"Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run"
Title: Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run
Author: Rissy James
Characters: Cain, DG, Glitch, Raw, Tutor (includes other major and minor characters)
Pairing: Cain/DG
Rating: 14+ (subject to change)
Summary: The fade to black was merely the blink of an eye. Respite for only seconds. After all, the road is long.
Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run
When Last We Met: Into the east, the five companions have disappeared. Finaqua is far behind; Central City and the fading Lavender are much closer to their minds and hearts. DG's hope rests solely in the Eastern Guild, whose cooperation and knowledge Cain is uncertain she's going to gain.
Chapter Seventeen: Speak Softly
In the farthest east, it's said there was a place where the trees grew tall, and men did not. A land where such men, so small and ineffectual, lived in fear of sweeping winds and the glint of silver. A place, the story went, where divine retribution fell from the sky in the splintering of beams and shattering of glass. On that day of reckoning, the men went up into the trees, and they have never come down.
"We're gonna be out here at most three days," Wyatt found himself telling the others, early in the afternoon as they readied to leave. It was warm, and he'd abandoned his duster, rolled up his shirtsleeves. Glitch and DG were in similar states of undress, while the lazy heat of early summer seemed to have no effect on Raw, or on Tutor, who'd finally decided to shift and include himself in on the conversations.
"Three days?" DG asked. If he had to guess (which he didn't), he'd say she was a bit displeased with his estimate. He'd heard enough of Tutor and Glitch spouting their 'time is of the utmost importance' tripe to know that it had the girl wound tight as a clockwork soldier. As much as he wanted it, there was nothing he could do to placate her.
"At the most," he said. He didn't add that it could be five days at the worst, it wasn't something she needed to be hearing.
"Wonderful," she muttered darkly, and it was the last he heard out of her for hours. Not wanting to argue all day, he let it be. The others, however, wouldn't be so lucky.
"You figured out which village you want to head for?" he asked Glitch, who was battling a map back into its properly folded state, and very much on the winning end of it. It was rare to see such a small task done with such assuredness. The headcase finally seemed to be coming into his own, that was for damned sure, but if he were doing better out here than he had been in the city, it wasn't for Cain to say; the knowledge of this sent the shame to rising in his throat.
It was Tutor who answered. "There's a village in the northeast reaches of Midling March. You'll both remember it, of course."
Cain rolled his eyes as the old man gestured broadly at Glitch and DG. Near half a dozen villages under the emblem of the Eastern Guild, but they were headed to the village from which his two rescuers had just barely escaped with their skins intact. That day, that day, the last, the first; an unwanted destiny, just his gods-damned luck.
This was going to bring them close to his home. Too close for his liking, but he was here to support, not to lead.
Probably best to keep quiet on this one.
It was well past midday when they made it back onto the route, though it wasn't long before they left the bricks behind and were following the narrow trails that criss-crossed their way through the eastern forests. These were not the straight and even of the Brick Route, guiding all feet to the Shining City, but twisted paths meant to loop around, hill and vale and hill once more until a traveller might sit down on the spot for loss of direction and never dare to move again.
Much to his ease, Cain spent the afternoon getting them hopelessly lost. He'd spent enough time in the east over the annuals to know that proper negotiations with the guild leader and his officers had already begun, the moment they'd stepped off the Brick Route and disappeared into the protection of the forest. Diplomacy would get Glitch nowhere; though he never let the others know it, he had this well in hand.
The men of the east considered themselves, through no uncertain terms, a warrior race; they were an ancient and suspicious breed, adepts of the forest, and worthy of high respect. Their pride may have been their greatest weakness, but on their land, Cain would abide their rules, and do his damnedest to make sure the others did the same. Even if he knew a direct route to the village the old man had in mind, he valued his own hide too much, let alone those of his companions, to go looking for it.
It would take longer, and lead to more complication than he would normally otherwise invite into his life, but in the end it would make them all a little less dead, and that sat just fine with him.
He could get them to the village. Once they got there, well... it was up to DG and Glitch then, wasn't it?
The day passed a little more quickly than its predecessors, with each new path and revisited stone, doubling-back and then back on that again. It was in a northeasterly direction that he took them, the suns guiding him more than the trails or his knowledge of these woods. He couldn't have chosen a calmer, brighter day for a (mostly) aimless ride through the woods. Even the others, for all the lack of really getting anywhere, had little to complain about. In fact, he heard very few voices at all, his companions caught in their own endless spirals of introspect. As the mutt only ever barked to garner immediate attention to things of merit, he remained the most well behaved dog Wyatt had ever come across. A much preferred state, he'd long ago wholeheartedly decided.
