by Taylor Kole
Four women were in the other room. Three rested on shredded couches. Another sat in a chair low to the ground. They all stared at her with a confusion bordering on a stupor, as if she was the disfigured member of their posse.
Each woman carried the large proportion of peg-leg. One held a stein with her only arm. The right side of her face sagged with the rip of a brutal scar. Another had no arms at all. One woman’s jaw was broken so far to the right, the lower mandible sat inches off center of the upper. Her nose was missing as if sawed from her face. She wore an eyepatch and had no legs.
Scars were more prevalent than the disfigurements and varied: burns covered throats and arms, scars criss-crossed nearly all exposed flesh, teeth marks marred a woman’s cheek.
Bellora covered her face with both hands, bent, and vomited on the dusty floor.
She closed her eyes and prayed she was sleeping. She prayed that when she opened her eyes she’d find a beautiful home, RobertJohnson sitting on a chair looking at her inquisitively, than asking what was the matter.
Instead, when she opened her eyes, she noticed a fifth woman in the room. Large, like the others, but missing the lower half of her body. She sat in a supported roll-chair. Her belly showed she was with child.
Turning, she found the one-legged woman behind her had tears streaming down her face. Her hand rested on her own belly.
“What are you doing here, sweetheart?” the woman said.
“I don’t know,” she said. There had to have been some mistake.
“Why did you come here?”
“I-I am to be a bride for RobertJohnson.”
More than one of the women gasped, or issued soft prayers
“No, honey.” The one-legged woman thump-slid closer.
Bellora remained frozen. Even when the woman placed a meaty hand, lacking two of the five digits, on her shoulder, she didn’t move. She simply looked the sad woman in the eye, her own tears blurring her vision.
Addressing the room, the woman said, “We have to hide her.”
The woman with the slack jaw almost fell from her chair. “I’m going to tell,” she yelled. “I won’t keep secrets from him.
“So will I,” said another
Nearly all of the women agreed.
The one-legged woman nodded knowingly, “But if he mates with her…” She searched Bellora’s downturned face, lifted her thin arms, examined her dainty size, and then returned her gaze to the group.
One of the women said, “The best thing we could do for this girl would be to strangle her dead, and make it appear self-inflicted.”
“I’ll tell if you do!” yelled the torso.
Bellora’s knees gave out, tumbling her into the burly woman. She sobbed. There had to be some mistake. She was to be RobertJohnson’s queen.
XXXI
Josh saw so much carnage the day after the rain. It changed his perception of madness. He witnessed spiders pouncing on ants, ants bringing down spiders. He stumbled on the corpses of grasshoppers, crickets, flies, and a variety of aphids. He wondered if, during his old life, he had bent over a blade of grass and examined it, would he have noticed such savagery?
He took his time when inspecting an overturned beetle corpse. Its armor seemed superior to the ladybug’s. A strange antenna, now flaccid, extended from its back. Judging from a puddle around its nozzle, it sprayed some type of chemical. It was hard to accept a creature existed with a chem launcher, and awesome armor. Add the vicious pincers and Josh was glad these stayed small.
He moved on with greater caution.
Despite his abnormal agility and bounding steps, every predator that spotted him quickly pursued. At the end of the day, huddled underground with a heavy stone atop his pit, exhaustion rattled his bones. He accepted a simple truth: he would not survive long in Dacathius.
He’d been forced to kill a gangly daddy long legs first thing that morning. Done recapping his journey, he brought himself into the moment. He could see the fencing and ramp markings at Dacathius’ end. He was crouched in a bush, listening.
Having reached the pointus ascendus, Josh scanned everything. Remus had assured him that the gateways leading to Carmanthius would be manned, by Carmanthian guards, hoping to keep the demons out of their world. Seeing no one spooked him.
After traversing this perilous nation, Josh found it easy to believe whatever small force defended the picket fence and sharpened sticks had been wiped out, but he saw no evidence.
