Alchemist (23 page)

“Still, I think
I’ll feel safer the further we are away from here.” Connor said
anxiously.

“We should go down
there first and have a look.”

She suddenly
realised how ashen Connor had turned.

He drew an uneasy
breath. “I don’t think I want to go down there after the last
one.”

“Okay.” Terry
said. She looked at Darius, who shook his head. “Alright, I’ll be
back shortly. Keep an eye out.” And so she went on alone.

A strong,
putrid smell filled her nostrils as she approached the smouldering
briary. As an Alchemist she was used to the smell of death because
of all the creatures and people she had slain over the years to
fill her stomach. Usually she ate her prey as soon as it was dead
and quite often, while it was still alive and freshly caught. She
felt the hunger stir in her, but it was muted. Her skin itched
slightly, her body ready to shed the guise of human flesh for her
true form.
Why was this happening more
frequently?
Stopping, she closed her eyes. She drew a
deep breath, the smoky air rushing into her lungs. Then she
exhaled, opening them again. The sensations were gone. She turned
her nose up at the stench. This time her stomach knotted in
revulsion.
Definitely all here now,
she thought
.

She began looking
around the battlefield. Broken spears and bows littered the muddy
ground with the odd tribesman lying among the blood soaked grass
blades. Whatever happened here, the fight had been one-sided.

She crouched
alongside one of the bodies. The tattered blue headband the man
wore told her that this had been the
Iok
tribe, one of several that lived in the
borders between Alchemist territory and the Southlands. Terry
sighed and wiped her eyes, suddenly feeling tired.
Who had done this to them? And why were they so
many miles away from home?
None of it made any sense.
She had never heard of the tribes venturing so far south before.
She stood up. Gingerly placing the tip of her shoe on the body, she
rolled him over. Blank, glassy eyes stared at the sky. She crouched
down, examining the wound on his stomach. She felt at the torn
bloody flesh and felt. He was killed by a blade. An Alchemist
blade. Terry stood and went to examine another one of the bodies
that had not been added to the cairn, only to find the same thing.
Her worst fears had been confirmed. It was exactly the same as the
previous tribe they had found slaughtered in the desert.

Returning to the
hillside she was greeted only by questions. “What did you find?”
Connor asked, walking to meet her.

She shook her
head, looking back down the hill. “It was Alchemists.”

Connor froze.
“What? Who?”

“
I couldn’t
tell, I couldn’t get a scent. All I could smell was burned
flesh.”

Her friend gave
her an uneasy look. “It has got to be the same people.”

“I don’t know.”
She said, walking on the way she had originally intended. “But what
I also don’t understand is how this tribe got so far from
home.”

“What about the
bodies?” asked Darius, running after them.

Terry sighed but
she did not look back. “We don’t have the time. We have to find my
father. He needs to know.”

******

The sun was
beginning to kiss the horizon as they reached the edge of the Gyris
Mountains. The foothills had given way to a series of hillocks and
beyond them, a highway and pockets of civilisation. Lanterns
flickered in the evening gloom from the villages and towns that lay
scattered across the vista before them.

“So what’s the
plan?” Connor asked, wiping his beleaguered face.

Terry looked at
him. The last few days travel were beginning to show. “What do you
mean?” she asked.

He gave a long
sigh and shut his eyes, allowing Terry to see how dark the circles
had become around his sockets. “Well, are we going to stay in a
tavern tonight or are we still trying to avoid everyone?”

She shrugged. “I
don’t care anymore, I need a shower.” Terry was a little tired
herself but generations of digging and hunting over great distances
had leant her endurance where her companions began to falter. One
of her few vices was the want to wash her flesh every so often. Her
ancestors had been harder than her in that respect, but nearly a
decade spent amongst the humans and the lick of soap every day was
a habit that was difficult to kick.

Something tugged
at the back of her mind, causing her head to ache. She closed her
eyes, wiping them with her hand. The voice called again, this time
grabbing at her with more force, hot and angry. Terry shook her
head, batting the thoughts away. With a flash of anger it
retreated.

