I'm very pleased to present another Calthus story and this time I asked Steve himself to step up and tell us about himself. He writes: I'm 44, and live in rural Ohio with a wife who writes fantasy and a 5-year-old girl who makes up stories, too. I have Appalachian roots and just a hint of a drawl. I'm an Ohio State University grad, and work as a newspaper editor. I love the beers of Germany, the British Isles and Belgium. I play chess, sometimes well. My iPod at the moment contains music by Bela Fleck, the Grateful Dead, New Grass Revival, the Duhks, Tim O'Brien, Nickel Creek and Leftover Salmon. I muck around a bit on guitar, mandolin and bass, but all my real musical training is on the drums. I like to argue. I hate the designated hitter rule. I read a lot, fiction and non-fiction, but I write sword-and-sorcery because it's more fun than any other form of fiction. I try to evoke the works of Howard, Leiber, Burroughs, Wellman, Anderson, Wagner and others without merely repeating what they did -- they did it better than I do, anyway. I've had good fortune to sell several stories in the past year. If you are interested, visit www.stevegoble.com to learn more.

--Howard Andrew Jones
The Gray Mother: The Second Tale of Calthus
Steve Goble

I
Saw-sharp grasses waved around him as far as his eyes could see. That amber ocean was as featureless as the blue sky above; the view changed only when he spun the mare around to look upon the mountains at his back.

Seeing those jagged peaks now from a distance of some miles, Calthus knew where he was. He had seen that sky-clutching rampart once before, six centuries ago. He recognized now this sea of grass as the Bleeding Plains, where in another life he had led an army of the Thaal Empire against the barbarians who clung to this land the emperor coveted. As the bloody memories returned, it seemed to him the amber grasses were tinged with crimson.

Calthus rode southward, his eyes piercing the grass for signs of the stalking prairie wolves he remembered of old. He had never seen one, but he had seen the ruin they left of a man and he knew they hunted by day or night. He wished he had armor, even the mere leather of a Thaal archer, but he had only tunic, trousers and sandals. He slashed the air with the long sword, and he wished he had a bow. But he would not turn back. Back there, he would find only the cowards of Cosyris, who had feared him as much as they'd feared the beast who had preyed on their village -- a beast whose head Calthus had dropped in a bloody heap before them.

Beyond the timid villagers, in the mountains themselves, were the godless monks who had dragged his soul from its fiery netherworld and housed it in this strong young body. He would not return to them; now that he had slain the monster that troubled them, the monks might choose to send Calthus back to Hell.

He would not risk that. He would live this new life, savor it, devour it -- and he would seek to do deeds to earn a warrior's honor in his next death, instead of damnation for slaying a man to win his way to the widow's bed. He had amends to make.

So he had left Cosyris as soon as he had purchased a steed with the monks' coins. No warhorse, this, but it was the best to be had in that village. It would carry him across the plains, and to the city of Tabali on the other side. If, after all these centuries, Tabali still existed. He wondered if he would find it full of ghosts.

A copse of bone trees spread skeletal branches across the sky to the southeast, and Calthus determined to camp there. Night would descend soon after he reached them.

The mare grazed as Calthus gathered dead limbs beneath the trees and sparked them to flames with flint and steel, the only possession he had beside his clothes, his wineskin, his sword and the horse. He had tethered the horse to a trunk, knowing it would render the animal defenseless if wolves should strike. But he would not have the horse wander, for its speed would be Calthus' best defense, too. He could sever the tether with a sword stroke, and gallop to safety.

For now, he climbed into a bone tree to sleep. He watched the moon rise, and wondered if Haak and Vind watched from their godly seats on that pale orb.

He hoped so. He wanted them to see he was no longer the man they had damned.

II He was almost asleep when wings fluttered above and a shrill squawk pierced the night. Vultures. "Stolen your roost, have I? Find another," he said.

He watched their moon-cast shadows glide silently across the wind-stirred grass, until his eyes froze on a figure standing there. Pale as the moonlight itself, that figure stood in grass that reached to its waist and pointed a bony finger at Calthus. What little flesh it had hung in ropes and tatters from bones, and the breeze carried a grave-stink.

Others like it rose from the grass, dozens of them, all pointing silently. Some wore helms, dented or gashed, and the dome-like shape of them dredged memories. His maul had smashed many helms like these, six centuries ago. These were Tarnmen, whom Thaal's armies had butchered.

