A strange new world - Irkha's story

[Tarkah]

Silence never seemed to settle in this place.
Not that it ever does in a place of life and wilderness, but here was somehow different.
The swamps were dark, infested with shadows were the boughs of the mangrove trees bowed low over the murky waters and the precarious bits of land making up what few usable paths still existed.
So much of it was filled with decay, and in many parts lurking death. There was almost a feeling of the land itself lying in wait for the unwary, to pull you down and smother you, much like the things that hid in the deeper waters.
You expected silence in a place like this, as there seemed to be precious little alive to even make any sound.
But the invasive buzzing of insects, the strange echoes and cries that carried across the water-logged lands from somewhere deeper in the swamps, too distorted by distance to pin-point, together with the occasional sound of something unseen slipping into a murky pool hinted at the true nature of this place.

But despite that, she liked it here. She knew Father would have liked it as well, but those were memories she tried hard not to touch on. Instead she focused on the reason she found herself here in the first place.
They had told her to watch, to find things to watch. So she did.
Gladly, in fact. It was a good reason to be away from them and left to huddle in the shadows instead.
She liked shadows. Where you had shadows you had good nooks to call yours. In most cases, at least.
They had told her to watch. They hadn’t told her they wanted to know what she saw.

Besides, there was enough to do with simply staying alive to worry about what they might or might not want. She might like it here, but the swamp didn’t like anyone. She was fairly sure of that.
Already, she had learned to stay away from any water. It wasn’t worth drinking in the first place, and even less worth loosing body parts over. Which made surviving that much harder, although there was no shortage of things to eat. So long as you ate the right things.
And the less said about the pale people that made their home here the better. They were different from the ones she remembered from home, taller and stronger, but if anything they looked even more dangerous.



That was then, and this was now.
The time between those two points were a blur at best. A blur that she was now trying to trace her way back through as she peered out from within the tent where she had been resting for over a day now at the ruins that surrounded them. She could see the orcs, and others, go about their business around camp. She still wasn’t sure what to think of them, as many of them made her uneasy. They looked wrong, most of those she had seen at least, and their manners were...strange.
Still, they had freed her and fed her. She was glad to be alive.
And not just her alone. A sudden flash of white against the dark and drab surroundings showed where a familiar figure moved around camp with the others. Skint.
She knew next to nothing of the white orc, but their shared time in captivity had formed a strong bond of its very own kind. The frail orc would have stood out anywhere, and even more so in this place. Just like she had done on that cart…



...which she had been following since earlier that day, when the footfalls of the beasts pulling the cart and the creaking of its wooden frame had alerted her to its presence. She didn’t know who any of the three figures riding it were, and what their business might be, but it was a strange enough sight to make her follow it.
After all, she was supposed to be watching for things and this was too curious to pass up.
The two figures sitting towards the front were from the tall people of the lands to the south, but otherwise didn’t attract her attention too much.
The one in the back of the cart however was an orc, but who’s white hair and pale looks were unlike any Irkha had seen previously.
She was watching from the top of a nearby tree when the cart abruptly lurched to a halt and listed to the side as one of its wheels got caught and sank into the mud. Spotting the figures emerging from their hiding places all around, Irkha breathed in sharply through her teeth. Sure enough, this was a trap and not an accident!
Thoughts racing as she weighed her options soon gave her the obvious answer: She couldn’t just sit and watch.
Descending the tree and racing across the ground brought her up behind on of the ambushers who crumpled from a stab to the side, another flopped to the ground from a cut across the lower calf. If she could distract them enough to break their circle, perhaps there would be a chance to escape!
She kept moving, not daring to stay in one spot for a second more than she had to. But the third figure she approached must have noticed her anyway, as it turned on her and lashed out with its spear. She tried to force her way closer, but the spear came for her once again.
She broke away, looking for somewhere else to run… when something cracked hard against the side of her head and then again just above her neck.
Color exploded across her vision and she tried to move, but her body wasn’t listening. Instead she could only watch as the ground rushed up to meet her before everything went black.



The time in the cage was just a vague memory to her, more impressions and feelings than actual images. The pain of the bindings eating into her wrists and ankles. The bars closed in around her and the bruising and pain as she tried in vain to squirm and force her way out between them. The feeling of someone crammed in close together with her. She had felt naked and cold, exposed and horrified as she realised that they had taken her furs away. Father’s furs.
She was glad now to not have been alone in there...



She woke with a start, staring around wildly before she remembered where she was. Still in the tent, still wrapped in the borrowed furs, still replaying the memories.
The furs smelled of their owner, but a night spent wrapped up in them had gone some way towards making them feel at least a little familiar. She hadn’t spoken to any of the orcs of this strange group since the night of their rescue but the one who had helped and fed them, Zi’tani, felt like someone she could trust and so Irkha trusted her smell by extension.
She was kind, and she looked...right, unlike many of the others.

She knew she had to leave the tent eventually. If nothing else to find food. But for now she just wanted time to catch up with the world around her, even if just a little. The rest would just have to wait a little longer.