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“Like this?” Taggalia held the stick, her small hands shaking.
Valshen Thul, the Divine Executioner smiled down at the young girl, “Steady.”
Then he knelt next to her, positioning her hands on the stick, one in front of the other as though she were grasping the hilt of a sword, and holding them in place until her arms steadied.
The mortal child’s hands were so small compared to his. One of his claws was long enough to stretch from her wrist to the tips of her fingers and his claws were not terribly long. She was brave though, possessing a ferocity that belied her size.
“Better?” she looked up at him, her eyes the odd, dull blue so common in both mortals and High Gods. If there was a connection there it wasn’t his place to wonder, but he did.
He nodded. It was better, not much, but Taggalia was still a child and mortals grew fast. In time he would get her a proper sword. Sothen Nillanthis, Minder of the Flame owed him a favor for killing the Lord of Vermin and he would call upon the divine smith to make good on it and forge Taggalia a sword when the time came. Sothen was a lecherous old fool, which was how he’d gotten in trouble with the Lord of Vermin in the first place, but his skill at the forge was unmatched.
There was still time though, the mortal child had much to learn.
“Strike!” He snarled, and this time she didn’t flinch.
She hesitated, faltered half way through the motion, but she didn’t flinch at the sound of his voice. That was an improvement.
He stared at the empty air in front of her, trying to imagine what the child was seeing, “What are you swinging at?”
Taggalia shrugged, “I dunno, a wajral?”
“Then swing to split its skull!”
She tried again, this time almost following through.
Valshen Thul could see the problem now, the child was swinging her weapon, if the stick could even be called a weapon, but she wasn’t thinking in terms of attacking a foe. An easy problem to solve if there ever was one.
Standing up to his full height he spread his arms wide, “Strike me.”
She looked at him skeptically.
“You cannot hurt me with a stick and even if you could you could never hit me unless I let you.”
Taggalia shook her head, “My mama told me not to hit people with sticks.”
For all her determination it was easy for him to forget that she was a child, a mortal child, who, unlike his hundred fully divine siblings, had not sprung into existence fully formed and seeking battle. Taggalia was more like him in that aspect, needing to grow and learn.
He recalled his own mother, a mortal like the girl before him. When he had been as young as Taggalia his mother had already been gray and withered, but he recalled similar lessons. Warnings not to tease the gore hounds lest he get bitten or fight with his sisters. Not breaking branches from the Tree of Worms and hitting his siblings with them had been among those lessons as well. This wasn’t a branch from the Tree of Worms though, it didn’t glow with blue fire and sting with strands of acid beaded like pearls.
“This is different,” Valshen Thul sighed, “This is part of my training you.”
She nodded, accepting what he’d said without understanding.
Taggalia raised the little stick and swung.
He didn’t even need to sidestep with how far away she was standing, simply leaning back was enough.
The stumps of his wings twitched in amusement, or perhaps frustration. Taggalia caused such a mix of emotions in him that it was hard to tell how he felt about her from one moment to the next, “This time actually try.”
Taking a step closer Taggalia swung again.
Faster than her eyes could follow he dodged so that the strike missed him by the finest of margins.
Her eyes went wide, “You moved.”
Was that awe or an accusation? Either way it made him smile.
“I did,” he agreed, “Now try again.”
She did as told.
“And again.”
Taggalia swung.
“Again.”
Each time she swung he dodged by the smallest amount, noting that her efforts were growing in confidence, even as her form suffered. He would correct that later, right now he was pleased that she was trying.
She stopped, panting and out of breath, “You’re fast, but I can almost hit you.”
So she’d misinterpreted his game, but that was fine. It made her smile and her smile was something that amused him with her teeth little more than small white pegs, all in even rows. Quite a contrast to his own emerald fangs.
Taggalia wasn’t the first human he’d seen, though she was the first living one he’d encountered since his mother and she was a dim memory. The forsaken souls sent to the House of Retribution where he and his divine father dwelt were stripped of all color and hope, the same dull gray as the dust and ash that covered everything there. Even his mother had been pale and washed out in his memories, dressed in tattered, faded finery. Taggalia was vibrantly colorful and full of life, as was the realm of the mortals. Which was not to say that he hadn’t seen things that reminded him of his home since she’d taken shelter in a shrine to his father and through pleas and an unintentional offering of the blood of one of his foes, called him to her realm.
The little girl, fearful and bleeding had mistaken him for his father when he had first appeared, which had left him breathless with laughter.
She had mistaken him, a twisted thing, scarcely twice the height of a mortal man, for a dragon made of diamond bones so pure that it was impossible for mortal eyes to see them. It was perhaps an understandable mistake as the statue of his father in the center of the shrine was a wooden thing, painted white and with far too few legs and only six wings. Still, Valshen Thul’s wings were mere stumps, the bones sticking from them emerald rather than diamond, which, combined with the fact that she could see them, should have made the mistake obvious.
He had corrected her, that he was not Thul Narshyitas and her response had been to cower.
Used to the condemned dead cowering before him it took Valshen Thul some time to realize that the mortal before him hadn’t been a priestess or an offering, but an ordinary mortal who had summoned him for some task.
Realizing his own mistake he had demanded to know why she had called upon him, who it was that was so worthy of divine wrath.
And she had shown him. Too afraid to speak, she had motioned for him to follow.
He had roared in outrage upon leaving the shrine and discovering the state of it, the ornate carvings on the front smashed and defaced, ornamentation missing or mangled beyond recognition, the roof smoldering from where sparks landed on it. An attack on a shrine, even one dedicated to a Low God, was certainly a deed that deserved punishment by his blade.
