Duality Merged - Chapter 6 A Tale Of Spears And Blood

The night gave way to the coming of morning, and so did Charles’ blissful sleep give way to pain. As he woke up with a hiss he quickly spotted Max standing above him with a look to his eyes Charles found difficult to decipher. “You all right?” asked Max, bringing Charles out of his thoughts.

“I’ll manage,” he said with a forced smile as he turned to look at his arm; it was bandaged in what looked some kind of white cloth that felt like the common polyester-cotton material of modern clothes. He winced as he touched the blood that had stained the cloth while he ‘slept’, “Although I doubt I’d be of much use for a while Sorry,” he continued in an apologetic voice and ended with a sigh.

“Don’t worry about it,” was Max’s response, as he looked down at the young but pale man who was no doubt still suffering the effects of blood loss. “We’ll manage, just make sure you recover. I’ll go fetch your sister, she seemed worried ever since she dragged you inside,” he said, missing the twitching eye of Charles at his sister being mentioned.

As Max made his exit with the purpose of fetching Janette, Charles couldn’t help but let his thoughts wander back to the look in Max’s eyes. It looked like one of concern, and yet it didn’t feel like it was directed at himself, he thought, as he shifted slightly causing a slight pain to make its way up his arm, reminding him of how he woke up: a pain in his wound he shouldn’t have felt. The man must’ve nudged his wounded arm with his boot, he realised. Then it hit him: the man wasn’t being concerned about him no, it would be more accurate to say that he was testing the waters, he thought darkly.

Janette, with Molly in tow, arrived soon after Max made his exit with concerned etched on her beautiful face. “My jaw aches slightly, Sister, and I have not the faintest of ideas as to why that would be. You wouldn’t happen to know why that is, do you?” asked Charles with a slight hint of teasing in his voice. “You fainted from blood loss and hit your head when you fell, Brother,” Janette answered, her voice seething with blame.

“Is that so Well, seeing as you’ve cared for me in my moment of weakness, I do suppose a thank you would be in order. And while I’d most certainly do something to show how thankful I am, I don’t think this place would be the best for that” he said with his customary smile, “So you owe me a favour?” Janette asked as she gave a wide grin and an anticipatory look in response to his nod. “How’d you manage to bandage my arm, by the way?”

“Molly felt sorry for going into shock after the first of the rats jumped her. Lucky for her, Max managed to kill it before it jumped at her again, so she only has a few scratches on her shoulder. She allowed me to rip off one of her sleeves to use as a bandage,” she said to the apparent displeasure of Molly who muttered something under her breath. “Well, you didn’t stop me when I ripped it off your shirt so I took that as you being ok with it,” she said to Molly who jumped slightly, obviously not having expected she’d be heard.

“Molly’s shirt, huh? That’s awfully nice of you Molly, thank you,” Charles said as his eyes gravitated towards her bare left arm, “But there’s a slight issue, you see This bandage has been bled through completely so, uh Do you think you could let me have your other sleeve, too?” he asked with an awkward smile on his face.

“I guess My jacket is quite thick, so I should be able to manage” Molly said after a moment’s hesitation. Janette, meanwhile, promptly stripped Molly of her jacket before she roughly ripped off her remaining sleeve, causing the young girl to be gobsmacked at how fast things happened She’d only just agreed and in the next moment, she was not only a sleeve poorer but, also, completely sleeveless.

Janette couldn’t help but giggle slightly at the sight of Molly, still not having processed what just happened, “Go outside and wait for me, will you? I’ll dress Brother’s wound and then we can go fetch some apples,” she said as Molly simply nodded and walked outside as Janette followed her with her gaze.

After Molly went out of sight, Janette crouched down next to Charles and helped him remove his jacket and hoodie causing him to flinch and hiss slightly in pain, making the process more difficult than it had to be. He was easier to clothe when he was unconscious, Janette thought. At least he didn’t move

Once all Charles had left on his upper body was a grey T-shirt, she didn’t hesitate at removing the stained bandage. “You didn’t need another bandage,” she finally said with furrowed brows after she had inspected the wound which had, as she expected, closed together and wouldn’t reopen unless he decided to swing his arms around. She couldn’t understand why he’d want another one; they both knew how fast he healed… and why.

“I think we’d all be able to appreciate Molly showing a bit of skin Some more than others. Don’t you, Sister?” Charles responded as he flexed his arm and couldn’t help but take a cold breath through teeth clenched in pain as his wound reopened. “Be a dear and bandage my wound, will you? It seems it’ll still be a while before it heals,” he said as he shared an amused look with his sister as she dressed his once more bleeding wound.

Molly was sitting outside on one of the roots of the willow tree, blissfully unaware of what was happening inside the cave. Instead, she couldn’t help but think about last night’s events. Everything had been fine until she heard the skittering of claws not long before one of the rat-things jumped her from around the corner. However, much to her luck, her frightened nature actually did her something good for once, as she threw herself sideways onto the ground the moment she saw the furred abomination, which spared her the fate of gurgling to death in her own blood due to suddenly being without a throat. Instead, she managed to make it with only a few scrapes on her shoulder and a slightly ripped jacket in the same region.

