"Well, thank you," she grunted.
In response, the vanara broke into a smile, batting his eyes like a drunken slut in a bar. And then he walked up to Kata. She backed away from him, trying to hide behind Sting, but the archer giggled and nudged her in the back, pushing the girl forward.
Hanuman bowed to the sorceress and noisily inhaled the air around her with his nostrils.
"Mmm, hairless females have such a sweet smell!"
"Watch your mouth!" Kata growled, insulted.
"Oh yeah?!"
The vanara recoiled from her in horror, but then sniffed her, hunched over, and began an even closer examination, paying special attention to her curves.
Kata was embarrassed and even looked like she was blushing.
"The Great Hanuman was right! After all, the Great Hanuman is never wrong," the monkey broke his obscene smile.
"Just get away from me! You, disgusting monkey!"
Hanuman suddenly bulged his eyes and puffed up his cheeks. From his nostrils, one after the other fell out some translucent balls, which he deftly gathered in his palm.
"Let me at least treat you to the sweetest grapes from the shores of the Lake of Life, beauty!"
He bowed and presented the sorceress his gift.
"Are you nuts? I'm not eating that."
"No?"
The vanara made a pouty face and smelled the grapes. Then he put them in his mouth.
"Hm! And the other female took the flower. Although the flower is not nearly as good as the grapes. You, hairless people are so weird."
"We are weird?!"
"Why did you destroy the altar?" I asked cautiously, trying to change the subject. "Your tribe has built it, isn't that right?"
"The altar? Oh, the altar!"
The mention of the structure next to the Source led the red vanara into rage. He once again rushed to trample on the altar wreckage, incessantly mumbling under his breath. His cries were incoherent and sounded more like nonsense with some flashes of enlightenment.
"They're bad! Bad, bad shamans! Oh, I know... I know it's all because of him, of course... He whispers to them! Always whispering. Messengers, messengers ... What nonsense! Why is he whispering that to them? Why are they listening to him? Do they think he sees the future? How can he—he doesn't have eyes!"
"Who has no eyes?" I asked.
"Him!" The vanara responded and looked at me like an idiot. "Someone who whispers all the time, even though he doesn't have a mouth. And those silly shamans listen to him! And they don't listen to their true king!"
"So show them who's the boss!" Bers smiled.
Hanuman alighted and wondered, but he did not last long in this state. His mood, in general, changed every fifteen seconds.
"No, no, no, no, I can't! Hanuman is kind and fair. He cannot turn his anger against his tribe."
"Then why don't you tell the one who whispers not to whisper?" I offered.
The vanara looked at me indulgently again.
"I know hairless people aren't very smart, but you seem to be the champion of the dumb-asses! How can I tell him anything? He has no ears!"
I suppressed a wave of irritation—this self-absorbed monkey was playing on my nerves. The more we talked to him, the more obvious it became that he had long gone cuckoo.
"Easy, hairy! I'm the Master of Water and the slayer of the Black Generals! It's just a matter of time before I challenge you!"
Hanuman looked at me with surprise and horror, but a second later, it became clear that this was nothing more than a good act. He burst into laughter, and not being able to resist, began to roll on the grass, shaking his legs in the air. He had human hands with opposable thumb on all of his ligaments.
"You amused Hanuman, the hairless one! Do you really think any maggot can challenge the Monkey King? You are dust under my feet!"
In one leap, he jumped towards me and began to circle around me, going from one ear to another and uttering phrases with a different intonation.
"You really think you can? Who are you? You've never even heard the voice of the one who's whispering! Have you already tasted the fruit full of inescapable bitterness? Have you collected the seeds irrigated by the heavenly mist? Or outsmarted the one who stops the flow of rivers? You haven't even seen the azure light under the shadow of the first tree! And you say you're ready to be a Master?"
He finally stopped, and we were facing each other. Bright green sparks were dancing in the brown irises of his eyes, which could have been a sign of insanity or brilliant insight.
"Not right now, of course," I replied, embarrassed. "Later."
