****
The edge of his land brought him happiness along with his first real mental relief from the shame of being suspended. While cresting the final hill before his house came within view, he suddenly couldn’t breathe or even swallow. What if his findings weren’t as perfect as his dreams had led him to hope? He paused, afraid to cross the peak.
His fears faded with the first sight of his home in the distance, allowing him to catch his breath again. The grass of his front yard was well-trimmed and thick as if the work had been meticulous and the rain plentiful.
He approached the long, neatly kept walkway to his house, his eyes hopeful Edonea would be home. As he neared the walkway, a slight movement alongside his front porch stole his breath again, this time in excitement as opposed to dread. He slowed to a stop and watched for a moment.
His wife backed away from a flower bed, a plain cream-colored handkerchief wrapped around her head and the tops of her hands pressed against her hips. She examined her tedious work oblivious to his return.
He smiled. Even sweaty and dirt-covered with her hair tied back, he’d never seen anyone more beautiful.
She swiped her arm across her brow, stretched out her back, and glanced over her shoulder by chance. Rasi casually waved. She appeared unable to move for a moment. Even from his distance, he could see her wide, dimple-inducing smile crack her lips. He hopped from his steed’s back. She began jogging toward him and then hurried into a full sprint.
It was at that moment he realized it was her face and her smile alone that could erase the atrocities of war from his mind.
He ran toward her, never wanting to lose this moment but, unexplainably, as hard as he ran, the farther away she seemed to get. He strained but he couldn’t reach her, nor her him.
The horizon faded before his eyes and then filled with a dull light that erased the clouds and the distant hills. He reached for her again but she was still too far away. The light grew closer and brighter until the flower garden and his house and the beauty of the summer day blurred and vanished behind her. She stopped and turned toward the light. He cried out but couldn’t stop the world from fading. With every ounce of concentration, he held images of her beauty in his mind but, though it seemed only moments had passed, he started to forget her face and he hated himself for his failure.
And then she, and everything he held dear, was gone, replaced by cold gray walls.
For a moment he lay in the confused world between sleep and consciousness—the world where hope and happiness still filled him even as pain and reality returned. At first his sight blurred like behind frosted glass but he shook away the fuzz. The harshness of the cave walls struck him like the blow from a war hammer.
Alongside, the ashes of his fire smoldered with orange embers. His breath left his lips like a puff from a weed stick. He sat up; his muscles ached and his bones throbbed from the cold hard floor.
He focused his mind on Edonea again and once again he remembered her face. A smile cracked his lips briefly before the guilt and crushing regret stormed back. Memories! He snarled and pushed that smile away. They’re not worth the pain anymore.
The winter had been rougher than his first and he wondered how many more he could survive. He stretched away the kinks.
His back muscles twitched, as they did after each time he woke up since he’d been banished from Epertase, reminding him of his brutal curse. One of the seven long straps of muscle which protruded from his back floated past his shoulder until it hovered in front of his face as if longing to tell him something. He scowled at the violent creature as it held firm before him. He hated all seven of them and, as far as he could tell, they hated him as well. Bastards.
As if angered by his thoughts, the strap of meat lunged forward, stopping a squank hair from his nose. He stood firm, staring, not flinching at its intimidation. The strap flexed and swayed without giving any ground.
Slowly, as with each of their aggressive challenges from before, the creature backed away, thus earning Rasi yet another victory in their constant battle for dominance.
The strap joined the others and all seven of them shot above his head, their focus toward the snow-covered mouth of the cave. The two suns poked light through the gap near the top, giving Rasi a measure of hope that the mountain storm had passed. He didn’t attempt to call back his poised deadly appendages as he’d learned to let them work when they became fixated. Instead, he followed their lead, creeping toward the snowy mound. The closer he got, the more rigid and intense they grew.
Near the mouth of the cave, he crouched and waited. Enough time passed that his calf muscles cramped while in his crouch but he didn’t waver; his straps didn’t waver.
His stomach grumbled and still he waited.
Then, a small acorn-sized hole formed near the bottom of the snow-covered entrance. The muscles on his back tightened. A black speck appeared from the hole for a flash before retreating back into the snow.
Three of Rasi’s straps sprang toward the hole, sliced through the whiteness, and then recoiled with a black snow eel in one of their grasps. The eel thrashed and flopped in the strap’s grip but the strap was too strong, too hungry, and it slammed the squirming eel against the cave floor, ending its fight.
Rasi smiled at the thought of fresh protein imminently filling his gut; his thoughts of Edonea blurred only by his instincts of survival, at least for a while. A vigorous scrub together of his japsy weeds upon a fresh pile of twigs quickly brought his smoldering fire back to life. He retrieved a couple of dry logs that he’d stored in the recess of the cave and within moments had a fresh fire to cook with. He prepared his feast, not letting even the skin go to waste as his straps hovered anxiously above.
The eel tasted like shoe leather and it was wonderful.
With his last bite and the prospect of another lonely day filling his subconscious, he remembered the hate that kept him warm. He chewed on his teeth and curled his upper lip with one angry thought.
Damn you, Elijah, for doing this to me.
####
Thanks for taking a look at my world of Epertase. If you were intrigued by Rasi and his murderous straps, or enjoyed this peek at the kingdom of Epertase, or just wanted to support a new author, please order my fantasy novel, “The Light of Epertase: Legends Reborn,” from Rhemalda publishing. It releases in August 2011 but can be preordered now. Go to www.epertase.comfor more or order it along with other great books from Rhemalda at www.rhemalda.com.
If you think someone else might enjoy this short story, feel free to pass it along. It is my gift with no strings attached. Thank you for reading and keep an eye out for giveaways and more free content in the future. Also, I’d love to hear from you. You can friend me (Douglas Brown) on Facebook or email me at
[email protected]. I plan to give away free content on occasion so if you email me and would like, I’ll add you to a mailing list for future releases. I promise not to inundate you with spam.
Douglas R. Brown is a fantasy writer living in Pataskala, Ohio. He began writing over five years ago as a cathartic way of dealing with the day-to-day stresses of life as a firefighter/paramedic for the Columbus Ohio Division of Fire. Now he focuses his writing on fantasy where he can draw from his lifelong love of the genre. He has been married for 14 years and has a son and two dogs.
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