Fantasy The Witch Hunt (Lenaara x TucanSam)

[Lenaara]

TucanSam


Frozen in horror, Marek gaped at Nathan with wide red-rimmed eyes and lips parted in shock. What was Nathan saying? How dare he say such things, of Fleta, who had been nothing but kind to him? How could he insinuate that…that she would do such vile things? Rolling around the hay with some boy that she had just met, or – heaven spare him! – with many men?

Marek knew he was a fool. A fool who took to action without so much as a solid plan. All of this was half-improvisation and the bits that were planned did not work out. He wanted Irene out of the picture and, when he found her sitting alone outside, he thought himself lucky. He thought he was doing the right thing then. But she would not follow him, out of blind loyalty to Nathan or to coin, and Marek’s plan to send her tumbling down the hill was thwarted.

That plan hinged on her trust, trust he thought he’d acquired on the road, but she put the well-being of Nathan and the child above anything else.

And now, everything hinged on how Nathan felt about Fleta. This too, had not gone as he thought it would.

A trembling fist formed at his side and the hold on Irene’s spear was painful, hard, and shaking so much that the blade shuddered in its metal clasps. With sheer force of will Marek did not plunge the spearhead into Nathan’s throat.

Coughing continued deep in his ears and Marek had gone pale in the face, paranoid that Irene was somewhere nearby, moving closer and closer. He did not know how long the poison lasted and if it was possible to recover from it.

He did not know she would start suffocating!

The way her ashen eyes turned cold with realization that she was dying still sent chills through him and fear gripped his limbs in an icy hold.

He couldn’t go back now.

“She was kind to ye!” Marek exclaimed in anger, his voice trembling with the same intensity as his hands. Never before in his life did he wish to impose judgement in a form of pain on someone else. “Nothin’ but kind! How— How dare—“ Marek couldn’t speak. Rage coursed through his veins, burning, intense. His face turned red and he spat the words at Nathan.

When he found the pouch and the parchment amongst the belongings Fleta had recovered from the forest floor, he thought that it was no coincidence. Fleta claimed that it was divine providence that led Nathan and Irene down the same road as them. And he thought, perhaps it was?

They’d been struggling to collect a dowry for Fleta for years and she was too old to marry now. It was hard to find a match for her, no matter how beautiful and kind and innocent she was. Coin fed hungry mouths, not beauty. Such was the truth and it was harsh.

Then, the dowry was stolen and the thief ran into the woods, leaving his partner to die by Marek’s hand. Marek all but lost hope in that moment, but soon he saw two travellers with weapons and armour and two purebred steeds. And then he found the pouch and the piece of crumpled parchment and knew that he would be a fool not to take this chance.

He knew he resigned himself to death the moment he threw the poison at Irene.

Rage helped him think fast and clear. He whirled around and looked through the faces of the crowd until he saw the one he needed. The girl.

“If I lose my sister, you will lose ‘er,” Marek hissed and ran into the crowd.

Someone yelped as they were pushed away by Marek. A series of curses directed at him were echoes, empty noise he did not care about. He pushed through people, his small lithe frame slithering like a snake and kept the spear pointed upwards. The sight of him with a weapon had sent the crowd into disarray. People panicked, screamed and Marek cursed inwardly. He cursed them all and prayed to any god that listened that this commotion would not scare the child he was after into hiding.

Once he found her small frame, he slid an arm under hers and heaved her up. An ear-piercing scream had nearly made him deaf and Marek winced, cursing violently now, and with one violent shake told the child to be quiet.

No longer able to quickly leave the room, Marek elbowed women and men out of his way. Someone tried to grab at him and he nearly lost his balance when a hand hooked him by the collar. The spear swung and struck his attacker with the counterweight and he fell back with a bloodied nose. Free, Marek sprinted down the hall and into the night, and ran down the hill towards the lake.

For one terrifying moment, he sprinted through the open meadow. The moon was bright above him and enveloped him in a silver light. There was nowhere to hide until he reached the base of the hill, and when he finally did, he ducked into the shadows of nearby houses and ran through the village.

His plan was nothing more than hope now. Hope that Nathan followed him and the drink and heavy armour slowed the knight down enough to give Marek time to find refuge.

Marek didn’t know where he was running and the weight of Irene’s spear and the child at his side was slowing him down now. Adrenaline no longer gave his legs the strength to sprint and he pressed a harsh hand against the child’s mouth to keep her silent for as long as he could. The child bit him so hard she drew blood and kicked and thrashed against him with all her might. Marek didn’t care. He was afraid to stop now, to let her go, for he knew deep inside that his head would roll if he did.

With panicked eyes, he looked around and refused to see if Nathan was following. He knew he’d hear his approach when he got too close.

He weaved through the village, turning here and there to put as much distance as he could between himself and the knight. Finally, his eyes found a decrepit barn at the lake’s bank and he thrust the door open with his shoulder and fell inside. He let go of the child, pointed the poisoned spear at her, and slammed the door shut.

The barn was empty safe for some stacks of hay and broken mouldy boards. It stank of algae and fish and the floor was slippery with slime and scales and fish guts. Bars of moonlight crossed the floorboards and Marek’s face as he pressed his face close to the door, watching the roads through the slits between the boards.

Ironic that he chose to hide in a place Nathan dared imply Fleta to be frolicking around.

Flies buzzed around his head but he did not care. Marek was as pale as the moon and his hand shook as he kept the weapon pointed at the girl. His eyes were wide and he was afraid, so afraid. The waiting scared him more than Nathan ever could.

The child screamed and Marek let her. Jaw set so hard his teeth hurt, Marek clutched at the pouch of poison.


~~


Nothing worked. Not a single thing I drank made a smidgeon of difference.

When I stumbled into the village hall, I moved from beam to beam, from table to table. It was hard to see, my vision remained blurry and no matter how much I rubbed at my eyes or blinked it did not improve. People were blobs of colour as were the dishes that I overturned in my clumsy attempts to grab the pitchers and goblets.

With my vision gone, I found myself relying on my sense of smell, for everything burned as I inhaled and it was the only thing I could feel. The hearty dishes made me sick as was the stench of alcohol and sweat and moulding hay.

A bowl of apples cluttered to the floor and the fruit rolled away in spots of pale yellow to be stepped onto or caught by a child who was passing by. The clay pitcher was heavy and my hand shook as I brought it to my lips and hungrily drank until I chocked and coughed, spilling some wine over myself. The spices burned and the wine was warm. It intensified the fire roaring in my lungs and I bent over the table and gasped for air.

Panic was struggling to take hold on my senses and I fought it, stubborn, and continued to the next table and the next, grasping at anything that resembled a cup or a goblet or a pitcher. I had knocked back a jug of hard liquor and the blinding pain that followed instantly made me stumble forward and nearly fall.

Where was the Mountain forsaken water?

No one had come to me for help. Music had stopped and with a sluggish mind I realized that the crowd was yelling, screaming, and people scattered to the sides. A flash of armour caught my attention and I tried to go after it, nearly tripping over an upturned chair in the process, unable to see it underfoot.

I rested heavily against a nearby wooden beam as burning coughs shook my body once more. A metallic taste in my mouth made me sick. Annoyed, I brushed the back of my hand across my mouth and looked around to spot Nathan. He towered over most people and his presence was hard to miss, as a tower of grey stone would be hard to spot within a forest.

But the flash of metal was gone and so had half the crowd. People ran to me, at me, and I slid down the beam and some part of my mind urged me to be as small as possible not to be trampled to death. Skirts brushed past me and people spoke in a chorus, the cacophony of voices loud and impossible to understand, to determine what they were on about and what made them so terrified.

Once it was safe to move, I pushed away from the beam and half-ran half-stumbled across the open hall. Several tables were laying on their sides, their contents spilled; the decorations were ripped off the walls and lay crumbled on the floor; several women and men stood hugging the walls in terror. Someone screamed when I ran past them, I didn’t know why.

Another series of coughs assaulted my lungs and I leaned against the wall, bringing my hand to my mouth and struggled to breathe. My heart was beating so hard I could hear it and it shook my ribcage with intensity of a drum. By then my throat was rubbed raw, numb.

Even as my coughs subsided and I calmed down, gasping for air with raw, dry lips, I could still feel the wall shake beneath my shoulder. It confused me and I stared at it. It was not a wall at all. It was a door, propped shut by a chair. When I moved it away with a groan, for each movement required strength I no longer had, the door burst open and Fleta nearly tripped, fists raised. She stared at me with shock, tears running down her cheeks and her fists bruised from having knocked on the door too long and too hard. She recovered quickly from her stupor, which couldn’t be said about me, and grabbed my shoulders.

“What happened?” She demanded, terrified, and ran a hand over my face. It was so cold against my skin and brushed away the beads of sweat and the long strands of hair off my eyes. Involuntarily, I leaned into the touch, soaking in the cold. “You are coughing blood.”

I was?

My heart continued its flutter at the revelation and I looked down to stare at my hand. The back of it was tinted with a smear of red that was too blurry for my eyes to see at first.

That’s not good. Such a calm thought. Did I already resign myself to death? Or was it shock?

Fleta shook me and I couldn’t find the strength to look at her. She shook me again but my head was far too heavy to lift, my eyes were closing and I wished for nothing more than rest. Finally, she released me and without support to keep me upright, I leaned against the wall, almost in gratitude for being left alone. Until a sudden force snapped my head to the side so fast my neck protested and I staggered back.

It woke me up and with brows drawn together in confusion I stared at Fleta who was breathing heavily before me, holding one hand in the other. She had slapped me. Such uncharacteristic display of control almost made me laugh.

“What happened?” Fleta breathed and held me by the arm as I coughed. “What’s wrong?”

“I – “ I tried to speak and my voice was raspy, harsh. “Marek…did this.” Each word was a struggle.

Fleta continued to look at me with terror and cast a glance around the nearly empty hall. “Where is he?”

“I don’t…know,” I managed and began to move towards the doors. There was little time left. If Marek wasn’t in the building, that meant he was somewhere nearby. I wagered not long had passed since he left me at the bench and if Nathan wasn’t in the hall, he went after the red-head boy.

Fleta wrapped an arm around my waist and helped me walk and then run, the slope of the hill working to our advantage as we jogged. It made me breathless in an instant and I gasped for air like a fish out of water, earning more terrified looks from Fleta. She bit on her lip and shut her eyes, fighting battles of her own I was sure, afraid to let me go and equally afraid to follow me.

“Marek locked me in that room. He pleaded for me to wait there and said that…” Fleta sobbed and tears slid down her cheeks. She wiped them off with her sleeve. “That all will be alright. I didn’t know. I swear I had no knowledge he would do this. Whatever he is doing.”

“I know,” I rasped and nearly tripped on Nathan’s sword that slapped against my shin and thigh. Cumbersome thing.

The grass was wet and Fleta tripped on her skirts and slipped, bringing me down with her, and on our knees, we reached the bottom of the hill. Fleta jumped to her feet quickly and helped me up. The moment I was up I grasped at my head and groaned, earning myself a new series of coughs. The taste of iron in my mouth was nauseating and the short run was a bad idea, for my body shook in cold shivers.

But none of it mattered. I had to reach Nathan and the child, find them and do my job. The thought of dying in some village hall was as terrifying as succumbing to the molten iron pooled within my chest. These thoughts kept me upright as we ran towards the lake, aimless, and I used Fleta as my eyes. In this darkness, I couldn’t see a foot ahead of me.

“There! That’s Marek,” Fleta pointed a pale hand towards the village, where I could barely see a moving figure, oddly shaped at the waist. It was screaming. A child. I could barely hear the screams over the heartbeat in my ears.

We ran there, holding onto each other for support, and it did not even occur to me that I could be useless to Nathan in this condition. Unable to breathe, to stand, let alone to fight. But I had his sword. And he was hardly a cripple.

 

[TucanSam]

Shrill screams echoed across the otherwise quiet night air, the soft click of a wooden door slamming shut interrupting them only for a moment before they started up again. Marek's mad dash across the dance floor, scooping up the girl and taking off into the night had been more than a little surprising to me, and while he was not something you could call fast, the alcohol in my body and the armor on my back gave him more than enough speed on me to make a decent getaway, despite the thrashing efforts of the girl and the spear in his hand. Far more sober than my body, my mind could only watch as he disappeared out the door before my body could react and follow after.

Even with the head start he had gotten though, and perhaps by sheer luck, no more than a dozen yards ever separated the two of us, and despite the fuzz that covered my eyes as I tried to focus on their small form in the distance, I was able to more or less keep track of the two of them as they made their way to the edge of the lake, disappearing into a old, worn barn. The girls screams continued, a cacophony of anger and frustration that gave me continual confirmation that she was still, at the very least, alive. Whether she was unharmed was another matter entirely, but that was of most concern to Marek whenever I managed to catch up to him.

Pausing for a moment to catch my breath, my lungs sucked air in violently, as if i'd just been rescued from drowning. Graciously, the man had chosen to corner himself for me, and had nowhere else to run to. The entrance to the barn was no more than fifty yards away, and a lake bordered the back of it. Any escape that did not involve him diving into the lake to swim away would be pointless, and there was no chance the girl would allow herself to be dragged into the water. He'd have to abandon her, and the look in his eyes as he had scooped her up let me know that was a long shot at happening. This was the last act of his life, if I had anything to do with it. He knew how desperate the situation was.

A pair of shuffling feet drew my attention away from the barn, the forms of Fleta and Irene stumbling awkwardly towards me as if they'd been the ones drinking all night long. Red, raw skin lined Irene's eyes and mouth, drops of blood having dried at the corners of her jaw. Assuming that Marek had snuck up on her, it was clear he had not intended to fight fairly. Powdered peppers perhaps? Poison? I was not sure, but it was clear she was not in a good state, and made her appearance only now a little less infuriating. Fleta, on the other hand, seemed completely unscathed. Her inclusion in this matter was not something that could be ruled out, and the blood flowing in my veins began to boil at seeing here her, unharmed. Was Irene so far gone in her pain that she was unable to restrain this woman? Or was she unwilling? It did not matter.

Rifling through my clothing, I produced the flask from earlier, shaking it gently in my hands to see if it was empty or not. A small amount of water sloshed around at the bottom of it, and I tossed it roughly in Irene's direction, hitting her squarely in the chest. "Well," My words had begun to grow clearer, losing their sloppy edge and slurred nature as my adrenaline began to overtake the alcohol in my system. "Seems we have a bit of a problem on our hands."

The end of my fist crunching into the side of Fletas head cut off the last few words of my sentence, sending her crumpling to the ground with the force. I spit on the ground next to her before grabbing her by the collar of her dress, yanking her up roughly until she was standing next to me. A small trickle of blood ran down the side of her head, but she was alive, for the moment. Blinking away the daze from her eyes, she began to struggle, her words coming quickly and panicked as she tried to explain herself. I didn't listen, bringing my hand across her face to silence her.

The boy has holed up in that barn," My free hand pointed in the direction of the lake, unsure if Irene would even be able to see it as I pointed it out. "He has your spear, and the girl. Collect yourself and meet me there. Otherwise," I shook Fleta violently once more as she tried to escape my grasp, thrashing and pulling at my hand as best she could. "I won't guarantee this one here will live the night out."

With those parting words I turned, dragging Fleta along behind me as I made my way towards the barn. Her appearance with Irene in tow was not lost on me, and I was sure that she had little to do with the actual events that had transpired. But she was related to Marek, in more ways than one, and I very much doubted whatever he was up to was worth this girls life. He'd turn the girl over, or he'd watch his sister die before I killed him myself. Either situation worked for me.

"Well, Marek," The sound of Fleta struggling against me nearly drowned out my voice as I shouted at the barn. "Seems you have a choice to make."

 

[Lenaara]

TucanSam


Unable to see, to move as freely and effortlessly as I was used to, I drifted in that space between dreams, where I was aware of what was happening around us, but had no control over it. In that moment of suspended weightlessness, my feet slowed and Fleta had to shake me awake and yell something in my ear to wake me.

Fleta’s slight frame was not strong enough to hold me, who was far taller and heavier, and when I looked at her, her teeth were bared and her eyes were tearful, afraid. She clutched to my hand to keep my arm around her shoulders and wrapped her own around my waist and dragged me forward, step by step, pleading me to stay alive.

Fever shattered my mind and body. It was both hot and cold and the world spun like massive waves of an ocean. Fleta’s presence kept me awake and moving and I leaned against her heavily, grateful and sad, for she did not deserve to be so frightened.

Through my delirium, it occurred to me with great delay that we’ve stopped. Eyes trained on the ground, at our slowly shuffling feet, I found it easier to watch my boots rather than the swaying world that lulled me to sleep. Something hit me in the chest and nearly summoned another wave of uncontrollable coughing, and the item unceremoniously fell into the mud at our feet. Someone spoke and it took my mind a painfully long moment to register that voice to be Nathan’s.

Nathan.

As I inhaled with dry, cracked lips, I struggled to speak. Only unintelligible whispers escaped my lips and the wind brushing past us drowned them out. With great effort, I lifted my head and reached for Nathan, wanting him closer—

Suddenly, Fleta was ripped from me. Without her weight supporting mine, I nearly fell. Stumbling a step or two to the side, I fell onto one knee and reached a hand to place it on my head, willing it to stop spinning. It had not and the waves of nausea fought to pull me under, to make me succumb to the fever.

There was no time to help Fleta up to her feet, though I wanted to and she looked at me for help. Nathan pulled her towards himself so quickly their forms melted into one large blur. He spoke quickly and I listened, understanding his words and at the same time, not. The barn he pointed to was nothing more than a blotch of darkness against a shimmering background of water, so far away I couldn’t imagine myself ever reaching it.

They were off before I could so much as wheeze a sound of warning.

He could not go there alone, unarmed.

Not when Marek had that poison.

That cumbersome sword weighted me down towards the ground, dragging at the mud as I struggled to pull myself together and get up. I clawed at the mud, grabbed the water skin, uncorked it and like a man who’d wandered the desert for days without a drop of water in sight, drained the flask. The water was cold and sweet at first, until the blood in my mouth gave it a flavour of iron. It almost made me sick and I heaved, bent over double, afraid to move and equally afraid to stay still.

Even feverish and suffocating on the small amount of air permitted to enter my battered lungs, I understood that helping Fleta and Marek was out of the question. By throwing the poison at me, by kidnapping the girl, Marek had become if not my enemy, then Nathan’s. Faced with a choice to help Fleta or Nathan, I had to choose the latter. Because he was my charge. Because he paid me.

It angered me more than it should’ve.

Instead of following Nathan down the road, I went towards the lake. A copse of trees and a small fisher’s hut hid my approach, no matter how slow it was. The roaring fire within me had become a constant numb pain that drained on my strength ever so slowly, and I knew that sooner or later, it would win. Whether it meant my death or not remained to be seen.

