Wild card segment 4

It's official. Sparhawk is a dick.

Not that I can blame him, I suppose. The restrictions placed on me mean he's PROBABLY not evil, but he's certainly rude, mistrusting, and about as sociable as a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. Plus, he's obviously under a lot of strain right now, judging by the dark bags under his eyes and the obvious tension in his temples and his jaw. "Hey," I ask softly. "When was the last time you ate?"

"It's the middle of the night," Sparhawk points out, "and typically I don't break my fast til dawn."

"We're probably closer to dawn than not, and you look like you're short on sleep. A little food will probably give you the extra lift that would make the difference between feeling a little worn and yawning at the wrong time."

He grunts, but doesn't disagree. "You have food on you, then?"

I shrug, and make a small series of gestures, focusing my attention on the spell. It takes a little time, but then I'm holding in my palm a pair of brown figs. Sparhawk's eyes light up a little as I hand him one. He pops the conjured Goodberry fruit into his mouth and chews with evident relish. I eat my own in two bites, looking out into the alleyway. Still clear. "Now's our chance," I say quietly. "Take my hand."

Sparhawk does so as I chant softly for several seconds, and the world blurs about us for a split second before we're both perched atop the neighboring roof. I clap my free hand over his mouth, needlessly as it turns out given he doesn't make a sound, though he glares daggers at me.

"We're going rooftop to rooftop," I whisper. "Hold tight and don't make sudden moves." I pause, then add, "Ah, where's the wall of the city we need to get to?"

Sparhawk's grip tightens painfully on my hand as he slowly gestures with the spear in his free hand. I grimace, and nod.

Two more blinks gets us within a relatively short distance to the city wall, along with the men who patrol it at night. The flickering of patrolling lanterns helps me mentally define the crenelated parapet of the wall, and to my dismay the men walking it appear alert and on edge. Hardly a surprise given the ball of fire I arrived in, but I can't do a damn thing about that now and it wasn't really my doing to begin with. I look at Sparhawk, who doesn't seem remotely pleased about the method of travel. "Two more, and then we walk," I whisper. "We're going to do a little falling at the end of the second one, but we'll be falling like feathers, not like stones."

Sparhawk's unfriendly look in return promises violence if I don't deliver. I'd better be able to deliver, then, shouldn't I? I wait until the patrols walking in opposing directions get far enough past each other, then begin our first blink to a gable overlooking the top of the wall, then quickly give us both Feather Fall. Then, with a short chant, I Blink us as far out as I can manage over and past the wall, the gentle breeze of our descent quiet and easy for the six seconds it takes us to reach the ground. There's no sound of shouts or abrupt motion on the wall, still somewhat visible through the fog to our left, so I can only assume we weren't seen.

The ground beneath us is wet, and through my Converse flat tops I can feel the slight unevenness that comes of naturally growing grass and the soil that rises up around the tufts. In front of me, Spawhawk is a slightly darker shape on a black background, and I wouldn't be able to tell exactly where or even what he was if he wasn't still holding my hand in just shy of a death grip. "Now we move," he says quietly. "No more magic for now."

I sigh but don't complain. "How far?"

"Not far." Of course I should have expected a noncommittal answer. "Quiet."

Sparhawk lets go of me; I find I can again sense the direction to him as he murmurs a few words of his own. In the darkness I can barely make out the movement of his hands, but it does seem that he has magic of his own, even if I don't actually recognize it. His sudden sharp breath sets me on edge. I almost ask, but he DID give me an order, technically, so I keep my mouth shut.

"Ahead. Near the wall," he breathes softly. "Do you view it?"

It's a strange way to ask the question; it takes a moment before I realize he's deliberately avoiding any hissing consonents. "Yeah," I reply, doing likewise, released from the order of 'quiet' by his direct question.

A subtle glow unlike the light of the lanterns seems to be lurking about the wall of the city, perhaps eye level. It's very faint, but distinctly green. I find myself wishing I had my glasses so I could maybe see it more clearly; being nearsighted at night is the worst feeling in this kind of darkness. Wait, I'm being stupid. I can change my shape; I almost do so but grit my teeth as I remember Sparhawk instructed me to use no more magic. Dammit.

I always hated Simon Says. And this game of it has stakes I really don't want to invoke. "If I can't magic, I can't defend we," I point out to him softly, still avoiding any sibilant sounds. At his annoyed look in my direction - I'm assuming, since I can't see more than a darker silhouette of him over dark, foggy night - I clarify, "Your order of no magic earlier, until you tell me other."

He huffs and turns his attention back to the glow, which almost seems to be turning its attention in our direction. After several seconds of this, it turns, concealed by something, and vanishes from my ability to track it. Sparhawk sighs and seems to relax a little. "We need to move," he mumbles. "Follow."

He doesn't grab for my hand again, but then I suppose he doesn't actually need to. The glow, whatever it was, doesn't reappear, and Sparhawk angles away from the city wall as we walk.

He wasn't lying when he said it wasn't very far; by my guess it's twenty minutes before our destination becomes visible through the gloom and fog. As an American who's never been to Europe, I'm not experienced with castles, but the dim light of the handful of torches out in front of the structure certainly calls the term to mind. Sturdy stone assembled fortification, drawbridge, and around it barely visible in the darkness spreads a dry-moat of sharpened, externally canted wooden stakes nearing to the edge of the walls. Charging towards them would be safer than falling off the wall onto them, but not by much.

Near the front gates, there's an encampment of men amongst piles of paving stones but Sparhawk steers us away from them, circling us around to the back wall instead. He gropes along a section of wall near a bush for a few moments, then tugs at what I belatedly recognize to be a rope. I sincerely hope it's only there for tonight and not a regular fixture of the castle because it feels like a terrible security risk.

Above us, the sound of metal scraping on stone as Sparhawk pulls, holding tension on it. "You follow me up after, and no magic," he reiterates, and I clench my teeth.

"Yeah, I got it already," I mutter.

Suddenly, above us a young voice calls out sharply. "Who's there?"

Sparhawk murmurs something about a horse's ass before calling back, "Leave it alone, Berit." He begins pulling himself up hand over hand.

I haven't climbed a rope in years. I feel a degree of tense uneasiness. "Uh, Sparhawk," I protest softly. "I'm not a young man anymore."

Sparhawk snaps down, "Fine. One spell, and only one."

I feel a stab of relief, and Blink myself to the top of the wall - only to be confronted by a shocked young man about the same size as Sparhawk, and decidedly less friendly given his sudden curse and immediate heft of a double bitted axe. I raise my hands in the air like someone's pointing a gun at me; he gets the message as the axe remains in a ready position but not actually coming at me.

"Berit, calm down, the old man is with me," Sparhawk calls up to us, and I feel a stab of annoyance at him. Forty-eight isn't THAT old. No matter what my beard thinks otherwise. Sparhawk continues, "He's been useful so far, but I couldn't exactly afford to leave him behind in Cimmura, so I brought him here with me until I can decide what to actually do with him."

"What to do with him?" Berit parrots, plainly dumbfounded as Sparhawk heaves himself up and over the stone crenelations of the castle wall. Even in the light of the torch I can see Sparhawk looks worn and sweaty from the climb; the rope was far enough out from the wall that he probably had to rely solely on his grip strength, confirming for me that yeah, I wouldn't have made it up that rope.

Sparhawk looks at me and firmly says, "Stay."

The humor in his eyes indicates that my unamused look in return has no power here. I'm starting to think shaping myself into a dog in that Cimmura city was probably setting myself up for shit like this.