Private Tales What Does Not Kill Us

[Hath Charosh]

Hath had clasped a hand on either side of her leg and squeezed tight as the potion started to work. It stemmed the flow of blood until the potion spread through her body. It wasn't pleasant to have to put her through that, but it was necessary. Helping to fix an arrow wound was also mundane after what they had just been through.

"Just breathe," he sighed. The rain was slowing to a gradual patter. The storm was close to breaking.

He was glad she had brought healing potions. The hot wet conditions could be unkind to wounds. Orcs were hardy creatures, not felled as easily as humans by infection. They rarely died to even an entirely lost limb. They were almost as stubborn about dying as dwarves.

"How much strength do you have?" he asked. She wasn't going to be able to use one wrist, but she could place an elbow against his chest and pull with the other hand.

"This one might be in bone. It will not come out easy. But it must."

Hath looked down at it warily. His strength had been drained away by the demonic possession. It had taken sheer determination to stay upright as Pern clung to him.

"And we will avoid arrows as much as we can," he promised. He managed half a chuckle. More of a sharp breath out.

 

[Pern]

A wary nod to his words, a wilted smile to his small humor. Pern carefully pushed herself to a stand, setting her bag aside and placing the second healing potion on top of it. Her leg still hurt but she could, tenderly, place weight on it. A good sign as she worried about her ability to travel. Hath had enough to be concerned about without having to help her walk as well.

Turning back to him and eyeing the two arrows, she moved to the one that did not seem to be wedged into bone. Just as he had thought, Pern braced the elbow of her bad arm against his chest, taking a firm hold of the arrow with her good hand.

"Ready?"

She waited a beat and then yanked firmly back, pulling the arrow free and bringing with it a well of dark blood. Without waiting she moved on to the other, brow knitting in concern. What if she couldn't remove the arrowhead? Orcish arrows were made sturdy - she knew, she watched and helped them make more - but orcish bone was quite dense. With as much care as she could finesse, Pern shifted her elbow and took hold of the second arrow, giving it a very small test-tug.

It didn't budge.

This was going to take some tough love.

"Ok - on three," Pern reaffirmed her grip, "one ... two -" and then her eyes went wide as she noticed the figure of the lone scout quite suddenly rushing toward's them both from behind Hath. She yanked, hard, and the arrow came out with a sudden jerk of resistance. Without thinking, Pern took the arrow and drove it over Hath's shoulder and into the scout's neck just as she was making to an axe down into him.

The axe dropped by his side, the orcess sputtered where she stood, grabbing blindly at the arrow, blood gushing from her jugular. She collapsed just behind Hath, twitching, then stilled.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath braced for the second arrow. This had been done before and that time three orcs had been holding him down as he thrashed. This time he had to turn his reaction inwards. His hands were balled into tight fists as she tested the arrow.

A low growl couldn't be kept in at the blazing hot agony flared through his whole body. Only a taste of what was to come. In some ways it was good that the demon had sapped his strength.

He managed to find the energy to lift his head and to meet Pern's eyes as she readied herself. He gave a firm nod. He sucked in a deep and squeezed his hands until his nails broke the skin of his palms. Then he saw the surprise in her eyes. It lasted but a moment before she yanked the arrowhead out of bone and his vision flashed white.

The next thing he was aware of was Jilshi's foot tapping against his back as she twitched. He looked down at the axe in the mud beside him.

"Well...done..." he sighed, sinking further forwards into the mud. He was aware of what Pern had just done, he simply lacked the strength to even try and say more.

 

[Pern]

Pern's face went slack with the horror of what she'd just done. She hadn't known the scout other than the last few days of travel with her, but that hardly mattered. Killing someone for the sake of killing them - even to defend a friend - was not something her spirit was ready to accept.

"Gods..." heart hammering in her chest, Pern looked down as she felt Hath go sluggish against her, sinking into the mud. There wasn't time to process everything, he was losing blood quickly. Leaning, she plucked the second healing potion from the top of her bag and pulled the cork with her teeth. Her bad leg was bracing the bulk of Hath by the knee to keep him from buckling face-first into the mud. With a grunt she reached to sit him up, pressing his head back to look up into the rain with her forearm.

