Chapter 15 - Companions

  The steed - if you could call it that - that Kaila rode along the road south from Canyonvue was nothing like the skeletons that she had summoned thus far. It was as big as Melt with a black body, red eyes and wisps of grey, black and white coming off of it’s mane, tail and around its hooves. As it moved the ghostly flesh across its body rippled and went transparent in places, revealing bone.

  From a distance, the horse looked more or less normal, but it was one of the freakiest things Cal had ever seen up close. She rode at the back of the group and whenever someone rode in from the opposite direction she would go for a ride off the road.

  Cal rode in front of her, Meliana rode in front of him and Teth headed up their little convoy. His horse was massive, twice Melt’s size, and yet compared to Kaila’s mount it was positively normal. Cal guessed, based on how hard Teth hit and how little Cal was able to move him, that he needed something like a warhorse just to carry him, let alone his sword.

  After the fight and Teth’s outburst, they left quickly, just in case any of the people in the town had seen what Kaila had done. Though it wasn’t illegal, people didn’t like it and explaining what happened, then reminding everyone the nuances of necromancy law would have slowed them down considerably.

  Necromancers were few and far between these days. Or at least, the ones that did exist had managed to keep themselves hidden by using their power secretly and sparingly so that they could let the power out and avoid a burst. Someone like Kaila who used her powers openly and, if not embraced then at the very least accepted them, scared people. It scared Cal a little if he was being honest. Historically, necromancers who used their powers regularly would eventually succumb to that power. They would want more and more, until some hero had to come along and stop them.

  Cal sat back on Melt and sighed. Perhaps that was true of any power though. All power corrupts, so they say. Necromancy was just more spectacular when it did.

  There was certainly a philosophical debate to be had about whether Necromancers were evil because their power made them that way, or because society viewed them that way. Who wouldn’t want to rise up and destroy everything if they’d spent their whole life being persecuted?

  Maybe if he reached a hand out to Kaila she would-

  Blood.

  Leg.

  Teeth.

  The flash of his past felt like a slap to the face. He had once been such a team player, always wanting to help everyone on their team, but that wasn’t who he was anymore… yet it was so easy to slip back into that version of himself.

  Cal wasn’t here to make the necromancer a hero. He just had to watch for the signs and make sure that she didn’t become a villain. At least for the two weeks they’d be spending together. Then she was someone else's problem.

  For now though, it was the job Meliana had given him, sort of inadvertently. Once they met up with Veil his load would be divided, but until then he had a job to do.

  Cal Sighed and leaned forward on Melt to pat her neck. “You’re lucky you don’t have to deal with these moral quandaries.” He told her.

  Of course, she’d liked Kaila instantly, so maybe she wasn’t the best confidant in this.

  She was also a horse, how much could she really understand?

  Cal looked up and around at the surroundings. They’d been travelling for a few hours and the great canyon was no longer in view behind them. It was hard to gauge elevation but it was likely that they had gone down hill a bit so the land obscured the canyon, rather than them getting too far to see it. It was a grand canyon after all. They were travelling south through the plains where they would have plenty of warning before any travellers reached them and they could see animals grazing through the grass, as well as a few monsters that didn’t dare come close to the road for fear of the death that often awaited their kind.

  He twisted in his seat to look back at Kaila. Despite her earlier snub of his conversational stylings Cal opted to try again. He wasn’t here to help her, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t talk to her. He spoke to the people in the tavern this past five months after all. Besides, they had a week to travel together, and Melt had vouched for him. “So!” He called. “You’re a life and death mage? They have a name for that?”

  She looked up at him and he could clearly see the decision making in her head. She didn’t trust him, she didn’t want to engage, but she was also incredibly bored and didn’t even have the luxury of a living horse to talk to. She sighed. “A Grey mage.” She said.

  Cal nodded. “Black for death and White for life. Makes sense.” He admitted.

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  “I’m not a grey mage though.” She clarified. “I’m a death mage who can use life magic.”

  “What’s the difference?” Cal asked, frowning his confusion.

  “A grey mage is someone with twin affinities.” Meliana called from ahead. “Both Life and Death.”

  “I’ve just got the Death affinity.”

  “But you can use life magic, right?” Cal responded, frowning.

  “And you can use spacial magic, but your affinity is fire, no?” Kaila countered. It was the most words she’d said to him in a single go, so he was fairly pleased with that.

  “Got it.” Cal said, nodding. He returned to look ahead, up to Teth and then turned back to Kaila, “By the way: that was an impressive showing back there. Thank you for not letting me kill the Oaf. Would have been really rude to Liana if I’d killed her muscle.”

  Teth barked a laugh up at the front of the procession. “Your little tooth pick wouldn’t have pierced my skin.” He called back. “You’re lucky the little necro did what she did or you’d be in ribbons.”

  Cal shrugged, looking back up at the front. “Maybe. We’ll never know.”

  “We could try again, soft skin?” Teth called back, looking over his shoulder and causing his horse to side step, the pressure of his leg leading it wrong. He readjusted and brought himself back to the middle of the road.

