The Nameless Slave

by Vitaly Zykov

  Yaroslav stood up, his legs were noticeably trembling. He wiped sweat from his forehead and warily came to the defeated enemy. The beast was lying on its belly, stretched on the ground. Even in death it was striving forward, as if in hope to break the enemy's throat. Yaroslav shook his head marveling this primitive rage. He sat down and looked at the beast. Its size was really equal to a poodle, but its fighting qualities were quite different. It had a terrible maw with jaws strongly protruding forward and two prominent fangs, a sharp horn of about four inches length on its nose, its elongated skull had a bone comb which slid down the neck then over the back turning into a tail. Some hidden power was felt in that tail. Just a few minutes ago, Yaroslav watched the fight between the animals and the deadly dance of their tails. All that was complemented by two short but powerful forepaws, and long hind legs. The forepaws and the legs had very nice claws. And of course, the whole body of the beast was covered with something like bony plates with thorns.

  – Boy, am I lucky today. – Yaroslav imagined what could have happened if he had not used the whip of Nergal.

  There was little time for reflections. It would be getting dark soon, and the forest was not so peaceful, if even such small animals were so dangerous.

  – I'll call you lizard-poodle, – Yaroslav named the slain beasts. Then he grabbed the enemy's tail and dragged it to the baobab that had become his home. After everything that had happened nothing could make Yaroslav spend the night on a small tree.

  Transportation of the prey did not take long time. Yaroslav stood before the massive tree, that he called baobab, and scratched his head. It would be fine to climb on it, and once there, in relative safety, flay the carcass. Spitting on his hands, he started to climb up the gnarly trunk. After about six yards the trunk forked, and there he found a flat place. One branch, growing from the main trunk was so broad and its twigs so conveniently located that it was possible to lie on his back there like in a bed.

  Yaroslav went down and began lifting the carcasses up to the tree. It turned out to be not a simple matter. He had to tie the tail to his waist and then climb up the tree. The lifting took a lot of time, it was going to get dark, but Yaroslav had got an idea to collect some clay or earth and pave the spot at the top. Thus it would be possible to make a fire there. No sooner said than done. He took off his pants, there was no use in them all the same, and stayed in shorts turned into a loincloth. From his pants he made something like a small bag and filled it with pieces of raw clay, which he had found on the banks of the swamp. Keeping his makeshift bag in his teeth, Yaroslav climbed the tree once again. Three times was enough to cover the place in the fork with wet clay. Lodging for the night was almost ready, it was necessary to collect some thin dry branches for fire. That was a problem. Branches of trees were too robust, and it was unlikely that they would burn. Yaroslav had to scour around, fortunately on the ground there were a lot of fallen branches. He tied them into a big bundle, using his long-suffering pants as a rope, and with grunting and groaning of fatigue, climbed up.

  Sitting on the tree, Yaroslav again had to feed himself from external sources in order to recuperate his energy. Finally, he flushed off tiredness by a wave of heat and began to break the twigs, folding them in a campfire. He decided to use a piece of dry cloth instead of kindling…

  – Done! – He sighed, making himself comfortable.

  Now it was necessary to perform the most difficult part of the plan. He tried to concentrate and stared firmly at the folded campfire. Yaroslav calmed his heartbeat, focused and began gradually filling the firewood with drops of Force. Nothing happened.

  – I'm doing something wrong. – Yaroslav vigorously scratched back of his head.

  And that helped. It turned out that it was necessary not just to accumulate the Force, but to pump heat, transforming the mysterious Force into thermal energy. Pieces of wood became slightly warm.

  – Too little! – Yaroslav decided to increase the heat.

  That gave result. The fire flamed so strong, that Yaroslav recoiled sharply and almost fell from the tree, and then for a long time sparks flickered before his eyes. Instead of campfire there was a handful of ashes.

  – Too much! – Thoughtfully noticed the experimenter, and began to make a new campfire. This time he controlled heating more precisely, and got fun tongues of fire dancing on the branches.

  – I've messed up such a good cloth – cheerfully muttered Yaroslav. There was no need of kindling.

