Bloodlust (4 page)

Not that she had meant match the way Mother had. An equal, perhaps? But there was no equal to a barbarian-princess.

The battle turned from foolhardy to serious when her sword came within inches of slicing off his ear. His eyes narrowed, and his breathing changed. Had she triggered his Bloodlust? In the darkness of the forest, she still had not clearly glimpsed his face yet.

His huge hand grabbed her wrist and crushed it. Still, she held on, refusing to be unarmed. His other hand dropped his sword and gripped her neck. He dragged her to him.

And that's when she smelled him. Beneath the scent of the stolen tunic he wore, his stench rolled over her, filling her nostrils and revealing who he truly was.

Not a barbarian after all.

But a goliath.

Ivy brought up her knee swiftly, connecting with his firm stomach. His hold on her relaxed, and she shoved him out of the forest and into the sunlight, breathing hard from her effort. A goliath. And she had thought the possibility that he could have been a match for her. True, his fighting skills were nearly unparalleled, but she hated herself for having thought such a thing, especially considering she had known nothing about him.
How foolish and weak-minded I was. Never again.

He did not stagger back from her blow, which annoyed her. Rather he stepped back of his own volition. "I could have killed you five times already," he said in a slow drawl, grinning viciously.

Ivy stiffened at his insult before relaxing into a turn, slicing with her blade. The goliath's large steps granted him a reprieve, and he merely watched the blade slash the air in front of him. A bored expression on his face — how it unnerved her.

"With what weapon?" she asked coolly as she kicked his dropped sword into the pond.

In seconds, he produced a dazzling array of weapons, armed to the teeth. A morning star, a double axe, a flail, and another sword. Somehow he held them all, and every one pointed at her. His blades reflected his skin coloring, both shades on the lighter side of green, the far light more prominent. The slightly darker appeared like tattoos. No war paint distorted his coloring. Remnants of clay to hide his greenness had melted away from the sweat of their battle. He looked more human than most goliaths, although far more muscular than pathetic humans could ever be.

She raised her blade so it touched her nose, signaling she was ready to commence battle yet again.

The goliath dropped the axe and the flail and swung the morning star. Round and round it swiveled until he released it. The weapon soared through the air.

Not having enough time to remove her shield from her back, Ivy whipped around. The morning star connecting with the shield jarred her spine. Refusing to show a trace of weakness, Ivy whirled around, claimed the morning star as her own, and with a barbaric war cry, charged the goliath.

His green eyes did not blink as he brought up his sword to hold back hers. His might was stronger, but her will outpowered him. Despite his claim, they remained evenly matched, countering and parrying, a sick twisted dance that would result in one's death.

Ivy kicked his chest and slashed downward with her blade, but he circled to her right, one arm extended toward her shield, still on her back. She half-turned to swat him with the morning star, but he yanked on the shield's spike, the harsh movement jerking her arms back. Anger stirred deep within her, boiling over, clouding her vision but strengthening her muscles. Ivy swung the sword with all her might.

The goliath had moved, however, and her sword cut through the bark of a tall oakpine. The tree crashed to the ground, the vibration through the earth causing Ivy to fall. Jumping to her feet, she retrieved her weapons and reached for the shield, but the goliath had already snatched it.

Ivy dropped the sword and morning star and grabbed a silver arrow from her side. With her silverbow, she lined up a shot.

Wearing a green grin, the goliath taunted her by waving his prize, conveniently — for him — shielding his body from her arrow.

So she grabbed and tossed the morning star an inch from his feet. "Give it back."

"I rather think I like it." That said, he placed it on his arm.

Never had Ivy been more jealous of trolls and their ability to enhance their weapons so no other race could touch it.

One step forward, she bent down to retrieve the morning star, or so she wanted the goliath to think, and she jabbed her sword toward his flat stomach. The shield easily blocked her first blow, but the second knocked his sword out of his grasp. Sheathing her sword took only a second, and she yanked the shield off his arm, nearly pulling his arm out of the socket too.

One of her slashes had cut through the barbarian shirt he'd stolen to reveal a deep forest green tunic with a black tree on it. The crest of the goliaths. Only goliath nobles and their allies were allowed to wear such finery. If she were to lay her hands on it, she could easily find other goliaths and learn why they were coming around lately. As much as she sang for battle, dreamt of it, she had a greater sense of preservation than her father and other barbarians seemed to have. Especially after seeing the compassion those children possessed. Would they one day outgrow it as the other barbarians before them had? Aging in a world filled with chaos and battle and the constant threat of war ensured that.

Unless some level of peace could be obtained.

A flash of green-tinged skin blurred as a dagger sliced her arm.

The goliath, and not her, had been the first to shed blood.

He'd die for that.

Ivy held the shield high above her head. Yes, the move left her chest vulnerable, but her arms brought the shield down too swiftly. Only by sidestepping did the goliath avoid having the spike on the shield plow through his head.

In a fluid motion, she unsheathed her sword, ready to continue fighting in earnest, but the goliath wrapped his thick, strong arms around her, pinning her arms to her side, her weapon useless. She struggled, but he only pulled her closer to him.

"Hush," he murmured into her ear.

How could she settle when she wanted to thrash about? To kill him for daring to touch her? Her heartbeat drowned out all other sounds save for his. That his heart still circulated blood in his body fueled her anger. The scale of her Bloodlust was rising.

