Kamapua’a rose to his full height and snorted at his prisoner. The other boars squealed with victory. “That should take care of Pele’s army,” the pig-god snipped. “Now we can hold our moonlight ritual without interruption.”
Hi’iaka’s heart sank, and she began to cry, for she knew that the Lord of Pigs was right.
Chapter 14
Gray was having a heart attack.
“I’m having a heart attack!” he cried, wheezing and clutching his chest. “I’m really having a heart attack!”
“Does your left arm feel weird?” Polunu asked.
Gray shook out his arm. He flexed his fingers a few times. He didn’t feel anything strange. “No.”
“Then you ain’t having a heart attack, cousin. You just really out of shape.”
There was no real trail to speak of heading up the mountain, and they had to tramp down the brush as they followed the uneven path of the pigs. The climb, along with the stamping down of plants and the pushing aside of branches, had Gray winded before they’d gone 500 feet. “How much further, you think?” he asked, stopping to catch his breath.
“You serious? We, like, just started, haole. Dang. You gonna die on me?”
“How is it possible,” Gray wheezed, “that you’re hardly even breaking a sweat? I mean, look at you.” He gestured wildly at the Hawai’ian’s general chubbiness.
Polunu gave Manaiakalani a few practice swings, something he did every few steps, just to get used to the feel of the hook in his hand. “I think that says more about you than it does about me,” he pointed out.
Gray shook his head. “I have got to get a gym membership,” he decided. “This is it. This is the year.”
Before long, they heard the sound of rushing water roaring somewhere off through the woods to their right. “Is that a river?” Gray asked. “Maybe we should follow it.” He took a few steps off the path, toward the sound of the water.
“Hey, hold on! Why you wanna follow a river? This pig path will go right to Kamapua’a, cuz.”
“Do pigs go in straight lines?” Gray crossed his arms.
“Well.” Polunu blinked. He looked up at the trampled grass that wound its way up the hillside. “No. It doesn’t look like it.”
“Water does. So let’s just follow that.”
But Polunu was adamant. “No way. It’s safer to follow the pigs. The rains can come any time in the upcountry, and that river can flood like lightning. You don’t want to be caught in that. We should stick to the pigs.”
“You know what happens when you follow a herd of wild boars?” Gray asked.
Polunu shrugged.
“Eventually, you find them. And when that happens, it’s going to be two of us against who knows how many razor-toothed wild animals. I think we should follow the water.”
“Water is more dangerous,” Polunu insisted. “You get caught in the falls, you get drowned, crushed, and swept into the ocean like that.” He tried to snap his fingers, but they were too clumsy. He frowned. “You know,” he clarified, “real quick.”
“You know how fast a wild boar will eat you?” He snapped his fingers, twice, just to emphasize how easily he could do it. “Like that,” he said smugly. In truth, he had no idea how brutal the pigs might be, but he had a vague understanding that wild boars were generally thought to be dangerous. And, truth be told, he didn’t particularly care about following the water, but since his view of the world was in the process of spinning completely upside-down, he just wanted to feel like he was in control of something, even if it was just the path they took.
“I’m tellin’ you, brah. The safest way is—” But before he could finish the sentence, they heard a heavy rustling in the undergrowth. Polunu grabbed Gray by the collar and yanked him behind a tree. “Shhh!” he said, holding a finger to his lips. He peeked around the tree. Gray squirmed loose and looked back, too. They saw leaves shaking near the pig path. The hidden thing was coming closer.
Gray nodded down at Manaiakalani. Polunu’s brow creased in confusion. Gray nodded more pointedly. Polunu creased his forehead harder. “Oh, for the love of—the hook! Use the hook! Stab the thing!”
“We don’t even know what the thing is!”
“We know it’s not either of us, and so far, the only other things we know for sure are out here besides us are wild boars, demigods who want us dead, and witches who don’t even have a face!” Gray hissed.
“Just wait and see,” Polunu insisted.
