Behind the Tales

by Aurora Peppermint

  For a moment, he busied himself with cleaning up the food, putting Elsaben’s hairbrush away, even brushing some crumbs off her bed. But he had to talk to Hal; he couldn’t stall anymore.

  “Hi.” Martus took a deep breath, putting a hand gently on Hal’s knee to pull him out of his trance. However, even that didn’t make Hal look toward him. “Listen, what’s going on with you? You know I want to help, but you do have to tell me when something’s happening.”

  Hal finally turned his head to Martus, but on the surface his expression was the same mask of indifference. Below that, Martus could see a hint of pain in his eyes, but he blinked and it was hidden again.

  “I don’t feel well. I feel like it’s coming again. I’m going to change. It’s not safe. I shouldn’t ride with you two.”

  Martus had heard Hal sad, happy, terrified, even angry. But he’d never heard the monotone voice that was coming from him now. Desperate to make him show some of his emotions, Martus grabbed Hal’s hand, squeezing his palm.

  “You will absolutely ride with us. I trust you. I know you can do this. We’ll keep you calm, and we aren’t in any danger anymore. We are safe with you, just the way you are.” Martus had his doubts, and he was already forming a plan in his mind to at least get Elsaben away if something did happen, but Hal didn’t need to know that. Even if he did transform, Martus wasn’t just going to abandon him. He would get Elsaben to safety, but after that he would stay and try to get Hal back to himself just like he had before. If it meant he died, or got hurt, so be it. It wasn’t fair for Hal to face this all alone.

  “You give me too much, Martus. You should be worried about yourself, and you should be worried about Elsaben. I’m the last person who’s in any danger, and yet you worry about me. Why?” Finally, Hal’s voice broke. He clung to Martus’s hand and his eyes went wide, wildly flicking back and forth to scan Martus’s expression. He truly didn’t understand.

  “Because, Hal. All you have done since I met you is try to protect everyone around you. You’re important to me. I worry about you because it’s impossible for me not to.” Martus rested a hand on Hal’s jaw, smiling softly. Under his gaze, Hal’s eyes softened and his lips turned up in a soft smile.

  “Thank you. I don’t deserve it. But I am grateful.”

  Martus wasn’t going to spend any more time today convincing Hal that he more than deserved it, but that was definitely going on his list of tasks for another day. For now, he leaned in to kiss him softly and then stood up, pulling Hal with him.

  “Let’s get ready to get on the road. I want to be home. Now, preferably. But since we still have a ride ahead of us, as soon as we can be there. I want to sleep in my own bed, and shop in my own town with my own money from this job that was very much more trouble than it was worth.” Martus laughed softly, running a hand over the back of his neck. Truly, if he’d known what this would entail, he wasn’t even sure he would have agreed to it. He needed money, but there were other jobs.

  It would be a good day when Fitzy was home and he was paid, that was all he was saying.

  A few minutes later all three of them were ready, and they headed out the door of their room to find Mel and Fitzy. It seemed that everyone had the same idea at the same time because they ran into each other in the hall coming out of their rooms. Both Mel and Fitzy looked well rested, so they must not have been up all night fighting, at least.

  “Are you two ready to leave? I admit I’m used to a certain level of comfort, and I’m eager to get back to it at my mother’s house.” Fitzy stretched his arms above his head, yawning into his hand when he brought it back down. Mel rolled her eyes at his side, but she must have gotten all her criticism out of her system because she didn’t actually say anything. Fitzy looked down in slight surprise when Elsaben stepped up right in front of him. “Oh, hello.”

  “This is my little sister, Elsaben.” Martus put a hand on her shoulder so he could tug her back if she started asking Fitzy a million questions about his “adventures.” If Martus had lost a finger, he wouldn’t want to relive the best moments from his past, and Fitzy seemed reluctant to talk about being anyone’s hero even on a regular day, if his reputation were anything to go by.

  “Hi! My friends always talk about you!” Elsaben beamed up at Fitzy, sticking her hand up to shake his. Hesitantly, he took it and shook it gently.

