by Billy Wong
"What about that cursed witch in the woods, what's that story about?"
He frowned. "I don't know if there's any truth to it, or if it's just a rumor that has become too popular. But they say a witch lives there whose power offends the very gods, guarded by two priests to ensure they never meet." That didn't seem too realistic. If the witch's power could make the gods themselves take notice, how could she be held by two mere priests? On the other hand, this fit with the temple-like building they'd seen. It might just be a matter of how much the truth had been distorted and exaggerated.
"Thanks," she said. She returned to her friends. Zack had his head down on the table and likely wouldn't remember anything she said, so she addressed Marty. "I learned Deidre probably is or at least used to be a mercenary, and highly regarded in the profession."
"Guess that makes your theory her companion trained her less likely."
"By itself, no... but since she called him boss, I'm thinking maybe he actually is an employer."
"Makes sense." Marty shrugged. "But how does knowing that help us?"
"It doesn't really right now, just slightly sates the curiosity I've felt ever since meeting them. Besides, since we know Deidre's a mercenary, maybe that'll mean you can bribe her out of opposing us in the future if need be."
"Ha ha, very funny. But I wonder what her asking price is... Anyway, maybe you should just forget about it. We probably won't meet them again."
"You're right. Seems like they finished whatever they were doing, so off to the next job for her. We'd be better off concentrating on figuring out who's after Zack." In her mind though, she imagined seeking out Deidre to... she didn't know to do what. Meeting such a powerful warrior who was also a woman made a strong impression on her, but she should probably content herself in knowing she could strive to someday reach that level and leave it at that.
They carried Zack up to their rented room and quickly went to sleep for once under warm blankets in soft beds. In the middle of the night, Kath slowly woke to repeated sounds in her ears. It took her a few seconds to realize what they were. Screams. "Guys, get up! Something's happening outside!"
The boys dragged themselves half-drunkenly out of bed, and they hurried to the window to see what was going on. Two creatures similar to the one they'd fought in the forest filled their sight. One already stood within the town, probably having jumped the wall, and the other tore at and headbutted the gate from outside in an effort to get through. The first came to its aid, pulling from inside while it smashed into the barrier again, and with a loud crack of wood the gate broke open.
The trio ran downstairs and out of the inn. Already the monsters claimed victims. One speared its tail into the gut of an old man who ineffectually tried to shoot it with a crossbow, then swished the spike around inside him while blood bubbled from his mouth. The other stepped on the chest of a woman who tripped trying to flee, bent down and tore her head off.
"Maybe they're mates or kin of the one we killed," Zack said in a tiny voice. "They must have followed us here..."
The one that had killed the woman bit an arm off a man who tried to swing a sword at it, and the other chased after another couple. "What do we do?" Marty asked. "We beat one before, but now there are two of them..."
Kath couldn't answer. They looked to her for guidance, but her heart slammed against her ribs and she felt totally overwhelmed. With each life the beasts took, she grew more lightheaded. The dog-lizard pursuing a couple punched its tail through the woman's throat, tossed her corpse into the man knocking him down and savaged him with its jaws. The other shrugged off a crossbow bolt that deflected off its forehead, headbutted the shooter off his feet so that he cracked his skull on the cobbles.
"Kath!" Zack shouted. "What do we do?"
"I don't know, I don't-" Kath slapped her cheek, cutting herself off. She couldn't do this. Even if they were ill equipped to handle the situation, they were probably still the best trained and prepared here. She pointed at the creature that had gone deeper into town and now disappeared behind a house. "You guys help the villagers with that one, maybe try to get them to hide in the inn where they can better hold it off." Her gaze shifted to the one still near the gate, which now whipped its tail at a man prodding at it with a spear and decapitated him. "I'll deal with the other."
"Are you sure you can take it?" Marty asked fearfully. "It required all three of us last time."
She swallowed, but said, "I know better what to expect now. Besides, these ones are smaller." They looked to be more around five feet at the shoulder, though that wasn't exactly small. "Just go!"
