The Bowl of Souls: Book 01.5 - Hilt's Pride by Trevor H. Cooley Page B

she said. “The fire was a bit more intense than I figured though.”
     
    “A bit?” Hilt said in disbelief. “And where is my fire stick? Please don’t tell me you dropped it.”
     
    “Here,” she said and stuck out her right hand which was still clenched around the stick, her knuckles white. “I made sure not to let go of it.”
     
    “And the cap?” Hilt asked. “Please tell me you didn’t lose it.”
     
    “ Uhh . . .” Her brow furrowed, her eyes darting back and forth for a moment as she tried to remember what she had done with it. Then she sighed in relief.  “That’s right. Yntri pulled it off when he tried to take the stick away from me.”
     
    Hilt glanced over to Yntri. The elf handed it to him wordlessly. Hilt snatched the fire stick from her hand and placed the cap back on it before tucking it into his pocket. “I see that you can’t be trusted with this.”
     
      “I can’t be trusted?” she scoffed. “After you ran off to your doom, leaving me alone with a handsy old elf, I’m the one who can’t be trusted?”
     
    Yntri nodded and clicked at Hilt in agreement.
     
    “Look, you two,” Hilt said. “I was not going to my doom. I was just checking things out. I wanted to see it.”
     
    “And how did that go?”
     
    “It was . . . large,” Hilt said.
     
    “Could you have killed it?” she asked, hands on hips.
     
    “Well . . . likely not, but we will never know, will we? You took that opportunity away!”
     
    “It was for your own good!” Beth said. “Why on earth were you so determined to face that thing?”
     
    Hilt clenched his jaw. “It was a matter of-.”
     
    “Pride?” she scoffed. “More like a matter of stupidity.”
     
    “Yes, pride!” Hilt shouted. He raised his right fist and shook his rune at her. “I was named nearly twenty years ago! Twenty years since I received the highest honor a warrior can get. It took immense focus and drive to reach those heights, but what then? Where does a driven man go once he’s reached the top? Tell me! Where?”
     
    Her jaw hung open in surprise at the intensity of his reaction and she stammered as she tried to find an answer. Yntri clicked a few times and placed a calming hand on Hilt’s arm, but the warrior shook him off.
     
    “I’ll tell you where,” he said. “Once you have reached the peak, there is no direction to go but down.”
     
    Beth swallowed. “N-now if you’re at the top there’s no reason you have to go anywhere . . . is there?”
     
    Hilt laughed, but there was no humor in his voice. “Yes, I suppose I could stand still, poised on my peak, trying to maintain myself. That’s what people expect a named warrior to do. And don’t get me wrong, for many years I have been content to do so, but lately more and more I get that itch, that need to achieve something again. The monsters of legend are one of the few challenges still out there, one of the few ways I can still improve.
     
    “I already slew one of them.” He jerked a thumb at Yntri. “It was the day Yntri and I met. A nightbeast had been haunting one of the villages in Malaroo down by the Jharro grove.”
     
    Yntri’s brow furrowed. He clicked at Hilt with a scolding tone, jabbing a finger in his direction.
     
    “Yes, I know.” Hilt shook his head with a snort. “He tried to warn me off back then too. Yntri likes to tell me my pride is going to kill me some day. I disagree. I think it’s what keeps me alive. I was unhappy for a long time before that battle. But when I killed that nightbeast things changed. The Roo -tan welcomed me in. Their leader took my council and started opening up their borders to Dremaldria. That fight changed their country and my life for the better.”
     
    His explanation didn’t get the response he had hoped for. Beth’s look of surprise had turned into a scowl. “So that’s what this pride of yours is? A need for fame and glory? You reach the top and that’s not good enough for you? You