Petra stared wide-eyed at the pitch black wall that erupted in front of her on the second floor of the inn. The surface of the blackness swirled with small reflections of light before swallowing them into its all-enveloping maw. She had never seen such a thing before, but it was clearly an artifact of some sort. Likely a trap played by the figure on the floor. That fool Ioren should have just thrown a knife and killed it like she said! Instead he had gone and ruined the entire plan.
There was still hope that at least she could get out alive. Ioren was as good as dead inside that black void. Life is for the living, and that meant Petra. It always meant Petra, over everyone else.
She sprinted down the stairs into the bar area two at a time, sending the dust in front of the windows scattering in clouds as she burst onto the floor.
“Eliminate them!” A kid shouted from the floor above. Ioren was definitely dead.
A trapdoor in the floor behind the bar slammed open, revealing a hand in a metal gauntlet that gripped the floorboards as it pulled its owner up and into the room with Petra. He stared at her through a slit in his heavy metal helmet as he unsheathed a fine longsword. Another man popped up behind the bar and stared at her as well.
Her mind raced as she backed away from the two armored men. They gonna kill me, what do I do? What do I do? She remembered the signal that would send help running to her. That would probably distract these men long enough for her to run. Petra slammed her shoulder into the front door of the inn, sending the decrepit wooden door flying off its hinges. The morning sun warmed her face as she stepped out of the inn and waved her arms in big circles above her head, signaling for the others to come fight the ambushers so she could flee. As she stood there, waving her arms at the rusted gateway, she was reminded of the last time she saw Maura.
---
Petra sat beneath a red tarp against a crumbling wall on the outskirts of Yasha’s Step. She was surrounded by battered clothes of all colors, scrapped blankets, torn wagon covers, and other soft fabrics she had scavenged from the area to create a makeshift nest for herself and Maura. Their first few days here in Danet they had slept on the ground, and the sweat from the desert heat mixed with the blowing sand had caked their hair into such a matted mess that they had to cut it short with their knives. Maura had cried seeing her black hair strewn about the ground in clumps, but Petra felt freed.
It was night now, darkness having descended upon Danet many hours ago. Petra should have been resting while Maura was on lookout, but her heart wouldn’t stop racing. It was often like this when they would run a job, even back home in Denafel, the capital of Temul. Anticipation surged through her veins as she ran the plan through her mind over and over again, not feeling even a tinge of sleepiness.
Finders never attacked the caravans in Yasha’s Step. They were, of course, necessary to keep the flow of crowns and materials coming in, but they were also often heavily defended by caravan guards. It would be like a beggar attacking a merchant in the city back home; they would be cut down and dumped in the gutter without a moment’s hesitation. The lives of the poor were always expendable when it came between a rich man and his money.
Luckily, Petra and Maura didn’t attack the caravans. They just snuck in and borrowed from them as they left town. If they didn’t make a big fuss about taking a bag or two of rations from the back of their covered wagons, the bored guards and sleepy merchants almost never noticed. Even when they did, Petra and Maura were small enough to be mistaken for children, so they were shooed away as a minor annoyance rather than hunted and arrested as thieves. It was the safest way to sustain themselves while they got the lay of the land here in Danet.
Both Maura and Petra came from the slums of Denafel. Their mothers were in the same brothel and lived together to cut costs. They had become pregnant within a year of one another, and supported each other when the other became too large to work. Petra and Maura had helped to sustain their unconventional family by stealing and scamming as soon as they were old enough to run. Petra was a year older, so she often found herself teaching Maura the best routes to run, where there were small holes in fences that guards couldn’t fit through but a child could, or the best things to say to adults to convince them to part with their food or crowns.
They had survived like this for six years, until the Red King’s army advanced on Temul. His soldiers were ruthless, abducting all of the women from the brothels, convicting them of “heresy against Yasha,” and eventually condemning them to death. Petra and Maura had lived for six more years in Denafel, alone, under the thumb of the occupying Red King’s army before hearing of the opportunities in Danet.
Now, having stowed away in an unsuspecting merchant’s caravan, they had been in Danet for a week, and were beginning to starve.
Petra curled up into a tighter ball to ease the pain in her grumbling stomach. It had been days since they last ate, and the freezing mountain water from the river sat like a rock in her empty belly.
A hand pushed the red tarp to the side, revealing Maura’s soft face. She had dark eyes and hair, even darker than Petra’s own brown. Her hair was cut short and patchy in places where Petra had needed to cut the matted parts out. In the glow of the green voleon light from above, Petra thought she looked beautiful.
“Let’s go!” She said in a forced whisper. Petra scrambled from their nest and met her in the dirt road outside. The sound of horse hooves on dirt clattered in the distance.
“Wagon’s alone with one horse, movin’ pretty slow. I reckon we can both get on this one,” Maura said as they began to walk toward the sound. The two crouched next to a crumbling brick wall and, sure enough, a covered wagon pulled by a single horse with one man in the driver’s seat passed by them, headed for the Temuli Passage.
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Maura broke into a sprint toward the back of the wagon as Petra tried to keep up. She prayed inwardly to Yasha that the caravan had leftover rations in the back. Crowns would be good too.
Maura reached the back of the wagon and stretched a hand out to Petra behind her, helping to haul her up. Petra unsheathed her knife and cut a vertical hole into the wagon’s cover and peered inside. Instantly the smell of cheese and starches hit her nose like a hammer and made her mouth water like a mad dog. Jackpot!