It scared me, of course. It terrified me.

The glimmering in the moonlight water became closer and closer. Sometimes I ran, pooling some strength before running for a few painfully long seconds, and sometimes I walked, always staying within the cover of the shadows. Once at the lake, the ground was softer and tugged at the soles of my boots, making each step difficult.

Once at the barn, I circled the abandoned ruined fisher nets and broken barrels, nearly tripped on a short set of stairs that lead towards the lake’s bank, and willed myself to walk softly as I hugged the side wall.

Marek had left the barn some moments ago, the thrashing child pressed tightly against his body. With his back to me, he was but a patch of green, tinted darker at the back from sweat. My spear was angled awkwardly, held just below the spearhead, that was inches from the child’s neck. It shook slightly, as was Marek, and his voice was raspy when he spoke.

“Fleta, all will be well.” Though he tried to sound reassuring, his voice was underlined with pure terror.

Some distance from me, Nathan held onto Fleta. Moonlight coloured her skin pure white, contrasting starkly against the deep emerald dress she wore and the streak of red running down one side of her face. My lips flattened at the sight of her like this and once again I felt the pang of pure anger. Not at Nathan; at myself. At my inability to help her, though I wanted to.

There was nothing to be done. My hands were tied by coin bought loyalty.

Fleta clawed at Nathan’s hand, struggling to free herself, and thrashed against his body out of instinct. Deep inside, she must’ve realized that she couldn’t escape his grasp, no matter how hard she resisted. So, she pleaded him, pleaded Marek. It was hard to hear but it distracted her enough to allow me to reach her brother unseen.

“Please, Marek, let her go,” Fleta spoke through tears, chocking on them, “just let her go. I did not know you would do this. I had no knowledge. Why, Marek? Why did you do this?” She spoke quickly in her panic and fell limp against Nathan, sniffling.

The wall was damp and oddly soft against my shoulder and hands. I leaned against it as I forced myself to walk. One step, then another. It was cooler here, the breeze coming from the lakeside a comforting sensation against my damp with sweat neck. A shadow hid my approach and yet I still felt exposed. Cautious, I kept my footfalls silent as I stalked my way towards Marek.

“Hush, Fleta,” Marek’s voice was gentle and quiet, so quiet even I couldn’t hear him. No more than twenty feet separated us. I stopped at the shadow’s edge. “I will right this, I promise ye.”

Fleta only wept, whispering, “Please please please,” as she did back when I found them, when she was afraid I would kill Marek.

For one long, silent moment, Marek remained silent. With a shaking hand, he adjusted his hold on my spear, unused to its weight or perhaps the uncomfortable angle, and glared at Nathan.

“Let my sister go,” Marek began and cleared his throat, “and no ‘arm—“

Somewhere in the distance a crack resonated through the silent night. Marek flinched, pressed the child tightly against his body, clenching her tiny arm in his hand, and turned towards the sound. Moonlight pooled onto his features and I could finally see his face – he was as pale as Fleta, with widened eyes that snapped from one house and to the other and scanned the shadows, as if a creature was about to jump at him. His bottom lip was trembling, as was his hand, that moved the spearhead so close to the child’s neck one wrong movement would result in her death.

I remained still. Marek resembled a panicked animal, jumpy at the first sign of danger. Still robbed of my vision, it was impossible to see if Fleta was looking at her brother. Attacking him was a risk I couldn’t take, not when Marek was in this condition. Perhaps it was best to wait, to see how it played out and—

Quickly, I flattened my back against the wall and pressed a hand to my mouth. My chest tightened and panic ran up my spine on cold spidery legs. A cough fought its way up my throat, shaking my chest and shoulders. It hurt and burnt; the sensation was near impossible to ignore. It took all my self-control not to give in.

I remained a frozen statue, hidden by the shadow and Fleta’s soft weeping pleas. When the pain subsided and I could breathe once more, I looked to the side and stared right at Marek. He was looking in my direction, straight at me, though his eyes did not meet mine. Indeed, it took me a moment to realize that he did not know I was here.

Then, he turned back to Nathan, and spoke once more.

“No ‘arm will come to the girl,” he said, “if you let Fleta go. Let us take the ‘orses and yer coin. That is all we want.”

Slowly, I turned and dropped my hand onto Nathan’s sword. Its pommel was comforting against my palm. It was cold and kept me awake, conscious, for the time being. How long that would last I didn’t know, but knew, deep inside, that attacking Marek would require all the strength I had left. What happened afterwards I refused to consider, to think about, for the future I imagined was grim.

“Do ya agree? Two ‘orses and yer coin and Fleta for this girl?” Marek repeated,

Moonlight gleamed over the golden thread of my coat, though it was coated in mud at the hem. Slowly, I moved closer to the clearing, keeping one hand on the wall for support and the other on Nathan’s sword.

As I shifted my gaze from Marek to Nathan, I willed him to look at me. Willed him to be cautious of the shadows as he always was. As much as I trusted Nathan as far as I could throw him, I trusted him to silence Fleta if she noticed me.

 

[TucanSam]

Shadows moved at the corner of my vision, directly behind Marek and in the slow, slumped and agonized form that could have only belonged to one person; Irene. Good , I found my mind thinking. So she isn't completely useless after all.

Whatever Marek had used on her seemed to be terribly effective, and I found myself extremely grateful that she had been the one on the receiving end of it instead of me. Who knew what lengths she would have gone to in order to retrieve the girl, doting as she did on Marek and, in particular, Fleta. The young woman had long ago slumped in my arms, resigned to what was happening and what her role in it seemed to be at the moment. Letting her live and smashing the boys head in had been the original plan, but even her theatrics while under my grip could not be ruled out as fake at this point. They could both be in on it, plotting and scheming together in order to achieve something.

Wanting our money and horses could not be all he had been after, could it? A part of my mind told me that he surely could not be that dumb, but the look on his face, the panic in his white knuckles and his desire to see his sister unharmed spoke opposite of that. He'd had no plan, or at least not any good one. Ridiculous. My grip on the girl loosened, dropping her to the ground where she collapsed in a slump, crying like she'd just found her entire family murdered in their house. These people truly had no clue about the world outside their own tiny lives.

"This is not a negotiation, boy," The girl stood silent at his side finally, all the energy she'd had to fight having drained out of her once she had seen I was there. Deep breaths racked her tiny body as she glanced at me, and then back at Marek, unsure of what to do in this situation. I gave her the best assuring smile I could, inching forward towards the two of them. "Whatever you thought was going to happen here isn't. I'm leaving with the girl and, if you're smart, you'll disappear somewhere I won't be able to find you."

When only a few feet separated us I stopped, tightening the gloves on my hands and adjusting the armor on my shoulders. "I have no moral issues with killing both of you here and now, and more than enough capability even if you have that toothpick there. Let her go now, and maybe i'll feel otherwise."

 

[Lenaara]

TucanSam


Marek stood frozen, his shoulders rigid and falling up and down in rapid breaths that I could hear above the wind. His boots scraped against the dirt when he took one step back, then another, his steps becoming quicker and quicker, turned awkward by the child he still clutched to his body. He did not seem to care he was hurting the girl or that the spear was oh so dangerously near her neck. He did not seem to care that he’d nearly tripped and cost both of them their lives. For he was afraid and Nathan’s proximity did little to rectify the situation.

All confidence the boy boasted before was gone, replaced by panic. Though I had seen the way his shoulders relaxed in a deep sigh of relief at seeing his sister free, it passed quickly. With Nathan’s ever nearing presence, Marek felt more and more unease. It was dangerous. One wrong movement, one wrong word, and Marek would kill the child without a second thought if only to protect himself.

His plans foiled, Marek inched closer to the barn, his back still facing me.

“No,” Marek shook his head. “Yer ‘orses and coin for this child. Do ye think me daft? Death awaits me if I let ‘er go. I ain’t stupid. No, not stupid.”

I did not look at Fleta when Nathan let her go, neither did I care for her cries, though they remained at the back of my mind. She was not looking at me; her arms were folded beneath her face as she wept into her sleeves. Without the only witness to warn Marek, I knew that it was time to act.

So, I waited, as patiently as I could, gathering my strength. It would have to be enough to last long enough to disarm Marek and free the girl. It was simple, easy, and yet not. I knew my spear like I knew the back of my hand and I was confident I could disarm Marek, but the poison was taking its toll on me. The world continued its swaying dance, the ground threatened to push me off my feet, and the air was hot and thin as I breathed it in.

Closer and closer, Marek stepped towards me. By the time he had come close to the barn, a half a dozen feet separated him from Nathan. To keep Nathan at a distance, he pointed my spear at him, holding it just above the hilt. His arm shook, all of his body did, clutching the girl against himself as if it was his last line of defence.

That was my chance.

I pushed myself off the wall and in wide strides closed the distance between us. At that very moment, Fleta looked up and screamed, looking straight at me before she tightly shut her eyes, afraid. It was enough to alert Marek and he whirled around, bringing both the child and the spear with him, and would have impaled me had I not knocked the shaft aside with my forearm.

The spear’s shaft slid against the leather bracer and kept it pointed away as I stepped towards Marek. My left arm wrapped around the spear, holding it tight, and slipped the shaft under Marek’s armpit and wretched it in a circle, wrapping his arm around it firmly as if it were glued. Marek cried out as I jerked him forward. He stumbled, let go of the child, who ran towards Nathan quickly. I slipped my foot around his ankle and he lost his balance and fell as I circled him around. I slammed him face down onto the ground. With a sickening crack, his arm broke.

To my disbelief, Marek twisted around and reached into his tunic, his narrowed into slits eyes focused on mine. A sense of déjà vu prompted me to act and I pulled my spear back and struck him in the shoulder, using my body weight in lieu of strength to sink the spearhead deep within his left shoulder, pinning him to the ground.

Not even blinding pain and inability to use both arms stopped Marek from one last strike. He grabbed the pouch from within his tunic and flung it straight at Nathan. A thin trail of powder spilled mid-air, trailing a crescent of a vile green colour.

“Don’t breathe,” I commanded Nathan, my voice unable to go above a whisper, and lifted an arm to hide my nose behind a sleeve.

I left my spear sticking out of Marek’s shoulder and flung myself to the ground towards the child. Faced with a choice between Nathan and the girl, I chose the girl, knowing deep inside with utter certainty that he would want that. I pressed her little frame against myself and pushed her head down to bury her face between my shoulder and neck, and held her still.

The pouch hit the ground and rolled, spilling more of the powder, and the wind picked it up. Before I closed my eyes tightly shut, I saw how it spun around us in a green mist.

If the girl protested, I did not feel it. I couldn’t feel much, not even the warmth of her body. No matter what I couldn’t let her breathe in the air, afraid to let anyone experience the agony that I had.

It was impossible to tell how long we remained like this, utterly still. Though I feared I’d lose my sight completely if I gave into curiousity, I lifted my head slowly and opened my eyes slowly. The mist was gone, carried away by the wind, and the pouch was nearly empty at our feet. The sand-like powder shifted in the wind within until I, after closing my eyes and holding my breath, scooped some dirt and buried it.

Behind us, violent coughs interrupted the otherwise stillness of the night. Wheezing and crying in pain, Marek struggled to breathe, and with tears running down the sides of his face, he clutched at his shoulder where my spear was buried. It appeared he had not inhaled much of the powder but he was twisting and moaning softly, clawing at the wound, hooking the fingers of his broken arm deep into the cut.

I let the child go and got to my feet, slowly and on trembling knees, and with a hand wrapped around my burning throat, neared Marek.

Fleta had scrambled to her feet, tripping and pulling on her skirts, and ran towards Marek. She fell on her knees beside him and stared down at him, confused and afraid. She had been far from us when the poison lifted in the air and felt no ill effects from it. Her brows were pulled together, her lips parted in a gasp, and she grabbed at her brother’s hands to stop him from hurting himself even more. Pale in the face, with tear stained cheeks, she tried to speak.

“Hush, Marek,” she cried, chocking on her sobs, “all will be alright. You will be alright,” she tried to reassure him and reached for my spear and pulled it out.

The spear fell onto the ground and rolled until it hit the tip of my boots softly. I hadn’t moved. Fleta did not look at me once.

Marek cried out and his body jerked, twisting, moans escaping through gritted teeth and shaky breaths. Fleta desperately tried to stop her brother from clawing at the wound but his bloodied fingers continued to reach for it, struggling against Fleta’s hold. The clean cut became a mess of raw flesh and blood, staining his tunic, making him lose blood rapidly.

I knew I hadn’t cut to kill. I knew it was enough to dislocate his arm, not sever his arm entirely. His actions were strange and terrifying and through the haze, I realized with sudden clarity that Marek was dying.

“It burns,” Marek moaned and fought against his sister’s hold. “It burns. Make it stop. Make it stop burning.”

Fleta couldn’t stop her tears. They fell onto Marek’s chest and his hand that she desperately tried to keep still. With her other, she pressed against the wound in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. Without fully comprehending what he was saying, Fleta stared at him, her mouth trembling as she struggled to speak through sobs.

“What burns?” She pleaded and shut her eyes tightly, perhaps coming to the same realization as me. “You will be alright. Let me find a healer. They will treat you, Marek, and you will be well again. We will go home. You promised to take me to the fair, remember?”

Marek shook his head, his skin sallow and damp with sweat. He freed his hand from Fleta’s grasp and tore his tunic open and then the shift beneath and pulled the bloodied cloth away. Fleta gaped as did I, though she wept while I stood frozen.

His skin looked thinner and the veins fanned around the raw wound in dark red lines. A bitter acidic stench and decaying, rotting flesh tinted the crisp night air above Marek and as he breathed it in, he coughed, and his red rimmed eyes stared at the sky without truly seeing it. He hadn’t noticed me stand beside him, either. Shivers shook his body.

He was dying. Dying from the poison that somehow entered the wound I gave him.

Fleta no longer tried to restrain her brother and he hooked his bloodied fingers into the cut and pulled at the muscle beneath, moaning and gasping, weeping alongside his sister who knew, deep down inside like I did, that Marek was beyond saving. The poison was spreading quickly, his veins darkening with each passing moment, painting a morbid pattern on his white, gleaming with a thin cover of sweat, skin.

My lips flattened and my expression was grim. I leaned down and picked up my spear. It was heavy. As I straightened the world swam and I positioned my feet firmly on the ground, refusing to give in to the weakness and the nausea and the lack of oxygen in my lungs.

Fleta looked up at me, a silent question in her eyes, a plea. The answer to it was in my hands, heavy and yet comforting, familiar, dear.

Without a word, I pulled my spear back and Fleta looked away, holding Marek’s hand against her cheek.

The spearhead sunk into Marek’s neck. His body thrashed. Blood foamed at his lips and around my spear, spilling from the wound, and the acidic stench hit me strongly in the nose, making my stomach churn. Marek raised a hand to his neck in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding, and moments later it fell limp. His eyes were wide and empty, lifeless, for the first time looking straight at me.

Fleta wept loudly now and pulled Marek’s lifeless body towards herself to cradle in her arms, rocking back and forth, her face buried in his neck.

Breathless, I stepped away, dropped my spear to the ground and succumbed to the series of coughs that fought its way out of my lungs. I couldn’t stop them, not now, for they were no longer the dry kind that disturbed my raw throat. They were wet and each time I coughed into my hand, I feared to look at it and see the signs of poison.

Cold sweat appeared at my forehead and temples and my body shook so much I fell onto my knees and coughed and coughed, unable to breathe.

“Healer,” I rasped in between quick gasps. “Find…me,” I pulled one knee up and tried to get up, too stubborn to die now, to choke on my own blood, “a wisewoman.”

 

[TucanSam]

"Damn it," I cursed under my breath, eyeing the scene around me as the dust cleared from the air. Marek lay dead a few yards away, his sister clutching his body and weeping. Irene, eyes red, mouth covered in blood and wheezing like an asthmatic, crumpled near my feet, the girl hovering over her, worried, and unsure of what to do. Stupid boy. Who would have thought that, broken and defeated, he'd have still tried to take us with him, killing everybody in a last act of defiant stupidity? A breath of frustration left my lungs. At least the poison he carried had not claimed anymore victims. Irene on the other hand...

Crouching slowly next to her, I ran my finger along her eyes, pulling her lids open to see her pupils closely before moving down to her mouth, prying her jaw open and glancing inside. Red, raw flesh appeared anywhere the poison seemed to have touched, and droplets of blood seemed to seep out of several different places. I had no idea what he had used, and very much doubted any medicine woman from a village this small would either. This was not a simple birthing, or a sickness picked up during the seasons change. Irene would be lucky to live out the rest of the night at this pace.

The girl crowded near her side, worry and fear clouding her face. She did not need to turn her face towards me and ask the question, I knew exactly what she wanted to do and, while I did not necessarily want Irene to die, the alternative was not much better. This village, despite the number of people at the party, was small, and I was sure word spread quickly of anything odd that happened. A boy being killed and his sister being assaulted by a man in armor and his child was sure to draw a lot of attention. The kind we did not need. Irene dying, however, offered its own set of complications, and I struggled inwardly with which would be worse.

"Nathan," A small hand gripped the edge of my clothes, tugging on them sharply. "We cannot let her die."

Apparently the decision had not been as hard for the girl to make, and I growled under my breath. She was right, in some sense. Getting out of this shit hole should be our first priority, and getting Irene into a state where she could move and ride a horse was the first step in the process.

"Fine, Gods be damned. Fine." My voice was a harsh hiss as I bent, picking Irene up in my arms, hoping she would be smart enough not to struggle against it. Now was not the time to be proud. "Let's at least get somewhere secluded."

Quick movements meant the girl understood the gravity of the situation, and she clutched onto the spear tightly, dragging it as fast she could behind us as we made our way to the edge of the lake. A small shack, its windows busted and the boards on its walls decaying with rot, sat a few dozen yards away. Not nearly far enough as I'd liked, but I doubted Fleta would be dumb enough to follow us at this point. The door moved inward as I kicked it open, creaking angrily on its hinges as I pushed my way in, setting Irene down harshly in a slump on the ground. A few moments later the girl followed us in, her breath heavy as she struggled to pull the weapon that was nearly three times her size behind her. I shut the door quickly as she entered, taking the spear from her hands and leaning my body against the door.

Small hands began to move clothing away from Irene's body as the girl sought to undress her, hoping to find a patch of skin that had not grown raw with poison. My attention divided between her and the door, I glanced back only briefly to make sure Irene's chest did not stop breathing and that the girl was not pushing herself too hard. I did not need two unconscious women to take care of.

