The glimmer that Anker had seen in the distance was nothing more than the flickering flames of a fireplace burning beyond the window of a modest wooden farmhouse.
Anker rushed to the door of the building and started knocking on the shutter, praying that they would let him in. After about a minute, a rough old man, bald and bearded, covered in furs, appeared at the door, visibly surprised by the appearance of guests at such a late hour, during a snowstorm. But as soon as he realized the state of the visitors, he rushed to let them in and before asking any questions he prepared a bear skin in the anteroom on which to lay Madja's inanimate body.
He was unexpectedly at ease with first aid maneuvers, and after examining the knight's vital signs, he said: “She's in bad shape, but she's breathing and still has a pulse,” then he slipped into a dimly lit room and emerged with a leather briefcase, saying, “Almost no one ventures up this God-forsaken peak anymore, but in this shelter, just in case, I always keep a first aid kit... let's see what I can do.”
He took off Madja's uniform coat, then extracted a steel needle from a sterile package and with great skill cannulated a vein in her left arm, despite the severe volume depletion. Talking to himself, since Anker had stood in a corner watching the operations with a serious expression on his face, he said: “Let's see, I have a one-liter vial of Venemesta’s Lily lymph, to which, since the wound is certainly infected, I can add a vial of Ectinocillum Rabariense suspension. That should be enough for now…”
He screwed a rubber tube onto the vial and waited for a couple of drops to drip from the other end, then pinched it with his fingers to stop the flow. Before proceeding, however, he looked at Madja's body with a thoughtful look, as if he wanted to ask something but was weighing his words. After a few moments he turned to Anker and observed: “Judging by your uniforms, you must be knights. I've happened to rescue a couple of them, one thing and another. Usually before each mission you receive a vial of personalized and magically treated stem cell extract, to be used in emergency situations once regenerated with Venemesta’s lily lymph. Tell me, does the girl have it?”
“I... I think so, in her belt. It's just that, well, we lost all our medical equipment on the way, so we didn't have a chance to use it…”
Hearing that statement, the man looked at Anker in amazement. Then he sighed and attached the IV, “Well, let's start with this, in an hour we'll do another half liter of lymph plus the stem cell extract.”
Getting up from the sickbed and hanging the vial on a nail protruding from the wall, he added: “The stem cell extract doesn’t work well with the Ectinocillum spores, you can't do them together. And there's no hurry: she'll make it, but her arm won't grow back for sure. I wonder how a frail little girl like her was made a knight. The things you see these days…”
Anker felt slightly offended by those words, but he was certainly not in a position to make remonstrances, so he stood in silence like a child who knows he has messed up and endures the sermon hoping it will end soon.
“But you must be hungry. Come this way, I was just having dinner,” the old man suggested, as he covered Madja's body with a second bearskin and walked into the next room.
Anker followed him into the living room with the fireplace, which was rather bare and furnished with essential and rough furniture: a sideboard, a table, a couple of chairs. In the stone fireplace hung a cauldron in which a vegetable and legume stew was simmering and, in front of it, on a deer skin rug was a stool on which the old man sat down.
“Take a chair and sit next to me,” he commanded Anker.
Anker obeyed the orders and the old man handed him a bowl of steaming minestrone and a glass of wine. The smell of the stew was pleasant and the consistency thick and full-bodied. The taste, despite the frugality of the meal, was also surprisingly complex and satisfying. The wine was sweet and went down like grape juice.
“Here, a slice of bread to dip in it. It's a bit tough, but it'll get you by,” said the old man, giving him a thick slice of white bread.
They finished their meal in silence as they watched the flames crackle in the back of the fireplace.
“Would you like some grilled cheese?”
“Thank you, but I don't have much of an appetite.”
“Look, it's good! It's sheep's cheese, I make it myself.”
The old man wouldn't listen to reason, and cooked a portion of melted cheese for both of them in an old pan on the glowing coals. He was right indeed, it was definitely good. After finishing that, the old man made a loud noise of satisfaction.
They stayed there for a while longer, watching the fire, then the old man got up to change Madja's IV. Once he had finished his task, he sat back down next to Anker.
“So, boy. What happened to you?”
“We were attacked by a Vespertine Bear. Well, actually, more than a bear, the whole pack.”
“Nasty business, nasty business. And what were you doing on the mountain in this wolfish weather?” The man asked while stirring the fire.
“We were looking for a fallen knight, Viryl.”
“Viryl?”
“Yes, Viryl of Zelfiria,” Anker declared firmly, looking the old man straight in the eye, who held his gaze without being intimidated at all. The old man might have looked like a boor, a simple shepherd, but Anker was beginning to understand where this was going.
