In Pain and Blood

by Aldrea Alien

  He’d never realised how far the tower was from everywhere else. It’d been seven days since leaving the tower with the city of Whitemeadow nowhere in sight. All the maps he’d seen made the distance between cities looked so small, but the road seemed to stretch forever. Granted, the sudden deluge of rain had hindered them the last two days. What had started out as a brisk walk across a compacted dirt road quickly became a trudge through mud.

  And yet, although the pelting rain had subsided, he almost wished it would return. This drizzle they were forced to endure stuck to every surface rather than trickling off. No matter what he did, there was just no getting rid of it.

  At least the nights weren’t as cold as the last time he’d been caught in the rain. Having a full robe probably had something to do with that. Spending half the night in Tracker’s welcoming arms likely also helped keep the chill at bay. It was always so much warmer in the hound’s tent than his own.

  Authril halted. She slapped the back of her hand against Tracker’s shoulder and pointed off to their left. Dylan peered in the indicated direction. There was the unmistakable bulk of a building. The elven duo halted on the roadside, waiting for them to catch up.

  Tracker pulled down the scarf covering the bottom half of his face. “There is a barn not that far away.” He nodded at the shape in the gloom.

  “I had hoped it was,” Katarina said. “Do you think the owners will let us spend the night there?”

  “Sure,” Authril grumbled. “Because who wouldn’t want a troop made up of two sword-swinging elves, an arrow-shooting human, a seemingly defenceless dwarf and a very much dangerous spellster sleeping in their barn?”

  Tracker’s hooded head swung in the warrior’s direction. Only the glint of his eyes could be made out in the shadows. How the man managed to see anything with his head so thoroughly covered was rather beyond Dylan. “I am sure that, if given enough coin, they would be amenable towards overlooking certain traits. Come.” The hound hopped the ditch marking the edge of the road and clambered over the fence.

  Katarina stepped back into the middle of the road as the other two women nimbly followed Tracker’s footsteps. “Is that wise? I don’t think they’d look too kindly on us approaching from their fields.”

  Dylan halted on the other side of the ditch. She had a point. Any other group of sodden souls, a farmer might have pity on, but one harbouring a spellster? Maybe if he stayed out of sight, kept his head down.

  “The other option is to wander the road in search for the normal way in,” Tracker replied, holding his hand out to assist Dylan over the uneven stones of the fence. “Which I assume is pointed more in Whitemeadow’s direction. You would like to get out of the rain sooner rather than later, yes?”

  The hedgewitch pursed her lips, then hitched up her skirts and leapt the ditch to claw her way over to them. “This is wrong,” she mumbled.

  “I will be sure to give them a little extra for our rudeness,” the hound said.

  Mercifully, the rain ebbed as they trudged across the fields towards the structure, turning to the occasional spot thudding against Dylan’s cloak. He absently lifted the hem of his robe clear of the grass, instantly regretting the action as the wet blades slapped against his boots and sent droplets of water flying up his legs.

  By the time they reached the barn, it seemed no one was interested in their little group. Or at least, their presence hadn’t been noticed. Dylan’s gaze slid over the barn, a modest single-storey structure, to the smaller farmhouse butting up against one side. Perhaps whoever lived here was out in the fields.

  Tracker slowed as the front door came into view. It stood open to the weather, just like the barn doors. “It would seem having our presence for a night is the least of their worries.”

  Dylan paused to peer into the barn as the others walked past to file through the open gate in the surrounding fenceline. Judging by the sodden floor and piles of wind-strewn debris, it had been that way for some time. “This place looks like it was abandoned.”

  “Yes,” Authril said. “And quickly.”

  “That’s because they were driven out, my dear warrior. See there?” Tracker pointed to a set of marks in the dirt. Rain had eroded the definition, but Dylan could make out footprints, some haphazardly overlaid in places by hooves. “They are too many to be that of a farmer’s. An armed company came this way. A big one. Several hundred, I would think. Quite recent, too.”

