Brotherhood Saga 03: Death

by Kody Boye

  “Are you sure that’s the safest thing we can do?”

  “A strike of lightning isn’t going to bring down any trees, Odin.”

  “Yeah, but… the branches!”

  The entire horizon was lit in one great sheen of white.

  A pair of eyes winked back at them.

  Odin blinked and stared into the darkened distance, toward where he’d seen not only something that vaguely resembled a human form, but the illumination from a pair of hawk-like eyes.

  “What was that?” Odin asked.

  “What was what?” Virgin frowned.

  The figure lunged forward.

  Pushing Virgin aside, Odin drew his sword, struck the creature in the gut, then impaled it on the tip of his sword just in time for its barbed tongue to hiss out at him in the final moments in his life.

  When he was sure it was dead, he freed it from his sword and looked down at its façade.

  “What the hell is this?” Odin asked, staring down at the corpse.

  “Kehrama,” Virgin replied. “Cat people.”

  The thing—which, by all measures, appeared human—wore a black-and-grey striped coat that stuck out a hair’s length from its body and held within its head a pair of eyes orange and dagger-like in appearance. Long, emaciated, and with a body that seemed almost amorphous in forms of both skeletal and muscular structure, it looked upon first glance to have been a corpse within its advanced stages of decay, with a dome-shaped head and a ribcage he could have easily fit both hands between, though from the look of things it was anything but. Instead, it looked prime to kill, with its twin, knife-like incisors peaking out from beneath its upper lip and the five claws on its humanlike hands disengaged and ready to strike.

  It could have killed him, he thought, turning his head to look at Virgin, who still remained in the water with an incredulous look on his face.

  “Are you hurt?” Odin asked, holding his sword steady as if the now-dead Kehrama would rise and attempt to kill him. “Virgin. Virgin.”

  “What?” the Halfling asked.

  “I said are you hurt?”

  “I’m… fine,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the corpse. “Are you?”

  Not bothering to deal with pleasantries, Odin reached down, gripped his companion’s hand, then pulled him to his feet with little more than a grunt.

  “I didn’t know there were any this far out,” Virgin said, tilting his eyes up to look at Odin. “You saved my life.”

  “It would’ve killed you if I hadn’t pushed you down.”

  “I know, which is why I’m getting rid of this.”

  Virgin snapped his hand out and tore the amulet away from Odin’s neck before he even had the chance to blink.

  “What,” he started.

  “You saved my life,” Virgin said, thumbing the centerpiece of the object before sliding it into a pouch at his side. “The least I can do is free you from your bonds.”

  “Are you—“

  “There’s no time to argue. We need to go—now.”

  “What are they?” Odin asked.

  Under the cover of a group of trees dense and thick enough to shroud them from the rain, Odin started a fire with the palm of his hand and turned his attention up to Virgin as he tended to what appeared to be a slight scrape on his shoulder. Both uneasy at the fact that he had accidentally hurt his friend and dreading the reality that they were still out on open ground after the near-fatal attack, he watched the water flow around the edge of the upraised campsite and continue to the north, toward the distant forest and the place they had entered through no more than a day or so ago.

  “Kehrama?” Virgin asked, lifting his eyes from his progress to look at Odin.

  “I’ve never heard of them before.”

  “Like I said, they’re a race of cat people who have been in the forest for as long as the Elves have, if not longer.”

  “Are they sentient?”

  “If you mean capable of understanding Elvish or human, no, they’re not.”

  “Have the Elves even tried communicating with them?”

  “So far as I know, yes, but from what I remember, it didn’t work out so well for the Elves. The cat people, as we like to call them, have always refused any offering we’ve supplied and even attacked our people at one point in time.”

  “What do the Elves living in the settlements do?”

  “Build walls or live in trees high enough to keep away from them.”

  “Can’t they—“

  “Climb?” Virgin waited for Odin to say something further before offering a smile. “They are, after all, cats.”

  Are they? Odin thought. Or do they just look like them?

  It could be argued that the Kehrama were no more cat than they were a race of upright-walking feline creatures, those of which preferred to skirt around the fringes of the forest and watch through the darkness people or things that had stepped into their territory. If Virgin had been right, and if the cat people really didn’t live this far from the northern edge of the forest, then something must have stirred this particular one from its nest.

  But what?

  Shivering in the damp chill that press4r in on them, he drew his cloak around his body and drew back against Virgin. The food not yet served, their stomachs growling, Odin kept silent, but eventually gave in to his better inhibitions and laid his head on the taller man’s lower arm.

  “I’m glad you’re all right,” he said, closing his eyes and reveling in touch Virgin offered when laying an arm across his shoulder.

  “I am too. To be perfectly honest, though, I thought I was going down.”

  “I’m faster than you’d think.”

  “Where did you learn to draw a sword like that?”

  My father, he thought, then began to tremble.

