Chapter 14: Welcome

Over the last few years they’d spent traveling together, Davos hadn’t talked much about his past. He’d answered questions about places he’d been in his travels, and told stories he’d picked up and sometimes of things he’d seen, but there were never any details about him in those stories.

Everything had been about Adriana. Her dreams, her fears, her training, her education. They had a chance meeting in a tavern when she’d still been a rabid teenager. She had made her way to the town to sell some game she’d hunted, and gotten into a stupid fight with someone trying to steal from her.

Davos had stepped in and kept her from getting killed, then gave her pointers on her fighting technique. She used those pointers to immediately punch him, and they’d been inseparable ever since. In that time he taught her many things. He chose where they went, but it had always been to show her something, or to get a job so that she’d have a chance at Divinity.

“It’s him! It’s him!” Soon, they had a group of eight children running circles around them as they went up the path to the village.

“What the hell happened here?” Adriana whispered to him.

“It was nothing, really,” said Davos. He looked anywhere but at her. “They had a bit of trouble after a natural disaster and I happened to be in the area. I helped out. This right here? This is a little much.” His smirk said otherwise, and Adriana let it go and followed the children to the heart of the village.

All things considered, it was a charming place, not unlike the one Adriana had grown up in. It was spread out over a good chunk of distance, and most of the shacks on the outskirts looked dedicated to farming. Near the center was a firepit where a man with the snout of a dog cooked fried fish. He looked up at her and waved, but she grimaced.

Plenty of people tainted themselves with Bestia, and it made her uncomfortable seeing the way they changed. Human, but not. The children led them past the dog-faced man, and Adriana tried to ignore him and not sneer in his direction. They had a good thing going so far, and it wouldn’t be her that ruined it.

The headsman lived up on a small hill overlooking the rest of the village. His house was notably larger than the rest, but it was still old, humble, and practical. Upon hearing the commotion of the children, who still chanted Davos’ name in between screams and cheers, he came out. He was an old man with a long beard, and comfortably ragged clothes. He leaned on a stick for support, and his eyes lit up.

“Davos, you’ve returned! And with a friend. I wish we could celebrate with you brother, but we’re facing some hard times.”

“Hard times?” Davos’ pleased expression turned almost comically sour. “What’s going on, Marano? Anything I can do to help?”

Marano sighed. “A number of things. There have been monster attacks lately, and a few people have been taken. Eaten. Our best warriors are also our best fishermen, and we’ve lost too many of them.”

“What kind of monsters?” asked Adriana. “We can take on anything troubling you. If the price is right.”

Davos and Marano looked at her for an uncomfortably long time before going back to speaking with each other. “That’s terrible to hear, my friend, and of course I’ll do whatever I can. Am I to assume that you’re low on food? We need some provisions for our journey, and a place to rest.”

“Of course, of course, you’ll have a place to stay and a share of our food, but we are running low on some key staples.” Marano leaned in close and said, “I look forward to seeing if you can outdo the last time you were here.”

Davos leaned in as well, “I’ve only gotten better at swimming since then. You’ll have enough fish to last all winter in just a couple days, so be sure to be ready to preserve it all. Now, about those monsters…”

“Yeah,” said Adriana, “about those monsters. What can they do, how many, how big, and how many people have gotten hurt?”

Davos nodded approvingly. “You remembered the order. Attagirl.”

Marano cleared his throat. “There’s always small, petty monsters that emerge in the wild. We’re not too worried about those. They stay away from the village until one of them gets out of hand. Like now. There’s one, but it’s big. At least thirty feet long, with three serpentine heads on long necks. It breathes this noxious gas and has eaten nine people now.” He grimaced. “Including three children.”

Adriana was already going to do it, but now she had to. “We’ll bring you its heads.”

Ten minutes later, they sat around the firepit, getting breakfast from the dog-man. Now that they were out in the village, they got a better look at the people. Their cook wasn’t the only one who had taken Bestia. Adriana spotted a woman with scales, and a young boy who had a tentacle growing out of his shoulder.

No one seemed to mind them or care that they had made themselves freaks, and that unlike Divinity, they couldn’t voluntarily get rid of it. There was no going back to normal for them. The dog-man seemed happy enough, with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. He rotated the spit with one hand while he drank wine with the other.

“I still don’t know what you did here,” said Adriana as she ate the fish. It was fresh and perfect.

“Very true,” Davos returned. And that was all he said as he began eating. A minute of her glaring holes into him and he set his fish down and sighed. “Like I said, there was a disaster. A storm and a shipwreck with some of their fishermen. I happened to be here and I helped rescue people. And then, when I saw they needed food, I went out and gathered as much fish as I could while they recovered and rebuilt.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

“That’s really all it was. Just being in the right place at the right time, and being willing to help. Any other probing questions, or can I eat?” Despite his words, he was more amused than annoyed.

“Just one. How much did they pay you for saving the village?”

Davos’ expression turned sour. “A decent helping of food, wine, and company. I didn’t ask for anything else, nor would I have wanted it. We do what we have to in order to survive, but not all of us are so greedy as to try to put the squeeze on a small, poor village.”

Something almost like shame washed over her. “I see what you mean,” she said, and made a point of looking around the village. She counted every small home and resource, right down to the cows, sheep, goats, and even a few pigs they had in fields surrounding the village square. “These people would make good worshipers, and we put the squeeze on richer villages. Maybe even towns and cities.”

