Chapter 2 #2
I found the warm void of unconsciousness. The last thing I heard was Khal saying "And I you."
The march continued, but this time I felt my limbs were coated in lead.
The orcs were on edge, kept running scouts to check up ahead, nerves frayed.
A few times we plunged off into the forest again.
My feet were an excellent distraction from how much every other part of me hurt, because they hurt more.
Khal came alongside me as I limped off the road again, touching trees for support.
"Rowena," he said. He switched to the old tongue. "I had a question to ask you."
My Ka Morth was rusty. This was Thea's strength, not mine. She'd studied it longer. "I listen."
He stared down at me, walking as if the very ground didn't try to make us trip. "What happened to your wrists? Why were they injured?"
Alibis were always safest when they were as much as possible the truth. The more truth you told the less you had to remember. But my stomach clenched at telling the orc anything. "My father is a strong leader. He is strong with those who displease him."
"How does a daughter ever displease a father so much?"
"I ran away."
His step slowed. "You'd seemed eager for marriage."
"I did not know yet, when I ran. About the marriage agreement. I found out when you returned a victor." This was more time than I'd ever spoken aloud the Ka Morth. Thea with her patient repeating over prayers would be proud of me. The thought stabbed.
He lunged over the ditch I'd just climbed out of. His brow was furrowed. "You had one day to make this decision?"
I pictured the chamber, me still bound on my knees, Thea pleading for leniency for me. The terror in her eyes when the news came. "I had minutes." I watched her face again, the relief mixed with horror in my fragile sister's eyes. "I said yes in a heartbeat."
"You are a decisive person. I could not have moved so quickly."
I climbed over a log. Thea's dress was going to be a mess.
My legs were heavy manacles to drag. Everything was pain.
I did not know what he wanted, why he kept speaking to me.
What could he need to know? I shouldn't speak till I understood what was expected, but I found myself answering in the common tongue.
"People in the city often marvel when beggars run across the rooftops as if they have no fear.
They don't stop to ask why they're running.
" I used my arms to pull on a branch, keep myself lurching forward.
"The right fear makes heroes of us all."
"I have never seen a city of men. I know a little."
"They are good places to disappear."
A soft intake of breath. He'd laughed. "Not for everyone."
I stumbled over a rock. There was dirt and moss on my skirts.
He moved closer. "Are you alright?"
"I can go on." I struggled up, more steps.
"That's not what I asked." His forehead creased.
One of the orcs came up beside him, whispered something, gestured to me. I had to be faster; I was not prepared to be snatched up and carried by one after another of these brutes. I tried to put more force, more confidence into my movement, even as my legs felt like wood. No…
Khal approached me. "Your feet are bleeding."
"I'm fine. It's nothing."
"You're leaving a trail. There are things that will begin stalking us."
I stopped. Everything was worse when I stopped, as if it gave my body permission to cry out.
"You need to sit."
My legs trembled. I lowered myself into the moss. He pulled off my shoe and I gritted my teeth. His companion cursed a streak of expletives.
The blisters had broken. If even I knew to expect that, no one else should be surprised. Women's house shoes were not made for distance travel; they were made for mincing quietly and staying where you were put. The raw flesh along my heel made that acidly clear.
Khal's face was a mask, unreadable. "Why didn't you say something?" he said, monotone.
I tensed up, fighting not to flinch. "I can still walk."
His companion cursed another streak. I lost the thread of it but heard "rutting feral, bleeding humans…"
"Tell them to pause. We have to treat this."
The words burst out of me. "I'm fine—"
"This is not fine." Khal stared down, grim. "This is not clean. You could get blood-sick."
I bit my lip, trying not to scream as desperation clawed in my chest.
"I am responsible for you." There was something pained in his voice, his face. "Krashal, do we have teeth?"
"I have a few. Hagmar has more."
"Please get what you can."
Oh God, were they going to take my feet off?
My hands clawed into the loam. Hysteria was gripping me.
I just had to make it a few more days or weeks physically able to run, and now I couldn't even do that.
His friend handed him something and sprinted off into the trees.
Khal Drahza's-son reached to his hip and unsheathed a massive knife.
I stopped breathing. I felt my head start to pound, my hands heating in the moist soil. He grabbed up a rock. No no no no-
A sharp scent burst on the air. He lay another white shape on the rock and crushed it with the knife, the papery skin peeling open.
"I'm putting the cart before the horse," he muttered.
He uncorked a water skin. "We have to rinse this, at least. The teeth do a lot, but you don't want earth in a wound.
" He lifted my foot by the ankle, careful not to touch the open places where the blisters had burst. "This may sting a moment. "
I didn't make a sound.
"I'll replace this," he said. "We'll get you something fitting, when we reach the enclave." - and he cut a strip off the bottom of my skirt.
He spread the paste from the cloves on the cloth, kept cutting bandages as he wrapped, and I didn't protest as the skirt rose another inch.
By the time my second shoe came off it was inching towards my mid calf, towards indecency for a noble woman; almost getting short for a peasant.
But if I stayed out of too much attention, moved quickly through the market streets, I could make it work until I reached an employer who'd advance me a set of clothes.
The guild would value my talents; I could get the pull I needed there, if I just managed to talk to the right people first…
my heart was jittering. I needed to stop thinking about scattered plans, root into the present.
The soil was dry and crumbly under my hands, despite the shade.
The paste as it came against my wounds was warming.
Khal leaned forward, the muscles rippling in his arms as he worked.
A wide necklace with a series of objects and knots swung and rested across his chest. I tried to identify the pieces, get my mind off how very close he was; how helpless I was.
There was an animal's claw, a carved figure of a badger, a blue piece of broken glass…
"It's a protection against sorcery." He noticed me staring, was looking into my eyes. "It's meant to anchor the mind, prevent the holder being charmed." He was watching me, like he was searching. "Did you feel it? Since your blood has sorcery?"
