[Vicious] Chapter 2
Terrifying monster-like giant creatures and strange forests aside, being exiled was almost like taking a vacation.
In that "Help me there's a giant creature sniffing me!" way.
It was still the most relaxing he had been in months. In Light Valley, although people didn't outright ostracize him, that didn't mean they didn't have ways of making his life more difficult. He often got charged with loaning books from the library longer than what was allowed, or he wasn't allowed to attend archery training because he had been caught misbehaving somehow or other and so on. Rys liked Light Valley and the life he had lived there (it wasn't like he was a people-person, he liked being alone), but sometimes the people were annoying.
Elves lived for thousands of years, during which they collected priceless knowledge and artifacts, fought in countless wars and learned magic beyond the other races imagination. Rys would be the first one to admit that elves were incredible beings, but it also made them lazy, condescending and arrogant.
That wasn't to say they were all like that.
Light Valley was one of three elven civilizations on the Meira continent, ruled by King Ragnar. It was located in the country of Loria, below the Kai Mountains in the south that separated Loria and Sikera. The second was on the island Pandora in the Pomona Ocean and was said to be able to move, ruled by Queen Amaryllis. The third was located somewhere on the border between Hoven and Lamirna, ruled by the King and Queen, though Rys didn't know their names as it had been centuries since Light Valley had last heard from Dane.
Rys had friends that when they talked, didn't make him want to hit them. For example, his best friend, though they didn't speak anymore, loved learning about other cultures and their beliefs. It was just that most elves as they got older and saw and experienced more things, learned that history was always doomed to repeat, and became convinced that they were always right and that they were the smartest. They looked down on other races, especially ones with much shorter life expectancy, because they saw them as young children that didn't understand the world around them. Their attitude hadn't exactly endeared them to the other races, especially humans with their life being generally shorter then 80 years.
That didn't change the fact that the other races respected them, you would be a fool if you couldn't see the power the elves held, it just meant they didn't really like them. Regardless, elves had a tendency to fight for the Good side in wars against things like tyranny and monsters and the like, which ensured that most people at least saw them as allies.
Unless you were orcs of course, but orcs fought against everybody.
Rys looked down at the wolf when he felt it nudge him with its snout, still terrified that it was just playing with him and was going to eat him, and raised a pale eyebrow at it. The creature nudged him again, this time hard enough to almost push him onto his back, and stood up from where it had spent the last hour or so sleeping on his lap. It turned and started walking away. After a few steps, apparently having realized he hadn't followed it, it turned back towards him again and Rys shivered when the eyes, once again cold, stared at him. He pushed himself onto his feet and stood up, his dark cloak swishing around him as he did so. The hood wasn't up so his pale hair tied into a knot-like thing at the base of his neck was fully visible in the afternoon light.
His dark green eyes glanced around the clearing he had eaten in and after not finding any friends of the creature that it could be leading him to be eaten by, he followed after the wolf. Once it saw he was going towards it, it started walking off into the forest again. Rys continued to follow, even as scared as he was he really had nothing better to do.
By the time he figured out where they were going, it had started getting darker again in preparation for another night. It wasn't until he heard the faint sound of trickling water that he figured it out but when he did, he sped up and watched as the wolf seemed to perk up to attention as well. He wasn't sure if it was really leading him to a water source, but at that point he didn't care, he was thirsty enough that he would have gladly walked into an ambush if he had been told there was water on the other side.
In Light Valley, water was never an issue. Now he was lost in a forest seemingly without an end.
The sound of water got clearer as they got closer and when he could finally see it, he started running towards it, ignoring the fear that he still had that this was a trap set by a very smart scary wolf creature in order to finally get something to drink. He slid to his knees by the spring and submerged his hands into the clear blue water. He cupped them and brought them to his mouth and with a grin, began to drink.
It was heaven.
After drinking his fill, he sat back and looked up at the wolf that stood next to him. It had stopped drinking a while ago and had only stared at him while he drank.
"Hmm...I suppose I should thank you for showing me the way here." he mused out loud.
The wolf perked up and turned its eyes from his hands to his face and Rys was slightly unsettled by the intelligence he could see in the wolfs red eyes. It wasn't normal for wolfs to be that smart, was it?
