"The Wanderer" - Chapter 3 - "An Unlikely Acquaintance"
As promised, Chapter 3 of The Wanderer. No more sneak peeks for you lot! Read on and find out what happens. <3
- Ven.
An Unlikely Acquaintance
1
I couldn't even compare the progress I made on the horse to the progress I made on foot. Suffice to say, I was at the edge of the mountains before nightfall even came. I had also made sure not to ride Tavia too hard, and changed to a gallop as soon as I was out of the city's immediate area.
To be honest, I didn't simply see Tavia as a means of transportation. I had travelled alone all my life, and she was a brand new part into my adventure. As we approached the path leading up to the mountains, I look down and patted her on the side of the neck.
"Good job, Tavia. We'll get up into the mountains and keep going until dusk, then follow the map towards Equine territory. Us dogs are on good terms with your kind." I said. She flicked her ears and whinnied in agreement.
You may have been wondering by now how those of the bi-pedal equine variety would take seeing me ride their feral counterpart. The truth is, there's not much surprise to be had from that kind of sight. The Gods chose a different path for our two strings to follow, and everyone learned to accept that.
I gently squeezed Tavia's flanks, making her start at a trot up the incline. It turned out that I didn't need to hold her steady for her to know where we were going, so I let the reins rest in my lap and found the coin purse given to me by the Lord.
Its weave was of such high quality that I didn't even want to open it. The silk material was amazingly slippery in my gloved paws, so I took one of them off. Holding the rather heavy purse, I pulled on the string at the top. Inside, the purse was stuffed with gold.
The grin that appeared on my face would remain glued there for a good few hours from that point onward. I put the coin purse in my satchel, afraid of it being stolen if I left it on my belt.
After getting to a high altitude, the wind started blowing ferociously. I pulled the cloak tight around myself, hood included, and kept going. The area around me was almost completely deprived of life - all there was to see were mountaintops and moss, with the occasional tuft of tall, sharp grass and a pool of water.
I was aware of being watched, but did nothing about it. The gaze on my back belonged to a creature which didn't mean me any harm. Letting my hood fall back, I took a look around. Sure enough, hiding behind a higher clump of grass was a green-coloured critter. It had the face of a feline, but its body was the shape of a balloon. Sabre teeth stuck out from the sides of its mouth as it observed me riding down the path, its beady eyes never seeming to move. It was about knee high, its bristly fur waving around as the wind blew.
With a small pull of the reins, Tavia stopped, turning her head to try and see what the cause of the sudden change of plans was. I jumped off, the beaten ground letting out a deep thud under my boots, and reached into the satchel for the meat Soje had given me. I found a piece, took it out and broke it in half, crouching on my haunches.
"Come on over here, little guy."
The ball of fuzz hesitated, sniffing at the air. Obviously it wouldn't get anything, because the wind was blowing in a different direction.
"I won't hurt you. Come here." I felt warmth seeping through my body, and shook my head quickly, but it had already happened. The Tundra Tumbler waddled a little from behind his clump of grass and curled into a ball, rolling quickly towards me and barely managing to stop. It sprawled out on its belly before my legs, almost knocking me over, and stared at me with adoring eyes.
Smiling, I lowered the bit of dry meat to its muzzle. It sniffed at it, then took it from my gloved paw, chewing and curling up on my feet. I petted the Tumbler, from the top of its bulbous head to the tip of its long, black tail.
From what I remember, Tundra Tumblers roll around with no real aim in life other than finding a mate and reproducing. They hunt small critters like mice, and attack by rolling over them to stun, then eating them outright. Simple, yet effective. Oh, and the Tumblers can also be domesticated to make adorable house pets.
I gave the Tumbler another pet and stood up. Tavia knocked me between the shoulder blades, breaking my concentration. The Tumbler looked around, spooked, and swiftly rolled off back into the grass. Turning, I looked at the horse. She bowed her head and flicked her ears.
"Oh... You want some attention too, huh?" A chuckle escaped me as I rubbed Tavia's nose and scratched behind her ear. I began to get the impression that this horse was special, not in the least because she was favoured by the Lord. There was an aura around Tavia, one that I could easily sense.
As for the nature of this aura... Well, I'd find out soon enough.
Mounting Tavia again, I squeezed her flanks and we set off.
We traversed the flat mountains for three hours, and I got to see several more Tundra Tumblers along the way. Most were green, but I spotted some brown ones which were actually female. They were a bit smaller than the males, and didn't have the big tusks at the front, their sleek pelt a dull brown colour and their tails housing a black tuft at the end.
