Kher squatted in the snow by the blasted oak, and settled his roughly forged hammer against a nearby fallen tree trunk. His mother had sent him to meet the travellers. This time he was not expected to mete out violence. He had been told very firmly not to eat the woman with fire hair, or her odd companion. The injunction had been delivered with the accompaniment of a firm slap to the face to get his attention. Then she had brushed away the sting with the same hand and added that he could snack on anything else he found on the way. She had sniffed audibly when he asked about horses, and she had looked at him with disappointment in her expression. Her corpse-pale eyes had fixed gazes with his yellow, and he’d subsided.
These strangers among the dwarves must be important, he mused, for them to get attention. Perhaps they were useful to her. Kher and his brothers were not much given to complex thoughts or introspection. His father was an ogre. For some that might have been a comment on their father’s personality. For Kher it was a simple statement of parentage. Muscles and bestial atavism vied for supremacy in his body. He was built for destruction and violence. Spikes of adrenaline stirred his blood at any sudden motion or noise. In anyone else it would be a conflict of fight or flight, but for Kher the reaction was purely an instinct to fight.
He killed some time by deliberately setting up a campfire and a cooking spit. He brushed the ground clear of snow, set stones around the space he wanted to use, and brought out dry kindling and branches from a pack he’d brought from the den. Practiced hands set flint and steel to use, and sparks quickly caught and bloomed into flame. Onions and carrots went into a dented pot from the same pack. Then he rested in the squat and relaxed his eyes.
There was a rustle in the brush near him. He ignored it. The noise happened again, resolving into hesitant soft footsteps. A slender figure stepped into his peripheral view. A long blue scarf was wrapped around the neck of an otherwise rag-clad and rabbit-featured fairy. It had a black eye and looked like it had been in a fight.
“Uh, hello? You look like you’re preparing a broth. I don’t suppose you fancy some company?” The harengon twitched slightly as Kher lowered his hood and turned his horn-crowned head towards him.
“You look cold. Been in a fight?” Kher gestured to the nearby fallen trunk. The fairy creature stopped between him and the hammer and settled down. Kher produced a flask of whisky.
“Yes, I fear my days of banditry may have to pause for a while. Thank you. I fear I’m bruised and battered all over.”
“That’s okay” said Kher, his large fist closing around the creature’s chest. “I like my meat tenderised.”
Some time later, a woman on horseback stopped on the pathway leading to the oak. A thin figure swallowed in a cloak held her tightly from its place behind her on the horse’s back. She pushed back her own cloak’s hood to reveal hair that seemed to flicker with reflected firelight. She looked at Kher who was still squatting by the hollow oak. Something that looked like a very large rabbit was roasting on a spit in front of him. She had the look of someone determined to not ask too many questions, but worried about the answers she might get anyway.