Rune Guard 02

"Head, heart, or lungs when you can but watch out for each other," he called out to us as we headed off.

"Yes, father," Lolla called back.

I smirked.

Mirra giggled.

"I'm glad you joined us," I told her.

"Why's that?" she asked.

"Stick-boy, here," Lolla told her, "won't hit anybody. He'll grapple, stun, or disarm them but it'll probably be up to you and me to kill the cats."

I caught her looking over at me and said, "Emmit took me on when nobody else would. So far it's worked out." "Wait, didn't I kick your ass," I said to Lolla.

She looked at Mirra and said, "He also has no problem deflecting your spells back at you - or catching the fuckers to store in his damned necklace."

"I want a damned necklace," Mirra said.

"Emmit will probably have it done by the time we get back."

We were getting into the trees so we stopped talking and started looking for cats.

"My Spidey-sense is tingling," I told them. "I think we've got incoming."

"What's 'Spidey-sense'?" Mirra asked me.

"No clue," I replied.

"Left," Mirra called out.

I checked the right and then moved to stand between the girls as two cats came running at them.

Mirra's target froze when Lolla's ball of lightning hit her cat in the face and dropped it immediately. The archer took advantage of the unmoving target to put an arrow through its heart. It was still looking at its partner as it collapsed to the ground.

Lolla's cat was still alive, barely. She finished it off with a knife. I yanked Mirra's arrow free and returned it to her. I picked up her cat and threw it over my shoulders. The girls tied ropes around the front and back paws of the second cat and carried it between them.

When we got the two back to Emmit, he had us field dress them and throw the offal in the tall grass. We skinned the cats and collected the glands, organs, teeth, claws, and bones that Emmit asked for. We carved steaks off of what was left and added the remainder to the refuse pile.

Emmit handed Mirra a simple pendant and she put it on. He told her to have Lolla add a bit of magic to it, now and then, so she'd be able to use it to activate inert runes. We loaded up and climbed back onto the wagon.

As we headed back down the slope, I asked if we should have waited to butcher the cats until we were by the goblin pyre. He said that he normally would have done that but that he didn't want to hang around the smell of the poop any longer than he had to. Lolla called out, "Amen!"

When we finally returned to the main road, we turned left. We traveled another two hours before we arrived at a bridge over a small river. Just on the other side of the river was the first walled city I had seen since we had left my home.

For a moment, I wondered how my mother was doing. My thoughts wandered to my father and my brothers but I really didn't care whether they were dead or not. I tried to decide if I felt bad about that. I found that I didn't. I still had everything with me that mom had sent with me - including the two copper pennies.

I decided right then that - whenever I saw my mother again - I would return the coin purse to her, along with the two pennies. After that, I planned to hand her two gold coins, give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and tell her 'goodbye'.

~~~ End of Chapter 2 ~~~

I don't know, yet, how many chapters this story will have. I have a map of the region that I use as a reference. The map has 30+ towns and 9 cities that are big enough to support an inn. I plan to pass through every one of those locations at least once before I'm done.

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