Bloodletting Part 2

by Peter J. Wacks

  “There’s nothing you can do to change Argant’s mind?”

  “Change?” He plucked at a vine wrapped around his forearm. “His mind has taken root in the soil of this idea. It cannot be budged. To try would be as to try to uproot a life tree.”

  “I see. So this …” She waved at the food. She didn’t dare to hope that Gnarrl and the orocs respected her. She was still just a prisoner. All of the work, all of the effort, the learning, it had been worthless. “This wasn’t a thank you for my help. It was just to give us more energy for whatever march we’re going on. Is that it?”

  “No.” He grasped her hand, a startling gesture. She could have fit four of her hands inside his palm. “I thank you from my heartwood, and all orocs know you are a Geist Walker now. You stand tall among us. You do not deserve this fate. But the needs of the forest outweigh the needs of the tree, sapling.”

  “It’s not fate.” Anger crept into her voice. “I don’t believe in fate or destiny. The Aspects guide us; they don’t choose for us. This is just a choice Argant is making, at the cost of saplings that aren’t his.”

  He frowned, and she slipped her hand free and stood. Perhaps her exhaustion was making her throw caution to the wind, but she didn’t care. “I understand you think it’s hopeless, but give a message to Argant from me. Tell him that if he keeps us with you, other humans will come, sooner or later.” Even standing, she could only look the sitting Gnarrl in the eye, he was that much larger. But she felt like she was scolding a child. “They will come. I know this for a fact. If you let us go there’s a chance for peace to be restored. Balance. But if you follow this path, it won’t stop until we are all dead, orocs and humans. How stupid do you have to be to keep doing this? Hasn’t enough life been lost already?”

  Gnarrl rose, dark eyes glinting. “Mind yourself, sapling. You are a Geist Walker, but you are still a sapling. If you speak to another this way, it will not go well for you. I will tell Argant, but it is easier to stop the rains themselves than to shift his decisions.”

  As he strode off, Halli bowed her head, admonished. She prayed to the Aspects for strength she didn’t have. Then she went to ruin the girls’ first pleasant morning in months. They needed to prepare a stretcher or find some other way to carry Katerine. If they had to follow the orocs, she would assert control over the one thing she could—none of them would be left behind to die alone.

  ***

  Chapter Thirteen

  Malec Haldenfeld

  Malec studied the winding path through the forest, trying to determine if it was a man-made or oroc-made road, or just a wide game trail. It was well lit, unprotected by the forest canopy. Green had replaced white as spring left winter just a chilly memory. Small game, like squirrels and rabbits, occasionally came into view but bolted when they caught the boys’ scents. The early afternoon sun was warm on his face.

  Could he and Pavil possibly follow the trail back to the human lands in the north? While his Magnus affinity gave him an inerrant sense of direction, he didn’t want to set out only to have the path vanish and leave them stuck in brambles or before an impenetrable wall of trees. Of course, he had a feeling that wouldn’t matter if the Admired caught them trying to leave. Could they afford to ignore this opportunity to do something? It was the first time they had been let out of the camp.

  He was convinced that Sibyl had no intention of helping them rescue the other children. Every day he could see that she was fighting harder against Riktos, her own third-in-command. It was subtle, but he had seen adults have conflicts like this back in Jaegen. Back home there had been elders to resolve the disputes. Here there were just a lot of people and a whole lot of weapons. Malec didn’t know how Pavil was missing it. Maybe the warning about using their affinities had struck too close to home and his friend was actively shutting himself down.

  The end result was the same, though. He suspected she’d originally considered it, but the conflicts of the Admired kept Sibyl occupied to the point that she often forgot about the boys for days. When she did check on them, she just made sure they stayed busy with chores.

  That’s why her call to be up and on the move by dawn had surprised them both. After hiking all morning, she’d deposited them on this path and ordered them to stay put until she returned. No explanation of why. No reason.

