The village itself would have been unassuming and the stop itself would have been uneventful. However, the current guests of the village made for an uncomfortable situation. There were five knights at the center of the village, each of them wore chainmail shirts with embroidered tabards over the top, a sword strapped to their hips, and far more color to their garb than the average citizen.
Kala and I kept a low profile on the outskirts of the crowd that was forming around the knights. Once most, if not all, of the village came out to see what was going on, the middle knight sat up straight and began to address everyone. “I bring tidings of treason and an attempt on the king’s very life!” There was murmuring throughout the crowd as the knight started to feed them bullshit.
“A man who goes by the name of James made the attempt on the king’s life. After his majesty so graciously offered to take care of him as a guest, he repaid this kindness with treason and arson. The would-be assassin set fire to the castle with his highness still inside, a brazen attempt on his life! Luckily his majesty was unharmed in the fire due to being quickly escorted to safety. The perpetrator is still at large, keep a watchful eye out for a lone man with black hair, a scar on the side of his face, and rounded ears. Capture of this traitor will be rewarded with five gold pieces, information leading to his capture will be similarly rewarded.”
The crowd looked much more engaged with the news now. I sunk down further into my hood and made sure that my scar was as covered as possible. Five damn gold pieces would have everyone become a would-be bounty hunter. A single silver could feed someone for weeks, five gold could feed a whole family for years. The ‘lone’ part was noteworthy as well, maybe Kala was saving my ass at the same time I was saving hers.
“Keep your eyes open for the traitor, citizens. For the glory of the empire!” With that, they spurred on their horses and rode towards the next town with the intent of making my life all the more difficult. The crowd started to disperse, all talking about the reward and what they would do with it. One of them voiced their skepticism that I would ever come anywhere near their little village. If only you knew how wrong you were.
It was doubtful we could ask for directions anymore and getting more supplies would be risky. We still had a couple of days' worth of food, but I didn’t know how much farther we had to go until we reached the wildlands, and even when we got there, it would be up to chance if we found the coalition. We had to take the risk this time, stock up as much as we could, and then avoid every bit of civilization after that.
As we walked through the town, my face was pointed towards the dirt in an effort to become more invisible. Kala looked more nervous than usual walking right behind me and I really wished she would calm down before someone else noticed. My pace slowed down until we were shoulder to shoulder before grabbing her arm and leaning a little towards her to whisper.
“Take a breath, we’re getting supplies then getting out. Don't look so nervous.” She then took a slow but deep inhale. I gave her a tiny nod of approval before resuming my path through the village.
We found a stand that had some dried meat for sale and approached it. The lady manning the stand shot me a smile as we got closer and welcomed me. She was a little heavier set than most, a maternal weight is what I thought of it. My gaze didn’t directly meet hers, instead my eyes were fixed on the goods she had to offer while hiding the scarred side of my face.
“How much for a couple days of meat for two?”
She looked at her stock and hummed quietly while she thought. “Couple days would run ya about fourteen coppers.”
Damn, meat is expensive. I’ve seen worse prices in the last town we were in, but it really is a rather pricey item compared to other foods.
She shot a glance at Kala behind me. “You really feeding that thing behind ya meat?”
Was that suspicious? A quick reply was needed to divert said suspicion. “Just the scraps, if she behaves herself.” I wanted to vomit.
The butcher lady scoffed and started cutting slices of meat off the hooks she had around. “Well, you just make sure that beast of ya’s behaves while in town. We’re likely to hold ya responsible should it act up.”
I clenched my jaw and bit my tongue to keep me from lashing out at her. “I’ll make sure to keep her under control.” It was difficult to keep the venom out of my voice. The meat was laid out on the table, and a silver coin was tossed to her which she repaid with coppers as the food was packed away in my bag.
“Have a nice day.” She said in parting. A quick dip of the head in response before we quickly turned and left. We made for the road out of town at an inconspicuous yet painful pace. Everyone here was a potential enemy. All it would take was a single stray glance at my face catching a wrong feature and this exodus would expedite exponentially. A smirk tugged at my lips at my little wordplay, maybe it was just a coping mechanism for stress.
