17. A Smidge of History
Chapter 17
A Smidge of History
“ I t’s gonna fit… it’s gonna fit… It’s gonna fucking fit!” my brother continued to shout out in panic as the Balaur’s two heads tucked in close so as they made it through the cave. However just as we all braced ourselves for running… luckily for us, it only made it so far. This was because its body was just that little bit too big for the opening and abruptly came to a stop.
This left its heads snapping away angrily at us before it eventually give up. Knowing it had lost its one chance, it slung back, making Orth smirk in victory and say casually,
“See, I told you it wouldn’t fit.”
I scoffed a laugh, patted him on the shoulder and said,
“Sure, brother, calm as a fucking cucumber.”
Marcus’s face said everything, but a slight shake of my head was all it took for him to hold his tongue. Or at least I thought it was, as the second my brother passed him, he muttered,
“Pussy.”
“Yeah, well pussy will be a thing of the past when I toss your arse over the edge if you call me that again,” Orthrus threatened as he made his way toward me, following me further into the cave. After seeing all the different openings against the canyon wall, I had half expected to walk inside and find it opening up into some giant cave network. A large, cavernous space filled with a honeycomb of different walkways.
However, what I saw was nothing but a large dark tunnel that looked as if it could have gone on for miles.
“Well at least your boots survived,” my brother said, slapping me on the back with a chuckle, making me look down at the missing front part of my shirt. Which, after I tore the rest of my tee away and dropped the remains of it on the floor, left me in just my ripped jacket.
“Yeah, laugh it up, brother, as let’s just see out of the two of us who ends up bitching the most by the end of this journey… because I never skip leg day,” I replied, adding this part in a knowing tone, making the cave echo with his booming laughter before he threw back,
“Fuck off! Since Red, I don’t even remember the last time you stepped foot in our gym.” To which I grinned and turned to face him, then while walking backward, I held out my arms as I said,
“And why would I when I am getting my workout in a far more gratifying way?” I told him with a wink and a smug grin. One that faded the moment reality crept back to the surface. As here I was, after nearly being eaten by some giant serpent, dragon creature, in some fucked up realm in hell I was unfamiliar with. And why? All so I could try and find the answers I needed in order to locate my girl and defeat the enemy that wanted to kidnap her. So yeah, not much to be smug about.
“Want to tell us about the person on the mountain?” I said, needing to change the subject and take my mind off the memory of Red’s hot body writhing beneath my own and how I had lost her.
Marcus, at this point, had taken the lead as he was the only one with a light source. My eyesight might have been good in the dark, but it wasn’t that fucking good.
And the last fucking thing I needed right now was to walk right off some other cliff that I couldn’t see and become a HellBeast pancake. Which was why his staff had once more come out to play. The crystal at the end immitted a blue flame, casting an ominous glow to reflect off the black rock walls.
“Oh, you mean the Carpathian Gandalf?”
“The what now?” Orth asked with a confused look evident on his face.
“You know, grey beard, big stick… likes to say, you shall not pass at big ass demons… Seriously, none of this ringing a bell?” Marcus queried when he saw my brother shaking his head looking baffled. However, I knew my brother well enough to spot his bullshit a mile off, so wasn’t surprised when he winked at me, making me roll my eyes.
“Anyway, the dude looked like some wizard, which makes sense seeing as we just failed at making a Balaur kebab as they are usually owned and controlled by one master… A Solomonar,” Marcus went on to say, and already I could feel the tick in my hard jaw as I ground my teeth.
“Okay, so I definitely don’t remember one of them in Lord of the Rings,” Orth remarked, making Marcus scowl at him, knowing now that he had been yanking his chain.
“A Solomonar is a sorcerer, often described as a master of the mountains, the weather, and creatures such as Balaurs. Something they manage with the use of certain power stones and old magic texts usually passed down from the Dacian High Priests known as Kapnobatai,” Marcus said, adding some context to who and what this Solomonar was.
“Gorgon balls, how do you remember all this shit?” my brother asked with a shake of his head.
