Chapter 7 #4
I grip the knife Thor recovered from the wreckage. He cradles a rifle in his arms. Neither one of us know if it will actually work, so it will be best if he does not have to use it.
We look at each other from time to time.
It’s the only kind of conversation we can risk.
I want to apologize to him for some reason.
I am not sure why. For being here at all?
For ever having gotten on the ship? That would not have changed anything.
He would be sitting in a forest alone right now if I had not.
I would be on a grassy plain watching goat kids play.
I owe myself an apology for being so impulsive, for letting my ego get the better of me when they told me I wasn’t suitable for the mission. They were right. I wasn’t suitable for being shot out of the sky.
There’s a sudden snap and a grunt in the forest.
I stop looking at Thor and I rush for the trap. We’ve caught something. Knife in hand, I prepare to dispatch whatever unfortunate animal has snared itself. I move quickly because I do not want it to suffer. I want to end the fear as quickly as possible, and I want to give it peace.
I come to a halt next to the trap.
I don’t want to give this prey peace. I don’t want to give this asshole the time of fucking day.
It’s Drako.
He’s walked right into my snare and now he’s hanging in the tree, wriggling about like a worm on a hook.
I don’t know what he’s been through since the party, but his black and red leather attire, and a good part of his exposed skin, are covered in what looks like blood. He might be injured. Hard to say.
What I do know is that the satisfaction I get from seeing him in this state is incredible.
I laugh for the first time in what feels like forever. Maybe since before the house burned down and my sisters betrayed our family’s legacy because their husbands steer them like mindless puppets, but let’s not be bitter about that right now.
Thor comes through the undergrowth at that moment, and stares at what we’ve caught.
“Cut him down,” he says. “I’ve got rope.”
Drako is already well trussed by the snare, but by the time Thor and I are done with him, he’s an immobile worm on the ground.
“Why did you come after us alone?” Thor asks the question. It’s a reasonable one. We should be overrun with Vikar if the jarl has found us.
“We took the chip out,” I add. I want him to know that I endured the removal, that I am stronger than he thinks.
“You think I am stupid enough to not know a tracker chip can be removed?”
I look into Drako’s eyes and I feel a magnetism that should not exist between us. How dare he be arrogant now? He just lost. He is alone and he is caught and he is among enemies. He should be shitting himself.
“You seem pretty fucking stupid to me,” I say.
“You look pretty fucking stupid right now too, tied up like a fucking dumb animal.” I kick him in the ribs, then I take the survival knife I used to make the snare and I crouch down, holding it to Drako’s neck.
The bloodied man laughs with what sounds like a kind of sick glee.
“Are you going to cut me, pretty little wench? Fuck me first. Let me die like a warrior.”
I seethe with loathing.
“You’re going to die like a trussed rabbit. I’m going to stick you like one. And then I’m going to cut you up like one, and I’m going to cook you over the fire.”
“You’ve a little cannibal,” Drako says, looking at Thor. “Good luck with that. Once creatures like these get a taste of flesh, they don’t go back.”
I press the blade to his neck. I am going to do this slowly, because that is what he deserves. All the pity I reserve for prey would be wasted on this predator.
Thor’s shadow falls over me. He reaches down between us.
“You can’t kill him,” he says, gently taking the knife from my hands.
“Why not?”
“He is more useful alive. And he has friends.”
“If his friends were in earshot, he would have yelled for them,” I say. “His friends are either very far away, or…”
I have a strange feeling in this moment. Drako being in the trap doesn’t make any sense at all. He was the leader of his crew. There should be dozens of them following him.
If this was a trap for us, they would have caught up with us now. We’d be surrounded. I look around. I don’t feel surrounded.
“Where are the rest of your crew?” Thor asks.
“Dead.”
“What?” I kick him in the ribs again. Thor pulls me back. I kick Thor.
“Sorry,” I say. “Reflex.”
“They’re dead,” Drako repeats. He’s not choked up. He says it like it’s just simple fact. They were alive, and now they are dead. What is anybody going to do about it? Nothing.
“He’s lying,” I say. I give him another swift kick. “They couldn’t be dead. Not all of them. There were hundreds of people there.”
