Gabriela Carreno had never really been to Gustil. Sure, she’d been within its borders before, and had even stepped inside many of its most prominent cities, but she’d never really experienced the place. Instead, she’d spent her time residing in a bubble, only leaving it momentarily to go topple a city or rout an army. The Ubrans had preferred it that way, and if she had to be honest, she’d preferred it that way as well. It had made it easier to wall off those thoughts so she wouldn’t start questioning herself as she performed atrocity after atrocity.
Still, after wandering aimlessly through the land for several days, even she could tell just how fractured and chaotic the place had become. From what she’d seen, it was a stretch to even call Gustil a single country anymore.
Many of the larger towns she’d come across had largely barricaded themselves in with wood, stone, or whatever they could find to protect themselves—and had plenty of reason to do so. Marauding bandit gangs roamed the trade routes, attacking merchants and plundering any town or village without the means to effectively defend itself—which was a lot of them. That alone would be enough cause for Gustilians to fear, but sadly, it seemed that bandits were the least of their problems.
The Ubrans’ retreat had created a nationwide power vacuum, and vacuums existed to be filled. If the Gustilian royal family had still been around, they might have been able to use their cultural authority to regain control of the nation, but they weren’t—Gabby had ensured that herself. The same could be said for the governors of the largest Gustilian cities and the military commanders—to her knowledge, none had escaped her blade. The rest of the Gustilian army hadn’t fared well, either.
The end result was that the remaining lower nobles and the like had gone on to carve up Gustil’s carcass into tiny city-states and small fiefdoms. With nobody above to keep them in line, they were each using their relatively paltry power to grasp at greater influence, strength, and riches. Skirmishes, raids, and outright war blazed across the land as the various petty lords fought over borders and control. Already, Gabby had witnessed two minor clashes during her travels, though she’d kept her distance.
In a way, Gustil was lucky that their neighbors were Stragma and Eterium. Eterium was so busy trying to hold itself together that it didn’t have the means to capitalize on Gustil’s anarchy, while Stragma continued their jungle-bound way of life. Still, just because things could have been worse didn’t mean that they weren’t bad enough as it was. Everybody’s lives in Gustil were a mess.
Gabriela would fit right in.
Her stomach rumbled as she approached another town. She hadn’t eaten in over a day and hadn’t changed her clothes since she’d left Chitra at Hankala five days ago—the best she’d managed was to wash them once in a stream. This was because of one simple mistake: she’d been so angry and distressed that night in the village that she’d forgotten to take her pack and sword with her when she’d fled. All she had was what she’d had on her at the time, which was nothing but the clothes on her back. Unfortunately, this slip-up meant that she had little choice but to rely on the kindness of strangers when it came to food and shelter, and such kindness was at an all-time low.
She could always have gone back and grabbed her stuff, but Gabby had no intention of ever doing such a thing. Firstly, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to find the place now; she’d needed Chitra to guide her there through the nondescript, barren plains the first time. But more importantly, Chitra would probably still be there. Gabby had no desire to see the Ubran woman again, not for... she didn’t know how long, actually. Maybe forever.
It was a weird feeling, being angry about being loved. It left her feeling frazzled and frayed, and a little betrayed. She and Chitra had had a wonderful friendship, but now Chitra had ruined it. No matter how much Gabby might want it, their relationship could never return to the friendship it had once been. That undercurrent of knowledge would always be there, lurking in the dark recesses of her mind, reminding her that her former friend wanted something more from her than she could allow herself to give... and if Gabby weren’t careful, Chitra might get what she wanted and bring even more sin upon them both.
That was the other part that chilled her. She’s seen, time and time and time again, just how good Chitra Batranala was at getting exactly what she wanted. She was like a predator relentlessly stalking her prey until she caught it, except her prey was information about Eterian villages, or swank accommodations at a luxury hotel, or expensive meats, or... or Gabby. Chitra always seemed to get what she wanted in the end, and Gabby couldn’t allow that. Not this time. Staying far away was the only guaranteed method to ensure she didn’t fall into a second terrible pit. The first pit had been bad enough; the whole reason she was in Gustil in the first place was that she’d thus far been unable to climb her way out of it.
An arrow slammed into the ground in front of her, shocking her back to the present. She looked up to find five people perched atop the wall in front of her, each of them holding a bow fully drawn and pointed in her direction. Belatedly, her mind processed the various noises her ears had picked up while she’d been deep in her own feelings, identifying them as the guards atop the wall barking orders at her and getting angrier and angrier as she unintentionally ignored them.
“Are you flipping deaf?!” the one guard snarled. He seemed older than the others, so Gabby assumed he was in charge. “Don’t take another step closer!”
“Uh... I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” she called their way.
“We don’t care!” another called back. “Turn back now!”
“Please, can I come in? I’m really hungry and need to eat,” she pleaded. “I can work for it! I’m very strong!”
“Doesn’t matter! No strangers get into town right now!” the first guard told her. “Now, turn around before we turn you into a pincushion!”
Another person came rushing into view, panting from exertion. The leader leaned over, intent on having a private conversation, but Gabby could still barely hear enough to catch a few bits of their hushed conversation. Something about somebody missing? And... ears? And blades? Barbed blades?!
“Um...” Gabriela piped up, “you’re looking for somebody, right? I can help!”
“It’s none of your business!” another guard hollered. “We don’t want your help!”
Her words seemed to remind the lead guard that she was still here. He scowled at her and said, “You have until the count of five before we open fire.”
Gabby looked around, surveying the situation. She didn’t know the name of this town, but it looked to be faring decently relative to some of the other towns she’d run across. The “wall” that surrounded the place, if it could be called such, was a patchwork of wood and stone sections stitched together into a cohesive whole. Parts were made of one cohesive piece of stone like Gabby was used to seeing, while others looked to be made of stone pieces that looked almost half-fused together—almost like old stonework from her homeworld, but without the mortar. She’d never seen that sort of thing here before.
It went without saying that there was nothing these guards could do to stop her if she wanted to get inside, but that wouldn’t help any of her current goals. So, as the guard said “three”, she turned away and headed elsewhere, off into the wilderness. There was a decently large forest nearby; perhaps she could find something to eat in there—not that she had much hope, in all honesty. She wasn’t especially skilled at foraging, and hunting with her bare hands was not an enjoyable experience.