  Now it was time for serious work. Yaroslav pulled closer a couple of hard boughs and a small cudgel, which he found collecting firewood. It was necessary to burn them on fire to make the ends of these new tools stronger. All that Yaroslav had read in books a long time ago. Now it was time to perform that in life.

  It turned out that the ends should not burn for too long otherwise the wood began to char. The operation was finished in fifteen minutes. While he was making experiments twilight gathered around the tree, only a small fire was breaking the oncoming darkness. It looked like picnic in a park on the Earth.

  After he had made weapons, Yaroslav decided to treat the carcasses. He sat closer to the fire and looked again at the dead animals. It was necessary to know where to begin. The protruding fangs were similar to knives, Yaroslav liked them. Using small bough as a chisel and cudgel as a hammer, he quickly broke out four long, extremely strong fangs from jaws of the two beasts. Yaroslav carefully wrapped them in cloth, tied it firmly and hung the package around his neck – just in case! Then he got on with the hind legs of one of the carcasses. Scales on the body were hindering his work very much, but he could do nothing about that. Finally, though with difficulties, both legs were separated from the body, skin was occasionally stripped, but most of it remained in place. And Yaroslav, hung the legs of lizard-poodle over the fire. Blood began to drip into the fire, and the smell of burning spread far and wide.

  Yaroslav sat sadly in front of mutilated carcass. He turned out to be a third rate butcher. Getting angry, he grabbed the remains of the first and untouched second carcass and threw them into bushes. Then he looked at himself. His hands and whole body were stained with blood. He thought that sleeping like that was impossible. Despite the darkness, he decided to come down and wash up in the murky water of the swamp. Without thinking too long, in fear that he could change his mind, Yaroslav quickly came down. He bravely came to the water and began to wash off the blood. After a while, finding himself clean enough, Yaroslav got up and looked around. The sudden stir at his feet forced him to start. The place where he had just washed his feet was full of small toothy creatures, they were opening their filthy mouths. Apparently, they gathered here because of the blood.

  A kind of boom sounded far above the swamp. It was as if someone pressed horn button in a car of a mountain size. Yaroslav heard a loud splash, then after some silence a new splash, much closer this time. Probably someone had decided to join the party. Yaroslav decided not to find out who it was and ran to the tree. In the bushes, where he threw the carcasses of the beasts, were heard growling and sounds of struggle. Night life began. The splashes of water were getting closer. Yaroslav, cold from horror, was slowly climbing the tree, knowing that should he fall off, because of haste, nothing could save him!

  Finally he climbed to the top of the tree. His heart was trying to jump out of his chest, his knees were trembling. He was breathing with difficulty. Yaroslav stared intently into the darkness. He saw something dark flashing on the edge of the swamp… then another splash and silence fell on the forest. The fighting in the bushes stopped. Yaroslav felt strong smell of damp, and then came the sound of the giant horn:

  – Woooooo!!!

  Small creatures, rushed from the bushes, not waiting for the echo to fade away.

  Some large animal towered in the swamp water like some dark mass. Then, as if in slow motion, Yaroslav saw this dark spot starting to grow, grow more, moving in and overlapping the entire field of view. He frantically grabbed the bough. The massive creat
ure made a giant leap, but the target remained just a notch beyond its reach. The gloomy mass crashed into the tree at the height of about four yards. The tree shuddered, cracked, but resisted, though Yaroslav nearly fell down. It was very dark already. Frantically clinging to the branches and trembling all over, he was staring intently into the darkness. He heard some heavy breathing and panting at the roots of the tree. It seemed that the unknown creature was recovering after the monstrous hit.

  Yaroslav tried to use his Inner eye to look at the creature at the bottom. And he managed that easily. Whether that was due to his growing skills, or stress, but Yaroslav could see in the dark. However, not too good and not too far, but he could see, perhaps, like cats could.

  He saw a frog of enormous size with bony growths over its back. At that point the creature stopped fussing and looked up. The eyes of the human and the amphibian met. Hair stirred on Yaroslav's head. An unthinkably perverse mind was glowing in the eyes of the monster. Alien will tried to subdue the man's mind. Yaroslav hastily began to build defensive bastions in his mind, like the ones he had used in the world of chaos and sparks of light, protecting his soul from collapse. So, having fenced off, he strained all his forces to resist the ramming attack of the foreign will. His barriers withstood. The monster could not manage to penetrate into the human brain. Finally, the pressure was gone, and the monster screamed in disappointment, this scream almost deafened Yaroslav. The creature jumped, but it did not reach the fork on the tree again and bumped into the trunk about three feet below. The tree crackled from the new hit, followed by an earth quiver after a fall of the heavy body. Yaroslav sighed with relief.