Oh, that's what he was looking for. Some sign I'd tried to ensorcell him.
If only. "The house of Belnor’s bloodline has long become weak.
Few are born with the power, and of those who are, even fewer awaken it.
" I closed my eyes, fighting not to flinch as he worked.
"Every bastard child with the baron's eyes is dragged into the fortress and even then, they have no sorceress. "
Several of the others had emerged from the brush.
Khal tied the bandage off. "Weighty tidings to share so new in acquaintance." He didn't believe me.
"Of no consequence to someone the baron has cast off."
He paused.
A sound of disgust rang as the orc with the forehead scar burst into the clearing. "What's this? We're stopped?"
Khal's shoulders tensed. "We'll be moving in a moment."
"You knew you'd be going on a journey, so what's this?" He was smiling at me, but there was no kindness in it. "Did you think your new husband would stay in the castle? Did you think a horse was coming? You didn't prepare?"
"Vrathgar," Khal said. His voice was quiet. "She found out about our bargain the day of the wedding."
They went quiet, and then Vrathgar spat out a stream of expletives, the curses not taking pause for breath. He pulled a knife and I curled back, put up a hand-
He drove it into a tree, roared. "The bastard never intended to keep the bargain. He meant for none of us to survive. Rat bastard rutting—"
"Vrathgar." Khal said woodenly.
"What?"
"You need to bridle your tongue."
Vrathgar glared at him, spat in the dust. I shrunk back. Were they going to fight? I realized that if Khal died, I didn't know what would happen to me.
The scarred orc- was he larger? Maybe he seemed larger- bared his teeth. "This was a mistake," he said.
"Maybe," Khal answered, steady. "But the mistake is mine."
The other orc glared. “You think you alone suffer here? You bring back a fish-skin—"
"Vrathgar. You forget yourself."
"Forget myself? It is you who forget, Drazha's-son. Do you forget what you wanted to be? Are you human or are you ours?"
Another orc, the younger one Khal threatened the first night, shoved in, speaking urgently, the Orcish words a rippling flow of consonants.
Vrathgar shoved at him growled back. The young one flinched, but stood firm, said some last thing.
They looked like they'd come to blows, when another orc burst through the trees.
"Pthralhirgar!" He shouted. "Two! They have our scent!"
Vrathgar cursed and pulled his blade from the tree.
The orcs were a flurry of tightening armor and drawing weapons. Khal was giving orders, shouting in Orcish, turned back to Vrathgar. "I need you."
"You're damn right, you do." He spat. He disappeared into the trees. In the noise and distraction, I pulled on my shoes.
Khal turned to me, grabbed my hand. "We run. The clearing.”
We were heading back the way we came, lunging and slipping over stones. I would have fallen, many times, but his hold kept me up.
He let me go when we reached the clearing. It was only maybe twenty feet across. The orcs gathered at the center; forming a ring, spears in hand. Short spears with broad heads; boar spears. Khal pushed me behind him. They were all standing, facing the trees.
“Over there!”
A massive shape, like a panther the size of a cart, leapt out of the trees towards the circle of warriors. Spears jabbed out, and it drew back, testing, a low, guttural sound in its throat. “Geh geh geh geh geh geh—"
Its nostrils flared, lips pulled back to show teeth longer than a human hand, prowling around the circle. Its eyes locked on me.
“Stay back,” Khal muttered, as if I needed that instruction. “They go for the weakest.” Behind us, another shout.
The second creature had materialized from the trees, snagged at one of the warrior’s clothes with its claws.
Their coats were like shadow, moved like smoke, but there was nothing immaterial about the way it dragged its quarry in.
The spears slashed out, drawing blood until the two were separated, desperation in the younger orc’s cry.
He fell back, blood oozing from his thigh. The circle drew tighter.
The oldest orc started singing.
I didn’t know what the sound was at first, deep and rhythmic, then another voice joined, and another, shouting, keening, harmonizing with the first. Spears feinted and lunged. One of the creatures started to pull back, a little more distance.
But the first’s eyes were still on me.
“They’re not retreating, Drazha’s-son!” It was Vrathgar. His back was to me, spear out. “They have already tasted the blood!”
“I know!” Khal shouted over the voice. “We’ll have to risk it!” He shouted something in Orcish…and threw his spear.
The spear didn’t kill. It glanced off the thing’s skull, tearing the flesh of its face over the eye. But it flinched back, and then Khal wasn’t in the circle. He was through, and Vrathgar was through, and the spear-wall closed in.
Khal was fast. His sword was in his hand, a flash of light, and he slashed down.
He’d cut it. It hissed and pulled back. Claws flew.
I saw him dodge and weave. Vrathgar was on the other side, hemming it in.
A warning yell went up as the second yowled.
I barely had time to think before Vrathgar stabbed its shoulder and as it turned, Khal jumped-like some kind of grasshopper- onto its neck-and brought the blade down.
It fell like a bag of apples, the heavy head rolling to the side. Just as the second animal lunged and took the orc that was bleeding.
He was screaming, his voice so human, so young. The others were trying to stab at it, the circle formation abandoned. Vrathgar was running forward.
Something was wrong. Something else, besides the teeth through the youngest orc’s leg, besides the shouting and running and spears.
Something was wrong and I could feel it from my fingers, up from the soles of my mangled feet, like I was awake and everything was in color and the colors were screaming.
Khal was running towards the second beast, his sword in his hand.
A third shape emerged from the trees.
It was bounding, huge, leaping over Khal. I didn’t know who it lunged for, but why not me? Why shouldn’t it be me? I raised my hands, screamed.
I screamed as fire flew out of my hands and ignited the animal above me in sheet after sheet of flame.