Minutes passed without seeing any movement or alarming sounds. He stepped from the bush and rotated, swords at the ready. His stomach grumbled, reminding him he’d lost his heart soup during the first morning. The mites were plentiful but after picking one up, and feeling it’s mushy body squirming in his hand, he realized he could go a little longer without eating.
Seeing the guard shacks, thinking of food, he dashed inside. He smelled the strips of salted meat before he found them in a leather pouch. He closed the door and ate all six while surveying the interior.
A half-dozen spears were leaned in a corner. Swords and daggers hung on a rack. Openings allowed views of the ramp’s slope and ascent.
He had plenty of water. He drank from a jug. He found another pouch of meat, tucked it away, and went outside. A set of spear walls, stutter-stepped their way up the second ramp. The nearest blockade was recently broken near the outer edge, as if something heavy had crashed into it.
On the upslope to Carmanthius, the spikes were planted deeper, angled more sharply. Josh noticed fresh splotches of yellow goop under the wreckage. From that, and other signs, Josh assumed a demon had hurt itself and fled back down.
He found more equipment and food in the top building, but not guards.
More disquieting was the overturned chairs, angled out as if scooted back in haste.
The roads on Carmanthius were smoother, and wider, with working deadfals on either side. Josh needed to head east toward the pointus ascendus leading to Bristalius. Josh exhaled.
Even though this nation felt safer than the one below, fifty yards to the south. Josh saw that an elaborate spider web blocked a side path. An arachnid larger than Josh rested in its center.
As he made his way along the side of the road nearest the terrarium’s painted glass edge. He smelled something to his right and crept closer to the edge. The odor quickly became too powerful to endure and he headed back to the road.
As his mind cleared, he saw a spear further ahead; a discarded shield was twenty feet beyond that. Easing closer, he saw more weapons and then, fluid splatters of differing sizes. From the terror he’d witnessed, he knew this was blood. But whos?
Assuming the poison kept his left side safe, he kept his attention on the stately trees to his right. He saw footprints but no demon tracks.
Then he saw a severed leg in the brush.
He spotted a coil of intestines drying under the warming suns. He was too alert to be disgusted.
Where were the bodies? If dragged off, where were the tracks? He saw no signs of a struggle.
The hairs on his arms stood a moment before a shadow fell upon him. He felt the air change before he saw movement.
He moved in a blink. Still, a powerful impact twisted him.
In more of a flail, he swung a katana and connected with a newly planted tree. Bright green, stranger than any other tree.
Though swung while tumbling and with an inferior weapon, Josh’s god-like power should have shattered any dense material, flayed any soft.
As the serrated tree withdrew, creating a new shadow that darkened his area.
JoshRidley shuffled back and look up. The praying mantis was huge, and fast.
Its body was as wide as two semi-truck grills at its widest point. Mantid towered so high that Josh had to crane his neck to locate its triangular head, which watched him curiously.
Retreating further, he only wanted to run, but he’d seen this creature’s speed. It would simply grab him. That reality hardened his fear. The silent creature stood
tall and extended both of its spiked arms in a Jesus Christ pose, challenging him.
It’s defiance gave Josh the distinct impression that having struck back angered Mantis. That its adjective of ‘praying’ wasn’t accurate; mantis was arrogant, self-aggrandizing, and violent. Simple egotism, not territorial disputes, made the insects fight one another to the death upon sight.
Josh didn’t need to prove anything to this greater demon and he might have looked for a chance to flee, but seconds after the taunt, the mantis tried to kill him for a second time
Josh saw the arm swing at him. Even though it was fast, he dropped to his belly. Once the boom passed overhead, he rose and pivoted with the intent of striking the arm, chipping away at the beast. Yet the I-beam was gone, and the other arm was already on him.
Josh leapt toward the mantis to avoid the impact. He knew if one of those spiked forelegs caught him square, he would be impaled and eaten. He might weigh a ton, but these creatures were known to eat mice and small birds, whose strength had to match his own.
