Wander West, in Shadow

3.

Martimeos woke up the next morning to a warm weight on top of his chest and a deep rumble filling his ears. When he groggily stumbled out of slumber, he was greeted by two intense, yellow, feline eyes staring directly into his. They belonged to a large gray cat perched on top of him – larger than any housecat, larger than a fox, but smaller than a wolf – gray, and speckled with stripes and spots, with a yellow-furred underbelly. Its ears were long and pointed, with black tufts of fur at the tips, and though the cat was well-furred all over, hair grew thicker around the beast's throat, forming a small mane.

Martimeos stared at the cat for a moment as it purred at him. He could feel its long tail swishing back and forth on his legs. “Well, hello,” he said bemusedly.

As if in response, the cat leaned over to the side, reaching over to the pile of leaves the wizard slept in, picking up a the limp, wet corpse of a muskrat in its mouth. This it dropped unceremoniously onto Martim’s face.

“Fah!” Martim shouted, bolting upright. The cat leapt off his chest and looked back at him, offended, but quickly returned to nuzzle up to him, still purring, as he delicately picked up the dead muskrat and looked at it, frowning.

Laughter rang out across the camp, and he looked over. Elyse was awake and sitting on the stump by the remains of the fire, watching him. Around her head flew a small red cardinal, alighting in her hair and jumping around, chirping. “That is my familiar, Cecil,” she grinned. “I think he likes you. And I suppose this little fellow is yours. Ah!” She whipped off her large hat as the small cardinal entered through one of its tattered holes and began chirping madly inside.

“His name’s Flit,” Martim replied, as he gently placed the muskrat's corpse aside. Standing, he brushed the dead leaves from his clothes. He watched for a few moments as his familiar twittered and burbled at the witch, then whistled until the little red cardinal fluttered away from her to alight on his outstretched finger, hopping back and forth as it babbled in its furious bird-speech at him.

“Oh, just Flit?” Elyse patted down her mussed hair, placing her pointed hat back upon her head.

“It is the name he chose for himself. Actually, it is short for his full name.” Martimeos brought Flit up to his ear so the bird could hop close and chirp his report. His brow furrowed as he concentrated on translating from the bird’s quick, staccato speech.

“And what is his full name?”

Martim rolled his eyes as he released Flit, and the tiny bird quickly climbed into the sky above the trees, a bright red dot soaring south. “He who flitters on crimson wing through the night, terror of crow and hawk, the scarlet sentinel of snowy wood and field….’twould take me all morning to tell you it in full. Cardinals are pompous little birds.” He glanced around the campsite, noting that the dead muskrat was not the only prey Cecil had brought back; by Elyse’s feet lay two rabbits as well. “I suppose it is Cecil who will be bringing us our suppers. So when you said that you were a great huntress, you actually meant that your familiar was.”

Elyse gave him a dark look as Cecil padded over to her to lay down before her feet. “Cecil’s kills are my kills, and mine his. Isn’t that right, Cecil?” She leaned down to rub her familiar's stomach. She watched as Martim tied the three dead animals to a strap on his pack with twine, then hoisted it upon his back. “You do not plan to cook one for breakfast?”

“I find it is best not to linger in any one spot in these woods for too long,” Martim replied, casting an eye about. Even in the early morning light, the woods seemed eerie and threatening, the trees blocking his vision from extending out too far. He looked down at the witch as Cecil got up, stretched, and then bounded into the woods. “Do you not have a pack?”

“Cecil brings me whatever rations I may need in any land I travel.”

“Not even for extra clothes, though? Or waterskins?”

“These are all I own. I wash them often enough. I do have a waterskin, though.” Elyse patted her rags, by her side, where it made a sloshing sound of a half-full waterskin being struck. She scowled at him. “I am no inexperienced traveler, Martimeos. I know how to take care of myself.”

“Alright,” he shrugged. He shielded his eyes as he looked upwards into the sun to find Flit, circling overhead, waiting for them. “Southwards we go then.”

And so they traveled south like that, following the general path Flit laid out for them as he darted from tree to tree, his bright red plumage standing out against the dark bark of the bare forest. Though she was a good deal shorter than him, Elyse, unburdened with a pack, was easily able to keep up with Martimeos. The woods were unmarked here by paths, though, and it was slow going wading through the thick carpet of leaves on the forest floor. Cecil traveled along with them, though not always at their side, frequently bounding off into the woods on a whim, though he would return from time to time to trot by Elyse’s side.

