by Rosie Scott
Koby ripped his sword from the wound, its gorgeous unique metal embellished with a crimson shine. He'd dealt the beast an irreversible and magnificent blow. Her movements were now slow, labored, and stiff with fatigue. Understanding that her death was inevitable, the afanc's need to protect her young overtook her need for self-preservation. Setting her sights on the shoreline farther north, the mother afanc lumbered toward where the others battled with her babies.
Water erupted from the shallow edge of the lagoon, evidence of violent thrashing. Alternating glimpses of dark heavy scales and brown fur revealed that Jayce had finally tore one of the babies underwater from the shore. While her signature death roll had only heavily injured the mother afanc, its baby was far weaker. At first, a muffled whine sounded from the water as the creature drowned, and then with a burst of color, its body tore apart one piece at a time. Jayce only halted her rolling once chunks of body fat floated to the surface water after loosing from the mutilated body.
On the shore, Neliah side-stepped in reaction to an afanc baby's lunge and focused on its bared pair of giant incisors. With unparalleled finesse, she swept one hooked sword horizontally across the creature's face until it grasped the iron-imbued teeth and held the beast still. The second twin hook zipped through the afanc's exposed gut, tearing through fur and hide until entrails tumbled out into a pile over wet grasses. With a jerk, Neliah released both her blades and turned her back to the body as it fell.
Cyrene stood up from wrestling with another kit, her patterned fur stained with mud and blood. Nearby, Hilly tugged the heads of her tri-headed flail out of a stew of afanc brain and skull. Vallen ran with an awkward but determined gait toward the mother afanc and away from the gruesome scene of its last kit, which jerked with death throes after a mauling.
Bear-kin and giant afanc alike collided so brutally the vibrations tickled my scaled feet as I neared the brawl. Vallen let loose an ear-shattering roar, misting the area with saliva as beastman and beast wrestled for control. The giant afanc rolled and shook in their fight; even still, I brought my feet under me, launching myself at its hulking back.
The afanc dipped with my sudden weight. I clenched my fingers and toes to dig my claws in its flesh and stay secure on its back, but Vallen's mauling frenzy proved too strong and traumatic. The afanc lurched backward in reaction to his charge, and I retracted my talons, landing in a crouch to the side just moments before the beast landed on its back. Vallen continued his pursuit, targeting the humerus Sage fractured earlier with a gaping jaw and plenty of rapid powerful tugs. The afanc writhed in agony over the ground as the bear-kin severed its arm, its wails scaring away other wildlife.
The beast was weak, mutilated, and moments away from death. Fueled by pain, I pounced on its exposed chest. Though its throat was covered with dark fur, my reptilian senses alerted me to the hum of its rushing blood, the slight throbbing of its pulse by virtue of its individual vibrating hairs. I grabbed its lower jawbone and thrust its head up, exposing its tender throat further. Finally, I extended my jaw, twisted my head at an angle, and chomped down over its neck.
My bite was wide enough to sever both jugulars. Meat and blood vessels alike collapsed between my teeth, unleashing torrents of blood. As soon as my front fangs hit vertebrae, I relented the pressure, unwilling to break my teeth or strain myself beyond what was necessary. I whipped my head to the side, spitting out my gory prize. The afanc lay dead beneath me, its throat gouged to the spine, leaking from either side of its lower neck as its jugulars emptied of fluids.
I stood up, my entire body a throbbing mess of pain and adrenaline. Many of us had wounds; due to our insistence on jumping into the fight, Jayce and I suffered the worst of it. The crocodile-kin had a deep gash on her back from where the mother afanc tried to sever her in half near the beginning of the fight. Thankfully, Jayce's scales were tough. Though she bled heavily from that wound and another on her stomach, she showed no signs of pain. A flash of energetic joy crossed her reptilian eyes when we shared a look. Although neither of us could talk at the moment, I could tell my berserk fighting tactics impressed her.
