Shalma's Destruction (Part IX)

If you knew how challenging it would be to navigate the wagon train up Mount Vindergast's slopes, you would never have suggested its capture.  Before the war in the west, merchant caravans traversed the path daily, keeping it well-marked and maintained. With activity reduced to a trickle, the mountain was reclaiming lost territory.  The fading path had grown indistinct and thatchy brambles encroached from all sides.  Time after time, you clambered from the wagon’s driver’s box to remove detritus from the decaying path as the decrepit horses refused to navigate obstacles larger than a twig.

It's even slower going since Skasnell isn’t speaking to you again.  Not since he discovered that you allowed the last surviving merchant to flee.  Of course, the silence isn’t so bad when you consider the alternatives.  Had Pug or another member of Shalma’s brood defied Skasnell like that, they probably would’ve fallen under his sword, had their neck snapped, or at the very least received a vicious beating.  But all Skasnell did was shake his head and grumble.

You’re not sure why Skasnell showed you mercy, but you suspect it goes beyond the two of you becoming chummy over the past few weeks.  Perhaps you’ll ask him about it sometime, but the way Skasnell mutters intelligibly from the driver’s box informs you now is not that time. 

“Get down,” Skasnell suddenly urges.  It’s the first words he’s spoken to you in hours.

You dutifully squat in the wagon’s boot, an area at the front of the carriage usually reserved for precious cargo.  Your eyes dart from tree to tree, scouring for brigands or monsters, but all you can see are a few crows. 

“What is it?” you ask. 

“Shalma’s men,” Skasnell says, staring straight ahead.   “I can smell them.”

“Then why are we hiding?”

“Just In case they decide to shoot first and ask questions later.” 

Fair enough, you think, only Skasnell isn’t taking cover.  He isn’t even slouching in his seat. 

“Why aren’t you hiding?”

“I don’t look like some scrawny merchant,” Skasnell says with a wry smile.  “Besides, they know better than to take potshots at me.”

You nod.  You’ve only been with the company for a short time.  Most of the men don’t even know your name (“kid,” “boy,” and “fuck face” are your usual monikers), so you shouldn’t count on recognition saving you from a rogue arrow. After spoiling the motley crew’s opportunity to compete in the strongman competition in Darrumburgh, they might put an arrow in your neck even if they did.

“Is Shalma with them?” you ask.

Skasnell tilts his head to the sky as if contemplating the weather.  “Yes.”

You inhale deeply.  All you smell is warm decay. 

Before you can doubt Skasnell’s olfactory accuracy, the warrior pulls the wagon to a halt.   “Show yourselves!” he shouts.

Skasnell’s booming baritone sends a shudder through the forest.  Cawing crows lift from the branches and the trees seem to shake with fear.  Just ahead, two men step from the foliage on the right, as two more emerge from the left.  Beyond them, Shalma appears in the middle of the path like a beautiful roadblock.  Judging by the swell of her belly and the girth of her hips, you suspect she blocks more of it than she did a few weeks ago.

“That better be the prize for winning the strongman competition,” the voluptuous barbarian scowls. 

“This was no prize,” Skasnell says, leaping to the forest’s floor from the driver’s box.  “It was a trap.  Don’t worry though,” he adds, eying Shalma hungrily.  “I’ll reward you with something later.”

Shalma arches an eyebrow.  “That’s no prize.”

The men in Shalma’s company smirk, but they know better than to laugh.  Shalma was the only one who could challenge Skasnell’s manhood and live. 

The robust barbarian turns her arched gaze at you. “I expect you have a good reason for defying me.”

“Y-yes,” you say, clambering from the wagon.  “I…We believe you were tipped off about this caravan’s passage intentionally.  All of its contents were poisoned.”

Shama steps forward.  “Poisoned?”

Skasnell nods.  “The boy figured it out.  We decided to do something about it before it ended up in the wrong hands.”

“Or the wrong bellies,” you add, chuckling nervously.

Shalma brushes past you to the back of the wagon.  She examines its contents, eyeing the tarts and sweetbreads as hungrily as Skasnell had eyed her. 

“They even poisoned the mead,” Skasnell says with a disapproving head shake. 

“Heathens.”  After a moment of mournful silence, Shalma returns to you, getting so close you can smell her now.   “You took this by yourselves?” 

“Yes,” you say, swallowing hard.  Keeping eye contact is difficult with Shalma’s milky-white orbs jiggling in your face.  You wonder if her belly might be jiggling beneath them, but you dare not risk a glance.   

“It was meant to be taken,” Skasnell says, stealing Shalma’s pool-blue eyes from yours.  “Still, the boy performed well.”

“Were there any survivors?” 

“No,” Skasnell says without hesitation.   “They planned to abandon the caravan the minute we attacked, then return that night to load the wagons with our bodies.”

“Bastards.  I hope their deaths were painful.”

“They were.”  Skasnell laughs.  “The lad sizzled one of them like a sausage in their own campfire.” 

“Really?”  The barbarian’s blue eyes again beguile yours and she tickles a finger beneath your chin.  “Perhaps you deserve a prize after all.” 

You feel your chest and your manhood swell.  A voice in the back of your head tells you to slap Shalma’s hand away but, deprived of blood and oxygen, it’s barely a whisper.

“What should we do with all this food?”  Skasnell asks.

Perhaps you’re drunk from Shalma’s praise, or the blood rushing from your brain to your lengthening member has left you short on judgment, but even though the warrior’s question is meant for Shalma, you answer it: