Chapter 03

The rain had all but stopped now, which Aela supposed was something at least. The ground would not be any less muddy, but at least her cloak would stay dry. She was grateful for the pair of magic stones and their warmth all the same, the light emanating from her dagger sheath proving no substitute for the sun’s warmth. Aela doubted Markus truly appreciated the gift he had given her.

While not truly coldblooded like natural reptiles, Aela suffered from intense lethargy when she couldn’t keep her core temperature high enough. Which often proved incredibly difficult to do, given her susceptibility to the cold. Aela had often been jealous of her mother, not least of all her insulating fur, a stark contrast to her own hairless hide. This deficiency, as most others in the clan had called it, was the primary cause for their travels southward.

No one outside of their family had more than a handful of words to say in Aela’s presence, and most of those were far from pleasant. It was her mother’s vain hope that clearing the dungeon and personally destroying its heart would change that. Aela doubted it would change much of anything really. While it was true that clearing the dungeon would earn her greater status in the clan, it ultimately wouldn't matter. Insults would still be spoken, only now it would be behind her back or dressed in pretty speech. She had known that before they had travelled south, her mother probably did too.

Aela shifted her grip on the bounty slung over her shoulder, the girl wasn’t heavy by any stretch of the imagination, barely more than a child really, but her weight distribution was uneven.

“A prosthetic leg,” Aela's mother had told her.

By the weight of it, the prosthetic likely replaced everything halfway up her thigh. A crippling injury for most, but apparently she had the means to account for it all the same. Two hundred and fifty golden crowns, an absurd amount of money to return her alive. Aela and her mother had captured many bounties since leaving the north, but none remotely as valuable as this.

Aela snuck a glance at Markus, her lips subconsciously parting in a smile. Realizing what was happening, Aela quickly looked away hoping he hadn’t noticed her staring again. He was strange for a southerner, most had mild olive complexions, while Markus was quite pale, even more so than the humans from the northern kingdoms. He was like most southerners in height, maybe a few inches shy of six feet tall. But had shaggy dark red hair and piercing intense silver-blue eyes. Like most southerners, he was clean-shaven, with only the beginnings of the next day’s stubble shading his jaw. This was perhaps most favourable, as it suited his strong features quite well.

Aela was startled from her musings as her mother laid out the drag-sled she just finished lashing together. It was little more than a reinforced A-frame made from branches and cordage, now with a blanket laid out on it, but it would make travelling with the bounty far easier and safer than carrying her over their shoulders.

Laying the girl out on the blanket, Aela wrapped her up in it, then loosely bound around her legs and chest to stop her from rolling or slipping while they travelled. She found it curious that the girl was still unconscious, while Markus had passed out and regained consciousness in a few minutes.

"Mana exhaustion," her mother had called it.

It was a strange sickness, as she seemed perfectly healthy besides the prosthetic leg.

“Ready to go?” Markus asked.

Svala moved away from the drag-sled and towards Markus, “You don't have to walk-”

“I’m fine,” Markus interrupted, the strain in his voice betraying his discomfort, “I’m fine,” Markus repeated, no more convincing than the first time.

Aela found Markus quite fascinating. He was incredibly different from most southerners she had met. Markus was far kinder than most by far, treating them like people, a behaviour which had proven depressingly rare in and of itself. She knew that their presence made him nervous, but what made him special was that his nervousness was as far as it went.

They had been threatened with violence on countless occasions since leaving the clan-home, it was one of the things the northerners and southerners had in common, their hatred of her kind. The thought depressed Aela considerably more as it coaxed vague memories from her childhood. The human’s animosity to chimaeras was mirrored somewhat by her clan’s treatment of Aela herself as well, they held no great love for her either. Aela was different, as different from her clanmates as she was to the humans.

But despite their differences, Markus had called Aela beautiful. She smiled, perhaps her mother's scheme for clearing a dungeon wasn’t such a wasted effort after all.

Svala slowed her pace, ears now twitching in excitement or agitation, Aela wasn’t sure.

Flickering her tongue through the air, Aela scented blood. Repeating the process to determine the direction, she was not surprised that the closest source came from Markus. However, there were also others further ahead.

The blood was not fresh, but Aela also did not recall identifying them as they had taken this path earlier. Troubled, she scented the air again. The blood wasn’t human, maybe cervine or equine? Strange, Aela found no scent of deer or horses in their vicinity, only...Aela cursed herself for being so careless, She had allowed her over-familiarity with her mother’s scent to blind her.

“Wolves!” Svala barked as she moved quickly to prop the drag sled against a large tree.

