Another throwback short. This one's about my favorite stabby boy.

EAGLE EYE AND THE WORM OF SHIRITH

Eagle Eye could scramble a squirrel’s brain with a flung stone before he was out of nappies. His mother—her ashes feeding Yriah’s children and her soul flown to Iunder, bless her—when he was born, Mother had pleaded with Falcon Eye, his father. “Don’t name him Eagle Eye,” she begged. “He won’t be able to hit the broad side of a house.” But it was Father’s-Father’s-Father’s name, and Eagle Eye it had to be, and Eagle Eye he grew into like nobody before or since would ever be Eagle Eye, and he passed into legend even while he lived.

Before all that, though, there was the Worm. Eagle—Father called him Vo, which is Eagle in the Traders’ tongue—met the old monster when he had hair down his breeches to prove he’d one day be a man, but not his man’s height, and fourscore and two years exactly. Father had gone out with some of the Court, being that he was the High King’s huntsman, and that left Eagle to himself, which he liked. That morning he’d gotten his bow and quiver in order, making sure the wood was sound and packing extra strings in his pockets. You never knew. He whetted his hunting knife, stashed a currycomb in another pocket, and set off opposite the way Father had taken the High King and all the tall perfect nobles of the Court, into the wild country southwest of Shirith Valley.

He didn’t know the name of the mountain he rambled on that day, but he knew it in the bare soles of his feet, in his nose, in his eyes, every last inch. There was a great cave mouth in the side, but Father had told him not to go spelunking alone, and most times he did what Father said, especially out in the wild. You never knew, and besides, enough dangerous things lurked in the wood itself that Eagle didn’t particularly want to be screwing around down in the dark. There were plenty of things to talk to out in the sunlight, even if most of them didn’t talk back to him.

That morning when Eagle splashed through the easternmost stream snaking near the bottom of the mountain, the fairies that clustered around it brushed him with glittery fingers as he passed. He skirted the place where the winged serpents gathered; for all they talked, what they said dripped poison in the ear. And he avoided going directly upstream to the falls where the naiads clustered to comb their hair and giggle. Young as he was, Eagle’d been man enough for them some little while now, and he had no desire to be pulled underwater and shagged until he drowned. Instead, after he laid a couple of snares for dinner, he climbed a ways to Vercingetorix’s meadow. Since he was untouched, Vercingetorix didn’t mind him. The big unicorn even let Eagle come close and stroke his silver-white sides, though his pearly wicked-sharp horn was off-limits to curious hands.

Eagle paid his respects. The currycomb he’d put in his pocket was for Vercingetorix. He liked it sometimes, and when Eagle asked this morning whether he wanted currying, he said yes. Eagle brushed him down until his coat almost blinded at a glance. He talked about all kinds of nothing. For all his great dignity he was still a frivolous fairy creature, and vain. When Eagle got through he always had the feeling he’d been talked at by six of the Court’s serving boys at once, but he liked Vercingetorix better. The chatter was more about what was going on in the forest than it was outrageous lies about sex.

After he’d finished, he said good-bye to the unicorn and took his empty belly off to check the snares. One of them had caught him a nice fat squirrel, which he killed quick and roasted slow on a spit, stuffed with young wild onion. He collected some little strawberries while he waited, and ate them after as a dessert, lounging on the flat rock in his favorite sunny clearing. The fairies came to the sweet and to Eagle, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have told anyone, but he sang to them, a made-up story about a slight, dark, suspiciously Eagle-like hero slaying wicked trolls. They loved it, and sang along in their tiny voices with the sounds of instruments, fife and fiddle both, and they touched his skin wherever it lay to the air. They frosted between his collarbones and all over his face, hands, and forearms, even his feet, with glittery fairy dust. It tickled, and the story got lost in his laughter. They kissed his long pointed ears and flittered away, as quick as they’d come, and then Eagle heard other voices speaking hituleti, the People’s Tongue, which he’d grown up speaking.

