Gathering of Jackals
"You're acting like we shouldn't go look for Lina,"
Zelgadis noted, as Gourry came down the stairs
yawning.
"You don't think I want to make sure she's safe?"
Amelia responded, insulted.
"Make sure who's safe?" Gourry asked. "And where's
Lina."
"We don't know," Zelgadis said.
"I don't think we should get involved,
Zelgadis-san," Amelia said once again. She hated her
own thoughts and kept them to herself. She didn't want
to admit that it was probably a good thing that Lina
was gone. "Zelgadis-san might think he's a monster,
but Lina actually is."
"Well, wouldn't she start from where this all
happened?" Gourry asked. Amelia and Zelgadis blinked
and looked at the swordsman as he started to order
breakfast.
"That's a good idea," Zelgadis said, surprised.
"Perhaps we should look for her at the last town."
"What about this hermit of yours," Amelia asked.
"Shouldn't you be heading to see him about your cure?"
"I didn't suggest that she stop travelling with us
just to leave her to every bandit looking for a
reputation," Zelgadis asserted. "The hermit will be
there after we find Lina."
"What if she doesn't want to be found?"
"It never stopped us from following Zel," Gourry
noted, making a second useful observation in one
conversation.
"What are you hiding, Amelia?" Zelgadis asked.
"You'll have to ask Lina," was all Amelia said.
"You sound like Xellos," Gourry noted.
"Speak of the devil," Xellos whispered from the
shadows. He watched the three make preparations to
leave, not wanting to reveal himself to them. The
resulting suscipision, chaos and anger would be
delicious, but it would just be diversion. "So there
really is something wrong with Lina." Besides, Amelia
and Zelgadis were more than making up for the lack.
He wanted this to be a short jaunt, Xelas wouldn't
tolerate him being away from his post for too long. He
affirmed to himself again that the only reason he was
out and about was that he needed some time away from
that over-violent, insolent, dragon-girl. Xellos cast
about with his senses for Lina's magical signature
while the Slayers beneath him gathered there things
and waited for Gourry to finish devouring breakfast.
He couldn't feel anything, either she was out of his
range. Or else whatever had happened to her hadn't
just blocked her magical power, it had stripped it.
"She must be out of range," Xellos decided.
Lina hurt all over, she couldn't move any part of
her body, breathing ached, the blood roared in her
ears. All she could do was stare through the trees and
wait for the sun to set. She felt herself healing
slowly, but at this rate it would be a while before
she even looked alive to the outside world, much less
be able to move. The fact that her new state of being
kept her alive didn't soothe her much. If she could
still cast magic, she never would have even had a
problem.
She shouldn't even be in this situation now, she
had been cocky. After all, bandits had never caused
her a real problem before. The amount she had depended
on magic was painfully clear now, very painfully. She
ran over the scene in her mind one more time,
analyzing her mistakes again.
"Okay, you little creep," Lina snapped as she
landed from the tree in front of the courier. "Who
paid you to deliver these?" She snatched the scroll
case from his hands and recovered one of the "Lina
Inverse has lost her power." posters.
"What's it to you?" the courier asked nervously,
taking in the hooded cloak, armor and swords. "You're
a bandit aren't you?"
"I just want to know if the information is
genuine," Lina asserted. She paused and sniffed at the
air then, something had attracted her attention. Lina
didn't know if the enhanced senses were a bad sign or
not, her sense of smell especially was getting more
acute with each passing hour.
"What does it matter if its genuine or not?" the
courier asked nervously. Lina shook away the
uncomfortable feeling the "scent" gave her. It was
probably just her imagining things anyway.
"I don't like being used as a decoy," Lina told the
courier. "Now where is the person that hired you to
deliver these."
"Are you interferring with the mail, little girl?"
a voice behind her demanded. Lina knew she wasn't
imagining things now as the sound of men surrounding
her and the courier carried through the forest.
"You know what," a second bandit asked.
"What?"
"I think she's the 'bandit killer' and I'll bet
that information there is correct."
"Are you crazy," Lina shouted. "If I was her, I'd
have dug myself into a hole by now."
