Chapter Text
“Ramya!” Elliott stomped down the wooden stairs of his covered wagon and immediately stuffed his hands into the wide, yellow sleeves of his mage robe as the night’s chill hit him. He stalked toward the campfire, his eyes intent on the woman sitting there, but jerked to a halt when a low, hair-rising growl cut through the air. Elliott’s gaze slid from Ramya to the horrible beast laying in the grass behind her. The noise rumbling from it had been non-stop for the last hour. “You need to shut that thing up.”
“That thing has a name,” Ramya replied while flicking a bark chip into the fire.
“That thing,” — that he was keeping a generous, healthy distance from — “Is going to attract the wrong kind of attention for us.”
“Do you hear that, Sheila?” Ramya cooed at the pony-sized monstrosity of fangs and fur. “You’re scaring Mr. Witt.”
“I am—” He grit his teeth. “I was trying to sleep but that infern-fern-null — that damn thing is keeping me awake!”
Ramya feigned a gasp and grinned crookedly at her beastly companion. “Even worse, you’ve ruined his beauty sleep.”
“Ramya—”
“Face it, mate, ain’t enough sleep in the world that’ll fix a mug like yours.”
The barb momentarily threw Elliott off-kilter. His face wasn’t horribly scared — nicked was a better word for more noticeable marks. A faded line over one eye and another over the bridge of his nose. His beard, however, had seen better days. Elliott frowned as he smoothed a hand over it, admitting that it had been a while since he’d trimmed it. They’d been on the road for a fortnight with only a handful of magic-fearing towns along the way. While they were allowed to pass through without trouble, even barter for supplies, any hopes of a warm bath and bed were out of the question.
Sheila growled, loud enough to disturbed the wagon horses that had otherwise grown accustom to the wolf-beast traveling with them.
Elliott dropped his hand. “Make it stop.”
“Oh calm down, ya pansy.” Ramya lifted her chin. “She’s only scaring off whatever is tryin’ ta sneak up on us.”
A chill, one unrelated to the cold air, zig-zagged up Elliott’s spine. The hairs raised on his arms as he turned away from the fire to gaze warily at the forest looming dark at the edge of the clearing. They’d pulled the wagons far enough from the road to have privacy, but shied away from the woods. The trees would have offered a nice wind break, but the potential of being ambushed by fanatical townfolk coming through the trees had been a more pressing concern.
“W-wha—” Elliott cleared his throat while twisting at the hem of his sleeve. “There’s something out there?”
Ramya’s grin shifted from the fire to land squarely on him, the gap between her front teeth more prominent and adding to the edge of her amusement. “Sheila certainly thinks so.”
She was prodding at him, like a kid jabbing a stick at a trapped rabbit to see how high it’d jump, and he straightened his back to ward against her riling attempts. “Could just be a cat.”
“Or a torch wielding mob.” She shrugged. “Fancy a look-see for yourself?”
“Out there?” His voice jumped an octave. “By myself?”
Ramya stuck out her lower lip in a mockery of thoughtfulness. “I suppose I could wake Renee, but she only just got to sleep.”
“Nonono!” Elliott frantically waved his hands, sending his sleeves flapping like goose wings. Renee rarely slept, a side effect of being of being hunted for in multiple dimensions. Waking her for something as trivial as a possible rabbit in the brush was not worth her cold wrath. “I’ll go — I’ll go.”
He fetched a lantern from his wagon and lit it with a twig from the fire. “Probably just a cat.”
“Or a bear,” Ramya added, helpful as always. Elliott shot her a sour look which earned him another flash of her patronizing grin. “Want Sheila to go with ya?”
“I’ll take my chances with getting mauled by a bear over being eaten alive by your demon pony.”
“Suit yourself, mate.”
For several deep breaths, Elliott stood at the edge of the circle of light provided by the fire, looking out in the night as he steeled his nerves and let his eyes adjust. The road to the west lead back to town. It sloped upward and curled around a hill like a dark snake, black, motionless, and empty under the wane starlight. Not a single torch of a passing traveler to blame for Sheila’s restless mood. Elliott’s gaze turned toward the forest and unease tightened in his chest.