It was the fourth
time that day the fractured piece of her mind had reached for her
conscious and each time it had got louder and been harder to fend
off. Days ago it had been a dull voice at the back of her head but
now it was constantly trying to stir.

“Terry?” It was
Darius. He was walking alongside her but he sounded as if he was
talking to her from far away.

She blinked at
him, slightly dazed. “What?” she asked.

Darius sighed
angrily. “I was asking you what we were going to do if someone saw
us? What if they phone the Kamari?”

Terry stared at
him for a long moment. His concerns seemed trivial to her;
irritating. She did not know why. She gave a lazy shrug. “What are
the Kamari really going to do? If they did catch us we’d just be
deported again. It might be to the border or it might be to Earth,
either way they’d actually be doing us a favour.”

The colour drained
from him. “Deported? But I’ve not done anything wrong.”

Connor looked at
him, his expression grim. “I’m sorry to say this but you have. You
ran off with a fugitive, in any court you’d be guilty by
association.”

“But...I haven’t
done anything! I know the law they can’t do that, surely?” He began
to protest.

Terry rolled her
eyes. More than anything she wanted to rip his throat out just to
shut him up. “Darius!” she snapped and the young man grew silent.
She turned to face him. “Just...” she said, closing her eyes and
taking a deep breath. It was there, tugging at her again.
“Just...calm down...please.” she said quietly, holding a hand out
to him. That said she turned away, walking on.

Connor and the
water elemental exchanged shocked glances. But when words failed
them to describe what had just happened they could do nothing but
follow the angry Alchemist onward down the slope.

******

The hour was late;
but despite the silence and stillness of the night in the world
outside their window, Terry found herself waking. She sat up, the
quilt falling from her. She peered about the room, seeing as
clearly as day despite it being swallowed in gloom. Connor and
Darius both slept soundly in their beds.

Rubbing at her
eyes, Terry pushed herself to her feet. She stepped across the
room, her steps muffled by carpet. She opened the window to the
back of the room, which opened out onto a narrow back alley.

Through the
darkness she saw two large eyes glinting at her. Smiling, she
raised a finger to her mouth and turned away. Crossing back to
where Connor lay, she shook him awake.

“What?” he
mumbled, groggy with sleep. He could see her smiling, despite the
dark. “Our lift’s here.”

A few minutes
later they were heading out of town on the backs of two primeval
Alchemists, flanked by an armoured escort on quiet, human feet.
Terry rode on her father’s back with Darius, while Connor rode on
Lyle’s, reunited with Faye. The two giants strolled out of town,
along the backstreets and away from the lantern street lights, as
to not draw any unwanted attention.

Terry lay with her
back propped up against the base of her father’s long neck. Darius
sat slightly further down, leaning against one of his many,
oversized back spikes.

“Are you feeling
any better?” Terry asked. Darius opened his eyes, he had been
dozing. “What?” he asked, only half-hearing. “Oh, sorry, yeah, a
bit. Thanks.” He rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, I think I fell asleep
there.”

“It’s okay. I’m
thinking about nodding off myself.” She replied, shifting into a
more comfortable position. “You don’t mind do you dad?” Fallo made
no reply.

Darius gazed off
into the darkness. The town was silent. He imagined the hundreds of
townsfolk who lay sound asleep in their beds at this late hour.
Then he thought how crazy it was that a king was passing by so many
of their doors and that they would never know. He looked back at
Terry, his thoughts turning back to the stories he had heard about
her.

“Can I tell you
something?” he asked.

Terry opened her
eyes. “Yeah?”

“You know the
other day I said that you were nothing like how I imagined you
would be?”

Terry had a dim
recollection from down by the river, but the conversation was hazy
at best; another symptom from her head injury. “Yeah...I think so.”
She shuffled about. “Sorry if I don’t remember it all. It’s like
I’ve told you before, I remember very little when I’m in that
form.”

