Both Lois and Gerard increased their pace significantly when they finally sighted the Dike early the next morning. Lois started into a slow jog, and somehow Gerard managed to keep up with him for the most part. The inability to use one of his hooves clearly hampered him, but he wanted to get south of the Dike as quickly as possible.
Lois eventually signaled for him to get down and wait while he went ahead to take a look. The assassin used much less patience than the rest of their patrol had used on the way north. Logically, he decided, if he moved too slowly he would be giving his enemies an opportunity to catch up with Gerard. Chances were, anyone who wasn't supposed to be south of the Dike at this point would have already been driven northward by the sweeping patrols cleaning up in anticipation of the Duke's wedding. If they had decided to camp out around the area of the Dike, then he would simply have to deal with them when it came down to it.
As it turned out, no one was waiting for him, so he signaled Gerard to move up. The stag wasted no time obeying, perhaps moving a bit faster than Lois would have advised considering his condition. Still, he was happy that his companion was able to make it quickly, and the two of them moved across the Dike, moving south with all speed.
"Usually I would advise stealth," Lois noted. "At this point, however, I think our chances are better that we'll get picked up by a friendly patrol than an enemy patrol, and that would be altogether better for us. I'll leave the decision up to you, though."
Gerard simply continued to forge ahead. Clearly he was of the opinion that keeping a high profile was to their advantage at this point. It would be nearly impossible to slip by all of the guards given the heightened security that could be expected considering the wedding. No doubt there was going to be an outer ring of patrols making sure no one came south, but it was also likely that a majority of the manpower in the defensive groups were concentrated closer to the Keep, giving enemies a very hard time about getting through. Their best hope of successfully returning to the Keep before the Yule rested on finding one of the outer defensive rings. If they managed to slip through undetected, there was no telling how long it would take him to drag himself and his broken leg through the Keep's gate.
As he moved along, he realized that he needed to slow down a bit. While he wanted to get back to the Keep as quickly as he possibly could, exhausting himself before he had a chance to get halfway there would get him nowhere. If they were going to go through the night like Lois had suggested, he was going to need to keep his strength up.
For his part, Lois did a good job of neither outpacing Gerard nor letting him get too far ahead. Given that he was the only one of the two that could do any fighting, he was also the one keeping a lookout for possible threats. He didn't expect he would see anyone, and if they did run into anyone then they would probably be a small group; they would have to be to consistently stay away from the increased patrol strength.
As the hours went by, Lois began to worry. He could not imagine the outer cordon being too far from the Dike. After all, it was a useful chokepoint that worked both ways. After an initial sweep he expected they would stay within sight of the Dike so that they could be sure that the lutins that they had driven out would not try to move back to the south.
Still, as night fell, they had seen neither hide nor hair of any sort of force, be it allied or hostile. They were too far past the Dike; something had gone wrong. No scout alive could have missed them crashing through the undergrowth with all the care of a stampeding herd, not if they had past close by them, at any rate. That left one possibility, one that confused him a bit.
"Gerard, I think we missed the outer cordon," he said finally. He continued to follow the stag, who seemed to move with a bit more urgency when he heard Lois' words from behind him. Lois kept on walking behind him in silence, increasing his pace to keep up. He continued to consider; perhaps they had not swept up through yet? No, even at that point, they should have hit them by now. It was the only point that made any sense, and yet there were too many problems for it to possibly be true.
Another consideration struck him, and he nodded slowly. "Gerard, they probably started the sweep from Outpost and moved out. They would have been able to deploy this far to the north faster than Metamor. If that's true, then they probably swing around from Outpost out to the Dike, and we've probably passed them by now. I recommend that we turn around and head back towards the Dike from here. If we hit them, they'll probably be able to give us a way back."
Gerard shook his head, carefully trimmed antlers shaking the low branches of a tree nearby. No, he knew better than to think that. If they went back out to try to meet the outer line, then they would probably take another day to find them. After that, the patrols wouldn't be either able or willing to take them back to Metamor. Maybe if they had run into them before they got fully into position, giving them time to reorganize and send an escort, but certainly not after they had set up their line.
Lois kept up with Gerard’s increasing speed, frown deepening as they went along. It wasn’t long before the stag began to clearly stumble over roots and undergrowth. He was pushing himself too hard; with only three legs, he couldn’t keep that kind of speed without falling sooner or later.
“Gerard,” Lois whispered, intending to stop him. His companion kept on, though, increasing his speed almost to a trot, although his problems continuing were obvious. “Gerard, this is folly! You’ll injure yourself further if you continue like this!” Lois increased his stride even further, intent on heading the stag off. It was then that he saw movement in the leaves to the front and right of his friend. His eyes focused on the person who was emerging, and they certainly did not look friendly. Lois planted his footing, readying to throw a dagger at the man, when something slammed up against his head, sending him sprawling to the ground in a daze.
He had just enough time to look around at the men closing in before he was struck across the head again, and everything went black.
Lois came back to consciousness slowly, mind slowly catching up with the world as he lay there in a daze. He tried to reach up and press a paw to his head, but found his hands were unsurprisingly bound. He tested the binding even before he had fully come around, and found that the knots were reasonably well done. It wasn’t that they were going to keep him from untying them eventually; few men that hadn’t been sailors at one time or another could tie a rope he couldn’t untie. The quality of the knot was enough that it would take him a little time and whatever tools he could find within his limited reach to get out.