Aela pushed forward in quick order, taking hold of Markus's uninjured arm and all but dragging him along with her.

Svala had now drawn and lit a pair of torches from her pack. Lashing both torches to the side of the drag sled, she drew and lit a third. “Hurry! They will soon be upon us!” Svala all but snarled the words, sensing the immediacy of the threat, Aela held no hard feelings for the harshness of her mother’s tone.

“I smell at least ten,” Aela hissed, as she all but shoved Markus into position by the drag sled, “The blood makes it hard to tell.”

Svala forced the torch’s handle into Markus’s right hand, “Hold this,'' she said, her expression and tone making it clear this was not a suggestion. Svala then turned to face Aela as she drew a pair of throwing axes, “Fourteen, most likely more,” her ears were still raised and twitching in response to sounds only she could hear.

Aela knew her mother and understood something was bothering her. “What is it?” She asked, also knowing that her mother was as likely as not to tell her anything if she felt Aela didn’t need to know.

“Wolves?” Markus asked, taking a moment to grimace as he considered his bandaged arm. “How many?” His tone of voice seemed to contradict his grave expression, as he sounded almost hopefully optimistic.

Aela searched for the right words, but was preoccupied and had to settle with what she approximated as more or less correct, “Dozen-or-more,” Aela was not surprised to see Markus take a half step back in shock. He most likely had little experience with the wilderness, most southern nobles didn’t. She wanted to reassure him but again struggled to find the right words. Inwardly Aela cursed herself for not taking her mother’s language lessons more seriously.

Markus sighed and took a deep breath, his expression surprisingly calm and not nearly so grim as it had been a few moments before. “We can do this,” he said matter of factly.

Markus’s confidence and absolute certainty momentarily gave Aela pause. Stripped down to his travelling clothes, left arm out of commission, with cracked and bruised ribs besides, none of that seemed to matter.

A none too distant howl broke Aela’s reverie.

“They are coming!” Svala snarled, arching her back and letting loose a blood-curdling howl of her own.

The approaching wolves seemed confused, a now scattered series of howl's echoing from the shadows. A long piercing howl from the west quieted the pack, its wake accented by the sound of many padded feet charging across the muddied ground and the slavering of beasts hungry for the kill.

“This is wrong,” Svala sounded uneasy.

They were now surrounded, the wolf pack howling ever more frequently as they closed in for the kill.

“Four approaching your flank!” Svala called out, a pitiable yelp accompanying the statement as she caught a wolf by the scruff of its neck and with a single swift jerking motion, broke its spine and cast it into the path of its fellows.

Four wolves tore into the light, streaking across the open ground with alarming ease, teeth bared and tongues lolling in the sides of their mouths in anticipation of the kill.

Aela bared her teeth, thick rivulets of saliva stringing down her chin in response to her barely contained excitement. Sweeping her pollaxe down and to the right, Aela caught one wolf with a glancing blow from the top spike, tearing a ragged gash across the wolf’s right foreleg and knocking it off its feet. The momentum of the blow catching the second wolf with its axehead, burying deep in the wolf’s ribs and sending the creature tumbling to the ground as Aela pivoted and reversed her momentum, Aela’s tail sweeping the ground and catching the third wolf just as it was about to leap. She brought the hammerhead down hard on its head as it desperately scrambled to its feet, its skull erupting under the blow like an overripe gourd. Yanking her weapon free, Aela turned her attention to the remaining pair, only to find one was missing and the other desperately limping away.

"Back!" Markus's sudden cry came from behind.

Aela turned just in time to see Markus club a wolf with his torch, the blow was poorly placed and had done little more than momentarily startle the beast as the flames singed its fur. Even so, the wolf backed away from Markus to ready itself for its next lunge, teeth bared and snarling.

Aela brought the spike of the pollaxe down hard, driving through its back and lifting the pitiable creature up into the air. It had only had time to yelp in surprise and pain as Aela then turned and hurled it off and away, tearing a ragged hole in its back and side as it slid free and landed a dozen feet away.

The wolf staggered to its feet but collapsed shortly after, its lifeblood hemorrhaging across the ground from the open wound. Similarly, the other injured wolf had collapsed, spasming, and whimpering in the grips of a seizure as bloody foam frothed from its mouth.

Aela turned back again, the savage howls and snarls from the other side of the tree had made it clear her mother was in a vicious melee of her own. Aela would not leave her position unless Svala called for her, but the sounds made her nervous all the same. The tree was large and obstructed all but the peripherals of the fight, as wolves were driven back or tossed bodily away.

