Chapter Four

  “Dragon.” The orc said, long throwing spear in hand, “You are wounded. You lie on the ground like dying waiting for death. You speak brave, but we surround you, kill you.” The orc said in the deep bass voice his people were known for. “We end you quick, but first you give us the knowing. Do this, we kill quick. No pain. Chief Krorgan Broketooth vows on his name.”

  The orc was clad in battered armor, Araghramorn could hear the others moving around him, his body was still not able to move well. ‘I could kill this one with my breath, and probably others, but they have numbers on their side and I am stuck on the ground, enough of those spears and I could lose my eyes and pierce my brain, then that would be all for me.’ Realizing this as he did, Araghramorn played for time.

  “What is this knowing, orc?” Araghramorn pressed the question as if he intended to grant their request, but he already had his suspicion about what the orc wanted to know.

  “Companion to dragon can be but one. Huntress of the Wylds. Only she come near to dragon to heal and not slay. I want the knowing, where has huntress gone? Is she near or far?” The big orc demanded, and Araghramorn could truthfully admit that he didn’t know, but again he played for time.

  “Your ‘Huntress of the Wylds’ Is her name Aina? Wheat-gold hair, carries a bow and a sword, short stature? Blue lion crest of the human Kingdom on her chest?” Araghramorn asked.

  “That is same.” The orc rumbled.

  “How do you even know her?” Araghramorn demanded, curiosity getting the better of him, it was less about playing for time and more about uncovering more about his unusual benefactor and caretaker.

  “That is she. Huntress of the Wylds stands short of body, tall in name. If she is near, you tell.” The orc raised his spear and made a threatening gesture to throw, and Araghramorn held his tongue. ‘Obliterating this one would be trivial, and if I were in good health, this would be a threat from an ant. But I’m not. Even an ant can conquer a dragon, if the dragon be bound and helpless…’

  With that thought, Araghramorn replied, “If she is not with me now, how am I to know where she is? I can say only where she isn’t. But if she isn’t where she isn’t then she is where she is, until she isn’t there and has moved on to someplace else to be, which is where she is, until she isn’t again.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The orc warrior stared dumbly as he tried to understand the bizarre words of Araghramorn. He was not alone, and the crippled dragon briefly forgot his pain as he took a moment’s glee in the game of riddle talk. It was one of the oldest pastimes not only of dragons, but of all those folk of both short lifespans and long, who had wit and wisdom enough to love the wit and wisdom of others, and to contest against them with puzzling words.

  But more importantly in his mind, though he could not see his companion, and he could not ‘smell’ her as she avoided being downwind and so alerting the scent sensitive orcs, he could hear her.

  The soft steps of her feet were lower than even an orc born and bred to wilderness could hope to detect, and she was in motion.

  ‘Her steps are so quick, how does someone move that quietly while also going that quickly?’ He wondered. He heard no twigs snap, and no branches rustle, as if she had become one with the wind, and when she stopped, her heart was loud enough in her chest for him to know she was moving more of her body than just her feet.

  And so the dragon played for time. “Surely, foolish orc, you don’t expect me to know where a person who isn’t here is, if they aren’t here to tell me where they are or aren’t, or when. Even if I knew where she was now an hour ago, she might be somewhere else or not before she goes to another place entirely. In which case anything I tell you might be true and then be false before you’re there to know it was true when I said it. And then I’d be a liar, except it was true when I said it even if I wasn’t sure. Besides, how do you know I would tell the truth to you? Maybe you would go to where I say and she would be there, but then did I really tell the truth, or just tell a lucky lie? And if you hope to avoid her entirely, and you’re threatening me to find out where she is, what makes you think I wouldn’t just tell you where she isn’t so you would end up going there and finding that she is? Then what a mess you would be in. Especially if I told you she was here now and you just didn’t know it.”

  He talked in riddles, circling with words while the orcs struggled to comprehend, all while missing the unfortunate fact that he had already told them where she was.

  Some of the orcs began to argue with one another, “Even if he tells us, who can trust his saying? He may tell the truth or a lie and either could kill us?”

  “Even if he tells the truth now, it might be a lie by the time we come to the place he says…” They all got caught up on one turn of phrase or another, and none seemed sure of what to believe.

  The chief however, remained still, quiet, and deep in thought as his tribal followers began to squabble ever louder over what to do, say, ask, or believe, and all were pulled in different directions by their own private thoughts.

  Which is why they had no chance to realize that whatever chance they had to avoid the Huntress, was already gone.