Chapter Twelve

The trek home in the morning was filled with pregnant silences that dared them to broach the unspoken tableau that greeted them upon waking. The way their bodies had curled together seeking more than just warmth during their slumber and her flurry of activity upon waking. They didn't pause as they instead focused on returning home as directly as possible. Their flight direct and swift enough that they managed to avoid the majority of the monsters lingering in the darkened woods. Despite the direct route home and lack of true conflict, Katla didn't take a full breath until they reached the sunlit meadow and started the final trek towards home. 

Behind her Bjorn kept his silence. His expression stern and considering as she stormed before him. Her conflicted emotions pushed out with each stomped step. His grip on his hammer and shield remained firm and muscles tensed in readiness until they crossed that nearly tangible line from darkness to relative safety of the glen surrounding their home. The soft sound of the snuffling boars only added to the sense of homecoming and safety. 

"I will unpack and see to the pigs." The first words Katla had spoken that day since a hastily snapped 'Let's go' before snuffing out their campfire and impatiently gesturing to the rock that blocked the tomb entry. Even now, safe at home, she didn't leave him time to reply before she fled indoors to put away their plunder. The sound of wood scraping against wood, of heavy objects striking against the hard planks, and muffled stomped steps was the evidence of her state of mind and kept Bjorn from following behind her. Whatever demons that rode her, they were for her to sort out.

"Damn, damn, damn.." Katla chanted as she threw the last of the gathered gemstones and coins into the container marked for the pretty but useless items. "Just because he may be the only other person in this world..." Her eyes clenched shut uncertain of why she even felt guilty. She had no vows or commitments that would keep her from taking as many lovers as she desired. There was nothing; but she still felt the sickening weight of guilt weighing at the back of her mind. Had there been someone? She couldn't remember, but perhaps it would come back over time. 

Determined to keep herself busy, she gathered a basketful of mushrooms and some overly soft raspberries to throw in the pen with the boars. Silently she shouldered past Bjorn, aware she was being unfair to him, but unable to find the willpower to be rational. The food was tossed into the boar pen, leaving her leaning against the thin railing as the tiny spotted baby piglets squealed and pranced around the pen, darting between the legs of their sire and dams. 

~ The forest is moving... ~ The hissed words slithered through her mind and Katla jerked her head up in alarm. The tone remembered, the words different, but the voice boded ill for them. She pushed away from the pen, running towards the hut as Bjorn threw the door open. His hand pressed to his temple and eyes widened in alarm. 

"Did you hear that?" His question was redundant as she pushed him backwards, back into the hut as she rummaged quickly for her spare arrows and bow. Her alarm bled over to Bjorn as he gathered up his weapons in reaction. "I will take that as a yes." He shouldered his shield before following her out of the small home and towards the beaten down courtyard. 

"Last time, it was boars and those lizardy creatures." Katla spoke as she searched the swaying grass for any evidence of the monsters summoned this time. The blades just continued to blissfully sway in the afternoon breeze. Sweat beaded along her skin with nervous energy. 

"Last time?" Bjorn didn't turn to look at her as he kept scanning the opposite direction; watching for anything to approach. The faint rustle of dead leaves and weak rustling of dead leaves the only sounds to reach his ears as the boars snorted and paced as if they could taste the potential danger in the air. 

"Mmhmm, the words were different though.." She didn't have time to quantify it further as the first wave of graydwarves emerged from the forest. Their headlong run hardly slowed by the first of Katla's released arrows. She downed the first one, striking it dead on in the forehead. The next arrow missed the dwarf she was aiming for but struck the shoulder of the one just behind it. More challenging that the necks and boars but still manageable; at least that is what she thought until she saw the lumbering gray dwarf with a red aura around it approached. What captured and held her was the mocking bob of a bright yellow dandelion growing from the top of its head. 

"Bjorn..." Her voice held the trained echoes of her voice. The fear that laced through her as she forced herself to remain steady. Each breath drawn and released in time with the flight of her arrows. She was aware of his moving, taking a stance to start closing the distance between their home and the lumbering giant of a dwarf.

"I see it. Shoot it until either you can't or it falls. " The command fell easily as he stepped into the first of the dwarves that had evaded her arrows. The regular dwarves fell easily, practiced from their forays into the Black Forest. His confidence faltered as he reached the largest one. The arrows bristled from it's bark covered body, bouncing with each jerking step, and pure menace emanated from the beast as its fists fell like a hammer. Bjorn caught the blow with his shield, a harsh grunt escaping him as the strike radiated pain down his shoulder and side as muscles locked and tensed to keep his shield in place. 

"The green one, get away!" Katla screamed as Bjorn rolled backwards in a hasty dodge as a plume of green shot out from a hunched dwarf swathed in a green aura and adorned with hanging bits of dried seeds and nuts. Bjorn didn't have the breath to be thankful as he danced backwards luring away the lumbering giant as the second one spewed its green miasma into the air. An arrow struck the green glowing beast, pushing it back as it pierced the creature's shoulder. 

"Move! Move your ass!" Katla screamed before firing off another arrow. The graydwarf shaman fell into a cloud of green dust leaving behind just a seed, piece of wood, and eye as evidence of its passing. The brute struck again and this time instead of blocking the blow Bjorn darted back, letting it throw itself off balance giving him an opening to bring his hammer down on the back of the creature's head finally dissolving it into a burst of red dust, leaving only the merrily waving dandelion behind.

