Chapter 22 Kursk
KURSK
Sunlight crawls through the leaves, dancing over the floorboards of our little cabin.
My arms still ache where splinters dug into skin—woodchips still under my nails.
I sigh, standing, boots thumping against the wood.
Life in this “World Beyond” as Rand called it—it’s beautiful, yes, but it’s also clumsy.
Heavy. I’m like a hammer in a shop of fine glass.
This morning, I tried to chop wood. Needed fire, fresh logs. I swing the axe—too much force. The handle splits—crack!—from head to grip. A splinter flies, stinging my forearm. I swear. Wood shavings fall like snow. Olivia comes out just as the handle snaps. She raises an eyebrow, hands on hips.
“Dumb green bastard,” she mutters—and I can’t help a laugh.
She ropes off the broken axe, hefts the sturdy replacement I paid for yesterday. She inspects my forearm, cleaning the splinter. Her touch warm. I bite back the apology in my chest. The axe thing—lesson learned.
Later, I try helping with town repairs. A neighbor’s porch rotting, steps loose. I volunteer. I hoist boards, pull nails. But I forget safety codes—nails sticking out, loose boards, no guardrails. I anchor a beam incorrectly; it creaks ominously. The hardware clerk storms over.
“Mr. Kursk, you can’t mount beams like that. It’s building code 43-B. You’re… you’re over-flexing and ignoring safety.”
They ban me from the hardware store for a week—ironically for showing off too much raw strength.
Booger laughs so hard when I tell him. Burnout teases me.
Peggy Sue gives me a look like “you’re going to kill someone.
” Olivia just shakes her head, smiling, then quietly speaks with the clerk, smooths over my blunder.
She says, “He’s learning. He’s part of us now. ”
Her voice is soft; it makes my chest twist. “Thanks,” I tell her. She reaches out and squeezes my arm.
That evening, unable to face lumber and nails, I slip out into the woods. The air under the trees smells of moss, damp earth, pine resin, mushrooms. My knees dip over roots, leaves fall, crunch beneath my boots. I sniff the rain left on bark. Evening light golden-grey, shadows deep.
I walk paths I know and those I don’t. I mutter through tired lips: “Forest spirits… are you there?” I pause beside an old oak—massive trunk scarred, roots thick as arms. I place my hand on bark, rough and warm. I close my eyes. Nothing answers. Just wind, and maybe a bird call somewhere above.
But I keep talking: about my brother, about the fairgrounds, about Olivia, about mistakes, about books, about what it means to be both monster and man. I tell the spirits I will guard this land with what strength I have left.
I stay until twilight, until stars prick the sky. I turn back, dirt on my clothes, scent of pine and promise in my lungs. Olivia is waiting on the porch. She smiles, her silhouette against lamplight.
“Walked far?” she asks. Her voice rich with relief.
“Aye,” I say. “Needed to hear silence.”
She doesn’t ask more. She never needs to. She wraps an arm around me, and I rest into the warmth. Home feels real in that moment.
I don’t know why I let ‘em talk me into this.
Burnout and Booger stand on the rec field behind the library, bare-footed, shirtless, already glistening with sweat and grinning like fools high on adrenaline and dumb ideas.
The morning sun climbs lazy and gold, baking the grass flat and dry.
Dew’s long gone—burned off under their stomping feet and the sheer force of chaos they generate by simply existing.
“Alright,” I say, voice gravelly from sleep and pollen. “You wanna learn orc-style combat, you learn all of it. That means stretches. That means pain. That means breakfast comes after, not during.”
Booger salutes like a soldier. Burnout’s already attempting some kind of forward lunge, groaning like a dying goat.
“You said stretches were just ‘limbering your rage,’” Booger wheezes, reaching for his toes and only making it halfway before he tips sideways into the dirt.
“They are. But your rage ain’t useful if you tear your hamstring mid-fight.” I grin, walking the row of their sweat-streaked shadows like a drill master. “Now. Down. We begin with the Split of Sky and Earth.”
“The what?” Burnout yelps.
“Down!” I bark. “Wider stance. Knees. Arms up. Touch the gods and the worms at the same time!”
They groan, wobble, stretch—and then it happens.
Booger makes a sound like a hiccup and a scream at once and stumbles back behind the tree line.
Then Burnout dry heaves and coughs something into his hand.
“Gods above,” he sputters. “My lungs are on fire. Why is stretching worse than punching?”
“Because pain is honesty,” I tell him, handing him a skin of water. “And you two are the biggest liars in this town when it comes to body awareness.”
When Booger returns, face green in the wrong way, I nod.
“Good. Now we warm up.”
Burnout looks betrayed. “That wasn’t the warm-up?!”
Hours later—after bear crawls, rolling over thistle bushes, grappling with each other until they collapse in a pile of bruises and laughter—I call it.
“Enough,” I grunt. “We don’t want to tear too many important tendons in one day.”
Burnout falls flat on his back, arms splayed. Booger’s face is mashed into the grass, mumbling something about seeing colors that don’t exist in the normal spectrum.
“You know what?” Booger mutters into the dirt. “We need a name.”
Burnout lifts his head like a prairie dog. “What?”
“A name. Like a unit. A title. A brotherhood forged in puke.”
“You’re delirious,” I say.
“No, he’s right,” Burnout wheezes. “We’re warriors now. Warriors need identity.”
Booger sits up, wide-eyed, grass in his hair like a crown of leaves. “Green Brigade.”
Burnout whoops, then winces. “That’s it. Green Brigade.”
They both turn to me like worshipers waiting for divine approval.
I stare, then shake my head. “Fine.”
They cheer.
“You’ll need discipline,” I add.
They nod solemnly.
“Commitment.”
More nods.
“No tattoos.”
Pause.
“Aww, c’mon—”
“No,” I growl. “Orc tattoos are sacred. You do not mark your skin with symbols of a culture you haven’t bled for.”
“But what if we do bleed?” Booger pleads.
Burnout chimes in, “We bled today! You saw the thistle bush! It tasted blood!”
“I said no.”
They groan like tortured banshees.
An hour later, I’m sitting on the cabin porch, sipping from a chipped mug of tea Olivia swears tastes better than it smells. She flops into the chair beside me, elbow to elbow, hips touching.
“They cornered me in the library,” she says, smirking.
“What’d they want?”
“Tattoos.”
I sigh, long and loud.
“What’d you say?”
“I told them to ask you.”
I grunt.
“What’d you say?”
“I said no.”
She grins into her tea. “And?”
“They asked again. I said no harder.”
Her eyes narrow, amused.
“Then they asked a third time.”
“And?”
I glare into my cup.
“You said yes, didn’t you?” she says, laughing.
“I didn’t say yes,” I grumble. “I just stopped saying no.”
Olivia leans her head on my shoulder, her breath warm against my neck. “God help Walnut Falls.”
“Nah,” I say, wrapping one arm around her. “They got the Green Brigade now.”
She snorts, and I swear I feel the echo of laughter long buried in her ribs, like the world is finally light enough to joke about again.
I love the sound of rain tapping against our roof—not sharp, but gentle, like prayer. The cabin smells of lavender and wet wood, clean sheets, Olivia’s hair smelling of lemongrass and moonlight. I stretch, letting the ache in my back spread like a map I can trace.
She’s lying beside me, warm. I turn, watching her ribs rise and fall. A half-smile graces her lips—soft, peaceful. I slide my arm around her waist. Her skin is cool, damp under my fingers. Her breath smells like jasmine and comfort. It feels like grace.