“Sounds delicious,” Grimbald said. “When will it be ready?”
“Would you like to join me?” Walter asked, parting an eye and looking up at him. He started drumming his fingers on his thighs, but stopped himself with a sharp breath.
Grimbald frowned down, spiked butt of Corpsemaker shining in the last of the sun. The volcano marking the bloody Plains of Dressna puffed away to the south. The smell of sulfur occasionally came with a gust, noxious in its own right. Baylan, Nyset and Juzo went hunting, leaving Grimbald and Walter to set up camp.
“I don’t pray. Don’t believe in the gods or magics,” Grimbald said.
“What do you attribute to this then?” Walter said, letting Dragon fire engulf his hand, flesh untouched.
Grimbald shrugged. “Dogs hear really good. Fish swim really fast. Some men are bigger, stronger than others. Some can control fire and wind. It’s just nature.”
Walter sighed and spread his knees a bit in the soft dirt. Their two heavy canvas tents sat propped up on either side of a fire pit, likely recently used by look of the remaining charred birch wood.
“What do you pray for then?” Grimbald asked, dropping to the dirt beside him.
“I pray for you. You seem like you need it,” Walter grinned, opening his eyes. “No, I’ve been feeling a little anxious, that’s all.” He started drumming on his knees again and yanked his hands away, back to his sides. By the Dragon, would his fingers not be happy until they drummed a hole through his pants? “Do you ever feel like there’s a heavy weight on your back, pressing your spirits down?”
“Sometimes. Try not to think about things like that too often.”
“This is how I get from under it, before the axe falls. When things start feeling too heavy, I find peace by looking inside my mind.”
Grimbald picked up three logs from a pile they chopped earlier and dropped them into the fire pit, ash puffing into the air.
Walter coughed and shielded his mouth. “Could you be a bit more gentle next time, you big bastard?” Walter said.
“I’ll try, don’t have a lot of gentle in me,” Grimbald said with a grin, sitting down on a yellowish boulder beside Walter.
“So I have come to learn,” Walter snickered. He pulled the cork off his water skin with his teeth and drank with a glug, using the hand not covered in fire. He offered it to Grimbald, who took a swallow and wiped his lips with satisfaction.
“I find peace in cold steel,” Grimbald said, his eyebrows raised. He slipped Corpsemaker from his back and got to work with a sharpening stone. “Reliable, deadly, and in my control. Thinking your future is controlled by something else is crazy. No way to live, my pa always said.” The stone hissed along the curving blade of Corpsemaker, singing death with each rasp.
“I look at it this way, Grim. If I’m wrong and there is no Shadow Realm, nothing after we die, then I’ve lost very little, other than the time I spent praying,” Walter said, moving his hand over the white logs, letting the flames around his hand pour into the fire like molasses oozing out of a jar. To deny this wasn’t a gift from the gods was as foolish as denying the sky.
The bark burst alight in brilliant blues and greens, sputtering and sizzling as the moisture was burned out of it. Grimbald grunted as he worked out a particularly bad dent in the blade. The Dragon fire continued to ooze over the logs, setting them all ablaze.
“If you’re wrong Grimbald,” Walter said turning to him, eyes dimly glowing with Dragon fire. “And you spent your life disparaging the Dragon and the Phoenix, things might not go so well for you in the Shadow Realm, assuming it exists. The way I look at, it’s a very low risk investment, as my dad would’ve said, compared to the potential downside.”
Grimbald paused, putting the sharpening stone on his thigh and scratched at his beard which was starting to become unruly. “The only reason you pray then is to avoid the anger of the gods when you die?”
“No, I know they exist. They’re with me, a part of me every day.”
“Or maybe you just have a wild imagination,” Grimbald said, resuming stropping his blade.
“Ah, that’s the beauty of it all. We’re all free to have our own thoughts,” Walter said, staring into the hypnotic flames, his stomach rumbling and growing anxious at the prospect of a meal.
Grimbald grunted his agreement.
