Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
“It wants us to use them in the fight,” Braiden breathed.
“Who does?” Augustin asked, utterly lost. “Use who in the fight?”
“Augustin, can you conjure a wind strong enough to — gods, I can’t believe I’m saying this — strong enough to catapult these goats toward the elemental?”
The wizard rubbed his chin, considering the question as if it had been a completely normal thing to ask. “Well, not all at once, I think. If my aim isn’t true, I might only send them scattering throughout the valley. One by one might work. Wait. What are we doing here, exactly?”
As if in understanding, a single othergoat stepped in front of them, looking out toward the elemental. It was on the valley floor now. The great creature’s tornado legs ripped at the earth and grass as it walked.
The othergoat looked back at them, as if to say, “Well? Are we doing this or not?”
Augustin cocked an eyebrow, studying the othergoat uncertainly. “Something about this feels — unethical, don’t you think?”
“You know what else is unethical? Letting this elemental wreak havoc on the valley and drive off the othergoats, or worse.”
“Baa,” the othergoat said, its gaze admonishing, its tone judgmental.
“This is the strangest thing I’ll have done in my entire career,” Augustin said. “I mean, is this not a matter of animal cruelty? What would my followers say if they ever found out?”
Augustin yelped when another othergoat butted its head sharply against his pelvis. He frowned accusingly at the creature, rubbing away the soreness.
“Cruelty against humans it is, then. Fine. Have it your way.”
He swept his arm off to his side, releasing a tremendous gust of wind that blew the othergoat off its feet, then catapulted it toward the elemental.
“Baa,” the newly launched othergoat cried, and Braiden couldn’t decide if it sounded more delighted or terrified.
They watched on, wizard, weaver, and other othergoats as the othergoat in flight aimed its horns straight at the elemental’s whirling torso. If a faceless elemental could look surprised, then this was it.
Like the confetti and streamers before it, the othergoat was sucked into the several vortices of the elemental’s body, buoyed in travel by its generous fleece.
Again the othergoat bleated in a strange combination of heightened terror and glee, like a child on an especially precarious ride at a traveling carnival. Its bleating rose to a fevered pitch.
The flames exploded inside the elemental’s body, turning its whirling form into a towering, spinning conflagration, an inferno of burning ribbon. So fast its limbs and torso spun that the fire was snuffed out in moments, but the othergoat’s explosion had left its impact on the elemental.
“Is it just me,” Braiden said, “or does our angry friend suddenly look a little smaller?”
Augustin narrowed his eyes. “You’re absolutely right. A fire needs fuel, but it consumes air to burn bright. If we send more othergoats at it — ”
The remaining othergoats crowded to the front, eager to take their turns. Augustin rubbed his palms together, grinning in anticipation.
Braiden threw his arm forward and pointed at the elemental. “Open fire!”
A peal of full-throated laughter poured from Augustin’s lips as he unleashed a concentrated gale at the elemental, simultaneously carrying five excited othergoats to their explosive destination.
Like cannonballs, Braiden thought — broadside, they called it, when an armed vessel fired its cannons all at once. Here was Augustin at last fulfilling his fated familial role as both wind wizard and pirate. Orora Arcosa would be so proud.
Braiden clapped his hands over his ears, barely sealing out the sound of thunderous explosions as the othergoats collided with the elemental and each other.
One by one the exhausted creatures dropped onto the soft grass and earth as the elemental gradually lost its fervor, its tornados spinning smaller, and weaker, and smaller, until at last it had faded into nothing.
With a whisper and a sigh, the elemental vanished, leaving nothing but a whistle stone in the tall grass.
Braiden threw his arms around Augustin, finding the wizard’s neck soaked in sweat, his chest rumbling from unbridled laughter.
“You did it!” Braiden shouted, hugging him tighter.
Augustin squeezed back. “We did it. You, and me, and our new friends, the othergoats.”
He looked remorsefully at the six that he’d hurled like cannonballs across the valley, scratching the back of his neck.
“I do feel bad for them, though. They’re only sleeping, right? Please tell me they’re only asleep.”
Braiden looked nervously around the valley floor, mentally counting off the rest of the othergoat herd still standing by the edge of the large crater, that one same onyx-eyed othergoat standing motionless in their midst.
“All accounted for,” he said. “They blew that crater in the ground with a much larger collision. The elemental knocked nearly the entire herd into each other. It looks like exploding too much exhausts them.”
“When an othergoat expends all its flame,” a woman’s voice said, “it must sleep and replenish its inner warmth. It is when they are at their most vulnerable.”
Braiden and Augustin stared at each other wide eyed, one quietly confirming with the other that they must have heard the same haughty, commanding voice. Augustin fell to his knees and threw his head back, gazing at the sky.
“The goddess Ybura speaks! She makes her voice known even from this starless sky.”
Braiden looked up, squinting against the sun, watching for a radiant starry woman to emerge from a gap in the clouds. Augustin tugged on his trousers and glared.
“On your knees,” he hissed. “It’s very rude to goddesses, or so I’ve heard.”
“The goddess Ybura has not graced Yhip Valley in millennia. Her hand may have touched the earth in ages past, but it is no goddess to whom you speak. Behold.”
