Absolute Power: A Portal Harem Fantasy, page 14
I put my hand on Callie’s leg. She glanced over at me, irritated at being interrupted. With my eyes and a nod of my head, I told her to look across the field. Her gaze stretched out, and her eyes went wide. Blair had been paying attention and looked as well. Just in front of the trees was the same type of beast as was right in front of us, but it was five times as big. There was only one, and instead of being multi-colored, it was solid blue and standing perfectly still.
“Are the little ones babies?” I whispered as softly as I could.
Callie shook her head. “No. They are two different animals. The only ways to tell them apart are coloring and size. The little ones are Chars, and the big one is a male Sintha. Only males are blue.”
“Wouldn’t it make sense to bring home the larger option?” I asked.
Blair and Callie looked at me, then at each other, passing concern between themselves.
“What? What’s the problem?” I asked, wishing I was part of their silent communications.
“The Sintha is outside the border,” Callie replied, her voice heavy with hesitation.
I carefully looked in all directions around the field and treeline near the Sintha. “It’s alone. Nothing else is around it. Is it that big of a problem? We could kill it and get it back inside the border in no time.”
“Shadows are excellent at hiding,” Callie said. “Don’t ever assume they aren’t near you, especially anywhere outside the border.”
“Look,” I said, both the women staring at me. “You even said we don’t have much time to get to Cadence. It would make sense to not waste the little time we have needing an extra hunt because we went for the smaller option. If we brought home the Sintha, we’d be set on meat for two months or more.”
Callie turned her head and looked at Blair. In her typical fashion, Blair nodded once to acknowledge whatever Callie was asking her with her eyes. Then Callie turned back to me.
“It’s not safe, but you are right,” she relented. “We don’t have time to keep hunting every few days. We’ll go after the Sintha.”
“That makes a lot more sense,” I replied, happy she saw it my way. “What’s our first move?”
“We need to get the Chars out of our way without scaring them. If we scare them and they run off, that will signal there is danger in the area to the Sintha,” Callie answered.
I nodded and returned to watching the Chars. I had no idea how to get a wild animal to move without scaring it, but I very quickly found that Blair did know how. She opened her mouth wide, took a deep breath, and forced the air out of her lungs. Her throat emitted a deep, soft, rumbling sound that seemed to bounce off of every surface around us. When it reached the Chars, their ears stood up with curiosity, but not with fear.
Blair let out another deep rumble but somehow made it sound like it was going off to our left. The Chars turned their heads and took a few steps towards the sound. One more emission from Blair, and the three of them slowly wandered off in search of whatever they thought the sound was.
“Was that the sound that they make amongst themselves?” I asked in a whisper.
“No,” Callie answered with a small grin. “Chars are just stupid and very curious.”
Blair stood up, very slowly, her eyes locked on the Sintha. “Now is our chance.”
17
We moved slowly, in a line, towards the edge of the protection border. Blair put her hand out to stop us just before we reached the field, a signal to stay alert. We followed suite as she started to scan the area, and together, we looked for Shadows in every direction.
None were visible.
While I trusted Blair’s judgement, Callie and Blair seemed much more cautious about them than I felt was necessary. I had absolutely no fear of the crazies. Granted, my experience with them was severely limited, but it didn’t seem they would be all that difficult to deal with. Perhaps the girls were simply more affected by it emotionally because they knew the people before they’d gone insane.
Whatever the cause, an impatience rose in my chest as we inched forward.
One final step and we were outside the border. I turned slowly to look behind us. There was nothing but the appearance of a large field. I tapped Callie on the shoulder again.
“Why wouldn’t the Shadows try to wander through the field they see?” I whispered.
“There’s resistance when they reach the border,” she explained quietly. “It’s like a tiny electric shock. It’s not enough to rile them up, but enough to change their direction, even if only slightly. Some used to go around the entire border and make it to the other side with just tiny changes in direction.”
As dire as the situation in Slanos was, the thought of putting up a border that would simply kill the Shadows never seemed to occur to Callie. That fact meant one thing: she absolutely thought the insane could be saved.
I tucked some questions I had in the back of my mind as Blair urged us forward. The grass under our feet was crunchy, so we had to move so slow it felt like we made no progress at all. She never took her eyes off the Sintha who had begun to graze while he stood. I felt as though she was waiting for an opportunity to make eye contact with the animal, but she didn’t get one. The Sintha was one-hundred percent focused on eating.
By the time we were half-way across the field, my impatience had grown to monster proportions. I wasn’t even sure why I was in such a hurry. Yeah, creeping along was boring, but that didn’t explain the building tension in every cell of my body.
I nudged Callie. “Something isn’t right. I can’t keep moving like this.”
Her brow furrowed. “This was your idea.”
“Killing the larger animal was my idea. Taking all day to do it wasn’t,” I replied. “I don’t know why, but I feel like I’m about to lose my patience. I’m not trying to be difficult, I simply can’t control this much longer.”
