“You’re not a liability,” I said, my thumb brushing his pallid cheek.
“No, you were right before. I need to accept this is how I am right now, and one day it will get better. But I have to go at my own pace and wait for myself to heal.” He added, “Otherwise I’m putting everyone else at risk.”
I bent my head to kiss him, and we shared a small, sweet kiss, unable to do more because of our exhausted bodies and the people we were bunking down with.
That night, I went to sleep with warmth in my heart, for me, for Soren, which is why it was so painful when I woke that morning to find Soren and all his belongings gone.
20
THE STAG AND THE ERLKING
THERE WAS NO heaviness on my chest, one that suggested a head was lying on it. My body had grown stiff in the cold without the warmth of the other body that had been beside it. I lay there and stared at the slightly darkened spot where Soren should have been lying, but all that was there was his bow and quiver of arrows. My brain struggled with a number of thoughts, but none louder than Why?
A tidal wave of emotion was crashing through a very weak wall, and in a few seconds I knew I was going to lose it completely. I couldn’t do that out here. So, I stared at the spot where Soren was supposed to be and closed my eyes tight, willing some type of connection to the bond but … no. Nothing. Nothing in the air, nothing in the wind, there weren’t a thousand heartbeats of all the little creatures, and when I finally, ashamed, crawled outside the snow den, there were no more little lines of color either. The stag had left me, like Soren, in this cruel place. Left me to most likely die at the claws of Fjalar. A tear slipped from my eye and down my cheek.
The rest of the group didn’t say anything to me and lingered in the presence of my pain. I was glad for that. I couldn’t bear to let them see me like this. My guts hurt so bad, I wanted to throw up, even though I’d had nothing yet this morning and had since digested the food I ate last.
Was this how it felt to break again? To hold yourself together by your arms in fear that the break in your chest would make you fall to pieces? I made a pitiful noise in the back of my throat. This was what happened when you trusted someone. Sooner or later, they broke it, in some horrible way, and left you to pick up the pieces of yourself like glass. I thought I knew Soren. At least, I thought I knew him enough to know he’d never run away from a challenge.
I thought he’d been okay. He was struggling with his disability, and I couldn’t blame him considering the culture he came from. Fighting was an identifying characteristic of a strong goblin, and if he could fight, then why was the stag still by his side? Not just fighting, but it came to my attention I’d never seen a goblin with a physical disability before.
He’d always been protective. But I liked to think of it as a good type of protective. He’d taken care of me at my worst for years. But now, I could hold my own, I could protect him back. And me protecting him without him being able to protect me must’ve dug deep into the cultural viewpoint embedded into his brain.
Despite everything I said, I couldn’t fight this for him. I could try to say words to break through the self-hatred, but I couldn’t get it to go away on my own. It was something you did yourself with the support of people who loved you. Even that wasn’t enough, sometimes.
Disappearance or not, I knew he loved me. The feeling in my chest that swelled up whenever we were alone together was all I needed to know to deduce that. He didn’t leave because he didn’t love me, he left because he loved me and couldn’t stand putting me in harm’s way for him. Or something like that. Anything other than not loving me.
But now the bond was broken. It wasn’t like I was no longer the stag. I felt nothing like the stag. Just like plain old Janneke the human, outsider to everything. Broken. Worthless.
“He left most of his things here,” Seppo murmured, going through the packs. “Though no weapons other than his bow and arrows. But he didn’t take much food or water or anything else.” He frowned. “Why?”
“Many goblins,” Lydian said softly, “especially the males once they reach past their prime and know they can’t survive on their own anymore or run a manor without people trying to usurp them decide to go out into the cold. They walk until they freeze and die. They usually leave behind something as a note, a testament, for who they want their lordship to go to, and seal it with the remains of their magic so no one can change their choice. It’s a noble death.”
Something like poison and fire filled my veins, and I tackled Lydian to the ground with a force and speed I didn’t know I possessed. I gripped the front of his parka.
“Take that back!” I yelled in his face, teeth bared. “Take those words back, you filthy monster! Soren’s not dead! He’s not dead! I don’t know where he is, but he’s not dead, so take it back!”
