Episode 5: A Rainy Night
Written by: Tehri
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It had been a long time since he was last in dwarven lands now, and Tamrus was beginning to feel the need to return below ground again. Not home, no – he wasn’t sure if he’d be welcome there anymore, not after losing the caravan – but below ground, into the mountains, into the caves. He missed the feeling of not having open sky above him at all times.
Mostly he missed not having to account for rain. He hated the rain. The way it soaked through anything he wore, soaked his skin and his hair and beard, soaked him and chilled him to the bone.
“Have you found that damn ladder yet?” he snapped, squinting in the rain up at the wall of the dilapidated barn – or rather, at the hole in the wall that his companion had climbed through. “Or am I to stand here all night?”
He could hear shuffling inside, heard the clatter and scrape of wood against wood.
“You know,” said his companion’s familiar voice in a conversational tone, “if you weren’t bloody huge, you would’ve gotten inside without the ladder.”
“I’m not huge, lass. You’re just the size of a dormouse.”
A huff of laughter came from the hole, and then the faint light of a lantern became visible along with the lower part of a ladder. Slowly, painfully slowly, the ladder was lowered down; in truth, it was dropped the last meter or so, as though the person lowering it didn’t have the strength to hold it. But it held, and diamonds if Tamrus had ever been so happy to see a ladder before!
He was swift to climb up, grumbling to himself about the pouring rain, about companions not knowing the way to the next village or town, about companions not knowing how to read bloody maps, about anything, really.
A halvling waited for him up at the old hayloft, inspecting her fingers as though checking for splinters. She wore his cloak around her shoulders and had been kept dry enough by it in the downpour; there wasn’t a sign of damp on her clothes beneath or on her dark curls – at least none that he could see in the light of her lantern.
“You look like a drowned rat,” she commented casually without looking up from her hands. “You’ll need to dry off.”
“I’d love to do that,” Tamrus grumbled. “But I’m not lighting a fire in this place, lass.” He held out his hand expectantly, raising an eyebrow when she finally deigned to glance up at it. “Cloak,” he bit out. “Give it here.”
The halvling (Lily, he reminded himself, she’d already grumbled plenty about not being referred to by name) only grabbed at the cloak and wrapped it tighter around herself, almost defensively.
“You said I could have it,” she argued. “Don’t take it back as soon as it’s convenient for you! Would you let a young lass freeze?”
“If she has a cloak of her own stowed away in her pack, yes.” The dwarf waved his outstretched hand at her and scowled. “Now give it here, you little thief!”
It had become a commonplace exchange on their journey, and neither of them truly put any heat in their words; Lily had sticky fingers, and Tamrus was old enough and had been a merchant for long enough to know to keep his eyes out for his belongings. She’d already tried to nick several things from him just during the month they’d known each other, and each time he’d caught her by the collar and made her give it up.
It reminded him a little too much of home, of catching wayward dwarflings by the scruff of their neck and reminding them to keep their hands to themselves. In a good-natured sort of way, of course – he’d never hurt any of them, and they’d never held any grudges for all that they whined about getting caught.
Home.
He glanced out the hole in the wall at the pouring rain. The Overworld was wearing on him, with its constant shifting lights and weather and wind. He longed for the mountains, for the caves, for the gentle glow of the crystals and for the ringing echo of voices in the deeps.
Travelling in the Overworld had been fine while he was still a merchant, always with the knowledge that he’d be turning back home eventually. It was so different now. Too different.
Little by little, the odd travelling companions settled down for the night. No fire was lit; while the barn was empty save for the two of them and a lot of old hay, neither wanted to find out what a stray spark from a flame could achieve even in the pouring rain. Lily took to making herself a bed in the hay, stretching out with her pack as a pillow, and she seemed quite comfortable. Tamrus rested against the wall near the little hole, wrapped up tightly in his reclaimed cloak, and found himself slowly lulled to sleep by the rain.