* * *
Nyset crouched low behind a bush with tiny red leaves. Her eyes were focused on the deer with an incredible crown of horns, nibbling on pink flowers the size of elixir mugs. There was a small valley of forest between the Tigerian Bluffs and volcano, just enough wood to support the life they were looking for. The sun cast dappling light across her face through the canopy of trees high above. Damp, cool wind filtered between the bush and around the back of her head, pulling a golden length of hair across her brow. She tucked it back behind her ear in its proper place. She sometimes thought it would be easier to shave her head like some of the soldiers did, but that just wouldn’t do.
The gurgle of the nearby brook was a pleasant reminder of hunting with her father. They had always stopped for lunch at the narrow river that ran from the Denerian Cliff’s down to the Woodland Plunge. He had named it ‘Ny’s river’. It was their name and their private place that only they knew about, at least that’s how she liked to remember it. The thought was warm in her mind, pasting a smile across her lips.
Baylan’s breath was labored as he carefully squatted down beside her, as if they had been running all day. He might find it beneficial to his health if he spent less time sitting on his horse, she thought. Or maybe that’s just what happens when you get old. She pointed towards the black and white spotted deer. The old man’s eyes crinkled with the wisdom of hundreds of years as he found it and nodded at her. He was starting to feel like a second father to her, mentoring her in her studies.
She held a finger to her lips and twisted on her ankles towards Juzo, whose red eye glowed from the edge of a tree about twenty paces back. Juzo trailed far behind, watching their backs. It seemed you could never be too cautious these days. She wasn’t sure about him anymore, admitting to murdering a man in self-defense. She liked to think she would have handled the situation better without undue killing. She wasn’t there though. She had to trust his word. If you didn’t have trust among friends, you had nothing.
He nodded back at her and she couldn’t help but feel her skin prickle at the strange glow in his eye. He wasn’t the easy going prankster she remembered growing up. A lot had changed in him over the last few months. She couldn’t blame him though. She probably still wouldn’t have been able to speak if she had to endure what he had. She hoped in time he would open up to her again and his wounds would heal. He was cold and quiet, like a great divide had formed between them. Walter seemed to be the only person he could begin to open up with.
She sucked in the humid air, directing her focus back to dinner. She crinkled her nose as her stomach moaned with hunger. The deer snapped a length of purple flowers from the ground and started chewing with a dull crunch. She exhaled slowly, allowing the force of the Dragon to flow into her fingertips. They were hot with its chaos, begging for release. She pressed the force of its chaos back up her arms, wrangling its fury in her mind.
She imagined a bow, much like the one she used with her dad, and it sprung to life in her hands in swirls of molten fire. She knew she didn’t need that though and it vanished in wisps of smoke. She popped her head above the bush and raised her palm up beside it. An arrow of flame slowly extended from her palm and hovered in the air. A second later, it hissed through the air, passing through the deer’s neck and the tree behind it as if they were as light as air.
The deer fell to the ground, wildly bleating in pain. Nyset rose from behind the bush and three more flame arrows burst to life beside her head, zooming through the air and into the deer, putting it out of its misery.
“Nicely done,” Baylan said, putting his wizened hand on her shoulder.
She took a deep breath, pressing down
the urge to cry. It was never easy killing anything but those Death Spawn beasts. This creature was innocent, just going about its day and trying to live out its life in peace.
“Uh, thanks,” she said wiping the beginnings of tears from her glowing eyes, doing her best to hide it from Baylan. “Let’s eat, shall we?”
She turned around, letting the Dragon melt from her veins, scanning for Juzo. “Juzo, think you can lend us some of your strength?” she asked, followed by a sniff. He wasn’t by the tree anymore, or anywhere for that matter. “Juzo?” she shouted, hands cupped around her mouth to project her voice.
“Do you see him?” she asked.
“No. I swore he was right behind us,” Baylan said, adjusting his red sash. They both looked at each other with growing concern. Nyset hurried to the tree where she last saw him and Baylan followed. A hard gust swirled down through the trees, ruffling bushes and shrubs, blowing debris into her eyes. She spun around, not seeing any sign of him.
“Maybe he went back to camp, seeing the majority of the work was done,” Baylan suggested.