Elyse, beneath the unkind laughs she would give him whenever he tripped, the mocking giggles, the sharp tongue - she was, Martimeos realized after a while, actually...friendly, in her own way. While he had looked with her with suspicion, for her, there never seemed to be a question of whether or not she was in any danger while with him. It was many little things - how quick she was to grab his arm or playfully clap him upon the back - something small that Martimeos realized that he himself would not feel comfortable doing with someone he had just met, as if she had a different idea of what was appropriate or not to do with strangers...though he had traveled far enough by now to know that this could vary from place to place; he had even seen a town where casual acquaintances might kiss each other on the cheek as a greeting, kiss! - but it was a bit more than that. She seemed almost...naive, in some ways, as if she had never learned to be on guard against strangers. She had said her mother had kept her from men, told her they were dangerous...but the way she behaved, she certainly didn't seem to think he was very dangerous at all. Her attitude put him at ease; he found himself having to make a conscious effort to be on guard around her.

As they traveled, they talked about what they knew of the Art. As impressed as Martimeos was by Elyse’s skill with glamour and healing, she was equally impressed by his ability to manipulate fire and his knowledge of sigils. Elyse also claimed to be able to speak with trees – though they were not very talkative in autumn. She was particularly interested in the grimoire Martimeos carried around with him. He showed her; it was an ink-stained manuscript detailing knowledge of some of the more deadly creatures that might be encountered in these woods, and a few more of those who came from Outside, though she seemed to know a bit more about that than what was written in the book.

They did not stop until midday, when their stomachs began to growl. Elyse expertly skinned and cleaned one of the rabbits Cecil had brought them, so they might have some hot meat in their stomachs to go along with the hardtack bread. She asked Martimeos to show her what he knew of glamour. The best he could do was inscribe a message on a stone, or change the color of a rock, and he made little progress in the first lessons she tried to give him.

They traveled on in this manner for two days, following Flit, talking about the Art and trying to teach each other, as they moved southward. Though the journey was not entirely uneventful. The first night, Martimeos woke up to Elyse’s hushed whispers in the middle of the night. She was staring, transfixed, out into the woods, where glowing, dancing green lights were flitting between the trees, a few hundred feet away. Wisps, she said; and they had better stay awake until they were gone, because they would have to run quickly if the wisps moved towards them. They sat in utter silence, watching the wisps together, the wind carrying an eerie, lilting tune towards them, which though it was beautiful, Elyse said they ought to plug up their ears against if it got much louder.

And the second day, as they were walking, they came across a bundle of sticks tied together oddly, hanging from a tree, in roughly the shape of a man. Elyse claimed it was a symbol left by witches for other witches, and that the message depended on what was left within the chest of the man. Martimeos watched warily as she approached the stick-man and opened up a compartment in his chest. And then she grew deathly pale, and shouted at him to run. They fled from the place until they were both out of breath, and Elyse would not stop trembling, and would not tell Martim what it was she had seen in the stick-man, though he noticed she had blood on her hands where she had pulled open the crude compartment in its chest.

It was on the third day of travel that Flit led them to what seemed like the first civilized path they had seen thus far. As the sun was setting, the forest opened up onto an old cobblestone road, though it had not been maintained in a long time – in most places now it was just bare dirt, what worn-down stones still existed overgrown with weeds. It was easier traveling, however, than tramping through the forest, and it was not long until they came to a crossroads.

They stopped there for a moment. Elyse crouched to poke at a curious weed growing from between the cobblestones, as Martimeos looked down the winding paths that led away from the intersection, stretching out into the distance before disappearing behind the trees. Glancing around, he saw the worn stump of a broken post jutting out from the roadside. “A sign must have been here at one point,” he mused. “Perhaps it is not far.”

Elyse stood in the crossroads, watching, as Martim cast about the woods surrounding it, looking for the remains of the sign. Finally he found it, buried beneath a pile of leaves. It had only one location marked upon it, the word “Silverfish” carved into the faded, rotting wood. It looked as if it had once had other pointers, but those had been broken away or rotted away in the wind and rain.

He was considering this, wondering if “Silverfish” were the name of the village he was looking for, when he became aware that Elyse was calling his name. “Martimeos. Martimeos,” she said, her voice growing louder and more panicked. He looked back at her, and she was wide-eyed. “Hooves,” she said.