Tavia took me to the end of the path where the mountain started to slope down very gently. In the far-off distance, I spotted what looked like a caravan with Royal guard walking along its sides. To the left, in a forest, figures were moving. My intuition blared one word into my head.
Ambush.
2
Any silence held by the guardsmen and their horses was broken by the clattering of armour as the group traversed unsteady ground, gravel crunching under boots and hooves and wood creaking as the chariot shifted. It was a monster of a vehicle, designed to protect the occupants inside during their journey through bandit territory.
Its wheels were cast iron, with spikes emerging from the otherwise smooth surface of what touched the ground. The chariot's body was mainly of Black Ironwood, hailed as the strongest type of wood in the lands. It was plated with iron, and the driver controlled the reins from inside the cabin so that he was safe from arrows. The shape roughly resembled a rectangle, but it wasn't long enough to be described as such. The whole chariot had the look of a prison transport, but its inhabitants were far from the likes of thieves.
Sylvia felt her spear slip a bit and quickly pushed it back into the space between her chest plate and pauldrons. She was marching one row into the column, and two people ahead of the chariot. The helmet she wore reduced her field of view, but she was trained to work around that. A shield was held at her side and a sword was strapped to her belt - made of durable Vexani (Vey-za-nee) steel, and the same as every other guardsman carried. Vexani armour, those that the Royal Guard wore, consisted of high quality steel decorated with gold, and a distinct helmet with a red plume at its crown, bearing the colour patterns of a fox's tail.
"What was that?" One of the men next to Syl whispered.
"What was what?"Daryl answered, in the same hushed tone. Daryl had been marching next to Sylvia through the whole trip. He was tall and handsome, a fox that, unashamedly, she had a crush on.
"I thought I saw something in the trees."
"Probably just some critter." Daryl shushed the other fox and the march continued, but not for long.
A distinct whistling sound pierced the air on the left of the convoy. Several men fell immediately, toppling over with howls of pain or gurgles as their throats were shredded by arrows. Sylvia raised her shield fast enough to block an incoming arrow, then quickly ducked to shrink down her form and cover any weak spots. About twenty of the fifty soldiers were killed by the sudden barrage, and didn't even have time to recover as a massive horde of equine bandits charged from the forest, screaming battle cries and brandishing all sorts of weapons.
"Defence formation! Get the chariot out of here!" Daryl bellowed. With a snort, the horses pulled hard, making the chariot roll forward at a faster pace, over the corpses of the fallen soldiers. Their armour and bones crunched under the heavy vehicle, making Sylvia retch.
She lined up with the others, going into the second row with her shield raised to support the man in front and her spear leaning on his shoulder. With an almighty rumble of metal, the heavy Equine bandits collided with the line, making it falter in places, killing those Guardsmen that didn't manage to hold them back.
"Don't falter! Push them back!" Daryl yelled. Collectively, the remnant of the troop made a colossal push, forcing the closest bandits to topple and get trampled by those behind them. Spears were thrust, piercing flesh and vital organs, causing screams of agony to wash the air.
This only served to anger the bandits further, however. Because they were Equine in race, their build was tall and heavy, often reaching seven feet in height. Such a thing meant that they could handle heavier weapons and quickly bludgeon their way through even the more trained units.
It was a useless effort to try and stay in formation. The main group was quickly broken up by the war axe-swinging thugs and separated into little, three or four man bunches. Those were quickly wiped out as well.
Sylvia drove the tip of her spear into the chest of an attacking horse, making him snort and swing across with a mace. It hit the vixen on the side of the head, knocking off her helmet and making her collapse. The realisation of impending death hit her like a crossbow bolt, and she clenched her teeth in preparation of that finishing blow.
That blow, however, never came.
Syl opened her eyes and saw that the horse standing above her was biting on a spear tip. He was roughly thrown to the side, and behind him stood Daryl. Blood stained his armour and his left ear was badly damaged, but he was still alive and kicking.
"Get up, Syl!" The other fox shouted, grabbing hold of her armour's collar and dragging her to her feet. He shoved the handle of a sword into her stomach as an obvious gesture. Syl grabbed it and followed Daryl through the middle of the battle.
She watched as the remaining soldiers were slaughtered, and saw that far away, the chariot had been tipped over. The driver had been dragged out and slaughtered, and the girl inside carried inside was carried off by a group of the barbarians towards horrors unimaginable.
They managed to escape the fighting and get into the forest, where Daryl called out into the trees.
"I'm here! And I've got her!"
