by Matt Wilk
“Well, let me know when you want another.”
He was truly investigating my level of drunkenness. On his way back to the bar, he gave a nod to one of the harlots. They were very experienced. From a single mention of the untamed forest, they decided to send a wild girl after me. She was heavily tattooed with the many spirits of nature. She had tree trunks on her legs with a skirt that was more of a frayed belt. Her exposed hips were inked over with a flowing waterfall headed straight into the abyss. She sat next to me without asking, raising her hands high to mock stretch while readjusting her tiny shirt. The lady even rolled up her shirt from the bottom to further accentuate her small breasts.
“Your hair is green.”
“Do you like it?”
The professional harlot pulled my mug to her and drank her fill. She finished by burping loudly without any shame. If I had not understood it to be part of Jullo’s corrupt game, I would have fallen for it. With me distracted, doing my best to mimic an interested conversation, Jullo decided that it was time for his break. The poor girl at my table was so starved for attention that, the more I ignored her, the closer she scooted her chair.
“What is your name?”
“I am Blowing Wind. What your name is?”
“I am Matthius. Have you ever been to the Sheek-tee valleys? Where did you get that name?”
“I earned it.”
Her face finally turned somewhat red. My cheeks burned hot enough for my own eyes to see. I offered her my mug. She was glad to hide her face behind it. I caught Jullo crossing to the bath house. He dropped his excess coins on the ground under the light and kept moving. The man waiting on the low wall scrambled to grab them all up and scamper away. I thought he would run, but he decided to come inside the bar. When he walked through, I was staring much too hard for it to go unnoticed. Blowing Wind slammed my mug on the table.
“What are you a gay?”
“Oh please, you are not Leiza. For me, it’s just that simple.”
“Ugh, I don’t care about your wife little man. Am I getting paid or not?”
I looked at her with enough loathing written on my face to answer without any need for words. She looked at the raggedy robed criminal, then back at me, then she got up to walk his way. Just like Captain Besha, she shook her hips with a purpose on her way over to him. I decided that I no longer wanted any of that beer- for my own safety. She sat at his table and began flirting extra hard, much to his surprise.
“Oh my, Bo-art. What a strong name. Ugh, what do you want?”
“Can’t you see we’re busy?”
“So, Bo-art is it? Well met, I am Matthius- Cadet Commando.”
“He does not care.”
“I do not care.”
They both tried to wave me off. I upended the mug over the girl so she would move back. The bar went silent enough to hear my deep draw through the nose.
“Are you moon mad boy?”
“You forgot to cover that sack of dirt. I smell poisonous toadstools.”
“What’s this? You are joking. Aha, I see.”
Bo-art flicked his eyes about in the most unfortunate and obvious display of preparation. I saw his attack coming, and knew Jullo was standing just behind me. I had faced real monsters before and their hesitation made for an easy counter. I dug my heel into Jullo’s mids without looking. Bo-art grabbed my hair when I leaned forward for the kick. The small knife in his right hand could have killed a lesser man, but I was much too quick. Bo-art’s blade swung wide and I grabbed his wrist on the way in, pulling it across his chest and planting the knife into his left shoulder. While his partner screamed in pain, Jullo smashed a wine bottle over my head.
“You think you dirty little thieves can kill the son of Gojinus so easily?”
The pain, the alcohol, and the pheromones from all the women watching drove me mad with bloodlust. The red shadow consumed everything in a single blink. Jullo was backing away, again giving up his partner with his eyes. I feinted toward him, causing him to fall back into the bar stools. I spun just in time to back hand the knife, sinking it into the wall down to the hilt. Bo-art ate three heavy rights before falling back into his chair. I dug my hand into his robe and pulled out the dirty bag of poison- tossing it into the fire.
“You want to poison the citizens of Embraun- you’ll have to go through me!”
“And me!”
