Chapter Three

Grey, chill light filtered through the clouds before the sun rose when he left his tent, a quick glance confirming he was alone in waking. Breath fogging faint before him, it was carried away by a breeze that also sifted through his short, dark hair, freed from the confines of his bandanna. He hadn't bothered to put it on, going instead to the shallow pit he'd dug for their fire the night before. Only a few embers glowed, though he could still feel a heat from the rest of the remains as he crouched, taking a moment to stir through the ashes with a long narrow stalk. The plains grass caught fire easy enough, but it burned quick and left no charcoal that he could use to coax out more flames.

It was just as well, he decided, standing and stretching his arms above his head. No sounds of stirring yet came from either Steiner or Dagger's tents, giving him the opportunity to take advantage of the early morning as he pleased.

A light jog took him outside the edge of the stony ridge that sheltered them; Marcus took care to go far enough away that he wouldn't wake his traveling companions while still keeping the encampment in his line of sight. Once satisfied with the distance, he rolled his neck from one shoulder to the other, trying to shrug out the stiffness of a night spent on the ground. With his back to the east, the bottoms of the clouds already burnishing with golds and coppers, Marcus eased into motion, dancing lightly from foot to foot. When he felt warmed up enough, he raised his fists close before him, eyes fixing on an arbitrary point ahead.

Darting forward and back to set his pace, his hands flashed out, striking at nothing. Controlled exhales came in tandem with his hands, and he took time in building up his speed so that his fists were flashes in the air. Find the edge of what you can push to, then strain a little more than that. Cross and hook and back, straight and forward, uppercut and slide to the side. Ducking and weaving around nothing, he utilized the open space of the plains to circle around his chosen point, up on the balls of his feet to add challenge to the rest of his practice. Lost in the concentration of being in constant movement and breathing past the growing burn in his lungs and in his muscles, he did not track how long he'd been at it. By the time he gained a shadow on the ground from the sunrise proper, a coat of sweat covered him, made his undertunic cling to his back and chest.

When he stopped, breath heavy, he made conscious effort to slow his breathing and envisioned the air he drew in through his nose went all the way down to the bottom of his lungs, filling them entirely before he exhaled out his mouth; he repeated this until his heart calmed. Then, moving along with his breath, he stretched his arms above his head and lifted his chin to the sky, arching his back to stretch out all the muscles in his sides before folding the other way until his fingers brushed the dirt beneath his feet.

Coming upright and hands moving to his hips, with a soft grunt he twisted from one side to the other, feeling with satisfaction the minute pops along his spine. The wind picked up again and he breathed deep, relishing the coolness over his skin, while the sun steadily rose over the edge of the mountains, lightening the sky from night to wakening day as it went. After he finished his stretches, he gazed out at the mountains hiding the edges of the sea in the new light, feeling the familiar pull in his bones, but then looked at the sheltering ridge, saw Dagger and Steiner moving about the small camp, and so headed back.

"What were you doing up so early?" At his arrival, the Pluto Captain tilted his head the barest bit, his eyes narrowed and one eyebrow raised.

"Fighting shadows," Marcus replied, clipped and irritated that Steiner would start the day with suspicion.

The raised eyebrow lowered with its fellow beneath questioning lines, and it was clear Steiner did not understand. "Shadows? Are they some sort of dangerous shade out here?"

Nearby him, Dagger hid a laugh behind her hand. "I think he was just practicing, not fighting an actual enemy."

Marcus cocked a finger to her. "Trust me, if there were a real fight, I would have woken you." He stripped off his undertunic, darkened with sweat, and turned his back to them to pull a cleaner one from his pack. All his clothing needed a good soaking—the last time he'd been able to wash them had been before getting on the tram to Summit Station. They'd all three be a bit ripe by the time they reached Treno, but at least there the city had plenty of washers. He fingered a growing tear in his tunic's left breast and listed the different washers he knew that also did repairs through his mind.

