I missed completely. The useless projectile sailed harmlessly over his shoulder and into the forest beyond.
Shaking more than ever, I tried to reach back for another arrow, but there was no time. The spear was going to impale me unless I moved, and so I did. I dove to one side, and the carved, stone tip ripped through the air where I’d been kneeling and dug deep into the dirt behind me. I thought it might buy me a minute or two as he struggled to free the thing from the ground, but I underestimated Gudra. He jerked the thing—not only out, but directly my way, throwing off several pounds of dirt and grass, and aiming the spear deftly between my eyes.
I rolled away and down but the spear still carved a piece of flesh off the bridge of my nose. Falling away from the man-monster, I rolled up on one knee, and checked on my fast-moving enemy. Behind him I saw Nova standing there, still, watching with horrified eyes.
“Nova!” I yelled. “RUN!”
But she didn’t move.
“Brandon,” she said, plaintively, and the obvious loving sound in her voice infuriated Gudra. He may not understand her imposed ‘slave-language’, but he couldn’t miss the emotion behind those words. He jabbed the spear at me again so fast I almost didn’t see it, or move in time. As it was he still ripped open my cheek.
I screamed and fell to one side, and Nova screamed as well.
Gudra jerked the spear again in my direction with terrific velocity and while the blade tip missed, the shaft didn’t. The impact to my skull knocked me to my chest, and I once again understood the phrase ‘seeing stars’. Intense white light filled my vision and blinded me, then sparkled away to reveal Gudra raising his spear above his head to jam it down through some tender part of me—probably my face. It was hopeless. I was exhausted, starved, wounded, and slow—and Gudra was ten times the warrior I was.
I looked at Nova, her nude body so lovely and delicate. Her face so indescribably beautiful. She had loved me so intensely, and so sincerely, that I would have given anything at that moment to feel her against me just one more time. She was worth any battle, any agony.
Almost against my will, my upheld arm moved slightly to the left as the spear came down, pressing lightly against the point and widening the angle of Gudra’s thrust. It slammed downward just a few inches to my right—not far from me, but enough that it missed. It dug so hard into the dirt behind me that the ground shuddered—and the spear snapped. In that moment, I realized my advantage.
Apparently I’d internalized more of the high school training I’d gotten in fencing and martial arts than I’d realized. Never enough to become a threat, or particularly proficient, but apparently enough to remember something that was now going to save my life. Use your enemy’s power against them. With minimal force you can widen their angle of attack, and avoid ever being touched.
Gudra’s surprised face was now so close to me that I was able to punch him hard in the raw, exposed eye. The pain was obviously severe. He shrieked, and fell away from me, stumbling around and covering his injury.
I pulled my knife, and stood, unsteadily, took a wobbly step toward him and encouraging him to attack. Growling like an animal he did, red with rage, moving so quickly he almost got me before I could move. But I did move, a little to my left, and as his overbalanced weight flew past me, I jabbed my knife hard into the fleshy part of his upper arm. It was a tactic I should only use once, as Gudra was likely to catch on, but a wound like that was already balancing out the fight.
I began to think I had a chance.
My agility would save me, and because Gudra lacked control, my depleted condition was less of an issue.
Slightly less.
He attacked again, I ducked beneath his raised arm, and stabbed upward into his stomach as he practically flew over me. Apparently I missed any vital organs, because he immediately wheeled to come at me again, only to find his quickness rewarded with another punch to the face, followed instantly by an inch or two of sharpened stone in the muscles of his other arm.
For the first time since our meeting, I saw something that gave me hope. Fear in Gudra’s good eye.
It was a duel of strategy now—the great, hairy man maneuvering to get inside my guard where he could bring those giant muscles to play, while I continually moved just enough one way then the other to avoid being grasped. I remembered a judo-studying friend of mine once telling me that all the fancy karate moves in the world would only work until he could get hold of his enemy, and then they were dead. If Gudra ever got me in his crushing grip, that was my fate, and I knew it. So I had to keep dancing around, avoiding those monstrous, grasping hands.
