Honorine's Run To Save The World - Chapter Eight

"Alessia, how long have we been traveling now?"

"By my estimates, about two weeks. If I may ask—are you well? This is the third time you have asked me this today."

"Wait, three times today?"

"Affirmative. You asked me once this morning, again four and a half hours afterwards, and now, one and a half hours later. On average, you have asked me this question once every two hours today."

“I... See.” The first time was just this morning? It feels like it was ages ago, or yesterday at the very least. “Anyway, I’m asking now because I think I see a town ahead.”

"Is that so?" Alessia replies, and I can tell her brow is raised just from the tone of her voice. The giggle she follows her question with doesn’t help. "You’ve... decidedly not had the best record with identifying the settlements we have passed by during this journey."

"W-Well, I…" I rack my brain trying to come up with some rebuttal, but find nothing. She's right, we’ve had to backtrack multiple times to ask for directions from villages and encampments I’d failed to spot, but does she have to be so forward about it?

"Gah, nevermind. Look ahead—see that?" I point ahead, to an area a hundred or so meters down our path. There's trees in the way, but even from here it's easy to spot the conspicuously neat treeline that usually marks where the forest ends and a settlement begins. "That's-"

"A settlement border, yes. There is indeed a town ahead of us; the air carries traces of industrial byproducts, though in insufficient amounts to suggest a major settlement. I was simply teasing you."

Teasing? Is that where we’re at now? It’s more than a little out of nowhere, given how little we’ve been talking after that first night, but I’m not complaining. Maybe the discovery of the town has raised her spirits. I’ll press her on that later, though. For now, we’ve got a more pressing matter: “Fair enough, I’ll give you that one. Back to the town; what do you mean by industrial byproducts, exactly?”

“I’ve been wrong before, so obviously perfect accuracy is not to be expected from the data I have gathered, but there are byproducts of paint manufacturing, as well as trace amounts of textile dyes. There is also... Something in the air. I cannot quite place it, but I have detected it before at Solais Station.”

Textiles, paint, and something that was at Solais Station... I think I have a pretty good idea of what I’m looking at, but I still need to check a couple of things. “Alessia, is there anything that might suggest there’s train parts being made here?”

“Yes, actually!” She turns to me, surprise evident in her voice. “How did you know?”

“Well, I don’t really know, but with what you’ve told me so far...” I draw my sword and raise it high above my head, trying to sense the magic in the air. Why is there so much noise in the blade? It wasn’t like that the last time I used this trick...

Regardless, even with the noise, I know what I’m looking for well enough that it takes me no time to find it: Small amounts of magic clinging to the moisture in the air, a telltale sign of a train station nearby. “...Yup, we’re near Trapacenza.”

She opens her mouth—to ask what Trapacenza is, no doubt—so I spare her the effort. "It’s one of the places making up what’s called the Golden Wall, basically towns between the coast and the heartland that function as the center of trade for those regions.

“The most important part, though, is that it has a train station; if we disguise ourselves, we’ll be able to continue to Zephyr Coast by train and make up for lost time.”

“Ah,” Alessia nods, turning her attention forward to the buildings that have now appeared in the distance, slowly growing bigger as we approach them, and picks up her pace to a brisk walk. “I understand now. In that case, it would serve us well to hurry, so we can catch an earlier train to our destination. There is little time to waste.”

--

Trapacenza’s layout is one of the more unusual ones I’ve seen, with a large suburb extending some distance beyond the walls of the city proper, and it’s only once we’re within sight of these walls that one of us talks; a thought that’s been lurking in the back of my head has finally decided to break out: “I wonder if we’ll meet Sabrina here?”

"Hm?" Alessia clearly finds the question strange, from the way she turns around to look at me. "The last time we encountered her she attempted to capture me, and had no reservations against fighting to kill when dueling you. I must ask you again: Are you well?"

"Yes, I'm fine, it just feels strange that we haven't run into her again after all this time. I'd wanted at least one more fight before we got to the coast."

"In her defense—and ours, as well—we have been travelling through a mainly uninhabited forest for the past half-month, with no transport infrastructure in the vicinity. None of the encampments we have encountered would have any reason to appear on maps of the country, or even be known to the average Crouzite citizen outside of said encampments. With that in mind, is her absence really that unusual?"

"Well, when you put it that way, no, but-" The sentence dies in my throat when I spot a white-clad figure under a tree. Could it be? I look them up and down; they seem to be sleeping, or at the very least resting, and while I can't recognize their face at this distance I can clearly make out a massive burn on their outfit.

There’s no doubt about it, that’s Sabrina. The question is: What's she doing here? Right before I can come up with a theory to explain that, her eye slides open, and... Is that a smile on her face? Whatever it is, it vanishes too quickly for me to process it, and she stands up with her hand on her sword.

“Took you long enough,” she scoffs, looking me and Alessia up and down. “Though, admittedly, I can tell it wasn’t for lack of trying. I assume you know what comes next."

"Yes, I do." This was supposed to be a bluff, but once I actually say it out loud it hits me that I do know what's coming next: A rematch. One that, given the size of the street we're in and our proximity to Trapacenza's walls, isn't likely to be interrupted by any Pelargonia agents who may be here.