“Or maybe he went hunting for something more to his liking,” she said, her lips forming into a disapproving frown.
Nyset turned around, heading back for the deer. “I’ll get to the quartering then. Keep an eye out, would you?”
“Certainly,” Baylan said, fingering his silvery dagger’s hilt.
She parted bushes and weaved through shrubs with leaves the size of her body. The deer’s tongue had flopped out the side of its mouth and one of its legs twitched. Something closed over her with a squishing sound, casting the world in green.
“What—” She placed her hands on the green walls, fibrous veins running across them. She tried to lift her foot to move and it was held in place by something clear and sticky. Realization crept over her with mounting horror. Sand Buckeye! There was movement to her right. Red tentacles slithered towards her in syrupy motion from a hole the size of her fist.
“Baylan! Baylan!” she screamed, her mind blank and hands wet with sweat. She could hear him pounding on her green prison from the outside. The tentacles hovered before her, tiny holes at their pink ends sucking air up and down her body. The tentacles snapped around her wrists, pulling her arms wide with vicious force and tearing something in her shoulder, causing her to shriek in pain. They encircled her ankles, spreading her legs and another wrapped tightly around her neck. She started gasping for air, her eyes bulging and lips trembling. Baylan was yelling something, but she couldn’t make out what it was.
“Baylan! Help!” She managed to get out before the tentacle clamped down tighter, cutting of her breath. Another tentacle hovered before her face, then started prying her lips apart, forcing its way into her mouth.
Something shiny stabbed into the green wall, which was tough as leather, slowly carving a hole in it. Baylan’s mouth appeared in the small hole. “Use the Dragon, Ny! The Dragon!” he screamed. How could she have forgotten? The tentacle in her mouth worked its way into her throat and she started gagging. She chomped down on it, squishing sour liquid around her mouth.
Six flaming discs materialized in the air, hovering and bathing her face in their deadly warmth. They flicked from side to side, slicing through the plant’s red vines with ease. She yanked the vine from her neck and pulled the other out of her throat. The tentacles attached to the plant writhed on the ground, slopping with viscous goo, pulling back into the dark hole from where they came. She made two discs slice smoking lines into the verdant walls from top to bottom and then cut across the top. Her eyes glowed with red brilliance and she easily pulled her foot from the entrapping ichor, peeling it apart and stretching with a snap.
Baylan’s hand reach into one of the blackened cuts and started pulling open the makeshift door she had cut. It pulled apart and he got out of the way as it crashed onto a shrub. She let the Dragon dissipate, leaving her with the weight of its exhaustion.
“Ny! Are you okay?” he stammered, offering his hand through the rectangular door.
“I think so. A bit shocked more than anything.” She took his hand and stepped off the hewed section of plant. Baylan looked her up and down and started helping her peel the segmented vines from around her wrists and ankles. She scraped her boots on a sharp rock, working off the sticking liquid. “Never thought I’d end up almost becoming a plant’s dinner.”
“I had no idea they could get so big,” Baylan said with fascination, sticking his head inside the Sand Buckeye and peering from side to side. “I’ve never heard of them trying to eat humans. An interesting specimen, indeed,” Baylan said, rubbing his hands together, his eyes pulling into a smile. “It must be documented,” he said rifling through his bag and getting out his notebook.
“How did I miss this?” she asked, her hands on hips and looking up at the bulbous plant. It was almost as big as a room in the Lair, clear liquid oozing in sheets from where Nyset had cut through its sidewall. It twitched from side to side with a slight roll and they both took cautious steps back. It started retreating into a hole in the ground, shrinking down and compressing its body as it slinked away.
“Incredible!” Baylan said, clapping his hands together.
“That explains why I didn’t see it,” she said with a nod. She grabbed a glob of ichor from her hair and started ineffectively flicking it onto the tall grass as it stuck to her fingers like honey.
Nyset thought she would have been as interested in the plant as he was if she hadn’t almost been its dinner. It was surely something she would never forget. It was much older than the babies she had first seen in Midgaard. They were cute, this was nightmarish. She turned back towards the deer as Baylan’s charcoal pencil hissed away, the beginnings of a sketch forming on the page.
