Chapter 50: Chapter 50 – Mercenaries

//Author Note: If you want to see from another perspective: //

 

“She’s really cute, isn’t she?” Crow sits on my shoulder nodding his little head up and down, giving a squawk of approval. His deep black eyes, warm with the morning light, reflect my own distorted image as he bounces up and down in joy.

“You think so, too?”

He waves his wings about, excitedly as he stares back towards the estate. His dark feathers ruffle up in the process and he’s forced to tidy them up while we walk back to the falchion company house. Finally, he sits up proudly, staring at the few passers-by that look at us strangely.

“Yes, yes, I’m pretty sure she likes you too,” I say. “On our first ride in the carriage I wasn’t sure, because her face was all frozen stiff,” he nods his avid agreement, “but when we were coming back, she couldn’t hide it anymore. She likes you. She likes us both.”

The words warm my chest as I close my eyes and remember lying next to her. We didn’t get as far as sex, which I think was where it was going, but I don’t mind. She likes me. I like her.

Crow pecks at my head and I quickly straighten up and dodge out of the way of an oncoming carriage. Adeleya glances back at me but says nothing, turning back away again.

“Thanks for looking out for me Crow,” I whisper, petting his head. The others are largely ignoring me, deep into their own conversations and focused on finishing their own quest. The researchers, the ruins, the vampire conspiracy. It’s all important stuff, but it’s not my quest.

All I want is to be strong enough to protect the people I care about.

Which is why it’s a problem that I’m so late for this mission into the crypts, I need to find some excuse to get away from here and delve into the ruins without them figuring out what I’m doing.

When we arrive at the company house, the others stream inside as I send Crow up to the rooftop to act as a sentry. I need to gather my bag and a few things before I can go on this mission then I’ll have to sneak out before anyone can stop me. Maybe I should write a note, too, just in case anyone notices me missing.

“Syr!” Olive shouts, pulling me by the arm up the stairs of the old building. “Anna is… it’s… just come talk to her. She’s sick.”

“Sick?” I ask, rushing after her and forgetting about everything else. “What happened?”

Olive shakes her head, not giving me an answer. We race through the building until eventually, we reach Anna’s room where Olive forces me to stop, catching her breath. She hesitantly opens the door, guiding me inside.

Anna doesn’t look well.

“Anna, are you feeling okay?” I ask, taking a seat beside her. She seemed to be doing fine just a day ago, but suddenly she’s pale and bedridden. Almost as if she’s dying.

“I’m… I don’t know,” Anna says, leaning back into the bedding, her eyes staring out past me. “I was healing myself and I thought everything was fine, but… something is still wrong.”

“Can I give you some of my power, or should we get a healer?” I ask standing, ready to rush for the door.

“No, I’ve had another healer check on me, but they don’t see anything wrong,” Anna shakes her head pulling herself from the bed though her face shows weakness that she’s trying to hide.

Olive rushes to her mother’s side, it’s clear that they’ve been working together to help Anna through this, with the cool bucket of water and the wet clothes littering the table by the bed.

“I… I think it was when I died,” Anna says, gripping my hand. “There was… I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s like there’s something that I’m forgetting, something that happened but it’s been pulled from my mind. Like…

“There’s a cost for coming back.

“Someone told me that, but who…” her face turns white as snow as her eyes jitter back and forth. “There’s something in the æther, it… it spoke with me. It hates us. It was proud of me. It loves me.

“Sharp claws, cold scales, and a breath hotter than the sun. It watches us, Syr. He watches us and he loves us, but it still hates us for what we did. What did we do, Syr?”

Her skin is clammy with cold sweat, a terrible contrast to the feel of Rea’s icy skin, and something much more dangerous. She continues to rant for a little while longer while I help her to lie back down, her eyes still swimming in that far-off ocean of æther.

“What happened to her?” I ask Olive, hoping she has a clearer answer.

“She was fine,” Olive says shaking her head and clinging to her mother’s side. “She was fine until she started to talk about what happened. She was trying to explain what it felt like to die, and then… she struggled to find the words to explain it to me. It’s like she suddenly remembered something, and she turned pale and started ranting, saying all these strange things.”

“It’s…” Olive’s mother starts before biting her lip. “I’ve seen something like this before, but not so bad. We should try to distract her, it’s these thoughts that are making her sick, so we have to keep her away from the thought of dying, and whatever it was she experienced.”

Olive and I nod, looking between us.

“Can you look after her for me?” I ask, biting my lip as I look at the door. I need to get out of here. I’m already way too late for the mercenaries that I’m meant to be meeting, and I can’t stay here for much longer.

