Laura S. Fox
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Hungry Heart - Book #3 - Ch. 34
🕑 Added 2022-07-24 18:00:00 +0000 UTCChapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four / Chapter Five / Chapter Six / Chapter Seven / Chapter Eight / Chapter Nine / Chapter Ten / Chapter Eleven / Chapter Twelve / Chapter Thirteen / Chapter Fourteen / Chapter Fifteen / Chapter Sixteen / Chapter Seventeen / Chapter Eighteen / Chapter Nineteen / Chapter Twenty / Chapter Twenty-One / Chapter Twenty-Two / Chapter Twenty-Three / Chapter Twenty-Four / Chapter Twenty-Five / Chapter Twenty-Six / Chapter Twenty-Seven / Chapter Twenty-Eight / Chapter Twenty-Nine / Chapter Thirty / Chapter Thirty-One / Chapter Thirty-Two / Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four – The Names of Beasts
“You’re not dead!” Toru shouted happily, shaking Varg a bit too energetically. “Are you still hurt?” he asked, finally realizing that he was being too rough and letting go of his friend.
Varg stopped him by grabbing his arm. His smile was as big as the sun above. “Kitty, I think I’ve never been better in my life.”
“Are you telling the truth?” Toru felt the need to verify that. So, he began feeling Varg’s body, turning him this way and that, and examining him from all angles.
Varg laughed while letting himself be abused like that.
“But I saw those things ripping into you,” Toru explained.
“The pain I felt was like no other I’ve ever had the bad luck to suffer in my life. Toru, I truly thought that I was done for. But you saved me.”
That, in itself, was a mystery to Toru. “I don’t think I saved you,” he said, feeling puzzled and a little lost. “I was too late to destroy the ghosts that attacked you. And you… died while I held you.”
Varg offered him a shrug and a heart-felt sigh. “If I knew all the inner workings of the magical world you’re part of, kitty, I’d be a much wiser man. I believe you saved me by feeling sad over my demise, even though you didn’t recognize me. Although that hurt,” the wolf said, touching his chest, “might still be with me. I thought I was a lot less forgettable than that.”
It took Toru all of two moments to realize that Varg was joking about his imaginary heartache. He jumped on him, and they tumbled together, rolling around in what now looked like a green field, spattered with wild flowers. Behind them, the forest rose, but it no longer looked menacing and cold like it had before.
He kissed Varg hard on the lips, to show him that he was anything other than forgettable. “I’m sorry, Varg.”
“What?” Varg grinned. “What did you say? Oh, our almighty tiger just admitted that he was wrong… Oh, kitty,” he added right away, changing tack, “you were so brave, and not only with your claws and fangs, although they’re pretty sharp and my hide still feels where you showed me just how sharp they are. Forgive an old fool for trying to pull a joke or two on you. I’m just so happy.”
Toru let his head rest on Varg’s chest, cuddling against his large body. “Varg,” he asked in a hesitant voice, “what happened to the others?”
Varg caressed his hair gently. “When I left them to pass through and come to you, they no longer seemed to be alive.” Toru started up, but Varg pressed him down, holding him. “Yet, from what I’ve read in the chronicles kept by the Sakka, I believe that you are the tiger who finally defeated Hekastfet for good.”
Toru curled up against Varg’s chest tightly. “But if anyone’s dead,” he whispered, trying hard to fight the tears welling up in his eyes, “what good am I?”
“I don’t think they’re dead,” Varg said firmly.
“How?” Toru asked and raised his head, searching avidly for signs in the weathered face that the wolfshifter was telling the truth.
“You see, I was never a scholar or anything like that, but I’ve enjoyed reading texts since I was very young. And what I found in the chronicles I just told you about makes me think that you woke up from a bad dream, through sheer force of will alone, Toru. That bad dream was a veil thrown over everyone… and if I’m right, our friends must be alive and well. You didn’t allow the nightmare to take over and destroy the city and everyone in it.”
Toru’s heart leaped at Varg’s words. But could they dare to hope? Varg didn’t have the habit of lying, all the more about something like this, but…
Varg stopped his train of thought by flicking a finger against his forehead. “Aren’t you the bravest tiger that has ever lived, Toru?”
“I am,” Toru replied with determination.
