by Kody Boye
Shivering, Odin tightened his jerkin around his chest and buttoned it halfway, leaving just enough space to allow adequate breathing room. Behind him, Nova swore and cursed as he tripped and nearly ran into the wall. “It’s too damn wet in here,” the man grunted. “Fuckin’ rain.”
“Maybe we should move farther back,” Odin suggested. “At least we wouldn’t be cold.”
“The only good that would do would be allowing ourselves a personal comfort we can’t afford,” Miko said. He took a moment to lace his cape around his shoulders before continuing. “Have you considered how the fire would react?”
“But it’s magicked,” Odin frowned. “How would it—”
“It’s not entirely magicked, Odin. How do you think I kept it going through the night without being awake?”
“I thought… you… you said—”
“I have a remarkable depth of concentration, yes, but even I am unable to sustain such magic while I sleep.”
“But what about back in Neline, when we were under the snow? How did you—”
“He was meditating, Odin.”
Odin glanced up at Nova, surprised at the sudden intrusion. “What?”
“He was meditating,” the older man repeated. “It’s not hard to understand.”
“How do you know?”
“My father used to practice. Tried to get me to do it too, but I could never let the world go like that.” Nova laughed, as though something about his statement had unnerved him. He fingered the strands of hair at his chin, first twirling them around his knuckles, then unfurling and straightening them out. He let out one final bout of nervous laughter when he realized Odin and Miko’s stares. “It scared me a little, okay? It’s not like I wanted to sink back while everything’s going on around me.”
“You do have a point,” Miko nodded. “Meditation allows the confident relief. Anyone else might as well pull wool over their eyes.”
“So that’s how you kept the fire going,” Odin mumbled. “You were meditating.”
“While concentrating on the flow of energy.”
“So you were technically—”
“Sleeping, but without actually disconnecting from consciousness.”
Odin shivered. He didn’t need the cold air to provoke such an action.
“I assure you both, there’s nothing to worry about,” Miko said, circling Odin and setting both hands on his shoulders. “I know you may not have grown completely accustomed to the things I do, but I hope that as time’s gone on, you’ve been less willing to be afraid and more willing to give life to your thoughts.”
“We have,” Nova agreed. “At least, I have.”
“Odin?” Miko whispered, so close the Elf brushed his lips against his ear. “Are you still afraid of me?”
He couldn’t answer. Lying, and telling the truth, wasn’t an option.
“That’s fine,” the Elf said, encircling his shoulders. “I just want you to know that I care about you, both of you. I do not lie without regret, nor speak the truth without worry.”
“We know,” Odin whispered.
Reaching up, he set a hand over the Elf’s fingers.
A brief spark lit the base of his palm before he pulled his hand away.
Whether that spark was personal or magical, he didn’t know.
A second night of rain and wind buffeted them without abandon. From the time the sun departed beneath the gray clouds to the time night and the white moon cast its vision over the horizon, the storm continued, merciless and without care. It became so severe at one point that, in the middle of the night, Nova slipped into Odin’s bedroll without a word, mumbling nothing more than a brief thanks before tucking his head between his neck and shoulder.
Miko remained awake until Odin fell asleep. Past that time, he couldn’t be sure.
Morning birthed the world in hues of red, orange and pink. The remaining clouds from Ohmalyon’s second tropical storm bled warmth from their damp, gray surfaces, then burned alive until they disappeared completely. Though not every speck of gray disappeared from the sky, the few that remained skirted the edge of the horizon, following their brothers into the deeper parts of the oceanic skyline.
Blissful warmth invited him into a new and inviting day.
It was more than welcome.
“Wake up,” Miko said.
As if pulled from the warmest waters in the sea, Odin drifted into the mortal world at the sound of the Elf’s voice. So deep, yet so pleasant, the tenor verbatim rolled over his head and into his ears, seemingly cupping his face in its amiability alone. Its fertile nature beckoned him from the warmth of his covers, yet the warmth itself seemed far too great to sacrifice. If he moved, who would keep his kingdom, his sword, his shield, his honor and valor? Surely no one or no thing would come to replace him in his absence, so it seemed only natural to close his eyes, to let the sea return him to its depths until he finally rested on its black floor.
It’s so… so… warm, he thought, eyelids flickering as the sea tried to reclaim him. It can’t be. It… it… it…
All feelings of things warm and tranquil burst when Nova tossed him out of the bedroll. “Get up,” the older man grunted.
“Thanks Nova,” Odin mumbled, managing to flip his middle finger up before he fully stood. “Like I really needed to get thrown out of bed.”
“You wouldn’t get up yourself, so I did it for you.”
“Thanks a lot. I really appreciate—”
“Don’t argue,” Miko said. “There’s no need for it. No harm’s befallen either of you.”
“Sir,” Odin started. Miko silenced him with a smile.
“There,” the Elf said. “See? Everything’s fine, isn’t it?”
With nothing to say, Odin nodded and sighed as Nova bent to gather the bedroll. He couldn’t help but smack the back of the man’s head in the process.
“The fuck?” Nova asked. “What was that for?”
