Chapter Eight - The Next Leg of the Journey
“Do you even know where we’re going?” I asked. Sari was a little ways ahead of me, powering forward like she had a destination on her mind. “Have you even been to this continent?”
She shook her head. “Nope, but I know herded animal tracks when I see them and I see them right here.” She pointed at the ground beside her. “We’re on farmland, and that means there’s a farmer and a place to hole up for the night.”
I sighed. “You’re assuming this farmer won’t just try to behead us when he finds us on his land.”
She glanced over her shoulder at me and smiled. “No, I bet she won’t.”
“Why?”
“Because this is her husband’s land, and he’s not here right now.”
I was too tired from all the walking to even bother asking why she was specifying a female farmer. Wherever it was we were, I didn’t know if women ruled these lands or men. Hell, I didn’t even know where we were. Pleasant looking place, lots of woods. Lot of maple trees, I noticed. I reached for my canteen and went to take a drink, but it was empty. Great.
The walking finally ended when we came to a rather tall chain link fence. It stretched out to either side of us, so I couldn’t see where this farmer’s land truly ended. I heard some cows in the distance, but that was the only real clue that I was on farmland at all. I drew my blade and touched the fence with the tip. Nothing happened, so the fence wasn’t connected to electricity, if this farm even had electricity.
Sari looked over at me, then shrugged. I returned my sword to the scabbard and gripped the fence. “Looks like we climb,” I said. I began my ascent and made it about halfway when I realized that the fence seemed to be growing. “Do you see that?” I asked.
“What?”
“Is this fence getting taller to you?”
“No. Why are you yelling when you’re right next to me?”
I looked down. Right next to her? I was a good fifteen feet up. I took a step down in descent and found my foot on the ground, exactly where I’d started my climb. “What the hell?”
She looked at me funny. “What?”
“I’d gotten halfway up the fence, I know I did.”
She groaned. “Oh, man, we’re not still stuck on Kalena’s beach, are we?”
Another voice answered, “I’d say not.” I looked in the direction of the voice and saw a kid, probably about ten or eleven. Chin-length hair and delicate features confused me as to whether this was a boy or a girl. Their accent was odd, one I hadn’t heard in awhile, and I couldn’t quite place where. “You’re on me farm.”
I drew my blade again, but I found flowers instead. Sari started laughing. “Um… Did you mean for that to happen?” she asked.
I threw the flowers away and reached for my sword again, but this time I couldn’t even get a good grip on it. I turned to the kid. “Alright, what the hell is going on here?”
The kid smiled. “I’ll take ya to me pa. He’ll let ya know.”
I looked over at Sari, who shrugged once again.
Sari and I were led to a house that didn’t look big enough to support two people, but once we were taken inside, it was suddenly the size of a small fort. Magic houses always seemed to be bigger on the inside than they were on the outside. I noticed a humanoid figure on the second floor, but it just looked like the figure was standing there.
There was a sound in the room to my left. A puff of purple smoke escaped the room, then someone coughed. I backed away from the room, then the door to the room opened. The man who left the room was tall, at least seven feet. He had a large beard, covering at least half of his body length. He wore a cloak, and pulled back the hood to reveal his very bald head.
“Welcome, welcome. Cameron tells me ya were caught out by the fenceline. How can we help ya?”
Alright, now I was confused. The kid had made it seem like we were in trouble. “Well…,” I said, “We don’t exactly know where we are.”
He coughed out a laugh. “Oh! Just passin’ by, are ya? Well, don’t be shy, yer welcome for the night.”
Sari didn’t look at all convinced. “So, where are we?” she asked.
“Vesperia. Specifically, the most southern province, on the McGregor farm. Me name’s Sheamus McGregor, and this is me little girl, Cameron.”
I looked over at Cameron and saw her blush. She didn’t seem to like being called little girl.
“Where did ya both come from?” Sheamus asked. He pointed at Sari. “Yer from the Plains Tribe, aren’t ya?” He was suddenly holding her bow. He hadn’t reached for it, it was just in his hands. If this guy wasn’t a sorcerer, then I was hallucinating. “Fine craftsmanship. Your parents got this from their parents, did they?”
