Talisman Trouble
Chapter 1
By
Lily of Trust

It was quiet beneath the trees, far too quiet. All the normal noises, birdsong, the crunch of twigs beneath hooves and paws, all was gone. The only normal sounds that remained was the wind whistling through the branches, and the soft music of a tiny trickle of a brook gurgling between its banks.

A soft, but anxious alto voice rang through the stillness, explaining why everything was so quiet. Human presence did tend to frighten away all wildlife.

"I don’t like this, I honestly don’t."

Situated next to the tiny brook (one could hardly call it a stream) were two young women. They couldn’t have been less alike physically. Pacing up and down the mossy banks of the streamlet was a tall, slim girl with a waist length auburn braid and wide, worried hazel green eyes. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen at the most, though a scattering of freckles across her nose harbored the illusion of youth and innocence. The way she moved betrayed a skill with weaponry anyone with training would have recognized instantly.

Leaning casually against the rough bark of a wide tree trunk was the girl’s companion, older than her by a few years. Her long blonde hair was left loose, and hung down to her hips. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her eyes were closed. Had they been open, calm violet orbs would have been visible. She too was tall and slim, around the same height and build as the other. A tiny hint of a smile played about her lips. Though her posture was casual and relaxed seeming, she was almost invisibly tense as well.

Both of the girls were dressed in worn traveling clothes; homespun jerkins and leggings covered by scuffed leather vests and trousers. Three identical packs rested on the thick grass, accompanied by a huge sword sheath. A plain, leather wrapped hilt protruded from the scabbard, which was scarred and nicked from frequent use. As there were more packs than people, one could assume that a member of the group was missing.

"Calm down." She soothed her partner. "I’m sure everything’s going fine."

"But think of all the things that could go wrong!" The hazel-eyed girl protested, her pacing increasing. "Nobody’s infallible, and she could be hurt, or even…" She paused long enough to gulp.

"I have thought of all those things." The blonde admitted, nodding her head, but not opening her eyes. "And I’m sure she has too." Her tone took on a slight shade of admonishment. "Have a little faith, will you? Vul has never failed in a mission, she’s the best scout the Seekers have seen in ten generations!"

"I know that!" The younger girl toyed with the end of her braid, turning pained eyes on her friend. "But…Oh Krystal what if-"

"No buts." Krystal pushed away from the tree, eyes opening as she made her way over to her companion. "Worrying will only attract the attention of spirits who just might make your fears into reality." She chuckled softly and squeezed her friend’s shoulder. "I know waiting’s the hardest part, but we need to have patience."

"Right. I know." The girl pushed wisps of auburn hair out of her eyes and tugged absently at the hem of her jerkin.

"And stop that pacing Nicky, you’re driving me crazy!"

Nicky cracked a gamin grin and plopped down bonelessly onto the soft moss. "I thought you never noticed those things when you were meditating."

"I don’t, but I wasn’t meditating." Krystal suddenly looked serious. "I was listening."

The younger girl shrugged and didn’t ask what she’d been listening for. The blonde turned and walked over to the packs, easily grabbing the shoulder strap attached to the sword hilt. She slipped the immense blade from its casing with such ease it made the weapon appear almost weightless. Krystal sat herself cross-legged and settled the sword across her lap. She produced a whetstone from one of the packs and went about the process of honing the blade.

Nicky stared at the weapon with awe. "I can never understand how you can even LIFT that thing, let alone use it."

Krystal grinned mysteriously. "Practice." Was her only answer.

"Practice, right." She snorted wryly. Her eyes flitted anxiously around the tiny clearing, making it clear she was still anything but at ease, no matter what her friend said.

The branches over their heads moved in a direction opposite from the way the wind currently blew. Both girls tensed up imperceptibly, knowing that there was something in those trees. They had to way of knowing if it was friend or foe however, and had no wish to alarm the occupant of the canopy to the fact they were aware of it. Krystal’s hand brushed against the hilt of her sword, resting there an instant too long. Nicky shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet, rubbing the palm of her right hand against a dagger in a sheath at her belt. The weapon’s twin resided in an identical sheath on her opposite hip.

