“Help me!” he called out to the thralls, needing them to hold her down before he physically harmed her with his strength.
Several of the thralls rushed in and grabbed her as wildly as she battled to get away. Frenzied, crazed struggles ended with the thralls holding her limbs down.
Astegur made sure their grip sustained before he unclasped her chin and reached for one of the linens beside Calavia, who remained undisturbed, and forced it between his palm and her teeth, stuffing it further between them and into her mouth. He jerked his bloodied hand back with a hiss and went to the hearth where the leftover stew still simmered and dropped his hand in it, hoping there was enough cove in the broth to soothe his torn flesh. He wrapped it up using more of the rags strewn about before he faced Calavia’s mother once again.
Her struggles continued. She was not in the least bit subdued with the other thralls holding her down. Long nails and thin hair flew everywhere, spittle rained between them and their gaping mouths. Disgusted, Astegur left to retrieve several waxen reed braids from outside. He bound the mother’s loose and pallid limbs together.
When he was done, he wiped the sweat from his brow and exhaled his distaste, but the moment of rest did not last long. There was no time.
He checked his packs once more and made sure his weapons were adequately attached to his body before he spoke again.
“Carry her,” he pointed at the mother still writhing and growling on the floor, “and make sure she does not get away or make noise. Do not make any noise.”
The thralls hefted her up. Astegur turned back to Calavia and knelt at her side.
He hoped she would not wake until they were far up the mountain trails. Once they were there, there would be no other options for her to choose but him and her survival.
He scooped her into his arms, and without a backwards glance, ordered the thralls to follow him. They strode out of the temple together. A faint murmur left Calavia’s parted lips and he squeezed her slight human frame tighter to his chest.
“You will be in new barriers of my own making, home and in my furs.”
Outside he found the rest of the thralls waiting, some holding their old pitchforks, some carrying spears, and some without anything in their hands but their nails that grew long and sharp from their fingertips. They neither looked at him or Calavia nor her bound mother. He addressed them anyways.
“We will make our way out of Prayer and into the mountains to the west. You will protect Calavia and I for the duration of the journey and not make a sound. We will not stop until we reach our destination and a new home.” The mother shrieked through the cloth in her mouth and the thralls holding her forced her mouth back shut. He waited until she was muffled. “But if you wander off before we get there, you are on your own forevermore.” Astegur ran his gaze over the mass of dead flesh and their husks of living instinct before he hefted Calavia further into his arms and stepped into the swamps.
Before he had always viewed thralls as human waste, but now he understood why liches collected them.
One by one their wet steps followed him, and their moans were replaced with a frightening, waitful silence. Carefully, he made his way in the opposite direction of the ramshackle houses and broken pallet paths and toward the mountains one could barely see high in the foggy horizon. His eyes darted from their outlines to the ghastly green orbs he was headed for.
With each step he took, he heard the sound of the mother’s struggles increase, and felt her rage blast the back of his neck as if she breathed down it. She was the only creature to make a noise amongst them, as if she wanted death to find her. He squeezed Calavia closer to him and pitied her suddenly for all she’d been through, all she lived with before his arrival.
He came upon the first green light and a sense of assurance seeped through him. Even though he was running away, it felt right; Prayer was never meant to be saved. And he knew, before the next fortnight passed, he would be back with his brothers and slaughtering the horsebeasts who threatened them. He would be back.
He passed next to another green light, and then another, eyes watchful, senses alert for any centaur scouts. None were around. Their bonfires had not made it far enough to surround the settlement yet.
When he passed the fourth green light, he realized something was terribly wrong.
The mother had ceased making noise.
Astegur stared at the green orbs before him, then at the edges of the mountains so near, and felt the thick swirl of the mist draw close as if it watched him, swallowing his perverse unease. The palms of his hands slickened with sweat against Calavia’s flesh. The green of the lights filled his vision as he tried to deny what he already knew.
A whistle went out. Another answered, followed by another, coming in every direction but behind him.No.He gritted his teeth and bowed his head, pointing his horns outward before him, as an imperceptible tendril of steam released from his nose. He surged forward into a sprint, bending his large frame over his female.No!
He made it to the next light when another appeared in the distance, and another, and by the next, his muscles had strained and grown.Mistfucking witches.The distant whistles had morphed into splashes and hollers.
A jittering screeching cackle eclipsed it all. Astegur stopped, his vision blurring with morbid haze as he finally turned.
He was back before the stone steps of Prayer’s temple.
Chapter Seventeen
“Calavia, awaken!”
She didn’t want to. There was a cushion enveloping her from all sides. There weren’t cushions like this when she was awake. All the beds and pallets had been destroyed long ago by water and mold. But in her unconsciousness, they still existed. In her dreams her mother still spoke and lullabies still put her to sleep at dusk.
Something shook her, rattling the world behind her eyes, making her slap her hand at whoever dared to take her dreams away. A sad moan fell from her lips when the shaking only grew worse, violent, eradicating the walls her slumber had erected.
A wave of loss hit her, and she cried out and fought not to leave her dreams behind, but whoever demanded her attention was relentless in their intentions.
