The Woodsman: Chapter Eight

They were never going home.

They had ridden a short while to a nice place, secluded off the main road, in a sparse clearing he was sure would never be found by those passing by.

And he buried the dead.

No chance at resurrection, my brothers. I shall see you in the next life.

I am sorry.

Ten graves for ten fine men, humans and dwarves, one elf, one of orcish blood, all brothers.

Ophelia rested beside the cart, sleeping most of the day and waking up to watch him dig the next grave before drifting off again.

He collapsed beside her when the final man was laid to rest.

She rubbed his shoulder and offered him some of the last of their food.

“You need to eat.”

He nodded, eyes still closed, and held the food in his hand as he let out a sigh held inside for far too long.

“Three days travel?”

She nodded. “That is how long we had to go to reach the bend where you feel the ambush is, but we wasted an entire day burying your friends.”

He stared at the beautiful spot he chose for the ten graves. “We can get there in a day without the cart slowing us down. Are you sure we won’t run into them from behind?”

She nodded. “Dark elves never use the road; too dangerous.”

He tried to laugh. “I wish someone had told us.”

She managed a half-smile and nodded. “This is why I was on the road. Dark elves use shadow paths in these parts. These follow gullies and hunting paths between the trees and dry creeks, forming a web of secret paths. Also, they are not as traveled, so thus fewer predators rely on them for food.”

He bit on the stale bread. “Could we use them?”

“I am not a warrior, nor a tracker like my,” she paused, “brother.”

He drank some to chew the tough hunk of bread. “Tell me about these men chasing you.”

“What is to say other than my hate for them?” She looked away. “Tal ’Aisle, my brother, a sycophant to the Church of Darkness and regular adherent to the Black Temples. All the priestesses of that so-called church are whores looking to sleep their way to power or use their secret liaisons as weapons against those with power.”

“And the other, a sick man from the Cult of Death, a torturer of life of all creeds and ages. He is strong in the power of death and is chosen as an executioner because of his slow and painful methods. Both I despise.”

He sighed. “It never changes. Those with no good-pointing compass are lost in this life. Evil takes them all, corruption the rest, and the wars start. Pretty soon, they can’t hide the rot upon their souls, so they find others to blame for the misfortune they cause.”

“You have strong opinions, woodsman,” she smiled.

“All I have left. They took everything else.”

She stared at the lines of graves. “You have me.”

He stared at the same. “Do I?”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “Am I to make up a lie about how I always wanted someone like you in my life, woodsman? Or tell you how strong you are? Or fawn over your protection? I think your body is amazing, and I feel the wet cusp of dew when my eyes lay upon your muscles and broad-shouldered frame?”

He sighed. “You could say you are using me for an escape of a life which grew to hate you, a brother who defiles your blood, and a people you only wish to return to when use has been made of me. How your people would never accept me anyway, and you know this for a fact.”

She smiled and nuzzled his neck. “I could say that, yes. Wish to hear more lies?”

He nodded and smiled. “Lay them upon me, Ophelia Kya Leigh, spinner of webs and deceit.”

“Let me think of all the lies I could say which mean I love you. Dark elven females, you know, are all like the black widow.”

“You eat your mates by sucking out their insides?”

She raised her violet eyes towards him. “Only if you ask me nicely.”

He poked her sweet lips with a finger. “I think I would learn to like that, naughty elf.”

She grinned the most beautiful grin he could ever imagine; she let it melt but kept the warmth of her smile. “You wish to know the truth?”

“Humor me.”

She sighed. “I have given up and given up on life. I do not see a road out, and I am done fighting this war. I get my people to safety, and I am done. Past that, I wish my life to become mine again.”

He raised a brow. “Selfish reasons?”

“I was sent once to spy upon a high elven wizard,” she said with a sigh. “The Great Forest, green and lush and teeming with life. It was thought he was developing some spell, some magic to be used against my kind.”

“You would think someone like that would be well protected against you or a small team of dark elf infiltrators.”

She nodded. “He was. My people found a way to get me close. Do you want to know what I found?”

He nodded.

“He had a beautiful wife. Children. She cooked and cared for them all day. They were her life. She was his life. They lived in a giant stump, a ten-thousand-year-old tree, now fallen, and a house carved from this place.

I found no spell, research, or plot against our kind.

Just a man. And his wife.”

She stared at the graves in the clearing.

“He called to me. He must have known I was leaving and knew I was there. His wife stared in shock inside the house, but this old wizard was not afraid of me. He had me sit with him, and he introduced his children to me, one by one. Of course, they did not know what a dark elf was, so they were intrigued. They pulled on my ears. Touched my skin in wonder.”

“He told you something, did he not?”

She nodded against his arm. “He said someday this would be you, sitting on this chair, introducing your children to a stranger you did not know but felt this moment was too important never to pass along.

I asked him why he said that.

One time, long ago, he said this lesson was passed down to him by a wizard gone to this world, and he wanted to keep the circle unbroken. And he let me go. When I returned to the others, I never told them that part, only the man was a fool too wrapped up in his children, and the mission had been a waste of time.”

“Was it your call to keep him alive then?”