The air was so thick with the scent of death that Aela almost hadn’t noticed it. Human blood, on impulse she had first turned to Markus, but his wounds appeared to still be bound fast. Instinct compelled Aela to turn westward, her legs already moving as she caught the slightest trace of movement from the corner of her eye.

A wolf as large as a horse and black as midnight was charging across the open ground, jaws open wide and bloodied teeth gleaming crimson in the half-light.

Pollaxe at the ready, Aela charged two dozen feet to intercept it, stopping only at the last moment to brace for the impact as she thrust the pollaxe forward.

The dire wolf arrested its charge and instead leapt to her right, then lunged at Aela from her flank.

It had moved too fast for Aela to bring her pollaxe about, so instead, she changed her grip and readied its rear spike instead.

Not quite ready to drive the point home, Aela felt the rear spike driven to the side as it made a shallow cut into the dire wolf’s cheek and was driven away before it could find purchase in the bone.

The dire wolf’s jaws snapped shut around Aela’s midsection, pain erupting from her lower chest and abdomen as it began shaking her violently. Unable to keep her grip, Aela felt her pollaxe fly from her fingers.

“AELA!” Markus cried.

The dire wolf stopped shaking her, its jaws still holding Aela fast like a vice as it turned to the source of the noise. A guttural low growl rumbled from its throat and over Aela as it sized up the new threat.

It was Markus, the torch now hanging limply in his left hand and a battered canteen in his right. The way he was just standing there, completely open and vulnerable, was an unmistakable provocation for any predator.

Down but not out, Aela struggled to free herself from the wolf’s jaws, but its grip only tightened in response, causing fresh waves of pain that stole the strength from her limbs.

" What are you waiting for?!" Markus roared, his eyes locked with the wolf’s and he bared his teeth.

Another deep rumbling growl came from the wolf, shifting into a snarl as Aela’s unresisting body slipped free of its teeth.

Aela knew she had only precious moments to act before the wolf would charge. Ignoring the pain and rolling onto her side, she desperately searched for her pollaxe, but could find no sign of it. Aela tried to call out, but could not find the words, a formless shriek passing her lips in its stead.

Markus took a long draw from the canteen, its contents spilling down his front and staining it amber-brown.

Aela did not blame Markus for finding courage in drink. In his current condition there was nothing Markus could do, so the best course of action would be to dull the pain of the inevitable. Still, a part of Aela felt cheated. Seeing Markus's confidence and courage diminished to little more than the bravado of the common tavern lush. She had thought more of him, and the hollowness of the reality pained Aela more than she could bear.

The dire wolf howled, bounding across the distance between itself and Markus in a matter of heartbeats, its slavering jaws open wide for its second victim.

Aela was struggling to her feet, hands reaching for Markus in a desperate and hopeless attempt at drawing him from the wolf’s path. He may not be all that she had selfishly hoped he had been, but she still felt the weight of his loss would be more than she could take.

The dire wolf yelped in pain and surprise.

Markus had dodged to the side, now barely holding his footing as he struggled to breathe. Coughing violently and swaying on the spot, it was clear Markus wouldn't stay standing for long.

The dire wolf thrashed and backed away from him, pawing desperately at its eyes and whining angrily.

Markus locked eyes with Aela, dropped the canteen and awkwardly drew his sword with his right hand.

The liquor had not made Markus courageous so much as it was making him downright suicidal. Somehow he had driven the wolf back, and rather than drawing back and being thankful for his good fortune, Markus was going to push his luck still further.

Markus took a few steps forward, drawing the blade down and to his left side for a wide cutting arc as he did so, pivoting and turning to his right, leaving his left side woefully overexposed. Markus had admitted he did not know how to fight and this was perhaps the most indemnifying proof of it Aela had seen so far. Continuing another step forward, he swung, missing the dire wolf by more than a couple of feet as the dire wolf continued its retreat. To make matters worse, Markus had lost his grip on the hilt, sending the sword sailing over the wolf and landing a couple of feet short of Aela.

"Take it!" Markus cursed, now hidden from view on the other side of the wolf.

Not willing to let the opportunity slide, Aela swept forward, snatching the sword from the ground and closing on the dire wolf’s flank, readying to strike.

The dire wolf snarled and rounded on Aela, its eyes now bloodshot and jaundiced, clearly struggling to focus. All the same, its slavering fangs were bared and ready to tear her apart at the first opportunity.

Aela only spared herself a moment to think about what Markus had done to the dire wolf’s eyes. She drew the sword into a resting guard, her viscous saliva dripping down her chin and running down the length of the blade as Aela waited for the wolf to act. It would only be a matter of time before Svala was finished dealing with the other members of its pack and could assist her.

