The foothills of the Spine ran for miles before one reached the mountains forcing the party to slow down and take their time. They would find the going even slower once they reached the mountains themselves. Ultrina walked Alba around a boulder and felt something in its final moments. Her mind automatically categorized it as not human but large.
Several of the guard ranged ahead of her, but the tug of impending death came from off to the side. Everything in her said to ignore it and keep Alba going forward. The Guard, Mongen especially, would not take well to her wandering off. However, Ultrina sensed it was having trouble crossing over. It wasn’t dying properly. Concern crossed her face. Alba slowed further, dropping them back a few riders before Ultrina guided him off the path. Mongen would have her head once he realized she was no longer with the party, but this was necessary.
Suffering in death was not necessary and she could make it easier for the creature, whatever it was.
Ultrina cast about for signs of where exactly the creature was. The sense of its impending death was close, but she didn’t see it. A cave carved out of the side of one of the hills offered refuge.
Blood splatter told of a fight, a fight for life. Unfortunately, it appeared there would be no winner. Freshly dead lay a great cat, one of the predators of the foothills. Ultrina bypassed the corpse without touching it. It wasn’t why she was there. Perhaps later, she might find a use for it.
Further in the cave, a great beast calf lay on its side, entrails partly exposed.
“Ah,” Ultrina said. She could see the scene as though she had watched it, the calf separated and bleating for its family, the great cat coming upon it and attempting to kill it. Fear had lent its strength to the calf and it had prevailed against the predator only to find itself at the portal of death. The chamber, made small by its occupants, stank of blood, dying, and fear.
Ultrina drew close, but did not place her hands on the beast. It snuffled and moaned as if it knew her calling.
“I will show you mercy,” she said quietly. The calf moaned, an almost human sound. Ultrina placed her hands on either side of its eye and it stiffened. A moment later, it began to kick hard as it realized death came with her. The beast calf wanted nothing more than to live except it needed to die.
Minutes went by as Ultrina siphoned off the last of the beast’s life. The blood leaking from it slowed as the heart did.
Coming out of the trance, the body before her already cold, Ultrina recognized the sounds of searching. The Royal Guard was looking for her. She had crawled into the cave to reach the calf and now they had perhaps found Alba alone. With a shake of her head to remove the cobwebs of a long trance, Ultrina moved out of the cave and dusted herself off. Tal stood by Alba, stroking his flank.
“What happened?”
At least Tal questioned instead of demanding an answer.
“A painful death called to me,” Ultrina said. Her body shivered, awareness of how hollow her eyes undoubtedly appeared making her close them. “Mongen thinks I ran away.”
“He does.”
“I did not.”
“Doesn’t matter. He will keep his word,” Tal said. “You were not where you were supposed to be, with the group, and he will not have you escape.”
“I am not trying to escape,” Ultrina said. “If that had been my choice,” then she shook her head. “It no longer matters. I have done my duty.”
Tal grimaced. “You’re angry.”
“Haven’t I reason to be?”
“Appeal to him.”
“I will beg no one for my freedom to come and go as I please.” Ultrina reached Alba and put her hand on the side of his head. Alba turned to regard her with one liquid eye. “Old friend,” she addressed him. “We should run.”
“If you run, he will chase you down and bind you in truth.”
“I didn’t run before and it has gained me nothing. Let him try to catch me and drag me to Renate as a true captive.”
Tal grabbed hold of her leg as she swung into the saddle. “I can’t let you,” Tal said.
Ultrina kicked out, pushing the other woman away. “You cannot stop me.”
Alba, unprompted, wheeled and headed further into the hills in the direction they had been going.
The small cadre of soldiers Mongen had brought with him must have been too spread out for them to notice her barreling through because there were no signs of pursuit, at least not immediately. Ultrina took some small pleasure in that. They might find her, but she would not make it terribly simple for them. Her scant years spent avoiding human contact when outside of towns had taught her how to hide her tracks well enough.
