The sound of footsteps was accompanied by the sound of tree branches hitting bodies. Someone sighed. Silence followed. Someone sighed again, just a bit louder this time. Still there came no response.
“Where are we headed?” The boy asked. “Or are we just walking to get away from those other guys?” It had of course been Nelrim who was the one sighing. They were walking straight through the forest, instead of taking a cleared path.
Forihr looked over his shoulder. “You are still young, yet you are complaining like an old man.” The man looked forward again. “We are going to one of my friends’ place. Though I haven’t seen him in quite some time, so I don’t know if he is still there.”
Again only the footsteps could be heard. The boy wanted to break the silence and thus he talked. “So we are going to a place that may or may not have someone there that you know. It doesn’t seem like a solid plan to me.”
“Well then, I am open for suggestions. What would you suggest we do?” The man stopped in his tracks and turned around. The boy, who was surprised by this sudden change in motion, only barely stopped walking in time as to not walk against the man.
“I was actually hoping you had another plan up your sleeve. Because you knew directly what to do when those guards showed up I figured you had some elaborate plan for this as well.” The words came out in quick succession. It almost sounded apologetic.
The man turned around and started walking again. “You were right about the part where I have a plan up my sleeve. It may disappoint you to know that this is in fact that very plan.” A few seconds passed in silence, but this time the man broke it first. “When we arrive at my friends place I expect you to tell what exactly you took from the academia. Unlike you I have done nothing wrong against them and I therefore have no reason to help you out any further.”
Nelrim stood still for a moment. The man however kept walking and the boy had to quicken pace to keep up. “But how can you be sure the guards aren’t also looking for you? For all you know they have no clue that I was there to begin with.”
The man scoffed at that. “Not until too long ago I was only known to a select few people in this forest. The only recent change in that is your appearance and not long after that the guards followed. I think it is pretty obvious they are looking for you.” The man walked around a rock and disappeared for a moment. When Nelrim walked around the rock he was suddenly met with the steel of a knife against his neck.
Next to him was Forihr with the same type of knife on his neck. “Ah. It seems we have arrived at our destination already.” The man slowly moved his hand to the knife. “No need to keep this here now. We don’t plan on being of any harm, isn’t that right boy?” Nelrim didn’t know what was happening but decided to follow the man’s lead. “That’s right! You may check, but I assure you that I carry no weapons.”
The figure that held the knifes made an abrupt movement with his head, making the hood that had been hiding his face fall on the ground. The face was that of a man, though clearly younger than Forihr he was still older than Nelrim. The face contained two sharp brown eyes, distrustfully looking at the two strangers. “Not all man need weapons of steel to be harmful.” The man mumbled something and Nelrim could swear he just saw real flames in the eyes of the man.
“So it was you Pierre, there is no need to keep us on your knife’s edge like this. Surely you can trust me.” Forihr made a pleading look, but the knifes didn’t go away.
“You I can trust, this young fellow I cannot. Perhaps he will give me cause to believe I can’t trust you either.” Pierre didn’t look all too pleased when his name was revealed just like that. “What is the reason for your visit anyway?”
“How about I tell you after you remove these knifes. It really doesn’t make talking any easier you know.” Forihr tried once more to move the knife away from his throat and felt no resistance this time. The knife on the neck of the boy had also vanished, though it didn’t go as fast.
“As long as you remember that I don’t trust that kid. There’s something about his body language that doesn’t suit me.” Pierre gave another sharp look at Nelrim but eventually turned his back on both. “If you follow me for a bit then we can talk in private.”
Forihr could see the boys lips move with a question about the privacy that couldn’t be met in a deserted forest, but the man gave him a look to shut up. Pierre didn’t walk in a straight line, or even in a single direction for the main duration. It made it hard for Nelrim to keep track of where they came from. Now that he thought about it a bit more, that was probably the reason why he did that. An hour passed and they were still walking in seemingly random directions. Nelrim hadn’t questioned the path they took since Forihr seemed to be alright with it, but it took him much effort not to do so anyway. After what seemed to be another hour of walking the man leading them stopped and turned around.
“I welcome you to my shelter. I suggest you take a seat and tell me your business and what it has to do with me.”
