Where was Grimbald? Was he well? He rose up and slipped on his boots, still damp with wet. That was good, that meant he hadn’t been sleeping for days. What was bad was that his strength was still severely drained. At this point, a few fireballs would lull him into another day’s sleep. All debts had to be paid eventually.
He left his cloak hanging, still heavy and needing more drying time. Where was Stormcaller? He looked under the bed, on the table, inside his satchel filled with sundries, but it was gone. Perhaps it had been ruined by Alena’s attack. He sighed and blew out his cheeks. If they had found his satchel, then they had found his mount, which he’d named Kez again. He was a good horse and was glad someone had likely taken care of him.
Laughter split the air, carrying in through his parted door. It made him smile with inner warmth. When had he last heard genuine joy? People still could be happy, even in the midst of this enemy’s clutches. He went to the door, gently laid his hand upon it. He licked his lips, felt nervy flutters in his stomach. He pushed it open with a creak.
The glow of an enormous fire cast the world in amber. A great roar of laughter came from it. A narrow bridge led away from his hut towards the fire, half of it cast in shadow. He loosely gripped the fraying rope handrails, boards below his feet swaying and bouncing as he walked. Walter stopped mid-way along the bridge and braced himself to look down. He felt his stomach lurch at peering down from the perilous height. “I can fly if I need to. Right? Right, okay,” he answered himself. “Just need to use a bit of fire and air…”
Torches burned like fireflies through the haze on the ground. They were likely some type of magic, always burning. They marched in sinuous paths marking where the bridges were that led over the bog and to the Great Tree. It was hard to believe that these people could live in such a dangerously high dwelling, but you could get used to anything, he supposed. The fog below seemed to stop at an unseen ceiling, like a cloud cut with a razor. He started off and reached the end of the bridge, trusting that it carried on through the air in the shadowed half.
He reached the edge of a sturdy platform in the center of what must have been the Great Tree. It was round, with a fire burning in the middle with close to fifty people seated around it. The fire clawed up, reaching at least ten feet into the air. It illuminated trees that curled over the fire in a verdant dome, big as those seen in the forest.
His boot thumped down a step he didn’t see, pounding more loudly than he’d intended. He’d hoped to join the others around the fire unnoticed. The laughing and spirited conversations stopped. Heads turned and fingers pointed at him with unrestrained curiosity. Whispers and mutters passed over the seated figures, cast in the firelight. He made out some of the words.
“The demon killer,” a painted face said.
“Killed the devil witch,” someone hissed.
“The man of both the old gods,” another voice whispered.
Walter swallowed and sheepishly looked down at his boots, cheeks filling up with warmth. He grunted and started to turn back to return to his hut. He didn’t want this, didn’t need this now. He was tired of being special and tired of being noticed. But one had to embrace and feel grateful for the gifts life had given them, didn’t they? He turned to the faces still watching him and looked up.
“Walter!” Grimbald waved and stumbled over to him, glass bottle spilling over his hand. He looked like a demon in the glow of the fire. Cavernous shadows formed around his face, made his eyes look like black pits. He had a new pinched up scar that cut down his scalp, stopping above his eyebrow.
“Hey.” Walter smiled at him, took a careful step down towards the fire.
“Look at you.” Grimbald slapped him on the back. “You’re alive! We’re alive, let’s celebrate!” He thrust his bottle into Walter’s hand, wet and smelling like strong alcohol and ginger. Grimbald wrapped him up in a hug with one arm, smelling so strongly of booze that his breath might have burned with a spark. Walter barely got his hand out of the way, avoiding Grimbald knocking the bottle free with his embrace.
Walter felt an unabashed grin creep across his mouth. “That… sounds like a fantastic idea.” He tilted the bottle back and took a draught. Alcohol burned down his throat, leaving a sweet and gingery aftertaste. “Woo! Now that’s good stuff. They make that here? It’s incredible, all of this built on a single tree.”
“Mhm.” Grimbald nodded and chuckled. “Plenty more, plenty mores all around for all. Come on, come and meet the Elders. Haven’t stopped asking me ‘bout you. Tired of answerin’ ‘em to be truthful.”
