Parasite Soul (20 page)

“Get off! Get off me!” the terrified woman shrieked as Sasha
clawed savagely at her defensively crossed arms. Such was the rapidity
and ferocity of the bruxa’s assault that by the time the woman’s comrades
turned to help her, her arms were in tatters, bloody ribbons of flesh dangling
from bone.

Yelling hoarsely, the bearded man stepped behind Sasha, arcing his
broken blade down toward her unprotected head. The bruxa, with inhuman
perception, moved so swiftly in fact that Simon could only track her movements
as an indefinable blur. He recalled what she’d said previously about how
her magnified senses and reflexes, but her speed was well beyond what he’d
imagined. This was a creature no normal human could hope to defeat.

The broadsword clove through the female hunter’s ruined arms and
into her chest, sundering her ribs with a horrible crack. Following an
awful, shocked silence, she began to spasm and buck, blood bubbling from her
lips as her would-be savior stared in horror and disbelief. The grief
flooding his eyes was unbearable; the woman he’d just killed had clearly meant
a great deal to him.

Simon felt the irrational urge to console the man, reminding himself
that the hunter had brought his friend’s fate upon himself by attacking
them. Even so, his lips parted to warn him that Sasha had materialized
behind him. His tongue against clicked his teeth and recoiled. That
was all the time Sasha needed to conclude the conflict. Her patterned
fangs closed upon the back of the hunter’s neck and she jerked her head.
Her victim dropped soundlessly, his spine bulging grotesquely from the gaping
wound in his flesh.

“Sasha, stop!” Simon cried, distraught by the savagery of the
violence. The bruxa eyed him balefully, forcing him to recall his
previous statement:
The bruxa… She’s not our friend, she just sort of
attached herself to us.
Sasha’s acid glare told him that she’d taken
his words to heart. He swallowed thickly and looked aside.

The young archer, who slumped panting in the rain-lashed mud, had
survived his chest pains; Sasha’s appearance had apparently interrupted
Vanyon’s intercession. Simon wasn’t quite sure what to make of this, nor
did he immediately pursue that line of thought. His attention was
consumed by the murderous bruxa, who now hunched over the terrified youth like
a vulture contemplating which strip of meat was most tender. Simon
tensed, waiting for Sasha to deliver the killing blow. The blood of her
last victim trickled slowly down her chin as the archer turned his wide-eyed,
rain-slicked face to meet her hypnotically black gaze. Time appeared to
freeze; for Simon, and particularly, he imagined, for the archer.

”Mother sent you,” Sasha said without inflection. She paused,
awaiting confirmation, but did not appear to require it.

“Don’t kill me,” the youth begged, shielding his face with one
shaking arm, “And I’ll tell you who hired me,
I’ll tell you
, just
don’t
.”

“You don’t have to.” Sasha moved his arm aside gently.

He whimpered but did not resist her, unable to escape the lightless,
mesmeric depths of her eyes. She folded in on him, savaging at his neck,
tearing strips of meat from his throat and slurping them back greedily.
Simon fought an urge to vomit, wondering if he shouldn’t try to snatch up his
axe and put it through the bruxa’s head before he and Niu joined the mounting
pile of corpses.

When the unfortunate hunter had ceased digging furrows in the turf
with his heels, Sasha wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stood.
Simon could barely look at her; not only because she was splattered with
the liquid remains of several human beings. A strange look haunted the
girl’s face; confusion, hunger, anger and sadness swirling in her obsidian
eyes. Her tensed muscles and rigidly furrowed brow seemed to take an
eternity to relax. Neither Simon nor Niu moved a muscle.

“I won’t kill you,” Sasha said at length, “If that’s what you’re
thinking.” She jabbed a finger at Niu. “I like
her,
after
all.” She tossed her head and started walking. “That was the last
of them. You should return to the cabin.”

Simon and Niu exchanged helpless glances. Niu peeled several
wet strands of hair from her eyes and nodded slightly. Tugging at Simon’s
arm, she started to turn, then stiffened.

“What is it?” Simon wondered wearily, uncertain how much more tension
he could take. Niu jerked her head.

Not twenty paces away, a hulking figure stood watching them from the
dark, dripping shadows. His appearance seemed to startle even
Sasha, whose heightened senses had failed to detect him. The newcomer was
human-shaped at least, if much larger than the average man. His enormous
bulk was draped in a mismatched hodgepodge of furs and hide: fox, deer, bear,
and Vanyon only knew what else. Contrasted by a gravity-defying upturned
white mustache, a straggling black beard crawled down his chest like moss; it
was impossible, in the half-light, to see where it ended and the furs began.
He cut an imposing figure, but most alarming of all were the antlers
which jutted from the crown of his vast, shaggy head.

