Aelthi had done what Cablin suggested, and now he was stuck. Here was a road that was more cobblestone than dirt, and wide enough for two of his kind to walk abreast even with their wings extended. This must be the major highway the old man had mentioned, and it would surely lead Aelthi to Tralgar.
The question remained, should he follow it to the East or towards the West? Cablin was probably right about signs, at least at all the crossroads. But this road didn’t have markers every twenty feet for the benefit of uncivilized wanderers who came stumbling out of the bushes.
If there were humans passing by, he could ask them for directions, but the road was deserted at the moment. It surely couldn’t remain empty forever, Aelthi decided. This was a major highway after all. He wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but there had been an attempt to pave this pathway and make it suitable for wagons and horses. It was no simple muddy game trail, so clearly the humans made significant use of it.
The air was still, with only the slightest temperature differential to send warmer air rising off the road. Worse, the only trees nearby were thick and squat, far shorter than they looked like they ought to be. It never occurred to the Raptoran that humans occasionally pruned them, and often cut down the vegetation entirely, thinning the growth that might give cover to bandits. Had he known, he would have been even more uneasy.
The birdman hopped back and forth, too agitated to still himself as he waited for a human traveler to appear. When a trio of humans finally did appear, moving stealthily through the grass, he almost failed to spot them before it was too late.
Aelthi’s keen eyes picked out the motion just before the humans sprung, giving him time to shift his grip on his walking staff, transforming it to long spear. The men, already committed, were not deterred. They rushed Aelthi from multiple directions simultaneously, armed with cheap wooden clubs that were just as deadly as ornate daggers and short swords.
Aelthi stabbed one of his attackers in the knee, instantly halting the man’s advance. A quick reverse thrust caught another in the chest, hitting him with the butt of the spear so savagely that ribs cracked. There was no time to dodge or parry the third incoming attack however, and Aelthi was forced to take a glancing blow on the shoulder, a strike that continued until it smashed through his spear, leaving it in two jagged pieces.
Aelthi swiped at the man with the sharp end, ignoring the throbbing in his left arm. With his right, he threw the back half of his spear at the man with broken ribs, keeping him off balance and unable to join the attack.
The man with the destroyed knee was limping forward now, and Aelthi realized he was only seconds from being overwhelmed. It was hardly honorable, being defeated by only three humans, and Aelthi hoped these were at least seasoned warriors, with long histories of unblemished victories.
A single note swept through the air, a sound of a harp string being plucked. But the effect it carried was not that of mere music. Aelthi’s three attackers paused and reeled back, as though a wave of weakness and pain had struck them. The birdman, in contrast, felt a surge of strength. He stabbed again, his left arm now moving as though it were uninjured, and speared the man in the throat.
Aelthi twirled and kicked, catching one of his attackers in the face and sending the human flying backwards. Now only the man with the bleeding knee remained in the fight, a far cry from the initial odds. Realizing this, the marauder backed away a safe distance before turning around, disengaging from the fight and ultimately fleeing as fast as his wounded leg could carry him.
The man with the broken ribs, and now a broken nose, had also recovered enough to flee, leaving a single corpse as evidence of the failed ambush.
Aelthi peered down the road and spotted the source of that brief note that had altered the course of the battle for him. Bards were rare among his kind, and none of them had the “voice magic” that humans were known to occasionally possess. This was his first encounter with bardic magic, and until this moment he hadn’t really believed the legends. The instrument he at least recognized, similar in design to the harps his species made, but small enough to be carried.
As the bard drew nearer, Aelthi detected the pointed ears that gave away elven heritage. The drab mammals naturally all looked alike to the Raptorans, but many of the birdmen consciously trained their eyes to discern the multiple hominid subspecies. This creature was a mongrel then, with a build that suggested human and elven mingling, and no consistency even within the elven features.
If Aelthi understood the races correctly, this would be an outcast then. Driven from the purity-obsessed elven clades, and only barely tolerated in the human realm. A natural ally for the foreign Raptoran.
The half-elf approached warily, as it should. Aelthi had just simultaneously fought off three men. A single traveler would have little chance against the birdman if he turned out to be the aggressor, even with bardic magic to bolster one side.