In the foothills, they weaved through the mounds, Ultrina low against Alba’s neck.
“We will double back in a day or two,” she said. “They will expect us to keep going on and hide in the mountains. I have no desire to meet the creatures there unprepared as we are.”
If they had stayed with the group, they might well have been able to make the trek in relative comfort. However, going to Renate as a single traveler might well end in death for both of them. Ultrina had little desire to die in a mountain pass and be eaten by the things which dwelt there.
Alba stood guard beside her that first night, the horse’s ears better than her own for detecting others, but Ultrina rose with the dawn and considered their route. Better to double back now and hope to find a town nearby enough that had not heard of her.
Mongen, if she were him, would have sent someone to the towns nearby to give them her description. However, Ultrina trusted them to be able to be bribed with coin far more easily than something which got its meat in the foothills or the mountains.
The thickening brush said they were entering a forested region, which would make hiding her tracks harder. There was always something on the forest floor which would hold hair or break to give away one’s course. Wood meant more fuel for campfires, but it also meant those looking for her would be expecting her to be so stupid. Better to eat cold rations than be caught off-guard.
All things considered, she was daring quite a punishment. Mongen would, if he caught her, turn her across a saddle and bind her hands beneath the horse for his trouble. However, Ultrina considered it worth it seeing as she had done nothing but be compliant and it had gotten her nowhere. Let him have to work for the things he wanted.
The lives of the forest reached out to her, rising like specters above their bodies and beckoning. She had rations, but taking the time to hunt might have been a good idea. There was no telling when she would reach another town given the current circumstances.
Alba slowed to a walk and then stopped, nostrils flaring. Ultrina felt the great cat before she saw it in the underbrush. It stalked them, but she could feel from its energy it wouldn’t put up much of a fight. However, Ultrina knew she could use the body once the creature was dead. All she had to do was kill it. Killing it, hopefully, wouldn’t take long. She didn’t have much time to spare as she didn’t know where her pursuit was.
The cat had to be desperate to try for an animal as large as Alba, but then desperation could make even an animal sloppy.
Alba walked into the clearing, his tack jangling intentionally to give away his position. Ultrina dismounted quietly, unhooking her ax from its holster. She needed to get far too close to the cat in order to kill it with the ax, but she had never been much good with a bow, so the ax it was. Her short sword and her dirk would require just as much closeness.
Ultrina allowed her world to close down to the great cat and herself, losing even focus on Alba who would care for himself during the fight. Stalking the animal stalking her, Ultrina moved through the grass of the clearing, waiting and watching for it to come to her. It would clear the underbrush when she got close enough, leaping to bear down on her with its weight and dig in its claws.
Her armor would hold against the claws and she needed to be careful of the thing’s teeth, but she could take it in a one on one fight and slaughter it. However, she had to be careful to leave the body mostly intact. It would need it to be a proper minion.
A chuckle left her body as she stopped a few feet from the trees and bushes where the creature waited. It thought it was the worst thing in the forest, all predators did, but it had come upon something far worse.
It moved in a flash of fur and fangs, and Ultrina brought her ax up between her and it, feeling its flesh give against the blade. Piercing it’s heart would be enough to do it in, but she needed to be careful not to ruin the organ.
Many thought the head was enough to create a creature such as she wanted, but the heart allowed it to go for much longer and make it much more durable.
She rolled away the heavy weight of the still breathing cat. Labored as it was, the thing still tried to rise, a growl in its throat as blood sprinkled the ground near its body. Ultrina stood up and allowed the blood on her armor to pearl down to the ground. It would be obvious from the matted grass and bloody mess something had been fought there; however, she had to wonder if anyone would notice the monster she created before it was upon them.
It slumped down, breathing slowing further and further, the growl dying into a low whine. Ultrina closed the distance between, her ax held at the ready should it attempt to fight further.
Ultrina chuckled again and then knelt next to the creature dying before her.
“You will be perfect,” she whispered to it as she pressed one hand near its slowly clouding eye. She needed to finish what had begun and bring it back just beyond the edge of death.
