“Halt!”
Thyodon reined his horse to a stop upon the loud order from Captain Commander Juni. He pulled his fur coat tighter around him to ward off the cold air. He fumbled with the buttons, his gloves making it difficult to work with them. He wished he could remove the gloves but this far north, a minute in the cold would freeze his hand blue. That usually led to amputation and he did not want to lose neither his hands, nor his digits on them.
The air was still; no wind was blowing. That, and the fact that Juni had an exceptionally loud voice, were the only reasons the small squad were able to hear her despite thick woollen muffs covering their ear.
For some reason, despite being exposed all the time to the biting cold, their face and nose never turned blue. It was, however, hard and coarse, unlike the southerners, who had smooth and soft skin on their plump pink faces.
He watched as Commander Juni lifted her head and closed her eyes. She seemed to be using her famed ‘sniffing’ technique.
People talked about how feral Commander Juni sometimes acted. It was said her eyes sometimes glinted yellow at night and that she could see farther than the sharpest archer in the Brimmond army. There were rumours about her teeth, how her incisors were sharp like a wolf’s. Others swore they had seen her lash at the enemy with her nails like a cat would.
She never said anything about those rumours floating around. It seemed she did not care. And nobody dared talk to her about it either. She was the fiercest commander of the Brimmond army. Even the army general was afraid of her, it was said, as was the Lord of Brimmond. That was her reputation.
Sometimes Thyodon wondered if she might be the reincarnation of Faina, the Goddess of Animals, herself. He wouldn’t be surprised if Commander Juni stared down a large mountain lion and made it do her bidding.
Commander Juni suddenly turned her horse and rode it off the road, into the pine forest through the thick snow. She motioned for the others to follow her.
The squad of a dozen soldiers followed their commander in silence. Except for the sound of their horse’ hooves crunching on the hardened snow, there was no sound. Not even a bird chirped.
It’s winter, Thyodon reminded himself. All the birds would have migrated south where it’s warmer. Of course there are no birds chirping.
But the silence unnerved him nonetheless. He might not have minded riding in silence out there on the main road which animals usually avoided but here, in the thick of the forest, sparse though it was, the silence was maddening.
A horse came close to his. Riding on it as Beldyen, one of the best swordswoman Thyodon knew.
“What do you think the Captain Commander found?” she asked in a voice that was loud enough for him to hear but low enough so that others rode oblivious of what Beldyen had just asked him.
“I don’t know. Last time it was refugees. This time though, I don’t think so. Bandits? She wouldn’t worry about wild animals,” Thyodon replied.
Beldyen chuckled. “Not when she herself is like one.” Then she grew serious. “You’re right. There would be no refugees this far north. And certainly no wild animals. I suppose it is bandits then.”
“Yes, that’s what I think too.”
“Is your sword sharpened?”
“I always sharpen it when I get time. Do you think we might run into trouble?”
“Commander Juni just led us off track into the forest in this remote northern region of Brimmond. There most certainly will be trouble.”
Thyodon nodded. Beldyen’s logic was sound. Their Captain Commander had an important document to deliver to Fort Halden up North. She would never have gone off track if not for something important. Anything that had gotten her attention, and he did not know how, must be dangerous or worth investigating.
They presently came to the edge of the pine forest. A few distance away was a cliff with a sheer drop. Falling from that height would mean certain death. Thyodon watched as Juni rode her horse to the very edge and peered down the cliff. A moment later, she motioned for others to do the same.
Riding his horse as close to the edge as he dared, and careful not to push the others to risk anyone falling off the cliff, he looked down. He saw it immediately. Against the blinding white snow, the colour blood was a stark contrast.
At the base of the cliff was a small clearing. Four tents had been set up in the clearing, the white colour of it blending in with the snow. In the middle of the clearing lay a body, a bloody gaping hole in its chest. White ribs were broken and splayed across the chest like a ghoulish skeletal flower.
Thyodon heard cursing from his fellow soldiers. Beside him, Beldyen was staring at the grisly sight below with a grim face. Looking up at his Captain Commander, he thought he saw her eyebrows twitch ever so slightly into a frown that lasted only a moment.
“What do we do Captain?” asked a moustached soldier. His name was Vorn and he was the most senior of all the soldiers.
