Matabar

Ardi and his father burst into his parents’ room. It was slightly larger than Ardi’s, but somehow... comfortable. Cozy. The sun shone through the slightly cracked glass of the perpetually open windows. Ardi couldn’t remember them ever being closed, even in winter. The sound of the curtains, reminiscent of owls’ feathers rustling in the wind, could be heard even from the corridor. And there was always a pleasant smell.

Every few days, Mother would change the flowers in the tall vase hidden in the corner of the room on a small, carved table which was almost the color of cherries. It was the only piece of colorful furniture in their kingdom of slightly shabby gray boards.

Ardi approached the bed. The taste of iron filled his mouth. The smell of blood was as strong as the flowers. It was an odd mixture of the fading autumn and something he had never felt before, something invisible, yet palpable. Sticky, greedy, twisted fingers gripped his heart, twisting and turning at will. His lungs emptied of air all on their own.

The boy grabbed the bedrail and, just like when he was a child, found refuge and a comforting space where the nightmares that tormented him at night couldn’t reach. Drawing strength from the memory of his parents’ embrace, he managed to look up at his mother.

She resembled their boards. She was somehow crumpled, drenched in sweat and breathing heavily. Bloodstains marred the gray sheets, making the boy clutch the railing tighter.

"Don’t be afraid," she whispered softly, barely audible. Perhaps she didn’t even whisper those words with her cracked lips, but only with her eyes the color of the table where her favorite flowers stood. They were brown with a tint. They were almost the color of cherries. "Come closer, Ardi."

The boy looked at his father, then at his grandfather. The old man seemed even older right then, but he still smiled broadly. Like everyone else around him. In the reflection of the vase, the sun outside winked, appearing and disappearing behind low clouds. And the boy thought about how much they all looked like that sun right now. They were literally glowing. Not with their skin or their bright eyes. But from within.

And Ardi plunged headlong into something for which he had no words, but he felt like he would never forget this moment. He was no longer bothered by the crimson-stained rags that had been thrown into the corner of the room, nor by the acrid smell, nor by the metallic taste on his tongue.

Slowly, carefully placing his feet, as if one misstep could shatter the scene like it was the vase itself, he approached the headboard. His mother was still breathing hard. Her wet, tangled hair was spread across the pillows, cascading in small, serpentine strands onto her trembling shoulders.

"Look, Ardi," she said, her fingers suddenly seeming so fragile as she gently pulled back the edge of a small blanket wrapped around the snow-white sheet. "Meet Ertan. Erti. Your brother."

The boy leaned in. At first, he didn’t understand what he was seeing. It was something small, purple. Were it not for the strange sniffling and the barely perceptible fingers on its tiny hands, Ardi might have thought his mother had brought out an eggplant.

But with each passing second, with each heartbeat, Ardi felt something strange. Invisible threads, stronger than any of the ropes his father used to tie boats together, enveloped him from head to toe. But they weren’t strangling him. They were pulling him. Pulling him toward this little bundle that smelled of flowers and something sweet.

Without meaning to, Ardi reached out his hand, and tiny, soft fingers grabbed his index finger. They squeezed gently, and Ardi realized that he wasn’t the only one bound by these ropes. They had tied the two of them together with an invisible, unbreakable bond.

"Hello," the boy said in a melodious, unfamiliar language he had made up on the spot. Or maybe he’d somehow remembered it... But that didn’t matter right then. "I am your brother. And you are mine. These lands are your lands. We will walk among the stones and the grasses, the waters and the winds. We are one, you and I."

The bundle yawned, released his finger, and then nestled back into the sheet. Ardi stepped back. The feeling of being bound by heavy ropes gradually faded, leaving behind a sense of completeness. It was as if he had been walking this world with only half of himself, and now, suddenly, he was whole.

"The time has come, Hector," Grandpa whispered, but for some reason, Ardi could still hear him.

Just as he could hear the rustle of the trees at the forest’s edge, the murmur of a stream gradually encased in ice, and even the distant laughter of a brook, still remembering the traces of two people. Ardi saw birds soaring between distant clouds, and seemed to recognize the pattern of feathers on their broad wings. He saw far, heard deep, and felt things he had never felt before.

