Days of Dawn

Chapter 8: Huntress

"You're going to kill her? Just like that?" fumed Golokk, "She saved my life! She saved the Silverbloods' last huntress from the lunatic we're supposed to be loyal to!"

Makrol leaned against the pillars of a tent and rebutted, "The old ways are dead, Golokk. Can't you understand that? We all appreciate what you've tried to teach us, but in the end I'm the one who decides the direction we go."

Golokk stepped forward and insisted, "It's not about the old ways. It's about acknowledging our debts. The clan owes her, Makrol. I owe her my life."

"Then I suggest you take it up with Master Viss," Makrol dully returned, "He'll be eating their souls for supper."

"Would you say the same thing if it was you the elflas saved?" urged Golokk.

Makrol shrugged back, "Better them than us."

Golokk straightened herself with a dark glare. "You spineless coward. How did Akoa get stuck with someone like you as a brother?"

Makrol stood with furious eyes and started to shout something, but Golokk turned and stormed away.

In bitter truth, what Makrol implied was accurate. Malik Viss was a terrifyingly powerful madman. What was real and what was myth was unclear to these orcs, but that was a border many understandably didn't want to test. She sat at her own tent for some time, pondering what must be done.

...............

Ezra awoke with cloudy eyes and a ringing in her ears. The sound of a repeated clinking was coming from somewhere, guiding her out of the haze. Her wrists were tied above her to a thick wood post inside a tent, and she was sitting slouched on dirt ground. Her armor was gone, leaving only the tunic and trousers. Her eyes stung with sweat and blood. "Wha ... happen?" she sluggishly asked no one.

"You just had to play hero, didn't you?" came Cartash's peeved voice from behind her, "You just had to save the homicidal werewolf and get us captured! What the gods were you thinking?"

Ezra shook her head and came to. She, Cartash, and Skrou were bound around that post by the same thick rope. "She needed help, Cartash. What was I supposed to do?"

"Running and letting it get eaten by the grass comes pretty easily to mind!" railed Cartash, his boots angrily kicking the dirt, "Did anyone tell you that you're the most reckless elf in Adria?"

"Please, master Salus, I was having such a wonderful nightmare. Five more minutes," drooled a semi-conscious Skrou.

"Well he can't help us escape," mumbled Ezra as she looked around. The interior of this tent was fairly ordinary, aside from a pile of giant bones not too far from Ezra's feet. Across from her was a series of coats and cloaks made from an eerily familiar blue hide.

The tent was sizable with a bed, chair, and desk not far off. Elsewhere, bags of grain and supply were propped against the hide edge. The clinking that had awoken her came from inside a large corked bottle atop the desk - a bottle containing Droplet who was smacking himself against the side.

Ezra's mind began to sharpen and she looked up at the thick rope binding them to the tent pole. She noticed that her hands and Skrou's were adjacent, and his black claws looked razor sharp.

"Okay, I feel something," Cartash noticed, "What are you doing, Ezra?"

Ezra pulled the nearest of Skrou's fingers with her bent hand. She had to twist it a bit to reach her bindings, but didn't figure the dragon phasing in and out of sleep would mind. She dug his claw into the rope as far as it could reach and began sawing as hard as her contorted hands could manage.