How Not to Poach a Unicorn

Seven

"What do you mean you can't pay me? You're a princess. You reek of nobility. Wouldn't someone pay a great deal to have you back?"

"I'm a princess, but a princess of nothing. Anyone who would pay to have me now is probably an enemy. I have no family left to reward you for my protection. Kish and Kazé here are the only ones in the world that I can trust now. I thank you for all you have done, but there is no profit to be found with us. Go. Take the boy with you if you're willing. We're nothing but a lure for ill-fortune and death." She kept speaking as her mind searched for the source of the alarm in Prag's words.

Prag slowly digested what the Princess was saying. He understood that there was no business to be done here, but something nagged at his mind. It was something tiny, something that he'd labelled trivial and shoved to a dusty and unused part of his mind but the Princess's last rant had him now searching furiously for it. It refused to surface.

He stalled.

"So what will you do?" He asked, with some genuine concern seeping into his voice around the edges of his mock concern.

"We'll hide here until Kazé can travel and then go south to the Barony of Orl. We should be able to at least find shelter there from Baron Taimon." Cariolta was stalling as well, not thinking about her words. Her mind was fixed on the warning flare in her mind.

Prag was shuffling through the endless stacks of disused information in his brain as she spoke, but Kish cut in and distracted him just as he had almost found it.

"Don't tell him where we're going! He could turn around and sell that information. Have some sense!" Kish was considering her chances at dropping the mercenary where he stood.

Prag sensed his welcome had been overstayed and he turned to leave. As he gathered his rucksack he finally brushed the last cobweb from his mind.

"What did you call him?" he shouted, excited to have found his elusive thought.

"You said you had defaulted on your contract!" replied the Princess accusingly having found the source of her own mental itch.

They stared at each other for a moment of confusion before calming down enough to notice that both Kish and Prag had each other at sword-point, having drawn in reaction to the other's sudden movement.

Prag lowered his sword slowly. "I apologize, Kish, simply a defensive reaction." He sheathed his sword slowly and gave the woman another mental nod for the speed at which she had him on point. "At the point I told you that, Princess, it was true. I had believed my imprisonment to guarantee my failure. It is no longer the case."

"But you were hunting unicorns... I don't see any unicorn horns on your person."

"I told you that I was arrested for hunting unicorns. That was true. I was doing that for some extra money seeing as I was in the area anyway. I'm rather embarrassed that I was caught for that."

"What were you here for?" Kish had still not lowered her swords.

"If you must know, I was hired to kill Cailo." Prag's voice was almost flat, but it betrayed a hint of his amusement at the serendipitous circumstances that allowed him to complete his task. "Now, could you please tell me what you called that dog in the corner?"

"Kaz. I call him Kaz." the princess answered, confused, uncertain as to why the mercenary would care.

"No, that's what you usually call him. That's a completely normal name for a wolf. I though heard you call him Kazé, though. What is his full name?"

"Not a big difference there, is it? What does it matter to you?"

"For me it's a matter of appeasing my curiosity. For you it may be a piece of valuable information. You have my word that I will not tell a sooul. Please, is his name Tsukinokazé?"

The Princess's face betrayed the truth before her lips could. "How do you know that name?"

"Because someone tried to hire me to kill him."

Kish was shocked and angered at the statement and she moved her blades to a more threatening position on Prag.

"You needn't worry about me." He said calmly, almost ignoring

the swords at his throat "I didn't take the job. It's beneath me. I can assure you, though, that someone else did. It's good news for me that the dog is going to be lost in these woods for a while. It means some of my competition will be tied up looking for him."

Kish and Cariolta exchanged glances and the swords were lowered, but not sheathed. "Thank you for telling us." The princess was suspicious of the mercenary, but polite.

Prag stood. "Unless you have a sudden eagerness to tell me who in the hells you are, my orphaned princess, and why you're travelling with the Clan Alpha of the northern High Wolves, I'll take my leave. No? Goodbye then, and good luck."

Gathering his bags, Prag said one last thing. "If he is a northern High Wolf, then he'll heal a lot faster if he's in direct moonlight." With that, he disappeared into the woods.

Kish and Cariolta were left standing in the cave, confused and suddenly very lonely. They stared out after their departing comrade and found the bright, vacant brown eyes of their unlikely savior and troublesome tag-along staring back at them.

The boy seemed to find the sudden attention ideal for demonstrating his new prowess at walking. He used the wall to stand, and wobbled awkwardly around the little cave, grinning with pleasure at his new skill.