CLANG!

Jens ‘ body was up from its deep sleep and running toward his horse before he had realized what had actually woken him.

It had been a noise, louder than the hourly chime that would toll all day and all night at the Golden Tower at each arc of the clock in the capital city of Aurel. He had felt the deep, resonant gong-like sound in his chest, but also it reverberated throughout the bones of his body, even making the last joint of each finger tingle.

His breath coming in fast, noisily panting heaves, his heart racing painfully in his chest, Jens stood on the snowy ground just to the side of the wagon under which he had been comfortably asleep. He dug his toes into the soil as he shifted his weight and turned slowly in the predawn darkness, surveying the forest and the caravan.

For three weeks now, Jens had been sleeping under the wagon of Mistress Ebba Longhair every night. Bringing the elderly woman traveling alone in her large brightly painted wagon meals from the communal caravan pot had garnered Jens approval from the caravan’s mistress, Maria, as well as stern support from the other elderly members of the caravan. The elderly, Jens noted, looked out for any slight done to their number, but also tallied every honor and kindness afforded their members.

On the occasional night, Mistress Longhair would accept the bowl of stew and half loaf of bread from Jens, and then, before he could sit to enjoy his own still steaming dinner, she would mention that someone in the caravan was in need of some service.

Of a peppery old couple just last night, Mistress Longhair had observed, “The Arhudanker’s wagon is listing to the right. To starboard. You can see it from here.” The old woman pointed, and Jens’s gaze followed her finger to the wagon.

It had been red, once upon a time, but the sun and years had faded the thing to pink. The painted sea serpents and deer silhouettes that frolicked along the sides in an elaborate dance were reduced to a gray color. Paint flaked away from the trim about the base of the wagon, too.

Jens wondered if the ancient rolling road home had flaked enough faded pink pain fragments onto the rough road they traveled to lead lost caravaners to them.

Jens just nodded at Longhair, his eyes never meeting hers. He had known the nightly routine by heart, and set down his bowl and wax cloth wrapped half loaf on the stoop by the back door of his teacher’s wagon.

He had walked over to the elderly couple, Nalla and Urdal, and spent several minutes talking to them before they consented to his inspecting their axles. Urdal agreed with him that the wagon was listing to the right, but he didn’t want to admit his home needed repair, and blamed everything from the road being uneven, to the hexes and curses of the Forest Witches.

While he crawled around under the wagon’s bed, and inspected the support structures, he found one of the rib springs had taken a bend, and would need to be fixed.

Urdal’s non stop rambling monologue had wandered then into the realm of blaming the mayor of the last town they have woven through of being an agent of Hamuria, and had probably ruined his wagon, because one could never trust “those Ocre sheep-fuckers.”

Jens had chuckled at that, as he lay beneath the offending steel rib spring. There were two on each side of each axle holding the axle braces in place, cushioning the ride of the wagon over uneven ground. Each spring was a blade of steel, forged into a delicate three quarters of a turn and spiraled in upon itself at the outside end, and curled slightly out at the inside end of the spring.

And one of the things had grown a hard kink in its curve.

This would not be a simple fix, but that was why his new Mistress had sent him over. She had probably already known what would be needed.

Mistress Longhair was generally known by members of the caravan to be a Shamanka, or woman who worked with magic, the local spirits, and the gods. Nalla and Urdal would have never bothered Mistress Longhair with their wagon issues. They would have thought it utter madness to ask the revered lady to stoop so low as to help them with such mundanity as to aid in maintaining their failing wagon.

But, Mistress Longhair had been drilling into Jens that the maintenance of their community was more important than the pride of lazy old merchants. Jens hadn’t thought of this caravan as his community. But she had told him in no uncertain terms that his community was the people around him, that relied upon him, and upon whom he also relied. That revelation had made him chew his oatmeal slowly that morning.

As Jens worked, Urdal droned on. Jens braced his feet against the bottom of the wagon, and slowly lifted, when it looked even, he pushed with his Will, his Talent flaring, and the point in the spring that had bent and formed a kink was slowly reddening as it heated.

Pushing up ever harder with his legs, the body of the wagon being raised was opposed by the weight of the axle and the right wheel. The spring slowly returned to the proper shade.

The weight of the wagon was released from his legs, and Jens almost cried out in a panic, but Mistress Longhair’s voice sounded like a bell in his mind, startling him.

…I have the weight of the wagon, foolish Boy. You concentrate and retemper that spring…

Her voice, whenever she spoke in his mind, was the voice of a much younger woman. And it was louder, the closer he was to her when she contacted him. But, along with that voice, as with many of his recent lessons with his new teacher, the very detailed instructions on the easiest method to reshape, and retemper the kinked spring unfolded into his thoughts like the most organized flower opening on a Summer morning. Every aspect of the method was not just explained and detailed, but he felt he understood exactly how to do it, and did so using applications of his Talent that he had already been well trained to do, but never in these ways.

SIx had always called these detailed uses of the Talent “fiddly.”

Five had thought of every use of Talents in every way possibly, making up for his reduced power with being far too clever.

