Lost in Translation

Percy woke up first and sat near the polluted water wanting to fall in. Maybe the poison would kill him, and save him from further humiliation and embarrassment. He dug his hands into his hair growling. Idiot! She’ll think you’re some evil bastard now. When he woke, a dew seeped into the room misting his hair and skin. Vera was laying on her side still while Antoine snored and scratched his groin. With that, Percy cleaned up the bowls with a cleaner tributary and dumped out the rest of the contents in the brush for animals. Still even after that, no one else was awake. He settled near the river then unable to look at either of them.
“By the Elder, Vera!” Antoine cried out.
Percy picked himself as a wind came through the valley. He cringed at it. His hand staving his vomit. His first thought was how the marshes smelled outside Dahiz after the first battle he’d survived. Shriveling bodies wadded in the water with crabs picking at them between the washed up seaweed. He turned towards it knowing its scent. Death. He pushed his disgust aside and came up to see Vera was sitting. Dark circles cast beneath her gray eyes. Antoine was rolling up his quilt while she shook her hair.
“Did you not sleep all night?” Antoine asked.
She pointed up through the roof to the timber tree closest to them. Percy narrowed his eyes on it.
“Someone else was here. I saw them in the tree,” Vera said.
Antoine put his hands on his hips and raised a brow. “You saw someone in a tree?”
“I know what I saw, Antoine. You think I’m going to sleep with some creature up in the trees.”
Percy met Antoine’s gaze. Not that he didn’t believe her, he could believe horrifying things crept in these woods. When he first arrived at Mondruhe, everyone seemed bent on telling him every single terrifying tale that they could tell. Antoine brushed them off as farces and old wives’ tales, but Percy knew the old wives had reasons to tell them. His father taught him myths and fables. It was important to remember them, he’d say, there are lessons in them that you could use in times of need. It didn’t help that at night in Orlogne, he’d feel that even the trees watched him. In truth, he should have been wearier of ghosts. Vera seemed adamant too.
“Are you sure? Percy thought he saw plenty of things his first couple weeks here,” Antoine said.
“I know what I saw. Percy, you were awake just as long as me, did you see anything?” she asked.
Percy felt a pang of guilt. His gaze drifted over the trees till it saw something black snagged onto a branch in the wind. He pointed to it.
“Antoine, do you see that?” he asked.
Antoine scowled at the tree. He swore. “Fine, I’ll climb the fucking tree.”
“Antoine, swearing, please,” Vera scolded.
Since neither Percy or Vera were good at climbing, they sent Antoine up the tree. When he reached the top, he hugged the trunk with his body. His foot slipped, and Percy jolted. Antoine caught himself swearing. He looked down, and he waved the black lace in his hands. He shoved it into his pocket.
“It’s just some lace,” Antoine said.
“See! I knew someone was up there,” Vera snapped.
“Things get caught in the wind too! No need to assume.”
Antoine scaled down the tree. Percy found himself staring. His limber legs swept down with ease, and when he reached the lower limbs, he dropped down to his feet. Percy was not so graceful climbing. Dahiz was a port city with canals and winding streets with some marshlands surrounding it like a natural moat. That made him an excellent swimmer. Orlogne was built for mountaineers. Rugged mountains and gorges made for vast training grounds too. Even when he arrived at Mondruhe, Antoine had forced Percy to practice his climbing by going up their damned high road steps over and over despite fainting from the thinner air. He insisted saying: I’m not carrying your lanky ass up mountainsides. Percy doubted that would ever need to happen. The training only ever made him realize how easy he would get vertigo and nausea looking down ravines or cliffs. 
Antoine handed the black lace to Vera, and placed it to her nose. Her nostrils flared taking in the scent like a hound. She stretched it out narrowing her eyes.
“It smells exactly like it did outside yesterday," she said.
“Like what?” Antoine asked.
“Like death?” Percy asked. Vera nodded turning towards him. He pointed east up the road. The air was rancid. “It’s coming from the east. I don’t know what it is, but it smells like how a battlefield smells after some rain.”
Vera clenched the fabric in her hands walking off then. Her eyes narrowed on Percy. The gaze was like the same one from last night. Judging. I don’t even know how I’m somehow making this worse. Vera walked off, but Antoine remained.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Percy shook his had. He gestured towards Vera.
“How much did you tell her about me?” Percy asked.
