Gamble King Chapter 42. Her (Part II)

Max was sweating despite the cold.

He wiped his palm on his pants and felt the dampness there. His heart was doing something uncomfortable in his chest, a rhythm that didn't feel right.

Welp, he thought. There goes my reroll.

Because there was no way to get out of this alive. None. He could see it playing out already—the witch tearing him apart, Bro screaming as the bond snapped, Tarak watching it all happen. The kid would probably die next. Or the White Hand. Or both.

But if Max said no? If he tried to run?

She'd just kill them all anyway. Slower, probably. More painfully.

At least this way there was a chance. A tiny, microscopic chance that he could...

What? Win?

Against a witch who'd been playing with them for hours, who'd trapped them in her forest like mice in a maze?

Max almost laughed.

But he didn't.

"Sure," he said.

The witch's smile grew wider. It stretched across her face until it looked like it might split her cheeks open.

"Good," she said softly. "Very good."

She tilted her head, studying him with those too-bright eyes. "Shall we begin then?"

And that's when Max saw it.

A number appeared above her head. Floating there in the air like it had been waiting for him to notice.

15

Fifteen rerolls if he killed her.

"Holy shit," Max breathed.

Fifteen. That was... that was two weeks' worth.

"Harek?" Tarak's voice was small. Scared.

Max didn't look at him. He was still staring at that number.

"Don't do this," Tarak said. "We can—we can run. We can—"

"We can't," Max said.

His hands moved to his belt. To Dusk and Dawn. The blades slid free with a whisper of steel on leather.

They always felt good in his hands.

"This is just another wall," Max said.

He wasn't sure if he was talking to Tarak or to himself.

"Just a wall to get over. Like the other ones."

He'd climbed walls before. Lots of them. The wendigo had been a wall. The White Hands had been a wall. This was just one more.

Except this wall was staring at him with grandmotherly fondness and the promise of being eaten alive.

Max started forward.

"The little dragon cannot participate."

The witch's voice stopped him mid-step.

Max turned his head slightly. Bro was still clinging to his shoulder, hot enough now that Max's skin felt tight and uncomfortable where the spider gripped him.

"Bro," Max said quietly. "Get off."

The spider didn't move.

"Bro. Off."

The legs tightened. Bro made a sound—a high, chittering noise that Max had never heard from him before.

"I know," Max said. "But you can't help with this one."

The legs loosened. Slowly. One at a time.

Bro crawled down Max's arm and dropped to the snow. He skittered a few feet away, then turned to face them, all eight eyes fixed on Max.

Max looked at the witch.

"I'm ready."

"Excellent."

She smiled that gentle smile again.

"I will make this quick," she said. "I promise you will not suffer. It is the least I can do for one so brave."

She clasped her hands in front of her white robes. Her bare feet shifted in the snow.

"Come then, child. Show me what you can do."

Max didn't move.

Neither did she.

The forest was completely silent. No wind. No birds. Nothing but the sound of Max's breathing and the distant click of the White Hand's teeth and Tarak's quiet, hitching gasps.

Max tightened his grip on his swords. The leather wrapping on the hilts pressed into his palms. He could feel every ridge of it.

The witch watched him with those bright, too-aware eyes.

Max's heart kept doing that thing in his chest. His hands were slick. He wiped his right palm on his pants again, then his left, switching the swords between hands to do it. The movements felt mechanical. Like someone else was controlling them.

Move, he told himself. Do something.

But his feet stayed planted.

The witch tilted her head. Waiting.

Max shifted his weight. Just slightly. Testing. His boots crunched in the snow. The sound was very loud.

She didn't react.

He took a breath. Started to lift his right foot—

The witch moved.

Max didn't even see it happen. One moment she was standing about fifteen feet away, hands clasped, smiling. The next moment she was there. Right in front of him. Her mouth was open.

Max had time to see her teeth. Too many of them. Too sharp. Arranged in rows that went back into her throat.

Then he felt them sink into his neck.

There was no pain. Just pressure. A sense of something tearing. Wetness spreading down his chest, warm at first, then cold.

And then darkness.

Complete and absolute.

Max couldn't see. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. He tried to move his arms, to bring his swords up, to do anything, but his body wasn't responding. It was like his brain had been disconnected from everything below his neck.

I'm dead, he thought. The thought came from very far away. That's it. I'm dead.

