by Philip Smith
Eventually her stomach let forth an inhuman utterance as she smelled the aroma of roasting meat waft over to her. She rolled stiffly to her side then pushed herself up onto her palms as she looked to where the men gathered around a small fire pit. Robert roasted the rabbit Jesnake had shot earlier, along with two other little bunnies someone must have snagged while she was lying in her exhaustion.
“She lives!” Duelmaster cried with joy. Paige stood and limped towards the group. Her joints and muscles creaked with aching pain; her fingers felt numb from grabbing the rock crevices. She plopped down next to Duelmaster and watched the coals with a dazed, stupid expression.
“Dinner?” Robert asked, concern filling his blue eyes. She nodded, and he cut a strip of the juicy meat off the spit and handed it to her on a shaved wood skewer. She bit into the tender meat and closed her eyes with the wonderful taste that ensued. Robert cut the rest of the fat hare up and divided it amongst the rest of the men.
“This is delicious,” she said, ignoring the fact that her mouth was full.
“Isn’t it?” Robert said. “I rubbed it with a spice concoction we created. Dinendale found the wild onions, Broadside found some berries, and Woodcarver cut us some sappy pine wood to cook it over. Best meal we’ve had in some time.”
“He did alright,” Twostaves grumbled, following his begrudging praise with an enormous belch.
“Oh, yeah?” Broadside said, standing up and drawing up his full height. “You call that a burp!?!” He sucked in his breath, and pushed out his stocky chest as his face screwed up and contorted turning a slight shade of red. The men all cried out, “NO!” at the same moment, and ducked for cover.
All Paige remembered from what happened next was that Duelmaster shoved her to one side and covered her ears. The ground seemed to vibrate with earthquake-like tremors. There was the feeling of a mighty rushing wind, and a sonic boom hit the little group. When it was all quiet, they slowly sat up.
“Wow,” Broadside said, a dazed expression on his pudgy, and now red face. “That one surprised even me.”
They heard a slow rumble and glanced back towards the cliff they had spent all afternoon climbing and saw great plumes of dust from what had apparently been a minor rockslide.
“I....I apologize!” stammered the dwarf. “I saw it going differently in my head.”
“Way to go, moron,” Robert spat, decking the little man in the back of the head. “You put my fire out!”
◆◆◆
After the men had restarted the fire and settled down, Paige walked the short distance to the edge of the cliff wall. She sat down, tucking her knees under her chin and gazing out at the hilly highlands they had traversed. Somewhere in that sprawling blanket of vibrant yellow and orange leaves dotted with green patches of conifers, two villages lay burnt to the ground. Yet, from up here, the Wild sprawled out behind them as savage and untamed as ever. The view was breathtaking. The night stars and two half-moons cast a bluish glow on everything. The white caps of distant peaks sparkled and glowed in the moonbeams. She knew they still had a long way to go but took heart in the many miles she and the Brotherhood had already put behind them.
“Hey,” Robert plopped down beside her as he pulled out his knife and an apple from his robe.
“Hey, yourself,” she greeted back.
“I found an apple tree when we got wood,” he explained. “Want some?”
“No thanks,” she said, flipping her braid over her shoulder.
“Come on,” he probed. “You’ve had a steady diet of crusty bread and wild game for the last couple weeks. It will do you good.”
“Fine,” she said, more to get him to stop talking than for the apple.
He cut the fruit into two pieces and handed her one. He wiped the blade of his hunting knife on his robe, putting it back in the inner folds of the brown material. She bit into the slice and felt the sweet nectar enrapture her taste buds. It had been so long since she’d tasted something so sweet, so wild. Since it was the end of the season, whatever apples had been left on that tree must have gathered every bit of sweetness left in the tree as the season changed, and she could taste every note.
“You and Twostaves make up yet?” she asked, taking another bite.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Robert responded, tossing the apple core over the cliff.
Paige watched it fall to the dark ground hundreds of feet below. She shuddered to think that that could have been her or Jesnake only a few hours ago.
“Apparently,” Robert chewed the last few bites of apple, “we should only have another week or so to get to Aschin.”
“Only?” Paige muttered. It seemed like ages ago when they had set out from the willow tree, and now they had at least seven days before they would reach the city. And then there was the time needed to break Olivian out, and who knew how long that would take?
“Yeah, it’s not exactly a shortcut, not at the rate we’ve been going.” He wiped his hands off on his robe. “But… the enemy won't be at our back now. We’ll get to Aschin unseen, so we’ve regained at least some element of surprise.”
They sat in silence for a moment. It was a quiet night, and the cool breeze soothed Paige’s aching muscles. Robert looked at the stars, and then, to Paige’s surprise, began to sing.
“Through the mist,
The Naiads weep,
Along the brook,
They bend and creep,
The fairies sob,
In war-torn land,
All because a tyrant,
Burned forests to sand.”
