The Lost Boy | ONC 2024

13 - The Lost Boy

Canan apparently had a whole bunch of friends in the city, so many it took him a few days to gather them. It felt strange that they had been there all this time but he never mentioned them before. He had always acted like he hated the place, and now it was full of friends?

I had asked him about it, and when I did he sighed and gave me a wink, "everyone is a friend if you pay them, and besides, I told them about our brothers being held prisoners — that was quite enough motivation."

Something didn't feel right about this whole thing, but I wanted to trust him, I knew Tom did, which was a good sign since he was not the trusting type.

Canans friends were all half-orcs, tall men and women walking behind us on the dirty road towards our destination. A damned village governed by a crazy witch. Hurray, I thought bitterly and tried to swallow the panic that was rising from my stomach to my throat.

To calm my nerves I gently nudged Canan's far bigger hand with mine, and before I knew it he had grabbed it and held it tightly. Our height difference made me feel small. Almost childlike when he held my hand, but the important thing was —it calmed me.

"Are You alright?" he asked, peering down at me with a frown on his brow.

I sighed and shook my head, "no, how can I? We're facing an evil witch's magic with muscles." I had met witches before, most of them were very delightful, sweet men and women who worshipped the earth and its spirits. But then there were the more evil kind, those with hatred inside their bodies who used their powers to control and to create pain.

"How are we going to defeat her?" I asked as I looked up at the tall man beside me.

"We'll sneak inside and free my men, Frank will do his thing and remove the curse on them, and then we can attack," he explained like it was nothing.

I couldn't help but feel annoyed that he hadn't asked me about Frank first. He was a baby, and how many men were stuck in that place? I didn't want the tiny dragon to exhaust himself.

"When my men are gone, the villagers won't be able to defend themselves," he continued.

I peered up at the sky, watching Frank flying high above my head. "How many did you leave behind?"

"Twenty."

I sighed, "I know Frank helped you once, but I'm not so sure he can do it again, and not on that many."

Canan leaned down and gave my cheek a quick kiss, "don't you worry your pretty little head, I love that tiny critter, I won't do anything to harm him."

Happy with his answer I decided to leave the conversation and peer around at his so called friends. All of them had green skin, but their hair colour varied from blond to black and everything in between. A few of them had heavy armour but most were wearing leather or chainmail and none lacked weapons. They were all carrying huge swords, maces or axes on their backs, even the slightly smaller women. Who was still far bigger than me and any elf.

They all seemed to look up to Canan for some reason, I thought. Did they know he was the heir? Or was he just a leader of some sort? I remembered one of them calling him something formal sounding in their language earlier, but the pieces of the puzzle didn't match up. As I kept looking around I noticed they were glancing at me as well, and on our joined hands. They all looked annoyed or even angry or threatening, and I must have squeezed his hand a bit tighter because Canan raised a brow silently wondering what was wrong.

"Your friends don't seem to like me," I whispered and moved closer to him. Canan instantly stopped walking and turned to look at each and every one of them. He peered down at me, gave me a wink then said something in orcish that I couldn't understand, but it made them all relax and some even chuckled. It should have made me feel better, but it didn't, not in the slightest. "What did you say?" I asked with an almost pleading voice.