“Just a cat,” he said and stepped away from the fire.
The wagon horses lifted their heads as he passed and began his search by walking around the wagons. He shined the lantern under each one. His own was empty. The light glinted off the beady eyes of a mouse foolish enough to scavenge for food under Nox’s sour smelling wagon. He skipped going near Renee’s tent out of fear of waking the woman and Natalie’s wagon was quiet save for the faint sound of snoring from inside. One of the ropes to Ramya’s tent came loose, by his own fingers, but otherwise was clear of any threats.
Sooner than he liked, Elliott’s search brought him to the edge of the forest. He lifted the lantern to stretch the light as far as it would go into the wall of trees. It barely made it a few feet before being gobbled up by shadows. His fingers tightened around the iron ring of the flickering lantern.
“There’s no bears in this area,” he told the great looming wall of imminent doom. “Vampires aren’t real and — and I’m not afraid of the dark.”
He glanced wistfully back at the circled wagons and banked fire, but knew slinking back toward them, like a dog with its tail between its legs, would only incite another round of needling comments from Ramya. Elliott took a small step forward. He’d make a quick pass through the outer trees and call it good. Bolstering himself with a deep breath, Elliott pressed forward into the woods.
Branches clawed at his robes and roots knocked against his ankles. The lantern creaked as it swung on its ring, wrenched around every time Elliott stumbled. He made enough noise, he figured, to scare off any and all critters lurking nearby. The sound of fabric ripping brought his progress to a halt. Heart sinking, Elliott pulled his robe free of a handsy bush and ran his hand along the material until his fingers found the fresh tears.
Elliott shot an accusing glare at the darkness yawning around him. If this was the spirits idea of a joke, he wasn’t amused. Fine. There were easier ways to scare off unwanted company than him stumbling around like a blind deer. Elliott set the lantern on the ground and the light bobbed, flickering over tree roots bulging from the ground like veins on the back of a hand.
He raised his arms, letting his sleeves fall back in a completely unnecessary motion, but showmanship had become his bread-and-butter since the end of the war. The townfolk always enjoyed a bit a flourish with a show. The flashier he was, the more coin he earned. Although, they’d probably be as equally entertained to watch him swing from the end of gallows rope in the middle of their town square.
It was what it was.
Elliott’s skin prickled as he pulled a tendril of power from the ether. It danced around his fingertips as softly glowing ribbons of blue light; mischievous and playful and as cool as spring water. He pointed the spiritual energy at the the shadowy woods and it sprang forward, eager to play, and expanded into the ghostly form of a man. It ran head long into the dark.
It barely made it two paces before the bush in its path erupted. The bush yelled a garbled curse, Elliott screamed, and the running spirit scattered into a hundred tiny, motes of shimmering light. The tether Elliott held with the ether pulsed with his fright, sending out several more versions of himself running in all directions, weaving between dark tree trunks like impish will-o-wisps. They were silent, not upsetting a single twig or leaf, which made the sound of fleeing footsteps all that much louder. It wasn’t hooves, or the patterned beat of four legs. Instead it held the unmistakable thud of boots.
Elliott kept still, his breaths stilted but quiet while his heart hammered at his ribs. The slip of magic should have been his moment to run, not freeze up like a possum. Someone had been there — watching him — but they were gone now. Elliott straightened from where he’d crouched in surprise. The lantern’s light flickered, making shadows dance as if in a fit of laughter at his expense. The encroaching quiet crawled over Elliott’s skin, raising the hairs on the back of his neck with a cool, ghostly touch.
Elliott whirled, empty palm outstretched and glowing, and was met with the sight of his own face, silvery-blue, pulling down its incorporeal eyelids and lips in a mockery of a monster.
“Very scary,” Elliott muttered dryly and waved his hand through its face, dispelling it. The last comet tails of blue light faded from the woods and the shadows thickened in their absence. Elliott picked up the lantern and took a large step backwards — toward the open field and the safety of camp. Once he broke the tree line, he spun, and froze again. On the road, several lanterns bobbed like boats on a black sea. Under the dull, orange light, armor glinted underneath the blue and white of matching tabards. The colors alone were sight enough to send Elliott’s heart plunging into the icy waters of fear.