Sylvia stiffened up. Daryl knew her secret, and he was shouting it out loud. Before she could protest, a voice bellowed back.
"The password!"
"Love money, not monarchy!" Daryl shot back. Sylvia turned to run, but was stopped by Daryl's iron grip on her arm. Swatting at him with the sword proved useless - he disarmed her with ease. Several horses appeared, brandishing two handed swords, battle axes and war hammers. Amongst them was a bigger horse, his fur black as night and speckled in places with white dots, further adding to the starry-sky effect.
"Is she the one?" The largest horse asked, eyeing Sylvia.
"She is." Daryl agreed. Syl struggled, almost managing to break loose before an equine approached her from behind and bear-hugged her for immobilisation.
"Daryl! What are you doing!?" She screamed, while being carried off to Gods knew where.
"Waiting to get paid." He answered, simply. The cryptic response couldn't be justified, because the horse punched Syl in the head soon after, knocking her out.
3
I got as close as I dared on my horse, then dismounted and approached the edge of the forest. I'd taken a detour, instead of following the main path, and ended up a little ways off from where the main horse group had charged the Vexani convoy. I knew what would happen as soon as I saw movement in the trees, the horses getting ready to charge at the soldiers head-on. And it had happened in reality exactly how I'd pictured it. In other words - the foxes didn't stand a chance.
What caught my attention in the end was a duo of soldiers escaping, one of them obviously female. I could tell by the posture and the shape of her head, because her hair was less than shoulder length, despite being a deep red like her fur.
Intuition acted up and told me that whatever was going to happen was going to be bad. Logic fought with morals, arguing that the foxes weren't my problem, that I should just shrug it off and move on. What debt did I have to repay them by risking my own life?
Tavia shook her head and whinnied. I took it as her opinion. Go.
Dismounting, I followed the path of the foxes, hiding in the shadows.
Having overheard the conversation between the male fox and, probably, the leader of the equine band, I marked the fox as an enemy and decided to remain hidden while watching the horse that carried the female away.
He led me to a small camp, consisting of a bunch of tents and not much else. There was a campfire at which the camp's occupants began gathering while the sun went down, but the main point of interest was a tent where the female fox was carried. The male that carried her in there left promptly, so I took up residence a little distance from the main camp and kept my senses sharp in case a patrol came around.
I spent a good two hours waiting in a state of meditation, which I often went into when I wanted to rest but wasn't able to sleep. It heightened the sensitivity of my senses, so much so that I could hear a drop of water hit a leaf up to fifty metres away, or even the creak as trees grew around me.
Needless to say, a clumsy horse fur approaching me would have sounded like full-blown cavalry charging on iron sheets.
Once it got dark, some of the horse furs went to sleep, while the others argued who would go in the tent with the girls first, or if they should all go in at once. Their tones were unmistakable to me, so I quickly got out of the meditative state and got to my feet, picking my way through the forest around the outer edge of the camp until I was behind the one containing the vixen.
I heard whimpering from inside, but didn't want to imagine what had taken place. At least, nothing had happened during the time that I meditated. I would have heard even a stifled cry. To my relief, only one horse entered. I lay prone outside the squalid tent, listening to what was happening while my brown cloak camouflaged me perfectly.
"I think I will have you." The horse drawled, in a deep tone. I heard struggling, a tearing of material, then decided to act. Pulling my sword out, I slashed a clean cut down the tent and pushed my way in, perfectly aware of the danger that I was posing to myself.
Inside were two bedrolls. The two vixens on them were strapped down to the ground, with steel nails and ropes. Not in the way that involved blood pouring - the nails were dug into the ground and the ropes attached to them. Both of the vixens were gagged, the one on the left with long blonde hair having already given up on life. Judging by the state of her ragged dress, stained with dried blood and other fluids, I guessed that she'd already gotten what the other one was about to get.
The kneeling horse started at me, gobsmacked, and opened his mouth to scream alarm when I drove the tip of my blade straight through his throat. This caused a moment of gagging, then I had to catch him as he fell to gently put him on the ground.
Time was running short. I looked over at the short-haired vixen, who was staring at me with wide, terrified eyes, tears streaming from her face.
"Don't scream." I ordered, despite the gag, and cut her bindings. Her clothes had been torn off, leaving her completely naked. She hardly moved from her bedroll, which was all the better, because I turned my attention to the other girl. There was no hope left for her, plain and simple. She was bleeding from the inside, and damaged irreversibly in terms of mind.
I kneeled down by her, brushing some hair from her vulpine face.
