“Veil!” Cal called out, relief in his voice as he opened his arms and the fox leapt into them, letting him hug him for a moment before escaping and returning to sit on his haunches by Kaila.

  Veil was an awakened fox. A member of the Awakened peoples of the creeping forest. He had a beautiful coat with red fur over most of him but white on his undersides, from under his nose to the base of his tail, with black on the tip and underside of his tail, on his feet and around his ears. He wore a piece of leather armour that looked like it was once a wrist bracer but had since been modified to give the fox leg holes at the front and fit a little more snugly around his back and middle. On it’s back and sides there were pockets each of which had an assortment of small bottles or packets.

  Other than the armour the only way you could tell that Veil wasn’t an ordinary fox was his eyes. He had brilliant lavender and indigo eyes that held an intelligence reserved only for sentient people.

  Cal rolled sideways and crawled over to Kaila. He placed a pair of fingers on her neck and closed his eyes. Her skin felt odd, a little more leathery than he’d expected. At first he didn’t feel anything and begun to panic, readjusting his positioning.

  The new place he pressed his fingers felt much softer, much closer to what he’d been expecting the first time and then a moment later, he felt it; a pulse. It was a little weak, but no more so than if she were sleeping. He relaxed a little, sitting back. She was fine.

  “So what’s the deal here?” Veil asked. His voice wasn’t like an adult male human’s, it was higher with a little bit of rasp to it. The voice didn’t quite sound like a foxes noises if they were words either. It was about halfway between that and a human voice. When an animal was awakened as Veil’s ancestry was, vocal chords were created out of the same parts that let them make whatever noises they did make - if they could already - so while their voices weren’t quite the same pitch and tone of their animal noises, they also weren’t quite like any other sentient people. “Can I eat the girl or no?”

  Cal laughed more out of surprise at being alive than anything that the fox had said. “Veil…” Cal sighed, still laughing. “You don’t eat people.”

  “Oh I’ll eat anything buddy.” Veil replied seriously, though Cal knew that he wasn’t. He’d known the fox long enough to know that he just had that kind of personality. “Maybe not one of those undead goblins, seems gross, but this one doesn’t even look too hard to get into. No armour or nothing.”

  Cal laughed and shook his head. “No, you can’t eat her. How are you even here?” He asked.

  “Well I was on my way to our meeting spot near Silverdale and I smelled a weird ass horse and went to take a look. Thought it might be an awakened I could ask for directions.” He replied. “Found it, it wasn’t awakened, just weird. I thought about what it would be like if I was a wolf and could just eat it, but then I smelled your scent on it. Of course I decided not to eat your horse. That would be rude. So I decided to wait, then it was a while, seemed like forever. At least a couple minutes, and I figured ‘Oh, Cal’s probably dead. I should go eat him instead.’” Veil stood up and began pacing. “Anyway, long story short I followed your scent, found an undead goblin punching a tree and figured you were in trouble, so I came to help.”

  “That… makes sense.” Cal admitted. “How did you knock her out?” He asked, motioning to Kaila.

  “Oh, easy.” Veil noted, reaching under his front leg to the bag on his side where he teased out a piece of something wrapped in paper that had the foxes teeth marks in and a strange viscous purple liquid dripping out.

  “What is that?” Cal asked, a look of disgust twisting his features as Veil pushed it back inside.

  “It’s poison.” Veil noted, rubbing some spilt poison into the dirt. “I bit it so many times that I’m immune, which, by the way, was a right pain in the ass. Had to do it under supervision to make sure I didn’t die but Miss Letaria was busy so she assigned Ket, who is a real bitch - both literally and figuratively. Anyway, it worked and because of that, now if I coat my teeth in it and bite someone it transfers the poison.”

  “Oh, that… that’s really smart.” Cal noted. “You’ve grown up a lot this past, what’s it been? Two years?”

  “Since we last saw each other, yeah. Five since… you know.” Cal nodded. “But that’s not all.” He motioned to the pouch on his back. “There’s another one there with a poison that kills people. That was a lot harder to become immune to.”

  “I can imagine.” Cal noted.

  As they were speaking, Cal climbed back onto his knees and shifted Kaila over, so that she was lying in a more comfortable position and then sat back as he heard the others climbing the ramp behind Cal. He turned to look over his shoulder and watched them coming.

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  Meliana and Teth were leading, talking quietly while the prisoners followed.

  All things considered, the prisoners- the survivors looked pretty good. They had some bumps and bruises, a few scrapes and scratches, but overall they looked like they’d survive. Of course, for many of them, the damage was still there, just not visible. He could see the terror in the eyes of the children, despite being saved. He could see it in the way they flinched at any noise, how they coward away from any touch.

  They might have saved the kids lives, but they weren’t going to be the same. Not ever again. Trauma sticks with you.

  As soon as Teth looked up and saw Kaila, his eyes went wide and anger began to pour in. He drew his sword and before Meliana could say anything he marched off towards the unconscious girl, bringing his sword up.

