by Nunn, PL
Bloodraven caught the dog by the scruff of the neck and hauled her backwards away from the cowering human. Vorjd stared wide-eyed at the sullen beast, his lean body striped with the gouges of a cruel whipping, his face bruised. It was easy enough to guess that the ill treatment had come from Vorjd’s association with Bloodraven.
Like the other human slaves, Vorjd should have taken this opportunity to flee. Why he was here, on Bloodraven’s trail, was baffling.
“Why do you follow?” Bloodraven asked. “You’re free. Find your people.”
Vorjd stared up at him with hollow, bruised eyes. There was a great deal of dried blood in his beard and the hint of broken teeth behind his lips.
“I have no people,” the human said hoarsely. “Yours wiped my family out. They’ll kill me if I return, for I’m your slave.”
“No longer,” Bloodraven said. “We go to human lands. Come if you wish—or go. Find a place where other humans will welcome you.”
Vorjd made a sound that might have been despair or might have been grim humor.
“He said such things to me.”
Bloodraven knew who ‘he’ was without asking, could tell by the inflection in Vorjd’s rough voice.
“Did he?”
“I didn’t heed him. I didn’t know how.”
Bloodraven stared past the human into the shadow of the woods. Before Yhalen’s wellspring of destructive magicks, he had not known either. Not a certain way to freedom from the clan at any rate.
“Do what you will,” he said simply and turned to return to camp. He’d been away too long.
He sensed the wrongness before he reached camp. Felt the gathering of something heavy in the air that made his skin tingle and his hair stand on end. The small fire was flickering, dancing in an unusual manner as if the flames were being fueled by something other than deadwood. He saw a spark in the air, a brief flash of airborne fire, quick to birth and quick to death. Then another, brilliant in the darkness.
He cursed and hurried to where he’d left Yhalen. He found the human stirring in the simple bedding, murmuring incoherently on the verge of a nightmare, and waking fast. The ground upon which he knelt was warm and uncannily so. The leaves rustled as if something moved beneath them and Bloodraven felt a shiver of dread that he fought back in favor of reaching for the pouch with the herb pellets. He popped one into Yhalen’s mouth and then pulled the slender body into his arms, stroking hair and back murmuring whispered nonsense in the human tongue until the thrashing stilled. The fire settled with him and the strangeness dissipated from the air. None of the ogr’rons had stirred, sleeping unawares through the arcane magicks that had gathered in the air around them.
Only Vorjd had seen, and Bloodraven doubted that the human understood—if he’d even noted what had almost happened. Just as well, for Bloodraven had no patience to placate when his own heart was hammering rapidly in his chest. He’d hoped that the dread powers awakened in Yhalen would retreat back into dormancy once the human was whole and safe, but if they surfaced even in sleep during the throes of nightmares—which he knew Yhalen was all too prone to have—Bloodraven feared that there would be perilous times ahead.
Perhaps, then, it was a fortuitous thing that Vorjd had followed. If he had to keep Yhalen drugged and unable to fend for himself, then the other human would be of use. For even though he valued his brethren, he didn’t trust his human in their care. They were too used to humans as slaves or enemies, and they feared what Yhalen was to boot. Vorjd he trusted not to try and break Yhalen’s neck while his back was turned, for there would surely be times during this trek when, out of necessity, his attention might be elsewhere.
They moved on at the first traces of morning, the lack of breakfast still rumbling in their stomachs.
Bloodraven let them dally sometimes along the trail in the gathering of mushrooms and roots and berries. Flytrue took down a winter hare and then a berry-fat fowl that was slow to take flight at their approach. Among twenty it would be a sparse meal, but it was better than nothing and it cheered them, the taking of prey. Vorja he let loose to range, set to the task of guarding their flanks.
The ogr’rons took the appearance of Vorjd in stride. He was familiar enough to them and no threat, and a keen gatherer, with his small human hands and sharp human eyes that were often better at finding secreted morsels hidden within the gnarl of tree roots or within thick, thorny bramble.