“Viryl of Zelfiria... well, what business do you have with Viryl of Zelfiria?”
“The captain of the training corps of the Royal Order of Ferlonia, Nomenas of the Hollow Oak, assigned us the mission of recovering the Silver Exoplion that belonged to Viryl of Zelfiria.”
The old man laughed heartily and said in a wistful voice: “Ah, Nomenas of Monferrone. I'm sorry, boy, but I'm afraid that won't be possible.“
“And why not?” Anker asked, defiantly.
“Because he needs it,” the old man affirmed laconically.
Anker couldn’t stand that farce going on any longer, “You mean that you need it. You are Viryl of Zelfiria.”
“In the flesh,” the old man grunted.
Before replying, Anker took a few seconds to look at him carefully in the orange light of the fire. Although he looked older, Viryl must have been in his early sixties. The games of light and shadow created by the flames carved deep wrinkles on his face, and his grizzled and unkempt beard was still dirty with the juices of the meal he had just eaten. Covered as he was in furs, it was impossible to tell if he had a robust or slender build, but he was slightly taller than Anker and moved in a spry manner. The outcome of a duel seemed unpredictable. Moreover, given the kindness shown to him and Madja, Anker would have preferred to resolve the matter peacefully.
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“What would you use it for?“ Anker asked. “You decided to give up your title, but you haven't committed any acts of felony against the kingdom, as far as I know, and you don't strike me as a violent man; therefore, wouldn't you live a much more serene life without it? Do the right thing and return your weapon to its rightful owner, the Royal Army of Ferlonia.”
“I need it for my own purposes. Trust me, kid, you're neither the first one who tried nor the most convincing. And stop being so formal, it's getting on my nerves.”
Seeing that the old man was not giving in, Anker decided to switch to a more persuasive strategy, “Then I invoke the Prelatic Inheritance right on the Exoplion in your possession, Viryl of Zelfiria, and I challenge you to a duel with the authority granted to me by the royal edict — ”
Viryl, who was visibly losing his patience, interrupted him before he could finish, “Cut the crap with this nonsense. If it makes you feel better, get your butt kicked and then go back where you came from. But now I'm sleepy, don't bother me until tomorrow morning.”
“No, we will fight now,” Anker imposed with all his authority, then he stood up, reached the middle of the room and drew the saber he wore at his side: “To the death or until you deem me worthy to receive it.”
Viryl glared at him and sighed, exasperated: “Ah, there will be no need to go that far, little daisy. When you realize who you're dealing with, you'll run away. But just try to swing that thing inside here, with all the time I've spent fixing this place up, I'll kill you for real, God be my witness. Let's go to the yard.“
Anker found the request reasonable, also so as not to disturb Madja's sleep, and civilly agreed to follow him to the place he had designated. Viryl stood up and took off some sheepskins he was wearing over his shoulders. He was left wearing a suede tunic with a hood and a pair of sandals. He took a Fuligine Stone from a drawer of the sideboard and headed outside.
*****
The snowfall had momentarily stopped and, in the deep night, on a snow cover of no more than three inches, Anker and Viryl each conjured up a glowing orb and stood about half a yard apart. Viryl summoned with his “Advanced Telekinesis” spell two abandoned wooden poles in the yard, making them float in front of him. With a snap, the heads of the poles flattened into sharp points and were enveloped in a whitish glow. Anker pulled two spherical automata from his belt and activated them by throwing them to the ground, then cast the “Corrosion” spell and his saber was enveloped in a violet light.
“Before we cross swords, you should tell me your name, boy.”
“I am Anker of the Black Moon, from Colleluna of Valbaudia.”
“I don't think I need any introductions. I'd say we’re set,” Viryl announced.
“So do I,” Anker confirmed.
The duelists nodded to each other, and Anker immediately launched into the attack, charging with a blow. Viryl slid back and threw his wooden spears forward. Anker hit both with his saber, and he was sure that they would disintegrate on impact thanks to the corrosion spell he had infused the blade with, but instead they were simply deflected aside. Viryl's spell must have involved much more than simple hardening.
In the meantime, the automata had moved to Viryl's sides and started firing a barrage of paralyzing needles, and Anker too, ignoring the poles, rushed forward to land a blow on Viryl. But Viryl was not even remotely distracted by the diversion, he dodged the needles and recalled one of the two spears which hit Anker with the blunt end on the back, on the side of the ribcage that had been injured by the bear a few hours earlier. The blow knocked the wind out of Anker, who fell to his knees. Viryl took the opportunity for a counterattack, and after a lunge forward, kicked Anker in the face, knocking him stunned to the ground.
