Despite the water’s resistance and the cannibal’s no-doubt thick skull, the slug passed through clearly, blasting the top half of his head open. The crack in his skull allowed the caustic water to pour in and eat away at the sensitive brain underneath.
The cannibal had stopped struggling.
For good measure, she aimed at the base of the man’s and fired the other slug. Another large hole was opened, severing the spine from the head and only barely keeping it attached to his body.
The spell broke and the body floated down the river.
18. Green Hunters – August 16, Year 216
Never before had travelling been this uncomfortable. Dangerous? Yes, many times, practically all the time. Unpleasant? Many things had happened and continued to happen – to her, those around her, in her mind and to her body – that made her grimace just thinking about it.
But uncomfortable? She was made for the outdoors, for journeying all day every day. She trained for it and lived it from the moment she apprenticed herself to Niall. By now, she felt more comfortable outside than inside. If she didn’t prefer the outdoors, danger and discomfort and all, she would’ve never gone and become a Warden.
But now she was well and truly uncomfortable.
Whilst most of her injuries had healed – her ribs, the hole in below her chest, bruises and blisters – scarring remained at many places, thick and coarse. Especially around the ankles, which had been in the Redwater for the longest by far. But that was all that remained, physically at least. Really, the only permanent loss she suffered was another set of clothes, bloodstained as they are.
She could not say the same for Lucy. While a spell had stopped the swelling and bruising, and would – according to the pilgrim, at least – prevent any wounds internal and external from festering, it could not fix her shattered knee.
So, what else could Sally do but carry the pilgrim the rest of the way? But that’s easier said than done. She had to carry her on her back, but had only the one arm to hold the woman with. Lucy’s leg had to remain straightened, which they had to do with an improvised splint made with the poles from Lucy’s tent. It was convenient it was Lucy’s right rather than her left leg was broken, otherwise Sally couldn’t have carried it under her arm to stabilize it.
With her arm preoccupied, it meant they had to get creative to secure Lucy on her back. But with their belts, the straps of their bags and their clothes all twisted to use as binders, they’d improvised something to strap Lucy into a reasonably stable carrier. Improvised being the key word here, it remained to be seen if it would hold for long.
That left their baggage itself. While the straps had been necessary to fix Lucy on her back, and Sally’s arm was necessary to hold her friend’s legs, it meant the bags were left without an easy way to carry them. With some finagling, Sally eventually got them wedged in between her chest and one of the straps reaching around to her back. She secured them in place with the only thing remaining: her shotgun jacket. Thankfully, it helped balance her out a bit, but with every step she took, she felt the bags move about like they were trying their hardest to slip from their cage. But despite their motions, they were well and truly stuck to her.
She felt ridiculous all scaffolded like this, even if she agreed it was the best, the only option they had. Sally imagined that, from the outside, they’d look more like an odd, bulky two-legged beast rather than two people. But needs must.
Not that she begrudged Lucy her role in all this. The pilgrim didn’t ask to have her knee shattered like that – and thankfully it was only her knee, if it weren’t for the cannibal’s petty spite, he could’ve done a lot worse. Plus, she doubted Lucy liked the fact that she needed to be carried. Likely, Lucy would think it was even more humiliating being the one carried than the one carrying.
That is, if Lucy thought or felt much of anything at all.
Since shortly after the fight, after they’d finally managed to get Lucy on her back, the pilgrim had been dead quiet. It was to be expected, really. The attack had happened late in the evening and Sally had journeyed all throughout the night. No doubt Lucy was tired and slept as soon as she could while Sally walked.
But they’d been travelling for near a dozen hours by now, if the rising sun was to be believed, yet Lucy still hadn’t woken up. Sally was starting to get worried. She hoped it was nothing too bad – and thankfully her breathing remained steady, unhurried and deep – but it was a long time to be asleep. Doubly so considering how uncomfortable it must be, being carried like this with a shattered knee.
Sally feared the injury to have worsened somehow, an infection or a fever or something. She would’ve liked to check, but how? To put her down now would risk her not being able to put Lucy back in their improvised carrier, and if she really was ill, Sally couldn’t do anything about it except hurry and find help. Sally could just ask, but for that she had to wake Lucy up. She couldn’t bring herself to do that, not without good reason.
She felt helpless. Sally possessed no magic she could freely direct and the first aid she’d learned wouldn’t help with this. Nor did she possess the equipment or medicines that could help in the first place! Really, it was maddening.
All she could do to help was march on, going as fast as she could for as far and long as possible.
