Day 371, 12:10 PM
“Hardly, my lord, it's just an eye. The gods saw fit to grace me with a spare.”
— Frank Miller
My hands shake. I’m nearly blind watching a hazy, red-smeared world before me when the thunder of hooves reaches me once more.
The wound on my cheek is burning, and I move my trembling hand to wipe the blood off my eyes, but I touch a wet hole where my right eye stood until I lost consciousness a few moments ago. I look at my arm and see it painted crimson, but at least my vision has somewhat cleared.
The rumbling grows closer, and I see a company of cavalry slaughtering stray soldiers.
What’s happening? Where’s Grif? Did I die? Did I reincarnate on some battlefield?
I’m in a daze, not recognizing the cavalry galloping towards me, but they seem to be trampling the royal army’s infantry.
No way. We haven’t left behind that much cavalry, and these guys are coming from the woods. I’m somewhere else. Armored men look all the same. It’s just a coincidence.
I’m leaning on a staff or a spear, and my mind moves with the speed of a clam racing through sludge. but, finally, I conclude I should check my weapon.
It’s a pitch black war hammer, four to five pound heavy head with a six-inch-long spear tip at the end. It certainly looks like what I snatched from that black knight.
“General Blackstaff!” an unfamiliar man leading the cavalry company shouts from a hundred yards away, beaming the happiest smile I’ve ever seen. It’s like he’s found his long-lost brother or something.
I didn’t die? Then my mind focuses on the grinning man in the late twenties. His hair is light brown, his teeth all in place. He’s wearing a black and yellow tabard over his armor, his coat of arms dancing at the edge of familiarity.
Hassel?
I finally recognize the crest from Lea’s amulet.
“You are from the house Hassel?” I scan the battlefield, forced to turn considerably more towards my right than towards my left to take stock of the situation.
The victory is complete. Hundreds, if not thousands, lie trampled, dead, dying, or maimed. There were around twenty-five hundred riders, and horses threw most of them off.
Eaglegord’s soldiers are spilling out of the gate, capturing the survivors, and cheering, “Blackstaff! Blackstaff!”
Here and there, I hear someone shout, “Griffonrider,” and soon it picks up. They shout oorah and Blackstaff Griffonrider, but the cheers die when the cavalry reaches me, and a new shout echoes above the moans of the wounded.
“Protect the General!”
There’s no need. The man in Hassel colors slows down, and stops some five yards away, dismounting to greet me.
“Lord Blackstaff! It is a pleasure to finally meet you,” the Hassel says.
“The pleasure’s all mine.” I smile, and the Hassel and all his soldiers wince or shy away from the gory sight.
“Do you need healing?” the man stutters through the first two words, but quickly gathers his wits.
I shake my head, Initial Emergency Treatment notifying me I should dress my wounds, lest I risk infection. At least I can make use of the situation and intimidate them further.
“Nah, my wife is going to nag at me again because of this. ‘You can’t even tame a griffon properly’ or ‘Look at your eye’, as if I can see it. Maybe I could find it somewhere if I searched the trampled field?” I pause, enjoying a number of terrified faces among the unnamed Hassel’s cavalry.
“My name is Aang, by the way, yours?”
“Pardon me, lord Blackstaff, my name is Bastian Hassel, the heir of the house Hassel.”
“Nice to meet you Bastian,” I say, Eaglegord’s sprinting defenders slowly reaching earshot. “Do you mind telling me why you betrayed the king?”
“I betrayed no one,” Bastian says with fake shock all over his face. “I have set off from Amplegord with the intention of joining you. Please see this letter.”
He fishes around under his armor and approaches me with a sealed letter in hand.
“For General Blackstaff,” it says, a dark-yellow seal with the same Hassel crest adorning the wax.
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I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Did he really leave home with the intention of betraying the king? And he traveled with his army? This man has some balls.
I take a moment to size him up, then I break the seal, and nearly have a heart attack scanning the letter. I reread the message, slower this time, clenching my heart with my bloody right hand before staring at Bastian.
“Is… Is this true?”
He nods. “As far as I know, everything my father has written there is the truth, and for your eyes only.”
“Eye,” I correct him, folding the letter and returning it to Bastian. “Keep this safe for me.”
A son. I was just screwing around, but I guess I’m the one who got screwed. What will Manny say? Should I tell her? What if I don’t, and she finds out? She’d have my balls.
Immediately, I abandon the weakling’s train of thought. We promised to tell each other everything, relevant and irrelevant, and me having a son with another noblewoman is relevant in more ways than one.
I’m a bastard. What about Lea? Her parents must have been furious. She didn’t say it, but it’s obvious she was traveling to get engaged. How complicated was her childbirth?