"Well, thank you I guess." Rys said.
The wolf walked closer to him and laid down next to him again, once more demandingly putting its head on Rys' lap. He hesitantly raised his hand from where it had rested on the ground and brought it closer and closer to the wolfs head. He stopped for a moment when he noticed that the wolf wasn't asleep, in fact its eyes were wide open, but continued with the motion. He laid his hand on the giant beast’s head and with elation cursing through his body, started to slowly pet it.
His heart beat fast in a mixture of fear and happiness, as it was the first time an animal had ever let him pet it. Not even his horse had let him get close to it unless magic was used to calm it down first.
Suddenly, the wolf stood up from where it had laid and startled Rys so bad he almost fell over. The wolf growled in the direction of the trees behind him and Rys was almost too afraid to look behind him. He wondered if there were more of the big creatures around and if they were going to eat him now. If the wolf had only led him into a trap after all.
He turned around prepared to see his death staring him in the face. Instead he saw a small half-dead looking creature. It's grey skin was much darker than Rys' and it only looked tall enough to reach his knees, with strange pointed horns sticking up from the side of its head. Its arms were long and spindly, with a hairless head and canines poking out of its mouth. The strange thing only wore a dirty loincloth and had several wounds present all over its body, some of them still bleeding. In its left hand was a small silver knife, of much better quality than his own dagger.
Rys blinked and climbed to his feet as he started to approach the panicked looking creature. It stared up at him with large scared looking eyes and he saw a nasty scar on the left side of its face, disfiguring it. Once he was in front of, he bent his knees until he was at abut the same level with the being. In the background, he ignored the sound of the wolfs increased growling as he concentrated on the being that had started to slowly back up in front of him.
He smiled. "Hello. My name is Rys, can you tell me yours?"
The being just looked up at him with tears starting to form in its big dark eyes and made no indication that it understood him. He frowned. "Well, I suppose that if you don't want to tell me, I shouldn't push it. You wouldn't happen to know where we are, would you?" he asked.
The tiny thing gave a hesitant nod in response. He smiled back at it in relief.
"That's great! See, I'm lost and I haven't been able to find a way out of the forest and I didn't have to time pack anything before I came here. If you could point me in the way out that would be great!" he added.
The being just shook its head sideways, causing it to sway slightly.
Rys furrowed his eyebrows and looked down at it in thought. "Why not?"
The being shook its head again. "If you haven't been able to leave, it's because the forest doesn't want you too." the beings voice was low and gravely, getting progressively lower and lower as it spoke. It sounded hard like the ground and caught slightly on different sounds, with an accent he couldn't place.
Its voice was as foreign as its looks.
It was also clearly crazy. The thought of the forest not wanting him to leave was insane. Magic could do a lot of things, but a sentient forest was an entirely different thing.
He gave a shaky smile to the being and asked, "What makes you think it doesn't want me to leave?"
Thankfully, the being didn't cry but instead gave him a dry look as if it thought it was obvious. "Everyone knows the Forest of Dorlan is haunted by the spirits of the dead. The only way to gain safe passage is if the Forest itself protects you from the gaze of those long since passed. If the Forest didn't want you here, you'd be dead." it stated in a knowing tone as if it was common knowledge. His stunned silence was the only answer.
"Further the more," it continued, "you're being protected by one of the Great Wolfs.”
— —
Some time later, Rys felt like his brain was about to explode. Apparently there were spirits of the dead haunting the forest, killing and tormenting anyone they came upon who weren't under "the protection of the forest" called draugr. The tiny beings name was Tif and it was apparently a female goblin. She was also apparently still in her teens at the age of twenty-seven and thought him to be incredibly rude to point out that she had horns, something which goblins normally didn't have. She then stressed the fact that she was a female goblin so of course she had horns and how stupid was he?!
It appeared she had forgotten her fear of him.
They were sitting around a campfire that Tif had helpfully gathered firewood for. She then proceeded to criticize his skills at setting fires and took over control of it. He was then delegated to hunting for something to eat again while she gathered more water. She seemed to have come to the conclusion that he was pathetic and needed her help. Granted, he really did need it, but he didn't think he was that useless. Still, her help was appreciated and although he still didn't believe her about the forest wanting him here, he believed in his own ability to get lost and so required her help to get out of the forest. Therefore he was dragging a couple of rabbits that he'd managed to kill back to the camp.
