Page 15 of Tiger's Trek
His father was right about him. Hewasa durak. A nikudyshnyi. A useless, good-for-nothing boy trying to pretend he was a man. To his shame, tears formed in his eyes, both of them, and cascaded down his hot cheeks. He was without a friend, without a home, without a family. Perhaps it would be better if he ended up food for something in a swamp. His head felt as thick and foggy as the air. Then, despite his sobs, he thought he heard something.
“Pst!”
Nik wiped his eyes and nose on his sleeve and peered into the dark, trying to locate the source of the sound.
“Hey, kid. Up here!” the voice beckoned again.
He could just make out the figure of the same small man with the one large eye that he’d run into before. “What are you doing up there?” Nik asked.
The man managed to roll his one eye all the way around in its socket. “Not that it’s any of your business, kid, but I was attempting to take a romantic moonlit stroll in a fetid swamp with my ladylove, who apparently feels I’ve been ignoring her far too much. Despite my skillful efforts at amour, it seems the lady in question still believes our courtship has taken a turn for the worst, and as vengeance for my poor treatment, she secured me to a tree, where I’m meant to be an offering to the local bolotnik.”
Nik sucked in a breath. “Sorry about that. Sounds brutal.”
“Brutal. Yes,” he agreed flatly.
“So... he’s going to kill you?”
“One would hope. I suppose it depends on if the bolotnik is a male or a female. For my sake, I hope it’s a male.”
Swallowing, Nik asked, “What—what would a female bolotnik do to you?”
The man shuddered. “You really don’t want to know the answer to that question.”
There was a loud sucking sound in the nearby swamp, followed by a guttural thumping noise that made all the other sounds in the forest go quiet.
“Is that it? I mean... her?” Nik asked in a hiss.
“Probably,” the man said. “Look, kid. I think we got off to a bad start. What do you say? How about you help me, and I help you?”
“That’s what I was asking you before,” Nik replied.
“Yeah, yeah. No time for quibbling. You going to let me down or what?”
“Okay, fine. But I don’t have a knife.”
The man sighed with frustration. “You don’t need a knife, son. Just use your magic.”
“Magic? What magic?”
“Your boots.”
“What? How? How do you know about that, anyway?”
“No time! Just do it. Tell your boots to get me down. They’ll know what to do.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t trust anyone. But you’ve got to start somewhere, kid. Besides, it’s not like you have a choice. Without me, you’ll just keep running around aimlessly for the next decade, not using your magic to its full potential, assuming you even have what it takes in the first place.”
Nik hesitated.
“Come on, boy. You know you want to. Curious minds. Killing cats and all that.”
“Killing cats?”
Another scream shook the leaves on the tree.
“Tell you later. Just hurry!”
