Chapter Two: Wide Eyed
“Are you aware?” The question thundered through the room, passing through the floor, through the walls, leaving the marble busts nestled in their alcoves, in the hall beyond, quivering. As he rose from his chair, a living mountain; Cordant Orn.He towered above the dark wooden desk stacked with papers his eyes glaring down at the man before him, anger radiating outwards
In a world where ‘giant’ was not just a word but a species, that man could do it justice. He stood eight-foot tall and two foot wide, his shoulders broad, as deep set eyes stared out of a dark skinned face, a heavy beard flowing downwards from his chin, dark as clouds of thunder. His eyes burnt a dull red, giving away his inhuman heritage along with his mouth, filled to the brim with large pointed teeth, glinting in the light whenever he spoke so one could see the lines of silver inlaid within. He filled the room, his violent aura bursting forth from him in a tidal wave washing over the man who stood at attention infront of him, who didn’t so much as flinch.
“Luscious, are you aware that your’ daughter has brought a human into the city” Compared to Cordant, Luscious held fragility, his shoulder were thin, although he did reach six-feet in height. His hair was grey and slicked back, his skin pale from a life-time in the courts. About his neck a braided rope hung, a silver plaque engraved with gold the focus of his apparel - part of the grey uniform he wore to signify his rank – Cordant would not frighten him so easily. Luscious was intelligent, you could see it in his pale blue eyes, he was calculating to the point of being cold, but there was no lack of gentle warmth to temper him. And he knew that this conversation could change the course of his daughter’s life. “You are aware of our current situation, you know about the war?” The King accused pushing the window aside to step out onto the balcony, Luscious following three steps behind
“Of course I know, I have been running the military for the past two years.” He replied evenly gauging Cordant’s mood. The large man huffed stepping aside to let Luscious stand beside him as they looked down upon the city.
“Isn’t it beautiful.” He sighed staring downwards at the city painted gold in the lantern light. The houses were small built from beaten earth, the same as the roads, and the walls, and everything within the city; sand pilling in street corners blown in from the desert beyond. Yet still it was beautiful, for it was one of the few places of respite within the desert, located many miles beneath the earth where the sun could not scorch, and the water ran fresh from underground reservoirs. It was a paradise like no other. “And they would see it destroyed, these men from across the sea. They come to plunder and kill in the name of their gods!” Cordant growled his fist pounding against the banister a faint spider web of cracks exploding through the granite stone. Luscious would need to remember to get it replaced.
“I know, but...” Luscious began, before Cordant turned glaring down at him, a sense of dread leaking out from the man
“Then tell me why, why do you accept this! This Crusader in our midst?” The man’s brow furrowed a faint trail of dark smoke escaping from his mouth. Luscious only smiled gently in response, Cordant taking a step back his anger fading to confusion.
“Do you remember why we made this city, why we founded it together?” He questioned leaning over the banister to look down upon the people below. Ordan Castle sat upon a hill, a perfect vantage point, and a near perfect defence. And below him he could see the people move, at the castles foot their stretched an open market, anyone could bring a stall and sell their goods, it was open every Monday and ran from dawn until dusk, and as he watched he couldn’t help but smile.
“To create a place of peace.” Cordant responded crossing his arms over his chest, attempting to find the tack of his friend’s thoughts.
“For all.” Luscious amended as he looked down at the scene below. “I can see so many species here, so many different races; but there is one race we sorely lack. They call us monsters and we call them beasts. It is a cycle, one we must break.”
Silence reigned over the balcony, for a long time neither man moved, Luscious looking at the streets below while Cordant stared ahead trying to wrap his head around the proposed Idea. And as atlast a heavy sigh escaped the giant’s lips, Luscious knew he had won, a smile growing across his own. “Fine fine, I’ll give your’ human a chance.” Cordant conceded marching back inside his office to drop himself down into the wooden chair, the stacks of paper on his desk jumping as he landed, the tension coiled up inside his body slowly releasing. “But only a chance, if I think he poses a danger to the safety of this city, I will exile him into the desert.” He declared grabbing a quill that seemed unnatural small for his large hands. “Bring him to me as soon as you can.”
“Of course sir.” Luscious nodded heading towards the exit, throwing the intricately carved doors aside.
Cordant shook his head, he should have expected this from the beginning, The man only ever treated him with a modicum of respect when he wanted something. His wife was right he truly was a push-over. Cordant shook his head staring down at the piles of paperwork assigned for him a groan leaking from him as he began to ink his quill. But before he could put pen to paper Luscious paused within the doorway turning to face him, “oh and just so you’re aware Nab has already formed the contract with him.” Luscious exited leaving the statement to hang in the air.