“Then take my hand. Let’s see with our own eyes.”
Toru got to his feet, his heart full of hope and happiness again. He offered Varg his hand to help him stand, as well. “Hekastfet is no more,” he said, sure of every word leaving his mouth now.
“It’s my belief that you destroyed that scourge forever. According to the texts I read, brought to me by the Sakka, it appears that your predecessors, Toru, had always been fooled into believing that no one they loved and cared about was still alive, caught in a net of lies spun by Hekastfet. Unable to shake that horrible nightmare, they turned into destroyers, hence diminishing the value of their fight. They defeated Hekastfet each time, but each time they destroyed the city as well.”
“Like savage beasts,” Toru murmured.
“Like that, yes, I believe,” Varg agreed. “It wasn’t their fault. Hekastfet reached inside their hearts and made them lose all hope. But the same thing didn’t happen to you. You didn’t lose your heart.”
“And I didn’t change into a savage beast, either,” Toru added.
“Yes. You are kind, Toru. You are like your father and those before you, but you also have something more.”
“Not something. Someone,” Toru corrected his friend. “Someones,” he added. “Let’s find them all.” He couldn’t allow doubt to nag at him by dallying.
Varg wrapped his hand around his tightly. “I want just the same. Now, the question is, how do we get out of here?”
Toru closed his eyes and squeezed them tightly. Those wise beings who had been by his side, in those trying times, must know the answer. Torgar, Demophios, Amaranth, help me leave this place.
We don’t have to. Just open your eyes, Toru.
***
Varg couldn’t say when it all happened, because it did so in less than the blink of an eye. They were no longer at the edge of the forest from Toru’s dream, but inside the room with the Sakka and their friends. The strangest part was that they all seemed to be sleeping profoundly, the Sakka spread around the room, as if they had fallen asleep on their feet.
“What is going on?” Toru asked. “Are they asleep?”
“Maybe they need a bit of shaking up,” Varg suggested. Not one to dally on dark thoughts, he immediately walked over to where Duril was lying with the little boy hanging on his arm and with Claw by his side, and he shook him gently.
He leaned over and the faint sign of breathing assured him that at least the healer was still alive. Moving one hand just below Claw’s nose, he was pleased to find out that Duril wasn’t the only one still among the living.
“What are they doing?” Toru asked and snuck beside him. Without using Varg’s delicate approach, he grabbed Duril by the shoulders and shook him. “Wake up, Duril! I beat Hekastfet, and he’s never going to bother the world ever again!”
“How about you kiss him? that might wake him up in a more pleasant way,” Varg suggested.
He meant it as half a joke, but Toru took it at face value and quickly put his lips on Duril’s. The following moment, Duril gasped and opened his eyes. “Toru, is that really you?” he whispered in a cracked voice.
“It is me,” Toru assured him and pulled him close.
“Wait, there’s someone here we don’t want to crush,” Duril said, pointing at the child resting on his chest.
Toru moved more delicately about so that he could still continue to hug Duril and then touched the little boy’s forehead gently. The child immediately began to stir and blinked slowly.
Varg let out a sign of relief. “Seeing how you woke Duril up, it’s my turn to shake some sense into a mighty sleepy bear.” He moved so that he could reach Claw, but when he touched his shoulder, his wrist was quickly grabbed, making him yelp in surprise.
Claw grinned ear to ear as his eyes opened. “Puppy!” he exclaimed happily. “What on earth did we drink last night? I had the strangest…” His words trailed off as he pushed himself up and looked around. “…dream.”
“It wasn’t a dream, but Toru made everything right,” Varg said proudly.
Claw scratched his head, still prey to a state of puzzlement that Varg understood completely.
“It wasn’t just me,” Toru contradicted him. “It was Varg and I who put an end to Hekastfet.”
Duril’s eyes darted between them, filled with wonder. “You two must have the most astonishing tales to tell.”
“That goes without saying,” Varg said with a huge smile. “Welcome back among us, Duril.”
Only then, the healer seemed to begin understanding what had happened. His eyes moved over the room at the still sleeping Sakka. “It almost killed us all, didn’t it?” he asked in a pensive voice.
“I hope I don’t have to kiss everyone to make them wake up,” Toru interrupted the somber moment in his usual way.
