Arlette opened her eyes the next morning to a splitting headache unlike any she had ever felt before. Wakes always left her with a hangover, but this... this was something else. She wondered if Feelers could just will their way out of things like this. She’d have to ask Jaquet some time.

The sound of breathing whispered in her right ear. She looked over to find the back of Sofie’s head, the girl still fast asleep beside her. She couldn’t help but pity the poor, timid girl. To be so lost, both in location and mind, must be a terrible state. Her thoughts drifted back to her argument with Jaquet the day before. The way she had ended it, with the “I’m the boss” maneuver, was really just a tacit admission that he was right. Involving herself and what remained of the Ivory Tears with a crazy slave was a horrid idea — there was nothing to gain and potentially everything to lose. They’d be splitting up soon enough, she told herself. It was a simple two-week trip to Xoginia, after which they’d never need to see each other again. She reminded herself to tell Sofie about their plans, something she’d intended to tell her yesterday but had slipped through the cracks.

Sitting up with a sigh, Arlette heard the soft ringing of chains near her torso and looked down to discover her wrist cuffed to Sofie’s using one of her slave shackles. Arlette’s anger surged at the sight of her bound arm. Was this some kind of joke? Had Sofie done this herself, or was this another one of Basilli’s “pranks”?

“Hey,” she said loudly as she pulled at the restraint, “wake up!”

Sofie’s body jerked and she began to flail about in panic, pulling Arlette about despite her best efforts to resist. The girl was stronger than she looked, Arlette noted. Perhaps she was a Feeler? Arlette grabbed the girl’s arm and Sofie screamed, crawling away from the touch and into the nearby corner before turning about and staring at her with unfocused, terrified eyes. Arlette was unsure of what to do about the trembling girl, so she just did nothing. Slowly Sofie’s breathing became less ragged as she slowly regained awareness and recognized Arlette’s concerned face, the fear in her eyes shifting into something closer to aggrieved accusation. Strange, but not something Arlette cared to delve into at the moment. Instead, she held up her chained arm, lifting the restraint up and pulling Sofie’s arm up as well.

“Did you do this?”

Sofie glanced at the cuff, its polished metal gleaming in the morning light, and swallowed, as if summoning up her courage.

“Yes,” she admitted.

“And what made you think that this was even remotely a good idea?”

“After what you said, I wanted to make sure that you wouldn’t leave while I was asleep. Last night you told the man that you were going to leave me, even though you promised me that you wouldn’t. I trusted you.” She leveled a betrayed glare at the mercenary.

“Okay, that’s it,” Arlette snapped. She yanked Sofie to her feet and dragged her to the door. It was apparent that they needed to have a very serious talk, but there was no way under the moons that she was going to do that while stuck together.

*     *     *

“Boss, I didn’t know you were into this kind of thing,” Basilli remarked as he worked on unlocking the cuff from her arm, his lock picks wiggling back and forth.

“Basilli, I will end you,” Arlette growled, getting her a mocking chuckle from the man.

“Probably shouldn’t do any ending until I’m done with- ah, there we go!” With a satisfying click, the shackle opened and fell towards the floor, swinging back and forth from Sofie’s arm.

“Sit down,” she commanded Sofie, who obeyed. Basilli began work on the other half of the restraints while Arlette stood up, crossed her arms, and looked the girl in the eye. “It’s become obvious that we need to have a chat about our relationship and your place in the world. So let’s start with this: I owe you nothing. I saved you in Zrukhora because I wanted to, at considerable danger to myself and my companions, I should add. I decided to take you to Xoginia and help you find a place there because I felt pity for you. That’s it. You should be thanking whatever spirits watch over you that I found you, because I doubt anybody else would even bother to go that far for you, especially in this country and after what happened in Zrukhora. Have I made myself clear?”

“Y-yes,” Sofie gulped. “I’m sor-”

“Stow it. I’m not done. Now, ignoring completely sensible advice, I decided to do you a favor and take you with us to a city where you might be able to escape becoming a slave again. However, your behavior and lack of judgment have caused me to reevaluate that decision. If you want to accompany us now, you’re going to have to show you’re worth the effort and the risk. So I’m asking you, what good are you?”

“Wha- I...” The girl became flustered at the question, seemingly unable to find an answer.

“Can you fight?”

