By the Horns Read online

  Thess, I had no worries he’d fulfill his duty. He’d keep her safe, and then some, whether I’d willed it. Whether he had to gag her to get it done, they’d soon enough be on their way. The village would come looking for the Elders soon enough. If they realized Vetra had been rescued, ruining their sacrificial plans, they’d be calling for blood.

  “Hello... ah, sir?” I called to the king this time, starting to feel a little hopeless as I shuffled down a corridor. I’d called for the queen for the first half of my return trip to the beast’s lair, figuring I might do well to call to the Warrior King for a change. Surely they knew how to breach the Minotaur’s prison. I sure didn’t.

  Off to execute part two of my plan, with no real plan set. I had no clue at all what the hell I was doing.

  “My, uh, king?” My skin bumped up with gooseflesh just waiting for that silky smooth yet rumblingly deep baritone. It... did things to me.

  Heavens above, I hoped Titania couldn’t sense that, or him, for that matter! How embarrassing!

  Still no answer.

  Sighing, I palmed my daggers, one in each hand. Squeezing my eyes shut tight, I pleaded softly, “I’ve no clue where to go from here. A bit of assistance would be greatly appreciated.”

  “Can’t help you now,” a jovial, masculine voice, the wrong one, tittered excitedly.” Ah, the trickster was back. Waits until everyone is gone to show himself, does he? Coward. Not, ah, that I thought I was any better in the cringe and hide side of things.

  “And why not?” I queried, confused.

  “Can’t break the rules. The terms had been said, set, and they’ve done their part, led you through the barrier. Now it’s your turn.”

  My part, which they hadn’t exactly explained as to what that was. Yes, I’d made a deal with the Queen and then the King that was kind of fuzzy to me but, my turn? Wouldn’t they have thought to tell me? Give a hint? Send me in the right direction? Anything? And what barrier? Metaphorical? Physical? Magical?

  My turn... my turn to what?! Free the beast? It felt right, and thinking of the Queen’s comments I’d assume so, but I had no definite answer. Gods, goblins, dragons and fae! Ugh! Damnit!

  Trying to calm my rattled nerves, an idea struck. “Right. Of course, my part,” I said easily, voice smooth and even. “And that’s...?”

  “Ah-ah-ah! Tsk. Tsk.” His tone, his voice, changed, deepening, a funny accent I’d never heard coming through, “Canna be telling ye now. ‘Twould be cheating!” Laughter filled the passageway as I followed it back to the chamber once containing Vet—the chamber of death, now. His cackle held a taunt, a mocking bleat that made me clench my back teeth.

  These halls were many and winding, but I remembered it all, not that it was that easy to forget or not get lost, so many forks along the way and twisting turns, but the glittering dust, that green and gold, littering the ground like bread crumbs, led me along. The traps the Queen and I’d set off, well, you know, those weren’t a bad sign I was headed the right way, either. The stench of blood and death, growing stronger as I drew nearer, was also a dead giveaway, pun intended.

  “Of course it ‘twould,” I shot back with a snicker. I was feeling just a wee bit overtaxed, anxious, and uncertain.

  What the fuck was next?!! The Minotaur was blocked in. And I’m blocked out. How am I to get him out? Or I to him?

  And beyond that, convince him to come with me?

  Could that peacock purple light fluttering about actually help? Gah. And what’s more, did I want him to?

  “Lovely,” I muttered. “Done with the duo and now I’m left with you. I’m...”

  “Delirious?” Suddenly-happy-go-lucky chirped merrily.

  Maybe he was excited to have someone to pester all by himself? Or maybe those voices weren’t here to scare him off now and he was feeling bolder. I was thinking the latter.

  “Delighted?” A chortling snort, and then, “Done fretting because tis I, your lord and savior?”

  If he was anyone’s lord and savior, they needed an exorcism, quick.

  Sarcasm lacing my voice heavily, I grimaced, sighing out, “Dented.”

  “Wingless waste! Abominations! All of you! I will lay waste to all of you! Inferior pests!”