  “I bet they do. Most of what they say is a little bit exaggerated, I suppose. It’s nice to meet you.” Fitzy smiled down at her, then hesitantly patted her head. This time when Mel rolled her eyes, she didn’t keep her mouth shut.

  “I’m sorry about him; he’s the youngest. That’s probably what the women ask him to do for their babies when they get his autograph.” There were undertones of annoyance to Mel’s voice, sure, but she laughed a little after she said it. In general, she seemed a lot less tense. Her shoulders weren’t stick straight, and she didn’t even glance around once, let alone study their surroundings like a detective.

  “I’m not a baby. I’m almost seven years old.” Almost was pushing it, but Elsaben said she was “almost” the next birthday’s age as soon as her last one was over.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.” Mel laughed again before shaking her head. “Let’s get going. I’m sure we all want to be home.”

  THE JOURNEY home seemed much faster than the journey there. Maybe because they weren’t looking over their shoulders the whole time. Little did they know they should have been.

  They were riding over a bridge when the group surprised them. None of them were the same people they’d fought back at the cabin, but they were clearly not just bandits waiting on the road. If they had been, they probably wouldn’t have surrounded a group of people including a child and a brother and sister who were both covered in blood and dirt. Even Martus and Hal still had clear wounds and dirt on them, although they’d changed into clean clothes.

  “Oh, what now?” Mel slid off her horse before they could attack, and they actually seemed willing to talk despite the fact they’d attacked on sight every other time.

  “Melly, nice to see you again.” A redheaded woman with a bow and arrow stepped forward from the group. Martus counted five other people if none were hiding behind the tree line.

  “What do you want? You need all your men killed? I’m not letting you kill my brother, and I’m not letting you send his fingers to my mum. Come on. You know me better than that.” Mel crossed her arms, but the fingers of one hand were hanging low enough she could grip her sword if she had to. That meant she suspected they’d be attacked. Martus turned to look back at Hal. Elsaben was riding with him, and she had to be taken out of the situation before any fighting went down if that was at all possible.

  “Listen, your brother’s a bit of a dolt. He bet money he didn’t have, and instead of getting it from Mummy, he ran away and thought we wouldn’t get to him. Maybe thought we still had a soft spot for the family.” Mel rolled her eyes at that, but the woman kept talking. “We don’t. At least not one big enough to lose our money. However, I don’t want to kill him, and I don’t want to kill you. If dear old Fitzy isn’t planning to pay us back, you can come back to work, and we’ll leave him alone.”

  While everyone was focused on the conversation between Mel and the woman leading the group, Hal slipped down from his horse with Elsaben in his arms, his hand over her mouth. Martus had no doubt that he’d be able to explain to her why she had to stay quiet and why they had to get out of there. He did better helping them fight from a distance too, and especially if he was having trouble taming his transformations. He didn’t need to be in the fray.

  “Oh, please.” Mel surprised at least Martus by laughing right in the woman’s face. She dropped her crossed arms, and her hand fell right to her sword. Martus got his own weapons ready, one hand resting on the hilt of his dagger, the other on his sword. “You are never getting me back into your little murder club. You think because I was young and naïve when you manipulated me into all this, it�
�ll work again? No. I’m older, I’m smarter, and you taught me not to have any problem killing every single one of you to protect what’s mine.” In one smooth motion, Mel had her sword out of its scabbard and shifted her stance to be ready to fight. “Turn around. Forget about the money. Or fight us and die. It’s your choice. You think each of us can’t take two of you? Lee, I could kill you all in my sleep, and my brother isn’t the Hero for nothing. Martus may not have any legends about him yet, but he’s cut down a handful of your men already.”

  Mel never raised her voice or her weapon. In fact, her tone was soft, almost kind. Martus knew one thing: if she took that tone with him and said those same words, he would be running in the other direction no matter how much money was on the line.

