Chapter Six – Upon the Heath

  It took a week for the cart to be finished. A long, excruciating, week. A week in which she couldn’t make any progress. A week where she was stuck, lodging up in the hunter’s guild. Sure, she could’ve returned up to the fort for the night, but there was something about doing that which rubbed Atalanta the wrong way. She’d started the journey. She was fending for herself. She couldn’t be returning home with a metaphorical tail between her legs.

  She filled the week, largely, with busywork. Helping Gareth the butcher pluck chickens, helping in Ulssia’s forge as a second pair of hands, and even offering some basic swordplay lessons to some of the town’s children that had seen Balmung hanging at her hip. Their grand reward for pestering her enough to break her down. Most of the work that came her way, however, was construction. Even as Autumn dawned, the people were preparing for winter. Dodging autumn showers by repairing their roofs early, or patching holes in walls and fences. It was long work. It was hard work. It was, quite frankly, unfulfilling work. But it filled the day and, at the end of it all, she’d obtained twenty whole Schaffian copper ducats. The coins would only be enough for a few meals and drinks on the road, but it was certainly better than nothing. Especially as it had only been for a week’s work.

  It was on the morning of the eighth day that she received a summons. She was sat on her bed in the hunter’s guild – although in another week, it’d no doubt be occupied by another hunter’s equipment – polishing Balmung, oil-laden cloth leaving a fine sheen as it traced a path along the golden blade. Knock knock. The door went. She raised a brow, and then her voice in reply.

  “Who is it?”

  “It is Beth, Grajak. There is someone here to see you, waiting in the lobby.” Someone in the lobby, huh? Atalanta smiled to herself. Either this was someone with a lucrative request that only she could fulfil, or it was a sign of departure. She rolled herself forward, off the bed and onto her feet. She was willing to bet all twenty of her coppers that it was the latter.

  “Tell them to wait for just a moment longer. I’m on my way.” She looked across her bed and near instantly began to pack and check everything. Ensuring she had the right arrows, that her whetstone was safely bundled up, and that her dried lamb – a nice reward from a job well done earlier in the week - was at the very top of the bag. Perfect. Everything was in order. She tied Balmung’s scabbard up against her back, picked up her travel bag and stepped out of the room.

  The Cowherd wasn’t in the lobby. In fact, he wasn’t in the guild at all. Evidently, in the five minutes it had taken for Atalanta to head outside, he had gotten bored and left the building. Not the area, though. As when Atalanta stepped out, she saw that the little canopy for travelling dignitaries was occupied, for once. The cowherd – looking a lot more presentable, in clothes that weren’t caked in mud and thorns - was tending to his horse and alerted to Atalanta’s presence by the beast of burden snickering at her approach. It seemed agitated. Tail flicking indignantly behind it, hooves scraping against the cobbled road. She swore that it was looking at her with suspicion.

  “Don’t worry about Anna here, she’s tame. She probably doesn’t like these hunting lot, is all. Poor girl’s been through a lot this last week, haven’t you girl?” He pat the horse’s neck, but the action seemed to do little in consoling her. She simply whinnied in complaint, stamping her hoof as if telling the cowherd to get on with it. Although, speaking of-

  “Where’re your cows?” She’d half expected the street around the guild-building to be crawling with cattle. She’d heard tales that packs of cowherds could travel with entire cities worth of them. She saw not a one.

  “Oh, they’ll come running. They’re well-trained beasts, scarily smart. I’ve got a whistle, see. I blow it, and the whole herd will gather around the cart, like well-behaved little sheep.” A whistle could do that? She knew of dog whistles, and a large part of communicating as a hunter came with various whistles to communicate intent, but a cattle-whistle? She'd never heard of such a thing, and some part of her doubted the claimed intelligence of his herd. Yet she could see it. Wrapped around his neck, hidden beneath his shirt. She had no reason but to trust him, he was the experienced cattle-handler, she supposed. If he had a certain trick, he had a certain trick. She wouldn’t want anyone questioning her trap construction or hunting techniques, that was certain.

  “Now, miss Addlana, we’re burning sunlight. Best to get this town behind us, eh? You can sit up front, if you want.”