Finding himself under the green body, he was momentarily stalled by admiration for the armor covering the abdomen. The diamond-shaped scales overlapped from top to bottom, resembling a dragon’s body, polished and seemingly impenetrable.
The shifting of wind as the mantis retracted its arms returned Josh to the fight. He squatted, gripped each katana tight, and like that first day, he launched himself up with his blades leading the way.
When the first blade connected with the armor and slid off, leaving no more than a long scratch on the surface, Josh’s ambition of a quick, easy kill vanished.
His second blade, however, landed under a plate, peeling it from the body like a toothpick forced under a fingernail. The beast rose. With steel pierced into tissue, Josh rose as well.
Dangling twenty feet off the ground, halfway up the creature’s body, Josh awed that this—mortal danger—was that special something missing from his previous life.
He saw the next few moments clearly. He would stick the other blade under a higher plate, give himself purchase, and climb his way to the head. Once there, like shearing with a pair of scissors, he would behead the beast and become the second god ever to down a mantis.
Before his second blade found its mark, pain stabbed into his calf. His flesh tore as he resisted the pull, and rather than be flayed, he released his grip on the buried katana.
Instead of dropping as expected, he was airlifted away from the green body at a dizzying speed.
Though hanging upside down, he moved into a sitting position and held that pose as he inspected his surroundings. A spike on the creature’s foreleg had impaled his calf.
He brought the katana down on the arm with all of his might. It chipped into solid green.
The divot had no effect on the creature. Feeling the changing wind of the second leg approaching brought a near panic. If that leg pierced his other side, he would die. The golden guard would terrorize Reysona, and Junea would perish unaware that Josh had returned for her.
He swung two more times using both hands, landing heavy, powerful chops, removing chunks of green with each hit. The third strike broke the limb, spilling him at a strange angle. Josh needed to hack one more time to free himself before the second arm secured him.
If he missed the mark by an inch, he would maim himself or be scooped and eaten.
He yelled as he struck, hit his target, and plummeted to the earth.
Thudding to the dirt knocked wind from him. While breathing deep, he pried the carrot-sized dagger from his leg.
Rolling feet over head until he landed upright, he felt no pain, and raced toward the mantis, hoping its injury had distracted it.
On the fall, a deeper part of him must have registered how thin the mantis’ base legs were, for his eyes were locked on and he was swinging at one before he had fully regained his focus.
The blade snapped through the leg. Severing it from the demon, he watched the mantis tilt to the side.
Skidding to a halt, he turned expecting to find a tumbling and defeated beast. Instead, it used one shift to regain its balance.
Before he reached it, wind more powerful than the rotor wash of a helicopter matted his hair, rippled his flesh, and slowed his approach.
The mantis’ wings, which were as long as Olympic row boats, fluttered in a blur, drowning out all other sound and a majority of sunlight. Hard-shelled and massive, it looked as if a building had taken flight.
He watched it arc to a nearby branch a hundred yards from Josh and settle.
Panting, feeling his own blood sliding down his leg and arm and abrasions across his back, Josh raged. He didn’t want a draw. He had the beast wounded. Moving to the planted green leg, he kicked it over while staring at his nemesis.
Josh marveled at the creature’s fluidity as it clambered from one treetop to the next, bringing it closer to Josh.
Seemingly watching Josh, it tilted its head like an inquisitive canine. Sitting up, it brought its injured arm to its mouth and tore away the broken section. Rather than allow it to drop, the demon used its lower mandible to guide the severed limb into its dark orifice. Halfway through its meal, its eyes drifted into the distance.
As a method of intimidation, Josh gave eating your own arm a ten, and tempered his desire to crown a victor.
What was he trying to prove anyway? That he wasn’t afraid, that he could defeat any foe? Killing a mantis might boost his ego, help with the RobertJohnson negotiations, but death was the downside.
