The Mimic Becomes a Merchant King

When it came to animals, the Arcadian pronghorn was an odd sort of beast. A pure herbivore but built with the speed and aggression of a hellcat. Fiercely territorial, and always keen to gore perceived interlopers with their twisting ivory horns.

And many, as Leona had learned in her childhood, the majority would fight to the death instead of fleeing.

She regarded the pronghorn warily, watching the blood that matted his raven coat from an assortment of cuts. She had cut into it from an assortment of angles, never being so much as nicked by the beast's horns. And yet, the creature showed no signs of halting his assault.

She watched the beast warily, staring into his stark yellow eyes. The pronghorn was tensed on the crushed grass, illuminated by the fading sunlight on the horizon. Steam born from exertion wafted from his taut muscles.

It lunged toward her in a sudden burst of speed, his spiral horns aimed square at Leona's torso. The assassin braced, gripping her blades tightly as magic pulsed through to the meteorite metal bangles on her wrists.

Yet she fought against the alluring pull of her own magic, the honed reflexes that told her to jump away. She wanted to challenge herself, after all.

Strength raced through her lithe body as she jumped clean over the charging beast, landing a few paces behind her quarry. The beast turned, mid-charge, snarling and bleating while froth hissed from his mouth. Leona swept toward the pronghorn before he could fully regain his balance, the sword in her right hand whistling down through the air.

The thwack of metal meeting his neck echoed through the woodlands, the sound of gargled blood drowning out the beast's bleating. He hit the ground with a thud, twitched briefly, and quickly fell still.

Leona flicked the flowing blood from her sword. "Good fight!" she cheerily said. It was important, she oft told herself, to respect a worthy foe even when they were too dead to appreciate the respect.

She had no respect for those who hunted their quarries with bows and slings. Sure it took skill and patience to be able to accurately bullseye a deer from many yards away, it wasn't something any drunken fool could do.

Not for lack of trying, anyway. There were cemeteries full of oafs who had decided, in the midst of a stag party or some other ritual Leona had seen common people drunkenly indulge in, that it would be a jolly good time to go and kill a buck while they were practically marinated in wine. More often than not they'd kill each other with a misfired arrow before a bear, a cockatrice, a hellcat, or any other beast could make a meal of them.

For Leona, a hunt was not worth indulging in if it did not entail a considerable physical risk. It was much more fun to duel a hellcat on treacherous mountain, blade to claw, than to try and headshot it from behind a bush a considerable distance away.

She set about cleaning her kill, setting the skin aside, and prepared her meat before she went to set up her campfire for the evening. She had sent her two underlings off to deal with the last of Broadfellow's men, figuring that she could be more subtle in following their actual targets on her own.

And, frankly, the two were more than enough to handle some dumb thugs on their own.

Her campfire was alight by the time the moons had risen. Leona had set aside a few strips of pronghorn meat to preserve into jerky, and then set about grilling a large chunk for herself. Pronghorn meat, particularly when grilled in nature, was tough and greasy.

But Leona had never really fretted about such things in the past. So long as she was fed, she was happy.

"So many days spent fecklessly lingering in that cursed town. Honestly, what were they even doing out there?" Leona murmured in between dripping mouthfuls of cooked meat. She had propped her back against the trunk of a nearby tree

She had watched Charnyll from afar, well camouflaged by the canopy of nature, and had been able to see very little from her vantage point. She hadn't into the town itself. Not out of fear, certainly not, but her presence could have sent those merchants into a blind panic.

"Were they really waiting all that time just to make sure nobody was trailing them?" She pulled a cloth from her belt and used it to wipe her digits clean.

Turning her head and peering through the surrounding brush, she could just barely glimpse the distant shape of the inn. Were it not for the shape of the scarecrow on the roof, it would look indistinct to any other roadside strcture.

"Well they might have been able to shake those other fools, but they can't shake me." Her magic, a rare form according to Askyr, made her ideal for hunting and tracking. And so long as this was her mission, she would pursue them into the Bleak itself if she had to.

Still, it was odd to hunt someone without the expectation that she'll be killing them come the end of things.

