grasping branch-like hand reached over Trevin and took hold of the ogre’s upper arm. The mounted horsemen around them couldn’t keep their well-trained animals from bounding away. It was all Trevin could do to roll clear of the enta’s massive root-footed leg as it came down next to him and gripped the earth.
What happened next defied everything that Trevin understood about size and strength. A strand of limb no bigger around than two of Trevin’s fingers squeezed the monster’s bicep until the flesh pulped. The ogre jerked and screamed, but the enta held it fast. The enta screamed back at the ogre from a knothole maw, and then took a wide stance with its earth-grasping root-feet. How the enta could see, Trevin couldn’t imagine. There was no semblance of eyes to be seen anywhere. The ogre thrashed and wailed like a child about to belted by his father, but the enta held it firm. Then suddenly, with more strength and power than Trevin could imagine, the enta yanked the massive ogre up off of its feet and swung it overhanded only to slam it back into the earth with so much force that it shook the ground. The ogre didn’t so much as twitch after that. Trevin didn’t care, though. He darted in and ran his sword hilt deep into the ogre’s chest.
“Appreciate it,” he called up to the tree-beast as he fought to yank his blade free.
The sound of cracking wood, repetitive and powerful, like that of a falling tree crashing through other trees on its way to the ground, erupted from the enta before it turned and awkwardly lumbered away. Trevin couldn’t be sure, but he had a feeling that the ancient forest creature had been laughing at him.
Looking around, Trevin saw that the ogres had either been killed or had fled. Immediately his thoughts went to Gallarael. Unceremoniously, he half begged for, half pulled a man off of his horse. Before anyone could think, he was riding back toward the Wildwood to find his love. He didn’t have to go far. The young haulkatten came bounding excitedly out into the clearing. On its back, Gallarael’s limp form was sandwiched between Darbon and Matty. The wizard Quazar was nowhere in sight. As Trevin approached he was overcome with relief and didn’t see the young, blond-haired king’s man come limping up to the reunion, but Matty did.
“Ha!” She barked out a satisfied grunt of a laugh. “I bet every last coin in my stash that I could tell you who Gallarael’s real father is now.”
Trevin looked at her askance, and then turned to see the approaching young man. His jaw nearly hit the dirt. He was looking at a gore-covered, battle-hardened young man who could have been Gallarael’s twin. The resemblance was beyond all doubt. Only siblings could look so much alike. Then he saw the insignia on the young man’s breast and it all fell into place. This was Prince Russet Oakarm. Gallarael’s real father was the King of Parydon.
Without another thought, he fell to a knee and bowed to the prince of the realm.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Her name was Itchy Witchy, and her arse was always twitchy,
but her tits made the sailors forget to care.
The first mate tried to fit her, but her bush was full of critters,
and the captain made him cut off all his hair.
Vanx opened his eyes back in his mother’s humble abode. It was just like it had been when he was a boy. As he rose from his padded floor mat and yawned, she turned and smiled that wonderful smile and her golden eyes lit into sparkling jewels. That smile was love incarnate and he hoped it would always be with him.
In the back of his mind he knew he was either hallucinating or dreaming because his mother had died a dozen years past. Vanx forced that thought away, though, and decided to revel in the warmth of his vision.
On bare feet he ran to her. When his arms wrapped around her waist and he had to look up to see her loving face, he realized he was in his boyhood form.
The comfort and familiarity of the vision shifted and he was skipping along the flower-lined path to Master De Xava’s grove, which was in a copse of ancient iron oaks near the river. Vanx had part of a cheese wheel, some fresh-baked bread, some dried venison, and some green apples in a sack thrown over his shoulder. His mother always packed enough for both him and the lesson master.
The feeling was carefree and intensely joyful, as if the whole world would eventually bend to his will. Just before he entered the copse, a pair of young Zyths a few years older than Vanx stepped out of the afternoon shadows and surprised him. Before Vanx could catch the breath they scared out of his lungs, they started pelting him with rocks and insults. Fists and booted feet soon followed.
“You’re not Zythian,” one of them barked as they sat on Vanx’s chest. “You’ve dirty hair and green eyes. You’re one of them.”
“He’s a mud-bug’s shit pile, is what he is,” the other boy said. “And his mother is just a man-loving whore.”
“Tainted boy.”
“Half-born.”
“Stupid half-human.” And so it went for a good long while.
Vanx remembered hitting up into the jaw of the bronze-haired, yellow-eyed boy on top of him. He’d struck with all he had. He remembered feeling a hard-toed boot hit him in the temple and the explosion of light and pain that it caused. Then there was the horrendous beating that followed. He also remembered that the idea the two boys were right, that he wasn’t like any of the other children on the island, so distracted him that he hadn’t even cried.
Master De Xava carried him back to his glade and boiled up a brew of thatchle root, lichen extract, and cherry bark.
“It is the custom that you decide the punishment of your assaulters,” the thin, silver-haired teacher told him as Vanx sipped the pain-relieving tea.
“What would you have done to Zeezle and Dorlan Croyle for attacking you unprovoked?”
“But they’re right, Master,” Vanx said through swollen lips. “I’m not like them-or you. I’m not a Zythian.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” the old amber-eyed scholar asked. “The blood of Zyth and man do not mix well. Nearly all children of that sort of union die at birth, or shortly after. As far as I know, Vanx, you are the only one of your kind.” Master De Xava smiled kindly. “I’d say that makes you especially extraordinary.”
“I don’t want to have them punished for what they did, Master Xava,” Vanx said with a shrug. “I’d rather have the chance to face them one at a time on the practice yard. Or better yet at the center ring, at the Fairy Fest, before the council of Elders and all the clans.”
“What if one of them beats you? They are both bigger and older than you.”
“Then they will be shamed all the more for having both jumped me in the forest.”
The old man’s laughter was cut off a few moments later when Vanx continued. “…But neither will win, Master. Dorlan called my mother a whore. His insult will be returned tenfold. You can wager on it.”
The scene shifted a little bit. They were in the same forest glade, only it was many years later. Zeezle’s expression was hollow. There was none of the mirth in his eyes that Vanx had come to associate with his close friend. All that could be found in Zeezle’s dim amber orbs were tears of anguish. Dorlan, Zeezle’s brother, was dead. Killed when the notorious young dragon attacked the herd of big-horned billies that Dorlan was shepherding. Vanx knew that it would be a few more years before Zeezle found the portions of life’s joy that were charred away on Dorlan’s pyre. Zeezle’s passion, though, the grim subject of his work, and the focus of most of his attention, had been determined that day.
Suddenly Vanx was at a cozy candlelit table and Duchess Gallarain was purring in his ear. She licked his cheek with a huge, sandy tongue, and Vanx rolled awake instantly.
The young haulkatten was hovering over him and purring loudly. Around him, the horrific sounds of the injured men, and others shouting and bustling, came to his ears.
