Parasite Soul

by Jags, Chris

  Simon nodded. He would never forget Niu’s arrival at the third story window of the inn in Vingate.

  “He reached the balcony of Princess Tau’s chambers where I waited, but one of the guards or advisors must have seen him. The very walls have eyes in the palace of Sindhai. He had barely unbuttoned his shirt before we were interrupted and arrested.”

  Simon sensed that she had no plans to continue and elected not to press her. It wasn’t difficult to fill in what had happened next. Silence shrouded the cabin for a delicate moment until Sasha interjected without any semblance of decorum: “So, did they execute him?”

  Niu stared at the bruxa for a moment, then her mouth twisted into a thin and humorless smile.

  “They did,” she murmured. This time, a tremor found its way into her voice.

  “Why didn’t they kill you too?” Sasha wondered, her eyes gleaming eerily in the half-light.

  “Princess Tau was fond of me.” Niu wrapped her arms tightly across her chest in an effort to stop her convulsive trembling. “Perhaps she even understood our transgression, although she could hardly allow it to go unpunished. She devised a punishment that would allow my survival but would…” A dull thud interrupted her. “Sasha!”

  The bruxa blinked. Simon and Niu sprang to their feet as one, Simon fumbling for his inadequate sword.

  “What?” Sasha demanded, confused. Niu pointed. Sasha looked down, to where an arrow protruded from the bruxa’s ribcage.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, with interest more than fear. “I didn’t feel that at all.”

  Simon gestured frantically. “Get away from the window!”

  “Nonsense,” Sasha said, yanking out the projectile without so much as a grunt and tossing it aside. She leaned on the rotting sill and peered out into the rain. “There.”

  “There, what? Soldiers?” Simon edged along the wall and glanced out into the grey murk, wondering what it would feel like to take an arrow in the eye. He saw nothing but the overgrown garden and endless trees, grey and desolate in the rain. Whomever Sasha had spotted was invisible to him.

  “Not soldiers. Bandits perhaps, or hunters.”

  “How many?”

  “Several.” The bruxa showed her teeth. “Enough for a good meal.”

  Simon didn’t want to think about that, but he didn’t want to be shot full of arrows either, so he didn’t gainsay his undead companion. He and Niu, who had unsheathed her daggers, watched helplessly as Sasha launched herself over the windowsill and out into the storm.

  “With a bit of luck,” Simon whispered, “They’ll kill one another.”

  “I do not share your view,” Niu returned tersely. “I do not think she means us harm.”

  “Maybe.” Simon strained his ears for any unusual sound, but the thunder of the rain muffled all else. Nerves fraying, he pressed his back to the wall and waited for something to happen.

  A flash startled him; distant lightning. The gods were angry, then. Was he involved in their displeasure? No, despite the deadly miracle at the swamp, Simon couldn’t expect Vanyon or Lesquann to take continued interest in him. He was just a mortal, after all, and not a very significant one.

  But what about the dragon? Did the Wyrm of Cannevish not also die of a heart attack in my presence? Have the gods been watching out for me all along?

  Familiar as he was with scripture, he knew such a thing was not entirely without precedent. The fireside legend of Tallion told of a young man who rose from peasant to prince, Vanyon guiding his arm every step of the way. Was he, Simon, a modern Tallion? Could Vanyon have some destiny in mind for him? He thought back to that first moment he’d first decided to try his luck with the dragon. Had the divine touched his mind in that instant, no matter how fleeting? Had the sword itself been placed for him to find?

  Niu interrupted his thoughts. “We can not just leave her to contend with these adversaries,” she remonstrated, gripping his arm.

  Who? Simon almost said as he snapped back to the present. Oh. Sasha.

  “I’m not leaving cover,” he replied. “We’d be lambs to a slaughter.”

  “While in here, we are another of your sayings, ‘fish in a barrel’.”

  “At least we have cover.”

  “We have nowhere to go.”

  Simon shook his head vehemently. “They’re trying to flush us out.”

  “I do not think so. That arrow was meant to kill Sasha, not to draw her out. It pierced her heart. She is simply fortunate that her heart does not function.”

