Book Two - Chapter Seventeen

The carriage jerked and jostled as it barreled down the road, the wind buffeting Lusya. Its pace was slower than on the way back to Larsev, but still hurried. They were on track to reach the bandits’ headquarters in under two weeks. The prior speed would have exhausted the horses, according to Ander. If they did not collapse from exhaustion, they would eventually become too tired to keep a reasonable pace, no matter how much Ander tried to make them, which would have slowed them in the long run. Lusya did not know enough about caring for the animals to dispute him and saw little reason for him not to be truthful.

They did not speak as they rode onward. She had nothing to say, Ander was focused on driving, and the movement of the carriage would have made conversation awkward. One of them might have ended up biting their tongue.

Lusya checked the back every so often to make sure nothing had fallen out. Nothing ever did, though something always seemed on the verge. The bouncing of the supplies was less than what Lusya felt, however. Looking at it, she supposed the road was rather smooth. It was not without dips or bumps, but most of it was about as even as could be expected from a dirt path. She did not know why the tiniest of imperfections felt like such a massive obstacle. It had been like that when she had been with the caravan months ago too. A quirk of the design of the vehicles, perhaps. Or of cognition. Lusya’s mind may not have worked like most, may have often been less clouded, but that did not make it perfect.

Though the horses and her body seemed to block enough of the wind to prevent Lusya’s cloak from blowing around, it was all but impossible to keep the hood up. When it did stay on, it blew into her face and blocked her eyes. She had decided to leave it off. The only practical reason she wore it up was to make her more difficult to identify, which was rather moot out on the road. She would admit to an irrational preference to wear it up anyway, but she was not one to let herself be ruled by such things.

Suddenly, the carriage started to slow down. It was easy to notice. The effective wind weakened, the vehicle bounced less, and the landscape passed more slowly. Lusya glanced at Ander, and he pointed. Looking where he had indicated revealed something on the side of the road. Someone, more accurately. The area around the road was wide open, making her easy to see. In fact, there wasn’t so much as a shrub in sight. The person was a woman with short blonde hair, sitting on the ground with a large pack beside her, not unlike the one Lusya carried. She was dressed in a plain, light brown dress like any peasant might wear, but she had her knees drawn up to her chest and the bottom of the dress pulled up, rubbing at her right ankle and gritting her teeth.

“We do not have time for this,” Lusya said.

“It won’t take long,” Ander said. “I promise.”

Lusya cocked her head and blinked. “You have five minutes to get this carriage moving again.”

“Leave it to me,” he said, grinning, as he brought the vehicle to a full stop just in front of the woman. He jumped off the carriage and hurried to her side. “Are you okay?”

The woman jumped a bit as she looked up, as if she had not noticed him until he had spoken. Considering how focused on her leg she had seemed, she might not have. “Oh, yes, I just seem to have hurt my leg a bit.”

He knelt beside her. “Can I see?”

She nodded and moved her hands aside. Her ankle was reddened. It had not yet swelled noticeably, but it likely would in short order. It did not look bad enough to be a break, but it did have the marks of a painful injury.

“What happened?” Ander asked.

The woman pointed down the road. “My foot slipped in a hole over there and I fell. At first, it was just a little sore, but it kept getting worse until I had to stop.”

Ander hummed in thought. “It could be a sprain. Lusya, can you get bandages and other supplies?”

“Was I not supposed to leave this to you?” Lusya asked.

He gave her an exasperated look. “It’ll go a little faster this way.”

By a small margin, but true. She grabbed some medical supplies and brought them to him. He smeared the bandages in a poultice and started wrapping them around the woman’s ankle. The binding was tight, but he was careful to make sure it was not so much so that it would hinder circulation.

“This should help bring the swelling down,” he said. He picked out a few leaves and handed them to the woman. “And if you chew and swallow these, it should help with the pain. Don’t ask for more, though, they can do terrible things to your mind if you rely on them.”

The woman blinked, eyes wide in shock as she accepted the leaves. “Thank you. Why are you helping me?”

“Do I need a reason?” he asked with a grin.

She smiled and shook her head. “I guess not. You just don’t see much of this these days.”

She popped one of the leaves in her mouth and grimaced. With obvious reluctance, she slowly chewed it up and forced herself to swallow, before repeating the process with the next leaf. There were a few plants with similar effects to what Ander had described. The leaves all looked rather similar, so Lusya was not sure which they were, but she understood they were all rather bitter. It was a small wonder any mortal could tolerate them enough to become dependent on them.

