Chapter 8: Chasing stories – part 2

It was a few nights of camping on the road later that D'Argen suddenly awoke when the scent of citrus assaulted him like a punch.

"What? What is it?!" He immediately jumped up and looked for Yaling.

Lilian and Abbot awoke much the same way, startling upright and looking around first and then at Yaling.

The woman was crouched by the fire with a hand lifted in D'Argen's direction, signalling him to be quiet. Her eyes were closed and her face was scrunched up in concentration.

D'Argen ran his tongue over the roof of his mouth, trying to soothe the sour taste of her scent as she used her mahee. She did not respond even when the taste turned into a tingle.

D'Argen opened his own mahee and formed the hand gestures that would allow him to access one of Yaling's spells to improve his hearing. It would never be as strong as hers but he did not have to open his mahee too much before he heard it as well. There was a sound that reminded him of a falling boulder, a support beam cracking, or one of the naturalists using their mahee to try and destroy a mountain. He dropped the spell and opened his eyes to look at Yaling, waiting for her confirmation.

"There is fighting," Yaling finally said and opened her eyes. "North of us. Near the road. Something is strange about it."

"I will go first," D'Argen said and stood up. "Follow me as soon as you can."

"Wait!" Lilian said but it was too late, D'Argen already had his mahee open so turning it from Yaling's hearing spell to its original purpose to run was instinctive. The initial push from his run created a small crater in the ground and blew away the last of their dying fire. He had to slow down almost immediately though, not wanting to run right past the scene without noticing it.

As he ran towards the sound, D'Argen reached for the bow at his hip where it was attached to his quiver.

The original design was a metal contraption Master Upates, one of the First Five and the strongest artificer of them all, had personally made for him thousands of years ago. When D'Argen flicked his wrist out, the four metal rods that made up its body snapped together into a full bow that was almost as tall as him.

Since the original design, D'Argen had gone through dozens of bows and not one of them worked as smoothly as the master's creation. His newest one had a snag in one of the mechanisms; it still snapped open but it could never do so if the string was already wound tight. Instead, he had to use one of the turn keys on the ends to tighten the string once the bow was unfolded.

D'Argen was already used to this delay so he always reached for his bow first, even before the much faster daggers he kept in his boots or the more comfortable sword hanging on the same hip as his quiver.

Another loud sound, one that reminded him of fire and smoke and demons torn apart under the strain of mahee as the mountains moved, startled D'Argen out of his run. He slid to a stop off the main road and waited for the rumble to fade away, but it was already gone. Too fast. Faster than any mahee he had ever seen used during the wars that could create such a sound. Even Yaling's whistle echoed more than this sudden burst of sound.

A flash of light, too bright to be anything other than magic in the early morning, preceded yet another explosion of sound. Explosion. The walls of their towers turning into pebbles when the flying demons rained down on them with fire. D'Argen shook his head to try and stave off the memories. He knocked an arrow in his bow and lifted it to aim towards the trees on the side where the sound and light had come from. The sound of the explosion was much shorter and more focused than those the demons had caused during the wars, even if just as loud.

He stepped quickly into the trees and that was when a scent assaulted him that was too strange to place. It was like burning paper and cooking spices mixed together along with that of charred wood and cooked meat. He ran towards the source of the scent without opening his mahee with his bow ready.

Barely a few steps deeper into the forest and there was another sudden flash of light, so quick that he could miss it if it was not so bright. Following it was an even more thunderous split of the air than before, the source much closer than before. D'Argen once more scented the air but could not figure out who caused either the light or the sound. He did not feel his mahee tugging to try and connect to another.

A quick glance around him revealed a figure running through the trees not that far from him. He ran after it and then immediately had to duck when the figure swung a branch at him.

"You!"

The shout startled him into looking up at a man of middling age with thick black hair and beard, holding the branch like a club. The man's eyes jumped over D'Argen's head then back to him.

