“Oh, if it tastes anything like it smells, it will make me very, very happy.” With a grateful smile on my face, I took the chunk of tree trunk from his hand and wrapped it in the last remaining piece of cloth I had before putting it in the bag. “Be careful. A lot of fragile things are in here. The good news is I think we’ve got enough for now. No more yucky taste tests for you.”
I rose on my tip-toes and kissed his shoulder. With him standing at his full height, this was as high as I could reach.
Rock gave me a lopsided grin and slung the bag over his shoulder again then glanced at the sky.
“The sun is high. If you are hungry, we may as well stop for lunch.”
It appeared we had wandered closer to the edge of the woods. I could see the reddish sands of the mountain valley through the receding trees in the distance.
“Okay.”
“Just give me a minute. I’ll get my lunch too.” His narrowed eyes were also directed into the valley, but I was sure it wasn’t to admire the sands. “Come this way.” He gestured to me before moving towards the valley.
Taking a few steps after him, I realized what he was watching. A group of flying animals, the same that I vaguely remembered sighting the morning of the crash, fluttered in the air on the edge of the woods. Looking like upside-down chrysanthemum flowers, with spiral sails on top ranging from bright pink to deep purple, some with streaks of gold and silver, they floated up and down in a group between the trees at woods edge.
“Othu.” Rock tipped his chin at the creatures.
“You eat them?”
He took his bag off and handed it to me.
“Me? No, I don’t, but kieklem does.” He scanned the area around us quickly then took me by the shoulders and positioned me under the nearest tree. “Stay here. Don’t move.”
Rock broke off a tree brunch above my head and streaked his shoulders with the clear sap oozing from the broken end. Then he walked out into the valley, shifting into his fighting form along the way.
The air around him shimmered blurry with haze. The sharp contour of his silhouette melted and broke into uneven lines. His already massive body expanded, and the white of his loincloth fluttered to the ground.
Without breaking his stride, Rock’s golem moved through the flock of othu that burst out of his way immediately. He moved a little further into the valley, away from the cover of the trees then lowered on the ground in one smooth move and remained frozen in a sitting position.
Within seconds, othu followed him. Some landed on Rock’s stone shoulders and head, some continued to flutter around him, like bright gorgeous flowers, sun sparkling off the gold and silver in their sails.
It didn’t take long, maybe a minute or two, before I heard the sound of flapping wings.
This must be kieklem.
The leathery wings reminded me of a pterodactyl when the creature descended over Rock’s head and began to gulp up unsuspecting othu. It wasn’t awfully big, maybe the size of a turkey, but the wide jaw snapped quickly, often swallowing two of the othu at the time as kieklem continued to fly in tight circles around the motionless Rock.
Holding my breath and afraid to stir a muscle, I watched Rock slowly raise his boulder hands and then in one quick imperceptible movement slam his fists together, crushing kieklem’s reptilian-looking head between them.
Changing back into his normal form, Rock caught the dead creature before its body hit the ground. He then turned around and headed back to me, picking up his loincloth from where it had fallen earlier. Othu flattered out of his way, only to swarm behind him again, soon returning to the safety of the tree canopies.
“Lunch.” Rock swung the lifeless kieklem, passing me by on his way into the forest.
“Is that what you eat when you hunt?” I hurried after him.
“Not always. Often I just cut off a piece of meat from what I have killed that day—brualdak, ixilip, ewreck. Whatever.”
Rock stopped under a thick tree and looked around. Having found the place satisfactory for our lunch, he dropped his kill to the ground. I sat on a soft pile of dark purple leaves under another tree and pulled the bundle of cooked meat out from the bag.
“Kieklem are easy to hunt. They are good on the days when I don’t get any other game before lunch.” He grabbed four of the flying lizard’s eight legs, stepped on both of its wings on the ground and pulled up sharply. With a snapping noise the wings broke away, the green skin slid off, and Rock lifted the skinned carcass up. “Fresh meat tastes the best.”
“If you say so.” I was more than happy to munch on my own cooked lunch.
