Chapter 11

Norgren

I have no choice. I can’t walk in this state, and even if I could, I would only hinder her. It would be slower than if she ran ahead and found my uncle and brought him back to me.

I’m certain I can survive that long.

“I wish I was the other kind of apothecary,” Tally growls to herself as she makes sure my bag has enough food and water in it to sustain me for another day, leaving it within reaching distance. That’s about how long I think it’ll take her to go the distance back to the mountain, find my uncle, and bring him to me—if the old ogre can still get around.

She kneels beside me again, her eyes shining with tears I know she won’t shed. She has a tough face on, and that will sustain her the rest of the way. I have to hope that it will. But just in case this is the last time I see her, I reach up and caress the side of her face, then draw her down to kiss me.

“You are my everything,” I tell her, nose-to-nose. “Even when you’re gone, you’ll still be here with me.” I rub my chest, and Tally’s little chin puckers as she tries her hardest not to cry.

“Don’t say that. I’ll be back so soon you won’t even notice I’m gone.” She gets to her feet then, as if unwilling to say the sort of goodbye that would be so final. She slings her pack over her back, turns on her heel, and hikes off at a jog. I know she won’t be able to keep that pace up, but perhaps if she can get far, I’ll still be here when she returns for me.

I watch her go up the next hill, and when she disappears over it, I close my eyes to sleep. I try not to think of the troll as I smashed his face in, the orc as I crushed his neck. I know I had to do it to save my Tally, but their screams will still haunt me.

Eventually, I succumb to the darkness.

Tally

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I’m already lost. Or at least I’m afraid I am, because I’ve lost sight of the mountain that Norgren told me to keep on my left. The trees are just too high, and I’m reminded again how much bigger and taller Norgren is, which makes it hurt even more that damned orc was able to hurt him.

I should have grabbed that gun sooner. None of this would have happened if I’d just done something, rather than sitting there in shock while Norgren took on three full-grown trollkin. Now he might die, and it’s my fault. Now I might lose him, the person who means the most to me in this entire stupid, awful, violent world, the person who makes me feel whole and complete.

I can’t lose him. I can’t, just because of one stupid mistake.

Beating myself up makes me madder and madder, which keeps my feet plodding one in front of the other, so I nurse it. I let myself get angry and it keeps me going into the night, when I start stumbling over rocks and branches. At one point, I’m nearly positive that I see a pair of reflective eyes in the darkness, but I just growl as loud as I can, break a few branches on my way through, and continue on at the fastest pace I can muster.

My legs are screaming for relief by the time my landmark comes into view. It’s a straight cliff face, broad and scenic, shaped like the flat top of an anvil.

Somehow, I’m going to have to get up there.

I pause briefly at the base and pull out my water skin. I just need enough time to get my breath back.

I follow the seam of the cliff with my eyes, searching for the spot Norgren described. There’s a path that winds up, both perilous and a little impractical, it seems to me.

When I’ve rested enough to move my body again, I head for the rock Norgren described and find a path just behind it that weaves up the cliff face. I bring in a deep breath and start to climb.

It takes me all night because of how frequently I have to stop, and it’s hard to see where I’m going with only the moon and stars to light my way. I run out of water about halfway up, and my throat and lungs are ragged when I finally make it to the top. I’m not even at the peak of the cliff—I’m standing at the point the path ends, where up ahead is a small camp built around a tall, deep cave.

The sun is starting to come up over the horizon, so the ogres here must be asleep. I don’t have time to wait, so I shout into the cave.

“Hello!” I call out. “Is anyone here? Hello!” I drop my hand to the knife at my hip, just in case. “Come on! Hello!”

A massive, lumbering ogress appears in the shadow of the cave entrance, and her eyes go huge when she sees me there. Then her face morphs into a scowl, pulling her big tusks down on her wrinkled old face .

“Human!” She stalks towards me, and I realize just how much I’ve come to trust Norgren that his size doesn’t intimidate me anymore. But hers certainly does. Words I can’t understand fall out of her mouth, quickly, and I hold up my hands in surrender.

“Please,” I say in Trollkin. Her brows furrow when I use a familiar word, and she halts mid-step. “Please. Norgren.” I don’t know how to say what I need to say. Shit. Instead, I point off into the trees, the way I came, and insistently say, “Norgren! Norgren!”