  Without any immediate work to do, Pavil had curled up at the base of a tree and gone to sleep, leaving Malec as the lookout. He didn’t mind since he still felt like it was his job to protect his younger friend. His sleep had been troubled of late anyways. Riktos’ overheard conversation danced through his thoughts at all times. Children burned alive … please, Aspects, no. It couldn’t be what he thought, what he feared.

  A grunting down the path startled him. He crouched, realizing how exposed he was where he stood. He eased up while scooting back, trying to get a better look.

  About a hundred paces away, a creature moved through the dense foliage. He couldn’t make out the form. It was blending into the surroundings, cloaked by the flora and fauna blocking the view. It was big, though, way bigger than him, by the sound of its tromping. He glimpsed patches of brown and gray but no discernable shape. Whatever it was, it moved closer and he caught a strong musty, grassy scent. He ducked again and shook Pavil’s shoulder.

  He must’ve shaken harder than intended, for Pavil sat up with a little cry, eyes searching the surrounding forest.

  “Sh! something’s coming,” Malec whispered.

  “What?” Pavil quietly asked. He scrambled to his feet and peered around the tree.

  “Something’s coming,” Malec repeated, focused more on the approaching shape than on Pavil. A shiver ran down his spine.

  “No, I heard you. What is it?”

  “If I knew, I wouldn’t have said ‘something,’ now would I? Be quiet, Pavil. It’s huge.”

  More crunches and stomps and snuffles broke out down the path. Malec blanched, realizing the sounds meant there were a lot more than one of the animals.

  Then the first creature broke out of cover, and a dank, musky odor struck Malec. Rocboar. He’d heard stories, but never dreamt he would see one up close.

  It was huge. Over ten times the size of their grassland cousins, standing as tall as a horse but far larger in muscle and girth. The rocboars’ fur blended into the forest, a patchwork of grays, greens, and dark browns. A stripe of dark red fur ran from the lower jaw across the beast’s belly like a bloody lightning bolt. Massive tusks jutted from either side of its snout.

  Legend said rocboars could easily be mistaken for moss-covered stones, and Malec had even heard one story of a man falling asleep on the back of a slumbering rocboar and waking up on the other side of the great forest. Malec had dismissed it at the time as just adults telling tall tales, but he could see it now. Even out in the open space of the game trail, the creature blended into the background of the forest. Their ability to move almost unseen through the forest, along with their legendary tempers, made them fearsome beasts to encounter.

  The rocboar huffed as it looked left, then right. Its massive snout lowered as it sniffed the ground.

  “We need to move.” Malec whispered.

  “Sibyl said to stay here.”

  “Go ahead, it makes my chances better.” Malec crept away from the approaching animals, which had slowed to graze on the lush growth pushing through the snow. He knew full well that the taunt would get his friend moving.

  Sure enough, Pavil followed. They hadn’t gone more than ten steps when a half-grown rocboar piglet poked its head out of the thick shrubs on their left. The small animal studied them curiously as they froze. It took a tentative step towards them.

  Malec nudged Pavil. “Do something. Something Pathosy.”

  “Like what?” Pavil said through his teeth as he pushed Malec back. “Make it more curious? I have to work with what’s already there.”

  Malec made shooing motions at the piglet. It drew back a little, but then stepped forward again and stretched i
ts neck to sniff at them.

  “That might not be a good idea,” Pavil said as Malec shooed it more forcefully.

  “Go on,” Malec shoved the piglet’s snout away as it sniffed at them.

  The piglet squealed a cry of distress. A tremendous crash echoed and the hoof-beats of a charging adult rumbled toward them.

  “Run!” They shouted and broke into a sprint simultaneously.

  Malec looked back and saw the massive lead animal thundering toward them. The trees lining the path snapped like reeds as it barreled through them. Its head was lowered and its tusks were deadly spears, aimed right at them. Malec reached out with his affinity, searching for anything he could use against the enraged animal, but nothing in the area had a high enough concentration of magnetic substances.

  “We can’t outrun it,” he gasped.

  “Keep going,” Pavil shouted and dropped away.

