The Solitary Arrow Ch. 13

Hyandai was relieved to be among trees, even diminutive ones clinging to life in a tight knot. Harlen could see much tension flow from her as she simply sat among the boughs of the small trees' shelter. Her emerald eyes seemed to sparkle more and her hair gained its luster. Were elves so closely tied to the wood? He thought, but decided that they must be, for the changes in her appearance were mirrored in her behavior. She became more playful that evening, and even more affectionate, showering him with little kisses and caresses throughout their late supper and as they prepared for sleep.

As Harlen lay down, Hyandai's hands were exploring his body, already seeking out the places she could touch and arouse his lusts. Far from minding, he was elated and responded quite enthusiastically. While they seemed to be far from adventurous in their lovemaking that night, they were certainly both energetic, though she spared him the ordeal of feeding him more energy for multiple rounds. The one bout they partook of was more than sufficient to sate their desires, and they lay afterwards in a happy embrace.

"What shall we do when we get back to Morrovale?" Harlen asked her as he stroked her smooth shoulder.

She looked up into the starry night. "I suppose we need to get this home to my people." Said Hyandai. "Then I will be released from the oath I spoke to my clan and can go my way. Then come back to you."

"Can I not go with you?" He asked.

She nodded. "I will say you can, as now you have helped me complete this quest." She paused a long moment. "But you may find that your coming will be met with mixed feelings, I fear."

"If you think it allowable, then I will come with you, nonetheless." Harlen murmured. "I would not be parted from you unless need be."

She idly stroked his chest. "I had thought that would be your mind on it." She said. "I will gladly present my betrothed to my people, whether they approve or not. I am not shamed by my choice of a mate."

Harlen smiled into the darkness and kissed her forehead. "And I am honored by your choice." He said.

---

They awoke to a loud sound nearby. Hyandai was on her feet first, her nude form light against the dark backdrop of the small knoll of trees. She peered into the darkness, reaching for the ehladrel with uncertain fingers.

"What is it?" Harlen whispered as she found the long, ornately sculpted weapon.

She glared down at him. "Still your tongue, human." She hissed and searched the darkness again.

Harlen blinked at the sharp, mildly insulting rebuke, and then saw the glint of that blasted weapon in her hands. Shaking his head, he rose from the blankets, and slipped on his pants as she moved a short way toward the edge of the wood.

She came back in a moment. "Orcs." She whispered. "About a dozen." Her eyes were furtive in the limited light, and Harlen realized he could see them. It was no illusion that made elven eyes light in the dark; they really did so.

"We should leave, then." Harlen said.

She nodded, but her expression was one of disappointment. "Agreed. Let us pack camp quietly and move quickly."

They stowed their gear and were moving toward the edge of the little copse when a shout went up from the orcish camp. Hyandai grabbed his arm and broke into a full run, casting stealth aside, and hoping the cloaks would protect them from prying eyes.

He stumbled here and there a little, as she leaped over an obstacle that he could not quite make out in the near darkness of the starlit night. He had his sword drawn now, and she carried the ehladrel.

As they turned a corner around a sizable mound of boulders, they came face to face with three of the larger sort of orcs who were just as surprised to see the couple. Before the orcs could so much as grunt out their shock, one died with the elven weapon slitting him from neck to groin. The other two had barely begun to move when Harlen thrust the broadsword through one's gullet, releasing a gout of thick, red blood. The ehladrel moved in a graceful arc in the starlight, and came full circle just in time to catch the other large orc's charge, and Hyandai gracefully slipped aside as the headless corpse flopped onto the ground.

Again, she grabbed his hand and they ran. It was almost an hour before she slowed down, and they cast about for somewhere to lie for the remainder of the darkening hours of the night. They finally found a small patch of level ground among some high stones and slipped into the relative shelter of the hidden space.

Harlen tossed out his blanket, flapping it to get rid of some dirt and leaves from the site they had just fled. "You sure get an attitude when you pick that thing up." He said, nodding toward the ehladrel.

Hyandai cast her eyes toward the weapon. "I know, I am sorry for that, my love." She murmured. "It just takes over, or at least something in it makes me feel like I am not really me anymore."

Harlen slipped off his soft-soled boots and looked up at Hyandai as she sat next to him, kicking off her own footwear. She turned toward him. "Those are not my thoughts, or words, Harlen, you must believe me." She said, her eyes filled with worry.

