Chapter Seventeen: Those Who Know Do Not Speak

Tom and the others rushed through the woods at suicidal speed. The memory of the mantis creature that had ambushed them from hiding kept flashing across his mind. They had exactly zero chance of avoiding a similar situation at the pace they were travelling.

They crashed through brush. Stumbled through divots hidden by deadfall. Climbed over logs and roots. Snaked around trees. Redirected themselves with panicked intensity when they came across an unclimbable escarpment.

Another hour passed, and Tom noticed the others flinch and start to snatch glances backwards. The orcs must have finally come within range of their hearing. It was bad news; the orcs definitely had their trail - and they were gaining ground.

Tom listened to the howls grow steadily closer. Eventually he resigned himself to the fact that they couldn’t outrun them. It left them with two options: fight, or hide. Neither were particularly attractive.

If they fought, they would likely be killed out of hand. He would need to reveal his new nature as an Idealist for them to have any hope at all, and when he did, they would kill him. Besides that, they only had the one short sword between them and no armour.

If they hid, they would likely be found and recaptured. The orcs seemed much more at home in the woods than them, and must have been tracking them somehow; Tom didn’t back himself to be able to hide from them, let alone hide three people from them.

He was at an impasse, but they had to do something. Simply allowing themselves to be killed or captured was not an option. Tom knew that if they were captured again, there would be absolutely no escape. After observing the orcs for almost a week, he gave it even odds that they were tracking them purely because their running had triggered some primal chase response in them.

After another half hour of breakneck pace Tom stopped them briefly.

“They’re going to run us down,” he said, breathing hard. “We need to either fight or hide, but keeping on running will only tire us out when they eventually catch up.”

Sam just looked at him with wide eyes, shaking her head very slightly back and forth, heaving massive gasps of air.

The soldier was in slightly better condition, still panting for breath, but somewhat controlled. His face, however, told a different story. It was stamped with fear. His eyes darted around like mice in a box. His lips were drawn into a thin line. His face was white enough for a priest of Truth’s undergarments.

“What? No! We can’t just wait for them!” the soldier said. “That’s madness, man! They’ll catch us for certain!”

“Think for a second,” Tom said. “We don’t have much time. We need to find somewhere to hole up and hope they pass us.”

“You’re fucking crazy! You stay here if you want -” He thrust an accusing finger at Sam “-but

I’m not just gonna fucking wait for them to catch me again!”

And with that, the soldier turned and ran off through the trees, leaving them. Tom went to shout after him, but the howls from behind stopped him. He’d give away exactly where they were, and then they might as well keep running themselves.

“Sam, listen to me!” he said in a rush. “We need to find somewhere to hide, somewhere they won’t find us. Then we can just wait while they pass us by and go a different direction, okay?” She looked blankly at him.

“Okay? Sam? Keep an eye out for somewhere for us to hide,” he urged, grabbing her shoulders. She gave him a weak nod, tears leaking down her grubby face.

Good enough, thought Tom. He started them moving again, looking for any likely spots as they followed after the soldier.

They searched and searched as the orc hunting party grew closer. There were places to hide, but they all seemed flimsy at best. Tom wanted to pull his hair out; wanted to shriek in frustration. For the last month and more as they’d explored the Deep Green, there were infinite places to hide. The undergrowth was abundant. It was difficult to avoid divots and cutaways and gullies. Trees with roots that came up to his waist were everywhere. Just not here.

This section of forest was relatively flat. The forest floor was covered in the usual coating of leaves and branches, but it was clear of larger deadfall. There were no large rocks, and the usually ever present low shrubs and bushes were sparse.

They continued on, becoming more and more frantic as they searched. Sam looked like she was about to have a breakdown. Her hands were shaking, and she was whimpering as she followed Tom around.

As the sounds of pursuit grew frenzied, the reason for the lack of ground cover grew apparent. The land tipped into a rise, gentle at first, then escalating quickly. The ground became broken with stones, and the trees were spaced slightly more widely apart. Tom pushed them for even more speed.

The ground cover grew as they moved. Tom reasoned that the trees here must be exposed to greater winds given their wider spacing and higher elevation, and that it cleared dead and weak branches from them more frequently. The large stones persisted, and boulders peeked from the soil. Onwards, they fled.

Tom was certain that any minute now he would look over his shoulder and see dark red skin moving through the trees. Or that he would hear an excited howl and turn to see orcs running them down, having finally sighted their quarry.

At last, Tom’s nerve gave out. The howls sounded almost right on top of them, echoing through the rocky slope after them. He picked the next place he saw that would give them any kind of cover - a small crook made by two largish boulders wedged together.

“There!” he said to Sam, pointing. Hope and relief flashed across her face.

The two boulders made a sort of V-shape, and were rounded slightly at the bottom to make a space under them. There was just enough room in the gap between them for both of them to wiggle in next to each other. Their heads would be exposed if looking at them from the right angle though, so Tom took a second to grab several large branches and drag them towards the spot. Sam saw what he was doing and grabbed an armful of smaller ones too.

Sam dumped the branches beside the boulders and wedged herself into the gap. Tom waited for her to settle in before wriggling in himself. The sounds of orcs were clear now. They had reached the bottom of the slope, probably less than a minute after Tom and Sam were occluded by the boulders. Tom reached out, dragging the branches after him, and tried his best to prop them up in a natural seeming way while still obscuring them from sight. Sam was positioning the smaller branches she’d gathered in any gaps.

