Chapter Three
“Why don’t you have your watch?” the man grumbles, removing the steel of his blade from my neck and walking away from me.
“How do you know about that?” I ask confused.
“Doesn’t matter,” he says as he lifts the hand still holding the blade to rub his eyes and takes a deep breath. “What matters is you not doing anything else to get us killed. You’re lucky I still managed to find you.”
“Lucky?” I yell. “You put a knife to my throat. I was doing just fine there by myself.”
He starts to chuckle.
“If you think that, then you’re even more naïve than I expected. He would have used you, manipulated you. Trust me, death would have been a blessing compared to that.”
As I stop arguing and look away, the Necromancer’s warning comes to mind. That things are not as they seem. I know nothing about the man in front of me except that he threatened to kill me and apparently meant it. I have little reason to trust him, except perhaps that he somehow knew I was coming and was searching for me.
He walks a few steps away and stares off into the mist, which has thinned out as we’ve gotten lower. We had just started down a gradual slope when he judged it safe to release me from his grip. He turns around after a second, looking back at me but not saying anything. The skin on his face is rough and slightly wrinkled around his eyes, though his brownish-blonde hair, which hangs over his forehead and trails in long curls behind his ears, makes him seem youthful despite some grey. Scruff shoots out around his neck, cheeks, and mouth, but it is short and balanced, suggesting that he tries to keep it kempt.
His outfit, too, seems disorderly yet clean. He wears a black brimmed hat with a dark coat and vest, which cover a grey cloth shirt. The coat hangs open, while the vest is held together with small metal buttons that go down its center and cling tightly to his body. The shirt is tucked into dark pants, ones made of a rough, scratchy-looking material. A leather belt wraps around it at the waist and holds a sheathe, inside of which is a small metal object about the length of a dagger with a bent handle. It is thick and round at its bottom, and I stare at it for a moment trying to figure out just what it contains.
“What are you gawking at?” the man says annoyed.
“For someone who’s been trying to find me, you don’t act too thrilled that I’m here,” I infer.
“That’s because I’m not,” he shoots back, “and the sooner you realize that, the better we’ll get along.”
“Then why did you come to get me?”
“Because there are people who actually care that you make it out of here alive. My role is simply to get you to them, or rather, what you have to them. If I can do that, then hopefully we won’t have to deal with each other anymore.”
Although I’m somewhat bothered by his rude demeanor, I find something about his brusqueness insincere, as though he is a lot less dislikable than what he’s putting off. Maybe this is how he deals with everyone. The thought makes me decide to be patient with him instead of returning his disdain.
“Is one of the people named Eliana?” I ask.
“Never heard the name before, but that doesn’t mean no. People go by lots of different names, especially in Sanctuary.”
“Sanctuary?”
“That’s where I’m to take you. It’s a treacherous journey, one you better be able to handle.”
“I’ve made it this far,” I remind him, not that he knows all that took place in the mountains and caves.