The Brotherhood: Blood (89 page)

“You don’t think we’ll have any problems?” Nova frowned.

“I highly doubt it. The only ones I’d be concerned for would be the monks, but even then, they live in their monastery. The worst that they’d have to deal with is cleaning the sand the wind lifts for the beach. And as for the Ogres, they’re not ignorant by any means—they placed themselves so far back for a reason.”

“So everything’ll be fine then.”

“Unless the storm decides to get worse.”

How worse would it have to be to get this far inland?

Odin
dare not question his thought, less he jinx himself for his action.

The rain continued through the night and into the early morning. By midafternoon, after the sun eclipsed the horizon and hung high in the air, the ground remained so soaked with moisture that he didn’t want to get out of bed. Hung-over from both mental relaxation and the warmth the bedroll provided, Odin slept in, ignoring the ignorant, post-storm cries of the gloomy, dreary day.

By the time he did rise, clouds darkened the sky and thunder sounded in the distance.

“
Again?”
Nova groaned, reaching up to run a hand through his tangled mess of hair. “We might as well just go back to bed.”

“Too much of a good thing can be bad,” Miko said, tightening his lower robe around his waist. “Trust me—you’ll feel much better if you wake up now than you will in a few hours.”

“Yeah,” Nova grunted, pushing himself out of the bedroll. “Whatever.”

Sighing, Odin, too, rose and turned to face his companions, but not without looking outside the cave and viewing the destructive effects of last night’s storm. From snapped twigs, to broken branches, to entire trees toppled by the mighty gale, power lingered in each and every surface and seemed to beckon him with moral wounds inflicted on their inanimate hides. Such imagery forced him to consider just how they’d managed to escape such chaos. Had the cave kept them safe, sheltering them from the torrential onslaught that pounded the earth, or had it been something else, something far greater and concrete than just simple rock and stone?

Him?
he thought.

No. Surely Miko wouldn’t have lain awake all night projecting a barrier in front of the cave. That would’ve required far too much effort, especially for a single person fighting to keep something such as a storm out of a cave.

But what if he did?

What if, regardless of his superstitions, Miko
had
stayed awake all night,
and
kept a barrier in front of them while at it? It wasn’t out of his power—he’d proven that countless times by making the seemingly-impossible possible—but could he really sustain the energy needed to do such a thing? Could he hold a barrier throughout the night, shielding them from the wind and rain, or could he have done something else, something Odin wasn’t even aware of?

Does it really matter?

It didn’t, but maybe an answer would be enough to quell the uneasiness rising in his chest.

Shivering, Odin tightened his jerkin around his chest and buttoned it halfway, leaving just enough space to allow adequate breathing room. Behind him, Nova swore and cursed as he tripped and nearly ran into the wall. “It’s too damn wet in here,” the man grunted. “Fuckin’ rain.”

“Maybe we should move farther back,” Odin suggested. “At least we wouldn’t be cold.”

“The only good that would do would be allowing ourselves a personal comfort we can’t afford,” Miko said. He took a moment to lace his cape around his shoulders before continuing. “Have you considered how the fire would react?”

“My father used to practice. Tried to get me to do it too, but I could never let the world go like that.” Nova laughed, as though something about his statement had unnerved him. He fingered the strands of hair at his chin, first twirling them around his knuckles, then unfurling and straightening them out. He let out one final bout of nervous laughter when he realized both Odin and Miko’s stares. “It scared me a little, ok? It’s not like I wanted to sink back while everything’s going on around me.”

“You do have a point,” Miko nodded. “Meditation allows the confident relief. Anyone else might as well pull wool over their eyes.”

“I assure you both, there’s nothing to worry about,” Miko said, circling Odin and setting both hands on his shoudlers. “I know you may not have grown completely accustomed to the things I do, but I hope that as time’s gone on, you’ve been less willing to be afraid and more willing to give life to your thoughts.”

“That’s fine,” the Elf said, encircling his shoulders and drawing him against his chest. “I just want you to know that I care about you, both of you. I do not lie without regret, nor speak the truth without worry.”

A second night of rain and wind buffeted them without abandon. From the time the sun departed beneath the grey clouds to the time night and the white moon cast its vision over the dark night, the storm continued, merciless and without care. It became so severe at one point that, in the middle of the night, Nova slipped into Odin’s bedroll without a word, mumbling nothing more than a brief thanks before tucking his head between his neck and shoulder.