“He comes of his own will,” Bloodraven had told them and whether they understood the concept of a man who’d been a slave among them for almost a decade, abruptly existing among them as free, Bloodraven could only guess. He rather thought the concept would be slow to absorb, but if Vorjd chose to stay and be set to trivial tasks, shouldering more than his share of the work, then so be it.
Bloodraven would only step in if a hand were raised towards him, for his people had to learn and quickly that if they were to be accepted into human lands, then turmoil among them and human men was to be avoided. It would be a hard lesson, after a lifetime of treating humans as enemy and prey.
Bloodraven himself found it hard to shake clan-born notions. The notion of not considering Yhalen a possession of his came hard.
It had drizzled rain all morning, but by mid-afternoon it had stopped and they paused near a mountain brook to strip the berries from a gathering of full bushes along the bank. Yhalen stirred when Bloodraven laid him down, opening sleep-crusted eyes and murmuring with foggy incoherence.
Something about having to pee. Even with the drugs, basic needs would have to be attended.
Bloodraven propped Yhalen up on one arm and caught his face, forcing the wavering gaze to meet his own. The albino slave had told him that a body could function on a steady diet of the herbs, but the mind would hover half asleep. Bloodraven had seen this when Yhalen had first been brought to council, weak-kneed and biddable. Yhalen’s dark rimmed eyes were distant, pupils large and not quite focusing on Bloodraven’s face. There were still long stains of dried blood on his face, and his fine hair was crusted and tangled with it. The filth annoyed Bloodraven—the reminders of what had been done to a creature of great value to him. The ogr’rons were happily stripping the bushes of berries, so he decided to extend their rest and take care of his own.
“Up,” he said and pulled Yhalen to his feet, holding fast to his upper arm when the human swayed.
He took him a little ways downstream and unlaced Yhalen’s pants when Yhalen’s fingers could not manage the feat, then took Yhalen’s small, soft cock in his big fingers to aim outwards when Yhalen didn’t think to do it for himself, content to lean back against Bloodraven and dribble down his pants leg.
Bloodraven shook his head in mild annoyance, not used to being anyone’s nursemaid. He moved Yhalen to the bank of the brook and stripped off his pants and his tunic. He cut a corner of the cloak and wet it, then sat and cleansed Yhalen’s slender white limbs of blood and filth while Yhalen stood swaying drunkenly. It was more of a task to clean the hair, and more of a trauma for Yhalen when Bloodraven ducked his head into the cold brook to soak the hair and rinse out the blood. Yhalen gasped and cried out, jerking back from the cold in shock.
Bloodraven gathered him in cloak and arms, holding him fast while he trembled. He was murmuring things that Bloodraven couldn’t quite catch. Speaking to people that weren’t there and answering as if he heard voices that Bloodraven could not. The gibberish of the mad, Bloodraven thought with despair.
He dressed his human, then worked at Yhalen’s hair with determination until the tangles were finger combed out and the great length of it mostly dry—though Bloodraven’s cloak was damp as a result.
He turned Yhalen in his arms afterwards, wanting to see some sign of the human that he had become accustomed to, wanting that spark of cherished rebellion in those green eyes. Anything—the stubbornness, the empathy, any of the hundred expressions that sane Yhalen wore. Yhalen merely stared up at him hazily, his soft mouth half-parted as his small, pink tongue darted ou
t to moisten his lips. And then something did spark in his eyes, some sort of recognition that Bloodraven hoped had nothing to do with him, for fear came with it and a sudden struggle to get away.
“No. No. No,” Yhalen cried and writhed in Bloodraven’s hands. Bloodraven let him go, the fingertips of his left hand suddenly sparking with pain. Yhalen sprawled, looking past Bloodraven to the foliage above and holding up his arms as if to protect him from something above. Bloodraven stared up and saw nothing but trees. A high limb burst into flame, leaves consumed in seconds and floating down towards earth in glowing embers.
He hissed and pounced on Yhalen, slamming him into the soft earth of the bank hard enough to stun, then forcing another pellet into his mouth and held his jaw closed the few precious seconds it needed to dissolve. As it did he swept Yhalen up into his arms, pelting up the bank towards the other ogr’ron as the fire spread in the tree tops behind him.
“Gather everything. Quickly,” he shouted. “Fire in the wood.”