Aelthi dropped the remains of his weapon and attempted to non-threatening. He folded his wings tightly against his body and dipped his head, though he still looked downward upon the new arrival. “I am Aelthi,” he carefully spoke in the common human language. “I honor your assistance.”
“It wasn’t much. I just thought I might distract them for a second.” The boy shrugged, and Aelthi could tell that it was a juvenile now. It could be difficult to discern age when judging the hybrids, as they could take after either parent, but this one moved with the clumsiness of an adolescent.
When there was no further verbal response, nor even a lifting of the head to finally make eye contact, Aelthi tried again. “I am Aelthi. I am a guardian of the canyon, seeking Tralgar where I shall find Wardens.”
This elicited a reply, though the boy still refused to look anywhere but his feet. “They call me Hyacinth. I’m also going to Tralgar. I’m looking for my master. Well, my teacher really. I was sort of his apprentice, and he’s gone missing. He left a note saying he found a better job in the city, but it wasn’t his handwriting. I don’t know what to do.”
Aelthi shifted his weight from foot to foot, weighing this information. It was like grinding talons, to get the youth speaking. But once you did, apparently he just kept rambling on to fill the silence. “Then we should travel together. I have seen tracks of several goblin tribes, and they are known to attack when they catch you sleeping.”
Over the next few hours Aelthi managed to draw more of the story out of the youth, as well as acquiring a rudimentary knowledge of local geography and customs. It seemed it was far out of character for the boy’s master to take a job in the city, as he had actively turned down jobs for years and steadily become more and more reclusive. He was a genius, the boy claimed, and could have tutored princes and kings.
There were enough clues to suggest that old man Yassil had actually been kidnapped, more than enough really. There was the note, written in a stranger’s handwriting. There were items out of place, as though the house had been disturbed and hastily returned to order by someone unfamiliar with Yassil’s personal organizational system. There were appointments that had never been canceled. You would have to be an idiot to miss all the signs.
That bothered Aelthi, though he kept his concerns to himself. There had been too many obvious clues, as though someone wanted the boy to follow. The boy thought he was on a quest of sorts to save his master, but Aelthi wondered if the young man was the actual target. He owed a debt to the young Hyacinth for saving his life, even if the other refused to acknowledge the scope of his role. Finding the Wardens, and ultimately slaying the Prowler remained his priority, but he would also protect his new traveling companion to the best of his ability.
With at least an hour before nightfall, the pair reached the first of many way stations along the road. The building was a double story affair, largely shaped like a cube. Rooms could be rented in the upper story by those who could afford them, when they weren’t all commandeered by marching soldiers at least. The activity was all on the ground floor though. Half the space was covered in straw and served as stables. The rest was a combination of kitchen and communal area for eating, drinking, and sleeping. This early in the evening, the small crowd was universally engaged in the first two.
Hyacinth talked a short fat man into letting him play his harp for tips, promising half would go to the house. Aelthi observed the exchange, deciding that if the boy had any confidence he could have kept it all, maybe even charged a small sum for his services. He might wish to do the talking for the duo in the future, even though it required significantly more focus on his part to make the proper human sounds.
Aelthi sampled a nameless example of human cuisine, the cheapest that smelled tolerable to his system, and watched the boy play. He was good, and he was weaving magic into the music as he plucked the strings, slowly and subtlety shaping the mood of the crowd. The Raptoran suspected the boy didn’t even realize he was doing it, and he began to wonder how powerful he could become with training. He’d never believed the legends, but he knew them all of course. Supposedly, it was a bard that “killed” the dwarven god Stagmite thousands of years ago and ended the Great War. No mortal could actually destroy any of the deities, not while they had believers to draw psychic strength from. No amount of damage would remain for long.
So the man had charmed the very blood of the god, enchanting it until it behaved like its own entity, and then luring it out of the god and into a specially designed receptacle. Drained, the bodily husk of the god fell into a comatose state, where he still remained according to the stories. He would continue to sleep for as many eons as it took for his blood to break from its prison and find its way home.
Just for a moment, Aelthi imagined he saw a face in the flames of the candle that lit his table. It had been a strangely beautiful face, even though it had been human, and he had the strange notion that he knew it. Some hidden instinct whispered that it was Gloria, a minor goddess of light that had recruited Stagmite’s killer, and was thus responsible for the only deity to fall during all of that war. She’d been shunned by the others of her kind, or perhaps actively attacked and driven away. Whatever they’d done, she’d disappeared entirely.
