Bloodraven (14 page)

He woke abruptly, half lifted in the embrace of Bloodraven’s arm as the ogr’ron swept the top layer of soiled blanket from the pallet. The ogr’ron had a particular taste for cleanliness, a strange enough habit, considering his fellows and their perpetual stench. He was laid back down and Bloodraven settled his large body next to him, curling Yhalen close in the crook of one arm. It was an agreeable enough position, with Bloodraven clearly sated and drowsy himself. There was no threat in it and Yhalen shut his eyes, body limp and comfortable and warm against the ogr’ron, no thought on his mind save much needed sleep.

It might have been hours later that he woke, pressed against Bloodraven’s side, head resting against the ogr’ron’s shoulder, his hand splayed out over a rock-hard belly, and remembered what he’d promised to the girl. He lay, listening to the sound of Bloodraven’s soft breathing and feeling the slow, steady beat of his heart under all that muscle and bone. Yhalen shivered. He was to take a life tonight and flee. He was to save the lives of his fellow humans—of innocents caught up in the ogre’s incomprehensible migration southward. He was to do all this to warn the human forces that might be able to stop them. And all he could do was lay staring at the rise and fall of Bloodraven’s chest against his cheek. The enemy. His master. His captor. His rapist.

But it needed doing. A great many lives depended on it. And of all the human captives here, he had the most latitude to accomplish it. With a shaky breath he slid off Bloodraven’s shoulder, carefully removing his hand from the halfling’s stomach, silently slipping off the edge of the cot and crouching on the floor next to it. A fit of trembling overtook him and he clutched at the furs, pressing his forehead against them. He regained control of himself and crawled around the cot, snatching his discarded loincloth before making his way to the hearth where he’d hidden the knife.

He clutched the bone handle so hard his knuckles whitened, and held it close to his chest. He’d never drawn human blood—but Bloodraven wasn’t human. Was he? Did a human father make him so?

If this was the start of a war, then did it matter? An enemy was an enemy and there was no such thing as murder in war. Was there? The Ydregi had never joined in any of the wars that took place between humans around the great forest. He didn’t know if any of the people had ever looked upon war as a good enough reason to take a human—or a half-human’s life. He’d never thought to ask.

He crept closer to the cot and the sleeping form upon it. He was sore from the night’s activity and the ache in his bottom made him press his lips together and gather confidence in what needed doing. If it were Kragnor Deathclaw, he’d plunge the knife into the beast’s chest without a second thought. He’d have killed any of them without hesitation—so why cringe now, when it came to the one who tormented him the most? The one that made him crawl and beg and participate in his own shame.

Yhalen lifted the blade, wondering if that bright edge was sharp enough to slice through an ogr’ron's skin. Bloodraven’s skin didn’t feel as leathery and thick as that of the other ogres. It was smooth and soft and warm—but still, the knife wasn’t a skinning one, but merely one to peel vegetables. Perhaps he should plunge the tip into the halfling’s chest and hope he put enough pressure behind the blow to pierce bone and muscle. If not, he’d be in for a nasty retaliation. He thought he could, in his need, find the strength. He tested the tip and thought it sharp enough. He raised the blade, hands shaking and rose up off his knees—and stayed there, frozen, staring down at the sleeping face. Not a hideous face by any means. Quite absurdly handsome, truth be told, with high angled cheekbones and a sharp, straight slash of a nose, sweeping brows and full, sensuous lips. The ears were incidental, an aberration beside an otherwise strong face. He could have been human. Had his father held those same features?

Features that even an ogress might find appealing?

Yhalen tasted the tears trailing down his face before he realized that he was crying. Fool. Twice a fool, for being swayed by—by what? Pity? Morals? Guilt? Mercy? He almost laughed out loud at the last. What mercy had he been shown?

None. Save maybe a soft touch instead of a brutal one. Save concern in a set of golden eyes when a creature twice his weight realized he’d been too rough.

“Oh, Goddess,” he murmured, the words a bare whisper on his lips. “I can’t.”

