Read Bloodletting Part 1: The Affinities Cycle Book 1 Online
Authors: Mark Ryan
Bloodletting Part 1: The Affinities Cycle Book 1 (3 page)
Chapter 4
Tetra Bicks
As the last rays of the sun found their way through the space between the boards of the shuttered windows, Tetra sat at the foot of his bed, disconsolate, the soft down of his blanket clutched in his hands. He dug his toes into the small-knotted rag rug at the foot of his bed while staring at his belongings. Everything for the journey and new Academy home sat packed and stacked by his door. A few meager trunks, packed to filling with the remains of his life here.
After storming out of lunch and going to his room, he’d turned to packing on reflex, refusing to believe he might be forced to stay home. The smells and warmth of the Heart room left behind, the cold of the day had been waiting for him in his room. As he shoved rolled clothes and sundries into his trunks, he cleared his head of the heat of anger, though worry still raced through his mind. After years of hiding the pain his affinity caused, how could he have been found out the day before leaving? What had he done that was so careless?
He spent most of the afternoon lying in bed, gazing at the ceiling and daydreaming about the Academy. Then he paced back and forth, constructing arguments to make his parents understand why he had to go. Staying in Jaegen wasn’t an option. His parents’ raised voices debated his future a couple rooms away, their tones increasingly anxious. The cold floorboards felt good against the soles of his feet.
Stolen snatches of conversation floated through his room. He couldn’t help but overhear. It wasn’t like he was spying. Why did they talk about him being a soldier? If being a soldier meant he could use his affinity to serve the kingdom, then he’d embrace this fate. Why didn’t they understand? Why didn’t they realize he wanted this more than anything? He stared at his trunk, and then flopped back onto the bed.
His parents fell silent and Tetra felt his heart quicken. What was their decision? Footsteps approached his door.
“Tetra?” His father knocked gently. The door cracked open and Tetra sat up. “I thought you might be asleep.” Viktor entered, coming to sit on the bed beside Tetra. They remained silent for a moment while Viktor gathered his thoughts. Tetra feared breaking the silence, feared the words to come. Fighting the urge to nervously toy with the blanket, Tetra disciplined himself and placed his hands in his lap, waiting.
“I spoke with your mother,” his father said.
Tetra grimaced. “I heard.”
His father put an arm around him. Tetra kept his back straight, waiting. “She loves you very much, you know. We both do.”
“Is that why she’s going to keep me prisoner?” Frustrated tears burned the edges of Tetra’s eyes.
His father frowned and looked at Tetra’s belongings. “You sure you’re not forgetting anything?”
Tetra drew a sharp breath, finally daring to look at his father.
“Things are expensive in Aldamere, three times what they are here.” Worry still creased Viktor’s face but Tetra saw the serious intent there. He wrapped arms around his father’s chest and hugged him tight. Viktor returned the embrace. “About your back, Tetra. There are some things you need to know.”
“I’m sorry,” Tetra’s voice was muted, his face still buried in his father’s chest. He was hiding tears of relief. He spoke, the words rushing from him, “I should have …”
“You haven’t hidden it as well as you think. Listen to your body, don’t push it too hard.”
Tetra nodded.
“There’s nothing we, or the healers in Aldamere, can do for you. You have to be careful. If you re-break your spine, you might never walk again.”
Tetra pulled back, rubbing his cheeks, clearing away the tears. He looked his father in the eye. “I know. I’m careful.”
Viktor studied his son’s face and then pointed back to Tetra’s trunks. “Be sure to double check everything. We’re going to miss you. Both of you. Write your mother every week, or I’ll never hear the end of it.”
He stood and exited the door, but stopped before closing it. He seemed about to say something, but only smiled grimly. The door shut with a soft thud.
Tetra’s stomach growled. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone so long without eating, but felt too drained from the emotional day to want to leave his room. Using his magic during the practice earlier only compounded the spent feeling. But, food could wait until morning. Lying down, his eyelids grew heavy and he started to drift. Tonight, he slept in his bed, in his home, near his family.
Tomorrow … his world would change forever.