Aelthi supposed she still existed, as long as some dwindling cult worshipped her every dawn. But she hadn’t taken a hand in the affairs of mortal creatures. She certainly didn’t appear in random flames.
It had been a hallucination, Aelthi decided. He’d been thinking about old legends, in particular the death of Stagmite, and bardic magic had flowed over his senses at just the right time. It all compounded to generate an illusion for a fraction of a second. That’s all it was.
It had to be. Because if the vision had been real. If the pariah of the gods were actively watching…
The various Ministers all worked in the same building, an enormous rectangular structure that was almost a city within a city. Dozens of Ministers, hundreds of assistants, just as many guards, and nearly a thousand vendors with their supporting staff filled the interior. Just like any city, no matter how many security checkpoints were erected and no matter how many guards struggled to control access, it leaked like a sieve.
Also like a city, there was a sort of class based hierarchy. Instead of rings of wealth though, with the richest at the center and subsequently poorer classes radiating outward, there was an interwoven network of clearance levels. Just three inches of wall often separated the common vendors from the highest functionaries.
To the unfamiliar, it was almost impossible to navigate. Professional “guides” often served those wishing to petition a certain branch of government, guides who spent years or even decades learning all the invisible avenues.
Raishe, thanks in part to his newly online memory enhancement modules, could now navigate with the best of them. Even better, thanks to his position within the empire’s Secret Service, he could access all but the very top level. In the kit hidden inside his pocket, there lurked a dozen different men who didn’t yet exist. And each of those men had a clearance card that would pass inspection, if not several.
Working through aliases, identities that would be discarded and doomed to never live again after their brief moments in the sun, Raishe made his way through the giant building. Down hallways and up stairs, only to go down more hallways and descend again, signing forms and showing badges, but always moving closer to his goal.
It took hours, but it Raishe couldn’t tell whether it felt like days or minutes. All his senses were sharper now, his augmentations system revving up his metabolism as high as his body could stand. At the same time, it was altering myelin coatings around neurons as necessary, giving him the cognitive speed to handle this sharpness. His perception of time became malleable. Moments dragged on for minutes, giving him time to analyze every detail. Yet at the same time, minutes passes like seconds, as his heightened memory recalled far earlier events as though they had just occurred. Time stood still and ran together, all at once.
Raishe had been disarmed during the laborious process of entry, but still carried two concealed knives when he finally reached the last door barring him from the traitorous Vardaman. It was a heavy oaken door, but Raishe knew it had a frail lock that would snap off during the first heavy impact. Only the guards provided any real deterrent. Two currently in view outside the door, and presumably two more inside.
The men were burly, almost bursting out of their leather armor, and they stood with their thick arms crossed over their chests and their legs shoulder length apart. They faced incomers head on, an all around horrible position for fighting.
Raishe smiled, raised a hand that clearly held a sealed and stamped note, and extended as though he were about to offer it to the guard on his left. The man started to uncross his arms, his eyes on the paper in Raishe’s left hand. The second guard also looked there, clearly having never been trained to mind his surroundings. Just as Raishe suspected, the bureaucratic red tape did all the work. These men were just for show.
Neither man saw the knife in Raishe’s right hand, at least not before he swiped it across his target’s throat. It sliced easily through both the trachea and one of the carotid arteries. The man died quickly and silently, vainly reaching to stop the flow of blood jetting from his neck. Simultaneously, Raishe twisted and thrust forward his left hand. An innocent sheet of paper transformed into a concealed palm strike, hitting its recipient in the nose and driving his head backward into the door before he had even registered what was happening.
The man was only stunned for a second, but that was all Raishe needed to draw his knife across a second neck. It had all happened in seconds, the only sound being a slight thump that might plausibly have been just the elbow of a bored man shifting position. There had been no witnesses yet, and if this short hallway stayed clear for half a minute longer, that would hold.
Raishe charged the door with his shoulder, sending it flying inward as expected. He held a knife in each hand now, instantly scanning the room and locating the two anticipated inner guards. Caught entirely by surprise, neither had time to finish drawing his sword before having his throat opened up.
