by KM Merritt
Surely Braydon’s party would have beaten them by then.
Vola reached for the stuffed rabbit in her belt and stroked her thumb down its fuzzy head. What was happening to the missing people? What were the kidnappers using them for? A week could make all the difference in their survival.
This wasn’t going to work. They had to move faster.
Vola turned to her group, ready with a few choice words, but her censure died unspoken. Henri was smearing a green paste up and down Sorrel’s arms. He’d concocted the remedy as they’d trudged through the last mile of swamp. Sorrel wasn’t wincing anymore, and Lillie was leaning close with her book and pencil out.
“Can you teach me?” she asked Henri even though her nose was still streaming and her eyes were red.
“I’ll show you what I can,” Henri said with a quirk of his lips. “It’s not much. Just enough to keep a soldier alive until they can be moved to a healer.”
“It’s still more than I know,” Lillie said quietly, scribbling in her book.
“You’ll want to change into something clean,” Henri told Sorrel. “This will have to be washed. Or burned.” He held the hem of her tunic between two fingers.
“Washed, please,” she said. “It’s the only one I have.”
“You don’t have a change of clothes?” Vola said.
Sorrel shrugged. “I’m a monk. We don’t really go in for worldly possessions. I can run around naked while they dry as long as no one else cares about an undressed halfling.”
“I would let you borrow one of mine,” Lillie said with a flush. “But I also only have one set of clothes.”
Vola rubbed her forehead. Who’d have thought she would be the best outfitted of the group? Unless Talon was hiding a wardrobe underneath their cloak.
Vola dropped her pack to the ground with a squelch and dug around for a spare shirt which she tossed to Sorrel.
“Here. It…might be a bit big.”
Sorrel held it up. The cuffs dragged on the soggy ground. “At least no one will accuse me of being immodest,” she said with a smirk.
Vola huffed a laugh and dug out the tent. Then she disappeared behind some trees to take care of some necessary business.
When she got back, she found that her party members had started setting up camp.
The sight of Sorrel dressed in a shirt-gown trying to hammer a tent peg with another tent peg and Lillie tangled in the support cords nearly made her sigh and roll her eyes for the hundredth time since the day before. Couldn’t her lady have sent her anyone who was at least a little competent?
Then she saw Henri walking back into the clearing with a pile of wood dry enough for a fire and an amused expression.
In a couple of swift movements, he handed Sorrel the mallet with a laugh and a brief explanation on how to use it without crushing her fingers, and then he turned to untangle Lillie.
Talon strode back into the clearing and tossed a couple of rabbits and a grouse next to Vola. Vola hadn’t even noticed they were gone.
“Dinner,” Talon said simply.
“How did you—Where did you—Do rabbits even live in swamps?” Vola said.
Talon’s hood just stared. The wolf padded up beside them, and Talon reached out to rest a calloused hand on his fur.
“Never mind. Thank you,” she added after a pause. And she meant it. She’d fully intended to pass out the dried meat and nuts Becky had given them. Instead, she set about skinning and gutting the animals.
A gagging noise made her look up. Sorrel looked a little green and leaned as far away as she could.
“What’s wrong?” Vola said.
“What’s wrong is your rabbit’s inside out.”
Vola raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you ever help out in the monastery kitchen?”
“I tried not to, most of the time. For the same reason.”
Vola paused in her task. “You’re squeamish?”
“Why do you think I fight with my fists and blunt instruments? Less bloody that way.”
“Unless you crush a man’s skull,” Lillie said. “I was always under the impression that that was particularly messy.”
Sorrel gagged again. “Don’t remind me.”
Lillie knelt beside Vola. “I don’t know much, but I’m willing to learn if you’ll teach me.”
Vola’s mouth fell open. She blinked and for a moment all she could see was a gaggle of blonde beauties laughing as she knelt in the middle of a dirt road and snatched handfuls of bruised fruit off the ground. The memory superimposed itself over top of Lillie’s face, and Vola swallowed, the dichotomy making her gut clench.
