*
Katya met Slade on the bottom level of the village, much to her profound relief. Her fear of heights certainly would have given Slade an edge if they had been set against one another in the higher levels.
She stripped down to her sleeveless tunic and pants and he took his shirt completely off, showing off his chiseled physique. They circled around one another slowly, arms outstretched and fingers splayed. A crowd gathered round, including Lorcan who was watching with interest, his fingers interlaced with Raina’s.
Someone rang a gong and Katya burst into action, rolling to the side to avoid any attack he might throw at her. Magic was allowed, but only dueling magic, nothing that could actually permanently harm the other and nothing that would disrupt their surroundings. A ball of dust exploded where she had been standing. So Slade had decided to start off with a magical attack.
She whipped her leg around in a circular motion and sent a burst of fire to explode in front of his face. She just nicked his foot as he jumped over it, sending him off balance enough for her to cartwheel into a standing position and land a fist in his face. She laughed at him, taunting him with her stance and was rewarded by an angry jab at her, followed by another blast of magic.
Marak was fairly dancing around her arm in excitement, but she wouldn’t let him join in. This had to be a fair fight, lest Slade blame his loss on the snake’s intervention. She backed up a few paces to give herself a moment to decide her next move, and was surprised when her foot suddenly ran into something solid.
She tumbled over backwards, catching herself at the last second and springing to her feet. She righted herself just in time to turn her head to avoid the otherwise knock-out blow Slade had aimed for her face. His fist glanced off her cheekbone, leaving a smarting welt, and she skipped away.
“Is that all you’ve got?” she jeered, ignoring the pain shooting through her skull.
He lunged at her again and pulled his arm way back, preparing for another punch. It gave her plenty of time to give him three quick jabs to his jaw. He stumbled backwards.
When he came at her again, he abandoned the punching, instead wrapping his arms around her in a bear hug. He dragged her to the ground and they wrestled for a few moments. His greater bulk gave him the upper hand and Katya felt her arm being wrenched into an uncomfortable position. If he got it all the way back…
She writhed and twisted in his grasp, breaking free just before it would have been too late, and pulling the muscle in her shoulder in the process. But she didn’t pause to contemplate this, grabbing his arms and forcing them into the position he had been trying to put her in moments ago.
He stopped his wriggling and let his body settle onto the ground, sending out a puff of dust. He looked back over his shoulder at her and smiled.
“You’re sexy when you’re fighting.”
Katya released her hold on him and started to stand. As soon as his arms were free, Slade was back in motion, coming at her swinging.
She backed away hastily, the wind from his swinging fists whooshing across her face with each step.
“Hey!” she exclaimed indignantly when he finally stopped his barrage.
He shifted his weight back and forth from foot to foot, his hands balled in front of him.
“Not over ‘til someone yields, Sweet-cheeks.” He held out his hands in a not-very-convincing apologetic motion and then flicked his fingers at her, sending out a spray of dust towards her face.
She shut her eyes and held her breath, but plunged straight into it, diving through and then out of the cloud. If he was still in the same spot, she’d take him down with her, and if not she’d be out of the dust and free to find him.
She connected with his head. He’d apparently ducked down assuming she’d do the same, and the two of them went rolling away from the dust cloud. She jerked his arm underneath him and wrapped her legs in a holding position around his own. Then she pressed her arm into his throat, cutting off his air supply.
“Alright, alright,” he croaked, his windpipe under uncomfortable pressure from her forearm. She released the hold and stood, but pushed him back down onto the ground when he tried to rise. She left her foot on his chest menacingly.
“Do you yield?” she asked, unwilling to let him up before he actually surrendered.
He glared at her for a moment before rolling his eyes and sighing. “Yes.” He glanced over at where Lorcan stood, his delight written plainly on his face. “And you needed my little brother’s help to fend off the lion?” he asked incredulously, panting on the ground underneath her foot. She smiled and extended her hand to help him up.
“I guess he’s just better at some things than you,” she retorted, catching Lorcan’s eye and giving him a wink. Slade clasped her hand and hauled himself to his feet, brushing the dirt off his clothes.
He shook his head at her, “And I guess you were right to think you could protect me in the Barren Lands. Shall we get to it then?”
The crowd dispersed now that the excitement was over, with Slade only receiving a smattering of friendly heckling about being beaten by a girl. There were enough women fighters here, however, that any who made such a comment soon found themselves facing their own challenge.
“Get to what?” Katya asked when she had his attention again.
“To your escorting me out into the Barren Lands,” he responded.
Her elevated mood dropped. Apparently her plan to distract him enough to let someone else do that particular job hadn’t exactly worked. But at least she would be accompanying him, though she wasn’t sure if her being physically close to the person would make it more or less dangerous for them. She tried to clamp down on any feelings she had for him instead, mentally telling fate she did not cherish this man.
“I guess so,” she assented.
Out from underneath the trees, the sun beat down on them mercilessly, and it wasn’t long before Katya started to sweat. Though she had spent weeks out here finding herself, she had gotten used to the shade of the forest and her body protested this new torment.
Fire Mountain loomed in the distance, its massive form standing out against the flat horizon.
“So what are we looking for?” inquired Katya, her stomach starting to tie itself into a knot. Between the memories associated with the place and the possibility that she could be repeating history, she was not happy.
“Can’t tell you,” Slade shrugged.
She gave him a look. “Alright, so where are we headed?”
He pointed. Katya followed where he indicated and her breath caught in her throat. He was taking her to Fire Mountain itself? Why?
“Why there?”
“Because that’s where what we’re looking for is.”
She sighed, her frustration overcoming her fear of the prospect. “You’re really not going to tell me what it is?”
