The Bond of Blood

by Kody Boye

  The catfish’s eyes rotated up.

  Catching Odin’s gaze in a frightened stare, the creature’s pupils widened, then dilated before it disappeared into the sand—a thrash of fear, anger and adrenaline kicking up bottom soil from the stream.

  “Odin,” Miko said, falling to a knee beside him. “If this is about what happened—”

  “I know,” he mumbled. “It wasn’t there anymore.”

  “What was left inside that Ogre’s body was nothing but a husk of madness. Any conscience Bafran had was gone the moment he stepped into that cave.”

  Unable to reply, Odin took a deep breath, then expelled it. Ripples crossed the water as his breath met and disturbed its surface.

  “I’m not going to baby you on this, Odin—you’ll kill far more as a knight than you ever have as a squire.”

  “I know.”

  “So why are you still dwelling on something that’s dead and in the ground?”

  Maybe for the same reason you’re dwelling on the things you’ve done, he thought. Because you feel guilty.

  He chose not to give life to his thought. Instead, he pushed himself to his feet, brushed the dirt off his pants, then sighed again. “Guess I never got to become a man,” he said, “huh?”

  Miko shook his head. Closing the distance between them, he took Odin’s face in his hands and closed his eyes. “You’ll always be a man, Odin,” the Elf whispered. “You don’t need hair on your face to prove that.”

  Leaning forward, Miko pressed his lips to Odin’s forehead, then walked off.

  It wasn’t until Odin reached up that he realized he had stubble.

  Upon returning to the cave, Odin found Miko and Nova stooped over their packs, tying down the last of their essentials and preparing for the final leg of the journey. In the short moment that Nova looked up when Odin stepped into the clearing, a flash of confusion and bewilderment lit his face. Blinking, he wet his lips, then started to say something, but stopped when Odin shook his head and drew up alongside his knight master.

  “Thank you,” Odin whispered.

  Miko looked up, but said nothing as he returned to packing their belongings.

  “What,” Nova started. “You—”

  Odin shook his head, a smile crossing his lips as he bent to grab his pack.

  “Are we almost ready?” Miko asked.

  “Uh… yeah,” Nova said, hefting his bag over his shoulder. “I’m ready.”

  “Are you, Odin?”

  “Whenever you guys are,” he shrugged.

  Nodding, Miko bent, lifted the largest of the three packs over his shoulders, then turned to face the cave’s giant door. “This is it,” the Elf said. “Either of you want to say goodbye?”

  Neither Odin nor Nova spoke.

  With one last look inside the cave, Miko slammed the door into place.

  More than one memory would be taken from this place.

  It took most of the morning and much of the afternoon to cross the forest and enter Sunskin’s domain. Like death swooping down from the heavens to reap the souls of the dead, they pushed on without hesitation, barely pausing when every Ogre in the immediate area turned to look at them. Not a single creature said a thing as they looked upon them with their dull, glassy eyes, seemingly trying to speak without actually saying anything. A connection made not with words, but feelings, Odin forced himself to look at his knight master’s back, if only to keep from breaking into nervous shakes.

  You did what you had to do, Nova had whispered. That thing would’ve killed him if you hadn’t’ve got to it first.

  Regardless, it didn’t change the fact that he felt as though he’d done something wrong.

  Guilt was harbored in every man’s heart. Whether he chose to release it from the dock was another story entirely.

  Coaxing himself to believe his friend’s words, Odin pushed the thoughts from his head and continued to follow his knight master.

  For the next several agonizing moments, he stared at nothing but the individual threads in the Elf’s cape, tracing their benign patterns and trying to find where they ended. He followed one thread for what seemed like ages before it disappeared from sight, though lost to the tapestry or mind he couldn’t tell, nor did he particularly care to. If he found something else to obsess over, he might go insane.

  “Hey,” Nova whispered, smacking his shoulder. “Odin.”

  “What?”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “It’s… they… them—”

  “They’re not doing anything to you, so snap out of it.”

  “Nova—”

  “Look,” the older man growled, reaching across his shoulder to dig his fingers into the fabric of Odin’s shirt. “They didn’t do anything to us. It was one Ogre—one mad, out of his mind Ogre—that came into our cave and tried to kill us. They didn’t do anything to harm us, so get your fucking head out of your ass and quit acting like you are.”

  Smacking the back of his head, Nova pushed Odin forward, nearly into an Ogre that had stepped out from around the bend in the road. “Child,” she cooed.

  “Suh-Suh-Sunskin,” he managed.

  “It is good to see your eyes.”

  “I… I don’t…” Odin paused. Swallowing a lump in his throat, he turned to look up at the Ogre, surprised when he found no hint of malice in her amber eyes. Concern, maybe even worry, lit the orbs inlaid in her head like gold to a figurehead’s skull, but no hurt polished their surfaces, nor gleamed with anger. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “For what, red-eyes?”

  “For doing what I did.”

  “Odin,” the Ogre said. Reaching forward, she set both hands over his shoulders and cupped his back in her palms, then tipped his chin up with one massive thumb. “You are aware that life is important,” she began. “For that alone you understand something that many never learn, nor comprehend. Your shame lies in your youth, child, for you feel that robbing another’s life only serves to further your own. Am I wrong, red-eyed child? Do you not feel shame for taking someone’s heart and crushing it in your hands?”

