The Wanderer's Tale: Esmor

by Rex Foote

  When she woke, the first thing she noticed was how sore her arms were. She tried moving them only to find that she couldn’t, and she started panicking until it all came back to her. Kellan, their talk, and then an overwhelming wave of exhaustion that had dragged her down into sleep. Blinking, she looked around to see the same camp as before, this time covered in night’s dark veil; she could see the silhouetted mound of the Ohruin sleeping while Kellan stood on watch, and the mage was nowhere to be seen. Rolling over, she gasped as she came face to face with the badly bruised face of Hark, asleep, with his features partially illuminated by flickering firelight. She felt rage build within her at his treatment, and hot tears of anger gathered at the corners of her eyes.

  “I am so sorry,” she whispered to his still form. “I will get you out of this, I promise.”

  Hark groaned in his sleep, his bound form stirring and shivering in the chill night air. She shuffled closer over to him, sharing her warmth as the night wore on.

  The next morning, the full extent of Hark’s injuries became apparent when he stirred and let out a low moan of pain. Looking into his face, she asked, “Hark?”

  He opened his eyes, or tried to, as one was swollen shut and the other was gummed up with dried blood and dirt. “Esme?” he croaked and then coughed. At that point, Kellan came over to help him sit up and give him a drink of water. Then to Esme’s surprise, he started to clean away the dried blood on Hark’s face, as well as applying some sort of poultice to his bruises. He turned to see her astonished expression.

  “We aren’t evil people. But your friend fought us and hurt Mul pretty bad. He got what was his, but that doesn’t mean we will let him suffer,” he offered in the way of explanation.

  “Then why?” she hissed. “Are you taking me back against my will?”

  He shrugged, then turning back to Hark to continue with the poultice, he said, “I told you, we are getting paid a lot to do this, and we need the coin. It’s how we make a living.”

  She subsided into silence as he finished tending to Hark’s wounds. Then he got to his feet and walked back over to his companions. Hark was the first to speak.

  “Esme, how did you get captured?”

  “I came back for you. I had a plan, but they got me first.”

  He grinned at her, causing one of the cuts on his lip to crack open. Wincing, he said, “Well, at least we are together.”

  She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I am going to get you out of this Hark, I promise.”

  He eyed her suspiciously. “What are you planning?”

  “Don’t worry. Everything will be alright.”

  “Esme…” he began, but he never got to finish, as Kellan and Adien came over and helped them to their feet and they resumed their journey back to Caladaria.

  ***

  The group stopped in the lee of a hillside that appeared to have been cut in half, leaving one side sheer vertical rock, which made an excellent sun shelter. The going had been slow, mainly due to the wounded Ohruin, who Esme learned was called Mul. At one point during the morning’s travel, Kellan had dropped back to ask them about the mysterious Elreni mage that had attacked Mul. When they both denied any knowledge of the mage, Kellan just nodded to himself as if this confirmed his suspicions, then walked back to Mul’s side. When they stopped, the mage, Aiden, came and cut the rope binding their hands so that they could eat, and the pair did just that, sitting in silence, each lost in increasingly gloomy thoughts. For her part, Esme didn’t care about her fate, as she knew that Hark would not have an easy time when they got back; her mother and father would see to that. Maybe they would push for him to be jailed, banished, sent to work in the mines of far-off Shadehill, or who knew what else they were planning for him. That final thought struck like a punch to the gut; the one person she loved the most in the world was currently walking towards a dark fate, and it was all her fault. No, she thought fiercely, not her fault, but her parents’. If only they could let her go her own way, then none of this would have happened, and they would have made it to Mymt by now and maybe even have returned to Caladaria safe and sound. She looked at her hands, now free of rope and restraints, and knew what she had to do. It would be risky, but then her original plan to free Hark had been risky, and now the stakes were higher. Well, maybe not higher, but she had considered them more thoroughly and did not like her conclusions. And so for Hark, the new life she desperately wanted, and the old one that she just as desperately wanted to be rid of, she settled on a course of action and took it.

