Chapter 3 - Senses

A drop of water landed on Jaek’s cheek and slid down to his ear. He groaned and tried to wipe the water off, but he found his arms tied to the table he was lying on. Instinctively, he tried to lift his legs and arms to escape whatever restraints were holding him down. In a matter of a second, Jaek was thrashing about, the ropes around his wrists and ankles chafing at his skin. He opened his good eye and stared up at the ceiling.

            “Jaek! Jaek, it’s okay!” He felt a hand gently fall onto his chest.

            “Hya… what happened?”

            She was sitting to his right, the side opposite his good eye. He had to lean his head to the side to get a full glimpse of her face. Hyasen’s cheeks were wet with the remnants of tears. Jaek immediately felt an immense pain behind his right eye. He made to put his hand on his eye, to feel the source of the pain, but the ropes held him back.

            “Your father thought you might,” she paused, then covered her mouth with her hand. After a few breaths, she spoke again, “He thought you might try to touch your eye when you woke up.” Jaek sniggered, bringing with it a stab of pain.

            “How bad is it?”

            For a long moment, Hyasen didn’t say anything. Her lips tightened as she grabbed Jaek’s hand and squeezed it.

            “Your eye is… gone. They said it was torn to shreds.” Jaek squeezed Hyasen’s hand even harder, causing her to wince in pain. He began to scream, mostly from the pain, partly from the emptiness that accompanied the sudden loss of something so vital to his life. Shahm ran into the room, followed closely by Kahzu.

            “No, Kahz. You stay out here,” he whispered to the boy. Kyra gently grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back to the kitchen. Kahzu’s eyes faced Shahm as the door closed, leaving him separated from his brother. Shahm walked to Jaek’s other side, placing his hand gently on his chest. “How are you feeling, Jaek?” He began untying the ropes around Jaek’s wrist.

            “I’ve felt better.” The ropes slackened enough to free one of his arms. Shahm tried to stop Jaek’s arm as it moved to his face, but he stopped once he realized all Jaek was doing was wiping the tears from his good eye. As Jaek wiped the tear, he felt stitches at the top of his forehead. He traced them to the top of his right eye to where they jumped across and continued on to to the bottom of his left cheek. In the middle was a wad of gauze and tape, made firmer with the dried blood. Jaek exhaled, then relaxed his arm.

            “The doctor said it would heal fine,” Shahm continued, untying Jaek’s other hand. “You’ll have a pretty large scar and, well, you’ll be missing an eye -”

            “Shahm!” Hyasen cut him off.

            “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to help.” Jaek rolled his head toward Hyasen, ignoring his father’s remarks.

            “How’s Kahz? Did they hurt him?”

            “No.” Shahm answered. “He’s fine. A little rattled and worried about ya, but physically he’s fine.”

            “I want to see him.”

            “I’d rather not startle him with -”

            “I want to see him.” Shahm looked over to Hyasen. She nodded, mouthing ‘please’ as she held Jaek’s hand. Reluctantly, Shahm stood up from the bed and walked outside of the room. A minute later the door opened with Kahzu sprinting up to the side with Jaek’s good eye, Shahm filing in right behind.

            “Jaek!” He hopped up, grabbing Jaek’s midsection to attempt a hug and promptly fell back down to the ground. Jaek laughed and moved his head to look at his brother. Kahzu’s eyes widened as he scanned the scars and the gauze on Jaek’s face. “Oh, cool!” Kahzu reached up to touch the stitches, following the entirety of the wound as Jaek did minutes before.

            “Yeah,” Jaek said, “except for the whole missing an eye part.”

            “Whatever, you don’t need ‘em both anyway. You can go take both of theirs to get ‘em back!” Kahzu swung his hand through the air, mimicking a clawing motion. Jaek closed his eye, reliving the moment where the Khar’nor’s long, razor sharp claws swiped across his face. He realized the damage could have been much worse had Shahm not scared it off, but he should have seen it coming in time to protect himself. He was lying on the ground, helpless and about to die, while his brother was still being held by the second Khar’nor.

            Jaek’s eye began to well up again, the realization that he failed his brother overwhelming him. “I’m sorry Kahz.”

            His brother stopped clawing the air. “Sorry? For what?”

            “I let the Khar’nor take you. I should have stopped him.” Kahzu looked at their father, then back at Jaek.

            “You tell ‘im to grab me?”

            “Well, no.” Jaek replied.
            “Then why are you sorry?” Kahzu’s face was a look of pure confusion, unaware that Jaek felt at fault for not protecting him as a big brother. Jaek smiled and reached for Kahzu, softly tracing the path of his own scar down his brother’s face.

            “Nevermind.”