"How long will it take?" My words echoed in the small, empty building. Old discarded fishing nets lined the walls, and broken bits of wood lay everywhere; the only furnishings in this decrepit building. The girls hands shook slightly as she touched Irene's flesh, her face screwed in frustration.

"I do not know."

 

[Lenaara]

TucanSam


Voices were muffled, melting into vague sounds that made no sense, sometimes loud or low, floating somewhere on the horizon of reality I so desperately clung to. These voices kept me awake, albeit with difficulty, though devoid of meaning. It was just empty sounds.

It was impossible to understand what was happening at times. Suddenly, the ground was no longer under my feet and I panicked for it was wrong. It was a foolish reason. I wanted to fight against the hold and pressed my hands tightly against something hard and smooth and cold, leaving uneven bloody prints when I could no longer lift my hands.

I made a sound of protest, though it was a whisper drowned in rustling chainmail and stomping of feet. It felt oddly comfortable and cold and I relaxed in Nathan’s arms, too tired to think or move or speak. The fever shook my body, and he was both warm and cold, and most of all safe.

Until he let go of me on the cold damp floor and it woke me from my daze.

It was dark until my eyes adjusted to the minimal light coming in slits through the shuttered windows. Moonlight gave the little room we locked ourselves in a white silvery atmosphere and tiny specs of disturbed dust flew up, glimmering like miniature gems the colour of starlight.

Small hands reached for me and started to work their way through the clasps of my coat. I couldn’t understand why at first and reached up to help, unclasping two before stopping. My brows drew together in confusion and leaned forward to prop myself on an elbow. This wasn’t right. Why was I being undressed? It made no sense.

Once up, I could see that the child sat beside me, and came to the conclusion that it was her hands that touched my neck and chest, now bare. Curiosity made me look down at my chest, exposed to the waist, my coat and blouse unbuttoned. Through the intricate lines of my tattoo and the shadows that criss-crossed my skin, I could see the way my skin turned red, uneven, as if covered by a rash that I could not feel.

It shocked me for a moment and I reached for it, brushing a hand across the rash and felt the smooth skin beneath, hot to the touch, with a light sheen of sweat coating it. The girl was touching it before, her fingers cool and careful and shaking, and only now I understood why.

Magic. I knew she had magic but did not know what kind. Were there even different kinds? I did not know nor did I wish to find out. And certainly, I did not wish to know what sort of magic she was capable of.

“No,” I rasped, brushing the back of my hand over my mouth and sat up. It was hard to stay upright, but I managed, too stubborn to lie there and die or let magic cure me. It wasn’t right. “Don’t.” It was a command and I looked the child in the eye as I spoke, though I knew that it wasn’t with authority that I looked at her. It was with fear. “Magic always…comes with a price.” Each word was a breath.

I couldn’t care less that my coat was open. Neither did I care that I was being stubborn and a fool for refusing help.

I’ve had enough magic to last a lifetime; its imprint remained on my chest as a constant reminder.

There wasn’t any time to deal with me either. If they refused to find me a wisewoman – and I knew as well as they did that no village healer could help me now – then they had to go before anyone found out about Marek. In these parts murder wasn’t common and it wasn’t easily excusable. Even if it was done to ease the pain that otherwise would’ve fed some vile creature lured here by the smell of death.

“Leave,” I struggled to push myself to my feet, adamant in my decision to refuse the child’s help. “Take the horses. Go. Before they know.”

 

[TucanSam]

Soft shushing from the girl was her only response as she tried to soothe the struggling Irene, whispering platitudes to her as she tried to force her body to heal itself. Sweat formed in large drops upon her brow with the effort, her hands shaking ever so slightly in the dim moonlight. This wasn't going to work, not like this. Fear and anxiety colored my features as I watched the two of them, uncertain of the task even as it was being performed. Healing did come at a price, I was no stranger to this idea. Too many times had I seen her small body racked by fever, her lungs overtaken with coughing or, in the worst case scenario, her body giving up entirely and simply sinking into unconsciousness. The size of the wound did not matter, the degree of the swelling or the depth of the cut inconsequential. Any pain she experienced for others was unforgivable, and I'd long ago forbidden her to ever do so again.

Now though, as I glanced down at Irene and the small girl doing her best to heal her, now was different. Now we had no choice. Though my travels had taken me far in the world, they had not taken me here, to this part of the continent. These people, their customs and the roads they traveled on were a mystery to me. Perhaps, with time, we could muddle our way through, find the right path and make it to our destination. If we had the time to. If those chasing us relentlessly would give us the time. I doubted they would. The look on the girls face, the fervor she put in to trying to save this woman we barely knew...

Too many times in the past had she wanted to stop, to try and help somebody in need. Worry and fear crossed her face when I had told her no, leaving the poor souls to whatever fate the God's had decided for them. This was different. We knew little of Irene, or her motivations or whether she could be trusted. A part of my mind wanted to reject her entirely over what had just happened, but the girl had always felt otherwise. A desire to trust lied somewhere in her, a strong will to care about others she barely knew just because she wanted to. There was little confidence in my mind that I could dissuade her from saving Irene. I grunted in frustration at the thought.

"Move", I barked at the girl roughly, shoving the spear into the doors hinges as a brace. The girl shuffled to the side, her hands still touching Irene as she struggled to heal her. I knelt beside her, towering over Irene's face, pushing her shoulders back down against the floor. Steel filled my eyes as I glared down at her, all sympathy I might have felt for her in the past gone at this moment.

"You listen to me," My voice was gravely, filled with the remnants of alcohol and exhaustion. "If I cared at all what happened to you, I would not have hired you in the first place. Her, "My finger pointed roughly at the girl even though Irene could not get up to see her. "she is a different story. Unlike me, she does not enjoy watching people die if they can be saved. So whatever misgivings you have about magic, whatever self destructive tendencies you might be feeling right now, do us all a favor and shut the hell up and let her do what she wants."

A few more thrashing efforts of struggle were my only response, and I let out a long sigh. Of course she wouldn't make this easy. She never made anything easy, did she?

"Alright," I glanced back at the girl. "Go ahead. I'll keep her still."

A nervous, tired look from the girl preceded a nod as she moved back up towards Irene's stomach, her hands steadying themselves on her abdomen as she closed her eyes. Air in the room began to move slightly, a cool breeze peppering over our bodies as the girl concentrated. A soft buzz emanated from where their skin made contact, as if somebody had let loose a bee inside of the room. Vibrations shook the worn floor, jingling the nets on the walls gently and then, silence. The girl let out a long breath, slumping backwards onto her legs before collapsing into a slump. MY hands freed themselves from Irene, confident she would be okay, before scooping the girl up into my arms. Color seemed to have drained from her face, her lips a pale, thin red and her eyes fluttering gently against her closed lids. So it'd been on the worst end of the spectrum. Figures, on a night like this.

"Gather your spear, if you've the strength." My voice was low and quiet. "WE have not much time."

 

[Lenaara]

TucanSam


It was impossible to move. World flashed white as my body was pushed downwards to the floor suddenly and as I fought against the hold, flexing my stomach and raising my arms to the hands that pressed on my shoulders, I got dangerously close to falling into the comforting embrace of unconsciousness.

Fear kept me awake, panic fuelling my pointless attempts at breaking free.

Nathan’s voice above me broke through the panic and I focused on it, on him, and opened my eyes to stare at him. Our eyes locked, mine as cold as his, and I looked at him at first with foolish fear and then with disappointment.

Did he not understand?

Against my hot skin, I could feel the cold fingers of the child that still touched me and I tried to jerk free, move away as much as I could, so she would understand that I did not want her magic. But Nathan’s hands pinned me to the floor and the fever turned my movements sluggish, slow, my limbs leaden. No matter how I moved, how I struggled and thrashed, the child’s hands never broke contact with my skin.

My hands curled around Nathan’s wrists and I held onto them for a long silent moment. It was hard to speak, blood bubbled at the corners of my mouth each time I breathed, and my throat hurt. Any attempts at speaking turned to wheezing, gurgling whispering.

This endangers her more than you think.

Let me go.

Let me die.

No matter how I wished for my eyes to convey these words, I knew it was pointless. Nathan would not lessen the pressure and as he told the girl to begin, I did not look at her. Our eyes remained locked until I felt the magic. It buzzed and shook the floor beneath me and it made me sick, disgusted, and disappointed.

I looked away from Nathan, turning my head to avoid seeing him and still felt his icy stare on me. In that moment, I entered a strange sense of detachment, floating in the haven of my empty, tired mind. In that cold wash of dispassion, I floated beyond my person and was a mere witness to everything around the three of us. My hands slid from Nathan’s arms and lay limp.

I’d given up. There was nothing I could do anymore. So, I waited for it to be done and over.

Just as I waited when they put the Mark on my chest.

The fire within me disappeared with each passing moment. Each breath was deeper than the other and it no longer hurt. It smelled of iron and salt and damp wood. My mouth felt dry and bloody, but otherwise no longer raw and numb.

Even as the buzzing sensation stopped and the room was filled with the silence of the night, I did not move. Neither did I move when Nathan let go of me and moved away to pick up the unconscious child.

His voice did not stir me and I remained on the floor, as still as a statue, breathing in the cold air and finding it strange that there was no pain, no resistance.

Slowly I raised a hand and pressed it against my throat, then slid it down to my stomach where the child touched me to brush off the remnants of her magic. Though I knew she was no longer near me, no longer touching me, the sensation of her touch her remained. It made me sick. Made me want to scratch and pull at my skin to make it disappear.

It would’ve been as pointless as fighting against Nathan’s hold.

The weakness and nausea was gone, as was the pain and numbness that drained my strength before. It felt like a sick joke to find myself refreshed and strong as I got to my feet and wrapped my coat around me. Not bothering to push my blouse down first or tie its collar as I usually did, with one hand I locked the clasps and tied the belt around my waist, and with the other reached for my spear without offering a single glance in Nathan’s direction.

Once the shock of having found myself strong and well again has passed, rage pooled within my stomach. This anger was a foreign feeling, strange and wrong, and it fought its way out, demanding to be known and heard. So, I clenched my jaw tightly and muscles rippled along it in contained emotion and busied by hands.

Leaning my shoulder onto the door, I took my spear and refused to look at the blood coating its blade. Voices murmured outside, hushed and frantic. As I peered into the streets, my eye pressed to the crack in between the door and the wall, I could see shadows shifting down the road, where the voices were coming from. The ground there was illuminated in soft orange candle light. It was impossible to tell how many villagers were lured out of their homes by curiosity or how many hid behind shuttered windows.

Fortunately, no one had noticed us as we left the hut and circled around to run by the lake’s bank. There were no shadows to hide within but it was the shortest route towards the village hall. At least, I thought it was. The village remained a blur in my memory, a jumble of roads and paths and houses, obscured by the fever that made the scenery more grotesque that it actually was. What I thought was a wide road in reality was a narrow animal path; what appeared to be a giant house, elongated and gaping in the middle like the maw of a beast, was only a ruined barn, forgotten and picked apart. Relying on my memory was out of the question.

At least at the lake I could see the village hall towering above the little huts.

Like thieves we hid whenever we spotted a moving figure in the distance. Without a word, I’d change our path to duck into a thinning copse of trees or behind a fisher hut and motion with a raised hand for Nathan to stop and wait. It made our approach silent although suspicious. I’d rather we avoided speaking to any villager, however, for I knew they would question my sudden good health.

Someone was bound to have noticed my frantic attempts at drinking anything I thought would help me stop the violent coughing.

And then there was Fleta…

Inwardly, I cursed Nathan and the child for doing what they did. By saving my life, they doomed their own safety.

Fools.

Clouds drifted slowly over the moon by the time we reached the village green. We kept to the bank, walking ankle deep in the water not to leave footprints behind in the damp sand. The water sloshed and tugged against my boots, numbed my feet. It shimmered like molten silver, rippling and masking the sounds of our approach.

Music no longer played from the village hall and it appeared abandoned. Its doors were wide open, spilling firelight into the night. Ruined decorations lay on the floors, bright spots of red and orange and brown against the background of upturned tables and candelabras and torn from the walls carpets.

After motioning for Nathan to follow me closely, I ran down a worn path at the base of the hill towards the stables. The stable doors were closed shut and when I stopped before them, listening, I heard faint rustling sounds that I assumed at first were the horses or rodents.

But as the door creaked open, pushed inwards by my hand while the other held onto the spear tightly, a panicked squeal rang through the dead silence. It nearly made me jump and inwardly I cursed, having been on the edge since we’ve left that hut where the girl used her magic on me. But the situation required me to remain calm and focused, so I was, pushing the anger to the back of my mind to deal with later.

Light pooled into the stables and lit two figures across from us, lounging on the hay covered ground, their bare limbs entangled on discarded clothes. At seeing us, one blood covered and carrying two weapons and the other clad in armour and clutching a sleeping child, the two lovers tried to dress in a hurry. My traveling pack lay open beside them, its contents disturbed, and I narrowed my eyes into slits at the sight.

The woman pulled on her shift and, pressing her dress and shoes to her chest, quickly pushed the doors across from us open and ran. Her lover, on the other hand, had troubles comprehending the situation, let alone getting dressed. I stalked into the stables without a word and went for my traveling bag, that the man in his drunken stupor reached for, and closed the flap shut and slung it across my chest. He mumbled a sound of protest, reached for me and narrowly missed my ankle.

While I readied my horse, the drunk had pulled on his trousers and a vest and stumbled out of the stables, muttering a string of curses under his breath.

“Put the girl into the cart,” I told Nathan, speaking for the first time since before the girl has healed me. It made me sick to hear my voice clear, without a hint of roughness that coated my words before.

I hadn’t looked at him at all, or at the child, not even when I spoke. My voice was steady, laced with unusual calmness that did not fit the situation. With the same steadiness, I prepared the horses in an almost militaristic fashion, adjusting the yoke and cutting off the bells from it, and attached the longer reins. My mare’s saddle was put into the cart, over which I’d draped my blanket. I hadn’t bothered looking if he’d done as I asked.

I couldn’t look at either of them yet.

For I knew that the moment I met Nathan’s eyes, the moment I saw the child’s unconscious body, I would lose myself in guilt and anger, and snap.

There would be a time to come to terms with what had happened and speak to Nathan and the child, calmly or screaming, and vent my own anger and frustration at the world and its rules.

But that time was not now, for there were more important matters to tend to. Perhaps that time would never come and I would avoid it as I avoided confronting many other problems in the past. It would be better that way, I knew. It would not hurt as much.

Right now, when the child was unconscious and the villagers were tending to Fleta and her murdered brother, I had to be a stable pillar to lean onto for protection and guidance. That was my job.

So, I focused on my tasks without allowing my mind to think of anything else. I hadn’t stopped moving since I’d gotten up from the floor of the hut where I might have died, burnt raw by the poison.

The rest of our belongings appeared to be untouched, except for some missing food items that were easy enough to replace in one of the neighbouring villages. As I dressed Nathan’s horse to ride, I stopped suddenly and reached for my spear.

A figure stepped into the doorway, a lone dark silhouette against the backdrop of the lake. It was hunched and its arms were clasped at the back, watching us intently. I did not lower my hand from the spear’s hilt, however, an uneasy feeling in my gut telling me that the danger had not passed.

True to my instincts, three more silhouettes blocked the doors, fanning around the older woman who was watching Nathan and I ready our horses. They were men, all young and strong, from the looks of it just risen from their beds by the commotion we’ve caused.

“Leaving?” The woman spoke, her voice cold and familiar. I’d heard it before, at the wedding, when she’d announced the game of Musical Chairs.

“Yes,” I replied, watching the men behind the village elder intently. One of them was carrying an axe, while the others appeared to have grabbed anything with a resemblance to a weapon, large boards and meat cleavers.

The village elder hummed, tilting her head in a birdlike gesture. Beneath furrowed brows she regarded our horses and the cart. “You appear to be in good health,” she said, “contrary to what I’ve seen at the hall.”

At these words my breath caught and I lifted a hand to wipe at my mouth, where blood crusted at the corners and pulled on my skin. “I inhaled a toxin.” That was not a lie, at least. “The worst has passed.”

“Fleta told us,” the woman agreed with the same inquisitive stare.

I curled my hand around my spear, taking comfort in its presence and yet refusing to look at its blade, still coated in Marek’s blood. The village elder, however, looked up at the spearhead and lines fanned at the corners of her mouth in a painful frown.

“Do not think us blind, stranger,” the woman continued harshly, as if I’d insulted her in some fashion. “We’ve seen Marek take that weapon and kidnap a child, a child who was not one of our own. Half the village heard her scream.” The elder paused and inhaled deeply. “Fleta does not think you responsible. She is a good, kind girl, bit naïve, but harbouring no ill intentions otherwise. I’d like to believe her.”

One of the men at the elder’s side spat on the floor. “Marek was a good man,” he spoke lowly.

“That didn’t do him any good, did it?” The elder snapped. “Boy died to stupidity and ambitions he couldn’t pass up. Do not be a fool, boy. We’ve seen him demand what he did. We come here expecting murderers and see a woman and the man who made a fool of himself at the feast instead.” She waved a hand at us and spat at the boy’s feet and slapped his arm with the back of her hand. “Use your head, boy. Before you lose it like Marek did.”

The elder turned to us once more and said after a long pause, “We cannot let you stay at the village. Death is bound to bring us something foul. There is an old herbalist’s hut north of here overlooking the lake. Go there. That’s the best I can do for you.”

When I did not move, partly because I couldn’t believe my own ears, the woman nodded to the men at her sides and told them to go home before their wives lost their minds of worry. They left, albeit with hesitation, and glared at Nathan and I over their shoulders. They were angry and afraid, eager to punish us for what had happened.

The elder remained standing at the doorway, her hands clasped behind her, and watched us in silence as I set to work once more. Once the horses were ready, I led mine outside the stables.

When I climbed into the driver’s bench, the elder stepped towards me into the light. Her hair was pulled back and wrapped in a scarf and she wore a dress and a vest of deep red colours decorated sparingly. She kept pulling on the ends of the belt wrapped around her waist and her deep-set blue eyes looked at me with strange contemplation.

Just as I opened my mouth to thank her, she said, “Tell the Commander her lapdogs are not welcome here. We’ve got enough troubles without you adding to them.”

Her words stunned me into silence and she did not wait for my reply, either. She turned around and went back towards the village.


~~


The herbalist hut was a half an hour ride away from the village. Alone, it stood at the edge of a meadow at the bank of a small lake. Its thatched roof was dark and the walls were covered in a thick blanket of ivy. Flower beds were long abandoned, bare, safe for several weeds that had not yet perished to the cold weather.

