One-Armed Beasthunter, page 24
Another pair of spawnlings, their hides a mess of pulsing sores, pounced on it. While they squabbled and hissed and fought over their prize, Fer pulled his hand back again.
Over and over, he pushed up through the stone, flexing his hand into the open air to draw the little monsters’ attention, only to pull back and change positions. His arm ached all the way up to his shoulder, the bones stretched thin. His stomach stopped growling after a while, acid bubbling up his throat. He just felt sick. Weak. Like even holding his head up was too much effort, and he should just put his head down and give up.
The spawnlings were catching on, waiting for the next time his hand popped out of the ground to converge on it as a pack. Fer got some painful bites, and one ripped a wound into the web between his thumb and forefinger, but their infighting kept the damage to a minimum. His arm pulsed in time with the throbbing pain in his skull, building into a spike of agony behind his eye.
Almost, he told himself. Almost.
But almost wasn’t coming fast enough. He was spent. He’d pushed through too many shifts, and he hadn’t fed. The arm needed to feed its power, but all it had to feed on was Fer himself.
He could feel his body weakening, the muscle burning away. Whatever reserves he’d built up over the past season was long gone, with only flesh, blood, and bone left. But Fer pushed on, grinding his teeth together against the pain. He just needed to last a little longer.
The Beast shook itself, its remaining eye clearing as it glared murderously up at where Fer was perched on the stone outcropping, clearly planning a way to reach him.
The spawnlings were charging about the cavern, blindly following the prairie dog trail of Fer’s hand popping up.
He yanked back into the stone, his hand looking like little more than sticks lashed together with lumpy twine, brittle scales twitching with each visible pulse of his arm.
Now, he thought, with bone deep relief.
Ferren pushed his hand up through the ground, nails clawing at the stone as they broke through. But he brought it up directly below the monster.
The spawnlings, maddened by the chase, charged after it in pursuit, crowding under their parent’s belly, tripping the monster up as it snarled in aggravation. The little Beasts clamored over each other, fighting and screeching, trying to make a grab for Fer’s emaciated hand while the larger creature stumbled and slid, stepping on its own offspring in frustration.
Fer closed his eyes, and finally, finally released his hold on the [Pustule Spores].
Shrill screams filled the air as each of the little monsters swelled and burst in a shower of blood and bone. Fer didn’t know if it was some quirk of the creatures, or because he’d held them back for such a long time, but they were true explosions, like the time Janen Ruric had tried to brew his own spirits and blew up his barn instead.
And each burst of power and bone shrapnel happened directly below the largest Beast, ripping into its vulnerable belly.
The Beast roared, trying to scramble to safety, but the panicked flailing of the smaller monsters kept getting in the way. By the tenth burst, dark blood painted the surrounding plants, and Fer had to duck his head down to avoid the bits of bone that tore through the air and bit into the rock walls. He clasped his hands over the back of his head, listening to the horrible squelch of living beings torn apart at the seams, or the furious bellows that ended in a wet gurgle. He kept his eyes closed in part not to see the massacre going on below him, and in part because it would take far too much effort to pry them open again.
Eventually, everything stopped, and the only sound Fer could hear other than his own labored breathing, was a wet rasp down below. He dragged his eyes open, blinking shadows from the corner of his vision, and half crawled, half dragged himself over to the edge of the narrow shelf.
Nothing remained of the spawnlings other than some gore strewn around the floor of the cavern. The Beast lay on its side, throat and belly a red ruin of destroyed flesh. Its ribs rose and fell with each labored breath, but Fer could hear a wet sucking sound and a whistle as it tried to draw in air that told him that whatever lungs the creature might have had, they were ravaged. He was fair certain it was dying. He was equally as certain that it wouldn’t be a quick death, or an easy one.
Mercy might be a foreign word in the language of Beasts, but it wasn’t to humans. Maybe it made him naive, but he couldn’t lie there and listen to another living creature die in slow agony, not even a monster.