The darkness pressed in from all sides.

And...

[NUMBER OF REROLLS LEFT: 10]

***

Max woke up with jerky in his mouth.

The taste registered first. Salt and smoke and something gamey. Then the warmth of stone against his back. The faint orange glow painting the cave walls.

He sat up.

Tarak scrambled backward, spear coming up. The kid's eyes went wide.

"Sorry," Max said. His hands came up automatically. "Just... remembered something."

Tarak stared at him for another few seconds before lowering the spear. One eyebrow went up. "You remember something and jump like bear is eating you?"

"Something like that."

Max stood and walked to the cave entrance. His legs didn't hurt. His shoulder was fine. No arrows. No blood. Just the memory of dying—twice now—fresh and sharp.

He reached up and touched his neck. The skin there felt normal. Smooth. No burns from where Bro had been heating up like a furnace in those final moments before the witch killed him.

A soft chittering sound made him look down.

Bro was approaching across the cave floor, legs moving in that careful, deliberate way he had. The small white spider stopped at Max's feet and looked up at him.

Max crouched down.

Bro climbed up his arm and settled on his shoulder. Max felt the familiar weight, the slight warmth that was normal for the spider. Not the burning heat from before. Just... Bro.

The spider's abdomen pulsed once. Orange light, soft and brief.

"Hey," Max said quietly.

Bro's legs adjusted their grip on his shoulder. Then the spider did something Max had never seen before. He crawled down Max's arm to his hand and tapped one leg against Max's palm. Three times. Pause. Three times again.

Max stared at the spider.

"Do you..." He stopped. "Do you remember?"

Bro glowed once.

Max's throat went tight. He lifted his hand so Bro could climb back up to his shoulder. The spider settled there and went still, but Max could feel a faint vibration running through the small body. Like Bro was purring.

Or trembling.

"Yeah," Max said. "Me too."

He stood up and looked out at the gray sky. Somewhere behind them, the White Hands were probably already organizing. Somewhere ahead, the witch was waiting in her forest.

He had ten rerolls left.

Going back further would put him in Wendigo territory again. That whole mess would take time to navigate, and if things went wrong—if the timing got fucked up somehow—he'd arrive at this point too late. The White Hands would have already moved. Or worse, they'd catch him and Tarak before they even reached the cave.

No. Forward was the only option.

The White Hands would kill them. That was certain. They'd proven it twice now. Fifteen warriors, coordinated tactics, Blindrages. There was no talking with them, no negotiating. Just arrows and death.

The witch, though.

The witch had talked. She'd offered terms. She'd been fast—reaction time under a second, faster than Max could move in his normal state—but she'd still taken the time to explain the rules.

That meant she could be beaten.

And if he beat her, he'd get her rerolls.

"Finish your jerky," Max said. "Then we go down."

Tarak picked up his piece of dried meat, watching Max with that same concerned expression from before. "You are strange, Harek."

"Add it to the list."

The descent was faster this time.

Max knew where every loose stone was, every handhold that would support weight and which ones wouldn't. He knew exactly when Tarak would shift his weight and how to compensate before it happened.

They reached the bottom in half the time.

"Where?" Max asked, already knowing the answer.

Tarak pointed east. "Through the trees. My village is—"

"We're not going that way. The White Hands will ambush us."

The kid's hand dropped. "How do you—"

"I know. Trust me." Max adjusted Tarak's weight on his back. "We're going through the Witch's Forest."

"But—"

"I know about the witch. One person per season, right? Except we don't know if that's actually true because nobody goes there to find out." Max started walking northwest. "But I know for sure the White Hands are waiting on every other route. So we go through the forest."

Tarak was quiet for a moment. "You are very strange, Harek. And... stupid."

"Hah. That one's new."

Tarak just stared at him. Puzzled.

Max's pace was measured and efficient. No wasted energy. He knew exactly how long they'd been walking when he stopped and looked up at Bro.

"Bro," Max said. "Go up. Find the raven. Kill it when I tell you."

The spider's wings sprouted and he launched into the air, rising through the canopy.

Tarak jerked slightly. "What kind of spider—"

"Special one," Max said, still walking.

When they reached the edge of the forest—the one that opened onto the clearing before the Witch's Forest—he stopped.

