by Aldrea Alien
“I know of the ones you speak of.” But not until he’d been old enough to start his own research into the world beyond the tower walls. “I’m no hero, though.” If he’d learnt anything from those tales, it was spellsters were always the villains. Evil, cackling and irredeemable beings. It might be true of those from the Udynea Empire, but he doubted the average man really cared where a spellster was from.
“That’s what all the heroes say.”
“And who does the hero wind up defeating in the end?”
“Well, it’s typically some—” Her voice stopped as suddenly as a snuffed candle, leaving her mouth open in a silent exclamation.
“Precisely,” Dylan mumbled, not at all liking the commiserating way she looked at him. He wasn’t anything like the murdering bastards in the stories or the ones that harried the border. He was…
An utter terror to behold. That’s what Tracker had said. And the hound had the right of it. He was dangerous, yes. But so was any fool with a sword. He was the one less likely to cause undue injury.
They walked through the forest with little said between them beyond the hunter’s occasional warning of a concealed rock or hollow.
Finally, Dylan couldn’t wait for the camp to break the silence. “I assume you had a point beyond reminding me that spellsters are typically the bad guys in normal people’s eyes.” He could almost taste the bitterness the words left on his tongue. Pulling what he hoped was a warm smile, he asked, “What was it?”
Marin chewed on the corner of her lip, clearly considering. “Do you think we’d find anyone like that in Whitemeadow? Maybe you’re right and the average person wouldn’t risk themselves for spellsters, but there were more than that in the tower, right? Only… the further we get from your home, the longer we leave it…” She sighed. “It’s possible that the king might not care as much as Track believes.”
“No.” Even without the old stories, no one was going to stick their neck out to avenge the tower without the king being involved. “Maybe another hound,” he amended.
They reached the camp to find the others had already packed the tents. Tracker sat near the fire, stirring whatever was cooking in their small pot. Dylan sniffed. The smell spoke of oats. A marked lack of burning that had preceded the last time he’d eaten porridge. That Katarina currently had her nose in one of the books was perhaps the reason.
The hound glanced up as they neared, smiling. “And how did our attempts at archery go?”
“He’s appalling,” Marin said before Dylan could think to open his mouth. She plonked herself next to the hound, scooping up one of the bowls and waving it before the man for him to fill. “My bow’s too much for him. He needs something to help him build up those muscles. A lighter bow would work.”
Ducking behind the hound so the elf wouldn’t see, Dylan made a cutting gesture across his neck in an attempt to halt the woman’s line of thinking before she spoke.
Marin shovelled down several heaped spoonfuls of porridge. “You’ve the coin to buy him one,” the hunter continued around a mouthful.
Coughing and with his face aflame, Dylan turned from the pair. This could not be happening.
The hound’s chuckle drew him back around. “That may be so, but is there any reason as to why I should?”
“I’d like to point out that this is not my idea,” Dylan blurted.
“Nobody said it was, my dear spellster. But it does make me wonder.” The hound twisted around, shooting Dylan a smirk over his shoulder. “What would you give me in exchange for such a gift?”
Dylan took in the teasing gleam in the man’s eye, the faint twist to Tracker’s lip that suggested the hound was biting his tongue. “I…” Dylan’s own tongue suddenly felt rather stiff. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Tracker chuckled. “I find that hard to believe. I know you’re not that innocent.”
His face burned hotter. The man wasn’t honestly thinking of having Dylan exchange sex for a weapon, was he? There was no guarantee Dylan would be capable of using a lighter bow and he certainly wouldn’t be allowed to keep it once they reached Wintervale.
Dylan’s gaze slid over the hound’s shoulder. Whether or not that was indeed what the man meant, Authril seemed to believe it was so. At least, if he were to judge by the way she glared at Tracker.
Marin slapped the hound’s shoulder, jolting Tracker and forcing him to turn back around or be toppled. “Be nice,” she hissed. “He doesn’t need your teasing on top of everything else.”
