25

Ar-Tashk found himself bound to Alaesia's side nearly every waking moment. After removing his armor, and sparing a bit of his water supply to cleanse his hands and face, all his focus was on her. His little slave could hardly keep her eyes open, wavering in and out of faint consciousness, whereas he hardly dared to rest his own. There were some moments that had him on edge as her breathing would falter, but to his relief, she didn't stop. The sporadic ticking from her chest showed little signs of stabilizing, only growing his sense of dread.

In the sparse moments when she was awake, he did his best to tend to her needs. He eagerly hoped to hear her voice again; her cries had rung in the air so clearly, like the melodic tones of a bell. But it was difficult to coax any more conversation from her; whether her silence was from exhaustion or fear of him, Ar-Tashk couldn't tell.

Alaesia struggled to maintain a coherent grasp of time, but losing consciousness blended dream, nightmare, and reality. Some moments, she thought she was a child again, back in her cave with her parents as they treated her for a scorching fever she had once caught; other times she truly believed she was being torn up from the inside out by a monstrous little creature that stared back at her with glowing yellow eyes. Interspersed into her visions was one constant, the broad features of a pale, scarred and tusked face, crowned by a mane of wiry, black hair, that seemed to look upon her like a piece of meat.

Every hour that passed, Ar-Tashk had to spend more of the alcohol supply from the meager remains in the pantry to cleanse her wounds to keep the infection under control. Even that supply was running dangerously low. He would have resorted to cauterizing her wounds once more, if he didn't think it would have killed her outright.

The olog scraped what little there was to eat together to keep Alaesia fed, while entirely skipping meals for himself. A day or two without eating was nothing for the big olog but instinct told him that for the human woman it could easily become a death sentence. He had to hunt soon, before they completely ran out of supplies.

Ar-Tashk sorely wished she could hunt alongside him, but it was obvious that she was in decline, growing weaker. Her injuries made it impossible for him to leave the keep, at the cost of leaving her behind; but he couldn't afford to abandon her in such a vulnerable state, in a den of wolven uruk and goblins who would sooner devour her than not. Yet those same injuries all across her body started burning red with fever and infection in spite of his efforts.

By the dawn of the third day since Vezhir's attack, the olog was even struggling to find any more rats for meat. He couldn't wait any longer.

"Come, isla-izub," Ar-Tashk ordered Alaesia to her feet. Though she still had wounds that could easily be opened by too harsh a movement, he hoped against hope that she would be able to keep up with him.

She obediently, by feeble exertion, pulled herself upright and onto her unsteady legs. The shackles that bound her hands and feet felt heavier than she ever recalled them being, and her stomach had grown to the point that she was no longer familiar with her own center of gravity. Her olog master gave her a moment to find it again, but not quite enough time to keep her entirely from swaying.

Getting out beyond the keep walls was a slow effort. Ar-Tashk tried to take advantage of Alaesia's leaden pace to see if Vezhir was anywhere within the halls as they passed. The olog would have simply thrown his slave over his shoulder and carried her, if he hadn't wanted to ensure he was free to fight in case Vezhir did make an appearance; but the overlord was nowhere to be seen.

In trying to help her mind clearer and distract herself from the growing pains of her body, Alaesia tried to actively take in the things around her. The air inside the keep was stuffy, but outside there must have been a recent rainstorm. She could smell the sweetness of petrichor over the suppressed stink of orc sweat. She almost imagined she could hear birdsong in the wind; a croaking raven launched from the heights of the keep as they exited. The olog seemed to be hovering so close that she could feel the heat of his body behind her; more often than not his arms swung on either side of her creating eddies of air that wisped along her cheeks. Any closer and he might have trampled right over her as he made her march with him out of the keep, and to the gates of the fortress.

The denizens of the fort watched them from a notably respectable distance, as if Ar-Tashk would impale them for looking at him wrong. Only the orc at the gate was bold enough to impede the olog, "Halt, what's your business outside the fort?"

Ar-Tashk nudged Alaesia to keep walking and grunting in response, "Hunting. Mat lat-gu gakhum?"

The orc planted himself in Ar-Tashk's way, though the second guard sat off to the side, watching his companion with amusement as he made a fool of himself, "The new captain of the guard has ordered that no one goes in or out without his say so."

Ar-Tashk's eyes blazed, "You forget rank, shrakh. I kill last captain, I kill you."

The second guard sidled forward, slamming a hand on his companion's shoulder, digging his claws into the guard's flesh as hard as he could, "Ah know yer fresh here, but ya don't tell the Reaper wot 'e can an' can't do. Yer lucky he ain't speared ya on the spot." He turned his eyes up towards Ar-Tashk, and bowed, dragging the other guard out of his way. "Sorry 'bout him, he's 'n eager pup. Pay 'im no mind."

Ar-Tashk's expression did nothing to alleviate the tension in the air, "Train him better, gundul."

"Yessir, I will," the second guard elbowed his companion in the gut before he could protest. "Say, sir, if yer goin' huntin' might I suggest the ford across from the fight pit? Ah recently had some luck there. Got a nice fat boar o'er there," the orc tilted his head off road in one direction.

