Chapter 25 - Back Story

  Present Day

  The walk back was solemn and slow. Thoughts of the last time Cal had been forced underground with a party playing in his mind as he carried Kaila back through the Blackwood.

  By the time the group returned to the destroyed caravan site, it was dusk and there was no way that they’d be making it to Silverdale by evening. They opted to camp there for the night and continue on their way in the morning.

  They cleared away the remaining bodies of the guards, gathering up their equipment for the survivors and placing them in a row beside the forest. One of the survivors asked that they take them back to the village, but there simply wasn’t enough room so they agreed to let the village guards come by the next day to get them.

  The Prisoners, eight in total still alive, five of whom were children, stayed in one of the caravans while Cal and his group set up their tents around them. He doubted any of them would sleep until they returned to their village, but they couldn’t travel until morning.

  With no help from the others, Cal carried Kaila back to camp and - after setting it up - put her in her tent. When the subject of a night watch came up Cal opted to remain up, sending Meliana and Teth to bed. Cal was too awake to sleep anyway and he felt it best if he was awake and close by when Kaila woke up. There was no telling what would happen when she came to. Would she even remember what she did?

  Cal sat in the opening to her tent and Veil remained up with him, talking from a curled up spot on Kaila’s lap. As such, he was the first to know when she began to rouse.

  His head snapped around to her and he said, “Heads up. Someone’s back from the dead.” As she shifted.

  She laid there unmoving for a long moment, waking up groggily until she shot up into a seated position, fear in her eyes. She immediately turned to Cal and looked him over. “Did I hurt anyone?” She asked.

  Cal shook his head, and then paused. “Teth’s got some cuts and cracks, Meliana and I have some bruises, but we’re all alive. Same with the survivors.”

  She let out a long breath, a sigh of relief as she looked down at her lap. She frowned and then stroked Veil’s head. “Why do I have a fox on me?” She asked.

  “You’re comfy.” Veil replied.

  She almost jumped out of her skin in surprise. After a moment she got hold of her senses and said with awe and realization in her voice, “You’re an awakened.” She reached back in to continue stroking and then paused. “Is it weird for me to stroke you.”

  “Maybe, but if you stop I’ll bite you.” Veil replied. It seemed like a joke but Cal knew for a fact that he was serious.

  “This is Veil.” Cal told her. “Our fifth member, the scout of our little party.”

  “Oh.” She said, looking back up at Cal then down to Veil. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  Veil made a low moaning noise as she scratched under his chin and replied “n-n-nice t-to m-m-mee-eet y-you t-t-too.” His words cut up by the motion of her hand on his jaw.

  She smiled down at Veil and then looked up at Cal. The tent wasn’t large, but from where he was sat at the entrance she was still able to keep a comfortable bit of personal space. Still, she wasn’t cringing back away from him like she might have a day ago. “I freaked out again, didn’t I?” She asked.

  “That’s my guess.” Cal replied, watching her. “Is it like what happened when we met? When I called you necromancer and you ran.”

  She nodded. “Sort of. I thought I was going to die and… well the power took over.”

  Cal frowned. Picking a piece of grass off of the ground and pulling it apart as they talked. “That happen a lot?” He asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s…” She let out a deep sigh, almost like she was giving up. “I have… triggers. I’ve been through things that… that make things effect me in specific ways. Groups surrounding me is the big one. So when the goblins piled in around me… I just sort of… snapped.”

  Cal eyed her for a long moment and then realised why she wore her high collar and what he’d felt when he’d checked her pulse, why her neck had felt leathery. “You’ve been lynched before.” He asked her.

  She looked over at him, fear in her eyes, clearly recalling a memory. She then took a long, slow breath, calmed and nodded. “I was… ten.” She said. “I-”

  “You don’t have to tell me.” Cal assured her, cutting her off.

  She was quiet for a long moment and then said. “You asked me before what living in Zeroden was like.” She said. “It was wonderful. I was a princess, or as close as you can get without being a member of the royal family proper. Daughter of Duke Bastion of Kirkinel City in west Zeroden. It was what everyone hopes their childhood is like… until I was nine and my magic manifested.”

  She took a deep breath and seemed to stare off into space as she recalled the past. “The people of Zeroden zealously believe in the country. Believe in giving all to the nation, except the nobility.” She shook her head in disappointment. “We know how things actually are. So where everyone else would be excited that their daughter was a magic user because they would have the great honour of joining the Zeroden Institute of Magic, my parents knew the truth; Z.I.M. is a life of slavery.

  “They knew they couldn’t hide my magic, if left untrained it manifests in an explosive manner.” Kaila looked up at Cal and he nodded his understanding. He’d seen it happen when he was a child. It had happened to him. It was called Bursting. When your magic welled up to the point that you couldn’t hold it in, it would burst out of you. Every child with magic went through it when their magic manifested, and again when their affinity did the same. Some who held it in or just never tried to use it had it happen again whenever it became too much for their bodies to handle.

