Chương 66: Charred flesh

Through the skin of Elenya's arm grew a flower. Purple, bulging and soon to bud. The rest of the hand was anything but pretty, bruised and swollen, with something slithering beneath the skin. Knotted tendrils reached from the base of the wound. Wretch felt a pang of dread.

"That arm. It's the one that was stuck to the tree in the living forest."

"It wasn't more than a bruised cut this morning," Elenya said under her breath, flexing her hand.

"Terrifying," Wretch said with a frown, and Elenya nodded in agreement. Wretch looked up to stare at her, both his claws touching the hand.

"Should we try and rip it out?"

"I ain't leaving that in there. I make a better human than a potted plant." Elenya sat down in the low light of the cave they had claimed as their hideout, her back against the wall. Her healthy hand, marked by dirt and sweat, was wrapped in the discarded bandage before she dared grip the base of the plant. At her touch, the brittle flower squirmed. Wretch's eyes grew wide, it was reacting to her touch alone. Elenya grimaced as the roots pushed deeper in defiance.

"Rip it out!" Wretch hissed. Elenya pulled, and the strands of fibers snapped with ease, the budding flower swaying in her palm like the head of a dying man. Still, her expression didn't ease. In fact, it contorted in pain. Wretch saw why. The roots had refused to breach the surface with the rest of the stem, and now they burrowed deeper, coiling up around the bones of the forearm.

"It's moving towards my chest," Elenya growled through gritted teeth, pressing her hand towards the wound.

"Quick!" Whipping the belt from his midsection, the pouches and scabbard of his sword clattered to the ground. With a lunge, he was on her, wrapping the belt just below the elbow. One foot on her shoulder for leverage, and he pulled, tightening the belt with all his strength. The leather bit into the skin, strangling the limb. The roots prodded deeper, but after a few moments of finding no place to escape to, they grew still, settling into a knot just below the belt.

Wretch and Elenya looked from her skin to each other.

"We have to cut it off!" they said in unison. Elenya shuddered, taking the leather strap from his hand to keep it taut.

"Above the elbow, just to be safe." Wretch nodded.

"We'll have to sear the wound after. You know how to start a fire?"

"Of course, all you need is two sticks and some string," she said, her eyes still glued to her forearm. From the outside, the rumbling of a storm crept closer, dusty winds blowing past the mouth of their hideout. Elenya instructed him in haste, her limb growing paler by the second. He tied a shoelace to each end of a stick, flexing it into the likeness of a crude bow, then looping the string around a dried branch of wood. He crouched down by a bundle of sticks and dried grass.

"Instruct me!"

"Press down that part and move that like a saw," she said, gesturing with a nod of her head.

"This?"

"Not that!" she answered, reproducing the gesture, at least it looked like it to him.

"Faster, Ratty. Put some back into it, or would you rather be alone out here?"

"Alright, miss Fireling," he said, licking his dried lips. A thin stream of smoke darted from the dry grass. Elenya crouched down without delay and blew at the smoldering bundle. A fragile flame sparked to life.

"That is handy to know!" Wretch said as he piled up some of the dried wood on the struggling fire.

"Now what?" Elenya said, beads of sweat forming on her forehead.

"I can start a fire, but severing an arm isn't my specialty. Well, it is, just not my own."

"Unfortunately, I have experience in that domain," Wretch said. A memory welled up, but he smothered it. They didn't have time for the past.

"We can use my blade, but we'll have to heat it first." She gave him a look as he flipped up his Blinking Blade, laying the shimmering metal in the fire.

"Can you wait for the metal to heat?" Wretch asked. Elenya slumped by the stone wall, letting her back rest against the rock.

"It's stealing my flame to grow." She revealed her arm again, the strap of his belt drawn tight around the skin. In only those short minutes, the roots had budded into a tiny stem, bulging the skin.

"As long as I hold the strap it can't move, but my arm is already hurting like hell." Wretch sat down next to her, exhaling deeply. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"There is going to be some more hurt, I'm afraid." It was quiet for a moment. The only noise was the whistling wind and crackling fire. Elenya broke the silence.

"If this is the final chance I get before turning into a flower, I want to ask…"

"In the forest, what dream did you have?" He knew this would come eventually, but was this really the place? Maybe they would never have a better one.

"I had yours," he answered, inspecting the scabs from the forest littering his own skin. None seemed to be infected.

"What parts?"

"Yenvograd, your crew, the riot." She produced a guttural sound.

"Sorry you had to see that." That surprised him. Perhaps it was because they were hundreds of kilometers from the next human soul, or that she had a budding parasite wiggling around in her flesh. But he had expected something more violent.

"It wasn't your fault."

"Nah, but I slaughtered those folk like cattle," she said in a grim voice, staring into the crackling fire.

"It wasn't your fault," he repeated.

"I could have sided with the revolt and then the civilians would have lived or run away, or just hacked down the door," she said with a quickened pace, the strings of words practiced but never before spoken.

"It still wasn't your fault," he said.

"Then why do I feel like it is? I see their faces. It's the first thing I see in the morning and it's the last thing I see before I fall asleep," she said without a hint of emotion. It was quiet again for a moment.