They reluctantly took off while she dashed towards her target. It was busy stalking a woman who had tried to stab it with a pitchfork, and she felt a surge of hope. If she could get in the first blow... She jumped as she neared it and landed on its back, sword rising in her hands. Yes!
Before she could tighten her legs around it, it bucked powerfully, throwing her off. She crashed against a wall, and pain shot through her spine. It turned and cried a shrill challenge. No quick kill, then. She stood and charged answering its shriek with her own. The tail spike streaked down. She batted it aside with a backhanded cut, chopped at its snout with the return stroke. The impact of blade to nose made it yelp, but not bleed. Despite its smaller size, its hide didn't seem noticeably weaker. This would be an uphill battle.
She tried to think of ways to weaken the monster, slow it down. It didn't give her much time to. It came forward jaws snapping and tail lashing, keeping her on her heels as her defensive slashes did no more than irritate it. She tried to grab its tail again, but didn't get a good enough hold so that when it retracted, it slid through her grasp and the spike sliced open her fingers and palm. She gasped and hugged her mutilated hand to her side, hot agony engulfing it. This was bad... Kath ran forward screaming in an attempt to change the momentum with sheer aggression. She deflected a tail strike, chipped its teeth with a sword blow and then turned its head with a high kick. Her gaze locked on the yellow eye facing her, and she thrust at it. She could do it, she-
Her sword passed through empty air as the dog-lizard vanished from in front of her. It happened so fast, she barely registered it flying upward. So smaller size wasn't always a dis—her thought was cut off as immense pain filled her back. Dammit, she didn't want to die yet... She ripped herself off the spike that had pierced her from behind and stumbled forward, then fell to her knees. The anguish was such tears ran from her eyes, and her vision faded in and out.
Somehow, just as the tail whipped around to sever her neck, she sensed it coming and ducked. Reaching up, she managed to catch it this time in her bleeding hand and let it yank her through the air. It carried her behind the dog-lizard, and she thought to find a weak point in its rear end. She jerked herself down the tail to fling herself towards it. But her point hit its haunches instead of the opening between them and skidded off, and a moment later she faceplanted on the cobblestones inches from the monster. It wheeled to face her again. She tried to push herself up—and fell back, blood dripping from her mouth. Everything hurt, but the worst was the pain in her back, which spread almost to her front... She vaguely glimpsed her open hand in front of her, lying on her hilt. She couldn't fight anymore... in the end, she was just a weak girl after all and would die without a struggle.
The deadly jaws bore down. A split second before they would have crushed her head, inspiration flashed through it. Why hadn't she thought of that before? Was she that stupid? Hope giving her a burst of strength, she rolled aside and came up drawing a dagger. "If you can have a bunch of weapons why can't I have two?!"
It swiped its tail at her. She parried the spike with the dagger, sliced the tail with her sword. It didn't go all the way through, but blood flowed and the beast hissed. Again it tried. Again she wounded its tail, and again. It drew back the appendage and attacked with its teeth instead. She blocked with her sword, went for an eye with the dagger. The blade glanced off its brow, and it snout-butted her bac
k. She turned and ran. It bounded after her. She listened carefully, waited for an interruption in its steps. There. As it pounced, she ducked and stuck the dagger up. The tip caught it in the chest, and the dog-lizard's momentum helped it rip open a cut all the way to its crotch.
Long though it might be, the wound was too shallow to be fatal or crippling. But it bothered the creature visibly, as it turned gingerly towards Kath. "We're both pretty beat up now, huh? Then let's end it before I lose any more of my looks!" She rushed and hacked at its face, not breaking the skin but knocking its head back and forth. The bleeding tail swung once more, slower than before. She timed it so that her spinning slash drove it against its owner's skull, severing the tail and dropping her foe in the same blow. As it lay on its side, she dove in and plunged the dagger into its eye.
