Chapter 26 - A Long Carriage Ride

  The journey to the village the following morning was a sombre one. Despite that, Kaila was much more talkative. Mostly with Veil, but she answered Cal’s questions with multiple syllables and spoke to him with more openness than she had before.

  Cal sat in the back of the carriage with all of the gear and personal effects that they’d collected, gently snoozing after his night on watch while Kaila held Melt’s reigns at the front with Veil on the seat next to her. He could hear what they were saying, but he remained at rest, gathering what energy he could despite the bumpy ride.

  Meliana led the other carriage, which had the survivors in the back. They hadn’t slept much by the sound of things, both by what they said in the morning and from the crying through the night. Cal expected that, like him, they would be getting as much sleep as they could on the journey.

  As early afternoon rolled past, Cal opened his eyes. They would arrive soon and he wanted to be awake for that. He looked over at the two, sat at the front, then looked back into the carriage, resting his head back and closing his eyes again, not to sleep, just to eavesdrop.

  “…don’t explode- er, burst, when our magic manifests like most people do.” Veil was saying. “I think because we are innately magical, that excess that we’re not using, or that we’re trying to hide feeds into us in other ways.”

  “So can you do magic?” Kaila asked.

  Veil shook his head. “I’m not old enough to manifest yet. It usually happens around half way through an awakened’s natural life. So for a fox like me who would usually live naturally until about fourteen it’ll happen somewhere between six and eight and I'm only five.”

  “That’s quite old.” Kaila noted. “Comparatively I mean. You’ll barely have any time to use the power before…”

  “Oh, no- I mean, a natural fox would live that long.” Veil explained, shaking his head. “The Awakened live much longer. How long depends on the individual, but the leader of my people, Letaria is… well she’s older than records. I won’t live that long. I’ll probably get to be about one-fifty, maybe a couple of decades more or less- if I don’t get killed; I do make a nuisance of myself though.” He joked, but then got quiet and a little solemn. “I’ll probably outlive Cal, which makes me sad, but as Letaria says; the ages of the different races vary so much that if you spend any amount of time with other peoples then you’ll always live longer than someone you care about.”

  Kaila nodded and looked over her shoulder at Cal. “He told me last night that he saved you from a circus.” She said. “How much was he paid for that job?”

  Veil cocked his head to the side. “Paid? He wasn’t. He’d been out of the Black Blades for two years, about eighteen years old and still hopping between groups. He was at a festival for fun and when he saw what was happening in the circus, me, the tortured animals… he snapped. Attacked the circus owner, burned the big top down and freed the animals. He broke me out of my cage and when he realised that I was just a kid with no understanding of the world outside, he promised to take me home.” Veil sighed thinking back and then laughed. “You know, I’m pretty sure that day Cal was responsible for the squirrel infestation that’s going on right now in north Westcoast.”

  She chuckled and turned to face the front again. “You know he seems too good to be true, if everything you and he have said is to be believed.”

  “He does his best.” Veil agreed. “Had a hard time recently though.”

  Cal tensed as he heard Veil’s words.

  “The last five or six months… he’s just not been himself.” Veil sighed.

  “What happened?” Kaila asked.

  Veil shook his head and looked up at her. “Nobody knows. He won’t talk about it. I haven’t been around either so I’ve just been hearing rumours.”

  Cal relaxed. Veil didn’t know enough to bring it up. Of course he didn’t, Cal hadn’t told him so how would he know?

  But perhaps they had speculated enough. Cal opened his eyes and nodded his head forward, stretching as widely as he could to make sure that they noticed.

  “Oh, hey Cal.” Veil said, looking over. “Sleep well?”

  Cal yawned and slumped down on himself, looking over at his friend. “Yeah, great.” He said, groggily. “Mostly just rested my eyes though.”

  Veil nodded and looked back out ahead. “Village is visible. We’ll probably get there in about two hours so feel free to rest a bit more.”

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  “I’m, good.” Cal replied. He looked around where he was sat for his sword and frowned. He didn’t see it. He let out a breath and shook his head holding a hand out in front of him. He summoned the sword and it appeared in his hand with the scabbard and belt clips attached. He pulled the sheath off and laid the blade out on the floor in front of him as he started searching through his things for some oil which he then applied to the blade.

  It didn’t need it, or at least he’d been told that it didn’t need it, but he’d always done it with every sword he’d ever owned, ever since Varian gave him his first one. So it was second nature to him, the importance burned into him. Besides, though it was unnecessary it didn’t hurt. Same with sharpening - which he would do next - mithril never blunted. It maintained the edge forever, unless it was put up against an enchanted mithril blade of course, then it would not stand up against the magic and the high quality.

  Kaila turned to look over her shoulder at Cal again as he worked on his sword. “Cal, I… wanted to thank you.” She looked back to the front.

