VII
The steady rain had increased to a virtual downpour, but he barely noticed it.
Neuville finally stopped as the dreary afternoon faded into evening, his focus on nothing more than the faint steam drifting from his mouth and nose as he stopped in a small clearing. A huge, downed pine blocked his path west, while to his east a narrow ravine carried a quick flowing stream of runoff south. The ranger had been on the move for nearly half the day, too angry to cover his tracks or take note of his progress in his hurry to put distance between himself and Fiume.
It was Chessa's fault. Neuville was convinced of that. The woman had no right to question his tactics of his convictions. He had been fighting orcs for over half of his twenty-five years, and he knew when to fight and when to run. To even suggest that he would intentionally endanger women and children, just to kill a few orcs! And then, to flatly disregard the loss of his family!
"You have no idea!" Neuville snapped, turning and spitting his words to the north. The ranger waited for a moment, glaring through the rain as though he expected an answer, then turned back south and kicked at the needles littering the forest floor.
With most of his anger already spent, Neuville finally took stock of the situation around him. He had barely kept track of his journey from Fiume, but his glaringly obvious trail would be easy to follow despite the pouring rain and the gathering darkness. The downpour had long since soaked through the ranger's cloak and clothing, finally beginning to chill him as Neuville's rage faded into fatigue. Although he had no desire to see Chessa again, Neuville slowly turned back to his path, intent on returning to Fiume before the last traces of light disappeared from the sky.
A branch snapping off to the east made him stop. Neuville turned quickly, bringing his double axe up in a defensive stance as he peered off through the gloom. The ravine still gurgled with runoff and the rain still beat down on the trees and the ground, but nothing else moved in the forest. Still Neuville kept his guard up, taking one hesitant step towards the ravine and the jagged rocks beyond.
A loud roar erupted from the rocks, stopping the ranger in his tracks. Over a dozen orcs suddenly rushed out of cover, hurling javelins across the ravine at the lone human. Neuville dropped back a step, ready to take on the threat, but the orcs seemed more content to loose a second volley of javelins on their enemy from the safety of the ravine. Four javelins thudded into the mud at Neuville's feet, chasing him back a half dozen steps, while another one glanced off of the chain mail covering his shoulder. Finally realizing that the orcs would exhaust their supply of javelins before they tried jumping the ravine, the ranger turned and rushed into the forest, following his tracks back through the forest to Fiume. Behind him, the orcs were finally jumping the fissure to give chase, but in the darkness and the rain it would be difficult at best for the raiders to track him.
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"I still think we should have killed him."
"He is of far more use to us alive, Mislav," Ruslan said, pausing momentarily in the clearing. The orcish leader peered off into the forest for a moment, but already the human had disappeared into the trees. "We know where he's going. Follow him. Stay just close enough to let him know you are behind him. I will take Valja and Sedlevit and flank him to the east."
"Yes sir," Mislav said, turning to the group.
"Mislav," Ruslan said, catching the younger orc's arm. "I want him to know we're coming. I want him to think our entire army is behind him."
"I understand," Mislav said with a nod. The younger orc hurried back to the main group, while Ruslan signaled to his pair of orcs to follow him back across the ravine.
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"Will he come back?"
"Probably," Thierry said, standing just outside Oleg's cottage and watching the heavy rain fall. Outside of the dim lamp and firelight from the other tiny homes in Fiume, the forest around the village was shrouded in inky darkness. Standing just outside of the meager protection of the cottage's overhang, Chessa pushed her soaked hair back out of her eyes as she scanned the forest for any signs of Neuville. The wayward scout had been gone for hours, and despite his nonchalant demeanor, even Thierry was beginning to worry about his partner. "He'll get tired of the rain and come back for a dry bed and a warm fire."
"If he doesn't come back soon, we'll have to give him up for dead," Chessa decided, finally turning back to Thierry. "I have too much to worry about with my own people."
"Give him a little time to cool off," Thierry said, scratching at the faint scar lines across his chest. The scars were all that remained of the younger ranger's wounds after Oleg had healed him, but Thierry was still weak and drained from the grievous injury. "You really put it into him earlier. No one ever talks that way about his family."
"I won't apologize for what I said," Chessa countered, growing instantly defensive. "He is not the only one here to have lost family to the orcs. We have no time for vendettas."
"I understand that," Thierry said, putting up his hands in a gesture of peace. The younger ranger hesitated a moment, then continued. "But Neuville didn't take his village's extermination so well. These days, hunting orcs is his entire life."
"Vengeance can quickly get someone killed here," Chessa said. "If he leads us into battle with the Cruel Blades or the Bloody Fist, he will only be killing us."
"Well, he wouldn't do that," Thierry said, standing up straight. Chessa said nothing, but turned a skeptical eye on the ranger. "The only life he'll risk on vengeance is his own."
"Or yours," Chessa added, pointing to the younger ranger's chest. Thierry smiled faintly at the assumption.
