Blood and Scales

Chapter 2 – Aftermath

Ever since Ardera had hatched, she had been able to feel the land. She felt it the same way she could see, and smell, and hear. From the day of her naming at five years old, the ceremony that marked her full integration into the tribe, it was known that she would be a druid, and at the age of nine, after the basic training that all the children received, she was apprenticed to the current village druid.

Now at the age of 23, she was beginning her year of mandatory guard service, with all of her brothers and sisters. She had 11 siblings, all born from various parents within the same month, and raised in the nursery hall at the same time as her, and they were all hunting the kidnappers.

The strange people who periodically came in the night and stole her people were loud and clumsy. Even if she could not feel them squelching through the mud, and trampling the plants around them, they would have had no trouble tracking them. No one was really sure what happened to the people that were taken, but Ardera doubted it was anything good.

Her group had been called in by the chief because one of the children in the nursery was missing. No one was sure where she had gone, but when her group had found her tracks coinciding with the strange people she knew more or less what had happened. There was no way that Ardera would let them take one of their children.

Ardera waited until everyone was in place. This would be their first time fighting the strangers, and she had heard from others that they were strong and should not be underestimated. Once she could feel everyone in place, she slowly and silently drew her sword from its sheath, and dropped down from the branch she was hiding in.

Her first attack was strong and clean, just as she had been trained to do. The man’s head came right off, and before anyone could see her, she was back in the tree. Their ambush had begun.

“Ambush!” One of the men yelled after being thrown off balance. Ardera thought it strange that he was chained to two others.

It wasn’t very long before all of their enemies were dead or incapacitated. Ardera gave the signal to come out of hiding and her siblings started finishing off the suffering. That was when she noticed three of her brothers, led by Grunna, the oldest and a constant pain in Ardera’s neck, standing in front of a terrified woman in chains, desperately trying to do something in the back of her neck.

“We warned you interlopers about coming into our land before,” she heard Grunna snarl at the woman, “Now every one of you blood suckers we catch will pay the price.” Ardera sighed. Grunna was trying to take over again. He didn’t like that she had been put in charge even though he was the oldest. When he swung his sword at the defenseless woman, Ardera reflexively thickened the air around his sword, stopping the blade before it hit her neck.

“What the…,” Grunna began, but Ardera was behind him a moment later, yanking the sword from his hand and planting it in the mud at his feet.

“She’s clearly some sort of prisoner, idiot,” Ardera said, her voice low and dangerous, “we should be getting information from her.” The others backed away from Grunna, but he was only half as scared as she should have been.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Grunna’s face twisted in anger, and he bared his teeth at her. Grunna hated that she was in charge, Ardera knew. Every chance he got, he tried to undermine her, or take command, but she wasn’t going to let his childishness get in the way of the mission.

With barely a flex of her hand, she slowly sunk his feet deeper into the mud, and his eyes widened when it reached his knees.

“‘Dera?” he asked horrified, “What are you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” She flashed a dangerous, toothy grin at him, “I’m cooling you off.”

“I can’t move!” he yelled.

“Good,” she replied, “Once you’ve managed to free yourself I might have need of your hot-headed nonsense, until then stay put.”

Satisfied that he was indeed stuck, she turned to the frightened woman.

“Here,” she said, “let me help you.” Ardera then took the keys from the woman’s hands and unlocked the mask around her mouth. She winced at the red imprints of the chains across her pale, white skin. The moonlight practically made it glow.

Who would do such a thing, Ardera thought to herself, what crime could possibly warrant this level of security?

“Don’t unlock those! We don’t know why she was locked up, Ardera,” Grunna exclaimed, clearly having the same thought but coming to a different conclusion.

“They were bringing me back to force me into marriage,” the woman said after wiping the mud off her mouth.

“Force you into marriage?” Ardera asked.

“Yes. I just wanted to be free.”

Ardera was puzzled by the answer. It was hardly what she had expected.

“Do you know what those men,” Ardera gestured at the corpses most of her siblings were piling up, “did with the girl they took?”

“I didn’t see a girl,” the woman said, clearly confused.

“She’s lying!” Grunna shouted, “Obviously she’s covering for these kidnappers.”

Ardera sighed loudly, before marching up to Grunna, who, to Ardera’s satisfaction, flinched away from her.

“Zip it, Grunna,” she hissed, “or I’ll stuff your mouth with mud. You’re already in so much trouble for your dissent, don’t make things worse for yourself.” Ardera then turned back to the woman and paused considering.

“Zella, Voon, search the perimeter and see if there are more tracks. They may not have crossed this way at the same time.”

“On it,” Zella said before hitting Voon in the shoulder and they both disappeared into the undergrowth.

Ardera considered the woman for a moment, then asked, “If I remove your chains, are you going to get violent?”

“These men had me in chains, why would I care about their deaths?” The chained woman responded.

“Not really an answer,” Ardera muttered under her breath before continuing at a normal volume, “since you don’t want to answer, we’ll just have to bring you with us, and see what the chief has to say.”

It was at that moment that Zella and Voon returned.

“Give your report,” Ardera ordered.

“The tracks do continue past, where these soldiers were marching,”Voon reported,

Ardera could feel a headache coming on as she realized that not only would they have to keep tracking the missing girl but now they were dragging along a prisoner they knew nothing about.