Chapter Five:
Hunt
We rode at a breakneck speed across the Permafrost with a silver, glowing line across the ground as our trail. Beyond it, more lines connected and splayed across the tundra, but the silver line was the one that mattered. The Stag.
Each being had their own power and the Stag was no different. Now that I'd absorbed the power of the young lordling the traces of power all around me were clearer than ever. It floated in the air like mist and gathered around every creature great and small like clouds in every color imaginable. It made the chilly silence of the Permafrost explode into life in ways that never was possible before.
Racing through the cold, crisp air under the pale yellow sun was invigorating after being inside the palace so long. Though the trees surrounding me were skeleton and frost covered the dead grass and crumpled leaves there was life everywhere and the horses' pounding hooves could've been the beating of an ancient heart.
Joy flew through me through my connection with Panic; the young stallion was relishing his race through the forest. To run, to be wild, to be free, was all he wanted.
But we weren't free yet. Not really.
The horse heard my doubt but shook off the thought. Thundering across the tundra, for him, was enough. Of course, having an animal as an escape accomplice wasn't the most ideal situation. I pushed down the doubt. I didn't need any more to fill my heart, I'd already gorged on it. If I thought about it too hard, I would think of the courtroom and the young lordling and the power buzzing at my fingertips. I couldn't have that. Escaping these creatures meant I couldn't let my guard down, couldn't doubt anything for a moment.
When we stopped for the day we were still deep in the Permafrost; the icy air turning the water in our breath to frost before our eyes. The coldness filled me up as I breathed in and it burned deep in my chest like a flickering fire.
I climbed down from Panic. He looked around, pawing at the icy ground for something to graze and settled for the patches of dry, rough weeds that dotted the earth. I dropped the rope, somehow knowing that he wouldn't leave me if I did. I noticed from the corner of my eye that Soren had done the same with Terror, as did Rekke and Helka with their horses. I cast a suspicious glance at Elvira's menacing snow cat, thankful to see that at least it was tied against a tree. It was a predator after all. It may not eat Elvira or us through their bond but there was nothing that would keep it from eating the horses.
A glove hand came uninvited on my shoulder and I turned to knock it off, all of the ease I gained during the ride draining out of me. "Did you have a nice ride?" Soren asked.
"I don't think you care to hear my genuine answer."
He raised an eyebrow. "So you didn't like it?"
I chewed my lip. "I was liking it a lot more when you weren't talking to me."
A growl rumbled in Soren's throat as he frowned but before he could say something, Elvira spoke up. "This sound like a good place to camp for the night?"
Soren waved his hand indifferently. "It'll do." He realigned his body to address her, but his eyes were still burning into my forehead. I made it a point to turn my back to him. "We should also take turns keeping watch."
"You don't trust us?" Helka purred.
"No," Soren said flatly.
Rather than be offended, Elvira laughed. The hair rose on the back of my neck; her laugh sounded like perfect, tinkling bells but there was an air of falseness to it even a child could pick up. She flicked her finger at me. "You, slave girl, go hunt. You go with her, Rekke."
I bristled, hand touching the butt of my axe, my mouth opened with a stinging retort—How dare she order me around, I wasn't her slave—but Soren got to it first. "Don't call her that," he snapped. "You've no claim to." His unspoken words lingered in the air. I was his slave, not hers, I was his property, and if he had his way, it would be different before long.
I leveled my gaze at Elvira. "I don't take orders from you." Elvira could rip me to shreds easily enough if she wanted to, but I was determined not to let her frighten me. "What do you want me to do, Soren?" Anger burned as the words left my mouth. But I caught Soren's calm, lilac eyes and they told me that it wasn't worth the battle.
"Go hunting, Janneke."
I gave a brisk nod and motioned to Rekke. The young girl's eyes were dull and she glowered at her older relatives before grudgingly trudging over to her horse. My own bow was already slung over my back and everyone else wore their weapons, but Rekke's bow was attached to her saddlebags with complicated straps. It was stupid and sloppy and would probably get her killed but I couldn't find it in me to care.
She joined my side and I opened my senses to the other creatures in the sparse woods. Then I started to track.
I'd always been good at it, tracking. As my father watching his daughter become his son, it was one of the few things he took pride in. We'd hold competitions in the village were during the dead of night we would sneak through the forests to try to find and capture one another. People would bet on which hunter they thought would get the most "kills" and who would survive the longest without being seen. To the fury of the other men, I was always the winner. Becoming invisible, adapting so that I was one with the environment, was always my strong suit.
And so I walked lightly through the underbrush, my steps barely making a sound. I could sense Rekke's presence behind me. She didn't speak, but I could feel the eagerness to kill coming off her like waves. Hopefully a rabbit would satisfy her. I'd no doubt I'd kill a few goblins before this was over, but I'd rather not start soon. I would never be what Soren wanted me to and I knew the more I killed, the closer I came to it.