He finally cracked his eyes, and found himself lying in a well-forested area, with a little light that might have been either dawn or dusk filtering through the trees. He also found that he had been thrown rather haphazardly on the ground, and was simply lying on one side.
The assassin briefly considered faking that he was still unconscious, but could think of nothing he could do with that that he couldn’t do more efficiently after showing his captors that he was awake. With this in mind he rolled carefully to a sitting position. He was a little dizzy; considering the possibilities that being bludgeoned twice in rapid succession could hold for a man, he gladly accepted this slight handicap for his trouble.
He cast about for Gerard warily, and was surprised and happy to find the stag tied to a nearby tree with several ropes, but was otherwise evidently no more harmed than he had been last the ermine had seen him. His position suggested sleeping rather than unconsciousness; more than likely he had spent a good while struggling and had at some point resigned himself to being held captive for a time.
Lois’ activity did not go unnoticed. Before long a large man with a scraggly brown beard stepped in front of him. Between the furs he wore and the few finer ones that were hung from his belt, Lois guessed that the man was a poacher. Further, what he had seen of the rest of the group indicated to him that they were more than likely here from the south to ply their trade. He smiled inwardly while outwardly setting himself for the negotiations he was certain were coming next. He could see a few directions he could pursue this in that might grant both he and Gerard a return to the Keep, perhaps in more safety than they had experienced on their path so far.
“Well, look who finally decided to come around,” the man said gruffly. He kept his voice down, but put enough force behind it to make it clear that he saw this conversation as himself speaking to an inferior. So much the better, Lois mused.
“Excuse me for taking so long, but I do believe that it was your own man who decided to lay me out when first we encountered you. If you seek an apology, ask him,” Lois commented.
The trapper scowled at him. “I might, if he was not now recovering from being gored by your friend over there,” he commented darkly. “It seems that even blunted antlers were not enough to keep him from doing what he could to fight through us.”
It made sense. Lois would not have been surprised, nor would he have felt abandoned, had Gerard found it within himself to escape alone to get to his family. Had their places been switched, Lois would have done so without even the benefit of a family to greet him on the other side. Still, there was no need for his captors to know why the deer had shown so much fight.
Lois coughed a bit, suddenly realizing how dry his throat felt. He cleared his throat before continuing. “If he did so much damage, I assume that you have some reason for keeping him alive. In fact, I’m quite certain I can guess your intentions. You know he was a companion of mine because you’re familiar with the Curse, and because he so clearly showed marks of intelligence during your fight. However, in his current form he is unable to fight, and is not able to take human form to tell you what you need to know. You needed him alive so that you have leverage to make me answer your questions. In fact, I can guess at least one of the questions you intend, if given the chance.”
The man opposite Lois signaled to one of his companions, and the second poacher came over, taking a water skin and holding it so Lois could drink some. The ermine hardly minded that half of it ended up in his fur, the little bit of water went a long way to easing his throat’s pain.
Lois took a breath after a few gulps of water, then nodded that he was done. The leader of the trappers seemed to be waiting for Lois to continue, so the ermine obliged.
“All right then, I will first tell you what it is that you wish to ask of me, and then I will tell you what the answer will cost you,” Lois announced. He scanned the camp for a moment before returning his gaze to the burly man. He saw a few fresh furs about, and plenty of tools of the trade. Although he had yet to see it, he expected that they would have brought some sort of cart to carry everything in. Given the forest’s density, it couldn’t be very large, but it would perhaps be large enough for his purposes.
The trapper glared at him as the ermine’s eyes fell back on him. “You will give me the answer, and by my terms. Does the fact that you are my prisoner mean nothing to you?”
Lois smiled. “I assure you that I respect your current power over me, but I also realize that you are at a disadvantage yourself. If you kill me, then you will have no one to answer your questions. If no one is here to answer your questions, then you will either have to risk running perhaps the most complete peacetime patrol cordon in a hundred years, or you will all be Cursed. Either that is your trouble, or you were all part of someone’s harem before arriving here.” Lois grinned viciously at this thought, showing off the sharp teeth the Curse had given to him.
The trapper drummed his fingers on the ground in front of him, scattering a little dirt and more than a few leaves in various directions before addressing Lois’ guess. “Yes, we do intend to avoid the Curse. This is not the first time that we have been this far north, but it is the first time that we have had much trouble returning. Usually we can find a path to the south if we work along carefully and don’t wait too long beforehand, but we had not heard that there was going to be a vastly increased number of patrols in the area.” He narrowed his eyes and looked Lois in the eyes. “Why the increase in security? Is Nasoj coming back around to finish the job on you devils?”
Lois snorted. “Nothing quite so dramatic. The Duke is to be wed. I am not entirely certain how you could have come this way in the past week without hearing something of this on your way.”
“The business of the Keep is its own. It isn’t as though I spend much time minding gossip as it is. All the news that interests me is the price of furs in the Midlands.” He tapped his fingers a few more times. Since they had started talking he had cleared the area of leaves and was beginning to leave indentations in the dirt. He was very nervous, which suited Lois fine. “At any rate, I never expected it to affect me. I noticed a bit more security than usual when I crossed the southern border or your territory, but then we moved individually and did not have a cart of furs to worry about.”