“I would be a pretty shitty oracle if I didn’t,” Marcus pointed out, reminding me yet again of who my friend really was and how much of his true self he had kept from me all these years. But I didn’t say this, instead asking,
“And these sorcerers, are they usually known to attack travelers entering the realm?”
“That, I don’t know, as my dealings with them have only ever been in the mortal world, and I have known both good and evil. Although I would say that trying to kill us without even knowing who we are is a pretty good indication that you’re an arsehole on the evil end of the spectrum,” Marcus replied and well, I couldn’t argue with that.
“Good to know we can make friends wherever we go,” Orth commented dryly as we continued to make our way deeper through the cave.
In fact, after learning this from Marcus I didn’t know how far we traveled before the scenery changed but it seemed like a few hours at least. Eventually, the cave opened up to reveal what I had been expecting to find all this time.
A cavernousness chasm dominated the space after we had passed through the end of the tunnel, showing us where all of the other caves on the cliffside all led to. Wooden bridges crossing over the large gorge in the center of the mountain, all held suspended from chains above hanging down like metal vines in some stone jungle. Some of which looked long past needing replacing. Whereas some were missing completely, with only the redundant chains to indicate where a bridge once was.
“Sucks to find yourself on that side,” Orth said, referring to the unlucky bastards that managed to escape the Balaur only to find it pointless as there was no way across. And speaking of making it further, I didn’t exactly like our own chances, as let’s just say that bridge we had facing us could have been built by fucking Tarzan.
Uneven wooden slats looked missing in places, held together by old worn rope that I wouldn’t have trusted to hang a picture on, let alone hold the weight of the three of us as we tried to cross the bloody thing.
“Yeah, well I am not sure this one looks much better… and please, Orth, no Indiana Jones jokes,” I warned, holding up a hand the second I saw his mouth open ready to say something, as well… like I said, I knew my brother well enough.
“So how are we doing this, one at a time or chancing all three of us at once?” Orth asked, making Marcus tip his head and lay out our options,
“Pros and cons… we go one at a time we have less chance of it snapping, but if it does, then only one of us can potentially climb up and the other two get left behind and become…”
“Skeletal remains of our former selves,” I added helpfully, making my brother look horrified. After all, we both enjoyed our food and had our fair share of muscle to feed. Which meant the idea of starving to death didn’t exactly appeal.
“Okay, so it’s settled then, we all go but try and spread it out and just fucking pray that if it does snap, it doesn’t do it from the middle leaving one or all of us on the wrong side,” I said, making the decision, prompting Marcus to be a funny bugger.
“I guess we will just cross that bridge when we…”
“Don’t fucking finish that sentence, Marc, now let’s get this shit over with,” I snapped with gritted teeth.
“Hey, not my circus, not my monkeys but apparently I’m the ringmaster of this shit show,” he grumbled, making me hold an arm out and say,
“Damn right you are, my friend, ever since you knocked on the freakshow door and ignored a fucking warning, now here we are.” He rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath,
“We survived, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, and for all our sakes, let’s hope we continue to do so, now get going, Indy,” my brother added, because he just couldn’t help himself with yet another movie reference. One I chose to ignore in favor of watching Marcus take the lead in going first across the bridge of fucking doom. Of course, the other reason I wanted him to go first was so as I could watch out for signs of it breaking and hopefully react so as I could save my friend.
Not that he needed to know this.
“Well, that sounds promising,” Orth commented sarcastically. The creaking of wood quickly became the backing track to this merry fucking tune we were forced to walk to, as Marcus started whistling the Indiana Jones theme tune. I looked over the side of the rope railing at the abyss below that appeared to have no end in sight.
“Not fucking helping, Marc,” I grumbled, making him laugh.
“Well, if we do die, at least it will be to some epic theme tune.”
“Or just a thought, we could try not dying and instead concentrate on the thousand-year-old fucking rope bridge,” I replied tensely, feeling like any second my foot was going to go right through one of the planks that felt as strong as wet fucking cardboard!
