Cultivating Heroism

by Ray Torrens

  Kaarina, who had been standing at the edge of the room to let them talk more privately, dashed forward. “You see smoke at Avalu?”

  Jakke had closed his eyes. “The village is burning. It’s being attacked.”

  “We have to go,” she said, hurrying around the temple to fetch her weapons and supplies. “We have to go right now.”

  Mack was just as hastened as he picked up the backpack and began stripping it of the supplies he would not need. There was no point in lugging it all back to the village. They needed to move as quickly as possible.

  “You need to be careful,” Jakke said. “These bandits are dangerous. It might already be too late.”

  “No,” Kaarina hissed. “It isn’t too late.”

  “Can you tell us anything else?” Mack asked Jakke. “Anything that might help us?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have enough energy left to tell you anything more than the fact I can see smoke in the distance. That and that you must come back here. You must live. There’s still much more that I need to tell you.”

  Mack nodded. “I’ll come back. I promise.” Then he took Kaarina’s hand and hurried from the temple with her.

  They were less careful as they rushed through the village, knowing that the bandits were in Avalu rather than roaming the area around the temple looking for them. They half-ran all the way back to the village and made good time, but Mack’s heart was still pounding with the fear that they were too late.

  How long did it take to destroy a village?

  He was guessing not long.

  Kaarina was panting by the time they got to the outskirts of Avalu. Her face was bright red and strained with what looked like pain.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she hissed, “Just let’s go and see what’s going on.”

  They hurried into the village square and couldn’t contain their gasps. Everything was ablaze, and a huge horned creature was running rampant in the village square, bashing into the wooden buildings and tearing down anything that wasn’t already engulfed in flames.

  “What the hell is that?” he asked.

  “It’s a sonni. The Lord’s pet,” Kaarina spat. “I always suspected the bandits attacks were accepted by him, but for him to actually contribute to the razing of our village.” She shook her head. “You really are the only hope left for this place.”

  Mack looked to one side and saw the villagers gathered on a nearby hillside watching Avalu burn. On the other side of the village square, a man in what looked like a truck sat watching the destruction unfold.

  “Is that a car?” Mack asked, stupidly. “I didn’t think—”

  “It’s the Lord,” Kaarina responded, obviously having not spotted him before. “He has access to power crystals, to tech. He can have whatever the fuck he wants. I’m going to over there and—”

  “No.” Mack held her back by the arm. “We’re not powerful enough. You know that.” It wasn’t just the Lord . He was flanked by men and women riding powerful looking beasts and armed to the teeth. There was no way the two of them were powerful enough to take on that entourage just then.

  His stopping her meant they lost their chance. The Lord took one last look at his rampaging bull-beast and then drove away in the strange truck. Most of the entourage followed him, just a few remained, but they steered clear of the sonni.

  To call the creature a giant bull was inaccurate. It had a body that much more resembled a gigantic dog mixed with a bull. The head was almost as broad as the muscle-bound front shoulders behind it. From the side, the monster resembled a living battering ram. On top of the fat head was one deadly-looking horn, perfect for impaling a person, or maybe three. There wasn’t a thing in the whole surrounding area that brutal head wouldn’t be able to destroy, whether that be a person or an entire building.

  “We have to stop it,” Kaarina said. “Or everything is going to be ruined. Everything.”

  “We can’t—”

  “This is my home!”

  They both startled when someone appeared at their side. It was Raita, who had made his way back down the mountainside to see his daughter. “You’re hurt,” he said immediately, resting hands on her shoulders and murmuring under his breath.

  Her sigh of relief was audible, and Mack tried to look relieved instead of scowling at her. “You told me it was just bruises!”

  “I’m fine! It doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t matter?!” her father demanded. “Your internal injuries would have killed you without medical attention.”

  “Kaarina,” Mack hissed. “You should have said something.”

  “It would have waited until after we saved Avalu,” she snapped back.

  “No, it—”

  “You need to stop being so reckless,” Raita chastised his daughter. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

  She looked at him for a second, and then gave in and threw her arms around him. “I’m sorry. Oh, It’s good to see you dad.”

  Raita hesitated for a moment before hugging her back. “And you too, my daughter, but we must leave now and quickly, before the sonni decides you’re its next meal. Hurry.”

  “No! We have to fight it. You know we can’t let it destroy the whole village. There’ll be nothing left.”

  “We will find a new home.”

  Mack had spent this whole interaction staring at the ridiculously massive bull-like creature and trying to figure out what the best way to destroy it would be.

  He knew that without members of the village there would be no chance.

  “We need your people to fight,” he told Kaarina. “Otherwise we can’t stop it. We’re not powerful enough for something that big.”

  “Of course, we are! We killed the worm, didn’t we? We can kill this too!”

  Mack watched it barrel into an old tree and uproot it with a single attack. “We can’t kill this alone. It’s more powerful than me.” He knew his limits now, and facing the sonni alone was outside of those limits. “You have to trust me on this.”

  “But I’m here. You’re not alone.”

