The Half-Breed's Journey Ch. 02

Helen gritted her teeth and spoke smoothly. "The half-breed is wondering why we have to fight at all. You seem to be a reasonable fellow. Why would you fight with someone you just met?"

The goat-man threw back his head and laughed. He hopped back and forth, from hoof to hoof as he laughed. "There are always reasons to fight with people you meet. What is your name, half-breed?"

Helen glared up at the goat. "You can call me Elle."

The goat man stopped laughing, stopped hopping. "Lies and tricks, nothing but lies and tricks I get from you. That is not a true name."

Helen's turn to laugh. "I didn't lie, goat. I said you could call me Elle. You could also call me Carter, or Hautzig, or slut, or sparrowhawk, if you so pleased. I've given you a lesson in lying. How about you tell me why I could feel you from the hayloft?"

The goat-man stiffened. "Do not call me goat. I am a Satyr. You can call me Beel."

Helen yawned. "Beelly goat. Tell me what I want, or I'll stick you with my hoe."

The goat-man drew a long bronze knife. "Don't toy with me half-breed."

Helen concentrated hard. It was time to test something. "I can toy with you all I want Beelly goat. You're too afraid to come near me with this." She brandished the hoe.

Beel snorted and leapt. In three great bounds he was on top of the terrified dark-haired girl. He knocked aside the hoe and stabbed her deep in the chest.

The wound was deep and well-struck, but no blood came from her soft white skin, and he felt no resistance of her breastbone.

It was like a veil cleared from Beel's eyes, and suddenly he was staring blankly at the dark soil, his bronze knife thrust in to the hilt.

"So it works on non-humans, too." The half-breed murmured, from behind.

Beel whirled around, but there wasn't just one of her. There were three. One was leaning against a tree, cleaning her nails with the thin blunt edge of the hoe. One had stuck the hoe in the earth, and was leaning against the smooth ash shaft. The other was yawning.

The goat-man's face darkened. "Don't insult me, Elle. You don't want to be an enemy of my people."

All three of the girls looked at him sharply. He studied them, looking for discrepancies, something he could tell apart about them. The illusion was incredibly sound. Good, even compared to the standards of full Pixies.

"You pulled me from my sleep! I could feel you sneaking around up in the hayloft. I didn't want to fight. I thought the circle demon was back for me. How did you do that?"

"Idiot girl." Beel grunted, his yellow barred eyes looking from girl to girl. The one that had spoken was pacing barefoot on the stony soil of the field. The wheat was only tender green shoots. "I didn't do anything to you!"

The girl that had spoken had a hoe with a smooth ash shaft. The girl leaning on the hoe had a hoe with a smooth ash shaft. The girl leaning against the tree...

Splintery and split down the middle.

Beel leapt for her. He grabbed her by her long black hair and yanked her head back, sliding the bronze knife down her throat, waiting for the gush of hot blood on his forearm. It never came. The girl in his arms laughed and dissipated like an armful of smoke. The other two girls grinned at him. Not even bothering to move.

"I was wondering if you would notice the hoe first." One of them giggled, backing away. She pointed to a scratch on her arm. "I thought you would notice the scratch? Or maybe that that one is the only one that has green eyes." The speaking girl pointed to the girl to her right. The speaking girl had bright blue eyes.

Beel screeched with frustration. He pounded his head with a fist. "Stop playing games, you fucking bitch!"

Both of the girls disappeared, and a weight dropped down on his back. The sudden weight caused Beel to fall, his goat legs crumpling under him. He felt the cold ice-bane of the iron at the back of his neck, burning him, dissolving his tanned skin like acid. His hair was singeing. He let out a helpless screaming bleat of fear and dropped his knife. Cowering on the ground, and lapsing into a language that Helen (who had slipped into a tree as soon as she started the illusion) didn't understand.

Helen withdrew the iron, startled. Her dinner did a slow greasy flop in her stomach. She hated iron. It made her have rashes, it was cold and yucky to the touch. She had not expected such a sudden and brutal reaction.

Helen lightly leapt away, but kept the iron head of the sharp hoe hovering over the prostrate satyr. He lifted his head from the dirt. He suddenly looked a lot less frightening, in the wan light of the moon. He seemed very young. He was wall-eyed with fear, and trembling from the pain of the iron. The iron burn on the back of his neck looked black, with angry red veins leading away from it.

"I want you to promise me a few things." Helen murmured. Softly.

---

It occurred to Helen later that the circle demon, with all of it's whining, and complaining, had probably saved her life. When it complained about how she had lied, it had told her that all of the fey creatures couldn't lie.

Beel promised not to hurt her. He promised not to tell anyone about her, human or not. He promised to answer her questions. With each promise, Helen drew the hoe further and further away. The goat took a handful of soil and rubbed it against his iron burn, panting softly.

