Vol.4, Ch.2, P.5
Dismounting, I dashed through the dark, approaching predator and prey. But having heard the drumming haste of my horse, the direbear swivelled about and brought its baleful leer upon me. Would that it undermeasured this meddler as but another morsel to its meal… Yet in truth was it increasingly wary as it sized me up from afar.
Turning away from its erstwhile prey, the black beast stooped low and let loose from its muzzle a grinding, guttural growl.
“Grgrghuaaah…!”
A cry of caution, shaking the stars. It knew my mettle, that before all else must I be unmade—and quick. On all fours, the hulking creature began creeping closer, paw by paw, glaring with eyes ghastly and goldly aglow. I halted and heaved my drawn blade up to the centre guard before beginning a careful advance of my own.
“Mn…” I grunted as I perceived its sheer, shadowy size. Even its withers towered over the height of my head. But despite its girth, I knew: this bear could very well gain upon me in an instant. What’s worse, it could dare the deed from a farther distance than I. The first strike, therefore, was not mine to make. Any second now could it lunge, standing as I was right within the reach of its charge.
And yet, charge it did not. Still surveying the sudden prey afore it, the behemá kept barely clear of my own reach as it slowly sidled up, waiting for the prime moment to pounce.
“A beast with a brain,” I muttered, staring my foe down as I stepped over sedge and stone. “No rabble you are, that I’m sure…” Much discussion of techniques and tactics could be had between us were this wildling capable of the common tongue. As such fancies flickered in my mind, I kept my wits coldly focused, studying the distance from blade to beast. The benighted air blew, chilling the sweat now beading upon my brow.
“Hruooaahh..!” the direbear bayed again, seeming like a storm cloud heralding its own coming. Slowly, searchingly, it crept on closer. Every fibre of its fur stood on end, livid, craving the kill. Grimacing at its warning wail, I locked my eyes unblinkingly upon the beast—from the twitch of its gaze, the lifting and falling of its feet, to the pulsing sinews under its hide.
And then, like a shrub shaken violently, those very sinews bristled and surged. This was it. At once, I emptied my lungs and loosened every muscle to receive the assault to come.
For come it must.
Come, damn you!
“Ghhoo—aahhh!!” With a roar, the direbear rent soil and stone as it pelted unto me with all speed—a charge fired off exactly as foreseen.
I threw myself straightway to the side, escaping its warpath. The air boomed; now billowing whence I once stood was an explosion of earth, discharged by a lightning-lash of beastly claws. Recovering and now poised upon a knee, I mustered my own sinews and sent the soot-steel sweeping forth. A harsh whistle slashed the air—the lightless edge had cloven deep through the direbear’s throat.
“Hhkhaaoh…!?” it groaned, daunted and disturbed. Hide, blubber, and bulk—thick as bricks each, yet smote clear asunder by the svǫrtaskan. Black-red fluids flowed from the fresh wound; pipe-like arteries inside had been scythed open. “…Kkhhh…!” so struggled the direbear for unbarred breath, but in so doing, only quickened its end as with every heave of its drowning lungs, foul blood would belch and vomit from the gaping wound.
Before long, after groping in vain for the vermin that had dealt its deathblow, the direbear collapsed onto its side, its corpse quaking both earth and air. There under moonlight it laid, a lofty lump of blackness, looming like a hill.
Sharply, I let out my breath. Looking in Dita’s direction, I found her clinging close to the outcrop, timidly making her way down. Holstering the svǫrtaskan, I went forth to meet her at the bottom. And when we were aface each other at last, she but stood, appearing dejected and downcast.
“…What foolery,” she muttered.
I blinked. “Foolery?”
“I intended to die here,” confessed Dita. “But when Death came for me… I… I could not… I could not…”
“Of course you couldn’t,” I said sternly. “Not whilst your heart wishes yet to live.”
Dita dared no debate, and indeed no answer at all. What sound came from her instead was a thump—out of her raiments, dishevelled as they were from descending the high perch, had slipped and fallen a dagger unto the grasses. Upon the green bed it laid, sheathless and shining dull amidst the moonshine.
Down Dita stooped, slowly, and taking it to hand, stood poised to pierce me with it. There, a change came upon her.
“Hhn… nfh… hnn…!” she panted, frantic and fearful, till—“Hnnaaa—ah!!”
Headlong she lurched, speeding the point forth, but tottering along the way, she pitched and fell instead unto my bosom. Yet never did her blade stray away from its true mark: my neck.
