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The sun is going down and there is no Marvik. I look up from my work, the walls of the smokehouse about up to my waist, but there’s no sign of him. Still, he said not to expect him until supper, so I don’t worry. I stack more branches, fitting the notches I so painstakingly carved together. It is lucky that I have some of the finest orc-make knives in Orikesh or they would be ruined, dull and chipped, from the work I’ve been using them for. As it is, they are barely dulling and still sharp enough to cut skin. I’ll need to send Marvik on a supply run sometime soon for a whetstone and some other supplies. There’s no point in just sitting on the coins that I took from that crooked merchant.
I work and I wait. And I wait. Then I wait some more. Another hour passes and the sun sets, well past suppertime now. I finish up where I am working and start a fire in our firepit, and begin making dinner, even though it’s Marvik's turn to cook. I’ll be sure to give him plenty of ribbing about missing his deadline when he gets here.
But supper cooks and cools and there’s still no Marvik. Did he really estimate so badly on how long his trek to the chokecherries would take? I finish my dinner, but it settles badly in my stomach. Something is wrong, I can feel it.
I think back to this morning, to our conversation. It seemed cheerful enough. I didn’t smell any lies or worry on Marvik’s scent. But then, Iwasdistracted. I had had a dream the night before of my parents, their faces lined with sadness, asking me to come home. But the more I tried to go to them, the farther away they got, until I couldn’t see them at all anymore. I woke in a cold sweat and couldn’t go back to sleep and decided to get up and work, rather than laying in my bedroll with my thoughts. Not that it reallyhelped. My guilt from the dream was compounded by my own worries, my own fears. My thoughts of the surface-level relationship I have with Marvik and my unfulfilled Mating Instinct. The work I did on the smokehouse barely kept my dark thoughts at bay. Maybe I missed something about Marvik’s demeanor when he spoke.
I recall an image of Marvik in my mind’s eye from this morning. He looked handsome as usual, his scruff dark. He’ll need to shave again soon. His posture was easy, his tone teasing. And on his back he had his knapsack, like he always does for his foraging missions.
That knapsack brings me up short. A terrible thought occurs to me: was he leaving me? Was he packed and ready to go and I didn’t even notice? A desperate, clawing feeling takes over my heart, driven completely by strong emotion and no logic. My Mating Instinct roars one moment and then whimpers the next, unwilling to exist without our mate. The Recognition is silent, like a hollow in my chest and I do not know what to do. But, no, I am no civilian, ruled by my emotions, no matter how strong. I have trained my entire life to control my fear, not let it control me.
Taking a deep breath, I dump the remnants of my dinner in the dwindling fire and rise, heading into the cave. I need to find answers, not panic over a possibility. In the cave, I am greeted by both our bedrolls and the tightness in my chest eases. It’s still possible he left without his bedroll, but not as likely. I doubt that he would head back to his family’s castle after what he told me and he would need his bedroll if he was going on a longer journey. I investigate, going through his things and find a few copper coins and his spyglass. Looking through my own things, I find the rest of the coins from Kingsbury still in their stash. Another sign that he probably didn’t leave to go back to civilization. Wouldn’t he have taken the money if he was going to head back to a town?
With another deep breath, I gather my thoughts. Alright, it appears as if he hasn’t left me. That leaves three possibilities: one, he severely underestimated how long it would take to get to the treesand is on his way back; two, he somehow got lost on the way back and is wandering through the forest in the dark; and three, he is injured somewhere and cannot get back to me. The first two possibilities are improbable, as Marvik has proven again and again how well he knows the Thicket. So, he is probably injured somewhere and needs help.
Without wasting another moment, I grab my knives, pushing them into their sheaths. I take my knapsack, filling it with the healing herbs we have left and tear some strips of cloth from my blanket, in case I need to make a splint or a sling. I exit the cave, kicking some dirt into the fire to completely extinguish it and head out.
Marvik’s scent is easy to follow. He hasn’t bathed in a few days and his scent is ripe. Not unpleasant to my nose, as I mostly just smell his pheromones, but it makes it easy to tell which way he was heading. As I walk, I mark his trail, noting from the crushed leaves and broken twigs that he was setting a fast pace, so I increase my own. I have no idea how far he’s gone or if he's in trouble. Time is of the essence.
I walk along the creek, the Thicket quiet in the darkness. The moon is almost gone, only a slight sliver of light left, the stars scattered across the night sky. It makes it more difficult to see, but, as an orc, night is not as debilitating to me as it would be to a human. I can still make out the path and follow my nose.
