by Kim Wedlock
"How do you know?"
"I've utilised it once or twice," she replied evasively. "Some people just can't take losing."
"Yes, I imagine some people are just like that..." Reluctantly, Rathen gave in, and the pair shortly vanished around the riverbend to follow it upstream, closer to the ancient city. He climbed up beside the willow tree to take up the watch in her stead, while Eyila washed some of her spare skins and Anthis pretended to read. But, within five minutes, as he watched the dance of the distant flames and the billow of fire-like banners, his mind was consumed by his daunting task yet again. He barely noticed the approaching footsteps.
"You're missing all the fun."
Chapter 43
Rathen whipped around as quick as a loosed arrow. But though his heart threatened to burst out of this throat, he forced his primed fingers to still and studied the approaching man as inoffensively as he could. It wouldn't do to cause a scene so close to the city, not with what they'd left behind them.
He was quick to notice the amicable look in his eye as he neared the willow, and the pleasant smile about his thin lips. But the sword at his hip unsettled him. He had to forcibly remind himself that it wasn't unreasonable to bear such a thing given the recent turmoil, and neither was the confident, purposeful way he carried himself. In some cases, bearing alone could keep one safe.
And yet, in the next chilling moment, he felt the blood drain from his face and his fingers itched even more urgently to contort into spells. The voice at the back of his mind seemed dulled as it spoke, assuring him that, had this truly been one of Salus's agents, he would never have presented himself so openly.
Unless, of course, he was counting on exactly that assumption.
At Rathen's sharp response, the man slowed and raised his hands, eyeing him cautiously in return. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. But - if I may - what are you doing all the way out here?" He gestured absently back towards the fair. "If it's mages you're worried about, they wouldn't dare attack Ferna. It's the safest place to enjoy yourself. There are old elven defences folded into the stone, and the mages can't undo them. If they hit, they'll be snuffed out before they can torch a barrel."
"Yes," Rathen replied slowly, though he didn't meet his easing smile, "I've heard the same..."
"Well, why don't you join in, then? You look like you could use a distraction, if you don't mind me saying."
"Actually, I was just looking for some peace and quiet."
"Ah," the stranger persisted, disquieting him even more. "A distraction from the festivities. I see. Well, that's a shame. I really don't want to add to your problems..."
Rathen didn't need to ask what he'd meant. The numbing moment in which some kind of understanding began to dawn hung for an eternity. Then, as a warning rose from behind him, time stampeded forwards and everything happened at once.
The dull snatch of the sword as it was freed from a leather ring, the rise of Rathen's hands, blood surging in his ears with the crackle of hungry magic, the rush of footsteps as Anthis dove forwards ahead of him, dagger bared to meet the blade, and the thud and whoosh of forcefully vacated breath as he struck the ground, kicked backwards by a well-placed boot as Petra's sword rang against the stranger's instead.
The man pushed into his blade and jumped backwards, holding the honed tip out towards her. "Come with me quietly," he began with a chillingly reasonable tone, casting a look of honest persuasion across the three before him, "you don't need to get hurt."
But while the others watched him in calculation, Petra delivered a swift response, knocking his blade to one side before rotating to strike him from the other. He parried the blow with ease.
"Aria," Rathen shouted urgently, but Anthis was already moving back down into the river. He heard her frightened voice, heard Anthis tell her to stay out of sight, and Eyila too, though she protested violently. Rathen added his own command, yelled sharply, furiously, but even while he watched Petra engage this stranger, he found himself unable to think or act.
His magic was surging, roaring in his blood - but what could he do? So close to the city, so close to the fair - to any onlooker, these were two duelists partaking in an agreed contest a safe distance from the city, and people were surely beginning to spectate. But as soon as he unleashed any kind of magic, there would be mass panic, and it would only take one clumsy flame to torch the dry grass...
But if he did nothing, and Petra was defeated...then Salus would finally have them.