  “You really want to tell me I can’t do something, Melly? You know me well enough to know what I’ll do with that, don’t you? I’m giving you one more chance. Say yes. Come back to work. Make a good living with your friends again. You’re better than some blacksmith shop, and you know it.” Lee had her own sword out now, having drawn it from her belt as she spoke to Mel. Her bow and arrows were now on her back. Martus knew there was no way this wasn’t leading to a fight, and a close one too. Neither woman was about to be talked out of her position.

  “Never.”

  It took that one word for all hell to break loose. There weren’t any people hiding in the bushes, because luck was somehow on their side with that one, but every person who had just been standing around before now sprang into action, pulling weapons from places Martus hadn’t even realized existed. They weren’t just quick in getting their weapons out either. Martus was facing away from the bridge long enough to slide down from his horse, and in the time that took him, he was facing two armed men.

  Before he even considered landing a strike, Martus glanced over his shoulder. Wherever Hal had taken Elsaben, they were both completely hidden from his sight, and therefore from the sight of the people attacking them. As soon as he was sure of that, he put his focus back on the men in front of him.

  He was able to use his swords to block their hits for a while, but he wasn’t causing them much damage either. The best weapon he had on hand was his dagger. His sword wasn’t doing anything for the moment other than protecting him, but whenever they both staggered backward from their swords colliding with his, Martus darted forward and sliced with his dagger. Sometimes he hit an arm or one of their sides, and sometimes he even nicked their necks. It wasn’t doing a lot, but neither of them had gotten a single hit on him yet.

  Just as Martus was pulling his sword back to drive it through the man in front of him, a small fire burst up at their feet. Before he caught on fire, Martus threw away the hit he had and jumped backward, onto the stone bridge they’d been waiting to cross. Obviously Hal was close enough to help them with magick.

  While the men scrambled to put out the fires at their feet, Martus hit one of them over the head with the hilt of his sword as hard as he could. He dropped to the ground, and Martus stomped the fire out of his pant leg. Maybe he would have died anyway—he was bleeding from his head—but Martus didn’t want to see a body burn in front of him.

  When he turned back around, the other man was gone. Martus assumed he had either figured out to scramble down to the river to put the fire out, or he’d rejoined the fray. Martus spotted Fitzy struggling against two women and a man. Lee and Mel were battling, matching each other blow for blow, but Martus had a feeling he shouldn’t step in the middle of that, so he hurried to Fitzy’s side, sliding along the dusty ground between the legs of the two women.

  On his way, he stabbed his dagger right into one woman’s thigh. She cried out, gripping her leg as Martus hopped to his feet. Fitzy gave him a small nod of approval before they were both fighting off steel again.

  Martus wasn’t a good swordsman—that was especially obvious when he was fighting alongside Fitzy—but he could at least block the attacks coming at him from the man who wasn’t fighting Fitzy. Eventually, however, Martus got frustrated with the consistent nonfight. No one was landing any blows, and he didn’t want to be stuck fighting the same man forever, so he took a chance and brought down a particularly hard blow on the man’s sword arm.

  He cried out and dropped his sword to the ground. Before his opponent could go after it, Martus kicked it over the edge of the bridge into the river. Then he hauled back and punched the man in the face with all his strength. It may have hurt Martus more than it hurt him, but he stumbled back again, at least, and Martus brought his foot to the man’s gut.

  In fact, Martus’s foot was still pushing against his stomach when the fighting came to a screeching halt. Three things happened almost simultaneously that kept anyone from striking another blow right away.

  Elsaben, whose arm was grasped by the man who’d run away, let out a bloodcurdling scream.

  She pushed her hands forward, and a huge ball of fire flew at all of them.

  Hal, standing just behind her, reaching out toward her, swelled up and roared.

  Martus didn’t take much note of either of the second two things. He brought his fist down to meet the head of the man in front of him, and his knee up to meet it. He didn’t even wait for him to drop before he hurtled over to Elsaben. He drove his sword right through the man who had been holding on to her. He, too, had frozen between all of the events, but Martus didn’t care. If he had harmed a hair on Elsaben’s head—even if he hadn’t—he was dead already.

