Page 4
Story: The Spy
“He’s lying right there, dead to the world.It stinks of human in here too.I’m gonna need hours tomorrow to scrub out the stench from those blankets.”The door clicked shut before the man responded, and muffled footsteps outside the door indicated they’d left.
Karl grinned.His subterfuge had worked.The shoes kept them from actually entering the room, and his smell and the lump in the bed was enough to convince them he was drugged for the night.Now all Karl needed to do was evade anyone watching outside.
Another two hours crept by as he waited, dozing and trying not to make any noise.At approximately midnight, Karl finally stood and stretched, pushing his arms over his head until his shoulders cracked and the accumulated tension in his spine relaxed.By this point, any watching guards would have reached a stage of complacency when their mind was more focused on the nearing end of their shift than on the actual job.Still, Karl needed to be extremely cautious.Yarokians were some of the most suspicious and untrusting people on the continent, so the end-of-shift complacency Karl was used to in Toval might be significantly more relaxed than Yaroi’s version.
Karl slowly opened the door to his bedroom and paused, listening at the jamb for any telltale rustle indicating someone had shifted in response.He didn’t hear anything, so he opened the door the width his shoe allowed and peeked carefully into the hallway.Still nothing.Karl let out a silent breath of relief before squeezing his body through the narrow opening, glad he was on the smaller side.
If he had to guess, Karl would say the proprietress had gone to bed for the night.The man with her for the earlier searches was likely either downstairs by the front desk where he could listen for any creaks or footsteps, or was outside watching the windows for movement within the rooms belonging to travelers like Karl.Of course, they could also assume after that check-in that the drugs were working and no one was actually watching Karl anymore, but this was Yaroi and it paid to be cautious when any Yarokian was involved.
Karl locked his door and started walking, placing his feet slowly and carefully to avoid the floorboards creaking.Loud snores emanated through the closed door of the room next to Karl’s, so he kept moving.The next room along the even side of the hall was the one Karl had tested his key in.He pressed his ear to the wood, listening for any sign someone was inside and awake.Hearing nothing, Karl very carefully slid his key into the lock and turned, only the faintest click audible.Karl pushed the door open only a crack, listening hard, and still didn’t hear anything.He let himself inside and quietly closed the door behind him, relocking it before turning to survey the room.
The bed was bare, stripped down to the mattress with no sign of blankets or pillows, and the rest of the room equally empty.Karl let out a relieved breath and moved over to the window.The shade was down, but Karl could still peek outside through where the edges didn’t meet the window frame.A glance was all he needed to understand why this room wasn’t in use.If the rooms in this inn were primarily to keep track of travelers as they transited through Yaroi, this particular room wasn’t situated in such a way to facilitate that.The roof of the entryway below partially blocked the view of the window, and a tree growing in the neighbor’s yard had stretched branches between the building, blocking the rest.
Not about to ignore a gift like this one, Karl quickly unhooked the lock on the window and carefully slid it up.He left the shade down, slipping beneath as he climbed outside.Karl only hung from the sill long enough to slide the window down again, before using the entry roof and a convenient tree limb to make his way to the ground where he immediately ducked into the shadows cast by the building in the scant moonlight from the waxing crescent.The air was brisk with the last vestiges of winter, and Karl started walking so the movement could warm him up.
The palace loomed large overhead, a beacon for Karl to follow as he dashed from shadow to shadow, making his way down the streets and closer to whichever palace courtyard Ama was located near.After about forty minutes of slinking around, Karl arrived at what appeared to be an open-air market.All the stalls were shuttered for the night, the space as quiet as the rest of the city.Eerily quiet.In Etoval, the markets never fully shut down for the night.Many stalls did close, but some shifted to accommodate a different sort of clientele.Other shops simply had evening or night clerks, rather than closing.Mage lights kept the areas well-lit, and the guard patrolled regularly.Here, there wasn’t even a breeze off the ocean to cut the oppressive silence, the surrounding buildings too tall in the winding streets to allow for even that much relief.Only the pervasive stench from old manure and human sweat indicated the market had ever been alive.
The market might be eerie, but it provided an opportunity Karl wasn’t about to pass up.He wandered around from stall to stall, sticking to the shadows in case a guard might be patrolling while still spreading his trackable scent all over the market.His scent might be newer than the previous day’s stench, but if the manure and sweat was strong enough for Karl’s human nose to smell, the stronger noses of the Yarokai would be overwhelmed.Finding Karl’s scent amid that would be very difficult, especially when the market reopened in the morning and fresh manure and sweat were added to the mix.As Karl meandered, he slowly and carefully called on his magic.