“For waking me up,” Odin chuckled, reaching down to rebutton his jerkin. “Thanks, big guy.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Hurry and dress,” Miko said. “We have to work today.”
“Huh?” Odin frowned.
“We’re going into the forest to salvage whatever wood we can.”
“How come?”
“We’re going to build a door for our cave.”
“And how do you suggest we do that?” Nova chuckled.
“Easy,” the Elf smiled. “We put it together.”
“With what?”
“Men didn’t always use chisel and nail,” Miko said, lifting his hands for both Odin and Nova to see. “There was once a time long, long ago, when all we had was our hands, my friends, and that was all we needed.”
In the aftermath of the storm, nearly everything in the immediate area bore damage caused by the immense wind and the powerful rain. Unlike the previous day, when only the fairer, daintier of plants, leaves and branches had been wounded, entire trees had been toppled in the wake of such chaos. Split entirely in half in sections or uprooted to the point of no return, trees appeared to be lost—sad creatures that knew nothing of their now-meaningless existence. Once beautiful, tropical flowers bowed in defeat, petals lay scattered across the distant grounds, and comical gestures thrown forth from fallen pollen and dander littered the forest floor, coating the earth in sickly hues of yellow, green and gray. The fact that nature Herself would show such a lack of mercy to Her earthly creations made the scene all the more depressing.
“Look at it,” Odin sighed, running a hand through his still-damp hair. “I didn’t think it was this bad.”
“We were in a cave,” Nova grunted. “What did you expect?”
Not this, Odin thought. Definitely not this.
“What nature has sacrificed will not have been in vain,” Miko said, stepping out of the cave and settling in behind them. “The spoils are ours, friends.”
“Ours?” Odin frowned.
“We are making a door,” Nova shr
ugged.
As though taking the shift in Nova’s movement as a sign of defeat, Miko slid alongside Nova and stepped up to a nearby tree. There, he observed a branch dangling by a thin strand of bark, then reached forward and took the helpless thing in hand. He wasted not a moment in tightening the muscles in his upper arm and pulling it from its mother with one mighty tug.
“Why’d you do that?” Odin frowned.
“Safety hazard,” Miko said. “See?”
Odin and Nova leaned forward.
Though the original assessment of the branch’s poor condition could easily be seen, what lay dormant beneath the limb’s bark spoke wonders of its physical condition. Inside—where thick, meaty treestuff should have been more than prevalent—the faint but telltale signs of ants and other bark-eating insects could be seen. From larvae, to husks, to the dead bodies that lay within, everything about the state of the limb proved to be dangerous, a perfect catalyst for nature to bring Her creations onto the heads and shoulders of man.
“It’s better that anything that might fall off come down before it hurts one of us,” Miko said, tossing the branch near the face of the cave. “All right—this is what we’re going to do. Odin, Nova, I want the two of you to go around and gather up any of the larger pieces you can. Leave the smaller ones alone unless they can be broken into kindling. While you’re doing this, I’ll walk around and remove any of the branches that I find unstable. It’ll only be a matter of time before the wind or rain takes them down.”
“We don’t want that,” Odin mumbled, kicking a piece of bark to the side.
“Yeah,” Nova chuckled. “Can you imagine what one of those fuckers’d do to ya?”
“Break your back,” he said, “or your neck.”
“Which is why they need to come down,” Miko nodded, taking a moment to remove, then retie his cape around his waist. “Come—let’s get started before the day begins to drag on. If another Ohmalyon storm is coming in, it’s bound to repeat its cycle before it moves on to the mainland.”
“What if it doesn’t, sir?”
“Then God have mercy on us, Odin, because if an Ohmalyon storm doesn’t repeat itself at least three times, something’s wrong.”
When the third storm rolled in that night, once again completing the ever-present and ominous cycle of three, Odin thought nothing of it. Instead, he simply watched the outside world occurring as naturally as ever. He balanced himself on the balls of his heels whilst rocking himself to the tune of the rain. Occasionally, he’d blink when a flash of lightning lit the sky, but otherwise held no reckoning in regards to what was going on outside.
Tranced beyond his wildest imagination, he counted the raindrops falling into the cave.
One… two… three…
Nearby, Miko and Nova sat by the fire, rarely speaking over the roar and hiss of the rain.
Only when a figure appeared from the shadows did Odin break his trance. “Miko.”
The Elf looked up.
A bloody Ogre stood at the foot of the cave, one arm limply hanging at its side. Clenched within its grasp was a small, human-sized skull.
It took less than a moment for Odin to distinguish white bone from tattered, brown scalp.
“Bafran?” Miko asked, standing. “What are you doing here?”
“It is within my right to eat my young,” the Ogre drawled, hollow eyes bare of even the slightest emotion. “As is my right to kill them.”
“What did you do?” the Elf asked. “Tell me, Bafran. Tell me you didn’t kill someone.”
“Mersay,” Bafran breathed. “My son.”
The Ogre dropped the skull.
It shattered upon hitting the cave floor.
Fragments of bone glistened as they scattered across the rock.
“Bafran,” Miko said, pushing a hand back to ward Odin from the entrance of the cave. “You can’t be here.”
