“Rum, should we slow the horses down to a trot?”

In between my haggard breaths, her and I made eye contact.

“Hmm… I do feel a little bad for the horses…”

There weren’t enough profanities in our language for me to adequately curse at Rum with. While her and Wulfram enjoyed the leisurely journey to Cupram Fishing Village from aboard a carriage, I was forced to keep up on foot, with both my hands tied to the coach’s rear quarter. I spent the first hour of our ride reasoning why signing all our names was the best move I had at my disposal. They didn’t say a word, so I pivoted to bargaining. Then, apologizing. At a certain point, I started to focus less on convincing them to let me on, and more on staying alive.

After ‘musing’ for a little while, Rum spoke up again.

“That being said, we paid premium to rent this carriage, so the horses can probably handle it.” I wheezed obscenities at her. “If anything, you should be down there with him, Wulfram.”

He cocked his eyebrow. “For not waking you up?”

“For watching Erland sign our lives away and doing nothing about it.”

“I can’t read, Rum.”

An ironclad defense.

“So, in that moment, you figured Erland just… sacrificed himself for our safety? Erland?”

An excellent retort, even if it stings a little.

“I didn’t even know what he was signing a contract for – by the time I arrived, Erland already agreed to every stipulation the Lord gave him.” He pauses to shoot me a dirty look. “So, before we get turned to ash, or worse, I’d at least like to know every detail of what that contract said.”

Rum mulled this over for a little while, groaned, and pulled me up from the dirt road with her one hand.

“Start talking before I make you run ahead of the horses.

After taking a minute to catch my breath, nearly getting thrown off the cart for taking too long to catch my breath, and another minute to breathe, I began to explain our commission.

The nation of Ferroth is most well-known for their metallurgy and nigh-infinite supply of ore, but for the settlements established on the eastern coast of the country, where nearly no mines or mountains exist, whaling makes up most of their profits. Unfortunately, over the past month or so, a small group of bandits led by the lightning magus have begun consecutively pillaging fishing villages, which the local Lord has really began to feel in his purse strings. His small reconnaissance group of competent magi was wiped save for one scout, thanks to whom we even know that the ringleader wields lightning magick. Naturally, the Lord doesn’t want to risk losing his best and brightest to a figurative natural disaster, so when it reached his ears that three mercenaries were passing by his village, we were immediately brought up as an alternative.

“What I’m hearing is that we were paid 7 golds to essentially try and catch a mudslide,” Rum said despondently.

It’s hard not to be cynical at a time like this. Truthfully, we’d stand a better chance surviving a head-on collision with a mudslide than a fight with a magus who can rain lightning down on us. We’re all thinking it, and I’m the only one who has no right to say it. Wulfram ends up breaking the silence.

“What about his magick? What can he do to us?”

“The scout who survived the skirmish saw the magus do three distinct things, one of which was, obviously, summoning bolts of lightning.”

“Obviously…” Wulfram didn’t even put any emphasis on the word, but this was as close as he could get to sarcasm.

“The second ability was also how the bandit got the jump on the reconnaissance group – he can travel at speeds faster than what human eyes can follow.”

Rum placed her hand on my shoulder.

“I changed my mind. You’re running the rest of the way for roping me into this.”

“WAIT! Wait. Just, listen.”

Rum did not listen, but fortunately, Wulfram was willing to, and talked her out of tossing me off.

“The most important thing is his third magick. The scout said he was able to electrocute people with his hands, but he only did so after running at inhuman speeds, or after someone got struck by lightning.”

Rum’s grip loosened, and I continued.

“He could’ve fired lightning off at all of them, or danced around them with both hands behind his back, or fried each one with the touch of his palm, but he didn’t. It clearly wasn’t him toying with the group either – he had no motive for letting that one scout live. There have to be rules to how all three magicks work, and if we can intuit those rules, then we might actually have a shot at not dying.”

For the first time in a long while, the expressions of both my comrades softened. Rum reclined back into her corner of the carriage.

“If we somehow survive this, you’re running on the way back as well.”

Based on what settlements the lightning magus has been attacking as of late, the Lord directed us three to the Cupram Fishing Village – a rural community whose livelihood relied on whaling, and panning for copper in the bay. Before I signed the contract, the noble insinuated we may be able to enlist their help, showering the residents with praise of valor and resourcefulness. I was skeptical then, but seeing the front gate of the village hung open in the distance made me even more apprehensive.

“Where the hell is everyone?” muttered Rum.

The sun began to set. Our horses trotted towards the settlement’s perimeter wall – a wooden palisade of sharpened tree trunks pointed up towards the sky. As we approached, the odor of fermented krill and fish was becoming impossible to ignore. The entrance was left completely unguarded; where did all the villagers go? Suddenly, Wulfram recoiled from the edge of the carriage.

“Oh God, what happened to him?”

Myself and Rum followed his eyes to a corpse spread out on the gravel by the front gate. The man was wearing a full suit of iron armor and chainmail, the breastplate engraved with an insignia of Ferroth. A knight. More than likely, this man was the bastion of protection for this village, probably deployed here by the local Lord. Without him, this place was defenseless. Still, what I found odd was the lack of wounds on the knight’s body – the only discernable damage was visible on the thin seams connecting pieces of his armor together.

