Chapter Twenty-One
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The sun was brightthrough the mist when they finally left the cave. Vedikus tilted his head to the sky, enjoying the small amount of warmth he got from it. His clan had chosen the mountains near Prayer for many reasons, but climate and defensibility were among them. The elevation lessened the mist to a point and sometimes when least expected, one could see the sky in all its glory.
It brought him comfort. The secretive moments when the world cleared, and when he and his brothers first struck their weapons into the cliffs above, they all knew they had found the land the Bathyr would settle.
“I thought I would never see it again,” Aldora said next to him. “It’s even more beautiful than I remembered.”
“When we reach our destination, it will only get better.” And he looked forward to showing her. “My brothers will know by now that we are ascending. They will be waiting if they do not meet us halfway.”
“How?”
Vedikus watched as the glow of the sun vanished behind stringy clouds, and when it was gone, he faced Aldora who continued to look up at the misty sky. He took her chin, turning her eyes to him. “Keep your eyes on me. I will not lead you astray.” She nodded mutely and he released her, still jealous of the sky. “As for my brothers, there are three guarding our home. They maintain traps and enchantments that have been placed among the pathways and caves here. The moment we crossed the marker would be when they were alerted, however, I know the locations of all of the traps.”
“Just three?” Aldora frowned. “I thought... I thought when you said tribe, that there would be more.”
They resumed walking and he felt her hand tug on the back of his loincloth. He grunted to himself, pleased that she still sought his assistance.
“There are only five of us currently,” he said, hollowly, “We left the main tribe several seasons ago...”
“Wait!” She jerked his cloth back, and he had to stop from being unclothed entirely. “Please,” she added quickly, softening her hold. Vedikus reached up and smoothed the hair out of her face where the wind whipped it.
“You do not have to fear me, female,” he gritted his teeth, angered he even had to say it. “I would never unleash my violence on you. We are one now.” Even the thought made him furious. What point was there in going through the trouble for a human mate to just hurt them? He did not want what his sire and mother had.
Aldora reached up and pulled back her hair harshly, revealing her wide, worried eyes. “It’s not that. I don’t know what to expect anymore. I thought we journeyed to a-a settlement of some sort, with well, many minotaurs, not just three.”
“Five,” he corrected.
“Five then. There’s so few. Why are there so few of you?”
So few...
His chest constricted tightly as he searched her gaze. It implored him to answer, but to answer would be speaking the words of his brother’s plight and bringing it to light. The Bathyr never spoke of the incident that shattered their loyalty to their mother tribe, and he found it hard to try. The words tasted bitter.
She is Bathyr. She has a right to know.
Vedikus grunted, forcing the words to rise. “We are few because our old tribe betrayed us. They thought it within their power to sour the name of my mother.” He pulled her against him when the wind shrieked, rubbing her bare arms with his large ones to warm her.
“Your mother is alive?” Aldora pushed against his chest. “I thought—”
“She is gone.”
“Gone?”
“Come and I’ll tell you another story to pass the time.” He tucked her under his arm and they continued their climb. “Those that await us are my blood brothers, the only bulls my mother and father sired. The Bathyr.” It was not often he heard his ancestral name aloud.
“Steelslash was my sire’s name, changed for what he did best, a warrior unlike any living minotaur had seen. He became chief when he returned from the barrier paths with my mother many years ago in hope that his prowess would breed well with human blood. His power was a beacon for my kind, and the minotaur followed him blindly, lured by it, to parts of the world we sought to conquer.”
