Exitium

Chapter Five

. V .

After the harsh heat of daytime, it was hard to adjust to the chills of night. All of the warmth just seemed to melt away once the sun set, and the freezing nighttime was the first one to greet any travellers.

Before, Avra had only held her cloak close for the comfort it provided her and the cover it gave her from the sand. Now, she wrapped it around her small frame for a completely different reason. Even from within the safety of the fabric, she could still feel herself shivering. It had been hard to deal with on the first night of their travels, but she still hadn’t become used to this unbelievable cold.

After meeting up with the caravan, Avra and Savvas had decided to travel with them for as long as they could. It was lucky that they had ran into the caravan, despite their original fears of being captured. Still, Avra was wary of Rulfim and Sonagh, the two orcs, as she had come to find out.

Orcs! Who would believe this nonsense! she scoffed as she sat on the ground of their so-called camp. In reality, it was nothing more than some bedrolls sprawled out near the caravan and a small fire.

This entire situation seemed to be one that made Avra doubt what she knew about the world. In fact, she was beginning to wonder if she had fallen unconscious when jumping from that tree at the lord’s house and everything that had happened afterwards was just her overactive imagination giving her amusement as she passed from the world into the next. It was the only way she could find to explain all of this.

Shifting in her position, Avra raised her hand to rub at her eyes. Her vision had begun to blur, probably from tiredness, she reasoned. She hadn’t been getting much sleep lately in her rush to get to Fivar. It was almost unhealthy, but, then again, who needed to be healthy when she was probably rotting in a jail cell, comatose?

Her thoughts were interrupted as a cup was pushed in front of her. The sweet smell filled her nose as she looked up from the hot drink to Rulfim, who regarded her with a smile on her face.

It had taken a while, but Avra had learned that the large orc was female, as opposed to her short male companion.

“What’s this?” Avra asked, turning her attention once more to the steaming cup in Rulfim’s hand.

Instead of answering the question, Rulfim nodded towards the cup. “Drink it quickly, before it cools off.”

Carefully, Avra reached out and grabbed the drink, cupping it in both hands to absorb the heat. She didn’t want to drink it. Instead, she just wanted to hold it. After all, she didn’t even know what it was. But, with another nudge from Rulfim, she drank it.

The sweet smell did little justice to the wonderful taste of the drink. It ran down her throat, quenching a thirst that she had hardly even known was there. She gripped the cup tighter, greedily drinking every last sip. When nothing else came out, Avra could barely hide her disappointment as she passed the empty cup back to Rulfim.

“What was that?” she asked once more.

A smile touched Rulfim’s face again, and the way her bottom canines overlapped the top half of her mouth was almost scary. “It is an old recipe that is taught back at home. It helps warm you up, does it not?”

Avra nodded quickly. After just drinking only a cup, she could already feel the warmth spread inside of her. While she didn’t get a complete answer, she found that she didn’t care about the question as much as she did when she first asked it.

It’s probably some orcish form of alcohol, she decided, but was surprised to find that, once again, she didn’t care. It had done its job of expelling the cold, and it had a great flavor.