by Dale Lucas
Then, as quickly as the thought had come to him, he was suddenly loose. He kicked upward and managed to break the surface, but what he saw after drawing a deep, coughing draft of air gave him no comfort.
His horse was upright now, swimming for the shore, desperate to be on dry land. Elvaris, Sandiva, and Croften had all waded in toward him, shouting, trying to reach out—but Rem was already being swept away, the ford and his companions shrinking as the current yanked him swiftly downstream. Once more, he struggled to find that line to cling to, but he must have missed it entirely. Rem was borne on, tumbling and tossed on the churning river waters. At a bend he hit a series of rocks, rolled, and spun end over end as the currents rushed past. As he fought to break the surface and draw breath again, a whirlpool formed where the current bent in on itself. That whirlpool yanked him under, spun him around. Just as he thought he might have to open his mouth to drink air that wasn’t there for the drinking, he was ejected on the far side of the whirlpool and kept flying with the current.
He broke the surface. Breathed. Searched. His companions were nowhere to be seen.
Gods, he could be carried miles from them! He had to arrest his drift and make shore, fast. Rem started swimming, employing long, strong strokes that would use the current to his advantage while pushing him ever nearer to the bank.
Up ahead he saw a fallen cottonwood, branches half-submerged in the current, roots still stuck in the eroded soil of the riverbank that it had once called home. That was his target. If he could let the current carry him into that toppled tree, his motion would be arrested and he could climb out. Providing he didn’t miss. Or get swept under the fallen tree by the current and pinned there. Or impaled on one of the broken branches protruding from the horizontal trunk.
He paddled one way . . . saw the fearsome points of a shattered limb protruding just above the water . . . paddled back the other way . . . realized there were too many branches, that if he didn’t hit exactly the right span of naked bark, he’d end up sucked under or skewered . . .
He corrected. The tree rushed up on him, as though the current were eager to smash him upon it—
—and suddenly he’d made it. The waters slammed him hard into the moist gray skin of the dead cottonwood, the current battering him flat against the trunk while his scrabbling hands and wheeling feet sought purchase. Then, finally, he managed to snag a slender limb above him, to rest one foot on a random stone below, and he forced himself upward. Little by little, hand over hand, he drew himself out of the river, onto the fallen tree, then climbed, squirrel-like, along its length toward the muddy, eroded bluff where its roots were still half-embedded. When Rem finally made the shore, he clambered over the storm of upturned roots, fell end over end, then landed, facedown, on the moist loam of the riverbank. He lay there for a time, drawing deep, desperate gulps of air, enjoying the feeling of being still, unmoving. Dimly he imagined the bank that he lay on deciding to give in to its long-pending erosion and collapse back into the river, so he forced himself to wriggle forward a few feet, to put some distance between him and the precarious edge. There, amid brush and trees and lichen and stone and damp, cool river mud, Rem sprawled again, facedown, happy to be out of danger.
In the distance he heard voices calling for him. Chief among them was Torval’s. The dwarf sounded like he was calling for one of his children.
“Over here,” Rem said, but realized immediately that he hadn’t been loud enough for anyone to hear him.
Footfalls. Rattling scrub and bracken. The voices drew near. Torval called his name, again and again.
“Over here!” Rem shouted, though his shout sounded more like a child’s plea for succor in the night. Help, Papa, the thing under the bed! Mama, please, there’s something in my cedar chest!
Rem raised his eyes and searched around him. He could hear his companions nearing with each second. But it wasn’t any of them that his eyes fixed on. It was something else, directly ahead, deep in the woods and the brush.
There was a face staring back at him. It was a mildly frightened face—a shocked face, amazed to see Rem, apparently discovered in the midst of some private action. And that face wasn’t human.
Gray-green skin. A sloping forehead. Pale, deep-set eyes. A ferocious underbite and the bright wink of small tusks peeping out from thick, chapped lips. Rem blinked. The face blinked back.