His thoughts wandered as the hours wore ever on; he thought on his son, out somewhere in the wide world, still fighting the shadows the war had left him chasing; he thought about home, the barn roof that still needed shingling, or if the creek had risen any; he wondered how Lavender fared since the last of the news out of Central; he wondered how many scouts were following them, watching their every move from the green of the trees.
Afternoon began to wane. The birds quieted, the bugs started biting in earnest. The temperature dropped as the suns dipped lower in the sky, below the tree line where he couldn't see. It was time to start banking a little on that luck of DG's.
"We're wasting daylight," he told the others after he'd stopped in the middle of the trail and they'd all congregated behind him. "We should make camp and pick this up in the morning."
The first response he got was from the damn mutt, who ran ahead on the trail and started barking, and loudly. Cain grumbled, refusing to even turn to acknowledge the dog, and kept his eyes on the others. While Raw seemed relieved, DG and Glitch looked all kinds of uncertain.
"I think there's a couple hours left," DG said, turning in her saddle to glance behind her. He wondered how long she'd been looking over her shoulder like that; if he hadn't been trying so hard to avoid doing the same thing over the course of the day, he might know the answer. "I want to keep going."
Determination, back full force. Did she harbour any regrets about the night before, letting her weaknesses show so close to the surface? To him, of all people, he who'd hurt her in selfishness. Did she even remember how warm she'd been curled against him?
"We aren't going to find anything marching around in the dark," he pointed out, "and we'll likely walk into an ambush if we try." She looked about ready to argue with this, so he added, "It's gonna take us another hour or more before we find a decent spot to set up for the night, we can still put a few more miles behind us."
She turned away, less than pleased with his answers. "What do you think?" she asked Glitch. "What does the map say?"
Glitch cleared his throat, shifted in his saddle under the heat of DG's scrutiny. "According to the map, none of these roads even exist," he said, "so I think I might have to agree with Cain. I don't think I'd like waking to a spear pointed in my face."
DG rolled her eyes. "Fine. We'll make camp; this, coming from the man who made us ride sixteen hours yesterday."
"I didn't hear no complaining when it was saving us a day on the road."
"A day that we just spent accomplishing nothing."
"We're near halfway across the Midlings," Glitch said, ever the optimist. He was right, too; it was only another two or three spans before the edge of the forest, and the border that separated the eastern territory from the north.
DG was scowling, but had no reply. Glitch took the small triumph with a smug look, and a bit of a grin.
Cain tried to catch her eye; she deliberately avoided his.
There were still hours before the second sun would set when they found a meadow to suit their needs; the shallow, swift-moving creek was, Cain believed, a tributary to the muddy, sluggish flow that ran so near his home. The water was clean and the horses showed no signs of being picky, so he left the animals to graze in the meadow as they pleased and helped the others get settled near the edge of the woods.
"Why don't you go for firewood," he suggested to DG. Every task she had attempted to carry out, one of her companions had swept in to overtake it, oblivious in their chivalry; she was patting her hands against her legs, that nervous, flighty look in her eyes that he'd never learned to like.
She nodded, and headed into the trees without a word.
"Don't go too far," he called, mostly for the sake of appearance. The others, after all, might protest if they got wind of what he was planning.
He watched as she waved him off and disappeared.
"Do you think she'll be all right by herself?" Glitch asked. He was kneeling, digging through a rucksack for what would eventually become their evening meal. He was a passable cook, too; at least, more so than DG or himself.
"The kid needs a walk," Cain grunted.
"She's not the only one."
His head shot up to see Glitch watching him innocently. "Care to elaborate on that, there?"
Glitch went back to his rummaging. "I don't know what you mean, Wyatt, I really don't, although I must say -" And here, he paused, smiling into his work and shaking his head, "you and DG are beginning to give the rest of us neck problems with all the volleys of repressed emotion; you know, Tin Man, all that undue tension isn't doing your heart any favours."
Wyatt had never been comfortable with the headcase's ability to render him speechless, and now was no exception. It wasn't his chosen silence, it was forced, and he didn't like being forced into anything. That an immediate answer didn't spring to mind or tongue infuriated him, mostly because - well, answering that wouldn't do anyone any good, would it?