“How many of those have you had?” Walter raised the brow of his empty eye socket.
“Not nearly enough.” Grimbald belched, stinking like a bad combination of fish and booze. He stumbled down the steps between rows of chattering folk and Walter followed behind, trying to make himself look small and unnoticeable, but it was entirely too late for that.
In every eye Walter met, he found them burrowing into his guts, inspecting him from the inside. Their faces were painted white as ghosts with heavy black around the eyes and curling up onto their foreheads in sharp triangular patterns. Men and women alike sat shirtless as if it were nothing at all. He had to fight to keep his eyes from lingering disrespectfully low. He had never seen such a magnificent variety of tits all in one place. It was wonderful, yet felt all wrong to look, and yet they were there. What did it matter if he stole a look? The people wore overlapping layers of leathery skirts over their hips that trailed over their knees. At least they were somewhat covered. He wasn’t sure how long he would have lasted without his flowing pants becoming uncomfortably tight in the groin.
People resumed talking, but in the way that made you sure they were watching and listening to you. Words lost their depth, tones became superficial and disinterested. Laughter was forced. It must have been an interesting sight to watch him fighting Alena from up here.
Grimbald hadn’t seemed to notice. He bent over a basket, gleaming with amber bottles and grabbed one in his enormous paw. He flipped the lid off with a pop and tilted the brew back for a slurping sip. “Come on then! What’s the matter with you?” Grimbald beckoned for him to come. “Aye, hey, what the fuck you did to your damned stomach? Looks like you got into a fight or something.” He let out a belly laugh.
Walter groaned. “Haven’t been able to heal her attack, much like Asebor’s I think.”
Grimbald gave him an over exaggerated wink. “Maybe you’ll just have to heal the old fashioned way. C’mon, let’s join the others.”
Walter snickered, plodded down the steps, gut wound cringing with every step. He nodded and tried to do his best to smile at curious faces. It wasn’t that they were unwelcoming, there were just too many at the moment. He felt like he was a fish in a bowl being casually observed. He supposed he should learn to get used to it, given his station.
Walter reached the roaring fire, scenting the smell of cooking meat. “What’s for dinner?” He peered into the fire.
“Nothing worth eating. Burning the fallen here,” Grimbald said soberly between sips. He gestured with his bottle and slopped a fat droplet onto a bench. “They dragged ‘em all up while you were sleeping. How they send off the dead, I reckon. Get used to the smell eventually, you’ll see.”
“Strange place to do it,” Walter muttered.
“Stranger people. You see all the… eh, women?” Grimbald said into his ear. “Not bad, eh? Haven’t had myself a lady in far, far too long…” He nodded at a woman with short cropped hair and a round face, grinning at him from a bench higher up on the platform. Grimbald belched while taking a sip.
“Impressive skill you got there. No, how could I have missed it?” Walter said.
Grimbald laughed. “I like this place. I like it a lot. What the hell happened to you anyway? Vanya patched you up didn’t she?” Grimbald bent over to look at Walter’s wound. His form became shadows in front of the fire.
“Get out of here.” Walter pushed him away. “You trying to bl
ow me?”
Grimbald let out an uproarious laugh, clutching his gut and leaning back. “Nah, you’re not my type. You’re cute, though.”
Walter found himself laughing with him, finding its contagion cracking through his iron shell. “Oh shit,” he said between laughter. “I… fell off the bed, opened the fucker back up.” It was a lie, but some demons had to be kept in their little boxes. If they were let out, who knew what damage they could spread.
“Ah, you’ll be alright. Always are, aren’t you?” Grimbald inverted his bottle and golden ale trailed around his lips.
“Always am.” Walter peered around, saw that it seemed like most had had their fill of looking at him now and regular conversation was resuming.
“Why’s your hand bloody?”
“Huh?” Did he know? Was he spying through my door? “Must have accidentally brushed it, don’t worry it’s fine now. Speaking of hands, how’s yours?”
“It works.” He flexed fingers opened and closed to demonstrate. There was a thick white scar on either side of his hand, stopping at his wrist. “Thanks again Walt, don’t know what I would’ve done without, uh, sorry, Walt.” Grimbald’s eyes flicked from his stump to his eye, then gave him a sympathetic look.