Across a span of twenty or thirty feet, Rem was staring at an orc.
Rem’s exhaustion fled. Wholly on instinct, he scrambled to his knees, staring straight back at the watching orc.
The creature didn’t look angry or ill intentioned or ready to attack. Instead it looked rather confused . . . embarrassed even, as though caught in some act.
Rem waited, not sure what to expect. Would it speak? Attack? Run away? Should he speak to it? Explain that he and his companions meant no harm?
No. It was too far away. To speak with it, he’d have to raise his voice. And if he raised his voice, his nearing companions would hear. Torval would hear. And if Torval arrived and saw an orc—any orc, no matter that it meant them no harm—there was likely to be a fight. A bloody one at that.
Rem raised a finger to his lips. Shush, that gesture said. Then he raised his empty hands and showed them: I’m unarmed. There’s no reason for trouble.
The orc suddenly rose. It had been crouching. It seemed to be hiking up its breeches and hastily tying their laces.
Hyryn’s cock . . . had he caught that orc while it was having a quiet shit?
Before Rem could make another gesture or say another word, the orc turned and lumbered away, still trying to get its breeches in order as it went. A second later, its enormous frame was swallowed by the close-packed greenery of the forest and it was gone, only a memory.
Torval rocketed out of the brush off to his left. The dwarf very nearly tripped over Rem’s barely upright form. The two partners stared at one another, then the dwarf stomped forward and threw his big, muscular arms around Rem.
“There he is!” he cried in his craggy old voice. “By the Maker, I thought I’d lost you, boy!”
“Just fine,” Rem said, both happy to see his partner again and strangely uncomfortable at being hugged by him. They were still like that, dwarf embracing man, when a number of their party appeared out of the woods to join them. There were four of them—Brekkon, Croften, Redriga, and Elvaris—and they all stopped when they saw the dwarf rocking his wet, muddy partner in his arms. Elvaris, still soaking wet from wading into the water to rescue him, gave a deep sigh of relief.
“Midday swim?” she asked with a cock of her brow.
“Pitiful,” Brekkon added good-naturedly. “Can’t you cross a bloody stream without hazarding yourself?”
“That wasn’t my fault,” Rem said. “The horse slipped—”
Croften clapped Torval on the back. “You need to watch this pup more closely, master dwarf. He’s like to find trouble wherever he goes.”
Torval pulled away from Rem and nodded. Rem couldn’t tell if Torval’s face was just wet from his fording of the river, or if those were tears on his cheeks. “You have no idea,” he said to the soldiers. “He’s like my fourth child, this one! But not half so obedient . . .”
Rem stumbled to his feet. “I’m fine,” he said, trying to dust some of the sticking weeds and detritus from himself. “Honestly, I’ll be fine. Is the horse all right?”
Croften nodded. “Fine as can be, lad. He made it out while you were tumbling downstream.”
Rem nodded. “Good news, then. The horse is fine. I’m fine. We’re all fine. Let’s head back.”
He took a few steps, then realized Torval was standing there, staring off into the woods at something. He studied his partner, saw the slight flare of the dwarf’s wide nostrils, then realized what must have happened.
The breeze had shifted. Torval smelled something.
“Torval,” Rem said.
“Wait,” the dwarf answered, then went tromping off into the brush, right
toward where Rem had seen the crouching orc.
Rem looked to the others. He wasn’t sure whether to offer an explanation or send them on their collective way while he went after Torval. When they all moved to follow the dwarf, he knew that he’d lost control of the situation.
They all gathered where Torval had come to a halt, in a tiny little glade of fir and madrone beside a big redwood. There was a smell in the clearing that assailed Rem’s nostrils instantly: excrement, but of no sort he was familiar with.
Torval stared at a pile of scat in a shallow, hand-dug hole. He looked to his partner.
“Do you know what that is?” the dwarf asked.
Rem nodded. “I do. I saw the one who left it.”
Croften took a look. His mouth twisted. “Orcs!”
