PreCursive

  My breath hitched in my chest. Oh…fuck. What the hell was he doing here?

  Lord Magnus of House Savoy was much as I remembered him to be. Dark of hair and beard, both were worn long and eborately styled. Shorter than Azarus, he was dressed in fancy-looking green and gold robes, plete with a fug mantle. Even from where I k in the wagon, I could see the malevolent glint in his pale, golden eyes.

  Azarus took a deep breath before speaking. “I…appreciate it, cousin.” He said between gritted teeth. “But I don’t need one. I’d prefer to just get bae after my long trip.”

  Magnus chuckled to himself in the dead silence of the square, before walking forward to stand an arm’s length before Azarus. He shook his head. “Oh no, I don’t think so. After all, I wouldn’t want to be seen as unweling, would I? No, no, that wouldn’t do at all.” He paused for a moment before meeting Azarus’s eyes. “I couldn’t possibly be seen to be less weling of my blood than that Florens harlot.”

  That made Azarus tense up even more and take a step forward to Magnus. Before he could take more than a siep, however, every guard in the square reacted. All of them reached for their ons at once, creating a cacophony of g armor. Azarus paused while Magnus barely reacted, beyond a slight widening of his smile.

  “Oh yes.” Magnus nearly purred. “I heard about yrarao Rhoscara.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face, leaving me feeling light-headed. He knew about that? He knew about the whole se in Elysael’s throne room?

  But…

  That was where I had boasted about not having a plete sve bond…

  While I anig, Magnus had tinued speaking. “I have to say, cousin, I didn’t know you had it in you. I’ve always thought you were too unspeakably dull to duct su act before a court. However…” He suddenly lurched forward closer to Azarus. “I DON’T APPRECIATE YOU STEPPING ON MY TOES!” Magnus screamed, an inch away from his face.

  Stepping bad straightening his clothes, Magnus wasn’t smiling anymore. “You know I’m using those filthy knife ears to supply the sves I need.” He hissed. “Father won’t send any more, and I don’t have the to buy them at market rate. I will not be denied my eai if I’m to be sigo this filthy backwater.”

  Wait, what?

  He was only pissed about the elf thing?

  From where I k, I could see that Azarus was slightly fused as well.

  Magnus must have noticed as well, because he sneered. “Oh, do wipe that pathetic look off your face. There’s no use pretending inno this matter. My agent in that strumpet’s court supplied me with a full transcript of your so-called ‘weling ceremony’. I know all about how you flounced around that dingy little hall, practically weeping about the poor humes being e the border. How the nasty knife ears have been snatg up the peasants, and how you supposedly drove them off.” He threw up his hands in frustration. “Father expressly forbade suterference! How did those gullible dunces fall for such drivel!”

  Azarus gnced over at me while Magnus was throwing a temper tantrum. I think we had both realized what was happening by now. Somehow, Magnus had either received wrong information, or his information had been doctored before he had received it. Everything that I had done in court was being attributed to Azarus instead, excluding everything to do with me. I tried to hide the relief on my face. Azarus smirked at me slightly before bnking his fad turning back to face Magnus.

  “As it is,” Magnus tinued after calming down, gl at Azarus. “I intercepted a report that the band of rabid dogs I’d tracted have been driven deeper into the Barren Forest by Rhos troops. So, how do you io atone for your as?”

  Azarus was silent for a moment. “I’ve made my stan svery quite clear in the pa-” He tried to say evenly.

  Magnus interrupted him with a sharp gesture. “Spare me from your bleedi, fool. I don’t care.” Suddenly, Magnus turo face me where I k in the back of the wagon. “Besides, your stance has clearly ged. You’ve been gallivanting around with this cattle for some time now. I’ve no idea how you smuggled it into the city, wearing one of my colrs.” He said, striding over to the wagon. In one smooth motion, Magnus jumped up onto the drivers bench that I was kneeling behind, in order to stare down at me. I flinched away from his stare, l my head in the way I’d learo act as a sve. “Well, sve? How did my cretin of a cousin hide your presen the most vehemently anti-svery city in the Principality?”

  I flicked my eyes up to meet his briefly, only to lower them again at the disdain I found there. I worked my mouth soundlessly for a moment, shaking my head. I didn’t know what to say.

  He didn’t like that.

  In a movement faster than I could follow, Magnus darted a hand out and grabbed me by my hair. I cried out in pain as he lifted me effortlessly and dangled me off the side of the wagon, shaking me by my hair. “Answer me, maggot!” He barked.

  I scrabbled at the arm holding me fruitlessly, barely able to think through the pain of my entire body weight being held up only by my hair. “I don’t know! I don’t know!” I cried out.

  “Magnus!” I heard Azarus bellow off to my right. “Put him down!”

  Magnus looked over his shoulder and sneered. “Well, if you insist.” With a heave, Magnus swung me around and tossed me as if I was a sack. I flew through the air, filing in panily to to the dirt at Azarus’s feet on my left side. The impact stunned me, driving all the air out of my lungs. I felt rge hands on my shoulders that then rolled me onto my back. Above me Azarus was trying to say something with a worried look on his face, but my ears were ringing too loud to uand him. Azarus looked to my left side and grimaced. Sluggishly, I swiveled my head to follow his gaze and saw my left arm.

