Luck Pt. 04 - Hunting Party

Hunting Party

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It was their fourth day in the wastes, each day becoming less comfortable than the last. Alanna felt disgusting, not having bathed in nearly a week. They had come across a trickling stream yesterday, which allowed her to attempt to wash her hair and gave Talos the chance to gather additional drinking water after boiling it.

The heat ultimately won the battle with Alanna's hair, turning it into a frizzled, tangled mess. Talos had joked about cutting it off, which she almost took seriously.

The limitless expanse of hills had given way to a maze of massive granite plateaus, rising several dozen feet above them. The maze forced them to navigate specific paths, and prevented Talos from locating Orc encampments from afar at night by their fires, a method which had so far worked in keeping their distance from the savages.

Now, the pair lay prone on a granite ledge jutting out from one plateau, looking over a loud band of Orcs near the opposite plateau. So far, they had gone unnoticed, but the party was preventing them from venturing further into the valley. The Orc band was laughing and dancing around a cooking animal on a spit, the smell of the cooked flesh wafting to her nostrils.

"We could probably sneak through since they're so well entertained with cooking up that pig, but there's no way Sofia's getting past 'em." Talos whispered, trying to think of an action plan out loud.

Alanna looked towards the Orcs, mesmerized by their alienness. Towering bodies of flesh and muscle, at least six foot tall but possibly seven with grey-black skin and a massive underbite, which showed off their... teeth? More like tusks, she figured. All of them carried stone weapons of one shape or another, and they either wore a simple loin cloth or nothing at all.

Nakedness which caused her mind to drift further; she saw that their tools were shaped roughly like a human's, but with a thicker shaft and larger marbles, more like the size of small apples. She wondered where their women were, and what would happen if she and Talos were discovered.

Talos would probably become food, she'd reckon. Perhaps she could enchant them to use her for her assets rather than eat her; that'd give her another month or two of survival as they passed her around like...

"Well?" Talos asked Alanna in a whisper. She shook her head gently and looked at him, saved from her lustful thoughts.

"Sorry, what?"

"Do you know how to use this?" Talos asked again quietly but impatiently, holding his hunting crossbow out to her. She shook her head and frowned. "It's easy," he continued, hopping down behind the granite pillar. She followed him down, trying to step down gracefully and walked over to him. He handed the wood and metal contraption to her and got behind her, placing a hand on each of her arms. For some reason, his touch felt electric to her; she focused on the instructions.

"You place your hands here, and here," Talos moving her hands and arms to their correct positions for her, "bring it up to your chest like so and look down the length of it and point it at what you're trying to shoot." Talos explained, making it sound so simple to tear the life from a living being. "Once you're ready, you squeeze this part with your right hand," and squeezed for her, the wood depressing.

"Now, let me show you how to reload it." Talos set the machine face down into the dirt and stepped on both sides with his feet. He pulled the string up to his waist, where it locked in with a click. Lastly, he pulled a bolt from his quiver and placed it down the length of the crossbow.

"See? Now, it takes a lot of strength to reload this one, so make your first shot count. If you hit anything in their center of mass within forty yards, it'll keep them down. Thirty yards if they're armored - not that we have to worry about that right now."

Alanna felt useless, but she tried digesting the instructions as well as she could.

"Can't we try my way first? See if I can't get them to... I don't know, leave?" Alanna asked, her heartrate pumping. Were they actually going to fight those brutes?

Talos raised an eyebrow at her. "Can you?"

"I've reached out to them, I can, um, read each of them but it's... simple. Like the mind of a toddler. I'm not sure if they'll take commands like humans do," she explained hurriedly.

Talos nodded, "We'll try your way first. My way is Plan B." He leaned out beyond the pillar, making sure the Orc party was where he left it.

He explained that his method consisted of luring them to the small corner of granite that they now occupied, the close quarters suitable to taking on one of them at a time. She was to occupy the granite pillar they were leaning against, taking shots when possible and hiding when she was reloading.