Syndicate soldiers, gathered into a group near a band of magi, was never a good sign.
Elliott quickened his pace across the field, finding several more men near the campfire. Three of which remained on horseback, safe behind a barricade of soldiers who held up torches while staring pale-faced at where Sheila stood behind Ramya. The wolf-beast stood at height with her shoulder, its golden eyes flickered with the torch light while its low growl made he horses shift backwards.
“I don’t know what to tell you mates,” Ramya was saying to the mounted men. “Whatever you lost — it ain’t here.”
Elliott set his lantern next to the fire and risked being within Sheila’s chomping range by standing beside Ramya. He smiled, a strained thing that fluttered on the edges of a grimace, and spoke through a clenched jaw. “What’s going on here?”
The man in the middle, his skin blotchy behind his bushy mustache and his chainmail too shiny to have ever seen a day in battle, snapped his reins to momentarily still his horse’s nervous pawing. “We are looking for a man—”
“Plenty of those in town.” Interrupting the lordly-looking man wasn’t the wisest move, but Elliott was edgy around soldiers and his mouth was often the first thing to start twitching. Elliott grinned, and winked at the lord. “Though you might have to pay extra for whatever you’re looking for.”
The rustle of armor suggested a couple of the men had reached for the swords. Ramya grinned, her flash of teeth as dangerous as her wolf’s. Elliott spread his hands in a show of apology. “We, however, don’t offer those kind of services.”
The lord sneered. “The man we seek is a murderer and thief.”
“Ah.” Elliott nodded and glanced at where Nox had emerged from the back of his wagon, the faint clink of bottles heard as he moved to stand on the top step, leering at them all. The mix of torch light and shadows made it difficult to see anyone else, but Elliott had no doubt that the others were stirring. Elliott threaded his fingers together and twiddled his thumbs.
“Well, good luck with that,” he said.
The lord peered at him, no doubt waiting for something a great deal more subservient to happen. An offer to allow them to ransack their camp, perhaps, and then a blubbering thank you for sparing their lowly, mage lives.
Ramy cocked her hip to one side as she swung her grin onto Elliott. “They want to search the camp, mate.”
“Yeah,” Elliott chuckled. “That’s not going to happen.”
“I told these plonkers as much.”
The lord’s chest swelled under the heavy chainmail. ”By the order of—”
“We’re protected under Blisk’s law,” Elliott stated with a smile of gritted teeth.
During the war, magi, such as himself, had been forced to serve on the front lines. They were used a tools of destruction to devastate enemy factions and leave rival lands barren, and they had quickly gathered an unflattering reputation. The common people saw them as bringers of death and despair and when the war ended, a fear-fueled culling swept across the lands. Magi were deemed dangerous abominations and forced into hiding until Blisk had taken the throne.
Bending knee to Blisk came at a cost, certain expectations and duties, but it was worth it for the protection it gave them from magic-fearing peasants and zealous head hunters.
“How many?” The lord snapped, clearly versed in the law he’d just tried to circumvent.
“Five, as is allowed.”
“It is within my rights to check the truth of that claim.”
Elliott visibly grimaced. “Y-yeah, it is, but — well, I guess we could stand by the road when you search Nox’s wagon because it’s vola-teal — volet — it’ll blow up.”
The soldiers, the ones that would have to carry out the lord’s orders, cast nervous glances at each other.
“Sheila ain’t letting you gits anywhere near my stuff,” Ramya added.
“Tems.” The lord turned to the man on his right, assumingly the captain of the soldiers with them. “Search the camp.”
“You don’t want to do that,” Renee’s voice came from beyond the overlapping rings of light, her pales eyes piercing the night as two full, glowing moons. Her tone was flat, cold, and made Elliott more nervous of her than the bristling wolf-beast behind Ramya. Behind Renee, Natalie’s young face gaped at them.