  Up until that moment, he had not considered that the man who had raised him for most of his life had not truly been his father, but a surrogate who’d likely taken him only out of pity or remorse. The reasons behind that he couldn’t be sure, but were he to have imagined it, he felt as though Ectris must have been accosted on a long, lonely night, when the rain fell heavy just like it did now and a figure stepped from the darkness bearing a child that could barely even breathe. Take him, Miko must have said, for I cannot.

  Nineteen, almost twenty years later, here he was—that very red-eyed baby who’d landed on a doorstep only to be left with a man who knew nothing of his lineage or the creature that had delivered him.

  Who was my mother? he thought, only opening his eyes when a rumble of thunder ebbed from the sky.

  She had to have been human. For her not to have been would have ruled out the possibility that he had been birthed within a somewhat-mortal form. While he did bear the distinction of his Elven and Drow blood—particularly in his misshapen ears and his blood-red eyes—he had entered the world looking no more Drow or Elf than he had a human baby. He could not have been mistaken for a Halfling at such an age—could not possibly be regarded as an Elf in the slightest—though how Ectris had become arrogant of the fact he couldn’t be sure. Maybe he had decided to ignore it, or maybe he just hadn’t cared. Either way, it didn’t necessarily matter, for one man and only one man had raised him up until the day he was fourteen years old.

  You’ve given me so much, he thought, unable to shy away the tears that came from his eyes.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “Odin?” Virgin asked.

  “I’m all right,” he replied, straightening his posture. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “You never answered my question.”

  “What?”

  “Who taught you how to draw your sword?”

  “The man I thought was my father up until two weeks ago.”

  “It takes a great person to teach someone how to wield a sword like that,” Virgin said.

  And an even greater one to raise a child that wasn’t even his.

  They rose early to tread through the mud and broken particles of
grass strewn across the path. A slight cough rising in his chest, threatening to send him into a sporadic series of convulsions, Odin reached up to rub the outside of his throat and sighed when Virgin stopped to stare at the sight before them.

  “That storm really did some work on this path,” the Halfling said, turning his head to look at Odin.

  For it to be described like that seemed moderate and without penalty. The path, animal-trodden and created by nature, seemed to slant toward them instead of being pressed directly to the ground, while the roots of trees appeared exposed far beyond what they had been the day before. Today, Odin could have easily stuck an entire foot through one of their curves, yet the day prior he would not have been able for the fact that the ground had been higher—raised, possibly, by fresh sediment that had shifted through the air and fallen on the ground. To say that the path before them was a mess was an understatement not worth describing.

  Did the rain really do all this?

  Such high amounts of water surely should have flooded them if it had done so much damage to the path, so why hadn’t they worried last night during the height of the storm and the gargantuan downpour of rain?

  “Virgin,” Odin said.

  “Yes?”

  “Can we keep going in this?”

  “I would like to say no, but I’m sure we can just wander around the muddier parts.”

  The Halfling tested the mud before them for confirmation, then pressed his foot down as much as his body would allow. The first thumb’s-length of his boot disappeared into the muck. “We’ll be fine,” Virgin said, then cocked his head when he must have found something on Odin’s face that he did not agree with. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Your face is red.”

  “Must’ve been the storm,” he shrugged, reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose, near where he felt congestion lining his nasal cavity and extending all the way up into his head. “I feel stuffed up.”

  “It’ll probably go away. I’d imagine there must have been a lot of pollen because of the rain.”

  “How much longer will it take us to get to Lesliana?”

  “It shouldn’t take too much longer, but I won’t promise anything, especially because the capital is one of the first, if not the only major city we’ll find once we get deeper into the forest.”

  With that said and his suspicions concluded, Odin pressed his foot into the mud, then continued to follow Virgin, careful to avoid the gnarled roots protruding from the ground like fresh mushrooms desperately awaiting to trip him with their bulbous caps.

  Take it easy, he thought, mentally coaxing himself along to not only retain his sanity, but his step. Everything’s going to be just fine.

  His foot sunk into the mud.

  Odin tripped and would have fallen face-first had he not latched onto Virgin’s jerkin at the last moment.

  “This is bound to happen,” the Halfling said, turning back to help free Odin from the mud.

  A curse under his breath and his mood only further souring, Odin pursed his lips and kept his mouth shut as they continued on.

  The path nor the mud improved during the day. As the afternoon passed and the light streaming from the curtain of pine needles continued to dapple, Odin found himself hugging the denser, grass-lined sides of the path to keep from falling, a tick he had developed within the first hours of the morning after his accidental fall and rescue by his companion.

  Don’t get angry, he thought. It’s bound to get better sooner or later.

  Sooner had already long passed. Later seemed much less likely.

  Pressing his hands into his pockets and bowing his head to watch the path in front of him, Odin shook his head and tossed his hair behind his shoulders as Virgin began to hum a tune, possibly to distract himself from the reality of the situation. How he could do it was a measure beyond Odin’s composure, but regardless, he couldn’t continue to think about it, otherwise he would likely go mad.

  “All right then,” he whispered. “Think about something else.”