As for my brother, he was unusually quiet, making me glance behind me to check he was still with us.
“How you doin’ back there, brother?”
“In all honesty, trying not to shit my pants.”
At this Marcus burst out laughing, making Orthrus add,
“Something I am accomplishing by thinking of all the ways I could kill pencil dick for getting us in this shit in the first place… and FYI, all of them include a fucking pencil!”
“You know Faye killed a guy with a pencil once,” I told him, trying to keep his mind off plummeting to death or from killing Marcus with some stationary when all this was finally over.
“No shit,” he replied.
“Yeah, I heard of that, quite a few council members were bragging about it whenever her Vamp wasn’t near,” Marcus added, getting in on the conversation. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one trying to ease the tension in crossing the fucking deathly gulf below.
“That chick’s got mad skills,” Orth remarked, making me scoff,
“Yeah, not really surprising considering who her father is.”
“And who trained them both,” Marcus also commented, making me remember about the King’s own Seeker and who he was referring to.
“Takeshi trained you, didn’t he?”
“Yes, and back when he was also led to believe I was nothing but an inexperienced Seeker,” Marcus replied, making me realize he once had a life before Devil’s and therefore a different King he once served under.
“Always been in the deception business, eh?” Orth observed sarcastically, as if mirroring my thoughts.
“I’m ignoring that and pleading the fif… fuck!” This ended with a cry of shock the second one of the planks cracked completely under the weight of his foot, sending his leg down with it. Thankfully I reacted quickly enough that the rest of him didn’t go with it, as I grabbed his jacket and hauled him up, taking his weight.
“That fif fuck right there, is what you call karma for getting us in this shit,” Orth muttered under his breath, which was pointless considering we all had excellent hearing.
“You talkin’ about the shit in your pants again or just the shit in your brains?” Marcus countered once he had a steady footing again, making me snap,
“Enough! Just fucking concentrate on getting across this thing!” Something we did for all of about three minutes before Orth muttered like a child,
“He started it.”
“When exactly did I start it?” Marcus asked incredulously.
“Over three hundred years ago when your arse showed up, that’s when,” my brother argued, making me release a frustrated sigh wishing I was confident enough to let go of the rope and rub my forehead to ease the pressure building there.
“Wow, so what’s this, a three-century old grudge?” Marcus threw back.
“Yeah, maybe it is, pencil dick!” Orth snapped in return, making me close to losing my shit.
“What, for just existing?!” my friend argued, making me release another sigh of frustration.
“Maybe I didn’t like the way you hurt a friend of mine!”
“Brother, ease up, will you?” This warning naturally went by unheard.
“Are you fucking serious!” Marcus shouted, close to losing his own shit, whereas I was already there.
“Deadly arsehole,” my brother snarled, making me hiss through gritted teeth,
“Seriously, you two wanna do this now!?”
“Fine, seeing as you’re so close to that friend of yours, you ever ask yourself why she ran crying into my arms that day, huh?”
I winced at this, now saying his name in warning,
“Marcus, don’t.”
“No, J, he wants to throw shit in my face about Smidge, then he can have a piece of it right back!” Marcus argued, giving Orth cause to snap,
“What the fuck is he talking about, brother?!”
“Marcus, for fuck sake, are you seriously doing this now and fucking here?!” I argued disbelievingly, ignoring my brother’s question.
“Yeah, why the fuck not? It’s not like he can walk his arse away when he hears something he doesn’t like,” Marcus replied bitterly.
“It’s not like I can beat your arse for saying shit, you mean!” my brother yelled, making Marcus dispute spitefully,
“Shit that’s the truth and you know it!”
“Know what!?” my brother shouted louder this time, and one warning look from me when Marcus turned wasn’t enough to stop him, nor were my words as I hissed,
“Marcus, no.”
“That she fucking loved you first, arsehole!” Marcus shouted, making my brother gasp in utter shock. And at the very same time this shocking revelation pulled the rug from under my brother’s feet, it also did so physically,
As the bridge decided it was time to…
Snap in two.