Champion

Chapter 34

141900MAR13 DW

On the road to Exitibus (Day 1), Erosius

The rest of the day had been rather quiet, with each of the three travelers lost in their own thoughts.

David was still furious. This place was worse than Mukavia. At least there when you killed the bad guys all you got was an ass chewing about putting 'innocent non-combatants' at risk; as though the concept of non-combatants actually existed in that country. Non-combatants didn't stick around when bullets started flying. They knew the score, because they had been living in a damn war zone for centuries. They knew to run away and hide when the fighting started, and David had seen them do it on multiple occasions. The supposed 'innocent non-combatants' were just insurgents that had been killed and then had their weapons removed from their bodies by their surviving insurgent buddies so they could use the deaths as propaganda.

He still remembered the last serious ass chewing he got for calling in a fire mission on a group of 'non-combatant' shepherds that had been firing at his team. One of the COP cameras had been providing overwatch for his team's patrol, and caught the whole thing on video. That lieutenant colonel had been so busy trying to shift blame away from himself he hadn't bothered to watch the clear proof that the 'sheppards' had been firing on David's team until after the lieutenant had left the man's office. It had been two months ago, and David was still waiting on an apology. Not like he'd ever get it now.

But that f*****g ass-hat Astinus was ten times worse. David had done everything right. He had met lethal force with lethal force. So what if he hadn't waited for those assholes in the mountains to start hurting 'the w***e' before he engaged them. Was he supposed to wait around until a target successfully killed another human being before he was allowed to engage? If he wanted to put up with that s**t he would have joined the FBI, not the Army.

Now he was stuck with two annoying prima donna bitches that he would sooner leave tied up on the side of the road than deal with. Laurena was a manipulative slut, too busy stuffing herself with c***s to bother caring about anyone or anything else. And Sapphire may be blazing hot, but she was way too damn high strung. He had volunteered some good advice that was based on his own experiences, and all she had wanted to do was bite his damn head off. f**k both of them.

Laurena could not believe what Astinus had said about her. She was perfectly capable of loving other people. She did love other people. She loved how they worshipped her body during Blessings, how they filled her body, and how they made her feel important and powerful with their attention. Were it not for other people there would be no one to appreciate the perfect form that Eros had blessed her with. It was not her fault that no one else was as beautiful as her. Yes her magic was weak, but that didn't mean that she lacked Eros' boon, did it?

Sapphire was furious with Astinus, but not because of her penance. She knew full well that she deserved far worse. No, she was furious because she had talked with the owner of the Howling Moons last night after dropping off David. In that conversation she had discovered the fourth man that had attacked the Champion was named Lucius, had been associated with the other eight for years, and had been living in plain sight this whole time. It was the clergy's job to hunt down these criminals, and yet they were living happily under that old priest's nose.

She had also learned about two others, one named Francos in Lexia, and another named Galen in Exitibus. She didn't know if they were involved or not, but she was determined to find out. Unfortunately, this babysitting trip was getting in the way of that. At least she could do some initial information gathering on her way through Exitibus. Then she could drop the pair off at the Field of Woe and get back to hunting down everyone that had a hand in stealing her father from her.

Given their deep thoughts, it was not surprising that the sun was nearly hidden behind the horizon when they finally stopped to make camp. What was a surprise was Sapphire's sleeping arrangement.

"Did you need to borrow something to sleep on?" David asked the younger woman, finally noticing she had only one small set of saddle bags, and no sleeping gear that he could see.

"No, do you?" she replied sarcastically, glancing significantly at the massive rucksack and long-barreled weapons strapped to the back of his horse.

Well f**k you too, b***h, David thought.

After he unloaded his gear and saddle from the large draft horse, he brushed his mount down and tied it to a convenient tree using a long lead, allowing it to graze in the lush grass nearby. Then he opened his sleep system and rolled it out onto the soft grass. Looking up he noticed Sapphire pulling a large feed bag from the too-small saddle bags she had removed from her own mount.

Huh? Where the hell did that come from?

Forgetting his current task, he looked on in amazement as the young woman continued to pull far too many large items from the too-small bags.

After fitting the feed bag on her mount, and giving it a loving pat on the side of its neck, she had returned to her saddlebags and begun to pull out what he soon discovered was a decently sized tent. Once she had removed the cloth portion, she then removed a number of six foot long poles from the small bags. Placing the poles on the ground in a rough circle, she chanted a quick spell, and stood back as the tent assembled itself.