Softly smiling, Tracker shook his head. “In all honesty, I do not believe a bow is all that suitable a weapon.” The man peered at him as Dylan settled between the other two women. He handed over the last of the bowls. The oats within steamed. “Perhaps you would be better off learning a form of fighting that cannot be taken away so easily?”
“What?” Authril mumbled around her spoonful of food. “Like unarmed combat?” She snorted. “There’s barely anything to him. He’d be pulp at the first hit.”
On Dylan’s left, Katarina hummed into her upraised fist. “I’m a touch curious,” the dwarf said, glancing up from the book. “If you have magic, why are you attempting to learn another form of fighting?”
Dylan fought to swallow the sticky mouthful of porridge so he could answer.
Tracker got there first. “It is more a form of defence, my dear hedgewitch.”
Katarina looked the elf over, her nose scrunching and twisting the brown scar running across her face. She switched her gaze to focus on Dylan. “Don’t they teach you normal defence in the tower?”
“No.” Dylan eyed the hound. Tracker probably had the right of it when the man first asked why he wanted to learn sword fighting. “But I guess if we only know how to use magic to defend ourselves, then the hounds have an easier task of capturing runaways.”
Marin waved her spoon between them. “But couldn’t you just melt his pretty face off?”
Tracker’s brows rose at the woman’s words. “Pretty?” The word flew out of the hound’s mouth, along with a droplet of spittle. “All the words at hand and you use that to describe this face?” He indicated his head with a sharp wave of his hand. “Not gorgeous or handsome? I would even settle for breathtaking. But pretty?”
“Magic doesn’t affect him,” Dylan replied.
Katarina gasped. The book was slammed shut and all but forgotten as she shuffled around to face the hound. A small writing pad and quill were swiftly dug out from the pouch always hanging at the front of her belt. “Why didn’t you say you were a Nulled One?”
Tracker frowned at her. “A what?” His gaze dropped to her hands, busy as they were with writing. Panic flickered over the man’s face. “What are you doing?”
“Documenting,” she curtly replied, not even glancing up. “The Coven has been trying for years to learn what Demarn did with her Nulled Ones.”
With the way Tracker eyed the hedgewitch’s hand, Dylan half expected the quill to leap from the woman’s grip and impale the hound. “You keep saying that.”
“It’s what the Udyneans call them—although, they borrowed the term, like so many other things, from Domian. Naturally, it was bastardised in their language. They’re considered the property of their emperor as soon as their… Well, I guess their lack of talent is identified.”
The hound’s eyes fluttered as he stared at the hedgewitch. “I was not aware there was another name for it.”
“Oh, yes. It goes back as far as Domian, that’s where the Nulled One phrase comes from. Unus nullus was the original term. Of course, the Domians believed magic was innately tied to the soul and those who were unaffected by it were in effect lacking that part of themselves. They would train them as bodyguards, prestigious ones. Niholians still do this, although they call them… Well, it translates as Ghosts. They say it’s due to their ability to walk through a conjured shield, but they’ve long been allies to the empire. Each household head has at least one of them in their employ. I hear the current Tsarina—�
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Dylan listened as she continued. He’d heard of Nulled Ones before, but only in passing, and never of Ghosts. He glanced at the hound’s face. Whilst the man’s features were one of polite interest, those honey-coloured eyes had gone dull. He turned back to Katarina. “I think you might’ve broken his brain.”
Tracker smiled, a little sheepishly. “No, it is fascinating. I just—”
“Weren’t expecting a history lesson?” Dylan had learnt a long time ago to be prepared for a lengthy answer when asking a hedgewitch about the past. They collected information—every culture they could—and were always eager to share it.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Katarina said. “I know I can ramble something fierce. We’ve been wondering where Demarn’s Nulled Ones were. But whenever one of the hedgewitches posed that very question to the overseers, they would get quiet and usher our people out.”
