The air hung thick with the silence that followed. The assassin continued to grin at them through the bars, relishing in the fact that he knew things they didn’t.
Leo’s… or Faro’s rather…mind was spinning. The name rang true to him for some reason. He couldn’t remember much, but for some reason he knew the assassin was telling the truth. His name was Faro, and he used to be human. Having two pieces to the puzzle strengthened his resolve to fully restore his memory and figure out the rest of his past. He felt a hole inside himself, knowing that he had a purpose to fulfill here. He just still wasn’t sure what it was.
Mathias threw his lion friend a look to see if he was alright. Faro took a step towards the bars and puffed out his big, barreled chest to appear bigger and more menacing. “Tell me everything you know, assassin,” the last word hung in the air, thick with acid.
“Well,” the man said, “one thing for sure was that I was shocked when I saw a damned lion. I thought they were the ones ‘lion’,” he said, and Faro picked up that he was telling a joke. The man started to cackle.
“Enough!” Faro growled. “Who are they? Who sent you?”
“Only the elite hire Gnu,” the man said. Faro assumed the man was talking about himself. “It was the big man on the mountain, of course!”
Mathias gasped. “Cosimir is still alive? What happened to the invading rebels?”
“Oh, you don’t know much yet, do you?” Gnu said, snickering again. He paused, seeming to relish the fact that he knew so much that they didn’t. “Cosimir is dead.” This sentence hung between them. Mathias raised his eyes, shocked. Faro searched his thoughts to see if the name rang any bells, but frustratingly it didn’t cause any revelation.
“So who is ruling now?” asked Mathias, confused. He had been so consumed with the news of the upcoming battle that he hadn’t really thought about who would be in charge once it was all over, much less why they would want Faro dead.
Gnu sneered his smarmy sneer. “Seems to me like I’m giving you a lot of information for free. What’s in it for me, old man?”
“Maybe not gettin’ eaten by an angry fucking lion!” Faro growled, lunging forward and grabbing the bars with a loud clank. Gnu backed off slightly, but still not out of Faro’s reach, showing he wasn’t afraid.
“I’m sentenced for death either way, beast. May as well get it over with,” he said acidly.
Mathias put a gentle hand on his friends middle back, the highest he could reach, and guided him back away from the bars. “I am a good, upstanding citizen here in town,” Mathias said. “The town healer. Perhaps I can speak with the mayor on your behalf. Get a reduced sentence. Maybe even an exile to the Outwoods.”
Gnu raised his fingers up to his mouth, as if thinking it over. “Shoot for the exile, or I’ll escape this place eventually and come after you.”
Mathias chuckled. “Solid stone, crafted by the greatest craftsmen in the land. Sure, I’ll take my chances. Now tell me, who is the new ruler on the mountain?”
“Some fella named Eli,” said Gnu. The name Cosimir meant nothing, but this name, Eli, seemed to gnaw at Faro. Why did that name mean something to him? He looked over at Mathias to see if that name meant anything to him. He could tell that it did by the way the old healer’s mouth hung open wide.
“Eli the Prophet?” he asked, dumbfounded. “Was… was that the plan?” he asked, looking at Faro. “Ahh, of course you wouldn’t know.” He turned back to Gnu. “Eli hired you?”
“Big bastard. Wore a horned helmet,” said Gnu, but then looked Faro up and down. “Or maybe he got curse like this fella and the horns were real, come to think of it. Anyways, yeah, he hired me. Told me he had a rogue that got away. He called in a handful of us. Those not so skilled as me hung around the mountains looking for a trace. Others went west. I saw the broken foliage and headed down to town here.”
Mathias looked like he had a headache. His hand was raised up to his head, a finger pressed hard against each temple. “And you were sent to kill Leo…err, Faro?”
“Yeah,” said Gnu, shrugging his shoulders. “Didn’t think I’d be hunting a fuckin’ lion-man, but Eli said we’d know him when we seen him. Said it was a lion. I didn’t believe him. Coming out of that bar, I sure knew I’d found my mark. Thought the dwarf was going to do my job for me for a minute!” Gnu sounded excited.
“So, you didn’t disappear after seeing him?” asked Mathias. “You waited in the shadows and watched until Thora knocked him out. Then you followed us back to my office and…”
“Yeah. That rooftop study had pretty easy access from the trees, Doc. If it wasn’t for bad timing from that gal you had with ya, I’d have hit my mark and you all would be dead! That horny bastard on the hill would be paying me pretty right now!” Gnu smiled at the thought, then his face fell, realizing his pay would never come.
Faro’s head was spinning as he blankly stared into the dim, torch-lit dungeon. Someone was ruling. Then someone named Eli killed him. He had to have been with them there somehow, because now he was a cursed animal human like the new ruler on the mountain. He now knew for sure that his part in this was pretty big, but he still wasn’t sure how he fit into the puzzle.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
“What else do you know about me?” Faro asked him sharply.
Gnu thought for a minute. “Not much, fella. Said we were hunting a big beast of a man that betrayed him. Said he’d pay a pretty fee in gold. Also said he was angry that your body wasn’t found dashed on the side of the mountain as you were blasted out of the chamber opening. So that’s why he had to call in the professionals. That’s about it.”
Blasted out? Opening? A flash of purple light crept across Faro’s memory. Yelling. Cold air. Was it him that had been yelling? What else? Unfortunately nothing else came to his mind.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” said Mathias. “And for your terrible timing and aim,” he added with a smile.