Nelrim looked behind the man, but saw only the forest. First the aimless walking, now a house that didn’t exist. There wasn’t much left or he would swear that this Pierre was crazy. Forihr walked to a fallen tree and sat on it. Nelrim looked for something even remotely looking like a chair, but saw only more trees. Pierre had taken seat on a rock covered in moss that stood on the opposite side of Forihr. The boy looked around just to be certain and then asked the question.
“This is your shelter?”
Forihr couldn’t help but laugh. “But of course it is. I have spent a few nights of my life in a shelter made by Pierre and can assure you that it is better than most inns.” The man could see that the boy was still reluctant to sit down and gestured him to a rock at the side. The boy sighed but followed the man’s suggestion and sat on the rock. Surprising enough the rock didn’t feel cold or hard, but rather soft and warm. Just to make sure it wasn’t his imagination he stood up and touched the rock with his hand. It was still warm and soft, though it wasn’t actually soft. The contradiction made him wonder if he wasn’t crazy himself. Nelrim looked at the two other men and saw their looks of amusement and made the decision to just sit down and get used to it.
“Before I tell you why we came to you let me first introduce you two to each other.” Forihr pointed his hand at the boy. “This fellow calls himself Nelrim and is supposedly a mage.” The man moved his arm and now pointed with it at the other man. “This hooded figure is Pierre. Though he may not look like it, he is actually quite pleasant company if you get to know him better.” Forihr lowered his arm and continued speaking. “Our arrival at your place is because of the boy. Not long after he came to my house a large group of armed people came as well. As far as we could tell from a distance they were guards of the third academy.” At the mentioning of a large group of armed men the two knifes returned to Pierre’s hands. Forihr gave the other man a questioning look. “We are safe here for now, you don’t think I would lead such a large force directly to a friend, now would I? Besides, I trust in your precautions to warn us well before anything of significance. ” Pierre put his knifes away, but he clearly didn’t like it. “Now on to the topic we have all been waiting for, why are the guards after you Nelrim? What have you done to upset them so much as to send a small army after you?”
The boy liked attention, just not the kind he was receiving now. Before he started talking he first looked the two men in their eyes to make sure he wouldn’t be interrupted. “It’s a long story, but I will do my best to keep it short.” Nelrim took a deep breath and sighed. “When I was a little boy …”
“Are you going to tell your whole life story to us? We don’t have all day kid.” The voice of Pierre interrupted. Nelrim looked annoyed, which only became worse when he looked at Forihr who was clearly trying to hold back his laughter.
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“As I was saying, when I was a little boy… ” A momentary pause for any remarks that could be made again. When there came none Nelrim continued. “As a boy I lived in reasonable comfort. Though the money my parents made wasn’t always enough to support the family. Because of that I had to do some petty theft.” Nelrim had expected an interruption at this, but both men were silent. “Life went on and I eventually became a student at one of the academia. It was only until recently that I had no need to fall back on my old profession. There were rumours going around at that time about other students going into the city and not coming back. No one really thought much of it. After all it isn’t uncommon for students to quit because they are simply not cut out to become a mage. ” The boy stopped for a moment to take a deep breath. “The students that quit according to the rumours however were almost all top of their class or at least not people who were unfit to become a mage.”
“Well so what of it. If such rumours were true then wouldn’t the academy do something about it?” It was Pierre who made the interruption. This time it didn’t seem to bother the boy at all. He even looked rather pleased.
“That’s what I thought as well. However after a few months of waiting the academy still hadn’t taken action, yet the rumours seemed to be true. Therefore I, along with a few other willing people, started an investigation on our own.” Nelrim wasn’t sure how to continue with the next part so he just said it as it was. “It didn’t quite go as we had hoped. We were able to confirm the rumour, but we didn’t stop there. We followed one group of students that went into the city, but weren’t able to keep track of them when they went into one of the underground sewers.” He could still remember the horrible smell. “We tried to, but the sewers are a true labyrinth and we didn’t want to get lost. In the end we were only able to tell that a lot of people had followed the same path as we did, and quite recent at that too.”
“I understand that you want us to know the reason behind your actions, but I am afraid we will be here until night falls if you continue at this pace.” It wasn’t Pierre, but the old man that said this. “You may continue at your own pace, but then we will have to discuss it tomorrow. That is, if Pierre is willing to let us stay the night.” Now both the boy and Forihr looked at Pierre, expecting an answer.