  Marin halted in the gateway to climb the railed fence. Perched on a post, she took in the ground around them. “Oh, shit.”

  “Were they headed for the front line?” Dylan asked, half hoping that it was the truth and wishing it wasn’t. Any armed company this far had to be responsible for the attack on the tower. He was ready to make them pay, no matter whose side they claimed to be on.

  The hound’s lips thinned as he shook his head. He arched a brow at Dylan, his pointed glare a warning to stay put.

  Dylan shuffled on the spot. He wasn’t about to go racing off alone, but if those people showed their face… letting them go stopped being an option the second he stepped through the tower gates.

  Marin walked up and down the fence, her focus entirely on the footprints. “Looks like most of them were heading west. A few weeks ago by the looks of things.” She stared at the farmhouse’s open door. “Doubt the farmer survived their arrival, the poor sod.”

  We’re too late. Dylan bit his tongue to keep silent. Being too late was becoming far too common an occurrence. Just once, he’d like to get somewhere in time to help, to stop more bloodshed.

  “Weeks? That doesn’t make sense,” Katarina said. “If there was a group of soldiers, then we should’ve met them.”

  “Indeed we should have, dear woman,” Tracker replied. “But when did we say they were soldiers?”

  “Well, I assumed an armed company would mean—”

  “It would be for the best if you did not assume at all.”

  The hedgewitch frowned at the man. “What would you call them, then?”

  “Well, judging by the footprints, I would say bandits. Although, the lack of uniformity could suggest cattle thieves. They do seem to have run off the livestock.”

  Marin hopped off the fence to crouch next to a group of markings further down the fenceline. “These look fresher, a few days at most. And they’re coming from the other way to all the others.”

  The hound hummed as he took in the section she pointed at. “Even less uniform than the first attack. Not as numerous, either. The thieves returned, perhaps?”

  “I don’t like it here,” Marin said, nocking her bow. “We should move on.”

  At her side, Tracker’s hand closed around the hilt of his dagger. “I agree. Staying would be a bad idea.”

  “Now, let’s not get paranoid.” The hedgewitch held out her hands as if calming a group of children. “You just said they went west. This place should be perfectly safe.”

  “And we didn’t come up on them,” Authril replied before either of the others could. “They ran these people out of their home, took off with their stock and have vanished.”

  “Which means they can’t be here now,” Katarina pressed. “There is shelter—beds, if no one is truly here—right there. Are you seriously suggesting we walk away from all that?”

  “Yes,” Tracker said. “And believe me, I would like nothing more than a comfortable bed to spend the night in, but you know how visible this place is. If we stay, we risk being set upon by anyone who chooses to venture here. I have no desire to be corralled.”

  “We can wait long enough to rifle through their cupboards though,” Authril added. “There might be something left behind that could be of use to us.”

  The hound tipped his head to one side and gave the woman a small, bemused smile. “Briefly, yes.”

  “But we can’t stay the night?” Katarina said.

  “Well, that depends on how strong your desire to stay alive is.”

  The hedgewitch shook her head. “You thr
ee are perhaps the most paranoid bunch I have ever travelled with.”

  Tracker chuckled. “Dear woman, in my line of work that is the only way you live to old age.”

  “Then I will defer to your experience, but I still think it’s foolish to walk away from perfectly good shelter.”

  They entered the farmhouse somewhat hesitantly. Dylan expected to see carnage in the vein of what he’d witnessed in the tower. Mercifully, the place was devoid of such a scene. Although the inside of the building was more haphazard than the outside. Doors and chests had been left wide open, much of their contents empty or broken. Litter lay strewn across the dirt floor.

  It quickly became apparent that searching the farmhouse was a fruitless exercise. Still, trying to remain optimistic, Dylan poked through some of the cupboards. Apart from an empty bottle that smelt strongly of whisky and little specks of evidence that spoke of mice, there was nothing. He closed the door in disgust. Perhaps they would have better luck searching the barn?