It wailed, pitched her off and stood up. She circled towards its blinded side, repeatedly trying to thrust into its mouth as it turned to keep her in sight. But she kept failing to find its brain, though she managed to stab its gums one time and blood poured out. On the next attempt, it caught her sword in its teeth. She tried to hold on, but her fingers were too slick with sweat. It ripped the hilt from her hand and tossed it aside. No, she was so close... It lunged. Falling back purposely, she kicked up and flipped it over her. Kath hobbled upright, thought to get her sword. But she saw the dog-lizard was still on its back, kicking its legs in the air. She ran over, put a foot against its upper snout. She grabbed its flicking, slimy tongue. Before it could bite down, she pulled backwards with all her strength of her whole body. There was a loud tearing noise, and she stumbled back with the heavy tongue in her arms. Her opponent lay still before her, dead. She fell on her butt and then to her back.
Her breaths sounded short and shallow in her own ears. Her mouth was dry, and the back of her shirt soaked with blood. The air felt cold... Her eyelids grew heavy, and she didn't resist it. At least she'd won the fight. Now she could rest—wait, her friends! She couldn't go to her sleep before making sure they were all right. Crawling to her sword, she used its aid to rise and limped to find Zack and Marty.
The continuing panicked cries told her where to go. She headed into the inn, where Marty and a burly man stood halfway up the stairs trying to keep back the second dog-lizard with spears. Behind them Zack slumped unconscious against the wall, and other torn bodies were strewn around the dining room. Shit. She didn't have the strength to beat another one. But the monster was completely distracted. Glancing around, she spotted a dropped spear. She took it in hand, lined it up with the creature's weak spot and thrust. A whimper rose from its throat as she drove the point up its butt into its vitals. She strained to pull its skewered body sideways, tipping it over the banister. It plummeted off the stairs, landed with a great thud and lay still.
"Nothing to it," she bragged weakly, bent with pain and exhaustion. She reached out to hold onto the end of the banister for support.
"You killed it so easily," said a low voice. "You must be a great warrior. Please save me..."
Young Rebecca who had welcomed them to town lay by the foot of the stairs, her collar and the floor dark with blood. Kath came closer and saw the girl had a bad gash on the side of her neck. Marty followed, but stopped a few steps behind her seemingly frozen with horror. Kath knelt beside her and tried to stop the bleeding, but it was no use as it kept gushing out over her fingers. Tears forming in her eyes, she held her hand. "Don't worry, I will. Just close your eyes and rest for now. I'll bring you to my gifted friend, and when you wake up"—she choked up saying this—"you'll be healed." She waited as Rebecca's breathing slowed, then stopped, placed her little hand gently on her chest and stood with a sniff.
Something hard struck the top of her head. She looked. Rebecca's mother had thrown a mug at her, and glared at her from atop the stairs. "It's your fault! You're the ones who brought this upon us by drawing those beasts' wrath."
More villagers emerged from upstairs to hurl things and shake fists at her and Marty. Irate voices flooded the inn. "Yeah, get out of here!" "You stupid travelers don't have no place in our town!" "You got my husband killed! I hope you die horrible deaths!"
Kath shook with guilt, and started sobbing quietly to herself while Marty sputtered, "But we had no idea... we just..."
"Nobody goes into the forest, much less starts trouble with its inhabitants," the man who had been helping him fight the monster spat. "People as stupid as you aren't welcome here."
"We had no choice..."
Kath walked past him up the stairs, reaching excruciatingly towards Zack as her wounds burned. Seeming just now to notice her injuries, Marty hurried to her aid. "Let's just go," she said while they lifted Zack between them, "before things get any worse."
Moving Zack woke him up and he stared at the corpses that surrounded them, gaze lingering on Rebecca for a bit. Followed by the angry cries of the townsfolk, they staggered away into the night.