“Soldiers, draw your swords!” Juni shouted. In one swift motion, she had her own sword out of its sheath. The deadly steel that had slain so many glinted in the sun. “We are going bokshi hunting.”
The soldiers murmured.
Bokshi?
Wasn’t it a monster of fables mothers told their children? Thyodon pondered. He remembered his mother telling him tales of bokshi that came at night to take naughty children. It was just a scare tactic used to discipline children.
“They will appear as haggard old women, dressed in rags,” Juni continued, as if oblivious to the sceptical looks the soldiers gave her. “Don’t let their assumed frailty fool you. They are easily as strong as a large black bear.”
None of the soldiers questioned her. They may be sceptical but they knew their Captain Commander to never speak fabricated tales. Besides, there was that dead body at the base of the cliff. None of them knew of any wild animal that killed their victims in such a grotesque manner. A mountain lion would aim for the throat. A mountain bear would maul its victim’s face and tear out its intestines. And neither would leave their kill behind like that.
They could not provide a reasonable explanation for the corpse. So, when Commander Juni provided one, even if it was a creature from stories, they did not question her.
Thyodon unsheathed his sword. Beside him, Beldyen did the same. Others already had their naked swords ready in their hands.
“If you see one, do not engage alone if possible. Call for aid,” Juni continued. “Vorn, make four groups of three people and send the group in different directions to investigate. Go with one of them.”
Vorn nodded and started shouting commands to the squad.
“A bokshi can only be killed by stabbing it in the heart. And its heart,” Juni pointed to her neck, “is up here. Not in its chest.”
Thyodon nodded, absorbing all the information. Aim for the neck of the bokshi. Avoid engaging alone. Call for aid.
“What about you Captain?” Beldyen asked suddenly. “What group will you go in?”
Thyodon suddenly realized that, Vorn included, there were exactly four groups with three members each. In his group were Beldyen and Merya, who had been the newest soldier in the group until Thyodon had joined in two missions ago. Commander Juni was the only one left.
“Oh, I’m not going in any group,” Juni said. A faint smile crept to her face and her teeth showed just barely. Was he imagining it or were those incisors of her really sharp? “I’m hunting alone.”
They found a path that lead down the cliff safely on their horses. It was better that they had their horses, Commander Juni had said, as it would make it easier to engage with the bokshi.
“I don’t understand,” Thyodon voiced as he investigated the abandoned camp with Beldyen and Merya. “First, she tells us not to engage the bokshi alone and then she goes off on her own.”
“She cares about us,” Beldyen said. “She doesn’t want any of us hurt under her command.”
Thyodon opened his mouth but Beldyen cut him off. “As for the fact that she went alone, she’s always been that way. And she’s always come back. Have you heard of the skirmish of Valden?” she asked.
“Yes, I know the tale. Five of you against twenty pirates,” Thyodon replied.
“Seventeen, actually. And what you may not know is that four of us, including Vorn, fought only six of the pirates. Captain Commander fought and defeated the other eleven pirates on her own.”
“That sounds too fantastical,” Merya chimed in.
“Well, it’s true. Vorn and Keldi fought two each while me and Lidorn fought one each. We had barely managed to defeat our opponents, each of us full of cuts and bruises when the Captain came to retrieve us covered in blood. She had duelled and killed eleven pirates alone.”
Thyodon had heard tales of Captain Juni’s exploits. Coupled with her reputation, they sounded completely plausible. Yet, try as he could, he found it difficult believe stories of her single-handedly defeating so many adversaries.
“Still, I don’t like that she went alone. Especially after warning us like that,” Thyodon said. He continued searching around the camp. After a while, he strode out to the corpse that lay in the middle of the camp.
He knelt down to examine the corpse. It was that of a man and his chest was completely hollow. No lungs. No heart. It was as if it had been torn out and taken away.
“Makes you reconsider, doesn’t it?” Merya said over his shoulder, looking at the corpse herself. “Reconsider the stories about bokshi.”
“The stories have to come from somewhere,” Beldyen commented from inside one of the tent. She was rummaging through a bag she had found inside. “Perhaps the bokshi are some kind of ape-like wild animal that just like to eat the lungs and heart of the victims. It sounds just fantastical enough to be turned into a scary myth.”