  “I… suppose,” he returned reluctantly. “But we can’t fight them in this. They have a huge advantage. We may be able to get away while Sasha distracts them.”

  “You would just leave her?”

  “She’s a bruxa. She can take care of herself. Better than we could, in any event.”

  Niu considered this and nodded. “Lead on.”

  He dropped his voice to a whisper. “We’ll head straight into the trees, toward the mountains. If we’re lucky we’ll find shelter - a cave, or something - before we catch our death.” It didn’t seem like a very solid plan, but it was all he could come up with. “I’m sure Sasha will find us, if she…” He bit his tongue before Niu could revisit her argument about helping the bruxa. “Come on.”

  Ducking past the window, he made for a rift in the wall. If the gods meant for him to survive this encounter, then he would. They’d shown their support thus far; surely it would be somewhat inglorious to allow him to take an arrow through the throat at this juncture. Knowing that they likely had his back gave him the confidence to slip out into the storm.

  He instantly regretted his decision. Soaked within seconds, forced to shield his eyes against the barrage of stinging liquid missiles, he struggled across sodden and slippery turf. He could discern little in the gloom. There was no sight of Sasha nor anyone else, for which he was grateful; there was no way he could fight in these conditions. No doubt their phantom assailants had also made that determination.

  Just how many enemies do I have? Simon wondered as he nervously scanned the trees.

  “This way,” he hissed, snatching Niu’s wrist and tugging her back around behind the cabin. At any moment, he expected to feel the thud of an arrow between his shoulder blades. Keeping low, he scurried along the wall, the handmaiden crouching in his wake.

  A woman’s terrified scream shivered through the forest, muted by the storm yet bloodcurdling enough to raise gooseflesh on the back of Simon’s neck. Whether the voice belonged to Sasha, or more likely one of her victims, Simon could not say. He shuddered and doubled his pace.

  The space behind the cabin was a graveyard of belongings. An old rocking chair, covered in lichen but essentially intact; gardening implements collected into rotting wooden crates; a tiny figurine of Lesquann hanging from a hook; a scarecrow slumped against the wall, head spilling and black with mold. These remnants of a life left behind saddened Simon, who could only imagine that the owner of this secluded little refuge had perished. With more pressing matters to attend to, however, he wound through the detritus of a forgotten life and made for the relative safety of the undergrowth.

  Another yell, this time of anger, reverberated amongst the trees. Simon flinched. This voice belonged to a man; a man who sounded very much like he meant vengeance for the fate of the woman whose screams had dissolved into a strangled gasping that was swallowed by the storm.

  In a spray of droplets, a looming shadow sprang from the foliage. Yelping, Simon threw himself backward as an enormous axe clove a gnarled root in two, spattering him with sodden clumps of moss. With frighteningly little effort, the hulking fur-draped form hefted his oversized weapon for a second swing; Simon would have died there, struggling to regain his feet, had Niu not launched herself forward and plunged both her daggers into the man’s stomach.

  Roaring, their brawny assailant dropped his axe and made a grab for Niu, who dodged the clumsy attempt but slipped on the treacherous ground and landed on her knees and one elbow. Simon, wh
o had let his paltry blade fall, snatched up the axe. It felt good in his hands, heavy but familiar, like the maul he’d used to split wood for his father. He swung at the large man’s legs with all his might, unnerved by the ensuing howl of pain as the weapon bit through leather and parted flesh, shattering bone.

  Screaming in agony the bandit - if that’s what he was - dropped, his ruined leg folding unnaturally beneath him. In the unlikely event he managed to survive his perforated gut, he would be crippled for life. Simon wanted to vomit as he retreated from the man, who glared venom back at him with bloodshot, hawklike eyes. Incapacitated though he was, the man was still too dangerous, Simon judged, to approach. There was little chance Niu would be able to retrieve her daggers.

  “Who are you?” he shouted, hefting the axe as though to swing again. Clutching his midriff, the man just sneered, rain pouring down his predator’s visage, directly across unblinking eyeballs. Streaked with mud and leafy detritus, Niu tugged at Simon’s arm.

  “We must go,” she said, wiping her face with the back of her arm but succeeding only in smearing the mess around.

