Bloodraven

by Nunn, PL

  He blinked, suddenly seeing past the illusion of a great clump of boulders with the realization that a living thing slumbered against the mountainside. A monstrous living thing that could have picked Bloodraven up in its hand and broken him, that had a body no less thick than one of the great, old trees in the forest and when standing would have towered four times Bloodraven’s height. What he’d first overlooked as a uprooted tree lying near the living mass, he now realized was a crudely carved club. Scattered around, poking through the snow here and there were the bones of animals, as if this thing had feasted and then settled down to nap afterwards.

  He searched for the feel of it, as he might search for the presence of an animal in the wood and discovered only a deep, dull rumble of life that seemed almost as mindless as the sense of life that he might find in the earth itself, if he concentrated hard enough.

  Bloodraven started backing down the slope, urging Yhalen with him. They quietly made their way back to the horses and Bloodraven caught Yhalen by the waist and lifted him up onto the back of his, then lingered for a moment, hand on Yhalen’s leg and said very softly, “Mountain Troll. It’s eaten well, and will sleep soundly for many days, perhaps weeks. It’s rare to see one so far down from the heights. The storm drove it here…and hunger. We’ll tread quietly until we’re far from this site.”

  Then he moved to his own horse and led them on foot for a good way, until finally he deemed them a safe distance and mounted, a grim smile upon his face as if he were amused at how close they’d been to certain destruction.

  “Have you ever run into one that was awake?”

  Yhalen looked over his shoulder, still shaken from the realization that such creatures existed.

  “Yes,” Bloodraven said. “By sheer bad fortune. They’re swifter than you might think, mountain trolls, and half of the party I was with, died at its hands.”

  “You didn’t fight it?”

  Bloodraven laughed humorlessly. “Only if there are death wishes involved. No. Those of us that could, fled.”

  Yhalen looked back over his shoulder at the distant finger of rock that marked the troll’s sleeping spot and shivered from more than the cold.

  They traveled further into dusk than was Bloodraven’s usual habit and settled on a campsite long after the day had turned purple with shadows. Yhalen assumed Bloodraven wanted to put as much distance between them and the slumbering giant as possible, though the extra hour or two’s ride had wearied him more than he’d have imagined. Falling into sleep would have been a welcome thing, but he forced himself to care for his mount, rubbing it down and feeding it. He’d have gone for the mule, determined in his newfound desire to shoulder his share of the burdens of travel, but Bloodraven waved him off with a grunt, indicating the pile of sticks and downed limbs he had gathered from around the campsite.

  He had left the building of campfires solely up to Yhalen, having reached the conclusion that Yhalen had a unnatural talent for it, but he generally made himself scarce during the making of them, a sure enough indication that he suspected what that talent was. He uttered not a word of superstitious complaint though, so Yhalen surmised that he’d come to terms with the notion, even as Yhalen had, practicality winning out over superstition.

  Yhalen slept well, curled against Bloodraven’s body, and woke early the next morning to the sound of Vorja’s low growls. He was displaced ungracefully before he’d fully woken, as Bloodraven threw off blankets and rolled to his feet, hand already on the hilt of his great sword. The dog was facing west, her hackles up, her head low, small eyes peering into the long morning shadows between trees.

  West meant something other than the troll, and since Yhalen could think of nothing so intimidating as that great mountain of flesh, he breathed somewhat easier, despite Bloodraven’s tension. He gripped the hilt of his dagger, nonetheless, as he hastened towards the horses, loosening their hobbles and slipping bridles over big heads in case they had need of quick flight.

  Bloodraven motioned for him to stay where he was, then with a soft word to the dog, slipped into the woods. Yhalen cursed, left like a woman by the horses. He’d a good mind to ignore the command and follow, knowing very well, that snow or no, he could move quietly and unseen through such a thick mountain wood. The thought of ravenous highland wolves and lumbering monsters from the heights gave him pause. This wasn’t his forest, after all, and with only a dagger, he wasn’t equipped to stave off serious attack.

  He made do saddling horses not pleased with being outfitted before they’d had their morning grain, and hastily rolling their bedrolls and fastening them and the packs to the mule.

