16. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Evengi

" S he was always such a willful girl."

I grimace as I step out into the daylight. I take back every wish I had that a ghost would appear to me in Sunder Hollow and tell me what was going on. I'd take ignorance over the company of Natasya's father's ghost any day.

From what I've managed to gather from all his ranting is that he utterly despises his daughter, which leaves me in the most unwanted position of having to feel sympathy for a necromancer. I mean, no wonder she turned out the way she did when her own father hated her.

I myself was blessed with the most saintly parents in all of Ruskhazar. They doted on me and my sister, only wanting the best for us. We were wealthy, well loved, and the world was at our feet.

And that left me bored. Who was I if I never actually had to work toward anything? I simply existed in this world, but I did not take part in it, not in any sort of significant way. It's why I was so restless in my youth jumping from one pursuit to the next until that fateful day in the Academy of Magickers where I nearly died because of my careless irresponsibility. Magic was a dangerous thing, and I was treating it like a hobby.

But due to that I found my calling.

A calling I still haven't managed to share with my family. While I'm satisfied with my role as a ghost hunter and priest of Neltruna, I know my parents would be disappointed. They would want more for me, and my mother especially would want me to finally have a family and start popping out grandkids for her.

Not exactly a lifestyle a nomadic priest would have. It's true that priests of Neltruna aren't necessarily forbidden from marriage, after all it was the gods who were the first to marry, it's just that life of a monster hunter is not without its perils, and many would not bring a wife into that life.

So, I simply didn't tell them. The fear of disappointing them was so strong that I traveled under a fake name and while I told my family I was adventuring I worked toward my higher calling.

All the while lying to the people, I loved the most.

If I'd died back there, if Natasya had been any other sort of necromancer, my parents and sister would never have known what became of me. I'd have just disappeared. Or the others of my order would have eventually found me and been forced to deliver news of my death to my family.

I'm not sure which would have been worse.

Natasya kneels on the ground studying the grass, probably looking for a booted imprint in the ground. Tracking is a skill that many priests of Neltruna have picked up, but not me. My prey is usually noncorporeal.

Like the ghost standing next to me, watching Natasya with a disgusted look on his face.

"She had it in her head even at a young age that she would go to the Academy of Magickers. ‘I'm going to be a magicker, papa, and fight monsters,' she would always say," the ghost mutters, his voice taking on a higher tone as he mimics his daughter. He rolls his eyes. "As if I could have afforded to buy her magical equipment so she could pursue a whim."

"And supporting her would have been so terrible," I grumble, making certain to keep my voice low. I don't want Natasya to know that I'm defending her to her dead father. Although, I don't actually know why I'm hesitant. Do I not want for her to hear that I'm defending her and get ideas that I support her lifestyle, or do I not want her to know that her father is here and that he still hates her?

That he told me to kill her.

What a request to come from a father's mouth. Dead or not, how could he want that fate for his child?

I made that deal with her half to spite him.

"As you can clearly see, she never had a real passion for magic," her father replies dryly. "Actually, it was her sister who went to the Academy of Magickers. Bronwyn was always the far better daughter." He shakes his head grumbling under his breath. "And more obedient too."

Natasya straightens as she glances back at me. I rub my ear against my shoulder to try to drown out her father's voice. She wrinkles her nose in confusion. "Are you certain you saw Brom?"

"I think I'd know him if I saw him," I reply folding my arms. "Do you think I saw someone else?"

"I don't see any tracks other than our own here," she says gesturing down to the grass.

"As if she's an expert," her father says with a snort. "She forgets she's just a farmer's daughter. I wish I had control of my body so I could show her just what I think of her lofty airs. I'd choke the life out of her here and now, just like you should be doing."

I duck my head again. As I raise my shoulder to my ear, I catch sight of something in the tree line just outside the graveyard. It waves at me, and I realize that it's Brom.

"There he is!" I cry.

Brom waves more emphatically as if he is trying to urge us to come to him. I wonder why he doesn't come to us until I hear it. The shrieking whiny of a horse.

I turn to see a black stallion come out from behind a mound just a little across the burial way from where we are standing.

There's something off about the silhouette of the horse's rider. As he turns his steed toward us, I realize just what it is. There is nothing above his shoulders, just empty sky where his head should be.

I don't know what sort of dark necromancy is afoot, but that thing is clearly not a member of the living.

"What the Skyhold…" Natasya breathes just as the horse snorts and takes off after us, bringing its headless rider closer. I whirl, grabbing Natasya's arm as I race past her.

"Run," I say, and since she doesn't seem to react quickly enough, I yank on her arm again. "Run!"

Natasya whips her head around and takes off after me. I don't let go of her arm though. I hope somehow, I'm propelling her faster as I race toward the tree line where I saw Brom.

Behind me, I can hear the pounding of hooves and the heaving breaths of the steed.

The rider, however, is eerily silent.

I duck my head under a branch as we break through the tree line. I don't slow my pace at all. These trees won't stop the horse and its rider, but they can slow them down. And in the process offer us some cover. I don't know where Brom went, but I hope that he has gotten himself to safety.

I don't know what this headless rider wants, or rather what the necromancer that raised him wants, but I don't intend to stick around and find out.

I've already been held against my will by one necromancer too many today. I can barely believe that I'm still alive after discovering who Natasya really is, and I have no intention of testing my luck. Just because I somehow found the only non-bloodthirsty necromancer in all of Ruskhazar does not mean that I'll survive a second necromancer. Indeed, I fully expect I wouldn't.

And for that matter neither would Natasya. Necromancers do not tend to get along together. They see themselves as each other's rivals.

They are power hungry creatures and they do not like to see someone else wield that power as well.

A branch snaps against my cheek as I push toward the deepest parts of the forest. But I can't help but wonder how long we can keep this up. Natasya and I are both breathing hard. If not for these trees, the headless rider would have caught us already.

Just as I'm thinking this, Natasya tugs on my arm.

"There," she says, gasping out the word.

I turn my head to see that she is pointing to an old half rotten oak tree. Its roots are twisted and gnarled and form a slight hollow underneath the tree.

I slip in fallen leaves as I veer off course, heading toward the tree. I release Natasya's arm as we reach the tree. I turn glancing around wildly as she drops to her knees and crawls in ahead of me.

I can hear a whinny and it's close. I drop into the hole. I'm not entirely sure how I managed to contort myself to fit in the space, especially with Natasya there, or how I managed to do so as quickly as I did.

I likely scraped myself in several areas and I just haven't processed the pain yet, but at the moment, my world has narrowed down to the measure of my attempt to control my breaths.

Natasya pressed up against me, her chest is against my arm and I can feel her heart hammering against her ribcage like a frightened bird's wings.

The roots wrapped around us hopefully offer us enough shelter.

The black hoof stepped into view only a stone's throw from where we are hiding now.

I hear the sliding sound of a sword being pulled from its sheath and suddenly a blade lowers in front of us, hanging beside the hoof.

It's an old blade, broken and bent, but still sharp enough to cut and already stained in dried blood.

Natasya shrinks into my side, and unthinking, I wrap my arm around her shoulder, holding her close.

Suddenly, I hear a twig snap a short distance away. The horse snorts and then in a thunder of hooves it is gone bearing its rider and that bloody blade away with it.

"That's my papa," Natasya says in a proud whisper.

The ghost harrumphs reminding me that he's still there.

I push up, poking my head out of the burrow. Natasya grabs my arm, yanking me back.

"What are you doing?" she hisses. "It's still out there."

"And so is Brom," I say as I crawl out of the hole. Whatever is happening here at this mass grave, I intend to find him before that horseman does.