Hero's Journey

Chapter 42

Kip shakes his head angrily and bashes his sword against Kagon's harder.

Delia bites her lip through her smile, but it doesn't exactly reach her eyes.

It's useless, Kip. Kagon is blind.

Her heart twinges painfully.

So very blind.

〰〰〰

Kagon wakes up to a hand clamped tightly around his arm.

Immediately the hero grabs his sword and shoots out from under the comfort of his bedroll.  Only to see the danger is not directed at him.  But at Kip.

A thin, boney looking creature with a purple shadowy form sits on the boy. It is faceless with only a sunken in crater as a face and pointed ears protruding from an angular scalp. Its body is humanlike, but with sharp features that fade in and out with changes of light.

Hearing the commotion, Delia stirs and lets out a gasp, eyes boggling.  "Is that a-."

Kagon nods grimly.  "Yes, it's a life-leech."

The life-leech straddling Kip pays the hero and the scribe no mind as it sinks its six fingered veiny tubes into Kip's neck.  From within the black, filmy, translucent tubes Kagon can see a bright white substance being extracted.  Kip's life force.

"Don't just stand there, do something!" Delia demands, unsheathing the Roarian dagger from her thigh.

"You can't simply cut down a life-leech, Delia.  I'm afraid if I do I'll sever the connection between body and soul.  I have no idea how deeply the leech has its tubes stuck in him."  Kagon explains with a calm, even tone.

"Then what can we do!  I can't watch it do this to him!"  Much to Kagon's surprise tears form in Delia's eyes.

Kagon places a comforting hand on Delia's shoulder, turning her away from the scene in front of her.  "Cordelia, this isn't like you.  Take a deep breath and calm down.  We'll find a way.  I can't figure this out without the cunning of my scribe."  He offers her a kind smile.

Delia inhales a great swell of breath and exhales slowly.  "Okay."  She nods.  "I've got this."

"Good, now what do you remember of the stories."

"My mother used to tell me stories about them, but I just thought they were myths."  She trails off for a moment.  "They're supposed to have a sack right where a regular human's stomach would be.   That's where they hold the lives they steal so they can deliver them for their own evil purposes."

"I've heard about that." Kagon says, mind running a mile a minute on possibilities.

"If we cut this sack, then maybe it will extract its tubes from Kip's neck." Delia theorizes. "If it takes its tubes out itself then it probably won't sever any connections."

Kagon's lips curl into a broad grin. "See! I told you I couldn't do it without you!"

Delia's cheeks redden. "It's just logic...I mean..."

Ignoring Delia's rambling, Kagon takes his golden blade and slices the life-leech's stomach in one fluid motion.. The creature lets out a horrifying scream that sound like a child's and has both Kagon and Delia covering their ears from the shrill sound.

In a single brilliant flash the lives that once filled the creature's stomach-sack fly out and into the night sky, joining the stars. The life-leech itself evaporates into the darkness from once it came.

Kip intakes a single gasp of breath and then his breathing suddenly settles into that of a person in a deep sleep.

Delia hurries to the boy's side, checking his pulse and looking for any sign of injury. Even where the life-leech dug in its tubes has healed over. There are no traces the creature was ever there.

Kagon runs a hand through his golden locks, watching the situation with concern in his blue eyes.

"Delia." Kagon drawls.

The scribe looks up, shoving back a clump of her copper-blond hair. "Yes?"

"Do you remember why the life-leech's come for certain people?"

Horror dawns across her features. Her stormy eyes spark with fear.

Kagon continues. "I'm not sure if it's true, but I was always told that they came for people that were claimed for Gahenna. I am not sure exactly what that means, but do you think that Kip is one of those people?"

"I don't want to think that way, but the story you heard matches up with the one my mother told me, so it must be true."

Both scribe and hero's eye flick towards the deep-breathing boy. The mysterious boy with a hidden past so scarred that he hardly speaks.

Suddenly Deon's words come to mind.

I will tell you that he suffers greatly.  If he stays around you longer, which I'm fairly sure he will.  Then, you will find out in due time."

That time is now.