by Quil Carter
It also was clad in armour just like the horse it was walking with, a breastplate and gauntlets on its arms and legs, all of it a shining black trimmed with silver. And as Ben looked closer he could see the design of a two-headed dragon, a sigil of sorts, on the front of the breastplate.
All of them had that same design. One of the Serpent knights, dressed in a black doublet and a black and red cape, was carrying a pole with a banner flag on top. The flag was black with a crimson red border and in its center was the same emblem. Since it was larger Ben could see that it wasn’t a two-headed dragon. One of the heads was a hissing snake, and the tail of the dragon looked like that of a rattlesnake.
Was that his brother’s flag?
Before Ben could even humour the question, to his horror the creature stopped. It let out low-throated growl that rattled Ben’s bones and, as his pulse spiked, it growled louder and took a step towards where the two were hiding.
They both sat absolutely still as they watched the creature’s yellow eyes scan the dark woods. It took another step closer to them when it abruptly stopped.
A flicker of silver flashed behind it and Ben saw the hair on its neck move; he realized then that the creature was leashed.
“It’s hungry, Argen,” the elf said to the one who was carrying the banner. He had black eyes and hair, and although Ben’s recall said nothing of the creature smelling their scent, it told him that the elf was an Evercovian. “It probably smells one of the lapins, those sheking things are everywhere.” He pulled on the leash and the creature let out another growl, its amber eyes flashing and its mouth peeling back in desire. Ben shuddered when he saw the rows of sharp teeth in its mouth, glistening under its salivation.
“We don’t have time. I want to get into Fort Ferres before dark,” the elf with the banner said. “It can pick off a few deer once we get out. Come on, I want to see at least some sunlight before it disappeared behind the mountains.”
The elf with the leash shrugged and pulled the creature back. “Come on, Thordago, let’s go.” With one last growl the creature turned around, and to Ben and Teal’s mutual relief, they disappeared out of sight.
The two of them watched the road for what seemed like half of the remaining evening until Teal finally spoke.
“And that… was a dark accalite,” Teal said in a hushed voice. “Your brother brought them here from Xal’Crith. It’s how he helped overthrow the Pyre, the castle of the kings of Alcove,” he explained. “They’re untameable, vicious creatures. The leash you saw is a magical bind between the accalites and Erick’s three high priests. That’s the only way those soldiers could control it, and the only reason why it didn’t burst through the woods and eat us.”
Teal got up and Ben did as well, though to Ben’s surprise they didn’t go back to the road.
“It’s going to be dark soon,” Teal explained, glancing up at the thick canopy. High above their heads, through the snares of tree branches, they could both see hints of the white sky above them just barely breaking through the ceiling of the forest. “We’ve walked a long ways today and I bet your feet are aching. I don’t want a fire tonight so let’s just go to bed early.”
Ben looked around as they walked further away from the road. Teal had been right, it was warmer in here than out in the regular woods but in no way did that mean it was cozy. The warm air seemed recycled, like he was living inside of a glass dome and he was inhaling air that had been inhaled and exhaled thousands of times. It made Ben edgy, and the fact that what little daylight that had broken through the ceiling was starting to disappear didn’t help.
“This looks like a good place,” Teal said finally. He pointed to a gnarled tree with many thick branches going in all directions. It held black bark like the other trees but this one also had small pointed leaves that were a shade of dark green.
“We’re sleeping… in that?” Ben said as he took his boots off. He could feel the wetness whenever he wiggled his toes; his feet had started to bleed again.
“It’ll be more comfortable when we get up there,” Teal assured him, and he also started taking off of his boots. Ben watched with confusion as Teal flexed the claws on his toes in and out before he stepped onto the trunk of the tree – and started to climb it.
Teal’s knuckles were white as he dug his claws into the bark; his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth and his backpack secured firmly on his back. Quickly he scaled up the tree in the same cat-like fashion that Ben had seen him do when they were hunting squirrels.
