Hungry Heart - Book 5 - Ch. 22 (Patreon)

Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four / Chapter Five / Chapter Six / Chapter Seven / Chapter Eight / Chapter Nine / Chapter Ten / Chapter Eleven / Chapter Twelve / Chapter Thirteen / Chapter Fourteen / Chapter Fifteen / Chapter Sixteen / Chapter Seventeen / Chapter Eighteen / Chapter Nineteen / Chapter Twenty / Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two – The Fire in Your Heart

Although only a short while earlier, Toru had encountered that sharp blade without suffering any wound and pain, he was aware that the rules might have just changed, since Hekastfet was in charge, as he had told him. A part of him wanted to believe that it was all a bluff on the evil master’s part, but he didn’t want to confirm that by meeting the battleax wielded by that frightening wolfshifter head first.

This time, getting out of the way was paramount for his survival. How come that wolf wasn’t tired after having fought Varg earlier for who knew how long? Even swinging that battleax around should have taken a toll on him, but it appeared that nothing could keep him from launching his relentless attacks against Toru.

His mind, at the same time, was searching for a way out. The wolf made a sudden move, and the sharp edge of his weapon brushed against Toru’s shoulder, making pain bloom on the spot, only to spread down his arm. He stared at the way the fabric of his shirt turned crimson red. It was impossible to win this fight, and he had just received the only proof he needed.

“What will you do, Toru? Will you stick to your principles and refuse to yield, when the solution is within your grasp? You do not have to suffer. The path I offer you leads to your happiness. Forever. You’ll be with your friends, ruling over the world. All you have to do is to give up on this silly idea that you could ever defeat me. Why are you refusing my gift to you?”

“Because,” Toru grunted, “if I do any of that, I’ll never be the same in my friend’s eyes. They will be disappointed in me and sad.” He was now running, and if there was one thing that made Mako’s body apt for this unequal fight, it had to be its nimbleness. As much as it was true that Toru couldn’t fight the wolfshifter, it was just as true that he could run from his massive opponent. Although the shifter was superior to his puny body in every way, he needed to wield that heavy battleax and that slowed him down.

“There is no other outcome, no matter what you tell yourself,” Hekastfet warned. “Do you want to defeat this wolfshifter? You only have to ask me how.”

“I won’t ever do such a thing. You are not worthy of being asked anything, because you are plain evil, you are made of evil, and everything that comes out of your mouth is evil and leads to evil.” Toru stopped on what looked like a small dune to catch his breath. His pursuer didn’t seem to need a break, so he could only get the benefit of a few seconds of rest.

“I can turn you into a true ruler. I can show you all the world for you to see and have.”

“You are lying!” Toru yelled and began running again. “I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t able to defeat you. Lie all you want, that truth will never change.”

“Very well. Then I must offer you a token of good will. My power, if I lend it to you, Toru, can make you so strong that you will be able to defeat the whole world, not only this wolf.”

“When I have my tiger, I can fight anyone anyway. You cannot make me better than that. My tiger is the best,” Toru said with pride. “Too bad those sand boat pilots forced me into this puny body.”

“They did, to my annoyance,” Hekastfet spat angrily.

What was the evil master saying now? Toru had to focus on not losing his breath, and the superficial cut in his shoulder stung enough to make him grunt in pain from time to time. Could it be that the sand boat riders had foreseen what would happen and that’s why they had chosen to place him inside this puny body? But that made no sense. His tiger was amazing, and he knew it.

“How so?” he shouted.

“You don’t have to know everything.”

Toru needed to think fast. Mako’s body was giving up, and he couldn’t force it to keep this pace much longer. Even if he pushed it into accepting its fate of being sacrificed, it wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t be saved, and he would cause Mako’s body to become so mangled that it was doubtful it would ever be of any use to its rightful owner.

What would Demophios do in this situation? Most likely, he’d say weird things, but that wasn’t what Toru was looking for. If Hekastfet had been able to destroy him so easily, he would have done it a long time ago. So, he needed to invoke Demophios’s wisdom to find a solution.

