Brotherhood Saga 03: Death (14 page)

“Nova,” Carmen said.

“Yes?” he asked.

The Dwarf said nothing in response.

Nova turned to find the creature standing directly in the road, gargantuan chest heaving and mouth opening, then closing.

“It
’s getting weaker,” she said, taking a few steps back and steadying herself against the front of his leg. “We might be able to kill it.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Let
’s do it then.”

Raising his scythe in the air, Nova ran forward and met the creature head on.

Its hand lashed out.

He ducked.

Carmen slid between the creature’s legs and grabbed onto its tail.

“I got this ugly mother
’s tail!” the Dwarf cried, though in the darkness, Nova could hardly make out the woman’s flight as the creature spun in an attempt to free itself from her grasp. “Come on! Kill this thing before it throws me off!”

Nova flung himself forward.

The werewolf turned just in time to meet his scythe.

When the blade connected with the base of the creature
’s skull—when his raw, brute strength began to force the creature to the ground as blood exploded and spilled down its chest—he saw but a flash of movement as Carmen threw herself up the creature’s back.

She raised her mace.

The werewolf screamed.

The Dwarf
’s deadly weapon came down and forced his scythe in the rest of the way.

Ligaments snapped beneath his scythe. Bones crunched, arteries exploded.

In but a moment, the creature’s head was lying on the ground, completely severed from its body.

“We got it!” Carmen cried, jumping up and down on the creature
’s dead but still-twitching body. “You hear that, you ugly mother! We got you!
WE GOT YOU!”

Nova smiled.

Above the Hornblaris Mountains, light began to pierce the sky in faint tendrils of pink.

As the sun began to rise, marking upon them not only their survival, but victory, Nova allowed himself but one deep breath before he reached down, took the Dwarf
’s hand, then began to lead them up the road.

They found the horse on the side of the road. Broken, torn apart, eviscerated from head to flank and strung like a great pig atop a mighty man’s table—it seemed to Nova, as he approached grimacing, that everything was lost, that all their belongings had been taken by the very thing that had attacked them last night. When he caught sight of the saddle on the opposite side of the road, he let out a sigh of relief and watched Carmen march over and began to sort through its contents.

“Is everything there?” Nova asked, settling down at the side of the road.

“Looks like it,” the Dwarf said, raising her head to look at him. “You ok?”

“The bandages? The medical stuff?”

“All here, my friend.”

Thank God.

Allowing himself but one moment to relax and believe in the fact that they were finally, truly safe, he reached up to wipe the sweat from his brow and grimaced when the nastiest cut across his left shoulder blade screamed in pain. Fresh blood slipped down his back and was immediately absorbed thereafter within the crude bandaging he and the Dwarf had assembled, though that did little to console his thoughts about the likelihood that he could have an infection.

They said that wild animals were the worst things to get attacked by in the open plains, even worse than bandits or looters.

“Carmen,” Nova gasped, unbuckling the clasps along his ribs.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Bring some of that gauze over here.”

“I
’m working on it, Nova. Don’t you worry. It’s not like any of us are going anywhere anytime soon.”

She has a point,
his conscience whispered.
You know she does.

No matter—he didn
’t feel the need to negotiate on how much time she could take getting the medicine to him.

Bowing his head, expelling a long, held-in breath, he remained silent as Carmen diligently cut her way through leather and shirt with a dagger especially brought for the purpose of skinning or cutting things apart. H
er hair falling from her head and onto his back, sending shivers down his spine, he bit his lip and closed his eyes as hard as he could to keep from screaming when the bandages were free of his skin.

Each time she pulled a piece of leather or shirt off, it felt like she was skinning him alive.

He wasn’t sure how much longer he could take this.

“You know,” the Dwarf said, spooning some gauze onto her hand and rubbing it into his back. “It doesn
’t look as bad as you would think.”

“Really,” he grunted, grimacing. “How so?”

“Well… you just have four cuts.”

“You mean—“

“No. It looks like only one claw slipped through along your lower back, but none of them are very deep.”

But they sure hurt like hell.

“You’ll scar, that’s for sure, but it’s nothing life-threatening, I don’t think.”

“Tell that to people who die after surviving wild animal attacks,” Nova said, groaning as she seemingly pressed the gauze into the space between the cuts themselves.
“Ouch.”

“I
’m being as gentle as possible.”

“Define:
‘Gentle.’”

“I
’m not slapping it on you, that’s for damn sure.”

You may be one of the best friends I have,
Nova thought,
but damn if you aren’t as stubborn as me any day

The thought alone made him laugh.

Carmen paused. “Sorry?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said, even managing a smile when the Dwarf continued to do her work. “Just thinking.”

“About what?”

Us. This.

Nova closed his eyes.

His wounds began to burn.

When Carmen finished bandaging his back and what little of his shoulders bore damage, they ate a brief breakfast of biscuits before continuing up the road, only momentarily stopping to mourn the horse. It immediately became apparent, from the matter of walking alone, that this trip, unless quickened by the happenchance of meeting fellow merchants, would take much longer than he had initially anticipated.

Normally, on a good day’s travel on a horse, it could take anywhere from one to two weeks to get to Ornala. Without horses, things would begin to take an even darker turn.

You can do this,
he thought.
Don’t worry. You’re strong.

