His wrapped head was on fire, but a strange calm existed below his pumping heart.

“Lucky, down!” Tercius commanded and felt his {Teaching Bond} with the ram snap into place. With all the urgency he could muster, he said the command again. “Down!”

The nervous ram reluctantly obeyed, folding its long legs and resting its torso on the grass. Lucky's back was long and strong enough to hold a saddle that was made with a mind for three people. Tercius and the young woman dragged the unconscious man by his armpits and flung him over the middle saddle like a sack of flaccid blood, muscles, and bones that he currently was.

“Hold him like that!” Tercius ran around Lucky and roared as he dragged the bulky Murain onto the saddle.

“You!” he pointed at the young woman and then at the third indentation in the saddle, right behind the unconscious man. “Sit there. There! Hold him in place!”

Without looking if she was obeying, Tercius ran and grabbed his spear, bow, and the rest of his things, spraying a foot-full of grass, dirt, and rocks over the small fire as he stumbled over it. For good measure, he grabbed the young woman’s spear as well. He glanced at Lucky and saw that she had mounted as instructed.

“Hold onto Murain! Lucky, up! Up!”

With a bleat, the giant ram heaved and got up on his legs, almost throwing off the inexperienced and the unconscious off of himself in the process. The ram desired nothing else but to run.

“Stay! Lucky, stay! STAY!”

A screech sounded behind him and as Tercius turned he saw a Steel Beak rise over the top of the hill to his left and run towards them. A moment later, two more raptors followed.

“Fuck!” Tercius sprinted to Lucky’s side and thrust the spears and everything in his hands up at the young woman. “Take it!”

She scrambled to grip it all and a spear fell to the ground. Tercius picked it up and handed it over and as soon as his hands were free he was up in the saddle with a speed he never managed before and frantically pushing his heels into Lucky’s sides and snapping the reins. “Go, Lucky! Go! Hya!”

Finally hearing the command he wanted to hear all along, Lucky let his legs loose in a spray of grass and dirt. They rode up the rocky hill in front of them in a mere moment, the harsh afternoon sun to their left.

“Rippers!” the young woman shouted from behind him.

He had no idea what that word meant, but Tercius’ sweat-soaked face fell. There was a trio of raptors screeching and running right at them. A larger group was coming from the east and from behind he had three more. Tercius pulled the reins and swerved the galloping Lucky to the left. “Lucky, go! Hya!”

Tercius threw a backward glance and sighed in relief. Lucky was faster than those fuckers! Tercius turned back and neon green veins covered his eyes. Darkness descended and only swirling clouds of greens and outlines of reds remained. Through the little green that the hills ahead had, he saw seven bright red outlines.

Tercius immediately turned Lucky north-west. “Gallop!”

Lucky bleated. Tercius suddenly had to squint against the buffeting wind as the ram used his Skills and their speed increased even further. Behind him, he heard the young woman yelp.

“Hold on!”

With {Magia Sight}, Tercius scouted the way ahead and plotted a raptor-free trajectory north. Slowly, he adjusted Lucky, and then he threw a glance behind them. The young woman was looking back too, as a horde of screeching raptors ran after them. Tercius swallowed. There had to be at least three dozen! But, as he watched a while longer, he noticed that their pursuers were falling behind visibly.

“Full speed ahead, Lucky! Gallop!”

*** *** ***

After the raptor horde gave up on pursuing them, Tercius had a good look ahead and around them and then urged Lucky to drop the Skills and conserve his magia. An hour of trotting after that and they stumbled across a wide stream. After checking the immediate surroundings and finding them clear of any large or bright red magia outlines, Tercius dismounted and the young woman followed suit. Grass covered the surrounding hills here, with even a few thickets scattered here and there, where land allowed for greenery to form and grow.

“Why stop?” the young woman asked and pointed around. “Not safe,”

Tercius patted Lucky’s leg. The ram was breathing with some evident labor, his horned head sagging. “Lucky here needs a break. We might need his top speed again. And your man there might need attention as well. Come, help me get him down.”

They laid the man on the grass and Tercius checked on him. “He’s just asleep. Err… Dreams…”

She frowned.

“No, that’s not the word…” he muttered to himself. “Murain… Sleep?”

The young woman sighed and sat on the ground, right at the big man’s side.

Tercius left them and went to Lucky, who had submerged his muzzle deep into the stream and seemed downright thirsty enough to drink it whole. Unwrapping his head and neck, Tercius went a bit upstream from the ram, washed his hands, neck, and face, and joined in on the drinking. He soaked his headwrap into the water a couple of times, wrung it dry, and threw it over a small bush.

