NOVEL WEB 11. Junk Mail
Daylight danced through the trees as Hord'anne mercilessly mowed them down for no apparent reason, other than being too fat and lazy to go around them. The man stayed two steps behind the carnage at all times, trying to hide his nerves as he clutched the crystal pendant in his palm. It had been paying him the silent treatment, which wasn't unusual, he wasn't the only one it spoke to. But a spell of silence after inadvertently disobeying it was never a good sign.
"Come on, you said my job was to kill protagonists, heroes, goody two shoes."
His heart skipped a little as the crystal glowed, the soft voice filling his head. "Cody was so distracted with talking to the void he didn't notice as the clumsy oaf called Hord'anne stubbed his toe on a log."
Hord'anne stumbled, giving the log in front of him a harsh kick as payback.
"Hey!" Cody snapped, giving the crystal his best pout. "Stop narrating. We know there's a protagonist!"
Cody was, what many he met would call, a special case. His false omnipotence could be traced to a single culprit. He had pledged patronage to a goddess of living ink; Alina, Goddess of Stories. Known well but rarely worshipped en masse. The goddess had a taste for dramatic prose, be it frivolous parties, mythic acts of heroism, or unspeakable war crimes. Many of her temples and cults had fallen to the latter eventually, and never recovered. Given her reputation for bloodshed and suffering, she had taken on a habit in the past thousand years of targeting individuals of a very specific caliber.
Cody and his purple pet Hord'anne, were two such creatures that had fit the deity's standards.
Cody was enraptured in his youth by the allure of fiction, which allowed him to completely detach from the reality around him. He had inevitably sought out the goddesses' aid, and earned her blessing in exchange for his name and a life of servitude. The goddess had called him Cody, and with her gift, he was able to hear her words at most times of the day, and glean her insights as she sent him off to play out stories with her other followers. It was a dream come true for him. A dream to live in any story, other than his very own.
Hord'anne wasn't so deep in his goals. Goddess in one ear or not, he was there because Cody fed him. The beast would sacrifice its first-born child for a honey roast pig.
While the goddess was a master of stories, reality was still her canvas. Even she could not predict with full certainty what would happen, she could only coax her followers into telling her tales.
The voice tickled Cody's brain again, more stern in its tone. "While perhaps right, as he had been told time and time again, this story had its positions filled. There was no room to be had for a villain in the tale."
"We've been storyless for months! Might as well steal a cottage and settle down at this rate."
"Cody yelled dramatically." The crystal hummed.
Cody sighed, jumping over the last bit of tree debris Hord'anne left and stepping onto a flat trail. He stepped up to two wooden pikes sticking out of the ground, once holding up a bridge that had let them cross the massive ravine in front of them. That was, until Hord'anne got himself tangled up in it somehow on their first pass-through. He grabbed his spell book and a random rock, tracing out a small incantation on the stone and hurling it across to the other side. As soon as it struck the ground a spray of mist exploded around him, and in a blink, he had swapped places with it.
He looked back at Hord'anne, whistling for the beast to follow him across. With a couple uncomfortable cracks and squelches, Hord'anne was able to sprout a pair of wings, just sturdy enough to keep him up in the air as he flapped along to make it over to the other side.
Cody held the crystal up to the sunlight as he continued his walk. "So, what's so secret about this story that you don't want me poking around in? Is it violent? Horribly dark and twisted?"
"Love." the crystal mused.
Cody planted his feet, every shred of motivation shriveling at the single word. He turned to Hord'anne, waiting for the beast to recover its energy enough to pay him some attention "We're leaving."
Hord'anne grunted incredulously, pointing at the trail with a questioning warble.
"I don't know! We'll just..." He pointed off in the distance to a set of foothills looming over the prairie. "We'll go that way! There probably isn't much in the way of people, but I'm sure there's other stuff to eat."
Hord'anne let out a whining moan, tromping off the trail to head off in the direction Cody had pointed.
----------------------
Sariel popped awake with a stretch from her lunchtime nap, staring at Maddison as he sharpened his crude sword in the usual condescending fashion. "You know Maddison, I'm surprised."
He kept to his task. "About what?"
"We've got a surprisin' lack of bug bites given that we don't have a hut or nothin'. Maybe it's cause you smell like iron and skat." She said, oblivious to the scowl she had earned. Her eyes suddenly widened as she gasped. "Mr. Maddison!"
"Sungard." He growled, seizing up as she grabbed his shoulders.
"You smell like iron! I have green eyes! By Garson's Grace, we're a witch!"
Maddison put his hand over her mouth, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Are you capable of going a single day without yelling witch?"
"Right there, sorry sir." She scratched her head, flicking a flea out from under her nail as Maddison grimaced. "But we're a witch."
He sighed. "So we're both witches now?"
She shook her head. "Nope. we're a witch."
"Sariel, we're two people... and I'm a guy."
"So?"
