Chapter 233: What Is Honor?

The Pathfinders didn’t come immediately, and I assumed the others had taken longer to climb up from the beach. That, or they were not coming at all. I retreated to a defensible Y-shaped tree formation and pulled out my bow and quiver. The paralytic arrows were probably best for the encounter, but I only had three remaining.

Every moment allowed me to recover more aether for air shield and earth speak, but I was not going to be able to recover enough aether for another instant kill. The aether channeling ring doubled my aether recovery speed, and I was glad for it, even then there is never enough.

I was thankful to have eliminated four of the Pathfinders, but without the element of surprise, my odds were still not looking good. I hadn’t had time to figure it out, but I pulled out Selene’s amulet. She had deflected my arrow with an aether shield, so I assumed this was an aether shield amulet.

Using it in the middle of a fight was probably not smart, and I was not sure how it worked. Hopefully, I just needed to charge it with aether and put it around my neck. The second negative was that the blue flash would highlight my location to everyone within sight if it activated. I pulled it around my neck and channeled aether into it. It was a greedy artifact, taking more aether than I wanted to give it at the moment.

An owl’s call cut the air, and my focus snapped to the direction. That was not an owl I was familiar with. Konstantin and Hearne had a competition of bird calls, and the three owls they mimicked sounded nothing like the cadence and tone of this one. My goggles didn’t see anything, and that uneasy feeling began to spread through me. Some sixth sense that told of impending danger.

A second bird call from my left told me it was Pathfinders. That was a swallow, but they were only active during the day. Not wanting to waste aether but having no choice, I sent out a pulse of earth speak. There was a Pathfinder not thirty feet from me. He was either invisible or had camouflage that fooled the goggles. I was fortunate earth speak was not fooled, but it also meant the other Pathfinders were similarly stealthed.

Gritting my teeth as my aether got dangerously low, I pulsed twice more as the Pathfinder approached. Just as he was within ten feet, I cursed as another Pathfinder entered my spell forms detection range behind me. I chose the spear as my weapon, leaving the black blade and bow leaning against the tree. Trusting earth speak, I performed an upward slash as I left my cover. I met a modicum of resistance, but it barely slowed the spear.

The orc was split open from groin to neck. His cleanly parted black leathers opened to release a flood of his intestines. I flicked the spear tip through the vocal cords to keep him relatively silent. The twang of multiple bows echoed in the night, and the aether shield flashed as I dove for cover. The amulet had just saved me from a painful lesson. Two Pathfinders were in bow range on the same side.

If my count was correct, there were four orcs remaining. I could only see one taking cover thirty feet away. I couldn’t remain still and rushed towards my only visible target, spear in one hand and the black blade in my other.

Seeing my approach, the orc stood and drew back his bow, perhaps thinking my aether shield was expended. When his arrow shattered in front of me, and I used the same air shield to pivot past him, he was too slow to get his guard up. I drove the spear into his sternum, trusting it would penetrate his armor. The spear easily slid through the leather covering his chest and out his back; given the way he dropped, I guessed I’d severed his spine.

An arrow passed by my face, loosed by the second orc bowman now visible to my right behind cover. I released my grip on the spear, having no time to extract it as distant shouts told me the remaining two orcs were approaching.

I rushed the other Pathfinder archer and took cover behind a tree when she leveled her bow. She was screaming urgently in orcish at her companions, and I could guess what she was saying. An arrow thudded into the tree I was hiding behind, and I scanned the woods, not seeing the other orcs but knowing they were there.

I judged I had about four uses of earth speak left or one air shield. I reached into my belt and started tossing sets of three pellets in the direction of the oncoming orcs. If they were invisible or camouflaged, the disturbance of the smoke would tell me where they were.

Then I tossed the blinding pellets at the archer twenty feet away. She must have thought it was just smoke pellets and yelled for what I assumed was an urgent request for help as her vision was blurred. I darted and closed on the blinded female Pathfinder. She drew her blade and used her bow defensively. I didn’t have time to waste, so I let her parry with the bow blindly, sliding the blade into her hand.

Fingers hit the forest floor with a blood-curdling scream of pain as the orcbane blade did its work. I silenced the scream by stabbing her in the throat and taking cover. Two swirls of smoke showed me the location of the charging Pathfinders, both massive specimens of orcs. The Pathfinder groups always came from the same clan or family, so I may have just killed a daughter or wife of one of these males.

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They stopped their rush and stood as their eyes traveled over the carnage. These two had come from the direction I had been fleeing in. They must have tried to get ahead of me to ambush me. They hadn’t expected me to fight. I was shocked when their camouflage dropped. They looked at their two dead companions and would have passed at least one other as they reached me.

