The ship landed in Eichlach, a country that the locals quickly insisted was pronounced ike-lock, despite what the Alarians thought down in the south. Helianna was never so happy to have land under her feet. Unfortunately, it didn’t just remain her feet for long. Unprepared for getting used to her land-legs, she promptly face planted, where she decided to remain for some time before Isela managed to drag her to her feet.
Still swaying from coming off the ocean, she begrudgingly followed as Isela led her into the town. Sylas seemed to find her misery delightful, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care. When they arrived at the closest inn, the owner laughed at her obvious state and asked what they were coming to Eichlach for. When informed that Helianna were visiting family, he happily offered them a night for free, claiming that ‘any returning Wulvinian deserves a warm welcome home.’
Taking immediate advantage of it, Helianna stumbled up the stairs towards a room he provided. Isela and Sylas left her there as they did their best to procure horses. But by the end of the day, they had no luck and returned to the inn empty handed. Helianna was still miserable and when Isela brought her some food, she barely kept it down. Fortunately, she felt better the next day and was able to make herself look presentable, but still was suffering the effects of the ocean. She walked downstairs to see the two of them waiting for her.
“Did you two manage to get something?” Sylas scowled while Isela shook her head.
“I’m sure we’ll find something today!” Isela said cheerfully.
Helianna’s brows furrowed. “How did you try to get horses?”
“Well, we tried to offer our services. We are excellent after all.” Helianna sighed and Isela’s ears drooped slightly.
“That’s not how things work here. I don’t know how they responded, but you can’t do that in Wulvinia without a member of JWAW present.”
“JWAW?” Sylas asked.
“It stands for the Goods and Services Intermediary Association in wuuvish. You can barter goods for goods and services for services, but not goods for services without them.”
“Why?”
Helianna paused before responding. “It helps prevent a legalized mimicry of slavery.”
“What? How does that help?”
“There was a period where people would demand incredibly steep services, better described as slavery in return for simple goods like food and clean water. It’s harder to do something like that when trading goods for goods and most governments have ways of stopping that if it’s attempted.”
“Most?” Helianna sighed.
“Yeah. There’s a couple countries where slavery is legal despite JWAW trying to restrict them. Most countries don’t trade with them either.”
“Just another reason you are all barbarians,” Sylas muttered.
“It is two countries!” yelled Helianna. “Why are you so damn racist?!”
He rolled his flame-like eyes dramatically. “Just get us some damn horses.”
Helianna stomped outside, doing her best to ignore him. She quickly asked for directions to the nearest JWAW facility of the city and left. Less than an hour later, she had made a deal. Her team would be part of an escort for a seven wagon caravan moving to Acagashli, a large city a few countries away. It was on the other side of their intended destination, but it proved to be their best option. In return, they’d get two horses and a decent sized wagon.
After managing to convince the innkeeper to let them stay one more night, they departed the next morning. A large number of people were hired to protect the caravan and they found themselves on the fifth cargo carriage. The first few miles were fast and smooth, but unfortunately, the carriages were not made with people in mind. It quickly got quite rough, prompting grumbling from the whole party. Isela took to the sky, using the excuse of patrolling, but her escape of the bumpy carriage was not lost on the others.
Before long however, angry shouting could be heard from Helianna and Sylas, prompting Isela to land back on the carriage. She tried to calm them down, but was unable to until other caravan members got involved, which embarrassed all of them. Consigning herself to the bumpy ride, she situated herself between the two to keep them from causing another scene.
The days passed tensely. Without Isela’s bubbly personality, the other two surely would have tried to kill each other. The tense atmosphere on their carriage was obvious and the other caravan members distinctly tried to ignore them, not wanting to get involved. Helianna spent the evenings sneaking around camp, trying to understand the motivations of others, identifying risks, and ensuring there was nobody looking for them in the caravan. In the process, she quickly determined that her team had become a source of gossip for the caravan, their clear lack of team synergy both concerning and entertaining for the others.
Helianna spent less and less time with her ‘team’ as the weeks passed and they were three weeks in when they had their first incident. They were almost out of Eichlach and were camping for the night.
Whenever the weather permitted, Helianna simply slept in a bedroll, not wanting to take the time to set up a tent alongside the other two. This also allowed her to leave them and start sneaking around earlier. She was skirting through the forest near the front of the camp when she ran into a problem. Almost literally.
She saw someone crouched behind a bush in front of her only moments before she moved into the bush herself, his stillness helping keep him hidden. Her belated recognition of the fact that a human was in front of her resulted in him hearing her. He turned to her, the whites of his wide eyes the only part of his form visible aside from the silhouette.
Instantly recognizing that he was not a part of the caravan, she pulled out a dagger, lunging for him. Unfortunately, she wasn’t fast enough as she heard him quickly yell ‘attack’ before her knife found his neck, quickly reducing his screams to gurgles. In moments, a large amount of figures sprung from the forest and ran towards the caravan. She spun in shock for a brief moment, wondering how she had missed so many of them on her path, but didn’t let it slow her down. She nearly dashed out of the undergrowth after them but held back, aware that the direction of her approach would make the rest of the caravan believe she was also an enemy.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She was too far from the rest of her team to protect them or try to communicate, but she knew she had to help defend the caravan as best she could. She looked around for any high value targets and found a large group of spellcasters closer towards the center of the caravan. Most people did not have a high enough mana concentration for it to be useful as spells during combat, instead typically using it to give a small edge when in close combat. But whoever these bandits were, they had a lot of magic users.