The tips of my fingers tingled as I got close to a source of power. It was small, nothing like the power of a predator, but it still prickled at my fingertips and flowed through my body like ice water, bringing it to life. Ever since the power of the lordling absorbed into my skin, the goblin-like senses became sharper. I reached for the nail in my bracer's pocket; relieved when I didn't feel the hint of a burn. I was safe. I was just in a hunter's mindset, was all. My make-up wasn't changing.
My ears sensed the rabbit before my eyes did; and my arrow went through its eye before it could run. I picked it up, pulling the arrow out of it and strung the dead animal across my belt. One down, countless more to go. I knew how much goblins could eat.
A deer would've been better but I'd have more luck finding a unicorn than a deer able to graze in these scrublands. The bare, skeleton trees and the scraggily grass barely were considered life as it were.
Rekke didn't hide her thrill at my skills. "Wow," she said. "You're amazing at that."
I turned to look at the small she-goblin, surprised at the compliment. It'd been so easily given and wasn't shrouded in the double-meanings behind most of the words her kind spoke. She really was young, then. An older goblin would be more guarded and definitely less likely to give me, a lowly slave, a compliment. What was she doing out here on the Hunt, the she-goblin barely had enough power to participate. I reached out with my senses and could vaguely grasp her power, shrouding her like purple mist, but it was brittle and easy to break. Perhaps Elvira brought her along to kill her.
The thought covered me like a thick, dark cloud. It wasn't unknown for goblins to kill their competitors—it was practically encouraged. Soren killed his father to get his seat, as far as I knew his father killed his father, the line went on and on. But the thought of this young, almost harmless girl dead because of the threat she may one day post pressed heavy against my chest. But she was goblin. She was a monster whose kind laughed at the pain of mine. Convincing myself she was evil would've been easier if she hadn't been looking at me with those wide eyes.
"It's an easy shot," I said, wiping off the blood from my arrow, trying not to think too hard. "You want to try the next one?"
She nodded eagerly, but when the next rabbit appeared, her aim sent the arrow flying into the tree above. I raised my eyebrows as the rabbit took off, then quickly swung my axe from where it was sheathed and threw it. It turned three times in the air before sinking itself deep into the rabbit's hide. My heart raced at the swiftness of it and the exhilaration coursing through my veins.
Rekke kicked the ground, embarrassed. "I'm...not a particularly good shot. I can throw knives, but they're harder to kill animals with. Besides, my throwing knives are poison, so we couldn't eat anything they killed."
That was something to tell Soren. Poisoned throwing knives. I knew for a fact Lydian poisoned his great-spear. I also knew that dying of Goblin-made poison was not a good way to go.
I yanked my axe out of the rabbit and slung it onto my belt while it still dripped blood. The hot fluids covered the leathers on my thigh, but it didn't bother me.
Rekke stood here, her head still bowed, looking so pitiful my heart gave a squeeze.
"Perhaps I can teach you to be a better shot, if you'll have that." The words were out of my mouth before I thought them through. She looked so human, my aching heart had to do something.
She tensed, trying to judge if the offer was accepting weakness or even an insult. When she made her decision, she said, "That would be wonderful. But don't tell Elvira and Helka please, they think I'm useless enough as it is."
"Of course," I said, starting the trek back to the camp. The young goblin chattered the whole way but the words went through one ear and out the other. From the bounce in her step and the way her dark eyes lit up, pleased that she had a friend in me. But she was a goblin. She was not my friend. I shouldn't be feeling anything but hatred for this creature. But the more I tried to hate the girl the more she grew on me.
My chest ached where my breast should've been. Remember what they are. They aren't your friends or allies. They're coldblooded killers who want to either turn you into one of their own or kill you.
"They can't think you completely useless," I interrupted, trying to keep my tone light. "They brought you along for the hunt, after all."
Rekke sniffed. "That's because I'm Elvira's heir. She wants to get rid of the competition." She fell in beside me and we walked in silence for a while.
"Elvira could just kill you herself or arrange a servant to do it in her territory if she wants you dead."
Rekke shook her head. "My father—her brother—preformed a bind curse on her a while back. He was older than her so he was the lord, but she killed him for his rank. Before he died he made sure she couldn't kill me by her own hand or word. So even though she ruled the manor she couldn't order or arrange my death. I think this is the closest thing she can get to it." She sighed. "I miss my dad. He was so nice. He taught me everything. We used to play games in the courtyard when he wasn't busy."
"My father played games with me too," I whispered. The dull ache returned to my chest. I hadn't talked about my father in so long. Much less to someone that wasn't human.
"What type?" she asked.
I had to think about it. "Well, when I was really little he would take a piece of candy or a coin and hid it in a row of shoes. I had six sisters so there were a bunch. I had to guess which shoe had the candy and if I was correct I got to keep it. When I was older, I mainly did hunting games and trained with him."