One of the guards dropped instantly, but the other stayed on his feet for two whole crawling seconds, managing to actually get a grip on his decorative longsword and at least point it towards Raishe before he finally collapsed.
Raishe sheathed one of his knives in order to catch the sword as it fell. Then he turned to face his adversary, the longer and heavier weapon in his right hand. Knives were normally sufficient for killing, but Vardaman almost certainly had some regenerative capacity to have lived so long. A more substantial weapon would be needed to overcome that, to cause massive damage faster than Vardaman could heal. Raishe would prefer a chance to incinerate the body, but decapitation was nearly always enough.
A striking young woman sat next to Vardaman behind his desk, a pen clutched tightly in her hand. It was a minor slip, failing to anticipate her presence, but Raishe still cursed himself for it. He hadn’t considered that Vardaman would employ a secretary like most other Ministers, although he should have. And just like most other high ranking officials, it looked like he’d hired her mostly for her looks. She just sat there now, her mouth open and her eyes wide, too stunned to even scream.
Vardaman jumped to his feet, moving faster than any of the guards so far, and proving that his wizened face was greatly misleading. He rushed around the desk, charging Raishe despite being armed with only a letter opener. The thing that looked like a man had guts, and plenty of vigor. Raishe would grant it that. Possibly even courage, though it was possible Vardaman took his regenerative capacity for granted and never considered that he might actually be killed.
Raishe swung first, severing the arm holding the tiny weapon. Without giving Vardaman time to react to the loss, he followed up his attack with a devastating swing just above the shoulders. Just as planned, Vardaman’s head separated from his body and fell to the floor. The larger portion of Vardaman toppled just after it.
Raishe turned back to the secretary, who still hadn’t moved. He was tempted to let her live. After all, she couldn’t possibly recognize him, since he was wearing a face he’d never used before and never would again. He’d planned to leave no witnesses, just in case, but he was having a sudden moment of weakness.
It didn’t hurt that the woman was breathtaking. Her nostrils were a little wide for his liking, and that slack-jawed expression didn’t win her any points. And yet… Internal alarms rang through Raishe’s skull. Certain neurotransmitters, mainly oxytocin and vasopressin were inexplicably elevated, and ChemoStorage was already releasing known antagonists to correct the situation.
That’s when Raishe realized her nostrils weren’t just wide. They were flared. And it wasn’t shock that kept her lips apart. He’d seen this before, with animals. She was drawing air inward, forcing it across an organ in the roof of her mouth that detected pheromones.
She smiled and stood, apparently realizing her wasn’t going to succumb to her chemical manipulation after all. When she moved, Raishe realized he’d met her before. He’d been given a chance to kill the crossbow wielding assassin after all. All possible sympathy for the bitch evaporated.
Raishe attacked recklessly, literally seeing through a red mist and his hacked and slashed. The creature, either a demon or doppelganger he now suspected, dodged his clumsy swings and counterattacked, raking his chest and arms with long claws that he hadn’t noticed before.
Raishe staggered back and leaned against the wall, struggling to catch his breath. Then he noticed the red haze was flashing regularly, an emergency warning from his augmentation system. The first chemical attack had been dealt with, but he’d immediately come under assault by another. He’d been driven into a rage, and his already boosted metabolism had been forced even higher. If he didn’t bring himself under control, he’d burn out in a matter of minutes. He’d literally cook himself from the inside out.
He couldn’t beat this creature, not now. She’d prepared for him, ever since sniffing out his strengths and weaknesses during their first encounter. While he’d been focused on Vardaman, she was focused on him, adapting herself. He’d lost this fight before it had ever begun.
He was still stronger and faster than her at least. It was only proximity that was driving him to excess and making him clumsy. If he could collect himself, he could finish her with one quick sword thrust, and she knew it. Which meant…
Raishe backed out of the room, unsurprised to see that she didn’t follow. He was going to be allowed to run.
As Raishe continued to retreat, already planning his long and convoluted exodus from the building, he realized all his tricks and disguises were useless. A creature like that could discern smells a hundred times better than a bloodhound. She’d known his identity before he’d even broken through the door, had known more about him from a whiff than could be learned reading all his personnel files. His job would be over before he made it into open air. And if he stayed within the empire, his life would soon follow.