Gnu waved him off. “Like I said, you’re lucky to be alive. Dumb luck. Work on getting me out of that execution, Doc. We have a deal.”
“Yes, yes, I’m a man of my word,” Mathias waved him off as he turned to leave, motioning for Faro to follow him. “I will head up to see Mayor Thornvale right now.”
Faro hesitated for a moment. He wanted to know more. He knew that Gnu likely didn’t have anymore information, but he didn’t know if he should try and press him for more details. Thinking better of it, he turned and followed Mathias up the perfectly carved stone staircase. He caught up to Mathias halfway up.
“I was there!” he said, exasperated. “And this, this Eli? He isn’t meant to be in charge now?”
Mathias took a few more steps and then paused. He slowly turned on the stair to face Faro. Being a few stairs higher than him he was about eye level to the giant lion man. “Not that I’m aware of. Not that I was in on any of the plans, but I tried to stay apprised of the war. Something isn’t sitting quite right with me. You all were cursed somehow…”
“And it doesn’t surprise you that I was with this Eli on the mountain?”
Mathias took his spectacles down from his eyes and polished them with his shirt, apparently stalling for a moment to think. Finally when he placed them back on his nose, he said “No, according to the stories you were his closest disciple.”
Faro had been dying to know more about what Mathias knew about the war party he was apparently leading with this Eli to the top of the mountain, but Mathias became hushed and distracted-looking. He told him that they could sit down later and have a proper talk on the matter, and that he had to go speak with the mayor at once.
Choking down his anger, Faro agreed to meet him at his office that night so they could talk. Not wanting to talk with the greasy mayor again, nor feeling very invited, Faro decided to head outside to see if there was any sunlight left in the day to enjoy. After the dark and dingy dungeon, he felt the need for light and silent thought, to see if he could remember any more details about himself.
Stepping out of the church the light hit him square in the eyes and he threw up his hand to block it until he became used to the change. He could hear hushed whispers and hurried footsteps as people around him dashed off to get some distance away from him.
After his eyes finally adjusted to the light, he saw the dwarf that had attacked him over by the tavern where he had first met Mathias and the other citizens of Graeton who seemed to be okay with his existence. The dwarf was standing on a stool and clearing pints off of a table that had presumably been occupied by the elf and the other human who had been there when he’d arrived. Likely a daily ritual they kept.
“Hello, friend!” Faro called as he approached, not wanting to startle him during his work. The dwarf looked up to see him approaching and threw his rag down on the table.
“Friends, are we? That’s good to know considering I stabbed you and all.”
Faro just smiled. “Aye. It wasn’t a good start, but I think at this point I need all the friends I can get, Dwarf.”
He smiled back from atop his stool. “Please, Leo, call me Tobi.”
Faro cocked his head a bit. “And you can call me Faro. According to my would-be-assassin, that’s my real name.”
Tobi smiled at this new information and nodded his head slightly. “Well then, Faro, not sure what a lion drinks, but how about one on the house?” Tobi said, climbing down from his stool.
“I’m not even sure how a lion drinks,” Faro answered. They both burst out in laughter at this. The laughter was short-lived, however, when they were both startled as people at the edge of the town began to scream. Both of them looked that way, alarmed.
“Not another giant lion-man, I hope,” said Tobi, only half joking. He wasn’t sure what to expect anymore.
They both made their way into the center of the square, looking at the commotion that was coming from the trees that sprung from the mountain valley, the same place where Faro had burst into town the day before.
They soon found themselves wishing it was just another lost beast-creature looking for help. Instead what came out of the woods was a marching nightmare. The sun had just dipped back behind the mountain, and the town was cast in shadow. A group of creatures the likes that neither of them had ever seen walked in a steady pace directly towards the center of town. They couldn’t quite make out what they were, but they could see their grayish, scaly skin and horrible, gaunt eyes as they approached.
The sight of the hideous, large creatures made them almost miss the short creature that was leading them. It was a creature almost as short as Tobi himself, and from what Tobi could tell looked like a tiny wolverine-man that had been afflicted with the same curse that had beset Faro.
Tobi nudged Faro’s leg. “I think I should just pop inside the tavern and grab my axe,” he said.
Faro didn’t take his eyes off the approaching group. “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea. Grab me something if you’ve got it.”
“Aye,” said Tobi as he slipped off into his tavern with as much haste as his legs would allow.
The town square had cleared out as Faro braced himself. He squared his shoulders to show them he wasn’t afraid of what was to come. The wolverine creature and his crew stopped on the other end of the square, just within shouting distance. The creature spoke.
“Faro Envato!” the creature hissed. His silky voice echoed across the empty square.
Envato? Faro felt like he was slowly finding pieces to a riddle that were drawing a picture that would eventually, hopefully, come into focus once he had the right piece of the puzzle.
“Obviously,” he roared back.
The creature had a look of pure malice on his face. “The High Ruler has put a price on your head. He’s sent us to complete the task that others could not. Come forward now, and we won’t tear this town to shreds after we finish you.”
Faro glanced towards the tavern door. It was completely still. What he wouldn’t give just to have even the dwarf’s dagger that he’d been stabbed with the previous day. Anything to defend himself, as it looked like there was no way out of this fight.