Chapter 20, Kevin's rage
A few days after the events in the Valley of Flames…
Lise watched the majestic spires of Rolante's great mountains draw closer and closer as she stood by the railing of the ship. The familiar wind swept around her and fondly played with her hair to welcome her back to her homeland. For a moment she smiled at the thought, but the tiny feeling of joy burnt out almost instantly.
To come back… it felt like a failing. They had lost so much time. Together with Kevin she had sought through Maia, Byzen and even Forcena for a ship owner willing to take them to Mintos, at the edge of the Moonlight forest. But all refused. No price was high enough to risk a sail to that place with the threat of the hostile beastmen.
Using the cannon made by that crazy inventor cousin of Merci hadn't been an option either. Kevin had grimly explained that should they land in the middle of the wilderness and not on a path it would be impossible to get out. The trees grew thick and hard, only the few roads were an option of travel.
So the last resort… was at the starting point. It felt so meaningless… but… if they hadn't been forced to give up hope the Father of the Winged ones maybe wouldn't see them.
'Ha, there's no guarantee that he will anyway…' Lise bitterly thought and rubbed her cheek with her fingers.
If finding the fabled guardian also failed then… there was no hope on getting to the forest. The princess clenched her jaw and grimly looked at the highest mountain tops. They carried dresses of fine clouds, like floating silk.
She sighed and looked around, finding Kevin leaning on the railing a few yards away. He had placed his forearms beside each other on the thick fence, entwining his fingers into one big fist as he put all weight in the arms and watched the ocean with absentminded eyes. The salty winds seemed to have fun with his mane, which he didn't mind where he stood with his ankles easily crossed.
The wounds Rakadra had left were long healed, but the encounter had left something… else.
Kevin seemed more furious than ever when he went into battle, clawing, hitting and tearing up every monster they had encountered on the golden road. Well, the battles had been few; he was still remembered there. But whenever a monster had been stupid enough to show up it had found itself badly wounded or/and on a flight far away before Lise even had had time to get a grip of her spear.
It wasn't only because his skills, reflexes and sense of smell had been sharpened by the Mana stone. Kevin was… he was angry. The amazon princess didn't know how else to put it.
Maybe Rakadra had made him feel feeble, and he couldn't accept that.
'But you're not weak…' Lise thought as she watched her friend, 'Rakadra was just stronger then.'
No, wait. Maybe that was even worse.
But the demon hadn't been playing fair, there was no use for Kevin to blame weakness. Not in her view, at least. She sighed again and looked up at the mountains.
If he kept that fury up she would have to try talking to him. He couldn't go around being so angry with himself.
It was long past midday when they disembarked. After a quick visit at the supply shop to refill their food reserves the two warriors entered the cliff area. Again.
"We'll have to pass by Rolante," Lise explained as they walked, "the entrance to the path is hidden close to the castle. But I'd like to just sneak by, they'd start asking questions and get false hopes if they see me now."
"Me understand," Kevin gravely nodded.
For a while they walked on in silence. But it wasn't a cold one, they just wordlessly agreed on resting their tongues for a while.
Kevin knew that Lise felt frustrated about that they had been forced to return to square one. Yes, this once even he felt that time has been wasted. Her brother could be dead by now…
He forced the thought aside. No. It couldn't be so. Lise wouldn't be able to take that.
Suddenly a couple of chibidevils materialized on the path before the two, waving with their small but still dangerous forks and looking at the intruders. Measuring, trying to figure out how to best attack…
A red mist fell over Kevin's eyes, just like when he and his friend had been on the golden road earlier.
'… hurt…'
Next thing he knew he heard an unearthly screech and saw a ghostly figure soar towards the heavens. His hands ached a little; he had hit something. And a growl was still working its way through his throat.
He blinked and lowered his hands, cutting off the snarl.
"Are you alright?"
By the sudden weight on his shoulder he looked around and into Lise's concerned eyes. She was frowning, deeply.
"Guess so," he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
Her hand briefly squeezed his shoulder as she spoke again.
