Blood-Forged

I once again trudged behind the group, glaring at Piercing Gale’s back as he chatted with Night Lover. Chatted! With the enemy! Death-Bringer kept glancing my way and sighing. Finally, she slowed her step to walk in stride with me. “Bloody...” she started, trailing off.

Bloody, huh. A nickname? But Tejara was never one to call people by nicknames.

Death-Bringer took in a deep breath, placed a hand on my shoulder, and continued, “Bloody... Gale is loyal to the cause of stopping the Demon Lord, don’t ever doubt that.”

“Why not,” I sneered, my voice cracking hoarsely, “what makes you so sure? Eun betrayed Ves’hil’n, but Piercing Gale can’t betray us?”

Death-Bringer frowned and pushed a hand through her rat’s nest of black hair, “I don’t know what happened between Eun and Ves’hil’n, Tejara and I weren’t there, but I trust that us, as Sacred Weapons forged to defend our nations, have a common goal.”

I looked once more at the backs of Piercing Gale and Night Lover, pursing my lips. Death-Bringer leaned in a little, “Gale is smarter than both of us so for now... let’s just trust his judgement.”

Slowly but surely day turned to night with the four of us still walking along the roads, far from any civilization. We only saw a few people on the roads here and there, but as the sun got low in the sky we saw less and less humans... And Night Lover began to whine... “Are you planning to walk through the night? Did you guys even bring bedrolls? Do you know how to set up a camp? You do realize you’re in human forms now, right? You need to sleep and not walk nonstop. Are you just planning to sleep in the dirt with the bugs? My Lord Below, were you expecting me to sleep in the dirt and mud and grass with the bugs all night? I would rather you had just killed me-”

“I could just kill you now.” I muttered, glaring at him.

Flinching, Night Lover moved to put Piercing Gale between us and quipped, “Why so serious? I remember Ves’hil’n had a sense of humor-” Quick as the wind, Piercing Gale reached out and gripped Night Lover’s throat, not hard enough to choke but hard enough to threaten, “Perhaps you should keep the names of the Eight Heroes out of your mouth.” Night Lover nodded rapidly and Piercing Gale let him go. “And yes, my apologies, but your arrival made us forget about purchasing supplies so we will be sleeping in the dirt with the bugs until we reach the next town.”

And so the next few days passed with little conversation and the nights with us sleeping in the dirt with the bugs as Night Lover so aptly put it. After a few nights like that I started to understand why Death-Bringer’s hair looked like that. Even Piercing Gale was starting to look slovenly. On the other hand, Night Lover protected his hair from getting dirty or tangled and his face from getting bitten by insects by sleeping upright in tree branches with a cloth wrapped around his hair and face. Still his complaints grew louder and more frequent the more time we spent on the road until, finally, the next town came into our sights.

“Finally! If we don’t immediately go to a bathhouse I will lay down right here in the street and make you carry-” Night Lover abruptly stopped walking in the middle of the road.

I rolled my eyes and bumped his shoulder as I walked passed, even after days of barely speaking my voice was still hoarse when I said, “Stop being so dramatic, we’ll stop by a bathhouse if it’ll make you shut up.”

Night Lover’s hand snaked out and grabbed my elbow, stopping me in my tracks. I turned back to glare at him. He threw his other arm out to stop Death-Bringer from walking past him. His face grave and voice low and quiet, he said, “There’s a demon in this town.”