“Woah, okay, no need for any of this,” Jake said, his throat suddenly dry as his eyes flicked between her severe expression and the blade at his friend’s throat.
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“Okay, okay, my name is Jake Chant, and this is Alan Teller. We’re Classers with the Delvers Guild. We saw signs that someone had been dragged off the road and came to investigate. That’s all, okay?”
“Prove it,” the woman said, her eyes narrowing at Jake’s response.
“Here, see, my guild mark,” Jake said, willing the mark to be visible as he held his hand up for her to see.
“Hmm,” the woman made a noncommittal sound, but she did relax slightly when she saw the guild mark. “What about you? Show me a mark or a Skill and make it quick.” The sword pressed threateningly against Alan’s neck as she spoke to him, and the Scholar carefully lifted an arm to show his own mark.
“Here, please, we’re telling the truth,” Alan said, his other hand subtly reaching for the blade at his hip.
“Very well, you’re telling the truth,” the woman said, releasing Alan and taking a few quick steps back. “Now leave. This is none of your business.”
“Did you kill him?” Jake asked, motioning to the dead man on the boulder.
“No, but his killer will return soon, and they are incredibly dangerous. You should leave,” the woman said, sheathing her sword and crossing her arms.
Now that Jake had the chance to get a good look at her, he noticed that she had medium-length dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and a single braid hanging from the right side of her head down to her jaw.
What caught Jake’s eye, however, was the paired swords she carried, one of which was longer than the other. She had been using the shorter one to threaten Alan with, but somehow Jake was sure that they were meant to be wielded together.
“So, let me get this right,” Jake said, sheathing his sword for the moment to not escalate things any further. “You sneak up on Alan, threaten his life and demand we prove ourselves before ordering us away with no evidence of your own?”
Alan had reclaimed his bow and moved over to Jake while they had been talking, but he was currently giving Jake a meaningful look with motions to stop pushing.
“You raise a valid point,” the woman said, frowning a little before grimacing and shaking her head. “I apologise. I thought you might have been Corrupters, but you clearly aren’t. Still, you should leave.”
“Wait, what are Corrupters?” Jake asked, jumping on the unfamiliar word immediately.
“If you don’t know already, I’m not allowed to talk about it,” she said, sighing a little as she looked between the two of them. “You should leave. I’m more than capable of dealing with one on my own, and if you interfere, they could escape, which is unacceptable.”
“Jake, we’re in over our heads here,” Alan said, his eyes drifting to the body behind them. “She’s right, we should go.”
“Fuck,” Jake cursed, unhappy with this entire situation and with yet more things he wasn’t allowed to know about. “Fine, but if I find out you were bullshitting us, we’ll be back.”
“You know full well that I could have killed your friend. What need have I to lie?” The woman shrugged a little, resting her hands on the hilts of her blades. “You don’t have to trust me. Just let me do my job.”
Jake grunted, too annoyed and frustrated to give a proper answer. He wanted to stay, but he knew Alan wouldn’t leave without him, and he couldn’t in good conscience take that risk on Alan’s behalf.
Jake started walking back to the trail they’d been following, taking a looping path that went around the woman so they wouldn’t come too close. Something about her seemed trustworthy, but he couldn’t ignore how close they’d come to fighting each other.
Alan looked more than a little relieved to be leaving the clearing, which only cemented Jake’s choice. As much as he disliked everything going on here, he didn’t want to drag Alan into danger just to satisfy his curiosity.
“That was crazy,” Alan said once they were back on the path, his eyes wide as he turned to Jake. “Do you think those things she was talking about are real, or do you think she killed that man?”
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“I believe her, but I’m not entirely sure why,” Jake said, looking back into the woods for a moment before shaking his head and starting back to town at a quick walk. “We should see if we can find any higher-tier Classers that might have stayed behind.”
“Yeah, okay, that works,” Alan said as he took a few steadying breaths and seemed to get control of himself. “I’m with you. Let’s go.”
They weren’t too far down the path when they heard sounds of movement from up ahead. Sharing a look, they darted off the path and hid themselves.
If it wasn’t for the woman’s warning about these Corrupters, Jake would have ignored the noises or not assumed the worst, but her words had got in his head, and from the look on Alan’s face, he wasn’t the only one.
A few moments passed before a trio of Classers came walking around the bend, making Jake momentarily sigh in relief before taking in their postures and subtly motioning for Alan to stay still and not move.
The trio was two women walking ahead while a man trailed behind slightly. One of the women looked worried and anxious, while the other seemed to be soothing her and reassuring her about something.
