Catching Epics

by Halie Fewkes

  The herd of deer below scattered toward me, and I crept closer with my bow now at the ready. I drew the string back with quick precision as two does bounded past, and I sank an arrow through one’s heart, pulling another from my quiver before the second doe could flinch. I had my arrow aimed perfectly in the kill zone. All I had to do was release.

  Guys want to be with girls who look and act like girls.

  I clenched my teeth together, knowing my killer instinct wasn’t attractive and my competitive side wasn’t really either. I could cover them up. I could pretend I needed more help. But then I wouldn’t be me.

  And so I released my arrow at the last moment, straightening as the doe crashed into the berry bush behind which she’d almost escaped. This one didn’t die as quickly as the first, and I had to pull my knife from my side to take care of her. I didn’t love this part of hunting, but people have to eat.

  The deed was done, and a deep voice said from behind me, “You hesitated with that second shot.” I whipped around and withdrew another arrow, finding nothing but empty forest. The laughing tone in Prince Avalask’s voice gave him away, but I still knew I would yelp if he reappeared too close.

  “Where have you been?” I demanded of the silent trees and leafy undergrowth. “Archie and I have been looking for you!”

  “You haven’t been looking in the right places,” Prince Avalask replied from behind me. I twisted sharply to see him leaning against a fallen cedar, picking off a tiny green sprig off his sweeping black cloak. “You haven’t left the Dragona in months to do anything but hunt.”

  “It’s been… complicated,” I said as Prince Avalask fixed his icy green gaze on me. I held a great deal of respect for this Epic, who could take anything in the world he wanted, who could end my life with a snap of his fingers, but whom I trusted not to. “Every time we try to leave, some new crisis comes up, and Tarace… means well, and people hold him in high regard, but he doesn’t know how to run the Dragona.” I folded my arms and grumbled, “So everybody’s learned to bring their problems straight to me and Archie.”

  Prince Avalask grinned and asked, “What? Fame’s not to your liking?”

  I scowled back and said, “Attention makes it difficult to leave, and without leaving, we haven’t been able to figure out what happened to kids who fled before the Dincaran battle.” I raised my eyebrows at him and added, “There were kids from the Dragona with them too?”

  “They’re fine. We’ve got them.” Prince Avalask said, twiddling the twig across his fingers. “And your little red-of-head friend is safe with the rest of them. We’ve put them to work in Dekaron.”

  My heartbeat stuttered as I repeated, “Put them to work?” Heat crept into my face. “They’re children!”

  “Unless you have an extreme mortality rate, I wouldn’t expect them to die from cooking.”

  I stared hard at him, looking for any sign of deception, but all I found was a twist in his mouth, as though my skepticism amused him. Something about his nonchalance put me at ease.

  “And Sir Avery’s daughter?” I asked. “I keep dreaming about her, about the day I woke up and watched Sav steal her away. You know he has her, right?”

  “Savaul never had her for more than five minutes. I’ve got her with my son now, and let me tell you something,” he pushed away from the fallen tree with an exasperated grin, “training the two of them is like training snails to jump. Ebby doesn’t want to learn from me, Vack is trying to get her back to Sir Avery every time I turn around, and they can barely carry out a conversation without harming one another.”

  I frowned. “Why are you trying to train Sir Avery’s daughter?”

  He rolled his eyes toward the sky as though I was far from the first to ask. “I have this insane idea about raising a generation of Epics who get along. I’m trying to get Ebby and Vack to work together so their powers aren’t a waste like every one of their forefathers.”

  “And how’s that working for you?”

  “Not well,” he replied with a hopeless laugh. “But, you know, I’m getting small victories. They promised to have one conversation per day if I gave them separate rooms, and we’re working our way up from there. But if this works, Allie, the two of them could change everything.”

  I could see in his eyes that he wanted me to believe his cause, and I studied him uncertainly, not sure why my approval would matter. “Why did you wait until now to tell me this? You’ve had her since the beginning of summer.”

