Bastial Energy (59 page)

“What was it like?” Effie had asked.

“Strong.” Reela had the same coy smile as the last time they’d spoken about Cleve. “Fierce,” Reela added, then sighed. “Wonderful,” she whispered, half to herself.

Effie found herself wishing Cleve was still in Kyrro. She’d never met someone she could tell was reliable even without ever having had to rely on him. It reminded her of a poem she’d memorized long ago.

I knew a warrior. He smelled of shit.

Skilled with sword but had no wit.

He never let me be alone.

Said I couldn’t be on my own.

You are too beautiful, he would say

Trouble will come to you one day.

I’ll take my chances, go away.

You are the source of my dismay.

With that he left, and all was good,

Until a man came masked in hood.

He stole my money and broke my bones

No one was there to heed my groans.

I realized then what I know today

Which to you I will convey

A warrior’s kiss is never missed,

Eventually he’ll get the clue

But in his fist that you dismissed,

Was a sword protecting you.

Every so often in bars, Effie would hear the last four lines chanted by a group of warriors who’d been drinking too much.

Cleve was little like the warrior she imagined in the poem, though. While his massive stature wasn’t her type, he was still pleasing to the eye and certainly didn’t smell like shit. In fact, if anyone had an unpleasant odor, it was Zoke. There was a musky smell he seemed to produce that had similarity to stale beer and sweat. The way it seemed to always be there, even after they washed themselves with the water of the Satjen River, made her believe it must be a natural odor of all Krepps.

It had taken some convincing before Terren agreed to let them stop at the river for a quick bath yesterday. It was Reela who eventually persuaded him with the argument that they wouldn’t lose an extra day by taking the time.

The men stripped down to their underwear like they were undressing in the privacy of their own rooms. They were sitting in the shallow river and rubbing water over their backs and onto their faces before Effie and Reela had any clothes removed.

Reela grabbed Effie’s hand and ran about a hundred feet down the river before she stopped and started unbuttoning. “I’m going naked, and so are you,” she said.

“Am I?” Effie replied with a shocked grin.

“I don’t want to walk hours with wet cotton against my lady parts, and you don’t either.”

“You just don’t want to be the only one,” Effie said, removing her pants. She looked behind them at the rest of the party. She caught Alex’s eyes darting away. She knew he liked her but figured it was just a physical attraction. His eyes often were on her already when she’d give him a glance. “They can see us, you know.”

“Let them look. They’ve killed people in close combat. Our breasts can’t be worse than the sight of that.”

When they were both in their underwear, Reela counted down from three. They slipped off their tops and drew down their bottoms, then locked hands and ran into the cold water with a giddy scream. They threw water onto their own faces and each other’s, laughing and screaming hysterically. Effie forgot all about the men up the river.

The moment Reela started splashing Effie, it reminded her of the last time she’d had the same innocent fun. It must have been at least three years ago, when she and Reela were still swimming in Lake Kayvol. They always went at night and stripped down to nothing. The bite of cold water mixed with the thrill of being exposed created an excitement that couldn’t be achieved through anything else nearly as simple as jumping into water.

But as they got older, the urge seemed to burn out. For Effie, it was replaced with boys. She’d never known what replaced it for Reela. The young psychic would often leave with her mother and her journal for days at a time, never saying where they were going. Effie always figured that, whatever it was they were doing, it was Reela’s way of finding the same innocent fun. Reela always had more of a sister-like relationship with her mother than Effie did with hers.

“Let’s make camp here,” Terren said, swinging his bag off his shoulder. “Rise early and we’ll reach the Slugari in northern Satjen by midday tomorrow.”

“Zoke, shoot a few arrows with me?” Steffen asked.

The Krepp nodded and walked to him without a word. They set off to find a good target. Effie noticed that Steffen was using the bow any chance he got, which was usually only when waiting for someone in the party to relieve him or herself, in the mornings if he rose early enough, or at night as others gathered sticks and leaves for a fire.

When Zoke wasn’t answering questions about the Krepps, or explaining why he and Vithos had left the tribe, or showing Steffen how to shoot, Effie could hear him teaching Vithos words in common tongue. The Elf had learned quickly. Like Steffen, his ability to memorize was uncanny. Along with hundreds of words, he even knew many short phrases now.

“What’s the plan for the Slugari?” Alex asked Terren while they cleared small rocks to create a smooth surface for sleeping.

“Zoke says Vithos can demonstrate to the Slugari that we’re there to help,” Terren answered. “Steffen knows some Slugaren, so he’ll translate.”

“But how are we going to get to them once Vithos senses their colony below us?” Alex wondered. “We can’t just dig and hope to fall somewhere safe when we break through their roof.”

“Zoke and Vithos have thought about that,” Terren replied. “Vithos will charm an animal to dig for us, test the water, so to speak. Once it digs through to them, we’ll call from above so the Slugari can come up and show us how to get down there. Then we’ll bury the hole and follow them through whatever secret passage it is they use to go between the surface and underground. It’s the best plan we’ve got.” He spoke the last words as if they tasted sour.

Alex hummed discouragingly. “No one knows how they go from above ground to below?”

“No one in Kyrro.” The pitch of Terren’s voice rose, as if to demonstrate he was open to suggestions.

“How do we even know the Slugari ever come up?” Effie butted in.

“There have been sightings,” Terren replied. “Not that I’ve seen one myself.”

Vithos came over and dumped a pile of sticks in the middle of them. “I find rocks now,” he said with his Kreppen accent. It gave his words a rough sound, like he was forcing them out with his stomach.

