Private Tales Biting Wind

[Baise]

The jagged peaks made him pine for home. Valthar had missed it so much that it made him ache for weeks, but those snow covered mountains made him think of the tundra he called home. The ice wind that came down from those mountains and cut across the caravan were welcome. These southern lands were far too warm for the Nordenfiir.

For all his life he had barely left his home town. His father might have been a warrior of great renown until falling in battle, but Valthar had been a simple fisherman. He missed the honest work of repairing nets until his hands bled, of sitting in silence on his little boat for hours on end.

The demons had come. Red mists spreading across the lands. He had been snatched into Pandemonium itself and then belched back out far away from home.

"They're getting closer!" came a call from the front. There were four wagons in the caravan, moving northwards on the western side of the Spine. Two armed men on horses as escort.

Valthir looked where one of them was pointing. The dark shapes to the south were getting larger. A small tribe of orcs that had been trailing them for hours.

"Anyone who can fight?" called Kainar, the old human ex ranger who was leading the caravan.

Valthar dropped down from his wagon as the caravan came to a halt. He pulled his axe down after him.

"I can if I have to," Valthar called out, looking around and appraising the others in the wagons. There were not many of them.

Ava Gilleth

 

[Ava Gilleth]

Ava was not a fan of travelling with a caravan, nor was she a fan of the cold that was sweeping over them. She longed for a lavish room and a bath. Travellers were far too inquisitive and asked more questions than was sensible, and they stank. She’d made it clear she did not want to mingle with any of them within the first few nights, a dwarf had chatted endlessly at her, silencing only when she’d asked him how much he liked his tongue. Still, horses were expensive and she needed a cart to carry her belongings if she was to appear at Molthal in good form.

The ex human ranger called for fighters and Ava felt a shiver of excitement run up her spine. At long last, something to entertain her. She tugged down the hood of her cloak, carefully undoing the silver clasp at its front and folded it neatly onto her seat.

Collecting her bow and quiver from the wagon she stepped neatly from her wagon and sauntered towards the Nord, appraising him with gaze that swept from head to toe.

“And there was me thinking this was going to be a dull trip.” Ava settled her gaze on the approaching tribe of orcs. A few others reluctantly climbed down from the wagons, the dwarf who wouldn’t shut up among them. “Tell me, Nord, is it true that your kin can turn into bears?”

Valthar

 

[Baise]

"Huh?" went Valthar as she walked toward them. Of all the people on the caravan he did not expect her to be one of them to offer themselves for violence. It seemed the soft of thing she would have a manservant for.

Perhaps, he thought to himself, this was just what all elves were like. It was not so much a case of her station as a general disdain for the other races common to her people.

Valthar had not met many elves.

"If I have to," he grunted. He knew that if this group shadowing them was truly a danger then he would. Valthar was capable enough with an axe. No one was going to sing songs of his skill, but he carried a lot of corded muscle on his form and his kind were stronger than humans. So we're orcs.

"You will!" called the ranger. "It looks like a lot of them."

Valthar pointed his axe towards the rocky slopes to the east. The ground quickly became hazardous, but the peaks themselves were some distance off. The Spine of the world jutted incredibly high above them.

"Leave the caravan then, hope it distracts them and hide in the rocks." Valthar had learned to be pragmatic in surviving the wilds of a foreign land.

 

[Ava Gilleth]

Ava did not like this plan, she had some incredibly expensive silks in those wagons and the idea of these filthy orcs getting theirs hands on them made her shudder. She could not however, deny the pragmatism of the suggestion. She clicked her tongue and nodded. To the tribe, it would appear they had abandoned the quarry they hoped to protect. Still she had her own ideas on how to slow them down.

As the others made their way to the rocks she drew her long knife, slicing along her palm drawing thick welts of blood. Closing her fist, she walked across the road marking a line in the road with her blood before pulling a handkerchief from her pocket and staunching the flow and running to join the others.

