by Alex Aguilar
“Can’t say I have,” he muttered nervously.
“Is that so?” asked the Beast with a cold stare. “D’you want to see?”
The orc took a step forward. The entire tavern prepared for the worst. But Robyn stepped in between them before either one of them could land a blow.
“Beast, don’t!” she said, placing a hand on his broad shoulder. “He’s not worth it…”
The Beast’s eyes moved from the hateful man’s scowl to Robyn’s compassionate gaze. Truthfully, he wanted to slay the brute where he stood. Realizing that he was in a sanctuary village, however, the orc calmed himself with a brusque groan. He reached calmly into his pocket, drew out a couple of coppers, and tossed them at Seamus. “For the glass,” he said, and then headed for the tavern doors.
“Beast, wait!” Robyn ran after him, leaving Nyx behind to crawl at his own pace. They had captivated the attention of the whole tavern, and instantly the rumors began to spread from ear to ear. Seamus gave the bard a nervous hand signal, urging him to start singing again, and within minutes the tavern was as lively as it had been earlier that evening. Even Mister Hutner had calmed down, or rather he looked relieved at having dodged that fight; he grabbed his drink without paying and walked back towards his table.
There was one particular man, however, that appeared distraught and out of sorts towards the incident that had just occurred. It was the husky middle-aged man that Robyn had taken a seat next to… He was no longer asleep. He was startled and his eyes were narrowed, staring at the tavern doors as if trying to decipher a puzzle in his mind. He was dreadfully inebriated, that much was obvious. But he was certain that he recognized the orc and the farmgirl from somewhere… He’d seen them before, quite recently in fact…
An odd bunch, he thought, but the man had seen his share of oddities as of late, and he didn’t think further on it. He searched aimlessly for his satchel, which had been resting on the seat next to him before he fell asleep over the counter. When he found it at his feet, he relaxed, but the look of gloom in his eyes remained.
He was acting strange, this inebriated man… What distinguished him from the crowd the most were his clothes; they were wrinkled and slightly smelly, stained with sweat and dried blood, as if he had recently unlaced a layer of armor off of himself.
“One more, lad,” the man said, his voice in a slur.
Seamus served him a tankard of mead, just as the man would always order after a rough day of service. His eyes were red, but the mead was only half the reason. He could hardly keep himself up, he was so fatigued.
Coward, he cursed at himself. Traitorous coward…
Truthfully, even looking at his own reflection in the tankard of mead disgusted him; he couldn’t look himself in the eyes without scowling. Where he came from, traitors were often hanged and made an example of.
“That’ll be 10 coppers, sir,” Seamus said, realizing the man hadn’t yet paid for the last five drinks.
The man’s hands were sweaty and shaky, which was also only partly due to the mead. When he felt no one was watching, the man looked miserable, morose, drowning his pain away as if there was no hope left for him. Half the customers in the tavern shared a similar look, but none of their expressions could possibly match the vivid sorrow in this man’s face. Once he finished his drink, he reached into his pocket and tossed an entire coin purse at Seamus.
“I’ll take a room as well,” he said.
Seamus’s eyes lit up as he held the coin purse in his callused hands. The weight alone told him it held plenty more than just 10 coppers. “Ohh dear… Yes! Right away, sir!”
“And lad?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Have you, uh,” the man cleared his throat nervously. “Have you got any rope?”
“Um… rope, sir?”
“Aye. Rope.”
“I’m sure we could find you some, sure! Right this way, sir. I’ll show you to your room.”
The man raised the tankard to his lips and finished the half-pint of mead that was left, before he rose to his feet and stumbled behind Seamus. He was led upstairs to a small room with nothing but an old bed and a large cabinet, and there were rafters above where a lit lantern hung from a hook. The room may have been old; the wooden rafters, however, looked solid and sturdy.
It’ll do, the man thought.
“Seamus, by the way,” the tavern server said suddenly.
“Pardon me?”
“The name’s Seamus, sir. Anything ye need, just ask for me.”
