“What?” was her answer to the reasonable proposition. Negotiating it was.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Rhys frowned, pointing at the dead thief. “You get the whole body. Splitting half and half is not practical, now is it?”

“I…” she opened her mouth then closed it. Then just stared, still wide-eyed.

“Torturer didn’t get your tongue, I hope?” Rhys sighed. “I can wait for you to regrow it.”

But she still just kept looking at him all weird. Almost… shocked. Well, she did appear a bit young. If she was able to reattach her spine after a hanging, that couldn’t be her real age, could it? That wasn’t so simple a feat that a newt of twenty winters could pull it off reliably. That had been an easy assumption for Rhys to make… still, it would be best to double-check.

“Say, this wouldn’t happen to have been your first time getting lynched, would it?”

In response, she began to cry. Full-on bawling with loud intakes of breath and everything. Well, that was a proper mess. Rhys sighed.

“Uh,” then hesitated. When was the last time he had to comfort a child? What was it people said to do… maybe. “There, there, it will be fine. You can have the soul too?”

It did not help. What was next on the list? Treats? Not exactly anything edible on his person. The same went for swaddling. He briefly considered rocking but while the lass looked quite scrawny, she remained rather too large for him to lift easily. He could probably… paralyze her with a spell? But that wouldn’t really solve the problem, would it?

His musings were interrupted by an approaching presence. Over the crest of a nearby hill, a tall figure engulfed in a full mail of dim black metal emerged. A proper giant of a man, made even taller by the heavy armor and large rucksack. The girl’s eyes found him and she instantly flinched, scrambling away in terror.

“No need for alarm, this is just my friend, Rod,” Rhys immediately assured. “Say hi, Rod.”

Unfortunately, dear Rodderick did not seem in a talking mood for whatever reason. Great, Rhys would look like one of those senile half-wits who spoke to the minions who couldn’t actually talk back.

“Well, he is shy today it seems,” he tried to salvage what he could from first impressions. The girl was looking very startled but at least she had stopped weeping. “So, I go by Rhys. What should I call you?”

“Beatrice…” she replied reluctantly, then shut her mouth again.

“Alright, Beatrice…” he nodded. “Please, keep in mind I am not used to dealing with younglings like you overmuch. Do you have a master I could bring you to?”

“We were… separated by pursuers,” she said and looked like she was about to cry again.

“No meeting point set, I assume? Thought so,” he carried on the conversation before she could. “Did your master have a Covenant that could help you reunite?”

“He left me with a mark to recognize his friends by,” the girl tried to shuffle around for a pouch, realized it had been confiscated, then tried to describe it instead. “It had the night sky full of stars with a cracked sun in the middle.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar, but I am not from around here,” Rhys sighed. “Do you know maybe a city where they might gather?”

“In the capital,” she slowly nodded.

“Still Florencia?”

“As always,” Beatrice replied with a somewhat strange look.

“As for the past 300 or so years,” Rhys disagreed. “You never know when these things can change. For example, I had just learned mages are being persecuted now. In the middle of a meal too.”

“Just?” she seemed surprised. “The knights had been hunting people like us for half a year since the… incident.”

“Since the king was murdered by his court mage?” he supplied.

“Framed for the murder!” she got immediately angry. A touchy subject, it seemed.

“Calm down, young lady,” Rhys appeased, shaking his head. “I have no horse in this race. You don’t need to argue with me about the details.”

“You were just hung because of it!”

“I do not decide my political leanings off of inconveniences,” he pointed out.

“This was an… inconvenience to you?” she paused, wide-eyed again.

“Something like a day wasted and it ruined my lunch,” Rhys nodded. “What else would I call it.”

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“I thought I was dead,” she half whispered, suddenly shuddering. “When my neck snapped and I desperately squeezed my heart with what little magic I could muster so that the blood would not stop flowing to the brain. For what felt like an eternity I just barely hung on, hopelessly trying to puzzle out how to put my body together again, all the while thinking someone would notice and end my misery. I still cannot believe I actually made it.”

“Ah, that does sound unpleasant,” Rhys pretended to flinch for her sake. He probably should have tried to look at it from her perspective first. But then, it was the first time he ever talked with someone right after they got both hanged… with the other party still alive. Minions generally did not count. “If it is any comfort, the next time will probably be much easier.”

“It is not,” she looked at him strangely. Well, at least it broke her out of the unpleasant reminiscing.

“Drat,” he still cursed. “Well, we best get going. Long way to the capital if we have to stay away from roads.”

“What about my things!” Beatrice exclaimed.

“Did they take anything irreplaceable?” Rhys sighed. Hopefully, they could avoid that detour.