"You haven't been yourself lately when it comes to battles…"
"Wh-what?" Kevin grunted, confused.
"I don't know, it's just… you seem to attack more ruthlessly than before."
Lise shook her head, a bit awkwardly. It seemed like he hadn't got a clue what she was talking about.
"Maybe it's just my imagination," she helplessly said, "it just seem to me like you're using more violence than you ever did and I don't believe that's from the Mana stone."
She looked back into his eyes, still frowning.
"I might just be overreacting. But if Rakadra could have done something to you…"
Her voice trailed off as Kevin's eyes narrowed and his lips parted to show his teeth. They seemed sharper than they should be at day…
That was his reaction when the demon was mentioned in words or in his mind, she had learned to see when he was thinking of their enemy. Which was rather often, painfully enough.
"Kevin…"
Before Lise knew what she was doing her hands were on the sides of his head and his eyes flared up with surprise, the grimace instantly dying.
There I go again…
She felt her cheeks singe with extra blood, but refused to back off. Retreating was failing, besides… it was just… emotional. Nothing wrong with touching Kevin, they were friends.
'Then why is my face burning?'
She cleared her throat and forced herself not to look away as she tried to think of something decent to say in a proper voice.
"You won't let him leave you alone; that just won't work out," she tried and fought to keep her voice normal, "I can see he's still tormenting you…"
"Me worried that he come back," Kevin said with eyes thin as the edge of a sword.
Both his hands suddenly rested on her shoulder panzer; he blinked himself when that happened. But it only took a moment for him to recover.
"Won't let him win again," the beastman half blood continued while Lise still was frozen in surprise.
Before she could speak she had to send out her tongue hardly noticeable to mend her dry lips. Not scared, not at all… just surprised and suddenly a bit nervous for some reason.
"I know, Kevin," she finally said, not at the volume she had planned.
'If I'd just slid my hands down and around his neck it would be an embrace… how did we end up like this?' flew through her mind; merely a conclusion.
At least she tried to tell herself that it was just a conclusion.
Very carefully she removed her hands, and he mirrored her movement. Still… the wind rustled his hair so that it softly caressed Lise's fingers when she drew back. She turned away and began walking, rubbing her cheek in an attempt to force the blush away.
No matter how she tried to ignore it she distinctively felt strangely cool and hot at the same time all around and mostly in her stomach. And it just felt stronger as Kevin came up by her side again, considering every step he took not to allow himself to walk with the speed his legs were suited for. If he walked with normal pace he'd force her to almost run to keep up, it was long ago that he'd realized that.
Now as he continued the journey his skin softly, fondly stung where the memory of Lise's hands still remained.
And… the sad happiness was so strong that a thick lump formed in his throat.
He couldn't exactly explain why, but he wished that they still had been standing there, just like that…
Rakadra…
Kevin's jaw clenched by itself as the thought cut through his tenderly confused mind.
Maybe Lise's was right… now that he thought about it he couldn't really remember anything from the last week's battles. Just a red fuzz and some distant chanting in the back of his head, his own voice growling something over and over again like a mantra.
All he had been able to extract this far was the word "hurt", nothing more.
The joy he had felt died and the lump in his throat exploded with coldness. He had to tightly shut his eyes and clench his hands into shaking fists.
No, Rakadra couldn't have left some kind of… darkness, could he?
Hurt?
As if forced his yellow eyes opened again and he glanced down at Lise who calmly walked by his side, watching the road before them.
No. No, no. Not under any sort of spell would he do that… never.
Grimly he wrestled the thoughts out of his head as good as he could, focusing on the road ahead.
Eventually they reached Rolante and hurried past the stair leading up to the castle, ducking behind the cliff at the other side of the open area.
"Alright," Lise said in a low voice, glancing up at the building's spires with a scent of forcefully suppressed longing, "the vicinity where the Father of the Winged Ones is said to live was sealed off long ago to stop the monsters from coming from there. They are fiercer ahead, probably because there's many secluded cliffs where they have been able to grow stronger in peace."
She looked back at him and tried to smile a bit as she added:
"Nothing we can't handle, though."