The poles stood up and the cloth tent raised itself from the ground and settled onto them. Ropes unraveled from the sides and staked themselves into the ground, securing the tent. The side nearest the trader pulled back, creating an entrance into the interior, which had a thick and sturdy looking woven cloth floor. The trader now stood next to a twelve foot diameter hexagonal tent.

Next she pulled a bundle of cloth and wood from the clearly too-small bag, and set it on the floor of the tent; where it proceeded to assemble itself into a comfortably sized cot. Finally, she pulled a bundle of bedding from the bag, and turning to put it on the cot. As she turned, she noticed David's now open-mouthed stare.

"I'm sure your sleeping arrangements are comfortable, but I am attached to these," she said, looking with a smirk at his sleeping bag lying in the grass.

"Where the hell did all that come from?" he asked her, too surprised to be offended at her snide comment.

"My saddle bags, of course. It would have taken me a lot longer to conjure it from thin air," she replied with more sarcasm.

"Yeah, I saw that," David continued, ignoring her attitude, "but how did you fit so much gear into those tiny bags?"

Rolling her eyes at his naivety, she proceeded to explain the phenomena as though speaking to a child. "I'm a trader. That means I buy things from the people who make them, then transport those things to the people who will buy them from me for the best price. Do you see a big ass cart anywhere?"

She paused in her speech to make an exaggerated search of the area, even going so far as to lift up her horse's tail and look under it. The horse was not amused, and neither was David.

Before he could respond she continued, "Nope, no cart. That means I have to have another method of transporting my goods; thus my special saddle bags. They can hold far more than your average trader's cart, and are much easier to get down the often narrow city streets of Western Erosius."

"David is still learning about magic," Laurena interjected. "And even I have never seen an enchantment that powerful. They must be extremely rare."

"Yes they are," Sapphire replied to the acolyte, her expression suddenly saddening, full of pain and loss. "They were a gift from my mother to my father on the first anniversary of their marriage. She was very proud of his work, but hated how much time he spent away from her. Even when he was home he had to constantly spend time maintaining and repairing his cart.

"Those idiots that killed him were clueless about it. They were so busy beating him up for a purse full of coins that they didn't realize the fortune he had on his horse. The horse spooked that night, and ran off into the darkness. I eventually found her a few days later, still carrying his saddle, and these bags." She finished her tale by walking back to her horse, and stroking it affectionately. "If Moonbeam here hadn't gotten scared that night, everything my father worked for would have been lost with him."

Realizing how painful this topic was for the woman, David decided to change the subject to something that had been bothering him since the night before.

"Laurena, why didn't you tell me that the language of magic was English?"

Giving the soldier a disdainful look, as though merely speaking to him was a chore, she responded, "I know nothing of your English. The language of magic is Enochian."

"Well, what Sapphire spoke last night sounded a hell of a lot like what we're speaking right now," he said annoyed at her tone; adding the afterthought, "Although her accent was slightly different."

"Champion, I speak Aeolian, Dracian, and Enochian. I have never heard of English," Sapphire told him.

"Well we're speaking English right f*****g now," he said to them both, "and it sounds exactly like what you used to cast that spell last night."

Laurena was growing confused, but Sapphire began to contemplate something.

"Champion...David...please answer a few questions for me, and I may be able to explain what is going on," she eventually said.

"Ok, I'm game," he responded gruffly.

"Is it true you are not from Erosius, that you are in fact not even from this realm?" she began.

"Yup."

"Then don't you find it odd that your language and ours is the same. I know for a fact that the foreign merchants that land in our ports speak in a different tongue than us, and most only learn ours well enough to trade," she continued.

She had a good point. Considering the vast number of languages spoken in his own world, it seemed ludicrous that he would happen to find himself in a completely different world with a bunch of people speaking English.

"Ok. Yeah, it's pretty odd," David said.

"Then you must also find it odd that I am currently speaking to you in Dracian, and you understood everything that I just said?" she asked him.

"Huh?" he asked her confused. "You're still speaking English."

Looking to Laurena for confirmation, he was surprised to see that she was staring at him in amazement.

"I did not realize that you spoke Dracian, Champion," the acolyte said.

"I don't. I'm speaking English," he insisted, growing frustrated once again.

"No David," Sapphire said calmly, "you are not. When I switched to Dracian, you not only understood my words, you spoke Dracian in return. What's more, when Laurena addressed you in Aeolian, you switched back and addressed her in that language."