  Cal’s eyes widened and then his brow narrowed. He brought himself back to one knee in as sturdy a stance as he could muster and raised his hands up, summoning his sword as he did so. It appeared, crossing over his palm and Teth’s sword came slamming down into it.

  Arms almost buckling from exhaustion, Cal held Teth’s sword at bay. “What are you doing!” Cal growled through gritted teeth.

  “What am I doing?” Teth spat back, bringing his sword back. “She almost killed us, why are you protecting her?!”

  “She was scared. She wasn’t trying to hurt us.” Cal explained to him, pushing his sword off and standing up. “We left her alone to guard the door and she was overwhelmed by dozens of goblins. An enemy we chose to ignore and let go for her while we fought the troll.”

  “She could have-”

  “What, Teth? I saw you get overwhelmed, even with your emerald claws by just twenty of the things, she had forty coming for her.” Cal snapped.

  “Besides…” Meliana sighed. “We still need her.”

  Cal nodded and motioned to Meliana with his empty hand, eyes never leaving Teth.

  “Not entirely in the loop here, but can I eat this guy?” Veil asked, stepping around Cal to stand between Kaila and the others. It didn’t look like anything, and if you didn’t know the fox you wouldn’t know, but the way he moved, the way he spoke and sat down… he was preparing to defend Cal and Kaila.

  “Brawler’s nuts, it talks!” Teth blurted out, stumbling back from Veil.

  “Yes, he does.” Cal said.

  “What? You never seen a talking fox before?” Veil demanded, mostly sarcastically.

  “Teth, Meliana, I’d like to introduce you to Veil, our fifth.”

  Veil looked up at them and gave his best noble pose. “You may worship me if you like.”

  “He’s an awakened.” Cal explained.

  “An… wait, like the old folk stories?” Teth asked.

  “They’re not folk stories.” Veil replied. “Well, some of them are. We’re not magical beasts who can curse you for trespassing in our forests… well… some of us are. I’m just a sneaky git though.”

  “I… I don’t know how to respond to that.” Teth admitted. The surprise of their fifth member all but draining away his anger. “I don’t know how to… I mean… you’re a fox, I feel insane right now.”

  “Oh don’t worry, me two.” Veil replied very seriously. “Like… how on Stjarna is this walking pebble talking?”

  Teth stared for a long moment and then he was forced to stand up straight with a deep bark of a laugh.

  Through the conversation Meliana eyed Veil carefully, with calculation. “When did you… how did you meet?” she asked finally.

  “A while back, I helped him out of some trouble. Got him home.” Cal replied.

  “To the creeping forest?” Meliana asked. She was at least somewhat aware of the Awakened then.

  Cal nodded. “Yeah. Met the other Awakened and everything.” He told them.

  “And survived?” Meliana asked incredulous, despite the evidence right in front of her.

  Cal grinned. “More than that.”

  “He’s an official friend of the forest folk.” Veil said, pride in his voice as he puffed up his chest. “Show them the brand.” The little fox turned his head, practically grinning in excitement.

  Cal rolled his eyes but did as he was told pulling aside the front of his top to show the skin just below his collar.

  Teth frowned. “There’s nothing-”

  Cal pushed unaffiliated magic into a warm spot that he could feel there and a brown symbol no more than three centimetres wide, shaped like a tree was drawn from the centre out.

  “Well aint that something.” Meliana said, crossing her arms.

  “What’s it do?” Teth asked, confused.

  Cal released his shirt and let the magic fade. “Nothing it just lets them know that I’m not to be targeted and I can walk freely through their lands.” He explained, sitting back, leaning on his arms.

  Meliana looked back to the prisoners and then to Cal. “I’m going to get them back to the wagons. See if I can hitch Root to the other one that survived.” She motioned for the prisoners to start moving. She turned to leave and paused, turning back. “Cal, she’s dangerous.” Cal frowned, but listened. “I’m trusting you to remain objective here. You know what Necromancers are. If something happens again you put her down, regardless of the job. I’m entrusting her to you. She’s your responsibility now. Understand.”

  Cal nodded and Meliana smiled warmly back to him before turning and leaving.

  Cal took a breath and was about to stand when Teth stepped up, standing over him and Kaila. For a moment Cal thought he might have to intervene again, but he didn’t. “I’m going to be watching her as well.” He said. The words were cold, serious and definitive. “You’re growing on me, short stuff, but… I’m not going to die for a job, and certainly not for a necromancer. She sets one toe out of line I’ll kill her, and I’ll go through you to do it. We only have one life in this world. The reason I’m a merc who’s still alive and nearing fifty is that I don’t take risks.” He eyed Cal for a long moment then looked at Kaila. His expression as he looked at the girl was an odd one. At first it looked like pity, but then it seemed like he forced himself to shift it into disgust.

  Cal and Veil watched him go and Cal sighed from exhaustion.

  “For someone as nice as you; you have odd friends.” Veil said. “What happened? This doesn’t seem like the sort of group you’d usually hang out with.”

  Cal nodded. “I’ve had a really lousy five months.” He replied, climbing to his feet and lifting Kaila into his arms.

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