Hungry Heart - Book #4 - Ch. 27 (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 / Chapter Twenty-Three / Chapter Twenty-Four / Chapter Twenty-Five / Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven – To Lift a Curse

Duril kept his eyes shut, squeezing his eyelids as hard as he could, while he could hear the clamor of fighting all around him. There was a possibility that Claw couldn’t even hear him, but his belief that those creatures, as well as the mist, were only the fruit of dreams, the kind that turned to nightmares even while a person was wide awake, became stronger and stronger.

Even if the bearshifter was still struggling against his invisible foes, all that Duril could hear was his companion cutting through the air with his arms, and how his teeth snapped, pouring ice into his veins. It was as if Claw was fighting himself, and that was a battle he was bound to lose, sooner or later.

The longer he kept his eyes closed, the more he realized that the air was no longer humid. The ground under his feet was dry, just as he had noticed before, which only meant that they were supposed to have detected the ruse from the start.

But what could he do to make Claw realize that the winged enemies coming at him weren’t real? Shouting at him did nothing. So, blindly, Duril held his arm out in front of himself, swinging it left and right, following the sounds of his friend fighting for himself and against himself.

Finally, he managed to catch the bearshifter’s arm and held it tightly. “Claw, please, stop fighting! They’re not real! They never were! It’s nothing but a trick!”

Despite his shouts, it appeared that Claw still couldn’t hear him. However, he did brush off Duril’s hold and pushed him back, making him stumble and fall. Duril knew very well that he couldn’t risk opening his eyes, because that would only make the nightmare alive, and now that he knew what was happening, he had no intention of letting them have the upper hand.

With a low growl, he dashed forward and jumped on Claw’s back. He felt relief at having been able to land where he wanted, because without eyes to see his movements were clumsy and unsteady.

He kept himself tied to Claw by wrapping his legs around the bear’s stout torso. Using all the strength he could muster, he pushed himself up and threw his arm over Claw’s eyes. At first, the bear growled and tried to shake him off but Duril had no intention of letting go. He grunted as his friend thrust a well-aimed elbow into his ribs. In response, he tightened his hold on Claw’s head.

The bearshifter staggered for a moment, and then, without any warning, he dropped on his back, taking Duril with him.

The pain was brief and intense, the sound of some bones crunching a bit too loudly in his ears but then he heard Claw talking. “What’s going on?”

“I’d like to tell you, but there’s a huge bear crushing me, and I’d like him to move first.”

Claw moved away and then Duril felt himself lifted from the ground, shaken a bit and then pulled into a hug. “Look, Duril!”

He opened his eyes, somewhat cautiously, as he wasn’t completely certain that the nightmare creatures wouldn’t come rushing back to them, ready to pull their eyes out and cut their flesh.

All around them, the mist was no more. As far as the eye could see, a gentle autumn could be seen in the yellowing grass and the sun warm on their faces. “I believe you broke the curse, Duril,” Claw said.

“What curse?” Duril asked, still amazed at the transformation that had taken place while he had kept his eyes closed.

Claw took him by the shoulders, making him wince in pain. “I fell on you. Let me see.” The bear felt his back and torso and, all of a sudden, he grabbed Duril in his arms and squeezed one time, hard. Pain shot through him like quicksilver, but then relief followed.

“What did you do?” Duril asked. “I think all the pain is gone.”

Claw grinned at him. “It’s called a bear hug for a reason. It can heal your body.”

Duril shook his head in mirth. “You truly enjoy laughing at me. But thank you,” he added, while moving one shoulder, not quite believing that he wasn’t hurting anymore. “I believe that you put me back together.”

“Since it was I who almost broke your back in the first place, I think it was the least I could do.”

Duril looked around them again. “I believe we can reach the town now.” He pointed at Guthran in the distance. “But what curse are you talking about, Claw?”

“I will tell you about it while we walk. But, first,” Claw said and kissed Duril on the mouth, “offering my gratitude is in order. Thank you for pulling me out of my nightmare. It was even worse than I remembered.”