“Hound. Do not hide. Face me.” The larger one spoke in broken Telhian. “You kill much of what I lived for tonight. Show me you are not afraid to face me with blades.”

I heard my heart beating in my ears, and my body was covered in sweat from my night’s work. They knew where I was, and both had a long blade in one hand and a short blade in the other. “There are two of you and just one of me.” I finally stated in Telhian.

The larger one’s face was hardened in anger, and the other Pathfinder behind also looked menacing. “I, Rakah, of Clan Sun Shadow. I swear to fight you alone.” He turned and nodded to his companion, who reluctantly took his bow off his back, laid it on the ground, and started taking steps back. “You killed two of my sons and my niece tonight, Hound. Fight me and show me the Hounds have honor.”

I stepped slowly and cautiously from behind the tree. He wasn’t affected by either of the pellets, but the other one, backing away, clearly inhaled and was fighting back, sneezing while his nose dribbled constant snot. “Eryk of House Marco.” I introduced myself. “I am not familiar with your code of honor. How does it work?” In fact, I did know a little from the books I had taken in Telha and studied in my dreamscape. The problem I was having was their code of honor did not extend to other races, only to other orcs.

“If I have to explain what honor is, then you do not have any,” he stated tersely. He then shifted his stance. “My mouth speaks my anger at the pain of my loss.” He bowed his head momentarily. “Honor is gained by defeating a worthy opponent without guile, only strength and skill.”

I was confused and said, “But you are a Pathfinder and I am a Hound, is that not what we do? Use guile to kill our enemies?”

He exhaled sharply and tried again like he was explaining to a child. “I do not wish to explain further. My heart calls for vengeance. Use your tricks if you must, but know you will not gain my honor if you do.” He started to close the distance on me. I think he was trying to guilt me into not using my spell forms, pellets, and whatever other tricks I had.

I pulsed earth speak to confirm there was nothing I was unaware of and didn’t see anything on his part. I slid my feet into a defensive stance, pulled my new runic dagger from Selene, and we danced. The clang of our blades echoed in the woods. We were both testing each other to start, and while he held the strength advantage, I was superior to him in all other physical aspects.

He quickly realized he was disadvantaged and broke the engagement for a moment. He yelled disheartened to his companion in Telhian, “Get to the ship. I will delay him.” The spectating orc looked confused. “Go!” the leader yelled at him. “Tell them tonight I fell to Eryk of House Marco.”

The other orc dashed away, and Rakah did his best to occupy me. He didn’t realize I wielded an orcbane blade, and although my first cut across his forearm was minor, he suddenly had trouble holding his sword. “An orcbane,” he said through the pain. “I didn’t know any had survived.”

I didn’t have time for dialogue as I wanted to catch up to the runner. In the next series of exchanges, I tricked him with a feint and sliced through his padded leggings deep into his thigh. Blood quickly soaked his leggings, and he was only stalling for time now. I was waiting for him to reach for a potion to take advantage of the action, but he never did, just continued defending.

I bit back my reluctance to use aether and created an air shield, blocking his defensive swing. He was surprised as my blade was stopped and I cut deep into the side of his neck. I turned, pivoted, and cut deep into the other side, dislodging his head to make sure he didn’t survive. I guessed I had no honor.

I raced after the fleeing orc, grabbing the black spear on the way by. My bow and quiver were in the wrong direction, but I had spare bows anyway. I raced through the dark woods, trying to catch up to him. He only had a few minutes of a head start, but it was not far to the rise.

I crested the rise looking for him and could see him scrambling down the rocks toward the boats and waking the four goliaths with yells as he did so. I was assuming he was telling them to get the boats ready and I was not going to catch him or confront four goliaths. I watched from the top of the ridge as he reached the boats using gestures pointing back at me, and then at the ship anchored in the bay.

I was shocked by what happened next. The goliaths started pushing one of the boats into the water, but one stopped, grabbed an oar, and slammed it into the back of the Pathfinder’s head. The Pathfinder, to his credit, stumbled a short distance but remained standing. That didn’t last long as the other three goliaths joined their companion in beating the disoriented orc. When he was obviously dead, the goliaths raced into the cave I couldn’t see from my vantage.

I watched on in fascination as they exited with bags of supplies and started climbing the bluff toward me. Had they seen me and were fleeing to me for protection or just taking the opportunity to gain their freedom? I waited for the four gray-skinned men, curious of their intentions.

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