Hunting Rogues: Ch 3

***The journey begins...***

Like everyone who grew up in Lewvon, Fraki knew the way into the Nidings only because it was drilled into them that it was a route they must never take. Through the town and around the bend in the river, past the rocky lowland and into Haval Forest, where the ground got increasingly steeper, and the trees increasingly larger and more twisted. Once you were inside the forest, facing the first peaks of the immense mountain range, directions no longer mattered, because it was giant territory, and of the few that had any reason to venture there, none were likely to return.

Then, there wasn’t much need for directions anyway: Rote’s footprints were easy to follow once the group of travellers hit the river. The thundress had created her own path through her occasional visits down to Lewvon, thirty feet wide and compounded into hard earth, but it still cracked and cratered every time she used it.

Fraki rode alongside Coalard and Libek, ahead of the others, trying to appear brave and ready, but she couldn’t help baulking at the sight of a footprint as big as a wagon, deep enough to form a pond. The curve of a sole and indents of toes were apparent, all too human despite the scale. All too real. The young men, twins, skirted either side of it with jokes and laughter that sounded forced.

They travelled through the night until they were forced to leave the horses behind, hitched near the river at the base of the incline towards Haval Forest. It was only an hour or so later, with dawn light starting to creep over the mountains, that Coalard made the decision to stop – storm clouds were stirring and it started to rain. They settled in a shallow cave that ate into the mountainside, above a cliff edge thirty feet high, just large enough for the whole group. They stacked up a small pile of sticks which Libek lit it with a flick of her wrist, flames bursting up with a warm flash.

Fraki gawked as the woman sat down on the far edge of their shelter, pointedly ignoring her. Libek was a mage, someone Fraki could learn from? But she clearly wanted nothing to do with Fraki. The others reclined on the floor with no note of the pyromancy, ready to sleep. All but Dunn, who sat outside keeping stony watch.

Fraki couldn’t sleep, too full of energy over continuing, so she looked out through the rain to the countryside they’d left behind, the curves of the Clear Valley, and pulled out her magic journal. She gave the sleepers a glance, at a snore from Wanesic, and took a bread roll from her pack of provisions to place in front of her.

Concentrating hard, Fraki framed the bread between her two hands, forming a box with her fingers. She sent the intention through her every muscle, flexing her fingers together, dragging that box smaller. She grimaced with the effort, willing the roll to change.

Nothing happened.

With a huff, Fraki thumbed through her journal again to find some hint at what she was doing wrong. Of course, there wasn’t much in there to help, just hearsay and her own rambling thoughts about what might or might not be involved in palm magic. She had been practising this for weeks, in every spare moment, since she’d first heard of the witch in the Clear Valley. Rumours of size-altering magic had been around for centuries, but they were children’s tales, idle fantasies, usually ending with dark magic users being brutally punished. Well, those and the accounts of old witch trials, where dozens had been burned for corruptions of magic. Palm trickery had been considered an ineffective hobby since, used for healing minor wounds or finding lost things.

Fraki had found a poem, though, while searching through the Lewvon library, which gave her hope. It was cryptic, in its vague advice about channelling one’s energy through their fingers, which helped convince her it was real. She found it again in her notes and squinted in the dim light. Sense the intent between nail and joint, one line read. She bit on her lip and tried again. Framed the bread roll. Focused on her nail, her knuckle. A way to clear the mind, she suspected, to draw the magic out sideways, not with direct force.

She strained, pushing whatever she felt inside into her hand, and grunted at the effort. Then – did the roll move?

“You could be imprisoned in Haskeral for that,” a voice interrupted her, making her jolt on the spot. Fraki looked up the looming height of Libek, the scared mage in her grey robes. She was even more ominous in the night shadows.

Fraki’s blood chilled under the woman’s stern gaze. On their short journey, Libek had been the least friendly of the mercenary crew, ever-scowling, and was somehow the most intimidating, despite being smaller than the men. Catching Fraki attempting illicit magic might be an easy excuse to cast her out.

“How long have you been practising?” the robed woman asked coldly.

Fraki checked warily past her before answering, the others all still asleep. She kept her voice quiet, hoping Libek would too. “Not long.”

“You’re trying too hard. Making magic happen is the opposite of pushing it through. You need to invite it on its own terms before you can bend it to yours.”

It was the most words Fraki had heard from the woman and it left her open-mouthed. “Will you help me? You are a mage, aren’t you?” She’d never met an actual magic-user before.

