by Everson Cook
Not being familiar with rentaurs, as there were few who managed to survive an encounter with one and those who did mostly kept it to themselves, Damon did not know that they could climb trees. And, he would have likely never found out if Kaateria hadn't thrown a rock at it, but missed and hit Damon instead. This forced Damon, who was pretty focused on climbing until then, to turn around and see the rentaur closing in.
"That was intentional," Kaateria yelled. "You're welcome."
"Maybe you could throw one again, but this time hit the rentaur? You know, to knock it down. Or something equally as helpful," Damon yelled back.
Kaateria looked to Belosic who merely shrugged.
"This might actually help me out a little bit, so I want to wait and see where this goes," Belosic said.
Kaateria growled in anger. She put her sword aside. She dropped to her hands and knees and felt for another rock. A better one.
"Aha," she said as her fingers landed on exactly what she was looking for.
She dug it out of the ground and scrambled back to her feet. She rolled her head from side to side and jumped up and down. She rotated her shoulders to loosen them.
"Is all of that necessary?" Damon yelled.
The rentaur was closing in on him. Fast. Damon was breathing heavily from the exertion. It had the unfortunate side effect of sucking in the creature's rank, hot breath. Damon scrunched his face in disgust.
Kaateria took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Then she took aim and threw the rock as hard as she could.
The rock struck the rentaur in the head. The beast snapped its head toward Kaateria and hissed.
Damon took the opportunity to scramble further up the tree.
Then he paused.
"This isn't good," he said.
Damon felt the tree start to give.
"You went up too far," Kaateria yelled up to him.
"Yes, thank you. Very helpful. I should've taken that into consideration. Instead I was too worried about being eaten to death."
There was a loud crack. And then a crash. And then a yelp.
Damon rolled over off the trunk and landed on his back.
The rentaur was stunned. It shook its head trying to clear the cobwebs. It blinked its eyes. Then took a step toward Damon.
If it could be called a step.
The rentaur buckled and fell to the ground.
The creature's breathing had slowed, but it hadn't lost its fight. It wiggled its body back and forth trying to get to Damon.
Belosic, while closest, made no move to help Damon, nor put the beast out of its misery.
Instead, he stepped aside and motioned toward the carnage.
"Seriously," Kaateria said.
Kaateria picked up her weapon from the ground and walked over. She slammed her sword into the rentaur's side. The blade slipped through the rentaur's fur and pierced its tough skin. A torrent of blood squirted from the wound with a pop, splashing on Kaateria's face and clothes in the process. The red liquid rolled down her nose and dripped into her mouth. Kaateria spat and clawed at her tongue as she tried to rid her mouth of the metallic taste.
Her shoulders slumped as she heard Belosic step up behind her. She knew that she wouldn't be able to defend herself.
"I'm sorry," Belosic said. Then he cuffed her in the back of the head.
Kaateria slumped to the ground. Her sword fell from her hands and went skittering toward Damon.
Damon's eyes flashed. He ran for the weapon.
Belosic swung at waist level, both hands gripping the hilt.
Damon fell to his knees and used his momentum to slide under Belosic's blade. He watched as the sharp edge trimmed one of his beard hairs and thanked the Gods he was limber enough to get so low to the ground. He reached for Kaateria's sword as he went past it, but before he was able to grab the handle, Belosic kicked it aside. Damon scrambled back up to his feet and dove toward its new location.
His fingers fumbled with the handle, but he was quick to adjust and grab hold. Like Kaateria before him though, he knew it was of no use.
"Go gentle, ok?" Damon implored.
Belosic chuckled behind him.
"Of course."
Belosic bashed the pommel of his sword into the back of Damon's skull. Then everything went black.
33
Damon was surprised to find himself in either one of the most comfortable beds he ever had the pleasure of sleeping in or the most pleasurable bed he had ever done other things in. In this case though, he was alone. So he imagined it had been only sleep.
He was also surprised to look down and find that he was no longer chained.
"Are you ever going to wake up?" Kaateria asked.
Damon jumped. Then, after getting over being startled, he looked at her and smiled.
"I thought you said you'd never show me your boobs," Damon said.
Kaateria stood at the end of the bed completely naked. Her head was tilted low and she raised her eyes to meet Damon's. She batted her eyelashes.
Damon wasn't worried about that though. He was worried about her breasts.
He studied them with the care of a scholar. Or a sculptor. He memorized every line and curve. They were perky and full and would bring any man to his knees. Unless, of course, that man was already lying down in a bed.
Kaateria dropped her head even lower. She swung her hair covering her breasts from Damon's view.
"What are you doing? And when did your hair grow so long? How long have I been asleep?"
"Damon," Kaateria said as she climbed up on the bed and started crawling toward him on all fours.
"Do you think you could pull your hair back? I mean, it's quite lovely, but not really what I'm interested in at the moment."
Kaateria made no move to pull her hair back from her face. She continued crawling toward him until her face was inches from his.
"Damon," she said again. Only she said it very loud. Which seemed unnecessary with her face as close as it was. At least her breath, while hotter than Damon expected, smelled pleasant.