"Over my dead body, old man," his father growled. "And now..."

"And now," his mother interrupted, her voice sounding like iron despite her appearance. "May my husband approach his youngest son?"

Ardi blinked and the vision faded, lost in the sound of his father’s laughter as he wiped away tears. He smiled broadly, shining so brightly that the blinking sun seemed a modest spark from a splinter of wood compared to him. His mother, rocking Erti gently in her arms, whispered something to him. Something soft and tender. Ardi even thought he knew what it was. As if the same sounds had been whispered to him once, back when he’d been wrapped in a blanket, and now lingered forever in the deepest and most hidden corners of his memory.

"Let’s go," Grandpa said quietly, squeezing the boy’s shoulder.

Ardi looked up at his grandfather and froze. His eyes were covered with a barely perceptible, transparent veil, but that wasn’t what made the boy freeze. Unlike his laughing father and his mother who had turned into a warm blanket, Grandpa appeared like the sky before an autumn rain. Still light, but ready to fall upon his shoulders with an unpleasant drizzle. Maybe this was what adult tiredness looked like.

Tiredness and something else. Ardi didn’t know this feeling yet. But maybe it was like expecting to catch a big carp in the river and pulling out a frog instead. Still good, but not the same.

"Let’s go," Grandpa repeated.

Ardi wanted to protest, but unexpectedly strong fingers grabbed his shoulder and literally dragged him out of the room. He managed to glance at his parents in a silent plea for rescue, but they were completely absorbed in the contents of the small bundle being lulled to sleep in his mother’s arms.

They passed through the corridor, still dusty and creaky no matter how much it had been repaired and cleaned, and soon found themselves on the porch. Only then did Grandpa release his grip and slump heavily into the rocking chair where he spent many evenings.

Ardi looked up at the sky.

It was getting dark. To the east, beyond the peaks of the Alcade, the night was already unfolding its cool embrace, promising to bring a grumpy fall with it. Ardi didn’t like fall. Or summer. He liked winter and spring because...

"Ardan."

The boy flinched. He turned away from the distant mountains and looked at his grandfather. The old man was hiding his eyes behind a slightly trembling, even more withered hand. If Grandpa had until recently resembled an old oak, he now looked like a tree struck by lightning — ready to collapse into a pile of ashes at any moment.

"Grandpa!"

The boy jumped to the chair, ready to grab his grandfather, but froze. What if a single touch proved to be enough to make the slightly swaying elder truly crumble?

"Everything’s fine," Grandpa’s smile trembled almost as much as his hands. "We need to talk, Ardan."

His grandfather’s words enveloped him. Or rather, not his words, but just a single word — his own name. It went as deep as Ergar’s and his father’s looks. Truly deep, to a place where Ardi didn’t want anyone to go. Not consciously, but just because.

"Your brother, Ardan," the sounds gradually faded away. The song of the cicadas had barely begun, and the melodic rustle of the laughing leaves swaying to the rhythm of the wind was gone as well. Ardi was underwater. He was somehow invisible, but no less real. "He wasn’t born like you."

His brother? He had a brother?

Everything around him receded. Blurred. The boy seemed to be hiding in the sideboard again, watching the world through the prism of old, cloudy glass, waiting for the right moment to jump out and scare everyone.

"The blood of the Matabar slumbers within him and will probably never wake," Grandfather’s words pierced deeper and deeper, and there was nothing Ardi could do about it. "Listen to my voice, Ardan. Don’t be distracted. Focus on it."

Ardi obeyed, and the world around him vanished. The boy seemed to be here, on the familiar veranda, and also somewhere far away. Beneath the water, which was not just water, but the silt of the river, which covered him with a cold, unpleasant blanket.

But he had to endure.

Grandfather had asked him to.

"These bonds will only harm your path, my boy." The long, sharp splinters seemed to have reached their destination. They’d found the ropes that had just tied Ardi to Erti.

Erti...

His brother...

