by Lucas, Naomi
What has she done to me? Little human hag. He wanted to believe her, keep her, breed her, but every time he began to feel more for her, his body prime for her, another accursed truth came to light.
There was only one way to find out if he could really trust her or not. He needed to know… But every step he took away from her clouded his intentions. It felt wrong. Her begging felt wrong.
Astegur shook his head and bellowed, releasing a gust of smoke from his belly. He reached the broken house at the edge of Prayer where his belongings were stored and grabbed his bone dagger, sheathing it. He pawed through the goblin’s bag and found one of the last blood vials within, drinking the contents in one go.
Orc, goblin, and pure human blood filled his mouth. He spat it out. The taste had gone putrid. The only blood he wanted now—the only blood he craved—was the hag’s. He sneered down at the satchel for a moment before snatching it up and shredding it to pieces.
Was this what it was like for his sire and mother? Did Steelslash have the same problems as Astegur did? All he remembered of his parents were the fights, the violence, and their merciless, savage passion. His mother may have been human, but she was the only being in the world to bring his father to his knees.
Like Calavia had done to him.
Confusion struck him in the gut, and he stomped from the dwelling. There was only one way to find out. He pressed his fist to his chest hard, feeling the thundering of his hearts within. The pain of the magic began to fade away, and with it, a piece of Calavia. He thought he knew what he wanted, but now he wasn’t sure.
Astegur spied the ghostly green orbs in the distance and headed for them. When he came upon the first without being turned around, he moved to the next, and the next. He kept following them until there were none left to follow, until Prayer was at his back, and he had come out on the other side.
A strange feeling tickled his flesh.
The distant howls of barghests filled his ears instead of the moans of the thralls, the smell of rotting wood had been replaced with willow flowers, and a wisp of blisterbark smoke teased his nose.
She released me.
He settled his hand upon his axe. I am free from her.
The thundering of his hearts built. He did not want to believe Calavia would truly let him go, he did not like how it made him feel. It was what he had wanted, but now he wasn’t certain. He dragged his hoof forward and took another step, nothing stopped him.
She didn’t stop him.
Astegur snarled. He turned back to confront her anew, to finish what they had started when the sound of splashes and the whoosh of reeds sliced the air. He stopped in his tracks and listened, and as he did so, the noises vanished.
He pulled his battleaxe slowly from his belt.
The sounds came back just as gradually—the splash of steps through water and mud, the clack of hard objects jangling together, the wisp of long grass brushing against moving limbs. Astegur lowered himself to the ground, keeping his movements quiet and deliberate. Something was out there, something heard his rage, and he had an idea of what it was.
The centaurs who had thrown their spears at Calavia. They had tried to penetrate her body and bring her death.
The noises grew louder, coming out of the mist to his left, and drawing nearer. He tightened his grip on the shaft of his battleaxe and breathed deeply.
A centaur emerged, swirling the fog around it as it moved, and Astegur cocked his head as the stud sniffed the air and looked about. He had a bow and quiver strapped to his side, one long curved sword with it, and in his hand was a spear, the point sharp and gleaming even in the grey haze.
This beast nearly killed Calavia, nearly took her life from my grasp. Astegur gritted his teeth to keep the smoke in his stomach inside. A week ago, he would have let the centaur keep on without engaging it, would have let the horsebeast live. But priorities changed quickly in the labyrinth—survival was like that.
The centaur brought his front hoof up and pawed lightly at the grasses and pursed his lips to whistle.
Another whistle responded in the distance.
Two.
He would be bringing two heads back to Calavia this day.
Astegur surged from his hiding place and tucked his head inward, pointing his long, dangerous horns straight for the horse’s chest. He felt the tips of his horns sink into flesh and sinewy muscle, just as a blood curdling bellow filled his ears. It was soon followed by the cries of other studs beyond his sight.
“Minotaur scum!” the centaur yelled, stumbling back and kicking his leg out to dislodge him.
Astegur braced for the strike. The centaur’s kick nailed him in the gut, dislodging him. But before the centaur could stop itself from falling forward, Astegur righted himself and spun under the stud. The horsebeast reared up. Astegur lifted his head as the centaur came down, and without using his axe at all, the centaur landed on his horns, goring itself.
He dislodged himself again before the body crushed him and twisted to the side, bringing his axe up to cleave off the stud’s head.
A spear whizzed by Astegur’s ear but missed him as he slammed his blade down, sending splatters of blood flying into the air. He drew back to deal the final blow to the beast’s neck when he was kicked to the ground by the hooves of another centaur.
“The minotaur is outside the barrier!” the centaur yelled, swiping his curved sword in Astegur’s direction.
Astegur dodged out of range and caught the blade with his horns. The sound of metal on bone rang out in the night right before he jumped out of range of a second blow.
Astegur rose up as the new beast swiped the air, cutting the mist between them, keeping Astegur away from his fallen brethren already dead at his hooves. He sneered. “Yes. I am outside of Prayer,” he said as he heard the splashes of more centaurs heading his direction. “This will not be a good thing for you.”