By some small miracle we weren’t accosted on our way out of the village, giving us a clear get away. When the village was behind us, I let out a heavy sigh of relief. “They’re really angry at you.” Kala said very bluntly.
I huffed in amusement. “Really? I didn’t notice.” My voice was practically dripping with sarcasm.
“Are you not getting a new shirt?”
“I don’t think this place even has shirts for sale. Besides, you heard what the knight said, they’re spreading the word about me. From this point on we are avoiding all civilization and only getting necessities if we are forced to.” She nodded along with the plan, and we continued to slowly make our way to the wildlands.
We took extra precautions while traveling. If we saw someone before they saw us, we would hide wherever possible. In a situation where there was no place to hide, we would just keep our heads down and avoid eye contact with whoever was passing. Thus far there have been no more run-ins with soldiers or knights along the road, just farmers or traders.
The light of day was starting to fade after a time, and we picked out a place to camp for the night. A new firepit was made and the second fire was started with a new record time of approximately fifteen minutes. If this went on for much longer, I would become a full-blown outdoorsman in no time. Considering that we are now avoiding populated areas, it may be wise to try my hand at catching something to eat as well. Hopefully, the food we had would last us until we found the coalition.
My mind once again drifted to what would happen when we did find them. I already went through one nightmare scenario at the hands of the elves, who's to say I'm not walking right into another one. If it came down to it, I could probably just dump Kala on them and run, she would be safe with her own people.
What would happen if it turned out relations between myself and the coalition could not exist was something else to worry about. If they were hostile and I got away from them before anything happened, what then? I would be well and truly alone, both sides alienated from me. It would only be a matter of time before the elves found me again. Living in the wild like an animal was highly unappealing. I wanted my revenge, but that required resources and an opportunity to get at that bastard, neither of which would happen if my time was spent crawling around in the mud.
We got situated around the fire and more food was passed around, giving Kala a bit of meat and bread. She looked at the meat questioningly for a moment. “These are full cuts, not scraps.”
At first, I thought she was just taking some shots at me for what was said earlier that day, but the look on her faced seemed genuinely confused. That made me feel like shit that she truly believed me capable of doing such a thing. “No, no, I wouldn’t do that! I was just trying to diffuse any suspicion. I won’t keep food from you, I'm not an asshole like those piece of shit slavers.”
“Really? Huh. Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me; this is common courtesy, actually, it’s common decency. You really have to lack all empathy to willfully starve someone.”
She hummed a little bit and seemed to be lost in thought for a moment. She blinked a few times and then started to eat. The first bite of the meat practically melted her, and she savored it far more than she had the first time I gave her some meat. We both ate in silence around the fire, and when she was done, she leaned back and sighed.
“I can scarcely remember the last time I didn’t feel hungry.”
My scowl deepened at her words as empathetical anger started to rise up within me. “That’s no way to live, that’s no way to treat someone.”
“Do you not have slaves in your world?”
“Well, we did at one point in our history, but luckily, we realized that that was a mistake. We’re all people at the end of the day. We all have dreams, make friends, start families, and live our lives together. No one should be chained and abused like you have been, it's not right.”
“Your world truly sounds like a paradise.”
That made me chuckle a little. “It’s far from perfect, but when it comes down to it, I guess it was pretty nice. Funny, you forget to appreciate the good things in your life, it’s only when they’re gone that you truly miss them.”
Kala’s eyes dropped for a second before coming back up to me. “What do you miss now?”
My legs curled up towards my chest a little bit as the bittersweet memories of my old life returned to me. “I miss my home, my bed, my family and friends, it seems like an eternity since I last saw them all.”
“Did you have a large family?”
A small smile crept onto my face. “Yeah, I guess I did, though that tends to happen when you live in an orphanage.”
“You’re an orphan?” She sounded a little surprised by that bit of information.
“Yep, since I was two years old. Ever since then the people at the orphanage have become my family, the caretakers my mothers, and the other kids, my brothers and sisters. I was never lonely while I was there, there was always someone around to play with or teach me things or just share love with one another.” In a moment of melancholy sincerity, my bottled-up feelings came out.
