Chapter 7
Murky black eyes the color of sludge are locked on mine, yet I do not move a muscle. My mind screams for me to reach for my sword, to run, to do something, anything. But my limbs are suddenly made of stone. The forest has gone still. I do not hear a thing, not the crackle of dry leaves, the buzz of insects, or the chirp of chipmunks. Even the birds are silent. The forest is scared stiff, too, holding its breath and willing the beast gone. All I hear is the rush of blood behind my ears, and the frantic beat of my heart.
The Urthman opens his mouth, an oily pit of blackness, and a dark, vile tongue slithers out. It slinks over his pointed teeth and I feel as if I might puke. I force my eyes from his rotten mouth to the hand that clutches a club, just in time to see his arm tense. In the space of a breath, he swings his weapon and I draw mine. I raise it and block his blow just before it connects with my skull. Still, the impact is powerful. It knocks me back a few steps.
I struggle but regain my footing. The rhythm of my heart has passed panicked and is now wild, dangerously so. He swings again, but this time I dodge it entirely and launch an attack of my own. I swipe my blade, slicing the air horizontally, and carve a gash below his chest.
He howls out angrily. I have hurt him. He looks down at the wound and sees that it is bad. Glee tiptoes down the length of my spine. I hoist my sword to shoulder height and summon all my anger, all my fear, and use every ounce of my strength as I swing. The blade whistles through the air and meets with his neck, cutting through flesh and bone until his head falls from his shoulders.
The Urthman’s body collapses to the ground in a heap and his head rolls into a bush loaded with burrs. I am panting. My entire body trembles. I cannot believe what I have just done, it’s the first Urthman I have ever killed. And I am not the least bit sorry. But movement in my periphery demands my attention. I snap my head toward it and see another Urthman a few feet away.
His misshapen head shakes quickly, horrified by how easily I have slain his friend. He turns and runs, afraid he will suffer the same fate. I panic and take off after him. The notion seems absurd. Urthmen are what I have spent my life avoiding, yet here I am chasing one. But I cannot let him go. If he and the one I just killed were the only two scouting the area then he will return to his base and tell the others. The rest of the Urthmen in the area will know that there are human beings living in the woods. They will return with hundreds more and scour the terrain until they find us. They will kill the family by the cave. They will kill me. They will kill June. I cannot allow any of that to happen.
He is not far ahead of me, but he is fast. I push myself hard, testing not only my speed but my agility too. Exposed tree roots arise like gnarled knuckles of underground beasts, and vines snake and snag at my feet while thin branches whip at my legs and body. Still, I pursue him. I pump my arms and push my legs to their limit. But no matter how fast I run, the Urthman runs faster. He seems to be putting more and more distance between us.
Hungry and exhausted, I am running out of energy fast. I have just one option left. I reach my hand behind my back and pull my spear from its sheathe as I continue to run. My muscles are spent and the weapon feels heavy in my hand–heavier than usual. But I hoist it level with my shoulder and aim it as best I can while moving. When the center if the Urthman’s back is in sight, I launch my spear with every bit of power I have left in my body and fall to the ground just after I release it. Fortunately, my knees and hands hit the earth before my face does, lessening the impact somewhat.
My palms and knees throb and I have a mouthful of dirt, but I force myself up onto my hands to see if my spear landed anywhere near him.
I am shocked when I see that I scored a direct hit. The Urthman is slumped against a large boulder with my spear sticking out of his back. He is still moving, but barely.
I slide my feet beneath me and stand. I slowly walk over to the boulder on aching legs. When I reach him, I yank the spear from his back. He groans loudly, then rolls onto the ground on his back.
My hands, which shook moments ago, have stilled. I hold my spear tightly. Its tip is poised just above the Urthman’s heart. Black eyes rimmed in cherry red stare up at me.
“Please, human, don’t kill me,” he begs.
His voice scrapes like knives inside my ears. I want to shout at him to shut his filthy mouth, that he is not worthy of sympathy, but the words get stuck in my throat. A memory flashes in my mind. I see my mother, with her hands held out in front of her in surrender, begging for mercy, begging that her life and the life of my unborn sibling be spared. But the Urthmen did not show her mercy. They took her pleas as an invitation to beat her to death.
I feel my lip snarl up over my teeth and a dangerous emotion winds inside me tightly. I squeeze the handle of my spear so hard the wood bites into my flesh. My chest heaves and my breaths are short and shallow. My body is drenched in sweat when I pull the tip away from his chest.
The Urthman’s face relaxes, and his stubby fingers touch the area just above his heart.
“I will tell them you spared me,” he says.
I watch him for a long moment. I know I ought to feel compassion for him, pity of some kind. I search my mind, the hidden hollows of my heart. But I feel nothing for him. I only feel hatred. I raise my spear high in the air and stab down with it, burying the tip in his throat. His final expression is complete shock as life leaves him. A wave of satisfaction washes over me, but I do not have time to celebrate. I look around carefully to see if there are more. I scan the immediate area, searching tall weeds and brush, shrubs and small trees. I do not see any movement, and I do not see any more Urthmen. I need to get back to the cave and see if June is all right.