Defeating a mindless beast that felt no pain and employed no reasoning seemed foolish.
With his adrenaline draining, Josh’s calf thumped with such pain that he feared looking down to find the entire muscle had been torn from his leg.
Staring up at the placid beast, Josh wanted to kill it, but walking away was the smart move.
One step into his retreat drew the baleful gaze of the large green eyes. The mantis fluttered to a nearby tree and lashed out, viper quick.
The move so frightened Josh he was slow to react. He darted right and brought his blade down automatically.
The mantis staked a foreleg on the road in front of him, and rather than dash the distance to sever it, Josh raced toward the base of the tree that held the mantis.
With the healthy foreleg planted in the ground and its weight shifting, the mantis momentarily paused as it considered how to adjust to its enemy’s movement.
Josh used the indecision to slash at the soft green tree trunk. His sword passed through with ease.
The mantis slipped forward. It tried to recover by planting its missing arm and stumbled sideways, crashing into the ground. Josh leapt halfway through it. He aimed at the small joint connecting the head to the body.
The large eyes watched helplessly as Josh found his mark.
The blade buried deep, showing him in Mantid’s blood.
Josh was bronco-bucked and lost grip of his weapon.
He landed against a soft branch and slid to the dirt, where he backed up and turned quickly, terrified of being without a weapon.
Watching the area around him, he didn’t return his attention to the mantis until a pool of its blood had formed and it stopped twitching.
The eyes stayed on him. Its dragging breaths grew slower and slower. The black spikes of its jaws clicked together with lessening hate.
Josh crept closer, retrieved the sword from the ground, and stepped back.
When it stopped breathing completely, he freed his other blade from its torso. On auto-pilot, he moved to the head and severed it from the neck with a series of hacks.
Blood oozed from the wound, but Josh didn’t lather it on. He turned in a circle, clanked his swords above his head, and shouted, “I am JoshRidley!”
XXXII
Mayor Cronin estimated the population of Reysona had doubled in the two months since JoshRidley’s visit. Two days ago, a party of relocating families arrived with a scarcely-breathing Flavius.
The gro
up that found him didn’t know his value or mission. They assumed he was a young hot-head left for dead by a previous party.
Upon entering Reysona’s house of healing and recognizing his surroundings, Flavius had mumbled Junea’s name before he passed out, which is what had Cronin in knots. Was his only child dead?.
Cronin had him moved to the spare bedroom of his home so he could ask that question. The moment the boy woke.
Nectar of the Gods kept Flavius asleep for forty-eight hours while the healer stitched and cleaned.
When Flavius woke, he retold his story without being told. The tale so sickened Cronin, he fled the room to sit at his dining table. Morning sunlight lit the room.
“He has fallen asleep, mayor,” one of the medics said from the doorway.
Orion pushed past the man and settled into the chair across from him.
“That will be all for now,” Cronin said. Once the medic left, he addressed Orion. “Did he tell anyone about Junea?”
“Not that I can tell. He was unconscious the whole way.”
“That’s good news.”
Cronin relaxed. “Has anyone spoke of Junea being with child?”
“I’ve not heard anything.”
“Good. Everytime people arrive, I feel better. If there was a rumor of a Reysona being pregnant, no one would travel here.”
“Gods be praised, that is a telling sign.”
Swallowing repeatedly to avoid a break, he said.
“How soon can we send men to the birthing vat? I have to know if she is alive.”
“Today,” Orion said, and breathed deeply. Cronin wiped his hands across his face. “She is my daughter. I must send help.” He swallowed. “But I understand the dangers these men will face.”
“We have loyal men in our ranks. They will embrace the risks. Also, the roads are safer since JoshRidley’s blessing.”
Blessing and a curse, thought Cronin. Finding Orion’s gaze, he replied, “It is safer near our borders, but trappers are still having their way. Picking off families as they travel.” Another beat. “Do you think there is hope for Junea?”