Fire was no small thing, and they quickly abandoned their berries to snatch up packs and run across the shallow brook, up the game trail he had them following. The wood was wet from the morning’s rain, and he prayed to the mountain spirits that without Yhalen’s magicks fueling it, the fire would not spread and take out half the mountain forest.
It was only later, when they had outraced the danger, that he took the time to look down at his hand. The pads of his fingers were blackened, as if he’d laid them against hot coals. He shut his eyes and allowed himself a tremor of despair now that danger was past. How was Yhalen to heal if madness overtook him with each wakening? How was Bloodraven to help him if his life was at peril each time a glimmer of awareness sparked within Yhalen’s green eyes? He risked his people with Yhalen’s presence. He risked so much that he had fought to gain and yet the notion of solving the problem once and for all made him grieve.
He looked back over his shoulder and saw wisps of smoke from a dying fire rise above the treetops.
Luck had been with them this time. Only vigilance and a bit of that same luck might prevent the next disaster. That, and perhaps a slice of cold-hearted practicality on his part. He prayed to the no doubt disturbed mountain spirits that it didn’t come to that.
CHAPTER THIRTY
It was perilous and trying, juggling the fears of a group of halflings—most of whom had never ventured a day’s journey outside the boundaries of the village. It was made more difficult by dealing with the more prickly, potentially dangerous matter of his human. He feared for Yhalen’s survival.
Drugged as he was, forcing food and water upon him was difficult. Yet allowing the effects of the little pellets to wear too thin caused Yhalen to fall into the beginnings of a nightmare-induced frenzy, drawing forth magicks that either fed upon his madness or—more frightening notion—fueled it.
Bloodraven’s nerves were frayed and prickly, his temper less than charitable when bickering or complaints among the halflings disturbed his fragile peace. He was less tolerant of the dangers of the trail, taking great delight in meting out violent solutions to obstacles in their path.
They made good time though, for having traveled the path once, he remembered it well enough to avoid the pitfalls that he and Yhalen had discovered on the inbound journey.
Vorjd proved useful in caring for Yhalen. Though Bloodraven carried his human during the day, fortifying the campsite at night took his attention. As well, Vorjd’s smaller human hands were often better at the delicate task of forcing food and water down a lethargic throat than were his own.
When they reached the territory of the ogre tribe that Yhalen had called the mountain troll down upon, Bloodraven veered wide around the area of the village and warned his folk to travel cautiously.
But no hostile ogres fell upon them, and they cleared the region with no ill luck. Snow fell the day after, making travel more difficult, but the halflings were well used to foul weather and trudged onward.
They heard the baying of wolves close by on many occasions, but no pack—even a desperate and hungry one—would be so bold as to attack so large a group of ogres. Bloodraven almost wished they would, for whetting his sword against the hide of a rangy mountain scavenger would have relieved the tension within him.
It was two days later, on the verge of dusk, while he searched for a safe spot to make camp that the apparition appeared through the shroud of snow-cloaked woods.
Vorja ranged not far from his side and was taken no less off her guard than him when the horse appeared. Her growl of warning and instinctive rush towards the intruder faltered as she stopped midway towards her goal, ears flat against her head. She began backing away, spay-legged and frightened as the horse kept coming, picking its way through knee-deep snow as if it were no particular obstacle. It was black and stout, with a mane that fell well past its arched neck and a tail that dragged in the snow behind it. It was the eyes that marked it as no ordinary beast, though. Red, and simmering with an inner fire as if the beast had been summoned from some darker, more menacing plane. It might well have been, considering its rider.
Bloodraven fought the urge to draw his sword and held up a staying hand when the straggling members of his party began to appear, exclaiming in alarm at the sight of the rider and horse.
“Human,” the murmur went up, but Bloodraven had doubts as to the accuracy of that.
They stood behind him, uncertain and wary—sensing, perhaps, the same cool danger in the air that Vorja had scented so clearly. Bloodraven moved forward with Yhalen against his shoulder and looked up at the lord of Fah’nak Gol.
