Figures he’d be the one to get stuck with the blabbering elf. Go hunt for some rabbits, Lingon. Ensure we all have full bellies, Lingon. Never mind that we’ve got bagfuls of food already. No, we’ve got to reserve those in case we get stuck out here longer than expected.

Lingon stealthily picked his way through the overgrown landscape, ever mindful of his footing as he slunk along, stewing in his thoughts. Oh, by the way, why don’t you take the gall who can’t shut her gab to save her damn life with you? What’s that? She’ll scare all the game away? Nah, nah, don’t worry about it. While she might be severely lacking in the wilderness survival skill area, who better to teach her than you?

The party’s progress through the deep forests that connected the Adderwood and Mossborn territories was slowed by their valiant leader’s refusal to use the road systems. Oralia’s reasoning had something to do with roving hordes of bandits plaguing the roadways or whatnot. Not that Lingon particularly cared. Stoneclaws were used to picking their way through trees and over rocks and brambles. While rife with wickedly dense thickets and nasty blackberry vines, the terrain was flat and relatively easy for an experienced woodsman to navigate. This, alas, did not apply to his tagalong.

“Elf,” Lingon hissed, casting a glare over his shoulder at the nervous lady-elf who trailed behind him at a snail’s pace. From the start, he’d refused to refer to Kalihn as Ellisar. It was an insult to the real thing–a temperamental, cutthroat, absolutely enchanting warrior who would have been mortified to learn she shared an alias with this walnut head. Even now, with the go-ahead to use Kalihn’s real name, Lingon decided it simply wasn’t worth the effort.

“Pick up your damn feet already,” he said. “Boss said I ain’t allowed to lose you.”

Their party reached where they were going to bed down for the night just as the sun was beginning to set. Lingon had barely gotten his bedroll situated when Oralia tasked him and Dewpetal with hunting duties. While he didn’t agree with the assignment, considering they had plenty of food from the city, Lingon at least understood her reasoning. He and Dewpetal were the best bowmen, after all. He knew it, the boss knew it, practically everyone but Mul acknowledged their superiority. What didn’t make sense was the boss’s flimsy excuse for why it was absolutely necessary for her best bowmen to drag Kalihn along and ‘teach her the ropes’.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” Kalihn squeaked, holding her puny arms to her chest like a squirrel cradling its last acorn. Her eyes were big and terrified. “Please don’t leave me in the woods to die.”

“Don’t make it so easy then.”

While Oralia had told him he couldn’t lose Kalihn, she hadn’t mentioned anything about willfully abandoning the elf. It was a prospect Lingon was beginning to consider more and more. Originally, he’d tried to pawn their tagalong off on Dewpetal, but the blasted goblin was a step ahead of him. One moment she’d been alongside them and the next she was gone, like a damn shadow or whatever else could come and go without detection. Ghost maybe? Who knew. Lingon left the metaphorical imagery to the more imaginative types.

“Sneaky little devil,” Lingon cursed Dewpetal under his breath.

“Pardon?” Kalihn froze, one boot still lifted midair, seemingly unaware of the bramble vine tangled around her ankle. Another few steps without correcting it, and she’d be flat on her face.

Could be worthwhile to stick around long enough to see that, Lingon supposed.

“Were you referring to me?” Kalihn whispered.

“Did I say ‘stupid elf’? If not, assume it’s not about you.” Lingon watched as his whimpering companion ventured another step before noticing the vine wrapped around her ankle. She shook it loose, simultaneously dashing Lingon’s hopes for a good show. He turned, annoyed, barking over his shoulder as he picked up the pace again. “Hurry up. I’d like to find some decent grub before we lose all the light.”

A dark shape flittered down from the treetops above and landed on a lower branch with a gargled croak. Lingon’s spine stiffened at the sight of the raven. Damn things had been following them for weeks now. Persistently, he might add. No matter how many rocks he threw at them.

He wagged his finger at the raven. “I already told you to fuck off. Whatever you’ve got to say, I don’t wanna hear it.”

Croak.

Lingon flinched at the harsh sound. He wasn’t like his baby brother, Rasp, who claimed he could understand what the flock said. It all just sounded like obnoxious noise to Lingon. Still, the bird’s intent was clear. Almost as clear as his resolve to get rid of the damn thing. “Go away.”

Croak!

“Get out of here. Go on, get,” Lingon hissed before turning his back to the pesky messenger. “You’re gonna scare off all the game carrying on like that.”

From the startled look on Kalihn’s face, she undoubtedly had questions. Fortunately, she was smart enough to keep them to herself. At least the ones pertaining to the raven. “What about these mushrooms?” The elf indicated a small circle of white and brown capped mushrooms nestled around their feet between the ferns. “They’re not meat, but they are something.”