***

Varg hurried toward his mother, ready to stop her from embracing that shadow. But, much to his surprise, she stopped right in front of the apparition. “Osric,” she suddenly asked, “what’s going on?”

The apparition hissed and moved around her, aiming for Varg. “If it isn’t my little boy.”

Varg pulled back, a terror as ancient as the world seeping into his bones. When had been the last time he had truly felt as afraid as he was now? He couldn’t remember. As a pack leader, as a fighter, he had learned a long time ago that great responsibility was weighing on his shoulders, and he couldn’t just drop everything and run.

Like a child. That was the reason. He was a child, a helpless pup, and now one of his parents had turned into a creature he didn’t recognize, while his mother had been fooled.

“Stay away from my child!” his mom suddenly bellowed and the dark apparition broke, splitting through the middle.

At first, Varg couldn’t understand what had happened. But then, he saw the tool in his mother’s hand. It was a long blade, not used for fighting, but for cutting tall grass and undergrowth. She used it for creating small patches of naked ground in which she could plant the herbs of her choosing.

Was cleaving through it with that blade enough to chase that creature away? His mother grabbed him and hiked him up in her arms. Then, she dashed out of the cave, holding him close.

Outside, the fog was thicker than he had seen it the first time. “Close your eyes, child,” she said sternly and pressed his face against her chest.

Varg could tell that, all around them, the forest was rising, as if a new breath suffused the old trunks, making them come alive. It reminded him of bad childhood dreams, in which he often found himself alone, trapped in the forest, all the paths toward home cut off.

Alone, without his parents. Without his pack. Whatever the weaver had done when stabbing him with his long needle, it had something to do with the past. Varg tried to think, while his mother ran and ran, holding him tightly in her arms.

She could have run faster if she shifted into her wolf, so why wasn’t she doing so? He couldn’t ask since she pressed him so hard against her. He could feel her fear and, once more, that feeling of profound helplessness rushed through him.

A needle. A weaver. The past and the present. Varg tried to think. And then, he understood. “Mother,” he called loudly, struggling to free himself from her hold, “stop running!”

“Don’t talk, Varg,” his mother warned him, “we don’t want them to hear us.” Her voice was a low whisper, a wheeze from the exertion of running in her human form that wasn’t as fast or as hardy as her wolf.

“They stand no chance against us,” he insisted, but she was deaf to his words.

She only ran and ran, and Varg knew that there was no way to run from yourself. Fear lived inside, and no matter how hard anyone tried to push it away, regardless of how strong they were in both heart and body, it would always catch up.

“Oh, no,” he heard his mother gasp.

They had stopped and were now at the edge of a cliff. His mother put him down and then knelt to face him. “You must become your wolf, Varg,” she said quickly. “And you must jump.” She turned him and pointed at the other side. “That far. You can do it. You’re a strong wolf.”

He understood more than she knew. She sensed that they were approaching, those creatures of nightmare and mist. And she wanted to keep them off, while giving him a chance, the only chance she saw for her child to survive.

He knew that telling her otherwise wouldn’t help. So, he nodded. “Yes, mother.”

She pulled him into a quick hug and then straightened up. “No matter what you hear, my child, don’t look back. You must jump and you must run. As far as you can go.”

She turned away from him and opened her arms wide. Varg moved closer to the edge, as she looked over her shoulder for what she must believe to be the last time she would be allowed to see her child.

And Varg shifted. But he didn’t jump. No, he put his muzzle down to the ground and then growled.

“Varg!” his mother shouted at him, but he didn’t listen.

He knew who he was inside. And he wasn’t a helpless pup, who had just found his wolf for the first time in his life.

***

At first, the ties continued to hold, but Toru thought that once the hermit was far enough away, his power that made the restraints so strong would wane. So, he waited for some time, while using his nose and ears to understand as much as he could from the things surrounding him. The slight stench of mold brought nothing new. But there was something different underneath it all, something he hadn’t noticed at first. That particular scent was tickling his nostrils, reminding him of his childhood.

