by Jesse Teller
“You came for me,” she said.
“Anywhere and always,” he said. He winced in pain, and fear rippled through her as she thought of the idea of losing him. She would lose Erick; she knew it to be fact, but the loss of her father would be too much.
“How did you know not to follow them into Fury land?” Helena asked.
“Betten is with us,” Erick whispered. It seemed the moment was too sacred for him to speak any louder.
Ruggamon held Terala and called for Betten.
Betten joined them in the middle of the battlefield, and Rugga gripped his shoulder.
“Betten the Steady,” he said. “I will call you Betten the Steady from this day on. No calmer mind, no man of more reserve and skill has ever lived. We argued with you on your choice. We doubted you, but no more, and never again. You are impeccable. You, I call brother.”
“We owe you our lives and our loves,” Cochran said. “From this day forth, we will call you kin, and you are welcome in our village. You, we embrace as a Flurryfist.” Cochran stepped to Betten and wrapped him in a hug that lifted the slight man off the ground. She heard Betten grunt and gasp for breath in the embrace of the chief, and turned to Erick.
“What are we going to do?” she asked, thinking of his intended and the idea of him marrying another woman.
He looked at her and shook his head. “I do not know.”
He did not set her back down. He carried her all the way home. They stopped a few times to rest, and every time, he sat holding her in his lap. He seemed unable to peel his eyes from her, unable to speak above a whisper. Every now and then, he would whisper to her that he loved her, that he could not have lived had she died. And she wept often as she thought of him with another woman.
His body around her, the true might of Erick Flurryfist intimidated her. She felt scared of it and held a dire need to possess it. She thought of his manhood, large and powerful, as she had felt it under her hours ago, and she realized it would hurt if she took it into her body. She decided if it killed her, she would die upon it. She needed it. She had to have it in her and strong. She felt empty, as if she had a pit within her only he could fill, and she knew if she did not have him soon, she would die of it. When they reached the village at dusk, he walked her in and whispered to her.
“Where can I take you?”
“I want only to be alone with you,” she sighed.
He nodded and turned for the trees. She looked into his eyes, and did not know the rest of the world. She could not remember if any other man or woman ever existed. She let herself be carried away, and touched his face covered in dry blood. He took her to a small lake not far from the village. It was remote, tucked away from all, and she knew they would not be bothered here.
As they approached the steaming warm waters, she remembered wanting to wash here as a child. This was one of the many hot baths of the mountain, forbidden to swim in or drink from. Erick set her down in the soft grasses beside it, and she stood.
It felt strange to stand on her own, as if her legs had forgotten how to walk. He knelt to the ground, and she stood before him, touched his blood-drenched shirt and untied the laces. She loosened it from his body and pulled it off to drop it on the grass beside him. She reached for his hands and helped him stand. She unbound his pants and peeled them off his body. She was careful with taking them off around his member, and when it was bare and raging before her, she touched it gently with trembling fingers. She felt it jump, and she pulled back.
“I will not hurt you,” he promised. “I would never cause you pain.”
She looked up at him and nodded. Her face seemed incapable of smiling, incapable of anything except awe and love. She crouched to pull his pants away from his feet.
He touched her dress, but she took his hands carefully and slowly moved them away. He frowned. She placed a finger on his lips.
“Let me bare myself to you,” she whispered.
He nodded, and she slowly untied her dress. She turned and pulled her arms from the sleeves. The cold autumn air kissed her bare skin, and she felt it rise to gooseflesh. She dropped the dress, and it caught on her hips. She heard him gasp, and she shimmied the dress from her waist and let it fall. When he touched her shoulders, she slowly rotated toward him.
His eyes drank in her flesh, staring at her body, as if savoring a meal to devour, a meal that would nourish. They stood before each other, and she realized all her life had been moving toward this moment, all her anger at him, all her frustration with the other girls obsessing over him. She had known him hers long ago, and the adoration of the other girls had incensed her. Her dislike of him was a hate of her own imperfections. He always seemed so perfect, so constructed for her and only her, that to hear other girls praise him and pine for him had driven her to anger against him. She looked at him, her man, her man who even now seemed to be slipping from her grasp, and she stepped forward. She could not marry him, but she could own him now, could take him into her body and let his bulk soothe her.
She gently backed for the water. He did not resist. He came eagerly, and she led him into the warm pool, the hot waters pulling her in. The dry blood and tissue on his body, she needed to wash it off. She needed to clean him of the gore he had waded in to save her.
She took him in as far as his chest, cupped a handful of water and dripped it from her fingers onto his body. The crimson blood rolled from his form, and she stared, fascinated, as the water ran from his chest around his nipple and down his pec. She watched, entranced, as it ran the course of his rippling stomach and into the water. She dipped her hand back into the water and came out to place her palm on his chest. The heat of the water seemed to seal them together, to make her hand a part of his flesh. She reached under the water to his bulk and suddenly needed it more than air, more than sanity.
“Please,” she murmured. He nodded. He picked her up, slipping his hands under her backside and placing her opening on the tip of his manhood.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
She nodded, biting her lip.
