“We can’t just eat beans,” Hax says, like beans are a bad word. “That’s what we had for dinner last night. We can’t eat beans for every meal.”
“We can, and we will, because it’s what we have,” Jilli replies. “Because that’s all that the shopkeeper had. You were there, Hax. They’d been cleaned out.”
“We could supplement the beans with roots, berries, nuts,” Blaize says. “I’d have to go foraging, but I know what we can eat and what we can’t.”
“Good, take Lo,” Jilli says.
Blaize and I both widen our eyes, exchanging a brief uncomfortable look.
“I’ll be quicker and more efficient on my own,” Blaize says.
“I’ll go, if you prefer,” Hax offers, giving her a wide smile. “We can fornicate in the tall grass.”
“Ugh, I can’t believe you said fornicate. I’d rather take the kid.” Hax looked about to comment, but Blaize raised a finger to silence him. “No more perverse comments.”
Somehow he controlled himself.
“Good,” Jilli says. “Hurry back. I’m getting hungry, and we should be on our way before it gets too late.” She doesn’t look up from honing and polishing her zweihander.
I hold back a comment, but I rise from beside the fire Rent is building up. He still looks rough, like he didn’t get any sleep, dark bags under his eyes and a fatigued expression, but I know better. He was passed out the minute we stopped for the night, the minute he was off his feet. Praying for a divine spell to make all of us grow wings and fly over a city wall really wiped him out.
Blaize is quiet as we leave the others, but she doesn’t disappear, and for that I’m grateful.
Mieklo’s tiny nose twitches in the air from my shoulder. He’s interested in this new place too.
Blaize has her knives drawn, so I retrieve mine.
“Are there monsters in the Iron Hills?” I ask.
We’re at the southern edge of them, just far enough from Gallaed to make it a smudge to the south. So I’m getting my first real look at the hills. They live up to their name. They look like normal, rolling grassy hills, except the grass is red. The hills are dotted with dusty red rocks, some of them look slashed open with a giant knife, leaving red scars of iron. The morning dew bleeds down the rocks.
“Monsters are everywhere,” Blaize says quietly. “You should always be on your guard outside of a city.”
“Inside a city too, it seems,” I muse.
Blaize nods and makes a thoughtful noise.
My attempt at conversation fizzles, and we both go back to walking silently. Blaize stays several steps ahead of me.
“Over there,” she says, pointing. “That grassy area looks promising.”
I follow her gesture. Red grass and wildflowers cover the next hill. There are a few trees too. One turns out to be a walnut tree.
“We’re in luck,” Blaize says, and she sounds pleased and even pleasant, though it’s just her and me and this is the most words she’s said in my presence since I joined the group.
I start to gather the walnuts as she continues to scan the grasses and flowers growing around them.
“We’ll collect some dandelion and coneflower.”
“Are those good for eating?” I’ve never eaten flowers before.
“Yes, but they’re more for healing. Both are good for wounds. They’ll make good tea if we dry them, and they’ll keep longer.” She shows me what part to pick and guides me to the youngest flowers. “Older flowers will be more bitter.”
“How did you learn all of this?” I ask as I’m picking dandelions and coneflowers.
“My parents,” she says simply, and I figure she’ll leave it at that, because I’ve already gotten more words out of her than I ever expected. “My father is siofra, and my mother is ciaran.”
“I thought you were an elf?”
Blaize laughs. “Those are both elves, but we don’t call ourselves elves.”
“Oh, no?”
“You may know siofra better as sun elves, and ciaran are moon elves.”
“Those names I know.”
“Yes, those are names given to us by humans, and they’re usually not complimentary.”
“So if you are both, what do you call yourself?” I ask.
“Technically, I am modslach, but elf is just fine. Hax calls me that enough, and I haven’t killed him in his sleep yet.”
I nod. “Modslach is not complimentary either?”
“No, it basically means ‘mutt,’ and that’s wording it nicely.” Her tone changes. “Come here. These purple flowers amaranth. This will make a better breakfast than beans. Maybe Hax won’t grumble so much.” She shows me how to collect the seeds without dislodging them. “You keep collecting these, I’m going up there.”
At first, I think she means to climb the walnut tree for more nuts, but way up in the branches I see a beehive. She can’t mean to–?
A cold shiver ripples down my spine. I freeze and watch, expecting the worst.
The bees do not sting her, not even when she slices away a chunk of honeycomb from their hive. Then she runs straight down the walnut tree, leaping into a somersault to land on her feet as graceful as a cat.
“Wow, how did you do that?” I ask, my mouth hanging open.
“Good balance.” She shrugs as she puts the honeycomb into her jar and tucks it away.
“No, the bees. They didn’t sting you?”
“Oh, no. I promised them I would only take what I needed. They were very accommodating.”
“You talked to the bees?”
“Sort of. They don’t communicate like we do, but I can make them understand. Eh, it’s hard to explain.”
“Like a druid?”
“What’s a druid?” Blaize asks.
I suddenly become self-conscious. “I’ve only read about them. They talk to animals and trees, and they have magic that comes from life.”
Blaize chuckles. “A human who can talk to trees? I think you were reading fiction.”
It had not been a fiction book, but I leave the comment unanswered. Back at camp, the others act like we’ve been gone for hours, leaving them to starve.
“Back off, vultures. We have to clean it and cook it first,” Blaize warns them.