Body sweat was easy to rot, already partially decomposed the moment it touched air.As Karl walked, he focused his magic on his body’s sweat.Every step increased the growing putrid stench of a rotten flesh, until his own scent was completely subsumed.Karl swallowed back a gag, breathing shallowly through his mouth as he fought the urge to plug his nose.He wandered through the market for another ten minutes, crisscrossing his previous path to help obfuscate any potential link someone might make between his two scents.Only once Karl felt he had done everything possible, did he return to his goal of finding one courtyard around a massive palace, sliding between shadows as he snuck down the streets ever closer to the looming palace ahead.
Another half hour of walking brought him to the outer wall, built of thick stone blocks with no attempts to coat or seal it.Karl could scale the wall easily if he wanted.For a safety-obsessed city, that was odd and was therefore probably a trap.Karl bared his teeth at the wall, unwilling to get caught in such an obvious ploy, then looked around to see what his other options were.To Karl’s right he found a brightly lit area, probably the main gates, he assumed.Better for him to avoid that area too.Instead, Karl went left, sticking to the shadows as he followed the wall, hoping he would find an unmanned gate where he could jimmy the lock.
The last thing Karl expected to find was an abrupt end to the wall.The last stone blocks suddenly stopped, revealing a garden with crushed stone paths and carefully maintained dormant flower beds.The only colors visible were from small evergreen bushes carefully pruned back for winter.This far north, the first bulbs hadn’t started peeking out from the earth yet, but back home in Etoval the first green stems would be appearing.He couldn’t wait to get home again, but first he had to finish this mission.
Karl remained where he was for a few long moments, crouched in the last bit of darkness cast by the wall and staring out into the open space of the garden for any hint of movement.He saw nothing, not even a decent patch of shadow where someone could be hiding.This had to be another trap, though, same as the wall.Etoval was a very safe city with relatively low crime, yet the royal palace was fully enclosed by a protective wall.It made zero sense that Yaroi wouldn’t have the same.Still, this was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
Karl stayed on the very edges of the paths where he wouldn’t leave footprints in the soft dirt of the beds, straining his ears for any hint that he had been spotted.He stuck to the perimeter of the garden, where a wall would have stood had there been one, rather than going through the center where he would be more exposed.Moonlight revealed a massive patio on the other side of the garden, attached to what he assumed was the back of the palace.Or the side of the palace.The building was huge and sprawling, as large as it had appeared back in the harbor, so there was no real way to tell what portion of the building Karl was adjacent to.The garden had to be nearly a mile long, as it took him a good twenty minutes to traverse it.The patio was long gone by the time Karl reached the end where the wall appeared again.
The nine-foot-high wall continued along the perimeter of the palace grounds as if it hadn’t had a massive hole in it.However, this time he found more than neatly manicured paths.Perpendicular to the big wall was a second, waist-high wall that went from the outer wall all the way to the palace, cutting the palace grounds in half.Every twenty to thirty feet Karl found spaces in the wall that looked like doorways.Karl crept closer, curiosity winning over caution, but tensed on the balls of his feet to run just in case.At the first of the doorways, he crouched by the wall, trying to stay in the shadows, and peeked around the wall to take a look.Karl swallowed back a horrified gasp when he saw what was on the other side.
Each doorway led to a downward staircase allowing entry into a small amphitheater.Aside from the stairs, all the rest of the perimeter space was comprised of stone benches for seating.A flat space filled the bottom.The entire amphitheater was approximately a third of the size of the coliseums throughout Namin, spaces Queen Carmillian was slowly turning into theaters and playhouses, rather than fighting rings full of blood and death.The Yarokian version was a thousand times worse.At the bottom, where everyone spectating could see, a table stood with chains for wrists and ankles at the head and foot, and a wheel attached to those chains to stretch the body in cruel torture.This was a terrible torture chamber with seats for over a hundred people to spectate.
Karl swallowed back his disgust and moved to the next amphitheater.The best victims of torture were prisoners, so he had to be near the dungeon and the courtyard where Queen Carmillian said Ama was being kept.The second amphitheater was completely empty, not even a torture apparatus at the bottom.The third had a cold firepit with a rack full of metal implements, and the fourth, another long table with chains, except this time without the wheel.He had no idea what it was used for, but he really, really didn’t want to know either.Swallowing bile, this time from everything he had seen rather than his own pervasive stench, Karl moved on to the fifth, and thankfully last, amphitheater.This time, he found a whipping cross only, unlike the others, it was occupied by a body hanging from ropes.