“I don’t think I can do that…” Ben said nervously. He looked down at his own fingers and examined them. They certainly didn’t look strong enough to support his own weight. He flexed his claws too, and though the nails were thick he had horrible images of the claws ripping right out of his fingers.
The thought made him shudder.
Ben looked up at Teal and saw that he was now a good fifteen feet off of the ground. He swung a leg over a thick branch and steadied himself so he was standing on top of it.
“It’s easy,” Teal called down to him, taking his backpack off of his back and opening it up. “Your instincts will take over. Just do your best and I’ll set up our hammocks.”
Hammocks too? Well, it would be more comfortable than the ground at least.
Still though… Ben looked around the quiet forest, endless trees in all directions that seemed to dazzle one’s eyes when stared at for too long. Why would it be that bad to sleep on the ground with a fire? They had in the Silverwoods.
“Because jare hunt at night,” Teal called down when Ben asked him that very question. “But they cannot climb trees. However, if you insist on staying down there just don’t scream too loud when you see your first jare.”
Teal got a dirty look for that, although it wasn’t like Ben had believed they looked like overgrown kittens.
With a sigh of defeat Ben took off his blood-soaked socks and stuffed them into his boots, then tied the laces and hung them off of his sword. Then he walked to the tree, the cold ground feeling quite nice against his swollen feet, and placed a hand onto it.
Ben made his claws extend and sunk one hand into the rough black bark, followed by the other. When he felt secure with his hold he dug his toe claws into the bark and hoisted himself up. To his relief, as Teal had mentioned, his instincts took over. As soon as he pulled himself up off of the ground he started to climb up the tree.
“You’re doing it! Good job, hibrid!” Teal’s proud voice sounded above him, almost breaking Ben’s concentration. Ben ignored him and continued scaling the tree, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and always making sure he had at least three of his limbs on the tree at all times.
Finally he reached Teal. Ben stepped onto the tree branch and leaned against the trunk of the tree with a relieved breath. He wiped the sweat away from his brow and glanced down to see how far he had come. It was a long way down, and Ben would be lying if he didn’t admit he was proud of himself for doing it.
“You’re such a hibrid.” Teal beamed; he was in the middle of tying the second hammock. The first one was tied securely, one on the branch they were standing on and the other end on a branch several feet away. There was a nice pocket inside of the hammock that already had Ben’s green blanket laying inside of it.
He hung his sword on a nearby branch and took Teal’s own sword and his backpack as well.
Feeling more secure with himself Ben sat down on the tree branch and opened up Teal’s backpack. Then, just to see if he could do it, he reached into the backpack and thought of the loaf of oatbread they had been eating throughout the day. To his absolute glee he felt the cold loaf of bread in his hand. Sure enough, Ben pulled it out and grinned as he revelled in his first attempt at magic.
Well, not his own magic, the bag was enchanted on its own – but still.
As Teal worked away, Ben took out the wedge of cheese they had also been snacking on, and a wrapped package of salted ham, then their leatherskin of silve
rwine, and finally – some candied fruit for later.
He heard a chuckle and looked up. Teal was standing over him with a proud look on his face. He sat down in front of Ben, one leg on each side of the tree branch and grabbed the package of salted ham. “I feel like a proud father whose son has just come home from his first hunt. Never would I have thought you would make this much progress in so little of time. I’m proud of you, Benny.”
Ben shrugged and tore off a bit of bread. He held it out to Teal who lay a thick slab of salted ham on it. “I’ve had no choice but to adapt since I was a child thrown into foster care with Erick. I had my time to breakdown about it – now I need to do what needs to be done to find my brother and bring him home.”
Teal fell silent, a crust of bread in one hand, untouched. “He’s the only family you have?”
Ben nodded as he continued to eat his food. “Our mother was an immigrant apparently. She died and since we had no family in the country… we were put into foster care. No idea who our father was,” Ben said with a half shoulder shrug. “It was just me and Erick surviving after that. We turned to drugs pretty early on, easy money and an easy escape, though he handled it worse than I did. He couldn’t function with drugs and I could. We fought a lot over it – I really treated him badly.”
