Chapter 13
The road northeast of Vellhorn cut through farmland that looked almost too pretty.
Everything perfectly fit into place. Low stone walls separated fields of grain from fields of root vegetables from fields of nothing in particular.
Every farmhouse looked maintained and fitting to the ones around it, as if they all agreed on the area’s general design.
While humming a random tune, Luna maneuvered through and around the group, avoiding Sonja, who was trying to walk next to her. She hadn’t looked at Alsen since leaving the city.
Alsen wound up walking next to Garrett. When Luna wasn’t in earshot, he remarked, “She’s not really a civilian, is she?”
Alsen formed a faint smile. “What gave her away?”
“Sonja can’t sneak up on her. She’s trying pretty hard, from what I can tell, but Luna has incredible spatial awareness.” Garrett shook his head. “Sorry about Sonja, by the way. She’s usually normal.”
“So, this isn’t what she normally does?”
Garrett laughed, glancing around to verify Sonja wasn’t within earshot.
“I’ve never seen her do anything romantic towards a woman.
And we were together for over two years, so I would have noticed.
She even had a relationship with Theron for about half a year.
I’ve got no idea what has gotten into her. ”
Alsen shrugged. “Not sure how I could help it.”
“Me neither. Sonja woke up today before dawn to run all over the city to get collars, leashes, and leather ropes. I am sorry to ask, but… did you put a spell on Sonja?”
Alsen snorted. He never thought of such an option, but it made sense as a possible explanation.
“No. I have no spells that could affect someone’s mind.
My art is heavily oriented toward energy manipulation and elemental conjuration.
Charms, enhancements, and curses are schools of magic I’ve never even looked into.
” Well, he also had spent half of his life on special transference magic, but he left that part out.
“Figured as much.” Garrett’s voice carried no hint of distrust or suspicion. “Going to be fun watching Sonja trying to catch the kitten.”
“Until kitten stabs her,” Alsen muttered, immediately regretting it.
“Doubt that’ll happen.” Garrett lowered his voice.
“I know I’m making a wild guess, but I think Luna might like the attention.
We’ll see tonight when we set camp, either way.
If Luna puts her sleeping bag between any combination of the two of us and Theron, then she wants Sonja to stay away.
Any other placement, and she might not mind nearly as much as she acts. ”
Hmph. That was going to be interesting to see. He still hoped Sonja wasn’t going to end up with a dagger in her throat.
The morning passed without incident. The farmland slowly gave way to rolling hills, the road narrowing from two cart widths to barely one. Birds sang in clusters of trees that dotted the hillsides, and the air smelled of wild grass and distant rain.
By midday, Garrett called for a stop. They settled by a stream, dropping packs and stretching sore muscles. Theron produced a wrapped bundle of bread and dried meat from his pack, all perfectly prepared into portions for six.
Alsen grabbed his share and sat down a bit of distance away. Luna sat next to him, unwrapping her bundle. That surprised him. Now, this was an opportunity to apologize. “How did you sleep last night?”
She snorted. “So, you noticed I snuck away. I borrowed a smithy for the night.”
More surprises. No more silent treatment, and she casually told him what she was doing. He smiled. “What did you craft?”
“Daggers.” She bit into the meal. “It’s ironic, really. I always crafted weapons for others, since I never needed any. Last night was the first time I had ever forged a weapon for myself.” She glanced around.
He dug into his meal. Sonja sat by Marena, so she might have needed some rest too. Or, she needed to recalibrate her strategy.
“It was my first job,” Luna continued. “When I was twelve, I really wanted to buy myself some jewelry, and James wouldn’t give me any gold.
So, I convinced a blacksmith to hire me for his smithy to apprentice there.
I did most of my smithing during the campaigns, though.
I was the only one in the unit with a bit of experience, so I ended up doing all the smithing for the entire unit. ”
“How do you get to smithing on a war campaign?”
“Gear gets damaged and needs to be repaired. At the same time, a unit of a hundred men can carry a lot of stuff. That included a field forge. Split into parts, each carried by a different man, we pretty much always had a forge with us. It took twenty-five men carrying the parts, but they could put it together in fifteen minutes. I then forged whatever they needed when they were busy hitting on the actually pretty girls.”
