Hellrien knocked the ashes out of the pipe-chamber and crawled out of the tarp tent. The sun hung low above the hills. She was feeling somewhat restless after telling Ozzie who she was and what she was doing here. It’s not that she didn’t trust Ozzie, she was worried it might turn out dangerous for him. Damn! It was no time for sentimentality. Her thoughts went back to the night they had spent in the tent, Ozzie’s gentle nature that had surprised Hellrien and touched her heart, his warm passion that had lit her own and the twinkle in Ozzie’s eyes when he had seen the fire in Hellrien’s cold blue ones.
Ozzie wrapped his hands around Hellrien from behind. Hellrien tilted her head backwards. Ozzie kissed her passionately, and Hellrien responded in kind. Then she pushed him away.
”I must go, Ozzie. My turn for the sentry duty.”
”When will you be back?”
”By dawn.”
Hellrien fetched her swords from the tent. Ozzie looked at her with a ponderous expression upon his face.
”Be careful, Hellrien.”
”You too, Ozzie.”
Hellrien walked into the dry bushes of grass on the outskirts of the camp. Even under the scorching sun there was life in the Lone-Lands. Gnats and flies buzzing around her head. Small animals rustling in the grass. The whole land smelled of dusty, dry grass.
Hellrien sunk into her thoughts. She had told Ozzie everything. She had told him about the jewels, pendants, footprints, the mysterious veiled woman, the Créoth on the warpath and the ritual massacre of the Eglain couple.
But Ozzie didn’t know anything about that. He had never met Joan Darkhand in person or seen a Créoth warrior, he didn’t even know what it was. But he had promised to keep his eyes and ears open.
Hellrien studied the ground leading up to the sloping hillside out of the camp. It didn’t take long before she found cart tracks. She examined them for a while. There were no hoof prints anywhere near the cart tracks. It was a small cart, pulled by a man – or something closely resembling a man. She shrugged and left the tracks be. She crouched among the tall grass under the scorching sun, killing time. Suddenly she felt fiercely impatient. She loathed idleness, and suddenly she felt like she was wasting her time. What was she doing out here, playing a bandit, drinking whiskey all day and playing home with Ozzie? Why didn’t she investigate where those cart tracks lead? Why hadn’t she examined what was inside of those crates?
Hellrien cursed her own indolence. Ever since she had set foot into this doomed fugitive camp she had been preoccupied with whiskey and Ozzie, infected by the loafing lethargy of the lifestyle of these bandits. These brigands spent all their time drinking, guarding, hunting, foraging, sleeping, playing dice and having the same old tired conversations day in and day out. It was boring, purposeless existence – a far cry from the romantic tales of adventure many people wanted to imagine outlaw lifestyle was like. It was time for her to take initiative!
Hellrien guarded the camp until dusk. Then Helen came to relieve her and Hellrien returned to camp. The food had been prepared already. Ozzie didn’t say anything while Hellrien ate. He noticed her gloominess, but pretended not to see anything. When Hellrien had eaten she picked up the bedroll where she kept her swords.
”Are you going out riding, Hellrien?”
”Yes.”
”Will you be back?”
”I will.”
Hellrien stroked Ozzie’s cheek in passing, grabbed her hat and walked over to her horse. She rode southeast through the grassy slopes until she came to the ruins of an ancient, collapsed stone bridge where she had hidden her mailcoat and the rest of her weapons. The moon was on the sky, and it’s silvery light helped her find her way in the night. The dried-up riverbed was low and muddy, and the horse sprayed water from puddles of stagnant, stinky water as she reined it across the road and further north. It didn’t take long before Hellrien found tracks of cartwheels again. They were heading east, somewhat parallel to the Great East Road. She followed them up the soft hillside and through a sparse grove of stunted trees. Several times she stopped her horse to listen, but she couldn’t hear anything. She prepared herself for a long ride, adjusted the crossbow on her back and tilted her head to hear better. The tracks sloped through the hilly, rolling landscape, circled around the southern side of the Weathertop and then climbed up barren hills and slopes again. A couple of times she could hear carrion birds croaking menacingly in the dark. Late at night – it was almost time for late watches – she saw a thin tendril of smoke against the sky. She rode down the rigde and stopped to sit and watch. While sitting there she suddenly heard faint noises. She dismounted fast as lightning and pulled her horse into a small copse of trees. She grasped the animal by it’s muzzle and listened tensely. Yes, the sounds were coming closer. She could hear them more clearly now, and soon she discerned dark shapes in the darkness. One-two-three human-like silhouettes, jogging along past her towards west. She saw a glimpse of a brown cloak fluttering in the wind, and then the noises died out gradually.