I touch my cheek, then jerk my hand away from the pain.
“Thank you for letting me know. I believe you are our allies. Was that the crown prince?” I point back with my thumb, towards the pile of gore and shredded purple fabric.
Bastian gulps and nods. “Yes.”
“Did you see my fight with the griffon? What did I do to drive it away?”
He’s staring at me, shocked or confused or whatever. I don’t really care, as long as he’s out of balance, he might let slip something about his true intentions.
“Um, you struck it with your hammer,” Bastian pauses. “Straight in the testicles.”
“You saw that from over a hundred yards away?”
“You struck it between the legs, and it jumped and yelped loud enough for our horses to rear and for us to hear it over all this noise. You could have hit some other sensitive spot, but it really looked like…” he trails off, maybe afraid he’s insulting me.
I laugh instead. “I hope I turned that bastard into a eunuch.”
“Oorah!” the soldiers who heard me shout, they haven’t seen my eyes yet, just a bloody face, but I’m a man who rode a griffon and lived to tell the tale.
“Don’t oorah me,” I say, turning around to face the boys. They gasp in terror, but I ignore them and keep talking. “You have work to do. Clean up the battlefield, grab any survivors, we’re throwing them into the dungeon. Ordinary soldiers to the slave pens, nobles to the dungeon. If we don’t get a cartful of gold for them my name ain’t Aang.”
The soldiers are still stunned, but I snap them back to reality with a clap of my hands, and they are off to work.
“Bastian,” I face the noble once more, “could you please lead your men and mop up, er, break any pockets of resistance? Your help is greatly appreciated, and I’ll throw you a feast tonight.”
I’ll have to ask Manny how much exactly we owe them. Marrying Lea or taking her as a concubine or whatever is off the table. Manny would devour the naive girl and spit out her bones in less than a week, but I have a son, and this guy is his uncle.
I turn towards the city and start walking, exhausted, bloody, ready to get nagged at by Manny and old Thunderwax. And that’s her attitude before she learns about me siring a bastard.
“Sir, do you need an escort?” Varren asks, and I shake my head at the former innkeeper, flashing him a ghastly grin.
“No, but you can keep me company if you want.”
He trots up behind me, and I motion him to move beside me, to my right.
“How bad is it?”
“Bad. Your face is ruined, Sir. I can see your teeth through your cheek. The bones of your forehead are showing, err… scratches, and your eye socket is destroyed.”
I nod. “Got it. Thank you. I’ll have to wear a mask or bandages whenever I meet Victory from now on.”
“You should wear it in Noble Lady’s presence as well.”
That bad, huh?
“Please do me a favor and run ahead. Have old Thunderwax or his son waiting for me at the city gate with a bunch of bandages and salves. If they wrap me up, my wife won’t get to see the wound until I’ve at least partially healed.”
Varren runs ahead of me without saying a word. He’s a good man, and I’m lucky to have him.
Should I redo this? I wonder, finally alone and calm enough to consider the question. I’ve lost an eye, I’ve lost Grif. Having a griffon mount would make everything easier—
No! Another voice shouts in the back of my mind. I am not leaving my wife a grieving widow and my daughter a crying orphan for a mythological mount. There might be other chances in the future. As for my eye, I’d trade it again for their safety, which is not guaranteed if I’m not there.
But there is something else worth my attention. F1.
[Name - Aang Ree
Class - bodyguard level 7
Health 18/18, Strength - 20, Agility 21, Physique - 21, Wisdom - 23, Intellect - 26, Willpower - 23, Presence - 20, Charisma - 23, Composure - 15
Abilities - Literate, Select Principal [selected], Initial Grappling, Bargaining, Sense of Danger, Master Rider, Watcher, Initial Emergency Treatment, Initial Staffsmanship, Initial Spearmanship, Initial Swordsmanship, Initial Axmanship, Initial Clubmanship, Initial Throw Dagger, Initial Throw Sword, Initial Throw Ax, Initial Throw Hammer, Initial Slingsmanship, Initial Poison Tolerance
Attribute points remaining - 1
To level up, evacuate your principal from a burning building.
Statuses - Wounded, Bloodied]
The level up condition is surprisingly easy this time round, and I’ll meet it with a chicken as soon as I recover enough to run through burning buildings. I put the point into wisdom, but it doesn’t make my life’s choices any easier.
I’ll have to tell Manny about Aboy. I cringe at the name they gave my son, a boy. At least he’s surnamed Hassel. Otherwise, he would have been A boy from Ree.
God, Manny’s gonna crucify me.