Miko remained awake until Odin fell asleep. Past that time, he couldn’t be sure.

Morning birthed the world in hues of red, orange and pink. The remaining clouds from Ohmalyon’s second tropical storm bled warmth from their damp, grey surfaces, then burned alive until they disappeared completely. Though not every speck of grey disappeared from the sky, the few that remained skirted the edge of the horizon, following their brothers into the deeper parts of the oceanic horizon.

As if pulled from the warmest waters in the sea, Odin drifted into the mortal world at the sound of the Elf’s voice. So deep, yet so pleasant, the tenor verbatim rolled over his head and into his ears, seemingly cupping his face in its amiability alone. Its fertile nature beckoned him from the warmth of his covers, yet the warmth itself seemed far too great to sacrifice. If he moved, who would keep his kingdom, his sword, his shield, his honor and valor? Surely no one or no thing would come to replace his presence in his absence, so it seemed only natural to close his eyes, to let the sea return him to its depths until he finally rested on its black floor.

It’s so… so… warm,
he thought, eyelids flickering as the sea tried to reclaim him.
It can’t be. It… it… it…

All feelings of things warm and tranquil burst when Nova tossed him out of the bedroll. “Get up,” the older man grunted.

“Thanks Nova,” Odin mumbled, managing to flip his middle finger up before he fully stood. “Like I really needed to get thrown out of bed.”

With nothing else to say, Odin nodded and sighed as Nova bent to gather the bedroll. He couldn’t help but smack the back of the man’s head in the process.

“Men didn’t always use chisel and nail,” Miko said, lifting his hands for both Odin and Nova to see. “There was once a time long, long ago, when all we had was our hands, my friends, and that was all we needed.”

Coniferous trees begged to be fed.

In the aftermath of the storm, nearly everything in the immediate area bore damage caused by the immense wind and the powerful rain. Unlike the previous day, when only the fairer, dantier of plants, leaves and branches had seemed to have been wounded, entire trees had been toppled in the wake of such chaos. Split entirely in half in sections or uprooted to the point of no reason, trees appeared to be lost—sad creatures that knew nothing of their now-meaningless existence. Once beautiful, tropical flowers bowed in defeat, petals lay scattered across the distant grounds, and comical gestures thrown forth from fallen pollen and dander now littered the forest floor, coating the earth in sickly hues of yellow, green and grey. The fact that nature Herself would show such a lack of mercy to Her earthly creations made the scene all the more depressing.

“Look at it,” Odin sighed, running a hand through his still-damp hair. “I didn’t think it was this bad.”

“We were in a cave,” Nova grunted, planting his feet on steady ground. “What did you expect?”

Not this,
Odin thought. Definitely
not this.

“What nature has sacrificed will not have been in vain,” Miko said, stepping out of the cave and settling in behind them. “The spoils are ours, friends.”

“
Ours?”
Odin frowned.

“We
are
making a door,” Nova shrugged.

As though taking the brief shift in Nova’s movement as a sign of defeat, Miko slid thorugh the gap in Nova’s side and stepped up to a nearby tree. There, he observed a branch dangling by a thin strand of keratin, then reached forward and took the helpless thing in hand. He wasted not a moment in tightening the muscles in his upper arm and pulling it from its mother with one mighty tug.

Though the original assessment of the branch’s poor condition could easily be seen, what lay dormant beneath the limb’s bark spoke wonders of its physical condition. Inside—where thick, meaty treestuff should have been more than prevalent—the faint but telltale signs of ants and other bark-eating insects could easily be seen. From larvae, to husks, to the dead bodies that lay within, everything about the state of the limb proved to be dangerous, a perfect catalyst for nature to bring down Her creations onto the heads and shoulders of man.

“It’s better that anything that might fall off come down before it hurts one of us,” Miko said, tossing the branch near the face of the cave. “All right—this is what we’re going to do. Odin, Nova, I want the two of you to go around and gather up any of the larger pieces you can. Leave the smaller ones alone unless they can be broken into kindling. While you’re doing this, I’ll walk around and remove any of the branches that I find unstable or look like they’re about to break off. It’ll only be a matter of time before the wind or rain takes them down.”