It’s Right Here

I walked through the forest for a while. Meandering and aimless. If there was a mud puddle, I sloshed through it. If there was loose dirt, I happened to fall in it. By the time I came to the path, I was filthy with debris. You wouldn’t know I had only been in the forest a few hours instead of a few days. You wouldn’t know that my steed was a whistle away instead of being stranded. You wouldn’t know that I knew precisely where I was instead of wandering hopeless. You wouldn’t know I was staging a trap. And if all went my way, you would never know.

I carried the round shield, turned black by my mission. All of me was black. Even my skin was magnitudes darker than my waking form. Darker than shadow, darker than hate, as dark as the grave. My cloak’s appearance changed as well. I appeared to wear a troll’s hide. It was shaggy, and rank, and encompassing. A wooden mask served as a face-shield, but it was pushed back on my head in apparent frustration. My hair couldn’t decide if short-cropped human afro, or thick fur, so it managed both. The black axe hung from the sling on my belt.

There were only three places on me that was not black. The white of my living eye. The cloud of my dead eye. The drop of red on my lower lip. All else was absent of hue and magnificent in saturation.

I dropped my shield carelessly against a boulder along the road. Muttering curses I arced back to stretch my weary body. I heard a subtle snort, a sound of sympathetic mirth. I did not give away I heard the sound. I patted myself as if checking my inventory. Shield. Axe. Face-shield. I patted an empty spot on my belt and feigned concern. I looked around as if I had dropped something. My face wrinkled as I gave the appearance I was missing something.

Look down the path, see nothing. Look up the other way, see nothing as well. Pick up a few small stones and start flaking one against the other. Finding two of sufficient hardness, I lean against the boulder and start flaking myself a crude dagger. Or try to. I ruin one and throw it away while muttering more curses. I ruin a second and throw it in apparent frustration. I try a third, and manage to actually start making headway. Of course, I pour my attention into what I’m doing.

It’s not like anyone else is here, right?

Heh.

I hear him moving through the brush. He is sneaking away from his vantage point, away from me. I continue flaking the stone dagger while making internal guesses where he’s going to make himself visible to me first. I hear a loud snap, an intentional sound. He’s announcing himself. Making sure that unwary me knows there is someone coming down the road. Before I can reach for my shield, he has turned the corner of the path and is hailing me.

“Oi! A traveler! G’day, traveler!” I look up at his voice, feigning surprise. I drop the hammer stone and make reach for the shield. “Ah, no. No quarrel here, traveler. Just too many miles and too many steps.” He chuckles and I chuckle nervously with him. “I don’t see many this way, y’know.”

“And what be this way?”

“This way be my way. That way be a town. Eventually.”

“Oh. Well, shit.” I looked disappointingly down the road. “No harbor? Or a river that leads to the sea?”

He laughed hard. “I thought yer not from ‘round ‘ere! Lemme guess. Yer fellows left ya.”

“No!” I protested a little too harshly. “I just… um… “ He smiled smugly at my fumbling. “Something didn’t turn out the way it should.”

He nodded and squatted on the far side of the path. He looks like he has giant’s blood in him, towering at least 8 feet tall and bearing four arms. His clothes were roughly tailored to his shape. He grinned, showing giant’s teeth. He gave the scent of the one I sought, but I was not sure. As he squatted, I saw the tip of a large sword strapped to his back. I noted two of his hands wore studded gloves. He intentionally moved slower than he usually does. I caught moments where he had to remind himself of his intention. A quick start that immediately slowed. The exaggerated effect told me to expect bursts of speed from him.

“Funny how much that happens. Things not working out.” He looked at the shield, looked at my axe, looked at my hands, and looked at my neck. He was looking for an identifier and found none. He turned attention to the stone dagger I had resumed making. “Wha’cha making there? A magic piece?” When he cocked his head to look, his pendant slid into view. The sight of it made my blood heat. Yes. He is the one I was seeking, and that pendant was one of the things I was sent to retrieve.

“Well… No quarrel, right?”

“Aye, that’s right.”

“I lost my dagger. I had it tucked into my belt, and with all this tromping around…” I lifted a crusted boot for emphasis. “I must have dropped it when I fell. I don’t know where, because this damn forest hates me and I fell so often…” I wiggled my hands in frustration. “So… “

He nodded in sympathy again. “But ya have an axe!”

“That a reaching weapon. Wee folk like me often fight up close, you know! I don’t have your reach!” He laughed in smug acknowledgement of his advantage. I feigned wounded feelings. “I need a dagger, in case I come across someone with a quarrel. Because. Like you said. I’m not from around here.”