  “It’s Atalanta, and I’ll pass.” She gave him a curt response and approached the cart. The horse really didn’t seem to like her. She didn’t want a hoof in her ribs today, no matter how well-trained her handler claimed her to be. No, she’d ride in back with the cargo. She hopped up and carefully found herself somewhere to sit. The back of the cart was a mess, even with the repairs that had been done to it. The damage she’d done was evident – the dark woods of the local forests marking a sharp contrast with the sandier coloured wood that grew where the cart was made. It was quicker and cheaper to replace individual planks, for sure, but it certainly looked rough. And the cargo itself? Utterly uninteresting.

  A few soft bags sat at the very front of the cart, behind the driver’s bench. Behind them, there were all manners of textiles. Furs, pelts, even a few sacks of charcoal thrown in for good measure. Most of it seemed to be locally sourced, if she had to guess. There wasn’t much of a haul to gain from the bandits’ lair, if she remembered rightly. There was one thing of interest to her within it, though. All the sacks bore one of two insignias, stitched into them. A prancing stag, or a flying pegasus. The latter was far more common. They must’ve been seals of quality, she figured. Merchant stamps of some kind. Little to worry about, surely.

  The cowherd clambered up onto his bench, looking back towards Atalanta.

  “You sat comfortably? It’s a long way from here to the count’s place. Two, three weeks, I reckon? We’ll be stopping off in a few villages along the way. Nothing quite like a warm bed, eh?” She quietly hummed her agreement, not committing to his statement one way or another. Sure, when it was cold, a nice warm bed did the trick unlike anything else. When it was warm, though? She’d give everything just to sleep under the stars. There were too many nights that Bjorn had found her asleep on the walls of the fort. Just her and her sleeping roll, having spent the entire night just staring up at them. Her stomach twisted at that memory. How long would it be until she would see that familiar fort again? With those pale blue banners billowing in the wind?

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  The cart lurched forward with a crack of the reins. The old axels complaining beneath her as it began to move, taking her through the cobbled streets of her home. For the first time, it truly hit her just what this adventure entailed. Just what was waiting for her on the horizon. As they passed through the town’s gate, as cobbled roads turned to a well-trodden path, she could only watch as her home grew ever smaller in the distance.

  That wasn’t to say that the whole adventure wasn’t going to be familiar in some ways. The start of the journey still ran through that same forest she had hunted in for so long. Although there was no formal road marking the exit of the town – really, such things only existed between the great cities – the townsfolk still maintained the pathway to the rest of the continent. The trees were kept controlled – a rough pair of lines marking road boundaries, wide enough for two carts to pass side by side uninterrupted. The canopy arched above the roadway and, as the leaves began to brown in preparation for the coming autumn, the golden rays of the rising sun filtered through to illuminate their pathway out.

  “What a view. Better than wandering the underbrush, that’s for sure.” The cowherd commented, as if expecting a reaction from Atalanta. As he waited, he pulled out his whistle and blew. To no result, seemingly. What could she say, though, other than simply affirming him? It was better. Anything shy of a punch in the mouth would’ve been better than wandering the woods alone. It wasn’t as if she had any deep insight. She’d not travelled this road herself, since she was first brought to the town, she was sure of it, and even that was during the dark. For all she knew, she was asleep for that whole journey.

  “What’s our way forward? Where are we stopping?”

  “Straight to business, eh? Alright, I’ll bite. There’re two villages between here and the count I want to visit. Elland, a small little farming village. I want to get some grain, some carrots. The odd cabbage. There’s not much colour in the back there, now, is there? Unless you like salted beans, we’re best picking some produce up there.” So that’s what those two softer bags were for. She prodded one of them with her foot. It was more compact than the others. That must’ve been the salt. She glanced around... and behind the cart, a small trail of cows appeared from within the woods, gathering to swarm the cart. Each of them seemed to have a mark on their flank. A pegasus, again. One of these lords certainly seemed to like that symbol.

  “And the other village?”

  “We’re collecting the count’s daughter. We dropped her off in Aurichove on the way down. She said she wanted to work with the local temple for a spell, learn from the locals what she could. Winter’s no time to be living out in a small village. We’ll be taking her home, so remember your Ps and Qs around her, yeah?”