  “Because I know you, and I know you’ll see things my way,” he said, glancing toward the valley. “And while I’m up here talking to you, Sir Avery is down speaking with Archie. He’s offering Archie anything he wants if Archie can bring Ebby home. And I’m asking you, please, not to let that happen.”

  “What?” I asked, unable to keep incredulity off my face. “If this is as important as you say, Archie’s not going to be… bribed out of doing the right thing. If it’s better to leave her with you, then we’ll leave her with you.” Prince Avalask just raised his eyebrows to say believe what you will, and I scrunched mine back at him. “What is Sir Avery offering him?”

  “Something Archie desperately wants, and something I can’t give him.”

  What had been a perfectly calm conversation suddenly made my blood boil.

  “I have no interest in your vague, ambiguous half-explanations,” I barked, startling the forest birds into silence. “If Archie needs something from Sir Avery, tell me what it is. Now,” I added for angry emphasis, glaring into his smiling, cloudy eyes.

  “I wondered where this side of you was hiding,” he said, my predictability seeming to comfort him. “Listen, we’ll compromise, and I’ll tell you part of what’s going on. Now wait, hang on,” he said, lifting his hands as I bared my teeth to protest. “I really would tell you the whole story, but it’s not my place. You need to hear it from Archie.”

  I bit back an angry retort and listened.

  “Here’s what I will say,” Prince Avalask went on. “No matter how righteous my intentions are, and no matter how much the world could benefit from my plan, Archie is going to take Sir Avery’s side.”

  “And you’re trying to say you want me on yours,” I finished for him.

  He cringed sympathetically. “Driving a wedge right between the two of you, I know. I wouldn’t ask if so much wasn’t at stake.”

  I sighed and fixed my eyes on the ground. “What’s going to happen to all the kids from Dincara?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Prince Avalask replied. “Most of them are going to grow up to be mages, so we can’t just give them back. They’re innocent now, but they’ll be Humanity’s most dangerous later.”

  “Sure, but what if… the war was over, and there was no reason to fear them?” I asked. “Returning the kids might be an act big enough to warrant peace.”

  Prince Avalask broke a hearty laugh and shook his head at my wishful suggestion. “I don’t think we’re quite as gracious as you’re hoping. We have the upper hand as long as we hold those kids. There’s no reason to give them back.”

  “I know you do, but having the upper hand in peace-talks means you get to dictate the terms. And isn’t peace something Izfazara wants?”

  Prince Avalask considered me for just a moment before releasing a dismissive sigh. “Even if I convinced my uncle this was a good idea, making the deal itself would be next to impossible. No Human being on the continent listens to King Kelian, and there’s nobody left who they rally around, now that Anna and Sir Darius are gone. There are the city leaders, but they have interaction spells protecting them. I can’t find, speak with, or harm a Human leader I haven’t met, unless somebody close to them introduces me.”

  “I’ve heard of interaction spells,” I said. “Tarace is in charge at the Dragona right now, and I know he’s got one. But…” I shot Prince Avalask a meaningful look. “Since somebody introduced me to Tarace back in Dincara, that means I can now interact with him however I like. I could even introduce
him to you, if the fancy struck.”

  Prince Avalask cocked a questioning eyebrow. “And you’re telling me you’d be willing to do that?”

  When he asked so bluntly, it struck me how reckless a plan it was, walking into the Dragona with the Escali Epic at my side to introduce him to Tarace. “It’s… not a decision I would make lightly,” I admitted, “but Tarace is from Dincara. If you gave him the option to bring those kids home safely, I’m pretty sure he’d make a deal with you. And if I helped end the Human-Escali war, how much trouble could I be in, really?”

  I had his interest, and he asked, “Do you think Tarace might have a shot at convincing all the other city leaders to go along with it?”

  “I think if all those kids’ lives are on the line, he’d make a valiant effort.”

  Prince Avalask stared hard at me before drumming his fingers thoughtfully against the stump beside him. “I think it’s an exercise in futility, but I could bring the idea to Izfazara and see what he thinks. Now, Sir Avery just sent Archie back to the Dragona, and I have to be off, so I’ll send you to join him. But on a side note, Allie, do you think you could give my brothers their falcon back? They’re all sorts of upset about losing him.”

