Page 5 of Bite Sized Bride

MIKANA

M y lungs are twin fires in my chest, each breath a ragged gasp of pain.

The forest has taken its toll. My thin tunic is shredded, my skin beneath a lattice of angry red scratches from thorns and whipping branches.

My bare feet are cut and bruised, every step on the sharp stones and slick roots an exercise in agony.

But I no longer feel the pain. I am blessedly, terrifyingly numb.

The storm has exhausted its fury, settling into a miserable, weeping drizzle that clings to everything, making the world smell of wet rot and decay. I stumble through a final wall of dripping ferns and into a clearing.

Before me, stone claws at the sky. The ruins of an old temple, surrendering to the forest’s slow, green embrace.

A courtyard of cracked flagstones is choked with moss, and a central altar, a massive slab of granite, lies broken in two, as if struck by the fist of a god.

Ivy pours over crumbling walls like a silent, green waterfall.

It is a place of forgotten things. A tomb.

It is a good place to die.

I know it’s coming. I can feel its presence behind me, a pressure in the air, a shadow moving through the trees. The chase was never a race. It was a countdown. And my time is up.

My legs give out. I collapse against the broken altar, the cold, wet stone a shock against my back.

I slide down its mossy surface to sit on the ground, my head tilted back, letting the rain fall on my face.

There is no fight left in me. I ran. I chose the manner of my end, and this is it.

Better the swift violence of a monster’s claws than the slow, artistic cruelty of Lord Malakor’s sanctum.

The forest falls silent. The drip of water from the leaves, the sigh of the wind—it all fades away, replaced by a new sound.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

It is a footfall, heavy and deliberate. It is not the sound of a mindless beast crashing through the undergrowth. It’s the sound of a hunter who knows its prey is cornered. The ground beneath me vibrates with each step, a deep, resonant tremor that travels up my spine and settles in my teeth.

I close my eyes. I picture Ren’s face, pale and terrified in the green light of the runes. I picture the minotaur, his honorable defiance broken in the arena. I will not scream. I will not beg. I will give my master no final performance to savor in the reports of his handlers.

He steps into the clearing.

I force my eyes open. The sight of him steals the air from my burning lungs.

He is larger than I remembered, a mountain of scarred hide and twisted muscle that blocks out the grey light.

Ten feet tall, at least. His skin is a patchwork of grey and darker, hardened plates, like armor grown from within.

Rainwater sluices down his massive shoulders, tracing the paths of old, ropy scars.

The broken stump of one of his lower tusks is a jagged shard of bone jutting from his jaw.

But it’s the thing around his neck that holds my gaze.

Not a collar. It’s worse than that. It is a ring of rusted, black iron that has been fused directly to his flesh, the metal bonded with the muscle and sinew in a permanent, grotesque union.

Runes are carved into its surface, runes I recognize from Malakor’s books.

Runes of binding, of dominance, of pain.

He stops a dozen feet away, his head lowered, his massive form radiating a palpable heat. He watches me. And I watch him back.

This is the Master’s Hound. The perfect weapon. The mindless beast.

But the eyes… the eyes are not mindless. They are a swirling, molten amber, like trapped fire. And in their depths, beneath the red haze of the curse’s rage, I see it. A flicker of something ancient and tormented. A prisoner rattling the bars of its cage. The ghost of a soul.

He takes a step closer. Then another. The ground shudders. He looms over me, a monolith of captured violence. I can smell him now—the scent of wet fur, of blood, of the storm. He raises a hand, a gargantuan thing tipped with thick, black claws that could tear me in half without effort.

This is it. The end.

A strange calm settles over me. The fear is gone, burned away by exhaustion and a sudden, inexplicable wave of pity.

Not for myself. For him. For this magnificent, broken creature, twisted into a tool for a master he can’t defy, his own name forgotten, his spirit buried under layers of someone else’s hate.

He will drag me back. Malakor will have his prize. And this creature will be sent back to its cold, dark cell, to the emptiness and the red storm, until the next hunt.

He deserves better than that. Even if it’s just for a moment.

I look past the monster, past the Urog, and I speak to the prisoner in those tormented amber eyes. My voice is a whisper, barely audible above the dripping rain. I use the words I read in that stolen book of orc lore, a funeral rite for a fallen warrior.

“May your spirit find peace.”

He freezes.

His hand, inches from my face, stops mid-air.

His entire, massive body goes rigid, every muscle locked tight.

The red haze in his eyes churns, warring with a wave of utter confusion.

A low, guttural sound rumbles in his chest, not a roar of triumph, but a groan of profound, soul-deep agony.

It is the definitive sound of a chain, stretched taut for centuries, suddenly snapping.

He stumbles back a step, his head shaking from side to side as if trying to dislodge a spike driven into his skull.

He looks at his own hand, then back at me, and the raw bewilderment in his gaze is a shockingly human thing to see on that monstrous face.

The power dynamic, so absolute a moment ago, has shattered.

He is no longer the hunter. I am no longer the prey.

We are just two broken things in a forgotten ruin, caught in a moment of impossible stillness.

The moment is broken by the sound of voices.

“There they are. By the altar.”

Two figures step into the clearing from the opposite side. Miou warriors. Malakor’s handlers. They are dressed in sleek, black armor, their dark elf faces arrogant and cruel. They hold long, barbed spears, their tips glinting wetly in the dim light.

“Took you long enough, beast,” the first one says, his voice a contemptuous drawl. He doesn’t even look at me, his eyes fixed on the Urog. “Playing with your food? The master is not pleased with your delay.”

The Urog—Kael, a voice in my head whispers his name—doesn’t respond. He remains frozen, his gaze locked on me, his amber eyes a swirling vortex of conflict.

“It’s the curse,” the second handler says, nudging his partner. “Vexia said it was fraying. The psychic echo is getting stronger. It needs the mind-wipe.”

“It needs a leash,” the first one scoffs. He takes a step toward me, his spear held loosely. “Come on, slave. On your feet. You’ve caused enough trouble for one night.”

He reaches for my arm.

Before his fingers can touch my skin, a blur of motion explodes from my right.

It happens so fast I can barely process it. One moment, the Urog is a statue of confused agony. The next, he is an avalanche of destructive force. He moves with a speed that should be impossible for a creature his size, covering the distance between them in a single, ground-shaking bound.

The first handler doesn’t even have time to raise his spear.

The Urog’s claws, the ones that had hovered so close to my face, rip through the dark elf’s expensive armor as if it were parchment.

The sound is a sickening wet tear, followed by the sharp crack of bone.

The handler is thrown backward, a broken doll, his spear clattering uselessly on the flagstones.

The second handler stares, his mouth agape in disbelief, his face masked with pure terror.

He raises his spear, but he is too slow.

The Urog is on him, his jaws, armed with that one broken, jagged tusk, clamping down on the dark elf’s shoulder.

The crunch of the armored pauldron and the bone beneath it is a sound I will hear in my nightmares for the rest of my life, however short that may be.

The Urog shakes his head once, a savage, canine motion, and throws the second handler into the crumbling temple wall. The elf hits the stone with a sickening thud and slides to the ground in a heap, unmoving.

Silence descends upon the courtyard once more, broken only by the drip of water and the sound of my own frantic, ragged breathing.

Blood, dark and glistening, drips from the Urog’s jaw, pattering onto the mossy stones.

He stands over the bodies of his former masters, his massive chest heaving.

He turns his head slowly, and his amber eyes, no longer merely confused, but blazing with a new, terrifying, and protective light, find mine.

The hound has broken its chain. And I, his quarry, am the only one he has not harmed.