Lydian’s eyes widened in surprise by my reaction, and using one hip, he knocked me off the top of him. When before, this would be the beginnings of a bloody fight, now, he calmly waited for me to sit back up and gain awareness again.
“But you can still feel him, right?” Rose said.
I shook my head and fought valiantly to hold my tears back so they wouldn’t freeze on my face. “I can’t feel anything. I can’t see anything. There’s no bond. There’s no lines on the ground. There’s no ever-present beat of the world. It’s all gone.” I wiped my eyes. “Maybe that means I’m useless too. That I need to go into the snow and die. Because I can’t feel the stag’s power in me anymore.”
“Well, we’re certainly not letting you do that,” Diaval said, wincing as she stood. She took her share of the stuff to carry now that Soren was gone and slung it on her back. Once again, she winced.
“Are you all right, Diaval?” I asked.
“Fine, I reopened a scratch last night,” she said.
“Why didn’t you say something?” My mind turned directly to Diaval’s situation. One of the few things I could do as the stag was heal. Now I didn’t have that power. But if a scratch was causing her to show physical pain—something both humans, goblins, and probably all humanoid creatures tried to hide—then I wasn’t completely sold on Diaval being “fine.”
“I didn’t want to be a bother,” she said. “It’ll heal. It’s not like Hraesvelg is venomous or has poison on his talons or anything.”
“Well, it’s obviously not healing right now,” I said.
“I’ll go easy on it,” Diaval said, barely containing an eye roll. “Just for you, I promise.”
With nothing and everything left to say, I turned to Lydian. “Should we head out?”
“We can probably make it by tonight if we’re fast enough, and we’ll be able to move faster now.” I caught the unsaid words in that sentence. Now that Soren isn’t here, we have less of a burden holding us down. No one else caught the meaning unspoken, or if they did, they were pretending not to. Gods, Soren was already swirling with pain when I could feel his own emotions. He’d lost an eye for gods’ sake. But with this type of commentary and unsaid words … I’d been used to people joking about my disfigurement. Not Soren, of course, but all the others around me had been merciless. Those who were in thralldom didn’t, and Soren gave very angry looks and possibly more to goblins in his manor who said anything but … everyone else in the Permafrost? The mocking and whispers dredged up the pain inside of me every time I meant to soothe it, and being the victim of a brutal assault didn’t make it any better. Few had any pity for that type of thing here.
I’d had years to get used to it, but Soren only had a few stress-filled days where events over and over proved to him—no matter how shaky or situational the proof was—that he was weak, useless, and other words that reminded him that suddenly he was different and not in a way his culture believed to be good.
A sharp bead of pain ran through my chest. Could I have helped him more? Found the right things to say? Or was I always fighting a battle on the losing side? I pictured thousands of years with Soren when I became the stag, but as th
e lines on the ground had told me, there were a million different fates for even the smallest thing and even the tiniest nudge in one direction would throw you onto another path.
“Yeah,” I said. “We should go.” I picked up Soren’s bow and quiver and tied the quiver to my belt next to the other one. Unfortunately, I couldn’t sling the bow across my back.
“I’ll take it,” Rosamund said, appearing by my side.
“I can manage.” The words came out in a predatory snarl.
“Janneke, as much confidence as you have in yourself, Soren was more than a foot taller than you, and the bow is also nearly as tall as you.”
I narrowed my eyes, gripping Soren’s elaborate carved weapon. White bark streaked with dried red sap for color. The top of one side featured a roaring white wolf and the design on the sides was a twining snake.
What happens when the serpent stops eating his tail? I must’ve been going off-kilter because that riddle had been solved already, and there was no more reason for it to bounce around in my mind like an angry hornet.
“Janneke.” Rose’s voice was soft. “You can carry the quiver and I’ll carry the bow, just so it doesn’t get injured before Soren comes back, okay?”
I nodded, throat clenched, and handed him the bow, which he strung across his back.