Every brain cell was frantic with the task of keeping Gudra at arm’s length. Three times more he rushed me, and three times more I blocked his knife blow with my forearm, as my own knife found soft places in his body—once penetrating a lung with a wound that instantly foamed and sprayed with each of his now desperate breaths.
He was dripping with blood by now, and the internal hemorrhage induced fits of coughing that brought a steady red stream through his hideous mouth and missing nose, running down his jaw, neck and chest, covering it with pink froth. If it was possible, he’d become even more hideous, but he was far from dead.
As the duel went on I continued to gain confidence. I hadn’t expected to survive beyond the first attack from this monstrous engine of rage and hatred, and I think Gudra had felt the same. His thoughts had gone from utter contempt of me to a grudging feeling of respect, and perhaps even some recognition that he had at last met someone who could stand up to him—if not beat him.
Whatever the case, the fight had to end soon, because I was about to, and if I passed out before finishing Gudra, Gudra would finish me.
The Ugly One charged again, but instead of trying futilely to stab me once more with his knife, he instead dropped the weapon and grabbed my blade with both hands, wrenching the thing away from me.
I was entirely unprepared, and now unarmed. I’d given it a valiant go, but it was over for me. With no way for me to inflict damage. It was only a matter of waiting me out until I collapsed from injuries and exhaustion. I was done.
Gudra flung my blade far to one side, into some bushes and stood motionless for just an instant glaring into my face with such a horrid leer of malignant triumph that the look alone nearly kill me—then he sprang for me with his bare hands.
As he came roaring like the massive bear he was, I ducked under his outstretched arm, and came up with my right to plant as clean a blow to his jaw as any ultimate fighter has ever landed on any opponent. Two of his exposed teeth exploded away from the jaw, and down went the great monster to sprawl on the ground. He was so surprised and dazed that he lay there for several seconds before making any attempt to rise. As he did, I stood shakily over him with fists ready.
But my knees were shaking with exhaustion, and suddenly, unexpectedly, gave out on me, dropping me to my knees. I managed to keep my fists up, but my arms were fairly vibrating with fatigue, and I knew they’d be useless to defend.
For what seemed like forever Gudra just lie there in front of me, his good eye turned toward me, staring at me, his breath heaving in ragged gasps, lid drooping over his one, covered eye. Then his expression softened, and he looked over at Nova, whose own eyes were only on me, tears dripping, face anguished.
“Gudra, please,” she said. “Please, don’t kill him!”
Finally, with a deep sigh, the massive man looked away from her, momentarily seeing nothing, until he turned his gaze back to me. He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. He simply stared for an unusually long time.
Then slowly, agonizingly slowly, he reached behind his back, and for the first time I noticed the pool of blood that had been spreading out across the sand and grass.
Nova saw it too, and gasped.
Gudra rose, unsteadily, and I watched as he lifted himself off the shaft of broken spear that had stuck in the ground beside me, earlier. Dark red fluid coated the wood like candied apple. As he rose fr
om his knees, Gudra gripped the piece of spear tightly, and slowly drew it from the ground. Holding the dripping thing loosely in his massive hand, he just stood there for a long, long while, staring at me, breathing frothily. Finally he began staggering my way, moving nearly at a snail’s pace. His leisurely speed fooled me into thinking I might defend myself against him. But before I could react he shot out a hand and grabbed my shoulder tightly, holding me in place, the bloody spear-point aimed directly at my heart.
Time stopped in the timeless Pangea. I waited for the death I had foolishly thought he wasn’t fast enough to deliver, but in reality I was the one who was no longer fast enough to escape. Then—instead of impaling me—he glanced back at Nova.
“Please, Gudra,” she said, crying. “I know you can’t understand me, but please! Please! I love him. I love him.”