  «If this creature had some cunning besides its strength, it would have crushed all my barriers surely». – Such scary thoughts were flowing sluggishly and aloof because of the eerie tension before. Yaroslav did not want even to think about what could have happened, if his mind had turned out to be unprotected before that monster.

  At that time, the creature resumed its fuss at the roots of the tree.

  – Hey, freak!! Get of here!! – Yaroslav cried in order to improve his morale, but the cry was thin and miserable.

  In response to these shouts of the brazen victim, the giant toad sat on its hind legs and lifted its head up. The bag under its lower jaw began to tremble.

  – You freak, what can you do to me!? Come on, snake! I'll… – Extremely emboldened Yaroslav was insulting the giant toad.

  And it did not endure the insults – it opened its maw, and a giant tongue popped out from there like a spear. Yaroslav's reflexes had considerably developed during the past few weeks, they made him lean back, so the tongue did not hit him into his face, where the toad was aiming, but into his chest. A heavy blow stunned Yaroslav. He would have been thrown back, but hundreds of suckers on the tongue were clinging to his skin. Yaroslav's hands were groping for support, but a thick branch that he caught was just a club. No sooner had his fingers closed at this toy, useless against such a giant, then a wave came through the tongue, and Yaroslav was thrown to the ground. Because of a strong jerk, the suckers scraped his skin in some places, but released Yaroslav off. Only that could explain the fact that he did not fly into the open mouth after the tongue, but twisted in mid-air and hit into the lower lip of the monster. The toad cried indignantly and puffed the lip out.

  Yaroslav could not utter any sound – the blow knocked his breath away. The monster amortized the fall from the height, but anyway it was not pleasant. Man's bones cracked in protest, his heart fell somewhere deep into his belly. Death was breathing in his face once again. Intuitively, almost without using his Inner vision, Yaroslav sent a warm wave of Force to the hurt organs. The pain receded and he began to regain mobility.

  Meanwhile, convinced that its lower lip was safe, the monster decided to avenge the offender. It snarled something unbearably terrible and jumped at Yaroslav, apparently, intending to crush him at first, and then eat the resulting porridge. Yaroslav rolled away and jumped to his feet. But the monster proved that it nevertheless was not a toad after all. Its forelimbs were much longer, mobile and more powerful than those of a toad, albeit enlarged to gigantic proportions. The creature gave a terrible thump. Yaroslav fell to the ground, almost flatted on it. His hair felt an air flow produced by the claws blowing over his head. The giant amphibian got even turned aside from this heroic blow. And Yaroslav, who had scuffled only unintentionally and in childhood, jumped to his feet and struck the toad with his club into the right side of its skull. He put all his fear, resentment for failures, all his rage and love for life into that attack. The spark hidden in the depths of his consciousness ignited with bright flame, and a wave of Force ran from the spark through the club. The unpretentious, primitive weapon acquired some bright green glow. That light could not be detected with usual eyesight, but Yaroslav's inner magical eye saw it perfectly. The weapon satiated with Force flashed like a meteor and contacted the head of the monster. There was a green flash, then cracking of bones and a smell of something burning. The creature screamed wildly. Turning its entire body towards Yaroslav, it hit him in his shoulder with such force that he flew a couple of yards. The creature began to tremble and scream again. Suddenly it tensed and took a giant leap towards the swamp, then one more and one more, until it disappeared from sight. Each jump informed the vicinity about the wild pain excruciating the toad.

  No sooner had the screams subsided away then Yaroslav howling from pain himself, smearing blood and tears over his face, hobbled to the tree. Climbing on it was not an easy task, but he coped with it. Scraping the skin on his fingers, breaking his nails, he did not just climb up, but crawled up the tree, where he could finally take care of his wounds.

