“Caider, you are covered with ticks,” I loudly proclaimed. Of course, I spoke loudly because I wanted the other people nearby to hear as well, and I was successful. In the background, I could hear my words light the fuse on a whole new round of cursing as people inspected their own skin. I wasn’t paying it a whole lot of attention, though, because I wanted to see how Caider would respond.
“Gah!,” he barked out. “Nasty things! Get them off me!”
That’s when I realized that my plan had backfired. I spent the next ten minutes pulling ticks off of exposed parts of our fearless leader that I never wanted to look at much less touch. He did not offer to do the same for me, however.
“Did you get them all off?” he asked. “Check again!”
I checked again and found another crawling on him that had not pierced his hide yet.
“You’re clear,” I said, flicking the last tick off.
Surveying the clearing, I got an eyeful of more orcish skin than I ever wanted to see as the rest of the company stripped down to the buff and helped each other with tick removal. It was nightmare fuel, people. Then, I went over to Bowen and asked him to do the same for me. He complied, grumbling all the while. Off to the side, I saw Aleyda removing the ticks she could reach but she would need help and she was the only woman in our company. I saw Gento, the six-fingered human in our company, approach her.
“Do you want me to help you with the rest of them?” he asked, trying but failing to keep a sly smile from touching the edge of his mouth.
I doubt Aleyda understood the words, but she certainly understood the tone and the hint of a smile. Clearly, she wasn’t pleased.
“If you touch me, I’ll break both of your arms,” she said sweetly.
“What did she say?” Gento asked me.
“She said she would rather have her brother do it,” I said, gesturing at Bowen.
“Alright,” he replied. Then he slinked away, defeated.
So, I stood guard while Bowen removed Aleyda’s ticks. I stood with my back to her to be polite, the stern look on my face letting everyone else know not to get too close. There would be no peep show.
Once everyone was squared away, Caider split our squad in two. Tikter and half the orcs would start transporting our provisions from the ship while the rest of us continued working on the trail. It took us the most of the rest of the day to widen the trail to Caider’s exacting specifications. Why did we need an eight foot wide trail when something half that width would have been more than sufficient? Who knows? I certainly didn’t. Maybe it was done to demonstrate how proficient and prosperous and competent we were. While we were working, the orcs hauling supplies made three trips to the ship. When they got back the last time, carrying heavy crates and other supplies, they were clearly exhausted. I would have been, too, if I was forced to make that trip three times.
Of course, just because the sun was setting and we had worked today didn’t mean that our tasks were completed. There was still the clearing to deal with. Obviously not enamored by his encounter with the insect population of the island, Caider demanded that we clear out a good section of grass in the meadow. That work continued until it got too dark to see, and we only cleared maybe a third of the grass. The porter crew was not allowed to be idle either. They had to set up camp, pitching the crude canvas tents that would be our shelter for the next couple of months. Caider and Tikter each got their own tents right by the fire. The rest of us had roommates, three or four to a tent. Thankfully, the three of us got our own tent. Of course, being the new people, we got a tent adjoining an uncut section of the tall grass. I could see more tick removal in my immediate future.
Did Caider and Tikter pitch in with the work? Of course not. When Tikter returned with the supply runs, his arms were empty. He had it worse than Caider, though, who basically did nothing but yell at us the entire time we were working. In his mind, I don’t think any of us did one thing right. I am certain that he thought that without his deft supervision we would make a huge mess of everything. Even with supervision, I thought we were making a huge mess of everything.
I started to understand how officers ended up fragged in war zones.
The next day was more of the same, trying to tame nature. Clearing the rest of the grass took all morning but when we had it completed, the grass stacked in the surrounding forest or tossed into the stream, was my work day done? Obviously not. There were still supplies left on the ship so we all had to make a couple of trips back down to the port. Walking to the port was easy. It was mostly downhill and not quite as far as I thought it was. The trips back, though, were miserable. Arms straining against the weight of the crates, or boxes, or bags that I was carrying, the hike seemed interminable. We finally got the last of our supplies transported, however. We left them stacked on the ground around our camp, which I considered idiotic. When I had stood watch the night before, I had heard large creatures moving through the forest again. By stacking a large quantity of foodstuffs around the camp we were essentially baiting the area. Anything with a well-developed sense of smell and any degree of hunger would wander in to investigate. I assumed that our watches were about to be a lot less peaceful. But hey, who would have thought about adequate food storage in a monster infested wilderness? Certainly not Caider. I think in the back of his mind he thought we would be staying at a campsite somewhere very close to town. I was really starting to dislike that orc.
