Bethany slowed us down. She didn’t mean to and would have moved faster if she could have, but her new sandals were little better than nothing and her feet were already injured. We had to stop for rest often. If we didn’t then there was a very real chance that her feet would be hurt further and that would slow us down even more.
As we proceeded deeper into the forest, the path narrowed. Soon, it was only two or three feet wide, having fully reverted to its origin as a game trail. We walked in single file. Aleyda led the way with me behind her, then Bethany, and Bowen covered the rear. As time passed and we forged our way deeper into the woods, the tree canopy thickened and the warmth and light of the sun only peeked through intermittently. I saw a wide variety of small woodland animals. There were many birds, the small kind that could fly and not the five foot tall murderous type. I spied squirrels, rabbits, lizards, and even a snake or two.
I also saw several types of creatures I had no name for. Some were cute, fuzzy mammals with nearly human faces that chittered and howled at us from their perches up in the trees that surrounded us. Maybe they were the monkeys of some other world. Others had their feet planted deeply in the bizarre. I noticed a reptile of some sort that was about three feet tall. It had two sets of eyes, and a thin sort of membrane between its arms and torso, almost like it was able to glide through the air. When we startled it on the ground, it stood up on two legs and ran away, making a hissing noise and frantically waving its arms. I really hoped that the one I saw was not a baby of the species. Its arms and feet were tipped with nasty looking claws and when it opened its mouth to hiss I noticed its mouth was full of jagged, pointy teeth. It did not appear to be a vegetarian, that’s for sure. I could not help but imagine the same creature blown up to double or triple proportions. I didn’t want to run into that. No, sir.
And don’t get me started with the insects. Many were innocuous, wandering around the forest and doing whatever the hell insects do -- skittering through the leaf litter, scavenging for food, preying on one another. But there was one type that certainly got my attention. They were dark blobs flying around us, each nearly the size of a human thumbnail. They each had ten legs. I know because I finally counted them. They were highly territorial and attacked us in swarms, stinging any exposed skin they could reach. Their stings hurt like hell. Their venom burned like fire leaving large welts as evidence of their attacks. Thankfully, beyond pain and superficial swelling it didn’t seem to have any systemic effects. Still, we started avoiding any large groups of the creatures that we could see, often having to wait them out until they moved on. I had no desire to be stung to death by this world’s version of killer bees.
We didn’t talk much as we moved. The narrow confines and our linear formation didn’t facilitate conversation very well. Of course, there was a price to that silence. We could hear larger creatures moving through the forest around us although I never saw any of them. For all I knew, they were shy herbivores going about their lives. Where there were herbivores, though, there were also carnivores higher up the food chain that hunted them as prey and those I had no interest in meeting.
As we headed inland, the elevation continued to increase. When we first left our camp, the rise was almost imperceptible but now we were fully on the flank of the mountain and spent a lot of time climbing. At first, when we would get to a rocky area, one of use would grab Bethany by her arm and assist her with keeping her balance given her slick and inadequate footwear. This resulted in a lot of sliding around and cursing. We needed a different plan. Finally, Bowen and I started taking turns giving her piggy back rides over rougher terrain. Bethany was a fairly slight young woman and didn’t weigh much, which is the only thing that made the plan workable. Of course, whoever was not carrying Bethany was carrying the other person’s pack, so it was a workout all the way around.
Early in the afternoon, we found ourselves in a small and somewhat flat clearing. A tiny stream ran down the mountain through the middle of it but I imagine that stream wasn’t always so tiny. When it flooded, the force of the water was probably what formed the clearing in the first place. We decided to stop for lunch. We were each lost in our own thoughts as we worried at our mystery meat jerky and crumbly bread, drinking cool water from the stream. Suddenly, Aleyda spoke.
“Quiet,” she whispered. “I hear something coming from further up the trail.”
We dropped our packs and readied our weapons, spreading out slightly facing the uphill portion of the path with Bethany behind us. I strained my ears trying to hear what Aleyda had detected. At first there was nothing but then I noticed the sound of something or many somethings moving down the trail from above us. Not knowing what we were about to face made me nervous. I had heard so many tales about the monstrous wildlife on this island that my imagination started to run wild. That ended when I heard voices.
