Pull Over

"Here. Try it on."

Brochwel took the mask and looked at it with an air of curiosity. It felt thin. Paper and fabric, part of which continued down to cover the stony parts of his neck. It didn't look or feel like skin.

Inspiration had eluded Tecca the next day as they pushed north into the heart of the empire. Finding an opening to cross some of the major roads unseen proved impossible, so they had risked crossing when the carts and merchants had been far enough that the purple stone would blend in with his blue-black hair, hopefully. One time a courier came galloping by, and the only thing Brochwel could do was dunk his head in a watering trough next to an ox and pretend to be dehydrated. That ox got an eyeful. When they pitched camp a day's ride from Maurcoret, Tecca disappeared into her tent to emerge in the morning with bags under her eyes and this unconvincing imitation in her hand. Whatever magic she managed to put in this mask needed to work wonders.

Brochwel placed his faith in new magic and put the mask on.

One heartbeat, two. Nothing. Then the feeling of being gripped at every point the mask touched his face and neck. He yelped and jolted backward, falling off the log he had been sitting on, into the pine needles. Tecca rushed over, concern switching to a weary smile. She handed him the tiny mirror.

In it he saw his face. Same as it ever was, except ... his embedding. That purple chert that had drawn the eye of everyone he met appeared now to be a massive old scar. Pale red, covering almost the same area, but the margins were different. In the few hours of a summer night, Tecca had not only solved whatever roadblock to make the mask work, she had also managed to redraw the outline of his stone. He couldn't see a seem or edge where the mask ended.

Brochwel couldn't help beaming. "It's amazing."

"Do you feel anything? Itchy? Pinpricks?"

"A little warm, I suppose."

"Warm? That shouldn't ..."

Tecca's fingers found the edges of the mask, invisible in the mirror, and tugged it off. Brochwel reached after it, but allowed her to take it away.

"You'll get to wear it for real after we break camp, Brochwel." She turned the mask this way and that, examining. "This is by far the most complicated enchantment I've ever tried. I ran into ... problems."

"Such as?"

"I needed to make sure a guard or soldier can't rip it off to reveal your identity. The only way I could figure out in such a short time was to set a restrictive removal condition, and ... the sorcerer hasn't invented many of those yet. I can take it off, no one else. Not even you. If there's warmth the moment you put it on, I may have made some error. For your own safety, I can't let you wear it for more than an hour or two at a stretch. If we had more time, I would ..." Tecca fell into a pensive silence.

"It's incredible and maybe we can work with a few hours at a time. But I still worry about the rest of my face. I've crossed weapons with plenty of Rhosarian soldiers—"

"And you killed most of them. The rest ... only remember the purple stone."

Brochwel really hoped Tecca was right about that.

While Tecca summoned her little hawk and sent it winging off toward the city, Brocwhel went to roll up his ragged oilskin tarpaulin and Tecca sighed.

"I can't believe you didn't buy a tent when we had the chance."

"But if I had I wouldn't have any spending money for an emergency in Maurcoret. And maybe I like my tarp. It's sturdy, I can roll up in it when it's cold or tie it off A-frame style when it's hot."

---

They set off at dawn. Here the woods vanished except for the occasional thicket. It was take the roads or ride the margins between fields and orchards. Tecca, her cloak's hood up and tented a bit on her wolf ears, led the way up the dirt paths farmers used to restack their drystone walls. Brochwel glanced around occasionally, keeping an eye for anyone that appeared to be matching their direction at a distance, even if that 'anyone' happened to be overhead.

"Is it just me," Brochwel said surveying the rows of gnarled old vines on both the near and far side of the wall they rode next to, "or is every field here a vineyard?"

Tecca nodded and reined in her horse a little till they were not quite side-by-side. "Maurcoret is famous for its reds. Tell me, are you a Merlay man, or do you prefer Gamot?"

Life in the Flaxen Order hadn't been totally dry, but the warriors were instructed to drink on their own time and ducat, and they rarely had both. Most of the drinking he, Macsen, Xavier, or any of them had done was being handed flagons of unspecified alcoholic beverage during victory celebrations. If they had stopped to say, 'excuse me, what vintage is this?' they might seem ungrateful snobs and kill the mood ... at least, that's the advice Doned the Unsteady gave them, and nobody had dared risk losing the free drink.

Brochwel started to sweat: of the two varietals Tecca just name-dropped, he had only ever heard of Merlay, and hadn't known it was a red. Time to say something vague: "Um ... I guess I generally prefer white wines, when I've had them."

"Really?" Tecca shot him an appraising look as they turned to follow a kink in the wall where the vines on the other side changed ownership, denoted by yet another low stone wall. "Which white wine's your favorite?"

She stared at him as if his value as a person hinged on the answer.

"It's ... uh ..." Brochwel glanced around for help. But the vintners had left no helpful signs labelling their grapes for the uninitiated, a few of the people harvesting the grapes had waved at them but hadn't come to play tour guide, and that bird overhead wouldn't be giving any hints.

Wait ... was that a bird?

Oh no.

"Tecca! Enemy above," Brochwel hissed and spurred his horse toward a stand of trees ahead.

"Hey! You can't dodge my question like that!"

Tecca rushed after and soon caught up. The small wood ahead was nothing big nor special, just a mix of birch and cottonwood gathered in a twist of land too small and too poor of soil for anyone to bother clearing. But it would restrict a flying enemy's movement, if they could get there in time.

"What are we even running from?" Tecca shouted as she scanned the sky, looking all the wrong directions first. "That? But it's not moving."

"Only looks that way!" Brochwel shouted to be heard over hooves in full gallop.

The person diving toward them appeared stationary against the clouds above, but had loomed larger now. Only odonarans flew such perfect intercept trajectories. Brochwel had fought a few of them in the past, and had wished never to do so again.

Those trees hadn't seemed far off, but had barely gotten any closer. With an odonaran bearing down, Brochwel tucked his head down, yanked the mask out of his shirt and forced it on.

From above came the order: "Halt!"

They weren't going to make it to the thicket, not even close. Brochwel and Tecca hauled on the reins and their horses skidded to a stop in the wide open, while their interceptor hovered over the path ahead on damselfly wings.