Open Chronicles The Unlikely Pair

[VigiloConfido]

Anima walked to the edge of the lake. Stood in the same spot as she had been earlier. And with a soft groan she carefully sat down. Set her uninjured hand on the thigh guard of her wounded leg. Some pain now. More in her leg than in her stomach or hand. A quiet chuckle as she felt it. The caressing sting. Like bladed silk.

Peter sat down next to her.

And they just watched the waters of the lake gently flowing with the whims of the wind and lapping calmly against the shore and gracefully touching their boots and receding back out only to come again some moments later. They watched as the red and the orange and the yellow of the sunset shifted and rolled with the quiet pace of the waters. The lake burned as it did every sunset. Only today did it have company. A dance of fire and passion, shared unknowingly by the lake and the town. Things which required witness to make it so.

"Come with me," Anima said.

"I can't," Peter said.

Still, they stared out over the lake.

"There is nothing here for you now," she said.

"There is."

She looked at him. He kept staring out over the lake.

"Iron Lake needs me," he said. "Now, more than ever."

"What will you do?"

He breathed through his nose. Let it out. Contemplated for a while. Said, "It needs a man with a sword arm. Several, more likely. But I can be one. I can..." A furrowing of his brow. Stoicism bracing against sorrow and guilt. "I can do what needs to be done, if it needs doing. I can guard against something like this as best I can. So these people can live their lives in peace."

"You're willing to do violence on their behalf. Even though you don't want to."

"Yes. There's no escaping it. Foolish, to think we could. They need someone to protect them. There won't always be a mercenary in town."

Anima reached over and placed her injured hand on his shoulder. He looked at her. She said, a low and quiet whisper, "You are a good soul, Peter. Something I am not."

A quiet moment. A realization. He said, "You're talking different. Normal."

She smiled. A weak and shameful thing. And she leaned toward him and whispered into his ear and leaned back. Watching him.

He regarded her strangely after she told him, but said simply, "I see."

The breeze and the light splash of the water and the loud crackling of the fires in town behind them. Blood from her hand, soaking slowly into his shirt as she held his shoulder.

"I cannot stay."

"Sorry to hear it," he said.

Another moment's passing.

"May I ask you something?" she said.

"Yes."

"May you stay with me until the sun has set?"

"I will."

And they sat. Together. Until the fires in the sky and in the lake and in the town faded.

 

[Uhfred]

Udalof stayed for a short while to assist with situating the townspeople to living in the manor for the time being. He returned to the smoldering town and began to look for a surviving criminal. He intended to root out and butcher any remaining outlaws in the province. To do so, he needed one of them. And so he searched, any surviving enemy would suffice.

 

[VigiloConfido]

Anima left as the night fell.

* * * * *​

Peter watched her go. She said she wouldn't need any help with her wounds. Just stood up once the sun had set and walked away. Only a brief look back.

There wasn't much Peter could do in the Baron's manor. The bandits hardly left any wounded. The huddled mass of survivors. The Baron Regis looking as grim as Peter had ever seen him, his servants preparing small meals and impromptu sleeping arrangements for the survivors. The mercenary Udalof brought in a few stragglers to the manor, vacant faces of horror, eyes blank and ravaged by fright. A sad sight, that the whole of Iron Lake's people now fit comfortably inside the manor.

It was only by the grace of the gods that a short rain fell soon after night had come. Quenching what fires yet remained.

But Peter couldn't sleep.

He returned to his tavern, the building blackened and only half standing. And where his upstairs bedroom had collapsed, he found his guardsman's sword among the ruins. By some miracle the blade had survived. He sheathed it in a leather loop on his belt and walked back out into the town.

Peter set about to dragging the bandit bodies into a collected pile on the dirt road. There was big cluster of them just outside his tavern by the body of their leader, but there were others scattered throughout the village. When the morning came, he'd grab some of the living miners and get these bodies out of town and burned. They'd not waste sweat burying them.

Peter wiped his brow once he piled up ten bodies from the cluster. The moon coming out from behind the rainclouds.

And a crow landed nearby the bodies. Looking about curiously. Regarding Peter then. Cawing once.