  “Hark?”

  He looked at her, his face better than it had been before but still showing clear signs of the beating he had received. “Yes?”

  Taking a deep breath, she said, “I love you. No matter what happens next, I want you to remember that.”

  And with his face just starting to show signs of worry and surprise, she began to cast a spell. It was a simple spell, the best always were, but in this case it wasn’t the simplicity that mattered, it was the force with which it was cast. She drew upon everything she had, knowing full well just how big of a risk she was taking, but she didn’t care. This was her last chance to free Hark, to reject her old life and with open arms accept her new one. And so any reserves she had left were all committed to this one spell, this one last throw, and the feeling that it generated was one of demi-god-like power combined with a horrible, burning agony that filled every fibre of her being. With a terrible scream at the power now raging within, she Shaped her spell, desperately wrangling with the mental image of all three of her captors falling into a deep sleep. Aiden understood her intent too late and had only just begun to Shape a defence when she felt that mental click and with a cry of triumph released the spell. Instantly, she slumped to the ground, the sudden absence of so much energy leaving her weak and unable to hold herself up. She could feel Hark at her shoulders, shaking them and calling her name in an increasingly desperate tone.

  “I am here,” she slurred into the grass as he rolled her over onto her back.

  “Oh, thank the trees,” Hark gasped in relief. “What did you do?”

  Closing her eyes, she said, “I put them to sleep; they never saw it coming.”

  Laughing with joy, Hark hugged her prone form and then, still laughing, rose to collect their gear from where it had been dropped. She lay there soaking up the warm sunlight and promising herself to never do anything like that again; her whole body ached with a dull, low pain, and she doubted she would be good for anything for the next few days. A few moments passed, and she realized that Hark hadn’t come back. Cracking open her eyes, she asked, “Hark?”

  “Out cold, I hit him well,” came a tired voice that froze Esme’s blood. “Your trick worked well; it was a good try, and it would have worked perfectly if not for me.”

  With great effort, Esme rolled onto her stomach and got shakily to her knees and saw the stooped form of the party mage, hands on knees and obviously exhausted. Despair filled her, and all she could do was merely gape at him, unable to believe that somehow her plan hadn’t worked.

  “How?”

  “Oh, don’t feel bad,” he said, giving her a respectful nod. “It almost managed to put me out; exhausting me like that was a good use of force on such a simple spell. But we mages know exhaustion, don’t we? And we know how to push through it. That, and my half-raised defences helped a bit.”

  Bone take him, he was right, of course he would be able to push through the effects of exhaustion induced sleep. She had thought herself so clever to use such a simple spell against them; no flashy fireballs or overdone lightning bolts, just a simple spell that no one would ever see coming. It was just a shame it hadn’t worked completely. The mage straightened and walked towards her, dagger held blade first, with the pommel ready to knock her out like he had Hark.

  “Once I knock you out, we can bind the pair of you, then rest for as long as we want. Then we’ll be on our way. I wager that spell has drained you utterly, so you won’t be
a problem.”

  Time almost seemed to slow while he walked over as Esme considered her options. But ultimately she knew that the choice had been made when she’d cast the sleep spell, as she had committed everything to this last throw and it had failed. Then it occurred to her that she still could do something, although this time it would almost certainly leave her scarred, seeing as she had nothing left, or almost nothing. With this thought, the resolve she had felt moments before once more hardened within her and she made her choice. Closing her eyes, she started to draw not upon any excess energy that the body could do without, but upon the very energy that kept her body running. It hurt more than it ever had before as her body gave up its life force for the spell, and this time there was no restraint in the spell she chose, no knocking out or enforced sleep. Instead, she pictured herself raising her left arm and a shard of ice flying from her outstretched hand to impale the mage directly in his head. That familiar click sounded, and she opened her eyes to see the mage grinning as he brought the pommel down towards her head. Her hand was only halfway up when the pommel struck, and darkness claimed her.