Martim glanced up sharply. Flit was circling about the trees around the crossroads, chirping madly, and when he strained his ears he could indeed hear hooves – heavy hooves – fast approaching. He looked about quickly. Down the westward road, when he strained his eyes, he could see a black figure approaching in the distance. “Come here! Come here, quickly,” he shouted to Elyse, and she scurried out of the road. When she reached him, he grabbed her and swung her behind a tree, then strained his ears once more. The hooves were only growing louder. He got down on the ground, flat, and she laid next to him, and he began burying them both in the dead leaves that lay under the tree. “Now would be a good time for your glamour,” he whispered to her, and Elyse nodded, still wide-eyed, and murmured a few soft words beneath her breath.

And then they stayed there, hidden beneath the leaves, watching the crossroads, and waited.

The hooves grew louder, and louder, thunderously loud – and then, to their dread, began to slow down to a trot as the rider approached the crossroads. A few moments later, and the horse and rider came into their view.

The first thing they noticed was the horse. It was a gigantic warhorse, a great shaggy beast, black as night, the silver metal of saddle, bridle and spur standing out against its dark hide. But the thing that really sent fear coursing through them was what they saw when it opened its mouth. It did not have teeth like a normal horse. Instead, it had fangs like a wolf. and its whinny was like the screech of metal tearing through metal.

The horse stopped, pawing with massive hooves at the ground. And a moment later, the rider dismounted. He stood easily seven feet tall, and on his head was a helm fashioned from some manner of cattle’s skull, with long, twisting black horns rising high above his head, black ribbons tied to them streaming through the air. At least, they thought it was a helmet – they thought they could see a man’s face beneath it – but it moved as if with a will of its own. As the rider looked back and forth, cattle-skull teeth chattered; and in the skull's sockets were gleaming yellow eyes. From the back of the helm, attached to it, extended a long, black cloak that covered much of the rider’s body. But at his belt he had a wicked-looking hooked blade, and – they saw as he turned – a severed head tied to his belt by the hair, a man’s face too stained by blood and mutilation to identify much more past its gender, a grotesque look of horror marking the poor soul’s final moments.

The rider looked back and forth, before calling out in some tongue that sounded like stone scraping against stone. And then it took a step towards them. As it drew closer, a wave of revulsion washed over them; Elyse found that her thoughts were suddenly full of terror; thoughts of the rough hands of the rider grabbing her, that hooked blade sinking deep into her belly as she cried out for mercy; she tried her best not to tremble, but the feeling became overwhelming. She almost cried out, but then found Martimeos’ glove clapped over her mouth, muffling her. She looked over at him; he had his other glove clapped over his own mouth, and was shaking, wide-eyed in fear as well.

The rider took a few more steps more towards them, until they were almost certain they were spotted and would have to flee for their lives. But then it turned around and swiftly stalked back to its horse, leaping into the saddle once more. It cried out again in that guttural tongue, and then quickly turned its mount around, galloping at full speed from whence it had come, back towards the west. They dared not move or speak until the sound of the hooves had faded away for well over an hour.

Finally, Martimeos stood up, the leaves falling from his shoulders. Elyse stood as well, though she rubbed at her arms as if to wipe something unpleasant from her; the aftertaste of the feeling the rider had given them seemed to cling, like a thin film of rot. “Pfaugh!” she cried. “I feel – vile. I would very much like a bath.”

“Aye, me too,” Martim replied darkly. He began to walk from their hiding spot beneath the tree to where the rider and its beast had stood.

“What was that thing?” she asked, as she followed behind him. Suddenly Martimeos stopped, staring down at the ground. She looked and stepped back in revulsion. Where the horse had stood, its hooves had sank into the very cobblestone, as if they were melting beneath it, and the indentations were full of a dark red liquid that was unmistakably blood.

“I don’t know. I have heard tale of fell creatures in the mountains to the west. Nothing like this, though.” Martimeos spat at the indentations and muttered a curse. “Let’s go. Foul luck to tarry where a thing like that has trod, I think.”

They hurried away from the crossroads, down the southern path, Martim no longer caring about the sign or whether it had named the village they were heading toward. Unfortunately, their time hiding beneath the tree meant that there was not much light left in the day – they both would have liked to have been a full day’s travel away from that spot before stopping. Fortunately, as the sun began to set, they heard the unmistakable sounds of a gently babbling brook.