A dark shape fell like a stone to the ground, landing lightly on its feet, knees slightly bent to take the impact. The figure turned out to be another girl, probably around Nicky’s age, though slightly shorter. Her shoulder length brown hair was confined with a blue bandana, azure eyes glittered mischievously at the other two girls, both of whom instantly relaxed, hands falling away from weapons.

"Hiya guys! Ya miss me?" She inquired, an impish grin pulling at her lips.

"You see Nicky, I told you she was fine." Krystal ignored the newcomer and went on sharpening her sword. "You had nothing to be concerned about."

"Awww Snickers, you’ve GOT to stop worrying ‘bout things all the time!" The brown haired girl pulled a quiver of arrows from around her shoulders, depositing it and a long bow on the ground with the rest of their equipment.

"I thought I asked you to stop calling me that." Nicky raised an eyebrow at her friend, but was obviously trying not to grin.

"Ya did, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna listen."

"What did you find Vul?" Krystal broke into the good-natured bantering, her eyes locked on the shorter girl.

Suddenly, Vul was all business. Any trace of levity or fun gone from her attitude. Nicky leaned forward a little from her sprawled position to better hear.

"It’s not good guys." She admitted. "Far as I can tell, the stronghold’s pretty much impenetrable, we’re talking walls five feet thick, more guards than I want to think about, and magical wards like you wouldn’t believe!"

"In short, nothing we can’t handle." Nicky grinned ferally, an expression echoed by her friends.

"Exactly." Krystal slid her blade home into the scabbard with a soft ‘clinch’ sound. The vicious grin on her face lent her features a slightly wild look, totally at odds with her calmer demeanor.

Vul flopped down to the ground next to Nicky and stuck her face in the stream, taking deep gulps of the crystal clear liquid. She shivered as the delightfully cold water soothed her aching throat. Five hours in a tree watching enemy lines was NOT her idea of fun. If she had been in any less shape, her legs would have been aching fiercely from staying crouched for so long.

"I take it we’ll be camping here for the night?" She asked as soon as she managed to pull herself away from the brook.

Krystal nodded. "Sa-hai. It’ll be a cold camp though. We can’t afford a fire to give away our location."

"Looks like it’s trail rations for us again." Nicky mock gagged. The dried fruit and beef was as tough as the leather they wore, and about as tasteless. All three girls wrinkled their noses up at the prospect, but knew there was no help for it. Their mission was to get into that not-to-distant fortress and retrieve a certain…item.

They were the team best suited to the job. The three of them were part of an elite mercenary corp. known as the Seekers. Headed by the well-respected Captain Marcs, Seekers were trained to the point of perfection in every combat skill the wielder was physically and mentally capable of learning. Anyone who needed a stealth assassin, or one damn fine small army of specialist troops came to the Seekers.

And even among the Seekers, these three were something special.

Krystal was sort of the unofficial leader of the group, by both age and experience. She was nearly twenty years of age, and had been with the Seekers for five years. She was a rare combination, both warrior and mage, and very skilled at both. Only once in a blue moon was a person ever both, as each discipline required a great deal of training. Most people simply hadn’t the patience or the inclination to learn either, especially not a weapon as difficult as a no-datchi or magic as tricky as those that were light based. She was a powerful healer, and her War Magicks could blast large holes in enemy lines. Marcs trusted her a great deal, and so had placed her in charge of this little sortie. Practically nothing was known of her past, she’d merely worked her way up through the ranks.

