Chapter Three

  A week after it began, it became routine to them both. Aina would begin the day by checking his broken limbs, touching up his improvised casts, replacing mud and adding fresh poultice. Then she would hunt and retrieve meat in the form of deer, rabbit, and bear for the most part. She would then slice the meat finely, he would curl his lip up to allow her access, and she would stick her hand into the front of his mouth along with the sliced portion, place it on his tongue, then pull her hand out. With his jaw bound shut, he could not speak.

  So he took to watching. Feeding him took several hours, and consumed well over nine parts in ten of everything she hunted. Yet Aina made no complaint. In the afternoon when he relieved himself, she went and, using a shovel improvised by way of a broken log, took the waste away before wiping him down with moss taken from the trees.

  In that time, she said little to nothing, occasionally she would say, ‘try to move your wing’ or ‘raise your leg, I need to check for rot’.

  Then in the evening she would say, ‘I must go out on the hunt.’ He would watch her vanish into the shadow of the trees as if she were one of the shadows themselves, vanishing so completely that Araghramorn began to wonder if she was in fact a forest spirit and not the human warrior she appeared to be.

  And in those quiet hours of the night between when she left and when she returned to her camp to sleep, he would wonder, ‘Why did she not kill me? I asked for her help, but why did she provide it? I do not understand. We are enemies, she and I, born of earth and sky to fight and kill until they are all dead, or we are. What sense does it make to put so much effort into saving my life?’

  Those thoughts consumed him often, and had his jaw not been bound, he would have asked it. But he couldn’t, he could only watch the small blonde human stick her arm into his mouth again and again for hour after hour, feeding him meat he could not get for himself without one bit of fear coming from off her body.

  ‘Is she incapable of it?’ He wondered when he tasted the savory, slick, greasy flavor of fresh bear fat, and too, whether she meant it or not, whether he meant to or not, tasted the pork-like flavor of her human flesh when she touched his tongue by chance.

  When exactly she would return from her expeditions or ‘hunting’ in the night, he was never entirely sure as sleep frequently took him too. A sleep he suspected in part was due to her poultices which she prepared often. But he knew for sure that she returned without meat, despite more than once returning smelling of fresh blood.

  From that first week, there was born a second, and from the second came a third, and then a fourth. In those days of his deepest helplessness, Araghramorn learned something of the human female that attended to him, even if it were not learned by words.

  Aina laid quiet in her bedroll in the predawn hours before the sun rose and while the stars were still twinkling, and never moved her gaze. It was an almost religious reverence that she displayed for them distant twinkling dots in the sky. He noticed too, that she ate only sparingly, and kept her distance from him, a contradiction he had not expected from what he knew of humans, as they were known to live and work in groups.

  He noted too that she smiled only down into her food bowl, which always smelled remarkable to him, very different from the raw meat of his usual consumption. And he knew she was an expert with her bow, watching as she fletched more arrows out of what the forest provided.

  Everything was done in its time, done properly, promptly, and without error.

  He had to pluck the word from the back of his mind as it was never necessary for him to use it, but finally he found and affixed it to her character in his mind. ‘Discipline.’

  It wasn’t until that month ended that she said something to him that he liked very much. “I’ve been applying field potions to your jaw for the last month, and you’ve not had to use it at all, so I want to unbind it. When I do, try to speak, but don’t push your luck. Do it slowly, if you have any pain, tell me at once.”

  He grunted and lay still while she climbed up on his face and knelt between his eyes, her knife drawn, she drew her sword for the first time since she’d seared his wounds closed…and then stared mutely at her blade.

  It had a faint blue glow to it that it had not had before. “What in the name of the divines…” Aina whispered as she turned the blade back and forth in her hands, then rotated it to confirm that the glow came from all angles.

  She swiftly cut the binding vines, as to her further surprise it took barely a touch of the edge to sever the fibers and drop it in a crumpled heap to the ground below.

  Aina’s body rocked back and forth when Araghramorn spoke, “Dragon blood is magic. You bathed it in my blood when you healed my wounds by searing them shut. It could be that your sword has been imbued with the magic of my race.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Aina’s righted herself almost instantly, then sheathed her blade, her short blonde hair swayed behind her and she stared deep into the dragon’s eyes, and he stared back into her, each one inches from the other. It was for one instant as if each remembered what the other was, where they stood and with whom.

  Aina broke the moment and hopped down to the ground beside long face and put her hand against his blue scaly lip, “Are you in any pain, Araghramorn?”

  “It is sore…Aina.” He replied with a low and rumbling voice.

  “But no sharpness, no stabbing pain?” She asked.

  “None.” His answer was brief with his bright dark slitted eye staring down into her vibrant blue.

  “Good. That’s probably just atrophy, I wouldn’t get into combat with your mouth for a few more months, but you should be able to eat now.” Aina’s light armor was soundless as her hand came away from his jaw and she went to take up her bow. She looked at the setting sun in the distance, “I have to hunt now, yesterday’s tracks suggested a larger group than usual, so I might not be back until later. Remain absolutely silent, for your own safety.”

