by Pirateaba
She yawned. She was so tired. A nap wouldn’t hurt, right? Lazily, Erin raised her voice.
“Hey Toren, let me know when we’re at the next cave, alright. I’m going to take forty winks.”
The skeleton’s head rotated on its shoulders and he stared at her silently. Erin waved at him.
“Don’t hit anything or run us into a pit, okay?”
She closed her eyes and yawned again. It was so pleasant, riding along on the sledge. Sure it was cold, but she had a lot of layers on, and she didn’t get bumped around.
Erin began to doze off. Within moments she was snoring softly as the cold air blew around her.
—-
When Toren heard Erin’s words, he couldn’t believe his ears. Not that he had ears. He couldn’t believe his earholes, rather.
When he turned and looked and saw her lying on the sledge with her eyes closed, he couldn’t believe it. When she started to snore, he believed, but he was really upset about it.
She was asleep! The emotion Toren felt wasn’t just anger, it was indignation. She was asleep and he—he was pulling this stupid sledge!
The feelings surged and fought for dominance in the skeleton’s chest as he ran onwards. He wasn’t tired, not physically at least, but the part of him that thought and felt was sick of pulling Erin on her pointless errands. He had no desire to be smashed by bees again, and he found gathering all these mushrooms…tedious.
And then there was the sound. The awful, endless, sound.
Dingle. Dingle-dingle.
The sleigh bells rang as Toren ran on. They were the most obnoxious things he’d ever heard. They clanged together on his harness. His chains. They were sounds to drive any creature insane.
Dingle dingle dingle.
He was angry. No; he was furious. Toren resented every order coming from Erin’s mouth now. The endless sleigh rides where he’d been forced to pull it up a hill for laughing Drakes and Gnolls had been torture; this was the final straw.
In Toren’s mind he began to wrestle with Erin’s orders. She had given him orders, but they were bad. No—they were worse. They were unacceptable.
Part of him told Toren to obey. This was his duty, what he’d been created for. But—no—he didn’t want to do it! Toren wanted to be free, free to fight and kill and—
Dingle. Dingalingle.
He hated this. He hated taking orders, and hated pulling this stupid device. Toren wanted to grab his sword and hack the sledge to bits. Or—or he could use it on Erin to—
No. he couldn’t do that. The magic binding him still prevented him from doing that. But he was beginning to feel the limitations of it in his soul. Yes, he had to obey orders. But he could misinterpret. He could act slowly. He could—
What had she said? Let her know when they were at the next cave. And she wanted him to pull the sledge. Toren thought about those words. Erin meant other things when she said them to him, of course, but the literal wording gave him a lot of leeway.
What could he do? Toren looked back at Erin. She was his Mistress. But she wasn’t worthy of that title. He wanted…
Dingle. Dingle dingle.
He wanted to be free. And so he would take his freedom, even if it meant getting rid of Erin. He couldn’t harm her, but there were other ways of getting rid of her inconvenient orders, weren’t there?
But could he do that? Toren wrestled with himself. He wanted to be free. But he had orders. But he wanted to be free. Yet, could he—
Din—
Snap.
Toren heard the snap in his mind and in real life. He stared down at the bell in his hands. No more. Nevermore. He would never be a slave again. He would be free.
No matter what he had to do for it.
Slowly, the skeleton adjusted his course. He glanced back at Erin, and saw she was deeply asleep. He began to run north, away from Liscor, away from the inn, this time running as fast as he could. He had a plan.
The sledge travelled northwards, away from the inn, and the mountains. It was clearly going in the wrong direction, but this early in the morning who would be outside to see it? And who would care?
Two Goblins sat one a hill. One was sulking as she adjusted her crossbow. She wanted to eat at the inn, but she’d been banned for reasons that weren’t her fault, even if she understood them. The other Goblin was bored. But his eyes were keen, and so he saw the skeleton, saw the sledge change direction.
The Goblin saw everything. And he grinned. But he said nothing to the other Goblin.