His trip back down to the floor of the cavern was both easier and harder than getting up on the ledge had been. Harder because his arm shook so much that he couldn’t even support his own body weight anymore. Easier because eventually he just fell and slid down the wall to roll onto the floor.
He laid there for a long, breathless moment, feeling every ache and injury in his body flare back to life, as though they’d been waiting to catch his attention. Ferren swallowed carefully around the pain, and eventually dragged himself up to his knees.
The Beast watched him, hatred in that glaring golden eye as he made his agonizingly slow way over to its side. He wasn’t sure if he could force even one more transformation out of his arm. His bones felt hollow, his muscles burned away to cobwebs. But a human, if scale-covered, hand wouldn’t be able to do what he wanted. Even if he could get his hands around the creature’s throat, he definitely didn’t have the strength left to throttle it.
Then the Beast gave a dying lunge for him, and Fer discovered that his hand could manage one last shift after all.
His right arm shot forward on instinct at the movement. Fingers snapped together, taking on the shape Ferren instinctively thought of as ‘weapon’. Nails wove into the razor tip of his [Pike Form], and the monster’s own momentum meant that when Fer shoved his spear point forward, it plunged all the way into the Beast’s mouth, and punched through the back of its skull out the other side.
Fer sucked in a shuddering gasp as the light in that remaining eye went out like a snuffed candle. He didn’t even have the energy to pull his hand free, head dropping to the ground. He barely had time to think, sorry, ma, before the lights blurred out and he knew nothing more.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Fer’s first indication that he wasn’t dead was how much he hurt. He was certain that the dead didn’t feel pain, at least that’s what Thela of Mercy’s followers preached, and he was inclined to believe that if anyone knew, it would be the god-touched. So, it stood to reason that if he felt that terrible then he couldn’t be dead.
The second indication was something cold and foul being pressed to his mouth, dripping a heavy iron taste down the back of his throat and making him choke.
He turned his head to the side, spitting out whatever had been on his face and trying to cough up the lingering traces coating his tongue.
“Eat it, fool,” an impatient voice growled over his head.
It certainly didn’t sound like Ma, and while she might think him a fool fairly often, she never called him one out loud. But for the life of him, Fer couldn’t imagine who else might be telling him to get up and eat something.
Prying his gritty eyes open took what felt was an inhuman amount of effort, but Fer managed it. He had to blink twice, chasing the fog from his vision, before he actually understood what he was looking at.
Saer sat at his head, staring down their lupine muzzle at him what was a distinctly unimpressed look that Fer had no trouble interpreting, even across the species boundary.
“What…” His voice came out a dry croak, and Fer had to lick his dry lips before he tried again. He grimaced at the taste of foul blood remaining there. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” the lupine Beast snapped. “I should just wait for you to die and then eat both of you.”
Both of them, Fer blinked again, trying to goad his memory into working. He glanced past Saer, into the face of an enormous Beast, its jaws still locked open, his arm buried halfway to its gullet.
Fer jerked back, his blood surging up into his skull and clearing the lingering cobwebs. “Oh, Saints,” he gasped. “Oh, sweet Mercy. What the hell?”
Instead of answering, Saer picked something off of the ground with their muzzle, and dropped it into Fer’s open mouth.
He gagged, and spat it back out, watching in horror as the piece of torn flesh bounced across the cavern floor. “What the hell?”
“You’re dying,” Saer snarled. “You used too much power, and you need to feed. Eat.”
Ferren stared, aghast. “I’m not eating that!”
Saer snapped their teeth in frustration. “You did before!”
“Not with my mouth.”
“Fine.” The wolf Beast’s ears pinned flat to their skull, black lips peeled back to reveal gleaming fangs. “Die, then. More for me.”
Even the effort to argue had Fer feeling like he was about to pass out again. Saer might have had a point on just how close he was to the end. “Alright.” The word came out as a wheeze of air. “Alright.”