“Perhaps,” Thyodon agreed.
Nearby, the horses neighed and shook their head. They seemed nervous. Thyodon looked out at the forest before him. The other three groups had gone in three different directions while Juni alone had ventured after the trail of blood she’d found in the snow.
Before he’d gone, Vorn had tasked Beldyen’s group with staying behind at the camp they’d discovered and see if they could find anything useful. There was a chance the bokshi might return to the camp, Juni had said. A part of Thyodon wished he was out searching in the forest but he couldn’t argue against his Captain Commander’s logic. She seemed to know much about these bokshi, whether they existed or not notwithstanding.
Besides, for some reason he felt safer here in the camp. He would rather face a bokshi here than out there in the forest. He held his sword in his right hand, unsheathed and ready.
To his left, he watched as Merya strode into the third tent, moving aside the white snow laden flap. She emerged quickly, holding a brass cuirass in her hands.
“Look at this,” she said, holding it up for Thyodon and Beldyen to see. “I found this in a chest inside there.” She pointed her thumb at the tent she’d just entered and exited.
Beldyen walked over to Merya and placed a palm on the cuirass. Her hand lingered on the engraving in the middle of the brass plate.
“I’ve never seen this symbol before,” she commented.
“Looks like a sigil,” Thyodon said, peering at the symbol.
“Yes, but of what? This is certainly not Brimmond’s sigil and none of the other five kingdoms have this as their sigil either?”
“Perhaps some noble house in one of the kingdoms,” Merya suggested, setting down the armour with a huff. “The chest has the rest of the set if you’re interested.”
“Let’s see what’s inside the last tent first,” Thyodon said. He walked to the fourth tent and pushed aside the flap, letting the snow drop to the ground. A man, eyes wide in frenzy, jumped at him, knocking them both out of the tent and onto the cold hard ground. Thyodon’s sword flew out of his arm as his body hit the floor, the sound muffled by his thick fur coat.
The man screamed something, a dagger in his hand. He raised it but paused when he noticed Thyodon’s face, confused.
The man was suddenly tackled by Beldyen. Thyodon’s vision swam as Beldyen’s foot accidentally hit him on the temple as she took the man’s weight off of Thyodon. As he waited for his head to clear, he could hear Beldyen grunt as she wrestled with the strange man. A figure ran past him; Merya had joined Beldyen.
Reaching for his sword, he used it for support as he stood up. His head throbbed where Beldyen had unwittingly kicked him; the sole of the boots they wore were made out of tough hide and very hard.
“Who are you?” he could hear Beldyen yell.
She was sitting atop the man, a knife on his throat. Merya knelt on the ground opposite her, holding down the man’s arms.
“I said, who are you?” Beldyen yelled again, louder.
The man muttered something.
“What?” Beldyen asked.
The man said something again, bewilderment plain on his face.
“What’s he saying?” Merya asked.
“I don’t know,” Beldyen answered. “I don’t think he’s speaking Brimmish.”
“Do you understand me?” she asked again, switching to the common tongue.
The man looked at Beldyen, then at Merya, then at Thyodon, then back at Beldyen. He said something again, probably repeating what he had said before.
“I don’t think he speaks the common tongue either,” Thyodon commented.
“I think one of the words he just said was bokshi,” Merya said.
The man’s head jerked at Merya.
“Bokshi?” Merya asked again.
The man nodded.
Beldyen pointed at the corpse that lay in the center of the camp. “Bokshi?”
The man nodded slowly, eyeing the dead body with fear.
“Well, at least he understands that,” Merya said. “Maybe he’s too shocked with whatever happened to be able to talk properly. I mean, who doesn’t understand the common tongue?”
“Let’s tie him up,” Beldyen said. “Merya, see if you can find some rope or cloth we can use in that chest you found.”
Merya nodded. “Thyodon, would you hold – watch out!”
Thyodon felt a strong tug on the hood of his fur coat. Before he could react, he found himself in the air, flying backwards.
Bokshi, he thought, eyeing the frail and wrinkled figure that had thrown him backwards, before he crashed into a tree and lost consciousness.
“Bokshi!” the man screamed loudly and clearly.
Beldyen threw herself aside in time to avoid the bokshi that had leapt towards her.
No, not towards her.
