Chapter One #4
The rules for a challenge vary from band to band, but usually at least the basics are similar. One against one, a knife each. This is a big step forward for me! Instead of fighting a whole camp full of orcs with no weapon at all, I get to fight one orc with a knife. Progress!
Unfortunately, he’s a pretty fucking big orc.
It would have been nice to goad Strak into making the challenge, he’s a little closer to my weight class, but he’s too chickenshit.
No, it has to be Barlav, with his hair like a Roman centurion’s helmet and pecs like watermelon halves.
They’re on display now because he’s stripped to the waist, grinning at me around his tusks.
I don’t have anything to take off except my ratty cape, so I do that.
Maeve hands me a short triangular dagger, made for brutal thrusts.
Barlav has a longer curved blade, which I know from the feel of it across my throat.
“I’m sorry you have to die this way,” Maeve tells me.
“The feeling’s mutual,” I mutter, then decide that’s lacking in bravado. “I hope you won’t miss Barlav.”
“Nobody’ll miss Barlav,” Maeve says, almost too low to hear.
The rest of the band gathers around, a lot of orcs I don’t know, a couple more wolves, and a tongue-flicking lizard-wilder with madly swiveling eyes. They make a rough circle, ready to shove back anyone who tries to run. Inside it’s just Tsav, Barlav, and me.
“Old Ones favor whoever’s cause is just,” Tsav intones, then shrugs. “Though fuck if I know what that means this time. You two ready?”
“Ready,” I say, licking my lips. Barlav nods.
“Fight!”
He comes straight at me, shoulder first, like he’s breaking down a door.
Not a subtle approach, and I try to fade to one side, but my legs feel like rubbery noodles.
I jam the blade into his ribs, or try to, but the noodle thing has happened to my arms as well.
I only manage to give him a long scratch.
Then he hits me dead-on and I feel my breastbone crack.
I stagger back, get shoved sideways by unsympathetic hands, and Barlav catches my wrist as I totter helplessly.
He pulls me close enough that I can smell his stinking breath.
I feel cold steel lodged in my guts down below my belly button.
“Fucking madling,” he spits, and rips the knife upward till it catches on my ribs.
All my organs blorp right out into the dirt, a big nasty pile of torn intestines and other important shit, along with just an astonishing amount of blood.
It’s not long before I’m back in the pool waiting for Tserigern.
More or less what I expected. The problem—I contemplate, as I once again murderize everyone’s favorite wise-arse—is muscle memory, or the lack thereof. Or just muscles in general, really.
See, I know how to fight. I ought to, I’ve had enough fucking practice.
I’m good with a sword, I can handle a knife, and if you give me a bow, I will clip the feathers from Robin Hood’s fucking cap.
Or at least I could do those things back before Artaxes and his psychotic snake-lady went to town on me, and I will be able to do them again if I manage to survive for longer than it takes to burn a roast. Right now I’m stuck with the body I arrived from Earth with, and past-me was evidently on a strict training regimen of Netflix and Reddit.
The chances of me beating Barlav in a fair fight are roughly zero point zilch. But the whole seeing-the-future thing isn’t just useful for conversations.
Back through the woods, gather maidensrest, dodge the patrol, sweet-talk Maeve, swallow thaumite, give my spiel, piss off Barlav, here we go again.
Barlav does his shoulder-charge right on schedule and this time I know which way to dodge.
I step in behind him, knife raised for an overhand strike.
I’m not fast enough. He kicks my noodle legs out from under me and shanks me in the ribs before I can catch my breath.
Cue the training montage. Save me, “Eye of the Tiger.” Except I’m not actually getting any stronger or quicker, because my dumb body is the same each time.
Just a little more knowledgeable about how Barlav fights, what specifically he’s likely to do when I do this, and then if I respond with this, then will he—ow, fuck, no that didn’t work.
It fucking sucks, let me tell you. He’s mostly the same each time, but not exactly the same, because I can’t do everything exactly the same way.
So sometimes there’s a promising route and I try to push on a little further and then wham he decides no, consistency is for losers.
I’m getting real sick of it before long.
The worst part is making sure he kills me fast, which sometimes means trying to keep fighting on a broken leg or some shit.
It’s only a flesh wound! The naked crazy girl is never defeated!
When I fuck up, it’s because I’m finally getting somewhere.
I feel like I’ve got him if I can just move fast enough, I’ve gotten past his knife hand, and then wham I get his knee in my stomach and crunch his elbow in the back of the head and the world goes all cartoon Tweety Birds and then black. But not black enough.
Time Loop Survival (ha!) Rule Number One: Never get captured. Because dying sucks, but at least it’s over quickly. Getting captured is how you end up in the torture dungeon with Snaky de Sade.
This time I wake up with a splitting headache and my hands tied together, lying on a pile of stinking rags in a shabby excuse for a tent.
I’m still naked, of course. Since the orcs haven’t been particularly concerned with taking prisoners to this point, I’ll give you three guesses what they want me for, first two don’t count.
My suspicions are confirmed when I get a look out the tent flap and see Strak outside taking off his belt.
Of course it’s Strak that has to get rapey. Fucking Strak.
Fortunately, I’m prepared for this. Maidensrest! There’s a handful tied to my arm with a strip of Tserigern’s robe. Even with my hands bound, I can work it loose. It falls on the floor and I squirm around like a caterpillar to gather the leaves with my lips and start chewing.
Maidensrest gets its name from a Kingdom play called The Maidens, sort of their version of Romeo and Juliet.
Two teenage girls fall in love,17 but their families are at war.
After many trials and tribulations, they take maidensrest together and sink gracefully to the earth in each other’s arms. The families find the still, sad lovers, too good for this world, and are shamed into making peace forevermore and blah blah blah.