  “I won’t risk you—”

  “Shut up,” she hissed. “I’m not useless!”

  “You could have died.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  They stared each other down while the sonni continued to rampage.

  “There’s no village left to save Kaarina,” her father said, resting a hand on her shoulder once more. “For now, we need to retreat.”

  “We can’t let them just get away with this,” she said, finally revealing her true motive. “The lord takes almost everything from us, and now he’s taking our homes. We have to take something from him too.”

  “Revenge is never wise, and—” her dad began.

  “Yes. It is. Sometimes it really is.”

  And Mack knew that he agreed with her. “She’s right,” he said. “But we can’t do it without the help of your villagers.”

  “They won’t help,” Raita said. “That’s something I know for certain. You can get your revenge later.”

  As he said it, the sonni seemed to finally notice them standing at the edge of the village. It tilted its head as it looked at them, steam coming from its nostrils. For a moment Mack wondered if it could breathe fire and had razed the village on its own.

  “It’s going to charge,” Raita shouted. “We need to run right now.” He had already started to move.

  Kaarina had her sword aimed in the direction of the best. “I won’t let him get away with this.”

  Mack wrapped a hand around her forearm. “Kaarina please.”

  “I don’t care if you leave me. I will kill it.”

  “I’m not going to leave you.”

  She grinned. “Then we might actually have a chance.”

  Raita took one last look between them before moving away as quickly as his haggard legs could carry him. Kaarina looked almost relieved that her father had decided to leave her in the path of the beast w
ithout his help, but Mack’s heart was pounding.

  He knew they wouldn’t be able to take it on and win. They were going to die.

  “I promised Jakke I’d come back.”

  “You will. You’ll come back with a sonni head on a spike to show him your first act as a Protector was a statement.” Looking again at the size of its head, she adjusted her statement. “Well, maybe you won’t be able to carry its head, but you get the idea.” She tightened her grip on her sword. “Now pay attention, because I sense we’re about to get charged at.”

  There was no way he was going to leave her. And backing down from the sonni as it decimated a village was the most unheroic thing he could think of. No, this was going to be their fight, live or die.

  The sonni wasn’t particularly tall compared to how broad it was. It was taller than Mack though, and when it lowered its head its horn was the perfect height to spear him straight through the heart.

  They only had one option, to dodge out of the way at the last minute. Mack did so with a swift roll that ended with him on his feet and searching desperately for Kaarina to make sure she’d not been skewered by the bull. She, instead of getting as far out of its path as possible, had instead chosen to stay close and was holding her sword with both hands so that it sliced through the flanks of the beast.

  The magic-imbued sword didn’t have much effect on the beast but slowed it for just a split-second. That was barely long enough for Mack to act. He didn’t have enough time to put into use everything he’d just learned, and instead opted for the move he’d relied on since being in Hauta. He dashed forward and delivered as many swift punches to the side of the sonni before it could charge away again.

  It barely seemed to feel the punches despite them being his most powerful move. “Shit,” he spat. “I told you we can’t do this. We need to get out of here before we die!”

  “We just need to find a better spot to hit it,” Kaarina said. “Something that will deal damage.”

  Mack had only hit it in the side, but that was because it was all he could get to in the few seconds when Kaarina had slowed it.

  It turned on its heel and charged again. Mack got easily out of the way this time, but Kaarina was too slow and was knocked away by a swift sideways swing of the sonni’s head. She was lucky that she was just quick enough not to get speared, but instead was thrown backward against a tree and winded.

  The bull sensed its opportunity immediately, and headed straight for where she was trying to pick herself up, propped against the tree. Her sword was on the ground beside her, out of reach.

  She’d just gotten herself upright enough that the bull would be at the perfect height to get its horn through her rib cage when it was stopped in its tracks. Roots emerged from the ground and wrapped around its back-right leg.

  The force of its gallop forward meant it tore straight through the roots meant to hold it in place, but they had been enough to send it careening of course and onto its side for a moment.

  It was immediately leaped on by members of the village. Mack spotted Okko among those diving onto the beast and attacking it with a sword.

  “Look who decided to take a stand!” Mack shouted with renewed vitality.

  “Yes!” Kaarina called from where she’d been knocked by the sonni.

  Raita stood with other older members of the village at the side of the fight, using both healing and elemental magic to try and slow down the beast.

  Mack moved just as quickly as the others, running toward the sonni and trying to find a weak point to abuse. The eyes seemed like a good idea, but that also put him scarily close to the long horn that would kill him instantly if it pierced anything vital. Instead he tried to get onto its back so he could reach them from behind.

  Just as he was about to land a punch, the beast recovered from the setback and threw everyone off. They landed in a heap around it, but were on their feet much more quickly.

  The elder keiju tried again to slow it down, but this time were less successful. The sonni charged toward the nearest warrior and landed a fatal blow with its horn, sending a sharpened tip right underneath the rib cage of the man until it was poking out of the other side. The bull then shook its head until the warrior came loose and dropped to the floor, dead. Blood spattered the nearby soil.

