The hill rose like a knuckle of gray bone through the humus, ringed in ferns and low, thorned shrubs. The clearing had been cut, not with axes, but with the kind of tidy malice that knows how to leave no stump raw. Firelight lapped at the stone face, low and close, as if the flas had been warned not to show enthusiasm.
Ludwig was far from sight and notice, and was able to spy on them without being caught.
He sank behind a deadfall and let the moss claim his outline. Breath needless, heartbeat sank, the lantern’s light he turned so its eye was blind. The air from their fire ca to him chopped in slow squares by the wind’s uncertain hand.
The low burning fire from their camp revealed three people wearing long puffy pants and sandals, short sleeved shirt with their chests beard, a scarf around their waist like a belt, and a woven scarf on their head. Long sharp and curved weapons were strapped to their waists along with daggers and other hidden weapons.
Cloth hung loose to cheat heat and sand; here, in damp shade, it looked wrong, like desert birds resting on a frozen lake. tal blinked in slivers, oiled, ready, settled where a hand would only need to fall, not reach. The way they sat said soldiers, but sothing in the tilt of their shoulders said they preferred alleys to fields.
This reminded Ludwig of the Desert Dwellers back on earth, only these guys, looked far aner and deadlier. The way they spoke and the air about them wasn’t normal. Not to ntion every single one of them had a spider like web tattoo on their necks.
The ink was old and black, not decorative: a mark that made the skin beneath it seem thinner.
Around their camp, was a bound young child. He had his hands wrapped behind his back, several bruises all over his body, and was missing one ear... one Long ear.
The binding had been done by soone who knew how to leave no slack for hope. The boy’s breath ca quick through his nose; he bit his lip when it wanted to sob. Blood had dried in his hair where the ear had been, and the longness of the other ear, fine, pale, delicate as a leaf-tip, made the absence hurt more to look at. His bare feet were greened with moss-stain, not dirt: taken in the forest, not on a road.
Just before Ludwig could fully grasp the situation, one of the closer n kicked the child in the back, eliciting a groan of pain, "Useless shit. Why is it always the ones that don’t talk. Let’s just kill him and find another elf." He said.
The kick was practiced, not wild, not heated, placed to speak in ribs instead of words. The boy folded around it and swallowed the cry until it ca out a ropey breath. The speaker shook his foot once, as if he disliked touching anything that bled without being paid to.
"Don’t do that, we don’t know when we’ll find another elf. Not to ntion if we find another of these long-eared beasts we can just torture one for the other to speak, they’ll eventually talk. They always do."
His tone was annoyance dressed as prudence. He leaned to adjust the scarf at his waist, fingers neat, the gesture of a man to whom pain is inventory.
"I really don’t like this place. It’s suffocating," the third spoke.
He had not touched his water-skin in so ti; his mouth worked a little after the words as if the air itself tasted wrong.
"Better than the desert at least," the man who kicked the child replied.
He rolled a shoulder readjusting his far too think clothes.
"Still, it feels wrong, like we’re being watched." His eyes slid from shadow to shadow and did not find purchase. The fire stepped once; their faces changed and changed back.
Ludwig gulped. ’Was he found out?’ the thought was enough for Ludwig to turn on his alert sensors to the max.
The swallow went down like a small stone. He moved less, then less again, until stillness was the only movent that did not betray him. Durandal lay easy along the deadfall, a dark length that had learned patience.
"Whoever is watching decided it wasn’t worth intervening even after all this. Rember her majesty said to simply find the entrance to the elven kingdom, so as long as we do just that, I think whoever is watching will just keep watching... though..." he turned toward the general direction of Ludwig.
The pause moved across the clearing like a cold finger. The fire made a sound, sap catching, and every head twitched toward it, then away, and only then did his turn feel natural.
"I’ve been feeling a different set of eyes on since earlier..." He did not raise his voice. He lifted his hand from his knee and let it fall once against his thigh, the kind of signal a man gives himself when the decision is already made.
"Must be the wind..." another said.
His mouth shaped a smile it did not believe in, the kind used to lay a soft cloth over a sharp thing.
"True... must be..." he said but the drawing of his sword was a clear indicator that Ludwig was discovered.
The curve ca out quiet. The sound of steel leaving wood should have rung; the forest drank it. The angle of the blade caught firelight along its belly, a thin, hungry line. The boy did not look up. He had learned that eyes make targets of themselves. The web-marks on the n’s throats darkened as their heartbeats climbed, small pulses under ink.
Ludwig’s breath went shallower, not faster. His weight eased forward by the length of a thought. The path the dragon had granted behind him held like a door ajar. Before him, human work uncoiled, an, practiced, and very simple. He let the scene set its teeth, then carefully reached to place his own hand on the Durandal’s grip.
Tonight...red will paint the grass.
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