Despite the burning in my chest and tears starting to freeze on my eyelashes, I wiped my face, and turned back to our guide. How could Soren leave me alone with him? How could he even think I’d possibly feel safe around Lydian without him? Despite our somewhat civil conversations, looking at him made me want to retch and tied my guts up like string.
But there was nothing I could do about it, other than mourn, other than hope he found us again and came back from whatever he was trying to prove. He couldn’t be dead yet. Stag powers or not, I’d know.
“Let’s go, then,” I said. “We don’t want to lose daylight.”
Seppo peered behind his boyfriend’s shoulder. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m definitely not okay, but for the sake of the nine worlds and the Permafrost, it doesn’t matter how I feel. We have to do this. We have to complete our mission here, whether or not Soren is with us.” I thought the words would burn my very tongue when they came out of me, but all I heard was quiet resolution. I was getting better at faking my emotions and responses.
Lydian nodded and began to lead the way again, and for the fourth or fifth day in a row, we trailed behind him through the thick and icy wind and the frost burnt air. All of us sucking down breaths and cringing as the very air itself burned our lungs with the coldness of it.
Out of the corner of my eye, the dancing multicolored frost blew, and I straightened my head, knowing from my experience last time that those beautiful shards of frost could be incredibly deadly.
Seppo followed my gaze and sighed. “Why is everything beautiful so deadly here? Sometimes I wish I could wake up in the Permafrost and like … paint a picture of the landscape without burning my hands.”
“I’ll get you someone to paint you as many pictures as you want, dear,” Rose said from behind us with humor in his voice.
“But it’s not the same. I want to be able to do it,” he fake-whined.
I smiled slightly at the two of them. “I didn’t even know if halflings were inflicted with the curse that causes goblins not to be able to create.”
“It’s a coin toss,” Seppo said. “I landed on the wrong side of it.”
“Besides,” Rose said, “some of us can do it. Some of us can touch iron and not be bothered by running waters. The only problem is that person has the temper of a five-foot-three raging bull and is named Diaval.”
There was a growl from behind us where Diaval lagged, limping ever so slightly. “I could turn you into a frog, you know. Not a very good frog, it would probably still have humanoid teeth and shocks of red hair and maybe an arm coming out of its guts, but I could do it.”
“You’re absolutely terrifying,” Rose said, not a note of sarcasm in his voice. “How did so much chaos get into such a small woman?”
She gave a devilish smile as she went for a comeback only to stop and fall to her knees, groaning. One hand reached out toward the wound she said was a scratch on her thigh. Everyone but Lydian ran over to her, a desperate murmur filling up the air.
“I don’t think that’s a scratch, Diaval,” I said, narrowing my eyes in an attempt to guilt her for her lie. Sometimes it was cool that Diaval didn’t have the limitations normal goblins had due to her ability to use magic; now was not one of those times. Whereas the others would probably be healed by now, Diaval wasn’t.
She hissed in pain as she slowly lowered the fabric to show the top of her thigh. It was red and swollen with a thick deep red gash going from her hip to halfway down her thigh. Inflamed and angry, it oozed redness, and pus was starting to form in little pockets in the wound.
“That’s not from the eagle,” Rose said.
That must have caught Lydian’s attention because he finally turned around and looked at Diaval’s wound. Diaval growled at him as if she were a dog telling him to back off.
“That’s definitely not from Hraesvelg,” he responded.
With the eyes of three very concerned friends and one mildly concerned monster all giving her different versions of the same look, she gritted her teeth in pain before admitting the truth. “Fine, I got a scratch from that invisible dog thing. Garm. I didn’t think much of it. I did a spell, and it worked until the last two days. I’ll be fine. An infection’s not going to be the death of me.”
While I appreciated the faith Diaval had in herself, I wasn’t sure that was going to happen. The wound smelled rancid and black necrotic tissue surrounded it. It was amazing she’d been walking for so long without being healed, if not incredibly stupid and risky.
And, of course, it came during the time where I couldn’t access any of the stag inside of me and couldn’t heal any of her wounds with anything that I had physically on me.
“Do you have any physical magical power left?” Lydian asked, shoving between Rosamund and Seppo. Each gave him an angry look.
