Chương 11: Naked from Behind

The forest trail was quiet in the way forests get quiet when they're full of things that have decided, collectively, to hold very still for a moment. Light came down through the canopy in shifting columns, moving whenever the wind moved the leaves above them. Somewhere higher up, a bird was singing to itself. There had been a time when I would have bolted at the first note. Now I found myself simply enjoying it. Being human is nice, right? the human brain teased. No.

Being bigger than the things that used to eat me is, I corrected it. The quest itself was simple: collect red, round bugs, the kind that favored stream banks and mossy logs. Apparently there was enough demand for them that someone had bothered posting a bounty. The directions on the paper had described the site as "a short walk from the eastern trail." The eastern trail had been optimistic about that description.

After a few minutes, the path narrowed down to a deer trail, threading between old trees whose roots had heaved the ground up into small, uneven ridges. Xyno walked straight through the ridges without adjusting her stride. I went around it. The stream appeared right where the deer path finally gave out. It was shallow, clear over smooth stones, flanked on both sides by thick clusters of bushes. The air went cooler and damper the moment we stepped near it. I breathed it in.

It smelled of moss, old wood, and the particular freshness of moving water. I walked in up to my ankles, stood there, and let out a long breath. Every part of me wanted to roll in it, but Eris had scolded me before about stains and mud. I shook my head and resisted. I came back out and began scanning the banks. Xyno had already bagged something and was moving steadily along the far side of the stream. I couldn't let myself be outperformed. I was a bug-catching expert, after all.

I moved a short distance downstream and stopped at an old hollow log, half-buried in the soft earth. My salamander instincts told me, with absolute certainty, that something was living inside it. I crouched to inspect the opening, then crawled straight in without further debate. It was dark inside, but darkness had never bothered me. They wouldn't escape. I moved my arms around blindly, feeling for anything with legs. I touched something. I used both hands to feel it out.

It felt quite long, and I found no legs anywhere along its length. Clearly not a bug. I tossed it toward the opening and crawled in deeper. Then someone outside shouted, "Careful, Ms. Archer-mage! There's a snake near the log!" Probably Xyno. I nodded, then remembered she couldn't see me. Thankfully, the snake wasn't inside with me. Not my problem. I kept searching.

Moments later, once everything I'd found had gone into the container and some into my stomach, I crawled back out.

"Already done, Ms. Archer-mage?" Xyno observed from a few feet away, one eyebrow raised. Yes, I saw the shift on her eyebrow with Hawk Eye. I was getting the hang of it.

"I am a master of bug-catching, after all." I reached into the container and produced one. It was golden, and heavier in my palm than its size suggested it should be. Xyno stepped closer, peering at it.

"Wow. That's quite expensive." She tucked a hand under her chin.

"Really?"

"The Auris beetle. Nobles call it the Magic Up Bug. They say killing one raises your magic aptitude. They pay obscene prices for them." I looked at the beetle. The beetle looked back. I put it in my mouth. I regretted this instantly. The regret was total, immediate, and expressed itself through every part of my face at once. Xyno watched, hand still under her chin, expression unchanged. She giggled. After a moment of watching me from every angle possible, she produced a bubbling green vial from her coat pocket.

"Here. This won't help with the taste. But it'll help with the other things the golden Auris beetle is known to do to the digestive system." I accepted and drank it in one motion. My expression upgraded from "total regret" to "qualified regret."

"What other things?" I asked.

"Exciting ones." I opened my mouth to ask what, exactly, "exciting" meant in this context, and decided that I probably didn't want to know. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Suddenly, a growl arrived without any introduction at all. It came from the treeline nearby. The low, rolling sound of a predator. I turned in its direction. I gulped, still tasting the aftertaste of the potion.

What emerged from the brush was large, wrong-looking, and committed to both qualities. It had the body of a bear and the face of a primate.

"A gorilla bear?" I tilted my head. I'd known gorillas. I had never known one to be this ugly.

"Oh. Not a local?" Xyno said.

"Nope."

"That explains it. It's called a Bafun. A mix of baboon and bear." I knew baboons. They were famous for one thing after all.

"…So it's naked from behind."

