Vol.7, Ch.1, P.2
“Now listen well, Mia. Don’t catch yourself tailing any rascals, you understand?”
Of late had Rolf sent Mia’s way one such warning. But of course he had. Mia by this time was getting on to her next and fourteenth spring—and not further from that, her farewell to her childhood years. Though if asked, the lass herself would say that the goodbye is already bidden.
Taken another way, however, one could see the warning as slightly missing the mark, being better reserved for someone half her years. But that was Rolf. He had become something of a mollycoddler when it came to Mia. For him, her care was practically his second calling.
Still, he certainly could have put it more delicately, at the least. After all, the two were close; just a hint would have sufficed. But again, being as he was—a man whose sword oft spoke more smartly than his mouth—Rolf was little to be helped. And so explains the “don’t catch yourself tailing any rascals”.
For her part, Mia could but heed her hero with eyes undelightedly half-lidded. She never did appreciate being babied, especially of late. Nevertheless, it was the truth that Rolf was merely showing his sheer concern, and not in a thousand years would Mia grudge him any genuinely for that. Why, if her hero would leap over mountains and delve the deepest seas just to see her safe, then so much the better, by her estimation.
And so, when met with that stern warning of rascals lurking about even here in Hensen, Mia felt her erstwhile reservations wash away immediately—and the happiness in her heart swell.
“‘Rascal’?” she asked. “What’s a ‘rascal’? A rat?”
“Well… hmm, not exactly,” said Rolf, thinking particularly hard. “How to put it? They’ve got something of a… a swagger to them, first of all,” he explained, and then began to gesticulate. “Hunched forwards, hands hid, and weight heavy on their big toes as they traipse in a sort of march. A rather meticulous march, mind you. Hard to miss. Oh, and the eyes,” he said, next making a terrible face. “Always hawkish they are, wary of everyone and everything around them. But they’ll not turn to anyone if they could help it. Just face trained ahead, eyes darting darkly here and there. And very oft they’re bent on some business. You can tell: they go about with purpose, never lax, never lost. And as a rule, they’ve got a blade or three girt at their belts.”
“…”
Goodness. That seemed less a mischievous churl and more a malicious champion—the very sort to challenge Rolf on the battlefield. Such was Mia’s summation of it all, as she stood speechless afore her harping-on hero.
∵
“Hawk-eyes…” murmured Mia. “Regular… swagger…”
It was near past noon, and not long since her sister had tasked her with an errand at the grocers’—when she spotted the peculiarity at hand. Now shuddering in the shadow of a signboard, the lass looked timorously on through the streaming street… and at him: a Man of size and sinews, of a straight but busy stare—and, indeed, of an awfully regular and guarded gait.
Mia gasped. This was exactly it, precisely as Rolf had described to her: a “rascal”. And much to the little girl’s fright, the Man was hardly alone. Looking elsewhere along the street, Mia discovered other similarly suspicious Men, and they were all of them marching in the same, general direction.
“…”
After studying them some more, Mia shrank back behind the signboard and clutched at her basket. Nay, she would not follow them. That would be foolish, and Rolf had warned her as much, anyway. Working her wits on what next to do, she snapped her fingers. That’s it! Realising where she was, Mia remembered that nearby stood a building for a certain resident war-liaison. “Frieda” was her name, whom Mia had met a few times before. And to judge by Rolf’s past speech with her, that daughter of Man was a woman quite worthy of trust.
And so, turning heel, Mia came out of the shade, and scurried off quick as a squirrel.
∵
“…These parts,” said Dennis, tapping the map, “an’ this ’ere thoroughfare, in especial; they deserves a close eye, I deems.”
Opposite him, Frieda rubbed her chin in consideration. “They be keen to kill, ya really think? En masse?” she asked at length.
“Aye,” sighed Dennis. “These ’arm-doers, whoe’er they be, they’ll ’ave a-got some ’ate in ’em ’earts. A pure, burnin’ ’ate for the Nafílfolk. An’ right as rain, they’ll do somethin’ about ’e—somethin’ gurt an’ gruesome, no doubt.”
There they yet were, hunched over the desk, deep in defensive designs. A dilemma had been lingering long on their minds: that though the vindarþing members and the fólkheimr’s more important facilities were both accounted for, there were yet many an exposed street and square that required their concern, more so than their present patrols could manage. But whilst weighing where might the potential malefactors make their move, and putting together piece-by-piece a plan to answer them, the door knocked and opened. Frieda and Dennis looked up from their labours.
