Minotaur: Prayer: The Bestial Tribe Page 5

  “So have I!”

  “Is that so? What have you killed, little hag? Be cautious of what you say, lest I hear lies coating your tongue.” He watched her closely, looking for any involuntary twitch to give her secret away.

  Her eyes hardened. “I once came upon a sleeping centaur resting near Prayer and slit his throat. My thralls dragged its corpse back to feed me and mine for a fortnight. I poisoned the waterways leading through a hobgoblin clan and wiped them out within hours. They vomited up their organs.”

  “And have you ever looked something in the eye before dealing out such a fate?”

  “I have looked many things in the eyes,” she stated.

  “But you have not seen death. Not you. You can see it for a second, in their eyes, right before they fall. The fate you have given them, the hopelessness of the moment, and all because you took it in your hands.”

  She searched his face. “I am stating the truth.”

  His grip on her shoulder tightened. “Then kill your enemies and release me. You have one last chance before I kill your thralls. Do it now or lose everything you have. I may not be able to harm you directly but there are other ways. There are always other ways.”

  Calavia’s eyes widened before narrowing at his threat. She’d known the risk of bringing him here, but just because her magic was weakening did not mean she was completely without power. Threats against those under her protection could not go unanswered.

  She reached behind her for her bowl full of hot wax and threw the contents in the minotaur’s face. The bloodcurdling battlescream he released hurt her ears. She shoved away from him and fled behind her altar. She picked up her knife and broke off another clump of wax as he swiped his face clean.

  “One more threat to those under my care and I will make you go blind!” she screeched.

  The minotaur’s eyes were now red with darkness and smoke as he looked back at her, eyelashes and eyebrows already clumping together with wax as she held up her knife. He rubbed his mouth, glaring, heaving furious breaths.

  They stood at odds for several tense minutes, neither making a move, both ready to attack. His horns were coated in a grey, waxen sheen.

  “Are you certain you can say your pretty spell before I strike?” he asked.

  “I don’t need to say anything. My wax is already upon you.”

  Some of the strain left the minotaur’s body. “You use wax as your source,” he said thoughtfully. “My mother was a witch. She had an affinity for bones.”

  “Your mother was a witch?”

  Within the next instant, his fist slammed onto the table between them, knocking off her candles and cracking the stone face. Calavia drew back in shock as she saw her altar split straight down the middle. It had survived for over a hundred years without so much as a chip.

  The minotaur leaped over it as she stood stunned and grabbed her, knocking her knife and wax from her hands. A scream tore from her throat as he pressed her against the crumbling wall behind it and covered her mouth with one of his hands. “My mother was a witch.”

  He blocked out the rest of the world from her view. There was only him now in her vision. Calavia tried to turn her head as he leaned closer, but he kept her still.

  “Oh she was,” he continued. “A terrible, brutal human female from the sunlight realm of Savadon. Long ago, my sire, one of the greatest warriors my tribe has ever known, traveled from the deadlands and captured her from the wall as if she had called for him directly, as if her will could only be matched by his. There are hags, and then there are witches. You do not know what I am capable of.”

  His hand loosened over her mouth as he lowered his face closer until he was staring directly into her eyes. The tips of his horns menacingly flanked the sides of her head. She pressed herself as far back as she could but found she had nowhere else to go. He filled every inch of the space.

  Her own anger rose as he continued to stare at her. He did not hurt her, he could not, but she was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. The air between them heated, and sweat slickened her skin. She tried to breathe, but each exhalation against his hand only increased the temperature.

  Why is he not moving?

  It was becoming too much. She was rarely touched to begin with, and another living being had not held her so closely since she was a child.

  Calavia parted her mouth under his palm and bit him—hard.

  He snatched his hand back with startled yowl but quickly wrapped it around her throat. She inhaled sharply.

  “And you do not know what I am capable of, minotaur,” she said, searching for the cool swamp breeze to calm her feverish skin, but with every inhalation, she was more desperate to put distance between them.

  “You’re a comely little thing,” the minotaur said suddenly, squeezing her neck lightly. “It has been so long since I had a female in such a position.”

  Calavia swallowed and slipped her hands between them, pushing at the bull’s giant chest. “Let me go and it may not be the last time,” she hissed.

  His muscles tensed under her fingers. “Ah, so my freedom can be won, or are you suggesting something else?”

  Knots formed in her belly. The mere mention of the idea was a wicked thing even for her. “Your freedom can be won.”

  “For a few dead centaurs.” He squeezed her neck a little more, his rough fingers rubbing the side of her throat.

  For a hundred dead centaurs. She nodded without correcting him. “Yes.”

  He leaned in, crowding her further, making the knots in her belly crazed. “A few dead centaurs is it.” His nostrils flared as he moved in and inhaled just behind her ear. Her hair fluttered.

  Fear of being found out made her press hard against the wall. “Yes, and protection.”

  “And?” he asked softly.

  Her knees locked. “My lands now border your own. The quickest path down from the mountains and toward the labyrinth wall are between our lands. I propose an alliance.”

  “Astegur.”

  “What?”

