The Prisoner by Feral_Hedgehog -- Fur Affinity [dot] net

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Lore Characters - Orlendr

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The Prisoner

By Feral_Hedgehog,
posted a year ago Sojourner



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Idle waves bore the boat across the crystal clear water, its surface like flowing glass, an ever changing reflection of the heavens above. The waves were gentle, but their primal power was still evident, each subdued ripple of water betraying the inexorable strength and unfathomable vastness of the ocean as it slept. The sea was fickle, and should it anger it would smash his little ship to pieces with the same casual indifference that a man might squash an unseen insect underfoot as he walked. His people knew to respect the sea and her destructive potential; they sailed at her mercy alone.

Orlendr lay on his back as the ocean breeze ruffled his fur and the stars sailed by overhead. Their light was brilliant in the sky, unmarred by clouds or lesser lights from below. The pale moon crested overhead, slowly reaching towards the horizon even as the first fingers of sunlight crept up over the water from the opposite horizon, shades of blazing amber and gold painting the ocean as the sun shimmered into view. In what felt like only a few beats of his heart, the sun had reached its zenith, and in a few breaths further had begun to recede, drowning the sea in bloody gold once again.

He was dimly aware that his vessel had no sails as the stars shimmered overhead, streaking across the sky as the moon clawed its way back into view, less full that it had been only moments ago the night before. His vessel had no oars, it was adrift in the vast, infinite sea, moving at the whims of the primal waters, with nary a hope of returning to shore. The burning light of a new dawn chased away the night once more, its warmth falling on his fur. He had to squint his eyes, the sunlight was too bright, its glow felt like laying on a bed of coals. Lashing flame enveloped the boat; he tried to escape, but his muscles refused to obey, he could only lay there as the fire raged around him. Idle waves bore his pyre across the crystal clear water, to his final resting place; a burial at sea.

Orlendr was aware of his splitting headache and the painful extent to which his throat was parched before he could draw strength enough to open his eyes. The next thing he noticed was that he was not in fact, dead. With more conscious effort than the action had ever required before, he forced his eyes to open. At first it seemed as though his eyes had refused to obey, darkness was still all that greeted him. A few moments later, his acute night vision began to adjust to the inky black of a starless night. He tried to push himself up off of his back to sit upright, the clattering of chains grating painfully against his ears as he stirred. He swallowed hard, drawing dull pain from his agonizingly dry throat as he became aware of the pressure around his neck. He brought a hand to his throat, feeling a rigid band of iron clapped around his neck, a thick link of chain attached at the back of the merciless collar.

It was only at that point that he felt the throbbing pain emanating from his hip, the memory of his encounter with the men from beyond the mountains coming flooding back to him. The wound still ached, each heartbeat sending a minor pang of pain that resonated out from the gash. His head was pounding, doubtless from dehydration, but the fever that had felt like it was boiling inside his skull had faded. His mind felt sluggish and unresponsive, still fighting against his fever induced delirious stupor that had left him for dead beneath the harsh summer sun. Straining against the chains that bound him he found he was unable to stand, not that he would be able to as the realization dawned on him that he was confined within a sturdy, wooden cage, doubtless the work of the same hunters he had struggled with before. The chain attached to his collar was tethered to the bars of the cage itself; robust beams of hardwood that was doubtless ever stronger than it appeared.

His eyes still felt heavy, weary. With them closed he could still see the endless swarm of crows overhead that had plagued his steps. The crows were gone though, his fever broken. He had survived his wound and the subsequent infection, but to what end? To be captured and chained like an animal? No, better that he had died. There was time for that still, he would not be taken back to whatever hell the hunters had crawled out of and displayed like some macabre trophy. He would free himself from his confines, or he would die with honor in the attempt. And gods willing, he would slaughter his captors to the last in the process; recompense for the indignities inflicted on him.

Slowly, his mind began to answer to his will once more. He tried to work his was through what had happened, and what was likely to come. The men had stripped him naked, the act likely just as much meant to humiliate as it was practical, separating him from his various tools and material that might have made short work of the bars of his tiny prison. He did not even have to reach for his chest to know they had taken his totem as well, he could not feel its reassuring, gentle heat. Without it, he could not call upon its strength to aid him in rending the metal of his collar, or the wooden bars beyond that.

The question of why he had been captured and confined was a mystery all its own. The hunters had seemed ready to kill him when they clashed, lustful even for violence and death. Why then would their fellows take him prisoner after he had slain five of their clan when before they had meant to end him? Why he was confined to this cell in the middle of the wilderness at least seemed more apparent; it was a matter of practicality, it was easier to wait to see if he would survive his injuries first rather than lug a corpse back across the mountains for no reason. Furthermore, he would prove much less of a burden if he could carry himself rather than have to be borne on a stretcher or dragged back. They wanted him alive. For what purpose, he could not know, but he was sure that something about the situation had changed to alter their ambitions so.

~

As the hours slowly slipped by, he became aware that he was less alone than he had believed when he first woke. His senses had returned to him in time; he could smell the lingering acrid smoke of a recent campfire, he could hear the heavy steps of armored boots against the dirt and stone, though from his current position he could not see the men wearing them. Two of the hunters remained in the camp, a skeleton crew to stand guard over their prisoner until the rest of their company returned. Orlendr felt a small swell of pride; even stripped, chained, presumed unconscious, locked in a cage and with one foot firmly in the grave, the hunters had left two of their own to stand watch over him. The charred corpses and torn out throats of their fallen hunting party had made them understandably cautious. They would not underestimate him again, and it would make his escape all the more difficult for it.

