Aftermath of Blue-Rock - Day 6

Sephenia

I had been hunting in the woods for most of the day though I hadn’t been able to bag anything. I had fired a couple of arrows at a fawn but after the first one had missed it sprang into action and leapt away from me. I was about to call it a day and turn back when I smelled a familiar scent in the air, a scent that shot a blizzard of cold up my spine. I had moved through the woods in its direction, following my nose as I moved my feet silently over the brush. My body was mostly recovered from the beating I had received from Motten’s men, though my face still wore the brutality.

Following my nose, I reach a clearing at the edge of the trees. The clearing ended in the steep drop of a cliff face, overlooking another clearing deeper down with a cave entering the side of the cliff. There were campfires in the clearing and the mutilated carcasses of dead animals that something had been eating raw. The other thing I saw terrified me.

Ogres. There had to be at least a dozen of them, sat around the fires making their grunting sounds or lying down and sleeping, the rolls of fat proudly displayed. If it weren’t for their horns and their stench, the display may have been mistaken for a group of particularly tall and fat travellers that had no measure of modesty. Their horns rose from their temples, some in sharp and simple spikes, others curling slightly as they grew, others still seemed to branch out after a certain point. Even from this height I could smell them, the foul aroma of piss, sweat, and other fluids converging into a putrid redolence.

My breath caught in my mouth as my eyes darted from monster to monster. Fourteen ogres? That’s a whole pack of them I thought, realising that the one Aucus and Beckront had fought those weeks ago must have wondered from the pack. And now they had found its trail. If they came to the village I don’t know if we could survive it. By myself I might be able to take on two of them, three if I was lucky; if Canis was still here, we might be able to take on more. The other villagers might be able to kill some themselves, but they weren’t trained, and I didn’t hold much faith in their abilities. If Motten didn’t send help and the ogres attacked, the village would be lost.

If I had been hunting monsters, I might have picked up their trail and been able to pick some of them off. But no, if I went down their now, I would die. I looked at the bow in my hand and thought about it, at this distance I would have to be very lucky to land a shot into their eyes. Anywhere else would be protected by their fat and only serve to enrage them. They wouldn’t be able to attack me, I couldn’t see a path to my overlook from their position, but it would alert them to the presence of humans nearby. I decided against it.

I looked back at them again, noting their numbers and how strong each of them seemed to be. I was going to return to the village and warn the others, perhaps we could build some defences, or at least get everyone be on alert and have a weapon to hand.

I slowly backed away from the overlook, feeling the leaves of a bush brushing against my legs. I heard a snarl. I slowly turned my head to my right in the direction of the sound and froze as I saw what was there.

It looked like a large dog, its jaws open, and the sharp teeth displayed , saliva dripped down its gums as the low rhythm of a growl rumbled from its throat. Its fur was as black as night, slick and disguised against the shadow of the forest. And its eyes. They were red, not just the iris but the entire eyeball was a red so bright that it seemed to glow. Looking back I saw four other sets of red eyes glowering at me. Dark hounds. They must have picked up my scent and followed me. Shit.

I ran. My feet pounded into the dirt, snapping branches, and crushing leaves as I sprinted away from the beasts. My heart pounded in my chest; if they caught me, they would tear me limb from limb and feast upon my corpse. I reached to my back and drew an arrow from the quiver, drawing it in the bow and blindly firing behind me. As I dodged the trees that barred my path, I continued firing behind myself and heard a howl, then a whimper. I risked a look back and saw that only four of the hounds were chasing me, I must have hit one.

I noticed the distance between us had shortened and desperately fired another arrow, another howl. Looking back they were almost atop me, the one I had hit still tried to follow after with the arrow stick in its leg, but it was slow and struggling. I flung the bow to the side and reached to my belt, pulling out two knives. A bow wouldn’t serve me at this range; besides I was good with knives.

I flashed a snarl at the dogs as I turned to face them. One of them leapt at me and I quickly brought the knife in my right hand across in a slashing motion, it cut through the ligaments in the throat of the dark hound and spilled the blood out onto the dirt, it was so dark and thick that it seemed more like a black syrup.

I howled in pain as I felt the fangs of another bite into my leg, its jaws tightened, and my scream hit a higher pitch. I squeezed the grip of the knife in my left hand and smashed the blade into the beast’s skull. The body went limp, but its mouth was still clamped around my thigh, I hissed in pain and spat at the ground. The other one, where is it?

I heard the snapping of branches and twisted my body around, a new spike of pain from my leg as it caught on the teeth of the dead hound. As I was turning, the final monster had leapt at me and knocked me to the ground, its claws scratched at my body, tearing my clothes. A paw was standing on my right wrist and the other knife was still lodged into the skull of the hound that I had killed. I saw its jaws open; it was going to go for my throat. I did the only thing that I could think of, I slammed my head into its snout. The dog tried to jerk it’s head back as it let out a high-pitched sound, but I kept on going, slamming my head into again and again. I felt the pressure on my hand slacken and leapt at it, punching its head repeatedly until my fist was a bloody mess. The dog had gone limp some time ago, but I continued punching it and felt the skull cave in.