She nodded. “Back in those days when the mission involved magic, they always let us decide. I grew tired of travel, secret missions, and the like and returned to the Church of Magic. I had seen the world. One that hated our kind. And I wanted to see it no more.”

 “You wish to settle down?”

She nodded.

“Why me?”

She pressed her cheek to his sore shoulder.

“You are the furthest thing from my world I could imagine finding love with. The few men are spoken for even among the refugees, and I have no right to insert myself there. I was too busy with my church to find love.”

“So, I am just the next best choice?”

She tried to laugh. “You are my choice. Am I yours? Would you like to stare at my nakedness as a husband stare upon his woman? To see her most private secrets and know he is the only man ever to place a key into this sacred lock? That the door to her passions is only his to unlock? Once inside, a new and greater meaning could be found to this misery of life?”

He blushed and smiled. “I think I could like that if you would let me in. And we could be the only one for each other until eternity. Then again, you would probably outlive me and forget about me.”

She smiled. “The Soul of One is a sacred rite among elves of all kinds. The years I have, I would give to you equally. And if a true love dies, and our souls are bonded and true, then I shall die when you do. No matter the time we have left. Because we could never be apart.”

“That is a beautiful thing, Ophelia.”

“Elves, all of us, were originally born as a people of love. Along the way, we lost ourselves.”

“Sounds typical of my kind as well.”

He pulled a long, green reed free and pulled it apart by the fibers. He worked the material less than a fingertip width apart and cut the strand into two pieces. She watched him work with a smile.

“What are you doing?”

He tied them into two loops and fashioned a tiny crown of tied green reed upon each on the knot by looping smaller strands in on themselves. He put both green leaf rings in his hand and smiled at his work.

“A girl, when I was young, taught me how to do this. At school in the Great North. Alice was her name. Always pretending we were married, I was the husband, and she, my wife. She would take care of her pretend children, and I would protect her from the monsters of the deep woods.”

“What happened to her?”

“Her family moved away, and I was heartbroken. My parents did not tell me why. Or even that it happened. By the time I knew, goodbye was too late.”

He carefully grabbed a ring and her hand and looked into her eyes.

She smiled, her cheeks blushing violet, and her eyes teared some. She nodded very gently and held out her hand. He slid the ring on her finger.

She took the other ring from his hand, and he held out his hand to her. She slid the leaf ring upon his finger.

They kissed, passion no bounds between them.

She parted with a gasp, eyes lost in him. “I don’t know what this ceremony means to humans.”

“It is an engagement, Ophelia.” He smiled. “It means if we survive, we shall be wed, and I shall try my damnedest to make your children’s dreams and pass that story along come true.”

She nodded and nuzzled him enthusiastically, moving a leg over his. “Can we try to make children now?”

He laughed. “As much as I shall endeavor to please my one and only wife, I should remind her we are not out of the woods yet, and her people still need deliverance to their promised land. Then I promise you, every night if need be, I shall submit to your passions, and you shall submit to mine.”

She whispered in his ear, “I want to be constantly with child, for ten, maybe twenty years. Or more.”

He winced and laughed. “If you do that to me, I may be using up those years of yours pretty quickly to keep up.”

She continued whispering. “To have a part of you growing inside me would keep me forever happy, my love.”

He kissed her forehead. “I love you, Ophelia Kya Leigh, one day wife of the woodsman.”

He looked upon the graves and nodded his head, knowing if she blessed him with children, the names of his brothers would live on as his sons.

She slept against him, under the blankets, with nothing between them and her exotic body pressed to his skin all night. When they awoke, she hid no secrets from him, feeding him while entirely nude and letting his eyes feast upon his future wife’s body and most profound mysteries.

It took all his will to tell her to dress.

Before she did, she straddled him and gave him the most passionate kiss a woman ever placed upon his lips. She then told him that everything he saw and desired was his and his alone to do as he pleased.

And that she would service his every desire.

He smiled at her and told her there would be a time to quench her desires. She ran a wet finger along his lower lip, turned, and got dressed. When he tasted what she offered him, he knew he would want much more of the nectar of this succulent flower.

But there would be a time for that after the killing ended.

He salvaged enough armor and weapons from his fallen brothers to create himself a complete set of mail, brigandine pants, a steel helm, bracers, and a decent pair of boots. He found three long daggers on the men, two of which he wore in cross scabbards in the small of his back, and the other dagger sat snug in a sheath on his boot. He found a short sword on his hip but kept the small shield and ax. She knew he was dressing for war.

He offered her armor, but she said no; she could use magic much easier without it. He knew she was still weak, but she wanted to present a face as ready to fight and die as he. She was a brave woman worthy of being his wife.

A short ride to the river later, the wagon went into the river and was broken apart by the swift water and jagged rocks. They kept the horse and rode fast into the new day.

They would be at the bend when the sun fell, and he prayed they would beat the others there.

She insisted on riding, sitting in front of him the entire way. He enjoyed how she rubbed against his body, and she could lean back for a kiss once in a while. As the sun descended, he gave her a final kiss and told her she needed to be alert.

They arrived late in the day and spied the only hill that overlooked the bend.

They would need to scout out the place when the sun rose.

And their worst fears were realized when the sun broke through the clouds on that twilight evening, and silhouetted upon the dying sun were the black wings of a mighty dragon.