2.
Siro’s head
snapped up, eyes trying to make sense of what he saw. The Previous
sprite had obviously decided to take on the form of a short young
man, dressed in black aside from a deep red cloak that came up into a
hood around his head. It had hid in the opposite corner of the room,
lounging on something that looked a little like a small bed. But
everyone knew that The Previous did not need sleep. A pale face with
sharp blue eyes stared out of the hood and at Siro. A look somewhere
between puzzlement and amusement formed on the sprite’s face.
“What do we have
here?” asked the sprite in human form
Siro bolted.
Slipping for purchase in the droppings he scrabbled on all fours
across the room and out of the door onto the gloomy landing. He
tumbled down the stairs, painfully cracking a shin against the bottom
balustrade as he came to a crumpled halt. Pain ignored, he was back
on his face and racing to the front door. However, a few metres
outside he was again forced to come to a halt. Block the path in
front were his two pursuers. They had stopped arguing and turned to
face him. A wicked grin broke out across the woman’s face, while
the portly man just looked confused.
“You gonna play
nice now?” asked the woman, as she dropped her bag and took a two
handed grip of her club. Her companion look less combat ready, but
the long blade still looked menacing as it hung limply from a pudgy
fist.
If cornered,
always try to match your strengths with their weakness, the voice
of Aesara just about managing to make itself heard again over the
turmoil of panic raging around Siro’s head. An easy motto for
Aesara to preach, she cut a formidable figure on the battlefield. He
didn’t have a weapon, or any particular combat training for that
matter.
But he did have
speed, one of the reasons he was selected as a scavenger, coupled
with sharp vision and an eye for opportunity. And the larger man
certainly didn’t appear to be especially agile. There was his
chance.
He leapt towards the
woman, who dropped into what looked like a well practised battle
stance. Dropping a shoulder Siro jinked to the right, towards the
large man who was already looking startled. If Siro could just dive
under the man’s reach then he’d come up behind them both, with
open road ahead of him.
Siro jumped forward
and rolled to the big man’s left, tucking his head down he saw the
cracked earth, then the late evening sky, then the dirt, then the
sky, he just needed to get back to his feet now and start running.
But legs would not respond, his view rolling once more from earth to
sky. vision slowly darkening....
“WOAH” exclaimed
the woman as she stared at the big man “YOU TOOK HIS HEAD CLEAN
OFF!”
The large man just
looked down forlornly at the twitching corpse of Siro that now lay at
his feet, head having rolling a little further down the path and
under a ragged bush.
“He just came
straight at me” said the man quietly “You saw it, right Niv?”
he looked up and towards his companion, “Straight at me, I had no
choice”
Niv smirked, “All
I saw was a cold blooded killer in action there, Volk. Always knew
you had quick reactions for a big fella, but that was swift. I
thought the way Pyrrho took out the scout earlier was cold, but you
are like ice”, she laughed.
“Ow, come on Niv,
I had no choice” Volk pleaded, then looked down at his blade, which
was still dripping blood, “It’s that damn smithies fault, I asked
him to sharpen my blade, but not that sharp. He wave the blade
a couple of times in the air next to him, Niv looking disdainfully as
a blood droplet spattered on her tunic. “Yeah, this ain’t my
fault. Straight at me the guy came, and here I am with a faulty
blade” the words tumbled out as Volk attempted to reason away the
building sense of guilt.
“Not sure why
you’re trying to play it down” said Niv, moving to stand over the
body “I mean, he wasn’t exactly a fearsome adversary, but not
often you aim a blade swipe that nicely. That’s a campfire story
right there. Promise I won’t let on it was some wet behind the ears
scav.”She sniggered again, toeing the body, turning it onto its
back.
“So I leave you
two alone for ten minutes and you still manage to make a new friend”
the voice made Niv and Volk both look up from Siro’s body, towards
The Previous construction.
“He came straight
at me Pyrrho, Niv’ll tell ya” Volk looked from Pyrrho, who now
stood at the entrance to the building, towards the smirking Niv.
Pyrrho raised an eybrow towards the woman.
“The kid made a
break for it, old dead eye here” a sideward nod a Volk “took his
head off in one. Didn’t know he had it in‘im” Niv finished
“Any idea who he
was?” Pyrrho moved towards them, eyeing the body with a frown.
“Just some scav I
recokon” replied Niv, “scavs always leg it at the first sign of
trouble. Plus, he ain’t equipped to be no scout, not like the one
you did in earlier...”
“You searched him
then?” Pyrrho had joined the other two at the body now. He stood a
head shorter than Volk or Niv, in the height sense rather than the
wrong-end-of-Volk’s-blade sense.
“I ain’t
touching him” Niv took a step back, then halted as she caught
Pyrrho’s gaze. “You know I ain’t squeamish or anything, but I
gotta draw a line somewhere. Looting headless corpses is somewhere
‘round that line. Get Volk to do it, he caused the mess” she
motioned down at the spreading pool of blood, trickles running
through the cracks in the path.