My hands felt numb on the reins that I held onto so tightly my knuckles turned white. Slowly, I uncurled my hands and took a long, deep breath. The air here was fresh, crisp.

We’ve stopped just outside the hut, where the road abruptly ended. This place appeared to be abandoned for quite some time now, so I left the cart on the road and brought my mare to the thin fence surrounding the hut. Then, without a word and impatience gnawing at my mind, I set to work.

On the way to the herbalist hut – where I did not want to go, out of sheer paranoia – I found myself acting impatient, restless, given too much time alone with my thoughts when it was not yet the time to process the situation. It was not apparent, not at first. My grip on the leather reins was strong and I kept shifting it, the leather beneath my hands creaking and my index finger kept tapping a frantic rhythm that I was sure Nathan was bound to notice.

Never over the past few days of us traveling together was I this…restless. I was always as straight as an arrow, quiet and calm, as level headed as they come. Even when Malcolm’s ambush was inevitable I did not look over my shoulder, afraid, or displayed any signs of unease.

This time was different.

Without a word, I headed towards the hut and went inside after pushing the door inwards. The walls were dark but colourful in their own fashion. Various stains of wood appeared to make them, although perhaps it was just that some had chipped away and faded. It smelled faintly of dried lavender and pine needles. Clusters of dried herbs hung on the walls beside the door and above the windows. A thick layer of dust coated the wooden furniture within. Across from me was a giant bookcase, where books were old and bound by worn leather, and jars with various herbs and grasses and roots were on display. I recognized some of them and it calmed me, for this little hut reminded me of another that I remembered fondly.

It even smelled the same.

After lingering in the doorway for another quiet moment, I went inside and started a fire within the hearth with some of the firewood left beside it. A warm orange glow spread through the hut, illuminating the sparse furniture and the various kinds of herbs that hung above my head. Whoever used to live here had to be short of height, for my head grazed more than one bundle of herbs and they crumbled, leaving bits of leaves and dust and cobwebs in my hair.

On the way out, I brushed the herbs from the top of my head and shoulders and went towards the cart to unload our belongings to bring them inside the hut. Once again, I was both surprised and disgusted at my strength and lack of any fatigue, which I expected to feel this late into the night but had not.

Having left my spear and the bags within the hut, I searched the cupboards for a bucket or anything big enough to wash my clothes in. There was only some chipped wooden cutlery inside. In the end, I found a large copper wash basin in the corner.

I did not linger for long. Outside the hut the lake was dark and cold, and the water was icy against my fingers.

There were no partitions in the hut where I could go behind to undress. While nudity did not bother me, I could not say the same for Nathan. Regardless, there was little to be done and my hands were itching to strip my clothing off to wash off any remnants of the poisonous powder. On top of that, I needed to scrub my skin clean of any tendrils of magic that I swore remained, though I was sure it was merely my mind playing tricks on me. So great was this urge, that had I not found a wash basin in the hut, I would have swam in the lake instead, cold be damned.

While the water warmed, I began to strip the clothing from myself, working as fast as I could. My skin was dotted with blood, perhaps my own or Marek’s; it gathered under my nails and painted my hands into a morbid scenery. Once my clothes lay beside the basin in a pile, I stepped into the basin and used a strip of rough linen I carried with me to scrub at my skin, first my hands and then my face. I’d found some dried camomile and mint and crushed the leaves into the cloth, hoping the aroma would mark the stench of iron and purge my skin of magic.

Illuminated by the firelight my skin was a warm bronze colour, my hair – now loose from the braid – rippled with amber undertones. My back was to the door, exposing the two large lines criss-crossing my skin. Long and thin, one began at my shoulder and went towards my waist, while the other was smaller in size but wider, running across my back from the other shoulder. A variety of different scars marred my body, bright lines of pale skin against bronze, toned skin.

My thoughts were numerous but distant, somehow. We were safe now, albeit for how long I did not know.

The bucket of water was bloody and clouded with filth and my skin was raw from the scrubbing it had received. But the smell of blood was gone as was the feeling of something crawling up my arms and neck and stomach, the feeling that I could not shake off ever since the floor buzzed beneath me from the magic the girl used.

The memory brought forth a wave of anger and disgust.

Pressing my lips tightly, I reached for my travel pack and took out a pair of pants and a plain linen blouse and got quickly dressed in silence. My hair was damp from having been washed and lay over my shoulder in a loose braid, and when I picked up the bucket to dump its contents outside to refill it, the night air felt icy-cold against my scalp.

When I returned with clean water, I placed the basin on the floor, sat down, took my clothes and started scrubbing.

“Take off your clothes,” I told Nathan without lifting my eyes to look at him. “Wash them in case there is any poison left.”

Though my hands were busy, scrubbing the blood off the collar of my coat and the remnants of the vile green residue on the hem, I could not stop them from shaking. This normality felt wrong. It couldn’t be right, not after what had happened. What I thought I could ignore, couldn’t be. Not this time.

What they’d done was too complicated to be left as it was.

A sense of duty contained my anger, kept it at bay, and I gladly let it. It allowed me to think clearly, do what had to be done. We had to find shelter and rest for the night, away from the angry villagers and a dead boy hugged by his weeping sister.

And I’d done it. Done it all, glad to have been given something to busy myself with for it was better than succumbing to anger. Because the situation required it. Because I was paid to do those tasks.

But even coin could not right what Nathan and the child had forced upon me.

The anger did not simmer down as I had hoped it would. It was merely contained, waiting for its chance to lash out and be known.

So, I let go of my coat, let it fall onto the floor in a wet pile, and got to my feet. Without a word I stepped towards Nathan, cocked back my hand, and punched him in the jaw. The hit was hard, fuelled by all the emotions I kept at bay until now.

“You are a goddamn fool,” I spat the words at him, my voice cold and shaking in fury. "Do you realize what you have done?"

 

[TucanSam]

Fever. Sweat. Shakes. All of my attention was on the girl and her small body, cradled in my arms like a precious piece of china I was afraid of breaking. As far as reactions to using her powers went, this was one of the worse I had seen in person. Stories about her convulsing for hours, going into a near coma state for days were something that people had talked about quite openly in her home village, as if the lengths she went to for people was something to be impressed by. I found it terrifying, crushing her body against my chest as if I could will some well being into her simply by touch. Angry peasants did not matter to me, the murder of the boy and the fate of his sister were completely inconsequential. Somehow though, Irene had managed to talk our way out of it, their conversation washing off my ears like water off the side of a building, leading us down the road to a small hut that seemed filled to the brim with old, dusty herbs.

An old, dusty bed lied against one corner of the room, and I placed the girls body down onto it gently, all but oblivious to Irene going about her business. This was her job, after all. Normally, having somebody doing everything for me was something that made me uncomfortable and, even during the trip here it had felt odd to have her doing most of the busywork. Me and the girl had not had a ton of alone time together, and while we found ourselves having some conversations every now and then, awkward silence filled our lives more often than not. Those moments of silence had only increased with Irene’s presence but, somehow, they’d felt less awkward. More comfortable. The pair of us and a stranger. Our closeness, physically and emotionally, had only seemed to strengthen as a foreign body was introduced into our group. I’d have almost welcomed her presence, if only because it shook things up, if she hadn’t been so….

The words to finish my thoughts escaped me, and I turned my attention back to caring for the girl. Sweat covered her brow, and her lips quivered as her fever turned to a chill in the nights air. With a soft snap, I loosened the clips on my cloak, draping it across her on the bed to give her some sort of warmth. The night would be long still, and she was not completely out of danger, but the worst seemed to be over. Without a fever she was just left with exhaustion, and a good nights rest should be able to rejuvenate her mostly. A sigh of relief and exhaustion left my body as I slumped into a chair, my eyes heavy and my body limp. Moments later Irene had returned, a basin of water in her hands and her clothes changed. She said something about washing my clothes, before doing the same to her own. Gibberish to my ears. Time had slowed around me as my body sought to shut down, the dust in the air seeming to stand still. Her fist moving in slow motion as it came towards me.

A fist? Recognition sparked in my mind as she hit me, sending me tumbling from my chair and clattering to the ground.

"Do you realize what you have done?"

I lay there, still for a moment before my mind fully woke itself once more. Blood trickled from my lip and copper filled my mouth. A broken tooth maybe? Probably. My bottom lip had split at the very least, and a spot on my head rang after it had hit the edge of the bed. Anger. Yes, that’s what I should be filling right now. Taking a deep breath, I straightened myself, pulling to my feet as the world began to move at full speed once more. That’s right, what had I been thinking? This woman was a menace. Useless. A burden.

“You mean saving your life?” My hands went about straightening my armor as I spit blood onto the floor before turning my attention to Irene. “I think I’m beginning to. You’re right, it was a mistake.”

Wood clattered and squeaked as I pulled the chair back out, setting myself slowly into it. There was no anger I could summon to answer her gaze, no fury to fuel a shouting match with her. Not now, not after tonight. Too much had happened to drain me, for me to care. Surely the alcohol was still helping as well.

“If you’d rather die in some shit hole village in the middle of nowhere, you are free to take your own life. I won’t stop you, and the girl won’t be able to intervene again for several hours”. Running my hand through my hair I leaned back, wishing I could close my eyes, but wary of another sucker-punch. Unpredictable women were the worst.

“Neither will I apologize for what happened. You were dying. Something I thought you’d care a little bit more about. Dying to protect her,” my eyes glanced between Irene and the girl on the bed, “That’s something I can understand. That’s your job. What I pay you for. Being suicidal is not. Wanting to die because of your own dumb pride is not.”

A moment passed as I allowed my mind to catch back up to what was happening. Anger covered her body like a coat against the cold, and I smiled a bit at the reaction she was having. Most people would be grateful for a second chance at life, at being healed miraculously with no consequence to themselves. Most would even pay exorbitant prices for it, sacrificing things they held near and dear for it. Her reaction though? I couldn’t help myself from chuckling.

“Saving your life was the girls choice, not mine. She is her own person, and I do not control her. Do you plan on striking her as well when she awakens?”

 

[Lenaara]

TucanSam


Be angry, Mountain damn you. Be the rash judgemental prick you’ve shown yourself to be.

“It was not your choice to make!” I snapped, my hand slicing the air between us. “You held me down and told her to proceed. It was as much as your decision as it was her own. Do not blame the child for this, when you ignored my choice as much as she.”

It felt as if our roles were reversed. One angry, furious, ready to fight and eager to start one at the first sign of provocation, and the other calm and composed and tired.

Without Nathan’s anger to match my own, my hands stopped shaking and I uncurled them and waved a dismissive hand at Nathan.

“It was a mistake,” I spoke in a deep exhale, mirroring his earlier words. “One that doomed your safety. All for the sake of saving someone who wished none of it.”

Slowly, I inhaled and stepped back. Both hands raising towards my face, I ran my fingers through my damp hair and closed my eyes shut. When I opened them the foreign to my mind anger was gone, simmered down into tendrils that lost control over my actions.

“No,” I breathed, answering his question though it pained me to think on it. “She’s already paying for her choice.”

There was little space in the hut to make use of. The floor was cluttered with small pieces of furniture the herbalist used in their day to day life, however long ago that was. Only the space by the hearth was open enough for all three of us to make use of and it already felt cramped, not meant for more than one person. As I stepped back until my back felt the edge of a low shelf behind me, a distance between Nathan and I was no more than a body’s length.

Trapped, I wanted to turn around and leave. Not to abandon Nathan and the child to the whims of fate. Simply to leave the confinements of the hut and stand outside, where the world was vast and open. Where I felt free.

But it was a luxury I couldn’t afford. There were words left unsaid between us and while anger no longer drove me to rash decisions – it wasn’t common for me to start throwing punches around out of the blue – it made me impatient to find out more of Nathan and the child and devise some plan of action that wouldn’t result in our deaths.

The sound of Nathan’s chuckle forced my eyes open and my lips remained pressed in a thin, pale line. I rested against a what seemed to the workbench the length of the wall. It was coated with a layer of dust and cluttered with forgotten jars and little tools made of stone and wood. My hands curled around the edge, disturbing the dust and cobwebs beneath.

When I spoke, my voice was heavy and I did not look at him or the girl.

“Magic comes with a price. It always does. Sooner or later, she is bound to pay it. It is an unforgiving power that harms everything in its path. The few good things it is responsible for is not enough to justify its use.” With one hand, I brushed the tattoo across my collarbone, rubbing at it absentmindedly. “There is enough of magic in my life. Perhaps too much.”

Warmth spread through the dusty hut and the hearth crackled with dying flames. The meagre stack of firewood wasn’t enough to feed the flames for the night and unless one of us went into the forest to gather kindling, we would be cold by the morning.

The village elder’s words echoed a warning in my mind. Death is bound to bring us something foul.

A concerned frown creasing my features. I turned to look outside the shuttered window. The boards were hammered on haphazardly, in a hurry, and the three narrow boards did little to cover the window. The view of the lake was clear, its dark waters rippling in the wind.

The night remained as quiet and dark as any other. No sinister presence loomed over us, waiting for a chance to strike. And yet, I felt unease when I glanced out of the shuttered window. It was enough to abandon any plans of leaving the little hut for the night, just in case. The thin walls warded off the brunt of the icy winds and the forgotten furniture here could always serve as kindling to stoke the fire.

Pushing myself from the shelf, I headed for the corner where my travel bag was left discarded beside our weapons. I picked it up, brought it over to the work bench and placed it there. Disturbed dust flew up in ghostly wisps and drifted in the air, mingling with the herbs above.

It took me a moment of searching through the misplaced contents of my bag to find a little flat metal jar the size of my palm. It was cold and smooth to the touch without any decorations to point to its purpose. Playing with it in my hand, I stepped towards the hearth to take the drying piece of rough linen I had used earlier. Unceremoniously, I dunk it into the lukewarm water in the water basin, wrung it with one hand, and brought it along with the jar to Nathan.

Floorboards creaked as I stopped in front of him and lowered myself on one knee. “It is not pride,” I said slowly. “It is...fear. Guilt. For having a child pay the price for saving my life. I do not need an apology from either of you. You’ve saved my life. Now, we must deal with the consequences.

“People are bound to talk. Rumours will spread like wildfire that neither of us can contain. There were witnesses to my condition. Fleta, for one. It is hard to say how many more had seen me. During your sudden urge of kindness, have you considered that someone had seen us? Seen her use magic? You do not come across as an idiot, Nathan. Though you are a stubborn fool.”

With my free hand, I reached towards Nathan’s face and brushed my fingertips along his jaw to turn his face towards the light. The glow illuminated the cut across his lip faintly, casting deep shadows over the wound and the bruise that was sure to bloom by morning.

A tired sigh escaped my lips at the sight. My gaze was fixed on the cut when I brought the damp cloth towards Nathan’s mouth and paused there for a moment when my eyes locked onto his.

“Let me clean it,” I said quietly, apologetically. Guilt for having acted out in such a way was evident and yet, I couldn’t bring myself to apologize, for Nathan deserved this broken lip.

Softly, I pressed the damp cloth against the cut while my other hand kept his jaw steady. My touch was hardly gentle, rough calloused fingers unused to tending to wounds other than my own.

In a way, it helped soothe my pride and guilt for having lashed out so roughly at Nathan. Perhaps it was also a strange attempt at building some trust between the two of us. Naive. Surely pointless.

Selfish.

“Both of us are stubborn fools,” I added heavily, emphasizing the last word.

 

[TucanSam]

Flinching back from her closeness, her hand slid from my face, my eyes narrowing at the contact with hers. Anger was something I could deal with. Sadness. Grief. Guilt. Those were things that made some sort of sense in this situation. Waffling back and forth between them all with little notice or reason was not, and my mind struggled to keep up with her mercurial mood. Did this woman not posess the capability of staying on one feeling for more than a few minutes. Must she strike me one second, then mother me the next? Exhaustion had already claimed my body, and this was doing nothing to help.

“If you think the consequences of what she can do, who she is is lost on us...” My head shook gently. “You are stupider than you look. This is not the first time she has done this. It will likely not be the last. She is not like you, or me. She cannot watch somebody die with no emotion on her face. When a situation where she can intervene and make a difference occurs, she can not simply walk away because it is none of her business.”

I allowed my gaze to flow over her sleeping form. When I’d found her, displayed like a prize animal or possession for others to gawk at, I’d had no idea this trip would take me half way around the continent, get me injured and cause me to join up with a mercenary who seemed as if she was both sides of a coin at once. I’d wanted to help her, for my own selfish reasons, and that had been enough.

“There are times I wonder if taking her with me had been the best course of action.” My hand lifted slowly into the air, my wrist limp and lifeless with the effort. “That choice cost more than one person a great deal, including her and myself. But it was not a mistake.”

My eyes roved slowly over Irene before meeting her gaze once again. “She is better than me. Better than you. And that alone means she deserves protection.”

The linen disappeared from her hand as I snatched it away, not content to sit there and let her act as if she cared about my well being. We were beyond that now. I knew her purpose and she knew mine. Both of us could die, and as long as the girl lived and was okay it would not matter. Our roles were set, there was no use pretending we were anything other than tools at this point.

Rising from the chair, I positioned myself near the end of her body, pressing the linen against my lip and wincing with the effort. Whether she was shit with a spear or not, she could clearly punch. At least Irene had that going for her.

“Let people talk,” I muttered to myself under my breath. “It is not as if our presence here is unknown to the people who truly care. Maybe a peasant will gain a little for turning us over, but that would be nothing more than we have already experienced.”

I glanced back at Irene. “She wanted to save your life. Do not take that for granted. We could have left you to die back in that shack, found another person to guide us on our way. You should be thankful that somebody cares enough about you to do this to themselves,” My hand waved at the girl. “Not angry.”

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled at the nights moon, piercing the silent night with its shrill call. “If somebody saw us, I will deal with whatever comes, or die trying. You should seek a death with meaning such as that instead of wishing you died at the hands of some peasant boy.”

 

[Lenaara]

TucanSam


It was clear that Nathan was uncomfortable with my touch despite my best attempts at being gentle. A healer’s hands, not mine, were much more suited for this type of work, though I have been taught the basics of medicine and learned a bit more from observation. Evidently, it was not enough, for Nathan refused my help and snatched the linen from my hand.

Leaning back on my heels, I exhaled slowly through my nose and dropped both hands on my thighs. The salve within the jar lay beside us, forgotten, and I picked it up as I got to my feet and stepped towards the bed. With one smooth motion, I unscrewed the lid and handed Nathan the jar. It smelled like fresh cut grasses and reminded me of standing amidst a field of flowers in the spring. A mixture of my own making, it was a simple healing salve, made of fresh ground herbs and water and honey.

“Put this over the cut,” I explained softly and placed the jar on Nathan’s lap. Perhaps the smell of it would be enough to prove that it was not poison.