“You are more well-versed in medicine than I thought,” Lusya said.

He shrugged. “I’m no doctor or healer, but it’s good to know for traveling and for fighting.”

That was true enough. She was familiar with his treatments for much the same reason. For all his demeanor was often that of a fool, at his core, Ander was anything but.

He turned his attention back to the woman. “What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere anyway? And all alone at that.”

“My husband is a blacksmith. He’s gotten rather famous around these parts lately.” The woman paused to swallow the leaves, and grinned. “Have you heard the name Svet?”

Ander scratched his head. “We’re not from the area. Sorry?”

“Really? Your Slarvish is quite good,” the woman said. “Oh, well. Anyway, I run deliveries for him. Sometimes I get help from a neighbor, but one’s not always available.”

“Well, thank you. Wothan is pretty similar, so it was easy to learn,” Ander replied, scratching the back of his head. After a few seconds, he seemed to remember the actual topic of conversation and frowned. Maybe there was a little bit of true fool in him. “This area is dangerous right now. There are some awful, crazy strong bandits wreaking havoc.”

“I’ve heard plenty about them,” she said, with a grimace “But we need to do business to eat.”

“If business is good, maybe you should consider hiring someone to guard you,” Ander said.

“It is doubtful any guard she could hire would have any appreciable impact under the current circumstances,” Lusya said.

She did not know the market well, but if there were any who knew motomancy, they must have been expensive. And even then, one would probably want captain-level strength or multiple guards to fend off Gisala’s group. Even one on the level of a rank-and-file Sacred Knight was liable to be overwhelmed by the enemy’s numbers. Captain-level guards or mercenaries had to be in short supply and cost a small fortune, if they existed at all.

Ander shrugged. “It’s better than nothing. And it would still be a good idea if things were better. The roads are never completely safe.”

“We’ve talked about it,” the woman said. “But there’s just not many fighters for us to hire. We would have to wait for one to pass through or go looking for one, then pay him enough to make living in the sticks worth it.”

“That may be hard,” Ander said as he finished bandaging the woman’s foot. “But saved effort won’t be worth anything if you’re dead.” He stood and offered the woman a hand to help her up. “I’d encourage you to reconsider it. Maybe even make a special trip into the city to look for someone, next time one of your neighbors can go with you.”

The woman took his hand and stood. “I’ll think about it.” She tapped her foot against the ground, testing it, before standing on it, though she still favored the other. “This feels much better now, thank you.”

He smiled and started gathering up the medical supplies he had not used. “So, where were you headed?”

“Home,” the woman said. “It’s a village called Littlerun.”

“Well then, hop on board,” he said with a wave at the carriage. “It might feel better, but you shouldn’t walk on that if you can help it. It’s fine, right, Lusya?”

Lusya nodded. “It is on our way. I have no objections. However, your time is up. She will board now, or we are leaving without her.” She took her place on the driver’s seat. “If you protest, I am leaving without both of you.”

“Are you sure—?” the woman started.

“We’re sure,” Ander said, “and she’s serious, come on.”

Ander helped her onto the seat, put her pack and their supplies in the back, and had them moving again in seconds. Their pace was a bit slower than before. Lusya assumed it was for the benefit of the woman and her injury, not wanting to jostle her. It was still acceptable, however.

“Like I was saying, you shouldn’t walk on that yet,” he said. “In fact, you should stay off it for at least the next week. Longer if it still hurts. Lie with it propped up when you can, especially at night. I’d let you do it here, but there’s not really room in the back, and it probably wouldn’t be all that safe even if there was.”

“I’ll do my best to keep all that in mind,” the woman said. She had taken a seat to Ander’s left, the opposite side from Lusya. “Mind you, there’s only so much a working woman can slack off.” The woman smiled. “But thank you so much for all your help. Is there any way I can repay you? Maybe you’d like to have dinner when we get home?”

“There’s no need for that,” Ander said. “I helped because I wanted to.”

“If anything, stopping to eat at your home would be an inconvenience,” Lusya said.

The woman frowned. “…Oh.”

“That might be true, but you didn’t have to say it,” Ander said. “At least not like that.”

