The Twenty Curse

chapter 11, cannibals

Lerode’s pov

The moment the arrow landed at the feet of that bastard criminal, time froze for the long moment that I spent cussing myself out for trusting her. I had moved heaven and earth to find her, and persuaded myself that I did not have to be there when my brothers handed over the body, I had stupidly allowed the Princess to come along, and what did the this imbecile child of a goose schnapper do?

Walk us right into an ambush, that’s what. And now, the Princess, the country of Rye’s trump card, was in harm’s way, all because I let myself be fooled by a stupid amount of protocol and a pretty smile.

The moment after the arrow struck ground, I reached for the Princess and found nothing but empty air.

I shot my gaze around as arrows haled around me. One clipped my right ears. Two grazed my left thigh, one right above the other.

There. Pheargsoun had dragged her off to the opposite side of the road from me, shielding her with his body. An arrow had lodge in his shoulder, and several deep grooves ran in places where he must have dodged. I threw myself onto the road and rolled into the ditch by the tree cover.

The Princess looked down at me as Jone Row tried to drag her selkie friend back from the road.

“Are you alright?” she whispered, looking considerably more concerned than she should.

“It’s not me you should be worrying about.”

She looked up at pheargsoun, who had an arm on either side of her, protecting her from the arrows that came close.

Concern spilled onto her face and ran from her eyes, and she whispered, in a tiny, reverent voice, “Are you alrigh?”

He grinned at her, and it made the groove in his left check ooze blood.

“Don’t worry, princess. I’ve been hurt a lot worse than this.”

He said princess less like a title and more like a term of endearment, and I would have said something about it right then, but in that precise moment, jone row and her selkie friend were hurled into the ditch, landing in the space between where I lay and where pheargsoun sat, huddled around chris. Jone row opened her mouth to say something, the hair that usually covered her eyes falling on to the ground from where she lay, on her back, but in the next beat of music we were suurounded. By cannibals.

For all the places I have been, and all the things I have seen and heard, and everyone ive ever talked to, the thing I was told to fear was not death, but prolonged death. In the case of your death, or someone elses, it is bad.

In the case of the prolonged death of someone you love, it’s agonizing. Wondering for their health is bad, yes, but hope without any chance of remission is worse.

It’s the same in the case of your own death. Or so I’ve heard. I’ve never died, personally, but seeing as I was about to die, I don’t think I would ever know what prolonged death feels like.

Which I thought right up until I didn’t die. At least, I didn’t die right then.

A cannibal gripped my arm just above the elbow and yanked me to my feet, slipping a loop of rope made over one hand, then the other, and yanking on the rest of the length to tighten it.

One of them had blind folded, gagged, and bound Jone Row, and then slung her over its shoulder. Everyone else stood at my back, so I took to studying the smears on her blindfold and trying to contain my terror. Her black hair hung away from her face, and I was pleased to not be her. I suppose I couldn’t blame her for this ambush, but I didn’t have to like the grubby imp.

And then they were marching us into the forest, kicking at our shins and yanking on the rope to get us moving. We weren’t the only humans with them. The others looked to be in varying states of starvation, the scent of fruit and alcohol wafting off their bodies. At least two dozen other humans, and not even ten cannibals. They had been smart in how they picked up humans, I noted, picking up a group every few days, so they could have numbers, but the group before that would be exhausted and starving and too weak to fight, so they could have massive number, but expend little resources. Theyd walk us around a few days until we couldn’t even hope to resist, the pick up another group, and maybe pick off some of the weaker ones for a meal, to keep the group moving. I swallowed and looked back at Jone Row’s blindfold.

Five, maybe six hours later, judging by the little bits of sun I could see through the foliage, we came to a massive group of cannibals and humans alike, and it occurred to me, in my haze of buzzing adrenaline, that they were going to eat us now. Our group of humans was kicked and corralled over to where every other human sat. The humans and elves and the occasional faerie parted, pulling us in, catching Jone Row when she got thrown off the larger brute’s shoulder, passing us all along so we weren’t at the very edge.

All the humans, and elves, and faeries, all the hundreds of living bodies, sat huddled together, pressed shoulder to back to elbow to knee to head to stomach. Jone Row pushed the blindfold up off her face and and struggled with her bindings for a moment. Chris worried over the slekie and pheargsoun, and then worried some more about the shrimpy  criminal.

Children wailed, pregnant woman rubbed their stomachs, the occasional dead body rotted and gave off a sent that would make a rat puke, and around us, thousands of cannibals.

A long time ago, I had been taught that there were four different types of cannibals, and because of this, they all traveled im packs of four. One sort of cannibal ate the flesh, muscles, all that. One drank the blood, ome at the bones, and one ate the organs and brain and such things.

Packs of four, so no living body, no food, got wasted.

When they were done with us, there would be not even bones left.

Chris said, in a tiny voice, “What is our plan?”

Like there was hope for survival.

And then Jone Row replied, “How good are you at magic, princess? Can you shift matter very well?”

Princess Christine lifted her chin. “I don’t know if I can do any magic.”

Jone Row puckered her lips. I decided I hated her, now that I’d gotten over her incredible beauty.

“Let’s ask around. After all, we’re not the only magic users here.” She looked at me with a wrinkle in her forehead and whispered “will you help?” I nodded. Why not go out fighting?