19
(Finger Eleven- Paralyzer)
Desmond
A stench of sulfur seeped through the dark forest like beckoning death. The fireblood was nearby, I just couldn’t place its exact location. It was near the road, probably preying on passersby. The odor grew in strength about a hundred feet into the forest, from a nearby thicket of gray bark trees with jagged and sharp spade-shaped leaves. Thorny vines crawled up the bark, weaving into a chaotic net that would tangle and shred any unlucky animal caught inside. The thicket was the only section of forest with these trees and vines, the rest of the forest being gargantuan needle trees, reverse ferns, and blue fungal spires surrounded by dead insect-sized creatures. About fifty feet in diameter, we were gonna have to take the fight into the fireblood’s den.
Sifting through smells was difficult, like my nose was being bombarded by everything around me. The earthy smell of dirt, tree needles and leaves with their own distinct forestry scents, the clean refreshing air. It all piled in around my nostrils until I realized I needed to train myself better before trying to track something precisely.
If only I had more time to figure my senses out. My nose could find the general area of things, but it couldn’t pinpoint anything well yet. I’d just gotten used to managing the sensory overload, but learning to use my senses properly would take a lot longer.
I let out a quick whistle and pointed to the thicket, then waved Tells to the front.
She stepped forward and stopped, staring aimlessly ahead. “What-” she lowered to a whisper, “what do you want me to do?”
“You got the sword, cut a path in.”
Brenden snuck up behind me and I almost punched him from startling me. “Hey- whoa, easy. Don’t you think we should lure it out, maybe?”
Adam stood there awkwardly, a frightened expression growing on him as the concept of going inside reached him.
I shook my head. “It’s an animal, it ain’t coming out if it's outnumbered. Especially with a big fucker like him, even if he is a pussy.” I pointed at Adam, who nodded, not taking his eyes off the trees. “We gotta go in if we want it.”
“Can’t we like…” Brenden searched the trees for an answer, his heart racing almost as fast as Adam’s. “Burn it out?”
“We’re not in an African savannah, we’re in the middle of the fucking forest, Brenden, and a pretty thick one at that. And it’s summer. We light that tinder pile and the whole forest is going up.”
He shook his head in concession. “I’m just trying to think of ideas.”
“Yeah, I know. And I’m tellin’ you to trust me cause I’ve been huntin’ longer and I already thought of every other way we might be able to do this. This is how we get it, by goin’ in and snatchin’ it.”
Holy shit, maybe this was a bad idea. I think I see what Rowan was talking about now.
Tells emerged from the thicket, leaves and bits of sticky green vine choppings in her hair. “It clears up a little ahead. You guys coming?”
I sighed. “I’m comin’. You know what,” I turned to the two behind me. “If you guys don’t think you can handle it, then just do me a favor and while you wait out here, cut this thicket to hell. Alright?”
Adam trepidatiously stepped forward against his instincts. “I-I-I-I go-got it. Goin’ in.”
Brenden swallowed. “Yeh, me too.”
Another expected win for ye olde reverse psychology with a dash of peer pressure.
The comfortably lit day seemed to become dusk inside the thicket. Very little light made it through the dense canopy of large, heavy leaves. In fact, I hadn’t even noticed, but the forest in this area was dead silent. No animal calls, no chirps from bugs or birds, nothing. Every time a branch shifted, I heard it. Every time a whisper of wind slipped through the thicket walls, I caught it. We were in its den, but it didn’t know I could hear it slowly slinking along the edge of the path Tells cut, waiting for us to enter. I didn’t see it because it wouldn’t get close enough to see, not until we were in the heart of its trap. Sure enough, about 15 feet in, several rotting stumps and a whole lot of animal bones made sure nothing would grow for about a ten foot space.
Tells slipped in first, doing a full turn around, searching every corner for it as she took on a fighting stance in the middle of the circle. The bones cracked and scraped against her boots loudly, getting snuffed out by the treeline. I stepped in directly after her, then Brenden. Adam was having a hell of a time struggling his way through the human-sized passage.
Shit, where’d it go. It’s completely silent and the bones are obscuring my hearing in here. Fuck!
I hopped through the bones to pull Adam in. “Come on, quick!”
Just then, a twig cracked near the floor as Adam struggled to keep a barbed vine from getting caught around his neck.
“I’m try- ah!” Adam slipped, latching onto the vine as his massive form tugged the trees to bend down with him.
My ears caught light, skittering steps right near his feet. I lunged out to stab with my hunting dagger just as a mangled, thorny, reddish-brown barbed tail whipped out and stuck Adam’s ankle. My dagger sliced into its tail, but not enough to stop it from lingering in his ankle. A hideous, high-pitched cackle retreated into the brush with the tail.
“Uuuugghhh,” Adam slumped forward, the vine ripping into his neck, then snapping from his weight.