  He moved out to the edge of the camp afterwards, staring into the woods, expanding his Ydregi hunter’s senses for signs of life and felt a string of consciousness, focused and intent, mingling with the overall hum of lower life in the forest. It was not the single-minded mentality of the wolf pack, but a scattered array of individual presences, all intent upon the same purpose.

  He drew his dagger, spooked, and turned to retreat to the horses, ready to mount and flee if the need arose. He was halfway there, when something emerged from the woods beyond the animals.

  Twice his height and bristling with leather and crudely smithed metal, a wicked spike-studded club held in a meaty hand, wearing a leather helm decorated with feathers and bones that sat low on a sloping forehead, but did not hide the tall, tapering ears of an ogre. A full-blooded ogre with sharpened yellow teeth and small, merciless eyes.

  Yhalen felt the blood drain from his face, leaving him lightheaded and witless, standing there gaping instead of running for his life. The ogre rumbled something in the ogre language and started towards him, lifting the club threateningly. Yhalen couldn’t think past the terrible images of the past that crowded into his mind.

  “Cra’nak hagh ok nuh’ra!” a voice roared from behind him, and the horses shied as more great figures converged upon the trampled campsite. A hand grasped Yhalen’s wrist from behind, wrenching the dagger from nerveless fingers, and then he was shoved forward and to his knees in the snow.

  They surrounded him, a great many thick legs and towering bodies. One set of legs stood close enough that his shoulder brushed a thick calf. He glanced up through the fall of his bangs, and noted absently that it was Bloodraven. Bloodraven who still held his dagger loosely in his big hand.

  Bloodraven who spoke harshly with the newcomers, gesturing now and then with sharp movements of his hands.

  There was animosity in the faces of the others. Bloodraven was doing a good deal of the talking, but they seemed unimpressed. One of them laughed and shoved him and Bloodraven growled and retaliated with the dagger at the throat of the larger ogre in a move faster than his accoster could perceive. There was a moment of hushed silence, of expectation of bloodshed. Bloodraven whispered something, low and dangerous, and the ogre with the blade at his throat flinched. Then Bloodraven stepped back, sneering, turning his back purposefully upon the other. A snub, it seemed, and the other ogres rumbled with malicious amusement. Some of the hands on weapons loosened, Bloodraven having gained face among them.

  One of them stabbed a finger at Yhalen and he cringed a little, lowering his lashes behind the shield of his hair. Bloodraven shrugged and grasped the root of his braid, pulling him up off his hands and forcing his head back, baring the simple ring of bronze around his neck. Bloodraven released him then, when they’d all seen the clear mark of slavery. Of ownership. And Yhalen lowered his head, staring blindly at the muddy snow, numbness beginning to wear off and rational fear moving in to take its place.

  He had known they were traveling to the ogre clans, had known he was willfully returning to the hands of the stuff of his nightmares, and yet for all that, it had been an abstract idea, distant and unreal compared to the confusing dilemma he faced every day with Bloodraven’s presence.

  What a fool he’d been to docilely agree to it.

  Some agreement must have been reached, for the milling group seemed to
relax, some of them ambling over to horses too small by far to carry any of their weights. Even Bloodraven’s big mount would have been hard pressed to walk under the bulk of an ogre full-grown. Yhalen caught sight of Vorja, wary and showing teeth now and again, roaming the edge of the gathering.

  They were a hunting party, he surmised, when fresh caresses were dragged out of the wood. A large boar and a doe that had been gutted were strapped on to the back of Yhalen’s horse, smearing tack with blood. He supposed that meant he wouldn’t be riding.

  One of them jarred into him in passing, an intentional misstep, he was sure. It sent him sprawling in the snow, and they laughed at that. Yhalen didn’t even look up to see which one had done it, simply gathered himself back to his knees and knelt there, head down, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.

  They sat out, tromping into the woods, a band of low-browed giants, thick with rustic armor and crude weaponry. Bloodraven pulled Yhalen to his feet and propelled him ahead of him. He stumbled, managed to keep his footing, and staggered once again, floundering in deep snow, before Bloodraven caught him firmly by the arm and hauled him along a few steps, bending low and whispering low enough only for Yhalen’s ears, “Remember.”

