Wander West, in Shadow

3.

After they ran from the farm for what felt like miles - what may very well have been miles - rolling plains of harvested wheat, occasional crooked trees casting shadows over the western path shooting past in a blur - they stopped, panting, catching their breath, clothes damp with the sweat of exertion quickly chilling them in the crisp air of late autumn. As soon as he caught his breath, Martimeos uttered a string of curses strong enough to make even Elyse blush, though here and now she quickly followed them up with curses and oaths of her own.

Necromancy was not unknown to Elyse; her mother had had the talent to speak with spirits, though it was one that she used rarely - there was always a price to piercing the barrier between life and death; it attracted the attention of deadly Outsiders. And Art to make the dead walk again was considered dangerous and foul indeed. There were books of Art that spoke of necromancy, of the power to make a corpse move, but that was all she had ever seen - claims that it was possible, never instructions for how it might be achieved. Someone in this land might have their hands on one of those black tomes that described it. Perhaps. There were strange things, Outsiders - or not, no one truly knew - that might have the power to make a corpse walk. The ignorant might have seen a walking corpse and underestimated the danger, but Martimeos and Elyse were both well aware that the dangers of a walking corpse lay not within the flesh alone. The vile, unknown magic that animated it, and the attention it would attract - there was so much more danger to it than what the corpse alone might do.

Martimeos drew a long breath, attempting to stand up straight after being bent over panting, and his legs wobbled beneath him and with another string of curses he collapsed, his hand going to his head. "Perhaps we should have stayed longer in Silverfish," Elyse said, still panting, as she stood over him. "I don't think you are fully recovered yet."

"Perhaps," Martimeos muttered. He glanced nervously down the road where they had come, eyes searching, Elyse knew, for headless corpse, to see if it had followed them. "I think I'll be fine. Just let me..." He attempted to get to his feet, but Elyse placed a hand on his shoulder, keeping him down.

"Look." She pointed to his hand. Blood trickled down it, forming tiny rivulets that dripped from his fingers. "Your wound has broken open. Probably that damn pack you insist on wearing."

Martimeos rolled his eyes. "Ah, yes. My unreasonable insistence on having supplies."

"It needs treatment. Infection in your state could lay you up for weeks." Elyse began to root through her satchel for supplies, but Martimeos held up a hand to stop her.

"Wait. If we are to rest and patch me up...not here. Not on the road."

The sound of heavy galloping hooves clopping against cobblestone echoed through Elyse's memory. "A good idea, but where, then?"

They looked about; the endless harvested plains around them were nearly featureless. Martimeos thought he could see, in the far distance what looked like yet another farmhouse, this one intact, but neither of them wanted to make the walk that far off the path, nor did they have the stomach to chance an encounter at another home, after the headless farmer - who knew what they might find?

It was Flit who found them a hidden place to treat Martim's wounds, the tiny cardinal circling the skies high above. One of the fields, a short walk from the road, dipped down into a small ditch, at the bottom of which lay a broken cart, one of its wheels shattered - far away enough from the main path and sufficient to shield them from the sight of any who might be walking down it. Elyse tried to shoulder Martimeos' pack herself, but it was too large and heavy for her small frame, and she yelped as she nearly toppled backwards under its weight, glaring at Martimeos as he snorted at her efforts.

Once they made their way down into the ditch, Martimeos leaning up his pack against the side of it with a groan, Elyse turned to her familiar and told Cecil to prowl quietly around the area, and report back if he found anything that smelled strange. Flit joined him, fluttering upwards into the cloud-streaked sky.

Elyse rooted through her satchel as Martim gingerly stripped down to his waist, peeling back blood-matted cloth from his shoulder. As he was turned around, Elyse snuck a closer look at the large scar running diagonally down his leanly muscled back. It looked old, faded a bit into his tanned skin - but it also looked like whatever wound had caused it ought to have nearly cleaved him in two. It curved around his right hip, a bit, and up onto his left shoulder, as if whatever had cut him there had cut deep. She wondered what had caused it, and furthermore, what had been capable of saving him from such an injury.

He turned around, and she quickly went back to pulling powders and leaves from her satchel, pretending she hadn't been looking as he sat down with his back against one of the old cart's wheels. She tsked irritably to herself as she approached him - the wound on his shoulder had indeed reopened, rubbed raw by the friction of his pack's strap against it. "We really ought to have stayed in Silverfish a bit longer, until this new flesh was stronger, and you recovered your strength completely," she remarked, kneeling down before him to dab dried blood away with a cloth wetted from her waterskin. "I thought you had the judgment to know when you'd be ready for the road."

"I'm fine," Martimeos grumbled. "Don't need to be perfect to set out again, do I?"