Teal took a bite of cheese, still staring down at the forest floor. “And you said… you want to bring him back home?”
“Yeah,” Ben said through a mouthful of food. “I want him home where we both belong. Maybe clean up our lives afterwards…”
“But – but you said you wanted to bring your other friend here…” Teal’s tone suddenly became small. “I thought maybe… you might want to stay here when this is all said and done.”
If Ben had any foresight into his new friend’s mind he would’ve picked up on Teal’s quick switch in tone and energy. But he was too tired from the days walk, and too distracted by conversation and food to pick up on it.
“Nah, my demigod wish would probably be for me to win the lottery or something,” Ben said with a laugh. “I miss my home, my apartment, my friends; not being terrified of all the fucked up creatures in your world – if I could bring my brother home my life would be complete.”
Teal’s face fell; he gave Ben a single soul crushing look before, quickly, it vanished and he laughed instead. “Y-yeah, it would wouldn’t it?” Teal took the wedge of cheese Ben had brought up, but he did it too quickly and almost dropped it down to the ground. He managed to catch it though, and let out another awkward laugh. “So – so tell me an earth story… ah – tell me about pizza.”
Ben smiled, his mouth completely stuffed with food, and, once again oblivious to Teal’s switch in mood, he started talking happily.
11
Ben’s eyes snapped open as an ear-piercing shriek tore through the dead night air. With his heart vibrating like it had gotten struck by lightning, he found himself frozen in place, unable to move from the petrifying noise.
Another scream. It seemed to come from all sides of him; Ben didn’t know if it was an elf being murdered or a creature calling out to its friends.
Ben looked over and saw Teal’s blond and red hair, his friend wasn’t moving – how could he sleep through this?
Cautiously, with his hand trembling, he reached over to nudge Teal awake.
Suddenly Teal’s hand shot up and grabbed Ben’s. With his nerves already shredded from the scream he found himself letting out his own shocked cry. He retracted his hand with a gasp just as Teal’s eyes opened.
“I told you to be quiet,” Teal hissed. “Now every creature in Jare is going to know we’re up here!”
“You grabbed my damn hand,” Ben protested in a low whisper. “You scared the fuck out of me.” He looked in surprise as Teal started getting up and out of the hammock. “Where are you going?” Teal stood up on the tree branch the hammocks had been tied to and grabbed his sword.
“Might as well finish them off,” Teal said; he didn’t sound happy at all. “Jares can’t climb trees but now that they know we’re up here they won’t leave. And if I leave it until morning it risks them attracting bigger animals from all around.”
Ben looked at him in horror as Teal also grabbed Ben’s new sword as well as his own. Without another word exchanged, and with both swords in his hand, Teal quietly jumped off of the tree branch and disappeared out of sight.
“You’ve – you’ve got to be kidding me…” Ben whispered to himself as he pushed the hammock fabric down so he could look below him. A tremor of anxiety joined all the other scared emotions rushing through him as he saw Teal’s grey silhouette below, standing tall and without fear with two swords gripped in his hands.
Then Ben saw two pairs of eyes, ones that looked like orbs in his hibrid night vision. The creatures were hiding behind a thicket of bushes watching Teal intently.
Then, without any provocation or indication that they were going to pounce, one of the creatures ran at Teal.
It was a blur to Ben, but he could see it was the size of a jaguar with two fur-covered tentacles coming out of its back. It leaped up towards Teal with its legs extended and its orb-like eyes flashing.
Ben put his hand over his mouth to stifle the scream rising to his throat. But he had no time to even push it down, the scream disappeared, now replaced by terror, as he saw the jare jump on his friend.
Then a shriek. It was too dark, even with his hibrid vision, to see what was happening but in an instant Teal had disappeared out from under the jare. He appeared beside it, and with the flash of a sword he skewered the jare’s side, and as he was doing that the second sword flew above his head, cutting off the jare cat’s tentacle-like appendages, making them fly up in the air before landing on the ground with simultaneous thumps.