“That was nice,” she said, smiling.
He turned to her. “Was that a compliment, Princess?” he asked with sarcastic surprise.
“Yes, I suppose it was,” she said.
“Well, I should very much like to compliment you back.”
She looked at him for a second, and then caught his meaning.
“No. I’m not going to sing,” she said turning her head away.
“Oh, come on. That’s no fair! Here I give you a nice serenade to entertain you, and I wasted all my breath for nothing!”
“ No!”
“Come on then, sing!” he insisted.
She blew a puff of air, blowing some stray hairs out of her face. “If I hum a few bars, will you leave it?” she asked. She folded her arms across her middle.
“Of course,” he said with a wave of his hand.
Paige took a deep breath. “You can’t laugh,” she said. She thought for a moment about what song to sing, and then began to let the elvish words lilt off her tongue. She sang an old lullaby her mother had taught them when she and Olivian were young. The words told were about a hero who went off to battle, promising his true love he’d come home; how he thought about her every moment while at war. Her voice was soft, but not quiet; rather it carried out to the Wild and it’s craggy highlands. In the darkness, somewhere afar off, a lone wolf howled to the blinking stars above. She let the final chorus fade as she came to a close, and then there was a moment of silence. She looked over at Robert. He was staring in absolute shock.
“That was....incredible,” he said, staring into her eyes with wonder and admiration.
“Don’t put your foot in your mouth, Eöl; after this week, it wouldn’t taste so great,” a voice said from behind them. Paige turned to see Dinendale standing behind them. She hadn't heard him come up.
“How long have you been standing there?” she demanded.
“Doesn’t matter. He’s snooping all the same,” Robert growled tartly under his breath.
Paige glared at Dinendale feeling a mix of annoyance and violation at his intrusion. No other ears were meant to be privy to her performance.
“I think the halfling has you beat, sir,” Dinendale said with a smile. Robert stood, and Paige did likewise.
“I’m tired,” Robert grumbled. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
He trudged back to the campsite, and Paige started to follow.
�
��That was a beautiful song,” Dinendale said to her as she walked past.
“Thank you,” she mumbled, embarrassed, as she continued to walk past the dark elf.
“I mean it,” he reached out and lightly touched her elbow. She halted her retreat and looked up at him. He stood there gazing at her, a small smile on his face. “You are full of surprises.”
“Everyone has surprises,” she looked up into his eyes as he chuckled.
“I guess we do,” he gave her another smile. The lone wolf howled again, and Paige shuddered. It was an eerie, cold sound. Dinendale smirked as he looked off into the distance.
“Sometimes I wish I were a wolf. Free to roam these lands without any bounds. It must be nice to have no one chasing you; no one wanting you dead-”
“All alone,” Paige added.
He stopped and looked at her. “Being alone is not a terrible fate. Sometimes, it’s the only way to survive.” He let out a long breath. “I had to do it for years.”
“But not everyone can be you,” she said, looking down. “I won’t leave my sister alone. I’m all she’s got.”
“Paige, I didn’t mean-”
“I know you didn’t. But still, there are people that love you here,” she gestured towards the camp. “To wish you could be free of all of them is selfish.”
With that, she walked back to her pine tree, leaving the elf at the edge of the cliff, with the wolf howling alone in the distance.
Chapter 14
Ripples
They awoke late the next morning, worn out from the previous day’s climb. Broadside whined and asked why they couldn’t have one day’s rest as they all massaged the kinks and knots out of their swollen muscles.
“After all,” he reasoned, struggling to cinch his belt and wincing, “we covered quite a bit of ground yesterday, and we could use the rest.”
“No,” Woodcarver snapped, hefting his own small pack. “We covered vertical ground, much less liniar ground. We cannot delay. If you rest, your muscles will toughen and become stiff. Then you will want to delay another day, and that is just as good as giving up. We must keep moving.”
The dwarf huffed his disappointment but didn’t press the matter. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Paige agreed with Woodcarver. Her muscles ache down to the bones, but they had to press on. She was growing more and more worried for Olivian’s safety with each passing hour. What if they arrived a week, a day, or even an hour too late? What would she do? How would she forgive herself for not pushing herself harder?
Jesnake had gotten up earlier than the others, and brought back some mountain berries for a meager breakfast. They were sweet to Paige’s mouth, considering she’d grown used to the wild game dinners. Quickly pacing themselves through the morning earned them a remarkable distance. By high noon, they were setting out onto the plateau.
The steppe was a nice change from the steep mountain slopes they had endured. Their feet were grateful for the temporary downward slope. The thick growth of the alpine allowed a soft blanket of pine needles to walk on, as well as shrubs and ferns. Today’s sky was overcast, keeping the air chilly and slightly damp. They walked on for several hours, chatting about the difference in the weather and the abundance of pine. Around mid-afternoon, they stopped to have a bite to eat.
