Chapter 2A: First Impressions

Hans flung back his head with a frustrated cry.

You got lost again, stupid! He sucked in several deep breaths of lilac-scented air although he was sick of the cloying smell. The purple flowered shrubs were clustered throughout the scrubland just outside of the city. The only thing his wandering had earned him was familiarity with nearly every bush within a half-mile radius. Going back to the task at hand, he mentally retraced his steps in case he had missed a clue.

He had heard a bloody scream as he searched and immediately run towards it. The evidence of her last battle was still fresh. The blood soaked earth, broken twigs and tracks in the dirt depicting a skirmish, not to mention the fresh body swinging gently from the rope around its neck. Hans forced himself to look closely at the bloody face and determined that it matched the description of the fugitive Artur Jean Ur-Grendell. No, not Ur anymore, criminals lose their title at the moment of conviction, no matter how lowly.

Then he followed her trail...at least he hoped it was her trail. And that had ended cleanly without warning nearly an hour ago. Was she running away from him already? Hans’ mother had once said that his eagerness could scare away a wild boar but he had been sure she was jesting...well, half-jesting.

Now he had no way of finding her except maybe to return to village and wait for her at the gate, which he had been ordered to do originally before he had decided to make a good impression by taking The Initiative to find her first. He jumped half-heartedly over one of the thousands of bushes and wondered if he would be scolded for failing his first mission. She was probably already in the city, halfway to the Court to hand in a report by now, being asked of a message she hadn’t gotten...imagining the wrung neck of an apprentice she hadn’t yet met. He groaned.

A melody made him pause mid-step. He recognised the famous tune, painfully sad but endearing. A flutist was playing ‘Before the First’, a local requiem for dead infants and the stillborn. He ran towards it. The parchment softened in his hand as his palm dampened with excitement and nervousness.

He could now hear the clinking of armour amidst the song notes. He sped up and weaved between trees until he saw her hair and armour glinting in the sun.

“Bellona-Senior!” he slowed when he was by her side. She walked with her eyes closed as she played the flute. Her fingers moved lightly over the holes and her cheeks were puffed slightly as she blew out.

“I must say that I’m honoured to meet…” his words were cut off by her sharp glare.

Hans bit his tongue and cursed himself. He waited patiently for the song to conclude, hoping his interruption didn't count as the first impression. When she delivered the last low note, she cleaned the flute, wrapped it in a rectangle of cloth and stowed it away in a pouch hanging from her belt. He was not sure if he should start again or if he should wait on her to address him. She stopped and turned to him.

“What is it?”

“Er…”

He was suddenly distracted with her skin; dark and rich like fertile soil. It was so rare to see such strong characteristics typical of the Silten blood. This initial observation led him to her mouth which was full and well-shaped and her imperial nose. The eyebrows were a wild mess, unusual for a citizen of Kallista. Crazy eyebrows on a woman meant she would be a high-strung wife. The features, when taken in separately were attractive, but they somehow added up to a completely plain and aggressive face.

She made an impatient noise in her throat.

“You’re wasting my time.”

“The Council has assigned me to be your apprentice. My name is Hans Le-Obsidian, Hans with an s and not a z-”

 Hans didn't know what he had done wrong but anger flickered on Bellona’s face.

“Never,” she stressed the word as if speaking to a disobedient child, “give your real name to anyone while on duty, even to comrades.”

“Uh, sorry...”

“Don't apologize. Do it. Reintroduce yourself.”

“I’m Hans, with-an-s-not-a-z,” he added with a hesitant smile.

She spun around to face him fully. “This is not a joke-”

“Whoa!” Hans jumped back and pointed wordlessly at her waist. Bellona frowned and followed his finger. He had been gesturing at the trio of shrunken heads which seemed to be eyeing him with malicious anticipation.

“Oh, these,” she said nonchalantly.

“Yeah, those…things are-! Senior, it’s treason to possess objects of shadow magic.”

She rolled her eyes. “Hans-whose-name-is-with-an-s-and-not-a-z, use your brain. Do you think that I could be walking around with these without the Council’s approval? These are just a symbol of my Silten heritage. If they ever did possess the ability to cast shadow magic then don’t you think it would have faded by now without a practising magus to keep it recharged?”

Hans swallowed. “I suppose so.”

She shook her head. “You have to be careful what you report on your comrades. No one likes a talebearer and to get on the wrong side of someone with whom you have to fight side by side with is tantamount to career suicide or just plain suicide.

“For instance, I may remember your hurtful accusation just as an enemy is charging at you from behind, and I may end up throwing my spear at him just a fraction too late before his sword cleaves your spine in two.”

Hans blanched visibly. He was aware of the lilac smell again. It was nauseating. 

“But if I don’t report something illegal, isn’t it possible for me to get arrested too?” he argued, a bewildered look on his face.

“Don’t be stupid, of course you can get in trouble. Hiding evidence of treason is a treasonous act in itself which leads to either decapitation or hanging, at best.”

Hans rubbed his temples vigorously, he was sure a headache was right around the corner. Bellona smiled briefly at his distress but when he looked up it was gone.

Bellona folded her arms. “I presume you came here because you have a message for me.”

He stopped rubbing his temple. “How did you guess?”

“Meeting my new protégé could have waited for me to return to the village or if they were very eager to get a message to me a Carrion would have been sufficient. Knowing the efficiency of the Council, they must have used you to kill two birds with one stone. All this fuss over nothing,” she sighed.

He offered the letter which was damp and crumpled from his sweaty palm. She pursed her lips in distaste.

“Read it to me.”

He unrolled it tentatively and cleared his throat. “To, Nike " uh, Senior, who's Nike?”

“Finish reading.”

