Rescued Against His Will

The elves around us shifted as she lowered the staff. They weren’t threatening, just… adjusting, like her action meant something in a language I didn’t speak.

She offered no explanation for “Redborn,” why the elves had attacked an Imperial convoy for me, or what they expected in return. She just watched. I hated that almost as much as her poise.

I used the silence to get my bearings and see my options. The conclusion was not good. If I managed to get past the ring of elves, I still had bodies and wreckage to climb over. The forest might provide cover but with the chain between my ankles I would barely win a race against a slug. The Paladins would cover my slime trail in an instant.

“Redborn,” I repeated.

Her eyes lit up. Whatever the word meant, her reaction told me two things. The attack had not been an accident, and I was the reason they had risked it.

“I think he is in the next wagon.” I pointed behind her with my chin. “You should keep looking.”

The woman blinked.

Apparently, she had prepared for gratitude or compensation. She never considered the possibility they saved the wrong man.

She touched a hand to her chest.

“Nimiwa Numa.”

“That way,” I repeated, pointing this time.

She looked up and to the side, frowning as she raised a finger to her lip.

“My name,” she said at last. “Nimiwa Numa. Oracle of Tawa and Hanwi.”

Oracle came out more confidently than her name.

She pointed at me. “You are Redborn.”

“No. I am leaving.”

I took a step to the side. The elves moved with me.

“Nimi,” I said, “make them move.”

Her brow furrowed. “Nimiwa.”

At least she had mastered one word.

“Yes. You.”

“Nimiwa,” she repeated, slower this time. “Ni-mi-wa.”

I was beginning to miss the Life Mage's charming conversation.

“Nimiwa.” She went rigid when she heard me say her name. “What do you want?” I asked.

Nimiwa glanced toward the ring of warriors.

None of them volunteered to help.

Maybe they didn't understand the human tongue. Or perhaps they enjoyed watching the oracle struggle.

“Hanwi is silent.”

I waited but there was no further elaboration. She seemed to think that explanation was enough to explain the dead soldiers and why I was in the middle of an elven circle.

I thought for a moment trying to put the pieces together.

I looked over at the Paladin who had a hole in his chest. The Church claimed that demi-humans were blessingless. The corpse was evidence that at least some of them weren't.

And Hanwi…

An oracle was probably something akin to a priest. If her god went silent without warning, she would probably want to know why they had been forsaken.

“Gods do that,” I said. “Usually when someone asks them to be useful.”

A few elves reacted when I said gods, but kept the ring formed.

“No.” Nimiwa shook her head hard enough to stir the feathers behind her. “She not refuse us.”

“Nimi…” Her brow tightened as I started to say her name. Had it been another time I would have enjoyed myself. Unfortunately, this conversation needed to end before the Imperial Order came to investigate.

“...wa.” She relaxed a bit. “You should leave,” I said.

“No! Hanwi not answer. Blessing does not come.”

She touched two fingers to her side, then drew them across her stomach.

“Wounds do not close. Sickness does not leave.” She looked toward one of the dead elves. “Children die.”

Finally some progress.

The elves had lost access to their healing god, and this oracle had led warriors into an Imperial convoy because she believed I could fix it.

Not the best judgment. Sending soldiers into battle in this situation was wasting life they probably couldn't afford.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“You are Redborn.”

“Yes. I understand that you enjoy saying that, but it doesn't change anything. I am Nullborn.”

“You can enter.”

“Enter what?”

“Hanwi’s shrine.”

“You cannot?”

It was clear she was getting frustrated, thinking I was the one being difficult.

“We can enter the outer place.”

“The outer place.”

“Yes.”

“What happened to the inner place?”

“Tawa says can’t enter.”

“Why?”

She hesitated. “I do not know.”

“Well then. May I suggest you go and look for a better oracle.”

Her cheeks went flush and she tightened her grip on the staff. Before she could answer, a horn sounded somewhere down the road.

The vanguard ahead had heard the battle and was heading back.

The elves reacted to the sound. Heads turned and axes were readied.

Nimiwa looked toward the sound but did not move.

A tall elf pushed through the ring. He lacked all of the ritual flair that Nimiwa was wearing. He was very clearly built for savagery and the war paint made sure you didn't ask if he was friendly. He carried a large shield made of bone and what resembled a double-sided ax. There was a sharp blade on one side, while the other had an arc of razor-sharp bone teeth stained dark with blood. Unlike the warriors forming the ring, he did not look to Nimiwa for instruction. Whatever authority came with being an oracle, this was the man everyone expected to keep them alive.

He grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her toward him.

Their discussion was in elvish but anger doesn't need a translator.

He pointed toward the road.

Next, the bodies.

Then jabbed a finger into Nimiwa’s chest hard enough to make her stumble back.

Her certainty vanished and was replaced with panic.

She answered quickly, gesturing toward me.

The warrior held up two fingers and silenced her.

None of the other elves around us seemed all that surprised by the exchange.

The tall elf turned toward me and said something with a tone of contempt.

“I agree completely,” I said.

Nimiwa glanced between us.

“He says you waste time.”

“I may have agreed too quickly.”

The warrior barked another sentence. Nimiwa drew her shoulders inward.

“He says I waste more.”

“Ah. See. I knew he was the wisest elf here.”

She shot me a wounded look, but the warrior was not finished.

Nimiwa answered him rapidly, gesturing toward me and then toward the forest. The warrior cut her off with a short warning cry.

Every elf around us moved. The ring dissolved as they lifted their wounded, collected arrows that were still usable and vanished into the trees like they had done this thousands of times.

The warrior pointed his ax at me closer than I preferred and issued another command.

“We leave now,” Nimiwa said.

“Perfect. I’ll take the opposite direction.”

She shook her head. “You come with us.”

“That ruins the part that was perfect.”

The warrior stepped forward with the ax at his side.

I tightened my grip on the flamberge.

He looked at the sword, then at me. His expression suggested he was not impressed by either.

“He will carry you.”

The warrior reached for me.

“No.” I stepped back.

Another horn sounded much closer this time.

Nimiwa turned to the warrior and began speaking quickly in Elvish. He was more than annoyed but she persisted. It was an intense but brief argument. The only thing I could understand was Nimiwa miming walking with two fingers against her palm.

The warrior crouched beside me and nudged my feet apart with his shield.

“Tell him to be careful,” I said.

Nimiwa translated. The warrior gave a short reply.

“He says he will try not to remove feet.”

He lifted his ax and brought the metal edge down, splitting the chain link.

I immediately raised my wrists and shook the remaining chain between them.

Nimiwa looked at the flamberge still held between my shackled hands.

“No.”

“You want me to walk, right?”

“You walk with feet.”

“I’m beginning to see why you became an oracle.”

Her brow tightened again.

The tall elf shook his head and mumbled something, then raised the ax once more. One moment later I was free from the chains and had my mobility back.

The elves apparently wanted me alive and with them. That was the only advantage I possessed and only if it was used.

The warrior shouted another order and two elves appeared next to me on both sides.

“They help you,” Nimiwa said as they each took hold of one of my arms.

The sound of horses carried through the trees.

The elves were withdrawing.

The path ahead of me was open and my shackles broken.

The elves wanted me alive. The Paladins wanted me burned.

A sensible man might have chosen the elves. I survived 40 years by distrusting sensible choices, especially when offered by armed strangers.

I let the flamberge slip from my hands. The point struck the ground between us. Before the elf on my right could move, I twisted my hips and let the blade’s weight topple across his foot.

He jerked back on one foot. I threw my shoulder into the elf on my left and twisted free.

I ran into the forest without looking back.

Behind me, Nimiwa shouted. Short, urgent cries answered from every direction, passing the warning through the trees.

I made it several steps.

A considerable victory over the slug. Unfortunately, there was no time for celebration.

A hand caught the collar of my prison rags and yanked me back.

Then the tall elf cut in front of me.

He said something that sounded calm and very much like it was going to hurt.

“I still agree with you,” I told him.

He punched me hard in the gut.

I fell to my knees.

Nimiwa pushed through the warriors and dropped beside me, placing an arm across my back.

“I said no hurt him!”

Nimiwa pushed him back with her staff.

The tall elf answered with one word.

I looked over my shoulder and saw her blue and orange eyes shining in the shadows of the forest.

She looked angry. And frightened.

“You are very difficult,” she said.

“We finally understand each other.”

She shouted something and an elf approached holding a thin bone needle between his fingers.

Something clear was dripping from the tip.

I looked up at the tall elf whose knuckles had gone white around the ax.

I watched as she carefully took the needle.

“Nimiwa.”

She flinched at the way I said her full name.

“It is sleep,” she said.

The needle entered the side of my neck and my legs weakened almost immediately.

“You will not die here.”

She sounded less like an oracle proclaiming the future and more like a panicked girl desperately hoping she had translated it correctly.

I could feel a chill moving throughout my body. Nimiwa’s orange eye began to blur first. The blue followed. Then the lights went out.