An arrow on the string waits without will or purpose. It is a restless thing of potential and promise. Of feathers, shaft, and sharpened tip. It is a deadly thing, crafted to pierce and plunge. It is a vessel for the hunter’s desire. Tonight, Sorrows waited for three orcs when he should have been searching for a Seph. But he feared what a Seph might mean. What might be taken from him. When they had already taken so much.
He, like every other human, had been taught to fear the Seph at some point in his life. It was a warning passed on by mothers and fathers. It was a lesson woven into story and song. It was the horror threatened in childhood games. Run and hide, run and hide! Seph will find you, go inside! Sorrows had been full of bravado as a boy, not so different from the other children, but he, too, had felt the tingling along his spine when he turned his back to darkened doorways. When the wind howled in the night.
Despite his youthful boasts, he had heeded the warnings. As he grew older, the attacks on humans spread, trust withered. Any human might be a Seph walking in stolen skin. People grew frightened and wary and defensive. They watched him with sideways glances, slipped away as he approached. They walked in pairs, whispering his name as they touched fingers to lips. None of it made sense. He knew he was not Seph and wondered at what drove their fear.
Revelation hit him like a fist to the side of the head one evening, coming in from the woods. He heard shouts, ran to investigate, and came upon a fight. It was little more than a drunken disagreement, but he threw himself between the two men. He was fifteen. He shoved the men apart like squabbling children, sending them stumbling to the ground. Gods, Solomon, if the Seph catch you, we’re done for.
He walked home dazed by realization. The other humans looked past who he was to what he might become, and they feared him for it. Treated him differently for something he had not done. Like any other teenage boy faced with injustice, Sorrows grew angry. But unlike other teenage boys, he used his anger to shape his purpose. He would show the other humans they had nothing to fear. He would become a protector. A weapon. An arrow on the string.
When the moon hung high over the mountains, Sorrows left the dark corner and moved beside the front door, leaning against the wall. The tavern was quiet behind him. The owner had stopped cleaning the tables and was waiting. Crickets chirped. A breeze rustled the grass, carrying the smells of fall and rain.
Three lanky-armed shapes appeared on the road, gray and hazy in the moonlight. Two conversed with grunts and gestures while the third followed a pace or two behind. They stepped onto the path leading to the tavern and reached toward their backs, pulling their blades free. The first two cut clumsy arcs in front of them. The third held his weapon awkwardly, like it was the first time he had gripped a sword. They walked closer. The lines of their leather armor gleamed in the moonlight. Sorrows slipped out of the shadow beneath the eaves of the tavern and stepped between the door and the approaching orcs.
“You made a mistake coming back,” he said. “Leave now, live to drink another ale.”
A simple message. One the orcs were guaranteed to ignore.
The orcs, despite being startled, maintained their composure. Their shoulders tightened, their swords moved in front of their chests, tips pointed forward. They almost looked like they knew what they were doing. They were tall, well-muscled, intimidating. Their armor added bulk, their tusks added menace. The two in front dropped into wide, balanced stances. The third stood tall and watchful in the back.
“Who in all hells are you?” the largest of the three asked.
His voice was low and guttural. A bull barking like a dog. And he was the first to speak, which made him the lead bull.
Sorrows squared to face him. “I’m your friend. I might not be your only friend, but right now I’m your best friend. Do you know why?”
Stubborn silence. Expected.
“Why?” The smaller orc to the left. The question earned a backhand from the big orc. Expected.
So far, the orcs were behaving as Sorrows knew orcs to behave. Except the third. The pale observer that watched silently from behind. He watched too closely. He studied. Sorrows had never known an orc to study anything. An anomaly. And anomalies caused trouble. Anomalies were better confronted than left to fester.
Sorrows shifted. “What about you, gray? Care to guess why the big guy might lose his head?”
The question accomplished three things: it startled the pale orc, who thought himself invisible, standing in the back; it confused the orc to the left, causing him to turn toward his pale companion; and it enraged the big orc, the leader. A leader who had started out in control, but who had since been both threatened and ignored.
A wary orc holds his blade in one