He could see it across the snow. Five hundred meters, maybe a bit less. The dark tree line waiting on the other side.

Max set Tarak down carefully.

"Listen," he said. "When I tell you to hold on, you hold on tight. Don't let go no matter what happens. Got it?"

"Yes, but—"

"The bark on your back will stop most arrows. Keep your head down." Max pulled the Fanga up from inside himself, felt it flood his system. His heartbeat jumped immediately. "Get on."

Tarak climbed onto his back.

Max stepped out of the tree line and nodded at Bro from the ground.

Fire bloomed in the sky above and behind them. The raven's caw came half a second later, cut short by a shriek.

The horn sounded.

Max took three running steps, then reached for everything the Fanga could give him.

The world sharpened. Colors brightened. His heart was a jackhammer, his legs pistons driving him forward across the snow. The weight on his back felt like nothing.

He didn't zigzag this time. Didn't waste energy on evasion.

He just ran.

The tree line of the Witch's Forest grew closer with each stride. Max's breathing was controlled, steady, even with his heart rate pushing past one-sixty. He'd done this before. He knew exactly how much Fanga he could burn and still function when he reached the other side.

Behind him, distantly, he heard the howls of Blindrages.

A thousand feet to the tree line.

He pushed harder. His boots ate up the ground, snow spraying behind him with each impact.

Six hundred feet.

The Blindrages were still far back. Too far. Max had gotten ahead of them early, hadn't let them close the distance before he started his sprint.

Three hundred feet.

An arrow whistled past, too far to the left to matter.

A hundred and fifty feet.

Max burst into the Witch's Forest at a dead run and kept going for another thirty feet before he finally slowed, then stopped.

He turned around, chest heaving but not gasping. His heart was fast but not dangerous. Not yet.

The Blindrages had stopped at the tree line, just like before. Their riders were struggling to control them. The warriors on foot were forming up behind them, but nobody crossed.

Max didn't wait for them to try. He pulled the Fanga back down to a simmer, just enough to keep his reaction time sharp, and turned deeper into the forest.

He stopped after about twenty feet.

"Hold on," he said, slipping Tarak off his back and setting him down carefully against a tree. The kid winced but didn't complain.

Max reached into his pack and pulled out the small vial.

The Heightening.

"What is that?" Tarak asked, leaning forward slightly.

"Something that'll help me hear her coming." Max pulled the cork with his teeth and spat it into the snow. "Hopefully."

"Is medicine?"

"Sort of." Max lifted the vial to his lips. "Sharpens the senses. Makes everything... more."

One. Two. Three drops under his tongue.

Max closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the world had changed.

The forest wasn't just gray anymore. He could see individual shades now—the darker gray of wet bark, the lighter gray of dry snow, the almost-white of ice crusted on branches. He could see the texture of Tarak's furs, each hair distinct and separate. He could see the tiny crystalline structure of snowflakes on the nearest tree trunk.

Sound came next.

His own breathing was suddenly loud in his ears. He could hear the air moving through his throat, past his vocal cords, filling his lungs. He could hear his heart beating, the rush of blood through his veins. Tarak's breathing was a rasp and wheeze that he'd been tuning out before but now couldn't ignore. And beyond that...

The forest.

The creak of branches settling under their burden of snow. The whisper of wind through needles. The soft patter of snow falling from a branch somewhere to his left, maybe forty feet away. The faint skitter of something small—a rodent, probably—moving through the underbrush to his right.

And then, cutting through it all—

The whistle of an arrow in flight.

Max's body moved before his brain caught up. He dropped, pulling Tarak down with him. The arrow passed through the space where his head had been and buried itself in a tree trunk with a solid thunk.

"Shit," Max breathed.

He looked back toward the tree line they'd just crossed.

The White Hands were there, still at the forest's edge. Not all of them—maybe five or six warriors, weapons drawn, standing in a loose line. They weren't moving forward. They were just... watching.

One of them had a bow raised.

Max's enhanced vision picked out the details. It was the one he had taken hostage last time.

The fucker was taking shots from the safety of the tree line.

Another arrow whistled through the air. Max jerked sideways, and it missed by inches, thudding into the snow behind him.

"Go," Max hissed, grabbing Tarak and hauling him up. "Move."

He got the kid on his back and started running, pushing deeper into the Witch's Forest.