A glance at what was left of the poor man left hanging there was all Karl needed to learn why the scent-based Yarokian trackers hadn’t noticed him sneaking onto the palace grounds.It turned out, masking his own scent with rot had been an excellent idea, because the absolute, putrid stench of rotting death emanating from inside that amphitheater was a thousand times worse than anything Karl’s magic could ever conjure up.If he hadn’t already been partially nose-blind thanks to his own smell, Karl definitely would have thrown up.As it was, he had to plug his nose and breathe shallowly through his mouth to prevent that.Even breathing was vile, the air viscus and heavy as if the stench gave off a physical miasma.
Karl had to continue on with his search.He could only hope a fresh breeze would blow when he returned to the garden.Yet at the same time, he dreaded what he might find next.He looked around for some way to go around the amphitheaters and continue his way around the garden, or better yet, into the dungeons where this Ama was likely being held.He squinted through the gloom and shadows, trying to see around the bottom of the amphitheater, searching for a doorway.This amphitheater was closest to the palace wall, so if there was a doorway, it was most likely to be in this one.Karl couldn’t be sure, but he thought he might see an outline to the right of where the body hung.Which meant, unfortunately, he had to go down there where the smell was likely to be unbearable.Still, seeing the dead body left to hang there was all the evidence Karl needed to convince him that saving Ama from a similar repugnant fate was essential.
Karl had worked with the Tovalian military for a little over two years.Before that he was a street urchin and thief.Death wasn’t a stranger for him, nor was seeing dead bodies.Yet, he still hesitated at the top of the stairs, trying not to shudder at the idea of getting closer to that hanging form.Whatever the Yarokai had done to the poor person to leave his corpse in such a disgusting state wasn’t something Karl really wanted to see up close.He finally steeled his nerve and placed his foot on the top step to head down when the body’s head suddenly turned to rest the opposite cheek against the wooden cross.The rotting corpse was somehow still alive!Karl’s feet dashed down the stairs before his brain fully engaged.He slid his belt knife free to cut the ropes holding the body to the cross when he reached the bottom but paused in shock as he took in what was left of the body’s back.
The flesh looked melted where it wasn’t grossly swollen and leaking some sort of dark-colored pus in even lines across the body, from shoulders down to upper thighs.Karl unfortunately knew of two ways to achieve the melted result he was looking at, poison being the easiest.The problem with that assessment was any poison strong enough to literally melt flesh would have spread outward from those original lines and started melting the entire body, too, and Karl didn’t see any evidence of that here.That meant the other method Karl knew of to create this result had to have been used instead—assassin’s magic.
One of the first magic lessons Karl had ever learned when he was still a street kid was that pain caused by red magic could only be soothed by red magic.No other healing could fix the damage unique to assassin’s magic.Admittedly, the majority of the time the victim of red magic was dead, so using power to fix it was irrelevant at that point.This victim, however, was still breathing, his chest rising and falling very, very slowly, hitching as if each movement hurt—which it probably did.Which meant in this case, Karl could do something to help.
The man’s dark eyes were open and looking at Karl when Karl approached, shining feverishly as they reflected the moonlight.
“I didn’t tell.They’re safe.I didn’t tell.”The voice was reedy and cracked, a mere whisper as if it was taking all the strength he could muster just to get those words out.
“Let me help,” Karl whispered back.
His hand glowed red as Karl called on his magic.He showed the glow to the man, whose eyes widened in surprise.Karl moved to the man’s back, holding his hand over the mess of melted flesh, pus, exposed bone and muscle, and swollen pustules.Karl didn’t touch, unwilling to cause the man any additional pain, instead, directing his magic in a steady flow from a few centimeters above the mess.
The wounds didn’t want to heal, resisting his magic as the red flowed over the man’s back.Whoever had caused this hurt originally had really strong powers and was definitely highly trained in using it to hurt.Karl was also highly trained, but not with the same terrible intention.He gritted his teeth and bore down, forcing his magic to overcome all resistance.Slowly, ever so slowly, the worst of the pus started to shrink and some of the exposed bone began to vanish beneath renewed muscle and skin.
