by Ivy Cross
Fuck me, this guy’s so full of himself, I’m surprised he can stand up.
“Thank—thank you, Haelar.” I have to bite down on my tongue to keep the sarcasm out of my tone.
He grunts and starts walking again. “That is better. But you will not speak my name as an equal again. Call me master or father only.”
Call me daddy? Really?
Haelar stiffens again and slows his pace. Unfortunately, I know what he’s waiting for this time.
“Thank you—” I suck in a breath and try again. “Thank you, fath—”
Ah, fuck it. He’s just going to have to kill me.
“Thank you, father fuckwit. I offer my sincere thanks to you for creeping up on me in the middle of the goddamn night and waving your dick around like it’s the world’s teeniest signaling flag. You are the greatest among all the man-child hordes of all the worlds in the universe.”
It takes him a while, and I’m sure he was only able to understand a little of what I said to him, but enough of it eventually sinks in.
Haelar roars and tosses me to the ground hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs.
There it is.
Chapter 12 – Dekkar
It is the roar that allows me to pinpoint their position.
I am normally an excellent tracker, but from the moment I heard her screams, my senses were on fire. I crashed back into our camp at a full run, having ignored the many stings and punctures from the thorns and brambles I carelessly ran through. But Talia was nowhere to be seen, and the sounds of her screams ceased many moments before.
Still, her scent lingered on the air like fresh chopped lailae berries.
In the light of the cook fire, I could see the direction of her travel and quickly followed. That alone would have been enough for me to find my prey, were this a typical hunt, but the panic in my heart quickly blotted out my hunter’s senses.
Until his roar.
I would know the sound anywhere. Haelar the Cruel. A fitting title, and one he wears with pride. But I prefer the title the striplings use behind his back—Haelar the Dim.
The man has always confused might with cruelty, and that is no real surprise. It has often been my experience that stupidity and cruelty go hand in hand.
I push past the thicket and sharp briars, careening straight for the sound of Haelar’s voice. In the low light, I am almost on top of them before I catch my first glimpse.
And it is not good.
Talia is on the ground, unmoving, her head bagged. Haelar, the oaf that he is, is standing above her, stomping around in a rage, and seething about some grievous insult.
“—such disrespect! I will make you scream my praises to the gods. I will—” He reaches a massive arm toward her, and I have no choice but to act now.
“Haelar!”
The large man spins to face me. In the dim light, his brutal features and thick, ragged hair make him look like one of the soulless we used to tell stories about around the fires as children. The deep scar across his face and the bulging white, sightless eye only add to the effect.
Only, Haelar is much more dangerous than anything from a children’s monster story.
“Outcast.” His word booms out as both a greeting and insult. “This night is full of insults to my honor. You disgrace me with your presence.”
“You will leave Talia and walk away, Second.” I take a few steps toward them, my stance rigid and my intent clear.
Haelar spits. “You named it?”
Talia stirs on the ground. She flails blindly for a moment, then tears the bag from her head.
“The name is her own,” I say, stepping even closer. “And you cannot have her—she is mine.” I catch Talia’s gaze and try to will her to understand she must put some distance between herself and what is about to happen.
She slides quickly back from Haelar’s feet, not yet rising. Her tactic is wise. Had she risen so closely to Haelar, it is likely he would have harmed her just to distract me.
“She is yours…” Haelar repeats, sneering at each of the words. “Your claim means nothing, outcast. My brother told the whole tribe of your cowardice and insubordination.” He smiles widely and it only makes his face look more gruesome. “I think Regar would like it very much if I brought your head back to him on the point of my spear. That and this prize female should see me a happy man for many moons to come.”
Haelar yanks the spear from the ties on his hip. His weapon is not like the standard Vanthae spear—it is much shorter and sports a blade with several nasty barbs along both sides. The shortness is due to his love for killing his prey close up, and the barbs are simply to make it hurt worse.
“You can still walk away from this.” I strafe slowly to his left before pulling my spear.
My weapon has the reach on his, but it accounts for little. I am considered large among my tribe, but Haelar is freakish in his build, standing a full head and shoulders above me. His long arms will make up much of the difference in the reach of our weapons.
“And I will,” he sneers back, “dragging this bitch and your corpse behind me.”
He lunges, swinging his spear down at me like a bludgeon, and the dance begins.
I sidestep his attack and step in for a quick jab with my spear. My point glances near his bare ribs, but he is able to turn the blow at the last minute.
“Pathetic. When you are dead, outcast, I will pick my teeth with that plaything you call a weapon.”
He feigns a blow, then kicks me in the ribs when I attempt to parry.
I stagger back a few steps. His kick may leave a nasty bruise, but it did no real damage. And each of his attacks is an important lesson.
I have never had reason to spar with Haelar before, he and I never ran in the same circles within the tribe, so the early part of this battle is quite important for understanding his capabilities and tendencies. Among lesser opponents, I would be free to make mistakes while learning my way. But I have seen the savagery with which Haelar kills, and it is unlikely I would get a second chance if I made a mistake.