She pulled open the tarp, further stretching the rip she had made, and stepped into the wagon among the sacks of unsold rations. Maura followed close behind, and Petra noticed her jaw drop when she climbed in. She held an excited finger to her lips, urging Maura to keep her excitement to a minimum as they searched the bags.
Petra opened one of the bags in the corner containing stale bread. She placed it to the side, mentally noting its position so that she could take it if she didn't find anything better. The next bag, though, made her forget all about the bread.
As soon as she loosened the cinch on the next bag she was greeted by the savory smell of dried meats. It had been nearly a month since they had meat. She cinched the bag and slung it over her back as she waved to Maura, trying to get her attention. Maura was still rifling through sacks, and had discarded three already. She was too intent on finding sustenance to notice Petra’s movements, or the movement of the figure beneath a blanket in the corner of the wagon.
Suddenly, a man in the corner of the wagon sat up from beneath a blanket and opened his eyes with a yawn, stretching his arms out behind his head. Petra froze. Maura still rifled through a large sack of bread, seemingly unaware. It was time to go.
“Maura!” Petra yelled. The startled girl dropped the sack of bread in her hands, sending loaves of brown wheat bread tumbling from the uncinched opening. She spun to look at Petra, who was already staring at the bewildered man in the corner. “Run!” Petra followed up before leaping from the back of the wagon, her sack of dried meats slung across her back. Maura followed quickly behind as the man in the back of the wagon began to shout.
Petra grinned jauntily as she saw Maura running toward her empty-handed, disappointment in her eyes.
“I got meat!” She yelled with a laugh, which caused Maura's eyes to sparkle. Just above Maura’s head, Petra caught a glimpse of the man in the back of the wagon looking out through the tear in the tarp. He had raised something up in front of his face, but she couldn’t make it out in the darkness.
Suddenly Maura let out a loud gasp and fell to the dirt, kicking up a cloud of dust as she fell.
“Hey, get up!” Petra yelled at the crumpled girl. “We’re gonna get caught!” An object whistled past her face and embedded itself in the dirt behind her as she looked back at Maura. A dark black arrow stuck out from the girl’s back. She whispered something to Petra, stretching out her hand pitifully in the darkness, pleading, but Petra couldn’t hear it. “What are you doing?” She asked Maura, her voice breaking. Another arrow sailed past her, closer this time. Should I help? What if I die? Petra tore her eyes from Maura and broke into a run back toward the Step.
“Damn, I only got one!” She heard the man shout from behind. Tears streamed down her face as she ran to the nest.
She returned a few hours later to find Maura’s body abandoned and alone in the dark Danet desert.
---
Petra turned to see the two armored men exiting the inn just behind her. They wore fearsome plate armor that covered their bodies, making them look like shining metallic demons come to make her answer for her sins. She tried to turn and run, but in her fright tripped over her ankles and fell into the dirt. She was going to die, and she deserved it. She had always put herself before others and selfishly abandoned comrades. Now there was no one left to help her.
The man with the longsword raised his sword above his head. Petra closed her eyes before the inevitable when she heard a loud clang of metal on metal ring out before her.
A large figure in mail beneath a padded gambeson stood between her and the two plate-armored men, his longsword held high in a defensive posture as he deflected another swing from the other man’s longsword.
“Run to Violet, child!” Thorne shouted. Petra stayed frozen in awe, watching as Thorne dodged a swing from the second man’s mace before he counter attacked with a spin. His longsword slammed into the helmet of the first man, sending him reeling across the ground, stunned. Thorne then grabbed the center of his longsword with his left hand and advanced on the second man with the mace.
The man swung his mace hard toward Thorne who easily sidestepped it and rammed his pommel into the second man’s helmet as well. He fell to the dirt in a cloud of dust and rolled to face Thorne just in time to have a longsword shoved into the slit of his helmet, ending him with a jerk. The second man was on his feet now, and raised his sword from behind Thorne.
“No!” Petra shouted as she stood up and rushed the man with her belt knife out. He swung at her with a vicious swing, taking off a few strands of her short hair and causing her heart to nearly pound out of her chest. She rushed in below his arms and stabbed hard at an opening in his plate below his armpit, breaking a few rings of mail and pushing in half the blade of the knife before rolling away. This incensed the man who took another wild swing at Petra, missing by a wide margin. He grabbed his arm in pain as Thorne reared up for another swing, thwacking the man against the side of his helmet again, knocking him to the ground where he no longer stirred.
Thorne fell to the ground in a sweaty heap. The sound of metal clanging indicated another battle going on elsewhere, though Petra couldn’t tell where.
“Thorne, you okay?” Petra asked as she bent over the Vanguard officer. He was burning like a furnace, and the bandage at his side was overflowing with new blood. “Why did you save me? I'm useless! I never help anyone!” Petra cried incredulously. Violet had told him many times that if he moved too quickly his wound would reopen and he could die. He knew this and yet still rushed in to help her.
“I made a trade, that’s all,” he said with a groan. “You for me. Pretty good trade, don’t you think?”
Petra’s eyes started to water. She couldn’t imagine doing the same for anyone, especially for a pitiful Finder like herself; she hadn’t even done the same for Maura. Why am I such a terrible person? Why do I live when better people die?
“One day you’ll understand,” Thorne said, as if reading her thoughts. “You’ll find someone who makes you see the good in others. Someone who makes you want to stop taking and start giving. You’ll find it. A rare goodness that makes you want to give everything you have just to nurture that small spark of goodness. Even if the whole world is bad, you can always come back to that one person to remind you that at least one good thing was real. When you find her, don’t let her go.”
Thorne heaved a heavy wheeze as his forehead fell to the dirt. Petra sobbed against his back, but he did not get up.