This is the sixteenth chapter of the Fang & Bone serial; click here to visit the previous installment of Fang of Triseria. Please share your thoughts on the story in the comments, or visit the project hub for more information.
“Godsdamned ridiculous, this,” Fang muttered as he adjusted the loops of chains across his chest from over his shoulder. He took a lock and clipped the two manacled ends to a section of the chain loop, the lock’s click securing the iron bundle to his massive body.
“The chains are your idea, friend.” Erryl picked at his teeth. “I thought it worthwhile.”
“Not the chains. The kid.”
Erryl snorted amusingly. “You let her trick you. We’re bound to her task, and we hadn’t fully set the terms.”
Fang straightened up and plucked his sword from the wall where it rested. He parted the cloak slightly away from his back, wide enough to lift the enormous blade and slot it into the reinforced leather loops on the back of his vest to hold it in place. Erryl watched an arm as thick as a tree trunk lift the blade overhead as though it weighed nothing. Erryl knew, though, that the blade weighed a great deal. He’d nearly thrown his back out trying to lift it once as the two sat drinking while camped one night.
“Maybe if you hadn’t been hungover.” The Wolf slid the massive blade into place to punctuate his point. The sound of the crossbar hit the leather with a thunk.
“It is done in any case, no way to avoid her tagging along now.”
“We can leave now. We find her brother – corpse or person – and bring what we find back. We honor the deal. That is as far as we go.”
“Perhaps you’re right. Surely someone is watching over the child and won’t let her follow. Surely this strange town is not that ignorant to let a child wander.” Erryl tapped his foot on the dirty floorboards at the stable entrance. “Though given the brother…”
“Stop. Erryl. He signed on and did his duty. Not a wandering child. You were a year older when you killed your first man. Did you not?”
Erryl glanced over his shoulder as Fang approached. He locked eyes with the tremendous werewolf as he crossed into the morning air to the outside of the stable. The Wolf turned back to look at him.
“I don’t see why my history has any bearing on this situation,” Erryl paused, “Wolf.”
Fang shook his head. “Boys become men early these days. We’re both examples. The brother, Garen. Another man chosen.”
“Yes, but what of the brood? This whole strange town?”
“No conspiracy to the brother’s fate. Its the way of the world. Blame the gods.”
Fang locked eyes with Erryl, and Erryl noticed the wolf’s brows were furrowed and seemingly sad. His companion’s eyes were still a shining yellow and intimidating. But there was also an apparent sadness. The eyes of a survivor.
They were eyes Erryl knew he himself possessed. Eyes that no doubt were common among most people of Aurin. Dying, corrupt, and deadly Aurin.
Erryl rubbed some sleep from his eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped forward. He walked up to the werewolf, who had resumed his ineffectively obscuring hunch, and looked him in his wolfen face.
“I’ll need to stop by the Mayor’s place again. Surely recovering a body would be worth some coin – especially if he is a ‘man of the people.’”
Fang nodded and began to step toward the other side of the inn. “Make it quick. We need to get out of town before she returns. I’ll lie low at the north path.”
Erryl began to follow. He expected this to be a wild goose chase.
What he did not expect was a small figure, draped in red, to run up and stab Fang in the thigh.
…
She had heard them conspiring to leave with her coin, break their contract, and leave her to the village – to abandon her.
To abandon Garen.
Before she had thought it through, she found herself rushing toward the giant beast, knife drawn back with both hands, and thrusting it forward, burying the point as deep into the thick thigh that kept him standing. She had hoped he would topple, but Corea was not strong, and she held the knife in the Wolf’s thigh meat, glancing up at him.
She watched his head turn and ghastly yellow eyes narrow on her, as though he had been bitten by a bug or louse. He simply twisted his body, and his natural strength ripped the handle of the knife from her grip, the blade still buried into his leg. As she fell to her knees, off balance from losing her handhold, he took several steps back, seemingly, perfectly calm.
She glanced up from the mud and grass, and now the scarecrow, the man named Erryl, had swept into the space between them, his blade drawn and pointed directly at her face. His own face seemed dark and furious. He didn’t move a muscle as Corea stumbled backward from him, scooting away as her hands pulled her along the moist earth.
Neither of the mercenaries moved, still, as she scrambled to her feet. She would be the first to speak.
“You were going to leave me here. You were going to steal my coin! I heard you!”
Erryl flicked his rapier upward. “How long were you listening?” he asked.
“Just now! I just heard you.”
Erryl shook his head and turned to look back at Fang, who stood silently, staring at her. Erryl glanced down at the knife, still lodged in the Wolf’s leg. The stillness of the Wolf terrified Corea. She could hear his deep breathing.
Erryl looked back at Corea. He looked mad at her. He pointed the blade at her again, and she flinched. He swished the blade around a bit before tucking it away.
“If I had pulled that… If I heard something I did not like and came out swinging, as you did, I’d have died thirty times over by now. Idiot.”
He pinched his brow, just above his nose. “We were not going to steal your coin. We were going to honor the contract; we just weren’t going to take you along. You’ve certainly made the case for us now.”
The man trudged over to the Wolf, who continued to stand motionless. Corea could see his yellow eyes fixed on her. The eyes did not shift, nor did he wince, even as Erryl ripped the blade from Wolf’s thigh.
