—
In the world between places, in the whisper of wind on skin, the zephyr on your cheek, a voice calls. The words are lost.
In the time between moments, in the path of a tear’s lonely descent, in the forgotten memories, an oath is made. The promise is broken.
In the love between indifference and fear, when the heart huddles cold and bathes in the sun, and gentle hands, tough or soft, cusp your cheek. Look into my eyes.
—
Great wings flapped, and dust billowed up in a cloud. The wind rushed through Shae’s hair, sending it whipping all around his face. Squinting his eyes into the onslaught, he backed against the boulder and looked at Perun, who was laughing heartily as the dragon flew by overhead, already hundreds of yards away.
“It’s chosen not to kill us. We live to see another day.”
Shae watched as the dragon sailed towards the bison herd in the distance, earthy brown-green scales glinting in a dazzling coat on its back. Four legs hung underneath it, tucked back for aerodynamics, each foot bearing four taloned appendages: three finger digits and a thumb opposite them.
As he watched, the dragon tucked its wings tight to its body, accelerating rapidly downwards in a sharp dive. The bison, seeing the predator, began to scatter in every direction, splotches of green grass and grey rock opening beneath the sheet of brown bodies that covered the plain. Shae was sure the dragon would plummet into the earth, but just before impact, it spread its wings wide, coming to a near complete halt midair, its body rearing up in a serpentine line.
It was a majestic sight; sunlight shone through the huge, outstretched wings; the scaled, muscular, lizardlike body reared high; and tongues of flame grew in the dragon’s open mouth. The dragon, suspended vertically over the frantic herd, flapped heavily once. The gust buffeted several tens of bison right off the ground, sending them sprawling back into each other, launching many into the air. A torrent of orange fire sprouted from the dragon’s maw, propelled forwards at an incredible velocity. The fire spread like a tsunami, incinerated the airborne bison, and scorched a large swath of the herd.
Stopping the outpouring of flame, the dragon dropped to the ground, landing on all fours, and dashed towards its fleeing prey. It snatched up dead, burning bison in its jaws, devouring them with no more than a perfunctory snap of its teeth. Moving with startling speed, the dragon was far faster on the ground than Shae would have expected, its muscular legs sending it ripping through the scattered herd in bursts of deadly movement, dashing from one cluster of bison to the next. It slashed with its clawed forelegs, whipped with its spiked tail, and immolated dozens at once with its fiery breath.
“Holy shit. That’s a dragon, a real-life fucking dragon,” Shae said.
“That’s one name for them,” Perun said, his voice finding its way around a mouthful of something.
Shae glanced at him, finding it difficult to tear his eyes away from the dragon’s ravenous hunt in the distance. He found Perun sitting, his back to the boulder, legs outstretched, gnawing on a stick of dried meat. It looked like beef jerky, and Shae’s mouth salivated at the thought.
At some point between the dragon’s appearance overhead and now, Perun had stripped off his plated pauldrons and cuirass, his greaves, his gauntlets, and his armored pants, all of which now lay beside him, propped against the spherical boulder. His sword leaned on the rock directly next to him, tip embedded in the dirt. Dressed only in a long-sleeved shirt flecked with mud and stained with sweat, his pants in similar condition, Perun stretched out in the sun, eyes closed. He extended his big hand, proffering the canvas bag from which he’d produced the jerky.
“Eat. We’ll be here for a while. The big guy will be at it for at least an hour, and we don’t want to disturb his fun.”
Shae looked from the bag of jerky in Perun’s hand to the parade of violence and death on the plains below, gouts of fire and brown bodies occasionally flying up into the sky, the dragon a blur of movement, fire, and claws.
Right.
He took the bag. Reaching in, Shae withdrew a piece of dried meat the color of dark amber. It was tougher than the store-bought jerky he was accustomed to, but when he bit into it, tearing it in half with his teeth, his mouth came alive with the taste of unfamiliar and exotic spices. Like pepper, but tangier and with a sweet-sour aftertaste.
