Chapter 3 Betty
BETTY
The hovel is too small.
It has always been small, just a single, round room of packed mud and wood, but now it is suffocating. It is filled with the scent of him. A heavy, animal musk, the sharp, coppery tang of old blood, and the sour, sickly-sweet smell of the infection I’m fighting.
My fire crackles, a small, brave sound in the thick silence. Its smoke stings my eyes, and I bite the inside of my cheek. It’s just smoke. It’s just warmth. But my lungs are tight, my skin prickling, waiting for the screams. Waiting for the roof to fall in.
My hand flutters to my hair, my fingers finding a strand, twisting it around and around until my scalp pulls.
This is madness.
He lies on the pallet of furs I dragged for him, his massive body taking up a quarter of my home. His breathing is a deep, slow bellows, the only sound other than the fire.
I dip my cloth into the steaming bowl of elmbark water. It’s the last of my antiseptic herbs.
My pulse is a frantic bird in my throat.
Every instinct, every lesson my father taught me, screams to run.
This is a monster. His uninjured hand, fisted in sleep, is bigger than my head.
His tusks are yellowed, thick as my wrist. He could wake, snap his jaws, and break me in two before I could even draw breath.
But he is so very still.
I lean over him, the cloth dripping. The star-shaped wound in his chest is a nightmare. It’s puckered, an angry, weeping red, the flesh around it a sickly gray. He is burning with fever; I can feel the heat radiating from his skin.
He is dying.
My guilt is a heavier stone than my fear. I saw the mark. Dark Elf steel. They did this. The same people who burned my world. The same civilized monsters who left my family as ash.
This Urog... he's just another one of their victims.
"This is going to hurt," I whisper. The words are for me, not for him.
I press the scalding, clean cloth to the wound.
His reaction is instantaneous.
His entire body seizes. A roar, a sound of pure, volcanic agony, erupts from his chest. It’s not a sound of this world. It is a blast of primal pain that shakes the very mud of my walls. The small pots on my shelf rattle.
I fall back, landing hard on the packed-earth floor. My heart stops. This is it. This is how I die.
He rears up, his massive head thrashing. His feral red eyes snap open, blind with the red haze I saw in the woods. His claws, those black, terrible things, flex and dig into my furs, tearing them to shreds.
But he doesn’t strike.
He doesn't lunge for me.
His roar isn't a threat. It's a plea. It’s the sound of a creature in a trap, chewing its own leg off to get free. The sound of an agony he cannot understand.
He collapses back onto the pallet, his breathing a wet, ragged pant. His red eyes find me, and there is no malice in them. Just… confusion. Pain.
The terror in my chest doesn't vanish, but something else rises to meet it. A stubborn, aching pity.
He's just an animal. A wounded, broken animal. And I am the only one here.
"I won't run," I whisper, voice shaking. "I ran once. I won't... I won't run again."
I stand up on trembling legs. I dip the cloth again. I move back to his side.
He watches me. He groans, a low, warning rumble in his chest, but he doesn't move.
"I am helping you," I say, my voice soft, the same one I used for my little brother when he'd fallen. "You're safe. Just... stay still."
I press the cloth to the wound. He shudders, a low hiss escaping his tusks, but he endures it.
He trusts me.
The thought is so wild, so dangerous, it almost makes me laugh. A Dark Elf killing machine trusts me.
That's when the banging starts.
It’s not a knock. It’s a fist, striking my flimsy wooden door hard enough to make the hinges shriek.
"Betty! Open this door! By the gods, Betty, open it!"
Joric.
The monster is on his feet in an instant.
The speed is terrifying. He was half-dead a second ago, and now he is a tall shadow of rage, looming between me and the door.
He’s not looking at me. His entire body is coiled, his red eyes fixed on the rattling wood.
A growl builds in his chest, a sound like an avalanche, deep and low and full of death.
He is protecting me.
"Betty!" Another voice. Elder Maeve. Her voice is sharp, panicked. "We know what you have in there! We saw the blood trail!"
"It's a monster!" Joric screams, his voice cracking. "It's an Urog! A killer! I’ve seen one before, at the siege of Stoneford. It tore men apart like dolls! It'll kill us all!"
The monster beside me sniffs the air. He takes a half-step in front of me, shielding me with his body.
"Betty, get out of there!" Joric yells, and then his shoulder hits the door. CRUNCH.
The wood splinters.
"It will murder you, Betty! Have you lost your mind?" He shoves again. The lock is failing.
The Urog roars.
It is not the sound of pain I heard before. This is a sound of pure, possessive, territorial fury. It is a promise of violence. The hovel shakes. The very air vibrates, a physical, crushing pressure.
A collective scream erupts from outside. The sound of people recoiling, scrambling back in the snow.
Then silence.
My heart is hammering so hard I can’t breathe. My hands are shaking. I look at the blood and herb-scum on my palms. I look at the splintered door. I look at the massive, tensed beast at my side, his red eyes glowing in the dim light, his body a living shield.
They are afraid of him. But they are the ones trying to break down my door. They are the ones who look like a mob.
My guilt, my constant, gnawing companion, suddenly calcifies. It hardens from a weight into a weapon.
I wipe my hands on my apron. The trembling in my fingers stops. My left hand, hanging by my side, slowly clenches into a fist, my nails biting into my palm.
I am done running.
I step past the Urog. His massive arm swings out, a bar to block me.
"It's all right," I say, my voice low. I place my small, bloody hand on his forearm. His muscles are like stone beneath his hide. "Stay."
His red eyes flicker from the door to my face. The avalanche in his chest quiets to a low, warning rumble. He lets me pass.
I walk to the splintered door and open it just enough to block the threshold with my body.
The cold air hits me. Elder Maeve stands there, her face as pale as the snow, her eyes wide with terror. Joric is beside her, his face a twisted mask of panicked rage, his hand on the axe at his belt. A dozen other villagers huddle behind them, armed with pitchforks and clubs.
"Get away from the door, Betty," Joric snarls, his eyes darting past me to the Urog's shadow in the dark.
"No."
My voice is quiet, but it cuts through the winter air.
"Betty, child," Maeve pleads, her voice trembling. "That is a thing of the Dark Elves. It is a weapon. It doesn't feel. It doesn't think. It only kills."
"He is hurt," I say, my fist still clenched at my side. "I am helping him."
"Helping it?" Joric sputters, his face turning an ugly shade of red. "It will rip your throat out the second you turn your back! It will slaughter this entire village for food!"
"If he wanted to kill me," I say, my voice flat, my gaze unwavering, "I'd be dead. He had every chance. He's a wounded creature, and I will not turn him out to die."
I look from Joric's rage to Maeve's terror, and I see no help. Only fear. The same fear that let my family burn.
"He stays."
The finality of it hangs in the air. Joric stares at me, his chest heaving. The panic in his eyes fades, replaced by a cold, sharp, and splintered thing.
"You stupid girl," he hisses, his voice low and venomous. "This is what you did. Hiding that slave... it wasn't enough? You have to bring another monster here to finish the job? To burn the rest of us down, just like you did to your own family?"
The words are like blades of ice sliding straight into my heart, twisting. The air is stolen from my lungs. My hand goes to my hair, pulling, twisting, but it can't stop the sudden, sick vertigo. He's right. He's right. He's right.
He sees the impact. He sees he's won the wound, if not the argument.
"You're choosing it over us, Betty," he says, his voice flat with disgust as he takes a step back. "You're choosing a monster over your own people. Again."
He turns, his shoulders stiff.
"You'll regret this."