She slid behind a rock alongside the Nord, using her teeth and free hand to tie the makeshift bandage in place and offering him a wicked smile. "A deterrent," she told him. "It won't last long." Notching an arrow she peered round the rock face and waited for them to get closer. Fifteen feet...ten feet...five feet...three feet. She loosed the arrow, her mind flying with it. It struck the line perfectly, and the line of blood erupted into a wall of fire. Ava was more than a little pleased with herself.

Valthar

 

[Baise]

Sorcerers. Everywhere he went in these lands he was surrounded by fucking sorcerers and their foul magics. He had been warned of the witches of the tundra, but there seemed to be so much more use of magic on the continent. He had yet to see any proof that this was a good thing. Magic using blood seemed such a dangerous practise that should not have been unlocked.

There were at least thirty orcs in the group. Perhaps it was an entire tribe. There was little to differentiate between the male and female warriors who were lit by the dancing light of the flames. Perhaps fifty paces back up the road he could see older orcs marshaling a group of youngsters.

It was said that many orc tribes refused to settle down and farm. They followed the old ways, migrating across their lands to follow their prey.

Or, it seemed, a passing caravan that was too tempting to let go.

A few of the orcs at the edge of the group had seen the arrow. Everything Valthar owned he carried on his back, so he would have been quite content to let the goods go in exchange for his safety. As the orcs brayed and charged towards the rocks it seemed that he was going to have to fight.

"Fine," he grunted. A soft shimmer covered the nordenfiir. His voice trailed off, replaced by a low rumble that seemed to shake the rocks. Where he had been was a brown-haired bear that would tower over even an orc on its hind legs. A beast that could tear a man in half with the swipe of one paw.

 

[Ava Gilleth]

For a moment, Ava forgot that she was supposed to be shooting orcs, watching the shimmer that surrounded the man before he changed, another tremor of excitement running through her. The beauty of it. She let out a sigh of awe. “Fascinating.”

The cry of the approaching orcs snapped her back to the important things and she notched another arrow, ducking from behind the rock and letting it fly, trusting the arrow to find its mark in the eye of her chosen target. The nordenfiir drew much of their attention, allowing her to properly assess their situation while picking off the few who were getting to close for comfort.

An arrow hissed past her head, close enough to slice through a few strands of hair. “How rude.” she muttered, swinging her own bow round to return the shot, lancing the archer through his throat. While the others charged forward to meet the surge of orcs, Ava hung back, gathering her strength and picking orcs off between the caravans few fighters and the great hulk of a bear.

Valthar

 

[Baise]

There as nothing fascinating, he thought, about calling upon his Svalen just to stand a chance of survival. It was a magic common to his species. In Eretejva it was a common sight, almost mundane.

At least the sorcerer could shoot a regular bow and try and put down some of the orcs before they came under attack. With long, loping strides the orcs closed the distance quickly.

Orcs were hunters. Valthar kept his bulk behind the rocks as they came. In this form he could still be killed by a lucky arrow or a volley of thrown spears.

One swipe of his paw caught an orc at the shoulder, carried him into another and sent both sprawling. Valthar had felt something break as they collided. With luck a few broken bones would keep an orc down.

Valthar had to back away as more filled the gap. They came in swinging crude but heavy axes. Valthar backed away, bellowing his challenge. He was still learning how to fight in this form. Valthar had not discovered his Svalen until being sent far from his home, far from anyone who could teach him.

 

[Ava Gilleth]

They would not survive, Ava thought, even with the great bulk of a bear they would be overrun in minutes. They would be overrun, her silks would be ruined by filthy hands and her body broken at the foot of the spine. What a terribly depressing thought.

She loosed another arrow at on orc closing on the bears flank, and another at one of the axe wielding fiends too close to his nose. "Watch the bears flanks!" she called to the others as she climbed a top the rocks then ran across them, jumping from one to the next. She hooked her bow over her shoulder and drew her long knife "Take cover!" hair rippled behind her as she made the final leap to her target.