“Don’t worry about it. Glad to see it’s healed up.”
Grimbald furrowed his brow at him. “Uh-huh, another scar for the collection. Well c’mon, suck that drink down. You of all people, too damn wound up, you need to figure out how to relax,” he said with a burp.
Maybe he was right. Walter took a few big glugs from the bottle, so big that they were painful and felt like they were stretching his throat. Warmth followed, radiating from his stomach and up his throat. The world shimmered at the edges and he found himself laughing at the flickering flames.
“Hey! That’s the spirit!” Grimbald cheered. A few of the others cheered too, a strange shrilly whooping. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to that,” Grimbald said, reading his expression of concern. “Tree Folk are an odd lot.”
“What they call themselves?” Walter asked quietly.
“Mhm,” Grimbald grunted.
Walter eyed the spot of bench beside Grimbald, groaned and sat.
“Only the Elders may sit by the fire,” a voice rumbled.
“Oh. Sorry about that.” Walter started to rise up, searching for another spot. There was a place between two well-fed women behind him, enormous breasts flaring out from their ribs.
“Nonsense, Arl.” A woman with a narrow face placed her hand against the man’s wrinkled shoulder. “Without him, the Great Tree may have not survived this day. Please, Walter, you’re welcome to our fire, our guest for the evening.”
Arl grumbled something to the wizened man beside him, their headdresses a series of intertwining twigs, leaves, and feathers swaying as they spoke. Walter noticed only those sitting nearest to the fire wore the strange headpieces, likely indicating their status in the group.
“Walter.” He extended his hand to hers to shake it.
“Thalia Treeborn.” She took it in both of hers, uncurled his fingers and pressed his palm to her bare chest, making him go wide-eyed. He felt her heart thump through her warm and clammy skin. She moved his hand and kissed his knuckles, then released it.
“Um.” Walter nodded and stubbed his foot into a massive stone in front of the fire. “Damn it,” he hissed at the rock, smiled at Thalia and sat. Rather than her entire face painted white like the others, she had a pair of thick lines traveling down from her forehead, over her eyelids, down her neck, around her perky breasts and presumably traveling onward under her skirts. Walter imagined what it might look like down there. “Thank you for taking care of me, I must have smelled terrible.” He met her eyes, greenish-blue maybe, hard to say in the firelight. She was almost his age. Perhaps age wasn’t a factor with becoming an Elder.
“T’was Vanya.” Thalia sniffed and seemed to point with her nose at one of the other Elders. Walter tracked where she looked, saw a reedy woman squint over at them at hearing her name.
Vanya shuffled over to them and Grimbald turned his trunk like thighs to the side to let her pass him. She appeared to be his mother’s age, maybe a few years older. He conceded he wasn’t all that good at guessing ages. “Was there something you needed?” she asked Thalia.
“No, no. You’ve met Walter?” Thalia asked, twisting her body and pointing at him with her nipples.
“Not formally. I have met his body during the mending.” She shuddered and a moan escaped her lips. Walter saw her leg was bandaged and quivering, colored with the same greenish paste as his wound.
Walter felt blood surge up from his neck to his forehead. “What?”
“Told you she took care of you.” Grimbald nudged him.
“Wait. You’ve seen… all of me?” Walter said, gesturing at himself with the bottle.
Vanya and Thalia shared glances. What was said between them, Walter had an idea. They thought he was mad, ridiculous even for worrying about such a trifling thing.
Vanya smiled in understanding. “I apologize if I offended your…” she looked up at the trees, searching for the word, “sensibilities. I had to look you over, make sure there were no wounds not salved. The waters of the bog are highly infectious and wounds have to be properly treated.” Vanya found a spot beside Thalia and sat beside her, pressing their shoulders together, snickering with what might have been mockery. “Not to worry, though, all is intact… and I found the worst of them. Not to worry, not worry… you’re not the first man I’ve seen.” She laughed.