“I’ll help,” Reela said, placing her hand on his arm and walking off with him.

Supine, Effie lost herself among the stars in the pure black sky. Thoughts of her family in Oakshen came to her. She nearly had their letter memorized by then but decided to pull it from her pocket anyway for another read. She unfolded it and held it in front of the stars. With her other hand she produced a white glow of Bastial Energy.

We’re so happy you wrote to us. We have heard the announcement about the treaty being declined. Everything’s fine here except we miss you, especially Gabby! She also wants you to say hi to Steffen for her.

Even though you didn’t seem scared in your letter, we are. If the Academy is attacked, will you have to fight? We wish we’d known that war was even a possibility before we let you sign that contract. As soon as you’re allowed to leave, come home and we (your mother) will make you whatever you want to eat.

Love you. Keep yourself safe.

—
Mother, Father, and Gabby

She’d been wondering how she would answer the only question they asked. She
was
required to fight, even had killed people already, but would they really want to know that?

I don’t think they would.

Chapter 59: Hidden

EFFIE

Effie remained awake long after everyone else. As had happened so many nights before, the moment her mind began to transition into sleep, the realization she was finally drifting off would wake her again with a quick jab of excitement to her heart. The only way to make the transition complete was to distract herself with pleasant thoughts. She tried to think of some, but none would come. All just caused more despair.

Turning to her back, she noticed her heart’s sporadic beats changing from rapid to normal to rapid again, every few breaths. It would not relax. She slid both hands between her breasts to suppress it.

Why does this happen to me?
And why now?
Could I be worried about the Slugari tomorrow?
With that thought began the familiar feeling of someone sitting on her collarbone. Her right hand moved from her heart to the base of her throat. With a gentle touch, she pressed her fingers there. The inability to breathe properly was always slightly relieved as she rubbed around the top of her chest, but the moment she stopped, it would return.

Just sleep, just sleep
, Effie repeated in desperation. She hated this inability to find a breath of relief no matter how deeply she breathed. She wanted to fight it but didn’t know how.

As if to torment her, when her mind finally succumbed to sleep, the dream it produced was a nightmare.

She was back on the mountaintop. A man was stomping on something, his head low and focused. The sudden urge to stop him came over her. She saw why a breath later. With the soles of his thick black boots, he was flattening slugs as they slowly tried to crawl away to safety.

“Stop, those are Slugari!” she yelled.

He splattered two more. “I know,” he uttered back through clenched teeth.

She cast a fireball. It exploded into his stomach, ripping his black and red Tenred tunic into a hundred pieces that were blasted away into the sky. All that remained was a charred skeleton. But his boots stayed on and his head stayed low, unfazed. He slammed his boots down onto another Slugari, and then gave a sinister cackle.

She tried another fireball, but this one just passed through his rib cage like wind. His laugh grew louder until his head snapped up to look right at her. Loose flesh still hung around the gaping holes that were his eyes. “Your fire does nothing to someone already burned.”

She realized it was someone she’d killed; the man with a bow who’d seen her just long enough for a puzzled glare before she’d engulfed his body in flames. He was back for a second chance.

“After the Slugari, you’re next.” He lifted his bony finger to point.

Overwhelmed with panic, she fled. She tripped on the stairs leading into the mountain, rolling deeper into the darkness. She rolled, and rolled, and finally bounced against Reela, who was already lying there waiting.

“Everything’s fine,” Reela said, pulling Effie in close and shushing her.

But the panic remained, for all was still dark. She couldn’t see which way to go, and the stairs had flattened to dirt.

She realized then that she was now awake and had Reela’s arms around her. “Everything’s fine, you were dreaming.” It was not Reela’s voice, however. The arms were not Reela’s, either. They were a man’s arms, hairy, coarse, strong warrior’s arms. At first she thought she felt Reela’s full breasts against her back, but as the man’s arms came to light, Reela’s breasts were replaced by muscles. Effie was engulfed by him. His arms pressed her tight stomach and collar. Her back squeezed against the bulging muscles of his chest.

“Everything’s fine, Effie,” he whispered once again.

As she realized who it was, the tightness melted out from her. “Alex,” she whispered, looking around her. “Where’s my blanket?”

He took a hand from her stomach to point. “All the way over there.” He pressed his hand back down. She liked the feeling of his hold on her, so she didn’t move. “You rolled into me terror-stricken by some dream. Are you anxious about tomorrow? I get bad dreams when that happens to me.”

Anxious.
The word shook her with fright as she realized that’s what it was. “I must be, but I don’t know why.”

“That’s simple,” he whispered and pulled his blanket around her. “Because we don’t know what will happen. Uncertainty can produce playfully malicious thoughts.”

“That can’t be it.” She couldn’t let him believe something about her that wasn’t true. “I thrive on not knowing what dangers await.”

Effie realized that tumbling into his arms while they slept probably wasn’t far from a fantasy of his. She didn’t want to lead Alex on by cuddling against him, but crawling away from his warmth was the last thing she wanted. So she pressed herself against him, making herself comfortable in his embrace.

“Back in Oakshen, I always went out to bars and flirted with the uncertainty of the night. I never knew what would happen, and
that’s
what brought me comfort.”

The sound of a soft laugh came in three gusts of air from his nose. “I think I’ve caught you lying to yourself, Effie. I bet I can guess what happens when you visit bars. I know so just by knowing you. There’s nothing uncertain about it, in fact. Let me describe it for you to prove how predictable the nights go.”