The system message partially blocked my view, so I skimmed it and swept it aside.
"You have activated the class quest 'Master of the Wood Element'. For more information about it, you must master at least the basic skills of the Wood Element, making a pilgrimage to the Azure Dragon."
"Later..." Echoed the vanara. "Well, the Great Hanuman will be waiting. The Great Hanuman has a lot of time. He has eternity!"
He suddenly took a giant leap and soared into the air and hung on a tree branch fifty feet above me.
"Hey, wait!" I shouted. "What if we help you with these rebel shamans?"
The answer was a mocking giggle.
"The hairless ones? Will help the Great Hanuman? The Great Hanuman can defeat all enemies himself!"
Flashing his gold braids, he disappeared in the foliage.
"Ugh, finally!" Kata breathed out. "What a crazy monkey! Well, at least, he didn't rush into a fight!"
"Something's telling me that he alone could send us all sprawling on this meadow," said Sting.
"He is as powerful as he is insane..." I muttered, remembering Bao's words. "But I think there was something in his words. Some clue…"
"What clue?" Edge snorted. "He's delusional. Someone whispers to him even though he doesn't have a mouth. Or ears."
"Or eyes," Sting added, chuckling. "So he's dealing with a severely disabled person."
"Maybe he's not delusional," said Doc, pensively stroking the nape of his zombiepard. "He might just talk in riddles. Allegorical. What else did he say? Some bitter fruit... and someone who stops the flow of rivers…"
"No, it doesn't relate," I shook my head. "That sounded like a class quest for monks. He began with shamans and the one who whispers."
"Who whispers without a mouth?" Kata asked. "Sounds like a child's riddle…"
"Wind?" Viper took a guess.
"Well, that'd make sense. No eyes, no mouth, no ears, but it whispers…"
Smiling, Doc moved his head back and forth and silently shook the branches of the nearest bush, the one that slowly straightened after Hanuman left.
"Oh, right! It's a tree!" Childishly cried Kata, excited to have guessed. "A tree has rustling leaves as if it whispers. That's probably what he meant. That's a clue!"
"Wow, that's a great clue!" Sting grumbled. "There are millions of trees here!"
"Could it rather be some character?" Edge shrugged. "Trees are sort of an allegory. Maybe it's philosophical."
"Yeah. People are like trees," Bers said pensively. "They fall if you cut them with an ax."
The Hounds laughed.
"Screw you! Bumpkins…"
"No, apparently, it refers to a specific tree," decided Doc.
"And how do we find it?"
"We're not going to look for it just yet," said Terekhov. "Perhaps, it is time to return to the camp. We can do some research on gaming wiki in the real world. Some other players might know something about it. We also need to learn more about vanaras in general."
"Yeah, you might be right," agreed Bers. "Viper, are you able to find the way back to the camp? Or should we take a different route?"
"What's the difference? It's Uobo," Viper smiled. "This jungle is like a river—constantly changing.”
"One more philosopher is born!" Sting rolled his eyes. "Let's go. The subjects of this delusional king might come back and break our balls for their d
esecrated altar."
"That's true," agreed Viper. "And, by the way, we better hurry."
He looked up, trying to see the sky through the thick crowns of the trees.
"For there is something far worse and more dangerous than traveling to Uobo."
"Really? What is it?"
"Doing it at night."
Chapter 7. The Other Side of the Medal
The end of the wooden staff poked me painfully in the ribs again: my plastic protection wasn't very helpful against it. I staggered back and growled, not so much from pain but from shame. Openly making fun of me, Viper twisted the staff in front of him like a propeller.
I rushed to counter-attack, but failed to take him by surprise. He either dodged my blows or parried them with the middle of the staff. Then he attacked in response, mostly using poking blows to my stomach, hips, and groin. It was difficult to dodge this kind of blows without a shield, and I wasn't able to break the distance. My belly and legs were probably covered in bruises under the protection.
"Where did you learn to fight with the staff like that?" I grumbled. "You're not even a monk! You use your sword in the game all the time!"