Peter walked over to another bandit body. There was a line of them here, six it seemed, and bows on the ground. Archers. Peter bent down and grabbed the wrists of one that looked to have been slain by a pickaxe wound to the chest.

But the 'dead' archer groaned. He was alive.

"Gods!" Peter said, letting go and jumping back.

 

[Uhfred]

When Udalof heard the news he came with haste to the site. He found the living man there on the ground, bleeding and burned. He grabbed him by the hair and got in his face. "Answer my questions and I'll ease your passing. Are there any more of you out there?"

 

[VigiloConfido]

Peter snapped his hand to his sword. A long dead reflex, resurrected. But it wasn't necessary. He had only been startled, and the grievously wounded bandit archer posed no threat.

And better yet, the mercenary Udalof came rushing up. Roughly grabbed and spoke to the bandit. Peter admired the young man. He'd heard while in the Baron's manor that he had accepted no reward for the rescue of Derrin, and had asked for none for his heroic defense of Iron Lake. The word 'hero' seemed bandied all too often these days, but here, to Udalof, it was earned. And though Peter was not nearly as young as him, he would have to do his best to protect Iron Lake in Udalof's stead once the mercenary moved on.

Peter let his hand fall from his sword's hilt and stood by the pile of bodies he'd amassed and watched.

The wounded bandit coughed and sputtered. Blood from his mouth. Eyes glazed. He said weakly, "No..."

And still. Still Udalof seemed driven to aid Iron Lake. Most, if not every other mercenary, would only consider it once they felt the weight of a sack of coin in their hand. And it was that sense of selfless service that Peter wished to emulate, now that he had taken up the sword once again.

The crow cawed.

Peter looked.

It stood there. Now on top of the pile of the bodies. Staring right at Peter. A faint pale blue glow in its eyes.

The flapping of wings. All around. A chorus of harsh caws.

A rush of air, like a gale wind, behind Peter.

And he whirled around in fright. Watched with trepidation the murder of crows descending from the night sky and gathering and swirling about at the ground level, flying so fast and so neatly as to be wholly unnatural. A black mass of them forming, swirling faster and coalescing together, the specks of pale blue from their eyes disappearing. Feathers and wings and beaks congealed together, taking a new form, all becoming part of a whole. And the blackness leaked away, like ink spilled from a vial.

And she stood there. Some few paces from Peter. Smiling with delight.

Khorvayne.

The crow on the pile of bodies leaped into flight and flew into her outstretched right hand and morphed with a puff of black fog and the sound of a blade slicing through the air into a gruesome scythe in her hand.

"Hello Peter," she said. "A pleasure to meet you. My new...champion."

Her scythe pointed toward the pile of bodies. Tendrils of visible darkness seeping from the bodies. Stealing away into the scythe.

And she extended her left hand toward the horrified Peter. An open hand. A beckoning hand. An inviting hand. And strands of darkness swirled up from his feet and wrapped themselves around his legs like snakes and slithered up his body as he yelled and cried out and wrapped around his body entire. Smothering him completely in an embrace of dark, until he was but a silhouette of himself. The man vanished within seconds.

And the silhouette of Peter shrank down to the size of a small orb and floated into Khorvayne's hand. Hovered above her palm. And she clutched it with the tips of her fingers.

A glance. To Udalof. Another smile. And she said, "Enjoy the night."

And Khorvayne's body exploded back into the murder of crows. A second rush of wind and lingering wisps of black fog as the flock flew up and away into the night sky from whence it came.

 

[Uhfred]

Udalof watched frozen in shock for a few seconds. Too long. He didn't react fast enough to save Peter from the Crow Witch. He couldn't do anything on his own after that.

He grabbed the bandit by his hair and dragged him all the way to the manor. From there he took a length of rope, tied one end around the bandit's ankles and the other to a secure anchor before tossing the bandit over the edge of the roof. He would hang there, head down, until he told one of the men or women if there were any more bandits out there.

After that he took off running to the road, he had to find the skin-changer. He had to find her because she was the only source of information on dark magic, which was undoubtedly what was seen when Peter was taken. He followed the subtle sourness in the air left by those who use dark magic. He learnt this during several occasions in which he hunted dark sorcerers and wizards as well as witches and alchemists and necromancers in particular.