He had a brother.

He was small and defenseless, like the squirrel Skusty had begged him to save. It had been scary. Very scary. But Ardi had saved it anyway. He’d climbed the tallest tree in the pine forest. He’d defeated a giant owl with a stick, and then, proudly bearing the cuts from the bird’s steel claws, he had helped the little squirrel hide in a small hollow. He’d pulled it into the light and, after seeing and hearing the words it needed in its eyes, had found its family and returned the squirrel to its home.

What did a squirrel have to do with any of this?

Everything was so unclear, so vague.

"Listen to my voice, Ardan," Grandpa’s voice came from far away. From the past or the future. "Whoever was born tonight is not your brother," the needles stabbed at the ropes, trying to break the strong knots. "You will never become one. Your paths are two different journeys. He is your family, but not one with you. His destiny is his land. Your destiny is your land."

More and more needles pierced the bonds that seemed to be the most precious thing Ardi possessed. But Grandfather didn’t want to hurt him. Ardi knew that, he could feel it. Grandpa loved him. Ardi could feel that, too.

But...

Erti.

His brother.

Brother…

"N-n-no," Ardi barely managed to utter.

He recoiled. He clutched the fang that hung around his neck as if it could give him strength. As much strength as the only person Ardi knew was truly strong possessed. His father. Hector Egobar would have had enough strength to dig himself out of the cold mud and swim to the surface.

"Ardan..."

"No-no-no-no-no," Ardi repeated, gripping the fang tighter and tighter.

Suddenly, the boy felt something hot trickle down his fingers. The vision was gone. There were no more sharp splinters trying to cut the ropes. Still intact and unscathed, they held something precious deep inside the boy.

He opened his eyes sharply and saw a figure before him that was as astonishing as it was terrifying. It was the size of an adult bear, with paws as thick as birch trees, claws and fangs shining like crescent moons, and four tails wrapped around Ardi.

The figure shimmered and sparkled, and through it, as though looking through the clearest of streams, he saw his stooped grandfather. He seemed to have shrunk and withered, sprawled out as he was in his chair.

"You are wrong about this, Ergar."

"Perhaps, my old friend," the leopard’s growl sounded faint. "But I am indebted to Hector. And by Heaven and Earth, I will repay him, even if it destroys our last hope."

Ardi could feel his grandfather looking not at the ghost, but through it and straight at the boy. And for the first time since his childhood, Ardi feared those terrible eyes. They were not the familiar, loving ones he saw every day.

The boy succumbed to his emotions and, still not unclenching the bloody fist that held the fang, he ran. He ran wherever his eyes took him. Through the night descending on the mountain. Through moss and ravines. Through gullies and bushes. Away from him. From the one who wore his grandfather’s face, who spoke with his voice and breathed with his chest, but wasn’t him.

The ghost faded, taking with it the tired old man’s words:

"You already have, Ergar, Storm of the Mountain Peaks."

***

Ardi awoke on the edge of a stone ledge. It was wide enough for the boy to lie down on. The Grumbling Old Man’s Tongue. It was Ardi’s favorite spot in the whole area. Why?

The boy turned onto his stomach and hung over it slightly. Tonight, for some reason, he saw nothing but strange, black clouds covering the sky above the village. Usually, on any other night, Ardi could see strange lights flickering like fireflies at the base of the mountain. They were strange because they seemed unnatural. Unreal. Not descending from the sky in white spirals, or coming from red sparks struck by special stones.

And among those lights, barely visible dots were moving. People. Before the Sheriff had climbed the mountain, Ardi had never seen another adult human closer than the ledge allowed him to. But no one in the family liked the boy coming here. Maybe they were afraid he’d fall and tumble down the slope. As Grandpa had said once, if that happened, only Ardi’s curious nose would reach the bottom.

Grandpa.

His thoughts tangled... scratched in his head like hungry mice. Swift and quick, impossible to catch.

How did Ardi even get here?

He couldn’t remember.

The last clear memory he had was of his father preparing to meet Erti. And that was it. Then came the fog, in which bright fragments of something unpleasant occasionally flared up.

