45.5.

Memories II

Before The Rejoining

He exited Siln with great relief, crossing the bare patch of land that separated it from Dreslon in just a few minutes. In a few minutes more, he had crossed through the builder-laden stone gates and through the ogre-infested city, under more than one reach of scaffold, all the way through to the back alley where a few wooden buildings yet stood.

Just as his hand pressed into the cool handle of the familiar Greslock's General Goods, a pointed object pressed into his back. He stopped.

I've been tailed, somehow unsurprisingly...

"Put that thing away." Cedric glanced over his shoulder. There stood Faunia Vleren, a sickening scowl burned into her soft pale face. There was a crossbow in her hands. "Let's talk this over like adults, yeah?"

"You're under arrest. I'm bringing you back to Azar'kara."

"Akvum saw fit to release me — you're not feeling quite so generous?"

She pressed it harder into his lower spine.

"Lower it." A chill took his voice. His jade eyes became the same turquoise as Tirolith's spines, and her crossbow quickly found itself pointed at the ground.

"What did you…"

Before she could realize what had happened, Cedric spun and grabbed her arm, then sent her whole body into the door with a SLAM.

"Ooh, I forgot this one tends to get..." He reeled her back, "Stuck!"

The door shattered splinters into the air. Faunia fell through. Her crossbow skidded along the moldy wood floor. Cedric swung the door shut as he rushed in, though it was far from closing properly. He lunged for the crossbow.

Faunia threw herself at his legs, tripped him over prone with another loud THUD. He took the bow and spun it to her. She slid a dagger from her waistband, raised it over his torso.

"CEDRIC!" came a loud roar from beside the counter.

"I'm in the middle of something, Greslock!" Cedric kicked into Faunia's jaw and knocked her aside before the dagger could gut him. He kept the crossbow trained on her. "Oh, come on, give it up already."

"I'll kill you, you damn spawn of Tovas!"

"You're going to do a lot more harm than good, princess. I killed Algirak, you damn—"

He yelped out as someone yanked him up from the ground. Then he was face to face with the green-skinned shopkeeper, grey-haired and bespectacled.

Faunia stood and stumbled away. Her rapier came to her hand quickly.

Greslock merely grabbed the blade and snapped it in half.

"My sword!" she exclaimed in frustration. She tried the dull break as a weapon anyway, lunged it forward into Greslock's tough skin.

But the unimpressed Greslock only needed to swing his arm to knock her head back, to send her careening toward the floorboards.

"I've had quite enough of this." Greslock huffed and made his way to the counter, tugging Cedric all the way. "You've lost your mind! And you're taking it out on Hunters, of all people! And in MY SHOP!"

"Wait, wait, wait! I can explain it! I can explain what happened, I can!"

"Then start! And I might not turn you over to Azar'kara myself!" Greslock threw him unkindly into the seat beside the counter. He hastily pulled the blinds closed, came to lean against the wall just beside Cedric.

The boy struggled to hold his balance for a moment. When he had it, he called: "Tirolith, give me a hand with this one."

"You've got it!" chimed the voice of a very young girl.

Greslock looked around in surprise.

And suddenly, from between an array of shelving appeared a small girl in armor of shimmering turquoise crystal like ice. Her dragon-shaped helm glowed and pulsed with energy; an unseen and unfelt energy, unrecognizable by Greslock, hardly noticed by the silver-haired Hunter woman still gripping her skull some paces away.

The ogre gawked.

"Greslock, meet Tirolith. She's kept me alive up until this point. Hells, I probably wouldn't be alive without her."

"Oh, Cedric!" She giggled and playfully pressed her cheeks as if she was blushing.

"You know damn well what I mean, you…"

"I know, I know!" she protested with a laugh, waved him away. "We've been through quite a mess, and in such short time. The bond you create in fusing your mind to another's is..." She appeared to swoon at the thought.

"We're nothing more than convenient allies, if you're implying I'm supposed to feel some sort of way. I needed you to kill Algirak. Now I just need you to keep my leg moving..." He wagged his previously broken leg. It still hurt, just a hair.

Greslock closed his mouth. He was completely speechless.

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But not in the way I had hoped, Cedric thought. He narrowed his eyes, then turned his full body to lean onto the counter. "You know that name, don't you?"

Greslock rubbed the back of his neck, murmured something too quiet to hear. He shifted his eyes back to Faunia, who had finally sat up enough to glare at him. He thought she might be muttering beneath her breath...

"Greslock, if there's something you're not telling me..."

"There ain't nothing!" He turned away suddenly. "Never heard of 'im, never heard of any of this nonsense!"

"Hmm." Cedric mused. He paused before he spoke again. He heard the murmuring too, now. His eyes returned to Faunia, still crouched uneasily beside the door. "She's chanting!"

Her brow twitched and furrowed, caught red-handed.

Greslock shot up from the wall. He stomped over with a shout, "Oh, no! You're not burning my damn shop down!"

Cedric jumped out of his seat before him and ushered caution with a raised hand. "Oy, oy! You've got rope here, don't you?"

"Not if you don't have a damn Tongue to your name." he hissed. But nevertheless, his eyes landed on the bin of ropes. There was hardly any other choice.

