Marascaran went down on one knee and tried to calm down the kid and learn what had happened to him. The boy looked about five years old: he seemed younger than Jarmin. He was scrawny, dirty, and dressed in filthy rags; his arms and cheeks were red with scratches that running through the undergrowth had left him. The boy’s little face was a mask of utter terror; it made all the horrors of the No Man’s Land that Bala had heard of from his teammates flash before his mind’s eye in a split second.
“What happened to you?” he asked, trying to sound as calm and confident as he could.
“They killed mommy…” whispered the child, his voice gone, probably from crying so loudly.
“Who?”
“They’re scary, evil! With long teeth! There!” the boy pointed his finger somewhere beyond Bala’s back.
“Stay here and be very quiet,” said Bala. He stood up and unsheathed his sword. “I’ll go have a look…”
“NO!!! Bala, don’t!!!” That was Kosta’s cry. One could only guess what that kind of effort it had cost him. “Step away from it!!!”
Surprised and startled, Bala turned back to the child. And recoiled instantly in horror, with his sword in front of him…
The mask of the human child now thrown away, the creature that had lured Bala here started to change into its real form. The eyes, blue and teary the second before, turned glassy and black. A heavy brow overhung them now. The nose sunk into the skull and turned into a narrow slit. The corners of the mouth stretched almost to the ears, revealing two rows of pointy teeth bending inward – a deathly trap for any prey. The “kid’s” arms lost their gentle appearance, they stretched and twisted, turning into grabby paws with long, clawed fingers.
The only thing that remained unchanged was the former boy’s ruffled fair hair that now crowned the creature’s ugly head.
A recent memory flashed in Bala’s mind, answering his silently screaming question: morok. That was all he had managed to think of before a wave of horror paralysed him. Now, he could not even run away.
Bala had no idea what had bought him and Kosta those several precious seconds that changed everything; why the monster hadn’t jumped at the paralysed prey right away: it was the sword. Bala still clutched his katana in his hands, he hadn’t dropped it even in the face of the No Man’s Land horror. Moroks are not stupid, they know well how dangerous human weapons can be. So the monster hesitated, just a moment, but that was enough for Kosta to reach Bala and stand between him and the shapeshifter.
In an attempt to buy himself some time to catch his breath, Kosta looked into the monster’s eyes, sending it an unspoken challenge. His heart pounded so fast he could hear it over all other sounds. His hands trembled. But he felt no fear. The fear that had been torturing Kosta for weeks, was gone now. Young Ollardian felt more confident than ever now when everything fell into place. And he was ready.
Furious with the little human’s challenge, the morok answered with another wave of horror that washed over Kosta without any harm but made Bala lose his mind, drop his sword and fall to his knees crying.
Kosta stood his ground. Between his friend and the monster. He deliberately kept his hands off his sword to send a message: I’m ill, I’m weak, I’m unarmed, come and get me. But the morok was old and experienced enough not to fall for this trick. Instead of jumping at Kosta, he threw another horror wave at him, perfectly aware of Kosta’s immunity to it: the monster’s target was Bala.
Kosta didn’t see what was happening to his friend but he heard Bala’s cry. That cry no longer resembled a sound of a human being, that cry was a primal, animal signal of agony. It was as clear as day: Bala would not survive another wave. So Kosta had to make the first move and the morok was ready…
Bala saw only the end of the battle, only then his sanity returned to him along with his ability to control himself. The morok had no armour on it but still took Kosta three precise hits to kill the monster. Even mortally wounded, it was strong, aggressive and dangerous. Every time Bala thought that it was dead, the monster attacked again.
All Kosta’s training, all his talent, all his ambasiath’s power went into that battle, fitted into mere seconds that seemed as long as life. Everyone knew Kosta Ollardian as a shy, sickly kid who would never hurt a fly. Now, Bala had a glimpse of a very different Kosta: a methodical, merciless monster slayer. He played the role to the end, for after the battle was over, he didn’t fall to his knees exhausted and terrified, no. He proceeded with destroying the morok completely by cutting its heart out of its chest and trampling it on the ground until it stopped beating. And then Kosta’s coughing returned with redoubled strength.
Kosta’s legs gave way under him, he dropped his sword, bent double, and sunk to the ground. He coughed and coughed, spitting out chunks of something black. In the end, the black became liquid, then the liquid turned red. Only then the coughing stopped.
Kosta wiped his bloody mouth with his sleeve, got up, and raised his face to the sun. He was smiling; the colour returned to his cheeks; the horrible disease was no more.
Bala sheathed his sword and approached Kosta.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, desperately trying to find the answer for himself, but there was too much blood on the young Ollardian – both his own and his enemy’s – to know for sure.
“No,” answered Kosta. For the first time since the very beginning of their journey, Bala heard Kosta’s real voice, unchanged by wheezing or panting. It was a very pleasant voice: childish, clear, kind. “And you?”
“I’m fine…” Bala lowered his eyes. “Forgive me for being a burden…”
“There was nothing you could do,” Kosta reassured him. “Moroks are masters of manipulation, both psychological and magical. You had no chance of winning. It usually takes a battle Seven to kill a monster like this one.”
Bala glanced at the monster. Now, when the morok was dead, Bala was afraid that its body would take a form of a child again. But no, it didn’t.
“I thought creatures like this were afraid of the sun…” Bala shook his head. “Why did it pretend to be a child?”
“It wanted to split us at first,” Kosta frowned, “and then – to make you turn your back to it so it would attack you from behind.”
Bala winced at those words. Suddenly, all the horror he had been through, welled up in his heart again.
“Moroks are not stupid,” explained Kosta. “They know how dangerous a sword can be. It’s unlikely that you would have killed it, it knew, but it didn’t want to get wounded. Hence the performance… Bala, it’s a good thing that you kept clinging to your sword. No way I would have got to you in time otherwise.”
Now, when Bala had a good look at the beautiful forest’s true face, he dreaded the prospect of staying here after dark. They got lucky this time but few people get that lucky twice in a row.
With Kosta’s disease defeated – literally – the boys could move much faster now, so they headed back to the city in a run.
Running was difficult for Kosta, still weak from the weeks-long ordeal, but easy enough for Bala to allow gloomy thoughts and doubts pester him as he ran. How could a sick, dying boy have defeated the monster worth of the effort of a professional battle Seven? How could he resist the waves of horror the morok kept sending his way? Who was Kosta for real?
So many questions but no answers.
***
Someone knocked at the locked gates of Firaska. It was a quiet, almost shy knocking but the Crimson Guardians took it as seriously as they would