by Alex Aguilar
“One last favor,” he said, and then stepped out of the room.
* * *
“Not a word out of you… Or I’ll slice your babe’s throat, you hear?” said a raspy voice, making a poor attempt at a whisper. It was followed by chuckles and snorts, and a loud Shhh.
Magdalena’s eyes opened slightly, just enough to make out the dark shadows to her left. Young Thomlin was heavily asleep in her lap. The closest thing to comfort she could offer the boy was her velvet dress, and so his head was resting against her thigh while the rest of him laid over the mud inside the prisoner’s pit.
The frightened orcess began to whimper in fear. “No… please,” she begged. But then she held her tongue when one of the orcs pressed a blade against her child’s neck. Magdalena stood still, hoping the orcs wouldn’t notice her. She felt a deep anguish in her chest at the muffled sound of the weeping orcess. But she knew the orcs were planning their escape, and so they wouldn’t think twice about killing her and Thomlin simply to avoid the attention.
When Murzol pulled the frightened orcess up to her feet, he nearly stumbled over Thomlin. But Gruul managed to grab his comrade by the neck just in time, throwing him to the other side of the cage as he mumbled an insult under his breath. Magdalena had opened her eyes briefly for a closer look, but she managed to shut her eyes again before Gruul glanced down at her.
“Will the two of you hurry your arses?!” Okvar grunted, standing at the gate of the pit. The large soldier with the red beard was snoring, sitting on his wooden stool with an empty bottle of mead at his boots. Still, Okvar had his axe handy in case the man happened to be a light sleeper.
The orcess tried to resist, but the vile orc Gruul continued to threaten her with his blade. He pressed it against the child and a drop of blood escaped its cheek. The infant began to cry, and so Murzol placed a hurried hand over its mouth, muffling its yelps.
“Walk, you trollop… or the child gets it,” Gruul said threateningly, and the orcess obeyed.
“My name…” she spoke suddenly, her lip trembling, “…is Aevastra.”
“Your name,” he aimed his blade at her, “Is whatever I say it is. You’re mine now.”
“Gruul!” Okvar said a bit too loud. “Shut your damn yap ‘n’ let’s go!”
The orcs left the pit as Magdalena subtly observed them.
On his way out, Murzol snorted loudly and spit on the unconscious red-bearded guard.
The man didn’t so much as flinch. Magdalena wanted very much to wake him, if it meant the defenseless orcess wouldn’t have to live through whatever horrors awaited her. But something prevented her from moving. Perhaps it was the fear of whatever horrors awaited wherever this ship was taking them. Perhaps it was the idea of the orcess having a better chance of escaping the grasp of three orcs rather than an entire company of men.
Still, the fear kept her awake.
And about an hour later, a dark figure approached the pit and came to a halt next to the sleeping guard.
“Hauzer!” the figure said, kicking the man’s boots. “Get up, you old fat hound.”
The red-bearded guard nearly stumbled from the shaky stool. “What in all hells…” he groaned.
“Wake up! It’s time.”
It wasn’t dawn yet, and so the darkness wouldn’t allow for Magdalena to see the figure clearly. And it didn’t help that the figure had skin so dark that it blended against the night sky. She was close enough, however, to make out its long pointy inhuman ears. Hauzer rubbed his eyes and noticed there was snot on the chin of his beard. He wiped it, looked up at the dark figure and asked, “What the fuck’s this about, then?”
“It ain’t mine,” the figure replied with a shrug.
Torches were being lit all around the camp and the prisoners were beginning to wake on their own without the need of the usual kick or shove. Magdalena shook her leg and Thomlin’s head began to bounce against her knee.
“Thomlin,” she whispered, but the boy was a heavier sleeper than she presumed.
Once the red-bearded guard lit his own torch, Magdalena was able to see that his companion was an elf with dark blue skin and silver hair. He had a much more calmed demeanor than the rest of the soldiers in the camp, however. In fact, they both did. Yet it didn’t make matters any different, for they made just as many death threats only with less grit. Hauzer stepped inside the pit and grabbed hold of the end of the chain that held the prisoners together. His elf companion followed behind him. Hauzer was much larger and huskier, while the elf was thin but with his muscles firm and well defined.
