The escape from Bruglia: part 4

Beware the vaksha

The Triverse is
Mid-Earth, an alternate 1980s 1970s London
Max-Earth, a vision of the 26th century
Palinor, where magic is real

Previously: An arrest warrant has been issued for Detective Lola Styles. She’s on the run, accompanied by her partner, Princess Daryla. They are travelling across the Bruglian Wastes with a merchant caravan. Their camp has been interrupted by the arrival of unwanted guests…

The Bruglian Wastes.
3202. Frostfall.

Revealed by the firelight, the three beasts circled the camp. Muscular quadrupeds, they were covered in thick, white fur that rippled with every movement. Their heads were those of big cats, but larger, and flatter, with a more expressive, almost human face. Thick, curving teeth protruded from the mouths, extending down below the jaw.

One of beasts stalked towards where Lola sat, clearly unconcerned about the potential for risk, its head tilting from side to side as it observed the camp. Jacinda was screaming orders, telling everyone to get up, grab a weapon, for the wielders to get in formation. Lola could see blood around the creature’s maw; clearly, it had already killed.

Jacinda’s crew had huddled against the caravans, which formed a protective wall of sorts to one side, while the animal handlers desperately tried to do their jobs and stop the horses and camels from bolting. Lola was stuck fast, unable to command her limbs, and far from the protection of the caravans.

Stepping towards the beast, Daryla stretched out her arm, then pinched her thumb and forefinger together. She was unarmed and without armour: no more than a fragile young woman before a carnivorous monster ready to kill everyone in the camp. The torches flickered and dimmed.

The beast jerked its head, its human-like expression uncanny and disturbing. It continued its approach, claws digging into the sand.

Then it stopped, as if it had hit an invisible wall.

Daryla twisted her hand in the air.

The beast faltered, took a step back, made a pathetic mewling sound, glanced to the other creatures still prowling beyond the camp — then collapsed to the ground. It writhed on the floor, limbs shaking, and its white fur began to turn red. It was bleeding, haemorrhaging from its pores and eyes and ears and mouth. A final, forlorn attempt at a roar, then it fell silent and still.

The momentary stunned quiet was broken by one of the remaining two beasts, just outside the camp perimeter, standing on its rear two legs and bellowing. It had a membrane between its limbs and body, creating a sail of sorts, and it rapidly flexed its front legs to create a billow of air. The gust was aimed not at any of the crew or animals, but at one of the large torches mounted on top of a caravan. The flame swayed, flickered, and was extinguished.

“They’re going for the lights,” Jacinda shouted, “we need those lights!”

Reaching down, Daryla pulled Lola to her feet. “Stay close,” she said, voice strained.

“Can you do the same thing to the other two?”

“If I can get a clear view. It’s not easy, and I don’t know the anatomy of these things.”

Movement from beyond the wall of caravans, as the other beast jumped onto the top of one of the carts, its wheels buckling beneath the weight. Another gust and another two torches extinguished, then the creature reached out with one of its hulking paws and grabbed at someone — the aen’fa Lola had initially spoken to, she realised. They were lifted up, away from the sheltering group, with a terrified scream.

“They’re deliberately going for the lights,” Daryla said, holding Lola’s hand and pulling her in the direction of the line of caravans. With her other hand she reached towards the beast that had seized the aen’fa. “There’s not enough light, damn it.”

The beast’s jaws descended over the aen’fa’s head and torso and clamped down, tearing the man in half. Lola again froze, terror rising within, her muscles refusing to do what she told them. Blood poured over the cart and its supplies.

A roar, and Lola turned back to see the other remaining creature stalking towards the camp from the open side, a long tongue licking its lips. Its face looked to be smiling.

Two of Jacinda’s crew rushed to Daryla’s side, holding blades. “Can you take it down?” one of them asked.

“I don’t think so,” Daryla said, letting go of Lola’s hand, “but let me try something.” Sweat beaded on her forehead as she concentrated. The beast approached, unconcerned by them or the blades. Daryla gestured and the creature stumbled, as if caught off-balance. Its front-right leg collapsed and it toppled onto its side. “Do it now,” she said, hissing through bared teeth.

The other two didn’t need more encouragement, rushing in with their blades and stabbing and swiping at the creature. They kept to the side away from the flailing paws, jabbing over and over. Neither of them seemed to know how to wield blades particularly effectively, Lola thought, but they were getting the job done through brute force alone.

There was a crash and the last of the torches toppled to the ground, flames sparking momentarily in the night and then extinguishing themselves in the sand. All went dark, Lola’s eyes slow to adapt to the moonlight. She could hear the squelching as the blades continued to be driven into the nearest beast, which was no longer moving.

Jacinda was shouting orders. “Get the torches relit!” Lola squinted against the dark, and saw she was wielding a long spear of some sort. Weapons weren’t Lola’s speciality. It was long and pointy. “There’s one more,” Jacinda said, “anyone not lighting a torch, come to me and be ready.”

The steep-sided canyon they were in had dropped to an eerie silence, even the invisible insects having gone to ground. Lola’s ears strained to pick up the sound of the third and final creature. She’d give anything to have the Six Blades with them; those famed monster hunters that had saved London from a kengto beast two years prior. They’d know what to do.

“Get closer to the others,” Daryla said, grabbing Lola’s arm and pulling her towards the group.

“I didn’t know you were so strong,” said Lola, still processing Daryla’s near single-handed takedowns.

“I can’t do a thing without proper light sources.”

“What about the moon? The stars?”

“Too far, too dim. No good for me.”

“It’s alright,” Jacinda said, moving close, “you’ve left us one, and we’ll take care of it.” She grinned and waggled a finger at Daryla. “You’re full of surprises, ain’t ya?” She turned to the men and women carrying weapons. “Pikes up front. You know the drill. You lot: keep trying to get those torches lit. Binders, be ready. Come on, there’s only one left, nice and easy.”