It began to breathe again, slowly steadily, as if sleeping under her hand.
“Mine,” she whispered, stroking the striped fur. Near its eyes, the fur was white, and the eyes were a cloudy urine yellow, but along its body it wore stripes to hide among the dappled shadows of the trees.
The cat’s sounds grew, it’s growl in its chest bubbling slightly through the drying blood. Ultrina remained knelt beside it until it picked up its head and fixed its eyes on her.
“Remain,” she ordered. “Those who come behind me are your prey. Do not allow them to follow without killing you first.”
Though it made no motion of acknowledgment, the creature slunk through the grass to the edge of the trees and disappeared into the underbrush.
“Mine,” Ultrina said again before running her thumb down the blade of her ax to wipe away the blood.
It would stand in Mongen’s way and she would use the time to cover more distance.
Mongen stood over Tal as the woman sat on the ground with her eyes closed. “She’s reached the nearby forest,” Tal said to him.
“How far ahead?”
“Some distance. We’ll reach the forest by nightfall and she’ll probably be out of the forest by morning if she continues on.”
“Do you see anything of import?”
“There is a cloudiness around her, I’m assuming it is because of her magic, but I cannot be sure.”
“I want you to keep an eye on her,” Mongen said. “I need to know her movements preferably before they become a problem for me.”
Mongen stalked back to his horse and mounted up, putting one hand down for Tal who followed.
“Tell me,” he said. “What did you learn of her while being close?”
“Not enough to truly understand. She has a code of ethics, I think, but I do not know precisely what it consists of. However, she was angry that she had been compliant and then you threatened to bind her.”
“She has chosen to run.”
“She did not chose to run until after your threat.”
“So you side with her?”
“I am saying perhaps this could be handled another way,” Tal said as she ducked her head. Mongen was her leader, she barely dared look him in the eye when they weren’t disagreeing. “Perhaps speaking to her as someone who has rights is to be tried.”
“She is a puppeteer, they have no rights to anything. Their very existence is forbidden.” Mongen pressed his horse to go faster. Ultrina had quite a head start on them and he didn’t wish for her to get away.
Nightfall came and Tal was right, they entered into the forest with its scrubby underbrush after sunset. She dismounted and sat down quietly on the grass with her eyes closed. Ultrina had stopped for the night, that much she could see, but she didn’t see anything which identified exactly where. There was still the suggestion of trees around her, but that could mean she had stopped in a copse away from the main forest. Tal sighed out a breath as she focused all the more on the other woman. Ultrina had doffed her armor for the moment, but she sat in her shift on a patch of ground, her eyes closed; a mirror of the position Tal sat in.
Did Ultrina know she was being followed by magic, Tal wondered. If she did know, then there would be things in the way of them to allow them to follow her trail but too slowly to catch her. Tal’s breath slowed until she seemed only to sip air.
The team which had come with Mongen ranged around the clearing and one of them called to Mongen.
“There’s blood,” he cried.
“Our captive’s?” Mongen asked. If it was Ultrina’s blood, the wound might slow her down.
The soldier touched the blood beading the grass and then said, “I don’t think so. It seems too feral to be human.”
A man screamed from in the trees, one of those who had been helping to pitch camp by searching for downed wood.
Everyone reached for their weapons except Tal who was unarmed. She moved into a position near the horses, prepared to take cover if the situation warranted it. In the growing darkness, whatever was out there would have the advantage if it hunted in these woods. The first man down had stopped screaming, just as well since none of them went to his aid.
An ambush would take down more of them than necessary if they did that. Better to wait in the clearing and let whatever it was come to them. Mongen moved to the edge of the circle the men made and pointed at a pair of eyes which appeared in the dark.
“There!”
An archer notched an arrow, but by the time he did, those eyes had melted back into the shadows. It stalked them, more than aware of their fear. Could it smell what was keeping them from striking out into the woods searching? Heartbeats went by, ten then twenty, as the men considered what they would do next. Obviously they couldn’t stay all night bristling weapons. Yet, if they allowed themselves to be split up, they might well be picked off by the unknown.
