Page 33 of Null & Void

Tovi stands there with her arms folded not hiding the self-satisfied smile on her face, proving her point that I get way too excited about food. But…beetleberries!

They’re not exactly rare, but certainly hard to grow. The berries are dark green to red, depending on their ripeness. Earning their name from the shape of the berry, they look like a beetle without legs. The outside flesh is firm and creates a delectable pop when you bite into them.

I fill my pockets and then gesture to Tovi to fill hers as well, which she does reluctantly.

“Divide and conquer!” I tell her, instructing her to go to the other side of the bush.

Well, my intention was to fill our pockets with ripe berries and return to the camp triumphant. That was until Tovi throws an overly ripe beetleberry at me, and it splats directly in the center of my forehead, her musical laughter following in its wake.

“I thought you were nearly thirty! Or was it…thirteen?!” I yell, using berries from my pockets as projectiles and hammering her with them in quick succession.

The shriek and laugh I hear from Tovi make my heart spin, and my rage follows not long after. I ignore them both.

It’s an all-out battle, with no winner (or maybe we both won). We return to the camp with only a handful of beetleberries, sticky and overheated.

Riley licks Tovi’s face as she struggles unsuccessfully to get away from him. “Delicious!” he announces, as he grabs for me to do the same.

Tovi picks me up and throws me over her shoulders, running toward the creek, screaming. “I’ll save you!”

This group is weird, but maybe I’m weird too.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Beans gently wakes me, a finger to his lips to keep me silent. I sit up quietly, hoping Bitty isn’t ill again, but they are waking Tovi as Beans moves to wake Riley. Once we’re all awake and confused, Beans uses the hand gestures he’s been teaching me since Nemoris to communicate.

Bitty, who was feeling well enough by the evening, was on watch after Beans. They’d heard approximately fifteen men closing in on us thanks to their Gift. We’re surrounded. From what I can decipher with my limited knowledge of the hand gestures, they intend to kill Beans and Riley, taking the rest. They are most likely skin traders looking for new people to force into sex work, though many are just never seen again.

Beans gestures for Bitty to take their throwing knives and climb a tree to the north. He then directs me up a tree to the south with my hatchets, making my bedroll look like I am still in it. The other three move into their bedrolls, their weapons in hand as they pretend to sleep. And we wait. And wait. I am starting to think that maybe Bitty was wrong when I hear the distinct sounds of movement around us.

I make eye contact with Bitty who gestures for me to take the three men directly to my left. If I dispatch them, then I’m to help Tovi. More hushed sounds of people moving about the forest filter up to us. Bitty holds up a hand, slowly counting down on their fingers.

When they finally put their last finger down, chaos erupts.

I throw my first hatchet at a man’s neck while jumping onto the back of another, using the blade of my second hatchet to slice his throat. I leap off him, swinging my hatchet at the man directly behind. He blocks with a sword, but on his second swing, I maneuver myself and duck, so his blade is lodged in a tree. My hatchet comes up and around, slamming directly into his eye. He screams, giving me time to flip backward and retrieve my first hatchet.

A man charges me, and I use both hatchets to defend myself against his sword. He’s much stronger, but he underestimates my speed, and I slam a hatchet into his sternum with a crack and gurgle. The surprised look on his face as he drops to his knees is replaced by a death stare before he slumps to the ground.

Quickly surveying my surroundings, I fling a hatchet into the back of a man raising his sword at an unaware Beans. I pick up a dropped sword and run it through the man I hit in the face earlier, as he still cradles it, wailing.

Turning around, I find a man trying to climb the tree Bitty is in, and I throw my last hatchet at him. It makes a loud thunk as it lodges into the side of his skull. Gripping the heavy scavenged sword with both hands, I swing it at one of the men Tovi is fighting. He dodges in time and swings his sword at me, but I stomp his ankle and he trips to one knee. I swing the sword and decapitate him easily, but had he been ready to fight me, it would’ve been tough given his size and the unfamiliar sword in my hands.

The night falls to silence as I move to recover my hatchets. The four of us whip around to see if anyone else is coming. Bitty jumps down from the tree.

“It’s over.” Bitty points to the man at mine and Tovi’s feet. “He’s the last one alive,” they say with a small grimace.

I stab the sword through his back and end his life.

Seventeen men in total, dead at our feet. The smell of blood and vacated bowels and bladders cuts through the air. Beans asks if anyone is injured, and we all mutter that we’re fine. I’m walking toward the hatchet near Beans when Riley laughs breathlessly.

“I knew you could fight, and I knew you were fast—but that was something else entirely, Firecat,” Riley says, with another breathless laugh.

“Now I understand why Bitty was complaining about getting their ass handed to them every time you spar,” Tovi adds, breathless and wide-eyed.

I pull my first hatchet from the back of the dead man at Beans’ feet, wanting everyone to stop looking at me and forget what they saw. Other than Jaena, no one has seen me kill another person, let alone…seven of them, with ease. Eight, if you count finishing that last man with a sword through his back.

“I guess allocating you only three men to dispatch was mildly condescending,” Bitty says with a grunt, struggling to get my hatchet out of the man’s skull at their feet.

“Not at all, Bitty,” I reply quietly, heat flaming my cheeks at the way they’re all looking at me. I take over the task of removing the hatchet, the awful creaking sound of metal on bone is loud enough to make me cringe.

---