Tauren Tale, Chapter 15
#15 of Tauren Tale
Theodore pulled himself out a little ways and then thrust upward just as hard as he could manage. She felt like he was going to rip her apart.
"How does that feel, little cow?" he whispered in her ear. His naked body was flat against her own, touching hers in the most awful of ways.
A wave of misery crashed over the girl. Sanja felt alone and abandoned, ashamed and in pain; doomed. The horrible, horrible musty smell of the beast was all over her. It smothered her wounded nose just like his body was smothering her body.
But then, deep in the darkest misery she had ever felt, she saw a bright hot glimmer of hope. Small at first, it grew bigger, and brighter, until she nearly laughed out loud.
This was not the end! This was the opportunity that she had been waiting for.
Theodore had been a fool to let his guard down like this and she had been a fool not to seize the chance more quickly. She had had the advantage all along. The rogue wanted her alive; she was of no use to him dead. His hands were the ones that were tied, not hers.
She stopped pushing him away. Her right arm was still around the back of his neck and her left hand was on his shoulder. She pulled him close, lowered her chin to her chest, and then with a sudden burst of strength, she twisted her head around and drove her right horn up to where she figured his right eye must be.
She felt it hit bone once more, but this time the impact was softer, as if it had hit the eyeball first, or perhaps crushed the thin bone of his eye socket.
The beast shrieked in pain and tried to pull away, but she would not let him. Oh no, not this time. She held him tight with her arms and wrapped only her right leg behind the small of his back. She afforded him only a single exit.
He peeled his weight off of her and opened up a gap between her body and where she knew his broken rib had to be.
She would not miss this opportunity a second time.
In a flash, her left knee came up hard and connected with broken bone.
He gasped, frozen in pain and caught between inhale and exhale; but she continued to fight. She put her left forearm across his throat and locked her ankles together across the small of his back. She was never going to let him escape.
"How does that feel?" she whispered to him as she squeezed her arms together. She grabbed her left elbow with her right hand.
He struggled.
He gurgled and coughed a disgusting, wet sound.
She squeezed with her arms and legs, working hard to force the breath out of him. Worked to deny him another breath.
The beast went absolutely wild. He raked her with his claws and struck her with his fists; blows fell upon her like summer rain, but she refused to budge. She was determined to hold on until the last ounce of her strength was gone. The impacts barely even registered in her brain.
He punched and clawed and punched some more. He tumbled around in the dust, kicking up a blinding cloud; but his strength was clearly fading. He grabbed at her arms and tried to peel them from his throat, but he couldn't seem to get the leverage he needed. It was as if his arms were better suited for slashing and grabbing someone out in front of him, rather than peeling someone away from his throat.
She bit his face - not to hurt him, but as one more way to cling on. She dug in her thick, hoof-like nails.
He lifted his weight off of her, but she clung to him like a parasite.
He tried to crawl away, but it was futile. He simply took her with him.
Without warning, his strength abandoned him, and he collapsed down on top of her.
She let go of him only with her teeth. "I promised you," she whispered, exertion clear in her voice, "that you would never come near me or my family again."
She let him lay there; on top of her, inside of her, for what seemed like hours. She squeezed his throat just as hard as she could until he stopped even trying to breathe. Only then did his body go limp.
She sighed her first breath of relief, but refused to release the beast's throat.
She unbuckled her heels from behind his back and drove a hoof down into the desert sand. With all the strength she could muster, she rolled the beast over onto its back.
Sanja panted with exertion, and the insides of her ears flushed red; but still she held its throat. She stared into the creature's one remaining eye. It looked glassy and lifeless.
"How do I know that you're really dead?" she whispered.
Jorga lay on his side, curled up in a ball.
"How are you feeling, kiddo?"
The boy opened his eyes and looked slowly up at his sister. Beside being a mess of cuts and scratches, she was standing tall and holding her arms loosely at her sides. A large rock in her right hand was smeared with blood and small bits of brain. She let it drop into the desert sand with a thud.
"Why are you naked?"
Sanja covered herself with her hands. "It's... complicated," she said. She started getting dressed. How she wished she could wash the creature's musky scent from her fur. "Don't tell Mom... or anyone... okay?"