  Woo, beastman was not happy, his voice clear as a bell this close, no echoes bouncing the sound around to distort it. Not that I blamed him. Imprisonment couldn’t be easy, especially if he’d yet to do anything to deserve such treatment. Vetra’s plight as the village’s chosen maiden came to mind and my lips instantly pursed. An imprisonment all its own. Yes, I’d definitely be raging if I were him.

  Sighing again, I blew out a long breath. This just wouldn’t get easier, would it?

  “You say dented,” the purple dot’s voice went on primly, “I think denial.”

  ˜˙˜*˜˙˜

  “A dent or two isn’t a bad thing,” peacock mused. “Could be a boon. Know a fellow with a crooked rod. The ladies don’t seem to have any complaints, if you know what I mean.”

  Yes. Yes, I did. Knew exactly what the yammering voice meant, though I was beginning to wish I didn’t. Making a face, I rolled my eyes but kept walking.

  Peacock. I’d given to calling him that when he grew bored and started prattling on about his many sexual conquests, or other’s. I failed to believe there were that many and he didn’t die of some horrible disease. After a while I commented just to comment, offering an opinion here, a snort of disbelief there. It became a sort of game between us. He argued vehemently that not only was he not dead, but pox free. I felt the issue was open for debate, but in the end we’d have to agree to disagree.

  Truth be told his odd ramblings were distracting, and it was helping to calm my frayed nerves. He was ridiculous, funny, over the top, conceited, yet oddly charming in a way that put me off but made me want to squeeze his cheeks until he begged me to stop. Uhm, if he had cheeks, as he so claims.

  Reaching the entrance, the mouth to the open cavern, Vartok and Barron’s final resting place, I hesitated. The stench of death hung thick in the air, acrid, pungent. I didn’t know if I could face it all again just yet. It was a massacre. Chamber of death, I reiterated.

  “I don’t know if I can go in there,” I admitted, my hands fisting over my eyes as I clenched my lids shut tight.

  “Well, that’s good,” Peacock chirruped. “You’ll never get in that way. Your beast boy thundered and rumbled around over there so hard while you were escorting your miss to her escape, it caused a rock slide.”

  “It did?”

  “No one will be getting in or out of there now.”

  Damnation! Pausing, I had to think about that for a moment. “But you know a way?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you’re willing to show me?” I was already glancing around, trying to guess which way to go.

  “For a price,” he practically purred.

  I’d expected nothing less.

  “Your terms?” I was listening. I couldn’t guarantee I’d be willing to agree to them, but I’d hear him out.

  “Ah, tis but such a small thing,” he proclaimed.

  I could just picture a peacock of a man, a regular dandy, prancing about me tauntingly, pinching his thumb and forefinger together, spread less than an inch apart, to peer at me from between the gap.

  Making a show of putting my hand to my head, cupping my ear, I leaned towards the voice. “I’m all ears.”

  “Brava!” Before I could grunt at his emphatic shout, right into my bleedin’ ear, he was off, rambling faster than a pair of quarreling school children caught and trying to tell their story to the teacher first.

  By the time he was done I’d already decided I would agree. It was no more or less than I was willing to do as it were, and as such no sweat off my back.

  “Agreed,” I said easily, wincing at his delighted laughter.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I Couldn’t say I was exactly surprised, though it wasn’t what I had expected, the price he’d called for,
but not remotely near as impossible as I’d begun to worriedly imagine. I’d assumed it would be something of that... sort, just not, specifically, what he’d had in mind. My luck that it fit in rather nicely with my own plans proved curious.

  The Peacock’s price, should the creature prove amenable, it was a definite possibility. And after my dream earlier, well...

  My steps faltered and I glanced around, trying to get my bearings. Through here, he’d said, but that was too easy. Wasn’t it? Just up ahead there?

  My hands slid along the wall, feeling. There was a spot devoid of any light, casting it in shadow. At first glance the dark spot along the red dirt wall appeared to be just that, but when my hand slid over it I found open air. My foot slid forward, then farther.

  “Through here,” I murmured, realization hitting, to be met with silence.

  I was truly alone once more, weaving my way through a catacomb of stone. Glittering grey walls oozing some odd black substance, embedded with what looked like bones, marked the way. Purple and green and gold faerie lights overhead along the tall ceilings beared down on me, making me sweat like the devil was smiling down upon me. The lights made those bleach white bones stand out, a sharp contrast to the stone and black goop seeping through, a warning to would-be trespassers: Beware.