Callie’s eyes opened wide. “What if…?” She put her hand on Blair’s wrist to stop her. “He may have thought movement.”
Blair pulled her eyes from the Sintha to stare at me. She looked irritated and borderline angry. “There’s only one way to find out. He’ll spoil the hunt if it doesn’t work.”
“What the hell is thought movement?” I asked, alarm bells going off in my head.
Callie put her mouth next to my ear. “Take your chakrams off your belt.”
“Why?” I asked as I did what she told me to.
“Are you sure you can take an animal's life with nothing but those weapons?” she asked, ignoring my question.
I wasn’t opposed to hunting at all, but I did have to take a moment to understand what she meant. I wasn’t shooting an animal with a gun or a bow. I’d have to get close enough and slice its throat to bring it down. I glanced at the Sintha and back to Callie.
“We need the meat. We need to get this done without wasting more time. So, yes, I can do it. However, you are going to have to fill me in on exactly what I’ll be doing.”
“That irritation you feel?” she replied. “Use it to run at the Sintha as quickly as you can. You’re really going to have to run, though. You can’t jog. You have to sprint every step of the way until you reach it, then kill it.”
“You want me to run at it? If that could be done, why haven’t we done so already?” The idea irritated me even further.
“Questions later. Now, go.” Callie turned and looked at the grazing animal and let out a breath.
I turned my attention to the Sintha. Regardless of how ridiculous the change in plan seemed to me, I felt relieved that I would no longer have to move at a snail’s pace. Excitement grew inside me as I leaned forward, planting my feet into the ground in preparation. I focused on its neck, then pushed off my back leg.
Three steps later, a power burst inside me. I felt my legs moving without any strain at all, and everything around me blurred out. The only thing I could see clearly was the Sintha’s neck. I leaned forward, absorbing the thrill rushing through me as I sped towards my target. I’d never felt more light on my feet, and my lungs and heart didn’t strain as I would've expected.
I wanted to keep running. While I had no desire to stop, even when I’d reached my destination, I forced myself to. I’d run across the entire field, and the Sintha hadn’t even lifted its head. When I stopped, however, the animal jerked and its head flew up, exposing the underside of its neck to me. Without a second thought, I raised my arms over head, crossed my blades, and stepped forward. I pulled my arms apart with as much force as I could muster, slicing at the Sintha’s throat.
Right when I felt my blades make contact, something happened. My vision changed. I wasn’t looking up at a giant beast’s neck any longer. Instead, I saw a row of trees to my left, an open field to my right, and a dirty, wild-eyed Shadow lunging at me.
The vision flashed so quickly I didn’t have time to change course. I finished cutting the Sintha’s throat and jumped to the side to avoid the falling animal. As I did so, I spun around and found myself face-to-face with the Shadow I’d just had a vision of. Without any hesitation, I swung my chakrams at its neck and jumped back.
The moment my feet hit the ground, the power that had surged through me stopped so abruptly I had the sense I would implode. My vision changed again, only this time it simply returned to normal. When I saw the Sintha and the beheaded Shadow still falling to the ground, my mouth dropped open. I’d killed them both and gotten out of the way so quickly that gravity hadn’t fully claimed them yet.
I whipped my head around to find Callie and Blair. They were in the exact spot I’d left them, and neither looked as though they’d moved at all. Confusion set in. Why would they be standing there when I was being attacked by a Shadow? Was it some sort of test?
“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled at them.
The two of them took off running in my direction. When they reached me, Callie was beaming with a proud smile. “You did it!”
“I know what I did. My question is why you did nothing!” I yelled.
Callie laughed, and Blair, her expression still blank, shook her head. Callie threw her hands around my neck.
“We couldn’t have done anything if we wanted to,” she said. “We couldn’t even see you.”
I looked at the two of them. “You couldn’t see me?”
“Nope!” she replied. “You have thought movement! That magic allows you to move as quickly as thought, or close to it. We couldn’t see you until you stopped and turned around. From our view, the Sintha’s neck just started bleeding and the Shadow’s head flew off. You weren’t anywhere around.”
I didn’t have a response. My body was buzzing with energy, but I did note that my impatience and tension was completely gone. “Can I do that whenever I want?”
“Whenever you feel you want to be somewhere faster than you are currently moving, sure,” Callie giggled as she let go of me.
Blair stared at me as though she was pissed off that I could move as quickly as I had, but instead of any angry words, she had a genuine question. “How did you know there was a Shadow behind you?”
I stared back at her. How had I known? Oh, that’s right, I’d seen it. How had I seen it, though?
“I’m not sure,” I finally answered. “I… I saw it somehow.”
Callie stopped laughing. “What do you mean, you saw it?”
“Right when I was pulling my blades across the Sintha’s neck, my vision changed and I saw the Shadow charge out of the trees towards me,” I said, feeling that I sounded like perhaps the insanity had gotten to me. The thought caused panic to rise.
“Did you see yourself?” Callie asked.
