Warrior of the Wild(83)

Peruxolo reaches for me, only his hands stop midair, as though crashing into an invisible wall. He pulls back, examining his own fingers, before trying to grab me again.

He can’t advance toward me any farther. Not with the boulder of iron at my back, holding him off. There’s another a few paces to his left and a third to his right. Iric, Soren, and I placed them carefully, testing them on lodestones to gauge the appropriate distance.

A large thud sounds behind Peruxolo, and he turns to see Iric and Soren dusting the dirt off their hands from the boulder they dropped behind him. He didn’t notice the two of them coming up from behind, hauling the rock from the sidelines of the battle.

And now Peruxolo is boxed in, unable to move, the natural forces of the metals working against him.

“That’s your brilliant plan?” he asks with a laugh. “You forget that I know how this works. And you have no weapon.”

He reaches between the leathers on his forearm and starts to pull the sheet of armor out from there.

It doesn’t give an inch before I rise and reach down into my boot. From it, I pull out a silver dagger. The one Peruxolo used to stab me. His eyes widen in recognition as I plunge the silver tip into the skin at his neck. He goes down.

Blood oozes from the wound, seeps out the side of his mouth, drips onto the pebbles beneath his head. I pull the dagger out, and the stream turns to a pour, as the blood is freed from the large vein there.

He’s dead in seconds.

And the crowd is silent.

Not a soul stirs or really even breathes as I stand over Peruxolo’s body.

I kneel down beside him and pull the armor sheets from his arms and legs. I tug off his boots, unclasp the cloak from off his shoulders, and unstrap his breastplate.

I want to drop onto the ground and sleep. I want the pain to stop and the crowd to go away, but there is still one last thing I have to do.

I’ve finally put it together. The last of the mystery. Why a god would rely on natural forces instead of his power. I know what the rest of the things I saw in Peruxolo’s lair are for.

I grip Peruxolo by his hands and drag him across the ground. Rocks scrape against his back and blood still trickles from his neck, leaving a bloody trail in our wake. But the progress is too slow. I can’t bear it.

I kneel down and manage to heft his weight onto my back.

With an arm and leg on either side of my head, I walk toward my father, who stands at the front of the crowd.

His eyes meet mine. Open wide. Wondering.

I imagine mine like daggers poised to strike. He is why I am here. He sealed my fate.

But now I’m free.

I dump the body at his feet and let everything that has been burdening me fall off with it. No more worries concerning my family. No more thinking little of myself or thinking I’m not good enough for things.

I nudge the body with a foot, look up at my father, and say, “Here is your god.”





CHAPTER


24


Only then does the stillness evaporate. Cheering erupts so loudly, I think my ears will burst. People rush at me, trying to clap me on the back, ruffle my hair, or skim my clothes—they try to touch me as though I’m the goddess herself.

But one figure breaks through the crowd.

“She’s injured. Everyone back off!” Irrenia nudges bodies away with her shoulders in her haste to get to me.

She opens a bag of supplies and starts prodding at the bones in my right hand. People from all villages rush around us, eager to kick at or spit on the god’s body.

“Silence!” A voice breaks through the ruckus, and I recognize the leader of the Mallimer village from the clearing—the one who supplied Peruxolo with a girl once a year for sacrificing.

Those closest to us still, but excitement is tangible in the air, nevertheless.

“I recognize him,” the village leader says. “That’s Cadmael. He was banished fifteen years ago for failing his warrior trial.”

“Yes,” I say. Though I didn’t know the man’s name or where he came from, I did know he was a mortal man. “This is who you’ve been giving your Payment to each year.”

“No,” he says. “I’ve been paying tribute to Peruxolo for over thirty years, and Cadmael has only been banished for fifteen.”

“Peruxolo is just a name. My guess is that over the years, the mantle has been passed down from one banished man from the villages to another so he can collect tribute and silently punish the village that sent him to die in the first place. They’ve been at it for centuries, which is why the tale of Peruxolo goes back so far.”

“No!” the leader says more emphatically. “We sacrifice a girl every year for his blessing.”

“No,” I say, deadpan. “You send a girl to be raped and tortured by a man to satisfy his whims year after year.”

Women nearby start wailing. Mothers of those girls who were sacrificed.

“No,” he says again.

“Naftali,” Father says. “Stop arguing and let her speak.”

“He’s killed entire villages!” the leader, Naftali, says. “Without even showing his face! How do you explain that?”

Father turns to me. Irrenia wraps my fingers while I talk.

“Poison,” I answer. “I’ve been to the seam in the mountain where this man lived. There were barrels of iron fragments. All he had to do was drop them into a well, and the whole village would die.”