Chapter 41: Hidden Talents

Both Peteri and Hima readied to attack in pursuit of the retreating rebel soldiers. “No, there’s no need for that,” Nydra said, her breath hardly encumbered.

“We’re not going to finish the job?” Hima asked sharply, though Miro thought he could hear fatigue in her tone.

“We’ve done the job, and that’s chasing them out of the city. Destroying them completely is going too far.”

Miro thought perhaps Hima had something else to say on the matter but just then six shoddily-armed people, three men and three women, came up the street to the head of the square and stopped to inspect the scene. Whoever they were, they looked like Nydra could have handled them without breaking a sweat, but even then, Miro knew he had no more capacity for carnage and just wanted to sit down for a minute.

“I’m Pavlim, head of the local militia unit,” a woman slightly older than Nydra, with short auburn hair not covered by any helm, stepped forward from the group, her voice shaky and her head held high though her shoulders were shrunken back.

“I’m Nydra Heliks of the King’s army of King Ganryh II.” Pavlim’s posture relaxed visibly and she ran the back of her hand over a sweaty brow.

“We’re sorry we’re late,” the head of the militia unit said.

“Nonsense,” Nydra waved dismissively with one hand and bent down over a fallen rebel soldier, “I’d say you came just in time to procure some new gear.”

Nydra straightened up and extended towards Pavlim an empty rebel helm. The militia leader approached with a crooked uncertain smile, as if grateful for the item though perhaps not the circumstances of its acquisition, and after taking it from Nydra did not immediately put it on.

Nydra took a step back, and surveyed the rest of the square to see what else had been left behind, as Peteri joined her by her side and whispered, “That was one of our standard issue.”

“Yes,” Nydra said, taking a few steps away from the small militia unit, “Repainted and with some of the markings defaced.” She picked up a dropped sword and turned it each way and that in the light. “They must have robbed a garrison at some point.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Peteri murmured, taking the sword from her and himself giving it a closer look.

Miro stood, arms limp at his side, knees hardly able to support his own weight.

“Are you okay?” Hima asked, giving him a nudge with her cloaked shoulder.

“Yes,” Miro answered after taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out.

“Got your life still.”

Miro looked down, even though he preferred not to, at the hefty wooden sign lying flat atop the immobile soldier, the rope that had once held it up still sending a thin column of smoke into the air. “Too many close calls lately.”

Though he still wasn’t facing her, Miro could tell from the corner of his eye that Hima was nodding slowly.

“How about you, you alright?” He turned to face her now, conveniently away from the rest of the square, though the question felt trite. The icewinder always seemed okay no matter what had just been thrown at her.

“I’m fine,” she answered quickly and coolly, but then added, “It’s been a while since I’ve been tested like this.” It was almost unsettling hearing Hima talk this way, an opening to perhaps an actual conversation, so Miro risked letting her know what was on his mind.

“Hey how come you didn’t keep doing that whole ice prison thing you did to their archer and encase the whole lot of them?”

She raised her hands to the sides of her hood, tugging both of them forward.

“Would have if I could,” Hima said, “But my most powerful spells are limited by cooldowns. You wouldn’t have encountered any on your skill tree yet.”

“Yeah about that –”

“I think it’s best we clear out of here now,” Nydra said, coming up to them and giving one slightly puzzled look at the fallen sign.

“Not going to stick around for lunch?” Miro asked. “I heard they’ve got a great spit-roasted succulent pig going.”

“Sorry, Miro, but the local militia might make some difference here, and we’ve already attracted more attention than I would’ve liked.” Looking at the local militia, Miro thought they could indeed make some difference, but the potential magnitude of that difference was perhaps overstated by Nydra.

“Hey I think I helped make their swords,” Miro said brightly, watching the crudely-made weapons the six militia members were exchanging for new ones. The others did not look convinced.

“Okay fine, maybe I just knew the guy who might have made them.”

Again, crickets from the other three except that Peteri did give him a knowing smile before looking away.

“Alright, alright,” Nydra waved them on with her hand in the same direction that the rebel soldiers had fled, “No sense of lingering any longer.” Miro couldn’t agree more, the faster they were out of this town, the sooner he could forget what happened here.