I have been traveling for quite some time when I finally come to a grove of chokecherry trees, but am surprised that the path keeps going. He didn’t stop here, even though he said this was his destination. Is there another grove even farther? Why wouldn't he have just stopped at this one? Nothing makes sense and his story isn’t adding up. The question remains, where is Marvik?
Not thinking too hard about the fact that Marvik might have lied to me, I keep going. Deeper and deeper into the woods I travel, until I reach the foot of a mountain. One that I have seen from a distance several times, but never thought I would travel to.
It is here that all my instincts go on high alert. Marvik’s scent changes to one of alarm. And desperation. The ground is disturbed in too many areas for there to have just been one person here. A fight took place here, with at least three combatants. But why can’t I smell who the other assailants were? I kneel down in the gravel, taking a handful and scenting deeply. It’s faint, almost not there, but I get a whiff of darkness and blood. I have only smelled this once when an envoy of Barakrin came to court when Rognar first became king and it was faint then as well.Vampire.
On the ground as I am, I also catch a hint of human blood. Marvik’s blood. I pivot in the stones and rake my finger through the rocks. The blood is dry and not enough to have been a fatal wound. So the attack took place several hours ago and they didn’t kill him. Then where did they take him?
With vampires having such light scents it’ll be hard to track them, but possible. I have the scent in my nose now and catch it ever-so faintly on the wind. But I have no way of knowing how many vampires there are. Did he just run into a few outlaws in the woods or something more?
Not taking any chances, I rise and tap my amulet twice. I need to be stealthy now, as I don’t know what is waiting for me.
I follow the scents of the vampires, with overtones of Marvik. They must have carried him away, as I don’t see drag marks. I move as silently as I am able, walking along the foot of the mountain, when I suddenly come around a corner and see an encampment. Not just any encampment. I have been a part of the Horde long enough to know what this is: a warband.
A warband from Barakrin? That makes no sense. The country of vampires has been peaceful for centuries. Why would a warband be on the outskirts of Adrik, so close to a peaceful town? It is like the aggression from Adrik all over again, but making even less sense.
A stir of movement comes from my left and I crouch behind the boulder that I am standing behind and slow my breathing. ThoughI am invisible, vampires have extremely sensitive senses and I wouldn’t want them to find me just from the sound of my breath.
I hear a conversation coming closer to me.
“. . . I can’t wait until we freshen the blood stores. My slave tasted like piss tonight, she was so unhealthy. We need new necks to feast on.”
“Patience. That’s why we’re here,” comes a second voice. “Complaining won’t make it happen any faster.”
“I wish we were invading tonight, not tomorrow,” says the first voice. “What are they waiting for? An invitation?”
“The moon will be new tomorrow. It will be easier to fight in the dark when we can see and they can’t. Even orcs will struggle when there is no light at all. You’ve only been feeding on sentient blood for a month, you can wait one more day,” comes the amused reply.
“And thank Grazrath for that. I had no idea what I was missing, drinking from animals like the old king forced us to do. A pox upon his corpse!” There’s a spitting sound.
“I’d be careful how you talk,” admonishes the second voice. “The prince might not like you cursing his father and he’s the one leading this raiding party.”
“What’s he going to do? Lord Grazrath killed the king himself before taking the throne. The prince is just another one of his soldiers now, just like us.”
The conversation gets further away, dying down as I listen. I can’t make out the second voice’s reply to the first, if he says anything. They are most likely guarding a perimeter. I’ll need to hurry into the camp, if I don’t want to run into them coming back. I need to find Marvik and get out of here.
Slipping into the campsite, my mind is whirling. The old, peaceful king of Barakrin is dead? He ruled for more than three hundred years. And he was killed by someone named Grazrath? It can’t be the Archdemon of Pain. All the archdemons were imprisoned by Karnia in the Nether eons ago after the God War. It must be coincidence, or someone that took the demon as anamesake. I see more vampires milling about as I sneak around the camp, darting from tent to tent. They sharpen swords and speak in hushed voices, with no fires to light them. They must be far more comfortable in the dark and cold than even orcs are. Thank the gods for my amulet, or there’d be no way that I could sneak about looking for myAsh’ka. I keep my breathing shallow as I walk around, surreptitiously sniffing every so often, trying to get Marvik’s scent.
