Eli, Ormoc, and Liassus (I)

They woke up to a morning hotter and more humid than any of them had thought. While Eli got up well-rested, Ormoc and Liassus were already standing at attention, cross-armed, speaking in hushed tones about something. She'd dart her eyes in his direction, but he didn't find it suspicious. In fact, it felt more like a mother keeping eyes on her child, or an owner keeping eyes on her dog.

When he arose, he felt his body undergo a strange twitch as if something was crawling under his skin, yet there wasn’t any pain. It felt uncomfortable, a sourceless shock that kept him itching. “Where-”

“Get dressed,” Ormoc threw a coat at him. He looked down the pathless trees and pointed. “We’re going to a town at the foot of Ilma, so I need you to blend in with the rest of the folk when we go down the trail.”

Eli looked at the dark sea of trees, that while their tops were already crowned in gold and vermillion at the morning sun, still cast deep shadows at their bases. “Where are we going? Ilma?”

Liassus was wrapping the handle of her sword with strips of worn canvas. “We need you trained and ready. I need your help, but right now, you’re not the most trustworthy asset. Ilma’s the right place for it."

"What's at Ilma? How am I gonna be trained?"

"I know the head watchmen there. He’ll get you ready while I figure out what we’re going to do.” She briefly hesitated but then reached into her pack and, after some rummaging, pulled out a clearly unused short sword, tar-black and sigil removed. Handle first, she pointed it at him, a coy smile on her face, a strand of her brilliant hair falling down her shoulders. "My liege, your blade."

Caught off guard, he smiled. It was heavier than he thought.

Yet before she completely let go, “Do you know how to use it?” He shook his head, his hair peeking out from a somewhat oversized coat. She let go. “That’s not a problem.”

Ormoc had already gone on ahead, though he was hardly far. The two of them could see him sauntering down the rocky slopes of the mountain, swaying left and right as his gloves grabbed the outcrops, small silver buttons around his wrist making tinny little clinks as they banged up against the rocks. It was almost rhythmic and melodic, like a child's song.

“Let’s go!” He stopped mid-slide, gripping nothing and showing off.

Liassus was much lighter on her feet. She navigated the rocks with grace and silence. Even when the pebbles and silt shifted like water, there was nothing to hear. Light and airy, bouncing, weaving. Steps long, feet fast.

Eli was not as fortunate. He often fell, rolling down in his awkward and stiff hide coat. Sometimes Liassus would use her vice-like grip and pull him back. It shocked him, really, to see how she could do it so quickly, like an experienced rancher rustling her cattle.

“Pace yourself.” That was the only thing she said before continuing to keep her own with Ormoc.

Eli fell a few more times. Her visible annoyance surrendered to a bemused grin. Ormoc never surrendered his.

Aessur, Tal, and Ira (I)

Aessur was waiting in a small makeshift hovel under the roots of a tree of Ilma. They were all like this: vast and old, mushrooming at the top to make nets of interlocking leaves. It was better than the bogs in the west, he reasoned.

He recently cleaned his knife, and recently stocked his supplies, all the while moving strands of unruly hair out of his way. Across from him, in their own little hidey-hole, his lieutenants - Tal and Ira - had been awake for a while.

Tal was tired after taking the night shift, but he would sometimes shake himself awake. Ira would stop her shakes when the beads on her bandolier became too loud, and she would groan and mew.

It was just another day. And then, the sound of pebbles rustling and sloshing. The noise of silt sliding on deep black dirt. All three fell quiet.

It wasn’t deafening, but something was fumbling around, and it was doing so with the subtlety of a drunk. They sat completely still, trying to get an idea of how many staggering drunks there were.

Two? Three? Aessur motioned to Ira to check it out. She nodded and donned her bow, inspecting the barbed arrows in her quiver. Then, as fast as the wind, she bolted out of there, climbing the tree like a spider, leaping from branch to branch. Aessur stopped picking his teeth by the reflection of his knife and sheathed it.

He pulled out something bigger.

Ira (I)

From the forest branches, Ira spotted three people - an older man festooned in knickknacks, a woman with nauseatingly red hair, and a young, clean-shaven man in an ill-fitting coat. It was clear to her that the man was the source of the noise; his feet would catapult stones around with every step he took. He was a walking nightmare, causing little avalanches with every step down Ilma's treacherous slopes.