Before D'Argen could say anything, the man took one last glance over D'Argen's head and then ran off again. The crashing of heavy footsteps through the underbrush had D'Argen turning around as three more men came barreling toward him. D'Argen lifted his bow and fired the arrow already knocked into it, sending it flying right past one of the men in warning. The man startled and careened off balance, but did not fall.

"What is going on here?" D'Argen asked though he already had an idea.

The other two men visibly startled at seeing him but they overcame it faster than D'Argen could ready another arrow. One of them had a battle axe that he lifted over his head and swung down right at him. D'Argen rolled out of the way and heard one of the rods in his bow snap out of shape. Two more men emerged out of the words.

"After the other one!" The man with the axe yelled and swung at D'Argen again.

Although his bow was metal, that axe looked too heavy to parry so D'Argen rolled out of the way once more. Another rod snapped. When he got up, it was to see one of the other men rushing at him with a sword. Even with his bow partially collapsed, this one he could parry easily. He swung, sparks flying when his bow turned the man's sword away. Both of the bow's collapses were on the same side so D'Argen used the one long arm of his bow to hit the man's open side with a snap that would crack ribs. He spun out of the way on his knees and then hit the man across the back with the metal arm, sending him sprawling on the forest floor where D'Argen had been a moment ago.

The man with the axe rushed at him once more, conveniently yelling his attack out so D'Argen could both turn on time and consume the sound. The attack swung wide as D'Argen opened his mahee just a sliver to get up and move out of the way and behind the man's back. He kicked out with a flat foot, sending the man stumbling forward at the end of his swing. The axe struck a tree and sunk in deep enough to make D'Argen wince.

D'Argen turned to see where the others had run off only to once more have someone screaming out their attack as the second man came at him with his sword. D'Argen hit the sword away with his bow again and circled around the man as he had done with the other, but this time he whipped the mortal across the back of his knees with the metal arm of his bow. The man collapsed with a painful scream, though it was not loud enough to hide the sound of joints popping.

The man with the axe finally pulled his weapon out of the tree and this time he stood still, facing D'Argen, not rushing in for another stupid and blind attack.

The bright flash of light came from somewhere in the trees, illuminating the man's face and his narrowed eyes, right before the booming sound made both of them wince.

"Look, I am just defending myself. Why rush to attack a stranger?" D'Argen asked.

The mortal grunted in reply and changed his hold on the axe, shifting slowly through the underbrush away from his fallen companion.

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D'Argen looked at the whimpering man on the ground and then dismissed him, knowing he would not get back up.

"What are you doing out here?" D'Argen spoke up again, trying to start a conversation.

"What are you doing here?" the man with the axe finally grunted out.

"Ah! Good question. Well, you see—"

D'Argen jumped out of the way of the wild swing the man threw with his axe and right behind a tree. The axe once more lodged in deep, sending splinters flying, but D'Argen was already long gone. He opened his mahee and ran in the direction the others had gone in. Running in a forest with his mahee open was an accident waiting to happen so he left only a sliver of magic under his feet and instead focused on fixing his bow. The two collapsed rods snapped back into shape once he loosened the string, but then he had to tighten it again.

A flash of light right in front of him startled him into closing his eyes and jumping to the side behind a large tree. The sound that followed it this time was like a thin whistle, something flying too fast through the air. The scent accompanying it was that strange mix of burnt paper and cooking spices again and D'Argen could not, for the life of him, place it with any one of the Never Born. Following the whistle was another flash, another explosion, and a scream of pain. D'Argen jumped out from behind the tree again, an arrow ready and his bow lifted to aim at nothing.

He took a few cautious steps forward then moved quickly when he scented charred wood. The first strange thing he came across was a missing tree, the stump of it still smoking, but no tree itself in sight. Then he noticed one of the men from earlier lying on the ground. D'Argen knelt next to the man and released the tension on his bow so he could use one hand to check for his breath. He was only unconscious though his travel cloak was covered in spots of blood and tiny wooden chips.

The next strange thing he came across was another one of the men. This one was still conscious, fumbling to touch the trees around him and tripping. His face and hands were covered in burns and the edge of his travel cloak was still smoking.