“Hide.”The voice was a little stronger, but still a faint whisper.Karl lessened his focus on his magic to listen, then heard what the man must have—a tuneless whistle slowly coming closer.“A guard’s coming on their rounds,” the man added.
Chapter Three
Karl grinned.His subterfuge had worked.The shoes kept them from actually entering the room, and his smell and the lump in the bed was enough to convince them he was drugged for the night.Now all Karl needed to do was evade anyone watching outside.
Another two hours crept by as he waited, dozing and trying not to make any noise.At approximately midnight, Karl finally stood and stretched, pushing his arms over his head until his shoulders cracked and the accumulated tension in his spine relaxed.By this point, any watching guards would have reached a stage of complacency when their mind was more focused on the nearing end of their shift than on the actual job.Still, Karl needed to be extremely cautious.Yarokians were some of the most suspicious and untrusting people on the continent, so the end-of-shift complacency Karl was used to in Toval might be significantly more relaxed than Yaroi’s version.
Karl slowly opened the door to his bedroom and paused, listening at the jamb for any telltale rustle indicating someone had shifted in response.He didn’t hear anything, so he opened the door the width his shoe allowed and peeked carefully into the hallway.Still nothing.Karl let out a silent breath of relief before squeezing his body through the narrow opening, glad he was on the smaller side.
If he had to guess, Karl would say the proprietress had gone to bed for the night.The man with her for the earlier searches was likely either downstairs by the front desk where he could listen for any creaks or footsteps, or was outside watching the windows for movement within the rooms belonging to travelers like Karl.Of course, they could also assume after that check-in that the drugs were working and no one was actually watching Karl anymore, but this was Yaroi and it paid to be cautious when any Yarokian was involved.
Karl locked his door and started walking, placing his feet slowly and carefully to avoid the floorboards creaking.Loud snores emanated through the closed door of the room next to Karl’s, so he kept moving.The next room along the even side of the hall was the one Karl had tested his key in.He pressed his ear to the wood, listening for any sign someone was inside and awake.Hearing nothing, Karl very carefully slid his key into the lock and turned, only the faintest click audible.Karl pushed the door open only a crack, listening hard, and still didn’t hear anything.He let himself inside and quietly closed the door behind him, relocking it before turning to survey the room.
The bed was bare, stripped down to the mattress with no sign of blankets or pillows, and the rest of the room equally empty.Karl let out a relieved breath and moved over to the window.The shade was down, but Karl could still peek outside through where the edges didn’t meet the window frame.A glance was all he needed to understand why this room wasn’t in use.If the rooms in this inn were primarily to keep track of travelers as they transited through Yaroi, this particular room wasn’t situated in such a way to facilitate that.The roof of the entryway below partially blocked the view of the window, and a tree growing in the neighbor’s yard had stretched branches between the building, blocking the rest.
Not about to ignore a gift like this one, Karl quickly unhooked the lock on the window and carefully slid it up.He left the shade down, slipping beneath as he climbed outside.Karl only hung from the sill long enough to slide the window down again, before using the entry roof and a convenient tree limb to make his way to the ground where he immediately ducked into the shadows cast by the building in the scant moonlight from the waxing crescent.The air was brisk with the last vestiges of winter, and Karl started walking so the movement could warm him up.
The palace loomed large overhead, a beacon for Karl to follow as he dashed from shadow to shadow, making his way down the streets and closer to whichever palace courtyard Ama was located near.After about forty minutes of slinking around, Karl arrived at what appeared to be an open-air market.All the stalls were shuttered for the night, the space as quiet as the rest of the city.Eerily quiet.In Etoval, the markets never fully shut down for the night.Many stalls did close, but some shifted to accommodate a different sort of clientele.Other shops simply had evening or night clerks, rather than closing.Mage lights kept the areas well-lit, and the guard patrolled regularly.Here, there wasn’t even a breeze off the ocean to cut the oppressive silence, the surrounding buildings too tall in the winding streets to allow for even that much relief.Only the pervasive stench from old manure and human sweat indicated the market had ever been alive.
The market might be eerie, but it provided an opportunity Karl wasn’t about to pass up.He wandered around from stall to stall, sticking to the shadows in case a guard might be patrolling while still spreading his trackable scent all over the market.His scent might be newer than the previous day’s stench, but if the manure and sweat was strong enough for Karl’s human nose to smell, the stronger noses of the Yarokai would be overwhelmed.Finding Karl’s scent amid that would be very difficult, especially when the market reopened in the morning and fresh manure and sweat were added to the mix.As Karl meandered, he slowly and carefully called on his magic.
