Alone she sang an old song, in the language of their foremothers. A tale as old as they come, of how greed was given its birth. An account of reality, according to some, for whatever that was worth. She sang, “Elluja luotuna lahjoina tasuna / ykkelle luovana liikoiksi masuna.” Her brother laid on a sled next to her. ”Katukusen palkko paljinki kukkai / kaipsiks lanjunto laminii rukkai”. Over and over, she sang as the sun descended behind the snowy hills.
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Their camp was silent, everybody slept except for Kepni. She stood at the border of the light the bonfire cast. Shadows of the flames flickered on the dwarf birches around them, but she had her eyes focused on the surrounding snowy hills. Her towering figure kept watch as the rest of their expedition slept in their sleeping rolls and tents. Her eyes were fixed on shadows moving on the hillside. But shadows they were not. As they moved closer, Kepni could see black fur against snow, hurttas, and they were fast approaching them.
“Up. Everyone. Now! Hurttas are coming,” she bellowed. Kepni ran to her brother, shaking him awake, “Adaki. Get up. Now.”
Adaki was much smaller than his older sister. He was cozily surrounded by the wool of his handcrafted lamni-hide sleeping bag. His brown hair was a mess of curls as he awoke from his deep slumber. He asked what was going on, clearly still mostly in the land of dreams.
“Hurttas,” Kepni answered before dashing forward to grab her axe. It was a traditional battle axe of the Kalavi people, the handle half of her height made of sturdy oak, grip wrapped in leather, and blades engraved with runes of her people. The hurttas were close. Through the chaos of people getting up and trying to gather their weapons and themselves, she could hear them - massive paws hitting snow and breaking its surface. They would attack them head-on; they were too hungry to survey their prey.
The camp was barely awake and still trying to find their weapons. They were a sorry bunch as fighters, as most of them were farmers, craftspeople, and fishers by trade. Their leader, an older sturdy man, Perppo was ordering his companions to hurry. His robe was embroidered with golden ornaments that clanged together as he urged his underlings to help save him from the incoming beasts. “Get up and earn you pay you… you… maggots.”
Kepni stood steadfast next to the open flames, she readied her axe and her heart for the coming battle. As most of them fumbled to gather themselves together, first of the hurttas attacked. A beast, as tall as Kepni, leaped into their camp. It landed on an unprepared farmer and ripped his windpipe out with a single bite. Its eyes flared with the same determination as any living being, a desire to survive, to eat, to kill. It lounged towards Kepni as its packmates entered the camp. She did not flich, hurttas teeth were no novel sight for Kepni. As the animal lunged at her, she ducked, letting the beast jump above her. On her knees, she swung, and her greataxe tasted flesh. Blood and guts flooded from the hurttas abdomen. Covered in the blood of her first kill, she moved to attack. The greataxe swung, with gravity it guided her from flesh to flesh. Bones snapped as her massive blades dropped, only to come around and devour once again. Hurttas blood mixed with her sweat, it was a familiar savor of salt. She adored the taste.
The others did not excel as she did. They barely kept the hurttas off their throats, rarely getting any blows in. Perppo ran around the camp, gathering his belongings. Gilded plates, fancy clothing, and other luxurious objects, things that had no use here in the wilds. Hurttas teeth sunk into human flesh all around him. In return, their swords cut the beasts. Fangs savored on entrails and blades caught the taste of the hurttas meat. Perppo and his treasures fled from the camp, into the darkness.
Adaki was wide awake. He deflected teeth with his short sword. The beast lounged again, hungry for a kill. He deflected, lounge by lounge. Backpedaling as the onslaught of teeth tried to rip the life out of him. As teeth reached for his throat, he evaded backward, tripping on a rock. He fell onto the snow. Hurttas’ saliva dripped onto his face. He tried to reach for his sword. Pain shot up from his arm as the hurttas’ teeth borrowed into his tender muscles.
In a wide arc, a blade sliced the hurtta in two. Kepni stood in front of her brother. She offered her hand to him. "Get up," she commanded. As Kepni helped to unclamp the dead hurttas jaw from Adakis arm, he too felt a piercing pain on her right shoulder. Teeth. She grabbed the hurtta with her bare hands and threw it over her shoulder onto the snow. The beast whined as it landed in front of the overpowering figure of Kepni. It got back on its feet and, with what was left of its pack, fled. Kepni stood still, like a juniper in a storm. From outside, one could not ascertain it, but pain shot through her whole being. When their foe had fled far enough, she fell onto her knees, grasping her bitten shoulder. Without speaking a word, Adaki helped her bandage the wound up. He did not look into his sister’s eyes, fearing she would do nothing but confirm that he had let her down.