Elyse brought the bloodied cloth away from his shoulder and gave him a frank look. "Are all men stubborn fools, or are you unique among them? Weak on your feet after a bit of a run is not 'fine', wizard. Lie to me again and I will bite you." She grinned wickedly at him. "I have sharp teeth. See?"

She prepared a poultice of leaf and herb, and padded cloth to shield his wounds from the irritation of his pack, but before she applied it to his wound, she placed her hands over it and closed her eyes. Now that the Mirrit's poison was gone, it ought to be safe to use some of the Art's healing on it. For Elyse, it was sort of like lighting a fire with the Art - lending Martimeos' body the strength to heal. Only he was a living creature, so he had a great deal of strength already, and she did not want to lend him so much strength that he burst into flame. Not that she think she could have done that; his body could absorb much and never heat to that extent. But there was another reason she wanted to do this. Eyes closed, she could sense his body, like a great, thrumming red blur behind her eyes, full of life and heat, and the wound in his shoulder, a small hole torn within it. She let her consciousness wander across it, until she touched upon the scar running across his back, a dim, cooler part of him, great and large across his being. She ran up her mind up and down it, sinking into it. Yes, as she had suspected, the wound ought to have killed him. It had bitten deeply into him, reaching into dark places of the body that very few indeed had the talent to heal. Even her mother, as skilled as she had been at the Art, would not have been able to save him from this. In fact, she would have thought it impossible that anyone could have saved him from such a wound.

Suddenly, Martimeos shivered beneath her touch, breaking her concentration, and she remembered that he was not nearly as hot-blooded as she was and must be freezing, shirtless in the cold air. She quickly brought her concentration back to the wound in his shoulder, lending what strength she could to it to accelerate its healing. She could do more, but it would take much time, and the wound was not so dire that it could not heal on its own. She finished by tying down the poultice and the padded cloth over the wound.

"I...thank you, Elyse," Martimeos said, as he was dressing, and she quietly putting ingredients away in her satchel. "'Twould have been difficult to tend such a wound myself. I owe you."

Elyse fidgeted as she tied down the straps of her satchel. She was incredibly curious about that scar. Not about how he had received the wound - she thought she might have a guess about how that had happened - but rather, who in the world had healed him. "Martimeos," she said cautiously, "Upon your back, that-"

But Martimeos was not listening. He had his head lifted high into the air, his green eyes wide with alarm. And a moment later, Elyse heard it too. The sound of furiously galloping hooves. And then, a moment later, a long, awful screech that echoed beneath the sky.

They both dove towards the broken wagon, huddling against it, Elyse sweeping off her hat so it did not inadvertantly poke out above the ditch they rested in and give them away. Cecil came quickly slinking back to them a few moments later, his yellow eyes wide and ears flat against his head, panting, curling protectively around Elyse. Flit too, joined them shortly, alighting on Martim's shoulder and chirping as quietly as he could that it was indeed the rider passing by on the road. Even pompously brave Flit sounded frightened, though this did not stop him from volunteering to fly out and spy; but Martimeos told him no, to stay by him - there were some things that might be able to spot whether an animal was a simple bird or a wizard's familiar.

They listened in silence as the sound of hooves carried off into the distance. Though they were not yet out of earshot when suddenly, they paused. Then there was another awful, shrieking screech, so loud and piercing that even from a distance it seemed just as nearby as when they had first heard it. And then, shortly after - screams. Faint, but unmistakable, horrified, blood-curdling screams of men - the terror in those shouts chilling them to the bone.

Silence, then. They trembled in fear, not daring to move, for how long, they did not know - it seemed like an eternity. And before they dared to move, the blood froze in their veins again, as the sound of hooves fast approaching once again filled the air. They thundered, hoof on stone - and then the sound Martimeos had dreaded. The sound of hooves no longer striking stone, but grass instead.

Martimeos drew Elyse close to him, drawing his black fur cloak around them both as they clung to each other. He did not need to tell Elyse to use her glamour. They shook in each other's arms as the sound of those hooves passed them by - never close enough for the rider to be visible, but sounding very close indeed. And then they both jumped one of those screeches split the ear once more, loud enough and close enough to feel as if it were drilling to the center of their skulls.

They stayed there in terror, listening to the hooves echo around them, for hours. They were never out of earshot long enough for them to feel safe moving, not until, at last, dusk had fallen, and mercifully, the hooves faded away into the far distance - into the west - and did not return, though dusk had turned to night before they felt it safe to move, the bright light of a nearly-full moon at least giving them some illumination to see by - they did not dare to light a fire.

Martimeos stood, stretching out limbs sore from crouching in terror all day. He felt exhausted; the panic and terror rushing through his veins had burnt him out. Elyse, however, remained crouched where she was, Cecil crawling into her lap. "Serpent's tits," she cursed, her arms tight around Cecil, staring wide-eyed out into the fields surrounding them. "How are we supposed to travel west with that nightmare prowling the roads?"

