Chapter 22: Detour

“So, what are you, then? A nobleman or a thief?”

Soria looked up from the large raspberry bush she had buried her head in. They had paused in a small clearing in the forest to forage for an hour or two before continuing on the road toward Terynia. Larean and Pelam had been trading barbs since they met on the fishing boat, but now their conversation was finally starting to get interesting.

“I was never a nobleman, just a trader,” Larean explained. “And you can’t really be called a thief unless you actually succeed in stealing something, can you?”

From what the Nimean had told her earlier, the latter was probably not the whole truth, but she let it slide for now.

“All right, but you were rich, at least?” Pelam countered. Soria knew the Agerian had been a hunter his whole life, living only on what the forest could provide his family, just like it had hers, and it must be difficult for him to imagine any other kind of life.

Larean sighed. “I didn’t think I was. I used to be jealous of my neighbors because they had more servants than my own family did.”

“Used to?” she asked from behind the barbed stems of the bushes.

“When I was on the run in Jai Karal, I met some people there who may possibly have had a harder life than I did,” he said, flashing her a grin. “But probably not.”

After that, the discussion turned to more mundane matters, like how they should ration the smoked fish they had brought with them from the river and which road would be safest to reach Terynia without making too many deviations. Or, to be more specific, whether they should even take the road at all.

Soria knew Pelam had previously tried to cross the countryside on his solo journey to the capital. The consequences had been devastating. This time, they had decided it was probably safer to travel by road, despite the risk of running into trouble with Imperial patrols. Neither she nor Larean was known by the Empire, and the risk that anyone would recognize Pelam this far from Cloverheart was really quite insignificant. And besides, they had been practicing their magic now. Soria felt they were ready should trouble come looking for them.

Two hours later, it did, in the form of a small pig. Or, more precisely, a missing pig.

Once they had filled their satchels with the sweet, delicious red berries, they continued on the path northwest, parallel to the River Talar. Soon, they would leave the southern River Plains and enter the harsher terrains to the north, between River Talar and Terynia itself.

The group had just passed a bend in the road when they ran into a small boy, perhaps nine or ten years old, who sat crying on the fieldstone wall on the right side of the gravel path.

“Hello there!” Soria said, trying to sound as harmless as possible. “What’s your name?”

The boy looked up and peered at her through the tears streaming down his dirty, freckled face.

“They took my pig,” he wailed, unconsolable.

She took a step forward to embrace him. The boy eagerly took advantage of the strange woman’s compassion, burying his head in her arms, shuddering and crying his eyes out.

“Shush,” she whispered, stroking his head. “Who took it?”

“The bandits.”

He pointed to something Soria couldn’t see beyond the hills.

“They came to my village and took Halbert,” he explained. “Mommy and Daddy are working in Mr. Kassler’s field in Bearden. They won’t be home until later, so I have to find Halbert myself. Before they… before they…”

With that, the sobs that had subsided while he explained the situation to Soria returned, stronger than before. Of course, he missed both his pig and his parents.

“You know what? My friends and I are heading that way, too,” she said, pointing down the road. She couldn’t leave him like this. “We can look for Halbert, so you can go home and wait for your parents. And when we find him, we’ll return him to you. Wouldn’t that be good?”

The boy looked at her without saying anything, but he stopped crying again and eventually nodded.

Good, she thought. It was pure luck they had run into him here before anyone else did, far from his village and all alone.

“Where do you live?”

“My daddy’s name is Olmvar. I’m Tvargot,” he said, the pride in his voice evident despite his sadness.

“What’s the name of your village?” Soria repeated with a sigh.

The boy pointed to the hills again. “Over there,” he said. “In Fernhill.”

“You know what,” she said, holding the boy’s hand. “If you promise to run back home to Fernhill as fast as you can and stay there until your mommy and daddy come back, I’ll promise we’ll go find Halbert for you. Can you do that, Tvargot?”

The boy nodded, almost smiling now. “Yes, ma’am!”

“What does your pig look like?”

The boy told her how his pet was mottled black and pink, with one ear of each color and a heart-shaped spot on its left side.

When he had finished his description, he started to run down the path toward home. Then he stopped for a moment, glanced back at them, and shouted, “Thank you!”

A few moments later, Soria could no longer see him, hidden behind the curve in the road.

“Well, well,” Pelam said with a grunt. “It looks like we have ourselves a mission.”

“Like we didn’t have one before,” Larean muttered, pretending to be inconvenienced by her offer to help the boy.

He looked up at her, his scowl suddenly replaced with a wide grin. “But at least this one comes with bacon!”

Soria elbowed him in his ribs, laughing. “Don’t say things like that!”