  “Group of what?” Araghramorn asked and furrowed his scaled brow.

  “Orcs.” Aina replied matter-of-factly. “I can’t let them get to the other side of this forest, I need to kill them or turn them back. If they get to you, you’re still in no condition to fight. So keep your pride quiet and let me handle this.”

  Araghramorn winced internally. His pride was pricked as much by the casual way she simply gave him a blunt order as by the fact that she was right about his present inability to properly fight. He didn’t reply, and she didn’t demand an answer, she only took her quiver, slung it, and ventured into the shadows, out of his sight, out of his hearing, and out of his scent.

  The night was deep into its hours when Araghramorn heard the sound of orc voices, and he wondered, ‘Did they kill her?’ His eyes narrowed into the darkness, it was no obstacle to him by itself, but with so many trees in the way, there could have been scores of them for all he knew. ‘I should find out that much.’ He decided, and snarled loud enough to be heard, “You there! Prey animal which speaks! Come forward! Tell Araghramorn why you should not all die where you stand, why I or my…companion, should not slay you to the last!”

  Araghramorn put all the violence that he could into his voice, but with his legs still hobbled and stuck lying down on his side, it did not take a wise orc to know he was bluffing, and that perhaps was why one of them did as he asked, and stepped into view.

  Suadela looked at the smug smile of the peasant girl. Her frame was pretty, as humans went, far from the perfection of a succubus, she was nonetheless pretty enough to draw the eyes of men and no few women. What’s more, she dressed to flaunt her looks, playing up her attraction, with clothing, perfume, make up, and a sweet smile, but in the privacy of the inn, the mask was dropped and the cynic who found the city a place of repugnance emerged.

  She held out her hand to the demoness, and Suadela pursed her lips, reached into the black leather coin purse at her side and drew out a gold piece. The human woman, bold as ever, kept her eye on the demoness who, with a reluctant frown, reached in and pulled out another gold piece as a companion to the first. She placed it into the hands of the peasant who snatched her fingers closed as if she were a monster and the coins were adventurers who had fallen into her trap.

  “It wasn’t even hard, was it, My Lady?” Skara asked, her voice sympathetic when she shook her head.

  “Not even a little.” Suadela remarked with disgust and flopped down into her seat. Her graceful, slender hand rubbed her pale forehead, “I should be pleased, the corruption of this Kingdom will make sure it easily falls into the hands of my beloved Lord of Mind. But is it so much to ask that one priest understand the purity of love?”

  “No, My Lady. Or at least it shouldn’t be.” Skara’s disgust was evident in her voice and shoved the coins she’d won from their ongoing wager. “Maybe they weren’t always that way. Maybe my father, bastard that he was, was right about one thing at least.”

  “What was he right about?” Suadela asked and dropped her hand away from her head to set it on the table beside her.

  “Them that want power are the ones who shouldn’t have it.” Skara replied. “He may have been a drunk, and couldn’t have held on to a coin if you glued it to his hand, but he was smart when he wasn’t stumbling around rambling about my mother.”

  “I see.” Suadela remarked with a noncommittal air. “Alright, it’s your turn, girl. Go out and do your part. I still have more priests to test, but between the judges and the priests, we have enough to start blackmailing them.”

  “My Lady, can I suggest something else?” Skara asked, a sly smile crept over her face, the corners of her lips turned up just enough to hint that there was mischief behind her question.

  “What would that be?” Suadela asked, the golden eyes regained their lustre and sparkled with demonic interest.

  “Blackmail makes em victims, but why not make em accomplices instead? I’ll still go to em, but get tell em their ‘lovers’ are in trouble. They just have to use their positions to get the changelings out of whatever shit I tell em they’re in.”

  Suadela frowned a little, “I like it in principle, but the changelings are not as skilled as that. They mirror their targets, but haven’t the wit for real independent thought.”

  “They don’t need it, My Lady. If you use your shadow demons to steal things and stow it on the changelings, I can alert the guards and judges. The changelings will get arrested, and the judges will find their lovers innocent. As for the priests, I can approach them as a ‘friend’ to their various lovers, convince them that your creatures will love them more if more is spent on em. Fancy restaurants, big, grand gifts, it won’t be long before they’re stealing from the temple to pay for their lovers. It’s a little change, but they can’t complain that they’re victims while they’re stealing and flouting the law for lust now, can they?” Skara pressed, and Suadela’s face broke into a smile.

  “You were a lucky find, you’ve got a demon soul wrapped in that worthless human skin, I swear it.” Suadela said, and Skara bobbed at the knees and bowed her head to acknowledge her mistress’s praise.

  “Thank you, My Lady. I’ll go out now and get right to work.” Skara promised, and left with the laughter of a demoness at her back.