The Five [EDITING]

Chapter Fourteen: Wild

ALIE

   "Why do you continue to do that?"
   Geacob glanced over briefly but continued using the knife to saw three lines out of the bark of the tree. It looked similar to a bear marking his territory, but at closer look, it was easy to see the knife marks as well as the slight arrow tips on each of the three lines.
   "Leaving a trail for my uncle." He said. "I've been doing it since we parted in the Lair of Dragons City."
   "So... it's directions?" I studied the lines. "How so?"
   "The three lines indicate simply left, straight, or right. The longest line is which one I plan to follow, the second longest is where I will go if something goes wrong and where I will leave another marker." He finished sawing the last line, put away his knife, and pointed as he explained. "See the slight arrow? If it's carved atop the left, it means I plan to go off the road soon, the center means I plan to rest up for a while at a safe place."
   "Like The T."
   He nodded. "If the arrow was on the right, it would mean I would stop into a town under disguise."
   "And the arrows at the bottom of the lines?"
   "Left means I am traveling with Rangers, middle tells him I am alone, the right indicates to approach with caution, or that I'm travelling with others who are not Ranger." He shrugged. "Usually kingsmen, but in our case it's different."
   I studied the lines. "So if he sees this, he'll know you are heading straight down the road, or turning right if something goes wrong soon. You plan to rest at a safe house, and you are traveling with both Rangers and others whom are not Rangers."
   "Meaning friends." He nodded.
   "And all that from three lines carved into a tree." I mused, impressed. "Is this a Ranger thing?"
   "Many Rangers use markers, but this is only able to be understood by my uncle or one of his men." His face grew worried as he looked over the marker again. "Hopefully it will be read by my uncle."
   "You worry for him." I've noticed this before.
   "I do." He said. "No Ranger I've spoken to has seen him, and he hasn't found me, though we were outside of Leafinton for half the winter. Still, no one has see Angus or Falcon either and they were with me after the fires in Dargolyn. They have not followed me so I take that as a sign that the worst has not happened."
   "I'm sure he's safe, Geac."
   He nodded and forced a smile, but then it abruptly because a genuine one. "You'd like my uncle. Everyone does, but you especially I think, with your romantic notions of Rangers and all." He teased and chuckled when my face heated. "Really. He's as loyal as can be and clever, too. Notices everything it seems and keeps a close ear to the ground for whispers but rarely adds to those whispers himself." He became more animated as he talked of his uncle. "He has all these quotes. Simple ones, but he'd drill it into everyone's head until we were using them ourselves. 'Never leave a Ranger behind' and 'you picked your family so now you have to love them, hang them, or drag them behind you reluctantly.'" He chuckled. "They were the ones I heard most. His favorite though was one he used all the time when I was growing up, he'd say: 'Your cloak is black, not brown, so don't go acting like a piece of shite.'"
   I laughed at that but said, "That's a terrible thing to say to a child!"
   "Oh, he never said it to me, I always just got the look when I irritated him. But he's said it enough to other rangers that it's been shortened and turned into an insult. You'll probably hear a few calling others a browncloak at The T even."
   I laughed again. "I can't wait."
   He shook his head at me. "You can't wait to walk into an inn filled with, and surrounded by murders and thieves... not to mention you're so bloody beautiful that every one of them will have trouble not breaking Ranger Law in order to have you."
   I felt my own face heat up from the odd compliment and kissed his cheek to hide it. "You'll protect me." I said with surety. "Besides, this is only a new adventure."
   "Dangerous." He said, seriously. "Very dangerous, Alie, and you may see things or hear things you wont want to hear and see."
   At that I gave him an irritated look. "I'm no fool, Geacob. I am quite aware of who these people are and I do not doubt for a single moment that there will be many times I will need to bite my tongue or wag it into the shape of lies. Despite what you believe, I have no romantic notions about Rangers, I simply am incapable of judging all of you for the crimes of some."
   "Then why are you so... excited?"
   I thought about that a moment as we began walking our horses toward the road. "When I was a little girl," I began, choosing my words carefully, "they used to call me wild. For the things I liked, or the things in which I did or said. I loved adventure and I was so curious about everything that it often placed me in dangerous situations."
   "Sounds familiar." He said dryly.
   "Well, that's the thing." I explained. "One day, my wildness very nearly killed me, the Mother herself spoke praises and saved me from my own foolishness." I touched the eye hanging from my neck in memory. "I became afraid, after being so near death. I stopped being so wild and became so docile it even worried my parents. I thought that piece of me was lost forever and even after the castle burned, I was sure of it. But now.." I smiled slightly. "I feel that piece of me coming back and instead of being afraid, I am happy, because though I am endangering myself further, I understand now that I had been under a deep depression since the day I nearly died." I straightened my spine.. "And so, I have decided that though I hope to live until an elders age, I would rather die young and happy with a life fill of joyous and terrifying adventures rather than die with deep worry lines creasing my brow."