Vul was their tactician. She had been with the Seekers for about three years now, since she’d been fourteen. She was an archer unparalleled by anyone else in the whole of their mercenary company, which was almost unheard of at such a young age. She was a certified genius, hence her role as coordinator. Her skills as a scout were exemplary as well, she could move through trees without disturbing so much as a leaf. The only reason they’d caught site of her in the canopy before was because she had known they were there and saw no reason to hide her position from her friends. The few magics she possessed were illusionary, assisting in her success as a scout. What little was known of Vul’s past seemed to indicate that she was from somewhere to the north. Reputedly, there were several clans of elves up that way, which may or may not have been where she got her skills. If ever asked, she just grinned and said "Well what do you think?" She had known Krystal since her first days in the Seeker’s corp. Though they had little in common, the two of them had formed a strong tie to each other, and had saved the other’s lives several times over during the years of their friendship.

Nicky was the youngest of the three, and their mapmaker. She’d only been with the Seekers for about a year. She was very quick with her daggers though, and was capable of taking out stronger warriors with longer-range weapons. She wasn’t very practiced with magic, and her skills in such areas lay mostly in attack spells, all of them based on shadow elements. She’d met Krystal and Vul when the Seekers had first traveled through her hometown, having approached the camp and asked to be taken to Marcs. She was determined to do something besides wait tables at an inn for the rest of her life, and had petitioned the captain directly. Impressed with the demonstration she gave of her weaponry skills, and by her gumption, he’d handed her over to the swordswoman and the archer to train. Though she was only a few months younger than Vul, she was still the youngest in the entire merc company, a fact which people very rarely let her forget. She made up for her lack of experience with a willingness to learn and a quiet competence about the things she DID know that no teacher could find lacking.

The three of them made a practically unstoppable team. They’d worked together on several covert operations, the unique blend of long, short and mid range weaponry and three distinct types of magic made the trio extremely dangerous, and extremely successful when working under cover or just as a distraction. Several times the three of them had bought the Seekers necessary time to defeat a crucial enemy. So despite their ages, the troops of their Company knew the young women to be skilled warriors.

"Break out the bedrolls!" Vul rubbed her hands together and went for her pack, pulling out a tight roll of blankets. "Let’s get ourselves situated. It’ll be an early morning."

As they chewed at strips of dried meat and tried not to break their teeth on the hard tack in their food packets, Nicky pulled out a tube of stiff oiled leather from among her things. She popped open the sealed end and shook out a rolled up piece of parchment. Without looking, she reached back and snatched a small satchel from her gear, drawing a thin stick of special non-smudge charcoal from it.

"Where did you say that fortress was Vul?" She asked absently, frowning at the map she’d set up over the course of their journey.

The brown haired scout pursed her lips thoughtfully and surveyed the landmarks sketched onto the weathered paper. She traced a finger along the route they’d followed so far, up to the forest they were currently located in.

"Riiiight about….here." Vul said confidently, tapping her fingertip against the map. She knew the scales Nicky used, so she could guess roughly enough how far off their target would be.

"Okay." Nicky marked the space with a little ‘x’. After tomorrow, should they survive the raid, she’d draw in the fortress, and make sure that the position was accurate enough.

"I think we could easily cover that much ground in about three hours’ time." Krystal remarked nonchalantly as she broke a twig into three pieces, of all different sizes. She fisted her fingers around the twigs and pushed them down until only an equal amount of each could be seen.

"Take your pick ladies. Long stick has middle watch, shortest has last." She announced. Middle watch was the worst of all, since one’s sleep was inevitably interrupted twice; once to awaken for the watch, and again when dawn arrived. Last watch was all right, since it gave one plenty of time to wake for the day, but First watch was undoubtedly the most preferable, giving one plenty of time to rest. "First watch lasts ‘til the moon touches that tall pine over there." She gestured off in the direction of said forest giant. "Second lasts ‘til the moon’s half down, and Last ends at sun-up."

Vul reached over and snagged one, grinning as she noticed she had first.

"Yahoo! I knew choosing first would give me better odds!"

Krystal and Nicky both rolled their eyes. Traveling with Vul had taught them to expect long spiels on theorems and mathematics. Vul liked nothing so much as a good debate.