As I run, I realize I should return and tell the family at the lake about the Urthmen. I need to warn them. But it is getting late, and Urthmen are not the only threat to us. Lurkers will be out as soon as the sun sets. And even Urthmen know better than to be out when Lurkers are out. I hurry my pace even though my legs feel as if they will collapse beneath me at any moment. Rest would be nice, but is a luxury I cannot afford. I have a considerable distance to cover before I am home. I will go to the family in the morning. I will steel my nerves and approach them despite the wobbly knee feeling the oldest boy gives me. I will not chicken out this time. Lives are at stake.
Images zoom through my mind in a hazy jumble as I approach the woods near our cave. I relive my mother’s death. I relive the experience of claiming the lives of the two Urthmen. In the moment, I felt as if her death was being avenged. But in the calmer time that followed, I realized that until every Urthmen falls, justice will never be served. The score will not be settled. And even if that moment ever comes to pass, I still won’t have my mother. The thought makes my eyes as blurry as the pictures in my head. I try to think about something else. I immediately picture the family, the mother and father, the two young children. I see him, the boy with the aquamarine eyes that shimmer like fish scales. They make me feel better, happy almost. They make me feel something else, as well, something dangerous. They make me hopeful.
I cling to that hope even though I fear it will slip through my fingers like the silk of a spider’s web. It keeps me going.
I am overheated and drained and want nothing more than to wash and sleep. When I reach the cave, June is nowhere in sight, and worry worms its way into my brain. I examine the woods immediately in front of the cave. I do not see her. Panic floods every cell in my body.
“June!” I call out against my better judgment. If we are not alone in these woods, I have just alerted the enemy to my presence. But June is my sister, the only flesh and blood that is mine on this planet. I will risk my life to find her.
She does not answer, so I call out to her again. “June! Where are you?” I say louder.
After a moment too long, warning is shrieking through my body, and I am about to char
ge into the woods and not return until she is with me.
“Avery, over here,” I hear June’s voice echoing strangely.
I search the bushes, but do not see her.
“Avery!” she cries.
Her voice snares me like a lasso then pulls me. I run in the direction of her voice and do not stop until I am deeper in than I’d like to be and standing before the base of a tree.
“Avery!”
She sounds as if she is right beside me, yet I still do not see her.
“I got one,” she says, and it sounds as though she is speaking to me from the treetop.
I look up and see her sitting on a thick branch. I start to walk around the tree to see if there is an easy way to get her down and am met with the angry grunts of one of the largest boarts I have ever seen. It is brown with an enormous patch of jet-black fur on its back, and its angry gaze is locked on me.
“Oh my gosh,” I breathe.
The boart scuffs its hoof against the dirt. When I look down, I see a boartling, small and plump, with a narrow spear through its neck.
With my eyes never leaving what I presume is the boartling’s very angry mother, I kneel and grab the largest rock I can find, then wing it at her. “Get out of here!” I threaten through my teeth. The rock knocks her in her hindquarters and sends her scrambling.
“See, I told you I’d get a boart today!” June squeals excitedly from the tree. “See it? See the boart?” She points to the boartling she skewered.
“Yes, I do,” I say proudly. “Excellent job!” I make no mention of the fact that she is hiding in a tree from the baby boart’s mother. That detail is not worth bringing up.
June climbs from the tree limb and clambers down the trunk. When she is on her feet, I ask, “When did you learn to scale a tree like that?”
She shrugs then marches up to her kill. “Our dinner,” she says, and splays her hands out to her sides proudly.
“I am so glad. I wasn’t so lucky today,” I say and weigh whether or not I should mention my run-in with the Urthmen. I do not want to scare her, but not telling her could be more dangerous than telling her.
“Why? What happened?” June asks.
If I tell her, I decided, I will tell her after we eat. I want her to have her moment to celebrate. She deserves a victory.
“I didn’t track as good as you did I guess,” I frown. “You are the hunter today, Miss I-speared-a-boart-for-dinner!” I wrap an arm around her shoulders and bring her in close. “You did a great job,” I tell her again.
She collapses into my arms and hugs me tightly. “Thank you,” she murmurs.
“Don’t thank me.” I nudge her with my hip. “You’re the one who did all the work. My hunting trip was a flop,” I say.
June laughs. “I don’t know about you, but my belly is rumbling. Let’s eat already,” she says.
I pull the spear from the boartling and hand it to June, then carry the carcass by its feet. We bring it back to the cave and prepare a fire. I roast the boartling and slice the meat from its bones. We will have enough for dinner tonight, as well as breakfast in the morning. I am very proud of June.
We fill our bellies then put out the fire and wash up for bed. After several stories, June falls asleep. I did not tell her about the other humans and I did not tell her about the Urthmen. I will tell her in the morning, right before I set out to warn the family by the lake that Urthmen have been in the woods, and that others may know of our existence.