"I do angel." Harlen replied.

They propped their weapons within easy reach, Hyandai had Harlen move the ehladrel, not wishing to touch the powerful item until she must. She curled up against him, her small hands on his chest and her lovely face pressed to his neck.

Harlen sighed as she breathed gently into his neck and hair, she was quickly asleep, her breathing becoming slow, even, and deep. He stroked her fiery hair gently as she slept, and he watched her eyes twitch in the dim moonlight. He wondered what she dreamed of, and wished fervently he could join her in them. Perhaps she was in her homeland, among the great ornthalion trees that her people so adored. The man tried to imagine what it must be like to roam in an elven wood. Would it be like a park, the wooded garden that the duke had on his manor grounds? Or was it more like the woods he hunted daily, but more so?

As he watched the skies, he detected motion there, a slight motion, but there were stars winking out then back on again. He furrowed his brow and watched the moving shape more closely. An eagle? He wondered. Or, maybe, a hawk?

Were their enemies in the air as well as on the ground? Harlen shuddered at the thought of having enemies so powerful that they could take to the sky to thwart Hyandai's goals.

It was an owl, he finally realized, hearing a distant hoot high above him. He smiled upward at his fellow hunter and let himself doze as well.

---

"Awaken, human, we must move quickly." Hyandai said, that cold tone told him, even before he pried his eyes open, that she was holding the ehladrel.

He sat up and looked at her. She had blood on her legs and one arm, and the ehladrel was coated in the sticky red stuff. He pulled his boots on and grabbed his blanket even as he took to his feet. Hyandai was already slinging her bow over her shoulder. "There are more, but they hesitate to follow me." She said.

Harlen smiled. "I don't doubt that, Hyandai." He said. "You frighten me pretty bad, and you're not trying to kill me."

She gave him an impatient look. "You speak casually to me, human, this is not the time for banter." She said, her voice dripping with self-superiority.

He had enough of this crap, he decided. "Listen you arrogant elf." He said, shoving his blanket into his small knapsack. "You didn't condescend to me when I was fucking you the other day."

Hyandai blinked a few times, and her eyes took on a faraway look. "Harlen, please do not grow angry with me." She whispered, though her eyes did not meet his. "It is not you or me, it is the ehladrel."

He nodded. "That piece of elven steel is going to talk you right into a lonely walk home, Hyandai." He said, hefting his pack and grabbing his bow. "I suggest putting it away for now."

The elven woman's brow furrowed and she picked up her blanket and rolled the ehladrel within its cloth folds. Soon she had a bundle about four feet long and almost a foot around. This she tied a piece of rope around and slung from her shoulder, beside her quiver.

The couple set out, not speaking or even walking close to one another. Hyandai could feel the anger and resentment radiating from Harlen. It reminded her of the forced march from the cave toward Morrovale, when he had grown cold toward her and how she had cried most of that long walk in the rain. The weight of the ehladrel pressed against her back. She would not leave it where she could casually grab it up.

Hyandai promised herself to never tell Harlen of the morning's events, unless she must. She had arisen early and slipped intentionally from the camp and sought out a small group of patrolling orcs. It had been a bloodbath, quite literally, but one had managed to run away. She had put them both at risk just to satisfy some drive of the weapons.' She had awakened and picked it up. She longed even now to hold it, to feel that power course through her sinews and give her strength, grace, and most of all, power.

I'm becoming addicted to it. She thought. Its power is seductive. Harlen looked back over his shoulder and helped her up a steep incline of rocks and she caught herself almost refusing his proffered hand. She forced an unfelt smile to her lips, and his expression softened a little. What would she do if she alienated him fully? She wondered.

They were climbing the pass that led east back to the duchy, and safety. Apparently, the orcs had not thought to look this far afield, or the ones that would normally be around this area had been wiped out in the battle down below, at the bottom of the pass. Harlen ventured this theory, and Hyandai agreed. Or else it is a trap, she thought. Her mouth stayed still, though.

Harlen had just crested the last steep climb of the pass on this side and turned to watch her progress up the broken slope. With horror in her emerald eyes, she watched, as his expression grew puzzled, then he turned about to face the heights of the pass. As he turned, a black-shafted arrow came into view, piercing his right shoulder deeply. She screamed as another arrow struck his stomach and he bent double.