But that was all the good her fear did for her. She’d been useless once more, she thought, remembering how she’d quickly gotten back into a seated position, just in time to see her would-be-killer get thrown through the air with a wet crunch after being on the receiving end of a back-breaking staff-swing courtesy of Max. As her mind finally realised that she was under attack she screamed, but she lost her voice the moment she saw how many of the things there was.

That’s when Max stepped in front of her, waving his staff in wide powerful arcs as he kept the creatures at bay. Perhaps Janette was right, she wondered as her eyes gravitated towards Max, perhaps he truly didn’t hate her but, instead, he was simply stressed out That would make sense: he did save her rather swiftly and without hesitation, didn’t he?

It was rather fortunate that he did so, frozen as she was she could only be described as dead had he not. It wasn’t until Janette grabbed her under her armpit and dragged her back up on her feet that she woke up, though she didn’t do anything useful even after that. Instead, she hid, much to her own shame and guilt, one she only felt now that she thought back on what happened.

“You sure look thoughtful,” came a pleasant voice from her left, one she instantly recognised as Janette’s. “I was just thinking about yesterday,” Molly replied, “How’s Charles? The bandage looked quite red,” Molly asked as her face turned a slightly lighter shade, to which Janette gently shook her head, “He’ll be fine with time, but the wound still hasn’t completely closed up,” she answered, “And I doubt that’ll be the last time I have to change his bandage.” Now then, onto the next part Shouldn’t be too difficult: it was her brother’s idea, after all, she thought sweetly. He always did treat her so well. Almost always

“I’m sorry Molly, but do you think you could lend me some more of your shirt, should the need arise?” Janette asked as she put on a troubled expression, “Are you ok, Molly?” she asked out of concern at seeing Molly pause with a wide-eyed expression. “Eh?” Molly responded as the gears in her head finally started turning once more. She hadn’t ever thought Janette would ever rely on her for something so important. Yes, she knew that offering a bit of cloth in and of itself wasn’t that big of a deal, but she’d come to realise how important Charles was to the young woman before her. The fact that Janette was willing to entrust him to her, even something as minuscule as providing him cloth to bandage his wound, was overwhelming.

“Yeah, sure, I don’t mind,” Molly responded with a quickly spreading blush, one that only seemed to spread faster after she saw the almost impossibly radiant smile on Janette’s face. “Oh, thank you, my dear Molly,” Janette exclaimed as she embraced the now, once more, frozen form of Molly. She almost couldn’t wait, but her brother had told her to be patient. Molly truly was cute, almost to an unfair degree, Janette thought as she smiled gleefully.

And so the evening came, and with it came the repetitive evening meal of apples. They’d considered cooking some of whatever those creatures were, but no one seemed keen on eating the disgusting looking creatures, a disgust only amplified after Charles told them that some animals had parasites in their flesh and reminded them of the fact that the carcases had been left out in the sun since sunup.

Charles, wounded as he was, was deemed unfit for guard duty at the behest of a very adamant Janette. So, with one less on guard duty, Janette and Molly would be taking the first shift, and Max would take the last; something Charles had apologized for to the lone guardsman that was Max, who didn’t seem bothered about it at all. If anything, he seemed quite pleased with himself at being given that responsibility. Stroked the animalistic ego of the idiot, Janette thought derisively.

The first shift, thankfully, went by uneventfully. The second shift, manned by Max, however, didn’t. Janette awoke with a start as the sound of Max shouting drifted into the cave. Molly was trembling beside her, she realised, as she grabbed her staff. “You stay here and take care of Brother,” Janette said to the frightened mess that was Molly before she made her way towards the surface. There were fewer of the rat creatures than last night, Janette concluded as she finally reached the entrance, and she was indeed correct: including the collapsed one near Max, there was a grand total of six bipedal rats. She didn’t spend many moments in thought, however, before she stepped around Max as she brought her staff forward in a brutal jab with the result of rat skull giving way to wood with a loud crack, as blood and brain bits flew along the length of her weapon.

Shuttering slightly at the sound of breaking bone and the squelching sound when she removed her staff from the rat’s, now slightly emptier, skull, she swiftly brought the weapon around to bash a leaping rat out of the air with the front end before she drove the butt of her staff down into the exposed ribcage of the creature. Thank whatever deity that guided her in deciding to have both ends of her weapon sharpened, she thought, mostly in a vain attempt at distracting her from the writhing creature embedded under her weapon.

It was a horrifying sight for anyone unaccustomed to gore: the rat, now with a new wooden outgrowth, was shrieking due to the hellish pain it was experiencing. The skull seemed to be more brittle than its ribcage if the fact that her weapon didn’t simply break through the bone as it did the first of her victims was anything to go by. It wasn’t until she lifted her staff, the rat still embedded on one end, and brought it back down as if to drive the stick into grown, that the creature finally died.

[ Obtained: Spear Proficiency Novice I ]

That was odd, she thought, knowing that her Brother had gotten the [ Quarterstaff Proficiency ] talent, not this one. Something to discuss later, she decided, slightly thankful the notification had popped up when it had, distracting her from the feeling of wood sliding through broken bits of bone and flesh before it stopped, hitting the inside of the creatures back rib.

The fight was over by then, Max having killed the other three rats in the time she took to kill two. The man was indeed more experienced in fights, as was expected from someone in his line of work, she admitted. But that didn’t change what he was, or what he will be.