He could feel that monstrous power rising in his gut and he pushed it down on instinct. This time, however, his efforts were shadowed by an obscure hesitance. He knew he could suppress it, he knew he could keep it from coming out, but it would try again, and the concentration it would take to maintain it beside the inability to think of anything to help would render him entirely useless. Everything would be in Petra's hands.
The girl was skilled - if he'd had any doubt about that, her alarmingly swift sequence of pirouettes, parries, feints and ripostes obliterated it - but her opponent matched her at every swing and step. It wouldn't be over quickly. And if he managed to get in just one lucky hit...
His eyes burned as he watched them.
He knew he could suppress it. But he also knew he could recover. He'd healed from his last bout without a healer's aid and even within its grip he'd wrestled it to an end himself. Perhaps, this time, he could control it...
A glint of hope flickered at the back of his mind. He'd been stopped before. By Petra, as he understood it. And Garon had shown her how to subdue Eyila. 'The same way he does you'. She could stop him...
If she won.
With every 'if', 'or' and 'but' they fell quicker into the Arana's hands.
Amongst the din of expert clashes, Rathen's body began to shake. Adrenaline, excitement, terror, power. He couldn't believe he was even considering it - he couldn't believe he had the time to - but even as his mind raged against the encroaching haze in this crucial debate, he wished desperately that he could confer with Kienza. This was too sudden; it felt impossibly wrong to unleash it here and now - there had to be another way.
But his mind was slowing, and he realised too late that he'd wasted all of his time.
He had only a moment to yell his warning before his decision was made for him.
"If you stop this and come with me," the stranger spoke calmly between deflecting the quick and precise barrage of her sword, "you'll be given mercy." He managed his own lunge, but she rotated away from it. "I don't have to tell them about this."
Petra snarled but refrained from any sarcastic comment. She had no desperate questions and the man's skill was too sharp to waste time talking. They had to be away from him as soon as possible, which meant she needed to be able to leap upon the briefest opening the instant it appeared. But as she parried a quick string of overhand strokes, failed to succumb to a feint and riposted his low stab, her heart sang. It had been much too long since she'd crossed her blade with one of such skill, and while the situation itself was unfortunate, it was bliss to finally release weeks of frustration.
But then, after only a minute or so, the opening she'd been waiting for arrived, and it was very obliging.
While their blades locked under matching pressure, she freed herself with a firm boot to his gut. He staggered backwards, winded, but was quick to catch himself, and with his own flashing grin of enjoyment he rushed to recover the advantage. But as she readied herself, something passed over him. Just out of the reach of her sword, his feet stumbled to a stop, his eyes flashed wide, his poised blade faltered with a sudden hesitance in his shoulder, and his lips moved to direct the distraction. She didn't fall for it.
She kicked his legs out from beneath him and raised her sword for a swift, crushing and necessary stroke. And then a tight, agonised, guttural sound choked up behind her. She stalled in fright. It was shaped almost into the word 'run'.
Then came the sickening crack of bones.
She spared only a single shuddering gla
nce over her shoulder. Then she returned to the man and struck to kill. If nothing else, it would be a kinder death.
It didn't land.
The man jumped back to his feet with his sword in hand and avoided the blow by throwing himself into her. The ground shook as they landed, but before Petra could wrestle the bounty hunter away, she saw what stood hunched over in the spot they'd been standing in just seconds before.
A form tall, lean and white, streaked by scrolling black lines beneath the skin, with sharp, jagged shoulders and elbows and matching protrusions down its spine. It turned its head in a storm of onyx hair and its black, whiteless eyes seared into them with the most intense malice.
A fear as deep and ancient as the first breath of man gripped their muscles and squeezed their lungs. They stared back, paralysed.
With unnatural speed, the beast launched itself towards them. They managed by the skin of their teeth to roll out of the way just in time. Anthis called up from the riverbed in alarm, but Petra warned him to stay where he was. It was only as blood-curdling screams rose from the city beyond that Petra realised the ground's shaking hadn't ceased.
