Chapter 168 (1/4): Fugitives

Sunset during winter brought about gusts of chilly winds. The sky darkened early, and although it was the perfect time for crickets to be out and about, chirping and calling to each other, the undergrowth around the campfire was silent.

Fleur stared at the fire, mesmerized by the flickering orange and red tongues of flame that waved back and forth. Holding her breath, she poked at it with a long stick, but when the burning wood suddenly popped, she shrank back with a yelp.

Anne stomped over and took the stick from her hand, tossing it away into the trees before looking down at her, her hands on her hips. “Fleur, that’s dangerous! Don’t do that!”

“I’m just helping the fire!” Fleur protested. “If you stir the fire, you’ll expose more wood for the fire to burn, so it’ll be brighter.”

“Really?” Anne looked skeptical, narrowing her eyes. “I didn’t know that. Who told you?”

Fleur faltered under her suspicious gaze. “Well, no one. I don’t know for sure. But it makes sense, doesn’t it?” she asked, her voice filled with hope. “Anne?”

Anne breathed out, softening her voice. “No. You’ll just make the fire weaker. I don’t think that everything that makes sense at first sight really makes sense, if only because there might be something that you’re neglecting. Like here, when you’re poking the fire and knocking around the wood, you’re spreading the fire over a wider area, leaving each log lonely and alone. The heat from each burning log doesn’t affect any of its neighbors, so the heat is less intense.”

“But you sometimes poke the fire.”

“I do, but only to push some of the wood from the outside toward the inside where it’s the hottest. Like this.” Anne picked up another fallen stick on the ground and nudged one of the logs toward the center. It fell in place with a small clack and threw up a shower of sparks that quickly faded, but the fire burned taller.

Fleur clapped. “I see now. This really takes me back, though. You were the one that taught me how to build my first fire. The student has yet to surpass her master, huh?” she said, pulling Anne down to sit next to her. She then leaned into Anne’s arms. “You’re so stiff.”

“Huh, really?” With some effort, Anne calmed down. Fleur sighed as she leaned down harder, becoming almost boneless. She looked like she was about to fall asleep. After a moment, Anne nodded. “I guess it does. Although back then things were a lot easier. We were the hunters back then.”

“I hope we get to see Camilla again soon.”

Whereas there was once a time when Anne might become defensive or possessive at the mention of Camilla by Fleur, she had long passed that phase. She was already clear about her place in Fleur’s heart. Fleur snuggled in more, smiling at her trust.

“I do too.”

The crackling of fire accompanied their companionship, and slowly the sky turned an inky dark blue. In just a few more moments, it’ll be too dark to see where they are going while picking their way through the dense undergrowth. Although all of them wanted to hurry, they couldn’t risk getting lost.

Rustling in the undergrowth made them both jump in surprise. Fleur wrapped her arms around Anne, hugging her tightly like a tree bear to its tree. She stared into the darkness behind them, but the light from the campfire had blinded her to darkness.

“What…”

“Oh, did I surprise you?” The voice of a young man interrupted her, and soon Justin walked into the light radiating from the campfire. Rubbing his face, scrunched up and full of fatigue, the apprentice archpriest walked around them and sat down across the fire. His eyes had become slightly sunken, and he had gotten thinner, shedding the fat he had gained from a comfortable life as a priest.

Fleur and Anne lost weight as well, but both of them had been in shape, so their changes were not as dramatic.

After seeing that the mysterious shape was just Justin, Fleur calmed down and detached herself from Anne again, patting her own chest. “I really wish that you’d say something when you do that. I don’t think my heart can take it.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can.” Despite his appearance, Justin didn’t seem all that concerned, even cracking a smile through his thin lips. The grin made his already gaunt face look ghastly.

“So did you find anything? Or rather, did any of them suspect anything?”

Justin nodded to Anne. “Yes and no. At least, I think it’s no, since none of them chased me. Even if they do, they can’t do anything in this darkness, so we should be safe until morning. As for my findings…well, the Church is still out for us. Somehow, they have pictures of us on little papers dispersed all over the place. I managed to fool the man that saw me, but we’ll have to be careful.”

Unfortunately, losing their horses meant that the Church moved much faster than they could. News of their escape had traveled on ahead of them, and the wanted posters depicting their likeness was the best proof of that. That made their job of escaping over into vampire territory and meeting up with Camilla again that much harder.

Fleur sighed, causing all of the others to sigh as well.

“This is so annoying,” she complained. “Why are they putting so much effort into getting us anyway? It’s not like we’re any threat to them! Those darn undead.”

“It’s not what we can physically do, but what we can say,” Anne said. “We might be able to convince someone else to ally with us, but thanks to those posters and whatever propaganda they’ve been spreading, that plan is out the window.”

“Ah… I get it. Now when anyone sees us, they’ll be immediately mistrustful at best if they’ve seen the posters?”

Anne nodded, indicating she got it right. But being right was useless when they don’t have a good response to being called a traitor.

