“No!” Ardovar Verrier shrieked and stumbled backward. “You destroyed the circlet of Aegisthies! Do you even fathom how valuable it is, and how old? You uncultured savage swine! How dare you use dark magic against us? Sofia, grab him, take him under arrest.”
Captain Sofia Dion had in her eyes a hesitant look as she would rather turn around and leave. But she dutifully straightened her back and stepped forward.
“He used black magic! You all saw him use the forbidden arts,” Ardovar continued to shout madly and pointed at the gathered audience before him who all stood silently and looked with disturbed expressions. “Dark magic, blood magic. You all saw him!”
He went on to mumble to himself, but all I heard was Goxhandar’s voice urging me to strike quickly and fast against Sofia Dion. I felt the buzzing tingles on my fingertips and felt the familiar pull on its haft.
“Go,” Goxhandar whispered. “Crush them. They mean to hurt you. I can sense it. Strike them down.”
Beside captain Dion stood Rian Gallos, tall and grim-looking. He had come prepared, wearing black chain mail under his dark coat, and had his straight and sleek greatsword drawn out, and pointing at the ground. When Sofia took two hesitant steps forward as commanded, Rian remained rooted to the spot, his eyes flickering back and forth between the captain and the Lord Commander.
Rian Gallos stood frozen in place, as were the other young men and women of the Cappesand lodge. None dared to move, and a soft wind picked up. And all the while, Goxhandar whispered into my ear how I should break their lines apart. How easy it would be to carve them open and rend them apart.
“None stood against you before,” were Goxhandar’s honeyed words. “None should dare to contest you now! They have no idea the power you once wielded. Make an example of them, master.”
Urged by its gleeful agitation, I raised the Blood Maul and aimed it at Sofia Dion’s dull grey plate of war. This aggressive move was too much for Florencia to take, and she stormed ahead and stopped in front of captain Dion.
“Stop!” she cried out to her. “Sofia, please stop this. This is crazy!”
“Silence,” Sofia said quietly, her confidence rapidly eroding. “I must do my duty and obey the Lord Commander’s orders.”
“This is madness! Jonas has done nothing wrong,” Florencia said desperately. “He’s not doing black magic, nor blood magic, or anything like that. How can you even think that? And he is still under my protection. By our own rules, you cannot arrest him.”
For all this time, Jace had stood back, shocked and afraid by what was going on. But Florencia’s last outburst urged him to step forward and speak.
“I was there,” he said with an eager voice, also not truly comprehending what was happening. “I can confirm that Jonas did not use dark magic! If you need me to testify to this, I will. I give you my word, Lord Commander!”
“If I wanted your input, guardian Vialisios, I would’ve asked for it. Next time I will send you far away, so I won’t have to deal with your incompetence,” Ardovar Verrier said, his voice carried far by the wind, and the people of Scorro shuddered against this strange oratory power. “Now, stand aside, both of you!”
The Lord Commander’s voice turned even more poisonous: “I should never have trusted you, Florencia, when you took his side. I should have understood, but I still had hope for us. Now there is no hope. I will never ignore my instincts ever again. Sofia, take him. Take him now!”
Captain Sofia Dion took another step forward, her hard heel landing softly on the stone pavement, but I knew she was on the verge of breaking down. I did not even have to pull the strings of her mind to read what was clearly seen in her eyes.
I then gained more confidence and held the Blood Maul straight, pointing at her chest. Sofia could not take her eyes off it. Almost on command, the weapon breathed out a swarthy air that stank of blood, and its countless strange etchings pulsed a menacing crimson.
“I—” captain Dion said, but faltered.
And as if in my right ear, whispered a voice, almost jumping around with excitement: “Strike her down. She meant to hurt you. I can taste her thoughts.”
“Does she still want to hurt me?” I asked, catching my own violent urges before they took a hold of me.
“No, master. She now intends to retreat.”
“Let’s help her, then. I don’t want another bloodbath!” I thought and thrust the maul forward.
The blindingly quick but measured thrust caught Sofia Dion off guard. She could not even react before the pointed tip of the otherworldly maul jabbed into her steel plate, and with a deafening thunder, the chest plate cracked. For all to see, the jagged edges of the armor now glowed an odd bronze color and stank of rust.
Her sword fell to the ground with a dull clatter. Her spirit broken, she stumbled back, and I lowered the maul to the ground victoriously, where it stayed waiting.
Then, a powerful voice growled from behind the terrified Yasman Lodge members.
“Stop this!”
Philemon Petridies stepped forward and shrugged off his coat onto the ground, his eyes now filled with a strange kind of determination.
“Ardovar, this cannot be the way we settle this. This is not who we are. This is not how we do things.”
