by E. M. Hardy
Isiah’s heart pounded, his chest feeling like a weight had been placed on it. He felt his mind going numb with pressure as he tried to settle down. Nothing would. Everything in his body was working overtime, the entire world dulling down to points of information that needed to be processed.
“It is the bloodlust,” explained Kurdan, “Do not fight it. Embrace it. Let it flow through you, give you the power you need.” The orc laughed within Isiah’s mind. “Though in your case, the bloodlust in you is less about strength and more about reflex. I would guess it is appropriate, given the nature of the weapons you use.”
Unable to stop his excited breathing, Isiah decided to follow Kurdan’s advice and just let go. He let his heart beat as fast as it wanted to, his lungs draw in as much air as they needed to. He swam in the bloodlust—and it rewarded him by showing him a world very different to what he was used to.
Time slowed. Details stood out. The crunch of a boot on gravel, the clink of plastic pellets within their chamber, the flitting shadow passing by a corner—all this and more passed through Isiah’s senses.
His eyes and hands worked in perfect harmony as he brought up his pistol. His hands knew just how to position themselves where his eyes pointed. He squeezed the trigger and sent a plastic pellet flying away—right into the hand of a woman as she rounded a corner. His eyes moved, sighting another target, and his hands obliged. Another squeeze, and two pellets made their way into the chest and hip of a man popping up a window. He moved his hands, and he tagged another man who tried sprinting toward the flag.
He twisted, and a barrage of pellets flew through the space that his lungs had occupied a split-second ago. In that same twist, he brought up his pistol and fired at the sniper up on the second floor of the warehouse—hitting the sniper on his thigh.
Unlike the others though, the sniper didn’t lower his weapon and declare a hit. No, he continued sighting down his scope to send round after round—heedless of the other pellets hitting him in the gut, forearm, and shin.
Isiah should have called for a marshal and contested the unfair play. He should have hidden and waited for the marshal to step in and scold the cheating sniper. Instead, Isiah stood his ground and let the pellets wash over him. He let the pellets hit his helmet, along with his exposed arms and shins. High-speed pellet after high-speed pellet dug into his flesh, bruising him horribly, but the pain meant nothing to him. He stared down the sniper, ignoring the pain that coursed through his limbs, and let the rage guide his hands. He raised his pistol, aimed, and depressed the trigger. The sniper howled in replied, clutching his groin and rolling down on the ground.
A marshal stomped up to Isiah, ready to chew him out for aiming with such a low blow. “Hey, noob! Did you listen to the gosh-durned instructions when we started, huh? We told you scrubs not to aim… for…”
The marshal did not finish her lecture as Isiah stripped his shirt and his pants, revealing a horrendous number of bruises pockmarked all over his exposed skin. There was even a pellet lodged in his exposed forearm, the skin broken and bleeding.
“What the heck… TIM! Tim, you dumbass, how high did you chrono your rifle this time!?”
The sniper groaned, still writhing on the ground, before answering the marshal. “The asswipe hit me in the balls! The BALLS, Milly!”
“I don’t care if this scrub hit your mamma up twice last night, Tim. Now answer the question: HOW HIGH DID YOU CHRONO YOUR FRICKIN RIFLE!?”
“Uh… I forgot,” replied the sniper as meekly as he could, no doubt still clutching his wounded jewels.
“You forgot? YOU FORGOT!? Aw, hell,” sighed the marshal called Milly. She looked back at Isiah and shook her head at the extent of his injuries. “C’mon, son. Let’s get you down to the infirmary and have you looked at. And let me tell you right now that not all of us are like Tim the dipshit up there. He and I—along with the rest of the marshals here—are going to have a very, very long chat about his issues with sportsmanship. Tim isn’t exactly the most gracious of players when it comes to admitting defeat.”
“Then you should put him up in front of a firing squad, hose him down with pellets at whatever velocity he set his rifle at,” barked Isiah, a feral snarl on his lips as he spun around to face the marshal.
