Love and Bounty

Chapter Nineteen: Picking Up the Pieces

They got away with so much loot.

But after a battle like that, they deserved as much. Hrolf was thankful that the cat-eyed man, or whatever his name was, took his leave when he did. Hrolf wasn't leaving without Kotag's head—or so he thought.

As those who remained navigated the fleshy tunnels once more, a cold anger settled like heavy stones in Hrolf's belly. He came so close to butchering that Orc. One swing is all it would've taken—one cleaving blade through his neck to finish what Iscraah's arrow couldn't. If Hrolf was just a little faster and didn't throw him around as much, Kotag could be dead. Justice would have been served to one person more, and the Blackblood's rivals would be doomed. Though Kyne didn't will it so, he was alive, and so were his friends.

If this was her guiding flow, he would go with it.

However, Hrolf was still uncertain about one thing: Deeja. This short venture had changed her, somehow. Waking up with Deeja crouched over him, tending to him with a potion bottle to his lips, made a strange warmth fizzle in his ribs and surge with every heartbeat. She had tried to kill him not too long ago, and now she saved him on a desolate battleground.

And her touch...

He banished the thought from his mind. Not now. Escape first.

On their way through the tunnels, as Hrolf trod carefully with his friends and the rest of the battered Blackbloods, Deeja took the lead with Sharai, and the Argonian woman made a habit of keeping her head on a swivel. Every little noise prompted a nervous flick of her tail, followed by a turn of her head. Other than Kotag, what could they encounter in these tunnels for her to be so on-guard? The mere thought of what horrors could be lurking down here, worrisome enough to elicit such vigilance from Deeja, made Hrolf's spine straighten in his back.

But her presence itself brought a sense of ease. As Hrolf followed her from behind, between nervous turns of her head, she turned her head just enough to peek back at him—as if making sure he was still there. The gesture made Hrolf's heart flutter, but even if she could gain his full trust, he was determined to be what she needed in her life. If a friend was all she wanted, then a friend was what he'd be.

By Kyne's grace and Mara's mercy, the tunnels came to an end as one of their entrances burst through the sewer walls. Stepping over loose bricks, the contingent made its way through the sewer's rank corridors until a merciful metal ladder shone like a beacon in the Magelight-lit darkness.

"I don't trust it," Deeja immediately hissed.

Sharai gave her a strange look. "We just found it—what's your deal?"

With a flick of her tail, she elaborated: "It could be trapped, or even just an illusion."

The Redguard sighed with her whole chest. "Does anybody have something I can throw?"

"Take this axe," Hrolf said. Not that it was very useful during the prior fight anyway.

As soon as Sharai took the dark waraxe in hand, letting Iscraah lean into her side, she hurled the weapon at the ladder. The axe-head slammed against one of the shafts with a resounding clank and clattered to the floor, each ladder rung rattling in its place.

"Sounds real to me," Sharai huffed with a trudging step forward.

The miffed Argonian crossed her arms tight and scowled. Her tail thrashed about, restrained just enough to not hit Hrolf or Iscraah at her flanks. As her slitted eyes followed Sharai testing out the ladder for herself, her shoulders slumped, and her tail eased into weary stillness. Only the gods knew how much she was aching. He wanted to reach out to her—show her some kind of comfort to assuage her apparent unease—but he had no way of knowing if she'd be comfortable. Their moment back there was a little... intimate.