‘Me too… Hey, we’ve not introduced ourselves yet,’ Amberly said, trying to draw the topic away from that. She should be happy right now, she knew. After all, she was still alive when she fully expected to have burned to death by now.
‘I’m Amberly Penzare,’ she said. ‘I’m told I have you to thank for my rescue. So, er… thanks… I can’t say I saw it coming.’
Syline giggled and turned her head back to look at Amberly. Amberly had to admire her hair; she’d never seen someone with hair so long that didn’t look like a wild bird’s nest.
‘You’re most welcome. I’m Syline Petranski, second eldest daughter of the Petranski. I don’t suppose Thelonious explained much; he’s not a talker.’
‘He said something about you being hunted. Why did you pass out like that? Those were some amazing magics, but you just collapsed right after.’
Now, Syline seemed bashful. Her cheeks were bright red, though much of that was probably from the cold wind blasting into their face.
‘I have a spell-book with a lot of very powerful spells in it, but I’m actually only a novice. I had to push myself way past what I usually would to cast spells of that power. I admit I’ve been doing that a bit more than I’d like, of late. Three times in the past four days, I’ve collapsed from exhaustion. I doubt I’ve even given myself the time to truly recover, I’ve been doing it so often. Maybe don’t push the horse too fast, a sudden impact might be enough to dispel it.’
‘Well, to cast spells like that at all is pretty amazing. I don’t know how you managed it so quickly if you’re a novice, so I’d say you’re a little bit past that.’
‘Thanks.’ The girl seemed a bit shy, and it surprised Amberly. She’d have expected someone who’d willingly go up against the church like that to be all guts and pride, but this girl seemed exactly what she expected of a shut-in, scholarly wizard, not the sort that went on adventures. She also seemed tired, dreadfully tired. The girl said it and Amberly could see it: pushing herself so hard again and again like this was taking its toll. She looked drained, sweaty, her eyes sunk in their sockets. Most people of this region were pale, but her skin was starting to have a distinctly unhealthy pallor.
‘Why don’t you catch a bit more sleep? You look like you need it. We’re about two hours from where we’re headed anyway and then, when we get there, we need to wait for the big guy.’
‘Are you sure? I mean–’ Syline probably had things she wanted to say. Things she decided would be a bit tactless.
‘I’m sure. Carrying you away is the least I can do after you saved me from my own execution. I’ll wake you up when Thelonious shows up, alright?’
Syline let out a yawn and nodded, that confirmation having broken the last of her resistance. She lay back against Amberly and was pretty quickly fast asleep. The ex-paladin smiled softly, wrapping an arm around Syline’s stomach as she focused on the path ahead.
Thelonious caught up to them about half an hour after the pair had arrived at the designated island. The fact that Syline’s magic steed had disappeared some fifteen minutes away and sent both girls sailing into a snow drift gave him plenty of time to catch up. For all its reputation as a warren for beasts and monsters, the place seemed deserted. Though, a few broken arrows, an abandoned sword and a makeshift grave told Amberly the king’s monster hunters had probably been here recently, enough that while something likely had lived here, it was now long dead or gone.
She left Syline by a fire she built in a little nook of trees to do some exploring and quickly confirmed her thoughts: she found a pile of burned corpses. Dead. Definitely dead. They were what looked to have been a pack of kobolds and goblins. Judging by the other, larger corpses, they must’ve been led by a pair of orcs. Once Thelonious arrived, the pair quickly decided it wasn’t worth waking Syline. Thelonious set up his tent and gently got Syline settled inside beneath a blanket. Hopefully, their rest tonight wouldn’t be interrupted and she could finally recover.
The pair of them talked for a while. Syline taking the time to tell her a bit of her and Thelonious’ story: why they were on the run and who was hunting them, but it quickly derailed into inconsequential small talk. Neither were in the headspace for difficult conversations.
The sun had set by now and both felt utterly exhausted. Thelonious had spent the majority of the day on horseback and his legs were paying for it. The pair decided quickly enough that they, too, should get some sleep.
Before they dozed off, Thelonious retrieved magical potions of healings from Alma’s saddlebags, passed one to Amberly and woke Syline to feed her another. The vials were filled with a slightly luminescent amber liquid that moved thickly, like honey; tasted like it too. A unique export of Dawnsteel, few islands could create healing poultices of this power, this purity, this efficacy. As they swallowed them down, a faint warmth rolled over them, like stepping outside on a sunny day. As it passed through, it healed them in its wake, with an almost tickling tingle around each wound, itching ever so slightly as their flesh reknit itself, healing naturally, just at a pace accelerated a thousand times over. Sadly, only the most expensive ones hid the scars. He only had been able to afford three – he would’ve had more had Syline given him her purse, but she hadn’t thought to. Amberly’s bruises and cuts, Thelonious’ aches and the gashes and lacerations to his arms, and Syline’s exhaustion were healed. In the morning, the three would be ready to face the world once more.
