Chapter 11 - Canyonvue Town

  Present Day

  When they arrived in Canyonvue town the morning after an evening of stressing about what the following day might bring, and a night dreaming about the things he’d tried to forget, Cal understood the town’s name. It was built right at the tip of the canyon with a view all the way through it. There were even viewing platforms for tourists and the Canyon was so long that you couldn’t even see the other end, it just faded into the distance.

  Cal had never been this way before. When he'd last left Westridge they'd gone north or by sea, so even to a Westcoast native like him, it was all new.

  Canyonvue was a larger town than Cal had expected, but as there hadn’t been any other stops on the way from Westridge, he supposed that it did a lot of business resupplying travellers which would have given it the opportunity to grow. It was nowhere near the size of the city, but large enough that once they drew closer he couldn’t see the towns furthest edges.

  It was a well built town, with more stone buildings than wood, most likely because of the quarry at the bottom of the canyon, and minimal forests nearby. There was a small woodland about ten minutes ride south of the town but they would have chopped the entire thing down before they had enough wood to accomplish anything they'd needed. Cal guessed that someone, a mayor or something similar, had decided that the beauty and ecology of the forest outweighed it’s limited usefulness as a resource.

  As they approached the town Meliana turned to Cal. “Okay, lets split up.” She said.

  “Huh?” Cal asked, frowning as he turned to face her back. “Why would we split up?”

  “We have two people to collect, might as well do it at the same time.” She shrugged, looking away, not wanting to meet his eyes.

  He stared at her flatly. “You’re sending me to meet the Necromancer aren’t you?” He sighed.

  “Of course I am,” Meliana responded. “I don’t want to risk being the first one she meets, what if it’s a trap?” She seemed genuinely scared of the possibility but then turned to look at Cal's flat look and smiled. “I’m kidding, Cal. Honestly I don’t think there’ll be any problems. The reason I want you to go do it alone rather than having the two of us - or even three of us - arrive together is because, from what I hear, she’s jumpy. I hear she doesn’t do well around a lot of people and honestly? You’re a much friendlier face than I am.”

  “With normal people, maybe. But you’re covered in skulls, maybe she’ll dig your aesthetic.” Cal countered.

  Meliana laughed, and reached over, patting him on the shoulder. “You’re funny Cal. Be funny with her. Trust me.” Cal rolled his eyes and nodded. “Plus I need you to get a read on her when her defences are lowered, just in case we do need to kill her.”

  Cal raised his brows but nodded. “Done. Where is she.”

  “There’s a small forest-”

  “Ten minutes south?” Cal asked. She nodded. “Got it. Is there anything I should know, a secret word or something?” He asked.

  “No. She knows that someone will be meeting her. She has my name. Her name is Kaila… she’s a necromancer… I don’t know, nothing I can think of.” Meliana shrugged.

  “She have a surname?” Cal asked.

  “Not that I was told.” She replied.

  “Bit weird not to have a surname isn’t it?” Cal asked.

  “Cal what’s your surname?” Meliana asked, giving him a flat look.

  Cal paused for a long moment, trying to come up with an interesting retort but instead just said, “Fair enough.” He took a breath as they neared the main gate and looked to the south. “I’ll see you in a bit. Where are you meeting Teeth?”

  “It’s Teth.” Meliana corrected him. “There’s a tavern called the Wanderers arms. There’s a sign outside with a pair of severed arms on it. Meet us there.”

  Cal nodded and reached for the reigns to turn Melt south, but paused. he turned to regard Meliana again. "The sign just has a picture of arms right?" He asked.

  She eyed him for a second, then made an expression of uncertainty before letting out a short chuckle. "Gods I hope so." She said, turning her horse and riding away.

  Cal shook his head and moved to instruct Melt, but she was already moving. He moved his legs back slightly before giving the horse a squeeze and making a clicking sound with his mouth. She understood before he made either the motion or the noise and was soon moving from a trot into a canter.

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  He held the reigns to lead her, but Melt seemed to know where to go practically the moment before Cal directed her. Almost as if she was listening. Whether she understood from their conversation or if he was somehow directing her with just the small movements of his body he didn’t know. With her intelligence both seemed as likely as the other.

  They made their way around the town - rather than risking taking time getting through the throngs of people inside - and then headed south. They could see the forest the whole time they rode. It was little more than a copse of trees, but large enough to get lost in if you were very unlucky. Conversely, it had little enough space between the trunks that, as they arrived, Cal felt he’d need to get off of Melt and walk in to find the woman.

  He wasn’t sure how he felt about leaving Melt alone. She was so smart that she might choose to leave, and after developing what felt like a bond with her - and after what he’d paid - he really didn’t want that.

  Still, he thought as he climbed down and held onto the reigns, Better I find out now than when I need her to get away from some sort of zombie horde.

