Private Tales The Links That Bind Us

[Talus]

South of Vel Anir

Talus reigned his horse to the side and stop as they passed through the last of the trees at the edge of the grove. His blade was already drawn, fingers tight around the hilt as his gaze swept over towards the nearby field of wheat.

At the other end of the field he could spy a small city, though in truth it was more of a town than anything else.

Vel Inra. A township that had been founded several hundred years ago. A client of Vel Anir of course, the town had served as a trading and farming outpost since it's creation. Five or ten thousand people lived inside of the wooden walls of the city itself, though most of the community was transient by nature. Talus knew it well.

It was where most runaways went when they fled Vel Acadria.

He heard the sound of hoof beats behind him, his companion bursting from the grove. "There."

Talus called to the other Apprentice.

"They'll have headed towards Vel Inra." He and Daria had been tracking the runaways for nearly two days now. It was three of them this time, two boys and a girl. All three were apparently gifted in powerful magic, strong enough that the Academy wanted them back alive even though this was their second attempt at running.

"I doubt they'll have made it much farther." He commented dryly. "Not without help."

 

[Daria]

Daria pulled her horse to a stop, his nostrils flaring in protest over the heavy pace she had kept him set at. She eyed the town from the distance, frowning as she thought about what sort of 'help' the three runners could have gotten into so quickly.

Nothing legitimate, she supposed. They had recently been cracking down on those channels. Which meant this assignment was likely about to come to a close-- a relief, really. Her father would want to know what took her so long.

"Then let's grab them and get on with it," she told Talus, her voice low. She kicked her horse off without further word, riding him hard onward.

 

[Talus]

Talus looked after the girl for a brief moment.

He knew who she was, though it had shocked him to his core when he'd learned. Talus and the others had killed Igot Crane three months ago, and for him that had been the end of it.

When the Proctors had assigned him to this mission and told him the name of the person he'd been paired with he'd nearly spat out his drink. It had been rumored that Crane had more children, but because their classes were separated Talus had never known one was so close.

Daria Crane was her fathers daughter, that much he could tell from just her demeanor.

He'd managed to keep a straight face around her, focusing on the task ahead of them and nothing else. It was an important mission, and the sooner it was done the better.

Kicking his horse he quickly chased after her, the two Apprentice arriving at the gate of Vel Inra within just twenty minutes. Two guardsmen stood on either side of the gate, though as Daria and Talus slowed their horses they simply waved them through.

"Let's find an Inn." He told Daria. "Three running children will have been noticed."

 

[Daria]

Daria merely gave a nod, her eyes peeled as they rode forward. This town had twenty or so inns, all spread out amongst the populace. However if Daria was one to want to run away...

She would pick a location on the far side of the city. Away from Vel Acadria. To make for an easier escape. Having to move through buildings with Dreadlords on your tail was a tactical obstacle that would only get you cornered and caught and the gates shut down before you can reach it.

So she pushed them deeper in, shaking her head at Talus if he tried to pull up at any establishment before they were deep enough in. Finally they hit a street with an inn where she could see the farthermost gate. She pulled her horse to a stop and eyed the wall for a long moment. Talus was given a subtle nod.

She slid off her horse, petting it thrice while a stable boy came to fetch it.

"They'll be nearby," she told Talus once they were free of their beasts, pushing past him towards the inn.

 

[Talus]

There would be no argument from Talus on any of those points. Vel Inra was a town laid out like any other that owed it's Allegiance to Vel Anir; a fortress.

Even though its walls were wooden the buildings were built in quick succession with tight turning alleyways and only one single main road winding around the village itself. They managed to follow the path easily enough to the Inn.

Talus slipped off his horse a second after Daria, tossing a coin to the stable boy. "Make sure they're ready to go."

He told the boy as he followed the other apprentice.

As they walked through the door of the Inn Talus took note of the Inn's name, The Twice Buried. It was an interesting establishment, though like many others he'd seen. Tables, drunken fools, and a bar at the far end.

"Try being nice first." He commented as they approached the Innkeeper.

 

[Daria]

Daria blinked, her nostrils flaring out ever so slightly.

They approached the inn keeper, the man looking up from the bar he wiped down. He froze, a bit of color leaving his expression as he caught sight of the insignia on Talus' arm. Daria ignored his fear, standing tall and stiff as she stopped before him.