"How dare you expose yourself while the Princess is nearby!" Steiner explained, and Marcus rolled his eyes, turning with shirt in hand, some sardonic remark already on the edge of his tongue.

"Steiner, I'm not a little girl anymore," Dagger chastised him, amused, before Marcus could say anything. Her gaze lingered on him as Steiner grumbled something, but then her eyes flicked down to his hands. "Is that a tear? I can fix it for you if you have a needle and thread."

"You could fix it?" Marcus repeated, eyebrows lifting and disbelief clear in his tone.

She furrowed her brow at him, pursed her lips. "Yes, me. I am quite adept at needlework, and if I can embroider a replica of Alexandria Castle, I can certainly mend a hole in a shirt."

Marcus dipped his head and shoulders in a show of defeat. "Forgive this lowly soul, princess," he drawled and she threw a withering look at him.

"Just give it to me to mend."

Straightening, he shook his head. "I don't have any thread with me. Don't worry about it," he went on, tugging the shirt over his shoulders. "It's just a small tear, and we should get moving, anyway." He gave her his back again to fish out his bandanna, tying it back in place.

After buckling and strapping on their traveling gear for the day, they packed up their small camp; Marcus finished before the others, rolling his tent up tightly, then buried the remains of the fire. He wasn't worried about the camp being discovered—had no reason to think anyone was following them—it was more out of not wanting any embers to be lifted out by some stray wind and igniting the vast grassland around them.

Once they were finished, Marcus led them back to the dirt path that wound its languid way, an earthen serpent, through the waist-high grasses.

"Will this lead us all the way to Treno?" Dagger strayed by his side and watched the sky as they walked.

Marcus adjusted the thick baldric across his chest and replied absently, "No, it drops off in a little while."

"Drops off?" Steiner cut in, worried. "As in off a cliff?"

"What? No, of course not. The only cliffs are to the south of us. This path just fades away. People haven't used it for a while—you saw the state of the one between the station and the gate." He didn't look behind as he spoke, his eyes on the curve of the horizon before him.

"You are sure you know where you are going, even without a path to follow?"

"A bit late to be questioning that, isn't it? But," Marcus went on before he could be interrupted, "yes, I am sure. We've got the Aerbs to our right and the cliffs to our left, so it's not exactly a maze we need to figure out. Besides, I do have a map." He tapped the canister hanging from his belt.

"Oh, right," said Steiner. "Good, then."

Now Marcus did give them a slanted glance over his shoulder. "Weren't you two planning on going to Alexandria, anyway? How were you going to get there if not going through Treno?"

"We were hoping for a more direct route," Dagger explained, a somewhat sheepish note to her words.

"Well, I haven't seen a much more direct route to Alexandria besides an airship, so if you've got one of those stashed anywhere..." Marcus stretched his arms behind his head, elbows pointed toward the sky as he walked. He was still stiff from the ground, but half the reason for the morning exercise was to help the kinks out of his muscles, and they would loosen more as the day went on.

"Have you done much traveling?" Dagger's voice brought his attention back and he lowered his arms.

"Some would say so," he replied.

"I know you said you've been to Treno before, performing—" He could hear the admiration and curiosity entwining through her voice— "and obviously you have been to Alexandria and Lindblum, but have you been anywhere else?" She quickened her pace until she walked with him, matching the speed of her strides to his longer ones.

He watched the clouds drift swift across the morning sky above them, as if with some greater purpose, before answering her. "I've been to Burmecia," he said at length, taking care to keep the brittle grief cradling his memories of that place out of his voice. "Been to little towns all in-between the cities, whose names you'd never know—Albrook, Carwen, Tule, Baren, Torna, Tozus. Deli, too, a few times, years ago." The grasses shimmered in the wind, and he smelled the sea from his memory. "Sometimes I went sailing along the coast and hopped around the ports," he found himself telling her.

"With Tantalus the whole time?" Dagger's eyes were bright in the morning light, watching.