She laughed. "That's a weird game, but I like it. We had this pond and he would challenge me to catch more frogs then him. Elvira had the pond filled after she killed him. I suppose she's ordered the guards to empty my room too, she obviously isn't going to expect me to come back from this."
The hurt in the young girl's voice was clear. Perhaps whatever you were, you loved your family in some way. Perhaps knowing you were being taken to your likely death was just as painful as knowing you were being taken a slave. I shook myself. Attempting to humanize them would only make this worse. I had to be strong enough to feel no remorse, grow no bonds, even if part of me ached to reach out to the young she-goblin and touch her shoulder.
I was almost relieved to meet Soren and the others back at camp, throwing the two rabbit carcasses in front of them. Soren raised his eyebrows. "That's it?"
"There's not much here. It's a dead land, if you remember."
He snorted. "I remember well."
Elvira turned to Rekke. "You killed one as well, didn't you?"
"Um," she trailed off. "I..." Her face twisted in pain, the light that glowed in her eyes during our conversation spluttering out.
"Obviously not," Helka hissed, glaring at the girl. "Soren's whore can do better than you."
Blood pounded in my ears. I am not a whore. "Don't ever call me that," I hissed. From behind me, a growl rumbled low in Soren's throat.
"Sorry." She grinned, showing her sharp teeth. "Lydian's whore then."
"Helka," I warned, anger burning through my limbs. Like Elvira, I was determined Helka knew I didn't fear her and that she couldn't push me around. But if she went any further, I was about to explode. The thought that she knew what that brute did to me boiled my blood.
"What, he did fuck you half to death, didn't he? I'm surprised you're still able to walk, let alone stand! And of course, he made lovely work of your breasts, though he must've liked one a bit too much, it seems." Her voice grew vicious.
Soren's growl turned into a snarl. Rape was a common use of dominance in goblin culture, but those who ended up on the receiving end were usually shamed for life.
I stepped forward. "He liked it until he got a good dose of iron poisoning in his calf and shoulder, now." Despite the bravado I the world was turning beneath my feet. Don't remember, don't remember. Images of Lydian, his claws latched deep inside of me, flashed through my mind.
Why won't you listen? Why won't you listen? You stupid bitch, why won't you listen! He'd scream the words over and over until spittle ran down his chin and dripped on my face. What's the matter with you? Don't you see it! Don't you see I'm trying to save you! Over and over as he forced his way inside me, raving like a lunatic.
"I'm just sore that we have to have a used up slut slowing us down." Helka stepped forward to meet me and bent to whisper in my ear. "And I know what you did to Aleksey."
I didn't think. Redness overtook my vision and my hand whipped across Helka's face, the crack of the slap echoing off the bare trees. Blood trickled down her cheek from where my nails dug into her skin. Time stopped and the only thing moving where the branches of skeleton trees blowing in the wind. Then Helka lunged at me. I dodged the blow and then another, a snarl bubbling at my lips. Her axe moved so quickly through the air in a blur before every strike and I definitely didn't have time to counter attack. But I nimbly dodged every blow until I grabbed the axe's handle as she swung down, kicking her in the side of her thigh. She stumbled and I wrenched the axe away from her, gripping it firmly in my hands. The blade was heavier than I was used to and it gleamed wickedly in the setting sun.
But she wasn't done. She pulled her lips back in a snarl, her teeth lengthened, her brow furrowed, her nose and ears grew long, and the nails of her fingers turned to talons. "You little bitch!"
I panted, already worn out by the brief struggle. It took only one look in Helka's eyes to know that she would kill me if I didn't defend myself. And I couldn't allow her to kill me. To take my power, however small it was. The power was mine. And if she thought she could take it she was wrong. Dead wrong. I'd rip her. I'd shove her corpse in the rivers of the Crossing so she'd never rest in Valhalla. I'd destroy her until there was nothing left to destroy.
I lunged at Helka with, the fury in my body becoming my strength, using her axe to block her talons as she struck out for my face and heart. I danced with her; a dance I'd done many a time with Soren in the training fields. But no sparring session could compare to the heat pulsing through my veins, the power that coursed through me, the pure delight coursing through me when I ripped through her. The battle frenzy filled my mind and my vision was black with shades of red. She would pay for those comments, for triggering those memories, for things she had no way of understanding.
It took me a long time to realize that the body I was hacking into again and again was no longer living. It took me even longer still to absorb the burst of power that came from the dead goblin. I cried out, falling to my knees. Helka had more power than the lordling I killed, so much more, and it hurt coming in. My body fought to reject it like a foreign virus, but it found its way through my pores anyway, burning the whole way through. I scratched at my arms, trying to wipe it away, get the pain away, but the thick layer of dark blue power sunk in.