Pierre kept still and turned his head, as if listening to something. A second or two passed before he gave his answer. “Seems like we will indeed be safe here for a while. Continue your story and don’t try to lie to us.” Again Nelrim thought he could see flames in the man’s eyes.
The boy looked up, trying to get a guess at how long it would stay light. He wasn’t sure because of the trees, but he thought they wouldn’t need a light for the coming two to three hours. “So the group I was with discovered that the rumours were true and that there was something going on in the sewers. We didn’t want any unwanted attention and therefore decided not to tell anyone else about our discovery. We went back to our rooms and called it a day.” Nelrim got a sour look on his face. “Seems like one person couldn’t keep his mouth shut. When the dawn broke there was a guard standing at my bed. Asked if I could come with him.” The boy paused a moment.
“And did you? Did you go with the guard?” The old man asked.
Nelrim sighed. “I did. I had to. There could have been more guards waiting outside of the door and besides I had no idea where I had to go. I was lead towards the main building and into the room of one of the supervisors of my department. There I was questioned as if I was the one responsible for causing the disappearance of the students. In the end I only told what I knew and nothing more. ”The boy scoffed. “A few days passed, but no action was taken. Instead only more students disappeared. even a few with whom I investigated the rumour. The few of us who were still around decided it was best to leave.” The boy stopped talking as if that was all there was to say.
“That wasn’t everything, it can’t have been. It doesn’t explain why you stole supplies from the academy or how you found my house.” This came from Forihr who had a pondering look on his face.
The boy snapped his fingers. “Ah I didn’t tell you yet, right? The supplies I stole were actually quite modest. I took a few things from the storage like clothing, something to eat and things like that. Really quite modest if I say so myself, no reason to chase me like this. As for the part how I found your house; I heard a few rumours in an inn about an old man living in the forest on his own. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do and I figured that no normal man would just go live inside the forest. Does that answer most of your questions?” The boy looked quite smug now that he was done talking.
“Not all of them” responded Forihr slowly. “One question that is still not answered is why this much guards are coming after you. But judging from your story you probably don’t know either.” The man looked at Pierre. “What about you?”
“Though I don’t like to admit it, you are probably telling the truth.” The man stood up. “Though it will still be a while before the night sets I suggest that we prepare for the night. There will be enough to discuss tomorrow.” He walked away and came back with two blankets made of intertwined leaves. “I will take the first round in standing guard, you will go next Forihr and then we switch again.”
Nelrim did the calculations and came to a conclusion. “So I don’t have to do guard duty?”
“No. You told us your story and it seems like you are not the cause of the problem at hand. This however doesn’t mean that I trust you. Besides, I doubt you have any experience in keeping guard at night, even less so in a forest.”
The boy was fine with that decision. Perhaps there were other people that wanted to prove themselves by doing annoying chores, but not Nelrim. If he wasn’t allowed to do guard duty because he wasn’t trusted, all the better. It almost made it a reason to not get on their good side too much. He would worry about that sometime in the future.
There were some preparations going on, but nothing of interest happened. Nelrim decided to go to sleep early so that he wouldn’t have to think about the guards too much. Forihr got a piece of wood out of one of his bags and was currently carving something in it. Pierre went on patrol and set up warning systems.
After Nelrim fell asleep the two other men walked a bit away from him so that they wouldn’t wake him up. Both men stayed quiet and listened to the rustling of leaves in the wind. “Say…” said Forihr. “Do you really doubt the boy that much?” The man looked at the other. “His story hasn’t changed much from what he told me at my house. Though he didn’t tell much to begin with.”
Pierre looked at the boy for a second. “The bad thing is that I do trust him. It’s just that the idea of a bunch of academy guards showing up doesn’t get my all excited.” He sighed. “I could have guessed something like this was about to happen. There hasn’t been any real activity of impact recently. It was just a matter of time really.”
Both fell silent again. Forihr was about to continue his carving work at the piece of wood, but decided against it. Instead he stood up and gave Pierre a pat on the shoulder. “Try not to stay awake all night.” And with that he walked away and made preparations to fall asleep.
This night too was quiet. All animal life was quiet. The trees stopped their whispering leaves and the wind ceased blowing. Perhaps it was too quiet. Night ended and morning came and nothing had changed.