“As you see, five.” Elliott chimed.
Ramya snorted. “You really wanna piss us off, mate?”
Another growl, louder and accompanied by the baring of sharp teeth, was too much for the horses. They fought against their bits, one lifting in a rear. The unified group of chainmail and swords broke apart. The lord took one look at the the situation, dissolving well out of his control, and jerked his own horse in a tight circle in an effort to remain proud and tall in the saddle.
He spat on the ground between them. “I hope you all burn.”
“Nice meeting you!” Elliott waggled his fingers in a wave as the men retreated back to the road. The knot of tension between Elliott’s shoulders didn’t ease until the flicker of their torches and lanterns disappeared behind the hill. He exhaled, allowing his shoulders to slump, only to have them snap back up to his ears when Ramya nudged him with an elbow.
“Did ya find your cat?” she asked.
“My — what?”
Her infuriating grin returned. “Heard you scream, mate.”
“What? I didn’t—”
“Thought you might have surprised some girl with her knickers down it was such a shriek, but then one of your ghostly fiends came running through the camp and I knew something had gotten the drop on you.” Her brows raised. “Not that it’s hard to get—”
“Okay! Yes. I screamed, so what?” He turned toward his wagon. “It was just—”
Not a cat.
A thread of unease stitched down Elliott’s sternum as he looked toward the empty road, recalling the lord’s words about searching for a murderer. Whatever had been in the woods had run. It was gone. Nothing to worry about. Besides which, no one in their right mind would try to sneak up on a band of magi while alone. Or so Elliott told himself after darting an uncertain glance toward the forest.
“What, Witt? You jump at your own shadow?”
He chewed over lip, not wanting to worry the others when they were already tense from the encounter with Syndicate soldiers. So he made a face, a deep and horrified frown, while miming a wiping motion across his eyes. “I walked into a spider web and it surprised me.”
Ramya cackled, satisfied by his cowardly answer, and returned to her spot by the fire.
He barely took a step before Renee caught him by the arm, her pupils once again visible in her pale eyes. “We leave at dawn.”
“Aye-aye,” He mockingly saluted her while silently agreeing that it was a good idea to high-tail it out of there before Syndicate roused more men for a rematch.
The stairs of his wagon creaked as he climbed up and slipped through the covering. With a bit of fumbling he managed to light a candle and set it on the narrow shelf above his bed. He stripped down to his underpants and took care to hang his robe, frowning as his fingers once again found the new rips. Mending it only fixed it so much. Eventually he’d have to let it go. But not yet.
Elliott moved over to his chest to find a sewing kit, but paused upon noticing his blanket haphazardly thrown over half of it. He looked back at his bed to assure himself that yes, it was his blanket but he didn’t recall when or why he’d thrown it by the chest. His eyes flicked over the clutter of supplies and sentimental belongings he owned. Nothing else looked out of place.
Maybe he’d thrown it off in a fit of annoyance upon clambering out of his wagon to confront Ramya about Sheila’s incessant growling.
He reached for the blanket and, as soon as his fingers curled around the fabric, it leapt at him. Elliott jerked back, but there was only so much room in the wagon, and he caught his heel on the edge of his bed and fell to the floor, wrestling with the heavy blanket the whole way.
A blanket brandishing a dagger and intent on burying it into his chest.
Elliott wedged a knee between him and the blanket and threw it off. All at once, as the blanket was shoved aside, the man appeared. A slender, young-faced man with dark eyes and darker hair. The dagger stole the rest of Elliott’s attention as the man lunged. Elliott was stronger, better trained, but the man was fast and frantic and Elliott was going to end up as shredded as his robes if he didn’t find a way to end things.
Blue light coiled around his fingertips and he was relieved to see the man slide back, defensive and wary of the unknown threat of magic. It put a tense buffer between them, but it was all Elliott needed to think and think fast. As a spirit mage, his magic was (mostly) harmless, but the man glaring at him didn’t know it was a bluff. The advantage was small, but Elliott had long ago learned to survive on his wits and the skills he picked up along the way. And, if he could, he avoided fighting because it brought up too much pain.