“Right, ‘To Nike also referred to as Bellona, oh that’s you, I didn’t know you had two names " Lady Executioner with success rate of 99%. Name of condemned:  Boron Colvano, born in the town of Highroot, raised in Shellstone City. Physical descriptions: varied " Inquisitor believes criminal employs disguises however all gained reports commonly describe him as tall’ " tall, that’s it? Sorry, I’ll keep reading. ‘Most recently charged with: three counts of murder, four counts of robbery, one count attempted mur…’”

“Current suspected location?”

Hans skimmed down several paragraphs of what he was sure was vital information. “Still in his hometown, Shellstone.”

She nodded to herself. “A city where the ignorant upper middle class vacation frequently and where the merchants flock to trade. An excellent choice for a criminal. It’s only one and a half days away from here.”

“The note says it’s imperative to bring the entire body back, if possible. There are more details…”

“That I will read in my own time,” she relieved him of the parchment. “Let’s go. Our destination is north-west.”

 

*

 

Hans glanced at the sun’s position. It was now a little past noon; they had been travelling in complete silence for at least three hours. Hans estimated that they had covered at least eleven miles and still he could not think of anything to say. He sighed; this tutor-apprentice relationship felt like it was already a lost cause. He was suddenly aware of being watched and instinctively glanced in her direction. Her brown eyes were focused on his back and not his face. She was looking at his weapon; admiring it. He felt a small burst of pride.

“Hans?”               

“Yes, Bellona-Senior,” he felt hopeful.

 “Have you heard what happened to my last apprentice?”

Hans’s mind flipped through pages of information bound in his brain and came up with zero results. He had researched his mentor’s sparsely known history thoroughly and here he had missed a significant fact.

“I thought I was your first,” he winced faintly at the wording. “First apprentice, I mean.”

“Hardly, I had only one before you. She was just a little bit older. We only had three days together before she died.”

Hans’s smile withered faster than a plucked rose in the sun. He swallowed.

“She didn’t happen to be cleaved in two, was she?”

She smiled and her face briefly transformed into something pretty and soft. Hans blinked and the transformation was gone. “She died in battle when we were chasing a condemned traitor. He was a very accomplished swordsman; well-trained and well-experienced.”

“He was too much for her to handle.”

“You’re mistaken. He didn’t kill her. We finished him off together.”

Hans raised his eyebrows expectantly. Bellona threw her braids over her shoulder.

“I’ll tell you the rest when we finish this assignment.”

He groaned. Was his punishment to suffer through suspense? “Ok.”

“What's your mother like? You were raised by her. I can tell.”

The question caught him off guard. It brought up memories that he would rather not resurface.

“I was.”

“That’s a handsome lance you have strapped to your back.”

This woman’s focus was all over the place. “It’s sort of…a family heirloom.”

She stopped suddenly and turned to him.

“May I see it up close?”

Smiling broadly, he reached behind his head and pulled the weapon free.

“Now come at me,” she commanded.

“What?”He felt the lance tremble.

She moved slightly away and beckoned with two fingers.

“With an intent to kill.”

He froze in a posture of uncertainty.

“Think of it as a training exercise, an initiation, a trial run or whatever makes you comfortable.”

She was serious. Hans could see it, feel it in her muscles. He had learned as much as he could about his new mentor but her abruptness and static facial expressions left him mystified. All the same, her prowess as a fighter was no mystery.

Hans pushed aside his I'm-a-Bellona-fan personality for his trained fighter mode. What better way to prove that he was worthy of learning under her? He tightened his grip and observed her position carefully. Her hands were hanging at her sides with her feet spread apart. There were several open points of attack and Hans could not squelch a guilty feeling.

“Aren't you going to arm yourself, Senior?”

She smirked and drew her lance without flourish. She took a running step and using her momentum threw the weapon at the boy. Hans felt a sudden breeze brush his neck as the lance blurred past. With a hollow thud, it lodged firmly into the trunk of an unfortunate tree.

He exhaled raggedly. She had thrown it so fast that his muscles had not even tightened in reflex either in anticipation or in bracing for impact. In fact, if it were not for the missing weapon and her outstretched arm as evidence, he might have doubted that she had just attacked him.

Hans stared into Bellona’s unflinching eyes as she straightened. Her gaze and his instinct agreed that she had missed on purpose or else he would have been on the ground now, his lifeblood draining into the dust with the lance rammed straight through his brain.

“Now,” she took off her cloak and tossed it on the grass. She raised her fists. “Come at me with killing intent or else I will start.”

Hans clenched his teeth and used the shock of his near death to drive forward. He spun the lance and thrust at her stomach. She used her hand like a knife and batted the lance away, avoiding the sharp edge. Hans countered in an upwards strike but she sidestepped. Her fist lashed out at his chin. Hans barely reacted in time. The blow landed on his shoulder instead. Even though it was a glancing blow, Hans felt the pain down to his fingertips. The woman was unnaturally strong, but that was expected of someone of prominent Silten heritage.

“My Silten blood gives me denser bones,” she explained before whirling into a kick.

Hans blocked it with the lance’s staff and staggered back. She whipped around into a successive kick. He blocked again but this kick caught him mid-transition to offensive. Her boot crunched into his chest and sent him flying. He struggled to get up even though his vision spun and his chest was on fire. He realised now that the repeated tales of natural Silten strength were not just mere facts but dull understatements. The lance was ripped out of his hand and she leaned over him, the tip pointed at his throat, her mouth grim.

She sighed. “Your movements are predictable at best. Provided that you’re not a complete idiot, that should improve with experience in the real world. At least you’re persistent,” she added with mock admiration. “All in all, I suppose you’ll do. You have a minute to catch your breath. I want to get off the road before nightfall.”

This time Hans welcomed the silence as they travelled even though it made the prospect of death ring loudly in his head; a flat keening sound.