  Then he released him and strode purposefully along ahead.

  Yhalen supposed he meant remember that he was a slave to act the part. Remember not to speak and to jump when ordered and to bow and scrape in fear of his life.

  An ogre veered towards him, with ill intent perhaps on his small mind, but Vorja trotted up then, large and showing teeth, and the ogre decided on a different route. Just ahead, Yhalen noted that Bloodraven’s hand eased off the hilt of his sword, and he thought that he also ought to remember that Bloodraven had a tendency to go to great lengths to protect what he considered his.

  It was little enough comfort.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  These warriors were from a clan strange to Bloodraven. All they saw when they looked upon him was a half-breed without the numbers of a war party to back him up. With nothing more than the weapons at his side to prevent a full-blooded ogre, should he so decide, from proving his superiority over a halfling with weak human blood in his veins.

  It was a prickly thing, keeping face among their none too subtle intimidation tactics, without provoking them to violence. He had become very adept over the years at not showing fear. Of meeting the eyes of a larger, dumber beast and exerting a force of will that made size irrelevant.

  On the other hand, his tainted blood worked in his favor. His smaller stature among them made him seem less the threat. They might kill a full-blooded ogre male out of hand to avoid the disruption to their hierarchy of power, but being arrogant warriors, they would not show the full extent of their distrust of a stranger who they considered inferior.

  He hoped. For if they did turn against him, they’d overwhelm him and leave his corpse in the snow for scavengers. And Yhalen—Yhalen would learn, if they let him live past the night—what it truly meant to be a human slave among ogres.

  But as it was, they were pleased with themselves, having had a successful hunt and acquiring three sturdy equines to boot. Few horses could survive the mountain winters, and the fact that these had and were adept at travel over treacherous terrain, made them valuable as beasts of burden in a way that the slow, oversized oxen, bred by the tribes on the far ranges, were not. The leader of this small hunting party would gain face when they returned to their tribe with his acquisition.

  Bloodraven didn’t dispute it. Not yet, at any rate. Let them preen over the horses, let them insult him—to a point—and try to establish a dominance that he wasn’t willing to fully grant them, as long as they kept their weapons at their sides and their hands from his human.

  He had been worried that Yhalen would destroy them both with his stubbornness and refusal to act the part of a humble slave, but the human had surprised him, acting as meek and obedient as any slave broken by the yoke of ogre mastership. It was fear, Bloodraven thought, and memories of what had happened at the hands of Deathclaw and his cronies. Just as well, in this instance, that Yhalen recalled so vividly, for the spark of rebellion would only incite their new companions.

  He stayed as close as he dared, restraining himself from responding if one of the hunting party practiced their little amusements, like purposefully shouldering the much smaller human aside, or outright shoving him if they thought he lagged. Yhalen would inevitably stumble and sprawl into the snow at these times, and they would laugh among themselves and belittle human frailties.

  After the first time, Bloodraven never moved to haul him up. What ogre master would do more than bark at a lazy human to stop dallying and move or be beaten? He growled such threats on more than one occasion, to the amusement of the other ogres, but he doubted—despite the days of exploring the ogre tongue—that Yhalen had an inkling what the words meant. He understood the tone though, and would very occasionally send Bloodraven narrow glares from under the thick shield of long, tangled bangs.

  Vorja wondered not far from where Yhalen trudged, having been set upon the task of warding him by a low word from Bloodraven. She understood well enough what was expected, and knew very well now that Yhalen was ‘ pack’ and not prey.

  It was a rough day’s travel for Yhalen though, on foot through snow that sometimes topped his knees. Any resentments he might have started with, had long since been washed away by fatigue by the time the ogres decided to stop and camp. If they’d traveled anything but a leisurely pace, the hunters in no particular hurry to return home, he could never have kept up on foot.

  As it was he dropped numbly to his knees in the spot they chose for camp, the sheltered lee of a cliff where the snow was only an inch thick dusting on the rock shadowed ground. One of the ogres—Bloodraven thought his name was Yellowtooth—growled and shoved Yhalen hard enough to send him tumbling.