Shit! His body is blocking the path out. Gotta get this vine off his neck... Just some light scratches, but he’s completely out. His heart’s beating at least, so it must have just knocked him out.
I heard the fireblood behind me, from the right of our entrance. I pointed in the general direction, motioning for Brenden, Tells and I to close in.
“What?” Brenden asked, “What does that one mean?”
“I’m pointing, dipshit,” I whispered, “close in on it!”
Tells crept forward slowly with me. I focused again and listened. No sounds were coming from the brush, so it either moved when I was talking or it was completely still. I turned away from the two of them, scanning the canopy and the treeline by me. We could salvage this easily still.
“Shit! Behind you!” Tells yelled out from my right and I whipped around to see nothing. Tells was still to my left. We all went dead still, listening for where it was coming from.
I was searching the entrance, but I heard her voice from the opposite side she was on. An echo? But nothing attacked.
I snapped to Tells, “Tells, what the fuck was that?!”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Tells’ face froze in fear and her heartbeat picked up dramatically. “That wasn’t me!”
Brenden’s voice came from the side opposite the entrance, behind me. “It’s on me!”
Brenden is to my left.
I hit the ground immediately, made myself small, readied my foot for an upward kick, and raised my dagger to fight back just in time to hear a whistle of soaring wings descending toward me. A blur of that same reddish brown fur shot out from the entrance. It would have stuck me in the back had I not dropped, but it retreated into the canopy, skittering around, throwing branches at us.
I whipped out my bow and readied an arrow, following the sound and the branches being thrown. I steaded my breath and launched an arrow the moment I caught a shadow through the treeline. The arrow disappeared. No hit.
Brenden put his back against mine, his heart and breathing out of control. “Where the fuck is it?!”
“Shh!” I turned with him watching my rear, or rather, him hiding behind me while I tracked the thing.
Tells darted next to me, turning with me, keeping her eyes wherever mine went.
We turned with the noises around the whole clearing until it slowly reached the entrance and went silent. Then a quiet chewing sound from the other side of Adam grabbed my attention.
“It’s eating Adam’s ass!” I darted forward, arrow at the ready and dagger in my string hand, ready for it to counter attack.
Brenden wildly flailed around at losing me, swinging his sword out in the direction of the entrance. Tells jumped forward with me, buckler ready to block its attack. I stood up as tall as I could, sending an arrow just above a dark figure just behind Adam’s thigh.
Upon seeing me and Tells, the dark blob jumped up into the foliage. It growled and yelped as the arrow hit. Not a direct hit, but I caught his wing. The creature darted into the foliage to our right side, closer and closer to me, like it was just gonna go all out on us. I pulled the dagger free and stepped backward, pushing Tells back too, but it was a feint. The creature leapt out at Brenden, latching onto his chest. He screamed, slicing at its wing and fighting its tail off with the catching pole to no avail. It bit into his shoulder and lodged its tail into the back of his hand. We closed the distance as fast as we could, but Brenden went down. Tells slammed its side with her buckler, knocking it into the pile of bones. I jumped at it, shoving my boot heel on its tail. It scurried and screeched, trying to get free, but that didn’t stop me from ripping the dagger through, severing the poisonous tail in a splatter of sulfurous brown goo. The wound I cut into its tail earlier had already healed, though.
I finally got a good look at it, though. Its blood-red and earthy brown, furry batlike body wrestled against my weight. It couldn’t escape my sight now. It was like a fuzzy lizard, with a body the size of a child, bat wings, and thorny barbed tail. A bulbous, pulsing cancerous growth emerged from a split in its skull, obscuring one eye and pointy little ear as the jiggling tumor of hair, bone, and putrid raw flesh flopped over its face like a bubble of loose fat. Grotesque growth aside, the little shit looked like it was smiling at us through rows of exposed gnarled teeth, screaming at me. Once its tail was cut off, it burrowed into the pile of bones. I stabbed once. Miss. I followed the mound of shifting bones and stabbed again.
Shit, another miss! This is bad. I don’t know how long we have for Brenden and Adam. At least Tells is holding her own. Shit, we gotta get this thing alive, don’t we?
I regrouped with Tells, keeping an eye on the figure as I forced the animal catcher rod into her hand and picked up the severed tail in my off hand.
Maybe I can stick it with its own poison. Might at least slow it down if it’s not completely immune to its own shit.
I shared a glance with Tells and we both knew what was up. She’d knock it, I’d finish it. The only issue is it wouldn’t attack if it knew I was following it. It continued its volley of sticks and bone fragments to keep us guessing, but that wasn’t inhibiting me at all. I grabbed Tells’ head, pulling her ear to my mouth, keeping my eyes on its slow circle of us.
“I’m gonna fake it out, keep my back in its exact direction. I can hear it, so keep my rear in your peripheral. It’ll attack us, so get ready to knock that fucker.”