“Philemon,” the Ardovar barked back. “You see him use dark magic, just like I said, just like Sofia said! You know that I have the right to take him. He is dangerous for everyone! There is no other way. Philemon… There is no other way to fix this—”
“No!” replied Philemon firmly. “I won’t allow this madness. Mr. Espian, you must come with us.”
But the Lord Commander had other ideas. Not waiting for his superior—the Cappesand Academy dean—he raised his hand up high to signal his subordinates to advance.
But none moved. All stood still, and most dared not to even breathe.
I was ashamed to admit that I felt a wicked joy at breaking their spirit. It almost gave me strength. But Goxhandar was annoyed over the boring standoff, and I felt its weight shifting around oddly on my shoulder. It was now thorny and irritated.
Then we heard hurried running.
“Captain!” a high-pitched voice came from between the ruined buildings. “Captain Molin! Reinforcements!”
A young guardsman, clean-shaved and baby-faced, ran through a thick puff of smoke and stopped in front of the worried captain of Scorro. He regained his breath after panting heavily, then straightened his back and saluted.
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“Captain, a royal envoy is coming from the capital! Reinforcements from the King! I counted a hundred or more riders. There is also aid coming from the south, I hear.”
Immediately, the tension broke between Ardovar and me, and our conflict was postponed.
The crowds dispersed, and many ran into the town, from where we soon heard the cavalry galloping at full speed.
“Later,” I told Goxhandar and willed it away with only a thought. The maul turned into a dark shadow, and with a quiet whisper, it disappeared.
Florencia then appeared beside me, entirely shaken and disturbed, and not even knowing what to say.
“Jonas,” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. They won’t listen to me.”
“It’s alright,” I said while not really meaning it, and took her hand in mine. She was cold and shivering, and I understood why she felt this way.
“You said you were with the Lodge.” Iskander came to us with heavy steps. Trailing behind him was Jaxine, with an upset frown on her face, and she held her hands under her dark grey coat.
“But allies don’t act like this,” Iskander said with his stiff Szell accent, overpronouncing his words. “Your manners are weird.”
“No, no they do not,” Florencia replied and the five of us stood on the side of the road to wait for what was about to happen.
A deep and resonant rumbling heralded the arrival of over a hundred armored and cloaked riders, and what a magnificent sight it was.
At the head of the double column rode a man whose proud bearing and height commanded attention. He sat atop a magnificent steed, one of the largest I had ever seen. A high helmet of polished steel protected his face, adorned with plumed feathers of sapphire blue and gold. Covering his steel cuirass that shimmered in the dim light was a great cloak of the same rich blue, edged with golden trimmings. Hanging from his left shoulder was a pair of golden aiguillettes.
The royal envoy arrived with the deafening sound of countless hooves on the paved road. The rider’s horse let out a loud neigh as it came to a halt, and the man dismounted gracefully, his boots landing with a soft thud and a heavy grunt.
“Hail, champions of Scorro!” the gilded man exclaimed, arranging his aiguillettes back in their proper place, and removing his helm. The man underneath was no less glorious than the plumed helmet—thick mustache and a short, trimmed black beard, and dark and uncompromising eyes. “I am colonel Matteos Carbael, commander of the 1st Estalarch Corisseri regiment. His Majesty, King Gussario Landoros, has sent me to bring reinforcements in this time of need. Where is your commander?”
And while captain Molin had given his lordship over to the young Fiesi baron, he stepped forward to greet the mighty military man himself.
“It’s me, captain Dario Molin!” he said and bowed in front of the gilded colonel.
“Captain Molin,” colonel Matteos Carbael said. “I heard you behaved admirably in the face of a great danger. To your service, I leave eighty of my finest men. May they do their duty well.”
Colonel Carbael then turned towards the crowd of furious and confused mages all standing haphazardly in the middle of the crossroads.
“And to you,” he said. “I bring commands from the honorable Rainier Pitties, royal advisor. Who here are Philemon Petridies, Ardovar Verrier, Sofia Dion, Florencia Regalla, and Jace Vialisios?”
Philemon Petridies stepped forward, his eyes narrowing in annoyance that his plans were interrupted. He stopped before the tall and imposing figure of the colonel, whose armor shone a silver hue in the bright moonlight, and who was entirely unfazed by the dean of Cappesand.
“I am Philemon Petridies. What is this about?”
“You and the members I read before are being summoned to Estalarch for the hearing of Sanermo.”
“Already?” Ardovar Verrier cried out from behind the dean and ran next to him, but stopped a step further back. “The hearing was to take place a month from now. We should’ve had more time!”
“It has been moved ahead,” the colonel said adamantly, and so that everyone could hear. “Because of unforeseen circumstances.”
He took a letter from under his cloak and handed it over to Philemon, who tore it open and read it silently.
“These are orders from Rainier Pitties himself, signed a day ago!” colonel Matteos said with a cold and uncompromising tone. “You will accompany us back to the capital immediately.”