She began to swing her hair, brushing him in the face. It was really unenjoyable. Almost suffocating.
"Kaateria!"
"Damon!"
Damon's eyes snapped open.
He was happy to find that this time he wasn't face down in a horse's behind. But only for a moment. Because after he figured out where he was, he realized his situation was much worse.
Damon screamed.
The creature, a wodent, was preparing to peck at Damon's lap. It blinked two of its eight eyes and then opened one of its four powerful beaks and screamed back. It spread its giant wings and flapped them in Damon's face. The wings, when fully extended, were longer than Damon's body if he laid sideways. They were covered in flesh. Some it belonging to the large bird. And they smelled rotten. Which was unsurprising given their propensity for eating dead things.
The wodent continued its screeching and flapping for longer than Damon would've preferred. Eventually, it flew into the air. The wings shimmered in the sun momentarily changing them from a drab gray to a rainbow of colors. It was almost pleasant. Then the wodent landed next to the other two that were well into ripping apart the rentaur. And the pleasantness was soon forgotten.
One of them had their head fully buried inside the carcass. The other one took a mouthful of flesh, turned its body a quarter and bit down with another beak while the other beak was busy chewing. It opened a third beak to screech at the recently landed wodent. The fourth beak remained closed. That beak was Damon's favorite.
Kaateria's sword was still sticking out of the rentaur's body. It swayed with the ripping and tearing of flesh. Almost as if it was waving at Kaateria and Damon. But not in a friendly way, like it was saying "hello," but more in a taunting "you're going to die without me" way.
"Kaateria?" Damon asked, unsure if she was still alive. And if she was, why she didn't stop the assault from the wodent.
"Yes?"
"Is there a reason wh
y you were letting that wodent get ready to eat me?"
"I wasn't sure if you were alive."
"Wasn't sure if I was alive?"
"You were surprisingly quiet. And then it looked like rigor mortis was setting in..." Kaateria's eyes flitted toward Damon's crotch.
"Yes, well, next time let's err on the side of having a dream shall we? That thing looked like it was about to tear my head off."
Kaateria stared straight ahead watching the wodents ripping the meat from the rentaur's carcass.
"So, I guess this is it,"she said. "I always figured it would be more poetic. Like in the middle of a battle or something...Something more than being betrayed and left strapped to a tree to die."
The wodent that previously had its head buried inside of the rentaur pulled its head out. The wodent's head was pink in color. It wasn't always that way. Well, this one was. However, when the wodent as a species first came into being their heads were white. But nature must have realized she made a mistake, what with the white always getting stained with blood, and soon the wodents were born with pink heads.
Two of the wodent's beaks fought over one strand of meat that it held between them. Its eyes checked out the two people strapped to the tree. Waiting for them to die.
"What was it that you saw back there?" Damon asked tearing his eyes away from the gruesome scene.
"What do you mean?"
"Back in the cave. When you went to check it out. You screamed. What was it that caused you to scream?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Kaateria said.
"Why not? It's like you said. We're going to die here. I'd really like to know."
Kaateria watched as two of the wodents fought over a piece of the rentaur's snout. It was rumored that the snout was a delicacy. Like most things involving rentaurs, there were more people who claimed to have had it than actually did.
"That's something I'm willing to take to my grave," Kaateria said after some time.
"Fine, then I'll just guess until I get it," Damon said. Damon watched the wodents for a while and then said, "Well, I know it couldn't have been a wodent. Despite your bemoaning that we're going to die, you're acting too calm with them within days of ripping us apart. Also, they're generally found around dead things. And I know it couldn't have been a dead body. While we don't know what happened to the man who used to live in the cave, you're a member of the king's guard. And they don't get scared at the sight of blood. And, I know it couldn't have been a rentaur. While they are particularly scary, they're also rare. And you wouldn't have survived one on your own as we witnessed earlier today. How am I doing so far?"
Kaateria didn't answer, but Damon was sure he was on the right track.
"Ok, well, let's see. What's something so scary that it would force you to scream...?"
Damon's searched his mind for things that he found frightening and found it hard to come up with anything that would also be scary for a woman. Since they weren't born with the same anatomy. So, failing at that, he started rattling off things that he had fought or heard tales of others fighting.
"Mermaids, mermaids with one eye, reverse mermaids, reverse mermaids with one eye, rentaurman, rentaurman with one eye, a dragon, a dragon, but you can't see its eyes because the dragon is standing and you're on the ground, so you assume it only has one, because the other was pecked out by a bat with a death wish. Speaking of, how about bats? A bat with one eye, a bat with one wing, a bat with really long fangs, a bat--"
"It wasn't a bat, ok?"
"Was it a dragon?" Damon asked again.
"No," Kaateria sighed. "Also, that dragon with one eye thing was oddly specific."
"Was it an ogre? Or an ogre with a missing eye? Or a dwarf wearing an eye patch and you're confused whether they have two eyes or one? And if they have two, why are they wearing the eye patch?"
"What is it with you and things with one eye?"
"I'm just covering all bases. We have time. Was it a monster?"
Kaateria groaned. She banged her head back into the tree trunk.