Claw laughed. “Don’t worry, kitty. I’ll take care of your lips by rubbing them with mine.”
Toru glared. “How is that going to help?”
“It’s going to help me,” Claw offered matter-of-factly. “I love you, tiny tiger.”
Toru puffed out his chest with an expression of disbelief on his face. “Who are you calling tiny?”
Claw laughed like a naughty kid. “Let’s see how you compare to me.” He jumped to his feet and grabbed Toru under his arm.
Varg expected some tumbling and rolling on the floor to start, but Claw, instead of teasing Toru any longer, pulled him into a fierce kiss. Toru struggled only for a moment and then quickly melted into it, his body leaning against Claw’s.
He took it upon himself, since the others were busy, Toru and Claw kissing each other silly and Duril soothing the little boy who was starting to become very confused by all the ruckus around him and the absence of his mother, to see what the Sakka were doing, still sleeping like that.
He found Beanstalk, fallen under a table. Without worrying that his actions might end up being frowned upon in the fiercest of ways, he grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him up into the air, shaking him.
It didn’t take Beanstalk long to open his eyes, although he was as puzzled as the others had been when doing so for the first time. “Master wolf,” he exclaimed. “And is that… Toru? And everyone?”
Varg plopped Beanstalk down on the table. “It looks like the quest is over, master of all Sakka. Toru destroyed Hekastfet for good.”
“He did?” Beanstalk looked around, at the still sleeping Sakka. “But the city… has it been destroyed?”
That was something Varg very much wanted to see with his own eyes. He shook his head, however, sure in his heart as he had been very few times. “Toru didn’t play the evil’s game. He tore the nightmare into pieces and faced the dawn again, with a pure heart.”
He offered Beanstalk his arm. “Climb on me. We’ll walk outside together, and we will see if Scercendusa is still there. Knowing Toru’s heart like I do, I put all my faith in the belief that it’s there still, standing proud. We might just have to wake up a lot of people from their slumber. And, without a doubt, some repairs are probably in order.”
***
To say that he couldn’t yet find his balance on his own two feet was to say little. Duril wavered and Toru quickly held him by the waist. It took him a little while to realize that the boy was swinging from his arm, thus making him lose his equilibrium now and then. In addition, he was astonished by everything he saw around him.
“We should go find his mother,” he suggested and raised his arm to show Toru who he referred to by that.
“We will find everyone,” Toru said. “We will wake them up, and they will find their homes again.”
“If it was all a dream… is the city the same as it was before?” Duril asked.
“We should go out and see,” Toru suggested.
Around them, all the Sakka were getting to their feet. As flabbergasted as he had been until only a short time earlier, they were talking among themselves, shaking their heads, letting out short gasps of wonder, and laughing happily.
The Sakka had a special way of communicating among themselves, and if one whispered in his immediate fellow’s ear something at one corner of the room, his words traveled to the opposite corner in the blink of an eye. Duril was well aware of that and put it all down to the amazing magic they were made of. He would definitely want to learn more about them and write it in his large tome—
“My bag, the tome,” he said. “They’re lost, aren’t they?”
“I’ll search for them for you,” Toru assured him.
Duril nodded and kissed Toru’s cheek, making him squirm in delight. “Thank you for saving all of us, Toru. You surpassed your ancestors.”
“So, am I the best tiger of all time?” Toru asked, a glint of mischief in his golden eyes.
“You are, and I’ll make sure to write it all down in my tome, as soon as I get my hands on it.”
Toru nodded solemnly and took him by the shoulders. They followed everyone outside, expecting both the best and the worst.
It was neither, in a way, he realized as soon as his eyes adjusted to the strong light of the sun. People, those he had seen fallen in the streets what felt like only moments ago, were awakening back to life, stirring gently. That was the biggest relief.
What wasn’t that much cause for the same was the state of the city, as far as its buildings were concerned. Signs of the fire that had burned throughout Scercendusa could still be seen, although only as smudges of ash and blackened walls. The destruction had happened, but it hadn’t taken the souls of the city along with it.