When it was over, I lay panting, unsure of what went on. My mind; before crazed and scattered by the battle frenzy was slowly picking up the details of what had happened.
Helka. Helka insulted me. I slapped her. She attacked me. I killed her.
"It's really happening," Elvira said, almost to herself.
"Of course it is," Soren said. "I told you it would."
Bursts of panic erupted in my chest at his word. But no, I couldn't cry or scream as my chest burned like it would split into two. I had to take it, I couldn't let them see the weakness.
It was really happening. It was really happening. I was a killer. A monster just like the one I'd slayed. The dead eyes of the she-goblin stared up at me as I forced myself to feel disgust—not for the weakened creature at my feet, but for myself—I forced the sadness onto me, forced the anger, forced the guilt. I found if I couldn't force it, it wouldn't come.
Elvira looked down at Helka's body, then at me, shrugging. "Well, perhaps she wasn't as useful as she appeared to be."
And that was all she said about her ally's murder.
Conversation broke out again as Soren suggested we move a little farther to make camp and I numbly followed as we left the dead body of the goblin behind.
Panic trailed at my feet, feeling everything I felt, interpreting it the way only he could. He feared me, like he feared any predator. I tried to stroke his flank, but he moved aside every time. "I won't hurt you," I whispered to him. "Please, I won't. I promise." Maybe the bond could make him hear the sincerity in my voice.
When we made camp finally, I collapsed to my knees on my bedroll. It was so cold. When I'd been fighting Helka, when the only thoughts I had were of killing and defending my power and the only feelings I had were anger and of bloodlust, I hadn't noticed the frost on my arms. Now with the guilt that wracked my body, I shivered violently. It blasted me and I clutched my knees to my chest. Soren looked over to me from where he sat, a hunk of the rabbit clutched in his hands. The coppery smell of raw meat hit my nose and a wave of nausea fell over me, I turned away. They're monsters and I'm becoming one of them.
The ground crunched beneath his feet as he came beside me, sitting on his own bedroll. I was shivering violently now, wishing for a blanket.
"You should stop fighting it," he said, softly. "Stop fighting the transformation. It will only make things harder for you." He brushed his thumb against my cheek and wiped away tears I hadn't known I was crying.
"Stop it," I hissed. "Stop touching me."
"I'm just trying to get you to trust me," he said, voice still uncharacteristically soft. "That's all. Isn't that how humans form bonds of trust?"
On any other day I would've laughed. Of course. Of course he was trying to do something human but in his utter alienness he failed. Maybe I would've even admired him for it. But not today.
"I will never trust you. Never. And I'm not a fool."
A strange expression played on his face. I couldn't place it; I'd never seen it before. But his eyebrows crumpled, his lips turned down in what was almost a scowl but wasn't. It was sadder. "I'm not a fool either," he said.
"Oh?" I asked.
"I know what you're planning. You know I know. I won't let you commit suicide."
"Suicide isn't what I'm planning," I spat. "So you obviously don't know."
He chuckled dryly. "Do you really think you could run away, back to the humans and live completely unaffected? With all the bonds tied to you? You'd either die in the attempt or be killed by humans. You've the smell of the Permafrost on you now that you can absorb power. One good hunt or fight would be all it took for your position to light up like a fire. And perhaps I'm wrong; but I doubt that you'd find fulfillment as a simple housewife. You need the hunt as much as it needs you."
I had nothing to say to that, only buried myself deeper in my arms. If the power I'd absorbed could alert Permafrost creatures to my presence in the human world then this would be trickier than I thought. Soren was right about one thing: I would never be a housewife.
"Leave me alone." My voice broke.
The way he sighed made it sound like he truly hated to see me this way, but I didn't buy it. He lay down on the bedroll beside me and I closed my eyes. He was so close I could feel the heat coming off him. It only made me shiver harder as my body greedily tried to suck in the warmth. He jerked my bedroll so it was closer to him, then positioned me slightly so that I was barely touching him. Then he reached over and draped a bearskin cloak over me.
I should've protested but my body was crying out in relief that it was finally warm. The tremors were chased away, leaving me utterly exhausted. Soren whispered, his breath tickling my ear, "I won't ever let you hurt yourself."
My eyelids were heavy and my body ached with the pain of the day. "You shouldn't have brought me here, then," I said softly.
He said nothing, just placed a hand on my shoulder, his thumb moving across the bare skin. For once, I didn't push it off. I didn't have the strength and despite everything, something about the movement was calming. I fought to stay awake, even as I heard Elvira say she would take the first watch.
"Sleep, Janneke," Soren said. "It's going to be okay."
No it's not. But my eyelids closed anyway and I drifted off into a fitful sleep.
AN:
Questions:
Do you think Soren is genuinely nice or is he trying to trick Janneke?
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