It was nice and warm, the comfortable sort of warm that one could only truly experience when it was an unusually cold day outside. The kind of warmth that denied the cold and kept you comfortable and satisfied.

Asgar stretched, then grimaced. Feeling a spike of pain up his leg and going still in response, afraid to move and lest the discomfort disturb the bliss of the warm bed he lay in.

He could smell food in the air. Unfortunately, not the scent of meat, but a menagerie of earthy scents that still managed to be enticing.

His stomach growled, and he debated much over rising before eventually opening his eyes and sitting up.

The events of yesterday crashed into his mind, this wasn't his home, he had left it to explore the world.

An exploration they'd not managed for more than a day, before a band of angry, bloodthirsty orcs had decided to attack him and his brother in the middle of the night. An attack that had led to not one, but two battles that nearly killed them both.

And more importantly- for the moment anyway, he wasn't where he was supposed to be. He should be waking beneath a pile of muddy animals hides after having barely managed to achieve that level of camouflage before exhaustion forced him to sleep.

Instead, he was in a log cabin. The interior of which was tall, taller than even a Drakon's home. Which, due to the height of its occupants, were often quite tall indeed.

His brother lay beside him, in a bed that made him feel like he was a child again.

In the center of the building’s left wall sat a squat little stone fireplace, a crackling and dancing flame warming the room to the delightfully pleasant temperature it was. As well as heating a large pot that hung above it from a hook and steamed slightly. Filling the room with its delightful earthy scent.

Across from them, some thirty feet away at the opposite end of the room was a large wooden door, and over the floors lay various animal pelts that helped keep the chill at bay. Nestled in the corner was a table upon which sat three bowls. And beside them stood a trio of cups, stacked within each other. There were no windows in the cabin.

Beside them on a nightstand lay another bowl, which was a little pile of terribly bent and damaged silver scales.

Asgar woke his brother up.

"Argus, where are we?"

Argus stirred, drowsily taking in the room before shaking his head to gather his alacrity once more.

"We appear to be in someone's home."

"So, you don't know who brought us here. then?"

The question was mostly rhetorical. Asgar scanned the room, cautious but not yet afraid.

His armor and weapons were missing, which would have made him somewhat fearful of being in danger. Still, he was comforted when looking down and discovering himself dressed in a layer of new bandages. Clearly, whoever had 'caught' them, preferred them alive. And based on the vague sense of numbness, which Asgar suspected was medicinal in nature. They clearly preferred for him to not be in pain either.

"Do you see our weapons anywhere?" Argus asked, taking his own turn to survey the room.

"No." Asgar rose to get up, then with a pang of pain up his leg sat back down. "Ow."

"Be careful."

Argus stood in his stead, glancing around the room. Now both arms were in slings, which concerned Asgar. He didn't think the damage Argus received would have wounded both of his arms so severely. They were new slings as well, and Asgar's splint and sling had been replaced by a set of what frankly, looked to be the handiwork of someone far better than Asgar was at doing these things.

The door opened with a creak.

A figure stepped into the doorway, a towering figure indeed. Which explained why the door and the house itself was so big. They were a massive creature. As big as the Pallid Bear, at least four feet taller then either brother, if not more. And they were stout, as wide as the brothers standing side by side. Their stature made the cabin feel more like a hovel.

And they were green.

The brothers jumped, reached for weapons that weren't there, then prepared to use claws and teeth.

"Hi there, ya startled me."

The figure entered and revealed himself not as an orc, or at least not entirely. While his skin was green, it was a faded sort, and he was missing the great tusks orcs were known for. Replaced with a pair of pointed canines, that stuck up from his lower jaw over his upper lip. A remnant of heritage.

The half-ogre- for that was what he undoubtedly was, as nothing short of a giant could hope to sire something this tall, Was covered in scars. They mishmashed over his face and exposed arms and appeared in all forms, from stabs and cuts to burns and others they didn't recognize.

"glad see yer awake." he stepped into the cabin, his home, and shook off some of the water clinging to him from the rain.

He spoke in traders' talk, which the brothers knew well enough. It was generally the language used when one needed to communicate with anyone else, not from the same region. And both brothers were fluent, they had to be allowed to leave home.

The brothers traded looks as they appraised him.

he raised a single bushy salt and pepper brow while looking down at them. "I hope y'all aren't mute. I'm outa paper for writing with."

"I apologize, your size caught me off guard," Asgar spoke, gathering a look of vague regret for being so blunt.

"Well, nice and direct of ya, no worries, no offense taken." the half-ogre chuckled, reading the Drakon like a book. At the same time, he stepped around Argus and began stirring the cooking pot.

"I hope ya don't mind the lack of meat, I know Drakon prefer it. But if I went around hunting- why with my appetite. I might end up overhunting."

