Behind the Tales

by Aurora Peppermint

  “Don’t apologize.” She shrugged before tilting her head toward the house. “You two go around the back. I’ll be by the side of the house. Just pop your head out so I can see it when the first one’s taken care of.”

  “Right. Good luck.” Martus stood up, carefully sticking to the sides of buildings to make his way to the back of the house. Halfway there, Hal reached forward and gripped his hand.

  “Is this a good idea?” His voice was hushed, but Martus could hear the fear in it, and he frowned.

  Briefly, he glanced over his shoulder to see Mel just far enough behind them to be out of earshot. Still, he pulled Hal behind the back of the house and started looking for a place to hide.

  “It’s our only idea for now. Mel is… a little harsh, but I think she cares about Fitzy. And if she does, why would she trick us?” There was space between the little roof the horses were under and the side of the house, just to the right of the door. When someone came out, Martus would be able to sneak up on them. He tugged Hal with him into the small space.

  “I don’t know. It just seems very strange. What if we get in there and we are outnumbered? What if she decides she can get her brother back on her own and leaves us for dead?” Hal fidgeted with Martus’s fingers, and his palm was sweaty when he held it tighter to calm him. “I just don’t want us to die in this house tonight, after everything.”

  “I know. I want to get back to Elsaben as much as you do. But if it means putting myself in more danger for her to be in less, I’ll do it. You don’t have to get hurt, though. You can walk away and wait for us. Or go back and stay with Els.” Hal’s eyes were panicked, but when Martus suggested he go home, he shook his head, looking askance. Martus squeezed his hand again.

  “I wouldn’t do that to you. I can’t. If you think it’s best, I trust your judgment. Just be wary.” Finally, after a long moment, Hal’s eyes flickered back up to meet Martus’s. The fear was still there, the nerves making them twitch to each side, but there was also a sharp edge of determination.

  “You’ll be fine, I promise.”

  Their lips were dry, and Hal still tasted like beef stew when Martus kissed him. However, he relaxed considerably when their lips met, his hand going slacker against Martus’s. Just as Martus put a hand on his hip to pull him closer, the creak of a door sent them rocketing apart.

  There was only time to exchange a nervous glance with Hal before Martus drew his dagger and snuck forward. He was as quiet as he could force himself to be, and he didn’t touch the man until his knife was already at his throat. One smooth slice, a move Martus had never had to do before, and a hand over his mouth to keep him from screaming.

  Five seconds—a lifetime to Martus, having to watch someone’s blood spill from their body because of him, trying not to get it on his shirt because he knew he couldn’t walk back to the inn covered in blood. But in five seconds, the man was on the ground and not moving anymore. Martus did as he had been told and stuck his head out to signal Mel.

  Of course it was the outcome Martus had expected, but it was different expecting something versus actually seeing it. For a moment he just stood there staring, his knuckles white against his knife and his throat slowly closing.

  “We have to get inside for this to work.” Hal’s hand on Martus’s shoulder pulled him out of his thoughts. He looked over blankly for a second before snapping out of it.

  “You’re right. Remember what Mel said—let her get in a few hits first. I don’t want you getting hurt.” Martus followed Hal up the stairs but paused before stepping through the door. The sight over his shoulder almost made him throw up when he looked back. If he didn’t go in now, though, help Hal and Mel, one or all of them could end up the same.

  As soon as they stepped foot in the house, the sounds of fighting were clear. Steel against steel, grunts, thumps, crunches that were so nasty Martus had to hope they were coming from anyone but Mel. Once he turned around one corner into a room he saw they certainly were.

  The other woman who was there was twice Mel’s size, and her face was twisted with blind rage, and the man, while slight and lanky, was very light on his feet. Still, they were bleeding, arms bent in strange angles, and Mel only had one scratch across her cheek. Martus had known she could take care of herself, but this was still a surprise.

