Bitterwood Read Free

men looked down in utter silence.
    “Cowards,” Jomath cursed. He turned to face the stranger. “Let the Goddess give me the strength of the storms, the fury of lightning!”
    He bellowed with rage as he rushed the steps. He drove his shoulders into the stranger’s stomach with a force that made Bant flinch.
    The stranger did not bend. Jomath recoiled from the impact of the blow, stumbling on the steps. The stranger raised his axe. Then, a shout flew from the crowd. A blacksmith’s iron hammer flashed through the air. The heavy tool struck the stranger squarely in the face, knocking him backward. Namom, the stout-armed blacksmith, had hurled the weapon and now charged up the steps. Before Namon reached the man, Faltan, the huntsman, rushed from the edge of the burning temple and threw himself against the back of the stranger’s knees. The stranger staggered forward, allowing Jomath to grab his belt and pull until all three men and the stranger tumbled. Bant had difficulty discerning whose limbs were whose in the cursing ball of flesh and black cloth that landed in the square.
    As one, the men of the village gave a blood-curdling shout and rushed forward, drowning the stranger beneath a human wave.
    Bant didn’t move to join them. He couldn’t, standing there, his arms around Recanna. His heart held an unspeakable desire. He wanted the stranger to live. He wanted the stranger to kill Jomath. Let the temple burn, let the Goddess send her wrath as storms, as floods, as plagues of locusts and flies: Bant feared none of these things. All he wanted was for Jomath to die, to satisfy the hate he’d felt only moments before.
    The ox-dog at the edge of the square barked and charged forward, the wagon bouncing behind it like a toy. The beast’s teeth sank into the shoulder of one of the men on the ground who screamed as his bones snapped. His scream died as the ox-dog shook its enormous head, sending the man’s body hurtling through the air. It landed before Bant and Recanna, splashing them with blood. Bant recognized the man; it was Delan, his uncle, the man who’d been training Bant in the art of archery. Bant understood that it wouldn’t be only his brother who died tonight.
    So be it , he thought.
    Recanna screamed, tugging away from him, trying to run. Bant tightened his grip on her, deaf to her cries. He couldn’t bear to part with her, and he didn’t dare to turn away from the carnage before him.
    The ox-dog tossed men into the sky like rag dolls as the bright-eyed stranger fought to his feet once more, his robes now wet with blood. His axe rose and fell, chopping and hacking. Limbs were severed, skulls split, men died with each blow. The dog tore and savaged the men. Quickly, the few men with limbs still intact slipped and skittered on the bloody cobblestones before fleeing into the night.
    The stranger didn’t pursue them. He stood in the middle of a mound of bodies, straightening his coat. He pulled the brim of his hat back down over his eyes and wiped his cheek with a gore-encrusted palm. He wasn’t even winded.
    He kicked the bodies at his feet —two-dozen men at least— making a path for him to walk.
    With a chill of satisfaction, Bant spotted Jomath, dead among the bloody mound. It was almost as if his hate had killed Jomath, as if it had been a palpable thing, a force, making his darkest desires real. He knew he should feel remorse or some sense of loss. Instead, he felt something that bordered on joy at seeing his brother’s torn and twisted corpse. It frightened him that he was capable of such hate. Nothing could ever wash the blood from him.
    So be it.
    The blood-soaked stranger walked toward Bant.
    “You,” the stranger said. “Boy. What’s your name?”
    Bant looked up into the giant’s eyes. They were piercing, unflinching. Bant knew the stranger was studying his terrible soul.
    “B-Bant,” he said. “Bant Bitterwood.”
    “You did not fight me,” the man said.
    “No,” whispered