Chapter 10
Allora disappeared around the other side of the wagon and Mitchell lost sight of her. He didn't know why, but he wanted to go after her and apologize. He reminded himself that he didn't owe her an apology. Still, the desire was there, nonetheless. He suppressed it. He tried to ignore the pain he felt at her words as well. He hadn't asked for any of this. But the way she'd looked at him with such disdain and disgust bothered him. It shouldn't matter what she thought of him, he told himself. Yet, it did.
Whether he openly admitted it or not, she was perhaps the fiercest, most amazing woman he'd ever met. After all those hours in the cage, he had come to rely on her strength. She had never cowered before them, had never given them the satisfaction of appearing weak. Her example had given him the strength to do the same despite being absolutely terrified.
He sat back down in a huff and squinted as a blast of hot air blew sand in his face. It had been so long since he'd felt anything cool that he was beginning to forget what the word even meant. He was so exhausted he couldn't think clearly. Every time he tried to follow a train of thought it would evaporate away. He never got to any conclusions or decisions and this soured his mood even further. He needed to sleep, and he wanted to wake up back where things made sense.
He was lost in his own musings when Revos sat across from him in the spot Allora had been in moments before. Mitchell looked up to see the big creature glaring at him. Under normal circumstances, it might have been intimidating. He did look like something that had stepped out of Dante's Inferno, after all. But Mitchell had grown somewhat accustomed to his presence over the last several days which just went to show that people could adapt to almost anything, given enough time.
"What are you looking at?" Mitchell asked.
"A petulant child," Revos said.
"Fuck you," Mitchell shot back.
The creature arched an eyebrow but didn't respond. He didn't respond for so long that Mitchell began to grow uncomfortable under his golden stare.
"That girl has been through the nine hells and back. She carries the weight of an entire kingdom on her shoulders. She does not deserve to be spoken to like that. What happened to you and how you were brought here were not her fault."
"Then whose fault was it?"
"It was mine," he said flatly.
Mitchell hadn't been expecting that.
Revos took a large breath and glanced over at where Lethelin still sat silently, ever watchful. Then he continued.
"Ivaran's men ambushed me in the market ten days after I sent Lora to your realm. They tracked her to me. I don't know how. She carries a charm with her that is supposed to block her from scrying but somehow Milandris has been finding ways around it."
"Why didn't you magic your way out of it? You handled Ivaran easily enough."
Revos looked offended.
"Ivaran barely had enough magic to light a campfire. In a straight duel, I would have boiled the blood from his body before he could scream. But a strike to the back of the head while one is chatting up a silk merchant's lovely daughter will knock out an arcanist as easily as a stable boy. When I came to, I was back in my tower with the manacles on and as helpless as a babe. I was told to reveal where Allora had gone or they would kill me. As you can see, I am still alive."
"You're not a very loyal friend," Mitchell said.
"I am a survivor. I make no apologies for that. I am quite fond of Lora, but I am more fond of myself."
"So you sold her out. And me."
"And I would do it again," Revos said and gave him a flat look.
"With friends like these..." Mitchell said and let it trail off.
Revos cocked his head.
"What does that mean?"
"It's an expression from my world. With friends like these who needs enemies?"
"Ah," Revos said. "I understand. Quite. But Lora knew the kind of person I was when she came to me. I am many things, but heroic is not one of them. We thought her safe in Iletish but we were mistaken."
Mitchell was quiet, not sure what to say.
"Whether you return or not, you owe her an apology. She has lost more and suffered more than you can imagine."
"If you were so fond of her, you should have fought a little harder to protect her."
"I am a survivor," Revos shrugged.
"Whatever," Mitchell said. "I'm going to get some sleep."
Mitchell went to the back of the wagon and retrieved one of the bedrolls that had, only that morning, belonged to their captors. Laying down with a strip of cloth over his eyes he tried to make sense of everything. Before he got very far, he fell into a dreamless sleep.
Mitchell awoke to darkness. As his thoughts began to clear, he tried to figure out what had awoken him. The camp was mostly quiet with Revos snoring softly. Then he heard it again. A sniffle.
He turned his head slowly and saw Allora sitting cross-legged and staring down at her sword that was back in the scabbard and lying on the ground in front of her knees. Her hand was clutched tightly around something and she was speaking in a low voice. The language spell had worn off long ago and he was back to not understanding a word she said.
Even covered in dust and grime from days on the road, she was almost ethereally beautiful in the moonlight. Her violet eyes glistened with unshed tears. It hurt Mitchell somewhere inside to see her in so much pain. That feeling was made worse because he knew he was the cause.
"
No
," he told himself for the hundredth time. "
This is not your fight and these are not your problems.
"
Mitchell knew he would have to be insane to even consider it. This was a place of swords and sorcery. What could he do? How was he supposed to stop an invading army? Was he supposed to bury them under Excel spreadsheets? Maybe he could beat Milandris in a singing competition with his vast knowledge of 90s grunge bands. A dance-off was all well and good in Marvel movies, but he doubted the guy who wanted to kill him would be stopped by Mitchell's enthusiastic twerking.
Mitchell wasn't a white knight, he wasn't a hero, and as much as he might want to help her he wasn't even qualified to take care of the giant lizard pulling their wagon, let alone save a kingdom. He belonged back on Earth, with his friends and family, his boring but stable job, and Tinder dating. No magic, no monsters, no one trying to kill him. And no beautiful bad-ass elfin sorceresses who asked him to be a king and save a kingdom.
