A long stone road was running almost straight to the horizon, where Kalonizrose its spires and grand halls into the sky. At the side of the road stood a wagon covered in a colourful patchwork of felt. Nannade was standing at its side, adding a sky-blue patch to the wagon’s adornment. On it, she had sewn an intricate design of runes and patterns with horse hair.

“The patch is in place. The harvest mouse is a shy animal, that knows how to hide from predators, and the horses know the road well. Leave a few corns of barley, rye or wheat every morning in the wagon, somewhere you can’t see them. Harm none of its kind and be gentle to the horses, and in exchange, harvest mouse’s spirit will hide you from preying eyes.”

Clara hugged the girl. “How can I ever thank you?”

“Forget me. Forget you ever saw me, met me, talked to me. It will be easier for you two and for me.”

Clara had a tear in her eyes. “You stupid, cruel child. How could I ever forget you? After you saved us?”

“I don’t want to forget you either. I want to say that we will meet again, but I don’t think we will.”

Benny gave Nannade a tight handshake, then sat on the bench behind the horses. “I don’t know how to thank you, or even pay you back, but I pray that the road will ease your step wherever you might wander.”

Nannade smiled. “I wish you safe travels, Bernhardus.”

“Please, call me Benny.”

A chuckle escaped Nannade’s lips, with a hint of sadness. “Farewell Benny.”

Benny whigged the horses and the wagons was on its way down the stone road. Clara waved at the girl from the back of the wagon.

Nannade watched them disappear in the distance. Then she stashed her latest purchases in her backpack. A leather envelope with several needles, a spool of yarn, a small awl and some sinew. Clara had insisted on also giving her a few linen- and leather scraps for free. All of them would come in handy when she had to repair her outfit in the future. Once all was stashed away, she made her way towards Kaloniz on foot. She’ll probably not arrive before evening, but she was okay. The wagon had brought her far in ten days.

It was indeed evening when she arrived. She was lucky to still get inside. The guards were getting ready to close the gate for the night. One of them shot Nannade a distrustful glance and sohe hurried her step along.

Passing through the wards on the walls felt disgusting to her, as if she was snorting slimy yarn up her nose, but her entire body was the nose. Once she had passed through, the feeling was gone, but the serpent inside of her was still writhing, unhappy with its suppressed state.

Nannade quickly found a guesthouse and booked into the communal room. She wasn’t willing to spend any more coin than necessary. She had only limited funds and she needed them possibly later on. Who knows where she had to go after she finally found the forest of dreams and finished her task?

She woke up the next morning, well rested, after sleeping in a proper bed for the first time since she left the containment cell in Sosken. She enjoyed finally being in the city without Garetas breathing down her neck. She took her time from early morning to noon looking at stands and wares. Kaloniz was a grand city, she could find almost anything even outside the Magistrates’ quarter, where she wouldn’t be able to go without a seal. The architecture was impressive. Towers reached for the clouds, and grand halls were held up by columns jutting from the ground like the teeth of a mountain range. Every building of fused stone exuded an aura of strength and certainty. The people here valued determination and actions more than sophistication and words. They did not mess around before taking action, making haggling a battle of grit and willpower. It also explained the way Bronislaw behaved.

At noon she looked for something to eat and found a bakery selling old and dry bread on the cheap, so she got quite some to stretch her rations. She needed a lot of water to wash it down, but it was better than wasting rations. She eventually decided to ask travelling merchants for the quickest way to Southbridge. If the ones who wanted to take a shortcut were the ones disappearing, then the shortcut would most likely run through or close to the forest of dreams.

Most merchants knew only one way: The Shgatlu pass by the city of Shgatluni. They told Nannade that it was the path that the old imperial road took, and therefore most preferable either way. The only other pass would be further to the north. They said passing through the Impjasegi to the east was impossible, only directly southwards, but that would take the girl to the squabbling states, for a merchant a hell of tolls and bandits calling themselves guards.

While she continued to ask without any success, she came across a small court with a chest-high wall in the main market square. Inside the court was a wooden stage, and on it, a slave trader held an auction. Most of the slaves were just usual workers and got sold off in groups, most commonly families, but a few were valuable enough to sell as single items. One of them was so valuable, that it warranted him wearing a collar not of metal, but of magical glyphs. He was a scribe who wrote and spoke seven languages, according to the seller, valuable indeed. Seeing him made Nannade’s scars itch. She decided to tuck her head in and move on.

