Chapter 15 Othic
OTHIC
Ido not move. I am a mountain of stone, buried in the dark, dusty hay.
My hand is clamped over Aurora’s mouth, stifling her gasp. Her body is a small, trembling thing, pressed behind me. Her breath is hot and wet against my palm. I am her shield. My entire body is a rigid, coiled spring.
The numiscu poison is gone. My left arm is no longer a useless slab of meat; it is whole, my strength flooding back, a familiar power humming in my blood. But I am unarmed. My axe, my soul, is gone, and I am buried in straw like a nesting rodan. This tactical situation is a disaster.
The rough, human voice from below barks again. "Check the loft, Tars. Make sure nothin' is nested up there."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The rungs of the wooden ladder groan under a heavy weight. My heart hammers a slow, heavy thrum against my ribs. I hold my breath, forcing my body into absolute stillness. I am not an orc. I am a shadow. I am a part of the barn.
A greasy, bearded face appears over the edge of the loft, scanning the darkness. His smell hits me—stale zhisk, unwashed sweat, and the grease from the meat he is roasting. His eyes are dull in the single beam of sunlight lancing through the wall. He holds a long, crude spear.
"Nothin' up here but old hay," he grunts to his comrades.
He is not satisfied. He heaves himself onto the loft floor. His boots are loud on the planks. He jabs the spear into the deepest pile of hay, the one near the far wall. Shhhk.
He moves closer to us. Shhhk. The sound of the tines ripping through the dry stalks is deafeningly loud.
He jabs again, into the pile just beside us. I feel Aurora flinch as the shaft of the spear brushes her leg. My entire being tightens. I could break his neck before his next breath. But I wait.
Shhhk. The iron point scrapes against the leather of my boot. I do not flinch. I do not breathe. The metal is cold, a half-inch from my flesh. I can feel the pressure of the tip, a dull, insistent push. If he shoves, it will go through the leather. If I move, we are found.
He grunts, his breath hot and sour. "See? Nothin'," he says, his voice bored. He spits into the hay, not three feet from my face. The glob of mucus lands with a wet smack. "Just rodan shit."
He climbs back down the ladder, his boots heavy and careless.
The immediate danger is gone, but the strategic one has just begun. We are prisoners in our own refuge.
We do not move. We wait. The day drags on, a slow torture measured in the shifting of the sunbeam across the floor. It is a golden dagger, creeping inch by inch over the dusty planks, an agonizingly slow clock.
The sounds from below are an insult. The crude, braying laughter. The clink of zhisk skins. The sound of one of them urinating against the wagon wheel. They are animals.
The stench of their fire is greasy and thick.
They are roasting the suru meat we had planned to save.
That smell mixes with a new one, a scent that turns my stomach.
It wafts from the iron cage. The sour, acidic, animal smell of raw, unadulterated fear.
It is a scent I know too well. I have been the one causing it for six months.
I watch the four slavers. They are filth.
Drunk, loud, and careless with their weapons, which they leave in a pile near their fire.
They are not warriors. They are parasites.
I count their strengths: four of them. They have crossbows, leaning against a barrel.
Black. Oiled. Ready. That is their only power.
The sun finally sets. The barn grows dark, illuminated only by the red, flickering light of their crackling fire.
It casts long, grotesque shadows that dance on the walls like demons.
The leader, the big, bearded one called Tars, tears a greasy strip of meat from a bone and tosses it to the dirt. He wipes his mouth on his sleeve.
"Right," he slurs, his voice a rough gravel. "Tars! You're up first. Go pick one."
My blood turns to fire. I watch the lanky slaver, the one who searched the loft, walk to the iron cage. He leers, his shadow dancing, and unlocks the door. The sound of the heavy iron pin sliding back is a violation.
I see the women shrink back, a pale mass of terror. He reaches in and drags one out by her hair. She is young, and she does not scream, she only makes a low, choking sound.
He hauls her, stumbling, toward the dark farmhouse. "Do not break her," the leader laughs. "We need her for the Market."
The farmhouse door closes.
This is Dareksword's estate. This is the mercenary crew. This is the sound of women dragged from their hiding places, the same casual, brutish cruelty. This is the price of my food and shelter.
My hand clenches into a fist, my nails biting so deep into my own palm that I draw blood. The small, sharp pain is a relief.
I am healed. I am strong. I could drop from this loft now. I could land on the leader and break his neck before he draws a breath. I see the path. I drop, kill him. I take his sword. The lanky one is next.
But the other two have crossbows. I am fast, but I am not faster than three bolts. They are not warriors, but a lucky shot will kill me. And if I die, Aurora is left behind. They will find her. They will put her in that cage.
My strength is a liability. It screams for me to charge, but a charge is suicide. I am trapped by my own duty to protect her. I am a warrior, forced to hide in the hay like a rodan while this happens.
This is a new kind of hell. It is worse than the poison. The shame of inaction is a cold, black, suffocating thing. I am a protector who cannot protect. I am a butcher's dog, hiding in the rafters, watching other dogs do the work.
The farmhouse door creaks open. The lanky slaver returns, zipping his breeches. He tosses the weeping woman onto the dirt by the cage and grunts, "Next."
Another one is taken. The cycle repeats. The rage in my chest builds, a silent, volcanic pressure. I am a stone. I am a coiled spring. I wait. I am about to break. I am about to do something stupid, something that will get us both killed.
I feel Aurora shift beside me. Her terror is a sharp scent in the air, but beneath it, I smell something else. Her own rage, cold and sharp as a shard of ice. Her breath is hot on my ear as she leans close, her voice a whisper I almost do not hear.
"Do not fight them," she breathes. "Not like this. We cannot."
I tense, ready to dismiss her. My rage is a roaring fire, and her words are nothing.
"But they can."