Mongen, motionless, turned over the problem. There was something out there. It had already gotten one of his men. Yet it apparently hungered for more. There were few things in the forest which hunted for sport and men were not the usual prey.
“Three men,” he called aware of the group growing smaller around him. “Two and an archer. Find whatever it is and kill it.”
Mongen’s voice added steel to the spines of his men and three men gathered to do as he asked.
“The rest of you, we pitch camp in the clearing. Stay away from the trees.” They would eat cold rations that night, but it would be better than losing more men to this unknown thing. Tal remained near the horses, waiting for Mongen to notice her or say something in her direction. There was little she could do about the unknown which plagued them, but she could at least tell him which direction Ultrina had gone from the clearing.
With the three men off on a dangerous hunt, Mongen helped to put together their small camp before he found Tal sitting on the edge of it, the moonlight frosting her headdress.
“What did you see of her?” he asked.
Tal looked up before standing and brushing off the dirt on her bottom.
“I saw her sitting, waiting for something, perhaps whatever there is out there is a trap she set.”
“Damnable puppeteer.”
Tal said nothing for a moment before returning to the facts.
“We know she is ahead of us, but we don’t know how far and we have no idea what is going to be coming for us out of the dark once the sentry is set.”
“There is nothing else we can do,” Mongen said. “If we attempt to move from this clearing in the dark, we make its killing easier.”
“If we don’t move, we may very well lose her into the inhabited areas beyond the forest.”
Mongen threw his head back, rolling his eyes toward the heavens. “What would you have me do?”
“A group is easier to pick off, harder to protect. Let’s you and I go ahead and find her. Between the two of us, we should be able to subdue her.”
“Abandon my men?”
“We will return for them, but for now, they are a problem we don’t have time to solve.”
“Sister,” Mongen’s chest heaved in a sigh. “Are you certain we’ll be able to catch her?”
“No, but I know the longer we wait, the further away she will get, especially if we’re having to ride and be wary of every shadow.”
“You ride with me,” Mongen said. Then he went to speak with his men. Tal stayed behind, watching the heavy darkness around the camp with wary eyes.
Mongen and Tal rode out just before midnight with the moon high in the sky illuminating many places and shadowing others. “Which way?” he asked.
“Follow the path of the moon,” Tal said. “She is.”
“Is she moving now?”
“No, she’s resting, I think. She’s not moving, but she isn’t asleep.”
“I need her to be as easy as possible to catch, is there some way you can force her to sleep?”
“Even if I could from this distance, it would only put her into a natural sleep from which her horse could easily wake her.” Tal’s disappointed voice drifted to his ear.
“What can you do to help this situation?” Mongen asked.
“I have other arts which will be useful,” Tal said. Her disappointment had not gone away, but carried with it a sadness Mongen didn’t know how to interpret. Sisters were complex people, Mongen preferred the ease of soldiers.
The pair trotted off into the night, leaving the others behind. Not far away, a pair of eyes glimmered in the dark watching their progress.
Ultrina wasn’t asleep, that was true, though she was resting. Alba stood guard nearby as Ultrina laid there and orchestrated the wild chase the three soldiers were on. Her puppet had circled back in time to see Tal and Mongen riding away and Ultrina cocked her head to the side at the sight.
Undoubtedly trying to get close enough to catch me, she thought. Well, let’s see how they handle my puppet.
The cat moved through the forest with the ease of long association and came around ahead of the Mongen’s horse before leaping at the horse’s face, claws extended. Thrown off balance by the sudden impact, the horse went to the side and then down on its knees, dropping Tal to the ground and trapping Mongen with one leg. Mongen pushed the horse off of himself easily, but got to his feet slowly, which gave the cat enough time to disappear into the brush again.
Mongen cursed.
“Where is it?” he asked Tal who cast around in the dark.