The forests of this world only made it harder. With the exception of the Stragman rainforest, where all the trees were a blessedly normal shade of green, the forests on Scyria were a confusing rainbow of different tints overlaid on top of each other. A plant here could seemingly have leaves of any hue it wanted and still perform photosynthesis. The only thing keeping it all from becoming a blinding mish-mash of color was that each species seemed to share a color—the most prolific tree here was a pleasant cyan. Still, the variety of shades made it harder for her brain to process her surroundings and spot food, be it vegetable or animal.
Gabriela wandered through the forest for some indeterminate amount of time—it was hard to tell where the sun was, and she’d been too busy looking for things to eat to spend brain cells on much else—when she picked up the sound of someone or something making its way through the forest not too far away. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound too large—definitely not like a human adult, at least.
Gabby moved closer, moving in a way that, at least for her, counted as “stealthy”. That turned out to be not stealthy enough, however. Just as she rounded a tree and spotted her quarry, it turned and spotted her.
Gabby came to a halt, staring in incomprehension at what looked to be a tomboyish girl perhaps eight or nine years old. The girl had short-cut warm pink hair and a thin, almost wispy build. She wore a thick woven shirt and pants combo, a coat made from pelts sewn together, and a backpack that would look normal on Gabby’s back but looked almost comically oversized on hers—an unplanned woodlands excursion this was not. Her most notable feature, however, was her long, pointed ears. An elf, here?
The child took one look at Gabriela and immediately sprinted away, hightailing it through the woods as quickly as her little legs could carry her. This posed little problem for Gabby, of course. The girl flailed wildly as Gabby zipped beside her and pulled her into the air by the collar of her coat.
“Let me go!” the little gremlin yelled. She fished something out of a pocket with one hand and swung her arm in Gabby’s general direction.
Gabby caught the arm mid-swing and found the girl’s tiny fist clutching a long, thin stone. As she inspected it, she noticed how it looked like it was slowly sharpening.
“Child, what are you doing all the way out here, alone?” she asked, lifting the child up to head height.
“I said, let me go, bandit scum!” the child cried, thrashing about and adding some almost comically weak kicks in for good measure.
“I’m not a bandit, child.”
“Don’t lie! Why else would you be out here?!”
“Why would you be out here? A child, alone in the middle of the forest?”
Gabby inspected the child more closely. She didn’t look especially dirty, like she would have had she been out in the wilderness for long, nor did she look undernourished. In one hand she held the stone she’d tried to use as a weapon a moment ago, and in the other fist, she clutched... something. Gabriela couldn’t see enough of it to make out what it was; all she could see was what looked like thread and something else protruding from the fist—straw, maybe?
Wait, hadn’t the guards been talking about somebody being missing? And she was sure she’d heard the word “ears” in there too, and this girl was an elf, with those pointed ears elvenkind were so famous for.
“Are you the person the townspeople are looking for?”
The girl went stiff. “No,” she lied, poorly.
“Alright, I’m taking you back. This is no place for a kid.” She slung the child over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes and turned towards the town—or where she thought the town was, at least; she’d been meandering for a while.
“NO!” The child returned to her desperate thrashing. “NO! I won’t go back! I won’t! Those cowards just care about themselves!”
Gabby’s stride slowed to a halt, and she lifted the girl off her shoulder and held her in front like before. Unlike before, however, the child had tears in her eyes and her lips were twitching like she was going to break down at any moment.
“What’s going on? You live in the town, right? Are the people there mistreating you?”
The child broke into sobs. “The... the Barbed Blades took Temel... and... and they won’t do anything to save him!” she choked out. “He got taken and they don’t care! They say I’m too important, but he’s all I have left, and—”
That was the last the girl could manage before the remnants of her emotional control shattered and she began to fill the forest with her cries.
Gabby pulled the child close and held her to her chest, offering her loving words and soothing strokes on her back and head, just as Chitra had done for her every night when she’d first arrived, back when Gabby had had nothing to do but wail her sorrow to the world.
“I need you to explain everything,” she said when the girl had calmed down enough to talk properly again, finally setting her down on her own two feet. “But first, what’s your name?”
“Aysen,” the child answered, wiping her runny nose on her sleeve. “Aysen Ercetin.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Aysen. You can call me Gabby, alright?”
The child nodded.
“Now, please tell me what is going on.”
“Did the townspeople hire you or something?” she asked, still a bit suspicious.
Gabby let out a sad bark of a laugh. “Hire me? They wouldn’t even let me inside! Heavens, I don’t even know its name!”
“Kagos,” Aysen informed her. “I’ve lived here all my life, me and Temel and Mom and Dad. I liked it here. But, then Dad died in the invasion, fighting the Ubrans—”
Gabby involuntarily tensed, but luckily Aysen didn’t notice.
“—and Mom died while the Ubrans were still around. Then, the Ubrans left, and at first, I was happy those bastards were gone, but then, everybody started fighting each other instead! That’s when everyone started to change. They kept telling me I couldn’t go outside anymore, that I was too important.”
“Why?”
“Because I can do this.” Aysen held up her stone, which now very much looked like a knife.
“You’re a stone Observer,” Gabby realized.
“I’m still learning, so I’m not that good at it yet, but there’s nobody else to keep the wall standing.”
Well, that explained the weird, half-melded stone that made up parts of Kagos’s wall.
“There’s really nobody else?”
“Why would there be? Every stone Observer worth anything leaves for the cities as soon as they can. Dad told me that’s where you make all the money.”
“And, what about Temel? Who is he?”
Aysen opened her other hand and revealed to Gabby the contents of her fist. Within it were two crude but incredibly charming little dolls made from what appeared to be scraps of cloth and some straw. The pair each sported pink hair of a shade quite close to Aysen’s, and looking at them, it wasn’t hard to guess who they were supposed to be. The larger one had short hair that matched Aysen’s haircut, while the smaller of the two had long hair that went down past the hips, all the way near the knees. The two figures were holding hands and sported wide, roughly-stitched smiles.
When Gabby looked at the pair of little figures, she could almost see a different version, one where the two had black hair instead of pink and the genders were reversed—no! She couldn’t let herself follow that trail again.