“Fight?”

She just didn’t seem to be getting it. Was she really just a few years younger than Arlette? Her naivety was just stunning.

“Do you know why Basilli here calls me ‘Boss’?”

“Because you’re the leader.”

“The leader of what?”

“Uh... Soldiers?”

“No. We’re mercenaries. Swords for hire. We don’t get the easy jobs that soldiers get. We guard caravans along the most dangerous trade routes. We protect the places that others don’t want to. We hunt down bandits. We fight. We kill. We die. A lot. Even sometimes when we don’t expect to. I’m not asking if you can take me in a battle, but even a child can stab somebody with a knife if they need to.” She pulled out a dagger and held it up for the girl to see. “Can you?”

All the blood drained from Sofie’s face as she stared at the weapon as if it were anathema. That was a no. Arlette sighed.

“Before you were a slave, what were you good at? What did you do a lot?”

“I- I mostly read books. I like reading.”

“Okay, so you could be a scribe perhaps. People need scribes. That’s something at lea-” Arlette stopped mid-sentence and considered the source. “Actually, let’s check something.”

Arlette turned around as a click and a grunt of satisfaction told her that Basilli had finally finished picking the second lock. The thump of the shackles falling to the ground confirmed it half a second later. She walked across her room to her chest, opened it up, and rummaged around for a bit until she found what she was looking for. Turning back, she held out a sheet of parchment towards Sofie. On it was an advertisement calling for mercenaries to work in Zrukhora, written in Eterian Common, the standard language for written communication on the Nocend continent. Not too many people could read, especially since the Many network allowed for long-distance communication without having to learn, but those that could almost universally knew Eterian Common. It was not only the most widely-used, but also the simplest to understand. If she couldn’t read that, she couldn’t read anything.

“What does this say?” she asked the young woman.

Arlette sighed and hardened her heart as Sofie’s eyes filled with despair. It seemed that the ex-slave’s delusions extended even this far.

“Leave,” she said, holding her arm up to point at the door out. “I can’t have you holding us back. Not now.”

“No! Please!” Sofie begged, reaching for Arlette to grab her again. “I’ll do anything!”

“Shut up!” Arlette barked, slapping a hand away. “For me to even consider allowing you to come, you’d have to be able to provide something, anything, and you can’t even do that! You can’t carry your weight! You’re nothing! You’re a nobody! And unless that somehow changes, I will not put my life and my subordinates’ lives at risk just to help an ungrateful crazy girl who thinks the world owes her favors. Get. Out.”

Sofie just stared, stunned at the mercenary’s outburst, before slowly standing up and teetering over to the door. She looked back one last time, a silent plea on her face, but Arlette held firm, returning her gaze with an unblinking, determined stare of her own. Then, without a word, the girl was gone, the sound of her feet fading as she ran down the hallway.

Arlette took a seat on her bed, her body seeming to deflate now that the young woman was not around to see her.

“You did what had to be done,” Basilli offered in consolation. “That’s all there is to it.”

“I know,” she replied, but knowing didn’t make her feel any less guilty.

*     *     *

“It doesn’t matter how many different ways you ask, I can’t sell you what I don’t have,” stated the annoyed merchant to Arlette. “I sold all my supplies already. Bet all the others have too. The demand is overwhelming with all these refugees. If you want to wait, a caravan should be coming in two days. Until then, go somewhere else.”

Arlette walked away from the market stall, one of many in the marketplace located around the town square, and shook her head at her approaching cohorts, each of them also returning empty-handed. It made sense, really. Tens of thousands of people descending on a small town without warning — of course everything would sell out. The three of them relocated to a nearby alleyway to get away from the bustle and noise for a quick conversation.

“It looks like we’ll have to forage and hunt our way along for a while,” Basilli said.

“Right,” Arlette agreed. “That means we need to leave soon. We won’t be the only people heading south, and they’ll likely have similar ideas. Do either of you need to keep looking to buy anything in particular before we head out?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Basilli replied.

“What about you?” Arlette continued, turning to the silent Jaquet. The man did not respond, simply looking off towards the entrance to the alley, his mind somewhere else.

“Jaquet?”

“Shhhh,” the large man said. “Somethin’s up.”

Both of the others turned serious at his words. “Wha-” Arlette’s question was cut off my Jaquet’s raised hand. He closed his eyes for a moment before speaking again.

