Ander - Part 1: Subchapter 23
23
- sprawling, the scent of wet, half rotted leaves ripe in her nostrils. She twisted around just in time to see them collide with each other, two hulking shapes in the dark, biting and clawing and tearing, snarling like beasts.
They were fighting so dangerously close to the river's edge that every step and shift in movement seemed to cause bits of earth - already loosened by the rain - to break free of the bank and disappear into the roaring rapids.
"Kiana! Get away from here!" Ander shouted, grappling with his brother. "Just go!"
Feeling like a useless coward, she scrambled away from the confrontation, trying to put as much distance between herself and that... thing Ander called a brother as possible. She was in such a panic, if her hand hadn't landed on the hard, curved links of the chain, she would have forgotten all about the biter.
She skirted around it, her breath hitching in her chest, rain constantly dripping into her eyes.
"Oh no, where do you think you're going, bitch!?" She looked over her shoulder and saw Banno strike Ander to the ground with a vicious overhand blow.
"Ander!"
He tried to get back up, but Banno stomped down on his head, cruelly grinding it into the earth. The black Wolf raised his hand and pointed at Kiana, that infernal smile still stuck to his face. "I hope you're not thinking of crawling off, my dear. That just won't do. Maybe I should kill you first. Make Ander watch. That should be fun!"
Banno reached down, pulled Ander up by the neck, and struck him across the face, again and again, a series of haymaker blows. It was like listening to her mother tenderize a piece of meat for dinner.
"Stop it!" she screamed. "Just stop it!"
"Oh, you want me to stop?" Banno scratched his chin in a mock look of concentration, as if considering it. "All right, Fox. I'll stop." He threw Ander's limp form aside as if it were nothing, then turned his attention on her. "If you want to take his place for now, I'd be happy to oblige..."
Kiana tried to get up and run, but the pain that shot through her ankle was so intense she ploughed right back to the ground. It hurt so much she couldn't even scream, could only lie there and produce short gasps, listening as Banno came for her, his snarling breaths coming closer and closer.
But then, through the haze of pain and fear... an idea.
She flipped over onto her back and started to scoot away from him, trying to make it look as though she was merely terrified and trying to get away. All that was true, of course, so no acting required there. What she was hoping the brute wouldn't notice was the angle at which she was retreating, the angle that would shift his path just enough...
Banno suddenly stopped, a frown on his face. He looked at Kiana, then down at the ground, that hideous smile cracking his face once again, showing off his teeth. "Clever girl," he said. "Very trig of you, trying to lure me into that biter..."
Kiana shook her head, knowing full well it wouldn't make any difference. She was caught.
Banno casually stepped over the biter and grabbed her by the arm, his grip like an iron manacle around her wrist. "Thought you'd try and pull a fast one on me!? Did you honestly think I was that stupid!?"
"No! I -"
He slapped her across the face, hard enough to make her whole world shift on its axis. For a while, all she was aware of was the blackness. She couldn't tell if it was just the darkness of the night, or if she was passing out. A strong hand seized her by the neck and forced her face upward, and she knew it was neither of those things. The blackness she saw was him, the one who meant to kill her. She could smell his breath. It was like the rotting carcasses of a hundred different animals, all coalescing into a single, foul scent: the scent of everything he has ever killed.
Soon, she would be a part of it...
"Get your filthy hands off of her!"
The grip around her wrist and neck suddenly disappeared, and she found herself falling backward. The knock she suffered on impact was painful, but helped to clear her senses. She looked up, and was shocked by what she saw.
Ander had risen up behind Banno and slipped his bow around the monster's neck. Banno fought back, thrashing his arms, bucking and heaving, but Ander had the advantage. He planted one foot between his shoulder blades and pulled back, the strain showing on his face almost identical to the look of distress on Banno's.
The brute backed up, trying to knock Ander off-balance, but he kept pace. Soon, he was unable to do even that, and sunk down to his knees, scratching at the arc of wood across his throat, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, his eyes bugging out of their sockets.
It was only now, up close, that Kiana saw in what bad shape Ander was in. His face was covered in cuts and scratches, and the left half was already beginning to swell. There was a nasty gash above his right eye and several gouges all along his arms. She was amazed he was still conscious, let alone fighting like this.
Banno suddenly closed his hands around the bow, just inside of Ander's own grip, and to Kiana's sheer horror, started to bend it forward.