“Not to loot”
Pyrrho replied impatiently, “but it’d be good to know where the
kid was from, see if we need to add any more factions to our rapidly
expanding list of people to avoid”
“T’is hard to
keep tabs these days” muttered Volk.
The hint of a smile
crossed Pyrrho’s face, “What? Don’t you like being the scourge
of the seven counties? Our enemies tell stories of our exploits to
scare their children.
“If they tell this
one” Niv nodded at the body “then those poor blighters ain’t
gonna sleep anytime soon” she turned away and walked a few paces
“Right then Volk”
Pyrrho instructed “Time to get acquainted with your new friend”
“Ow come on
Pyrrho, you don’t really want me to search the poor sod” a
pleading look towards the shorter man was greeted with a stony stare.
Volk sniffed, then crouched over the body, “Gee, he didn’t even
have proper boots” he indicated towards the foot bindings.
Pyrrho frowned, then
lent over Siro’s feet. They were bound tight in cloth, wrapped in
an intricate fashion. A familiar fashion. “Some scavs prefer not to
bother with boots, helps them stay mobile, stay quiet”, stay
hidden, stay safe, his mind’s voice continued. His frown
deepened.
“It's nearly dark”
Niv's statement shook Pyrrho from his contemplation “We hunkering
up here for the night?”
“Oh no, not here!”
Volk interrupted before Pyrrho had time to reply “This place is
cursed, what with that Previous place and, and, my sword doing
strange things” he looked down at the blade a flash of inspiration
on his face, then thrust it towards Niv who jumped back instinctively
“You reckon maybe that could be it Niv?” he almost pleaded, “them
Previous possessing my sword? After all, he came straight from The
Previous building” sword swished away from Nov and pointed back at
the body.
“May....be” Niv
pondered, “not sure why you'd want to give them credit for that
blade swipe though. What you reckon Pyrrho, you feel any Previous
presence during your exploration? They say you're part Previous in
any case”
“Who
does?” half a smirk had found its way back onto Pyrrho's face.
“Oh,
you know, camp gossip” Niv suddenly seemed unsure of the confidence
she risked breaching.
“Why
do you always insist
on visiting those places?”
Volk interrupted.
“Why
wouldn't I?” Pyrrho retorted “Quiet, dry, comfortable – about
as nice a change as you can get from life on the front line”
“But
the sprites” Volk
said
“Are
the stuff of childish legend, you should know better than...”
Pyrrho eyed the lumbering form of Volk for half a second “people
should know better than to believe in that sort of thing”
“Then
why did they inhabit such dark lairs?” Niv questioned, motioning
towards the building, glinting in the last efforts of the sun to
light the evening. “You said yourself that you normally needed to bust
through a wall 'fore you could see owt”.
Pyrrho
contemplated the building for a moment, then shrugged. “Heard they
had control of light, could snap a finger and a room would
illuminate, or glass would turn from black to transparent”
“That
ain't so far away from sprites now is it?” Niv retorted.
Pyrrho
shook his head, this was an argument he would never win. The Previous
were bad news, everyone knew that. “We'll camp here tonight” he
said, “but over in the barn” added before Volk could protest,
“but first we finish searching this fellow, then we bury him”.
“I'll go make a
fire” Niv started to stride off
“Not so fast”
ordered Pyrrho “You can dig a hole first”
“Common...” Niv
began to protest
“Either that or
you do the body search”
“Ok” she held
her hands up and went to look for a suitable sport of earth “We
never did this for that scout though”
“That scout was
Drakhan scum, best left as a message when their vangaurd passes
tomorrow. This...” Pyrhho look down, mood darkening again “This
is just some poor kid.”
“Came straight at
me” said a fullorn Volk
“I know big man,
but now we gotta make the best of it. Time to have a look in his bag”
Volk looked like he
might protest again for a second, but thought better of it and began
rummaging around Siro's personal effects. However, it was only a few
seconds before he stopped again.
“What this time?”
Pyrrho was growing frustrated
“In, er, in his
bag. There's only one thing” Volk stammered
“What?” Siro
said, hand rubbing his face.
“These” Volk
held up the underpants, “from that scout I reckon. Gee Pyrrho, just
how desperate was this kid?”
Pyrrho took the
pants proffered by Volk, something he'd never envisaged happening
other than in a nightmare; a situation today was rapidly qualifying
as. “People get desperate at war time” he almost muttered.
“But who round
here?” Volk looked close to tears “We're, what, half a mile from
where you reckon the front-lines will come together next. And we saw
the refugee caravan on the way here, the county is emptying out. Who
sticks round to steal underpants?!”
Pyrrho looked
towards the horizon, a few miles away camp-fire smoke from the massed
ranks of the soon to be combatants eddyed lazily in the last rays of
sun. “I guess some caravans move more slowly than others”.
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