Naming Bullets Read online

some bad Elves stole my property and slew my horse and left me to die.”

  “Faw.”

  “So maybe if you wouldn’t mind . . . cutting me loose?” He struggled against his bonds briefly with what waning strength he had. She stepped back at his movement and Giryati became acutely aware of the leather sling she held. She’d already demonstrated her lethal accuracy with it, and he didn’t think he’d fare too well against it, especially at such close range.

  “No hurt Ullu.” She displayed the sling and the rock in her hand, held at the ready. “Ullu hurt Elf.”

  “I won’t hurt you. Let me go and I’ll just be on my way.” He paused. “Look at me . . . I’m a mess. No mount, no weapon, no supplies to speak of. I’m no danger to anyone, least of all you.”

  She apparently came to a decision and stuck the sling in her sash. She stuck her hand behind her back and pulled out an odd triangular knife that looked more like a gardening tool. Giryati forced himself to remain still as she approached him with it. Three quick slashes and he was free from his bonds.

  Cramps immediately wracked his legs and arms. He groaned as feeling came back into them. Ullu stepped back, cautiously holding the knife at him. “Thank you,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m in your debt, Ullu, but I have nothing to pay you with.”

  She sniffed haughtily, as if accepting a reward was far beneath her. “Why Elf here?”

  He coughed and licked his lips, wondering if there was any more water. “I was . . . I am a cartographer. I make maps.”

  “What maps?”

  Giryati started towards his horse, but then stopped when he realized the bandits had taken all his work. “Representations of the terrain,” he began, but the look on Ullu’s face showed complete incomprehension. “I make drawings on paper of the land . . . like this.”

  He took a piece of wood and began scratching in the dirt. “This is the area we’re in, this is the river I crossed three days ago, and this is that small mountain range out there.” He sat back, satisfied with a fairly accurate representation of the local terrain.

  Ullu seemed unimpressed. “Pictures of land?”

  “Yes.”

  “Land no change.”

  Giryati understood that she saw no need for such a thing. “For people who’ve never been here before. They can look at a map and it will tell them where to go.”

  “Bad magic. Listen to land. Not need maps.”

  “What if you were traveling somewhere new, like to the Southern Colonies? Wouldn’t you like to know where to find inns, buy supplies, things like that?”

  Ullu grunted noncommittally, but Giryati saw a spark of interest in her eyes.

  Giryati crouched down beside the stinking remains of his horse, trying to avoid breathing through his nose, and dug out his hideaway knife. Ullu hissed when she saw it but he quickly tucked it into his belt. He checked the rest of the saddle for anything else the bandits might have missed, but unfortunately they’d been quite thorough.

  “Where Elf go?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know. Back south, I guess. Hopefully I can find a settlement or a leymotive path.”

  Ullu snorted. “Elf dead night. Follow Ullu.”

  “What do you mean? I’ll be dead by tonight?” Giryati sighed. “You don’t have much faith in me. It’s not my first time in the Wild.”

  Ullu snorted again and spat into the dust in contempt. “Follow Ullu. Elf live. Walk no Ullu. Elf die. Teach Ullu maps. Fair trade.”

  Giryati soon found himself walking along beside Ullu’s greatdeer while she rode in silence, occasionally raising her head to sniff at the wind. She gave Giryati some spiced, salted meat and soft grain. It wasn’t what he would have chosen as trail fare, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Later, she approached an innocuous spiny plant, punctured it with her knife, and caught a stream of water in the skin.

  Giryati was aghast. “There’s water in those things? I never knew.”

  Ullu rolled her eyes. “Faw.”

  As the sun dropped down low over the horizon, Ullu dismounted and dug through her pouch of sling bullets, finally selecting one.

  “What are we hunting?”

  “Ullu hunt. Elf no hunt.”

  “I suppose I’d just be in the way. I’m not much good without a bow.”

  “Smart Elf. No hunt. Ullu hunt.” She showed him the sling bullet, a carefully-worked rock, shaped into a perfect sphere and polished with great care. A complex symbol had been painted on it in bright white. “Good magic. No bad magic. No maps.” She spat again.

  “Is it some kind of rune?” Giryati wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the art of symbolic magic, but it wasn’t widely practiced among the Elves. The King frowned upon study of any magic which didn’t involve incantations or evocations, and therefore the other forms were only given the most cursory representation in Elven wizarding schools.

  “No runes. Ullu good magic.” She poked the symbol on the stone “Kohaddaween.”