  He had just opened his mouth to suggest such an act when Tracker froze in the middle of poking around a few cabinets near the entrance. Dylan tipped his head, trying to hear whatever had alerted the man despite knowing his senses where nowhere near as acute as the elf’s. Nothing came. He risked a glance at Authril. She seemed engrossed in rifling through what appeared to be a chest of broken, assorted items.

  The hound crept to the doorway and peeked out before flattening himself against the wall with startling speed. “Get back,” he hissed, waving at them to do deeper into the house.

  Dylan obeyed, huddling behind the cupboard. Whatever the man had heard, it couldn’t be good if hiding was his first option. Had the people who’d ransacked this place returned to pick it to the bones?

  “What is it?” Authril asked, the man’s frantic movements enough to draw her attention. She craned her neck to see around him.

  The hound placed an open palm on her breastplate and pushed her further from the doorway. “Have you always been this bad with obeying orders?” he muttered as, with the other hand, he slid a knife free from its sheath. “Get back and stay quiet.”

  A faint ruckus kicked up from outside, fast growing louder. Dylan rather doubted the noise was the farmer and his family returning home. He straightened slightly. A fine shield flickered to life around him.

  Tracker glanced over his shoulder at them. He held Dylan’s gaze for longer than the others. The man shook his head and, pressing a forefinger to his lips, waved at him to resume hiding.

  It went against every tingling instinct in his body, but Dylan released his hold on the shield. There’s a reason. Tracker wouldn’t tell him to back down unless it was too dangerous for them to engage. That suggested a larger group than they could handle.

  The armed company. They hadn’t come across it, certainly hadn’t passed them, but their group had been close on their tail before the rain slowed them to a crawl. Maybe it had done the same to the company. Which meant…

  Dylan risked another peek around the end of the cupboard. The hound was no longer near the doorway. Authril had taken the man’s place, her sword drawn and her head tilted. A quick survey of the room led Dylan to believe Tracker was outside.

  Voices—raised, heated and foreign—drifted in from the cracked window. The words… They were garbled by rage and partially muffled by the walls, but it sounded vaguely familiar. Too quick and rhythmic to be Udynean and the syllables were all off to be Dvärg or—

  Talfaltaners. That’s why Tracker cautioned against a display of magic. But there had been Talfaltaners at the tower. These men… The only reason they could be walking this far inland was because they’d come to kill—

  Dylan stepped back, flattening himself against the wall before his legs gave. His home. His people. His family. The monsters responsible for the tower’s slaughter stood just outside and the hound cautioned him to stay put?

  Not a chance.

  He ran through the doorway, knocking Authril aside in his haste to confront the murders. His rage brought a flare of magic to life, lightning arcing off his fingers. Warning or no, he wasn’t about to let those bastards just walk away. He couldn’t let another chance slip through his fingers.

  Dylan slid to a stop in the small farm’s yard.

  A group of men stood near the barn entrance. They wore the same baggy shirts and trousers as the felled attackers in the tower. A quick count revealed ten in all. They gaped at him, clearly not expecting anyone to be here, before glancing at each other and slowly drawing their weapons. The vast majority of them wielded blades, either sword or dagger, but a few had bows.

  Dylan snapped a shield around him and spread his hand. The lightning crackling between his fingers buzzed. Taking on ten men, even with magic on his side, would require focus and a more tightly-packed bunch than how they currently stood. Not to mention that he still wasn’t certain how ordinary men would’ve struck down people taught to fight, like Sophia and Fredrick.

  “Demon,” one of the men snarled, his gravelly accent pulverising the word. He ran for Dylan, his sword carried low in a move Dylan had seen Tracker use in sparring. “I’ll send you back to the depths from which you came!”

  Dylan held. One man wasn’t enough. He needed the rest to close for a certain victory. But if he slew this one, then maybe—

  The man stumbled before he could take more than a few steps. He crumpled to the ground, a knife embedded in his head.

  As one, the man’s companions glanced up.

  Dylan followed their gaze high over his shoulder to find Tracker perched on the rooftop.

