by J. R. Ford
“We’re better off out here anyway,” Farrukh said. “We can buy what we need at White Fir and keep searching for the Knucklebones.”
“Even you, Ana?” Heather asked. “Back when our objective was finding me the Storm’s Breath, you had no problem trying to assassinate Edwin in his own home.”
“That was supposed to be a burglary,” she insisted.
“And if you’d gotten into his room and taken his whip? If he’d been asleep right there, and you’d been a sword stroke from vengeance?”
Ana took a moment before responding. “I would’ve given you the chance, first.”
“What’s different this time? Is Pav’s quest more important than mine was?” I’d sparred Heather enough to read the feint.
Ana chose her words carefully. “Things were simpler then. He didn’t have an army.”
“Since when have you backed down from a fight, no matter the odds?” I asked. “Nearly get transformed into a slug once, and all the fight’s gone out of you?” She hadn’t shied away from danger during our monster hunts, but perhaps suffering the humiliation of utter powerlessness at Edwin’s hands had hurt her worse than I thought.
Her gaze nearly set my cloak smoking.
“Lay off,” Farrukh advised needlessly.
She turned her hot ire upon him. “I don’t need you fighting my battles for me. Like back with Absame. Now he hates you too, for no reason.”
“Good. I deserve the wrath of that self-righteous prick.”
“Next time, let me handle it.”
“Who made you leader?”
We glanced between each other. Back when it had been just me, Heather, and Ana, she’d assumed the role naturally. During the monster hunts in the interim, we had just sort of worked together.
Farrukh seemed to realize that if it came to a vote, she’d win. I wondered who he’d vote for.
Morning stretched. The forest was cool. Birds chirped in the trees, and Farrukh pointed out any cute wildlife. But the scenery became samey fast.
I daydreamed on Channel Heather. Her hand in mine was warm like sunlight, maybe because she was smoldering.
She raised her voice to call at Ana’s back. “When we met, you made me two promises. The first was that you’d stick with me until I could fend for myself.”
Ana turned and shuffled backwards. “And now you can.”
“You also promised to find me the Storm’s Breath.”
“Yeah, I did.” She kicked a rock and stumbled a little. “Sorry. But it worked out, didn’t it?”
“I’d say so. I’m an Alchemist now, and that’s better in my book. But I wanted to ask: why? Why did you promise me those things? You hardly knew me.”
Ana shrugged. “Wish I hadn’t?”
“Don’t pull that crap! You did it because I needed you to. Because you were strong, and I was weak, and it was your responsibility to protect me. The same way that Pav needs us now.”
Ana turned back around. “And?”
“Did you ever feel like you should’ve been doing more?”
Ana lagged until she was abreast of me and Heather. “All the time.”
“How did you deal with it?”
“I made you a promise, and I’m a woman of my word.” I’d heard her say similar before.
“Convenient.”
Ana shrugged again then pulled ahead. I squeezed Heather’s hand and asked quietly, “What’s got the hate back in you?”
“It’s not back. It never left.”
“When we tried to rob Edwin, you were the one who voted no.”
“That was before I had this power.”
“And if it gets you — us — hurt?”
She sighed. “I know it’s selfish. We should focus on staying alive and finding the Knucklebones.” Somehow, I thought those two goals wouldn’t hold hands. “But how many others has he treated like he’s treated me? Only they don’t have you and Ana.” She shook her head. “You guys are right, anyway. We shouldn’t take chances we don’t have to.” Her yellow eyes were earnest and intent.
If we died, it was the end of us. She wouldn’t be allowed to leave her West Country estate, and I’d go back to being a middle class nobody in the suburbs of Atlanta. Even if I earned enough points and stream revenue for a ticket over, she wouldn’t be allowed to host me.
So we had to stay alive, no matter what. That’s why I’d promised her I wouldn’t seek death, the night of the battle.