Sari took her bow back. “Don’t,” she said, her voice ice cold. “And no. I got this from the tribe leader that my father left me with.”
“Ah. It’s a fine weapon, no two ways ‘round that.”
“I know.”
I drew my sword and held it out. “What can you tell me about my blade?” I asked. There wasn’t anything he could say that I wouldn’t already know, but I felt like testing him.
He took the sword and held it in his hands for a moment. “It’s sharp. Forged in Qinata, I think they called this a katana, once upon a time. Not that it’s got a name now.” He inspected the hilt. “Carvings. A language not passed human tongues in centuries, if at all.” He handed it back to me. “Where’d ya find that, lad?”
“It was my father’s.”
“Where’d he find it?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. When he died, it passed to my sister, and then to me.”
He nodded, knowingly. “Where ya from, laddie?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
He knelt closer to me. Suddenly, I felt shorter than five-foot-nine. “Not true, boy. Ya came from somewhere, ya gotta keep holda that.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Now, where’d ya come from?”
I pushed his hand away. “It doesn’t matter. It’s gone, it’s not coming back.” I returned my blade back to its scabbard. “Now, you offered help before.”
“Aye.”
Sari grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me out of earshot of Sheamus. “What the hell was up with that?”
I whispered, “Testing him.”
“Why?”
“Something feels off about him.”
“You mean other than the fact that he’s a sorcerer?”
I shook my head. “He ain’t just a simple sorcerer, Sari. There’s something else here.”
The man began to clap. I reached for my blade. “Yer a smart one, laddie.” He was suddenly closer than I thought he was. “You too, lass. You put the pieces together faster than the laddie did.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m not a sorcerer. I’m not a conjurer.” I drew my blade and prepared to fight, but he was gone again. His hand was suddenly on my shoulder. “You can put that away, laddie. I’m not gonna hurt ya.” My sword was suddenly floating in the air. “I’m one o’ the last mages in these parts.” He sat down on a chair in front of me, one that hadn’t been there before. “And me little girl over there is the other.”
I kept one eye on my sword, the other on him. “You haven’t exactly been up-front with us, so why should we trust you?”
“I coulda killed ya the second ya set foot on muh farm, laddie. But, I know what yer here for.” He waved his hand a moment and my sword was sticking into the floor. I didn’t reach for it, but I was ready to if the need arose. “Yer goin’ after the white dragon.”
Sheamus sipped from a cup I didn’t see him pick up. “Word came from a friend o’ mine lives in Endawa village. He’s one them whaddya say mind communicators.”
Sari raised an eyebrow. “Mind communicators?”
“Them who speaks to a person’s mind. Ye never know when they do it, they just do. And they have seen yer thoughts, friends. They told me all about yer run in with the Imperial Escorts, and where ye fell into the water. I knew it was only a matter of time before ye showed up here. The white dragon’s a menace to the whole world, and if yer determined to take the bastard down, I’ll do all I can.”
That almost seemed like too easy a fix. “What all can you do to help us?”
“Not much, sadly. Me conduit’s been dead for many a year now, and me power’s not what it used to be. Tappin’ into mana’s a little dangerous without a conduit, so all I’ve got are simple conjurin’ tricks for the most part. A wee bit of teleportation magic that I don’t use too often. There’s but one thing I can give ya, and that’s me wee girl.”
I looked over at Cameron, who didn’t look too happy at what was being proposed. “Why?” I asked.
“She’s not been given her conduit yet, though it could happen any day now. Either way, she’s capable of enough to help you. We’ve talked it over, and while she’s not happy with the idea, she’s willin’ to go with you.”
Cameron spoke up. “Not happy is an understatement, dad. I’m just agreeing because I know it’s what’s best.” She turned to Sari and me. “You’ll let me join ya, right?”
I pulled Sari to a corner of the room. “What do you think?” I asked.