            Kahzu followed where his brother’s fingers had just grazed his skin, imagining Jaek’s scar on his own face. “Get better fast, Jaek. I can’t hunt without you.”

            “Workin’ on it, Kahz.”

            “Let’s let your brother rest,” Hyasen chimed in. She stood up and moved toward the door, motioning Kahzu to follow her. He smiled, traced the imaginary scar on his face one more time, then followed Hyasen out of the room, leaving Shahm and Jaek alone. Shahm moved over to the seat where Hyasen just left.

            “Thank you, dad.” Shahm nodded, patting Jaek’s arm.

            “Something’s wrong with those Khar’nor.” Shahm looked up at Jaek’s good eye.

            “What are they doing this close to Cammonar? I’ve never heard of ‘em this far south.”

            “Not what I meant.” Shahm looked at the door, confirming it was shut before continuing. “One of them threatened me once the other one dropped Kahz.”

            Jaek looked at his father, unsure what he meant. “Threatened?”

            “Yes, threatened.”

            “How? They can’t even speak.”

            “That’s what I thought,” Shahm said. “I heard it clear as day. ‘You’ll regret that’ he said. He turned and ran, but I swear he said it.” Jaek looked at the ceiling, disbelieving what he was hearing.  

            “They’re just animals, dad. You must have been knocked on the head too or something.” Shahm let out a breath.

            “I heard what I heard. I didn’t get hit on the head.” Jaek rarely heard his father speak in such a serious tone, but the way he said it made him tense up, reminding him of the pain behind his eye. He squinted his other eye in pain and groaned. “Sorry, I… I’ll get you some Tran’kin, and something for the pain.” Shahm stood and left the room.

            There’s no way it can be true, Jaek thought. There’s no records of Khar’nor speaking anywhere. They’re just animals.

            Monsters.

            Khar’nor were typically found up north, deep into the low-peaked Wiskan Mountains. There were occasional sightings in the towns nearer the bases of the mountains, but the last time a Khar’nor was seen near Cammonar was at least a few generations. Even then they would run away from any humans that were nearby. Stories were told of their brutality centuries ago when Khar’nor were barely a myth, a monster unseen by most people and shrugged off as nonsense by the rest. Only a few would enter a town in the middle of the night, barging into homes and killing entire families as they slept. Once the mayor of the northern town Kreist and his infant son were killed, extra precautions were taken. Soon after, the Khar’nor were killed within minutes of entering cities. Despite the extra precaution, they always managed to take a few human lives with them before dying themselves.

            This never happened in more than a few cities nearest the Wiskan Mountains. The theory was that there weren’t many attacks since there were only a small number of Khar’nor that were alive, maybe a few hundred or so. After a few months in a row of town militias killing the invading Khar’nor, they eventually stopped coming and became just a bedtime story to scare children into better behavior. Since then, there were only sightings with no reports of any violence or killings.

            At no point did any of these accounts mention the Khar’nor using spoken language to communicate. That, on top of centuries of no violence, terrified Jaek as he lay in bed wishing he could see from two eyes instead of one. As he became more aware of the pain behind his eye, his father walked back in with a glass of water and two Tran’kin pills. Jaek swallowed the pills with a sigh, eagerly anticipating the relief from pain.

            “The town’s going to go crazy when they hear about this.” Shahm took the glass from Jaek and placed it on a table beside the bed. “We shouldn’t tell anyone about them talking, though. Just the attack.”

            “Agreed.” Jaek wasn’t sure he believed Shahm when he said the Khar’nor spoke to him, so keeping it from the rumor mill would be much easier with that excuse.

            “Your brother won’t stop ranting about payback. He wants to kill the Khar’nor that did this to you.”

            Jaek laughed. “That sounds like Khaz. Too bad he won’t get a chance since I’ll be the one to kill them.”

            Shahm’s eyebrow shot up. “Excuse me?”

            “I’m going to kill them for trying to take Kahz. And for taking my eye.” Shahm put his hand on Jaek’s arm.

            “You’ll do no such thing. Just be happy you’re alive and let the Cammonari Lawful take care of it.”

            Jaek scoffed and removed Shahm’s hand from his arm. “The Lawful aren’t going to do anything ‘less I tell them they also attacked a brothel.” Shahm frowned.

            “Just don’t encourage Kahz to go hunting for those Khar’nor. He looks up to you and wants to protect you like you protect him. He ain’t got the sense that you do yet, being just a boy.”

            “Fine,” Jaek began, “but you can’t keep me from hunting them myself.”

            “I know.” Shahm stood up and kissed Jaek’s forehead. “Just remember you and Kahzu aren’t the only ones trying to protect each other.” Shahm shut the door behind him as he left the room, leaving Jaek alone to his thoughts of retribution.