He stared her in the eye as he slowly lowered her onto him.
She wanted to say she loved him, just to hear the words out on the air, but she was incapable of speech. She let her body say it for her, her skin whispering his name as he slid beneath her. Let her nipples murmur to him as he kissed them. Let her womanhood speak her desires as he filled her. She let her body talk to his as their pace quickened, and when her body was hushed in pleasure, she felt him finish into her, and she came with him.
*******
The next morning, she was up before the sun, dressed in a short dress with her knife and boots, and was out the door. They met outside the village early in the morning, down where the trees began and the order of the village gave way to the wilds of nature. When she reached the woods, he sprang out of nowhere and wrapped her up in his arms. She giggled as he twirled her. He kissed her, and she swatted him.
“Put me down,” she said.
He set her on her feet, and she took his hand. It was so enormous she could not entwine her fingers in his. Holding his hand was like holding a rock. He closed his scarred fingers around her hand and smiled.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“It’s not far.” The sun was rising, but darkness still clung to the valley. The mountains shielded the harsh light of day from them, and they disappeared into it.
“Daddy brought me here when I was very young. He showed me how to scare out a dove, and shot it in a blink. When he gave it to me, I asked him why he did it, and he smiled at me.” She stepped before Erick and grinned. “He told me he killed it so I could eat its heart.”
Erick laughed. “I heard this old legend. Hunters think if they eat a raw dove heart when they are young, it will draw a good match in marriage.” Erick smiled. “He made you eat a raw heart.”
Helena nodded. “He sat me right here on this rock,” she said, climbing on the boulder and sitting cross-legged on it. “And he handed me my
dove heart.” She looked at her hands and could still see the bird as he sliced it open. The heart was small, a knot of meat, nothing more, and covered—absolutely drenched—in blood. “I told him I didn’t want to eat the bird’s heart, and started to cry. Father grabbed my chin very gently.” She took Erick’s large, firm jaw in her hand, and turned it to face her. “He took it and turned me to look at him, and he stared me in the eyes. He said, ‘Helena, I didn’t eat my dove heart when my father gave it to me. I want you to eat yours.’ He looked at my hands, and said, ‘There is a man out there somewhere. He is your love, your husband, and your constant. He will be yours, with a bit of luck, and you might spend the rest of your life with him. This is all the magic I can give you.’ Father grinned, and he took my hands in his and held them to my mouth. ‘Take it, girl,’ he said.”
She could taste the coppery flavor of the blood. She could feel the slick, warm blood coating her throat and choking her. She closed her eyes and smiled. “I ate my heart, Erick. I ate my dove heart. Put it in my mouth and chewed it. It was rubbery and salty. It was hard to swallow, but I did it. I ate my dove heart for you.” She took his face in hers and kissed him. He kissed her back, but when she pulled away, he looked over her head and wrapped his arms around her.
“I wish I could be your man, Helena,” Erick said. “I do. I would give anything for it, but Flak has given me to another.”
She dug the heels of her hands in his chest and shoved him away. “Flak doesn’t get to tell you who to marry. He has no right.”
“He has every right. Helena, you don’t know. You haven’t stood before him. You haven’t looked into his eyes. You—”
“You’re gonna say some nonsense about him being your king chief and you living to serve him.”
Erick stepped back. She saw a crowning anger coming to him, and she braced herself for the onslaught. “He is my king chief, and I do live to serve him.” Erick’s eyes warned of wrath, but she was not afraid of him. She never had been, never would be.
“He is a man. A man who abandoned us for the outland.”
“That was Ragoth’s final wish,” Erick said.
“What nonsense is this?”
“On his death bed, Ragoth told his son, Kenve Redfist, that he wanted him to take the clan and go south, away from the mountain, and wait for the mountain to cool of its rage.”
Helena huffed, crossed her arms. She did not know how men could be so stupid.
“He ordered his family to leave the mountain and wait for peace to come to it. Said the constant wars between the clans of wolves and men would destroy the king chiefs. So, they went south, as Ragoth told them to, and they—”
“Erick, tell me you don’t believe this.” She looked at her shining man and shook her head. “It is an excuse.”
He turned and flexed his hands to fists. “What’s an excuse?”
“Ragoth’s sons left us here. They abandoned their people, and they left us to our wars and our misery. A good leader would have stayed, hammered out peace and glory for his people, but the Redfist clan walked away. They quit on us. They left us to the mountain, and now you have to go to their lair and serve them. Walk away from your love and…and…” She could feel herself on the edge of blasphemy, and she did not care. She shook her head. “You are going to walk away from us.” She stood and took his hands in hers. “From this, walk away and never come back. Leave me to go marry a woman you do not love, or even know, so you can honor a family of cowards.”
Erick roared. He jerked back and spun. He turned to a tree and punched it with all his force. The tree split down the middle, and one side of it toppled with a crack. Fear jumped into her throat. She could not swallow for a moment. She had not known he had that much power at his command.
“You don’t get to call them cowards, Helena. You don’t know. You have never seen them. Flak and Yenna and Jessop. They are more than men!” he yelled.