Hopefully goblins ate rabbits, because they were the only animals other then the wolf he'd seen in this forest.
When he entered the hidden clearing where Tif was waiting, he absentmindedly noted the absence of the wolf, but thought nothing of it as he carried the dead rabbits over to the grumbling goblin.
"Did the wolf try to eat you or something?" he asked the angry looking female goblin, perplexed about her change in mood. She'd seemed happy when he left to hunt for the rabbits.
She glared at him. "No. I just remembered what I'm doing here, that's all."
"Oh," he raised a pale ash colored eyebrow. "and what's that?"
She gave him a suspicious glance but answered anyway. "Lately the Elders have been feeling an evil presence within the forest and they sent me to check it out. At first, I thought it was you, but now I know it’s something else. If I leave the forest without knowing what’s causing the evil presence I'll be killed when I get back.”
"Oh," Rys said in lack of anything else and continued with, "well if you show me the way out when you leave, I suppose I can accompany you to find out what's causing it.”
"Really?" she gave him a hopeful look.
"Yes, it's not like I have anything better to do." he answered.
She beamed at him and went back to tending to the fire as he prepared the rabbits for cooking. Now that he weren't so hungry though he wondered if they would taste bland without any spices. He hadn't noticed anything while he ate before, he'd been to hungry too.
They had just finished cooking the rabbits when the snapping of twigs announced the reemergence of the wolf. Rys looked up from where he had been sitting on his clock on the ground. He had taken it off in order to sit more comfortably on it. With the hood off his long pointed ears were perfectly visible and although Tif had given him an odd look she hadn't pressed him on it. To be honest, he had no idea what she thought he was.
The wolf continued into the clearing, growling slightly when it got caught by branches due to its big size. Rys cast a quick glance in the wolfs direction and seeing that it seemed fine, contained eating. Once finished, he turned towards the wolf that had sat itself down next to him some minutes ago. He wondered what the wolf was thinking about when it looked at him like that. He wondered why it looked at him like that. He'd given up the thought that it was luring him into a trap in order to kill and eat him but he couldn't think of any other reason a creature like it would be following him around.
He laid down on the cloak and was hardly surprised anymore when the wolf immediately laid down next to him, its head almost at level with his own. He moved his arm so he could pet it lightly down its back and almost flinched back slightly when the wolf pressed itself closer to him. He let his mind wander as he thought of the past few days and how everything had changed.
Just a week ago he was in his smith, making weapons and jewelry to be sold in his friends shop so he could make a living and now he was in the middle of a forest he had never heard of before, lost with only a small female goblin not even fully grown and a mysterious wolf that refused to leave him alone for company. The only weapon he had with him was an old crappy dagger, not even good for killing rabbits with. Not only had he lost the only home he had ever known, he had lost the only people he had ever known.
Rys didn't know much about the world outside of elves’ territory, he didn't know what things were a common danger or how to avoid being robbed for all he had. He had no idea how people would react when they saw him, if they would kill him on the spot without hearing a word he had to say. He didn't know what people saw when they looked at him as that was the only thing his friends refused to talk with him about. It was a brand new strange world out there and that didn't even take into account how fast humans advanced and changed. How much wars they liked to start. What countries existed now, who were the kings and nobles that ruled them and how could he avoid them?
Rys had no intention of being killed just because he was an half-orc.
When darkness fell, Rys had already fallen asleep next to the warmth of the wolf by his side.
— —
Morning came and with it, a happy goblin that woke up the other people in the camp with her frankly horrible singing.
It only took seconds for the giant wolf to get up and growl at the goblin with fire in its eyes. The tiny being fell back on the ground and stared up at the wolf that was stalking closer and closer to the goblin in order to make sure it could never again make that detestable sound.
Rys let out a groan as he sat up and stared with bleary eyes at the comical scene in front of him. If there wasn't a very real danger that Tif could be eaten, he would have laughed at the look on her face. Together with the fearsome horns and her scar, her facial expression made an hilarious contrast. He swayed slightly as he stood up and called out to the wolf, hoping that it would listen to him, despite knowing that it was a wild wolf that was more likely to kill him for interrupting it then listen to him.
