Private Tales The Beating of Skin Drums

Wolves would not attack in broad daylight, but that did not mean they should linger in the woods. Urosh found a game trail which led them toward the forested foothills of the Spine. He walked with a purpose, strides swift and surefooted, but slowed when they came to a clearing until he halted.

Jade eyes swung to her, studying the way she held the bow, as if it were a snake that might bite her. She also walked with a limp. That could not be helped. They would need to press on eventually. Staying at the camp would prove more dangerous than hobbled feet.

"You have never shot a bow?" he asked, incredulous. He knew that nobles of the humans led different lives, but to never learn the bow seemed so foreign when it was a necessity in the life of the tribes.

Stabbing his javelins down into a patch of soft earth and leaning his own bow against them, he gestured for her to approach.

"I will show you."

A solitary oak tree stood in the clearing, trunk wizened and vast. He pointed to it.

"Fit arrow to string and shoot that tree."

It could not be more than thirty yards away. And it was enormous. He watched, crossing his arms.

Rori

“That is not…” Urosh massaged his forehead with a knuckle. Everything about that had been wrong, from how she stood and held the bow to how she fitted the arrow and released. Urosh found it almost humorously painful to watch.

“I will show you.”

Stalking forward, he snatched up the arrow which had fallen pathetically short of its mark, then circled her as he talked. His words terse, but his movements full of action.

“You stand like this,” he slapped his thighs and showed her how he stood perpendicular to the target, knees slightly bent. “You fit the arrow, you raise and pull, then you let go.” He pantomimed the action, showing how a smooth motion and release. “One motion.”

Bah. Better just to show her, he came up to her and grabbed her by either arm.

“Stand here,” he moved her so that he was behind her, poking at her legs with the arrow to get her to assume the correct stance, then he wrapped a hand around her much smaller hand, which in turn gripped the bow.

“Strong grip,” he said behind her, frustrated slightly by the difference in height as he loomed. He put the arrow in her other hand and nudged it toward the bow. “Fit it, now pull.”

Urosh nudged at her elbow, trying to get it to the correct angle. He squinted and squatted bringing his head along side hers and so he could see her aim, cheek pressed just behind her ear.

“Now release.”

Rori

“Better,” Urosh grunted, patting her shoulder.

He winced internally, the stitching on his arm screaming out with every motion. So too did the strings holding his thigh together. No matter. He’d survived worse.

“Again,” he put a hand on her stomach, frowning at the way her gut muscles seemed taut already, while the other handed her another arrow. “control your breaths. Draw and hold. Tighten the muscles here.”

The swaying should be reduced if she drew her bow in this manner.

He breathed in. The air smelled of flowers in the clearing and the fresh damp of morning and the molding wood rot of the forest, earthy and rich.

“Breathe out and release.”

All one motion, with practice, would be smooth. A rhythm of shot after shot while breathing. Easier said than done, especially in battle or on the hunt.

Rori

"Yes, good," Urosh nodded.

He enjoyed seeing her smile. There had been little for her to smile about in the past day, he would give her that much. But in time she would be reunited with her kin and Urosh and his band would be rich with the ransom coin. And in the meantime... she would learn to shoot a bow.

The tall orc walked to the tree and began pulling the arrows out, examining the heads to see if any were too damaged to be usable.

"You learn quickly. This is well. Come, we must make good time before sundown."

They passed through the woods the rest of the day, coming across many meadows. Urosh stopped briefly at one simply to watch a meadow full of violet flowers sway in the breeze. He pushed them quickly, because he had seen the clouds in the morning and knew that rain or snow might fall toward evening. These were the things one learned from a life spent in the wilderness.

The woods became more sparse as they reached the foothills of the Spine. Urosh squinted up at the sky, which grew thick with ominous clouds and he smelled the scent of stone before rain.

"Quickly."

He led them up a trail below a hill. The mouth of a small cave yawned open in front of them just as the first droplets of rain began to pour down.

"In here."

Urosh had used this cave before and knew it to be free of bears and wolves. The wolves would stay far from his scent and the bears would not use it until winter. Rain pattered against his head and shoulders, coming down heavy before they could duck inside the cave. Urosh wore a frown as he ducked low through the entrance, eyes wary for danger. He saw none.

"We are alone."

The cave held nothing. He thought he had left a basket of firewood, but it must have been taken a summer ago or more. He could not remember when last he was here. Urosh shook his head, water spattering the cave walls, and sat down. The cold set in. Without any firewood, they would have to survive the rain with no fire.

"It will get cold," he grunted, sitting down and shrugging off his bow, arrows, and javelins. He set them to the side and motioned for her to do the same. Then he rested his hands on his knees. Outside, the rain fell with a heavy tattoo, drowning out all other noise.

Rori

“It is.”

He watched the rain fall from beyond the mouth of the cave. The last rays of the sun passed behind a hill, leaving them alone in the dark and the cold. He heard her chattering of teeth. She was not used to the cold, this noble woman.

“Come. For warmth.”

The half- orc gestured toward her to scoot closer across the barren rock floor. The hard surface was far worse than a bed of grass, but it had the advantage of not seeing them soaked to the bone with rain.

“You have… not traveled like this before?”

He shrugged at her refusal to move closer. They had not even felt the depths of night's chill yet and the rain would likely not let up for many hours. If she chose to spend it cold that was her decision. Urosh had spent many such nights alone on a hunt, curled with only the unfeeling stone beneath him for warmth.

"Yes," he nodded, idly touching one of many earrings as the gold grew chill with the air. "It shall be a good story."