“You could’ve eaten some beans, Hax,” I say.
“Oh, the kid is learning to scratch back,.” The elementalist laughs.
Blaize sets me to work chopping the dandelions and coneflower. The leaves she cooks in one pan, while she tosses water and amaranth seeds into another. She cooks the amaranth until all of the water is absorbed and distributes it between five bowls. She adds honey and walnuts to each.
It’s fascinating to watch her move.
The amaranth has an earthy, nutty flavor, sweet from the honey, with an oily crunch from the walnuts.
I’m so smitten with my breakfast that I completely forget about the flowers I had been cutting up and my small knife beside them.
I hear a strange clicking noise, but I don’t let it interrupt me. My knife falls off the iron stone we’re both sitting on. I reach back to grab it, but my hand brushes something else, something hard and smooth like leather. The clicking gets louder, and I turn.
I come face to face with a giant bug. Its long feathery antennae twitch back and forth, running along the rusty iron stone. I don’t see my knife, but the giant bug is stealing most of my attention.
“Lo, no sudden movements. Marracht aren’t aggressive, but it looks hungry.” Jilli slowly moves her hand over her zweihander.
“Wh-what do they eat?” It definitely looks big enough to eat me. It stands taller than me while I’m sitting.
The marracht seems more interested in investigating the iron rock I’m sitting on. Two mandibles twitch back and forth from its mouth somewhere below all of the chitinous exoskeleton, and it pulls some rust flakes into its mouth. I realize its feathery antennae are turning the surface of the rock to rust.
“Rust,” Jilli answers, but I’ve already figured that out for myself.
I’m relieved it won’t eat me, but then one of its feathery antennae brushes my arm. Immediately, my muscles cramp painfully, spasming beneath the skin right before my eyes.
Blaize tackles me, and we crash to the ground, away from the marracht. We’re away from it, but my arm continues to spasm. Blaize is gone in a blink.
Only then do I realize there’s two of them. The other faces down Jilli, eyeing her zweihander. It moves fast for its size, waving its feathery antennae at the barbarian woman.
“Oh no you don’t,” she says, swinging her sword away from the bug instead of toward it. It follows her movements, then it clicks furiously when ice assaults it from behind. Hax builds another spell as Jilli draws the marracht’s attention back with a wave of her sword.
A flash of light drives the first one back, and it retreats over the rock I had been sitting on. Rent looms large over me on the ground, and he offers me a hand. Once I’m on my feet, I glance around again.
“I don’t know where my knife is.” It’s a stupid thing to say.
“I’m sure the marracht ate it. The steel, it’s what drew them. All this iron,” Rent kicks the ground for emphasis, “and they still come running when they smell processed steel. Stay behind me.”
I’m happy to oblige, without even my small knife to protect myself.
Mieklo clings to my shirt. His tail twitches anxiously along my back.
Rent wields a long walking stick against the giant bug. It doesn’t look strong enough to harm the beast, but it’s not metal, and therefore a worthy weapon.
The marracht skitters forward, flailing its feathery antennae. Rent speaks the words of a prayer, and the stick starts to glow. When the marracht touches it, the stick flares brighter. The marracht clicks furiously and pulls away. It circles and faces us again, and I see one of its antennae is blackened where it touched Rent’s walking stick.
The giant bug is quick to come at Rent again, but the priest is quicker. The walking stick flashes again, and the marracht shakes its antennae as it backs away. It clicks, and the other one clicks back.
Then it runs at Jilli.
The barbarian woman stands her ground. At the last moment, she lowers her sword, bashes the marracht’s antennae out wide with her leather gauntlets, and runs up its head and back. She grips her zweihander in both hands and brings the blade down.
The marracht bucks, and Jilli tumbles off. She tucks her sword to avoid skewering herself and rolls. It’s quite graceful for a spur of the moment move.
The giant bug whirls on her, but Jilli is out of reach when she pops back up to her feet. It skitters at her, but comes to a stop as Blaize appears on top of it, stabbing down with both of her knives and piercing the marracht’s chitinous armor. It clicks and waves its feathery antennae, but they won’t reach behind it. Blaize uses her blades to climb up its back, stabbing with her right, pulling herself forward, stabbing with the left. The marracht is bucking wildly, but it can’t dislodge her. Blaize reaches between its two antennae and stabs down into its head.
The marracht’s legs shudder, and it collapses.
The other marracht, the one facing down Rent with its singed antennae, decides it’s had enough and flees, skittering away into the tall grass and over a lump of iron.
Blaize leaps down from the slain marracht. Her face and blades are splattered with greenish guts.
Hax gives a slow clap and walks over the dead bug. “Well done.” He plants one foot on the marracht’s head. “No more worries about our next meal, folks. Bug is on the menu now.”
“Ew, why would we eat a bug?” I ask.
“Are you kidding? Marracht is a delicacy. There are people who would pay a lot of money for this thing.”
“Well, too bad for us,” Jilli says. “We hardly have the time to butcher and cook it, Hax.”
“What? No, we can’t leave it! Rent! Tell her!”
Rent sighes. “It is quite good. It would be a shame to leave it to waste.”
Jilli rolls her eyes. That’s when I knew Hax had already won.
~ * ~
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Wow - not typically my genre, but I am so impressed. Favorite part: talking with the bees.