"I don't know," Martimeos admitted. "'Tis still a long journey to town. If things are this bad...perhaps we will need to turn back, find a different path west. The Dolmec said to go west, it did not say exactly where."

He rummaged in his pack, retrieving cold rations for them to sate their hunger in a late dinner. They ate mostly in silence, their ears still straining to listen carefully for the sound of approaching hooves. Martimeos went over his plans in his head. This path west, he knew, eventually led to the town of Twin Lamps - at least according to the maps he had seen in Silverfish. But if it was blocked by the rider, he knew of no other easy paths westward - only to journey through the forest he had come, back north, around the mountains, and then head westward once more. That could take many weeks of travel, but it would be better than being killed. But perhaps if they journeyed off the main roads, mainly through the farmland, they would have an easier go of it?

He did not think of it too much. He found himself exhausted; Elyse was probably correct that he had left Silverfish too early. And it wasn't as if he had been sleeping well on their way here. His eyes drooped as he ate, until he found himself sitting upright with a jolt, having nearly fallen asleep where he sat. Elyse was watching him with a faint smile on her face. "I was wondering whether you were going to fall asleep with your fish in your mouth," she said softly.

"I suppose this is as good a place as any to bed for the night," he muttered.

The ground in the ditch was rocky and dirty, without the protective layer of leaves they had become used to in the forest. So to bed for the night, they clambered into the back of the broken cart, its boards creaking and groaning beneath them, far too loudly for Martimeos' taste. He lay on his back, staring up at the starry night sky, the pale white moon beaming bright among them. Somewhat to his surprise, before he had settled in, Elyse laid down beside him, wrapping her arms around him, resting her head on his chest. "Today has been tiring," she muttered, when he looked askance at her. "I don't feel like sleeping on hard boards. You can be my pillow. You owe me for your shoulder." As she spoke, Cecil leapt into the cart as well, curling around on top of Martim's legs, purring softly, and Flit settled in by his head.

Martimeos merely shrugged; he was too tired to wonder or care. He simply curled an arm around her and drew his cloak over the both of them. As he did, he heard Elyse speak her glamour, to hide them from view, and between the warmth of his cloak and the warmth of her body and the sheer exhaustion he felt, he fell asleep nearly before it had settled over them.

Though, it seemed, this night was not destined to be a restful one.

It was still dark when he was awoken, the dead of night - he knew not how long he had slept - when he was awoken, dragged out of sleep, by the sound of weeping floating across the field. His body tensed at the sound - a man's desperate sobbing, though it seemed warbled, as if echoing through a cave, as the sound of it reached his ears. He felt Elyse squeeze him as he tensed, and felt her breath in his ear as she whispered, "Do not move. Something is out there."

He remained perfectly still as the sound of the weeping grew closer; it wasn't long before they could hear heavy footsteps crunching across grass, as well, and then, soon, a voice, attending the weeping, though it too sounded as if it came to them echoing through a cave. "It's cold, Captain. I can't see through all this snow. I've a splitting headache; I can't even think straight. You're going to kill us if you keep this up. Woed's beard, it's so cold, I'm so tired..."

The protesting voice grew louder, and louder. He felt Elyse begin to tremble as it did so, and he held her tightly, as much as to keep himself from trembling as to comfort her. Until finally, at the top of the ditch, the owner of the voice appeared.

It was a headless man.

He wore a breastplate, over which a tabard of orange was draped; the border was black and on it was printed two black suns, one atop the other, though blood had stained it. He wore flaring green pants tucked into high brown boots that were smartly laced up to his knees, and a green shirt of what looked to be the same cloth as that of the pants beneath his breastplate. He had a buckler strapped across his back, and a short sword at his belt. Where his head should have been, above the stump of his neck, they could just make out the faintest of a blue, shimmering glimmer - featureless - just barely visible against the dark night sky he was framed against as he stood above them.

"Please Captain," came the voice, as Elyse and Martimeos stared at this in both wonder and horror. "Please, I'm going to die. I can feel it, I'm so numb. My head hurts so much. I'm begging you, let us stop to rest. Or just leave me behind to die, please. I can't take it anymore."

Elyse felt Martimeos' body tensing once again, felt his hand leave her hip and go sliding to the sword at his belt. She dared not to speak, but she squeezed him tighter - if he was readying himself to fight, she hoped her squeezing let him know it was better to stay still and hidden and let this pass.

The man wandered around, at the top of the ditch, moaning his protests and weeping, and the closer he drew to them the more Martimeos tensed and the harder Elyse squeezed the fool. Until finally, the headless soldier moved away, his moans warbling out into the night, growing ever more distant . Until, almost abruptly, it seemed, they stopped.