Elyse was the first to hear it; she cried out in relief and ran from the path towards the sound, Martim close behind her. She slid down a steep embankment of leaves, dodging past trees to come to the banks of the brook; it was perhaps three feet wide, and the water was crisp and clear. With a sigh of relief she tossed her hat to the side and lifted her ragged robes above her head, then bent to untie the soft-soled hide boots she wore. After a moment, though, she turned around, looking curiously at Martimeos, who was standing with his back towards her, puffing furiously at his pipe. “Aren’t you going to bathe?” she asked curiously. “I know you must feel as rotten as I do.”

“Where I come from, ‘tis not custom for men and women to bathe together,” Martimeos answered, without turning around.

Elyse laughed. “Who cares? ‘Those who practice the Art forego all custom.’ Besides,” she said slyly, “it’s not like I haven’t already seen you bathing.”

Martimeos cursed, blowing a cloud of blue smoke. “Bathe and be quick!” he snapped. He growled around the stem of his pipe as her tittering laughter answered him, followed shortly by the sounds of splashing water. He tried not to think about the glimpse of her slender pale form he had gotten when she lifted those rags above her head. Of course she wore nothing but boots beneath it. Not that he hadn’t seen naked girls before, but…

Muttering, he sat cross-legged on the ground, pulling out his grimoire, leafing through the pages to see if he could find anything that sounded remotely like the creature they had seen at the crossroads, doing his best to not imagine what was producing the splashing sounds behind him.

Eventually, Elyse called out, “Martimeos, would you start a fire?” He put his book away and turned around, and swiftly swore again. She was sitting naked on a rock, kicking her legs idly, long dark hair dripping water; stretched out beside her were her wet clothes, which she had apparently washed. “I would like to dry my clothes,” she said airily. She laughed derisively as he pulled off his black fur cloak and tossed it at her, though she did at least tug it around herself to cover up.

Martim quickly stacked stone, wood and leaf to begin a fire so that Elyse and her clothes might dry, then headed towards the bank himself, tugging his clothes off along the way. He pulled out a rough woolen cloth from his pocket that he used to bathe and stepped into the water. It was frigid; Elyse must truly have hot blood to have spent so much time in it. He quickly began scraping the dirt of the road from his body, scrubbing extra hard to wipe away the feeling of filth the dark rider had left him with. Suddenly, feeling eyes on him, he glanced backwards – only to find Elyse staring intently at him as he bathed, legs tucked up beneath her as she perched on the rock. “Would you turn around?!” he snapped.

“Why? ‘Tis nothing I haven’t seen before. And your body is interesting to look at. Where did you get that nasty scar across your back? Did you know you have a big freckle right above your-” she yelped and jumped, bare legs flashing, as he sent a splash of cold water towards her.

Martim finished up his bath quickly, hastily shaking himself as he exited the water, not even waiting until he was completely dry before tugging on a fresh pair of clothes. Thankfully, by the time he was done and had returned to the fire, Elyse’s clothes had dried and she had put them back on, and Cecil had apparently caught them dinner, laying by the witch's feet while she skinned and butchered what looked to be a pair of squirrels. “Not much meat, but better than nothing,” she murmured as she slid the meager corpses onto a pair of sticks to hold over the fire.

Martimeos sat down on a rock opposite her, pulling out his pipe yet again, frowning at the state of his tobacco pouch as he opened it. It was nearly empty. Sighing, he put it away and merely stuck the pipe in his mouth, chewing on the stem as he watched her work. “You’re quite good at that.”

She raised a curious eyebrow at him. “And you are not? Preparing animals is a pretty vital skill for any traveler, I should think.”

“I can do it, I suppose. Just takes me much longer. Never had much practice.”

Elyse was quiet as she handed him one of the prepared squirrels. “What is it you did before you set out on the road?” she asked. “Anything useful at all?”

Martim frowned at her as he held the squirrel meat over the fire. “My father was a cobbler. I know a bit of that.” The fire crackled and popped, the only other sound that of Cecil’s loud, rumbling purr. “Where about you, Elyse? What did you do before you traveled?”

Elyse didn’t answer him at first, staring into the fire for a long moment before she spoke as she held her squirrel above it. “South and east of here, there is a great swamp. The swamp of Rue Ouest. My mother was the witch of that swamp, and I was in her care. She taught me of the Art and how to survive off the land.”