“His skin – has it… fused with the armor?” I speculated out loud.

“The same thing happened to some mercenaries when our encampment burned down in Czarnia. The armor heated so much their skin melted into the metal.” Wulfram explained without looking out the cart a second time. “But this guy… his armor isn’t even scorched.”

Rum finished the thought for him.

“It wasn’t fire that did him in. It was lightning.”

As we expected, Cupram Village was completely deserted past the main gate.

“Valorous my ass…”

Interestingly enough, only the houses of the residents were empty. The areas designated for work, which were full of copper ingots, jars of whale oil, and blubber were all untouched. The villagers weren’t in a big enough rush to leave necessities from their homes, but they left behind the only resources that could guarantee them money. Then, there’s also the matter of a knight fried just outside the gate – if we assume the lightning magus was responsible, why not take the settlement then and there?

“Erland! Wulfram! Get your asses up here!” The yell came from Rum, who made her way onto the wooden scaffold overlooking the main gate we entered through. Once we joined her, Rum pointed out a small pillar of smoke rising from beyond the tree line, almost unnoticeable thanks to the setting sun. I pull out my compass. South.

“The Lord mentioned that the lightning magus was travelling along Ferroth’s coast, going north.”

Wulfram and Rum looked back at me.

“That’s him. Either camping out in the woods, or resting in another village his group pillaged.” I pause, shocked that for once, something was going right. “We know where he’ll be coming from.

“Get up Erland. Your turn.”

It takes me a moment to remember where I am. After shutting the main gate and hiding our horses in the village outskirts, we decided to take turns either keeping vigil, or scavenging for anything useful that the residents didn’t take with them. It was my turn to keep watch. I climbed the overlook, torch in hand, but was surprised to find Rum there, waiting.

“Aren’t you supposed to be rummaging through someone’s belongings?”

She sighed, “There’s hardly a point. You should’ve seen Wulfram – he seemed to know where everything was by instinct – found a bow, a javelin, and that knight’s sword, of course. Meanwhile, I can’t even remember where we’re sleeping.”

“It must be hard,” I said sarcastically. “The cushy life of a mercenary porter must not have prepared you for roofs and outhouses.”

“Yeah…”

Rum’s remarks didn’t have any of her usual edge. Come to think of it, I can’t even recall the last time her and I spoke without Wulfram needing to mediate. While I mulled over things to say, Rum asked me a question.

“Why did you do this?”

The pit in my stomach comes back almost immediately. She carries on.

“After The Five Thousand burned and we partnered up, we agreed to go our separate ways once everybody got what they want. Wulfram wanted to find his friend from the mercenary group, I wanted to get to Helvia, but you… your only condition was money.”

She paused, presumably to let me speak. I stayed silent.

“I’ve spent an entire winter with you and Wulfram. I’ve seen how you act, what angers you, what you revel in…” She trails off. “I refuse to believe that money is what drives you.”

“What difference does it make Rum?” The question was supposed to prod her anger a little; anything to change the subject.

“I guess I just want to know what was so important to you, that you were willing to get both me and Wulfram killed.”

I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to say to that.

“Here’s what I think, Erland. I will concede that you’re intelligent. And conniving. And great at improvising. But you seem to be under the impression that every time your plans fail, it was a stroke of bad luck – something unforeseen.”

Rum was hitting a little too close to home for my liking.

“And that’s not the case, is it? You have some motive – maybe one even you are unaware of – that pushes you to take stupid risks. There’s a tiny voice somewhere in your head, and so long as it furthers the voice’s agenda, you’re willing to do anything for it. You knew that Lord in Fleurland could’ve been of a higher rank, and you knew that getting recruited by a noble immediately after arriving at a village was bad news. But as long as the voice was happy…”

The girl takes a moment to collect herself.

“And now, you’re dragging us down to Hell with you.”

The pit has gotten so, so much heavier – enough for me to finally speak up.

“Rum I–” Any excuse I grabbed onto slipped away too quick for me to say it. “I’m sorry.”

We sat in silence for a minute.

“I know I can be a pain, and I really, really know I fucked up, okay? I can’t tell you if you’re right about me, because I don’t even really know myself. Maybe one day I’ll have an epiphany, and realize why I do stuff like this… or maybe I won’t, and we’ll all die today. For what little it’s worth to hear me say this, I want you to know that I’m so sorry for dragging you and Wulfram into this.”

Rum looked back at me, neither pleased, nor disappointed. I couldn’t discern what her expression meant before she spoke up one more time.

“In case the lightning magus does fry us in a moment, can I ask you one question that you aren’t permitted to lie about? You can ask me one in exchange.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you sincerely believe we can kill this guy?”

“…No. But I’ve been wrong a lot recently.”

I could’ve sworn I saw a wry smile form at corners of Rum’s mouth.

“Your turn.”

“How did you lose your left hand?”

“I figured everyone who fought me needed a handicap.”

“What happened to not lying?” I chuckled.

Rum opened her mouth to respond, but no voice came out. Instead, she pointed towards the grove of trees up ahead. There was a faint glow emanating from behind the greenery.

“Fetch Wulfram,” I whispered. “The guest of honor is here.”