Milly stepped back, surprised at Isiah’s ferocity as he casually picked out a pellet lodged inside his skin. “Yeah. That… I don’t think that’ll work with the other marshals. But seriously, son, maybe let a medic handle that?”
“This is nothing,” replied Isiah, who was too busy imagining himself throttling the player called Tim. “I’ll feel a lot better if that douchebag Tim learns to play fair. Maybe then I wouldn’t have had to tag him in the nuts.”
The marshal chuckled at that idea. “Well son, at least you took your licks and gave as good as you got.”
Isiah grunted, finally deciding to follow the marshal’s instructions and seek the first aid station.
***
“Holy cow, Zeyah! You look like Swiss cheese!”
Isiah shrugged nonchalantly at Bernabé as the nurse clucked over the numerous injuries he had sustained. “The other guy used a rifle that was pumped up way beyond what was allowed. Douchebag wouldn’t even acknowledge the hits I landed on him.” He then turned toward his friend with a wicked grin. “Not that he couldn’t acknowledge a hit when it landed on his nuts. You should’ve been there to hear his squeak after that little incident.”
Bernabé was laughing his head off while Eddison and Hasan chuckled. Olivia, however, wasn’t having any of it. “What is it with you, Isiah? I mean, we came here to celebrate you getting out of the hospital. Now you might end up back there all over again!”
“Nah,” Isiah said as he waved her concerns away. “This stuff looks worse than it actually is. Ask the nurse.”
The nurse sighed, shaking his head. “Your friend here is right. I think Milly was exaggerating when she said Isiah here was bleeding. I see nothing but a few bruises that are already fading away.”
“See?” said Isiah, grinning from ear to ear. “Nothing to worry about.”
Kurdan huffed within the recesses of Isiah’s mind. “Blood magic is the only reason you are still not bleeding all over the place, human.”
“I know,” thought Isiah back to Kurdan as he sat still, patiently waiting for the nurse to finish his checkup. “Really useful to have on hand, really.”
“But still,” Kurdan replied. “That is an interesting application of bloodlust you showed back there. Rather than focusing on strength and savagery, it instead sharpened your reflexes to such a degree… Useless to me, of course, but to you and your human guns? It would be effective. Oh, and you might want to watch out for the he-man staring at you from behind the crowd.”
Isiah casually turned his head to focus on what Kurdan had seen. There, in the middle of the crowd around the first-aid station, was a man studying him intently from behind a large brochure. It was not obvious at first glance since the man was wearing shades, but the man’s eyes were glancing sideways toward Isiah. Isiah thought at first that it was Tim the sniper, giving him the stink eye for nailing him in the balls and outing him as a cheater. However, it was a different guy altogether. Taller, bulkier, and wearing fatigues different from the team that Isiah and his buddies had played against. The man turned his head away when he realized that Isiah had picked him out from the crowd.
“Watchu looking so intently at?” poked Eddison as he narrowed his eyes in the general direction that Isiah was looking at.
“Nothing,” replied Isiah, turning back to face his friends with a neutral smile on his face. “Thought it was someone I recognized.”
Isiah continued chatting it up with his friends, tuning the stranger out of his mind as the nurse-slash-medic eventually cleared him for release. They would go on to join a few more rounds with varying degrees of success, this time without encountering blatant cheaters and spoilsports like Tim. The stranger, on the other hand, took note of the
curious little boy who not only performed admirably whenever he found himself in tight spots but was also able to stand his ground and take the abuse thrown his way by a cheater with an over-clocked rifle.
That, and the stranger took special care to note the boy’s strange ability to heal from his injuries much faster than what was humanly possible.
Chapter 12
Kurdan ignored Urul’s brooding silence as he conducted his ritual over the basin of blood before him. The ritual to summon their patron god Cagros normally entailed draining the blood from a victim to fill up a shallow basin. When Kurdan pressed Urul for details, the shaman revealed that he only really needed a basin of blood—not the death of a sacrifice. With that in mind, Kurdan had Urul collect the blood from multiple slaves instead of simply slitting the throat of one unlucky victim. The two human priests would preside over no funerals that day, though they would expect a busy evening healing the slit wrists of the slaves.