"Not every time." He shrugged, packing the memories back up before he took out too many. "I went off on my own quite a bit, too." Flash a grin to cover old scars. "Life of a young rogue, and all that."

Behind them, Steiner huffed loud his disapproval. She ignored her knight protector and squinted closely at Marcus, startling him enough to sidestep a little.

"You don't appear to be so old to me," she told him, hints of a smile at the corners of her mouth.

"I never said I was." Motioning back to Steiner with a shift of his head, he added, "Certainly not as old as your Pluto Captain there—"

"I can hear you, and I am not too old to fight you," the knight said sharply.

"Just teasing, both of you," Dagger cut in. "It really doesn't matter anyway."

"You seem older than just having had your sixteenth birthday," Marcus noted, pulling her attention back to him.

"The Princess," Steiner interjected, stressing her title, "has always been mature for her age, even when she was younger." A shallow furrow ran across Dagger's brow, and Marcus wondered at it. A sore subject, perhaps?

He cleared his throat and picked up his pace again, forcing the other two to lag behind or catch up.

"It doesn't matter," he echoed her earlier sentiment. "Sometimes age is just a number people assign you."

"It's inappropriate to ask a princess's age, anyhow." Dagger's voice came from beside him again, and he spared her a look in time to see a quick wink from her before she clasped her hands behind her back and turned her attention to the remaining path ahead.

He caught the quip before it flew from his mouth, biting down on the words of banter that wanted to play off hers—if she thought that was inappropriate, he could certainly show her a few other things—and exhaled them instead.

After a while, they fell into a loose, staggered line, Dagger leading them with a soft hum that drifted back to Marcus, off to one side behind her, alternating his gaze from the edge of the plateau that lead to the lowlands that sprawled the length between the southern Aerbs and Alexandria, and the easterly path ahead. Steiner took up the rear of the small group, quiet in his own thoughts as the sun climbed the sky. Though it looked as if the day should warm, the altitude of the plateau and the persistent wind traveling with them made it chillier than not. The year was well on its way to spring in the lowlands, but the edges of winter still clung to the mountains, even if the only snow was on the peaks. Even so, Marcus could smell the hints of spring trying to push up through the ground, and knew in a few weeks the grassland would be dotted with flowers as far as any traveler could see. For their passage, only the winter grasses kept them company, the new shoots still burrowed in the ground or within thicker parent stalks, awaiting the arrival of warmer weather.

Dagger halted them for lunch a little after the sun passed its zenith, sharing dried strips of meat, a small pouch of nuts, and some sun-dried berries with Steiner. Marcus's own fare was not much different, and he enjoyed the heat of the spices flecked over his meat, quiet and absent in his thoughts.

Traveling with them was not proving as unpleasant as he'd initially feared—but, he reminded himself as he brushed his hands free of crumbs, it had only been a day. Not that he had much choice in the matter, aside from stealing away in the dead of night with the hope he'd get far enough ahead that they wouldn't simply spot him. No, separating was not an option. Movement caught his eye and he turned his head to see Dagger standing and stretching, the orange of her overalls a flame amid the shivering plains grasses. She caught him watching and smiled.

Marcus got to his feet as well, sensing their brief rest was over, and as they regrouped to continue he had to admit Dagger made traveling with her overly stiff knight captain more bearable.

There were worse companions, he decided as she took the lead again. Turning his attention skyward, he marked the arc of the sun and the drift of the clouds. Despite the constant companion the wind was on the plains with them, it barely shifted the clouds in the sky. A good day for sailing, he thought. Winds for the canvas, but quiet higher in the skies, bode well for a day free from storms.

A now-familiar scent wafted like gossamer just beneath his nose—that sweetness threaded with a mint he suspected came from magic. The memory of coolness creeping through his arms as healing magic mended his skin brought the mint taste back to his tongue. Wetting his lips with the tingle still there, he enjoyed her quiet presence near him as he walked.

"You're rather quiet," Dagger commented at length.