Exhausted he looked up, watching as another wave started to breech the forest line. Shaky and sweating Bjorn retreated slightly, trying to buy himself breathing room. Katla too had dropped her bow down to allow her shaking arms a moment before she once more lifted the weapon ready to draw and fire; unwilling to admit surrender.

~The forest rests again~ The slithering voice reached into their minds, plucking at their exhaustion as their stunned minds worked to process the image of the three approaching brutes, among the handful of other graydwarves, turned back into the forest, disappearing into the shadows as a lurking unspoken threat for the future. Both of them dropped where they stood, resting aching limbs as they drug in each labored breath. 

It took some time for them to recover, the sun having moved across the sky until it threatened dusk. The both of them finally rose to their feet and staggered back to the house searching for a meal and rest. As they sat in front of the fire, listening to it crackle, while they ate and fought the urge to sleep. 

"We need to build better defenses, just incase." Bjorn finally paused his chewing long enough to speak. Katla's near vacant stare into the flames disturbed him on some level. The distanced expression so at odds with her usual fiery personality brought up concern he wasn't certain how to fully voice. 

"We should. Tomorrow, we will need to gather wood. I don't think we have enough." Katla sighed before groaning as she heaved herself off the bench to stumble towards her bed, falling onto the soft surface, and for the first time falling asleep almost instantly. Bjorn followed her lead shortly after, his own snores breaking the soft song of crickets, wind, and the idle rambling of water. 

In the morning they worked out a basic layout, with Katla raking out a small plot of farm land to plant the carrot seeds in. Six tiny plants, a hope for the future of variances in their diet, and once planted they set out to gather wood. Core wood needed from the pines that edged along the black forest, and Katla turned to gathering a few of those while Bjorn harvested the beech and fallen logs. 

Distracted by her task Katla almost missed it, the moment where the tree next to the one he was chopping shivered ever so ominously with each blow of his axe. She caught the moment of his tree toppling over and his careful step out of the way before the other tree fell, her scream of warning too late as the trunk struck down where he had been standing. The sound of breaking bones reached her ears as she ran headlong across the meadow .

"You're ok.. you're ok.. you have to be ok.." The chant came across as she jumped over the fallen log searching for Bjorn. She had just enough time to catch a glance of his lax face, his chest concave, crushed in where the tree had fallen and then rolled downwards. "Bjorn... Bjorn.. open your eyes." The scream of denial broke from her lips as she pushed at the log, straining to free his body. Denial that was made all the more final as his body fell into dust and ash replaced only with a roughly carved stone. 

"No! Damn it, no you can't leave me alone. You can't have died to a stupid damn tree." The sobs escaped her at the undeniable proof that Bjorn was gone. Erased from her life by something so common as an accident while felling a tree. Tears escaped her as she rose, walking back already encumbered by her own gathering. The journey felt so much longer, knowing that she would again eat alone, not hear Bjorn's rhythmic snoring breaths while he slept, and she was tempted to just curl up on the ground and grass of the meadow. 

The instinct for survival was greater than her grief and she managed to stumble blindly into the now too large home. Her rucksack dropped without care to put things in their proper place. Katla blinked, her eyes dry enough that her eyelids felt of sandpaper. Empty, hollowed, and alone; the emotions gripped her made it nearly impossible for her to draw each breath through the tight band that gripped her chest. 

A rustling noise broke through the numb. The sound came from the area that made up Bjorn's sleeping chamber and cautiously Katla made her way across, pulling her small flint axe as she peered around the wall to find a mostly naked, very confused, and amazingly alive Bjorn. A scream escape her, something between joy, surprise, and horror. The noise broke whatever reverie that held him as he turned to look at her only to be flattened against the bed as Katla flung herself on top of him. 

The words streamed from her lips with no particular order, falling into an odd gibberish broken between relieved sobs. Her fingers searched and probed over his chest, so full and firm, searching to make certain that all was in order until his hands captured hers, stilling the frantic motions. 

"Be calm woman." The grumbled words should have irritated her, but they provided a truth that was more real than just the ability to feel the give of flesh beneath her fingertips. 

"You died, I saw you die.." She finally managed to form the sounds into actual words. Her breathing ragged as she worked to process what had just happened. She knew he had died, she had seen his chest, felt the weight of the tree as she tried to free him, and yet here he stood alive and whole.

"I felt death claim me, then woke here." He gave her the confirmation she needed; that what she had witnessed was real to the both of them and yet by some trick of this realm death was a temporary trauma. "I am fine, outside of missing my clothing." He cupped her cheek as she took little hiccupped breaths. The room growing dark as the sun slowly set. "We will need to finish our task tomorrow I think." 

Katla nodded as she drew back at his more rational tone. Her hands wiped roughly at her cheeks, trying to rid herself of the damning moisture. Her heart rate slowly dropped back into something resembling calm as she took a few steps back into the common area uncertain of where to go from there. Clearly feeling the sting of dismissal before he grasped her wrist to pull her back into the room.

"Just tonight, to stave off both our nightmares." He whispered as he guided her down to the soft furs, settling her in with his body between her and the door. No hands roamed, no groping as he just pulled her close to rest her cheek against his chest that the smooth beat of his heart would lull her to sleep, as the soft sound of her breaths brought him peace. The close call rattled both of them in their own ways.