I turned to see that Captain Besha had revealed herself because Jullo was ready to spear me with the broken leg of a stool. He was stopped dead in his tracks. Her hair was down to her hips from having the ties removed. Both of the knives were in either side of Jullo, draining the last breathe from his lungs. She left the knives in him and marched to the door. She threw him out and whistled loudly from practice. Two guards in full dress uniform rushed in with drawn swords demanding that we all back away.
“Corporal Benson?”
“Eh? Ah, you.”
“Thank you for the help.”
“Shut it.”
The guard with him stifled a laugh. They dragged Bo-art from the bar and I followed them out.
“Excuse me, miss. Is your name Captain Besha?”
“Yes, Cadet Matthius. You fight well- for a little boy.”
“I just wanted to say, thank you for saving my life.”
“No man would ever admit such a thing. You do not think you would have been better off on your own?”
“No ma’am. Without you, I would not have known Jullo was involved.”
I held out my hand for her and she slapped it away. Once her guards were completely gone, she grabbed my hips and pulled me towards her.
“Well then, shall we celebrate our victory?”
“Captain?”
“Jullo would have traded his whole horde for one night with me. What’s your excuse?”
“It wouldn’t be right.”
“Because I out rank you?”
“Because I have the mark. I think, perhaps, you have been undercover too long.”
Captain Besha laughed and shook her head. Scanning the streets once more, she slammed me into the wall of the Weary Lamb and forced herself onto me. She was so rough with me that my lips were fully bruised while she was still amusing herself.
“Could you stop?”
“You do not get to refuse me marker.”
I punched her low in the gut.
“You do not speak to the son of Gojinus in such tones.”
“There it is. That’s what I want. Give me what Bertrada got.”
The story of my father invading Ulfbar flooded through my mind. I recognized Besha because she was Major Talon’s cousin. The poor thing literally asked me to beat on her- and worse. I was so horrified that I could not move.
“What? Now you are going to cry? Give me what I want soldier. That is an order.”
“No.”
“Even better.”
“I said no.”
Captain Besha stopped wrestling with me and slapped me hard.
“You are so weak. That is why the Lantos brought you in. You are nothing but bait for the Monster Hunter. Do not ever speak to me again.”
She slapped me extra hard, and walked away furiously grunting. Like a child, I wiped my tears and bit my swollen lip to keep it from quivering. The few remaining patrons of the bar laughed at me as I ran through. Once I had the chest and my shells, I marched straight to the guard stables. I was the first of the low ranking soldiers to make a bed. Someone tried to complain about having their spot taken, so I tossed him all of my coins. There was a bit of a scramble with his mates, followed by everyone deciding to head for their favorite pub. In that way, I was asleep before any of them returned.
The weather turned ugly as soon as I left Embraun. My mood and my pace were unaffected because I had already accepted my fate. I was especially grateful for the new powder bags, as I dearly needed to keep the extra ones for water. Given the snow, I could have made my way back to Ram’s Peak and celebrated my bounty in two weeks or less. The though
t of the journey, and the grey in the sky, made me sigh all day. The next day was worse. And, finally, when I reached Broad Wolf Crossing, I dropped to my knees and had a good long cry. Out in the open, days away from where anyone could see, I had a full on fit. I screamed at the gods, begged with my hilt, and destroyed the lid to the chest as best I could. I decided, on my final day, I would eat a hot meal of burnt fish.
When all seemed lost, the gods granted me a parting gift of three hearty fish with my first dive. Both fists were full, and the one in my mouth tried to wrestle my teeth out with a vengeance. I burned the smaller parts of the wooden chest as tinder for my fire. With the strong and reinforced shards, I cut into them with a pointed stone, hot from being stuck in the embers. I managed three strong points, tethered tight with wet bark peels, and glued with a baked clay resin from the bottom of the fire pit. By the time I had finished, the sun was down and the snow had stopped falling. I tied the bags of powder together and tossed them into a tree. Then I sighed once last time, and kicked wet dirt all over my only source of heat.
