Turning to the girl, his eyes just a bit concerned, he raised an eyebrow. “Now?”
She laughed, a tinkling sound that hinted at a much gayer sense of humor than her elder.
Regarding her closely for the first time, he could better see both the family resemblance, and that Rosaluna must have been something special when she’d been young. She was a pretty, well put together kid standing about five foot nothin', with the proper amount of curves to be perfect, but no more. Tiarraluna’s blush returned and deepened, and he realized that he maybe was putting too much into his inspection.
“Grandmother has prepared provisions and equipment for us,” she motioned to the doorway somewhat breathlessly. “The journey should take us two days, although we will have reached the cart by tonight.”
Sure enough, there beside the door was a large pack. Large even by eleven-boo standards. His back hurt just looking at it. He would apparently be carrying all their gear. He cast a quick glance within the cottage and another back to the girl waiting expectantly. There really wasn’t anything inside for him to gather, so why wait?
He rolled his back, leaned over to grab a strap, and shrugged into the pack. Then he breathed a quick sigh of relief. It was lighter than it looked. So much so that his eyes narrowed, and he was tempted to haul it off and look inside. There was no way he was carrying enough gear and supplies for two people for two days on the trail.
At this point, however, he had developed a certain amount of faith in the old woman. If she thought it was good, it probably was. Anyway, he doubted she’d change anything in the loadout even did he mention it, so he let it go and turned to follow the girl to the stable.
“This is Jelia,” Tiarraluna smiled as she stroked the muzzle of the piebald. “She has been grandmother’s companion for as long as I can remember. She is very smart, but not so swift as once she was.”
Jack looked her up and down and clucked his tongue. Yeah, he could believe that. Twenty years if she was a day. And she still pulled a cart? The velocity of his journey here made more sense now, even with the old woman’s pace taken into account.
There was a pack saddle on the half wall of the stable’s inner room, so he figured why not? Despite being from another world, he was able to work it out fairly quickly. Utility, form, and function, right? Similar tasks bred similar design. It might have been considered cheating, but he rigged the saddle, and tied the pack onto it. What was it his old commander had always said? No point practicing to bleed? He also took a few minutes to fetch the waster and dagger now that he wouldn’t need to haul them on his own back. Never know when they might come in handy.
He cast a last look at the small stead as they left it behind, swishing through the tall grass on their way to the road, still unseen over the horizon. He’d only been here a couple of months, but he was going to miss it. Yes, and the grouchy old woman who called it home. He’d never see either again, he supposed. For some reason, that made him feel melancholy.
“G’bye, you grumpy old magical girl,” he whispered under his breath.
And goodbye to you, too, young tree’s bane, came the reply, making him jump. How much range did she have with that trick?
They reached the road by late morning, taking it easy. Jack wasn’t sure if the pace the girl was setting was for his benefit or the mare’s, and he didn’t ask. He’d already been working himself stupid for a couple of hours before she’d shown up, and wasn’t exactly fresh.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Tiarraluna called a halt when they reached it. There was a small stream on the far side along which the road traveled, so it was a handy place to water the mare and have a quick bite. Jack didn’t have to be asked twice. He settled himself down with one knee up and the other crossed beneath it. He accepted the apple and chunk of bread she dug from the pack and got to work, taking the odd sip from the water bottle hanging from a strap across his shoulder.
Watching him, Tiarraluna frowned and took a moment to observe before starting on her own lunch. He’d flopped down loosely, with apparent abandon, but she noted that his pose would allow him to rise rather quickly should he decide to. She noted also that he kept his staff close to hand.
And yet, as grandmother had said, he bore no life crystal. Not any trace of one, no matter how hard she concentrated. No status indicators of any sort, in fact. Very strange. By all visible indicators, he was the most utterly ungifted of all ungifted. But the feel of him.... the feel of him told a different story. If only she could read it.
He was a hero of some sort. Grandmother had assured her. And gifted. In some fashion, at least. She’d seen something of it as she’d stood beside Grandmother this morning soon after her arrival, watching him practice at the old oak. His movements had been precise beyond the level of any ungifted she’d ever seen. His speed greater. She suspected he’d be stronger as well, for his given frame. Yet none of it would matter unless they could understand it. Unless he could understand it.
Without making a show of it, she called forth a bit of power. Her staff barely changed hue, so faint was the glow. There was a thing she might try. Grandmother would certainly not approve, but Grandmother was back at the cottage. Closing her eyes, Tiarraluna began to hum a seeing spell. One normally not used for this sort of task. Something to find lost things. Something to open ways.
Quietly, slowly, she opened her inner eye and raised her point of focus in the man’s direction. Her eyes popped open and she hiccuped in a great gasp of air, reeling back just a bit.
Jack jerked and looked up at her, puzzled. “Something wrong?” he asked.
“No-nothing,” she replied too quickly. “Nothing at all, Jack san.”
He shrugged and went back to his meal, although he seemed to give it less attention than he had been. Seemed a bit less open. More wary.
Tiarraluna remained where and as she’d been, one hand upon her now quiescent staff, the other in her lap. Her food lay beside her, forgotten. A cage, she’d seen within him. With hammered bars, thick and grey. And curled far back within the depths of that cage, a mass of darkness, black as the bottom of a well, radiating power that lapped at the bars. And from within that blackness, a pair of red, glowing eyes had gazed back out at her. His gift? Or his curse?
* * *
“Hold up,” Jack warned, suiting action to words.
They’d traveled about ten miles since leaving the cottage, and the sun was heeling over into dusk. They were already running behind their self-imposed schedule.
“What is it?” Tiarraluna asked, turning her head this way and that, searching for the cause of his concern.
“There’s something up ahead,” he said, moving forward and to the side.
Turning back, she studied the road ahead. “What is it?”
“Dunno,” he admitted. “Something. I can feel it.”
She whispered a command to Jelia and moved forward, bringing her staff up and to the ready. She couldn’t sense anything herself, but that wasn’t really her field of expertise. A few muttered words brought the jewel to a dull glow and prepared the staff for combat. It was her job, after all, to protect the man until he could reach the town.
“No,” he said softly, waving her back. “This feels wrong. You watch from here.”
That was stupid. She was— but he was already moving off, quartering away from the roadway. She shook herself free of the nonsensical command and had already moved to follow him when he stopped and flung a fist sized rock he’d picked up somewhere into a scraggly bush on the far side of the road.
The rock landed behind the bush with a meaty thwack, instantly followed by a chorus of deep-throated howls. Five creatures the likes of which Tiarraluna had never seen burst forth from undergrowth she wouldn’t have guessed would conceal a large cat, all of them rushing straight at the man. None of them had life crystals either!