Eyes the pallor unpolished jade studied her in the gloom. Outside, the rain fell steady and heavy as the tears of a god.

She did not seem... what word did the southlanders use? Anxious. She did not seem anxious to return, this highborn lady who had not ventured into the wilds or fought wolves, yet bore old scars upon her back.

The orc remained quiet for a moment, then shifted, stretching out his left leg so that the stitching did not pull.

"Your feet," he reached inside the satchel, pulling out a length of linen. "They should be rebound."

She might refuse this too, he supposed, out of spite. Then he would have to watch her more closely on the rest of the hunt, as he would a lamed horse or wolf.

Rori

"They will not slow me," he huffed. Unlike her injured feet.

As she pulled off the boots, Urosh slowly peeled away the remaining fabric with a gentleness he reserved for the injured and young warg cubs. He rubbed at the uninjured sides and tops of one foot, then another to restore some blood flow. It amused him how large his hands were in comparison, practically engulfing her feet.

He did not expect his rough, calloused palms and fingers would feel pleasant, but that was not the point. Wounds to the feet could be fatal in the wilds.

Like a lame deer.

He bound up her feet with the linen strips, wrapping around and around so that her torn soles had some measure of protection. Satisfied, Urosh nodded.

"Good. You seem... well. They do not trouble you?"

Rori

The half-orc let out air through his nose in a long breath, studying the curtain of rain sweeping outside the mouth of the cave.

"If they have families that will pay."

If they did not, then the other humans would be kept as thralls or sold to Bthkairk. The money they would get from Aurora's king would not arrive for a long time, should it come at all.

She had shifted closer and he could feel the warmth of her skin, very near. He could sense her judgment as well, though it rolled off him like the rain outside.

"What does Vel Anir do with captured orcs?"

He shifted his leg and pain flared in his thigh. He winced visibly, lips straining tight around the small tusks that jutted from the corners of his mouth. Muscles rippled in his arm as he clenched and unclenched his fist.

Rori

"No," he rumbled.

Urosh did not know if what she said was true about Vel Anir. It was so far away. But he did know about the raids of the Templars and how they burned and slaughtered whole orc villages.

"You think us animals, without thought," he looked over at her, his eyes hard and brow lowered, "But did we give you those scars on your back?"

He watched her reaction, judging that his hurled word had struck true.

"No," he huffed again, "It is not the way you say. I am not... worried about the coin."

Grimacing, he massaged at his thigh as the pain throbbed. "You are my captive, my responsibility."

He said the words gravely, as if it were a task of severe importance. And it was. But she would not understand his way.

"I will not let you come to harm."

Rori

Urosh opened his mouth to tell her he was fine, then he remembered how quarrelsome she'd chosen to be this evening and his teeth clicked shut.

He watched her, his eyes still hard. He understood that she must hate him. Well, then let it be so. He tried only for kindness, but it seemed the pain of his wounds drove that away. He would still keep his word. He would protect her. He had meant that.

"Fine."

The half-orc pushed himself off the damp and chill stone floor of the cave and stood with a wince. He undid the knot of his belt and let his loose trousers fall, leaving him standing in a loincloth. The air felt cold against his wound, ragged gashes stitched together in his immense thigh, layers of bunched up muscle stiffening with the chill and the pain.

Let her be appalled by his state of undress, by his barbaric ways. She already thought him such anyway. The huge half-orc's chest, big as an ox, rose and fell with his breath.


Rori

Urosh stared back wordlessly. He did not argue. She was right. There were many thoughtless ones among his war band.

Now that the sun had set, he could scarcely make out her form in the lengthening darkness of the cave. He did see the flash of stubbornness in her eyes. He wished that he could make out the red of her hair. He liked the color. It reminded him of fire and warmth.

As she tied off the bandage and sat back, Urosh found that he missed the touch of her fingers. They were tender.

And he felt a stab of realization like the blinding light of sun on snow.

Hm.

The half-orc reached down and put a knuckle beneath her chin, lifting her face toward him so he could make out what features he could.

“Why? How do you know,” he rumbled, voice a low thrum in the dark, “that I am not a brute.”

Rori

“Hm.”

He let go of her chin. Small kindnesses. He wondered again where her scars had come from, but did not ask.

The half-orc donned up his trousers again and sat beside her. The rain slapped ruthlessly against the world outside, unrelenting. The air grew colder still.

Urosh lay down on his back beside her, staring up at the pitch black of the cavern ceiling. The unyielding rock jutted into his back and he shifted to get comfortable, then let his head fall back onto the floor.

He reached out, hand finding her arm and the barest warmth the contact offered, though she had shunned it earlier.

“You should sleep. It will be cold.”

He released her arm and folded his hands atop his chest, which rose and fell steadily with his breathing.

Rori

Another grunt answered her, though Urosh did appreciate the warmth. Sleeping alone here was cold. Easier when truly alone.

He glanced at her out of the corner of an eye, studying her back to him. He wondered if she would be able to sleep at all, as she said having never been in the wilds before. Probably never slept on anything but a feather bed before.

The orc listened to her breathing, a faint sound beneath the drum of the rain. Then he stretched out and pulled her closer, an enormous arm wrapping around her, his bicep sliding beneath her head. Some form of cushion, if she would not sleep on his chest.

He did not care, though this close he could smell the scent of her hair. Hm. He would not deny that she was a fair woman. But he would not force himself on her. She could do as she pleased.

That did not mean he wished to be cold.

“Why,” he hummed softly in the gloom. “At least three more nights hunting.” If not more. “Are you planning to be cold for the rest?”

A mirroring mirth hung in his words, though far less veiled than hers.

Rori