"We're looking for someone," she started, her voice flat and emotionless. "Two girls and boy. Blonde and brown hair. Twelve years old. Have you seen them?" She rested her hand on her pommel, gripping it.

There. Nice.

 

[Talus]

Talus glanced at Daria with a frown, shaking his head but adding nothing.

The Innkeeper stared for a moment, opening his mouth before snapping it shut and chewing on something that Talus had not seen. After a few seconds he shook his head slowly, sweat already beading slowly on his brow.

"Lots of children in the city, gonna have to be more specific."​

A frown touched Talus' face, though the response was one he could understand. "One has a scar beneath the eye, the boy."

His lips thinned in thought.

"They would not have much." The Innkeeper looked down and to the side.

He knew something.

 

[Daria]

Daria saw it. She didn't need her father's abilities to know a lie when she saw one.

The pressure began to increase in the inkeeper's head, subtle yet pressing. Just a sudden headache to signal a brooding storm.

"Telling us will make things easier. On everyone," came her thinly veiled threat.

Her attention pulled to the back door, where the staircase to the rooms laid.

"I'm afraid there's nothing to tell," came a shaky reply. The man grimaced, swallowing hard as a vein in his temple throbbed.

She took a step towards the door, her ears perked for squeaking floorboards. "There is always something to tell."

 

[Talus]

Blood dripped from the man's nose, his face scrunching slightly in confusion and denial. Talus glanced at him, then quickly to Daria.

His face contorted slightly, and then realization dawned on him. She was doing something. Most Apprentices kept their magic a secret from one another, at least as long as they could manage to anyway. He had absolutely no idea what Daria could do, but he knew what her father could do.

All too well in fact.

"Tell us." He interjected, playing the good guard. "No further trouble will come to you."

The Innkeeper looked to Talus in a panic. "I promise."

For a second Talus thought the man would keep quiet, but then suddenly he burst into a flurry of words.

"They came through here yesterday! Rented a room, but I swear they were gone this morning before the maids even came through!"​

 

[Daria]

Daria released the pressure, pushing past the man and the bar and letting herself into the dorm part of the inn.

Her foot steps rang heavy up the stairs. Then the sound of doors slamming into walls... some screaming ... a loud bang as locks were kicked through...

Panic grew in Daria's chest as one room after another turned up empty of three children.

--

 

[Talus]

Talus glanced after Daria, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head.

From his pocket he pulled a small bag of coins, untying it's top and glancing through as he grabbed a few silver galleons and tossed them onto the counter. "Apologies."

Technically there was no need to do such things. Dreadlords, even Apprentices, had the right to go wherever they pleased in such investigations. Yet goodwill was important, something that Talus' mentor had taught him over the last weeks.

Better to be loved than feared, though a combination of both was best.

Shaking his head Talus did not follow Daria. Instead he made his way through the common room. He spoke with people, asked quiet questions, until eventually he found a small trail that looked promising enough. Talk of a stable nearby with some stolen horses, two of them.

With a smile he followed Daria up the stairs to stop her rampage.

 

[Daria]

Daria stood over a window that looked out into the city. Her back was to the room, the high noon sun casting her shadow long across the room's floor. Subtle tremors rolled through her body, the girl rigid and deaf to the terrified sobs of a maid cowering in the corner of the room.

The tell tail footfall of Talus' approach was not acknowledged, Daria's fists clenched into themselves as she methodically... reigned... her body back in.

"Did the patrons say anything?" Came the usual monotone keel of her voice.

 

[Talus]

Talus held his scabbard in his hand, mostly because walking through the tiny hallways of a small city inn was a nightmare with it belted to his waste.

"Two horses, stolen the night before." Was the only quick and terse answer that Daria received.

His gaze swept over the room, then to the sobbing maid. His eyes slowly rolled again, mostly because he had expected this sort of behavior from her. This all could have been done far more quietly.

Briefly he wondered if she would kill anyone before the end of this.

"I doubt they've left the city yet." He said, quickly adding. "I think someone's hiding them, the horses are just a distraction."

The tactic was one he had encountered before.