I saw her words land harder than any blow I’d delivered in this fight. He lowered his head, destroyed, then lifted it back up with painful slowness to glare at me. After a minute of unblinking intensity, he turned the spear shaft around, and rested it against his solar plexus, holding it there, as if waiting.
I looked up at him in surprise, not sure what was happening.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, a smile formed on the good side of his face, and Gudra nodded. I was being given the honor of ending it. As slowly as he had smiled, I reached up and took hold of the spear, and he let go as my fingers closed about it’s sticky shaft. I obliged, intending to make it quick, and pushed as hard and fast as I could manage. But it wasn’t fast, or hard enough. I had nothing left.
Very slowly he put his other hand on mine, and forced the spear in, and up, directly into his heart. Then he dropped to his knees, frozen there for a moment as I stepped aside, and finally forward onto his face, dead.
Nova was whispering my name. I could barely hear her. I turned to her and saw her grateful, hopeful eyes. I smiled. The world swam and flowed and grew suddenly dark, then light again, then dark once more. I pitched face down into the dirt at her feet, knowing I would only stop loving her when I died, just as Gudra had.
* * *
OUR GARDEN OF EDEN
* * *
I AWOKE WITH Nova’s arms around me.
Every inch of me ached. I had bandages covering almost my entire body, but I felt no pain. My lovely, loving cave girl was holding me as I slept. As she slept.
I lie there a long time, with her head on my chest, then slowly so as not to wake her, pulled my hand up to hold her shoulder. I stayed like that, almost perfectly content, staring up at the dancing leaves of the trees that shaded us from the constant, scorching, noonday sun. Strange birds drifted past in the azure of the sky, and insects that probably hadn’t been heard on the outer world in millions of years chirped and clicked from every direction. A small brook splashed nearby. I supposed that was how she’d cleaned my wounds and bandaged them. My brave, resourceful beauty.
Somehow she had pulled me near to the mouth of a small cave, but not far enough in to actually hide us. I became aware of the world, my mind coming into focus, and became nervous about being exposed, wondering how far away our inevitable Angara trackers were.
Hurting more than I ever thought I could, I leaned down to kiss the tangle of raven hair on her head, and—smiling—fell back to sleep.
When I awoke I saw Nova kneeling near the stream, soaking grasses and strips of hide. She still wore nothing other than hide sandals and a few stone and string bracelets, and though it hurt just to think of it, I longed to feel her lovely, bare body. Her skin was a deep, golden brown, and I remembered how soft and magical it was to touch. She bent over, oblivious to my stares, her breasts pressing against her knees, her long hair flowing magically with her deliberate movements.
She turned and shook out the things she’d been—I don’t know—washing, or rinsing—still unaware that I was looking at her. Her breasts jiggled with her gentle movements, and I was surprised to find my body responding in ways it probably shouldn’t given that my blood was more urgently needed elsewhere.
At last she glanced my way, and we smiled at one another, happily. She stood and walked over to me, her movements so sexy that the affected part of me sprang to life in a way that surprised us both.
“Well,” she said, noticing. “I guess you really do think I’m pretty.”
“There’s never been anyone prettier,” I said, smitten. “On your world, or mine.”
She smiled more broadly, averting her eyes shyly, blushing a bit, then finished her journey toward me. She knelt down in the grass beside me to remove some red-stained bandages, and replaced them with the ones she’d been washing in the river. Her eyes bobbed back and forth from her work to my silent erection.
“Stop that,” she whispered. “You’re not well enough…”
“Says you,” I replied, and pulled her lovely face to mine, kissing her softly.
She backed away, studied my eyes, nearly laughed, then shot another quick glance at my hardened flesh.
“I’m not going to see you survive against Gudra just so I can kill you with love,” she said, very clinically and coldly.
“Kill me with love,” I said. “Please kill me with love.”