* * *

By the time the sun began to set, there was still no sign of the bandits the boy had warned them about—or the pig. The road had turned north now, away from the river, and the landscape around them had changed from verdant wheat fields to deep pine forests.

Truth be told, she wasn’t exactly disappointed that they hadn’t found the animal. Although she certainly wanted to help the boy if she could, there was no denying that going back to Fernhill would be a significant detour, and she secretly hoped, for more reasons than one, that they wouldn’t run into the bandits at all. Her real mission was to reach Cairn as quickly as possible, and having to return the pig to the boy would be highly inconvenient. The farther they walked from Tvargot’s village, the less eager she became to go back there with the animal.

The road was fairly well traveled by merchants going between their homes and the surrounding villages, farmers herding cattle to the butcher, and peasants on their way to the nearest shrines to pray.

Despite the traffic, they had only encountered Imperial soldiers once, and even then, the troops had marched past without so much as a glance. All three, and especially Pelam, had braced for the worst, certain that a single misstep would lead to their arrest. But the encounter was over almost as soon as it had started, leaving nothing behind but tension.

As darkness fell, the three of them began to look for a suitable place to rest for the night. They didn’t want to stay too close to the road, so they slipped deeper into the forest in search of a good place to make camp, well away from the curious eyes of passing travelers.

Suddenly, Soria stopped in her tracks.

From beyond the trees came voices. Voices, and laughter.

She shushed her companions, motioning with her hand for them to stay low. Together, they slowly crept toward the sounds, careful to hide behind tree trunks to stay out of sight of whoever was ahead of them.

Reaching the top of a small ridge, they finally saw the glow of a campfire on the forest floor below. Around it sat four men, drinking and laughing loudly. Two of them carried weapons. Long, curved swords dangled from their sides. The other two had hung their bows on branches jutting out above them.

And tied to a young pine a short distance beyond the firelight stood a small, mottled pig with a heart-shaped spot on its left side.

“What should we do?” she whispered in the fading light, secretly hoping the two boys would suggest retreating and letting the bandits keep the animal.

To her horror, Larean instead suggested he’d sneak into the camp unseen to steal the pig back.

“No,” she told him, trying to come up with an excuse that wouldn’t offend him. “We need to keep your fire magic in reserve, in case something goes wrong. You should stay behind, here on the ridge.”

Larean grunted something she couldn’t quite make out. Pelam nodded his support, but then offered his own opinion.

“I’m not sure we really should do this at all,” he said, looking at her. “I’m sorry, Soria. I know you want to help the boy, but this is a risk we don’t need to take.”

So he feels the same way I do, she thought, deeply regretting her earlier promise to Tvargot. It was one thing to hug a crying boy and tell him everything was going to be alright. Anyone with a shred of empathy could do that. But actually taking on bandits for someone they didn’t even know? That was another thing entirely. After all, the gods did frown upon helping your neighbor—unless there was something in it for you, of course. And in this case, she couldn’t think of what that would be.

“You’re right,” she told him, eager to latch on to his rejection. “We should leave before they notice us.”

“No,” Larean protested, a bit too loudly for her taste. “If you’re not going down there, fine, but I will. We made a promise.”

He rose from his hiding place behind the ridge and slowly made his way down to the campsite, doing his best to stay out of sight. Had it been daylight, he would have been spotted immediately, Soria thought, but in the waning light, he managed to reach the pig unseen.

Silently, the Nimean thief began untying the animal. At one point, the little swine squealed, and Soria’s heart nearly stopped. But then she realized she wasn’t thinking straight. By now, the bandits must surely be used to hearing Halbert snorting from the shadows behind the pine. In fact, any natural sound from the pig would effectively mask the noise the amateur burglar made as he clumsily worked the knot.

He was nearly finished when a fifth bandit stepped out from the dark forest and into the light from the campfire, pressing his sword into Larean’s back.

Soria nearly screamed when she saw him, but she caught herself just in time. They still had the advantage of surprise.

“Look what I found,” the bandit hollered to his comrades, menace in his voice, as he marched the boy into the camp. The two bowmen reached for their weapons, while the swordsmen stood and readied theirs.

With no offensive magic of her own, there was little Soria could do to directly help Larean. But if they worked together, she could still serve as a diversion.

Looking over to Pelam, she saw the hunter had grabbed a stick with a rough point from the ground. As a weapon, it wasn’t much, but if there was anyone she would trust in combat, it was him. She nodded, making sure he understood her intent.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t misinterpret the signal.

Patera, be with me, she prayed quickly. Then she rose to her feet and screamed at the top of her lungs as she rushed down the slope toward the campfire. At the same time, she threw up a shield around herself, ensuring her safety, though how long that would last, she did not know.

