Eydis
Why did I do this? Eydis thought as she trudged through the forest a dire mole strung over her shoulder. They will never trust me again after this.
She had been roaming the forest for two days already, firstly moving on foot through the underbrush filled with monsters wasn’t fast but more importantly, she didn’t exactly know where to go. She knew the general direction, but she had only been at the grove once and that was over ten years ago.
Her being lost wasn’t what was on the forefront of her mind though. Ever since she had split from the rest, she was doubting her decisions.
Well, they might trust me again if I actually inform them about the tribes, she admitted. It was quite obvious, she just had to do what she announced she would do and then no one could doubt her, but Eydis didn’t know if she could betray her people like that, especially now that she knew that there were survivors from her clan, and they would probably be a part of the army.
Eydis sighed as she continued westward, always keeping an eye out for tracks that could show her where to go.
The rustle of someone approaching dragged her out of her thoughts a while later and her hand rushed to the axe hanging from her hip. The visitor was a woman, who weaved through the clutter of bushed elegantly until she spotted Eydis standing in the woods.
She was short, with brown hair, a round and slim face, and a smile forming on it.
“I finally found you,” she called out and hurried over to a confused Eydis. Eydis quickly drew her axe and narrowed her eyes at the woman, who in turn raised up her hands, trying to placate her.
“Peace, servant of the Radiant Soul,” the woman urged with a cautious expression. “I am from the Officio Umbra and have been sent to assist you in your duties.”
Eydis frowned and relaxed slightly. “Who sent you?” Eydis signed at the spy.
“The grandmaster, with the agreement of the Radiant Soul. You will have difficulties communicating with anyone on your own. Sending intentions through mana is all well and good, but the value is in the details, especially when considering espionage.”
The spy seamlessly switched from Remurian to Tangrah, speaking as if she were a Rangda herself, “I do speak their language and am familiar with the Rangda culture so I will not give us away.”
Eydis frowned as she looked the woman over, she was dressed like a peasant of Telios, but she didn’t look like one. There was no way she could have learned about the culture and language in this short time since this all began, so maybe she is a native?
“Maybe we should go over our story and what information we want to focus on,” the woman pressed when Eydis didn’t react.
In a flash of power, Eydis lunged forward and grabbed the woman by the collar, smashing her against a tree and growling at her.
“What is your real goal here, spy? Are you supposed to keep an eye on me, to see if I will stay loyal? Maybe even silence me if I do not,” Eydis signed with one hand, her mana pressing in on the squirming woman.
To her credit she was keeping it together quite well, there was clear fear in her eyes, but she was still keeping up a calm façade.
“I have been given no such order,” she groaned. “I swear, the only thing I am supposed to do is support you and help you get your intel back to our lord.”
Eydis stared at her for a few moments while simultaneously inspecting her mana with her own. If she was lying then Eydis couldn’t tell, which was not surprising, the woman was a professional spy after all even if she couldn’t have too much experience.
She released the spy and took a step back. The woman rubbed at her neck and eyed Eydis warily, “I hope that means you are not gonna rip me apart?”
“Not yet at least,” Eydis answered.
“Good, you may call me Freya for the time of our cooperation. We are very close to the grove; I was planning how to blend in there when I got the message that you would join me. That is gonna make this whole thing much easier, so thank you,” Freya began happily babbling. “Oh, is that dinner you have there? I am starving!”
- A while later –
Freya and Eydis approached the guards that stood vigil at the main entrance toward the grove.
“Remember, keep your mana and expression calm, I got this,” Freya reminded Eydis for the third time.
She smiled brightly as they came to a final stop in front of the two gruff-looking men, armed with spears and tall shields.
“We finally made it, thank the Mother and Father,” Freya sighed loudly.
“State your business, woman,” one of the guards said with a bored expression while the other eyed Eydis and her weapons.
“We came for the gathering,” Freya replied with another beaming smile.