Apparently, she hesitated too long because Henri knelt on Vola’s other side and took up the other rabbit. He leveled a quirked eyebrow in Vola’s direction before showing Lillie how to slit the hide before ripping it from the animal.
Sorrel nearly lost her lunch and scurried to the far side of the tent. Talon made room, and the two sat together in silence.
Vola finished skinning her rabbit with her head down and her fingers tight on the hilt of her belt knife. Beside her, Lillie murmured questions and Henri answered each one thoughtfully.
By the time the sun had fully set, they had a crackling fire and a halfway decent meal of rabbit stew and stuffed grouse. Talon had brought them enough that Vola had tossed half a rabbit to the wolf. The offering didn’t appear to change how he felt about her. He took it with an indifferent sniff and gnawed on his dinner with better table manners than a lot of the knights back at the academy.
Sorrel popped back over to them as soon as the food actually looked like food.
Within the circle of firelight, Vola looked up to find the night sky streaked with little sparks. She blinked and stood, picking out several that didn’t belong to their fire.
“Look,” she said quietly.
She couldn’t see the tor anymore in the dark, but flicks of light danced across the sky to a tall shadow in the distance, converging at a point above it.
“The lights Lord Arthorel mentioned,” Lillie murmured.
“They’re divine,” Sorrel said.
Vola glanced down. The halfling stood with her eyes on the sky, the sparks reflecting in their depths.
“They are?”
Sorrel nodded, lips tight. “Maxim’s Warhammer. It might actually be there.”
Vola blew out her breath. If they were up against a divine weapon, they had more to worry about than just being late.
She sat back down to cram her dinner in her mouth. “We need to move faster tomorrow.”
It didn’t actually matter if she scarfed her food and went to bed early. That wouldn’t get them going in the morning, but it felt better to be doing something.
Henri sat on a moss-covered log with a pail full of murky water and Sorrel’s clothes, rinsing the fabric over and over. Vola could see it was still stained, but hopefully it wouldn’t be the bearer of bad itch anymore.
“Do you think we can make it by tomorrow?” Lillie asked.
“Maybe. If we don’t have any more delays.”
She heard the rumble in her own voice and hid a wince. She didn't mean to sound so aggressive. It’s just this wasn’t how she imagined her first quest going at all. Everything seemed to rub her the wrong way, and an irritated orc was an aggressive orc.
Half-orc, she reminded herself. Vola struggled to find the human half of herself as Sorrel and Lillie took her hint and cleaned up their plates before heading into the tent. Henri bent to bank the fire without being asked, and Vola tried not to read disappointment in the angle of his neck.
Vola stepped toward the tree line to check the perimeter. The black wolf lay across the narrow opening between the trees, and he raised his head as Vola went by. His eyebrows twitched as Vola gave him a wide berth. When she’d circled the whole way around, Henri was laying his bedroll out on the other side of the fire. For as long as Vola had known him, Henri had never slept in a tent. When they were on the road, he preferred to lay so he could see
the stars as he fell asleep.
Talon squatted by the fire.
“There’s room in the tent,” Vola said.
The hood turned and Vola got the impression Talon’s eyes examined her from under it.
“No. First watch,” they said. “I’ll wake you when I need sleep.”
Then they disappeared into the trees. Vola flushed, the heat of her blood beating in her cheeks. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten something as basic as setting a watch.
If Henri had noticed, he said nothing, laying back with his head on his crooked arm.
Vola climbed into the tent and yanked her chain mail over her head. The leather straps creaked, and she forced herself to slow down. She was stuck with the old armor, and if it broke now just because she was angry, she’d have to fix it herself.
Lillie had created a little ball of magical light and was trying to come up with a way to hang it from the ceiling, making shadows bounce around the canvas walls.