And Jens had always just followed the lessons he had been given, and waited for his chance to leave the Golden Tower. To leave Aurel. To run from Hamuria, he thought.

And now he was learning more every day from Mistress Longhair than he had in any given month from the Masters and Maestras of the Kuljat Almulajat.

…FOCUS!!...

Jens flinched, and then got to it.

Another complex application of his Will and Talent, and Jens Delved the spring as he reheated the thing. This time, he had needed to go hotter than just annealing the metal. But he couldn’t sit and hold the spring at the right temperature for two hours, so he Delved the steel, and sent his mind into the metal, feeling its structure as much as “seeing” it in the finest detail. With sweat pouring from him, Jens pushed and pulled at the structure of the crystals that made up the steel, forcing finer, tighter, smaller bonds in greater profusion and homogenizing the blend of elements present.

He then pulled the heat from the metal, slowly, forcing its structure into stasis.

…Are you done showing off, Boy? Or do you want to waste more time and put pretty patterns into the metal? Come away, before you burn yourself out and become asalogee. Then who will bring me soup?...

Jens grabbed a rock from the ground as he wriggled out from under the wagon. It was a beautifully round disc og granite that would have been perfect for skipping on a lake or a calm stream. Getting to his feet, he held the stone out to Urdal, who was still talking about all of the people he thought had wronged him, and who should be plagued with boot gnomes.

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Urdal wound down in confusion, his tattooed brow wrinkling, making the bear face on his forehead look angrily confused.

“A stone was wedged into your spring.” Jens lied to the man. What remained of Urdal’s long, straight, gray hair waved slightly in the breeze as the old man took the stone from Jens’s hand. He then turned to Nalla sitting on the back porch of the pink wagon, and held up the stone to her.

“See, Mama?” He asked his wife. “Like I said. Nothing but a stone! Jens found it and pulled it out!”

Nalla had rolled her very green eyes, and thanked Jens. “You are a Good Boy, Jens. Your Grandmothers should all crow about you!” She had smiled that wrinkled-apple face that only the truly old could, and he had given her, and Urdal a slight bow, before he walked back to the smaller, better kept wagon that Ebba Longhair drove.

He gave her a slight bow, and took his bowl and bread to turn to eat.

…Thank you… You are a Good Boy… You learn well. That is important… the voice in his head had reverberated like the sound of an avalanche.

Dinner, dishes, a few more subtle lessons, then to sleep.

And now, in the middle of the night…awake, his heart pounding, and his ears pulsing heatedly with every beat of that pounding heart.

Magic made what most practitioners would call “The Belling of The World.” Other, less drama driven practitioners, used terms like “The Peal of the Bell,” or just “the Peal.” It was generally agreed that the sound was not bell-like at all, but the terms fit as well, or better than most others. The less training and experience a mage had, the louder a noise their spell casting made. It was why most young mages made straining faces when they cast; the Peal was always louder in the caster’s head than it was to any other mage. The stronger the spell, the louder the Peal was, as well, though fully masters could generally cast in either silence, or with a whisper-like sighing.

He had witnessed his “brother,” Six, cast a spell of the Fulminata School that had been strong enough to shatter the wall of a fortified stone keep, and the stone cliff wall it had been attached to. That spell had made a whisper sound that every mage within a mile had heard. He had also witnessed his other “brother,”

Jens was almost certain what had woken him from his slumber was a very loud Peal from either a very young magician, or a very poorly trained one.

Looking around the clearing, at the circle of wagons, then at the larger circle of trees, and the surrounding mountains beyond, Jens could see nothing that could have woken him from his deep sleep.

He reached back to his sleeping bundle, and drew out the short sword he had worn at his side in the Hamurian Army’s camp for the last three years. Being a battle trained mage, Jens knew that relying solely upon his power was a dangerous illusion. He wasn’t the natural disaster who walked like a man, his sibling Six, nor was he the walking Tome of Theory and Spells that his sibling Five had been.

He didn’t even have Four’s nonstop endurance. Several months, almost a year now, parted, and he could see that he had held a deep love for her. Four had been as beautiful as the sunsets here in Kjolta. Her mixture of Ocre features and Gorma coloring had produced a young woman more beautiful than anyone else he had ever seen.

And she had been almost as learned as Five, but always kind to her “Silent Sibling” as many of the other Pride members had referred to Jens.

Getting his breathing under his control once again, Jens slowly walked on bare feet amongst the wagons, belatedly wishing he had put on his boots, at the very least.

But, barefoot and shirtless, he wended his way through the outer edge of the circle of the large wagons. As he cautiously rounded a corner, Jens saw a large lump on the ground.

Lying next to a puddle gently steaming into the cold night air lay Jens the Bear. From how he was fully dressed, Jens guessed the big man had drawn this middle shift of the watch on the camp. He and two other guards would be, should be, watching over the camp for the four arcs in the dead of night. From where he stood in the shadow of Etri’s wagon, Jens watched the downed man and the surrounding area to be certain no one was coming. Putting his hand on the wooden wall of the wagon, he could just make out the sounds and vibrations of the burly, short tinker and goldsmith, and his grumpy little dumpling of a wife, snoring away in their beds.