“You are a little late for that,” the first guard laughed. “And we definitely aren’t gonna let anyone in, so who do you belong to?”
Freya looked over to Eydis, feigning uncertainty, and then back. She was playing her part very well, in Eydis’s opinion.
“She is part of the Rescar Clan, and my Clan was the Surren.”
The guards looked at each other and one of them asked, “Isn’t the brat that called this thing the head of the Rescar Clan?”
“Who cares? Everyone can say that they are part of a clan that basically doesn’t exist anymore,” the other one replied. “Do you have any proof that you belong to the Rescar Clan?”
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“If you find another member then they should be able to vouch for us,” Freya tried but the guard simply laughed. “If you think I am gonna run down someone to prove your story then you are dumber than you look. Now screw off and come back with something better.”
“And on whose authority do you turn away the children of the great Mother?” a calm voice came from behind the guards. A moment later a middle-aged man with brown hair, green eyes, and covered in druidic tattoos stepped out of the opening in the wall of bramble that surrounded the grove.
His eyes lingered on Eydis and Freya for a moment before he looked back at the guards. “This is the land of the gods, and you have no right to turn away their faithful.”
Both of them quickly lowered their gaze in respect and one of them answered, “I am sorry, great Ill’irian. Chieftain Eddor ordered us to make sure that no one interrupts the gathering who isn’t part of it.”
“And does Chieftain Eddor hold dominion here? That would be new information for me and certainly also for the other druids. Should I announce that Chieftain Eddor of the Murrion Clan lays claim to the Sacred Grove?” the druid didn’t raise his voice, on the contrary, there was a hint of amusement in his voice as he watched the guards wince under his words.
“There is no need for that, Clan Murrion would never dare infringe on the gods,” the smaller of the guards replied hastily and took a step back.
“Good, then I would suggest that you focus on what you are actually supposed to do. Namely guarding this entrance, rather than hassling your brothers and sisters.”
He then turned toward the two women watching all of this happen and made an inviting gesture. “Come, you have had quite the journey, and you are in need of some rest.”
They followed him quietly into the grove. Eydis had seen this man before, he was one of the high druids that took care of the Sacred Grove and Eydis met him the last time she was here. As far as she knew he was a kind man and a powerful mage, but how that ‘powerful’ would measure up to Kiran and Rayakan she didn’t know.
She watched him carefully as they quietly strolled through the trees filled with tents and people. His robe was long and beige, and the only thing that differentiated him from normal people, apart from his tattoos, of course, was a sickle with a gnarled wooden handle that caught Eydis’s attention through its subtle hum of mana.
Eydis couldn’t keep her attention on the man, though. Too much were the sensations, sounds, and smells of her people surrounding her to keep focused. The sound of rough laughter, the smell of fire, and smoking meat. None of these were unique to the Rangda people, but somehow, to Eydis, they were, and a heavy feeling of belonging fell upon her.
Is this where I should be? Have I longed for home so much? she thought. Great Mother, Great Father grand me clarity!
Of course, there was no answer. The gods rarely worked in such a direct manner and certainly not for nobodies like her.
They reached a boulder in which a small open cave had been carved. The druid entered through the blankets in front of the opening and Eydis and Freya followed behind him.
The cave was homely, with a large pelt covering the ground and more in the corner serving as a bed. In the left corner was a large stone slab which served as a table and all around were different herbs and other ingredients. The center of the cave was taken up by a large cauldron with an air vent in the ceiling above it.
“Have a seat,” Ill’irian said and pointed to the ground where a low table was standing on the fur.
“Your story must be quite a tale, Eydis,” he continued after sitting down.
“Yes, I do remember you, I have rarely seen a girl with a temper such as yours. You seem to have mellowed down though, not that I can blame you for that,” the druid continued after seeing Eydis’s surprised expression. He then turned to Freya and frowned, “You I definitely don’t know. I am certain you are of Rangda origin, if only partially.”
Eydis shook her head and opened her mouth to show the stump of her tongue at his comment.