Alsen snorted. “I’ve always been too clumsy for this type of stuff.”
“And I have yet to figure out why James taught me to write and read.” She snorted. “It’s funny. We weren’t ever really friends with Riker. He was too much of a cunt for that. But he had some really creative dagger designs, so I’ve made a few of his best pieces.”
“Made one for Sonja?”
“Nah. Whatever has gotten into her will pass in a day or two.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. What if your curse isn’t a curse but a buff? Say a spell makes you permanently one hundred percent more attractive to women and ninety-nine percent less attractive to men. The net effect is a buff, so no curse-detecting magic would find it.”
Luna scowled. “Can you prove it?”
He shook his head. “It’s only a theory at this point. Whatever spell effect you might be under has survived you transmigrating between worlds. I have yet to develop a framework that could even detect such a spell.”
She frowned. “So, Sonja is going batshit crazy over me because I’m cursed to be magically more attractive to her?”
“That would be the natural explanation, yes.”
“Kitten!” Sonja landed between them cross-legged, appearing from absolutely nowhere, carrying a pack she hadn’t been carrying before. “I made you something.”
Alsen didn’t notice her approach at all. He moved his butt a bit away to give them some space.
Luna closed her eyes. “No.”
“You don’t even know what it is yet.”
She bit into her meal a lot more ferociously. “I don’t need to.”
Sonja ignored her completely. She opened the pack and pulled out a leather collar.
A well-crafted one, dyed a deep red, with brass fittings and a small ring at the front where a leash could clip.
“See? I couldn’t believe I found this piece in the morning.
It’s exactly your size, so it’ll fit you all so snugly. ”
Luna stared at it. “You’re not putting that on me.”
“It’s for your safety.” Sonja’s expression screamed with earnestness, almost offended that Luna implicitly questioned her motives.
“The terrain ahead gets rough. Steep climbs, loose rocks, nothing for frail kittens. If you fall, I need to be able to catch you. This way, I clip the leash to my belt, and if you slip, I’ve got you. ”
“That’s not how climbing works.”
“Also.” Sonja reached deeper into the pack. She pulled out another collar, this one black with silver studs. Then a third, forest green with braided edges. Then a fourth, a simpler brown one with a softer interior lining. “I’ve brought options if you don’t feel like wearing red today.”
“I’m not wearing a collar.”
“The yellow one matches your eyes.”
“My eyes are not yellow.”
Sonja held the yellow collar up next to Luna’s face, squinting. “Actually, you’re right, the red one’s better.”
“No.” Luna stood up. She stepped over Sonja’s collar collection and walked to the opposite side of the stream.
Sonja watched her go with the kind of longing that poets wrote sonnets about. Then she turned to Alsen, eyes narrowing. “She’s a shy one, isn’t she?”
Alsen only shook his head. He wasn’t getting involved in this.
Luna hadn’t given him any cues to follow, and he had no read on the situation.
His best guess was that Luna had a curse or some other magical effect that made her unattractive to men.
He was sure of that part, but it could also have made her extra attractive to women.
And it could have been super effective on Sonja.
They marched out after the meal.
The terrain changed later in the afternoon.
The rolling hills sharpened into ridges, and the road, generous to call it a road, dissolved into a narrow path cut between the rocky slopes. Trees grew at stubborn angles from cracks in the stone. The air cooled as they gained elevation, carrying the metallic tang of exposed rock.
Garrett took the lead, map in hand. “There’s a gorge up ahead. The nearest bridge is almost a day of travel away, so we cross it, and then it’s straight terrain to the vault from there.”
A gorge? That didn’t sound good.
He could see it before he could protest. They walked through the last line of trees, and he heard the river rushing through the gorge’s bottom. He saw it too, a tear in the land, its edges forty feet apart.
Just about way too damn far to jump over. They walked to its edge. The cliff looked almost as if it had been cut.
Alsen looked down. The gorge dropped perhaps eighty feet, sheer on both sides, a river churning white at the bottom. Okay, he needed to come up with a spell for this. “That’s going to take a while.”
Garrett burst into a short laugh. “Just kidding, there’s a natural bridge twenty minutes away from here. Sorry about that.”
Hilarious. Alsen said nothing, relieved they weren’t going to climb this insanity.