Kevin nodded, clenching his teeth against the flashing concern that came alive again as Lise spoke of danger.
She turned to the cliff and ran her hand over the stones, finally reaching into a crack and pulling at something. The half blood almost jumped as another part of the stonewall moved aside to unveil that there was more path to use.
After glancing up one last time Lise went into the closed world, and Kevin followed.
The princess pulled some other hidden lever on the other side, and the cliff moved back with surprisingly little sound. Before she moved on the amazon freed the spear from her back.
They hadn't come very far before a harpy's screech slashed through the wind, and the source of the sound dived down from a ledge above the travelers. It was almost twice as big as the other beasts of the same kind on the other side of the blocking cliff.
Lise's spear whirled in her hands and the monster was sent several feet ahead. It managed to keep flying, bleeding and very, very angry. Its cold, enraged eyes were set on the princess; the claws twitched, longing for flesh to tear apart…
'… hurt…'
And it was dead.
Kevin confusedly watched the corpse that laid on the ground before him, his bloodied hands starting to shake by his own force when clenching them, trying to dry them on the path and only getting them disgustingly muddy.
To say that the harpy was a mess was to make an understatement. He had slammed it almost flat against the ground with his bare hands. Well, it was at least partly slammed completely flat…
He slowly stood up, his fists still shaking as he looked around. Lise silently watched him, her spear in both hands.
"Gah… sorry…" he muttered, awkwardly.
He didn't know what to say, didn't know what was happening. So he just shook his head.
"Let's just continue," Lise finally said.
"Yeah."
Kevin let out a slow breath and waited for her to come up beside him before he began to walk again as well, rubbing his hands against each other to get rid of the sludge of heavy sand and blood.
It happened again… something just crashed inside of him and he lost his mind. Just… fighting. In cold blood.
But he couldn't remember finding any pleasure in the slaughtering during his trances. Well, he couldn't remember anything at all, except that growling of his own voice. And… anger. Pure anger.
And he couldn't do anything about it.
The thoughts spun around in his head, he lost track of how many times he altered them as his legs continued to carry him forward without him really noticing it.
"Hey, look," Lise suddenly said, ripping him from the dark pool of a troubled mind.
She was pointing out over the cliffs. Kevin looked up.
Somehow they had gotten above the lower mountaintops, and could now see…
The whole world, it seemed.
Could even see that the horizon was rounded, divinely blue… embraced by the lavender sky with its tender white clouds, caressing the planet below. There was a small vision of purple in the lavender; the sun was beginning to sink.
It was… enormous. They were too far up to see anything specifically; a few blurred areas of darker blue-green had to be landmasses. It all looked so small from the incredibly high mountains, and huge at the same time. Vision and knowledge battling to grasp what the eyes saw.
"It beautiful," Kevin murmured, at the overwhelming sight suddenly wrapped up in blessed tranquil.
"It really is…" Lise agreed in a low voice.
They stood like that for a moment, just watching the fantastic scenery as it grew deeper in color and slowly began to fade to gold as the sun kept sinking towards the welcoming valve.
'Like his eyes…' the princess found herself thinking.
She glanced at Kevin. He looked much calmer again, completely different from the distressed young man he had been a while ago. Maybe there wasn't such a need for worries after all, at least not for now…
A moment later he sighed a little, not bitterly. Just of some sort of relief, it seemed to Lise. Then he looked around, and his eyebrows twitched a little. She followed his gaze and found that Rolante's spires almost were out of sight, much more far away than she had believed. Had they traveled that long, already?
Well, she had been lost in thought really. Worrying about Kevin's rage, wondering if they'd find the one they sought for, hoping that Eliott was alright, pondering where Hawk could be and if he was safe, trying to keep her mind at being on guard for monsters and most of all fighting to ignore the stubborn, icily soft feeling in her stomach. It just refused to disappear…
"Will be dark soon," Kevin suddenly said and turned his head at her, "continue tomorrow?"
He motioned at the steep cliffs and the thinning path ahead to make his point clear. To keep moving in darkness wouldn't be a good idea.
