Oralia waited with her breath drawn, ears straining to catch any telltale sign of the enemy before they came charging from the surrounding trees, weapons drawn, out for blood. She released her breath not long after, realizing that neglecting to fill her lungs served no other purpose but to make an already difficult situation substantially more so. The minutes slowly ticked past and…nothing.
Nothing at all. No crunch of dried leaves as they disintegrated underfoot, or snap of twigs catching on passing cloaks, or blood-curdling war cries. Around them, the birds settled back into the boughs as the woodland grew eerily silent once more. Oralia couldn’t believe it. Against all odds, somehow her and Kalihn’s presence had gone unnoticed. For the moment, anyway. There wasn’t any sense in sticking around longer than necessary to truly test the theory in full.
Kalihn, meanwhile, was in agony. The elf had clambered out of the water and was now hopping silently on one foot, clutching the other as tears rolled down her ashen face. Sascha’s pot sat half submerged in the fast-flowing stream, slowly sinking into the soft silt bed below.
“Gods that hurt like a b-word,” Kalihn said, her ragged voice barely over a hiss. “And I know what you’re going to say, boss. It was stupid, I know. But I didn’t bloody mean to!”
Oralia withheld her admonishment. There wasn’t any point. Kalihn was right, of course. The events leading up to the scream had been undeniably stupid and avoidable, but what was done was done. There was no sense in making the elf’s suffering worse. Intent on getting in-and-out as planned, Oralia returned to filling the waterskins. When finished, she grudgingly stepped into the stream–boots on, naturally–to complete Kalihn’s task as well. Oralia’s annoyance, no matter how great, would be nowhere near the wrath either of them would face if they returned to camp without Sascha’s favorite cast iron pot in hand.
Oralia plucked the pot from the stream and then clambered back out onto the pebbled bank. She waited for Kalihn’s frantic hopping to die down before asking, “Finished?”
The elf sat on the edge of the embankment, face red and biting her lower lip. “I think it’s broken.”
Oralia was unable to stop the words that rolled from her tongue unhindered. “If you are referring to your pride, I am surprised it has held up this long.”
“No! My foot, obviously.”
“I do not think so.”
Kalihn flopped back on the bank dramatically. “You’ll have to carry me.”
“Not happening.”
“You can’t just leave me here like this, boss. I’m vulnerable!”
“Be grateful I am carrying the pot on your behalf.” And again, not out of pity, but because Sascha would never speak to her again if she returned without it.
With the weight of the waterskins arranged evenly across both shoulders, Oralia fitted the lid back over the iron pot and then started back towards camp. She walked without her companion, pausing every so often to stop and listen as Kalihn’s dragging footsteps reluctantly followed. Oralia wouldn’t leave her, of course, but hoped that each time Kalihn lost sight of her, it would motivate the elf to either pick up the pace or start relying on some of the tracking lessons Lingon had been hammering into her head.
They were making good time, already halfway through the journey, when the crunch of a twig stopped Oralia in her tracks. She froze, realizing the sound was far too close to have come from Kalihn. Oralia listened as a third set of footsteps crept up from behind, not yet aware they’d been found out. She drew air in through her nose, picking up hints of tobacco, old booze, and an overall lack of personal hygiene. Whoever was closing in on them was definitely not one of hers.
What’s worse, the stranger was between her and the blissfully unaware Kalihn.
Kalihn’s dragging footsteps were still moving in her direction. No doubt the stranger could hear them as well. Oralia didn’t dare call out a warning. As of yet, the stranger didn’t know they’d been detected. Alerting them to this fact could force them into doing something rash. Oralia was confident she could handle a one-on-one fight. Said confidence went right out the window the moment there proved to be more than one bandit lurking nearby.
She counted only one set of footsteps now–Kalihn’s. The stranger had gone still. Judging from their stench, Oralia could roughly pinpoint the creep’s whereabouts. Unable to call out to Kalihn, Oralia reluctantly settled on another way of alerting her companion to the danger.
She closed her eyes and steadied her breath, willing a silent prayer into the universe. Dear Sascha, forgive me.
Dumping the water onto the ground, Oralia swung the pot in a series of fast, concentric circles to gain momentum, and then released, hurtling it high overhead. The cast iron vessel broke through the canopy, sailing higher and higher, before gravity brought it crashing back down. It plummeted, ricocheting off one tree to the next, snapping branches all the way down until, at last, slamming into the ground with a resounding thump!
Oralia listened as, not one but three, additional bodies abandoned cover and raced through the brush to find the source of the commotion.
“Uh, boss?” Kalihn’s voice rang out as her slogging footsteps faltered. “Is that you?”
“Freeze, maggot!” a gruff voice shouted at her.
To her credit, Kalihn did the sensible thing and ran. Mostly sensible. The screaming wasn’t doing anything except marking in which direction she was fleeing, but, at the very least, she headed back in the direction of the stream and not towards camp. When discovered, it was of the utmost importance to lead the enemy away from the rest of your party. You could circle back again once having lost any and all pursuers. Oralia was relieved that Kalihn possessed some tactical sense.
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Alas, her thoughts spoke too soon.
Judging from Kalihn’s obnoxious screaming, the elf had circled back around and, out of all the directions she could have possibly gone, was now sprinting in the one she was not supposed to be.
Oralia ordinarily would have given chase, picking off the slower runners along the way, but the smell of musty tobacco still lingered–indicating that at least one of the bandits had stayed back to deal with her. At the moment, neither of them moved, waiting for the other to betray their position.
The stalemate stretched on for several moments before Oralia gave up waiting. She unslung the waterskins from around her neck and hung them in the nearest tree, intent on returning and fetching them when she was finished dispatching the bandit. Moving onto her toes, she stealthily picked her way between the trees, relying on her sense of smell to lead her to her quarry. Her opponent must have had a similar idea because several paces later, the bandit in question emerged from out of the brush in front of her.