Lingon sucked his teeth as he considered this option. Mushrooms were finicky things. The kind that went great in stew looked practically identical to the ones capable of causing a man to shit himself to death. That didn’t sound like a particularly fun way to go. “You know anything about mushroom identification, elf?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither.” Lingon said with a sniff. “Tell you what, collect a few and we can take ‘em back with us and the big guy can decide if they’re safe or not.”

With a look sharp enough to kill, Kalihn crouched down into the dirt and gingerly collected several handfuls of mushrooms and dumped them into her pockets. “We have names, you know. We’re not just ‘big guy’ and ‘elf’.”

“Good for you. Don’t care.” From the corner of his eye, Lingon watched the raven. It hadn’t moved from its perch but at least it had stopped its confounded noises. Lingon didn’t understand why it was being so persistent. He had already made his decision. He wasn’t going to change his mind just because his older brother couldn’t take no for an answer.

“Is it really because you don’t care?” Kalihn carried on. “Or is it because you’re uncomfortable being amicable around so many other species for the first time in your life?”

“Nah. Me an’ Dewpetal get on just fine. You should try taking a page out of her book. Like actually being good at shit.” He didn’t bother to listen to the elf’s muttered response. Adjusting the bow slung over his shoulder, Lingon started off without her. He knew Kalihn would follow regardless of whether or not she wanted to. The alternative was trying to find her way back to camp on her own which, undoubtedly, would result in a grisly death due to starvation or mushroom poisoning.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The raven hung back just out of sight. But Lingon could feel it watching him, even from a distance.

The waning light grew dimmer as Lingon ventured deeper into the trees. It wasn’t too long before he found a nice game trail that twisted along the forest floor, half obscured by fallen leaves and sagging ferns. The day old droppings that littered the dirt path told him deer frequented the area. Bagging an entire doe would be quite the boon. Plus, he had an extra pair of hands to help drag the carcass back. Not to mention the fact that he wanted to watch Kalihn squirm during the field dressing part. Maybe he’d even pull the whole ‘gotta eat the heart to honor the beast’ thing they did when hunting with newbies.

“Lingon,” Kalihn whispered from behind him.

Lingon rose back onto his feet with an exaggerated eye roll. “What?”

The elf wasn’t watching him. Kalihn’s wide-eyed stare was focused on a spot in the trees due east of their position. “Can you hear that? Something’s headed this way.”

By the gods, while the elf had proved to be a general disappointment to her species thus far, at least her darn ears worked. Lingon couldn’t hear any sort of commotion himself, but after growing up in a cave system with five brothers, his sense of hearing had never been the greatest to begin with. “Alright then. Let’s see what kind of food we’re bringing home tonight. Go on. Find somewhere to hide, quick now.”

He moved swiftly away from the trail and led Kalihn to a nice hidden spot between a thicket of silverberry bushes. Lingon held a finger to his lips in the universally understood sign of ‘you make a fucking sound and I’m leaving your ass here’.

Kalihn demonstrated her agreement with a single bob of her head.

Lingon slid the bow from his shoulder and loosely nocked an arrow. As animals often took their sweet time making an entrance, there was no sense straining his arm waiting for the creature to mosey on into a clean shot. Lingon could hear the beast now as it drew closer. Twigs snapped and cracked underfoot as it approached unafraid. A bit careless for a deer, he noted. Then again, this was the middle of fucking nowhere. Maybe the game in these parts hadn’t learned to be wary of hunters.

Unfortunately, this theory was immediately disproven by the presence of a voice. Voices, actually. Two of them from the sounds of it.

“We’ve been walking for hours, Grettie. Are you sure you’re not turned around?”

“Shut up! I already told you, I know where I’m going.”

“Do you, though? Because you’ve said that several times now and none of this looks familiar.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Lingon saw Kalihn start to move. He grabbed her roughly by the arm and pulled her back down. He didn’t want to take his eyes off of the approaching strangers, but he felt a well-placed glare was needed in order to keep the elf from bolting and giving away their cover. It seemed to work, too. Like a dog with its tail between its legs, Kalihn shrank back down in a fearful cower.

The craggily voice previously identified as Grettie rang out, pulling Lingon’s attention back in their direction. “What do you mean this doesn’t look familiar? It’s all bloody trees, Hank. They all look familiar!”

“So you admit it then,” Hank wailed. “We are lost.”

At last, a disheveled pair tromped into view. These weren’t part of a local hunting party or wayward travelers, judging from their ratty appearance. Smell, too, because no respectable hunter would be tracking game while reeking of vomit and sticky tavern floor. Both strangers were dressed from head to toe in mismatching garments of questionable size and equally questionable origins. Lingon wagered everything they wore was stolen, except maybe the weapons, which seemed to be the only part of the ensemble that appeared well taken care of.