The gilded commander then turned to Florencia and me, not even waiting for the answer. His mounted cavalrymen slowly encircled us, and the horses grew unsteady.
“Are you three Jonas Espian, Iskander Karis and Jaxine Penkios?”
We nodded rather dumbfounded as colonel Matteos stomped before us.
“Rainier Pitties summons you three as well,” he read from another letter he opened.
“Us?” Iskander shouted and grabbed a hold of his sword handle.
“You are within the borders of Lienor,” the colonel said, again unmoved by the sudden aggressive move. “You obey the commands of the king.”
With a wave of his hand, twenty of his steel-clad riders pounded their chest with the fist that held the reins but still held their long spears up.
“You three shall also come to Estalarch immediately,” the commander repeated. “I have prepared horses for you, along with shackles for your wrists, though I know you are powerfully gifted. You shall not remove the chains, nor shall you decline the summons. My terms are non-negotiable.”
“You can’t!” Jaxine cried out and looked around her as the men of war atop horses stood menacingly. “You can’t just command us like this!”
“A city is ruins and thousands are dead,” colonel Carbael said. “You are within the borders of Lienor. And the royal advisor says you have a provable connection to what happened here. Therefore you answer to our laws. You shall come, whether you like it or not. Have I made myself clear?”
“Go fuck yourselves,” Iskander said, but quickly added, “but we’ll come.”
The colonel nodded grimly, still holding his helmet between his left armpit, and turned to me.
“When we rode past the refugees tonight, I heard talk of a powerful warrior. The chains I must put upon you would not contain you. I understand that, but I must follow my orders.”
The colonel signaled some of his men to dismount and grab wrist-chains. “Will you oppose us?”
“Jonas,” Jace whispered with a very distant voice as if he was not entirely here. “We should go with them.”
The order to take me came directly from the king’s advisor, Rainier Pitties, whose name I had heard many times before already. And while I disliked the way this was being handled, there was a calling inside my heart that urged me to follow this new path that was unfolding before me.
This felt right, and I felt like I should not resist these men.
Florencia still stood at my side, and her hands were cold and shivering. “Let’s find out what this is,” I told her in a calming tone, but it felt like that had done little to ease her turmoil.
I met the colonel’s gaze with a calm expression, then nodded and held out my arms, palms up, in front of me. Jace followed suit, with very few worries now, and after him, Iskander and Jaxine accepted that their fate was now out of their hands. Florencia was the last to comply, her spirit already broken from the altercation before. She made no move to resist as the guards shackled heavy chains around her wrists.
And although Goxhandar was again in its half-slumber state, I could sense its lingering annoyance towards the de-escalation that had happened. Its disapproval seemed to echo in my head, and I heard words repeat over and over again. Have you no grit? Are you so weak that you permit these weaklings to treat you thus?
Whether that was me, or the Blood Maul, I did not even know.
But to colonel Matteos Carbael, our surrender was a great relief. He breathed out heavily and rubbed his tired eyes.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” he told us. “We rode here for over a day without rest, hurrying our horses to their breaking point. Now we must do this again on our journey back. We shall leave at once!”
With even heavier steps than before, he went over to Philemon and Ardovar. The two were busy arguing in whispered voices, Sofia Dion and Rian Gallos standing further back and holding watch over the rest of the Yasman Lodge whelps.
I tried reaching out to overhear what the two master wizards were talking about, but my mind could not pierce their veil. They seemed to have woven a muting wall around them so nobody could overhear their secret conversation.
“We will ride to Estalarch immediately,” colonel Carbael told them, rudely interrupting them. “Follow our column, and keep up!”
Everything went by so quickly that I could not notice all the details.
Eighty men of the 1st Estalarch cavalry regiment stayed behind in Scorro, under the command of captain Molin, to help with the rebuilding efforts, and to patrol the countryside in case there were still surviving enemies of the massacre, though I could not sense any. Before I was taken away, he bowed his head in a last gesture of deep gratitude, before vanishing amidst the smoldering and ruined buildings of Scorro. He would try to restore some semblance of normalcy to the town.
Soon came another few dozen men, shorter and worse equipped, from Doffro—a large town close to the east.
“I guess it’s fortunate that you left all your personal gear back in Bessou,” I said to Florencia, trying to lighten the mood. Unfortunately, my attempt fell flat as we were yanked away from the rest of the Lodge members like prisoners.
The night wore on and the action grew around us. The five of us were politely assisted onto horses that they had brought along for this purpose. Twenty tall and armored men with spears and sapphire-blue cloaks accompanied us on the journey to the capital city of Lienor.
When the tiny moon was high in the sky, oddly illuminating the stoned road leading north-west and a soft wind blew from behind, we rode quickly on to meet king Gussario Marquize Landoros II and his advisor Rainier Pitties.