Rock sat next to me. He’d ripped one of the legs from his prey and was happily devouring it raw.
A half-naked mountain of a man was sitting next to me, wolfing down the raw meat of an animal whose head he had just smashed in barehanded, and I found nothing gross, repulsive or disturbing about it. In fact, I thought the picture rather endearing.
That’s when you know you’re in love.
Was I? Was I in love with Rock?
There was once a time when I thought I loved a man. I knew now that it had all been a delusion. With Jeremy, however, I didn’t feel the same comfort and trust that I felt with Rock, not even close. Neither did Jeremy have Rock’s acceptance of me just the way I was.
“Do you like being here with me, Zoya?” Rock asked after finishing his lunch.
“I love it,” I replied honestly. “I feel like I’ve learned so much about Sonhadra’s wildlife already, and I’d love to know more.”
“Would you come with me again? I’ll teach you everything I know.”
“You want me to learn how to hunt? I could never do what you just did.” I laughed and pointed at the legless carcass at his feet.
He shook his head.
“This way is the easiest one for me, but there are other ways to hunt. I’ll teach you how to set traps and to hunt with weapons.” There was a grim determination in his voice now that chased the smile off my face.
“I would love to learn, Rock.”
“We can come back tomorrow. If the plants we tested today prove to be safe for you, we’ll get some for the garden.”
“I’ll slow you down,” I reminded tentatively. No matter how much I was enjoying our outing, Rock had a job to do. His hunting provided food for all of us. If he had to babysit me day after day, there’d be considerably less meat in the cold cave. And I had seen how much these guys ate. They might have been eating meat exclusively, but they sure ate a lot of it. The bare bones of the kieklem’s carcass proved that point. It could have fed a family of four during a Sunday dinner on Earth. Instead, it happened to be a light lunch for one valo.
“It doesn’t matter,” Rock dismissed my concern, getting up to his feet. “Besides, you will get faster as your legs get stronger.” He picked up the meatless carcass and tossed it into the bushes several meters away.
“Do you have any books? Back in Corfoha?” It occurred to me that I could speed up my learning if I supplemented his practical lessons out here with some academic studies at home. “Maybe Vlunn could teach me how to read?” As fast as I could learn a spoken language now, I still needed help understanding written texts.
It also occurred to me that maybe I could also find some old cookbooks. The valos had done so much for me. Ever since I could do things on my own again, I had been racking my brain on how to do something special for them. Their lives seemed to be so simple, their needs few, I hadn’t come up with anything until now. Vlunn mentioned that they used to cook meat in different ways in happier times. I would love to learn how to make their old dishes for them.
“We do have some books and scrolls. At the beginning, academic studies were strong. We had valos whose original purpose was to be scholars. After Ilena’s death, it changed quickly. The skill of survival prevailed, and scholarly pursuits were abandoned. The only books we may have left would be somewhere in the vault.”
“Was Vlunn’s original purpose to be a scholar?
” Rock’s purpose was pretty clear from the beginning, but Vlunn’s set of skills appeared to be broad and varied. His intended purpose could have been anything from an artisan, to a cook, to a scholar.
“No,” Rock bit out sharply. “Not a scholar.”
“What then?”
I remained seated under the tree, and he towered over me in silence. Finally, he lowered into a crouch in front of me and found my eyes.
“Vlunn was a warrior. One of the best.”
My eyes opened wide in surprise. “A warrior? Vlunn has killed?”
“Many. He was lethal on a battlefield.”
Vlunn? My caring, smiling Vlunn?
I shook my head, a weak smile of disbelief on my lips.
“How would he even . . .? He is not like you.”
Vlunn wasn’t like Rock in more ways than one. He might have been just as big and as strong, but he was nowhere near as quick. In fact, Vlunn’s slow, deliberate way of moving around made me believe that his intended occupation was something peaceful.