Lois nodded. “At any rate, you need someone who either knows a way through the patrols, or can supply a countersign that would allow you and yours to pass through unmolested.”
The trapper nodded.
“Unfortunately, I can provide neither,” Lois said. “I arrived here recently, and have access to neither patrol routes nor countersigns. At this point I sincerely doubt that patrol routes would do you any good anyway. No one but those identified with the Keep are going to be allowed passage, and regardless of my personal affiliation, getting you through will not be possible. Not simply will it not be easily possible, it simply cannot be done in that manner.”
The trapper shook his head, giving a smug smile. “You don’t understand. He stood and walked over to the stag, who was still asleep beside the tree. He pulled out a well-crafted knife, turning it about in his fingers before laying the blade against the deer’s throat without even disturbing him. “I am not asking you whether you can or cannot do it in a certain way. I am telling you that you will do it, or suffer the consequences.”
“You won’t kill him,” Lois said simply. His fingers found a twig on the ground behind him and he slipped it in between the binding cords, keeping one part of the knot loose while he worked on another.
“Not immediately, no,” the poacher commented. “As you may have guessed, though, this is not the first time that I have held a knife in my hands. I am quite well versed in the art of skinning, and I could have this one tied down while I skin him one inch at a time.”
Lois snorted, laughing with a bit too honestly for his captor’s sake. The trapper stood with a scowl, flipping his knife about in his palm. He approached Lois slowly while the former slowly wound down.
“You seem quite confident for someone whose friend is about to be killed painfully,” he commented quietly. “Perhaps if I torture you we might get somewhere. Make your choice, your own torture or his.”
“Make your choice: do what I tell you to, or become women, babes and beasts within the week,” Lois shot back. “I’ve been tortured before; it would take you a long time to get me to tell you anything, and I’ll tell you right up front that what I tell you may very well just end with you and your group walking right into a trap. No, you need me alive and well because that is the only way that you’re getting through this.”
“Is it? Tell me, just how does your presence with my party help me at all if you won’t give me any way to get past the patrols?”
“I never said I wouldn’t,” Lois noted. “I simply said that the ways you had considered to get through the cordon would be ineffective. There is one way that might work out for us, however, a mutually beneficial agreement.”
“I’ve told you that I am the one in charge here,” the man commented.
“And I’ve told you why your position means so little to me. We’re both at a disadvantage; the sooner we decide that we can work together to solve our problems, the more quickly we will get to where we need to go.” Lois waited for a few moments while his captor considered, then continued. “My idea is simply this: The two of us need to get to the Keep because of my friend’s injury. You need to get to the Midlands to avoid the Curse. Both courses lead down the same road. I say that we all go together as far as the cordon, and you use our capture as the leverage you need to get through the lines. Once you’re through and safely away, you give my friend and me to the line as a fair exchange. Both of us get what we want, and neither of us needs to suffer anything more than sore legs.”
The poacher considered the proposition for a few moments. Lois took this opportunity to press the deal a bit more.
“Of course, you will need to let my friend rest on your fur cart as we travel. It’s the only way that we’ll make it south in a timely manner.”
“That, or I could finish him here, and we could all make fine time that way,” the trapper noted. The knife was still held at ready beside him.
“You could, but then there would be nothing to keep me from signaling to our allies that we should just wait until you’re halfway across before killing you,” Lois responded. He quietly broke the twig behind him and laced it through another part of the knot.
“How can I trust you not to do so even so?” the trapper asked.
“You have only my word in either case, but you also know that complying cannot hurt your chances of survival, or, for that matter, your chances of continuing manhood.” The ermine smirked. “Besides, in the one case I know I can run, while my friend cannot make good time, even with his extra legs. If we decided to kill you, it would be much easier to avoid casualties if I was alone. Besides, even with one of your men bearing the burden of the wagon it should be easy to arrive at the line within the day, provided we leave before long.”
The burly man nodded, scratching at his chin with his knife hand, close enough that Lois was certain that he must have shaved his beard with it as he considered. Presently, the man was decided.
“Very well, but you will be the one bearing the wagon. I’m sure I can get one of the men to tie you to the cart before we leave.” The poacher smiled smugly. “Perhaps they will let me skin you in that case, given that you were aiding in the transport of our furs.”
“Perhaps,” Lois agreed. “Do we have a deal, then?”
“For lack of a better idea, and since we need to move as soon as possible, I suppose. Remember, though, I am still the one in charge. If I see an opportunity to escape this damned Curse without your help, I will feel free to gut you on my way out.”
“I could hardly ask for more,” Lois replied with an exaggerated smile. “Shake on it?”
He held out one of his paws, still smiling while the poacher realized that the assassin was supposed to be bound.
While the possibility of immediate escape was ruined by Lois revealing his hands were free, it did have several effects that he had been hoping to produce. First, his captors took care to retie his hands before they moved out. He faked a few tricks, like trying to get his claws caught between the cords as they were tied, just to keep up appearances. Of course, he had no intention of showing them the hand he intended to play against them, but keeping them focused on the obvious helped distract them from the subtle adjustments he made as they tied.
His escape from his bonds also had the result of making the leader of the poaching gang reconsider his idea of letting Lois guide the cart himself. While it was, perhaps, to some advantage to be in charge of Gerard’s transportation, having one of the trappers right behind him meant that he could immediately incapacitate one of them when an opportunity to escape arose.