“Are you leaving?” Olive asks, pulling away from her mother to grab at my arm instead. “We shouldn’t go anywhere, remember?”

“I’m not going far,” I lie, shaking myself free of her. “I just need to… I’ll only be a little while.”

I rush from the room before anyone can stop me. I need to do this, but Theo won’t let me go if he knows that I’m doing something dangerous like this to strengthen my necromancy. I have to do this without them.

Why do I have to feel so bad about lying to them?

I gather my weapons, leaving behind the long sword. It’s too large for tight spaces and I don’t think there’s going to be much room underground. I bring along a few biscuits and a jar of preserved apple slices, along with a large bottle of water since I don’t know how long this will take. My bag is mostly empty, but that gives me room to carry out the ‘loot’.

Adeleya’s lessons have stuck well. Loot gets me coins, and coins get me delicious food and pretty things. Even if I’m going down there for the necromancy, I still can’t let a chance like this go to waste.

“Syr, what are you doing?” Adeleya asks, pulling me to a stop as I reach the final hall before the front door. I didn’t hear her coming. “Your gear… are you running away?”

“No,” I shake my head quickly. Looking again at my bag, I see why she’s suspicious. “I don’t have my favourite sword, I wouldn’t leave it behind.”

“Right…” Adeleya crosses her arms and purses her lips “Syr, I don’t know what it is that you’re thinking about doing, but please remember that we all care about you. We don’t want to see you hurt because you did some thing silly, okay?”

“I’m not a kid. I’m not weak,” I complain, as she leans down to hug me. “I just… there’s something I have to do on my own.”

Lothar is behind her, his hand gripping his sword tightly as he stares past me out into the city beyond.

“Is this about that vampire girl?” she asks. “You can’t trust her. I know that she might seem nice, and she is pretty, but she’s one of them. She’s a vampire, and she’s already told us that she could turn on us at any moment. She told us not to trust her.”

I back away a step, pulling myself out of her embrace and glaring up at her.

“She’s not dangerous,” I argue. “She’s too nice to let herself hurt anyone, and she definitely wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Syr…” Adeleya freezes, her expression shifting quickly through a number of emotions.

“Nobles are talented liars,” Lothar says, shrugging as he steps past Adeleya. “That’s something every city kid knows even if they’ve never met a nobleman in their life. They just want you to be careful.”

“They?” Adeleya spins on her heel to face him.

He rests a hand on her shoulder and whispers something in her ear. Their whispers go back and forth, eventually turning heated while I stand here in the hall waiting to see if they’re going to force me to stay.

“Fine, you take care of it,” Adeleya sighs, gripping Lothar’s hand tight before turning to leave “Just… be careful, okay?”

Lothar nods heavily, waiting for her to leave before addressing me.

You are reading story Rotten Æther at novel35.com

“So where are you going? Are you really running off to get married to your new vampire lover?”

“No,” I shake my head, smiling at the thought. “I’m too weak. I need to be stronger if I want to protect my family, and if I stay with her now then we’ll both be in more danger. I’ll train hard, and then when I can defeat all the villains that want to hurt us, I’ll make her my family.”

“Alright,” he nods, peering at me. “So, you’re off on a training mission because you’re impatient about coming to the princess’s rescue?”

“She’s a princess?” I ask, staring up at him. He’s frowning but he does nod.

“I’ll just assume that I’m right. I’m coming with you,” he says, adjusting his sword. “Give me a moment to prepare the rest of my gear.”

“No,” I shake my head and wave my hands at him. “You can’t come with me.”

“You’re not going alone,” he says gripping my shoulder tight. “We’re a team, and I’m not going to let you get killed just because you want to go off and do your own solo training while we’re being hunted by vampires.”

“Are we being hunted?” I ask. “We haven’t seen any, we haven’t been attacked, and we probably killed a bunch of them the other day. Maybe they’re keeping a distance, licking their wounds.”

“No, Lothar shakes his head. They have human allies, we fought some in that village close to Cildr, but they didn’t take part in that fight the other night. There are still more enemies around, and you should never gamble your survival on your enemy being weak. They will come for us, they’re just waiting for us to lower our guard.”

He rushes back inside, and I can hear the clattering of armour as he prepares his own bag full of supplies. I wait by the door, uncomfortable with the idea of him joining me for this. He hates my magic. He hates it more than just about anyone else on the team, but he still cares about me.

  “Syr,” Lothar calls for me as he walks to the front door. The guards outside glance at us but say nothing. One has pale silver æther veins showing on his skin, the other has a fiery red colour shining through. Both are powerful enough to stand at odds with a knight and make a fight out of it.