The man took a moment to respond, a long pensive moment, one that Seamus simply shrugged away and blamed on the mead.
“Jossiah,” he finally said.
Seamus shook the former knight’s shivering hand.
“A pleasure,” he smiled. “I’ll be right back with that rope ye asked for.”
* * *
When dusk arrived, the village of Grymsbi was obscured by a thick layer of fog. The Beast was lost for a moment, and so he followed the dirt path that would lead him towards the village entrance; he could still see the fresh prints left by his boots just hours prior. If he just followed his own tracks, he would wind up back in the Woodlands eventually, safely hidden away from human civilization.
“Beast!” Robyn’s voice echoed behind him. The young archer could hardly keep up with the orc’s pace. The soles of her boots were riddled with mud, and she swore that some of it had somehow gotten into her socks. “Beast, wait!” she shouted. “Please, will you just wait?!”
But the orc kept up his brisk walk; the wet soil was no match for his thick muscular legs. The air had grown cold, as if announcing an approaching storm, and it managed to hide the dampness in the orc’s eyes, swelling up with both sorrow and anger.
“I said wait!” Robyn shouted, and then the orc came to a sudden halt and spun around with a growl that was more beastlike than any growl Robyn had ever heard.
“What d’you want from me, scrap?!”
The vein above his brows was furiously thick and his jaw was tightly clenched, the fangs behind his lower lip appearing larger and sharper than ever before. Robyn was stunned and thrown aback, her timid eyes attempting to stare down the orc’s.
“Y-You were just going to leave?” she asked him. “Without even a farewell?”
The Beast stepped forward with a sigh. “Listen, scrap… I’m gonna say it one last time. You ‘n’ me are not friends. We have nev’r been friends. And we will nev’r be friends.”
The orc’s words stung Robyn’s chest like a sharp arrow. Her pride, however, would not allow her to shed a single tear. She’d tried to reason with him, she’d tried to comfort him, and she’d be damned if she was gonna allow him to spit on her good will when all she was trying to do was help him.
“Fine!” she said brusquely, talking through her rage. “Go, then! Go and be alone!”
“I been alone me whole life, scrap,” he growled back at her. “It’s been keepin’ me alive so far. I’m better off that way.”
“You’re wrong,” she argued, walking stubbornly after him. “You choose to be alone…”
The orc paused in his tracks again, glancing back at her with a glare so sharp that it hurt to look at. But Robyn Huxley was never one to yield. She held her stance as best as she could.
“Not everyone’s like them, you know,” she said. “Not everyone is cruel like the Brotherhood. You could do so much better, Beast… You could be so much better… But you don’t, do you? You choose to shield yourself, even from those that want to help you. You act like you’re all tough and mighty and don’t need anyone else. And then you go and blame the world because you’re alone. But you’re putting yourself in that crate, Beast!”
The orc reached suddenly for his axe with a menacing growl.
“What?” she challenged him further. “You’re gonna try to fight me now, too?”
Unable to withstand the rage in his chest, the Beast drew his axe and raised it high above his head. But rather than shying away, Robyn closed her eyes and
valiantly kept her stance. She waited for the hit, a hit that would never come…
When she opened her eyes again, the orc was standing over her with the axe in mid air, shivering furiously and panting desperately as if it pained him to be holding the weapon for so long without drawing blood. His eyes were suddenly full of regret and his breathing was starting to slow. And as he stared down at the eyes of the brave archer, he felt his wrist begin to weaken.
Robyn wanted to say something, but any words she came up with died before they left her lips. She simply stood there and watched as the axe slid out of the Beast’s hand and splashed over the mud. He lowered his gaze, grunting sullenly, trying to fight back his headache. And Robyn, unable to withhold herself, placed a warm hand on his shivering arm.
“You don’t have to be alone, Beast…” she said.
But her attempt to sway him one last time into staying failed. He released a slow beastlike sigh and shut his eyes to fight back the swelling. “Just go,” he said.