“What food do we have left?” Dinendale asked Robert, who was carrying the supplies.
“We have about four day’s worth of bread,” he said, pulling the wrapped loaf out of his pack. “After that, it’s whatever we can shoot.”
“The game will get scarce after we pass into the highlands,” commented Jesnake. “I vote we go out and get some heavy meat today.”
“Uh oh,” Robert said.
“What is it?” Twostaves asked.
Robert held up the loaf for him to see. “Make that two days worth of bread,” Robert tossed the bread behind him, pulling out another loaf.
“What’s wrong with it?” Paige jogged over to where he had thrown the bread. Robert made a face. She jogged back after seeing maggots in the inside of the broken, moldy, loaf. The sight of the wiggling, white grubs made her stomach crawl, and the thought of biting into the writhing, pus-colored maggots made her near ready to lose the few berries she’d eaten for breakfast. “That’s so gross.” She stifled a gag.
Robert drew his hunting dagger and began cutting a different loaf. He sliced the bread into nine pieces, one for each person, and passed it out. After everyone made sure their bread had no trace of the devilish worms, they ate in silence. Paige chewed the staling bread as she observed the pines surrounding them on all sides, the creak of the bread crust against her teeth matching the groaning of the tree trunks un the wind.
“We should keep our eyes open for fresh meat then,” Twostaves said. “We can smoke it overnight. I can build a big smoking rack at camp tonight.”
“You’re not afraid someone might see the smoke?” Broadside questioned, skepticism etched into his face.
“Anyone behind us won’t be able to follow,” Woodcarver assured. “And no one is ahead of us till we cross the Raychels and begin descending into the valley where Aschin lies.”
They all agreed, finishing their bread by washing it down with large gulps of lukewarm water that in no way made the experience any more desirable. Once they were all finished, Dinendale, Jesnake, Robert, Broadside, and Paige herself strung their bows and drew themselves each an arrow. The rest of the crew drew hunting knives and dirks to assist in the hunt. They continued walking down the plateau, spreading out along the way to cover more ground. They stood about a bowshot apart, keeping their distance, but not out of sight from each other.
Paige tiptoed in her moccasins. They felt good now that they weren't soaked and rough with water. They still were not as soft as her old buckskin ones, but with the ground becoming more rocky she was glad they were made of stouter leather for these mountains.
She gripped her bow tightly, an arrow now resting against her bow hand. She looked about the woods with an expert eye, paying attention to wind direction and all the other little details Papa had instilled on their many hunts together.
Her mind drifted back to their last hunt together. She could still smell the leathery, woody smell that clung to him as tight as her mother did. She could still see his grin flashing in the sunlight as he pitched pine cones at her and wound up flat on his back. She shook the thoughts from her head like clingy cobwebs on a broom; she needed to focus. They had to keep moving forward, Olivian was all that mattered now. That was the only thing she had even remotely in her control, and even the task before her threatened to overwhelm her if she thought too long and hard about it.
They kept moving forward as they looked for any game to come down. They continued on this path for an hour or two. Then Paige became aware that Robert had stopped a ways on her left. She paused and stared into the forest, scanning the treeline for any irregular movement. It only took a moment to see the slight shifting in shades of brown to pick out the creatures Robert had spotted.
The creatures were about the size and shape of an average whitetail with a rusty grey coat that sported bellies of white hair. The bellies matched the hair that made up the short mane on their necks like that of a mule. They had long, slender faces and looked similar to the deer Paige grew up hunting, but she had never beheld creatures like this before. Three of the animals stood with horns shaped like half a recurve bow pointing backwards away from their heads. In addition to these magnificent crowns, small beards of thick hair draped under their chins like a goat, but with a longer tail that hung almost to the ground that had a tuft of the same thick beard hair at the end.
Robert drew his arrow and pulled it back so that his thumb barely touched his jaw. Paige watched him sight the shaft to the foremost creature, narrowing his eyes as his calculated the distance. His mouth twitched, ever so briefly, then he fired.
The instant the arrow thudded into the deer’s ribcage, the other two fled in opposite directions. One bolted towa
rds Paige. She stood from her crouch, drawing her own bow back to it’s full draw. The deer’s wide eyes saw her, and it attempted to change direction mid-bound. She released the arrow as she exhaled smoothly, just like Papa had taught her. The arrow hit the deer in-between the second and fourth ribs as it collapsed, and its chin drove into the ground. The animal slid to a stop a few feet in front of her, heaving and struggling to get up. She drew her knife to end the deer’s suffering, but at the same moment she stepped forward, a swan-feather-fletched arrow struck the deer’s forehead with a ear splitting crack. The skull shattered.
