Chapter 13 – The Chase
"So there I was, neck deep in the thick of a mess so stygian, I think even Isira would've been blinded. Surrounded on all sides by the roiling plains, out of food and my boots were too ripped up to use for stew; the septic wound in my hand was pulsing an angry red and it burned something awful. I reached for my gem torch to find it gone, and my blade? It'd broken along with the gearing in my armor. I had to laugh. . . .because I knew tomorrow was going to be hell."
Final field report of Sir Marcus Rynell, 56
th
Rock Crusher Infantry (Estan Freestates, Deployed to Mawik steel mines.)
~Felicia~
Felicia and her horse were perched atop a hill with a commanding view of the valley that had flowed from the village's trade route. An open corridor to the Estan Freestates if one traveled far enough west. It was from this hill, under a high-hung moon that she watched for a hunting party that had so far disappointed her.
They hadn't followed. Apparently whatever influence the dragon's child held over the village had been enough to keep them from hunting down the two women. Some part of her was incensed, some part relieved and all of her, exhausted. Lostariel had been sleeping heavily in the days that followed their escape, her body was slow to heal after she'd downed whatever potion the creature had given her. It had saved her life but not sped up the healing process the way divine healing so often did.
For Felicia, the recovery time was an ongoing waking nightmare. She was waiting for the dragon's child to reach out from the dark and kill them both should she dare close her eyes. It was only a day's ride behind them, she was sure of it. From what she'd heard of her homeland, those who killed nobles, even by accident were hunted to the ends of the world, their families butchered and their bodies left limbless and blind to relay the message. . . .killing a noble was the very pinnacle of atrocity in the eyes of the so called civilized world.
And yet there were no thundering hooves, no sneaking dagger in the night. There was just the rustling wind and the vast swath of empty land in every direction. The dragon's child had set the noble up, presumably the one who trained Lostariel's progenitor to fight, and then she'd made sure that they weren't pursued afterwards? Just to prove a point? That was power.
Real
power.
Felicia shuddered.
She'd heard stories from the elders about the gods' war, when the dragons came to Mawik, when it was still a city. They'd warned the people that the gods would deceive them, that there would be war at their doorstep and soon. The city's leaders chose the gods of humanity over the dragons and doomed their entire culture. The children of that war, the first Plains Walkers remembered; the civilized world chose poorly. Under a sky that always seemed to grow richer and more dangerous shades of purple generations lived out their lives afraid of dragon and god alike, superstition had replaced knowledge and the ruins of their culture now served as little more than places to shit.
No dragons. No gods. An entire tribe of Plains Walkers could pass without seeing the remnants of either, but Felicia had not only met clerics but an actual dragon's child. The superstitions hadn't been true at all: they adopted human forms, they weren't harbingers of plague and disease– they were quantifiable.
Killable, maybe. Lostariel seemed to think so.
Felicia would have been a fool to think the dragon's child was immortal. Whatever form she took, hers was a destructive path and those that followed it would find their own ruin in time, but did that make the creature insurmountable? Did that make Lostariel right for wanting to kill it? To stop an ancient evil with a younger one by
means
every bit as evil as the destruction they brought. Was that
wrong
?
Was Sarah's life worth such a 'victory' in the end?
Was Felicia's?
She huddled into her cloak, turned the horse back down the hill and, not for the first time, decided to leave the question sit in the back of her mind like a boulder sitting on a cliff. She knew the answer she
wanted
to be right. But since when was what she wanted considered in the grand scheme of things?
The camp was tucked into a thicket of trees which the horse tried to avoid despite Felicia's insistence was fine, eventually she gave up and dismounted the stupid northern beast and lead him back to the clearing where Lostariel was balled up in a hammock, nestled into a heap of clothing that broke up her outline and made her seem more like a group of bushes than a sleeping human being.
At Felicia's approach the assassin stirred and rolled over to look up at her from under the hood of a bunch of blouses. Her pale face caught the moonlight and for just one moment she was beautiful. . . ."You should go home."
And just like that, it was gone. Felicia sighed and fished her canteen from her shoulder bag, thrusting it at the killer without comment. Lostariel drained it. She always did. In the heavy silence that followed, Felicia looked her over for signs that her stomach wounds had opened but nothing stood out immediately. Thankfully. The potion was finally doing it's job.
"I haven't abandoned you yet, have I?" Felicia whispered.
Lostariel hauled herself from under her coverings with some help and staggered off into the woods to take care of bodily needs. When she came back she was a bit more balanced and focused, if not almost 'normal'.
They shared a meal of vegetable preserves and pears in silence and once done, Lostariel quietly took a seat next to Felicia, leaning against her for the first time since they had met. Maybe it was an admission of weakness, of 'letting go' of her persona. Felicia didn't care. She brought her arm around the woman and held her close.
Eventually, as though every breath pained her, she murmured. "You're a good person. . ."
"And you're not."
"No." The reply was simple and direct.