“He’s my younger brother. They don’t care about him because he’s just a Feeler and he’s still young. When the bandits captured him, nobody would help! They said it would be suicide and won’t go rescue him, and they wouldn’t let me out either! They’re just leaving him to die! That’s why I had to sneak out. If nobody else will save him, then I will!”
Blazing fury ignited in Gabriela’s soul. Part of her wanted to go back to Kagos and beat the ever-living crap out of every single person there—and maybe she would, later. Right now, there were much more pressing matters.
“Where are the bandits? Where are they holding him?”
“Why?”
“I’ll save Temel for you.”
“All by yourself? You don’t even have a weapon,” came the skeptical response.
“Don’t worry, I’m very strong. No stupid bandits have a hope of stopping me. So, just point me to where they are hiding and head back to Kagos where it’s safe. I’ll bring him home for you, I promise.”
The girl crossed her arms. “No, I’m coming with you.”
“Aysen, a bandit camp is no place for an eight-year-old girl to be anywhere near.”
The child glared at her with visible annoyance and perhaps even outrage. “I’m not eight, I’m fifteen!” she huffed.
Gabby blinked. “Well, you sure don’t look or act like it.”
“Our bodies grow slower than humans or beastkin,” the girl—no, teenager, apparently—continued. “Moons above, have you never met an elven child before?”
“Well...” Gabby guessed it made sense to look at her like another Pari. Pari was also older than she seemed, and she also didn’t act like it, probably because her brain was developing at the same speed as her body. So, more than the usual experience, but still the same usual level of maturity.
Aysen groaned in frustration. “I’m coming with you,” she declared with finality. “You would probably just get lost without me, anyway.”
“Eight, or fifteen, or whatever, you’re not a fighter. What were you even going to do when you got there all on your own?”
The girl looked away. “I don’t know... I’d think of something...”
Gabby placed her head in her hands. “You can’t be serious...” She looked back up, having decided. “Alright, you can guide me there, but then you have to stay as far away as you can and hide until I get back, understand? Otherwise I’m going to take you back to Kagos.”
Aysen slumped in defeat. “Okay... Can you really save him, though?”
Gabby walked over to a nearby tree with pretty indigo leaves. A fairly old tree, by the looks of it, its trunk looked to be a bit under a meter in diameter. With almost contemptuous ease, Gabby grabbed the tree with both arms and yanked it from the soil, roots and all, and balanced it upon her right shoulder. She looked back and tried not to grin at the teen’s stupefied expression before tossing the tree off to the side like it was made of paper mache. “You don’t have to worry about it.”
"H-how are you so strong?!” the girl gasped, her eyes sparkling with sudden excitement. “Were you one of Gustil’s generals?! How did you survive fighting the Ubrans?! Are you on a secret mission?! Have you ever—”
“It’s complicated, okay?” Gabby replied, trying to dampen the child’s sudden fiery enthusiasm. “We have more important things to talk about, right? Like, saving your brother?”
“Oh, right! Let’s go, right now!”
“Here,” Gabby said, crouching down, “climb on my back and tell me where to go.”
“Right!” The girl, pack and all, clambered onto Gabby’s back and wrapped her arms around Gabby’s neck with newfound confident enthusiasm. She pointed forward and to their left. “It’s through the valley over there.”
Gabby wrapped her arms around Aysen’s legs and tensed her legs. “Alright, get ready and hold on as tight as you can.”
“Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go-oooooooaaaaahhhhhh!”
Gabby shot forward towards the valley.
----------------------------------------
“Huh, that’s... bigger than I’d thought it would be,” Gabriela muttered.
The two of them crouched on a branch two-thirds of the way up a tall tree, peering through the leaves towards the buildings where they believed Temel was being held.
The Barbed Blades’ hideout was closer to a mini fortress than the collection of huts that Gabriela had expected. The Blades had cleared out a large area of the forest, using the wood to construct a whole host of buildings and surround it all with a sturdy fence over three meters tall. Gabby could make out what looked like a headquarters of sorts, a storage building or two, some living quarters, some sort of kitchen possibly, an armory, and... was that a stable? While bandits, by definition, took other people’s money, this still seemed to Gabby like a lot of money for bandits.
“So, where would they be holding your brother?” she wondered quietly.
“I don’t know,” Aysen replied, her legs wrapped for stability around the branch they sat on.
“I’ll just have to clear out the whole place until I find him, I guess. Let’s back off for now.”
Picking up the child, she quickly descended the tree, stopping for a moment to grab Aysen’s pack. Retreating from their position, they moved away from the camp, stopping two large hills later at a small ravine. This was the closest that Gabby felt safe leaving the child alone.
“Right. Now hide here where it’s safer, while I go handle this.”
“What? But I wanted to watch you beat up the bad guys!” Aysen objected.
“Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous, and it’s not neat or fun to watch. It’s ugly and brutal, and will scar you for life.”
“But—!”
“I said no, and that’s final!” Gabby declared. “Just wait here and I’ll be back soon.”
Having put her foot down, Gabriela strode off, leaving the girl behind to head back towards the bandit hideout. For the first time in a while, she found herself wishing she had the Sword of Eternity with her, as opposed to the rest of the time that she resented its presence. Still, there was no use in crying over it now. The question was what to do instead.
She could always rip out a tree to act as an improvised club of sorts and do her best Chos impression. Her mind still boggled at the durability of that overgrown baseball bat. Gabby had never before encountered something the Sword of Eternity couldn’t slice, and that alone had thrown her off immensely during the spar. She’d become so used to just swinging through her opponents that she hadn’t known how to react to somebody who could block. The trees here, however, lacked that unreal invulnerability. Just a few swings would probably shatter the wood into pieces and render the whole thing useless.
Also, swinging a whole tree around would be hard to control. While it would utterly wreck any bandits within range, she couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t unintentionally knock over a building or two at the same time. The last thing she needed right now was to accidentally crush the little elven boy she was here to save.
That left going in barehanded—a less appealing but viable option. With her strength and healing, she wouldn’t need to worry about losing even against well-armed opponents, but her eventual victory would come far slower. Every moment that chaos reigned within that camp was a moment that something bad might happen to Temel. What if one of the bandits figured out why she was there? What if they took Temel hostage?