The centaur pointed his sword at him. “You have killed the war chief’s brother, Elscalian, and his nephew, Telner. He will have your heart to feast upon!”
“I did not kill your people, but I will take your lives for your mistake.”
“All have been told about the deceit and the human you stole. We will have her back.”
The splashes of the others drew nearer. “My brother killed your war chief’s family, not I, and he is far beyond your reach now along with the human that you seek.”
“Lies!”
Astegur snorted and released the smoke within. His muscles tensed and bulged, seeking use, seeking violence to relieve their strain. He drew his dagger as the first centaur approached. He threw the dagger at a sound behind him and heard a grunt. His blade had hit its target.
He spun to the side as the centaur before him swiped at his head.
Another centaur appeared, notching an arrow on the bow it held. Two more stepped out from the murk with spears pointed in his direction. Astegur flicked the blood from his axe and readied.
“Give up, bull, you cannot defeat us all,” the one with the sword said.
Astegur laughed. “I will never give up, not until every centaur who is after my brother and his human are dead. Not until every beast that terrorizes my female has their head mounted on stakes outside of Bathyr.”
The centaurs snickered back. “There are hundreds seeking your horns as trophies. Our great general Kryiakos is on his way to claim them himself. Do you really think you can go up against us all?”
“I will if I must.” Astegur growled, bracing his hooves, knowing even as he taunted the beast, he could not fight off dozens of centaurs alone. He would be lucky to make it out of this battle with his hearts still pumping. But if he had learned anything in all his years roaming and fighting in the mists, it was that any day could be his last, and a death blow in battle was a glorious death to have. And to die, with free will, defending the female who had given it back to him was a hero’s death.
“Shame it must come to this,” the centaur said. “Kryiakos was looking forward t
o so much more.”
The others raised their weapons.
Astegur snorted, bending forward slightly, preparing to dive to the side and take out one more beast before—
A gust of wind breezed through them, bringing with it a ghastly green aura.
The centaurs grunted, drawing back the strings of their bows when a dozen thralls flooded between him and the warrior studs. He could not believe his eyes as they, in a frenzied, wild dance, began to stab, climb, maul, and tear at the centaurs.
Screams filled his ears as the chaos around his skull grew.
Astegur fell back while the studs were preoccupied, but not before several arrows pierced his chest. With his free hand, he gripped the shafts and broke them, grinding his teeth from the pain. The arrowhead remained embedded in his flesh and before the shafts hit the ground, he surged to the nearest centaur who was fighting off four thralls and slammed his axe into its leg. The beast fell to the ground with a grunt before vanishing under the thralls.
Within seconds, where a centaur had once been, became a bloody mass of flesh and bone as the thralls tore it apart.
He stumbled back, stunned, as several of the other studs quickly fell under the weight of the thralls, filling the air with gore and screams.
“What mist hell is this?” The centaur with the sword backed up, kicking at the thralls that rushed him. “Mists!” he cursed as he turned to run, stumbling in the mud.
Astegur drew back his axe as the stud made for his escape, and released it with glee. It caught in the centaur’s back leg, making him trip forward into the deeper swamps.
Astegur lost sight of the beast.
But the thralls, as one frightening mass, turned and rushed forward with outstretched fingers and wide bloody mouths, and piled atop what he could no longer see. The sounds that followed sickened and delighted his ears.
Astegur stepped forward to retrieve his weapon when the dying screams of the centaur vanished under the groans of the thralls. They backed off as he pushed through.
Blood was everywhere. Soaked into the mud far past his hooves and dripping off the grass. It was so thick, he tasted it in the air, filling his mouth with every inhalation. His axe was covered in it when he found it atop what was left of the centaur.
A barghest howled in the distance.
He picked up his axe and went to find his dagger. When his weapons were back in his hands, he hacked the heads off the centaurs who still had heads and tied them to his belt. Astegur winced from the pain in his chest and reached into his satchels to pull out some cove before realizing he had left his belongings back in Prayer.
He gritted his teeth and turned back toward the settlement, hearing the barghests grow closer when the thralls caught his eye again.
They moved around the clearing as if nothing had happened, like they had not just swarmed a half-dozen warhorses and tore them apart. He watched as they not only picked up their stakes, but also collected the centaurs fallen weapons. One by one, they turned back toward the green orbs, leaving nothing but a bloody trail back to Prayer.
The first barghest appeared right as the last thrall vanished in the mist. He swiveled back and struck his axe into the air right as it pounced, catching it in the mouth. It fell to the ground with a guttural whimper.
He readied for the next, but nothing came. His ears pricked up, listening for the howls from before, but there were none. Silence met him now, where minutes ago it had been chaos.
Something’s not right.
The strange, green breeze continued to blow across his skin, sending an already gauzy world into a disturbed one.
He bit through his pain and turned away from Prayer, following the tracks the barghest had made.
Barghests never hunted alone. They were always in packs. Astegur sheathed his axe and crouched down to the deepening water at his hooves, rinsing the blood off his hands and chest. He knew he should return to Calavia and guard her. He sensed her magic in the air around him. The green wind was a good indication that she was by his side, even if she wasn’t present.
