Chosen One Protective Services

Rusty woke with a start. Somehow he’d managed to sleep while he was on the flying platform. And as he opened his eyes, and blinked in the greenish light, he saw that he wasn’t alone. The bundles to either side of him were stirring, looking around with curiosity at the walls of fog parting around them.

A creak drew his attention, and the view shifted. He looked up to the central front of the structure, saw Balangor rising to one knee, gripping two straps woven into the platform as he scrutinized the ground below.

The platform shifted, and Rusty realized that this was what had woken him. It was tilting now, starting to circle and dive, and the shifting wind combined with the feel of the hides shifting on the ivory made him cling to the blankets. He quickly realizing that the most dangerous part of any flight was the landing.

As the platform swung around, Rusty could see orange lights through the fog, sizzling near the ground. It looked like fire, only brighter. He remembered his brother telling him about how they’d used flares to signal aircraft in Korea, and this was probably a magical version of the same thing.

The platform kept moving, and for a second the green sun blazed down, forcing him to squint. Only a second. They were in shadow a moment later, with something blocking out the sun. He opened his eyes wide, got a quick look, then squinted again, just in time. All too quickly the shadow was gone. East, I think, he thought, reviewing the picture in his mind. Some sort of broken tower?

“One tower here, and we just came from a tower to the south… Two Towers? Didn’t we read that book?” Roz asked, popping in next to him.

“Move over, I’m trying to look,” Rusty mouthed.

Roz disappeared and Rusty felt, rather than saw Roz settle on his head. “Okay, that’s a neat trick,” he told the familiar.

“Thanks! I think I’m figuring out nerves.”

“You’re pretty good at getting on mine, sometimes,” Rusty joked. It made him feel better. He was cold even despite the clammy warmth and humidity, his bladder was aching, and his throat was dry. He was looking forward to just getting to the ground, taking a leak, and resting from this long and boring flight.

That was his first mistake.

“What’s that?” Alice asked. “Birds?”

Rusty looked over in time to see something black and narrow fly past, upwards.

Then two more followed.

Rusty’s eyes widened. He’d seen those before. They had feathers all right, but they weren’t birds! “Arrows!” he screamed.

The platform lurched, but too late. And Rusty felt vibrations all along his front as the second volley found their range, and only a few feet from him, a spray of arrowheads and shafts poked through the stretched hides like mushrooms growing instantly over a time-lapse film documentary.

The others were screaming now, and the world blurred, but not before Rusty got a look at a wrecked campsite, with bodies lying strewn across crumpled cloth tents, and shallow craters that held charred bones wearing the remnants of black and white uniforms. Large stalagmites jutted from the ground in a loose, broken wall around the ruined camp, and from behind it, long-limbed horned figures were stepping out, throwing off black and white cloaks, and shooting arrows.

Worse, the mud around the craters was churning, and he knew the shapes rising from under it all too well.

Grach. Many grach.

“BRACE!” Balangor roared over the wail of the wind, and the ivory bones of the platform groaned and crackled as the hides flexed. A few arrows were ripped free, tumbling as the flying device tilted even further and slewed to the side… and then Rusty’s view was replaced by fog.

“QUIET!” Balangor shouted again, as the wet, clammy air slapped against them.

Rusty shut his mouth. Ken and Alice fell silent, too.

But Gunther kept screaming, and now his words registered in Rusty’s head. “My ass! They shot me in my ass! I’m hit in my ass!”

It would be funny, if Rusty hadn’t caught an arrow himself. And he remembered exactly what that pain felt like. And oh god, Gunther was shot. He could die! He could die and Balangor would eat his soulr…

“QUIET!” Balangor roared again, and Rusty saw Gunther bite down on the cloth to try and muffle his choked sobs. Balangor spoke fast and just loud enough for them to hear him over the wind. “I don’t have the height to go higher, not here. I’ll have to bring us around again, out of the fog. Get free of your cocoons enough to look over the sides, and throw what spells you can at them. We just need to survive one pass, then we’ll be out. Get ready!”

“We don’t have time to panic! We need to line up a spell!” Roz said, grabbing Rusty’s cheeks and tugging at them. Even though Rusty knew it was all in his head, he could feel the tiny fingers pressing into his face. “What can we do? What can we do with holes or memories?”

“We can’t use—” Rusty shut up, and thought at Roz. We can’t use memory! Balangor’s right there!

“Alice!” Ken shouted. “There’s stalagmites all over! If you turn one of them into gravel, it’ll fall on some archers!”

“Okay!”

“Gunther, do you have it together enough to tear some bowstrings?”

Gunther groaned. Rusty shot a look. His face was pale, and his eyelids were fluttering. “I don’t think he can!” Rusty shouted at Ken.

“Okay, Rusty, can you put holes in the bowstrings?” Ken asked.

