Soren awoke to the cold tapping of a hand on his cheek, his head screaming, his vision blurry.

“Soren, Soren, wake up, come on, Soren!”

Groaning, Soren tried to blink away his weariness, his senses slow and sluggish.

“Come on, you have to get up, we’ve got our orders, we need to get moving”, said a voice.

Sitting up, his vision clearing, Soren looked down at the blood dripping from his nose, “ugh what happened?”, he asked.

“You chose a bad day to be late, took quite a few wacks from our furry flyer friends over there” said the voice, gesturing to a large bearded man standing off in the distance.

Vision clearing, Soren realised he was talking to Finn, his closest friend and workmate. Finn was a happy-go-lucky type, persistently optimistic, sometimes annoyingly so. He was fair skinned with broad shoulders and short brown hair.

“Come on, up you get”, said Finn. “We’ve got our marching orders and I don’t think you want to hang around to have a run in with your big friend again”

Standing up, feeling slightly unsteady on his feet, Soren noted that the clearing was nearly empty, only the two of them remained from the workers. The big guy, Alaric, Soren recalled, was stood on the other side of the clearing watching one of the other groups head off into the trees.

“You’re right, let's get moving”, said Soren.

“Where’s Alissa?”

“She’s gone ahead, I think your beating shook her up a bit, you know how she gets sometimes. She wanted to get a kickstart on the chopping”

Alissa was the third member of their work crew. She was the planner of the three of them, but she was also easily unsettled and overall quite jittery. They were close though, Soren thought of her, and Finn, as family.

“Fair enough”, said Soren, as they set off in the direction they’d been sent.

“Where are we headed today?”

“Towards the mountain, apparently your beating wasn’t enough, that brute also wanted to see you sweat. We’ll be lugging logs up and down the hillside all day. Well, and all night now as well”, Said Alaric.

Soren and Alaric made their way through the trees towards the mountain, past other teams already hard at work cutting away, and through tree stump wastelands from previous days.

For about ten minutes they walked, the point on the mountain their only bearing, before Soren caught sight of Alissa's white hair flowing in the breeze as she swung her axe into the trunk of a large oak.

Soren’s head had cleared now, he could see straight and the blood on his face had mostly dried up. His legs still throbbed and his head felt like it had been clapped by thunder, but at least he was up and walking and he didn’t think any of his injuries were serious.

“Soren!!”, shouted Alissa as she heard them approach. Dropping her axe mid swing she rushed over, taking Soren’s head between her slender but callused hands. Her green eyes stared into his brown, as she looked over his injuries.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

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

“Like i’ve been beaten with a stick” replied Soren.

“Ha. ha.” she replied, sarcastically.

“Why were you late today of all days?” she asked, stepping back, having determined he wasn’t going to drop dead any moment.

“I just over slept… I didn’t think it would be a big deal. At worst I thought Thalor would scold me and maybe make me walk a little further again. Just typical that today we get a visit from the friendly bunch”

“Yeah, what was all that about anyway? And where was Thalor this morning?”, asked Finn.

“No ones seen him all morning. Maybe he got the day off while the bosses are in town” replied Alissa.

“Hmm, maybe”, said Finn. “I’ve never known him to get a day off though.”

“Me neither” said Soren. “More importantly though, what was all that about us not meeting quota, do we even have quotas? And why was I beaten for it”

“Because you were late”, replied Alissa, sighing. “Wrong place wrong time I think, unfortunately for you”

“But no, I didn’t know we had quotas. Well, I don’t know what our quota is at least. I assumed they must have been keeping track of what we send them somehow, I know I would if it was me, but it's rare they send people from Aerionthor. Thalor is tougher on us some days so I just assumed that was when they wanted us to work harder and send up more wood”

“Did you hear about what happened over in Riverton?” asked Finn, as he pulled his axe from his belt and made a start on the tree Alissa had been chopping when they arrived.

Soren and Alissa shared a glance, “No?” they both said in unison.

“My dad told me this morning, apparently another of the Aviorians was killed yesterday, a pick axe straight to the neck from one of the miners. Caused a bit of a stir”

“Dam… thats the third i’ve heard of this month” said Alissa.

“Yep. I recon that's why they were here this morning, a show of force. I bet they’ve done the same across all the other villages to try keep us in line. Make up some excuse for being there, not that they need one, rough up one of the locals and hope that no one gets any other ideas”, said Finn as he took another swing at the tree.

“So I really was just in the wrong place at the wrong time” said Soren, frowning.

“If you ask me they’re going about it all wrong. I know they hate us and all, but if people are already getting ideas about standing up to them, then beating on innocents isn’t exactly going to make us respect them more”, said Finn.

“It will make us fear them though” said Alissa. “And that’s always been there go to”.

“Did you see the birds?” asked Soren.

Alissa paled slightly, “I did…”, she said. “Scary things. We don’t see them often and I’d prefer to keep it that way”

“I don’t know, I think they’re pretty cool” said Finn.

“You just have no fear”, said Alissa.

“That’s not true” replied Finn, grinning slightly. “I can just respect a beautiful animal when I see one”.

“They are pretty cool” said Soren, glancing at Alissa.

“Can you imagine if it was one of those things that came at you Soren? You wouldn’t be standing here now”, she replied.

“...yeah, that’s true. Would still be fun to ride one though, I bet the view is great from up there”, replied Soren.

Soren stepped up to the tree to the side of Finn, drawing his axe, psyching himself up for the days work.

“Its dangerous to say it, I know” said Soren, glancing around, “but i’d love to stick this axe into that big bearded one”

“Soren! You’ll be in for more than a beating with talk like that”, said Alissa.

“I know I know, but i’m just saying. They treat us like dirt sometimes and are we really that different from them? I was a few minutes late today and they beat me to unconsciousness, thats not exactly a humane reaction”

“Come on you two, get to chopping. Save the plotting for later. We’re late starting already and you can bet your money that that Alaric will be over to check on us soon. He’s made a friend in Soren over here”, said Finn, winking at Soren.

Sighing, Soren raised his axe and brought it down hard into the wood, his head thumping as he made contact, his axe barely making a scratch, Clearly his full strength hadn’t returned yet. It was going to be a long day.