“NO! I need to save my father!”
“No time!’ The Witch’s voice was strained and heavy. She was under stress.

Mannat struggled in the Witch’s arms, unable to get free.

Flying in the night sky, having cold air wash his face, brought Mannat no joy. He watched the manor become a smudge in the background of eternal darkness. In his heart was a thought to fight the Witch and run back to the manor to save his father who, for all he knew, was trapped in a cellar somewhere in the manor.

The thought ended a possibility that would not come true.

Mannat couldn’t sense the Witch’s situation, but he sensed their speed decreasing rapidly.

He looked below. They had just flown past the inner wall. It had only taken them a few seconds. A few more seconds of flight and they could have completely left the town. Mannat saw the giant outer wall approaching in the distance and struggled harder to free himself. He didn’t want to leave, not after having come so far! He wanted to save his father at all costs. Well, his wish came true. The Witch ran out of mana and the cloud of black gas around them disappeared as if blasted away by something.

Mannat plummeted toward the ground.

“HEY!” He called.

The word contained all of his grievances. It should have conveyed a whole group of meanings to the listener. If only, there was a listener. Mannat looked around in panic. The Witch was gone, disappeared along with the cloud she had conjured.

No! He found her, unconscious below him, heading toward the same ending in a freefall.

She had turned back into the raven. How in the hell did that work anyway? They were hundreds of meters high and in freefall. He had no more than a few seconds of time before the sky and earth would come together and squeeze the living life out of him.

He grabbed the raven. The ground was becoming comprehensibly real in the distance. They were flying over the residential area. He was lucky that they were not falling over a house or some resident would have been up for a rude awakening.

He had to do something or he would have fulfilled his uncle’s wish. He didn’t know how he came up with it, but he pushed his free hand forward in mad drivel and prepared to blast a mana blast at the ground, hoping… he wouldn’t be crushed to death.

With all of his mana, he created a channel and added all of his mana into the skill until it was bulging and unstable.

Mannat was ten meters from the ground when he released the skill. The mana ball collided with the ground, exploded, and the resultant force did break his fall though, the explosion caught him in the end and threw him off somewhere.

Mannat only remembered falling and rolling in the dirt before losing consciousness. He survived the fall. Thankfully, there were people around to help him or he might have died in the cold night from the concussion.

For Mannat it was as if not a single second had passed between falling from the sky and waking up. His eyes opened wide, dilated pupil black like a hollow chasm. He snarled from the various pains that assaulted him and panicked when he noticed the unfamiliarity of his dwelling. The ray of warm sunlight penetrating the boarded window told him he had definitely had a good night’s sleep or more. He didn’t hear any birds singing nearby.

Could be that there weren’t any trees around, which was true when he thought about it. He hadn’t seen any trees in the outer region of the town. Conversely, there were plenty of them in the inner section.

He sensed someone coming and tried to sit up to look when the footsteps speed up. The newcomer pushed his shoulders and forced him into the bed, thwarting his attempt to sit up.

“Lay still, Mannat. You are in no condition to move.”

Well, that surprised him. At first, he thought it was the Witch. He kicked the thought away because the voice was too young. And the Witch… who thought she was the raven all along! Damn it! No wonder she knew everything about him! She had been keeping an eye on him after all!

Mannat shook his head to chase the thought away. He didn’t fight the woman or girl; she definitely sounded girlish, young, impatient, perhaps even worried. He could sense a familiar mana signal from her. He fought through the burn that hurt his eyes and looked at the person. The young girl was extremely familiar to him. She had an oblong face, deep brown eyes, and a curly set of hair that made her a lock apart from just another villager he knew.

“Soman…” Mannat mumbled in surprise. “What are you doing here? Where am I?”

Mannat was still talking when others started appearing in the room one after another tagging worry or relief.

“Dam you kid! You gave us quite the scare last night.” The old man berated. “Where did you jump out from? Now the witch told us to be on the lookout, but she didn’t tell us you would be appearing out from the sky! What happened last night?”

“The Witch told you what? Where is she?”
“She’s not here,” Soman answered.

Mannat was in no mood to stay in the bed and started fighting Soman to get up, earning a slap on the head.

“Stop fighting me, fool. Your stitches are going to open up if you keep moving.”

“Stitches?” Mannat didn’t realize he was hurt. Then he wondered if the sharp piercing pain from his back had anything to do with it.

“I’m not a doctor you know. I did what I could do. The stitches might leave a mark on your back. Be happy that it won’t be one as gruesome as the thing Kaju was setting you up for. Here’s a reminder: don’t’ let him stitch anyone up unless there is no other choice.”

“Where is Kaju. And Pandit – where is he?” Mannat saw Soman’s forehead crease and already undulating mana ripple. Mannat didn’t force her. It wasn’t his place to open old wounds and see if they had healed or festered.

“They are out and about, taking a look around, trying to figure us a way out of the town,” Khargosh answered from the door. He looked like he had just been out.

“What happened?”Mannat asked.
Khargosh entered the room. “Nothing much.” He said and leaned comfortably against the furthest wall. “Only the count's soldiers are looking for all of us. Guess who is taking the charge.”
“Are we talking about the same man?” Mannat asked tiredly.
“Whom else would we be talking about?”
“Doesn’t he annoy you?” Soman asked while tending to him. “You should do something about the Sarpanch or he will see to it that you are caught and beheaded.”