Haelar swings again, then lets out a thunderous roar. “You dance away like a female! Face me, outcast!”
His guard drops slightly during his rant, and I see my opportunity. I press in fast and with purpose, driving my spear straight into his unshielded side.
“You talk too much,” I say, twisting my spear in deeper.
Haelar lets out a startled grunt, his good eye bulging to match the blind one. He rocks back one step. Then another.
But he does not fall.
He grabs my spear, still embedded in his flesh, and wrenches it from my grasp. The process drives it even deeper into his side, but he does not seem to care. He unleashes a flurry of blows with his spear, driving me back, then tears my spear from his side and tosses it into the darkness behind him.
“You cannot kill Haelar with a fucking toothpick!”
I dart a glance at Talia. She is still huddled in the murky darkness, half-shielded by a tree. I mouth the word run, but she only shakes her head. Either unwilling or unable to do as I ask.
Haelar follows my gaze, and his ugly mouth splits in a wide smile. “I have an idea, bitch,” he spits in Talia’s direction. “Now that I have torn the claws from your pathetic savior, maybe we should treat him to a little show.”
He watches me intently, daring me with the point of his spear to move forward.
“How about I bite off each of those tiny fingers of yours? They look tasty, and dancing around with the outcast has caused me to work up an appetite.” Haelar backs toward Talia, keeping the point of his spear firmly between us.
“Run, Talia!”
“Yes, run,” Haelar mocks. “Run all you like. I will enjoy hunting you back down once I lop off Dekkar’s head.”
He continues to inch back toward Talia.
I can see fear in her eyes, but there is also defiance and a stubbornness I had not seen before. She stands and backs up a step or two but shows no indication of wan
ting to run away. Perhaps she simply does not know where she would go… or maybe she has decided to stay out of loyalty to me.
Either way, I will not allow him to touch her.
When Haelar glances toward Talia again, I seize the tiny window and rush in. The larger man is fast for his size, but I am faster, closing the distance and barreling right into him.
Bright, focusing pain erupts down my bicep as he rakes the barbed blade of his spear across me, but, even with its cutdown size, his spear is still not nearly as effective at extremely close range.
My momentum takes us both to the ground, and we hit the hardpacked earth as one with the sound of a felled tree.
A roar dies off in Haelar’s throat the moment his good eye locks onto my gaze. I can see he understands in that moment that his chances are no longer nearly what they were a moment before.
His voice becomes a gravelly whisper. “You are already dead. You just do not know it yet.”
His huge frame bucks under me, and he drops his spear to try and get his hands up to my throat, but his actions are too slow—his realization much too late.
My own hands are at his throat even before his thrashing has begun in earnest. I leverage myself back on my knees, grip him at his hairy chin and thick locks, and twist with all of the strength inside me.
The snap of bone is startlingly loud in the night-cloaked forest.
Chapter 13 – Talia
Dekkar roles off of Haelar’s body and climbs to his feet. In the low light, the blood streaming down his left arm, and caked onto his bare chest and abs, looks as black as the nighttime sky.
Honestly, he looks almost as bad as Haelar. But at least he’s the one standing.
“You came back.” Leave it to me to find a way to state the most painfully obvious in times of great stress.
“I did.” Well, at least he’s pretty good at doing the same thing.
“I heard your screams…” He pauses and stares at Haelar for a moment. “I am sorry that I left you in the first place. This—this was a near thing, and it was my fault.”
I walk over to him and gingerly touch his wounded bicep. Dark blood flows from it like an open faucet. If not stopped soon, he’s going to keel over from blood loss.
“I’m sorry too,” I say, tearing loose one of my already frayed and battered shirtsleeves. “I should have told you the truth a lot sooner. I was—”
“You were overwhelmed by this situation,” Dekkar finishes. “You and your friend fell from my sky and were immediately attacked by the Valat. Playing along with my assumptions about you was the right thing to do—the smart thing. You are a survivor.”
His words bring a smile to my lips. In my old life, the one before the Kaeth ripped me from my slumber in my tiny apartment, I don’t think anyone would have called me that. In that life, I foraged for TV dinners and participated in an existence that could have been scripted by the universe’s most boring life designer. I was most of the way through an art degree that I still have no idea what I was going to do with, and the sad fact is, I would have probably ended up working at the warehouse or somewhere similar for the rest of my life.
That’s fine and all. It pays the bills, at least. Mostly. But I’m not sure that’s the life I would have picked out for myself if I had it to do over. And at twenty-nine, I was already behind the curve.
But I guess none of that really matters now. It’s kind of mindboggling the difference a week or so can make.
I wrap the sleeve around the wound on this bicep. It covers most of the ragged gash in his flesh, and I cinch it tight to ebb the flow of blood.
He flexes his arm, then nods. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” I say pointedly. “If you hadn’t come back for me, I would have been lunch and dessert for the cyclops over there.”
“I do not think he would have eaten you.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant.”