“I don’t know, I can’t feel it.”
“Because it isn’t alive,” Mongen said. He made sweeping motions with his heavy ax. “As you said, she set a trap.”
“If we don’t kill it, it will kill us.”
“That needs not be spoken.”
Tal clamped her mouth shut so hard her teeth clicked.
The horse, injured but unbowed, stood shivering in the dark. If they didn’t protect it, they would be without transport. Mongen considered the creature whose blood would draw other predators of the night. He cursed again.
“Bait,” Tal said as she stood caressing the creature’s flank.
“We need the horse,” Mongen said making the mental leap with her.
“We need to kill that puppet more.” Tal took out of her blade and tested the edge. It would do the job. Tal plunged the blade into the horse’s neck and it screamed before collapsing and dragging her to the ground with it.
“Sister,” Mongen yelled.
“We need it to come out in the open.”
The horse’s scream must have whetted the creature’s appetite because its eyes appeared seemingly floating in the darkness. It stalked out into the space between the trees, broken body moving with a supernatural fluidity. Tal stood close enough she could smell the reek of beginning rot on it. Tal stilled her breath as best she could against gasping and panting in fear. It had, once, been a great cat with bold stripes to hide it among the forest shadows. Now it was a saggy thing, bones already starting to show. However, there was not denying the look of hunger in those eyes, lit from the inside with an unnatural fire.
Mongen circled away from the dying horse, letting the cat get closer and smell its waiting meal. There were some instincts even a puppeteer couldn’t override and the need to feed was one of them. Even though it could no longer digest what it ate, the cat would sup and with that Mongen would cut it down.
Wuffling and trying to rise, the horse smelled death coming closer and whinnied for help. When the rider didn’t come, it tried again to rise and run. Blood loss slowed its movements but didn’t stop it. It lurched forward and fought for inches of ground. Impending doom made its movements frantic. Fetid breath and fear filled the clearing with stench.
Tal held her breath as the cat sprang forward and brought the horse down finally, sending it to the final resting place. At least the animal would no longer suffer.
A moment later, Mongen brought his ax down on the creature’s head, creating a crunching spray of bone and brain matter. However, it didn’t fall. The cat wheeled on its hind legs, wrenching the weapon away from Mongen as it went bounding away. A few bounds in, the ax fell from its place landing in the grass and the cat escaped.
“Now we’re without a horse and that damned thing is still out there,” Mongen groused.
“We know something more about it now,” Tal said in her defense. “We now know that it is a stronger puppet than some.”
“Yes, a strong enough puppet to survive a death blow.”
Tal nodded. “She’s quite capable,” Tal said.
“You admire her.”
“Her abilities are something to admire, even if they are something one would rather see in the abyss.”
Mongen retrieved his ax and slung it across his back. “We need to leave this area. How far from its home territory do you think this thing will travel?”
“That depends on what she has tasked it to do,” Tal said. “If it is to harry the camp, then the further away we get from it, the less we will see.”
Mongen nodded with a sigh. They were in trouble, no matter how one looked at it. He and Tal were a distance from the camp, without a horse, and trying to track a puppeteer who obviously intended to make things as difficult as possible for them.
“What’s your next plan?” Mongen asked.
“We keep going. The only thing we can do is keep going.” Tal’s answer did not make him happy; however, he saw the logic in it. They would have to keep going and try their best not to die along the way.
Ultrina felt the shock of the creature’s head being split by the ax and smiled. It wouldn’t fall so easily, but that didn’t keep her from preparing to leave her makeshift camp. Alba had stood by waiting for her to come out of her trance and now she prepared for the two of them to head out again. Ultrina had no map for this area of the foothills, but she had seen in the distance something that looked like an encampment of some kind. She could, perhaps, join a caravan there if it was a trading town. If it wasn’t, at least she should be able to find her way to buying supplies for herself to make her journey less arduous.
