2024 Story Collection

The Marked II

He had fought for so many hours; he lost count of the number of monsters he'd killed. Not that it mattered, the Elder would know. That was, if he made it back alive for her to give him the mark.

He threw 15 or so more glowing hearts into the flames and collapsed to the ground; he touched his stomach where one monster had clawed him with long talons. Is this how I die?

At that moment, he heard someone fighting. He rolled over to get a look and saw a woman? He blinked in disbelief.

She is quick and agile. She moves like the wind and cuts through the monsters in large, quick strokes. Her long swords had a wave to them, like that of his hair when taken from its braids. With ease, she reaches in and grabbed the monsters hearts, stuffing them into a bag on her back. She jumped high and fast and in seemingly no time; she had all of them cut open.

She walked up beside him to the fire and emptied her bag. She seems to relish the screams of the glowing, beating hearts as they fall into the flames.

"I don't recognize you," he speaks, his voice horse. She jumps back.

"You're alive?"

"I think so," she laughs at his words.

She stabs her swords into the dirt and kneels down beside him. She opens up a small bag tied to her waist and pulls out a vial. She puts it to his lips.

"Drink," she demands, placing a hand on the hilt of one of her swords.

He swallows and almost chokes on the thick liquid. He gags in disgust.

"Oh, stop it." She tells him as she puts the vial back and stands. "It's not that bad."

"Yes, it is." He chokes out the words. "What is that?"

"The thing that will save your life. You're welcome."

He shakes his head in disbelief. He feels a sudden pain in his stomach. He looks down at his stomach as the deep gashes begin to heal, pulling themselves back together. The pain makes tears escape his eyes as he clamps them closed.

The only one able to make things like this was the Elder. He looks up in shock at the woman that couldn't be much older than himself.

"Who are you?"

"I don't know," she shrugs, pulling her blades from the earth. "But I should get going. A hoard is heading east quickly. I need to hurry if I want to catch up to it by sunrise."

"Let me go with you." He stands.

"Why?"

"East is the main village," she nods in understanding.

"That's why there are so many." She looks at him up and down.

"How many have you killed?" she asks, and before he can answer, she cuts him off. "Turn."

He waits for the reaction he always got at his marks.

"It looks like you're a decent warrior, based on you marks." He turns to look at her in shock.

"Only decent?" He was the best warrior of his people. He had fought more, longer and killed more than any other man. Decent?

She ignores him.

"You killed 46 today," she says, looking him up and down.

"How did you know that?" he asks. She can't be an elder, she's too young, but how else could she know?

"I've just always been able to tell," she shrugs and turns back to warm her hands over what was left of the fire. He stares at her. She is so odd.

A cold northern wind blows and he feels a shiver run up his spine. He looks up. The sun was setting, and the temperature had dropped significantly in the past few minutes. He wishes, in that moment, that he'd waited to get his mark. It's too cold to not wear a fur.

"Your mark was fully healed with that gash in your abdomen earlier, so don't worry about your mark." She speaks, still with her back to him.

"Can you read minds too?" He asks.

"No," she chuckles at him. "I could just hear you teeth chattering from over here," she turns to look him in the eye, "and I could tell your newest mark was from today so you were probably worried about it."

They look at eachother for a moment before they look away.

"You may join me as far as the main village," she tells him. "After that, I will continue on alone."

"Where are your people?" he asks. "Why are you alone?"

"I have no people," she speaks as she sheaths her swords to her back.

The woman turns and whistles out into the forest where she came. A black horse comes running up to her. She pulls on a jacket of stitched furs over her shoulder before mounting her horse.

He gathers the rest of his belongings and straps on his armor. He pulls a large bear fur over himself and mounts his own horse.

How do you know so much? Who taught you such things? He wonders as he follows her out. She was so mysterious. He had so many questions. Will I ever get an answer?

He can't help but watch her as she rides, as if by doing so he might find some answers.

She grabs a salve from her bag and slips off her furs to expose her back. She pulls her braids to the side, to apply the salve to her shoulder where there was a cut.

He notices them then, her marks. His eyes widen in shock. No wonder she wasn't impressed by my marks.

The marks are in rows as wide as her shoulders. They fill the entirety of her back and neck. They go down below the line of her shirt at mid back. His marks wouldn't be even a fifth of what is visible to him.

But the part that makes him almost fall off his horse is that she has marks he can't count. Each marks count is over 100, that he knows but he doesn't know how to read marks higher than that. He never needed to know how to read marks that high until now. Now he wished he had.

To be continued...

January 11, 2024