Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards Ch. 13 Pt. 2

 Notes: Sorry it's a little late! Enjoy some...well, this is probably as angsty as this story will get, so, uh, enjoy the pain, I guess?

Title: Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards Ch. 13 Pt. 2

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Chapter Thirteen, Part Two

 

Just Close Your Eyes

 

He was halfway to the square when it happened. One moment his ears were filled with the swell of the crowd in the distance, supplemented by a voice that was being magically projected to come off as louder than it actually was. Hiram assumed it was a performer, someone working to draw the crowd in close for a show, but then—

“REVEAL YOURSELF, SAVIOR OF GARRISON! REVEAL YOURSELF TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE AND THE GRATITUDE OF OUR CITIZENS!”

Hiram doubled over, clutching at his head as he slammed his eyes closed. This was more than a simple seeking, so much worse. This was a compulsion, and it was a strong one. Whoever the wizard behind it was, they were powerful. They’d not only used whatever shreds of evidence Mule had left on the gnolls to orient their spell, they’d expanded it to encompass Mule’s caretaker—him.

Hiram wasn’t worried about Mule, as unicorns were immune to most types of magic and could never, under any circumstances, be compelled. He was far more worried about the fact that he knew, if he opened his eyes right now, whoever was behind the compulsion would see right through him. He felt their consciousness in the front of his mind, wriggling with curiosity behind his eyes, and he was filled with a loathing so intense he knew that whoever it was had to feel his animosity.

Compulsions were hideously invasive spells, the worst sort of violation of privacy. Hiram had refused to do them after the first time he felt one laid upon him, so adamant about it that not even Andy was able to convince him otherwise. He’d made sure to lay the strongest possible protections he could on his companions, so that none of them would ever have to suffer from the at best horribly mannered, at worst predatory magic users who might attempt a compulsion on them.

He felt Phlox responding, trying to rebuff it, but the elemental had been prepared for the light touch of a seeking, not the hammer blow of a spell like this.

“HE’S HERE! OUR WIZARD TELLS US THAT OUR SAVIOR IS CLOSE BY! COME FORTH, GOOD SIR, AND TELL US ABOUT THE FIGHT!”

It was getting harder and harder to fight the urge to open his eyes. Worst than that was the impulse to straighten up and start walking again, walking toward the plaza where everyone was waiting for him, they wanted to meet him, to fete him, and he wanted…he wanted to, he…

No! Caught between two awful options, Hiram took the one that would give him more time—any time. He reached inside himself, unlocked the barriers he’d put around the vast majority of his magic for months now, and set himself free. As his power surged, the foreign consciousness in his mind was pushed out with a squawk of surprise and dismay. The compulsion itself still lay upon him, though, like a scratchy blanket over his brain, and Hiram did the best thing he could think of with it.

He stitched the compulsion into a thread of his power and hurtled it toward the greatest agglomeration of magic in the area, possibly in the entire country. He sent it straight to Gemmel’s Tower, where the dark, hungry energies absorbed both magical signatures like pebbles swallowed by a lake. Leylines shivered with the passage, but not specifically enough to pinpoint Hiram.

At least, he hoped not.

“You have to get out of here.”

“I know,” he groaned as the crowd began to roar. Whatever they were seeing in the plaza, it had everyone in a tizzy. Probably the wizard responsible had collapsed, or maybe he was babbling about seeing things he shouldn’t have in Gemmel’s Tower. Whatever was happening, the situation was only going to intensify at this point. He needed to leave, now. “Let’s go get Mule.”

“You have to open your eyes first.”

Oh, right. Hiram pried his eyes open gingerly, wincing as the light ramped up the headache that the obscuration had planted. Damn it, he was going to experience severe backlash as a result of shooting off a huge pulse of magic without even going through a warm up. He had to get as far away from Garrison as possible, before he couldn’t move anymore. “Come on.” He stood and brushed himself off with shaking hands, then picked up his rucksack. The weight almost dragged him off his feet again.

“Will you be all right?”

“I have to be,” Hiram said, injecting a little more confidence into his voice. “Don’t worry, this is nothing compared to what I’ve gone through in the past.”

“You were prepared for such things in the past. You haven’t used your magic for so long…Hiram…”

“First things first, my dear. We need to get out of here.”

It was thankfully easy to reach Mule, settled on the outskirts of the square as she was. The two lads charged with caring for her were in a tizzy, one of them on the other’s shoulders as he tried to make out what was happening on the stage in the center of the plaza. “Thanks, sir,” he said absently as Hiram paid what was due. “Say, did you see what happened? One second the Wizard Greenlief was doin’ his thing, the next he was fallin’ over!”