“Come on, you lot,” the elf began tugging at the chains of those that hadn’t woken up yet. He noticed the sleeping boy at Magdalena’s knee and gave him a tap on the arm with his boot. “Wake your littl’ arse, boy,” he said.
And it made Magdalena upset. “Leave him!” she demanded, a bit too boldly.
Then the elf got on one knee and held a blade out. He didn’t press it against Magdalena’s neck, but used the tip to lift her chin up into the light of Hauzer’s torch. Thomlin woke up and sat up straight in a matter of seconds, his eyes widening at the sight of the elf’s blade.
“I ain’t seen this one before,” the elf said.
“She’s the highborn we snatched at Val Havyn,” Hauzer explained.
“I see,” the elf chuckled, calmly at first, but his expression changed when he noticed something peculiar to Magdalena’s left; an empty spot on the mud, where a figure once sat. He gave the princess a stern glare before asking, “Where’s the orc bitch?”
Magdalena shook her head, pretending to be confused, as the elf looked up at his comrade.
“The orcs,” he said angrily.
“What about ‘em?” Hauzer asked.
“They must’ve taken ‘er…”
“Ahh, fuck ‘em,” Hauzer shrugged. “If the highborn is here, y’think Baronkroft will care about three orcs runnin’ off? He’s got a hundred more waitin’ back in Drahkmere?”
Hauzer began to drag the prisoners out of the pit as the elf frowned at Magdalena. Then he removed her arms from the hook and she felt her muscles cramping up, and they ached and throbbed as she was dragged out of the pit. She and Thomlin walked past Hauzer, who was still wiping residual snot from his bushy red beard. “Jyor?” he called.
His elf companion glanced at him with a raised brow.
“Sure this wasn’t you?” Hauzer asked.
“I ain’t spit on anyone in years,” Jyor said, then took the chains from Hauzer’s sweaty hands and pulled the prisoners onward.
Hauzer gave his shoulders a shrug and nodded bitterly. “Filthy greenskins,” he mumbled, as he marched near the back of the formation, making sure none of the prisoners would attempt an escape.
* * *
“You’re not serious?” Jossiah asked drowsily, drinking from a pitcher of fresh water after having nearly passed out from the ale. “The princess will be dead by the time we get there…”
“The Draeric Sea is the fastest route,” Viktor replied. “If we march to Roquefort, we can hire a ship captain there. We leave tomorrow, we can get there in three days’ time.”
“Bollocks. That’ll take four or five at best.”
“Not if we limit our sleep, old friend. Besides, marching with a dozen men will be a lot more efficient than marching with an entire troop.”
Watching the two men at work was nothing short of fascinating, and though John wanted very much to join in the conversation, he remained skeptical about the plan, as did the Lady Treasurer of Val Havyn, who was beginning to slur her own words after drinking a third of the bottle of liqueur.
“It won’t work,” she interrupted, and then she raised a finger and spoke as if reciting an excerpt from a formal contract. “Should there be conflict with an armed force, foreign or not, a Lord or Lady is sworn to send their king a raven every third and seventh day, unless granted otherwise by the king himself, detailing any and all unprecedented matters and/or unscheduled arrivals and depa
rtures of any company greater than five men.”
“I thought you oversaw the ravens,” Viktor said.
“I oversee them and send a reply. But the first pair of eyes to see them is the king. It’s always the bloody king,” she said, sounding a bit glum in her last sentence as she lifted the green bottle to her lips again. Jossiah eyed the bottle, now with significantly less liqueur, and he felt his stomach growl as if having a craving.
John’s eyes were still examining the map. He felt something take over him. Something that thrilled him, as if awakening a part of himself he didn’t know was there. While the other three were distracted in their conversation, he used his fingers to trace a path from Val Havyn to Drahkmere, only they were nowhere near the shade of blue labeled Draeric Sea.
