Hymns and Hand Grenades

[Erirag the Poet]

Conditionally open.

The orc lay dead, and Bregedaer Aesfildor stood over her. The heat in the healer’s hut was oppressive. The building was crude for an elven village, put together quickly of timber and tar. There were no windows, the only light a single beam of sun that cascaded down from a hole in the woven grass roof. It hovered over the small firepit in the center of the room, the heat from the flames only strengthening the awful swelter. Dimly lit by the skylight glow, the orc’s green skin was pocked with cuts, smeared with her own blood and that of the witch she’d pummeled into raw meat.

“She was killed by powerful magic,” the healer said quietly, the old woman weaving her spells as she hovered hands over fists that were more like hammers, still tangled with dark hair. “It will take equally powerful magic to bring her back.”

“Whatever it takes,” Breg said, his jaw clenching as he reached over. The orc’s clouded amber eyes had been open, staring into the abyss. They were the same eyes that stared at him as he’d blinked for the first time in centuries, waking from the slumber Podë held him under. As the flowers had fallen from his golden hair, he had moved to fight with the orc and sang her crude song. He wasn’t sure what he felt for the beast that lay still on the healer’s table, but she’d been the brute force that had taken down a tower he’d never been strong enough to scale. It didn’t feel right to just let her die.

The healer rubbed her eyes, wrinkled fingers massaging away at her furrowed brow. “I only do this,” she said, her quiet voice shaking, “Because I am old enough to remember when elves wore that uniform, and foolish enough to hope at what it could mean.” Her eyes, still crisp and blue despite her years, flicked down at the open jacket, the dark green embroidered with ancient runes, the white shirt that he’d pulled open beneath it embroidered with a sigil not quite the same as the familiar Bladesinger crest. She turned from her table and the corpse that lay upon it and moved to a small bookcase pushed against a wall.

Despite the dim light, she pulled a book immediately from the shelf, dust coating the spine and pages, as soft and white as the winter velvet on an elk’s antler. From between the pages, she pulled a sheaf of paper. It was a map, intricately drawn. Several dark spots had been splattered across the parchment, dark brown with a rusty tinge. Pressed against a corner of the map, dried wax pinning it to the page, a dried flower lay with petals furled open. Breg’s heart raced for a moment. It looked so much like the dreaded Fealotë that had imprisoned him, but for the lilac and blush striations that broke the dark violet.

“Burn this flower at the altar at one of the shrines marked.” The healer said. He took the page from her, but she grabbed his arm before he could turn to go. “Time is of importance, Bladesinger. I can only keep the body fresh for two days, three at most. You’ll find a jar inside the shrine. Don’t open it, don’t let it break. Bring it back in time and I can save your brute. Alámenë.”

Bregedaer nodded before he swept out of the hut, a howling wind moving with violent intent. He certainly would need the luck.

[Erirag the Poet]

The desert stretched before her, crimson sand moving with a wind that couldn’t be felt. It tumbled and shifted, like blood flowing over hills. In the distance, piercing upwards into the grey sky, a lone mountain stood. It didn’t seem so far, in this place where it was impossible to tell the time. The sky was both bright and dark, swirling with the possibility of storm, and no sun or stars to peek behind the cloud-cover.

Erirag couldn’t remember how she came to be here. She couldn’t remember that much at all, truth be told. A song, and pain were all that she could pull to her memories. On her back Thingur rested. The strap that bound her instrument to her was all that she wore. Naked and alone, the orc began to walk through the shifting sands. The wind couldn’t be felt, but it could be heard. As it howled overhead, the bard thought she could hear voices whispering softly just under the moaning tempest.

“Llatur vosha horizat,” she started to sing, the last song of her living days etched within her soul. She’d sung to Podë, serenaded the witch that she’d killed. Now she sang to the voices overhead. Their words were lost to the coming storm, but she could feel their anger even here, muddling through the sand that sucked at her feet and slowed her down. “Ashim drunat foshu timeri.”

Her song had been a ballad of bravery and power in the face of unbeatable odds. As the orc stumbled across a dune towards the isolated mountain before her, the voices overhead slowly started to join her in song.

[Erirag the Poet]

She’d grown silent but the voices still sang when she came across the tracks. They were old, pressed into the clay soil. Some were filled with the dust and sand that continued to spill along the horizon from the dunes that hedged the cracked earth path. A few whispers in the wind were frenzied, rushing along the chorus and doubling back to howl it again. It was overwhelming, and Erirag found herself tuning them out as she crouched down and put her fingers to the tracks.

They weren’t human, but they were. Somehow they were familiar, though Erirag was sure she’d never seen anything with feet quite like this. The shape was all wrong, there were too few toes, and they walked almost as if on the tips of them. Here and there a heel was pressed, as if the runner had relaxed and paused to look around, rocking back on their full foot.

It may have been months since they’d come through. She told herself it was a losing battle to follow them. She’d be better off just heading for the mountain. But she’d been walking for hours, and the mountain seemed just as near-far as it had ever been. One of the voices ahead told her she wasn’t ready for the mountain. Shrugging, the orc pulled herself up and ran thick fingers through a tangle of hair. What did some voice in the sky know anyway?

While she tried to point herself towards the towering monolith in the distance, she found herself curving, following the tracks anyway. Maybe it was just the way the path went, or maybe the lack of clear sky ahead made it easy to get lost here. Her wounds were weeping, thick blood slowly inching coldly down her skin. She was covered in it, even as the gritty breeze would bring a plume of sand along to press into the rivulets. Dark streams moved along her body, where the crimson sand had stuck and dried. If she didn’t find water soon, she worried she would….

What? Die?

The tracks ahead were growing as more came sweeping in from the dunes to join them on the path. Where once a lone traveler had run, now there were many. Erirag pressed on, a frown set on her face as the voices ahead began to falter. The song was breaking up, and the bard would soon move on in silence.