Another reason for the shaman’s surly attitude was that these invocation ceremonies were supposed to be a time of feasting, fighting, and rutting for all. It was supposed to be celebrated openly, where all orcs would supplicate themselves before their patron deity. Instead, Kurdan instructed Urul to secretively conduct the ritual in a hidden cove. He even had to bleed the humans in secret right after Kurdan instructed Shelur to lead a Great Hunt involving most of the tribe. All this skulking about grated on the Bloodletter Shaman’s nerves, though he wasn’t brazen enough to confront his chieftain about.
Kurdan didn’t care.
The chieftain knew that Urul wanted to object, to say that Kurdan was desecrating the god-calling rituals passed down from generation to generation of Bloodletter Shamans. And yet the shaman held his tongue, for he knew that his chieftain was not one for traditions—not when they got in the way of his ambitions. He focused instead on the words crafted to commune with Cagros from the limitations of the mortal realm.
As Urul uttered the last of the words of invocation, raising his hands in supplication, the blood within the basin swirled. Slow at first as Cagros’ presence shifted into the world, then faster as the god began drinking the offered blood. A small tear appeared above the basin just as the last drops of blood drained away into the solid bottom of the basin. That tear widened into a portal, revealing an empty void that hurt the eyes of all those that looked within. Urul bowed down low, the tattooed runes on his body glowing red with power as he supplicated himself before his patron god.
Kurdan didn’t bow.
He fought through the pain, even as his eyes watered. He began to shed tears of blood, but he forced his twitching eyes open as he stared into the void that was Cagros, his god.
“Heh,” rumbled the voice from within the void. “Arrogant as always. Such behavior is admirable when dealing with your inferiors. However—”
The void that was Cagros intensified its presence, his emptiness reaching out from the portal and stroking Kurdan’s very essence. The chieftain buckled, his confident posture shattered as he bent to one knee and grunted through the pain lancing throughout his body.
“—it is simply intolerable when dealing with your betters.”
The god’s presence glowed with amusement as it watched Kurdan huffing with effort. The orc put everything he had into pushing his body upright as pain continued to wrack every muscle within him.
“Great Cagros,” Kurdan said through gnashing teeth, “I need… your wisdom and strength… on a matter that will… affect the fate of the tribe.”
“You mean a matter that affects you, personally, yes?” interrupted the god, breaking Kurdan’s concentration. “No need to worry. You can trust the parasite whispering into your ears. I should know; I put him there.”
That stunned Kurdan enough for him to drop his guard. He slipped and grunted as the pain pushed him down to the ground.
“The hell? What do you mean he put me here!?”
“I meant exactly what I said, Isiah Hunter.”
Kurdan found himself shocked into silence, unable to say anything to his god. Isiah went quiet inside Kurdan’s mind as well, sharing the same shock that his orcish host felt. Urul remained kneeling and free from pain, curiosity etched on his face as he committed the strange name into his memory.
“Your ambitions intrigue me, Kurdan,” continued Cagros, ignoring Kurdan as he lay on the ground in stunned silence. “You are not the first orc to dream grand dreams, but you are the first one willing to do more than just split skulls to reach them. You then have my blessing to do as you see fit.”
The god reached out from the void that he inhabited, a tendril of darkness snaking out of the portal toward Kurdan. The orc flinched as the tendril neared his forehead, and quickly screamed in unrestrained pain as the tendril lashed at him. A diagonal stripe ripped through his face starting from his right eyebrow and cutting through his nose and lips, all the way to his left chin. The wound closed in on itself, healing into a thick band of scar tissue in an instant of searing pain.
Isiah screamed within Kurdan’s mind as well, the divine pain lashing at him in a way that the young boy had never experienced. Kurdan had suffered through other injuries before, but this was the first time that the pain transferred over to Isiah in such a raw form—at least not while he was just piggybacking on Kurdan’s consciousness.
