Chapter Fourteen

Sula drew her dagger. She considered cutting the strange young man’s torso and hand free first and letting him hang free before loosing his feet so that he fell with a crash. He was the type of person you want to hurt, not a lot, but just enough to get a laugh. Not to say he was not a friendly fellow, he was and Sula thought he might make a good friend to someone, but still the urge to inflict pain remained. Eventually she managed to set aside the urge and chose practicality over humor.

Dagger in hand, Sula climbed the tree, carefully avoiding the thorned vines that coiled up the trunk like a spiraled auger drilling into the ground. Coming level with the young man’s feet, Sula cut through the thick bramble knots that trapped him. The first cut was difficult. Sula did not know how much strength to put into it and errored on too little. The second was much easier. When she loosed his legs, they swung down below his torso.

He let out a welp of pain. Without his legs tied, his snared arm felt the full brunt of his weight. Sula cut through it’s vine and the young man let out a heavy exhale. The sudden lurch had taken his breath away.

Last, she peeled away the many binds that secured his chest and torso. He fell free to the forest floor and felt very grounded, a sensation he had never dreamed he would have again. Despite Sula’s carefully concocted plan and all the time she had given him to prepare for the fall by dropping his legs first, the young man’s body still crashed against the turf leaving him in a pitiful pile.

The sound of his fall echoed through the woods and in an instant the wolf came leaping from the trees. He sniffed hard at the pile but finding nothing worthwhile in it set his attention to Sula in the tree above. She slid down and joined him without trouble. As she reached forward to pet the wolf’s thick pelt, the pile below began to stretch out and return to its feet. The sudden movement shocked the wolf. He jumped away and began to snarl at the now standing man.

He too jumped at the sight of the beast and quickly put distance between them. Now shaking, he cowered behind Sula and used the nine-year-old as a shield. “W-what is that thing?”

“Wolf,” Sula answered. “Don’t worry. He’s friendly.” Even as she spoke, the beast’s snarls grew louder and louder.

“Just ignore him,” Sula offered with a finality that the young man had to respect. Still, he was in no hurry to move away from her.

“Well, in any case,” the young man started, keeping the wolf at bay with his scowl, “my name is Leuther and I would like to offer you my deepest gratitude for your help, Miss…?”

Sula opened her mouth, but all that escaped was the deep rumbling of her stomach. Urrsssulllaaa, it seemed to answer. Sula realized just how long it had been since she last ate. So long that her hunger had deepened and then seemed to vanish almost altogether. So long the pain that had long since dulled now returned as a sharp stab in her gut.

“Please, have this,” Leuther offered and presented her with the golden fruit. “It is the least that I could do for your help. Besides, you managed to knock a few more down when you cut me free.”

Sula greedily snatched the fruit from his hand, almost leaving fingernail marks from her ferocity. She took a great bite and the rush of its sweet, but creamy flavor lit up her face. Leuther smiled. He knew the fruit’s wonderful taste and was tempted to snatch one that had fallen to the ground and indulge himself, but, eyeing the ferocious beast that blocked his way, he decided against it. Sula’s first bite quickly gave way to a wild flurry of chomps. Bits and spittle flew out in all directions from the starving girl’s mouth. Leuther’s smile quickly turned sickly. He stepped out from behind Sula and scanned the walls of trees around him wondering if he were the lone human in this entire forest of beasts.

“Where are you from, girl?” Leuther said, hardly hiding his disgust. “And who taught you your manners?”

Sula stopped her meal and stared daggers at Leuther. His sophisticated resolve was torn away by the fiery hate in her eyes. Without answering, Sula returned to the fruit, tearing away its golden flesh with her fangs.

Leuther heaved a heavy sigh and wiped away the vine remnants on his coat. He cast the girl a sidewise glance, hoping she would answer and betray some idea of who she was, but Sula paid him no mind. “Well, in any case, thank the Goddess you were here to help me. Whoever you may be.”

“Blast the Goddess!” Sula spat, the red juices of her fruit like blood on her chin. “That beast is dead.”

Leuther’s eyes lit up and—even though he knew full well they were the only two daft enough to be caught in this forest—he could not help but to cast worried looks over his shoulders. “Quiet you fool!” he hushed Sula, putting his hand over her mouth. “Even if that is how you feel about her, you must not say such things aloud. You do not know me, nor do you know if who I claim to be is true. Do not trust strangers so easily! The wrong person would be well within his rights to strike you down for such words.”

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The cub struggled under Leuther’s grasp, but she could not free herself. That is, until she bit hard at his palm and tasted blood on her teeth. Shocked at the sudden pain, Leuther let her free with a squeal. He cradled his hand and rubbed at its fresh sore.

Sula took a few steps away but held her ground. She stared Leuther down, a fire kindling in her eyes, as she spat out her rage. “I don’t care. I won’t praise a monster.”