The five bandits turned at the sound of her war cry, scanning the darkness of the forest in search of its source. The one who had caught Larean still kept his sword at the boy’s back, but no longer looking at him, he was momentarily distracted.

Larean closed his eyes, and a second later, a small flame erupted in the air in front of his hands. Soria didn’t find it very impressive, and it was probably not what he had intended to conjure. But it was still hot enough that a slight shift in his stance was all it took to singe the man holding him.

The bandit screamed and dropped his sword. Now free, Larean stepped away from him toward Soria. She ran forward until she stood beside him, her shield now encompassing them both. For the moment, they should be safe.

The fledgling Fire Breather closed his eyes again, trying a second time to coordinate his use of the Deepwell. Once again, the results were disappointing. But now, his failure wasn’t as critical. Shielded by Soria, he could afford to keep trying until he got it right.

“Calm down,” she told him, smelling the oil fumes in the air. “I’ve got this. Don’t ignite the flame until you’re sure the mixture’s right.”

She saw him visibly relax, his shoulders slowly lowering as he quieted his anxiety.

To their left, she suddenly heard one of the swordsmen scream, an agonized cry that pierced the darkness. Instinctively, she turned her head to look at him and was met with a gruesome sight.

From the man’s chest protruded the pointed, bloody end of Pelam’s branch. In the chaos and confusion, he had snuck up behind the bandit. While she and Larean held their attention, the hunter had driven his makeshift spear clean through the man’s back with what seemed like almost unnatural force. The Agerian swiftly picked up the sword the man had dropped during the attack and held it in front of him as he stepped toward the second swordsman.

At that moment, a stream of fire suddenly roared from Larean’s hands, shooting across the campsite and hitting one of the bowmen, engulfing him in a roiling cloud of burning oil droplets. Soria tried to shut out the sound of the bandit’s screams as he burned alive, but found herself unable. The crackling sound of human skin splitting as it roasted nearly made her vomit, yet somehow, it also stirred something fierce and invigorating within her.

Another stream of fire from Larean ignited the second bowman just moments after Pelam engaged the last remaining bandit. With the moment of surprise now firmly behind them, this time the man was ready for the attack, and dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding Pelam’s blade. The bandit was agile, and quickly leapt behind the hunter, aiming to stab him in the back.

Soria shouted to warn him before it was too late, but the sound distracted Pelam. Instead of stepping out of the way of the approaching blade, he twisted around to look at her. The movement made the bandit miss his intended target, but his sword still sliced a long gash across Pelam’s side. Unable to reach him, she heard his scream as the blade cut through his flesh.

She looked around and saw the sword the fifth bandit had dropped lying on the ground beside her. Soria picked it up, raised it high above her head, holding it with both her hands, and rushed toward the man attacking her friend. With a swift stroke, she brought the blade down on the bandit’s neck. He fell to the ground, unable to speak or even scream, as blood spurted from the deep wound she had inflicted.

And with that, the battle was over. Where the fifth bandit had gone after Larean singed him, she didn’t know. But without his weapon, the man was no longer a threat. Most likely, he had run off into the forest, trying to save his own life rather than help his companions.

While Larean returned to where the pig was still tied to the tree, Soria went to Pelam.

“Are you all right?” she asked, knowing he wasn’t. She carefully inspected his wound.

Pelam groaned. “How bad is it?”

“Not great,” she admitted after a short pause. “But I can heal it. It’s going to slow us down for a day or two, but I’ll bandage it, stop the bleeding, and speed up your recovery.”

Behind them, the pig squealed again.

“I guess we’ll stay here tonight and go back to Fernhill in the morning,” Larean said.

Soria and Pelam exchanged a look.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” she said.

“We don’t have time,” Pelam added, reinforcing her point. “Soria’s brother is waiting for us in Terynia. He could be executed at any moment.”

“Pelam’s right,” Soria told their friend. “The longer we wait, the less chance we have of succeeding. We have to leave the pig here.”

Larean looked dismayed. “But we told the boy we’d return it if we found it,” he protested, his voice nearly shrill.

“No, we really can’t,” Pelam stated. “Soria and I agree. We have to leave the pig behind and move on. We can’t go back that far now.”

The thief shook his head, clearly torn between their promise to Tvargot and his promise to Soria to help rescue her brother.

We shouldn’t be fighting about this, Soria thought.

But then, somewhere at the back of her mind, another thought emerged—dark and powerful.

Without fully realizing what she was doing, she raised her sword and thrust it into the little pig’s neck, severing its spinal cord in an instant.

Now, there was no longer any reason to argue about returning the boy’s pet.

Author's Note

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