As she pushed through the underbrush, Gabby had a moment of inspiration and smacked herself on the forehead. How had she forgotten? The bandit fort had what looked like its own armory—she’d watched several people enter with weapons and depart empty-handed, so that was surely what it was. She’d just help herself to one of their weapons, either from the armory or whoever was unlucky enough to run across her before she made it there.
Gabby caught sight of the sun as she approached the bandits’ clearing. Judging by its position, she estimated that the day was in the mid-afternoon now, perhaps around the Earth equivalent of three or four PM. While she would have preferred to do this in the semi-darkness of the moonslight, it would be too long to wait.
Gabby pulsed the power within her—that power that not only healed her but also took her already strong body and amped up that strength to ridiculous proportions—tensed her legs, and leapt into the sky. While the act of hurling yourself through the air in great bounds was the sort of thing that could be boiled down to mathematical formulas and the like, Gabby had always found it to be more of an art than a science. You pointed yourself in the direction you needed to go and let intuition take care of the rest.
She’d gotten fairly good at it over the last year or so, and it showed. Gabby fell towards the encampment like a rock, her momentum carrying her towards the suspected armory. Her trajectory seemed largely on track; the only question was if she would land in front of it or behind it.
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It quickly became clear that the answer was neither. Gabriela braced herself as the roof grew closer with frightening speed and it became apparent that she was going to crash straight into it with all of her considerable velocity. The wooden frame appeared relatively new and decently sturdy, but no roof was built to withstand full-grown adult humans falling onto them from fifty meters above.
With the thunderous crack of wooden beams shattering in a single blow, Gabriela crashed right through the roof and tumbled into the single-chamber, single-story building beneath it. Pain lanced through her as she landed awkwardly, a multitude of bones broken, ligaments ripped, and tendons torn. A quick pulse of power righted all of that in a flash.
Gabby pushed herself to her feet and looked around. The first thing she noticed was the large, sharp spear beside her that would have impaled her if she’d been only half a meter to the right—it appeared that this was an armory after all. The second thing she noticed was the man not more than three meters away, staring at her with a slack-jawed expression on his face.
The two of them reacted at the same time, which meant that the man barely got to move before Gabby blurred forward, grabbed him by his throat, and slammed him up against the nearest wall.
“Where is the child?” she growled.
“W-which one?” the bandit gasped.
Gabby’s vision went red. Which one?! There were multiple kids held here?! It took everything she had not to squeeze her hand until the man’s neck was little more than paste.
“ALL OF THEM!” she snarled, adding a bit of extra force to her grip for good measure.
“T-that way!” he choked out, his arm pointing wildly towards her right. “Third b-building. P-Please, don’t—”
“Don’t choke you to death?” Gabby finished. “Alright, since you’ve been so helpful, I won’t.”
With her other hand, she grabbed him by the arm, turned, and hurled him across the chamber. The bandit hurtled into the wooden wall with enough force to splinter it to pieces and crash through as a broken, crumpled mess. She figured there was a tiny chance the man remained alive, Scyrian hardiness being what it was, but she had more important things to do than to waste another thought on him. After all, she had a weapon to select.
A moment later, Gabby kicked the down door to the armory and stepped out into the camp, a huge battle axe in her hands. The largest weapon in the place, with a head nearly a meter long, it had been the quick and easy choice. Clearly made for a large Feeler, it was still fairly light and small compared to the Blade of Eternity, but it was by far the closest she could find. It would match her fighting style well enough for the moment. The other options had been poor fits for her training and experience, with the possible exception of the long spear she’d nearly impaled herself upon when making her sudden entrance.
It had been about a minute since her unannounced arrival, and the little fort was in a state of confusion. People from all over the camp were converging upon the small armory, drawn by the sounds of breaking wood echoing through the quiet forest. Gabriela flashed forward, her newly acquired axe slicing through anybody in her way. She didn’t bother to go around massacring everybody—not yet at least. She had somewhere to be.
Coming to a halt before the cabin the bandit had described, Gabby grabbed the door and, with a single quick tug, ripped it from its hinges. Tossing it away, she stepped inside, her heart pounding with apprehension at what horrors she might find within.
The interior could best be described as “sparse”, with little more than five rough cots placed around the single room atop a dirty straw floor. Sitting or laying on these cots were five children. On the left was a boy with brown hair who appeared to be only about six years old. Beside him sat a girl with the same shade of brown hair and a similar face—siblings, most likely—who Gabriela guessed to be around eleven, making her the oldest child there. Another girl, maybe seven, with black hair lay on a cot in the far left corner.
But, what truly caught Gabriela’s eye were the two off to the right. The larger of the two was a boy, perhaps nine, with bright red hair and an even brighter outfit. The others wore what Gabby would describe as “normal commoner” garb, but this kid’s clothes—ornate, embroidered, and flashy even with all the dirt on them—screamed “rich kid” with a megaphone.
And then, there was Temel. The shortest, smallest child there, with long warm pink hair that covered his eyes and nearly hid his ears as it flowed down to the straw below, Temel sat beside the rich boy, his hands holding a wooden needle and several pieces of cloth resting on his lap. Frozen mid-sew, he joined the other kids as they all looked up in surprise at Gabby’s sudden noisy appearance.
All of them appeared filthy and miserable, though it appeared that the bandits had at least fed them all well enough. Long tucrenyx chains ran from the back wall to each of the children, terminating in a single brace wrapped around each of their left legs.
“Hey there, don’t worry,” she told them quickly before they could be too terrified of her and the blood-covered axe propped up on her right shoulder. “I’m here to get you all out of he—”
Something slammed into Gabby’s back, sending her lurching forward. Blood sprayed across the room, splattering over the cots and children alike. Righting her balance, Gabby looked down to find the blade of a familiar spear protruding from the center of her upper chest. The children screamed in horror at the sight, and Gabby’s fury returned, renewed and reinforced, as she realized the emotional scarring the experience would create on the poor things. Her power throbbed within her and she embraced it. Crimson smoke burst forth and destroyed the bottom half of the spearhead and part of the shaft in a blink.
The kids looked on with confusion as the remaining pieces of the weapon fell to the floor with a clatter, confused as to why the woman they’d just watched die did not seem dead at all.