  Malec took a few more strides before stopping and looking back. Pavil had turned to face the charging boar, hand lifted in front of him. The boar bellowed and bore down on him.

  “Pavil! Move!”

  Pavil stood his ground, and the boar reared back and skidded to a halt only twenty paces away. It blinked at Pavil for a moment and then turned to graze on the luscious fronds hanging near the path.

  “What did you do?” Malec stared in amazement.

  Pavil scratched his head. “I made it hungry. It was looking for food anyway before we disturbed it.…” He shrugged. “So I pumped that up. It got really, really hungry.”

  Malec sought words, but none came. Then a blur, at chest height, streaked through the forest behind Pavil. A massive spear slammed into the boar’s neck, piercing the animal’s thick hide and felling it. The boar emitted a drawn-out bellow, a last mournful protest that faded as the animal’s head sank to the ground. The huge spear skewering the beast was a solid four inches thick and had come out of nowhere.

  The rest of the herd pounded off into the distance. Once the dust settled, the forest returned to relative quiet, and Malec stood next to his friend. Both were confused about what had just happened.

  Voices cried out in celebration off the path on their right, and Admired emerged from cover, Sibyl among them. “Well done, Pavil,” said the band’s leader as she slapped the boy on the back.

  “You knew it would chase us?” Malec crossed his arms, stepping between Sibyl and Pavil, trying to contain his outrage.

  “We hoped.” She grinned, arching one eyebrow.

  Malec’s lips thinned. “You risked our lives.” He could feel Pavil’s confusion. His friend was staying quiet for the moment.

  “Yes, I did.” She said, moving to the dead beast. “And you two performed admirably. You can’t kill them without enraging the rest of the herd, unless you can isolate one. The death-bleat drives them away, but the scent of blood enrages them.”

  The rest of the small band moved around the felled beast, working together to strap poles to the rocboar’s legs and body. The boar was huge and probably weighed several thousand pounds. It would take the whole group working together to transport it back to the Admired’s hidden camp.

  Malec pushed his hair out of his eyes as a breeze blew past and glowered at Sibyl. “So that’s what we are? Bait. What about your promise? You could have asked us.”

  “Would you have done it if I had?” She swept a hand across the rocboar’s matted fur. “But you’re missing the bigger point here. Pavil just stopped a charging rocboar bull in its tracks.”

  “So?” Pavil asked.

  Malec walked several paces down the trail and turned his back on the group, fuming.

  “No one else in camp can do that.” Sibyl smiled at Pavil. “They bolt long before any material affinities can get close to them. Other than the three of us, Riktos, Aber, Corie, and Laquin, the Admired are all Materili. All our Geists are too weak to mesmerize these creatures with spirit, even if they could touch a calm bull, and as good as Riktos is, it’s hard to hit a moving target with a spear that heavy. Of course, I’m all but useless for the hunt, other than predicting when the animals will be here. So that leaves you two. You’ve done well today.”

  Pavil smiled back, looking pleased with himself. Malec, however, seethed. He didn’t care about her reasons or how they’d survived. No one should gamble with another’s life like that—and he was worried that she’d be happy to take that gamble again every time it was to her advantage.

  ***

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sven Malschev

  The oroc village rumbled with activity, harvesters, ancients, and saplings in constant motion. Spring air blew through the trees, carried along by light breezes. Sven watched them from the entrance to the boys’ cave, trying to figure out what they were about. Light flooded into the cave now that the bars were finally gone, but none of the boys were brave enough to venture out. Not after the series of beatings Sven had received.

  The orocs strung tools and equipment up in large vine nets. Using their Tecton magic, they sent their shelters back into the earth, scattered the stones from the heat vents, sealing them up, and gathered loose food. Some areas already looked clear of any habitation as the orocs smoothed the ground over, erasing any sign of their presence.

  They were breaking down the village, he realized. And the entire town was disappearing before his eyes. For some reason, they were moving on. Equal measures of hope and trepidation rose in him, butterflies tickling the inside of his stomach. Would the human prisoners be released before they headed out? Or killed so they didn’t slow the clans down? He knew the orocs to be capable of both kindness and cruelty in seemingly equal measure, but he could never tell when to expect one or the other.