Mounting up, she turned Alba onto the path of the moon away from the forest. They could go some distance in the dark, leaving their pursuit further behind. The death Tal and Mongen left in their wake would awaken other predators and their scent would bring those creatures straight to them. Ultrina smiled all the more. They would fight their way out of the forest and that would be enough for her to get away.
The encampment she had seen was a grouping of tents around a small set of buildings which appeared more permanent, a half-time settlement. Ultrina nodded in approval from where she sat atop Alba. The pair would perhaps find a trader leaving soon. She could offer her ax to them as a way to pay for her passage. It truly didn’t matter where they were going, she would go anywhere as long as it was away from Renate and the trouble Mongen wanted her involved in.
Delram was, at best, a place where for half the year there were fewer than a hundred people. In the time of the herdings, it swelled in size, bloating to several hundred plus their horses and traveling herds. Such travelers and traders were always in need of another set of hands for work and another sword to protect what was theirs.
Ultrina rode toward the settlement confidently.
Near the edge of the encampment a bright colored rock showed up in Ultrina’s vision. It appeared to be glowing. She noticed it, but didn’t stoop to pick it up. Ward stones were not unknown to her, but she didn’t know what this was warding against.
Probably bandits. There would always be those who thought they should get something for as little as possible.
Alba made good time into the center of the settlement where one of the permanent structures appeared to be a gathering house.
Dismounting, Ultrina let Alba’s reins hang unattended as she entered the building.
Another set of the glowing stones sat at either side of the doorway. Pink as flowers, they were hard to miss. Ultrina turned her head from one to the other. There were those who were gathered inside, but her arrival seemed to have brought about a fit of staring. It was followed by a murmuring which Ultrina couldn’t quite make out despite straining. It was as if she stood outside the room where the talking was occurring instead of in the doorway of the gathering house. Walking across the floor, she warily kept her eyes down but also darted them from body to body and face to face. Everyone was armed, an expected thing. However, the way they watched her suggested something dangerous and Ultrina was sensitive to the idea of danger.
Halfway across the room, she decided perhaps she should find somewhere else to look for help. Ultrina couldn’t have said exactly what it was which brought out that thought, but it came clear and quick. Could have been the way the man, obviously the proprietor, watched her move as though he would stick a knife in her. Or the fact that she saw that face on everyone within, even the few women in attendance. Everyone watched her with open hostility.
Turning to leave, Ultrina was confronted with the door having been blocked behind her by several bodies. Her right hand itched for her ax. She had left it on Alba, but she kept several blades on her person. That would have to be enough to get her out of the situation.
While others might well fight to incapacitate, Ultrina tended toward fighting to kill. It made things easier for her. Harder for those who thought to fight her, but easier for her.
Alba trumpeted from outside, drawing Ultrina’s attention away from her immediate predicament. Someone attempted to take her horse. Alba would fight with all he had to avoid being taken anywhere he didn’t wish to go. Ultrina was the same and it seemed she was going to have no choice but to fight her way out of this gathering house.
Sliding one hand up her right thigh, she palmed a blade. Things were about to get ugly; however, as always, if she managed to bring down a few of her opponents, she could turn the tide in her favor. Not to mention, there was the simple fact people feared her abilities. It would allow her to run the room empty as soon as the first of her puppets rose. The attackers, all of them, rushed her at the same time, nearly as though they were given the same horrible intelligence.
Ultrina stabbed a woman in the ear and the blood gouted from the wound as she went down, trampled under by those around them. Fighting for a step toward the door, Ultrina slashed another across the eyes, but didn’t have time to do much more before her right arm was snatched hard enough to dislocate her shoulder. With that arm caught, she pivoted to try and free it. If she couldn’t get loose, she was going to go down.
Desperate breaths she waited for her puppet to come back to life. That woman had to have died. How was it that she wasn’t back yet. Those thoughts turned in her head, but Ultrina barely had time to register them before she was dragged off her feet, head hitting the floorboards with a thick crack. The world faded quickly even as Ultrina tried to rise again, only to have the wind knocked out of her. She hit the floor and there she laid.