  I let a laugh escape and said, “Gyr? We tied him up outside and Flak has been taking care of him, bringing him food. I’m sure we could throw him into the deal that ends the war though, if it would help.”

  Prince Avalask met my grin with an eye-roll before massive shadows spilled across the surrounding foliage, cast by the dragons coming to carry our kills home. Prince Avalask flicked a hand and the world around me morphed into the sparring field back home.

  Archie whirled at the sound of my feet hitting the ground and somehow managed to finish his thought to Liz while we exchanged worried expressions.

  “You were both talking to Sir Avery?” Liz demanded, probably because I’d just appeared in midair. “Oh well, it doesn’t matter,” she dismissed the idea with a wave. “I was just coming up to the dragon caves to see if you were back yet. The Travelling Baking show is here!” she exclaimed as I moved to join them, her enthusiasm bringing a smile to my face. “And they’ve brought hunters with them from the north, so you two can stop harping on the rest of us about food for the winter.”

  “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that,” I said, shooting Archie a sideways glance of relief. “That’ll free us up to do other things with our time.”

  I expected him to grin knowingly back at me, but creases of fresh concern had appeared between his eyebrows.

  “Do the hunters have a name?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Terry jumped out to welcome them,” Liz said. “She called them the Shar-something. Shar…ee, I think?”

  Archie groaned and muttered, “Zhauri. They’re a mercenary brotherhood from up north.”

  “Isn’t that what I said?” Liz asked.

  “Not Shar, Zhar. The same way you say treasure, or vision. But they’re not…” he looked at his hands for a quick second. “They don’t go places for the sake of hunting animals.”

  “Are you trying to say they hunt people?” I asked uneasily.

  “Pretty exclusively, but they never come south,” Archie replied, taking a step closer to us. “They’re the five most powerful mages in the world, next to the Epics, of course, and they use deplorable methods to hunt whoever they’ve been paid to hunt.” He shot me a meaningful look, and said, “We cannot afford to get mixed up with them.”

  “I don’t know why you’re looking at me.” I drew a halo over my head. “I have no interest in trouble.”

  “I’m serious.” He lowered his voice. “Until we know who they’re after, we’re all staying as far from them as possible.”

  “Alright,” I said with a dramatic sigh. “I’ll be on my best behavior.”

  Liz grabbed us both by the shoulders with great importance. “Guys, enough of this. I love the Travelling Baking Show. Don’t make me miss their first performance at the Dragona.”

  My stomach growled, and Liz addressed it in delight. “Thank you for agreeing! Now let’s go. I’m hungry too.”

  Chapter Five

  Allie

  We found the Travelling Baking Show outside the entrance to the Wreck, where the seven entertainers and their horse had already amassed a ring of news-hungry watchers.

  Archie, Liz, and I joined the crowd just in time for the barrage of, “What happened?”

  “Are you guys alright?”

  “Which city are you coming from?”

  “Is that a bite mark on your arm?”

  Their horse hung his head dramatically low and their baking cart bore enough scratches and scorch marks, they could easily claim lightning had struck them.

  “I hear Tarace is in charge around here. Do you think we could, you know, talk to him? Or any sort of leader?” Tight curls spiraled to the shoulders of the girl speaking. Corliss, my favorite among the crew. She glanced my direction before recognition lit her face and turned into a wide grin.

  “Well if it isn’t Allie and Archie!” she exclaimed. “Word has it that you two have been helping run the place. What do you say? Could the Dragona spare a few extra rooms for the daring, hilarious, famous, and beloved Travelling Baking Show?”

  I caught Jesse on the other side of the room giving a great sneer at Corliss’ attention. Jesse hated us, and especially hated when anybody paid us any mind.

  I began to say, “Of course—” as Archie flatly replied, “Absolutely not.”

  Corliss raised her eyebrows at him and then squinted skeptically, her every expression dramatic. There was a reason she was a favorite among the bakers.

