A Modest Proposal

The mass drinking from the previous night led to a very slow departure from Trunsit. The bandits seemed to have just as painful a morning as everyone else, and Kari had to pay the tavern owner more than a few gold pieces to cover the damages from last night’s antics.

Kari would tell everyone that the Prince wouldn’t notice his dowry being a bit smaller.

Kyle wasn’t sure what to think, frankly. He was now sporting a tunic dyed a vibrant red made from fine linen, with a quilted shirt underneath for padding. While he wasn’t sure how the women had gotten it or knew his exact measurements, he admitted it felt a lot nicer to wear than his old clothes.

It wasn’t until the afternoon that everyone felt well enough to leave. Abagail, Kari, and Fiona each kept finding new reasons not to leave earlier. Kari in particular was dragging her feet, and not answering his questions about what was going on.

Something must have happened last night, he reasoned. But she didn’t want to talk about it.

It would be a three or four day journey to Castle Zoroman from here, depending on how quickly they rode on horseback. But Kyle didn’t like their odds given the problems they’d run into getting to Trunsit.

----

The road to Castle Zoroman from Trunsit was much flatter than the one from Kyle’s village. Far fewer hills, only passing by a few small forests. The only major landmark they found in the first two days was a wide river roaring down a hill, with a bridge crossing over it.

As the front of the caravan approached the bridge, the horses were spooked by the sound of a howling wolf. Then a second.

Kari grew worried. “More wolves?”

Benny shook his head. “Worse. Orcs.”

From over the horizon sprinted a dozen wolves, each ridden on their back by an orc. Their skin ran the gamut from green to gray to brown, wearing a combination of furs and spiked metal plates. Most were men with thick tusks jutting up from their lower jaws, while the women in the pack had narrower tusks.

Kyle scrambled to pull out his ‘sniper wand’. Orcs were a danger to anyone travelling the road; they were just as hostile to anyone there as they to their own kind from other tribes. In a pinch you could outrun their dire wolves on horseback, but with a group this large they’d be hard pressed.

He took his aim and fired, knocking a wolf out from under one of the orcs. A second one went down before the bandits started charging towards them. Kyle hung back with Abagail, Kari, and Fiona, in case any of them decided to ignore the bandits.

Three of the remaining orcs took that chance, making a run for them.

Kyle prepared a pitchfork, hoping he could do well enough in mounted combat.

Abagail sent pink bolts of arcane magic at the charging orcs, not quite able to lead her spells enough to hit.

That left Kyle and Fiona, who thankfully was wearing her armor. They rode out to meet the orcs near the bridge. It was impressive seeing Fiona swing her hammer on horseback, forcing the orcs to duck and swerve out of the way after the first was knocked clean into next week.

Kyle’s horse and a female orc’s wolf danced around as their riders clashed with a pitchfork and an axe. The orc’s axe bit into the pitchfork’s length, only for the rider to leave herself open to Kyle booting her off of the wolf.

The last orc launched himself off of his wolf and tackled Fiona off of her horse, the two tumbling into the raging river.

With her still in her armor….! Kyle turned to Kari. “Stay with Abagail!” He leapt off his horse and rushed to the river, diving in after her.

-----

Cold. Bitterly cold.

Kyle was struggling to keep his head above water, using whatever power he could to catch up to Fiona and the orc. The water only seemed to be speeding up, and Kyle was getting worried that –

He saw it the waterfall only moments before he went over. It was easily a hundred and fifty feed to the waters and rocks below. Kyle was launched from the water into the air and he would only have moments to react.

With his ring of power, Kyle pointed at the waters below. It wasn’t the fall that killed you – it was the stop at the end. Gradually, the rate at which he was falling slowed, until he hit the waters below with the force of a cannonball dive at the local pool.

Coming back up quickly for air, he felt something heavy move bump into him. The orc’s body was facing down into the water, unmoving.

“Fiona!” Kyle called out over the crashing water. “Fiona!”

He couldn’t hear a response. There was no way he would, not with the noise.

That’s when it hit him – Fiona was still wearing her armor. One of those mismatched pieces had to be the right kind of steel. No time like the present to see if his ring could play with magnetism.

He felt his ring hand dip into the water below – something was down there. With more magic channeling into the diamond ring, he gradually tried to pull it up. It was coming, but it was straining him already with the amount of magic he had to expend.

Breaking through the water’s surface was Fiona in her armor, not moving. Every muscle in Kyle’s body screamed at him as he tried to move her downstream and towards the shore. He couldn’t risk using the ring again until he got back on land, couldn’t risk falling unconscious now.

With a herculean effort, he grabbed Fiona’s horn and with a last spurt of energy lunged them towards shallow waters. The adrenaline was all that was keeping him going, his arms and legs giving out the second they were out of the water.

He didn’t have the strength to try CPR to get the water out from Fiona’s lungs, let alone take off enough of her armor to make an attempt.

Another use of the ring would be needed. Bringing the ring to her helmet, Kyle called on its power to suck the water up out from her lungs.

The water sprayed out from the helmet freely, but Fiona still didn’t move. And now Kyle could barely keep his eyes open. Not now, not like this!

He had one last card to play. What was it Abagail and Kari told him about oni? That they were naturally attuned to a magical element?

With his last burst of energy, he grabbed Fiona’s horn with his free hand and called down a bolt of lightning on a clear day that crashed into them both.

-----

He was so tired. Everything hurt. Opening his eyes hurt. Whatever was squeezing his ribs was making them hurt, too.

Kyle opened his eyes to see Fiona looking back at him. “Thank goodness you’re awake!”

His vision was blurry, but he could see Fiona had stripped off all of her armor and the quilted garments she wore beneath, leaving only her underwear left. She was wringing the water out of what she could.

Kyle’s hand still had a death grip on Fiona’s horn, which was only now starting to loosen. When he finally lost his grip, Fiona caught him in her arms.

She grinned. “You know, that’s the second time you’ve touched my horn?”

“Third. I grabbed it to get you out of the water.” …He shouldn’t have corrected her. Fiona nearly swooned at that.

She gently laid Kyle down on the ground, lying on top of him with a devilish grin. “Well, it’s also just like how we got engaged.”

Kyle would have laughed if his everything wasn’t in pain. “How?”

“Well,” Fiona recounted, “we were playing together one day. And a ram had come down from the mountain. It was hurt and angry, and it charged at me. You grabbed my horn and pulled me out of the way, but you must’ve hit your head on the way down because you were out of it once you landed.”

It sounded like something he’d have done as a peasant kid. “How’d that turn into a marriage proposal?”

Fiona leaned in closer. “When you grab an oni by the horns with that kind of grip and you don’t let go? That’s a marriage proposal~ So that means you just proposed to me a second time.” Now she was breathing into Kyle’s ear. “It’s a ‘yes’, by the way.”

Kyle’s eyes went wide, but he had no way to stop what was coming.

“Hey!” Abagail’s voice rang out. She was on her horse on the other side of the river. “I found them! They were at the site of that lightning strike!”

Fiona immediately got on her feet and stomped the ground, furious. “Couldn’t you have waited for FIVE. MINUTES?! I’ll freaking kill you for this, Abby!”