Lake Majestic was still a long while away, and The Bite further still. At first, Sally’d wished to turn around and head to Southwall – it was still closer than The Bite, despite their progress – but Lucy believed that continuing their journey to Lake Majestic was the better option, that she might be able to do or find something there that could heal her.
Lucy hadn’t clear exactly on the specifics, but Sally didn’t need much convincing. Knowing her friend, the pilgrim’s gut-feeling was probably stirred by something faith-related. Sally had resigned herself to trusting that feeling, if not quite believing the reasoning. Sally did think of a more rational reasoning, just to soothe her more practical side somewhat: while getting to The Bite would take longer, it was also a much safer route; she’d rather not have a second cannibal encounter.
Still, the journey was difficult. While she’d initially thought she would have the strength and stamina in spades, the effort it took to continue on was almost too much to bear. She’d walked for over ten hours by now, and every step she took had to be measured, planned and executed precisely. Would her foot sink in the sand if she stepped over there? Would she be able to climb that dune without slipping? Would going down this dune make her lose her balance? Shift Lucy out of the carrier somehow? Would that step snap the splint or bend it somehow?
Add to that the permanent need to balance between Lucy’s outstretched leg, the weight on Sally’s back and the bags crudely jammed between her body and the carrier’s straps, and the constant need to be on the lookout, ever wary of an attack by another cannibal – or demon, or animal – just around the corner…
It made the journey long, draining and slow; a hellish march through a hellish land. Thankfully, Sally’s ‘insomnia’ remained and while the strain on her body was nearly too much, it remained oddly untiring – which, again, she was thankful for despite her unease about it. And mentally? It dragged and dragged and would continue to drag for hours more, her mind somehow torn between focus and boredom simultaneously. She couldn’t even spare the attention to figure out how far they’d already gone and how many miles were left to go.
It was almost too much, almost. But she was nothing if not stubborn, and her body obeyed that iron will. Ever forward, step by uncertain step, a mile at a time and for hour after hour. Days, if it must.
X
It was, Sally thought, right around noon when things changed.
After another few hours of uncertain steps, a headache steadily growing as her mind slowly unraveled, she caught something in the corner of her eyes. A glimpse of something that she feared to encounter above all: people.
They were too close already, but Sally’s weary eyes and strained psyche had failed her for who-knows how long by now. It wasn’t as if they were hiding either, they were walking right next to the Red Circuit road – precariously so, strangely so – and heading towards Lucy and her. She should’ve spotted them thirty minutes or so ago, or at the very least within the past fifteen. But in the effort of the journey, Sally’d failed to keep her guard up.
There were six of them in total. The sun caught on something, light bouncing off metal, meaning they’re likely armed. What type of weapons they carried Sally couldn’t say, but at least three of them held theirs diagonally, like one would a rifle while on patrol.
Her first instincts said they were cannibals, and that Sally should hide in the sands of the Red Wastes. What else travelled the Cannibal Road in such groups? Circuit runners would’ve been alone, so that they could travel it covertly and as quickly as possible. Of traders, only the largest caravans would venture these roads, armed to the teeth and numbering a hundred in guards alone – if they’d dared to at all. Six people was both too small and too large, a size more suitable for the long way around the Circuits.
But her mind caught on to details that made her doubt that instinct. For one, they were walking both too close to the road and on the wrong side. For travelers like her and Lucy, they travelled this side of the Wastes because of the cover it provides from bands of cannibals watching from their mountain homes. To be on the side of the Cannibal Plains would run counter to that, as would staying too close to the road.
For cannibals, the mountains were their homes, and they’d just as soon fight other cannibals as they would travelers. To remain on the plains’ side would be more… economical, if such terms applied to the economy of eating folks, so there was no practical need to get close to either the Wastes or the Red Circuit roads.
These six ran counter to both these practicalities. They were on the traveler-side of the road, but not deep enough into the Wastes to benefit from the cover its dunes provided. But they were also not on the right side to most efficiently look for prey. And there was no room for another type of group their size in-between the logic of the cannibal and the traveler to make sense of their behavior.
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More damningly, for lack of a better word, was the fact that they brought with them an animal. It wasn’t one she recognized, but from the load it carried and its presence in the middle of their group it was likely a beast of burden of some kind.
Cannibals did not use them, for as far as Sally knew. They were never seen travelling with other animals or demons. Whilst they might prefer the meat of thinking beings, but they weren’t known to be picky eaters. From the stories she’d been told, wherever they struck, it didn’t matter if they were animal, demon or persons – they eat it all.
Which made the group of six somewhat of a conundrum. Were they one of the stupid few? One of the rare few traders arrogant enough to assume traditional wisdom didn’t apply to them, only to end up as an example for others, a cautionary tale on what not to do?
