Deviant Mage Pt. 03 - Lower Lanovul

So it seemed that she no longer had any cover of darkness, even though she was barely half-way to safety.

***

It seemed relatively safe here, for now, hidden in the deep shadows between a stone wall and a garden shed. There was a compost heap just on the other side of the shed (not nearly so nice as that one behind that inn) and some stables just across the street, so her stench of shit and rotten food ought to be fairly unremarkable. But she couldn't stay here long. The trail of poop-dust she'd left was visible to her shit-sense, and any decent tracking dog would have no difficulty following that same trail right here- she was on borrowed time.

She peered up over the garden wall, passed the jumbled expanse of walled-off yards and fancily constructed (entirely wooden) homes and businesses she was currently among, up to the sparsely wooded dawnward hillside that was dotted with various animal pens, holding barns, smokehouses, and other works associated with Lanovul's slaughterhouse, known as Butcher's Hill. The most up-valley extent of the Lanovale pig woods bordered on that. Lots of places on Butcher's Hill to hide, and also a fair bit of manure available if she needed it, and the forest was right there behind it.

Did that seem too easy, though? Going up through Butcher's Hill was the shortest way to the woods from Lower Lanovul, and the pig woods was the logical place for her to hide after raising the ruckus she had. Just as there were lots of places on Butcher's Hill for her to hide, there were lots of places for other people to set up an ambush, and she had only a vague idea of the layout up there. If it had still been dark, then she absolutely could have made it out, but no, she'd messed around for too long, and the sun had risen too quickly, as if to make up for the Long Night (She'd read of that happening five times before in recorded history. How lucky for her that this was the sixth).

So it would probably be better to take a less direct path to safety, out into the fields a ways before she made her way into the woods. Great idea, save for how the fields were now practically buzzing with activity.

That Long Night had happened in the middle of the harvest time for root vegetables, among other things. There was no real rush to finish the harvest, but the serfs, under the thumb of the Lanovins who all-but owned them, all wanted to look like they were eager to make up for lost time, so that maybe, just maybe, their masters would be generous to them this year (joke was on the serfs. The Lanovins were 'generous' according to economic logic so convoluted it might as well have been random). Stench also saw at least two mounted Lanomen out on what was definitely an irregular patrol of Lanovale's main road. Quite possibly waiting for someone to raise an alarm that she'd been spotted so that they could come galloping over to assist. She was pretty sure they had man-catchers. The kind with spikes.

In broad daylight, with all those people out there, if Stench went out into the fields, she would be seen, no matter how sneaky she was. Unless she tried being a different kind of sneaky. She'd managed to go (hopefully) undetected through Lower while wearing her cloak with its hood up. Covered up, she wasn't obviously any filthier than some of the serfs and low citizens. However, she had yet to meet anyone that utterly reeked of fresh shit, old shit, old piss, rotten fish, all kinds of rotten vegetables, sour milk, and lovingly cultivated body odor, like she currently did (though she would have appreciated it if she had...). She was bound to meet people on the road. Since she'd spent the last three days gleefully shown off her brand of misbehavior, specifically for the purpose of spreading infamy, she could count on people drawing inconvenient conclusions very quickly from her stink.

She glanced back at the compost heap. Then at a small two-wheeled wooden hand-cart that was leaning against the shed.

***

The cart wasn't that heavy, but it was awkward to try to lift it over the fence by herself, and she had to basically ratchet it up by sticking and un-sticking it to the wall. She carefully lowered it over the side, then had to wait as some foot traffic (just people out minding their own business. They hadn't seen her) passed.

Then she used her coprokinesis to bust the lock on the shed door, and overstimulated the germs in that crap to make all the shit-residue crumble into sterile gray dust. She took a bucket, and dumped loads of compost over the wall and into the cart while no one was looking. She'd saved some of the nicer parts of the pile for herself, naturally, but she didn't have any time to properly mess around. She'd heard large dogs barking for a while, and was pretty sure the barking was getting closer.