He still couldn’t bring himself to choke back a hunk of rancid Beast meat, though. Fortunately, it seemed that when he’d blacked out, his [Pike Form] had shifted back to a hand, because Fer didn’t think that he would have been able to do it on his own, never mind wrench it free from the back of the Beast’s skull.
He knew it would be bad, so he didn’t gasp when he saw that state of his arm. It was emaciated, withered down to skin and bone, the fingers looking like fragile twigs liable to snap off with a harsh movement. His arm needed meat to fuel it. With nothing to feed on, all it had had was Fer himself.
He had to coax the tooth-like scales of his palm apart, and carefully press the glob of flesh Saer had so helpfully torn loose for him into the mouth hidden there.
For a moment, he worried that it wouldn’t work. That his arm was just too far gone to save. But then the leathery tongue hidden inside his hand snapped out and jerked the meat the rest of the way in, and Fer had to yank his other hand back or risk losing a finger.
Fer’s right arm fell upon the dead Beast, ripping into it like a feral coyote. It gulped down great, ragged chunks of meat while Fer turned his face away and focused on not casting up his accounts. Saer watched the feeding frenzy with something like grudging respect, their ears tilted forward curiously.
He watched the wolf Beast watch his arm quietly for a few moments, before he couldn’t resist the urge to ask any longer. “Why are you here? Why did you help me?”
Saer wouldn’t look at him, only flicked an ear nonchalantly in his direction, but Fer could see the sudden tension in the Beast’s body. “Why not? You’re the most interesting thing to happen in a long time. It would have been a shame not to see what you’ll get up to next.”
It was an answer. Not the true answer, Fer suspected, but likely the only one he’d get. He could have pressed, but he didn’t have the energy for it, so he grunted and let it drop.
Maybe it really was a whim. Maybe Saer felt they owed him something from when he’d saved them from the worm attack. Maybe Beasts had some of their base creature’s temperament, and canine loyalty had reared its head when they saw Fer marching resolutely to his own death. In the end, their rationalization didn’t really matter. They’d helped Fer when it would have been less effort to just let him die. That meant something, especially from a Beast.
It was a little embarrassing, how quickly his arm consumed the Beast. All too soon there was nothing left but some bloody splashes over the cavern walls and the fern fronds, and Fer absolutely refused to let his own hand nose around like a stray looking for scraps, so he tugged it back to his side.
The meal meant he felt well enough to haul himself to his feet without blacking out, though it hadn’t repaired all the damage he’d done to himself, Fer realized as he had to make a grab for his trousers or risk them sliding off his body.
Sand trickled from the ceiling, and the rock creaked ominously as Ferren finished tying a knot in his waistband. He glanced up, staring at the ceiling in dismay. With all the crashing and deliberate sabotage he’d done, he was a little surprised things had held up as long as they had. “We should go. Now would be good.”
They managed to scramble back out of the tunnel without anything falling on their heads, but Fer pitied whatever creature next thought that cavern would make a good den.
He took a deep breath and winced at the pain in his side. It seemed his meal had helped there, too, though. Instead of a burning wave of agony, the pain in his ribs felt more like a stitch after a run, and for that alone Ferren could have cheered.
The sun was cresting the hills, spilling the first tendrils of golden light over the wind-swept wilds. The touch of warmth on his skin after the cavern’s chill made Fer want to close his eyes and bask like a lizard.
“I need to get back,” he said with a sigh. He wasn’t looking forward to the return trip, low on energy and without fury spurring him forward.
He had just turned to eye Saer speculatively when his right arm erupted into a wave of prickling numbness. Ferren clutched his wrist with a gasp as the feeling crawled up his arm to his shoulder.
Bones shifted, thickening. His nails peeled back, twisting to the sides. It should have been agonizing, but it was just more of that feeling of new blood flooding a limb sat on too long.