While the deal he had struck with the poachers would serve his purpose if he allowed it to continue to its logical conclusion, he didn’t trust any of the men to stick to their word. He wanted to be the first to break the deal if it was going to be broken, and that meant being ready for whatever opportunity might present itself.
The cart that the poachers were using ended up being hardly large enough to fit the stag into. That suited the poachers just fine; it allowed them to use the ropes that they had used to secure the stag onto the cart. Just to pour salt on the wound, almost literally, they also took the precaution of tying his broken leg to the side of the cart, so if he even tried to shift his weight he would be in pain.
Lois was not given the opportunity to speak to Gerard personally, but he did try to make eye contact to assure him wordlessly that he had things under control. The fact was, the way his captors worked gave him reason to feel confident, but he was always a little nervous any time he had to pull of some sort of escape. Wanting to get away with Gerard in tow just made things even more complicated. He was going to have to find a perfect distraction to allow a getaway, there was simply no way around it.
So he allowed himself to be guided along by the trappers, keeping a weather eye on the trees to make sure that there were no friendly patrols in the area. Yelling for help was not advisable, but if nearby allies heard a struggle, they might decide to help him. He would have to know they were close to chance it however, and all the way throughout their march through the trees he saw no one. All the patrols were doubtless making safe the border in anticipation of the Duke’s wedding. The event itself couldn’t be too far away. As well as Lois knew, it might even be tonight.
And so they kept on moving. It turned out that Lois’ initial guess as to the time it would take them to make the journey had been perhaps a bit too optimistic. With a hand-driven cart to guide through the trees they had to deal with getting it over stubborn roots, avoiding places where it could get stuck in the soft dirt, and generally going much more slowly than Lois would have preferred. They were still doing far better than when it had been left up to Gerard to hobble along on his own, but it was, nonetheless tedious, especially for one who wished to escape from his captors as soon as possible.
While he did not see any sign of Metamor patrols, he found that he caught glimpses of an open area a little beyond the trees. After a few glimpses of it, he concluded that it was the beaten path. This seemed to be a good guess, as the poachers seemed to be moving parallel to it as much as possible, so as to avoid crossing it at all. That would give Lois some safety if he managed to get out. No doubt Metamor would have patrols watching the roads at this point. While it was unlikely that anyone seeking to harm the Duke would take the roads, it was nonetheless the path of least resistance.
As night fell, the poachers showed no signs of stopping. They seemed almost as anxious to get to the southern borders of Metamor’s territory as Gerard was to get to Metamor. As the night wore on there was not even as much as the mention of stopping anywhere. One of the poachers handed out some dried meat as they walked. He skipped Lois and Gerard, not that Lois cared at this point. He wouldn’t have been able to easily eat it as it was, and even though he was hungry, he was certain that he would be able to get some food once they had escaped.
The men had long since finished their food when the leader of the group lit off his pipe. Lois looked at him curiously, but realized that the man was trying to relieve some stress, and presumably had come up with no better ideas than the plan that they were currently executing. After all, according to their plan, if they were discovered by someone that just meant that they could come out of hiding and go to the border in exchange for their prisoners. There was simply no reason to avoid any of Metamor’s patrols, and the likelihood of running into anyone else was hardly enough to merit extra caution. Ironically, Lois noted, that was essentially what he had told Gerard a few hours before they were captured.
It was, by now, the dead of night. There was an unnatural lack of sound around them. All that they could hear was the muffled plod of the men’s boots, the rattling of the fur cart’s wheels, and the grunts of the men who took turns guarding it. Usually that would make them more cautious because it meant that someone could be lying in wait, but at the moment they hoped that they would run into someone anyway. Lois had come to this conclusion a few hours ago, and since had ignored the poachers’ lack of attention to their surroundings. Instead, he noticed when the leader suddenly stopped, staring off into the distance with a look of extreme consternation. Lois followed his eyes, readying himself in case it provided the distraction he needed. Instead, he found his own eyes widening as he saw a gleaming wall surging through the forest towards them, moving at an amazing speed. The unnatural glow that surrounded the wall grew brighter as it grew closer, until, just after Lois braced or impact, it rolled over them like a wave…
Lois blinked. He had expected something to happen when the magical wall hit him, but nothing was apparent. That is, nothing was apparent until he saw his captors. Where the leader had stood, a woman stumbled back against a tree, dropping the pipe that she had held between her fingers. In front of the cart a child had fallen forward after losing the strength needed to pull it. All of the others were similarly changed.
Well, they were certainly distracted…
Lois twisted sideways, easily escaping from the surprised tiger behind him, loosing his hands from his bonds in the same motion. He threw an elbow below the changed poacher’s belt, and scrambled to the cart in a rush. He caught the handles as solidly as he could on the run and threw his back into it. He didn’t expect to outrun his enemies for long like this, but the hope was that he would get enough separation from them that he could turn and defend himself.
He pulled, intending to turn when he heard them following, but several moments after first taking control of the cart he still heard no signs of pursuit. He made for the road, then, intent on making sure that any attack would end up costing them far more than it did him. He was almost certain now that he heard the sounds of pursuit behind him.