Now another ogre has emerged from the cave, and I’m almost positive he’s the uncle Norgren wanted me to get. I run past the ogress and stop right in front of him, holding my hands together in front of me in a pleading gesture.

“Please,” I repeat. “Please. Norgren.” I gesture once more, and try to supplement with Freysian words. “He needs help. He’s hurt. He asked me to get you. You have to come with me, please!”

The ogre’s expression does not change.

“Humans,” he says, sighing. “Help?” He repeats the Freysian word, and I’m surprised. I nod quickly.

“Help,” I repeat. “He’s hurt. Norgren is hurt.”

To my surprise, the old ogre nods in understanding. He speaks to the ogress, and her mouth falls open. When she looks at me again, I can see the fear in her eyes.

“Norgren,” she says, shaking her head in dismay, and speaks a few more words that go over my head. The healer just claps her shoulder and says something comforting. Then he approaches me, gesturing down the path the way I came.

“Go,” he says, urging me on. “Go to Norgren.”

I’m more grateful than the sun is hot. Then I hold out my water skin. “I just need a refill,” I say.

Norgren

First, I dream of blood. My mind imagines what Tally saw in that town, those rotting bodies, but in the dream all their blood is fresh, turning the floors red.

Then my dreams shift as the sun sinks. I see her face, my human, her eyes closed as she sleeps with my arm curled around her. I can almost feel her soft skin, the way I can squeeze her pliable flesh and it drives her wild.

I wake up in the night, my whole body screaming with agony, as I try to drink some water and eat the food Tally left next to me. I hope that she made it safely to the encampment, and I hope I last long enough for her to make it back.

I can sense I’m getting an infection because it’s much harder to sleep. My skin burns like I’m on fire. All I can do is squeeze my eyes closed, grit my teeth together, and think of Tally. Our home. The life we’re building together.

Unconsciousness takes me again, and I don’t know if I’ll ever escape it.

“Norgren?”

I can hear her voice, but it’s so far away that I have to strain. Everything is foggy and dark.

“Norgren, please.” I feel cool water against my lips. “Drink this.”

I try as best I can to open my mouth, and the frigid, fresh liquid slips down my throat. I drink until I can’t, and the ragged cough that escapes my lungs jerks me out of my haze. Tally is crouched over me, fear and worry etched on her face. When my eyes meet hers, though, her expression melts into relief.

“Norgren, you idiot,” I hear my uncle growl, and my gaze travels up over Tally’s shoulder to the massive, hunched-over ogre behind her. “How did this happen?”

“Nice to see you, too,” I groan, and he gives me a deeply disapproving nod.

He pulls off his bag and takes out supplies, lining them up on the ground next to me. Tally scoots out of the way but doesn’t let go of my hand as my uncle sets to work.

“So that’s why you went off last year,” he says, sighing. “To get a human of your own, huh?”

I shrug. “Grunagg made it look good. And you know what, he was onto something.”

My uncle arches an eyebrow, then glances over at Tally. She gives a little pout like she knows we’re talking about her but can’t follow along.

“If you say so,” my uncle grumbles, but I think he might be just the smallest bit happy for me. “At least then we ogres might not die out for good.”

“I won’t be the last,” I tell him firmly. I jerk as he cleans my wound, pouring some water over it first and then going in with a solution that makes everything burn.

I have indeed been developing an infection, my uncle discovers, and neither of us are surprised by the way my skin and muscle screams as he works on my wound. He sews it back together, which is a special kind of torture, but I manage to hold in my groans of pain until, eventually, I pass out.

When I wake up again I’m still in agony, but in some places it’s been reduced to a dull ache. Nearby, Tally sleeps on the ground, because all the furs are underneath me. I wish I could tell her that wasn’t necessary, that I would rather be on the hard ground myself so she could have a soft bed, but my mouth is so dry I can’t speak.

My uncle approaches me. “You’ll live,” he says in a casual tone. “But it will take you a long time to heal.”

“How long do I have to stay here?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Until you can walk again, I guess.”

I scowl, but my uncle’s always been this way, and it’s almost comforting. If I were worse off, he’d be honest with me about it, so I must really have a good shot at making it through this.