Finally, Vola took it from her, wrapped a leather thong around the thing, and strapped it through a loop so it swung free and cast fewer shadows across the occupants.
Lillie smiled, and Vola was taken aback by the genuine pleasure in her expression. “Thank you,” she said. She shuffled around on her knees, shifting the bedroll around. “I’ve never actually slept on the ground.”
“Never? That’s odd,” Sorrel said. “Where are you from?
Lillie busied herself with the blankets. “Nowhere.”
“No one’s from nowhere.”
“I just meant it doesn’t really matter anymore. This is my life, and I’m going to live it.”
Sorrel shrugged, accepting that at face value. “You get used to it. And this is way better than my stone slab in the monastery.”
Vola shook her head. “Is that actually a thing? Or is it just something monks say to make everyone think they’re lofty and austere?”
Sorrel played with the rolled-up sleeves of her borrowed shirt. “Well, all right, it was a thin pallet on a stone floor. But that’s a lot like sleeping on a stone slab.”
And probably a lot closer to what they were about to do than the feather bed Lillie was apparently used to.
“I like this,” Lillie said with an airy gesture. “It’s cozy. Just like a slumber party, isn’t it?”
“Uh,” Vola said, completely at a loss for words. Lillie was the kind of girl who normally ran screaming from green skin and tusks, but there she sat, beaming at Vola like they were little girls in frilly pajamas waiting for bedtime.
“Just like,” Sorrel said. “Er, I think. I mean, our dormitory housed all the other monks and most of them snored. So that’s sort of like a slumber party, right?”
Lillie’s mouth dropped open. “Not even remotely.” She looked at Vola, wide eyes beseeching, as if she expected the half-orc to back her up about the whole slumber party thing.
“Uh,” Vola said again and shifted uncomfortably.
“You’ve never had a slumber party, either?” she asked.
“Of course not.” What kind of childhood did Lillie think she’d had? Village girls didn’t invite the local monster over for tea parties and sleepovers.
Lillie bit her lip and sank back on her heels. Vola had never kicked a puppy before, but she could imagine this was what it felt like.
Lillie just kept saying the wrong things, and then Vola kept saying the wrong things back to her. Like two actors reading from different scripts.
Resisting the surge of irritation, Vola reached up and returned the light to Lillie who doused it with a word.
Vola lay in the dark listening to the rustles of Sorrel and Lillie. It would be so easy to let the worry roll over her. And drown under the overwhelming idea that she’d picked the wrong partners, the wrong quest, maybe even the wrong profession.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think of something that had gone right today.
Talon knew what they were doing, obviously. And Sorrel had already demonstrated she could fight. And Lillie…Lillie was trying.
Henri had spent so much time slathering Sorrel in cream and teaching Lillie to skin a rabbit and watching their backs while they’d walked.
An image stirred in her mind’s eye. A lonely half-orc all elbows and knees, folded awkwardly at a desk in the academy library, sniffling over a book of troop movements. A grizzled trainer had came over to point out the enemy line’s weaknesses.
“Deep breaths, Vola,” Henri said in her memory. “How do you expect to be good at something you haven’t learned yet?”
Vola’s stomach clenched in remembered relief. Henri had always taught her so patiently. The least she could do was extend the same courtesy to the others.
This wasn’t a disaster. At least, it didn’t have to be a disaster. She just had to be more patient. Like Henri.
Vola sighed. Orcs weren’t known for their patience.
But then, neither were they known for being paladins.
Eleven
Vola took the last watch which meant she was awake when someone started thrashing about in their bedroll near dawn. The whole tent nearly shook with it, and Vola ducked inside. Lillie shivered under her covers, legs kicking out. Vola nudged her shoulder, trying to wake her without scaring her.
“Bad dream?” she said low enough not to wake Sorrel, who still snored.
Lillie lay on her side with her face in her hands. “Running,” she said, slurring like she was still half asleep. “Always running. Except my feet are glued to the floor and I can’t escape.”