This is really good, wow. I need to learn how to make this. Shae tilted his head back, his eyebrows raised, face the picture of bliss as he chewed, thankful for the simple pleasure of eating something tasty after the nonstop stress of the previous hours… days? The time was a blurred jumble of events, but it felt like a lifetime had passed since he’d last eaten.
Handing the bag back to Perun, he sat across from him, his back to the opposite boulder.
“Thanks. So what, we just wait?”
Perun took the bag and stuck another piece in his mouth. His hard brown eyes weighed Shae from beneath heavy eyebrows, his shaggy brown hair cut ragged but close. Shae noticed a scar across his broad, blunt nose. Another above his eye, and a third and fourth on his cheek and jaw. He was staring, and soon stopped counting the scars when he got into the double digits.
Cïr used knives, and he used magic and a sword, so I don’t think they have guns here. How many battles has he fought and survived to get that many scars? What must that do to a person, to kill people close up like that?
Shae shuddered. It's not like he was a stranger to violence; he wasn’t averse to killing, if necessary. I want to go into the infantry after all.
But the thought of plunging a knife or a sword into someone, feeling their blood on his fingers, watching the life fade from their eyes, the weight of their body as it grew limp with death—it all seemed too real. The distance of bullets, even magic, felt more humane. Shae’s eyes lingered on a thick, bulging scar that snaked from under Perun’s T-shirt collar and wrapped over his trapezius like a rope slung over his shoulder.
“Don’t you want to know why you’re here?”
The words pulled Shae from his contemplative fugue, and he met Perun’s eyes again.
“I don’t know. Yes? I guess?” He looked at the jerky that was most decidedly not beef in his hand. “This has all happened so fast; I haven’t really had a moment to process it.”
I haven’t had time to process the fact that I’m in another world, that I might miss my mother’s death, and that my sisters might get sent to a foster home if I’m not there when it happens.
Perun humphed, his gaze on the dragon still wreaking havoc in the distance.
“So why, then?” Shae said.
Perun spoke, his eyes still fixed on the plains below. “My mother died when I was a kid. Twelve, maybe, after my youngest sister was born.”
Oh. Damn. “I’m sorry to hear—”
“Passed in childbirth. Not uncommon. She was a good woman.”
Shae frowned. Perun’s voice was monotone and distant. He wanted to say something, anything, to say that he too had sisters and a mother and desperately wanted to return to them, but Perun continued.
“He said it was the same for you—no dad.”
Shae’s frown deepened as he tilted his head and furrowed his eyebrows. That’s true, except he’s not dead, not that I know at least, but... how did Perun know that? Can he read my mind like Cïr did? Who’s this “he,” he’s referring to?
Perun continued. “I grew up on the battlefield, trained in combat since before I could walk.” He was silent for a while, watching the dragon make savage sport of its helpless prey.
“That’s where we’re different; you grew up in peace and prosperity, from what I gather.” Perun’s voice was stern and blunt: not judgmental, but uncompromisingly direct. “I’m getting off topic.”
Finally, he turned to look at Shae, his deadpan face a stony slab.
“I was sent here to guide you: to be your protector.” To serve you, if you are what I think you are. “I know you’re from a place called ‘Earth,’ beyond the circle of this world, and I suspect you wish to return.”
Shae nodded slowly.
“But you can’t. Not as you are now, at least. You must grow stronger.”
Shae’s face contorted, and he shook his head, anger flaring in his chest.
“Why are you telling me all of this? I’m sorry about your mom, and I’m grateful for your help, but look, none of that concerns me. I have my own shit to deal with back home, in my world.”
Shae ran a hand through his hair, the strands running through his fingers and the tug on his scalp comforting him a bit, but the words kept flowing out of him; the dam had finally broken, and there was no stopping them now. Perun looked on impassively, a slight frown tugging at the edges of his mouth.