The olog paused, originally having planned on scaling down the cliffs to the seashore to fish as the cliff side shoreline was closer, but he was becoming ever more doubtful that his slave would be able to manage the effort of climbing on her own. Plus, being an olog meant climbing was already a problematic challenge. He simply wasn't built for the task. He certainly couldn't climb down while carrying her, without risking them both slipping. Though the river was further, the terrain there was relatively mellow to cross. Ar-Tashk nodded with a grunt before proceeding on his way, "Narnulubat."

Alaesia watched the second guard cuff the first as she was pushed past them. He hissed something in low tones, gestured with a pointed finger towards the sky, before both looked at the olog and slave with leery, unnerving glares. She shuttered, wishing she was invisible.

Ar-Tashk made it a fair distance from the walls, before Alaesia started lagging even slower. He had to keep a hand at her back, pushing her along as they trekked. Every so often, she felt a sharp pain in her pelvis, which would cause her to hesitate. A mounting pressure in her gut made it hard to breathe, and her limbs were so weak and heavy. She could feel the movement pulling at the stitches in her slowly healing wounds, making them sting from fresh damage.

She wanted so badly to lie down and let the discomfort pass, but Ar-Tashk was insistent that they keep moving, "Nar– No stop. You must march, isla-izub."

He knew he had to keep her awake even while still pulling her along by the chain to trek onward. He had to keep her moving. He didn't dare take her up in his arms, for the fear she would fall unconscious. Something in his gut seemed to warn him that the moment he let her stop to rest, she would slip into sleep and never wake up. There was a scent in the air that was all too familiar, once a sign of victory, but now it only unnerved the olog. It was the smell of death and it was coming from his slave. She is dying.

Around midday, they happened upon a small camp tucked under an outcropping of stone. There didn't seem to be any orcs in sight, so Ar-Tashk snatched a wine jug hanging from a post, shoved it into Alaesia's hands and commanded, "Drink. No stop. Drink and march."

The contents of the jug had turned to a sour vinegar, but after even just a day without sustenance, Alaesia's desperate hunger far outweighed her revulsion. Ar-Tashk was insistent that she drink every drop, though he hardly needed to even suggest it. The olog figured he may have bought just a little more time to secure a proper kill, if she could just hang on. By the time they were rounding the base of a cliff to the valley containing the river, she had consumed the full contents of the bottle.

The moment they rounded the corner, the winds shifted putting the pair downwind. Ar-Tashk had only a brief second to react when a new scent hit him. He grabbed Alaesia just in time to heave her out of the way as a great mighty boulder slammed into the cliffside, inline with the path they had nearly stepped along.

"GRAUG!" Ar-Tashk roared, half from surprise, and half from instinct; the kind of roar a beast would use to drive a threat away. The unearthly sound sent an unnerving jolt into Alaesia, seizing the blood in her veins.

The olog barreled forward, putting himself between his slave and a great hulking monster. It was a creature unlike any she had ever seen. Massive thorns of armor protruded through the hide of the beast, and putrid ropes of saliva spat from its maw as Ar-Tashk slammed his fist into the side of its head. But the olog was only a third the size of the graug, and his strike did little damage to the beast. The graug swiped back at the olog with a mace-like fist covered in spiny protrusions, knocking him backwards as easily as a toy.

The giant creature swung its head between Ar-Tashk and Alaesia, tracking the smell of blood coming from the human; the sudden, violent movement of being tossed aside by Ar-Tashk had torn open the stitching around a number of her wounds, causing small trickles of red to spill down her back and from between her legs. Sensing an easier meal, the colossal monster started making a beeline for Alaesia.

Ar-Tashk scrambled to arm his ballista, took aim and fired a frantic shot that tore through the graug's leathery flank, missing all vitals. The gaping wound left by the attack, awash in a river of blood that poured forth from the beast's flesh, was just enough to divert its attention back to Ar-Tashk; the threat the olog posed needed to be eliminated before it could focus on feeding. It whipped around to face the olog, and charged in, swiping and snapping with its snarling maw.

The two behemoths clashed together like thunder, shaking the ground. As strong as he was, Ar-Tashk was not a beast tamer; he had no understanding of any beasts, their body language, their weaknesses, nor how to subdue them. Felling a graug was a challenge even for a full regiment of orcs. It took every ounce of strength he had to slow the graug down even the slightest. The olog shoved back with all his might, only just managing to push the graug off balance for a split second. He seized the opening, and drove the graug back with a well aimed bolt impaling the bottom jaw of the beast, bellowing a desperate command, "IRZKRAT ISLA! YOU MUST RUN!"

"Ar–mmfff!" A muffled cry pierced his mind, but he couldn't afford to take his attention off the graug, as it rallied and lunged at him. Out of the corner of his eye, Ar-Tashk just barely had time to notice the familiar silhouette of an uruk dragging his slave by her chain into a fissure in the cliff face. Vezhir.

Translations*

Isla-izub - my life maker

Mat lat-gu gakhum? - Why do you care?

Shrakh - Shit/dung

Gundul - guard

Narnulubat - thanks

Nar - no

Irzkrat! - Flee!