 

[Daria]

Daria gave a subtle nod, her gaze trained on the far wall towards Vel Acadria ... before she turned on her heel and walked out.

She brushed passed Talus without a word, a wild tinge to her otherwise blank gaze. Quick steps brought her down the stairs and back to their horses, the girl not waiting for him to keep pace with her. She only spoke once the stable boy scattered away, her reigns gathered in her hands as she pulled herself up.

"Then let them think they've got us," she delivered evenly, her gaze scanning the street for the eyes peeled on them. She sat tall in her horse, her back pin straight. "Onward to Vel Lina," she announced with a touch more volume than necessary.

 

[Talus]

Talus grabbed the reigns of his horse, looking up at Daria for a moment before he nodded.

It was a clever enough gambit, though it was a gambit.

There was a possibility that the runaways would take their words and get out of here in any one of a hundred directions. Hell, if the people helping them were smart they could even make them disappear for a few weeks.

The chance here was that they would come up from ground, and then Daria and Talus could circle back and grab them as they fled the city.

It would mean they would need a more quiet entrance next time, but such things weren't impossible.

With a heave Talus pulled himself back into the saddle of his horse.

 

[Daria]

Daria waited impatiently for him to mount, her hands twisting circles around her reigns as she met the frightened stare of a shop keeper hovering at their threshold. Seemed word got around fast.

Good.

The woman shied back from her heavy gaze, stepping back into the shop as if the shadows could protect her. Daria's gaze fell one by one onto each set of eyes that openly gaped at the two Dreadlord apprentices. And one by one, each person shied back.

As if they were a plague.

The sound of Talus's feet catching their place in the saddle pulled her attention away from the crowd. With no further word, she kicked her horse off. Their departure was well witnessed, a fact which she would count in their favor. She rode them out beyond city limits, only stopping once they hit a grove that would mask them from any lingering attentions.

"They've either hit the underground railway, or hit a stoke of help." Neither were good for them, though the former was certainly tricker.

Almost impossible, actually.

But she wouldn't think on that.

 

[Talus]

Talus did not unmount from his horse, instead looking around and observing the grove that they had stopped in.

Many of these smaller forests had been planted three centuries ago. They were part of a peace treaty with the Elves, something about maintaining the nature of the earth. Talus remembered learning about them while studying at the Academy.

As Daria spoke he nearly missed it, too focused on the thoughts of the past. After he realized that she had spoken to her Talus cleared his tghroat. "Probably the former."

He guessed quietly.

"Vel Inra is a trade hub." Talus had no idea if Daria had hunted runaways before, but it was best to share his thoughts out loud anyway. "The Underground runs through here."

The Proctors had been sure of that for years. Unfortunately rooting them out had proven to be difficult, if not impossible. "We need to wait for them to come from ground."

 

[Daria]

Having her worst fears confirmed did little for her in the moment. Her throat tightened, a flash of anxiety spiraling through. Thoughts swirled in rapid circles, images of her father and his disappointment echoing through her.

Not an option.

"Then we will wait." For as long as it took. She wasn't letting them slip away that easily. Her fingers tightened on her reigns, her body rigid one moment before forced into relaxing a little the next.

Her eyes continued to skim the wall of the city through the treeline, sharp and awaiting. Although finding them wouldn't work quite like that.

"Do you have any experience smoking them out?" She was not beyond asking for his help.

 

[Talus]

Talus nodded. "They'll eventually come out on their own."

He suspected that Daria wouldn't like the qualifier of 'eventually'. He had a sense that she wanted to do this quickly with as little delay as possible. The apprentice couldn't blame her for that fact, after all the faster things got done the better it looked.

"Vel Inra is too close to the Academy to stay here safely." He explained. "They'll want to get to Alliria or Elbion."

The former was much more likely. "But that means they'll have to move. So we make them think that we've already gone."

His lips thinned. "Even if it takes a week."

 

[Daria]

Her gaze snapped to his, her lips thinned at the qualifier.

Her nostrils flared as she took in a breath, and then she looked away again, her gaze dragging slowly back across the city's wall.

A silence fell from her. In the two days he had traveled with her this was nothing new. She had been silent, unmoving. Unresponsive too, until he came to find her in the abandon room on the inn's second floor. Now there was a sharpness about her, clearly born from the fact that the runaways had successfully eluded their grasp.