“Not bad! Not bad.” The giant applauded, two huge slabs
of meat colliding awkwardly and without rhythm. His voice reverberated as
deeply bass as Simon would have expected, but with a hint of wheeziness.
“You handled them hunters good, girl. Never seen a bruxa in action.
Maybe I’ll get to try my hand against one, one day. Not you, of
course. Not now. Not looking for trouble today. But I’m
rambling.” The man jerked an enormous thumb over his shoulder. “Looks like the
three of you could use a roof to dry off. Come along. Follow me.”

With that, he rounded his back on the three of them and stumped off.

Trap?
Niu moved her lips
soundlessly.

Simon frowned, contemplating, then shook his head slowly.
Maybe.
But whatever he is, he can’t be more dangerous than this storm.

As for Sasha, she was already following their strange new
benefactor. Coming to the decision that things probably couldn’t get much
worse, Simon sighed deeply and followed suit.

Wrapped in furs, Simon and Niu sat shivering by the hearth in the
small but cozy cave of Oswald Maccrone. Their clothes hung on pegs near
the fire. Beyond a thick curtain of hanging vines, rain continued to drum
the forest floor mercilessly, but the cave was blessedly dry.

Oswald seemed like a peculiarly inappropriate name for the imposing
antlered giant, though he appeared to mean them no harm. He’d brewed them
each a mug of a hot, somewhat bitter drink which Simon didn’t recognize but
gulped back gratefully all the same. Sasha declined both the drink and a
change of clothing, which had creased their host’s brow, but he accepted her
decision with the provision that she remain on the doormat until her
gore-splattered, sodden dress had dried.

“Hezben doesn’t like a mess,” he explained. “You’ll meet Hez
shortly, I’m sure; don’t be put off by his manner, he treats all strangers the
same. That is to say, he’s not fond of ‘em. Not sure which he likes
least – strangers, or a mess. He’ll no doubt take to you more if you’re
not both. Messy strangers, that is. But I’m rambling.”

The mysterious Hezben’s fastidiousness manifested itself in a cave
which was clean and tidy, the exact opposite of what Simon would have expected
a mountain man’s den to look like. Tucked into the north and west corners
of the rocky chamber, the beds - one significantly larger than the other - were
neatly made; tears in the sheets and pillows had been artfully patched with
what looked like leaves. The small stone table at the center of the room
was free of crumbs and stains and all eating utensils had been tidied out of
sight. Both the windowsills and the shutters had been meticulously
dusted, as had a wall of weapons and tools, each carefully mounted on the
appropriate rack. Even a stuffed elk’s head, glassily overseeing the
scene, had been recently groomed and dusted. Upon feeding a handful of
logs into the fire, Oswald hastily swept up any droppings left behind with one
eye on the door as if at any moment Hezben might burst in and accuse him of
sullying the place.

Only a long counter running along the east wall and its companion
basin bore signs of obvious use. Here, a bloodied butcher’s cleaver lay
untidily between a haunch of venison and a spilling bucket of potatoes, while
several huge knives soaked in the dirty water half-filling the basin. It
was easy to see which small stretch of the cave Oswald claimed as his own.

Simon wasn’t sure he would have been able to find Oswald’s little
retreat on his own. The small trail leading to the front door could
easily have been mistaken for any of a number of animal tracks criss-crossing
the forest. The exterior of the cave was an unremarkable bulge in the
forest floor, overrun by mosses and vines; the surrounding trees pressed so
close that several trunks scraped the walls and dripping boughs arched lazily
across the rooftop. Beyond a small, crumbling storage shed, there was no
indication of a yard. The giant’s home had been largely reclaimed by the
forest. Even the column of stone which served as a chimney might well be
mistaken for an odd natural formation.

When he’d revived enough to set aside any immediate fear of
pneumonia, Simon began to worry about Oswald’s intentions. The fact that
their host was some manner of supernatural creature didn’t bother him so much
as his uncharacteristic new difficulty to place much faith in the
trustworthiness of isolated folk. Whether this was Niu’s voice whispering
in his mind or the nagging remembrance of his encounter with the wendigo, he
did not know, but his view of the world had changed. Still, Oswald seemed
friendly enough and sooner or later, Simon was sure, the giant’s incautious
tongue would reveal the truth of his intentions.

“Don’t see many folk out here,” Oswald said, draining his outsized
mug in one mouthful. “Hez sees to that. It’s nice to talk to
someone new for a change.”