I thought for a moment, distracted by my sudden fear of going crazy. “I don’t remember. Hey, shouldn’t we get out of here? Can’t we be affected by the lack of Cadence’s power out here?”
“You are protected when you are with me,” Callie said. “I’d never let anyone come out here without being protected.”
Blair took one step towards me. “He has omnipresent sight.”
Callie glanced at her, then me. “I think you are right.”
“Stop.” I raised my hand in the air. “My turn to speak, ladies. What the hell is omnipresent sight?”
Blair’s face went blank at my question, and Callie smiled.
“We think you can see through the eyes of other living creatures,” she explained.
I re-ran the experience of seeing the Shadow lunge for me, then looked at the slain Sintha. I walked over to stand beside its head. Although the vision I’d had had been from a higher angle, I was definitely in the same place I’d seen the Shadow from.
“Holy shit. I saw through the Sintha’s eyes. The damn animal saved me even though I was killing it.” Sadness coursed through me instantly.
“Don’t feel bad,” Callie comforted me. “The Sintha didn’t do anything. You did. You looked through its eyes.”
Her words did have a slightly soothing effect. “What would make me do that?”
“It’s not uncommon for those with omnipresent sight to have heightened senses in general. You may have heard the Shadow first, then used the Sintha’s sight to locate it.”
“Damn,” I said, chuckling as relief spread through me. “I did all that without even working up a sweat.”
Callie rolled her eyes, and Blair reached for the rope attached to my belt. “Let’s go,” she said.
I was more in the mood for celebrating the fact that I’d just discovered I had two more powers than tying up a carcass, but I wasn’t going to argue with Blair. So, instead, I helped her create a harness around the dead Sintha. I strapped the rope to myself, all the while having no idea how I was going to be able to pull such a large animal all the way through the city on my own. When I leaned forward, the rope pulled taught. I dug my feet into the ground and pushed but the Sintha didn’t budge. Standing upright, I looked back at the slain beast.
“I have no idea–”
“You don’t need to,” Callie said, pointing a finger behind me.
I turned around just in time to see Blair shove the blade of her sword into the animal’s back. She closed her eyes for a split second, then opened them. A green glow shone from the hilt of her sword, and the Sintha slowly raised from the ground, hovering in place.
Callie slapped me on the back. “You don’t have to pull. You just have to steer. You must remember, Blair’s powers are for protection and hunting. Moving a kill is part of hunting.”
I leaned forward again, only that time, when I pushed my feet into the ground, I moved. I moved so quickly I nearly fell over. Callie hadn’t been kidding. I could feel the weight of the ropes on my back, but not the weight of the Sintha they were tied to.
“That’s a pretty nifty trick,” I said, laughing. “You’d make a fortune moving things like that in my world!”
Regardless of the chuckle I got from Callie, Blair didn’t bother to look at me. Her focus was solely on the handle of her sword as we moved back across the field and through the border that hid the city.
18
Edwin ran out to meet us when we approached the building. He held the doors open and directed me to pull the Sintha into a room off the left side of the lobby. That chamber had notably larger doorways than any other room, possibly serving as some sort of loading bay before things fell apart, making it possible to fit the Sintha through.
Once inside, I took a look around. There was nothing other than a drain and a shower head in a space large enough to house a football team’s locker room. It was fantastically clean and bright, a state that changed immediately when the Sintha entered the room behind me. Most of the animal’s blood had drained on the way through the city thanks to Blair making it hover at an angle meant to allow gravity to pull it out, but we were still leaving a trail when we made it to Edwin’s designated room.
“Do you do all the preparation of the meat in here?” I asked as Blair lowered the Sintha from the magical dolly her sword had created.
“Just the skinning and quartering,” Edwin replied. “I’ll have to process this in eighths though. How did you manage to find this? I haven’t seen a Sintha around here in ages and definitely not one this large.”
“It was just standing at the edge of the forest, grazing,” I told him. “There were a few Chars nearby, but it made more sense to stock the freezer a little tighter to avoid having to go back out again.”
“This’ll definitely do it,” Edwin chuckled.
Mary appeared at the doorway behind us. “Edwin, what can I help with? Will be eating Sintha for dinner?”
Edwin glanced out the door towards the windows at the front of the lobby. “If I get to it, I should have enough done to carve some steaks for dinner. If you’ll take care of any other dishes you’d like served, our timing should line up perfectly.”
“You’ve got it,” Mary replied, then turned to Blair. “Perhaps you should rest for a while? You can come back up to the couch.”
Blair’s forehead wrinkled, and her brow lowered. If she’d been anyone else, I would’ve expected a barrage of angry words to exit her mouth next. Instead, she nodded, just once.
Her reaction was bewildering. How could her face say one thing, but her actions say another? I had to find out, and a plan popped into my mind.
“Mary, would you mind if rested for just a bit as well?” I asked. “I did this thing where I ran ridiculously fast, then saw through an animal’s eyes and killed a Shadow… and now I’m drained. I don’t think it will take long to get my second wind.”