"Sa. I guess it’s my turn then." Nicky wiggled her fingers, reached out, and pulled the short straw. She let out a sigh of relief. "Last. Not too bad."

Krystal made a face and opened her fist to glare at the long twig. "Aww damn…looks like I got middle watch."

"Better get your rest, oh fearless leader!" Nicky snickered (a sound which had earned her her nickname, Snickers) "You’re going to need it."

"Gee thanks." The older girl retorted dryly.

Vul chuckled and settled back into a kind of half trance that left her more alert to the goings-on of her surroundings than just normal watchfulness would have.

Krystal wrapped herself in her bedroll, wiggling around a little to dislodge any stones or sticks that may be beneath her resting-place. She turned over and was out like a light in two seconds flat.

"Man, I wish I knew how to do that." Nicky sighed enviously, knowing she’d spend a good half-hour staring at the inside of her eyelids before she crashed.

"Practice." Vul grinned into the darkness and settled back to her watch.

Morning came far too early in everyone’s opinion. Fingers of pale pink streaked the pearl gray sky to the east. The birds that had been disturbed and missing the day before had returned, a lark warbled it’s own song to the dawn in testimony to that fact. Dew had coated the grass in a silver sparkle, and hence, their bedrolls were damp as well.

All three internal alarms went off at approximately the same time, so Nicky didn’t have to wake either Vul or Krystal. They broke camp quietly and efficiently, stowing their gear with the ease of long practice. Krystal slung the no-datchi scabbard across her back, again making it appear as though the blade was weightless. Vul quickly shouldered her quiver and long bow, and strapped a short sword to her waist. Though she preferred her arrows, she knew it was suicide not to have an alternate weapon for close combat. Nicky belted her daggers at her hips, and slipped a bandolier across her chest. The strap contained about a dozen and a half throwing daggers, and a long knife with a wickedly jagged edge.

All three shouldered their packs. They traveled light, with only the barest essentials and enough food to supplement what they could take from the land. It was late spring, already fading into a balmy summer, so it was easy enough to live off what could be found.

"So it’s about three hours to the west, am I right Vul?" Krystal double checked their intended route.

"Sa-hai." Vul nodded an affirmative. "So what’re we goin’ in after anyway?"

"Yeah, nobody tells us anything." Nicky piped up from tightening her bandolier.

Krystal frowned thoughtfully. "From what I can tell, it’s a talisman of some sort…a talisman of invincibility."

Nicky let out a long low whistle of incredulity, while Vul just raised an eyebrow.

"You sure ‘bout that Krystal?" She inquired. "How many times have we heard rumors about talismans that were SUPPOSED to be magic and are nothing more than gilded copper?"

"Plenty of times." Nicky admitted cheerily. "But Marcs wouldn’t have sent us after it if it was just a wild goose chase!"

"My thoughts exactly." Krystal nodded. "Boss man is no fool. We all know he’d never do something so…."

"Impractical?" Vul suggested.

"Exactly." Krystal nodded.

"If you say so Krys." Vul still didn’t sound to convinced. "But if we’re risking our skins for something some air headed noble thinks is in that place..."

"Then we’ll have a little bit of fun at the Company’s expense!" Nicky broke in, poking Vul in the ribs and elicting a wide grin from the brown haired girl. "And you know you’re looking forward to a good skirmish."

"This is true…" She admitted, still grinning ferally. She fingered the pommel of her short sword. "This is VERY true."

Laughing between themselves, the three set off towards the fortress. From their attitudes, no one watching would ever have believed that they were heading to a battle in which they could quite possibly be injured, perhaps even badly. Instead, it almost seemed they were just three friends off for a picnic on a lovely spring day. Of course, that same observer would have to discount the fact that all three of them were armed to the teeth….

Wai wai! First Chapter! Thanks beyond words to Vul and Krystal for letting me put them in here and helping me with their characters. What would I do without you guys? There is major ass kicking next chapter, just so everyone’s warned ^_^ Please e-mail me with feedback! Pwease?! *chibi eyes*