After two days on the road you feel like you're falling into a rhythm. You get up in the morning and hike until noon, then break for lunch. When the noon's heat has passed a bit you get up and hike some more until it's too dark for most people to travel. Then you have dinner, bed down for the night, and in the morning you get up and do it all over again.
The adventure books never really get into how much TIME it takes to get from place to place.
It could be worse, though. The weather's great, which means the dirt road is dry and hard-packed and easy to walk on. There's very few people along the way and you've got a cloak you can throw over your head when you pass the occasional farmer. You still don't know your name and you have no idea what you'll do once you get to the city, but you're learning to take things as they come.
Like that big fat rabbit, for instance. It poked its head out of the bush, gave you a funny look, and you gave chase before you could say "hunting instinct."
You'd cut yourself a travel-staff with the hatchet you found in your pack. That staff is in both hands, poised over your head. The rabbit barely feels anything when you bring it down SMACK over its skull.
This leaves you with a very dead rabbit and some time before lunch. You've never hunted before, or even butchered anything that didn't have gills. You find a flat rock by a stream and hope that it's like cleaning a fish.
It's messy work. You use your claws to puncture the skin, then pull it off the carcass like a wet and bloody shirt. You use a knife to cut the head off, then the paws, and then you use your claws to open its belly and dig the innards out. Out come the intestines. Out come the liver, the lungs, and the heart. The cat statue mentions something about cutting out the anus, but that's the only tip it gives you.
You feel like you should be disgusted, but the smell just makes you hungry. You want to dig in right then. The rabbit's liver is bright red: this was a healthy animal, free of parasites and disease. You know your system can take a little raw meat.
But the idea of doing that, it scares you. You resolve to cook the rabbit like a man would. You dip it in the stream to wash off the blood, then leave it on the rock while you find some sticks. Before long you've got it roasting over a fire.
You're so engrossed in your upcoming lunch that you fail to notice the man in armour, or his horse. Not until he calls out, "Hello, the camp!"
You look up. You reach for your cloak but it's too late -- there's no hiding your face or your ears, now sticking bolt upright.
"My name is Sir Ywain," the man says. "I am a knight of the Blessed Squires. I am also hungry."
* * *
You invite Sir Ywain to share the rabbit. He dismounts, then surprises you by unwrapping a couple loaves of good fresh bread and uncorking a bottle of rough red wine. It turns into a pleasant meal by the bubbling stream.
"Where are you headed?" he asks, and you tell him you're going to the city.
"Smart place to be, considering your condition," he says. "They're much more cosmopolitan there. But what will you do?"
You confess that you don't know. You've been so preoccupied with getting away from the people with pitchforks, with getting someplace where you're not afraid for your life, that you haven't given any thought to how you'll actually LIVE.
He chews over this. He's a middle-aged man with laugh lines and a moustache. He leans back, completely at ease in a suit of plate armour. He brings a handkerchief to his mouth.
"You say you were something like an alchemist? Well, I know an apothecarist, if you're be interested. But there's plenty of trades you can get into, no reason to limit yourself."
You thank him and tell him that you'll think about it.
You set out again after the worst of the noon heat. The knight leads his horse, Cider, instead of climbing into the saddle and you find out that this how he usually how knights travel. On foot, sparing the horses for the moments when they're in a hurry.
You hear a voice from your pack. "Ask him about current events," the cat statue says. "Don't worry, he can't hear me."
So you ask Sir Ywain what kind of world you've landed into.
"Well, it's kind an interesting time," he says. "Old Emperor Hanekin died last month. Could have been poison, could've been old age. His three grown kids are fighting over the throne. Could mean civil war."
"So the Rat Clan finally did it?" the statue wonders.
"And the Mages Guild has gone quiet all of a sudden. Started hiring mercenaries. Stockpiling food and supplies. To an old soldier like me, it almost looks like they're planning to start a war."
"Or end one," the statue says.
You ask the knight where he fits in all this.
"Well, the Blessed Squires try to keep the peace. We put out the fires, slay the monsters that need slaying. We've been called thugs and Lady knows we act like a blunt instrument sometimes. But we're sworn to serve the people, we're not scoundrels or rogues."
"Of course, they'll still kill you dead if you cross them," says the statue.
Sir Ywain frowns. "Speaking of rogues."
He needs but a step, and then he's vaulted into the saddle and slipped his armoured feet into the stirrups. He touches his spurs to Cider's flanks and then he's trotting toward another armoured knight that's just appeared down the road.
"Sir Almeric! Halt! In the name of the Lady, drop your weapons and surrender peaceably."
"Haha," the statue says. "Oh, here we go."