He could only pray to Her that Bloodraven slept long and hard and gave him ample time to slip away and flee with the village captives. There would be organized pursuit with Bloodraven alive, but there was no help for it.

Yhalen crept to the back of the hall, looking for the hidden entrance that Meliah had told him of. He found it and slipped within, shutting it behind him and casting himself into pitch blackness. He felt his way by touch, passing through the cool damp air of an underground passage. And finally he came to an end of it, and a ladder leading up. He found himself within foliage at the back of the village and wondered why, if they’d had this escape, they had not taken it. They had been fools to stay and defend against an overwhelming enemy when the weakest of them could have fled.

He followed the girl’s direction and found the small shack where he thought the women were held.

He could see the sheltered fires of the ogres and hear a few voices. Most of the invaders were silent, asleep for the night. Yhalen began sawing at the twine that interlaced the planks. Soon a small, whispered voice reached him from within.

“Yhalen. Is it you?”

“Shhh,” he cautioned her. “They have sharp ears.”

Silence from within. He loosened one board and went to work on the next. Three loosened, and it was enough for them to slip through, the four children first. Six altogether, with one of them injured and fevered. Meliah and the other one that had come to make Bloodraven’s dinner emerged last. They were all that were left.

“Quickly. Can you carry Johan?” Meliah took charge, putting the injured child into Yhalen’s arms.

She herded the others ahead of her and into the thicket. There was woodland beyond that this forest

raised village girl might know well. Goddess knew Yhalen was disoriented enough to stumble over his own feet. He followed her lead, trusting in her instincts when his own were so skewed.

But he was free. For the first time in many days, he was free of them. His heart sang with joy from it and his feet began to find a nimbler path and his senses sharpened to the secrets of the wood.

It gave him the advantage over them and therefore, he was the first to hear the barking of the dogs.

The children were too terrified to cry. They ran as fast as their small legs could carry them, stumbling now and then and tripping over roots hidden by the dark. The women helped as much as they could, whispering encouragement even as they staggered themselves, exhausted and every bit as frightened as the young ones. The small body Yhalen carried shivered, but he thought it was more from fever than fear. The life energy felt dim—he was no healer, yet even he could sense the weakening. This child would die soon, if something were not done.

They all would, if the pursuit he heard latched upon their trail. The barking had waned a handful of breaths past—and his spirits lifted, hoping against all hope that the beasts had lost the scent—or been distracted by a night foraging wild pig or a startled deer.

“Meliah?” Yhalen gasped her name and she turned wide, white-rimmed eyes towards him. “Do you know of a safe place? Have we a destination?”

The determination she’d evidenced earlier had fled, replaced by uncertainty. “Our lord’s castle is east of the village.”

“How far?”

“A day’s walk, from dawn to dusk,” she whispered.

So far. He might be able to make it himself in half that time, for he was no stranger to grueling hikes, but none of these children,—nor even the women, though the girl looked sturdy enough—could keep such a pace. They were lagging even now, almost to their limits. They might hide from ogre pursuit—but Bloodraven’s dogs—there would be no escaping the notice of the dogs should they pick up the scent once more.

“You’ll need to rest—and soon,” he said.

“We can’t!” snapped Meliah, even as she stumbled and she clutched at Yhalen’s arm to save herself a fall.

“You’ve little choice,” he murmured, pausing as they all did, the children hanging listlessly onto the skirts of the older women and the younger one leaning hard against Yhalen’s side.

“I hate them,” she said, wetness escaping her lashes to trail down her cheeks. “I hate this.”

Oh, he shared her sentiment wholeheartedly and vehemently.

“We’ll keep moving for a little while, but slower. I don’t hear the dogs now.”

“Dogs?”

They stared at him, aghast, as if they’d never heard the barking.

He nodded bleakly, feeling the girl’s nails bite into the bare flesh of his arm. They had seen Bloodraven’s beasts, he wagered, at sometime during their captivity within the village and like any sane beings, they had been properly horrified at the size and ferocity of the things. They weren’t of the Ydregi—he didn’t expect them to have the affinity for animals that he did.