  “Look at you lot,” Archie exclaimed, gesturing to the mud on Corliss’ face and the state of their cart. “Nobody wants the Travelling Tragedy staying here.”

  “How dare you fling such insults,” Corliss said, flaring her eyes indignantly. “Sure. The roads here were rough, so we’re tattered and stained.”

  The rest of the Travelling Baking Show sang, “But you’ll still get us rooms if you have half a brain!”

  A chorus of chuckles and giggles rose from everybody watching as Jesse slunk away from the crowd in irritation, toward the living tunnels. Archie was just barely, barely keeping an outburst of laughter under wraps. He took a breath to say something, but had to stop and compose himself again. “Did you honestly force your poor crew to learn that limerick on the way here?”

  “Everybody loves my limericks!” Corliss cried indignantly. “And this was too good to pass up, because knowing you, Archie,” Corliss gestured to her scratched and stained self, “I knew our sorry state was going to come up.”

  She shot him a showy, bright-toothed grin before she regally declared, “Life is a stage for the actors who know their lines.”

  Archie finally broke into laughter at the spectacle and said, “It’s good to see you,” before they grabbed each other with the unreserved kind of hug that comes naturally to close friends.

  “It’s good to see you’re not dead yet, ya brat,” she replied into his shoulder, sending a hint of jealousy through me — jealousy and concern that maybe they were closer friends than I knew. “And you too, Allie.” She pulled away to give me a hug as well. “I want a full update on everything happening with you.”

  I mixed laughter with a hopeless sigh and replied, “How many hours do you have?” then felt Liz’s heated gaze boring into the back of my head. “And Corliss, this is my sister Liz—”

  “Liz, you look like the jealous type. Get over here.” Corliss wrapped her arms quickly around Liz, and I held my breath as Liz froze for an unsure moment. Corliss’s bold move was apparently the right one though, because I heard Liz giggle to herself, and I knew she would like Corliss from here on out. Everybody did, it seemed.

  “Alright then, glad we’ve got that settled,” Corliss addressed the crowd again. “We’re going to need a hand getting our stuff put away, and eight rooms — yes the horse gets his own. And I will perso
nally bake a pie for anybody who can bring me a warm meal right now. I think this is what starvation feels like. Yeah…” She clutched at her stomach. “This might be it…”

  Archie, Liz, and I always ate together, and I wasn’t sure how Corliss could fit so comfortably at the table like she’d known us our entire lives. She leaned back in her chair with her feet kicked casually onto an empty seat, laughing freely whenever she wanted. I envied the life of a travelling baker. Corliss seemed to enjoy everything with an ease I hadn’t felt... ever.

  “What do you mean Osty’s not part of the troupe anymore?” Archie asked. “He founded the original Travelling Baking Show.”

  “Obviously I’m aware of that,” Corliss replied, wrapping one arm over the back of her chair then pretending to smack him on the side of the head with the other, hitting his shield. “But he went and met some lovely, silver haired woman up in Teredor, accidentally dropped an anvil on his toe, and can’t travel for six months.” Corliss gave a huge, unamused eye-roll at the inconvenience. “But then we picked up Shadar a few months back — you remember him, the storyteller from Tabriel Vale — and we’ve been bringing news and spreading stories across the continent ever since. They even let us onto the sky stage in Glaria, which I’m sure you’ll remember, has been a lifelong dream of mine.”

  “They willingly let you up there?” Archie asked, looking impressed despite his best efforts. “You’re sure you didn’t have to break in?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. We were the first ones to bring them word about the Dincaran survivors, so they let us use the stage to announce it. Shadar’s voice can carry for miles, so he narrated how the Escalis dumped every survivor from the battle on the shores of Tekada, and the rest of us acted out the heart attack King Kelian probably had at the sight of so many mages on his precious continent.” She snickered to herself. “We did a whole scene where he panicked and gave the order to quickly build a hundred ships so he could send them back. We had every citizen in Glaria hunched over laughing. We’ll act it out again for everyone here when we get the chance.”