  “Of course I do,” he sighed. “Why would I feel so guilty if I didn’t?”

  “Only you are able to grant your aching soul mercy for the act you’ve committed. Bafran sealed his own fate when he took a life young and fertile and ended it in his hands. Had you not protected my son, his life would have ended in pain, as would fire-hair’s and quite possibly your own. Are you aware of what we do to those who kill our young?”

  “No.”

  “Death for them is painful, torturous beyond a sword through the heart. Had Bafran not left the village and chosen to pursue others of our kind, he would have had his limbs cut from his torso and his body thrown to the woods for the pigs. Do you know what it feels like to be eaten alive, my friend? Do you know the agony of having your flesh torn from your body piece by piece until you finally cease to exist?”

  “No.”

  “Then pray for your heart that it heals, because had you not killed him, and had he killed you, your friend and my son, his suffering would have been far worse than any death you could have given him.” Releasing hold of Odin, Sunskin turned to face Miko. This time, she didn’t reach out or make an attempt to extend a physical gesture. “You leave when the winter passes and the spring is born new,” she said. “That time is now.”

  “Yes, Mother—it is.”

  “I bid you farewell and good nature in your journeys, my son, as I do you, Nova of the Bohren hills and Odin of the Felnon forests. This may be the last time I will ever see you.”

  “Mother,” Miko whispered.

  “I am old, Maeko. I am not ancient in blood as you are. I have seen these days coming for a long time now. There is no denying that my life, as important as it may seem, will eventually come to an end.”

  “You can’t stay here.”

  “Nor can I leave my people to journey to the human lands with you.”

  “The king,” Miko began. “He… he
is kind, loyal, just. He would take you in, Mother. He’d keep you safe. He—”

  “The human king may not care whose blood I was born from, but surely his people will. My kind has learned the ignorance of those who bask in gold and bathe in blood, for if you recall, Maeko, it was they who pushed us from their lands.”

  “Mother—”

  “There is a time for goodbye, my son. That time is now.” Stepping forward, Sunskin set a hand on Miko’s shoulder, and as she did, tipped the Elf’s chin up and forced him to look into her eyes. “My whole life, I have dreamed for a child I could one day look upon, to call my own and share with him the most intimate of things. When my mate died, and when my one and only chance to have a child died with him, the pain and sorrow in my heart nearly destroyed my soul. But then… one day, Maeko, long before the humans walked the beaches and their orbs sang their song, I pulled fish from the sea and found something I dreamed I would never begin to find.”

  “Me.”

  “Yes, my son. I pulled from the sea a child bastard and abandoned, and in that child of black and white and maroon and silver I found the one thing that saved me from the hell you experienced when a rogue entered your cave and tried to end your lives. I found my life, Maeko. I found you.”

  “Mother,” Miko whispered. “You… you can’t… you can’t do this to me.”

  “Forever abandoned from me you are, my son. As one once did to you, I cast you to the waves, to your own and your sea.”

  “Mother!” Miko screamed. “You can’t do this!”

  “Leave now, Maeko, or forever be cursed with your final goodbye.”

  Words could not have described what a final ultimatum held.

  With one last look at the creature that had raised him, Miko whispered, “I love you,” and turned toward the forest, only pausing once for Nova and Odin to follow suit.

  As they walked away, into the forest and from an Ogre’s heart, Odin thought he heard something.

  It only took him a moment to realize it was snot and tears.

  Flame licked the night, casting doubt on worry and faces in orange.

  Across from Nova and Odin, huddled between the folds of his cape and bedroll, lay Miko, eyes unmoving and gaze not faltering. Although the Elf’s sights lay on the men before him, the brutal knowledge that he most likely could not see them floated in midair, biting at Odin’s knuckles and licking his palms like freshly-born pups.

  “Soup?” Nova offered.

  Odin shook his head. Nova’s attempt to give him food had gone stale the third time around. “Is he even awake?” Odin asked.

  “It doesn’t look like it,” Nova replied, setting the pot back in place. “Then again, we both know how much that means.”

  “What’re we supposed to do, Nova?”

  “About what?”

  “About him.”

  “We don’t do anything.”

  “What?”

  “We don’t do anything,” Nova repeated. “We can’t do anything.”

  “You honestly can’t expect me to believe that.”

  “And you honestly can’t expect me to believe that we can do anything. He’s done this before, Odin.”

  “When? What are you—” The brief image of a frozen wasteland was enough to silence him. “Nova—”

  “We can’t do anything, Odin. Do you understand?”

  Nothing could be said to something like that.

  Shaking his head, Odin settled down in his bedroll and tried not to look into his knight master’s eyes. Those dull, glass-like purple orbs begged, screamed to be looked into. It was as though someone had trapped another being behind a glass wall and expected them to get out. What could they do but beg and scream to be set free if only they could see?

  Is something in there? he thought. Is something really in there?

  Looking into Miko’s eyes, it was hard to tell.

  “Do you want me to watch first?” Odin asked.

