Avalyne Series 02: The Easterling by Linda Thackeray

not, I shall protect you from harm,’ he said bravely and full of levity.
    ‘ On the contrary, I shall protect you,’ Melia did not look up from her plate when she responded just as smoothly. ‘If they mean to harm us, I will simply have to seduce their Captain to secure our freedom.’
    Aeron threw her a sharp look and retorted tersely, ‘do not even joke about such things.’ He would die before allowing her to face such a humiliation.
    ‘ Who was joking?’ She returned his gaze with a wink.
    ‘ I would kill anything that attempted to take advantage of you in that way. After all, I have staked a claim upon you, if you seduce anyone it will be me.’ His blue eyes gleamed with suggestion.
    Melia actually laughed out loud, ‘only in your dreams.’
    ‘ Not in yours too?’ He gasped in mock hurt. ‘I thought that you would dream nothing else.’
    ‘ Perhaps in your dreams, not in mind,’ she laughed, enjoying their bantering as much as he did.
    Suddenly, the boyish smile melted from his face and his blue eyes became hard like flint. His gaze shot past her shoulder and he set down his plate so he could immediately stand, his expression one of grave concern. Melia did not know him well enough to read all his moods with any clarity but she knew like all elves, they had a good sense of danger and his face spoke volumes. She reached for her own weapon before rising up to take her place at his side.
    ‘ What is it?’ She asked quietly.
    ‘ Something draws near,’ he replied, arming the bow he had picked up off the ground when he stood up, arming it in readiness to fire.
    ‘ Can you tell what?’ She whispered as her eyes swept the bushes framing the tree line past the shore.
    ‘ I am not certain,’ he answered but she noticed that he had loaded two arrows into his bow instead of one.
    ‘ I do not hear anything,’ she remarked and knew that she was talking too much.
    Aeron frowned and silenced her with a sharp look. His elven hearing could sense the approach of two, their heavy feet pressing into the soft ground as they neared. He was impressed by their ability to move so silently for the space between each footstep indicated that the enemies were large in stature and yet it required the heightened sense of the fair folk to detect their approach. He doubted that a human would have heard them until it was too late. He had a fair idea of what was coming after them because he had encountered these beasts at Astaroth.
    ‘ Take this,’ he ordered as he handed to her the long dagger he wore on his back just as they began to hear branches being bent and leaves rustling nearer and nearer to them.
    ‘ I have my own weapon,’ She insisted, wondering why he required her to use a dagger instead of her crossbow.
    ‘ Your bolts will not penetrate their hides,’ he said hastily. The ground started to quake now. ‘This requires weapons crafted by dwarf skill,’ Aaron stated, prepared to use his sword if the arrows were not enough to put down their enemy.
    ‘ What are they?’ She demanded, her heart starting to pound because they were terribly close now, enough to hear everything being said.
    He looked at her briefly and answered, ‘ogres.’
    Melia looked at him sharply but had little time to argue because the creatures chose that moment to launch themselves through the shrubbery towards the light of the campfire. She had never seen the ogres in the flesh before but knew of them and their fearsome reputations.
    Not quite as big as cave trolls, they were twice the size of normal men and craved human flesh for their meals. Their skins were scales of thick hide and they clutched their large hammers with clawed hands, Their bared large teeth capable of tearing the flesh from bone with ease. Since Balfure's falls, the few remaining creatures that had not died at Astaroth now wandered the hills aimlessly, scavenging for food where they could it.
    Aeron let both arrows fly when they showed themselves. The shafts flew true