“You kids hold tight. I’ll be right back once I’ve taken out the trash,” she told them, clutching the axe and stepping back outside.
----------------------------------------
“Alright, let’s get you out of here,” Gabriela said as she strode back into the cabin not too long after, leaving the axe outside and out of view this time. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter, with how much sticky blood she had on her now—the vast majority of it not hers—but every little bit helped.
The children had barely moved since she’d left. Only the fact that they’d wiped her blood from their skin told her that they’d moved at all. None of them smiled or looked happy about her presence; they all just seemed confused and a little distrustful. Gabby didn’t blame them.
Bending down beside Temel, she tried to flash him a reassuring smile. It didn’t work; he scooted back instead, but not far enough to avoid Gabby’s reach. She grabbed the ankle cuff as gently as she could with both hands.
“Hold still,” she told the elven child, who stared back through his mess of hair before nodding slightly.
The metal was tight against his skin, but it didn’t stand a chance against Gabby. Even taking care to not overdo it, her fingers peeled the tucrenyx back like tin foil. Within a few heartbeats, the restraint fell to the ground. Temel pulled his leg in and started rubbing the spot where it had been with his tiny hands.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing freeing him before me?!” the redheaded boy said with an affronted scowl. “Father paid you to save me, not them, fool! How dare you make me wait!”
Gabby did a double-take. Who the heck was this brat? Whoever he was, Gabby decided he could wait.
“The proper thing to say to somebody who rescues you from bandits is ‘thank you,’” Gabby replied, turning to free the brown-haired siblings instead.
“You—!” the boy snapped with a stamp of his foot. “Don’t you know who I am?!”
“Not a clue,” she answered, peeling away the shackle around the young brown-haired boy’s leg.
“I am Dost Simsek, son of Haldun Simsek!” the spoiled brat declared as if that explained everything.
“Who?”
The third restraint bounced against the straw.
“Don’t lie, peasant! Nobody doesn’t know of Viscount Simsek, Viscount—ah, King of Markura!”
“Never heard of him,” she stated. She went to make her way to the black-haired girl in the corner, but the child had already approached her, eager to be free of her chain. Gabby freed her quickly and turned to the one remaining, indignant, red-faced child, who glared back at her with full-blown suspicion.
“Who do you work for?” Dost demanded to know. “The Akarsu’s? Or the Cagatar’s?”
Gabby squatted down next to the obnoxious child and grabbed his chin with a firm grip. “Listen up, kid. I didn’t know any of you were even here until I opened that door, got it? I came for one reason, and that was to save little Temel because Aysen asked me to. Now, you can either shut up and behave and I’ll take you to Kagos, or you can keep up this attitude and I can leave you here, alone, in an empty camp in the middle of the forest. Understand?”
It was a bluff—mostly—but it worked. The twerp gulped and looked away from her blood-speckled visage the moment she released him.
“I will allow you to lead me to Kagos,” he reluctantly assented.
“Well, in that case, all you need to do is say the words and you’ll be free.”
“The words?”
“Say ‘thank you for saving me’.”
“You—! I will not forget this humiliation!” Dost fumed through clenched teeth.
Gabby just stared at him and his ire withered quickly. “Thank you,” he managed to grind out.
Gabby tore the cuff like tissue paper. “See? Was that so hard?”
Temel tugged on the hem of her shirt, his adorable tiny hands barely able to reach. The boy looked up at her with excitement that had been entirely missing before, and she couldn’t help but smile. He really was tiny, she mused. Had she not known better, she would have assumed that he was maybe four or five years old. Given Aysen’s fifteen to eight age to appearance difference, Gabby guessed that he was actually more like seven years old, or perhaps even a year or two beyond that.
“Do you really know my sister?”
“I sure do,” she told him. “She’s out in the forest waiting for us, so we shouldn’t waste any more time. Everybody follow me!”
Gabriela took a step towards the door and stopped again, an ugly realization rearing its head.
“On second thought, I want all of you to form a line and hold each other’s hands, then close your eyes until I tell you to open them, alright? It’s better if you don’t look until we’re gone from this place.”
The children, thankfully, cooperated, forming a cute little human chain starting with the tall brown-haired girl holding her hand. Even Dost only gave her a quick suspicious glance before following the others. Slowly, Gabby led them outside and grabbed the axe, just in case she’d missed somebody. Finally, she began to guide them toward the forest.
Gabriela thanked the Lord that she had thought to have the kids close their eyes before they stepped out into the camp. The sight of her impalement had done too much damage to their young psyches already, but that paled in comparison to their surroundings now. Gabby’s fighting style did not really know the meaning of the term “restraint”, but she had especially not held back this time—not against child kidnappers.
Blood and assorted viscera coated the ground and buildings. Limbs, or sometimes entire bisected corpses, littered the area, making navigation a bit of an exercise. To her knowledge, she’d slain every single person in the camp, messily and mercilessly. The only living souls left were her, the children, and the four animals—three garophs and a vekkel—still tied up in the stable off at the far end of the camp. If any bandits had escaped somehow, then... maybe she’d try to hunt them down later if she could. Maybe. She had more important stuff to worry about now, like getting the children to safety.
They moved slowly, but soon enough, the group made it to the still-closed front gate. Gabby threw them open, led the kids through, and shut them again.
“Alright, you can open your eyes now.”
The boys and girls all opened their eyes and visibly relaxed, except for Dost, who looked rather green around the gills—no doubt he’d disregarded her instructions and snuck a peek. Well, he had nobody to blame but himself.
“Now, stay close to me as we go through the forest,” she continued. “We have to go get Aysen, and then we’ll all go—”
The sound of a branch snapping beneath something’s foot brought her to a screeching halt. Something was nearby.
“Aysen?” she called out on the off chance that it was her, though the snap has sounded too loud to be created by somebody her size.
The leaves rustled and surprisingly, about twenty meters away, Aysen did emerge... only she wasn’t alone. A hulking brute of a man held her in front of him, one massive mitt keeping her in place and the other holding a blade to her throat. The blade was small, almost pocket-knife-sized, and would have looked comical in his huge hand had the situation not been so dire.