They watch the roads carefully. They’re nervous. Their fear is almost animalistic and they’re not even trying to hide it, they grip their weapons tight, ready to fight off anything that comes to do harm to their home and their family.

“I told the others that you were coming with me,” Lothar says, adjusting his shield as he walks. “I told the others that they’d probably find us at the place where I was raised.”

“But we’re not going there, I don’t think,” I say, showing him the map that Semi brought me. “You weren’t raised in a crypt, were you?”

“There…” Lothar pulls the map from my hands, looking between it and me for a time. “What have you gotten involved in?”

“I’m getting stronger,” I say.

“Syr…”

“It’s fine. Semi just wants to help me,” I say. “This crypt is filled with undead, and she thinks that there could be secrets down there to help me with my magic.”

Lothar says nothing, pressing his lips together tightly as he stares ahead.

“Did she demand anything in return?” Lothar asks, still staring straight ahead. “Did you promise her a favour?”

“No, she just wants necromancy to come back,” I say, shaking my head. “She wants me to grow stronger and create new chants when I master my magic, so that everyone can learn.”

“Right…” Lothar grunts walking alongside me.

“What about that other place you were talking about?” I ask. “Your old home?”

“Yeah… that,” he rubs at his head. “The poorhouse, we had our fair share of run-ins with the criminal sort too. It’s probably still the case now, using the younger kids as thieves and… never mind. Let’s just get this mission done, and get out of here.

“It had to be the damn crypts,” he continues in a whisper.

“Um, we have to meet up with some people, too,” I say. “She hired some mercenaries to go with me.”

Lothar spits out a string of violent words that I don’t know, but I can make some pretty good guesses. He glances at me for a moment before shaking his head and placing a hand on my shoulder.

“Right, so there are a few ways we could be getting screwed here,” he says, as we walk past the last houses and into a section of town filled with gravestones and short stone buildings that sink into the earth.

“First of all, the mercenaries could turn on us. If they’re hired by Semi, your criminal friend, then they could be ordered to stab us in the back at any moment, or more likely they’re hired to capture you. The other option is that Semi wasn’t lying, in which case… they’re disposable,” he glances at me again but says nothing more to explain himself. “Always expect things to go wrong, Syr.”

“Right,” I nod, adjusting my bag and my swords. I’ve looped them back around so that their sheathes are attached to my back again rather than my waist, and my bag is loose and light, not in the way at all. It’s also easy to drop if I need to, but it shouldn’t get in the way unless I start packing it with loads of loot.

Standing by one of the larger buildings are a collection of four people, but it’s the dwarf man sitting on the ground beside his large hammer that notices us first. He heaves himself up grumbling about something as we get closer.

“Sorry for making you wait!” I shout, rushing up to them. I’m not great at being a social person, but even I know that you have to apologise when you make people wait like this.

“You get into a spot of trouble?” The gruff dwarf asks through a massive beard.

“Sort of, I was in the company of a noblewoman,” I say, intentionally describing it as nicely as I can. Lothar snorts a dry laugh, even though he’s upset with this entire quest.

“And I spent my morning playing hide the bishop with the divine empress of the scorched mountains. “She told me that you’d be alone, your boyfriend decide to come along?”

“Eww,” I stare at Lothar, imagining him in that way just makes me feel a little sick. “No, he’s a friend.”

“We’re mercenaries ourselves, falchion company,” Lothar says, holding out his hand. “This little elf was trying to do this on her own and leave our team out of it.”

“I can understand why,” the dwarf nods gruffly. “This is some unpleasant business we’ve found ourselves in. Most of all ‘cause of our damn chaperone!”

“Fuck you, too,” A woman leaning on a long spear shouts at him from afar, smiling broadly though the dwarf only spits at the ground.

“Ah, how much do you know?” I ask, jumping in fast.

“I know that you go by Syr,” he says, Lothar grunts at that, taking a step back. “You okay lad?”

“It’s fine,” Lothar replies through grit teeth.

“Well, that’s what we were told to call ya,” The dwarf continues. “We also know that you’ve been tasked by our ‘financer’ to get something from the bottom of this crypt here. Everything’s confidential, not a word and not a whisper for what we see down there.

“Expect it to be bad.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

If you enjoy this story, like it, rate it, leave a comment, and share it around!

If you really like it and want more chapters join the Patreon, I need all your support to keep this going.

 

You can find story with these keywords: Rotten Æther, Read Rotten Æther, Rotten Æther novel, Rotten Æther book, Rotten Æther story, Rotten Æther full, Rotten Æther Latest Chapter