Since Rain and Lunette left, Arvel had to find another ‘new normal’. One thing that had not changed in the weeks to follow was Fidget’s presence in his home. It was true that he felt a small pang of guilt for her losing contact with her tribe, but he had also grown quite attached to the feral goblin, and she to him. She had moved out of the kitchen cabinet, and come to bed with him every night since Rain left. Though she was quite the clingy cuddler, she had also shown herself to be quite the insistent lover. Arvel couldn’t bring himself to complain, even if ‘late to bed and early to rise’ was affording him less and less sleep lately.
On a morning like any other morning, Arvel woke up with Fidget in his arms. She was a warm sleeper, and frequently kicked the blankets off of them both, but would never squirm away from his body heat. She liked to be the little spoon, and was such a small spoon that her soft backside pressed back against his abs, while his chin could rest atop her head.
“You hear something?” Arvel asked quietly, his hands beginning to roam, squeezing whatever soft and pleasant parts he could find without opening his eyes.
Fidget groaned in reply, squirming a little, but tucking her face down against his bicep to block out the morning light.
“I think I heard something,” he said.
“Noooo,” she muttered, “Sleep.”
Arvel chuckled and untucked his arm from under her as he sat up, much to her dismay. He climbed over her to get out of bed and picked his trousers up from the floor, pulling them on as he shuffled out into the living room to peek out the front window. Ser Lunette had told him to be on the lookout for a merchant’s wagon, and the timing did seem to be about right.
But there was not a single merchant’s wagon on the road. No, stretched out along that long and winding gravel trail was a line of wagons, escorted by riders on horseback and people traveling on foot. At a glance, he counted twenty vehicles and more people than he’d seen in one place in years.
“What the hells?!” Arvel shouted, running to the front door and throwing it open.
Still pulling her dress over her head, Fidget came running to the sound of his alarmed cry, and when her head popped out of the collar, she too yelped in shock.
“Attack?!” Fidget squeaked.
“No,” Arvel replied, grabbing his square-headed shovel from the wall behind the door, before he marched outside; “Not an attack, but definitely something. Stay here.”
By the time Arvel made it down the winding trail on foot, most of the wagons had come to a stop, and people were beginning to unpack crates and chests from the cargo and build campfires. Having not even bothered putting on a shirt, Arvel was getting quite a few stares from the local women as he marched right into their camp, looking around with a sharp glare chiseled into his brow.
“Arvel!” a familiar voice called out.
From the back of one of the wagons, Rain emerged. She had changed in the time since he saw her last. The Marchioness of Nathulan had traded in her sapphire-blue gowns for pale blue gingham checks and exchanged her white satin gloves for a crisp linen apron. Her long lilac curls were pinned up in a pair of buns atop her head, and affixed with thin blue ribbons. She smiled softly at Arvel as she climbed down from the wagon, hurrying toward him.
“Who are all these people?!” Arvel barked.
Rain’s feet skidded on the dry ground as she came to a stop a few feet away. She balled up her fists and shouted, “Aren’t you happy to see me?!”
“I like seeing you,” Arvel replied, gripping his shovel over his shoulder as his other hand gestured wildly to the camp around him, “But what are all of them doing here?”
“These are my people,” Rain replied, “Citizens of the Nathulan Province, and many of them refugees who came to Fairvale after losing their villages to drought, or attacks. Proud, hard-working people, every one, in need of a new home.”
“But why are they here?” Arvel asked, his eyes narrowing, “Why are they on my property?”
“Well, it’s not your property, actually,” a voice said.
When Arvel turned around, he was looking at a tall and scrawny man, dressed in a noble’s finery. At a glance, it was easy to guess that he’d never had to work a day of hard labor in his twenty-something years. His chin was dusted with a smattering of blond hairs, enough to show that he was earnestly trying to grow a beard without actually growing one. Tucked under his arm was a heavy leather tome held shut with buckles.
“Frederik,” the man said, extending a hand that Arvel ignored. Frederik cleared his throat and retreated his hand back to support his book at his side, saying, “The deed for the land your father claimed very clearly states the size and shape of the plot, and we will perform a proper survey to confirm its borders before we begin any permanent construction.”
“Construction?!” Arvel shouted, “What the hells do you think you’re gonna build out here?!”
Frederik shrunk back from Arvel’s intensity, gripping his book tightly in both hands and saying, “Sir, there is no need to become irate!”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“You don’t tell me what to—”
Rain broke her silence, and said, “Elediah’s Trail.”
Arvel fell quiet.
Frederik cleared his throat once more and said, “In addition to being a legendary knight and war hero, your father also laid the gravel for the very road we’re standing on, over the span of many years. A motion had already been made to name the road after him when Lady Deleraine proposed a new settlement here.”
Arvel reached out and grabbed Rain’s wrist as he began walking.
“A-Arvel?” she asked, hurrying to keep up with his pace.
“We need to talk,” he replied, marching toward the farmhouse.
They didn’t make it all the way back before Rain broke the silence.
“I didn’t think you’d be this upset,” she said quietly.
“How could you not know I’d be upset?!” Arvel asked, spinning around to face her, still holding onto her wrist. He sighed heavily and said, “You know that a nice, peaceful, quiet life was all I wanted. You showed up looking for a hero to protect your people and no matter what you try to do, I’m not going to be that hero.”