"Maybe you should put your nose into that pack where it belongs," he said, meaning for that to be the end of it.
Glitch, thank the gods, obliged - though Cain could've done without the final, cheeky smirk.
Fifteen minutes passed, and DG didn't return. After five more, he sighed, stood up, looked around.
"Someone needs to go fetch her," he muttered, feeling the remaining pairs of eyes on him.
"Do you think something happened?" Tutor asked. He was sitting on the ground, slackened against a tree; he looked about to fall asleep. The hard exercise the man was putting himself through daily now looked to be taking a toll, a very effective reminder that the road was harder on some than on others. Something to keep in mind.
"If I thought something'd happened, I'd be out there myself," Cain said, though he didn't add, but I don't think she'd be too happy to see me if I did. "Knowing DG," he said instead, trying to sound annoyed with her, "she's probably just got it in her head to dawdle."
"I suppose I'll go," Glitch said, brushing his knees as he stood; less fastidious outside Central, but still particular to tidiness. "We won't eat until there's a fire, anyway." He strode off into the woods; after a few minutes, Cain could hear him calling DG's name, and then he was off too far and it was quiet again.
Five minutes; ten, then fifteen. Well.
From his crouched position near the centre of the site, where he would have dug out a pit for the fire if he'd ever thought they would actually stay, he felt Raw touch his shoulder. Irritable, Wyatt shrugged him off. He didn't need to turn around to see what Raw wanted him to.
"I see, don't worry," was all he said.
It took Tutor far longer to notice that DG and Glitch had yet to return, let alone to realise that they were being watched. Cain himself had to point it out to him, once Tutor had hefted himself to his feet and set himself to do something about what he no doubt saw as Cain's unwillingness to encroach on DG's boundaries.
"Mr. Cain," he began.
"Mr. Lesley," Cain returned, cocking his head at an angle so that he might look Tutor in the eye. He didn't mind the old man looking down on him, not at all; he didn't move from his haunches. "You want me to go after them, is that it?"
Tutor cleared his throat, his hands going to his pockets, the eversame motions of avoidance.
"There's no need," Cain told him, and he looked away from the old man, back toward the forest. "About thirty yards in, don't you see them?"
He looked up again to see Tutor scan the forest beyond the meadow. The look on the mutt's face when his eyes finally found their mark sent Cain to smiling. Sometimes, the little moments were just enough.
"We should all -"
"Too late for that. They'll come in on all sides, you'll see." He stood. "They'll make the first move soon enough; they know we'll come quiet. We're not in any position to fight."
"Because you sent DG in ahead of us."
"Think of this as eastern diplomacy, dogman," Cain said low, his words clipped and lips barely moving. The minutes were melting away to nothing now; he didn't know how many scouts were surrounding the campsite, perhaps close to a dozen, maybe more. "By the way, how many times you been out here in the past six months, nosing around for them to tell you what you want to know? How many times have they already turned you away?"
Tutor shifted, looked away. "Hardly -"
"You might try playin' their way," Cain said, "and see if things don't start going yours."
Looking unhappy about it, Tutor finally complied. Raw had no qualms at all, having felt the encroaching hostility, he was no doubt ready to take flight himself, if not for the deepset instinct to be where DG was - such loyalty knew no bounds, if it would keep a Viewer's feet planted when he might otherwise run for safety.
Loyalty.
It occurred to him then, all too belatedly, too godsdamned late, that the men of the east just might support the passing of the crown. Had the influence of the New Resistance penetrated this far into the east?
Son of an Unwanted wh-
The next few minutes were ones that Cain would remember for a long, long while. Three of the eastern party approached, coming out of the trees; they weren't armed to the teeth, as he'd expected, but each carried a spear, the spearheads pointed at the sky and the sharp edges catching the last of the dying evening light.
"Going to be a warm night," Cain called out; he found them not in the least intimidating, and wasn't about to pretend.
The party leader, taller than his companions, face streaked with red and black paint, halted not ten feet off, his men standing behind him. "Not for all," he said. "Some shall face the cold."
"I take that to mean you've got something that belongs to us."
The leader's face was impassive. "Little birds with sharp tongues, caged and hung for all to see."
"Mouthy, yes," Cain said, "but also important."
"To you." The leader smirked, the first sign of a reaction Cain had seen from him.
"And to you," Cain replied, tucking his thumbs into his belt, "you just don't know it."
