Orc And The Lastborn [Progression, Gunpowder Sword & Sorcery]

The hillside exploded in an enormous cloud of dust and debris that knocked her from her perch and her longarm from her hands. A great gray calamity enveloped her. She was certain they were dead. Getting to the delving suddenly didn't seem to matter anymore.

She tried to roll onto her side. A flash of pain. The arrow was lodged just under her shoulderblade. Not too deep. She could hear the bosun calling out to her. Asking if she could see them. She couldn't see anything. There was nothing to see but dust, nothing to hear but shattered memories.

She held her breath and tried to roll onto her side again. The pain was tolerable. She was just so stiff. She found her longarm and pointed it where downslope should've been. The bosun now called her name.

A figure lumbered out of the cloud. She raised her weapon. It was Orc. Daraway slung over his back.

"Here," Mym cried. "They're here."

She ran to them. Orc like a ghost so pale he was with dust, like a figure rendered from chalk, dark lines in the folds of his clothes, dark circles in the wells of his eyes. Daraway smoldered and reeked of a burning.

"Ye alright?"

"She's pretty bad," said Orc.

"Set her down."

"More of them are coming."

"Still?"

"Still."

She turned her back to him and began to climb.

"You're shot," he said.

"Aye."

Wounded as she was she still outpaced the orc and his burden. Thirty or forty yards on she came to the bosun and the cat stuffed down his shirt.

"Take what ye can off him," she said.

"Let me draw that stick outta you."

"More of em are comin. Go get his long blade and whatever else, unless ye think ye can carry Dara."

The bosun looked past her. "The swab's the muscle." He pointed uphill. "Dead ahead's the notch and it's best you heave to for us."

"Get down and help em."

"You wait for us?"

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Good woman."

An hour later she led them over the top of the schistic plug of earth. Freezing. Utterly exhausted. Coat stiff with her own blood. She staggered down to where the river had pooled up in a stunted lake. Its surface stilled, its silted water too pallid to reflect ominous sky or quieted stone. At the far end of the lake the dwarfroad emerged from the dark water and continued on into the haze. They couldn't be too far from the valley of the white mountain.

She traversed the steeply cambered shore, hugging her way around a blocky boulder that leaned out over the water. On the far side she went on another fifty yards and sited her line of fire back toward the notch whence they'd come. She lowered herself upon a ledge that warmly welcomed her. She rubbed her hand upon it, feeling its grit, feeling so close to home. Not quite there.

Orc gently set Daraway upon the ledge and then flopped upon the ground. The bosun came next bearing the saber and the musette and looking over his shoulder. He said some things to Orc but Mym didn't listen. She bent over Daraway and threw open the woman's cloak. Her clothes were torn and bloodsoaked, holed in a dozen places. Mym lifted the hem of the shirt, heavy and unyielding where it had begun to freeze. Her skin colder than she'd ever felt. She worked free where it stuck to the frozen blood but she couldn't find the wound. There was the sheen of melted skin, tender and weak. There was the amalgamation of blood and pus. The shirt was holed there, but the skin was unbroken. She pulled up the shirt farther. More frozen blood, more fragile skin. The woman stirred and Mym hovered over her face. It was badly burned. One eye wouldn't open for the eyelid seemed to have melted shut. Her breaths shallow and ragged.

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"Mym," she said.

"I'm here."

But her eye had already closed and she said no more. Mym looked around for Orc. He sat down at the edge of the water. Elbows around knees, head hanging, feet planted but only just. He looked just about broken.

"Oy," she called.

"Yeah?"

"What happened?"

"She blew up. Took an arrow."

"Ye draw it already?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Looks lek it snapped."

He turned, saw her standing there. "You've got one in your back."

"Aye."

He got up and came over. "I can pull it."

"Leave it."

"You sure?"

She nodded. "I'll start bleedin again and I need all of that I can get fer gettin up the mountain."

"Alright."

"Mym," whispered Daraway.

She looked down. The woman's eye was open again.

"Tell me how te help ye."

The eye rolled back and closed again.

"Damn."

"Hoy," called the bosun. He was hurrying along the shore. "Hoy! Abaft the beam now."

"What the hell's he sayin?" said Mym.

"They're coming," said Orc. "Help me lift her."

