Page 30 of Tusks & Saddles
Chapter Three
Welborn
T he moment the passenger door opened, Welborn felt a pulse.
A latent arcane energy that lay within the palm thrummed beneath his gloved hand.
Welborn acknowledged it, but kept his attention toward the back of the cabin where a man appeared.
His expression was twisted in anxiety, his movements hurried.
Normally, Welborn would have taken a moment to observe the stranger before approaching him, but the short sword suggested that intervention would be needed.
Startled cries filled the space as the passengers pressed tightly to the windows, giving the armed man a wide berth.
Mothers gathered their children, husbands sheltered their wives, but all of them shared the same expression of fear.
Cavila was one of those people, tucking Suri tight to her side and away from the aisle.
Welborn raised just enough that he was awkwardly hovering above the bench.
He caught Cavila’s eye, gestured with his head, and she quickly followed his intention.
She slid across to Welborn’s vacant seat, allowing him to take the end of the bench nearest to the aisle.
It would hopefully keep the small family from any harm if Welborn was in the crossfire .
Okay, okay, okay…
The word was stuck in Welborn’s mind as he reached for his right hand. The strap that tied at his wrist was held together by a small silver button. All Welborn needed to do was unfasten it, pull the glove off, and—
The sound of the cabin door banging open caused screams to fill the cabin.
Welborn’s gaze tore from the man who had made it halfway down the aisle toward the door.
He was startled by the sight of a woman in a large brimmed hat dressed entirely in black.
The question of her ancestry was hidden by the black veil that hung from her hat and obscured her face.
She was tall though, perhaps just a few inches shy of having the same line of sight as him.
Welborn’s observation of the newcomer died upon seeing her lift an arm with some kind of metal device in her hand.
He only saw the front of it for a second before a loud crack echoed in his ears.
A small plume of smoke drifted from the end of the metal device in her hand.
To Welborn’s astonishment, the man had dropped the short sword and had fallen to his knees.
Blood was seeping through the thin linen of the man’s dusty shirt, falling onto the dirty floor.
Whoever that woman was, she had managed to take out the potential threat without harming anyone.
Quite the feat, given how crowded the passenger cabin was.
Welborn silently thanked the All Seer for protecting the passengers on the train.
She must have been listening, because he felt another pulse in his hand.
Curious, Welborn pulled his hand free of the glove.
There was a hole in the center of his hand, large enough to take up most of his palm.
A wound from a long time ago that had never healed exactly right, but for all intended purposes, Welborn could still use it.
Some of the movement was a little stilted, but Welborn wasn’t an arcanist. He didn’t need to rely on intricate hand motions to access spell work.
Welborn lifted his hand, pressing the palm to his eye.
As he gazed through the hole in his flesh, the world he saw was now a sepia monochrome.
A wave of divinity drew Welborn toward the fallen man.
For a moment, he was the same shades of copper as everything else.
But then Welborn saw it, the faint glow of sapphire coming from the man’s pocket in the shape of a vial.
Call it an educated guess, intuition, or perhaps just the blessing of the All Seer, but Welborn was suddenly flooded with the knowledge of what that vial contained.
As he pulled his hand away, the world becoming rich in color again, the injured man was reaching for that vial.
He needed to act quickly, otherwise that woman who had been slowly approaching him could be hurt.
Welborn stumbled out his seat, standing in the aisle.
A moment of hesitation gripped him, but the moment the man revealed the vial, Welborn was already acting.
Drawing to the divine magic that lay within the empty space of his hand, Welborn gathered it.
He raised his hand, clasping the emblem of the All Seer at the base of his throat.
The sea glass cradled perfectly within the hole in his hand began to glow.
A moment later a brilliant flash of white light shot down the aisle like lightening.
The beam struck the man’s chest. He let out a cry, body arching as the searing divine energy coursed through him.
When the magic ran it’s course, the man dropped to the ground.
The vile of green liquid—acid, Welborn realized based on his brief studies of alchemy—had rolled beneath one of the long benches.
Within the cabin, there was stillness. The shock of what had just occurred most likely running it’s course through the passengers.
Welborn’s heart was beating wildly, but his training at the All Seer Temple swiftly overtook his body.
He rushed to the fallen man, felt for breath, and when he found it, Welborn breathed a sigh of relief.
He reached within his robes for the small satchel that contained his healing supplies.
As long as he could stabilize him, that was all that mattered.
Welborn was in the process of sorting through the items he would need, when he realized someone had drawn close to him.
Unable to help himself, Welborn’s gaze moved from the man’s head toward the edge of black boots peeking from beneath the hem of a skirt.
As he continued the path up more long skirts, Welborn felt his mouth go dry.
He wasn’t the type to objectify women. In all honesty, his experience with women was non-existent other than the other clerics of the All Seer.
But he had never seen them as anything other than companions who walked the path of curiosity.
I didn’t know blacksmiths made armored corsets…
By the time he reached the veil hiding the woman’s face, Welborn could feel the heat in his cheeks. The blood making his skin a darker green as he hastily withdrew some herbs from his satchel.
“How’s he doing?” the woman asked.
Welborn blushed harder.
Why was her voice like that? Why was it so… so…
“He’ll be all right! He’s fine, totally fine, everything is great!
Even though I hit him with a spell, his mind and body should be totally fine, I swear!
No life long damage, not here!” Welborn babbled, then shook his head upon realizing that’s what he had been doing. “I… I’m just stabilizing him. ”
“You’re a caster, I’m assuming,” the woman continued, leaning her back against the wooden armrest of one of the aisle benches. “What kind?”