  I’d admit my shock when first sighting them, those who’d come before the labyrinth and lost obviously having been used to make its hidden passages.

  Finding two more misleading sections, a passage where a wall should be, I followed each, surprised to find instead of being led to my untimely demise, the beast’s bellowing up ahead, so much louder than I’d ever heard before. My ears pricked, ringing with every thunderous shout.

  I’m close.

  Watching my step, I zigged and zagged, making a left, a right, another left, then a right, until I thought I might grow dizzy from it all. How I could keep myself right and not accidently loop around, or left, I didn’t know.

  Peacock’s directions were quite clear, though, follow along the bone walls until you reach the end, the entrance to the Tauran’s keep is just over the lip.

  Alright, I could do that, whenever this winding way ended. Uh, and I found this lip.

  The stone floor, dark like obsidian with streaks of white, slick, smooth and ice cold to the touch, the light on dark contrast complementing the bone inlaid walls, soon gave way to dirt, a deep, dark, blood red swath of terra, crumbling soil mixed with bits of dark sand, not quite the terracotta cave dirt. This was blood dirt. The notion furthered mine that the labyrinth was alive, a life all its own.

  The dirt darkened farther, the longer I crept along. Brown and black, terra mixed with soot. Glancing up, the end in sight, I studied the dead end just up the way. The ceiling opened up here, seeming to go on and on towards the mountain’s top. My gaze went up, up, and up, until I saw it, a small ledge made of startlingly bright red stones. The bones leading up to it glowed, as if to tempt those brave enough to try. This was to be my way in. Or stupid enough to attempt this ridiculousness, I amended with a scoff, frowning at the climb ahead.

  That beastly bellowing had ceased, making me think the creature had either tired himself out or injured itself into silence. I was hoping for the first, dreading the last. He was of no use to me dead.

  Right upon the ‘lip’, I stared up at it, letting my eyes roam the bone wall.

  From this close one bone almost looked like a-

  No. Yet the curve of a very bull-like horn was undeniable. And undeniably long, I noted, running my finger along the rounded curve of its middle. Smooth, like ivory, aged with wear, scrapes and dents marring the tan colored piece.

  More bones, human and beast-looking alike. A human skull, and an unnaturally shaped spine with four arms, the next a six fingered hand and a pointed skull. What other beings had thought to try their hand at besting the maze?

  Four arms... pointed skull with spiny ridges... These weren’t mere wisps of beings either. They looked monstrous. Would I- Could I best the maze?

  The Queen had called me her Chosen. The maze chooses, did she not say?

  It saw something in me it didn’t find wanting and, hopefully, the King and Queen would pop back in if they’d ever like me to be around long enough to hold up my end of their bargaining.

  My hand reached out and I gripped a protrusion from the wall, a thick, long bone, maybe part of a leg? Giving it a push and a pull, I tried to hang. When nothing happened I grew bolder, putting my weight on it. It stayed, making me smile. A ladder of bones, cleverly disguised by design.

  My hands reached out, gripping two bones higher up, my feet joining my climb, finding good footholds.

  Up I went.

  Peacock’s bargaining chip was a little worrisome, the closer I got to the Minotaur’s prison, the more I thought on it.

  Nothing you hadn’t already thought of having to go through with yourself, Addie-girl, I reminded. But now it was definite, not a possibility. This was to be done. I’d made a pact, given my word, and now I was to see this fully through. The terms were set, in stone. Gah. I snorted. The irony.

  I can do this. I will do this.

  Now I’d just have to talk my soon to be companion into it. That is to say, if he didn’t dismember me first.

  Eh. I gave a mental shrug. What’s a life if not lived?

  Oh, I’d know if I lived soon enough, I would.

  Gah, gods preserve me!

