9. Renard #4
I follow, frustrated by my slower but perhaps more powerful strikes. I hate that my body does not obey as it once did. My leg drags a fraction, my shoulder protests when I swing, and while the strike I land is not as clean as it should be, it does, indeed, land.
My despair flares—I should be better than this, even with my injuries.
Even in this different land. Even fighting alongside a fae with quicker reflexes and magical gifts.
If I am a knight no longer… if I can no longer best some cave beast with my lifetime of hard-earned skill, what then is my purpose?
The creature lashes out with a heavy paw in a brutal swipe, and I barely avoid the worst of it, stumbling back as claws scrape across stone where I stood mere moments before.
Vireth, of course, does not falter. She moves with a fluidity that is both efficient and graceful. Each strike is deliberate and well-placed, each movement measured in its confidence, as though she knows exactly where to place her blade and how much force to use.
I recognize the product of years of training—not just with the long-practiced dance of footwork, or the balance of offensive strikes and defensive parries, but also in the wisdom of economy of energy.
Her skill with a sword is impossible to overlook, and all at once I’m struck with a desire so fierce—so utterly possessive—it wars with my battle focus.
Yes, I’ll admit she is beautiful in a terrifying way. Yes, I concede that her prickly attitude and wry humor do little to hide a wounded hurt leeching from inside her, but gods, if I do not find I am coming to crave her bite even now—especially now.
Starving ravens, Renard. Focus!
The creature drives us back, deeper into the cave, its movements erratic but relentless. My footing slips once, then again, and I grit my teeth against the anger and frustration building in my chest. Vireth may be good, but I am no slouch. This should not be a struggle—not for me.
The beast rounds on us, crowding us both against the walls of the cave in a wide arc, and too late I realize it’s trying to corner us in the darkness with no available retreat. My torchlight gutters and my feet squish into a thin layer of slimy mud coating the damp stone floor.
Vireth takes a hit—glancing, but enough to make her hiss. I lunge forward, landing another blow but dropping the torch in the process and plunging us into darkness.
“Damn it!” I curse as the animal rears back on its hind legs, crowding us back until I feel the damning press of stone against my back. We’ve reached the end of the cave, and there’s a sluggish heartbeat when it seems all three of us have realized this fact.
Vireth makes a sound and in the dark, I can’t determine if it’s a manic laugh or a whimper of despair.
“Renard,” she says sharply. “Close your eyes.”
“What?”
“Close them!”
“I will not turn a blind eye when you—when both of us!—are in danger,” I growl.
“Damn you,” she snarls.
It’s pointless, anyway, since without the torch my eyes might as well be closed. I squint desperately against the darkness, trying to gather any shred of light that might better aid me in helping to defend her.
I hear the noise before I see it. Underneath the ragged, rancid breaths of the beast of our demise comes a wet, slick, spreading sound.
Then, there is a cracking of bones—unmistakeable in the darkness, followed by the creature’s bellow of agony.
Then… even more dripping sounds and the splattering of something wet hitting the floor.
Sounds that turn my stomach, despite not knowing what they are.
Suddenly, light pulses up from the floor of the cave. A faint blue glow shines from a carpet of blue-black mushrooms that were definitely not here before.
I watch in horror as the glow casts rippling shadows upon the scene in front of us, which might be made worse in the soft, pearly luminescence.
The creature is… coming apart. Not at the end of Vireth’s sword, and not cleanly like something slain.
It is rotting. It is rotting from the inside out, right before my very eyes.
Flesh sloughs from bone in great, slick sheets.
It’s slimy, poisonous-looking fur seems to wither and collapse into blackened mush. The smell—gods above—the smell is—
I stagger back, bile rising in my throat.
Vireth crouches in the center of it, her fingers sunk into the mud of the cave floor, her expression tight with something that looks like sadness.
Tendrils of pulsing, glowing white emanate from her muddy fingertips.
The mushrooms and the slick, sickening rot are coming from her.
The beast collapses fully, dissolving into a wet, stinking pile of something unrecognizable. An unnatural quiet follows—heavy and thick with tension.
Neither of us speaks for a very long time.
“What was that?” I ask eventually. “What… what just happened? Is that your magic?”
Vireth winces and turns her back to me.
“It is done,” she says. “I do not sense any other creatures in the cave, so we should make camp before something else wanders in and steals the vacancy.”
“But—”
“Just do it, Renard!” she shouts, whirling away and storming back toward the cave entrance.
I lead Magnar into the cave as, wordlessly, we go through the motions of making camp for the night and the duration of the blizzard.
Finding a dry spot to lay out the bedrolls.
Bringing in firewood from the trees outside.
Building the fire, filling our waterskins with snow, brewing herbal tea and trading some of our preserved rations.
The air between us is ready to crack apart from the building tension and unsaid words.
Eventually, I cannot stand the silence anymore.
I clear my throat, and her oxblood gaze snaps to mine—warning evident in her eyes.
I cannot help myself, I must ask her about it.
Is she… toxic? Poisonous? How has she been able to heal my wounds so thoroughly when she harbors such destruction in her fingertips?
“Your magic,” I say. “That was—”
“Don’t,” she snaps.
“I simply would like to understand what I’m traveling with,” I say, then silently curse my phrasing when she flinches. “Who I’m traveling with.”
Her jaw tightens and for a moment, I think she will refuse to say anything. An uneasy worry gathers in my gut—fear that she will simply get up and leave me here in this cave, alone, and strike off on her own again. The thought makes it difficult to draw breath.
Then she exhales sharply and crouches near the cave wall.
“Fine,” she mutters.
She presses her fingers to the damp stone walls, and again, I watch as small, pale shapes begin to push through the cracks.
They’re like the mushrooms from before, but larger, lining the ceiling of the cave and glowing with a friendlier sort of light.
Softly at first, then brighter, casting everything in a warm, golden-green glow.
I cannot help but stare. The growths are… lovely, if a little unconventional. Definitely unsettling, but undoubtedly beautiful.
“I must admit, that’s not what I expected.”
She sighs. “It rarely is. Then again, I fear to ask what it was you expected from me.”
“Perhaps that is incorrect of me… I mean to say that I wasn’t sure what magical gifts you had at your behest. I wondered if it was some sort of healing or cooking magic.
You make a fine campfire stew, and my wounds have been healing faster than ever before.
” I cough to clear some of the awkwardness from my throat, almost choking on sudden dry heaviness of my tongue.
“But… I am beginning to think I have underestimated you.”
She huffs softly. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
“No,” I agree. “So, this is your gift, then? Mushrooms? Fungal magic?”
“Decay magic,” she corrects, expression grim. “That is what you travel with. As to whom you’re traveling with, Renard…”
She pulls the braid from the top of her hair, and beneath it I see two small protrusions of bone—antlers!—sprouting from her head.
“I hope you do not mind making camp with the Blight Mother.”