Where before the picturesque city had been marred only by the adjustment of the walls, sinister thorns of stone that exceeded even its elevated height had erupted from the earth, encircling the aged city with a barricade of deadly pikes. Revellers fled while the stone pierced through every tent, flag and stall that had been erected closest to the walls, and their terrified screams renewed as six armoured, stone giants dug themselves free of the dirt.
Petra stared in horror, and she realised in that moment that if Rathen saw them, he may well lose his fickle interest in her. Or, rather, in the stranger.
"What is that?!" The man yelled, torn between the beast of alabaster and the beasts of limestone.
"Forget it," she growled, gripping her sword and moving herself around between Rathen and the river, dragging his frighteningly sharp eyes with her, "just don't let him see the city or he'll slaughter them all!"
She struck at him mercilessly, throwing all of her might into each attack, knowing that she would do little to harm him but enough at least to keep his attention. Sure enough, the chalk-white skin was as tough as steel and not even her strongest blow did more than scratch it. She pushed her agility to the edge dodging the swift swipes of bone-armoured, elongated fingers, and when she faltered under the inescapable speed, the stranger, the fool that he was, stepped in and took over.
"We can't kill it!" He warned in a panic as he almost stumbled in his attempt to dodge three quick slashes.
But Petra was already reclaiming his attention. "We don't need to." Even while she did her best to keep out of his reach while remaining close enough to provoke him, her eyes worked quickly. Again she searched for an opening, a way around his claws and hooks and thorns to reach his neck without injuring herself. Garon's wounds were at the forefront of her mind, and she knew that, in this state, Rathen was capable of so much worse.
She faltered again when her heel hit a root, and as the bounty hunter stepped back in, she was given the thinnest chance to notice that they were much too close to the river. A few steps more and she would certainly see Aria's terrified face or the glint of Anthis's dagger. Rathen wanted the stranger, but the beast wanted anything that moved. Anyone that moved.
She dashed forwards and stole his attention with a series of strikes at his flank, then began leading him downstream and away from the overhang. But she knew she wouldn't be able to get to him like this. He was too dangerous, his own body an armoury of weapons. He needed to be downed or stunned, only then could she get close safely, and her bolas were the only way to do it. And for that to work, he would need to be running.
She clenched her jaw in decision, turned her back to the beast, and ran. She didn't need to look over her shoulder to know that he was following; his footfalls were fast and heavy, and his ragged breath uncontrolled. So when they stopped and fell behind, she was just as quick to notice.
Panic gripped her heart. She slowed and shouted, waving to draw his focus, but something had shifted. He'd stopped and turned, fixated on the stranger yet again.
Petra yelled once more, but still Rathen ignored her. She gritted her teeth. This was her only chance.
The stranger sent a glance her way as she reached back for her bolas, but it wasn't a look of desperation. It was understanding.
His expression darkened, he gave her a single nod, then he turned and sprinted away. Rathen gave chase immediately.
And Petra's bolas wouldn't come free.
She cursed and tugged harder before fumbling in an urgent frenzy for the problem in the chain, until a blood-chilling howl joined the screams of the revellers. She looked up in sickening horror as Rathen leapt, pinned the stranger to the ground, and swiftly raked him into pieces.
Tears of fury pricked into her eyes. A yell tore free from her burning throat.
Then, finally, Rathen stopped.
The white beast swayed for a moment, growled as if to itself, and shook its head as though a fly was buzzing around it. Petra yelled animatedly, finally discovering the twist in the bolas' chain, but Rathen ignored her once again. His sights were now fixed on the city, the shrieking, fleeing people and the giants that snuffed every flame and life that lay outside the walls.
That summer's day, the approach to Ferna was the scene of carnage.
And it was about to get worse.
