That would allow them to stay fully alert for the next two days on the road. They needed that extra buffer for the beasts, and bandits that would be waiting for them on the roads. We'd been lucky enough to avoid them so far but that wouldn't last forever. Bigger cities meant bigger scores, and a higher chance of getting robbed. Beasts were also a common problem.
Moving throughout the night was difficult if you didn't get enough sleep. Sekka, and I planned to do just that. Once Sekka was on his bird we moved out. I strode alongside him from the ground. It didn't take us long to reach the line that lead out of the city.
The line moved slowly as each, and every person that left the city were carefully checked over using the magical services. I worried briefly that they would check the spatial storage Sekka had. Sekka's spatial storage was a normal spatial storage. Mine was different. It was made from my scales.
To the magical senses it should appear as part of my body. Anything that was particularly illegal or damning was in my spatial storage. All except one thing. I opened up our mental connection. Sending a pulse through our connection to signal him to talk to me.
Sekka looked slightly annoyed for a while before deciding to lean down, and talk to me.
"What do you want?" he kept his voice low so no one would be able to hear him over the nervous talking going on around us.
"Your gem," I answered quietly, "They might notice it. I don't want them questioning you about it."
His eyes narrowed as anger spread to his aura.
"One other thing," I gripped his wrist tightly.
Burning the rune that would allow him to take Malor's mana imprint into his whole body. It would be painful for the time being but it would fade in just a few hours. Sekka clenched his teeth, but allowed me to do it anyway since he could tell what I was doing.
"I won't give it to you," Sekka would feel a slight burning sensation until the rune wore off.
I let it go at that point. That required a great deal of trust for him to give me that gem. He didn't trust me enough to give me that gem. He was allowing me to choose the direction I sensed his mother was in. That required me to touch the gem.
That was as far as I'd gotten with Sekka. He didn't trust me. Not enough to allow me to hold the gem that was his lifeline to his mother. We really needed to think about accelerating our plans. I crossed my arms, and looked down the line.
Pretending to feel the chill in the air as it started to set in. I was pretending to be human after all. It would be odd for me not to feel the chill. I was getting annoyed with how long it was taking for the line to move. The sooner we got out of this city the sooner we could move on.
I wanted to hit a few more large cities before we got to his mother. Once we got his mother Sekka would want to leave then elven world, and get her back to a free state of mind. Without the spatial markers in place to seal the planet off we couldn't leave the planet without being followed. That wouldn't stop Sekka from pushing to leave the planet as quickly as possible. With the help of Malor, and the spatial markers we'd be able to seal off the entire planet.
The guards didn't see anything wrong with us when they scanned through us both. They scanned through me three or four times because I appeared to be an empty shell to the magical senses. They didn't find my spatial storage device or anything odd on Sekka. I was relieved that they didn't find anything wrong with Sekka. Had they noticed the gem linked to his mother we might have had a problem.
I was glad that I took the time to place Malor's mana imprint over Sekka's. It was near impossible for them to tell that Sekka wasn't a normal elf that way. Mana flowing through bodies was hard to trace, and didn't give an obvious magic aura. Nothing that could be detected without being directly observed anyway. We walked along the road with a bunch of other merchants.
Sekka was pushing forward. Passing some of them. We would pull ahead of the group by the time it got dark. Once night fell, and we got ahead of the group we'd be able to up our pace another notch. I stretched slowly.
I wasn't the only slave being transported out of the city. The smirk on my face made them angry. I didn't care. I would like to rob the guys that had decided to leave the other side of the city. This group wouldn't get robbed until we were well separated from the group.
There had to be enough distance to explain why we didn't get robbed while everyone else did. We wouldn't be able to rob anyone for a little while. Plus the fox had made it clear he wasn't after any of their regular merchandise. The theft of slaves was still considered theft of merchandise. Just a specific kind of merchandise.
We kept moving. I was slowly speeding up. Soon I would outpace the birds. Our two heavy bags were a light load compared to some of the loads the other beasts, and slaves were carrying. Some of the slaves looked at me with envy.
The blades on my hip, and my lack of a heavy burden seemed to draw anger from both the master's, and slaves alike. My smirk only drew even more anger to me. My spatial senses picked up movement in the woods as the shadows stretched slowly as the sun got lower, and lower in the sky. I tapped Sekka's boot twice to alert him to the presence of what felt like beasts tailing the large group we were with. There were about fifteen of them following the group.