Walter sighed, hoping it would push down some of the hot blood pulsing in his cheeks. He was thankful for the luminous half-darkness, hiding his shame. He was in their home and needed to abide by their customs. He was acting like a fool. He realized why he’d probably stood out so much earlier, the only one with a shirt on. Even Grimbald was shirtless he finally noticed. He slipped his off and tucked it into his pocket. He felt a measure of comfort exposing himself to the fire. Fire was something he knew well, something he could rely on. He wondered if regular fire could harm him. He put his bottle down and started to reach for it.
“I see you’re not unfamiliar with the sword’s bite,” Thalia said, looking him up and down like he was horseflesh for sale.
He jerked his arm back from the fire and its apparent heat. “No,” he said, thankful for the subject change. “Not just swords either. Most of these are from Death Spawn.” He looked down at his stomach, waves of muscles with skin painted over it. Life on the road wasn’t for the faint of heart; it made you hard as wood. On either side from his hips to his ribs were sets of long scars angling down towards his groin. “These were from a Black Wynch’s talons. Here,” he pointed to bite marks on his shoulder. “A Cerumal bit me, had a mouth like a dog’s,” he snickered. “That was from a Death Spawn arrow… bastard of a thing to get out.” He tapped a spot of mangled up skin on his chest.
“Bah! Merely scratches!” Grimbald yelled in his ear, making Walter wince.
“You’re going to ruin my ears with your screaming.” Walter elbowed him.
“But I’m not screaming. Am I? Mm,” Grimbald tipped his bottle up and emptied it down his gullet. He turned to the Elder beside him and the man visibly cringed at Grimbald’s swiveling gaze.
“Fascinating…” Vanya said, leaning over Thalia’s legs to get a better look “They’ve healed remarkably well.”
“Yeah, but the worst of them all, though. Well, this one you won’t believe.” Walter leaned on his elbows, hunched over towards the women.
“Try us.” Thalia grabbed a bottle of alcohol from the shadowy floor. She took a delicate sip, a sly smile touching her plump lips. Full and ripe for kissing, Walter thought, mirroring her and taking another swig from his bottle. He wanted to lick them. Nyset was so far away, too far. “I like him,” she whispered to Vanya, but not so softly that Walter wouldn’t hear. Vanya’s eyebrows raised up, seeming to be climbing for her headdress.
Had he
heard her right? It didn’t matter, really. Walter raised his chin and jutted his neck out to the women. It was encircled in ragged scars, twisting ropes going around and around like a fleshy necklace. “These… were from Asebor’s chains.”
Gasps and frantic whispers sprang out from the Elders, supposedly deep in their own conversations. No, he realized. He was the main attraction tonight, the strange animal they all wanted to observe in a foreign habitat.
“It’s not possible,” Vanya said with disbelief. “How could you be here? No one could survive that.”
“We don’t speak his name here,” Thalia snapped.
“Why?” Walter asked incredulously.
“It makes him real,” Thalia swallowed, eyes finding the fire.
Walter leaned in close to her, close enough to savor the smell of citrus wafting from her skin. “He is real, real as the demons at your door today.” Walter turned towards the fire, saw the faces of the other Elders intent upon him. They wore masks of fear and trepidation.
He turned at heavy footsteps, saw what must have been guards skirt in behind Thalia. There were two of them with hands on broad machetes tucked into belts. They were heavily muscled and scarred much like him. They must have picked up on something he’d missed. Thalia gestured to them with a series of rapid hand signals. They said something back in their hand language, then stalked off with what Walter gathered was disappointment. He didn’t want to fight anymore today and was too tired to give them a second thought.
Grimbald had stood, staring at the guards between sips as they made their way farther up the platform around the edges, circling the perimeter for threats. An Elder who had been enduring him seized the opportunity to tread off away from the fire.
Walter frowned at the women. “You think I lie? Think I wanted his souvenir?” He didn’t truly care what they thought because he knew the truth. His friends believed. They saw him die and return. They couldn’t deny the truth because it was self-evident. There wasn’t any point in denying it, even if you had to wade through the blood of loved ones to get to it. The truth was the only relic worth the sacrifices. If you denied it, you only proved how unworthy of it you were.
A New Light (The Age of Dawn Book 5) Page 31