It works faster and less painfully if you concentrate it, but chewing the raw leaves will do the trick in a pinch.
You don’t actually sink gracefully to the earth, though—there’s a lot more thrashing and foaming at the mouth involved.
But by the time Strak comes in with his pants off, I’m down to a few last twitches.
Kinda wish I could see the look on his face.
Fuck, though. That could have been much worse. I need— hi, Tserigern, cronch cronch cronch— a fucking break.
* * *
Interlude:
I know the area around the wake-up pool, on this particular day at this particular hour, about as well as anyone has ever known any specific time and place in the history of the universe.
If there’s a spot within about a day’s walk that has anything useful to a would-be savior, I’ve been there, probably many times.
I know every sheep in the shepherd’s flock and every plant in the farmer’s field.
(The one gap in my info has been on the wilder side of things, but I’m rectifying that now.)
Anyway, there are some places that while not strictly helpful on the saving-the-Kingdom path are interesting on their own merits. To wit: Gerald.
Gerald is a peasant. That’s not pejorative, that’s just what he is.
He lives in a hut at the edge of the woods, tending a patch he took over from his mother when she died.
It’s lonely, a long day’s walk from the nearest village, and Gerald is a shy lad of twenty or so summers who keeps himself to himself.
He has not, much to his frustration, known the touch of woman, although he has known plenty of the touch of himself.
This is a shame, because Gerald is fit, halfway handsome if you gave him a wash and a shave, and endowed like an Ivy League university.
What I have learned from experience is that if I—a naked and not-unattractive young woman obviously in dire straits— stumble into Gerald’s doorway, he will wrap me in a smelly but warm blanket and take me inside for a warming bowl of soup and a rest. And if I then indicate my desire in some hard-to-miss way, such as grabbing his cock and kissing him, he will not require much persuasion to put his physical gifts to good use.
It’s not all about equipment, of course.
Gerald is sweet, na?ve, attentive, and appreciative, a tender and virginal soul eager to be corrupted.
He’s also a remarkably quick study, and I can get him from the first coy brush of the lips to the noisome depths of the dark web in the course of an afternoon.
The fact that he’s dumb as a box of rocks isn’t a drawback; every time he starts to talk, I just shove something in his face to suck on. 18
Anyway, after the run-in with Strak, I take a day for me-time and avail myself of Gerald’s services. In the evening I leave him satisfied and exhausted, lying face down in a pile of straw. I grab his rusty sickle and slash my throat, feeling much better.
* * *
Back to the challenge. I’ve just about got it right, I think I hope I pray.
19 I square off against Barlav with, if not total confidence, then at least a cocky grin.
Always act like you know what you’re doing—if you win, you look awesome, and if you lose, then you’re dead and who cares if they think you’re a poseur?
Barlav lowers his shoulder and charges. That fucking charge.
It seems so dumb, so obvious, I went through a dozen loops trying to find a way to take advantage of it.
But he’s (a little) smarter than he looks, Barlav.
And credit where it’s due, he’s not afraid of taking a cut to get this over with.
Makes him look tough in front of his buddies.
Best to stay out of his way, so I roll sideways and pop back to my feet across the circle, now coated in even more dirt.
He turns with a snarl and comes at me again.
Keep the distance open, that’s the key. He’s impatient. He’s not going to edge across the circle and back me into a corner slow—that looks weak. But he has to commit to the charge too far out, and I can see him coming. Dodge, roll, jump aside, back off.
Muttering from the peanut gallery. Barlav’s lip curls further.
“I thought you said you wanted to fight,” he growls. “Quit fucking around.”
“I thought you were supposed to be good at this,” I tell him, still smiling. “You can’t handle a little game of tag?”
“Fucking vrinsh!”20 he shouts, and comes at me again.
But not, crucially, as he did before. That was calculation, accepting the possibility of a slash on the arm or shoulder to bowl me over and get to close quarters.
Now he expects the dodge. He thinks all I can do is run, so his stance is open, his arms wide, looking to slice or grab me as I evade.
Oldest trick in the book—give ’em one thing till they think they’ve got your number, and then—
I hesitate, looking one way, then the other.
Then when he’s too close to stop, I drop to one knee and raise my stubby knife in both hands just so.
My pathetic noodle arms may not be able to get the blade deep enough, but his momentum does a fine job of it, especially when I’m braced like a linebacker.
My bare feet slide back a few inches and my fingers are almost forced from the hilt.
Then Barlav stops, looking down at me, his brows furrowed as though he’s trying to figure something out.
He coughs, and a drizzle of blood drips along his tusks and patters onto my upturned face.
For a moment we’re balanced there, me crouching, him leaning forward, arms hanging limp, all his weight on the little blade wedged between his ribs.
Finally his knees buckle and he slides off, taking the knife with him. He flops into the dirt.
Silence. Total silence.
If they kill me now, I swear to fucking God—
“Davi is the winner,” Tsav pronounces.
Muttering from the other orcs. Maeve steps forward and indelicately prods Barlav onto his back, checks his breathing. She sighs and gestures to another couple of orcs. They grab him by his limp arms and haul him away.
“You asked for food, clothing, and a chance to explain,” Tsav says. “I can offer—”
“Yeah, actually, maybe a rain check on those,” I say. “How about somewhere to just lie down for a bit?”
Tsav looks a little mystified, but nods and gestures to a large tent. “Use my furs, if you like.”
I stagger in the indicated direction. Adrenaline is fading, vital force draining out of my body like coffee from a cup with no bottom.
I barely have the energy to check out Tsav’s tent, noting with some disappointment it’s not full of handcuffs and bondage gear.
There’s a big pile of ratty fur jumbled up into a nest, and I just belly flop into it.
Lights out instantly. Davi signing off for a while.