  Cal frowned and looked over to her, then to Veil who was looking at him with an expression that said ‘don’t screw this up I’ve put in a lot of ground work, asshole.’

  Veil was good at expressions despite being a fox.

  “What for?” Cal asked. “You’re welcome, but…” Cal went back to his sword and oil. It was a ritual he had been doing forever. Whenever he was waiting on his team mates to…

  He paused mid stroke with his cloth. The last time he’d actually done it was that evening before the tomb. Before…

  Blood.

  Leg.

  Teeth.

  “You okay?” Veil asked, looking over at him concerned.

  Putting the sword down, Cal cleaned up the oil and cloth then put them away. “I’m fine.” Cal lied. “Sorry, you were saying?”

  Veil eyed him suspiciously, but didn’t question him any further.

  “I wanted to thank you for yesterday.” Kaila continued. “Veil tells me that you tried to talk me down, tried to get me to snap out of my… episode.”

  “And stopped the big one from killing you when you were unconscious.” Veil reminded her.

  “And that, yes.”

  “And carried you back to camp, set up your tent and watched over you until-”

  “Yes, Veil. Cal did a lot for me and I’m thanking him now.” She said, exasperated.

  “To be fair, it was Veil who did knock you out and-”

  “She’s already thanked me; fed me dried meat most of the way here.” Veil said, somehow grinning with his fox face.

  “Regardless.” Kaila said, clearly blushing, though Cal couldn’t see her face. It was then that he realised that her hood was down and he could see the back of her head. He wasn’t sure if that was significant, but it did show that she was relaxing around them, at least a little. “Thank you Cal, not everyone would have shown that much kindness. Not to a necromancer.”

  Cal nodded at the back of her head. “You’re welcome.”

  Silverdale was as generic a village as Cal had ever seen. As they rode towards it he leaned out the back and got a good look over the top of the other carriage as they descended the hill towards it.

  The whole village was centred around a village square with a large plinth in the middle that held up a massive chunk of unrefined silver. It must have been worth thousands of queens. Gram for gram he estimated that it would probably have been able to make about twenty-thousand princes, the silver coins. Cal guessed that the only reason it hadn’t been stolen was it’s sheer size. A thief would need a wagon with at least two horses to carry it. He couldn’t even imagine how many people it would take to carry it onto the wagon and there was no way you were getting it out of the village with nobody noticing.

  Cal guessed that, like in most large villages, or small towns, the square was used for a variety of things: festivals, announcements from the mayor, a market and maybe even capital punishment. Today however, this early in the morning at least, it was empty save for a handful people walking to and fro.

  From the main square there were three main roads, each of which reached out to the edge of town. They were travelling in on the North road. There was also a South road that would get people back to Westcoast’s main roadway but closer to the city of Cogshollow and a final one that went East to the edge of the Blackwood forest. Cal wondered if they had business with some of the things that lived there, or if it was for ease of access for hunting and the culling of monsters.

  There were also lots of smaller ways off of the main square between the other buildings.

  A thin river ran through the village and into the forest, carving Silverdale in half and forcing them to build bridges across it. One stone one along the southern road and wooden ones that were built in various places through the city to avoid congestion on the main street. The river wasn’t wide enough for barges or boats of any particular size, so there were no docks, at least none that Cal could see from this distance.

  Around the square there were a few buildings. What looked like a church, commercial buildings - shops, taverns and the like - and the mayors residence. Cal squinted down at the church and was fairly certain that it was a church of the Pantheon. The Pantheon was common in rural areas as it was inoffensive and had a link to each of the other gods, so all worshippers were welcome.

  The Pantheon were nine gods from across the moral and political spectrum who were more in touch with nature than the others. The Sea witch who Meliana often cursed by and prayed to was a member of the Pantheon, though the Dawn was not. The Dawn did have a subordinate god within The Pantheon known as The Singer of the Falls, to whom the Awakened offered their prayers and allegiance, but the Dawn himself was not. It was to The Singer that Dawnians prayed when they prayed in a pantheon church.

  Beyond those buildings there were lots of houses. Cal counted fifty of varying sizes, but there would certainly been more. He wasn’t counting the buildings near several small livestock farms that they had passed nor the ones built up on the southern road’s side of the city. He did notice that there were none built on the forest side of the city. Having people and livestock so close must have been too enticing for the monsters inside.

  Cal let out a long deep breath as he stared out over the village. They would be there in no time. “Not long left.” He said to himself. Then he would be back to his solitude.

  The thought hit him particularly hard now that he was travelling with Veil, but… but it was for the best. he secluded himself for a reason.

  “They’d only die if they stuck with me.” He whispered to himself before slipping back into the carriage.

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