Robyn felt the tension coming back to her shoulders. Her mind immediately brought her back to that sorrowful evening at the Huxley farm, the evening in which her brother tried to talk to her and all she would say to him was “Just go.” And yet here she was, scolding the Beast about his stubbornness when truthfully she was just as much so, if not more.
“Beast…”
“Just go, scrap… Please…”
The pressure in her chest was killing her. This was the first time she’d heard him say ‘please’, and she could tell that he truly wanted nothing more than to be alone. She understood, of course, for the two of them had more in common than the Beast was aware. And so Robyn turned around slowly and headed back towards the tavern. And the Beast walked into a sea of mist in the opposite direction. A single angry tear ran down Robyn’s cheek, but she wiped it quickly as she noticed a serpentine figure crawling out of the tavern, several yards away. The streets were now empty. Even the guardsmen that were lounging about earlier in the evening were now gone, either resting or drinking their weight in mead somewhere.
Before Robyn made it safely back into the tavern, her ear caught a strange sound. She should’ve bolted towards Nyx at that moment, but she was so distraught that she paused where she stood. It was the sound of scratching footsteps she’d heard, and the fact that there wasn’t a soul anywhere nearby made the hairs on the back of her neck stick out like thorns.
She glanced around nervously, but amidst the fog she could see nothing.
Nyx heard the footsteps too, and he slid down the tavern steps towards Robyn in an instant. But he wouldn’t dare speak a single word, not when there was the possibility of someone lurking nearby.
When Robyn’s ears caught the scratching sound again, she realized it was not coming from anywhere nearby, but rather from above… And when she finally looked up, it was far too late. A figure hopped suddenly down from a thatched roof, a figure with a very peculiar earring dressed in a burgundy coat.
“Robyn! Behind you!” Nyx shouted.
But before Robyn could react, the woman bashed her in the head with something rough like wood. The young archer was unconscious by the time the woman hoisted her over a shoulder and carried her away.
“No… No, no, no!” Nyx hissed under his breath, a rush of fear dashing through his serpentine body. He crawled after the strange woman as fast as he could, but the ground was wet and thick like a swamp and it slowed him down tremendously.
“Lady Robyn!!” he shouted desperately into the air, ignoring the pulsating pain he felt when he spoke. But the woman carrying Robyn disappeared into the fog, heading south along one of the village roads. Poor old Nyx began panicking, yielding to his ill torment, desperately wishing he still had his wings…
XVI
The Wardens of Grymsbi
‘What is that strange smell?’ Robyn Huxley sat and wondered, just moments after asking herself ‘Where am I?’ and ‘Why can’t I move?’
She felt drained and hungry, and the back of her head was tender and wet.
She felt her eyelids open fully and yet somehow everything remained a blur.
Chicken stew and old pie… It was her best guess and she hadn’t been exactly wrong either. In reality, the smells of the room were of dust, berries, molding wood, and chewed up chicken bones from the previous day’s stew left in a pot for the hounds to feed on later.
She found herself in an old cabin, all alone save for the ants and beetles crawling about. But the fireplace was lit and the pot that hung over it was close to a boil. She wasn’t alone. Someone must’ve fed the fire recently – probably the same someone that tied her to that chair. She felt warm and muggy in her thick outdoor attire, and sitting so close to the fire was not helping.
Shit… What’ve you gotten yourself into now, Robyn?
Truly, she was getting tired of looking over her shoulder so often. The safety of her mother’s farm had blinded her, habituated her into a sense of safety that she took for granted. But she didn’t panic just yet. Whoever it was that tied her to that chair wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble if they wanted her dead.
She batted her eyelids slowly, again and again, until her vision began to adjust. The room became a bit clearer, though she kept seeing everything doubled, which made her dizzy and sick to her stomach – sicker. She wondered if this is what it felt like to be drunk beyond any sense.
As she inspected the room she soon confirmed that she wasn’t, in fact, alone.