  Oh.

  That was a bone.

  The fall onto my left side must have badly broken my upper left arm about midway down. Underh my arm, I could see a grey protrusion of stoig up out of the earth. I had nded right on it. The bloody, broken end of my left humerus oking through the skin in a gruesome manner. Suddenly, the pain of the break hit me all at ond I let out a strangled cry. Instinctively, I tried to grip my left arm with my right, only to flinch away at the heightened pain. I began to hyperventite, my vision narrowing.

  Abruptly, I felt hands grasp my head and drag my gaze up. Azarus met my gaze with grim determination. “ you hear me?”

  I stared at him bnkly for a moment. Fighting through the pain, I shakily him.

  “I o set the arm,” Azarus told me soberly.

  I felt animal panic grab hold of me at the thought and began tle weakly against his hold.

  “Calm down. Calm down!” Azarus raised his voice, trying to fight through my panic. “I have a healing potion, and it’ll be over quick. It won’t heal the break pletely, but it o be done or you’ll bleed out.”

  In a haze of pain, I didn’t eveer Azarus’s words for a moment. Finally, I registered what he had said. “O-okay.” I said, weakly.

  Taking a deep breath, Azarus looked around for a moment. Reag over, he grabbed a stick out of the dirt off to his right. “Bite down on this.” He told me grimly, putting the stick up to my mouth. “I’ll go on the t of one.”

  ing my neck up shakily, I bit down oick, dimly aware of the taste of dust in my mouth now. I him, barely able to focus.

  Azarus nodded back at me and then reached down to grab my left shoulder with his left hand, and my arm with his right. His grasp sent a fresh new wave of pain through my body. The stick muffled my moan. “Alright.” He said ominously. “Three-”

  Suddenly, in a brutal move, Azarus yanked on my arm below the break, hard. Then, he immediately shoved downwards on the bone protruding through my skin, causing it to slip baside. The eime, I was blinded by excruciating pain, nearly bg out. Through a haze, I felt a hand grab the stick out of my mouth and shove a bottle up against my lips. I was barely aware of this, so I couldn’t make myself drink it. I felt my head being tilted backward, and then a cool liquid poured down my throat.

  I id there, ie for a while. Gradually, I became aware the pain was starting to dull. Where before it was agonizing, easily the worst pain of my life, it slowly became bearable. But the it didn’t pletely go away. My arm was still on fire, it just wasn’t screaming at me like before. I opened my eyes, unaware that I’d closed them in the first pce, to find Azarus h over me anxiously. I blinked slowly at him.

  “How do you feel?” He asked me, ed.

  I tried to take a deep breath, only to break into a coughing fit. “I-” I started haltingly. “I don’t-”

  “As toug as this whole se has been.” I heard a sarcastic voice speak off to the side. “We’re not done here, cousin.”

  Azarus’s face h about me own hardened. Slowly, he straightened up to face Magnus. I sluggishly turned my head to face him as well, still ying in the dirt.

  “No,” Azarus said quietly, menagly. “I think we are. We’re leaving.” He visibly dismissed Magnus, and turned back around to help me sit up. As I did, I let out a hiss of pain. My arm was still on fire, but it didn’t feel like it was still pletely broken at least. Once I was on my feet, Azarus slung my right arm over his shoulder to support my weight. It robably the only way I was going to be able to walk, with how weak I still felt.

  “Don’t you dare…” I heard Magnus say behind us, in a rising toURN YOUR BAE! STOP HIM!”

  Two of the armor-cd town guards stepped in front of us, their swords still barred from earlier. This time, those swords were raised directly toward us.

  Azarus stopped, tensing up. All I could do was hang off his shoulder, a cold sweat rolling down my back. Slowly, Azarus turhe two of us to face Magnus again.

  The look on his face chilled me. His aristocratic, dwarveures were twisted into a mad rictus of hate. He was baring his teeth at us like he was an animal, with a crazed glint in his gleaming golden eyes. “I am your LORD!” He howled at us. “That is my PROPERTY you are carrying!”

  Azarus ignored him, cutting his eyes to take in the guards that had slowly surrounded us. They had encircled us, ons barred. I could see him visibly weighing our, or rather his, odds against them. By the grim set to his face, they weren’t great. He cut his eyes baagnus. “What do you want.” He said stonily, more a statement than a question.

  “What do I want, what do I want.” Magnus mocked, still sneering at us. “I want to not be senteo this pathetic backwater, with its backeasants. As, I o suffer this hovel for a while longer. So, I’ll o manufacture my owertai. Do you care for this sve, cousin? Have you, perhaps, grown attached?” He said, a horrible smile stealing across his face.

  Arm was growing on Azarus’s face. “Magnus, don’t.” He said, almost pleadingly.

  Judging by the glee in Magnus’s eyes, he didn’t care. Slowly, he lifted a hand to point directly in our dire. Specifically, at me. “Take him.” He ahe guards. “It’s time for a hunt.”