The knife landed with a wet thump in the grass at her feet. She glanced down at it, the coating of blood suddenly made her a little nauseous. She began to crouch to pick it up, but her eyes met the Wolf’s again, and she stood back up.
Erryl began to tend to the wound.
I heard them, she thought, didn’t I?
…
Erryl glanced at the wound. Fang’s stillness was not so much shock but a calculated choice not to immediately lash out at the child. Erryl had seen this reaction twice before. It made his fingers tremble.
Fang’s affliction, what else could it be called, was like traveling with a keg of spark powder. Erryl had treated enough accidental spark burns to know careful handling was paramount.
“My friend, I need to touch the wound to make sure I do not need to stitch it. May I?”
Fang’s gaze suddenly jerked from the child and down to Erryl. His eyes were wide, and Erryl felt agitation radiating from them, held back by the beastman’s not-informidable willpower. Care was very much needed.
Fang huffed for a moment and let out a low “Yes.”
Erryl tore at the breeches a bit to get a clearer look at the wound. It was hard to tell beneath the dense and coarse fur, but Fang’s legs were thick, and his skin was tough. After a couple of moments of delicate prodding, he noticed the wound wasn’t incredibly deep. He considered the knife and what he remembered as he ripped it away from his companion’s leg in a blind rush. There wasn’t that much blood.
“Not deep, I can run up a simple poultice, and we can patch your trousers, and you’ll be good.”
Erryl, still crouched, pulled his healer’s bag from his shoulder and set it on the ground. He looked back toward the girl.
“I need clean water and some fabric to patch the trousers you ruined. Go.”
Corea nodded, taking a couple of steps back, her eyes darting between the knife and Fang. She paused for a moment and then scampered off.
As she was out of earshot, Erryl glanced up at Fang. “Please don’t eat the child. We don’t need to live a fairy tale story.”
Fang sighed and released some tension from his body. “There’s been enough death already.” He sighed.
Erryl was busy sorting through pockets and small boxes of herbs and medicines, but paused for a moment.
“Her brother?”
Fang shook his head. “Someone else – close to her. A smell on the cloak, on the girl. I smell death.”
Erryl clipped a stem of stinging nettle and milked an acrid fluid into a bowl, and then pulverized mint leaves into the mixture.
“I suppose you would know better than I, friend,” Erryl said as he continued to pulverize the mix.
…
It was a few minutes before Corea returned, clutching a shirt. She approached the pair, keeping her distance while holding the shirt out to them. She held a bucket of water at her side.
Fang sat on a nearby stump, seemingly studying her as Erryl approached and took the shirt and bucket from her. He nodded toward the knife.
“Pick it up.”
She dutifully made her way over to it and plucked it from muddy grass. Erryl already began tearing at the shirt, shaping a rough patch.
“It was Garen’s,” she said, meekly.
Erryl said nothing. Corea watched as he handed the shirt to Fang, who began to take in the scent. He paused for a moment and glanced back at her. His expression has softened, but it did not do much to make him look any friendlier. He seemed curious, though, by Corea’s measure. She wiped at the knife with the end of her cloak and tucked it into her belt.
She was unsure of what to say or do, and just watched. By all rights, they had all the more reason to leave without her now.
She watched Erryl wash the wound with a mixture of water and some liquid from a flask he carried, and then apply some muck she didn’t recognize. Apparently, the man was a healer of some kind. There hadn’t been a healer in New Gordhurst since she was five or six. She watched him work.
“Stinging nettle, mint, antlion blood, and mud.”
She had been watching his hands, and she hadn’t noticed him looking back at her.
“Stinging nettle helps the flesh swell. Mint soothes the wound. Antlion blood is a common treatment for healing, as its blood can wash away sepsis. Mud binds them together.”
“Where did you learn that?” she asked.
“I didn’t say you could talk. Watch. Learn. You’re going to need to carry your own weight.”
So they were going to leave her behind? It was fair. She had been stupid.
Fang tucked Garen’s old shirt into his own satchel and sat calmly as Erryl began to sew up the trousers. The Wolf’s massive elbows rested on his legs as his hands hung limp. He stared into the distance, waiting for the task to be done.
Erryl sewed with practice hands, and Corea recognized the specific stitching. She had learned them from her grandmother before she had gotten sick. Before she died. She felt tears welling up and quickly tugged on her ear as hard as she could from beneath her hood. She felt like she could have ripped it off had she tugged just a bit harder. The pain replaced the sadness.
She glanced back at the two roadmen. Fang was staring at her. His eyes narrowed to inhuman yellow slits. She stared back at the Wolf. She could not guess what he felt, beyond anger, she supposed.
Erryl spoke again as he got up from the long crouch and began to stretch his legs. “The price has gone up. You’ll pay it upon our return to town.”
Corea shrank a bit. So they were honoring their word and doing the task, but she would need to stay behind. There was no case she could plead for them to take her along.
“If we’re to escort you, the price has got to go up,” he added.
Click here to visit the project hub for Fang of Triseria; click here to read the next installment of Fang & Bone.
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[…] here to visit the project hub for Fang of Triseria; click here to read the next installment of Fang & […]
Knife to the leg? The price had damned well BETTER go up!
Aah, minimal sexualisation, so I know it’s a fictional dramatisation!
Working with literature with that constraint helps hone the direction.