“I really miss them. I've never felt more alone than I have here. It seems like every time I turn around there’s a new threat looking to kill me, torture me, or just generally make my life a living hell. I don’t even know if I could call this living, it’s more like barely surviving.” I hugged my legs to my chest and choked down some tears that were threatening to flow. A few shaky breaths brought my emotions back under control.
There was a moment of silence that happened as we both just stared into the fire and listened to it quietly crackling in the cool night air. The silence of the night was pierced when Kala decided to speak again. “You’ve lost a lot, your entire life really. I can’t claim to know exactly what you feel, but I know what it's like to have your life upended. I miss my parents every day. I mourn my father and wonder if my mother is even alive. I think not knowing is the worst part.”
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For once, it felt like the sympathy I received wasn’t empty. She had pain of her own. Her family was torn apart, the life she knew destroyed, and I found myself relating to her. “I hope that you can find your mother someday, maybe I could help with that too.”
She looked up at me again with surprise. “You would do that for me? You don’t even know me that well, and I... well, I did that to you.” She sheepishly pointed at the stain on my shirt.
It was amusing that she was reluctant to mention killing me. I decided to have a little fun at her expense. “That? What do you mean exactly?” It was extremely difficult to keep the smirk off my face as I did my best to look genuinely confused.
“Y... you know, what I did that night, to you.”
“Which was?” This couldn’t last much longer.
She was very flustered at this point and fidgeted on the spot. “When I... I bit you, and...” She looked at me and then her brow furrowed. My face was probably betraying me at this point as the smirk I was attempting to hide made its way onto my face. “You’re doing that on purpose aren’t you?” My smile only became wider, and she only frowned deeper. She huffed and turned away from me. “I want my sympathies back.”
That made me finally laugh. The tension around the fire almost instantly dissipated as the heavy mood was undone. It was the first time I had genuinely laughed in a long while. It felt good to finally have a little bit of joy back in my life. Kala didn’t look as amused as I did, but there was a smile creeping onto the corner of her mouth.
Finally done laughing at her expense, I let out a very content sigh and a few more giggles. Kala was giving me the ‘really’ look. “Feel better now?” She asked.
A few more giggles escaped me. “Yeah, actually, I do. Thank you, Kala.”
She seemed slightly taken aback by that. “For what?”
“For bringing a little bit of laughter back into my life, I needed that, so thank you.”
“Oh, uhm, you’re welcome. I’m glad I could help.”
I gave her a friendly smile and released another content sigh while leaning back and looking at the stars. The tiny lights in the night sky never changed. It was reassuring to have a constant in my life, something that could irrationally give me comfort despite them offering nothing of substance.
A few more branches were thrown in the fire before we settled in for the night. It probably wouldn’t last the whole night, but Kala seemed to appreciate the sentiment. The food bag was used as a pillow again, not so much because of trust issues as it was that I discovered it was more comfortable than laying on the ground. Slowly my mind drifted off to sleep while the night sky above me faded to black.
The next day came, and I was rudely awakened by some morning dew dripping off a tree onto my face. An annoyed groan signaled my return to consciousness as mother nature’s incessant prodding brought me back to the waking world. My morning stretches were completed before going to check Kala’s temperature. She was cold and unresponsive again, so the fire was started again so she could wake up at her own pace.
Once she was lucid enough to form coherent sentences, we ate breakfast and got back on the road. Her leg was much better today, and she could do an almost full range of motions with it. Our overall speed increased to a power walk most of the time with her occasionally calling for a break to catch her breath. Our walking barely made a dent in my stamina, it felt like I could go all day without a rest.
While Kala was on another break, I took some time to investigate my body. A mirror would have been nice to confirm things, but it looked like my muscle definition was greater now. Soft parts of my body were now angled and ridged, when I flexed it felt like my body was bulging and not just straining. A test idea saw me picking up a decent sized rock that felt almost weightless in my hand. I cocked my arm back and did a baseball pitch with the aim of distance. The rock sailed for far longer than it should have, probably about the length of a football field before crashing down with a puff of dirt.