Hellrien waited for a few minutes to be sure, then she rode along. Suddenly ruins of a great, ancient fortress opened up beneath her. The smoke came from the courtyard where she saw a few tents and a campfire. The multi-layered fortress must have been quite a wonder when it had been built, but now it was just another sad monument of decay and ruination, much like everything else in this cursed land. It had been built in a bowl-shaped valley, surrounded by steep cliffs from the north, west and east. Hellrien rode a little ways to the north only to find out it was impossible to go around the fort from there. She could only go south, where a small road diverged from the Great East Road and led into the fortress. That’s where the cart tracks came from.
Hellrien hesitated no longer. She tied her horse into a rocky outcrop, grasped her crossbow and advanced through bushes. The bushes were full of thorns, and they ripped the flesh of her hands so that she was bleeding before she had reached the top of the ridge on the edge of the courtyard and could look down from the eroded cliff. She lied on the ground and stared. She could familiarize herself with her surroundings quite well in the moonlight. She saw one big tent, half a dozen smaller tarp tents and a campfire. Hellrien was intrigued by the dark shapes moving about the courtyard. What was going on down there?
Hellrien retreated slowly and crawled through the bushes back to her horse. She walked the animal for a while before jumping on the saddle and rode back. She crossed the same hills and ridges, and when she was approaching the nearly overgrown wooded area between Weathertop and the camp, she suddenly heard sounds of rustling and heavy panting. With fists and spurs she forced the horse to take cover in the bushes, and not a second too soon – three runners jogged past her. They had to be the same ones Hellrien had seen earlier tonight. What business these mysterious runners were conducting?
She sat still and listened for a moment. It was quiet again. Not even a warg howled. Hellrien rode slowly forward and approached the camp as the eastern sky began to pale behind her. She spurred the horse up the final slope and rode through the dry grass until she could see the outlines of the camp opening up beneath her in the twilight.
Immediately she realized that something was wrong. There was no sentry in sight. Hellrien sensed something ominous in the air that made the hair on the back of her neck bristle. She rode down cautiously and soundlessly and dismounted by the campfire ring. Now she could see sprays of blood everywhere, black in the dim light of dawn. Hellrien stripped the saddle off her horse and strung the noose around it’s neck. Then she grabbed her crossbow and saddle and took a few steps towards Ozzie’s tent.
She stopped. Then she pulled in a deep breath. Suffocating, ingratiating smell penetrated her nostrils from inside the tent. She felt cold shivers in her back and bent down to see inside.
It took her a while to fully comprehend what she was seeing. Dark, dried blood everywhere, deep knife wounds, mutilated and dismembered corpses. And on top of it all, Ozzie’s head staring at Hellrien. The expression in his eyes was calm, almost peaceful.
They had left her a present.
Hellrien turned and staggered away, pressing her head against her hands. Tears of pain streamed down her distorted face. The sun was rising above the faraway hills.
Hellrien wiped her mouth and stretched up. She cursed her own weakness. Cold rage took her over, made her tremble. She knew that if there had been anyone else nearby she might have gone insane. Now she paced slowly back and forth, trying to fight the murderous urges threatening to possess her.
She wasn’t sure what snapped her out of it. She walked back to the tent and forced herself to examine the bodies. At first it was difficult to count how many corpses had been slaughtered there. She witnessed the handiwork of a sick, twisted imagination, a carnage so horrible it was beyond her comprehension. Ozzie was there, and Helen, and a third brigand who’se name Hellrien couldn’t remember now. At least two were missing. They had been dead for a long time, at least four hours. When Hellrien reached her hand to see what they had done to Ozzie… she stared with clenched teeth. They had… had… She turned her head aside and fought the urge to throw up. Disgust and fear made her head spin. What kind of animal had done this? She turned her head back to the corpses. She had to go on. Look for tracks. She knelt by the ghastly remains. The whole floor of the tent was covered in blood. Hellrien examined the ground in the dim sunlight. And then she saw a small sign rather close to Ozzie’s hand.
It was an imprint on the ground – it looked like the letter B.
A thought flashed through Hellrien’s head: The Brute – Kyle’s brother! The one who ’wasn’t quite human’!
Hellrien crawled backwards out of the tent and ran around the camp. She stared at the ground. Tracks. Three pairs of blood-stained imprints. She followed them for a while. They led up the slope towards east.
Hellrien stretched up. Twice during the night she had been less than five paces away from Ozzie’s murderers!
Hellrien fetched her saddle and put it on her horse. Then she mounted and made haste up the slope. Her face was like carved in stone, and her squinting, steel blue eyes were glowing with hatred.
