Chapter 16 - The First Night

  They travelled for a while longer with Cal going back and forth between Kaila and Teth, making them speak and share, with Meliana chipping in every so often. Though Cal didn’t like it, this was one of the reasons Meliana had recruited him. His ability to keep the peace in a party. He just had to keep telling himself that it was only temporary to keep the flashes of pain out of his mind.

  It went on until the sun was getting too low to see. “We should make camp.” Meliana finally said, standing up in her stirrups to look around the area. It occurred to Cal that she could see in the dark, so it was likely that she hadn’t even realised how hard it was getting to see.

  There were a handful of pillars of smoke in the distance, both ahead and behind, but none seemed close enough that they could join them, a fact Kaila was likely happy for.

  “There’s a flat down there.” She said, pointing off towards the east. To the west, though it was Dark, they could see that one of the branches of the Canyon was closing in on the road. It would likely be more dangerous to sleep on the flat plains than with the cliff at their backs, but the idea of accidentally falling off the cliff - or being pushed off by bandits - didn’t suit Cal, and he guessed that Meliana felt the same way.

  They turned off the side of the road and Cal drew his sword, then with a gentle “Vosh.” And a swipe of his fingers down the blade, he ignited it, holding it high to give them a bit of light as they came to a stop.

  “All right. Cal you have our tents, you and Teth set them up along with his and Kaila’s.” Meliana said, climbing down from her horse. “Kaila you and I will find fire wood.”

  “I can do that myself.” The Necromancer said.

  Meliana eyed her for a moment then nodded. “We passed a copse of trees a few minutes back.” She suggested and Kaila nodded, then turned with her horse. As she did so the horse sunk into the ground and left her standing on the soft earth. She stepped away from the group into the shadows beyond the light of Cal’s blade and he just barely saw her sit down in the dirt. “Cal, if you can give me my bag and the supplies I’ll tie the horses and start preparing food.”

  “I’ve never seen you cook in my life.” Cal laughed, pulling her pack out of his void bag, along with a couple of sacks of carrots and potatoes.

  “We’re going to get an actual meal?” Teth asked, impressed. “I’m usually stuck with travel rations.”

  “Well we have a void bag, might as well carry some nice supplies.” Meliana shrugged. “You got the pot?” She added, looking back to Cal.

  He was about to throw her the void bag, but the image of something he’d rather they not see flashed across his mind and he held the bag tighter. “What else do you need?” He asked. “I need to help with the tents.”

  Cal took a moment with Meliana to get her what she needed to make a vegetable stew with some salted meats then stabbed his sword into the ground where the camp fire would be and started helping Teth with the tents. “If you need help with Melt let me know, she doesn’t like you remember.” He joked, turning back to face her as he walked backwards to the edge of their camp.

  As he reached the older man he was just turning back, but a very pale green light began emanating from just outside of the fire’s light. It silhouetted Kaila who was sat cross legged on the floor with her hood up. The colour was a more sickly green than when she’d healed him and he knew without sensing the magic that it was necromantic. He heard the sound of animals pulling their way out of the ground and saw an incredibly faint green energy that hadn’t been visible in the light float off of them as they appeared. It was so faint that Cal wasn’t even sure that he wasn’t imagining it. He watched them run off towards the trees, presumably to gather the wood.

  “It’s creepy.” Teth grumbled as Cal reached him. “And bad luck.”

  Cal shrugged. “I already got paid. If we need her we need her.” He said.

  Teth didn’t argue, but Cal could feel his displeasure. “I need to blow off some steam.” He grumbled.

  “Well lets get these set up and then you can go for a run or something.” Cal suggested.

  “Or we could fight again.” Teth shrugged.

  “I’m not looking to destroy our camp site.” Cal laughed.

  “No, not a real fight.” Teth said, shaking his head. “Just a bit of exercise. No claws, no fire.”

  Cal considered the man. That morning he’d tried to kill him, now he was thinking about training with him. Not only that but the man was asking him to train. Apparently he’d made a good impression. “We live in a weird world.” Cal said finally. “All right, you can show me what I did to telegraph that sword teleport you saw with your blind eye.”

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  The big guy barked out another laugh. “That? Oh that was nothing special.”

  “No?”

  “Nah.” Teth said. “The sword was behind you, I saw it vanish in a very un-subtle flash with my good eye.” He said it as they finished putting up Meliana’s tent and Cal sighed in exasperation.

  “You made me think it was either magical senses or I tipped you off some how.” He accused, moving on to the next tent, Teth’s own.

  “You did. You made it vanish where I could see it. Next time throw it off somewhere I can’t see” Teth told him. “Put it back on your belt.”

  Cal nodded. He heard padded footsteps behind them and turned to see the first few skeletal animals - a wolf, a cow calf, a long legged flightless bird of some kind and a mountain lion - drop off a mouthful of twigs and a log before turning and rushing back out into the darkness. “I’m not sure I’m going to get used to that.” Cal admitted.