His dreams, however, were anything but peaceful. In his dreams, he was back in the forest with the caravan, fighting for his life, fighting for the lives of his comrades while the damn hag before him laughed at his futile efforts. Strike after strike with his battle-axe, and yet nothing seemed to take, and he grew wearier and wearier – until the hag suddenly caught him and shoved him to the ground.
Choose, you blood-thirsty beast! I told you to choose! You, or them! A simple choice, and then I shall allow you all passage!
Manic laughter, the snarling of a wild beast in his head, the pain of his body changing, blood on the ground, blood on her hands, blood on his hands, on his clothes, on his face, in his mouth, and the gnawing hunger, the sweet, sweet taste of meat, the hag’s last gurgling laugh leaving her throat as he bent low to devour it—
“Tamrus!”
He woke with a jerk, gasping for breath as he raised one hand to touch his stinging cheek. For a moment, he couldn’t tell where he was, but his eyes found a halvling standing before him with a scowl on her face and anxiety in her eyes, and somewhere low in his throat rose a growl to echo the hunger gnawing at his stomach—
“Wake up, you big lug!” Again she slapped him, and he hissed at the sting of it. She moved out of his reach, just for a moment, not long enough for him to get up and lunge at her, and she returned with a cloth bag that she shoved in his arms. “You were dreaming! Pull yourself together!”
He breathed deeply, catching the scent of apples from the bag. He breathed again, and again, and made himself open the bag to take out one of the fruits to eat.
Bite by bite, the hunger dissipated, and the nausea of shame soon followed it.
He didn’t ask her how bad it had been about to get before she slapped him. He wouldn’t ask; it was enough to know that he’d scared her, if only for a moment. She’d already seen what that beast could do, and she didn’t need to see it again – especially not directed at her.
“Are you losing it?” Lily asked once Tamrus had finished an apple. “What happened?”
The dwarf frowned.
“It was just a dream,” he muttered. “Nothing more.”
“Right. And you always wake up from your dreams growling and eyeing your companions like they’d make very easy and convenient snacks? I think I see why you’ve been travelling alone.”
Tamrus tensed involuntarily at her words. They stung, far more than he was willing to admit, and the sting made his mood worsen, soured as it already was by the pouring rain and the uneasy dream.
“I’m not losing control,” he snapped at her. “You’ll know when that happens, because my teeth will be in your throat before you can blink!” He saw her tense as well, saw her hand reaching for her dagger, saw her sharp eyes assess the situation. Again came the wave of shame, and he groaned at it and turned to look out into the darkness beyond the barn. “Haven’t you ever had a nightmare, lass?” he asked, trying to explain rather than apologise. Apologising never came easily to him. “One where you wake up and you don’t know where you are and every shadow is a threat? I was dreaming, that’s all. And I… I suppose I’m glad you woke me before I had the chance to hurt you.”
Lily’s quiet footsteps came closer, and soon she sat down next to him with her lantern, seeming unafraid at last. She was tense still; her posture was wrong, and her hand didn’t stray far from the hilt of her dagger. But she was there, and that was more than the dwarf thought he deserved.
“Should we find another grove?” she asked him at length. “See if there’s any help to get?”
He shook his head. He’d told her his story on their journey, only because she badgered him relentlessly about it; his time as a merchant, the unfortunate caravan, the hag’s trick, the curse. She knew of the beast he became – and she knew that the grove that had helped him gain some semblance of control over the curse was far away.
He’d sought out so many groves before finding them, had been rejected at each one. Only that half-mad bunch were willing to take him in and help, and only because they claimed to see a similarity between the magic of the curse and the workings of the magic they wielded.
“We’ll keep moving,” he answered. “I won’t have nightmares every night, lass.”
He shouldn’t be trying to comfort her. She was the one who chose to follow him and drive him half to madness.
But perhaps Tamrus felt just a little calmer with a companion at his side. He was far from home and couldn’t go back there – but he wasn’t alone. He rather thought that he would prefer to keep it that way.
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