Rem nodded again. “When I looked up, I saw one sitting right here. Doing his business, I suppose.”
“You’re lucky he didn’t kill you,” Elvaris said. She had one hand tight on the hilt of her Taverando blade now.
Rem shook his head. “Honestly, he looked a little embarrassed, like I’d caught him in the act of something.”
“As you did,” Redriga quipped.
“Where there’s one there’s more,” Torval said, scanning the woods around them for some other sign of impending trouble. His concern for Rem and happiness at recovering him were all fled. Now he was in defensive mode: a sentinel on guard; a killer ready to wet his blade.
“He saw me, clearly,” Rem said, “then hiked up his trousers and ran. I’m willing to guess he doesn’t want trouble if we don’t chase or challenge him. What say we just head back to the others?”
“He might’ve let you go,” Croften said darkly. “But the dwarf’s right. Orcs don’t travel alone much—certainly not this far from the mountains. If you saw one, there are more.”
“Then let’s give them a wide berth and get back to the others,” Rem said, perhaps too forcefully.
“I’m all for that,” Redriga agreed. “The question is, will they do us the same courtesy?”
“This changes everything,” Captain Tuvera said.
“This changes nothing,” the lord marshal countered. “This fool nearly drowns crossing a river and reports a single orc in the woods and the lot of you are moved to hysteria?”
“There’s no such thing as a single orc,” Torval said, clearly without respect for the lord marshal’s title or lineage. “They move in bands—everyone knows that!”
“Aye,” the lord marshal said wearily, “everyone knows that . . . just as everyone knows dwarves remain among their own kind and keep to their own traditions. Isn’t that right, master dwarf?”
“Fine,” Redriga argued, “there’s just a single orc. Or two. Or three. Need we remind you about the dead men we found yesterday? That poor sod with his face peeled off? The fact is, we know they’re out there now, so we know they pose a threat.”
“Do we know that?” Rem asked. He was crouching by a hastily made fire. He’d changed into the only other clothes he’d brought with him while his original garments hung on rough drying racks made of secondhand twigs and tree limbs. It was barely past midday, but his little jaunt in the river had made him feel as if sundown should be upon them at any moment.
Tuvera turned to glare at Rem. “Of course we know that,” she said. “They’re orcs.”
“Forgive me,” Rem said, doing his best to sound conversational and not insistent, “but my partner and I have had a lot of experience with orcs in Yenara. Contrary to popular belief, conflict with them is not a foregone conclusion.”
“So you say,” Torval sneered. “If we’re able to sometimes treat with them without violence in the city, it’s only for that reason: we are in the city. They are not in their element, they have very little advantage, and they’re only in the city because they want something. We have leverage against them there. But out here . . .”
“Help me out, will you?” Rem shot back. He returned to Tuvera and the lord marshal and their soldiers. “It is possible to avoid confrontation, if we just leave them be. But if we adopt a defensive stance and draw swords at the first sign of them—”
“I see orcs,” Elvaris broke in, “I draw my sword. That’s not even a question.”
Rem threw up his hands. “Then they’ll draw, and words will be exchanged, and then come blows, and finally blood.”
“At last the boy talks sense,” the lord marshal said.
“I’m not saying we shouldn’t be cautious,” Rem said. “I’m just saying we’ve no reason to look for a fight. We carry on, eyes peeled, and if these orcs show themselves, we try to talk to them before fighting them.”
“Forgive me,” Torval grumbled, “but I shall have to disagree with my partner on this point. They’re beasts, every one of them, and you can’t be too careful if you encounter them. If they show themselves, we have to be ready to hit first and hit hard.”
“A sound plan,” Tuvera agreed.
Rem shook his head. “Fine. Go off with your crossbow half cranked and ready to fire. You’ll get us all killed.”
“Far be it from me to interrupt,” the Lady Tzimena suddenly broke in, “but if there are, in fact, orcs about, shouldn’t we be moving on, with haste?”