“There,” muttered the god called Cagros in satisfaction. “You summoned me hoping to win my favor. That mark on your face will declare to all that you have won it. Not that I will be granting you additional favors anytime soon,” said the god as he chuckled darkly. “You already have a rather significant advantage over the rest of your kind. I suggest that you exploit it to the best of your abilities, especially if you plan on turning your dreams into reality.”
“And as for you,” Cagros said as he turned his attention toward Urul, whose head remained bowed low in reverence. “You will speak to no one about what has happened here. You will share to no one whatever you heard in this summoning… even the name that you are trying to sequester away in a portion of your mind.” Urul shivered as he realized his mind was not as secure as he thought it was—especially with his god overpowering him with his presence. “I do not care if you play dumb or beat down anyone who asks. You WILL hold your tongue on all that has transpired here. And no, Urul, I will not explain myself to you.”
Urul snapped his mouth shut, clearly about to ask why his god would choose to hide away such a revelation. “I will obey,” Urul said as he bowed his head low.
“Good,” said Cagros as he unceremoniously winked out of existence before Kurdan or Urul could say another word.
The two orcs stared at the empty basin, finding it difficult to process just what had happened to them.
Urul broke the silence first. “Chieftain… what have you done?”
Kurdan spun to face Urul, ready to smash the orc’s face in for defying him. He stayed his tongue and his fist, however, when he saw the orc shivering in fear. Urul backed away from Kurdan while trembling as hard as a leaf in the wind. “What have you done?” he repeated, his fear growing with each passing second.
***
Kurdan grunted as he kept trying and failing to pull apart the dried length of rope before him. He was gentle at first, testing how far he could go before the rope inevitably snapped. His trepidation turned to surprise, then irritation, then downright frustration as the fibrous strands held against his abuses. Tired of this charade, he commanded his blood to boil. Muscles bulged, veins thickened, and limbs shivered—and still the rope held.
His frustration gave way to unadulterated pleasure, his tusky grin reaching from ear to ear. “This is perfect. I can already see a use for it.” In truth, it was Isiah who wound up giddy with excitement about the possibilities of such a tool.
“It is the work of Hubert, an elder in our group,” Alyon said as she kept her head bowed low, her face schooled into a mask of neutrality as she spoke. “He offers to make more of this Poison
Creeper rope to you, chieftain, in the hope that it will prove his usefulness to the tribe.” The bald old man behind her bowed just as deeply, his tired old muscles shaking with fear and exertion. “He hopes to secure a place for himself and the other elders that are not well enough to help with the labors of farming and construction. The children could help with the twining of the rope as well, at least when it has been sufficiently treated. His own granddaughter helped him to create this sample rope before you.” Alyon’s voice grew softer with worry as she continued speaking. “All of us wish to be of use to the tribe,” she finished, hoping her plea would help convince Kurdan to resist the calls of the tribe to cull the old, the weak, and the young.
“We shall see,” Kurdan said noncommittally as he whipped the length of rope around, noting with surprise how light it was. “How did you make this, Hubert?”
The priestess’ eyebrows shot up for a fraction of a second before she could rein them back in. Kurdan ignored her moment of surprise as he examined the old man. The old man shook harder as he tried to control the ragged breaths rasping out of his lungs.
“I… ah… Chieftain Kurdan… I used… I mean, I… crushed Rawcrow berries to neutralize the, um… the… poison. And I, ah, I soaked the fibers of the… the creeper in—”
“Stop sniveling and speak properly, human,” Kurdan spat in annoyance as he continued twisting the length of rope around his fingers. His harsh tone caused the frail old man to jump up in fright, the shock of Kurdan’s voice rumbling inside his hut. “Your naked fear disgusts me. You are weak and old, yes, but that is no excuse for the sheer amount of cowardice leaking out of every pore in your soft human body. And so I repeat myself: how did you make this rope, you pathetic worm?”
Hubert the elderly was still trying to collect his wits when a small bundle of shrieking fury crashed through the flaps of Kurdan’s hut. “Stop bullying grampa!!!” yelled the little manling, barreling her way toward Hubert. She landed heavily on the old man’s back, buried her face in his old tunic, and peeked out as she threw a scowl at Kurdan.