"I'm sorry..." I told her. A tear fell from her eye. I removed my glove and put my hand on her forehead, closing my eyes and whispering a few words. A cold sensation filled my body, making my hair frizz up. She wheezed, her muscles stiffening, then passed away without another peep.
When I turned around again, the other vixen was trying to cover herself with the remnants of her clothing. Outside, a commotion was brewing; someone was saying that the horse inside the tent was taking too long. I grabbed the vixen like a groom picks up a bride and shrugged my shoulders, making my cloak fall over her to mask her vivid red fur. She didn't try beating at me, or scrambling away, only removed the gag when her paws were free and whispered as I dashed between the trees.
"Who are you?" She asked.
"That doesn't matter." I answered.
"Then why are you helping me?"
"Long story."
I heard a rustle and stopped by a tree, pressing my back against it and panting inaudibly. Then, as intuition kicked in, I moved my head quickly to the side.
An arrow slammed into the tree's bark, shattering some dried chunks and wobbling with the force of the impact. My own bow was still with Tavia - I had left it for fear of it getting in the way of my sneaking - so I couldn't fire back.
There was no time anymore. I wouldn't make it to Tavia while carrying the vixen. I put her down and threw the cloak around her.
"Run, and don't stop running. Find my horse and go North, where the chariot was heading. Wait for me up there."
The amount of trust I was putting in someone I'd just met was simply idiotic but, once again, something told me that she was safe.
"Run!" I shouted. She took off. The stampede of hooves closing in behind me could have equalled a battalion coming forth, but I knew that there was only around thirty of them. I began to whisper words, feeling a heat develop through my body that verged on the painful. I drew my sword, seeing the pommel and runes down its middle light up in an all-too familiar glow.
Shutting my eyes, I shouted a spell.
When I opened them again, I was on fire.
4
Sylvia didn't want to wait. She wanted to get as far away from that place as possible and never come back. Wasn't it enough that she'd seen all of her friends slaughtered, her body double raped and murdered and, worse, Daryl betray her?
But that little ringing voice in the back of her head told her that the stranger had saved her from horrors unknown, and the least she could do was thank him. Even if she was alone, frightened, cold and naked.
In the darkness, she saw several eruptions of light followed by screaming which reached her even there. Her expectation of hearing the stranger die was unfulfilled - as long as there was fighting, he had to still be alive.
But this wasn't any old Samaritan - he was also a mage. She'd seen him, fighting his way through the bandits with absolutely no difficulty. His sword was a blur, a silver-blue colour that flew from left to right. And the warrior himself... He was burning. Throwing balls of fire at the bandits, shearing them in half or making them explode outright.
Sylvia didn't believe it as the rode past. One of the horse bandits swung down with a massive battle-axe, which the Husky caught with his gloved paw and shoved back, driving the hilt straight through the bandit's gullet.
That was the extent of it, however. Trees blocked out any view of the fight from that point onwards, and as soon as Syl got a good distance away, she dismounted the horse and sat down on the ground, draping the cloak tight around herself to ward off the cold night.
An hour later, after the fighting had ceased, she saw the figure approach. Illuminated by moonlight, she saw the injuries he'd sustained. His clothing was torn in places and he looked dead. His sword and right hand were dripping with blood, but it didn't belong to him.
Syl bolted upright and ran over. "Are you alright!?"
"Passing... Out..." Was all the Husky managed as he toppled over on the grass.
5
I awoke during morning, or noon. I didn't know. The embers of a fire were dying next to me, and Tavia's saddle was under my head. The headache I had was terrible - as if my brain wanted to escape through my ears and eyes. But that's what I get for overloading myself with magic.
Yes. If it hasn't become apparent quite yet, I'm a sorcerer.
At least, I was. Ever since my... Incident... I've restrained every little bit of magic in my body, held it on a short leash. The few times that it managed to slip loose have not been bad, bar the event that took place only hours back. In my youth, I studied every single sorcery book I could get my paws on, developing my knowledge to a level akin to that of an arch-mage.
I could do lots of things, and they stretch far beyond simply the destructive. But there's no point getting into that - it would take too long.
I sat up, and was instantly hit by a pang of pain on my neck. A vivid image returned to my head of barely managing to dodge a crossbow bolt with a steel tip. It slammed into my neck, tearing my jugular, but then instincts kicked in and I shouted a healing spell which knitted the wound back together in the blink of an eye. The bolt hadn't become lodged in my flesh, so I didn't worry about having molten metal leaking off me thanks to the burning effect of the fire spell.