"We know you, Calthus." He could not tell which of them spoke, for they had no lips and most had no lower jaws, and none had lungs. But one spoke, nonetheless.

"And I know you," he said, standing on the branch so that he could spring upon the horse. His right hand clutched his sword hilt, and he felt the muscles ripple in his arm. Not as strong as the arm he'd had in another life, but strong enough. The godless monks had chosen his new vessel with care.

"Where is your empire now, Calthus?"

The horse strained nervously at its tether, and Calthus' eyes measured the difficult leap into the saddle.

"Where is your empire now, Calthus? It is du-sssssssst."

"Perhaps it is blown on the wind, to mingle with the dust from your bones, Tarnman," Calthus said. "I care not." He sprang from the branch, slashed the tether and drove his heels into the horse's flank. But Calthus was surrounded, and the horse reared. He brandished his sword defiantly. "If you seek vengeance come take it, Tarnmen! But you will not frighten one who burned in darkness for all the time that you've been dead!"

The horse snorted and jumped, and Calthus fought to control it. He waited for the spectres to close, and he sliced the air to loosen his muscles for the bloody work to come. But the Tarnmen vanished, as completely as the world Calthus had once known.

He was once again alone in this world, where only the dead remembered him.

III Morning came, breezeless. The grass stood like sharp pikes planted in the ground.

From the west, a motion drew his eye. Calthus halted and spied in the distance a nightmare in rainbow hues. A mounted man, long spear raised to the sky, approached him. His face was painted bright orange across the eyes, bright blue below. His long hair was bright crimson and green. Armor of some sort covered his chest, and its plates were a riot of colors without pattern. Even the horse, smaller than the one Calthus rode, was painted madly in purples and reds and blues.

The rider charged. Calthus wheeled his horse to assure himself this strange figure was not a distraction for some other attack. Then he drew his blade and steadied to face the assault.

The rider was a spearcast away, and Calthus steeled himself to strike the weapon down with his blade. The rider raised the spear and screamed, but did not throw. Instead, he came on in a thunder of hooves.

Calthus readied himself for the thrust. The rider expertly pulled up just out of sword reach, his small horse rearing. With a scream and a glare of mad eyes, he plunged his spear into the ground before Calthus. Then he turned his back and rode away a few paces before stopping to face Calthus once again.

The many-colored rider laughed, and tapped his armor. It seemed to be an array of turtle shells, in a leathery net that hung over his chest and back. "I am Shan."

"I am Calthus."

Shan rode forward, grasped his spear and yanked it free with a jerk that flung dirt above his head. "You do not fear me, Calthus. And I do not fear you." The rider spoke the language of Thaal, but with strange accents.

"So it seems." Calthus sheathed his blade, but with enough force to impress upon Shan the might in the arm that wielded it.

"I hunt these beautiful plains," Shan said, spreading his colorful arms wide. Calthus could not guess the man's age through the mask of paint he wore, but judged him to be young and strong. Muscles bulged in arms smeared with green. "What do you do on these plains, Calthus?"

"I ride. Do you dwell here?"

Shan pointed westward. "Yes. That way. Many people." He smiled.

"Tell me, does the Thaal Empire still rule these lands?"

Shan shrugged. "I have never heard of it. We Tuskar live here now."

Calthus glanced skyward. Were he and its language all that remained of an empire that had once spanned the known world? Had Haak and Vind punished Thaal for its sins, just as they had banished him to an afterlife of fire and torment? "The Thaal Empire is dust, I'm told. Most of it in my throat" Calthus said. "Is there water near?"

"East. Animals use it. I am bound there to hunt. Ride with me, pale man."

Shan and Calthus rode side by side. Shan took jerked meat from a saddlebag and offered some to Calthus. Despite his parched throat, Calthus enjoyed the heavily spiced morsel. Then Shan tossed him a skin of cool water. As they rode, Shan pointed out birds and insects, and Calthus began to feel more at ease. Shan was a pleasant counterpoint to the cowardly villagers who had shunned him. After a few moments, Calthus asked: "Why do you paint yourself so?"

Shan laughed. "So my gods will not lose sight of me on this grassy sea as I hunt. It is a big world, and I do not wish to be lost in it!"

