by BJ Hanlon
Suddenly, the flames rose up and surrounded him like a wall. A laugh pulsed through his head so loud it was liable to shatter his eardrums.
Edin woke with another cold sweat. He sat up quickly from his bedroll and looked into the forest in front of him. A pair of eyes stared from across the camp, slowly a body materialized.
Dephina. She moved with silence as she approached, she reached for something on her hip and held it out for him. In the pale moonlight he could see a waterskin.
Edin accepted it and took a drink.
“Bad dreams?” she whispered.
Edin nodded, but not knowing if she could see he said, “yes.”
“Your bodyguard just laid down, I’m guessing it’s about two hours before dawn.”
Edin handed back the skin and moved his hand to the new stitches checking them to see if any broke in his fitful sleep.
“Why don’t you sit up with me for the last of my shift?” She moved toward a small rock she had been sitting on and patted a spot next to her.
Edin rubbed his eyes and stood. He did have questions about her, about Grent. The warrior wasn’t one to share with Edin, but for some reason, he felt like she would. Like she knew something about him and much more than all the years Edin had known the man.
Edin took the spot next to her. The soft flesh of her arm lightly brushed his, Edin tried hard to think about something else. Anything else.
In the dark, it seemed like it was just the two of them alone in a thick forest.
They sat quietly for a while, the wind whistling through the trees, morning birds beginning to sing their tune. He heard the howl of a wolf, but it sounded far to the north.
“So, are you going to ask me?” she said.
“About what?”
“Me…”
Edin looked at her. Sitting, she was almost a half a head shorter than him, but when they stood she was closer to his height. Edin pictured the way she walked in her tight britches. The way her hips swayed on her long legs made his heart jump. He swallowed.
“What’s the Mireshka?” Edin said quietly. It clearly wasn’t a secret but he felt it better to whisper the name than to speak it loudly.
“Mireshka is an old word, though I’m not sure anyone really knows its true meaning. Basically, it’s an assassin, a female assassin,” she clarified. “We’re taken as children and trained.”
“Taken?”
“We’re either young orphans or our parents can’t afford to feed us.”
“So an orphanage and school?”
“Yes, we’re brought up learning many skills. All of them are meant to help us aid the order and of course ourselves in the future.”
“Have you killed many people?” Edin asked, unsure if it was an appropriate question like asking a woman her age. Though that was also something he wanted to ask her. The comment about him being a child rang back into his head.
“A few, we don’t just jump from contract to contract like a blacksmith. We are paid well, though most of it goes to the order.”
“And you’re okay with it? With seeing people die?”
She nodded. “From a young age we are trained to deal with death so as to not get ill when it finally happens. When I first saw a man murdered… I threw up.”
Edin didn’t know what to say, he’d seen men killed. Then there was Dexal, Edin had murdered him… but it was self-defense. A small pang of guilt hung from his gut from that death. He hadn’t meant to kill the bully, even if he was the biggest blotard in all of Yaultan.
Edin thought about the trials since the start of the journey. That number compounded at the inn. Maybe ten men died there. Was it odd he didn’t feel sick when they died? Was it a mark of being an abomination?
“I never felt ill…” Edin said, “does that make me a bad person?”
Dephina reached an arm around him and squeezed his head into her shoulder. Her warm body felt good, too good. He reached an arm around her back and tried pulling her closer. She resisted, her taut muscles were strong enough to keep him from moving her closer.
“It doesn’t make you bad, a lot of girls didn’t get sick. Even the first time they took a life.”
“You say girls… how old were you?”
“I think about six… but I can’t be sure.”
Slowly she let go of him and even though he didn’t want to, Edin took her lead and slid over an inch. They sat quietly again for another half hour, Edin wondering what it was like for her as a child learning to be an assassin. How would that existence shape her?
“You’re not normal are you, Master Edin?” she said finally. “You’re a bit awkward for a boy, but there seems to be a strength in you. Despite little training you attacked a seasoned bandit, you threw a mug at a man attacking me. You’re bold. I like that.” Seconds later she stood and started to walk around the camp.
Without the heat she provided, he felt the gooseflesh crawling up his skin. Edin started rubbing them and looked back at Grent and Master Horston. The old man was snoring, but the reflection off Grent’s watchful gaze said he was awake though he made no movement.
They left early without training so as not to split Edin’s stitches. Edin realized the mud on the forest floor made them easy to track if the bandits had a mind to do so. Grent wasn’t sure they would. The northern forest was a freighting place for all peoples, men, women and the thieving scum.
Edin took up the rear again as they walked.
Sometime later, Grent somehow spotted large nearly flat rocks about a twenty yards deeper into the forest. The stones were somewhere between white and gray. They went to it for easier movement. Edin noticed gaps and flat stones and it ran east. Some of the stones looked almost flat. Could they be carved by man? Edin didn’t know.
The rocks slowed them down a bit as Grent called out the gaps and questionable footing. But at least their trail was obscured and it wasn’t as tiring as the mud.
Edin practiced controlling the ball of light. He felt that if he could maintain a connection to the energy he wouldn’t pass out. It was one thing he didn’t want to try on the hard stone.