The twenty minutes' worth of fighting had amounted to a severe drain. When used, magic consumes the life force of its user, making them physically and mentally exhausted. The strength of the mage determines how many and how strong the spells they cast can be, and how long they can keep them up. I pushed myself to the limit with that fight - any more, and it would have killed me.
My hands went to my satchel to get the water-skin.
It wasn't there.
Neither was my sword.
All pain forgotten in a burst of adrenaline, I shot to my feet and looked around. The anxiety wasn't necessary, however. All of my belongings were neatly put down by the saddle, and Tavia was grazing on some grass a little distance off.
The Vixen was lying on the other side of the campfire, with my cloak draped over herself and some baggy clothing covering the parts of her body that were visible. I guessed that she must have wandered down to the site of the massacre and gotten the attire either from one of the dead soldiers or from inside the tipped-over chariot.
I quietly bent down and got the water-skin from the satchel, gulping down a few slugs' worth of fresh water. It was good, and refreshing on my dry throat. Next, I checked my sword. It had been cleaned from the blood, which surprised me greatly.
"Why didn't she get shocked..." I thought, out loud. During my studied, I'd come across a special hex that allowed a magician to bind a weapon to himself, so that if anyone else tried to use it against him, they'd get severely burned by lightning. There was no indication towards injury on the girl, though.
Making a mental note to re-cast the spell, I sheathed the sword and put the saddle onto Tavia, having led her back to the campfire. Everything was strapped to my body again, so I went over and retrieved my cloak from the girl. This woke her up, and with a shout, she drew a sword.
Mine was out of the sheath before hers, and the two weapons collided in the air not far from my neck.
As soon as the girl realised that I was standing over her, she dropped her blade, blurting out apologies.
"Gods, I didn't mean to-"
"It's fine." I put away my own sword and draped the cloak over myself.
"But-"
"I said, it's fine. You didn't hurt me."
She sensed my motives as I moved towards the horse.
"Are you going to leave me here? Just like that?"
I stopped in my tracks, my gloved hand gripping Tavia's reins.
"There could be more bandits around here... You're going to abandon a defenceless vixen in the middle of nowhere?"
"You're not defenceless. You have a sword, and you can fight."
"How do you know?"
"Because I can read people, girl." I turned and glared at her, my hood down, letting her see my expressions, not that they strayed from the neutral. "I can read their motives, their emotions. I can tell who would stab me in the chest, who would take my money, I can even tell if someone wants to fuck me."
"Then you can tell that I'm scared, alone and penniless. The nearest city is two days' ride from here - on foot, it'd be a week."
I blinked. This girl was smart. My continued silence allowed her to continue talking.
"You saved my life, my dignity. You went out of your way to stop a woman from being raped by a bunch of bandits, then risked your life to keep them from her, and now you just want to walk away? That's not how it works."
"Is this boldness supposed to impress me?" I asked, quietly.
"It's supposed to slap you back into reality. When you save a girl's life, you can't just toss her away afterwards." The Vixen approached me, her tone soft, stopping about two feet away. Something about her struck me as different. Perhaps it was an old, unused nerve, some partly decayed emotion that started beating with life again. This was no average young woman. "Haven't you heard of the Vexani custom? It states that when you save another's life, they're in your debt until they can repay you."
"You can-"
"I'm not going to stay here. That won't repay the debt."
And again, she surprised me. Did she know men that well, or could just read my mind? I sighed.
Don't misunderstand me - I would have loved to have someone to talk to on my travels. But another person is just another mouth to feed, another soul to protect. I'd gone ten years with just looking out for myself, and I simply wasn't sure if I could handle having to watch another's back. And, from the more chauvinistic side of me, I didn't really want a woman yammering my ear off to no end.
"I'll take you to the next castle on the map, but no further. Staying near me is a bad idea - I practically attract danger." My words were honest. She just grinned.
"Danger makes life more interesting."
I turned to mount my horse. She put her paw on my shoulder, tugging me back to look at her.
"Could you at least tell me your name?"
I had second thoughts before opening my mouth, knowing full well that revealing my identity could mean problems later on. But I out and said it anyway. If she was going to stick to me, there'd best be no secrets between us.
"I'm Tarik."
A smile appeared on her lips. "Thank you for saving my life, Tarik. My name is Sylvia, but friends call me Syl."
"Nice to meet you." I grunted, my attention already wandering away from her, and mounted the horse. Then, in a gesture more chivalrous than what I was used to, I reached out my hand as an offer of support. She took it, and let me lift her up.
And off we went, a lecherous Vixen named Sylvia sitting on my horse and not saying a word, to my own relief.