But that was likely wishful thinking. It would sooner be an unorthodox group of cannibals rather than a merchant.
“Lucy?” Sally said, jostling her body slightly, hoping it and her voice would wake her up.
After a second without response, she tried again, this time turning her head and speaking practically mouth to ear. “Lucy, wake up,” she repeated, but barring a slight wriggle and a grumble.
Sally put her head against Lucy’s in order to feel for a fever, but the outside air was too much for her to differentiate.
Sally was in a bind. Her arm – and thus her hand – was still occupied with holding Lucy up and she was loathe to put Lucy down in case they needed to run or hide. Not that either option would help them much; she doubted she could outrun them with Lucy on her back and it was a bit too late for hiding.
With no other option, Sally went for the last resort. Cocking back her head while trying to gauge and moderate her strength, she smacked her forehead into Lucy’s as softly as she could, though strong enough to hopefully wake the woman up.
Some odd noise between a mumble, a groan and a whine escaped Lucy. Sally saw her eyes open a smidge, enough to see they were bloodshot, but the look in her friend’s eyes was a vacant one.
“Lucy, come on, we got company,” Sally tried, speaking louder and shaking her body again, but the gaze remained uncomprehending.
Damn, Sally thought. Seemed her fears were justified; Lucy was not doing well. What now? Fight? Run?
Sally’s eyes went to her chest, leg and arm in that order. Her Guardsmen was roughly where it should be, on her hip, but the holster and belt had become part of the carrier, with the firearm simply wedged between the rim of her pants and skin. Same could be said for the shotgun and its accompanying holster, with the gun located in a pocket of her coat which, itself, was used to hold the bags together. All spare ammunition for either was inside the bag, unreachable.
Both were still somewhere within reach, but if it came to a head, she’d have to drop Lucy and fight to the end. A fight she felt in no condition to win, especially if it turned out the cannibal from yesterday wasn’t as exceptional as she believed. It was unlikely, but even if the average cannibal was a tenth as tough as the one from yesterday, it would still be enough to fight six of them at once. Sally feared that despite what yesterday revealed about her capacity to suffer wounds, she would either be occupied or incapacitated one way or the other, leaving Lucy to their attackers.
Which was unacceptable.
Running meant that they might avoid the encounter entirely, but their chance of escaping were slimmer than slim. Most likely, doing so would simply hand the group the initiative and put Lucy in danger of catching any stray bullets unlucky enough to hit. And if their attackers caught up, it still meant a fight to the doubtlessly bitter end.
It was a game of odds, ones set extremely against them. A one-in-a-million chance to escape from their foes without fighting whatsoever, or a one-in-a-thousand one to fight and win without Lucy being harmed more than she already was.
What the hell is our luck? The Circuits are dangerous, but come on! A Demon, a Hilaynite, a cannibal and now cannibals again?! Sally started to rant in the privacy of her own mind. She felt as if they were cursed, or worse, destined to struggle on their journey. And all that in a month… At most, we should’ve had to deal with a bloodfiend or something, like, once!
The Circuits are dangerous for traveler’s, incredibly so, but the dangers had always been a numbers game rather than a certainty. You’d lose not because, as you travel, you would inevitably encounter something that could kill you, but because the odds were you’d spot something that could was a near-certainty.
Actually having to deal with it, though? That was much rarer, depending on the road and group. To fight something twice on a single journey? In her frequent travels with her mentor, rare was the journey they had to fight more than once, and they were the once that actively sought out fights!
For individuals and small groups, fights were rare simply because they could hide when whatever they saw was too dangerous, or escape if it came after them. If that weren’t the case there’d simply be no runners left. For caravans, fights, their numbers scared of most run-of-the-mill, and while there were still plenty of times – once or twice, at most three times per journey – where they were attacked, most won their battles easily enough, even if it always came at a cost. This was because they made for an obvious big target, their journeys took at least three times longer and they could not hide or run like others could.
What made the Circuits so deadly was that the Grand Circuit was much wilder than the lands outside of that, and thus such encounters were far higher than average. Furthermore, when a fight did occur, they were almost always deadly, whether they were the strongest individual travelers, the most elite runner groups or the largest and most well-armed of caravans.
But ultimately, completely fatal encounters – meaning the travelers were wiped out to the man – were still rare. Sally heard that every journey had less than a one-in-hundred chance to be a complete wipe, but only the Runner’s Guild and caravan companies actually knew the math. And if the math weren’t in their favor, they wouldn’t be doing it.
