The Woodsman: Chapter Two

He woke with her facing him, her face nuzzled into his neck and her body pressing firmly against his. The rain had broken, and the sun fought to pierce the clouds, but the gray and dreary weather fought a hard battle to keep them wet and miserable. She groaned and nuzzled his unshaven neck, almost like a lover.

The thought of a butcher of his friends and fellow soldiers enjoying his company turned his stomach, but he did not know the ways of the dark elves and their perverse pleasures. Perhaps this somehow entertained her? Maybe she was toying with him?

He sighed and pushed her away, realizing his hand rested upon her breast through her dress, and his face flushed with embarrassment. He had never touched a woman in such a way, not unintentionally. She moaned softly and squirmed, and he withdrew his hand and shook the thought from his mind.

He could not mistreat his prisoner.

No matter how badly her kind treated humankind.

A small pendant stuck to his hand from a chain around her neck. He stroked it between his fingers, and the strange, silvered metal felt odd to him, almost as if it tickled his nerve endings to touch it.

The symbol seemed familiar. A triangle of twisted loops, ever curling back onto each other.

He had seen this symbol on banners in the capital.

Near the Mages Guild.

He stroked it with his thumb and felt the pendant’s magic pulse.

This was the symbol of the Goddess of Magic.

He knew better to mess with things he did not understand, so he slid the pendant back between her breasts where it belonged.

Strange.

He would have thought her to worship the Dark Elven gods. Still, he knew nothing of their customs, and she could have followed more than one.

He crawled to his knees and stoked the ashes of the fire, placing his last few dry logs on it for a bit of warmth before they set out. Every muscle in his body ached. It hurt even to move. He knew he needed to get moving, or the stiffness and pain would set in and add another layer of suffering to a day and journey full of the same.

“You awake?”

She groaned and tried to roll to face him, but her body was too weak to turn, so he reached over and helped her sit, resting her against one of the packs he salvaged for supplies. With every move of her body, she groaned as well, and he tried to be gentle with her as he helped her into a sitting position.

“Sorry.”

Her hands still were tied behind her back, so however ill this one was, she did not have the strength to move very much. He wondered how long she would live like this. Even if it were a few days, he would be thankful for the company in some perverse way, even if it were a blue-skinned killer.

She opened her eyes painfully and struggled to open her lips. He nodded and offered her a drink, which she swallowed hard. She blinked at him, glanced over her shoulder, and let her head flop back in his direction with her eyes pleading.

“I can’t untie you. You know magic. I do not.”

She blinked again in defeat, though she did seem too weak even to give him much of a fight. Still, with every drink and comfort he gave her, he was nursing a scorpion back to health, and she would be his death, given any opportunity.

He pulled a jerky from his pack and offered her a piece.

“Ladies, eat first.”

He smiled, almost a gallows smile, but he knew his manners.

She winced.

“Not your normal diet, but you need to eat.”

He pushed it between her lips, and she blinked at him. She ate a piece as he noted her displeasure and shook his head.

“Go on, eat.”

She tried to work her jaw, but the tough jerky was too much for her to bear chewing.

“Gods, you are weak. I am sorry.”

He reached over and let her spit the jerky into his hand. He winced, put it in his mouth, and chewed. He was sharing saliva with a dark elf slightly disgusted him, but she was a prisoner and a lady, so he needed to treat her well.

He spat the chewed meat into his hand and offered her that.

She winced in shock and disbelief.

He pushed the wad between her lips, and she moaned in deep displeasure and disgust.

“Eat; you are no good to me dead.”

She chewed, eyes glaring at him with the hate of pure fire, and she swallowed. She kept staring at him as if she was somehow deeply dishonored, her eyes in stunned disbelief. He offered her another drink.

“I’m sorry. I did not like it - if it makes it any easier, we cannot afford to waste food.”

She stared into the fire as the last few twigs and branches lit and popped, sending sparks into the morning air. He lifted her eyes to him again and blinked in a slow, painful look at him.

“Can you speak? At least the language of my kind? I have no idea what you are sick with. No wounds I can see. No blows to the head or swelling. And none of my group knew magic, and I have only seen someone fall this ill due to poison or black magic.”

She nodded, her lips opening and trying to form words. Her voice came out to dry, and she coughed.

He sighed.

“Just nod your head then, yes, and no?”

She nodded.

“Are you poisoned? We are with the Queen’s Men, and I know we do not use that either. We are, well, an honored bunch.”

She shook her head no.

He nodded.

“Magic then? Not elemental, because you would be burned or have a limb frozen off. It would have to be death magic, and- “

He stopped.

She nodded.

And the words he did not say.

…and it would have to be one of your own who did this to you.