Her long knife glittered in the light as she collided with an orc a few feet ahead of the nord and the world around her seemed to slow as she drew on her magic plunging the blade into the beasts heart. A heartbeat passed and the orc hit the ground with unnatural force, bones crumbling beneath her weight. The reaction did not stop at him, but spread forward.

The ground rippled like the surface of a pond then exploded, sending chucks of earth in all directions, great shards of rock embedded themselves into flesh and armour alike.

 

[Baise]

Valthar spammed his paw down onto an orc on its back. Something broken beneath that strike but the orc kept struggling and slashed at him with a knife. Valthar swatted it again and again. It looked almost as if he was playing with the orc, but the end result was one very broken and dead orc.

The sorceress ran past him towards the throng of orcs. She held nothing but a knife. Valthar growled out a warning but she accelerated with an unnatural speed into the nearest orc. It didn't matter if she was quick, the others would take her.

He felt a rumble through his paws and then the ground exploded around her. Valthar dropped his head and closed his eyes as dust was strewn in all directions.

An orc to his left had stopped to cover itself too. It lifted its axe again but valthar lazily struck it with a backhand, sending it tumbling away.

His fur was knotted with blood in several places. Not all of it belonged to orcs. The rest of the tribe were not attacking, he realised.

Valthar backed away as several arrows came his way. One stuck in his flack and he was grateful for his thick hide. The orcs carrying axe and spear were retreating back down the ridge.

Valthar suspected they were going to loot the caravan and cut their losses.

 

[Ava Gilleth]

Ava stayed where she was, the broken body of the orc beneath her knees, drawing deep ragged breaths and fighting a wave of nausea. There was a reason that she opted for a life in court, where magic needed was small and the price her body paid was limited. The air was filled with the soft his of arrows sailing towards them.

“Fuck.”

She to the side, pulling the crumpled body over her like a shield. It shuddered beneath the brief onslaught before she tossed it aside and got back to her knees to watch the orcs retreating backs. The icy wind whistled down from the mountains and she glanced behind her at the nord, then back to the caravan the orc were heading towards.

Ava pressed her hands against the ground and closed her eyes, drawing on the earth’s power she listened to the whispers of the icy wind of the mountains at their back. She let the power of it fill her till her body tingled from head to toe.

She rose slowly, tugging on the icy winds from the mountain drawing them into small tornadoes that snatched up debris from the explosion then sent them spinning after the retreating orcs. She caught a glimpse of them sucking up a few and spitting them out in all directions before darkness crept across her vision and she crumpled to the ground.

 

[Baise]

"Well, she's not dead," she would heard as she started to come around. It was Valthar's voice, close by.

"She looks dead. All that blood," called another voice from further away. "We should get the caravan moving."

"That's my blood. This is the risk of magic," he said, as if he were an expert. "If we go we put her on a wagon," grunted the Nordenfiir. Another grunt and he had the sorceress in his arms as he picked a careful path over the wake of destruction left by the magic.

He looked as if he was going to drop. The orcs had barely scraped his skin, but those wounds to his thick hide remained in his human form. There was a neat hole in his shoulder where the arrow had stuck fast in his flank. Blood tricked down his bare arm, for even in the biting wind barely felt like a cool breeze to him. At least the wind hadn't thrown him half a mile through the air.

 

[Ava Gilleth]

The world was a haze, her eyes flitted between darkness and light shapes she could not identify. She was aware she was being carried. How had it come to this? How had she allowed herself to become so weak? There was a time where such feats of magic hadn't rendered her utterly useless. A time before courtly intrigue and the seduction of kings.

Everything hurt, her muscles, her bones, her insides. It all burned with a malicious fire. Punishment for her gluttony. She forced her eyes open, the light made her eyes aches and she closed them again with a groan.

"Tell me," she whispered. "Was it worth it?"

Was it? Was it worth the pain for the sake of her silks? Because she would tell herself over and over that it was simply that. It had nothing to do with boredom, or the deep desire to know if she still had it in her.