"Or mine," he conceded. "But not your life, and certainly not a child's life. You didn't see him clear out those orcs before they could get to Irina. I barely had a chance to shoot an arrow before he had them all on the ground. He may hate kids, but he certainly wouldn't give an orc even the slimmest chance to kill a child."
"I hope you are right," Chessa said. "Because we're putting our lives in your hands."
"You can trust me, if not him," Thierry said with a broad grin. Chessa allowed herself a faint smile at the ranger's remark, but then turned back to the murky forest. "So, if you don't mind my asking," Thierry inquired, continuing the conversation, "how did you end up as the village leader?"
"There are no more men," Chessa answered, giving her attention back to the ranger. "People just started looking to me."
"There's Oleg," Thierry pointed out, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. Chessa shook her head.
"He's orcish," Chessa explained. "He… some people would not follow an orc, or even a half orc."
"But they'd let him heal their wounds, or cure their diseases," Thierry concluded. Chessa looked down at the ground, her hard stare melting slightly into guilt.
"When you spend your entire life fearing orcs, it is hard to trust one, no matter how much you want to," she said quietly. Thierry nodded in understanding.
"None of us are perfect, after all," the ranger said. Chessa nodded.
"I would have given him the job," the woman said, looking up from the ground with a ghost of a smile. "Trying to keep order in this village is no fun at all."
"You do have a sense of humor," Thierry said with a grin. "A smile looks better on you than that sour scowl you always wear. Kind of pretty, if a bit waterlogged."
"Thank you," Chessa said, a trace of color coming to her cheeks. Thierry laughed slightly at her modesty, but a distant battle cry cut off any further comments from the ranger. For a long moment the two stared into the darkness, the humor vanishing instantly from their faces.
"I hope they didn't find Neuville," Thierry said, reaching back into the cottage for the long bow Chessa had brought him earlier. The village leader nodded in wordless agreement, taking her own bow from where it leaned against the cottage wall. The two stood in the rain silently, Chessa handing the ranger an arrow from her quiver in case the two archers needed to fire upon an unseen enemy.
A dark figure emerged from the barely visible treeline to the south, rushing into the village. Chessa raised her bow and quickly drew an arrow back, but Thierry quickly put a hand on her shoulder.
"Get packed," Neuville called out. A moment later the older ranger came into view, illuminated by the lamp inside Oleg's cottage. "We have problems."
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"Oleksandr will know for certain that we're coming now."
"Dobroslav has cost us the element of surprise," Libor stated, a hint of his anger playing through in his stern, flat tone. Libor and Ondrej stood just inside the shelter of a large, leaking tent as they stared into the darkness. Only moments before, Dobroslav had been helped out of the tent to receive medical attention after his flight from the Cruel Blade ambush. Libor was not normally so merciful as to let one of his subordinates go after revealing their position without so much as a cursory flogging, but Dobroslav was too good a warrior to keep out of the imminent battle. "Now the half breed will be ready for us."
"If we move quickly, we may still be able to reclaim some surprise," Ondrej said, turning to his leader. "The Cruel Blades will be heady after their initial victory."
"Oleksandr will have them ready," Libor countered, turning to the rough hewn table dominating the tent. The chieftain studied the map spread across the table for a moment, then looked back to his war chief. "He may be a bastard half breed, but he will know enough that the rest of our army was behind Dobroslav. Even now he is likely trying to outflank us to the east."
"We can slip around them to the west, then," Ondrej said. "They will not expect such a move, and we can hit them from behind as they try to flank."
"I will not risk putting our backs to the Ondava," Libor stated. "And I will not risk giving Oleksandr a clear run to Bijelo Polje. We will move through the darkness, to the southeast. When Oleksandr tries to flank, we will meet him."
"Dobroslav said there may be a human settlement to the east," Ondrej said. Libor turned a cold glare on his war chief.
"Then they had better get out of the way," the chieftain snarled, almost insulted that Ondrej had thought humans to be a potential threat. "Prepare the troops to move. We have no time to spare. I want to find the half breed before the dawn."
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"Are we ready to move?"
"Hardly," Chessa replied, turning back to Neuville as the ranger slogged through the miserable downpour flooding through Fiume. It was nearly midnight, but the normally quiet village bustled with activity as the inhabitants packed whatever they could carry. Light spilled out from open doorways as children hurried to aid their mothers with their possessions or hurried from cottage to cottage, but few words were spoken in light of the dangerous exodus that faced the village. "We'll need another hour at the least before we are ready to move."
"I don't know if we have that kind of time," Neuville said, glancing south again. Although the pouring rain drowned out any sounds the orcs might make and reduced the forest to little more than murky, indistinct shapes, the ranger was convinced that they could not be very far behind him. "They could have easily tracked me here, and could be just beyond our sight."
"If we leave now, no one will survive the trip, anyway," Chessa pointed out, pushing her soaked hair from her face. Neuville turned on the village leader, a retort coming quickly to his lips, but the scout managed to reign in his anger and frustration before he could loose a scathing comment.