  It was trifling matter to organize his body for healing wounds, but the body did not only require energy, but also some food. Yaroslav looked for the roasted legs, and found them lying on the edge of his platform. He wanted to take so much-needed food with his right hand and realized that something was interfering him. It turned out that he was still holding the club in his hand. However, there was only a small part of it. It had simply vaporized, only the handle remaining intact clenched in his white fingers. Yaroslav threw out the useless piece of wood and took the food.

  A quick inspection revealed that the meat was partly charred, but on the whole, it was edible. His feelings said nothing of a poisoning threat, and now Yaroslav totally trusted them. He began to eat grabbing a decent chunk with his teeth and began to chew. Chewing was incredibly difficult, not only because the meat had a taste of a rigid sole, but also because it was stinking like a sole too. Yaroslav forced himself to swallow a piece of meat chewed with such disgust and listened to his feelings. His feelings might be called pleasant, except for nausea. His starved stomach pounced upon the food with roar of a hungry swamp monster. Looking at the meat with distaste, Yaroslav took a bite of a new piece. Apparently, the meal would last for long. Trying to distract from cacophony of forest sounds and his vile meal, he began to remember the fight with the toad.

  «Well, what I have done then?! Boy, was that mighty a fire! I had never hit such a strike!» – Yaroslav decided to solve the riddle immediately, he put off the hateful meat and plunged into Sat'tor. He caught a glance at the process of healing his bruises and broken skin, and began to explore his memory. He could remember the moment before the impact easily: the buildup of his magic spark, a warm stream going along his arm, and then to the club.

  – So, everything is clear. Now let's try to repeat. – Thinking aloud helped him to focus.

  Yaroslav took in his right hand remnants of the club, then scooped a particle of Force in the magic flame and sent it to the piece of wood. And again it lit up in the magic range with greenish glow, although weaker than before. With a short swing-up, he tried to drive the peg into the tree under his feet. It was like a miracle – a blunt stick came into the hard bark like a hot knife into butter. Yaroslav took off his hand and the greenish glow of magic gradually faded away.

&
nbsp; – It's amazing – he whispered. – I wonder what would happen if I do the same thing with my bare hand?!

  For purity of the experiment Yaroslav put his hand on the stick protruding from the bark and pulled it. As one could expect, nothing happened. Then he closed his eyes and sent a short pulse of the Force into his wrist and arm muscles, then jerked, and the stick literally flew out.

  – Wow! – The new knowledge about his own abilities calmed his nerves and cheered him up. Even taste of the meat, which Yaroslav had eaten, could not ruin his mood.

  Finally, in total darkness, using only his newfound ability for night vision, he got to the previously prepared «bed» on the branches. Sleep immediately closed his eyes.

  The morning greeted him with pain in his stiff muscles, his chest and ribs were aching, but during the night all the wounds had been healed, there was no even a scar. Only the young skin was very itching now. Slowly, carefully moving his arms and legs, Yaroslav went down to the ground, and stretched with pleasure.

  – It is devilishly nice to feel alive! – Night fears retreated in the light of a new day, and Yaroslav felt like he was gradually immersing into everyday life of a simple traveler, full of dangers.

  He closed his eyes and opened all his emotions for the surrounding world. The throbbing of color threads appeared before his eyes again, and fresh Force of the world gushed into his body.

  – But I'm growing! The last time I absorbed much smaller of Force. – Reasonable pride filled his breast. – Apparently, the more I experiment with the Force, the more I can absorb. It's good!!!

  Yaroslav began to prepare for the road. At night he decided to go round the swamp. If such creatures dwelled there, it would be better to stay away from them. All he needed was a staff or a spear. It would help walking and could be a weapon. If necessary, he would fill it with Force. As a material for such a staff Yaroslav decided to use branches of the baobab, which served as home for him during the last night. He had to climb up again. There were no suitable branches around the place where he slept, so Yaroslav climbed even higher, and he decided to climb to the very top of the tree and look at the road ahead. Yaroslav gritted his teeth and drove his fear of heights deep inside and began to climb again. The branches were very comfortable, as if designed for climbing. At the height of about thirty yards the twigs became very thin, and he decided not to climb higher, fortunately he already towered over the neighboring trees.