“Word.”
Both out hearts were naturally racing at this point. Beads of sweat formed on my head, not at the fear of it leaping out, but that it was playing with us until we got too exhausted to fight back effectively.
I reacted to the sound of a bone getting thrown across the clearing, trying to seem as scared as possible, dagger out toward the fake. Tells turned toward another sound, keeping a lookout in the wrong direction. The near-silent taps of the pads of its feet on leaves and bone grew ever closer, until a bone cracked under its full body weight.
It’s pouncing.
I whispered quickly, “Now!”
Tells whipped at my six, slamming the fireblood with her buckler, but it latched on, jabbing helplessly around the wooden shield with a freshly grown tail. I whirled around stabbed the barbed tail into its back. It wasn’t going down, in fact, its new tail had carved a streak down Tells’ arm.
SHIT! She’s gonna drop!
The fireblood’s grasp on the buckler relaxed and it tumbled into the bones. Tells slammed its head with the rod and wrapped its neck in the loop.
She lost control of her temper a bit. “Eat shit you little rat fuck!” She gritted her teeth, clasping the deep gash on the back of her left arm. She wretched, clutching her stomach with her arm, then gagged like a cat with a hairball and spit out a viscous clump of red fluid onto the fireblood. She heaved in air for just a second and puffed out her chest at the paralyzed fireblood. “BITCH!”
I stared at her baffled for a second. “The fuck? That poison didn’t do anything to you?”
She grimaced, then caught her breath. “I think that’s the poison.” She nodded toward the clump of fluid.
I pulled off my shirt. “Come ‘ere. Hold still.” She turned toward me and we wrapped my shirt to her arm as a makeshift bandage. I tugged the fastening string out and tied it around her bicep, pulling it tight enough to maybe stem the bleeding.
She chuckled. “You a real one for that.”
“Right back atcha.” We high fived, clasping hands.
She stared at my six pack in confusion. “No belly button.”
“Huh?” I looked down and sure enough, I didn’t have a belly button. I hadn’t even noticed when I was bathing.
She lifted her shirt and sure enough, she didn’t have one either, but she had a surprisingly strong looking core, though not defined nearly as much as mine.
I wiped the sweat off my forehead. “We gotta stay focused. Alright, let’s get these fucks outta here and back to the village ASAP. You chill here, I’ll carry the fireblood and Brenden back to the wagon, then we’ll figure out something for Adam. Wait, where the fuck is Brenden?!”
Brenden’s body was nowhere in sight, but in the silence, I caught a heartbeat from nearby where he had been laying.
Tells rushed over to investigate, but tripped over literally nothing, catching herself in the bones. Baffled, she waved her hands through the air, eventually settling them on… nothing.
“It’s… uh… Brenden.”
No way, he’s invisible. The fuck?
I knelt down and touched the invisible body. Sure enough, he was there and I accidentally put my hand right on his dick.
Another thing to take to the grave with me.
I shook my head. “Alright, invisible or not, we gotta get him back. Help me out, wouldja?”
She lifted invisiBrenden onto my back and I hung the fireblood over my shoulder like a bindle. I raced them back, thanking God that Brenden was an easy-to-carry twink. I tossed the fireblood into the cage and Brenden into the wagon away from it, watched for a moment, just to make sure it wasn’t moving, then ran back to Tells. Lugging Adam out was a nightmare. The guy had to weigh at least four hundred pounds, so we each grabbed a hand and dragged. We managed to heave him into the wagon and take off, exhausted more from moving Adam than anything. Brenden was back to being visible by the time we had hauled Adam’s giant ass out of the woods.
When we reached the road near Geren’s place, he was standing there, waiting eagerly.
“I smelled approaching… You did it. Fireblood is alive… you are all alive.”
I hopped up front and spoke frantically because I knew Tells wouldn’t. “So our friends are paralyzed and we need to get them help. Do you know anything?”
“Mother Yeline helps. She fixes ailments. Group came other day… with same ailment… going to Mother.”
I must be a total fuckin’ idiot. Of course we’d just go to Yeline or Vetia.
“We gotta borrow this wagon. We’ll be coming back this way to get to the city, and drop it off then. Thanks in advance.” He nodded and we took off.
It only took a day to get back with the corty, but we could shorten that if we pushed them a little harder. I couldn’t risk them dying of paralysis. During that time, I did everything I could to make sure Adam and Brenden survived. Listening to their breaths and heartbeats constantly took a massive toll on me, and I got migraine after migraine trying to keep concentration on them, but it helped me learn to manage my hearing better. Their throats weren’t messed up at all, so I poured little streams of water into their mouths. Sure enough, their breathing didn’t change, so I figured it was probably going into their stomachs and not down their windpipes. Arriving back in town was like lifting a massive weight off my shoulders. We pulled straight up to the temple, and Tells ran in to get Mother Yeline.