After five minutes of calm, Perppo finally returned to their camp from behind a nearby bush. He put his valuables into his backpack and packed the rest of his stuff. “Alright. To whoever is left alive, let’s get going. The flower of the peak is not going to pick itself.” With that, they left their dead, packed up, and started moving, leaving a trail of footsteps and blood.
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In silence they marched through snowy hills. The sun rose. No hurttas were in sight but in the sunlight, their wounds, ripped clothes, and bloodied hands were laid bare. None of them was without a mark of the hurtta.
No one, except for Perppo, who walked in the front. His jewelry clanked as it swung with the movement of the man only used a life of privilege and excess. Every so often he stopped them all to take a look at his map or when he deemed the time right for a meal. The map he consulted was crudely drawn and lacked most of the usual markers. He had paid a pretty penny, for he knew it was worth every coin a thousandfold. For the Flower of the Peak was marked on it.
Kepni, like everyone, knew the legend of The Flower of the Peak. According to songs and tales of old, it was the eternal sight of the rightful opulence and dominance of oksi. It was a gift given by an envious hurtta, who considered it a curse. Kepni knew the tale but like most people thought it to be just a legend, something to tell the children to explain to them how hurttas and oksis worked. Perppo, however, was convinced that if someone were to find The Flower of the Peak as it was in blossom and drank its nectar, they would be blessed with riches, luck, powers, and health. Thus, he had offered great compensation to anyone who would help him mount an immediate expedition. Kepni thought him to be out of his mind, but she was still in debt to the irritating man, so she held no other options. Adaki however – he had come of his own volition.
While they walked, Kepni scoured the mountain range for anything of note, but there was nothing. No hurttas, no great oksi, not even pories. Adaki was walking in the back of the group, keeping his gaze fixed on the ground, dragging his legs. Kepni slowed her pace and lagged behind to walk next to her brother. Adaki noted her presence with a glance. He had no need or desire for company. "You should not have let them overpower you,” Kepni commented as they walked next to each other.
Adaki did not look at his sister, "Easy for you to say.”
"I’ve taught you better. In life, as in battle, the one on the back foot will eventually fall. You know that.”
"I do.”
"But you don't really, now do you? You must be able to act when it’s needed. Do you understand that?”
"I do," Adaki answered, his vocal cords strung tightly by his surging emotions. "And my arm is fine, thank you for asking.” Adaki looked at the group walking before them. None of them were accustomed to this kind of life. They all had wounds they would talk about for the rest of their lives - wounds that would hurt them for the rest of their lives. "But I'm not like you, am I? I'm like the rest of us, normal. None of us can be giants with natural instincts in battle. Do you understand that?”
"I told you not to join me here.”
"Well, I did."
"And for what, money?” As Kepni spoke, her brows furrowed as her fury rose. Her hands and back muscles visibly constricting. "They might fall to the hurttas for their incompetence, but you will not. I will not be gathering your corpse from the cold ground to bring to our mother.”
“You won’t have to. Hopefully, you won't have to worry about me at all after this. There will be no little brother for you to belittle.” With a sarcastic scoff, he added, “And teach.” Now with newfound conviction and hope in his eyes, he told his sister, "With this money, I can buy proper leatherworking tools from the traveling merchant and make something of myself. I can be… something.” With the same sarcastic tone he added, “Not just working for that pile of oksi droppings for breaking his cart while drunk out of my mind. Like rabble.”
Blood rushed to her head before the truth of his words could be absorbed. She grabbed her brother by the collar of his coat. “What did you call me?”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Adaki did not resist, he glowed with the affirmation of the truth in his words. He scoffed to his unmannered sibling, "You heard me, sister."
Kepni let go of her brother. “Is that truly what you think of me?”
Adaki said nothing, he looked away from her with a sorrowful gaze. His jaw tightened with anger before he started walking away from Kepni. His sister ran after him. He was expecting her to strike the back of his skull, but she did not even look in his direction. He waited for retaliation of any kind from her, but their march along the snow-covered hills was only filled with sorrowful silence and withheld words.
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Nearing the mountain's peak, they stopped and observed the entrance of a large cave. The entrance was littered with bones and pelts, it had to house a great oksi. Kepni reckoned based on the bones of both smaller and larger mammals, that the oksi must have had a cub, as only cubs hunted for small prey. Unfortunately, small for oksi also included humans.
"So? It seems like no one is home.” Perppo blurted to the observing warrior.
"We better stay and wait. If there are cubs in there, they will smell us.”
"Can't you just deal with it?”