  “You shouldn’t.” Teth said. “It’s unholy.”

  Cal shrugged. “Depends on the god.” He noted. “The Crow certainly hates them, but The Queen? She’s probably fine with it.”

  “The brawler hates it.” Teth replied, tapping his fist to his chest. “You’re a Dawnian?” Cal waved a hand in a ‘more or less’ motion. “The Dawn doesn’t like undeath either.” Teth reminded him.

  “You know actually, The Dawn actually just doesn’t like people taking advantage of each other. People interpret that as hating necromancy because you’re kind of taking advantage of another person’s body, but undeath isn’t something that’s ever specifically mentioned. He’s probably fine with doing it to animals.”

  Teth eyed Cal for a long moment with an incredulous expression. “So, what? You like Necromancers now?” Teth asked as they finished putting his tent up. He then grinned. “Pretty monster girl waltzes up and you lose all your common sense.”

  “I’m not saying that, I’m just saying…” Cal considered for a moment. It wasn’t that he suddenly trusted necromancers, but Kaila… she’d pulled her weight so far, she was helping them collect firewood and largely she seemed nice enough, if a little… he shook his head. She was still a necromancer and they weren’t to be trusted. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I was just making conversation, come on let’s put up her tent before we do mine.”

  “I’m not touching her tent.” Teth grumbled. “Don’t want to get cursed or something.”

  Cal rolled his eyes. “You may not like her or what she can do, but she’s part of our group right now.” He sighed. He couldn’t deny that there was a not insignificant part of him that also didn’t want to help her, but he’d promised Meliana he’d keep the peace and get close to Kaila just in case, so he did his best. “We have another week to spend with her. You start screwing with her now or not pulling your weight like that, she’s got plenty of time to retaliate. Besides,” Cal added, “It’s Meliana’s spare tent, she doesn’t have her own one, sleeps under the stars. It ain’t cursed yet you big baby.”

  He grumbled but said, “Fine.”

  “Look we’ll set the tents up like we rode so there’s a buffer of me and Meliana between you and the tiny half-elf so you’ll be perfectly safe.” Cal briefly considered the idea of her sending a bunch of skeletons after him in the middle of the night. “Probably.”

  By the time they’d finished setting up camp it was almost cozy. It wasn’t anything special, but they’d be comfortable enough for the night. The camp fire - which Meliana had used Cal’s flaming sword to start - was in the centre and the four tents were lined up in a half circle around it in the same order that they had ridden in.

  To the side of the camp Meliana had hammered a metal stake with a ring at the top deep into the ground and tied the horses to it - though when Cal went to check he had to re-tie Melt as she was no longer tied down - and Kaila’s animals had piled up plenty of extra wood for the fire. By the third or forth time the skeletal animals returned from the forest and dropped off their loads, Cal had become used to them, more or less. They were still creepy, but he didn’t get a shiver down his spine every time he saw them. He suspected that if they had been people it would be a different story, but he’d eaten meat from animal bones plenty of times so the sight of them wasn’t that bad.

  Cal dropped down next to Meliana and grabbed some grass up from the ground, tearing it apart in his fingers. He stared into the fire as she stirred the pot, Teth readied his tent for the night and Kaila did whatever she was doing out beyond the light of the fire.

  Without meaning to, he let out a long sigh and slumped against his legs.

  “How you holding up?” Meliana asked. There was a warmth to her voice, but also an uncertainty. A vulnerability. The open earnestness wasn’t something she was used to, which made Cal smile.

  “I’m fine. Just… exhausted.” He admitted. “I’ve been alone these past five months for a reason. Fighting that while also being social for the first time in over half a year is… it’s tough.”

  She nodded to herself and threw some more seasoning into the pot. “Do you want to talk about what happened?” She asked.

  The flashes came to mind again, but not as stark as when he wasn’t expecting them. Still it hurt to see, as evidenced by the grimace on his expression. “I’d rather not.” He admitted.

  She looked away and Cal was sure that there was relief there. She wouldn’t have known what to do with his feelings if he had offered them to her. “Well I’m here if you do need to talk.” She said finally.

  “Thanks.” Cal said simply, tearing more grass and throwing it into the fire to watch the little burst of flame as it caught light.

  “I don’t know what happened, but with everything I know about you, I know it must have been rough.” She continued. “And I know that all this must be painful for you. So… thank you for coming. I couldn’t have done this job without you.”

  Cal looked over and eyed her for a long moment. “Are you alright?” He asked, raising a brow. “You’re being uncharacteristically compassionate.”

  Her cheeks blushed ever so slightly and her expression hardened, before softening with a sarcastic roll of the eyes. “Here I am being all nice ‘cos you’re whining like a baby and you throw it back at me. See if I try that again.” She laughed, sitting up taller and swatting Cal with the wooden spoon she was using. “Go get your ass kicked dumbass.” She added, nodding across the camp where Teth had reemerged from his tent with his sword on his shoulder.