The Åströms' Chronicles: Trapped, Part 4

The sunrise gradually matured, craving to bloom into noon – sharp blades of thickening, more and more vivid sunrays sliced the morning chill, quickly warming the air up.

Brenda walked quickly, almost running, not letting her wound heal completely – even covered with a thick layer of the Fryktelig Uhyreis' blood, it still oozed.

While his own wound had almost disappeared, Varg Åström still felt an overwhelming fatigue – it seemed that the beasts’ blood wasn’t a magic cure, but rather it contained a substance forcing the body to provide extra resources to speed up the healing.

Varg tried not to continue this line of thought, as it would quickly finish with the conclusion that he likely bargained a year of his life for this treatment.

Better than dying today, but still depressing.

"If you keep slowing me down, you're out of the party, human," Brenda glanced back, hissing in irritation.

"Varg. You annoyingly often forget about such a simple deal." Varg smirked, but did his best to catch up with Brenda.

Brenda rolled her eyes at him and just kept moving.

"But I really think it's you who'd better stop pushing yourself to the limit," Varg bent down, crawling under a low tree. "You’ll be of no use to your den if you fall dead upon arrival."

Brenda muttered something unrecognizable but definitely unflattering.

"We're not far." Brenda jumped over a tiny stream and sped up.

Varg winced: Brenda’s wound immediately started oozing twice as much.

"You're freaking bleeding." He tried to hold her by the shoulder, but Brenda easily dodged, jerking her ears in irritation.

"The only thing I know for sure is that if we're not there swift..." Mid-word, Brenda collapsed, her small fur-coated head narrowly missing a sharp rock.

His fatigue vanished into thin air as Varg leapt forward, turned her around, and sighed with relief: he could sense her pulse.

Well, he thought of it as “feeling the life beating through her body,” since nobody had heard of such a thing as a "pulse" at that time.

"Ducking ignorant asshole..." He looked around, trying to figure out what to do next.

***

The eagle pursed her beak, looking at the human and venn – she always knew humans were useless, petty, and overly aggressive shmucks, but this particular venn showed herself no better, letting her emotions control her behavior.

The eagle sighed and closed her eyes – the situation had long since steered out of control, but after the venn collapsed, it became fairly dangerous.

The eagle cleared her mind and let the wind sway her feathers, sunlight gently warm her eyelids, with myriads of scents flooding her senses – the eagle relaxed each of her muscles, merging with the imperfect world around her and letting her mind travel far away and further, spreading like circles on water, finally reaching…

Shit.

The eagle opened her eyes wide and almost fell from the branch she was perched on – instead of telepathic contact with one of the elders, she felt as if she’d hit a freaking wall at full speed.

The eagle even looked around, as if the wall could’ve been real.

The eagle tried again, still fruitlessly – someone ensured nobody was contacting anybody here.

Suddenly, the eagle spotted a movement beneath and exclaimed the worst curse she knew – which sounded like an adorable spring bird song, though.

Well, it seemed that the human had around five minutes left to live.

Ferð – that was the eagle’s name – winced and spread her wings, letting blue sparks fall down, cutting the flow shortly after.

Well, at least her tøkur worked.

Shit, she hated using it, but Ferð was ducked as heck if this human died on her watch.

***

Varg unsheathed his sword, moving his head from side to side, sitting next to Brenda – what he heard was definitely a branch cracking under a foot.

Varg realistically assessed his chances of surviving any fight with both him and Brenda alive as close to “they’re freaked,” so he made the only reasonable decision.

“Help,” Varg slowly put his sword on the ground and stood up, showing his empty hands. “My friend was badly wounded. Whoever you are, I ask for your help.”

Ringing silence engulfed the forest – even the birds stopped singing, only a lonely eagle perched on one of the pines tilted her head, watching attentively.

Crack.

Another branch broke under a foot, much closer this time.

Varg frowned and prepared to use iakkta.

“I’m more than aware you’re here. She has little to no time – if you want to help, help us. If you want something else, then show yourself and we’ll find out who makes it out of here alive,” Varg proclaimed, cringing at how pathetic it sounded.

As if he was a match to even a freaking chipmunk now.

“On your knees, human,” a meowing male voice chimed from one of the bushes.

Varg could swear he felt the moment an arrow was aimed at his heart.

Varg slowly kneeled, keeping his bare hands visible.

“You’ll be dead the moment you move, human,” the voice approached. “Pray to your gods that she survives.”

A tall, cat-like creature, with fur white as virgin snow, and much bigger than Brenda, stepped out from the woods, aiming at Varg with a short bow.

In a second, thunder-like rustling of bushes hit Varg’s ears as at least two dozen venns, all of different size and color, stepped out, at least half of them aiming at Varg with similar bows.

“Now tell me, human,” said the first one, who was obviously their leader, “what are you doing here, and why is the exile with you, on the edge of death?”

“We’re here to help.” Varg did his best to move nothing but his lips. “Brenda…”

An angry murmur spread among the venns like wildfire.

“She would never say her name to a human. The only way you know it, I see, is that you tortured it out of her.” The venns’ leader winced, his gaze mesmerizing Varg no less than the Fryktelig Uhyreis’.

“She did not. A Fryktelig Uhyreis recognized her…” Varg stopped as the murmur among the venns increased.

“A Fryktelig Uhyreis?” the venns’ leader smirked.

“Yes, one of the two Brenda and I killed…”

Thunderous laughter emerged from dozens of throats, with hissing and meowing sounds.

“If you care for Brenda so much, why didn’t you lead her to your human-crawling village to treat her wound?” The venns’ leader spat the word human, leaving no room to wonder how much he despised them.

“I didn’t have a choice.” Varg winced. “She insisted we come here to help you.”

“We don’t need the help of a human and an exile.” The venns’ leader smirked again. “But for such a story — with not one, but two Fryktelig Uhyreises — you will die quickly.”

Two venns – one ginger and one blue – approached Varg, each unsheathing two long knives, oddly resembling the ones Ari Kron used.

“He’s telling the truth.” A melodic voice chimed from above, balancing on the edge between speaking and singing.

Varg immediately forgot about the “not moving” thing and jerked his head up: Ferð slowly descended from above, graciously swaying her wings, with blue sparks falling from them.

The venns looked with awe at the eagle, some even lowering their bows.

“An eftirlitsmaður…” their leader whispered. “I see an eftirlitsmaður…”

“That’s right.” Ferð landed on a mid-height branch and tilted her head, looking at the leader. “And if you don’t listen to this wise and mighty eftirlitsmaður, you will be freaked up as duck, you ignorant stupid arseholes.”