Page 11 of Bought by the Broken Beast
“Are you listening to me?” she demands, stopping in front of me. “Or is this it? Is this the sum of your great Vakkak wrath? Hiding in a closet and waiting for our enemies to forget we exist?”
I look up, my gaze slow, deliberate. I let her see the cold fire in my eyes. “You speak of things you do not understand, human. You see soldiers on a wall and think it is merely a wall. I see patrol routes, watch rotations, supply lines. I see a fortress. To attack without a plan is not bravery. It is suicide. A concept with which I am intimately familiar.”
“So we do nothing?” she shoots back, her hands clenched into small, white-knuckled fists. “We let them win?”
“I am trying to keep you alive!” The words erupt from me, a low, guttural roar that shakes the very air in the room. Her eyes widen, a flicker of fear finally breaking through her frustration. The scent of it, sharp and electric, fills my nostrils. I hate it. And I hate myself for causing it.
I stand, the stool scraping against the floorboards. “You think I do not feel the urgency? You think this… inaction… does not tear at my soul? My honor demands I act, but my training demands I act with wisdom. Malacc has left no opening. He is Vakkak. He is thorough.”
“Then we make our own opening!” she cries, her voice trembling with a desperate passion. She throws her hands up, her control finally snapping. “There has to be another way. The slaves… the other slaves at Kairen’s, they used to whisper. Of a tunnel. A way out, to the river. I never saw it. I thought it was just a story, a fantasy to make the days bearable. But they said it started in the foothills, behind the estate.”
I stare at her. A slave tunnel. A secret path, born of desperation, known only to the lowest of the low. It is a fool’s hope, a thread of rumor in a tempest of certain death.
It is the only thing we have.
We leave under the cloak of the pre-dawn gloom, slipping out the back of Lyra’s tavern and melting into the wilderness of the foothills that rise behind the city. The manicured gardens of the wealthy quickly give way to tangled woods and ancient, moss-covered stones. Here, the laws of Milthar fade, replaced by the older, more brutal laws of nature.
The human is not made for this. Her soft boots slip on the damp earth, and her breathing grows labored as we climb. But she does not complain. She simply pushes onward, her jaw set, her focus absolute. Her resilience is a constant, irritating surprise.
A sudden, sharp squeal from the undergrowth ahead sends a jolt of instinct through me. I shove Bella behind me, my hand going to the hilt of my knife, my body dropping into a low, defensive crouch. A pack of Dripir, their bristly hides caked with mud, burst from the bushes. They are vicious, boar-like beasts, their curved tusks sharp enough to gut a Minotaur. There are five of them, their small, blind eyes turning toward us, their snouts twitching as they catch our scent.
They charge.
I am about to meet them, to spill their blood and my own on the forest floor, when a deep, resonant horn blast echoes through the trees. The Dripir skid to a halt, their brutish heads turning toward the sound, a primal fear overriding their aggression.
Figures emerge from the dense woods around us. Minotaurs. Six of them, clad in worn leather and carrying hunting spears, their faces grim. My first thought is that they are a patrol, thatMalacc’s reach extends even this far. My hand tightens on my knife, my body coiling for a final, hopeless fight.
But they do not raise their weapons. They stop a respectful distance away, their leader—a grizzled old warrior with a magnificent, unbroken set of horns—staring at me. His gaze is not hostile. It is filled with a shocked, sorrowful reverence.
“By the Lady’s Light,” he breathes, his voice a low, gravelly thing. He takes a single step forward and lowers his head in a gesture of profound respect. “Lord Saru.”
The name. My name. Spoken not as a curse, not as a mark of shame, but as a title of honor. The sound of it is a blow to my gut, a shock that resonates deeper than any wound. For years, I have been ‘beast,’ ‘gladiator,’ ‘disgraced one.’ To hear my own name, spoken with the weight of what it once meant, is to feel a crack form in the thick, frozen ice that has encased my heart.
The other hunters follow their leader’s example, bowing their heads. They are Fiepakak, hunters and trappers who live by their own code in these woods. They are the true people of Milthar, not the perfumed nobles of the Zu Kus.
“We heard the rumors of your return,” the old hunter says, his gaze rising to meet mine. “We did not dare to believe them. The house of Saru was a pillar of this island. What was done to you was a stain on the honor of all Minotaurs.”
I do not know what to say. The words of gratitude, of acknowledgment, they are foreign to me now, rusted from disuse. I simply give a stiff, formal nod, a gesture I have not made in years.
The hunter’s gaze shifts to Bella, who is half-hidden behind me. The warmth in his eyes cools, replaced by a guarded suspicion. “You travel with a human, my lord?”
“She is under my protection,” I state, the words leaving no room for argument. It is the truth. She is my charge, my responsibility. The thought is as unsettling as it is undeniable.
“We need to go up north of the river,” I add.
The hunter accepts my declaration with a slight dip of his head, though his suspicion does not fade. “The woods are not safe. Malacc’s men have been seen as far as the river, asking questions. We can guide you to the riverbank. It is all the help we can offer without bringing the serpent’s gaze upon our own families.”
They lead us through the treacherous terrain with the quiet competence of men born to the wild, their presence a shield against the dangers of the forest. When we reach the wide, rushing river that marks the northern boundary of Kairen’s lands, they stop.
“The Lady of Light guide your path, Lord Saru,” the old hunter says, and with a final, respectful bow, he and his men melt back into the trees, leaving us alone once more.
We search for hours, the sun arcing across the sky and beginning its slow descent. We scour every foot of the riverbank, searching for a hidden opening, a loose pile of rocks, anything that looks out of place. We find nothing. As dusk begins to bleed purple and orange across the sky, a cold, hard truth settles upon me. The tunnel is a myth. A slave’s desperate fantasy. We have come all this way for nothing.
The woods are a place of shadow and death at night. To travel them now would be madness.
“We make camp here,” I declare, my voice flat with the weight of our failure. “We will try again at first light.”
Bella does not argue. The fight seems to have drained out of her, replaced by a quiet, weary resignation. I build a small, smokeless fire in a hollow between two large boulders, the flames a small pocket of warmth and light against the encroaching darkness. I hunted on our journey, and I roast the two suru I caught over the flames. She takes the portion I offer her and eats in silence, her gaze lost in the dancing firelight.