Towards the man.
The bokshi looked like a frail old woman, with skin wrinkled all over her skinny, bony body. She had thin wisps of grey hair on her head that flowed down to her waist. She wore a rag below her waist while her torso was completely topless. Her breasts, like dried raisins, hung limply on her chest. The only sign of jewellery on the bokshi was a golden cuff covering her neck.
Her neck, Beldyen thought, where her heart is supposed to be.
The bokshi had her neck protected. Beldyen muttered a curse.
The bokshi raised her hand, ready to strike the terrified man. Her blow was intercepted by Merya who grunted as steel met flesh; or rather bone since there was a loud clang and Merya let her sword drop as her hand throbbed from the recoil. The bokshi hissed in anger at Merya, letting out a guttural sound with a snarl on her face, for having interrupted her.
Beldyen swung her own sword, aiming for the head. The sword struck, again with a loud clang, and Beldyen winced as the weapon reverberated painfully in her hand. The bokshi’s skull was thick and hard.
The bokshi keeled back, stunned by the blow to her head. As quick as she had fallen, she was back on her feet. But the damage had been done; the man had scampered away when the bokshi had fallen off of him, yelling something indecipherable. Beldyen threw a dagger to the man who grabbed it eagerly and stood up, facing the bokshi together with Beldyen and Merya, albeit shaking visibly from fright. Beldyen doubted the man would be any useful with or without the dagger but she would not leave him unable to defend himself.
The three stared at the bokshi, weapon raised while the bokshi looked at each of them in turn, her face twisted in anger and spit dribbling down the corner of her mouth. For the first time Beldyen noticed her eyes. They were completely white, like marble, with a black dot in the center. The eyes shifted their focus on her and she shifted under its cold, hard gaze.
“Her neck is covered. How do we kill her?” Merya asked.
The three humans were slowly circling around the bokshi on the snow. Beldyen thought hard, trying to come up with a strategy quickly.
Attacking her limbs is useless, she thought. The bones on that bokshi were hard as stone. Their swords would break before they could hew through the bokshi’s arms or legs.
“Try reaching to her neck through the mouth,” Beldyen said. “I will swing first while you try to get to her heart through the mouth. If that fails, you swing and I’ll try.”
Merya nodded. “Now!” she hissed as soon as the bokshi’s gaze fell on the man.
Both of them leapt at the bokshi. The bokshi growled in surprise and backed away. Beldyen raised her sword and swung, making it seem as if she were aiming for the bokshi’s shoulder. The bokshi raised its hand to stop her – and Beldyen spun, moving the sword away. Going around in a circle, she aimed for the bokshi’s side instead. She hoped that the bokshi had only flesh there; she could at least wound the creature that way.
The sword whizzed through the air, carried by its own momentum. To her surprise, the bokshi caught her sword mid-swing, inches away from her side.
She’s fast! Beldyen thought. And incredibly strong.
The force behind the sword was great; a man would have been cleaved in two by it. And yet, the bokshi had caught it as if it were nothing. Commander Juni had not been lying when she had said that the bokshi was as strong as a large black bear.
With her other hand, the bokshi intercepted Merya’s attack.
No, Commander Juni was wrong. This bokshi was far stronger than a large black bear.
The bokshi spun on her feet, still clutching the two blades. Beldyen realized too late that she had been gripping her sword tightly. The bokshi’s spin tossed her and she collided into the man that had been standing uncertainly behind her. Merya, meanwhile, got tossed onto a tent. Ropes snapped and the tent collapsed, burying her in cloth and snow.
Beldyen began shouting in concern for her fellow soldier but her scream got cut short by the bokshi kicking her in the chest and sending her flying away. Beldyen gasped in pain and surprise, her voice caught in her throat. She had felt her ribs break from the kick. She landed hard on the frozen ground and only grunts of pain escaped her mouth. Her mouth tasted blood.
The bokshi started for her. Beldyen tried to crawl away but the creature was on her in an instant. The bokshi grabbed Beldyen’s head from the back and slammed it down on the ground. Her head exploded in pain and she saw nothing but white. Before the pain could abate, it was compounded as the bokshi slammed her head on the ground again.