Morning found her bound to a stake, her weapons and even her armor stripped from her body, a pyre built below her. Ultrina woke to the smell of prepared wood, sacrifice wood. The noose around her neck kept her from pulling too hard to try and escape and her hands were bound behind her. She skimmed the crowd looking for her horse and her gear. Certainly they kept it. If she could get free. Why hadn’t it worked? What was she going to do? Ultrina’s thoughts moved with a frantic speed, but they did nothing to alleviate her circumstances. She was still tied to a stake and about to be burned alive.
Mongen and Tal reached the edge of Delram that morning, finding the warding stones which did not glow at their passage. However, Mongen pointed them out just the same.
“Wards,” he grunted. Tal sighed. There were those who still held to the old ways. The old ways of fear and suffering.
They rode into Delram to find it near a ghost town. No one moved. The sound of the nearby herds were stronger than anything in the small town. At one of the permanent buildings, they found a villager who sat as if he couldn’t go anywhere at all.
“Where is everyone?” Tal asked the man as she dismounted from behind Mongen.
“A puppeteer appeared yesterday. They’ve gone to burn her at the stake for the protection of the herds.”
Tal turned to Mongen.
“I need her alive,” he said. “I need her alive and capable.”
Mongen put one hand out to grab Tal and lift her back into the saddle. “Come. Which way is the pyre, old father?”
“Go on through. The edge of the river.”
Together the pair rode in the direction of the river. If Ultrina was to be sacrificed for the good of the herds, they had to stop it before all Mongen’s plans went up in smoke. Mongen ran and the pair took off through the village for the riverside.
Ultrina had closed her eyes, but she couldn’t close her ears. The sounds of the people moving around her did not interest her any longer, but it was much harder to close the ears. She didn’t dare move, despite the knowledge of her impending death. Choking herself to death would be an interesting way to avoid being burned at the stake, but in the end, dead was dead for her at least.
Then, over everything, she heard the sound of running. Who moved with that much weight, she wondered. Someone who didn’t wish to miss the spectacle of her demise perhaps. Ultrina opened her eyes to slits and nearly smiled.
There was no mistaking Mongen’s size or silhouette in the fleeting shadows of morning. Ultrina could almost feel a species of relief. He would either be glad to see her gone or he would see to it that this did not happen. She had to admit to hoping for the latter. However, even the former would be a reprieve from the life of a nomad she had lived.
At the foot of the pyre, there were those who had come to see the event, yet there was one who stood out among them, a thin willowy man who did not have the look of either a hand or a traveler.
He stepped out to meet Mongen as the Captain of the Royal Guard ran up. The man bowed.
“I am the Father of Delram,” he said. “It is good the Guard has come to witness this event.”
“Cut her down,” Mongen said.
The Father looked at first confused, then outraged.
“Has the church gone soft on the heresy?”
“I said cut her down.”
Tal slipped out from behind him and began climbing the pyre to release Ultrina. The small crowd surrounding the pyre looked from one man to the other waiting for someone to break; meanwhile, Tal gained the top of the pyre and went to the stake.
Tal drew in a deep breath and started working on the knots of Ultrina’s bindings. The leather had been wet to make the knots tight.
“Mongen is saving your life.”
“So he is,” Ultrina whispered through a tight throat.
“You will owe him.”
“I will.” Ultrina looked for Alba in the area around them. The horse waited for her, she had no doubt, but she would perhaps have trouble finding him.
“She is my prisoner,” Mongen said loud enough for all to hear. “One who will stand before the King and give account for herself; therefore, do not stand in my way.”
The Father of Delram gestured for the group to disperse and they began to, but not before someone dropped a torch on the pyre and the flames began to rise.
“Tal!”
With her right hand on the stake, Tal pointed at the flames with her left. They were growing, but not as fast as they would have if she were not exerting her will on their movement.
“A Sister.” The group around the pyre brought water from the river nearby to put the pyre out. They rushed, sloshing water bags onto the flames.