Slowly, the sledge disappeared over the last crest of the hill. Garen Redfang smiled to himself, and wondered when Rags would decide to return to her tribes. She still had much to learn, and this soft place with that strange [Innkeeper] was not the place for her to be right now. She had to be tough, strong. She had to lead the tribes. She could be a Goblin Lord, he knew. And the fewer annoying Humans there were to impede her progress, the better.
—-
Erin woke up slowly. She was cold, and stiff, and no longer moving. That was when she realized she’d stopped. The sunlight was bright, and Erin felt like she’d had a good nap.
“Toren?”
She blinked, looked up at the sky, and gasped. The sun was high overhead! She must have been sleeping for hours!
“Toren! Why didn’t you wake me?”
Erin shouted as she sat up and looked for her skeleton. But she received no answer. And as she stared around, Erin realized something was very wrong.
The sledge was sitting out in an open field in the middle of snow. That was normal. But the landscape around Erin was not. Erin stared around. Wait a second, where were the mountains? Liscor was surrounded by mountains, but now she couldn’t see any. Except for those much smaller mountains over…there…
Her stomach twisted into knots. Erin stared over to her left. There was trees over there. A forest. There weren’t any forests near Liscor, except for the boom bark trees on that one hill. And why was the ground so flat over here?
“Toren? Where are we?”
Erin looked around wildly now, but her skeleton was gone. She took a few deep breaths, trying to release the knot in her stomach.
Okay, okay. Don’t panic. She was okay. She just had to take stock of her situation. Think. What did she have?
She had: a jar of dead bees, another two jars of honey, a pillow, a blanket, and a sledge. Oh, and her handy frying pan that she kept in case of danger.
What she didn’t have was Toren, any idea of where she was, or any money.
“Toren? Hey, Toren.”
Erin raised her voice hopefully. Maybe her skeleton was nearby, but he just hadn’t heard her. Or maybe—maybe he’d gotten lost trying to find a cave, and now he was scouting around. That was it, right?
“…Toren?”
He was going to appear at any second. Any second. Erin raised her voice.
“Toren! Where are you?”
There was no response. The cold wind blew, and now Erin felt very alone. She stared around the wilderness. That’s when she noticed the dead wolf.
It was just a wolf. It wasn’t a Carn Wolf; it was smaller, had dark grey shaggy fur, and it had been brutally decapitated. Its head lay in the crimson snow, staring up at Erin. She stared back, too shocked for words. And that’s when she realized she was alone. Lost and alone.
“Uh oh.”
—-
Ryoka woke up slowly when she felt someone licking at her face. She pushed the furry thing off of her and ignored the complaint as it hit the ground. Two seconds later, Ryoka woke up fast as Mrsha cannonballed into her stomach.
“Damn it, Mrsha!”
The Gnoll ran out of the room in fright and Ryoka tumbled out of her bed, tangling in her sheets. She arrived downstairs to find Mrsha hiding behind Lyonette. The girl looked at Ryoka reproachfully as Mrsha quivered behind her.
Ryoka rubbed at her face. Wonderful. She’d already made a mess of things and it wasn’t even five minutes since she’d gotten up.
&nb
sp; “I’m sorry, Mrsha. I didn’t mean to shout. Just don’t—hit me in the stomach, okay?”
She rubbed at her stomach and sat down on the floor. Slowly, Mrsha came out and gave Ryoka a hug. Sometimes she nuzzled or licked, and sometimes she acted just like a kid.
“Where’s Erin?”
Ryoka asked that question to Lyonette after she’d eaten a few crepes. Mrsha had smeared the delicious honey all over her face and she was busy cleaning herself. Lyonette shrugged.
“She took that horrible skeleton out to ride her sleigh. She said she was going to get more bees.”
“Great.”
Ryoka sighed, but ate her crepes and wondered when Erin would get back. She needed to talk to the other girl about a lot of things.