It was early evening and he was exhausted. The hiking on rocks, stepping up and dropping down even a few inches drew tired him faster than he had anticipated. Grent raised his hand and pointed at something.
Dephina moved up next to him, her hand resting on his lower back. Edin felt a tinge of jealousy watching the gorgeous bard’s caressing hand rest on Grent.
Grent kept moving as Dephina came back toward them.
“There’s a small bol with what looks like a cave at the back. Grent will check it out.” Edin watched as the reached the edge of the rocks, looked down for a brief moment before leaping down like a deer and disappearing. Edin saw the top of the cave and maybe a foot inside. There was no way to know how far it went or what lurked inside.
An idea formed in his head, one Horston installed in the tunnel. Grent would be searching almost blind unless he lit a fire with the sparkstone. But that could take time. “I’ll be back.” Edin said as he started toward Grent.
Dephina tried to grab his arm, but he slipped out of her thin fingers. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Master stay here,” he said it to Horston and he could see the old man knew what Edin was going to do.
“Mistress Dephina, can you help me to the stone, my old bones are sore.”
Dephina looked between the two then sighed. “I’m telling Grent I was against it.”
“I’m not a child.” Edin spat quickly and with more anger than he needed to. He stomped off toward the drop. It was a U-shaped bowl like a shovel. Edin let go his pack and leaned over the edge. He dropped almost ten feet down and landed awkwardly on an angled stone. He stumbled back until he crashed into the wall.
Grent appeared out of the cave. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you see,” Edin said trying to catch his breath. He stretched out his back for a moment then moved past Grent, “make sure she’s still back there.” Edin walked to th
e edge of the cave and drew his sword. Grent leapt up, gripping his hands on a stone he pulled himself so the top of his head was above the rocks.
“She’s rubbing Horston’s legs.”
“Gross,” Edin said. He felt the energy flowing into him and summoned the small white grape to appear in his hand. He let a little more energy flow and the light to grow brighter.
Edin stepped inside, the ground sloped down slightly and he could hear the drips of water. It was a low ceiling and he had to crouch as he went in a little deeper. After about three paces the cave shrank to only a few inches and then ceased at collapsed rocks. A cave in. His eyes dropped to a pile of bones, and what looked like torn bits of skin.
Edin swallowed and moved closer. Though he saw every part of the cave, he still felt his eyes shifting constantly for whatever it was that made this cave its lair. In one corner he saw a shredded deer skin and gnawed bones. The rotting smell was powerful. Edin stuck his nose in his tunic and heard footsteps sounded behind him. “Something lives here,” Edin said.
“What?”
“Big claws and fangs… a predator. A bear probably. It’s fresh too, a few days maybe…”
He poked the skin and saw three large tears. Edin looked at them, then his arm.” That meant one animal. “Crillio,” Edin said under his breath.
“I thought they were nocturnal, why would it not be here now?”
“And the last one I met was sleeping in a tree not a cave.” Edin paused for a moment wiping his wet palms on his trousers. “Maybe they’re like humans, adaptable to their surroundings,” Edin said.
Rocks clattered outside the cave. “Then we should probably get inside… that thing could kill either of them before they knew what happened,” Grent said.
Edin nodded and pulled back in the energy.
They helped Master Horston into the mouth of the cave and told Dephina that they threw pebbles inside to see if anything stirred.
Edin was sure she didn’t believe them.
Grent took off for a small scouting adventure and a search for wood, which wasn’t in short supply, while Master Horston laid down on the hard stone.
He’d been quiet since they met Dephina, Edin was unsure if it was due to her profession or just her being an outsider. Obviously, the deadly woman could kill Edin and probably get a reward for turning in his head.
Edin stood at the edge of the cave is the assassin move towards him.
“You know what’d be good training for you?” Dephina said. “A steep learning curve as it were.” Edin shrugged. “Fighting on uneven ground in bad light.” Her knives seemed to spring from their sheathes. She leapt toward him, slashing.
Edin couldn’t draw his sword as fast and found himself dodging her attacks empty handed. His adrenaline pumped when he felt the wind of one less than a finger away from his neck. Another, barely missed his shoulder as he dropped to the ground. Was she trying to kill him?
She stepped back. “Good reflexes for someone who’s ill.” She nodded at his sword.
Edin drew it and almost as soon as he was set she jumped at him. Her two blades flashing in the dim light. He parried and dodged but after only a few strikes she had her blade at his throat. She gracefully disengaged. Edin’s chest was pounding for air and his legs tired from the hike.
Dephina seemed to have regained her strength from the hike and showed no signs of being out of breath. She came at him again, Edin blocked. As he stepped back, his foot caught something and he tumbled.
Dephina looked down on him and shook her head. “Be aware of your surroundings,” she said.
Edin was barely back to his feet before she started the new attack. “Your forms are fine; your speed is better than most,” she said while still striking at him.
He was able to dodge or parry her blows, he wasn’t sure how many she’d threw at him but slowly a smile came to his face. Then she stabbed low and as Edin tried to block, her other blade went high. He was off guard and would’ve been dead had she not held back.
