Page 14 of Bite Sized Bride

KAEL

B lood sings in my veins.

It is a hot, triumphant song, a melody as old as the first axe swung in battle.

The orc inside me, the ghost of Kael, revels in it.

The scent of spilled dark elf blood, the satisfying crunch of bone under my fist, the terror in my enemies’ eyes—these are the notes of a warrior’s victory.

I have defended my territory. I have protected my own.

But the song is discordant. A sour, grating note runs through it, tainting the victory.

It is the Urog’s glee. The mindless, slavering bloodlust of the curse.

The part of me that did not just want to defeat the last warrior, but to savor his screams, to peel the armor from his flesh and hear his ribs crack one by one.

The part that I, at Mikana’s whispered plea, had to chain back down.

The red storm recedes from my eyes, leaving a landscape of carnage and a profound sense of self-loathing. I am a warrior who has been made to love the taste of filth. I am a protector whose hands are stained with a darkness that is not entirely his own.

I turn from the broken bodies, my new wounds burning, and limp toward the massive boulder where she hides. She is my anchor. My peace. The one clean thing in my blighted world.

She peeks out from behind the stone, her face a pale oval in the gloom, her dark eyes wide and luminous. They are filled with a horrified awe that rips at the tattered edges of my soul. She sees the monster. She sees the savior. She does not yet understand that they are the same creature.

I stand before her, dripping blood onto the mossy ground.

I am a nightmare given form. I want to tell her that the violence was necessary.

I want to tell her that the warrior regrets the beast’s joy.

But the words are stone in my throat. All I can do is nudge her cheek with the side of my head, a clumsy, animalistic gesture that is the only language I have for are you safe?

She doesn’t flinch. Her hand, small and trembling, comes up to touch the gash on my arm where a Miou blade bit deep. Her touch is a searing brand of gentleness on my raw nerves.

“You’re hurt,” she whispers.

Yes. The word is a silent scream in my head. And I am what hurt me.

We cannot stay here. The one I let live will crawl back to his master. More will come. They will keep coming until one of us is dead. And I will not let it be her.

“Go,” I grunt, the word a rough tear in the quiet aftermath. I nod my head deeper into the forest. We run.

She understands. She gives the dead elves one last, haunted look, then turns and follows me as I plunge back into the trees.

The hunt is no longer a simple pursuit. It is a war.

They are no longer just tracking us; they are herding us.

We find signs of them everywhere—a discarded arrow fletched with black feathers, the faint scent of their metallic armor on the wind, the unnatural silence of a forest whose smaller creatures have been frightened into hiding.

They are clever. They try to drive us toward open ground, where their archers can pick me off from a distance.

I am a massive target. I counter by keeping to the densest parts of the forest, the ancient, gnarled woods where the canopy is so thick it turns day into a perpetual twilight.

Here, my size is an advantage. I am a living battering ram, crashing through thickets and deadfall that would slow them to a crawl.

We run for a day, then another. We sleep in short, fitful bursts, always in a place with a clear line of retreat.

I do not truly sleep. I rest, my senses stretched thin, listening for the snap of a twig, the whisper of a voice.

Mikana sleeps huddled against my back, her warmth a small, steady comfort against the cold dread that is my constant companion.

On the third day, they catch us.

We are crossing a narrow, rope-and-plank bridge over a deep, rocky chasm. The bridge is old, swaying violently with every step I take. Mikana has already crossed, her light weight barely making it tremble. I am halfway across when they appear on the far side, blocking her path.

Five of them this time. And a sorcerer.

I recognize Vexia instantly. Her platinum hair is a beacon in the gloom, her violet eyes cold and clinical. She stands behind the warriors, her hands held out before her, already weaving a spell. The air crackles with the scent of ozone and dark magic.

Mikana freezes, her back to the chasm, trapped between the sorcerer and the swaying bridge.

A rage, pure and absolute, eclipses everything else. They are not just hunting me. They are cornering her .

I do not hesitate. I break into a run, my massive weight making the bridge scream in protest. Wood splinters, ropes groan. The warriors on the far side raise their swords, their faces set in grim determination.

Vexia chants, her voice a low, sibilant hiss. A shimmering wall of force, a pane of solid, invisible energy, slams into existence at the end of the bridge, cutting Mikana off.

I roar, a sound of pure, thwarted fury. I am still twenty feet away. Too far.

Two of the warriors move toward Mikana. She shrinks back against the shimmering wall, her face pale, her eyes darting from the elves to the chasm below. She pulls the small letter opener from her belt, its tiny blade a pathetic defiance against their curved swords.

The sight of her, so small, so fierce, so utterly doomed, breaks something inside me. The orc warrior, the ghost of Kael, rises up, and with it comes a memory of tactics, of battle-cunning.

I cannot reach them. But I can bring them to me.

I stop running. I turn, planting my feet firmly on the groaning planks. I grab the thick support ropes on either side of me, my claws digging into the thick, braided fibers. I pull.

My muscles scream, the wounds on my body tearing open, but I ignore the pain. The bridge is old, its anchor points in the rock face weakened by years of rain and ice. I put all of my strength, all of my rage, all of my desperate need to protect her into a single, titanic heave.