  “My name is Astegur Bathyr, third bull to the great Steelslash Bathyr and human witch Amia, first of her name. Killer of giants, killer of centaurs, decimator of the undead hordes of the deadlands and slayer of hobgoblins. I have hacked the tail off the great sea serpent, Arcetros, and rendered it immobile. I am the master of tactics for my brothers and the finder of knowledge. Wielder of flame breath, and user of battleaxes. And what are you, small female, that you think you have the right to live through this meeting? What have you done?”

  “I captured you.”

  The minotaur drew back, his eyes bright with malicious contempt. “Yes. And now you are mine to take from this world.” He tensed his muscles and pinned her with his hard, angry eyes, exerting violence and testing her courage.

  She waited, throat tight, for him to do something but all he did was stare back at her. She bit down hard on her tongue and held his furious gaze, testing his courage as well.

  She was about to force her mouth open to break the boiling tension when he stepped back and turned away, storming out of her room and down the passageway.

  His abrupt departure didn’t lessen the tension but made it worse. Now that she knew what she was up against, a chilling strain formed in her gut. When she looked up to follow his retreating back, he was already out of sight.

  Calavia sagged against the wall, the joints in her knees buckling. She raised her fingers and rubbed her neck where his hand had been, disturbed by the warmth that remained there from his touch. She did not consider her will to be weak, but compared to his, it very well could be. He could have broken her neck in one swift motion but hadn’t. Even she didn’t think her magic was fast enough to stop it from happening if he had tried.

  She caressed her aching neck, cupping it gently.

  But if he had tried…it would have killed him too. Calavia sagged further against the wall and hoped it would never come to that.

  Chapter Six

  Astegur clenched his fist
s. He strode from the temple ripping fallen vines in his wake. When he stepped out into Prayer and back into the mist, he inhaled deeply, fighting off the urge to let loose the berserk rage within him, the fire that wanted to be released. To let his body grow, to gore the very heart of Prayer with his horns, and walk out of this bleak place once and for all.

  His tendons were taut, his muscles strained. Veins threatened to pop out from his flesh as he squeezed his hands once more. They ached for his axe, but he denied them.

  Prayer’s hag did this to me. His hooves sank into the mud as he went straight for the broken-down house at the farthest edge of the settlement. Only distance and fresh air would calm him. Only the exertion of battle. But there was nothing here for him to fight that would not bring him to his knees in pain.

  She did this to me. He breathed in the lush scents of wet wood and new growth, trying to cleanse the female from his system, and the violent frustration flowing through him. Her witchy scent caught his nose.

  That smell. Calavia’s smell was unusual. The female smelled like everything else that lingered too long in the labyrinth, she smelled like him, his brothers, and all that he had come to know, but there was something else, something very human about her scent, and it wasn’t the citric aroma that often accompanied magic-users. Astegur couldn’t place it. She’s not human.

  If she was, he would know. His brothers would know. She would already belong to them.

  If they knew there was a lone female so close to their lands, there would have been nothing stopping them from claiming her first. She would have been a gift from the God queen, the very moon itself, and she would be heavily pregnant with child.

  The idea momentarily stopped him, but he shook his head and sliced the mist with his horns. The Bathyr had made a pact. After they left their tribe, they vowed to stake out a place near the labyrinth wall and procure pure human brides. The human blood had all but been bred out of the minotaurs they left behind in the deadlands, weakening them so vastly that their minds had twisted. They had blamed Amia, his mother, for their weakness, but it was their own inability to remain strong that ruined them.

  He swiped at his nose as he ducked into the dwelling he had claimed as his own. There was nothing left but stone and several rotted pieces of wood. There wasn’t even a roof over his head, but it was as far from the hag as he could get. It was where he kept his satchels.

  Astegur growled; the female’s scent continued to plague him. He knelt to pick through his pack. He removed the last of his rations and quickly ate them, not bothering to heat them up first to make a proper meal. He would need to forage food on the morrow.

  His hands still ached to slam his weapon over and over into a wall, or better yet, a willing opponent. Calavia’s face would not fall from his skull.

  My help for freedom. The very idea of bending to someone’s will disgusted him.

  He settled his right hand over his weapon’s hilt and shook.

  Kill centaurs for release. Killing the horsebeasts did not bother him although his kind and centaurs had never truly warred. They had the same outlook on the world. Their histories aligned in a similar way. Their differences were not because they were either horses or bulls, but their inherent need for companionship. Centaurs, when they attacked, were greatest in groups, their tribes were built to accompany such a notion, nearly everything was shared in some way. Food. Mates. The upbringing of young. Whereas minotaurs—although they tribalized—were nomadic loners. They did not share mates nor young. Food being the only exception.

  But if what the hag said was true, the centaurs were only gathering in her lands because of his brother. Vedikus was not one to care nor rely on others, not even his own blood. Astegur found himself believing all that Calavia had told him, and his anger festered. Once Prayer fell, there was nothing stopping the centaur legion to the south from infiltrating the Bathyr’s borders and threatening their domain.

