Branded (9 page)

But first he had to find out whether Blind Guy was around. Asher took a few steps into the crowd. A couple of guys in red uniforms holding spears were posted along the side of the stage. They had to be part of the freak brigade that upheld the rules of this place. There was something elvish about them, but Asher didn't bother with them when he had a very particular elf to find.

He scanned the crowd again and looked back at Stoner and Snakes. They were so close, he could have shouted out to them, but it was too loud. And there were more people on the stage. Of course, the horse guy wasn't around, but there was some fat man who looked like he would enjoy cutting people's heads off. Behind them, an old geezer with a beard almost down to his feet was strolling the length of the stage from left to right.

Stoner and Snakes were bound by neon green shackles, but Asher saw no reason they couldn’t use magic. So why weren’t they freeing themselves?

The incessant chatter around him made it hard to think. Along with the smell of fried food. The thought of food made Asher sick, though he couldn’t say why.

He should leave, run, before he would be spotted. Just turn around and leave, but he couldn't take his eyes off Stoner and Snakes and his feet wouldn't move.

The fat guy on the stage seemed to have no such problems. He approached Stoner, who glared at him. Asher's mouth went dry as the kid was guided to the deadly head-cutting thing in the middle of the stage. The blade glowed red.

What an ugly way to die.

With a sudden heat spike, an outcry went through the crowd. Flames materialized and vanished above their heads. Someone tried to use fire magic, and someone else counteracted it. The freak brigade moved. The crowd parted a few feet to Asher’s left.

Blind Guy!

“You can't do that! They're not guilty.”

Only Blind Guy would think that anybody cared.

He stood his ground, even as the other elves closed in on him. Fucking naive. At least Blind Guy threw up a shield of flames surrounding himself. Of course, that didn't hold for very long. Whoever had dispelled his earlier magic dispelled this one too. The elves surrounded him with their spears.

One of them was poking his weapon dangerously close. "Sympathizing with the criminals?"

Two choices presented themselves in front of Asher. The smart thing to do would be to run now while everyone was distracted. The stupid thing would be to try and save Blind Guy. Asher knew people often called him stupid, and maybe they were right, because he could not get himself to flee the scene. Instead, he drew on his powers. Let the magic within himself envelop him, transform him into a dragon.

When you wanted to draw attention to yourself, there were few things more effective than transforming into an overgrown winged reptile in the middle of a market place.

"Is that a dragon?" someone in the crowd shouted.

As if it wasn’t obvious! How many creatures did they know with scales and wings? And how many of those could do this: Opening his mouth wide, Asher spew a blast of fire into the air. Shrieks sounded around him as people edged back.

"Weren't those fuckers supposed to be extinct?" someone complained. That guy went straight on Asher’s mental list of people to fry later.

No time now; the freak brigade charged at him with their spears held in front of them.

Asher swished the two front runners aside with his claw. Another one used the distraction to poke his weapon into Asher's side, but the tip was too dull to penetrate his scales.

Still, the enemy side had ways to make him turn back, and even if they didn't, his powers would only last so long. Being an overgrown reptile was extremely draining on the system. He had to act fast.

One member of the freak brigade was fighting Blind Guy, while the other four or five of them held their weapons out to Asher as if they could achieve anything that way. Asher looked over to where the lizards had been, but they were gone.

Something cold hit him in the neck and he roared. A shard of ice had hit him from behind.
Suckers!

More ice shards flew his way and he tried to step back. He was making an extremely easy target. With a flap of his wing, he deflected the attack, but the numbing cold still bit his scales.

A high pitched cry pierced the air, wrenching Asher back to his first day in this world. Asher looked to the stage, and quickly averted his gaze. Stoner’s head had come off. The fat guy wasn’t letting the antics of the crowd bother him at all.

Asher felt like throwing up as the bloody image burned itself into his retinas, but there was no time for that. Blind Guy had shaken off the one member of the freak brigade and ran toward the stage. A dwarf sprang out of the crowd and tackled him to the ground, ax raised high.

Asher roared and spread his wings. Before he knew it, he was off the ground and looking down at the crowd. The sucker with the ax was looking up at him. Asher spew a bout of fire down on him. The dwarf jumped to the side. A spear flew at Asher. He swerved to avoid it, and dove down to pick Blind Guy up with his claw.

He wasn't sure how he was doing it, but he was. Every movement seemed natural, as if he'd done it a thousand times. Which didn’t mean that it wasn’t scary as fuck. Asher didn’t know what made his heart pound harder: the distance to the ground, or the sight of the bloody stage.

Blind Guy was wriggling in his clutches as if he actually wanted down too. No way Asher was letting him. Reluctantly, he looked at the stage again. Nausea rising, he flew higher. It was too late. He couldn’t save anyone.

Chapter 9 - Fried Chicken

Asher raced out of the city, needing to get away from the freaks fast. Angry cries rang through the air. The fuckers were chasing him.

From the corner of his eyes he saw winged creatures moving in the sky. Weapons gleamed in the sunlight. An arrow whizzed by his ears.

The tiny thing couldn't hurt him, but he still had live cargo hanging on his claws, and fuck if he was witnessing another death today. Diving a little deeper, he went faster. The transformation was hard on his magic resources, and he didn't have much time before he would run dry.

Beneath him, the forest thinned out into wide open plains. Useless for cover. He had to press on. The barren land ended in a chain of mountains. That’s where he had to get before transforming back.

A battle cry rang through the air and more arrows soared into his vision. Asher looked back over his shoulder. The attackers seemed like a cross between giant birds and women. Harpies, or whatever else those were called. Three of them.

Taking a deep breath he focused back on the mountains.

The finish line was still a ways away, but his powers were running out.

You can’t go down here!