But if there were more centaurs scouting around Prayer’s barriers, he needed to know. He needed to eradicate them before their numbers increased.
The trail continued on for a while, farther than he intended to go, when it stopped suddenly and a putrid smell flooded his senses. He stepped into a clearing piled high with barghest corpses.
He spat the rot from his mouth as his eyes took in the slaughtered beasts. There had to be dozens, if not more. Thick clouds of flies surrounded them.
His eye caught the broken reeds leading away from the pile of corpses on the opposite side of him, and he maneuvered around the charnel to continue along the trail.
He hadn’t taken three strides when the mist opened up around him.
Fire and smoke replaced the rot in his nose as he took in the scene before him. All around him, as far as he could see, were huge fire pits, blazing harsh and bright. The swamp waters were all but dried up in every direction.
His hands tensed at his sides. The outlines of several large tents came into view, and centaurs, stoking the fires, making more fires, and burning out the water filled his vision. There were too many to count. Too many for him to defeat, even with the help of Calavia’s thralls and her magic.
The warband had arrived.
His hearts hardened and he made a terrible choice. Astegur turned back the way he came before the centaurs noticed him. His mind was made up.
A dark, delicious thrill filled his skull, and with it, he saw everything he ever wanted finally within his grasp.
* * *
He rushed back down the path, his pace deliberate and quick, as the mild green-tinted air crackled and sparked around him. Magic. It was Calavia’s magic. He knew it well after it had lingered within him for days, keeping him trapped. He now relished the heavy feel of it enveloping him from every side. Much like the cursed air, he had breathed enough of it in, had held it within his body long enough that it had changed him. Despite the tumultuous thrill of impending battle sizzling his thoughts, he felt comforted by her magic.
But this was more than he’d seen from her, and the chill of it upon his flesh unnerved him.
He was sprinting by the time the temple came into view, but stopped at the broken down dwelling to retrieve his stored packs and loot. He needed the contents to make his plan work. By the time he had them in hand, he was already rushing out of the dilapidated house and heading straight for the temple. Calavia could be slicing up her skin to build her power. Weakening herself because of him, for him. She was sacrificing too much. He shouldn’t have left her. Not when her magic had been fully tearing out of him like it had.
He should have waited before he tested her trust at the barriers she held so dear.
She is sacrificing her life for nothing. The settlement of Prayer was all around him, still rotting, still dead, and he was suddenly filled with hate for it.
He was not going to let her die for such a place.
Astegur cursed, his tail lashing under his leathers. He lifted his nose to the air, but found it hard to detect her scent—her pure blood—without the magic and with the blood trail from the thralls clouding it.
He came upon the thralls at the entrance to Calavia’s temple. They had washed their bodies in the deeper waters and he noticed rivulets running down their sagging, barely clothed skin. They had sustained wounds, but none of them bled, and none of them acted as though they’d been injured.
Astegur had never seen them fight like they had.
Since coming to Prayer, he had never seen a thrall do anything more than wander the labyrinth aimlessly, or perform the chores commanded of them. He moved closer to a young man’s side. Looking closely, he could see a thin coating of wax over his skin.
She had sent them to help him.
His hooves cracked the stone as he tore up the temple’s steps. Her magic was thicker around the temple, and he sucked it into his lungs. He wanted that piece of her back ins
ide him, he wanted what her thralls had.
Her loyalty, her devotion, and most of all, her affection.
He couldn’t remember a time when he saw so much compassion given from one individual to another. It was a human phenomenon and a rare trait at that.
But it was misplaced, he knew that now that he had seen the destruction and the warband that awaited them on the other side of her protective barriers.
He stopped right inside the entrance, pushing several thralls aside. Calavia knelt in the middle of the hallway, over a large bowl he had not seen before, staring into it. The bowl was filled with pinkened melted wax, and she had a fresh cut on her arm that was covered in cove paste. Several thralls dipped their hands into the bowl and scooped up the wax, covering the piles of stakes nearby.
“Calavia,” he said, taking a step toward her.
She looked up at him, and his hearts pounded to a stop. Harrowing, sad, desolate eyes met his gaze, and he felt his hearts bleed.
“You came back,” she whispered.
“I gave you my oath.”
“Oaths mean nothing when there are no consequences.”
“Do you not think there are many for me?” he snarled, watching her flinch from his anger. “The centaurs are here. I found their warband less than a league outside Prayer. My oath is binding.”
“I know. I know they are here. But how can that be? I should have sensed them.” She trembled. “Why did you leave? You could have died and I…I would never have been able to forgive myself.”
“I had to know if I could.”
She looked down at her bowl. “So, you do not trust me?”
Astegur bared his teeth. He stormed to her side and grabbed the back of her neck, forcing her to face him again. “I do not like it any more than you do. I trust little in this world, and never magic, but if I were to put my trust in anything, it would be you.”
She flinched. “Are you sure you did not come back because my thralls saved you? That you did not hunger for my blood? You’re free now. You’ve seen what awaits us out there. Death. You shouldn’t have come back.”