Cordant sat in his chair for a long time after that, thinking over what Luscious had just told him, before a laugh burst forth from the gargantuan man. Things had been so peacefully lately he almost felt bored, even with a war on the horizon. But at the very least this new human would provide a much needed source of entertainment; if he could be trusted.
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[Oswald Faun]
His eyews were open but he could not see.
Oswald lay there staring upwards letting the light wash overhim as his dreams swiftly fell away. The world returned about him, the bed hard beneath his back but for a pillow under his head, and the blanket covering his chest. But his eyes were still bleary unable to see anything clearly, leaving him recalling the dream he had just woken from before it vanished forever. He remembered being underwater, that was it, he had been underwater staring upwards, watching as the waves ahead bent the light of the ocean. It was strangely fitting he should dream of water while trapped in the desert. And his mind gained some form of clarity the dream quickly lost, disappearing into day. Leaving Oswald staring at a ceiling, one he didn’t know.
It was made from beaten earth and straw supported by a wooden frame. A sleeping lantern hung from one corner where the roof was blackened, though the large window in the wall let in enough light to let him know it was day.
He lay there for a long moment, his only conscious thought the revelation that he was still alive. Until the realisation crossed his mind; that he couldn’t have survived the desert without injury. The thought seemed sobering slowly filling him with dread as he began twitching his hands and feet, searching for the phantom pains the amputee soldiers always described.
But as he shuffled moving ever so slightly beneath the blankets he could tell his limbs were still attached, actually they seemed entirely clear of pain. It was hard to believe that he had survived within the desert for nearly three weeks, but to survive without injury; that seemed impossible. But by the dull throbbing ache that racked his head and the sensation of his stomach turning slowly eating away at itself from the inside out he knew he couldn’t be in heaven, and the lack of fire and brimstone more or less ruled out hell or at least he thought so. He never had paid that much attention in church. Tenmere held patronage to the Goddes Siran of law, so he’d found the whole thing rather tedious. On the other hand, he knew all the laws that governed the ‘civil’ world and how to exploit each of them.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He moved slowly his aching joints popping as he moved, rising like a corpse from the grave his hollow cheeks and sunken eyes making it fairly easy to mistake him for the living dead. Oswald shuddered at the thought, England rarely had much trouble with the un-dead, but he couldn’t shake the stories of his youth.
Oswald froze then a faint form appearing in the corner of his vision. He turned slowly eyes gazing towards the man who sat squat upon a stool a gruff expression etched into his face. Well he said ‘man’ what he really meant was dwarf, the man facing him was a dwarf. Dwarves were a race native to the northern portion of the globe, fierce fighters and the greatest weapon smiths on the face of the gods’ green earth; well known for their' skill they were respected not to mention their brash, impulsive, brazen personalities fuelled by centuries of clan infighting and a passionate hatred of anything to do with elves. He stood no more than four-foot high, and two-foot wide; stocky in the extreme. His arms were broad, heavily muscled from a lifetime of hard labour. Runic symbols were tattooed up and down his body ending before his neck from which a cord of braided iron hung a pale bronze tag resting at the end, inlaid with rivers of gold and silver, a mass of fine print covering the metal, in a remarkable display of workmanship.
And if that wasn’t enough proof that the man before him was indeed a dwarf, there was also the mass of scraggly black and grey hair, as well as the monstrous nose and forehead, marking him clearly as a Scottish-highland dwarf, explaining the faint almost untraceable accent. “So you’re still alive soldier boy?”
“I... am?” Oswald questioned, his gaze drifting for a moment to take in the world around him. He was in store room, that much was clear by the amount of random scraps of wood, iron and leather that stood in the crates stacked besides both walls. He was lying on a bench, at the back of the room with a pillow beneath his head and a blanket over his lap; to be fair he’d slept in worse places – though that did not make it any more comfortable.
“Aye, I thought you were dead when they dropped you at my doorstep. Looked like a corpse.” The dwarf scoffed scratching his beard “My wife ‘ll have lunch done soon. We’ll be keeping ya’ on soup an’ broth though, wife says it’s a bad idea to feed a starvin’ man. Don’t much understand it, but that’s the way it is. We can explain all this then. Bitter truths for sweet meals.” The dwarf began to ramble slightly from where he sat upon his stool hands braced against his knees back turned towards the door which slowly crept open.