Lusya did not see what the problem was. It had been a simple statement of fact, and not a comment on the woman, her home, or her cooking—or whoever’s cooking it was, considering the woman obviously could not do all of it with her errands. And how else was she supposed to convey such a straightforward sentiment? How perplexing mortals could be.

“Maybe I could treat you to a meal at the inn?” the woman suggested. “A room, even.”

“We do not have time for that either,” Lusya replied.

The woman flinched. “I understand. I’m sorry for suggesting it.”

“That is not necessary.”

The woman nodded and fell silent. She turned away and gazed at the landscape rolling by. There wasn’t much of interest out there. The land was as flat as it was bare, so there were no interesting landmarks to look at. There weren’t even any hills or mountains.

“Oh, how rude of me,” Ander suddenly said. “I’m Ander. What’s your name?”

The woman looked at him with a smile again. “It’s Puvica.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“You as well.” The woman looked to Lusya. The woman hesitated, and her eyes flicked about nervously for a second. “And you are?”

“Lusya.”

Puvica waited a moment, as if expecting some additional introduction. When she received none, she pursed her lips, nodded, and mouthed their names to herself. “And what brings you two all the way out here?”

“Just passing through, really,” Ander said.

“And are you two married?”

“We are not,” Lusya said.

“Yet,” Ander added with a grin.

Lusya tilted her head and blinked at him.

He chuckled. “That was a joke.”

“I suspected,” she said.

“Was it funny?” he asked.

“I thought it was okay,” Puvica said.

He nodded at her. “Thank you.”

Lusya shook her head. “I did not think so, but you should not fixate so on my opinion on humor.”

“Your advice is noted and denied,” he said, his eyes shining as he smirked. “If we’re going to be companions, I want to be able to joke with you. In fact, it’s now my goal to make you laugh before we go our separate ways.”

“That is a foolish goal,” she said. “I can never remember so much as smiling from joy.”

“Then it sounds like I’ve got my work cut out for me,” he said. “That’s no problem at all. Anything worth doing should be a challenge. And if I fall short of such a lofty goal, I’ll still end up somewhere pretty impressive, right?”

She blinked. “That is by no means guaranteed. This seems like a waste of effort.”

“Are you telling me not to do it?”

“I am telling you you will fail.”

He grinned. “That’s not an answer.”

She cocked her head and blinked again. “You may try, if you wish.”

He nodded. “I do.”

“At least you two seem to get along,” Puvica said. She looked at each of them with a smile. “What exactly is your relationship, if you’re not married or lovers?”

Ander smirked. “No one said we weren’t lovers.” He chuckled and scratched his head. “We’re not, though. Really, we just happened to meet and decide to join up.”

“Smart, the way things are.”

And yet the woman had been traveling all alone and seemed ambivalent to the danger. She was a strange one.

“Still, I’d say we’re friends by now,” Ander said. He looked to Lusya. “Right?”

“I will allow that descriptor,” she said. She had had few friends in her life, and she would have hesitated to use the word herself, but she supposed it was reasonably accurate.

Lusya was not sure why people assumed she and Ander were married or romantically involved. Was it so unusual for a young man and woman to travel together? For that matter, most should not have assumed they were the same age. Although, relti did tend to involve themselves with humans of similar apparent physical age. And rural villagers in an area where relti were rare may have had limited knowledge of them. Ariya had thought relti lived for millions of years when they had first met. Granted, Ariya was a child, but that misconception may well have never been corrected if not for Lusya.

“Speaking of the way things are,” Ander said. “You wouldn’t have happened to have heard anything in particular about those bandits I mentioned, would you? We heard they had some sort of base set up, for example.”

“Oh, I’ve heard that one too,” she said. “A customer was just telling me about it, in fact. Apparently, a friend of his saw some kind of fortress they’d set up. They’d built some wooden walls, even had flags hanging from them, and the friend hid nearby and watched them come in and out.”

“Really? That’s more specific than what we heard,” Ander asked. “When was this?”

“I don’t know when it happened, but I heard about it just the other day.”

The woman’s words could not be taken as credible on their face. Nor, for that matter, could the words of her husband’s customer’s friend. It was additional information, however, even if very little.

“Did you hear anything else?” Lusya asked.

The woman shrugged. “Just that they’re killing, stealing, and kidnapping. Doing what bandits do. They are quite bold, though, and it is terrifying to think some people would rather do such things than live in a peaceful tranquil age.”

“Yeah,” Ander said, “it sure is.”