Beldyen struggled weakly, the strength drained from her body. Her ears were ringing, and her head throbbed with pain. She futilely reached behind her head with her hands trying to free her head from the bokshi’s grip. But the bokshi’s grip was strong and she could do nothing as the bokshi raised her head, ready to slam it down once more.
Beldyen’s head flopped down to the ground. Pain flared as her head hit the cold surface but she no longer felt the bokshi’s grip on her head. Someone or something had distracted the bokshi.
Her head protested in pain even as she tried to think.
Maybe … maybe I’ll sleep for a little while …
NO!
The threat of the bokshi had yet not passed. She could hear someone struggling with the creature behind her. Was it the man?
I should get up … and help …
Beldyen lost consciousness.
Thyodon opened his eyes slowly. His back ached as if someone had struck him there with a hammer.
What happened? He opened his eyes to whiteness before him. Snow.
Where am I?
Tents.
One of the tents had caved in. Merya’s head was slowly rising from the snow that had buried her.
And a few feet away from him, an old lady held someone’s head in her hands.
No, not an old lady. The bokshi.
The head she was holding was Beldyen’s. It was bleeding. Her face was swollen, bruised, and blue.
Everything came back to Thyodon in a rush. The camp. The bokshi. Commander Juni’s orders. The last thing he had seen before losing consciousness.
He stood up, ignoring the pain in his back, and rushed at the bokshi. He had no sword in hand but he didn’t care. He had to take the bokshi off of Beldyen.
Ahead of him, the man jumped at the bokshi, a dagger in hand. The bokshi gave off a high pitched squeal as she stood up and shook away the man.
Using the bokshi’s preoccupation with the man to his advantage, Thyodon tackled her from behind. To him, it felt like tackling a tree. Yet, the bokshi did fall and Thyodon fell down himself beside her.
The man, who had gotten up, was above the bokshi in a flash. Putting his entire weight on the dagger, he brought it down on the bokshi’s right eye. The bokshi screamed in pain as the dagger went through her eye. She began flailing her arms around and managed to hit the man, who fell with a grunt.
Giving the bokshi no time to get up, Thyodon threw himself over her. In his hand he gripped a stone which he brought down on the dagger’s hilt, hammering the blade deeper into the bokshi’s eye. The bokshi screamed again, the shrill sound painfully piercing Thyodon’s ears.
The bokshi lurched her body, attempting to throw off Thyodon. But he held on. Reaching to his left side, he unsheathed his own dagger and attempted to stab the bokshi’s left eye. However, she saw his arm and caught his wrist before he could raise it. The bokshi’s grip was strong – very strong. Thyodon yelled in pain when the bokshi twisted his wrist, breaking the bone in his hand.
“Thyodon, move!”
Reacting instinctively at the order, Thyodon rolled away, clutching his broken wrist with his right hand. Behind him, Merya dropped a large rock on the bokshi’s face. The bokshi screamed again, louder this time as the rock pushed the dagger deeper into her skull.
Merya lifted the rock, ready to drop it back when the bokshi lashed out at her, slapping her in the cheek with a loud clap. Merya fell back with a yelp and dropped the rock on her own leg, screaming as her bone snapped from the weight of the rock.
The bokshi stood up and let out a hiss, spitting at Merya. Reaching up to the dagger hilt, the bokshi yanked it free with another bloodcurdling scream. The scream devolved into an angry snarl as she turned to look at Merya who was attempting to crawl away.
Black liquid oozed out from the bokshi’s right eye socket where her eye once had been. The bokshi twirled the dagger in her hand, gripping the handle tightly in her bony wrinkled hand. She advanced menacingly towards Merya.
“Hey!” Thyodon yelled, still clutching his wrist. He got up shakily to his feet. His back still ached. “Hey witch!” he shouted again, trying to get the bokshi’s attention. Merya could not run away but he could.
The bokshi paid him no heed. Her focus was solely on Merya. The man, whom the bokshi had managed to strike while flailing, lay on the ground, hand on his bleeding temple. Several paces away, Beldyen lay prone on the ground, blood pooling around her head.
Thyodon felt helpless. This was not how this mission was supposed to go. They were to deliver some documents to Brimmond forces in a fort in the north, not fight superhuman monsters from fables.