Both of the women were armed but had their weapons sheathed, whereas the man was walking with his spear at the ready.
Jake could have ignored that. After all, you couldn’t exactly sheath a spear, but everything about the man’s posture said that he was ready to fight and didn’t match the front two at all.
“We’ll turn off up here, and then he’s just a short distance into the woods,” the reassuring woman said, pointing up ahead as she spoke.
“I hope he’s okay. Did he say what he’d injured?” The anxious woman replied, her voice making Jake realise that he’d seen her earlier in the day; she’d been calling out and asking if anyone had seen a missing Classer.
“I think he’d hurt his leg; he just asked if we could go find you,” the first woman said, one hand on the other’s back as she guided her forward.
“But why didn’t he use his potions?” The anxious woman asked, frowning at her companion as she slowed down and asked the obvious question.
“I think he broke them in his fall,” the other woman said without missing a beat. “We should hurry; he was in a lot of pain.”
The anxious woman seemed to be stuck on what to do, whether to question the flimsy story she was being told or go to the aid of her friend. Ultimately, she decided to go with what they were saying, but Jake could see that the third member of the group had tensed when she’d hesitated.
There was nothing good about what he was seeing here; their story was full of holes, and the whole thing reminded him of a few scams he’d seen back in the city.
“Did that seem a bit weird to you?” Alan asked softly once the trio were further away from them.
“Oh yeah, that’s a setup for sure,” Jake said, gently pulling his shield out from where he’d hidden it under a bush. “The question is, a setup for what?”
“Maybe they’re getting her somewhere secluded to rob her?”
“Maybe,” Jake said, his eyes still on the trio as they continued further down the path. “But my gut tells me it’s worse than that.”
“Wait, you don’t think…..” Alan’s voice trailed off as he gave Jake a horrified look.
“Maybe, maybe not, but there’s two of them, and that woman we met said she could confidently deal with one. Perhaps she can deal with a second, or perhaps they’ve nothing to do with any of this. I just don’t know.”
“We can’t leave it like this,” Alan said, a familiar determination settling onto his face as he gripped his bow tight.
“No, we can’t,” Jake said, knowing that he’d never forgive himself if they walked away right now.
There were two more bends in the path from where they were to the spot where they’d entered the woods, and the trio they were watching had just gone around the first, but Jake gave them another few moments before getting to his feet and starting to follow after them.
“What’s the plan?” Alan asked in a hushed voice once they were on the path.
“Follow them as carefully as we can, see where they go and then just go from there,” Jake said equally quietly. He’d love a more detailed plan, but that was about the best they could do right now.
Hopefully, this was a robbery, and he had it all wrong, in which case they could step in, help sort things out and maybe get a reward for their aid. If not, well, at least he’d get some answers.
-**-
Jake and Alan weren’t exactly the stealthiest of followers, but fortunately, they didn’t have to be. The anxious friend was too busy worrying, and the other two were focused on keeping her moving towards whatever they had planned.
To Jake’s growing discomfort, the trio turned off the road just before the area where Jake and Alan had turned off themselves.
“Look, Jake,” Alan whispered, moving over to tap one of the trees next to the spot where the trio had turned.
Jake looked over and saw that Alan was tapping on a symbol that had been carved into the tree. “Damn, looks like they marked it to be easy to find the next time.”
“I just don’t get it,” Alan said, shaking his head repeatedly. “That poor guy looked like he’d been cut up open and savaged. Are they going to do that to her as well? Why?”
“I wish I knew,” Jake said, shivering a little as he remembered the state of the body they’d seen. “It was almost as though he’d been butchered; it was so specific to just his chest.”
“I don’t like this, not one bit.”
“Me neither, but I’m not backing out now,” Jake said firmly, starting to head deeper into the woods before pausing and looking back to Alan. There was no need to drag the Scholar into Jake’s obsessive need to understand what was going on. “Maybe you should head back and try and get reinforcements or just let people know what’s going on.”
“There’s no chance I’m letting you head into all that on your own,” Alan said, his head lifting slightly as he made eye contact with Jake. “I’m with you here, and you need the backup.”
“You’re not wrong there,” the corner of Jake’s mouth quirked into a smile at the determined look in Alan’s eyes. The other man likely had no idea how much it meant to Jake that he was willing to back him up like this.
Growing up without a family had taught Jake that true friends were hard to come by and that someone who braved danger to have his back was worth their weight in ingar.
The two of them started forward once more, Jake carefully drawing his sword as they did. From this point on, anything could happen, and he needed to be ready.