Behind them, he heard voices. Quiet orders in a language he didn't understand. The rustle of movement through snow.

Max wove between trees, his enhanced senses picking up every detail. A root jutting up through the snow here—he stepped over it. A low-hanging branch there—he ducked under it. The ground sloped downward slightly and he adjusted his stride to compensate, keeping his balance even with Tarak's weight shifting on his back.

Max slowed to a jog, then a fast walk, his breathing controlled.

Every footstep was a crunch and squeak of compressed snow. Every breath from Tarak was a symphony of wet rasps and the click of his throat working. Bro's legs on his shoulder made tiny scratching sounds against the fabric of his shirt. Even the spider's breathing—if you could call it that—was audible, a faint rhythmic hiss.

Max kept moving, following the same path he'd taken before. Or trying to. It was harder to navigate without the panic driving him forward, without the witch's presence to guide him.

But his enhanced hearing picked up things he'd missed the first time.

The forest wasn't silent.

There were birds here, distant and high in the canopy. Small animals moving through the underbrush. The creak and groan of wood settling. Normal forest sounds.

Except...

Max stopped walking.

Tarak shifted slightly on his back. "What—"

"Shh."

Max closed his eyes, focusing on his hearing.

There.

Above them. Moving from left to right, maybe thirty feet up in the canopy. Something large. Something that made almost no sound.

The faintest whisper of displaced air. The softest creak of a branch taking weight. A sound so quiet that without the Heightening, Max would never have heard it.

His eyes snapped open and he looked up.

Nothing.

Just branches and needles and filtered gray light.

Max started walking again, slower this time, his head tilted slightly upward.

The sound came again. Ahead of them now. Moving parallel to their path. Branch to branch. So quiet it was almost imaginary.

Max's hand moved to his belt, fingers brushing the handle of his knife.

"Harek?" Tarak whispered.

"She's here," Max said quietly.

The movement stopped.

The forest went completely still.

No movement in the canopy. No displaced air. No creaking branches.

She was gone.

Or she was waiting.

Max took a slow breath and started forward again, faster this time. His boots crunched through the snow with a rhythm that felt too loud, too obvious. Every step announced their presence.

The sound came again.

This time from behind them. High up. Moving fast. Branch to branch to branch, the impacts so light they were barely audible even with his enhanced hearing.

She was circling.

Max's jaw tightened. He kept walking, following the path he remembered. The tree with the yellow snow at its base should be coming up soon. Maybe another five minutes at this pace.

Max's fingers tightened on Tarak's legs where they wrapped around his waist.

"When I tell you to get down," he said quietly, "you get down fast and stay down. Understand?"

"Yes."

The movement above them stopped again.

Max counted his heartbeats. Five. Ten. Fifteen.

Nothing.

He took another step forward.

A branch creaked directly overhead.

Max looked up.

The witch was there.

She stood in the same spot as last time, wearing the same white robes, the same gentle smile on her lined face.

"Well now," she said. "What have we here?"

Max set Tarak down without taking his eyes off her. "Stay behind me."

The witch's gaze moved past Max, scanning Tarak, then settling on Bro with that same intense focus.

"And who might this little one be?" she asked, pointing at the spider.

"His name's Bro," Max said. His hand moved to his belt, fingers closing around the knife handle. "And before you ask, no, you can't have him."

The witch's smile widened. "Oh my. Someone's been thinking ahead."

"I've had practice."

"Have you now?" She tilted her head, birdlike. "How interesting."

Max pulled the Fanga up another notch. His heart rate climbed. His vision sharpened further, the world slowing just slightly at the edges of his perception.

"You're going to offer me a death battle," he said. "Terms are: I win, we all go free. You win, you eat me and take Bro when I die. Right?"

The witch's smile never wavered, but something changed in her eyes. A spark of curiosity.

"My, my," she said softly. "You really have been thinking ahead."

"Do you accept my terms?" Max asked. "Or do I need to wait for you to explain them?"

The witch laughed. It was the same high, girlish giggle from before, but this time it didn't sound amused.

It sounded delighted.

"Oh, you are a strange one," she said. "Yes. I accept. Let's have our little dance, shall we?"

Max's fingers tightened on the knife handle. The Fanga burned through him, pushing his heart rate past one-eighty.

The witch took a step forward.

Max watched her bare foot touch the ground without making a sound.

Here we go.