As they left the square and the curious townspeople that drifted into it, they passed a side street where four horses stood tethered and in various states of agitation, with a short balding man petting the neck of the dark-chocolate-coloured one and saying, “Nah what are we supposed to do with ye lot?”

“Nydra, check it,” Miro said, tapping the swordswoman on the shoulder and then heading towards the man and the horses. “Are thos hosses from thos bahstad rebels?” Miro asked, surprising even himself as he adopted a heavy version of the local accent. He quickly glanced behind him and shrugged as all three of Peteri, Nydra and Hima stood still and stared at him with slightly alarmed expressions. At least it seemed like those 4 Charisma points were finally counting for something.

“Yash,” the man answered, “Jush ran off and lef’ thees ones. Dun suppose ye lot in the market fur good hosses?”

“In the market?” Miro sked. “What, ye selling theem now?”

“Well looks to me like I be having theem, so dun see why I won be selling theem.”

Miro turned around, looked into Nydra’s light blue eyes and said only, “Nydra”. The swordswoman looked like she was regretting giving the inch but was too tired to properly defend the mile. “I know what you’re about to say,” Miro continued, “But we already lost some time on a detour that, okay, I admittedly set us on. And there’s hardly anyone living in these parts to really pay attention to anything we do, so I don’t think four horses are going to cause that much more trouble for us.”

“Miro, lad, the orders were –”

“I know, I know, let’s not think of this in terms of orders, but in terms of spoils of war.”

This got Nydra to break into a smile, though the raised eyebrows and the somewhat exasperated look on her face couldn’t hide the fact that she was questioning how it came to be that she was saddled with Miro in the first place. “What do you even know of spoils of war, lad?”

“Know enough that we shouldn’t be paying for them,” Miro turned around and faced the man again, “Give ye thutty King’s copper fur the lot.”

“Thutty?” the man asked, his voice rising, “Thutty fur fawr fine hosses?”

“Thutty fur fawr fine hosses ye jush stumble on,” Miro said, “Or we can take theem without emptying ah purses?”

“Aight, aight, thutty fur the fawr.”

“Just the three actually,” Nydra added, leaning around Miro to look at the impromptu proprietor of fine horses.

“Wait, why three?” Miro asked.

“Do you know how to ride a horse, lad?”

“Damn it.”

And so it came to be that although they had walked into town on foot, they exited riding atop three horses, with Miro sitting behind Hima, to whom the dark-chocolate one had taken an immediate shine. The road that took them out of town was just wide enough for their three horses to walk side by side, and led mostly north, the Deep Scar Mountains now unmistakable on the eastern horizon.

“I wish we’d been able to get something more useful out of those rebels,” Nydra said, one hand on the reigns and another resting against the hilt of her sheathed sword, “And maybe we would have if Hima didn’t just start blasting.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hima said with the familiar little crackle returning to her voice, “Next time I’ll pick a more convenient time to stop someone from shooting you with an arrow.”

“They weren’t about to attack us,” Nydra said, her tone bordering on laughter before turning contemplative again, “They had been waiting, though I couldn’t figure out what for, and there was also something about that Commander Sajoy of theirs that didn’t sit right with me.”

This was it. If there was ever a time to let them know what he was cable of, it was now. Sure, it didn’t amount to much, but more than they otherwise would have had.

“All their health bars were yellow as far as I could see,” Miro said matter-of-factly, “And they were all identified as ‘rogue soldiers’.”

Casually throwing out this fact had the desired effect. There was a stunned silence from the other three, only Hima turning her head slightly in his direction, not enough for him to see her face, and hoarsely asking, “What?”

“I have this thing,” Miro said, as if the ‘thing’ was no big deal really, “Where I can see people’s health bars over their heads, you know, kind of shows how much life they’ve got in them, and they come in three different –”

“Yes, we know how it works,” Nydra said breathlessly. Miro turned to see that her face had gone even more pale, her eyes staring at him widely, while Peteri beside her had his face raised up to the sky.

“Really?” Given how little Nydra had known about mages in general, he’d found this surprising. “Could my father see them too? I was wondering if maybe it was a magus power.”

“That’s not a magus power, you tight-lipped cretin,” Hima muttered in the seat in front of him, “That’s a mage power.”

“It is,” Nydra said. “It had been Sierra’s power.”