“Hhah… haa…” Dita panted on, pressing her face against my breast. Held quiveringly aloft was her dagger, its edge in cold contact with my throat.
“Edelfräulein,” I said softly to her. “Even were this dagger to dig deep till my death; even were you to bathe in my blood… alas, solace would still elude you.”
“And yet!” she cried into my chest. “Yet this is all I have! This is all I can do!”
“Then do it,” I said.
To which Dita gasped, as though taken aback. Then, with cheeks tiding with tears, she brought her eyes up to meet mine.
“What’s this you say…!?” she asked breathlessly. “You’ve duties enough! Hopes! Promises to keep! Why offer your life so!? Are you not the star in everyone’s sky!?”
“I offer no life,” I answered, “for you cannot take it, Edelräulein. Not as you are.”
Oft do those who bare a blade at another’s life lose all heart in seeing it through. “Cowardice” some might make of it, but I think it “common decency” instead, the mark of morality native in the meek. When she had made her attempt on my life at the inn, when I had caught her dagger-hand as it quivered uncontrollably, I knew it then: Dita is too decent a soul to deal death unto another.
And such is precisely why she suffers.
“I can! I can!” she insisted.
I looked at her square in the eyes. “You cannot.”
As she peered up from my breast, Dita frowned, her features twisting tearfully. Her shoulders shivered, and with them, the blade upon my throat. Its edge bit at last, sinking past the skin. And there, my blood issued forth in a fine rill. Redly reflected it was in Dita’s eyes—as red as any other’s, Man or Nafíl.
“Hhhfh! Ffhhh!” Dita desperately heaved between her clenching teeth, her shoulders rising, falling with every fraught breath. Her heart madly pounded, its every beat passing into my own. “M… Mother…!” she muttered, voice broken.
“…”
“Always… always was she gentle… my mother… my guide…”
Lost in lament Dita was, bringing to lip the memories surely brimming afore her eyes.
“When I cried…” she said, “…longing for a doll like my friend’s… Mother made one for me… Sowing… stitching… from dusk till dawn… just for me… When I asked her… how she and Father had met… she told it all… smiling… so, so warm all the while… And when I at last became Father’s jarlshǫnd… how she wept… oh… how she wept…”
“…”
“…‘We must celebrate,’ she said… ‘A feast for Dita’… And so she went… went over to the next village… just to fetch the chestnuts I so loved… and then… but then… along the way… Men… Men…!”
“…”
“…With spears they pierced her every pore…! My poor mother…! My poor, poor Mother…! Not some warrior, she! But a housewife…! Stabbed, stabbed, stabbed…!”
Amidst her mourning, the dagger fell out of Dita’s hand. Then, yet clinging to me, she slowly sank to the ground.
“…hhu… uu… auu…” she wept, her tears wetting the earth, her hands gripping at the grasses. “I know! I know all too well!” she cried. “That afore me stands not my mother’s murderer! And yet…! Yet I cannot forgive you Men! For you mean to murder my people unto nothingness!! For you’ve killed my mother because she was no kin of Man!! You!! All of you!!”
And doubtless Dita knew, too, more so than any other soul, that so hate-steeped a dagger could cut no course to any fairer a future. But just as she’d said, this daughter could not do without daring the deed. For it was the only deed left to her.
“For us you fight…!” she shouted and shivered on. “That no hate like mine should hatch again! This I know! Yet…! Yet still I hate the Man you are! The very blood in you I abhor! Even as your heart aches for my happiness! Even as your blade saves my life! I hate you still!! I hate you! I hate you!!”
“Edelfräulein…” I uttered, pitying her.
“I’m scarce alone in loss, I know! We all bear some burden! We all suffer some sorrow!” she screamed. “But I can’t…! I can’t bear it anymore! I can’t live any longer! All strength is gone! I alone am weak! I alone!”
“…Weakness. Strength. Such is not the matter here,” I said quietly to her. “Your heart sobs, but you cannot soothe it. That’s all it is. And alas, there’s naught to be done for it.”
“Uuaaa—aahh!!”
Dita’s lament lifted into the moonlit night, heartwrenched, heartbroken that never again shall she meet her mother. That forevermore shall she yearn for her friend from birth. And such was her sorrow that soon the hatred in her, too, began to weep.
“Aaa—aahh!!”
Why must hate be mine?
Though I want it not?
Why?
Dita’s sobs and screams continued on, pressing the night sky for an answer.
Any answer at all.
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