I was one of the few who could flee. God forgive me; I have abandoned my fellow man. I have abandoned my brothers and let them die. But I console myself it is for the greater good.
***
He stirred. The girl -Kyra- shifted, and her dark eyes opened. Her head rested on his shoulder, warding off the autumn chill with Laidu's body heat and his cloak. "Good morning," she said, still half-asleep, leaning down on his chest for a more comfortable sleeping position, probably not even realizing what she was doing. Then, she upright, eyes wide with fear. "It's morning."
Laidu nodded. "Yes. It's daytime." Kyra backed away from the cave mouth, away from the light. "That means we have Day Specters to deal with." He stretched nonchalantly. Blood and thorns, he forgot how sore he could get! Sleeping while sitting always made him a bit sore. He rolled his neck and massaged the stiff muscle with the tips of his fingers. He had talons.
Kyra stared out at the light. "We're dead," she said hollowly. Laidu ignored her and dumped out the rank water from his water jug. His map had told him that he was near Three Pines Village. It wouldn't take long to get there. "We're not going to make it out of here alive, are we?"
"Day Specters are bad, but not that bad." He went into his pack, and dug out a bronze medallion, a mage's circle engraved in it. "Wear this," he said. "It'll ward off their effects on your mind." In part, that was true. The circle was supposed to strengthen mental defenses. If Kyra believed she wasn't going to be hurt by the Day Specters, then this would strengthen that belief. So, while it wouldn't protect her, per se, it would help her protect herself.
Kyra quickly put it on, the cloth she had been wrapped in fashioned into a makeshift robe. She needed something tighter, less diaphanous, if she was going through the forest. It looked nice on her, covered her well, but it was too bright, too flowy. "Are you sure it will work?" she asked nervously.
Laidu nodded. "Yes."
Kyra looked at him. "Why aren't you wearing one?" she asked, drawing Laidu's cloak tighter around her thin frame. She was layered in that dirty nightdress and that bed sheet.
"They spoke to me," Laidu said, eyes distant. "I heard their voices and survived it." Kyra looked at him, eyes wide. "I'll be fine. Trust me." He looked at her. "Besides, you need it more than me. Getting inoculated against their power ...it's not a pleasant experience.
Kyra nodded. "Yeah. Well, thanks for saving me," she said, eager to change the subject. Day Specters were not the topic of pleasant conversation. Laidu smiled in response.
"Actually, I need my cloak back." He sighed. "Are you cold?" She shook her head, and undid the cloak, handing it to the scaly Changed. "It's my badge of authority here," he explained. "Someone sees you travelling alone, dressed in nightclothes, they might take advantage of you. They see me, they are definitely going to think twice about doing that. Probably even think three times." He gave a chuckle at his stupid joke. Then, after slipping on his cloak and repacking his supplies, he stepped out the cave.
"Hey!" Kyra shouted. "Wait up!" She tripped out the crag, the cloth slipping, revealing her dirty nightdress under it. "I'm not exactly dressed for running!" It looked like she was dressed for sleeping. Strange. That was the first time any Ajandi raiding party had been this far into Alberion. Though the way she dropped her r's, the long a's... her accent made her sound Caeldari. High noble Caeldari.
Laidu rolled his eyes. "Well, hurry up." He had to be a bit nicer to her. It didn't look like she felt comfortable in the outside world.
Kyra rushed down, nearly tripping over the dress's hem. "Sorry about that." she said, before adjusting the long swath of cloth so that it didn't trail in the ground. "Alright, which way are we going?"
Laidu was about to say something when he heard a scream, one of desperation and fury. Of course he'd have to run into one of Them. Kyra grabbed his arm, hiding behind him. "What was that?" she asked, the fear palpable in her voice.
Laidu closed his eyes. "Shh," he said quietly. He listened, absorbing all, filtering it down to information he could use. Ranger training taught him to hone his senses, to hear everything. But not to focus. To focus was to exclude out the tiny details that could get him killed. In effect, he focused on nothing. But yet, because he did that, he saw all.
Then, he felt it. The cold, chilling scream that wasn't just a sound. The air itself screamed, too. The Banescream. The cry of the victims of the Day Specters. They must be close to a hive. And then Kyra screamed.
Laidu turned and saw the revenant a few meters away. It used to be a woman, with fair hair that was now dirty and tangled. It howled, its back arching as it forced all the air from its lungs. Then, it charged, one foot dragging slightly as it ran as fast as it could. Day Specters viewed revenants like clothing. They didn't care about any damage done to their bodies. Those were, after all, temporary.