***
Chapter 5
Tetra Bicks
Heat flooded over Tetra’s body, the instant discomfort waking him from a sound sleep. Bleary-eyed, he sat up, trying to shake off the grogginess. Somehow, he had gotten under his blankets from the foot of his bed, where he had fallen asleep. Now it was stifling hot. Yelling sounded outside his window. Confused, he pushed back the bed sheets and stumbled to the shutters. What caused such an intense heat?
Grasping the locking clamp, he loosened the two boards protecting his window and pulled them open. Carnage greeted him; the fallen bodies of his neighbors littered the streets. Flames enveloped the village. Heat pushed at him from outside and he took a step back from the incomprehensible chaos. He blinked, his sleep-addled brain refusing to connect the inferno and screaming with reality. Behind him, the door crashed inwards. Tetra spun around.
His grandfather’s body, battered and bloody, lay across the doorway amidst the splintered wreckage of the door. The threshold frame had been cracked from the force of his grandfather’s body being flung through it. Two remaining chunks of wood hung from the hinges.
“Granddad!” He rushed forward. “What happened?”
The old man remained limp, unresponsive.
“Granddad? Granddad!” Tetra wanted to run forward, to grab his grandfather, but fear kept his feet rooted. Yelling and screaming from outside assaulted his ears, the odors of the burning village threatening to overwhelm his nose. There was a smell there too, one he didn’t recognize. Almost like wet iron. It stank, turning his stomach.
Out in the hall, his grandfather’s attackers turned at the sound of his voice. A seven-foot oroc, all sinewy muscles and vines, wearing the strange living foliage clothing of his species, stared at Tetra. He spoke in a broken, gravelly voice.
“Little human sapling. Should have stayed hidden.”
Tetra finally broke the fear that controlled him and ran forward, then grasped his grandfather by the shoulders. Tears streaked down his face. His grandfather’s chest didn’t move.
The oroc lumbered closer. Tetra looked up, crying openly. “Who are you? What have you done? Why are you here?” His emotions were a mess, fear battling with confusion, but at their core, anger was burning in his heart.
The oroc tilted his head to the side. “I am Gnarrl. I killed him? Yes. Humans betray. You break treaties and murder. We return betrayal.” Gnarrl knelt, studying Tetra. “You are human sapling, no?”
Petrified, Tetra could only swallow. “Y–yes. I am.” Every muscle in his body screamed at him to fight, but fear froze him in place.
Gnarrl grasped Tetra’s cheeks with a vine-covered hand. “You are male, human. Hmm.”
A second oroc appeared out in the hall, coming from his sister’s room, dragging a limp form. It took a moment for Tetra to recognize his twin sister’s prone body. The world snapped, crumbling outside his awareness. Ice had been growing over his heart, formed by the fear and conflicting emotions. It shattered when he saw Halli.
The inferno outside? Pointless. All its heat and flame was nothing compared to the spirit of destruction filling his mind, body, and soul. He rose, releasing his grandfather’s body, and pointed at the oroc carrying his sister.
“Let her go!” His voice sounded alien to his own ears. It was deep, commanding. No trace of the conflict in his heart remained. Love for his sister was fueling the hate consuming him.
Gnarrl fell back, inhuman face twisted in shock. Tetra’s back transformed into a mass of pain, but he didn’t care. He barely even noticed. Gathering every last ounce of energy in his body, he focused on the head of the oroc dragging his sister. The rafters and walls creaked in protest as Tetra exerted his will. The creature froze as its skull’s density amplified, becoming several times heavier than its entire body. The neck muscles gave, unable to hold up the creature’s head any longer.
With a loud snap, followed by muscle and sinew ripping apart, the head rolled forward and the oroc’s body fell back. Dark liquid spurted against the walls.
Gnarrl roared and swung a huge fist, catching Tetra across the chest. He flew back into the wall. Hardwood smashed into his back, crushing the wind out of him. In a smooth motion, Gnarrl swung a hand up while splaying the fingers of this other hand across the floor. The floor cracked apart and an earthen spike thrust out, piercing Tetra’s abdomen as he fell. The boy screamed as the earthen spike tore at his flesh, ripping through his body and pinning him in the air. Pain wracked him, dousing the fires of hate and anger. The oroc made a side-to-side motion with his other hand, then jerked it back and slapped his palm to the ground.