Antoine grimaced. “Why?”
“Did you not say anything to her about who I am at any point?”
Antoine shrugged. “We don’t talk.”
“You don’t talk to your own wife?”
“No, we’re barely even married.”
Percy scoffed. Barely married. She has your surname. He ran a hand over his face. He didn’t have the words to describe what he was trying to get to know. What he couldn’t understand though was why Antoine didn’t tell him anything. Why he just kept it all secret. He breathed out heavily. 
“Well, I didn’t know that,” Percy said. “How long have you two even been married?”
Antoine didn’t say anything and that alone was enough to drive Percy mad. He felt like shaking him for it. She was annoyingly beautiful too. Any man could see that and a Black Chasseur at that, he would feel lucky to have a wife like that. Blessed. Percy had no one to call family and yet, Antoine did. He just shirked it away like it was nothing. 
“How long? You can at least tell me that much,” Percy snapped.
Antoine took a deep breath looking around. What excuse is he going to come up with now? He scratched the back of his head.
“For four years—”
“You’ve been married four years?” Percy gapped.
Not even one or two. Four? He questioned every interaction he had with Antoine then. Even the one with Idelle. Percy was such an ass. How could he push other women onto a married man? All he wanted was to see his partner happy.
“Well, yes, but we were investigated my brother’s murder when we had the time, and we were making progress for some time. I—I don’t know why, but two years ago, we got orders to stop. She did, but I didn’t,” Antoine whispered. “She talked to her grandfather, and then all our evidence got destroyed. Then they moved me back to Mondruhe.”
Percy, when he arrived, was given one directive about Antoine. To keep him on track. Keep him from doing things that would get him in trouble. Should he fail and Percy made a mistake, there weren’t going to be any second chances for him.
“Did you not trust me with that? I wouldn’t have judged,” Percy asked.
Antoine swallowed hard. “I know. I just, I don’t like talking about my past.”
“Antoine, we are doing a dangerous case. With how we received this case, I can’t risk getting in trouble. We have to trust each other, so why didn’t you tell me?”
Antoine shrugged. “I don’t know. It didn’t seem important.”
“Will she trust me? She doesn’t seem to like me.”
Before Antoine could say anything, Vera turned back to them. 
“Are you two coming?” Vera called.
She seemed nice enough, but the mission would tell him. They came up on their horses and began riding through the woods towards Chantal. The roads were carved out of the rock in serpentine paths bordered by old growth forests with lush pine and ferns bedding the floors. The breeze, which he’d hope had changed was the same. It was enough that it set Antoine into a gagging fit.
“What is that?” he asked.
Percy wasn’t sure where it was coming from, but he knew that smell. He clenched his reigns looking out from the mountainside they road on towards the horizon. A battle must’ve happened out there. If they could smell it then the death toll could me hundreds if not thousands. He took a deep breath as they went down into a valley filled with goatherds and cows walking in small crowds. The air was fresher there.
The wind from the Great Telad lake not far filled the air with a freshness similar to that of Dahiz. For a moment, it felt like he was transported back home. He was in his house’s courtyard with his feet in the lily waters while he sat with his twin sister, Rana. Percy longed for his family. The long dinners in the spring weather they spent. When he’d open his eyes, he’d be back, and perhaps the closest times he felt that way was when it was just him and Antoine talking. Except now, there was this distance Percy could help but feel.
They were ahead of him talking for what felt like forever. Even if it was arguing, he couldn’t help but feel jealous watching them. They looked great together. A happy little family. Percy longed for his across a greater sea where his home was.
He road his horse closer wanting to be included then. They only halted when they reached the gate where the city guard stood armed and angling their guns downward.
“We’re Chasseurs!” Vera yelled.
“Proof?” they demanded.
Percy furrowed his brows looking down the walls of the inner city. Wooden barricades lined the antiquated walls where cannon’s heads stuck out the crenels of the battlements. It was common for cities to have walls or at least a walled portion. Antoine said it was for protection against armies but also for when monsters were worse. When Immortals were around. Only the human masking ones could creep in through the gate. Percy leaned closer towards Antoine. Vera road further ahead holding out her Chasseurs’ pendant to the gate’s guard.
“Did the Allandians advance into Orlogne?” he whispered.
“We would have gotten word from the border,” Antoine said. His horse sauntered back, and the two of them met eyes. “I’m not sure but something feels off. I can feel it.”
