Orrian sighs as he lays back on his hands. Behind us Jaq’s guard has continued his war on Horith, but his enemy’s heart seems less involved. The bullish man is now paying little attention to the argument and has his head slightly cocked in our direction, dutifully straining for any information to relay back to Faelyn no doubt. Noticing this, the pair of us edge a little further away.
“I don’t know. He can fight when he needs too, but I can’t let him kill my people,” Orrian states, quieter now, “He’s too proud, if he just gave the families here one good look, he’d know we can’t take on the H-, colony.”
I nod in agreement not knowing what else to say, I completely agree that if we stay here, we’ll get overwhelmed and that will be that. Although I suppose it shouldn’t come to that for me, either Orrian will win and we leave, or Faelyn triumphs and whilst they stay, I will be exiled. The valley passes straight past the entrance from the cavern, one way leads back to the lake and the other into the unknown, I just hope that should it come to exile the path back to Edwyn’s den is clear. If I can make it back there, I might stand a chance.
“Has anyone tried to come and talk to you yet?” Orrian questions, he sounds like he’s trying too hard to be casual.
“No, why would they?” I reply confused.
“Never mind, no reason,” he says. I know that he’s hiding something from me, but I decide to let it go for now, clearly, he doesn’t feel like enlightening me just yet. I also don’t want to push him too far, it’s clear he stuck his neck out for me a bit and so I choose to let the question go for now, storing it in the back of my mind and replacing it with another.
“What does Halpian mean?” I ask.
“Hmm?” Orrian emerges from his own thoughts.
“You said you call the colony men Halpians, well what does it mean?”
“We have a legend of the demon, Halpha. He is supposed to be the greatest predator and the beast that will one day eat the sun. Stories often describe him as a giant insect, sometimes a scorpion, in others a centipede. It is prophesied that one day our greatest champion, the Akanian, will face Halpha, and if they lose then the apocalypse will arrive. The world will plunge into total darkness and Halpha will live for eternity.
When we first saw the colony, in their metal armour cutting down our people, they were like Halpha himself. A swarm of shiny backed killers who sought to end us, and if they find us then our apocalypse will come.
All the stories tell of Halpha being a single beast, sometimes with an army of lesser creatures, but the demon is itself one. Hence, Halpians. The colony are the lesser creatures of Halpha, it’s as good a name as any,” Orrian finishes.
I pause, allowing the story to sink in. I sure hope that Orrian’s gods and demons are as inconspicuous as ours, I don’t fancy my chances against some monstrous scorpion any time soon.
Lightning fast, tiny feet race past us, earning a warning from Horith. The young boy heads straight towards the young guard where after a brief scolding the two begin whispering. The child occasionally shoots glances over at the pair of us and from his gestures it would appear that the child is questioning the tribesman. After the young guard visibly puts an end to the discussion, the boy growls in frustration and takes off again, but not without giving the guard a final kick to the shins.
“Now I’ve got a question,” Orrian says, “How did you know? Before you ran from Edwyn, how did you figure it out?” he chooses his words carefully, it’s still too soon to talk about openly and emotions are still running high just barely below the surface. But we both know what he’s skirting around, how I knew that his people had killed my dad.
“The runes,” I mutter, “You’re spears had the same runes on them.”
Orrian nods as if it’s now obvious.
“Why do you have them?” my curiosity asks, eager to branch off into a slightly less sensitive topic.
“You see that man over there?” Orrian points to a particularly frail man far from us, I only now notice that he is the centre of the small group of people around him as he huddles inside several layers of robes. “That’s Sage Malach. He’s the last sage left now, meaning that he speaks the ancient tongue.”
“The runes.”
“Yes, they give us power. The rest of us know a few of them, those we see on all the weapons for example, but there is much more to the language than just those. All our scripts, our stories, were written in the ancient tongue and passed down from generation to generation. The sages are the only ones who can interpret them. As for the ones that I know, the ones on our spears for example, gift us with accuracy and strength, they ask the gods to guide them through the air.” Orrian continues.
I nod, unsurprised. From everything I’ve learnt about Orrian’s people they seem much closer to their gods and legends than we are to ours. Whilst our own in Avlym are mentioned and occasionally prayed to, they are normally only approached in desperation and their absence has caused most of our faith to wander.
I sit with Orrian throughout the day, calming him over the upcoming fight and then remain next to him in silence whilst he’s preparing himself. Whilst it’s hard to tell the time in this place, we must stay this way for several hours, we both know that evening is nearing.
The young boy from before returns several times throughout the day, sometimes alone and sometimes accompanied by a similarly sized companion. All attempts at further questioning leads to one of
