by Joe Jackson
Kari sighed lightly and leaned down to take up a double handful of water and drink, and then she splashed more water on her face and washed off as much of the demon’s blood as she could in a few seconds. She ran back into the cave, picked up the blades she had dropped on her way out, and moved quickly to her fallen companion. Erik was still breathing, and when Kari removed his breastplate she found his heartbeat was still strong. She placed her hand over the wound on his throat and channeled some of her deity’s power to seal it, and she turned him on his side so any blood that had trickled in could come forth easily if he coughed. She took up her canteen and splashed a bit of water on his face but he didn’t wake, so she retrieved a few of the animal furs the sylinth had slept on, bundled them, and put them under Erik’s head. The furs smelled horrible, but she figured if he woke up to complain it would be a blessing. She put another over him, and moved toward the demon’s corpse.
Ressallk’s head lay staring at her through its single, glazed-over eye in utter disbelief, and she nearly laughed but for the implications. Killing the son of a demon king would carry more consequences. Ressallk said it was the son of Sekassus the Calculating, who was far from being some minor lord: he was one of seventeen demon kings who sat upon the underworld council. Kari knew from experience that some of the demon kings were nearly on par with the gods in terms of raw power: while Chinchala rarely displayed his full fury, Kari had heard enough stories of his battle prowess to know that angering Sekassus had to be very dangerous. She let out a sigh and hoped that she would never come face to face with Ressallk’s doubtless-volatile father.
A quick search of the lair turned up nothing of value, and Kari wondered why a demon would be content to sit in a cave and not even collect trinkets or slaves. Ressallk had apparently done little other than slaughter a lizardman tribe’s defenseless children and who- or whatever’s remains lay outside the mouth of its lair. Clearly there had to be more at work in the situation, and she wondered how or if the demon’s presence had anything to do with Gaswell’s plans. She found it unlikely: she didn’t see how having one race fight against all the others made any sense unless the demons were simply trying to cause havoc. She realized she would need to report the odd developments to Zalkar’s church as soon as possible to let his clergy confer with each other and their lord for an answer to the puzzle. When Kari looked at her disabled companion, though, she realized she couldn’t carry him and couldn’t realistically drag him very far, even if she made a litter. She glanced out of the cave mouth and laughed at herself, realizing she wished Makauric were there, if for nothing else than to keep her company.
Kari walked over and touched Erik’s shoulder briefly, and the unconscious male let out a pained groan, though he didn’t stir from his forced slumber. She wondered how hard she’d hit him, and hoped that she didn’t hurt him too badly. She decided that only time would tell, and after pulling the smelly blanket up fully over his chest, she took up her blades and made her way out of the cave to retrieve their bags from the hillside. She slung the bags over her shoulder and screamed as a sudden sharp pain reminded her that she had a severed wing bone. She let her heartbeat slow down, and then she slung the bags over her other shoulder and walked wobbly-legged to the cave to set them beside her companion. She stripped the smelly skins off of Erik and laid out her bedroll. She prodded Erik to roll onto it, and then she put her pack under his head and her cloak over him. Satisfied that he was at least comfortable, she took up the hollow staff that housed her bow and moved back out of the cave and to the stream.
Kari looked around for several minutes while she pulled her bow and two arrows from the hollow staff and strung the weapon. She set it down just on the edge of the stream, and after taking off her armor and clothes, she knelt by the water’s edge to wash them. She cleaned her blades after and noted that the blood they secreted when the Blood Oath manifested was gone. She smiled grimly, satisfied that she had at least kept her word to the czarikk. The stream was only knee-deep, but she stepped into its cold waters and crouched down to wash herself. It took several minutes to get the demon’s blood out of her hair, and she shivered in the twilight air. Once finished, she took up her equipment and returned to the cave briefly before she collected dry wood from the nearby hills. She hoped that nothing came upon her while she was dressed only in the shouldered bow. Once she collected a sizeable pile of sticks, she returned to the cave and built a fire just outside.
Kari used the fire to dry her clothing and armor, and then dressed herself in the warm garments. She sat near Erik and lay back with her head on his warm belly, and she closed her eyes. She did her best to stay awake but she was exhausted physically, mentally, and spiritually, and within only a few minutes of lying down she was fast asleep. Kari woke a few hours later and the cave mouth was lit only by the dim light of the fire’s embers. The cave was quiet and her eyes began to glow softly with their inner luminescence, her stronger night vision taking over. There was nothing else in the cave, so she sat up to check on Erik and saw that he was still not awake but his breathing seemed steadier and deeper.
She put her armor back on and then dug through her pack, and Kari pulled out the trail rations and ate her fill of them. She didn’t like being off her normal eating and sleeping schedule, but wielding her deity’s power had burned her out – even more so than on previous occasions – and she realized just how taxing it must be for Grakin to do all the time. She tilted Erik’s head to the side slightly and dripped water from her canteen onto his tongue, and he swallowed it uneasily without waking. She patted his cheek with a sigh, and then made her way to the cave mouth. The night outside was quiet but for the soft trickle of the stream and the calls of insects and toads. After looking around, Kari was satisfied that there would be no trouble from animals, doubly so because the demon had likely killed nearly every living thing within a mile or more of its cave. After a contemplative minute, she returned to Erik’s side, gathered up the fetid furs and skins that belonged to the demon, and deposited them at the cave mouth to further deter curious critters.