"Hath, drink this-" Pern pushed the bottle into his partly opened jaw to carefully pour the contents in.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath didn't trust magic a great deal. As sluggish as his mind was, he still braced for more pain. Such a powerful concoction had to hurt.

Instead the pain slowly ebbed away until he could feel the flow patter of the gentle rainfall on his back. The storm was breaking, but it would be much longer before he could feel a ray of light breaking through after this.

His tribe was broken, he had killed his own half brother, his body was permanently marked by the demon and Pern needed to recover from killing another orc.

"Thank you," he groaned, using her to kneel upright once more. "I don't know what we do now."

He felt he should have done. This whole time he had been her guide and now he was utterly lost.

 

[Pern]

Pern was staring at the body laying still in the mud and waters behind Hath, feeling the shock of what she had done slowly setting in.

"Can we go," she replied under her breath, "pleashe ... let'sh leave."

They had the option to continue with their journey and she saw no reason to stop here. She also wanted to get as far away from the bodies as possible.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath did not want to look behind him either. He had to go and retrieve his things. He rather pointedly kept his gaze from Bathyr's remains. There had been a great divide between himself and his half-brother, but at no point had he ever imagined it coming to such a bloody end.

As he walked away he could not help but relive those moments when he had accepted the pact. Dying had felt a terribly lonely thing.

The storm left them with the deepest blue sky. The stars watched them, judged them. The horizon they put to their backs still carried the faintest yellow warmth of the sunken sun.

Hath placed a hand to his chest, feeling the mortal wound. The skin was darker. Not the inky black of the thing that had healed him, but he knew he was permanently marked. No healing potion would make it go away.

"Can you keep on a bit longer?" he asked, veering them north. Further from elves, further from their intended path. "More distance before we sleep would be good."

The air was still damp, no sun was left to chase away the cold left by the storms.

 

[Pern]

Pern had little to collect and was waiting for Hath as he found his axe and other affects. She'd stepped away only just enough to have everything from the setting of brutal struggle and death out of her vision. To Hath's question as he joined her she nodded. Putting as much distance between them and anything else from his tribe that might come after them seemed like a very good idea, damn her fatigue and lingering pain.

She left it up to Hath to decide when he felt there was enough of that distance. He'd been quite good about recognizing when she was growing tired, and sometimes she'd felt a strong enough need to speak up. To stop for the day, or at least take a break. Their journey had no deadline on it other than Hath's state of well-being. So long as he was managing, they needn't press themselves to the brink of exhaustion. Tonight had been the first night she'd felt that pressing need.

Didn't stop her from feeling a wave of relief when he chose a spot to stop for the night.

The rain had stopped some time ago but there was no dry brush or wood to make a fire after that torrential downpour. Pern carefully set herself down at the base of a tree, watching Hath as he went about his usual routine of ensuring the area was safe and clear.

"Hath..." she frowned, "what will happen to you now if you go back to the tribe?"

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath looked up at Pern, begging her not to ask that question. It was too late. The words were real now. They galvanised his thoughts as if they had the power of command.

"I do not know. They attacked me, attacked us. Bathyr's father will try and kill me and Kardidua may not be able to stop him"

The ground was slightly elevated around the tree and it had thirsty roots. It meant he wasn't sinking into mud as he say down and placed his hands on his knees.

"Why? Why would he do that?" he asked softly.

 

[Pern]

Pern's expression sunk deeper than she ever recalled before. The weight of Hath's confusion was greater than anticipated and it worried her that even he did not seem to know why. Almost as though this seemingly random act of violence wasn't normal for his tribe.

She looked to her hands in her lap, gently curling her fingers and pressing the pads against the various callouses and scars that covered her palms from nearing 20 years of work in the smithy.

"He ... he tried to get me to come with him after he," Pern glanced over at him as he took a seat next to her at the base of the trees, "... after you fell."

She remembered the boom of his voice and the vision of that beastly orc standing over her, hand offered, beckoning. Come. How he'd roared in anger after the scout had shot her with an arrow.

He hadn't wanted to kill her, only Hath.

