The next morning came far, far faster than I wanted it to. With the sun rising I felt Tulip begin trying to rouse me from my sleep, only getting a stifled groan from me in response as she moved from grabbing my arm to kicking my side gently.
“Fine… I’ll get up…” I groaned, the only response I heard from Tulip was a soft ‘Humph’.
I was left alone, rolling over onto my back and my eyes spread open. Greenish tinted sunlight filtered in through the canopy of leaves that made up the makeshift tent. Breathing in slowly for a few moments, I could feel exhaustion filling my muscle. Everything ached from the hours of training and sparring with Tulip the previous night.
I was left to just lay there, trying to work up the willpower to sit up which only came after several more minutes of laying in place. I took in a sharp breath as I finally pushed myself to sit up, immediately I felt tension in my back begin to give way as a series of pops already echoed out, only added to further as I twisted my torso side to side to stretch further.
“Finally…” I heard Tulip mutter out as I crawled out of the tent with a yawn. “I was wondering if I would ever actually get you to wake up.” She continued.
Tulip sat in front of a fire, heating up food for the morning, the stinging scent of smoke was the first thing to hit me once I was out of the tent. Though it was quickly followed by a far more pleasing almost sweet scent of the meal being warmed up.
“Sorry… Normally I wake up a lot easier than that.” I struggled to hold back another yawn as I pushed myself to my feet. “I guess I’m just not used to working that hard right before sleep.”
“I figured you would have been used to being exhausted.” Tulip questioned as her gaze shifted towards me once I sat down beside her.
“That’s… A different kind of exhaustion. Working day and night, that's like absolute exhaustion. You’re too tired to feel how tired you are. Not this kind of exhaustion where I feel pretty fine, but everything just hurts.” I sighed, pulling my legs up. I ended up holding them to my chest by my knees with my arms wrapped around them.
“I guess that makes some amount of sense. Even if that sounds like the same thing.” Tulip shrugged as she spoke. “Food is just about done then we can get moving again.”
I nodded in silence, I was honestly a little surprised as I actually looked at my arms, and legs even. No longer did I look like a walking skeleton, even though it had barely been more than a month. Though I was still skinny, I couldn’t count every bone in my arms and legs. Though my body probably wasn’t much, if any better yet. My musings were quickly followed by wandering thoughts again.
“What do you know about the War Mage?” I blurted out as Tulip reached towards the pan, picking out the two servings she had made onto some makeshift plates made of wooden blocks.
“There isn’t really anything anyone knows. They died two hundred years ago, no one knows how or why they died… Given they were presumably pretty young, especially for a mage as powerful as them. We don’t even know what kind of magic they had- We don’t even know their name.” Tulip went over it, sighing as she handed one of the two plates to me.
“Anyone who can figure anything out about them would be a saint. Or, be hunted down by the Church.” She continued for a moment longer.
“Hunted by the church?” I was quick to ask, I had heard of a handful of religions while in the mine, a lot of the guards seemed to practice the same one, but I had no idea that it was a powerful religion.
“Yea, the ‘Church of the Golden God’. It’s the largest Religion in Berinia, it worships their own idea of what the War Mage was- They think the War Mage was the reincarnation of a god sent to purge the Unspeakables. As such they think the War Mage used some kind of Light Magic… It’s been proven a few times that when people say otherwise the church marks them as ‘Sinners’.” Tulip sighed, shaking her head. “Father believes in that religion, so if the Church wants something done, father listens and sends the military after them.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, silence was all that followed after I heard Tulips words. With nothing left to say we ended up eating in silence, Tulip looked towards me a handful of times, as if she had something more she wished to say but never quite did.
That silence continued as we packed what few things we had out into the rings, luckily enough we only had to break the tent into three pieces to fit it inside of the rings. Which gave us a rough idea of what the maximum size of something could be inside of the ring, about the same size as a person entirely stretched out.
Even once we began moving, continuing south now that the sun was high enough into the early morning sky to guide us that silence continued. Only broken when we began to crest a sand dune as indistinguishable as any other, on the other edge of it a large convoy was standing in the sand.
“Get down.” Tulip spoke quickly and quietly, she followed her own command as quickly as she spoke it. Her arm snapped out as she dropped down to grab mine, pulling me down to the sandy floor.
“Who are they?” I was quick to ask, the haze of the heat mixed with the distance downhill and the blowing sands made it hard to make out any real defining details of the convoy. They were all stationary around a central area, a handful sat around the edges wearing what appeared to be lighter, cloth or leather armors with blades visible at their hips. Hats covered their head, with long, cloth sides that draped over the shoulder hiding a substantial amount of the body from direct sunlight.
The convoy itself was made of dozens of caravan vehicles, lead by animals that I didn’t recognize, they looked like horses though they were far shorter. Their shoulders were about the same height as someone’s hips, though curiously they had six legs. The six legs were evenly spaced in pairs of two down the main body, even from the distance I could make out that they didn’t have standard hooves, but had some form of wide, sprawling feet that gave them more surface area to walk on. Their heads were almost like a canine, with an elongated muzzle and forward facing eyes. Their hide was a sandy color with short fur covering, a large tail that didn’t seem normal for a mammal stuck out behind them, similar to the size of a large reptile.
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“Looks like a trade convoy… I’m not sure though, since those are Shriekers… They’re only ever tamed for military use.” Tulip spoke in a hushed whisper, her eyes flicked towards me for a moment as she shuffled back a half pace. “We’re stuck here until they start moving, I don’t want to risk running into, or around them.”
I had to stifle back an annoyed sigh, the last thing I wanted to be doing was to be stuck waiting, baking under the sun for a convoy to start moving.