The wheels of the carts bounced roughly over the edge of the beaten pathway, and Lois turned and jumped into the cart’s bed, jumping across the surprised stag and recovering his weapons from where he had seem them hidden while he was being tied, under a pile of furs in the back. He breathed heavily from the effort, but stayed calm for several minutes, waiting…
No one ever came. Lois finally calmed down. He looked at Gerard and gave a small smile before looking back to the south to try to find the source of the strange magical wave. There was nothing visible to the south but the horizon. Even the Keep was still hidden from this far north, even if they had reached the beaten path. Looking north was similarly futile. The wave had gone as quickly as it came.
Lois voiced the thought that was on both of their minds. “What in all he hells was that?”
No answer was forthcoming from the stag for several reasons, and Lois himself did not have enough of an idea to even venture a guess. After a few more moments making sure that the poachers didn’t show themselves anymore, Lois hopped down out of the cart. He braced himself, gripping the handles for a few moments, and then threw his back into it, taking a few short steps before he was able to maintain a reasonable pace.
Having missed any sort of meals for the past few days, and whatever untold amount of time he had been unconscious, Lois was beginning to feel fatigued. They couldn’t be far now, though. If he kept his legs moving, he would be able to finally rest and take some refreshment when they ran into the patrol cordon.
And keeping his legs moving was perhaps the only thing he was able to think of by the time the sun started to rise in the east. He groaned as he continued to pull his friend’s weight, but he wasn’t about to let himself fail now.
He almost ran headlong into the Keepers who stood blocking the path as he approached, as he had been pulling with his head down, and Gerard was simply trying to rest. As soon as he saw their strange, changed faces, he collapsed, laughing weakly as he managed to come to his knees. He barely heard the patrolmen calling for someone to come take a look at them in the background, and only slightly more clearly heard the Keeper in front of him ask if he was all right.
“Need to get to the Keep,” Lois managed. Actually, he was beginning to feel a little bit better, but he felt no need to say why they needed to get to the Keep. With some good fortune the men would simply take them back inside the walls without asking what was so urgent. They had likely been told not to break the cordon except in emergencies, and getting Gerard home to see his family hardly seemed to qualify.
As he had hoped, no one inquired further, and he was able to rest up against the side of the fur cart, breathing freely without some sense of urgency for the first time in what felt like months. His first patrol for the Keep had doubtless been one worthy of remembrance. He certainly hoped that very few more of them would be quite so interesting.
After he was captured by the poachers, Gerard had almost killed himself trying to escape. He spent hours trying to find a way to escape, from changing his forehooves back into something close enough to hands to actually work a knot, to blindly yanking at the ropes that bound him. He was too exhausted to do the first quickly, though, and the trappers were paying quite enough attention to him to make sure that he wasn’t able to complete any such attempt. Pulling at the ropes, meanwhile, had nearly strangled him, and yet the knots still held. In the end he collapsed, despairing of all hope. He would not be able to reach his family in time for the Yule.
When he came to as he was being loaded onto the cart, he renewed his struggles. Lois caught his eye, however, and Gerard could see the self-assured look behind the assassin’s eyes. Gerard decided that he would get no more from struggling than he would from staying still, and so decided to stay where he was while the group loaded him onto their wagon of furs. As an extra precaution, they cruelly looped a rope around his broken leg, forcing him to injure himself further if he decided to attempt any further escapes.
Being transported in a cart that was already full of empty furs and dangerous traps was hardly a comforting feeling. For all Gerard knew, the poachers intended to turn the hides of both Keepers into a profit in a similar fashion. The thought made Gerard’s skin crawl, but there was little to be done for it at the moment. Hopefully Lois had a reason to be confident; otherwise they would find out before long exactly what the men intended.
He found the ensuing trek exhausting. He was doing little more than resting himself, but he could not find any way to fully fall asleep. He couldn’t even remember how many days it had been since they had attacked the lutin encampment. Without even this reference point, he could not figure out how long he had before the Yule. For all he knew, it had long since passed them by, and he was now only fighting to reach Metamor alive.
The wave of magic caught him completely by surprise. By the time he noticed that the man pulling the cart had stopped, he only had enough time to look up into the advancing wall. He was certain it was over for all of them. He braced himself, waiting for at least some sort of pain to follow the wave’s arrival, but never felt anything.
When the shouting started, he did his best to try to see what was happening, but he was tied down in such a way that he couldn’t see what Lois was doing. What he could see was that the cart’s driver had mysteriously disappeared, and the trapper that had been watching the wheels on the right side was now partly hyena. Before Gerard even had a reasonable amount of time for this to register, the wagon was yanked roughly away from its stationary position. Lois had taken hold of the handles and was furiously pulling the cart through the trees.
Gerard was not foolish enough to believe or even hope that Lois could outrun their enemies for long, but as they grew farther and farther from the trappers, they could hear nothing that indicated that they might be pursued. Gerard turned carefully to avoid injuring his leg, and saw nothing but the dark forest stretching out behind them.
Lois stopped immediately after reaching the road, making sure that no one was following them. He waited there for several minutes, eyes and ears twitching about in an attempt to catch any sign of pursuit.
When no one came, Lois took a few moments to settle his nerves, but didn’t stay put for long. He began to pull them along down the road as quickly as he could, pressing his paws deeply into the road in an attempt to make good time. Gerard was still in shock at this point; he hardly understood what had just happened. Had Lois set something up so that they could escape? He had thought that the man had no magical talent. In that case, did he somehow know when the wave would hit? Had they simply been astoundingly lucky?