Sally and Lucy had beaten the odds in all ways; more encounters, extremely deadly ones as well, but also in the fact they survived. Practically unscathed, even, until yesterday.
We shouldn’t have taken the Cannibal Road, Sally grimaced internally. She felt she should’ve argued harder against it. A step too far. It was always an outlier compared to other roads. If it weren’t, caravans and runners would be travelling it.
But there was no use complaining. The matter remained: what now?
Locked in indecision and deep in thought, it took Sally a moment to notice a noise, one unlike the regular noises of the Circuits. A voice, an unidentifiable shout in the distance. Then another, one Sally took the time to parse and realized it was a shout not signaling violence, but a greeting.
A soft, distant ‘hey’ was carried by the wind in to her ears. Regaining her focus, she saw that the one in front of the group was waving at Sally, one arm held high in the air.
Evidently, they’d spotted her. But who greeted another on the Circuits like this? Even that laid-back caravan guard on their way to Lake Dread hadn’t yelled and waved at their approach.
Another distant greeting reached her ears and Sally noticed they’d stopped their approach. They were still a ways off, nothing more than silhouettes wavering in the haze of the noon heat, but they stopped coming closer.
Now, there was another option, one outside of fight or flight. She didn’t know the odds of these, but felt that, surely, they must be higher than the others.
Cautiously, she began moving toward the group, small steps one at a time, not daring to take her eyes off target even if it made keeping her balance more difficult. She had to remain alert as the distance shrunk, so she couldn’t spare the attention. With more details becoming clear, their shapes slowly solidified into something identifiable.
What Sally saw bolstered her confidence, even if it also added to her confusion. Five of the group of six – four women and one man, the outlier also a woman – wore a variant of a uniform she’d seen only once before.
Years ago, Niall and her had travelled to the Greenwatch, a part of The Bite that lay outside of the city proper, though not large and autonomous enough to be called a city itself. Her mentor had heard rumors of an army approaching from the east and while normally one of the thirteen Wardens of the Community would investigate rather than a Villa Warden, he’d taken over the task in order for Sally to venture east for once.
Unsurprisingly, the rumors turned out to be mostly false with a kernel of truth. Rather than an army, it was an envoy from the Merkahn Republic’s westernmost states, the ones closest to the Grand Circuit. They’d taken a sizeable force with them, a hundred or so of their soldiers, just to be on the safe side.
Sally and Niall both had applauded their attitude. The northern half of the Green Circuit is probably the safest road in the Grand Circuit – not counting the well-travelled road between the Anteer cities, shielded as it is by Lake Prior – so the force they brought was overkill, but they didn’t know that. Instead, all they’d heard was that the Grand Circuit was a dangerous, untamed place. So, in an abundance of caution, they went in fully armed. Such an attitude is laudable, especially for outsiders.
She’d seen the uniforms of their soldiery back then and had expected to see them again in the course of this journey, whether they would go to Keringa or The Bite. To see them so soon, however, and at such a place as the Cannibal Roads, and the Red Circuit part at that? She hadn’t expected that.
Unlike their Grandie counterpart, their uniforms weren’t simply appropriately colored-and-camouflaged fatigues. Instead, from Sally’s understanding, the Merkahni took an approach somewhere between the Circuits’, Grandie’s and the Leaguerans’.
Unlike League and Circuit-wear, it was clearly a uniform rather than an individual’s own style. However, they lacked the pure pragmatism of the Grandies. The buttons on their jackets each carried their own unique symbols, though Sally couldn’t quite differentiate, and the jackets themselves were very Circuit-like a simple brown leather, sturdy and well-worn with patches indicating rank and gold-colored threads for their names. The other clothes were also familiar to Sally, sturdy yet airy and mostly of linen, cotton or a mix, and less uniform than the jacket.
The Leagueran influence shone through in their weapons. They carried a variety of them: three long-rifles, one of whom was enchanted; one pump-action shotgun, single-barrel and much longer than Sally’s own; and one with some kind of automatic rifle. More importantly, each carried a sword or saber of some kind in a decorated sheath. Theirs bore only geometric symbols rather than the more flowing ones she’d seen in Cardinar, or the flowery ones on her own shotgun.
There was one outlier amongst the group, a sixth person’s whose appearance she was familiar with in a general sense, even if she’d never seen it before. The woman wore some kind of a robe or large coat made entirely of dry straw from the grasses of the Greenlands, the salted swamp encircled by the Green Circuit. She carried with her a large metal rod, from which fell a dozen or so little brass bells, fixed with small intricate chains to a ring at the top. It was far too heavy to be used as a walking stick, and Sally was surprised the woman could carry it at all; she’d expected the heat of the sun would’ve made it too hot to hold.