She looked as though she wanted to say ‘no’. She looked back at the girl, then back to me. “She’s a kid.”
“I’m sorry, are you eighteen yet? We’re kids!”
She shook her head. “Yeah, and we’ve kicked a lot of Royal Escort ass back in Endawa. All we know about her is that she’s a mage who doesn’t have a conduit yet. That doesn’t help us and I don’t want to be responsible for her.”
I couldn’t blame her for that, but at the same time, Sheamus was offering to help us without knowing anything about us except our mission. Something about that seemed genuine to me. I walked over to Cameron. “You don’t have a conduit, what can you do now?”
The girl shrugged. “Simple tricks. Like what I did with you and the fence, earlier. Dad says if I’ve got anythin’ of me mother in me, I’ll be good at summonin’.” She rubbed her left arm. “But I cannae guarantee that, sorry.”
I turned to Sheamus. “You’ll need her, laddie. And she needs you.”
Sari walked over to me. “Look, I think we can manage with just the couple of us, we don’t really wanna separate you from your daughter.”
Sheamus stood, grabbed my arm and pulled me into another room. Sari came to follow us, but he shut the door before she could get into the room. “Yer not takin’ her from me, yer takin’ her for me. You cannae let her know this, lad. Without me conduit, me magic sucks me life force.”
“Why haven’t you told her?”
“She’s young, twelve years. I won’t make it to her thirteenth. She needs someone to take care of her, lad.”
I rubbed at the back of my neck. “I can’t promise her safety.”
“No, ya can’t, but ya can promise me that she won’t see me wither and die here. That’s all I need, laddie, and that’s all I ask.”
For the first time since Sari and I got there, I really saw the old man that Sheamus had become. Clearly, some of his power was concentrated on staying rather young looking for his daughter’s sake. If I had met him like this, I would have assumed him to be a seventy or eighty year old man, almost about to die.
For the second time in recent memory, I met somebody who wasn’t at all what they seemed.
As if I’d dreamed the whole thing, the man returned to his younger form. I realized that I had no real choice in the matter. “I’ll take care of her.”
Sheamus nodded. “Thank ye, laddie. Do your best.”
I stood there, holding the pack full of food that Sheamus had given to us. He was busy saying his goodbyes to Cameron. She was full of tears, and I didn’t blame her. Sari was beside me, sharpening her arrowheads. I hadn’t told her what Sheamus had told me, though I would eventually. I’d tell Cameron, as well. Hopefully, the girl would understand.
“Ya need to be on the lookout for that conduit o’ yers, sweetheart,” Sheamus said, patting her on the head. “You’ll know it when ya see it.”
She nodded. “I know, dad. I read yer book.”
“Good.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather-bound book. “Take it with ya. You’ll be usin’ yer mana like a pro in no time.”
She smiled and took the book from her father. “I’ll miss ya, dad.”
“And I’ll miss you, Cameron. Yer as pretty as your mum. Ya be good, now.”
She nodded again. “I will, dad.”
“Good girl. Now get goin’.” He turned to Sari and I. “There’s a town about fifteen miles south, you’ll be back in the Empire then. White dragon sightings should take ya where ya need to go.”
I held out my hand. “Thank you, Sheamus,” I said.
He ignored my hand and hugged me instead. It was the kind of hug my father would give me, once upon a time. The kind of hug a father gives a son when he’s proud of him. No words were exchanged, but none needed to be. I returned the hug and then Sari, Cameron and I began our trek southward. I took one look back and once again saw the old man that Sheamus truly was. That was the last I saw of him.
I knelt down by the river we’d begun to follow and splashed some water on my face. Sari and Cameron were a few feet away, in the river and washing each other’s hair. It looked like they were having fun. I reached into my pack and grabbed my canteen. I filled it with river water, and then took a long drink before filling it with more water. The sun was starting to get low.