“Ya hear tha’? ‘t’s gotten quie’ all o’ a sudden.”

Arlette closed her eyes and listened as best she could. He was right, the noise in the marketplace had died down far beyond anything that could be explained just by their being in the alley.

“I think I ‘ear a voice speakin’,” Jaquet mentioned.

“Maybe it’s just some assembly? It’s probably nothing,” Arlette suggested. “You guys stay here, I’ll check it out real quick.”

Without another word, she skulked back to where the alley ended and the marketplace began. Something was going on down the street, as every person seemed to have congregated around a Many standing upon a podium. She recognized the large, expanded projection of Iorweth Morgan, the King of Kutrad. The enlarged image showed the king, a golden band beset with jewels ringing the forehead of his handsome face, giving an animated speech, one likely being spread throughout the country. She moved closer, curious to hear what the man was so passionate about.

“-and I swear to you all, under the judgment of the all the spirits of this land, that this nation shall not crumble! No! We will emerge from this trial stronger than ever! So say I, your king!”

The crowd cheered heartily and their ruler paused, waiting for the adulation to die down before continuing. Arlette thought that she could hear roars of approval in the background of the transmission, most likely spilling over from the projections of Manys connected with other larger cities. After a moment, the man raised his hands for silence.

“However! I come to you today to deliver more than just a message of hope. Perhaps even more importantly, I bring you a message of vengeance! For, despite what you may have believed, the horrible attack on our great city was no accident!”

A rumble of anger rippled through the crowd. Arlette found herself moving even closer, her blood pumping through her veins. The idea that somebody had planned the event that killed her companions seemed preposterous, but if it were the truth, she needed to know who had done such a thing.

“After days of investigation,” the king continued, ”we now know the monsters that are responsible for destroying Zrukhora, and they are still at large! That is why I am posting the largest bounty in the history of Kutrad, for the capture of these evildoers! I must stress, they must be captured alive to face justice for their deeds. Whoever successfully captures these people will receive fifty thousand gold markots! And, by the power that is rightfully mine as king, I will grant them and their families lower nobility!”

The gathering erupted with a clamor orders of magnitude louder than before as everybody present lost their minds. Arlette herself could barely contain herself. A king elevating somebody to nobility from nothing just didn’t happen. To be a noble, even the lowest of all the nobility, meant that you and your family were set for generations to come. And to throw in a fortune the size of fifty thousand markots! That was enough to buy at least several whole villages!

She could see the crowd work itself into frothing madness as they thought about receiving that bounty and laughed inside her head. This wasn’t a normal bounty, where only some bounty hunters would attempt to track down the targets. No, between the bounty and the anger and desire for revenge, every soul in Kutrad would be hunting for the dastards who had destroyed Zrukhora and taken her companions from her. Whoever these monsters were, they were ruined, and she couldn’t help but laugh internally harder and harder as she thought about what those fools were about to go through.

Then King Morgan raised up a wanted poster, and that internal laughter morphed into a scream. That was her face. Why was he holding her face? The artist's sketch was eerily detailed, even showing her prominent facial scars. There was Basilli and Jaquet too! Part of her mind filled with a million questions, while another just went blank in horror. Luckily she still had enough of herself to observe a disguise over her body and slowly make her way back to the alley. Basilli and Jaquet tensed as they recognized Arlette’s sword on another woman’s body.

“What happened?” asked Basilli.

“We gotta go,” replied Arlette. “No time to explain. Basilli, cut your hair. Jaquet, remove the head from your halberd. You’re going to be grandfather and that’s your walking stick. We’re your grandchildren helping you out to the refugee camps.”

“We doin’ Gramona again?” Jaquet inquired, removing the halberd tip without hesitation.

“Yeah,” she responded. Several years ago Jaquet had gambled away all of his money, as usual, this time in the Eterian town of Gramona. The issue was that he’d lost more than he could pay, and lost it to a local crime lord. He’d come running to her, begging her to get him out of the city, which would usually not be a big problem. In this case, however, the crime lord had the local watch in pocket, and they were out in force searching for Jaquet. The two of them finally came up with a working plan: he would pose as an elderly man, hunching over to reduce his height profile as much as possible, while she played the part of his doting granddaughter, slowly leading him home.