But fear stirred at the thought of losing her. “Turn your camera off,” I said, pressing my index and middle fingers to my palm and tapping until I’d selected “Disable Feed.” I couldn’t earn points with it off, but it wasn’t like I was earning any just then. My 200k viewers would have to hop streams to Ana or Farrukh for their thrilling forest-walking content.
“What, are you going to grope me?” she teased, though her fingers tapped compliance.
I shoved down the temptation to prove her right. “Just don’t want your father to hear. You still have access to your bank account, right?”
“Probably not since buying this ticket. And even if I did, he’ll be watching carefully.”
“Doesn’t matter. When we die…run away with me.”
She grimaced. “I can’t, Pav.”
“Why not? Look at our points! Look at our viewer counts! Grab as much money from your account as you can, and we’ll disappear. You want to go to college, right? There are loads in the States. We’ll hole up somewhere. We’d make it pretty far.”
“‘Pretty far?’ You think we’d be caught?”
“Answer me, why not?”
Her gaze was heating up again. “Pavel, I can’t! I’m all my father has, and I already abandoned him once by coming here.”
“Put him in a home!”
“It’s not like that!”
I bristled. “What is it like, then? And what do you mean, you’re all he has? What happened to your mom?”
“I don’t want to talk about this… Please, just drop it.”
I cursed internally but said aloud, “If that’s the way you feel, then we’ll just have to stay alive all five years, until the game kicks us out.”
She re-enabled her feed and took my hand in hers. I hoped I’d never have to let go again. “We’ll be safe,” she said. “We have each other.”
White firs pressed in on both sides, short and thick with impenetrable walls of light needles obscuring vision deeper into the forest. Farrukh still saw it coming, as he always seemed to. The guy had eyes like a hawk.
“Ambush. Delay them,” he said, before slipping soundlessly into the forest on our left.
My blood ran cold as I drew my rapier. So much for never letting Heather go, or even being safe, for that matter.
“Get back here! That unruly little…” Ana said, before turning to the forest on our right. “Come out with your hands up!”
In response, five humanoids charged out of the underbrush. They were proportioned like humans, only the skin beneath their leather armor was shades of green and blue, and their eyes were an evil red. Each of the orcs, for lack of a better word, had a spear leveled.
Heather glowed yellow and morphed into a bear. Her roar made them hesitate long enough for Ana to take the initiative. She lunged, slashing with her Lightning Blade, but an orc parried with its spear haft and stabbed in response. Ana retreated, before an arrow sprouted from her back. She coughed and collapsed.
Oh, shit.
3
I ducked. Another arrow whizzed past from behind, narrowly missing one of the orcs. It barked something in a guttural language unlike any I’d ever heard.
Most of the orcs turned their attention toward Heather, but one went to finish Ana. She’d struggled to her knees, blade planted in the ground to support herself. The orc seemed almost contemptuous. One lazy stab and she flashed into action, smacking the shaft away and cutting up at the aggressor. I averted my eyes as her sword’s circuitry blazed blinding bright.
Archer or no, I rushed in to bac
k them up. An orc stabbed at me, high and strong, but I lunged under and drove my rapier into its chest. My sword’s tip rent brown jerkin, but the orc’s hard leather breastplate stole much of the strength from the blow. It grabbed my sword with one hand and used the other to drive its spear toward my face. I released my sword, ducking away, scrambling to keep my feet as it rushed for me. Three quick pings sounded, then I caught its spear in the pulsating circle that poured into existence before my outstretched palm. It jerked away but was quick to resume the assault. I called another circle before me, but its spearpoint danced low, and pain sliced along my flank. Before it could finish the job, a bear claw caught its arm and sent it stumbling.
I followed, my dagger flashing from its sheath and driving for the orc's unarmored face. It caught my wrist, and we struggled against each other for a second. Then I hooked one foot behind it, and it toppled back, me on top. Blood spurted.
Heather had been punished for helping me, bleeding badly from a wound in her shoulder. But despite their injuries, she and Ana were threatening enough to keep the three remaining orcs at bay. Something crashed behind us — hopefully Farrukh’s poleax smashing the helmet of their archer.