Everything was happening in slow motion now. She heard the ehladrel cry out to her. "Free me!" It screamed in her mind. "Use me!" A third arrow missed her lover as he collapsed to the stony ground.

She found herself unwrapping the rope from the ehladrel as the orcs that had shot Harlen came forward to finish their chore.

Thrusting her hand into the blanket she grasped the weapon. A cry went up among the half dozen orcs as they saw her, knowing that more interesting captives were not in the offing. A bow twanged among the orcs and an arrow flew toward her. As if by itself, the ehladrel interposed itself between her and the arrow, it sank into the blanket and struck steel. She swung the weapon, and the blanket flew away from it, unfurling and fluttering to the ground. Another orc loosed an arrow at her, but it, like its companion, failed to find its target.

She let loose with a blood curdling curse in orcish and charged them. Harlen's fading vision witnessed his beloved running full speed toward a half dozen large, armored orcs. Their little battle line faltered at the sight of a tiny elven maiden coming at them. Two fired at once, their arrows shattering upon the ehladrel's metal body.

Harlen could not remain conscious, he felt his head droop, but did not feel it strike the stones beneath him.

The first orc died horribly, cut in half at the waist by an almost negligent shift in the ehladrel's already blurring path. She was among them almost instantly and they cried in sheer terror as one after another of them gave up their lives to the elven weapon that they called the 'Bane of the Chosen."

Two tried to run, but she stopped them with a rapid, precise motion, slicing their hamstrings with the razor tip of the weapon. They tried to keep crawling, and Hyandai dispatched them unsympathetically, spearing them in the spine with the ehladrel and only pulling it forth when they stopped moving completely.

She returned to Harlen, and knelt beside him. The stomach wound was bleeding heavily, and she feared him already dead. However, she felt for his pulse and found a reedy thing there, intermittent and weak. Quickly, she pulled his shirt up and healed the wound, reddening her lips in her haste with her lover's own lifeblood. The arrow in his shoulder had broken off beneath the skin and she cursed her inability to get it out after a couple of attempts that caused him to cry out in pain.

His eyes popped open and he winced at the agony coming to him through the pierced shoulder. "Did you?" He asked, looking toward the orcs.

She nodded. "They are no longer a threat to us." She whispered with a smile. "But you are wounded and I cannot heal it, the tip remains."

Sweat was standing out from his brow. "I cannot move that arm, I think the head is lodged in the bones." He grimaced. "You will have to get it out."

Hyandai blanched. "I cannot, beloved." She said. Her eyes looked frightened and repulsed at the same time. "I know not how to perform such acts."

Sitting up with an exaggerated motion, Harlen said. "You have to. I cannot climb down the pass like this, much less fight if that comes up." He said.

Her eyes took on a haunted look. "I will try." She said quietly. "But you will have to guide me."

Harlen nodded and propped his good shoulder against a large gray stone. He took his skinning knife from his belt. "Use this, it's very sharp." He said. "You will have to cut flesh until you can get the barbs loose enough to pull it out."

She winced at the mere suggestion of cutting him. Her fingers felt numb as she took the knife. She felt clumsy and stupid now, something that did not come easily to an elven mind.

The sweat was rolling off of Harlen's brow now. "Okay, angel, you need to start cutting around it, go very slowly and feel ahead for large blood vessels."

Pain lanced through Harlen's arm as she put blade to wound and began cutting. She had tears rolling down her cheeks and her lovely face was twisted in a grimace of concentration and sadness. He could feel the blood soaking his tunic's back and hoped she had not cut anything vital. The sound of gritting teeth disturbed her and she stopped. "I am hurting you too much." She said

Harlen's voice was strained. "No! Keep going." He said. His eyes had a look of determined abstinence in them. There was a sharp pain as she moved the arrow in the wound, and then another, even sharper pain as she took hold of it with finger and thumb, and pulled. It had been imbedded in the bone and he felt a massive shock pass through him as it came loose, tearing more muscle and skin as it released its barbed grip on him.

Hyandai threw the three inches of steel-tipped wood away from herself, gory with blood and small bits of meat. She shivered throughout her body and her weeping grew louder. "By the Sprits, that was not pleasant."