The shrine wasn’t the only building burning though, the whole city was ablaze and it wasn’t until later that he learned that the haze of ash hanging in the air, the screams in the distance, the dead laying in the street and the dying begging for mercy from a myriad of gods was unusual in the realm of mortals. This was the way of his home, where there was no sky, just the great black roof of the cave upon which the world sat, not Taggalia’s where there was only blue sky and air above. Rivers here rarely ran red with blood and water flowed in them rather than ash and burning oil. Fields of bodies left to be picked clean by carrion birds were not a thing seen every day in the realm of mortals, though it was something he’d witnessed plenty of times since Taggalia had summoned him.
As she showed him through her burning city howls and shouts could be heard in the distance. Taggalia’s skin had gone as pale as one of the condemned when she looked in the direction of the noise.
She pointed and he understood. Hefting his blade, a heavy, battered executioner’s sword and the mark of his position.
The source of the commotion was a group of mortals wearing armor of cloth and riding shaggy beasts that resembled single-headed gore hounds. The mortals and their mounts crumpled under the weight of his blade when he struck, dying easily.
It was only after they were all dead that Taggalia, who had followed him the whole time, found the courage to speak, telling him that she had called upon him because he punished the wicked in the House of Retribution. She had taken shelter in the shrine of his father, hiding from the marauding army, and remembered that about him.
That, it turned out, was all she knew about him.
While what she wished for was understandable, that he slay every last one of them, he was not like the legendary heroes. His blade, though tempered in the bile of the earth so that it could kill even the divine, it was not capable of smiting whole armies with a single sweeping cut.
He had been about to return to the realm of his father, but the look she gave him made him pause. It was rare that the gods had need for his blade, but here there was much he could do.
So he had agreed to stay and kill as many of the enemy soldiers as he could, though by that point it was too late for the city itself. The attack had been but one of many, a final decisive blow in a long war. A meager handful of defenders managed to organize themselves, he had fought alongside them, been amused by their fear and their praises of him when the fighting was over.
His father was not one of the gods sung about during festivals, he was not a hero out of myth. It was not his place to rally a people, lead them to a final decisive victory against an overwhelming foe. The half-bred child of one of the Low Gods, Valshen Thul didn’t dare try such a thing lest he be seen as a usurper. Besides, while he was fine fighting small groups of raiders, against an actual army he had no idea how he’d fare. His hide, though tough as any mortal’s armor, was not the invulnerable bone of his father. After all, the mortal hero Nismili the Four Times Blessed had managed to shatter one of his horns and sever both his wings during their fight. Nismili had escaped with a branch from the Tree of Serpents, as he had been tasked, and was granted dominion over the rivers.
After that Thul Narshyitas had seen to it that the hundred best smiths in the House of Retribution be gathered to forge a blade worthy his half divine child and the hundred best swordsmen be gathered to teach Valshen Thul how to wield it so that he would not suffer such a defeat ever again.
Though he could fight, he was not a warrior, he was an executioner, bringing a final end to those the gods deemed worthy of such a punishment. He had killed his fair share of gods and monsters, though they had all been bound and subdued, waiting for him to deliver the killing blow.
His teachers had been skilled and had taught him well though, and those lessons were what he hoped to pass onto Taggalia.
In time she would be a mighty warrior, but for now she was simply a child, hoping to save her people.
A hand on his side and her small voice interrupted his thoughts.
“What are you thinking about?”
“That you should have called upon a hero rather than me,” he laughed, looking up at the sky. Birds flew overhead, making the shattered bones his wings ache with the memory of flight. His mother had told him stories about birds, how much she loved their songs and that the flocks of carrion crows his father filled the palace with for her were pale imitations of the birds she had known.
“I asked them for help when I was hiding in the shrine,” she said softly, “And then I asked for you. You were the one who came.”
“The Gods Above have their own concerns and affairs. They are busy with running the world, holding up the sky and countless other tasks and diversions,” he reminded, “I have told you this.”
The fate of one girl, one nation, mattered little to them. He hadn’t told her that and didn’t plan to.
“Tell me about them. Mama and papa told me all the stories, but you tell them differently. I like the way you tell them,” Taggalia looked up at him hopefully.
“I will tell you stories,” Valshen Thul promised, “But as a reward. Pick up your sword and try to strike me again. Your form was too sloppy for my liking.”
She glanced downwards, “It’s just a stick.”
“Treat it as a sword and in time I will get you a real sword. Now pick it up,” he bared his fangs at her and she smiled back before doing as she’d been told.
Taggalia swung.
He dodged and corrected her form.
Taggalia swung.
Again he dodged, had her adjust how she was standing and repeat.
Taggalia swung.
A sidestep and a reminder of how to position her hands.
Taggalia swung.
He snapped his fingers in front of her face, claws nearly touching her nose and warned her to stop closing her eyes before striking.
Another swing.
Another correction until eventually there was no need for it.
He was not a warrior or a hero, but in time Taggalia would be.
Right now she was just a little girl and that eventuality felt like a long way off to her, but it would come.
And when it did he would call on the favors owed to him by Sothen Nillanthis, Kalar Thia Suun the Lady of Succor, Silth the Cloven and so many others, as well as asking his fully divine siblings to do what they could. She would be known as Taggalia the Hundred Times Blessed and her deeds would eclipse those of her countless-times great grandfather Nismili.
She didn’t know it, but there had been something familiar about her, something Valshen Thul had sensed when she lay there bleeding in his father’s shrine. Watching her, training her, he grew certain of it. The resemblance was there, diluted to near nothing over innumerable generations, but he had smelled it in her blood, seen it in her determination.
The irony of the situation was not lost on him, that he was training the descendant of the hero that had crippled him, so that she could, in turn, be a hero, not that it mattered. Valshen Thul may have served the gods as an instrument of vengeance, but he was no more vengeful by nature than his sword was. The girl had called on him for help saving her people and so he would, by teaching her to complete the task herself.