Augustin frowned as he picked himself back up again, dusting the dirt from his knees, glancing around in bewilderment. But Braiden suspected that he knew exactly who — or what — was speaking to them.
He swallowed thickly, turning to face the othergoat herd, his gaze automatically going to the eerie one from before, the one that stood as still as a statue, that stared into his heart with a pair of eyes as black as darkest night.
And then it opened its third eye, baleful and glaring golden from the center of its forehead. Augustin gasped. Braiden clutched for the wizard’s arm to stop from fainting or falling.
“It isn’t often that those who walk on two legs come to our home,” the creature said, without moving its mouth or expending breath. “Even less often that they offer to help.”
The voice reverberated inside Braiden’s skull, as if transmitted there directly, whether through the golden eye’s magic or some ancient form of othergoat telepathy. Augustin rapped his knuckles against the side of his head, clearly experiencing the same thing.
“We are grateful for your assistance, in any event. Our only defense is explosion. Then follows the exhaustion. And then, when the inner flame flickers out, expiration. We are glad. Say thank you, children.”
As one, the entire herd bowed their heads low, sending a thrill down Braiden’s spine. The sensation of mingled delight and fear must have mirrored what that one othergoat had felt mid-flight, the first one Augustin had fired as a living cannonball.
Augustin bowed back, deep and low, and Braiden awkwardly followed suit. As comically off-color as Augustin could be, Braiden always found himself impressed with how the wizard could so easily slip on the trappings of etiquette.
He’d dealt with royalty, after all, like that time he’d helped the sleeping trickster princess of Il-venesse. Smiling to himself, Braiden remembered how Augustin had also taken the lead when greeting and dealing with both Grandest Mother Magda of the Underborough and King Emeritas Ileli Emeridan.
“The timing of our arrival was fortuitous,” Augustin said smoothly.
“In truth, we came to find and fight monsters made of wind, to harvest their leavings. But we had also hoped to witness your kind and to learn, friend. If we may call you friend, that is. Unless you go by a different name? I am Augustin. This is Braiden.”
The othergoat blinked all three of its eyes. “We bear no names. We only know each other by the differences in our coats, and horns, and smells. We may look exactly alike, but we can tell each other apart. It is the way of the upright, not of othergoats, to give and take names.”
“Naturally,” Augustin said, bowing his head again without missing a beat. “I apologize if I have caused offense.”
“Unnecessary. No offense caused, no harm done. You said you came to learn, and so I teach. But if a name you require, then a name you shall have. I am the progenitor of this herd, we othergoats of Yhip Valley. You may call me the Mothergoat.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Augustin said.
“Pleasure,” Braiden echoed, bending his knees and clasping the long hem of his traveling tunic, finding himself halfway between a bow and a curtsey.
“You are the first upright visitors we’ve had in too long a time. Unusually helpful, too. When others hear the sounds of our joyous detonation, they go fleeing far away from the valley.”
Upright, she’d said, as opposed to human. Very thoughtful for someone who didn’t much mingle with the races of Aidun, taking all its two-legged peoples into consideration. Braiden thought he could learn a thing or two from the unexpectedly inclusive yet frankly very intimidating Mothergoat.
The Mothergoat had no concept of inside voices, which was very challenging for those who had to hear her on the inside of their head. Perhaps it was because the creature had no concept of inside, either — or for that matter, of voices entirely, until Braiden and Augustin had come along.
This didn’t seem like the kind of place other humans would frequent. Most humans, at least. Braiden scratched his cheek as he surveyed the valley’s devastation, picking at a bit of dirt that must have gotten caked on his skin.
“How is it that your home and your herd have survived this long?” Braiden asked. “With apologies — we’ve learned that Yhip Valley offers ideal conditions for breeding air elementals. The big spinning thing that attacked you from before, that is.”
The Mothergoat’s lips drew back with distaste, baring rows of ivory teeth.
“The windwalkers, yes. When the seasons turn and the valley grows colder, that is when they come.” She tilted her horns at the cratered patches of earth.
“The grass grows back, in time, and the herd recovers, but each season, still, there are losses.”
Her words lingered in the silence, but Braiden understood well enough what she’d meant. He wrung his hands, looking to Augustin for guidance. The wizard nodded. Braiden spoke for them both.
“We can return every year — I mean, when the seasons turn, that is. It isn’t right that you experience these, ah, losses. I’m sorry that they happened, is what I’m trying to say.”
The Mothergoat quirked her head inquisitively. “You would do this for my herd? And you expect nothing in return?”
Braiden shrugged. “My friend spoke truthfully. These windwalkers leave something of value when they’re destroyed, something he uses in his work. That is reward enough.”
The Mothergoat laughed in an unexpectedly melodic way. “I have heard from my mother, and she from her mother, that the upright are a transactional folk. If this is your custom, then consider the othergoats willing participants.”
Discovering a herd of othergoats, learning that their matriarchs communed telepathically, and now receiving a reward from one of said matriarchs? Braiden clutched the side of his head. This was almost too much excitement to handle. Almost.
“You have saved the lives of my children. What do I lose from allowing you to harvest a bit of my fleece — little weaver?”