With that done, he checked on his bow, spear, and the rest of the equipment he used and he sheathed back everything into its proper place. Knowing that everything was where it should be made him breathe a little easier. Finally, he took a small sack of hard biscuits from one of the saddlebags.

He took a few biscuits for himself and offered the sack to the young woman.

She observed the offering with some reservation, but likely from seeing him wolf down one after the other, she took one and started eating.

As she ate, Tercius felt drawn to her face. He was usually quite good at judging other people's age, ancient magi excluded, but this young woman had nearly covered her face with swirling green vines and leaves and she had a cloth of some kind wrapped around her neck. Under all the face paint— the artistry of which merited a closer look all by itself, to speak nothing of learning more of the material used for its making— Tercius would venture a guess that the young woman was somewhere in her mid-twenties. If his experience in this new world was to go by so far, that usually meant that she was younger than her appearance. So maybe early twenties? Her torn shirt didn't cover the long tanned arms and he saw deep into her shirt—

“My name is Leawarra,” she said, looking at him with those bright cherry eyes.

“Hmm?” Tercius shook his head, blinking rapidly. The mental web that made things easier to notice receded. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. Could you… say it again? Err… Speak… one more?”

She raised a hand and pointed at herself. “Leawarra.”

Tercius blinked for a few moments, but then he shrugged. “I have no idea what that word means…”

“I…” she said, pointing at herself again. “Leawarra,”

“Oh. Your name, you mean?”

She nodded.

“Leavara…” Tercius’ nodded slowly. “I see…”

Tercius bit into another biscuit and offered her the sack again. She took another and they ate their meal. Tercius looked north, to the distant white and gray mountain peaks. Where were they exactly? He had gone as straight north as he could from where the Mistresses left him, but he had encountered some deviations. {Visualization} drew a vivid map for his eyes only and he started comparing the landmarks and the waterways he encountered so far. The stream that Lucky still seemed determined to drink dry went roughly from northeast to southwest, which would place them right about… there. Tercius hummed as he looked at the map. Despite the detours he had today, quite the progress had been made today. Lucky was a true beast, in more ways than one. At this rate, he might just reach the monastery in less than two days. The only problem was where to spend the nights, but he had a feeling that he had solved that at least for tonight.

Thinking of the dangers in the night, Tercius’ eyes narrowed. There were dangers of the day and he should not forget about those either. Perhaps it was time to check the surroundings again? It wouldn't do for something to surprise them while they rested—

“You?” she suddenly asked.

Tercius looked down at her. “Me what?”

She frowned and pointed at him. “You name?”

That took him by surprise. Yes, he supposed that she was right to ask. He should introduce himself. But how? Real name? Nickname? Make something up on the spot? The silence stretched as she waited for him to answer and it dawned on him that he had to say something and say it now.

“My name is Tercius,”

Leavara nodded. “Tercius… You outlander, yes?”

Tercius frowned. There it was again, that word from earlier in the day. Liar, deceiver, imposter.

“What does outlander mean?” he asked the young woman.

After a bit of back and forth, he realized that Leavara was really familiar with Empire’s Common, she only likely lacked the experience speaking it and so she had to take time to think. It helped that he was not bad at the old version of the language she spoke. There was some clear overlap. Now he just had to update it. What aided them further was that both of them were conscious of the limitations of the other and so they purposefully spoke slowly and clearly. {Teaching Bond} came along almost naturally, as well.

Eventually, the barrier surrounding his question was torn down.

“Someone… not from here.” She pointed south. “Someone from… away.”

“Oh?” Tercius was slightly amused that a word that once meant liar now meant something like outsider.

Truly, the language was as alive as the people who spoke it. As people changed, so did the language. Well, all except maybe Magik. The lowest spoken tier of the language of the magi had been designed specifically so that the older magi could communicate with the newer generations, regardless of how many centuries or millennia existed between them.

Tercius took a deep breath and decided that it was time to ask. “Leavara.”

She looked up at him.

“You owe me a debt.”

That made the young woman nod and stand up. “Life debt. For I. For Murrayn.”

“I need somewhere safe for me and Lucky to spend the night. I might need one more night in a couple of weeks as well. Is that… possible?”

Leavara frowned. "Safe? For sleep?"

Tercius nodded. “Yes, for sleep.”

Leavara took her time thinking, but ultimately she nodded. “My home, your home.”

“Thank you,” Tercius nodded. “Rest a bit. We’ll move soon,”

*** *** ***

On their trot north, they passed by a couple of human communities, where a few dozen watchful souls made their homes in stone houses, their farmlands and animal pens enclosed with tall and thick stone walls. If there was one thing these hills had, it was stone.