I gasped as I looked down at it and panted for air as I saw the three dead dark hounds around me, the one that I had wounded saw the sight as well and thought better of attacking me, choosing to limp back into the forest instead. I reached for the jaw that was fastened to my leg and loosened the grip, pulling it off of me. I saw blood seeping from the wound and tore some of my shirt that the hound had ripped, making a ribbon, and wrapping it tightly above the wound. I gritted my teeth and began limping back to the village.

It took me nearly an hour to get back to the village in my state, I stumbled towards Maya’s house, leaving a bloody handprint on her fence as I pushed it open. “Maya!” I called out, trying to get the healer’s attention as I walked towards her door.

The healer opened her door and stood there with a mortified expression, I pushed my way through and nearly collapsed onto her floor. “Come on, I need healing “ I said as I lowered myself into a chair, stretching out my leg and wincing at the pain.

“I… I can’t” she said quietly, not meeting my gaze.

“What? Of course you can. It’s just a dark hound bite, you’ve healed worse” I say, what is wrong with her. I’m the one that shouldn’t be making sense, not her.

“No, it’s Lord Motten…” she trails off and avoids looking at me. I realise what she is trying to say to me now, “He said that if I heal any of your wounds then he would make sure Charlie had an accident.” Shit, Maya would heal people no matter how much she was threatened, but her husband was another matter, she was more protective of him than anyone else.

“No, it’s okay Maya. I’ll leave, I’ll try and do the leg myself. I don’t want him to get the wrong idea” I say as I stand up from the chair and grit my teeth as I fresh trickle of blood comes from the wound.

“Wait” I hear her stammer. I turn to look at her as she rushes to a cupboard and pulls out a few small jars and bandages. “Here, take this. I’m not technically healing you, but this should help. You’ll want to clean the wound with this first”, she puts a small jar in my hands, “Then stitch it up and put these on it” she gives me two more jars, “And then bandage it.” She gives me the bandages last, and I do my best to hide them in my clothing in case anyone saw and told Motten.

“Thank you, Maya,” I say, giving her a pained smile as I struggled to the door.

“I’m sorry Sephi, I wish I could do more” she said solemnly. I give her a nod as I step out to the village and close the door.

When I got back home, I brushed off Rosaria’s concern and started to tend to my wound. It was an ugly thing, the hounds had bit about an inch deep into my thigh and the wounds had widened when I moved with my leg still in its mouth. I bite down on a spoon as I poured the liquid onto the wound then used a needle and thread to stitch it together before applying the creams from the jars. With the bandage on, I stood up and tested my weight on the leg as I slowly walked through my house.

I told Rosaria what I had seen in the woods, and we discussed what should be done about the ogres. There was no real solution to them without Motten’s men, and it wasn’t likely that he would offer their aid to us. Should I tell him where Aucus went? I thought to myself and was filled with a sense of self-hatred that I would even think such a thing.

Zarin

I tested my arm, stretching it out and curling it in the air before reaching for items to pick up and try their weight. It felt fine, as good as new. I had finally given in and returned to Carlot to heal the rest of my wounds, they had done all the good that they would with Elsie, and I saw no reason that I had to suffer more. She had spent an hour or so with her healing touch on me and now I was fully recovered. There was still some discolouring to my arm though the bruising couldn’t be felt, and I was assured that it would fade quickly.

I had spent the morning outside with my sword once more, training in the grasses behind the manor. I hated to admit it to myself, but the days spent out of practice had weakened my skills, still though, I was very good with my blade. I had been using a training dummy, cleaving cuts and scratches across the wooden figure. I trained for hours, going through the stances and motions that my teachers had shown me throughout the years. Despite the rust that had grown on my skills in the past few days, I had no doubt that I would be able to best any of my father’s men in a duel though I would have difficulty with the old man himself.

I finished the training with a bout of swordplay against one of the nearby guards, after thoroughly thrashing the man, I returned to the manor. I was sweating profusely from hours of brutal exertion and pulled my shirt off, displaying my chest that had healed completely. I wandered through the halls of the manor until I found Elsie where I had left her.

The young red head was attending to Alice, one of the whores of my father’s harem. I had thought it would be a good idea for Elsie to become accustomed to spending time around women like her and I had asked the woman to speak of certain things to the girl. Elsie was serving wine to the woman who seemed to already have had a few too many cups.

“Ladies” I said amicably as I approached them. “Could you get me a towel Elsie, I’m dripping in sweat here” I said, giving the girl a smile as the door to the room closed behind me.