Welborn stole a glance. He couldn’t see her face and she was completely covered from head to toe. Yes, the corset helped fill in some of the gaps in his head, but a lot of women had waists! Why was he reacting this way—
“I’m a cleric,” Welborn said, pausing to push his glasses up the bridge of his wide nose. “I’m blessed with the magic of the All Seer.”
“The worshiping type, huh?”
Maybe the All Seer will ask the Sun Bringer to light me on fire so I won’t die from awkwardness.
“Yes,” he murmured, a bit sheepishly.
Not everyone worshiped the gods, nor were they required to.
His decision to devote himself to the All Seer hadn’t been the result of impulsive youth.
Despite what his father initially thought, Welborn’s desire to follow the path had been born from an accident.
The hole in his hand had alluded many as it had healed in a way that still allowed his fingers to work regardless of the missing bones and tendons.
By the time Boone had sent enough money for Larok to take Welborn to a proper healer, the flesh had scarred over.
The healer—the best one they could find—had told his father that it had to be the work of divine magic.
She had seen many soldiers over the past few hundred years, and the gnomish woman had never encountered anything like it .
“I must say it doesn’t make a lick of sense. By all accounts, it shouldn’t work, but it does! Thank whatever gods were listening, and I’d suggest keeping this covered lest you catch it on something!”
He had followed the healer’s instructions until he eventually came across the one god who had been responsible for saving his hand and, subsequently, his life. It felt natural to show his gratitude by devoting himself to them, even if others disagreed.
“I’ve been a cleric for five years now, but my faith in the All Seer started long before that,” Welborn explained more confidently.
There was no telling what the woman was feeling and the disadvantage made Welborn uneasy.
He was spared more awkward conversation when he felt the train lurch.
The sound of wheels grinding alerting him and the other passengers that the train was slowing down.
Welborn’s prayer—while misguided in his desperation—must have made it to the All Seer after all.
Welborn finished tending to the bandit, collecting his healing supplies back into his satchel with care.
He was startled when the woman suddenly flipped the unconscious man onto his back.
Her gloved hands gathered the bandit’s arms and she quickly tied his wrists together with robe she had pulled from somewhere.
“Is that necessary?” he asked.
“You think a guy who wanted to rob a train with a short sword and some acid is going to go quietly to the mayor?”
Welborn bit his lip.
“No…”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“No,” he said, more firmly.
“Good boy, looks like you’ve got a good head on your shoulders after all—”
The heat in Welborn’s face had now spread to his neck. He was certain he had never been so green in all twenty-five years of his short existence.
“—and the last thing I need is this wild card stabbing you through the stomach because you’re dealing with some moral dilemma. The world’s a dangerous place, preacher. It’s best to be prepared for the worst, lest you end up with your pants down.”
The woman had propped the bandit against one of the benches, his head slumped forward.
Welborn hadn’t pegged her to be strong enough to lift a man, but she wasn’t a slight thing.
As he moved to stand, he realized he barely had any height on her, confirming his suspicion that she was a tall woman.
Welborn stared at her veil and tried to picture what she may have looked like underneath.
Other questions regarding the mysterious woman’s identity quickly filtered through his mind.
She spoke with the hint of an accent, though Welborn couldn’t identify it.
It was different from the slow drawl that many of the people of Gloomsdale spoke with.
He wasn’t familiar enough with local slang, either, but Welborn was confident that whoever this woman was, she wasn’t a local. Most likely a transplant like—
The sudden realization that she was moving nearly made Welborn shout. During his rumination, the veiled woman had taken the now groggy man by the wrists and was pushing him toward the front of the cabin. The passengers had given her a wide berth, understandable shaken by the unexpected robbery.
Follow your curiosity .
It was a tenant of the All Seer, and Welborn was nothing if not a devoted cleric.
Before he could think, he was darting after the woman.
Welborn followed the trail of her veil and skirts, cutting through the serving cabin and into the luxury cabins without a thought.
If they looked at him strangely, Welborn didn’t notice.
His eyes were trained on the woman as she paused, glancing over her shoulder at him.
“If you’re going to follow me, do me a favor and grab that large suitcase next to this chair,” she instructed.
Welborn had always been good at following instructions.
He bent down, fingers curling around the handle of the leather suitcase.
It was long, in a shape that was different than what Welborn had seen when he first boarded the train.
The weight of it as he continued to follow the woman to the exit and off the platform was foreign to him.
He contemplated what it could be as he hurriedly shrugged his glove back on.
Too heavy to be clothes alone, but the probability of it containing treasure felt unlikely as well.
Most people kept precious gems in their coin purses and— holy shit , the orc standing across the station was his brother, wasn’t it?
Oh, All Seer.
No doubt, that was absolutely Boone, even with his face partially covered with cloth. Despite the many years without him, Welborn would recognize his frame anywhere. Just like their father, Boone was really hard to miss. And apparently his brother saw him, too.
“ —by! ”
Welborn stared, eyes wide as he realized Boone had called out to him.
A quick glance to the side revealed that the woman was not waiting for him.
Helplessly, Welborn shot his brother an awkward if not apologetic smile.
The moment Boone looked away toward his companion, Welborn’s foot had already inched in the mysterious woman’s direction.
Welborn kept his eye on his brother, until anxiety urged him to run.
Sorry, Boone! The All Seer wants me to follow this woman!