She laughed—a pleasant, musical sound—and finished re-wrapping a particularly nasty cut that ran the length of my ribs, up under my right arm. Some of my injuries I didn’t even remember getting. Had all these been from Gudra?
After she was done bandaging, Nova placed her hands on her thighs and looked me over. She smiled gently with both her lips and her eyes, and I could tell that some of the fear had left her. Some.
“You are very handsome,” she said, warmly. “I had forgotten how much I enjoyed looking at you.”
Now it was my turn to laugh.
“I’m glad you think so,” I said.
“As glad as I am that you think I’m beautiful. You really do think I’m beautiful?”
“I really do.”
She shot another glance at my still solidified shaft, then looked away again, shyly. After a moment she glanced its way once more, this time with obvious desire in her eyes, and reached out quickly to brush her fingertips down the length of it, very softly. Just as quickly she removed her hand, and lowered her eyes nervously. After a bit, she looked up at me and smiled again.
“Did that hurt?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Felt good,” I answered.
More shy smiles from her, more lowered eyes, and then another hungry look at my appreciative member. She reached for it again, touching it so gently it almost did hurt. Ache. Her fingertips started at the tip, and moved slowly, sweetly, down the upward facing underside, all the way to the bottom. Then she leisurely moved them back up the side, with slightly more pressure, this time.
“Tell me if I’m hurting you,” she said with concern.
“Believe me, Nova. You’re healing me.”
She giggled, girlishly, and pressed harder as she stroked back once more to the tip. Then she very slowly pressed her fingers down and outward until her palm was against me, closing her grip tenderly, but firmly, around my grateful flesh.
“I missed you,” she said, and I heard her voice crack with sadness, “and the way you loved me.”
She lowered her eyes, and I thought I saw a crystalline drop fall into the grass where she knelt.
“You said you hated me for what I’d done,” I reminded her, gently. “Or hadn’t done.”
“I knew then it was because you were telling the truth about where you were from. But for my whole life people have made fun of me because I wasn’t pretty. And here was a man who everyone else had believed was lying to me just so I would let him put himself in me. So it hurt.”
I was crushed. It was inconceivable that any woman as lovely and kind as Nova could not see how amazing she was, but clearly I was a stranger in this strange land. I saw the genuine suffering that had been a lifelong part of her, and began to understand how she would be all the more hurt when I’d done—in
the eyes of those around us—the wrong thing.
“I realized then that people would always wonder,” she said, “wonder if you were with me only so you could have my lands, or be king of Sa Fasi, and I knew that as I grew wrinkled and gray and the love diminished between us, your eyes would shift toward other, more attractive women, and I would begin to wonder the same thing.”
“The love will never diminish between us. It will only deepen.”
I tried to sit up, which was a mistake, and settled for grabbing her free hand, the one closest to mine.
“I will never think anyone more beautiful than you, Nova. Ever.”
I pulled her hand toward me, and kissed it, then drew her down to me. She came without releasing her grip on my spear, and kissed me with such longing, and such passion, that I nearly cried.
“I don’t care about being king,” I said. “I don’t care about your lands, or your money, or your stuffed animal collection, or anything else. I only care about you.”
The smile returned to her face, and my heart soared. She turned and rested her cheek on my chest and I felt tears moisten my skin.
“Why would I—or anyone—collect, and stuff animals?” she asked, laughingly.
“It’s hard to explain,” I said. “I just mean that I could live my life right here with you in this cave, under these trees, beside this stream, and die without ever wanting more.”
Her fingers squeezed mine, so tightly.
“I love you, Nova. With all my heart. With all my soul. If you never want to return to your tribe, I will hold your hand up, and then to my heart before everyone you know. I will go with you wherever you want to go, do whatever you want me to do. If you want me to be your lover, your guardian, or your slave, I will be. I will carry your water, wash your hair, clean your feet… whatever will keep you near me.”
The Hollow World: (Pangea, Book 1) Page 26
