Arc 1: Chapter 8: Curse-burdened Wanderers

Arc 1: Chapter 8: Curse-burdened Wanderers

The clouds had cleared by the time we finished burying the troll, and red had bled across the sky. A thin gray silt had been left across scores of miles by the ashfall earlier in the day, giving the irkwood a dour, surreal quality.

Lisette stood from the last of the markers we’d made from river stone and shattered pieces of the old bridge, murmuring a preosta — a priest cant. She moved first to Olliard, pressing her auremark against his chest and cleansing him of both disease and malignant od that might have clung to him from handling the troll’s carcass. He breathed a sigh of relief at the touch of her magic and smiled, murmuring thanks.

When the young cleric moved to me to do the same, I held up a hand to stop her. “No need,” I said. “I’m covered.”

The doctor’s apprentice frowned, studying me. When I didn’t elaborate, she huffed in frustration. “You’re the one who told me I should do this,” she remarked pointedly.

I didn’t want to tell her I was largely immune to disease and had my own protections against curses, and I especially didn’t want the cleric to make contact with my own aura. She’d probably sense something off with it, and that wasn’t a conversation I was interested in having.

She was using her power to stitch up your wounds, I reminded myself. If she was going to notice anything, she’d have done so already.Updated chapters at novelhall.com

Maybe so, but it was still a risk I wasn’t interested in taking. I’d get myself cleansed later if I needed to. There were other ways besides the services of a priest.

“We need to get moving,” I said. I nodded toward the bridge. “Now we’ve buried the poor bastard who built that, it should be safe enough to cross it. Should be, mind. Your chimera warded?”

Olliard nodded. “Of course. I had her protections renewed only a few weeks ago by a mage in Isengotta.”

With that, there wasn’t much more to say. Olliard took another ten minutes to fuss over his beast, and I watched him add a few more small baubles to the array of charms tied either to the hog-headed creature’s harness or woven into her coarse fur. Surreptitiously, I closed my eyes and inspected the wards with my auratic senses. They weren’t the best work, but they were professionally done. They’d serve.

Lisette watched me the entire time Olliard was tending to Brume. I grew annoyed with the attention and glared at her. “What?” Burying the troll had been foul work, and between that and my taste of the creature’s dying trauma I wasn’t in the best of moods.

“You’re an adept,” she said. “You’ve been trained to wield your soul.”

I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Common enough.”

Lisette shook her head slowly, more in thought than denial. “Yours isn’t some layman’s talent. You knew about curses and burial rites, and a moment ago... you were feeling Brume’s wards. I sensed you doing it.”

I shifted, uncomfortable. Damn clerics, I thought. “Surprised?”

“Yes,” the novice said honestly. “You don’t look the type. Sorcerer or warlock?”

I carefully set my face into a mask and averted my eyes, not wanting to give anything away. It was true enough I didn’t much look like your typical mage; I am tall and broadly built, much of my weight a swordsman’s hard-earned muscle. I keep my copper hair long to help hide the glint of gold in my eyes, and life on the move doesn’t lend to regular grooming. My skin is sun-tanned and covered in the sort of dense accumulation of scars only gained through a life of physical violence. I’ve got a long face with a heavy chin, deep-set eyes, and a nose many-times broken.

I don’t often get a look at myself, but I knew well enough what I looked like. A brute. A killer. Hard-edged. There were plenty of words for it, but it all boiled down to the same thing — I didn’t much look like the type to know my way around an arcane conundrum. Or the type who’d even know words like conundrum.

Lisette’s inquiry was a dangerous question. Sorcerers are common enough, and anyone with even a passing talent at magic could be described as such, usually if they’re untrained or gained their power from some natural source. Warlocks are another matter entire. Not all are evil or draw their power from diabolical sources — the only prerequisite was to have gained power through some sort of ritualized pact or bargain — but the word still carried a certain stigma. Especially when talking to someone trained among the clergy.

I decided for a half truth. “I knew a magician back before the war.” There was only one war in recent history I could be referring to, so I didn’t need to elaborate. “A proper wizard. He taught me some tricks.”

Lisette’s frown deepened. “He taught you sacred burial rites?”

I folded my arms and suppressed a cough. “Sure. The magi are supposed to be all-knowing, right?” I couldn’t quite keep the questioning note from my voice.