Marcus didn't look down at her. "Don't feel the need to talk all the time."

"We'll be traveling together for a while," she continued.

"Only a few days," Marcus corrected, feeling the sharp edge of her look rather than seeing it.

"Have you made this trip before?" That wasn't the question on her mind, Marcus suspected, but he chose not to guess at what was.

Chewing the inside of his cheek before answering, he said, "Not for many years. Most trips to Treno—or towns and cities in general—were by airship."

Out of the corner of his vision, she nodded, in thought. "You said before you've sailed along the coast?"

Curious, he cast her a look. "Why do you want to know?"

The curve of her cheekbones softened and raised, and she turned her head to look away from him, clasping her hands behind her back.

"I bet you have a lot of interesting stories," she said. "I've never been sailing along any coast, or hiking along old worn paths—not before all this."

A suspicion wormed into the back of his mind; her words were no lie, but Marcus could smell there was more she left unsaid. More questions formed in his throat, but he did not ask them. He was under the impression guilt drove her to want to help him so badly, but now he suddenly felt unsure. What were her other motives?

"Something is up ahead!" Steiner broke through Marcus's thoughts and their conversation.

Attention snapping from Dagger to the plains ahead, Marcus saw several dark shapes churning just above the tops of the grasses, but it was difficult to discern what they were or even how many were coming toward them—and coming they were, at an alarming pace.

"What are they?" Dagger, he noticed, moved quickly to prepare herself, long racket already held in her hands.

Marcus drew his falcata, blackened blade catching his eye again, and silently prayed the metal would hold in a fight.

"Does it matter? They're trouble," he replied. Steiner came up next to him with a sharp look on his face—one Marcus knew too well. The Tantalus man grabbed hold of the knight's arm before he could charge ahead.

At Steiner's irritated glance back, Marcus shook his head. "Save your energy, let them come to us. I can't tell how many there are."

"Perhaps they'll avoid us entirely," Dagger suggested, though the apprehension laced through her tone sounded as if she didn't expect that to happen.

The shapes drew closer, dark and propelling like the pistons of a mist engine, until they were close enough that Marcus could hear them clearly—chittering, scuttling noises that were only partially from the heavy, disturbed rustling of grass stalks.

"No such luck," he drawled, widening his stance and rotating his falcata in anticipation, turning it over his wrist in an absent, practiced motion.

All at once, two spider-like creatures with legs twice as long as Marcus was tall erupted from the grasses onto the wide path in front of them. Clicks filled the air between the creatures, with a shill tone nestled somewhere in the back of those clicks on a pitch that made Marcus's head hurt.

"And I thought that black mage hit a bad note," Marcus grated around a wince.

"What are you talking about?" Steiner asked, then shook his head. "Nevermind. We must concentrate on defeating these monsters."

Marcus felt a warmth settle over him, blocking the wind for a moment, which he recognized now as the feel of the magic Dagger cast—an intangible layer over his skin.

In thanks, he spun his falcata again and lunged at the closest creature, hoping to surprise it with the quickness of his feet and was rewarded by cutting deep into the hairy flesh of one of its legs. As he skirted back out of reach, he caught a clear look of its head, nestled behind two smaller protective limbs, with fang-like mandibles as big as his forearm and more eyes than he could count with only a glance.

At least they didn't look as if they'd electrocute him, though they did move more quickly than the last opponent Marcus had faced with the princess and her knight; he watched as the companion spider to the one he'd struck scuttled around to Steiner and nearly knocked the armored man off his feet with the sharp end of a long front leg. The fact that Steiner was lucky enough to have the protection of steel over his chest did not escape him, and so Marcus's eyes now tracked those front legs. He'd have to rely on his own reflexes to save him—Dagger's protective magic felt warm, but he wasn't entirely certain it'd save him from getting a hole in his lung.