Grettie was human, quite possibly a woman. Admittedly, it was hard to tell given that her voice sounded like she regularly swallowed sand to pass the time and most of her body was hidden beneath a raggedy cloak meant for someone larger. She had a crossbow slung over her back and a dagger dangling from her hip. It, however, was her companion that gave Lingon pause. Hank was an orc. And although he wasn’t much of a big one, he probably still outweighed Lingon three to one. Hank was apparently a fan of stereotypes as his primary weapon appeared to be a well battered club.

These must have been the bandits that Oralia was so concerned about. Ordinarily Lingon would not have hesitated to drop both with a handful of well-placed arrows, but bandits rarely traveled alone. Even if he managed to finish off these two without anyone overhearing, it would only be a matter of time before their friends went looking for them. The last thing he needed was to have a search party stumble across his own group in the dead of the night.

Thus, fighting the hot warrior blood that surged through his proud Stoneclaw veins, Lingon settled back, watching silently as the pair trudged past none the wiser. Perhaps it was good he’d been saddled with the elf after all. As useless as Kalihn would be during a fight, she was certainly good at hiding. Had Mul come along, Lingon was certain his idiot brother would have rendered the situation into a bloodbath by now.

Lingon and Kalihn remained hunkered down in the bushes well until the bandit pair were out of sight. And then they waited some more after that just for good measure, in the unlikely event the bandits realized they were lost and circled back. Fortunately, the one named Grettie seemed unwilling to admit defeat and after ten minutes of tedious waiting, Lingon and Kalihn appeared to be in the clear.

Lingon stood, arching his back. “So much for dinner then.”

“Please tell me we’re not going to follow them,” Kalihn said.

“Psh, of course not. We’re going to leg it back to camp and let the others know we’re not alone here in the woods. Also probably means we’ll pack up and move on, put some distance between us. No more fires for a while, either.”

That was the part that would ail him the most. The cold didn’t bother him so much. Lingon and his brother, Mul, hailed from the great Iron Ridge, after all. The type of cold the lower regions experienced was almost laughable in comparison. No, he’d miss the fire for the piping hot food. And boy could the gentle giant Sascha cook. It didn’t seem to matter what sort of vittles he had on hand, it all tasted like a slice of heaven. Practically bordered on witchcraft, but Lingon enjoyed it far too much to say anything on that front.

Still dreaming of tender, spit roasted venison and crispy potatoes, Lingon nearly jumped out of his own skin when Kalihn seized him by the arm and jerked him to a halt. Lingon whirled around, mouth curled open, ready to volley a mouthful of spite, when the elf’s terrified expression gave him pause.

“I hear something again,” Kalihn whispered.

He was about to dive for cover when a scraggly figure slipped out of the bracken beside them. Kalihn’s hand shot to her chest, gripping her frilly shirt as she nearly fell over backwards with fright. “Gods, Dewpetal! Warn us before you pop up like that next time. You nearly startled me to death.”

The goblin had a pheasant hanging limp from her shoulder. She regarded Kalihn for a moment before deciding it wasn’t worth the effort to string together an apology. Dewpetal’s steely gaze swept back to Lingon as she rattled off a hushed response in the Yolcavisch tongue.

Lingon wasn’t an expert by any means, but he could piece together most of what the goblin said. It probably helped that Dewpetal was using small words, speaking to him in the same manner one would a toddler. Now wasn’t the time to be offended by that. “Two fellers?” he said, holding up a pair of fingers.

Dewpetal nodded, her long ears bobbing.

“Yeah, we saw ‘em too.” After several clumsy attempts, Lingon was fairly certain he’d managed to convey his thoughts to Dewpetal in the goblin’s mother tongue. Again, Lingon knew he wasn’t an expert by any means. But he and Dewpetal seemed to reach a mutual understanding regardless. With a final nod of her head, Dewpetal turned and started back towards where they had left the others.

Kalihn dutifully fell in line behind them, her blonde head sagging miserably. “We’re not going to get any rest tonight, are we?”

“No hot food, either,” Lingon grumbled, eyeing Dewpetal’s successful catch mournfully. Pheasant wasn’t as finicky as rabbit. With the temperatures dipping in the anticipation of winter, the meat wouldn’t spoil by the time they got around to plucking it. Still, day-old pheasant was still day-old pheasant. He was pretty sure not even Sascha could dress that up enough to drown out the gamey taste.

The last of the light was fading around them when both Dewpetal and Kalihn froze in place ahead of him. Lingon stopped as well. He didn’t know why. It just seemed like the sensible thing to do. And then he heard it. The sounds of loud footsteps coming from the same direction the bandits had gone. Wordlessly, the three of them traded concerned looks before picking up the pace. Even chatty Kalihn retained her deathly silence, seemingly realizing the danger they were in.

Behind them, the sounds of a heated argument rang out as the bandits trampled through the undergrowth, retracing their steps.