He rolled off the rock into a crouch and straightened, frantically swiping at the glitter. The voices were young men’s voices, and he didn’t want to be seen like this. It was a rare man the pretty little fairies loved. Mostly it was kids and women.

Eagle hadn’t needed to worry. The three speakers passed by in the trees below. They didn’t notice Eagle in the clearing above, but he saw them, the Duke of Madoc’s twin sons and the Crown Prince.

He heard them talking a little. “We won’t wake him!” said Prince Brother Fox, laughing. “We’ll just go in and strike at his heart. Think of it! Wormsbane, we’ll be.”

At first Eagle thought it was just a brag, but Swift Snake and Swift Cat went on about it, and he saw the direction they headed, and all of a sudden it felt terribly real. How stupid were they? He went cold all the way out to his fingertips. “Never go in there, Eagle, you mustn’t,” he remembered Father saying when they passed the cave mouth together, time and time again. “The Worm would eat Shirith whole if you wakened him.” And Eagle had believed it, believed every word of Father’s stories about the great red fire-breathing Worm that slept beneath the mountain. “The last time he woke, Eleazar burned down half the royal palace and swallowed the flocks,” Father had said. “He carried off Crown Princess Liria and sucked the marrow from her bones in his lair. Just ask that unicorn if you don’t believe me.”

Vercingetorix hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Eleazar, the Worm of Shirith, with his teeth like daggers and his claws like swords, and his wings that blotted the sun! What would Father do?

What would Father say if Eagle didn’t try to stop them? He shuddered to think; and so he snatched up his gear and dashed higher, around the side of the mountain, concealed in the trees and silent on his bare feet, still shedding fairy dust. And in the end he slid down the sharp drop in front of the cavern mouth and fell through brush and trees to land lightly right there, blocking the entrance as best it could be blocked, though that was hopeless. It gaped in the side of the mountain, and even though it was overgrown in spots, still plenty of space remained for the men to pass. “Don’t,” he panted, straightening.

“What have we here?” sneered Swift Cat, at the same time Brother Fox cocked his head and smiled a little with his hair spilling all to one side. Eagle saw—at the same time—Brother Fox’s face beaten and bleeding, like it was when he came down to Father’s house every so often. When that happened, Father always sent Eagle on some jumped-up errand. As if he didn’t know.

“Eagle Eye?” Brother Fox asked now, smiling that smile, which put a tightness in Eagle’s belly that Eagle didn’t quite understand. “Is that you?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Eagle said, and then, rushing, “you can’t go down there, Your Highness, the Worm—”

“Who is this, Fox?” demanded Swift Snake, the other twin.

“Faralt the huntsman’s son,” Brother Fox explained.

“So—not even nobody. Nobody’s little boy.” Swift Snake laughed and shoved Eagle onto the rocks just inside the cavern.

“Snake,” Brother Fox said, reproving, and he was maybe about to say more, but Eagle picked himself up lickety-split, before they could get past him.

“My father’d tell you the same!” He blocked as best he could, squaring his shoulders and feeling small. “He always tells me to stay away from here. Don’t wake the Worm, he says. It could kill us all!”

When Brother Fox grinned that way, Eagle for one moment almost believed him. “It’ll be dead before it can rise. You wait. I’ll bring you a scale, little Eagle.”

Eagle’s nostrils flared. “You’re being stupid!” he blurted, and Swift Cat and Swift Snake narrowed their eyes at him, same time, same gesture, same face. “It’s not a brave deed like you were saying! It’s just stupid!”

“Little nothing boy with fairy dust in his hair,” said Swift Cat. “Maybe he should go first. Sparkly Worm bait.” And he and Swift Snake both laughed, nasty and rough.

“Cat,” said Brother Fox, sharper. “Cut it out. He’s a good kid. Let’s go in and slay the Worm, and then—”

“Don’t do it!” Eagle cried, his voice cracking, now, when he least wanted it to. His accidental squeak echoed in the chamber behind him, and he flushed.