He followed this trail, this faint trail, that could very well be the only chance he had at finding this Crow Witch. When the apparition came, he had felt afraid, for the first time since he was nine years of age, he was afraid. Afraid of the dark, unholy power in the air during the visitation and even lingering a while afterwards. He had to find the skin-changer, he had to find Anima.

 

[VigiloConfido]

A campfire burned hours away from Iron Lake. South along the road, a small clearing off to the side.

Anima sat beside it. The meager fire. It crackled, tiny and orderly. Paling to the chaos that had consumed Iron Lake. No heightened emotion. No instigation of change and discovery. No desires made to surface. Merely a campfire. The quiet and minute turning of gathered wood to ash.

The blade of her underwrist knife lay in the fire. The edges of the metal taking on the glow of heat.

Somewhere in the surrounding forest, a wolf howled. A far distant sound. Other howls answered the call, and Anima glanced with a meek smile in the direction of the noise. How lovely. That even some beasts should know and crave companionship. The value therein. The unspoken truth of the longing for shared suffering. The sweetness of commiseration. The inherent closeness in witnessing the withering of life and light together.

She looked back to the fire. Gazed into it.

And she undid the clasps of her leather cuirass and took it off and laid it to the ground and did the same with her punctured thigh guard. She reached for the handle of her underwrist knife and pulled it from the fire with her uninjured left hand and gingerly lifted the bottom of her black shirt with her right and pressed the flat of the blade to the wound in her stomach.

A soft hiss of flesh. And she laughed. The delight of pain. Subdued as it was, for her flesh could withstand heat moreso than most others. The gift given by virtue of her father's blood had not yet faded.

She kept the heated blade pressed to her skin until finally some strands of steam began to rise. And she lifted the blade away and looked. A band of gnarled flesh where once the wound had been, which in turn would heal in the weeks to come.

Dried blood. Clinging to her stomach below the wound. Staining her pants and her underwear. Remnants of the battle. Tiny, cracking tokens of remembrance. The taste of Peter's valor, his dedication to protect his home.

Anima touched the dried blood on her stomach. Let it break and fall and tumble from her body to the forest floor as her fingers glided over the fragments. The death and turning to dust of that which gave her life. Much like ash.

A lonely smile as she watched.

The fading away. Of all things.

Beautiful. To behold. In its own solemn way.

 

[Uhfred]

He ran, tirelessly he ran to find the skin-changer. The potency of the sour air, the telltale sign of a dark magic user, grew stronger as he closed in. His footsteps were swift, and they were quiet, not perfectly silent, but quiet. He ran along the road, searching for her, and Peter's only known chance.

He found her by the fire, treating her injuries. He paid no heed to the fact that her stomach and leg were bare, he simply ran up and stopped when he reached the fire.

"Skin-changer, I don't know if you will, but we need your help, or your knowledge at least. A Crow-Witch, an apparition of a woman whose body was formed by crows enveloped Peter the innkeeper, when they dispersed he was no longer there. It was dark magic skin-changer, and you are the only one I know of who can tell us what happened."

 

[VigiloConfido]

A voice. Familiar. And a presence, coming into the light of the campfire.

Anima lowered her shirt and glanced up. The mercenary, Udalof. Unexpected. An initial thought, immediately dispelled, that they were walking in parallel, heading the same direction out of the Iron Lake, and he was simply joining her beside the fire. It seemed not. Ever a man driven by profession, it appeared he had been contracted for another job.

Curious, though. His words. The mention of crows. Dark magic.

She listened to what he had to say. Spoke once he was finished. "Hello, Udalof."

A disquieting thought, accompanied by the taste of citrus in her mouth. It gave her pause. And her eyes drifted down and away from Udalof and she stared into the fire.

Mother?

Unlikely. Yes, unlikely. Of course there were many mages throughout Arethil. Many strange men and women who had come to talk with Mother in Elbion, in their cabin in the woods after, and many more who had not. Yes. Many practitioners. Secret brotherhoods and sisterhoods for those who were bonded by their love of the dark. A passionate eagerness to share and learn from one another. To relate. The camaraderie of the shunned.

Yes. The practitioners of dark magic were many, and the world was rife with coincidences. Troubling, that she had experienced a vision today, and this apparent taking of Peter at the end of the same.

