When a sudden squall drenched her exposed face with sleety rain, Senua Gong tried not to let her irritation show. At least her oilcloth duster kept most of the moisture away from her body. Her grandmother had insisted she lead the search to capture the two fugitives who had seriously wounded one of their captains and murdered a valuable tenant, albeit a frightening one, if the rumors were true.
Worse than that, a search of the manor had determined that any valuables held by the witchy woman had been pilfered. By rights, Mrs. Gong considered any assets of the deceased to have ceded to her, so removal of such was considered theft.
Captain Jan had apologized profusely for his failure despite being in his deathbed, as he was not expected to survive much longer from the gunshot that had felled him. His men had went on ahead down the river trail, while Senua, who had never picked up any fondness for horses, led a team of twigs on foot to track the miscreants down.
Being half-twig herself did not stop her from despising the cretinous demi-humans. She’d inherited their thin frame, slender height, and more of their nature than she wished to admit. Her squad consisted of herself, a lead tracker, and three bowmen for additional security.
They moved swiftly, like wraiths, through the forest with Senua managing to keep up, hiding her fatigue and discomfort. She hated the way they seemed to be able to communicate with just their eyes or subtle hand-gestures. She knew the lead tracker, a male named Leaves, coveted her flesh. Senua swore she’d cut him if he laid eyes on her chest one more time. Her ample bosom was a gift from her human mother, or a curse, depending on how one looked at it. Currently, she had them bound so they would not interfere with her movements.
Leaves grunted, “From the signs, we are already close upon them. The man is slow.” Even Senua, who was not a tracker, could see the fresh footprint from a man’s boot in the soft ground.
They had lost much time gathering the twigs together as they had been deep in the high country in various occupations (they tended to be quite solitary as a rule), but the outriders would be well ahead by now. If Senua’s team did not capture the two miscreants first, the men would lie in wait further down the trail, as there were few outposts until the city of Hopken downriver. The high peaks on both sides of the river were nearly impassible without expertise. If they somehow doubled back upriver, the region around the lakes was Mrs. Gong’s web with her in the middle. Word would quickly spread in that case.
Senua smiled angrily: they would not escape. The slave girl was not considered important, so she’d enjoy applying justice to her slowly. It was the least that Senua deserved for having to leave her cozy cottage for this miserable forest with these miserable shifty eyed twigs for company. Her ears perked—the bastards were probably whispering about her to each other.
Their kind was almost extinct out in these territories, as the humans and other demi-human tribes had outcompeted them for several generations. Their blood would live on, she supposed, though she cursed her late mother for having laid with one of them. If it meant she cursed her own existence, so be it.
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Piro checked their supplies with a worried frown on her face. The mountains were harsh and they were not properly provisioned or equipped for a long trek. Still, Abe assumed that he would remember these times as the happiest of his life, although Piro would superstitiously shush him if he happened to mention it aloud.
A cold snap brought more harsh weather to the mountains and they sat huddled around a meager fire, hungry and exhausted. Piro sat staring at nothing as Abe tried to keep things light. The sky was grey, letting loose an occasional sleety drizzle.
Ignoring whatever he had been bantering about, she announced suddenly as if something had added up in her brain, “We need to go back to the main trail.”
“Eh?” Abe sputtered, immediately forgetting what he had been saying moments ago.
At one point, they had decided to go higher up into the forest to avoid detection on the road. Piro was now having second thoughts about this plan.
“Despite the risk we need to find help from other travelers. The game I can find is just not enough. Or we can resort to banditry if necessary. It will be for the cause.”
“Cause? Oh, the kingdom, sure,” he replied. By this time, she was talking more about it than he was. He’d try to switch the conversation away from it to lighter things, but time and again she brought it up, almost as if she had a religious fervor. “I never thought of myself as some cult leader or anything, but I guess I have my first true believer.”
Piro stood up suddenly, gathering their gear and stamping out the fire. He hurriedly slung his own pack over his shoulder. At least it was lighter now. As she walked ahead, he watched her, absently admiring the swish of her raven hair. She’d tied it back, and kept her hood down so she could see and hear better, but it always seemed anxious to spring loose and fly away in the wind.
They trekked in silence, too tired to talk much now, feet crackling in the underbrush though he was much louder than she was as she somehow managed to step lightly. At one point, she stopped, head turning as if on a swivel.
She said, “I think there is someone out there. We’re being shadowed.”
Abe, of course, had sensed nothing. He looked around, “Do you think they are friend or foe?”
She put a hand to the hilt of her sword, “Be ready, just in case, but I have a feeling if they had wanted to surprise us they could have so I think they are not out there to kill us. If they were, I think we’d be dead already.”
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This remark did little to comfort Abe but they could nothing to push on down the slope toward the river. At least it was mostly downhill for now, he thought. They found the riverside road not too long after Piro had noticed the mysterious presence. She no longer sensed that anyone was stalking them. For now, they pressed on down the rutted old trail. Sooner than expected, they met a traveler on a mule driven wagon. He had a young boy with him and while both were armed with blunderbusses (the kind that looked somewhat cartoonish), they showed no sign of hostility.
Piro spoke to them, offering coin for food. Even if this was unnecessary, Piro had some amount of pride in her, left over from childhood lessons about debts and how the family preferred not to incur them, if possible, and strove to repay them promptly and fully if unavoidably incurred. Their eyes brightened when they saw the flash of coin and they readily shared their rations, which included some smoked meats, hard bread and even a jug of wine as well as a sack of mixed dried food that included nuts and fruits. It was basic traveler’s fare but Piro accepted the items eagerly. Abe was already chewing on a hunk of cured venison. The wagon was hauling tools and sundries to the villages up in the mountains as well as Bowl Lake. The older man spoke mostly to Abe, though his eyes glanced at the girl with questions that he kept to himself.
