“We?” The second sister looked amused.
“I thought you came here to fix this,” he said. “Just like we did.”
“There’s no fixing this,” the first ka-eng murmured. “Your people may think we are enchanted, magical beings, but the truth is we are just people…”
“With perhaps a much longer lifespan than usual,” the other added with a smile. “We will see this through so we know what to tell our own elders up in the mountains. The hope is that the creature returns to wherever pocket of the deep woods it came from.”
Luc felt a wave of anger rush through him. “See this through? You mean you just mean to stay here and watch as they starve to death or are ripped apart by this…this thing?”
The sister pushed her sleeves up to show him her thin, pale wrists. “What do you think we can do?” she asked. “We aren’t warriors. All we can do is watch.”
“And you…” the other said, “would be wise to do the same.”
They bowed to him with a flourish before drifting back to the path they had come from, leaving Luc alone with the distressed little pig. It had shat itself, but even standing knee-deep in its own filth didn’t seem enough to stop it from squealing. He stared at it, feeling sorry for the beast. He was tempted to go back, cut it from its rope, and set it free.
Instead, he made his way up the tallest tree near the pool. The one he found went up high enough that he could see the second and third waterfalls, with each pool leading to the one below. Underneath him, the pig grunted pitifully, as if calling for him to come back.
He crossed his arms and forced himself to nap.
Sleep came easily. It helped that the air here wasn’t as cold as where he had spent the whole night—or whenever that had been that he could last recall. He used to sleep out in the pastures with the goats, and often woke up to a headbutt or two from a particularly playful kid. He dreamt of them now, of how they must’ve huddled together in the corner of their pen while they gazed out in fear at the dark, their eyes growing wide, wider as their attacker came snuffling through the fence…
Luc’s eyes snapped open. The first thing he became aware of was the grey light—he must’ve slept past twilight, though it was not quite the dead of the night yet. The second thing he noticed was the distinct smell of burnt hair, as if right from under his nostrils. He lifted his head just in time to hear the pig’s death-squeal.
He had butchered pigs before in the farm. None had screamed quite as this one had done. Once his eyes had adjusted to the lack of light, he looked down and saw a maned head, almost like a horse’s, bent down over the pig’s mangled corpse. The long hair shot past its snout, spilling along the ground like great, black rivers.
Though Luc had never been the religious sort—to Brother Hamis’ great regret—he found himself making several holy signs in quick succession.
Its face was long, ending in a muzzle with two large nostrils. The horse-like features ended there. The creature was huge, easily twice the size of a real horse and as tall as a house, and every time it opened its jaws, Luc could see the sharp teeth shredding through the meat. Its front legs ended in claws, while its hindquarters had split hooves.
He felt nauseous again, but for a different reason. Every muscle in his body was telling him to run—that nothing could be gained by staying exactly where he was. At the same time, fear trembled through him. There was cold sweat on his brow, across his palms, his face. He was almost sure he had forgotten how to breathe.
The creature pulled away from the carcass, half a leg hanging from its mouth. It sniffed.
Gods, Luc found himself thinking. It can smell me.
Could he outrun it?
Should he?
He remembered, suddenly, why he was still here—why he didn’t return to the village even after the ka-eng told him he ought to. The villagers of Toskthar didn’t have a choice, but he did. And the freedom of that granted him clarity of thought—made him understand that sometimes men had to make hard choices because no one else was willing to make them. He didn’t have to stop and ask what was in it for him. That was not the sort of man his father had raised. What was in it for Jak to pick up a foundling? To throw himself into the sea for a child that wasn’t his?
He drew his sword and dropped at the creature.
Straight down, he thought. It looked like a horse. It was probably no different than riding an angry, bucking stallion, the way the village boys sometimes dared each other to do when the stables down the road had fresh stock. Luc had been particularly good at it.
Not even before his feet touched the creature’s back, he realized he had made a grave mistake.
But there was no room for him to second-guess himself now. He sank the sword into the creature’s neck, slowing his fall. He kicked against the leathery hide. The creature roared, reaching out with its claws to swipe at him. He twisted the sword and managed to grab its hair before he let go of the hilt and swung on its back as it tried to strike again.
It screeched. The sound sent shivers up his spine, the sensation of a nightmare coming to life. He felt the creature move under him. It reared, tried to reach him a third time with its claws, and when he ducked just out of reach, it slammed back against the ground with the force of a lightning storm. Luc thought he heard the earth crack underneath.
Strands of the creature’s hair was caught in his fingers as he reached back down for his sword. Blood hissed from the wound—blood that smelled old and rotting, like the refuse from the butcher shop. Luc pushed away at his revulsion and managed to pull the sword out just as the creature tried to toss him off once more. He pulled himself up its neck, grabbing hold of its mane and sticking his feet into the roots like it was a ladder.
He reached the top of its head. The creature pushed its head back, and for a moment, it stared at him with yellow, bloodshot eyes. Dead eyes. He didn’t know why, but something told him there was no life in this thing—at least, not what you could call life anymore. It was a mimicry, a puppet. Whatever made it run, whatever was driving it, had long forgotten how to live—if it even knew how to at all.