They didn’t have to wait long. The rustling grew closer. Soon it seemed like the leaves all around them were trembling. Gray swore that he could hear the low growl of some fanged beast. He whimpered in terror and threw his arms over his eyes as the monster leapt out from the grass.
It was a fat little lizard, green with a gleaming pattern of purple diamond-shaped scales stamped across its back.
“You can relax, auntie,” Polunu sighed. “It’s just a lizard.”
Gray peeked out from behind his arms and exhaled when he saw the little creature blinking up at them from the ground. “Don’t call me auntie,” he said, slapping Polunu’s arm with the back of his hand. “I thought it was a wolf.”
Polunu laughed. “There ain’t no wolves in Hawai’i,” he said, twirling Maui’s hook by the grip. “There ain’t no predators of any kind.”
“Oh. Wait, seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Well that’s something you could have told me earlier.”
“I could have,” Polunu grinned, “but I wanted to see if you’d wet yourself again.”
“I never wetted myself!” Gray cried, mortified.
“Tell that to the front of your pants, brah. Pele sure scared the piss out of you.” He roared with laughter.
Gray glowered, his face turning as red as Maui dirt. “It is not funny,” he said. “She threw lava at me.”
“Yeah, I know, that was pretty scary,” Polunu admitted. Then he laughed. “Almost as scary as this lizard!”
“I hate you. Shut up.” Gray looked down at the lizard. The lizard stared back up at him, flicking out its tongue. “Why is it staring at me?” he asked.
“Maybe she likes you,” Polunu said, laughing so hard now that he had to put a hand on the tree for support. “Maybe you have a new fiancée!”
But Gray was too caught up in the strangeness of the little lizard to process Polunu’s words. “No, seriously. Look at it.” He moved to the left; the lizard scuttled to the left, too. Gray moved to the right; the lizard scrambled to follow. Gray took two steps back; the lizard scurried forward. Gray took two steps forward; the lizard stayed right where it was, less than three feet from Gray’s toes now.
Polunu stopped laughing as he watched this strange ballet. He frowned down at the lizard. He tilted his head to the side, as if the creature were familiar to him somehow, but he couldn’t quite place it...
Then the lizard reared up on its back legs and spread its front claws wide. It opened its mouth and hissed.
Suddenly, everything clicked for Polunu.
He rammed his shoulder forward, knocking Gray to the ground just as the lizard lunged. It dove forward and swiped Polunu’s arm, drawing a thin line of blood beneath his web of tattoos. Polunu and Gray went tumbling head-over-heels into the brush. The lizard hit the ground and rolled. Then it expanded and stretched, and when it leapt back up to its hind legs, it had quadrupled in size.
Gray grabbed a nearby tree and pulled himself to his feet. “What is that?” he cried, stabbing a finger toward the lizard that was now the size of a small dog.
“A mo’o!” Polunu shouted. “Run!” He grabbed Gray’s wrist and pulled him up toward the pig trail. The lizard fell back down to all fours, and something rattled in the back of its throat. Gray chanced a look over his shoulder as they ran, and he saw the
lizard push its claws into the earth, sinking deeper and deeper until the soil was all way up to its shoulders.
“It’s doing something weird!” Gray cried as they pushed through the jungle.
“Don’t look back!” Polunu yelled. “Just go!”
A wild mango tree upended itself in their path, crashing to the ground and blocking their way. The two men skidded to a stop. Polunu tried to go left, but another tree fell in that direction, quaking the earth and blocking that route, too. They ran back to the right, and the dirt thrust itself up into a high wall. Polunu leapt up, but even with his great height, he couldn’t reach the flat ledge of earth.
“What the hell is happening?!” Gray screamed.
But in the end, he didn’t need Polunu to answer. He looked back down the hill the way they had come, the only way still open to them. He saw the lizard with its claws sunken into the earth, and he noticed the creature’s subtle movements. Its left arm quivered, and the tree on the left began to shake. It rolled itself toward them, end over end, driving them back toward the dirt wall. Then the lizard worked its right arm, and the dirt wall began to curve at the top like an ocean wave. It curled over them, and bits of soil began to rain down.
