Chapter 15 Demon #4
He quickly made sure the orderkeeper was still breathing before carrying him up the hill, laying him down with his feet high.
He barely realized Valir helping him or Dagna keeping the branches out of his way.
One mistake, and Roderic would not make it through.
Keeping the body warm with a blanket, he cleaned the area around the wound, avoiding the burned parts.
Water first, then Valir’s schnapps. That too had to be painful without end.
Roderic was lucky he was still passed out.
Only when the stump was dressed in clean white bandages he had bought in Bronzebreak did he collapse back to sitting on the soft ground himself. His hands wouldn’t stop trembling, and he had to stabilize himself against Valir’s shoulder in order not to fall. He had done everything he could.
“We need,” he began, and cleared his throat to sound less croaky. “We need to keep the flies away. Burned flesh attracts them.”
Neither of them wanted to stay near the place of the massacre for too long, but all of them were spent, so they rested the night on that very hill.
Roderic drifted in and out of consciousness as fever shook his body, but there was nothing Kraghtol could do.
He didn’t have any herbs on him, and he trusted nothing that was growing here.
So, he resorted to cooling the orderkeeper’s head from time to time and hoping for the best. Luckily, the fever turned out to be milder than he had feared after this kind of injury, and by noon the day after that, Roderic was — albeit weak and delirious — able to walk again.
While the orderkeeper kept his mouth shut for the entire time, Dagna was nearly unstoppable.
She filled every bit of silence with a never-ending stream of excited words, ranging from wild theories about the nature of the beast to praises of Kraghtol’s ‘heroism’.
He didn’t like the latter, but he was still thankful.
That way, he didn’t have to think about what he did.
It had been his idea to use the demon to scare off the orderkeepers.
He had never intended to hurt them, even though they were after his life, but that’s what he ended up doing.
Three were dead, just because of him. How was he supposed to bear that feeling?
He really wished he could talk to his foster father now.
There was something else he was unsure how to feel about.
Valir. Of course, Valir. When he closed his eyes, he could still feel the touch of the noble’s lips on his, and everything in him yearned to taste them there again.
But how could he even think about something like that in a situation like this?
By his carelessness, three people were dead, people he didn’t even know the names of, and he was thinking about a kiss?
Still, he couldn’t help it. How long had the noble harbored these feelings already?
Were there even feelings, or was it just a spur-of-the-moment thing?
Valir was an outgoing person, so surely he had kissed his fair share of men and women without it meaning anything.
On the other hand, didn’t he say he worried about him?
That simple act of affection tore at Kraghtol more than he wanted to admit, and whenever he tried to steal a glance of the noble, he found him looking away, as if he was doing the same.
Finally, as they were getting ready to depart, he couldn’t endure the uncertainty any longer and caught Valir a few steps away from the others.
He had tried a thousand ways to ask in his head, but there just didn’t seem to be a good one.
“Sorry, I have to know. After the fight the other day… what did you mean by it? I mean, if you meant anything at all,” Kraghtol said and stopped as he realized he had started to blather. His heart was beating fast, and his palms felt sweaty.
The noble raised an eyebrow.
“You mean about kicking you in the balls? I trust you are familiar with the concept?”
Before Kraghtol could react, Valir chuckled and raised his hands.
“No, I know what you are referring to, don’t worry.
I…” he let his voice trail off as if he needed to think about what to say.
“I didn’t plan on kissing you. It was probably out of place, and hadn’t it been for that demon and this fey-cursed swamp getting to my head, I wouldn’t have done it. At least not like this.”
He shrugged and suddenly looked more vulnerable than Kraghtol had ever seen him.
“But that wasn’t your question. I didn’t…
not mean it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve grown to like you.
More than a bit. More than someone like me should like someone like you.
But that doesn’t matter. At all. I’m still trying to figure out what all of that means, but yeah. I meant it.”
The half-orc was speechless, and his emotions had taken more than one abrupt turn during the brief speech. His wide chest suddenly felt too small to contain all the sensations that overwhelmed him all at once.
“I, uh… I really liked it,” he began, careful not to burst out everything he felt. Was he holding back too much? Why was this so difficult? “And I like you, too. Perhaps when we’re out of here and there’s no deadly swamp around us, we could… figure it out together?”
What was he stuttering? He sounded like a ten-year-old! Liva wouldn’t have any trouble verbalizing her feelings like that. He drew a breath to try again when Valir already answered.
“I would like that very much,” he said and took Kraghtol’s big green hand in his smaller, pale one. “Thank you, Kragh. I’m looking forward to it.”
The light touch felt intense and new on his skin, and even after Valir had long let go he still felt the lingering warmth. Suddenly, finding what they were after and then getting out of this swamp felt even more urgent than before.