 

[Hath Charosh]

He had fallen. He had been on the verge of death and made a pact with a demon. Perhaps it would have been better. The corruption would have been gone with him. Pern's life would not have been so bad with the tribe.

He placed one hand over the ward at his chest and then slipped his fingers down to the diamond of healing skin in the middle of his chest. The sword has run him through. Perhaps when the demon was exorcised it would open up again and he would die anyway.

"He would have taken you back to the tribe then. He is not...was not a liar. He may have acted alone, decided that the best thing for the tribe was for you to continue your work and for me to never return. He was never..."

Hath growled softly to himself and shook his head.

"You killed a woman. How are you doing?"

 

[Pern]

Pulling her knees up to her front with care, Pern wrapped her around around her legs to keep out the sensation of cold. It wasn't a temperature thing - though damp from the rains, it was still quite balmy. The cold she felt was that of unnerving anxiety and trauma. The pit of her stomach felt as though it were full of hot iron, her spine ached from tension, her head was pounding. That did not even speak of the lingering pain from her wounds.

This would be a night that would haunt her dreams for years to come. She could feel it. Made her sick.

"I..." Pern grimaced, lifting a hand to wipe slicked brown curls from her face, "not good." Resigned to the fact that she was now a murderer, Pern tucked her head inside her arms, forehead against her knees, and hid her guilt and shame from Hath.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath had nothing of value to say. Anything he could have done, she already knew. She had abed their lives, it had been them or the other orcs. They were all hollow, empty words. She had lived among humans for long enough with their endlessly flapping jaws, never taking any real action to help one another.

He stood slowly, carefully. Hath made sure he still had a weapon close to hand. Some rules were unbreakable in the wilds, regardless of the situation.

The gentle breeze still carried a chill, picking it up from the damp earth. Earth usually scorched by the sun, now drowned by the storms.

Hath slumped to the ground next to Pern, on her right, and moved hip to hip. He draped his left arm across her shoulders and gently placed his right hand across the forearm she used to shield her face. She was on this journey on his account. Everything she suffered was on him. Despite the harsh life he lived it wasn't hard to understand her pain; he had just killed his own brother.

 

[Pern]

Weeks ago Pern would have startled at the gesture and likely pulled away. Though she'd trusted Hath then to a point, he was still largely an unknown. Now, however, given everything they'd been through, she no longer felt any inclination of fear toward the Orc. The demonic entity within him would certainly still give her pause, but she'd now faced that down, too, and felt the fear of it dissipate away in place of the confidence she now held for the amulet hanging at his chest.

Pern leaned against the orc, placing a hand over the one now resting on her arm. She wasn't sure if he grieved the loss of his brother, but she didn't need to feel certain of it to offer her own comforting gesture to a friend.

Several days travel found them leaving the grasslands for a more temperate form of wooded area. They followed a worn wagon road, occasionally coming across other travelers, and continued their journey east. Hath made an effort to keep them away from most settlements but Pern found herself pausing before a signpost taller than even he as they reached a crossroads.

"Hath," she called after him, his figure slowly making its way down the road to the right, "wait."

<< BETHEL
<< MORGANTOWN
<< CREE

BELTZVILLE >>
PALL VALLEY >>
LITTLEWING LAKE >>
​

"I know thish playsh," she said, lifting a hand to point up, "Cree. It'sh where they raishe messhenger ravensh. I want to go there."

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath nodded solemnly. They had built up a rapport back with the tribe, but since that dark night he had been much quieter.

That thing was still there. He hadn't heard its voice since that night, but he could feel it twisting and writhing deep down. It was angry. It had been given a taste of freedom. It had been fed violence. He didn't want to carry this burden. It had changed everything now.

Hath was certain right now that the voice would whisper that it had saved his life, that his brother had come to kill him for other reasons.

"You want to send a message?" he asked. "What kind of place is it?"

 

[Pern]

"Yesh," she nodded, "to my father. He wrote of thish playsh in hish journal. It ish a shmall village sherrounding a tower and kept by a ...faun."

Faun were not common no matter where you went, so far as Pern understood it. Her father's first encounter here at Cree had been one of great excitement for meeting one.