He grit his teeth and prepared to tackle the bokshi again. He dug his heels onto the cold ground. The bokshi was almost upon Merya, who was still crawling away. Blood trailed from her fractured leg where the bone had cut through the skin.
Something flew through the air, an object the size of a watermelon, passing Thyodon by inches and striking the bokshi on her head. The object fell to the ground and the bokshi stumbled.
Everyone turned to look at what had struck the bokshi. Thyodon gasped when he realized that it was a decapitated bokshi head that had been thrown at the bokshi they were fighting. The lifeless eyes stared straight ahead and the tongue lolled out of the slackened jaw. Black blood dribbled from the open mouth and the neck.
Seeing her brethren’s lifeless head, the bokshi screeched.
“Once I got through to her heart, cutting her head off wasn’t difficult at all,” said a voice.
It was Captain Commander Juni.
Thyodon and Merya gaped at their Commander who stood bruised and covered in black blood. A bokshi’s blood. She held a sword in her right hand, slick with the same black liquid which flowed down and dripped from the tip. In her left hand, she held another decapitated bokshi head.
The bokshi screeched again. Commander Juni tossed the other head towards the bokshi who froze, frothing from her mouth. Whether she was frozen in fear or anger, Thyodon could not tell.
“Thyodon, see to Beldyen,” Juni said calmly. She then looked at the strange man and added, “Oyt itek ok uttakh areh,” nodding towards Merya.
As Thyodon scrambled towards Beldyen’s unconscious figure, he saw the strange man dash to Merya. Had he understood whatever it was Commander Juni had said to him? Could Commander Juni actually speak the man’s language?
“Now then,” Juni continued, this time addressing the bokshi. “Your turn.”
Juni dashed towards the bokshi, sword pointed towards the bokshi’s head. She thrust the blade forward; the surprised bokshi had barely enough time to avoid getting blinded in her other eye. The sword’s tip nicked the bokshi’s cheek before deflecting off the hard cheekbones.
The bokshi scrambled back, narrowly avoiding another sword strike to her eye.
Juni thrust herself forward, closing the gap between her and bokshi, and swung her sword. The bokshi caught the blade as she had anticipated. With a smug screech, the bokshi pulled the sword away, intending to disarm Juni. But Juni had already let go of the sword and the bokshi lost her balance, staggering backwards. Juni spun and kicked the bokshi in her stomach where there was no bone. The heel of her boot connected and the bokshi flew back, landing hard on her back.
Juni gave the bokshi no time for respite. Picking up her sword from the ground, she brought it down vertically on the bokshi’s stomach. The blade broke through the skin and plunged into the bokshi’s, slicing through her innards before striking the spine.
The bokshi screamed in pain; Juni took the opportunity to strike at the bokshi’s heart through her mouth with a dagger she had fetched from her belt. But the bokshi was quick. She immediately closed her mouth around the dagger, stopping it with her teeth. Juni tried to pull the dagger free but the bokshi arched her head backwards, snapping the dagger’s blade.
“Fine then,” Juni said, throwing away the broken dagger. She got up to her feet and pulled the sword free of the bokshi’s stomach before stabbing it back inside her. But this time, she held the sword horizontally. The bokshi gave a guttural scream as the blade pierced through her lungs, continuing up her chest to her neck. Juni’s sword had found the heart.
Putting all her weight on the bokshi, Juni gave one final thrust to the sword. The bokshi’s body shuddered. Then she twisted the sword and the bokshi’s body went limp.
The bokshi was dead.
The candle burned low, flickering every moment or so despite a lack of wind inside the tent. Thyodon, huddled in a fur blanket, watched the shadows dance on the white fabric until they suddenly disappeared. The candle had extinguished.
“Can’t sleep lad?” a voice asked. It was Vorn, who across
“My hand. It hurts,” Thyodon answered.
His wrist was held straight by two metal rods they had found in one of the chest tied tightly to the top and bottom of his wrist to prevent it from moving by a bandage. Fjaldyn, the most experienced with wounds, had been the one to make it. He was currently in another tent with Beldyen and Merya.
“Bear it tonight,” Vorn’s voice came from the darkness. “Tomorrow, we will reach Fort Halden. You’ll get proper care there. We need to get your head looked at too. From what Merya said, you hit that tree quite hard.”