After everything was as squared away as we could make it, we got to have dinner, actual hot food. Dirty Brown was the company cook and his slovenliness and general unclean appearance didn’t fill me with confidence. I predicted company-wide food poisoning in our future. Surprisingly, though, what he scraped together was fairly tasty. Of course, not content to leave well enough alone, Caider stood to address the company.
“Wandering around trying to find the island took several of our precious days, and setting up camp took a day longer than expected,” he said. “We are running behind and we will need to work hard to recover that lost time. Tomorrow, we will send out our first foraging parties. The area close to town is all fished out, so to speak. We will need to take some risk, going deep into the forest if we want to profit. I think we’ll split into groups of five, with two groups out at one time and one here to secure the camp.”
I didn’t want two others to tag along with us, so I interrupted him.
“I think your plan is solid,” I said, not at all convinced that he had any clue what he was doing. “Aleyda, Bowen and I are used to working and fighting together, though. We would like to go out tomorrow on our own. You can use the extra people to supplement the other group.”
Caider scowled at me, obviously not appreciating the interruption.
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“Are you certain?” he asked. “This place is dangerous.”
“Yes,” I replied. “We are accustomed to fighting together. Needing to watch out for the safety of extra people has the chance of throwing our rhythm off. That could be dangerous to all of us.” That wasn’t the real reason, of course. I wanted to be able to communicate freely and I didn’t need a couple of snitches in our group. I wasn’t heartless enough to murder a couple of members of our company out on the trail to ensure our privacy.
“How do I know you won’t try to cheat us?” Caider demanded.
“You can search us now and again before we board the ship for the return voyage. We’ll empty out our packs and pockets giving you a good inventory of what we have. Anything else we obviously acquired on the island and you get your third. You control the ride home. Why would I try to cheat you? It’s not like we can walk back from here.”
Caider drew Tikter a little ways off to the side and they had a hushed conversation replete with a lot of arm waving. It didn’t last very long, however, and soon they had returned to the rest of us.
“Tikter will conduct the inspection,” Caider said. “Otherwise, if you want to wander out into the forest without additional help, that’s your risk.”
“Sounds fair to me,” I responded.
“It’s your funeral,” he said.
So, after the meeting broke up we went back to our tent, Tikter in tow. Opening our packs and emptying our pockets took some time. He goggled a bit at the amount of gold I had remaining, which was down to a little more than sixty pieces after our stay in Shroud Hallow but he didn’t say anything about it. I asked him to note the total on two scraps of parchment and then he and I both signed underneath so there would be no misunderstandings later. He took one and I kept one. He even patted us down, making sure we weren’t trying to conceal anything. We suffered through the indignity. Thankfully, though, he didn’t insist on a strip search. That was good because there are some lines I was not prepared to let him cross. It gave me some ideas, though, about how to secrete anything that was both small and valuable that we happened to find. I didn’t start out with the intention to cheat anyone, but my experience with Caider’s leadership so far may have skewed that intention a little. I didn’t feel like he was earning his third.
We collected our packs and weapons and drew some supplies from the company stores. Then, I walked back over to Caider.
“If we don’t make it back every night, don’t get too concerned. This place is big and rugged and to get to more untouched areas we may have to camp out for a few nights. We’ll try to keep in contact the best we can, but if you want us to make us rich you have to be prepared to let us work.”
“Sounds right,” he replied. “Don’t take your tent, though. That’s company property.”
“We have no intention to,” I replied. “It can stay right there.”
Then, without another word and certainly without asking him for leave to depart, we turned and walked up the trail. Within a short time, we intersected the main trail and turned to the west, heading up the mountain.