Feeling better, Abe thanked the old mule-skinner who tipped his hat and continued on his way. The boy stared back at them for a smirk on his face, as if he knew something.
Abe popped the trail mix into his mouth and talked with his mouth open, energized by the food, “Didn’t think stale pine nuts would be so tasty. Wish they had something for the bread though, like a jam. Some cheese would have been great too.”
Piro was glad that his spirits were up. She climbed down the bank to the river to fill up a water skin. Instead of taking the heavy jug, Abe had filled his spare skin with the wine. He sipped from the full bag happily.
He said, “According to the old man, we’re only another day or so from the next town, though it’s not the big city. Maybe we can get a bed and some hot food, plus I’d like a bath. You’ll scrub my back, right?”
“Of course,” she sighed. “Master.” Ever since she had expressed her fealty to him, Abe had made light of it. She wondered if he realized that her vow was a solemn one.
Later, Piro would blame herself for being caught off guard. The horsemen, about a half-dozen of them, were much closer than they should have been before she had noticed them as they turned the bend of the river gorge.
Cursing, she pushed Abe who had been in one of his thoughtful dazes, and yelled, “Run! Back to the trees!” They had been complacent from their full bellies.
The men shouted, kicking their horses into a gallop to give chase.
Gasping for breath as they climbed back up through the underbrush into the thick woods, they lost sight of the pursuers; however they could hear shouts behind them. Abe panted, “That kid knew and didn’t warn us. I guess you can’t trust anyone these days.”
Piro nodded. She assumed that the mule-skinner and his boy had encountered the riders, probably hired by old lady Gong, as they searched the trail.
They had to stop for a moment to catch their breath due to the difficulty of the terrain. They heard the crack of the round before the sound of the gun firing. It was not accurate but close enough for them to duck before continuing their climb. Abe thought of firing back at them but Piro shook her head, motioning for him to hurry.
There were more crackles of gunfire but few of the shots had any effect though one splintered a tree trunk several yards from them as they scrambled madly.
“Ha,” Abe grunted, throat dry and sore from the effort. “At least they are terrible shots. Wish I had gotten a long gun though, they’re still too far away for my babies to be much use.” He patted his holster. Still, he felt reassured by the weight of the weapons at his side.
Piro assumed they were coming at them on foot as the ground was very steep and broken up with large boulders. They kept going higher, practically climbing with hands and feet on nearly vertical stretches. The bones of the mountain seemed to be poking out by this point and the trees had thinned out and grew stubbier now that they were above the bulk of the woods. It also meant they were more exposed. Fortunately, they turned into a fold on the mountainside that partially blocked line of sight. They stumbled back downhill for a while as it was impossible to go higher up the steep, exposed side.
Abe called for a break, exhausted. They huddled in some brush, protected by jagged outcroppings of rock. After catching his breath, Abe couldn’t help but take a peek.
“Gods be damned, they’re still coming. They’re on the ridge we just passed. We can’t stay here,” he tugged her along. This time it was Piro was slow to react. Her muscles ached and she wished she was somewhere warm and flat.
“Now, I know why I hate the mountains,” she said, remembering better times in her long-lost valley of home. Abe hadn’t delved too deeply into her past, and she had not offered. They both left things hidden or unspoken. The crumbling mountainside forced them to continue back downhill which made progress easier but it also meant that their pursuers had a clear path for tracking them. Somehow, they got switched around and Piro realized that their enemy was now above them and they had been working back underneath them.
“I’m sorry Master, but I am doing a terrible job as your bodyguard and scout,” she said bitterly, at her own failure.
He grinned despite their desperate situation, “That’s fine, you’ve been doing excellent as the royal bed warmer.” She punched him in the arm, but the moment did not last as they heard the voices of their pursuers, loud and sharp as if they were practically on top of them. Only the heavy underbrush kept them from being spotted immediately.
Abe pulled out a pistol, cocking the hammer back. He tried to keep it from getting hung up on branches as they tried to move quickly but silently back into the heart of the woods. He felt a bit better back under the canopy but their luck ran out as they heard crashing behind them and a volley of fire. They found a stony bulge, thick with brush, and hid behind it for cover as metal slugs danced around them. Abe fired back, trying to keep the enemies heads down.
Piro pulled her sword out but it would do little good in an open gun battle. Perhaps when they paused for reload, she’d have a chance to ambush one of them.
“They’re going to pincer us soon enough,” Abe said grimly. He couldn’t cover both sides of the rock on his own. He had both guns out now, aiming in two directions at once. He wasn’t trying for a kill shot at this point, just making the enemy stay honest by firing wherever he sensed movement. The two probably had moments before they’d be flanked on both sides, and he guessed he might be able to get one or two but they were severely outnumbered.
He heard a scream. Had he gotten a lucky hit? But he hadn’t fired in several moments. More gunfire erupted and terrible screaming followed. Someone burst through, running, past him. Instinctively, he fired, hitting the fleeing man in the back. The unlucky soul fell in a heap. Abe must have hit him in a vital, perhaps his spine. He lay face down and didn’t move again.
The screams stopped after a few moments, except for some sobbing which turned into the sounds of a man begging for his life, a short cough or perhaps a yelp, then nothing. Piro scrambled up the rock to peer over the other side. Her eyes widened. Curious, Abe peered over to see as well. He exclaimed, “Holy Rivendell, elves.”