  Not surprising enough to keep him from action, however. Martus gripped his sword and put himself between the man and Mel, bringing his sword down on the man’s shoulder in the second he must have been struck by surprise that Martus and Hal were there. It wasn’t enough to put him out of commission, but he stumbled backward, and Martus followed him. He felt physically sick when he thrust the sword forward and felt it make contact with the skin of the man’s belly. He got in a small nick before he had to pull his sword back up and block a blow coming his way.

  He’d seen that the woman attacking Mel was out for blood, and it steeled his resolve. If she was willing to kill them, this man probably was too. Martus wouldn’t take that sitting down.

  He flicked his eyes back to Hal. He was still holding his sword awkwardly, still grimacing whenever he swung it, but stranger than any of that, his lips were moving with no sound. Martus realized he recognized the movements. It was his spell. Danger pushed him toward turning into a dragon. A wave of sadness swept over Martus, but he tried to filter it into rage at the man he was fighting.

  The next time Martus lunged forward, the other man dodged, bringing his sword up at the same time and slicing Martus’s arm. Rather than dropping his sword from the burn of the wound, he gripped it tighter, gritting his teeth. His recovery time gave the man an opportunity to raise his arm again to hit Martus.

  Martus grabbed his wrist before it came down, bringing his free elbow up to hit the other man’s face. There was a crack and a spurt of blood before the man’s head came at Martus’s, knocking him to the floor. It hurt worse than the sword wound, and he knew there would be a bump on his head the next morning. He had a new confidence, though; he would make it out of this alive.

  From the floor, he gripped his sword tighter, blinked twice to get some of the stars out of his eyes. But when he moved to swipe his sword against the other man’s ankles, he found that there were no ankles to swipe at. A few feet away, the man was lying on the ground, blood pouring from his head. A few feet from that, the woman, looking barely like a person at all from the number of holes in her body, lay motionless.

  Suddenly, there was blurry brown in his vision, and after a second, Martus realized it was Mel’s hand. He took it and rose gingerly to his feet, a small groan spilling from his lips. Once his vision was mostly back, he took the scene in better. There was blood on Hal’s sword, and on the hilt of Mel’s. A wave of nausea swept over him again.

  “Let’s get out of here.” He turned away from the bodies, swaying slightly but staying mostly steady. He was the first out the door, but he could hear the others behind him. Fresh air hit like a glass of ice water on a dry throat, cool but mostly refreshing. He took as much in as he could.

  “Come on, time to get back to Elsaben.” Hal’s voice was quiet, barely reaching Martus, but he turned after a second and nodded, wiping some blood off his face before he started walking.

  Hal didn’t say anything more as the three made their way, side by side, into the road. He must have known something was wrong, though, or maybe he needed comfort himself. Because he reached out and took Martus’s hand as they disappeared into the quiet darkness of the town.

  Chapter Four

  THEY GOT an early start the next morning after Martus got very little sleep in the first place. This whole thing was a mess, and he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. The best way to do that was to get to Fitzy as soon as they could. They had a quick breakfast because Elsaben needed it and Hal did too, even though Martus had to force him again.

  “Are you all right?” By the time they had been on the road for an hour or so, Elsaben was asleep—she’d barely ever been awake—and Mel was riding ah
ead of them in case they came across more of the people who had taken Fitzy. Martus took the relative privacy as an opportunity to check on Hal. Not eating was one thing—he hadn’t had much of an appetite for the time he’d known him—but now Hal looked like he’d gotten even less sleep than Martus.

  “What do you mean? Of course I’m all right.” Hal sounded convincing, but for the fact that he looked pointedly forward, his hands fidgeting with his reins. Martus spent most of his time around him every day, and he could pick up on when things like that were out of place.

  “Well, that just makes me more worried. Something’s obviously wrong, and now you’re lying about it. You haven’t been eating, and you haven’t been sleeping. My friend, if you find yourself having troubles, please tell me.” Martus leaned forward, trying to catch another look at Hal’s face. They were all tired, but there was a difference between being tired because he’d woken up early and being tired because he hadn’t gotten any sleep. Hal looked like the latter.