“I think its another company,” I said. I can’t honestly say that made me feel any better. By this point, I was well-experienced with this world’s humanoid predators.
At first, I couldn’t hear the voices clearly but as they continued to approach, I started catching snippets of conversation. The little I could hear seemed fairly innocuous. Someone was complaining that they hadn’t stopped to eat. Another voice was listing all the things he would buy once he was rich. I heard at least four separate people talking. It was clear that we were about to be outnumbered.
Finally, a bunch of weary orcs started tromping into the clearing. When the orc in the lead caught sight of us he came to an abrupt stop. The orc immediately behind him was busy talking to someone over his shoulder and didn’t pull up in time, running into the first orc’s back and sending him stumbling a couple of steps forward. The first orc spun and angrily shoved the inattentive one backwards, then he turned to face us again.
By the time the entire company made it out of the trees, I counted six of them. There were five orcs and one bewildered five-fingered human male with dark skin and a shaved head. The human was shackled and a long chain, almost a leash, ran from a leather collar on his neck to the hands of one of the orcs near the rear of the procession. The orcs had obviously seen better days. There were visible wounds on many of them and one looked like he was hurt badly enough that he had a hard time keeping up. With the exception of their apparent leader, they were unarmored. Their leader, the only one who walked with any confidence, wore armor fashioned from hides and boiled leather.
“What do we have here?” he asked as he walked down into the clearing. “What company are you with?”
“We’re with Caider’s Company,” I responded, realizing that I had never bothered to learn the formal name of the enterprise if there was one. “Who are you all affiliated with?”
“We’re from the Laughing Dogs,” he replied.
I was familiar with the Laughing Dogs. I had actually talked to their recruiter back in Shroud Hallow. They were a fairly large company with a decent compound back near town that maintained a nearly constant presence on the island.
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“I’ve never heard of Caider’s Company,” he replied. “Must be pretty small.”
“Yeah, just a couple of dozen people,” I responded, purposefully inflating our numbers. “We’re fairly new. Most of us are ex-guard from Shroud Hallow.”
“It looks like you have had some luck already,” he said, gesturing at Bethany. “All we have to show for our trip up the mountain is this scrawny fellow and several of our own left for the scavengers.”
“It looks like you had a hard time of it,” I said.
“Yeah, we ran into a bunch of big, long-haired cats of some kind,” he said, pointing at the pelts that one of the other orcs was carrying. “They fought hard but we won in the end. We lost some of the new recruits, but then again that’s nothing new. That’s why we have recruiters.”
What a dick I thought, but I tried hard to keep my feelings from showing.
“So, how about you trade us that woman for these pelts?” he asked.
Even if we were what we appeared to be, a group of six-fingered slavers, there was no way that was a fair deal. I can’t imagine that those pelts held more than ten or fifteen percent of the value of a slave. He was trying to shake us down.
“No, we’re good with what we have,” I replied.
“And here I was trying to be neighborly,” he said, drawing his sword. “I assume that Caider’s Company has recruiters, too. You all look like fresh meat to me. I am sure nobody is going to miss you much.”
Frankly, I felt pretty good about the odds that we were facing. We were outnumbered, but several of the enemy were wounded. And I remembered the people milling around me when I visited the Laughing Dog recruiter in Shroud Hallow. Most of them were farm kids or townies with dreams of glory. If most of the rest of this group were new recruits, they wouldn’t be very competent in combat. I doubt that the company did much formal weapons training.
I noticed that all the other orcs had drawn their weapons as well. The orc holding the leash clouted their human in the head, sending him to the ground before he dropped the leash and drew his sword. They had obviously been told that they might end up robbing another company. Caider was right about one thing, this island was a place where a person had to fight to hold on to what was theirs.
Their leader looked a little surprised when I didn’t say anything to him. I just glared at him and waited for them to make their move.
“It doesn’t have to end like this,” their leader said, mistaking my resolve for indecision. “Just hand over that slave and we can all go about our day.”