   "So, you're excited because... because it's dangerous and generally something wild?"
   "Precisely." I said with a grin. "So let us hurry. We can surly get there by night fall if we move quickly." I mounted the horse, straightened my newly made blackbear fur coat, and kicked the horse into a gallop, my chin held high in air that was scented with the barest hint of an early spring.

GEACOB
   I had expected to get to The T before Niko and his group, but when we walked in, he and three of his men were seated at a table already bathed and fed and onto drinking.
   "Well if it isn't little boy Geac all grow'd up." Niko said when he saw me, grinning a near-toothless grin.
   I grinned back. "And if it isn't Ol'Nikory Snickers all shrunk'd down." I replied to the great amusement of everyone in the room, even Niko himself who stood and came over with a wide grin. "C'mere, Geac." He said and pulled me into a brief but heartfelt embrace. Though he was nearing his seventies, he was built like an ox (if a short one) and his hug threatened my ribs. Still, it was good to see the man. My father had rescued him from the rope just after joining the Rangers but never took him under his cloak. Told Niko instead that he was too much of a leader to follow orders and helped him get his own crew together. Since that day, we'd rarely seen Niko, but every time we did see him, we wondered why we didn't see him more often. I barely knew him, but he felt like family as much as Angus did.
   He turned to Alie and looked surprised as if he hadn't noticed her first, though I was positive that he had. He'd probably checked her reaction, clothing, counted visible scars, freckles, or other identifying marks before he'd even looked at me. He'd been a Ranger since he was a boy and no Ranger got to live to his seventies without being attentive to everything around you.
   "Now who this be?" He asked now.
   I opened my mouth to answer but she beat me to it, pulling off her mitts to hold out a pale hand as she did. "My name Alie, and you must be Niko. It is a pleasure to meet you."
   He shook her hand but out of habit rather than on purpose as his eyebrows shot up. "You be a highborn girl, eh? And a Nascian at that." He noticed, quickly hearing her accent and recognizing it easily --- no one spoke so well as a highborn, and no highborn spoke so well and clear as one from Nascia.
   "Actually, I am a Ranger. I had been a servant for King Aaryn in the White City before my apparent idiocy that near had me hanged."
   "Oh?" Niko seemed amused. "And what did ya do t'deserve the rope?"
   Alie gave him an amused look as well. "For that, Niko, you will need to buy me a drink."
   "Bah!" He shouted a laugh. "What are ye? Twelve?"
   "I'm sixteen this spring actually. What are ye?" She mimicked with a twinkle in her eye. "Too old to see the whisky burns on me lips?"
   He burst out in laughter at her absolutely terrible Tarkian accent. His laughter was real and not testing and so with absolute shock, I realized that she had won the old, suspicious drunk over already. It was confirmed when he tossed his arm over her shoulder and pulled her to an empty seat at his table, calling out to Trinna for hot whisky and spice.
   Already knowing my welcome and not needing it confirmed, I grabbed a chair and slid into their group. It made me nervous that there was no room next to her, as if my closeness would keep her protected. I sat across from her instead and she gave me a small smile as if she knew what I'd been thinking.
   Niko gave the introductions to the three others that were there: Gerry, Coren (the youngest of Niko's group at about eighteen years and newest member), and Fork (named by birth as Royce but renamed by the Rangers due to his inability to make decisions for himself--- always seeming to be at a fork in the road).
   "Where are Tam and Geragry?" I asked.
   Niko's eyes flashed sadness and regret. "Lost them taking down Cove Town in Tark." He said gravely. "At last for them lifes' suffering ends. May they go to the gods armed and piss drunk." He said, raising his glass then drinking to them.
   "My first drink will be for them." I vowed. "Pour a couple Trinna will you?"
   She stopped at the table, ale in one hand and a bottle in the other. She nodded to me but gave Niko a hard look. "If you're movin' from ale to whisky this early, you're sleeping in the stables."
   He laughed. "Tis for t'girl, Trinna, not me, I swears it."
   "Don't go swearin' nothin'." She scolded. "You be too drunk to keep true." Her eyes moved to Alie. "I ain't see you around here none, an' I knows all the Rangers."
   "She's a new addition." I said.
   Trinna focused on me. "She with you?" When I nodded, she grunted and laid the drinks on the table. "You keep her close Geac, she be pretty enough ta be stolen me thinks." She tutted and pulled a twig from my hair then straightened my collar. "Can't ye dress y'rself?" She scolded.
   I laughed, mostly because I'd been worried that the way I had left last time had severed this motherly side of her so I was overjoyed to see it was still there. "I just had a chance to arrive, Trinna, not bathe."
   "Rooms are taken so you'll have to share with the others."
