16: Journey

"I still want to give you a name."

Marion walked behind her two 'companions', her hands held behind her head carelessly, a complete reversal of the other two. Pala keenly focused on two things; the path ahead and her alleged comrades, not even making an attempt to hide her suspicion towards the pair. The other, who was clearly more trusting of his comrades, focused on their surroundings, eyes darting around as he searched the greenery for any potential flanks.

"I have no such thing. The most I've ever had is a codename, although it's not exactly pleasant."

Marion placed a finger on her lips, not quite sure what to make of her new mysterious friend. Normally she felt she was pretty good at giving nicknames, but the prospect of giving a name to the barely humanoid, gangly creature that walked and turned rapidly before her was not one she was particularly fond of.

"Let's hear the codename then. It's better than nothing."

"My masters call me Xerut."

Xerut paused for a moment, looking towards Marion's face to see her reaction to only see confusion. He turned away, going back to his self-appointed task while trying to form an explanation.

"In the east it means slave, or more accurately, one who serves their country against their will. Their culture has a tradition where any cowards or traitors who throw away their honour are captured and placed under the cruellest conditions possible, forced to serve a country they don't love."

While Xerut was turned away, Marion nervously looked towards the thick red string that reached its way over into the trees and out of sight, merged from threads that lines his entire body. She knew taking a peek would be a bad idea; less because she thought it was rude, she was far past being hesitant about poking around in other people's memories. It was because reliving an experience like that would probably spend the end for her.

"You two. We have a problem."

Marion tore her eyes away from the thread to see what Pala was calling them over for. The mercenary pointed at a marking in a tree; a relatively large chunk was missing from its side. The tree itself was large and by touching it, Marion could tell it was almost as hard as stone.

"Is it a claw mark? Some sort of bea…"

"This is my mark. With my sword."

Almost immediately Marion regretted even trying, her deduction skills failing her hasty assumption. As she slowly turned towards Pala, she saw the mercenary grin as she shifted her shoulder, letting her massive sword bob up and down for a moment.

"So, how is this relevant?"

Xerut looked towards them with what remained of his eyebrow raised, his expression difficult to make out through the scars and under his hood.

"I made this mark forty minutes ago. We've been going in circles."

"How is that even possible? I have a compass and…"

"Magic. This is a forest full of magical bullshit, remember?"

Marion immediately felt stupid once more, silently kicking herself for looking like a moron in front of the people she was asking the trust of. Xerut quietly fumbled through his dirty sack, pulling out a surprisingly well-maintained looking book out of it and immediately opening to a page saved with a silk bookmark.

"Give me some time, I'll see if there are any mentions of a creature that can trap us like that. I'll leave setting up camp to the two of you."

Pala's eyes lit up, in a way that Marion hadn't seen before. Almost immediately, the Mercenary marched off in a random direction, seemingly suddenly full of energy. Fearing the worst, Marion followed, not wanting to lose anyone so early into their expedition.

"Where are you going?"

"To hunt! We have hours until the sun comes down, so we might as well."

Marion hesitated for a moment, unsure of whether or not she wanted to follow the mercenary, the thousands of red threads training from her hand into the distance being more than enough to intimidate her. She quickly stole a glance towards Xerut, who kept his nose buried in his book, desperately looking for an excuse to stay with him instead.

It wasn't like she could help him read.

Somewhat begrudgingly, Marion chased after Pala who was already leaving her sight, her sword already unsheathed. The mercenary ran low to the ground, her pace slightly slower than a sprint, eyes glancing around like those of an eagle, scanning for prey. Pala darted through the trees while Marion followed, slowly lagging behind despite sprinting, barely able to see the figure ahead of her charging ahead without a care in the world. After around five minutes, the figure ahead of Marion finally came to a stop and she came to a gradual stop, propping herself up against a tree and wheezing. After giving herself a few moments to recover, she looked up to see the mercenary facing off a cow.

"Wha…"

The two stood about forty meters from one another, each locking eyes with another, refusing to back down. Pala held her blade infront of her, held directly towards the creature, ready to strike down at any time.

"Why is there…"

Before Marion could finish her question, Pala moved one hand towards her with an open palm, immediately moving her hand back to her blade. Marion looked towards Pala for a few moments for the mercenary to go back to her standoff after which her gaze turned towards the cow, immediately understanding something was wrong on closer inspection. The cow seemed to be oddly misshapen, little bumps along its skin that seemed to wriggle slightly. It seemed strangely calm as well; despite being in what should be the middle of nowhere, it was composed and even somewhat intelligent.

Without warning the cow charged towards Pala, its legs doing a strange mix between a gallop and a shuffle. With no hesitation, it leapt towards the mercenary, aiming to slam its head through her chest. Unfortunately for the creature, by the time it had reached where Pala was, she had sidestepped, moving her blade up through the creature's neck, slicing it off cleanly.

But something was wrong. Instead of the cracking of bone, the sound that came from the clean cut was the cracking of a shell. As the head separated from the cow's body, a green mucus came out of its body, oozing out all over the grass. It was followed by tiny black spiders, tossed into the air and landing perfectly, immediately scuttling out and running off in separate directions. As the body hit the ground, a wave of tiny spiders about a hundred times larger than before swarmed out of the hole opened in the cow's neck, each one running off into the forest without caring about Pala and Marion in the slightest. The two were frozen in shock, slowly regrouping around the corpse once the wave of spiders had trickled down to nothing.

"It's a shell."

Pala squatted down, peering inside the corpse of the cow, carefully running her finger along the black surface that lined the inside of the corpse. The body itself was hollowed out, leaving no trace of the spiders that had been there before. Marion walked around to see what Pala seemed so intrigued by, but with just a glance she turned away, looking towards the trees instead.

"Can we agree never to speak of this again?"

"My lips are…"

Before she could finish her answer, Pala paused and placed her hand on her blade, slowly lifting it up towards the sky. Before Marion could question what was going on, the mercenary threw her blade forward, lodging it into the ground next to a tree. Calmly, she stood up and walked over to her sword and picked it up, inspecting the ground where it landed curiously. Marion quickly followed, wanting to take her mind off the spiders as soon as possible.

"Well, this looks somewhat edible."

Pala picked up a ferret-like creature around its two tails, dangling its body downwards and letting the cut down its back drip blood onto the grass. For the most part it seemed like a normal animal except for the massive gemstone that laid on its back; now cracked from the impact with the sword. The gemstone was large enough to be valuable but not colourful enough to be sought after, the blood of the animal seeping through the cracks being more vibrant than the dull purple glow. Marion kept her thoughts about how cute the animal was quiet; neither of her companions seemed like the type to care.

"Does this mean we can go back now?"

"I suppose so."