The refuse pile drew her attention, though only for a couple of minutes before she couldn’t bear the stench anymore. There didn’t appear to be anything of value among the bones and bits of hides and other armor. The skulls appeared to be from gnolls, and she wondered where the hyena-like humanoid creatures made their homes and how they had ended up tangling with the sylinth. She thought of the finger-bone necklaces the czarikk wore, and wondered if those, too, were from gnolls. Whatever the case, Kari was glad for the skulls’ presence, as they indicated that the gnolls surely knew that it was a demon’s cave and they would likely stay far away from it.
“Kari,” she heard Erik whisper, and she made her way back into the cave. She dashed to kneel beside him and stroked his brow. His blue eyes were glowing and he tried to keep his gaze steady with hers, but his eyes rolled back every so often before he would blink and refocus on her. “I…can’t move…”
Kari’s stomach dropped. She put one hand on his chest and brought the other up to the end of her snout. She jumped slightly in shock when his hand came up to lie atop hers. “What can’t you move?” she asked after letting forth a sigh of relief.
He shook his head lightly, but his eyes rolled again and he cringed in pain. “I can move everything,” he said quietly, “but I’m going to be sick if I do. It’d help if you could make the cave stop spinning.”
“Lie still, then,” she said, and she put her hand over his eyes to make him close them. “I didn’t think I hit you that hard but I guess your head hit the floor after I punched you.”
“Kari, I’m…sorry…,” he began, but she gently clasped his snout shut.
“Don’t even think about it,” she said. “It could have just as easily been me, or both of us…we could be on our way to kill the people we swore to protect right now. But we’re not: we’re safe, and the sylinth is dead.”
He let out a short sigh. “Good…work,” he said weakly, and she felt
him go limp as he slipped into unconsciousness again.
Kari pulled a towel from her backpack and soaked it in the cool stream so she could put it on his head. She stopped short when she saw a brys watching her from the nearby hilltop, and it began to approach after a moment. She made her way into the cave without waiting to see if it was Makauric. She assumed that not being attacked meant it was him, and she wanted to be near her weapons if it turned out she was wrong. When she reached her blades, she turned to see that the brys had followed her inside, and at the closer range her night vision revealed it was indeed Makauric. She knelt down and wrapped the cool, wet towel about Erik’s head, and the brys looked around the cave. When she was done, Makauric came and squatted by her partner. He looked the larger male over for a minute, checking his breathing and touching small, clawed fingers to the side of Erik’s neck before he looked to Kari for explanation.
“I knocked him out when he was under the sylinth’s control,” she said. “I didn’t think I hit him that hard, but he’s dizzy and can’t move without wanting to throw up.”
Makauric checked Erik’s ears, and then he reached behind the half-guardian’s head. He ran his fingers through the larger male’s hair and they came up clean. He gave a slight nod, sat back on his heels, and met Kari’s questioning stare. “He seems to have a concussion,” he said, but he saw that she didn’t understand. “A type of brain injury. Let him rest a day or two, and see how he feels then.”
Kari beheld the brys for a moment, surprised that their anatomical knowledge would also include things healers like Grakin would know. Makauric stood up and walked toward the back of the cave to inspect her handiwork. He inspected the corpse and its wounds, the severed head, and the destroyed weapon, and then he cast a gaze at Kari that she was quite familiar with. He said nothing, though, and Kari watched him pry open the sylinth’s mouth to inspect its fangs. He pulled out a sharp knife and began slicing open its palate. She guessed he was looking for its venom glands, and Kari approached and looked over the rest of the corpse. She wanted to burn it, but she knew she needed help moving the body outside of the cave, and she doubted Makauric had the strength to be much use.
She grabbed one of Ressallk’s arms, braced her feet against the stone floor of the cave, and tried to drag its body. The corpse was heavy but slid easily over the blood-slicked rock, and Makauric came over to help when he noticed what Kari was doing. As she suspected, he lacked the muscle mass to help as well as Erik would have, but the brys had a lean strength and together they managed to get the body outside. Makauric returned for the severed head while Kari gathered more wood from the nearby hills.
When Kari returned with two armfuls of wood, she found that Makauric had stacked the remains of the demon’s victims along with its body in preparation for burning. They left the body in a place where the smoke from the fire was unlikely to enter the cave, and they stacked the wood around the remains and set it ablaze. They watched for several minutes to make sure the demon corpse actually burned, and once its flesh began to blister and char they moved back inside. Erik was still asleep. Kari yawned, which prompted the brys to point at her partner.
“Lie down and rest,” he said. “I will watch over you until the dawn comes.”