“Still, I’m surprised they managed to mobilize so many branches of the Church,” Justin said, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but does Moltrost have the capability to blanket our path with these posters?”

After thinking for a bit, making a mental note of how many priests and acolytes there were remaining in Moltrost, Anne and Fleur both shook their heads.

“So that means its multiple branches working together,” he said. “The two of you might be too young to know this, but despite being under the same religion, under the same umbrella of the Pantheon, our branches don’t get along all that well. That they’re willing to help Moltrost is strange.

“So you’re saying something shady is going on.”

“Correct.”

Fleur sat forward. “Trouble with the undead again? If there were spies in Moltrost, what’s stopping them from bribing or infiltrating another Church? Everyone likes the prospect of infinite life, being able to survive long after your bone should’ve turn to dust.” No doubt that Demuur succumbed to the temptation, or else why would he betray all humans for undead? She didn’t name anyone in particular out loud since Justin was still sore about Pavlor’s betrayal.

“It’s not impossible. It’s strange that no one is questioning why Moltrost is putting so much effort into trying to catch us, though. We’re just three normal people. Even if the traitors at Moltrost know why we are dangerous, no one else does.” Anne sighed.

It wasn’t really hard to guess that the undead was behind this. It wasn’t only the Church that was chasing them. Compared to humans that became tired and depended only on their sight, the biggest threat to them right now was the undead that also seemed to be chasing them.

Since they escaped, the rate at which they ran into undead increased, but since undead always homed in on the living, Fleur couldn’t be sure whether or not they were being targeted specifically. The only good that came out of these constant battles with undead was that her and Anne were improving steadily, fighting each battle with their lives on the line.

Without Justin, they would’ve been long dead, but even with the help of someone as powerful as Justin, things looked grim.

All the cards were stacked against them. When Justin told her and Anne about Camilla’s plans, all she could think about was how brave and impressive Camilla was. But now that she knew what it felt like to go up against the whole Church as well as the undead force hidden in the shadows, her admiration only grew. Whereas she was forced into this situation, Camilla chose her own path. Fleur didn’t know if she had the bravery to do the same thing as Camilla, especially when Camilla had the option of dusting off her hands and going to vampire territory forever, never to return.

They sat in silence for a moment, each deep in their own thoughts when suddenly a growl came from one of their stomachs. Fleur’s face reddened as she looked up, although the change in color was hard to see in the darkness.

“Fleur, are you hungry?” Anne asked.

“Don’t talk about it!” Fleur gave Anne a shove and covered her face as her stomach twisted. Unfortunately, there was nothing to eat. The rations they brought when they escaped were long gone, and none of them knew how to hunt and the only things they could eat were small animals that stumbled into their shoddy traps that Anne made.

The last time they camped out in the wilderness was with Camilla, and at that time, all the hunting was done by Camilla and her superhuman speed and senses. Hunting had been easy, and they had pots, seasoning… every meal was hot and fulfilling. Saliva pooled in Fleur’s mouth at the thought, but before she could fantasize anymore about having a warm meal, her stomach twisted again and her face paled.

She missed Camilla even more now.

Anne patted her on the shoulders, and all of them went to sleep hungry. Worse, they had to take turns keeping watch, suffering through their empty bellies.

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The traps they set the previous night while waiting for Justin to come back from scouting out the nearby villages yielded a small rabbit that couldn’t resist the temptation of the bait. The high-pitched scream that ripped through the forest woke Fleur up and she almost rolled into the warm embers of the dying campfire.

Because they had no pots, they ended up roasting the rabbit over the campfire without any seasoning. Because winter had only just started, the rabbit was plump, so there was enough to go around for the three of them, even if none of them ended up full in the end.

Sighing as her stomach had finally stopped protesting, Fleur leaned back on the tree stump.

“So what should we do? We can’t keep hiding forever, can we?” she asked.

“We’re not hiding.”

“You know what I mean, Anne! But being like this means no food, no shelter, and we have to constantly make detours. At this rate, it’ll be past spring by the time we see Camilla again!”

Anne tapped her chin, thinking. Her eyes lit up. “Wait, I have an idea. If they don’t want us to be trusted, then that means they’re afraid. Why don’t we do what they’re afraid of?” she asked.

After a moment, Fleur caught on to what Anne was thinking. “So you’re saying we should play into their hands and contact someone in secret? And try to get them to believe us, and get them to help us?”

“That’s insane! You don’t know if they’ll believe us or pretend to go along with it before selling us out!” Justin jumped to his feet. “I don’t agree!”

“We can just keep an eye on them and make sure he doesn’t go anywhere! And if they make it clear that they don’t believe us from the start, we can knock them out and tie them up to get a head start. It shouldn’t be a problem to isolate someone and test them out.”

The beauty of Anne’s idea lay in its simplicity. They were already being hunted, so what more can the Church do even if they failed to get any outside help?

Under pressure from Fleur and Anne, Justin eventually gave in and they headed toward a village to put their plan into action.