  “So they decided to smuggle me across the border instead of handing me over. They thought it best that I live my life as a pauper rather than a slave.”

  “Your affinity hadn’t manifested yet.” Cal surmised. “And when it did-”

  “When it did, it manifested in front of a village of people. The smugglers took me into Cadelar and then brought me into the Alliance, where they washed their hands of me. They were supposed to set me up somewhere and give me money to live on, but my family had cut ties to me, how was it ever going to get back to them that the smugglers had kept the money and left me to fend for myself?”

  Cal sighed, it wasn’t an uncommon story. The extent of it was maybe bigger than Cal had heard before, but human traffickers taking advantage of their customers? A tale as old as borders.

  In all honesty she was probably lucky worse didn't happen.

  “I had been living on the street in Kortia.” She continued. “I was in a village called Lastings. My power exploded out of me and brought a dozen skeletons up from the ground. They didn’t do anything, just ran around unsure of themselves. As soon as I realised it was me I pushed it down.”

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  “I set a house on fire.” Cal recalled. “One of those big tenement places, almost made thirty people homeless. Almost killed about fifteen.”

  “The people of Kortia… they’re superstitious at the best of times, and xenophobic at the worst.” She continued. “They turned on me. I didn’t know what to do so I ran. They didn’t want me to do that so they chased. I don’t think they wanted to kill me at first, but by the time they caught me, chasing me down at night with pitchforks and torches, shouting necromancer at me like I wasn’t human any more…. They’d worked themselves up into a frenzy, it almost seemed magical, like they weren’t in control of it. But maybe I just didn’t want to believe normal people could do things so awful. I’ve seen plenty since to prove otherwise though, so maybe it was them, maybe it was Kortia, I don’t know. But with me fighting and crying in their arms they…” She trailed off, subconsciously reaching up to her throat.

  “Yeah,” Cal said, looking at her neck, though it was beneath her cloak. “What happened next?”

  She looked back up at Cal and sighed. “As soon as they did it they calmed down, realised what they’d done and almost as one they turned away, not wanting to see their handiwork. A ten year old girl, just a little thing strung up on a tree, twitching.”

  “They didn’t cut you down?” Cal frowned, anger on her behalf growing in his chest.

  “I think they still believed in killing the Necromancer, but the sight of it was hard to bare. When they’d gone one of them - Jorick the merchant - snuck up to the tree and cut me down.” Veil was looking up at her as she stroked his fur, and she was looking down at him. “I don’t know how I survived, I guess something about my power meant that I was able to hover on the verge of life and death...

  “Anyway…” she continued. “Jorick gave me money, enough to get to Duskhallow city, and a letter of introduction for a man there named Maeven Wisk.”

  “It took me about a year to get there, and in that time I did my best to keep my power under wraps so… well you know.” She sighed. “Every time it exploded I ran again, sometimes chased, sometimes not. When I was they’d just shout ‘Necromancer.’”

  “That’s why you have such a visceral reaction to that.” Cal noted.

  She let out a breath and nodded her assent. “I did that for so long that, by the time I reached Duskhallow, I think I’d done something to myself. I don’t hold it in any more, but… I don’t know, whenever I’m surrounded and being chased like on that night… I burst again.” She explained, sitting up a little. She took a breath like she was coming to the end of the story and said, “Maeven and his wife took me in, despite my power. Not as parents but… friends if nothing else. He had connections, he helped me a lot, got me work where we could find it with my… abilities, being a selling point, not a risk.”

  “That’s how you got this job.” Cal asked, though it was more rhetorical.

  “And that’s how I got here.”

  “You’ve been through a lot.” Cal noted, sitting back and looking up at the sky. “Sounds like a lot you didn’t deserve. I can understand why you hate people.”

  “I don’t trust people. Some persons I can grow to trust, but… people? As a group people are stupid and weak to their worst traits.”

  Cal nodded. With that, he agreed.

  For the first time perhaps in his life, Cal wondered about Necromancers. Really thought about his preconceived notions. About how he’d always thought about them. About how society had trained him to think about them. He thought about the necromancers of legend. Strong, powerful evil things, but always certain. Always sure of themselves… not like the girl sat in front of him.

  He stared up at the stars and thought about how, in the stories, they were always the bad guy. It was no wonder the people treated her that way with that mindset… but… if they were always treated the way Kaila was, then it was no wonder why they might end up becoming villains; they were just fighting back.

  Kaila would just be fighting back.

  “Some persons aye?” Cal repeated, looking away. “Well maybe with Melt and Veil’s recommendations I’ll become one of them.”

  There was quiet for some time as they each processed, until finally Cal nodded and looked back in to find her watching him, one hand gently stroking Veil.