Tetra fought to control his mind. Slick blood coated the spike already, but he fought to grip it. With every fiber of his being, he pushed at the impaling earth, trying to get himself off it. The oroc was forgotten momentarily as Tetra struggled to free himself. He lost. The oroc’s voice, resonating with Geist magic, whispered to his soul, telling him to give up, give in. He did.
The fire of vengeance in Tetra’s spirit extinguished. He hung limp on the spike, which now shot out of his back. He would die tonight, watching, helpless, as Gnarrl killed him. Instead, the oroc turned away. Lumbering over to his fallen companion, he crouched over the body. Gnarrl rolled the body onto its back, then replaced the head, settling the corpse into a more peaceful repose.
Tetra tried to gather the energy to fight, but it wouldn’t come. Something was inside his head, inside his heart. It was like his mother’s calm healing magic, only in opposite. The cold was piercing, instead of cool, and ripped away any attempt he made to rally hope. He struggled, every motion a sharp claw of agony as he tried to pull himself off the spike—until he lost the strength for even that.
Gnarrl chanted, a strange sound, unlike anything the boy had heard before. As the chant rose in intensity, the wooden floor split open, exposing the earth below. The ground rose, opening up, allowing the body of the fallen oroc to sink. Once the body submerged, the chant softened until the only the screams and crackling fires outside the house remained.
Through the haze of immobilizing pain, Tetra noticed the oroc’s shoulders shook.
He’s crying
.
Gnarrl stood. He grabbed one of Halli’s ankles in a massive hand and dragged the girl along. Then he stopped and turned back to Tetra. “I not steal your life. If you survive this night, you earn life I spare. A life you do not deserve. If we meet again, though you hide in guise of sapling, I shall not treat you as such, human warrior.”
Tetra had never seen oroc tears before, though their warriors and traders often passed through his village. The oroc wept translucent green tears, like thin sap. Gnarrl lifted one hand and blew on his palm. “I release your spirit, human. But be warned. Use your magic against me, and I shall destroy forever the soul of this small one with me, even if be my dying breath to do so.”
Tetra moaned, not understanding what happened. His mind occupied one world, his body another. The oroc snapped his fingers and, all at once, those two worlds crashed together. He screamed as they collided and his mind registered the physical wounds inflicted on him. Pain crashed through his body, starting at his spine and radiating out like the flames that engulfed the village outside.
Dragging Halli by her leg, Gnarrl strode down the hall and out of the house into the inferno of the village beyond. Tetra watched, helpless, until the pain overcame him.
***
Chapter 6
Tetra Bicks
Sweat and blood mingled in a pool at the base of the earthen spike. Carefully, ever so carefully, Tetra used his magic, shifting the density of the spike and his body. He’d fainted twice already from the exertion, but he kept trying. He knew that if he didn’t free himself, he would die here, impaled on this spike. Dying was not a choice he could make, he had to find a way to save his sister.
With a crunch, the spike snapped under his weight, toppling him into the sticky pool of blood. He lay gasping for breath as pain slashed through his body. Refusing to let it overcome him as it had the night before, he sucked in air as he pushed himself up to hands and knees.
A bit of the spike still protruded from his gut. No way to grip it, no way to remove it—though even if he could, it might cause him to lose blood faster. The mix of materials in the spike daunted his probing attempts. How had the oroc created a solid mass out of so many different components? Only another Tecton would understand, which Tetra was not. Earth magic, as he had seen yesterday trying to work with Sven, was beyond his ken.
Teeth grinding, Tetra rose to his knees. His arms trembled as he fought to steady himself. As he increased the density of the spike, the pain in his back became trivial compared to his injured side. He groaned as the pain in both areas grew. At last, gravity overcame his flesh’s grip on the invading spike, and it tore free of his body. His legs gave way and he fell over again, his hands clutching the wound. Other than Tetra’s grunts, it was eerily quiet.