He nodded. “Good point. But, won’t that stone break on the first strike?”

“If I jab it in the right place, the first strike is all I need.”

“It wouldn’t do a thing to me.” He smiled a feral and knowing grin.

“Good thing there’s no quarrel between us, then. I know better than to pick fights with something that can eat my head in one bite.” He laughs again and sits down on the road completely.

The stone dagger was almost complete. But my trap wasn’t drawing him in yet. An “accidental” flake later… “Dammit.”

“Aww. Here, lemme see that.”

I handed him the pieces of attempt number three. “Here’s your problem! Wrong kind of stone. See how it broke on this line? Maybe a carver would make a pretty from it, but it’s not going to hold up to any real work.” He looked around and handed me a darker, heavier stone. “Here, this is a bit harder, but flakes better.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“Because I’m curious. What’s yer name.”

“Scarlet Wolf.” I had to bite my tongue to hold my laughter. The stone he handed me would flake the hammer. I confirmed the hardness the hard way and noted he smiled. Who is in whose trap? I used the darker stone to begin flaking anew.

“I can see why you would be called ‘Wolf’. Yer hair and yer hide. But… ‘scarlet’? Isn’t that red? Ya ain’t got a bit of red on ya anywhere!”

“There’s a drop. Right here.” I gestured to my lower lip briefly and resumed flaking the stone. I was actually making something of worth in my hands.

He leaned forward but did not rise. “Yer too dark. Can’t see naught but black on ya.”

I looked up as if in surprise. “No, there’s a drop.” I tapped my lower lip. “I’m not in my livery now, or you’d see red everywhere. No flashy stuff right now, y’know. Working.” I looked back down but kept him in my peripheral position.

He crawls halfway across the path. Even on his knees, he is taller than me. Two of his hands brace against the ground. He is peering at my lips. The pendant swings free. “I still can’t see.”, he complains.

I sigh in frustration and drop my hands in my lap. “Are you blind? Here, I’ll even jut my lip out at you, but I better not hear a single crude word about it!” With the hammer rock in my left hand, I gesture vigorously to my lower lip. I brace my right hand against the boulder I’m leaning on. “‘Ere! ‘Ere!”

He scrambles across the road and almost presses against me. His lower arms are holding the boulder I’m leaning against. His right upper hand is shielding his eyes from the glare. His left upper hand is braced on the boulder, over my shoulder. I am trapped between the stone and his body. “Oi! Yer right! There is a drop o’red! All deep like blood! But why does it look like it’s moving?”

I get a good look at his throat. He was right to brag that the short stone dagger I was making would be useless against him. Giant’s blood alright, his throat was rippled with gristle. Would take more than a dagger to pierce more than a pimple’s depth into that skin.

~schlict~

He twitched in sudden violence, but did not fall away. His eyes were large in surprise. His hands trembled. His arms dropped uselessly. The weight of his body slumped onto my feathersword piercing his neck and spine. He wasn’t dead, yet. His arteries and veins had not suffered even a nick. His eyes twitched in wonder. Where was I hiding that weapon, and how was I able to wield it when my arms were blocked in?

I did not answer him. I only smiled softly. As soft as the one that sent me. “She has requested you return what is hers, and that you pay your debt.” His pupils constricted upon understanding my words. “It is good there is no quarrel between us.” I leaned forward and kissed him, the drop of quivering blood on my lip taking from him the creditor’s due. His soul having fled his body, I turned the sword in his neck, decapitating him.

His body protested the violence with a spray of blood. Ground, boulder, and I were forced to listen to the complaint. The boulder stood impassively. The ground hoarded every word. The black that covered me relished the litany. I picked up the pendant and unbroken chain. The black licked the blood from the jewelry as well. I put the jewelry away and hummed happily to myself.

I unexpectedly hiccuped and belched as the crimson drop still quivered. “Oi. I never answered your question. It does that, when I’m near my prey.” I patted my chest and released another small burp. “Excuse me. My, such wolfish manners I have! Heh.” The drop of crimson on my lower lip became still.

I finished flaking the stone dagger in peace. I tucked it into the belt of the giant’s body. I turned and began walking down the path. My steed emerged from the shadows and stood waiting for me. I started softly singing, “Here comes Li’l Red Riding Hood…”. I never learned the rest of the words to that song, but I knew the tune. I whistled it as I mounted my steed and left the realm.


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