She saw him nod
through the dark. “It’s ok.” He said. “If you don’t remember I was
a little rude about it.” He bit his lip, thinking of how to phrase
what he was going to say next. “It’s just... rowing up there were
all sorts of stories about you and how you defeated Edward. You
were legends.”

Terry
smirked at that. “I like your choice of words. I would never
describe any of us lot as
legends
.”

Darius flushed,
suddenly embarrassed. “I just mean that’s the way people talked
about you.” He shrugged. “Sorry, I’m not explaining it very well.
What I was trying to say is that in reality you are all so much
more down to earth, you know what I mean?”

It was Terry’s
turn to shrug. “They would have started saying the same things
about anyone who had killed him.” She laid her head back down
against Fallo. “People have a lot to say about what happened and
most of that is complete shit to be honest.”

He shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter. You still stopped the most wanted man on the
planet.”

Terry sighed
tiredly. “No we didn’t Darius. He’s still out there, god knows
doing what.” Her gaze grew distant.

“You’ll stop him
again.”

“Yeah...I hope
so.” She said. But she doubted her own words.

******

Terry couldn’t
move much when she woke. Her father, still in his primeval form,
was cuddling her against his chest. Feeling her movement, he
unrolled, letting her go. He craned his head over her, gazing at
her with those big, amber eyes of his. He squeaked in greeting.
Terry reached up and patted his muzzle. “Morning.” She smiled. He
squeaked again. She stood and stretched.

The sun was
already well up, peeping through the warehouse windows. She felt
like she could sleep for a month. But if they were going to get
back to the safety of the borders they would have to get moving
again. She knew sleep would have to wait.

Fallo and Lyle had
walked late into the night before stopping to rest in an abandoned
industrial estate on the outskirts of a small town. They were still
at least two hundred miles or so north of Marrich and one hundred
more from the borders. Even if the two of them ran flat out, it
would still take nearly two days for them to reach the border and
they had already travelled such a distance to find Terry and her
small band of travellers. She knew realistically that it would be
another three or four days before they finally reached safe
territory. Terry’s father had incredible stamina, but Lyle and the
soldiers were not any stronger than any others of their race, which
was slowly their progress.

“Morning.” called
Connor, sliding the old, rusty warehouse door down behind him with
some difficulty. His presence drew gazes from the resting soldiers
but none of them spoke a word.

“Where have you
been?”

Connor looked
surprised. “I went for a pee.”

Faye stopped
brushing her hair and shut the compact mirror she had with her. She
wrinkled her nose at him. “I did not need to know that, thank
you.”

Connor shrugged.
“She asked.”

Faye rolled
her eyes and flipped open the mirror, resuming her beautifying.
“
Men
.”

Connor and Terry
exchanged glances.

Looking about
Terry noticed that the other water elemental was unaccounted for.
“Where’s Darius?”

Faye shot Connor a
glance. “Outside.” He said. It was obvious from his expression that
he did not wish to say more.

Terry nodded.
“Ok.” She sat back down, pressing her back against her dad. He had
lay back down to rest again. “I take it no one has any food?” she
asked, putting the question to the floor.

Faye shut her
compact, pushing it into her trouser pocket. “I’m afraid not, we
left in somewhat of a hurry.” She replied, somewhat unpleased.
“Since then I have only eaten what your father or uncle have caught
and that was not a lot.”

“It’s a good thing
we had those pies and chips last night at the tavern then?” Connor
said to no-one in particular as he scratched absently at the
stubble on his chin. He had showered at the hotel the evening
before but had been too lazy to shave, opting to do it first thing
in the morning. There unexpected midnight flight had dashed that
want.

Terry smirked at
him. “You’ve nearly got a beard.”

Connor continued
to rub at it. “You like it?”

Terry turned back
to Faye, still laughing. “You must have something left.”

She shot her a
dark look. “Do you see a bag? Like I said, we left in somewhat of a
hurry.” She began brushing the dust from her trousers.