“I’m an anchowright, principally,” Libek confirmed, moving into the mouth of the cave, considering the dawn landscape below. “Do you know what that is?”

“Of course. You can move things without touching them.”

“To put it simply. But close enough. I can alter how weight affects objects.”

“But you lit the fire –”

“I have minor skills in pyromancy. Like most magic users, it took many years to discover exactly what I could do. And I was also persecuted for it all the while. That’s with anchoracy as a legitimate art. Palm magic is even less tolerated. What exactly inspired you to take this up? The wish for revenge?”

Fraki hesitated, wanting terribly to say she was gifted too, that she knew she could do this and had already seen results. But the truth was less foregone, and she admitted, “Just something I took an interest when I heard it was possible. I started before . . . what happened to Sudien. Even if the giantess hadn’t taken my boyfriend, I wanted a way to fight back. That’s our town back there. My family’s. I just think . . . we should keep it ours.”

Libek made an unimpressed grunt. Damn her superior attitude. Fraki steeled herself to try again, and framed the bread roll in her fingers. She held it steady and heeded the mage’s advice, aiming not to directly think about it. Just sense the power, then let it flow. She closed her fingers more gently, fought to breathe steadily.

Something shifted and her eyes widened. Had the bread moved?

Libek raised an eyebrow. She must have sensed it. Fraki smiled, knowing she was getting there. She pushed again, tightening her fingers before the roll, but distractedly glanced up to the watching mage. As she did, the bread split, tearing down the middle in a messy eruption of crumbs. Fraki gasped at the minor explosion, holding up her hands innocently.

“Well, well,” Libek said. “There is something in you.”

“I . . . I didn’t mean to . . .”

“Clearly.” The mage squatted on the other side of the roll’s remains. “What exactly did you hope to do?”

Fraki swallowed. It sounded childish in her head, a silly idea, but if she was going to get anywhere with magic, this lady could help her. “Reduce the size. If we can make the thundresses smaller, then we take away their advantage.”

“Ah. So you’d shrink this woman who’s terrorised your home and crush her under your heel, is that it?”

“To put it simply.” Fraki met her eye, echoing Libek’s words back at her. There was a lot more she wanted to do than merely squash the giantess, though. She wanted Rote to know the same fear she had felt. She wanted her to suffer.

Something in Libek’s expression said she understood that. The mage prodded the crumbs on the floor and said, “Altering something’s size is some of the hardest magic there is. And we cannot always choose the magic that takes us. But you do have something here. If you could do what you did to this bread to a person, or a giantess, perhaps that’s enough?”

Fraki frowned. “But I used my hands. That was palm magic, wasn’t it? If I can do a bit –”

A rumble through the ground interrupted her, as the cave quaked and dust and small pebbles fell down. Libek turned to look outside as Dunn stood from his watch and the rest of their group stirred groggily. Another quake followed, stronger, closer, confirming all their fears.

“Move, fast,” Coalard ordered, fresh from sleep into action. He was already stamping out the fire. Dunn moved down the pass, to get a better view, as the twins scrambled to pack everything up.

Fraki stood unsteadily, trembling as she looked at her own hands. Imagining her fingers at work. She could do something, and Libek was right: it didn’t matter what. But the mage grabbed her elbow and pulled her into the cave’s shade.

“Don’t get any stupid ideas. We’re not ready.”

“It’s her though!” Fraki complained. “She’s come to us, we don’t have to go deeper in.”

The ground shook again, the thundress close now. Dunn backed into the cave, shaking his head at Coalard with some unspoken message. The leader huffed, understanding it as bad news, and instructed, “Stay out of sight. Far in as you can get, everyone.”

“I can smell you!” a booming voice shook through them. Even in the dark, Fraki saw that the mercenaries each appeared as afraid as she felt. Bad start.

The ground shook with more, faster footsteps as the giantess approached their exact position – there was no doubt in Fraki’s mind and she said, urgently, “We need to go!”

Coalard took a second, allowing another two giant footfalls, before nodding, gesturing to the exit. As they collectively moved towards the light, a shadow swept over it and the thundress crouched into view, giant fingers resting on the path, an enormous face blocking the exit.

Rote’s head was larger than the opening, her eyes great, gleeful orbs staring in. Her grotesquely large mouth curled in that same sick smile she’d worn at Star Peak, and she said, “Looks like my lucky day.”

“Arms!” Coalard shouted, wasting no time. As one, the mercenaries dropped their packs and drew their weapons, with Fraki standing between them and the giant woman. “Charge!”