By the time I notice what my hand is doing, I’ve already got my sword halfway drawn, and so does Sabrina. Alessia quickly moves to a safe distance. People are gathering round, waiting to see what comes of this. I tense, preparing for the first strike. Sabrina sheathes her sword and walks toward me.

Wait, what?

Maybe she wants to go for a draw attack? That can’t be right, her stance doesn’t line up, and it would have been way more efficient to launch the attack from a half-draw anyway. If she’s trying to lull me into a false sense of security, it’s not working, but she’s now close enough that even with my guard up I wouldn’t be able to deflect a strike--

“Shall we touch pommels?”

Oh, so that’s what she wants. Now that I think about it, she does look like the type to have belonged to a student nation at her university... Whatever, I’ll humor her. I sheathe my own sword, raising it with the pommel pointed up and away from me. With a raised brow, Sabrina does the same. We tap our pommels together, then take three steps back, just like in an academic fencing session. The crowd around us grows, though we still have plenty of space to move around.

“I’ll let you have the first move, Honorine.”

You’re going to regret that. I step forward and draw my sword, smoothly transitioning from the draw into a horizontal swing. A metallic ringing fills the air and Sabrina staggers to the side; our blades have connected.

I’d be a fool not to take advantage of this opening. I step forward and strike again, but she ducks under my sword. Her stance is strange, almost like a boxer's. That's new. I thrust at her, but she aims a slash at my legs—one I avoid by twirling out of the way, but just barely.

Pain shoots up my leg as her sword clips it, but there’s no blood on her blade when she draws it back; my boiled-leather reinforcement has taken the brunt of the blow, it’s probably just left a bruise. Still, the lesson is clear: No flashy moves. The gathered crowd will just have to do without, then. I step back, adopting a more conservative stance, and Sabrina does the same. She goes for a simple strike to test the waters, but I rebuff her before she can get close. Then it’s my turn on attack, but the result is the same. The cycle repeats once, twice, three times--and then there’s an opening in Sabrina’s guard. Unbidden, my hand runs itself along the blade of my sword, draining some of the magical noise within so I can throw a fireball at her. She raises her own sword to block it, taking her focus off me for a second.

The next move is obvious. With a cry and a mighty lunge, I swing my sword at her right as the fireball connects.

The crowd cheers, but then it’s cut off by a loud crash, and my sword hits nothing. Sabrina dashes backwards, and the ground rushes up to meet me--though digging my sword into it makes short work of that particular problem. What in the world just happened?

“Well, I’ll grant you this; no one’s ever managed to do that before.” Sabrina’s hand hangs in front of my face, and she sounds genuinely impressed. That’s a trap, isn’t it? I’m going to take her hand, she’s going to help me up, and then she’ll nail me with a-

“I can tell what you’re thinking: This is genuine. You have my word, I am not going to attack you. Not that I have anything to attack you with any longer.”

“What...?” I take her hand, and let her pull me to my feet. True to her word, she doesn’t attack me, but that’s irrelevant; my focus is on her sword. Or rather, what’s left of her sword. The blade’s been broken in two, with both halves shorn straight across at the point I’d aimed my last slash. One half is in Sabrina’s hand, and the other has buried itself in the ground a few paces away.

Wait, if her sword’s broken, that means... My heart starts to race as I raise my sword, running my hand along the blade to feel for any damage my eyes might have missed. Thank the gods, there’s none.

“You may sheathe that, by the way; if it wasn’t obvious, I yield for now.” Sabrina raises her hands, pacing over to the broken-off half of her blade. There’s something a little... off about her voice. It sounds like something’s just dragged down her spirits. “Be on your way. Though, before you leave, I have one request: Duel me again, once you decide to leave Trapacenza.”

Alessia opens her mouth to speak, and I hear a “but” begin to come out of it, but Sabrina cuts her off. “This has nothing to do with you. I am simply needed back home, and will have to head there posthaste once my little...” She indicates her broken sword. “...problem has been solved. This fight will simply be for fun.”

Alessia nods, but she looks unconvinced. “I still do not completely understand the necessity of this final duel with Honorine if you do not have a mission to do so, but the decision is ultimately hers. If she accepts, there is little else I can do.”

Well... We should still have an ample bit of time before our deadline, and we’ll be dallying here for a bit so I can put together our disguises anyway, so... “Very well, I’ll fight you when it’s time to leave. Just be ready.”

“Understood. Likewise to you: But tarry not, or else I will seek you out myself.” It’s clearly meant to be a threat, but the fact that Sabrina giggles halfway through completely deflates it. Turning to leave, she continues: “Now, I’m sure you have much to do here, judging by the state of your dress, so I won’t hold you any longer.”

As a matter of fact, she’s right. We do have a lot to do, and now that the last of the adrenaline from our duel has drained away, the sheer weight of it hits like an anvil dropped on my head. All I have the energy to do is nod my farewell to Sabrina, and then trudge through the dispersing crowd toward the town gates with Alessia in tow.

Yet despite how tired I am--or maybe even because of it--my brain dredges up a little detail from our stay at Claudette’s, and a very serious question to go with it:

The book she consulted didn’t mention there were multiple units, so how much time do we actually have?

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