With a howl, horrific, rasping and pained, Rathen charged towards it.
Her bolas came free, and without a thought she swung, threw, and raced on behind them.
It was a poor throw, an angry, desperate throw. A throw that would have missed had he not staggered, stopped and swayed again. But as it was, they caught his ankles by chance, and he tripped as he tried to continue. He hit the ground like a horse; she was on him immediately, and delivered a single well-placed strike with the butt of one of her daggers.
He fell still in a moment.
Then the world slowed.
Petra sank to the ground beside the beast's body, her rapid heartbeat rattling her bones, aware, distantly, that the ground's shaking and the boom of stone footsteps had ceased. When she thought to look around, she found that the giants had made towards the walls and now stood guard as still and imposing as the statues they appeared to be. What people that had survived the sudden and unexplainable massacre had vanished.
Her eyes drew then towards the stranger. Slowly, she began gathering her bearings to approach him, but stilled when she heard her name called from behind. She looked back towards the city to find Garon running towards her. He spared not even a glance for any of the bodies. He was fixed on her.
Detachedly, she steadied her shakes and wiped her sweat as he skidded to a stop in the dust, then he knelt and stared at her critically. He checked her wounds - she hadn't been as careful as she'd thought - he checked her eyes, he asked how she felt, and only when he'd confirmed that she was truly unscathed did he turn at last to Rathen.
He looked now as much a victim as any man lying around them. His skin had returned to its usual pale tone, his ribcage and shoulders had narrowed to their original shape, and every sharp, bony spike and hook had receded back into his body. He was instead covered in cuts and bruises, and blood, not all of which was his own.
Garon shook his head with a long, reproachful sigh, but he didn't give Petra any kind of chastisement. Instead he squeezed her gently on the shoulder, then moved to lift Rathen, bloodied and beaten, and carry him away beside her.
But the three were snatched from the ground long before they could make it back to the compromised safety of the river.
They flew for quite some time, the distance tumbling away behind them at impossible speeds, and were eventually set down in a dense and familiar forest. The harpies told them only where they were - the Eswolds, the tamer, northern reach of the Wildlands - before flying off again.
"Now we're even further from the mountains," Garon had growled
as he watched them depart the unnaturally vigorous forest.
"And far enough from Ferna," Anthis pointed out. "We'd have picked up a tail or three after all that - now, at least, we've lost them." He grunted to himself as he stared off after them. "Perhaps we should go to the Order."
"The wind does seem to be carrying us that way..." Eyila agreed.
Rathen was semi-conscious while Eyila worked over him with magic and herbs, expertly considering each case and applying only what was needed. But she wasn't the only one to notice how quickly he recovered. The fact that he was awake at all was surprise enough, but that so many of his wounds had closed up already and without any help all but stunned them. He passed out eventually, but Eyila assured them that it was just fatigue and that he was better off that way.
Anthis watched him thoughtfully for a while. "Kienza said he was gaining some kind of control," he said at last, breaking the silence as they sat around uneasily in the middle of the afternoon. "He stopped it himself, before."
"He did?" Petra frowned. "When?"
"We were in Khry's Glory for a month," he replied flatly, "things got tense." He ignored their aghast looks. "He healed without anyone's help, and stopped it by himself."
Petra frowned as she recalled that afternoon's event. "He...he paused a few times, today. He was swaying, shaking his head..." She looked at him with a hopeful light in her eyes. "Do you think he could have been trying to fight it?"
"Only he can tell us that. But he's stubborn enough. If he's capable of fighting it, I have no doubt that that's what he was doing."
"Shame it came too late."
"He was a bounty hunter, Petra," Garon reminded her firmly. "Anthis recognised him right away. Don't mourn a stranger."
"Don't be so callous," she hissed, "he helped us."
"Because we were worth more to him alive."
"No, it was more than that. He was honest."
"So honest that he simply forgot to introduce himself as a bounty hunter?"