Each time Tercius thought that they had finally arrived at their destination, Leavara would just point north.

“No stop. We fast. We reach home, if we no stop.”

Throughout the journey, the two awake riders kept their watchful eyes firmly on the surroundings. Along the way, Murain showed signs of waking a couple of times, even speaking some jumbled words once. The man was alive and Tercius counted that as a success. Leavara had expressed her thanks for that, in that thick accent of hers.

If not for the weeks-long delay, that his Mentor blackmailed him into, he was not sure that Leavara would have been so thankful now.

Without Mistress Prime’era lessons on basic first aid, among other things, and her help in creating an impromptu first aid kit that he might need for the journey, Murain might well have bled out. The herbs that he smoked and the wooden pipe that he used were sold to him by Mistress Prime’era, on his Mentor’s recommendation. He had to admit that he was a little hesitant to use them, even for the sake of saving someone else’s life.

There was magic inside the dried herbs— he saw the magia with his own eyes— but it was all dull. The colors were… not dark, but stagnant and weak. Mistress Prime'era called it conditioned magic. All magical fields of magic had some form of this, but herbology had more than most. The magic inside these specific herbs was carefully grown along with the herbs' growth cycle and then the herbs were processed to only work when they got activated through heat, transferred via smoke, and delivered into the bloodstream via the lungs. Lacking a single step or finding an unintended destination and the magic would do nothing at all but dissipate harmlessly.

Three lungfuls were the recommended minimum for activating the effect, while the daily maximum was a single pipeful. Any more and… well, strong nosebleeds and pounding headaches were the symptoms he was told to expect in the case of too much consumption, in that order.

At least it worked as advertised.

They rode north on and on, the hills unmarked by roads. As the sun started to dip behind the western mountains and the shadows on the land got long, Tercius pulled the reins and made Lucky stop in place. His narrowed eyes glared at something ahead of them. Steel Beaks. Three of them, right ahead.

“Why stop?” Leavara asked from behind him. “We so close. We go home as Apia shines and Sarnia’s… hands… bound.”

It took Tercius a moment to think about what she said and then he nodded slowly.

Apia was the old Sun Divinity and while he had no idea just who Sarnia was, he could make a few guesses from the context as either Moon, Darkness, Night, or something along those lines. In any case, Leavara was right. The night was nearly upon them and they had to finish the last leg of the journey while there was still light. Moving at night time was far from advisable. Things worse than packs of Steel Beaks roamed the lands under the cover of darkness.

And yet they couldn't risk going around this group, as they did with all others throughout the entire afternoon.

Tercius slowly explained that he had a feeling that there was something dangerous ahead of them. He had more than a feeling, actually, but she already thought he was a priest so he might as well have some mysterious senses.

“No fight. Just… run,”

“What?”

“We just… run. We… into forest. We safe,”

“But—”

“Ram… male… horns strong. Fast. We run.” Leavara said. “We run… into forest, we safe,”

Tercius frowned as he turned back and looked at Leavara around Murain’s bulky body. “And what’s stopping whatever’s out there from going after us into the forest?”

Leavara took a moment to think and then nodded. “The Verdant Grove, the forest, it… safe… it… protects us.”

Tercius frowned. “It protects you— oh.” Understanding dawned on him.

According to his Mentor, some of the spirits were born bound to objects or locations, to rock formations, rivers, or even forests. Where that happened, be it minerals, flora, water, or whatever it was that the spirit was born bound to, strange alterations always abounded. Rocks glowed like stars, trees started to grow in the forms of animals or humans, plants uprooted themselves and moved, and water flowed uphill.

Only specific types of bound spirits were born as a domain and unlike their unbound cousins they never formed an unaging body upon entering elderhood. From juvenile, through maturity, and finally to elder form, the bound spirits spent their entire life nourishing and even expanding their domain. As long as a piece of their domain stood in reasonably good conditions and they had at least a small source of energia to feed on, they would live on and on.

It was common, his Mentor told him, for humans to live under the protection of these beings in exchange for prayers sent its way.

Tercius considered Leavara’s proposal. Assuming he understood her right, and he would have to check that once more just to be sure, then she might have a point in suggesting they just make a run for it. For his part, Lucky proved himself as able to outrun the raptors, which were the fastest day predators.

Tercius swallowed. From here on out, no more {Magia Sight} was allowed.

“We run straight for the forest?”

“Yes, run,”

“And we will be safe there?”