The convoy itself appeared to be sitting on a road, though it was hard to tell for certain thanks to the blowing sands, it at least appeared that there were bricks underneath where they sat.
I glanced towards the sky to my side, the sun was still slowly rising, and the desert was rapidly heating up because of it.
Movement in the convoy brought both of our attention moving straight back towards it. In the center there was a sudden flurry of motion, guards from the edge quickly got up, moving inwards towards even more guards that came flocking out of the carts.
“What's going on?” I asked in a hushed tone, I didn’t dare move my gaze away from the convoy.
“I don’t know… But that's way too many guards for a normal convoy.” Tulip stated, tension clear in her voice.
The guards numbered over a hundred, if not more, and they all seemed on edge as they began converging in the center of the convoy. Yet piercing the crowd, a very clearly female elf walked to the front of the convoy. She wore extremely light clothes that barely covered enough to be considered decent with most of her midriff exposed.
It was hard to place her age, especially from the distance, though if I had to guess she wasn’t many years older than me or Tulip. She had soft orange hair and far darker skin than the very light coloration of the elves in Nime, though it wasn’t quite as dark as I had seen some of the humans in the prison, it was closer to a tan of someone who spent their entire life directly under the sun.
Unsettlingly, her eyes moved directly to where the two of us were hiding. She squinted, raising a hand to point at us which led to utter panic and dread to fill my body. Two guards moved forwards, though the woman said something to them, leading them both to nod and put the blades they had reflexively pulled away.
They approached with hands raised, with one calling out, sounding a little on the older side of middle aged.
“Hey! You two come here! It’s dangerous out here- there’s an entire pack of Shriekers patrolling!” The man shouted out, more than loud enough for both of us to hear.
“What do we do?” I asked quickly, my voice reflecting the panic racing through my body.
“Surrender, we don’t have a choice… If they’re telling the truth we’d be dead as soon as the pack gets scent of us.” Tulip answered with dread in her tone. She took the lead, raising her hands as she stood up, I followed in doing much the same.
“You can lower your arms, we’re not out to hurt you.” The guard spoke again once he was closer. He was surprisingly not much taller than Tulip, and the one following him was barely even my height, though he looked much younger, perhaps even younger than I was.
“Come on… We don’t want to keep her majesty waiting.” The younger guard spoke impatiently, he looked around anxiously, which left me and Tulip both to share a mutually baffled look as we lowered our arms.
With a nod we followed the two guards as they began down the dunes, they both gestured to the other guards to lower their weapons, to which they responded.
As we got closer to the convoy I could see just how many guards there were, probably about a hundred and fifty, the vast majority of them were all wearing that same leather armor as the two that had come to find us, while a select handful were wearing full plate armor. They remained near the center of the convoy, with eyes firmly planted on the two of us.
Hushed whispers filtered through the encampment as we entered. Tulip stopped just on the edge, looking quite uncomfortable as people began talking in a hushed whisper about the ‘slave’ the moment they noticed the binding.
“Greetings.” I jumped a little as a gentle voice approached from the side towards the two of us. “I am Brimrose Elline. I’m terribly sorry for us meeting under these conditions.” Brimrose, the notable woman from before that had pointed us out, spoke with a kind, gentle voice.
“H-hello.” I was quick to answer, kicking Tulip in the ankle gently to get her attention and snap her out of her own thoughts. I took in the larger woman slowly, her clothing was at least less revealing up close, though it was still far more revealing than anything I was familiar with people wearing.
Nothing but crossed cloth covered her top, and a draped lower piece that dropped off at an angle from her left hip down to her right knee covered her bottom like a skirt. Her face was marked with brilliant silver eyes that strangely stood out from the orange hair that graced her head.
“Thank you for warning us about the Shriekers- We… Probably would have ran into them pretty quickly.” Tulip was quick to say, looking still uncomfortable.
“Oh my-” Brimrose spoke as she took notice of the cuffs Tulip was wearing. “Andrews, aren’t they?” Tulip’s face reflected the same surprise as mine as she heard the woman's statement, nodding softly.
“Would you two like to come with us? We’re en route to Dust, I know a smith there who is capable of breaking those cuffs open.” Brimrose offered softly. “And it allows the two of you safety from those Shrieker pests- Besides, it would be very, very pleasant to have some more lively ones to talk with on this journey.”
“Well… We were trying-” Tulip began slowly but I moved in, cutting her off.
“I think that’d be a good idea… I don’t know that we’d be able to get very far if there’s something that deadly out there.” I spoke quickly, Tulip gave me a surprised and confused look, which prompted Brimrose to giggle softly.
“My oh my- Please don’t worry, I don’t plan on keeping you for any longer than needed to kleep the both of you safe! I’m far from a political player like that.” Brimrose smiled further as she spoke. “We’ll be leaving shortly so if you have anything you need to grab please go and do so.”
“Thank you.” I spoke quickly as she turned to leave, returning back to the center of the convoy, Tulip moved over and quickly began to speak.
“Why did you agree to go with her?!” She exclaimed in a hushed voice, trying to keep the guards from hearing too much.
“What choice do we have? She has someone who can supposedly get you out of those cuffs, and we have protection here- Not to mention the fact that you seemed scared about those Shrieker things, I do not want to figure out what they do when they’re wild. I barely survived that crawler!” I was struggling to keep my voice down as I gave Tulip my reasoning, but she quickly relented after hearing it.
“Fine… But going to Dust is going to be even worse- That city is a wasteland from what I’ve heard.” Tulip sighed, shaking her head.
“It can’t be worse than the wasteland we’ve already been walking through.” I spoke with confidence, after a few more minutes the convoy began to move, leaving the two of us to follow behind it by several paces to keep out of the way of the elves. At least it seemed like none of the ones here were explicitly hateful over us being humans.