"Kill an oksi? For what? Us intruding on their territory?” Kepni tried not to disrespect the useless man leading them but raised her voice. "Sir, with all due respect - we barely handled a small hurtta attack.”
For a moment, their incompetent leader observed the supposed oksi lair until he conceded, "We can wait for a while. I'm taking another look at the map, but once I'm done, we are moving if there is no sight of them.”
Kepni agreed begrudgingly. Others threw their backpacks down and rummaged in them for something to eat. Kepni stood looking at the cave's entrance. Her eyes moved sharply from detail to detail, trying to find any indication of the oksis movements but to no avail. The bones, colossal paw prints, broken trees nearby, nothing was conclusive. They could be just inside, hidden in the shadows of the cave, or they could be out.
The camp was filled with banter and conversation. The party members were happy to have a small respite after their ascent, Adaki along with the rest of them. He had not gone to talk or help his sister, who had stood on watch in solitude. He watched as Perppo walked to his sister. They were arguing about something. Kepni would just not stop arguing with that insufferable man, she just could not keep her mouth shut. His arm hurt; it would surely heal, but the scars would be there until his eventual demise. "- don't forget that he has the stomach of a baby,” someone near Adaki remarked about Perppo. Adaki laughed a dry laugh. Perppo did have the stomach of an overgrown baby.
"We have to wait,” Kepni insisted, "We are not a militia, we cannot face an oksi.”
"And I thank you for your invaluable expertise, but I say we go, and – may I remind you – that I'm the leader of this expedition, not you.”
Kepni wanted nothing more than to punch him in his smug face, feel his nose break, and see if he still insisted that he was the one in control here. But she did not, because he was in control, even if she could have overpowered him easily. She swallowed her hatred and nodded.
"Very good," Perppo concluded. "Listen here everybody,” he bellowed, "we are moving. Pack up your things, we won't stop before the peak.”
With mumblings of disappointment, they all packed their things and continued their journey. As they walked past the cave, Kepni could see some of the carcasses closer. They still had meat on them, they had not to be older than two or three days, the oksi would be back soon, even if they were out. Now the carcasses were being consumed by their new gourmands; maggots, cleaning them from small bits of meat that oksis could or did not want to eat. Even here, amid snow and freeze, maggots survived by feeding on other people’s work.
Perppo was eager to get to the peak, and as promised, he skipped the party’s breaks. "Come on you slobs. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can all go home.”
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They rose to one false peak after another until finally seeing a peaking bright green contrasted against the blue sky. The plant grew from the top of the mountain, its steam, over three meters tall, coiled like a giant serpent. The flower was in the middle of four veiny leaves, its four petals reaching both grounds- and skywards. In the middle of it all was a small dark purple pistil, oozing with nectar. The petals adorned it in a crown that made it clear to everyone present that this was to be treated as a king to all other flora. It might have been its beauty or the promise of power and wealth it represented that made Perppo tear up. "It is perfect.”
A roar pierced the air. The source was an oksi, just a little one, only three and a half meters tall. Its fur was full of fluff and frizzy like the cubs of other mammals, but it was still an oksi. The giant cub strode towards their ranks. With a single swipe it mowed their ranks. A giant paw instantly killing the lucky ones, piercing them with its claws. Others were left to struggle for their lives in the snow, broken and in pain.
Kepni took control of their ranks, and commanded the farmers and the like to get ready.
The young lord of the mountain pushed its paw onto one of the injured, crushing their chest cavity like a child crushes a peanut shell.
Kepni collected her self-made troops behind her. “When it charges, we all charge towards it,” she instructed. In tandem, her novice troops readied themselves. “This is it. This might be our last stand. Make it a good one." Kepni was unsure if her word encouraged or scared her novice troops, but what she spoke was the truth, and she was not in the mood to lie. It was not good to lie to the soon-to-be dead.
Perppo was not about to die now. He grabbed Adaki from the back of the group and sharply spit on his face, “You come with me, we are getting the damned flower.” Adaki obliged, not eager to charge the hut-sized lord of all animals, even if it was just a cub.
As the pair fled to the flower, the youngling regarded the human group. It roared once again, but to its amazement, the tiny creatures did not break rank or disperse. "Hold!”, Kepni commanded, yelling over the oksi roar still ringing in their ears.
The oksi pup charged.
"Hold,” Kepni told them, “Hold…” as the cub charged towards them. "Hold!”
The oksi prepared to lounge itself at them at full speed. The group of humans stood still like stone but with an almost too unbearable appetite to fight for their lives.
"Now!” Kepni commanded. They charged. In the language of their foremothers, the giant warrior yelled, "Pushkii!” and her soldiers yelled it by her side. "Pushkii! Pushkii! Pushkii!”