The idea hinged on Arlette’s skills. She would have to observe them both disguises, something that became exponentially more difficult to keep up for each person she had to worry about simultaneously. Disguising herself was almost second nature to her after all her years of practice, but her brain had to really start to work as soon as a second person was added in. Three people at once was basically her limit, and it came only with the stipulation that nobody made any quick or sudden movements. These illusions didn’t automatically move themselves, after all. No, she had to concentrate constantly on making sure that the fake legs moved in sync with the real legs, the fake arms with the real arms, each fake finger matching with its real counterpart at all times. Covering three people at once was incredibly taxing, and not something that she could manage for too long.

This was why the “old man” plan worked so well. Not only did the nature of the disguise help hide the very conspicuous large man and his equally conspicuous weapon, it also gave them an excuse to make slow deliberate movements, limiting the risk of a mistake on Arlette’s part. She thanked the spirits that it was just the three of them — any more and she wouldn’t be able to conceal everybody.

Shortly, a large elderly man, leaning on his large walking stick, plodded down the street, his concerned grandchildren leading him along. They were most of the way back to the inn, slowly making their way along the side of the crowded streets, when something caught Basilli’s eye.

“Hey sis,” he said as he slowly pointed in the direction they were headed, “we have a problem.”

Arlette had been focused on keeping both of the others in her sights at all times, something that helped tremendously with her task, so she had not been looking forward much. She signaled them to stop for a second and glanced in the direction of his pointed finger to see large plumes of smoke rising from several blocks away. A sinking feeling appeared in her gut as she realized what was going on. They’d been too late.

With a bounty on their heads, Arlette had some measure of fear about the normal people of Kutrad. The king’s announcement limited her group’s options, preventing them from going into towns or seeking help from others. But the general populace could be fooled rather easily, especially by somebody with her abnormal talents. As long as they could get away from the town and avoided other populated areas, they would stand a chance when dealing with regular citizens.

Her real fear was reserved for the bounty hunters. Bounty hunters were often very good at their jobs. They could track, they could hunt, and they usually could fight. But normally, bounty hunters would only pursue a target if it was worth the reward. As far as she understood it, if you made things too scary or costly, you would be okay until the bounty was raised high enough to override those concerns. The king’s incredible reward changed that. Any hunters who caught their trail would hound them to the ends of the earth for a bounty like that, taking risks that they’d never normally consider. Like, say, burning down the inn where the group was staying to drive them out into the hunters’ waiting hands, or at least deprive them of their supplies and make them easier to catch later. After all, what did a burnt inn matter when you’d get so much in return that you could build a thousand inns?

Several minutes later, they got confirmation with their own eyes. Men and women ringed the burning building, ready to pounce as soon as anything ran out. The three of them just stared at the scene from the back of the growing crowd, the implications weighing down upon them. Nearly everything that they needed to survive was now ashes. Their bedrolls, weapon maintenance supplies, clothing... all now just part of the charred rubble.

“We should go,” said Jaquet quietly, the others nodding in agreement. They had planned on gathering what they could and escaping with their stuff, but now it seemed they needed to skip directly to the second step.

“I think we’re being followed,” Basilli whispered several minutes later as they approached the nearest town gate. “Not sure who, though.”

Arlette tensed up. Had they been discovered so easily? The three of them continued until they came across a suitable nearby alleyway, which they entered. As soon as nobody was looking, Arlette dropped the disguises.

“Everybody huddle down over here,” she quietly ordered as she squatted behind a nearby barrel. “I’ll create some more barrels to hide us.”

“You know,” remarked Basilli, “your abilities sometimes feel just straight up unfair.”

“I can’t roast somebody alive from fifty paces like you, so shut up. They’re coming. Jaquet, grab them when they get close.”

The three went silent as they heard the sound of footsteps entering the alleyway. The footsteps slowed as the person seemed to hesitate, unsure as to where the quarry had disappeared. After a few moments, the footsteps began to approach, cautious and slow. As soon as their stalker passed the barrel, Jaquet leapt out, seizing the person and pulling them to the ground back behind the barrel with irresistible strength, his one hand clasped over their mouth to stifle the screams.

Arlette took one look at their captive and buried her face in her hands with an exasperated sigh.