Each step forward took them a moment closer to Ornala. He had to keep telling himself that, otherwise he was more than likely to give up before the day was over.

“Carmen,” Nova said, turning his attention down to the Dwarf, who carried the largest and more cumbersome pack as though it weighed nothing more than a piece of bread.

“Yes?” the Dwarf asked.

“You’ve never been this far west, have you?”

“No sir, I haven
’t. Lived in Ehknac and Arbriter my whole life.”

“You said you were sixty,” he said, crossing an arm over his chest and adjusting his scythe against his shoulder. “And I remember you saying you can live to be a few hundred years old.”

“Yeah. We can.”

“I… I want to ask something personal, if you don
’t mind.”

“Go ahead. I won
’t answer if I don’t feel comfortable.”

“All right. Well… about your husband. He
’s human and all, and I’m always worrying about something happening to me and leaving my wife behind, given that she’s so young and we don’t have a family yet—no one to continue my legacy and the sort.”

“Yeah. Go on.”

“I wonder… well, about you… what will you do when your husband dies of old age?”

“Go on, I suppose. I try not to think about things like that.”

“You have to though, don’t you? I mean, when thinking about the future, about what might happen to the other person or yourself.”

“I don
’t think age ever really matters so long as the two of you have something in common,” the Dwarf said, skipping ahead of him and turning about in one complete circle, as if viewing the dense lack of nothing around them. “It doesn’t matter if I’m sixty and my husband is twenty-nine, almost thirty. I mean… he’ll die eventually, and I will too and so will you, but we can’t live life worrying about what will happen in the future, can we?”

“I guess not,” Nova said. “I mean… you
’re not worried about how you’ll feel when it happens?”

“Oh, I
’ll be absolutely devastated when Elrig dies, because as far as I’m concerned—as far as
anyone’s
concerned, actually—he’s the love of my life. Age doesn’t mean a thing when the two of you are happy.”

“I guess it must be a human thing then. You know, the stigma of being too old for one person and too young for the other.”

“I think there’s certain boundaries that have to be set, sure. Can’t pick on the weak or small, meek and naïve, the old and frail, that sort of thing. It gets too complicated when you’re too young to understand such emotions, but when you’re a full-grown adult? If someone cares, stick it up their ass, I say. It’s no one’s business if you’re in love.”

Nova tilted his head back and smiled.

While the afternoon continued to wane on, his thoughts seemed all the more at peace.

They were able to start a fire that night with the pre-dried kindling that had been arranged in their packs. Warm and hopeful around flames that glowed bright and strong, Nova rubbed his hands together as Carmen stirred the contents of the pan hanging from the support beam and smiled when he cast a look in her direction.

Ah,
he thought, unable to resist the urge to smile back.
Carmen.

“A lot better when there
’s a fire, isn’t there?”

“Yes ma
’am,” Nova replied, giving her a brief salute before spreading himself out along his bedroll. “I just wish we didn’t have to carry all of this shit with us.”

“Eh, it
’s no big deal. It’s not even that heavy, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“You Dwarves must be naturally gifted in the strength department.”

“Well, yeah. Of course we are. How else would we spend our entire lives chipping away at the inside of a mountain?”

“You think they
’ll ever finish mining everything in there?”

“In time,” the Dwarf replied. “Then they
’ll just keep moving to the south, maybe even reach the top someday.”

“What do they do with all the stuff they mine?”

“Keep it. Some make jewelry, others statues. The king likes to have a room full of treasure, as cliché and out of the ordinary as that is. Most of it gets buried with him when he dies though, so—“

“You mean they put him in a coffin and
fill it with all those jewels?”

“Not all of them, no—most, but not all. A lot of it goes to his heirs, if he has any. The royal bloodline is fairly strong within our society.”

“It’s nice to hear about something other than human stuff,” Nova said, accepting a bowl of soup when the Dwarf offered it. “I mean, life in Bohren got pretty dull after a while, especially after I married into the government.”

“Your wife is… a political woman?” Carmen asked.

“I wouldn’t say political, exactly, but she is the daughter of a mayor.”

“That must be interesting,” she mused, spooning some of the soup into her mouth. “Mmm. I must say, this doesn
’t taste half bad.”

“It doesn
’t,” Nova smiled.

As he continued to shovel the food into his mouth, he sighed and looked up at the darkened sky before them.

Though it would likely not threaten them with rain, it would surely shadow the stars.

They continued up the road for the next few days in almost pure silence. Occasionally disturbed by a harsh wind, a few drops of rain and the seldom passing deer, little seemed to bother them throughout their trip and escapade toward the capital. At times, Nova thought he saw figures on the horizon—distant, darkened and seemingly led by carts—but no matter how many times he blinked, squinted or cleared his vision, they seemed to disappear: vanishing, seemingly, into the abyss.

There isn
’t anyone traveling this road,
he thought after one long, hard day of travel.
It’s just us.

No matter how hard he wanted to believe otherwise, he had to remain content with the fact that they would likely not run into another caravan even though he wanted them to.

By light from the fire, he shifted through his belongings and pulled from his pack a long-sleeved shirt that he fully intended on wearing regardless of the flames burning before them. After carefully and painstakingly navigating his arms into the air, he pulled the shirt down over his chest, then sighed as the thick fabric contoured to his body and allowed him some semblance of warmth outside of the fire.