  It didn’t matter if the centaurs could not climb the rocky slopes. If the horde established itself in the wetlands, it would make traveling and conquering the land that much harder. The swamps between the labyrinth wall and the barrier lands, the mountains west, and the ocean and waterways south, to the forests north, could not be taken easily if they were already occupied by another tribe.

  Vedikus…what have you done?

  Astegur squeezed his axe’s shaft harder. Prayer just happened to be in the wrong spot.

  She will regret the day she placed a spell over me. His eyes glazed over as he thought about what he would do to the hag the moment he broke free. He saw his hands grasping her dark hair, yanking it away from her pale face, and her eyes widening involuntarily. A small gasp would escape her lips. All of her wax, all of her source, would drown in the water of the swamp, where it would be forever ruined and far from her grasp.

  He’d tighten his hold upon her, and leave his mark forever on her moonkissed flesh. He’d pull her close as he leaned in so she’d see nothing else but him as he struck her down… He wanted to own her last glance, her last burst of emotion, her final expression when it happened. She owed him that.

  But in his skull, he saw himself pressing his nose to her neck and breathing in her scent. Instead of bringing the female to her knees and making her a slave to his will, he pictured her eyes closing shut, and the strange smell of her drifting into him.

  Filling him up, gripping his loins, hardening him only to make him burst.

  Water splashed his face, breaking the trance. Astegur looked up at the sky, feeling his body loosen up from the riotous tension intent on sending him beyond control. Small silver drops of rain fell over his brow and cheeks, down his neck and over his chest, washing his wayward thoughts away. He stood up on his hooves and kicked his bags into the corner where there was a small amount of shelter and let the sky water cleanse him.

  The hag’s scent went with it.

  He did not know how long he stood there, letting the rain drench his body, but it wasn’t until he was fully soaked, straight down to the fur on his legs, that thunder filled his ears. He turned from the bruising sky to look out over the marsh and the green orbs of light throughout.

  Something’s out there. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the landscape.

  He moved toward the edge of his dwelling to get a better look, blinking the water from his eyelashes. In the distance, stood a lone woman, the same one he had seen after killing the centaurs. Her dress was plastered to her frail body, but he could not make out her features. He innately knew she was the same female thrall the hag claimed him from.

  Lightning flashed, lighting her up for a brief moment, and his gaze filled with blood. Ruby red blood that drenched her sodden dress all the way down past the reeds she stood within. When the lightning ended, he blinked and she was no longer there.

  Astegur stared out into the rain and mist, searching, but the thrall was gone, and for the first time since he was a calf at his mother’s side, an unease with the world filled his gut. He turned away with an annoyed grunt and moved to where his bags lay and sat beside them, leaning against the frigid stone.

  The reason I smell human blood is because of Vedikus and his human prize. They were here not that long ago. He convinced himself that was it, and that any thoughts of possessing one such as the hag was an effect from his healing and weakened state. It was with thoughts of her in his head, and the pounding thunder in his ears, that he closed his eyes.

  He awoke the next morning to find the storm gone from the skies and the splash of slow footfalls as the thralls began their day. Astegur rubbed his face and checked that his satchels and weapons were still beside him. The rain had washed away the remaining blood and mud upon his skin and he relished the simple pleasure of being clean, even if his wounds itched and pulled his flesh taut with scabs.

  His ears pricked with the sound of a voice.

  “Nethis, gather the wood that has been displaced by the storm.”

  Astegur rose quietly to his hooves and found Calavia several
huts away speaking to a thrall that must have once been a boy.

  “Bring it to the storage room,” she said to a creature that could not even hold its head up. When the boy meandered away and aimlessly wandered toward the outskirts to pick up his first piece of wood, his curiosity piqued.

  He checked his axe and stepped from his camp to follow the thrall.

  One by one, the boy picked up the broken pieces of settlement and gathered it in the crook of his arm, and when he could not hold anymore, he turned for the center of Prayer. Astegur followed the thrall to the steps and watched until he vanished inside, only to return shortly after with his arms empty.

  Another thrall, one much older, breezed past him and into the temple carrying an armload of mossrock. He had never seen a thrall do anything more than defend itself and wander the lands without purpose. To see one understand commands and then perform them was something entirely new.

  A third thrall stumbled up the stone steps with its arms filled with purple berries and roots.

  Astegur stepped into the shadows of the building and watched as Calavia approached each thrall in turn and gave them an order. The only thrall missing was the woman who looked just like her.

  So this is how she survives. He had spent the majority of the day before trying to escape, missing information that could be vital for his brothers. When the hag moved away from the last thrall, he made up his mind.

  If the centaurs were coming, Prayer was as good as any place to make a stand.

  * * *

  She knew Astegur was watching her.

  “Mitos, I need you to walk the edges of Prayer and be my eyes today,” she told the once elderly man. She only ever sent the eldest to risk their lives on her behalf.

  When the thrall staggered away in the opposite direction of her, Calavia swallowed hard, knowing she may have to face the minotaur’s wrath once again. Last night’s storm was a mirror of his mood since she’d compelled him to come to her, and she had stayed awake in vigil so he did not bring the storm to her directly.