“Don’t watch the blades, let your sword do that, watch the opponent. Eyes can deceive, hips and shoulders do not. See where they’re coming from.”
“How?”
“Attack me,” she said sliding her blades into her sheaths. Edin raised an eyebrow. She waited as they stared at each other. “I don’t have all night.”
Stepping forward Edin, thrust his sword. He didn’t trust himself so he aimed it just to the left of her hip.
Dephina didn’t move, she didn’t even flinch. “Try to hit me,” she said rolling her eyes.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t child.” She spat at him.
Edin glanced toward Master Horston. The old man was watching them.
“I’m not a child,” Edin growled back as he leapt at her with the blade. She dodged every attack, twisting, leaping and twirling like a dancer as if theirs was a choreographed show. Edin felt out of breath after almost five minutes of nonstop attacking. He’d stumbled on the rocks while she would glide over them without even looking.
Finally Edin tossed his sword to the ground. He was worthless, he couldn’t even get close to a woman.
Dephina walked to one of the packs and grabbed a waterskin. She took a drink and sat a few feet from him.
“I’ve been doing this for many years, since before you were born. You’re not bad, especially for a magus.”
Edin’s mouth went dry and Master Horston sat up protesting.
Dephina raised her hand. “Please don’t assume I’m stupid and lie to me,” she said looking at the tutor.
Edin saw her blades were back in their sheaths and she made no movement toward them.
“I’m…” Edin started.
“I said don’t lie, you don’t have to confirm or deny it, either way I know what you are. You’re not the first I’ve met, in fact some of my sisters are.”
“In the Mireshka?” Edin asked.
She nodded. “The magi of our order are highly sought after. Able to do things many of us only wish we could. Probably the worst kept secret in the world is that the nobility isn’t as afraid of mages as they’d have you believe. Some, like Prince Feracrucio, even keeps a few around almost as pets.”
“But the Por Fen? The mage hunters…”
“They use a few as well. A ‘do as I say, not as I do’ mentality. Only the commoners are truly afraid of mages and that’s reinforced through the church.”
“But why?” Edin asked.
“Two reasons, money and power,” Dephina said. “If you believe mages are evil and they’ll kill your children and steal your soul, you’ll need both the nobility and Por Fen. If you need them you’re willing to pay for their protection and heed their words. It happens all over Bestoria.”
“That cannot be true,” Master Horston said, “I’ve studied the laws that have been in place since King Bestavienne was overthrown almost a thousand years ago. There are thousands of accounts of magi being burnt alive, torn and quartered. It is far too all gruesome.”
“You’re correct with your history Master Horston, I’m not referring to history, I’m referring to people. The last mage king was said to have been a hot head and cruel, but how is that any different from your own prince? We study this extensively at The House of Blades and Mirrors… our school.”
“You study about ancient mages? Ancient wars and laws?”
“We study people, how to get close to them, to understand them, their needs and desires. We’ve had sisters go to every university on the continent to learn, even sisters at the Isle of Mists, which is where I assume you’re taking young master Edin.” She looked at him and smiled. “We are as much scholars as we are spies and assassins.”
Edin leaned back against a pointy rock and closed his eyes. He summoned the ethereal light in his palm.
Dephina furrowed her brow and opened her mouth but a second later Grent came around the cove, his arms filled with logs and small kindling. He frowned for a moment then shrugged
his shoulders and started making a small fire just inside the cave.
They sat silently while Grent started the fire with his sparkstone. After he was done, Edin called his energy ball back into him.
“Wine skin?” Edin asked. Grent handed it to him.
“So, she knows...” Master Horston nodded. “Good.” He looked across the fire at Dephina who smiled and winked at him.
They talked around the fire, Master Horston and Dephina discussing everything from politics to history, philosophy and psychology. When they talked trade, Edin and Grent looked at each other and shook their heads. Some of it interested him, most didn’t.
After finishing the first wine skin Grent and Edin started drinking from a second. Grent spilled some wine on his hand, a quick grin and he flung droplets at Master Horston.
Edin was laughing when a subtle smell crept back into his nostrils. His pulse increased and for some reason he began to feel afraid. Why? How? What was it from? Edin looked into the darkness behind Dephina.
She started to giggle as well after the drop of red liquid hit Master Horston on his pale cheek.
The memory came to him, the stench from above. Leaping to his feet he whispered, “in the cave, now.”
Dephina’s eyes widened and she scrambled forward on hands and knees dragging Master Horston with her.
“What is it?” Grent said. The odor was getting stronger.
“Crillio,” Edin said drawing his weapon. The distinct sound of blades leaving their sheaths came from around him. A moment later a large black mass appeared at the edge of the light. The beast seemed to crawl out of the darkness as if it were being birthed from it. The crillio stared at them, the fire reflecting in its eyes.
“I don’t think it will attack, the fire will keep it back,” Master Horston started. “And if it really is as smart as they say, it won’t want to come up against three humans.”
The cat seemed to hear this because suddenly it disappeared from sight. The smell didn’t leave. Instead, the odor seemed to intensify as if the beast was closer.
