Fog Bound

Chapter 5

Verri woke with an excruciating headache. It was all she could think about as she regained consciousness. She groaned freely before all of her memories seemed to come back to her.

"Laius!" Her eyes opened wide and she sat up quickly before being hit with a paralyzing amount of nausea. An awful headache with intense nausea? She was suffering. Slowly she lowered herself to lay down again, placing an arm over her eyes to keep out the light. She must've had a concussion, she figured, trying to remember what had happened to her since Laius was attacked by that monster.

She laid on the floor of a crevice in the cliffside although it was much further away from where she had hit the ground. She was surrounded by a wall of brown fur as she writhed on the ground.

"Are you finally stirring?" A voice said softly to her as to not wake the 19 sleeping dire wolves. Will leaned up against the wall of the crevice, poking a fire as meat cooked above it. "You may want to keep it down. You nearly split your head open a couple days ago."

"A couple days ago...?" Verri seemed to think about this much longer than she should've. "Where is Laius? Where are we?" She peeked beyond her arm to notice the mounds of fur scattered all around the area they were in. "You're Will, right?" Her brain still seemed to be trying to catch up with the current situation.

"Yes, William Fitz." He reminded her. "And I'm sorry to say but your friend is dead. I watched him get eaten by the wyrm. You have my condolences..." He seemed sincere in his sympathies although his word choice often didn't reflect that.

"Bounty!" Will called. One of the wolves perked its ears up and looked at him. "Bounty come!" He waved her over. The wolf happily trotted to his side and dropped something in his hand with a tail wag.

"This is what remains." Will passed Verri Laius's knife. "I can help you up to the surface but I'm afraid I can do nothing more."

"He can't be dead..." Verri held onto the grip of the knife, her hands trembled. Hot tears welled in her eyes. "H-He's not dead! You told me those wyrms hunt your wolves right? I'll help you kill that giant beast if you help me get Laius back." She lifted herself up slightly to get a better look at William. Rage flamed in her eyes as tears rolled down her cheeks. "He's not dead..."

"Listen to me." Will looked her in the eye. "A wyrm of that size will kill indiscriminately to sate its hunger. Just like my wolves, he fell victim to the cycle. He will already be digested by now. As much as I want that thing dead, what can we do? Go after it and you're just another snack." He had accepted the grim reality of the wyrm.

"You don't know Laius like I know Laius! He's not dead! We just have to find that giant wyrm and... and somehow kill it! Then your wolves will be safe and I'll get Laius back!" Verri was pulling at straws. She knew the wyrms wouldn't kill Laius, but she couldn't tell William that. She also didn't know how she was going to kill such a giant beast. "If you don't want to help, that's fine. But I'm going to go and get him back." She sat up fully, grabbing her head with her hand as the pounding headache surged. She let it pass and then got up fully. Stumbling, she ended up tripping over a wolf and onto another which broke her fall.

The two wolves she had tripped over woke up with a yip and a growl before Will silenced them with a wave of his hand. "Don't strain yourself. You're in no condition to go around trying to kill yourself." He sighed. It was like babysitting a child. "Sit." He patted the ground beside him and passed her a skewered rabbit which had been cooked to perfection. "We tried once. To kill the wyrm, I mean. We lost half the pack. If I help you on your journey then we either kill the wyrm or you better hope it kills me." He was serious about the protection of his wolves and did not take this hunt too lightly.

"My hope for your friend is thin. Yet still you wish to pursue it?" He asked.

"Yes! I know he's alive! I'm sorry that thing killed your wolves, but we can avenge them together. I just need a little time to recover and then we can go out and kill that thing!" She seemed determined no matter the fate of the wolves to go and get her boyfriend back. "In the meantime we can stockpile herbs and other necessities before we head out. As long as we keep in mind its poison, that's all we'll have to worry about."