I wondered if now would be a good time to tell them about Sheamus. Cameron hadn’t said so much as a word about her father since we left the farm, and I couldn’t tell what Sari was thinking about the whole situation. It wasn’t too different from when her own father died. Would she be angry at Sheamus for hiding the truth from his daughter and me for hiding it from both of them?
The possible negatives outweighed everything.
I splashed some more water on my face and then nearly reached for my blade when something grabbed at my arm. I pulled my hands away from my face and saw that it was just Sari. “In the water, Cres,” she said, yanking even harder on me. With how I was crouched beside the water, pulling me in wasn’t too difficult for her. The riverbed wasn’t too deep, not even waist high. I was drenched, but I’d been pulled in rather than getting in of my own free will. Hopefully, there was a place to do the wash wherever we were going.
“What’s on your mind?” Sari asked. I noticed for the first time that she was topless. “Please tell me it’s not the boobs.”
I laughed. “Trust me, you’re not my type.” I brushed my hair back with my hand. “Just… Things.”
She glanced around me at Cameron, who was resting in a part of the river that seemed a little deeper. “I’ve gotta ask you what her dad said to you in that room.”
I nodded. “I know. I’m… Worried about that.”
“Why?”
I lowered my voice. “Don’t tell her, okay?”
“What happened?”
“Sheamus is dying. He wanted us to take Cameron so that she wouldn’t see him die at home.”
I saw shock in her eyes. She scratched at her left arm. “Ya mean… He probably died right after we left, didn’t he?”
I nodded. “I think he did.”
“What do we tell her? She’s hoping her conduit comes along any day now and that we can swing back to her farm to show her dad.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Believe me, it’s on my mind.”
“Cres, we’ve got to tell her. As a teenage girl who lost her dad, I really think she needs to know.”
I half-walked/half-waded my way to the edge of the river and leaned up against the bank. “I know. I don’t know how to tell her.”
She put her hand on my shoulder. “Just tell her. Don’t hide it from her.”
I sighed. “You’re right. Goddamnit, you’re right, but at the same time… This is more pressure than I signed on for.” I took off my jacket and threw it at my bag, then pulled my shirt off. “I’ll tell her.” I walked over to Cameron and pulled her out of the water. “I need to tell you something.”
“Is it about Dad?”
I nodded.
“He told ya, didn’t he?”
I was suddenly confused. “How did you know?”
She looked down at the ground. “Dad’s book. Whole section there on what happens to a mage without a conduit. I didn’t tell him I read it.”
I knelt down in front of her. “Is that why you agreed to this?”
She nodded. “I dinnae want him to worry about me. He wanted me away so I dinnae have to see him die. I’m kinda glad, actually.” She started to tear up. “I don’t know if I coulda… I’ve been livin’ with me dad me whole life, watchin’ him die woulda killed me, too.”
I put my arms around her. “I know. I promised your dad I’d take care of you as best I could, even though our aim to take down the white dragon could probably lead to all of us dying.”
She nodded. “I know. Dad wouldnae have left me with ya if he thought it was gonna happen, but I know it could.”
I broke off the hug. “If we make it out of all this alive, we’ll come back to give your dad a proper burial.”
She wiped the tears from her eyes. “He’ll just need a headstone. Mages don’t leave bodies when we die, we just fade away.”
I was about to say something to her, but I spotted movement in the trees. My blade was across the river with my pack, Sari was closest to it. I grabbed Cameron and jumped into the river, carrying her as fast as I could. I stopped when an arrow grazed my left cheek, embedding itself in the riverbank in front of me.
“I’d stop there, if I were you,” a man’s voice said.
“What have we got here?” the man asked. “Couple love birds takin’ a bath in my stream?” He let out a laugh. “She’s a might young for you, son.”
I turned around after setting Cameron on her feet. The man wasn’t alone. There were at least five others with him, all of them dressed in green hunting clothes. Two of them - neither the leader - held bows, drawn and ready to loose. Getting to my sword never felt more necessary. I motioned for Cameron to stay behind me.
“My name is Bikendi Ola, and these are my Hawks. That is my stream you’re standin’ in, and I’m not gonna let you use it.”
