KEETHRO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keethro swung his axe with rancor. The viscous blood of his victim clung to the well-worn head of his weapon as he continued his assault. Swing after swing, Keethro’s wrath only built as the corpse of his fallen foe stubbornly refused to break way.

Petrified, those he would kill next looked on in silent horror. Droplets of sweat pooled on his brow, falling with some of the fiercer blows into the deep wound he had carved. Then, with a final stroke, Keethro’s blade bit into the center of the wooden cadaver, breaking it into two manageable pieces.

He turned and flung his axe at the next tree. Botching the release, his axe flew downward into the knee-high snow as Keethro squeezed his eyelids closed with the force of his embarrassment. No matter how he practiced, he simply could not throw an axe—not with his left. He could shave the wings off a dragonfly in flight with his right, however.

His sled piled high with half a day’s work, Keethro made his way back to his home. Iron pine, with its thick crimson sap impossible to remove from the skin and heartwood hard as stone, was the bane of many men. Difficult that it was to fell, it provided more than enough heat to be worth the added labor. This trip would be Keethro’s last, having gathered enough to warm his home, largest of the clan, through the coming winter.

Keethro stopped as he saw what awaited him. He removed a flask from inside his furs and took a swig of the sour alcohol. The figure in the distance, that beguiling siren he called wife, standing upon the balcony built by his own hand, was no doubt scowling though he was too far away to tell. Keethro resumed his march into the awaiting ambush.

“You would leave your wife and daughter to starve in the cold of winter?”

It was as charming a greeting as he could have expected, but it did not warrant a response. He began to move armfuls of the firewood to the neat stack under the balcony. For the winter they had food enough for three stored—plenty, considering it would only need to support the lesser two.

“While you go seek the warm beds of southern whores?” Kilandra snarled.

It is a wonder we need wood at all given her fiery rage, he thought.

Keethro was not one to suffer discomposure from a woman’s scorn. After facing the likes of hardened warriors from other clans, screaming and spitting in his face, eager to feed him his own entrails, and always emerging the victor, Keethro had no mind to be brought to anger. “I believe in the dead of winter even the beds of southern whores can be cold.”

He turned to face her as she flew down the steps of the balcony. The sight of her—her sultry defiance that begged him to overpower her, to force her surrender—was enough to turn his own pine to iron, but he was resolved to thwart her advances. He allowed her to slap him once across the face. Her second strike, he caught.

“You must put an end to this foolishness and kill him! Kill him and we—” Keethro’s unyielding grip was around his wife’s throat, silencing her. He glowered his warning, letting her know this was not to be one of their games.

“Talk like that will get us both killed,” he said through clenched teeth. With her harlot’s body came a harlot’s mind. Perhaps I will see if southern beds creak in much the same way northern beds do, and bring back a young maiden kissed by dawnlight. “You would announce to the whole clan my intentions? Now how do you expect me to return on the next moon, alone, with a tale of how clumsy Titon tripped and fell from a cliff?”

Keethro had no desire to go south with Titon, nor did he feel any real obligation to do so. The friend and brother in battle that Titon once was had long since disappeared, replaced by a man consumed by the hopeless revival of his slumbered wife. This voyage, apart from having no chance of success, was like to cost Keethro his life, or—should he somehow manage to survive—his marriage. Keethro was more concerned of the damage that would be dealt to his name if he returned to find Kilandra had strayed. “The mighty Keethro,” they would taunt, “handsomest of all Galatai, but unable to keep a woman in his own bed.” The source of his inadequacies would be implied, and he would end up killing many a drunken brother in his own drunken retaliation. It was not acceptable. He would not spend countless months in search of a cure that did not exist only to return to a life in ruin. Better to kill the one brother than the many.

“I promise you this,” she said after released. “If you do not return far sooner than that, you will find I am no longer waiting.” She spoke with all the venom she could spit, but Keethro heard in her voice her sincerity—and that, he could not forgive her.

He walked away, leaving Kilandra standing beside the still-loaded sled. May the next fool be more tolerant of your nature.

Sweet dry air filled his lungs as he stepped foot into his home. The raw timbers of its sturdy pine framing supported its impressive ceilings and large rooms. In stark contrast to the warmth of his home was the cold countenance of his teary-eyed daughter seated at the kitchen table. If not for the faint glow of auburn in her hair, he would have believed she was every bit his daughter with her dark blue eyes so matching his own.

He leaned to kiss her on the head before he left.

“I hate you!” Her verbal assault was accompanied by a knuckled punch to his chin. “I pray you do not come back this time,” she yelled over her shoulder as she ran to her room.

Keethro was a warrior and knew little of raising a girl, and his mastery of seduction did not translate to fatherhood. His reputation only seemed to cause Red to despise him as she grew older and understood more of what the stories about him meant. Nor was it any help that her mother saw fit to poison her mind with her own beliefs about the cruelty and duplicity of men—all men. Or perhaps Red simply loathes me because she too suspects the truth.

Keethro never doubted Kilandra would bed a man of higher position, given the chance, and there was but one. Keethro believed that a man should hold his woman responsible for infidelity, since believing otherwise would have made him quite the hypocrite. However, in the case that the man also claimed to be your friend, it was unforgivable of both parties. He will confess with his dying breaths. I’ll make sure of it.

Keethro hoisted his readied supplies onto his back and set out for the journey with his best and only friend—the one he sought to kill.