“Boy, you need to do better,” Viryl mocked him. “These gadgets are annoying though,” he added, addressing the automata that continued to fire needles at regular intervals. Viryl gracefully stepped onto one of them, and bent down to deactivate it with a counterspell, “There we go!”.
This time it was Anker who took advantage of the enemy's back, who had evidently overestimated his attack and still believed him out of the game. He enchanted his boots with a levitation magic that allowed him to not make any noise and jumped to Viryl's defenseless back.
But Viryl had not overestimated at all the blow he had delivered and, still crouched on the ground, he placed a hand in the snow and cast the “Melting-Freezing Water” spell, erecting behind him and to the side, the direction from which the second automaton continued to attack him, a solid barrier of ice.
These barriers were not as solid as the sticks, and Anker shattered the rear one with a single slash, but to do this he was forced to interrupt his jump and was unable to close all the distance that separated him from Viryl.
With the few moments gained, Viryl called back into his hands the two sticks that had remained floating at the site of the previous exchange, and prepared for the first hand-to-hand confrontation.
Grabbing his saber in both hands, Anker swung his blows, but Viryl deflected them one after the other, effortlessly reading his moves. Finally, when Anker had finished his charge, with a sudden flick of the wrist, Viryl jabbed Anker under the right armpit. The wound was only superficial, but as the tip of the spear pierced Anker’s flesh, a burning, unbearable pain engulfed his entire arm and chest, and the saber fell from his hand. Viryl, in addition to strengthening his makeshift weapons, must have also enchanted or poisoned them with a toxin similar to that of wasps and hornets; either way, the pain was so terrible that it left Anker helpless, at the mercy of his opponent.
Viryl looked at the uncapacitated foe standing breathless in front of him and uttered his final words: "Sweet dreams, Anker of the Black Moon."
The fallen was preparing to deliver the coup de grâce when he saw out of the corner of his eye a dark spot enter the orbit of his glowing orb. He instinctively kicked Anker out of the path of the oncoming mass and jumped back himself.
A gigantic clawed bird's foot came between Viryl and Anker, scraping the ground, and the bird to which it belonged, disproportionately large and black, almost fifteen feet tall, with flaming blue eyes, cawed with a voice so sad that it seemed a sure omen of evil intent.
Viryl, terrified by the monster's unpredictable attack, had been forced to ignore the movements of the second automaton activated by Anker, and it did not miss the opportunity to stick a paralyzing needle straight into his leg.
The beast twisted its neck and looked first at Anker, who had been thrown to the ground a couple of yards away, then at Viryl, paralyzed and kneeling. It did not directly attack either of them, and simply flapped its wings forcefully, hitting the duelists in a whirlwind that made them roll to the edge of the yard. Then the large bird marched with heavy steps towards the farmhouse and once at its threshold, demolished the entrance with a single blow, which collapsed under its heavy fir beams.
Anker, who had felt immediate relief after being kicked away by Viryl, as if with the act he had also lifted the spell casted on him, reacted immediately and shouted: “No, Madja!”, but he could not stand up and run to her rescue.
In the meantime, the black bird had inserted its head into the rubble and was trying to grab something by pecking at random, but from outside only the disgusting twitches of the iron muscles of its neck could be observed.
A few seconds passed and the monster, which must have been able to undisturbedly retrieve what it was looking for, walked away from the gutted farmhouse, and stood up in all its majesty, spreading its immense wings. The light of the glowing orbs was reflected on the bristly black feathers, on the leathery beak, smooth and streaked with slimy rivulets, on the metal object that hung from it, on which the Ferlonian coat of arms was inlaid, but the eyes, the horrendous eyes of the twisted creature shone with their own light.
Anker finally found the strength to pull himself up, reached for his saber, and launched himself, without any plan, at the monster. But well before he was within reach, the bird soared into the air and disappeared into the darkness, heading for the main peak of the Horn of Morghorou.
GLOSSARY:
Venemesta’s lily extract / cerulean extract: an extract obtained by a plant that grows in the sanctuaries. It has strong regenerative properties on magical users.
Ectinocillum Rabariense’s suspension: a yeast extract with antibiotic properties
“Advanced Telekinesis”: a special spell that is an advanced version of the basic spell “Telekinesis”. It allows fine and prolonged handling of objects, even the ones that are big in size.
“Corrosion”: a special spell that sprouts corrosive enzymes. It can be used to enchant weapons.
“Melting-Freezing Water”: a special spell, extremely powerful and hard to learn. It allows to instantly freeze water into the decided shape and melting ice into water.