“Um…” Rusty thought, furiously. They’d done a good amount of training with their runes, but not enough to know them thoroughly. The wizards had kept them busy almost every waking moment with classes. But Rusty had found out that the harder the material, the more chakra it took to put holes in it. And bowstrings were pretty soft, compared to stone or wood. But then there was distance to consider… “I can get a group that isn’t too far apart, but I don’t know if I’ll have enough chakra for two shots!” he called back.

“It’ll have to do!” Ken said.

Then there was no more time. The platform began its turn, and Rusty and Ken and Alice struggled free of the bags, and pushed their aching muscles to crawl across and peer over the edges. Their robes flapped in the winds, and Rusty hung on for dear life as he watched tree branches pass by a mere few feet away. Balangor hadn’t turned until he’d absolutely had to. The carpet rose as it turned, but yeah, he could see it was nowhere near enough to clear the foliage. Then they were away from the fog and jostled as the wizard corrected and finished the turn, and Rusty watched the fog thin, knowing full well that the second it did he’d have quite a few creatures trying to put sharp wood through his eyes.

It was pretty good motivation to concentrate and visualize. And putting aside his pain and exhaustion, shoving fear into the back of his mind, he fumbled for the dark gray letters and started slotting them in. Perfect memory gave him an advantage on timing, and he knew he’d have targets by the time he finished.

He wasn’t wrong.

The second the flying device broke fog, arrows whistled under them, and Balangor grunted as a stray shot nicked his arm. The platform wobbled, and Rusty swallowed as he saw a second volley go through the place they’d just been, screaming like damned souls over his head.

But he saw targets. They’d assembled on top of the stalagmite fences, and that made it easier. He worked his will, and finished the last few letters, while he stared at the largest group on their right flank..

Create holes in the bowstrings of all within sight

Committed chakra: 15/44

Cost: 15 chakra.

Remaining free chakra: 14/44

“YES!” he shouted, as the horned figures on the wall sent arrows wildly in all directions, then scrambled down, dropping or stowing their now broken bows as they went. But arrows were still coming down, just fewer, and he backed up barely in time as a few punched through the hides right where he’d been lying.

From behind him, he heard Alice say “Got one! Oh, that was pretty cheap!”

“Keep it up, then!” Ken yelled.

“Almost there… ahead!” Balangor barked. “Kill that one!”

Rusty looked up to see a tree looming out of the mist, as Balangor pulled up and to the side. And about a hundred feet above their level, a single figure stood, setting arrow to their bow and taking aim. “I’ve got them!” he yelled, and started preparing the spell.

Ninety feet. Eighty. Seventy, and he watched the black and white cloak fall away.

Revealing curly black hair,piercing green eyes, and a familiar face, as Ran Tan the Meril Jannesiva Dok stared back at them, lining up the arrow that would kill their wizard.

Rusty stared at her, as the letters fit together in his mind. They shook as he held them, grasped, and tried to complete. And he knew if he let them, then she’d die. She’d have a hole through her heart, and that would be that.

Time slowed, as he stared at her, and her gaze snapped to his, eyes widening. Fifty feet. Forty. They’d be past if she did nothing.

Don’t, he begged her, and the spell shattered, as he knew he couldn’t. He couldn’t kill someone he knew. He couldn’t kill someone he’d helped, who’d helped him back, even if she’d run out on him before it was done. He… He couldn’t be a hero. Not like this. It felt bad, and it felt wrong.

And maybe some of that got through, some of that showed in his eyes. Or maybe she felt the same way, because she jumped back instead, and no arrow came. They were through and past, and rising again.

“YES!” Ken shouted, and pounded the platform with one fist. “YES YES YES! WOO!”

Alice was laughing.

But Rusty had perfect memory, and now that they were past, he noticed that one thing had been missing from that panicked flight through a storm of death.

Gunther hadn’t made a noise. Not once through all of that.

Rusty crawled over, heart in his throat, and looked down at the now-unmoving form of Gunther, and the red, red stain that was spreading through the cocoon.

“Gunther’s hurt bad!” he yelled. “We need to stop!”

“Fool!” Balangor shouted. “If I do we all die! Heal him here, or not at all!”

Rusty felt anger fill him. Did Gunther’s life mean nothing to Balangor?

“Daddy-o, he’s not wrong. You saw how fast satyrs move,” Roz pointed out. “He can’t stop. Think, Russ.”

Rusty ground his teeth. “Help me get him out of the cocoon!” he called to the others, and Ken and Alice crawled over. Between the three of them they got Gunther unwrapped, as the platform rose above the trees and then the fog.

Rusty was hoping it wasn’t so bad. That it was more the pain and the jiggling of the carpet that had made Gunther pass out. That hope died as they got the cocoon opened and saw the bloody arrowhead sticking out of his lower abdomen, poking right through his robe. There was so, so much blood, and a constant flow oozing out of his belly.

“Oh no,” Alice whispered. “What… what do we do?”