She still greatly enjoyed upending the final bucket of a slimy, moldy mixture over her head, working bits of rotting vegetable peel and old fruit pits into her hair, which had crusted over on the outside but was still gooey in the middle. Most of the actual compost didn't stick to her body, but it did leave a viscous rot-smelling liquid behind. She stank just slightly more of compost now than she did of shit, and she was going to be hauling a cart full of compost. Nothing to be suspicious about there! So she hopped over the wall, took the stolen cart full of compost, and headed downhill.

Quickly, a hole in her plan became apparent. She was alone. There were actual peasants out doing jobs by themselves, but they were by-far the minority. Most were in groups. It probably looked suspicious that she wasn't.

Her concern found itself justified when the leader of the second group that she encountered, older serfs who were hauling a large empty man-cart up-valley like they were beasts of burden, noticed her. "Hey! You!" called their leader.

Stench froze."M-me?" She stammered with a lazy tongue, keeping her eyes downcast like she was painfully shy, meaning that he wouldn't see how her face was crusty with dry excrement.

"Yeah, you! What business you on?"

Wait, someone actually cared? Stench actually did have a story prepared, but she wasn't sure if it was a good story.

"Toffs in outer Lower wanted this gone. The smell bugged 'em. Said they'd tip me."

The overseer, an older serf who had an iron ring between his nostrils, who had been trusted with authority over his fellow human livestock for whatever reason, took a whiff and made a face. "Ugh, figured" he grumbled. "Kid, they ain't even gonna pay up. Fuckers just wanted to jump the line."

"I'm sorry! They seemed nice! An' I got their cart now, can't just-"

"Yeah, yeah. Finish up and go talk to the counsel after. Fuckers gotta stop pulling that shit..."

Stench nodded, silently cheering. He'd actually bought her story!

"Wait a sec..." the overseer muttered to himself.

Stench pointedly did not speed up.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Milva" Stench said quickly. It was the first female serf name that had come to her. The name of the serf-girl she'd experimented with four years ago.

"You ain't a Milva!" the overseer snapped back. "Let me see your face!"

Stench pulled a wad of crap out of her shit-pouch and threw it at the guy. She didn't turn around to see if her aim was true (she saw it splatter with her shit-sense on something that could have been his face), she just ditched the cart and ran.

Okay, she'd made it about two miles from Lower before getting caught, and the dawnward pig woods was only about a ten- minute run uphill. She supposed that she was going to have to work with that! She gave her new pursuers the slip easily enough, and decided that speed was more important than stealth at this point, so she just kept running.

About a minute passed before she heard... something. It technically qualified as a hunting horn, but it sounded like someone had succeeded in an effort to fashion the most obnoxious possible noise-maker out of hammered metal. It made three bleats like a sheep being tortured tinnily to death, followed by a single longer bleat.

That was a proper signal, conveying actual information. Most likely 'Stench was spotted at this position relative to me'.

She could see the person who'd sounded the horn, and clearly they had seen her- there was a large barn-looking building just on the edge of the pig woods a ways uphill from her, and the blower of that obnoxious horn was on the building's roof. Actual watchmen had been posted in vantage points around Lanovale, on the lookout for her. And she'd been sprinting uphill as fast as her legs could carry her, which of course was conspicuous activity they'd be looking for! Dammit! Maybe she should have gone for stealth after all!

No, no, too late for second-guessing herself now!

The two horsemen had still been patrolling down along Lanovale's main road. She glanced over her shoulder, and yep, they were both charging straight towards her. Meanwhile, the pig woods was still a ways away.

Hastily, Stench clambered over and through a hedge fashioned with a certain cruel cunning out of evergreens and brambles, having to use supernatural shit both to help her climb and to prevent herself from getting impaled by thorns. The hillside on the other side of the hedge was inconsistently steep and rocky with lots of weird drop-offs and dips, useful for little other than pasture for goats, and a great place for a horse to mis-step, fall, break a leg and wind up as sausages. She doubted that those horsemen would risk their horses trying to chase her here.

But unfortunately, the mounted Lanomen weren't the only ones after her. There were still goats in this pasture, the herd was a ways downhill, and there had happened to be a bunch of goatherds around them, doing who-knows-what. When Stench climbed over their hedge and powered uphill, several of them started to run after her. They wouldn't catch her, she had a huge lead, but it meant she couldn't exactly stop to rest!