The light faded but Elliott kept his palms up and opened in a gesture of peace. The man didn’t lower his dagger, but he also didn’t press a second attack. Something wet trickled down Elliott’s cheek and soaked into his beard. The sting came as the adrenaline thrumming through his veins left. He touched his cheek and frowned when his fingers came away bloody. Nicked again, it seemed.
Tension rolled of the man’s posture like a flashing thunderhead darkening over a quiet valley. He shifted his weight, gripped and re-gripped the dagger, and the muscle in his jaw flexed like a heartbeat. His dark eyes constantly flicked toward the back of the wagon while the dagger remained ready to strike forward with the tenacity and accuracy of a viper.
Slowly, Elliott lowered his arms, then went so far as to sit down on the edge of the bed to appear less threatening. He prodded at the gash on his cheek, trying to stem the bleeding. The man stopped glancing toward the exit and, with a confused pinch between his brows, scrutinized Elliott.
In return, Elliott studied the man. Thin, like he hadn’t eaten right for weeks. Twitchy, like Renee when she felt like someone was watching her. The man was young, but not naive; a darkness lurked over his expression and in his eyes, as if he’d lived too much too fast. Elliott had seen similar, haunted faces during the war. Gaze lowering, Elliott took note of his clothes. Dirty, torn, and wrapped around him in such a way it looked like he’d been sleeping outdoors instead of risking his head under a warm, dry roof.
“Witt?” Ramya’s voice came from outside the wagon.
The man stiffened and his knuckles went white around the dagger hilt.
Elliott hesitated a half second before calmly answering, “Yeah?”
“Makin’ quite the racket, do I dare ask what you’re up to in there?”
“I stubbed my toe,” he lied.
There was a pause, one that tightened a knot of tension between Elliott’s shoulders. Ramya, a mage tightly attuned to her beast, could probably smell the blood. She knew, enough, to be on edge.
“On what?” Her voice was as low as Sheila’s growl and just as equally void of jest.
A crooked grin broke across Elliott’s face as he looked from the wagon covering to his attacker. “On my cat.”
There was another pause, followed by the sharp bark of a laugh. “Got the jump on you, eh?”
“He’s a sneaky one.”
“Want me to teach him some manners?”
“No, he’s —” Probably tired, hungry, and haggard from being on the run. The dagger remained in play, but had lowered a couple inches, and the man’s expression had shifted from desperation to bemusement. “He’s fine.”
“Well,” Ramya said and Elliott heard her sheath the blade she must have been holding. “If ya need anything, just scream like a little girl.”
The bridge of Elliott’s nose wrinkled as he muttered, “I don’t scream like a girl.”
The distancing sound of Ramya’s laughter suggested she’d been able to hear him, reminding him again her heightened senses. He glared at the wagon coverings until a movement from the man — a sheathing of the dagger — brought his attention back just in time to catch the head to toe look over the man gave him.
Elliott’s stomach swooped and he crossed an arm over it. Sitting there in just his underpants, he felt oddly judged. War had kept him trim and in shape, but it also left him scarred and, without the constant activity of battle, his stomach had grown soft over the last couple of years. He grabbed his long, nightshirt from his bed and pulled it over his head, more concerned about his looks than the blood he ended up smearing over the fabric. His hand went to his beard, recalling how bushy it’d grown, and immediately planned to trim it in the morning.
Elliott snapped his hand down, angry at himself for caring about what the man — the man that had tried to kill him! — had judged about him in that single look. Gods above, he inwardly cursed as his hand worked back up to brush back his disheveled hair. I am a right fool.
“I’m going to assume you’re the man Syndicate wanted and, don’t worry, I’m not going to ask why they’re looking for you.” Elliott said. “They said you’re a murderer and — well, you did just try to — but you don’t look like — whatever.” Elliott waved dismissively. “Water under the bridge, okay? Because I know they’ll lie to get what they want. So whether or not you are what they say you are…”
He trailed off, giving the man a moment to explain his side of the story, but the man did little but keep a shrewd look pinned on him. Elliott inwardly sighed, then, upon recalling the gibberish shouted in the forest, realized that maybe the man didn’t speak the common tongue. Having no other language to test, Elliott carried on in common. “It doesn’t matter, okay? In fact, I hope it was one of them that you killed.”