It was at a fur trader’s wagon that things changed. She asked again, for the fastest route to Southbridge, while casually looking over the wares. She actually thought about buying something. Maybe it would help the merchant to remember something he knew. But when she pushed him, with a few ermine pelts in hand, he started looking at her queerly.

His voice got a hushed tone and he asked her “Are you a runaway slave?”

A shock hit Nannade, she looked around and started getting nervous. When she absent-mindedly scratched her neck again, he noticed her scars.

“Hey, I know those scars.” He said a bit louder. A nearby guard noticed the interaction and came closer.

Nannadethrew the pelts back onto the pile and stack to disappear into the crowd, but the guard was already after her. It was time to run.

She pushed herself through the crowd, to the next alley where she could find a way up. Quickly, the guard rang his handbell and other guards converged on her position. With her entire pack on her back, she moved slower than she usually would. She kept pressing through the crowd until she finally arrived at an alley she remembered and ran in. She was just about to start scaling the rough stone wall when a hand pulled her back on her ankle, one of the guards had caught up with her.

“You’ll come with me, let’s see if there’s a bounty on your head!” He took out shackles, but when he came closer, she managed to place a kick between his legs, which bought her enough time to get up and scamper away.

She ran further down the alley, more guards were already pouring in. She boltedaround a corner and again started to scale the walls. It was harder than she was used to, since her boots didn’t allow her to use all her claws. Up on the roof she thought herself safe, but she could see guards on the walls and towers of the neighbouring Magistrates' quarter, and they could see her. Alarms were yelled and she saw herself followed by guards leaping and dashing over the roofs, not unlike her.

She quickly got to looking around and getting her bearings. There were quite a few routes still open to her and she ran directly for the wall. If she could jump the city wall, she’d be able to escape. She darted over the roofs as fast as she could, the roof tiles and shingles jingling beneath her boots. Ahead was a rather wide jump and she didn’t know whether she would make it across. She pushed herself with all her might and soared above the street. For a moment, there was this familiar feeling of both weightlessness and helplessness, nothing to hold her, just the wind blowing in her face.

She slammed against the side of the roof, but managed to cling onto the wooden roof shingles, digging the claws on her hands deep into this lucky coincidence. The wall was close now and the only guards ahead were the ones manning it. She looked back. Although trained and capable human men would still have the upper hand in hand-to-hand combat, if she bet on mobility and agility, she could still beat them. One last guard was still running, straight for her. She could not see him making the jump, until he reached the edge of the roof. Then he suddenly leapt an incredible distance into the air and forward. As he was in the air against the bright sky, Nannade could see a thin thread going from his hip to his hand.

“Shit!” was all she could bring forth before starting her sprint again. She hadn’t thought of that. Since she was let go from Sturreland, she hadn’t written down many of spells, although the travel in the wagon had given her enough time. But there was one habit that Garetas had drilled into her. Today it would prove its usefulness to her.

She cleared another building. It was less than five hundred feet to the wall. She reached into the side pouch, and in one quick movement, put the ring on her finger and pricked the foremost paper in her palm book. She pulled the paper out with her claw and confirmed it. It was an Invisible Fist. The three foremost papers were always Invisible Fists. “Half of good improvisation is being prepared for the unexpected.” Garetas had always said.

She wouldn’t get the guard pursuing her with a simple spell like this and he could cast an attack on her any minute now. With long steps, he came closer and closer, soon he would close the gap between them. When was she in range for his version of the Constrictor? Almost every mage had at least one.

Nannade had around three hundred feet to the wall left, and the guards on there were already nocking their arrows. She decided on a change of plans. In a hard turn left she moved parallel to the wall. It gave her pursuer the chance to cut her off, but she had seen another wide street. She didn’t know whether she could make the jump, but her target weren’t the roofs on the other side. It was a tree standing in the old cemetery.

She leapt and managed to land in the crown of the tree. The branches welcomed her with slight strokes of their leaves. She quickly turned around and looked to where the guard would leap off from. There he was! His trajectory would put him squarely in the tree, but he most likely couldn’t look inside. That’s when Nannade lifted the piece of paper up to her line of sight and snapped her fingers.

