Coroh Veldha

Shiiink… shiiink… shiiink…

Their leader sat on the other side of the dwindling campfire, sliding a worn down whetstone over his rusty and stained blade over and over again. He looked worse for wear than Coroh did, slouched over with barely the strength to stand. His once prized rifle was gone but she didn’t know why or how that came to be; any questions about it were too often answered with an angry grunt and a dirty look. He hadn’t so much as stepped foot inside New Gridania or any other Free City in moons and it was clearly taking a heavy toll. She would never admit it to his face lest she invoke his fury, but she truly did pity him. Perhaps one day they could return together, and leave this hard life behind.

“Boss! BOSS!” Shouted Squeagly in between gasps of breath. “Haah… hahhh…. fresh meat!”

Coroh blinked the sleep away and sat up in his hammock, but he raised a bandaged hand to stop her. “Stay here, chef. We’ll handle this.” K’thalen used his sword as a cane to help lift him onto his feet. One hand went to the wet wound dressing on his stomach when he stumbled forward, but he clenched his teeth and swallowed back the grunt of pain; she knew he did it for her sake, vainly attempting to pretend his wounds from his last incursion weren’t hurting. Much to his chagrin she also knew better. His piercing yellow eyes flickered in the dim light at her for a long moment before he turned on his heel and followed the scrawny hyur down the winding path without a spoken word.

A Lalafellin merchant held the reins of his chocobos as they hauled his wagon beneath the thick canopy of the forest, following the spiraling twists and turns of the old road. He would have been easy prey two moons ago, but bandit attacks were on the rise all over Eorzea; this one was smart enough to hire five sellswords to escort him through the foliage. A lantern as big as the Lalafell’s head swayed and creaked with every bump on the road, casting a harsh orange light to chase away the surrounding shadows. Worse still, he whistled a merry tune as loud as he could manage -- at least it sounded like it was supposed to be merry. What he lacked in skill he made up for with enthusiasm, and he was quite enthusiastic in his songs. The hardened faces of the hired help all told the same story; this merchant couldn’t whistle a note if his life depended on it.

“Stop right there!” Boomed a voice from above. The startled merchant and his guards all glanced up to see K’thalen sitting along a branch, with a shortsword in one hand and an aging revolver in the other. “Ain’t nobody gotta die this lovely night! Drop ya goods on the ground n’we’ll let ya on by! We want ya bundles -- not ya blood!”

“B-bandits?!” The merchant squeaked. He tried to tilt the lantern up to illuminate the stranger, but all he saw was the glowing yellow eyes of the Miqo’te man threatening him. “Don’t just stand there you idiots! Protect me!”

The bowman in the back notched an arrow and let it loose! K’thalen ducked back to let it whiz past his nose, flipping backward as his tail clung to the branch! He then dropped down onto the ground with a heavy thud when he released his grip, and stumbled a moment before regaining his balance; the bandit raised his revolver and fired! Click! “What the-?” Click click!

“You’re a dead man!” Three men charged him with swords and spears! K’thalen dropped his faulty firearm into the dirt as he ducked beneath the swing of the greatsword, his own blade flashing in the lantern’s light to bite through chainmail and boiled leather! With a twist of his wrist the blade came back down onto the guard’s back, sending the man faltering forward with a pained scream! TWIING! His blade bounced against the metal spike of the lance, deflecting it away from his body! With his free hand he caught it by the shaft and with a surge of strength he  buried his sword deep into the man’s stomach!

The former gunslinger sidestepped and twirled between these sorry excuses for guards like it was rehearsed, splattering blood along the trees as entrails flopped onto the path! He caught another arrow with his bare hand, just as the third man came bearing down on him with a heavy overhead swing! “RAAAARGH-ACK!” Clumps of dirt were kicked up into his open mouth and widened eyes, but the roegadyn brought down the sword all the same; Thalen raised his blade to defend, but it was a heartbeat too late!

The rust had eaten too much of his sword, and the strike shattered it into pieces! It bit down through his iron shoulder plate and split flesh and bone alike! “Guhhh-!” K’thalen coughed through grit teeth, and drove the arrowhead as deep into his attacker’s eye as he could manage. The roegadyn jerked back and howled, clawing madly at the broken arrow while he stumbled his last few steps, before dropping to his knees and collapsing onto his side.