"Hel...p!"

The rising wind carried the word to Ardi’s ears. It also brought different smells with it. Some were new. There was something acrid, flammable. Salty. Sickly sweet. There were more new smells than familiar ones. But the boy focused on the latter.

Burnt wood, hot iron and... blood.

Something was happening in the village, hidden by the black clouds that gave off that ridiculous smell of burning. Something horrible that immediately reminded Ardi of the sticky, cold fingers he’d recently encountered in his parents’ bedroom.

"I have to tell Dad!" The boy almost slapped himself.

He was about to run home when he saw two red marks on the stones of the ledge. Marks very similar to his own hands. So similar that the boy couldn’t resist pressing his hands to them.

They were identical.

Bloody marks.

His marks…

The boy looked down at his hand. The deep cut left there by the beast’s fang, which was now hanging uncomfortably on his chest, had already healed.

"Cub."

Ardi turned sharply. Behind him, on the grass that broke through the stone, stood a toy leopard. It shimmered slightly in the bright light of the Alcade’s stars.

"Ergar? What are you..." The boy shook his head. No, no. He had no time for this. "Sorry! I have to go home! Dad has to..."

"Hector..." Ergar’s wooden eyes glistened slightly. "The one whose seed you came from, child, is already there. Among the two-legged ones."

Ardi shook his head. His thoughts changed from mice to rats. Unpleasant. Foul-smelling. They were just like those clouds slowly climbing the mountain, scratching the stones and blackening the slope.

"What are you talking about, Ergar?" The boy shouted, clutching the fang he had been given. "My father is home! With Mom and Erti! I have to warn him!"

"You’re too late, child. The two-legged one with the iron came to your lair. He took Hector with him."

The two-legged with the iron? That Sheriff?

"Look," Ergar whispered, his voice barely audible, as if he were holding the boy soothingly. "Look down with my eyes, child. Listen with my ears. You’ve earned it. As did Hector..."

The world expanded, deepened. Ardi saw colors whose names he didn’t know and had never imagined could exist. Fragrances took on volume and shape, creating translucent, misty images of their owners. Wind currents turned into wide rivers, carving the air with thousands of different details. Sounds transformed from whispers to thunderous roars.

But the boy didn’t care about the revealed magnificence hidden behind the veil of human blindness, deafness, and their almost nonexistent sense of smell.

His eyes, which were now shining, with pupils narrowed to vertical slits, looked down. They pierced the parting clouds of black smoke that seemed frozen in front of the small leopard figure. In an instant, the darkness retreated from the mountain.

What had once seemed like a distant, mythical place — the village — now opened up to Ardi with the decisiveness of an unlocked chest, one no longer capable of keeping secrets. The boy saw what his grandfather’s stories had called streets. Paths, not trampled through forest grass, but literally beaten into the ground, covered with compacted dust and sparse plank floors.

There were houses. Many houses. Small and big, wide and narrow. With signs and without. With windows and shutters.

He also saw strange, bulbous structures and lots of iron. And screams. And such a stench. And so much clatter. The smell of fire and copper…

But the boy was not afraid. Whatever Ergar had done, he’d given Ardi not only his eyes, ears and nose, but perhaps his heart as well.

Lying on the ledge and clutching the sharp stones with his fingers, Ardi ran through the smells and sounds. He leapt over the moaning women on the ground, who were shielding crying children from the mocking tongues of purple flames that devoured the roofs and walls of buildings. Sometimes, the women screamed as a passing horseman squeezed the trigger of a revolver and the bullet whistled out of the barrel and into the bodies of running, screaming people.

Ardi passed a fallen man who was picking up some snakes that were slipping out of a wound in his stomach. The boy jumped over the roof of a house where people were wailing. And it was unclear whether they were screaming from the pain of their own fear, or from the fire creeping closer to the villagers trapped in the wooden box.

The boy slipped under two riders who were firing at each other almost point-blank with carbines. He recognized one of them as Sheriff Kelly Bryan, half his chest covered in a flowing red bandage that reeked of copper like everything else around him.