Some small fraction of his strength began to return to him, as he tested the robustness of his restraints, the rattling of chains and the faint groaning of wood as the bars of the cage strained alerted his captors to the change in his condition. In short order they appeared before him, placing a torch near the cage to keep an eye on him, though careful to avoid coming anywhere near what would have been arm’s reach had he had the freedom of mobility to make such an attempt. They settled a handful of meters away from the cage, building a new, small campfire to ward off the late summer, evening chill. They alternated between sitting and standing around the fire, always keeping the fire between them and their captive, seldom taking their eyes off of him for more than a brief moment; their behavior alone evidence of their unease even if Orlendr had been unable to smell it on them. The men had donned their armor, spears jabbed into the ground within easy reach, hands practically tied to the hilts of the swords at their belts.

He sat there hunched over in the cramped cage, flickering shadows thrown by the torch dancing across his visage, those bars that imprisoned him cruelly transposed onto his fur. He watched his captives as they in turn watched him, his eyes narrowed with seething rage and hatred. Orlendr somehow could tell that the men were unable to meet his gaze, yellow eyes gleaming with animalistic, feral frenzy in the dark. His pulse quickened as he obsessively watched them, his anger further brewing as he imagined shattering his bindings and tearing the hunters to ribbons. A part of his mind was dimly aware that now that he was awake, they would move him as soon as the rest of the hunting party returned to camp. The thought of being shackled and paraded back to wherever they had come like some kind of living trophy set his blood to boiling. He pulled his lips back taught, baring his teeth in a vicious snarl, his jaw clenched painfully, spittle escaping through his fangs as he let a low, rumbling growl form in his throat.

The growl continued to grow in intensity, feeding his rage, bloodlust building inside him with a terrible heat that urged his muscles to act; every second he was forced to remain confined building the rage, building the heat until he was practically shaking with barely contained ferocity, like a spring being ever more compressed. Neither man was seated now, both stood alert and at the ready, hands on the spears, prepared to act. He could smell the stink of fear that saturated them. His vision was slowly and increasingly tinged red, as though the world was suddenly drowning in the dying light of sunset. What had began as a low growl was now a howl of defiance, the light of the fires seeming to grow steadily in intensity as the rage within continued to grow, the passion of his seething anger becoming a white hot ember within his very being that threatened to engulf all in his violent fury.

Orlendr’s eyes nearly rolled into the back of his skull. His hands moved of their own volition to the collar around his throat, fingers wrapping around the iron band, two links had been added to the collar to make it fit his throat. In his rage he tore at the band about his neck, no more than a dim recognition that his own claws were digging into his flesh in the process, boiling liquid trickling down his throat as the steel groaned in protest. The hunters had taken up their spears and had begun to move to stop him, but they barely even registered in his blood hued vision. His muscles flexed with feral strength not betrayed by their lithe appearance, and there was the sound of tortured metal as one of the links cracked and then broke with the piercing shriek of metal being sheared. His howl a hair raising, predatory cry as blood ran in streaks through his fur and the second link shattered moments after the first.

For a brief moment, night turned to day; a brilliant emanation of incandescent splendor that drowned out the stars above and would blind whoever was foolish enough to witness it. In an instant, the gently crackling campfire became a white hot, blazing inferno, flames too hot to distinguish from pure light. It expanded outward in less than a blink of an eye, a sharp crack followed by a deafening boom, the light fading back to nothing in a fraction of a second as shrapnel and dust from where the campfire had once stood filled the air. He ripped the broken collar from his throat as he threw himself at the bars of the cage, tearing the wooden beams to splinters even as the echoes of the blinding light still blotted his vision; eyes open or closed, it made no difference; clawing his way out of the cage like a creature possessed.

He blinked away the splotches of light from his vision, each time he opened his eyes his sight was marginally more clear than the last. His body was still tense, every muscle bound tightly, ready to spring to action, ready to tear his captives to bloody ribbons. But they never came. They had died in an instant, likely never aware of their looming doom as it claimed them in the span of a heartbeat. What little remained of their skin was blackened hideously, most had simply vaporized, leaving ruined muscle and charred bone exposed. Not a single hair or strip of fabric or leather remained, it all was consumed by flame. The metal of their armor had warped and melted, fusing to their molten flesh. Where the campfire had been now stood a shallow crater three meters across, the ground around that scorched for another five meters, smoldering fires devouring what little remained that had yet to be turned to ash.

~

Orlendr tore what remained of the campsite apart, gulping down the contents of a full canteen he found, greedily downing the warm water though he knew he should drink slowly, so great was his dehydration. He retched up the water and drank from another canteen, this time more slowly. He found his belongings amongst the hunter’s gear. His clothes, limited as they were, were utterly ruined; torn to shreds and covered in mud from the frantic flight away from the mountains. He donned his belt all the same so that he had somewhere to hang his pouches of kindling and other materials. He held his totem in his hand, clutching it to his chest, feeling its reassuring warmth surge through him once more. He strung it around his neck once more, only now becomingly consciously aware of the seeping gashes in his throat. He cleaned them thoroughly, unwilling to repeat the predicament with his thigh.

As the phantoms of that blinding light continued to fade from his sight, as his muscles finally relaxed, as his blood began to cool, and his rage had subsided; the reality of what had happened finally began to dawn on him. He gripped the totem hanging from his neck as he surveyed the small crater; the epicenter of his violent fury made manifest. He had done it without the aid of his totem. It had not been a thing of conscious effort, but of a primal, emotional outburst. It should not have been possible. And yet the ruined remains of his captors said otherwise. He showed his fangs as he grimaced; he knew he had to return home… to the clan that had exiled him. They needed to be warned about the threat from beyond the mountains, and he needed answers. Answers would not be willingly given, but he would get them all the same.

Part 1
Part 3

Artist:
Kajte

Kajte
Character:

Orlendr



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