Without pause Teal withdrew the sword he had used to skewer the cat, and in the same moment the sword, still swinging from cutting off the tentacles, did an upwards chop to the cat’s neck. It wasn’t enough force to decapitate it but it was enough to open a large gash that quickly filled with shining, black blood.
Then the second cat advanced.
“Behind you!” Ben yelled, unable to help himself. Teal looked over his shoulder and dropped one of the swords onto the ground. He turned and to Ben’s horror he started running towards the tree they were camped in in a desperate attempt to climb it before the cat got to him.
Ben quickly scrambled to his feet, ready to jump down to help Teal, but as he did he saw Teal, not climb, but run up the tree, his arms extended and the sword still held firm. He climbed up several feet, the cat on his heels, before he pushed himself off of the trunk like his feet were springboards, and did a flip in mid-air. Teal cleared the cat just as its tentacles slashed and snapped at the air where he had just been, the spiked pads that Ben could now see on the ends fanning out and extending in anticipation to catch the hibrid.
The jare’s head snapped back and forth, looking for Teal just as Teal landed on its back, making it collapse onto the floor under the surprising weight.
With no hesitation at all, Teal raised his sword and drove it into the back of the jare cat’s neck. He plunged it in deep before jumping off and leaping to the side, just as the tentacles whipped the air in a desperate attempt to defend itself against the blow.
The cat’s legs dug at the dirt as it tried to unwedge its now heavily bleeding neck from the sword, the weapon skewering it like Ben’s spear had skewered the squirrel’s tail back in the Silverwoods. It thrashed desperately, its paws making large divots in the dirt, before it collapsed and became still.
Ben stared, a wall of emotions hitting him all at once. He was terrified by what he had just seen, and horrified that such a creature existed in this world, but in the same token he had never been more impressed with Teal’s abilities. There was no doubt in Ben’s mind that Teal was capable of taking care of the both of them.
They might not be able to fend off malkah bounty hunters without the aid of the Jewel of Elron but the cre
atures in the Forest of Jare had nothing on Teal.
“Are – are you okay?” Ben stammered. He could feel his heart hammering, it was thrashing with such ferocity Ben could practically hear his lifespan decrease.
“Yeah,” Teal called back. He nudged the second jare cat with his foot before removing the sword with a sickening, yet satisfying sound. He leaned it against the tree and retrieved the second one, then leaned it beside its companion.
When he climbed back up the tree and got to the branch the hammocks were on he took one look at the expression on Ben’s face and laughed lightly. “You look so shocked. I’ve been on my own since I was seven – I know these woods well. Those aren’t the first jare I’ve killed and they won’t be the last.”
“That – that was incredible,” Ben stammered, shaking his head back and forth. Teal climbed back into his hammock and pulled a blanket over himself. “You’re so fast – I feel like I should pay you for being allowed to watch that.”
Teal smirked, his green eyes reflecting like the now dead cats below him. All hibrid eyes did that Teal had mentioned, and Ben’s now did too. “They’re nasty creatures, though I wouldn’t have killed them if you didn’t scream like an idiot. Try and break yourself of that habit, human.” Teal then closed his eyes. “It’s all in a night’s work. I need to protect us, that’s my job in the prophecy right now – let’s try and get a few more hours of sleep though. We shouldn’t talk in case the sounds did attract other animals.”
Ben nodded, not knowing if he would be able to sleep with the adrenaline rushing through him. He closed his eyes anyway, and tried to calm his head down.
“You should come with me when I go home…” Ben whispered with a shudder. “I could use someone like you in my line of work.”
Another light chuckle. “Good night, Ben.”
Ben found that he was more exhausted than he thought he was, not only did he fall asleep within minutes of Teal coming back from killing the two jare brothers, he had slept right through Teal packing up his hammock and making them a breakfast of salted ham and soft cheese sandwiches. By the time Ben was dragged out of bed, with a horrible case of bed head as well, the only thing that needed to be packed was his hammock and the green blanket.