Aexilica managed to last all of a day before she did something stupid. What was it her dad had always said?
Just like your whore mother, go on. Leave.
No, not that—the other thing. Ah, yes. She never could leave well enough alone, and one of these days, she was going to get her nose cut off shoving it into places it wasn’t wanted.
Well, it seemed increasingly likely that she was in that special day. Emma was gone, Aexilica had chosen to let her be captured rather than fight to save her. The guilt of that decision was driving her to do something dumb.
She took her time, at least. If Aexilica was to do something dumb, reckless and dangerous then she would be certain to think it through first. However oxymoronic a well-planned suicide mission was, she could if nothing else maximize her odds of managing it. If nothing else, she’d give herself more time to realise what an awful idea it was in the first place.
Through her considerations, it didn’t take her long at all to stumble onto the obvious move for herself. Aexilica couldn’t do it alone, and if she was to do without physical help—which she was, nobody in town was risking themselves for an outsider—she would at least work with some intellectual aid.
Larry the severed head—Aexilica did not think she’d ever get used to that fact—was grumpy as he emerged from his hiding spot.
“You know, you could at least bury me under clean—” He paused as she drew him out, frowning.
“Where’s the idiot…?” He asked, concern clear as day. That was good, it meant he was quick. Aexilica explained the situation to him as fast as she could without cutting out any important details. It still hurt to go over it, stinging the way only her own failure could. Fortunately Larry gleaned the information fast.
“Shit.” He growled. “Fucking shit.”
Aexilica was legitimately surprised to see him bothered by the fact, apparently she’d misread Larry and Emma’s relationship by…Quite a lot.
“I’m planning a rescue.” She added, at last. “To save her, but I don’t know what my chances are alone.”
Larry eyed her skeptically at that.
“Right. Well, I don’t know how much faith you have in my jaw strength, but I’m not going to be able to help you much with overpowering guards and fleeing from pursuit.”
He really was a prick.
“Not physically, genius,” she snapped. “I need your…I don’t know, mind. Knowledge. I need advice. You’re smart, right?”
The head actually perked up at that, somewhat.
“I’m very smart!” He grinned. “If I don’t know something about magic, then it isn’t known.”
“And subterfuge?” Aexilica asked. “Breakouts?”
Larry’s smile wavered.
“Okay,” He continued, “So, I have my specialties, but I can still provide some input there. I’ve been watching heroes save worlds for longer than your species has existed, I’ve picked up a thing or two.”
Ignoring the obvious bullshit there, Aexilica moved onto what mattered.
“Alright, so what do you know of this situation? The Sculds, their parties, that sort of thing?”
Again, Larry’s smile was tested and found wanting.
“Not as much as I could, but give me a good look at them and I’ll come up with something.”
In all likelihood, Aexilica probably should’ve been grateful. And she was…A bit. Where her mind left room between all the bitterness and disappointment. Seeing Larry single-handedly lecture Emma’s way up to developing several new powers by the day, she’d hoped to get a lot more use from him.
But there was no helping it. Aexilica packed some travel rations, replaced the bits of her damaged armour she could and made whatever repairs she was able to her gear. Then she tucked Larry away in her pack, and started off across the plains.
One thing she would never stop finding use for was her speed. Normal people could manage maybe twenty miles a day, depending on terrain and other conditions. It was okay, Aexilica supposed. She’d always preferred to cross a hundred herself.
Larry kept her company for most of the trekk, chirping away as she carried him at her waist. It did not make the travel any easier, and certainly not more pleasant. Larry’s company was worse than no company.
It wasn’t that he was a massive prick. Well, actually, yes. It was exactly that, the massive prick. It seemed Larry was unable to go so much as ten minutes without pissing her off somehow, and Aexilica was soon coming to understand Emma’s abuse of the head.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Can you stop jostling me around?” Larry groaned. “I’m getting nauseous.”
Aexilica didn’t answer, her breath was too urgently required on keeping up her pace. She wasn’t quite jogging, but she was coming as close to doing so as was possible between the heat and distance. Her stamina was better than a normal person’s, a fortunate inheritance of her father’s weird magic. That didn’t mean she could run the whole way, but between it and her natural speed it did mean she could do what someone else would’ve considered a run the whole way.
But it was a very long way to be moving—running-adjacent speed or not. Aexilica felt the hours move on by slowly and lazily, like fattened pack animals not far from the grave.
Night came, she rested. Barely slept. There was too much to focus on, to worry about, to fear. She was racing towards her own death—literally. Aexilica had no illusions about her odds of success, or her odds of surviving failure. She ate her jerky and stale bread, lied down. Then kept moving come dawn.
By the second day, Aexilica was already within sight of the convoy which had Emma. She examined it as she followed after, keeping her distance and, barely, keeping her nerve.
“Oh shit.” Larry muttered. “That’s a lot of people. You didn’t mention there were that many.”
“Yes I did.” She hissed.
“No I’m pretty sure you didn’t, that has to be a few hundred easy.”