The chair wobbled beneath my weight as I sat down on it facing Nathan. My knees spread, I leaned forward to brace my elbows on my lap and laced my fingers together. His words hung heavily in the air and summoned strange thoughts. Thoughts I never knew existed within my mind.

Thoughts that maybe Leon was not as I remembered him.

In Nathan’s place I saw a man who had saved me, raised me and taught me all there was to know about the world. Dressed in purple as I was, with the same long braid that felt as coarse and weather beaten as my own. Always confident and calm, even tranquil. Yet it was all a façade, for behind those brown eyes were emotions he did not dare show to others and thoughts he never shared with anyone, even me.

As a girl, I thought Leon always had a plan, some general idea of where we were going and how we would survive.

Now, for the first time, I thought that perhaps he was as lost as Nathan. On the brink of giving up. In care of a child who was too weak, too thin, and far too young to be involved in politics.

Speechless, I felt as powerless as when Leon was alive. For no words or gestures of sympathy could lift the burden placed atop Nathan’s shoulders.

It was not sympathy that he needed most, anyway.

“Is that what you seek?” My voice was distant and strangely cold when I finally spoke. “A meaningful death? Surely you must be suicidal. There is no other explanation. Even a stubborn fool sees past his pride.” I got up from the chair and reached for my spear by the hut’s entrance. The blood had dried to a brown crust atop it, tinting the blade in hues of maroon spotted with dark, vile green smears. Had I the opportunity, I’d have discarded the poisoned blade.

“Death is the end, Nathan. It brings no honour. Ask the families of those perished on a battlefield whether the way their loved ones died matter. Tears will be your answer.”

When I returned and lowered myself onto the chair, the spear rested on my lap and I started working the oiled cloth through the blood. “So far,” I continued, speaking calmly though accusation laced my words, “the only smart thing you’ve done is hire me. Per my advice, no less.”

The symbol on Nathan’s chest drew my attention when I looked up and my gaze lingered on his armour for a silent moment before a crease formed between my brows and my lips flattened in contemplation. Even with the cloak, Nathan had a tendency to stand out. Tall and broad, with a sword at his hip, it was no wonder Marek and Fleta mistook him for a castle lord or a vassal knight.

“Those after you must know of your general whereabouts. Word spreads quickly here. Many a peasant is eager to pass on the gossip. An armoured man wearing the emblem of a forgotten pantheon and a pale child so weak she cannot run as befitting her age. Surely you realised your appearance is hardly inconspicuous? Marek’s death and my miraculous recovery will not go unnoticed, either. Had someone seen us, the Church will be involved. It is more than just your pursuers now. This isn't to be taken lightly.”

The oiled cloth continued its work over the blade as I shifted my attention to it. It felt strangely cold beneath my fingers. Awareness of the dangers the spearhead posed kept my touch careful and patient. Swampy green smears stained the cloth where it slid over the sharp edge. The last remnants of the poison. They disappeared under the dirty brown stains of blood as I continued to work the cloth over the blade.

All focus drawn towards the task of cleaning Marek’s blood off my weapon, I did not look at Nathan again and watched his reflection in the surface of the blade.

With a voice that resumed its warm neutrality, I continued. “What do you want, Nathan? Do you wish to protect this child, or continue this pointless chase? You cannot have both. For at this rate, they will catch you.”

A harsh gust of wind had passed through the cabin, rustling the clusters of herbs and disturbing the slowly dimming flames within the hearth. Several bright pink and blue petals drifted from the ceiling and landed on top of the girl’s still form.

“For the sake of this girl, let me help you. Let me do what you hired me for.” My eyes shone bright silver when I looked up, dying fire playing over the ashen irises. “Otherwise, it is a waste of coin and time.”

Exhausted, I breathed in deeply and spared a hand to wave at the bench across from the bed. It was tucked under the workbench and appeared to be long and wide enough to lie down on. With no other bed within the little hut, it was the best alternative to cold the floor.

“Go sleep for now. You must be exhausted. Tomorrow choose what you wish to do. And,” I paused, my eyes looking into his, “know that no matter what, I will stand by your decision. Not because of coin. But for the sake of the girl. I owe her that much.” When I returned my gaze to the spearhead, only one third of the surface clear, I nodded at the bench once more. “I will keep watch over the child and wake you if needed.”

 

[TucanSam]

Pain. Exhaustion. My body wracked itself with sensations, none of them pleasant as I tried to fight the weariness in my bones. It was true that Irene had done her job earlier, showing a commitment to the girl and keeping her safe I would not have expected from somebody in her line of work. Gold usually only drove people so far, but she seemed to posses a rather strong desire to stay employed, to the point she would go to the verge of death in order to do so. Must be a massive debt she was trying to pay off, or insatiable greed. Neither one made me feel any better about letting her take the first watch during the night but, if all else failed, she should at least make enough noise to awaken me if something were to happen, and surely she would not be stupid enough to betray me at this point. Right? I'd thought the same about Marek and been proven wrong, but that sobering thought was not enough to keep me awake, and I felt the blissful release of falling asleep overtake my mind.

Darkness and void surrounded my weightless, floating body. A common recurring theme in my dreams, and one that seemed to etch itself into the back of my mind even upon waking. There were stories that the Knights tended to dream of their Gods, the dreams themselves serving as a convenient and easy way t o give them direction or praise. Perhaps that what was supposed to happen here in this dark, lonely part of my mind. If it were true though, it only served as a stark reminder of my place in the world. No God came to talk to me. But... something was there. A deep, guttural sound, as if three or four large cats were growling all at the same time. Vibrations raced through my body, shaking my spine before ringing my ears. I shook my head in pain, trying to cover my head as if that may make the sound stop.

This had never happened before; there had never been something out there before. The significance of this event was not lost on me and, frantically I spun myself around, trying to see anything in the dark, anything useful that may give me a clue of what was going on. Could this be something happening in the outside world? Would this noise be penetrating so deep? No, not without waking me and, even if that were true, Irene surely would have shook me in order to gain my help. Another deep growl, strong enough to shake the edges of my mind. My eyes closed in terror, trying to shut out the sensation of something coming closer. Footsteps. Breathing. If this were happening in the real world, I needed to wake up. Hissing. The beating of wings. If this was real, if something was coming or already there in the real world... My hands gripped my head, shaking myself violently with the effort. I needed to wake up. Now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With a sharp intake of air I bolted up from the bench, sweat covering my brow and my eyes open wide. My eyes scanned the room frantically, nervously, but it was all as it had been when I'd fallen asleep. Near the edge of the room, the fire burned a little bit lower. On her bed, the girl slept soundly, the last vestiges of her discomfort replaced with calm, restful sleep. Shaking had overtaken my body when I awoke, and I gripped the edge of my sword tightly, hoping to find some relief in it's solid, metal handle. I had no idea what that was, but I did not dream like that. Not for no reason.

"Irene.." my voice was hoarse, frightened. "I fear something is coming. Be on alert."

 

[Lenaara]

TucanSam



There was little need in keeping watch. Nothing stirred in the shadows and no ominous sounds penetrated the silence of the night, even as the moon hid behind a cover of clouds and the fire within the hut’s hearth dimmed to a soft red glow of dying embers. Firewood cracked with one last dying breath and the log broke in two, releasing a fountain of sparks.

Floorboards creaked too loud in the dark silence, as did the snap of the stool legs as I broke them under my foot and threw each piece into the hearth, stirring up the sparks and ash. To help the fire catch, I grabbed at the cluster of herbs above my head at random and threw the dry grasses in.

A warm, sweet smell spread through the hut. The smoke was faint, lingering just beneath the ceiling in ghostly wisps.

It had been several hours since Nathan had fallen asleep. The spearhead once again gleamed bright and clear, not a spec of blood or poison left on the blade, and I kept the weapon at arm’s reach.

Softly, I let a bundle of bronze thread and needle to fall into my travel pack at my feet. While Nathan slept, a strange idea came to my mind. A stupid idea. And yet, I went through with it.

With a careful touch, Nathan’s cloak shifted away from the girl’s arm and hesitantly I turned her hand over, palm up, and positioned it on my lap. The too long sleeve had been folded twice before and still it was far too long for her. I folded the sleeve again, careful not to touch her skin out of silly caution, and in the dim light sewn on a symbol on the inside of the fabric.

It was a bronze triangle, small and subtle, barely visible unless put under light.

A symbol of protection and strength.

Many variations of this symbol adorned my coat. It was a tradition from my homeland to sew such symbols onto clothes, and while they were not at all magical or religious…well, it was something I could do and it kept my mind at ease to have the child wear it on her sleeve.

A secret message.

Thank you.

I had nearly sewn the same symbol on Nathan’s cloak and even held the fabric between my fingers in contemplation, but decided against it. The memory of him holding me down against my will stilled my hand. It would take some time to get past that incident.

The remaining time I spent finishing the tasks I’d begun earlier. My coat hung drying above the hearth and I’d checked my pack for the missing items to make a mental note what had to be replaced.

The night was uneventful.

Until Nathan woke with a sudden jolt. It alerted me and I’d nearly reached for my spear out of force of habit, but straightened in the chair instead and turned to look at Nathan. Alert, with sweat gleaming at his temples. He appeared ready to strike at an enemy that wasn’t there.

“It was a nightmare,” I began in a slow exhale and pressed both hands onto my thighs as I rose from the chair. “There is nothing—“

Moonlight framed the crown of Nathan’s head in a pale glow. Behind him, through the gaps between narrow boards, the lake was a flat obsidian surface. Long, uneven grass swayed in the faint breeze. Everything appeared as it should be, as it had been when we’d entered the hut.

And yet, something was wrong. The shades across the lake rippled in a strange, impenetrable darkness. What at first appeared to be shadows drifting across the sea of tall grasses were not. They were tendrils of sharp, uneven smoke.

The chair cluttered to the floor with a loud scrape and rolled to the side, leaving a long clear line in the dust. I pushed past Nathan, bracing both hands on the sill to lean closer to the window’s largest opening.

It was impossibly hard to see. Dawn was nearing and yet the sky remained dark and the moon was a bright, pale disk. As pale as my face, I imagined, for all blood drained from my cheeks at the sight of shifting shadows across the lake.

Narrowing my eyes to slits, I focused on the one tendril of shadow that appeared the most unnatural. It moved swiftly over the grass and each time it shifted closer to the lake’s smooth surface, it jerked back and hurried to the cover of trees. It was a flat elongated shape and the closer it got, the better I could see the many limbs at its sides. Arms and legs were of human’s shape, bent at painful angles; they jerked up and down, scurrying from left to ride akin to a crab at an awful speed. Its back and head was a collection of wisps of shadow, a shape I couldn’t discern and yet wanted to despite the fear it instilled in me. Pale like moonstone orbs covered the creature’s whole body.

It was in the lead, with two more following close. All three scurrying on broken black limbs towards the hut. Grass rustled beneath their bodies and the many feet and hands were soft patpatpats, quick and terrifying and ever nearing.

Had I the breath, I would have cursed.

Nathan’s presence at my side and the girl’s steady, calm breathing woke me from my stupor. The fallen chair’s legs nearly intertwined with my feet as I took several steps back and looked around. Thoughts came in a chaotic whirlwind and pressed for time, I knew there wasn’t much to be done to ward off these creatures.

Wiele oczu. Many eyes.

I heaved my traveling pack onto the bed and then, keeping one hand inside to search the through the contents, I went towards the bookcase. Many herbs and jars were stacked there, forgotten and abandoned. None were labelled and most I did not know the use for. Sparing a hand, I pushed aside the jars and bundles of crumbling grasses and brought several closed containers to my ear to shake softly.

“Find salt or silver. Anything will do,” I commanded Nathan with a voice that surprised me with its steadiness. “Put it along the window and the door. It must be a line. Don’t break it.” There wasn’t much time to lose. The whispering rustle outside had grown louder.

So much like the flapping of wings.

So normal and yet not.

There was nothing on the shelves that could serve a purpose I sought. Task abandoned, I returned to the bed and slung my travel pack over my chest. In one hand, I held a small pouch tied by twine.

“They are blind.” Softly I lifted the girl and wrapped Nathan’s cloak about her, tucking her in snuggly, and placed her in the centre of the straw mat. Willing my hand to be steady, the contents of the pouch drew a glimmering with flakes of silver circle of salt. The girl lay within its middle. “Do not make a sound and do not move. They will become tangible if you look into one of its eyes. Then it will attack.”

A thought occurred to me too late and when it did, I stared at Nathan in frozen horror. He had never seen these creatures before. He couldn’t have. They existed by the swamps, close to the borders, drawn out by murder and immense pain and grief so great it ate away at souls.

The oczu were but one of many vile creatures that inhabited the swamps. No one knew of how they came to be, let alone what their purpose was aside from mindless attacks on nearby settlements. Common among their own kind, the oczu were but one of many monstrosities the swamp spawned from its decaying soil.

Many could not be killed but most could be avoided, if proper measures were taken. If that was out of the question, then one had to flee. When neither option was possible, the creature had to be killed.

Simple rules.

Patpatpatpatpat

Hissing outside the hut rose the hair at the back of my neck. It was an ominous sound, soft and scraping, coming from within my mind. With cold claws, it scratched at my attention, hooking it, tugging it into the direction of the vile creatures that were so close I could feel the aura of death and decay enveloping those broken bodies of obsidian darkness.

Before Nathan could say a word of protest or storm outside to take the oczu head on, I stepped in front of him and cupped his face in my hands. His back to the window, I forced him to face me and look at me, into my eyes.

“No matter what you hear,” I began and slid my hands behind his ears, my thumbs positioned along his jawline, cold and immovable, “do not look. They will leave. The salt will keep the girl safe.”

The village elder’s words remained a warning at the back of my mind. A faint echo of words that took shape into something else.

A sentence.

Death is bound to bring us something foul.

It certainly brought something foul.

Our bickering, the anger and the distrust – this had lured the damned creature out of its hiding. How long had it been stalking us? Hours, surely. Even days. The oczu have been attracted to the sounds and taste of death from the murder at the road, where Marek had bashed the thief’s head in. Then, they kept close to the poison that burnt my lungs into raw flesh, feeding off my pain and panic, my need to reach the child and Nathan and hope to be treated before it was too late. The magic used against my will, summoning such pure cold rage I never thought I was capable of feeling…it must have been a feast.

One the oczu enjoyed, no doubt. And wished to finish the meal.

“Look at me and only me. Trust me.” The last words were but a whispered breath, swallowed by the sound of sharp nails against wood.

The room darkened and it wasn’t due to the night entirely or the dying embers of the fire.

A tasty trail of bread crumbs had been left for these creatures to follow. The village elder simply gave the creatures a new path to trace.

This was a trap from the start and we gladly walked into it.

On the periphery of my vision I watched in pure, frozen horror how a hand with long, elegant and thin fingers wrapped around the board barring the window. It dug into the wood and pulled. Another hand appeared, and another, each dark and spotted with pale orbs. The oczu’s blind eyes did not turn and did not blink. They just stared into the cabin, into the back of Nathan’s head. They stared at me.

In that very same moment an odd feeling scraped against my mind. It felt like a claw, cold and sharp, that scratching at the inside of my eyelids. It was disgusting and so utterly wrong. The only thing I could do was continue looking into Nathan’s eyes, so familiar and yet foreign.

Patpatpatpat

Dust showered down on the ceiling in a soft rustle. Bundles of herbs swayed and one fell and softly landed on the floor.

I hardened my grip on Nathan’s jaw, adamant in my resolve to keep him still and looking straight at me.

Above us the second creature shifted over the thatched roof. Its many limbs stirred the moulding hay cover and it hissed, rubbing against the belly of the monster, and the sound had no source. It was everywhere. All around us, behind me, where the child rested protected in the circle of salt.

It was terrifying. I set my jaw so tight it hurt and kept looking at Nathan, wondering in the back of my mind if he could see how my chest shook with frantic heartbeat and how cold my hands have become.

Alerted by the sound, the oczu latched on the window crashed its body hard against the boards and the jars shook and one moved dangerously close to the shelf’s edge. In that moment, the world slowed and the oczu’s shadowy form hit the boards once more. One snapped and the jar shifted closer to the edge, about to fall and—

It drifted through the air slowly, the reflection in its misty glass a flicker of firelight and two bodies standing close to one another.

Then it fell in a burst of glass and shattered the silence.

 

[TucanSam]

A shrill scream filled the room, like the sound of an animal crying out for the last time. Huddled on the small cot, the girls eyes swept the room in terror, searching for a place to land before finding me and Irene. MY head jerked back forcefully as I attempted to get free, to run to the girl and ensure her safety, but Irene’s hands would not let go, holding me tight like a vice. Anger filled my eyes as I stared into her own, struggling against striking her in order to free myself.

Whatever these creatures were, she seemed to know a bit about them. Leaping into action at first sight was a clear indication she knew how to deal with them, spreading a circle of salt around the girl before rooting me tight in place. Trust her, she said. My mind rolled the words over in my head a few times as I tried to decide whether that was something I could do. A sick, twisting had taken hold of my gut when the creatures had reached the house and, had I not been held so tightly, I was sure I would have vomited somewhere in the corner.

Unnatural. Sickening. Terrifying. Unable to decide what to feel, my mind did its best to shut down completely, putting my body into the hands of the training I had received for years. Horror was not something unknown to me. Seeing men flayed, torn apart, killed for pleasure or business. I’d seen my fair share of the fucked up, done my fair share of things that would empty the stomach of lesser men. This was different. Every fiber in my body cried out to leave, to grab the girl and run. There was no will to fight there, no desire to defend myself, Irene or the girl. Only Natural instinct to get away, to survive.

My head jerked once more as the girl began to cry, curling up into a ball in the middle of the bed, her hands raised around her face as if she was trying to shut the creatures out. “Let me go,” I jerked once more, unable to free myself. Pain began to burn at the back of my neck with effort, and I stopped with a wince before causing myself any more injury. Determination stared back at me from those cold, silver eyes. Damnit.

“Stay calm,” my voice was barely a whisper over the sound of crunching wood behind me. Boards fell to the ground, splintered to pieces a the creature attempted to get inside. “You’ll be okay. Irene…” I glanced from the girl to the woman holding me still. “Knows what she’s doing… I hope.”

Soft mewling was the only response the girl gave as she attempted to make herself as small as possible within the circle, her knees nearly pulled up to her chin and her hands clamped tightly against her ears. Moments later, with a thunderous cash, the creature at the window came bursting in, its limbs flailing as its body flung itself to the floor. Arms and legs twitched in the air, like a spider flipped upside down before it caught traction on the floor. Every instinct in my body urged me to turn, to see what it was. Only Irene's cold, solid hands kept my head in place.