They waited, listening, for some time, perhaps an hour, to see if the moans and the weeping would return. When they did not, Martimeos finally let out his breath. "This land is damned," he muttered.

"And you wanted to go leaping after it, like a fool," Elyse murmured into his ear.

"No I didn't," Martimeos protested quietly.

Elyse let out what sounded almost like a snarl. "Remember what I said about lying to me. I will bite you, don't think I won't."

Martimeos sighed, after a moment of silence. "I just wanted silence. I could use a night of uninterrupted sleep."

"Mmm," was all Elyse replied; Martimeos realized she must have been exhausted as well. And she felt safe enough, at least for now, beneath her glamour, for soon her breathing slowed, and she was drifting back to fitful sleep. Or perhaps she did not feel all that safe, but was simply too tired to care.

But for Martimeos, it was some time before he could find the comfort to sleep again; not until the beginnings of the dawn had begun to creep up around him. Foolish, he knew for the day was no protection from this; but as soon as the horizon began to show hints of lighrening from the black of the night sky to the lighter blue of dawn, that was when he felt his heavy eyelids close, and the comforting sounds of Elyse's breathing lulled him off to sleep.

They awoke again to the sound of voices, though when they did, it was well into the morning, the sun's light beaming down upon their faces; though Elyse had shielded their eyes from its glare by pulling her wide-brimmed hat over their heads. And the voices they woke to did not sound strange; they sounded like normal men's voices, some distance away. Two of the voices muttered occasional short replies, while the third shouted and cursed.

Martimeos and Elyse stayed hidden, listening to those voices, beneath his cloak and her glamour, whispering to each other. They sounded like actual, normal people, and the two of them did want to see a normal face in this land, to hear what its inhabitants had to say - but neither of them had any idea who the voices belonged to. They strained their ears for clues, as to their identity, but could make out little more than the one voice's cursing.

As they moved off the cart to investigate further, however, their shifting weight caused the old wood of the cart to groan, and something snapped with a loud crack that rang out in the early morning light. They froze as the voices paused, and then they heard the cursing voice snap out, "Kells! Nielson! That came from the ditch. Go see what that was!"

Martimeos dove for his pack in case they had to flee, but the sound of quickly approaching feet told him they would have no time to do so anyway. Two men quickly appeared at the top of the ditch, peering down at them suspiciously. They both wore the same uniform as the headless man they saw last night had - burnished breastplates, twin sun tabards, and flaring green pants tucked into knee-high leather boots. One of them was a man with very pale skin, even paler than Elyse; lanky, with storm-grey eyes and short-cropped black hair above a sharply angled face, leaning on a spear, a mace dangling from a loop in his belt, while the other was more squat and broad-shouldered, and not so pale, tanned from work in the sun, his hair short as well but dirty blonde, a red-tassled halberd in the crook of his arm, and his face rounder and more jovial, though it did not seem so cheerful as he grabbed his halberd and readied in both hands. "You stay where you are!" he shouted at Martimeos and Elyse. "Hands away from your blade!"

"We've got two over here, Captain," called the lankier man with the spear, glancing down at them, seeming a bit more relaxed about the situation.

"Didn't I tell you two to check that ditch before?" snapped an irritated voice, growing closer.

"I swear there was nothing here when we checked, sir."

A third man appeared at the top of the ditch, between the other two. He was older, and shorter than either of the younger men. His uniform was the same as theirs, save a golden armband around one shoulder, and a gold and blue cord that dangled a foot from his belt. He was incredibly ugly and grizzled, his lower jaw jutting out much further than his top, his face mottled and cracked, silver hair cut close to his head, and what looked like a strange lump in his neck. He had a hatchet by his belt and a large crossbow in his arms, which he pointed at them. Dark eyes peered at them as he gave them a ghastly frown. "You two!" he snapped at them. "State your business! I know all the farmers who live around here, and I know you're not one of them. What are you doing in this land?"

"Just travelers, sir," Martimeos replied swiftly, making sure that he showed his hands were far away from the sword on his belt. "Travelers, who-"

"Travelers, huh?" the Captain interrupted him. He lowered his crossbow, though his expression did not improve. "Travelers." He spat, glancing at the other two men. The blonde man with the halberd looked at him nervously; the lanky man with the spear merely shrugged. "Well, travelers. Do you mind telling me why we find you, hidden just a stone's throw away from where I find one of my men slain and headless?"

"Ah, come off it, Captain," said the lanky man with the spear. "You know it wasn't them."

"I know no such thing," the Captain snapped. "The two of you. Toss up any weapons you carry and climb out of that ditch with any belongings. You're not free to go as you please. Not until we've done some talking."