“Don’t move, or she dies,” he said in a gruff, guttural voice.
Gabriela didn’t know what to do; there were no good options. She cast her mind about, trying to figure out what to do, but came up empty. She could cross that distance in a flash if she had to, but it would only take a fraction of a moment for his blade to do its work. Even if she managed to kill him before he could react, his blade was so close to Aysen’s neck that he might slit her throat unintentionally as his body jerked from Gabby’s strike.
Once more, she wished that she could have received any other powers than the ones she had been given. Blake would have been able to snipe the man’s head off from half a kilometer away; the Stragman would have been able to just let her die, take out the bandit, and then revive her; she’d heard tales of an old woman in Drayhadal who could have daydreamt the situation under control; and Sofie could solve the entire problem with a single sentence. But not Gabby. She’d been blessed with the powers of “hit hard” and “never die”, and neither of those abilities mattered from a twenty-meter distance. All she could do was sweat and seethe with toothless fury.
“What do you want?” she ground out.
“Hand over the noble brat and my axe,” he instructed.
“And then you’ll let her go?”
“What!? You dishonorable wench!” Dost spat. “You would trade me for—”
Gabby slapped her hand over his mouth.
“Not a chance,” the man growled. “I know who you are, and if having her here keeps you away, then she stays with me until I’m so far away that you’ll never find me in your life.”
“How do I know you won’t just kill her later?”
“You don’t,” he said with a nasty grin. “Enough wasting time. Hand them over, or—”
As the man spoke, a well-manicured hand reached out from behind him and grabbed the wrist of the arm holding the blade. Suddenly, his voice cut off and his whole body shuddered violently before collapsing unceremoniously like a puppet with its strings cut. Gabby gasped, visions of the giant falling atop Aysen and crushing her playing through her mind, but she need not have worried. Instead, he was yanked neatly to the side to reveal a blade buried to the hilt into the back of his neck and a chipper-looking figure standing right behind him.
Chitra Batranala looked at the dying man and let out a self-satisfied hum.
“Looks like I arrived at just the right time!” she chirped.
Dueling waves of relief and dismay crashed against each other in Gabby’s mind, making her feel like she was going to split in two. On the one hand, somebody had saved Aysen when Gabby could not. On the other hand, that somebody was the person she least wanted to see and the one she’d specifically told to stay away.
Aysen rushed forward in tears, putting Gabby’s warring feelings on hold for the moment. She could deal with her own roiling emotions later. She crouched down to give the traumatized girl a hug when Temel shot past her and the two siblings wrapped themselves in each other’s arms.
Oh, right... she’d momentarily forgotten about him. Looking at the pair, wrapped in each other’s arms, she decided to let them be and not intrude for the moment. That, however, meant she had nothing better to do than reckon with the unwanted woman approaching her.
“I thought I told you to leave me alone,” she said.
“You were so worked up when you said that. I thought you would have calmed down and reconsidered by now.” Chitra replied, drawing closer with that accursed gorgeous smile on her face. “After all, I spent seasons working towards this. Why would I give up over a minor quarrel?”
Gabby crossed her arms and put the full brunt of her displeasure into a mighty glare. “I have calmed down, and I still don’t want to be anywhere near you. And it wasn’t minor.”
“Here,” Chitra said, striding up next to her, the glare having no effect on the chipper Ubran. She reached into a small pack strapped to her hip and pulled out something wrapped in thin cloth—a sandwich. “I thought you might need this.”
Gabby redirected her glare towards the proffered food and shook her head vehemently. “I don’t need anything from you.”
“Are you sure?”
Perhaps it was the waning adrenaline, or perhaps it was just the reminder to her body that food was a thing, but it was then and there that her gut decided to object to her refusal with a loud gurgle. Well, it was the case that she hadn’t eaten anything substantial in days...
Grumbling, she snatched the sandwich from the other woman’s hand, unwrapped it, and took a huge bite. Like everything Chitra made, it tasted delicious.
Chitra turned to Dost, taking out several more packages.
“You look like a man who can take charge,” she said to him.
Dost flushed redder than a strawberry. “Y-yes miss. H-how can I help y-you?”
She handed him the packs. “I need you to distribute this to the others, alright? A good lord makes sure that all his subjects are well fed.”
Dost straightened up to his full height. “Yes, of course!”
“Good. Make sure that you all eat nice and slow and civilized, unlike this barbarian here.”
“You can count on me!”
Chitra smirked as the boy raced off to do her bidding. She turned back to Gabby and her face softened and she sighed as she gave Gabby a once-over.
“Look how messy you got,” Chitra noted, pulling out a waterskin and another cloth. Wetting the cloth, she stepped forward and Gabriela, busy enjoying the first real food she’d eaten in far too long, subconsciously tilted her head to give the Batranala a better angle to clean her, just as she’d done so many times before after a battle.
The sensation of cold wetness against her cheek brought Gabby to her senses, and she stepped away.
“Gabby, be reasonable,” Chitra chided.
“I’m being perfectly reasonable. You’re the one who won’t leave me alone.”
“Gabby, you’re bloodier and filthier than I’ve seen you since the war ended. Do you think the guards are going to want to let you in looking like that?”
Gabby grunted in frustration. Chitra had a point. She always had a point. Gabby decided to save their upcoming argument until they were alone. She didn’t want the children to hear whatever might be said.
“Fine, but that’s all, understand? I’m only tolerating you because of the kids. The moment we’re alone, I’ve got words for you.”
“Of course. Now, hold still.”
Chitra began stroking Gabby’s face, slowly rubbing off some of the blood and grime while Gabby devoured the sandwich. Within moments, Gabby swallowed the final bite. She glanced at the beautiful woman tending to her and her emotions regained their earlier vigor, only this time with a strong undercurrent of confusion added in.
“How did you find me? How did you even get here so fast?”
“What do you mean? Kagos is a fair distance, to be sure, but nowhere near outside the bounds of a highly motivated traveler on a vekkel.”
“Don’t give me that, Chitra. Even with a vekkel, there’s no way you could have covered the distance that I did. I went from Chanomere to Hventa to Montorost to Klimben to Gouth to Kagos. That’s much farther than even a vekkel could handle in the time you had.”
Chitra’s smile split into a wide, amused grin and she began to giggle.