Argus replied, "We understand," though he didn't, not really. While the ogre was undoubtedly big. The forest had enough game to provide for the various tribes of Orcs and Drakon who lived in it, and the Human town who lived not even a full day’s travel from its edge.

"I am Argus," he followed.

"And I am Asgar."

"Nice to meet ya boys, I'm Ursa Major. You can just call me Major." his name was odd, and his voice too. It was a slow drawl but warm somehow. "How ya feelin? Any pain?"

Argus shook his head no, and Asgar replied, "A bit when I stretch, but it is numbed."

"That would be the Pitcher's berries, helps to numb things."

"We're familiar, though I didn't know it could be used medicinally."

"Well then there's a little tip for ya, crush the berries and mix them with water, Then wet the bandage with the mixture. that'll numb most open wounds." The ogre gestured to the bowl beside the bed "those are yer scales there, I dunno if yer the type that likes to keep em after ya lose em, knew a couple Drakon like that.". He pulled up a chair by the table and rolled his shoulders. "Now, I hope y'all don't mind if I got some questions for ya?"

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The brothers shook their heads no, then motioned for him to continue.

"Thank ya, now it seems to me, that this whole fighting business with the orcs is fairly obvious, with what the one with the sideburns was wearing and all. But I feel I gotta ask just to be sure, so I apologize if ya don't wanna talk about this. But based on the wounds those folks had I feel it’s got to be asked. I imagine yer avengers of blood?"

Neither brother had heard the term and shook their heads. "I don't know what you mean," Argus spoke.

"Maybe y'all use a different term, so I apologize again for being confusing. But I imagine those scales that one was wearing belonged to the kin of yers?"

"Oh, no. We don't know who that was."

The ogre looked confused at that, chewing his lip a bit.

"Are ya, bandits, then?"

"No- no, they attacked us."

"Now I don't mean to call ya a liar, but from what I can tell. That was their camp that I found ya at." If the ogre was bothered by having two people he thought had randomly murdered a band of orcs, he didn't show it.

"They had attacked us the night before, we had to run. some bears attacked us while we were fighting them, so we got away." Asgar cleared his throat. "We came back for them later."

"Came back for em?"

"Yes."

"Why'd ya do a thing like that?"

"They tried to kill us, we knew they were going to hurt more people."

"They told ya?"

"Well, no, we felt it. And they were wearing one of our kind’s scales."

The ogre seemed to think for a long moment, slowly stirring the soup as he did. Then finally, spoke again.

"How'd ya 'feel' it?"

"Through our Oaths."

"I thought so." The ogre stepped back and gathered up his bowls. "ya want to eat at the bed, or can ya make it to the table?" He said that last part while looking at Asgar. Who nodded and stood with a grimace, and began a limping hobble over to the table.

Argus quickly walked over, offering his shoulder to his brother. The two of them made it the rest of the way over to the table.

The ogre spooned two bowls full of the soup and placed it in front of the brothers.

"Thank you, Major."

"Gladly, eat up. It'll help ya heal. Now, two questions for the both of ya."

"Yes?"

"Firstly, would ya like some tea?"

"Please."

The ogre opened a cupboard and pulled a teapot from it, which he then filled with water from a jug kept beneath it. After hanging it next to the pot over the fire, he turned back to the brothers.

"And the second one, how'd ya feel it? I mean to say, how did it feel when yer Oaths told you?"

The brothers thought, and then Argus answered. "It just felt right, like a pull, it felt like when my Oath grows." Asgar nodded an agreement with his brother.

"Yer Oaths have grown?"

"yes."

"How many times?"

"Just once, if you do not count what we received when we first took it." Argus found himself doubting how truthful he should be with this colossal figure, the giant man was almost too easy to trust. But he shook the thought away, he had no reason to suspect the ogre of anything.

"Good, maybe I gotcha too soon for a bad habit to form."

"Sorry?" Asgar voiced.

"The Oaths don't know as much as ye might think," Major spoke.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what I said, they don't know what it feels like they know." the Teapot began to whistle. Major stood, plucking it from the hook with a mitten beside the fireplace before pouring three cups of the drink and setting the pot on the table.

"Yer Oaths might be able to sense when someone else has one, but they won't know what it is any better then ya would."

"But-"

"You are wrong." Argus interrupted his brother, absolutely sure.

"No, I am not."

Asgar spoke this time. "Do you have an Oath?"

"I had one."

Asgar almost bolted up, "You're an oath breaker." He felt a pull from his mantle and an urge to… do something.

"No, I ain't." and just like that, the urge vanished, Argus was halfway standing, and the sudden absence of the pull almost off-balanced him.

"Then how is it gone now?" Asgar spoke, and he wasn't sure if he meant the ogre's Oath or the pull from his mantle that had suddenly vanished.