He sank his sword right between those eyes.
The creature came crashing down almost at once, nearly striking the tree as it went. Its own body cushioned Luc from the fall.
Moments passed. Minutes, maybe even longer. Luc remained where he was for fear that the creature might wake. When the creature remained motionless under him, he pulled the sword out. Black blood had congealed around the blade, still smelling like death. He clambered down from the body and walked around it before returning to its head. Its eyes were open.
“Are you dead?” Luc asked.
He didn’t know if that was the right word for it. How could you kill something that didn’t seem alive in the first place? The ka-eng had told him that these things didn’t even need to eat. And yet clearly, this thing had enjoyed feeding on the pig—it would probably take a long time before the sound of it snuffling after the meat would erase itself from Luc’s memories.
In any case, it didn’t answer back. There was no sound around him at all, save the brief howling of the wind, which had somehow grown cold again. Luc took that as a sign and reached out to grab the creature’s ear. It felt soft, not quite like the animals Luc had slaughtered before—almost as if it had been dead for days. Luc noticed that the creature’s mouth wasn’t as horse-like as he had thought. Instead of loose lips, it ended in a clean line. The muzzle, while containing nostrils on each side like a horse’s, flattened at the tip like a pig’s snout.
Biting back his reservations, he lifted his sword and began to hack away at its neck.
It took a lot longer than he expected. Sweat ran down his back and neck as he worked. The moon rose high in the sky, and then sank. Luc eventually managed to decapitate the head, which on its own was the size of a bull. It was too heavy to carry, but he took the rope the villager had tied the pig with and wrapped it around the head. Slowly, he dragged it up the path. That he hadn’t ea
ten for at least a day—longer, if the ka-eng were to be believed—didn’t seem to faze him one bit.
A village child spotted him first.
He tore past the village fences while howling about the monster, all while Luc huffed and puffed around the street, leaving behind a trail of black blood with every step he took. He could see the villagers crack their doors open, holding out lanterns and staring at him with disbelief. He would’ve greeted them, but he was too exhausted to say anything. He made his way all the way to the square in front of the elder’s house and only then dropped the head on the ground. It rolled along twice, ragged flesh flopping along the snow.
“Not a god,” Luc explained, watching as the villagers began to gather around them.
No one was speaking. He heard the gate open behind him and saw the elder hobble out. “Blessed Yohak,” the elder murmured. “You did it. How did you do it?” He stared up at Luc. “How are you alive?”
“I don’t know,” Luc replied. “They always said I was lucky.”
“Luck didn’t do that,” the elder whispered. He couldn’t take his eyes off the head.
“How the fucking hell?” someone called from beyond the crowd. Luc spotted the mercenaries at the far end. It suddenly occurred to him that the reason he could see them was because it was nearly dawn. The boy’s screaming must’ve torn them from their beds. How long was he in the woods fighting the creature? He had lost track of time.
He saw Demon staring at him, speechless. It was Hana who walked up to him. She paused for a moment before reaching out to pat his face, her hands cold from the morning fog. “Real enough,” she said. She glanced at the mercenaries. “And they were all convinced you were dead. Bastards didn’t even want to try and find you.”
“He’s here now,” Jona spat. “You really want to fucking argue about this again?”
“The most important thing is that he killed the creature,” Caiso spoke up. “What did I tell you folks? A brave lad.”
“A foolish lad,” Tasha said, but there was a hint of amazement in her voice. She pointed at the head. “Are we supposed to bring that to Blackwood, then?”
Before Luc could answer, the first rays of dawn began to creep along the horizon. He watched in shock as the head dissolved into the light, turning into ashes, leaving behind only the thin strands of its hair.
~~~
They told Luc—haltingly—that he was lost in the woods for fifteen days, all while staring at how he seemed almost unchanged since then. Save for the bruises and a few cuts he had received during his encounter with the creature, there was not a mark on him. They observed that he hadn’t lost much weight, either, although he ate the food the villagers laid out for him like any starving man.
Exhaustion snuck in as soon as his hunger was sated. The village elder offered him the use of his own bed and left him alone for the better part of the day. Nothing but rest occupied Luc’s thoughts for the next little while. He dreamt only of the ka-eng, dancing around him like the sprites the stories sometimes made them out to be, reaching for him with their delicate fingers before drawing away in laughter. Infuriating, confusing…he woke up and thought he could still hear their melodious voices, accusing him of the futility of his actions. Why did it matter that he killed one? There were others in the woods.
But as far as the villagers were concerned, he had saved them. The same man he had encountered near the falls offered to walk back with them to Blackwood, and the mercenaries broke camp and prepared to leave the next morning. Luc noticed that their mood had grown more sombre around him. Something had changed, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Demon couldn’t look at him straight, and even Tasha seemed a tad less snipey than usual.
He realized what it was when he finally joined them on the march out. “Stop pissing yourselves around the little bitch,” Jona remarked, clouting one of his men on the head for apologizing when he bumped into Luc. “He got lucky. He said so himself. You fuck-ups that easily impressed?”