The smoke in the room thickened, and the heat of the burning house rose, almost unbearable. Tetra crawled to his bed and braced against the edge of it to get to his feet. The torturous effort nearly blacked him out again, but he fought for consciousness. If he passed out again, the flames would consume him. Struggling onto the bed, he sank onto the blankets and wrapped the sheets over his bloodied nightshirt, tying them in place. He had the presence of mind to pull on his boots before he stood on shaky legs. Hunched over, he made his way to the door, jaw locked against the pain.
“Goodbye, Grandfather,” he whispered through clenched teeth as he stepped over the lifeless body. The back door, at the other end of the hall, stood shattered and smoke rolled out it. Flames licked along the ceiling, and he knew it would collapse before long. He tried to hurry, but his body refused to be pushed. Blood spread from the wound, soaking his nightshirt and blanket. Despite the intense heat of the fire, the blood still warmed his side.
Cooler, though still hot, air greeted him as he exited the house. A second wave of heat slammed into him. The scene outside almost dropped him to his knees again. The entire village stood aflame. Bodies littered the streets and the village square to his left. His lips quivered as he surveyed the carnage. Flame crackled and softly roared as it consumed wood.
“Tetra …”
At the rough voice, he turned to where his father knelt in front of the village’s ancient oak tree. Memories of climbing and swinging from the tree as a young child mixed with the ghastly reality he now faced. Another spike of earth had pierced through his father’s stomach and into the tree, holding him there like an insect on a needle. The ground around him had been churned up, and several oroc staves and stone weapons lay scattered. Thick oroc blood had darkened the mud. As a Psion, his father could bend others’ wills to his own. From the looks of it, he’d made them pay dearly before they overwhelmed him.
“I couldn’t stop them, Tetra.” The words barely reached him over the flames roaring. Tetra’s tears flowed as he approached and knelt before his father.
“Why did this happen, Father?” Tetra fought anger. This shouldn’t have happened. Death and destruction surrounded him, and all thoughts of leaving for the academy were gone. “Where’s Mother?”
“They did something.” Viktor shook his head. “Her screams …” He looked Tetra in the eye, his voice strengthening. “Your sister. You must get her back. Save her.” Tetra felt something change in his head. From the fire of fear, forged resolve emerged. His father’s words echoed through his mind, etching their way into his soul. Despite his pain, he stood straighter.
Tetra blinked. Had his father just used Psion magic on him? He had never done it before, Tetra wasn’t sure what it felt like. “I will father.”
Vikor gurgled, fighting the blood welling in his throat to speak again. His gaze went distant, life-light fading from his eyes as his head sank against his chest.
“Father? Father, no …” Tetra rocked on his knees, grief threatening to crush him. Grief was quickly replaced with words reverberating through his head.
Your Sister. You must get her back. Save her.
His father’s right hand slipped from the earthen spike and settled on the hilt of a sword in the mud beside him. Tetra didn’t remember his father owning a sword. Something woke in the back of his mind—a presence he’d always felt, though never this intense. It flickered with fear and … hope. Halli. He knew without a doubt his sister lived. He felt her, which meant she could feel him, too. She knew he could save her. He knew he would.
Anger burned within him, fueled by his grief. On unsteady feet, he went to the sword. Stopping, he tore the blanket, wrapping the cloth around his midsection. Focusing on the cloth’s structure, he increased the density, shifting the fabric’s properties until it was heavy and strong. It protected his wound as well as piece of steel plate mail would now.
Bending over, he gently moved his father’s hand away from the weapon. He grasped the sword’s handle. Muscles screamed in his side and back as he struggled to lift the steel. While not overly heavy, even just bending over to grasp the weapon nearly blinded him with pain.
He started toward the square, dragging the sword behind him. A wide path of trampled earth led away from the broken shard pole, south toward the orocs’ home in the Rocmire Forest. Tetra didn’t stop or look back as the roof of his home collapsed behind him. Fire consumed the village, and Tetra, a phoenix from the ashes, struggled forth to track his quarry. Blood slowly dripped as he walked, leaving a trail as he left the only home he had ever known.
***