"It ish shayfe," she added, "according to him."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"We will go there then," he agreed. "If it is run by a faun and not a human then they should not chase us away."

Pern had seen the side of orcish nature from their perspective within his tribe. She had no seen much of it from the other out here in the wilder lands.

Orcs raided. Even his own tribe if they were desperate, or if humans encroached on their hunting grounds. The reaction to orcs arriving was not always friendly.

Pern had been given enough harsh lessons on life out here already. He was starting to blame himself more for some of them.

 

[Pern]

"Okay," Pern replied, excitement filtering back into her eyes. She dithered for a moment, having expected Hath to dismiss the notion of going out of their way, and found herself both happy and relieved that he had agreed instead. She felt her heart leap - a letter to her father wasn't quite like the prospect of going home, but it was close enough.

"Thish - uh, thish way then," and off she lead.

CREE

Cree was less of a town and more of a destination. There were only two major buildings to the location; two towers. One that reached nearly to the clouds and a second much shorter and squatter. Around their base there seemed to be other attachments, but the area did not give Pern the impression of village or homestead.

Above their heads the song of ravens echoed through the skies as dozens, if not hundreds of birds swooped, glided, fluttered, and dove in and out, circling the stone spires. There were no guards posted, but she did spy several women along the small river that passed between the two towers. They were washing linens and clothes, gossiping while they worked.

Pern blinked, looking back to Hath, "Wait here. I'll shee if I can find out where to go."

She approached and the women looked up, alarmed at the sudden appearance of a single female orc. Pern held up both her hands to signal she meant no harm, "Hello ... shorry to interrupt. I am looking for the faun?"

They didn't run but they did exchange several worried looks with one another.

"The ... Mashter of the tower? I'd like to shend a letter."

The women muttered to one another before one stood and pointed to the taller of the towers, speaking something in a language that Pern did not understand. The orcess nodded and gave her thanks before signaling to Hath to follow, "I could not tell what they shaid, but hopefully thish ish the right playsh."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"They were probably confused at an orc asking to write a letter," he mused. Even when he was in a jovial mood not much humour made an overt move on the tone of his voice. This was, however, one of the first lighthearted quips he had made since leaving his tribe.

Hath didn't know that many people sent letters. They simply paid to dictate them as they went to send them. It was good coin for anyone who had the skill themselves.

"Perhaps you should knock?" Hath suggested, pausing a shirt distance from the door. He leaned back to look up at the tower, giving himself a dose of vertigo trying to take the entire thing in. From right in front, it seemed as if it was a walkway to the clouds.

 

[Pern]

A small smirk found its way wrapped around one of her tusks at his remark, "Ish it sho odd?"

Did his people not write letters? Not correspond with other tribes? Inscribing runes onto his amulet had certainly been an affair of curiosity for the other smiths in the Circle, which made her wonder if they had a written language at all.

"Perhaps you should knock?"

Well, that was a very civilized suggestion coming from him. Pern raised her brows but nodded in agreement and stepped forward to carefully clasp a brass knocker.

Nok nok nok.

Her fingers tingled at the touch not unlike static electricity, but ... not exactly the same either. She flexed her hand as she stepped back again, startling slightly as the door suddenly opened off its own accord. No one stood at the other side and what she found as she stepped in was not at all what she was expecting.

Vines. Woody growth. Leaves. Glowing moss and fungus and flowers. The air was musty like an underground cave and the atmosphere heady with a sensation she was not personally familiar with.

"Hello?" she called out, cautiously taking a few more steps in, "I would like to shend a letter."

"Indeed?" said a deep, gravelly voice to her left and when Pern turned to look and see she yelped in surprise and stumbled back into Hath as a face seemed to form in an old and gnarled trunk of wood. Two green leaves shifted and glowed like eyes and seemed to look through her before shifting to her companion, "No weapons inside. Leave them at the door then come to the fifth floor."

Pern blinked, heart racing as she looked up at Hath apologetically before collecting her feet again. She hadn't any weapons on her anymore - her dagger had been lost in the mud and she'd not opted to take the sword after the fight with Hath's brother.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath gave a shrug in response to her apologetic glance. Having her leaning on him was rather inconsequential when there was a gave in the fucking wood talking to them.