"Iron hurts you. What else hurts creatures like you. Pixies and Satyrs and demons, and whatever else?"

Beel looked stiff and angry, but he had promised, so he reluctantly told her.

"Rowan wood. Not as much as iron, but a Rowan spear will fester, and be poisonous. Water from a rowan bowl will poison all but the strongest.

"What else? Don't try to hide anything from me."

Beel glared at her. His fists opened and closed, but he looked warily at the hoe. He pointed to the sky, with the cold moon, that glimmered round and silver, like a coin flipped by a god. "Your illusions, all illusions, they are stronger at midnight and midday. They are weaker at evening and morning. They are weakest at new moon. An eclipse robs us of all our powers. The solstaces are when we all are strongest, not just our illusions. The quetzaal can fly higher, the satyrs can run farther, the pixies cast stronger illusions and play fouler tricks. The Merlee can sing louder, the demons have stronger magic, the incubi and succubi cast strong glamours."

Almost as an afterthought, he muttered. "Don't let anyone know your name. Your birth name. If they know any magic at all, they can hurt you with your birth name."

He fell silent, glaring at her sullenly.

"How many of you are on the road to the capitol?"

"Lots in the forest. Waifs and druids in the trees, Pixies in the thickets. Underlings in the quarry, centaurs in the high plains. Naga and Kelpies in the river. They'll all sense you. They'll all know you coming. Half-breeds are bad luck. They will hate you, and they will hunt you!" He blustered, and he glared at her with pure hatred.

Helen stared back calmly. "I wasn't going to do this... But give me your earrings. All of them.

Beel opened his mouth, but before a single word could pass through his bearded lips, pointed tongue, and gravestone teeth, Helen whipped the hoe down at him, drawing a very light scratch over the previous burn. He howled and went limp.

"The bangle on your wrist as well. Quick about it, and I'll let you go now."

The young satyr shook with rage and pain, but he gave up the jewelry sullenly. He had six gold rings in each ear. The bangle was as thick as three fingers, made of thin beaten gold, with a design of chevrons and crescents.

Helen leaned close. "I made you promise not to hurt me and not to tell, but in case you find a loophole in that somewhere, I just want to tell you something.

Beel looked at her face. She was such a tiny thing. When he had first seen her, he had been looking forward to catching her, throwing away the hoe, and bringing her home as a present to the other hunters. They would have raped her, all of them. Maybe one of them would have kept her as a pet, or maybe they would have sent her stumbling back, or maybe they would have killed her.

Beel looked into those deep green eyes. No longer full of Pixie mischief, or human arrogance.

"If you have any ideas in that empty goat-head, you would do well to stop. Because if you fuck with me--"

Beel flinched back and shrieked. She had thrust the iron hoe into his stomach, so deep that it came out the other side... He screamed in agony and tried to rip it out...

His stomach was smooth. The half-breed had a smile as cold as iron on her soft pink lips. It had been an illusion... But he had felt the pain. He had felt it!

He stared at her with numb horror. What was this creature?

"If you fuck with me. I will fuck you back."

She stood up. She looked like a little girl wearing a nightgown. The chemise barely cleared her shapely little buns. In the ultimate insult, she turned her back on him, and walked lazily back to the farmhouse.

Beel scrambled to his hooves, and bolted into the forest. The loss of his underling-forged bangle forgotten. The loss of his trophy-earrings forgotten. The burn on his neck, stinging but still forgotten. He was suddenly pitifully grateful just to escape with his own life.

Helen breathed a sigh of relief. Despite what she now knew to be an indisputable truth, it was hard to turn her back on the muscular satyr with the long bronze knife.

She did glance over her shoulder, to see the fleeing back of the satyr. With a small satisfied smile, she sent him a nightmare.

When Beel fell asleep, he would dream about eating his fingers. Eating each of his fingers and crunching through the bones and blood until he reached his wrists. He would swallow his splintered fingerbones and feel his face drenched with blood from the spurting stumps. He would wake up sobbing and wringing his hands together to prove to his delirious brain that they were still there.

That dream was a doozy.

---

The elderly couple went to check on the strange guest. They found nothing but a small depression in the hay. They were missing their hoe, a rake, and a sharp rusty trowel. While the old woman started to cry, the old man knelt down in the raspy straw, and gasped when he found a small gold ring the size of one of his own arthritis-swollen knuckles.

Helen meanwhile, had moved on.

*Hey there.

This might be the longest I've ever taken to do a second chapter, but in my defense, that was because I never planned this to be a series.

Half-breed is a rambling sort of creature. Other than a very faint vision, I really have no idea where it is going. I have ideas for subsequent chapters. There may not be anything as wild as our friend the circle demon for a while.

For those who are fans of my no-cunt-allowed stories, chapter three of Onus is progressing nicely. I have progress on sequels for two of my established stories.

Kisses and Spanks,

--Cruel