“Who sent you? Why? And why can’t I go back as I am? If you know I’m from Earth, you must realize I have a family there too.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
And they’re counting on me to get back. He bit his lip, trying to calm himself down.
“Just tell me what’s going on.”
Perun tucked his legs under him and sat up taller against the rock, hunching forward a little.
“My master... didn’t give me specifics. He saved my life and bought it with the saving. You’re important to him; I don’t know why.”
It sounds like there’s more to his story than he’s telling me, but I’m fucking over it.
“Who? Who’s your master, Perun?”
The more he learned, the more confused he became, and nothing made any sense. Bought his life? Why would I be important to some alien oracle from another world that somehow knows about my father?
Putting his hands on his head, Shae interlocked his fingers and leaned back against the stone, heaving out a long sigh. Flares of orange fire shone from the valley below, illuminating bright patches in the fading light of the falling night.
And there’s a fucking dragon down there, just going to fucking town, and I’m sitting here eating jerky with a stranger on another world, and my mom is dying and probably wondering where the hell I am if she can even think that straight anymore—
“I don’t know his identity,” Perun said.
Great. That’s fucking fantastic. Shae dropped his arms and began to stand, putting his hands on his knees to push himself up. “Look, thanks for the help, but I’m done—”
“But I know he’s a god.” Perun narrowed his eyes a fraction, searching for something in Shae’s face.
A god? Then, “A” god? His butt hit the dirt with a soft thump as Shae slid a short distance down the rock at his back, the sheer immensity of the statement putting a lid on his boiling anger and draining the rebellion from him.
“What?” he said.
“I was told that’d give you pause. Gods interfering in mortal affairs here is uncommon, but not unheard of. He said it’s different in your world.”
No wonder this “he” knows things about me. But why me specifically?
“Yeah. Very different.” He was too stunned by the revelation to say much else right then.
Shae stared as Perun touched a finger to each piece of his armor, whispering under his breath and causing them to melt into a fluid liquid that swam through the air to rejoin his sword.
Is he lying? I’d have no way to tell if he is—not until I meet other people. But what does that mean if it's true? His mind flitted through the limitless possibilities and implications of the existence of real, tangible gods, though he still wasn’t entirely sure if that’s what Perun had meant, or if it was just some sort of “voice in the head” type of thing.
Is that how I got here? Can this "god" send me back? And a moment later, he thought, Could I persuade it to cure Mom?
“What’s this so-called god’s name?”
Perun paused, still touching each item of his armor—there were a lot, Shae realized—but only for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said, then continued.
Great. “Okay, then what do I have to do to get home? Your almighty friend brought me here—why?”
Perun probably didn’t deserve his abuse, but if he heard it correctly, he hadn’t just appeared here but had been kidnapped.
“He didn’t say,” Perun said, his voice sounding almost bored: distracted.
Shae frowned hard at the side of Perun’s scarred face, but the big man either didn’t notice or didn’t care, still stooped over the last few remaining plates of armor.
“You understand that this is bullshit, right? What am I supposed to do, just wait around and hope that your unnamed kidnapper god deigns to give me some fucking answers? ”
The armor had rejoined the sword now, and it must’ve grown another foot or more in length. Perun stood up.
“I would advise you to get stronger, and quickly. Maybe then the god’s will listen to your grievances.” Perun touched a hand to the towering sword and spoke another monosyllabic word. “I’ve been instructed to get you to the Sisters safely.”
The sword wriggled, then transformed utterly. It split into two smaller weapons: a longsword and what Shae thought might’ve been called an arming sword; it was shorter than the longsword by several inches. Perun took up the longer weapon and tossed the other to Shae.
Scrambling to his feet, Shae got up just in time to catch it. The sword was heavy, but the pommel felt good in his hands. He noted the blunted edges and stub point, then looked up, his face a confused scowl.
“The Sisters,” Perun said, raising his longsword one-handed, as if it weighed no more than a stick, to point toward the towering mountains, “are that way. Several weeks, maybe months, lie between them and us.”