The trail of giant footprints had been mostly covered by the snow. They ended short, and led to signs of a struggle. Just as I had expected, the mass of the things was hidden elsewhere. The Opa War Chief had led his elites only so close to the road. They did a great job of hiding their movements through use of the canopy, so much so that I nodded.
“Impressive. Too bad, it doesn’t fool Matthius the Monster Hunter.”
Only the Scarlet Pines were strong enough at the top to be climbed so late in the season. The forest made many patchwork roads for them to follow but only one in the direction I was headed- due north. I meant to take the fight to their den, if it was the last thing I ever did. All the better, for it might have become a tale worthy of the barderies. I stayed low and quiet. When I set out, there was no moonlight from which to hide. After many hours of hiking in my best impression of an assassin, everything changed. The west side of the river finally turned into the wide lake that the Sheek-tee called Beaver City. The shoreline disappeared westward into their territory and the water was filled with the homes of the mega beavers, all reinforced for the coming freeze. However, something much different was happening in the north east, where the many waterfalls filled the air with a constant cover of hazy droplets and loud noises.
The green and pink lights played along the ice as far out as the eye could see. The moon glowed from the south east and the stars occasionally peeked through the clouds. In every way, the secret hovel of the monsters was backlit and profiled. From the sky, the eastern shoreline, and against the usual fog of warm water hitting cold air, no other human had ever noticed. All the power of the Lantos and their access to the Lexicon of Potentiality, yet never a mention.
“Smart- right under their noses...”
The Opa had to have felled more than a few trees to cross. I knew they could not swim, especially given their unhidden footprints in the muddy parts of the shore. They made it too easy for me to sneak up on them. Under the cover of darkness, all I needed to do was swim across. The water was only slightly warmer than the exposed air. I laid on my shell and tucked the chest under my chin. Some parts were shallow enough to push off with my spears, some places I had to row with my arms. I never dared to kick my feet once. Once I felt the cool rush of the underwater current, I knew I had passed over the deepest parts.
“Half way to the underworld. Anyone turning back?”
My shell splashed quietly as I was pulled inland with the tiny waves. Few parts of the hidden island came into view. Despite the drafting tide, the small overhang had to be climbed from the surface of the water to the top that disappeared in the darkness. It took some rearranging that I had no patience for. Eventually, I had the shell on my back with the spears tucked in the straps and the chest stuck behind my neck. There was no trail on my side of the stones, just random hand holds and the occasional fall in which I had to hold my breath to keep from screaming. Inside the gutted stone, the Opa slept in mounds. I could feel their heat and smell their spoiled egg breath. There was more movement on the higher tier inside their cave home. Luckily, I did not smell nearly as bad as they. Nor did I ever bathe, so I did not wreak of soap either. Better, they had no guards at all. Unfortunately, this made me overly confident. Once I reached the peak of the island, a southern tip raised off the plateau higher than the tallest tree. I jumped up onto it. I swung up and had barely rolled down before the thing could break off. It bounced off of the southern wall of the sleeping masses. Nearly to the bottom, the thing was moving so fast that it tore a protruding rock wall apart. The pointed stone and the rounded wall both split and exploded into rubble and dust.
A few Opa poked their heads out to look up at me in disbelief.
“Sorry!”
The high plateau, as it turned out, did indeed have an armed guard. They were not prepared to accept my apology, nor did they hesitate long enough for me to offer one. Reeds began bouncing off of my armor. The plateau had a large hole in the middle to allow for air to escape and all of the guards were sleeping about the warm opening- before I woke them. My heart was racing from the rush of surprise. An Opa grabbed my right arm with more strength than I had ever imagined a single hand could possess. He was also immune to being punched right in the face.
“Oh yea? You think you’re so tough?”
It roared back at me and into the air. His mates decided that I was effectively captured and his partner hopped along towards us on his knuckles in a happy mood. The thing that had my arm licked his lips and squealed the scrambled language of his man eating tribe. He waited for my rebuttal with bright and confident eyes.