The orcs kept poking at Heather, but she couldn’t give ground, not without abandoning Ana. Instead she charged, two spears thunking into her before she could swipe at one of the orcs. The blow sent it staggering, but its armor protected it from her claws.
Not from me. I slipped around the side and slit its throat. Its flesh was the same consistency as a human’s.
While we were distracted, the other orc moved on Ana. She struck, but it parried and smashed the steel-capped back end of its spear into her head. She dropped.
Heather reverted to human but was already symbolling another shapeshift. This time she chose panther form, lithe and black and vulnerable to a spear down the throat.
No time for morbid episodes. Heather attacked the one standing over Ana, while the other engaged me. It stabbed relentlessly, too quick for me to nullify. I whirled my dagger in wild defense, retreating, trying to breathe and think.
An arrow struck it dead in the chest, embedding itself in its breastplate. While it was recoiling, I leapt in and punched my dagger through its nose, then shoved it lifeless to the red forest floor.
The last one eyed me, then Heather, then the trees behind us. It ran.
An arrow in its back made it tumble into the brush. Heather pounced on it and chomped on the back of its neck.
Farrukh emerged from the forest, casting away his bow. He cursed as he rushed over to Ana’s side and began rummaging in her pack for potion ingredients. “Idiot,” he muttered. “Why not wait for me to get the jump on their archer… Hey, hey! Come on!”
“Shut up,” Ana groaned, then coughed up blood. Her breath came in bubbling gasps. The hair on the side of her head was matted with blood.
“Pav, take the arrow out!” Farrukh said, symbolling brew Health Potion over a cup.
My eyes flicked to Ana, then back to him. Through the panic rising in my gorge, I choked out, “How?”
“Break off the feathers, then pull it through. Keep pressure on it afterwards.”
I blanched but moved to do what he said. Only, with one hand, I couldn’t get a good hold of the arrow.
Heather pushed me aside, took the arrow in both hands, and snapped off the end. She discarded the feathers, and together we rolled Ana onto her back. I held her by the shoulders while Heather gripped the arrowhead and ripped up.
Ana loosed a gurgling scream. I leaned her to the side so she could hack out more blood.
“Quickly,” Farrukh said, and tipped the cup into Ana’s mouth. She sputtered and tried to lean over.
Farrukh put a hand on her shoulder, preventing her. “Swallow whatever comes up,” he said. “If it’s blood, you’ll be fine. If it’s potion, you need to keep it down.”
Ana swallowed with obvious disgust, then continued coughing. Without respite, Farrukh poured the rest of the potion down her throat.
Ana managed not to vomit, and even groaned, “You’re enjoying this.”
Farrukh looked anything but. “I think you’ll live. Heather, how are her wounds?”
Heather removed her hands from where she had clamped down. “Healed.”
Relief washed over me. Farrukh’s potions could heal most non-fatal injuries. Regrowing a severed limb was unfortunately beyond their capabilities, but if Ana could gripe, she’d probably be fine.
It was how close she’d come to not being fine that worried me. If that arrow had hit her heart, she wouldn’t have lived long enough for any potion. We would’ve lost our best swordfighter, and I would’ve lost one of my best friends.
“You know,” she moaned, “I half-thought you’d fled. It wouldn’t have been the first time.”
Farrukh scowled. “I didn’t have time to reassure you, not when we were moments from an ambush. I had an archer to kill.”
Once, when the Enlightened had cornered us, Farrukh had abandoned ship rather than drown with the rest of us. The betrayal had stung, but he’d just been trying to stay alive, and for all his insistence he was only in it for himself, he’d double-crossed Edwin rather than let him kill us. For me, it was water we hadn’t drowned in, but apparently Ana wasn’t as forgiving.
I tried to ease the tension the best way I knew how: deflecting. “Those things were tough. We shouldn’t charge in mindlessly next time.” Ana glared at me but softened when she noticed the bright line along my side that attested my words. I turned to Heather. “You okay?”
“You know I am. What about you?”