"Just… tell them to hurry," Neuville said, trudging off through the mud before he could lose control of his emotions. The ranger had only taken a half dozen steps to Oleg's cottage before Thierry rushed into his path, Irina lagging only a few steps behind.
"We've got a serious problem," the younger ranger stated simply, sliding to a halt in front of his companion.
"What now?" Neuville asked.
"Orcs, to our east," Thierry answered. "Come on."
Thierry and Irina turned and hurried back across the village without waiting for a reply. Neuville followed immediately behind them, trying to figure out how the orcs could have swung up around their eastern side so quickly. As they reached the rocky outcroppings that marked Fiume's eastern boundary, Thierry turned back to him.
"Where?" Neuville asked, looking to his partner. Irina started to raise her hand to point toward the crags, but Thierry quickly grabbed her by the wrist and forced her hand back down to her side.
"If you point, they'll know we've seen them," Thierry said, explaining himself as quickly as possible without being overly stern. Then he turned to Neuville. "Almost sixty yards out, I guess," the younger ranger informed him. "They're out in the open, kneeling on top of those flat rocks just off to your right. Three of them I saw, at least."
"I see them," Neuville replied. "Have they figured out that we spotted them?"
"I don't know," Thierry answered. "They haven't done anything to show that they know we're watching them."
"Something feels wrong about this," Neuville said, shaking his head. "How did they get around us already?"
"You think they're trying to box us in?" Thierry asked. Neuville shook his head a second time, wiping some of the water streaming down his face.
"It's a lot of trouble to go through just before you go to war with the only other tribe that can match you in size," the older ranger said. He glanced up to the orcs for a moment. "They must be shifting east, trying to outflank each other. That's all I can figure."
"So what do we do?" Irina asked, glancing from Neuville to Thierry.
"We try to hook around them, to the north," Neuville answered. Thierry turned a skeptical expression on his partner. "Slip between the Cruel Blades and the Bloody Fist."
"What if those are the Bloody Fist?" Thierry inquired.
"If they were, they'd already be fighting the Cruel Blades that chased me up here," Neuville explained.
"I can sneak out there and see how many there are," Thierry said. "If it's only a couple of scouts, we can go right through them."
Neuville opened his mouth to answer, but a harsh war cry, dangerously close to the southern edge of the village, cut him off before he could form a reply. For a long moment the two rangers peered into the distance, until Neuville turned back to Thierry.
"We don't have time," the older ranger said. "Tell Chessa we have to go now."
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"Please, we have to get ready to go, now."
"We're not going, Chessa," Anatol said, standing in the doorway of his tiny cottage. The old man, one of the oldest people in the village of Fiume, hardly seemed concerned as the rest of the panicked inhabitants rushed to gather their last possessions together.
"But… Anatol, you… you can't be serious," Chessa stammered, unprepared for such a decision from any of the villagers. Anatol and his wife, Marta, had not bothered to even begin packing their belongings, oblivious to the sense of urgency and fear pervading the settlement. Marta busied herself at the small hearth opposite the door, cooking a late evening stew, while Anatol had set his carving tools and a half finished wooden figurine of a falcon on the rough hewn wooden table. "The orcs will kill you if they find you here!" the young woman blurted out, trying to convince the last of they village's elders to flee with everyone else. Anatol smiled, shaking his head slightly at the remark.
"We have lived a long, fulfilling life," the old man stated. Anatol drew a match pair of finely worked, bone handled daggers from his belt. "When the time comes, Marta and I will travel to the next world together. No orc will take us."
"Please, don't do this," Chessa begged, desperate not to lose even more of her already decimated village. "You don't have to die here. You can come with us."
"And move to a disgusting Tourant logging camp?" Marta inquired, turning away from her cooking chores. The old woman shook her head sternly. "No, child. We are too old to play games of hide and seek in the rain, Chessa."
"Anatol, Marta, please," Chessa tried one last time. Anatol placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, seeing the tears beginning to form in the young woman's eyes.
"Get going, child," the old man said, a sad smile coming to his face. "Your people need you."
"If you change your mind…" Chessa started, forcing her emotions back under control. Anatol nodded.
"We'll catch up," the old man said. Chessa gave the man a final embrace, then turned and started back through the rain into the center of the village. As Thierry and Neuville spotted her, they hurried across the village to join her.
"We can't wait any longer," Neuville said quickly. "There are orcs to our east."
"I thought you said they were coming from the south," Chessa said, growing even more concerned.
"Don't worry, those orcs are still there too," Thierry said. "If we don't move now, they'll box us in and run us over."
"But if they are to our east and south, where can we go?" Chessa asked.
"We try to swing north, around the orcs we saw to the east," Neuville explained. "With this rain, the Bloody Fist won't be marching until dawn. We can try to slip between them."
"That's our only option?" Chessa asked, not at all happy with the ranger's plan. "Try to sneak between two armies and pray that they don't notice?"
"Unless you want to work on those walls and trenches, yes," Neuville stated flatly.