The boy followed the scent, leaping over ravines of flowers and flashes of distant sound, searching in the chaos of the collapsing world for the one thing that mattered to him.

The village was burning, people were screaming.

Dozens of riders circled the fleeing, weeping, shrieking townspeople. Some fired back, others tried to hide, but what seemed to be a safe corner turned into a fiery trap when a passing rider threw a small, red stick under the walls of the building. Explosions rang out and the scarlet sprays of summer flowers colored the sky, only to fall to the ground in a deathly pattern.

The boy ran.

He ran until he found what he was looking for.

Amid the smoke, soot, and desperate wails, he saw a building — one of the few that had not yet been touched by the indifferent flames. For a moment, Ardi thought he could feel it, too... feel the fire. Feel it not as something warm and usually harmless, but... almost alive. Almost sentient. Capable of saying something, even. It was as if, in those crackles, explosions, and bursts, Ardi could hear faint sounds...

"The school... children," the smells and sounds formed the image of a man lying on the ground.

He somewhat resembled Grandpa. He smelled like old age and dampness. His strength had left him, and he’d dropped a simple hunting rifle.

Nearby stood Hector.

With the toe of his boot, he flipped the weapon into the air and, twisting the carved carbine barrel, pulled the trigger. The rider galloping toward him with a glowing red stick in his hand fell from his horse and covered the stick with his dead body. Not even a heartbeat passed before a booming explosion, which blossomed into another fiery flower, went through his body and appeared from between his shoulder blades.

Ardi saw it.

His father did not.

He picked up the old hunter’s rifle, dropped to one knee, hid behind a wide water barrel that covered the entrance to the building where a dozen children, children just like Ardi, were crying, and pulled the trigger again and again.

Click, Boom!

Click, Boom!

Rhythmically, almost calmly, the rifle responded. Still-smoking shells fell at Hector’s feet, but he paid no attention to their treacherous bites, which left black marks on his pants and skin.

"Ranger!" The sounds and smells formed the silhouette of another man out of the clouds of smoke. He was younger than Grandfather, but older than Ardi’s father. "Cover me!"

Father turned silently toward the figure and, tossing aside the emptied rifle, drew a revolver. With one hand, he cocked the hammer and squeezed the trigger, firing several shots.

At first, Ardi thought Hector had been aiming at the screaming man, but as the figure ran under a hail of bullets that tore through the space on the other side of the street, he realized that wasn’t the case.

The figure jumped over the barrel and, drawing the same rifle to himself, leaned his back against the shelter where Hector had hidden.

"Bastards! Sons of bitches!" The unknown figure swore. He reloaded his shotgun. "Where are the lawmen Kelly sent for?"

Instead of answering him, Hector pulled one of the explosive sticks from his belt and, after lighting the fuse, threw it toward a building with a tilted sign.

"You won’t reach..."

Whatever the figure had been about to say, the explosion and the screams, merging into a single hum, drowned out the rest of his sentence. Smoke rose again, along with the smell of death and blood. Shrapnel scattered across the copper-red street. Fiery sparks danced in their viscous reflections, almost allowing someone to mistake the nightmarish scene for a celebration.

"Damn you, Hector," the figure spat. "Sometimes, I forget you’re not human."

"Less talking, Oleg," Hector hissed, quickly reloading both weapons. He took off his wide-brimmed hat and hung it on the carbine barrel. Slowly raising his makeshift scarecrow over the barrel, he said, "There are two shooters on the prison roof."

"Are you sure?"

Hector turned to the figure and frowned.

"Oh, right," he nodded. "Fucking Matabar eyes and ears..."

They both sat in silence for a while. Even as people screamed around them, explosions sounded, and the smell of copper grew stronger, they didn’t leave their cover. Some might have called it cowardice, but Ardi knew that as long as his father stood between the children and danger, Hector Egobar wouldn’t leave his post, no matter what.

"Tell me, Lieutenant," Hector growled, making the boy shrink against the rock, despite the fact that he was miles away from the scene. "Why would the Shanti’Ra lay siege to Evergale to get to its prison?"