They both froze as they heard running footsteps coming up the slope. They would find out soon if the orcs had seen them hide from the bottom of the slope. Tom closed his eyes and said a silent prayer, barely daring to breathe. All they had to do now was stay quiet.

He and Sam were wedged together uncomfortably in their little hole. He could feel her chest rising and falling sharply, her breathing sounding deafening in the tiny space. He willed her to be silent, knowing both their lives depended on it.

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Orcs thundered past the boulder, variously running like men, or using their powerful arms to propel them in a half-run along the ground. They were fairly widely spaced, yipping at each other as they ran. One stopped for a moment, releasing a long howl into the wind, before taking off after its fellows with a burst of speed. Tom counted ten of them through a gap in the branches.

They must have split up to search for us all. There would have been two different sets of tracks leading from the camp, Tom realised. It was an unexpected boon, but he and Sam would still be unable to face ten orcs alone. They had a definite chance at hiding from them though, they hadn’t seen Sam and Tom, and didn’t appear to be searching thoroughly. Tom wondered if they were even tracking them with any kind of expertise, or just following a vague scent or something of the sort.

A scream rang out from further up the slope and Sam flinched, her legs kicking Tom’s.

The soldier! Tom thought. Shit. He didn’t get as far as I thought he would have.

More screams echoed down the slope. “No, NO, NO!” the soldier cried. Tom could hear the orcs talking to, and yelling at, each other in their harsh language. The sounds of the soldier struggling against his captors and denying his capture grew closer. The orcs were bringing him back down the slope.

Captives, then. Tom thought. They must really want us for something.

Then, Shit! I forgot! He sent a thought at his wisp. The wisp drifted over, sitting just above him in the gap between the rocks, but the orcs had stopped their chatter already. They came back into view, more slowly this time. The soldier was being dragged along the ground by a rope tied to his feet.

He was trailing along like a sled pulled by a child, slewing about and hitching on obstructions. He bumped on a rock and rolled over.

He stared straight at them. The soldier’s eyes went wide as they met Tom’s through a chance gap in the branches.

Sam’s breathing began to get even more erratic. She stared at Tom from less than a foot away, her eyes so wide and wild she looked like she was about to have a seizure.

Tom swore he could see the thoughts tumbling through the soldier’s head. He would yell at them to save him, alerting the orcs to their presence - like a drowning man pulling their rescuer under with them. And if he didn’t fuck things up for them, then Sam might start crying or have a proper fit, and ruin things for them anyway.

All at once, a strange cold feeling swept over Tom. It surrounded him, submerged him, yawned within him. The world slowed to a crawl. Images flashed through his mind.

Him biting his tongue when one of the jeering little snobs at the academy taunted him, knowing any kind of response would be blood in the water for them - assurance that they'd hit their mark. Tom, just wishing, just for once, that they’d leave him alone.

Withholding an answer he knew was right during class, resisting his almost pathological need to answer, because it would only serve to make him feel better momentarily, and add fuel to his bullies’ fires later.

Refusing to rise to the bait when his father scathed him during their 'training', knowing it would aggravate him more, and wanting to - regardless of the cost. Wanting, needing, more than anything, to actually match his father. To beat him. To shut him the fuck up.

Staying silent when his mother asked over and over if he was okay after she healed him, knowing it would hurt her deeply, and meaning to.

Silence. He had always used it as a tool, and now he needed it more than ever. His life depended on it.

His wisp pulsed, and the limning around its pink core turned black.

Ideal manifested.

Ideal Two (Classic): Silence.

Skill One (Classic): Hush (Active).

Mana cost: Moderate.

Cooldown: Moderate.

Range: Medium.

Duration: Moderate.

Apply Silence debuff to target. Puts caster to sleep if self-targeted.

The world snapped back into focus. The soldier opened his mouth.

“Hush,” Tom said, in the barest whisper.

The soldier drew in a deep breath and tried to set it free in a screaming plea for their help, the muscles in his neck straining, his face going deep pink. But no sound came out. Not even a whisper. A wild, confused expression crossed his face as he tried repeatedly to get their attention.

Tom quickly turned his head to Sam. “Hush,” he said, but he felt no outflow of mana this time.

Shit! Still on cooldown, he realised.

Looking at her, it was like it had worked anyway though. She was still drawing in air; but there was no noise passing her lips.

The orcs pulled the soldier onwards, back down the slope, out of sight, oblivious to his silent struggles. Tom stayed tense, every muscle in his body rigid, expecting them to return at any moment. He spent long minutes peering between the branches, straining his ears to hear any sound.

Sam began to kick against his legs again. He turned to look at her again. Her face was also going purple. Froth was settling around her lips. Her breathing was extremely shallow, and her eyes were unfocused.

Tom reached out to nudge her. He didn’t dare speak for fear of being heard. Her whole body was completely rigid now. He couldn’t understand what had happened - the Silence debuff didn’t seem to stop them from breathing.

Then Tom felt a sharp pain in his leg.

Skill activated: Sweet Suffering (Passive).

Grey Moss Scorpion Venom - Negated: Extreme muscle relaxant buff applied. Extreme analgesic buff applied. Moderate duration.

His wisp bobbed gently in front of him, and he felt like he was floating with it as he slipped into unconsciousness.