"Why do you hunt alone? Do you not fear the prairie wolves?"

Shan's face became serious. "The wolves are to be feared, but there are few of them and they range far. I hope they are far from here, and they've not been seen in a while. But I hunt alone to prove I can, and join the ranks of our warriors." Then he smiled. "The gods will decide whether to send wolves or not."

They rode on, talking little. Dusk settled, then night, and a bright moon rose. Calthus wondered if Shan's bright colors drew the eyes of Haak and Vind, seated there.

IV They hurtled out of the grass in ghostly silence.

The first prairie wolf tore the painted throat of Shan's mare before Calthus even knew it was there. The second, a shaggy mass almost as large as Shan's mount, leapt at Shan and toppled him from his saddle. The third died, spitted on Calthus' blade.

Then all became a whirlwind of wildly bending grass, flung dirt, spraying blood and wild yapping. Dark shapes circled them, and Calthus struggled to control his mount. Shan stood, and spun toward a low growl. His spear caught the charging black wolf in the chest. Calthus hacked the neck of another, nearly beheading it.

Bright moonlight painted the eerie scene, but Calthus could not count the wolves. They moved too quickly, and they all looked the same -- snarling nightmares of eyes and fangs in black, bristly fur.

Calthus wheeled his horse and dealt death. Around him, wolves died or fled yapping. Still, claws ripped his trousers and trailed blood across his thigh.

Shan, too, fared well, his spear jabbing breasts and throats as the wolves darted at him.

Calthus stabbed a wolf on his right, then lightning pain seared his left leg. His sword rained blood as it arced above him, but the wolf tore him from the saddle before his counterstroke fell. Calthus rolled hard, groped for the lost blade and stared into a dripping maw. The wolf's eyes blazed.

Calthus could not find his sword, and the wolf pounced. But Shan's spear extinguished one of the fiery eyes and the beast crumpled.

Calthus regained his sword and rose as Shan plucked his weapon free. "He'll not eat you today, pale man!" The painted Tuskar impaled a charging wolf as Calthus broke the jaw of another.

Then a grey one came, stalking where others yowled and slavered. It turned its cold blue eyes on Shan, and dipped its head.

"Shan!" Calthus roared as the grey wolf sprang. Shan's spear rose to meet it, but the tip merely grazed its ear. Claws ripped the Tuskar's armor, flinging shells and straps of leather skyward. Shan went down beneath the beast and his blood spurted skyward, too, as the teeth plunged into his neck.

Calthus ripped the grey thing with an uppercut, slicing deep and nearly severing a leg. Its howl pierced the night, and its darker kindred answered the call. The wolves spun away, vanishing in the grass, as Calthus finished off the grey with a savage stroke that tore its flank.

Calthus heard Shan's labored breath. "You live!"

"It seems... the wolves are... not far away," Shan said. Then his eyes closed.

Screaming, Calthus stabbed the grey corpse beside Shan. His blade pierced it and the blood-wet ground beneath, and the violence in him calmed somewhat.

Shan had saved his life, but Calthus had been unable to save Shan. The thought tore at him. From the moment he'd been pulled from centuries of burning torment to this, Calthus had met only godless monks, thieves and cowards. Shan was none of those.

Calthus wished to do him honor. But what did the Tuskar do with their dead? Pyre? Grave? Prayers? He did not know the proper rituals.

So Calthus tracked down his horse, calmed it, and did the only thing that came to his mind. He lifted the rainbow-hued hunter onto the mare's back, and secured him with leather straps the grey wolf had ripped from his armor.

Then he rode west, in search of Shan's people.

V The next dusk brought ghosts.

Calthus could see one, bony head and shoulders peering from above the breeze-blown grasses. It stood, waiting as Calthus approached with his lifeless cargo.

"You killed the grey one, Calthus," the ghost said. The dark pits beneath the Tarnman's helm stared at him.

The horse resisted and snorted, but obeyed Calthus. He approached slowly, lifting the sword. He rode, glaring at the eyeless face. Then he put all his might into a stroke intended to make that mocking skull fly.

He might as well have tried to chop smoke.

The horse bolted and jumped, and it took a mighty heave on the reins to settle it.

The second ghost had no helm, and the top of its skull was shattered. "You should not have killed the grey one."