Before, when the wolf had tried to destroy him, Toru hadn’t dodged very much. Sure, those blows had never landed, but what if—

Toru turned and waited for the wolf to dash at him. He knew that he needed to steel himself for what followed. If he died here—

The battleax hit him in the shoulder, burying itself to the bone. Toru wobbled and fell to his knees. How much resolve was he supposed to have? After all, he was only a tiger who loved life so much and wanted to be with his friends. Was this the end for him? But it wouldn’t matter, he thought, as he felt his life draining from him. Before him, the wolfshifter was raising his battleax again, ready to deliver his final attack.

It wouldn’t matter, because he wouldn’t have conceded to Hekastfet and his demands that would only lead to evil and more evil. Even if Hekastfet promised him a life without end, he wouldn’t accept it from his archenemy’s black hands.

They would forgive him, he thought, as he waited for the final blow to descend upon his head. Duril would cry, for sure, and maybe even Varg. Claw would be sad, but he was a tough bear. They would cry, but they wouldn’t be disappointed in him. Their pain would be clean, not marred by the conviction that they had loved the wrong tiger.

“Stop,” Hekastfet shouted, and Toru watched as the wolfshifter froze in place, his battleax still raised. He was like a statue, the same way Varg had been frozen before. It made Toru wonder if Hekastfet wasn’t using only the power of illusion to make him see these things. But if that was true, it could only mean… that his pain wasn’t real, either.

Toru moved his arm and realized that it hadn’t been severed from the rest of his body, as the earlier excruciating pain would have indicated. He was whole, and Mako’s body wasn’t mangled. That was reason enough for him to celebrate and shout his success.

Hekastfet leaned over him. “You are infuriatingly stupid, tiger.”

“I don’t think so,” Toru replied joyfully. “Your silly wolf can’t kill me.”

“He can, but I cannot allow it. Destroying you should be my victory.”

“Really?” Toru taunted him without getting up. He felt quite comfortable lying on the bare ground. He was just so tired after running from that wolf and his horrible battleax. “Why does it matter how you destroy me if you’re so bent on it?”

“It is dismaying how the lack of education has worked in your case. I shouldn’t have had such a conversation with you. You understand nothing. I need to establish myself as the true ruler of the world. If you die by another’s hand, my plans will suffer.”

“This is an illusion and nothing else.” Toru said. He didn’t have to check to see if his shoulder was intact.

Hekastfet laughed, letting out horrible cavernous sounds that could only be considered akin to laughter because it was clearly his intention to do that. “Was the earlier pain an illusion too? Ha, no one says that I cannot drive you mad with it.”

He moved away, and the wolf appeared before Toru.

“You will die now, coward,” the shifter spat at him.

Hekastfet was right about one thing. The wolf could clearly cause him pain, even if it was only a phantasm and not reality. However, Toru knew that Hekastfet was far from being all powerful. He was here, yes, but he was also in the scattered shards that he was yet to discover, spread all over the world. Toru only had to endure and refuse to yield.

He looked at the wolf. “You cannot kill me,” he said and didn’t close his eyes as the battleax descended upon him.

***

“We really have no idea if this will work,” Sogou said as he continued to stack the wood around the shard.

“It is an idea, and one that comes from the right place,” Duril assured the young storyteller. “This place, like other parts of the city, is tainted by this evil, but it hasn’t always been like this. We must do our best to help Toru.”

Varg appeared troubled by something beyond what was happening before their eyes. They couldn’t see through the shard, but a dark energy seemed to flow out of it. It filled their hearts with a sort of despair that couldn’t be described. Duril decided that it was a good idea to give his friend something more to do.

“Once we save Toru, we must quickly find a way out of here. We had to pass through quite the labyrinth to get here. Do you believe you could map our exit route with the help of the esteemed curator here, Varg?”

The wolfshifter looked at him, clearly understanding the things that weren’t being said. “Yes, of course. Vetor, care to show us a way to the surface?”

“You can’t escape from here,” Vetor replied quickly.