No saliva remained in my mouth, but I tried to swallow anyway, recoiling at the sense of it being so near to me. Hissing filled the room as its limbs clambered over the furniture, touching and pulling, pushing and upending anything it could reach until, a mere foot away, it stopped. Dead, white orbs regarded the two of us silently for a moment. Sweat beaded on my forehead, dripping down my neck and staining my shirt. A long, black tendril of smoke seemed to billow its way between the two of us, flickering and wavering like a banner in the wind. Silence filled the room for moments, minutes. Hours. Time had stopped in that little hut. I hd to look. Had to move. The girl's body lay motionless at the edge of my vision, her breathing slow and shallow. If he was unconscious, she could not run. If the salt did not work, she would be dead. If the creature attacked us, she would be helpless. I had to move. Had to do something.

My hands gripped tightly at Irene’s wrists, pulling on them gently, hoping she would get the hint. I’d break them if I had to. I could not stand by and do nothi-

Far in the distance a sharp noise like the cry of a falcon echoed towards us. The creature, motionless for so long, twitched at the noise, its limbs smacking against the floor as its body turned restlessly. The floor seemed to recoil at its presence, hissing as if being dissolved by acid. Another shriek. Agitation overtook the creature, it’s focus now entirely gone from us. Tables and chairs clattered to the ground, cups and jars fell from the shelve as it thrashed around the room. Thudding outside the walls rocked the windows as the other creature leapt from the roof, landing on the ground before crawling slowly away. If the Gods were merciful, the other would take off as well.

 

[Lenaara]

TucanSam


Only the boards separated the creature from us. Thin, moulding pieces of wood, nailed in a messy fashion to the walls in some attempt to bar unwanted visitors from coming in. Little good it did with the door unlocked.

In my attempt to prepare for their arrival, I had pushed a broken stool leg into the iron hooks attached to the doorframe and locked the door, barring the creatures from entering easily. That wouldn’t last, not for long. Same as the boards on the window. It would delay the oczu, nothing more.

The thought did not calm me. Instead, it terrified me. We were trapped.

Had it not been for Nathan, whom I kept as still as I could, unyielding to his protests, I would have run. Run away, as far as my legs could carry me, and leave this horror behind me. But I could not. Same as Nathan could not. For my hold on him kept both of us in place. I only hoped he did not see the horror fighting for dominance within me.

A strange tug pulled on my mind. It was a foreign feeling, cold and curious and impatient. Like someone’s presence in my head. Akin to a hook pulling against a thrashing fish, it sunk deep into my thoughts and yanked it to the side, to where the creature was. In the periphery of my vision, I could see the mass of shadows and the tangle of human limbs, scurrying from side to side, knocking aside the old and forgotten furniture. With a primal part of me knew that it was aware of us.

It knew that something was wrong. It knew we were here.

“No,” I mouthed the word to Nathan. “Trust me.” Each word a soundless breath.

Pain squeezed my wrists and I focused on it. The message Nathan tried to convey through his grip on my wrists was clear enough. I knew that he wanted to break free. The child was still behind us, weeping or unconscious or shocked into a stupor, and I fought the urge to go to her as much as he did. So hard my teeth hurt, I clenched my jaw and thinned my lips into a line. They would’ve trembled otherwise.

Scratching behind my eyes continued its onslaught. Never ending. Persistent. Angered that it was ignored. Even as the creature on the floor turned away from us, I continued to feel its…mind within mine. An intruder I could not banish and my eyes watered with strain as I focused on Nathan’s. My grip tightened on his jaw and I bit the inside of my cheek not to squeeze my eyes shut. If I did, I knew he would lose it. He would knock me aside and go to the child. It would be the final drop in an already full to the brim chalice.

Swerving to the side, the oczu shimmied up the bookcase. The jars rattled and the wood creaked, but the creature made no sound aside from that awful hissing that I could not pinpoint. It was everywhere, coming from every corner of the room and echoed from within my head.

The cold hook behind my eyes pulled again, hard, and I couldn’t stop myself from flinching in disgust. I had to get it out. It was in my head, behind my eyes. Icy, like stiff fingers of a corpse. The urge was so great that I loosened my grip on Nathan for a moment and nearly reached for my eyes.

With cold terror, I knew that had I gave in, I would have clawed them out.

My breathing had quickened, chest rising and falling in shaky breaths. A droplet of sweat slid down my temple. Perspiration gleamed on Nathan’s forehead too and I felt my hands dampen where I held him.

To our side, the bookcase fell slowly to the floor. It crashed a mere foot from us, shattering the jars and clay vases and cracking the old wood to splinters. It was so sudden and so loud that I sharply breathed and my eyes twitched to the side involuntarily. Just as I did, I noticed the oczu gone. It was gone from the room.

And yet, the hissing continued. So close it took every ounce of willpower not to crumble to the floor in sheer terror and helplessness.

Tendrils of obsidian smoke rippled around my arms. In pure horror, I watched it move towards my hands. A heaviness settled upon my shoulders and back, and hands clutched on my waist, my neck, my hair. It was moving up. A wrinkled and blemished with spots of rot hand curled around my elbow. Another, feminine and young, grasped on my shoulder. So many. Each pulling, each cold and different and so very human like. An arm wrapped around my neck and breath caught in my throat.

Yet I did not scream. I was too afraid to scream. Too afraid to breathe.

As the creature settled its strange weight upon me – its limbs were heavy while the main body, hidden behind my back, was as weightless as air – I pulled Nathan close and rested my forehead against his.

Once again, I mouthed those two words, “Trust me.” And I squeezed my eyes shut.

The hissing was a buzz of bees at the back of my head. Burning fire squeezed my chest tight as it fought for breath. We waited in trepidation.

The oczu’s grip loosened. One by one, the hands uncurled from me and it started to climb down.

Then, shattering the silence like a shooting star, a scream – the child’s – bellowed through the room.

Shoving me against Nathan with an otherworldly strength, the oczu pushed towards the bed. It crashed against the straw mat and fell back only to get to its many legs again and jump on the bed again. Again, and again, it hit the salt ring and rattled the mat. Then, the oczu fell against the wall.

Outside the second oczu shifted on the grass and ran into the hut’s walls in a blind rage.

The child’s scream had broken the terror’s hold on me. Adrenaline coursed through my veins and gave my mind sudden clarity.

I let go of Nathan and whirled around, reached down, and grabbed my spear that lay on the ground beside the bed. Once in my hands, it sunk into the shadowy form between oczu’s many limbs and…sunk through, spearhead embedding itself in the floorboards. There was no resistance. I might as well have pierced thin air.

The creature had no head nor body. Just a blob of shifting darkness. The moonstone like blind orbs of oczu’s eyes swivelled around towards me. Many colours, many shapes, all different. Some fanned with red veins, others clear, and many more yellow rimmed and bloodshot. They stared at me and the hooks behind my eyelids were painful and felt disgustingly real. The hissing grew in its intensity, a buzzing cacophony. It spoke of horrifying promises - to let go and all would be well; to run to end it all; to give in to fear. It urged me to reach towards my eyes.

As the oczu leapt into the air towards me, I pulled my spear free and stabbed again. It pierced through one of the oczu’s feet and it fell back and pulled, tearing the dark skin and flesh.

“Take the girl,” I commanded Nathan and picked up the chair beside the bed. Just as the second oczu jumped at the window, I chucked the chair legs first at it, barring it from entering.

From somewhere outside another sharp noise was heard, clearer and much closer now. The buzzing hiss of oczu’s bodies and the quick patting of their limbs, akin to the sound of bat wings, drowned the outside noise. Hooves thumped against the ground outside though I could not be sure. It could’ve been the third oczu.

The creature I had stabbed with my spear lashed out at Nathan and grabbed for his legs. Then, it recoiled for a moment as a thudding sound beneath us drew its attention. The hissing intensified and the floorboards creaked. One had snapped in the middle of the room, curving upwards.

“Take her and run,” I snapped the command without looking at Nathan. The creature I kept at bay with the chair had snapped one of the legs off, retreated and with such intensity it rattled the bones in my body, crashed against the chair. The wood broke, ready to snap. Splinters rained to the floor at my feet.

 

[TucanSam]

Air rushed into my lungs in an audible gasp as I sucked in sharply, my body trying to recover from the shock of Irene’s body slamming against me. My body stumbled up against the wall as I watched Irene move, her hand grabbing her spear in a flash and thrusting it at the creature. The wood on it’s shaft hissed with the effort, but if the creature had noticed it, it showed no sign. I cursed under my breath, grabbing at my sword before her second strike connected, stabbing into one of its limbs and sending it staggering back. So they can be hurt, my mind tried to process as fast as it could. At least a little bit.

“Take the girl”

Chaos enveloped the room as the second creature burst through the window, wood splintering as the chair Irene held against its efforts fell to pieces. There was nothing I could do here, my mind reminded me. Not without a strong sword arm. Another curse and I swept across the room, grabbing the girl up in my arms and turning towards the door. Saving her again is not your problem. If she’s as good as she claims, she’ll live.

Lies, most likely. But comforting lies. Their attention fully on Irene now, I dashed across the room, the girl curled up in my arms like a ball as the third creature burst up from the floor. Pieces of wood hit my feet, sending me stumbling and slamming into the door frame. I hissed, grasping against it with my hand tightly as I flung us outside. Soft rays of light barely peaking above the horizon assaulted my eyes as we fell to the ground. A burst of cold air swept across my face, somewhere in the distance the call of birds greeted my ears.. Peaceful. Quiet. A normal morning, at least in front of me. Stumbling back up to my feet, the girl crushed against my chest, I took in the hut behind me as I ran, my legs slipping slightly in the morning dew. Behind us, shattered glass and splintered wood covered the ground, the result of the oczu’s furious assault. It was the last time I looked back, running until my legs burned.

Only when we had gone up one hill, down its side and up another did I stop, my legs burning and my chest heaving with heavy breaths. Did they follow us? My head swiveled with force, scanning the sloping hills and shifting grass. There’d been at least three of them, I thought, but it seemed as if Irene had done a good enough job of holding their attention. If she lived, maybe she’d get a raise. A sobering thought. One that was interrupted by a voice, low and gravely. From behind me.

“Don’t worry,” My body jerked so quickly the girl nearly flew from my arms. “They did not follow you.”

Five riders on tall, lean horses had encircled us, long spears at their side, crossbows on their back. Slowly, I lowered the girl to the ground, my hand tightening harshly against the hilt of my sword. It’s leather groaned at the pressure.

“Did not mean to frighten you,” The center rider held his hands up gently. No spear hung at his side, no crossbow on his back. A long, wide broadsword was latched to the side of his horse, alongside small vials and bags of..something. “We thought surely no one inside would still be alive. Not after.. well,” A large, leather gloved hand pointed off into the distance where our horses had been tied up, their bodies torn and mutilated.

“Poor things were just in the way.”

Figures, my head turned to the side as I spit in frustration. Heavy half-plate covered four of the riders, polished and well maintained. Silver and iron covered their bridles and saddles, the sides and legs of their chargers covered in similar plating.

“Are you the only two?”

I let my gaze flow from the four on the outside to the one in the middle. Along with different weaponry he wore different armor. Plate was replaced with simple leather, his helmet visored instead of a full covering. Chainmail peaked at the edges of his shoulders. A leader. A fighter. Lightly armored. Odd.

My head shook as I tried to find my voice, unsure if I should be attacking or listening to these men. In this situation, there was little I could do to ward off any attack, and they hadn’t outright attacked me at least. Yet. “No.. there’s...” Another shake of my head as I cleared my throat. “A woman is still in there. My bodyguard.”

The man in the center sighed, his horse stamping the ground in a similar sign of frustration.“Well, then this is more complicated than I had hoped.” He raised a pair of fingers to his helmet, flipping the visor on the front up gently. Bright green eyes stared back at me, the corners wrinkled and tired, the bottom of his lids filled with bags a hundred nights sleep would not get rid of.

“You’re very lucky to be alive. A group of three of them?” He shook his head. “Usually they’d target a village, something they could slaughter with ease. How you two managed to get out is beyond me.”

We stared at each other in silence for a moment before he raised his hand once more, flicking his wrist at his four companions. “Well,” He mused as they took off, their horses entering a full gallop as they flew down the hill towards the hut. “We’ll take it from here then. I do not know if we can save her,” He paused, watching the two go. “But I suppose we should try.”

Slowly their silhouettes disappeared towards the hut, their horses loud, their hooves heavy. A good war horse like that, trained to ride hard and brush anything out of their way was not given or earned by simple bandits. They were owned only by professionals, those who needed them. Those who fought and saw danger that demanded them. Chainmail jingling interrupted my thoughts as he dismounted, his horse adding an anxious stamp as if it too sought to gallop down into the fray. A pat on the side of its neck calmed it slightly as the man landed on his feet. Gloved fingers gripped the edges of his helmet, pulling it off slowly before hooking it onto his saddle. Thin, graying hair tied back into a ponytail stood out among his features, his face scarred and wrinkled. Warriors did not live to grow old and grey unless they were good, exceptional. My curiosity rose even further.

“Ellis Brightwin,” A small bow caused more jingling to echo from his armor. “We’d heard there were people here causing trouble. The, uh..” He hooked a thumb in the direction of the hut. “The…. worst kind of trouble. Did not expect to see a Knight here, though. Thought you folks were more resourceful than this.”

A hand rose to my chest, as if covering the large sigil on my tabard was of any use now. Ellis only laughed, a loud and warm sound that clashed against the situation.

“No use trying to hide it now, son. I’ve met your type before, and know it when I see it. Disappointing though, to see you in this state.”

Tears seemed to have finally left the girl, her body free of the wracking sobs and feared that had riddled her earlier. Taking a long, hesitant look at the man, she wrapped herself around my left arm before burying her face into my side. Subconsciously I reached for her, perhaps to protect her, perhaps to comfort her. I didn’t really know anymore. Ellis glanced at the girl and back at me, his features confused but his smile ever present.

“Can you kill them?” I asked plainly. Whatever they were, they seemed to be known in this part of the world. Nothing in my travels had shown me anything like them and, though Irene seemed to know how to at least ward them off, her attacks had seemed ineffective at best. Three soldiers armed to the teeth didn’t stand much better of a chance.

“With some effort, yes.” Ellis sighed once more, running his hand against his temple. Sweat covered his brow and his horse, cooling gently in the morning breeze but still clearly there to see. Steam billowed in large plumes from his horses nostrils; they must have been riding hard, and long.

“My boys there have done it before, and they’ll do it again,” A finger pointed behind me and towards the hut. I followed it with my eyes, their silhouettes growing ever smaller. “Though if the woman is dead it won’t be much comfort, I know. Normally we simply lead them away, lose ‘em in the swamps but...” He shrugged. “Not much point in that now. They know we’re here, and don’t seem to care much. You three must be special to entice them so.”

My body swiveled gently at those words, putting more of myself between the girl and this man. How much the villagers had seen, how much they told these men was unknown, but they would not have come for no reason. Suspicion colored my eyes, my mouth turning into a tight line. Again, Ellis only offered a smile.

“All in due time, son. There are bigger things to take care of first.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thunder rumbled around the hut as the hooves of horses overpowered the hissing noise the oczu left, their riders screaming and yelling as they approached, trying to gain the attention of the creatures. Long grey limbs pulled the one from under the hut out, its body slithering along the ground. A spear met it immediately as one of the riders made a pass, its tip sinking deeply into an arm and pulling it free, sending it flying across the grass. The creature shrieked, the first sound it had made before another rider came flying in, crossbow cocked back as he let an arrow fly. Rearing back and writhing, the creature grabbed at the spot that the bolt sunk in, trying desperately to rip it free before another spear, sinking into the edge of its body ended its movements.

Black liquid covered the ground around it, the grass it touched shrinking away and dying beneath it. Two spears lay broken in its side, abandoned by their riders as the second began to worm its way out of the window. Crossbow bolts met it immediately, hitting the sides of the building as it serpentined, avoiding them before splaying out its limbs. A horse screamed as an arm caught is leg, sending it crashing forward and throwing its rider loose. In seconds the creature had latched itself on to the man, his own arms flailing and thrashing as he fought to get free. It was no use, and his movements stopped even before another rider could sink in his spear, pushing the creature up and away from him.

Blood ran from his arms and legs, most held on only by his clothing at this point. Dents and rips in his plate painted a grisly scene of what must lie below it. A spear broken in its back, the second oczu flailed on the ground as another rider flew by. The last whole spear sunk into its body, pinning it to the ground as it died. Heavy breathing of both horses and men filled the air as they waited, but the third oczu did not come out. With a slight glance at each other the three dismounted in unison.

Heavy leather bags were retrieved from their saddles, each of them loosening the ties on the top as they neared the hut. Glass cracked and broke underneath their feet as they each took a different window, bags held above their heads gently.

“Cover your face!” One of them shouted as they launched the bags into the windows. Heavy thuds and shrill shrieking filled the air as the bags erupted, filling the entire hut with a large, heavy plume of silver dust. Everywhere it touched the monster burned, its flesh rotting away as it thrashed, its limbs grabbing at the sill as it pulled itself up and away from the dust, falling into a heap on the ground outside. The four remaining riders fell on it instantly, their swords bared and flashing in the sun as they cut it to pieces. With a final shriek the beast fell silent, dead. Black liquid covered the armor of the men, their posture slouched and their bodies spent. Slowly two of them went towards the body of their companion, kneeling gently beside him as the other headed inside, silence filling the air as the birds, their songs seemingly having stopped during the encounter, began to chirp again.

 

[Lenaara]

TucanSam


Alone.

A primal part of me screamed out in fear as it watched Nathan and the child bolted out of the hut, Nathan’s retreating footsteps barely audible. It urged me to follow. Demanded that I save myself and leave the oczu in the hut.

I did no such thing. It was too late to run.

The moment the third oczu broke through the floor, sending a fountain of splinters and broken wood to the ceiling, the way to the door was closed off. When the oczu flung itself through the window and turned the chair I held to a pile of useless broken wood, I had rolled to the side and my shoulder rammed into the wall painfully. Before me, two oczu became a mass of twitching limbs and sharp tendrils of shadow. The one I had impaled was free, my spear yanked out by the flailing bodies.

With little time to think, I shot to my feet and reached for my spear. The only weapon I had at my disposal. It was as cold as ice in my hand. The third creature, the one that had come through the floor, leapt at me, its many eyes focused on my own.

Once again, I felt those painful hooks, stiff and icy and dead. They pulled from within my head and the world became a blur as though these creatures truly had their fingers behind my eyes and were about to gouge them out. It was painful, so painful and wrong and disgusting.