 

[Baise]

Valthar narrowed his eyes as he looked down at the sorceress. He did not like wild magics, especially when they were being used in such close proximity to himself. Fire and brimstone were for stories, not to be unleashed so close to his fur.

"Was it worth it? I fucking doubt it unless you're travelling with a wagon full of dwarven gold."

Valthar challenged her to explain how the caravan could have been worth fighting an entire tribes of orcs for. He felt a slight temptation to drop her.

 

[Ava Gilleth]

Ava chuckled, reading the anger in Valthar's voice as distaste for her actions. So the shapeshifting nord didn't like magic. How hypocritical. She opted not to poke that topic while he was carrying her back to the wagons, she didn't much like the idea of being dumped on the ground.

"What I travel with is no concern of yours. We're alive, the orcs are gone and the caravan can continue its journey. You're welcome."

 

[Baise]

He liked the idea of dumping her on the ground. He liked it very much. His expression painted a picture of a man struggling with that urge.

"And now I have more holes in me than I should," he grunted. Blood wa still welling in the puncture wound in his shoulder. Had that arrow struck him in his norden form then it would have pierced all the way to the bone.

It hurt a great deal to be carrying the sorceress but they were nearly at the caravan now.

"You can ride with your precious cargo then, don't want me bleeding over it." Valthar's expression softened as he looked down at her. She still looked frightfully pale to him.

 

[Ava Gilleth]

"The fact that you fought like a cub has more to do with the holes in you, than me." she retorted. "I didn't invite the orcs." This one had a story, Ava was sure and she was loath to lose the opportunity to know it. He was, by far the most interesting person here besides herself. She wouldn't be able to cope with another attack, but he at least would make the journey more interesting.

"Ride with me, and I'll patch up your holes. I have more than one chest, you won't get blood anywhere that won't wash out." She grinned. "I'll even do it without magic."

Valthar

 

[Baise]

"Like a cub?" he asked. He turned his head away, not wanting an honest answer. His hair was a mess now. Apparently he could switch into his Svalen form and back and keep his clothes, but all the braids in his hair came out.

Her accusation touched a nerve. He had been late in discovering his Svalen, forced into the act by the trauma suffered at the hands of demons in Pandemonium. When the portal stones had belched him back out half way across the world he had been stranded far from his people. There had been no one to train him how to fight a Svalen, so he worked it out as he went.

"Fine," he replied curtly, setting her down at the back of a wagon. The rest of the survivors brought the horses back down the slope and started roping them back into position at the front of the carts.

As soon as his right hand was free, he clamped it over his left shoulder to try and stem the trickle of blood.

"Fucking orcs," he muttered. At least he wasn't cursing the sorceress this time. "My name of Valthar," he added, finally offering something.

 

[Ava Gilleth]

Ava shuffled herself closer to the chest in the back of the wagon, hands still trembling from the exertion she fumbled slightly with the catch before opening it, inside was a collection of scrolls, letters, odd trinkets and other small boxes with their own treasures hidden within. She drew out a small box that rattled slight as she set it on her lap.

Ava sucked in a deep breath and wrestled with a wave of nausea, eyes fluttering closed. She would need rest soon but she had to at the least see to Valthar's wounds. Exhaling slowly, she opened her eyes and the small box on her lap. She took a moment to rearrange the potions and salves within before pulling free a wrap of clean cloth and handing it to Valthar to staunch the blood flow.

"I'm Ava." she offered her own name in return with a small smile, before picking out a potion for herself, tugging the cork free with her teeth. It wasn't anything sinister, just something to settle her stomach and calm her trembling hands. A concoction she'd learned from one of the Nazrani tribes a long time ago.

"You're a long way from home, Valthar."

 

[Baise]

"I keep being told that," he grunted. Valthar climbed into the wagon and sat himself at the back, legs lying next to the closed tailgate. He kept his eyes on the horizon.