The leader seemed to be considering them, and after a moment he muttered something to his men in a tongue that Cain did not understand, but the meaning came across clear as a slap on the face. In the end, it all went quite civil, despite the spear point in his back as he was herded through the forest with the others. His only regret was not being there to see the rest of the hunting party try to lead the horses; the sight might've cheered him up some, considering.
It was an uncomfortable, twenty-minute push through the woods, with more harsh, strange words than Cain cared to count. He didn't know exactly what he was being referred to, but it caused the guild fighters to snicker and glance toward him every now and again. He'd heard more than enough comments against his character over the annuals, but something about the leering of these ornery little beasts constantly tweaked at his temper.
The village was, like most eastern villages, a sprawling expanse of houses and bridges just below the canopy. Most of the homes were build around the trees in the upper most branches, so that each house had the massive trunk as a central pillar, the branches spreading like rafters under thatched roofs. Bridges were lashed between structures; ladders reaching down to the ground were few and far between.
As they were led under the village, Cain heard Glitch's voice call out from overhead.
"I've got a bone to pick with you, Wyatt Cain!"
Cain smirked; no, he didn't imagine the headcase was too happy about his current predicament.
Raw and Tutor were detained; there was no word of what had happened to DG. Cain was directed none too politely up a ladder, finding himself on uneven footing on the lowest level of the village. A few precarious bridges and another ladder brought him to the second, and he was ushered up to the largest structure he could see. The fighters guarding the door had axes hanging from their belts, small enough that Cain would've had a hard time using one as a hatchet to cut kindling.
He was forced - literally - to duck through the door. The singular room was fashioned into a wide-open hall, and if he positioned himself rightly between the thick, gnarled branches that acted as eaves, he could stand at his full height. It wouldn't do him any favours, though, since height was always a disadvantage in this neck of the woods.
The door was shut with as much of a bang as such flimsy architecture could provide. It was remarkably dark inside the hall, the only light filtering in through the cracks in the walls. A long table was set down the middle of the room. He cocked his head to see past the branch that was obstructing his vision, and saw that at the very end, seated to the right, was a man who'd seen many more annuals, and many more sore sights than he. Immediately, Cain was racking his brain as to remember the general's name, but it wouldn't come; he'd have to ask Glitch, or Tutor, if the opportunity presented itself. One leader of all the men of the east, one man who answered only to the Queen of the Outer Zone; was this fortune or misfortune grinning down to see him in the Midlings at the same time the princess, heir apparent now with Azkadellia back on the throne.
And how, how was this going to complicate things. It sure as hell would. Always did.
"You are Captain Wyatt Cain, aren't you," the general said. He was without armour, his face unpainted. Never in all his annuals had Cain expected to see an easterner so unguarded. "They say you are the hermit of the crying creek. One of the Mystic Man's fallen, returned from the dead."
"Not 'captain' any more, sir," he said, wilfully ignoring the rest.
"My fighters came bragging of a sharp-tongued prize they took in the forest," the general continued. "Who do you think it was that I found gagged and glowering in her cage? How am I to tell my fighters they captured a princess? She's already been recognised by some as the spy from the sky during the final days of the war."
As the general couldn't see his face, blocked by the thick, knotted rafter as it was, Cain took a moment to close his eyes and fully picture DG, spitting and fuming and made to sit and wait. He was torn between smiling and feeling, well, guilty. After all, this had turned into his plan, not hers, and nowhere along the route today had he told her about the switch.
"Sir, if it's answers you're wanting, you're best to get them from the princess. I'm just an escort."
"Under what order?"
"Hers."
The word hung in the air, untouchable, as the general stood up from the table and slowly walked over to Cain, who looked down without reservation to the general's eyes.
"Very well, Wyatt Cain," the general said. "You will escort the princess to me, and she and I will talk."
Table Of Contents
One - Two - Three - Four - Five
Six - Seven - Eight - Nine - Ten
Eleven - Twelve - Thirteen - Fourteen - Fifteen
Sixteen - Seventeen - Eighteen - Nineteen - Twenty
Twenty One - Twenty Two - Twenty Three - Twenty Four - Twenty Five
Twenty Six - Twenty Seven - Twenty Eight - Twenty Nine - Thirty
Thirty One - Thirty Two - Thirty Three - Thirty Four - Thirty Five
Thirty Six - Thirty Seven - Thirty Eight - Thirty Nine - Forty
Author: Rissy James
Characters: Cain, DG, Glitch, Raw, Tutor (includes other major and minor characters)
Pairing: Cain/DG
Rating: 14+ (subject to change)
Summary: The fade to black was merely the blink of an eye. Respite for only seconds. After all, the road is long.
Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run
When Last We Met: Into the east, the five companions have disappeared. Finaqua is far behind; Central City and the fading Lavender are much closer to their minds and hearts. DG's hope rests solely in the Eastern Guild, whose cooperation and knowledge Cain is uncertain she's going to gain.
Chapter Seventeen: Speak Softly
In the farthest east, it's said there was a place where the trees grew tall, and men did not. A land where such men, so small and ineffectual, lived in fear of sweeping winds and the glint of silver. A place, the story went, where divine retribution fell from the sky in the splintering of beams and shattering of glass. On that day of reckoning, the men went up into the trees, and they have never come down.
"We're gonna be out here at most three days," Wyatt found himself telling the others, early in the afternoon as they readied to leave. It was warm, and he'd abandoned his duster, rolled up his shirtsleeves. Glitch and DG were in similar states of undress, while the lazy heat of early summer seemed to have no effect on Raw, or on Tutor, who'd finally decided to shift and include himself in on the conversations.
"Three days?" DG asked. If he had to guess (which he didn't), he'd say she was a bit displeased with his estimate. He'd heard enough of Tutor and Glitch spouting their 'time is of the utmost importance' tripe to know that it had the girl wound tight as a clockwork soldier. As much as he wanted it, there was nothing he could do to placate her.
"At the most," he said. He didn't add that it could be five days at the worst, it wasn't something she needed to be hearing.
"Wonderful," she muttered darkly, and it was the last he heard out of her for hours. Not wanting to argue all day, he let it be. The others, however, wouldn't be so lucky.
"You figured out which village you want to head for?" he asked Glitch, who was battling a map back into its properly folded state, and very much on the winning end of it. It was rare to see such a small task done with such assuredness. The headcase finally seemed to be coming into his own, that was for damned sure, but if he were doing better out here than he had been in the city, it wasn't for Cain to say; the knowledge of this sent the shame to rising in his throat.
It was Tutor who answered. "There's a village in the northeast reaches of Midling March. You'll both remember it, of course."
Cain rolled his eyes as the old man gestured broadly at Glitch and DG. Near half a dozen villages under the emblem of the Eastern Guild, but they were headed to the village from which his two rescuers had just barely escaped with their skins intact. That day, that day, the last, the first; an unwanted destiny, just his gods-damned luck.
This was going to bring them close to his home. Too close for his liking, but he was here to support, not to lead.
Probably best to keep quiet on this one.
It was well past midday when they made it back onto the route, though it wasn't long before they left the bricks behind and were following the narrow trails that criss-crossed their way through the eastern forests. These were not the straight and even of the Brick Route, guiding all feet to the Shining City, but twisted paths meant to loop around, hill and vale and hill once more until a traveller might sit down on the spot for loss of direction and never dare to move again.
Much to his ease, Cain spent the afternoon getting them hopelessly lost. He'd spent enough time in the east over the annuals to know that proper negotiations with the guild leader and his officers had already begun, the moment they'd stepped off the Brick Route and disappeared into the protection of the forest. Diplomacy would get Glitch nowhere; though he never let the others know it, he had this well in hand.
The men of the east considered themselves, through no uncertain terms, a warrior race; they were an ancient and suspicious breed, adepts of the forest, and worthy of high respect. Their pride may have been their greatest weakness, but on their land, Cain would abide their rules, and do his damnedest to make sure the others did the same. Even if he knew a direct route to the village the old man had in mind, he valued his own hide too much, let alone those of his companions, to go looking for it.
It would take longer, and lead to more complication than he would normally otherwise invite into his life, but in the end it would make them all a little less dead, and that sat just fine with him.
He could get them to the village. Once they got there, well... it was up to DG and Glitch then, wasn't it?
The day passed a little more quickly than its predecessors, with each new path and revisited stone, doubling-back and then back on that again. It was in a northeasterly direction that he took them, the suns guiding him more than the trails or his knowledge of these woods. He couldn't have chosen a calmer, brighter day for a (mostly) aimless ride through the woods. Even the others, for all the lack of really getting anywhere, had little to complain about. In fact, he heard very few voices at all, his companions caught in their own endless spirals of introspect. As the mutt only ever barked to garner immediate attention to things of merit, he remained the most well behaved dog Wyatt had ever come across. A much preferred state, he'd long ago wholeheartedly decided.