For Hassan, adding such extensive gore to the heavy stenches in the air proved to be too much. He barely glanced at the mess I'd left of the mother afanc before he collapsed to his knees and emptied the rest of his stomach into the shallow water. Kali chuckled with a mixture of amusement and sympathy before she went over to hold back his hair.
Cyrene took the time to gut the carcasses, searching through stomach contents for parts of victims. She found few since the civilians of Misu had avoided the lagoon for a while. However, after searching through the burnt wreckage of the dam, Jayce and I found enough human and Vhiri bones to account for dozens of victims, adult and child alike. Though we found no evidence of the father afanc, our battle would surely protect Misu's tiny population from shrinking ever further.
We only turned back toward Misu when the pink and purple skies of evening crawled over the marshes. Koby looked over my wounds, already calculating the ingredients he would need for my salves and tonics. I expected him to scold me for my rashness during the day, but he didn't. He only shook his head and lamented with a sigh, “Let's get back to Misu and fix you up, you idiot.”
I took no offense to the insult. I could tell he said it out of endearment.
Eleven
Misu's people rejoiced under endless starry skies and the bright white glow of Eran's moonlight. Musicians played a happy ditty, the notes of a flute and lute vying for attention in the air. The baby afanc I'd decapitated roasted on a spit; we had retrieved the bodies of the others so we could prepare them for later meals. Not only had we removed a great threat from Misu's lagoon, we had supplied its people with a great deal of food.
It came at a great cost, of course. I slumped back against the wooden railing of the walkway, chain-smoking to keep the pain at bay. The injury to my tail had thankfully sloughed off with the extremity during my transformation back to elf, but the burns and other aches remained. Koby treated my burns with salves to prevent scarring and infection, but there was little he could do to help the internal pain. My biceps and back muscles screamed for mercy from throwing bodies around. My jaw throbbed from the pressure necessary to gouge out a throat. Weirdest of all, my abdomen felt tight and off somehow, like a mistake was made during my transformation and things hadn't returned to normal.
Over the wide communal walkway that was well-lit with moonlight and firelight, people danced and drank. Koby leaned against the opposite railing next to a Vhiri woman, in the midst of flirting. I wished him good fortune since I currently felt too stiff to stand straight, let alone do the motions necessary for coitus. I watched his methods, finding them amusing. Women found Koby endearing for the same reasons I did: he listened well and truly wanted people to be happy, offering solutions and aid for any problems. While I often approached flirting with sexual suggestions and humor, Koby did so with patience and open conversation. It sometimes took him longer than me to pick up women, but he was nonetheless great at it.
“Jealous?”
I glanced over to see Hassan's smile. He sat in a wobbly wooden chair misshapen with humidity. His lavender fingers grazed by the mizmar in his lap. As much as he'd wanted to join the other musicians in playing music for this party, his sickness persisted.
“No, I'm happy for him,” I replied, returning my gaze to Koby's pursuit. He leaned closer to the woman, nodding along with her words before replying with a beaming smile.
“Yeah, but you look beaten.”
“I feel beaten.” I nodded toward him. “As do you, by the looks of it.”
Hassan huffed and shook his head, leaning back in his chair. “I think this weather finally just got to me and I'm fighting off something. I was useless in the battle near the lagoon, but I could barely keep from passing out. It was awful.”
“Did you ever roam the swamps with Patrick's crew?” I asked.
“Nah,” Hassan replied, his emerald eyes going b
lank as he reminisced. “Not to this extent. We dropped off supplies near Tenesea once or twice when we had the cog and could dock on land, but otherwise we stuck to Silvi. Patrick loved his gold, after all. He wasn't as concerned with trade in the south and left that up to the middlemen.”
“Are you disappointed that we've gotten involved in it?”
Hassan glanced up at me with surprise. “No. Why?”
“You liked being a part of Patrick's crew, but Koby and I run things differently.”