“Thalen the Thrice-Shamed!” The Lalafellin said, clapping as he rose from his seat. “You have fought valiantly for a half-dead haggard! But you can’t hope to fight off my last three guards by yourself! Not with that injury!” K’thalen pulled the sword from his shoulder with a weak gasp and fell to one knee; he was out of breath and out of tricks, with the bowman already aiming a notched arrow at him. “You’ve enraged some powerful people on this side of the Eorzea! You’re weak! You’re starved! Even if you managed to escape, there’s not a town within forty malms that would tend to that shoulder wound without killing you for the bounty on your head! Surrender peacefully and your death will be as quick and painless as hyuranly possible! Try to run and we’ll only cut you down like the mongrel you are! Stand and fight, and well… I promise it won’t be pretty! What say you?”

K’thalen could barely lift his swordhand with his shoulder this busted. He could feel the blood soaking through the severed threads of his matted shirt and trickling down past his elbow. The more he bled, the more his exhaustion took hold; it would be near impossible to catch another arrow if he couldn’t make himself a harder target to hit as well. But the former gunslinger-turned-bandit wasn’t the type to just lay down and surrender. “What say I?” He repeated, grabbing his broken sword by the hilt with his good hand before pushing himself up onto his feet with a sour grimace. “I say you got one last chance to surrender.”

“Hahah!” The merchant sat back down on his seat and motioned for his guards. “Save the head. He needs to be recognizable for th-” Six men shot out from the dark with their patchwork armor and makeshift weapons! The bowman whipped to his right and loosened his arrow right between the eyes of a bandit, but another tackled him from behind and dragged him to the ground! The other two guards didn’t fare any better -- they turned to face these savages but they were outnumbered two to one! The merchant’s face went pale as he witnessed a rock the size of his head come crashing down onto his bowman, squashing his skull like a ripened pumpkin! “W-wait…! Now hold on a minute!” He jumped off the wagon and fell to his knees. “Mercy! Take everything I have but spare my life!”

K’thalen didn’t answer. He hobbled closer, his bloodstained remains of a blade swaying in his grasp. A few of the bandits were already gutting the frightened chocobos and skinning them for their meat, while two more were ransacking the wagon to find anything valuable. The merchant was sobbing now, snot dribbling from his nose. His pleas grew more incomprehensible the closer K’thalen approached, not that he was listening much anyway. “Leaving a witness will only alert the Twin Adders of our meager numbers.” He lowered himself down to the begging Lalafell and ran his blade across his neck! Pale as a ghost and grasping at his throat, the merchant fell onto his back as crimson oozed through his grasp; he choked and choked and choked some more, before his body went limp and his eyes glazed over. His final moments were spent staring at the stars.

Coroh came running down once she heard the cheers. There wasn’t much gil to be found, as they suspected; these tradesmen were getting wiser to mitigate as much financial losses as they could with these recent strings of bandit attacks. But there was a chest filled with clean linen and threaded cotton, ten crates of various fruits and vegetables foreign to the Black Shroud, a dozen bottles of wine and two heavenly casks of black belly rum -- the source of their celebration. She tried her best to ignore the corpses sprawled across the road. Fortunately that task became as easy as breathing once she saw their leader leaning against the side of the wagon, clutching at his bloodied shoulder. “THALEN!” She came dashing to his side, her bright eyes as big as boiled eggs. “You’re hurt!”

“I’ll live…” He huffed, waving his hand dismissively. “Just a flesh wound.”

“We need to get that cleaned!” She insisted, staring frightfully at the gash. She lifted his other arm over her shoulders and helped him back onto his feet. “Let’s sort out the goods later! We have to get you treated before you bleed out!”

“Grab as much as ya can carry!” Shouted K’thalen, with as much command as he could muster. “We ain’t got time to bury Mox! Leave him n’the other dead where they lay! If’n we ain’t long gone when a patrol comes lookin’ for the missin’ merchant then we’re done for!”