  “Martus, you can’t be serious. I saw you last night, you know. You didn’t look any better then than I do now. Did you tell me your troubles?” Hal finally looked back at Martus, eyebrows raised.

  It was Martus’s turn to look away. While Hal certainly had a point, Martus was fine with feeling bad; he could handle it on his own. Hal getting a little panicky, however, could have a much more severe effect. Martus trusted Hal and he didn’t want to make it sound like he didn’t, so he chose not to point that out.

  “We killed people. I don’t like to have blood on my hands. Literally or figuratively. I’d say I’m in the majority there, so I didn’t think there was much to talk about.” Martus shrugged, forcing himself to look up at Hal. He smiled at him, even though he could picture how tense it would look. “Would you care to tell me what’s bothering you now?”

  “I’m just having some trouble with the control spell, that’s all. Last night….” Briefly, Martus’s mind flashed back to Hal mumbling the words under his breath while he’d been fighting. He had the same sad, frustrated look on his face as he did now. “Last night, I was afraid it wasn’t going to work. Even before that, I had been staying up to practice, and I have been focusing better. Last night, it was still hard. I am… stressed. It makes it hard to eat. Sometimes the spell makes me ill, also.”

  “It’ll take time, but I have faith in you, my friend. I truly do.” Martus didn’t know the details of the spell. He wasn’t as skilled as Hal at magick. Hell, he probably wasn’t even as skilled as his baby sister. That being said, even if it took a lifetime, even if it never happened fully, he knew Hal would keep trying. The important thing was that he knew he had support. “If it makes you ill, I would wager it’s better to take it a little more gently, maybe take a day or two off from practicing. You can’t let it keep you from eating, sleeping, functioning. That won’t end up helping anyone. Especially now. This has gone from bad to worse incredibly quickly, and I need you in top shape. You know you’re my right-hand man.”

  “I know.” Hal smiled weakly at the encouragement, but he looked down at his hands a second later. “You are important to me. El is important to me. I want to be sure neither of you has to be in danger because of me. If that means a few sleepless nights….” He shook his head, blowing out a slow breath. “Sleepless nights now are better than the ones I have after I hurt people.”

  “I know the feeling, I do. But El and I both need you to be around. You’ll be gone as much from not eating and sleeping as you would be if you flew away.” Martus wasn’t going to convince Hal to stop trying the spell, and he really didn’t want to. Of course he wanted to know he was safe, and of course he wanted Elsaben to be safe. However, if Hal didn’t slow down, he really was going to end up in a bad spot. That would do them both damage too, and Hal would be hurt on top of it.

  “I’ll do my best, I promise.” Hal fell silent after that, a frown on his face as he stared forward. Martus didn’t try to bother him because, even if he had, he knew he shouldn’t expect much of a response. Hal could get lost in himself sometimes, and it was best to just leave him to his thoughts.

  THEY DIDN’T make it to the town Fitzy was supposedly being held in that night. A bridge was down, and the river was much too deep for them to cross without it, so they had to go a few hours out of their way. On top of that, it had taken Mel and Hal hunching over the map and arguing back and forth for at least a half an hour before they could even keep going.

  “We need to take the path through the forest. Sticking to the road will double our time.” Hal traced the path he intended for them to take with the opposite end of his pen. It certainly looked like rough terrain, but for a full six hours less traveling, especially since Elsaben was already getting antsy, it would probably be worth it.

  “You don’t understand. They’re going to find out within the next… eh, three hours at the most, that their men are dead. When that happens, they’ll send more people after us. They may have even been the ones to take the bridge down. We’re in for enough of a fight when we get there, and taking the road may not let us avoid that completely, but they’ll be a lot less likely to attack on a public road than in the middle of the woods where there’s no chance anyone will be around to help us.”

  Martus hadn’t even considered the criminals would realize their men were dead, at least not until they got to where Fitzy was. But it made sense. It had been a bad enough fight the night before—Mel had bruises, and Martus the cuts on his arms, to prove that much—but at least they’d been able to seek their pursuers out. Now if they sprung an attack on them, Elsaben would be there. Maybe they’d be able to get her out in time, or maybe they weren’t cruel enough to hurt a child. There was no way to know.