Rusty felt. “He’s still got a pulse. Um. We need to stop the bleeding…” the arrowhead jiggled as the platform shifted in the air, and more blood flowed as the hole widened. “That needs to come out. But… oh man.”

“Yeah,” Ken said. “The second it comes out, way more blood follows. And he’s lost a lot. I can do something about that, maybe. Can you get the arrow out after I do that?”

Rusty thought. “Yes. Do it.”

Ken closed his eyes, and touched Gunther’s abdomen right above his underwear. And things moved under Gunther’s skin. The bones shifted, and the skin turned blue. “Do it fast!” he said.

Rusty concentrated, as he reached out and touched the arrow.

Replace the arrow shaft with one big hole.

Committed chakra: 15/44

Cost: 3 chakra.

Remaining free chakra: 11/44

The arrowhead fell away, as the shaft vanished. Blood oozed out from where it had been, but it was nowhere near the steady flow that it had been, before.

“Good!” Ken barked. “Rusty, get under him, left him up a little so I can bandage under. Alice, put pressure up top, bandage it. Remember the first aid class!”

Rusty did, every drawing on the wall and word out of Terathon’s mouth. This would help slow the bleeding, but… “He’s all torn up inside,” Rusty said. “He’ll keep bleeding!”

“Yeah, but that’s a problem for another minute. Rusty, help me out here!”

Rusty scooted around and grabbed Gunther by the shoulders, wobbling a bit as the wind caught him. Balangor had slowed at least, that was something. Gunther’s eyes fluttered open as Rusty lifted and he screamed, his voice higher than Rusty had ever heard, high-pitched and full of pain.

“Shit!” Ken said, and pushed wadded up cloth under him. “This’ll have to do.”

“My legs!” Gunther shrieked. “I can’t feel my legs!”

“Yeah, I made your waist bones so big that they’re compressing your blood vessels!” Ken said. “The flow’s cut off! But I can’t do that forever or you’ll lose your legs, and probably some guts, too! So if anyone’s got any ideas, now’s the time!”

Alice pushed on his wound from above, and Gunther shrieked. His eyes started to roll up in his head…

And Rusty had an idea. “Gunther, stay awake! We need you to fix yourself!” he slapped Gunther’s cheek, not too hard, about a four on the brotherly scale. “You need to cast a spell!”

“AAAahhhh, auhuh, hahhhuhhu,” Gunther sobbed, tears pouring from his eyes. “It hurts so bad! It hurts so… bad…”

“Focus! You’re all torn up inside, right? The flesh is TORN. And you’ve got the rune of TEAR!”

Gunther stared at him, mouth open, sobbing, but there was a blaze of hope in his eyes.

“FIX MY TORN FLESH!” Rusty yelled at him. “THAT’S THE SPELL! FIX MY TORN FLESH!”

Gunther screwed his eyes shut. He stayed that way, gasping and moaning, and his face was pale, so pale. For a second Rusty thought he’d gone unconscious, and it was only the tension in his neck and face, the clenched jaws, and the shaking that showed Rusty that he still lived.

And then he screamed.

“Versiegele meine Tränen!”

The second the words were out, he went limp in Rusty’s arms. And there was no need to wonder if it had worked, as Rusty felt the power radiating out from Gunther. Like rolling waves of heat from a stove suddenly ignited, it persisted for about five seconds, then was instantly gone.

“I’m putting his waist bones back to normal,” Ken said. “It took a lot to get a spell on him, so this is probably my last shot. Get ready in case this goes wrong.”

Gunther’s midsection shifted again. And when Alice pulled the bandage away, the skin was bare, the wound sealed.

Rusty felt himself sag in relief. He looked over to Balangor to give the good news…

…just in time to see light flaring around Balangor’s arm where he’d been grazed by an arrow, earlier. The wizard tossed a glittering thing over the edge of the platform, keeping his gaze forward.

He’d used a charm. He’d used a charm while Gunther was healing, to conceal that he’d been carrying a healing charm. That was the only explanation as to why he’d thrown it away, afterward.

Rusty watched as the wizard’s arm healed, and felt his lips tighten, and it was only exhaustion that kept him from doing something very, very stupid.

“That son of a bitch!” Roz burst out. “That tears it. We need… we can’t keep ignoring this. Rusty, my cat, this is the last straw. You KNOW they’re using us. You KNOW they’re not our friends.”

“Yeah, I do,” Rusty whispered, his words lost in the wind. “Now the question is, what do we do about it?”

He looked back to the others. Alice was hugging Ken, and Ken was struggling to push her off and wrap Gunther back up. Rusty smiled as his rage eased, put Gunther’s shoulders down gently, and went to get the other side of the unwrapped cocoon.

“That’s one thing, at least,” Roz said as he strolled over and considered the other children, hands on his hips. “We’re not alone.”

Rusty nodded, feeling a bit of hope settle back into his heart. “We need to come clean with them,” he decided. “First chance we get after we land, first time we’re alone, we tell them everything.”