“Yea, but, can you swim though?”
He did not understand. I might as well have been Kru explaining the many reasons why he had to pee on every tree. Realizing just how stupid the things truly were, I conjured the red shadow and gave him a good long roar. Then I speared him through the ribs and over the edge. The fool behind me was dumbstruck. I used his own reed to sweep his knees away. Before he could hit the ground, I swung the chest around, knocking him out over the edge to drown in the water below.
A shrill call shook the rock under my feet, and the elites retreated to find their War Chief.
“That’s right, flee! Send me your master so that we may die together.”
I had two spears left, and all the energy in the world. I tied my hair in a top knot and stretched, sure that the beast would be along soon. Instead, the taller and smarter elites had gone off to lead the breeders away from their den. Somehow, I felt bad for displacing them. The poor things would not have been a problem, if they simply would have stopped eating the Sheek-tee children. The red shadow dissipated in the absence of action. Feeling an ambush was likely, I made my way around the eastern lip of the hole to follow the Opa. That’s when their War Chief appeared. He did not stand tall and offer me a battle, he swung down from a tree and kicked me into the pit.
The fall was fast and nearly fatal. Besides the surprise snapping of my neck from the initial kick, the walls were lined with pointed sticks- as was the bottom. I had taught the Opa to hunt with a Nanu Trap, only to fall victim to it. I was not the first either. The bones of several creatures lay strewn about and human skulls were amongst them. My shell usually handled falls better, but the uneven slide caused me to spin and flail. Luckily, I held the box of explosives to my chest and it was impaled instead of my body. I stood more quickly than the Opa War Chief had expected.
“You missed- idiot!”
It screamed back. It was joined by many others. Then, the games began. An army of the Opa beat their hollow reeds on the lip of the stone hole. The echo was louder and more menacing than any drum. Trapped at the bottom of a pit, surrounded by spikes and skeletons, their music was a thing of pure evil. Perhaps, if I had strayed in town the way the Lantos had ordered me to, I would have been fighting the monsters under the light of the full moon. With only a sliver missing, the light did all it need do, which was to profile my enem
ies. What the Lantos failed to deduce from invading my memories was that I no longer needed the light to heal. I was in full control of the red shadow, and it was more than enough on its own.
“And you failed to deduce something much more important.”
The War Chief stepped up to the lip of the hole to growl at the noisy sea turtle. I painted his novice trap in red and kicked over the spike next to where I had landed.
“If you don’t tip your spikes with iron, they’re no good in the cold.”
They had all gone soggy and frozen in a repetitive cycle too many times to resist my heavy boot. Their master called for a barrage of reeds. When he was turned, I launched my spear at his head. It went high, but I made him fear me, which was of equal importance. I blocked incoming reeds and kicked down the spikes until I was out of breath and they were out of ammunition. I was too well armed for the beast to reveal his face again. Instead, he watched me pick off his mates one at a time. At some point, he lost his patience and began throwing them into the pit. They were much more of a threat up close, and the spikes made for brutish clubs.
They were, however, simple creatures that did not understand momentum. The faster they rushed in, the deeper their spent reeds punctured through their own torsos. The smell of blood was thick and suffocating, but I had only survived the first wave. They played games of hide and seek on my eyes, spearing me with reeds from every exposed angle they could manage. I was cut into with little circles, and crescent shaped cuts were left on my vest. I barely survived their second wave of attack. No matter, I was wheezing and bloodied and yelling for more. They knew better than to run away, though their master had to roar constantly to remind them. The price of retreat was death. Then, so became the price of staying.
“Matthius!”
“Major Swiftblade? I’m in the pit!”
“Don’t move.”
A single shot of the lightning infused fire blasted through the line on my left from the north. I could hear the Opa below screaming and getting their younglings to safety. The exodus had been reinitiated. Then the Swiftblade leapt into the hole on purpose.