He was so surprised that it wasn’t until the sun started to put in an appearance that he realized how little any of those questions really matter. They had escaped! That meant that they were headed back towards the Keep again! He turned to look down the road, eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of the walls. They would make it back to the Keep soon, they had to.
The appearance of Metamor’s guards made his heart skip for joy. While Lois was clearly exhausted, the stag felt nothing but a desire to leap out and run down the road. They couldn’t be far off now!
Still, he had to wait for a good while before they were even allowed to move again. Gerard was untied and helped out of the cart, while several of the other patrolmen unloaded a supply wagon that would provide a faster, safer method of transport for the two men. As they waited for this to finish, a field medic checked on their injuries. He said nothing to Gerard, but his face was grim after he looked at the leg. All Gerard discovered about the injury aside from that was that the medic recommended waiting until Coe got a good look at it. They would withhold any attempts at diagnosis in the meantime.
As the medic worked on Lois, Gerard spied something that the ermine had hid from him to this point. It was a bound wound to his chest. Despite the uncleanliness of the area, it seemed to have mostly healed. Still, by what Gerard could see of it, there was no way that it had been a comfortable southward march for the assassin. The medic tended to it, cleaning the area and replacing the bandages. All the while Lois spoke quietly to one of the other patrolmen, grimacing every so often as the medic would press a bit too hard, but never addressing the medic directly to complain of it. He noticed Gerard watching before too long and nodded to him, giving him a small smile. They were both slowly coming to realize that they had succeeded in their southward trek. It was just a matter of the short hop back to the Keep, and they would be home.
The wagon was finally emptied of its contents, and Lois and Gerard jumped in while one of the patrolmen guided the wagon back to the Keep. No one came as an escort; if the cordon was doing its job, no one would have to. Still, it left just the two of them and their driver on the road, and left the last leg of their journey feeling almost as lonely as the rest had been.
Lois was quietly eating something that the men had been able to provide while they were stopped. Gerard had been offered something, thoughtfully prepared with his feral form in mind, but he had hardly touched it. Even though he logically should be starving, the concept of returning home made him lose all desire to eat.
He watched the road for a while, but finally ended up falling asleep during the ride. The stag was simply too tired to resist the urge to sleep. He was still dozing when they entered the gates, and Lois had to gently prod him to bring him back around once they had fully come to a stop.
All Gerard wanted to do once they stepped out into the city was to find out what day it was and rush home as quickly as he could. There was simply no convincing Lois or their driver, however. They insisted that his leg should be treated before he went anywhere, and he found that, no matter how he tried, he could think of no way to counter their assertions. His leg was a priority. He just hoped the healer could work quickly.
As the healer at Metamor, Coe’s life was seldom boring at all. The atmosphere around the Keep was such that he had to deal with many injuries a day. Many people avoided seeing him if possible, as field medics and mages were often skilled enough to deal with most patrol-related injuries. Still, he managed to have a reasonably active workplace almost every day, whether he was dealing with diseases or injuries or anything in between. This meant that whenever he was asked to come quickly, it was most likely a reasonably urgent case.
When he saw the stag, still in feral form, he could see why he had been summoned. The deer’s hind leg looked horrible; if they were going to have any chance of saving it, they needed to move quickly. This he concluded without ever having touched the injury or inspected it. It simply looked that bad.
Standing in the room beside the stag was an interesting ferret-like creature, still decked out in his patrol gear, and from the look of it, fresh back from a grueling patrol. As the patient seemed to be in no position to speak for himself, the raccoon turned and asked his companion to explain what had happened.
“We ran into a little trouble up north,” the man said. Whether from exhaustion or force of habit after a long patrol, the man’s voice was muted. “A lutin shaman shattered his leg using some sort of magic. I did what I could to keep it steady, but there was only so much I could do given the resources I had.”
The healer nodded. He looked at the deer for half a second, and then turned back to the other man. He wanted to be able to address the patient, and so began to ask the ferret man what the stag’s name was. He was cut off, however, when the man pushed past him with a shout.
“Gerard, stop! You’re not helping anything!” Coe turned and saw why the ermine was yelling. The stag had begun to shrink down, evidently shifting into his more humanoid form. The leg, already grossly misshapen, shifted even more awkwardly as the shifting continued. Coe added his own protests when he saw what was happening, but the Gerard was not going to be deterred.
After several minutes, the grunts of a deer were slowly supplemented with, and then replaced by, the yells of a man in great pain. He was laying down now, hoof-hands grasping as nothing and flat teeth grinding as he forced the changes to their conclusion. Finished, he collapsed completely, panting from the exertion.
“You fool!” his companion yelled. “Your leg is plenty ruined enough without you injuring it further.”
“Sor—Sorry. Need—” The stag gasped, hardly able to get two words out at a time.
“Calm down and catch your breath,” Coe ordered. He settled down beside the man’s leg, carefully working paws along its length until he could feel the broken bones. The cuts he assumed came at the same time as the break were old enough that the bone would have started to fuse together again, but he could feel the breaks clearly, and they still shifted as though they were fresh. Perhaps the stubborn deer had done him a favor, he mused to himself. If the leg could indeed be saved, he would have had to re-break it to set it correctly as it was.