“How did I get here?” Oswald questioned, his voice coming out in a sun-burnt rasp as his own skeletal hands clawed at his blanket. “I... I was in the desert, but.” The memories seemed so fuzzy, they were slowly gaining definition inside his head, but he couldn’t pick one out of the others. He knew he’d woken up that morning and begun to walk towards the strange shape in the distance, but other than that he only had vague memories of being chased by something he felt wasn’t human... He shook his head, what made less sense was the fact that a Scottish dwarf was in the middle of the desert. He was beginning to question his sanity. Oswald sighing pushing himself backwards to lean against the wall the tension leaving his body, as ever so slowly the door creaked open a small head popping into view beyond the gap. Oswald just catching the movement out of the corner of his eyes
He sat there watching the face of a young girl slip from behind the door, she was maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, Her hair was a light brown, a wild mess of spikes and thorns that twisted down her shoulders, while her eyes were forest green, reminding him of the oak leaves at the height of summer; a deep shade that lightened under the glower of sun. But something in her smile unsettled him, like a child that had just found an interesting new toy, and he had the sick sensation that said ‘new toy’ was him. He shivered meeting her gaze the dwarf spinning around to follow his line of sight.
The man stood knocking his stool backwards dropping into a low stance as from behind the door the girl darted forcing her way through the gap and rushing towards him, slamming the door in the dwarf’s face. Oswald pulled backwards, drawing his legs near him in case he needed to move, though there was no hostility in the girl’s actions. She stared up at him coming to a halt before his make shift bed grinning up with that same unnerving smile, and a rabid curiosity. “Hey can you tell me about it, what is the world like beyond the city?” Her gaze pinned him in place, something about her face ringing through his skull as he desperately tried to remember something, something about how he had arrived in this strange place this ‘city’.
Then it came, the flood gates open, a new sense of horror seeping into his heart.
When he had collapsed there had been no city, just a man and a young girl standing over him, he should have died, he was dying he knew that, but he was sitting there facing this girl in a city, that shouldn’t have existed. Maybe they had carried him? No he would have died by the time they arrived. It made no sense to him. He reached up grasping at his temples as his thoughts turned and twisted jumbling themselves up within his head. Oswald swung his legs over the bed stumbling towards the window set low in the wall, kept from the outside world only by a line of shutters and a few thin wooden bars.
He threw the shutters aside to gaze out into the street, pausing as his mind failed to comprehend the scene playing out before him
By then the dwarf had recovered, his face coloured a blotchy red from rage as he grabbed the young girl by the scruff of her neck, holding her in place as she struggled. “Hey Crusader, I’ll explain everythin` so just calm down. Sit down and we can talk.” The man attempted to placate as he held the girl still in a strangle-hold keeping her from escape. Oswald wasn’t paying attention though his gaze was fixated on the street beyond, all he could do was watch wide eyed as he knew he had found himself within the very gates of hell.
A nightmare procession: goblins, kobolds, orcs, bestia, wraiths, trolls even ogres and imps staggered, jogged, marched and strode through dusty streets of beaten earth. He could see creatures the likes of which he had thought impossible beyond the pages of fiction and the confines of the bloody battle-fields. Knockers and Gnolls moved side by side bartering and haggling as they passed markets run by goblins and sidhe. Monstrosities from every corner of the globe had gathered in this ‘city’. He truly was in the very pit of hell.
His heart started to beat then, it roared through his skull a violent energy filling his limbs as adrenaline powered him forward bursting through the thin wooden bars of the window ripping the shutters free of their facet a scream escaping his lungs. He couldn’t stand it, he didn’t know what was going on, maybe he really was mad; those thoughts coupled with an overwhelming fear following him as he ran
He screamed disappearing down a dark alleyway leaving the dwarf to stand alone in the room. Holding a young girl by the neck as she tried to follow the human out of the window. Durre felt his brow crease as he released Nab; the young girl dropping to her hands and knees before him. The dwarf stared down at her anger running like fire through his veins and he released a heavy punch into the back of the girls head. “Damn it! I told you to wait, didn’ I tell you to wait. But no you have to burst in here and cause problems.”
“What’s the problem, I just wanted to know about the world beyond this city, neither you nor father or uncle will let me leave. It’s your fault!” Nab yelled jabbing her finger at him.
“The problem? The Problem! The problem is we have a terrified human runnin’ ‘bout the streets screaming bloody murder, an’ now I’ll have to go get him, that’s the gods damn problem.” Durre yelled dropping a vicious chop down on the girls head as she tried to stand, sending her sprawling to the floor. “You’re sixteen, it’s about damn time you behave. Now I’m going to go get the poor son of a bitch back, and you’d better not frighten him again.” The Dwarf huffed bowing down before on of the crates piled in the corner. From within Durre withdrew a long grey cloak and short thick cluv, he couldn't remember why he owned either but they woud suit his purpose just well. He nodded before he equipt himself.
“And you say I’m the one who frightened him.” The girl pouted.
Durre glared at her before jumping out of the broken window rushing out into the street. How a half dead human had just busted through those wooden bars let alone run to the end of the street in the blink of an eye was beyond him. though this human did seem like an odd one. Eh what did it matter he had a human to find.