“The forest protects.”

Tercius took a deep breath and patted Lucky on the back. “Lucky, this is it. A little bit more and you can finally rest and sleep.”

The ram’s head turned and one rectangular eye looked at Tercius through a curling horn, his ears flickering.

“Let’s go a bit west first, just to be safe,”

As Lucky ascended the hill, before their eyes opened an enormous piece of flat grassland, with very little cover in sight. In the far distance, on the other end of the field, the land started to rise again and he could see the forest.

Tercius glanced at one of the rare thickets of low bushes that dotted the flat grassland. Inside, three raptors were nested for the night. Should he go even more west first?

“Go, go,” Leavara urged frantically. “Apia is half gone,”

In Leavara's words, he heard his Mentor's warnings. Tercius let out a slow breath and pushed his heels into Lucky's sides. "Go, Lucky. Go. Gallop.”

Lucky obeyed and on thundering hooves they rushed past the boundary of safety without interruption, tangling themselves into low branches and hanging vines. Tercius immediately urged Lucky to stop.

After he untangled himself, he looked back and saw nothing. Nothing had come to intercept them, even though they were likely both heard and seen.

“Oh thank the Verdant Heart, we made it,” Leavara sighed. “We should go on legs,”

Tercius nodded and dismounted first, Leavara following after him. The unconscious Murain remained flung over the ram’s back like a sack of flour, still showing no signs of waking.

Tercius led Lucky by the reins and Leavara insisted on going first. The forested ground was full of sudden indentations and rocks, while the trees grew thicker as they went further up the slope. Thorny bushes grew in abundance everywhere and more than one had drawn blood from his legs. Tercius hissed as he had to free his left leg from the thorny vines. For all that he tried to avoid them, it was as if the plants moved to nick him at every chance they got.

“Offering. Forest pleased,” Leavara said in her thickly accented Common, pointing at the ground.

Tercius’ back straightened as he looked at the forest. An offering of blood? That was not ominous at all…

At some point, two men dropped from a tree, arrows pointed his way.

As Tercius’ free hand flashed to the knives on his thigh, Leavara stood in front of him and spread her arms wide.

“He’s with me,”

“You can’t bring a stranger into the village at night, Leawarra, you know the rules. And that beast behind him? Is that one of those mountain rams? Yea, neither he nor that beast are going further.”

Tercius caught a few words here and there, but he couldn’t make a proper sentence with what he had.

“He saved mine and Murrayn’s life, Killian. We owe him a debt and he only asked for somewhere to safely spend the night in return.”

The men spoke quietly to each other and then one of them ran deeper into the forest.

“We wait. He will be here soon enough and then he can decide.” the remaining bowman said, the arrow still drawn but lowered towards the ground.

Leavara turned back to him. “We need… wait,”

Tercius nodded as he eyed the bowman. Within a minute, three bowmen came and just stood there behind the first one. Darkness crept between the trees as the sun slowly went out.

Two bowmen lit torches and again they waited, Tercius’ nerves dancing on edge. Did he make a mistake by coming here? Did Leavara have the authority to bring him here?

Five torches came their way, finally revealing men with painted faces that carried spears and bows. Every single one had a long braided beard and the leading man had a wolf's pelt around his shoulders. He barked words at Leavara, while looking at Tercius and Lucky. At their narrow-eyed inspection, Tercius straightened and Lucky stamped his foot.

“— heera fa khana so ruk—”

“— pannia karatar fouss pa ro—” Leavara said.

Savior. Guest.

The wolf’s pelt man said something and the men around him laughed and shook their heads.

Tercius’ torchlit eyebrows twitched. He had to learn a little fluency of the local language as soon as possible or he would remain an observer.

Leavara hissed something back and the four men backed away, but the man with the wolf's pelt stood his ground. Leavara stood, just looking at him for a while, and then she snorted, turned around, and walked up to Tercius. "You… can not go in the village. They will not allow it. Strangers in the night… forbidden,"

Like a bucket of cold water, her words doused him. “Oh… I see…”

They were throwing him out? Fuck. A stone dropped in his stomach. He had messed up badly.

“But you and I— we stay here,” Leavara said. “Forest safe. Sleep on the ground, safe. Nothing attacks us here. Green Heart protect this forest,”

Tercius looked at the dark surroundings. A slow wind was drifting between the trees of the domain, while the canopy completely covered what he imagined as starry skies. Without the torches to provide light, only eternal darkness would remain.

Well, it was better than going back out.

“Just show me where I won’t bother anyone,” Tercius said. “And then go with your people. No need for you to stay with me.”