Body sweat was easy to rot, already partially decomposed the moment it touched air.As Karl walked, he focused his magic on his body’s sweat.Every step increased the growing putrid stench of a rotten flesh, until his own scent was completely subsumed.Karl swallowed back a gag, breathing shallowly through his mouth as he fought the urge to plug his nose.He wandered through the market for another ten minutes, crisscrossing his previous path to help obfuscate any potential link someone might make between his two scents.Only once Karl felt he had done everything possible, did he return to his goal of finding one courtyard around a massive palace, sliding between shadows as he snuck down the streets ever closer to the looming palace ahead.
Another half hour of walking brought him to the outer wall, built of thick stone blocks with no attempts to coat or seal it.Karl could scale the wall easily if he wanted.For a safety-obsessed city, that was odd and was therefore probably a trap.Karl bared his teeth at the wall, unwilling to get caught in such an obvious ploy, then looked around to see what his other options were.To Karl’s right he found a brightly lit area, probably the main gates, he assumed.Better for him to avoid that area too.Instead, Karl went left, sticking to the shadows as he followed the wall, hoping he would find an unmanned gate where he could jimmy the lock.
The last thing Karl expected to find was an abrupt end to the wall.The last stone blocks suddenly stopped, revealing a garden with crushed stone paths and carefully maintained dormant flower beds.The only colors visible were from small evergreen bushes carefully pruned back for winter.This far north, the first bulbs hadn’t started peeking out from the earth yet, but back home in Etoval the first green stems would be appearing.He couldn’t wait to get home again, but first he had to finish this mission.
Karl remained where he was for a few long moments, crouched in the last bit of darkness cast by the wall and staring out into the open space of the garden for any hint of movement.He saw nothing, not even a decent patch of shadow where someone could be hiding.This had to be another trap, though, same as the wall.Etoval was a very safe city with relatively low crime, yet the royal palace was fully enclosed by a protective wall.It made zero sense that Yaroi wouldn’t have the same.Still, this was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
Karl stayed on the very edges of the paths where he wouldn’t leave footprints in the soft dirt of the beds, straining his ears for any hint that he had been spotted.He stuck to the perimeter of the garden, where a wall would have stood had there been one, rather than going through the center where he would be more exposed.Moonlight revealed a massive patio on the other side of the garden, attached to what he assumed was the back of the palace.Or the side of the palace.The building was huge and sprawling, as large as it had appeared back in the harbor, so there was no real way to tell what portion of the building Karl was adjacent to.The garden had to be nearly a mile long, as it took him a good twenty minutes to traverse it.The patio was long gone by the time Karl reached the end where the wall appeared again.
The nine-foot-high wall continued along the perimeter of the palace grounds as if it hadn’t had a massive hole in it.However, this time he found more than neatly manicured paths.Perpendicular to the big wall was a second, waist-high wall that went from the outer wall all the way to the palace, cutting the palace grounds in half.Every twenty to thirty feet Karl found spaces in the wall that looked like doorways.Karl crept closer, curiosity winning over caution, but tensed on the balls of his feet to run just in case.At the first of the doorways, he crouched by the wall, trying to stay in the shadows, and peeked around the wall to take a look.Karl swallowed back a horrified gasp when he saw what was on the other side.
Each doorway led to a downward staircase allowing entry into a small amphitheater.Aside from the stairs, all the rest of the perimeter space was comprised of stone benches for seating.A flat space filled the bottom.The entire amphitheater was approximately a third of the size of the coliseums throughout Namin, spaces Queen Carmillian was slowly turning into theaters and playhouses, rather than fighting rings full of blood and death.The Yarokian version was a thousand times worse.At the bottom, where everyone spectating could see, a table stood with chains for wrists and ankles at the head and foot, and a wheel attached to those chains to stretch the body in cruel torture.This was a terrible torture chamber with seats for over a hundred people to spectate.
Karl swallowed back his disgust and moved to the next amphitheater.The best victims of torture were prisoners, so he had to be near the dungeon and the courtyard where Queen Carmillian said Ama was being kept.The second amphitheater was completely empty, not even a torture apparatus at the bottom.The third had a cold firepit with a rack full of metal implements, and the fourth, another long table with chains, except this time without the wheel.He had no idea what it was used for, but he really, really didn’t want to know either.Swallowing bile, this time from everything he had seen rather than his own pervasive stench, Karl moved on to the fifth, and thankfully last, amphitheater.This time, he found a whipping cross only, unlike the others, it was occupied by a body hanging from ropes.