But something felt odd. Why did they decide to go this route? Wouldn’t they have known that people like Ira would be here? Or were they - or one of them - so confident that no banditry or foulness could befall them that there was no need to even flinch at the thought?

Better to be cautious, Ira thought. She held out the small, dull stone hanging around her neck. She gently blew on it so that it could ebb and flow, like a fluorescent heartbeat, rising and falling. It wasn't that bright, but it was bright enough for her to see, and gently, she dropped the ball, letting it dangle off the hook. For a second, it wobbled and warbled but soon fell straight as any trinket would.

Not mages, she thought, with a smile. No matter how strong they are, they aren’t mages. There was no magic on their breath. There was no magic in the air.

Ira left the treetops and returned to Aessur.

Aessur, Tal, and Ira (II)

“Nothing? None of them?” Aessur asked. “You sure?”

“Stone says nothin'. They may be skilled fighters, but they’re not mages.” Ira was a bit out of breath. “Maybe sages? A senior professor with a bag boy and a bodyguard.” She swiped the flask from Tal. The beer was stronger than she thought. She choked a bit. “Word 'round here is that priest-folk are looking at Ilma, Medicalers too. They could be with 'em, and we may get some decent coin.”

Aessur's thumb chipped the scratched-out sigil on his halberd. “Do you know where they’re from?”

“If it’s Ilma, has to be Siral, right? Who else would they be?”

“They could be rebels. Scouts doing…well, what you do, Ira.” Tal’s deep voice rang out. "Or they could be spies; you say you heard Medicalers."

Ira shook her head. “Too heavy to be scouts. They’ve got huge bags with them, and again, none of them are mages.” Ira stressed again. “No wind magic, no spirit magic, nothin'. Be some poor scouts if that were the case.” She paused on the last note. "But Medicalers, dunno. None of them have flame-coats, so I dun think so."

Aessur looked at Tal with the eyes of "you know her best." Tal sighed and nodded.

“Okay, I agree with Ira.” Aessur pulled himself up with the pole, and with every heavy footstep, marched. “This is a toll play, no killing unless necessary. Get the money and leave. I’ve also heard rumours that there have been some Medicalers on the roads. We don’t wanna risk running into them, so we do it fast and easy.” He gripped his axe. "And if they're smoke-knights, well, we run. Don't risk fighting flames in a forest."

Magic pulled from within, enmeshments between nature and the body. It was like a magnetic force that clicked everything together into something palpable and fierce. It gave its practitioners chills, and even the smallest and simplest spells prickled their flesh with goosebumps. For Ira, smallest and simplest was all she could muster. Anything more invited searing headaches. But small and simple was enough; with an invisible tailwind, she flew with an astounding grace through the trees, high above the mulch and fallen foliage, her shadow dancing along the writhing branches. Loose leaves followed her gust like songbirds, and for a brief moment, she truly felt free.

No more hidey-holes, no more waiting, no more pilfering. She was on her way to pilfer, but in these leaps, nothing else mattered but the air caressing every corner of her skin.

She stopped a little bit away, at the edge of their sight, seeing thin strands of fiery red hair. How could you miss it? Even in the rosy dawn of the day, with the golden hues of sunrise blanketing the forest, you could tell that shade of red from anywhere. Her fingers pinched an arrow shaft, pressed against the fletch, chest raised, breath held, and she waited.

It took a while longer for Tal and Aessur to catch up to Ira, but they did. They found an interception point at a clearing, so when the travellers were done kicking rocks everywhere, they'd find two bandits on open grassland. The old-growth around them made it difficult to run without getting thwacked in the face.

But something went wrong. The three didn’t seem surprised. In fact, they seemed more annoyed than anything.

It didn’t matter, Aessur reasoned. Some people aren’t surprised at all.

“You are going through the route of the White Skulls, and it is customary that you pay a small fee for the privilege.” Aessur’s voice was much different than the hushed whispers he showed the others; he had a shake to it, a hefty growl that felt like it could jolt the entire area asunder. His halberd dug deep and hard into the soft earth. “A mere fifth of your earnings is what we ask.”

The sage’s eyes fixated on him. “Oh? A fifth? That’s quite high for a toll and a toll with no route.” He paused, waiting for Aessur to say something, but when nothing came out, “You were following us? Or watching us? That makes me wonder; how many of you? In the trees, in the dirt? Traps? No roads but highwaymen still.” His eyes darted from Aessur to Tal, and then he outstretched his hand.