When it finally abated, Ferren’s right arm ended, not in a hand, but a heavy bone club studded with razor sharp spikes like chips of obsidian. Eyes wide, he swallowed carefully.
[New Form Acquired: Bone Crusher]
Well, then.
Saer barked a laugh.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ferren hauled the last stool up onto the waiting wagon, and tied it in place with a length of rope. The house was almost empty, only a few essentials and some food left out that would journey well without being preserved in some way. He swiped his arm over his forehead to dash away the sweat beading there, and took a step back to make sure everything was balanced more or less securely.
Da limped up beside him, brow furrowed in concern. “How are you doing? Need a break?”
“I’m fine, Da.” And he was, for the most part. Maybe he still found himself short of breath from time to time, or he had a twinge in his back, but a full fortnight of food and rest since his battle with the Beast of Mountain Range had seen him mostly back to proper form. Though, considering the shape he was in when he limped his way back home after Saer had left him at the bottom of the road, he couldn’t exactly fault him for their concern.
Lisbeth ghosted up to his side without a word and pressed a bit of flat bread and honey into his hand, glaring until he dutifully took a bite. He did so happily, and she waited for the last crumb to vanish before heading back inside the farm house.
While at times it seemed like his family was doing their best to fatten him up like a hog for slaughter, Ferren ate every bite. He still hadn’t managed to fully shake the hollow feeling in his gut, and he never wanted to deplete his reserves quite like that again if he could help it.
Barely an hour past sunrise, but the others would be joining them soon to move out, all the families from the valley traveling together as one caravan to safer ground. It hadn’t been an easy choice, to leave the land that they’d worked for years, but part of Ferren was still glad his parents had agreed to the relocation. He couldn’t bear them being in danger, and at least closer to the heart of the kingdom, they’d be better protected by the King’s patrols than Fer could manage on his own.
“Regrets?” Ayana popped up at his shoulder, jerking Fer’s attention away from the rolling hills of sage and gold and ochre stretching out to the horizon.
She’d turned up inexplicably that morning in the grey pre-dawn, riding up to the front door on Roddey to make sure they had everything in order. When Fer had questioned her about her own preparations, she’d waved him off, saying that her brothers could handle what was left.
Fer kept his doubts to himself, and offered her a small shrug. “Not exactly. I’m glad my family will be safe, but still. It’s hard to leave home.”
“It’s not forever,” she pointed out, tossing her blond braid back over her shoulder. “They said it’s only until the wave of Beasts dies back down to more manageable levels.”
Fer had his concerns on that front, but he didn’t want to burden anyone with them, so he only nodded.
“And besides,” Ayana continued, shielding her eyes from the sun with a raised hand. “It’s just a place. You’re taking all the important bits with you. Your family, the other people of the valley. We’ll still all be together, even if it isn’t here.”
There was that. The thought made Ferren’s shoulders feel lighter, and he smiled at Ayana in thanks.
The rising sun painted her cheeks a pretty pink, and she opened her mouth to say something when Sun Yi stepped out of the farm house.
“Ferren. May we speak to you for a moment?”
The Blade Cultivator approached, Leola close at his side.
Ayana looked like she’d bitten into something sour. “Of course. Don’t mind me,” she muttered as she walked away.
Ferren’s brows pulled down in confusion. He wasn’t sure what had happened at the house the night he’d gone chasing after the Beast, but Ayana had been more and more prickly about the party seeking out his time.
“Of course.” He turned to face them. “What can I help you with? Is everything alright?”
Sun Yi nodded, but before he could speak, Leola blurted out, “We want you to come back with us.”
He stared at her blankly, before glancing at the packed wagon. “I am?”
“No.” Sun Yi rested both his hands on his sword hilt, his stance relaxed. “We want you to come back to the capitol with us. To join our party.”
It was like the man had suddenly burst into a language Fer didn’t speak. He wasn’t the type to join a party of heroes. He was Ferren Tael, infantry. He hadn’t even been a very good pikeman, if he was being honest.