A comforting thought. Would not have Mother come for her, if she had been so near? Surely. But this 'Crow-Witch' had not. It would seem simply another misfortune to befall Iron Lake, a compounding of tragedy upon the town that once knew only peace and honest, if dull, work. Between this Crow-Witch and Mother, a similarity in method, yes, but a certain difference in motivation.

Anima blinked. Once. Twice. She didn't know how long she had been thinking.

And she shook her head. "You told him he should come with you. Yes. You did. But Peter had more of himself to sacrifice for the sake of his home, didn't he? His white star...not entirely smothered by the black. And there is admiration for that, isn't there? But moreso, love." She sighed. "Love for what he was willing to do. The marring of his soul. And it is a sweet thing, when you are so marred yourself, to lay eyes upon another who is as you are. To be in their presence. To know, and have known them."

She pulled her pants down to her knees and spun the heated blade around in her hand twice. "Peter will be missed. And you will long for him, won't you?"

Dried blood from her stomach wound staining her underwear and both of her legs and dried blood from her thigh wound staining more of her right leg. Messy, yes, but not grievous, owing to her armor. Only some minor oozing from the arrowhead puncture in her flesh. She pressed the heated blade to the wound in her leg.

And she looked back up to Udalof as the blood and flesh hissed quietly. "There are many practitioners of the dark. And they come and go as they please, like many other mages. Yes, you've learned some things, your Masquerade and your bale fire, meager as they are. Gifts from your Mother. Small tokens of love, when that was such a thing. But these gifts will not aid you in finding Peter, will they?"

Steam. And she lifted the blade from her thigh. Gnarled flesh, like on her stomach. Good. "And so you sit beside the fire. Watching a small piece of the world burn. And there is beauty in the witnessing. The sole act of agency against the inevitable. Yes. A tragic beauty."

Another glance up to Udalof. "Isn't there?"

 

[Uhfred]

"I have no patience for your cryptic words. Peter is needed by the people of Iron Lake, and he was just kidnapped by a witch calling him her 'champion' and somesuch mysteries. Can you tell me what happened and who did this or not?"

Yes, a man of profession, but not entirely. He was one who valued chivalry despite his own despicable upbringing and unholy acts. He was not so attached to profession as he was to the safety of people. He didn't seek atonement or forgiveness, neither was possible, the past was the past and nothing could change that. No, perhaps it was death that he sought, the final blackness that awaited everything on the earth. Perhaps he sought to die, and deceived even himself with the guise of chivalrous act.

 

[VigiloConfido]

Yes, it would be another lonely night, wouldn't it?

She did not wish Peter ill. No, not in the slightest. She harbored nothing but love for him. For inviting her in, for allowing her the solemn and joyous delight of witnessing his fall, and for the joining with her in the dark thereafter.

Dismay, of course, at the news of Peter's fate, so soon after they had parted. But what was there to do? Neither she nor Udalof had the aptitude to track the Crow-Witch he spoke of. She being but a novice in Mother's art, and he having sought her out.

It might have been touching, Udalof seeking her out. But he had offered her nothing, save an angry push against a cavern wall, and still that was in service to his profession moreso than a revealing of self. And so his arrival by the campfire was plain and flat, inspiring only indifference. His manner akin to a butcher searching out a misplaced tool, such that he might get back to the task of butchering. Perhaps that was the bitter secret men of profession veiled. The seeing of others as tools, obstacles, burdens, and the like. All stemming from a latent and undefined fear of closeness. Overt shyness masked by a desperately assumed sense of duty.

A lonely night, indeed. Black and formless would be her sleep, lacking dreams.

Anima pulled up her pants and rocked her body from one side to the other to get the pants back up to her waist. She set the blade back onto the campfire again to heat it. Looked at her injured hand. Judged how best to go about cauterizing the small wound, or if such a measure were even necessary.

She looked into the fire.

"You wish Peter well, even if you can do nothing to save him."

A small shrug.

"And you are sorry for sounding cryptic, aren't you? You...do not wish to be so intentionally."

She blinked. Adjusted herself to sit cross-legged now before the fire. Placed her hands delicately into her lap, her injured right on top.

"Goodnight, Udalof."