A Scoundrel's Song

28

Rain. In Summer. It was an abomination. It wasn't as though Niico minded the rain, so long as he was indoors and had no reason to go outside, preferably with beautiful man beside him in bed, but here, in the country, away from roofs and houses and said beautiful men, it was an atrocity. And it was always a downpour, in Summer. Never a drizzle. Never a little wash of a cooling, passing shower. It always seemed to crash down, soaking everything and making him miserable. More miserable.

What didn't help, of course, was that he wasn't allowed to sit within the cover of the wagon. Oh, no! Dreviino had rousted him and everyone else from the shelter to lead them on a walk through a landscape that fast started to resemble a swamp. A hot, cloying swamp that the rain did nothing to cool. The others appeared to enjoy it, Herit jumping in puddles and splashing her legs with filthy water, laughing until Dreviino hushed her with a clawed finger against her muzzle.

To make matters worse, she encouraged them to lie down and crawl to the top of a hill. Squirming through the wet grass, mud caking Niico, oozing between his precious fingers. This was going to ruin his skin, making the tips of his fingers crease and pucker. But, at the top, as flat as possible against the ground, Dreviino pointed down to what her followers had discovered. Or, rather, who.

"I don't believe this!" He ignored the scowls from everyone, turning onto his back, then turning back again as the incessant downpour threatened to drown him. "Wherever we go, there they are! How do they keep finding us?"

Sisters of the Lady of Bearing, pretending that they were far more hardy than anyone else by acting as though they weren't wet through due to the rain. Their only cover, of any kind, sat above the tiny fire that belched black smoke, trickling out from under the sheet of cloth that kept the rain from putting it out. They didn't fool Niico. He could tell someone acting unconcerned.

"I don't think they keep finding us. I think we just keep running into them." Pel reached out a hand to clasp Herit's. "They're just spreading out to find our girl here."

"Rubbish. It's magic. Has to be. One of you two has something they're tracking." He squelched down from the top of the hill and started to check Herit and Akafa. "What is it? Some enchanted jewellery? A sigil marked on your bodies?"

Both Herit and Akafa slapped at his hands as he tried to lift clothing to search them. Coincidences were only plans that no-one told anyone else about. The others started to crawl back from the top of the hill as a low rumbling travelled across the sky. Thunder, now. That was typical. All they needed was lightning to crash down towards them and burn them to death and everything would be perfect.

Lightning flashed across the skies, but didn't fork down toward them. A small mercy. That made Niico frown, though. Wasn't thunder supposed to follow the lightning, not the other way around? A loud crack made him jump as another round of thunder rippled around them. At least the thunder masked any sounds the other, more amateur sneakers, made. He made little to no sound at the best of times, which would come in handy as he now sneaked away, back to Dreviino's caravan of wagons.

"It's not magic. The Sisters of the Lady of Bearing do not use magic." Akafa held up a warning finger as Niico prepared to thrust a hand into his loose trousers to check for magic objects. "There are Sisters far and wide throughout the world. All would search day and night for Herit if they must, and they will always believe they must."

"Out here? We're miles from anywhere!" He tried to keep his voice down but, with the rain and the thunder, he really had no need to. "No. Something isn't right here. They're stalking us. We are prey and they the hunters. We must turn the tables on these Sisters and strike before they strike at us."

"How?" Pelenia's head shook with derision, nose curling. "The only one of us that can fight is Akafa and, as scarily dangerous as he is, he can't fight them all. Well, he probably could, but not without some injury, I'm certain."