Hassan chuckled low. “Yeah, but that doesn't make it a bad thing. Patrick was seasoned. Focused. Working for him felt secure and scheduled. You and Koby, on the other hand...” he trailed off with a grin. “Well, it's been chaotic. There's always a catastrophe, but at least things are never dull. Patrick used to tease me about being a troublemaker, but with you guys I've met my match.” He hesitated. “Oh! Looks like it finally worked.” He pointed across the walkway, where Koby and the woman made their way through dancers and loiterers and headed south to where tiny homes awaited on pilings.
“He knows what he's doing,” I commented, lighting a new cigarette when the old one was a stub.
Halfway through my cigarette, Vallen stood from a table after finishing a meal of roasted afanc. His deep brown eyes flicked across the party before settling on me. He approached me with a smile and air of nonchalance, like he tried to make me comfortable. It had the opposite effect on me since I'd learned to expect the worst.
“Calder,” Vallen greeted, nodding politely at Hassan. “You have a minute?”
Immediately, my mind went crazy with thoughts of all the things I could've done wrong to make Vallen unhappy with me. Perhaps it angered him that I'd finished off the mother afanc and taken his kill. Maybe he was jealous of my casual intimate relationship with Hilly now that he'd grown a fondness for her. Perhaps he blamed me for being a bad influence on Jayce during our battle because we fought and acted similarly.
My next exhale of smoke blew out with a slight tremble of anxiety. “Sure.”
With a tilt of his head, Vallen motioned for me to follow. We left the party behind us, along with its boisterous conversations and bright firelight. Vallen led me up the lone walkway that pointed north, slowing down from time to time to wait for me due to my pained slower pace. He only stopped once we neared its edge. The walkway looked like a pier here because of its sudden end, but long grasses waited beneath it rather than water. Either side of the path was bare of constructions, waiting for developments that may never come.
Vallen leaned on the railing of the elevated path, looking off over the marshes. I did the same beside him, sighing in relief once giving my weight over to the wood took pressure off my throbbing back. Moonlight glistened off pools of standing water ahead. The whispering remnants of music kissed our ears from the south, but the croaks and chitters of unseen creatures demanded attention from the wilds.
Vallen pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. Without a word, I leaned sideways to let him light his from mine. Once we both smoked, he asked, “Hurting?”
“Always.”
He nodded in understanding. “I can tell from how much ferris you go through. You use more than most.”
I felt a twinge of panic. I only smoked when I needed relief from physical or mental ails. If I used more often than most, perhaps I was closer to my demise than I thought.
“How long have you been shapeshifting?” I asked, hoping to compare our experiences. Vallen had been a beastman for a long while, and though he had pain, it didn't faze him.
“Phew.” Vallen shook his hair from his face and looked up to the heavens. “Gods, let me think. I was less than a century old when Jayce and I made it to Silvi. Getting settled probably took a year or so. How many years is that? Gah, I don't know. About two centuries. We learned alteration magic, then shapeshifting. We were the only survivors of our class. Can you believe that?”
I tried to read his gaze through the darkness, but my eyesight was too poor. “A class of first transformations?”
Vallen nodded. “Yep. I lost a good friend. Jayce lost a lover. So many good people die in that damned arena with hope in their eyes that it made me stop and think, 'why me?' You know? What in the world did I do to deserve this power when so many other people have died for it?”
His musings were strikingly close to how I felt. “I lost the first lover and friend I made on the surface,” I confided. “Any joy or sense of accomplishment I could've felt for learning shapeshifting was ripped away then and there.”
“I'm sorry for your loss.” Vallen's tone was genuine, sympathetic.
“I'm sorry for yours,” I replied, taking another drag.
“Thank you. I have lost so many friends and lovers over the years that I've come to expect it. You never know how long you have with someone until they're gone.” Vallen parted his lips, letting smoke drift away on its own. “I lost a friend to the justice system in Eteri. Then I fled with Jayce and started losing people to the elements, wildlife, seas, you name it. You learn how to deal with it. How to mourn, how to heal. But you never get used to it and you always look to avoid it. Do you want to know what kinds of deaths I find most tragic?”
Vallen was such a jovial man that I'd never expected him to allude to such tragedies. Conversation with him continued to be comfortable and intriguing. “What kinds?”