Calthus gave that one a wide berth; it turned slowly to watch him pass. Another spectre waited ahead. "Your dust soon will mingle with that of your empire, Thaal warrior."

Calthus spat defiance. A voice behind him said, "The grey one was hers, Calthus. She mates with the grey ones."

More ghosts rose from the grass, surrounding him, pointing skinless fingers. "She will be angry, Calthus. The grey mother will come for you."

Calthus stopped his horse. "Let her!" He sneered, and kicked the mare into a gallop to leave ghosts and wolves behind.

"The grey mother will find you," a ghost said to his back. "We will help her find you, and we will watch her teeth tear meat from your bones."

VI The Tuskar village was vast, its hide tents strewn across the grassland like a fleet at sea. From a distance, Calthus had thought it a herd of some kind. Dozens of muscular ponies grazed to one side of it.

It was late in the day, and he approached openly. Dozens of Tuskar men with spears pointed at his breast came forth and stood between him and the village. They wore little but trousers of animal hide, and were not painted as Shan was, revealing bronzed skin. Calthus halted before them.

"I am Calthus of Thaal. I bring one called Shan, slain by wolves, that you may honor him."

Spears lowered slowly, and Calthus heard Shan's name in the men's whispers. He dismounted, and untied the strips that kept Shan on the horse. Some of the Tuskar came forward to help.

"He took several wolves with him," Calthus said. "He stood before them, and stared death in the face as it came at last."

The Tuskar carried their dead into the village. Calthus followed, leading his mount, and noted suspicious glances among the villagers. The bearers paused to whisper to an elderly man who wore only a loincloth. His bronzed chest bore a tattoo depicting a great vulture rising before a blazing sun. He gazed at Calthus, and noted the wounds on his leg.

"I am Horun," he said. "Thank you for bringing him to us. We will bring you food, and water, and something to help your leg. We hope you will tell us the tale."

Calthus bowed his head, and noted the lowering sun. "Food will be welcome, thank you, and something for the wound. And I will give you the tale."

Women brought meat and water, and Calthus told Horun of his encounter with Shan while the women cleaned his wounds. He saw pain in the old man's eyes give way to pride as Calthus recounted how well Shan had fared in the battle.

"He died well, and I suspect he lived well." Calthus said quietly. "I was a stranger, but he shared his food and water and saved my life. Few men I've met would do as much." Calthus knew, too, that he himself would not have done as much, centuries ago.

"Life is hard," Horun said softly. "These plains sustain us, but they also teach us that life is hard. We must help each other through it. That's why he helped you. You remember that."

Then Horun smiled. "But Shan's hard life is behind him. We'll send him on smoke to the gods tonight. You may stay, and honor him, as his friend."

Calthus shook his head. "There is a thing I must do, and a boon I would ask of you," he said after a pause. He told Horun of the ghosts and of the grey mother.

Horun lifted his head proudly. "We will send a dozen spears with you to face this thing. We owe you as much, Calthus." "No," Calthus said, eyeing a dark-headed boy and girl who peered at him from a tent. "The Tuskar have endured enough from the wolfpack. The grey mother follows me, and I will lead her away from here if I can."

Horun's gaze mingled curiosity and suspicion. "You do not wish for warriors? Then what boon do you seek?"

"Paint me, that my gods might see what I do."

VII The sky turned grey as Calthus awaited the grey mother.

Tuskar warriors had painted themselves, and hidden in the grass to defend their village if they must, but Horun honored the request to let Calthus lure the she-wolf away if possible.

Now Calthus charged across the plain, his horse's hooves churning up the ground. He had prepared for battle; his arms and chest were crimson, his face cobalt blue, his back the orange of sunrise. The Tuskar had given him some of their turtle-shell armor, but he did not wear it. The painted shells dangled from his fingers in their harness of leather. He had already seen a wolf rip Shan's armor like parchment, and did not think it would avail him against the grey mother. But he might make another use of it.

His mare snorted, and Calthus drew her to a halt.

A voice from somewhere rasped: "She comes, Calthus."

He did not answer the pale, fleshless form that rose from the grass ahead.

"We have brought her," another said, pointing east.

Calthus let his gaze follow the pointing bones, but he saw only tall grass and grey sky, the latter lightened somewhat by a just-risen moon. Then he noted more dim forms, standing, staring, waiting. An audience for his death.

