Chasing Sparks

Chapter 24.1

As Wren slowly opened his eyes, he instinctively reached up and touched the back of his head. He winced, as he felt the matted hair and large bump under his fingers. Carefully pulling his hand away from the tender area, he noticed the Barbarian sitting nearby. The man was cleaning the gore off his spear.

Seeing Wren was awake, Lind said. “You fell and hit your head.” His tone suggesting this was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, he might have been telling Wren, the weather was a bit cloudy today.

It was then that Wren saw the three severed ogres heads lined up in a row next to Lind. The Barbarian had collected some trophies. Wren retched.

Lind laughed a deep belly laugh. “The big un in the middle is yours.”

Wren glanced at the middle head again, before retching again.

Regaining his composure, Wren channelled a little of the spark’s energy into his throbbing head. It had the desired effect of stopping the pain but he stopped short of using all the energy when he noticed Lind’s crushed hip.

He thought the pain of that injury must be excruciating but Lind didn’t seem to notice. He was cleaning Wren’s stick as if he was washing up after a meal.

“Thank you,” Wren said, gesturing at the stick.

Lind grunted and tossed the stick over to Wren. “The most pathetic weapon I’ve ever seen in my life.”

He then patted the middle ogre’s head. “This one must be feeling really embarrassed right now,” Lind said laughing loudly, “Being killed by such a puny stick.”

Wren rather thought the ogre wouldn’t be feeling much at all at the moment given its head was about twenty paces from its body, but he kept that to himself.

When he had stopped laughing Lind said, “I cannot walk but you should take the heads to the village. They will not kill you, if you show the heads.”

Wren shook his head. The thought of carrying the ogres heads repulsed him.

“No,” he said, “I’m sorry, you have to come with me, I’m not carrying them.”

He crawled over to wear Lind sat and gestured he was going to try and help.

The big man just shrugged.

Wren put his hand on the big man’s hip and channelled what little Celestial energy there was left into the wound. Lind’s eyes widened slightly as the energy reduced the pain a little and began the healing process.

“You are full of surprises, stick boy,” was all Lind said.

“Can you stand?” Wren asked.

Lind said nothing and just holstered his maul across his back and struggled to his feet, grimacing a little as he put weight on his bad leg.

Taking hold of his stick, Wren said, “Put your weight on me.”

The big man did so, but not before scooping up the three heads by the hair.

So, with a giant Barbarian leaning heavily on him, Wren began walking north towards the village, trying desperately not to look at the three heads swinging back and forth just to his left.

The Barbarian village was probably only a couple of hours walk from the hill, but it was well into the night when Wren and Lind finally arrived at the village perimeter. Wren had periodically healed Lind’s hip along the way to the point now, where Lind no longer walked with a limp or needed to use Wren as a crutch. The big man was, in fact, in quite good spirits as three village guards appeared.