He waited for a count of 30 before he ventured forward from the concealing shadows to get a closer look at the giant loudmouthed bully sprawled under the starry night sky. A quick check confirmed he still breathed.

The rapidly cooling puddle in which the big hired guard lay was his own urine.

Looking down at the man lying in his own pee, Jens wondered if he had needed to relieve himself badly before being struck down, or if he had just relieved himself when he had been struck down, and landed in his own puddle. He hoped it was the former, because otherwise the man peed within the camp circle rather than outside of the wagon circle. That was just lazy and filthy behavior.

Jens ran his hands over the big man, checking for wounds, finding nothing obvious, he ran his hands through the slumbering slob's greasy hair, the oily base of his neck, and under his surprisingly well made nalbound hat.

Nothing he could find explained the man’s unconsciousness.

He had decided to Delve Jens the Bear to find out what his condition entailed, when Ebba’s voice fairly shouted through his mind, causing him to bite his tongue painfully.

…Don’t bother, boy. All three guards have been put to sleep by the spell that woke us both up. There is a small group of people riding their horses into the center of camp from the way we came. From the South…

…should we wake Marna?..

…No. They are all talking to each other about a bounty. They are looking for someone…

Jens felt himself go cold at that. An actual bounty. Were these hunters hunting for him?

…NO! They’re looking for someone else… sneak around at them from the west. They think their mage put everyone out. They’re sloppy. They're all gathering at the central fire. Use your Fiddly spells to cut the saddle girths of their horses, I will put their mage to sleep… spirits save us all from the untrained, that young woman is noisy… Once the saddles fall, you will put the rest of them to sleep. Then tie them all up. Once you're finished, come back here, we'll wake the guards, and Marna. Let them think the Forest Witches, or the Sylvan Children, or the Poppy Fairies did it…

Jens felt his cheeks color at her use of “fiddly.” And then almost laughed out loud at the mention of the Poppy Fairies, those being the most innocuous of children’s tales. But, now there was nothing for it, Ebba Longhair had outlined his job. And now he had to get his part of it done. He stalked off to the west of the central fire ring that had been set up when the wagons had pulled in for the night.

When he had made it to the furthest point to the west of the fire, he then silently crept through the wagons toward the middle. Lying under a wagon, he had full view of the bounty hunters. In all their glory, they were a dirty, disorganized mess. Many wore clothing that looked like it had been pilfered from the rag bins of the Velpse Army who were right now far to the South, trying to hold off the might of the Hamurian Army. The very army Jens and his siblings had fled.

Their horses, also dirty, but otherwise looking well fed, had been led to the center of the camp, and now stood near a short man wearing a comically large, fur lined robe, who was holding their reins. He looked like he was feeding the horses random treats and little bits of grain he pulled from the pockets of his giant robe.

Four other people sat around the dying embers of the camp’s cookfire. One of their members was checking the tea pot for remaining dregs the guards may have left.

From where he lay concealed, Jens concentrated on the leather bands that made up the saddle girth of the five horses. One after the other, he slid a sliver of Will reinforced by his Talent between each girth and the belly of its horse, and smoothly cut each one.

Once the last one was cut, the saddles were still resting on the backs of each horse, held in place by simple friction, Jens waited for the signal from Mistress Longhair. He formed the framework of the sleeping spell in his mind, and settled an imaginary crow about the head of each of the people by the fire, as well as the petite man who stood with the horses.

…any moment…

And almost as soon as he thought it, The shabby little horse handler went down in a heap at the hooves of their equine charges.

Four heads angrily turned to their fallen comrade, and they had begun to surge to their feet as Jens exerted his will, and tightened the Crowns of Slumber about each of their heads.

The four remaining raiders dropped to the ground so hard that Jens winced in sympathy.

Scrambling out from the wagon, Jens pulled each person near the fire, stripped them down to their underclothes, and made a pile of their belongings along with their saddles, by the horses. He then tied the horses’ reins to one of the sideboards of Marna’s big wagon.

When that was done he reached for the small man who had been handling the horses. And stopped in his tracks as he rolled them over, revealing the delicate features of a very young Piincar woman, her stubby little nose rosy red in the cold night air. While a rare sight here in Kjolte their kind were common in Velspe; there were even a decent number of them in Hamuria.

She, painfully obviously a “she” now, was the untrained mage Mistress Ebba Longhair had been complaining about, and who had woken him up with her ridiculously loud casting.

With as much economy as he could, he took all her belongings, and removed her clothes down to the undergarments as he had done to the others before tying her up as well.

As he was about to walk back to the wagon of his mistress, he looked back at the white skinned woman, and saw her skin reddening in the cold night air.

With a sigh, he grabbed her giant robe, checked it for anything that could be used as a weapon or to cut her bonds, and then rolled her up tightly in its heavy fur and fabric.

With a grunt of effort, he rolled her back into place by her compatriots, and returned to Mistress Longhair’s wagon. As he walked, he yawned several times. Once with such intensity, the right side of his jaw cracked loudly in the silent camp, briefly startling Jens.