The Silver Tongued Devil Chapter 5: Chapter 5 - Human Canary

Read chapter 5 of The Silver Tongued Devil by The Vilkas on NovelPedia.

The spear didn’t move for a long time. My arms started to tremble, not from fear, I lied to myself, but from the hollow buzz under my skin. Level 2 jitters. The ache in my chewed arm had gone from sharp to heavy, like somebody had wrapped it in sandbags and then set the whole bundle on fire. The hunter watched all of that. Or at least, that was what it felt like. His gaze never left my face for long, but I caught his eyes flicking to my arm, the blood, the rock I’d set down. He said something else. This time there was no neat one-word dub. The sound hit my ears as a string of hard consonants and rolled vowels, then lagged—a heartbeat late—into half-formed English. "...wolves... you..." The pain behind my left eye spiked. I hissed and squeezed the eyelid shut for a second before I could stop myself. "Easy," I muttered. "I’m trying." His brows pulled together a fraction, like I’d just said something interesting or very stupid. The spear dipped another hair. If he meant to be reassuring, he needed to workshop it. Behind him, the archer shifted her weight. Her bow wasn’t at full draw anymore, but the arrow still sat nocked, pointed at a very uncomfortable angle in my general direction. She said something in the same language, short and clipped. The dub tried, stuttered, and gave me nothing useful but rhythm. Call. Answer. Confirm. Job-site cadence, just in the wrong world. "Look," I said. "I don’t know if you can understand me at all, but—" My voice scraped out of a throat that felt like it had been sandblasted. Every word came with the taste of old blood and dust. "—I’m not here to screw with your wall. Or your wolves. I’m just trying not to die." The hunter glanced back at the archer. They traded a look I couldn’t parse, then he shifted the spear to one hand and reached toward me with the other. I flinched before I could stop myself. My back hit stone. The alcove had gained about three extra invisible walls since the last time I’d checked. He froze. Then, very deliberately, he flattened his palm and held it up between us. Fingers spread. Empty. Same gesture as mine. Or close enough. "Okay," I breathed. "Yeah. Sure. Trust fall time." I lowered my hands a little, keeping them where he could see them. He stepped in, closing the last of the distance, and hooked his fingers under my good arm just above the elbow. Up close, he smelled like leather, smoke, and something metallic that wasn’t just blood. Standing at about my height, I guessed he was about 5' 10" maybe 6' at most. He and the girl had matching auburn hair tied back into braids, but his kept all his hair pulled tight to his skull. The world tilted when he hauled me up. My knees did their best impression of wet cardboard. For a second, I hung between his grip and the wall, boots scrabbling for friction. The hollowness roared in my ears. The mailbox in the corner of my sightline stayed quiet. No new flags. No verdict. Just that faint, patient presence. "On your feet," I told my legs. "Think of the other unbelievable shit we did today. You can do this too." They filed a complaint but held. Once I was standing, the hunter eased the spear back into a ready grip and kept hold of my arm with the other. Not gentle, not cruel. Just efficient. He said something over his shoulder to the archer. The dub limped along. "...down... watch..." She made a noise that might’ve been agreement. The bow finally eased all the way down. She unhooked the arrow, gave it a stylish one circle spin around her finger, and slid it into a quiver at her hip, and started picking her way along the slope toward us. Watching the way they moved made something in my chest twist. They treated the broken stone and loose scree like a job they’d done a thousand times. Weight always centered. No wasted steps. No trust given to locations that hadn’t earned it. Roofing skills, different translation. As she came closer, details sharpened. Her hair was braided back tight against her skull, dark with a few copper threads c