“Stop kicking him,” Thor tells me. “If you break his ribs and penetrate his lung…”
“He still won’t have suffered enough,” I interrupt. “If you knew what this piece of shit did to me, and actually gave a fuck about me, you’d kill him yourself.”
“Better get your woman under control,” Drako says to Thor.
“I’m not his woman. And I’m not yours. I belong to myself, and you’re a liar.”
Thor grabs me and pulls me away before I can kick him hard in the ribs again.
It’s annoying that this big man is intervening.
I should be kicking the hell out of Drako.
I should be taking him apart and making him suffer.
But no, we have to listen to his stupid lies about everybody he knows suddenly being dead.
“How did they die?” Thor asks the question with a calm kind of assurance. He thinks this man is telling us something true. That’s a mistake. Thor is an honorable man. He’s not talking to one.
“Eaten,” Drako says.
“Eaten?”
“There’re things in this jungle. Swarms of them. They eat. They followed the trail of the bodies we were putting on the pyre. They devour the dead and the living alike.”
“But you escaped. You ran away after letting all your crew get eaten?”
“I was above it all. My chair was elevated. They don’t climb well, whatever they are. I watched as my people were swallowed in one or two bites. The swarm came in, consumed everything, and left. I don’t know why fate decided to spare me.”
“It’s not a mystery. You’re too disgusting to eat, even for animals that eat rotting flesh,” I say.
Thor gives me an annoyed look. He wants to talk to the lying, evil slave lord who would have tortured him to death if he’d had the chance.
“What do these creatures look like?” Thor asks.
“Locusts with fangs. They move swiftly on six legs, but they have massive maws full of teeth, and big grasping pincer limbs. No faces. Eyes on stalks. Armored backs. They’re the size of large dogs, and they move in a horde.”
“Stop talking to him. I need to kill him. Give me back the knife.”
Thor shakes his head at me. “We are going to need him alive.”
“Why?” I am starting to get very frustrated with Thor’s repeated murder-blocking.
“Because three have higher survival chances than two, and if I am not mistaken we are all stranded now.”
“His ship will be returning,” I say. “There’s going to be more Vikar probably.”
“Exactly. His ship will be returning,” Thor repeats, as if I am supposed to understand what the fuck that means. “And a rescue crew will be sent to our crash location.”
“I can tell you’re trying to get at something, but I don’t get it,” I say bluntly.
Thor walks away from the bound Drako, and beckons at me to follow him. I do so reluctantly, because I know now that Drako is on the ground he has a better chance of escaping the snare.
“I want to bring him to justice,” Thor says, lowering his voice so Drako can’t hear us. “I want him to serve time for what he did to our crew. He deserves to face trial and be punished for the rest of his life.”
“Or I could stab him,” I suggest helpfully.
“If you leave me alive, I will show you what can be eaten and what will definitely kill you,” Drako calls out to us. “There are mistakes we already made in the claiming of this world. You could easily make them too, and it would be the end of you both.”
“It’s not your world,” Thor replies.
“Let me stab him,” I plead as we walk back over. I don’t see how we are going to keep him alive. As soon as he gets free of those bonds, he’s probably going to attack us both.
“You don’t want to stab me, little girl,” Drako drawls, very smugly for a man who is stuck on the ground and unable to move, entirely at our mercy. “You want me to sheathe myself inside you.”
I turn to Thor. Is he going to let Drako talk to me like that?
Thor’s expression draws closed. He looks annoyed. But he doesn’t kill Drako immediately.
“If you want to keep breathing, you’re going to have to respect us.”
“Kill me now, Golden Boy,” Drako laughs. “Oh, right, you won’t. Because I am bound, and unlike your feral little female, you have a sense of honor. You want to face me man to man, but if you do that, you risk injury, and you can’t do that because you want to survive…”
I don’t know what the rest of his little spiel was going to be, because I took matters into my own hands and kicked him in the face. I guess I got the right angle, because he goes limp immediately.
“I should punish you for that impulsivity,” Thor says, trying to hide a smile. “But I won’t.”