Suggested Listening

Elruin looked up at Cali, but her mind remained locked on the city being destroyed. "I'm fine." She was rattled by the brush of foreign emotions, but didn't feel hurt. "It's my... magic. It's all so new, and I've never used so much before."

Calenda smiled at the girl. "I imagine the last few days have been quite the experience for you." She helped pull Elruin to her feet. "Stay strong just a little longer, and it will all be over. Then you can take a long, well-deserved rest."

Cali returned to her project, dropping every corpse into a shallow grave by use of magic, then she went to the pit where the three corrupted corpses were, in order to slide the earth back over them. "You're needed here for a second!" Cali shouted at a pair of the men, returning for their second trip of hauling the bandits' equipment.

The brothers were a rare set of identical twins, with the same scruffy light-brown features. Neither looked like they knew what to say or how to act with Calenda as their boss; letting the priestess give commands through their boss's son was one thing, but taking direct orders was uncomfortable for them. They kept their eyes on the ground, or looking for the nearest distraction to get them out of the awkward situation they found themselves in. No woman, other than their mother, had ever given them direct commands before.

"When the Archmage comes, she'll want to know exactly where the bodies are buried," Cali said. She kept the statements as neutral as possible; while she was accustomed to command, and viewed these social taboos as more annoying than useful, she had learned to work with a whole lot worse than these boys. "Can you memorize the trees around this spot?"

The pair glanced at one another, then managed to mumble "Yes, priestess."

"The Empire thanks you." Calenda chose to make it as impersonal as possible, positioning herself as little more than an extension of the crown. It made the traditional type less uncomfortable. "Now, our task is done here. Please, give our thanks to the Lady and Lord for their hospitality, I'm sure they understand we have no time to waste on polite goodbyes."

The young men nodded and mumbled, but still kept their eyes down. Even if they had disagreed with her, they wouldn't have dared voice that opinion.

"Now, the tricky part will be helping you keep up, Ell," Cali spoke more to herself than Elruin. "That lightning sarite will help, but-"

"Mister Clackybones can take me!" Elruin jumped at another opportunity to prove her skeletal steed was the perfect pet. A few hummed notes alerted the horror that its mistress had need of it.

Calenda ran a list of concerns through her head, but it was better than her plan to leave the child behind to wait for the Inquisitor. "If you're absolutely certain you'll be safe."

The horse knelt down on both fore and hind knee joints, then waited as Elruin climbed up to sit on its back, with her feet locked into its ribs. She gave a gentle pat to its shoulder bone. "He's a healthy, obedient, animal."

Calenda could find no part of Elruin's statement she agreed with. It wasn't a 'he', it wasn't 'an animal', it certainly wasn't healthy, and obedient remained to be seen. "Duty above all," she muttered. "I'll take the lead, you stay behind and if you see me stop, lead it into the woods to hide. Wouldn't want to startle anyone, or give them the idea that I'm fleeing."

Contrary to what most thought, horses were a poor choice for getting between towns quickly. Even on flat terrain which favored the horse more than it did the man, human resilience would keep the body moving long after a horse had fallen to fatigue, injury, or a burst heart. The humid late-spring air would only speed the process along.

None of that was a concern for this thing which had no heart and felt no fatigue. Weighing less than half it did when it was an animal, with limbs that could never tire, it leapt along the path at a pace no natural creature could match for more than a minute. The morks which Elruin encountered the first day had spoken truth about the distance of the trip, a three day trek along perilous roads for a person, a night's journey for them, or two hours for a little girl and her unliving steed.

Calenda had never been so grateful to see the walls of civilization as she was in that moment. She slowed to a stop, which Elruin took as her instruction hide in the forest along the path. Cali appreciated this in part because it meant the girl could follow instructions, but mostly because her lungs were on fire, and she didn't want to give the little necromancer the impression that her newly acquired abomination was, or that it could have outpaced her if they had more than a few minutes longer on the road.

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Cali stayed in a tree branch, catching her breath until Elruin poked her head out from the trees. "I made Mister Clackybones bury himself, so he doesn't scare anyone."

It was better by far than taking the monster closer to town, where the guard would come out in force to destroy it and the girl controlling it. Calenda's influence would go far enough to keep them from executing Elruin on the spot, but they would arrest her, and the experience might sour the girl on both the empire and the academies. Discretion was the better choice by far.