Aexilica had, in fact, told him to expect several hundred Sculds. She ignored the asshole.
“Well, I’m fucked out of ideas.” Larry continued. “Not sure how you can fight hundreds, you’re only a low-grade enhancer. I doubt you’d have favourable odds against twenty even without other magic-wielders among them.”
That actually gave her pause.
“You…Know about my powers?”
Aexilica had never met anyone who knew about her powers. Not her mother, not her father. As far as she was aware nobody else had anything like them, not that she’d seen at least.
“Oh, I know a thing or two.” Larry replied, smug as ever.
“You don’t know anything about it then.” Aexilica looked back to the crowd, figuring that the idea of being dismissed might move him to speak more readily than any direct questioning. It seemed her calculations, based upon the logic of a complete asshole, were correct. Larry became a lot chattier very fast.
“Enhancers is a blanket term for a semi-common form of magic where the body is…You know, enhanced. This can happen in a few ways but usually comes in several. Heightened strength and durability or heightened strength and regeneration are the most common.”
“Not heightened strength by itself?” Aexilica frowned.
“Yes and no.” Larry grinned. “Strength is the most likely attribute to get improved, on paper. In terms of this just occurring naturally, strength buffs on their own probably make up the majority of cases. Problem is more strength and no more resilience, or ability to repair damage particularly fast, means most of those just…You know. Die. Natural selection.”
Aexilica didn’t know what half of those words meant, but she got the gist of them altogether.
“So people who don’t have some means of increasing their survivability are likely to die from…What, the stress of their own strength?”
“When it’s magically enhanced, yeah.” Larry confirmed. “It’s actually pretty funny.”
She’d have to take his word for that. Prick.
Aexilica shadowed the convoy some more, and then some more on top of that. Each day, she told herself, would bleed into the night she made her move. Each one didn’t. It wasn’t hard to find Emma, she stuck out. For such a tiny slip of a girl—a lot less than five feet tall, no matter how often she insisted otherwise—she had quite a distinct outline when contrasted with the other prisoners. Men, mostly. Taken in the fighting. Aexilica’s victory in defending Tepetlmoseua meant that warriors were all the raiders had really gained access to.
But they hadn’t let that keep them from fulfilling their slave quota. Bloody savages.
Emma was there, bundled into the back of a wagon. Some days she’d change seats, usually spent them chatting as far as Aexilica could tell, but always she travelled by wagon. Probably, the Sculds didn’t want to slow themselves by having prisoners of variable physical strength try to trek alongside them. For Aexilica, it was somewhat convenient. Meant all the prisoners were in one place, letting the guards keep a closer eye on them. They weren’t huddled in the convoy’s centre, by any means, but they weren’t far off on one edge either.
However many days Aexilica spent staring, studying and trying to convince herself otherwise the truth was just too obvious to ignore. One way or another, she’d have to fight. Fight, maybe lose. Maybe die
Maybe end up captured right alongside Emma.
She shuddered at that. The rumours were clear enough about what happened to prisoners taken by the Sculds, slavery or sacrifice. She was a woman. Sacrifice, thankfully, was more likely. With magic in her, Aexilica would make a valuable offer to any set of Gods. But if she was taken as a slave instead, if they kept her alive…
Vommit started rising at the back of her throat. Better to die. Better to die a thousand times over than let that fate befall her.
The landscape changed around them as they went over the mountains, and Aexilica realised that she was staring at the scenery most suited for her to make her move. Lots of thinner, uneven paths which would wreak havoc on mounted pursuit—the few horses present were certainly as fast as she was if not moreso—while steam vents obfuscated everything more than a few yards from a pursuer.
She couldn’t have hoped to receive more favourable surroundings if she’d prayed for them. Probably the opposite, really. The Priest had always made it abundantly clear what the Irethani thought of outsiders like her.
But Aexilica didn’t seize her chance. There was no tactical motive for her, no deliberate decision. She was just scared. Nervous, fearful of death. She’d come close to it before—came close to it for a career, really. That scytheshell had almost gotten the better of her, just a few weeks ago. The defence of Tepetlmoseua had handed her half a dozen near-death-experiences within the span of a single night.
As much as other people tended to misunderstand, though, Aexilica did not court death. When she risked her life, it was because she’d already made at least one major mistake. Or because of circumstances not under her control. The siege had been an example of the latter, that scytheshell the former.
Before Emma had saved me from it.
That reminder kept Aexilica nice and miserable, while she continued to do nothing. Because that was what guilt was, really. In the end, it was just an excuse. If you felt guilty about doing something you knew was wrong—or not doing something you knew was right—then surely it made you better than all the bad people who did or didn’t do it, right?
Right. Aexilica stared at her fellow bad people until the sun came up and robbed her of the chance to do what was good. Then she kept shadowing them, telling herself it’d all be different the next day.
Aexilica never got to find out whether she was lying to herself again, because before the next evening had come Emma’s convoy was approached by the runepriest. And she and the other prisoners were taken off for sacrifice.