Bound

A Short Story

He rode on the horse, but he kept the woman walking ahead of him, always in sight. The dark, hand-braided rope that bound the entirety of her upper body was anchored at the other end of its length around his waist.

He knew she was too weak to get away, but not too weak to cause real trouble if he gave her the chance. She’d already tried spooking the horse once, but the horse had seen a lot and wasn’t spookable and the man had climbed down from the saddle and backhanded her across the face with all of his strength. Blood flew from her split lip and her knees had buckled, but her eyes stayed hard and dangerous. She straightened up quickly, as though they were playing a game she was eager to continue. Then her tongue darted out to taste the blood that ran from her nose and lip. Seeming almost satisfied by it, as though she had achieved something.

He drew his hand across his pants to clean it, leaving a bright smudge that he scowled at. He made a sharp warning gesture and got back on the horse. They walked on, keeping to the forest as always, crossing any stretches of open ground at night when they could not be spotted from the sky.

He respected the woman’s deadliness, but now that she was contained by the rope he only truly feared the leather-winged creatures that were the size of three bulls and could fall from the sky like doom. And he knew they were looking for the one who had conjured them into being, that they wanted her back. But as long as she was bound by the rope made of the feathery hairs from the very creatures themselves, no matter how frantically they searched they could not sense her location and she could not sing to call them to her.

This was the second day and night of their uneasy forced journey together, and as the light faded his eyes adjusted to the darkness, and a wave of relief washed over him as the shift of the breeze carried the scent of saltwater to him. The sea. They were within striking distance and would be there by the morning. The woman halted and lifted her head. She had smelled it too. She turned to look back at him and their eyes met in the darkness. For once, he thought he detected a hint of fear in her.

They both knew that the sea would be the end of her, that two centuries of terror would come to an end in an instant. When they reached the shore, he would walk the horse straight into the water until she was submerged. She would dissolve in silence and her creatures would weaken and decline, becoming permanently flightless within days. Grounded, they would be finished off or would die before too long. The world would be safe from a relentless evil.

But now she would fight to survive with the desperation felt by every creature that imminently feared for its life. And he was pretty sure she had used these last days to plot and scheme her last stand. Despite the fact that her cards ranged from weak to non-existent because she was bound by the only thing that could hold her: her own magic. But he was wary at every moment. The old man had warned him from the time he was a child being trained to find and execute this woman that it would come down to this. The two of them on this journey to the sea, both in mortal danger from each other, each determined to be the end of the other. Bound.

She was more than a monster, but he was also more than a man. No match at all for her strength or her powers, but endowed with more abilities than any mere human before him had ever been gifted with. Those who first set out to divine the nature of the evil that plagued their skies distilled all they learned through patience and cunning across decades into one gambit. A plan that required the sacrifice of more than 40 men bound together by a pact sealed by honor and duty. These were the collectors. Men who essentially allowed themselves to be preyed upon, but were trained in defensive techniques whose only purpose was to buy time.

Their only aim was to lure one of the winged killers down and move in close as they fought a hopeless battle, in order to snatch a fistful of hairs and force them into the ground where they could be retrieved after the warrior had been carried off by one of the four creatures. The brave men died, and the wise men who plotted out a final solution crept out after these grim and brief struggles, to search among the blood-soaked grass and furrowed dirt for the precious hairs so dearly bought. They found them, said prayers of gratitude, and returned to their gradual weaving of the rope. While others of their fellowship trained up the next generation of the brave to be slaughtered.

“You can see in the dark,” her voice was only a whisper and held no power at all because of the rope. “You have no scent. You hear better than they do. And you are faster than they are.”

He had not spoken with her and did not intend to. And it was obvious that he was not like other men. No ordinary man could have captured her. He had been built and trained to be her nemesis. Once the fellowship discovered the dragons had a master who also fed on the human prey they captured, that master became the focus of their attention. Much had been surmised, tested, and learned. When enough was known, they knew what weapon to shape. He was that weapon, born like all other children but enhanced in ways and by means only the fellowship knew of. And few of them ventured to speak of it even among themselves.

The earth turned sandy and the screech of gulls came just as the darkness broke and a dim glow took shape on the horizon. The sea could not be seen, but it could be heard.

“If you enter the water bound to me like this you will also die.” Her voice was even more of a whisper now, and she could not control the trembling desperation in it.

He was also unlike most men in that he had no attachment to his continued existence. His own life did not matter. What mattered was that her life was extinguished; what became of him was immaterial.

They reached the shore and she dropped to her knees, refusing to walk any further. He dragged her behind the horse without changing pace but turned in the saddle to look back at her as they crossed the sand. To watch his enemy for any signs of strength or fight. That none came surprised him but did not disappoint him. The strength of her own magic had ensnared and overcome her.

He saw her open her mouth repeatedly to sing, but no sound came. Like a fish gasping to fill its gills with water instead of air. When the horse's hooves touched the water, he spurred sharply and it bolted into the sea as commanded.

The woman floated at first, then the water seemed to attack her and she thrashed against it as if it were a living thing. But it bound her, immobilized her. And then crushed her into shards that hung suspended inside a still wave. The shards dissolved in an instant and the wave dispersed. The dragon caller was no more.

He steered the horse back onto the shore. When he cut the remainder of the rope from around his waist, he felt the last of the magic that was in it ebb away. He left it in the sand where it lay and turned back the way he had come.