A pair of green eyes was watching her from above a stairwell. She could just about make out the silhouette of what could have been a boy of eight or nine sitting on the top step. He was dressed in raggedy clothing and had short straight hair sticking out of his head like straw.
“Ayisha!” the boy shouted, and not two seconds later footsteps began to approach.
The wood of the stairs screeched with every step along with the voice of a young woman, perhaps in her late adolescent years. Her voice was quite loud and sharp with a thick Halghardian accent, and it towered over that of a softer-voiced young man. There was a third voice that Robyn couldn’t quite make out, deeper and raspier than the other two but possibly still a woman’s voice.
“Has she woken up?” asked the soft-voiced young man.
“She’s been going on ‘n’ off for hours now,” said the woman with the thick accent. “Hasn’t fully come to her senses yet. Girl might’ve gone simple.”
“Simple?” the young man scoffed. “Why is that?”
“I dunno. To start, she was talkin’ while she slept.”
“And?”
“That’s scary as shit.”
“No it’s not. Lots of folks do that. My mum used to.”
“Well it’s scary as shit.”
There was nothing but a chuckle from the third voice.
When Robyn saw the three shadows walking into the light of the fire, she recognized the first woman from the tavern. Her burgundy coat was now gone, hung on an old wooden rack by the cabin door. The dreadlocks on the woman’s head were tied away from her face and Robyn saw that peculiar earring again, a sharp jaguar’s tooth pierced through her left earlobe. The woman had on the same washed-out blouse that may have been white once but was now a tattered shade of ivory. There was a very noticeable patch sewn onto the left leg of her brown pants and she wore old hunting boots with empty dagger belts on the inner heel.
The young man was no man at all. He was a boy, no older than 15, with fair skin and curly brown hair that was starting to overgrow. His brown eyes had an innocence reminiscent of Robyn’s young brother Melvyn. And whenever he spoke to the woman with the thick accent, his remarks were full of mockery, the amiable kind.
The third voice belonged to a young orcess with short black hair that was long in the front but shaved at the sides and back. Hailing from a society of humans, Robyn knew nothing of the way orcs aged but she placed her at about the same age as the first woman, which was about 18 or 19.
The three strangers scattered
themselves throughout the living room, making it clear that the cabin was indeed their home. The dehydration was keeping Robyn from speaking or asking the countless questions she had in her mind, the most important of them being ‘Who in all hells are you?’
The woman with the dreadlocks and the thick accent leaned back against a wall with her arms crossed while the boy and the orc girl simply sat and stared at Robyn with awe.
“Are you all right?” the boy asked, not exactly nervously but cautiously.
Robyn used what little strength she had to lift her chin. The boy’s face was clearer now. The peach fuzz on his chin, his flaring nostrils, the way his thick brows arched the way they did, conveying both curiosity and caution… It all began to settle in…
“W-Water,” Robyn managed a croaky whisper.
The boy turned to the woman with the earring, as if requesting permission to move. After an approving nod, the boy hopped swiftly from his seat and brought over a small tankard of water to Robyn’s chapped lips. She bent her neck back and let the cold water slide down her throat, and though it was tasteless she savored every drop.
“Tha’s quite enough, now!” the woman with the earring barked at him. “We need tha’ water for the soup later!”
The boy set the tankard down on the table and allowed Robyn a moment to breathe. The woman with the earring had her eyes fixed on Robyn like a livid watchdog. She looked distrustful, cold, and, to the average person, wildly intimidating. Her dark brown skin was smooth in some places and riddled with scars in others, and her eyes were considerably large and oval-shaped, which both suited her well but also didn’t, considering she had the tendency to stare at people for far too long.
“Who are you?” Robyn finally asked.
“I’m Milo!” the boy replied jovially. “That’s Ayisha.”
“Shut yer bloody piehole!” Ayisha snapped at him. “We don’t know ‘er!”
“And that’s Yuri over there,” Milo said, motioning to the orc girl that had by then moved to the common room to sit and read.
“Are ye deaf, lad?!” Ayisha raised her voice.