#
Some time later, Kath sat silently in her school jacket sewing up the tear in her newly bought shirt while Zack lay resting. Her hand had been wrapped with a strip of cloth and the wound in her back stitched by Marty as best he could, but the latter was deep and she wondered if she bled inside. She didn't express her concern to the boys, though, knowing it would just make them worry while not being able to do anything about it. She could not stop seeing the images of dead villagers, Rebecca most of all, in her head. Why had she let this happen? She should have known better, they should never have stopped there... if they had just kept going past it, all those people wouldn't be dead.
"Are you okay, Kath?" Marty asked. "Don't tell me you're still beating yourself up over that. You couldn't have known; besides, we needed new clothes and food."
Food they hadn't managed to buy, being run out of town before they could. She supposed they'd have to hunt and gather more. "We could have at least not stayed the night. If we'd gone earlier, maybe they would've picked up on our trail leaving the town and never gone inside."
"Then we'd probably all be dead if they found us with no one else to divide their attention."
She took a deep breath as she realized he had a point. Their lives might have been bought with the townspeople's blood. "Maybe they would've stopped following if we went far enough. Or, if without having to protect the villagers you and Zack could've distracted one for long enough..."
"Perhaps." He touched her shoulder—the uninjured one, thankfully. "But you did good. Think about how many more would've been killed if you hadn't managed to stop both of them."
That was one way to look at it. She didn't feel good at all about her performance, though. It had taken her so much time to finish off the first monster, as the other slaughtered people all the while. She'd made such grave mistakes—why did it take so long before she thought to use a dagger along with her sword? What a screw up... and to think the boys had looked to her for leadership. She couldn't even make good decisions for herself let alone others.
"I know you think I'm strong," she said with a shake of her head, "but I'm not. Being a strong person isn't just about being physically powerful and good at fighting. I'm so messed up... who wants a leader who can't think straight when everything is at stake."
He smiled. "Well, who ever said you were a leader? Just because we asked you to come up with a plan because we couldn't, doesn't mean you're responsible for us. And the same goes for visiting the town. None of us thought about the possible consequences. So me and Zack are both as blameworthy as you for everything."
She didn't want to feel better because of what he said, but despite herself she did. "I guess it might have been presumptuous to think so highly of myself. We should all learn to think more before we act, then." Her mind's eye pictured Rebecca's dead face again, halting any minor improvement to her mood. "It's so sad, though. That little girl... I thought I'd been growing somewhat inured to the sight of death, but it's much different when it's innocent civilians and children."
Marty bowed his head. "I w
ish I could say I tried to save her, but I can't. It all happened so fast—one second I had its attention, poking at it with my spear... the next, she tried to run by, it flicked its tail her way and..."
"I could have saved her," Zack said, sitting up. "If I had been conscious, I mean."
"What, how? Wait, since you say if you had been conscious, do you mean at the end? You were knocked out after she got hurt..."
Kath frowned. "Yeah, how would you have saved her? She bled out so fast..."
"I'm not completely sure, but I think I could have healed her wound. I'm gifted with the ability to heal."
Marty and Kath both started. "What?!" they asked simultaneously.
"I-I know you guys might be mad at me for not telling you, but I didn't think it would do any good. I've only ever used my gift once, when I healed my friend's broken arm as a kid. I was sick for weeks after, and after consulting with others my father told me never to use it again. Apparently every time I do I'll harm myself, and if I heal something too bad it could kill me outright.
"So if I healed her, I might not have survived... but I would've tried."
Kath found that she believed him. "I'm sure you would have. But, you think maybe whoever is trying to kidnap you is doing so because of your gift, and not a grudge against your family or whatever?"
"I never thought about that. It's supposed to be a secret, but I guess it could have gotten out... If they just want me to heal someone, though, might it be a good idea to talk to them and find out what they desire instead of continuing to run?"
She shook her head. "If they're trying to capture you instead of asking you nicely in the first place, it's likely they don't expect you to be willing. So I suspect it either could cost you your life—or be something other than merely healing somebody altogether."
Marty asked, "Like what?"
"I don't know. Could there be some way to steal others' gifts, or something like that? Just wild speculation, I don't have any real idea."