She dashed through the forest to get close to them, barely bothering with stealth due to the chaos of the battle. By the time she got to them, one had already been felled, but the large concentration were still fine and doing substantial damage to the caravan. She sidled up behind them and jabbed her first two knives into the back of two of their necks, instantly rendering them useless, albeit not quite dead yet. She pulled out her other two knives, knowing it would be faster than pulling the first two out and slashed the jugular of one of the mages that noticed her first two kills. He flailed about, alerting the other three mages as he gurgled and threw a ball of fire at her.
She easily sidestepped the fireball and moved towards another female mage. The woman raised a hand to throw magic at Helianna, but she ducked down to avoid it. She slashed across the woman’s femoral artery and retreated behind the man whose throat she had cut, using his body as cover when the three mages all launched their magic. As she did, she noticed archers firing upon the caravan as well and wondered how there were so many bandits. Her split second of observation saved her as an arrow came her way. She dodged out the way at the last second, the fletching leaving a mark on her cheek.
At the same time, several spells ripped through the man behind her, but very little magic reached her and then fizzled out against her nullification. She threw a knife at the throat of one of the uninjured casters who brought his arm up to block it, crying out when it sank into his arm. Seeing that the woman whose vein she slashed was stumbling and losing focus from blood loss, she charged the last uninjured mage.
He stumbled backward in a panic, sending his poor excuse for a fireball careening in the wrong direction. As she got close, he took a wild swing, which she stepped into and blocked, before stabbing her knife up and behind his chin. She knew it would take a bit of time for him to die, so she ripped her knife out and turned toward the last one, who had taken a knife to his arm. However, instead of the expected attack, there was empty space and it took Helianna a moment to find the man running away and cradling his arm. She wanted to chase, but knew it wasn’t worth it, especially since the man had stupidly ripped out her dagger, which was now on the floor. She quickly retrieved her daggers, watching out for any archers that might want to take another shot at her.
None came, hinting that they were preoccupied, dead, or had run away like the last mage. She turned to the caravan, where one last pocket of bandits were fighting. Seeing that she likely had the opportunity to help catch one, she quickly maneuvered herself between them and the forest. She got there just in time as the last two bandits started to retreat. Remaining crouched and hidden, she threw one dagger, which narrowly missed one’s throat and he panicked, running blindly. The other one hadn’t realized she was there so she threw another at him as she cursed her previous miss. This one hit its mark, leaving her with the panicking man.
Unable to see exactly where she was, he ended up running fairly close and it didn’t take much to get in his path. He yelled as he brought a sword down towards her with wild abandon, which she neatly sidestepped. Overextended and terrified, he didn’t see the blow coming, allowing a clean knockout from Helianna.
She looked towards the caravan, where several people were looking at her in the confusion, not certain where she’d come from. One person however, was smiling as he jogged up to her. He was tall, even for a davraki, and she estimated that he was easily ten feet tall. He had dark red skin and one of his frontal horns was broken off. Put together, it made him incredibly distinct in a crowd and she’d noticed him the past few nights while scouting. He was always smiling and laughing, his voice always carrying further than anyone else’s as he constantly laughed. She wasn’t looking forward to talking to him.
“Heya, stranger! Fancy moves ya got there! You were the one who took down those mages, right?” he boomed in wuuvish. As he approached, she had to look up significiatnly and she was certain she’d develop a crick in her neck if she had to talk to him for too long.
“I am.” He held out his hand and she hesitantly took it. He clasped her arm and shook it aggressively and she felt as if he’d rip her arm off.
“Good on you! I reckon you saved our hides here! They weren’t around for long thanks to you, but they still did some damage.” He looked around and she saw his smile falter for a moment as he viewed the damaged wagons before he looked back at her with a smile. “Where’d ya come from? They certainly weren’t expecting someone from behind, hah!” Helianna couldn’t help the dry smile that came to her lips.
“I was simply patrolling the caravan as I usually do when the attack happened. It’s easier to check for ambushers when I’m not quite so close.” His eyes crinkled in amusement.
“I’d certainly say you found some.”
“Yes, I found one just before the attack started and killed him. I didn’t have time to warn everyone” She had no intention of telling him that it was also her discovery of the man that had prompted the start of the attack.
“Good on you!” He clapped her on the back, and she stumbled forward, giving him a glare that he didn’t seem to register. “One attacker less can make all the difference. Say, which wagon are you a part of?”
She sighed, knowing the response she’d get. “The fifth one.” He laughed boisterously and tried to clap her on the back again, but she deftly dodged to the side.
“You’re a part of the drama team! How’s that treating you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Sure, sure! Well, you’re always welcome to come to us up front when not on the job. We’re a lot less tense up here!” She looked around and saw many faces turned towards her. Those that weren’t dealing with the bodies seemed to consider this conversation their entertainment. Several turned away sheepishly when she looked, but she didn’t see any of the hostile gazes she was expecting.
“I’ll think about it,” she said with another sigh.
“Good on you!” He went to clap her on the back and she dodged away again, prompting a laugh. He turned towards the man who she’d knocked unconscious. “I see you also made sure to keep this one alive, right?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, much!” He leaned down and easily picked up the man as if he were a small piece of luggage. “Oh, the name’s Arc by the way! Yours?”
“Helianna.”
“Good meeting ya.” He turned away and called behind his back. “See ya around. Don’t be a stranger!”