Easy money.
Cherno "Ogre" Korchagin walked in front of the passenger carriage, leading the horse along. Shouted for the commoners on the bustling Market Street to make way. Shoved a few of them that weren't paying attention. Other than those few numbskulls, Cherno's bellowing voice, his size, and the big horse-drawn carriage behind him had no trouble in parting the crowd. It was slow-going, certainly, but the hard part was already over. The trip to Hyoite and back, getting the fat man and his girl past Reajh's gate guards—all behind him now. Make the drop-off in the city, collect the coin, celebrate a weeks-long job done with some drinks and gambling.
Easy money.
Until the carriage suddenly launched from the street and flew forty feet straight up into the air.
* * * * *
Cherno had no idea how the job would go when he took it. All he knew was that he hated traveling to Hyoite. Too damn cold. Godforsaken snow slowed everything down. Fucking almost died in a blizzard once. Seemed like a good deal at the time—get warmed up in hell. Afterward, he swore never to take anymore trafficking or smuggling jobs from Hyoite.
But the money on this job sweet-talked his conviction. Paid it off. Okay, so maybe
one more job from Hyoite. Then call it quits with a chest full of gold in his house.
Two packages to traffic for this job. One rich-looking fat man, and one young girl who blended in with the snow. The fat man introduced himself as "Pritchard". The girl didn't speak, and Pritchard didn't introduce her. Cherno just shrugged it off. Didn't much matter what their names were. One of them was a mage, maybe both, and they needed to get into Reajh. And a fat sack of coin was on the line.
Even without heavy snowfall, the trip back to Reajh was a hassle. Pritchard ate like a champion's warhorse. Fat fucker plowed right through all of the food stock Cherno had brought in the carriage. Cherno actually had to go hunting when they were in Sirantil. Missed his first few shots, goddamn bows, but he managed to bag a big buck. Venison all around that night. The girl—Pritchard's daughter? Hostage? Who knew?—barely ate anything. Hadn't said anything the whole trip. Just kept giving Cherno these odd looks. Like she was studying him. Something was off about the way she eyed him. Something Cherno just couldn't put a finger on. Unsettled him a couple times.
At the gates of Reajh, smooth talking the guards was business as usual. Make up some credible story, and as long as the mages in the carriage didn't lose their shit and start flinging magic everywhere, he was in.
Easy money. Or, at least, it was supposed to be.
* * * * *
Cherno turned around when the reins slipped from his hand and he heard the horse's frightened neighing. No carriage behind him. The horse's frantic neighing was above him somehow.
He looked up. Shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun.
"Oh...fucking...Ansgar..."
And that's when the entirety of the busy Market Street burst into a full-on panic. Commoners pushed and shoved and shouted and pointed. What they saw in the air just shouldn't have been possible.
The carriage reached the apex of its flight, flipping round and round a full forty feet in the air above the street. Wood snapped, but a knot of tangled straps bound the horse to the spinning carriage, its pitiful screaming rising and falling in pitch as it spun around wildly along with the vehicle itself.
Then it started to come back down.
"Move! Move! Move!" Cherno yelled to the people on the street.
Cherno had to dive out of the way when the carriage crashed onto the street. The horse smacked hard into the cobblestone street, blood bursting out of its head on impact. The carriage landed upside-down, the glass of both doors blowing outward with a crisp
pop. Wood splintered and cracked, and the canopy of the passenger carriage caved in some. More blood leaked out onto the street from inside the broken carriage.
"Fuck!
Fuck!" Cherno scrambled over to the carriage. Ripped the intact pieces of the door off and threw them aside. Looked inside.
Pritchard was dead. His fat, bloodied body was mangled and twisted against the wreckage of the carriage and the stones of the street.
But the girl was alive. Curled into a small ball, just enough room for her not to have been crushed by the carriage into the street like Pritchard, she lay there. Her eyes half-open. Blood dripping from her nose. Streaming out of her mouth.
She looked at him. Past him, really. Said quietly, "Seven times six is forty-two..."
Then her eyes rolled up into her head. And she lost consciousness.
Cherno lost all sense of what he was doing for a moment. "What the fuck did you say? Hey! Wake up! Wake...ah shit."
Cherno reached into the carriage. Scooped up the girl and pulled her out and stood up with her in his arms. He squinted and looked up and down the street. Some of the commoners were staring with wide eyes at the carriage. Wary. Most were still pushing and shoving and trying to get away. The wreckage of the carriage was like the eye of a storm. Devoid of people, with the wall of them pushing to get as far as possible from it.
Cherno started running with the girl. Had to get to the crowd. Get out of here. Half of Reajh probably saw that damn carriage. The Grand Duke himself probably saw it from his palace. That meant a swarm of guards and maybe even Mordecai would surely be on the way.
There had to be a way to salvage this mess.