The horn sounded again, a different signal, just as she was about to try getting over/through the uphill hedge. There was a lane on the other side of it. Stench's panting breaths took on a growling quality, and she kept trying to get over and through the hedge. It took longer to manage than she liked, and when she got over and through it to the other side, there were a couple guys waiting there for her. Two old farts who looked like they were brothers. They had quarterstaffs.

She probably could take them, but it was better if she fled. So she dropped down from up in the hedge and landed with a roll (it was a clumsy roll, but at least she didn't fuck it up) on the muddy ground, then dodged around them as they attempted to box her against the hedge. One of them smacked her with his staff, but he hit a part of her forearm she'd had covered in shit to protect against thorns. The crap hardened reflexively with the hit and crumpled inwards, she was probably spared a broken arm, but it still fucking hurt, and her howl of pain was only a little exaggerated. Even though she was tired, she was still a third the age of her pursuers, and she outran them easily once she got passed.

If all she had to deal with was old men, then she'd be fine, but she doubted she'd be so lucky! The pig woods, where it got properly dense, was so fucking close, and she just knew there was going to be trouble between her and it!

A well-made fence, constructed of weathered but solid posts and slats, bordered the woods. It was mostly there to keep the pigs in, and anyone able-bodied could hop it like it was nothing. And there happened to be an armed and armoured warrior casually leaning against the fence, with three ragged serfs who were pathetically brandishing tree branches as weapons, clustered nearby. They were intimidated by the warrior.

And then they all saw Stench, whose hood was down and cloak was partially open and so it was perfectly apparent that her face was crusty with dry shit streaked with channels of orange-brown rainwater and sweat, her hair was full of rotten refuse, and she was wearing nothing but the filthiest possible knickers under it, her small tits bouncing as she ran. She also had her dagger drawn.

Stench recognized that warrior. They were one of the Wandering Duke's hired mercenaries, and she'd seen them on security patrol back at the fairground. The warrior was bulky and a little fleshy, with a whisp of a black beard on their round jaw, yet they also clearly had breasts. They were wearing black leather armour that looked to have a dagger sheath on every place it could be considered practical to have a sheathed dagger. A lot of them were obviously throwing knives, big ones, and the warrior had been casually holding one, using it to pick dirt out from under their fingernails, when Stench burst into view.

Okay then.

The warrior threw the knife at Stench with dismissive casualness. Stench threw herself to the ground the moment she saw the warrior's hand move, and the knife flew over her head.

She scrambled back to her feet, dug into her shit-pouch, and threw her last handful of crap at the warrior. She missed, and the crap splattered the wall just to the right of the warrior's head, but it had been meant as a distraction while Stench went for the fence, and judging by the warrior's disgusted curse, she'd succeeded in being distracting.

As she was about to jump the fence, though, she saw something on the other side, obscured by those loose slats, visible plainly with her germ-sense but also visible in part with her shit-sense, surprisingly. Right. Someone was trying to be clever here. They had not succeeded. Stench landed right on top of him, sending him toppling face-first to the ground. The wannabe smart-guy (he was definitely a guy, and he was so dirty that under other circumstances she would have appreciated that) hit with the leaf-strewn dirt with an 'oof', followed by some shouting she didn't pay attention to as she kept running. She'd made it to the pig woods!

Except now there was procession of people out for her filthy hide, and there was a professional warrior leading it! And who knew just how many people were in the pig woods already and had been drawn by that fucking noise-maker. She had some concealment and hiding places, but she really wasn't in much less danger now than she had been out in the open!

And why the fuck was one of the Wandering Duke's mercenaries part of the effort to catch her? Reputable mercenaries didn't work side jobs, and the Lanovins couldn't afford them anyway! Something weird was going on here, but this wasn't even close to the time to speculate on what.

Stench's lungs and legs were burning, and all the stuff on her dagger belt felt like it had doubled in weight. Just as well she'd left her knapsack behind! She had to be slowing down, and that warrior, though they didn't exactly look like they were built for speed, was completely fresh. If Stench didn't lose them, then she'd have to try fighting them. She didn't have any shit left in her pouch, most of the crap covering her skin was dry, although the massive quantity of crap saturating her hair would stay wet for a while yet, so she supposed she could try something with that, though she wasn't sure exactly what. Not exactly ideal preparations to fight a professional warrior! So how did she lose pursuit? Could she send off another decoy while she hid? Was there a manure pile somewhere within shit-sense range?