It was quite a surprising result that had me form a mental note to adjust my strength to prevent accidentally injuring someone, though the only person that was of any concern would be Kala. “Why are you throwing rocks?” Asked Kala from her seated position.
I turned my attention towards her. “Just testing some things.”
“Testing what?”
“Like I said before, strange things are happening to my body, and apparently that includes an unexplained increase in strength.”
She looked thoughtful for a moment before replying. “Maybe it’s part of the Eternal Mother’s blessing.”
“Curse.”
She sighed a rolled her eyes. “Whatever, it still seems like the most plausible explanation.”
“Yeah, I'll agree with that, though the question still remains, why?”
“We cannot know the mind of a goddess.”
“Well, with the way things have gone from her ‘blessings’ thus far, it's probably going to fuck me over in some way.” Kala just shook her head, muttering something and doing that weird circular hand motion again. “I’ve seen you do that twice now, what is it?”
“I’m asking the Eternal Mother to forgive your words of spite.”
“Don’t bother, I don’t want her forgiveness, I want her to take me home, then maybe I would forgive her.” Kala shook her head again but said no more. When she finished resting, we got back to walking.
We avoided as many people as possible along the road, often ducking behind bushes or trees if we caught wind of them. We came across another small village and went around it through the trees until we connected with the road on the other side. I really hoped that we would make it to the wildlands without any problems.
It was another three days of walking, dodging peasants and patrols alike. Every town and village along the way was avoided like the plague. The food bag was starting to empty a little bit, so we started rationing when we ate. I gave more to Kala than myself because I had the option to die and come back, she didn’t.
The time on the road was passed with more lessons about the natural world that could be summoned from memory alone. Once my store of plausible things to tell her ran out it was time to dive into the hard to explain category. Explaining atoms and subatomic particles was met with a great deal of confusion and skepticism. Germ theory was apparently more plausible to her than atomics and caused a variety of disgusted faces to flow across her features, which amused me, much to her annoyance.
As we walked across a field, Kala suddenly started looking around with a puzzled expression. “I think I know this place.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I remember coming through here, I think we’re close to the border of the wildlands.”
“How far approximately?” I asked eagerly.
“About a day or so depending on how fast we go.”
“Awesome, hopefully we can find some of your people quickly.”
“That would be nice.” She said in agreement.
We walked for another hour through this open field. That was when we ran into a problem. A patrol of soldiers was walking down the road in the opposite direction from us. There was one mounted individual and four militia-like soldiers walking behind him. There was nowhere to hide and no chance that they didn’t see us. We had to keep walking towards them.
My apprehension was at its peak when we drew closer to them. Please ignore us, please ignore us, please ignore us.
They started slowing down. “You there, what brings you out this far?” asked the mounted soldier.
Fuck. I dipped my head a little bit in a bow towards them to hide my face. “Nothing much sir, just scouting for a good place to start a farm.”
“This close to the frontier? You must be bold, or foolish. Not to mention your slave there is liable to run at the first chance it gets.”
“I will take precautions against that sir, thank you for your concern.” It felt revolting to thank him. “I wouldn’t want to hold you up while you're on patrol sir, I’ll be on my way.”
We tried to start walking but were stopped again. “Hold it, let me see your face peasant. We have a traitor on the loose and I must be thorough.”
Shit, shit, shit. “I’m sorry sir, I have a condition that makes me burn very easily in the light.”
“I did not ask for your reason for wearing a hood, I asked to see your face. Now remove the hood.”
“I would prefer not to sir.”
“I do not care what you prefer! Check him!”
One of the soldiers came up to me. My heart was hammering in my chest. What do I do?! Do I run? No, they have a horse, they would catch me, and Kala, what do I do about her? She can’t run as fast as I can or as long as I can. Fuck! As the soldier reached out to remove my hood, I came to the only option left to me.
I have to kill them...
The soldier grabbed my hood and removed it with a jerk. His eyes widened as he looked at my face. “By Alcrith, it’s hi...” I didn’t let him finish.