Varg showed no hesitation when he grabbed the curator by a tuft of the hair that covered his round body. At this point, Vetor had returned to his original shape. “We will find a way, don’t worry.”

Duril smiled reassuringly at Sogou once the wolf was no longer with them. “We came one way, so there’s that at least,” he said.

“This whole place is very strange. I wouldn’t be so surprised if we wouldn’t be able to go back the same way we came,” Sogou replied. “Do you know how to start a fire, Mr. Duril? I feel like we should have asked the curator first.”

“I have everything I need in this bag of mine,” Duril assured him.

“Oh, right, you helped us with the torches just earlier,” Sogou recalled. With so much going on, it was no wonder the young storyteller was acting like a scatterbrain, although Duril believed that such things were actually a character trait of his friend.

***

“My friends came in one way, so we need to take the same path to get out.”

“They were thrown in here, just like you were,” Vetor argued. “But I suppose there might be a way, only it is very dangerous to use.”

“How so?” Varg asked. “You’ve suddenly recovered your memory, it seems.”

“You can put me down,” Vetor warned. After some initial struggling, he had come to realize that it would be impossible for him to get out of Varg’s grip.

“Can I? You have a tendency to run away and leave me in the dark.” But even as he said that, Varg placed Vetor on the ground.

“This path will take us right under the Aureate Sea. In terms that even you will understand, I’m sure, we run the risk of drowning.”

“The Aureate Sea is made of sand.”

“One can drown in sand as well as in water,” Vetor argued.

“Provided that there’s enough of it, yes, I believe you can say that,” Varg agreed. “Even so, if this is the only way, we need to check it out. Lead the way, and don’t make me grab you by the hair again.”

“That was uncalled for,” Vetor shouted at him while rolling over the ground at an incredible speed. Varg had to break into a run to keep up.

***

“Are you still fighting the pain? Isn’t it too much for you?” Hekasfet taunted him after the tenth attack – or was it the eleventh? – that made Toru feel like he was dying.

“Even if it is, I will never give up,” he hissed through his clenched teeth. The pain was real, even if the illusion was not. The wolfshifter didn’t appear to understand the fruitless task he had undertaken; each time, he seemed to have lost all memories of having killed Toru only moments earlier. He continued his vicious attacks, landing blow after blow on Toru’s body.

“I can keep you here forever, tormenting you like this. How long will it take you before you succumb to madness?”

“I’ll ask you something,” Toru said, hoping that his delaying tactics could buy him some time to recover from the pain he was suffering. “If you’re so powerful, why are you trapped in here? And these shard fragments in my shoulder, why aren’t you keen on snatching them away from me?”

There was no response from Hekastfet. Toru started laughing. “I wonder what will happen if I meet that huge ax with this shoulder first.” He shifted his position and ripped the sleeve off his arm. “Will the ax bounce off them? Or will they be destroyed?”

Hekastfet turned away from him. Toru began laughing.

“Ah, it seems like I’m onto something. You are this wolf. But you cannot use yourself to destroy yourself.”

Hekastfet remained unmoving and silent for a while. “I can still keep you here forever,” he said and walked back into the storm closing around Toru like a circle of dark clouds.

Toru pushed himself to his knees. The wolf had been abandoned by his evil master, and he stood there, frozen as he had been before. Toru moved around him and began jumping to reach the ax. If Hekastfet was against the destruction of the shards, it meant only one thing.

How was he supposed to reach that battleax, though? He was simply too short.

***

Varg looked up and down the corridor, and then above his head. “If I open this trapdoor,” he began, “is the Aureate Sea going to rush in?”

“As I have already told you again and again,” Vetor replied. “It’s a way out, but it’s going to swallow us all. It defeats the purpose of it being a way out.”

“I’ll open it just a smidge then,” Varg said.

“You can’t open it just a smidge,” Vetor said with a scoff. “Let me climb on your shoulder.”

“Why? Do you want to help me close the trapdoor when things get ugly?”