His reluctance to leave the cave made me assume his staying inside tied in with his initial purpose. True, I hadn’t seen him spending much time studying books—there were always other things for him to do—but I could easily visualize him having it as his main occupation in the past. I did not see him as lethal at all.
Then I remembered the words he said to me that day in Carfoha and the calm, controlled rage behind them.
‘Pity. Now I can’t kill him myself.’
In his voice, there was the undeniable confidence in his efficiency as an assassin.
“You’re right, he is not like me,” Rock agreed. “He is faster, smarter, his mind is much more strategic than mine.”
“He doesn’t leave the cave—” I tried to make sense of it all.
“Vlunn’s joints are stiff. He doesn’t even shift anymore. He’s afraid if he takes his fighting form, he’d never be able to come out of it. He can’t be who he once was. He can’t hunt with me anymore, and he stopped going out altogether because I think since he can’t do it as well as he used to, he’s decided not to even try anymore.”
“How long has he been like that?”
“For the last decade or so. But it’s changed in the past few days, Zoya.” Rock shifted towards me and took my hands in both of his. “I didn’t want to believe it myself. I still don’t, but I need to make sure you’re capable of surviving on your own. Vlunn and I, we may not be bonded by blood, but we are bonded for life.”
“What are you talking about?” Chilly understanding gripped my heart.
“When he goes, I go.” His voice was grim and somber.
“Not right now, though, right? Right? I mean, I’m not going to live forever either . . .”
“Once it had taken a turn for the worse . . . I’ve seen it many times before.”
“How much longer?” I needed to know.
He squeezed my hands and inhaled deeply.
“Not long now.”
“How much longer?” I repeated, raising my voice. “Rock! Months? Years? Another decade?”
His hold on my hands tightened, and his thumbs stroked my knuckles soothingly.
“Days,” he said softly.
“No!” I yanked my hands from his. Grief slammed into my chest and exploded like a missile, knocking all air out of my lungs.
Rock’s voice filtered through. “He got worse yesterday. Now it’ll be fast—”
I didn’t wait for him to finish. I couldn’t process the sudden horror of it. I jumped to my feet and ran as fast as my legs could move, desperate to get away from his words and outrun the pain they’d brought.
Arms and legs pumping, my weary muscles straining, heart pounding in my chest, I ran towards the valley, back to the cave where Vlunn was waiting for us. Dying.
I cleared the last of the trees at the woods’ edge, my boots hitting the packed sand of the mountain valley now, but I hardly noticed where I was.
Rock let me run, catching up with me only at the first group of boulders. Exhausted, I tripped and stumbled in the sand. His arms caught me around my middle, and we both collapsed to the ground.
Tears finally burst out of my eyes and sobs shuddered my body. I folded in half at the waist and buried my face in my hands, howling. With his arms around me, Rock sat behind me and pulled me into his chest. I felt his forehead press between my shoulder blades.
“You—you can’t go. I’ve just found you.” My voice was pitifully small. “You can’t leave me. Not now . . .”
A painful hurricane of emotions swirled inside me, cutting sharp at every turn and twist.
Pain for them.
Not Vlunn. Please. Not Rock. They are strong, full of life. Why do they need to die? They can’t die. I need them here with me.
Then burning anger towards Ilena flushed me.
She doomed them to die! They were her toy soldiers, nothing more. She never cared enough for them to ensure they’d live. Why gift them the innate unstoppable loyalty as their major trait and give them no one to be loyal to?
Would I have been happier if Vlunn and Rock got their mates from Ilena? Would I have been okay seeing them happily mated to valo women? At this moment, I believed that I could accept that. Anything to stop them from dying.
“You will be okay.” Rock’s promise was firm despite the strain in his voice. “You’ll be safe in Corfoha. It’s your city now. It’s your world. I’ll spend the remaining days teaching you everything I know about surviving on Sonhadra. We’ll bring all edible plants into the garden, so you’ll always have a source of food even if you don’t go hunting—”
“Stop it,” I moaned. I couldn’t listen to him talking about my life without them in it. “Stop it, please.” I took his hands off my waist and pressed them to my lips. “Just . . . Don’t go. Please, don’t leave me alone.”