“Not enough to heal the wound—if I had that power, I’d have healed it in the first place.”
Lydian scouted the area for a moment, knees in the snow as he dug in with uncovered hands. Blood soon streaked through the snow from the cuts of the ice on his fingers, and he clenched his teeth but dug on until there was an impressively deep hole in the ground. When we went to look, he held us back at arm’s length. “You can’t see this,” he said. “You don’t want to.”
Squishing sounds came from the hole as he dug his hands around in it, and the squelching made me want to puke. From behind me, Seppo was puking and Rose’s voice rose to comfort him.
Finally, he found whatever he was digging for and pulled it up from the ground. His hand was covered in red all the way up to the elbow, and his furs were drenched in what I could only think was blood. I frowned at the object in his hand. It was nothing but a little root.
He pushed the snow pile back into the hole. “Don’t mind my hand. It’ll heal itself. Not the first time I’ve dug into the world’s guts. Blood isn’t mine for the most part.” He shifted over to Diaval once more and held the root out to her. “Do you think you can do a simple transformation?”
“How simple are we talking here?” she said.
“Root to maggot.”
Maggot? Why in Hel would she need a maggot?
She nodded, swallowing deeply, then closed her eyes and whispered something we couldn’t hear. The root transformed slowly from top to bottom, the bark becoming pale and fleshy before the creature squirmed around blindly.
Diaval took a deep breath, covering her nose and mouth with her non-maggot-holding hand, and dropped the creature onto the wound. She then accepted a strip of the bandage cloth that Rosamund offered to her and tied it around her thigh before pulling her pants back up. When she was finally free of her du
ty, her hands shook rapidly.
“The maggot will eat the dead skin but leave the living. We’ll need to check it out in case it tries to breed, but at least it won’t let necrosis settle in,” Lydian said. “Also someone needs to carry her. She can’t walk on the leg, and maybe once we get there, she’ll have more energy for magic, but she’ll still be scooting on her arse all during the fight.”
I was cold all over. If I lost Diaval—I couldn’t lose Diaval. Not her too. Not my best friend. The weight of a ton of boulders sat on my chest—a feeling I’d been having often lately—I couldn’t protect my partner, I couldn’t protect my friend. It was pathetic.
Please, let her be okay. I prayed to whatever deity might hear me and dare to care.
Rose nodded and gently picked both Diaval and her pack up, positioning her so that she clung to his shoulders, reminiscent of the piggyback rides my father gave me as a kid. He took a strap of the bag and looped it around the arm opposite to her injured flesh before he hooked her damaged leg into his arm so that it neither hung free nor bore any weight.
Then, much like all the other delays, we continued on until the horizon turned into a swirl of red and white, and Lydian declared we were finally there.
* * *
WITH THIS ONE night between us and battle, sleep was crucial, but even curled up together, no one managed any shut-eye. There were the sharp gasps of pain from Diaval, and Lydian’s clockwork-like checking of her wound every hour. Seppo hung onto Rose, and I turned my head away to give them privacy when things between them got a little too hot. I lay alone, staring at the quiver and bow Soren left behind and wishing it were really him and his large, warm body that I could cry into.
Our fighting force had gone from six to four. I didn’t possess any of the stag’s powers, our Erlking was missing, my friend was sick, and to top it all off, there was a sinking feeling in my gut that told me none of this would be enough. We would fail and die. The world would end despite our attempts to stop it. The feeling hurt so bad, I wanted to scream and rage and cry. If I ever saw Soren again in this world or the next, I would bang on his chest and scream to his face, why did he have to leave, what had been so important to leave us to die? His crippled pride? His sense of superiority? His inability to accept that he didn’t need to be the strongest or the fastest? I wanted to shout at him, repeat the words he’d said back to me a long time ago about love and hate and trauma, and I wanted to screech and know why I wasn’t good enough for him to stay. Why we weren’t good enough to die with. My tears flowed like the sea, and this time I did nothing to stop it and let the pain flow out of me in a rushing river of tears and sobs and curses.
Goblin King Page 21