Once Cedric had finished tying her up, finished stuffing her mouth with her own socks, he snickered as he made his way back over to the counter where Greslock was sat. Some part of him was devilishly delighted by the turn of events — the prim and proper bitch of Freiya'kara, the one who'd haunted him for months as his superior, as his warden, as his slaver... constricted now in a most unseemly, unsightly way. But there were limits to his sinister inhibitions, and he feared that even this was approaching blurring that line.

Greslock sighed in disgust. "You've a sick way of getting people to shaddup. I don't like this, Cedric."

"Me neither. But what choice do I have? We can't justify killing her, can hardly justify releasing her... and it's not like you'd let me borrow anything else to gag her with."

"...We?"

He looked down with a forlorn smirk. "You're right. This is my problem. I'll deal with it, I'll figure this out... I only came back to let you know I'd survived, anyway."

Greslock began to scrawl onto random receipts, seemingly pretending to be busy. "I didn't think you would."

"I didn't either. But here I am."

"A lot has changed since you left. They killed Algrim."

"The boy? Who, the Hunters killed him?"

Greslock nodded. They both glared again to Faunia, restrained up against the broken door, holding it shut.

"Damn monsters. They've stepped up their presence, haven't they?"

Greslock nodded again. "They locked down the town the night you fled. Killed Algrim and a few others… now they've claimed Dreslon as their own."

"And Norgurd?"

"He's okay for now, in hiding. But they want his head. The whole world is falling down around us. Ever since that aurora, when the sky opened up in the north." His eyes landed squarely on Cedric.

"I recall. But you do know something, don't you? If you're aware of what that aurora meant. What Tirolith is."

Greslock squirmed.

"I won't break our pact, I know the rules: you don't ask about me, I don't ask about you. But I need gear. Armor, a weapon. Rations, at least for a week's travels. Maybe more."

"And I suppose you can afford it all?" he scoffed.

Cedric laughed. "I'm almost as pitiful as when I arrived here the first time. I'm asking a favor. I'll get you back." If I return alive.

Greslock gave an unimpressed sigh. "So tell me: why can't the Hunters handle it?"

Faunia, who had finally managed to spit out the socks, spoke up: "They can. Your boy refuses to listen to reason."

Cedric rebuked, "They cannot. Look, even I don't know all of the details, but both of us were there when she beat Akvum within an inch of his life. That was before she took Serkukan too. Who knows how powerful she is now..."

Faunia scowled. "Akvum needs to get in touch with the Mainland. Then they'll bring a force not to be trifled with."

So she knows about it, too?

"But Cedric—" Greslock appeared conflicted, "Surely they're a whole lot better off going in than just you, alone? Even if you could just bring a few in as allies..."

"I'm not alone."

Tirolith took his side.

"I'll have this one, and this one as well:"

Cedric held out his hand. With some agonized looks crossing his face, a long and sleek black blade emerged from his wrist, and into his palm. Greslock staggered back when the blade almost prodded him in the face.

"Grivonym. And with it, I'll strip Serkukan from that Etherian Queen and back into my possession. And then he will kill her."

"And what about her?"

Cedric glanced again to the referred-to Faunia Vleren. Once a well-known warrior from Freiya'kara, made to meander around Azar'kara as a stray cat might. And now, captured by a lowlife criminal and his ogrish friend. If I was still a Sylvet, I could imagine the excitement I'd be feeling right now at the prospect of such a large-stake ensnarement. Only now, I feel nothing but dread. So much for never being on the run again. So much for a peaceful life...

"We'll release her. She's not my problem."

"No, but she'll be mine." Greslock shook his head. "If she returns to her fortress and reports that any of this happened here…"

Faunia was silent. There was much disgrace in having been caught by her quarry. Almost too much for her to bear.

Cedric stood from his stool and walked to Faunia. "If we can't trust her…"

She looked up at him with a grimace. "Go on and kill me already, you fucking barbarians!" She had all but lost her temper.

"I like to think I'm a little more charismatic than that, at the very least." He knelt down beside her, itched at his scruffy brown beard. "Where will you go if I untie you?"

"Right to the Hunters, you daft fuck—"

Cedric scooped up her sock and shoved it back into her mouth in a swift motion. Faunia choked it out and spat it back onto the floor. "You sick bastard. I already told you once to kill me, I won't ask you for mercy. Don't expect me to beg." He noticed she was shaking.

"Didn't need to." he admitted, and cut her hands free.

Greslock watched on in anxious suspicion from back near the counter. He shook his head.

"What are you doing?" hissed Faunia.

Cedric smirked slightly. "You won't catch me, no matter how hard you try. Rouse Akvum and whoever the damn Freiya'kara leader is, and your Frexian friends, too. I'll be too quick for you. But leave Greslock out of this. If you're one of the good guys... You have no reason to kill him."

Faunia grit her teeth, lunged for his collar.

Cedric stepped back and completely avoided her frenzied grasp.

Tirolith, soothe her.

No problem, Cedric.

He stumbled out of his kneel, began towards the counter to arrange the gear he would need, and to arrange his means of payment.

And Faunia's silver eyes finally began to wince shut as her face fell slack, and she fell completely asleep on the floor of the shop...