“You are such an asshole,” I replied. “And today you die.” Bowen and Aleyda were flanking me and ready to engage. “Attack!” I said, stepping forward towards the leader.
There was no hesitation. Once the command left my lips, we were all bounding forward to engage the enemy. Several of them looked a little confused, like they were wondering why we didn’t capitulate to their demands. After all, they outnumbered us.
My focus was entirely on the jerk in front of me. He warded my initial charge off with a sweeping horizontal slash. That caused me to pull up so I didn’t end up bisected by the cruel looking chunk of metal. Then, we started dueling, probing each other for weakness. I couldn’t spare any attention for what was happening around me. The orc might be an asshole but he knew how to use his sword. I heard cries of pain, but none of them sounded in Bowen or Aleyda’s voice, at least as far as I could tell.
The orc drew his sword back and looped a slow overhand strike at my head. I had enough experience fighting and training with Aleyda to recognize what the strike was. It was a feint. He was trying to pull my sword out of line for his real attack. Instead of blocking, I slipped the blow by dodging to the side. Just as I thought, the sword accelerated at the last minute this time aiming for the side of my knee. I quickly interposed my own sword in a parry and then aimed a swinging riposte at the front of his lower legs. He hopped backwards out of my range at the last moment. No blood had been drawn on our first exchange.
As I studied his movement, I realized that he was probably a little better at using the sword than I was. His actions were more precise, just a little quicker, more controlled. That was fine with me. To get better at this I would need to face superior opponents. And unless I screwed up and let him chop off my head, I would quickly recover from any wounds that he dealt me. Of course, if I realized he was a better swordsman he probably realized it as well.
I stepped back towards him and started testing his defenses. Chopping, striking, thrusting, I tried to maintain my initiative. He drew first blood when I overcommitted to an attack and he managed to draw the edge of his sword across my chest, dealing a stinging but largely superficial wound. In return, I stepped forward and kicked him in the thigh, pushing him back so I could gain some space and find my balance. His eyes shined with glee as he noticed my wound.
The sounds of fighting were dying down around me. That meant one of two things. Either my people were victorious and I would soon have help, or I was about to feel the cold kiss of a sword in my back. I desperately hoped for the former and not the latter.
That’s when I noticed something quite interesting. The five-fingered human who had been knocked to the ground at the beginning of the fight was creeping up behind my opponent. I could hear the chains that shackled his hands together clinking as he approached but I could only recognize what they were because I could see him. I couldn’t let the orc know what was going on, though, so I started bellowing like I had lost all reason and went on the attack, hacking and slashing for all I was worth.
My opponent was content to parry my onslaught. I am sure he thought that I would soon weaken and give him the chance to end the fight. Little did he know that the wound he had inflicted on me was already knitting itself together. Once it was healed, it wouldn’t even leave a scar.
After he had crept close enough, the human pounced. The orc was several inches taller than the human was, but the human managed to leap high into the air and loop the chain that bound his wrists together over the orc’s head. Then, he landed and pulled back on the chain until it slipped upwards around the orc’s throat. You go, Princess Leia. Of course, having a chain around your throat is quite distracting and the orc started missing some parries. And by some, I mean pretty much all of them.
I hacked him in the arms. I struck him in the legs. Today was my birthday and he was the pinata. The cutting edge of my sword didn’t penetrate his armor, but that was fine. Having a heavy metal club repeatedly strike your bones can’t feel very good. Finally, he lost his balance and fell backwards right on top of the human. That left his head exposed and it wasn’t armored. I few careful strikes and the fight was over.
I stood up and quickly scanned the area for other opponents to engage. There were none. Bowen and Aleyda were standing, watching how my fight played out. Neither of them had so much as a scratch on them.
“Why didn’t you help?” I called out.
“We would have if you needed it, but it looked like you had things covered,” Aleyda said.
Bowen, on the other hand, began crying out, imitating the below I had used to distract my opponent. He had a gift for mimicry, I’ll give him that. Man, sometimes friends can be downright mean.
Hearing a groan, I turned my attention back to my opponent. The sound came from the human, who was trying to extricate himself from under the orc’s superior bulk. I quickly headed over to assist him.