The lizard was controlling nature.
“Run!” Polunu yelled. He threw himself over the trunk of the felled mango tree, hitting the ground hard on the other side. Maui’s hook went skittering off into the trees. Polunu struggled to his feet and motioned frantically for Gray to follow. Gray tried, but he slipped on his first step, and before he could reach the tree, the wave of dirt crashed down on him, slamming him into the ground and pinning him beneath its crushing weight.
Gray gasped for breath, a mouthful of soil clogging his throat. He sucked the dirt into his lungs, choking and sputtering. He felt the veins on his neck start to pulse through his skin, and he hacked up as much soil as he could, but he was stuck in the earth, unable to move, and for every breath out, he sucked another dusty breath in. Tears stung at his eyes as his face began to turn purple.
Polunu leapt back over the tree trunk, but the tree flung itself back upright as he crossed over, catching the big Hawai’ian and throwing him across the jungle. He crashed into a rainbow eucalyptus a few dozen yards away and thudded to the ground, the wind knocked out of his sails.
Tiny black squares began to swarm through Gray’s vision. He struggled with his arms, shrugged with his shoulders, but the dirt was too heavy, and he was trapped. Then he felt the smallest bit of pressure on his back, pressing down through the earth, and he shuddered, because he knew what that pressure was.
The lizard had come to finish him off.
So stupid, Gray thought as the darkness began to spread through his whole body. Death by lizard. So, so stupid.
The mo’o crawled over his shoulders and around his head. It planted itself in front of his face and bared its sharp teeth with a hiss. It stuck its claws into the dirt and began to pull them close together through the earth. Gray felt the dirt on either side of his ribs begin to compress. What little breath he had was being squeezed out of his lungs. He winced as he heard a rib pop, a dull, muffled sound through the dirt. The mo’o almost seemed to laugh, flicking its tongue between its teeth. The sight of it snapped something in Gray’s brain. There was injury, and then there was adding insult to injury, and enough was enough. He drew what breath he could, worked together a glob of saliva on his tongue, and spat it directly into the big lizard’s dumb, open mouth.
The mo’o reared back in surprise, pulling his claws from the dirt as he did. The pressure on Gray’s ribs instantly relaxed. The dirt fell away, and he wriggled forward. The lizard demon choked on Gray’s spit, shaking its head like a confused dog. Gray wiggled himself closer to freedom, pushing with his knees and grasping for purchase with his shoulders. He broke through the dirt, and his arms were finally able to burst free. The mo’o swallowed down his spit and lunged forward on its hind legs.
Gray scrambled forward, toward the mango tree.
The lizard sank its claws into his ankle, and he screamed. He felt a stream of blood instantly begin to trickle down his foot. He flopped over onto his back, knocking the lizard onto its side with his other foot. He reached blindly around him, not taking his eyes from the mo’o, and his fingers closed around a thick mango branch. He yanked hard, and the branch snapped and broke free in his hand. The mo’o righted itself and plunged its claws back into the dirt. Gray swung the branch, and just as the two fallen trees began to tremble and slide together, with him trapped between their trunks, he brought the tree limb down hard on the monster’s head. It burst like a melon, strings of pink and red goo exploding in all directions, coating Gray’s legs and splattering his shirt.
“Oh my God,” he whispered, disgusted.
Polunu appeared from behind the mango tree, holding his side and wincing as he walked. “Nice job, haole! Gross, but...you know. Nice.”
Gray rolled over and pushed himself up to his knees. “What the hell was that thing?” he asked, holding his sore ribs as he climbed up to a seat on the tree trunk.
“An evil lizard-god. A mo’o. I ain’t never seen one in person before.” He peered down at the headless body, with its arms buried in the dirt and its neck lying limp in a pool of blood.