  Drenched and shivering, Simon grunted acquiescence, following her into the trees. If their persecutors didn’t manage to finish them off, he worried, the weather would. His grandmother had died in the aftermath of being caught in a torrential downpour. He recalled her shaking for days under a blanket by the fire, and eventually being told by his father that she had passed. Ever since, Simon had harbored what might not be considered fear, exactly, but a healthy respect for rain.

  The forest felt oppressively close; Simon started at grey shadows and flinched at the creaking of branches. The weight of the axe in his hands served as a slight balm for his anxiety. He stuck close to Niu, who led them in the direction Simon had previously indicated, toward mountains indistinct in the gloom. Wet leaves battered his face; branches clutched greedily at his tunic. More and more, the ground beneath his feet was becoming a treacherous mire, but he struggled onward into the torrential onslaught.

  Just as he was beginning to feel like he and Niu might escape their assailant’s attention, something whistled past his cheek and thudded into a nearby trunk. Simon gazed at it with some surprise. A throwing dagger, he noted resignedly, and joined less than a second later by a second missile, this one scoring his arm, dividing cloth and drawing blood.

  “Down!” Niu yelled, as Simon blankly contemplated his near demise. She’d dropped into a crouch, putting a vast and ancient trunk between herself and the hunter. Simon followed her example, wondering what good his oversized axe would do against a volley of flying blades.

  “Show yourselves, hellspawn!” their assailant yelled, a female voice. “Are the undead so cowardly? Are you afraid to face me?”

  Simon and Niu exchanged puzzled glances.

  “We’re not undead!” Simon returned hoarsely. “We’re human!”

  A moment of silence followed this proclamation. Then, “Ha!” came an answering shout. This time, the voice belonged to a man. “What manner of human keeps company with bloodsuckers?”

  Simon groaned. Sasha. These people were after Sasha. He remembered the bruxa musing that her ‘mother’ was likely to have her hunted in order to secure her secrets. These were likely her hirelings. Were they amateurs or professional demon hunters? Simon had heard tell of the latter, organizations which scoured the land keeping the undead population in check. Battle-hardened and fierce, these were not opponents the unskilled wanted to contend with.

  “Look,” he called, “We mean no trouble…”

  “You’ve found it all the same,” the man called back. “Drop your weapons and step into view, that we may test your claims of humanity.”

  “They’ll kill us anyway,” Niu hissed. Simon was inclined to agree. If this was about preserving the Nameless Nymph’s secrets, then simply keeping Sasha’s company would be a death sentence. Simon wondered what had befallen the amiable Jock.

  “Don’t want a dagger in the throat, thanks,” he called back. Truthfully, however, he wasn’t sure what alternative they had. How many hunters were there? Where was Sasha? Was there any reasonable chance of resistance or retreat?

  “That’s a shame,” the man returned. “Perhaps you’d prefer a blade in the bowels, then.” Beneath the bravado, was there a slight tremor of apprehension in his voice? No doubt Sasha had cost this company already, while he and Niu had also felled a man. Perhaps they had anticipated a simple operation with no losses. But shouldn’t they have known better than to try to kill a bruxa by shooting her in the heart?

  Amateurs, then.

  Suddenly hopeful, Simon nudged Niu and pointed toward a thickening in the underbrush several paces away, where the trees were grouped more closely and the dripping ferns grew in even greater profusion. The density of the foliage probably indicated a water source. This wall of trunks and leaves would serve to protect them against projectiles; perhaps help to level the playing field. Niu returned his gaze skeptically but shrugged. He took that as assent for his plan, even if the handmaiden wasn’t entirely impressed by it, and braced himself for a dash through a gap in the trees which would momentarily expose them to the hunters.

  “Now!” he hissed, launching himself toward the thicket. His sprint ended as abruptly as it had begun as the sopping moss gave way beneath his feet and he pitched sideways onto the forest floor. Losing his grip on his axe, he fought desperately for purchase on slick, bare stone. The hunters’ mocking laughter ringing in his ears, he’d almost managed to right himself when Niu, close behind him, stumbled over the axe and went down cursing in her own tongue.

  Wiping rainwater from his eyes, Simon looked up in despair to see three figures framed amongst the trees, shadows against the storm.

