, check for winged apes upstairs. Though they don’t have fireplaces, they’re better at proofing against snow, ice, and high wind than humans. Many winged apes live up at the Roof of the World.

  They mate for life, but they canoodle a lot before they mate. They don’t have much magic. They make fog, light, and a breeze, and can control when they get pregnant. Good fighters, weapon users, but vulnerable to human weapons and magic.

  Winged apes like to trade with farming ogres, especially for meats or plants they can’t grow high up. The apes are the best grape-growers and bee-tenders, producing the best wines and meads in the Eastern Lands. The winged apes at the Roof herd goats and yaks to make butters and fermented milks. They prefer to trade with other immortals than with humans. They turn mean if they’re betrayed, and they don’t forget or forgive. Them that served Ozorne were told that Tortallan humans stole them from the Divine Realms. They turned on Ozorne’s people when they learned he lied.

  Winged Horse—Mostly peaceful cousins to the hurroks. The big ones mainly live in the Copper Isles, where they’re sacred, though they are scattered lightly around the Eastern Lands, especially Sarain. They look like horses with big bat wings, though their bones are hollow like a bird’s, and they come in horse colors with horse markings. There’s three different kinds. The smallest are only about the size of a wildcat when full-grown. The middle ones get as big as wolfhounds. The biggest are horse-sized. The littlest like to live near farms so they can steal what they want, though they have to have help to carry off anything cabbage-sized or bigger. Humans try to catch them to keep as pets, but they’re very fast and clever. They live in herds and have live births. They eat the same things that horses eat, but they don’t get sick when they have too many treats. They love apples and carrots. The bigger kinds avoid humans. They only willingly come to descendants of the Copper Isles’ original ruling line. Back when, it was one of their warrior queens who dreamed winged horses into being.

  Wyvern—Lesser cousins to dragons. They have to obey when a dragon gives them an order. They fight it, but the bigger and older the dragon, the less luck the wyvern has. No legs and no arms. They’re like snakes with wings, except their heads are more dragon heads than snake heads. Their colors are like those of dragons. They’re as smart as a young human child. Wyverns are big and hard to kill. They spit venom and breathe a yellow fog that burns human lungs and eyes. It causes long-lasting coughs and blurry vision. They shield themselves with magic. It’s hard to see them and even harder to punch through their protection to injure them.

  They prefer mountain caves, rocky heights, and cliff ledges. It’s hard for wyverns to get pregnant, maybe because they like to mate in midair. They reach adulthood in a century and come in clutches
of two or three eggs at a time. Not all hatch. Them that do are tended by adults until they can hunt for themselves.

  Wyverns are predators. They eat deer, beaver, boar, sheep, cows, goats, whatever they’re able to catch and carry. The ones that live near the sea eat seals, sea lions, dolphins, and any fish they get without diving too deep. They came flocking to the Mortal Realm because the gods consider them a delicacy. Can’t hardly blame them, even if they are pests here.

  They ride the wind. They sing beautifully. They lure prey to them that way. It’s almost impossible to resist a wyvern’s song. They have an odd sort of friendship with merfolk. When the two sing together, it’s the most beautiful thing in the Realms. I got to hear merfolk singing with wyverns north of Blue Harbor once. I don’t think I’ll ever hear anything as lovely again.

  Written to Their Royal Majesties Jonathan and Thayet of the Realm of Tortall

  In the words of Nightmane Longgallop, Speaker for the centaur clans of the Drell Hills

  May 18, 450

  Your Majesties,

  It is Nightmane here, the same Nightmane that bought safety for your merchants with the bows of the centaur clans when river pirates would have stripped them of their goods during the last full moon. Your merchants spoke much of their gratitude and gifted the clans with useful things. Your late-coming troops said the centaur clans of the hills had their gratitude. In trade for presents for our wives they have employed four of our young men as hunters and explorers.

  Your letter with seals and ribbons of two weeks later said much the same. Gratitude blows on the wind and is gone with the autumn leaves. The centaurs of the Drell Hills have helped your travelers before. We could help them again, if we were not defending ourselves from hunting parties of young two-legger lords. They think us no more than animals.