“What’s so funny?”
“Gabby, you went in a circle. Chanomere is about an hour south of here. I was just there this morning.”
Well, now Gabby sure felt stupid. But, that didn’t explain the rest of it.
“That still doesn’t explain how you found me. And, how in the world did you get a vekkel?” Though far faster than a garoph, vekkels were rare and expensive. They were largely used only by the very rich and for military purposes.
“Let’s just say that I got lucky and happened upon an opportunity to ‘borrow’ one,” replied Chitra. “I had to leave it in Chanomere, however. As for finding you, I just asked people. You’re a rather memorable person, Gabby. You stand out. It wasn’t too hard, especially for somebody with my expertise.
“I encountered a traveler who saw you arriving at Kagos just before they left for Chanomere, so I traveled up here myself. Outside the inn, I overheard the guards talking about you and a missing child. I knew that you’d be out here searching for her, even though they wouldn’t let you inside, because you’re precious that way. So, I did some quick preparations and made my way here as fast as I could. Unfortunately, I had to leave your stuff back in town to do that, but it looks like it was the right decision.”
“Wait, they let you in?!”
“Of course they did. Did you expect anything less?”
“Stupid jerks,” Gabby grumbled.
“There, that’s as good as I can manage here,” Chitra declared with one final stroke of her wet cloth behind Gabriela’s ear. “We should head back before the sun begins to set.”
Gabby checked the elf siblings and found that their crying had come to an end and they were eating their food like the rest of the children.
“How much food did you make?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“Plenty,” answered Chitra. “From what I overheard, I figured that these bandits were the hostage-taking sort, and those types rarely keep only one or two hostages. This is all of them, yes?”
“Yes, I checked around,” Gabby confirmed as she approached the kids cautiously. “Are you alright, Aysen?”
“Yeah...”
“How did he find you when you were hiding?”
Aysen immediately looked away.
Well, that was an admission of guilt if she’d ever seen one. For a child, Aysen really was a terrible liar.
“Aysen, did you leave the hiding place?”
“I’m sorry,” the child said as she hung her head. “I just wanted really badly to watch you fight the bad guys, so I tried to sneak closer but the bandit caught me.”
“How could you do something so stupid?!”
“That’s hardly fair, Gabby,” Chitra chimed in. “Who wouldn’t want to watch you at work? It’s truly an unforgettable sight.”
“You shut up!” Gabby snapped Chitra’s way before turning back to Aysen. “You could have died! If she hadn’t shown up when she did, that man would have taken you off somewhere and then probably would have killed you! All you had to do was listen to me and...”
Gabby’s voice died off as she caught the telltale glint of tears. Suddenly, she felt like a fiend for making the girl cry. She’d been through a lot already, and Gabby didn’t need to make it worse.
Gabriela squatted down to Aysen’s height and reached out to gently brush away the tears. “Do you understand what you did wrong?”
The child morosely nodded.
“Well, alright, then. Everybody makes mistakes. What matters is that you learn from it so that you never make that mistake again. That’s how you grow and improve. Understand?”
“Yes...”
“Good. I’m sorry for yelling at you.”
The child sniffed. “Really? You forgive me?”
“Yes, I forgive you. Now, how about we get out of here, hm?”
Aysen’s face brightened like the sun rising from under the horizon. “Yeah! Follow me!”
“Everybody makes mistakes? What matters is that you learn from it?” Chitra parroted as the elven girl sped off into the forest. “Why can’t you take your own advice?”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Gabby said as she entered the brush to follow the hyperactive girl home.
----------------------------------------
“So, you play with dolls, Temel?” Gabby asked as they neared the town at last.
“I make them also,” the elven boy told her from just above her head.
To help the trip go faster, Gabby had spent the hike carrying the smaller of the children on her shoulders. Temel, being the smallest even though he wasn’t the youngest, got more time on her shoulders than the others. She had to admit, however, that she found watching him churn his tiny legs to keep up with the rest of them to be utterly adorable. With the thin body and long hair, it was very much like what she imagined Anahi would look like in a few—nope. She forcefully stopped herself from going down that mental road before it got too much for her to handle.
“I know, Aysen showed me. But, don’t you think it’s wrong for a boy to play with dolls?”
“No?” he answered, confused.
“No?” she repeated, now also confused. “It’s not weird? Wouldn’t you rather have more manly toys?”
“I like making dolls and playing with them. It makes me happy. Why would it be wrong to be happy?”
“I...” Gabby began, but her words fizzled away. It didn’t really matter anymore, anyway, as they had finally arrived at Kagos.
Not surprisingly, the guards let them all in immediately, even Gabby this time. There were frank exchanges of words between Aysen and the present guards—Gabby found herself aghast at the sort of insults in the girl’s vocabulary—and then Gabby, Chitra, and the other children were taken to see the Captain of the Guard to get everything sorted out.
Shortly, Chitra and Gabby found themselves alone in a small office—the Captain’s, Gabby presumed—waiting for the townsfolk to finish dealing with the children. A tense silence filled the room, as Gabby, at last without anything to demand her attention, finally had the opportunity to work up a good seethe over recent events. Chitra, on her end, seemed lost for words—an exceedingly rare occurrence. Gabby would have been happy to let it stay that way until the end, but unfortunately, she needed to know one thing before the Captain arrived.
“Do they know?” she asked.
“I don’t believe so, no,” came the reply. “Not unless they went into my room at the inn and searched through your things, and even then, perhaps not.”
Gabby let out a sigh of relief.
“Gabby—”
“If what you’re about to say isn’t the mother of all apologies, then don’t talk to me.”
“Come now—”
“What did I just say!?” she snapped.
Wisely, Chitra decided to keep her mouth shut this time, so Gabby returned to her seething. The atmosphere returned to its former heaviness and stayed that way for some time until Gabby found herself unable to hold back any longer.
“I just want to know, what am I to you? Do you have any respect for me, whatsoever? Because it sure doesn’t feel like it!” she began. “If you respected me, you wouldn’t be here right now. You would have taken what I said to heart and left me alone. But you didn’t, because, thinking it through now, I realize that you see me like a child—somebody whose thoughts and feelings exist but don’t matter, because you’re Chitra Batranala, and you know what’s best for me and everyone else!”