D'Argen decided that the smoke was not a threat for a larger fire and left him as well.

Yet another flash of light and a loud bang gave him a direction to run in.

He came to a small clearing, only there because the trees had recently been destroyed the same way as the one he found earlier. They were nothing but charred and smoking stumps. Standing on either side of the clearing were two men. One of them was holding a branch over his head with one hand and something long and tubular in the other. The other man had a hand shielding his eyes and a sword pointed in the general direction of his opponent.

"You!" The bearded man shouted once more and pointed the tubular object at D'Argen.

"Yes, we met earlier," D'Argen answered and watched the man with the sword turn to squint in his direction. "Though quite briefly."

"Don't come any closer! I have more of these!" the man waved the tubular object around.

D'Argen did not recognize it at all and did not understand why the other man was using it as a threat. Nor why it worked on the man with the sword.

"Relax man, okay, we just wanted—"

"To rob me and kill me!"

The man with the sword did not deny it so D'Argen turned to aim his bow at his feet and looked him over His weapon was clearly old but well cared for, his trousers were patched up, and his travel cloak only had a few snags in it. On the other hand, the other man was wearing a long ornate robe with stitched patterns that were probably extremely colourful and even though his hair and beard were shaggy, his skin was clean

"You are aware that robbery is—"

"Alex!" A shout from the trees interrupted D'Argen and made all three men turn in that direction. A moment later, the man with the axe burst through and slid to a stop, looking at all of them. "What is—"

"Get him," the man presumably named Alex ordered without a thought and then leaped through the air at D'Argen.

D'Argen let his arrow go flying without much tension. Alex was quick, using his sword to hit the arrow away, and then coming in close enough to swipe at D'Argen. D'Argen slid out of the way but it was right into the axe man's swing. He slid under it and pulled another arrow from his quiver, letting it loose without much pull or aim, but enough of a distraction to separate the two men coming at him.

A quick glance at the other end of the clearing revealed it empty. D'Argen turned back to his two attackers. They worked together as if they had been doing it for years, one fainting while the other attacked, and D'Argen could only parry the sword with his bow and run away from the axe. They both noticed that and started using it against him. The clearing, however, was their downfall.

D'Argen opened his mahee just enough to dodge every single attack. He ducked under one axe swipe only to reach for his boot and come up with one of his daggers. It was still not strong enough to block the axe, or the sword even, but it gave him a sharper edge than the bow did. He cut the axe man's hand near his inner elbow and then nicked the other man's thigh. Both wounds slowed them enough for D'Argen to place a few more thin lines of blood on them.

It was not the first time that D'Argen and his companions were involved in a fight with mortals. It happened a lot more often than even he thought it would. Bandits and raiders were common on the main trading routes, pirates in the waters, and beggars in the city streets sometimes got violent. Mortals were... greedy. D'Argen had seen them do much worse though so a scuffle on the road was the best he could hope for sometimes.

The hardest part about stopping any of this violence though was doing it without killing any of the mortals involved. It was something that D'Argen refused to do, even if it came so easy to every single Never Born.

Cutting precisely at the two men left them at a disadvantage but they were still strong enough to keep attacking him. And unlike him, they had no qualms about aiming for where it hurt. D'Argen got distracted by yet another flash of light and an explosion from the forest behind him and the two men immediately took advantage. Axe man dropped his axe and reached with open palms for D'Argen, grabbing fistfuls of his long hair and yanking back hard to keep him from running.

Before Alex could deal a truly damaging blow, the man suddenly dropped his sword and fell to his knees, clutching at his ears. D'Argen used the surprise and head-butted axe man into letting him go then skipped away a few steps, moving out of the way of Yaling's attack.

The woman stepped out of the trees with a metal whistle between her lips that she blew hard into and then both men were on the ground, clutching at their ears and moaning in pain as Yaling destroyed their ability to think about anything at all except the sharp sound assaulting them.

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