Talk
at
turned out to be more accurate. Oswald didn’t
appear to concern himself with his guests’ origins. He asked no
questions. Instead, he collapsed comfortably onto his protesting bed and
began to relate a series of stories about life in the shadow of the Banshee’s
Teeth. Many of these tales – which Simon wearied of almost immediately,
preoccupied as he was with his own problems – involved hunting, trapping, and
fishing. Some were obvious exaggerations, such as a transparent
big
fish
story about landing a hydra. Others concerned his glum friend
Hezben, whose caustic reactions to trivial incidents he seemed to find
hilarious. The humor did not translate well, as all of them were in the
you-had-to-have-been-there-to-appreciate-them
vein. Even Niu’s eyes
glazed over quickly.

Oswald didn’t seem to notice his audience’s disinterest. He
regaled them with tale after tiresome tale, punctuating them with short, sharp
barks of laughter which at least provided Simon the cue to smile weakly at
auspicious moments. Only Sasha, now seated cross-legged on her mat,
listened with any attention. While her expression remained impassive, her dark
eyes fixed upon their host with something like hunger. Perhaps she
yearned for someone like this boisterously genial man in her strange, shadowy
half-life. Perhaps she was just wondering how giants might taste.

“And then, would you believe it, Hez’s boot slipped on the rock and
in he went –
splash
– came out spluttering and right pissed off, but -
would you believe it? - there was something flopping about in his pocket. No,
ladies, that’s not what I meant…” He winked hugely at Niu, despite the fact
that the handmaiden hadn’t so much as blinked in reaction. “And there it
was! The very critter we’d come to catch, the Blue Leech!”

His grin enormous, he spread his huge hands as though awaiting
applause. Simon, who’d never suffered through an epic so long-winded yet
with such little payoff in his life, smiled weakly and nodded.

“Amazing,” Niu said politely, misunderstanding that the story had
been intended as humor. “The coincidence is incredible.”

Sasha just stared.

Oswald’s splitting smile faded slightly. “Well, now,” he
chuckled ruefully. “I’m rambling
again
, it seems! Hez would
have something to say about that. Never was much for my stories,
Hez. Perhaps because we’ve spent so much time in each other’s company
that he’s in ‘em all. ‘Remember that time we got ourselves trapped in that pit
with that jaggermund, Hez?’ I’ll say, and he’ll give me that stare of his and
say ‘Of course I do, you fool, I was there.’ But I like to talk, even if
he don’t like to listen much. Bit of a character flaw, I s’pose.”

“You
do
like to talk,” Sasha agreed.

Twining thick fingers in his beard, the giant nodded ruefully.
“Well, perhaps I should hear you tell of some of
your
adventures,” he
said. “More fuel for the fire, you know. Be able to tell Hez a
thing or two he hasn’t heard before. Where are you headed?”

“Jynn,” Simon said without thinking. Niu smiled slightly.

“Jynn,” the giant mused, scratching his head thoughtfully.
“Long way east o’ here.
Long
way. Three kingdoms worth o’
travel, and if you’re avoiding the roads, like you three clearly are, well…” he
chuckled. “You’re in for quite the trek.”

“Three… kingdoms?” Simon repeated blankly. It occurred to him
that he’d never really studied a map before, and even if he had, he wouldn’t
have been able to read it or accurately interpret the scale. He’d assumed
that Jynn was simply east of Cannevish, but the distance involved hadn’t really
intruded itself upon his attention. No wonder Niu had looked so surprised
when he’d offered to escort her home. Once more, he was reminded of what
a peasant he truly was: until he’d begun this journey, he’d known next to
nothing about his own backyard, let alone those of his neighbors.

“Well, sure,” Oswald gestured vaguely. “You’ve got to pass
through Verivista first of all – small kingdom, large army, not
over-friendly. And that’s just the first of ‘em. Of course, Hez an’
me, we’ve been there… tough to cross the border, strong military presence on
both sides. The king of Verivista’s been hoping to invade Cannevish for
years, Vanyon only knows why, but the queen keeps him in check. But for a
pair of woodsmen like Hez an’ me, it’s not impossible to find ways through the
mountains, unguarded trails. We tracked a wounded Mountain Kelpie across
that border once… big old thing, still have the hooves somewhere. I’d put
a pair of arrows into it… dunno if you’ve seen a Mountain Kelpie, but they’re
scaly bastards, skin hard to pierce. Hez said – typical Hez, really -”

“Could you show us the way?” Simon interrupted.