Markus staggered into view again, slowly backing away and towards the tree, one of his carving knives now clutched tight in his right hand, Markus’s left arm still hanging limply at his side, the torch guttering as it dragged in the mud. Their eyes met again, this time Markus smiled, his teeth stained yellow-brown, “It's yours now.”

He hadn’t missed at all, Markus had intended to give her a weapon from the start. Aela couldn’t help but smile in return. “He believes in me!” She thought excitedly, nearly overwhelmed by his supreme confidence in her abilities. Markus thought so highly of her that he hadn’t even second-guessed leaving himself essentially unarmed. Aela was breathing hard now, cheeks flushed and tongue lolling hungrily between her teeth. Aela could feel her heartbeat thundering inside her chest like a war drum.

“Aela, hold it off, we will take it down together!” Her mother’s voice sounded so distant, Aela had barely heard it.

Aela’s gaze drifted from the wolf to Markus. He was resting hard against the tree, his eyes fixated not on the wolf, but on Aela. Markus was watching her, waiting to see what Aela would do. The mounting weight of his expectations became more than she could bear. Aela gripped Markus's sword with both hands now, the hilt shaking in her grasp as she tried and failed to suppress her mounting adrenaline.

Markus’s expression had changed to one of unmistakable awe, mouth agape and unable to look away from Aela, captivated by her.

It was more than she could take. Aela screamed, charging the dire wolf with the sword held high above her head.

The dire wolf turned just in time for Aela’s overhead slash to shear through its brow, right eye socket, and down through its jaw. Before it had managed little more than to yelp in pain, Aela had brought the point of her sword back and was thrusting it forward and plunging it deep into the shoulder of the wolf’s right foreleg. The dire wolf stumbled away, nearly slipping on the mud as it tried to place its weight on its right foreleg only for it to buckle.

Aela surged after it, a dazzling dervish of flashing steel and manic laughter. She had never felt this way before, so accepted, so free. Aela could feel the wolf’s blood splashing against her face and into her mouth, far from disgusted, Aela revelled in it.

The dire wolf had no choice but to surrender ground before Aela’s onslaught. However, it was unable to turn and was so hard-pressed it could not break away to flee. Its hide proved little obstacle to Aela’s savage strikes and the impossibly keen edge of Markus’s blade, blood welling from its wounds and running freely down its flanks.

Aela was only vaguely aware she was laughing, revelling in the slaughter. The dire wolf’s movements were growing stiff, its breathing laboured and ragged as the foam began frothing at the corners of its mouth. Aela smiled wider, her teeth aching to tear into its exposed flesh.

“ENOUGH!” Svala roared.

Aela spun about just in time to catch her mother’s right hook square in the face, tumbling backward from the force of the blow.

Svala gave her no time to recover, straddling Aela and pinning her arms back, but still warily keeping her distance from Aela’s mouth.

Infuriated, Aela strained against her mother's grip. Didn't she know Markus was watching her?! Knowing her mother's ankles were poorly suited to maintaining the grapple, Aela redoubled her efforts, throwing her entire weight one way then another, bucking and writhing, lunging at her mother with her teeth. A fresh wave of adrenaline washed over Aela, “He's Mine!” Aela spat, throwing her mother to the side and scrambling to her feet.

Just as Aela had stood up, her legs were yanked from beneath her, sending her crashing to the ground again, driving the air from her lungs.

Svala was on top of her, gripping Aela’s neck hard in a chokehold, her rigid bicep pressing painfully into Aela’s windpipe.

Aela began bucking and writhing, gnashing at her mother like a wounded animal, “Get off me! Let me go! I’ll-” she gasped. Despite Aela’s predicament, the way Markus was looking at her made her shiver with excitement. Aela writhed and squirmed, desperately trying to free herself, only to find her strength waning with each passing moment and each breath becoming more difficult to draw than the last.

Svala drove her knee into Aela’s back and tightened her chokehold. “Easy now, calm yourself daughter,” she cooed placatingly as if Aela were nothing more than a child having a tantrum.

“Mine,” Aela groaned, unable to take her eyes off Markus. Blood rushing in her ears and barely able to breathe, she stopped clawing at her mother's arm and instead reached for Markus, “M-i-n-e” Aela gasped, her fingers trembling as she fell limp in her mother's arms. “Mine-” Aela thought groggily, “-all mine.”

Aela groaned pitiably as she rubbed at her head. She had awoken with a pounding headache and her eyes felt like someone had wrenched them from their sockets and crushed them like eggs.