  “Right.” She made a mental note of the places they were stopping, nodding to herself. She’d never heard of them, they certainly weren’t marked on the war map in the fort, but why would they be? From the way they sounded, they were of no import in the slightest. She let silence fall over them again, watching the trail continue. The trees begin to encroach on the road. The nicely cared for line of trees slowly grew wilder and, whilst a path forward certainly remained, it dwindled to just a single cart’s width, and their cattle fell behind them, taking the path two-by-two.

  And in time, after a full morning of riding through the forest path, they broke through the trees. The sight was like nothing she had seen in her life. It was beautiful. A vast network of rolling hills lay before them. The landscape adorned with blooming purple flowers. A clear path of trodden flowers marked their way forward, but for the moment, she wasn’t focused on that. Instead, she was happy to just take in the smell. Feel the wind blowing on her face. She grinned and, for the time being, elected to hop out of the cart, walking alongside it for some time. On the ground, she could feel so much more. See so much more. Bees fluttered from flower to flower, getting heavy with pollen.

  The ground certainly didn’t feel the same as she was used to. The forest dirt was thick and compact. A web of roots that she had to carefully navigate and find the odd foothold within. This ground was almost soft and spongy. Or, it would have been, if not for the crunch of the flowers beneath her feet. Clearly, though, the cattle didn’t mind. Some of them lowered their head to graze as they walked, quickly catching up to the rest of their herd once they’d had their fill of the plants.

  “Is this good for your cattle?” She asked, looking across at the cowherd.

  “What, the heather? Wouldn’t be travelling through it, if it wasn’t. Wouldn’t have let you traipse all over it, if it was poisonous. ”

  He made a good point. If such a threat was so close to home, she’d be aware of it, for certain. It’d be a regular sight in Colt’s alchemy lab, or part of her vital learning materials. It seemed that these odd flowering bushes were just part of life. Eaten by most of what lived on these heathlands. Whatever that was. She couldn’t imagine that animals got too large out here – maybe the odd rabbit or mouse. The forest was close enough, and the odd tree was brave enough to grow in the purple meadows, that gave birds of prey ample space to soar, swoop and hunt. Anything that got too large to hide would be easy prey. ...Unless it was also too large to be carried off. Something like deer, perhaps? Or-

  Her attention was drawn to a rock, and a tiny lizard that sat upon it, basking in the sun. Its scales shone in the sun, a pale orange hue upon them. Its eyes were closed, and it almost looked as if it was smiling – and who wouldn’t be, when his home was so beautiful?

  “Hey there, little guy.” She stopped at the rock – reaching into her bag to get a shred of lamb from it. The lizard barely reacted to her presence. Opening one eye, as if to question why she was even bothering it at all. It was certainly brave, she commended it for that. “You want some dinner?” She took the strip of lamb and tore off the end of it. Then placed her hand on the rock, with the lamb in the centre of her palm.

  The lizard approached, now seemingly curious. Clearly it wasn’t every day that a stranger approached and gave it some free food. It proceeded to crawl up onto her hand to snack on the shred of meat, taking it whole with a sharp snap of its head. As it ate, she tentatively reached her other hand out and, after waiting a second to make sure the lizard wasn’t going to mistake her finger for another shred of lamb, gently stroked the back of the creature. It was warm. Warmer than even the rock that had been receiving a full dose of sunlight all day.

  “Are you a little flame salamander...?” She spoke to herself, then shook her head. Salamanders were aquatic creatures in their youth, and the heath was certainly no wetland. Perhaps it was some form of lesser drake? No, they were rare and had wings – even if nobody had ever recorded any information about their young. He didn’t seem to have the gravitas that a drake would have. No, perhaps he was just a small, fire-attuned little lizard. He was at peace and, for a moment, she felt at peace. Just her and this little lizard... if the rest of her journey could be filled with more moments like this, then the long trek north would all be worth it. Though, of course, she couldn’t just take the creature with her. It knew this heath like she knew her forest. It’d be unfair to rip it away from its home, when life was already so fragile. She knelt back down to the rock and gently placed it down, giving it another little pat on the head before turning away from it.

  “You take care now. Don’t let any of them mean birds get you, you hear?” She turned on her heel and looked forward again. Ah, the cart had really gotten ahead of her without realising. Oh well. She’d just have to catch up. With a smile on her face, she set off after the cart. Out here, in this new land, she felt like she could do anything.