Chapter 24: Chapter 23: On His Own

Jack followed the fading track of the cart through the tall grass for the rest of the day without incident. He was kind of surprised. All day long, he’d been burdened with vague feelings of unease. As though he were being shadowed by something. He could see the occasional glimmer from the edges of his vision, first on this side and then on that. Like the faint aura the archer in the trees had shown but even less distinct.

If he concentrated hard, he developed the impression that he could see his position relative to them. Almost like he was looking at a barely visible map, but without any real detail. He had to stop himself from smacking that side of his head as though it were a malfunctioning monitor in need of percussive maintenance.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to remember the wards they’d spent so much time on during their journey from the city. Wards he was now well outside of. Still, if the bandits could do it, he could, right?

He sharpened his attention, but could not pick anything out beyond the nebulous sense that something was out there. Blotches of amber mist in his mind. Whatever it was, it was small enough to be invisible to his physical sight in the knee high grass. That lack of size would have been a lot more comforting if there hadn’t been so many of them.

Sundown presented him with a bit of a quandary. There was no way station out here in the middle of nowhere. No warded circle. Just the grass and the now invisible tracks. Did he push on into the darkness or did he try for a camp. If the latter, he wasn’t going to find enough fuel to keep a fire burning all night long, and he had no way of making ward stones. It occurred to him that there was probably a way to do it, given that adventurers would seem to have been roaming the world for at least the last thousand years. Which knowledge helped him not at all.

That was when he remembered the odd things they’d picked up in town that he’d not been able to identify. What were the odds that at least some of that had been geared towards warding campsites in wild areas? Pretty high, he’d wager. Shame he’d left the whole lot with Tiarraluna when he’d split the gear. Not that he’d have been able to use it, of course. She hadn’t got ‘round to teaching him much magic during last night’s halt, what with his focus issues and all. He could freshen already existing wards, he thought, if he could find something to use as a focus. But as to making them whole cloth? No idea.

The horse was getting nervous as the light dimmed. That wasn’t good either. It had been fine under the sun. Argued that the beast was familiar with what came out at night and didn’t care for it. And now a new decision. Did he keep to the saddle or take to his feet? He was a decent enough rider, but he didn’t kid himself that he couldn’t be thrown if his mount really worked at it. On the other hand, he was equally uncertain as to whether he’d be able to hold onto the creature should it take it into its head to be elsewhere and apply its full strength in the effort. And it had his gear on it.

In the end, it came down to FoeSmite. It was a terrible weapon to wield from the back of a horse. Jack dismounted, taking the reins in his left hand, FoeSmite in his right. If it came to a fight, he was going to lose the horse, but there was no help for it. And it wasn’t like they were old friends or anything. Then he had a second thought and lay FoeSmite in the grass beside him where it’d be clear of the horse. That done, he untied his pack from behind the saddle and shrugged into it. Losing the horse was one thing, but he wasn’t about to risk losing this.

Under way again, he started looking around for someplace with a bit of shelter, or at least substantial fuel. In a pinch, he could grab hanks of grass and twist them into passable bundles, like rolling up newspaper. But wet as the area was, they’d smolder and smoke like crazy. Given the effort required, he’d get about as much rest walking. He’d save the bundled grass idea for plan Z.

And so the night passed, with Jack plodding through the dark, struggling to keep his path true, straining with his new senses to keep track of whatever the hell it was out there that was so dangerous. He stopped only to drink and water the horse from what he’d brought with him.

He began to encounter the occasional tree. More of them as he traveled along what was increasingly coming to look like a proper trail. He kept moving. The amber blotches had closed in, and there were a lot of them. Staggering tired was one thing, but he did not want to think about what would happen if those things closed on him while he was on the ground in an exhausted sleep

Only when the band of forest was behind him and the sun once more in the sky did he dare to stop. At which point, he simply wrapped the reins around one wrist, shrugged out of the pack, flopped down into the grass where he stood, and closed his eyes, trusting the horse to alert him if anything came close

* * *

“Thumper! Bonce!” the call rang out through the camp beside the river.

The two thus summoned made haste to the boss’s cabin, measuring themselves just outside the door.

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“Them three knobheads showed up yet?” the boss demanded from inside.

“Not so’s I’ve noticed,” Thumper answered. He was a tall, rough looking rank fourteen highwayman in clean, unpainted, rare grade half plate, its two upgrade slots, both occupied. The basketed sword on his hip glowed faintly to the discerning eye, braggin of its own upgrades. It’s rank was twelve, but it cut like something higher. “Mayhap they found themselves some juicy prey.”

“Not likely,” the boss sneered. “‘er they’d already be back braggin’ about it and wavin’ plunder about. More likely, what’s ‘is head, that rank thirty from th’ town has run’t acrosst ‘em and chopped ‘em inter hog slop. They don’t show up in th’ next hour, you hie your lazy asses on out there and see are they dead or alive.