"I completed it." he said with them, and for the first time, a vague look of irritation ran across his face.

Both the brothers suddenly felt very naive. No one in their tribe swore an oath that ended unless they died, it just wasn't done. But that didn't mean everyone else did it that way.

The realization actually took some of the respect Asgar had for the ogre away, which, in turn, surprised him that he did find himself oddly respectful towards the ogre.

The ogre interrupted Asgar's thought process. "Yer Oaths aren't all-knowing, they only know what ya do."

"He was wearing the scales of one of our kind and attacked us in the night. Are you saying he was innocent?" Argus asked, with a tone full of skepticism.

"No, I suspect Oath and ya were right. I don't recognize any of the orcs from the group ya killed." The ogre sipped his tea, "So I think the fellas ya fought were just as bad as yer oaths must have thought they were. The big one, he was Oathbound, wasn't he?"

"Yes, it feels like there's a lot of us around here. More than I thought there would be."

"Oathbound are more common here, amongst 'civilized' lands. They’re less frequent, and more organized elsewhere. Their kings usually only allow a handful of specific Oaths.". He stood again, filling the third bowl with soup before rejoining them at the table. "But I'm getting off-topic. My point is, yer Oaths don't know everything, and so far as I could tell with mine, it didn't know more than I did. Maybe yer oaths are different, most are. But that 'pull' ya described sounds like what my Companion did when it thought it sniffed something dangerous out."

"Companion?"

"Yup, a hound, ever loyal. Helped me save a bunch of lives. What I miss the most about the Oath. That was the form it took for me."

"If you miss it, why didn't you retake it? Or a new one?"

The ogre shrugged, "The one I had... it doesn't quite fit the right way anymore. I don't regret anything it aided me to do, but sometimes I wish it had guided me to do more." He sipped his tea, mulling over the words in his head. "Besides, I'm old. A new oath wouldn’t hold as much power now, I don't have much to promise to it anymore. And it can be dangerous to be an Oathbound out there where kings rule." The brothers couldn't help but feel that the ogre's reason felt a bit like an excuse.

"It can be dangerous?"

"Yup, the ruling class are usually Oathbound themselves. Or have powerful ancestry, sometimes both. They don't much appreciate any oaths contradictory to theirs."

The brothers nodded, making mental notes to be wary of royalty.

"While I don't know yer oaths, I have suspicions that they're rather... inoffensive." He hummed softly. "Yup, most won't have a problem with ya. And the ones that do, I suspect you’ll wanna find anyway."

"Thank you for the advice."

"Happy to give it, but I've been yapping so long. Ya best get to eating before the soup turns cold."

The brothers nodded, thanking the ogre again before beginning to eat. The soup had gotten a little colder, now warm as opposed to hot, but they dug in with gusto. It was pleasant and had a quality of spiciness to it that made it warming despite the chill temperature. Between the three of them, they quickly emptied their bowls, and then the pot in its entirety, the tea followed suit after. It was a bitter drink. Less pleasant, more so than beneficial, as they were told, it also would aid with healing. This continued to spark curiosity which eventually turned into a blaze, burning away his manners as he asked, "Who were you? You have all this... skill at healing."

"I had more, once. The Oath helped."

"The Oaths can heal?"

Major 'mhmed.'

"Could you teach me?"

The ogre hummed again, before shaking his head. "Oaths aren't taught. They are pursued. If ya think healing would fall in line with yer Oath, why, now that ya thinking about it. It'll surely come."

Argus nodded, gladdened. Then eyed the bandages he and his brother shared. "Can you teach me the mundane then? I've... I've always wanted to help people, and this feels right. Somehow."

"Why, gladly, y’all need to be resting for a while anyway. Ya won't be traveling on that leg. And I don't mind the company."

Asgar went to stand to shake the ogre's hand, before groaning and sitting back down. Offering it instead of across the table.

"Thank you."

"Like I said, gladly. Y'all seem alright, all things put together. We can get started tomorrow, might be able to teach yer brother here a thing or two as well."

Argus gave a nod of agreement, interest in his eyes, if not the passion Asgar was displaying.

"This all reminds me, fear of the soup getting cold distracted me. Don't ya call yerself Oathbound when ya get to proper cities, that's not what they call us folk. And they'll peg ya for tribals if use that word, which will be trouble even if it’s true."

"What sort of trouble?"

"Oh, they'll charge ya more for things, and think ya don't know how much money's worth. Which I think might be right."

The brothers looked mildly embarrassed. "Neither my brother nor I were our tribe's traders."

"Didn't think so, yer accents are too thick. Anyway, I'm getting off-topic again. Don't call yerselves Oathbound. Over in 'civilized' lands, they call us Paladins."