"So if I could use dark magics. Which I can't. I'd be a warlock. You'd be a witch because you're a girl."
Sariel paused in thought, her vacant expression hardening to a glare. "But I want to be a warlock! That's no fair Maddison!"
"You can't cause your-" He stopped, taking a second to work through how this conversation was inevitably going to end. With a nod, he conceded, forcing a smile as he patted her shoulder. "You know what? Be whatever you want."
"Yes! I'm a warlock!"
"Just don't scream it to the public!" Maddison burst, getting to his feet and pulling Horse's saddle on. He checked the empty trail for the hundredth time. "Lunchbreak is over."
"Right, sir. So you said you aren't a scammer, and I'm givin' ya the benefit of the doubt right now cause you're sweet. But do you suppose Medila would walk this far to find me?"
Maddison glanced over his shoulder at the days of travel they had done, paying Sariel a confident nod. "Definitely."
—————
Corian pressed his ear against the wagon door. With enough focus, he could hear past the obstacle rather clearly. Practicing his eavesdropping was yet another hobby he had discovered to stave his boredom. He had been invested in a conversation between two soldiers on guard debating whether the barmaid they had seen in the last town was flirting when she had stumbled and dropped a plate of drinks while passing their table.
They seemed to be the only two that were still awake and on patrol. Quibbis didn't sleep either, so he was probably having his fun with the abundance of sleeping men, but he was quiet enough to shirk Corian's attempts at listening for him. Corian moved his attention to trying to discern his father's snore amongst the cacophony, his game interrupted by the batting hoofbeats of an approaching creature. He scuttled away from the door when it rounded the wagon, his entire body tensing in fearful anticipation for his father to come bursting in.
"Sir Inprobus!"
Corian perked at the unfamiliar voice, his curiosity pulling him back to the door. He risked pushing the door open a crack to peek at the scene, the door opening barely a sliver with the chains in the way. He could see the visitor standing outside of the largest white tent, torch in hand while he stood patiently with a small bundle of papers and a steed at his side. His father's stern growl answered the mysterious visitor before he peeked out, his eyes squeezed into a tired squint as he sized up the stranger. "What is it? Speak quickly."
"The village sir, traces of a demon and a transportation spell. Our scouts have an update on the direction it's headed" There were a few shuffles of paper as he handed a booklet to him. "You also have three letters from the king, and seven flyers."
"I thought I told you runners to stop soliciting!"
The runner cleared his throat. "That being said, you forgot to update your payment to our add-free services, as such we had no choice but to give you flyers. I will also read out three promotions of the week before providing you with the last report on The Black Witch." He cleared his throat. "Balding troubles? Look no further than Lance A Locks, the number one-"
"Skip," Inprobus growled.
"Sorry sir, you've got to hear at least three seconds of it." he cleared his throat again. "Look no further than Lance A Locks, the number one hotspot in trendy wigs with zero ice drake hai-"
"Skip."
"Very well. It's that time of the year again! The flowers are a blooming and you're ready to cut down some vicious beasts, but not without Gargamouth's trusty Pain Train 9000 battle ki-"
"Skip."
"Last one." The messenger shuffled through some papers. "Now let's see here... Ah! Demons? Spirits? Ghosts? Father Calsiprop has you covered, with a potent and affordable concoction of bonafide holy water-"
"Skip. But I'll take one." Inprobus said, sticking his hand out expectantly as the messenger stared at it with a feverish smile.
"Sold out. Cabin full of guys snagged my stock after they played around with a board of wood. Apparently, it was 'possessed'." He said, waving his fingers with a chuckle. "Now yer last battle report. Three women matching your description were spotted, two of them were captured, but the last one was a friendly father-daughter duo of hunters. Guards didn't bother."
"Very well. Where were they spotted?"
The messenger stopped, staring at Inprobus in confusion. "That's concerning."
"What?"
"Thought you'd just shrug that one off and be like 'Bring me the prisoners!'" The messenger shrugged, ignoring his scowling audience. "Spotted in the town of Stonesong, but they were on their way out headin' north."
"We're going that way anyways it looks like," Inprobus replied, flipping through the first report the messenger had handed him. "Teleporting targets are such a pain."
"Convenient, isn't it?" The messenger chimed. "Any messages you need me to run sir?"
"Yes, tell whoever's in charge of prisoners to bring the two captives for witch testing, if they find a smidge of magic on any of the prisoners I want them sent directly to the psych ward. And have the capital send me an Arcane Hound, I'm still training my dog to sit, let alone sniff out magic."
Corian shrank away from the door when Inprobus turned his head to the wagon.
The messenger nodded. "Righteo! I'm off!"
Corian listened to the footsteps depart, smirking as he thought about that girl being sent to the psych ward. Alas, his aristocratic mush brain still couldn't remember her simple name, a convenient problem that if solved would allow his father to track her down in a snap.
He waited for his father to get back in his tent before moving another muscle. Eavesdropping was fun.