  Hark was woken by a dull but very painful ache from the back of his head that was soon joined by the dull ache from the rest of his face. He reached around to feel a large, egg-sized bump on the back of his skull, and, groaning, he was about to give up on the idea of standing when screaming broke through his pain-filled thoughts and his eyes snapped open. He staggered unsteadily to his feet to see the mage, his hands clasped to his left shin where blood poured out between his fingers; then he saw Esme slumped and still on the ground close to the man. He stared at the scene, blinking in incomprehension for a few moments before he understood what had happened. The mage had knocked him out and was going to do the same to Esme, but she had somehow managed one last spell and had either fallen unconscious after casting it or had been hit by the mage’s blow just as it went off. Ignoring the pain, he strode over to the mage, who looked up at him with bewildered, pain-filled eyes, and punched him clean in the face. The man fell over backwards, and Hark came alongside him and gave him a few good kicks in the ribs before kicking him in the head, knocking him out cold. As his hands came away from his leg, Hark could see a gaping hole filled with torn meat and jagged bone midway down the shin. Whatever Esme had done had been quite effective. He collected their gear and then, grimacing at the pain, he picked Esme up, supported her on one shoulder, and slung the bags over the other. His only thought being to get both Esme and himself far, far away from this place, he staggered out of the camp and towards a small stream they had passed earlier this morning. It was only then that he noticed something seemed wrong with Esme’s left arm; the skin had taken on an ashen hue, and the arm itself seemed wasted and older, the fingers more like the withered fingers of an elder than a young woman. Fear grew within him, and he felt the need to put her down and make sure she was okay, but he carried on, knowing that all she had done in these last few minutes would be for nothing if they got captured again.

  ***

  Esme dreamed. She dreamed of home in Caladaria, of her parents, and fellow apprentice mages. She dreamed of soft beds and good food. And then it was all gone; in a flash, it was all consumed by fire and dirt, but somehow she persisted, standing near its edge and gazing back at the ruin that had once been Caladaria, its streets rivers of fire and death. Without knowing why, she turned and came face to face with a tall, dark shape not far from the edge of the destruction. As she peered at it, she could just make out a helmeted head atop a tall, dark, and well-muscled frame. While she studied this shape, it turned its gaze from the destruction of Caladaria and looked at her, not past her as she might expect, but right at her as if it could…

  She woke coughing and wheezing, her dry throat instantly telling her about the pressing need for water. Moments later, Hark was by her side, supporting her head and gently bringing a waterskin to her lips. She drank greedily and then stopped, resting her head against his supporting hand. He withdrew the waterskin and looked down at her, eyes filled with concern.

  “Are you feeling okay?” he asked, his voice mirroring the worry in his eyes.

  “Yes,” she croaked, underlining that she was not okay. “What happened?”

  Smiling, he said, “You got the mage, Esme, hit him right in the shin with something that hurt, a lot. After that, I came back around and got us out of there.”

  He gestured around, and she became aware of the sound of running water. He must have carried her to the stream, but that had been a good half a day away from where they had made camp. She brought her left hand up to brush away a strand of hair that had fallen into her eyes, then paused. She tried again but still the arm wouldn’t respond, and then she realised that she could no longer feel it.

  “Hark,” Esme said in a small, quiet voice. “What happened to my arm?”

  Sorrow instantly filled his face, and he turned away. When he spoke, his voice was thick with suppressed emotion.

  “It’s gone, Esme. When I was carrying you, I noticed that it had withered and had started to go grey. It only got worse and worse, and by the time I got here, it had crumbled into dust.”

  Horrified, she turned her head towards where the limb had been, to see nothing, not even a stub; where the arm would have usually split from the shoulder, there was just smooth flesh. Overdraw, the enemy of all mages, had finally got her, and claimed as its prize her left arm, drained it away until it was nothing but dust. She turned her head back around to see Hark’s face, tears making tracks down its puffy, bruised surface.

  “It’s okay,” she managed, fighting a desperate defence against the crushing weight of exhaustion that now pressed down on her. “It could have been worse, much worse. I am still alive, aren’t I?”