Brother Fox laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly, moving him aside while the twins walked right past. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring you that scale at home.” And then the dark covered him up, his left boot heel the last thing to disappear into the cave. In a moment one of the twins lifted a red blob of mage-light; that disappeared too, and Eagle turned back toward the valley, thinking he should run and fetch Father. But Father was clear on the opposite side. He’d gone the other way, and the High King too, and the God only knew how long it’d take to fetch either one of them back, if they even believed him anyways.

He looked out over waves of green, highlighted in golden summer sun, and the seams of little creeks and falls, the dangerous sweep of the wash directly below. Eagle bit his lip, then turned and padded into the swallowing dark of the Worm’s cave. It didn’t take him long to catch up with the little, bobbing red light; but he stayed a ways off, down and down through the twisting corridors, so they wouldn’t catch him following.

Even here the Worm’s chemical reptile stink reached his nose. They were in a chamber with a ceiling so high not even the mage-light could illuminate it, and the dark seemed to press on what light there was, so the three walked close together, whispering a susurrus of regret. Behind came Eagle with his heart jacking inside his chest so hard he thought it might explode.

What was he going to do about an ancient Worm anyway? A little nothing boy with fairy dust in his hair. What could any of them do? He wished they’d listened to him. Maybe they didn’t see how the mage-light played crimson over hanging rock formations, staining them bloody, but Eagle did. He crept along, bare feet whispering on the stone, and kept his distance, no matter how much he felt like running up and squeezing himself next to Brother Fox.

The caverns opened vaster now, and Eagle could feel the wide emptiness on either side of him, almost as if it pressed on his skin. Rather than growing cooler as they went farther underground, like every cave in Eagle’s memory, this one grew warmer and then baking hot, sending sweat rolling down his back. He was terribly thirsty, and he drank from the small waterskin on his belt, but not much. He didn’t want to risk being heard. Up ahead, the older boys glistened ruby, and more than one wiped a sleeve across his brow. The stench of the Worm overpowered Eagle’s sense of smell, and then Brother Fox and the Swifts disappeared around a bend. Eagle scuttled after.

They had come into the chamber where the Worm lay sleeping. A draft of fiery air blew at intervals: Eleazar’s thunder snores. Eagle felt it, even though the mage-light had only just begun to unveil the massive evil head, big enough to climb. He could’ve fit in one of those nostrils up until a few years ago, and the black horns that curled back from that massive forehead gleamed like obsidian. The Worm’s breath was ancient meat and brimstone and one of his forefeet could have flattened six of Eagle at once. He slept on a mound of gold and jewels and bones.

And Brother Fox and his friends walked right by like it was nothing. Eagle could hardly breathe for fear. He kept along behind, but hunched in small. The closer he got, the more he wanted to turn and run; by the time he walked past the terrible mouth, he wasn’t breathing at all.

Up ahead there was a sharp crack and a jingle of coin, so loud in the chamber Eagle jumped out of his skin and barely managed to swallow a childish scream. And he froze in place, trembling and hugging himself, ’til he could recover a little.

A strange slithering sound made him look to his right, and what he saw—he so near shat himself—he let out a toot of wind and a little whimper, gazing into a glowing yellow eye taller than he was. The slither came again, and Eagle’s breath snagged watching the thinnest membrane flick across that slit-pupil snake eye, and back again. Eleazar lifted his head slightly. “I smell Vercingetorix on you, rodent.”

“He’s—he’s my friend,” Eagle stammered.

“Eagle Eye!” That was Brother Fox, horror in his voice, but the Worm ignored him, snuffling at Eagle’s tunic with a snout at least as big as a cow.

“Unicorns and fairies. Child, they won’t help you here.” Eleazar ran out a tongue black in the red mage-light and tasted Eagle soles-to-scalp in one sloppy lick, closing his massive eyes with pleasure. “Too bad there isn’t more of you. You’re delicious.” He smacked his chops together, and Eagle didn’t think. He bolted, feet slewing on the treasure as he skidded for one of the rock formations nearby. Eleazar’s great head rose on his neck, up, up, when Eagle glanced back.