   "I have an extra bed for you if you need it, Geac." Said Coren.
   I raised a glass in thanks to him but frowned at Trinna. "Darci's group here yet?"
   "They was but went south a bit for a few days for somethin' or other. But the rooms are all paid up. They should be back any day."
   "That reminds me." I said and looked to Niko. "I'm out of coin and Dargolyn is near barren of spoils."
   He tutted and pulled out his purse, sliding a few dozen coins over the table at me. "Consider my debt ta y'r uncle paid full."
   I nodded and took all but one coin on the table. "Next round's on me."
   They let out a call of joyful thanks then Niko turned to Alie. "So, whisky girl, I bought y'r drink, tell us what one so pretty could steal t'get a noose around her neck."
   She took a drink and I knew she was stalling. "A life for one."
   The boys were surprised at that (so was I for that matter; she was going to pass herself off as a murderer instead of a thief? Why?)
   "You a cold-hearted killer, girl?" Niko asked, his way of digging for details.
   Alie snorted somehow delicately. "Not cold hearted, I assure you. I nearly made myself sick with shock afterwards." She shrugged. "I had been on the road when I was mugged, loosing my fur and mitts. I went to the nearest home, freezing as you can imagine, and I begged shelter, expecting a warm fire and perhaps a bit of food." She took another drink. "Instead, I found myself being pinned against the wall by a muscled arm hard enough that I could not even scream for aide."
   "Ah, lass, I'm sorry that happened to ye." Gerry said quietly.
   "Oh, but it didn't." Alie said and her face was hard. "I killed him first. Stabbed him over and over." She pulled back another drink. "As it happens, the man gave off the appearance of a God. He gave wood to the sick and elderly for a cost with no profit to himself. He watched out for dangers in the town voluntarily, even led a group of townspeople to fight off a stray Ranger he believed threatened the town. For killing such a man, even in my own defence..."
   The others nodded, knowing exactly where that would land her. All of them believed her lies.
   But it wasn't all lies, was it? Her expressions were real, as was the shaking in her fingers and the anger in her eyes. It was all real because the events were real, except that they had happened in Leafinton, not Nascia. She'd told the truth except changing some details or wording them to they sounded like the truth.
   She was the perfect liar, I realized. I knew the truth, yet I nearly could believe her words. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered if she was lying to me about anything.
   No. I thought to myself. She wouldn't. She has no reason to, while here, she was sitting in a room full of Rangers pretending to be one of them.
   "Is that how you lost your finger, Alie?" Coren asked, motioning to her left hand with his own three-fingered right one. "They torture you for information?"
   She seemed surprised and she laughed. "Oh, no. Not at all. I had to remove it on the way from Nascia. Coldsickness hit the fingertip."
   "You cut it y'rself?" Niko looked at her in surprise.
   She sighed. "Why is it that everyone is shocked by such a thing?" She wondered. "Do I truly seem like the type who would allow my entire hand to rot away before doing something about it? Honestly." She looked at me. "Geacob had the same reaction."
   "I did." I admitted. "But I know better now. As beautiful as she is, I don't doubt that she'd mark her own face if it kept her from getting a cold."
   "Fortunately, that not be true." She said with a grin. "I like my face unmarked."
   "So do we." Niko said. "But it's y'r eyes that captures me. They're like silver they is."
   "Aye." Gerry chuckled. "Tis no wonder Geac here cain't keep his eyes off of ye."
   Alie blushed deeply at that and I glared at Gerry, our reactions only causing the group to laugh loudly.
   The night went on uneventfully. Gerry --- a storyteller, originally sentenced to hang for treason after telling a particularly amusing tale about the king in the city square --- started telling grand tale of histories and of lands across the sea. As usual, the drunker he became, the cruder and more ridiculous the stories turned, earning gales and insults which he replied to in kind. Alie herself joined in the jest sometimes but mostly remained silent and I got the sense that she was reading these people as if they were words on parchment, judging them not for the crimes they committed but by the way they interacted and spoke of others.
   I only noticed one chink in her armor of humor and grins. Though she interacted with them all, I noticed her face was just a little tightened when Coren spoke to her directly and I wondered why. Coren was from Nascia originally after all, and he mentioned it often, missing the home he was forced from after being caught stealing a traders cart leading into the white city. I hadn't thought so much on it, but if I had, I would have suspected Alie would get along with Coren the best of them all. So why she was so tense was a complete mystery.
   Later, after we stumbled to the room we were to share with Gerry, I asked her, but she shook her head. "I am afraid I don't know what it is you mean." Was her answer. She slipped off her shoes and hung her fur over a chair, then crawled into the tiny cot, leaving room for me to slide in as well.
   Distracted by her closeness and warms, separated only by our wools, I forgot about the odd reaction and eventually fell asleep.