Warrior of the Wild(17)

My back straightens. This is it. He’s going to spare me. I’m going to be given a special quest, one actually capable of being accomplished.

“For centuries,” Father says, “we have lived as the hunting tribe. We are responsible for supplying the meat for Peruxolo as our yearly tribute. Our children starve as a result. Our hunters exhaust themselves. Our habitat spreads thin.”

He’s lost me. Am I supposed to get more food for the village? I can learn to hunt. If I can take out a ziken, how hard could it be to catch a valder?

“And so,” he continues, “for your mattugr, you are tasked with killing the god Peruxolo.”



* * *



THEY WANT ME TO WHAT?

I repeat the words three times in my head before they take root.

“Should you complete your mission, you will be granted the highest honor available to a mortal. You’ll be welcomed…”

I stop listening. Nothing else matters. He couldn’t say anything to lighten the revelation.

The most powerful being in our land, and I’m supposed to kill him.

My father must truly loathe me to demand such a mission of me. He’s ensured that I will never come back home. Surely an immortal cannot be killed.

“… time for you to leave now,” he says. “You’ve had plenty of time to say your good-byes. Go now or face eternal exile from Rexasena’s Paradise.”

I don’t dare look at my mother. I don’t want to see the joy that lights up her eyes. I don’t want to see the faces of those I trained with ever again. It’s bad enough that each step I take is echoed with the cracking of a nutshell. So I look to the one group of people I still can count on. Salvanya, Tormosa, Alara, Ashari, and Irrenia. My five sisters huddle together. Tears on their faces. Love in their eyes.

That is the last image I see before turning my back on my home.

The last image I see before I leave my life and brace myself for death.





PART 2


THE


WILD





CHAPTER


5


Birds squawk loudly from the inna treetops. I focus on their drab brown-and-gray wings. I imagine that I can fly and take myself away from this horrible place.

The last time I walked this way, I was with Torrin.

I’ve kept to the road. It doesn’t seem as though I’ve been walking long, but I’ve already reached the clearing where our village paid tribute to Peruxolo just two nights ago.

Peruxolo. The god I’m supposed to kill.

A bitter laugh bubbles up from my chest. A god cannot be killed. I’m not meant to return home. I’m meant to die. My father sent me here to die.

This is it. The farthest anyone travels away from the village. Beyond this point, the wild is lethal.

But I have to keep moving. If I’m not moving, I’ll be forced to think. And thinking isn’t an option right now.

To the north and west lie more villages. To the south is Seravin. And to the east—

That’s where Peruxolo went with the wagon train. I can see the faint outlines of a less traveled road, one traversed only once a year when the god takes away all our food.

I follow it.

The farther I go, the more wildlife there is to be found. Thorny vines the color of blood wrap around the bases of the trees. Indigo berries hang off the vines. Though I’ve never seen nor heard of them, I assume they’re poisonous. Surely nothing so bright in color could be edible. Crying saplings peek through gaps in the taller trees. The white bark peels back on its own in strips, which is how the trees earned their name.

My steps grow louder as I step on dried leaves atop the rocky ground. A snaketrap gapes open in the middle of the road, two handspans in length. The plants are camouflaged to match the color of the rocky ground, easily missed if one isn’t looking for them. I step over this one. In another hundred yards, I find a closed one, a wriggling tail flapping out of the side. The plant constricts, and the snake stills.

Yellow eyes peer at me from dens in the trees. Since nothing ventures onto the road, I assume I’m too large of prey for the predators attached to those eyes.

Far, far up ahead, I see the outline of a mountain through thick clouds. Unless the road changes direction, it appears to head right for it. I wonder if that is where Peruxolo makes his home.

I sip from my canteen and chew on a dried strip of valder meat. Before I know it, night falls. Still, I walk. It isn’t safe to stop and sleep. I should have built a shelter. But I didn’t. Because I’m not thinking, I’m moving.

My head twitches at every little noise. The sounds of the wild change at night. High-pitched trills echo through the starry expanse. Branches crack and rocks roll across the ground. Bugs buzz all around me. It’s hard to tell just how close any other noises might be. I’m unsure if it’s safer or more dangerous to light a torch.

So I do nothing but walk.

I carry my ax in my hands, ready to use it at the first hint of danger. My mind is wide awake but scratchy from the pain of two nearly sleepless nights.

It’s harder to keep the dangerous thoughts away now.

I see their faces—Havard’s, Torrin’s, Siegert’s, Kol’s. I can imagine them snug in their beds, content and proud of themselves.

And I entertain the notion of sneaking back into the village, knocking them unconscious one by one and dragging them from their beds to tie them to trees in the wild, leaving them for the ziken.