The creature he faced lurched at him, but immediately faltered as it put weight on its wounded leg, giving Marcus ample time to evade. Darting to the injured side, he swung his blade again, catching another leg. His cut wasn't as deep as the first, but it angled across a knobby joint and the creature emitted a shrill chittering. Marcus clenched his teeth against the noise as both he and the creature retreated from one another. To his left, he heard Steiner shout, followed soon after by a clumsy scuffling and painful clicking that told Marcus the knight had also caused some damage.

Redirecting his attention back to the wounded spider before him, Marcus shifted his grip. These things might be quick, but they seemed easy to bring down. Wait for the right moment, then sprint and get in. Marcus was quicker than the front legs and their deadly points, skidding across the dusty path beneath the head of the creature with his falcata up and biting deep into soft underbelly. The thing writhed and shrieked above him, and he rolled out from under the lashing legs only to grasp at his head with a free hand. The dying scream of the creature cut right through his skull, clattering between his ears and making it feel as if it would split.

Coming to a crouch a few feet away, Marcus watched the creature's intact legs curl up as it died, an immense version of the tiny look-alikes most people only worried about shooing out of their houses. Steiner struck his own killing blow, slicing a leg clean through and practically severing its abdomen in half. Half-clattering, half-screeching, the last sounds the second creature made were just as piercing as the first's, and made Marcus's teeth throb. Leaning on the falcata, point wedged haphazardly in the ground, he clutched his forehead with his free hand until the sound petered out, the creature finally dead.

One breath in, then one out—wait for the throb in his skull to subside before lowering his hand. Dagger was already jogging over to him, her dark eyebrows steepled above worried amber eyes.

"Where are you hurt?" she asked him, breathless, as soon as she was near enough.

He shook his head and stood, shaky, tugging his falcata out of the ground. "Nowhere—I'm fine."

As he spoke, he watched her concern ease into confusion. "But, the way you were holding your head...?"

For whatever reason, he felt slender fingers of heat creep up his neck, but he couldn't tell if he were more embarrassed that he'd clutched his head enough to worry her, or that she was so worried in the first place.

"Ah," he began, then cleared his throat. "It's just that the pitch those creatures were making didn't agree with my head."

"Pitch?" Steiner came up behind his princess, wiping blood from his blade. "What are you talking about? All they did was make clicking sounds the whole time." He slid his sword back into its sheath.

Marcus looked at him as he was reminded again that they were no different than everyone else in not hearing all that he could, before nodding, the motion small and controlled. "Right," was all he said, turning his attention to his own blade, cleaning it and then sheathing it. "Let's not linger to see if they have friends."

Walking past the curious look Dagger gave him, Marcus started down the path without waiting to make sure they followed. Where else would they go, except the same way?

He'd gotten quite a bit ahead of them when he heard—and felt—another shrill noise come from his immediate right, and a third spider-like creature burst from the tall grasses, barreling down upon him. It collided solidly into his side and bowled him over completely, which in turn he used to his advantage, continuing the scrambling roll with the weight of his momentum even as he fumbled to grasp his sword. Luck was not with him, and as soon as he drew the blade free, a blurred strike from one of its legs knocked it from his hand, sending his falcata flying and lost in the grasses.

"Damn!" he swore, both hands grabbing and immediately struggling to keep the two foremost limbs—the ones with the deadly sharp ends—from skewering him. He straddled the creature now, doing his best to pin what he could down with his legs and own weight—all of which proved to be of no avail as the creature used extra legs that Marcus could not control to heave itself overtop him.

A guttural shout tore free from his throat—not of help, but of instinct—and he struggled against the creature, the brute strength in his arms the only thing keeping him alive. He had to do something quickly, and soon—a dagger was strapped to the back of his belt, and if he could get that free...