When it attacked, it was from an unexpected direction, leaping atop the caravans and descending upon them all, clearly seeking to scatter them and cause panic. Instead, it found a welcoming pin cushion of pikes and became impaled and entangled. Ropes were flung over its thrashing body and bolted into the rocky ground with hammered pitons.

Jacinda walked up to the beast’s head, lifted her spear and thrust it through the snarling mouth, pushing it until the tip emerged out the back of the skull. The woman was stronger than she looked.

“Good,” she shouted. “That should be all of them, but get those fucking torches back up. What happened to the scouts? How did this happen?” Her inspiring talk had shifted to anger. Facing her crew, blood streaked across her face, she glowered at each and every one of them. “You do realise what would have happened if our guests hadn’t hitched a ride with us?” She stood with her hands on her hips, looked at the ground and shook her head. “Pathetic. We’re meant to look after each other. And on that note—” she threw a glance towards Daryla “—I want not a word breathed of what went down here. Bad for business, and I promised these two a quiet ride. We owe them that courtesy. Anyone blabs, I’ll break you. Got that?”

The crew grumbled for a moment, then set about clearing the carcasses of the beasts and setting the camp right.

The chill of the desert night had hit Lola and she found herself shivering uncontrollably. “It’s cold,” she said, smiling sheepishly as her teeth clattered.

Daryla put her arms around her and held her tightly for a moment. “It’s the adrenaline, and the shock. That was a close one.”

“You had it handled,” Lola said, trying to calm herself. “I can’t believe what you did.”

“Wouldn’t have been much good if that last one had broken through. This could very easily have gone the other way.”

“But it didn’t!” Jacinda had appeared at their side and clapped them both on their backs. “One vaksha we can handle. Three? We’d have been in deep shit.” She looked at Daryla. “But we made it through, and that’s thanks to you. I owe you, Daisy. And Lucy.” She chuckled, mostly to herself, then waved a dismissive hand. “I know those aren’t your real names. And it’s not everyone who can rupture the innards of a vaksha at night with a flick of the wrist.”

Lola felt the tension from the attack shifting into an entirely new set of worries.

“You’re a long way from your palace,” Jacinda said quietly. “Whatever you’re up to, it’s none of my business. I want you to know that I mean what I said to the others. None of my lot will tell a soul. Not after what you did here tonight.” She glanced over her shoulder at the body of the last vaksha, her spear still embedded in its head. Grinning, she pinched Daryla’s cheek. “You’re scarier than three of those things, girl. Don’t ever change.”

Running her hands over her face, Lola rubbed at her eyes, suddenly achingly tired. “What next?”

“Tomorrow we’ll be at the edge of the Wastes,” Daryla said. “Then it’s to the mountains, and the Peak.”

“That sounds like climbing.”

“There will be some of that, yes.”

“Wonderful.”

---

Thanks for reading.

At last, I finally found the time to do an actual illustration to accompany the chapter, rather than leaning on stock images.¹ The start of the school term is somewhat revolutionary in giving back time for writing.

The Remarkable Paper Pro was announced this week. I want one. I absolutely cannot justify the expense of one. Bah. Look at this beauty:

OK, that video is a little daft, but still. I think devices like this would be wonderful for working through ideas, proofing, developing plot and so on. If only it was £50.

The big news this week was the implosion of NaNoWriMo. Details here:

NaNoHellNo

I did NaNoWriMo back in 2009. That’s the only time I’ve done it ‘properly’, and I suspect it was a pivotal moment in my development as a writer. Would I have had the confidence to give serial fiction a go in 2015 without having written 50k during NaNoWriMo six years earlier? NaNoWriMo is when I proved to myself that I could produce the words if I knuckled down and had the motivation; trying serial fiction is when I figured out the right structure for me.

Which means it’s a shame that it’s drifted so far from its origins. Being pro-AI is one thing, but there’s also this:

The whole thing sounds like it’s been woefully mismanaged for a long time.

Their AI stance is peculiar because NaNoWriMo’s entire reason to exist is to get people to write more. Injecting generative AI tools into a write-50k-in-a-month challenge misses the point entirely.

Fortunately, a challenge to write 50k in a month is an idea and a concept, and anyone can do it without needing to rely on NaNoWriMo the organisation.

Right, let’s get into this week’s chapter…

Author notes

I like the idea of a creature that has some kind of innate knowledge of magic, and how to counter it. It only hunts at night. It knows to disable light sources. Whether this is instinct or a more direct intelligence I’ll leave up to you. There will be animals on Palinor that have a passive relationship to magic, wielding it in a non-direct way for attack or defence: the vaksha will have evolved to counter those abilities. Adding a human-ish face to the creature dials up the weirdness. It raises the question of how intelligent this thing really is.

Creature design for Triverse has always been a pleasure. Palinor being a heightened fantasy setting affords me a lot of latitude for coming up with outlandish animals. The breadth inherent to this serial is always surprising me (and, hopefully, you). It’s going to be interesting to move on to a different project in 2025 which will presumably have a more ‘limited’ (or focused?) palette.

We see again Daryla being a badass. More important is Lola’s helplessness: she’s shown herself to be extremely capable in all kinds of situations in earlier storylines, but we definitely have her outside of her depth here. What, really could she have done? You can bet that’ll be working away in her brain for a while. She wants to be useful, and competent, and self-sufficient, but right now that’s not an option.

And the bigger question: how does she get from here to what we’ve glimpse five years from now? Clearly that vaksha encounter isn’t what resulted in her changed appearance.

The extended flashback continues next week…

1. Though the recent stock of various canyons I’ve found rather good. You should search ‘canyonlands’ and marvel at the images which pop up.