I lashed out with my fist and hit him squarely in the throat. Something collapsed under the blow, and he grasped at his neck as he dropped to his knees. Before the shock wore off, I rushed the next closest soldier and delivered a straight kick to his knee. It broke the wrong way and he too dropped to his good knee with a roar of pain. grabbing hold of his head, and using all my strength, it was jerked to the side until I felt something break and he dropped to the ground like a limp fish.
By then the initial surprise of the attack had subsided, and a soldier rushed me from behind. I turned just in time to see a spear heading right for me. There was no way to avoid it in time, and it sank into my side. I growled in pain and stared daggers into the one who stabbed me, causing him to falter at my lack of recognition at being stabbed.
My hand seized the haft of the spear that was stuck in me and pulled it out against the will of my attacker. Once out, I jerked it to my side pulling him off balance and rushed him, kicking him right in the groin. I don’t care if it was a dirty move, I was fighting for my life and had too much adrenaline coursing through my veins to hold sympathy for his crushed testicles.
His grip on the spear faltered enough for me to take it from him with little resistance. The last foot soldier was charging me with a sword, but there was enough time to react to this attack. Taking my newly acquired spear I thrust it at him using the range to my advantage. He tried to deflect the blow and he might have accomplished it if I didn’t have magical strength on top of hysterical strength. compensating for the impact of his sword, the thrust continued towards my target unabated. The soldier's eyes widened as the spear sunk into his gut before it was removed and quickly jabbed again into his chest. He was in shock, so he didn’t have time to even react to my second attack as it pierced his flesh. That second strike ended him, and he dropped to the ground, dying a few seconds later.
My stance shifted to fight the mounted soldier, but when I saw him, he was riding down the road at a full gallop. Shit! He's getting away! I cocked back and hurled the spear down the road after him, but I’ve never thrown a spear before, so it clattered uselessly on the side of the road. I watched as he rode away towards the horizon. He was definitely going to bring reinforcements, meaning we were screwed.
My breaths were ragged and frequent as my adrenaline slowly dropped off. A realization struck me then that there was still one alive. He was moaning on the ground in obvious agony. I grabbed another spear off a body and walked over to him. As I stood over him, there was fear on his face. I raised the spear to strike him, and the fear turned into terror.
“Wait, don...” I didn’t give him a chance to continue as I stabbed him in the heart, there was no room for chances. The flesh gave way under the thrust and his eyes went wide as tremors ran all throughout his body. The spear was removed, and he slowly faded away with a tear running down the side of his face.
I breathed heavily as my eyes scanned the carnage around me. The adrenaline faded completely, and a wave of nausea fell over me. Dropping to my hands and knees, my lunch was wretched up on the side of the road. Each time I convulsed pain shot up my side from the stab wound that was bleeding me dry. A hand fell on my back and a concerned voice filled my ear.
“James! Are you okay?” Kala asked with wild eyes and panting breath.
“No, no I am fucking not. And on top of that I think I'm dying again.”
“Wh... what do I do?”
“Nothing, I'll just regenerate remember.” I flopped onto the ground and laid on my back. “Just have to die first.” Kala looked very unsure and nervous as she fidgeted. I laid there waiting for death and after an awkward minute had passed it seemed things would have to be sped along. “Actually, I guess this wound isn’t immediately fatal, so could you stab me again?”
“What! You want me to stab you?!”
“Yeah, this kind of hurts so could you be quick about it.”
“I... I don’t... what if... I just...”
“Kala, please, you're doing me a favor, I promise.”
She reluctantly bent over a grabbed a spear off the ground. “Wh... where do I...” I pointed at the spot just over my heart and she gave a nod. I swear her scales were paler than before as she placed the tip against my chest. “Ready?” She asked with more nervousness than me.
“Please just stab me already.” I bluntly asked. She raised the spear and with a quick forceful thrust sent it into my heart. There was an involuntary grunt at the new pain before I started to feel heavy as all sensation left my body. The last thing I saw was Kala’s very concerned and disturbed face over me. It was about seventeen seconds before I would wake up, and then we would have to start running, again.