Mym pulled down Daraway's shirt and tried to tie her cloak but her fingers wouldn't bend the way they should've. She gathered up Daraway and lifted her upon his back and she wondered at how light the woman had become.

***

The day following they entered the country of her home. The sky did lade them, ash flitting silently thence like winter snowfall, obscuring the monolithic walls on either side. Obscuring the mountain at the head of the long valley. But this was the vale she knew. Between the trees the snowdrifts were black like tar and whole stands of trees now laid together upon the ground. Like families gone out of the world held in each other's arms. Early in the day she entered one such planting and as she slid across the softening snow she saw it was pure white underneath. With the adze of her alpenstock she delimbed several branches and cut them to length. The others stopped to watch. With a thong of leather she rigged the wood together in a travois. She left the treefall dragging it behind her. Orc had laid Daraway upon the ground, his own coat spread out under her. She handed the litter to him. "To ease your burden," she said.

He offered her a flattened segment of hard tack. It might have been his last one.

She shook her head. "Keep it. Ye need it more than me."

"When's the last time you ate?"

"I don't know. Yesterday sometime. Whenever we had the last of the cod."

"That was two days ago."

"And I can go two days more. Come on. I'll help ye load her up."

They bent to put the woman onto the frame. It creaked under her weight but it held. Orc set off upvalley, the bosun following in the bootpack he made. Mym went to stow up her alpenstock and when she did she saw Orc had snuck the hard tack into her pack.

***

All day they listened. The river rushed and gurgled. The wind wheezed around the sheer flanks of the eternal walls. Never did they hear the cry of a golden eagle, the huff or an upland grizzly. Never did they hear the roll of a drum.

That night found them huddled around a fire. The first they'd had in days. Sparks racing up into nothing. Catholes of clean snow now melted and stored in their waterskins and canteen. The bosun had fallen asleep in his shoes and Orc had dragged over a bough of fir to rest upon. He'd found another for Mym. Daraway still upon the travois. An iron arrowhead glowing amid the burning branches.

She had convinced him to share the hard tack. They sat side by side upon her bough. No words passed between them. Then she heard the woman groan on the other side of the fire. She leapt over it and came to her side.

"Dara?" she said.

Firelight flickered upon the woman's face. Her one eye was open, the other still burned shut. She looked as if she'd been struck by lightning.

She grabbed her hand. "Can ye hear me?"

The eye sought her touch. "The stone," she whispered.

"We tried it already."

The eye closed.

"We're not far from the delvin now. The orcstone's there. We'll fix ye right up."

The eye opened. Gaze returned to the sky. She swallowed.

"Here," said Mym. She uncapped her canteen. "Drink."

Carefully, carefully Mym trickled water onto her chapped lips. Her seeking tongue emerged, her mouth closed. She swallowed again. It seemed as though she nodded slightly.

"More."

She released the woman's hand and held up her head. Helped her to drink. Lowered her head back. That hand was stained with blood and fluid. She looked at it. Her mouth flat.

"The kingsmen?" said Daraway.

"Ye scared em off, whatever ye did."

"For us."

"What's that?"

"It was for us."

"What was fer us?"

"All of it. Cogitations. Learning the stones."

She coughed. Blood on her lips. Mym wiped them with her cold left hand but the woman didn't seem to notice. "You live so long. I wanted to be with you. I didn't want to leave you."

"We're together. Yer not leavin me."

Daraway closed her eye and Mym could see it roll under the lid. "Leave you alone," she murmured. "Extend my life." Then, as soft as the sweep of a nightingale's wing: "Never die."

Her head rolled to the side. Her breath slowed. Mym sat back from her. Looked up for stars that weren't there. One hand clutched around the other a gnarl.

"You should tell her," she heard Orc say.

She was weeping again. She wouldn't turn. "Tell her what?"

"You're dying."

"Ye a soothsayer now?"

"I've seen your hand."

Now she turned. Tears unwiped on her cheeks. He looked back at her. She didn't know what to say.

His face softened. "I'm sorry," he said.

She shook her head. Turned back to Daraway. She touched the woman's neck. Her skin had always been so livid, ever since she was a girl. Now it was cold. Shivering. She crossed the fire and gathered up her blanket and crossed back. She threw the blanket across the woman and she laid down beside her. She watched her face for any sign of wakefulness. She still had so much to tell her.