"You know your animals, Ms. Archer-mage. Impressive." The Bafun lunged. Face enraged. It probably heard what we were talking about.

"Ignore." Something struck it hard along the side. Not hard enough to drop something that size, but hard enough to redirect the charge a full step off course. A figure landed in front of the beast. Someone I recognized, but something about the angle and the light made me unsure. I squinted. The Bafun roared and swiped at him. The figure jumped back, landing in front of me and Xyno. He raised his sword.

"Who are you?" I put a hand up to my rock.

"It's me, Norman."

"Your lover?" Xyno asked the way the human brain asks about relationships. Why am I suddenly mentioned?! The human brain emerged. Is he?

"I'm not!" Norman's sword stayed level, pointed at the Bafun, though the tips of his ears had gone red.

"I'm here because I don't trust you." Xyno shrugged.

"Am I really that hated?" I looked between them, then at the Bafun, then back at Norman.

"You followed us? Eris told me to call a guard when it happens."

"It's a coincidence!" Norman shouted. His sword was no longer pointed at the Bafun.

"I thought it was because of me. How inconsistent do you want to be, Mr. Assassin?" Xyno giggled. I remembered what Eris always told me. I pointed at Norman.

"Lying is bad."

"Sure." Norman sighed.

"And I'm a swordsman not an assassin."

"Are you sure?" Xyno moved her head up and down toward him.

"You literally have zero presence… wait, not presence… more like no defining factor?"

"Can we focus on the Bafun?" His voice cracked on the last word, which the Bafun apparently took as an invitation, because it chose that exact moment to take another step forward.

"Ignore." The second swipe still landed. He caught it across the chest with the full weight of the blow behind it, left the ground, and covered the distance to the nearest tree.

"Damn it," he muttered, pushing himself off the trunk.

"Zebron isn't here to grab its attention." That was when I realized Norman's skill, Ignore, didn't mean invisible. It meant becoming more forgettable than he already was, and forgettable only worked when something else was pulling the Bafun's attention instead. Zebron usually did that part. Something in my chest tightened at the name. I shook my head. Now is not the time. The Bafun looked at Norman. Then it started walking toward him. It was the same feeling as before.

A voice somewhere inside me, quietly asking me to help — No. I want to help him. I clenched my fists and ran through everything I had. How about fire? the human brain suggested. Fire. Something in my chest responded the moment I thought the word. A warmth that recognized itself and wanted to be let out. But fire was wrong in a way that went deeper than simple dislike. Fire was the thing that ended things. My salamander instincts had filed it long ago under "do not approach." No, I answered. How about the bow, then?

We both know I don't know how to use it. I'd tried shooting a fly once, back at the house. I'd missed. Or, more accurately, I'd hit something else entirely. A vase, which had not survived the experience, and which had earned me a very long lecture from Eris about the difference between "practicing" and "redecorating." [Water, then.] Water. I knew water. I could feel it in the air, in the damp moss under my feet, in the shallow stream just behind me. It would come, if I reached for it.

And then the annoying frogs would come with it… actually, being annoying was not that bad as long as they annoyed someone else. The Bafun raised a claw over Norman. My hand went to the rock. I aimed it.

"Croaking Wave." Water hit the Bafun in the head, and the frogs arrived with it. There were five of them. Possibly six. They landed on the Bafun's head and shoulders with the confident authority of creatures who had assessed the situation and determined that this was now their lily pad. The Bafun's enormous hands flew up to its own head. The natural response, and also the wrong one, because the frogs had already claimed their positions and had no intention of relocating.

"This is the ugliest lily pad I've ever seen," one of them croaked directly into the beast's ear. Probably. I didn't speak frog, but the tone was unmistakable. The Bafun roared with more feeling in it than before, confirming my assumption. The frogs croaked back, louder, unified, undeterred. The voice had not specified what level of involvement the frogs would choose. Apparently, they had chosen the maximum. The bear-primate roared as it tried to shake them off.

The frogs remained on its head and shoulders with the sheer determination of creatures fully committed to being annoying. Then the Bafun turned. I took in its eyes. Bloodshot. Locked on me. Like I was the cause of all its suffering… which was true, given I'd summoned the frogs. But still, I wished it would focus on the frogs instead of me. It charged.