There is a sound like a giant’s sigh as the anchor bolts on my side of the chasm rip free from the stone. The bridge lurches violently, dropping a dozen feet before the ropes on the far side catch, snapping taut.

The warriors and the sorcerer are thrown from their feet. One of them, caught off balance, tumbles over the edge with a surprised scream that is quickly swallowed by the depths. Vexia falls, her spell shattering, the wall of force dissolving into nothing.

The bridge now hangs at a steep, treacherous angle, a makeshift ladder to the other side.

“Mikana! Climb!” I roar, the words a raw, desperate command.

She doesn’t hesitate. She scrambles toward the dangling end of the bridge, her hands finding purchase on the ropes. The remaining warriors are getting to their feet, their swords drawn.

I have to buy her time.

I begin to climb, my massive form swinging wildly.

I am a pendulum of death. A warrior sees me coming and thrusts his sword at me.

I let go with one hand, catch the blade in my fist, and rip it from his grasp.

I use the momentum to swing forward, my other hand closing around his throat.

I snap his neck and let the body drop into the chasm below.

I reach the cliff face. I haul myself up, my claws finding purchase in the cracks of the rock. I am a wounded, bleeding mountain, but I am a mountain that moves.

I crest the edge just as Mikana reaches safety. Vexia is back on her feet, her face twisted into a mask of cold fury. She begins another chant, her hands weaving a complex pattern of light.

I do not give her the chance to finish. I charge. The two remaining warriors place themselves between us, a foolish, final act of loyalty. I swat them aside like flies.

I am upon her. My hand, the one that caught the sword, is bleeding freely, but I do not care. I reach for her, for the architect of my torment.

She is fast. She blinks out of existence, a shimmer of displaced air, and reappears a dozen feet away. A space-time spell. Clever. But it costs her. I can see the strain on her face.

She will not escape.

I am about to charge again when a wave of dizziness washes over me. The world tilts, the edges of my vision blurring. The wounds, the blood loss, the sheer exertion—it is all catching up to me. I stumble, dropping to one knee.

Vexia smiles, a thin, cruel curve of her lips. “The beast is tired,” she says, her voice dripping with contempt. She begins a new chant, a low, guttural string of syllables that makes the air feel thick and heavy. A curse of weakness.

I try to push myself up, but my limbs feel like they are made of lead. The red storm is fading, replaced by a grey fog of exhaustion.

Then, a small, dark shape darts past me. Mikana. She is running, not away, but toward the sorcerer, the tiny, stolen letter opener held before her like a real sword.

It is the bravest, most foolish thing I have ever seen.

Vexia laughs, a sound of pure, condescending amusement. She raises a hand, a ball of black energy forming in her palm.

“No,” I groan, forcing my protesting muscles to move.

But Mikana is faster than I am. She doesn’t try to stab the sorcerer. She throws herself at Vexia’s legs, a desperate, clumsy tackle. It is just enough to spoil her aim. The ball of black energy flies wide, slamming into the cliff face and exploding in a shower of rock and dust.

The distraction is all I need. I surge to my feet, the grey fog burned away by a final, desperate burst of adrenaline. I am on Vexia before she can cast another spell. My hand closes around her slender throat.

Her eyes go wide with shock, then with a flicker of what might be fear. I lift her from the ground, her feet kicking uselessly. I could crush her windpipe with a thought. I could end the architect of my misery right here, right now. The Urog inside me screams for it.

But I look past her, at Mikana, who is pushing herself up from the ground, her face pale but her eyes blazing with a fierce, protective light. She’s oh so very weak, with wounds big and small. She needs me.

And I know I cannot. Not in front of her.

With a final roar of frustration, I hurl the sorcerer away from us, into the dense forest. I hear her crash through the undergrowth, followed by a string of curses that are anything but elegant. She is alive, but she is gone. For now.

I turn and scoop Mikana into my arms, my movements urgent. We have to go.

We find shelter hours later, a deep, hidden fissure that smells of wet stone and deep earth. I collapse inside, the last of my strength gone. The world swims, the grey fog returning.

I fall into a restless, pain-filled sleep. And I dream.

It is not a memory. It is a storm. I am floating in a sea of raw, untamed power, a whirlwind of color and sound. The energy of a thousand lightning strikes flows through me, tearing me apart and rebuilding me, over and over. It is agony. It is ecstasy. It is the song of creation itself.

And through the chaos, a word. A name. A place. It echoes in the heart of the storm, a single point of clarity in the madness. A place of unmaking. A place of hope.

Wildspont.

I wake with a jolt, the word a fire on my tongue. My wounds burn, my body aches, but my mind is clear, focused with a new and desperate purpose.

Mikana is beside me, asleep, her hand resting on my arm where she must have been tending my wounds. She is the reason. She is the hope.

I shake her shoulder, my movements rougher than I intend. Her eyes fly open, wide with alarm.

I have to make her understand. I point to the fused collar on my neck, the symbol of my curse. I point to my own chest, to the ghost of the orc trapped inside. Then I look her in the eyes, pouring all of my desperation, all of my hope, into a single, guttural word.

“Wildspont.”