Later she would feel foolish for feeling such fear. Ciato Orlouge was far smaller than she, heads shorter and slim enough that she could crush him between her breasts if she felt like it. Still, he had eluded death before her eyes twice now, and cut her down as if she were simply a passive oak. Now his eyes were staring her down, red and unyielding like the mist that had taken over the land. The orc swallowed hard and steeled herself. There was only one remedy for fear, she knew. She needed to find the iron in her blood and use it to clad herself against her own emotions. Reaching over her shoulder with bruised and bloodied fingers, she grasped her lute and brought it forward. Her thick fingers strummed the strings and a disjointed melody played in the air. The thrall jerked, as if the sound made him angrier. She wanted to grit her teeth and run again, but instead the poet began to sing.
“Erirag nar zo, baj Erirag rau.” She sang of rebirth, and a plea to the heavens. “Nar vrapar, Erirag za lat.”
Something felt strange as the words left her lips. Around her fingers the mist lingered and almost felt as if it were thick and alive. As the last note she played faded, a light from above the foliage flashed. An orb, hot and bright, came crashing through branches and landed right between the orc and the puppet. Almost as if she had been grabbed by an invisible hand, Erirag was jerked forward. So was the thrall. They met in the middle, with Erirag stunned at what had happened, her lute Thingur falling to the grass. The thrall of Ciato, however, was no longer human with such emotions as surprise. It was ready and it struck.
--~~--
Erirag jerked to waking in her tent. The sudden difference of day from night was jarring and at first she didn’t feel the pain. It was only when she moved to swing herself off her cot that the blinding jerk of wrecked flesh pulled her into the present. Her leg was a mess of blood, dried and dark and fresh and bright, welling to the surface and running down green skin. She choked out a hiss, wiping at her mouth. Why was it wet? What had happened? There was too much confusion. Instead of answering them, Erirag set to the task of cleaning her leg. The last thing she needed was for infection to set in, and who knows how long her flesh had been open to the air of the camp. As she scrubbed and wrapped the thigh, the bandage spotted brightly with blood along the line of the cuts. Soon she was looking at a familiar insignia – the “C. O.” inscribed into her flesh matched well the scars on her torso. Ciato had been to visit. Her mind worked over her waking moments. The water on her lips had dried, but still she scrubbed at them with her knuckles, pressing hard enough to make her tusks ache along her jaw. He’d violated her in her sleep, been in like a thief in the night. Had he been behind the red mist and her visions as well?
Rage bubbled up and she destroyed the tent as she stormed out, bringing down the walls and poles much as she had in the vision. Men shrinked away from her as she ravaged through the camp, crawling away from her as she barreled out towards the woods with a limp to her gait. She was angrier than she’d ever known, and she wanted answers. Who was the elf she’d seen? Had she cast a spell with her song? Mostly, she was determined to murder Ciato Orlouge as many times as it took to keep him dead.
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