The people taking care of the orphans had days on which they washed all the laundry, and they hung it out to dry. That smell of clean sheets was right under his nose now, making him wonder why it was there in the first place.

Toru got up from the chair, intent on finding out the source of that scent, and only then realized that the ropes keeping his body tied had simply vanished. He hadn’t even needed to fight them; was there a lesson there for him to understand? A lesson from that trickster?

The conversation with Te’cla rushed back to his mind. He didn’t trust the hermit. He seemed disingenuous, bent on nasty tricks, and his interest in Hekastfet’s shards appeared unsettling. Toru shook his head. Now wasn’t a good time for him to think over his doubts. What he needed to do was to get out of that barn and do what needed to be done to ensure that the curse was lifted from Guthran.

Now, he also knew something else. Thomalit, the weaver with the giant needle, was a traitor. He pretended that he cared for the people in town and yet he had attacked the only people who had come there to help. What could he have done with Varg? Toru walked faster, but it looked like he was on an open road, with no houses on either side.

The mist was still there, but now that scent reminding him of childhood was stronger. First, he needed to get out of the mist. Then, he’d know better what to do.

However, the faster he walked, the thicker the mist appeared to become. With it, memories of his growing up with the other abandoned children became stronger, too. He stopped. They wanted something from him, those memories. But what could that be? Toru had left that world behind so many years ago. He hadn’t been happy, and he had wanted to break free.

It appeared that the mist wouldn’t lift soon, which meant that he was only walking aimlessly. As he had done after leaving the orphanage, with no other thought in mind but to be free. He hadn’t had a purpose then, either, so why now, of all times, was he suddenly required to remember?

He sat on the ground and crossed his legs. Fine, if those memories wanted so damn much to be relived inside his mind, so be it. The moment he closed his eyes, he found himself at the children’s home.

Only that he was there again, a cub with no one to care for in the world. A wildling, the people in charge of them called him. He didn’t miss them or how they had used to treat him. They never gave him enough food, so he had to steal. And then they punished him.

He walked through the rows of beds and looked at the sleeping children. Some faces, he still recalled, but vaguely. He hadn’t struck up friendships. He was too wild. He could hurt the other children, the caretakers often said.

And Toru had wished they had let him play with the others more often.

One child, at the end of the row on the right, seemed to be wide awake. He pushed himself up and climbed out of the bed. Then, he walked toward him, all wide eyed, with that lost look in his eyes that children began to get once they understood the nature of their existence, the abandonment and the betrayal.

The boy walked toward him with his arms stretched out before him. Toru stopped, unsure of what the child wanted of him. It only became apparent when the boy finally reached him. He wanted to be hiked up in a grownup’s arms, so Toru did so without thinking twice.

“Are you a hero?” the child asked.

Te’cla had also called him that, and it had unsettled him to hear the word from the trickster’s mouth. Delivered as if it was an insult, not praise. At that moment, Toru hadn’t cared to be called a hero.

To the child’s question, he replied, “I have many things to do yet to become a hero.”

That seemed to disappoint the boy, so Toru decided to offer a bit more. “But I have already fought many monsters.”

“A lot of them?” the boy asked, turning his large eyes toward him.

“Yes, as many as blades of grass in a field.”

“Were they strong?”

“Yes. Very strong,” Toru confirmed.

The child appeared to think over something, and then he stared at him again. “I have monsters, too. They live under the bed.”

At the orphanage, it had been a recurring fear for the children who didn’t want to go to sleep when the caretakers wanted them to. Toru had searched under his bed many times. He hadn’t seen monsters once, and that had been a disappointment. He wanted to see if his fangs and claws were strong, and he couldn’t attack just anyone. Some of the caretakers almost made him want to try his tiger on them, but he had soon understood that they were made of weak bones and tender flesh. He could hurt them, and badly, and that knowledge alone had kept him from attacking them, although he could have.