“How long did you say the journey would take?” the farmer asked.
“Three days to march south to Roquefort. Then about a week at sea to Qamroth,” Viktor replied.
“Not happening,” the Lady mumbled softly to herself.
“And how long if we travel by land?” John asked.
“Now you’re speaking through your arse, lad,” Jossiah said, as bitter as was usual of him. “Surrounding the Woodlands means we march south then west along the coast. We’ll just lose another two weeks.”
“Didn’t say anything about surrounding them,” John said, silencing them all at once. “What if… we marched through the Woodlands… made it across Halghard to the western coast, and paid for a ship to transport us from there?”
There was an abrupt tension in the room.
The former knights appeared more baffled than anything else.
The Lady Treasurer, however, was quiet yet pensive.
“I bloody told you he was useless, Viktor, but does anyone ever listen to me? Goodness no, that’ll be the day,” Jossiah mumbled, more to himself than to his friend.
“Tell me, John,” Viktor replied calmly. “Have you ever set foot inside the Woodlands?”
“Can’t say I have,” John shook his head, trying his best to appear confident.
“Ah… but you have heard that those who enter hardly get out alive, have you?”
John had no words. His eyes moved from the map to Viktor and then back at the map, until the Lady released a pensive ‘Hmm’ that grasped Viktor’s attention away.
“The boy might actually be right,” she said. “Might be your best option yet, in fact… If you’re sailing from a Halghardian coast, you can rest assured that no word will reach King Rowan, not in time at least… Not to mention, it would only be a two days’ journey to Drahkmere. And considering the amount of time saved by crossing the Woodlands, you’d make it there only a day or two later than if you sailed from Roquefort.”
Viktor put some thought into it, and it was making Jossiah rather nervous.
“N-Now hang on a minute,” Jossiah stammered. “It’s one thing to go after your princess’s captors… but crossing the Woodlands is another matter altogether…”
Viktor examined the map one last time, painting a trail in his mind that would take him through that large patch of green, following a tiny blue line labeled Spindle River until the green paint turned brown again where Halghard began. It was a perilous path and he couldn’t possibly foresee what was waiting for them inside…
But it wasn’t impossible.
In fact, the more thought he put into it the more his expectations grew.
The golden knight looked at John one last time, the young naïve expression in his eyes. It hadn’t yet been three decades since Viktor was in a similar position. And he remembered how others of higher authority questioned him all the same.
And so Viktor took a deep breath before nodding his head and smiling.
“Well that settles it, then,” he said, causing Jossiah a rush of panic. “We journey through the Woodlands…”
V
The Thief & the Witch
Syrena, the witch of Morganna, struggled to hold the wooden bowl in her leather-wrapped hands. The old pork stew reeked as if it had been sitting out for days, but hunger overcame her and she gulped down every drop within minutes. Through the gap in the wall, she could hear the thief doing the same.
“I’ve never tasted anything so repulsive,” Hudson said with a mouthful. “Remind me to ask the guard if he would serve this to his mother.”
“You don’t want it, slide it over,” the witch said.
“Nice try, darling. You’ve got your own,” he poured the rest of the cold brown stew into his mouth. He sighed, feeling the relief in his stomach immediately. A belch escaped his mouth, so loud it may have echoed a bit. But the relief only lasted for so long, when suddenly his stomach began to turn, not exactly welcoming the old pork.
“I think I might be sick…”
“Already? You disappoint me, thief,” she said, hoping he’d caught the amiable tone in her voice. Syrena had always been a solitary woman. With witches banished into the Woodlands, she did not have many options for acquaintances other than ogres, orcs, or the occasional band of human raiders looking to wreak havoc.
She realized Hudson Blackwood had been the first human to ever converse with her for longer than 15 minutes without pressing a knife to her neck. Though her skepticism said it had everything to do with the stone barrier between them, part of her wanted very much to believe that not everyone in the world was as wicked. She was faultlessly aware of whom she was speaking to, and yet she found the thief’s demeanor had been far more hospitable than any lord or king she had ever encountered.