I could tell the girl wasn’t convinced, but Olliard (bless him) chose that moment to approach and clap his hands together, startling both of us. “I think we should be set! I put a few of the charms I bought last time I had the chance on the cart, too. I’ve heard that wild magic can stick to objects as well as people.”

I nodded. “Good idea. Cart’s made of wood, and dead matter collects od like you wouldn’t believe.”

Olliard blinked in interest, his owlish eyes widening behind his foggy lenses. “Is that so? I’d never heard of this.”

The apprentice nodded, tucking her chin on her knees. “It’s the detail. Whoever made it had an exquisite hand. Who gave it to you?”

None of your business. I bit down on the thought before it became words. The girl hadn’t done anything to deserve my anger, or create it. “An ally," I said. "One who knows curses."

Lisette frowned. “Curses?"

Olliard spoke up from the driver’s bench. “That’s enough, Lisette. Leave the man in peace.”

The apprentice blushed and cast an apologetic look at her master. The three of us fell into silence and the cart rolled along through the Irkwood, taking us deeper into the wild dark.

I covered the ring with my other hand and tried to keep the pain from showing on my face.

“Lisette is right,” Olliard added without turning around. “You should rest. Your miraculous recovery aside, you need to keep up your strength. You too.” He looked over his shoulder at his apprentice. “Brume and I will keep watch.”

Lisette glanced nervously at the darkness beyond the lantern light, but nodded. “Yes, master.” She settled back against the side of the cart and closed her eyes. The doctor waited until her breathing had become regular before speaking again.

“Once you’re healed, Alken, what’s next for you? Not that I’d mind having a strong arm keeping me and the girl safe, but I imagine you have your own roads to walk.”

I closed my eyes, giving up the fight against sleep. “Suppose I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. How about you? What’s your business in this village we’re heading to?”

“I’m a traveling physician,” Olliard explained. “I wander here and there, offering my services where they are needed. I have a few places I visit semi-regularly. Caelfall is one such. Been most of two years since I’ve passed through, given, but I’ve known the people there, oh...” he rubbed at the wiry growth of hair on his chin. “Well. A long time. The preoster there is a good man.”

More priests, I thought sourly. Aloud I said, “and if they did have something to do with what happened to the troll?”

Olliard was quiet a while. When he finally spoke, his words were nearly a whisper. “Sometimes, good people do terrible things to protect the ones they love.”

I shifted to be closer to the doctor, leaning an arm over the side of the cart. No matter how I sat or lay down, no position wasn’t a torture. “You think the troll went fell? It happens, sometimes.”

Olliard shrugged and let out a tired sigh. “I don’t know. I try to not act without facts. Misunderstandings sometimes create the saddest of tragedies.”

I arched an eyebrow. “That why you didn’t just leave me to die, like your apprentice wanted?”

Olliard glanced at me over one shoulder, and there was slight reprimand in that look. “Lisette did not advocate to leave you to die. She is a kind-hearted girl, for all the horror she’s seen. She may growl, but she could no more leave another soul to suffer than the moons could fail to rise.”

“And what if she was right?” I asked, keeping my tone casual. “What if I was dangerous, and went on to hurt someone after you helped me?”

Olliard turned his eyes back to the road and didn’t reply for a while. Finally he said, “then it would be my responsibility to stop you, and make amends for my sin.”

“And you’d do it?” I asked. “Try to stop me?” I tried not to put any special emphasis on the word try. I was curious, not trying to intimidate the man.

“I would stop you,” Olliard said, very quiet. He spoke very calmly, without bravado or conceit.

I waited, but the doctor didn’t elaborate. Finally, in a lighter tone, he said, “time to get some rest. Don’t want you catching a fever now. Sleep. Doctor’s orders.” He turned back and flashed a grin. “Trust me, these wards are professionally done. No mischief will find you in your dreams.”

I eyed the old man warily, but was tired and sore enough not to bother arguing. I settled into the cart and, despite my better judgment, closed my eyes.

The doctor’s wards were good, that much was true. But it wasn’t forest spirits I was worried about. There were more dangerous things in the world, and a few charms and prayers weren’t going to be enough to hold them at bay.