“Nor can I be anywhere, Nafran of the Talon’s Black Heart. Nor can I be anywhere.”
When the fifteen-foot tall Ogre stepped into the light, a true visage of a disturbed yet-insightful creature came to life. Hollow not from design, but act, and painted not in color, but darkness, blood caked its face in a beautiful portraiture of horror. Flesh dangling from its mouth, teeth caked in gore, the Ogre ground its jaw and clicked its molars, each sound the hellfire snap of a being devoid of conscience. It fingered wounds at its palms, toying with hanging slices of flesh, and breathed in the humid, dirty air, its black tongue rising and falling between the torn flaps of its lips as nostrils contracted. Its smile—cruel, deceitful, and evil—lit a fear inside Odin’s heart that, until that moment, he had never felt in his life. It was as though he were trapped within a room whose ceiling was slowly lowering upon him. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say, nothing he could think, hear or even smell—it was only death that ruled his conscience, and in the face of such agony he could barely move, much less attempt to make sense of it all. It was for that reason, in staring at the Ogre’s face, that he felt something inside him die. Whether it was innocence, frailty, or something else, he did not know.
“Bafran,” Miko repeated, retreating toward the far wall, where his sheathed sword lay hidden in the shadows. “Leave. You’re not welcome here.”
“Nor was I welcomed… in the village,” the Ogre gasped, raising its hands to claw at its face. “NOR WAS I WELCOMED IN THE VILLAGE!”
“Leave while you still can.”
“And thus, your heart was in my hands.”
The creature lashed out.
Its foot quelled the fire.
The world went dark.
It took one moment for Odin to throw himself to his feet and conjure light at the tip of his finger, then to release it into the air and give it life.
When the final moment came, white light exploded and shrouded the cave in wonder.
His sword drawn, his arm thick and taught, Miko evaded one of Bafran’s giant fists as it came barreling down over his head. With a flush of his body, he spun, brought his sword around, and sliced a fresh wound in the Ogre’s already-mangled right arm.
Screaming, the bloody creature, now bathed in a more ethereal light, looked to be something unreal, an imaginary thing meant only for a world not supposed to exist. Its eyes seemed to bleed and every exposed vein appeared to be bulging from beneath its skin. There was even a moment Odin thought he could see the blood coursing through the Ogre’s body, pumped by rage and fueled by adrenaline, but no matter what controlled the enraged creature, its sole purpose was to destroy the one thing in its way—Miko.
“NOVA!” Odin screamed.
Swiping the scythe up from the floor, Nova tore the deerskin sheath from its blade and swung it over his head. The blade came down on the Ogre’s shoulder, skirting its collarbone in a spray of blood until it came completely free.
A second enraged scream tore through the howl of the wind as the Ogre threw itself at Nova, while a third echoed from its chest as Miko impaled his sword through its one remaining good arm.
Though stunned by the events unfolding before him, Odin thought only of what he could do to help as Miko released hold of his blade and flipped away from the Ogre’s lunging jaw.
Reaching down, he drew his sword from his sheath and prepared to lose his life.
Mine for yours, he thought, closing his eyes.
It took one inspiring moment to decide his final course of action.
Running forward, Odin jumped, then threw himself from a protruding rock and slammed his entire weight into his sword.
He sailed through the air.
His conscience on fire, he thought of all the things that had led up to that moment.
His father, their preparation, their journey, his flight, his gift, his imprisonment, his salvation, his friend, his quest, his fear, his trial, anger, lesson, guilt—in but one moment, when the play was to close and he was to take his final bow, his life came down to an instance.
This is it, he thought, free-falling, swea
t pouring down his face and fear racing through his heart. This is really it.
A pressure lit the base of his forearms.
He screamed.
The weapon tore through the skin and muscle of a giant’s immense bulk before stopping halfway through the Ogre’s chest.
This time, no sound came from the stunned and mortally-wounded creature.
Odin didn’t have time to see the look on the Ogre’s face.
Bafran whispered one last, inaudible word before collapsing to the ground, Odin’s sword through his chest and his angel of mercy on his back.
It can take your whole life to learn how to use a sword.
It takes less than a moment to kill someone with it.
Part 10
1
“Odin,” Miko said. “Are you ready to leave?”
Already?
Blinking, Odin lifted his head to find his reflection staring back at him from the stream below. Though no physically different than he was a year ago, something about the person that looked back from the stream begged to question whether or not he had really changed on the inside, or if any time had actually passed from one moment to the next.
After a moment of recollection, a brief, if somewhat-disturbing thought struck him.
Was it possible, he wondered, for the mind to blink, then reopen in a different place and time—for someone to close their eyes in sleep, only to open them in wake days, months, maybe even years later?
No, he thought. It isn’t.
“Odin.”
“What?”
“Is something wrong?”
Though he shook his head, Odin couldn’t help the sigh that followed. “It’s,” he began, then stopped. A flicker of movement beneath the water broke his concentration just long enough for him to catch a baby catfish settling down at the bottom of the stream. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Try.”
“I can’t.”
“How do you know if you don’t try?”
“Because it hurts too much,” he whispered, bowing his head.