The silhouette, to his credit, quickly overcame his surprise.

"Kelly, he..."

"He what?"

The figure turned away.

"Remember those farmers?"

Hector frowned even more.

"The Ogdens?"

"Yes, them," the silhouette nodded, then briefly peeked out from behind their cover and fired at a passing rider.

The bullet missed the humanoid silhouette but struck their horse’s head. The horse didn’t even have time to neigh. Its mighty legs buckled, and the animal flew forward, dragging its rider, who hadn’t managed to get his feet out of the stirrups, with it. Both of them fell in a heap right next to the "jail," breaking most of their bones in the process.

"Damn it! Who builds a jail across from a school?" The figure shouted, immediately ducking for cover as the two shooters on the roof fired at them.

"And what does this have to do with the Ogdens?" Hector prompted, occasionally firing his revolver into the screaming darkness.

"Besides the fact that they were disemboweled?" The figure sneered, reloading his gun. "Oh, not much, Ranger. Just that Mrs. Ogden was once Ms. Bryan."

"Bryan? Just..."

"Yes," the figure called "Lieutenant" peered out and fired again. "Just like Kelly Bryan."

Hector said something in a language unfamiliar to Ardi.

"So, our brave, retired cavalry officer could think of nothing better than to track down the youngest son of the Shanti’Ra chief, lock him up, and send a telegram to Delpas."

The unfamiliar language and its very harsh, short words came again.

"Is that Dwarfish?"

"Orcish," Hector corrected him, then pulled a knife from his boot and raised it to eye level, catching the reflection of the shooters peering down from the roof. "If we don’t get them down from there, even if the lawmen make it here before Evergale is reduced to ashes..."

"Hey... Ranger."

Hector turned to the silhouette. A pool of copper-scented blood was spreading across the figure’s abdomen, like the blossoms of impending death.

"Damn it, Lieutenant!"

Hector pulled the figure to him, but the latter didn’t feel it anymore. Ergar’s eyes saw the moment when something weightless, almost invisible, without color or smell, left the lips of the man called "Lieutenant." His last breath. So that’s what Grandfather had been talking about in his stories.

Hector took the dead man’s hat and covered his face with it, then he put his carbine aside, removed his revolver’s holster and stood to his full height.

Ardi wanted to scream, but his lips wouldn’t move and his tongue was a lifeless stone. He wanted to jump up and run to his father’s aid, but his body wouldn’t listen, as if it had fused with the rock.

The two men on the roof, they would...

But their carbines were silent.

They spat no deadly steel into the night. Hector stood with his knife, facing another silhouette. One taller than Hector. Broader in the shoulders. Ardi could hardly imagine such a hulking figure moving on only two legs, but there it was — standing right before Hector.

It had legs as thick as young oaks and arms as broad as a mustang’s neck. It also had a square face with a square jaw and two sharp tusks almost touching its cheeks.

"Orla kan du," the silhouette spoke in an unfamiliar language — the same one Hector had just been cursing in. But after a moment, Ardi began to understand the words. "Between you and me, there is no enmity, no blood, Highlander. All past is past. All that is forgotten is forgotten. Our peoples are brothers. You guard your land, I guard mine."

"This is not your land, orc," Hector said. For some reason, he took off his jacket and shirt, leaving him in only his pants. In his hands, he held his broad hunting knife. "Take your son and leave the village."

"Leave the village?" The monster from Grandfather’s stories growled. "Look around you, Matabar. What is left of this village?"

"Most of the people managed to take cover," Hector stood his ground. Grandpa had always said that Hector was known for his stubbornness. "Homes can be rebuilt. The dead can be buried. Leave, orc. The marshals will be here soon."

"The marshals?" The orc either scoffed or laughed. "There will be no marshals, Matabar."

The silhouette unfastened something from his belt. Something round and heavy. He threw it at Hector’s feet.

"Didn’t make it, did they..." Hector muttered, shifting the knife from his left hand to his right.