  “No,” Nova said. “Don’t worry—I’ll wake you up when I’m ready.”

  “What about—”

  “Leave him be. He’ll come back when he’s ready.”

  Only then would the Elf’s mind return.

  This is it, Odin thought the following morning. This is where the journey ends.

  He’d said the same thing, once upon a time, when he looked upon the Lady Annabellele and imagined where its folds would take him. Through the breeze and across the wide seas, past the trees and tall weeds—he once dreamed of that ship taking him to worlds that he could never imagine, to places where his heart would change and his position would grow. Despite his fears—which, at that time, had been so present—he had changed, and had grown more than he could ever possibly imagine. He’d crossed the grandest frozen plane in the world, battled a dying race for life or death, and slept with Ogres thought to be dumb and deaf, all in the scope of three years. He’d done more in that amount of time than most people did in their entire life.

  What’s next though?

  Service, enlistment, loyalty, death—did they not say that once you gave your life to the king that it was his and his alone? Surely you couldn’t control the actions of a nobleman, much less sway him to save your soul in times of need. Only men with red robes and false amends could take your face in their hands and save the one thing you thought you couldn’t lose.

  It’s too late to turn back now.

  Pushing himself out of his bedroll, Odin slung his shirt over his shoulders and stepped up to the tree line. There, he set his hand on one of the black trunks and looked out at the slowly-bleeding sun, as well as its mother clouds, who slowly but surely faded to black.

  What will happen when I get to the castle?

  Nova would be gone—that much was already clear. Miko, though… where would he go? He’d always claimed to be a wanderer, a nomad with no set goal and no choice home. Would the Elf simply walk away one night, never to return and be seen again, or would he come back one day in times of trouble, when Odin needed him most?

  No. He won’t leave. He wouldn’t.

  Or would he?

  Sighing, Odin bowed his head just in time to avoid the stabbing needles of light pushing through the trees.

  At a time like this, he didn’t need anything else to worry about, much less a guardian who might leave and never return.

  “You’re up.”

  Odin blinked. “What?”

  “I said you’re up.”

  Blinking once more, Odin cleared his eyes, surprised to find that he hadn’t been imagining things. Miko sat across from him, cape slung over his shoulders and long hair shrugged over his broad chest.

  “Did I fall asleep?” Odin frowned.

  I couldn’t have. I’m still sitting up.

  “I don’t know,” the Elf said. “I just rose myself.”

  “Are you well?”

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You…”

  A flicker from one of the remaining dying embers reflected off the Elf’s eyes, allowing Odin to focus on the overall expression. Though not completely grief-stricken, the obvious lack of emotion lit Miko’s face in a completely different light. Cheekbones hollow, porcelain skin dull and without life, eyes black—emotion could paint such fickle pictures on people’s faces, but when within portraits such as Miko’s, the true scope of life revealed itself in the most honest of ways. Frailty, honesty, trust—all were visible, all physical in a living, breathing light.

  Do I tell him about last night?

  Could he tell him? Could he honestly, truly admit to doing nothing but watching his knight master suffer some post-traumatic reflex without doing a thing? It wasn’t as though he’d abandoned him—he’d been no more than three feet away, either sleeping or keeping watch over the camp throughout the night. If anything, the only crime he’d committed was not doing more to try and help, and even then Nova had said to leave him be, to let him ‘come back’ when he was ready.

  “I… what?” Miko asked, drawing Odin from his thou
ghts.

  “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

  “If something happened, I want you to tell me.”

  “Nothing happened, sir. You fell asleep—that’s all.”

  “That’s all?”

  This time, Odin couldn’t help but turn his head down. Shame having gotten the best of him, he sighed, took a deep breath, then expelled it before forcing himself to look back up. “You fell asleep with your eyes open, sir.”

  The Elf pursed his lips. Such a gesture didn’t indicate a natural response, especially given the creature’s usually-calm demeanor.

  “Sir?” Odin ventured. “Tell me something wasn’t wrong with you last night. You were just lying there, looking at me like you’d gone out of your mind. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Nor should you have done anything,” the Elf replied. “To answer your question, Odin—nothing was wrong, nothing other than unnatural suffering.”

  “This isn’t the first time you’ve done this.”

  Shit.

  There—the thing he’d wanted to say for so long, out in the open and floating in midair.

  Frowning, Miko reached up to run a hand across his temple. He stopped to finger the flush of one eyebrow before returning his hand to his lap. “Pardon?” he asked.

  Pardon? Odin thought, somehow resisting the urge to laugh. Did he really just say pardon?

  How could the Elf have not heard him?

  “You did it in Neline after… you know… and here, the night we were watching the firebugs.”

  “Firebugs?”

  “You don’t remember that?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  Even I can remember that, and that was over a year ago.

  Then again, had he remembered the incident because of the firebugs, or had it been because of the way Miko had acted that night—the way he’d unblinkingly stared at the creatures dancing amidst the clay huts, the way he couldn’t respond with more than a few choice words at a time?

  “Sir… do you remember telling me how you sometimes act the way you do because of your mixed blood?”

  “Yes. I remember.”

  “Do you think that might be the reason you acted the way you did last night?”