“My spellbook and all my supplies,” she said, looking towards the city which was still visible in the distance.

“Your spellbook or one your master gave you?” he asked for clarification.

“I etched everything myself,” the girl bit her lip. “It took me three years of effort!”

“Then you can just get another,” Rhys shrugged - no proper secrets would be in an apprentice’s first book. That much heat in her words over just three years of work? He never could understand youthful zest. “I have all the supplies we need. You can use one of my extra robes once Rod resizes it a bit.”

He turned towards his undead friend who had, at some point, already taken out needle and string and gotten to work on said modifications - on the nice velvet one to boot! Always one step ahead, good Roderick, in both work and jabs. Now if only he would open his damn trap and do the talking because the former knight certainly couldn’t be any worse than Rhys at comforting children.

“He is a minion… right?” she asked hesitantly. “I can barely feel any weave in him. Why go to this extent to hide it?”

“That you can feel any is already impressive for your age,” Rhys nodded, not exaggerating. “Though the subtlety is mostly a side effect. Rod is just very difficult to break, which means the weave has to be hard to access.”

“Is he a proper Deathknight?” she asked, looking rather excited at the prospect.

“I am afraid that terminology changes through time and regions,” he shook his head. “I don’t think I can answer such questions with confidence as I do not know the local lingo well.”

“Still, he moves so smoothly,” Beatrice seemed awed. “Even better than a person. He is knitting with the gauntlets still on! I have never seen anything like it.”

“Well, that is, presumably, a somewhat common occurrence at your age,” Rhys pointed out. That earned him a somewhat hurt glance from the newt.

“And it doesn’t at your age?” she shot back defensively.

“Every once in a while,” he admitted, gesturing around them. “This kind of meeting is a first, for example. Well, it seems the forest awaits.”

Roderick was done with the refitting already and Rhys went on ahead to offer the girl some semblance of privacy. He also needed to check if he could catch a whiff of a woods trail - easier to walk that than cutting through bushes. A few minutes later his trusty minion and the newfound responsibility both caught up to him, setting off a hopefully brief journey.

Perhaps it would prove at least interesting. And that regicide smelled like there would be a few stories in the capital worth seeking out. Nothing better to spend his time on in either case.

The thief, in the meantime, remained in his shallow ditch. Body and soul forgotten by the two distracted necromancers as well as the rest of the world. In a month no one would remember him nor the story of how he got trampled by a runway horse… Well, almost no one.

----------------------------------------

They traveled well into the evening through paths of varied quality. The girl was clearly not used to such harsh walking so Rod had carried her for perhaps half of the way. For dinner, they had caught a rabbit, which the newt mostly inhaled by herself before immediately falling unconscious on a half-unwrapped bedroll.

“Some local berries,” Rod said once the girl was firmly asleep, offering a handful of the black fruit.

“Let me try,” the necromancer eagerly nodded, throwing a couple into his mouth… then quickly spitting the lot out. “Too bitter. And poisonous too.”

“I thought so,” the former knight shrugged.

“What was that with the quiet act anyway?”

“Something smells about this, Rhys,” he grunted.

“You do not currently possess that sense,” the necromancer pointed out.

“Fuck you,” Rod said but chuckled at the joke, so did Rhys after a moment. He also crossed it out from his mental list so that he wouldn’t repeat it too soon. “But seriously, something is wrong with the girl.”

“Is that why you won’t talk in front of her?” Rhys guessed. “What did you notice?”

“There is no trace of callouses on her,” the dead man said. “Noble birth, or rich merchant family at least but her poise is likely too good for that. But she was already wearing rags and highborns don’t get executed publicly. She is likely hiding from someone but didn’t tell us.”

“Great, so probably assassins on our heels or close enough,” Rhys groaned. “Well, how bad are you expecting?”

“Hard to tell for now,” Rod shrugged. “Not thinking of abandoning her, are you?”

“Please, you would be right pissy about it for years,” the necromancer rolled his eyes. “Who knows, maybe we won’t even get dragged into the trouble?”

“You have just jinxed us.”

“Drat,” Rhys cursed. “Well, I could ask something from you for this act of chivalry.”

“Get her Covenant to pay you,” the knight replied hesitantly.

“Where is your sense of duty?” Rhys needled.

“Fine, which?” and good Roderick surrendered.

“Of your first love.”

“Again?” the dead man groaned.

“You always get flustered in a different way when telling it,” Rhys nodded with a smile, then lay down to listen. The tale of Ser Roderick, or at least a part of that long epic. A piece of history long forgotten, and a detail most would neglect. Still, the necromancer listened with rapt attention well into the night, long after the campfire died out.