Was decapitation enough to kill Vardaman? Raishe now knew it had all been a setup. His life within the empire would end one way or another. His only hope was that Vardaman’s regeneration capacity was limited, and that he’d counted on a more survivable “mortal wound”.
Raishe cycled through the last of his prepared faces, killing himself with doubt. Had he at least succeeded? If not, Vardaman would likely return under a different name, and it would look like he had. Which meant, until the Empire of Rose either suffered a horrible economic collapse, or recovered, Raishe would never know the outcome of all his efforts.
The skeletons arrived shortly after Vetch’s close encounter with the alien monster. Carrying food and water, they escorted her to the dig site. It took seven days, barely covering any ground at all during the first forty eight hours while her leg healed. By the end of the first day she wanted to run, even while her augmentation system continued to pump endorphins into her system and channel calcium towards her rapidly multiplying osteoblasts. If the skeletons hadn’t maintained control over the water, only rationing out a dribble here and there, she would have.
That week had felt like months, at times dragging on so endlessly that part of her even yearned for the alien monstrosity to show up on her tail. At least, she hoped it was the boredom of the trek that caused those feelings, and not some remnant of its contact. A cancerous fragment of the alien consciousness, slowly transforming her fear and hatred into longing, was the last thing she needed.
Once she finally reached the site, Vetch immediately scoured it for clues. It should be teeming with them, as her father had never been one to tidy up as he went. Notes weighed down under rocks, remnants from his last meal, uncovered artifacts still half buried, and maybe even a journal left open to the last entry. All of it should be waiting for her inspection.
Instead, she found the camp immaculate. There were boxes, full of provisions such as rations and shovels. There was a large canopy strung up for shade, and a small tent nearby for warmth at night. Inside, just within the flap, was an electric lantern, fully charged and actually switched off. Rolled neatly in the back of the tent was a blanket. Aside from these things there was only sand.
“You did this,” she accused the clustered skeletons. “You erased every trace of what he was doing. Why? What did he find?”
Most of the undead ignored her completely. Only one responded, telling her that a deal had been reached with father. In exchange for his sacrifice, they would protect her. It was a geas that would soon be lifted, it added. After that brief and unsatisfying reply, the skeleton joined its brethren in unbroken silence.
So Vetch began to dig. The skeletons were compelled to protect anything buried in this desert, so they couldn’t have possibly destroyed anything. Whatever her father had found, they must have simply reburied it. She dug with abandon, heedless of any damage she might inflict should her shovel blade strike the mysterious treasure she sought. The skeletons watched soundlessly, and they made no move to stop her, though an air of animosity oozed from their bones.
After several days of digging turned up nothing, she began to wonder if they’d moved the site. They could have moved the ration boxes and tents a quarter mile and simply led her to empty desert. Only the baleful silence seeping out of their angry faces gave her the determination to continue. Surely they wouldn’t hold such antagonistic postures if there were nothing to find.
She was still digging, submerged up to her shoulders in a slowly widening pit, when she spotted the dark smudges on the horizon. She watched closely as the dots steadily grew and revealed themselves as humanoid. A short while after, she was sure they weren’t just humanoid, but human. The first humans other than her father that she had seen in living memory, and it had only taken the invasion of an alien monster to bring them here.
Meth wiped the sweat from his brow, but another wave rolled into his eyes mere seconds later. He would just have to resign himself to the stinging saltwater blurring his vision. Resistance was moot it seemed, at least in the noonday heat. How Eltore seemed so comfortable in his black leather outfit was a mystery that only deepened by the day.
The soldiers that escorted them and carried their supplies at least had the decency to look miserable. They weren’t wearing solid black, but they still wore dark grey uniforms that marked them as Montby’s men. There weapons and armor, combined with the heavy loads of food and water, must have weighed sixty pounds at the lightest.
There was something else, besides the heat, that wormed into Meth’s body and sent ripples of queasiness traveling back and forth, up and down.
“It’s negative energy,” Eltore said out of nowhere.
“What?”