Elvardo stared down, draped in black from neck to toes, his skin pale and devoid of any of the blush of chapping other humans wore from the harsh bite of mountain winter. What he was doing here, Bloodraven could only hazard a guess. How he had found them he preferred not to dwell on.
“What a lot of noise you’ve made,” Elvardo remarked, gaze flickering over the burden Bloodraven carried. “The land cried out. Even so distant, it disturbed my peace, but then, the earth currents run deep and they were greatly agitated.”
“What do you seek?” Bloodraven asked.
Elvardo lifted a brow. “The sating of curiosity, what else? When so raw a power makes the mountains shake, it is worth my time to see it properly curbed. I have a mountain vale of my own to think of. As you do. But I see you have the matter in hand.” The dark lord canted his head, lips curved in a humorless smile. “Or do you?”
Bloodraven tightened his hold upon Yhalen, a shiver of apprehension flittering up his spine. Magic had come in search of magic, and found it.
“What do you want?” he asked again, having no trust in this fey-faced human who was lifetimes older than he seemed.
“It’s you who have want of me, halfling. A home. Protection. A remedy for the madness that sleeps in your arms.”
Bloodraven bared his teeth without meaning to and Elvardo laughed at the reflexive threat.
“Your welcome must have been warm indeed for him to wreak the havoc he did, with such madness to follow. Do you not wish a way out for him? Do you not seek my aid?”
“What price?”
Elvardo waved a hand. “What price indeed? What’s already been offered that would interest me for the invasion of my privacy? Little enough. The challenge of curbing fey-born magic has some appeal of its own. Do you not trust me, lord ogre?”
“No,” Bloodraven said bluntly and Elvardo laughed softly in honest amusement. But he had little choice, and Elvardo knew it—and this had been his goal all the time. He had simply not expected to reach it so soon.
“Give him over to me, and I will see what mending can be done.”
“And if there’s no remedy?” He had seen ogre warriors gone crazy berserk that never came back from the madness.
Elvardo shrugged. “It would be a shame.”
“No harm to him,” Bloodraven growled. “No hand but mine—”
He found it difficult to finish the sentence.
It had been a painful but easy enough thought, days ago, with the devastation of the village all around him. Now, the notion of putting Yhalen down lodged in his mind like a bone in the throat.
“Hmm, a man who takes responsibility for the problems he helped create. How noble.”
Almost Bloodraven disputed the term ‘man’, until he realized he was as much human as ogre, and on the way to living under human rule on the cusp of human lands. It was a reality they would all have to learn to accept—not as a defect in their breeding, but as an advantage.
Elvardo gestured, a flicker of impatience in his eyes. “Don’t you have a people to gather, or is this all there is of you? Not much of an army for your hopeful human conspirators. A poor population for this ‘haven’ you dream of building.”
“There are more,” Bloodraven growled.
“Then why don’t you go fetch them, and let these refugees travel on by themselves.”
“You’ll lead them to the valley?”
Elvardo lifted a brow. “I’m no guide. Besides, I travel by faster means. But they’ll be guided.” His eyes shifted staring into the air to the right of his mount for a moment. A faint glow appeared, weak against the backdrop of pale snow. It hovered, trembling minutely, the size of Bloodraven’s fist, and for a moment he thought it might have been alive—some firebug, perhaps, summoned by Elvardo. On closer inspection, there was nothing inside the glow but shifting light. He looked away, seeing after-images of the thing in his vision. The halflings shifted behind him, skittish around this casual display of magic as all the tales of human wizardry passed down by the tribe shamans no doubt flashed through their minds.
“My time is precious and my patience thin.”
Elvardo beckoned and Bloodraven ground his teeth, turning his head just a little to inhale the scent of Yhalen’s hair. But he stepped forward. The notion of parting with Yhalen, of willingly handing him over to a wizard whose intentions were unclear and whose motives were most assuredly not his own, was painful. But Bloodraven didn’t have the capacity to curb Yhalen’s magic while dealing with an unstrung mind. Elvardo did, and was a kinsman of Yhalen’s to boot. Bloodraven had to believe he had interest enough to preserve Yhalen’s life. And if he didn’t, Bloodraven knew where to find him, though the attempt at vengeance might end badly for him.