Kiana looked around for something she could use to help - a rock, a stick, anything! She had just started to sweep her hands through the leaves when she heard the crack of Ander's bow snapping in two.
Ander fell onto his back, the twin remnants of his bow resting on his rapidly rising and falling chest, connected by the bowstring, while Banno crawled off, clutching at his throat, spluttering and coughing. Banno wiped his hand across his mouth and stared, awestruck, as it came back bloody.
"Ander..." Banno said, getting back to his feet. By the gods, why won't that thing stay down? "You're a coward, Ander! Attacking me from behind like that! Have you no honour!?"
Ander slowly rose to one knee, breathing heavily. The pieces of his bow slipped to the ground, forgotten. "Honour? Who are you to talk of honour? You, who would kill a defenceless girl, lost and frightened! You, who would do the exact same thing here, tonight, for no other reason than to slake your accursed bloodlust! What's happened to you, Banno? What made you become like this?"
Banno rose to his full and terrible height, a thin line of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. "Foolish brother. How many times do I have to show you how blind you are? I've always been like this!" Banno charged, moving shockingly fast for such a large creature.
Kiana couldn't bear to watch, but neither could she look away. She anxiously bit down on her knuckles, an old habit, certain that this exchange would end no differently than the last.
She was wrong.
At the last second, Ander shot forward, keeping his head low, and tackled Banno in the midsection, using all of his weight to do it. They both went sprawling, but Ander wound up on top.
"Don't! Call! Me! Your! Brother!!" Ander shouted, raining down blows across Banno's face with each painful word, his arms rising and falling, caught in the grips of a horrible frenzy.
Banno suddenly rose up and clamped his jaws around Ander's left arm, sinking his teeth deep into his flesh. Ander screamed, tried to pull free, but it was no use. Banno shook his head back and forth like a wild animal, tearing muscle and sinew. Blood gushed from the wound in black torrents.
"No!" Kiana's screams were drowned out by Ander's, as well as the awful sounds from Banno's maw; the most awful growling; wet and gargly.
With Ander's arm trapped, Banno was free to deliver a devastating blow, knocking him off to the side.
They both scrambled back to their feet; Ander, cradling his mangled arm, and Banno, his muzzle absolutely drenched in Ander's blood. He slowly licked his teeth, running his tongue back and forth. It was the most disgusting thing Kiana had ever seen.
Lightning flashed across the sky, bathing the two brothers in a flickering strobe of light, their shadows stretched tall across the earth.
"What does it feel like, Ander? Knowing that you're about to die? Knowing that your little bitch will follow soon after? Knowing that you were too weak to protect her?"
Ander shook his head. "I don't intend to die, and neither does Kiana."
"Give it a rest, Ander! Your bravado isn't fooling anyone! Just look at you. You can barely stand."
"Looks to me like you're not doing all too well, either."
"What? This?" Banno ran a hand across his battered face. "This will just make your death taste even better. The harder you fight for your life, the more meaning there is in taking it."
"I am so sick of listening to your deluded justifications."
"Then what are you waiting for? Get over here and do something about it!"
Ander didn't move. Kiana wasn't sure he was still capable of moving.
"That's what I thought." Banno sounded almost disappointed as he closed the distance between them, raising his fist. "If you're too weak to let me have my fun, I'll just have to -"
Ander suddenly struck out with his good arm, catching Banno right to the side of the head. He staggered backwards, one hand cupped over his bleeding ear, but rather than being surprised, or angry, Banno seemed elated. "Ha! Not quite dead yet, are you?"
"Far from it!"
Banno lunged forward with a sweep of his arm. Ander managed to duck out of the way and follow up with a strike of his own to Banno's stomach. It had little effect. Completely ignoring Ander's attacks, Banno raised both fists high above his head and swung them in a vicious downward arc, striking him in the base of the neck.
Ander fell down, right into Banno's rising knee, and the blood that shot from his mouth was like the beginning of the end. He sank down to all fours, coughing up blood, his shoulders heaving.
Ander said he would protect her. He said that as long as he was with her, he wouldn't let anything bad happen.
But blood doesn't lie.
Kiana bit right through the skin of her knuckle in her anguish, and the blood that flowed from it mirrored the tears flowing from her eyes.
Blood doesn't lie.
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