When Duril turned to take in what lay behind them, he remained breathless for a moment. “The walls!” No longer capable of uttering the words to express his astonishment, he just turned toward Toru, who was staring at the same thing he did. Even the little boy on his arm stilled, only hanging there, without playing anymore.
The tall white walls of Scercendusa were nothing but piles of rubble, as far as eyes could see.
***
Toru didn’t know what to think. Most people, he could tell, were coming back to life. But something must have taken down the walls of the city because only ruins remained of them.
He let go of Duril so that he could break into a run and reach the top of the rubble. Once there, he took in the magnitude of the destruction. Before his eyes, the vast sprawl of the Dregs opened.
It was a marsh like no other Toru had seen in his life, made of dark tar and unnatural shapes. It took his eyes moments to realize that those shapes were the contorted bodies of people that must have been caught under the tar.
Was that the work of Hekastfet, still? Without any regard for his wellbeing, he rushed toward the Dregs.
He stopped at the first pile that looked like it was made from human bodies. His hands were frantic as he pushed away the dark slime covering a face. The eyes were closed, and the tar was caked in the nostrils, so Toru did the only thing that crossed his mind. He grabbed the human’s nose between two fingers and pushed the mud out. Then, he removed the body from the pile and set it to the side. It belonged to a man that could just as well be old as young. Toru shook him, hoping for a sign of life that didn’t take long to appear. The man coughed and rolled to one side. More mud came from his mouth, but he was alive, and that was all that mattered to Toru.
“What is going on down there?” Varg called to him from the top of the rubble that the majestic walls of Scercendusa had been reduced to.
“People are here,” Toru shouted. “Still alive. Come help me!”
Without waiting for Varg’s answer, he continued his work by dragging another shape from the pile. As it had worked for the first human, he did the same to this one, a woman, as far as he could tell. As soon as her nose was cleared, she opened her mouth and let the mud out.
Varg was already by his side. “There are so many,” the wolf said.
Not that Toru didn’t know that. He knew it very well, and in his mind, the thought of not being able to save all took shape before he could stop it.
“We need more hands here!” Varg shouted at the others that had climbed to the top of the rubble to see what was going on. “It cannot be too soon!”
Duril and Claw followed right away, and the Sakka were like a tiny swarm at their heels.
***
There was still much saving to do, and Duril began following Toru’s example as soon as he fell in line with his friends. Claw decided to rush through the marsh and bring them new patients from the further corners, while they worked on those who were the closest.
“We must ask for help,” Pie said, somewhere from his left.
Duril didn’t waste the time to turn and talk to him. “Then, someone should go and ask the city dwellers for help.”
“Will they help? Some of them have already started shouting in the streets about some sabotage put in the works by the Dregs to kill them all.”
“They don’t know what happened,” Duril realized that very moment and voiced his discovery out loud. “They don’t even know that they have been saved from certain death.”
“Toru must come with us and convince them,” Pie said.
“Do you really think you can tear him away from his noble task?”
“He must. He is the true ruler of this city, our king.”
If there was anyone who could make the dwellers of Scercendusa see the truth, it had to be Toru. Duril agreed. “Then I’ll tell him that, but please, take care of this little one, Pie. I don’t want to believe that I was too late for her.”
“Leave her to me,” Pie said right away.
Duril walked over to Toru and squeezed his shoulder. “Toru,” he said gently, “we need a lot more people to take care of everyone. The Dregs are far and wide, and there are many souls to save.”
Toru set his jaw hard. “I know,” he said.
“The way to do it best is to get the people from Scercendusa to help.”
“Will they do it?” Toru asked, his eyes full of hope.
“You must tell them what you did. They will believe in you.”
Toru nodded and began walking toward the pile of rubble with determined steps. Duril hurried after him. The doubt in some hearts could go against Toru’s pure one, and that meant that a bit of support couldn’t hurt.
***
Toru took in the city at his feet. They were all moving about now, brought to life as fast as they had been put to death, but there was grumbling, and shouting, and quarrels starting everywhere. “People of Scercendusa,” he called loudly.
His voice carried even over all that noise. Even to his ears, it sounded like it belonged to someone better than he had been before.
People stopped what they were doing and looked at him.
“We need your help to save the people from the Dregs,” he continued.
“Who are you?” someone shouted at him. “You’re not our domestikos.”