Selys dropped by in the morning, to say hi to Mrsha mainly, and eat some more crepes. It turned out that there weren’t quite enough, but Lyonette made some to everyone’s surprise. The other girl acted haughty about it, but she fed Mrsha one under the table when she thought Ryoka wasn’t looking.
Ryoka waited for another hour, talking with Selys about how to take care of Mrsha and playing with the Gnoll cub. She had no idea how to really play games with children, but Selys knew a lot of games, including patty cake, although the lyrics she used were quite different.
Time passed. Ryoka went outside to see if she could spot Erin riding around. She ended up going into the city, and Selys went with her, this time to take Mrsha to a bathhouse. The Gnoll had begun to smell a bit.
Ryoka met a Drake who called himself Olesm on the way to the city. He claimed to know Erin, but when she told him she hadn’t seen her all day he seemed depressed. He elected to wait in the inn and Ryoka went to talk with Klbkch.
It turned out he was busy acting as a guardsman, so Ryoka went to the top of Liscor’s walls to look for Erin. She didn’t see her, or the sledge.
After midday and a lunch she bought in the city, Ryoka was getting antsy. She talked to Krshia and then went back to the inn to talk to Lyonette and the Drake named Olesm. None of them had seen Erin all day.
This time Ryoka went directly to Klbkch and asked him if his Hive knew where she was. He told her his Listeners couldn’t hear Erin nearby, and that Erin herself hadn’t been spotted since she’d left in this morning.
There was no sign of Erin at the bee cave that Lyonette pointed Ryoka towards, although the snow was disturbed. Ryoka returned to the inn and worried.
By the time evening had fallen, Krshia, Klbkch, and all of Erin’s friends from Olesm to Selys were looking for signs of Erin. Lyonette swore she knew nothing else, but the tracks of Erin’s sledge had crossed with the others too many times for Ryoka to tell where they went.
For once, the ubiquitous Frost Faeries were nowhere to be seen, and Krshia said that she’d spotted them flying south and spreading more snow in the morning. Ryoka sat in her inn, worrying, until she remembered Halrac.
The Gold-rank [Scout] was grumpy as ever and irritated that she’d roused him from his discussion with Bird of all people about some kind of digging project, but when Ryoka told him that Erin was missing he immediately agreed to go look for her.
The [Scout] tracked Erin’s trail all the way from the inn to the bee cave, and he found the set of tracks that led away from the cave and towards the north. They went on and on, and Halrac’s keen eyes spotted the tracks still going north for miles.
Ryoka went back to the inn and spread the news. She listened to Erin’s friends talk and debate, and thought long and hard about why Erin would decide to keep going. She thought about dangerous bees, possibly monsters—although Halrac had found no tracks—and then about skeletons. She thought about Toren, and thought about stories like Frankenstein.
The night was very long for Ryoka. Lyonette made food—a bit burned—for Mrsha and Selys, and Ryoka talked for a while with Krshia and Selys and made arrangements. She gave the Drake and Gnoll most of her gold coins and had to tell Mrsha three times what she was going to do.
The next morning, Ryoka left the inn bright and early, leaving Lyonette behind and Mrsha with Selys. She ran north, looking out for any signs of a sledge, and asking travelers if they’d spotted any sign of a girl or a skeleton. But she heard nothing. Found nothing.
And so Ryoka ran on, and thought of a Dragon that could scry for people if he knew their names. She ran a bit faster after she thought that.
And far away, a [Skeleton Knight] stabbed a pair of travelers to death on the road. He took their coins on the vague chance they might be useful, and kept walking. He was going back to Liscor, to a dungeon where he could level up. His purple eyes glowed and he smiled.
He was always smiling, but this time it was because he was happy. So happy.
Blood dripped down from his fingers, ran down his battered armor and into the snow. The skeleton left a trail of blood as he walked on. At last. He kept thinking those words.
At last.
He was free. And when he was a higher level—just a bit higher—
He’d finally be free forever.
2.37
The continent of Izril had been changed by winter. The cold snows had buried the green hills and fauna, and turned the world white and cold. And just north of the famous High Passes and the climbable mountains, the world had grown desolate.