Tears ran down my face, soaking into the rough skin of his hands.
“I don’t want to go.” He inhaled a shuddered breath into my back. “For the first time in centuries, Zoya, I cannot easily accept my destiny. After Ilena’s death, we all felt abandoned, without a purpose. Many died within days. Those who remained paired up, like Vlunn and I. Without a mate, we needed a companion to survive, a partner. For us, it’s vital to have someone to care for, someone who would care about us too. It’s in our blood. The feelings I have for Vlunn had been the strongest emotions I’ve ever experienced. Until you came along. You gave us both a new purpose. You made our lives complete. You made them worth living. I don’t want to go now.” He rolled his forehead on my back, his own pain seeping through to my heart.
The inevitability of what was to come was crushing. I refused to accept it.
“There must be something we could do. Anything?”
He pivoted me in his lap to face him. “No. You are a free woman, Zoya.” His scarlet eyes were clouded by pain, the fire in them dulled, but his voice was firm and determined. “You have fought hard for your freedom and you earned it. You’re strong. No matter what, you will be happy again. And you will remain free.”
Chapter 19
The walk back home was grim and silent. If it wasn’t for Rock holding my hand and dragging me along, I would have all but stopped and collapsed back into the sand.
We had remained sitting on the ground in a tight embrace for so long, the sun was nearing the mountain peaks when Rock finally stirred and prompted me to move. By now, I had no more tears to cry, but my heart was still bleeding. I imagined it would be like this forever now. What could possibly make things better?
“Can I carry you the rest of the way?” Rock must be losing his patience with my snail speed, but I needed to move. I wanted to wear out my body as much as my mind and my heart had been torn and worn. I shook my head a moment before a high shriek ‘Food!’ reached my ears.
A pale purple fur ball dashed from behind the nearest boulder and launched itself at Rock’s ankle.
“What the—” Rock kicked his leg up, propelling the fur ba
ll into the dry patch of desert grass nearby.
The indignant ‘Hurt!’ Flew through the air along its trajectory.
“What was that?” I peered into the grass where the thing had landed. A furry face covered by black round button-eyes popped out. ‘Stay away!’ It squeaked at me in warning.
“Frobi,” dismissed Rock. “They’re a nuisance.”
“Did he bite you?”
He shook his head.
“Their teeth aren’t sharp enough to pierce my skin. But they’re too stupid to figure it out, and keep attacking with every chance they get. Let’s go.” He pulled at my hand, prompting me to follow him.
“Hold on.” I recognized the pale lavender fur of the creature that looked identical to the one attacking my own leg the day of the crash. “He must be hungry.” I yanked our bag from Rock’s shoulder.
“He’ll be fine. He’ll go back to the forest to look for food. I’m not sure what he’s doing out here anyway. They don’t usually go this far out into the valley.”
“We can’t just leave him here. It’s a long way back to the forest, especially, on those little fuzzies he has for legs.” I took a handful of the red berries out of the bag and crouched down to the ground.
‘Stay away!’ The frobi squeaked out another warning, alerted by my movement, and turned around to leave.
‘Food,’ I whistled sharply, imitating the sound he’d made earlier, and proffered the berries in his direction.
He stopped in his tracks. The pair of furry, pointed ears on top of his head turned towards the sound I made before the rest of his round, fuzzy body pivoted in my direction as well. His eyes, I counted nine, narrowed at me in a comical fashion.
The frobi made a move towards the berries in my hand, and I slowly lowered the hand a little closer to him. I wasn’t sure if he was sniffing the air. There was a round black button in the place where most Earth animals would have a nose, but it looked identical to his eyes. I would need a closer look to figure out his external organs.
I remained still, with Rock standing motionlessly at my back. Finally, the frobi moved from behind the grass and towards the berries. It fascinated me how his furry tails undulated under the round body, propelling it forward, fast and smooth.
Enduring (Valos of Sonhadra Book 8) Page 12