Through the lingering smoke he could see the orcs in the distance. Either their rage would send them chasing the caravan later, or they would like their wounds and be glad some of them had survived.

"I don't really like being reminded how far I have ahead of me," Valthar added. "I never meant to leave home."

He tightened his grip on his shoulder, feeling the blood seeping between his fingers.

 

[Ava Gilleth]

Ava moved the box from her own lap onto Valthars, and knelt beside him as the caravan began to rattle down the road again. "I'll avoid pointing out the obvious from now on then." she replied, pulling his hand away from the wound and sprinkling yarrow powder onto the hole before binding it tight.

"That will help stop the bleeding. I'll make a poultice once it has to help it heal." She set the apothecary box aside and settled down next to him. "How did you end up this far south?"

 

[Baise]

Valthar made a small harrumph noise, but he looked mildly contrite. His people had a reputation for being stubborn and he found that in the southern lands he found he exemplified it too often.

He looked down at his arm. The bandage was tied nice and tight. Perhaps because an arrow puncture was smaller to a bear, it was not so wide on his skin now. The bleeding had almost stopped. Valthar knew, however, that he was in for a few night of little sleep.

"Demons," he replied plainly. "I was drawn into Pandemonium. When I was...thrown out I found myself alone and very far from home."

He sighed. For all he knew his entire town could have been wiped out. On his travels he had found out that the demonic attacks had not been constrained to Eretejva and that they seemed to have left Arethil altogether.

 

[Ava Gilleth]

Ava frowned at the mention of Pandemonium, she remembered the attacks well enough. She wasn't one for making friends, not anymore but there had been those who had been close acquaintances who had died. Not to mention some members of her the family she was estranged from. It had reminded her why it was important to keep people at arms length. Still, there was always one or two who managed to slip between the cracks of her facade.

"I can't imagine how terrifying that must have been for you. Many people who were thrown out have been...damaged. For what it's worth, you seem relatively whole for someone who has endured such a thing." She tipped her head back to rest on the chest and closed her eyes. "Have you sent word home? Or heard from anyone in turn?"

 

[Baise]

Valthar watched her when he thought her eyes were closed. It had felt as if she was trying to take the measure of him, and he did not like anything being taken for free. Yet she had spoken with what sounded like genuine concern. Not many in this strange land had taken much time to help him along the way.

"I am trying to get home," he admitted, looking away. Some of the edge was gone from his voice. "That's all I've been doing, heading east. I got caught up defending out town but...Im just a fisherman," he admitted with a shrug.

The pressure of the world might have moulded him since, but he pined for the simple life. He wanted his round-bottomed boat, the quiet task of dragging in heavy nets after hours on the icy cold waters.

 

[Ava Gilleth]

Ava was not all cold and hateful. Deep beneath her facade there was some warmth to her soul, it rarely showed itself, and when it did, it was normally at times of great vulnerability. She was ultimately powerless, weak from the attack and so so very tired. Many would think that revealing the truth beneath it all during vulnerable moments was a fools errand, but Ava's time on this earth had told her something different. Her true colours had a way of softening another's touch.

"You should send a raven to them, let them know you are safe." she said sleepily, opening her eyes and watching the mountains loom above them. "I have been estranged from my family for...well," she glanced at him "at least three of your lifetimes. Yet I still send a raven every few years. Just to let them know that despite their best efforts, I am still breathing." she chuckled.

Valthar

 

[Baise]

She was making it increasingly difficult to remain angry at her. This, in itself, was a source of frustration for the nordenfiir. He had plenty of angry of angry grumbling still to do.

"Not met any with a raven trained to go that far," he replied. "Not even sure one bird could go all the way from here, over the Spine and all the way there."

There was supposed to be a portal stone in Belgrath. He didn't know if there were any stones east of the spine he could use. When he had been in Eratejva no one had know about any stones on the entire continent.

"How old are you?" he asked in an off-hand manner. There was no sign of any orcs on their trail yet.