“Deaths from old age,” he answered, before lifting his hands and making air quotes. “Natural causes, as they say. It's like you survive and persevere through everything life throws at you, and then the world dictates you still need to die against your will. Humans get the worst of it. I've lost so many human friends to old age, and every time it feels like such a waste. Just last century in Chairel, a human necromancer gained notoriety for surviving four hundred years by feeding on the energy of his foes. I think it was in the mid-200s when their army finally cornered him and burned him alive. Valerius the Undying was his name. Well,” Vallen abruptly laughed, “say that name to a sympathizer of Chairel and they'll find it distasteful, but if you ask me, poor Valerius was just fixing nature's mistakes. He was human, yet he found a way to live a lifespan of elves. Rather than applaud him for his discovery, the other humans feared him.”
The story intrigued me. I knew necromancy was one of the six elements and the only one banned in Chairel, but my avoidance of the pretentious country otherwise kept me ignorant. It was a wonder they banned the one magic that could help their people become competitive with other races.
“And here we are as elves,” I finally commented, “bumbling through life for centuries with no clue as to what the hell we're doing.”
Vallen burst into laughter. “Right! You get it!” He nudged my side. “That brings me to the reason I wanted to talk to you.”
The anxiety invited itself back into my gut.
Vallen noticed my silence. He sobered, threw his cigarette butt over the railing, and then gripped the wood to stretch his arms, biding time. After a sharp inhale, he began, “It's not embarrassing to admit that you need help. Particularly in the wildlands where we all pitch in. Every problem you've ever had has been experienced by someone else. If I don't know how to get through something, I'll know someone who does.”
“Something prompted this,” I said dryly, suspecting Koby.
Vallen huffed with amusement. “Last night before dinner and planning, you mentioned having problems with rempka.”
“I never had problems with rempka; I had a problem with rempka,” I snapped irritably.
“Oh. Well, Koby didn't seem sure about that.”
“Koby's protective of me. He probably just worries about it silently since he knows it doesn't take much to set me off.”
Vallen cleared his throat and returned to his position leaning on the railing. “Regardless, you were once hopeless enough to try it. If you ever get that way again, let me know. There are ways to deal without using rempka, and if you fall into its clutches again, there are ways to get you off it. It's miserable fo
r all involved and takes time, but I've been through it with Jayce and would do it again if you needed it.”
Silence swept over us. Although I had no plans to use rempka ever again, that Vallen picked up on a simple quick comment and cared enough to offer help meant so much to me.
“Thanks for the offer, but I hated how it made me feel,” I replied. “I wasn't lying to Koby when I said I wasn't a risk.”
“Good.”
“Apologies for snapping at you.”
Vallen chuckled. “No problem at all. I still do it.”
“Still?” His chosen wording piqued my interest.
“Yeah. I'm quicker to anger than I used to be. Less patient sometimes, too.” Vallen turned his head at the cry of a creature to the north, but when it ceased he relaxed. “How long did I say I've been shapeshifting earlier? Two centuries?”
“About that.”
Vallen shrugged. “And I'm still affected.”
“But you're sane,” I pointed out. “One of my biggest concerns is snapping one day and not coming out of it.”
Vallen met my stare when he noticed the worry lacing my voice. “I won't lie. Sometimes that happens. But do you want the brutally honest truth?”
I grimaced in expectation of bad news, but I replied, “Please.”
“Listen, I know little about your time underground. But after centuries of getting to know hundreds of Alderi men, you are one of the most perplexing to me.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“Because you have two drastically opposing sides that constantly fight each other for relevance. On one hand, you're cynical, sarcastic, anxious, and angry. I imagine that's how I'd feel if I spent over a century enslaved underground, hopeless and distrusting of most people I'd ever met. But on the other hand, you're skilled, driven, charming, and always looking to laugh and a good time. I think you have better chances than anyone of surviving shapeshifting's mind-altering effects because you're already at war with yourself. You have been for years. You're used to it. As long as you keep fighting, you'll see this through.”