Sir Ywain draws his sword. The other knight is clad in scarlet armour and rides a black horse. He, too, has drawn his blade and rushed to meet his opponent.
They meet in the road, framed between a pair of carob trees. Their blades flash in the dappled shade. Sir Ywain parries and answers with an overhead cut. Sir Almeric leans aside, keeps his seat, and retorts with a flurry of blows. The Blessed Squire defends furiously but the other knight is bigger and faster. Even his mount is noticeably more muscular than Sir Ywain's horse. The two steeds shoulder and push at each other, whinnying and snorting.
"Sir Almeric! You will pay for your crimes!"
"Not today, methinks."
The scarlet knight throws a rising cut that jars Sir Ywain's sword-arm badly. The Squire recovers and thrusts out, but Sir Almeric raises one stirruped leg and kicks out, catching him in the shin. Sir Ywain cries out and Sir Almeric grabs him by the breastplate. He pulls the Squire forward and butts him in the head. They both have their visors down but Sir Almeric takes the impact on the padding of his helmet. Sir Ywain gets a cut over his eye. The cut starts bleeding. The Squire doesn't see his opponent raise his arm and bring the pommel of his sword down on Sir Ywain's head.
There is a thump as the Squire hits the dirt road.
"And now for his companion!" Sir Almeric says.
* * *
You yell out. You can't help it.
"What did he do?" Sir Almeric repeats. "Why, nothing except get in my way. And be a sanctimonious ass, but that's just a Squire thing."
You tell him you've got no fight with him, but you've been travelling with Sir Ywain and would rather not see anything else happens to him.
"You'd prefer that I move on, little half-breed? While there's looting still to be done?"
You answer in the affirmative. Without realizing, you've brought up your travelling-staff in a vaguely-defensive guard.
"The hell with that!" the rogue knight says, and kicks his horse forward.
You barely get your staff up in time. The sword-slash nearly takes it out of your hands and you stumble back from the force of the blow. The black horse canters past and you fall to one knee. Already the red-armoured knight is reining it in for another pass.
You won't get this lucky again, not on foot. And if you run, Sir Almeric will only cut you down. You can see it now, him riding up behind you and calmly, almost leisurely hacking you in the back.
Once chance. One of the carob trees. You run for it and start to climb. Even carrying the staff in one hand, it all happens very naturally.
You feel a slight tug on your tail, as if a sword-blade had just missed the tip and shaved off some fur instead.
"And stay there, you little rascal!" Sir Almeric barks, and then rides the short distance back to the unconscious Sir Ywain.
From your perch up the tree, you hear the Blessed Squire groan and stir.
"Still alive?" Sir Almeric says. "Well, we can't have that." And he urges his mount forward, as if to trample Sir Ywain. "Shame about the armour, but I'm sure someone will still buy it."
You wish you hadn't shrugged off your pack the moment you decided to confront the rogue knight. The cat-statue would have a plan, you're sure. But the pack is ten yards off and of no use to anybody.
Time to improvise. You run down the longest, sturdiest branch, raise your staff in both hands, and leap. You burst out of the tree in a shower of leaves and twigs.
"Eh?" Sir Almeric says, but you bring one end of the six-foot pole down on his head.
* * *
"Walter?" Sir Ywain asks. That was the name you gave him. "Is that you, Walter?"
You say yes. The knight is struggling to his feet. You've taken off his helmet and noticed something wrong with his eyes. The pupils are different sizes.
"He's concussed," the statue says. "Maybe from the headbutt, maybe from the fall. He's not going to be much use unless you heal him."
You wonder how you're supposed to do that. You know a little first-aid but none of it's much good with a concussion.
"I can teach you a basic healing spell," the statue says. "There's some mental gymnastics involved and you'll need to spend a bit of luck, but I'm sure you can do it.
You agree, and the statue walks you through it. You press your hand against the Blessed Knight's forehead and channel . . . something. You feel it pulse through your hand and Sir Ywain perks up.
"That's better," he says. He sits up, but he's still a little weak.
He looks to where Sir Almeric lies crumpled beside his horse. "Please, him too."
You ask him if you heard him right. Sir Almeric was going to kill the both of you. Who cares if he never wakes up?
"I care," Sir Ywain says. "Almeric was a member of my order, once upon a time. I feel that there is still good in him. And a Blessed Squire never lets a man die if he can reasonably prevent it."
You frown. Casting that healing spell took something out of you.
"I'd consider it a personal favour," Sir Ywain said.
"Well, that ain't nothing," the statue says. So, grumbling, you walk over to the fallen knight. You bind his hands and feet with rope from his own saddlebag, then repeat the cantrip.
* * *
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