“That’s not true,” she replied, looking down at his hand on hers, “You are a hero. You saved me when you didn’t have to. I could’ve vanished and you’d never have had to see me again, have me take up space, or eat your food. You took Fidget in too and welcomed Ser Lunette in instead of making her camp outside. I know you’re not the Immortal Knight and you never want to be, but it doesn’t change the fact you’re a hero.”
Rain lifted her head, tears flowing down her cheeks.
“You’re the hero my people need,” she said, “You’re the hero who can teach them what they have to do to work the soil in this gods-forsaken place. You’re the hero they need to show them what they have to do to make it through a long winter or protect themselves from demons.”
Arvel’s grip on Rain’s wrist relaxed, and his fingers lingered lightly on her skin before slipping away, his arm falling to his side. But, her hand remained outstretched, as if hoping his touch would return.
“You should’ve asked me,” he said quietly, “You made a decision that changes my entire life without asking me.”
“You would’ve said no,” she replied, drawing her hand back to clutch over her heart. She smiled a little even though tears still clung in the corner of her eyes, as she looked down at the ground and said, “You’re an incredibly giving person in the moment, but when you have a minute to think about it, you’re so selfish...”
Arvel clenched his fists tightly, but before he could reply, a shrill, distant sound caught his ear. He looked toward the mountainside, eyes narrowed as he listened for more.
“Did you hear something?” Rain asked.
“Yeah,” he replied. He reached out and took her hand again, as he started his quick march back toward the camp, saying, “You wanted me to teach your people how to protect themselves from demons. Well the first lesson is, you don’t go anywhere in a big group.”
The people of the camp that labored to create Elediah’s Trail were beginning to lay down their first roots. Many of them were unpacking tents from their wagons, looking for suitable places to set up, free of sharp rocks and scrub bushes. Frederik had already begun directing other young men to hammer down stakes along the roadside and string waxed cord between them, measuring out plots of land. But as Frederik marked his preliminary measurements in his book, he noted that the sky was beginning to darken.
“I thought the wasteland was supposed to be dry,” Frederik said as he closed his heavy tome and looked up toward the sky above the eastern mountains. His eyes squinted as he saw a flock of birds rise from over the top of the mountain. But, there was something strange about the way they moved. At first, it seemed as though they were birds of prey with carrion in their talons, before his eyes focused on the shapes of humanoid bodies dangling from beneath flapping bat-like wings.
“D-Demons,” Frederik stammered, before looking to the camp and shouting at the top of his lungs, “DEMONS!”
Many of the travelers began to run for cover, echoing the alarm throughout their fledgling camp. Some of them retrieved bows and arrows from their wagons, and others collected spears, but most of them simply sought anything to shield themselves.
The pack was moving fast, and erratically, bobbing up and down with each flap of their wings. The demons were skinny, lanky creatures, with bird-like talons in place of their hands and feet, and long, sharp beaks extending from their faces. They traveled in a tight cluster, some of them even bumping into one another, until they were nearly above the camp. Then, they suddenly scattered, diving down between the wagons like a swarm. Screams rose up from every direction, as travelers were raked by razor-sharp talons, and some of them snatched up from the ground and lifted into the air.
From the back of the camp, a strong voice rang out, rising above the cacophony of screams and demonic screeches.
“Guards!” Ser Lunette shouted. She raised her longsword in both hands and yelled, “We move together! Keep your heads down, let them come to you, and make them regret it!”
Though her orders were firm and reasonable, they weren’t easy to follow. One of the demons swooped down and grabbed up a woman who was scrambling to hide beneath a wagon, and when one of the guards lunged to strike at the demon, their tight formation was broken and the demons set upon them, forcing them to scatter.
The woman screamed as she was lifted off of the ground by her arm, a pair of talons wrapped tight around her bicep, tearing into her sleeve and beginning to cut her flesh from her own weight. Still, she thrashed desperately beneath the hideous monster that was carrying her higher and higher into the air. She looked up at the long-beaked creature, and its glowing red eyes as it met her gaze and let out a shrill caw.
Suddenly, the creature was struck in the face. A spear, or something like it, was hurled from the ground with enough force to crack its beak, and it let go of the woman. She screamed as she plummeted toward the ground, watching the demon erratically fly away. She made the mistake of looking back, watching the ground rapidly grow closer, and shut her eyes. But she never hit the ground. She heard a firm ‘oof’, as she was caught in a pair of arms.
When the woman lifted her head, she was looking up at the sun-tanned face of a handsome man, sitting on the ground and holding tightly to her.
“You alright?” Arvel asked, as his shovel fell to the ground beside him.
The woman slowly nodded, trembling.
Arvel stood, picking her up in his arms with ease, before setting her on her feet. He collected his square-nosed shovel from the ground beside him and said, “You’re going to want to hide somewhere. Things are gonna get messy before they’re cleaned up, and demon blood burns something fierce.”
The woman slowly backed away, before turning to run and dive beneath the cover of a wagon, hiding with several other women and children. But from between the spokes of a wagon wheel, she watched her savior turn and walk toward the demonic onslaught, with nothing to arm him but a shovel draped across his shoulder.