But the goliath held her deathly still, scarcely breathing, and gradually, other noises could be heard. The call of a raven. The screech of a banshee far off in the distance. Much closer, however, was the sounds of footsteps.

And the owners were coming straight toward them.

"Trolls." The goliath's breath brushed against her face, and she wrinkled her nose despite it not smelling wholly unpleasant. She had thought of goliaths as inferior, but this one certainly was a warrior.

"How can you be certain?" Ivy tried to glance around, but his grip tightened. She was so close to him she could see copper specks in his green eyes.

He exaggerated a sniff. After all, Goliaths were known for their advanced smelling prowess.

"How many?" she asked, her voice the faintest of whispers. She struggled to listen to heartbeats other than his but his pounded so loudly, so near, she could hear nothing else, not even the fishes swimming in the pond.

"Impossible to say."

"Let go of me." She thrashed about in his grasp, struggling to break free.

He chuckled faintly. "Am I too strong for you?"

"Hard—"

He clamped a thick, calloused hand over her mouth. "Do you want..." His gaze fixated on something behind Ivy.

Now he released her. She whipped around to see five tall trolls staring down on them, each holding at least two weapons, one even had a blade between its teeth. All wore identical grins, their eyes alive with malice. Their skin a dark color that contrasted with their white armor, built like mountains, the trolls warriors would not go down easily.

If she were a goliatha. Or a puny human.

But she was a barbarian. Their princess at that.

These smirking, snarling trolls had met more than their match.

Without a word, they attacked. The goliath nodded at Ivy, but she paid him no heed. If he thought they were an alliance, even for this battle, he was sorely mistaken.

The nearest troll howled, and her blood curdled, thickening, filling her body with Bloodlust. 'Twas strange that the battle with the goliath hadn't summoned it, but as soon as her sword clanged against the troll's mace, Bloodlust overtook her, controlling her limbs. With a heavy swing of her sword, she chopped of his hand. His weapon flew through the air, and her blade cut his in thirds before making its way to his helmet, and through it, to his brain. Not even a grunt passed his lips as he sank to the ground.

Her eyes unseeing, she attacked the next person, moving solely on instinct. Every other sense was heightened: the stench of sweat and blood; the sounds of grunts, whistles of weapons cutting through the air, and the wails of the wounded; the touch of the hilt in her hand. Two hilts, she had acquired another weapon. Perhaps the goliath's morning star.

Soon, the grunts and wails all ceased, and no other weapon stirred the air but her own. As quickly as it came, the Bloodlust ended. Her breathing normalized as her vision returned to see a heap of trolls, some of their limbs on top of the pile.

To her surprise, the goliath stood beside the mound. Not only still alive, but unblemished. Sweat dripped down his nose, along the line of slightly darker green.

"Not bad," he commented.

She blinked a few times. How had she not heard his heartbeat? The Bloodlust should have ensured she kept killing until no one else survived. Some of the reason why barbarians did not send many warriors into battle. One, they did not need to. A single barbarian in Bloodlust mood could take down a force far greater than this. And two, once in Bloodlust, barbarians killed everyone, even other barbarians.

"I took down two," he continued.

Why was he still speaking? The grip on her sword tightened.

"Which means I handled three," she returned in a tone that suggested him to be, by far, inferior to her.

"Ah, but one of the ones I killed had been ready to end you."

"Impossible." Once again, she brought up her sword to start their own battle anew when the caw of a vulture had her dropping her blade and shooting an arrow as soon as the bird appeared in her sights above the trees.

She raced back into the Forest to the body and opened the bird's stomach. Similar marks to the other coded message marred the scroll.

Ivy straightened and smoothed the folds in her armored dress. Half of the once white skirt was now stained with blood, none of it hers.

"Interesting."

The damned goliath. Why was she still suffering his presence?

Her sword ready to strike, the message crinkling against the hilt, she whirled around, ready to end her time with him.

Only he had scaled a tree, high up, out of reach. By the time she secured her silverbow, he had jumped out of the tree, tumbled into her, knocking her off balance. Their hands brushed first against her shield as she retrieved it — just why did he want it so badly? — and then against the wrinkled message.

Merely because the last remnants of her Bloodlust had already dissipated was he able to pilfer it from her. He examined it, his full lips twisting, his bushy brows forming a "V."

"Do you know what it means?"

His green eyes flickered above the blood-stained message toward her. "You're asking for a goliath for help, Oh Barbarian-Princess?"

His mocking tone grated on her nerves, and she especially did not care for his knowing who she was, although only the barbarian-princess' armored dress bore the crest of her people.

She snatched the paper back. "Go on your way and I will spare you."

He snorted. "I know not why you're out here, beyond your lands—"

"I could say the same for you." She itched to go, but her legs remained immobile.

"I propose an agreement."

Now she was the one to snort. What could a goliath possibly offer to her that she might even be tempted to want? Again, she eyed his tunic, the barbarian one overlaying it flapping in the breeze. A wide belt sported a metal plate of a monstrous wolf head. Tan pants stretched to accommodate his thick tree trunk-sized muscular legs. She brought her gaze back up to his face. The lighter shade was a yellow-green shade, she decided. The darker reminded her of a fruit she’d tasted only once before, an apple. By far, the yellow-green dominated his skin, making the apple-green markings almost like a birthmark or a tattoo.