“I have no strength of the kind needed for that,” Vetor said. “But you’re tall enough, which means that I won’t drown in the Aureate Sea from the first wave that will hit us.”

Varg shrugged. He had an inkling that the curator of this cursed place was shackled by his own fears and doubts more than anything else. Without another moment of hesitation, he grabbed the handle and turned it. Grains of sand began pouring in around the circular door, like the fine grain escaping a miller’s stone. At least Vetor was no longer keen on puzzles and jokes. They were, indeed, under the sea of sand.

“Have you convinced yourself already?” Vetor asked, coughing exaggeratedly.

“Do you have another alternative for getting us out?” Varg asked.

“No.”

“Then this is what we have to try,” he said and pulled hard at the handle, causing the trapdoor to fall.

Sand rushed in like a flood. Varg closed his eyes to protect them from the fine grains, and when he opened them again, he was on the shore of the Aureate Sea, witnessing a strange fight.

Between his friend Claw and the ethereal boat riders.

***

“I feel like we should add something,” Sogou said as the fire they had made began licking at the smooth surface of the large shard.

“If you are expecting me to start reciting magic incantations, I’m afraid I will have to disappoint you,” Duril replied. “Toru loves being warm, you know? He’s like a big cat a lot more than you might imagine. But don’t tell him I said that. He also loves being called a great warrior, and this won’t sit well with him.”

He kept himself talking to rein in the trembling in his heart. Toru was strong, and he could do so many things, but this whole thing seemed like a carefully crafted trap. This shard was from a different time, most likely different from the fragments they had found so far and the pieces that served to aid the citizens of Coinvale above them to run their bread making ovens and other house helpers.

Because they had built quite a great fire, he couldn’t get near enough to see if the shard showed any cracks that would help them glimpse Toru’s fate. The only thing he could do was to stay where  he was and look into the fire.

“Mr. Duril, look!” Sogou shouted, pointing at the shard. “Are my eyes fooling me, or can we really see inside the shard?”

The young storyteller was on to something. Duril walked over to where Sogou was standing and looked, through the flames, straight at the shard. Indeed, he could make something out. Shapes moving, and nothing else.

“Sogou,” he said excitedly, “I think we just need to make the fire bigger!”

“How are we going to find more wood?” Sogou asked. “Ah, just leave it to me! I’ll be the carrier, while you’ll be the one to feed the fire, Mr. Duril. This is such an adventure!” he shouted happily as he stormed out of the room.

Duril brushed the back of his hand across his forehead. They might end up cooking themselves while making the fire bigger, but it was all for a good cause.

***

“Claw!” Varg shouted, rushing to his friend’s help. How had this come to be? The boat riders weren’t their enemies, were they?

“The sea, the sea,” the boat pilots shouted, pointing somewhere behind Varg. “It has awakened!”

He stopped and looked toward the spot they were clamoring about. The sand swirled, creating a dark eye, and myriads of grains made of dust disappeared inside it. That must have been the way he had just come through, but where was Vetor?

Claw put his heavy paw on his shoulder. “Now this is quite the apparition. Is it truly you, puppy?”

“Yes. Don’t ask questions. We need to follow them!” He pointed at the boat riders who were climbing into their boats, trying to save themselves from getting sucked into that unexpected whirlpool.

“The sea,” Claw exclaimed, “how is it possible? It’s getting all sucked in!”

The force of the dark eye was pulling all the sand in. A wind had risen out of nowhere, but the sky above was as serene as always over the city of Coinvale and its mystical sea. The ground growled under their feet, and the sea disappeared through the hole in the ground Varg must have created by opening the trap door.

The boat riders soon had nothing to strive for. Their boats leaned on one side and fell, one after the other, as the sea holding them up vanished from beneath their decks.

“I think we should go with the tide, my friend,” Varg said and grabbed Claw’s hand.

“Do you want us to jump into that?” Claw asked, astonished as he realized his friend’s intentions.

“Don’t worry,” Varg assured him, shouting so that his voice could be heard over the roaring wind, “I know exactly where that leads.”