Then he saw her.

She did not spring from ambush, as her black brood had. She did not rush forth in heated fury. She glided through the grass, like a vessel cutting through waters. She came slowly, deliberately, and her eyes glowed yellow despite the moon at her back. Her head and shoulders stood high above the grass, and her fur was an echo of the leaden sky.

She came directly for Calthus, and his nervous mount backed up with a snort. He tugged hard at the reins to control the mare, and lifted the sword.

The grey mother stopped, some twenty yards off, and stared at him.

"He is the one," a ghost said, pointing at Calthus. "He slew your favored one."

The grey mother sprang, closing the distance in a single grey blur. Calthus swung his blade as his frightened horse bolted, and all became a tumult of bristled fur, hot drool, cold sweat, warm blood, arcing steel and flying hooves. Calthus toppled, then rose, draped in intestines from the horse. He spun wildly, for he had no idea where the grey mother was. His eyes caught the bloody ruin that had been a living horse a heartbeat earlier, and grinning skulls peered at him from the grasses beyond it.

But the grey mother had vanished.

"She is fast, Calthus. She is the wind with claws."

He circled slowly, aware now that his shoulder was bleeding. He heard a soft thump behind him and leapt; still, the grey mother hammered him from behind, and claws tore open his back.

He tumbled hard and stood again, but she was gone. Cobalt paint and sweat streaked from his face onto his arms and chest. Paint and blood mingled.

Half of the moon's bright orb had cleared the horizon now. He saw it, and peered back at his gods. If they were to see him die here, would they reward him with a hero's Heaven for meeting this thing alone to spare Tuskar lives? Or would they deem it insufficient to offset the crimes that had damned him? Haak and Vind did not answer. Then the moon's shining globe vanished as the grey mother hurtled from the grassy cover.

Her claws came first. Calthus lunged aside and hurled the Tuskar armor. Like a net, its leather bonds tangled those outreached paws and the snapping fangs, and the grey mother toppled in a yowling heap.

Calthus pounced, snarling like a beast himself. He buried his sword in the grey back. The grey mother rolled, taking blade and Calthus with her, and they left a bloody swath in the grass. But the sword came free of muscle and bone, and Calthus found himself on his knees, inches from the yellow eyes and the steaming breath.

His sword flashed at those eyes, and at the teeth like daggers, the gaping maw and the lolling tongue. A ribbon of blood trailed in the grey sky each time the cold steel flashed. Then she was on top of him.

She drove him onto his back, dug into his shoulders and her now eyeless face dripped gore; it drenched him and ran hot into his gasping mouth. Calthus screamed defiance, for one great slash of those powerful forelegs would shred him, and there was nothing more he could do.

But the fatal gouges never came. The grey mother fell upon him, and air gushed from his lungs. But she breathed no more, nor did she move again.

Calthus caught his breath, and shoved aside the giant beast with an effort that knotted his muscles and shot pain throughout his body. Then he rose, bloody chest heaving, warpaint streaming, sword dripping.

He faced the audience of ghosts.

"I died once, and live again," he said, breathing hard. "And I deny you vengeance." He spat, dust into dust.

He walked southward and the ghosts vanished behind him. Far away west, he saw the red glow of the great bonfire that lifted Shan's soul to its gods. The sight of it cooled Calthus' battle-rage. Impulse had sent him toward Tabali and away from these Bleeding Plains, but now he turned toward the tower of smoke. He would return to the Tuskar, and honor Shan.

The moon had climbed much higher before he could hear Tuskar death chants. They stirred centuries-old memories of Tarnmen calling across the grass sea. Shan had loved these Bleeding Plains; had the Tarnmen loved this land any less?

The Thaal emperor had not loved it at all, had never even seen it; it was merely a spot on a map, a land that was not his until Calthus and his butchering legions had made it so. Calthus had never given a thought to what the Tarnmen felt or believed or were willing to die for. But Tarnman spirits still clung to to the plains; Thaal spirits were nowhere to be seen.

Thoughts swirled in his mind like the billows from Shan's pyre. Calthus had always thought a single misdeed had spurred Haak and Vind to damn him. Perhaps he had been wrong, and he had more amends to make than he realized.

He would think on it.
END

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