The silhouettes behind the monster raised their rifles, the bolts clicking, but none of them pulled their triggers. A menacing, thunderous growl and the mighty swing of an arm made them freeze.

"You want to fight, Highlander?" The monster roared. "Fight me? A blood brother? For whom? For your masters? For your oppressors and enslavers? What will your ancestors say? The gods and spirits will turn from your path, traitor!"

"Damn you," Hector sighed, shaking his head. "You remind me of my old man, orc. You both live in the past. And by the past. The Dark Lord is gone, orc. He fell long ago. There are no more brothers. No more of your land, no more of mine. There is only one land. For all. And if you will not leave, I will protect it. And as the gods commanded, as you said, I will do so to the last drop of blood."

Hector crouched slightly, his legs shoulder-width apart. Something white suddenly glowed across his body. White and very cold. His muscles, already almost as big as the orc’s, swelled. Veins bulged. Tendons stretched like ropes over his body. His fangs grew longer, his hair bristled, and sharp, yellow claws extended from his hands.

"To the last drop of your blood, blood brother," Hector growled, looking nothing like the man Ardi knew.

No, there, in the midst of blood, smoke and fire, stood something between a man and Ergar’s figure. Someone who had taken on the form of a mountain leopard.

"Matabar," the orc said, taking off his upper clothes and picking up a couple of short axes. "Tonight, the story of your race ends. But do not fear. I will tell my children of your bravery. And they will tell their children, and one day, they will become songs and..."

"No, orc," Hector growled. "It is I who will tell my son that tonight I freed the plains from the bandits of the Shanti’Ra."

"Your son?" The orc lowered his axes. "The Matabar do not end with you and that old man? Is this true, Hector Egobar, the last of the Highlanders? May the Howling Wolf believe my words, this is the happiest news I have heard in the last twenty years!"

The orc banged his axe handles against his chest and let out an animal roar that momentarily turned into a thunderous rumble that drowned out all other sounds.

"Put away your fangs and claws, Matabar," the orc said calmly, sounding quite friendly, even. "Take your woman, your old man, and your son. Return to the mountains. We will not follow. My word on it."

"Get lost," Hector replied.

The orc growled and raised his axes again.

"Fool! You cannot defeat me! Someone who has worn a man’s skin for so many years and forgotten who he truly is has no hope against me!" The monster’s silhouette clashed his axes together. "You will die!"

"Only you will die tonight!"

Ardi couldn’t imagine moving with such speed.

If not for Ergar’s eyes, he wouldn’t have been able to see his movements, even if he’d been standing close to his father. Where Hector had once stood, only heel marks remained on the ground.

The hunter soared into the air, spun around, and landed directly in front of the orc. Before Ardi could understand what was happening, Hector had already thrust his right hand forward in a swift, straight lunge.

The orc roared and raised his axes, but they hit nothing but air. Without a moment’s hesitation, Hector had transferred his knife to his left hand, caught it at the base of its guard, and then slid along the ground.

With feline agility, he slipped between the orc’s legs, and when the monster leapt aside to avoid a truly painful wound or worse, Hector slashed him just below the knee. Blood of an alien color and smell splattered the ground.

"Sharp claws, Snow Leopard!" The orc laughed instead of wincing in pain.

No…

Laughing, he pounced. Like an angry bear awakened from its slumber, and seeing nothing but his target, axes crossed, the orc charged forward. The ground shook beneath his feet and the air filled with sparks from his wild, laughing eyes, which reflected how drunk on battle and blood he was.

His axes sliced through the air like waterwheel blades, passing a millimeter above Hector’s head, who had ducked just in time. Ardi’s father pushed off the ground and jumped over the orc, drawing his knife again and leaving a second slash on his body — this time along the orc’s back.

Now the beast howled. Gray blood spurted into the air in an arc. Someone raised a rifle.

"Don’t you dare!" The creature roared. "Orak Han-da!"

It turned, straightened, and towered over Hector. The monster’s breathing slowed. It spread its axes wide, then brought them together, making a sound so powerful that Ardi screamed from the pain in his ears.