“Leave him alone!” Brother Fox yelled. “I came for you, Eleazar, you disgusting old earthworm!” And the Worm of Shirith cocked his head to look at the Crown Prince. Eagle’s blood ran chilly. The Swifts cowered behind Brother Fox, like stone, and Eagle tried to wave them over behind the pile he’d found, but they didn’t even look his way; fascinated, they were, by the wicked magnificence of Eleazar, the sheer size of him. The red mage-light flickered out. Eagle clutched at the rocks in front of him. It was so dark, blacker than night, and the Worm’s laughter shook the mountain.

A sound like a drawing bellows on a terrific scale—and fire, blinding, blue at the heart, a blaze no Longnight bonfire could equal, belched from Eleazar’s mouth. The Swifts’ skin blackened under it. Their screams echoed through the roar of the flames. Brother Fox fell to his knees, head down, arms crossed in front of him, and the flames bowed around his shield of magic, a shimmery half-sphere.

Blackness again. Eagle trembled, and then came a whisper and golden mage-light shone out from Brother Fox’s hand. In the other hand he held his long slim blade, and smoke curled up from the bodies of Swift Snake and Swift Cat behind him. The Worm lunged, and Brother Fox dashed aside, but the serpent tongue slithered out for one of the twins. Fast as a lash, the body was in the Worm’s jaws, and the huge scaly throat worked, swallowing.

Eagle touched his bow, and he still wasn’t thinking, at least at the top of his mind. He started to climb the high tower of rocks he’d hidden behind. The other twin disappeared down the Worm’s pale-red throat.

“Come on, you filthy beast!” Brother Fox screamed. Eagle didn’t dare look at anything but his climbing. He reached up to the next hold, set his foot, went to the next and the next. His bare feet carried him up soft. His leather bracer hugged around his arm, reassuring. One shot. He knew what he had to do. He couldn’t listen to what was going on below, the snapping jaws, the roaring, the insults Brother Fox shouted at Eleazar, the Worm of Shirith.

At last, Eagle reached the end of his climb. His balance didn’t fail him. He stood at the very top of the rock tower, higher than all the rest, as high as the Worm’s head when he reared back to lunge at Brother Fox again. It wasn’t quite a man’s bow Eagle had, since he didn’t quite have his man’s height, but it was stout and flexible, and made just to his size, with as much pull as he could possibly manage. He needed both hands to string it.

He nocked his arrow as Brother Fox flung his glob of golden light straight into Eleazar’s face and conjured another. Eleazar slashed out with a claw, snagging Brother Fox’s shirt and tearing cloth, but not flesh.

Eagle couldn’t watch. He let the world collapse to his eye and the eye of the Worm. If he could sink an arrow into that great glowing orb, they might have a chance. He drew full. His foot shifted and the Worm, enraged now, whirled on him. But Eagle had already loosed.

Eleazar batted the arrow away, or so Eagle thought, but his heart didn’t have time to sink before the claw hit the ground and the fletching of the arrow disappeared into the black slice of a pupil. The Worm let out a shattering roar: “You dare?” And he came after Eagle on top of the rock tower. There was no other choice. Eagle flung himself down, tucking and rolling, as loose as he could. His bones shook and he felt himself cracking every time he bounced. At last he lay curled on the floor. Silence now, but for his own hammering heartbeat.

“Hey-la-hey!” Brother Fox shouted, unflattering surprise in his voice. “Eagle, brave Eagle, you’ve done it!”

Eagle tried to stand, but his leg erupted in pain, and he cried out and fell again. He lay back on the cavern floor, staring up at the Worm of Shirith with his mouth cracked wide over the rock tower, gold-red in Brother Fox’s mage-light. Eagle floated into oblivion.

When he woke, it was in a white bed and morning streamed in the window. Brother Fox slept in a chair on one side of the bed and Father snored in one on the other side. On the nightstand was a perfect ruby scale, as large as his hand. His leg was only a little sore, and the room had the green, nose-pricking scent of all-heal salve.

From the door, the High King said, “Well done, Eagle Eye Wormsbane.”