Beyond the coat, the woman wore little else in terms of clothes. On her feet she wore sandals, made of the same straw as the robes, and she wore a leather cord around her waist whose only purpose seemed to be to hold the holster for the woman’s sole obvious weapon: a pistol. There was also a slightly wet look and green tint to the woman’s otherwise ordinary black skin, another clear indication of the woman’s origin.
The Marshmen – or simply Marshen – had plenty of stories told about them, most of them unkind. They seemed to be given a similar status as the Hilaynites – not quite people, but with enough characteristics of them to not be neither demon nor animal. People-like. Yet whereas the confusion with the Hilaynite was made clearer to Sally after encountering one, in the case of the Marshen, it only made it more confusing.
Surely the odd skin-hue wasn’t enough to cast doubt on their personhood? Their reputation for violence and hatred of outsiders was likely false as well; how else could a shamanic figure travel with Merkahni army folk?
Hell, why were they here at all? Since when did the Cannibal Road have patrols? Let alone ones by the Merkahni.
All these thoughts saturated her already overburdened mind, so much so she’d practically walked into their arms. Only when their frontwoman physically touched her shoulder did Sally become aware of where she was.
Sally instinctively flinched, ready to duck away at a moment’s notice, but the woman took a step back and held up her hands.
“Easy, easy,” the frontwoman placated. “Just here to help.”
Sally had, consciously or not, already decided the figures weren’t hostile, but that didn’t mean things couldn’t change on a dime. Sally cast a quick look at their expressions. Wariness was there, but that was unsurprising. Sally hardly looked her best, clothes covered in blood and all, and from their perspective they might’ve thought she was carrying a corpse. That they hadn’t done anything was a minor miracle in and of itself. But there was also a look of pity in their eyes, the desire to help shining through particularly in their frontwoman.
The odd one out was, as expected, the Marshen woman. When their eyes met, the woman regarded her with cold calculation, a judging weight in her stance along with a firm, tense grip on her staff, anticipating trouble.
Sally recognized, even respected the attitude. She’d have done the same, after all.
Sally turned her eyes back to their frontwoman, then gave a nod. “Can you help her?” Sally asked, voice unsurprisingly hoarse.
The frontwoman nodded, then indicated for two of her companions to follow as she approached. “What’s wrong with her?”
“The leg, mostly. Her knee’s shattered,” Sally said as the three carefully pried the pilgrim from her back and the bags from her chest. “Said she healed it as best she could, that it wouldn’t worsen, but now she seems feverish.”
They laid Lucy out on the ground and Sally backed off, letting them do their thing. The two other Merkahni joined the three surrounding Lucy, carrying bags from the still unfamiliar species of beast of burden. Bandages, scissors, bracers and other medical things were quickly onloaded and they began removing the makeshift splint, cutting cloth and placing straps on Lucy’s leg.
As she watched, the Marshen woman sidled up next to Sally, heralded by the soft jingling of the staff’s bells. Both of them stood in silence, watching the Merkahni work, before the other women started.
“What happened?” The Marshen asked, offering her a corked bottle.
Sally took it, heard the liquid sloshing around and, for the first in a long time, felt thirsty. “A cannibal, what else,” she said, taking a sip afterward. Surprisingly, the water seemed to wash away her exhaustion and did much to clear her head. Sally began gulping it down.
The Marshen eyes moved up and down, examining Sally, then lifted an eyebrow. “Just the one?”
“Yep,” Sally said, popping the p. “Real bastard, could teleport in a burst of flames and took a buckshot point-blank with no trouble.” She felt angry just thinking about it again.
The Marshen’s other eyebrow went up. “How’d you deal with him, then?”
“Couldn’t tank the slug to the head, though,” Sally said, smile vicious. “Had him in a stranglehold in the Redwater, but the fucker wouldn’t drown and the poison hurt me as much as it did him. Then my friend over there-” Sally gave a nod toward where Lucy lay, obscured as she was by the Merkahni “-pinned him with a spell for long enough for me to do him in.”
A moment passed, the Marshen looking at Sally once again. “Well, good riddance, I suppose.” Then, the Marshen went silent in contemplation. Maybe the woman had more questions later, but for now, she seemed to be done.
Sally, however, had one of her own.
“What about you?” She asked, “Why are you here? Seems a bit far from the from the Greenlands.” Then, Sally jerked her head to the rest of the Marshen’s companions. “And with a group of Merkahni soldiers at that?”
The woman smiled broadly at that, humor self-evident.
“Why, we’re the First Hunters of Green Providence, of course.”