"Why?" she repeated in a whisper. The growing fire cast long shadows on the cave walls as Wretch responded.

"Maybe it's because they mattered." Elenya answered without a tremor to her voice. Instead, it was flat, cold and rehearsed.

"I run the different scenarios in my head, over and over. I can't stop it. When I sit still too long, it comes crawling back into my head." He glanced over at her, sitting crouched by the fire. Muscles that could crush a man's skull like an egg, in the torn armor and the wild red hair falling over her face. A belt around a dying forearm. If they didn't get that thing out, maybe this really was the last chance he had to listen to her words, so he chose his own carefully.

"We are miserable creatures in a cruel, bloodthirsty world. It doesn't seem sane to expect us to be perfect," he said. Lightning struck somewhere in the distance, and raindrops peppered over the exit.

"But what do I know? I am just a rat," he finished. Elenya burst out into a short cathartic laugh that bellowed in the tiny cave. It came so suddenly that his heart skipped a beat. She cracked her neck and spat on the ground.

"Enough with the yapping. Come over here little Ratty, and cut my arm off."

"And if I refuse? Will you throw me down the spires?" he answered with a crooked smile.

"Head first, and that's a promise."

"Easy choice then," he said and stepped forward to the now glowing blade lying in the crackling fire. She strapped her own belt around her shoulder, and Wretch offered her a bundle of torn cloth from his shirt.

"Bite on this. It'll help."

"Just get this over with," she said with a muffled voice through the fabric. His eyes lit up with fire, giving his usual dark orbs a clear iris. His left arm squirmed, and an exoskeleton pierced through the skin in a grim display. In a matter of moments, a crab claw had replaced his left arm. It was heavy, almost too much for him to bear and guzzling through his reserves of Flame.

He opened the pincher and slid it under her arm, aiming for a few inches above the elbow where he could only hope the roots hadn't reached yet.

"Ready?" She nodded, a bead of sweat dripping down her chin. He flexed newborn muscles. With a sudden snap, the claw crunched against the arm. Elenya let out a muffled howl, her muscles straining and her nails scratching against the rock. The claw dug deep into the flesh, thin streaks of blood running down her pale skin. It wasn't enough, and he put all his weight on the slick exoskeleton. An audible crack rang out from the arm.

The plates of the pincher squirmed back into his arm, morphing into the regular ashen claw.

"There, it's broken. But I still need to slice the flesh. Keep the belts tight, I'm almost finished." His arm squirmed again, and a thin, bone-white blade broke through the skin of his forearm, one of the new spoils of battle. With a few quick cuts, he sliced around the bone and the arm thudded against the ground in a waterfall of blood. The bone blade was even sharper than he remembered, but useless for what was coming next. Elenya groaned as she became paler by the second.

"Now for the painful part," he said with a frown. Through the cloth in her mouth, Elenya stammered, "What?" He pressed the sizzling and glowing blade towards her stump. With a hiss, blood evaporated and flesh charred. Her entire figure twisted backwards in a cramp. She opened her eyes wide and her mouth gaped in a scream, but she only produced a gasp of air. A moment later, Wretch threw the blade behind him and wrestled her arm to keep it from dragging on the ground.

"It's done!" She shuddered furiously, and sweat drenched her clothes. Then she grew limp and her eyes rolled to the back of her head.

"Yeah, that happened to me too," he said out loud. Carefully, he placed her body on her side so that any stomach contents wouldn't choke her. Only then did his dark eyes sway to the severed limb. The still red-hot blade pierced its flesh as something squirmed within. He flicked it into the fire, watching it intently. A thin stream of blood still seeped out of the sacrificed flesh, fizzing against the tongues of flames. He could still see it, roots and branches roiling under the skin, pulling away from the heat.

The flame didn't care for the struggle, slowly blistering and charring the skin.

"Come on, I know you are in there." Suddenly, something burst from the flesh. A glistening bundle of twisted roots and leaves hit the ground with a thump. It didn't hesitate, slithering towards the unconscious woman in a trail of coagulating blood. But Wretch was ready this time. The Blinking Blade flashed. The weapon pinned the creature to the stone, vines and branches reaching up its edge.

"Looks like we got you out in one piece," he said with a cruel smile, throwing the strange parasite into the crackling fire. It squirmed in pain, the plant fiber withering in moments. Only when it was reduced to fine ash did he allow himself to relax. Outside, heavy rain and thunder shook the air. Now in peace, he removed his shirt, drenching it in rain and letting it dry over the fire, careful to keep it clean. From the storm, a cacophony of caws grew louder, and the rain raged and thundered in rebuke.

He gave it a glance. Not a natural storm. Is everything out here trying to murder us? He wrapped the cleaned cloth around the wound, tying it as neatly as he could. When finished, he gave her a look, patting her on the shoulder.

"There, there. You did well." That's one problem gone. Now we are just two Firelings out in the wilderness, too far from any Gulschak for my liking, but no matter. Another chance to grow or die. From the exit, a cacophony of caws grew to rival the thunderclaps of the storm and Wretch held no doubts that the ordeal of returning to civilization was only beginning.