Chapter 31: Chapter 31: Unlikely Partners

Chapter 31: Unlikely Partners

The annual tribute ceremony. Before, I was unsettled by it, but didn't rise my voice. After all, if you are not going to step in for the sacrifices, you better be silent, least you join them.

But now, as I am strapped on a bloody slab of stone, I really wish for someone to rise their voice. I look at the faces of my neighbors, of people whom I used to call friends. I'd beg for them to let me go, if it wasn't for the gag in my mouth.

"Goodbye, Jack," Alath, my neighbor, says. Patting my shoulder three times, as if it is the high of kindness. "Well, think about it that way: at least, you don't leave behind any family."

Alath, come on, untie me. I brought you soup and water when you were sick. Come on!

Alath can't read minds, so he and the rest left. I wiggle in the bonds. Trash around to the best of my ability. The stone is digging into my back. Is this going to be my end?

When the sun sets, and I have rope burns on my wrists and ankles, I finally see it. A shadow, below a tree. It has horns. I know who this is, even when my mind races to try to lie to me.

Balon…

The forest terror…

Deity of the Bronze Gate Village…

Well, this was it. Now, I am going to end up eaten. Please, if you hear me, you monster, snap my neck before you bury your snout in my entrails. Oh, if someone is listening…

"If you really want mercy, you should be more polite when asking," comes the guttural sound from up the tree. My bonds don't allow for me to look up. Yet, I don't need to. Balon is before me, a clawed hand on my cheek. He is not like what the paintings in the ritual building depict him as.

I guess that if someone is entitled to be handsome, then it is the great terror himself. His caramel skin is complimented by silver-blonde hair. His red eyes shine in the gloom.

His body is covered in a gambeson, and not leather. Huh, just what use is a gambeson on something, which can tear gates with its bare hands?

"Hey, don't refer to me as an it. You will swear me off my meal," with a gentle flick of his wrist, he removes the gag. I move my tongue in my mouth, trying to get rid of the taste of dirt and sweat, that the gag left behind. The taste of desperation.

"What do you want? For me to sing, while you eat my heart?" I snap at him. Maybe, if I piss him off enough, he would snap my neck. Or, he would start with the heart. At any rate, I will die quicker.

"Is this what you wish? Any song you sing me will be more of a scream. Now, before you snark at me some more, I have a proposal for you," I snap my mouth shut.

 Once the great terror of the forest speaks, you could only wait. Or, well, it is surprising just how much of you can be eaten, with you still surviving. I try not to think about Jeff, who used to be a baker, and had his throat slit, out of pity.

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"Good boy," I resist the urge to narrow my eyes at him. Just who does he think he is?

A God…

"I need a custodian. My place is becoming a dump, and I require someone to clean after me," he tells me. I blink up at him. Wait, doesn't he live up a tree? "What do you say, Jack?"

He knows my name. This is no proposal.

"If this is your wish, my lord," I tell him, and then he unties me. He has to help me up from the stone because my limbs simply don't listen to me, anymore.

"You'll like the place. Apart from all the dust bunnies, it is still a castle," the forest demon tells me, as he leads me. We enter a clearing. A gigantic meadow, which spans to all sides. The forest god takes a hold of my hand, and snaps his fingers.

The meadow becomes even larger, and we end up before walls. Thick and massive, gray as grief. Just how many people had to die, to build this?

"No one died. I had it made way back when. Built it with my own two hands. Jack, you are being way more dramatic, than you should be. Hm, I suppose that this place is too much for you to clean alone, so, how about this? You clean only the family wing, where the two of us will live? The rest can be straight out of nightmares, for all I care," with this, the forest terror knocks on the wall, and a gate appears.

This is no normal castle, it seems. I wonder, with more than a little fear, if we are even in the human realm, still.

"Why didn't you…" I snap my mouth shut. I should not rile him up now, that my survival hangs in the balance.

"Why didn't I what, Jack?" He asks me, and I blink back the bitterness, that is pooling in my eyes. I still remember her. Pretty as a spring morning, with sunlight in her hair. Gone with the priest, but never forgotten.

"Why didn't you offer this to any of the other sacrifices?" I ask suddenly. She deserves justice, but I can only give her an answer. Oh, my poor sister.

"There is this thing with people leaving other people strapped to a stone. Wild animals can, and do, get to them," he tells me with a shrug.

 My eyes widen. I stare at his mouth, and he indulges me, by opening it. His teeth are just that, even if his canines are a bit pointier than normal human ones.

I want to ask him why didn't he come and untie any of the sacrifices. How come he let this crime against the people of the village continue? But I am a coward. Besides, he knows it all. After all, he can read thoughts.

Beginning of the Unlikely Partners Arc.  

 

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