His thoughts wandered as the hours wore ever on; he thought on his son, out somewhere in the wide world, still fighting the shadows the war had left him chasing; he thought about home, the barn roof that still needed shingling, or if the creek had risen any; he wondered how Lavender fared since the last of the news out of Central; he wondered how many scouts were following them, watching their every move from the green of the trees.
Afternoon began to wane. The birds quieted, the bugs started biting in earnest. The temperature dropped as the suns dipped lower in the sky, below the tree line where he couldn't see. It was time to start banking a little on that luck of DG's.
"We're wasting daylight," he told the others after he'd stopped in the middle of the trail and they'd all congregated behind him. "We should make camp and pick this up in the morning."
The first response he got was from the damn mutt, who ran ahead on the trail and started barking, and loudly. Cain grumbled, refusing to even turn to acknowledge the dog, and kept his eyes on the others. While Raw seemed relieved, DG and Glitch looked all kinds of uncertain.
"I think there's a couple hours left," DG said, turning in her saddle to glance behind her. He wondered how long she'd been looking over her shoulder like that; if he hadn't been trying so hard to avoid doing the same thing over the course of the day, he might know the answer. "I want to keep going."
Determination, back full force. Did she harbour any regrets about the night before, letting her weaknesses show so close to the surface? To him, of all people, he who'd hurt her in selfishness. Did she even remember how warm she'd been curled against him?
"We aren't going to find anything marching around in the dark," he pointed out, "and we'll likely walk into an ambush if we try." She looked about ready to argue with this, so he added, "It's gonna take us another hour or more before we find a decent spot to set up for the night, we can still put a few more miles behind us."
She turned away, less than pleased with his answers. "What do you think?" she asked Glitch. "What does the map say?"
Glitch cleared his throat, shifted in his saddle under the heat of DG's scrutiny. "According to the map, none of these roads even exist," he said, "so I think I might have to agree with Cain. I don't think I'd like waking to a spear pointed in my face."
DG rolled her eyes. "Fine. We'll make camp; this, coming from the man who made us ride sixteen hours yesterday."
"I didn't hear no complaining when it was saving us a day on the road."
"A day that we just spent accomplishing nothing."
"We're near halfway across the Midlings," Glitch said, ever the optimist. He was right, too; it was only another two or three spans before the edge of the forest, and the border that separated the eastern territory from the north.
DG was scowling, but had no reply. Glitch took the small triumph with a smug look, and a bit of a grin.
Cain tried to catch her eye; she deliberately avoided his.
There were still hours before the second sun would set when they found a meadow to suit their needs; the shallow, swift-moving creek was, Cain believed, a tributary to the muddy, sluggish flow that ran so near his home. The water was clean and the horses showed no signs of being picky, so he left the animals to graze in the meadow as they pleased and helped the others get settled near the edge of the woods.
"Why don't you go for firewood," he suggested to DG. Every task she had attempted to carry out, one of her companions had swept in to overtake it, oblivious in their chivalry; she was patting her hands against her legs, that nervous, flighty look in her eyes that he'd never learned to like.
She nodded, and headed into the trees without a word.
"Don't go too far," he called, mostly for the sake of appearance. The others, after all, might protest if they got wind of what he was planning.
He watched as she waved him off and disappeared.
"Do you think she'll be all right by herself?" Glitch asked. He was kneeling, digging through a rucksack for what would eventually become their evening meal. He was a passable cook, too; at least, more so than DG or himself.
"The kid needs a walk," Cain grunted.
"She's not the only one."
His head shot up to see Glitch watching him innocently. "Care to elaborate on that, there?"
Glitch went back to his rummaging. "I don't know what you mean, Wyatt, I really don't, although I must say -" And here, he paused, smiling into his work and shaking his head, "you and DG are beginning to give the rest of us neck problems with all the volleys of repressed emotion; you know, Tin Man, all that undue tension isn't doing your heart any favours."
Wyatt had never been comfortable with the headcase's ability to render him speechless, and now was no exception. It wasn't his chosen silence, it was forced, and he didn't like being forced into anything. That an immediate answer didn't spring to mind or tongue infuriated him, mostly because - well, answering that wouldn't do anyone any good, would it?