Eli, Ormoc, and Liassus (II)

When Eli emerged from the clearing, he saw that Ormoc was already speaking to a massive man with an even more massive halberd. He shot a look at Liassus for some reassurance, though she only stood there, arms crossed. He could have sworn he caught her feet tapping.

And then, he heard a bit more.

Highwaymen! He thought. Bandits? He didn’t know the difference, but they were there to shake them down, and the two men looked fierce enough that he felt like it wasn’t going to turn out well if Ormoc kept provoking them. But then, as smooth and easy as anything else, Ormoc outstretched his hand and revealed - in the middle of his palm, a grotesque sight.

A small marble, red and glistening, refracting what looked like an arterial nest, was lodged deep into his hand. His skin had already scabbed and caked around it, and more shockingly, the ball was moving, as if it carried a mind of its own. As it whirled around, a dark streak of blood crawled from the surface, and then, it burst into a bright glow, ebbing in the direction of the trees.

“You’ve a mage, but it doesn’t look like she’s past…the first stage? Oh? A scout and I guess nothing more.” He closed his hand and turned to Liassus. “The boy can handle this.”

Liassus stared at the trees and then tightened her grip on the handle of her sword. “This is as good a time as any.”

Aessur, Tal, and Ira (III)

Aessur looked at Tal, whose chipped broadsword had already lowered. “I thought they weren’t mages.” He said to him.

Tal shook his head. “Ira said so, but…” the old man and the woman brought the young man to the front. He seemed quite hesitant. “Wasn’t he a bag boy?”

Aessur clicked his teeth. “Might be a noble's pup. Boy seems too soft to be a serf. Well, it doesn’t matter; we might not be getting the money, so let’s teach him a lesson. I don’t know what kind of magic they’ve got, but Ira says they aren’t mages, and I don’t see any spells.”

He walked up to the man. “What’s your name?”

“Eli.” He replied.

Aessur frowned. What was that? “Eli, is it? My name is Aessur. I’m telling you my name. This is a sign that I don’t think you’re a fool, hear? Tell your people that if I don’t get paid, something has to give. Whether it's blood, body, or bone, I need to make sure we see coin,” He stepped forward, dwarfing Eli. “Are we clear?”

“I’m not from around here. I don’t know these people,” Eli said, "Please."

Aessur frowned and then looked at the others. Something was wrong. The boy spat gibberish. What was this language? An Eastling? Slavers? What would they want from this young man? And where were his shackles? In the middle of a forest in Ilma? Or was this a kidnapping? He was pale and soft, not a farmer. He hadn't the muscle either. “Alright, you, come with me. You’ll be safer if I - ”

“Liassus, tell him to subdue him.” The sage said.

“Let it run its course. We’ll know soon enough.”

“Come with me, Eli. You don’t belong with these men.”

“I’m trying to find my fiancee.” Eli pleaded. “I think she’s here.”

“I’ll help you - ”

“Eli, subdue him.” At the woman’s command, a strange fury possessed Eli. He lunged and tackled Aessur, but the boy ripped through him like paper. Though he wasn’t fast by any measures, he walloped him so hard that Aessur’s legs had come clean off, his spine slung over Eli’s shoulder. Aessur’s upper body flew back a few feet. Pain and adrenaline cascaded through his body. The last thing he registered was the morning light stinging his eyes.

Like a trance, the young man named Eli stood there, arms down, coated in blood, and emotionless.

“Ira, run!” Tal yelled. He threw his blade to the ground, stripped off the loose pauldron, and sprinted into the woods. He made only a few steps before a long, worm-like rope pierced his neck, wrapped around his jaw and entered his mouth.

Ira was long gone. From branch to branch, she sweated and gritted her teeth. Faster, faster! She thought. A slick of flesh whip-thin and jittery flew around in the corner of her eyes. It then smashed into a branch, nicking her in the waist. She pushed a gust of wind behind her, the enemy jolting and fluttering. Then, with a loud snap, it straightened and lunged at her, arrow-fast.

Another tailwind, please! She begged. Something crashed into another branch. Another rope! She punched the branch and slung herself into the leaves.

Ropes with teeth! Ropes with teeth! She fired off yet another tailwind. One honed in on her and cut her arm.

She bolted from the trees with her last bit of energy and fired herself into a nearby stream. Her last tailwind cushioned her fall.