Chapter 24
- Callie -
At first I think it’s just a tree or a bush being blown around by the storm.
But then I instinctively crouch down - that’s a caveman.
And he has the yellow stripes of the Adropo tribe.
He’s walking fast in the same direction I’m going, sword at his side, and head swivelling, as if he’s looking for something.
Then I spot the second man deeper inside the woods. He’s also walking quickly along. He has a stick that he uses to lift branches and bushes, peering under them. It looks like they’re looking for something.
Well, it can’t be me they’re looking for. This must be a day’s walk from the bay, and my escape can only have been known for a few hours.
But they are looking for something, and it looks like a line search.
Which could mean that there’s more of them-
“Find!” comes a hoarse yell right behind me. Another yellow-striped caveman is looking right at me.
I don’t like the way these guys look, so I sprint away, towards the sea. There’s a miniscule chance that these guys don’t know how to swim.
But I don’t get that far before strong arms grab me and lift me off the ground.
I kick and scream and punch, and I do hit something, but I’m in an awkward position and nothing I do is that effective. When I try to bite a forearm, the man carrying me just grabs my hair and pulls my head away.
Soon I’m surrounded by men. Five of them are from the Adropo tribe, and I’m sure I recognize some of them. The sixth I would recognize easily, even if I hadn’t seen his scars - Sprub’ex. He’s strapped a sword to his belt and looks more like a Dry man than one who worships the Deep.
He just stares for a moment. “That was not what we expected. But the Ancestors are remarkably generous and have given us Callie herself!”
The men drag me a few steps back under the trees where the rain hammers down softer, the canopy rattling and hissing as if the jungle itself is arguing with them.
Someone knots my wrists with practiced efficiency, while another takes my chin and tilts my face toward Sprub’ex, as if presenting proof of a hunt. Their voices overlap, low, excited, and edged with grievance.
They talk of timing and shelter, of waiting until the worst of the storm passes, of not mixing pleasure with discomfort. Fingers stroke along my legs and arms.
Sprub’ex listens, eyes bright, and then corrects them with a sharp gesture toward the sea.
“Not yet,” he says, measured, as if this is a matter of patience rather than cruelty.
“The waves are loud, but the rain makes fools careless. And cold. We keep her where the ground is firm. We decide who speaks first.”
Someone laughs softly at that, another mutters that night will make everything simpler. Over the rush of the rain I hear the ocean throwing itself at the shore in vast, booming breaths.
Hours pass. The men gradually shift closer, forming a wall of striped bodies and wet stone, debating routes and sentries, who will fetch firewood, and who will keep watch. I keep looking for Plik, but he must have returned to his ocean. “Smart skirr,” I mutter.
The storm gradually lets up, and then the rain is suddenly gone as if it was never there. The men stir and get to their feet, distributing food and juice to each other.
Sprub’ex crouches to my level, rain tracing the scars on his face, and speaks calmly about debts and lessons, about how stories are made when the right person arrives at the wrong time.
“Of course Crat'ax would keep you to himself. We all understood it. We all understood the noises coming from his hut at night. And most men found that fair. Fair!” He spits the word.
“Fair that only one man of the tribe has a woman to mate with? How is that fair? Many times I went into the woods and I came back with meat and roots and berries. Did I keep it all to myself? That never crossed my mind. I gave it all to the tribe! And they were grateful.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder, but I angrily shrug it off. “Keep your stinky hands off me.”
He scowls. “We would also have been grateful if Crat'ax had shared you.
I would have thanked him after I mated with you.
Every time, I would have thanked him for finding you and giving you to the tribe, like a decent man would.
But not Crat'ax. He kept you only to himself, not even letting us see what lies under the fabrics!”
His hand goes back to my shoulder, and I snap my teeth at him, trying to bite it. But he keeps it just out of reach.
He puts his face closer. “But now everything is as it should be. You’re mine now, and I will share you. With all my friends. We will all mate with you.”
“I will kill you if you try,” I snarl. But my knife is out of reach, and these guys can easily overpower me. This is not looking good. Now that the rain has stopped, the Adropo men are building a hut and a fire, sending hungry glances at me, their eyes glassy with expectation.
They close in as if some unspoken signal has been given. Someone says, “Hold her still,” not loudly, just practical, and another answers, “Aye,” with the same tone you’d use for lifting a log.
I strain against the bonds until my wrists burn, my heels digging furrows into the wet ground.
“Don’t,” I gasp. “You don’t have to do this.
Let me go, and I’ll be gone. You’ll never see me again.
” A hand clamps over my mouth, smelling of smoke and salt, and I bite down hard enough to taste blood.
It earns me a sharp curse and a laugh from someone else.
Sprub’ex watches it all with a thin smile, as if my struggling is a performance he’s paid for. “See?” he says calmly. “She’s as fiery as a little rekh.”
Hopelessness settles like a weight on my chest, heavy and suffocating, and I hate that part of me that knows he might be right—that there’s no strength left.
Fingers hook into my torn jumpsuit again; fabric rips, skin prickles with cold and shame, and I scream a name into the trees, not expecting an answer.
Sprub’ex slaps me straight across the face. “Be quiet! You’re mine now, not his!”
There’s a crashing of branches. A feral bellow cuts through the night.
A man bursts from the rain-shadowed undergrowth, spear raised, eyes blazing straight at Sprub’ex as if nothing else exists.
“Crat'ax!” I exclaim, straining harder against my bonds.
But he has no eyes for me. Swinging his spear, he clangs it into the sword of an Adropo man, driving him backwards.
Crat'ax looks terrible. He’s soaking wet, and he bleeds from several cuts on his body. His loincloth has been ripped, and he has a slight limp.