“Suppose I could point you,” Oswald mused. “Won’t be taking
you though, if that’s what you’re asking. Hez has become a bit of a
homebody, don’t like to leave him long.”

“Perhaps you could draw us a map,” Niu suggested.

“Aye, that’s doable. Bear in mind that you can’t get through
the mountains directly from here. Impassable, really, unless you can
fly. But from the town of Sallinger…” The giant sat up straight;
the bed groaned in torment. “You can head into the hills from there, and
leaving the kingdom should be easy enough with a little perseverance.
Should be able to sketch you out a rough map of the area. If I can just
remember where the…” He paused. The wet vines had rustled apart like a
tent flap, and a lean figure was framed there against the undying storm.
Simon and Niu shrank together instinctively, but Sasha, seated directly in the
newcomer’s path, just looked up curiously.

Hezben, if that’s who the stranger was, was not human. His
black-eyed pallor suggested some undead creature, but if Simon was at first
inclined to place him on the vampiric family tree on a branch near Sasha’s, he
soon reconsidered. Hezben’s skin was silvery, ghostlike, very nearly
transparent. Simon could see the shadowy lines of his skeleton beneath,
knotted like wood, not bone. Lichen matted his head in place of hair,
though whether it grew there naturally or had claimed an opportunistic perch,
Simon could not say. His fingers, unnaturally long and thin, reminded Simon of
twigs.

“Interesting,” Sasha said, unmoved. “I’ve never seen a leshy
before.”

A leshy. Of course
, Simon
thought. His grandmother had told unforgettable tales of these mysterious
beings. This was the ultimate creature of the forest, mystically attuned
to every plant and tree in his leafy domain. If the legends were true,
the leshy could observe every corner of his realm through the eyes and ears of
the woodland beasts roaming within. These creatures were potentially
extremely malicious; cautionary tales from Simon’s childhood warned travelers
away from the deep woods, where beings such as the leshy murdered those who
trespassed uninvited.

Shrugging off a dripping raincoat, Hezben hung it up with great care
just inside the door, taking care to make certain that the sleeves hung at
equal length. Stooping, he carefully unlaced and removed his boots one by
one, setting them pointedly on the mat beside Sasha, at whom he glared most
viciously because she would not move.

“Visitors, Hez,” Oswald said cheerfully – though not without a faint
tremor of trepidation – as the vines rearranged themselves into a curtain.

“Indeed,” Hezban said coldly. “I have been watching them for
some time. Why have you brought a bruxa, a human, and a heartstopper into
our home?”

Simon peered at Niu in confusion. If Sasha was the bruxa, and
he the human, then what had Hezben called Niu?
A heartstopper
?
Was it then she who had caused all the miracles he’d attributed to
Vanyon? She’d who caused several men to drop dead, to say nothing of a…

…Dragon. Only I was present when the dragon died.

A cold swell of horror welled up in Simon’s gut. He felt four
pairs of eyes fix upon him. Niu pulled away from him as though he were
diseased.

“A… a what?” he said with mounting fear.

“Hmm,” Hezban grunted. “He doesn’t know. He was not born
as such, then.”

“I… I felt something back there, in the forest,” Niu breathed, eyes
wide. “And before, at the inn in Vanyon’s Parade… a tremor in my heart,
but I did not think…”

Simon’s mouth worked. He wasn’t sure what to think; he only
knew Niu was regarding him as though he were some virulent plague-bearer, and
he couldn’t bear the look in her eyes.

“I didn’t know, Hez.” Oswald was on his feet now, hands
spread. Simon sprang up too, his throat seizing. “I wouldn’t have
brought him here if…”

The leshy held up one fragile hand. Visible veins climbed the bones
of his fingers like creepers. “You’re agitating him. If you agitate him,
we may all die.”

“Not me,” Sasha chimed in. She hadn’t stirred, but she clearly
found Simon significantly more interesting now that he was potentially a
murderer.

“Die?” Simon croaked. “I wouldn’t… I would never…” A
staccato drumbeat hammered in his chest. He reached for Niu, who cringed
away. “I would never hurt… he’s wrong!”

“Calm yourself, lad!” the leshy snapped. “Calm yourself if you
have any regard for the safety of your woman friend. Oswald, some
tea. Something soothing.”

“Right away, Hez.” The giant bustled over to a cupboard and busied
himself digging through a selection of identical sackcloth bags, sniffing each
until he found the one he wanted. Hezben contemplated Simon
sternly. Simon shrank beneath that fierce gaze and sagged weakly back
onto his seat.