  He nodded. “I get it.” He said. “I’ve not been through anything like that, but I can see how it’d do things to you.”

  Veil looked over. “Who’d have thought that we’d find someone with an even worse childhood than us?” he said, more seriously than anything else he’d said so far. “It’s impressive.” He added, getting up and stretching. “I’m going to go get some dinner. You can tell my story if you want.”

  Cal frowned and the fox leapt off of Kaila’s lap and walked out. He stepped away from the tent, sniffed the air, looked back at them for a moment and shook his head before running off into the darkness. Cal smiled.

  “Why did he want you to tell his story?” Kaila asked.

  “He doesn’t like thinking about it. The emotions confuse him.” Cal explained. “The awakened are… they’ve been given our intelligence, our voices, but they’re still animals. They have instincts and they can conflict with their sentient emotions and logic.”

  “And what are his instincts telling him in this case?” Kaila asked.

  “That his mother’s death is just something that happens. That he should move on.” Cal said simply. “Veil was about a year old when I found him. He was a side show attraction for some ass holes running a circus. His mother was caught while pregnant with him and when she asked them to free her they saw her as a pay day. ‘A talking fox, how novel.’ you know? Like most people, they'd never heard of the Awakened. So they tried to sell her, but whenever they took her to a buyer she refused to speak.”

  Kaila looked sadly down at her hands, “they mustn’t have liked that.” She noted.

  Cal shook his head. “They didn’t. They waited for the babies to be born and killed her. They roughed her up the whole time she was pregnant so only Veil survived. As soon as he was old enough to survive without his mother she was killed. It’s more or less the first thing he saw. Then he spent a year performing in their circus until I found him, burned the circus down and brought him home to the creeping forest.”

  “That was… very kind of you.” She said, without looking up.

  “Well… I don’t know about that. I just… I’ve got a thing about slavery. I grew up in Westridge where you’re either rich or a slave. Though they don’t call it that.” Cal sighed. “Born there, never new my parents. Since I was old enough to work in the factories I did so, fending for myself. I was lucky though. When I was eight or nine - it’s hard to tell when you don’t have anyone to tell you when you were born - I pick pocketed a guy named Varian Surefoot. He decided to take me in and train me. He gave me these bracers.” He added as an aside, stroking the leather bands on his wrists. “It was in his mercenary company - the Black Blades - that I met Meliana, Captain Roe. Until then though I was a slave in everything but name and contract.”

  Kaila nodded her understanding and then looked up at Cal again, confusion on her features as she asked; “But… when I asked why he wanted you to tell me his story I meant why did he want me to hear it… and why did you tell me yours?”

  Shrugging, Cal looked back out at the sky. “I don’t know. Maybe he just felt like you told us your story so we should tell you ours.” He suggested. “Maybe he likes you and wanted you to know him a bit better, you do have a way with animals after all.”

  Cal shifted out of the tent and got his feet under him preparing to stand up. “Or maybe he wanted to let you know that you’re not alone, that there’s a lot of bad childhoods in the world, but they don’t have to define your life.” He shrugged again. “But I don’t know, he’s a fox, who knows how he thinks.” Cal said standing up. He bent over to look into the tent and noticed that she was crying. He didn’t react to the tears and instead said, “You should get some sleep. I’m sure that display took a lot out of you. You should also be careful around Teth. You freaked him out and he’s already wary around…” He was going to say Necromancers, but instead, as a concession to her triggers said, “…death magic.”

  She nodded and Cal moved to stand back up. “Cal…” she said and he paused, bending over again to look inside. “Thank you... for siding with me."

  She smiled at him, for the first time and suddenly she looked like a completely different person, a happy person, despite the tears streaming down her face. Cal nodded to her and stood up. His entire outlook on Necromancers changed in a single evening.

  Cal walked away and was joined by Veil who leapt up onto his shoulder, leaping off of a broken barrel and scrabbling up his back. “That was well done.” Veil said.

  Walking away to do a circuit of the campsite, Cal nodded. “Well after your little display I could hardly just leave it as was. She’d have thought me a heartless wretch!”

  “First of all: you don’t care what any people think about you. Second what little display?” Veil demanded.

  “You mean to say you jump on everyone's lap and let them stroke you like a house cat?” Cal asked, looking up at him as best he could without losing balance. “And I care what all people think about me. It’s my least pleasant trait.”

  “You didn’t care what my captors thought.” Veil argued.

  “I said people, Veil, not human shaped scum.”

  “So you see the Necromancer girl as people then? That’s interesting.” Veil noted.

  “All right, Kitty, no need to analyse me.” Cal grinned, looking forward again.

  “She seemed distraught and petting an animal helps a lot of people.” Veil said flatly. “Call me kitty again and I’ll let you feel what my knock out poison is like.”

  Cal grinned. “All right tiger.”

  Veil let out a short pur like growl and said, “I don’t know if I like tiger or not.”

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