Chuckling, Harlen said, "Truer words may never have been spoken."

She looked at him. "You can laugh at a moment like this?" She asked.

"You will find humans can laugh even as their heads are laid upon the headsman's block." Harlen replied.

She gently blew upon the mangled shoulder, and the chipped bone mended, then the meat grew together, and the skin filled in. A new, pink skin now stood in that spot, healed fully.

Harlen smiled as he rotated that shoulder. "You did very well, beloved." He said as Hyandai morosely looked at him.

"I suppose." She muttered to herself. Her hands were trembling and her own brow was now glistening with perspiration.

Kissing her gently on the brow, Harlen stood up and picked up his bow. "We should try to get down the pass by tonight." He said. His gray cloak flapped in the stiff gusts coming from the woodlands of his home. "The farther we get from that damn fortress, the better."

With a nod, Hyandai regained her feet and handed Harlen back his skinning knife. When he took it, she yanked her hand back like it was a snake or large spider. Given she was coated partially in dried orc blood, her revulsion by the small knife confused Harlen a bit, but he simply sheathed the small blade and they both headed toward the west. As they passed the fallen orcs, he noted that they were killed pretty messily, and further, two were struck from behind. He did not feel much sympathy for the brutes. They had fired upon him with no warning, and deserved no quarter from himself or from his lover.

They crossed through the pass uneventfully, moving quickly, and with little caution. They wished to leave these infested mountains and regain the relative safety of the woodlands below. Finally, the far end was reached, and they regarded the steep descent to the hills below. A large portion of the army was still encamped below them. Harlen guessed they were hunting out isolated knots of orcs in the hills. He passed on word that the orcs were thick in the mountains, they may well head up into the high passes to rid the countryside of even more of the foul beings.

Night had fallen as they reached the lower hills. A guard challenged them as they approached the camp. It was the youth Hyandai had kissed for a blessing, Dannes. He immediately became very friendly upon hearing her soft voice in the night. "Do you not recognize the woman who blessed you for battle, Dannes?"

He grinned so broadly that his teeth shone in the darkening airs. "Indeed I do, Lady Hyandai, and I still walk under that blessing's shield." She stepped close to the youth.

He regarded her in the dim light that the camp's fires provided at the distance of the perimeter guards. "It is good to see you two again." He said. "We worried for you when some of us spotted you climbing the pass during the battle."

The elven woman smiled. "We are fine, young Dannes." She said. "But we need to rest. We have had orcs pursuing us for days."

The lad nodded and waved them past him. "Proceed, then." He said. "Let me not hold you from well-deserved respite."

All the noblemen had returned to Morrovale. In their place, they left Farridin, captain of the East Marches. He was common born, but a man of much respect and no small renown in the duchy. As they moved through the encampment, Hyandai was impressed with the number of women among the contingent that remained after the initial battle, almost a third of the force.

A surly guard escorted the couple to the captain who seemed quite delighted to see them. "I hear you forewarned us about the surprise attack that first night out." He said to Hyandai after introductions had been made.

She nodded hesitantly. Farridin was a huge man, nearly twice Harlen's weight and over a foot taller. The image of an ogre would not leave her mind's eye as the huge middle-aged man moved about the pavilion tent. He clapped Harlen on the shoulder. "You did well, too, I hear!" The captain said. "Better than when you were under my command as a scout."

Harlen smiled wanly. "I had hoped you would have forgotten by now, sir." He said.

Farridin chuckled. "Not much chance of that, Harlen." He rumbled. "None of my other scouts ever routed a army single handedly."

Hyandai raised an eyebrow at this. "Captain?" She asked. "Please tell this tale, Harlen seems to have forgotten it."

The captain handed each a tall glass of wine and bade them sit in large folding canvas-bottomed chairs. "Well." He said, smiling at Harlen's obvious discomfort. "Harlen was sent to scout out a enemy force. We were at war with a neighboring barony. Even though we were winning handily, it was costing a lot of good men." He sipped his wine and smacked his lips appreciatively at the taste. "He ran across one of their scouts, and they had a bow-duel, which Harlen won handily. It was just after dark, and our man here slips into the other man's uniform and into their camp in the night. He not only scouted the camp, but accidentally killed the baron who was determined to have a war with us."