“Yeah, I’ve had that one, too.”
Lillie rubbed her face and blinked up at Vola in the dim predawn light. “What?”
“The dream about running. I think everyone has that one sometimes.”
“Right,” Lillie said, sitting up. “Yes. Everyone has it. Of course.” She wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her cheek on them.
Vola chewed her lip. “Do you…want to talk about it?”
Please say no. Please say no.
“It was just a dream,” Lillie said to the tent wall.
Sure it was. Vola surveyed her but didn’t say anything more. If Lillie didn’t want to talk about it, great. Vola wasn’t good with all that emotional stuff.
“How does one become a paladin?” Lillie asked suddenly. “Is it like being a monk?” She gestured to Sorrel’s sleeping form. “Were you brought up to it?”
“Not really.” Vola settled back on her heels. “I knew how to fight but you have to graduate from a paladin academy to be able to call yourself a paladin.”
“So, you chose to serve the gods.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that. Anyone can choose to become a novice, but a god has to choose you in order to become a full candidate. There’s this whole ceremony.” Which Imralen had tried his best to bar her from. He’d only relented finally because of who chose her. He’d thought it fitting that an orc would serve a laughingstock.
“So you were chosen by one of the Virtues.”
Vola shifted uncomfortably, ready to steer the conversation away if Lillie asked which one.
“Is that unusual?”
“How so?” Vola said. “Gods choose paladins all the time.” Ona, the Greater Virtue of Honor and Maxim, the Greater Virtue of Strength and Loyalty being the most prolific.
“I just thought that orcs revered the Obstacles,” Lillie said, her cheeks going red in the dim light. “That’s why…”
“That’s why everyone hates us,” Vola finished for her.
“They don’t hate you,” Lillie said quietly. “They’re afraid of you.”
“It’s the same thing sometimes.” Vola stared up at the canvas ceiling. “Orcs revere strength above everything else. Strength of body, yes. But also strength of mind and heart. And they’re always looking for ways to make themselves stronger.”
Lillie cocked her head, finally meeting Vola’s gaze again.
“And the one thing that reliably makes you stronge
r is overcoming hardship,” Vola said.
Lillie’s mouth parted in recognition. “And since the Obstacles represent the hardships of mortal existence…”
“Adversity, shame, guilt. They welcome them all as a chance to grow. They even have a very special relationship with rage.”
“You say ‘they’ like you’re not one of them,” Lillie said quietly.
Vola picked at the edge of a blanket. “I chose something else.”
“A chance to become a paladin and serve one of the Virtues. Why?”
“Because I was fourteen and wanted to prove something.” She still wanted to prove something. She would always want to prove something for as long as the world looked at orcs and saw aggression and violence instead of strength and a deep honor.
“Who is it you serve, then?” Lillie asked. “Which Virtue?”
Vola cleared her throat and lifted the tent flap to indicate the lightening sky. “We should get moving.”
Lillie’s face fell, but she leaned over to wake Sorrel without asking any more questions Vola didn’t feel like answering.
She stooped to leave the tent, ignoring the little stab of guilt that made her stomach hurt. She forced herself to remember the way Lillie had avoided answering questions about her past. And when Sorrel spoke of the monastery, she never mentioned any people, no relationships or friends or mentors. And Talon was a complete mystery.
Seemed like they all had things to hide.
“Talon,” Vola called to the ranger, who squatted at the edge of the clearing feeding bits of jerky to the wolf. The ranger had slept outside with Henri. “Could you scout the best path to the tor from here? Something high and dry.” She just barely kept herself from glancing at Lillie, who was tumbling out of the tent. “I’d rather we didn’t fall into any more puddles today.”
Talon stood and brushed their rear end off before disappearing into the trees. Vola didn’t like the idea of splitting up, but it made perfect sense to send the scout out to, you know, actually scout.