The inner city was just as he remembered. The cobble roads weaved through swollen timber framed homes set above stone foundations. Surrounding street lamps were potted barrels filled with poppy flowers. It nearly masked the sewage and sweat smells ripe in the air. Foreign smells of food cooking from vendor’s carts and stands nearly lured Percy away only for Antoine to pull him back into focus on their objective: find the missing Chasseurs.
On their way through, it was evident they caused somewhat of a stir amongst the locals. It wasn’t unusual behavior. Though for a city with a Chasseur Outpost Fort set, it seemed strange to have so many stares.
When they came up on Fort Lachaud, it was tall and made of large black bricks. Moated with the city’s canals on a square block though it’s parapet structure was more akin to a eight pointed star. From it’s front facing side, the flag of the Corterch Empire flew in tandem with the Orlognian flag which Percy preferred. It was purely aesthetics, but the black wolves in tandem poses around a crown on a white field between the three thin red stripes on either side was far better than what Corterre had. It was plain and boring. Blue and white strips with a blue box set in the middle with a white four pointed star.
They traveled across the draw bridge before settling into the courtyard where they were greeted immediately by suspicious stares. A woman donning light red stood at the stables: cross armed and weapon unsheathed. 
“It’s about bloody time, you arrived,” she snapped.
Vera scoffed. “Outpost Captain Granger.”
The Captain glowered between both of them. Her thin mouth pursed while she sheathed her sword. The whole fort had a different air too it than the one in Norbourg, Antoine and Percy frequented. It was quiet.  Where they saw any Chasseurs they stared alone at Vera. They dismounted and once gathered, Granger scanned the three of them and scoffed.
“We’ll see.”
“See what?” Antoine scoffed.
She ran a hand through her hair. “You have a translator?” 
Percy raised his hand hesitantly. Granger nodded.
“Can you speak Sabnite or get her to speak right?” she asked.
The comment irked him, but he pushed it past him. “I'm rusty.”
“Good enough.” 
Vera turned back with Antoine. Her brow raised. “You can speak Sabnite?” 
“He’ll do fine enough,” Antoine said.
“Well, it’s discernible with my first language, but some words, I might not get or the translation will be off, so I’ll try my best. It's been years since I spoke it,” Percy clarified.
He didn’t want anyone getting a skewed perception of his capabilities because of Antoine’s way of assuring. Even when they weren’t necessarily fine, his partner had a proclivity to telling others they were perfectly capable when Percy—often more than Antoine—was barely getting by the skin of his teeth. He thought of all the times Percy struggled with the rough terrain of Orlogne. He was half surprised he hadn’t fallen off a cliff with the way he struggled climbing. Yet, Antoine lied and said they were more than “capable”.
Percy, however, made up for his clumsiness with education. His parents were teachers. They taught him languages, poetry, history, arithmetic, and sciences. His mother had taught him both Corterch, Sabnite, Nerridian, Itrosi, and Riegar. It was Antoine who taught him Orlognian and thankfully he was a quick learner. Lazantine remained his mother tongue, not that he got the chance to use it often. 
“It’s better than nothing, she’s been delirious for a couple days, but she’s calmed down since we healed her.”
“Healed?” Vera asked. “She came injured?”
“Yes, broken ribs, arm, and bruises everywhere.” 
Percy hurt just hearing that. He knew Eisele well. They talked often when she was at the fort, and any time she could get him something from Lazant, she did. Almost as though she knew he missed home. 
The fort’s door broke open, and a cascade of dust fell onto Vera. She set off into a sneezing fit, while they went forward. The inside was much of the same. Bare. Cobwebs and dust brewed up in corners. Stores lined the walls as though they were slowly making their way to the food store. 
“Where is everyone?” he asked.
Granger laughed. “Dead.”
“And no replenishment was made?” Vera asked.
“I requested more troops but Dufresne is a stingy bastard. Our budget’s stretched thin.”
Dead. Vera crossed her arms. “I’ll see to it Chasseurs are dispatched to the county. Though I’m surprised they’re hasn’t been many sent this way. After all, your mortality rate should have made way to Tressaint.”
“That is under Dufresne’s purview, not that he cares, so you would have to discuss such with him. The Captains trained in Tressaint are stone hearted. Who’s to say when he’ll decide to care what happens here.”