Jorga nodded weakly and closed his eyes. "Is he... gone?"
"Yeah, he's gone."
She returned to the boy's side; his breath smelled awful. The corners of his mouth were crusty.
"I threw up," he whispered, sounding both sick and ashamed.
Sanja nodded and gently stroked his mane. "I think I would have too, if he had stabbed me."
She helped her brother sit upright and gave him a small drink from the water skin.
"You know I'm going to have to sew your arm up, right?"
Jorga nodded weakly. "Is it going to scar?"
"Are you kidding? It's going to be a huge scar." She kissed his nose. It felt dry and cold. "When we get home, everyone's going to see it and know just how brave you are. All the cows are going to want to hang all over you."
Jorga made a sour face. "Yuck."
"I'll tell everyone in the entire utankan that you took on an Alliance rogue, all by yourself."
Jorga shrugged gloomily. "No one's going to believe you."
"Oh no?" She reached over to Theodore's pile of abandoned armor and grabbed the rogue's daggers. "Where else will they think you got this?"
The boy's eyes opened wide. "Whoa... two metal knives?"
She frowned at him. "One metal knife... I think I earned one of them, myself."
Jorga shrugged. He held the knife in his good hand and turned it over slowly. "Wow... This is even better than the one Bo has. Don't ya' think?"
Sanja sighed in relief, happy to see the boy smile again.
"It's not very shiny though," he added. "What's all the goo on the blade?"
"Dunno'," she said idly. She rubbed the blade's oily coating with her primary finger and gave it a sniff.
The scent seemed familiar. It was something she had smelled once, a long time ago; something pungent and cloying. It tickled her sinuses and brain.
She remembered the smell of the dark soil. It was a small, purple flower, with a bright red stem, and the roots... when she pushed the dirt away from the roots with her digging tool, they had the exact same smell.
Mom had showed it to her... long, long ago... Sniff, look, but don't touch... she wouldn't let her touch it... she warned her to stay away...
Maiden's anguish.
"We have to go," Sanja said, hurriedly stuffing all of their possessions in the backpack. "We have to go, now."
Jorga opened his eyes for a moment and then closed them again. "I don't feel so great. Can't we just stay here and wait for Kazbo?"
"No. We have to go, now."
But where? she wondered. The nearest adults were those in Nijel's Point, and she knew what the sentries would do if they just walked up to them. But we need help! Surely they would help out someone in real need...
No. Even if they would help, could they? Her brow furrowed. We don't need an adult. What we need is an antidote.
She paced around the fire, clenching her fists. What was it? What was it? Willow? Willow bark? Willow leaves? No. It definitely had willow in it, but it was something mushy. A poultice.
Sanja growled at herself. How could she have forgotten something so important? Her mom had showed her how to make it once, long, long ago.
"Willow reed!" she shouted in relief. "We need to get you a poultice made of willow reed." She took a deep breath and smiled.
But the smile quickly faded as she looked around the campsite. There were no reeds here. Every stream, every oasis they had seen in the desert completely lacked reeds.
Her heart started pounding in her ears. No willow reeds in the desert! Even the people living at Nijel's Point probably wouldn't have them.
In a blind panic, Sanja started rifling through Theodore's possessions. She stuck her nose into every item, hoping desperately for the bright grapefruit-rind scent of willow reed pulp.
She discarded a packet of fishhooks and very fine string.
She discarded his purse and ignored the useless gold and silver coins that spilled across the sand.
She found the maiden's anguish. It was a small pouch, still half-full of the reddish-brown paste. She hurled the bag across the desert in frustration.
How could he travel with poisoned knives and not carry an antidote? Didn't he worry about accidentally cutting himself?
She sank to her knees.
I don't think he cared about anything.
"Come on, Jorga. Get up. We're going back to the swamp. There will be some plants there that will make you feel better."
She had to give him credit, the boy did try to stand. He planted his hooves and tried to lift himself over them, but they wouldn't hold any weight.
"You can do it," she pleaded.
"I can't. Why can't I stand up?" he whined.