Soft snoring filled the air inside the tent. Tsorel and Jorbun slept peacefully in between Thyodon and Vorn. Thyodon envied them and their ability to fall asleep despite the cold. Of course, had not faced a bokshi earlier that day and did not have to deal with a throbbing wrist and a mild ache at the back of their head.
“My back aches too,” Thyodon muttered.
“I’m sorry you had to go through what you did today. On your third outing with us too,” Vorn said.
“I had to one day or the other.”
“I appreciate your spirit lad. But what happened today was too extreme, even by Brimmish standards. Fighting monsters from fables. Too much.”
Thyodon imagined Vorn shaking his head.
“Why did the Commander take us off road? Couldn’t we have continued to Halden and returned to deal with these monstrosities later?” Thyodon asked.
“I’m sure she has a reason. Commander Juni would not have us hunting these things on a whim.”
“Nobody questions Commander Juni.”
Vorn chuckled in the darkness.
“That’s what everyone says,” Thyodon added.
“We don’t question her because we trust her,” Vorn answered. “Commander Juni encourages us to question her shall we doubt her decisions. And we have, several times in the past in fact. There have even been instances where we, that’s me, Beldyen, Fjaldyn, and Harbuf, have overruled her decisions. But those instances have been few and rare. For every one of those instances, there have been perhaps a hundred times where her decision has saved our hides.”
“Beldyen almost died today,” Thyodon said. “She might still.”
“I see you doubt Commander Juni,” Vorn replied. “Like I said, it’s okay. You may ask her tomorrow why she brought us here. For now, try and sleep.”
Tsorel and Jorbun continued to snore.
“Vorn?”
“Yes?”
“Commander Juni … what is she?”
“Eh?”
“That bokshi. She nearly killed us today. There were three of us against one of her at any given time and yet she had the upper hand.”
“You blinded her in one eye.”
“While she broke my wrist and Merya’s leg. Beldyen is close to death too. We were completely beaten Vorn. And then, Commander Juni appeared and killed the bokshi in mere seconds by herself.”
“She also killed two more in the woods,” Vorn added. “You’re wondering if she is even human.”
Thyodon balked. “Yes,” he answered hesitatingly. He heard Vorn let out a sigh.
“We’ve all had that question at one point. Have you heard of Captain Commander Waldres?” Vorn asked. Before Thyodon could answer that he did not, Vorn continued, “He was the Captain Commander of this squad when I first joined seventeen years ago. It was under Waldres that I first met Juni. She and I had joined together.
“On our ninth mission with Commander Waldres, we were tasked with raiding a Remulian camp that had encroached on the Northeast Brimmish border, near the Helacran ice marsh. We went there with a small force, expecting a small skirmish. Remulians don’t really like the cold and scouts had reported that the camp was small so we expected to deal with them with just over a dozen of us. But when we got there, we found only Remulian corpses littering the campsite.”
“Bokshi attack?”
“No, not bokshi. Besides today, I’ve only ever encountered a bokshi once and that was seven years ago. No, the Remulians had been killed by frost wraiths. Ever heard of frost wraiths?”
“In stories,” Thyodon answered.
“Every fable that you hear has a basis in truth. You’d heard of bokshi’s, now you saw them in real life here today. I saw ice wraiths for the first time that day. Gnarly creatures. As tall as us, easily a head taller than the Remulians, they look like frozen corpses. Blue skinned and wrinkled, bald head, and sharp fangs and nails. The Remulians never stood a chance.
“They attacked us moments after we reached the Remulian camp. They burst out of the ice where they had been hiding, taking us by surprise. Poor Mjorlen was the first to go. Ranolf had half is left leg torn off by those things.”
“Ranolf?” Thyodon asked. “One legged Ranolf of the Varkath Library?”
Thyodon could hear Vorn chuckle. “Now you know how he became one legged. If not for the cold freezing his stump, he would have bled to death on that day. We lost three more,” Vorn’s voice became solemn. “Lindela, the youngest lass in the squad at the time, Sjorell, the man who had first welcomed me into the squad, and Ristov. He had been in the squad the longest besides Waldres. He died defending his commander from an ice wraith, cleaving it in two with his sword before being overwhelmed by two ice wraiths. He died having killed five ice wraiths by himself.”