Leavara shook her head, braids of red hair snapping around like whips. “I owe for Murrayn, for me. If you stay, I stay.”

*** *** ***

It shamed Leawarra greatly to lie to a savior, but she had no other alternative. It was true that after nightfall no strangers were allowed entry, but she had met the young man in the light and she had seen his face and teeth then. She spoke to him and he spoke back, in a way.

By all rights, that would have been enough to grant him someone who had saved two lives of the tribe an entry fit for a guest even after nightfall.

But, savior or not and shaman or not, the young man was clearly an outlander.

Their people had fallen long ago to the usurpers that came from across the great water. She remembered the stories told to her when she was a girl of a few winters, that the lowlanders didn't even remember the Verdant Heart, the Stalking Cat of the Deserts, or the One with Many Wings, let alone give daily offerings and provide worship that the Great Ones deserve. The usurpers had brought their False Ones with them and forbidden even the names of the Great Ones from even being uttered. The people of the lowlands lived in fear and hunger, forced to obey their oppressors and worship the False Ones.

Despite her word of his deeds and testimony of his humanity, her tribesmen denied the shaman entry.

They took Murrayn and took off, reluctantly leaving her with the shaman. What did they think, that she would leave the young man to spend the night alone after all he did for her and Murrayn? Did they think their teasing words would work on her?

Outlander or not, Leawarra would keep her word to the shaman in any way she could.

A single mistake and a single surprise were enough for her to almost go and meet the Verdant Heart. Today she escaped, but when the day finally came, she would stand before the Great One and proudly say to Her and all the ancestors that she had done right by all who did right by her.

So Leawarra stayed with him and cleared the ground of larger rocks and fallen branches under the light of torches, even as she cast secret glances at the young shaman.

The young man was soothingly whispering something to his great beast as he unburdened the cargo from the ram’s back at the spot he cleared.

He… intrigued her.

He was proficient in so many fields despite his young age. The tribes of the Aerie spoke with their hunting birds, while the tribes of the cold and desolate Highlands were rumored to speak to their great shaggy cows and sheep, but she had no idea that the lowlanders also spoke to animals. While he used the spear and bow, as her tribe used, she also saw knives around his thighs like some of those Metalsmiths of the Deep were known to carry and use. He knew how to move and strike like a true hunter, as well. He healed Murrayn and kept him alive, as well or even better than the shaman of her tribe would.

“Leavara,” Tercius called out her name in that slightly strange way of his, but she didn’t correct him.

She almost replied in her own tongue and that made her pause for a moment. “Yes?”

He unfurled the finest of blankets she ever saw and placed them on the ground. “How would you introduce yourself to me in your tongue?”

It took Leawarra a while to understand what exactly he meant, but she provided him the answer when she did. It was hard, using a foreign tongue that was only used when some traders arrived, but her father had insisted that she learn it and so she did. Another question came her way, this one about how people of the tribes greeted others in their tribe and how to greet those from other tribes. Question after question followed as they worked and Leawarra answered all of them. He repeated her words to himself with an accuracy that surprised her and it always took him barely a try or two to get the sounds completely right.

As the questions and answers kept flowing between them, Leawarra left her clearing and joined him at his. She sat on the fine blankets he unfurled and leaned on the warm stomach of the sleeping ram and they just kept speaking with low voices. He was learning the tongue from her, it became obvious to her, but she did not mind. Everything they spoke of remained crystal clear in a way that she thought of as strange, but she forgot about that as questions of her own started filling more and more of the conversation.

What were the Lowlands like? What did the people there do to survive under the harsh masters that came from across the great water? What were these cities he spoke of? What were these boats, canals, and ships? They truly had so few forests down there? There were truly so many people down there?

At each answer he gave her, Leawarra grew either amazed and curious for more or horrified and worried for the future of her tribe. He seemed honest about everything he spoke, so she just kept asking.

One by one, the torches went out. Only when they were left in complete darkness did the awareness arrive of just how long they spoke to each other.

“I suppose we should get some sleep,” he said. “Do your people have some words they use to wish a person good dreams, or a good night’s sleep, or something like that?”

“May the Verdant Heart keep away the nightmares,”

“May the Verdant Heart keep away the nightmares,” he whispered the words to himself slowly a couple of times. “Nightmares? What does that mean?”

“Bad dreams that haunt you,”

“Ah. Nightmares. Well then, May the Verdant Heart keep away—”

Abruptly, he stopped speaking.

When he spoke again, she felt the strained peace of his whisper. “Leawarra. Something is moving up my legs.”