“Of course” she said as she placed the jug of wine on a table and walked over to the side of the room where she opened a cupboard and pulled out a towel, careful not to let the rest of them fall. She held it out to me, and I took it, giving her a nod in thanks as I wiped my glistening body, feeling her gaze on me.

“So have you two enjoyed yourselves?” I ask as I finish wiping down my body and drop the towel onto a table. I take the jug and pour myself a cup of wine, taking a long sip to refresh myself.

“Yesh, I’ve been telling Ella here all about Alynthir. Oh, the parties that we had” she slurred as her chest bounced up and down in the tightly fitting corset she wore, “They were incredible” she said in a quieter tone to Elsie, making a poor attempt to whisper.

“Yes, Alice was talking about a lot of things” Elsie said, not bothering to correct the woman about her name.

I gave her a smile, “She does like to talk” I replied to her, “especially when she’s been drinking” I hold my cup up to my lips and take another sip. Alice begins humming something to herself. “Have you had one?” I ask Elsie, raising the cup

“No, I didn’t think I should” she said, looking awkward as she stood whilst the two of us sat.

“Please, it gets tedious in the manor all day. Wine makes it all go so much smoother” Alice pipes in, sloshing the red liquid onto her clothes

“Here, you can have the rest if you want” I said, offering up my cup up to her. She accepts it awkwardly and has a small sip of the wine, her face twisting slightly at the taste but she returns for another mouthful.

As Elsie neared the bottom of the cup, I gave her a smile as I stretched my arms, loosening the muscles that I had been using. “Elsie, could you be a dear and prepare a bath for me. I could do with a long soak” I asked her as I took the cup from her hands and poured some more wine for myself.

“Of course Zarin, I’ll prepare the bath in your rooms” she said as she moved to the door. I glanced back and looked at her in her maid outfit.

“Thank you, Elsie, you’re a gem” I called out

When the door closed, and I listened to make sure her footsteps had disappeared down the hallway I turned to Alice. “Well?” I said, my tone changed to its natural harshness, “Did you talk to her?”

She nodded her head, “Yesh, I’ve already told you” she said, waving her hand through the air.

“Forgive me if I don’t take the word of a drunk whore; give me the details”

She sighed and I received a whiff of the heady scent of alcohol on her breath, “she didn’t shay much, she’s a shy girl. But I got something out of her. She’s shertainly not experienced but I don’t think she’s a virgin” she shrugged and had another drink of the wine

I nod my head. So she’s not a virgin, a shame. It would have been more fun if she were, but it wouldn’t stop me. “I suppose that is enough for now” I rose to my feet and looked down at the drunk. “Go sober yourself up, you’re pathetic” I scorned her before exiting the room.

I ascended the staircase and entered my bedchamber, opening one of the doors to access the bath. Elsie was within, her sleeves rolled up as she poured hot water into the copper basin. The water was about halfway full, I would have like more but that was good enough for now.

“Thank you, Elsie. I really don’t know how I got by without you” I said with a smile. She turned around to look at me and returned the expression. I began to undress, taking off my pants and then my undershorts.

I watched her turn around with a blush at the sight of my naked body. I smirked to myself and took a moment to admire her from behind before lowering myself into the bath. The maid uniform really highlighted her best features. I let out an exaggerated sigh of relief as the warm water flowed over my body.

“Should I leave” I heard Elsie ask

I breathed a sigh out as my muscles loosened in the warm water, “No, can you keep the water coming” I said, tempted to let myself fall asleep in the water.

“Okay, let me know when it’s enough” she said as she brought another bucket of hot water to the tub. I felt the water as she poured it in and smiled. I knew she could see me through the water, and I felt her gaze wander for a second. I didn’t say anything, but I moved in the water, temporarily giving her a better view.

She didn’t say much as she continued bringing water to me and filling it up until I told her that it was enough. She stayed there, expecting me to dismiss her from the room. I didn’t.

I made a show of trying to lift my arms and struggling with the effort. “Elsie” I sighed. “I’m exhausted, I’ve been swinging a sword all morning and my arms don’t work” I felt her frowning as she tried to decipher what I was getting at. “Do you mind helping me wash myself. Nowhere inappropriate of course” I gestured towards the bar of soap laying nearby

I heard her making sounds of discomfort, clearly not entirely pleased with what I was asking of her. But it wasn’t something she had a good reason to deny, she had touched my body before, and I had made it clear that I wasn’t expecting anything more than to wash me. “Uhm, yes. Sure Lord Zarin” she said at last.

Lord Zarin? So she was doing this as the act of a slave to their master. In time that would change, but I would have to tread carefully here.

“I think you can have the rest of the day to yourself after this, I have some things I should probably see to by myself” I said as I felt the soap rub over my chest and arms, feeling her hands touching me as she rubbed it in and washed it off.

“Thank you Zarin”