He grinned at her. “Nope.”
The grin gave her a suspicious twinge in her heart and she pushed it down, trying to dampen her developing feelings. She watched his retreating back as he set off in front of her, resolutely not enjoying the view.
Just as he stepped around an outcropping of rocks, a large snake slithered out from a hole and darted directly for Slade’s foot. It clamped down on his boot, the mouth nearly encompassing his ankle and he let out a howl.
Katya rushed forward in alarm. She’d killed him! This was what she got for allowing herself the pleasure of his company. She drew her knife and stabbed it into the creature’s head. It writhed for a moment or two, then stilled. Hastily she pried open its jaws and threw it away from them.
Helping Slade to the ground, she tore off his boot to examine the wound, trying to determine how she was going to get the poison out. It was probably half-way to his heart by now. She grasped at the chaotic magic around her, trying to gather enough to slow its progress, but it kept slipping away from her. She used her knife to cut away part of her
tunic and used it to wrap around his leg, tying it tightly to try and slow the spread. Sitting back on her heels, her mind whirled with what else to do.
She finally looked up at Slade’s face to find him watching her with a small smile.
“What are you doing?” she asked, confused, “Aren’t you the least bit concerned about the poison that’s about to kill you?”
He reached down and untied the tourniquet she’d just put on. “It’s just a green snake, they’re harmless. Their bite is completely safe. Other than the nasty puncture wounds that is.”
“Then why did you let me do all that?” she demanded, furious but more so overwhelmed with a sense of relief for his safety.
“And stop you from cutting your clothes off?” he said rhetorically, standing. “Come on, we have a ways to go yet.”
Katya watched him with disbelief. He wasn’t even limping. It made her like him even more. Stop that…next time it won’t be harmless.
After several hours of walking they came to the base of the mountain, and she found herself exhausted from the stress of trying to make sure nothing happened to him. Though there had been no other incidents, just the threat of them was enough to cause her distress as she mentally wore herself out imagining all the gruesome possibilities.
Katya scrunched up her face in confusion as Slade marched around the outside of the mountain. Finally, he stopped as he came to the area where the cave entrance had been, before the top had exploded and sealed up any entrances that once existed.
“What are you doing?” she asked him, afraid of what his answer might be.
He looked hesitant to tell her, but in the end his desire to show her how much he knew won out over his good sense to keep it to himself and he explained. “There was a battle here, we felt the backlash of it more than a year ago. We’ve been searching the battleground for some time, and we have finally located the area inside the mountain where it happened. We’ve been coming out here a little at a time, mining our way in.”
“What for?”
“One of the sides was a great evil, an evil that shouldn’t be on this world. We’re looking for its heart.”
Katya swallowed hard, forcing her hand not to fly to the pouch sewn into her tunic where the Bloodstone lay. It had been where the dragon god, Nuko, had stored his essence and when reunited with his body, it had taken its place in his chest. It had to be what Slade was talking about. It seemed to pulse at the mention and she watched Slade carefully to determine if he had noticed anything. He was simply still looking at her expectantly, waiting for some kind of reaction to his big reveal.
“You’re looking for something’s heart?” she repeated, furrowing her brow. “What do you want a heart for?” she tried to put disgust into her voice, as if she believed it to be an actual organ he was looking for.
He shrugged. Katya couldn’t tell if he was just trying not to give away any more information, or if he really didn’t understand what he was getting into. “The Elders need it for their spell. They say it has unique properties that they need.”
Katya’s own heart chilled. The Elders wanted to use the Bloodstone? In all her time with them she had gotten the feeling that they abhorred the idea of blood-magic and the Dark King. They seemed extremely bitter about the whole affair. And now they wanted to use the same magic that had caused their exile?
She supposed maybe they would…after all, they did steal a child.
Slade hooked into the power, using the unique method Katya had seen the tribe employ to tame the wild magic for use. He bored in through the rock, not physically removing it, but searching with his power. Katya opened herself to the power as well, not to add to his search, but to mask what was beneath her clothing. She sat herself down to wait. At least she didn’t have to worry about him finding it.
He gave up before long, as taming the chaos drained a person’s energy faster than using magic normally would, and they started the trek back. Katya was surprised that they hadn’t set up a camp out here to continuously mine for it, but she didn’t want to ask about it and give them any ideas. She would have to speak with Gareth again soon and find out if he knew anything about it.
Though he was no longer privy to the goings-on of the tribe through any sort of official capacity, he always seemed to know everything anyway. Katya had gotten the feeling that at some point he had been an important part of the tribe, and this was the reason that the others gave him free reign to act the way that he did.
Just before they left the Barren Lands, Slade suddenly stopped to collect a plant from a small oasis of vegetation.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“What we came out here for,” he replied, his tone clearly indicating that she was to reveal nothing else to anyone. That explained why there wasn’t an official expedition out here. Whatever the Elders wanted the Bloodstone for, they weren’t sharing with the rest of the tribe.
When they reached the forest once more, the sun was setting and Slade bid her goodnight, leaving her to her uncertain thoughts. Going to Fire Mountain once more had dredged up all sorts of unhappy memories. She also felt a strange pang of guilt for the emotions that were swirling around in her head regarding Slade. The memory of Nathair was too recent.
She glanced out her window and squinted through the trees, trying to catch a glimpse of somewhere beyond the forest. It was tempting to just up and leave. Everything was getting so confusing since coming here, and it didn’t seem to be getting any better. Not just the confusion in her own mind either, but also in the events going on around her. None of the tribesmen seemed able or willing to give her any answers. Most seemed oblivious to the Elders actions, and those that knew anything guarded their knowledge for no obvious reason – even about insignificant matters.
Most frustrating.