Laidu reached forward, his arm blazing with heat and fury. He had to end the thing quickly. Banescreams had the other effect, the one he didn't want to endure again. The revenant charged, and Laidu sidestepped its hand, as if it had the deadliest of poisons on it. It tried to grab his face, but Laidu ducked it, and swung his own claws at the revenant's skeletal face.
He tripped over a root and felt her chilled hand grab his face. No. Not again! His back arched, stiffening, and reality began to disappear. He fell, deep into his mind, sight and sound and touch becoming something distant.
He became aware of many things, then. The smell of salt, the feel of dry, waterless air on his skin, the sun beating on his bare back and legs, the aches of the beatings. No. Please, dear God, no. Not here. Not this dry hell.
There were others, there, chained by the ankle, using hand picks to chip salt from the dry, dead earth. They wore loincloths, and on their bare backs and ankles were written, in the language of scars and bruises, the accounts of their punishments. They didn't have shirts or cloaks to ward off the harsh rays of the sun. The cloth was too expensive, especially if they were going to be lashed every other day.
Laidu felt the rough hands on his horns jerk him up. "I heard what you did," the overseer said in Laidu's ear. "You get to taste the cat today." The cat-o-nine-tails was the overseer's real power. The flog had been studded with glass shards, designed to rip the skin off its victim.
"You're not real," Laidu said. He should have said, "Gladly," as he had done, but he had to deviate from the memory soon. The Banescream would try to imprison him in this hellish remembrance, but if he didn't play his part, it began to collapse.
"I'm not real, you half-savage?" the overseer asked, before he flickered and vanished. Everything began to evaporate. The memory couldn't be that weak! And then he smelled it.
Blood. Lots of it. The last time he smelled that much iron, he had been in a battlefield, the corpses of two armies slain. Now, as his sight returned, he saw what happened.
Kyra sat by a tree, shocked, hands red with blood. The revenant's body was twitching, which was a surprise, as half of it looked like it had exploded from within. Blood stained everything. The revenant settled down.
"Well..." Laidu said. "Thanks." Kyra looked up. "You killed the revenant." He kicked it. "What did you do to it?" he asked.
Kyra didn't say anything. She just dropped something small and stained with blood on the ground.
Laidu grabbed it, and, wiping it off with the revenant's grimy clothing, saw the gold inlay. "You had a thaumaturgy plate?" he asked. Kyra nodded, still shocked. "Huh," he said.
Many alchemists and philosophers pondered the meaning of the odd, alchemical glyphs that thaumaturgers used to tinker with the universe. Laidu had seen thaumaturgic plates lift entire carriages into the air, conjure fire from nothing, and freeze water in the middle of summer. And, of course, like all the inventions of man, they had been utilized for battle.
He had seen entire battalions ignited as the temperature their flesh needed to reach to combust suddenly dropped and their own body heat lit them on fire. He had seen men scream in agony as their armor slowly crushed them. He had seen something like this, where someone's blood boiled in an instant. Nasty stuff.
"Are you alright?" he asked Kyra. She nodded, and Laidu bent down. Was she murmuring something?
"Pesh to the twenty-third, kyren to the ninth variation," Kyra repeated."Pesh to the twenty-third, kyren to the ninth variation. Pesh to the twenty-third, kyren to the ninth variation." The look in her eyes was that of loss of control. She was aware of what she was saying. She couldn't stop it. But the look in her eyes wasn't the only frightening thing. Her eyes had an odd sort of glow to them. A faint luminescence.
Two minutes later, she stopped and the glow subsided. "Sorry about that," she said, rising to her feet unsteadily. "Any time I use thaumaturgic plates, I can't stop saying odd....things." She shrugged.
Laidu sighed. "Alright, but we're going to have to get rid of this," he said. "Three Pines is part of Alberion proper, and they have a rather backwoods knowledge of thaumaturgy. Still," he said, "they can tell an lethal thaumaturgy plate." Lethal plates, fatal plaques, deathsigns. Whatever they were called, they were illegal for a civilian to carry.
Kyra nodded. "Alright." She began to scrape the ground until there was a sizeable hole. She dropped the silver and gold plate inside the hole, and packed the dirt on it. "Sorry about that," she said.
Laidu shrugged. "I've been in a forest town jail. It isn't fun." Of course, he had been conducting an investigation. Someone of his station threw people in jail. He didn't get thrown in. He looked at Kyra, then at the revenant. "Are you alright?" he asked, concerned. Killing someone wasn't easy. A revenant was already dead, but it still looked and felt the same.
"Yeah," Kyra said, voice hollow. "I've killed before," she said. She had? From the look in her eye, Laidu didn't want to reopen that old wound.
"She was dead long before you did that," Laidu said. Kyra looked relieved. "Now, lets go. I'd like to get to the town sooner rather than later."