Kari shook her head. “Wake me when you get tired,” she said. “I’m still on a military schedule anyway, so I pretty much expect to get woken up a few hours before dawn.”
The words military schedule piqued his interest, but as usual he didn’t ask. “As you wish,” he said, and he took up his bow and moved to sit outside the cave mouth.
Kari stretched out on her bedroll beside Erik, pulled her cloak over herself, and cuddled close to him to share his warmth. She fell into a light and dreamless sleep, and she felt as though she’d only slept a few minutes before Makauric shook her shoulder to rouse her. She took up her own bow with a yawn and headed outside while the brys lay down next to her bedroll.
Kari sat on a rocky outcropping near the cave mouth and saw that the first of the three moons was already dipping toward the western horizon. She guessed that dawn was close. It made little difference what hours they slept if Erik was going to take a couple of days to recover, and she was glad that Makauric trusted her as much as she trusted him. Unlike Erik’s guardian demon forebears, the brys could not go extended periods without food, water, or rest. Kari knew it would do none of them any good if Makauric were to exhaust himself on her behalf.
The remainder of the night passed quietly, and after only a few hours Makauric came out of the cave, bow in hand, and motioned for Kari to go in and get more sleep if she wanted. Ressallk’s body and the rest of the remains with it had burned down to ash and bits of bone by first light, and after surveying the area, Kari retired within and lay down beside Erik. She didn’t sleep again, but once she felt refreshed she channeled more of her deity’s power to help her partner’s throat wound heal a little faster. It already looked better, the lower layers of flesh sealed and the upper layers beginning to come back together.
Kari took the towel from around Erik’s head and wet it in the stream again. While she replaced it about Erik’s head, Makauric returned with a young deer over his shoulder. Kari couldn’t help but smile for his efficient nature that required nothing in the way of orders or direction. It was no wonder that the brys had arguably been Seril’s favorite creation: Kari had wished for soldiers like Makauric so often during the war campaign. He noticed her stare and gestured outside with his head, and after patting Erik’s chest, Kari followed the brys. They prepared the carcass, rationing out the meats for several days in case it took Erik longer than expected to recover, and then Makauric burned the remains so as not to attract scavengers.
Kari studied the brys at length while they worked, and though he didn’t show it, she knew he wasn’t comfortable under her scrutiny. She thought it a good thing, since it might force him to be more honest when she questioned him. “Why didn’t you come help us kill the sylinth?” she asked quietly, trying to keep the inquiry from sounding like an accusation.
Makauric regarded her for a moment and sighed for the first time that she could remember. “I was afraid,” he admitted. “Afraid it would enrapture me a second time and force me to turn on you. I was under its power once, and it was an experience I wish to never repeat.”
Kari stared at him for a moment and he met her eyes with his typically confident gaze. “You didn’t mention that before,” she said. “You said it clouded your mind and you fled.”
The brys nodded. “That is what happened, in a sense,” he said. “I believe I was under its control, or at the least not in my right mind for a time after I ventured close to its lair. Once I was a good distance from its cave, I broke free of its influence.”
“Did you kill the czarikk children?” she asked evenly.
Makauric held her gaze and didn’t blink. “I did not,” he said. “This I swear to you. I still had the same complement of arrows after my mind cleared as I did before, and my blades were still clean, so to my knowledge, I did not harm anyone or anything. I was also far from the czarikk when I broke free; it was not I who destroyed their eggs.”
Kari nodded; what Makauric said agreed with what little the czarikk were able to tell her, and based on his mannerisms she believed he was telling the truth. “Did its presence still linger after you broke free?” she asked.
The brys nodded shortly. “It did. That is why I came to you after the creature was killed. I sensed its demise when the cloudiness in my mind dissipated completely.”
Kari didn’t press the issue further. She patted the brys’ shoulder and then filled their canteens from the mountain waters flowing nearby. The stream proved clean and refreshing, and Kari and Makauric enjoyed the clean water and venison as the rest of the day and the next passed uneventfully. The brys was his usual quiet, reserved self and provided Kari little in the way of conversation, but simply having him there made the boredom more bearable. Though Makauric was unable to tend to Kari’s wou
nded wing at all, he was able to patch up the straps of Erik’s armor. Kari was looking forward to seeing Grakin again, and though being apart from him hurt, she took comfort in the ache since it told her that her feelings for him were absolute.
On the third day, Erik was awake, coherent, and able to speak. Kari knelt beside her partner and hugged him when he sat up. “How do you feel?” she asked as she pulled away and gripped his face.
“Hungry and thirsty,” he said, and he didn’t hide his shock when Makauric brought a canteen and some of the roasted venison. Erik reached up, touched his neck, and winced. “Neck’s still sore but my head’s clear, and I think I can stand without throwing up.”
“If you feel good enough to travel, it’s best if we head back to the czarikk as soon as possible,” Kari said while Erik began to eat. “With any luck, the others have reached the shakna-rir by now, and perhaps even farther west.”