"Hey, isn't Karl a survivor of the Bandit Killer?"
someone demanded. The courier edged away and was
blocked by two large bandits. "Oh let him go,
everybody should have that information after all." The
circle of bandits parted a little to let the man by,
he ran at a breakneck pace away from the developing
scene.
"Yeah, let's pull that hood back and see if Karl
recognizes her."
"Just try it," Lina snapped, drawing her blade. She
looked frantically for a way out, but found nothing.
She should have left when the first twinge of danger
came to her, now she was stuck. "I don't want to die
quite yet, I still have to find Martina, and thank
her."
"I don't care, I just want that sword of hers."
"Oh, you want that little baby sword?" somebody
teased.
"Mind your own business, let's just kill her and
figure out who she is later."
The following battle didn't last long, Lina had put
up a good fight, but without magic there were just too
many of them. Still five of them weren't going to be
anybody's problem again. What happened after the
battle was the real horror.
"It looks like she's still alive," the speaker ran
her through one more time as he spoke. The pain was
incredible, but Lina wasn't able to respond. "Look at
her eyes."
"Don't be stupid," somebody closed her eyes, but
she lifted them open moments later.
"Yeah, that's the 'bandit killer' allright," a
burn-scarred man she assumed must be Karl told the
others. He lifted her head up by the bloodsoaked hair
and spat in her face, Lina blinked. The man let her
head drop back down to the ground, it hit hard. "She's
still alive." He kicked her, several times, Lina
thought she felt one of her remaining ribs break.
"It's just a reflex action, don't worry about it,"
he closed her eyes, again, but she popped them open.
She was going to make sure she knew who these people
were. "See, look, they just pop open. It's odd, but
we've all seen dead bodies do stuff like that before."
"Come on let's get out of here," somebody said.
"We've pretty much taken everything of value." The men
around her stood up and started walking away, all
agreeing in various ways. Each of them paused to give
Lina's conscious, but immobile body a kick or stab.
Lina thanked L-sama that there wasn't a single silver
weapon among the lot of them.
"I wonder what she used the manacles for?" The
voice was fading away, she was alone in a ditch on the
side of the road in the middle of the roads. Which
brought her to her current situation.
Her feet itched now, it was a good sign, the feeling
was returning to her limbs. It was still taking to
long, somebody might come along and decide to do
something more than just beat the bandit killer's
corpse. She sighed and wondered just how long she was
going to have to stay in this hideous state of
immobile consciousness. It wasn't all that much
longer, fortunately, as the sun began to sink and the
transformation was triggered, her rate of healing
accelerated. The pain was incredible as bones knitted
and nerves reconnected to each other. It was
comparatively short lived though, and Lina was soon
nearly completely healed. As soon as the full
transformation ended the healing slowed down again,
but it was still at much higher rate than before.
"First piece of business is to get my stuff back,"
Lina growled, tail swishing smoothly. "Without them
learning it was me." She didn't want it getting around
that she was a were-creature, and if the rumors spread
that she was dead, well that was so much the better.
If she suspected her senses were enhanced in human
form they were incredible now. She had been too
preoccupied with moping on the previous night to
notice them. For one thing it was easy to follow the
bandit's trail through the woods, and moving silently
and swiftly.
The bandit lair was more of a challenge, but the
level of drunkeness and chaos still made it easy for
her to get in and out with her stuff and a little
extra without being seen. She left only one exception,
one of her earrings planted in one of the bandit's
packs to implicate him in the loot's disappearance.
Lina sighed as she left to the sound of a rising
fight, but if she had fought some of them would have
escaped. Then Lina Inverse would be known as a
werecreature and she'd never be able to find Martina.
The fighting grew louder as Lina began travelling down
the road, hood pulled deep over her head. As she
neared the next town Lina settled in to another
solitary camp site to wait for daylight to come.
=====
"Caffeinated Kender? What's that, a berserk spell?" -
Tribble, Kender Warrior of the Celestial Kingdom
Signed
He of Too Many Names (Thrythlind/Thryth/Luke/Hyperbole/Pika/Pooka)
http://members.aol.com/thrythlind/snake.html
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