"Maybe you should put your nose into that pack where it belongs," he said, meaning for that to be the end of it.
Glitch, thank the gods, obliged - though Cain could've done without the final, cheeky smirk.
Fifteen minutes passed, and DG didn't return. After five more, he sighed, stood up, looked around.
"Someone needs to go fetch her," he muttered, feeling the remaining pairs of eyes on him.
"Do you think something happened?" Tutor asked. He was sitting on the ground, slackened against a tree; he looked about to fall asleep. The hard exercise the man was putting himself through daily now looked to be taking a toll, a very effective reminder that the road was harder on some than on others. Something to keep in mind.
"If I thought something'd happened, I'd be out there myself," Cain said, though he didn't add, but I don't think she'd be too happy to see me if I did. "Knowing DG," he said instead, trying to sound annoyed with her, "she's probably just got it in her head to dawdle."
"I suppose I'll go," Glitch said, brushing his knees as he stood; less fastidious outside Central, but still particular to tidiness. "We won't eat until there's a fire, anyway." He strode off into the woods; after a few minutes, Cain could hear him calling DG's name, and then he was off too far and it was quiet again.
Five minutes; ten, then fifteen. Well.
From his crouched position near the centre of the site, where he would have dug out a pit for the fire if he'd ever thought they would actually stay, he felt Raw touch his shoulder. Irritable, Wyatt shrugged him off. He didn't need to turn around to see what Raw wanted him to.
"I see, don't worry," was all he said.
It took Tutor far longer to notice that DG and Glitch had yet to return, let alone to realise that they were being watched. Cain himself had to point it out to him, once Tutor had hefted himself to his feet and set himself to do something about what he no doubt saw as Cain's unwillingness to encroach on DG's boundaries.
"Mr. Cain," he began.
"Mr. Lesley," Cain returned, cocking his head at an angle so that he might look Tutor in the eye. He didn't mind the old man looking down on him, not at all; he didn't move from his haunches. "You want me to go after them, is that it?"
Tutor cleared his throat, his hands going to his pockets, the eversame motions of avoidance.
"There's no need," Cain told him, and he looked away from the old man, back toward the forest. "About thirty yards in, don't you see them?"
He looked up again to see Tutor scan the forest beyond the meadow. The look on the mutt's face when his eyes finally found their mark sent Cain to smiling. Sometimes, the little moments were just enough.
"We should all -"
"Too late for that. They'll come in on all sides, you'll see." He stood. "They'll make the first move soon enough; they know we'll come quiet. We're not in any position to fight."
"Because you sent DG in ahead of us."
"Think of this as eastern diplomacy, dogman," Cain said low, his words clipped and lips barely moving. The minutes were melting away to nothing now; he didn't know how many scouts were surrounding the campsite, perhaps close to a dozen, maybe more. "By the way, how many times you been out here in the past six months, nosing around for them to tell you what you want to know? How many times have they already turned you away?"
Tutor shifted, looked away. "Hardly -"
"You might try playin' their way," Cain said, "and see if things don't start going yours."
Looking unhappy about it, Tutor finally complied. Raw had no qualms at all, having felt the encroaching hostility, he was no doubt ready to take flight himself, if not for the deepset instinct to be where DG was - such loyalty knew no bounds, if it would keep a Viewer's feet planted when he might otherwise run for safety.
Loyalty.
It occurred to him then, all too belatedly, too godsdamned late, that the men of the east just might support the passing of the crown. Had the influence of the New Resistance penetrated this far into the east?
Son of an Unwanted wh-
The next few minutes were ones that Cain would remember for a long, long while. Three of the eastern party approached, coming out of the trees; they weren't armed to the teeth, as he'd expected, but each carried a spear, the spearheads pointed at the sky and the sharp edges catching the last of the dying evening light.
"Going to be a warm night," Cain called out; he found them not in the least intimidating, and wasn't about to pretend.
The party leader, taller than his companions, face streaked with red and black paint, halted not ten feet off, his men standing behind him. "Not for all," he said. "Some shall face the cold."
"I take that to mean you've got something that belongs to us."
The leader's face was impassive. "Little birds with sharp tongues, caged and hung for all to see."
"Mouthy, yes," Cain said, "but also important."
"To you." The leader smirked, the first sign of a reaction Cain had seen from him.
"And to you," Cain replied, tucking his thumbs into his belt, "you just don't know it."