“-With that in mind, I hope you can forget-” Her mother was speaking in the southern tongue too quickly for Aela to follow, not that she cared to try with the smith hammering at the anvil in her skull.

"It's okay, it was just bloody and terrifying, that's all," Markus replied, sighing audibly before continuing, “The way Aela looked at me, I thought she was going to eat me alive,” he chuckled nervously.

Hearing her name mentioned, Aela perked up, driving the pain back and desperately trying to recall the imperial speech lessons mother had tried teaching her. “Aela m'a regardé,” Aela sounded the words in her head, mulling them over “Aela-looked-at-me,” she shivered. “je pensais qu'elle allait me manger vivante,” Aela drew a blank, mulling over the words over and over, the only words she recognised were “I, was, alive.” What did he mean by that? Aela would be the first to admit that her language skills left much to be desired, but one of the things she had learned early was how southerners tended to use ten words where one would be plenty. “Had he felt it too?” The thought filled Aela with so much nervous energy she could no longer stay still. Forcing her eyes open, she staggered to her feet.

Markus was sitting by the drag sled occupied by their bounty and was startled by Aela’s sudden movement. She was relieved to find that while he looked tired, Markus otherwise appeared to be none the worse for their stand against the wolf pack.

“Feeling better?” Markus asked nervously.

Aela smiled, equally nervous, and touched by his concern she found herself struggling to form a coherent sentence. “Yes,” Aela replied simply, frustrated that she could not articulate her thoughts.

“How is your head daughter?” Her mother's voice called from nearby.

Aela cringed, turning away from Markus, her expression darkening as she walked in the direction of her mother's voice, “Like a troll bloody stomped on it!” She snarled.

Rounding the tree, Aela found Svala roaming her side of the battlefield, removing wolf heads from their flayed corpses and threading them together with a hemp cord and wooden spike. She spared Aela only a single meaningful look before returning to her work. “So,” her mother said, ramming the spike into another decapitated wolf's ear and through the opposite side, “Are you going to apologize?”

Aela clenched her jaw and hissed between her teeth. Her mother had some nerve expecting an apology after what she did. “After what you did to me?!” Aela growled, fingers twitching as she tried to restrain herself.

“Yes,” Svala replied matter of factly, feeding the cord through and readying the next. She sighed, “I am quite certain I warned you about this. Multiple times,” Svala glanced at Aela from the corner of her eye, “And I also warned you about what I would do if you lost control.” Her expression softened before she returned to her work.

She was right, just like always, and that is what Aela found most infuriating. It affects everyone differently in intensity, but the side effects were as predictable as the desired effect and arguably a direct result of it. Monsters of the dungeon are infertile by nature, spawned by the will of the dungeon's heart and incapable of independent reproduction.

The first chimaera was created by fusing dungeon monsters and humans, and as such rendered just as infertile, or so their masters had thought. The key to their survival as a species lay within the dungeons themselves, the dungeon hearts. In its death throes, the dungeon's energy would become directionless and vulnerable, rapidly destabilizing and dissipating.

That is unless a chimaera were to take that energy into themselves, binding and anchoring it to their essence. Only the dungeon hearts possess the power to create life, only in harnessing that power could the chimaeras do the same. Devouring the dungeon heart had been explained to her as being similar to a second onset of puberty, as a tide of hormones reshaped them, often resulting in violent, obsessive or possessive behaviours before normalizing again. All chimaera children were taught this, for without the knowledge their people would cease to exist.

Those chimaeras capable of producing offspring were inherently the most valuable members of their clan, afforded substantial respect and preferential treatment. Aela had not doubted for a moment that this was her mother's motivation for undertaking this journey, perhaps even hoping that Aela might secure a lifemate. An otherwise practical and down to earth woman, this was perhaps Svala’s most indulgent self-delusion. Being reshaped by the dungeon heart may improve Aela’s standing in the clan, but it would change precious little in how Aela’s peers thought of her.

The original plan had been to bribe an adventurer into allowing them to accompany their party into a dungeon. It had taken years of hard living and dangerous bounty work just to raise the funds for such a bribe, and Svala had still conservatively estimated another two or three years of work before even the adventurers of lowest means would be tempted. Their great families and enterprises meant nearly all adventurers wanted little for wealth in any scale Aela and Svala could manage to gather in under a decade.

However, Markus had been different and that now pained Aela’s conscience to dwell on. He had not held any notable prejudices or overt hostility towards chimaeras as other humans did, only perhaps intimidated by her overbearing mother, something many chimaeras from her clan had in common with him.