  Giryati smiled. “What is ko . . .” he stumbled over the unfamiliar pronunciation.

  “Kohaddaween.” Ullu’s ugly face wrinkled even more as she tried to find the right way to describe a familiar word without common language. “True name.”

  “So this symbol is the true name for something?”

  “Yes. Kohaddaween. Elf no stupid Elf look.” She chuckled to herself at her joke.

  Under other circumstances, Giryati might have felt insulted, but he was fascinated by Ullu’s potential magic. It was like nothing he’d ever seen before. “How does it work?”

  “Ullu hunt talarin. Kohaddaween true name talarin. Good hunt. Good magic. Faw.”

  Giryati recalled that talarin was a Horkish word for rabbit. So the kohaddaween was the rabbit’s true name, whatever that meant. Since the symbol was inscribed upon a sling bullet, Giryati suspected it was a targeted magic of some kind. “And this magic means the stone will hit whatever talarin you hunt?”

  “Faw. Elf no hunt. Ullu hunt. Eat soon.” She chuckled as she padded off, making less sound than the breeze.

  Giryati scrounged around the immediate area while waiting for Ullu’s return. He retrieved enough of the hardened dead weed stalks peppering the landscape to provide for a cooking fire. The greatdeer was apparently well-trained, for it remained where Ullu had left it untethered. It nuzzled through the dry grasses, finding enough fodder to keep it happy.

  As Giryati finished stacking the stalks into a suitable cradle, Ullu slipped over a rise, a brace of a half dozen talarin hanging from stick carried on her shoulder. “Good magic,” she said, indicating her kills. She glanced over Giryati’s camp preparations and nodded her approval.

  “I’ll show you some of my own magic,” said Giryati, who felt much better now that the prospect of food was imminent. He was no wizard, but nearly anyone could manage a basic ignition spell. He muttered the incantation and a minuscule spark appeared amid the cradle to ignite the dry grass he’d used for kindling.

  “Faw.” Ullu sounded impressed. “Good magic. Elf teach Ullu fire magic.” She busied herself cleaning her kills.

  “Will you teach me your symbol magic? Teach me to use kohaddaween?”

  Ullu narrowed her eyes at him. “Elf hunt talarin?”

  “Not exactly,” said Giryati. “I was thinking about more dangerous prey. The kind who hunts you back.”

  Ullu’s eyes widened. “Elf hunt Elfs. Much hard.”

  “Why?”

  “Elf know Elf kohaddaween?”

  Giryati laughed in spite of himself. “They neglected to introduce themselves.”

  “All talarin one kohaddaween. All Elfs, all Horks, many kohaddaween. Elf no know kohaddaween, no magic.” She spitted each rabbit on a stake and stuck them into the fire. Soon the popping and sizzling and smell drove thoughts of anything but eating from Giryati’s mind.

  Ullu ate silently during the meal, not conversing or even answering Giryati. Apparently she took eating seriously enough that she wouldn’t allow anything to interrupt t
he flow of food into her mouth. Giryati gave up trying to engage her in a dialogue after a few minutes and put his own mouth to better use. He wondered if the silence during the meal was her personal preference or cultural among the Horks.

  Finally Ullu emitted a satisfied belch and looked critically at the remains of her talarin. “Ullu done. Elf done?”

  Giryati nodded.

  “Dig. Hide talarin. No ahwhalas.”

  Giryati didn’t know what ahwhalas were, but he suspected they were the same carrion-dogs that had hassled him when he’d been tied. He buried the carcasses. After the unpleasantness of nearly being eaten earlier, he had no wish to have carrion-dogs bothering him in his sleep.

  Ullu peeled off a blanket from a roll strapped to the greatdeer. “Elf take. Much cold night.”

  Giryati took the blanket gratefully, trying not to wrinkle his nose at the musky greatdeer scent it carried, for he knew well the late night chills of the open wilderness. “Thank you, for everything, Ullu.”

  Ullu smiled, the expression exaggerated by her horsey face. “Faw.” She yawned. “Sleep. Walk morning.” The fire dwindled down quickly as the last of the stalks burned away.

  “Very well.” Giryati curled up under the blanket, trying to keep as much of himself covered as possible.

  “Temat fo hiatawar. Temat so julgimar.”

  “What does that mean?” He could only see her as a shadow now.

  “No death sleep. Good dreams sleep.”

  Giryati smiled, even though Ullu couldn’t see it. “Good night, Ullu. Sweet dreams.”

  Morning found the pair traveling south once more. Giryati had only a rough estimate of the distance back