“I’ve seen the way you grimace. It’s not the heat that does that. It’s a field of negative energy. It’s weak, almost too weak to notice, but it seems to cover the entire desert. The energy required to maintain this field for so long… beyond human comprehension.”
“That’s why the dead rise up here.”
“Correct. But the field is only strong enough to arrest the decay of bone. Flesh rots too quickly. That’s why we have a desert of skeletons rather than zombies.” After a moment of silent walking, Eltore continued. “You can shield yourself from it. Practice casting the cantrip I taught you. Like a stream of water dragging a stagnant pool along with it, you can use your own spells to channel this field around your body. Keep focusing on the magic, and you’ll learn to feel it.”
Meth didn’t need telling twice. In the short time under Eltore’s tutelage he’d already learned one spell, something unofficially called The Finger of Death. The name was a bit of hyperbole, but was still somewhat of an accurate description. Meth had learned to tap into the mana that pervaded the universe, and convert a trickle of it into negative energy. The first dozen attempts ended in failure, with the energy dissipating as quickly as he generated it, even though he spoke the words and made the appropriate signs with perfect precision.
Then something had snapped inside his mind, and it was like a membrane popping, allowing him to float upwards to a new level of focus that he’d never experienced before. He turned all that focus to the tip of his finger, and that’s where the bubble of negative energy finally coalesced.
He could currently maintain the bubble for approximately five minutes, or until he touched organic matter. And his maximum duration was still increasing. If his concentration didn’t ultimately slip, and he touched something living, the negative energy reacted vigorously. Although just a fraction of the power wielded by the more experienced mages, it was enough to cause flesh to instantly rot. So a simple poke could cause ulcerous wounds to open. In theory, if he touched someone just above the heart, the damage might spread deeply enough to stop it.
Busy chanting, trying to draw the energies of the universe under his control for the simple and pointless task of turning his finger into a weapon, Meth was the last to notice the end of their journey rise above the endless sand. The fabric of a large tent blew softly in the scorching breeze, marking their destination. Half a minute after it first became visible, the skeletons clustered beneath and to the sides also rose into view.
“There they are,” Eltore whispered. The words were barely audible and yet carried the force of a scream, snapping Meth from his concentration and drawing his gaze upwards. “There are the skeletons that patrol the desert, creatures that are compelled to follow a command given by no living man, and who maintain a shred of sentience despite their lack of free will. Undead that defy all we understand about raising and controlling such hosts. Amazing creatures.”
The skeletons were just standing there, and Meth wondered why they’d come all this way to meet the creatures. Eltore had been silent about their purpose, but if he only wanted to talk to the undead, he could have questioned any of the solitary figures spotted in the distance before now. Weeks of grueling travel could have been cut out. So Meth knew there had to be something else, perhaps an item that Eltore wished to trade for. Nothing beneath that tent stood out though, not at the current distance.
“Take up defensive positions, around the camp,” Eltore shouted at the soldiers. “Nothing gets in to disturb me.” He turned to Meth. “There’s a girl here somewhere. It’s your job to find her.”
Vetch observed all of this, her senses strangely distorted, but in a way that improved them. Sounds became swirling colors, and even at a distance she could see them leaving the lead figure’s mouth as he spoke. Some strange instinct interpreted those shifting lights back into sounds, and she gathered a perfect transcript.
Vetch kept her head down, knowing she had only a few seconds to decide what to do. Then, she’d be spotted and she’d be trapped. It spontaneously occurred to her that the solution was to do nothing. At the moment she was nearly buried in a hole of her own making, meaning the skeletons were bound to protect her even more strongly than usual. If she didn’t want to be removed, they wouldn’t let those men touch her.
There were about thirty undead warriors standing motionless, and a nearly equal number of approaching men. Knowing that the skeletons disregarded pain or injury, she had little doubt they could easily handle at least twice as many attackers. So she would just sit in the shaded pit of cool earth and wait it out.
Up close, the huge hole was obvious, and Meth walked right towards it. When he peered into the cavity his eyes widened with surprise. Eltore had said “girl” and he’d just expected a child. This was closer to a grown woman. She was tall and thin, androgynous enough to pass for younger, but the muscles in her arms belied that impression. She clearly had a wiry strength that took years of maturity to develop.
