The following morning we packed up and headed to the closest town to the fort. It was a tense walk over as the reality of assassins trying to kill us sunk in, along with the realization that we weren’t given any silver to work with.
We walked for maybe half of an hour through the trees before we saw a shoddy cabin for a lumberjack, and only a little while longer before we got to the town proper. The town was small, as there couldn’t be any more than 200 people in it. Not a single one of the stone and wood houses had a second floor to it. Every thatched roof had discolored patches from repair. Every wooden house had gaps in its walls. Yet despite these houses being in as bad a condition as some of the slums I had been to, every person looked happy. I was instantly suspicious of them.
“Guys, I think the assassin came from here. Everyone is too happy for these circumstances. Their houses haven’t been fixed in years so they obviously don’t live here.”I was whispering to ensure the fake villagers didn’t hear me.
Four sets of confused eyes looked at me, then back at the village.
“This is just how things are for some people”, our monk Faith began, “they don’t have the money to replace everything that breaks. They fix what they can with what they can. If you cannot fix your house, you must learn to live with it. Most of us non-nobles have an easier time finding happiness in the smaller things. It’s a simpler life.”
Her explanation left quite a bit unanswered to me, which was evidently written on my face for the others to read.
“I’ve lived in poorer places than this while on jobs. Just leave most of the talking to your friendly friend of the wind. That sounded better in my head.” Logan scratched his arm awkwardly. “Just leave it to me and don’t make any enemies like you did at the fort.”
“I did not make any enemies!”
Four sets of eyes looked at me again without any signs of agreement. They stood there looking at me for almost a full minute, our monk Faith even stopping me from leaving towards the village when I felt awkward.
“Louis? Surely by now you realize your actions pissed off quite a few people yesterday, right? Someone even tried choking you.”
The saintess made a good point that the farmer tried to choke me, but that still didn’t explain what I did to make him angry. Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to delay us so I nodded. If anything, I was the one who got angry, getting magic forced upon me.
I began to almost fall asleep while they talked to the village elder, his name began with a W, and I couldn’t really remember what it was. I decided to call him William should I ever need to talk to him, although I doubt I am lucky enough to guess his name. Though I’m not sure why I feel so tired, probably the result of me learning magic. I’ve learned that if the problem isn’t from crime, magic is usually to blame.
Logan looks over at me. “Got it?”
Everyone was looking at me now, yet again, with at least the saintess looking concerned for me.
I put on the best smile I can. “Perfectly fine. I suppose my body is still recovering from yesterday.” That was a lie. I don’t know what caused this, but would rather not stop to rest at a town I am still suspicious of.
The saintess’s face paled at that. “Are, are you sure? I thought my healing was supposed to be good enough to help people fully recover. Did I already make a mistake?”
“No, I didn’t mean it that way.” I didn’t realize I just insulted her, but I suppose it could be taken that we called her incompetent, again. “So what did you guys decide?”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
After needing to assure them that I was fine, I finally got some details to the conversation I seemed to miss. An older apothecary needed help getting herbs, so the monk is going out to grab 20 of some weed. The thief thinks the monk can get her to give one of her old mortar and grindstones in return. The tanner wants 3 rabbit pelts in good condition, which meant that the thief and I would go out and hunt them. The prince would burn holes in the leather, which was worse than a crossbow wound. We would be negotiating getting one of the leathers made into a bag of some sort depending on the quality of what we bring. Which left the prince and saintess to find somebody’s lost amulet. We were hoping to get money from that, but partially it seemed like one of the others just wanted the saintess to feel useful. Thinking about it that way seemed even more hurtful to me, but I suppose they came to some unspoken agreement when I was out of it.
I felt my shoulder an effeminate hand touch mine after we all agreed to split up. I expected the saintess to be there, but it turned out to just be Logan.
“Are you sure you’re ok to go with me? You seem pretty out of it.”
I gave a slight nod and followed him into the woods we had once come out of. We hadn’t been trying to find any wildlife last time, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Unlike the thief I had experience hunting, so I spent some time helping him see the deer and fox tracks. When we stumbled upon a deer track, I helped him follow it for a few minutes. Before we got to the burrow, I blacked out and woke up on the ground.
“You are not doing alright. Louis. We need to get you back to the town.”
“I’m doing fine. I’ll ask the herbalist for something later. We aren’t doing anything dangerous.” I waved his hand away from me. Logan seemed very concerned for me and kept his hand in front of me until I waveringly took it and got up.
We eventually made our way over to a rabbit burrow which had recent activity. We approached from down wind, which he considered before I had to tell him. Logan and I weren’t skilled enough with magic to get them out. He motioned to a tree and for us to be silent and I nodded. If he wanted to take point on this hunt, I was more than willing to watch another man hunt.
As we waited for the rabbits to come out, I started pondering the finer aspects of magic. They would allow me to do things I wouldn’t normally be able to do. At the same time, I still had some innate distaste for magic and wanted to be rid of it. Instead I decided to turn my focus on more interesting topics. I went over the swordsmanship forms in my head.
A slight movement came from the burrow after a long wait. Logan was pulling the string back on his crossbow and waiting to get a clear shot. The moment the rabbit’s brown coat came out of the hole, a bolt went through its head.
“You fired too early. We won’t be able to remove the blood and blood’s scent and will scare the other rabbits from coming out.
He looked at me and sighed. “You’re an earth mage. Just use the surrounding dirt to cover the stains and hide any trace of the kill. I’ll use some wind to pull fresh air from upwind to hopefully clear the scent.”
His instant answer had me puzzled for a second. “Were you not just a thief but an assassin too? You must have been thinking about this before pulling the trigger.”
He handed me the rabbit and I began to skin it with my shortsword. I would have preferred a hunting knife, but it was long past the time to ask for one. I walked farther away from the thief after he gave me a dirty look, realizing that skinning an animal where we were trying to catch its mate wasn’t likely a good idea.
He whispered barely louder than the wind. “I want to live. I think about how I can do so with what options I have. I now have the option of magic. I’ve never had the luxury of choosing to ignore a possible strength like you.” He fired a second shot at a dark gray rabbit, hitting through the nose and out the back of the skull. He didn’t show any of his usual wit. “After you skin this one as well I’m going to check around town for someone to trade rabbit meat with. As much as I like eating meat, I would rather get something to help myself survive. We’ll see if we can get any other job to help with too.”
“Don’t you feel like this stuff is beneath us though? The kingdom made us heroes, we should at least be able to pull rank in insignificant villages like this.”
He turned to me, an almost sarcastic smile on his face. “Beneath us? You mean beneath you. I’m a back alley brat, I have to hope no guards having a bad day decide to take it out on me. You would either be the guard or the guard’s leader. You would beat a kid like me who gets caught stealing bread to feed to others, or maybe just because you had a bad day.”
I walked back to town with him in silence after I finished removing the innards of the rabbits. I felt like giving him an apology would be appropriate, but I also felt like he wouldn’t take it as sincere. My head begins to feel feverish as I shuffle back to the town in silence.