“The overseers were very protective of everyone in the tower,” Dylan murmured.
“I just don’t understand why they wouldn’t tell us.”
The hound gently pulled at his bottom lip, clearly considering the woman’s query. Dylan already knew the answer. The overseers divulged little without a debate and risked even less on fruitless inquiry. Any hedgewitch who asked would’ve had nothing to offer except for more questions and trouble for the tower.
“Say they had divulged such information,” Tracker finally said. “Who would this hedgewitch then tell?”
Katarina gave him a puzzled frown. “The Coven, of course. Every piece of new information is placed before them to be catalogued.”
Dylan ducked his head and silenced a small chuckle by shovelling in a spoonful of porridge. He didn’t know where the hound had learnt how to cook, but he certainly did a better job of it than the hedgewitch.
“A catalogue?” Tracker echoed. “I see. And who has access to this place?”
The woman’s frown gained a wrinkled nose. “Everyone does. Knowledge is a right for all beings.”
“In your great catalogue, which anyone can access and where you seem to also have a record of other Nulled One abilities, what does it say we are capable of?”
“Lots of things. The ability to withstand even the most powerful of magical attacks has been documented a half-dozen times, but—”
“And,” the man smoothly interrupted her. “Our weaknesses are also in there, yes?”
She nodded.
“Udynea, you said? Niholia, Domian… These are places ruled by spellsters. Ghosts and Nulled Ones are bodyguards—”
“And assassins,” Katarina added.
“That, too. But those… foreign hounds… they do not scour the land looking for new spellsters to cage.” Tracker glanced at Dylan. If he was expecting a reaction, Dylan didn’t know what kind. “The overseers, the guardians, they teach those in the tower to fear us, but they do not tell them what we are capable of. Because a smart man would figure out a way around it once he turned his attention to the problem.” He spread his hands wide. “Then, the crown has lost control of them and we hounds are left with but one recourse. It has happened in the past.”
“It has?” Dylan asked.
Tracker turned his full attention to Dylan. There was something altogether unpleasant in the way the man’s smile twisted. “Why do you think your overseers taught you to fear us?” He stared at the hedgewitches lap, where the pad page lay bare to the sky, and sighed. “I suppose it matters less now. The crown is unlikely to rebuild the tower as it was.”
Dylan’s stomach twisted at the declaration. Spellsters would still be born, although unlikely to be any stronger than the average alchemist. But there’d be nowhere for them to go, to be…
He cupped his mouth as if it would stop the thought.
Safe.
But the tower had never been safe, he could see that now. Convenient, perhaps. For the crown, for folk afraid of what spellsters were capable of doing. All his life, he’d never considered it as anything more than a haven for those who just happened to be born with magic.
A prison. How right Marin had been there. One with a life sentence.
On the other side of the fire, Tracker uncurled his legs from beneath him and bounced to his feet. “As fascinating as this has been, we should look towards leaving.”
Nodding, Authril mimicked the man, as did the other women, whilst Dylan continued eating his breakfast. They smothered the fire and slung on their packs with military proficiency.
“We’ll have to be vigilant on the road,” Marin said. “There’s bound to be some stragglers.”
Tracker mumbled something that sounded like an agreement as Dylan hastened to shovel down the last few mouthfuls of porridge. “Whoever attacked the tower most certainly originated from the east,” the hound said. “And they quite possibly went back the same way.”
Dylan paused in stowing his bowl into his pack. “You mean they could be a few days ahead of us?” He turned to eye the path they’d tramped through the undergrowth. If they pushed hard, maybe even sacrificed several hours of sleep, they’d have a good chance of catching up with the company.
Tracker nodded. “Maybe less. A large company does not generally travel at great speed.” He placed a hand on Dylan’s shoulder, gently squeezing. “I know what you are thinking, my dear spellster, but for us to attack a company large enough to take on the entire tower and win would be suicide. By all means, avenge the dead, but it would be far better to do so with an army of your own at your back.”