He nods slowly. “Yes, your life would have been a kind of hell with Haelar. He takes—took—great pleasure in the pain of others.”
“Uh-huh, I could see that. He was from your tribe?” The prospect of visiting Dekkar’s village is starting to become a hell of a lot less appealing.
“Yes, but do not judge us all by the worst of our kind. Surely there are those among your own people—the hoo-mans—who display failings of character such as this.”
I’m not sure I would describe Haelar’s dysfunction as a failing of character, but I get what Dekkar’s saying.
“Just one bad apple in the barrel.”
I see confusion in Dekkar’s eyes and realize whatever the hell I said in his language wasn’t a perfect translation for what I meant.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I’ve already seen both ends of the spectrum with him and you, so I know not all of your people are like that.”
Something large snuffles loudly nearby, and I press Dekkar into movement—I really don’t want to be here if something large decides to make a meal of Haelar.
“Let’s get back to camp. I think the fire will do us both a world of good.”
It takes much longer to get back than I expected, especially with Dekkar leading the way. We had to backtrack a handful of times, and by the time we finally got to the camp, the cook fire was down to embers.
It’s just as well, the first tendrils of light are already painting the dawn sky in deep hues of reds and orange. I imagine the whole forest will be lit within the hour.
“How about at least a couple hours of rest before we set out again? I feel like I just ran a marathon, and you look like you’re about to drop.”
Dekkar nods slowly, then does exactly that. His legs fold under him like they’re made of wet cardboard, and he hits the ground with a dull thud. Bright, angry embers kick up from the remains of the cook fire as his shoulder smashes down into the ash.
“Dekkar!?”
I rush down to him, heaving him over and away from the almost dead fire.
“Dekkar?” His eyes flutter at my words, but he does not move otherwise.
I pull the cloth loose from his bicep to check his wound. It’s still gummy and caked with blood, but it’s not flowing freely now. He lost a lot of blood before… but would that have been enough to make him pass out?
His whole body begins to tremble before I can even finish tying the cloth back on his arm. I press the back of my hand to his forehead and yank it back with a hiss.
“You’re on fire.”
Dekkar moans weakly, his eyes fluttering like he’s in a deep dream.
What the hell is happening to him, and, more importantly, what the hell can I do to help him?
I watch uselessly as he writhes and hisses in pain.
“What’s happening to you?”
His eyes shoot open and he hisses again.
Only, it’s not a hiss of pain like I thought. He’s trying to say something to me.
The heat off of him is unbelievable, as I press my ear against his lips. When the sound comes out, it’s broken and barely a whisper.
“Mud.” He says after far too much effort. “Poison mud.”
Those few words seem to sap whatever reserves he had left. When his eyes close again, they don’t flutter back open, and he doesn’t make another sound.
“Poison mud?” I stand and move down to look at his bare feet. They’re a bit dirty from the forest floor, sure, but I can’t see any kind of mud, poison or otherwise, on him.
“As far as last words go, those weren’t the most helpful, Dekkar.”
What the fuck am I supposed to do with this? Poison mud… poison mud?
Haelar’s last words pop into my mind like a revelation. You are already dead. You just do not know it yet.
Dekkar wasn’t trying to tell me about some kind of poison mud.
Poison.
Mud.
He was offering me an explanation… and a solution.
Chapter 14 – Talia
I spin in a circle, not sure what to do next. Before
Dekkar and I made camp, we drank from another small stream on the way to this clearing. But I don’t know in precisely which direction that may have been… and I can’t even remember if it had any of that weird red-colored mud on its banks.
I strain my eyes into the continually brightening gloom of the surrounding woods. On the ground to my left are the heavy prints left when Haelar hauled me off, and I’m almost certain the stream wasn’t that way. Plus, I know Dekkar went off in pretty much the exact opposite direction when he left me—I don’t remember associating that path with the water either.
So… a fifty-fifty shot. Sort of.
“Okay, big guy, wait here and I’ll do my best to bring you something to help.” I kneel and brush the hair away from his forehead with the tips of my fingers. Still burning up.
It occurs to me for the first time that Dekkar may have only been raving when he said those two words. And, even if I somehow find the mud and bring it back to him, it may do nothing for him at all.
Shut up brain. That’s not helping anyone.
I start to rise, then decide to lean down to him instead. I press my lips gently to the corner of his mouth. “Thank you,” I whisper.
He saved me. Twice. And I can’t bear the thought of him dying without knowing how grateful I am to him for that.
“You’re not going to die,” I say, standing up.
I set my shoulders and push off in my chosen direction. Fifty-fifty shot… Surely I have at least that much luck on my side.
***
Twenty minutes and about a thousand burs and thorns later, I realize the fates absolutely hate me.
The trail, if you can call the overgrown hellscape of a path I’ve been on a trail, petered out into a thicket of strange red thorn bushes after about ten minutes of frantic walking. Now, it’s all I can do to move forward at all… or even backward, for that matter.