  The other younger warriors were visibly shaken by the brutal display, but the elder keiju and Mack didn’t hesitate to carry on the fight. Mack was determined that he was going to get to the thing’s eyes and least blind it. It was so huge that he should be able to punch the eye using his entire fist and hopefully squash it like a huge disturbing grape. A very enraged looking grape at that. The creature was pissed off now.

  The elder keiju worked with the same tactic of trapping the sonni’s foot with their roots, this time focusing on the lower part of the leg only. Because it was stationary after throwing off the dead warrior, they had more time to make their roots stick and held the beast in place for longer.

  That gave Mack the time he needed to execute his plan, and enough time to shout, “Okko, distract it!” Okko seemed to have recovered his nerves from seeing his colleague hurt, and the only one that Mack could remember the name of.

  He was going to shout to Kaarina, but was terrified of her getting too close to the beast when it was so lethal.

  Okko did as commanded and ran at the sonni from the side, making sure to leave himself enough distance from its front to dash out of the way. Just as Mack hoped, the sonni did not understand their words, and was mad enough to focus its efforts on trying to gorge the warrior instead of wrestling itself free of the roots that had it planted to the ground.

  Using the jump that he’d learned, he sprung from the ground and grabbed onto the left horn. He couldn’t takedown something this big, but he could use the leverage he’d just created to get himself in the perfect position. With his feet slamming down on the nose of the sonni and throwing it off guard, he had open access to the left eye. He punched it as hard as he could, trying not to feel squeamish about how it exploded beneath the force of his blow. He didn’t stop there, but grabbed what was left of the organ and ripped it out as the bull creature finally threw him from its head.

  The sonni broke free of its trap and instead of attacking the warriors surrounding it like Mack had expected, the loss of its eye seemed to put it into a frenzy. It ran in a circle for a moment, as though figuring out the new perspective it had to deal with, and then charged straight at the elderly keiju using their magic from the sidelines.

  Mack chased after the beast—he had to do something to stop it before someone else was killed. That blood would be on his hands if he failed to act quickly. No one on the sidelines was going to be able to take the sonni down. They stood their ground and tried to use their magic to slow it down, but it was moving in too much of a frenzy for the roots to take purchase.

  The beast careened straight into an elderly woman who had been murmuring spells under her breath. It skewered her in the same way as the young warrior and cast her to the side. Then it moved on to the man stood beside her.

  “Father!” screamed Kaarina as she saw the path of the beast.

  “No!” Mack was still running, but he wasn’t quick enough. The bull had its target, and it was going to strike. He cried out as the beast plunged its horn into Raita’s torso and the old man was jerked around like a ragdoll on the end of a spit.

  Mack reached the back of the beast and was greeted by a hoof to the chest that was so powerful it flung him backward. That had been his chance to help Raita, and he’d lost it.

  With blurry vision, he watched as another figure made it to the sonni. It was Kaarina, her long hair flying behind her as she dodged the kick from the beast and leapt onto its back. She had grace he’d never seen before as she ran along it’s spine and jumped, spinning in the air, and planted both feet directly onto that battering ram skull—facing the beast up close now as she used its horrid snout as a perch.

  The sonni seemed to be stunned by the
sheer insanity of what this dainty keiju was actually doing.

  With a warrior’s cry, she plunged her katana directly down through the empty eye socket. There was nothing there to stop the blade as she hoisted her entire weight up and railed herself downward with full force.

  The bull shuddered violently and teetered, then collapsed with such a thud that it made one of the nearby houses, now just a burning skeleton of ash and blackened wood, collapse completely.

  Mack helped Kaarina pull her father off the horn where he’d been skewered so she could attempt to heal him. His insides kept trying to spill from the gaping wound, and there was more of his blood on the outside than inside. The injury was so big he could see straight through the other side. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

  But she was paying him no mind. Her hands were on her father’s barely rising and falling chest and she was murmuring incantations so quickly he couldn’t discern any of the words. Tears streamed down her face, but it was otherwise set in stone.

  “It is no use now,” said one of the nearby villagers who can run over to try and help. “He’s gone.”

  “No,” was all Kaarina said. The word wasn’t weak, not said in lamentation. This was said in direct defiance to the entire world—the universe and any gods in it that dared to declare that her father was going to die this day.

  Mack was speechless as he watched with wide eyes, while the devastating wound began to close over. Skin and tissue grew back so quickly he blinked and missed the moment when he was completely healed. Raita didn’t wake up, having been knocked unconscious from the injury, but he was definitely breathing again.

  “That was incredible,” Mack said in a pained groan. “You are incredible.”

  She looked up at him through her glassy eyes and then finally managed a small smile. “I did tell you I wasn’t useless.”

  “And I didn’t believe you. I’m sorry. I should have done.”

  She hugged him and Mack had to remind her about his injuries. “Broken ribs,” he said, a lot of them.”

  “Oh, sorry! Here.” Kaarina made short work of healing him and soon he was feeling like a millions dollars again.