  A matter he had not currently addressed was the Book of the Dead and the location of where it would possibly be held. He imagined it locked and snarled behind an iron gate, guarded by two men armed to the tooth and nail and surrounded by the distinct possibility of magic that could, at any moment, destroy any that attempted to enter. Such was this vision that when Odin tilted his head up to look at the forest, he thought he saw what appeared to be two figures standing by the tree line, but blinked and found neither of them were there at all. The fact was enough to force a sigh from his lips and an ever-desperate plea for help from the look that must possibly be on his face.

  Help me, his eyes must have said, for I am going insane.

  He knew better than that—much, much better to know that he was anything but mental, a fact that had constantly secured his belief in himself over the past several weeks. Were he mental, and were he psychotic, insane or anything but of pure and honest intent, he wouldn’t have made it this far, would not have climbed the Whooping Hills or crossed the Great Divide. Though he had slept with two different men, and while he had been submissive toward the one he now travelled with, he had done both things with integrity that seemed impossible to have in light of his current situation, especially given his state as a representative of his country.

  Odin tilted his eyes up.

  Once more, he saw no sign of any figures.

  Ahead, Virgin paused, placed a hand over his eyes as if to shield them from the sun, then turned his head and offered a brief smile.

  “What?” Odin asked.

  “Nothing,” Virgin said.

  “Did you see something?”

  “No. Did you?”

  “Not at all. I’m just wondering why you did that.”

  “Bad habit I suppose,” Virgin shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest and testing the ground. “Let me ask you something.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You said you were the king’s champion,” the Halfling said, continuing forward while thumbing the hilt of his dagger. “And you said you arrested some pedophiles shortly after being indoctrinated into that role.”

  “I did.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Arrest them?”

  “Yeah. It’s not often such a royal figure would want to establish notoriety in that kind of situation.”

  “I did it for a friend,” Odin said, sliding his hands into his pockets and taking a deep breath.

  “Must’ve been a great friend in order to make you do something like that.”

  “Parfour,” Odin said, then stopped. He bit his lower lip and shook his head.

  “Something wrong?”

  “He was one of the boys who was being abused on the island.”

  “How many were there?”

  “Thirty-two, counting him and one of the boys who died on the way back to the mainland.”

  “That had to be a lot of pressure,” Virgin said, slowing his pace to allow Odin to catch up before slipping an arm around his shoulder. “How did you deal with it?”

  “Peacemaker’s Leaf, first. Then I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “I was so desperate to get the law after them that I was cutting dummy after practice dummy down on the training grounds. Master Jordan must’ve had a fit after he realized how much damage I’d done.”

  “Was he the one who taught you weapons when you were at the castle?”

  “Yes,” Odin said. “He died, though. In the war.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. It’s not easy losing a mentor.”

  No, he thought. It isn’t.

  “Do you have any family?” Odin asked. “I mean, parents, siblings?”

  “My parents live in one of the settlements on the farther side of the forest.”

  “How often do you see them?”

  “Rarely.”

  “Can I… if it isn’t too personal, anyway… ask how old you are?”

/>   “I’ll be thirty-three at the beginning of next year.”

  That’s not too bad, Odin mused. See? What reason is there to feel guilty if he’s only a little older than you are?

  To anyone’s comprehension, and to Odin’s supreme lack of relief, Virgin could have been much older than he initially looked—in the hundreds, possibly, or maybe even beyond that. He knew of no creature over a thousand years old, save the possibility of his late father and the Ogre who had raised him, nor did he understand the aspects of living such a long life without becoming bored with a plain existence. With that thought in mind, he couldn’t help but wonder what one did each and every day of every month of every year. Did they knit, sew, write, hunt, or did one simply sit back and watch the world go by with eyes dull and lifeless, for at some point life must become routine, a chore that is always established and never once broken. For Virgin to be so young, full of life and not yet established within a certain chain of rules, made Odin feel all the better about establishing what he could only feel was the beginning of a romantic relationship.

  Is it? he thought, the weight of the Halfling’s arm on his shoulder more than comforting in that moment. Or is it just something I’m imagining to make myself feel better?

  Either way, he couldn’t bother himself with those details, at least not in the current frame of time.

  Maybe when they reached Lesliana things would get better—and, hopefully, clearer.

  “Virgin?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can we talk about… well, us?”

  The Halfling raised his eyes from his work on dinner and regarded Odin with a look that could have turned men to stone. Lips pursed, brow furrowed in frustration, he twiddled one thumb against his index finger and watched him for the next several minutes, not bothering to say or do anything despite the fact that he should have checked the soup well over a few moments ago.

  Is he going to say something, Odin thought, or is he just going to sit there?

  It could be possible that, unlike what he thought or wanted to believe, there really was no them, no ‘we’ in ‘two’ and no ‘us’ in ‘they.’ That alone was enough to make his soul shrivel up like a dead husk of corn slowly withering in the wake of a horrible harvest.