Leuther did not meet her glare. His eyes focused wholly on his wound. Sula’s teeth had not sunk as deep as Leuther had thought. The bite mark consisted mostly of bruised indentations. Only Sula’s fangs had closed with enough malice to draw two tiny drops of blood. Leuther eyed the girl over his palm with a little frown as one might eye a line of knots on a scroll that did not quite make sense the first time it was read or the fifth leg of a spotted lionette just before realizing it was only its tail.

“You really are hopeless,” Leuther sighed in admission that Sula’s stubbornness could not be reasoned with. “Fine, hold your praise, but if you are wise you would hold your curses too. Or just your loose tongue in general.” Leuther shook his head at the girl. While Leuther’s anxiety had settled, Sula remained tense, her body a tightly wound spring.

“I swear, if I were someone else.” Leuther murmured offhandedly with a pitiful tone that Sula found condescending. “Your father really should have taught you such things.”

“What the hell do you know!” Sula shouted.

The cub’s wail sent a shockwave of guilt across Leuther that settled in his stomach. He managed to catch the deep crimson flush of her cheeks as she turned to run. Leuther started to call after the girl, but stifled the words. He knew he had accidentally touched on one of the wild girl’s nerves. He also knew that the worst thing he could do now was dwell on it. So, the lanky young adult chased after both the cub and the wolf for the better part of an hour in silence. They were, after all, the only hope he had of escaping those dense woods.

Leuther chased Sula for as long as his legs could carry. He quickly fell behind the girl and her wolf, but a little distance would not stop him. If the young man was anything, he was persistent, not only in mind, but stamina as well. Though he had never been the fastest, in a test of endurance, Leuther was hard to best. He had once swam clear across Galephrenos Lake (Lake of the Unclouded Mind). It had taken him twelve hours to do, but no matter how long it took, he had been set on becoming the first since the ancient hero Illaskomes to do so.

Because of this, he managed to catch up with the exhausted girl after only forty minutes or so of jogging. She had taken a more leisurely pace, for her legs had begun failing her at the same time her wits returned.

Sympathetic to her earlier outburst, Leuther followed at a distance, perhaps ten paces behind, and did not try to speak to the girl. She walked on without acknowledging his presence, or the presence of the rest of the world for that matter. It was as though she moved through a thick haze, acutely aware of the shadows and chattering around her. Her despondence made Leuther feel all the worse. It might have convinced him to leave altogether had the wolf not taken up his earlier growling which left Leuther wary of letting the beast out of his sight.

It took a couple more hours of walking through foliage, without once stopping to drink from a stream before the cub’s shoulders finally relaxed and she unfolded her arms. Thinking it as safe a time as any, Leuther drew closer and hazarded an apology.

“Please forgive me, child. I did not mean to drudge up painful memories for you. I just have a proclivity for teaching and thought it a good learning opportunity. I was wrong and for that I am sorry and would do anything within my power to make it up to you,” he said with a deep bow, tight enough to seem sincere but loose enough to not come across as pompous.

As Leuther had grown accustomed to, he received no verbal response from the girl. In fact she did nothing to acknowledge that he even existed. Sula walked on, eyes fixed forward.

“Perhaps, as an apology, I can accompany you,” Leuther offered, well aware he would probably need her companionship more than she would need his. “I am no good with directions, but I am knowledgeable of all sorts of things. Weather patterns, vegetation, folklore, arithmetics, philosophy, and anything else you can think of. Though be warned I never did receive an Excellent mark. The examiner always penalized me for being too wordy. Can you imagine that? Me, too wordy? What a ridiculous postulation. I always say exactly what needs to be said in exactly the perfect amount of words at which to attain a perfect understanding…” Leuther carried on to himself in this way for a long while until Sula finally grew frustrated.

“No thank you,” she interrupted. “I have good enough company without you.”

The curtness of her refusal could not curtail Leuther’s efforts. For as stubborn as Sula was, Leuther was every bit her match. Not a minute passed that he did not insist upon joining her company and each time she would respond by telling him to go away. Though the longer they moved through the shade of the tree line and slipped under their long, prickly branches, the more Leuther noticed a change in the girl’s demeanor.

While at first her refusals had come out blunt and vicious, they shifted into an annoyance that seemed to lose its bite. No, it was a playful annoyance very familiar to Leuther. It reminded him of his younger sister who would yell and make a great fuss when he would tease her, but if he were to stop she would grow rowdy and encourage him to continue his silliness. With that in mind, he pushed even further until she could take no more.

“I can teach you, you know,” Leuther offered for at least the thirtieth time. “Though I may not be good with directions and am definitely more of a runner than a fighter—er lover than a fighter—I do have quite a bit of knowledge and that sort of thing, what with the studying in the Akademia and all.”

“What good is a bit of knowledge when the rest of you is so pathetic?” Sula shouted. But Leuther saw the hint of a smile on her face and heard the laugh in her scoff.

“Oof. The brutality of youth,” Leuther said. He held his chest, pretending she had stabbed him. “Perhaps I will have to tutor you in knowledge and manners.”