A glance at what was left of the poor man left hanging there was all Karl needed to learn why the scent-based Yarokian trackers hadn’t noticed him sneaking onto the palace grounds.It turned out, masking his own scent with rot had been an excellent idea, because the absolute, putrid stench of rotting death emanating from inside that amphitheater was a thousand times worse than anything Karl’s magic could ever conjure up.If he hadn’t already been partially nose-blind thanks to his own smell, Karl definitely would have thrown up.As it was, he had to plug his nose and breathe shallowly through his mouth to prevent that.Even breathing was vile, the air viscus and heavy as if the stench gave off a physical miasma.
Karl had to continue on with his search.He could only hope a fresh breeze would blow when he returned to the garden.Yet at the same time, he dreaded what he might find next.He looked around for some way to go around the amphitheaters and continue his way around the garden, or better yet, into the dungeons where this Ama was likely being held.He squinted through the gloom and shadows, trying to see around the bottom of the amphitheater, searching for a doorway.This amphitheater was closest to the palace wall, so if there was a doorway, it was most likely to be in this one.Karl couldn’t be sure, but he thought he might see an outline to the right of where the body hung.Which meant, unfortunately, he had to go down there where the smell was likely to be unbearable.Still, seeing the dead body left to hang there was all the evidence Karl needed to convince him that saving Ama from a similar repugnant fate was essential.
Karl had worked with the Tovalian military for a little over two years.Before that he was a street urchin and thief.Death wasn’t a stranger for him, nor was seeing dead bodies.Yet, he still hesitated at the top of the stairs, trying not to shudder at the idea of getting closer to that hanging form.Whatever the Yarokai had done to the poor person to leave his corpse in such a disgusting state wasn’t something Karl really wanted to see up close.He finally steeled his nerve and placed his foot on the top step to head down when the body’s head suddenly turned to rest the opposite cheek against the wooden cross.The rotting corpse was somehow still alive!Karl’s feet dashed down the stairs before his brain fully engaged.He slid his belt knife free to cut the ropes holding the body to the cross when he reached the bottom but paused in shock as he took in what was left of the body’s back.
The flesh looked melted where it wasn’t grossly swollen and leaking some sort of dark-colored pus in even lines across the body, from shoulders down to upper thighs.Karl unfortunately knew of two ways to achieve the melted result he was looking at, poison being the easiest.The problem with that assessment was any poison strong enough to literally melt flesh would have spread outward from those original lines and started melting the entire body, too, and Karl didn’t see any evidence of that here.That meant the other method Karl knew of to create this result had to have been used instead—assassin’s magic.
One of the first magic lessons Karl had ever learned when he was still a street kid was that pain caused by red magic could only be soothed by red magic.No other healing could fix the damage unique to assassin’s magic.Admittedly, the majority of the time the victim of red magic was dead, so using power to fix it was irrelevant at that point.This victim, however, was still breathing, his chest rising and falling very, very slowly, hitching as if each movement hurt—which it probably did.Which meant in this case, Karl could do something to help.
The man’s dark eyes were open and looking at Karl when Karl approached, shining feverishly as they reflected the moonlight.
“I didn’t tell.They’re safe.I didn’t tell.”The voice was reedy and cracked, a mere whisper as if it was taking all the strength he could muster just to get those words out.
“Let me help,” Karl whispered back.
His hand glowed red as Karl called on his magic.He showed the glow to the man, whose eyes widened in surprise.Karl moved to the man’s back, holding his hand over the mess of melted flesh, pus, exposed bone and muscle, and swollen pustules.Karl didn’t touch, unwilling to cause the man any additional pain, instead, directing his magic in a steady flow from a few centimeters above the mess.
The wounds didn’t want to heal, resisting his magic as the red flowed over the man’s back.Whoever had caused this hurt originally had really strong powers and was definitely highly trained in using it to hurt.Karl was also highly trained, but not with the same terrible intention.He gritted his teeth and bore down, forcing his magic to overcome all resistance.Slowly, ever so slowly, the worst of the pus started to shrink and some of the exposed bone began to vanish beneath renewed muscle and skin.
“Hide.”The voice was a little stronger, but still a faint whisper.Karl lessened his focus on his magic to listen, then heard what the man must have—a tuneless whistle slowly coming closer.“A guard’s coming on their rounds,” the man added.
Chapter Three