“Pardon, Frau Frieda,” said the clerk who entered. “A guest for you.”
The former freelance stood straight and blinked. “Guest?”
There was only the clerk to be found at the doorway. But soon enough, stepping out from behind him was Mia. Frieda’s eyes widened with wonder, whilst those of the lass’s afore her only waxed with worry.
“Um, I-I saw someone…” Mia nervously began, “—someone… ‘strange’ on the streets.”
∵
“…an’ they were Men, ya said? Each an’ all?” enquired Frieda, after hearing Mia’s tale told in full. The teller herself, sitting beside a ruminant Dennis, answered with a clear nod. But in looking upon the lass, Frieda’s thoughts fought. She knew Mia to be a sincere and sensible soul, sure… yet at the same time, it would not do to base matters of civil security upon a child’s testimony.
However, as though having perceived that perplexion upon Frieda’s face, Mia continued her account. “But their swords,” she said, “there were patterns on them. Patterns, seeming all the same…”
“Patterns?” said Frieda. “What like?”
“Um, at the… the round end, where you hold it,” stammered Mia, gesturing out the shape of a hilt and its pommel, “—there’s a pattern flower-like; with vines and… and orchids, I think—”
—Grrtack!
“Mia-lass!” rasped Dennis, standing asudden from his seat. “Thou bist certain, aye? No, I don’t doubt thee, but seein’ as ’ow thou’st a-spy’d ’em from awful afar, I…”
The lass blenched a bit, taken aback by the grave look Dennis now displayed. Nonetheless, she collected herself and confirmed: “Y-yes, I am. My sight, it sees long and clear, Sister always says. B-but also…”
“Also?”
“E-everybody’s gone right now. Everybody and Herr Rolf,” Mia went on. “So, I-I always try to be careful meanwhile, and watch out for things unfriend-like. Because something unfriend-like might happen for true, I think…”
“A-ah, I sees,” said Dennis, calming down. “Aye, good lass. Good, good. A sterlin’ pate thou’st got.”
Sighing, the Turnlancer leader settled back into his seat. Beneath his bewilderment, he harboured a newfound wonder for meek little Mia—for how her keen and cautious eye could scry through coursing crowds such small and delicate patterns, and no less ones carved inconspicuously unto pommels, of all things. But more than that, he was surprised that the lass could at all discern the danger that Hensen was in, even if vaguely.
“Well?” Frieda said to Dennis. “I take it vines an’ orchids ring a bell for ya?”
“Aye, a gurt too many,” he answered, slowly nodding. “Remember us Salvator friends, Frieda? Well, that be their brand, turns out. Namely, the insignia o’ some o’ their sword-swingin’ ex’cutioners.”
“Bloody ’ell…” Frieda muttered, her mien darkening at once at the mention of the zealots. Having warred with them once at Déu Tsellin, she knew how deadly and determined the Champions Salvator could be.
“Mia-lass, mind tellin’ us more?” asked Dennis, bringing closer to the girl the map splayed upon the desk. “When an’ where, to start with?”
A man capable and broad of mind he was, this Dennis. If tide-turning intelligence was to be had, he would take it—even should the herald be a mere child.
Mia’s finger then wandered as she puzzled out the map, before pointing to a spot at last. “Umm… h-here. This street, just this hour,” said Mia, “—and then, this way they went.”
Her finger next slid away in another direction; and as their eyes followed, the two adults’ interest increased all the more. It would seem the Men that Mia saw had not taken the shaded alleyways of Hensen as might be expected, but one of its most trodden streets, instead. Likely they had mingled with the masses to their advantage. Such is ever the danger with places so populous.
“Frieda,” said a stern Dennis. “We’ve got ’em.”
In digesting Mia’s directions, his own finger now tapped anear the map’s edge. There was a blot of blue—a body of water located at the town’s outskirts.
“This ’ere pond, what be ’is waters for?” asked Dennis.
“For all o’ Hensen,” Frieda swiftly answered. “’Tis the bloody water supply, Dennis.”
Though it had not been two moons since her posting here, Frieda already had a firm grasp of Hensen’s lay; and as well, of what evils an enemy could wreak at this place or that. And knowing now at last the “who”, “where”, and perhaps “how” of it all, what was needed next was speedy prevention. Thus did Frieda and Dennis stand at once, and spring into action.
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Notes
Patrōnī Sacrī Ēvangeliī
(Language: Latin) The “Sacred Patronhood of the Gospel”. Nicknamed the “Champions Salvator”, this faction within the Deivic Quire fashion themselves an “army of salvation”.
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