“They were on our trail,” he said softly and gently pried the girl’s fingers from his arm. He expected blood from her grip, but only found nail-shaped crescents in his skin. “But I haven’t heard them for a while now. They were drawn off, perhaps, by some other game.”

“The ogres,” the girl asked. “Are they skillful trackers?”

Yhalen honestly didn’t know. He thought it was more luck than skill that had thrown him into their hands—that and his own blind panic. “If we can elude them till morning, perhaps it won’t matter, for we’ll be within a reasonable distance of your lord’s estate. He’ll have men patrolling the perimeters of his private lands, won’t he, that might find us before we even reach him.”

“Perhaps.” She stifled a sob, forcing her weakness away.

They moved on again, until the children could walk no more and Yhalen found a nook in the lee of an old tree’s twisted root system that provided some bit of shelter. They settled there and he went to track down fresh water. He could smell it, even though no sound of a brook broke the predawn silence of the wood. He tugged absently at the collar as he searched, embarrassed at the thought of presenting 42

himself to some lordling, half naked and wearing the obvious mark of slavery. The girl said it was no shame of his—what had been perpetrated upon him against his will—but she was being kind, or was naive beyond belief. The shame was there and always would be and he quelled at the notion of his own people discovering what had happened, much less enduring the cold speculation of strangers.

He found the spring. A tiny trickle of water issuing forth from the side of mulch covered gully. He cupped his hands beneath the trickle of clear water, let them fill and lapped it down. Again and again, until some of his thirst was quenched. He had nothing to carry water in, but it wasn’t far from where he’d left the women and children and he could bring them here—those that hadn’t fallen into sleep already—and let them sate their own needs.

He did just that, carrying the smallest child to the water himself, then handing him over to the girl and letting her dampen the warm forehead with cool water and dribble some of the same between the child’s lips. She chose to carry the little boy back, for the water had roused him somewhat and he clung to her neck, eyes wide and dazed, his small hands wrapped in her hair.

Yhalen sat above them, on the high side of the nook, with his back to the tree, keeping watch. He ran his fingers through the tangles of his hair, rebraiding it to keep himself awake and occupied while the others rested fitfully below him. He shivered, recalling all too vividly Bloodraven’s fascination with it, Bloodraven’s hands in it, testing its texture and its weight, wrapping it around long fingers and using it as a leash of sorts to hold Yhalen down, or draw him back— Yhalen’s fingers tightened on the end of the braid as he realized his thoughts. Chagrined, he was tempted almost to take the small knife in his belt and hack the length of it off to rid himself of the reminder. But then he’d have to start carving away at his flesh, for ogre hands had been more often upon that. He leaned his forehead upon his knees and wondered how he’d ever face his father.

After only too brief a time, he roused them, urging them to their feet, even though the children whimpered and cried softly. The women hushed them, though they were ashen-faced and disoriented themselves, the onset of shock coming upon them.

“I—I don’t know which way is east anymore,” Meliah admitted in a small, whispery voice.

“It’s this way,” Yhalen said, moving her forward with a hand on her shoulder. “Shall I take him?”

He offered to bear the weight of the child, but the girl shook her head.

“No. I fear that...that he may not make it to our lord’s estate and if not—he knows me. It would be better if....”

She couldn’t say the words, that if the child died in her arms instead of a stranger’s, it would be a blessing. Yhalen nodded, shaken. Even after all the death he’d seen these last days—still it was inconceivable, the thought of it taking one so young. He’d never heard even wives’ tales of Ydregi children dying and yet Ydregi were not so different as the people of the east—not really, save a sensitivity to the grace of the Goddess and a marginally longer lifespan. Yet the people of the east had graveyards filled with bodies, both young and old. Every city, every town, every small hamlet—no one of them did not intimately know death, and yet they treated it so lightly. As a thing to accept and expect.