***

Toru looked at the storm raging around him. The circle wasn’t closing in on him, not yet, at least. It looked as helpless as he felt… but no, that was the wrong thing to think about. Hekastfet was the helpless one.

“Do you hear me?” Toru shouted as he found a way to climb up the frozen warrior’s back. “Hekastfet, you cannot defeat me!”

He smacked his fist against the wolf’s wrist, but it looked like the weapon wouldn’t budge, not even a smidge. It was an incredible feat to make the shifter’s frozen fingers unwrap from the weapon, but that was his one plan and he didn’t want to give up on it. He yelped as he lost his balance and fell to the ground. How strange. Underneath his back, the ground felt warm. He smiled as he felt a new surge of power moving through his limbs and spine. With newfound faith, he placed one hand on the frozen wolf. Warmth radiated through him, making the tips of his fingers tingle. The wolf swayed and his large battleax fell. With a victory shout, Toru hurried to it, but it looked like he couldn’t move it even if he used both hands.

***

“Is that Mr. Toru?” Sogou asked, pointing frantically at the shard.

They had to stay at a great distance from it now, because the flames were too hot to handle. Duril had to pull Sogou back to prevent the storyteller’s robe from catching on fire.

“I see him, too,” Duril shouted. “Sogou, your idea worked! Look, I believe he feels it! The fire is giving him power!”

“But it somehow looks like it’s not… enough?” Sogou asked hesitantly.

Indeed, whatever it was that Toru was fighting there, dark shadows gathered around him. They had the consistency of smoke, but they moved menacingly, slowly but carefully approaching their target.

And Toru seemed completely oblivious to everything, crouched as he was, and fiddling with a thing on the ground.

Duril didn’t have the time to process what was going on, because the door blasted open and a wave of sand rushed in.

“No!” he exclaimed as the sand engulfed the big fire he and Sogou had struggled so hard to stoke for Toru’s sake.

“Here’s the Aureate Sea for you, my dear Duril,” Varg’s sonorous voice boomed from somewhere on the crest of the wave.

“Really?” Duril asked, grabbing his hair with his one hand. He didn’t know whether to pull it all out by the roots or yell at Varg.

“Mr. Duril,” Sogou shouted and grabbed his shoulder. “I think that’s it!”

He stared in disbelief as the sand wave crashed against and then pulled at the shard. With each complete cycle, the shard showed signs of cracking, as if the Aureate Sea was trying to reach inside it.

The work of centuries and millennia, that’s what Duril had once read in a book about how water could eat through mountains, given enough time. But this wasn’t water, and time was, magically enough, not an issue.

***

“You ruin everything, tiger,” Hekastfet shouted from the mist.

“And you haven’t seen anything yet,” Toru growled impatiently as he pushed his shoulder with the shards into the blade of the battleax, only to glide over it and fall to the ground. Each time he touched it, his strength increased. “I’ll beat you, just you wait.”

The ground shook under his feet, making him lose his balance. But he didn’t give up on his task. The shard was breaking for some reason; that had to be it.

“You can’t do that!” Hekastfet shouted and pushed Toru away from the battleax. He placed himself between Toru and the shard blade. “If you destroy even just one fragment--”

“I’ll beat you then, right?” Toru laughed and put his hands on his hips. “I had no idea it would be that simple.”

“You fool! True power shouldn’t belong to you!”

Hekastfet turned his attention to the wolf that now was kneeling on the ground, his head low. Somehow, Toru felt danger growing around him. Varg would want to save that wolf, even he was infected by Hekastfet. He rushed toward him without thinking twice.

A swirl of sand shot up through the ground like a geyser. Toru gawked at it and stumbled. The sand wrapped around his hand as he held it pointed at the wolfshifter.

“He doesn’t belong to you!” he shouted.

An arrow of light shot from his hand and cut Hekastfet’s shadow in half. A second shot from the center of his chest. When he looked inside his own body, he could hardly believe his eyes.

His heart was made of fire.

TBC

Next chapter