  ˜˙˜*˜˙˜

  I was a sweating, sticky, blood covered, specked, flecked, spatter bedecked mess as I squirmed my hefty rump all the way onto the lip. A hint of pride filled me as I sat perched, one leg on either side, that I’d made it this far. I was huffing and puffing mightily, arms sore, legs aching, but I’d done it. That pride was short-lived as I wiggled my way closer towards the Minotaur’s cell, attempting to swing my left leg over the side to join the other, and promptly caught my foot, overcorrecting, and tumbled inside.

  With a squeal I caught the stone ledge, swinging right over the side. The skirt of my stupid outfit, one of Peacock’s stupid stipulations that I keep it on, catching on the stone lip, ripping with a horrible tear, leaving my jiggly ass swinging in the breeze.

  Pack on my back still firmly attached, I supposed I should be thankful for small favors.

  A roar had me squealing anew, legs kicking, the toes of my boots smacking the dried mud crusted walls. Or was that, I was going to take a wild leap and guess, more old blood painting the place pretty?

  “Who be-” That mighty roar started up to be cut off with a choked noise.

  Arms screaming, afraid if I dared a peek over my shoulder I might slip and fall at the sight, I squeezed my eyes shut tight instead, and took a deep breath.

  Another choked noise and then, “Female?”

  He almost sounded like he was trying not to laugh. Biting my tongue, I was fighting the urge to give him a tongue lashing, die right here of embarrassment, or play it off. None would end happily, I could be sure.

  “Oh, aye, a female,” I mumbled finally. And a daft, stupid cow of one at that, but at least I’d managed to stun him stupid, if only temporarily. Catching the toe of my boot on the wall, by the grace of the gods, I wiggled my way up it a bit before my feet slipped, I flopped back with a jerk, grip still firm, body just a jiggling away, and I was back to dangling helplessly once more.

  A snort left the beast. “Comin’ or goin’, little wingless fae?”

  “I’m- I’m-” Wingless fae...?

  The lights above cast a large shadow along the wall, the sound of heavy breathing and boots crunching as footsteps approached pricking my ears.

  “I’m- I’m-” After several attempts to talk, breathe, and not squeak like a field mouse, I gave up, slipping into grunting silence.

  I could sense his gaze as he drew closer, my cheeks feeling decidedly hot in response. Oh, of all the ways I’d imagined this would go!

  “You’re stuck,” he said finally.

  He was close enough now I glimp
sed an abundance of short, straight white fur and wide, thick, very human-like hands. Emboldened, I swallowed and, girding my loins, I glanced down, then promptly forgot how to breathe.

  Minotaur, milky white furred, bull head, light pink, wet nose with wide nostrils, large, bovine, maroon eyes with long, dark lashes. He had a long snout, a huge set of white tipped horns that bled to grey at the base. Obviously male—if the voice didn’t give it away the huge, fleshy, low hanging sac and thick penis dangling there in all its flaccid glory—he stood with his hands on his hips as if to showcase the fact.

  The male had a chest thick with rows of muscle, the delineated bunches wide and defined. While thick chested and well-muscled, no nipples or signs of human male pectorals were to be found. The farther south my eyes strayed, the softer everything towards his groin grew, lower stomach and all. The lower skin sort of gathered, hanging a bit in places, not quite sagging but almost, the closer to his male appendage it was.

  “Do I intrigue you?” The smirk in his voice had me glancing away, my expression tightening.

  Was he making fun of me? Heavens and hell, my cheeks were aflame. It’s hot in here, I kept telling myself, decidedly tropical. That was my story and I was keeping to it.

  Watching where his gaze kept wandering, my brows shot up and I desperately tried to stop wiggling. “No more I than you,” I quipped.

  A very cattle sounding snort left the male, the pink flesh he called a nose flexing, air whistling softly through his nasal passage as they bowed out to pinch in. It was strange, how alarming I found his more human portions, yet those bovine additions put me at an odds with my comfort, a fierce sense of the unknown causing my unease.

  While I respected the creatures we put to pasture, I’d never been afraid of cattle! Those protruding male parts of him, on the other hand... Did it all have to be so... ah, well, pronounced? I found it increasingly disconcerting. This would never work.

  “You pose no threat to me,” the creature I beheld grumbled on a snort. “You’re a fly on my arse, wingless little gnat. I could crush you like the little bug your kind are.”