  While the man bled on the ground, Martus put his sword away and scooped Elsaben up into his arms, smoothing her hair down. Her face was red and her nose running, tears streaming from her eyes. Martus’s heart stopped as he wildly searched her for injuries. Her arm was a little bruised, and that was already enough to make him see red. She didn’t seem to be hurt anywhere else, but she was still sobbing.

  “Sh, sh, you’re okay. It’s okay, princess. Are you hurt? Tell me if I can help you. I’ll heal you. We need to get out of here. I—” Martus sighed, holding his sister to his chest, his cheek on top of her head.

  “I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry, I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just got scared, and then I couldn’t stop it!” The last thing he’d expected to hear from her was an apology.

  In an instant Martus raised his head and held Elsaben’s face in his hands, shaking his head. Not only was he confused by her apologizing at all, but he didn’t understand why she thought she’d hurt anyone.

  “What do you mean, little one? You don’t have anything to apologize for.” He wiped her tears away with his thumbs, searching her face for some answer.

  “The fire. I got scared, and I knew the spell. I just meant to burn his hand so he’d let go! I didn’t think it would do all that.” Elsaben looked over Martus’s shoulder, and more tears formed in her eyes.

  He had been blind to anything other than her pain, but when he spun to see what she’d done, it was impossible to miss what the fire had caused. Not only was half the forest on fire, but Hal was flying above them, landing only to swipe out at one of the people fighting against Mel or Fitzy. Martus was surprised neither of them had been knocked to the ground yet, but he supposed it was either dumb luck, or perhaps Hal had more control than Martus would guess.

  “Oh, El. How?” Martus should have been furious, or terrified, but he was just amazed. He’d never taught her any spell that damaging, and she didn’t even have them in her books. Even if he had, it should have been much too difficult for her to ever cast. It was magick Martus certainly couldn’t do; he doubted even Hal could manage something like that when he was normal. “Don’t worry about it, okay? You defended yourself. We need to get out of here. We need to go.” By the end of his sentence, Martus was talking more to himself than he was to Elsaben.

  He kept her in his arms as he ran over to Mel and Fitzy. They’d moved a ways away from the bridge, and they were together now; everyone who had been fighting them was either on fire or on the ground. It would be easier to get them out of there, at least. On
ce they were far enough away, he could leave Elsaben with them, try to do something about Hal….

  “Come on, both of you, it’s too dangerous here. We need to keep moving. Leave the horses. Leave the bags. Go. Go!” He didn’t know how far they’d have to go, but he knew better than to have them standing right there. Hal was preoccupied by the others for now, but it wouldn’t take long for his attention to turn once they were all dead. Maybe he had the control to keep from hurting them, and maybe he would turn back once the danger to him passed, but it wasn’t something Martus would risk. Not with his sister.

  “What the hell was that?” Mel did as Martus asked, but her face was red and her eyes slits when she looked over at him.

  “Which part?” Martus adjusted Elsaben on his hip. He truly didn’t want to have this conversation with her right now, but if he had to leave Elsaben with her, then he needed to be honest, as little as he might want to.

  “The part where a man who has been traveling with us for days just turned into a dragon! Did you know?”

  “Mel, please, be reasonable. He didn’t hurt us. Even if he had, you can’t blame this poor man. He helped us.” Fitzy cut in before Martus could say a word, but Martus shook his head. That wasn’t quite true. He had deliberately kept it from her. He knew this could have happened at any moment.

  “I did know. He’s my best friend, of course I knew. But he isn’t a danger to you. I’m making sure of that. If you stay away and keep Elsaben away, I can get him back to normal. You don’t have to travel home with us after that if you don’t want to.” Martus rubbed his free hand over his face, sighing heavily. If it had just been one day later, if they’d been home…. Maybe they would have had to move again, but at least it wouldn’t be this.

  “So you lied to me! You put me in danger, put my brother in danger, and you didn’t think to tell me?” That was just too much for Martus to stomach. Yes, he had lied, but Mel had no reason to be this angry at him.