And still he’s winning. With furious roars and huge swings of the spear, he drives the Adropo men away - their swords are too short to reach him, and just one stroke of his spear would cut one of them in half.
The world turns into noise and motion. Crat'ax surges forward like something unchained, his spear a blur of wet wood and stone. He slams the butt into one man’s chest hard enough to lift him off his feet, then whips the blade around in a flat, murderous arc that sends another sprawling into the mud, shrieking and clutching a ruined arm.
Someone lunges from the side, and Crat'ax answers with his shoulder, ramming the man into a tree with a crack that I feel in my teeth. The jungle fills with panicked shouts and the raw, animal sound of Crat'ax’s rage, a sound I’ve never heard from him before and never want to hear again.
The Adropo men scatter under it, slipping, dropping weapons, vanishing back into the trees as if the forest itself is swallowing them.
For a heartbeat I think it’s over. Then Sprub’ex is there, fast and ugly, hauling me upright by my bonds and yanking me back against his chest. Cold metal kisses my throat.
I freeze so hard my lungs forget how to work.
“Stop,” he snarls, voice suddenly thin and sharp. “One more step and she bleeds out.”
Crat'ax skids to a halt a few paces away, chest heaving, spear half-raised, eyes locked on the knife at my neck.
Rain drips from his hair and beard; blood runs down his ribs and darkens the ground at his feet.
He looks at me then, really looks, and something in his face breaks and hardens at the same time.
“Drop it,” Crat'ax growls, low and shaking.
Sprub’ex laughs, his breath hot against my ear, tightening his grip until stars spark in my vision.
“It wasn’t even Callie we wanted! We were looking for that Plood ship of yours, searching all down the coast. But a woman is as good as any other.
And now this one is mine. Now go.” The knife presses closer, a promise I can feel in my pulse.
“It is you who must go,” Crat'ax says, voice raspy. “One way or the other.”
He shifts his weight, plants his feet in the mud like roots, and stares at Sprub’ex with a calm so terrifying it makes my stomach drop. The ocean booms behind us, the jungle holds its breath, and everything balances on the edge of that blade.
A sudden terror grips me. Not the fear of the blade, which is bad enough, but a primal terror that paralyzes.
Then there’s a shadow despite the lack of sunshine.
“Oh, do let me disturb,” an icy voice says, and before I can tell where he came from, Vyrathion is standing in the middle of us all.
It’s the first time I get a good look at him.
He’s every bit as big as a caveman, dark-skinned with bright green patterns all over his scaled skin.
Still he’s more human-looking than the cavemen, with a breathtakingly beautiful face and an absolute physical perfection in every detail, except the predator claws on his toes and fingers.
He wears silver pants without a stain on them, despite having spent months half underwater.
“Dragon!” Sprub’ex wheezes. “It’s been freed!”
“But not by you, as agreed,” Vyrathion says. “What shall I do about that, Sprub’ex?”
“I helped!” Sprub’ex says, desperation in his voice. “I offered to look for gold! I tried to abduct Callie, as you told me to! And I was only cast out for my trouble! I would have freed you, dragon. But I never had the chance!”
“And did you find any gold?” the dragon asks, suddenly right next to us. “No?”
“Not yet,” Sprub’ex says, and I can feel through me how his heart beats faster. “I was looking! But here is the woman. Take her! She’s yours!” The blade digs deeper into my throat, to the limit of what I can stand. Tears spring to my eyes.
“Let go of Callie!” Crat'ax says.
The dragon taps his lips and looks me up and down. “Mine?”
“Yes!” Sprub’ex says eagerly. “Take her!”
“But you weren’t searching for gold,” the dragon says with a warm smile on his face. “You were looking for women. That’s not what we agreed.”
It’s too much for me, and I can’t hold back a sore sob.
“I-” Sprub’ex begins.
“But do you know who did release me?” Vyrathion interrupts him with a chilly menace that I feel all down my spine.
“No,” Sprub’ex says. “I would have-”
I’ve got nothing to lose now. With my full weight and all my power, I stomp my heel into Sprub’ex’s foot, aiming for the toes. He grunts in pain and tightens his grip on me.
I don’t see the dragon move, but suddenly the blade is off my throat, and Sprub’ex’s hands are off my body. My knees buckle, but I never hit the ground. Crat'ax lunges to catch me with one arm.
Then he points the spear at the dragon. “Stay at a distance!”
I cling to him, and the strength he radiates cancels out the terror from the dragon. Still, this is the man I ran from. And I had good reasons for it.
Sprub’ex is on the ground, with a dark pool growing fast under his limp body.
Vyrathion kicks at him. “Hmm. After so long in a cage, I forget how easily I can do that. Callie, don’t ever think that I owed you anything. This was not settling a debt. This was nothing. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I state hoarsely, because nothing else comes to mind.
“Now you must look for gold,” the dragon adds, eyes twinkling. “I will soon check on your progress.”
“No, you will stay away,” Crat'ax growls, the tip of his spear held rock-steady one inch from Vyrathion’s chest. “You will die if you don’t.”
The two giants are staring each other down over my head, tense as bowstrings. I swear the air gets colder, and the wind stops blowing. It feels like two forces of nature about to clash in a cataclysmic battle.
“You’re the sensible dragon slayer,” the dragon finally says. “I believe you were the only slayer in your ridiculous village who realized that capturing a dragon is a fool’s errand. We will meet again.”
A dark shadow falls, and when it lifts a split second later, the dragon is gone.
Crat'ax drops the spear and embraces me with both arms. “Are you all right, my love?”
“I want to be,” I say quietly. “But I think that’s mostly up to you.”