“No, Erick, you’re wrong.” She pointed her finger at him and shook her head. “They are just men. And they have condemned you to a life without me. They have deemed themselves fit to tell us we do not get to be together. Flak is not your friend, Erick. He stole your love.” She stabbed her finger in his chest and snarled at him. “He stole mine.” She spun and crossed her arms. She heard him huffing, as if out of breath, behind her, and she waited for his arms. This was the part where he saw her upset and wrapped her up and kissed her head. He would tell her he would bring her to Tergor when he left, and they would go to Flak and make Flak see.
She waited, forming the words she would say just right, then heard him walking away. She turned to see him storming, head down, fingers curled, out of the forest and back into the village.
Anger ran a course through her body. She gritted her teeth and stomped her foot, but all her rage dissipated to nothing when she saw he was not coming back. She looked at the boulder she sat on so long ago, and she could once again taste the heart between her teeth.
She realized then that Erick had not eaten a dove heart. He had not believed in the myth of love. She watched him go, hugged herself and sat on the ground. The morning was colder than she expected.
*******
None of the Flurryfist men were in the hall that night. They had not been in the hall all day or night. They seemed to be holed up in their houses. The women, too. The entire village was on edge. Every citizen walked with head down, eyes low. They knew something bad was coming.
That night, Helena served quiet men sitting sullen in a hall where no singing could be heard and no joy was visible. She tried to joke with the men, but they did not shine to her. She walked behind the bar, tapped herself a mug from the hard stores.
Magna told them all to go sparingly with the hard store, said it ran the men hot, gave them tempers. It was not ale, but a more powerful drink the Bloodblades drank down farther in the hills. The men were to drink it in small sips. Never until drunk, and never when the mood was foul.
She tipped back the mug, and the drink splashed hot and terrible in her mouth. It did not taste like liquid. It seemed hot fire, with a burn she could almost not stand. She coughed and the liquor burned more. She wiped her eyes as they watered, and cursed. She took another drink, this time deeper, and shook her head.
“To the hells with Flak Redfist and his entire line,” she said. The drink was almost set now. She almost knew what to expect. She could brace herself properly and took a deeper swallow. Her mouth watered as if she was going to vomit, and she spit on the floor.
“What are you doing spitting on my floor?”
“I don’t want to hear it, Magna,” Helena snapped. “Not tonight. Not now.” She finished the mug, felt the room sway. She caught herself on the bar with both hands and stared at the swaying, tipping room. The doors banged open. Cochran, Ruggamon, Erick, and Virgil walked in. Erick looked ready to kill, Virgil all laughs, but Cochran and Rugga seemed broken.
Rugga turned to her and fought a losing battle to keep his eyes off the floor. He walked up to the bar then looked her in the eye. “Helena, I’m sorry.”
“Go to Hell, Ruggamon Flurryfist,” she spat, “I don’t need your sympathy.”
Magna gasped. The other girls working the hall spun on Helena.
“Your family is a joke,” Helena said.
“Get out of my hall instantly, Dreadheart,” Magna snapped.
“I don’t think I will,” Helena said. All her fears ran out of her body, save the fear of losing Erick. All happiness drained from her as she thought of him in the arms of a woman who didn’t deserve him. “The Flurryfist men are supposed to be something to see, I’ll tell you. They are of the Seven.” Helena threw her arms in the air. “They know how to lead, and are filled with wisdom and honor.”
“Helena, let me take you out of here, and you can turn all your anger on me. I will let you say anything you want, and I will take it,” Ruggamon said. “Please, girl, you don’t want to be here right now. Just come with me.”
Helena turned toward th
e front dais where Cochran stood with Erick. Erick looked over the heads of the village and laid his eye upon hers.
“What is this, Rug?” she asked.
Cochran held his hands out over the crowd. The assemblage went quiet.
“Get her and bring her outside,” Rugga said. He turned to the dais. “Father,” he yelled, “Just give me one more moment.” The girls were grabbing at her now, but Helena turned with her knife. The girls cried out and backed away.
“What is going on tonight, Ruggamon?” Magna seemed scared and unnerved.
“Erick is making an announcement tonight. I want Helena with me.” Ruggamon reached across the bar, and Helena swiped her knife at him.
“Keep your hands off of me, Rug. I mean it!” She climbed up on the bar, kicking at Ruggamon’s hand when he tried to grab her.
“Tell them, Erick. Make your big announcement, and let the whole village know about the gift of the kings,” Helena said.
Erick looked at her and at the crowd. The men glanced from him to her, and Cochran watched Helena with a mixture of anger and pity.
“Tell them, Erick. Tell them all what you have agreed to.”
Erick stared at her.
He turned to them all and spoke.
“Flak Redfist knew no one decided to love me.” He looked at her, and she sobbed. “I told him my heart broke every time I went home, for the loneliness and emptiness of my life.”
The crowd went quiet and Helena cried. “Go ahead, Flurryfist, finish,” she said. He looked out over the crowd, then she curled her hands into fists and screamed. “Tell them!”