“I’ll second that,” Croften said. “With respect, milady.”
The Lady Tzimena gave the big scout a nod.
Croften carried on. “Orcs or no, threat or no, we need to push on before dark. We’ve only got a few hours left, and the road ahead is winding.”
“Then police yourselves,” the lord marshal said with finality. “We move out again in a quarter hour.” He made a point of glaring at Rem. “Those not ready will be left behind.”
“Does anyone want to know my thoughts?” the Red Raven asked from his cage.
“No,” the lord marshal, Tuvera, and Torval all said in unison.
The Raven shook his head, sighed, and carried on anyway. “Orcs are the least of your worries now. Crossing that river put you well into the wood—into the very heart of it. This is bandit country now.”
“You would know about that, wouldn’t you?” the lord marshal asked as he prepared his horse.
“Better than some,” the Red Raven said. Rem caught the inherent provocation in the statement, but noted that the lord marshal refused to acknowledge the Raven’s taunt.
Tuvera approached the cage. She eyed the Raven levelly, then finally spoke. “Just know, sir, that if your Devils of the Weald try anything untoward, you’ll be the first to meet the sword.”
Rem threw a glance at Torval. If only Tuvera knew . . .
The Raven stared back at Tuvera through the bars of his cage. “My Devils are the least of your worries, Captain. This forest is crawling with brigand bands. The Wastrels. Slaymaker and Sons. And let’s not forget those Bloody Boskers—”
“Bah,” Croften said from beside his own mount. He was checking his horse’s girth straps and inspecting each hoof, one after the other. “The Bloody Boskers are a gods-damned bedtime story. You’ll have to try harder than that.”
“They’re no story,” the Raven said with assurance. “My own Devils have had run-ins with them. I’ve lost men and women to their inhuman hunger. If you ask me, they’re to blame for that bloody scene you found yesterday, not these roving orcs. Orcs don’t peel people’s faces from their skulls—but the Boskers do. I promise you, if we meet them on this road, not a one of us is likely to come out of the encounter intact.”
“And why is that?” Elvaris asked, incredulous.
“Because you’re not unified,” the Raven said simply. “The Boskers are inbred cannibals. Cunning, savage, nigh inhuman. We’d be better off meeting those orcs. At least the huffers will only kill us and take whatever we might have of value. The Bloody Boskers, though—they’ll drag every one of us back to their camp, then flay us, butcher us, and make meals of us for weeks to come. Since the lady and her nurse are pretty women, they might take their faces and keep them as heirlooms. The clan daughters will
certainly scalp them and keep their hair, for braiding and twine-making.”
“Be quiet,” the lord marshal said, not even looking at the outlaw.
“You know it’s the truth, Lord Marshal,” the Raven said. Rem sensed a sudden change in the man—a desperation, a sudden increase in the nervous energies he exuded. Was he trying to unbalance the lord marshal? To force a confrontation? It struck Rem as a rather inopportune time to do so . . .
“I said, be quiet,” the lord marshal repeated. He threw a fell glance at the Raven in his cage. “Don’t make me command you again.”
“How would your darling duke feel then, eh?” the Raven asked. “You, tasked with one simple job: bring the caged bird home for plucking. But what happens? We all end up under the Boskers’ knives, salted for jerky or bobbing about in a stew pot—”
The lord marshal finally broke from beside his mount and stalked toward the Red Raven’s cage. “I won’t tell you again,” he said.
“Please,” the Raven taunted. “Tell me again. Tell me again how affrighted I should be of a gods-damned liar and usurper! A kin murderer and—”
The strike came so quickly, as such a blur, that Rem barely understood what had happened until after it was already enacted. The lord marshal was holding his riding crop. With blinding speed he shot the blunt end of the crop—the hard, wooden handle—through the bars of the cage and slammed the Red Raven right in the teeth. The outlaw reeled and sprawled, grunting, and the lord marshal stood, staring, awaiting another clever retort. None came.
