No Turning Back
Part 6
Joren exhaled and glanced around and back at the huge corpse as though expecting it to get up again. Menzo’s gaze followed and suddenly, it wasn’t so terrible in his mind’s eye anymore. They hadn’t died. As impossible as it seemed, they hadn’t, and wouldn’t either. It hardly felt real. After a moment, he chuckled and shrugged. “Maybe I should just chop it completely.”
“What?”
He chuckled at the bewilderment in Joren’s face. “The head. The neck. Everything.”
“Oh. Oh,” replied Joren with dawning realization. “I uh…” He chortled softly. “I think we’re fine now.”
“You’re sure?” Menzo’s face bore an air of amusement as he leaned in a comical fashion on his axe. “I mean… Really really sure?” His tone was exaggerated. “You know, maybe I should anyways. Just in case.”
“Nah. That this isn’t getting back up. But uh… Maybe you could hack my sword free. It got, uh… stuck.”
Menzo raised an eyebrow and Joren shrugged shyly, and then they both started to laugh. Menzo felt as though his soul became as light as a feather as he began to unstrap the youth from his damaged armor in the places where there were wounds to tend. With few words and an odd hilarity erupting every so often, Menzo had the boy tended to in such a way as would allow them to move back towards the village with less risk of aggravating his wounds. The archer had recovered his bow and Joren’s sword and, later, his helm, though there was admittedly not much left of the latter after Mirrhe’s frenzy. Laden with most of Joren’s possessions and half of Joren’s weight, Menzo slowly guided their way back to the village.