“But be careful,” he cautioned. “You see a trace o’ that one, you skin back here quick as a blink, fer that’s something I’ll want to know. Don’t go anywhere near him, ner let him so much as catch wind of ya. Just get on back here.

“Otherwise,” he grumped, “fetch ‘em back. Or news they’re done, either way. We’ve a place t’ be in two days time, but I’ll need t’ know if the guild has decided we’re trouble enough t’ rouse from their nap afore we sets out.”

“What if they has?” Bonce, the rank thirteen brigand wondered. His nickname hadn’t been applied because he was good at thinking. In fact, he tended to think about as well as one of the mid-ranked hobgoblins he resembled right down to the mishmash of dirty armor he covered himself in.

“Why,” the boss laughed. “Then we change our plans an’ kill him now rather than when we’re closer to taking th’ town. Rank thirty ‘r no, he’ll not live through facing us all to oncet.”

* * *

It was an exhausted and bedraggled Tiarraluna Galbradia who staggered up to Mokkelton’s north gate an hour or so after noon to present her guild token for entry into the town and hand over a silver real for the horses. She’d traveled the whole of the way straight through, even taking to the saddle and dozing for a time when her own legs would no longer hold her.

She hadn’t trusted the roads to be safe, even with her wards so fresh. Not after yesterday. Not until the archway of the town gatehouse had passed overhead did she feel some semblance of safety again.

Nor did she stop there, nor go to her uncle’s home. Instead, she headed straight for the adventurer’s guild hall, still dragging the shambling horses behind.

The doors to the guild hall were almost too much for her waning strength, but she managed to haul one of them clear sufficiently to squeeze through. There was no trace of the guildmaster in the main hall, so she staggered to one of the empty tables scattered about the room and collapsed into a chair.

Guildmaster Jonkins wandered out into the room a few minutes later, alerted by the draft from the open door. He beheld the girl with her head on the table, her crook staff leant beside her, and rushed over. Asleep. Somewhat the worse for wear, but alive and apparently uninjured. He breathed a sigh of relief. Looking around, though, he could see no trace of the young man. That bade ill.

He spied the horses when he made to close the front door. They stood splay-legged in the street, one tied to the other, too weary to wander off. He clucked his tongue at the carelessness, but moved out to take them up and bring them ‘round to the guild’s stable, at least for the time being.

The bundle on the saddle of the trailing horse looked interesting, he thought, but he let it be for the moment. They’d need watering, feeding, and a bit of currying before he would give over time for further investigation of their burdens.

Still no trace of the man, and he was beginning to worry. The superficial glance he’d taken at the bundle had shown that the items it contained were of higher order than low rank bandits would be using, and certainly not anything the ungifted could use. Had the lad been killed? Had the girl fled—? But no, she’d hardly have taken time to pack up spoils were she fleeing.

She was still asleep when he’d gotten the livestock taken care of, so he let her be, heading instead for the kitchen. Soup, he decided. Lots of energy in a good, thick soup. Particularly if he spiced it with a healthy dose of restoratives.

Tiarraluna swam slowly up out of the darkness, something pulling at her. An aroma. Enticing, full, rich. She opened her eyes to behold Guildmaster Jonkins seated across from her, a steaming bowl placed between them alongside a wooden mug.

“Feeling better?” he asked kindly. “Get yourself around some of that soup. You look done in.”

“My thanks, Master Jonkins,” she croaked, coughing and reaching for the mug to moisten her throat.

“What’s happened to your young hero?” he asked without preamble.

She coughed, spluttering on her drink. “He is not mine!” she spat, her voice hot. “And he is no hero!” She slammed the mug down on the table with enough force to rattle the bowl. “In any case,” she muttered with much less volume, “he is gone.”

Uh huh, he thought. “Dead gone, or just gone gone?”

“Just... gone.”

“I see,” he rubbed at his whiskers with a hand. “And is your bounty done?” he asked. “I see that you’ve acquired a couple of horses and some loot. Just the two of them, then? I’d have thought more, given the stories.”

She was spooning soup into her mouth, suddenly ravenous now that she’d had a taste of it. She hadn’t eaten since the previous morning, but had been keeping the hunger at bay with mind games. “We... encountered three,” she provided between mouthfuls. “There are supposed to be eleven more at their camp, of ranks twelve to eighteen.”

He raised an eyebrow, but held back any further sign of his surprise. That was a much more troublesome bit of news than he’d been prepared for, and one he wasn’t sure how to address.

“Jackson Grenell took possession of the third horse and set out for their camp early yesterday afternoon.”

“Alone?” his voice betrayed his disbelief despite his efforts. Both at the fact of his departure and her lack of honorific. “And you let him?”

Her face went hard and she paused, spoon halfway to her mouth. “He does as he will,” she grated without looking up. “It is not for such as I to hold him back. From anything.”

Jonkins held his tongue while she went back to dealing with the thick soup, his mind working.

“Perhaps you’d better tell me what happened, young mage,” he suggested once the bowl was empty. “All of it, in detail."