“I heard
Iris has been recovering well.”
The words finally broke out. They’d been held back for hours.
“Ahmm.”
The ill-boding mutter at the girl’s side, she felt it more than heard it. They kept walking.
“The surgery was a success. So the doctor said. He said it’s the first one of its kind. ‘novative. So he said.”
Eyes closed. A step in the darkness, then another. The steps at her side had a weight of someone who could break her neck with two fingers. She remembered reaching out inside someone’s body, with her mind. Her own voice, guiding the doctor’s scalpel, perhaps decided whether someone lived or died. The doctor had asked for her assistance. Her magic. She wouldn’t know for a long time if she’d asked to cut out too little.
“Mhm.”
“I thought this would help.” Nina pleaded. Help whom, she wondered? Suds had been convinced by her suggestion to quietly get Iris to
Elbion, to see a doctor. In Blight Orc
culture, this was dishonorable. The weak died. The strong thrived. Nina had fought the natural order.
Silence.
“Graograman sent you with me to punish you?” The girl whispered. Graograman was Suds’ superior in the army.
“You talk too much.”
The two figures walked along the seawall, onto the beach. Even from a distance they stood out from each other. The first was lanky, somewhat crane-like, and stumbled to catch up to the second with the swagger of an experienced seafarer. The second was larger, not so much in height, but well-built, and with deep-set eyes that studied the piles of rocks on the beach with the air of one expecting an ambush. The warrior wore armor, overlapping angular plates glimmering dull black in the morning sun. They were the color of expensive lacquer once soul had been taken out of it, the color of the army of Molthal. Both figures carried bundles of what appeared to be winter clothes.
As they came closer to the ship, it would become clear that the larger figure was an orc, a blight orc to be precise, and the smaller one was a human. The human had olive skin, and her hair was adorned with beads in the manner of pirates and sea gypsies. She looked boyish and young. The orc had green-ashen skin crisscrossed with the scars of combat, and even for one who knew
orcs well, it would have been difficult to guess whether they were looking at a masculine-looking woman or a feminine-looking man.
“Hello!” Nina greeted the young man who appeared to be waiting around. The
Eretejva ship anchored behind him was their destination, as well as the start of their next journey.
Of course, she’d done plenty of waving and smiling even before they could hear each other. It wouldn’t do to worry people with all the weapons that her companion was carrying. “Do you know of one called
Uarraig?” She spoke in a lighthearted manner, but her fleeting eyes barely made contact. “If he’s on this ship, I think we’re supposed to come along.”
Her fingertips stroked the air, along the image of the ship.
“I’m Nina.” She bowed, lightly but with a flourish. For a moment she hesitated, with her palm pointing towards her companion. “Suds.” She settled on.
“Suds is my…bodyguard.”
A pause.
“Should we get aboard? You can show us the ship and how we can be of help. I heard the voyage will be an important occasion.”
Uarraig Tolmach