Her deep, methodical breaths were all that fell from her as they surveyed the moment. And then she spoke again.

"What's your success rate on retrieving them once they've hit this outsider hand."

 

[Talus]

"I've never failed in retrieving one of the students." It was not the answer she was looking for exactly, but the only one he could give.

Talus had only been assigned this duty three times before, this being the fourth. Capturing runaways was not exactly his forte. His magic was ill suited for pursuit, though the Proctors didn't exactly care much about that fact.

"They'll come out." He assured her quietly. "They don't have anywhere else to go."

Staying in the city was simply not an option.

Silence pulled across them for a few moments, minutes turning into an hour before turning into another. Then eventually he cleared his throat and spoke. "We need to get to a farmhouse, acquire some clothes."

Then they could return to the city. Without waiting for her to agree he pulled his horse to the side, leaving the grove and heading towards a nearby farmhouse.

 

[Daria]

Daria watched the wall for a moment more, then nudged her horse after him.

There would be no admitting that this sort of mission was a first for her. Tracking and apprehending were skills she had been well prepared with, but there was undeniably a bit of fluster that arose from her first attempt doing it.

Her father would be waiting, and the report she gave him would be the difference between a word of approval or utter, elongated pain.

If this apprentice had not yet failed on a task like this, then she would listen to him.

Unreservedly.

She pulled up besides him as they approached a farmhouse, the smoke in the stack signalling life inside. The smell of cooked meat hit her stomach and sent it twisting, but she ignored it for the presence of the clothesline. Several things were pinned drying before the side widow of the house. She slipped off her horse and walked straight for them.

 

[Talus]

There was no such thing as theft for Dreadlords, not really anyway.

Just about the only time someone complained about one of their kind stealing was when they did it to the nobility. Even then it was ignored most of the time, a consequence of who they were and the station they held. Most chose not to abuse the privelage, if only to keep the ire away from themselves.

Talus snapped up some of the rags these peasants called clothes, stripping himself of armor and small cloth before Daria.

He did not care much for modesty.

Within just a few moment the Dreadlords Apprentice had dawned the peasants clothes. He even took a hat that was hanging from an ax driven into a nearby tree stump. A smile flickered across his face for just a brief second as he caught his own reflection in a window in the barn. Is this what ordinary looked like?

Stuffing his things into the saddlebag of his horse he whistled to Daria to signal that it was time to go.

With their…disguises they'd be able to move back I to Vel Inra, this time more quietly. Talus hoped.

 

[Daria]

Both were changed without much fan fare, the world given Daria's back as she stripped and fussed with the thin cotton of a dress. Peasants didn't usually have more than an outfit or two to spare, forcing her into the clothing of the female persuasion.

Any annoyance with the material between her legs was curbed but the fact that she would blend in better for it. If there was any assumption that Daria's back would be spared the marks of old lashings due to nepotism, a simple glance would set that matter straight.

She was not spared.

No one was.

The sack-like dress was cinched at her waste with her sword belt. She turned to him and blinked at the hat. She reached for the piercing in her lip and slid it out, tucking it into a pouch on her saddle as she mounted. Speaking of which. You ever wanted to see a Dreadlord flustered?

Stick her in an ankle long dress and have her try and mount a horse. Her nostrils flared, no sense of modesty as her cloak was finally tossed over her lap. She glanced behind her, feeling the heavy gaze of a teenage girl staring wide-eyed from the window. Daria held it, then kicked off.

"How would you go about catching them?" She asked, her tone dragging.

 

[Talus]

It was a question that Talus had asked himself about half a dozen times on these missions, and one that was not easily answered.

The Proctors had long since wondered how the Underground actually functioned, whether or not they used signals or even met. It was a complicated web meant to protect the innocent magic users to Vel Anir, or so they said anyway.

Talus was still not entirely sure that being a Dreadlord was all that bad.

Sure they were beaten, yelled at, even pseudo tortured, but once they graduated they were some of the most powerful and privileged people in the Land. Wasn't that worth it? Talus honestly couldn't decide. "We act as part of the Underground."

The idea had come to him a few days ago.

"Escaped students returned to help." He was sure it would work if they did it right.