Meth hesitated, trying to decide how to proceed. If he reached down to pull her out, he’d be overbalanced and easily dragged into the pit himself. He had at least thirty pounds on her, but he could spot a shovel half hidden by her foot. If she’d dug this pit by herself, as he suspected, then she could certainly swing it.
“I’m Meth. Do you need help getting out?” That seemed like the safest approach. He could hear Eltore behind him, arguing about something, but he couldn’t make out precisely what.
“I’m Vetch. I’m fine right here, thank you.”
Well, that settled it then. Meth wasn’t sure how to proceed, so he looked over his shoulder for the necromancer, just in time to see Eltore stomping towards him.
“What’s the delay?”
“She doesn’t want to budge.”
Eltore scowled, showing a mixture of emotions, all of them bad. “She doesn’t have a choice. She’s in danger and the skeletons have an obligation to protect her. Apparently, Montby owes them a favor and they feel the debts all cancel out if we take her back to Tralgar. The problem is that something out of legend is going to be on our asses the entire trip, and every second we waste is another man we’ll lose. Once we run out of meat heads, it will be us screaming in agony. So get her out, now!”
Meth sank to his knees, almost lowering to his stomach even, to position his center of gravity as close to the ground as possible. Then he reached into the hole, hoping he didn’t take a shovel blade to the shoulder for his efforts.
Vetch could have avoided the arm that clumsily groped for her. She could have used the shovel to chop it off at the elbow. She could have even dragged the young man into her excavation beside her, and then beaten him senseless. But what then? The skeletons had forsaken her. The old wrinkled one in the black leather would just send another man, and then another, until the hole filled up with them.
It was better to go along with them for now, and wait for an opportunity to escape. It wasn’t that she had any particular reason to distrust them. Her father, Vincent, had completely neglected all the usual warnings about “boys”, and she didn’t imagine a single concrete danger of traveling with thirty strange men. But she’d lived an entire life surrounded by the stoic undead, with only her father for company. These humans were too strange, too loud and unpredictable.
So Vetch grabbed Meth’s flailing arm and used it to pull herself out of the pit with one quick jump. That brief contact told her she was far stronger than this man, that should could crush him easily if it came to that, and an idea began to take shape.
The soldiers formed an irregular ring around the camp, far enough away to give Eltore privacy in his discussions if he so desired. That meant they were forced to leave rather large gaps between themselves. And they were all facing outward, not even posting a single sentry to watch for threats from within their circle.
Vetch took off at a sprint, immediately jumping beyond Meth and Eltore’s reach. If she’d walked away calmly, she could have covered most of the distance to the ring before anyone reacted. Instead, completely inexperienced at using typical human psychology to her advantage, she gave in to her instincts and ran. Even so, she was halfway to the nearest soldiers when Eltore finally recovered enough to shout.
“Grab her!”
The entire circle of guards turned inward, taking another moment to assess the situation and realize which of them were being called upon. The two nearest slid closer together and took a step towards the charging girl, just as she reached them.
Vetch darted to the side at the last moment, putting one soldier out of reach while crashing straight into the other. She tilted her head downward and pushed forward with her full strength, not even attempting to avoid to mitigate the collision.
Everyone watched silently as skinny, half starved girl outmaneuvered one veteran fighter and ran straight over another one, barely losing momentum as she sent him sprawling onto his back. The nearest handful of soldiers took off in pursuit, but it was evident within seconds that they weren’t going to catch her. Even as she put more distance between her and the pursuit, she appeared to be gaining speed.
The rest of the men began to laugh, most under their breaths but a few without such subtlety. In the middle distance, they watched their breathless and exasperated companions stagger to a halt and give up the chase.
Eltore looked back to the skeletons, already disbursing as though they considered their debt transferred. Then he looked back to the girl, still running in a straight line. “There isn’t time for this. Fuck Montby. We’re going home.”
“What did you expect? This is more of a kidnapping than anything else. We could have handled this better, a lot better. We could have spent a few minutes introducing ourselves at least.” Meth surprised himself with his own outburst. He believed everything he’d said, but pragmatism was more this style than brutal honesty. Eltore was training him as an apprentice, and the mage looked nearly ready to challenge Montby for control over Tralgar’s underworld, which would elevate all his minions with him. That meant the smart choice right now was for Meth to keep his mouth shut and go along with whatever the necromancer wanted.
