Day Two: Dawning

Bile rose in my throat as I stared down the warning Torin's mark had left on the walls of his room. The carnage we stepped over to get there had been so well-shredded as to forget it started out as a collection of humans - walking, talking beings. Our luck ended, it seemed, as Torin found his belongings. The identifiable remains of a woman, eyes forever locked in a blank expression of surprise, housed his sword.

A lone, lit lantern, suspiciously full, illuminated the windowless room, attracting Torin's attention. He threw it to the ground, breaking the glass and letting the oil soak the floorboards.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing else valuable of mine is in this room anymore. He could have taken my coin, but most likely someone else came in after him to rob the bodies. Might I suggest we leave?"

The flames were spreading. There was no time.

"Don't you think before you act?" I complained, hurrying back to the entrance. In the time we'd spent shuffling through gore, the sun would have risen too high in the sky for a dim escape. "How are we supposed to get out of here? Does your monstrous friend strike towns blind as well? Oblivious to large buildings on fire?"

Torin scowled at me. "I do, in fact, think. I thought before I ever paid for the room!" With that, he tried the knob of a locked door. When it didn't yield, he kicked it in. "Hurry, there's not much time," he insisted. Smoke was beginning to roll through the common room.

I followed him into what looked like a stock room, where he had thrown aside a tattered old rug to reveal a hidden portal in the floor. "Where does this lead?" I asked as he opened the door and began to step into the hole.

"Outside the village. It isn't a long passage. Quickly, now, before the smoke reaches here too!"

I turned to wedge the damaged door back into its frame, then pulled a folded cloth bag out of my belt. "Just a moment," I demanded as I began to shove food into it. "Who knows what we'll found out there? Ah, we're lucky!" I held up a flint for a second before pocketing it. Torin growled as I tossed a stray, half-emptied lantern his way and occupied my free hand with a precious skin flask of wine. Smoke curled through the cracks in the door as I threw the bag's handle over my shoulder and scurried down the hatch.

With the opened floor swung back into place, the tunnel was pitch black. I fumbled for the flint in my dress, but Torin grabbed me by the arm and tugged. "There's no need for that," he said, breaking out into a run.

"I can't see!" I sputtered, stumbling over the uneven ground. He was following the twists of the cavern with impossible accuracy, while I bumped into the cold dirt wall more often than I liked. Soon, the ceiling opened up above us and the morning was visible through the mouth of a small cave that opened into dense forest.

Torin gazed smugly at the flames licking at the sky in the distance. "Let's get moving," he sighed, striking out East, away from the town.

"Wait a minute," I protested. "What makes you think I'm going with you? Do you even know where you're going?" His loud laugh nearly knocked me off my feet.

"Let's pretend you didn't just put yourself on a mass-murderer's wanted list," he began as his mirth died down. "Your old protector is gone. A woman on her own in these woods, no matter how well armed with my weapons, won't do well if she runs into too many outlaws at once. Of course, you could always go back to town and explain what happened to what's left of its denizens. But in short, I owe you. So stay here if you want, but I don't want to find your body pinned to a wall next week."

I thought about what I must look like, with my careworn clothes, stringy unwashed hair, and mismatched bags criss-crossing my body. I looked like I belonged to nobody, like I might not be missed, and like I might have something worth stealing. In fact, if he weren't in my debt, I'd probably be next on Torin's hit list. I was stuck "I need time to make a new plan, so I'll go with you for now. But not East. I'll go in any direction but East."

"A new plan, huh? Well, I've already been West. He doesn't like to backtrack. Let's go South. We've got all day, and thanks to you, we're even well-supplied." He set out, with the dawn at his left, at an easy pace. After a while, I could feel his eyes burning into my side.

"What?"

"Morbid curiosity ... what's to the east?"

"The thing I'm running from, naturally."

"Funny. You're trying to escape danger, and I'm trying to find it."

I laughed. "Danger, in death? Gods, no. It's the danger in life I'm running from."