“Indulge me, love,” Hudson said, straightening his back against the wall as he sat. “What else are you capable of, aside from charming the minds of wanted thieves?”
She smirked, finding his attempt at flattery oddly amusing. She could hear him shuffling about and figured he was trying to find comfort among the bricks. It wasn’t until she heard him spit, presumably into his wooden bowl, that she wondered what he was up to. And her inquisitiveness only grew when he continued to do it.
“I prefer not to talk about it,” she said.
“What else is there to talk about down here? The weather?” he scoffed, more at the situation rather than at her. He held the wooden bowl in his hands, spitting into it without the slightest attempt at subtlety.
“Anything that won’t remind me of the very reason I’m locked in here to begin with,” she replied.
“You’re locked in here because of the stupidity and ignorance of this city’s civilians. It’s got nothing to do with you, darling. We are what we are and we can’t help that.” Spit.
“Most people don’t see it that way.”
“Most people are imbeciles. But there’s no point in sulking, love. Done my share and believe me, it never helps.”
“I’m not sulking…”
“Avoiding a topic can be a form of sulking.” Spit.
“Would you stop doing that?!” she asked, her displeasure reaching its peak. “It’s not exactly nice to listen to.”
“My apologies,” he said. “I’ll do it softer.” Spit.
“Besides, if you’re so keen on sharing stories, why don’t we talk of your past?”
“It’s quite simple, darling,” he said. “I’m not nearly as interesting as you.”
She hesitated before responding.
In her short life, she had been called many things. ‘Harlot’, ‘wench’, ‘bitch’, even the occasional ‘abomination’, which she found interesting considering witches were the closest to humans as far as “freaks” went. All her life, an assortment of names she could list had been used to describe her.
‘Interesting’, however, had never been on that list until now.
“At least answer me this,” Hudson said. “Any chance you can hypnotize our handsome mute friend out there into letting us out?”
“D’you even know a single thing about witches?” she asked.
“Not exactly. But, unlike others, I at least have the courtesy of asking first.”
She sai
d nothing, only thought of the words she had just heard.
Letting us out, the thief had said.
Not me. Not you.
But us.
For once, Syrena was glad to not feel completely alone, even if it was in the company of a criminal. She had an unusual feeling in her chest she couldn’t recognize. Something like optimism, but not yet hope. She became lost in thought for several moments. Could Syrena of Morganna possibly have what it took to escape the dungeons of Val Havyn?
The answer was quite simple. Alone, likely not.
With Hudson Blackwood at her side, however, the possibilities kept crawling into her mind.
“All right,” she finally spoke. “Would you like to know what I’m capable of?”
“I’m listening.”
“I can show you,” she said. “But first we have to get these chains off me.”
“Way ahead of you…”
Spit.
* * *
“What do you suppose will happen?” asked a husky Val Havyn guard with a gap between his front teeth and a breath that reeked of something foul.
“It’s no use. If the word is true and the Butcher did take the princess, then she’s done for,” said his excessively sweaty companion. They were the only two guards to remain at their post at the palace gates for hours after the king’s return, and therefore their stance had grown more casual by the minute as their knees began to ache and the boredom overtook them.
“It’s a shame, really. She was quite a beauty,” the foul-mouthed guard said as he spit on the cobblestone road. “She saw me nude once, y’know? When I was bathin’ in the barracks, she watched me through her window.”
“Oh, shut it. It’s more likely you were drunk out o’ your mind and mistook a servant girl for her.”
“You’re just envious that your member’s never been observed and admired by royalty.”
The sweaty guard scowled.
“What are you two going on about?” an elegant figure appeared out of the dark.
“Nothing, sir!”
The two startled guards stood up straighter, as if they hadn’t just been offhandedly lounging about for hours. The abundance of life on Merchants’ Square had by then diminished and the obscurity and gloom of the evening took its place; the only light was coming from the lanterns that hung at every ten feet along the palace gates.