“What are you doing here?” she asked Sofie, whose reply was muffled by Jaquet’s palm. “Let her speak, Jaquet.”

“Are ya gonna scream?” Jaquet asked, to which Sofie tried to shake her head ‘no’. Arlette crouched down and placed a dagger by her throat, just in case.

“Brute!” Sofie spat as soon as Jaquet’s hand released her lips. The glared furiously at him for a second before turning her gaze back to Arlette. “I’m coming with you.”

“No way,” Arlette immediately responded.

“I am,” she insisted, her jaw set in defiance. “I know you said that I’m worthless, but you need me now. I saw what that king person said. Everybody is going to be looking for you. They saw all your faces. But you said it yourself: I’m nobody. Nobody knows who I am. Nobody is looking for me. I can be your point of contact with others. I can be the person who does what you can’t anymore.”

“She’s gonna betray us fer tha reward,” objected Jaquet. “Don’ trust ‘er.”

“Screw that reward. I don’t want to be a ‘noble’ in this godforsaken place. This place sucks. All I want is to go home.”

“They’re going to be looking for groups of three, not four,” Basilli mused. “Just having her around might help us hide.”

Arlette stared into the young woman’s eyes, reading her determination and seeing no traces of doubt. Her thoughts warred with one another as she struggled towards a decision. Could she trust this person that she barely knew? You’d have to be crazy to align yourself against an entire country, especially while in that country, but...

“I have a price,” Sofie said, interrupting her internal debate. “Once this is over, you have to help me get home, no matter how long it takes. That’s my price.”

“Fine. Deal,” Arlette said after a moment’s more deliberation.

“Letty, this is a ‘uge risk,” warned Jaquet.

“We have to take risks,” she argued in return. “Playing it safe isn’t going to get us out of Kutrad. We’re going to need some lucky breaks, and we can’t throw away opportunities. Let her up.”

Jaquet grumbled and released the young woman, who sat up and rubbed the back of her head.

“How did you hide from me, anyway?” she asked. “All I saw was a bunch of barrels.”

“That’s boss’s talent,” answered Basilli. “She can make things that aren’t real.”

Sofie’s eyes lit up. “You mean like that second dragon? Did you do that? That was amazing!”

Arlette had no idea what a dragon was, but she nodded her head anyway.

“So then, getting out of this place should be easy,” Sofie suggested.

“No, it’s not that simple,” Arlette said. “The posters listed me as an illusionist. The guards will insist on touching our faces to make sure they’re genuine. It doesn’t matter what I look like, if one of them feels these scars on my face, it’s over.”

“Then we just have to make it so they won’t touch you,” Sofie replied.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s simple...”

*     *     *

Arlette and her companions stood in line at a nearby town exit, waiting for their turn to pass by the guards. They’d spent over half an hour working on Sofie’s strange idea for a disguise. First, she’d had Arlette make Basilli ugly as practice, giving him a misshapen face covered in bumps and ridges. She’d constantly told Arlette to add more bumps, until soon the man’s grotesque visage looked almost inhuman. Then she’d made ordered him wrapped in bandages from head to toe, leaving only the eyes and slivers of the face visible. Arlette had argued that such a complicated disguise would be too taxing and difficult to keep consistent, especially across three people simultaneously, to which Sofie had suggested covering everything but the face and extremities with a cloak. That let Arlette focus better on a few smaller areas, making the whole thing much more feasible.

Still, she wasn’t sure exactly how Sofie’s plan was supposed to get them past the guards. As predicted, the guards were feeling up every person’s face, checking to make sure no illusions were present. Their disguises weren’t going to fool the guards’ hands. In fact, the difference would only be heightened by the ugliness of their faces. When questioned about it, Sofie had just said to trust her and let her do all the talking, which troubled all three of them.

“Next!” It looked like it was their turn. Arlette and the others hobbled forwards.

The guards had far too many people to process to bother questioning people about names and intentions, and they didn’t care anyway. All they wanted was to catch the three people on the posters and claim the reward. One guard moved towards Arlette, raising her hand towards Arlette’s face, when Sofie stepped in between and slapped the hand away.

“Don’t touch her!” she hissed. “Do you want to get leprosy?”

The guard flinched back in surprise and confusion. The other two guards, not used to having their authority challenged, each reached for their weapon.