"A monster is very general."
"Ok, was it a one-eyed monster...?"
"Enough," she moaned. "Fine. I'll tell you. But I don't want to hear anything about it, ok?"
"Sure. My word is my bond."
"It was a spider," she whispered.
"What?"
"It was a spider, ok?"
"A...spider?!"
"It was a really, really big spider."
"If I wasn't tied to this tree I would be slapping my knee with laughter right now," Damon said. "Slapping it so hard. A spider? Who ever heard of a member of the king's guard being afraid of a spider?"
"It was a giant spider. The size of my body."
Kaateria let out a sigh so long that Damon wondered if it was her last breath.
"I knew I shouldn't have told you. I knew you didn't mean it when you said your word was your bond."
"Of course not," Damon said.
One of the wodents was sliding its four beaks, one after the other, up and down one of the rentaur's rib bones.
"What is it doing?" Kaateria asked.
"Sharpening them," Damon said.
Kaateria shuddered.
"We're going to die here."
"No, not here. Not yet. I haven't gotten to see your boobs yet," Damon said. "I'm not going to die before I get to see your boobs. I've spent the majority of our trip thinking about one thing--"
"Damon."
"Escaping," he continued, "But, I've been kind of lazy about doing it. Other times, a much smaller amount of time, yet still worth mentioning, I've wondered what those things look like."
"Much like we're never getting out of here, you're never going to see my boobs. I don't know how many times I have to tell you that."
"Never say never, my dear," Damon said. And if they weren't tied to a tree facing forward and unable to see each other's faces, Kaateria would've seen him wink. It was an involuntary movement. Completely wasted in the moment.
Damon began wiggling around. First pushing his right shoulder forward and then his left.
"These are very good knots," Damon said. He stopped moving and rested back against the trunk.
"Belosic was always one of the best at tying them," Kaateria said. "I guess there was a reason for that."
"I was never very good at them myself. Never had much use for them. Other than with women. And those were usually pretty loose. Both the women and the knots."
Kaateria made a retching noise.
"But one thing I've always been good at is getting out of them."
Damon began raising both his shoulders. Then wiggling them again. Then he rolled one of them around the cuff. Then the other.
"Now, you're about to hear a very loud snap. Don't scream. It's not a spider."
Damon rolled his right shoulder around again and then thrust it forward. There was a loud crack. Damon grimaced. The rope loosened slightly. All of the wodents lifted their heads and stared at Damon with as many eyes as they could.
Damon froze.
The wodents continued watching him. After a while they became bored, or felt the pangs of hunger, hard to say which, and went back to eating.
Damon thrust his left shoulder forward and there was another loud crack. Damon bit the inside of his mouth to keep from crying out in pain. The rope loosened a little more. The wodents shrieked.
One of them began wobbling closer to the tree. The tip of its wings dragged in the ground, leaving a thin red line behind in its wake.
"Damon, why is that thing coming closer?"
"I don't know. Might be something they can smell. Like maybe when I popped my shoulders they could smell internal bleeding or decaying bones. Really hard to say. Let's not focus on it, ok?"
Damon began wiggling his torso back and forth working the rope down. The wodent continued its approach.
"Feel free to wiggle your body too. I don't know that it will help, but it will be fun to picture."
Kaateria
sighed. Then, decided that if it helped even just a little, it was worth doing. She began to move her body back and forth.
It wasn't helping. Not even a little. Yet Kaateria didn't know this, so she kept wiggling.
The wodent, startled and confused by the movement of both Damon and Kaateria spread its wings. It opened three of its beaks and began shrieking. The fourth beak, again, remained closed.
They both ignored it as they continued to move the ropes further down their bodies. They stood up and began scissoring their legs. The ropes hit the grounds. They were free.
"You watch the wodent, I'll grab the sword," Damon shouted. He slammed his shoulders into the tree trunk, popping them both back into place.
"No, you watch it. I'll grab the sword."
"But I'm the world's greatest--"
"Yes, yes, I'm fully aware. It's my sword though. I'm getting it."
Damon ignored her and dashed toward where Kaateria's sword remained standing upright inside the rentaur's cavity.
The wodent that had been moving toward them blocked his way.
"Look out you. I'm clearly alive. Move along."
The wodent let out a screech. It flapped its powerful wings and then landed a few feet back.
Kaateria found no such issue with the wodents at the rentaur. When they saw her approaching they flew into the trees and waited. Kaateria wrenched the sword from the corpse and moved far enough away from the rentaur's body that the wodents flew back down and continued picking it clean.
Kaateria sheathed the sword and turned back toward Damon.
Damon started to open his mouth to ask for the sword, but the look on Kaateria's face, as well as previous experiences, slowed him just enough that he had to time to consider the fact that it was probably a bad idea.
But he still felt the need to say something, so he pointed up at the rock hanging on the tower. And then back into the woods.
"We need to go that way."
Kaateria nodded.
"Any chance I could get you to remove these chains? I did just save us from what was sure to be certain death. And, if it's to be just the two of us, it might help you more if I had freer movement of my hands."
"Ok, but no funny business."