"That happens sometimes, when people get cut," she reassured him. "Your body is busy repairing the damage, so all your strength..." she shrugged, unsure of how to complete such a lie. She watched his expression for a moment and tried to keep her own neutral.
The boy frowned. He grumbled something about a "stupid cut".
Sanja opened her pack and pulled out the tiger skin. She tied the creature's left paws around her waist and its right paws around her neck. Between them, the pelt formed a large, baggy sling.
Jorga looked up at what she had made and his eyes filled with tears. "I'm not a calf!"
"I know you're not," she reassured him. "But you're... your body is conserving its strength. This way I can carry you for a while - just for a while - and then when your strength is back, well then you can run beside me."
Sanja's hooves flew across the desert, kicking up a small plume of dust.
"Just stop treating me like a calf," the boy whined.
"I'm sorry, Jorga. I just don't like to see you hurt."
"No, you do it all the time!"
"I do not! Why would you say that?"
"Did you tell me it was going to take a year to get home?" the boy growled.
"No," she said. Only the sound of her hooves and her rhythmic breathing filled the spaces between them. "Eventually."
He didn't seem hungry, so they didn't stop to eat.
The moon was full once more and the Trail of Woe was easy to follow in the silver light.
Jorga slept soundly, despite all the jostling, and Sanja found herself in an almost trance-like state. She tried not to think about the boy's injuries, about what could happen to him, or about Kazbo trying to find them.
She had left the Gnome a message, and that was all she had time to do. With three heavy rocks, she pinned the rogue's small clothes down, so they would not blow away, or be disturbed by the scavengers that would start arriving soon after they left. Then with the charred end of a twig, she drew three characters that she knew he would recognize. The "sw" sound, the "ahm" sound, and the "puh" sound.
Sanja thought about nothing beyond just her hooves. Just picking them up and dropping them down, over and over again. Running was the only thing that mattered.
The sky turned pink and then the sun began to rise over her left shoulder.
Jorga woke, but he was not his usual self. He didn't want to eat. He did not even ask to get out of the sling. He didn't want to try to walk.
"Come on. Don't give up on me," she pleaded through clenched teeth. Her lungs were burning and begging for rest, but she ignored them.
He talked some throughout the morning. Much of it was too quiet to make out. Some of it made no sense at all.
"Where's Thurg?" he asked once.
"The trader?" Sanja asked. "The Orc who owned Elizabeth? I don't know where he is. I think they were headed to Ratchet."
"No, my toad."
"Your toad? I don't know." Sanja wiped the sweat out of her eyes. "Didn't you release him up on the mountain?"
Jorga was having a hard time breathing and the gaspy, ragged sound was scaring her more than even Theodore had.
She had yet to use the D-word, but as the afternoon grew late, she used it with reckless abandon. "Don't you die on me, damn it!" she shouted. "Don't you dare die! We're almost there. I can smell it. We're almost at the swamp!"
She was starting to feel dizzy from all the exertion, the lack of food, the lack of water. Her coat was no longer wet with sweat and she was starting to see double images.
Somewhere, far behind her, the sun was setting over her right shoulder.
Suddenly, one of her hooves landed poorly and the two tumbled over into a lump on the road.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Jorga? Are you okay? Are you all right?" She shook the boy by his shoulders and his head flopped back and forth. His body was cold. "Don't! Don't you do that to me!" she demanded.
She pressed her ear to his lips.
She put her ear to his chest.
"No!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Sanja scooped the boy up in her arms and wandered aimlessly in a circle. His arms and legs hung down, lifelessly. "I promised Mom I would take care of you! I promised her!"
She started walking back towards Nijel's Point. "Help... Please... Someone... Help..." she cried. Her voice was quiet and hoarse.
But the road was as empty as it had been all along.
She turned around yet again and stumbled towards the swamp.
"I'll get you help," she whispered. She squeezed him to her chest. "I'll take care of you. I promise. I'll get someone to help us. I'll... I'll find an Ancient. They can make you better. I'll make them cure you. I'll make them. I promise. I promise... I promise..."
Fat, hot tears started to drip on Jorga. They splashed on his fuzzy, black face.
Now, she was bawling like a calf; wailing in the darkness.