[Durelin]

Khamir

“C’mon....let’s go find the rest of those scum.”

A smile passed between them, and Shae’s face became frozen in Khamir’s mind: her brown hair in disarray, blood smeared across her tan forehead, her eyes bright green…he had seen her a thousand times before, in a million different glances, but this time was different. She smiled. He finally realized he had seen her smile. More than once? He thought so… Through his eyes, there was a glow about her. There was a power in her eyes and in her voice, and a bravery he knew he would never understand. Khamir could not stand to remember how he had treated her at times in the past. Perhaps he would have seen what he saw now in her sooner if she had more reason to smile. Or more likely he should have looked.

Shae took off immediately, and Khamir followed after a moment, catching up to her as best as he could. He could feel pain coursing through his leg, though, and it crept up to his thigh, wrapping around his calf and enveloping his knee as it spread. Looking at Shae’s wrist, and listening to her breaths, which were as ragged as his, he wondered what good they would do back by the grove. They had been extremely lucky to bring two men down, and likely was only made possible by his catching them by surprise. Now he had a more serious wound, and it was clear that Shae, though he knew she would not give up nor stop fighting with ferocity, was definitely feeling the pain in her wrist.

But his concern for Shae was perhaps too much. He began to lag behind, though he did his best to keep up. The pain was maddening, and though he fought through it as best he could, as he had fought through so much pain before, he found himself feeling weaker than ever and watched the ground beneath his feet slow in its passing. Khamir had worse wounds before, but he had never been in a battle such as this, where he had not had more than a few moments respite. He had been on the move since the beginning, so many names and faces spinning round in his head – he wanted to help them all. Now he felt he could do little to help himself.

“Shae…” he said, and she slowed as she turned her head to look at him, “I’m sorry, but…I can’t…I can’t move as fast as you right now…” he spoke amongst his heavy breathing.

The woman stopped, and after a brief moment of surprise, she asked, “Do you need help?” She glanced at his leg.

“No,” Khamir responded quickly, as if a reflex. Shae shook her head, but did not move on. She looked at him, waiting.

“I just need you to move a little slower,” the one-armed man stated as quickly as he could. He would not call it help. “Neither of us will do any good on our own,” he added.

“Maybe, but I’d say you’d do worse,” she remarked. Khamir grunted in assent, and the two took off again at a slower pace.

As they neared the grove, it appeared to them that chaos was making the situation more dangerous. The number of slaver bodies they ran into made them feel bits of relief amongst their concern for those they loved and those they barely knew, but it seemed the destruction was not over.

“We should find Lindir,” Shae said. And though Khamir agreed that Lindir, who he had learned was an Elf – an immortal! – would be able to assess the situation (and he was fairly certain in his belief that this Elf would not have been killed by mere Men of the East), the Southron could not simply tell Shae that.

“Or Beloan,” he suggested stubbornly.