Cold corpse fingers of the oczu grabbed at my leg and yanked me down. Air was expelled from my lungs as I fell and was dragged towards the creature. Pieces of glass and clay and wood scratched at my back.

I kicked at the creature, struggled to break free, and its grip hardened. It caught my other leg and pulled me faster towards it, holding both my ankles so hard the bones were close to breaking. Panic began to rise within my chest as the spearhead missed its mark on one of the oczu’s many hands and instead pierced the shadow body. In that moment, the other two oczu freed themselves of each other, their eyes turned to me, and they jumped.

A hand grabbed my elbow, another my shoulder. Several reached for my spear. They pulled with unbelievable strength.

Trapped. I was trapped. Unable to move, my legs and arms clenched in rotten limbs.

My own would be a part of them soon.

The thought was terrifying.

Just as the third oczu jumped onto me, I lifted my hips and turned to the side in one harsh movement that sent waves of excruciating pain through my trapped limbs. The creature landed on me as I, desperate to free myself, pushed my only free arm into its body.

It burnt, I think. The pain at that point had become a constant, numb sensation. If it screamed, I did not know. It certainly did tremble when I grabbed at the straw mat and flung it at the creatures. Salt and silver fell onto them and burnt where it touched. It stank of rotten and burning human flesh; the stench stung my eyes, made my stomach lurch.

The one holding my legs had been the first one hit by the mat and it loosened the hold on my legs. Free, I kicked the oczu away and stifled a groan as my arm was pulled too far back, the oczu holding it refusing to let go even as its body melted away under the mixture of salt and silver.

White spots flashed in the corners of my vision as I swung my spear with my only good arm at the creatures and sliced the hand off at the wrist. It shrieked in its own strange fashion, a cacophony of hisses, and flung itself at me once more.

I did not linger, already mid-jump myself the moment the hold on my limp arm had loosened. I slid across the floor and ducked underneath the fallen bookcase. It was at an angle, the space beneath just enough for me to fit through and curl up to make myself as small as possible. The wood had broken at the top and embedded itself deep into the wall. A perfect refuge.

But for how long?

As I lay there, clutching my spear, I tried to move my left arm. It refused to obey and it occurred to me with cold certainty that it was dislocated or broken at the shoulder.

The oczu recovered quickly and fought to crawl under the bookcase and I stabbed blindly at their arms and legs with my spear. Sometimes it landed a hit and I pulled it back before the creatures could take the weapon from me.

Alone. Trapped.

At least Nathan had listened to me and ran. It was comforting to know that he and the child were safe. After all, the oczu were lured here by me. By Marek’s death.

I had curled into a small ball by the time the creatures retreated, one by one. I did not even hear or see them leave, for my eyes were shut tight and I pressed one ear to the floor and covered the other. The hissing was unbearable. It drove me mad.

And then, it simply stopped. Vanished. Singsong chirping filled the silence instead, so bright and welcome it was that I relaxed my hand and opened my eyes, tired. Soft blue light fell in uneven rays through the broken bookcase. Dust twirled in playful flakes and it shimmered in the light like diamond powder. Strange smell tickled my nose – it smelled of the ocean.

I thought I was dead. The thought was welcoming in its own strange way. But then, with sudden clarity, I understood what had coloured the air with mist of white and starlight.

Silver.

Wood crunched beneath someone’s heavy boots and plate clinked with each step the stranger made.

“Is anyone here?” He called out, hesitant. He did not expect an answer and I gave none, too stunned and shocked to even move.

I was alive.

I was sure the soldier was as surprised as I was at this realization. The moment I had stirred beneath the bookcase, shifting the shards of shattered to pieces jars and clay vases, the hiss of a sword above prompted me to speak.

“Here,” I breathed. My throat my dry and my voice was a mere whisper. That was enough, thankfully, for the soldier to sheathe his weapon and lift the broken bookcase from me.

Though my body protested, I got up. The soldier helped me up and stood by me, silent, perhaps overcoming a shock of his own at seeing me alive and practically unscathed.

“Your arm is dislocated,” he said matter-of-factly and I had probably given him a particularly nasty look for he raised a hand in apology.

“Snap it back,” I told him. When he did not reach to help me, I turned of my own accord towards him with the arm I could not move. “Do it.” And he snapped my arm into its socket.

The pain was blinding. The world turned white for an instant and my knees buckled. With steady arms the soldier held onto me and helped me walk out of the hut, where two men clad in the same armour as the one holding me stood above a dead body. In unison, they turned and hurried to me.

While one went inside to retrieve my spear and coat, the other two helped me onto a horse. Once I sat atop it, clutching at my still painful shoulder, they went to pick up their fallen comrade and put him on another horse, where his dead body lay limp and lifeless and drops of blood fell slowly to the ground. The remains of the oczu lay limp on the ground, still smouldering from where the salt and silver had touched them, and their limbs were sliced into ribbons by the soldier’s swords. Broken spears that stuck out like bones out of the creature’s backs. It stank of rot even as the soldiers set the hut and the dead oczu aflame.

I watched it all in strange detachment. With a delay, I had noticed how one of the soldiers climbed onto the horse behind me and draped my coat over my shoulders. He must have thought I was cold; I wasn’t. Even though my shirt was ripped, I scarcely felt the cold morning wind brush over my scratched bloody skin.

We set out on silence. The man behind me kept a firm hold on the reins and kept the horse as steady as he could, perhaps afraid I would fall off. This steadiness was a welcome change, though a strange one. With the hissing gone, I felt that something was amiss and blinked often, eager to get rid of the lingering feeling of the hooks within my head. The silence helped, as did the fresh air and the brightening sky. Finally, I could feel the cold wind and moved my arms through the sleeves of my coat and with slow, shaky fingers, closed the clasps. It hid the evidence of my fight with the oczu only slightly.

Long bloody claw marks were left along my arms. Black and blue bruises bloomed in shapes of a hand around my shoulders and forearms, and my boots sported multiple scratches along the soft worn leather. Burn marks in forms of tendrils of smoke covered my right hand. My hair had almost come loose from the braid and small shards of wood and glass were stuck in the braid, sticking out at odd angles. The morning sun rays played over the glass and made my coat shimmer with silver dust.

Slowly, I glanced to the side where one of the soldiers rode a few feet away. He was holding my spear.

“Did you see a man with a child nearby?” I asked, breaking the silence for the first time.

“Yes,” the one behind me replied. “They are with Squad Leader Brightwin.”

The name was not familiar, though the armour the soldier wore was. The Commander’s men. A patrol in charge of this area. A messenger was probably sent from the village to warn them of a monster’s attack following a murder.

When we arrived, the soldiers at my side dismounted though the one behind me remained seated. His hands clenched hard on the reins in front of me.

Nathan and the child were safe, unscathed thankfully, and were standing beside a man who wore leather armour. “Are you two alright?” I asked my charges, careful to hide the dull pain in my muscles. Though I supposed it was pointless; the bloody smears along my arms and the bruises were hard to hide beneath elbow length sleeves and I could only guess how my face looked like to them. Probably ashen.

“Bradley didn’t make it,” one of the soldiers said gravely. Neither of them looked at their dead companion laying atop his horse. The saddle and iron and silver accents were tinted bright crimson.

“Is this your bodyguard?” The man behind me asked Nathan and remained firmly seated in the saddle behind me. Trapping me. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to, anyway. My legs and arms screamed in painful protest each time I shifted on the saddle; I still clutched my injured shoulder.

“I am,” I answered instead and looked at their Squad Leader. Neither his name nor his appearance seemed familiar to me in any way. “Thank you for helping,” I said to him and breathed in deeply, knowing the answer and yet asking anyway, “Are you to bring me to the Commander?”

Murder was an offense not easily forgiven in these parts. It still occurred and it was dealt with accordingly in each village and town and city. The judgement passed by whoever oversaw the particular area the murderer was from. My case was different; I was an outsider. The Commander was to deal with me personally, and while I knew I would not be charged and no harm would come to me, the process was lengthy and troublesome.

On top of that, Nathan was bound to be pulled into it as a witness. As my employer.

Already exhausted, I couldn’t bring myself to imagine how Ellenia was going to react at seeing me accused of murder with a Knight and a child in my care.

 

[TucanSam]

Eliis stared at his returning riders, the smile on his face gone. Deep wrinkles covered his brow as he frowned instead, his body heaving with an enormous sigh. "Not like it was something we shouldn't have expected," Ellis shook his head, his attention turning to first me and then Irene. "Can't say I fully approve of the trade but...." He shrugged. "So is our job. Put him in a back and clean off the blood. We don't need it attracting anything else today." Ice had replaced the warm color in his voice, his body heavy with weariness. The three men did as he said, gingerly taking their companion off the horse before fitting him into a long, woolen bag. Blood immediately began to tan the white surface, but no more dropped on the ground. Whether blood would attract more of those beasts or not I was unsure, but there were other creatures looking for an easy meal out here as well.

With his body encases, his limbs tied tight to his body, the men began to raise him back on top of his horse before Ellis stopped them. "No," He waved his hand, leading his horse over to them. "Let him ride mine. The man and..." Ellis paused. "His child might as well ride on his. Walking will help me think and, we won't be making quick progress anyway." His gaze turned to Irene, anger and pity conflicting emotions in his eyes. "I'd give you your rights miss, but I imagine you know what is coming. Them?" His hand waved at me and the girl. "A bit harder to punish a Knight and a child. You are not as lucky. Yes," Ellis ran a hand through his hair. "We are going to see the Commander."

All three of his men fidgeted nervously at the thought, as if it was something unpleasant, like being sent to the headmaster of a school when you'd been naughty. Nothing they said made much sense to me. Local politics were only rivaled by national politics when it came to frustration and annoyance. Small people wanting to do small things, working on their small goals and doing what they had to in order to get a few inches ahead of everyone else. What did it get them? A shithole house made of stone rather than wood? Nonsense. I lifted the girl silently on the horse, too tired to argue and knowing it would do no good. There was no resisting these men, even if Irene wasn't torn to pieces. A small part of my mind was thankful she was alive, and the girl had seemed genuinely happy to see her return, but the entire situation clouded that feeling, replacing it with annoyance and anger.

Ellis, seeming to have sensed my emotional state, only smirked at me. Gripping the reigns of his horse tightly, he started off towards the road, the body on the back of his steed shifting lazily with the movement. "Keep the chatter to a minimum, boys. We're still on the clock."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day passed slowly, Ellis leading the party of us to the road and down it. True to their order, none of the men spoke as we rode, preferring melancholic silence. At least we agreed on something. Sleep had already overtaken the girl by the time we broke for camp, the events of the day having drained her perhaps more than anyone else in the party. Silently, Ellis lead us off the road, finding a small clearing near some trees where we all dismounted. The mans body was pulled off slowly, stacked to the side near their packs and covered with another blanket to help hide the smell. A campfire was started, plain tents erected and food from packs arranged neatly on the ground. Each of us got a portion, a small piece of cheese, some dried meat and a chunk of bread. Bland, boring, but filling.

It was night before anyone approached us, though their gazes were a constant presence as they went about their business. The girl, sleeping like a rock, had not stirred even as we moved her about, and I made sure to tuck some of the food away for her when she woke up. Four bedrolls had been set near the fire, simple mats with small pillows and a blanket each. It was not one of the guards who took up the fourth roll though, but Ellis himself. Walking towards us with a couple of canteens, he collapsed onto his role slowly, groaning as if every movement cause him discomfort. Swallowing the last piece of my food, I glanced quickly between him and his men, sitting a good five feet away as if we had the plague.

"Do you normally sleep next to your prisoners?" I asked him. A moment of silence passed as he stared into the fire before his head jerked towards me, his eyes slowly focusing, as if his mind had been entirely somewhere else.

"Hmm? Oh," Ellis laughed, as if just now realizing our presence. "Never been a big fan of tents. too small, constricting. Seen my fair share of prison cells back in the day. They don't feel much different."

Silence filled the air around us again as he went back to staring at the fire, and my eyes narrowed. Was he purposefully being callous? Ignoring me to put me on edge? If so it was working, and I cleared my throat to get his attention.

"Are we your prisoners then? Are you to be our guard?"

The older man let out a huff, as if the entire conversation was annoying to him. "Depends on how difficult you want to be," He spit to the side before taking a long drink from his canteen, holding out the other to me. "I know well enough what happened in the village. Or most of it, at least. My job is to get you there, not judge you. That's a job for someone else. Whether that's in ropes or walking freely is up to you." Ellis glanced between me and Irene before slowly moving to the girl. "Though I don't fancy tying a young'un up that much. Don't make me do that."

Another swig of his canteen. "Her on the other hand," His finger jutted harshly at Irene. "I've 'eard enough about her to keep my eye on all three of you. She used to work for us, y'know. Back when I was a younger man, full of piss and vinegar." He laughed gently. "Not that I'm not now. Moreso back then. Anyway, I'll be sleepin here. You'll behave yerself, and we'll get along dandy. In a day or two, you'll meet the commander, and she'll decide what to do with ya. Easy enough for everyone, right?"

 

[Lenaara]

TucanSam


Stiff muscles refused to move without painful protests. A day on horseback has never been problematic, even after a sleepless night, but I wished for nothing more than rest as we continued down the road.

Too much happened in a short span of a few hours. Honestly, I regretted not sleeping when I had the chance.

It was not the first time I had almost died. Scars across my back was one of many remnants of bloody fights I was a part of. Years passed since then and yet, the memories of those events were vivid. It’d be many more years before they would turn into a blur of fragmented snippets. Same as it would take some time before I could forget the way the oczu pulled on my limbs and their otherworldly hiss echoed from within my mind.

During the silent journey, I was given the opportunity to shrug off the shock of having nearly died. Perhaps the soldiers around me were in the process of overcoming the shock of their own, having had lost their comrade in such a bloody way. I’d seen the way his arms and legs rolled about on the ground when they pushed him into the woollen sack. It was gut wrenching.

Sometime after we’d stopped for the night, one of the soldiers came over to me to take my travel pack away. It might have been the same man who was riding behind me, their identical armour making it impossible to tell one from the other. They kept their helmets on until the tents were set up, too. I suppose it did not matter, anyway, for neither of them spoke much and I couldn’t bring myself to care enough to protest. The dagger in my boot was taken away too. They made sure to search me for any more weapons. I simply stood still, quietly waiting.

A cautious part of me warned that this sort of apathy was suspicious. While it was impossible to tell if any of these men remembered me from my days at the garrison, I knew I had to be careful. My relationship with Ellenia was held secret, with only several people we both trusted privy to this information, and we went to great lengths to keep it so. It was for the best, for both of us had enemies that would profit from our connection.

This very same cautiousness warned me to act more worried about myself after Ellis had pointed to me, drawing my attention from my thoughts to himself. I’d been quiet the entire evening and ate my share of food without looking up from the fire. His words alarmed me enough to straighten and square my shoulders.

Nathan was right. I did not have much of a poker face.

“You remember me?” I asked with a slight arch to my brow. My eyes narrowed as I considered Ellis, his features lit by the soft orange firelight. “That was five years ago.”

No, it would be impossible to recall Ellis’s face among so many I had met during my short time as a mercenary hired by the garrison. It was a troublesome time. A summer remembered by its heat and many fires that burnt down the seas of grain and even several villages. A time of famine and despair and death. Years have passed since then and I’d never gone back since.

Leaning back, I pulled a knee to my chest and rested my forearm on it. A leather bracer hugged my arm from wrist to elbow, hiding most of the blooming bruises in terrifying shapes of hands over my skin.

“It is true that I have a certain reputation in these parts,” I continued. “Not many know me from my days at the garrison, however.”

Slowly, every move sending dull waves of pain through my shoulders and thighs, I turned to look at Nathan.

“I used to visit here often once, when I worked for the military group in charge of this region. For his,” I pointed a hand at Ellis, “Commander. That is how I know these parts so well. And what dangers are to be avoided.” The near-death encounter with the oczu did little to bolster my claim. It was by luck that the patrol was nearby. Luck had saved twice tonight. Luck, not skill.

“I would never have set foot in a military compound before. Too many strings attached. But work was scarce over that summer and I was low on coin. So, I went there.” At least it was better than arm wrestling some coin out of poor farmers and over-confident mercenaries. More noble, perhaps. Though I found little honour in blindly following orders. “It was usually small jobs, nothing too complicated. Find a thief, drive out a group of thugs, lure away a river troll. It was no different from when I worked freelance. Well, the only difference was the scrolls of paperwork the Commander requested I fill out. After the Commander realized my skill with a blade was better than expected, she assigned me better jobs. Better pay. Jobs involving the things you’ve seen at the hut.”

Exhaustion forgotten, I looked at Ellis once more. Sympathetic and kind, he did not come across as someone who posed any danger to me or my charges and yet, paranoia warned me to stay cautions of his actions and words. It seemed like forever ago that Marek – charismatic, bright Marek – had nearly poisoned me. He gave me no reason to doubt him, either.

Now, Marek was dead and would have taken the child and Nathan down with him had I not warned them in time.

After the girl had healed me with magic, paranoia was sure to rule my decisions for a while yet. Anyone could have seen us and spread the word, knowingly or by accident.

Breathing in deeply, I banished the suspicions from my mind. The only way to know if Ellis was aware of the girl’s abilities was to wait.

“What do you know of what happened at the village?”

 

[TucanSam]

Ellis watched patiently as Irene explained herself to me, talking about her past and giving information as if it was something she was ashamed of. Maybe it was. The way these soldiers moved, it was like watching a well oiled machine. Like the workings of a clock. Even in their simplest of tasks, setting up the fire or pitching the tents and getting the food for the night ready, had been performed in synchronised silence. For somebody like Irene, who never seemed to want to stop talking, maybe having to stoop down to their level was something she resented.Just another grunt earning a paycheck and following orders. Not so different from her current line of work. I watched them both as she talked, wondering when it would be that she would come to resent what I was paying her for. For his part, Ellis seemed unfazed. Sleep threatened to overtake his drooping eyelids and the days events burdened his shoulders into a low stoop.

“What do you know of what happened at the village?”

"Enough to know your part in it, though I can guess some of the rest." Ellis let his eyes roam over us, pausing slightly when they reached the girl. "Educated guesses can take me so far. Death and chaos aren't the only things that draw those creatures out, and you two aren't the type to have magic in ya. That girl you're traveling with must be something special to grab their attention so."

Quickly my reflexes had me reach for my sword, something they had left me with when setting up the camp. Perhaps it was my rank, perhaps it was me not being suspected completely in the case. Or maybe Ellis had seen my weakness, noticed the way my hand gripped the hilt loosely. Whichever it was, if they meant trouble, it would be a fatal error on their part. But the old man held up his hands at my gesture, chuckling at the tension in the air.

"No need to fret so much. If the girl were in danger from us, we'd already have killed her. Though i can't blame ya much," a gloved hand reached up to scratch his chin. "Those folks huntin down magic users have caused no shortage of headaches for everybody, including ourselves." Two of the men in the distance raised their heads at us slowly before returning to their food. "Thank whatever God you like that they're unorganized. Can't imagine we'd have any hope of stopping them otherwise."

Ellis sighed as he leaned back on his mat, arms folded behind his head. "Got enough to worry about for the days comin. Leave the rest till then. An old man needs his sleep."

I watched him doze off, confused and frustrated with him. Paranoia should be taking root in me, especially after what had happened with the boy and his sister. But if that was unlikely back then, this was even further unlikely now. Whether Marek kidnapping the girl had been a calculated move all along, he had seemed to wait for a good moment to strike at the least. These guys? It would have been far simpler to kill me as I ran from the hut, or to simply let the monsters finish us off. Taking us further, to a place with more witnesses, and having us camp near the side of a road all worked against the chance of them being two faced as well. Irene seemed to differ, though I wasn't sure how far her judgment could be trusted in these situations. Interesting. I let my mind ponder those thoughts as I drifted into sleep myself, grateful for the presence of the soldiers and the perceived safety at the very least. Might even get a full nights rest this time around.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Darkness covered the area, silent and deep. Crackling fire burned down to its last few embers, sending light and shadows dancing across the sleeping forms of the people around them. Cicadas chirped in the distance, wind blew gently across the camp. Slowly, a hand lowered onto Irene's mouth, covering it gently as Ellis peered down at her.

"Shhh, shh, now," he bent his head slowly to whisper into her ear. "Get up and don't make a scene, ya hear me?" The tents around them stood motionless, the horses tied up a few feet away pawing nervously at the ground. Sweat covered Ellis' forehead, his hands tight and solid on Irene's mouth.

"Somethin's goin on here. Two of my men won't wake, and one of them is missing. The man and child are safe, far as I can tell." A few feet away Nathan and the girl slept soundly, their chests moving rhythmically up and down. "Best not wake them till we know for sure who's out there. "

Wood thudded harshly on Irene's chest as Ellis dropped the spear on top of her, its tip covered with a cloth tied tight. "Hope you got some good rest dear, seems you still have work to do." An arrow thudded into the ground near Ellis' foot as if to punctuate his point. glaring at the shaft, the old man kicked it away quickly before standing up. Most of his armor had been stripped before he slept, the only remnants the shoulder pads and leggings he could throw on quickly. Another arrow thudded into the dirt near Irene's head before Ellis grabbed it up quickly, snapping it in two and tossing it to the side.

"Hope you've gotten better with that thing in the past few years," His sword hissed as he drew it, the blade gleaming in the firelight. Slowly his eyes scanned the dark, squinting against the shadows. It gave him enough time to move out of the way of another shot, this one flying into a tent and striking one of the men there. No sound erupted from the tent, no scream of pain or surprise. Just a low "Shit," as Ellis cursed. "Stay with the girl, wake the man if you need him." Was all he said to Irene before he took off into the night, sword held low and at the ready.

 

[Lenaara]

TucanSam


I snapped awake in the middle of the night at someone’s hand falling over my mouth. With a sharp intake of breath, I opened my eyes and my hands jerked to grasp the one silencing me. Darkness concealed the man and his voice was a mere whisper, but it was enough to still my hands and I remained still, looking at his features concealed by shadow.

A nod was given in response to Ellis’s words and my hands curled around the spear. Silently, I rose to my feet and looked around, my eyes wide open and struggling to see in the darkness. Above, the moon was hidden by a thick cover of clouds. Little light seeped through and it was only enough to outline the trunks of the surrounding trees and the underbrush.

After a time, the lack of one sense heightened all the others. The snap of a twig or the scuttle of an insect rang through the air with the resonance of a gong. When the brushes nearby rustled, I whirled around in that direction. No shadow stirred ominously; everything was still, safe for the slow-moving branches that appeared as stiff, broken fingers.

Dragging one foot in a crescent towards the campfire, I swept some dirt over the blackened logs. Orange sparks sizzled weakly and the warm light vanished. The few rays moonlight peeking through the canopy above outlined our shapes once my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

Shifting one foot behind the other, I neared Nathan and the child without turning to look at them. Their soft breaths remained calm even as I stopped a foot or so from them, taking a defensive stance and putting my body in such a way that if any arrow was let loose in this direction, it would strike me instead of Nathan or the child.

It appeared the archers were shooting blindly, though it confused me as to why they even bothered. In an ambush, a surprise attack was much more effective. With little light to guide them, they risked not only to lose all their arrows but also give away their position and wake the camp up with a poorly aimed shot.

Amateurs, was my first thought.

It would have been smart to wake Nathan and the child up and run into the night. Though I did not, hoping to use the silence to my advantage in luring the hidden archers out. Nathan and the child were bound to stir up a fuss if I woke them and it would be little effort to use the noise to guide the archers’ aim. Moreover, I did not know if we were surrounded.

From the moment the campfire was no more, tension seeped into my muscles. There was no longer any light to guide my hand, nowhere I could go to have an advantage over the enemy. The absence of light was bound to reveal the archers sooner or later. The wait was excruciating.

Then, the hairs on the nape of my neck rose in warning. A figure leapt out of the darkness and rushed towards me, tall and spidery. A streak of white blinding light flashed across the air. My spear whined, knocking the shining blade aside with a ringing clash. Without stopping, I swung the spear full circle to repel another dagger as it slashed at me from the right.

Only the few rays of moonlight playing along the silver blades marked my enemy. Clad in black leather, their face was obscured by shadow and half-hidden with a dark cloth below the eyes. Their form was a mass of shadows wielding a pair of daggers; it was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman before me. Not a brigand then; an assassin, perhaps? It did not matter, anyway. I did not let the distance between us close for even an instant. Another strike by the enemy, quick and seeking an opening, was parried; the spear was angled so that my opponent’s blade slipped off harmlessly.

The only sound ringing through the silent night was the rustling beneath our feet grass and the dull clash of weapons. Had it not been for the light playing along the dagger blades, I wouldn’t have known where my opponent was. Impossibly silent, despite the quickness of his movements.

In some desperate attempt to push past me, my opponent lunged at me, slicing both daggers across the air and let one loose. It flew straight and true towards my charges before being knocked away by the shaft of my spear, which I angled awkwardly and stepped back. In doing so, I stumbled over the child’s sleeping form and in trying not to step on her, I leapt across her body, leaving myself wide open.

Swift, I turned in my mid-crouch and blocked a flash of silver that came at me from the side. Ringing of two weapons colliding harshly pierced the silence like a shooting star. The wooden shaft of my spear vibrated in my hands as I kept it parallel to the ground in front of my face. A sword’s sharp blade was embedded deep into the wood. As the second enemy, dark and lithe as the first one, pulled back his sword, I twirled my spear in a figure eight, parrying strikes from both directions at once.

I stood between Nathan and the child, spear spinning in the air so fast it whistled. For a moment, it kept both my opponents at a distance. But while I wielded my spear with lightning speed, I couldn’t create an opportunity to attack. Then, the figure behind me, the closest to Nathan, lunged at me and I had to turn to block the sword. It left me open to the first assassin and yet, no attack came.

The assassin behind me altered his position, stilling his blade in a moment of hesitation. I, however, did not.

Instead of protecting the child, I launched myself straight at the assassin. He twisted his neck aside, barely in time to avoid being impaled on my spear – the cloth over the spearhead had been cut by a dagger mere moments ago – and the point sliced the assassin’s shoulder open. I charged straight into the figure, applying full strength to the wound, and the pain must have been so excruciating that he faltered for an instant, letting me land a kick with my knee right below his ribs.

The assassin bent over double and fell to his knees, while I stepped back and whirled the spear around towards the first assailant. In that instant, a line of silver flew towards me, towards Nathan. I fell onto a knee in front of him, forearms raised and crossed in front of my face that I bowed to my chest. In a flash of hot pain the blade of a miniature throwing knife struck my arm; thanks to the leather bracers I wore, the cut wasn’t as deep as the assassin possibly intended. I plucked it out swiftly, discarded it and rose into a defensive position, standing above Nathan and the child protectively.

Yet the assailant was no longer there. Neither was the girl. She had been picked up by him and carried over his shoulder. He must’ve drugged her, for her limp limbs were splayed awkwardly. He was heading in the direction where Ellis had run off to a short while ago.

Had I the time, I would have cursed. But the assassin’s spidery form was steadily retreating, marked by the girl’s paleness bright against the backdrop of darkness. With such force that the spear whistled through the air, I swung it out sideways. The hit landed just beneath the temple of the second assassin who had begun to get up to his feet; with a stunning blow, he was knocked out senseless. Then, I set off in pursuit.

 

[TucanSam]

Dust filled the air around Ellis, sticking to his clothes and the small splatter of blood on the end of his broadsword. Sweat ran down the side of his face, sticking his long hair to his neck in haphazard strands. Deep breathes heaved in and out of his chest, and the man across from him did not look much better. Tall, long and lean, his frame was covered in a thick layer of leather, his head wrapped loosely in a cover that had fallen off in the heat of battle. A long, curved scimitar rested at his side and a belt full of small pouches ran diagonally across his chest. An assassin, built for speed in both his choice of weaponry and his body. The old man had managed to wound him, but it was clear that only one of them was tired from the effort.

"Well," The assassin chipped the edge of his sword against the dry earth, scattering more rocks and dirt into the wind. "Seems you have not lost much skill with your old age. But we both know how this is going to end, don't we Ellis?"

Despite the burning in his arms and legs, the heavy weight on his chest and the severity of his situation, Ellis smiled. That old smile he always managed to crack when things were at their worst; as if he relished being backed into a corner. A way to throw opponents off perhaps, or to calm his own mind. Too many years had passed for him to remember when or why he had started to smile when he was worried, but it didn't matter. His throat cleared with a loud grunt as he spit to the ground, pulling his hair back and wiping some of the sweat from his brow.

"Don't consider it a done deal just yet, son. You may have caught my boys off guard back there," Ellis pointed quickly into the distance behind him, a good distance back to where the camp was. "But you made the mistake of not going for me first. Those are my prisoners. I've not let a simple thug take one from me yet."

The assassins face grew colder at Ellis' words, his thin lips growing thinner before turning downward into a snarl. Short black hair cut close to his head peaked out from under his head wrapping, and dark green eyes reflected only the slightest amount of moonlight back at the older man. "Well then," A slow step forward, his scimitar swinging gently at his side. "Let tonight be the first."

A quick lunge sent Ellis staggering back, his large broadsword swinging upward to parry it out of the way. The man in black spun as he did, his weapon shorter and more agile. Another quick slash towards Ellis leg sent him whirling to the side, his footing weak and unstable as he managed to jump out of the way, bringing his sword arcing back with him in a heavy swipe. It caught the edge of the assassins blade, pushing him forcefully back as he accepted the brunt force. Ellis let the momentum carry through before dropping the tip of the blade down, scrabbling it through the dirt as he sent it towards the mans ankles. Dirt flew into the air as the assassin jumped the blade, his feet barely touching the ground before his scimitar, raised above his head, swung down towards Ellis. There was not enough speed left in the old mans body as he twisted to the side, and the blade bit deep into his arm.

Red splotches dripped from his bicep as he stepped hurriedly back, his sword dragging in the dirt alongside him. The stranger smiled at the sight, flicking his blade to his side and sending drops of blood flying to the ground. Had he hit one of Ellis legs, this might still be a fair fight. Youth gave him speed, agility and strength. But age gave Ellis experience, wisdom and technique. Evenly matched, the only thing that could slow the old man down other than time was a strike to the arm. While not a heavy weapon per say, his broadsword was still long and cumbersome. Swinging it effectively took more than one hand, even if he had woken fresh from a long sleep. Both of them knew what a cut to the arm meant. The end was near. Ellis' smile grew wider, the assassins frown deepened.

"Don't be foolish now," He chided Ellis. "We have your man. You have no more leverage here, no more reason to fight. All we want is the girl. Consider the man and woman a gift. Between old friends."

A long deep laugh echoed from Ellis as the man spoke, his body physically shaking with the cacophony of sound. "You know me much better than that, Eric," Ellis took a second to calm himself. "I've never needed a good reason to keep fighting when I shouldn't. It's not in my nature."

Silence fell between the two of them as they stared at each other, crickets in the distance only occasionally interrupting them. Finally, Eric sighed, shaking his head in frustration. "No, you're right," He said, stepping towards Ellis as he did so. "I do know you better than that. But a job is a job. I can't spare you out of sentimentality. After all," Eric lunged suddenly, his scimitar swiping out in an arc at Ellis' head. "i'm just a simple thug."

In slow motion, Ellis' mouth dropped its smile, mouthing the words "Exactly" as the scimitar bit into his shoulder. Leather parted as it sunk in, sending dark streams of blood pouring out from the wound. In that same moment, Ellis reached his hand towards the other mans chest, gripping the belt strung across it and ripping one of the pouches free. Recognition colored Eric's face as he saw what Ellis was trying to do, pulling back on the weapon as he tried to get away. But it was too late. With a grunt, Ellis smashed the pouch against the ground, sending a dark blue haze of dust into the air. Eric immediately covered his mouth, falling backwards onto the ground as he coughed before, finally, he stopped moving.

Waving his hand in the air to disperse some of the cloud, Ellis made his way over to the man on the ground, kicking him gently to see if he'd wake. Eric's chest moved up and down rhythmically as the sleep drug filled his body. Ellis sighed.

"Figures," he reached a hand up to press against his wound, wincing with the effort. "I was hoping it was poison. Serves you right though. Don't carry something you aren't immune to. Idiot." Ellis aimed another kick at the mans ribs, crunching into them with much more force this time. Eric did not move. Ellis spit on him. "You know I fucking hate stitches."

 

[Lenaara]

TucanSam



The assassin was swift. The distance between us grew at a steady pace. It was silent, as if the forest creatures grew still in anticipation of yet another fight. The only sounds were that of rustling grass and snapping branches beneath our feet and the ragged breathing as both of us started to feel exhaustion prickle at our chests. Only the soft footfalls and the girl’s pale limbs marked the man I was pursuing and even those soon vanished beneath the cover of shadows once the assassin ducked into the forest.

The camp – and Nathan, who hadn’t woken up despite the ruckus – was left behind. Trees closed all around us, tall and menacing in the absence of light. Roots caught at our feet. Low branches pulled against my clothes and braid, which slapped my back at each step. The shadowy figure holding my charge almost tripped once, stumbling and catching himself just in time to jump over a large oak’s root and use the momentum to propel himself forward, farther away from me.

For a moment, I thought that I would not be able to catch him.

Several times he reached for a nearby tree trunk and spun around it in a sharp turn. During those times, I lost track of the assassin. His form blended seamlessly with the surrounding shadows and had it not been for the few rays of silver moonlight reflecting on the child’s bare hands, he would have gotten further from me. Rustling of underbrush beneath his steps, as soft as my own, marked his position and I let that sound guide me.

As suddenly as the shadows fell upon us, they retreated. A clearing was ahead, pale and barren and absent of trees that could provide cover. The assassin was in the middle of the clearing when I emerged from the trees and pulled my arm back, angling the spear just so. Then, mid-stride, I raised my free arm in aim and launched the spear through the air. It cut the distance with lightning speed and struck deep into the ground at the assassin’s feet. The point had pierced through the assassin’s shin and he stumbled, out of shock and loss of balance, and the child flew from his arms and rolled several feet over the ground.

I hadn’t paused even as dull pain radiated through my shoulder in a pulsing sensation, my muscles still recovering from the encounter with the oczu. By the time I reached the assassin, he had twisted around to free himself. Blood began to pool under his injured leg, a puddle of crimson appearing black in the pale moonlight.

Noticing me near him, the assassin did not hesitate for an instant, despite the immense pain, and reached towards the baldric strapped across his chest. Two knives were sent at me, small and sharp, and one had cut me across the cheek as I ducked away. The other flew past me and landed deep into a tree behind me with a thump. Branches shook in soft whispers from the impact.

Before the man could reach for another knife, I twisted and kicked him hard across the jaw. The impact sent his body sideways and it pulled on the spear, which continued to pin him to the ground. The puddle of blood grew quickly in size. His face, now free of the black cloth covering it earlier, had grown pale and sallow and he moaned through gritted, bloody teeth.

To my disbelief, the assassin did not lose consciousness and raised both hands to press against the ground in an attempt to get up. Blood fell in viscous droplets from his broken lip. A pained groan broke the silence as I pressed my foot to the back of his neck and pinned him back to the ground. His face was buried in the soft ground and he struggled, trying to break free, to turn his face to breathe. The pressure did not ease even as his trembling hands reached to grab my ankle awkwardly, clawing at it to push me off.

Without a glance in his direction, I reached for my spear and pulled it free from the assassin’s leg. The pain must have been so sudden and excruciating that the man had passed out, for his body stopped trembling and his chest began to rise in a steady, slow rhythm of sleep.

I wiped the blood off the spearhead across his thigh, my lips flattening at the sight of the slowly growing puddle of crimson spreading underneath his injured leg. It would have to be bound.

Later.

For the first time since emerging into the clearing I allowed myself to survey the area. It was empty, safe for a man standing some distance from me. Had it not been for the pale light turning his hair a snow-white hue, I would have thought it was another assassin waiting in ambush. But it was Ellis, standing tall and uninjured, which couldn’t be said for the man that lay still on the ground before him. The distance made it hard to see and I squinted, struggling to understand if the man was dead and if Ellis had suffered any wounds during the obvious battle. But I could not. Both Ellis and the dark clothed assassin were but blurs, half-covered by shadows.

“Bind this man’s leg,” I told Ellis, my voice crisp in the silence, and headed for the child. As much as I wished to see if Ellis needed help, Nathan and the girl took priority.

The girl was frighteningly light in my arms, so light that I could carry her and my spear and run easily back to the camp without feeling exhausted by the time I neared the tents. Everything appeared as I’d left it. Nathan remained asleep and the assassin whom I’d knocked out earlier was a heap of darkness beside my charge.

Slowly, I set the girl down onto her bedroll and then got up to get my travel pack. A small coil of rope was taken out of it, its length just enough to bind the assassin’s arms behind his back and drag him by the collar towards a nearby tree. That done, I knelt beside Nathan and pressed two fingers against his neck. Steady heartbeat pulsed against my fingertips; his soft breathing matched that of the girl. He was probably drugged along with the child. The thought wasn’t a comforting one.