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Outside, Luna's radiance shone across patches of the ground with a pale, silver light and threw the rest of the yard into a deeper blackness.
The horses twitched and fidgeted, visibly disturbed by the presence of death and the smell of blood.
"We'd better get them away from this." Ragnar said noticing their agitation.
"Yes." Emiel agreed "They're going to need some time to quiet down. There is a place nearby where I had planned to spend the night. The horses should calm down once we are there."
"I thought the house..." Ragnar began.
"No," Emiel interrupted him. "The house is a meeting place, but it's never really safe. It's too well known and too often used."
Emiel had walked across the porch to the end of the house and peered around the corner. He called out to Ted, "Take Ragnar and the horses, I will meet you shortly."
"Why?" Ted asked.
"I want to find my knife. I left it over here, but it seems to have crawled off with one of the orcs. I don't think it could have gone far." Emiel called back, then dropped off the side of the porch and went around the far side of the house.
"Come on." Ted said to Ragnar, grabbing the bridle of Emiel's horse and his own. "It's a bit of a way."
Ragnar said nothing, but wheezed in a rhythm with his footsteps, stifling a groan from time to time as his injured ribs were jarred time and again.
* * *
A trail of blood led from the porch to a crawl space under the house. Emiel kicked off his boots then his leather armor before crawling underneath himself. He had striped down as if for a swim and dived after the cornered wounded beast.
It was quiet for a short while, then from somewhere below the house came a muffled, but terrible, scream and the thumps and bangs of some desperate struggle, then silence.
Sometime later Emiel dragged himself out. He used a ragged cloth he'd brought with him to wipe a coating of blood from his body. As he sat and pulled his boots back on, a small congealing stain on the back of his hand caught his eye. He licked it off with a rough red tongue and smiled contentedly.
* * *
Ragnar stood with both his arms raised. Ted was wrapping long strips of cloth, cut from a horse blanket, around the northman's upper chest.
A dark bruise ran down Ragnar's right side, from his armpit to just below his ribcage. It went from a yellowish brown at the edges and darkened to a deep blue-black at its center. That was the worst, but Ragnar ached from head to toe and he was covered with cuts, gouges and scrapes from his fight with the ogre.
They stood in a small chamber beneath the ground. Above them the horses were fed, watered and brushed, installed in a small building which from the outside appeared to be collapsed and uninhabitable. Its entrance seemed blocked and its interior unreachable. But a section of ruined wall could be slid aside, with some effort and only after a trap, set to drop part of the structure upon intruders, was disarmed.
Inside it appeared to be no more than a ruined shack, empty except for spiders' webs and the scuffle of rats. Again a disguised section of wall could be opened if one knew its secrets. Ted had used the haft of his spear as a key, sliding it into a lock disguised as a rat hole along the base. Only with the spear in place, pushing back a latch within, was Ted able to safely open the door. Once inside he pulled the spear free and reset the trap.
Below, they entered into a small square room. Its walls were made of stones plowed up from the fields around. Racks to hold weapons, empty for the most part, and shelves to hold supplies, lined three of the walls. A table was set against the fourth. Lanterns hung from brackets set in the corners. Ted lit one as soon as he entered the room. His footsteps clopped across the stone then drummed hollowly as he walked over a circular wooden lid set in the floor.
"Whats that for?" Ragnar asked him, nodding toward the wooden lid.
"Its an old well, and a way out in a pinch." Ted went over to it and put his hands around a metal handle folded into its top. He needed two hands to raise it, but once he had, it moved easily.
Ragnar sat upon the table, his ribs ached and a great weariness settled over him.
* * *
"Ragnar, Ragnar..." Someone was calling his name and the dream slipped away. He exhaled deeply as if he had been holding his breath, licked his lips and opened his eyes.
"I wasn't sleeping." He lied.
Emiel stood over him, looking down with an amused expression.
Ragnar rolled out of the thick blanket he'd wrapped around himself and began to rise, grabbing Emiel's offered hand and drawing himself to his feet.
The light in the chamber was dim, the room cold and the time very late. Ragnar yawned, a great leonine yawn. He scratched the back of his neck and ran his fingers through his beard, pulling the tangled hair straight. "What is it." he mumbled.
"Time to be going." Emiel said. "We need to make an early start."
Ted was busy repacking supply bags they had brought with them from Hochoch. He'd emptied their contents out across the table, then picked out several items and moved them to the empty shelves lining the walls. Now he was in the process of putting back what remained.
"We always try to leave more than we take." Emiel explained. "Ted, hurry that up. I want to be well away from here before daylight."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Ted answered. "Almost done."
"Where to now?" Ragnar turned to Emiel. "It seems that we are not to wait?"
"That would be foolish. And useless." Emiel said. He paced back and forth in a distracted manner, deciding what to say and what to keep secret. "Those orcs and goblins will run crying home to their masters, but I doubt they will return here before daybreak at the earliest. My people either did not arrive or left in a rush. I expected some message to be here, perhaps even Lilith, my wife, to be waiting." He paused, some random thought or worry distracting him momentarily. "My people maintain an outpost about a half days ride to the north. It should be occupied and we should be able to find out what has happened."
"Alright." Ted spoke up. "All done here. Grab your packs and lets get going!"
* * *
(To Be Continued)