"Well, I have a spear too. You've seen it," he shrugged.
We circled in front of each other on the court, making sure not to go beyond our site because other fighters were training next to us in pairs and threes.
"Every close-combat fighter here must have several sets of weapons—a spear and a shield with some one-handed weapon. Most often, it's a sword or an ax. A dagger could be useful, too, in extreme cases."
He again went on to attack, and I barely parried his blows. Even though the staff was about the same length and weight the same in real life as it did in Artar, it seemed like a stupid piece of wood. It kept slipping out of my hands, and the blows turned out too weak and slow. I missed the scale of Qi charges on the border of the field of view! But more than that, I missed my techniques like Lizard's Tail.
"By the way, we all started training with a spear," Viper continued. "It's easier to master. And often, it is more effective than a sword, especially against animals.”
He hit me hard in the chest and I rebounded, falling on my back. He got the wind knocked out of me, and I collapsed, gasping for air. I heard laughter and approving exclamations somewhere nearby.
"Nicely done, Viper! He's such a wimp!"
"Look at him, he's gonna cry!"
"Are you done bouncing around?"
Assholes! Grown men, acting like fifth graders, bulling a new kid on the playground.
"Are you okay?" Viper leaned over to me. "Give me your hand."
"Screw you!" I snapped.
I slowly got up and picked up the staff that was lying to my side, and leaned on it, rubbing my bruised chest. My breathing slowly recovered, but my anger and despair only inflamed.
"Let's just take a break. We're going to lunch soon," proposed Viper.
I nodded reluctantly. We have already trained for two hours, and my camo under the plastic flaps was soaked by now. My hair was wet too, and hot salty drops were running down my forehead. I stunk like a bum.
"I think I'll go take a shower," I said. "I'll be there before lunch."
I put the staff on a special rack on the edge of the training ground and walked away. Other fighters also finished their training, and most people started leaving. Only a few of the most diligent and stubborn soldiers still hammered each other with wooden swords and spears or practiced blocking with a shield.
Suddenly, a fierce inarticulate cry was heard all around the camp, and everyone, including me, started to look around, trying to figure out who's screaming. It turned out that a fight broke out in the far end of the training ground. In the crowd, I immediately saw Daniel—his voluminous figure was hard not to notice. The chubster knocked someone down, sat on top of him, and beat him furiously while a whole crowd of people was trying to drag him away.
I ran to them.
It was almost impossible to recognize Dan: his face was red, distorted with rage and shiny from sweat that was streaming down. They must have woken up the beast in him because it took four strong men to pull him away from his enemy.
"Tackle that son of a bitch!" Shouted one of Genghis's soldiers, barely able to hold Daniel's arm behind his back. Someone else rushed to Daniel’s feet, apparently trying to knock him down on his back, but it was futile because a heavy man like Daniel would be hard to shift, not to mention knocking him down.
Terekhov grabbed Dan's head and yelled something in his face. They almost touched their foreheads. It looked all creepy—the big man's eyes were mad and looking glazed. It was evident that rage clouded his judgment and he didn't see anything at the moment. He could easily pounce at Terekhov right now too.
I froze a couple of steps from the scuffle, not being able to make it closer anyway. I was shoved aside when help arrived, as well as half-a-dozen more of Genghis’s people. One of them wore a white bandage with a red cross on his sleeve. He injected something in Daniel's neck, and the fat man almost immediately staggered and then went limp.
"Stretcher!" Terekhov cried out, barely keeping him from falling.
"Freak!" The fighter, who was mauled by Daniel, hissed malevolently. "I'll make it worth your while."
He was helped up. His broken lip needed to be taken care of, and he needed a Band-Aid on his eyebrow. Meanwhile, Daniel was loaded onto the stretcher. His knit cap, that he never took off even in the dining room, flew off to the side, and I saw the swollen whitish scars on the back of his head and his forehead. Some of them were uneven, torn. Some, on the contrary, were straight like a ruler and looked like surgery cuts. The hair around the scars grew in clusters. Now it made sense why he always wore the hat.