Vera pursed her lips hard and sighed.
“Then I’ll make sure to talk to Commander Perrault.”
That would have to wait. Their Commander was on his quarterly trip to Tressaint after his tour of the regions in the quarter. Percy anticipated he’d be coming back but in the meantime, they had only the Captains to report too. Together they halted, and Percy peered into the small infirmary. It was small with three cots put against the wall. A single white cabinet sat inside with a girl sitting on the bed closest to it. 
“When we found her, she was terribly beaten. I’m surprised she even made it without collapsing. We would have healed her more, but I dispatched my last available Sorcerer to the Bluthuel woods.”
“How long ago was that?” Antoine asked.
“About a week since she arrived. We had some stray revenant soldiers come from the woods, so I had him go out to see what was happening. We have a theory it was Allandians, but we haven’t had sight of any passing through, so we’re lost.”
That explained what occurred at the city gate better then. Considering, Orlogne’s position, it was vital to the empire. He was half surprised the Allandians didn’t start another campaign into the region. It would be difficult but worth it. The mountains were rich in ore (eldesite importantly), it had naval connections to the Great Telad lake, and it’s access to the Nerridian border was favorable; trade and security between the east and west was so dependent on Orlogne that taking it would destroy Corterre. Defending it would be important.
If the enemy wasn’t there, it had to be something accursed or dangerous. They stopped at the infirmary door where it was left open. Inside, he saw her sat with her back to everyone. Her hair cast down from it’s usual traditional braid. She was humming some strange song he’d heard Antoine sing before.
“Has she said anything we can understand?” Vera asked.
Granger shook her head. Her eyes scanned up and down.
“No, she refuses to speak anything anyone here can understand. Not even so we can find the person who tortured her,” Granger explained.
“Torture?” Antoine asked.
His face was contorted into disgust. Who would do that to her? It very well could be Allandians. I’d heard they’ve tortured captives. Percy nodded as he made his approach. He went in alone. Three people was intimidating no doubt one being a stranger. Upon seeing her, he nearly gasped. She was noticeably thinner. Bruises lined her neck as though someone strangled her. Her rope burned wrists sat limply in her lap. She turned towards him. Her eyes were worse. The brown pupils was surrounded in blood and bruises were near as well. Her nose had a small stitches in it to keep the bridge together. Similarly her cheek and chin were stitched with dark thread. Scabbing lacerations and cuts covered her. Who ever did this to her, wasn’t methodical, more so blindly furious.
“Eisele?” he asked.
Her breathing was haggard. Nearly like it pained her to do so. He had nearly lost all manner of speech. She fixed the chemise they gave her to wear.
“Are you here for me?” she asked.
As they warned him, she was speaking in Sabnite.
“De Luc sent us here,” he said in his best Sabnite. “Are you alright?”
She laughed shaking her head. Her smile growing across her cheeks.
“This is the worst I’ve felt,” she said standing up.
She wore a long chemise that was almost sheer, so Percy averted his eyes while she approached him. Her arms looped around him first and only then did he hug her.
“Thank Sabnah you are here, I can’t say shit around these fucking imbecilic morons.” To his surprise, she was her normal self. Albeit battered, but the swearing didn’t cease. She pointed a bandaged finger up at him. “I know what I saw. I know it! I know it better than I know myself, but these morons won’t listen.”
Percy sat down with her.
“Well, you can tell me.”
Eisele glowered back at Granger. Antoine and Vera was noticeably out of view. Which was smart considering, if she knew a  Black Chasseurs was here, they’d risk exposing themselves. Eisele, often contacted them in winter months, when they were more like to come. There was something about the cold and harshness that brought monsters out. Almost as though they thrived when humans were weaker. When he was training in Tressaint and Mondruhe, recruits died so often in those months, they called it the ‘Winter Thinning’. After surviving it, only then did they recognize you as a Chasseur. Percy had to prove himself in twice. The Orlognian Chasseurs often said the ones from Tressaint had it easier.
That’s when they’d bring Black Chasseurs though. They’d show the recruits the peak of what they could become if they were successful. It was a cruel way, but Percy rested assured that the cases were handled. People laid to rest and cases closed. There was a peace in knowing something was over. He turned back to Eisele.
“That bitch back there won’t believe me. I told her three times over, it wasn’t Allandians. They weren’t even there at the camp. Not a single one of them.”