But this child couldn’t know that the monsters under the bed weren’t real. He was like the others, trembling like a leaf and crying when punished by the caretakers. Looking back, Toru believed that those people must have been scared of him at least a bit because they never punished him too hard. He could have taken a lot more, his body had been strong from a young age.

The boy swung his legs, giving Toru a sign that he wanted to be put down. Then, once his bare feet touched the ground, he took Toru’s hand and dragged him toward his bed. “Look,” he said, and Toru crouched, determined to show the kid that there was nothing to be afraid of.

The moment he did so, everything around him changed. He was surrounded by a dark forest, and something moved through the trees, fast, making a swishing sound that alerted him right away.

The boy was riding on his back, and Toru couldn’t recall when that had happened. “Look out, Toru! It’s there!” the child frantically shouted.

He turned just in time to face a giant lizard with a strange bobbing head jumping at them. He didn’t hesitate for a moment. He held the boy with one arm thrown over his shoulder, and used the other to grab the creature by the throat, digging his fingers deep into the folds of its skin. Using only that arm, he dug deeper, his claws growing, and they slashed through, making dark blood spurt from the lizard’s throat.

Pulling back, he saw that his hand had already turned into a tiger’s paw. The same dark blood dripped from his claws.

“Behind you!” the boy warned him again.

Toru barely had time to turn, as a boar with the head of a bull smacked him in the chest, making him stumble back. He tensed to keep his balance and never once let go of the child. Again, he willed his claws to grow and pushed them straight into the creature’s skull, stopping it dead.

The boar-bull or whatever it was, fell to the ground with a thud.

“Any more of you?” he shouted. “Come out, show your ugly faces!”

Suddenly, Toru sensed that a weight was lifted off his back, and it took him a moment to realize that the boy was screaming as he was being hiked into the air, a snake wrapped around his thin body.

“No, you won’t have him!” Toru bellowed.

The snake was on a high branch and moving fast, while the boy was crying for help. Toru grabbed hold of one of the lower branches and pulled himself up. He began jumping from one to another, shifting into his tiger as he went.

The snake pulled toward the end of a long branch. Toru stepped on it but quickly realized that the wooden limb would give in under his weight. It appeared that the snake knew that, too.

Toru stepped back, considering his next move.

“Toru, help me,” the child cried, “the snake wants to eat me!”

Yes, indeed, and the creature seemed to mock him from that distance. It was as if it were saying to him that he needed to let this one go, to consider that it was enough, that he couldn’t save everybody.

“Like I would ever do that,” he said to himself and let out a growl so loud that the branch shook.

The snake swung from it as if it were about to fall. Toru no longer hesitated and stepped on the branch again, harder this time around. The snake released the child and Toru jumped down, willing his entire body to grow longer and wider.

When he landed on the ground, he already covered the ground under the branch. The boy fell on top of him, and Toru turned quickly and shifted so that he could grab him.

Just in time, as the snake was also descending on them with its large maw open, big enough to swallow them whole. There was only one thing to do, Toru thought and shielded the boy with his body by turning again.

In the blink of an eye, they were surrounded by darkness. They had to be inside the bowels of the snake, but Toru wasn’t scared. “Don’t worry,” he told the boy in his arms, “we’re going to split it in two and get out.”

“You don’t have to,” the boy said and snuggled against him. “You are already my hero.”

Toru was about to tell the child that they still had to defeat the snake, but just as suddenly as they had been pulled into that darkness, he found himself back at the orphanage on one of the beds with the boy sleeping soundly by his side. “Sleep tight,” he whispered and got up quietly so as not to disturb the little one’s slumber.

He crouched and looked under the bed again. But there was no dark forest there, no monsters. Instead, the outskirts of Guthran lay in front of him, and he snuck into it on his knees and elbows.