Jona, by those words, made it clear he wasn’t. Not that Luc was surprised about that. The man seemed incapable of acknowledging any accomplishment that wasn’t his. Even the fact that they were now free to return to Blackwood didn’t seem to cheer him up any. He complained about the road while they tromped through the snow, and argued with Tasha about every little thing. Why didn’t they ask Blackwood for horses? Or the villagers? He had spotted at least two in the pastures—emaciated, wobbly things, but anything was better than trudging through the snow. Walking back seemed to take twice as long as it took at the turn of the season, when there was only a light layer on the grass and none on the road at all.
It almost seemed like they didn’t even cover much ground by the time they camped for the night. Luc set up his tent and was about to build his own fire when Treda whistled to him. “You sit your ass down and let me do that,” Treda said. “You must be bone-tired.”
“What’s happening here?” Luc asked. “Everyone’s been…kind.”
Treda pulled out a wad of oil-soaked wood shavings from the tinderbox and arranged the kindling around it before he replied. “Just go with it,” he said in a low voice.
“What do you mean?”
“Jona and Tasha had been butting heads the whole time you were away,” he murmured. “Bit of an issue with the group, you see. Oswyn was always the natural leader. Tasha was happy to let him deal with it the way they used to in their old band, but I suppose Jona wasn’t too happy about that. He’d step aside for Oswyn, he said, but not Tasha.”
“It always looked like it would come to this.”
Treda snorted as he struck his dagger against the flint and watched the fire come alive. “Didn’t it? Sticks up their asses, the both of them. Tasha doesn’t really want to be the leader. She’ll be more than happy to let anyone else do it—anyone else except Jona, that is. Right bit of mess, this whole thing.” He threw more sticks into the growing flames.
“I still don’t see what all of this has to do with me.”
“They were arguing again yesterday, after you crawled back into the village. Jona wanted to stay a little longer. Tasha thought since the job was done, we had to get back to Blackwood immediately. And then they started arguing about who was really in charge and then Hana broke it up by saying maybe we ought to listen to the man who’d made it possible for us to finish the job in the first place.”
Luc took a deep breath. “That would be me, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s why you all dropped everything when I said we should head out this morning. Agartes, I thought you were all just glad to get out of there.”
Treda smiled. “I wouldn’t put on airs about it just yet, but—there’s no denying what you did out there. When you dragged that thing’s head in, I almost couldn’t believe it was you. You looked like—like a bloody warrior, gone to hell and back.”
“Wish I felt like it.”
“Doesn’t matter. That’s what I saw, and I wager that’s what most of them saw, too. And if we can keep them on their toes like this, maybe that’ll keep Jona off our backs.”
He remembered Hana telling him something similar on their way back. Two days ago. Two weeks ago. Time was starting to lose meaning for him, and he wasn’t sure what to make of the situation he’d found himself in. He made a point not to worry about it for the rest of the trip. It didn’t matter, anyway…they’d finished the job, and once he got his share, he needed to get back to Crossfingers. If it had been that long, his family was probably thinking the worst. Perhaps if he brought enough money to tide them over for the rest of the winter, he could stop berating himself for the things he couldn’t be.
But evidently, everyone else didn’t see it the same way. Luc was too young to understand the noose he had willingly wrapped around his neck when he had gone and volunteered to do the things he did. Sometime during the night, he heard his tent shift, and opened his eyes to see Jona’s shadow hovering right outside. His hand automatically reached f
or his sword. Panic rushed into him when he realized he had left it by his fire.
Jona was unbuckling his trousers.
“Hey!” a voice called out from the distance. Caiso’s. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“None of your business, you fucking blue blood.”
“I think it is my business. Do you think the rest of them are going to let you get away with that?”
“They want to put the fresh-faced whelp up to undermine me. To test me. I’ll show the fucks exactly what they’re dealing with.”
Luc picked up a rock from beside his bedroll.
“I don’t think so, Jona.” Caiso’s voice was almost soft, but there was a line of anger running through it. “You can find a wench up in Blackwood. For what they’ll pay us, you can afford the best.”
“This isn’t about that. And don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing.”
Caiso laughed. “I wouldn’t. I like boys. Willing boys. I’m not a fucking monster.” There was the sound of a sword being drawn. “Step away from that tent, Jona, before this becomes a bloodbath. He’ll scream. The others will come running. This won’t end well for anyone.”
“I could fuck you up.”
“You’ve been threatening to do that for months, now. I don’t mind finding out if you really can.”
There was a long pause. To Luc’s relief, he saw Jona’s shadow melt back from behind the fire. As he wiped the sweat from his face, he saw another shadow appear—a smaller one. It knelt by the opening.
He saw the hilt of his sword sliding through the flap. “Here,” he heard Caiso whisper. “Don’t make that mistake again.”
“Thank you,” he managed to croak out. He reached for the sword. He had never imagined how the solid weight of it could bring him comfort. He used to imagine swords as mere tools, like a kitchen knife or an axe.
“Not for me to care, usually, what people do with their lives, but if you’re going to stay in this one, I suggest you toughen up a little.”
“Do you mean I should swear and threaten to beat people up every time they looked at me?”
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