“I’m afraid I didn’t see anything,” Hiram said with complete honesty. “Thanks for the help.” He took Mule and led her well away from the plaza before removing the blinders, just in case. The side streets were nearly empty, and it was a simple thing to saddle up and head for the road once more.

Well, it should have been simple. It actually ended up being quite a challenge to get from the ground to the saddle, and for the first time in a long time, Hiram felt his age. Gods above and below, he was so tired, and his head ached fiercely and was only getting worse, and his sinuses felt like they’d been forcibly scraped out with copper wire, and his throat still tickled and his nose was stuffed up and his lungs were sore from coughing, and everything about him was a complete mess right now.

Be a mess on the road. Or perhaps off the road.

“Mule,” he murmured once he was finally on her back, “take the long way home, darling.” Mule wasn’t smart in a humanoid sense, but she was completely attuned to Hiram’s needs, and he was confident she understood him. They set off from Garrison, not on the direct road that led straight back to Lollop, but via the north road. It was a more roundabout path, but exactly how roundabout, Hiram wasn’t entirely sure.

Whatever, it would be fine. Mule would get him home.

Hiram’s faith held out until it got dark. They were still on the road, and there was no sign of an inn anywhere. Worse than that, his headache had progressed to the point where every movement felt like an intensification of the agony, and even Mule’s gentle gait made him want to throw up. The full moon had only just passed, leaving the night sky unreasonably bright, and eventually it was too much for Hiram to bear. “I have to get down,” he muttered. “I have to stop.”

“Use a spell of healing, it’s not—”

“No!” Hiram immediately regretted raising his voice. “No, no more spells, no more dips into my magic, nothing. I just lit up the entire ethosphere with my magical signature. Andy’s going to be sending more wizards in this direction than I have fingers and toes, and the only thing that’s going to keep me safe is disappearing completely.” He brought Mule to a stop, then slid onto the ground. Hiram’s legs hit too stiffly, and he almost collapsed.

“You need to get home!”

“I need to recover some first,” he said with a sigh. “Mule, darling, help me into the woods.”

“I’m sorry, you want her to lead you into the gnoll-infested forest? The dark woods? The place everyone warned you about, so that you can recover?”

“I just need some sleep.”

“Yes, in a bed.”

Hiram stopped talking and focused on not tripping as they moved deeper into the forest. It was cold and far too wet to be comfortable, but at least it wasn’t actively raining on him this time. Even better, it was blessedly dark. He stopped a dozen or so yards in, where he found a fallen tree that would make a decent base for a lean-to. A little rummaging in his pack produced his oilcloth cloak, which he draped over the tree to shield the ground beneath it. Then he bundled himself up in every other piece of clothing he had, sipped at the water in his canteen long enough to leave his stomach feeling sloshy, and turned his rucksack into a makeshift pillow.

There, nothing to it. Hiram knew how to sleep rough—he was an old hand at this sort of thing! Granted, he’d usually been part of a group, and there’d been lookouts and the like, and he’d set up all sorts of defensive spells to let him know if something bad was coming, but this was fine. Oribel was one of he safest countries in the empire, gnoll bandits notwithstanding.

It would be fine. It had to be; he couldn’t stay awake any longer. Hiram lasted just long enough to loosen Mule’s bridle and saddle, then curled up on his side in the shelter and fell into a fitful sleep.

Gods, his head hurt even in his dreams…he drifted in and out of consciousness for a while, unable to concentrate on the faint voice he heard, one that sounded like Phlox. “Go get help,” it insisted, and then Mule was whickering and there was the sound of hooves picking their way back to the road, and then there was nothing at all as a deeper, more exhausted sleep finally found Hiram.

***

Miles away, a predator roamed. The night after the full moon was always easier spent in beast form than as a man, especially since the urgency had passed. With full control of his faculties, it was almost fun to be a monster, to hunt for prey in the forest and feel the freedom that came with such a strong body. He stretched his senses as far as they would go, and recoiled as he smelled something terribly dangerous.

Unicorn.

He hunkered in the undergrowth and waited for the unicorn to pass. It moved at a thundering pace, and despite himself he found his gaze drawn to the road. It must be a very fancy rider, to harness a unicorn in such a way.

He blanched as he realized that he recognized this unicorn. It had almost run him through not long ago—it wanted him dead! It would surely try to kill him if it sensed him…and yet, it didn’t even pause in its run, passing him with single-minded focus.

That was Hiram’s unicorn, all dressed up to be ridden yet with no rider.

Fuck. Where was Hiram?

His instincts screamed at him. Find him! Hunt him down, grab him up, make him yours! And in this form, there was no reason not to.

The predator moved close enough to the road to follow the telltale scent of unicorn and began his own run.