“Your domestikos was nothing but a shell, and evil lived inside him,” Toru replied.
“Why should we believe you? We don’t know you,” another woman hissed at him.
“We’ll never help the Dregs!” another voice rose from the crowd. “They did this to us! They destroyed our city!”
The anger in that man’s voice spread like fire through the others.
“That is not true,” Toru said in turn, and his voice, once more, rose over the ruckus. “For centuries, they have done nothing but fuel the fires in your homes, the ones you used to cook and get warm. And what did they get in return?”
“They got to live,” someone else shouted the answer. “Don’t believe in this stranger, people! Where is our domestikos?”
Murmurs began to float over the crowd. Toru was about to say more, when he realized that all heads were turning toward the domestikos’ palace, still half-standing. From where he stood, even his good tiger eyes couldn’t see much, but it was obvious that there was someone there, right in front of the ruined building.
Duril squeezed his hand. “What is that over there, Toru?” he asked.
Toru frowned. “I think that’s Hekastfet, raising his ugly head again.”
He didn’t have to call for help. Moth landed by his side, in his butterfly shape, making the people that noticed him gasp in disbelief. Toru climbed on his back and helped Duril to join him. “I thought I destroyed him,” he murmured under his breath.
Duril embraced him tightly. “This must be his last attempt to destroy the city. He has to be weak, if he has decided to make the masses fall for his tricks one last time.”
Toru nodded. “Let’s put an end to him, once and for all.”
***
Duril didn’t look down as they flew over the crowd and landed at the top of the stairs before the fallen palace of the domestikos. Indeed, an old man was there, in tattered clothes, his arms lifted in the air, as if in supplication, or in an attempt to have the world listen.
He increased his grip on Toru’s waist. “We won’t be fooled,” he said.
Toru jumped from Moth’s back and landed on his feet in front of the old man. “Hekastfet,” he hissed. “Are you here for your final moment?”
“What name do you call me by, young tiger?” the domestikos asked.
Duril understood, by the way the old man addressed Toru, that the two of them must have met before.
“I am Ewart Kona, the ruler of this city.” He turned toward the crowd that had started to climb the stairs. “My city. You destroyed it.”
Toru wasted not a moment. He now had one hand wrapped around the old man’s throat and lifted him in the air, making him flail his arms and legs helplessly. Shouts of anger could be heard from the dwellers of the city. Some of them, despite the distance they were at, must have seen what was going on.
“Show your true face, Hekastfet,” Toru growled. “Show these people who has been ruling them.”
The old man wheezed and struggled. If he hadn’t known Toru and his heart any better, Duril would have believed him to be nothing but a frail human at the hands of an unjustly powerful enemy.
It all had to be a game of sorts, a dangerous one on top of everything else. Duril looked over his shoulder at the approaching crowds. “Toru, let him be!” he shouted.
Toru stared at him in disbelief.
“He wants you to destroy the shell he’s been using in front of everyone so that he can tarnish your good name forever,” he explained right away.
Toru dropped the old man, who fell like a sack of potatoes at his feet.
“This is a beast!” The domestikos, or the evil pretending to be him, said as he pointed at Toru, while dragging himself backward over the slabs of marble forming the floor in front of the palace.
His voice was strangely strong for someone who had been almost choked to death just moments earlier. It carried too well to the people climbing the stairs like a mad crowd, bent on reaching their goal.
“I was wrong to trust you, to welcome you into my home,” the domestikos continued, his eyes wild.
Duril had never thought himself to be a very good judge of people, but he could swear that those eyes weren’t scared. No, they were a mirror of cunning thoughts, and he understood, beyond any doubt, that Hekastfet was still living inside that shell, somehow.
It also meant that he was desperate and now trying everything he could think of to survive.
Toru growled and went after him again. Duril found himself moving at a speed he didn’t possess to stop the young tiger from grabbing the domestikos again.
“Don’t you want to kill me, savage beast? Come and destroy me. It’s the only thing your lot’s good for.”
Toru shook off Duril and grabbed the domestikos by the throat again. Duril hung from his arm, shaking him. “Toru, no. He hopes to destroy the city with the last remnants of his power. Look at him. I don’t think there’s much of it left.”