A large field had been covered by snow, and it was here the winds blew without mercy. Chilling gusts made the freezing temperatures even more dangerous for anyone caught outside without protection.
Flecks of snow fell from a forest in the distance and whirled into the air. They flew in the wind, icy daggers which melted and froze again on bare skin. The field was silent. It was a cold winter wonderland; a place untouched by any artificial dwellings or settlements.
But one figure moved through the static landscape. A Human girl stumbled and slowly pushed her way through the snow, dragging a large sleigh-like vehicle behind her. The cold air tried to bite into her clothes, and the haunting isolation would surely have driven any mortal person insane after a few days.
Because Erin had been outside for less than three hours, she was still in good spirits. And she wasn’t exactly marching in weary silence. She was singing.
“Because of my skeleton, I can’t find my way home.
That’s why I’m roaming!
It’s so cold out here, I might freeze to death.
So I can’t stop and rest!
Ba dum bum bump bum.
I think I’m totally lost. My sleigh is covered in frost.
I uh, I’m really, really cross.
Stupid Toren!”
Erin wasn’t feeling too bad at the moment. True, she was lost, abandoned by her skeleton, and she had no idea where she was, but she had a catchy tune in her head so she was focusing on that.
She had no niceties in her song like a proper melody, or a sense of rhythm; no accompaniment aside from the sound the sledge made as she dragged it through the snow. Everything was ad lib, which led to some interesting lyrics.
“No matter where I go, everything seems the same!
I think Toren’s to blame?
I really want to eat, but all I have is honey and dead bees,
I wish I had some—aaaaah! Wolves!”
She spotted the first grey shape creeping towards her in the snow by chance; she turned her head and saw the wolf about thirteen feet away from her. Erin stopped singing and screamed as the wolf got up and howled. More wolves howled around Erin, and she realized her singing—and the dead wolf Toren may or may not have killed—had attracted a pack.
“Stay back! Stay back!”
Erin screamed at the wolves as they began to circle her. Again, these were not Carn Wolves, but they were still big and scary to Erin, a girl who had only seen wolves in zoos and on National Geographic and Planet Earth.
And now here they were, larger than—
One of them race through the snow and leapt at Erin. She yelled, but didn’t flinch away or try to protect her face. Instead she clenched her
fist.
“[Minotaur Punch]!”
The first caught the wolf in the stomach. The animal made a wheezing, grunting sound as Erin sent him tumbling into the snow with a punch. Another wolf leapt and Erin dodged and then kicked it in the face. She was wearing winter boots, and the wolf yelped and leapt back.
“Take that!”
She yelled at them and then scrambled so she’d have her back to the sledge. The wolves charged again, but Erin was ready. Her heart was beating out of her chest, but this wasn’t as bad as the undead. The wolves weren’t as dangerous as Gazi, or as numerous as Goblin—
Erin slapped a wolf in the face and made it retreat. But they were scary, and they had teeth! Twice they’d bit into her clothing, but they’d missed her skin. She punched another one. It made the wolf collapse onto the ground for a second before it got up and sped away.
“Yeah, that’s right! You want a piece of this?”
The young woman shouted and waved her arms to try and make herself look bigger. Scare them away. Make as much noise as possible. She saw the wolves hesitating and kept screaming. She wasn’t going to die here, not to wolves.
—-
The wolf pack was hungry, which was why they’d decided to go after the two-legged creature that smelled so odd. Normally they avoided all such creatures and went after familiar prey, but the winter snows had been deeper than normal of late, and finding food had been more difficult than before. They had spotted a group of Corusdeer moving south earlier this week, but there hadn’t been any stragglers to run down, and the deer were too dangerous for a wolf pack to take on unless they were desperate.
So they’d closed in on this Human, using stealth to approach her. But she’d spotted one of their number so they’d attacked.
That had been a mistake. The creature was small, but it hit and struck the wolves like a falling tree. The adults couldn’t bite her no matter how they leapt. And the female thing was refusing to run.