Dylan recalled the hunter’s earlier words towards gaining such help. “Do you really think the crown will care?”
“I do. If not the king, then my mistress will be most displeased to hear this news. We come from the same source, after all, and without being able to monitor spellster children, there can be no hounds.”
Dylan found himself nodding. He hadn’t thought of it that way. Of course the crown would rebuild. The hounds wouldn’t stop scouring the kingdom for spellsters just because there was no place to put them. Demarn would always have spellsters, but if they had no hounds…
There would be another tower, although the method for teaching spellsters to control their magic would start from scratch. Everything would. Generations would pass before a new tower was ever at the same level as it had once been.
Tracker held out his hand. “Come, perhaps if we are fast enough, we can gain a little information on precisely who did this grisly deed.”
Grasping the hound’s arm, Dylan got to his feet. Gathering specific details on who attacked the tower made sense. But if he found himself in a position to deal a crippling blow to them, Dylan wasn’t about to let that chance slip away. He was getting thoroughly sick of being too late.
Dylan stared at the leather tent stretched above him, watching the shadows created by the moonlight shining through the trees.
Beside him, Authril slept on, issuing the occasional soft snore. He sorely wished he could sleep as soundly, yet his mind refused to be still. Even after spending the evening in the woman’s arms, he couldn’t shake the image of the hound from his thoughts.
Closing his eyes only made it worse. Night after night he was haunted by the man. Not that he minded overmuch. When it wasn’t Tracker invading his dreams, it was the tower. The destruction. Being too exhausted to dream at all had worked the last two nights, but not now.
The memory of the hound’s touch, of the sounds he made, of the closeness they’d shared just sitting there. And there’d been that kiss when Tracker tried to teach him sword fighting…
Huffing, Dylan rolled onto his side. That night in the tower had been a mistake. He wasn’t… into men that way. Sure, he had admired a few—more than a few—in the past, from afar, but that didn’t mean anything. Admiration didn’t automatically translate into sexual desire. Except—
It had.
Dylan sat up, running a hand through his hair. He’d felt more than brotherly kinship to another man before, a lot more. Those feelings hadn’t come once, but multiple tim
es throughout the last twenty-odd years of his life. Instead of admitting them, he suppressed them. Convinced himself he was merely getting caught up in the overall tenseness of a situation and confusing friendliness for something else.
Had he truly deluded himself into believing he wasn’t interested in men all this time?
The soft rustle of his sleeping companion roused him from his musing. Authril rolled onto her back, the blanket remaining where she’d bunched it and slipping off her naked figure. Even in the gloom, her pale skin glowed. He gently drew the blanket back over her body, tucking the edge beneath her in preparation for the next time she moved. Snuggling next to her, he watched the woman sleep on.
That night with Tracker hadn’t made her any less desirable. But why should it? Had he not known people who’d been interested in more than one gender? Yes. He’d just never contemplated the possibility of numbering amongst their ranks. If he did, then a lot of things made rather more sense.
However, this realisation wasn’t going to solve his current predicament.
His gaze slid to the tent flap. He knew what, or rather who, could. The hound’s tent lay a short distance away and Tracker slept alone. It would be a simple thing to seek the man out and… proposition him. After I rejected his last advance. The hound was going to dine on that for days.
Dylan gnawed on his lip. It had to be close to midnight. Even if the man had offered himself if Dylan ever wished to repeat their night together, that didn’t mean he’d want to do so now.
The way he looks at you… Marin’s words skittered through his thoughts. If Tracker’s mannerisms around him had truly changed to the point that the hunter had noticed, then perhaps the man’s feelings on their night in the tower had also altered. After all, had the hound not gotten what he appeared to have wanted from Dylan?
Frowning, he absently rubbed his thigh. There was only one way to know for sure. It couldn’t wait. Tracker was to take the third watch, and he the watch after that. If he was to do this then it’d have to be now, whilst Marin was still on guard.