  “We need to take the forest road. If they know we’re coming, and they know your brother can’t pay, he might be dead if we take an extra day.” Mel’s jaw clenched at that, but Martus barreled through. “Mel, you stay in the front, I’ll ride in the back, and Hal, you stay with Elsaben in between us. That way if they come at us, from either direction, we should be prepared.”

  Martus didn’t need to tell Hal that if they did get in a dangerous situation, he had to get Elsaben out of there as quickly as possible. He and Mel could handle themselves. Usually, he had complete faith that Hal would have been able to just as well. Although not necessarily in the form he was in now, judging by his swordsmanship the night before. But he was exhausted, he hadn’t been eating, and that was going to work against him. He was in good enough shape to take care of Elsaben if someone decided to break away and follow them, but not enough that Martus was willing to leave him alone with Mel to handle any attack they might run into.

  “We’ve argued long enough. I just want you boys to be prepared when we have people running at us with swords again. I warned you as best as I could.” Mel squared her shoulders, standing from where she’d been squatted over the map.

  “I agree. We need to get on the road. This will be faster, but we’re still losing a lot of time. After we crossed the bridge we’d only have had about two hours left. That has nearly tripled with the new route.” Hal rolled up the map quickly, jogging back over to his horse to stow it away. Once Mel mounted he offered Martus a smile. “Thank you for listening to me. I know it could put us in danger, but we already are, and the sooner this is over the sooner we can all be safe at home.”

  “I know. Believe me, that is all I have been thinking about since we left the house.” Martus got his own horse ready to start back on the road. Before he actually got in the saddle, he headed over to where Elsaben was sitting, her head buried in her magick book once again. When they were stopped, and often even when they were riding, she’d been focusing on her book. At least she was learning, and at least she wasn’t complaining about the ride. But Martus still had the image of her accidentally lighting herself on fire in the back of his mind when she tried a spell. “How are you holding up, little love?”

  “Martus!” Elsaben giggled, dropping her book to the ground
when Martus scooped her up in his arms. “I’m okay. I want to be at home, but I guess I’m reading more than I do there.” She shrugged, her face dropping a little, but not falling to complete sadness.

  “Next time I’ll have someone to stay with you at home. Even incredibly handsome and very smart big brothers make mistakes sometimes, you know.” He puffed out his chest and smiled his most charming smile. Elsaben just shoved at his cheek, laughing again.

  “It’s okay, Mar! When we get home could you get me some sweets?” It was really surprising how quickly she was learning to manipulate him, although she’d always been able to get him to do almost whatever she wanted. He just shook his head.

  “Maybe.” He bent down to pick up her book and then walked over to Hal’s horse, where he lifted her up to the saddle. “For now, it’s time to get back on the road. You get to ride with Hal again, and if we stop, he may tell you to go into the woods with him. I need you to listen if he does, okay?”

  “I always listen to Hal.” Elsaben crossed her arms, pouting a little bit. Before she could get too offended, Martus laughed and leaned up to give her a hug.

  “I know you do. It’s just very important this time, so I wanted to make sure you knew. We’ll be there soon, okay? I promise. And when we are, this will all be over. Hal and I will do our job, and then we’ll take you home.” Martus kissed her forehead, checking again that she was safely in the saddle before he went back to his own horse.

  He almost wished he weren’t doing the job for Geraldine and that Mel didn’t seem so genuinely worried about her brother. If it were just a job, not someone’s life on the line, he would have turned around and gone back home as soon as he heard there were people who wanted to kill him if he didn’t. Maybe it wouldn’t have been great for his reputation, but it would have been a lot better for his sanity.

  As it was, he was worried about Fitzy now too. And as grumpy as she’d been, Mel had done everything she could to help them. Even if it was mostly for her benefit and the benefit of her brother, the least he could do was return the favor.