Eltore stared at his apprentice intently, but without surprise. “You’re starting to bend the field of negative energy around him. That sudden endorphin rush will addle your wits, especially when it sneaks up on you the first time. That explains your lip. It doesn’t excuse it. It’s your job to catch her and bring her back.”
Eltore pointed the way they had come. “We’re going to walk back along our own trail, so we’ll be easy to find. And she’s not hiding her tracks at all. When she stops to rest you’ll be able to catch up to her. But if you can’t get control over her within a day, I’d suggest coming back without her. Do you know what a Houndmaster is?”
When Meth shook his head, Eltore continued. “Neither do I, exactly. It’s something I didn’t even believe in, but the skeletons say her father captured the attention of one before he vanished. If it can’t find him, it’ll be looking for her next. You do not want to be caught in its path.”
After that, there was very little to say or do. Meth grabbed an extra bladder of water from one of the soldiers and began jogging at the best pace he thought he could maintain. Before he’d gone a hundred yards, Eltore was already ordering his men back into marching formation.
Meth jogged for the rest of the day, covering more than enough distance to be proud of, even if he wasn’t rationing water as well as he intended. So he was somewhat amazed that he’d steadily lost ground to her. She should have been exhausted from her sprint, and handicapped by dehydration, and yet she kept pulling away. By nightfall, he had long lost sight of the girl and was reduced to following her trail, which mercifully still hadn’t deviated.
Eltore hadn’t been explicit in his advice, when he said “within a day”, and Meth could think of two equally valid interpretations. The first meant he should give up at the end of the current day, when night fell. The other meant a full twenty four hours.
If he stopped to sleep, he wouldn’t catch her either way, he decided. He could either push on through the dark and hope to stumble upon her while she rested, or he might as well turn back now.
Water shouldn’t be a problem, as the temperature rapidly cooled after sunset. There was always the danger of the mysterious Houndmaster though, and anything that scared Eltore was worth being terrified of. In the end, curiosity won over fear. If he turned back now, and conceded the mission as a failure, he would never know what made this girl so special. She was stronger and faster than she ought to be, which was interesting by itself. But that wasn’t enough for Montby to order this excursion. Simple magic could make anyone just as powerful.
No, this was about something else. Why did Montby owe a debt to the skeletons? Why did they insist he take this girl into his protection? Why was a Houndmaster, a creature Meth had never even heard of, after her? It seemed pretty likely these were all connected, and if one unraveled, they all would. If he stopped going forward, he would never know the answer to any of those questions. That was something that would haunt him for the rest of his days, knowing he might have pressed on a little longer. What if?
So Meth continued onward, following the trail that kept going in a straight line after all this time, thank the gods. At least his pathetic tracking skills were up to the challenge.
At least that was what he believed prior to passing over the concealed figure in the sand. His first warning that something was wrong was an arm going around his throat. His legs were kicked out from under him, and then he was on his back, a forearm still smashing his airway shut while another limb deftly removed the knife from his belt.
“This is my desert. I want you to leave it. Understand?”
Unable to speak, Meth managed the tiniest nod. The pressure lifted from his throat and he began a mixture of gulping and coughing as his windpipe struggled to bound back. He sat up, slightly embarrassed despite knowing intellectually that there was no need for it. He wasn’t a professional fighter, and the men who were, still did no better. He was a mage in training, expected to be helpless in hand to hand combat. That’s what the guards were for, to keep threats at a distance while he focused on his spells.
He knew all this, repeated it to himself over and over. But still it rankled. As he sat there, sucking in air, he came to the realization that he wasn’t going back empty handed. He was going to win, to succeed like he always did, through brains. Forget force. He was going to convince her that it was in her own best interest to travel with him, like he should have right from the beginning.
“You could have killed me, but you didn’t. You could have killed me and taken my water, which you need, if you’re going to keep running straight into the middle of nowhere. You didn’t though, because you don’t want to hurt me. I don’t think you’ve ever hurt anyone, and as long as I stay back, you’re not going to start now.”
The girl stared back without immediately saying anything, and Meth knew he was right. All he had to do was get her talking.