I remained calm. “You’d kill a little girl?”
“Kill her? Naw. She’d be useful for other things.” He raised an arm. “When my arm goes down, so do you, friend.”
“And then so do you,” Sari said, her voice louder than I thought it would be. I turned around and saw her standing on the river bank, aiming her bow at Ola. She still hadn’t had time to get her top back on. “And I’m one hell of a better shot than either of those two bozos is.”
Ola smiled. “Ooh, ooh, ooh. You are a fine piece of meat, sugar tits. Where were you hidin’ when I caught up to your boyfriend here?”
She tightened her draw. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t drop you now?”
I kept my gaze on Ola. He didn’t stop smiling. “Yeah, there’s a helluva reason, baby.” His smile widened, and I knew damn well why.
“Sari! Down!” I shouted. She let herself fall into the stream as arrows came from behind her. Without their original target to hit, the arrows continued their trajectory into the bowmen that Ola had beside himself. Sari was beside me now, her bow drawn again. I had to admit, she looked pretty good soaking wet.
Ola simply laughed. “Oh, that’s good, babe. Tell me, does havin’ the milk jugs hangin’ free there help with your aim or no?”
Sari leaned closer to me. “Please tell me I can kill him now.”
“Just a minute,” I whispered. Louder, I asked, “So, do you still have the advantage?”
“How would I have lost it? Or are you forgettin’ my men on that side with the bows pointed at you?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t forget them, no.” I tilted my head to Cameron. “What’cha got in your bag of tricks?” I whispered.
She simply nodded. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the two bowmen turning around and aiming their bows downward at the ground. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but it seemed she made them believe that the stream was behind where they were standing, so they adjusted accordingly. I would have preferred she kill them or at least knock them out, but that might have been asking too much of a twelve year old girl.
But they weren’t the only ones affected. The other two men beside Ola were looking around as if they were blind. One of them drew a knife and swiped randomly at the air. Ola was furious, but unaffected by Cameron’s tricks. He drew his sword and jumped into the stream.
“I’ll gut ya, ya little shits!”
My own sword had somehow gotten in my hand. I looked over at Cameron, who nodded. The girl was about as good as her old man was at moving things. I pulled the scabbard off and handed it to Sari, who took Cameron’s hand and pulled her away from what was about to happen.
“I’mma kill you, and then take the girlies for myself,” Ola said, a vicious smile on his face. “And then I’ll take ‘em back to my place and let the rest of my boys have ‘em, too!”
I lunged at him. Our swords clanged against one another as he parried my attack. I kicked him away, then swung at his head. He ducked below the swing and attempted something similar on me, aimed at my stomach. I blocked his attack and rammed my shoulder into him. I made another swing, drawing blood from his sword arm, but not taking him out of the fight. He made a hard upward swing and caught my chin with the tip of his sword. It wasn’t a large cut, but enough to sting.
He brought his sword back down, moving closer to me. I brought my blade up and blocked him, then I took the cheap shot and brought my knee up into his crotch. My momentum knocked him down, into the water. He managed to land on a sandbar big enough to keep his head from going under. He took a blind swipe at me, but I parried his blow. I knocked the sword out of his hand and brought my own to his neck.
“You’re going to leave my sisters alone, asshole, and I’m gonna make damn sure of it.”
I pulled my sword away from his neck, pointed it downward and brought it down into his crotch. He cried it in pain, his voice going high-pitched. The men that Cameron had blinded were looking around, trying to figure out where their boss was, while the bowmen loosed arrow after arrow into the ground in front of them, likely assuming that they were hitting or missing me.
I walked over to Cameron and Sari. Sari looked understanding, and nodded. Cameron looked frightened. “I didn’t want to do it,” I told her.
She nodded. “I know, it just… It surprised me, is all.”
I helped them both onto the riverbank where our stuff was. “Let’s get going before those four realize what’s happened.”
The sun had finally dipped below the horizon. The shadows almost looked as though they were watching us.