After walking for close to an hour, climbing the whole time, the trail had reverted from a well-traveled path to the game trail it was originally. My adrenaline was running high as the forest closed in around us. I hadn’t always done the best in forests in the past. We passed a couple of other larger groups during that first hour but they appeared to be returning empty handed. We stepped to the side of the trail to let them by. They scowled at us and we scowled at them but not a word was exchanged. Our competitors didn’t seem like they were the friendly sort.
From time to time, we intersected other small trails that led deeper into the forest. Having no real familiarity with the island, I didn’t know where any of them headed. Finally, I just picked one at random and we turned and started to follow it. It didn’t run in a straight line, weaving back and forth to avoid more challenging topography, but it generally headed southwest. We didn’t see another living soul that day, no groups from other companies and certainly no five-fingered humans. I was starting to believe that the stories about how plentiful others of my kind were on the island were just that. It was going to take a lot of hard work to locate anyone. I hoped, though, that we could at least find a few. Returning empty handed would mean we risked all of this for nothing.
As the day passed we did hear some disconcerting things in the woods around us. There were low, moaning cries, and things trundling through the underbrush. And this was during the day. I knew that a lot of predators hunted at twilight or were nocturnal, which could make for some interesting evenings around the campfire.
At one point in the late afternoon, the trail spilled us out onto a rocky clifftop devoid of much vegetation. Although we could have kept moving for another hour or two, the place looked like a good place to camp for the night. The forest wasn’t too close and there were a couple of dozen square meters of open space. I also knew that we would have to keep watches, so we would have to stop relatively early to make certain everybody got adequate rest.
“Let’s stop here for the night,” I said.
“That sounds good to me,” Bowen replied. “We don’t know what’s further up the trail and we may not find as good of a place.”
“I agree,” said Aleyda. “At least this place looks somewhat defensible.”
“How do we want to do watches?” I asked.
“You have dice,” Bowen said. “Let’s roll for them.”
So we did. We each tossed two dice picking watches from highest roll to lowest. Aleyda won and Bowen came in second. I knew what that meant. I would be up keeping watch in the middle of the night. Aleyda decided to choose first watch and Bowen selected the last.
Our dinner was preserved trail food. Immediately after we ate, even though the sun was barely setting, I sprawled out on the uncomfortable ground and tried to get to sleep. Sleep was a long time coming. I was too keyed up. Eventually, though, I drifted off into a restless slumber.
All too soon, Aleyda shook me awake. We didn’t say anything to each other as I stood to keep watch and she slumped to the ground to get some sleep. Growing up in a town, we get used to artificial light all around us at night. Street lights, lights from parking lots, hints of illumination peeking out from the windows of the houses around us, they all drive back the darkness. Here there was none of that. The only illumination was provided by the moon and the stars and since the sky was sparsely populated by clouds, even that was limited. As I had expected, the sounds of the forest were more pronounced at night. There was more screeching, crying, caterwauling, rustling and crashing. I was on high alert, my hand resting on the pommel of my sword. I wondered how I was going to make it back to sleep once my watch was over.
Time passed, though, and we were not attacked. The stars overhead, those that I could see at least, wheeled across the sky in their stately procession. I began to lose track of time, uncertain when it would be fair of me to wake Bowen to take over.
Just as I was about to wake him, I heard the hint of what I thought might be an excited human voice carried by the wind, which was blowing down from the mountain above us. I strained my senses, listening hard. For a few moments, I didn’t hear anything. Then, I heard it again, louder this time, the sound coming closer.
I walked over to Bowen and Aleyda and shook them awake.
“I think we are about to have company,” I told them. They stood and made themselves ready.
Then, I heard it distinctly. “Help me!,” the panicked voice called out. “Please help me!”
I wasn’t about to go exploring the forest to determine what kind of help that the owner of the voice needed but it turned out that I didn’t have to. I heard footsteps pounding down the trail above us and soon a human figure, what looked from the shape to be a female in early adulthood, burst into our little clearing. She appeared unarmed and was dressed in a nightgown of some sort. She noticed us and ran over to us, still begging for help.
Out of the forest behind her, three bird like creatures aggressively spilled into the clearing. Noticing the three of us, they slowed and began stalking towards us. I couldn’t see details in the low light, but each of them stood approximately five feet high and they spread out as they approached, their long, sinuous necks weaving back and forth.
They didn’t look very friendly. Oh, crap.