"Okay. Give me a minute," Alanna whispered, reaching out to each of the Orcs telepathically.

She first tried "sit", like she was talking to a dog, and surprisingly a few of them sit down next to the fire; perhaps this will be easier than she anticipated. "Go away". Nothing.

"Leave this place". Nothing still. "Kill-" oh shit.

She felt an immediate surge of adrenaline in each of the beasts when she uttered the word.She meant to finish the statement with "each other", but the word kill on its own caused her to lose them. They all stood up, howling and squealing down the length of the granite valley. She disconnected herself instantaneously, which caused them to turn towards her. Fuck.

"Talos!" she exclaimed, pulling her crossbow and resting it on the rock in front of her.

"I noticed!" he shouted back, unsheathing his sword with a determined look on his face.

Seven of them. Seven savages, charging their side of the valley with beastly rage. She leveled the crossbow and squeezed frantically, the bow lifting slightly towards the air when she did so, just enough for the bolt to fly several feet above their heads.

Her heart racing, she lept down from the ledge and started reloading, just as he told her to.

She heard Talos shouting as he charged, the sound of metal piercing flesh. An Orc screamed wildly as he fell to the ground, Alanna hearing the thud of his massive bulk. She pulled the string of the crossbow up, struggling against its force.

Another slash, and another. More wailing as combat continued. The Orcs bellowed with a guttural rage that made her teeth chatter as she locked the string into place with strength she shouldn't have had. Her palms were sweating profusely as she grabbed a bolt, dropping it once, then placing it correctly on the bow. She heard a loud squish noise as another Orc screamed, and she quickly scrambled up the rocky pillar to ready another shot.

She saw Talos, covered in the Orcs blood circling right and away from her as three Orcs charged him. Both hands on his bloody length of steel, a look in his eyes nearing sadistic. The first Orc reached him, club in both hands, and swung horizontally as Talos ducked effortlessly underneath it. In the same motion, he angled his sword down and away from the Orc before sweeping upwards through the Orc's legs in a flash, causing the savage to fall to the ground immediately.

She brought herself back to her own predicament and leveled the bow at one of the two remaining Orcs. Both were charging Talos, from almost opposite sides of him, screaming as they ran. She picked the one closest to her, running in a straight line away from her and towards her companion. She squeezed the trigger softly this time. The bow snapped, and the bolt slammed straight into the beasts' back, felling the creature with a bloody scream.

She looked on Talos worried, his attention now shifting to the Orc to his right. The beast swung vertically, which Talos sidestepped and slashed the beasts neck brutally from behind with a blurred downward strike, and then kicked the beast's back, slamming it into the blood-soaked dirt. Talos then looked around, scanning for a non-existent threat, before moving over to one of the grunting Orcs on the ground and impaling his sword in the savages' neck.

Alanna's heart began winding down as she stepped from the rocky pillar, dropping the crossbow on the ground. She ran over to Talos, who was executing the Orc she had shot with the bow. She stopped five feet from him as he looked around, soaking in the temporary silence of a battles' aftermath.

Seemingly satisfied, he tried wiping off his sword on his sleeve before sheathing his sword. She saw him take one deep breath, lowering his eyes to the ground, and finished the journey to him.

"Talos!" she exclaimed. She put a hand on his shoulder and chest, kneeling down to meet him eye to eye.

"Hey," he responded, clearly coming off his adrenaline high as well as he heartrate decelerated. "You might not want to touch me," he warned with a smirk, but Alanna was oblivious to the blood covering him and hugged him tight.

"Are you alright? You just, um..." she trailed off, not knowing what to say to a man who just slaughtered an entire troop of bloodthirsty killers on his own.

"Fine," he replied between breaths. "Not even a scratch." Talos smirked and raised his shoulders, Alanna releasing her arms when she realized she was still tightly holding on to him.

"We have to get out of here, before more come," Talos stated with a grin while gesturing behind him, "but not before we grab that damn pig."