The girl stopped to get her first look at the city. The front wall was more than twice the height of the walls of her farm. It was even taller than the barns, which had to that point been the biggest buildings Elruin had seen in her life, and she could see many buildings that stood well above the wall behind it. Just the front wall of it could have wrapped around the entire farm, and she couldn't imagine any mud slide which would cause part of it to collapse.

"I can't believe Engewal is so big."

"This is Arila," Cali corrected the girl with a smile. "My hometown, and seat of our Barony. Engewal is more than ten times this size, seat of both the Duchy and Kingdom of Acheria." In the back of her mind she wondered how Elruin was walking so easily. Trained knights in saddles, on horses with some flesh for padding, would have been in pain after that ride, yet this girl showed no sign of discomfort.

"Really?" If she was impressed before, now Elruin couldn't begin to imagine how impressive the capital might be. "But didn't you say?" She stopped, since she knew better than accuse an elder of lying.

"I bit of a fib, to keep bad people from knowing where we were headed." Cali began walking into the field cleared around the city. There were no trees, rocks, or hills allowed within two miles of the city. No place for bandits, monsters, or enemy troops to move without being seen, as was only wise and proper. Besides, if there had been any trees, they'd have been carved up by the woodcutters. "I don't think anyone we talked to was untrustworthy, but you never know who might be listening in with magic. Besides, Arila has everything I promised to send back to help at the farm."

"Oh, okay," Elruin agreed as she followed behind. The idea of lying to one person in order to trick someone else sounded like one of the most clever tricks the little girl had ever heard of, which brought up a question. "Who were the bad men, why'd they want to hurt you?"

"I don't know, that's why we need an Inquisitor," Cali said. "If anyone can discover the truth, it's one of them."

"Oh," Elruin thought back to the flashes of memories from the dead man. "What's your family like?"

"Just your typical career military family," she said. "I'd say not all that different from yours, but, I've met your family. The last four generations of my family served the crown, one way or another, and all are lesser nobles. Grandfather was a famous hero in his time, Grandmother a priestess of Ifaril. I'm an odd one out, one of two water mages in the family, the first since Grandmother to go into the priesthood, and I didn't even go into the priesthood they would have preferred. But they can't say I haven't done my part to serve the crown."

Soon, they reached the point of the gates, which were large and made of metal with holes that people could see through, instead of the solid wood like the farms used. It seemed dangerous to her, letting bad people look in, but on the other side of the gate were people in metal armor, with pointy sticks. Up on the walls were people with bows and crossbows. It seemed like such a sensible idea, to have people have the chore of standing on the wall to kill monsters. She wondered why none of the farms had anything like that.

"Calenda, you were expected back last night! What happened?" A woman a little older than Cali met her at the gate. She shared Cali's bright orange hair, but was taller, broader, and encased in metal armor instead of Cali's lighter leather. A gesture from the woman, and the metal barricade began to slide up into the ceiling. Elruin found this, too, to be a smart design that she couldn't understand why none of the farms possessed.

Cali was the one to take the submissive pose, now. Though it wasn't as pronounced as with most of the people who the priestess had dealt with, she kept her head tilted down a little, and did not attempt to make eye contact. "It is a long story. Make that two long stories. We have to put a team together. An outskirt farm needs a midwife, and there were events that will require an Archmage and Inquisitor near the same farm. Both situations are urgent, and it seems most cost effective to have them travel together. I dare not say more until we are in a nullification zone."

The woman gestured to one of the female soldiers, who said nothing before walking out of the entryway, off to the side of the wall. "Does it have to do with your new shadow?" She gave Elruin a cold and humorless smile for a couple seconds, before returning to a flat stern expression.

"Elruin is part of a third long story, but not a pressing one." Cali turned toward Elruin. "I've got to go for a while. It's part of my job to make sure the Midwife gets to your aunt and uncle's farm in time, okay?"

Elruin nodded back. "I know, you have to do chores before you can play."

Cali smirked more than smiled. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised. I can have someone take you to my house, get you a warm meal and some clean clothes. Or if you like you can wait in the training field. This is prime time to watch the battle mages practice, maybe you'll pick up a trick or two of your own."