She’d been stabbed multiple times, and animal form didn’t reduce pain. But if she wanted to act tough, I wasn’t going to belittle her. “Barely noticed it,” I lied. “Wrap me up?”
She unclasped my cloak and unbuttoned my shirt before slipping it off. Where once she’d been squeamish removing my clothes, now she seemed nearly eager. Though I’d enjoy it a lot more if she did it when I wasn’t injured.
Farrukh tossed Heather the supplies. I wiped the blood away and scooped some Neosporin up with my finger. It stung, making me suck in breath. Heather wrapped me up and tied off the bandage.
I slithered back into my shirt and buttoned it up, which I’d become adept at over weeks of using one hand. Raising my right arm over my head tugged at the wound, and my flesh throbbed against the bandage. “We really should learn how to stitch,” I said.
“Need a potion?” Ana asked, pushing herself up onto unsteady legs. “I thought you said it wasn’t bad.”
“Not worth a potion, anyway.” Even with our stock from eradicating the local trollbat population, we couldn’t get comfy.
We looked over the carcasses. All five wore the same uniform: brown cloth jerkin over hard leather cuirass, with sturdy helmets of the same gray leather. Their faces must’ve been modelled off real humans.
We’d seen monsters communicate before, like the ant-looking fermids with their pheromones. But never wearing armor.
“Emily warned us,” I said. “She said monsters had attacked Lancers at the pass — these might’ve been them.”
Farrukh retrieved his weapons and started tapping at his palm. “Never mind that. How much were they worth?”
I pressed my index and middle fingers into my palm, navigated to the log, and read aloud: “Kill an orc: +50, x3!” Each was worth half the score for finding a cantrip or magic item, and a full tenth of what Heather and I had earned for leveling up.
“They were pretty tough,” Ana groaned, “but not five times tougher than a fermid or trollbat.”
Farrukh grinned and began inspecting the bodies, tail spike ready. “I know what we’re hunting next. Think they have a nest somewhere?”
“More likely a camp,” Ana said. “They were kitted out like soldiers.”
I shrugged. “This game’s wack. Who knows what could be going on.”
“If they have a camp, I can find it,” Farrukh said. “They’re bad at cove
ring their tracks. It’s how I noticed the ambush in the first place.” He paused over the one Ana had electrocuted. “This one’s alive. Ana?”
“Wait,” I said. “Can we communicate with it?”
We crowded around the supine form. It smelled burnt, a disgusting stench heavier than the stink of gore. Its breathing came ragged.
Farrukh slapped it. “Hey. Can you understand us?”
There was nothing to indicate understanding in those red eyes. Its skin was a tranquil aquamarine, its hair black, its features and build feminine. It choked out a couple unintelligible words, then closed its eyes and said no more.
“Nope,” Farrukh said. “Ana?”
She wore a grim expression but drew her boot knife.
“Want me to do it?” Farrukh said. “I don’t mind, really. Plus, I have the poleax. Keeps the blood off my hands.”
Grim, but he had a good reason. The points for the kill went to whoever dealt damage last.
“It’s just a monster,” Ana said.
“You looked like that when you were finishing those Enlightened, too.”
She sighed. “I don’t like doing it, but it’s a good reminder of the cost of my actions.”
“Cut it out,” Farrukh said. “Their blood is on our hands as much as yours, at least metaphorically. We’re a team. Oh, or are you doing the thing where the ‘leader’ will assume a mantle of responsibility? We’re our own people, you know.”
“You know what? Go ahead, butcher. As long as you shut up.”
Farrukh, grinning, drove his spike through the orc’s face. “Plus 50.”
Heather recoiled. Ana said, “You got to be so happy about it?”
“That sound is money in the bank,” Farrukh said. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
Ana narrowed her eyes, though she was still trembling from her injuries. “I know more about money than you ever will.”
“You know about your parents’ money. Not the same.”
“What do you need money for? You can find sticks to shove up your ass all over the ground.”
His brow knit together, and his mustache pressed against his beard. “I’ve told you. University.”