“I think I have heard of it from travelers. Though I thought witches were old crones who ate people.”

Elyse laughed. “Well, she did disguise herself as a crone. She never ate anyone that I know of, though she did kill any man who entered the swamp. Women, though, would sometimes come to her for help. Sometimes asking for silly things, like love potions. Sometimes for more serious things, like help conceiving a child. The first she’d sell some bottled swamp water and send on their way. The second she would actually help.”

“And what of your father?”

Elyse fidgeted, running her thumb over the dark ring that decorated her free hand. “I...never met him. I told you, I never saw any man except from a distance, before you. Mother would never let me near them...” She chuckled, though there seemed to be a sadness to it. “When I was little, there were some loggers that worked at the edge of our swamp. I watched them from afar. I thought they were women. I thought a man was what a woman became when she grew old. I was a bit disappointed when I learned I would never be very tall and have broad shoulders and hairy arms.” She sighed. “Or a beard. I would have liked a beard.”

“Your mother really kept you so isolated?”

“Yes. ‘Twas a lonely life. The only people I talked to besides my mother were her visitors. When I was old enough to read I asked them to bring me books, and from these I learned something of men. Though ‘twas some time before I got my hands on one that truly went over men’s bodies in detail.” She winked at him. “Seeing you has been...enlightening.”

“So glad to be of help,” Martim muttered, feeling the heat rise to his cheeks. “So what set you on the road?”

“Not so long ago, mother fell ill and died,” Elyse said lightly. “I decided I did not want to spend my life in a swamp, so I left.” She shrugged. “It may seem a sorry end for a witch, but ‘tis the natural course of things, I suppose. Even with all her skill as an apothecary, she could not heal everything. And what about you? What was the place you grew up like?”

Martimeos examined his roasted squirrel - it looked as if it were about cooked. He took a tentative bite at the meat. “Oh, nothing interesting,” he shrugged as he chewed. Then he yelped as a pebble struck him in the forehead and glared at her.

Elyse glared back at him, her dark blue eyes alight with anger. “Nothing interesting. Unbelievable. I tell you where I came from and you think you can just reply with ‘nothing interesting’ in return.” She bent down to pick up another rock from the forest floor, this one much larger than a pebble, and glowered at him darkly. “Tell me more, Martimeos, or the next one is going somewhere considerably more delicate.”

“Fine, fine!” he cried, as she lifted her arm back to throw. “Fine. I too came from the east, though more north. There the land gives way to plains, hills, and evergreen forests. My village was called Pike’s Green. Many farms, mostly potatoes and wheat. The occasional merchant caravan passing through. A quiet place.”

“And how did a cobbler’s son learn of the Art in such a simple village as this?” Elyse removed her squrrel from the fire now, sniffing at it. Sighing, she decided it was unappetizing, and handed it to Cecil to gnaw on.

“From a book my family purchased from a passing merchant.”

Elyse’s eyes widened in surprise. “You did not have a tutor to start you on your path?”

“...Oh, I did. Though I wasn’t a very good listener.” Martim paused for a quick moment, then before Elyse could speak, laughed, “I mostly just wanted to learn to impress a girl at first.” He tossed aside the bones of his squirrel, having picked what meat he could from it.

Elyse’s eyes lit up with mirth. “Hah! So, was she impressed?”

“Yes.” Suddenly Martimeos looked a bit sad, lost in memory. “Lots of my friends were, in fact.”

“Elyse watched as the wizard drew out his sword, and a long, smooth whetstone from his pack, and began sharpening his blade. "It must have been difficult to leave them all behind.”

“Yes.” Martim replied once more, focused now on the draw of his sword against the stone. “It was.”

“So why did you?”

The only response was the hiss of his blade against the whetstone for a while. “Just wanted to wander, I suppose.”

Elyse gave a small ‘hmmph’ and lobbed the rock at him, but softly, so that it only hit his boot. She looked around. The daylight had died, and the shadows were settling in. She slid off the rock she sat on to nestle in a pile of leaves, pulling the brim of her hat down low over her head. “Well, if you are not going to talk about it, I am going to go to sleep.”

“Goodnight, Elyse,” Martim called absent-mindedly. But she did not sleep, not right away. Instead she watched from beneath the brim of her hat as Martimeos slowly sharpened his sword, occasional white sparks scattering into the darkness from the edge of the blade, not shutting her eyes until he extinguished the campfire with a clap.