Their deception had seemed a necessary evil at the time, manipulating the illiterate outlaw into conflict with the lone adventurer to generate goodwill and leverage that favour into the legal entry of a dungeon. Aela withdrew one of the stones from her shirt, it was slowly but noticeably losing its warmth. She now firmly believed the deception would not have been necessary. Markus had proven himself to be both generous and trusting, far more than they had expected, infinitely more than they deserved.

“He probably would have just taken us if we had asked,” Aela thought wryly, ashamed of her part in manipulating him. Even without the full explanation of why it was so important, Markus would have just taken them anyway, she felt sure of it.

“I explained things to him,” Svala said bluntly, “Not everything, but enough.” She turned and faced Aela, “He was a little shaken by events, but seems alright now,” Svala paused, her expression contemplative, something clearly on her mind. “It’s strange,” she glanced in Markus’s direction, “He tried driving me away from you, must have thought I was the one who had gone mad.”

Aela blinked, mouth agape in surprise, “What?” That was all she managed to choke out.

Svala scratched her right ear absently, “Came at me, brandishing that little toothpick and told me to back off,” she mimicked the gesture with her right hand, jabbing towards Aela’s face. “Never seen someone so absolutely terrified yet so determined.” Svala snorted in amusement, “I nearly broke his other wrist swatting the thing away,” Svala smiled faintly as she continued, “Even then, he still didn't back off.”

“You are joking?!” Aela blurted, incredulous at the thought of it. there were perhaps a handful of warriors in the clan foolhardy enough to challenge her mother, and of their number maybe six had a genuine chance at backing their bravado with action.

Svala smiled, “He did, truly. Bared my fangs and everything, still wouldn't back down.” Brushing a stray lock of hair from her eyes with one bloodied hand, she quietly laughed, “The first man in a decade who stared me down, and he is a human.”

Aela could only stand there in open-mouthed amazement at the revelation.

Svala stopped laughing, her expression making it clear something was still bothering her. A minute or so had passed by before she spoke again, her tone uncertain and apprehensive, “I think he knows we set him up.”.

All at once the lighthearted atmosphere was gone, replaced with one of ominous foreboding. “You can't know that,'' Aela said, almost defensively, “Did he say anything?”.

Svala shook her head, “No,” she admitted, “But he knows more than he is letting on.” She pursed her lips, clearly annoyed, “You can see it in his eyes.“.

“His eyes,” Aela thought dreamily. Markus’s intense blue iris’s taking shape in her mind. They were captivating, like swirling rings of silver veined sapphire.

Svala nodded again before getting back to work, “He knows something,” her tone making it clear they were done talking, for now at least.

They had made a second drag-sled in the end, as it was necessary for carrying both the wolf heads for proof of bounty, their flayed hides and some of the meat for sale at the market.

Markus was half sitting and half lying down on the first drag-sled as Svala pulled it along. Aela did not mind dragging the second sled, so much as she felt left out.

The young woman, their bounty, Zoe, had finally awoken and though too weak to walk, she apparently had more than enough energy to talk, and for the past half hour, she and Markus had been doing just that.

Markus had thankfully been little more than polite, so far as Aela could tell by his body language and tone of voice, but it still annoyed her that Zoe could so easily monopolize his attention.

“Erm, Aela is it? I am Zoe Chavare,” Zoe, their bounty, waved shyly as she spoke.

Aela blinked, more than a little surprised that their bounty was addressing her in a passable if somewhat stilted northern dialect. Aela nodded in reply, as much to acknowledge that she had heard her as it was to answer the question.

Zoe gave Aela a timid smile, “Markus tells me you and your mother are responsible for my rescue.” She propped herself up and held her right hand over her heart briefly before continuing “You have my deepest thanks, truly.”

Aela scowled and looked pointedly away, “It is for the bounty,” she said, knowing full well that the young noblewoman’s ‘thanks’ would be forgotten soon enough. Very likely the moment she was no longer at their mercy.

The silence had lingered a few minutes before Zoe tried engaging Aela in conversation again. “He is very impressed by you,” She bit her lip as if unsure if she should continue or perhaps waiting to see if Aela would take the bait.

Aela remained silent, but her scowl melted away as her words repealed themselves in her mind.

Markus was watching the exchange with minimal interest, clearly unable to follow what was being said, but perhaps patiently waiting for someone to address him directly. But for now, Markus seemed content to just watch the trees as they passed them by, his eyes somewhat unfocused as he quietly hummed a melody Aela was not familiar with.

“He said you slew more than a score of those,” Zoe paused briefly, sounding out the next word, “Draugr,” her somewhat cheery disposition slipped for a moment and Aela saw her fear and anguish. For just a moment Zoe had been somewhere else, likely reliving events from earlier that evening. ”How did you do it?” The question was innocent enough, but Aela could see the desperation in Zoe’s eyes, it was important to her.