Kepni headed straight toward the beast as her companions took to the sides, hitting flesh, but their short swords did little more than to inflict shallow cuts. Kepni dove under the oncoming paw, sliding under the oksi. Her axe cleaved the beast into the stomach, partaking of its meat. It roared in a deafeningly loud shriek of pain. The oksi sprange its hindlegs for a kick. A paw the size of her whole body hit Kepni. She felt her collarbones struggling to keep intact, snap, next to her already-injured shoulder. She fell onto the snow. The beast took to its other attackers, mauling, ripping, and lacerating them one by one.
Adaki watched from afar as the oksi's claws feasted upon his companions. He saw Kepni trying to get up. All the while Perppo dragged him away from the battle. Adaki tried to stop himself, but Perppo held his wrist too tightly.
“Wait… I need to go back. She needs my help.”
The oksi, now bleeding and in pain too, lumbered towards Kepni.
Perppo dragged Adaki towards the flower with a frenzy in his eyes. “Forget them. Forget them all. Help me and save yourself.” Perppo moved them with a force unlikely for the weak man. Adaki tried to rip himself free from his grasp, but the newfound strength of the rich merchant was too much. “They are all rabble, peasantry, filth. Forget them.”
With those words, something snapped in Adaki. For him, time froze for a single moment. He could see his sister, the lumbering death approaching her, the man forcing him away, the flower. By an instinct older than humanity itself, he took Perppos hand into his mouth and bit, like a scared dog, he bit as hard as he could. As the grubby little man let go and screamed in pain, Adaki sprinted away toward the fight.
Kepni struggled to stand up as the oksi charged. She dodged the attacking beast, landing ungracefully on the snow with her sides aching with immense pain. The great beast turned around to attack again. But it would not have a chance to do that. Adaki charged the beast, running under it, grabbing onto its fur on its chest. He stabbed, again and again. As he forced his blade to rip flesh, the oksi rose to its hindlegs. Now standing at its full height, a small human hanging onto its flesh trying to stab it with a sword too short to reach anything vital in its stomach, the beast shook Adaki off.
Kepni stood up, the world swung around her. She could see the oksi, and someone small. Adaki. Kepni forced her legs into a sprint, her bones puncturing more of her inside with every step. The oksi raised a paw to strike. Kepni grabbed Adakis sword from the ground as she dove toward the beast.
Adaki saw as the great oksi swung its claws toward him. He tried to backpedal, but in his eyes, he already held the truth. The oksi was too fast, it was too late. The giant claws punctured gluttonously into his comparatively small skull. There was a small crack and a wet pop, and then he was no more.
Kepni lounged onto the beast’s face, grabbing onto its fur with all of her strength. Her grip was so tight that it hurt her bones. Her blade stabbed eyes, brains, whatever it could find, in the desperation of a malnourished animal. She flailed on the cub as it fell, not stopping her onslaught of hatred before her pain overpowered her. Her head was a swirl of surging blood from inside, masked in the blood of the great beast’s young. The taste was like bitter and cold iron. With the beast long dead, she rose from among the fur and blood. She did not cast her sight on her dead brother. She strode towards Perppo, who seemed to be enchanted by the flower, not heeding the battle.
Perppo caressed the gargantuan flower’s stem as Kepni stormed to his side. ‟Ah, Kepni, well done.”
"They are all dead," Kepni informed icily.
"Yes, yes, I see. Could you cut the flower down so I can take it back to town?”
"My brother is dead.” As Kepni spoke, her sides radiated with pain, and her whole body rocked back and forth with it. She held the pain and the anger tightly.
"Yes, I'm very sorry for your loss. I'll make sure to hire people to retrieve his body and give him a fabulous burial.” The bloodbathed warrior did not seem content with this answer. "Of course, your family will be handsomely compensated. Cut the flower down and bring it with you. So, we can be done with this…” Perppo looked around at his dead hirelings “...all of this.”
"Yes sir, so we can be done with this all, "Kepni replied, raising her greataxe. With one swing, she cut the plump little man. Not a sound escaped from Perppos mouth as his weak spine split, and his brain stopped as his upper body dropped into the blood-covered snow.
Kepni made a small sled from their camping supplies, onto which she laid her brother's body. Kepni covered him with Adaki’s sleeping cover, not letting her gaze to linger on his lifeless being. She descended the mountain, leaving the peak filled with the bodies of innocent hirelings, a child of a great oksi, and Perppo, with his face contorted into a horrified soundless yell, all to be devoured by the same maggots. In the wind, pieces of their map flew across the snow cover. The flower towered above them all, it was left to rule over its true domain: death.