“So I guess we’re still on the right track,” Gray said. He coughed, and a cloud of dirt puffed out of his mouth.
“I think maybe we got Kamapua’a scared,” Polunu said, lumbering off into the woods to find Manaiakalani. “A mujina and a mo’o. That’s a serious combination, brah. He ain’t messin’ around.”
“Great. Can’t wait to see what’s next,” Gray wheezed.
Polunu found the hook wrapped around an avocado tree a few yards away. He picked it up and dusted it off. “Should probably hold onto this tighter, huh?” he said, giving it a few swings through the air.
“I told you to stab it to death,” Gray pointed out.
Polunu shrugged. “You were right. But hey, even a broken watch is right once a day,” Polunu said.
“A broken watch is right twice a day.”
Polunu laughed. “Not if it’s really broken!”
Gray rolled his eyes. “Glad you’ve still got a sense of humor.”
“Hey, we’re still alive, you know?”
“And bleeding.” Gray nodded at Polunu’s arm. The blood flow had slowed, but it still oozed down his elbow.
“Bleeding is better than dead.” He wiped the scratch against his shirt. It only smeared the blood. He frowned at the mess. Then he shrugged. “Oh well.”
Gray tended to his own blood, pulling a handful of leaves from the mango tree and dabbing at his ankle. “I probably have rabies.”
“No rabies in Hawai’i,” Polunu said proudly.
“And I think I broke a rib,” Gray continued, wincing through a breath.
“Nah. You break a rib, you know it. You probably just popped it out of place or something.”
Gray sighed. “Yeah. I probably just popped it out of place.” He wiped away the blood and tossed the leaves aside. Then he rested his elbows on his knees and let his head fall between his legs. “If we do make it to Hi’iaka, she better be damned well happy to see me.”
“You gonna tell her you got a new fiancée?” Polunu grinned, lifting his eyebrows at the headless mo’o.
“There is something seriously wrong with you.”
“Oh, plenty of things, braddah,” the big man agreed, “plenty of things. Right now, the big thing is that’s it’s almost lunchtime, and we didn’t pack no lunch.”
“We just had second breakfast!”
“Yeah,” Polunu said, tilting his head in confusion, “and now, it’s time for lunch.”
Gray frowned. Fighting lizard demons was apparently hungry work, because he felt his own stomach growling, too. “Yeah. Guess w
e probably should have grabbed more witch-fruit for the hike, huh?”
“It’s okay. We got some good food right here.”
Gray followed the Hawai’ian’s gaze down toward the dead lizard and grimaced. His stomach lurched. “You don’t mean—?”
Polunu gave him a wink. “I mean your tree, brah. Hand me a mango. They look pretty close to ripe.”
Chapter 15
Hi’iaka felt a cramp seize up in her leg. She pushed herself to her feet and shook out her ankle, turning it and turning it and trying to work away the pain.
Gray was as good as dead.
She had to get out of that circle.
It was such a simple thing, the thin ring drawn in the dirt. But it had been drawn by Kamapua’a himself with a little bit of magic and a great amount of strong, unbridled intention. And when it came to matters of the gods, intention was everything. It sealed her within its boundary; she was unable to step across the line unless the circle was broken. And she herself was powerless to break it.
Not that she hadn’t tried. She’d attempted to rub through the dirt, but an invisible force stayed her hand. She had kicked earth onto the circle, but that, too, collided with an unseen barrier and collected in little piles on the inside of her cell. She was fully contained, and nothing she could do from the inside would smear the line and break the circle to set her free.
Help would have to come from the outside.
In addition to keeping her trapped, the pig-god’s ring dulled her powers to almost nothing. But it could not extinguish her strength altogether. She closed her eyes and sent her spirit searching across the mountain, seeking a sorcerer of even modest ability. If she could find a practitioner of the old magic in the jungle, she could make a plea for help. Surely there was no sorcerer alive who would deny the call of Hawai’i’s patron akua.
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