On Thelonious’ insistence, Amberly took her rest in the tent, facing away from Syline but sharing the sleeping mages blanket. The gentlemanly hellblooded insisted he would be fine with the cold. It was the two girls who had been through so much who deserved the rest. Once the flaps of the tent closed, the three finally got their much needed slumber. Far away from even the kingdom’s borders, alone in untamed lands but for each other.
Chapter 12
Teagan rubbed her eyes with finger and thumb. This was a strange job and it was already becoming more annoying than it was worth.
The mercenary captain sat on a box of supplies in the midst of her camp, just far enough from Dawnsteel to go unnoticed. Piecemeal, her men had come and gone from the city to gather supplies and information and get some well-earned rest and relaxation after the hard ride to get here on schedule. She couldn’t, she’d stayed out here. Yaldabaoth, the demonic hound their employer had loaned them, only listened to her, and she couldn’t exactly bring that monster into the region’s religious hotspot.
‘And you’re certain it was her?’ she asked again.
‘Sure as the moon rises,’ her man, Lukas, replied, a flabbergasted smile not leaving his face since he’d arrived. Gods, he was a snide little idiot. If he wasn’t so quick with his knives, she’d have cut him loose long ago. ‘We went to the bathhouse to clean off the road, and some of the boys struck up a chat with a hellblooded in there.’
‘Seemed an alright fella,’ put in Ewan, her best archer and Lukas’s partner in shenanigans. ‘Our type, I told him where he could get some supplies without the prices being hiked up too much for him having horns and all.’
‘Right, so there we was, thinking he was just some sellsword on the end of a contract,’ continued Lukas. ‘Was thinking of offering him riding out with us, since he said his job was just about done. Then we hear that some devil’s going to be burned at the stake, with his paladin croney to boot.’
‘And we’re like, “Surely not! That won’t be the fella we just washed up with, will it?”’ Ewan took up the story once more, the pair might’ve been brothers. ‘He wasn’t no devil–’
‘Sure as the moon rises,’ cut in Lukas.
‘But we still have to go and look, after all you can’t trust knee scuffers to know the difference, and how many hellblooded could be running around Dawnsteel? Besides, not every day you see someone being burned at the stake, especially not a paladin. So, we rolled up to the back of the crowd. The devil wasn’t him, coulda fooled me though, the fella on the pyre looked just like him.’
‘Don’t be racist, Ewan,’ put in Martha, their camp mother, from where she stirred the stew pot. He put up his hands defensively.
‘What? I’m not! They really did look alike and not just the horns and redskin. Coulda been brothers.’
‘Sure as the moon rises.’
‘Anyway, we watch the devil fella burn. Awful sight it was, all this black stuff leaking out into the golden fires, him screaming and cursing. Sad thing was, we heard him telling the paladin girl it’d be okay and not to be scared, before he burned. Never thought I’d see a devil with a heart.’
Ewan accepted a bowl of stew from Martha. By now, most of the band had gathered around to listen, even those who had been there for it. Lukas took a bowl but focused on finishing the cigar he’d purchased in town first.
‘Guess the devil knew what he was talking about, and hell, guess they were brothers,’ he said, turning to glare reproachfully at Martha, ‘because right when the paladin girl’s about to go up in flames, our pal Thelonious punches one of the Dawnguard big wigs and runs in to rip her off the pyre. Suddenly everyone’s screaming, guards are collapsing left and right, walls of fire are springing up around the pyre, and this crazy little wizard girl’s swinging a spear with a blade of fire around like she’s a kid playing soldier. Devils are bursting out of the flames and the whole place is losing its head.’
‘Then, our friend the hellblooded, bursts through the flames on a horse made of stars, his little wizard passed out on the front, and the paladin’s holding on for dear life. They go streaking out of the town, and the Dawnguard make a show of following, but it seemed like they were holding back a bit. Didn’t follow them far before someone called ‘em back. Meanwhile, off they go streaking out across the tundra ’til they’re nothing but dots on the horizon.’
Silence reigned for a few good moments as they all ingested the story. Callum, one of the strongest in the crew put in, ‘Are we sure about this job, Teagan? If they’re mad enough to fight the Dawnguard–’
‘And win, sure as the moon rises,’ put in Lukas.
‘Then are we sure we want to be fighting them?’