“Oh, I see. There is not a member of your clan that doesn’t carry the scars of what happened to you and the gods feel your loss.”
Eydis nodded thankfully and Freya spoke up next.
“You are not wrong, I do have Rangda blood in my veins but also the blood of the Remurian. My mother was a member of the Sirren Clan and became a slave for some Telios noble. I was born there but my mother always kept our culture alive.”
“Sirren? I wasn’t aware that anyone of that clan still remained,” the druid replied lost in thought.
“My mother believed herself to be the last,” Freya said bluntly.
Eydis inspected the small woman closely. How much of that story was true? It would explain a lot if it actually was true, but Eydis somehow doubted it.
“Both your stories interest me greatly,” Ill’irian admitted while throwing some dried berries and fruit into a jug of water.
“Oh, mine really only became interesting once Eydis here came to the estate, before that, I mostly only kept my head down and tried not to catch the attention of the lord’s son,” Freya explained with a haunted expression which she quickly shook off.
“Eydis got in trouble wherever she went, she didn’t understand the language and had no way of communicating but sometimes it seemed like she went out of her way to get into trouble. I stayed away from her for the first year she was there but when the son of the lord finally came for me, she was the only one who stood up for me. We became friends and I would even go as far as to say that we wouldn’t have survived without each other.”
“Don’t overdo it,” Eydis signed, and the spy smirked.
“What was that?” Ill’irian asked curiously.
“Oh, that is a sign language we invented to be able to talk to each other and she said I shouldn’t be so dramatic,” Freya smiled at Eydis warmly as if remembering fond memories, they had made together despite the fact that they had met only hours ago. She was good, to a scary degree.
“Ha, don’t worry, every story deserves a little dramaturgy and as a keeper of history, I have to know,” the druid chuckled.
“Things were better for a while until the lord died and his son became lord, after that we knew that we had to get out. We took the next best chance and escaped with all those who were willing, eleven of us left that night. We didn’t know where exactly we were and we couldn’t really ask for direction, so we were mostly lost heading westward, hiding and dodging patrols and hunters. Out of the eleven we started with only Thore, Eydis, and I made it to Grent.” She made a small pause before finishing the story. “And only Eydis and I made it across the border.”
Empathy virtually overflowed from the druid as he placed his hands on each one of theirs. There was not even a hint of suspicion that Eydis could detect, the druid had taken the lie he had been served and just swallowed it without even chewing.
“You made it. Now you are safe,” he said with a smile.
Before either of them could reply, a bird flew into the cave and chirped happily. It was a Thrush, Eydis believed, with a white belly, black spots, and a brown back. More interesting was the young man who entered the cave behind the bird with a polite expression.
“High Druid, you have called for me,” he said with a small bow before looking at the other two present and stopping at Eydis. His eyes went wide and his mouth fell open as he just stood there staring.
He was tall, having put on a significant amount of muscle, and a couple more scars since the last time Eydis had seen him. She was on her feet and upon him before he fell out of his stupor and smashed into him with her whole body, wrapping her arms around him.
“Eydis? You are alive?” the man said and quickly embraced her as well.
“She can’t talk, Sev,” Ill’irian said sadly.
“I see,” Sev answered his eye twitching and his jaw clenching.
Eydis just hoped that her clan mate would eat their story as readily as the druid had.
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Ill’irian
Ill’irian watched the three youngsters leave his cave frantically chatting. Well, two were chatting and one was signing.
His familiar, Orph the song thrush, chirped at him while sitting on his table and picking at some seeds.
“Their timing is a little bit too convenient; don’t you think?”
Another singing chirp.
“Yes, I also get an odd feeling about them. Something doesn’t fit with their story,” Ill’irian answered while absentmindedly following the lines of his tattoos with his finger.
“Please do me a favor and keep an eye on them. I feel like there is something behind the mask that they have shown to us.”
The thrush chirped again and after gulping down another seed, he took to following them.
“Hm, very odd indeed.”