  He hugged her then, a tight, fierce embrace that couldn’t be broken by anyone save him. She felt in that embrace the affection and love she had so openly shown him returned to her tenfold. So it was that, in the embrace of the person she loved and trusted the most, she fell into a deep, deep sleep.

  Chapter Eighteen

  11th Day of Daaris. The Season of Light. Year 250

  When she woke the next day, she wished she hadn’t. Every muscle in her body felt worn out and drained, her head felt foggy, and thinking was a slow, painful process. It took her a full five minutes to completely recall the events of the past day and that she now didn’t have a left arm. Hark came to her soon after she woke, his face pale and drawn with pain and lack of sleep, as it turned out he had taken the whole night on watch.

  After gratefully accepting a bowl of stew, she said, “You should sleep. I can keep watch today, but you have to sleep. You got pretty badly beaten, then carried me for half a day and finally took a whole night on watch. You aren’t much better off than I am and look far worse.”

  He was going to reply, but the moment he opened his mouth, he let out an enormous yawn, underlining her point nicely. Smiling sheepishly, he finished his meal, then walked over to lie down on his bedroll, and he was asleep mere moments later. Surprised by how easy it had been to convince him, she started the slow process of stretching, trying to work out the sore, stiff feeling that permeated every inch of her body, making sure that food and water were close at hand so she could start the process of building her strength back up. She was an hour into this when a voice called to her from across the stream.

  “We always seem to start our talks shouting at one another.”

  She had been in the process of stretching out her legs and almost fell into the stream at the sound of the voice. Looking up, she saw Kellan, his haggard face pale and drawn, with large dark bags under his eyes. He pre-emptively held up a hand to forestall any action from her.

  “Peace,” he said. “We know when we are beaten. Mul’s shoulder needs proper attention, as does Aiden’s shin. You got him pretty good, and he could lose it and the foot.”

  Slowly straightening, she asked, “If you aren’t here for me, then why are you here?”

 
; “To honour a worthy opponent.” At her unimpressed expression, he carried on. “The truth is I thought you deserved to know we were giving up. Living in fear of us coming after you is not what we want, and despite what you did, we don’t feel any ill will to you. Well, I don’t, at any rate.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Not to Caladaria.” He chuckled. “Your parents were very explicit; we were to bring you back alive and unharmed. And since you lost an arm, I doubt they will be glad to see us. Your mother may well flay us alive.”

  She stood there, watching him and considering his words. This man, whom she had hated at first, now turned out to be less of a monster than she’d thought. He was just trying to make his way, and no doubt the pay offered for her return had been substantial, enough for him to follow her all this way. But here he was conceding defeat, knowing that to try and take her now would somehow be wrong, even though he could easily do it if he wished. She smiled at him.

  “Thank you, Kellan, for leaving us be.”

  He gave her a small, respectful bow.

  “If you ever get tired of doing whatever it is you are doing, then come find us. We could use a mage like you, and while your friend could not have hoped to win, he put up a good fight. We can always use two like you in our line of work.”

  He turned then and trudged back towards his camp and companions. Esme watched him until he was gone from sight, then returned back to what she was doing. Despite her and Hark’s state, she started to feel better, and it took her tired mind a few moments to realise why. Now that there was no one after them, no one hounding them, and no one wanting to drag them back to Caladaria, they could finish their journey in peace. She smiled to herself, feeling a great weight finally lift from her as the day drew ever on.

  Though it was a risk, Esme knew that both of them needed to get a good sleep, so when it was time to wake Hark for night watch, she decided against it. Instead, she packed their gear up along his back, threw one of their animal hide blankets over him, covered it with dirt and grass, then crawled up underneath it alongside him where she promptly fell asleep, hoping that her efforts would be enough to fool anything that came across them during the night. She was woken the next morning when Hark, groggy with sleep and not knowing where he was or what this darkness was that covered him, stretched, placing a hand over her face. This woke her with a start, causing her to sit up and throw the cover off of them. Blinking in the dawn light, she looked down at Hark, who was staring up at her in confusion.