“I will also owe you,” Ultrina said as she stood there, trying not to cough against all the smoke rising around them.
It took some time for the pyre to go out, but it did eventually, leaving some char around the base, but the two women atop it untouched. Finally, Tal had to cut the ties binding Ultrina, they refused to be untied.
Mongen greeted them at the base, raised his fist, and knocked Ultrina to the ground with a blow to her face.
“You had better be worth the trouble,” he said before turning to the Father. “Where are her things and her horse?”
“Those things rightfully belong to the church,” the Father sniffled. Mongen raised his fist again, preparing to knock the man down when Tal interceded.
“She needs them to travel. Please, let us get them and be gone.”
Alba, despite the man leading him, ran up to where Ultrina now stood nursing a slightly sore jaw. The packs bulged with her gear and the armor she wasn’t wearing. Hanging from Alba’s side, her ax glittered angrily in the sunlight.
“Mount up,” Mongen said. “We’re headed back to the camp.”
“There is no camp,” Ultrina said. “Your men are dead.”
Mongen heard her, yet did not make any move as though he did. Instead, he set the pace back in the direction they had come at doubletime. It would take a day, but they would return to the forest and the formerly set up camp.
No sentry greeted them and the only sound coming from the tents was the persistent buzzing of flies.
Ultrina had been right; there was no camp. It was simply a graveyard. Rations sat uneaten. The fire, untended, had burned out. Mongen strode through the mess, his glower growing darker by the moment. Ultrina stood next to Alba at the edge of the camp and waited. They would return to her at any moment and she would have to deal with what was going to happen. If Mongen stabbed her to death, it would be a worthy end to her for all she cared anymore. If he didn’t, then there would be a chance for her to perhaps make amends.
As it would be, Mongen did not stab her to death, but he returned from his survey of the camp with a thick set of metal restraints.
“You will not be given the opportunity to escape again.”
With a heavy sigh, Ultrina put her hands out and closed her eyes. She did not have to see the restraints fall into place and clamp shut, but that made them no less real. That night, as Tal and Ultrina ate Mongen worked to set up a small pile of bodies and wood that he might give his people a cleansing fire.
“You should not have run,” Tal said as she scooped more of the gruel from the bowl to give to Ultrina.
“He, and you, trust me no more or less than you did.”
“I trusted you more when you weren’t a murderer.”
Ultrina chuckled.
“I kill nothing that doesn’t threaten me first.”
“Then will you kill me in order to escape?” Tal’s question got another chuckle then a slow shaking of the head.
“I am bound to this course of action now,” Ultrina said. “Bound to it, I will see it through.”
“What do you mean?”
With a shake of her head, Ultrina refused to answer. The woman closed her eyes as if she would go to sleep and sat there in silence, the sound of Mongen dragging a body across the forest floor loud in Tal’s ears.
The pyre, with its surrounding of stone, waited only to be lit by the next morning. Of course, it would have to be left to burn itself out, but with his preparations, Mongen seemed unconcerned at the idea of burning down the forest. The various tents and what supplies they couldn’t carry, they left for the world to reclaim. Let whatever came make much of it. Mongen set the pyre alight and allowed it to immolate the bodies before he turned to his two companions,
“Let’s go.”
Ultrina sat atop Alba and watched the fires licking at the remains for a long moment. Mongen took Alba’s reins and led the horse away.
“What is it you hope to bring me to Renate for?” Ultrina asked several hours into their trek. Though she had an inkling, from what Mongen had said, she wanted to hear it from his mouth. The King, the king who had ordered the purge of her people at the beginning of his reign was now seeking one of the destroyed to return to him what he had lost. Or at least, so Ultrina surmised. She was hardly certain. She could just as well be headed for Renate to be executed as a criminal for daring to use abilities forbidden in the land.
“As I have said,” Mongen replied. “You will stand before the King and he will tell you what he will. For now, know you will go before the King if I have to drag you there with your final breath on your lips.”