***

The forest, dark and menacing, was coming at him like an endless wall. But Varg knew better than to let himself be fooled. If there were a lesson to be learned from this dream, it wasn’t that he was powerless. And the weaver had wished him nice dreams, not a nightmare, while impaling him with his strange magical needle.

He cut through the first wave with his fangs, growling and snapping his jaws. They disappeared like mist, only to come back at him again. Through the haze of blood descending on his mind like a crimson veil, he could hear his mother shouting desperately at him.

She would see. She would be proud of what he had become. So, he turned against his enemy, vicious and thirsty for revenge. Making sense of all his thoughts seemed impossible. His chest pounded with the beating of his heart, his muscles were all stretched taut. He moved his muzzle left and right, slicing through everything as if it was nothing.

The forest dropped around him. He stood alone, and, at his feet, lay a mountain of corpses. Varg blinked but couldn’t shake what he was seeing. There were real bodies there, bloodied and destroyed. And they all belonged… to wolves, wolves he had known all his life. He remembered all their names, and when his eyes fell on his father, he howled in despair, his heart stopping in his chest.

“Varg!” his mother called for him.

He could tell that she was coming near and tried to get away from her touch, but it was too late. She reached for him and pulled him into her arms, kneeling by his side.

“Mother,” he whispered, “I… why have I done this?”

He felt his mother’s lips kissing his temple. “You’ve grown up to be a wonderful strong wolf, my child. You haven’t done anything wrong. This is a dream, and dreams aren’t supposed to be nightmares.”

He cried and pressed his forehead against her. How couldn’t she see what he had done? His mother continued to caress his head and to play with his ears, while he kept his eyes closed.

A scent of burnt wood tickled his nostrils and he sneezed. His mother laughed and squeezed him tightly in her arms. “Wake up, sleepyhead. Everyone’s back from the hunt.”

He opened his eyes and looked around. The cave where his pack had their shelter was filled with laughter. And they were preparing food.

Too bad he felt so full. He turned his face toward his mother. “Where is the mist? The dark forest?”

“It was a dream,” his mother said. “But don’t worry, Varg. You’ve defeated them all, my valiant pup. Remember this. Always know the truth. It’s in your heart.”

Varg looked around again, but the cave, with all its laughter and people began moving away from him. He stretched out his arms to hold them close, but they were gone.

And he was back in the fields of Guthran, a basket at his feet, half-full of grain. He touched his belly, but there was no pain and no Gurelin sticking out of it. “What really happened?” he asked out loud, although he was not expecting an answer.

“That was the hermit’s doing,” someone replied.

Varg turned his head and saw the weaver, sitting on a rock, hands between his knees, with a dejected look on his face. Fury descended upon Varg like a tempest. “You,” he growled and rushed toward the weaver.

The look of absolute resignation in those tired eyes stopped him before he could hit Thamolit.

“Yes, me,” the weaver said. “Have you seen the hermit? Did you talk to him?”

“No,” Varg replied. “How do you even know--”

Thamolit waved. “He came here, threatened that he would destroy this place if I didn’t listen and obey him. And then had me use my Gurelin for nasty work.”

Varg crossed his arms. He somehow doubted that the weaver was a threat anymore. The needle was nowhere in sight, either, and this time, he wouldn’t be as unguarded as before. “By nasty work, do you mean stabbing me with it?”

The weaver nodded thoughtfully. “Is it done? Whatever the hermit wanted with you? Or was it your friend he wanted?”

Varg stilled. “Do you mean Toru?”

“Yes. The hermit asked me to stab both of you. So I don’t know who he wanted.”

“I see no reason why I should give you any answers. Heavens know you haven’t been truthful with us. I am the one asking the questions here.”

“Then go ahead, master wolf. Ask away. And then, if it pleases you, you can have my head, too.”

Just moments ago, Varg had wanted that, but now, he wasn’t so sure. The weaver could just as well be only a tool in the hands of a more powerful opponent. Or it could all be a ruse and he was falling for it one more time. However, he felt in no vindictiveness now.