Davos sighed. “Yep. That’s exactly it, Adriana. Well done.”

“Relax!” Adriana elbowed her friend in the side. “I’m mostly kidding.”

“Mostly.”

“We have to keep moving and we have to survive, right? What else is there in life?” Adriana demanded.

“What else, indeed.” Davos finished his fish quickly and slapped the plate down. He fished out a couple of haemar coins, but the dog-faced man shook his head.

“No need, Davos. Consider this fish a down payment on what we owe you,” he said in a rough, almost human voice. He grinned, and took another drink from his wineskin. It seemed awkward, but he’d clearly had enough practice at it.

Davos slapped the coins down anyway. “Hard times are hard times. Throw them out, give them away, I don’t care. As for you, Adriana…Explore the village and try not to pick any fights. Make some friends, if you can, but I have some things I need to check on.”

Without another word, he left her behind, heading back towards the docks. Adriana wasn’t worried that he’d leave her or do anything big. He had no reason to stay with her the past few years and he still had, so she figured they were stuck together. The thought put a smile on her face, and he returned to her food.

“How’s that tasting?” the dog-faced man asked.

She took another bite and nodded. “It’s good. Do you like being part dog?”

The man grinned with all the joy of mutt in trash. “I sure do. I got better taste and smell, amazing teeth, and it’s helped me through some rough times. Do you like being on fire? Does it hurt?” He pointed to her hair, burning on one side of her head and not where she had shaved the other side.

Adriana had forgotten about that entirely. Which seemed like a strange thing to forget, but it felt so normal now. It was just another extension of her new self, her new powers. “It doesn’t hurt,” she said, reaching out a lightly flaming hand. The man tentatively touched it. He clutched his hand back and yelped.

She was startled, but then he started laughing. “You bastard!” she said, smacking his shoulder before laughing as well. For being a Bestial freak, he at least hadn’t gone far enough to make him lose himself. He probably wouldn’t attack anyone or destroy the village unless he went further onto the path.

Once she was finished, the dog-man gave her a wineskin of his own and told her to enjoy Juthida. She walked around the village, occasionally taking a sip of wine and just enjoying one more day of rest before she got back to fighting for a living.

There wasn’t all that much to see of Juthida. It was almost exactly as small as it seemed, with only a few lingering homes and buildings outside the main grouping around the island’s natural bay. The rest of the island had limited beaches, and a lot more sheer cliffs around the edge. On it’s far side, a swampy forest teemed with monsters and wild beasts

“What do you know about the monster attacking the village?” Adriana asked an older woman on the outskirts of town.

“It took Chanyi and Ben,” she said in a wavering voice. She had thin, white hair in curls and the start of a hunch as she stooped over her cane. “It comes at least once a week, takes a person, and goes back home. And it seems to be getting bigger and stronger.”

“Me and Davos will handle it, no problem,” Adriana said.

The old woman brightened up. “Davos once again at our rescue. Why, if I was just a few years younger…”

Adriana left before she laughed or hurled.

She took a brief stop to peek over a fence at some animals grazing on some of the only good land for it. Some of them came up to her at the fence hoping for food, but the flames along her hands kept them a safe distance away. She supposed it was to be expected, but petting a goat would’ve been nice.

It took all of an hour walking around to see what all Juthida had and to be wholly unimpressed by it. It was the same kind of village she rolled in and out of every week, looking for work. The people were extra friendly, knowing she was with Davos, but Adriana doubted she’d remember any of them after they were gone.

She got so bored she headed for the swamp on her own, letting gravity take her down the hill on a well-worn trail between two fields of weeds and wildflowers. The island was an explosion of greens, yellows, and purples, until the swamp. There, colors seemed to blend into something muted and faded. Most of the island’s trees were there, and they needed the lumber. On top of not wanting their children eaten, of course.

Adriana stopped just before the treeline, peering through the trees with her enhanced eyesight. There were all kinds of small animals crawling through the brush and trees, and flies and mosquitos swarmed the area. They got closer and closer to Adriana, drawn by the flames, but a brief effort left them burnt and on the ground.

As hard as she tried, she couldn’t see clearly through the treeline, save for brief glimpses of a clearing, and seeing ripples on the water, as well as a couple pairs of eyes from some of the big lizards that lived in shallow, tepid water.

“Hey, it’s dangerous to be here alone!” A young, high-pitched voice said from behind her. When she turned around, it was a girl of about fourteen or so, with curly brown hair and dirt all over her face and clothes.

“Well, why are you here, then?” Adriana demanded.

The teen shrugged. “I like it here. Headsman Marano said that I’m to guide you two out there tomorrow. Mom saw you come wandering out this way, so I thought I’d make sure you didn’t do anything dumb like go alone.”

Adriana laughed. “Just checking it out. If I wanted to go alone, I’d be fine.”

“Naw,” said the kid, with all the confidence of youth. “People die in there.”

“Not me,” said Adriana. “I’m made of stronger stuff. What’s your name?”

“Alicia,” said the girl. She eyed her up and down. “Are you really a woman?” she asked, pointing at Adriana’s bulging biceps.

“I am,” she said. “I’m stronger than any man, twice as brave, and tomorrow me and Davos are going to kill that monster that’s been terrorizing the town. Want me to show you how?”

Alicia lit up. “I’d love that!”