And with how distinct and peculiar this bunch were, it wasn't as if they could blend in whenever they resumed their trek.

As her campfire began to die down, Leona pulled her cloak tighter around herself and let sleep steadily overtake her. Woe betide anyone foolish enough to try and attack her in her slumber.

Her dream was what her dreams oft were: A memory.

Choking smoke had filled the air around her, the gutters running red with innocent blood. And she, a wailing child who was barely even a toddler, was left stumbling about the filthy cobbles as the flames consumed more and more of her home town.

A place she had no true memories of, just the name: Warden's Field. Anything prior to this day, in her memory, were just vague and hazy recollections of warmth and laughter. The melody of her mother's voice, a dog large enough for a young child to comfortably sit on the back of, the laugh of her elder brothers.

Leona could not recall these pleasant memories for long before the screams and fire overwhelmed them.

Her stumpy legs moved awkwardly and uncertainly, her eyes stinging from tears and smoke. Her young mind reeled, assaulted on all sides with confusion and terror. Bodies were strewn about the streets, many no longer even in one piece. The kind of thing no child should be forced to witness.

And even as a tot, Leona could still recognise many of the faces frozen in pain and horror. People she had known, people she had cared for, cut down by strangers in armour.

In her confusion, stumbling and trying to find some measure of safety, she was only able to halt herself when a cloaked man in armour appeared from the alley ahead of her. His axe was dripping red, baleful eyes staring down at Leona from the shade of his visored helmet.

With no hesitation, no shame, he turned and advanced toward the wailing child with his axe held high overhead. Leona froze, shaking like a leaf. Every instinct in her undeveloped brain told her to run, but her body would not comply.

Her eyes were focused solely on the bloodstained axe, the blade larger than her whole body. The stranger, wordlessly, raised the axe high with both hands. There was nothing in his eyes, Leona vividly remembered. No hate, no anger, no sorrow. Just pure, crushing, nothingness.

Just as the man made to swing, a sudden and harsh jerk paralysed him and shook his body. A blade punched clean through the boiled leather covering his stomach, sending a spray of blood onto the dirt road. The axeman gagged and gargled, a horrid wheezing noise rising in his throat.

In one fluid motion, the figure behind him wrenched his sword free. The armoured man stumbled back, dropping his axe with a noisy clatter. He tried to turn toward his attacker, clutching the seeping wound in his gut, only for a second sword to shave his head from his shoulders in a single stroke.

Leona stood rooted in place as the swordsman emerged from behind the falling body. A warm breeze ruffled his hood and cloak, giving a brief glimpse at his handsome, youthful face.

"Poor lass," he huffed, wiping some sweat and ash from his brow with the back of his gloved hand. He glanced around sharply, sheathing the blade in his left hand. "Still a damn warzone here. Streets are packed... but I know a way out of here."

He crouched and scooped her up in his arm. Finally, at last, Leona had stopped crying. "You have a name?" he asked, turning and setting down a nearby side street. Smoke followed behind them.

"L-Leona," she mumbled, barely coherent.

"Leona? That's a nice name." He forced himself to smile, tried whatever he could to calm her and give her confidence. "I'm Askyr."

Leona slowly awoke some time later, shrouded in the growing darkness of the night. Slowly, she turned her head back toward the the distant outline of the inn. Lantern light shone from a few of the windows, cutting through the blackness.

She sighed. Barely a nap at all, she reasoned. she slipped a spyglass from her pocket and peered toward the side yard. DiVenture's wagon hadn't budged, to her relief.

The memory in her dream loomed large in her mind, an incident she had relieved countless times throughout her life. Arcadian soldiers had come hunting runaways from the Brotherhood who had been given shelter in Warden's Field. And for the crime of their mercy, the settlement had been scoured.

Leona cared little for politics, thrones, and the machinations of so-called great men. But she cared for Askyr, the man who had saved her and raised her into who she was.

And even if pursuing these fools was an odd mission to be tasked with, she'd pursue it. All for him.

A tiny sigh eased from her lips. "I still hope they get a damn move on soon. Can't stand sitting on my arse for another stretch of days."