“Why did you stab me with your needle?”

“Because the hermit wanted you dragged into the world of dreams so that he could steal your knowledge of something. What that something was, he didn’t tell me,” Thamolit offered. He rubbed his temples, making tufts of hair stick out.

All Varg found in himself to feel for the weaver, who now seemed small and old, was pity and nothing else. He wanted the truth, and he would obtain it.

“Why did you wish me nice dreams after stabbing me?” he continued.

“Because the hermit wanted to drag you into a nightmare, and that I couldn’t allow. My Gurelin wasn’t made to do bad things.” The weaver hunched into himself. “But my Gurelin is gone, so I doubt that my wishes did anything.”

Varg sighed and sat by the weaver’s side. “It did something.”

The weaver turned his head and stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“I got to see my mother again. I revisited a day of my childhood that I hold dear in my heart. A part of it, maybe small, but it was enough.”

The weaver still looked at him, trying to understand what he was being told. Varg patted the man on the back. “So, you say that you also used Gurelin on Toru. What happened to him?”

Thamolit offered a defeated shrug. “I wouldn’t know. So it was he the hermit wanted. But he’s younger than you are. What knowledge could he possess?”

“Who knows,” Varg said, determined not to burden the weaver with more knowledge than he needed. “Did you wish him nice dreams, too?”

“I told him that I was sorry. And, in my heart, I wished him nothing but the best. He must be hating me and this place right now.”

“Now that is something that you will have to ask him about,” Varg said and stood to his feet, his lips quirking into a big smile.

In the distance, walking purposefully toward them, came Toru. And he looked whole, which meant that the secret good wish the weaver had put into the curse of the hermit must have done its work, too.

***

Toru couldn’t quite believe his eyes when he saw Varg, not because he hadn’t been expecting to see his friend, but because he appeared to be engaged in peaceful conversation with exactly the one that was responsible for sending him into that world that wasn’t quite there. Could that mean that Thamolit had only wished to hurt him?

Varg took him into his arms and hugged him tightly. Once he released him, Toru pointed at the weaver. “Do not trust this man. He stabbed me with the needle he calls Gurelin, and then I met the hermit.”

“He did the same to me, but he did so because the hermit commanded it of him. He’s not a bad man,” Varg said.

Toru stared at the weaver with suspicious eyes. Varg wasn’t easy to fool, but there was always the possibility of magic, something he couldn’t quite understand as it worked in ways beyond what his mind could see.

“I am yours to punish as you see fit,” Thamolit said, getting up and hanging his head low, in a gesture of humility.

Toru found that he didn’t want to punish the weaver. After all, he had had a dream after Te’cla left, one that he was eager to share with his friends. “I saw Te’cla,” he told Varg, ignoring Thamolit for the time being.

“What did he want?” Varg asked.

“He knows about the shards. He wants them.”

“He wants them?” Varg stared at him, his eyes filled with surprise.

“To destroy them,” Toru added. “So he says.”

Thamolit shook his head. “He’s a nasty one, that hermit. Don’t believe his words.”

“We can’t believe yours, either,” Toru said. “Why did you stab us?”

“I was given no choice. He cursed these lands.” Thamolit pointed around but then his hands linked in front of himself, and he cast his eyes down. “And now that he has gotten what he needed, he might not lift the curse from them. Because he doesn’t have to.”

“We are going to see about that,” Varg said with conviction. “What did you see of the town on your way here, Toru?”

“Very little. The path under the bed brought me here first thing,” Toru explained.

“The path under the bed?” Varg asked, obviously puzzled.

“I will tell you later. Did you stab Claw and Duril, too?” Toru asked, turning his attention toward the weaver once more.

“I don’t know who they are,” Thamolit replied.

“You’ll find out soon. There they are,” Varg said and pointed into the distance, the opposite direction from which Toru had just come.

TBC

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