The first rays of the morning sunlight were peeking over the horizon by the time they had picked the wagon and its inhabitants clean of valuables. They went west for about three to four malms before they were convinced they were safe -- for now. Deep in the heart of the Black Shroud, where only faeries and animals dared to tread, is where they set up camp. Now it was just five men and a woman, and if K’thalen wouldn’t sit still long enough for Coroh to do her work, it would soon be four men and the most unfortunate woman for malms around.

“I’m almost done.” She sighed, pulling a long threaded needle out from the fire. K’thalen was almost skin and bones from going with only a few bites of food for weeks at a time; the price he paid for giving most of his share to Coroh to keep her healthy. Lesions speckled his back, and it looked like his hair was falling out from fleas. He was suffering, there was no way around it. K’thalen winced and twitched every time she pushed it through his skin, but otherwise remained as silent as the grave. With his good hand he lifted a spoon to his mouth, eagerly sucking down the stew she prepared for everyone once they settled down. Bits of tender chocobo meat, soft popotos, and creamy carrots swirled around in a hearty broth in his third helping. She had barely touched her own bowl since she started cleaning and patching his injury, not that she entirely minded; K’thalen had to be her priority right now. “Alright… before I tighten these stitches, I need to clean it out first.” She plucked a tankard of rum from the ground and lifted it over his shoulder. Before she could tilt it, however, K’thalen snatched it from her grasp and took a few deep gulps first before hesitantly handing half of it back. She did her best to ignore it. “This is going to hurt… a lot. But if you get gangrene then I would have to amputate your arm and half of your shoulder…”

“I’d rather die.” Was all he muttered, before sticking a folded leather belt between his teeth.

“Don’t say that…” Coroh frowned, glancing around at the other men drinking and feasting before them. “If you die then there’s no one to stop them from having their way with me…” She’s seen their stares, she’s noticed their grins when they thought she wasn’t looking; the only reason why they haven’t crippled her from their pent up lust is because Thalen stood in their way. Even when working together K’thalen was twice the swordsman they could ever be. But with this injury might come ideas of mutiny… no, she couldn’t dwell on the future when the present needed her undivided attention.

His entire body flexed and froze in place when she began to pour the rum onto his shoulder. Coroh grimaced when she heard him hissing through the belt in his mouth, his ragged tail bristling and twitching behind him. “He’s hiding his pain from the others…” She realized, mercifully ending his torment to wipe his arm clean with a damp linen cloth. “He’s not doing it for his own pride… he’s doing it for my safety…!” Then he went limp, slouching back against her as the belt slipped from his mouth. “Are you okay…?” She asked, tightening his stitches to close the wound at last.

“Nah…” Whispered the Tia. He trembled against her ever so faintly, but he was too weak to do much of anything else. “Listen… first chance ya get… you gotta get outta here…”

“I’m not leaving you.” Coroh said flatly.

He tried to lift the spoon back to his mouth, but he dropped it back into the bowl instead. “I ain’t blind, girl. I’ve seen ‘em lookin’ at ya… seen ‘em gawkin’ every time ya bend over to pick somethin’ up. Ya sit there stirrin’ that pot n’makin’ our food n’all they can think ‘bout is tearin’ ya clothes off.” He tilted his head to gaze at her, but he didn’t want to look at his shoulder lest he heave up his breakfast. “Shoulda never came ‘long with me. You had nothin’ to do with that incident with them Wolves. Now I’m gonna die regrettin’ that too.”

Now it was Coroh’s turn to tremble. “Y-you’re not going to die…”

“Don’t need to.” He continued. “They already know I’m too weak to stop ‘em from takin’ ya. Once they’re drunk ‘nough, they’ll come pawin’. This life… it ain’t for ya, darlin’. Get out ‘fore one a’them swells ya belly with their seed...”

“Get some rest.” She insisted, slipping her head under his good arm to lift him to his hammock. “You need to get your strength back as soon as possible before we move on from this camp…”

“Find S’era.” He whispered, wincing as he was lowered. “If anyone can protect ya, it’s her.” Coroh smiled warmly as he finally sunk into sleep. His breath stank of rum, as did his body, but at least his belly was full -- the first decent meal they’ve had in three weeks. “I’m going to get you some medicine.” She thought, stroking the dirty locks away from his face. “Once you’re strong enough to walk, we’ll leave this life behind together. There has to be somewhere we can go to avoid your warrants and bounty… there has to be…”