A few of the leaves were brushed aside and the guard was hit mid-flight, stopping all his momentum and making him plummet like a tossed stone. Nannade didn’t wait to see if or how he would recover. She got out of the tree and climbed over the wall of the cemetery to the alley on the other side. With her only pursuer left shaken and the guards on the wall having no direct line of sight, she managed to hide. She sat between a few stacked crates an old wooden barrel, taking a breather. After a while she was sure she could hear someone move, she even smelled a torch burning, but no matter how much she looked, she couldn’t see anyone coming down any side of the alley. Then she heard a whisper.

“PSST!” The voice tried to gain her attention as quietly as possible. It came from her right. She carefully peeked around the crates. She even checked above her just to be sure.

“PSSSSSST! HEY! Slave girl!”

She dared to stand up and look around. No one was there in the alley with her.

"No, the crates! Here!” She took a look at the crates. Between two boards, there was an unusually broad slit and behind it, an eye, “yeah, I’m here, I’m in here.”. the voice said.

Nannade needed a second to order her thoughts.

The lid of the topmost crate was lifted from inside, and a man crawled out. He had dark hair and eyes as well as shaggy clothing. He beckoned her to follow him into the crates. When she climbed up and looked inside, she could see that the crates were actually affixed above a hole in the pavement with a ladder standing inside. The man handed her the lid, climbed down and told her to follow. The lid had a handle on the underside, with which she could pull it back tightly into the topmost crate. She climbed down and found the man standing at the bottom. She stood in the entrance of a tunnel dug into the dirt below the city and reinforced with wooden poles and boards.

"I’m Vlatiko. Don’t worry, I’m on your side. We’ll help you!”

“I am Nannade, what are we doing here?”

“Come along, I’ll lead you to a safer place.” He took a torch from the wall and they walked down the narrow and low tunnels. She had to duck her head in more than once to avoid hitting her head.

They arrived at a larger room with several other tunnels going off. In the middle stood a crude table with some chairs and a flux-powered vial-lamp. Its neutral, white light shone brightly. On one of the chairs sat another man, not dissimilar to Vlatiko in appearance, but with shorter and brighter hair.

The second man stood up and raised his hand. “I am Zivadin. Welcome to our humble home.”

“I am Nannade. How did you find me and know I was a slave?”

“A fur merchant who repeatedly smuggles wares and people for us, contacted us and said that the guard was after a crolachan girl with marks of slavery on her. That would be you, I assume?” Zivadin held out the ermine pelts she was holding before making a run for it. “He said you might want these.”

Nannade had to process that for a moment. “The fur merchant... was he trying to help me?”

“Yes. We help escaped slaves to get out of the city and towards their destination.”

“I feel kind of sorry for running away.” Nannade tilted her head to one side and exposed the scars of left by the sigils of slavery underneath her fur, still fresh and pink as on the first day, a property of the magical signs so the few that could escape with their lives would never forget and always be identifiable.

“Are those from sigils of slavery? How did you get them off?”

“I was freed six years ago by a man proficient in blood magic, but someone had to pay very high price for my freedom.”

“And what do you want? You don’t sound like you’re from here, so why come back?”

“I need to a find a place that’s supposedly on or very close to the fastest way from here to southbridge. I asked a few merchants if they knew anything.”

Zivadin and Vlatiko looked at each other and seemed to be discussing something without words.

Zivadin spoke up. “We don’t know whether we can trust you. Actually, I think Vlatiko was reckless to even bring you here.”

“Is this supposed to be a joke? Do you want me to pay you?”

By his face, Nannade could see that Zivadin was uncomfortable. “Well, the thing is, kid, we don’t want to reveal important information to foreigners we don’t know whether we can trust yet.”

Nannade sighed and rolled her eyes. “What do I have to do?” And raised an eyebrow.

“What can you do?”

Nannade got out her palm book and looked for an interesting but not destructive spell. She decided to summon an orb of light.

As the paper went up into a puff of flame and hovered above the table, outshining the flux-powered lamp, the two men looked upon it, as it slowly dimmed down.

“I am a witch in training and I need to get to that pass through the Impjasegi. What is your price?” She asked them.

The two again held silent counsel.

“We already hired several thieves and robbers to steal something for us, but never saw results, or even them ever again. Do you think you can use magic to get it for us?”

A big, shifty grin appeared on Nannade’s face as the two men told her of a big ledger locked away in a tightly secured safe.