UNGLOVED

Chapter Six

With a sigh of satisfaction, Liriel sucked each finger until they were all clean of debris from her meal. She was iritated with being constantly dirty, but at least she was no longer hungry. The boar was delicious. Lorenzo had cut strips from the tenderest parts and had speared them through with sticks stripped of their bark. It hadn't taken long to cook them in the fire, once she had calmed down the flames and made the coals glow bright orange instead of licking high with blue tipped flames.

Lorenzo sighed and stretched out. He had the longest legs she had ever seen, although his arms were almost as impressive. The hair on his face had grown since the first time she had seen him. At first he had only hair growing above his lip, but now he had short rough looking hairs sprouting all over his chin and the sides of his face. All of his hair was dark--so different from the Hilliri. Yet, when she watched him now, with him unaware of it, he seemed just right, exactly the way he was.

She shifted, uncomfortable with as much with the hard ground as with the direction of her thoughts. Others would think her mad already, having stopped the beating of a captive, but Liriel had other ideas swirling around--much more dangerous ones.

Most of the Hilliri actively hated the Mundatar, or, at the very least, thought of them as little better than beasts. She wondered why people needed to make others into their demons, but then she remembered that this stranger was called the Slasher for a reason. She had heard of his exploits, of how he dropped out of nowhere and wreaked havoc on her kinsmen and her people, laying a trail of bloody corpses where ever he went.

Liriel shivered. A scene of blood stained horror appeared behind her eyelids as she blinked. Was she in danger with this man, alone in the woods?

"Are you cold?" Lorenzo asked.

Liriel shook her head. He had been kind and helpful. How could he also have done those terrible things? She knew that he had, though, because she had seen it during her healing, when she dismantled the barriers between his mind and hers to do her work. She had seen it in his memories, and felt it through his body each place she had touched. Each part of his body had spoken of his life, the people he had killed, the men he had held as they died, and the women he had made love to. All of these things were written into his flesh, and maru made it possible for Liriel to see it all.

But to be both loving and hating so intensely must be terribly destructive. Surely his mind would tear itself apart? She had not delved so deeply into his psyche, for it had been his body that had needed the most immediate care. Yet Lorenzo didn't look like a man on the brink of an emotional collapse.

She looked up into his eyes. She shivered again as their intense blueness pierced her.

"Are you sure you are all right?" he asked, looking concerned.

She had to ask him so she could make sense of it.

"Did you do all the things they say...all the things for which they named you?" She held his eyes, despite their piercing intensity.

Lorenzo looked down, toying with his shoelace.

"You mean all the killing... the surprise attacks and the quick deaths?" His eyes connected with hers again. "Yes."

Now Liriel looked down, watching the flames dance in the dying fire. He didn't sound proud, but he didn't deny what he'd done.

"Why?" she asked, looking back again.

Lorenzo shrugged.

"How else could we fight against Kalad? We're outnumbered, not well organized, and outclassed in fighting skill. We hardly have weapons enough to go around, and we don't have a standing army. All that's left to us is the element of surprise. And a quick kill. I think it's more merciful, in a way."