No there wasn't. There were some scattered pig droppings, and the only other thing-

Oh. That might work. There was what she presumed to be an outhouse pit, just at the edge of her range. She didn't have any other options, so she veered towards it.

As she ran, she noticed something else that was odd. The serf who had tried to ambush her, who she'd rubbed some of the crap from her body onto when she landed on him (but he'd already had a fair bit of crap spattering him. Under other circumstances, she would have been curious), was running in a different direction than she had been going. She risked glancing over her shoulder, and saw no trace of that warrior. Had she... actually given them the slip? She'd been trying to be evasive, but she'd figured her efforts wouldn't be enough. Had they actually worked?

She came upon a sparse part of the woods, its slope relatively gentle, that she was vaguely familiar with from her earlier explorations. It had about twenty cheap, ramshackle serf cottages scattered around, and patches of the forest floor had seen varyingly unsuccessful efforts at being turned into vegetable gardens. Chickens strutted and squawked, and fled in alarm as Stench ran past them. This little place, not even technically a village, was where a lot of the serfs who worked to raise pigs for their lords lived, and they were all off toiling dutifully to put food on someone else's plates.

It looked like the only ones still home were the kids too young to be put to work yet, and even they had chores up to the neck. When Stench came barreling out of the woods, dozens of pairs of eyes looked up from the gardens they'd been clearing, wood they'd been stacking, chickens they'd been feeding, and games they'd been playing. Dozens of witnesses. But surely little kids would be relatively easy to fool?

She went straight for their outhouse, which looked to be shared by the whole 'serf residential compound', as the Lanovins would officially call it. The pit under the outhouse was deep and wide, and there was a whole lot of crap in it. It was right on the edge of the compound, with thick brambles just uphill from it. Not ideal, but workable.

She slammed the shit-house door behind her, and then commanded a thick tendril of human waste to reach up from the pit. She unfastened her rain cloak and stuck it on the end of the tendril, then made just enough structure within the cloak to support it. She sent a runner of muck into the bramble patch, which moved like it was a rapidly-growing vine. Then, using the thick smear of shit the runner had left like a track, she sent the decoy slithering up through the thorn bushes. With the flexing framework of relatively fresh shit inside her cloak, it actually looked somewhat natural compared to her earlier shit-statues.

She heard some of the kids make exclamations of surprise as her decoy caught their attention, and she kept propelling it further and further, having it suck up the crap behind it to send more out ahead. The process was inefficient, eventually there was no more crap to advance the trail, and her cloak collapsed as though the person inside of it had evaporated, deep within those brambles. Having done that, she dispersed all the crap she'd sent.

That should work.

Then, as quietly as possible, she went about trying to get the seat off the outhouse so she could climb down into her new hiding place. There were two seats in here. The whole thing was secured together with wooden pegs, and it was easy to remove it with only her dagger to help her pry at things.

Once it was off, she glanced down into the dark pit below, smelling dozens of people's rotting crap. The stink was remarkably similar to the smell of her own shitty arm-pits. Her shit-sense was far more useful than her eyes- she knew exactly what was down there. Even after taking the considerable quantity of crap she'd used to make her decoy, there was still a good-sized heap of feces down there, all for her.

Unless one counted the Castle Lan cesspool, this would be her first time going down under an outhouse. It actually had been one of her fantasies, for a while, to not only descend into a shit-pit and mess around in the aging waste of dozens of strangers, but also to be crapped and pissed on, with the people above her oblivious.

She'd definitely have some fun down there later, once she wasn't drop-dead tired. Until then, this seemed the ideal hiding place. With no further hesitation, she lowered herself down slowly to avoid making a splat, sinking to her calves in a squishy pile of human waste. Then, a little begrudgingly at the necessity of doing so, she awkwardly put the seat back together- it was at roughly the height of her chest, and the seat-holes were barely large enough for her head to fit through. A lot of the pegs were impossible for her to reach and she only managed to put two of them back in, but the seat still felt reasonably secure when she tested it. It should do.