“Remove the head, crush the skull, destroy the brain cavity,” Aela said matter of factly, repeating her mother's instructions verbatim, “Draugr will just keep fighting otherwise.”

“Thank you,” Zoe said, again touching her hand to her heart.

Although she was otherwise composed, Aela had the impression Zoe was actually on the verge of tears. She had likely been friends with one or more of her companions and had almost certainly borne witness as at least one had been brought low by either the draugr or the spider.

“It’s not your fault,” Svala said without slowing or even turning to face them, “Knowing what you are fighting is crucial in battle, what it is capable of and how best to kill it.” She paused briefly before continuing, “You had no way of knowing what would happen, draugr are exceptionally rare and most likely the dungeon had initiated its aberration status after you had entered and had no means of retreat.”

“All the same,” Zoe’s voice trembled slightly, no doubt fighting to control her emotions, “Thank you for avenging my companions.”

“Companions,” Aela thought ruefully, not even her friends, just her companions. Aela’s opinion of their bounty would struggle to lower farther than it now found itself. “The draugr was nothing,” she said cooly, “Besides the largest amongst them was destroyed by my mother,” Aela paused for dramatic effect, “And he-” She looked pointedly at Markus, “-slew the spider, twice over,”

Zoe’s eyes went wide and mouth agape with surprise. Despite specifically fishing for that response, Aela still felt a little angry with her all the same. While it was true that Markus did not look like much, particularly at the moment, it was clear that he was far stronger and resilient than he looked. Markus also had proven to be planning at least two or three steps ahead at any given moment, knowing what his enemy was going to do before they did. Markus’s unassuming appearance was clearly to his benefit, as his opponents underestimated him and Markus made them pay dearly for it.

Zoe grabbed Markus hard by his right arm, “Is what she said really true? Did you kill the spider? ” Her words spilling over her lips so fast Aela could barely separate words, let alone recognize them.

The moment she touched him, Markus jerked away so violently he nearly threw himself off the sled.

It had happened so quickly Aela had almost missed it, Markus’s face contorting in pure abject terror, recoiling from Zoe as if bitten by a snake. Even now, his gaze was firmly locked on her hands.

Zoe had not seemed to have noticed Markus's reaction, or perhaps had misinterpreted it, her cheeks flushing slightly.

“Yeah, I guess I did,” Markus spoke slowly and deliberately, perhaps so Aela could understand him, or maybe because he was preoccupied keeping his emotions in check.

“It was huge, how did you deal with it ?! Henrik couldn't even deal a hard blow, let alone kill it and he was a level five warrior!” Zoe was equal parts awed and incredulous, her speech somehow becoming more fast paced than Aela had thought possible.

Markus looked decidedly uncomfortable, now noticeably trying to free his arm from Zoe’s grip, but she wasn’t letting him go. “Luck-” He replied simply, then looked pointedly at Aela, “-and I had help.”

Aela’s mother, ever one for stirring the pot, chimed in before Zoe had the chance to ask another question. “He's too modest. In both battles, it was he who dealt the fatal blow. We only frustrated the creature with flesh wounds.”

Aela had the distinct impression her mother had purposely spoken just fast enough to stop her from understanding what was said. Aela scowled, glaring at her mother's back.

Seeing that Markus was less than forthcoming with details, Zoe alternated her attention between Svala and Aela as she directed her questions at them instead. “How did he kill it? He said he was an Artificer, is he a skilled fighter as well? Is he much stronger than he looks?”

Now that her mother chose to remain silent, Aela made a mental note to do something untoward to her next meal. “He burned its brain from the inside out,” Aela said, taking a moment to mirror a seizure to illustrate her point, “The second time, he crushed its head.”

Zoe went quiet again, not attempting to hide her surprise, just silently staring at Markus in open-mouthed amazement.

Markus had shifted as far away from her as the sled would allow and looked like he was seriously contemplating amputating his arm, Zoe’s grip forcing him to lean toward her at an uncomfortable angle.

“He fights very well,” Svala added, now choosing to rejoin the conversation, “Terrible with a weapon and woefully lacking in strength and endurance, but he fights to win and the results speak for themselves.”

Aela had to agree with her mother's assessment, it was more or less her thoughts as well regarding Markus abilities. His weapon skills were non-existent and Aela would not be at all surprised if he had never been trained with it to begin with. Likewise, his physical conditioning was pathetic, which of course only served to make his martial ability suffer all the more. Even so, Markus’s persistence and determination were of a calibre Aela could not help but admire.