But he had to. Or they would crash. Adrenaline rushed through Asher’s blood, kept him from thinking as he dove, trying to cover a little more distance.

It was too hard. The transformation drew too much power. Trying to keep it up was like trying to hold up two tons of weight. And ten feet above ground, Asher gave in. The relief was instantaneous as his wings disappeared, he let go of Blind Guy, and his body reverted back, becoming smaller. He was fully human again by the time he met up with the rocky plains.

Collision hurt, but it couldn’t be as bad as being executed. Couldn’t be as bad as what he’d seen.

They cut their fucking heads off.

Asher’s mind reeled with the thought even as he scrambled to stand, blinking against the dizziness. In this state, he was more than powerless.

Luckily, Blind Guy was up on his feet and looking ready to fry some chicken. The head of an arrow had bored itself into his arm. Blind Guy ripped it out and threw it aside without flinching. Asher had never seen him quite like that. And though this wasn’t the time for it, he couldn’t say that it wasn’t at least a little hot.

The harpies didn’t land, and Asher didn’t know how Blind Guy located them, but he did. The speed and accuracy of his attacks must have surprised them as he hit the first two with whips of fire before the third swerved to dodge. Asher was just waiting for smoke to come out of Blind Guy’s ears.

“You want to kill me?” he asked. “You want to fucking kill me? Just come and try.”

Something smelled burned. Asher looked at the singed feathers of the first two harpies. They rose higher in the air, all three of them circling, talking in high pitched sounds among themselves.

“Fucking scavengers,” Blind Guy muttered. And here, Asher had always thought he’d be the one to eventually flip Blind Guy’s rage switch.

Above them, the harpies raised their bows and, like school bullies, targeted the weak one: Asher.

“Fuck.” Asher jumped back as three arrows nailed themselves into the ground where he’d just stood. Another barrage kept him running. Looking back, he saw Blind Guy raise his hand and shoot blasts of fire at the harpies as they were distracted. Maybe they’d thought they were too high up to be hit, but Blind Guy seemed happy to prove them wrong.

The harpies cried as one, and took off in the direction of the city. Asher exhaled as they vanished into the distance.

“That was pretty cool,” he said, commenting on Blind Guy’s battle skills.

Blind Guy didn’t turn around to face him. The little bitch came out of her hiding place, wherever she’d been, but he seemed to ignore her as well. “We gotta keep going,” Blind Guy said before stomping off in the direction of the mountain range.

Asher caught up to him. But the man was still pissed, and Asher wasn’t sure what to say. He needed to talk, though, needed to not think about the execution. So he said the first thing that came to mind. “You think you could be like that more often?”

“Asher…”

“What?”

“Shut up.”

Okay, so he’d said something wrong. Happened often enough. He’d try again. “Sucks about your friends, huh?” That was all Asher could think to say, although he didn’t really want to talk about it. That image would be branded into his mind forever. “Least you didn’t have to see it.”

Blind Guy stopped, finally. “You don’t think hearing it wasn’t enough? You don’t think I can picture these things?”

“You don’t want to picture that.”

“You don’t know what I want.”Blind Guy took a deep breath, like he was trying to calm himself down and failing. “You have no fucking idea what I want.” Well, they agreed there. “I sure didn’t want you to drag me out of there. I could have done something, I could have—”

“No, you couldn’t,” Asher cut him off. “It was a really stupid idea to—” He stopped himself as Blind Guy came at him. Expecting to be punched, Asher threw his hands up to protect his face. He’d learned a long time ago that bruises did not suit him. The punch never came, though. Instead, Blind Guy chose to yell at him.

“You know I’ve really had it up to here with you. You were supposed to wait outside the city. Was that too hard for you?”

Blind Guy was standing too close. Asher took a step back. “You’re starting to sound like my mom.”

“Yeah, well, I certainly feel sorry for the poor lady who had to raise you.”

Asher stood still, looking at Blind Guy. It wasn’t the first time someone told him that, not by far, but somehow, he hadn’t expected it from Blind Guy. Why, he wasn’t sure. Everyone took his mom’s side, and Blind Guy was no different. Of course not. Didn’t matter.

Asher walked past him without a word. They’d wasted enough time. Searching his pocket for his lighters, he set his eyes on the mountains.

Chapter 10 - Catching Fire

Blind Guy didn’t try to speak to him again until they set up camp for the night. The pathways leading into the mountains were narrow, making surprise attacks unlikely. They decided to take cover behind a range of purple bushes that encircled a small plateau. The plants gave off a strong lavender smell that they hoped would hide their own.

Harvesting some of the vegetation for wood, Blind Guy built a small camp fire and sat down in front of it. Asher chose the opposite side for himself.

“Do you want to sleep first?” Blind Guy said.

Asher nodded, not sure why Blind Guy even bothered asking. Blind Guy always took first watch. Maybe he liked to stay up late; Asher didn’t know and didn’t care. By nature, Asher was an early riser, and he liked it that way. It helped with sneaking out from home in the morning—or from wherever else he was at the time.

Curling up on the ground, he closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep. The earth was cold, and he inched closer to the fire. He yawned, but sleep didn’t come easy. Maybe because he was hungry, maybe because the images of the day kept replaying in his mind. Stoner’s head chopped off. Snakes’s head chopped off. He’d been blamed for a lot of things in his life, but he’d never had another person’s death on his conscience.

Blinking his eyes open, he looked at the flames dancing in front of him, and through them. “Hey, Blind Guy?” he tried.

“That’s not my name.”

“You were probably right about what you said earlier. If I had flown—”

“You can’t help that you’re scared of heights,” Blind Guy cut him off. Seemed like he had reverted to nice guy mode. “If what happened is anyone’s fault, it’s mine for drawing attention to us in the first place.”