  “Very well done,” the closest of the three, a wiry, mop-headed youth, sneered from behind his drawn bow. Simon stared at the head of an arrow which was pointed directly between his eyes.

  “Brilliant footwork,” the woman added. “Ah… stay down.” Her wrist flicked and a dagger buried itself in the moss not half an inch from Simon’s knee.

  “Are we even getting paid to finish these two off?” the third hunter mused, scratching his ridiculously long beard with the hand which wasn’t holding an enormous, broken-tipped broadsword. “It’s the dead bitch we want.”

  “Let’s end ‘em anywise,” the youth growled with a thick northern accent. “We’re gonna have to put Torren down after what they did t’him, and the damn bruxa killed two’a us afore she bolted.”

  Simon groaned. “She… the bruxa,” he said, spreading his hands slowly in surrender, attempting to block the hunter’s clear shot at Niu with his body. “She’s not our friend, she just sort of…” He struggled momentarily. “…attached herself to us.”

  The bearded man raised an eyebrow. “She just decided ‘there’s a pair of fools I could go on walkabout with instead of eating’, did she? Likely story. The old lady said no witnesses. Finish them off.”

  “Heh,” said the archer, approving. Then to Simon, “Goodbye, mate.”

  “No…” Simon began desperately, a jolt of fear crackling through his bones. At that moment, he bore astonished witness to Vanyon’s intervention once again as the archer’s eyes bugged, a sudden look of terror rearranging his smug face. He dropped his bow, clutching at his chest, while his companions also staggered. Behind Simon, Niu also let out a soft gasp. Before Simon could absorb this latest improbable rescue, a pale, skinny shape launched itself from the depths of the forest, colliding with the woman and bringing her down in a flailing tangle of limbs.

  “Get off! Get off me!” the terrified woman shrieked as Sasha clawed savagely at her defensively crossed arms. Such was the rapidity and ferocity of the bruxa’s assault that by the time the woman’s comrades turned to help her, her arms were in tatters, bloody ribbons of flesh dangling from bone.

  Yelling hoarsely, the bearded man stepped behind Sasha, arcing his broken blade down toward her unprotected head. The bruxa, with inh
uman perception, moved so swiftly in fact that Simon could only track her movements as an indefinable blur. He recalled what she’d said previously about how her magnified senses and reflexes, but her speed was well beyond what he’d imagined. This was a creature no normal human could hope to defeat.

  The broadsword clove through the female hunter’s ruined arms and into her chest, sundering her ribs with a horrible crack. Following an awful, shocked silence, she began to spasm and buck, blood bubbling from her lips as her would-be savior stared in horror and disbelief. The grief flooding his eyes was unbearable; the woman he’d just killed had clearly meant a great deal to him.

  Simon felt the irrational urge to console the man, reminding himself that the hunter had brought his friend’s fate upon himself by attacking them. Even so, his lips parted to warn him that Sasha had materialized behind him. His tongue against clicked his teeth and recoiled. That was all the time Sasha needed to conclude the conflict. Her patterned fangs closed upon the back of the hunter’s neck and she jerked her head. Her victim dropped soundlessly, his spine bulging grotesquely from the gaping wound in his flesh.

  “Sasha, stop!” Simon cried, distraught by the savagery of the violence. The bruxa eyed him balefully, forcing him to recall his previous statement: The bruxa… She’s not our friend, she just sort of attached herself to us. Sasha’s acid glare told him that she’d taken his words to heart. He swallowed thickly and looked aside.

  The young archer, who slumped panting in the rain-lashed mud, had survived his chest pains; Sasha’s appearance had apparently interrupted Vanyon’s intercession. Simon wasn’t quite sure what to make of this, nor did he immediately pursue that line of thought. His attention was consumed by the murderous bruxa, who now hunched over the terrified youth like a vulture contemplating which strip of meat was most tender. Simon tensed, waiting for Sasha to deliver the killing blow. The blood of her last victim trickled slowly down her chin as the archer turned his wide-eyed, rain-slicked face to meet her hypnotically black gaze. Time appeared to freeze; for Simon, and particularly, he imagined, for the archer.