Touch of Honor

Touch of Honor: A Red Web - Chapter 3

     Barbedfell awoke to passing dirt, grass, and the back of two metal boots and greaves, a chill breeze upon his neck. He could not find the strength within him to speak. His shoulder and back ache too much from the arrow wounds.

     Lemli had carried the dwarf the last few miles, after Spruce carried him the few before that, keeping his prediction of the task accurate.

     The two men traversed within the woods along the road to Phandal, in an effort to avoid any more traps or ambushes.

     At the very least we'll see them coming. Lemli thought. The elf stopped his watchful march and raised his head. The sun was setting behind them, their shadows painted across the path they walked, mixed with the shadows of the trees and brush. Lemli noticed his shadow, its height and weight to it. He noticed the larger mass atop his shoulder, how out of place it looks there. He searched for the monk's shadow.

     Spruce was walking slowly, his posture less adept and more careless. He slouched and could barely keep his eyes open. His arms looked swollen and he was breathing heavily through his nose. He would shake his head every couple of minutes in an effort to ward off his affliction, though a natural one it was. He was tired. Very tired.

     Lemli lifted the dwarf off his shoulder and placed him carelessly on the ground.

     The dwarf groaned and clutched at his shoulder.

     Spruce caught them. "What's going on?"

     "We're making camp. We're all tired."

     "Nonsense, it's just eight or nine more miles."

     "It's getting late too. We need to tend the dwarf's wounds again, or rather I do."

     Spruce scowled then sighed. He relaxed his eyes and plopped his arse onto the firm dirt next  to a large log.

     Lemli attempted to tend Sildar Barbedfell's wounds.

    The dwarf's wounds in his upper leg and shoulder were patched rather well, given Lemli's rudimentary knowledge of healing. Red was beginning to bleed through their white patches.

     While he knew little of the healing arts, Lemli knew much more of the magical arts. As an eldritch knight, Lemli knew a limited number of magical tomes, abilities and spells, even those that healed. He knelt beside the dwarf, who was now rolling over on his side. Lemli raised his hand and spoke a single phrase in the elvish tongue. "Ku ama aiya." The blood that was now beginning to drip down the shoulder of the dwarf, stopped promptly at the sound of Lemli's word.

     Barbedfell let out a relieving sigh and fell asleep.

     Spruce was watching intently.

     Lemli got up and gathered a loose number of sticks within a couple feet of him, and gathered them into a small pile between him and the human.

     Spruce followed with his eyes.

     Lemli rolled over a large log, hiding behind a band of shrubs and sat, before starting a small fire in the bundle of sticks.

     It was night, and the feel of the night breeze was fresh upon the two travelers' faces. They both sat, in silence, across one another, the fire cackling between them.

     Spruce leaned his back onto the log and exhaled, as he now tended the starless night with his eyes. The sky was incredibly dark, as was the forest surrounding them off the path.

     Lemli gazed into the fire, his hand on the hilt of his blade.

     "You know magic?" Spruce asked, not tearing his eyes from the black above.