The conversation fell quiet. They might not have asked him what happened; Mannat saw the question written all over their faces. Really, they cared too much. Pandit would have asked him without a care. And he would have been able to clear evil air stuffing his chest and relax. Where was the stupid fool when he needed him?

Mannat remembered the night. He had poked the hornets’ nest and now the hornets were mad at him and everyone around him. Worst was that he hadn’t even accomplished anything. Now they were stuck in a place where no one knew them, which was a boon as much as it was a curse. It was just sad.

Mannat broke the silence. He told them the truth. “My uncle tried to kill me.”
“Why would he do that?” Soman held his hand. Her touch was warm and it gave Mannat the strength to open up.

“It’s just complicated old feelings that he couldn’t handle.” Mannat strangely found himself looking at the old man Sardar who was also staring back at him.

They communicated with their eyes. No words were passed, but they both had a conversation and reached a conclusion. Mannat asked him if he would do the same if one day he eloped with his granddaughter and if he would look for them. The old man had looked away. Answering that perhaps he might, or might not. By looking away, the old man had admitted that he could not stop him.  

“Where are we anyway? This doesn’t look like an inn.” Mannat asked looking around.

The room wasn’t much of a room. It was short, constricted, and shabby. It was a basement. There was a bed, and old cabinets stuffed with shreds of clothes. Wooden trunks are stacked one over the other in a corner. The roof creaked whenever someone passed above.

“Well,” Soman passed him a shy smile. “It’s not much, but I call it home.”
“And you found them?”Mannat asked wondering if the others knew where she lived.
“The witch told us.” Khargosh answered for her. “She told us where to go and whom to find. She also told us to keep a look out for the sky. We didn’t know what she meant at first, but…” The man shook his head and Mannat understood his feeling. He would have felt the same if he had seen someone falling from the sky.

“Is she, the Witch… is she around?”
“No.” Soman said and paused before adding, “And I’m not sad about it.”

The small door opened once again at that moment. Pandit and Kaju snuggled in through the door that now suddenly looked a lot smaller against them.

Pandit saw everyone gathered around the bed and asked out, “Is our little tooth fairly awake yet?”
“Someone went out and found their voice this morning, I see.”
“Where is that voice coming from?” Pandit acted. “Is it the chair or is it the bed? Ah,” He met Mannat’s eyes, then looked at the ceiling and started rubbing his chin. “Hmm, maybe it’s coming from the sky.”

There was a snicker.

Pandit stopped acting and grinned at Mannat. They held their stares without speaking a word forcing Soman to intervene.

“All right, break it up you two! You are making us all uncomfortable.” She taunted, forcing Pandit to laugh. Mannat followed him only to take a pause when his back pain flared.

“Calm down. Take it easy.” Soman stayed with Mannat through his pain, helping him breathe through it.
“Are you all right?” Pandit asked worriedly.
“I’ll live.”
“At least not everything’s going to hell,” Pandit said.

Everyone stared at him so he could only share the bad news. “Well, the villagers now have a valid reason to hate him.”

Pandit pulled out a parchment from his shirt, unfolded it, and passed it to Mannat.

“Take a look,” Pandit said.

It was Mannat’s portrait with a description and everything. There was even a reward available for the taking for providing his information.

“Ten gold coins are what they are giving to anyone who can give them news of you. What do you think?”

Mannat closely looks at the portrait before lifting his head and looking at the others in utmost seriousness. “Is it someone I know?”

That sent a wave of chuckles around and gave relief from the bitterness biting their minds.

Soman took the parchment from Mannat and took a good look at it. “He’s right,” She gave her opinion. “It looks nothing like him. If not for the red hair, he can be a free man.”

Kaju shook his head. “They are looking for all of us searching every carriage and cart that goes out of the town. He is their priority target, but we are also in trouble. We should thank the Witch later for telling us not to stay at an inn or things would have turned for the worse. They searched everywhere. They even have someone checking the status of everyone passing. You know no one can hide from that.”

“I can” Mannat surprised them. “Unless they can examine me,”
Pandit shook his head. “I don’t think the soldier can Examine.”

“I’m afraid that’s not going to be enough,” Kaju said. “You can’t go back to the village boy, not for now at least.”
“So what are we going to do now?”
“We should stay hidden until things settle down,” One of them suggested.

Mannat shook his head. “No.” He said defiantly. “I need to save my father,”
“What do you mean? You want to go after him?”Pandit said. “Your Uncle didn’t leave things to chance. He has sent your father to the capital to be judged by the Empire.”
“Boy,” Kaju grabbed Mannat’s shoulder. “I know you can do things, but you can’t stop an Inquisitor!”

Mannat gritted his teeth. His mind was set.
“I need to get to the capital,” Mannat said.
“Mannat,”
Mannat shook his head. Nothing anyone said could deter him.

“Do something about your hair first,” Kaju said. “Then we’ll talk.”
 
Everyone looked at Kaju. The retired sergeant knew that reaching the capital alone would be an impossible task for Mannat; the boy had never left the region, much less journey half the kingdom to the center.

Kaju turned to Mannat. The boy was determined. He knew no words he said would make sense to the boy at this time. He could only distract him for the time being and get him out of the town first. Everything would be pointless if the soldiers caught them.

“Leave it to me. I know something we can do about that,” Soman showed a criminal smile, sending shivers down Pandit’s back.

Pandit knew the girl was up to no good. Fortunately, it had nothing to do with him… this time.