The lack of reply was becoming a little daunting. Elliott clasped his hands and threaded his fingers to keep from fidgeting. “So, we’re leaving at dawn. We could probably smuggle you down as far as the border. That’ll give you a decent head start. I’m not sure how far south they’ll chase you. Hammond doesn’t normally let Syndicate soldiers cross into his territory.”
The man didn’t move, poised like a rabbit ready to spring away at the slightest hint of a threat. The idea of letting the man go, to fend for himself in the woods with Syndicate hot on his trail, didn’t sit well with Elliott. He’d lost friends and family to head hunters and didn’t want any more guilt weighing on his shoulders. If he could convince the guy to stay, long enough to catch a couple hours of sleep and eat a half-decent meal, then maybe it wouldn’t gnaw on his conscious as much.
“Hungry?” Elliott asked. The man leaned toward the back of the wagon, wary. Elliott sighed and mimed the motion of eating from a plate. “Hungry? Food?”
The man squinted in reply.
“This is dumb,” Elliott grumbled and pulled a satchel from under his bed. As the man watched with a hand not so secretly place against the hilt of the dagger, Elliott spread a meager assortment of food on the floor between them. Nuts, a bit of cheese, a square of flat bread, and the last bits of jerky from the deer Ramya had brought to camp over a week ago.
The man stared openly at the food, but had yet to break from his rigid stance other than to bite down on his lower lip. Elliott’s gaze hinged on the man’s cracked lips, his mouth suddenly as dry as the man’s lips looked and, after tearing his gaze away, he set a water flask next to the food.
When the man still didn’t budge, Elliott picked up one of the nuts, showed it to him, and popped it into his own mouth. “Just food. Not poisoned or anything.”
It didn’t take any further convincing before the man was kneeling and stuffing the nuts into his mouth. The water went next. He started on the bread and cheese after slipping the jerky into his pockets. Elliott watched him with no small amount of fascination. He’d encountered mages on the run before, and people just down on their luck, and it always felt gratifying to help them. In a way, it eased the hurt and regret he carried with him from the past.
“What’s your name?” Elliott asked, unable to curb his growing curiosity toward his twitchy guest.
The man wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, but said nothing.
“Name?” Elliott tried again to no avail. He pointed to his own chest. “Elliott.” Then pointed at the man and raised his brows to make the unspoken question clear.
The man looked down, between the food and water and Elliott’s outstretched hand. He frowned and a slow, quiet anger knitted over his features. His posture was tensing again, ready to either lash out or run, and Elliott let his arm drop. “It’s fine.” Even if the disappointment reflected in his tone. “If you’re a wanted man, then I understand why you wouldn’t want to—”
“Tae.”
Elliott blinked, surprised not only by the response but the soft, deep pitch of the man’s voice. He waited a breath longer before repeating the word. “Tae?”
“Tae-joon,” Tae said more quietly, as if embarrassed.
“Well, nice to meet you Tae-joon.” He would have stuck out his hand for a shake if he thought Tae would do more than eye it with suspicion. “Now that that’s over with, I have to figure out how to convince the others to let you stay.” He flashed a wry grin. “Renee will probably scold me about feeding a stray, even a cute half-starved cat like you.”
Something flickered in Tae’s eyes and Elliott’s stomach dropped with the alarmed thought of his careless comment having been understood. He sprang to his feet, starling Tae upright as well. “Sorry — no, I need to talk to the others. You just — stay.” He waved his hands as calmingly as he could while his heart raced. “Stay. Eat. And you can sleep in my — in my — “ He gestured vaguely at his bed while his face burned like a desert sun. “I’ll be back. I just — I’ll be back.”
He fled down the wagon steps, his stomach fretting into knots of excitement and apprehension at the prospect of traveling with Tae.