The raccoon healer called for a razor, and soon was shaving away the fur from around the cuts. What he saw made him bite his lip. It wasn’t pretty; the injuries had become infected, and it was already advancing quickly. They would have to work fast to save what they could, and there was no guarantee that they would be able to save much at all.
His patient was finally able to catch his breath, a small wonder on its own as Coe had not been afraid to press a little bit on the wound. As Coe continued his inspection, Gerard finally completed his explanation.
“Lois, I’m sorry,” he said, clipping his sentence short. “I need – I need arms, Lois. I need to be able to hold my wife. I need to be able to hug my children.”
The white-furred creature said nothing, but a sidelong glance revealed that he was nodding. Coe shook his head with a smile he simply could not suppress. “Your wife and children will have to wait for a little while longer, I’m afraid,” he announced. “Don’t worry, though, I’ll get you to them before the Yule.”
The stag snapped his head in the raccoon’s direction, lips quivering. “What day is it?” he asked breathlessly.
“It’s Yule’s Eve,” the healer responded. “You must have been pretty far gone if you didn’t notice the wedding preparations.”
Gerard paid no mind to the healer anymore, instead looking at Lois with a pained, but genuinely relieved, smile. “We made it,” he gasped. He laid his head hack on the ground, antlers clicking softly as they touched the stone. “We made it,” he repeated.
Lois nodded, leaning up against the wall. He expected that just being back would be enough for him, but finding out that they had succeeded in returning in time for the Yule had an unexpected effect on him. He had not expected to care at all about when they got back, but the revelation made him feel like a tremendous burden had been lifted from his shoulders. For whatever reason, he found that he actually cared about making it in time for Gerard to keep his promise. He leaned his head back and smiled. Perhaps the journey had been worth the trouble after all.
Somehow Alex had managed to shut out the chaos that surrounded the wedding preparations since his resignation a little less than a week ago now. He had wandered back and forth between his small apartment and the various eating establishments that he used to survive between patrols. Every now and again he would take a detour to the training grounds to spend a little time tuning up, while secretly keeping one ear one the other people in the area with him in vain hope that someone would have heard news of Gerard and Lois.
He never spent long in training, either. While his personal guilt drove him to better itself, the training area that he always used had been one of the places he had most often seen Gerard. Memories refused to let him linger there, but they kept him coming back as well. At once they drew him to that place and drove him out.
The celebration of the Duke’s wedding was well underway when he awoke halfway through a night’s rest on the eve of the Yule. On such a day he would usually have a few drinks at the Mule, probably with Gerard and a few fellows before the former returned, as sober as could be, back to celebrate the season with his family. The lynx felt no end of sorrow at the thought of the stag’s wife waiting by the window, listening for her husband to work the latch on the door, and never seeing him. She knew by now that Gerard had been declared missing in action, but love would still offer her hope; one that Alex could do nothing to justify.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and tried to settle his mind for a few moments. Nothing helped, though. The thought of Gerard’s family waiting for his return, ever more hopeless even as the city celebrated around them, drove Alex to do something.
So he dressed himself in his finest clothes, both in honor of his visit and for the sake of the celebration, and set off down the halls, looking for the gate that would lead him to the town. The way that the sounds of revelry seemed to shift around him was almost dizzying. It seemed as though the strange nature of the Keep’s geometry was sending him first within a dozen feet of a few joyous people, only to send him to the other side of the Keep on his next step. He frowned as it took longer and longer for him to reach the outlet gate. Only seldom was Kyia this slow in granting him his desired destination. Had she any apparent limitations within the walls, he would have suspected that the constant flow of revelers was keeping her too busy. At any rate, he wandered through the curiously empty halls alone, hoping each moment that the next turn was the last.
When Kyia finally saw fit to let him leave the upper Keep, however, he nearly collided with an onrushing child. He began to chide her, only to find that it was Lucy, looking more than a bit disheveled.
“Alex! They’ve returned!” she cried, her lack of breath seemingly an inconvenience minor enough to ignore. It took Alex a few moments to register exactly what she had just told him, but once he realized what the words meant, he had to make sure he was not misunderstanding.
“Who, Lucy? Who has returned?”
“Gerard! Gerard and Lois both! They’re alive!”
He slumped against a near wall, sliding down it until he landed solidly at the bottom. The fact that he had pinched his short tail in performing this action seemed of little note to him. A rush of emotions flooded through him, not the least of which was relief. He ran a paw down the back of his neck, breath coming in short gasps; he felt as though he had been holding a single breath since he caught his last glimpse of Gerard through the trees, and only now had been able to let it out. A crushing weight had been lifted from his chest, and he was finally able to breathe freely.
Lucy was far less subdued in her relief. Her face was lit up and she laughed giddily. While no tears were flowing now, their trails were still clearly visible on her face. She didn’t ask Alex if he was feeling all right, or whether she could help him with something. Instead she simply waited for him to recover.
Several moments passed with neither of them speaking. People came and went around them, all wearing their best clothing in honor of the day’s festivities. A few gave the two a sidelong glance, and every once in a while some people would stare and shake their heads, unable or unwilling to figure out what might be going on. It wasn’t until about ten minutes after the news had been delivered that anyone actually stopped.
Breathless and somehow managing to sweat in the cold northern winter was a young boy. He took several moments to gain his breath before saying anything. He seemed old enough to be Cursed, and perhaps a bit too old to have received the age element of the Curse. When he finally managed to catch his breath, he nodded to Alex before speaking.