He realized then that Allora's whispers had stopped. He refocused his eyes and saw she was looking at him. She didn't speak and neither did he. Her moist eyes bored into his, unblinking and pleading. Mitchell turned away from her and tried to go back to sleep.
Chapter 11
Mitchell awoke again when someone nudged his shoulder. He blinked his eyes and saw Lethelin standing over him.
"Rocen," she said.
Mitchell knew that one. Wake up.
He nodded to her and, once she was satisfied that he wouldn't fall back asleep, went off about her morning routine. He sat up and stretched. It was still dark, of course. Even without their captors, their routine hadn't changed.
Things got a little awkward as Lethelin and Revos went off to find food for the lizard that pulled the wagon and it was just him and Allora left to tidy up. The tension between them was like a miasma they were forced to endure as they went about breaking camp. She didn't bother casting the language spell on him because they knew what needed to be done without having to talk through it.
The job was easy enough with only the four of them and they finished well before Revos and Lethelin got back. Mitchell sat against the wagon's side eating some of their rations and watched as Allora went through her morning rituals. She faced Vish where it was approaching the far horizon, getting down on her knees and then prostrating herself. She lay that way for several minutes and Mitchell once again felt a serenity come over the camp. He tried to tell himself he was just imagining it but deep down he didn't believe that. Gods were real in this place.
Once she was finished, she stood and went through a series of stretches that looked very much like yoga. Mitchell had dated a girl a few years ago who had been very into the activity and she'd cajoled him into joining her on more than one occasion. Once he'd gotten used to it, he found that he actually enjoyed the exercise. Of course, his ex-girlfriend's shapely ass in yoga pants made the experience more rewarding.
What Allora was doing looked like a version of Ashtanga yoga which was all about stretching and breathing. She would find a pose and hold it for several long moments, inhaling deeply into each movement, and then move to the next pose. He was surprised to see a lot of similar forms to what he would have done back home and then figured it only made sense. Allora may not have been human but she was shaped like one and there were only so many ways to stretch a body.
He saw some of the movements give her trouble and he chalked that up to days spent in a cage, but Allora powered through it. By the end of her session, she was gliding through her forms with ease. Mitchell couldn't help but admire her body as she exercised. Her limbs were long and powerful and the jeans that she still wore from his world were pulled tight over a phenomenal ass. He tried not to stare. He didn't want to be "that guy". But he couldn't help it. Once she had limbered up, she moved with the fluidity of a dancer, her feet shifting smoothly through the sand and her arms settling gently into each pose.
After about half an hour, Allora finished up with a mountain pose, arms spread slightly at her sides, palms facing out and head back. Mitchell expected her to return to the wagon and rest but instead, she stepped over, unsheathed her sword, and then began a whole new series of exercises with the blade that was hypnotic to watch.
The movements started slow and were similar to her earlier calisthenics but clearly designed to include her weapon. As she found her rhythm, the movements became much more aggressive as though she were sparring with an invisible opponent. As Allora progressed and the motions became more intense, Mitchell began to hear her breathing coming harder. That she was fighting only air didn't seem to matter. At the end of each strike and block, her sword stopped just as solidly as if she were coming up against another blade. In all his life, he'd never seen anyone move as she did. He'd seen demonstrations of things like HEMA, or Historical European Martial Arts, which this seemed to be similar to, but none had moved like her. She moved like someone whose life depended on her skill with the blade, not someone who was performing at a Renaissance fair.
Allora was panting as she finished and her hair was matted with sweat. She held the flat of the blade against her forehead, said her prayer, then grabbed the scabbard off the ground and resheathed it before heading back to the wagon. The stained white shirt clung to her chest and back and Mitchell got to admire the swell of her breasts and her nipples poking prominently against the fabric as she went straight to the barrel and poured a ladle of water over her head. She repeated the gesture once more and then took a long drink before releasing a satisfied breath.
"That was impressive," Mitchell said.
Allora looked at him, perhaps trying to parse out his meaning. She must have understood well enough because she nodded and gave him a tight smile before heading to the other side of the wagon where the wash barrel was situated. He heard the sound of her disrobing and tried very hard not to imagine her body naked as she rinsed off the sweat from her workout. He failed miserably.
The sky was just beginning to lighten in the east when Revos and Lethelin returned. By this time Allora had washed and put her damp clothes back on and was lounging in the wagon bed eating a meal of nuts and dried fruits. The lizard had pulled itself out of the sand and was looking around and making noises that Mitchell had come to understand indicated hunger. He and Allora still hadn't spoken to each other. He wanted desperately to talk to her, to say something, but found he didn't know how to overcome the barrier that their fight had created.
Revos and Lethelin fed the lizard something that looked suspiciously like rabbits and one of the dakas which it gobbled down without bothering to chew first. Mitchell still found the beast terrifying.
He got up to stretch while Allora looked at him and then at Revos. A few words passed back and forth between them, Revos looked at Mitchell with a raised eyebrow, then back to Allora and shrugged. He pulled himself up into the wagon's driver's seat and waited for the rest of them to mount up.
Allora turned her eyes back on Mitchell and he saw the stones in her headband glow. He felt the familiar tingle as her magic passed over him and then she spoke.
"Mitchell, I have asked Revos to send you back. Once we can get some place safe where he can set up the circle, we will send you home."
Mitchell was stunned. "You... You will?"