  The morning after Pavil and Malec escaped, he’d been dragged from the cage and beaten in front of the other boys. He took the blows without protest, glad they’d chosen to punish him rather than the younger children. Besides, he’d had plenty worse from his drunken father many times. It had been the first of many. After each of the beatings, the orocs had thrown him and the other boys into the cave cell, and the daily routine of pointless labor and humiliation had continued. Their miserable lives had been uneventful for some time, until better than half of the village had vanished for a couple weeks. Sven wasn’t sure why they had gone, but he had seen them return, half dead, and watched as Halli moved amongst them, healing.

  During the absence of the adults, a number of saplings returned to tormenting Sven, alternating between watching him perform useless tasks and beatings. At one point, when they’d started taking one of the younger boys from the cave for sport, he dared to punch an oroc in the side. The oroc had laughed at the pitiful blow, though Sven’s hand felt like he had hit hard enough to break it. But the ploy worked and they’d left the youths alone and focused on him. Their sport had gone on for several hours until an ancient forced them to stop and forbade the saplings from having any more interactions with the prisoners.

  The one time he had been foolish enough to try to use his Tecton magic against them had been disastrous. The saplings had broken both his legs, then healed him just enough to repeat the process. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. He still practiced every day, but only with small craftings at the back of the cell. The rear of the boys’ cave was filled with small statues, each the size of his finger, sculpted with his magic to look like people he had lost in Jaegen. It was better than broken legs.

  Since then, he’d just tried to rest and heal as best he could. He managed to see Halli and a few of the girls when they emerged to work around the camp, and Halli had worked her spirit through him, easing the worst of his injuries. Both of them had remained silent under the watchful eye of the guard.

  Then the camp had erupted into madness as wounded warriors stumbled back in from the forest. Sven had kept the boys back in their cell, not wanting any oroc to even notice them. He wasn’t sure what had happened to them, but he knew from experience that it would get taken out on them if he wasn’t careful.

&n
bsp; This morning, strangely, the orocs had brought them food. Not just any food. It was delicious and rich. They had not, in their time as captives, gotten fed with food of this quality before, and Sven was unsure of why they were now. The food had lifted their spirits and emboldened Sven to come out in the open to figure out what had happened. That’s when he discovered the orocs breaking camp.

  Those around the edges of the settlement had already started moving away, disappearing into the forest. One oroc in particular towered over the rest, antlers resting—or growing?—on his head. He moved with a regal grace, overseeing the activity around the rapidly vanishing village.

  One of the large captors, Sven had trouble thinking of them any other way, broke away from the main mass and headed his way. Sven ducked back into the cave, but the oroc followed him all the way to the cell. He pointed at all the boys.

  “Come, all of you,” he spoke in guttural Promencian.

  The boys crowded around Sven, clinging to him. He looked around at the children and stepped forward, placing himself between the oroc beast and his friends. Since Pavil and Malec’s escape, the oldest boy other than Sven himself was only ten years old. Fear and confusion greeted him in their eyes.

  “Do we have to?”

  Sven patted Ash on the head. “Everything is going to be okay,” he said to the group of them. “Just stick close behind me.” He led them into the open and prayed he wouldn’t let them down, whatever came next.

  He spotted the girls leaving their cave as another oroc directed the groups together. His heart soared. He grabbed Halli, pulling her into a huge hug. “I’m glad you’re all okay.”

  Halli grinned up at Sven. This was the first time he had seen her casually, without being hunched over chores or laying on the ground recovering from a beating, all winter. He had grown. A lot. Halli only came up to his mid-chest now. Despite that, she looked like an adult now. He noticed her cheeks were getting pink. “You, too,” he said.

  Sven let her go. The kids from both cages surrounded them, huddling close. In the sunlight they all looked filthy, with stained and torn clothes. “Do you know what’s going on? Why we are out here?”