Lise nodded in agreement.
"Let's find some kind of lean-to in the cliffs, it'll probably be cold tonight."
Funny really… she'd thought that at this height the wind would be harsher and the air much thinner…
'Could Jinn be helping out?'
She smiled a little bit as the wind made a twirl that playfully cascaded at her face. Whether that was natural or a "yes" from the guardian spirit it left a feeling of safety. The breath of her homeland; it was Rolante's soul and pride.
The two settled for a natural alley between two big chunks of cliff that would protect them from most of the winds. After they had scouted the surroundings for monsters they set up their bedrolls and sat down, watching the fantastical sunset growing in size and beauty while they ate their usual travel-dinner.
Bread, cheese and dried meat was getting really old by now, but there wasn't much else to choose from that suited the journeys through non civilized areas.
But right then, neither Lise nor Kevin cared that much. The scenery that nature offered them was too enrapturing.
As the first star was lit on the deepening sky Lise leaned back against the cliff, trying to give the peace she felt time to heal her troubled mind. But the stone felt too cold, so she stood up momentarily to free her blanket and wrap it around her shoulders.
"Cold?" Kevin asked from his seat on his own bedroll, a couple of feet in front of her as she leaned back again.
"Not too badly, thanks anyway…" she mumbled and closed her eyes.
Maybe she fell asleep for a moment, she didn't really know. But if so, only for a short while. Because when she woke up due to a hissed screech she could clearly see the three harpies outside of the alley, and their glaring at Kevin. So it was still not that late.
"Friends of that first harpy, maybe…" Lise muttered with a sigh and reached for her spear.
The blanket fell off her as she stood up at the same time as Kevin did.
"Wait until now for attack because they think we're tired and weaker now…" he grunted.
Lise had to smirk at Kevin's statement. He clenched his fists and his howl was almost deafening since the corridor was a fine example of nature's own speaker system. Just the echo brought off the edge of the harpies' determination; seeing a full grown werewolf straightening up was about enough.
With the howl still living strongly between the cliffs Kevin released his fists with a twitch of his fingers. This freed his two inch claws.
That was enough. The monsters fled.
"They're obviously intelligent," Lise commented.
"Yeah."
Kevin grinned and made his claws disappear again.
"But my ears hurt now," he grimaced, sheepishly rubbing his head.
"Ow…" Lise said, compassionately looking at his long, obviously sensitive ears, "but at least we'll hopefully be left alone after that."
She suddenly frowned and tilted her head.
"You didn't go berserk this time…"
"No… no, I didn't?"
They exchanged confused and thoughtful glances.
"Did you feel different from before as you saw them?" Lise asked, pointing after the harpies.
Kevin shock his head. Maybe he was frowning, she couldn't tell in the falling dusk.
"No," he finally said, "just didn't get angry like before. Maybe… maybe because me tired, not ready for battle. If so, no spell?"
"If your theory is true I'd doubt that Rakadra has any sort of trick left in you."
There was a good deal of relief in both their voices.
Lise sat down on her bedroll again, placing the spear across her lap. It was getting really dark now, but one of the half moons shone down between the stone walls accompanied by the twinkling stars. Which in turn made dark sight possible.
"I could take the first guard," she offered while absentmindedly reaching up to remove the coronet.
"If want to, fine with me."
She almost dropped her tiara when a pair of warm, softly furry hands stroke along the lower sides of her jaw from behind. The still warm blanket fell over her arms; he was draping it back around her again.
"Thanks…" she managed to whisper.
"Ah… nothing, gah…" Kevin replied, shyly mumbling.
Somehow Lise's hand remembered to grab the edges of the cloth not to let it fall off her.
The half blood edged over to his own bedroll and laid down between the blankets. But it took quite some time before he managed to fall asleep.
Because of the cliffs they were pretty much safe from the wind. But parts of it still managed to sweep inside, catching the smell of Lise and spread her fine scent over the whole little room.
The sad happiness was caressing its roaring way through his whole being, and he found it nothing but pleasant whether he understood what it was or not.