“Should I have just left you to wallow, then? Is that what you wanted?”
“I wanted you to treat me like I’m an adult and an equal and understand that when I say no, IT MEANS NO!”
The sound of somebody coming to a halt on the other side of the room’s door forced Gabby to realize that she was now standing and hollering at the top of her lungs. Mortified, she quickly sat down again as the door opened, and in walked the captain—the man who’d first kept her out of the village.
Looking at him now up close, Gabby realized just how old the man was. Tired and worn down, he looked to be in his late sixties--the sort of man who should be enjoying late afternoons in a rocking chair and telling stories to his grandchildren, not still actively working such a demanding job. Gabby could only guess that he’d been pressed back into service by the town’s lack of younger people.
“I apologize for interrupting,” he began, closing the door behind him.
“Don’t worry about it,” Chitra told him. “The two of us were simply discussing... personal matters.”
“If it pleases you. However...” He turned to Gabriela and bowed deeply. “I must beg for your forgiveness. I was wrong to chase you away, and yet, you saved us anyway. I speak for all of us when I say that you are a hero and we will do everything we can to repay you.”
Her mind still dizzy from the heavy emotions of the previous moment, Gabby managed to mumble out something about not needing anything.
“You can provide us with free lodging and food, to start with,” Chitra interjected. “I imagine neither of us will be here for more than a day or two.”
“Of course, of course. It is the least we could do,” the man agreed. He proceeded to take a seat across from them, his face now all business while still managing to seem deferential.
“What of the children?” Gabby asked. “Can you help them?”
The man sighed. “It will take a little doing, but yes. Each of them is from a different town. We’re going to send all of them except the Simsek heir home tomorrow.”
“Do you mean Dost? Why not him?” Gabby asked.
“Because he’s too valuable to be sent back with only the few people Kagos can spare,” Chitra answered for him. “You’re going to send a messenger instead and have his father send his forces here for a trade, are you not? Perhaps some needed supplies or assistance that you couldn’t afford on your own?”
The man nodded. “That’s right. The other towns can owe us a favor later and we’re fine with that for now. We have no quarrel with our neighbors; they’re not the ones making a mess of the place. It’s the nobles that are the problem. That’s why the Viscount will need to pay upfront. The messenger has already left, actually—it’s more than a day’s run to his domain. Almost everything is taken care of, for now. All that is left is you.” He leaned forward, a deepening frown on his face. “This entire situation is... odd, and it bothers me. Bandits taking hostages is not unheard of, but the son of a Viscount is another story. What makes it stranger is that Viscount Simsek’s territory is not that close to us, either. You would have to travel northwest through most of the Baroness’s lands to arrive there. It doesn’t add up. Is there anything noteworthy you can tell me?”
Gabby and Chitra shared a momentary glance.
“I didn’t even see inside the place, so I don’t know what I can add,” Chitra admitted. “My friend here saw it all, however.”
Gabby bristled at the use of ‘friend’ but pushed it aside. “I haven’t been in many bandit camps, but this one seemed very... well-funded?”
When the others gave her inquisitive looks, she pressed on. “Like, vekkels are very expensive, right? But they had one in their stable. They had a stable. A lot of things felt less... rough, I guess. That’s about all I can say, really.”
The guard captain leaned back with a concerned expression. “I see. Thank you. And once again, thank you for rescuing the children. It shames me to admit, but we would have been too weak to manage it ourselves. There are not many fighters here, at least, not anymore.”
“About that...” Gabby wondered, “don’t you have a ruler? What about this Baroness? Shouldn’t she have soldiers here to help protect you and hunt down the bandits?”
The man grimaced. “You truly aren’t from around here, are you? The borders in this land right now are... fuzzy,” he explained. “In the time before the invasion, we paid our dues to Count Ytrec, though the border with Baroness Coban’s lands was very close by. After the count perished fighting the Ubran horde—”
Gabby kept her face as neutral as possible.
“—the lower nobles have expanded their territories, the Baroness included. However, we and the other towns in this area have no desire to live under her banner. She is not well-liked, and the taxes we would have to pay are ruinous, from what I’m told. And yet, just yesterday, we in the council and the mayor decided that we had no choice but to submit to her rule and pay what we must. She is the only noble close enough and strong enough to protect us from the bandits and marauders that seem to fill Gustil these days, you see. With the Barbed Blades gone, however, perhaps we can reconsider our options. Just one more thing to thank you for, it seems.”
Chitra let out a soft hum but said nothing.
“Anyway, you’ve given me a lot of work tonight,” the man chuckled. “Thank you for answering my questions. I will make sure that Carmus gives you only the best room at the inn, and all you can eat, free of charge, of course.”
“Uh, two rooms, please,” Gabby said. “One for each of us.”
The captain looked back and forth between them with visible confusion. “...are you two not—”
“No,” Gabriela cut in with finality. “We’re not.”
“It seems I have blundered once again. My apologies. Two rooms, then. I hope you enjoy your stays here in Kagos.”
The two of them got up and left the room and the building, emerging to find an evening sky. It was late—later than Gabby had wanted.
“What will you do now?” Chitra asked.
“What’s it to you?”
“All your supplies are still in my room, Gabby. Unless you plan on breaking in, I’ll need to be there.”
“Fine, Aysen invited me to dinner after you went into the guard station, so I’m going to her place. I’ll stop by after that.”
“Very well. I’ll be waiting.”
Without making a fuss, Chitra walked away. Gabby watched her leave, taking in the way she stepped, the lightness of her feet as she almost pirouetted around a man who wasn’t watching where he was going, the almost hypnotic sway of her ample hips with every confident strut.
Gabby had admired the Ubran’s incredible beauty ever since the first day they’d met, but looking at her felt unusual now in a way that left Gabby feeling uncomfortable. She’d long ago discerned that Chitra’s grace and poise were part of a never-ending performance, but she’d always thought that the audience for said performance was the world and all its people. Now, she realized that she, and she alone, was the only intended audience for the Batranala’s every elegant action. Though the performance was the same, it hit very differently now than it had even a week ago.
She shook her head. There was no point in putting any more thought into that devious woman’s actions. She had far more important things to think about, like remembering the directions Aysen had given her.