Toru held the domestikos as if he were a toy being held by a child. It would so easy for him to squeeze just a little bit harder and be done with that thing, as Duril couldn’t think of it as a real human being, now that he knew what it was. But Toru’s arm was trembling in barely restrained anger, and Duril was well aware that he needed to intervene somehow.
He turned toward the people climbing the stairs. “You do not know the true face of your domestikos,” he shouted, as loudly as he could.
But his voice wasn’t like Toru’s, able to carry over crowds and a city in ruins. Yet, despite that, he began to hear his words being echoed throughout. It took him only moments to realize that the Sakka had come to his aid. The tiny helpers were spread throughout the crowd, and they were acting as carriers of his message. Duril found a new kind of courage growing inside his heart.
“Evil has lurked underneath the city for centuries,” he continued. “And it found a home inside the domestikoi who ruled over Scercendusa through the years.”
A stone flew through the air, right by his temple. Duril froze for a moment, but then he started shouting louder. “The evil is almost destroyed. You’ll all be witness. Toru,” he turned toward the young tiger, “let him be. Let him show his true face.”
Toru seemed transfixed, unable to move, as he held that old man’s fate in his hands. For the crowd, it was an old man, the one in charge of their city and wellbeing, but Duril knew the truth. It would only take a little to expose the face of that evil, and Toru was the one to do it.
Yet, Toru didn’t seem keen on letting go again.
“Look at his eyes,” Duril cried out, “you’ll see the truth in them.”
The old man dropped to the ground and began shouting as if he were being bitten by a thousand snakes. “The tiger, the tiger, he wants to kill me, good people! Take him away from me!”
A few men had reached the top of the stairs and rushed toward Toru.
“Yes, he’s a beast!” The mock domestikos continued.
“His name is Toru!” Duril shouted, to cover the lies with truth.
“Scercendusa doesn’t believe in the names of beasts!”
The domestikos’ words turned into a chant on the lips of the city dwellers. The ones that had already arrived tried to attack Toru, and Duril’s heart faltered for a moment. Moth batted his wings and send Toru’s attackers flying backwards, into the others rushing up.
Was that Hekastfet’s plan? To force Toru to defend himself and hurt the inhabitants of Scercendusa?
He watched in unhidden fright as stones flew through Moth’s wings, making holes that let the rays of sun shine through. The Sakka were now standing between them and the crowd.
That seemed to give Hekastfet a new life, because the old shell stood from the ground and ran toward Toru, his hands turning into claws, his head growing larger and transforming into multiple tentacles.
“Moth, get down, now,” Duril shouted at the Sakka who was valiantly protecting them.
It was that moment or never. As the crowd ran up, Hekastfet had already turned into a hideous monster. The first people stopped, confused and scared, causing others, who were following closely behind, to crash into them.
Toru shifted into his tiger and slashed through one of the tentacles trying to wrap around his neck. He used his fangs and claws to cut them off one by one, but black tar began pouring from them, flooding the ground.
Duril realized the danger, and not a moment too soon. That dark blood of evil was moving toward the stairs. Hekastfet wanted to infect humans, if he couldn’t fight himself.
The healer began shouting at the people to move back, but they were doing that already, and it wasn’t fast enough. The black blood of Hekastfet had a life of its own, moving with astonishing speed toward the crowd.
And then, a new miracle happened. A wall rose between the wave of tar and the stairs, and Duril stood there, not quite believing his eyes, as he realized that the Sakka had closed in, climbing one of top of the other, standing close together to form that barricade.
Hekastfet’s essence clashed against the wall and receded like an angry tide. It struggled to overcome the barrier, but each time, it was losing its power. The creature Toru was fighting dropped to the ground, lifeless. The young tiger continued to slash through it, until all that remained of it was nothing but pieces of dirty cloth.
All the while, the Sakka’s wall continued to absorb the darkness, until nothing remained. Duril hurried to stop Toru and show him.
Before them, their tiny helpers were covered in black tar, from head to toes.
TBC
Comments
Laura S. Fox
The end of the evil is coming... and the end of the book :)
Dave Kemp
Me, too, Margaret!
MM
Oh my gosh! Turo saved everyone but still has to fight on! This evil just keeps coming. I hope it is destroyed now for good!