Vorn’s voice had taken a reverend tone when speaking about Ristov.
“What about you?” Thyodon asked.
“Me? I was fighting for my life against a wraith. I wasn’t much experienced then. I had somehow managed to kill one and the fight against that one had winded me badly. I was barely holding myself against another. Seeing Ristov struck down didn’t help either. And finally, seeing Waldres hit across the face and sent flying distracted me long enough to allow the wraith I was fighting to knock the weapon off my hand.
“I thought that was it. I was going to die, scared and weaponless, without glory against an ice wraith in an icy wasteland. And I would have died on that day, had not Juni intervened. Before I knew what had happened, the ice wraith was on the ground with Juni on top, struggling to pull a knife from its head that Juni held firmly.
“She shouted at me. I don’t quite remember what it was she said but I soon found myself picking up my sword and rushing to help Harbuf and Fjaldyn who were keeping the ice wraiths at bay from Waldres’ unconscious body. Behind me, I could hear the sound of ice wraiths dying and Juni shouting at the other four of the squad who were still alive.
“Those four eventually joined me and the other two. We seven formed a circle around Waldres and Ranolf, hacking at an ice wraith that came too close. Juni eventually joined us, cutting through the ice wraiths and behind her, I saw swathes of ice wraith corpses. I don’t know how many of those creatures she killed that day but she alone must have killed more than the rest of us combined.
“I don’t know how long we fought. I remember that my arm grew numb from the constant swinging and the biting cold and I could not lift my sword any longer. After Juni had taken command of the survivors, no more of us had fallen but we had grown tired.”
Vorn paused.
“Then what happened?” Thyodon asked, his curiosity piqued.
Vorn took in a deep breath. “This will probably sound too fantastical, and I suppose it is, but we were saved by a streak of white tigers passing through the area. Fortunately, those tigers targeted the ice wraiths, not us. It was almost as if they came specifically to help us against the wraiths.
“While the ice wraiths were distracted by the white tigers, we picked up Ranolf and Waldres, and fled the camp. The tigers never even spared us a glance. We would have been the easier prey but they kept their focus completely on the ice wraiths. That’s how those rumours started. Two of the survivors who had just joined in and Ranolf retold the stories once back home. They exaggerated a lot of it, as people usually do. Told everyone how it must have been Juni who had called those tigers to aid us. Of course, I can’t really blame them. Ranolf had experienced everything in a delirium because he had lost his leg and had been bleeding out, and the other two were young, impressionable lads.
“That, coupled with Waldres stepping down as the Captain Commander due to his head injury and appointing Juni as his successor despite her having been on only nine missions with him cemented Juni’s reputation in the Brimmish army.”
Vorn took in a deep breath. He had been talking nonstop with barely a pause.
“That’s how Juni became our Captain Commander. There are some who think of her as Faina the Huntress reborn. I know you do.”
“I …”
“It’s alright if you do. Helps with her fierce reputation. Hell, she might actually be Faina herself. But you know what, I don’t care. None of the others – Beldyen, Fjaldyn, or Harbuf – care. To answer your original question, what is Captain Juni? Is she even human?
“And my answer is, it doesn’t matter. What matters is she is a damn good commander and the best fighter the Brimmond army has ever seen. In fact, she is the best at everything she does. She’s like a force of nature, forcing even the animals to act in her favour.
“I know you worked hard for it but you can still count yourself lucky to be chosen to be in this squad son. I know you had a harrowing experience today but, of course, incidents like these are inevitable. Still, you have a less chance of dying in an incident like today’s under Juni’s squad than if you were stationed in the armoury cleaning equipment.”
“Vorn?” a new voice spoke. “Couldn’t you have waited until tomorrow morning to tell the same old fabricated tale?”
It was Tsorel, who must have awakened sometimes during Vorn’s monologue.
“It’s not fabricated,” Vorn retorted.
“Sure it isn’t,” Tsorel replied snarkily. “And Thyodon, let us sleep even if you can’t.”
Nobody spoke in the tent after that. The air grew still and soon Tsorel’s snores joined Jorbun who had managed to stay asleep throughout Vorn’s story. Eventually, the cold numbed the pain in his wrist somewhat and Thyodon finally found himself drifting off to an uncomfortable sleep.
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