~
They came upon Port City Condor long after the full moon’s ascension.
What waited for them through the town gates bathed in the blue of night, were long silhouettes of stone buildings with thatched roofs, spanning down a hill with the moon’s glittering visage rippling in the vast, black sea, lapping beyond.
For a moment, Regina wondered if the city was abandoned as she gazed sleepily upon the darkened windows and emptied streets.
“They’ve all gone to bed,” she said aloud, and wondered what time it was. As a child, her parents had taught her how to read time by the position of the sun and moon, but Regina had forgotten all that now, with the advent of clock stores since Prime Minister Lablanche’s formed Vida’s current government.
With a tug on her horse’s rein, the heretic led Regina down the winding streets of the hilled port city. There was an encampment just before Condor’s shipping docks that, to Regina’s tired eyes, looked like a cluster of green circus tents.
Only that part of town saw life, as animals dressed in Alliance military armour stood at each glowing entry. A circle of four grunts sat around a dirt mound outside of the lights’ gaze, playing a game of cards with their maces leaned against an out-of-sight tree.
“You’re not taking us there to get a boat, are you?!” Regina suddenly hissed in wide-awake realization.
“Clam it, before they hear you!” hissed the heretic in a low voice. “I have the archers’ slips, remember? It’s the only way – their outpost also runs the docks here. Besides, they won’t arrest you in any case. Nobody knows who you are except for those slain in Altas Forest.”
“You don’t know that!” Regina insisted, more about the docks than her own identity – although that was also a thorn of strong contention in her mind as well.
The skunk’s shoulders lurched forward when the heretic gave a harder tug on her horse’s reins. As she and the heretic neared the Alliance outpost, the two grunts that guarded the main tent came to meet them.
The heretic showed one of the grunts the stolen ID slips from his pouch. “We need to get across to Syreen, in the Earth Region.”
“I’ll ask Sergeant Misty to let you through,” said the guard, and slipped inside the main tent with the identification.
“Those are some mighty scrapes you got there, soldiers,” the second guard nodded at the dents and deep cracks in the armour Regina and the heretic wore.
Regina brushed a hand over the long cleft in her chest plate, where the heretic had lobbed a hunting knife at the archer who had worn it before.
“Did you hear about what happened to Sergeant Aruto?” Regina heard one of the grunts from the shadowy circle of card-players say. “Found dead in some shrine in the Altas Forest, with a swordsman and couple o’ archers.”
“Doblah find the beggar who did it, and slit his gullet,” said another of the four grunts as he laid a card between them. Know who did it?”
“We were ambushed by bandits on our way here,” said the heretic to the guard before him and Regina. “We taught them though, didn’t we, Mullin?”
“Huh?” Regina blinked. “Oh … yeah…”
The first guard returned from the main tent and granted the disguised rogues’ access to Syreen.
The card-players’ voices faded as Regina and the heretical fox trotted down a short hill that led to the marina, just beyond the Alliance outpost.
There were a number of boats tied to the stone docks, but to Regina’s dismay none of them were Alliance airships.
The heretic led her horse over to a small wooden jalopy with a single mast, docked between two larger vessels.
The heretic helped Regina off her horse, and then led their steeds over to the marina’s gate. After he tied the horses up in the shadows where they wouldn’t be noticed for the moment, the heretic came back to the boat, and both he and Regina boarded.
“You can ditch the armour now,” the heretic said after they shipped off. He wrenched off the horned helmet, and tossed it into the Gabriel Sea.
“Won’t we need the armour when we reach Syreen?” Regina yawned, although the thought of being caught and accused of treason alongside the heretic still frightened her.
“My presence hasn’t been made public knowledge – and even so, nobody knows we’ve left Galheist Region yet,” the heretic explained as he peeled off layers of the Alliance gear – dropping each piece into the water, one by one, with loud splashes. “By the time Lablanche realizes we’ve crossed the sea, we’ll have already been to Garia, and I’ll already be on my way to Doblah.”
“And what about me?” Regina asked.
“What about you?” the heretic replied, slipping off the final piece of armour – his left gauntlet – and letting it drop into the ocean with a wet and heavy thunk! “As I said before, nobody knows about you except for that grunt general back in Altas, who’s likely taken up a grain scythe by now instead of his spear. As long as our trek goes well, you’ll live to see your Dwain again.”
~
“Regina ... Regina Lepue...
“Hear us out, from the depths of our respective sanctums. You must seek us out from our holy resting places and bring us together to repel the evil that is brewing in the mountains…
“Please ... we beg of you. Evil lurks in the shadows, and unless we are brought together by one of a pure heart, evil’s clutch will forever bind us together, draining our power for the use of turmoil and despair.
“...Find us ... please … find us.”
She woke with a jolt as soon as she felt the chill of the wind kiss her cheek.
At first glance, the fog-blanketed water around her startled the skunk, but then she remembered where she was: swaying back and forth in the dingy boat, in the middle of the Gabriel Sea.
Regina let out a sharp breath. She wasn’t at all used to the heavy sway of the water underneath her. She gripped both sides of the boat as tightly as the Alliance gauntlets she wore would let her.
The heretical fox lay against the boat’s bow with legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles, his heels against the base of the boat’s mast. His fluffy tail was twisted up around his waist, laying across his stomach, and his paws were folded over his chest.
He was snoring.
When Regina shifted her weight, she realized she was draped in the heretic’s grey cloak. He must have thrown it over her when she was fast asleep before. Curiously, the skunk fingered at one of the many tiny holes in the thick hooded cloak’s fabric, and wondered what caused them.
Regina gazed up at the bright of Vida’s moon. She squinted at it, trying to make out the face carved deep into it.
When she was younger, the skunk thought the face in the moon was Mother Azna.
She hadn’t thought about that in years.
Her chin dropped, and although she was very tired, Regina couldn’t sleep.
She then noticed the moonlight glinting against something against the fox’s throat.
Regina looked at the thing hard, and realized it was the dark-glassed vial hanging on a thin chain around the heretic’s neck.
She had forgotten all about it. What was in it that was so precious to the fox, she wondered.
Regina gazed skyward. There was nothing but the star-laden night sky, with the black and foggy waters of the Gabriel Sea as far as the eye could see.
They were alone, the skunk realized. Alone and drifting to the unknown beyond.
~ End of Part One ~
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