Percy remembered what De Luc told them. The man writing in High Riegar. If he wasn’t Allandian then was he Orlognian? Some of the remaining nobles including the country’s leader, the Princess of Orlogne, no doubt spoke it. With Eisele confirming something strange happened, meant they would have to go there now, for sure.
“Then what happened? If you know?”
“Wait…” she turned looking around Percy. Her eyes narrowed, and she  picked herself up looking at him. “Where is Antoine?”
“What?” Percy didn’t quite get the word she said at the beginning.
“Antoine!” Eisele snapped.
Percy jolted and when Antoine came around the corner, it was as though between hysterics and agony, she began to laugh and cry at the same time. She climbed over her cot nearly tripping. Antoine’s eyes widened at her as she pointed at him.
“I saw him… he—he was alive but the harratsi took him. The harratsi took him!” she cried.
She clutched him by his shoulders then and shook Antoine. Percy rose as he tried to figure out what Harrat meant. The word had to have similar cognates or even a direct translation to Lazantine. If not, he would have to derive it from context. The harratsi. A noun and plural, so they were looking for two of them. One of them took the subject of the sentence, so they could presume it was some creature for it to have actionable words partnered with it.
“What is she saying?” Antoine asked wide eyed.
Percy wasn’t sure. She said things quickly to the point, he could scarcely understand her.
“Eisele,” Percy began (in Sabnite).
She turned. “You must believe me. I saw what she did.”
“What did she do?”
“She killed them. All of them. Nanon… Her fire was so big—she made them all fight—“
“Fight what?” Percy asked.
Eisele pinched her face. “I don’t know. They were fighting each other, and she took me to the dark, I—I only got out because there was water. She couldn’t get through the water. Too fast. It was too fast for her. No, that fucking Harrat couldn’t get through,” Eisele whispered. She grasped Percy by his shoulders. “You have to kill it. You must. Sabnah will curse us all for it! Such things shouldn’t exist! They profane our mother.”
Percy was unfamiliar with the works of Eisele’s god. He himself, was a more secular man than he approved, but he would still take her fear of holy disapproval into his theory. Once she calmed down, they parted to the outdoors, so that they couldn’t trigger Eisele with any conversation surrounding her case. The clear sky doused them with blinding light. Vera shaded her eyes with a hand.
“What was she even saying?” Antoine asked. “She looked like a mad woman.”
“I would say she’s furious, but not insane. She said something about this creature killing them all with fire, and took someone. I’m not sure why she felt the need to tell you in particular, but whatever it was took her. I’m not sure about Favager.”
“Did she say what it was?” Vera asked.
Percy shrugged. “A Harrat? I’m still trying to think of anything that sounds similar to that.”
“Well, we can surmise that it’s powerful if it attacked a military encampment and kidnapped two people including a Chasseur.”
“Eisele called it a ‘she’, and she said Harrat plurally.”
“So we have multiple monsters now? Great.” Antoine said.
“We’ll handle this. This case has international ramifications. Those soldiers were destined to make moves in Alland. De Luc wants this covert for our safety.”
“So were part of a cover up?” Antoine scoffed.
“No… its more so the fear that Alland will strike if they know the region is weakened. I asked to consult Dufresne on the region, but she preferred not to bother him. I guess, he has a penchant for going to the Blanc Chasseur on these matters.” 
“She said Nanon. I didn’t know what that meant though.”
“It’s a name. Do you think this creature is called Nanon?” Vera asked.
“Maybe. She called it a Harrat but if Nanon is a name, then perhaps that’s it’s name as well,” Percy suggested.
Vera rubbed her temples and turned to go to her horse. “Well, whatever or whoever it is, attacked the Emperor’s men, so we have to assume any possibility.”
“Oh, like the dragon in Havlan your father is chasing.”
Vera glowered before turning away. Percy vaguely remembered hearing a story about a dragon up north. Burning down noble houses along the border. He doubted that harrat would mean ‘dragon’ though. As they approached their horses, he pursed his lips.
“What are you thinking?” Antoine asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said.
When Vera mounted her horse and was farther, Antoine leaned closer.
“You can tell me,” he said.
To that Percy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but you can’t tell me about your wife?”
Antoine was stopped dead in his tracks and Percy walked ahead. I know that’s right. He mounted his horse and from there they left for the military encampment.