  Cal chuckled but then reached down and patted Melt on the neck again, pulling a treat from his void bag which he held out for her to take. “You’re a really good horse aren’t you?” He asked her, recognising that he had done the exact same thing as Teth but she hadn’t veered off like he had.

  He looked back up at Teth’s back. “That bullshit you did with the emeralds. Is that magic?”

  Teth barked out a laugh and turned his head again to the left, but this time just his head. He pointed at the emerald shard coming from his eye. “You see this?” He asked, rhetorically - and a little ironically. “I got stabbed in the eye years ago. This has grown out of it slowly, over time.” He turned sideways a little and flexed his shoulder. There was a line, mostly invisible, but when he flexed, it became more pronounced. In the line was a glint of emerald. “This is where you got me earlier.” He faced forward again. “Us Earthen Elementals have blood running through us, but as soon as it’s spilt it crystallises. Its the same thing with my claws and my jaws. Some of us can learn to control it. Channel it. Some might channel it to create armour, others might do it to make jewels. Everyone’s different. The way I channel it is the simplest way, it’s anger, which naturally means when I use it I make ways to kill people. When I’m angry I ignore my sword so: claws.”

  Cal nodded, sort of understanding. He frowned, then smiled in bemusement. “So those emerald beads in your beard?”

  “Blood.” He said. “One bead from every fight I’ve won where I’ve been caused to bleed.”

  “Why not every fight you’ve won?” Meliana asked.

  “If I don’t bleed they ain’t worth remembering.” Teth called back. “What about you, Captain? You got any magic or special skills?”

  “Sure do.” Meliana replied. “But I’m not idiot enough to show them off in front of someone who might try and kill me one day.”

  “Come on Liana, I’ve already seen them.” Cal replied jovially. “Besides as soon as we get in a scrape they’ll see them. It’s probably better they see them now so they know what might be coming, rather than in the middle of battle. You don’t want them constantly jumping in the way.”

  Meliana Sighed. “You’re right.” She admitted. “In fact we should probably all explain how we fight so we’re not surprised. Shame we don’t have a small skirmish we could get involved in to practice our teamwork.” She added absently. “Right, I mostly use a sword, but like Cal I have some magic I can rely on as well.” She raised her tattooed arm and opened her hand, aiming it away from the group. Ice erupted from her hand in a beam, freezing everything it touched. She swung it across the grass of the plains as they passed and up into the air. As soon as it lifted away Cal could see that it had a bit of range on it. About twenty meters, maybe a little shy. Not as much as his flame bullet, but still useful, and that ability to freeze things might even be more useful than just setting things on fire.

  “I act as a mid range fighter in battle, darting in to make sword swipes then darting back out to support with this magic. If I lose my sword I’m also pretty good with my fists.” She explained. “Teth, you want to give us a lowdown on what you can do?”

  “Well you’ve mostly seen it.” He replied. “I can take a beating, I’ve got a big sword and when I need to I can rip people apart with claws and teeth.”

  “I don’t have much more than what you saw.” Cal admitted. “I fight with a one-handed sword and magic. I use quick attacks and I try my best not to get hit. Fire’s my affinity, I can do long range-” He raised his left hand up to the side and channelled magic into it, then forged a small ball of fire that he shot out a bit more than thirty-five meters to land in the dirt beside the road. A moment passed and it went out by itself “That and setting my hand alight I can do almost as easily as breathing, but I’ve got a few other tricks. Bigger and more sustained flames mostly, but I can teleport a short way as well, about fifteen meters, but it takes a lot out of me. Shorter the distance the less energy it uses.” He stretched his hands over his head as he considered. “I think any further than fifteen and I’d just pass straight out. Standing me would disappear and a body would just flop down sixteen meters away.”

  “What about that thing you did with the fire sword?” Teth called back. “Magic sword?”

  Cal shook his head, then realised the man couldn’t see him. “No, it’s a technique, Mageblade. You know how I can make my sword teleport to my hand? It’s part of the same thing. There’s a ritual to make my sword an extension of me, part of my magical… whatever. I can use it as a focus to cast spells and I can channel spells into it.”

  He looked up their line of horses and said, “So I’m a front line fighter, but can step back into a ranged roll if I need to. My techniques mean that I’m best suited to moving fast and dodging, hitting a few times and throwing a few extra spells in the moments between my sword strikes. Some people call it Spell Slinging?” There was a pause after Cal finished speaking and then when he was sure nobody was going to ask anything else he turned on the horse again to look back at Kaila who was already watching him and apparently ready for the question, but not excited to answer it. “And you, Kaila.”

  “Back line, I can summon skeletal animals, fire death magic at a short, medium and long range. I can heal non-mortal wounds on people at a short range and I can do some magic sensing.”

  “An interesting combination.” Cal noted. “And we’ve already seen how powerful. I look forward to it not being aimed at me.”

  Kaila didn’t respond, she instead looked away, a very slight blush to her cheeks.