“Burned its brain? Crushed its head?” Zoe blinked and shook her head, “I don’t understand”.

Aela smirked, enjoying the southern noble’s confusion. “He threw a heat-stone into its head, stood back and watched it die from a distance,” Aela said haughtily, indulging in a wicked grin hidden behind her scarf.

“Heat-stone?” Zoe repeated the words, confused, pulling the one Markus had provided for her from under the blanket. “This is too weak to burn something of that size,” she looked incredulously at Aela waiting for her to explain herself.

Aela let Zoe stew in her ignorance for a short while before responding. “He altered it, I saw him, the spider was nearly on top of him as he threw it,” she grinned wider, recalling the frantic handful of seconds that had determined life or death just earlier that evening, “The stone burned so hot it shattered, I saw the pieces after.”

Zoe rounded on Markus, Taking a firm grip on his arm again as she demanded answers, “How did you do that ?!”

Markus looked pointedly away from Zoe, his expression making it clear he was beyond done with the conversation and with her.

"Please! Tell me!" Zoe demanded, pulling harder on Markus's arm trying to force his participation.

“I made it hotter,” Markus hissed matter of factly, yanking his arm away. “Svala slow down for a moment please.”

Svala slowed her pace and Markus stepped off the sled and began walking.

“Wait,” Zoe pleaded, “I’m sorry!”, she motioned for him to take a seat beside her again.

Markus was having none of it, instead, slowing his pace until Aela had caught him up and Svala had dragged Zoe away. This close to him, Aela could hear the wheezing and catch in his throat with each step he took. “Aela?” Markus asked quietly.

Aela turned her head, making it clear he had her full attention, thankful that her scarf was drawn high over her nose and mouth so he couldn't see her wide smile.

“Your heat-stones are probably starting to grow cold right?” Markus seemed genuinely concerned.

Aela nodded but didn’t trust herself to say anything.

Markus stopped and coughed into the crook of his arm, and seemed quite surprised when Aela stopped alongside him. Most likely not wanting to be left entirely alone, he gave her a small smile in gratitude. ”Would you like me to recharge them for you?”

Aela nodded again, fishing the stones from her pockets and holding them out for Markus.

Rather than taking them from her, Markus just stared at them for a few moments, the whites of his eyes turning iron-grey then black as the night sky. The contrast of the sapphire and silver against the darkness was one of the most beautiful things Aela had ever seen. She nearly cried out in anguish as he released a deep breath and the darkness receded from his eyes.

Markus coughed again, rougher and longer than the first time. “Sorry,” he apologized once he had regained his breath. “The cold air isn't helping.”

Aela deftly stowed the recharged heat-stones in the shirt beneath her gambeson. inspired, Aela drew the scarf from around her neck and offered it to Markus, “Take.” A cold face was a small price to pay for expressing her gratitude, particularly since Markus's gift was keeping her so warm already.

Markus raised his hand in protest, “No, I couldn't.”

“Take,” Aela said more forcefully, draping the scarf over his shoulder, making it clear it wasn't up for discussion.

Markus sighed, barely fending off another cough. “Okay,” he grudgingly conceded, “I'll give this back to you later.”

Aela grinned but said nothing as Markus pulled his hood down and wrapped her scarf around his neck, taking a few moments to rearrange it so the plethora of fresh bloodstains wasn’t so close to his mouth. Markus then began slowly walking to catch up to Svala.

“Wait,” Aela blurted out without thinking.

Markus stopped, with half his face now hidden by her scarf, she could only see his eyes and was finding great difficulty in forming coherent thoughts let alone constructive sentences.

Aela gestured to her sled, but couldn't find the right words, “I can carry you,” she motioned to herself and the sled a few times, then to Markus, growing more flustered by the moment.

Markus's eyes creased at the edges as he spoke, “You are sure?”

“Yes,” Aela said, nodding her head vigorously.

Markus looked over his shoulder at Svala and her sled, now already a good way away despite their slowed pace, his brow momentarily furrowed in annoyance before facing Aela again, “Okay,” Markus agreed, bowing slightly and pressing his hand to his chest as he passed her. Markus took a minute to get settled, rearranging some of the wolf furs so he could make room for himself without fear of toppling over the side. “I’m-” Markus began to say, half turning around unexpectedly meeting eyes with Aela who had just done the same, “-ready,” he mumbled, now embarrassed and quickly turned around again.

Aela beamed as she faced forward and lifted the sled, barely able to suppress her excitement as she set out again, Aela’s smile close to reaching from one ear to the other, her tongue darting excitedly between her teeth.