  “You gather wood, lazy slave!”

  Yhalen lay where he’d landed, gasping and staring with wide-eyed incomprehension. Yellowtooth bristled when his command wasn’t immediately acted upon, taking a threatening step towards the human. Bloodraven got to Yhalen first, hauling him up by the arm.

  “Get wood,” he growled in the human tongue and gave Yhalen a little shake to make sure the order was understood. Yhalen only gave him the briefest of looks, eyes drawn beyond him to the full-sized ogre that no doubt glared over his shoulder. Then he nodded, and stumbled off to the surrounding wood, rubbing the arm that Bloodraven’s grip had undoubtedly bruised.

  Bloodraven straightened his shoulders, and turned, meeting Yellowtooth’s narrow gaze. The others showed interest as well.

  “I captured him in the south,” he explained shortly. “He doesn’t understand our words.”

  “Stupid human.” Yellowtooth spat into the snow in disgust, but the carcass his fellows had taken down off the horse soon captured his attention.

  By the time Yhalen stumbled back with an armful of wood, they had hacked it into smaller pieces and were quarreling among themselves for the choice cuts. He dropped it into a heap near the cliff wall, and fell to his knees beside it. He had no flint and metal to start the fire on his person, having given up that arduous method some time ago. Creating fire out of thin air without tools would have been a briefly amusing way of calling their doom down upon them in the form of superstitious ogre warriors, but Bloodraven preferred to find his entertainments elsewhere. He untied the small tinder pouch at his belt where he kept his own mundane, fire-making tools and tossed it to Yhalen.

  It hit the dirty snow at Yhalen’s side and he stared dumbly at it for a moment, before picking it up and emptying the contents into his hands. He began to strike the metal, creating tiny, weak sparks that died as soon as they touched damp wood.

  The ogres barked at him to hurry, impatient now to sear their supper. Yhalen flinched at the tone, and a not so tiny tongue of flame crackled to life at the point where he had last struck flint. He leaned over it, as if blowing it to life, but Bloodr
aven personally doubted the flame needed any encouragement to grow, being anything but ordinary in its conception.

  The ogres advanced upon the fire, and Yhalen scrambled back out of their way.

  “Tell him to gather more wood,” Yellowtooth said.

  “Gather it yourself if you want it to last the night,” Bloodraven suggested and moved his hand to the hilt of his sword as Yellowtooth growled and tensed, very clearly debating the depth of that offense and whether he needed to address it to save face among his peers.

  Bloodraven jerked his chin towards Yhalen, who sagged against a snow-dusted rock, head drooping onto his arms. “This is a weak southern human. He has no stamina for even our mild northern terrain. He’d as likely fall in the snow and freeze as haul back more wood.”

  “Then let him, useless creature,” another of the warriors sneered.

  Bloodraven shrugged. “He serves other uses.”

  At which they sniggered, after comprehending the implications of that. He went to the horses and began unfastening his bedroll, which some of the ogres found issue with, having claimed the horses for themselves. One even went so far as to lay a hand on his shoulder to jerk him away from the packs, but Bloodraven proved his swiftness and his knowledge of points to inflicting the greatest pain by snatching the thick wrist off his person and bending two big fingers back in such a fashion that joints threatened to pop out of place. The ogre, half again his size, went down to one knee before him with a howl of pain and outrage.

  Yellowtooth found this amusing, and since Yellowtooth was the dominant warrior, the others—who had stirred uneasily with the scent of violence—settled back down and chortled at their fellow’s discomfort. Bloodraven let the fellow go and kicked him backwards with a boot square in the chest, thus establishing himself as something less than bottom of the hierarchy in this gathering.

  The meat was thrust over the fire on sticks and barely left in the flame long enough to sear the outside before it was devoured. Bloodraven claimed a slab from the dwindling pile of butchered deer meat and cut it with Yhalen’s knife into smaller chunks for roasting. He ate slowly, casually casting a chunk to Yhalen now and then, as if it were scraps he was discarding instead of choice pieces of meat.