  He walked up to the edge of the forest and found a slim tree. He tied Melt’s reigns around the trunk and turned to her. He started stroking the side of her neck and scratching under her chin. “Okay, look. It’s too cramped in there for me to ride you or drag you along. I need you to wait here for me, okay?”

  The horse snorted, bouncing it’s head in a gesture too reminiscent of a human nod. “All right.” He said, patting her lightly on the side.

  He eyed her for a moment longer and then, deciding to trust her and take the risk, turned and started walking into the forest.

  Despite how small it was, and how early in the day it was, as soon as Cal entered the forest it became dark. Not the pitch dark of night, the sun was still able to penetrate the canopy in a few spots, creating various beams of light that came and went with the wind, but dark enough that Cal felt uncomfortable.

  He thought about drawing his sword and lighting it, but if the necromancer, Kaila, was nervous about two or more people turning up he doubted that she’d be excited by the prospect of someone turning up brandishing a flaming sword.

  Looking back, he saw the opening with Melt still stood there looking in and took a deep breath. She wouldn’t be far. It would be unbelievably stupid of her to hide herself deep in the forest if she knew that someone would be meeting her. As awful as Necromancers were, they tended not to be idiots.

  That was often the problem.

  He sighed and closed his eyes, holding up a hand and reaching out with his sense, his power. He was nowhere near as good at magic detection as… some other people he knew of, but he could do a little.

  He could get better if he practised, magic sense was a core, unaffiliated magic, so anyone could use it but he still needed to train with it, like he did with his fire affinity, if he wanted to make it stronger. Theoretically if he trained up his core magics he could learn force magic like… others.

  Cal had trained with Magic sense long enough to be useful, but not enough that he could discern a whole room’s worth of magic like some could. What he was trying now however was just looking for a sign of- there.

  As he panned around to his right he felt the hairs on his arm stand on end. He also tasted something… sour? Bitter? “Ugh, disgusting.” He said, opening his eyes and spitting. It was necromancy magic. He opened his mouth, extending his tongue several times like he was trying to get the taste out of his mouth, but it was just a memory. He had never actually had anything in his mouth. It was more like the magic had transmitted the flavour straight to his brain. Not everyone tasted the magic when they used magic sense, the sensation that a person received depended greatly on who was using it, for each person it was different.

  He reached into his void bag and pulled out a canteen of wine. He didn’t usually drink this early, but needed to change the flavour.

  That thought made him pause. Until a week ago he’d never stopped drinking. Now he felt like he didn’t drink this early? It was strange how much a week could change things.

  Not wanting to risk a relapse, Cal swished the wine around in his mouth and spat it back out before returning the canteen to the bag.

  He shook his head and started walking towards the magic. He found that he wasn’t going deeper into the forest, but he wasn’t getting any closer to the edge either. She hadn’t hidden very deep, but she had made sure to be out of the way, presumably so that people wouldn’t accidentally run across her.

  As he neared the location where he’d sensed the magic, Cal half expected to find her lying atop a hill, bathed in a large beam of light that had broken through, but that wasn’t what he found. As he rounded a large tree he saw a woman laying up against the opposite tree’s trunk.

  Woman was the first descriptor that came to mind but looking at her she was really just a girl.

  She wasn’t what he’d expected.

  He honestly wasn’t sure what he had expected. An older woman with a bent nose and bony fingers like a crone or a hag? Maybe that.

  He’d only seen older necromancers, but this one… Kaila, she was young. Perhaps not much younger than he was, but young all the same.

  She lay curled up in the hollow of a tree with her knees against her chest. She was on the other side of a small clearing from Cal so he couldn’t see her perfectly, but she looked… pretty?

  It wasn’t the beauty that Meliana had, that she’d grown into, but the prettiness of a young woman. He could see a softly curved face, though the details were obscured by distance and shadow. She had black hair, he couldn’t see how long or what texture it had, as she had a long dark green cloak with a hood and the hood was mostly up. All Cal could see was a few black locks over her face.

  Kaila, very strangely, slept with her eyes open and he could see that she had brown eyes, though there was a little green in them that he could see, even from there. She had a slightly upturned button nose and cupids bow lips. Her skin was fair, almost sickly pale, and she had bags under her eyes, evidence of living rough. She was skinny. Her arms, wrapped around her legs, did not boast a lot of muscle, and her legs seemed to disappear into her cloak with ease.

  Cal took a step forward, raising his hand and was about to shout when there was a rumble coming from beneath the forest floor. He looked down and watched as the earth parted a meter in front of him and bones ripped their way from the ground. Stumbling back, Cal initially thought it was a human skeleton but the bones quickly resolved into those of an animal, a dog or a wolf maybe?

  It climbed out of the earth and crawled forward, seeming to growl, though no noise came out. It stood in a posture of attack, ready to strike at any moment.

  “Shit.” Cal stated and raised his sword.

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