Chronicles of the Old Continent: Twins

V.

The only Necromancer she knew personally was living in the city of Rothcourt, the last colony before the great plains of the North, deep inside the dark forest of Ungal. For the second time that day, she stood on the magical conduit, thought of Rothcourt and disappeared from the Ikari capital.

Seconds later she reappeared in the middle of a dark, cold and dense forest. That felt completely wrong, but she had no time to think about it, because just as her feet touched the ground, her whole body jerked up in an unnatural position, without warning or obvious reason. She let out a little scream of surprise. As she dangled in mid-air, she tried to assess her situation. She was caught inside a net, which was clearly used as an animal trap for large prey. The net was very strong. She was curled inside it, with her left knee on her face and both her hands behind her back. When she stopped struggling against the net, the dangling subsided and she could concentrate on her hands. Creating fire was the first incantation she ever mastered, but she always had eye contact with her hands. Now, with her hands behind her back, this was slightly more difficult. She struggled to bring her hands to the front, so that she could direct the flame towards the top of the net that hung from the trees. With some effort, she succeeded and moments later, the rope was burning through. Pleased with herself, she simply waited for it to do the rest of the work. When she landed hard on her back, she cursed herself for not thinking to implement a levitation charm as well, to soften the fall.

Now she had the time and the opportunity to explore her surroundings. The forest was that of Ungal; she could tell because of the particular trees that grew only there – trees with trunks of the deepest black and leaves of purple that blossomed the entire year. But the city she was expecting to find was nowhere in sight. She could tell it was getting late, even though the sunlight had already faded hours ago. There was no wind blowing, because the trees grew so close together that only a slight breeze could pass through. She tried to listen to any sounds that might indicate a source of life, but heard nothing, not even a chirp from a winter's gale. It was unnerving. She started thinking that she had made a terrible mistake in the incantation that brought her here, but that was not possible. There was only one Rothcourt in the Old Continent and this was the forest of Ungal. Something else was happening.

Just as she was about to start walking in a general direction she thought might bring her to her destination, she heard a voice behind her.

"What in Lieke's name did you do to my net?"

Red turned around and was first blinded by the flame the stranger was carrying with her to light the way. It took her eyes a few seconds before they could adjust. The stranger waited patiently, but Red noticed two more things before examining the person in front of her in more detail: first, she was pointing a pocket crossbow directly at her heart and second, she was really angry.

"I mean you no harm..." she started, but was interrupted immediately again.

"Well, you already did me harm by destroying my trap!" the woman cut in.

"I apologize. That was not my intention. But you placed your trap on the junction point in the waylines. Anyone using those lines would have been entrapped by it, you should know that!"

"No one has used the waylines ever since the Regent died and that was seven years ago. You expect me to remember where every junction that passes through Ungal is? Who do you think you are anyway, popping up in the middle of nowhere?"

Red was intrigued. While they were having this bizarre conversation, she took in every detail of the woman. Her complexion was pale; her face was round with a strong, but not protruding chin. Her nose was delicate. Her eyes large and expressive. In the flickering light of the flame, Red could not tell their exact color. Her lips were neither thin nor fat. A scar cut diagonally through her right cheek, reaching almost to the bottom of her jaw, possibly even longer down the throat, but that was as far as Red could see. Being winter, the woman was clad in the appropriate attire, so neither hair, nor any other part of her body was visible. But even underneath all the thick layers of clothes, Red could tell that this was someone very physical and agile, more muscle than fat. The most significant characteristic, however, was perfectly visible: tattoo markings on her forehead, in the Old Scripture. They indicated that at some point she was a resident of the Capital and had been exiled. The woman was a pariah, though, for what crime, Red could not tell. She was still pointing the crossbow at her and was still expecting answers. Red felt a strange attraction towards this hunter, even though she knew that any kind of relations with pariahs were forbidden.