The scrawny orc jumped in surprise, his eyes darting to the sword hanging from Oralia’s hip before hastily taking in the rest of her. While the bandit was roughly the same height as her, he was rather thin for an orc. One better suited for running as opposed to facing down bigger opponents–which is why Oralia wasn’t going to give him the chance. She rushed the scrawny bandit, drawing her sword mid-lunge, and swung at him.
He leapt out of the way, yelping as Oralia’s blade grazed along his ribs. The orc turned to run, caught his foot on an upturned tree root whilst doing so, and fell. In lieu of a swift getaway, the bandit found himself strewn facedown across the mossy forest floor, having nothing to show for his efforts except a badly twisted ankle. Oralia jumped the same moment the bandit flipped over. She landed with a foot planted on either side of him and brought the point of her blade down. It would be a clean run through. A quick ending, as far as untimely deaths went. Probably more than he deserved anyway.
The scrawny orc’s gray face went ashen white. He threw his hands out in a futile attempt to stop the inevitable. “Please don’t!”
Oralia’s blade jerked to a stop, a hair’s breadth from piercing her target’s chest.
His eyes were clenched shut and he trembled, producing soft whimpers. The words caught in his throat, barely discernible even at such close proximity. “I want to live.”
He was older than Curly would have been, thin and scrappy, with eyes all the wrong color. But logic was suddenly powerless, unable to dispel the image of her own boy cowering beneath her, begging for his life as he watched his death unfold before his eyes, unable to stop it. Pain swelled in Oralia’s throat, pulling tight like a noose across her airways. She choked, gasping for breath as her knees rebelled, buckling uselessly beneath her. She caught herself before she fell, unable to tear her eyes from the orc trembling beneath her.
The name hurt to speak. “Curly?”
His eyes went wide, rimmed in white. His tusked mouth quivered open but the rampant drum of Oralia’s heartbeat drowned out the words.
No, no, no. This can’t be. This isn’t happening. Not here. Not now.
She knew it wasn’t real and yet, there was no convincing her eyes otherwise. It wasn’t some scrawny bandit cowering before her but one of her own. The one she’d lost. The one she was supposed to have kept safe. The one she’d failed.
“Stop it!” Oralia roared. “Whatever this is, stop it! You’re not him.”
The months of pent grief poured from the fractures in her heart, flooding her insides until the pressure gave way behind her eyes. The birdsong and soft rustling of the wind in the trees died away as her surroundings blurred. Time shifted and when Oralia looked around again, she found the red oaks and paper birch had been replaced with a sea of dark spruce. The scents of fresh dirt and rain danced on the breeze, transforming her stomach to stone.
The noose around her neck cinched tighter when Oralia realized where her memory had taken her. She screwed her eyes shut, forcing the images back down. “No, no, not here. Not again.”
Oralia knew what happened next. She knew the moment she opened her eyes again she would relive the worst moment of her life. She’d see him, propped against a tree, face drained of color. His once dark eyes now dull and lifeless. She would remember the touch of his cold skin against her own as she held him one final time, begging for a forgiveness that would never come. And then, when the others finally convinced her to let go, she would see his body lowered into the dirt and how those lifeless eyes gazed back up at her with that pleading expression.
Why weren’t you there? Why didn’t you save me? Curly’s unspoken words still haunted her each time she closed her eyes. You were supposed to protect me.
Hot tears streamed down Oralia’s face. She wasn’t even cognizant of the words spilling from her mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Grettie! Grettie, help me!”
The shrill scream snapped Oralia from her trance. She opened her eyes to find the scrawny orc was desperately trying to claw his way out from under her. His wide eyes were fixed on the sword point still held inches from his chest cavity.
“Grettie!” he shouted.
Oralia lurched forward, repinning him with her knees. She dropped her sword and went for his throat with her hands instead. Her fingers found the delicate spot tucked along the neckline just below the ear and squeezed. She blinked the hot tears from her eyes and steadied her breath, maintaining enough pressure to ensure that, while he wouldn’t die, he wouldn’t be able to scream anymore either. The orc wrapped his hands around her wrist, thrashing as he attempted to break her hold. His struggle was already weakening when Oralia heard someone emerge from the undergrowth behind her. The hairs on her arm stood on end as an icy chill stirred within her veins.
Move! A surge of blistering heat burst from behind the same moment the pendant around her neck flared to life. The dark entity’s silken voice rippled across her thoughts, snapping her from her stupor. Now, orc. Now!
Oralia threw herself to the side and rolled beneath an overgrown patch of bracken. She flipped over, scuttling backwards on her hands and knees as a blaze of fire erupted across the woodland floor where she had been only a split second before. Screams lit the air as the yellow and orange flames flared brighter, reaching all the way up to the lower boughs before the fire snuffed out, filling the air with black smoke and the stench of singed flesh. The orc’s screams faded as his writhing, black and charred body fell still.
“What the fuck, Hank? Why’d you get in the way like that?” A small, haggard looking woman slunk out from between the trees. Her shrewd eyes searched for wherever Oralia had gone before settling on the overgrown bracken. Grettie’s mouth pulled into a snaggle toothed smile. “If you make me do this the hard way, you’re gonna end up like ol’ Hank here. Why don’t you come out nice and easy like, and we talk this through like civilized folk?”
Amongst the myriad of voices screaming within Oralia’s head, a new one added itself to the mix. What’s this? Trapped with a witch, alone and without backup? Looks like you finally need me. Darkness stirred to life within her veins as the entity cackled with delight. Do as I say, orc, and we may both make this out alive.