The leader seemed to be considering them, and after a moment he muttered something to his men in a tongue that Cain did not understand, but the meaning came across clear as a slap on the face. In the end, it all went quite civil, despite the spear point in his back as he was herded through the forest with the others. His only regret was not being there to see the rest of the hunting party try to lead the horses; the sight might've cheered him up some, considering.
It was an uncomfortable, twenty-minute push through the woods, with more harsh, strange words than Cain cared to count. He didn't know exactly what he was being referred to, but it caused the guild fighters to snicker and glance toward him every now and again. He'd heard more than enough comments against his character over the annuals, but something about the leering of these ornery little beasts constantly tweaked at his temper.
The village was, like most eastern villages, a sprawling expanse of houses and bridges just below the canopy. Most of the homes were build around the trees in the upper most branches, so that each house had the massive trunk as a central pillar, the branches spreading like rafters under thatched roofs. Bridges were lashed between structures; ladders reaching down to the ground were few and far between.
As they were led under the village, Cain heard Glitch's voice call out from overhead.
"I've got a bone to pick with you, Wyatt Cain!"
Cain smirked; no, he didn't imagine the headcase was too happy about his current predicament.
Raw and Tutor were detained; there was no word of what had happened to DG. Cain was directed none too politely up a ladder, finding himself on uneven footing on the lowest level of the village. A few precarious bridges and another ladder brought him to the second, and he was ushered up to the largest structure he could see. The fighters guarding the door had axes hanging from their belts, small enough that Cain would've had a hard time using one as a hatchet to cut kindling.
He was forced - literally - to duck through the door. The singular room was fashioned into a wide-open hall, and if he positioned himself rightly between the thick, gnarled branches that acted as eaves, he could stand at his full height. It wouldn't do him any favours, though, since height was always a disadvantage in this neck of the woods.
The door was shut with as much of a bang as such flimsy architecture could provide. It was remarkably dark inside the hall, the only light filtering in through the cracks in the walls. A long table was set down the middle of the room. He cocked his head to see past the branch that was obstructing his vision, and saw that at the very end, seated to the right, was a man who'd seen many more annuals, and many more sore sights than he. Immediately, Cain was racking his brain as to remember the general's name, but it wouldn't come; he'd have to ask Glitch, or Tutor, if the opportunity presented itself. One leader of all the men of the east, one man who answered only to the Queen of the Outer Zone; was this fortune or misfortune grinning down to see him in the Midlings at the same time the princess, heir apparent now with Azkadellia back on the throne.
And how, how was this going to complicate things. It sure as hell would. Always did.
"You are Captain Wyatt Cain, aren't you," the general said. He was without armour, his face unpainted. Never in all his annuals had Cain expected to see an easterner so unguarded. "They say you are the hermit of the crying creek. One of the Mystic Man's fallen, returned from the dead."
"Not 'captain' any more, sir," he said, wilfully ignoring the rest.
"My fighters came bragging of a sharp-tongued prize they took in the forest," the general continued. "Who do you think it was that I found gagged and glowering in her cage? How am I to tell my fighters they captured a princess? She's already been recognised by some as the spy from the sky during the final days of the war."
As the general couldn't see his face, blocked by the thick, knotted rafter as it was, Cain took a moment to close his eyes and fully picture DG, spitting and fuming and made to sit and wait. He was torn between smiling and feeling, well, guilty. After all, this had turned into his plan, not hers, and nowhere along the route today had he told her about the switch.
"Sir, if it's answers you're wanting, you're best to get them from the princess. I'm just an escort."
"Under what order?"
"Hers."
The word hung in the air, untouchable, as the general stood up from the table and slowly walked over to Cain, who looked down without reservation to the general's eyes.
"Very well, Wyatt Cain," the general said. "You will escort the princess to me, and she and I will talk."
Table Of Contents
One - Two - Three - Four - Five
Six - Seven - Eight - Nine - Ten
Eleven - Twelve - Thirteen - Fourteen - Fifteen
Sixteen - Seventeen - Eighteen - Nineteen - Twenty
Twenty One - Twenty Two - Twenty Three - Twenty Four - Twenty Five
Twenty Six - Twenty Seven - Twenty Eight - Twenty Nine - Thirty
Thirty One - Thirty Two - Thirty Three - Thirty Four - Thirty Five
Thirty Six - Thirty Seven - Thirty Eight - Thirty Nine - Forty