He let out a sharp whistle and hoped that would be enough. Sadly, he didn't believe he was strong enough to fight and win against a creature like it so if it came down to it, Tif would most likely die first. Unless the wolf killed him first for daring to interrupt its meal.
Thankfully, the wolf turned around to face him when it heard the whistle, though its eyes were still frightening in their intensity. Rys had to stop himself from taken a step back in fright, he knew enough about animals to know that it would be a sign he was scared, something that could not be a good idea to show right now. The giant wolf with its blazing red eyes still looked angry though it had stopped advancing on Tif. He hoped that was a good sign.
After growling a few more times at Tif and Rys, the wolf sat down and Rys oddly got the sense it was sulking from it. He wondered where he got that idea, as it still looked as terrifying as ever, but that was the impression he got from it. Well, it wasn't as if he was an expert in animal behavior, he had no idea what was normal for wolfs or not, even if it was abnormally big.
"I should give you a name, I suppose. It would be rude to continue to call you the wolf even if only in my head." he told the wolf.
The red eyes turned to him, still looking a little fiery.
Rys tilted his head to the side as he thought, his hair almost coming undone from the knot it was in as he did so. "Hmm, so something to do with you..." he mused as he wondered what to name it. Well, its eyes were awfully red and almost looked like fire sometimes. And he was a wolf, so something to do with that maybe?
Argh, he hated naming things, he had never been good at it!
Sometimes he got told to name the weapons he made because that made them more valuable or something and it never ended well. His friends always looked at him oddly and gently told him in even voices that maybe he should leave naming things to them. He was fully aware that he was horrible when it came to naming things, it had been the reason he'd wanted to name his younger sister Blue when she was born, her eyes were blue. It had been the first time he'd made his father laugh.
The point was that he couldn't name things for the life of him.
And he got the absurd feeling that if the wolf didn't like the name, it would tear him apart.
Rys shivered at the way his thoughts had taken and tried to come up with a name that didn't sound too bad. Something that had to do with fire or wolfs. Maybe Varg? It was an old name that meant wolf, though Rys didn't know if people still used it. Would the wolf even like being called wolf in another language? He continued to let his mind wander as he tried to think up a good name.
Hadyn meant something like fire didn't it?
Well, it was the best he could think of and the wolf was starting to look as impatient as an animal could.
He would just have to hope for the best. "How about Hadyn? It's for your eyes, when you're angry they look like they're burning like fire.”
The wolfs eyes turned contemplating, another sign to how abnormally smart for an animal it was. Or he assumed so anyway, since none of his friends had ever remarked on the intelligence of any animal they had ever met. In fact they usually called them stupid. So Rys assumed the animal was smarter then a normal animal should be, but maybe that was just a consequence of being so big, perhaps its brain was bigger as a result as well. Regardless, it was a giant deadly wild creature that could easily rip him in two if it ever felt like it. If he was going to name the thing, it should at least be a name it approved of, even if it wasn't aware of what was happening.
He felt tension grip him as he awaited the wolfs judgement, making him feel halfway between stupid and ridiculous. Before he'd been exiled, he'd never would have thought that he would meet a wolf that wouldn't leave him alone and liked sleeping on him for some reason. For all he knew, that was the only reason the wolf hadn't killed him already.
Rys watched as the wolf settled down and laid down on the ground as if it couldn't be bothered by the world. He faintly felt the stirrings of panic before he ruthlessly squashed it down. Now was no time to be scared! His friends had always told him that animals could sense fear. Still, considering where he was and who he was with, he thought it was completely logical that he was halfway scared out of his mind.
After a moment of terrifying clarity during which he could swear he could hear whispers in the back of his mind, the wolf closed its eyes and seemingly went back to sleep. He let out a sigh of relief that he would not be eaten today before he fell back on the ground, wondering if his heart could take much more of this. It couldn't be good for him to be this scared all the time.
The newly named Hadyn snorted as if it read his thoughts before Rys closed his eyes in a vain attempt to shut the world and all its weirdness out.
It was enough to make a man lose it.