Four people took him away—two on each side of the stretcher. Soon I was the only one left at the scene.
While I was watching all this, some strange numbness took over me, and it didn't go away for a while. My heart was pounding like I had an adrenaline rush. It seemed like a small fight, but I in real life I have rarely seen such direct aggression. And that look... Daniel was acting very strange. If he hadn't been dragged away, he'd probably have beaten that guy to death with his bare hands. It wasn't like a simple outburst of rage, it was more like real insanity. What the hell is wrong with him?!
I finally turned around and was about to leave when I startled in surprise—Genghis was standing right behind me.
"Three years ago, he was one of the best cadets in the military academy," he said, following Daniel with his eyes. "Terekhov worked there as an instructor at that time. And then there was an accident. He had a severe brain injury, which caused endocrine complications. Since then he's on disability. Hormonal problems. Weight gain and fits of rage. I'm surprised he even managed to keep the NCI."
I watched him from under my eyebrows. He still was wearing an expensive business suit, which looked absurd in this environment. Apparently, that's how he showed that he was above all others in the camp.
"Why are you telling me all this?"
"If I don't tell you, then who will? How much do you know about your squad members? I know everything."
He chuckled and pointed to the path leading to my building.
"Let's take a walk. I've got a few minutes."
I reluctantly agreed, and we slowly walked away from the parade ground. At first, we walked in silence, but then he spoke—softly, not looking at me as if he was just talking out loud.
"Terekhov is not someone anyone should follow. I know him long enough—he used to be strong, he was a warrior and inspired respect. But something really messed him up. He retired. After that, he entered academia for a while and then quit altogether. Now he is a pale shadow of what he was before. A sentimental weakling. He even recruited a team to match his nature."
"The team is fine," I grumbled. "Besides, who cares who the person is in real life? Our work is in Artar."
He snorted indulgently.
"You think so? I don't. I d
on't believe in alter egos. A man is what he is. Artar doesn't give any second chances. If you're a loser in life, you take all your weaknesses with you. You cannot escape from yourself."
"Perhaps. But I don't think that our team is made of losers."
"Oh yeah? A drunken pathologist with a dying wife. A drug addict with suicidal tendencies. Not a very lucky con man who tried to play Clam. A seizure freak weighing four hundred and fifty pounds. A thug, bailed out of prison and kicked out of the army. That's quite a motley crew Terekhov got together. He is like a compassionate cat lady who brings home the runts of the litter.”
"Why would you care?"
"I don't. What I'm wondering is how did you end up in this circus?”
I kept silent. This conversation made me uncomfortable, especially after I saw Bers and Sting on the porch of the main building. They saw me too. What would they think of me taking a walk with this jerk?
"You're not like them. It's obvious. What's also obvious is that you don't get along. So, sooner or later I will have to make a choice. I think in a week or two, I will prove to Clam that Terekhov is useless. Our mother Teresa will be kicked out of Obsidian and Steel Hounds. Along with all his brood."
"Well, why are you telling me this? Aren't you afraid I'll tell them about your plans?"
Genghis smiled.
"Terekhov is well aware of that. I'm just being honest with you. I think you're the only one on his team who might be worth keeping. If you're willing to cooperate."
I gritted my teeth, struggling not to say anything stupid.
"Think what you want, but I'm not a traitor!" I finally retorted.
"Pfft! What kind of betrayal are you talking about? It's strictly business! Who are they to you, Terekhov and the rest? You've known them for less than a month."
"They're my friends," I said.
As soon as I said it out loud, I knew it was true. Despite all our differences and conflicts, the Hounds have become almost the closest people to me in the last few weeks. After all, friendship is measured not by time, but by emotions experienced together.
Genghis looked at me with a squint and grinned again.
"Tell me who your friends are, and... Well, you still have time to think. I'm just warning you. You're on the underdog team, and if you stay with them, you'll drown with them. Anyway... Maybe it's no coincidence. Maybe you're just a loser like all of them. And there's a reason you're with them?"
The Azure Dragon Page 9