  One of the men raised his bow at the hound and released the arrow. Tracker ducked, rolling to one side and off the edge of the roof. He landed on the ground much like a cat. There was a flash of metal and the archer fell as swiftly as the first man.

  “I see you are also terrible at following orders,” the hound grumbled just under his breath, his lips thin with displeasure and his gaze trained on the Talfaltaners.

  “Did you really expect me to cower in a corner whilst you risk your life picking them off on your own?”

  Tracker sighed dramatically as he drew his sword. “No, I suppose that would be a bit much to ask of you. I guess we will be doing this the hard way.” The long dagger seemingly appeared in his other hand. “Just be sure to keep your shield up.” His head twitched to one side. “And you two better watch your flank.”

  Out the corner of his eye, Dylan spied Authril and Marin filing through the doorway. Of Katarina, there was no sign. He hoped that meant the hedgewitch had opted to stay indoors.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Authril muttered. “This isn’t my first fight.”

  This new show of force seemed to give the men some pause. One of the men came forward and rattled out what sounded to be several sentences at once. Whilst Dylan had learnt a number of languages in the tower, this was one he never put much effort into.

  At his side, Tracker spat back something in Talfantanese. Judging by the reaction and the mention of fish guts—or had that been gutting fish?—it had either been a curse or a refusal.

  Brandishing their weapons, the men rushed them.

  One fell swiftly to Marin’s bow. Their second archer replied in kind, forcing the woman to duck back through the doorway as she unleashed another arrow or be skewered. Her shot nicked her target, causing a stream of swearing to erupt from the farmhouse. Another arrow followed swiftly. The man falling as it struck his throat.

  Authril rushed the remaining six head-on, following the hound. Dylan flung a fireball at the group, hoping to scatter them and aid the pair’s attack and realising he’d misjudged Tracker’s speed as the fire left his fingers.

  Despite the airborne flames in his path, Tracker didn’t even hesitate. He raced right into the fireball to carve his way through the group. The sight had Dylan heart stopping for a good minute. Even with the fire exploding around him, the man didn’t slow, rather dancing amongst the Talfaltaners and leaving the wounded for Authril to
finish off.

  Dylan bounced on the balls of his feet, searching for another opening. Finally, he gave up trying to hold back to strike and barrelled into the fray, firing off bouts of magic wherever he could. Blades bounced off his shield, the attack leaving them open for a more controlled blast of lightning. Another stumbled back, screaming and clutching his burning face.

  He’d felled five in his path before realising there was far more of them than he’d first counted. A swift pulse through the air left everyone staggering back, all except Tracker, who took out two stumbling foes without even an acknowledgement of magic being wrought around him. Authril wasn’t quite so lucky, but managed to right herself before her opponent.

  A swift reassessment of their attackers revealed the group had roughly tripled in size with half of them already dead or dying. Where the others had come from, he didn’t know. To attack a company large enough to take on the entire tower and win would be suicide. Tracker’s words echoed through his head, prodding Dylan to swing about and check if more were about to descend upon them.

  Nothing, not even a hint. He sorely hoped it stayed that way. The alternative was knowing he’d dragged them into a battle they couldn’t win.

  There was the sudden darting movement of a foe on his flank. He’d already proven to be a difficult target, yet they still came, screaming obscenities he couldn’t understand. Dylan strengthened his shield and turned, the spark of lightning already dancing along his fingers.

  Tracker was suddenly between them.

  The man’s dagger struck. There was a gasp and the hound staggered back, passing through the barrier. Dylan reeled, his limbs barely able to hold himself upright as a swarm of tiny shocks rippled through his body.

  The hound seemed less affected. Snarling, he lunged for the man who’d struck him. His sword came down, sending more shocks into Dylan as the hound’s arm passed through the barrier. The rest of him followed and Dylan doubled over as his stomach clenched.

  “No!” one of the other men yelled as Tracker finished felling his opponent. “Devil.” He backed away, tripped over a comrade and scrambled to his feet, half running, half-crawling away from Tracker’s advance. “Run, you fools! Run for your lives.”