“I have a message, sir,” he said. “I believe you may already know, but it is my duty to carry my message without question, so I will do so. Gerard Oakthane and Vincent Lois send greetings. They asked me to tell you that they arrived safely this morning, and both are in good health.”
Alex nodded and looked at Lucy for a moment, managing a smile. “He told you, too. You ran ahead of him.” It was a statement of fact, not a question, and Lucy nodded in response.
“I had to tell you as quickly as I could,” she explained.
Alex nodded, finally standing once more. “Well, if Gerard is back, then he will be spending the evening with his family. I wouldn’t want to interrupt that for the world.” He smiled at Lucy. “What say we go drink to our friends’ safe return? Perhaps sing a few inappropriate songs to no one in particular.”
“I could do that,” she said, smiling impishly. “Well, the drink, anyway.”
Alex laughed, an action that felt almost as good as hearing the news that their friends had returned safely. He staggered one step, steadied himself, and, nodding to the messenger, walked off into Keeptowne with Lucy close behind. There was still time for some celebration.
Gerard hobbled down the streets of the town, patiently waiting as other people crossed in front of him. He looked absolutely out of place among the revelers, hobbling down the road on a single crutch, leg freshly bandaged, and wearing simple clothing that had been provided upon leaving the healer’s. The raccoon had insisted on him bathing, lest anything that might have been festering in some other minor wound more seriously infect his leg wound, and while he did not feel at all like one of those that milled around him the simply feeling of clean fur made him feel infinitely better than when he had first arrived.
He finally reached the small house that he had left those many weeks before to go on this fateful patrol. He grasped a familiar knot in the wood with one of his hand, rough nails sliding over its uneven surface. That he could feel it told him that he was not dreaming, but everything else seemed to point him to the opposite conclusion. How could they possibly have made it?
And in a moment he realized something that shocked and humbled him. All the while, throughout the last or two that they had spent in the wilderness, fighting for their lives, he had never once cried out to ask Eli for His help. Gerard looked up into the crisp night sky, whispering a short prayer for forgiveness, and of thanks for their safety. He would see Hough later to more fully deal with the situation, but he was sure that Eli, in His grace, would grant him this night for celebration.
From the moment that a familiar, tearstained face greeted his knocks on the door, he ceased to wonder, or even truly, to care if this was still a dream. He simply held his wife close, pulling her completely from the ground, leaning against the doorframe to support his injured leg. Eli’s grace truly was wonderful, even if he had been too self-centered to notice.
Lois stood outside a solid oaken door inside the halls of the main keep. He had set off with Gerard when the stag had left to see his wife, intending to part paths before reaching the man’s home in order to give him privacy. As it turned out, Kyia decided to separate them a little while earlier than they had perhaps expected, and Lois lost track of his companion before they had even left the upper Keep. Now after twenty minutes more of walking, he stood before a particular door in consternation.
He was no stranger to Kyia’s power over the Keep, but this was the first time that she had actively worked to keep him from leaving her domain. As it was, he had only just now realized that this door had been popping up every few turns since Gerard had left. It was always on the left side, always standing stubbornly shut, and always showing very little in the way of distinguishing features. Lois had found a particular interplay of the grain that he could identify, however, and had finally decided that it had always been the same door.
And so he concluded that there was a reason that Kyia was keeping him from reaching his room at the inn, and decided to find out exactly what was going on. He carefully worked the latch, only slightly surprised that it was unlocked, and pressed it open.
Beyond was a private room. It was not luxurious by any meaning of the word; a well-worn wooden desk sat against the far wall, while to his left a low bed, little more than a straw mattress with some blankets to hide the stray strands atop it. On his right, however, were several things that were oddly familiar.
A quick inspection showed that everything that he had left in the inn had been moved to this room. The chest, otherwise undisturbed, was set up along the wall, with the few supplies he had removed from it arranged neatly on and around it. Atop it was a small piece of parchment that looked like it might have been ripped from a paper meant for wrapping meat. Scrawled on it with legible but poor handwriting was a small note.
Lois: Received instruction to move your supplies to a permanent residence this morning. Welcome home.
It was signed by the keeper of the inn, and attached to the final bill for his room. Not a day extra was charged; the day his supplies had been moved was the day he had left. He looked about the room, taking a deep breath, taking in the smells of the room. Somehow everything felt right. There was nothing special about the room itself, but having it furnished in any way was more than he truly needed. With a sigh, he bent down and carefully unlocked his chest, pulling from it a few items before stepping over to the desk and setting them down. Setting them in a vaguely organized pattern around a central writing area, he sat down with a sigh. Rest would come in a moment. He had much to write.
And yet, with some chagrin, he found that his journal was nowhere to be found. He had not used it since the ill-fated attack on the lutin encampment, but he had been almost certain that he still had it. Then he saw the coat pocket he usually placed it in, and understood why it was lost. It had been perforated by the same blade that had opened the gash in his side.
Sighing, he slipped back to his chest and drew out another small book, of the same size, and indeed, the same binding as his original journal. Scrawled on the pages were all manner of strange things, from sketches he used to plan maneuvers he could use in his work, to small snippets he had copied from books, to various experiments into writing in one of the southern tongues. Flipping past all these he found a blank page, and began to write.