Magic never, ever mixed well with his business. It always seemed to be a dangerous thing wielded by those who had no respect for others. Or no respect for what would happen if it was unleashed.

Hath placed a hand on Pern's shoulder and stepped forwards. He remained on what he felt was the threshold of the door so that it didn't seem he was invading with weapons.

He poked the wooden trunk below the face.

"What are you?"

 

[Pern]

A lash of green swept out, suddenly snapping at the hand that dared poke in a flush of leaf sprigs.

"The Keeper of the Tower. Don't be rude. No weapons, fifth floor."

And then the face in the trunk dissappeared, leaving behind just the remnants of an aged, gnarled tree. Blinking in her shock, as magic would always tend to do to her, Pern looked to Hath for a moment, "You can shtay here ... if you want." Hath wasn't want to leave his weapons behind under normal circumstances and she hardly believed this counted as anything normal.

"I'll be fine," a nervous nod. This mostly said for herself rather than him. If her father had come out unscathed then, ideally, so would she.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath grunted and stepped inside. He wasn't going to leave his weapons outside the door where anyone could take them.

He set down his axe and his bow. Then his short sword and the dagger Pern had made. Then a hatchet and a skinning knife. Two more knives added to the pile and he was done.

"Tree face had better not let anyone take these," he said firmly. He said these words to a blank piece of wood.

"I'm coming," he said. It did not need to be said. A few years ago he would have already sprinted a hundred yards from this place.

 

[Pern]

Pern stood in silence while Hath emptied his inventory of sharp, pointy, deadly objects. Took some doing - even Pern had to raise a brow as the weapons continued to pile up. And here she was, left with naught but her smithing hammer in her bag. She didn't really count that as a weapon, but more an extension of her own self, plus there was no need to be going through the contents of her pack while she was here.

Maybe.

"Tree face had better not let anyone take these."

The amusement briefly filtered across Pern's expression before she gave him an appreciative nod and turned to find a nearby set of spiral stone stairs. Wouldn't you know it but having him come along was reason to feel relieved. She hadn't really wanted to go up there by herself but was feeling a bit more emboldened as of late. Couldn't be sure why - perhaps she just wanted to prove to Hath that she wasn't totally helpless.

Or to herself.

As they mounted the steps to scale the floors, Hath's weapons were ensnared by vines and pulled up against a nearby wall where they were hidden from view by the slithering greens.

Up, up, up they went. The walls were covered in old-growth branches and vines. Movement of insects and (perhaps faeries) flickered just at the edges of Pern's sight. The fifth doorway to their right opened into an expansive study that seemed far bigger on the inside that it should have.

"Hello?" Pern cautiously stepped in, craning her neck to peer around arched bookcase.

"Enter," said a voice belonging to a robed faun.

Pern lead the way in to find the faun standing at an open stone window, tying a small, rolled scroll to a raven's leg. She stared for a moment, having never seen a faun before, and immediately understood Ignatius' excitement upon his first meeting. There was something ethereal about the creature, a sensation of energy that surrounded him that was both calm yet energizing. It felt as though she'd stepped into a nexus of natural power.

"I am Pern and thish is my friend Hath. We mean no trouble, I shimply would like to shend a letter to my father in Elbion."

"Be received, Pern and Hath," said the faun, releasing the raven out into the open air beyond the window, "I am Yngol, keeper of the tower. Will your friend Hath also be sending a letter?"

 

[Hath Charosh]

This place did not look inhabited, Hath thought to himself as they took the stairs. He should have been alert to danger, checking behind them as they took the stairs. Instead he found distraction in Perns new traditional orcish garb and the amount of toned leg that put on show. It certainly took his mind off the creepy tree. Unfortunately they returned to level ground all too soon.

There was a strange air around the faun they turned to find. It was not unfriendly. Hath certainly didn't

"Greetings Yngol," said Hath, touching an open hand to his left shoulder in a typical signal for greeting a stranger that showed he was not armed. He didn't feel so exposed for coming without weapons now.

"No letter for me," he said plainly. Pern might have been able to practise orcish, but his trade tongue was getting rusty.