She rode through the grove in bright daylight. She was intent on killing everyone and everything that she saw. But the path was clear and she could travel freely. She rode fast and kept a close eye to her surroundings. Hours passed in blood-thirsty chase. Soon she saw the ruins of a fortress and the hills bounding it. She turned south, heading towards the ridge she had been lying on last night. She heard noises from the courtyard below her. She dismounted quickly, tied up her horse, grabbed her crossbow and crawled forward through bushes of grass. Soon she could see straight to the courtyard – less than fifty yards away. It was a huge, open space. There was a small group of three… four soldiers on the tents by the pillars. Four more guards that she could see standing or walking around the courtyard. And more behind the big wall, out of sight. Valar only knew how much in the fortress itself, but she had no intention of going there. She already recognized the dirty brown cloak from last night.
Hellrien stretched up suddenly. What were her intentions? She couldn’t use the crossbow from this distance – not if she wanted to be sure to kill her victim. But what else could she do – alone?
She started to descend the slope next to the stone wall. Bushes of grass gave her cover and nobody shouted. The whole courtyard was filled with big patches of long, dry grass. A single spark could turn it into a raging inferno in a matter of seconds. She reached the courtyard and hid behind a huge stone column. She could hear someone speak in an ugly, guttural language. She sneaked around the column. A half-orc with a spiked mace under his armpit was snoozing in the sunlight. Apparently a guard. Bright daylight was actually a very good time to launch an offensive against orcs and other servants of darkness, as their energy levels were lower and their eyes, adapted to see in almost total darkness, couldn’t handle sunlight well. The wall ended to the column, giving way to a gateway that lead into another section of the courtyard. On the other side of the path there were more columns and the wall continued to the foot of the fortress. Hellrien peeked behind the column. If only she could get across the path unnoticed! There was another guard clad in partial plate armor there. But his back was facing Hellrien, and he appeared to be suffering greatly from the sunlight. He was less than ten yards away from Hellrien, and five or six long strides brought her behind him. A sword blade sliced through his throat. Hellrien grabbed him as he fell and set him down quietly, looking around. She heard noises from the direction of the tents. Rattling of barrels and crates.
Now!
Hellrien strode the remaining few yards across the sunny courtyard and pressed her back against the weather-beaten wall. She didn’t hesitate any longer. She felt deep satisfaction as she scraped a match and set a tuft of grass on fire. It burned with a hiss, and Hellrien ran towards the tents.
Two figures in partial plate armor spun around. Hellrien swung her swords and cut them down like grain. The tents caught fire and the air became filled with terrified shouting. Hellrien turned around and rushed towards the road. Flames blazed behind her and a group of half-orcs approached in front of her, running and shouting.
Hellrien’s blades danced in the air, sowing death. The first two fell down. Scythe hammers and spiked clubs swirled.
Now the whole courtyard was a sweeping conflagration. Like a sabertooth Hellrien rushed into a sprint. She hurried towards the road, half-orcs hard on her heels, and threw herself head first on the ground as something hit her head. She rolled forward and spun on her heels like a cat, facing her pursuers. She blocked a fierce blow from a spiked club and impaled the half-orc.
Almost blinded, she could hear his scream of agony. Another one was coming right behind her, and Hellrien spun around quickly to cut him down.
Blood was flowing from a wound on her head and her ears were humming. Hellrien kept moving forward. She spotted a group of four half-orcs standing helplessly in front of the burning inferno. None of them seemed to have any weapons at hand. Two of them wore brown cloaks…
”Brute!” Hellrien screamed.
A red-haired half-orc wearing gilded shoulder plates and forearm guards and a brown cloak spun around. He was barely twelve yards away, and Hellrien could see his mean, ugly face and slanted eyes clearly. The Brute raised his fists and Hellrien charged at him.
She swung her right-hand sword underhand and sliced his groin. The Brute roared like a sabretooth, his paws grappled his groin and he staggered away. Grasping hands seized Hellrien from behind. Hellrien spun around as fast as she could. She saw a half-orc tumbling to the ground through a cloud of smoke. The remaining two howled in horror and started to run. Hellrien ran after them. Her blades swung through the air. The hindmost lurched, groped his back with his hands and fell down. The air was filled with smoke and burning straws. Sparks and ashes rained everywhere.
Something moved in front of Hellrien. She felt a fierce blow in her hip. She spun half around. Her foot gave way beneath her, but she raised a sword and killed the wounded half-orc.
The Brute was still squirming on the ground. He was the only one still moving. His voice had broken down and he hissed like a snake. Hellrien stopped right in front of him. She could barely see clearly. The Brute stared at her. She said:
”For Ozzie.”
Slowly she lowered the blade of her sword to his throat, then raised it up again.
The Brute rolled his eyes as he stared at the blood-stained blade.
It whooshed down. The Brute’s head rolled into the flames.
A little later Hellrien staggered away from the burning courtyard. The dead lied where they had fallen. Those who had made any sounds or moved she had killed without mercy. Sweat and blood ran down her body and her eyes blazed.
Smoke licked the ruins behind her.
Ashes rained down on her like memories.