Perun let the sword fall to his side. “Whatever inspired my master to bring you here is beyond your control and likely beyond both of our understandings. But you’re here now, and you won’t live long enough to find a way home as you are. You’re in no position to demand anything. No matter how unfair you deem this situation to be, it’s your reality now.”
As much as I don’t like it, he has a point.
“Shae. Do you have Rei on your homeworld?”
That must be the magic, Shae thought, and shook his head.
Something shifted, and a wave of crippling fear passed over him, submerging him like a wave. In a gut wrenching twist of perception, it was as if he found himself face to face with a wolf the size of a truck, its hot breath inches away from his face, and its bared fangs moments away from sinking into his flesh.
Shae’s heart tightened painfully in his chest, and a cold sweat broke out on his skin, soaking his clothes and beading on his forehead. The wolf was Perun, or rather, behind Perun, an ethereal image superimposed over Shae’s vision, his senses, and his soul. What the fuck—
Perun continued to speak.
“I don’t know who you were in the past or what you did. I don’t care.” Perun said, lifting his sword again and leveling it at Shae’s throat from a few paces away; he trembled. “Here, you’re nothing. Not yet. There’s more out there than you can imagine, and if you ever want to get home again, you’ll have to become strong enough to survive.”
The menacing aura shifted to one of profound weight, like the very air around him was pressing in from all around to crush him. Shae staggered under Perun’s power; it weighed on him like physical pressure, and he fought with every ounce of his strength to stay standing.
In his heart, Shae knew Perun was right; he had known it ever since he’d first seen the otherworldly trees. First, Cïr had saved him from the Umbra and patched his wounds, then Perun had rescued him from her. If there’d been no one there to help me, I’d have died within the first day of arriving here. But if this god has Perun here to do his bidding, then why does he need me?
Shae stared fiercely into Perun’s eyes; in them, he saw the bloody deaths of hundreds, even thousands—an innumerable sea of violence and corpses. Suddenly, Shae felt very thankful to be alive.
“You’re a fawn. You don’t have the strength to argue, to get a choice.” Perun lunged forwards, his sword disappearing in a flashing blur, his shirt barely visible as a streak of beige in Shae’s vision.
By instinct, Shae raised his own sword in defense. An instant later, the weight of a roaring train crashed into him and sent him sprawling, tumbling backwards into the dirt, his body literally spinning head over heels several times before he finally hit the floor.
“It’s simple. If you want anyone to give a damn about what you desire, if you want to get back home,”
Shae rolled through the mud, his body turning over and over, sword miraculously clutched in his hands, arms tucked against his chest. He rolled until he slammed into the unyielding stone surface of the boulder behind him with a thud. His head rang, and he struggled to breathe through rasping, choking coughs. Blood and spittle flew from his mouth and splattered on the mud below. Face down, gasping for breath, Shae slowly pressed himself to all fours. He might really kill me, Shae thought, hacking up a gob of bloody phlegm and hawking it into the mud.
“Then get up.”
A rebellious heat sparked to life deep inside Shae. The words of his sergeant instructors from Officer Candidate School rang in his ears, telling him the consequences of quitting and the necessity of violent aggression in the face of friction. In his mind’s eye, Alex peered up at him, her dolphin plushie held out in both hands, smiling, and Jen giving her head a playful nuggie with her knuckles.
Gritting his teeth, Shae stood and pushed himself off of the boulder in one motion, hoping to surprise Perun with the speed of it. Pain blossomed in his ribs as he stood, and he flung his sword wildly in front of him. Without moving from his place in the dirt, Perun flicked the sword away with a twist of his wrist, sending it flying away from Shae’s hand.
Thick fingers closed around the collar of Shae’s shirt, and Perun flung him one-handed into the air. Limbs flailed momentarily in empty space, then Shae crashed into the mud on his back, the air evacuating his lungs. Shae sucked for air like a fish out of water, but none came.