“Don’t you even think about pointing those things as me!” Sofie growled, as she whirled on them, fire in her eyes. “I just saved her life! You should be thanking me!”

“What are you talking about?” asked the first guard, her suspicions raised. “Leprosy? Never heard of it.”

“It’s a terrible new disease, just discovered recently. Most people don’t know about it yet. You contract it when you touch somebody who is already infected, like you were about to do. It makes you slowly rot away, until you die.” Sofie turned to Arlette. “Janine, show them a little of what leprosy can do.”

Arlette could see where this was going, and she liked it. She slowly removed the hood of her illusory cloak from her head, and made a show of slowly unwrapping the bandages around her face, making sure to have her hands tremble for added effect. The guards each took an instinctive step backwards at the sight of “Janine” and her terrible disfigured face, the color draining from their faces.

“Terrible, isn’t it?” Sofie asked rhetorically as she stepped closer to female guard. “First it attacks the skin, all over your body. Then it goes inward. Do you know why they have to wear those bandages?”

The guard couldn’t stop looking at Arlette’s face and was unwilling to respond, hoping Sofie wouldn’t continue. Sofie did anyway, with almost of hint of pleasure.

“It’s because it helps keep all their body parts from falling off. First it starts with the fingers and the toes, one knuckle at a time, just falling right off like it was never even attached in the first place. Then it keeps going. The hands and feet go next, then the wrists and ankles, and so forth, until all that’s left is a torso. That is, if you’re even still alive. Most people never last long enough to make it that far. We started with fifteen people, and only these three are left already. They’re the strong ones.”

Any color that once remained on the guard’s face was now long gone, but Sofie apparently still wasn’t finished.

“As I said, this is a newly discovered illness. Do you understand what that means?”

“N-no?” the guard said, plainly not wanting any part in whatever was happening.

“It means that we don’t know a lot about it yet. That’s why it’s so important that I get these three to Xoginia for study as soon as possible. There’s so much we haven’t figured out, like how it spreads, or how to stop it.”

“But you said that it spreads by touch.”

“Oh no, you misunderstand. We know that you get it if you touch an infected. But we don’t know if that’s the only way you get it. Maybe you can get it by touching something they’ve touched. Or maybe you can get it just by breathing the same air, or being nearby one for long enough.”

Three guards went stiff as they realized what Sofie was trying to get at, their eyes darting back and forth between the three cloaked individuals. Arlette could see that they were all on the edge, needing just a little nudge to push them over, when she had a wonderful, terrible, absolutely evil idea. She began to re-wrap herself with the fake bandages and, when her hands were hidden behind her head, she tucked her left pinky finger under her ring finger, surreptitiously adding thickness to the bandages covering her hands to make room for both fingers in the one fake finger. Then, she widened her eyes in shock and let out a soft “Ah!” just loud enough for the three guards to notice. They looked back just in time to see a disfigured, disgusting pinky finger fall to the barren ground at Arlette’s side.

What was intended as a little nudge ended up being a mighty shove. One of the male guards began to vomit all over himself at the sight, while the other simply screamed and ran away as fast as he could. The female guard coughed out a “Go! Just go!” to Sofie before succumbing as well, falling on her hands and knees as her lunch exited her body from the wrong holes.

“You heard them,” Sofie said to the others. “Let’s get out of here.”

They walked in silence for some minutes until the town and refugee camp were blocked by a large hill, which meant it was finally safe for Arlette to cease her observations. As soon as the disguises disappeared, Basilli began to crack up, nearly falling on the ground in hysterics.

“Spirits above,” he gasped out, “did you see their faces? It was like they were gonna cry!”

“That finger was a genius move,” Sofie said to Arlette. “Perfect timing and everything. Well done.”

“I should be saying that to you,” Arlette replied. “I’ve done many things in my life with these illusions, but that...” She thought back to the sight of the two remaining guards, each of them still retching and gasping for air even as the group faded into the distance. “I never thought you could make somebody vomit with just some words and a fake disease. It was very impressive.”

She smiled at the young woman, who blushed at the praise. Maybe there was hope for the girl after all.

“Leprosy’s not fake, you know,” Sofie stated. “I had to exaggerate the symptoms a lot and make it sound much worse than it is, but it’s very real.”

Then again, maybe not.