Wrestling against the creature was taxing him, but a quick battle-blood decision took hold before his arms gave out. Time slowed for him just enough to shove the creature away with a burst of strength from somewhere and he rolled on his side to grab for his knife. He didn't recall feeling his fingers close around anything, but then the dagger was in his hand and buried into the creature above him up to the hilt. It was thrust into the paler underbelly of the creature's abdomen and Marcus gripped tighter, desperate to keep hold of his dagger amid thrashing that swiftly changed from struggling escape into death throes. This time, he could not afford to cover his ears or hold his head against the grating screeching it emitted—his proximity to the noise, combined with the foul stench of its innards oozing around his dagger blade, sent a bolt of nausea straight into his gut like a rod.

Once the creature grew still, Marcus braced his boots against it and strained, hands still around his dagger, until he forced both his blade free and the creature off him. The battle-rush left him all at once and he collapsed the few spans back onto the ground, chest heaving and arms spread out, the dagger bouncing out of his fingers and onto the dirt.

Both Dagger and Steiner ran to him; he could hear their boots thudding hard on the dirt path. She fell to her knees beside Marcus, fingertips already tinged with green but not knowing where to lay them.

"Where are you hurt?" she asked for the second time that day.

He shook his head and lifted one hand in a weary, vaguely waving motion. " 'M fine. Just give a moment." The hand fell to his chest, fingers finding the still-pounding heartbeat against his sternum. Closing his eyes, he counted the beats until he felt them slow. Dagger did not move; he smelled the faint mint of her magic hovering above him. A fair change from the creature just minutes ago, he decided, and felt a smile crack his face.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Dagger's worry brought him back and he opened his eyes.

In response, he pushed himself up onto his elbows, grunting softly. His head still pounded from the noises only he heard the creatures make, but he resisted bringing his hands to his temples. She rocked back a little to accommodate him.

"Yeah," he repeated. "It didn't get me anywhere." The thought that if he hadn't been as strong or as quick, he might be dead instead, run clean through, briefly flitted through his mind before he shoved it away. His stomach rolled again.

"We thought it had," she went on, her eyes darkening beneath lines across her brow. It tugged at something along the bottom of his heart, and he had to quell the sudden strong urge to smooth the lines with his thumb.

"Hey," he said, turning his back to her as he rolled to the side and pushed himself fully upright. He brushed some of the dust from his pants after he steadied on his feet and she rose beside him. "If I had a coin for every time I survived through a dangerous scrape like that, I could retire." He turned to her and gave a half-smile, willing ease and nonchalance into his voice—at least the throbbing in his skull was beginning to diminish. "See? All in one piece."

While Dagger scrutinized him, dubious, Steiner nodded.

"I must admit, you do have excellent fighting instincts," he said, then added, as if an afterthought, "for a brigand."

"Of course," Marcus said, feeling his breathing finally calm back close to normal and his heart no longer railing against the confines of his chest. "I do have a reputation to maintain." His eyes already shifted away, scanning the grass just along the trail. "That thing knocked my sword away—once I find it we should put some distance between us and all this."

He tracked back over the disturbed earth of the path his scuffle left behind, trying to guess which way his falcata had gone. Opposite him, he heard Dagger and Steiner talking quietly as they searched. Treading slow, now off the path into the grasses proper, he slid his boots over the ground more than stepped with them, listening for the tough leather to connect with worked steel. Fortune came back to his side, for it was only a few minutes of searching before his boot nudged the hilt of his falcata. He scooped it up and returned to Dagger and Steiner, sheathing it as he went.

"I found it; let's go. We need to make up time, " he told them brusquely, not stopping before skirting around the spider creature to continue down the path.

"Wait up!" Dagger surged immediately into a jog to catch up with him.

"Yes," Steiner agreed. "Are we on some sort of schedule you've neglected to tell us?"

"Also, you going ahead last time didn't go quite so well," she added.

Marcus snorted. "I killed the thing with not a scratch—I think it went just fine. And yes, we are. My supplies are going to run low soon, so I know yours must be for the two of you, so we need to keep moving." He didn't cast back the look he wanted, and instead turned his face to the easterly sky. "We have leagues to go before we can make camp for the night."