The deer stared up at her, its big black eye open with the surprise. She formed a flaming dagger in her hand and began to quarter the deer, just like dad taught. It was a breeze with such powerful weapons, cutting through tough tendon and ligament with ease. The singeing fur stung her eyes and burned her sinuses as she cut, cooking the flesh.
They wouldn’t be able to use all the meat before it spoiled, so they would only haul two flanks back and leave the rest to the animals. It seemed like a waste to Nyset. To kill such a big animal that had taken so long to get to that size, only to feed them for a couple days was foolish. Some things in life just weren’t logical and that was alright, she reminded herself.
There was no sign of Juzo and no trace of his ever being there as far as Nyset could tell. The sun was setting and they had to assume that he had lost them and went back to camp. If she found he’d just up and left them without a word, he would get a piece of her mind. It would be hard to trust someone who can’t even stick around long enough to watch your back during a hunt. Walter always seemed to be eying that sword of his, maybe something to look out for. She didn’t want to acknowledge the likely reason for his disappearance, but it kept bubbling up in her mind. Juzo had likely left to do some hunting of his own.
Chapter Seven
Home Sweet Hole
“The shadows under Juzo’s brow were cold, his ruby colored eye containing a life’s worth of sadness, misery, and grief.” -The Diaries of Baylan Spear
It was just like Juzo remembered it. Dark, dry, and still as a rotting corpse. He stared down at the twisting stairs, winding their way into the cavernous cylinder, into the depths of the Tigerian Bluffs. Here once again, like a Rot Fly to necrotic tissue. He wasn’t sure why he had come back, maybe wanting to dredge up some old wounds, perhaps if it was a profession he could make an honest living from it. Juzo didn’t feel like there was much honesty left in his blood, but he was trying to make an effort to change that.
The old feeling came back, knotting his stomach into a ball of loathing. The emotion bubbled up his throat like searing acid, one he thought he’d never feel again. The terror of disappointing the master slipped over his neck like the hangman’s noose. What would it be this time? Partial flaying perhaps? Spikes
driven through the hands? Dagger in the gut? No, he’s dead. He had killed Terar.
We killed him, Blackout hissed.
“Yes,” Juzo whispered back. He rested his hand on Blackout’s hilt, vibrating with energy. He took a breath and started leaping down the old familiar stairs, terror cinching around his gut like a vice with each passing step, the stone growing ever colder through his boots. His legs were working mechanically, still remembering the location of each unevenly spaced step, skipping over snaring roots and shattered sections of stairs.
He arrived at the bottom of the stairway, standing before the long passage of crypts. He took a step and the old torches burst alight with their sickly green flames. How those torches knew to light when he approached had remained a mystery to him, and he thought it always would.
He clenched his fists and his bladed teeth ground and scraped together. He closed his eyes for a long moment and opened them, scanning for the familiar glow of magical objects. Terar would always be shit of the realm in Juzo’s book, but he did teach him how to use his abilities. That was one of his redeeming gestures, but it wouldn’t have stopped him from making him taste Blackout’s kiss again.
The iron sonces glowed with a faint blue along the walls and everything else grew dark in comparison with his magical vision. Further down at the end of the hall, leading into Terar’s chambers, two round figures sat perched on stone columns. Their eyes were wide, black holes in the hazy cloud of blues surrounding their arachnid like lower bodies. Reapers. How could he have forgotten about those? Without Terar here, Juzo wondered how they’d react to his presence. He supposed there was only one way to find out.
He marched through the archway and into the long hall, ancient crypts gaping open on either side. His hand wrapped tightly around Blackout’s hilt, tendons rising out from under his forearm with his steely grip. His heart beat like a hammer around his missing eye, like it was being gouged out again for the first time. His boots echoed through the passage with each step, nostrils flaring open with frantic breaths. He winced at his pounding heart, lips curling back to reveal his jagged smile. His red eye dimly glowed, intermingling with the green sheen flickering over his sunken cheeks.
The Silver Tower (The Age of Dawn Book 3) Page 8