The voice of Tif broke through the stillness of the morning, apparently she had recovered from being scared witless by Hadyn, and Rys begrudgingly stood up and left the wolf where it was sleeping to make his way to the campfire in the middle of the clearing. He smiled thankfully at the small goblin and ate the food she had prepared for breakfast and his stomach settled down as his hunger was sated and he briefly wondered if they should save some for Hadyn before he remembered that he had seemed fine not eating before and could hunt much better then Rys or Tif's traps could, having most likely lived in this forest all his life.
Rys swallowed the last of it and gratefully stood from where he'd been sitting next to a happily smiling Tif radiating smugness and let out a whistle, hoping that Hadyn wouldn't eat him for waking the wolf up. The fear that he was going to be killed and eaten had yet to disappear and he didn't think it ever would.
It was a freaking giant wolf for heavens sake!
"So..." he said, looking down at Tif and continued. "let's go find this evil presence, shall we?"
She beamed up at him in response and nodded enthusiastically. "Ah, I'm so glad I don't have to go alone, I was scared I was going to die!" she burst out. "But with a Higher Dark Being with me, I've got nothing to worry about! You could probably kill it in your sleep!"
Rys froze where he stood and his loose hair swayed behind him where it had fallen out of its knot as he abruptly turned his head and stared down at her, had she just said what he thought she had?
He cleared his throat and pushed the hair that tried to obscure his face back behind his ears and asked, "What do you mean by a Higher Dark Being Tif? I've never heard of the term before."
She hopped slightly as she started walking, forcing him and Hadyn to follow behind her and he registered faintly that his fear of the wolf was gone in favor of figuring out what Tif meant by that. To his knowledge, orcs were just orcs. "Orcs are Higher Dark Beings, they're more powerful than for example goblins, we're Lower Dark Beings. I thought everybody knew this. Than again, the Elders warned me that things aren't what they used to be outside of our caves." she mused out loud.
She continued, "Once, before the elves came and led the humans here, orcs ruled the entire continent. They used to be highly respected for their power and cunning. Then the elves came and brought more enemies and started to beat down upon anyone they didn't like, like they had the right to. Of course, that was a long time ago, but some people can't forget it. The glory of the Rienn Empire is long dead but the Elders just won't stop talking about it. Nobody outside of the goblins caves has even heard of it for over twenty thousand years." she rolled her big eyes at him.
His dark eyes were wide as he stared down at her in stunned silence, his thoughts having promptly shut down. He didn't take in anything of the world around him as he thought about what she'd said. The orcs were once the rulers of the content?! That's ridiculous! Orcs were stupid creatures capable of little more then bludgeoning people. Sure they had numbers and they were apparently a pain to fight as they weren't afraid to use underhanded tactics, but nothing he'd ever heard of them betrayed that they could have the intelligence necessary to rule a nation. And of course he knew that this wasn't the elves home lands, they had lived for much longer in the lands they originally came from after all, but he'd never thought of what that meant for the creatures that did come from here. They didn't talk to him about, he didn't think they talked about it at all, but it made him wonder who started this off-again on-again war with the orcs that seemed to regulate everything that happened on the continent.
"So," he cleared his throat and continued. "you consider me to be an orc.”
She gave him a look as if to say he was being stupid again and frowned at him. "Of course, that's what you are."
"Ah, I didn't mean anything by it, I've just lived a very sheltered life. I'm not used to the outside world yet." he smiled at her and twisted his pale grey hair into a tail at the nape of his neck, some shorter strands sliding free to frame his face. The cloak fluttered around his feet as they walked, the snapping of twigs signifying that Hadyn no longer felt like he had to stalk him from the shadows, though what that meant for Rys he had yet to figure out.
Still, he thought that this was about the best thing that could have happened after being exiled. He had the feeling that if Haydn hadn't started stalking him for some reason or other, he'd already be dead. Tif might think he was an orc, but he knew very well that he was sorely lacking in knowledge of what being an orc meant. He'd always felt that what he knew was enough as long as he could live a happy life bu Tif and Hadyn proved otherwise and he was rather glad for it. He was glad for a lot of things actually, being scared witless aside. At the end of the day, it was almost like taking a vacation.
In that "Where the fuck am I?!" way.