The boy covered them with his hands, feeling streams of blood run down his fingers. But he never took his eyes off the fight.

The monster’s axes glowed strangely, and the air, bending to his will, formed a ball that hit the ground at Hector’s feet.

The hunter was flung into the air like a limp kitten.

"Father!" Ardi screamed in panic.

The orc was already leaping after him, axes raised high, ready to deliver a crushing blow. But Hector... he seemed to push away from something. As if somehow weightless, as if gravity had no hold on him, a meter above the ground, he found a foothold more solid than stone.

Twisting like a snake, he flipped once more over the orc and was ready when the beast landed. The knife twisted in Hector’s hand. He angled his weapon in a reverse grip and drove the blade with all his strength into the creature’s side.

The monster howled.

"Father!" Ardi rejoiced.

That stupid monster! How could he compare to Ardi’s father! There was no faster or stronger hunter in all of the Alcade...

"I got you," the orc hissed with a smile.

Hector’s eyes widened. He let go of his knife and tried to jump aside, but it was too late. The orc grabbed him, forcing him into his iron embrace, crushing him like a bear crushes its prey.

"Father..."

Hector growled.

His sharp fangs sunk into the monster’s collarbone. The claws on his feet and hands sliced and tore flesh. Gray sprays jettisoned out, then poured down, but the beast stood firm. Despite his many wounds and endlessly flowing blood, he continued to crush Hector, grinning.

Ardi felt something hot trickle down his cheeks.

Tears.

They were the color of fire.

"Goodbye, Matabar."

"Ar...d...an..." Hector rasped.

And then the orc howled like a hungry wolf and, straining his muscles, squeezed one final time. Bones crunched, and blood and various other fluids poured from Hector’s eyes, mouth, ears and nose. And as the monster released his grip, he fell to the ground. He twitched, jerked, reached for a mountain cliff and stilled forever, lying there with one hand still outstretched.

"Father... Get up, Father..." The boy whispered. "Stop pretending... Father."

The orc bent over the body, picked up the knife, licked the blood from it, and tucked it into his belt.

"Orak Han-da... A glorious battle," he said, then turned to the building and sniffed. "Human children..." He said with a slight sadness. "That’s why you didn’t back down, Hector... well, consider that their lives were paid for by yours."

The monster shook his head and motioned for his men to leave. They holstered their weapons and walked down the street, leaving the building untouched.

And Ardi...

He looked down. There, under the hill. There, in the sand, lay something that had been his father. The biggest and mightiest beast of the Alcade. Impregnable and unshakable. Familiar. Warm. The most reliable thing in his life… His father.

"No," Ardi said. "No-no-no-no."

He gripped the rocks so hard they touched the bones in his fingers.

"Dad..."

The boy’s eyes turned to long slits. Short fangs appeared in his mouth, the hair on his head stirred, and claws grew from his fingers.

That monster...

That beast...

Ardi reached down. He plunged into the sounds of the roaring fire. They filled him. Not with warmth, but with pain. Dozens of screams merged in that crackle. Hundreds of screams. Bodies of men and women burning in the fire gave off the scent of mocking death. Their skin burst, their bones turned to ash. And that mingled with the black smoke, slid through the wind and covered the figures of the killers.

Grandfather’s stories had never lied.

Monsters really did exist.

And Ardi’s eyes never left one of them.

The orc who had been walking down the street stopped. After standing for a while, he turned to the hidden mountain in the night. Their eyes met. Or so it seemed like to Ardi. But what he certainly didn’t imagine was the whisper he heard in the flickering flames.

"Don’t you dare, cub!" Ergar roared, but it was already too late.

Ardan held out his hand, and a name escaped his lips. For a moment, the chaotic dance of the burning village froze. The flames stopped. Then, stretching into a ribbon, they touched the orc’s flesh.

The boy fell unconscious, pale and cold. He was almost hanging from the ledge. And somewhere out there, amid the burning Evergale, the orc rose, his face melted by these flames, leaving behind a mark in the shape of a child’s hand.

"I will wait for you," the monster said before disappearing into the smoke. "The last of the Matabar…"