He heard Perun’s voice from somewhere to his left. “If that’s all you have, you’re welcome to go feed yourself to the dragon, because you won’t survive more than a week.”
Shae stared up, mouth opening and closing as he fought for air, the pale-blue sky above watching his struggle in silent judgment. In his mind, he was back at OCS in hour 64 of a three-day sleepless field exercise, his platoon sergeant kneeling over him as he dragged his “wounded” buddy through the mud.
“No one’s coming to save you, Lawrence. He’s fucking bleeding out! What’re you going to tell his family, Lawrence? Their son’s gonna die because of you, got that? All of your Marines are gonna fucking die because you’re too fucking weak. I hope you’ve been practicing your handwriting because you’ll be sending a lot of fucking letters, you pathetic, disgusting thing.”
A wave of silent fury surged within him. So much fucking talking.
Perun’s aura poured over him, an overpowering pressure of inexorable will and iron judgment that promised a painful, brutal death. The sound of footfalls came closer to Shae’s head.
With a final, deep breath, some oxygen finally entered Shae’s lungs. He rolled sideways onto his stomach and leapt up at Perun, grabbing for the giant man’s legs in a suicidal blast double.
His body screamed in pain, but he fought through its protest and wrapped his arms around the back of Perun’s legs, driving his shoulder into Perun’s gut. He pushed off his foot and strained to lift him, but Perun didn’t shift so much as an inch, his body an immovable statue of stone.
A violent fit of scraping, rattling coughs fell upon him, causing Shae to let go. Standing up, stumbling backwards, he twisted and bent over, hacking blood onto the earth with each deep, reverberating cough.
Perun walked over to him and lifted the tip of his sword to Shae’s chin, tilting his head up, bloody spittle drooling from his mouth. His face was dirt stained and haggard, and he cringed at the touch of the metal under his jaw.
“You’re weak, but you have spirit. Maybe if I had five decades, I could make something of you.”
Perun lowered the sword, letting Shae’s head drop, then raised his free hand beside him. Shae’s arming sword flew from somewhere a great distance away and landed firmly in his outstretched hand.
“The dragon will be done in another thirty minutes or so, but it’s nearing dusk. We’ll spend the night here and leave in the morning.”
Shae watched as the swords dissolved in Perun’s hands, merging once more to form his colossal claymore. He said nothing, just sat down carefully in the dirt and leaned back, slowly lowering himself, wincing at every movement, until he lay flat on his back.
He had been absolutely outmatched. There was nothing he could do against Perun, and he knew that the big man had been holding back. A lot.
What was that, five percent? Less? The ache in his ribs was so bad that he was sure at least a few of them were broken, and several others had cracked. Air came into his lungs in shallow trickles, and his head rang and was painful as if a vice were tightened around his skull.
Gods, huh? It’s almost believable with everything I’ve already witnessed. What a crazy, fucked up world. And now I’m in it.
His thoughts drifted to his sisters and his mother, no doubt waiting anxiously for him to call or text, to tell them that he was alright and had been in a car crash or something but that he was coming home soon. He wanted to sit around their mom’s bedside, taking turns reading from a book while they held each other's hands and smiled at one another, willing themselves to believe that everything would be okay.
As Shae lay there in the mud, darkness slowly creeping over the world, he wrapped himself as tightly as he could in the dusty roan cloak, and began to cry. I just want to get back home. Please let me get back to them.
Eyes closed, body in throbbing pain, Shae heaved quiet, wracking sobs. Whatever it takes, I’ll make it back to them.
Eventually, he gave in to the physical and mental exhaustion of the past several days and began to fall asleep. While fading into semi consciousness, a faint glimmer of something alive and brimming with power flickered to life inside of him.
He had felt a hint of it first when Perun’s presence turned into that of a wolf—a warm, foreign tingling beside his heart. Now, as he drifted slowly to sleep, a passenger in the place between wakefulness and slumber, he felt it again.