Year 941,

For three days the fleet of the League of Free Communes sailed south. The route was set to the Elk Peninsula, the offshoot of the Venatolic continent that bordered the Salaman Channel to the north. There the general of the League planned to meet up with part of the crusader fleet coming from the west, before starting the land campaign.

On the twelfth day of Tetrestes the lookout of the Fortuna Serena sighted part of the allied fleet.

The detachment contained all the Avuelite ships and a large number of Ferlonian ones. While the three generals held a war council on the flagship of the Avuelite fleet, the Black Dolphin, the three knights of Ferlonia who had until then traveled with the League army were allowed to rejoin their compatriots.

When Lyndabel realized that she could finally stop eating almost exclusively polenta, she cried with joy. The good news for her, however, was not over: the contingents with which they had reunited were those of the island of Sargazia and that of Hieracruse. At the thought of seeing Calgara again, she became so cheerful and lively that it was almost annoying.

Viryl instead faced the transfer with a long face. He had enjoyed being with the knights of the Order of Libertas. They were rough and a bit bloodthirsty, but at least they weren't debauched, boastful pricks. And then there were two dozen new faces on that fucking Ferlonian galleon, and Viryl had no desire to start a new cycle of introductions and awkward glances. Thinking back to the beers he had drunk with Melfis, the knight leaned back on the rail of the dinghy that was carrying him towards his inexorable destiny, his fingertips brushing the surface of the water.

Finally the rowboat pulled up to the keel of the Ferlonian galleon, the Ace of Swords, and a rope ladder was lowered. Lyndabel enthusiastically grabbed the first rung of the ladder and began to climb, humming. Viryl nodded to Marzela, inviting her to do the same.

She commented, “Ladies first, huh?” and preceded him.

The crew of the League’s dinghy looked at Viryl for a while before he too decided to leave. Finally the knight stood up and the vessel lurched slightly.

Rather than climb the stupid rope, Viryl summoned his ethereal armor and took to the air. He didn't mean to make a grand entrance, but he didn't want to climb like a monkey.

Once he had risen above the edge of the Ace of Swords' gunwale, Viryl landed on the deck and withdrew his ethereal armor. He looked around. The twenty-four knights of the Order of Ferlonia aboard were all there in a semicircle to greet the new crewmates.

In front of them all was none other than Alfredo Clarovante of the Sixteen of the Crown, the Roaring Lion, with his hand outstretched. Behind him were at least four familiar faces. Radios, with a brand-new silver Exoplion, a couple of alumni of the Academy of the Spheres of Lazul, a guy Viryl had partaken a mission with three or four years ago. Lyndabel was hugging a giant woman with black hair and a paralytic arm, twisted and atrophied.

Viryl was dizzy and felt like he was about to pass out, there was too much information to process.

Marzela had shaken hands with Alfredo Clarovante and stepped aside, and now the man continued to hold his hand outstretched, swinging it stupidly. Viryl could do nothing but grab it, and Alfredo Clarovante squeezed it with a lot of energy.

“Viryl of the White Gale, I presume! I've heard so much about you, and finally we're meeting in person. It's a pleasure to have you among us!”

“The pleasure is mine… Sir Roaring Lion,” Viryl said tentatively, then pulled his hand back, almost ripping it from Alfredo’s grasp, and looked around uncertain on what to do next. He knew he should step aside and hide his discomfort by going to chat with someone like Marzela and Lyndabel had done, but he had no idea where to begin. He only knew snotty assholes on that ship.

The two knights who had studied at his knightly academy, a man his age and a woman a couple of years younger, two nobles, had retreated to chatter among themselves, looking at him sideways. The other guy he had met on the mission had turned to look away. Lyndabel was chatting with the big woman and another girl with ash-colored hair and seemed to have completely forgotten about him.

Only Radios watched him with his arms folded, tapping the wooden boards of the floor with his boot toe. He seemed almost annoyed that Viryl hadn't come to him immediately.

But Radios was the biggest snotty asshole of all, and after their adventure against the Fearkan at Ophania Lake he hadn't been seen since. He had probably spent the last eleven years of his life climbing the ranks in the royal court of Hieracruse. Viryl didn't even know he had been selected to take part in the crusade.

In any case, he had to get out of the way before his hesitation became embarrassing, so he ended up picking the latter for his protocol small talk.

Radios welcomed him with folded arms, with his usual haughtiness, “Long time no see, huh?”

“I've never actually read your name in the obituaries, so it was bound to happen sooner or later,” Viryl shot back, holding his ground.

“Come on, there’s no need to be so crabby. I’m sorry I never showed up in Zelfiria and I didn’t get in touch, but they’ve been busy years for me. You know, I've traveled quite a bit.”

“Oh, don't tell me.”

“You, on the other hand, have devoted yourself mainly to hunting beasts, from what I learned. And you have become quite good at it, too.”

“If you want to put it that way. I didn't think you knew about it.”

“I had to study the reports of several missions. Who do you think mentioned your name and your partner’s to the Roaring Lion?”

Viryl put his hands on his hips and looked him straight in the eyes. Was Radios really behind his conscription? The madman probably thought he had done him a great honor.

“How’s Tolomer doing?” Radios asked, taking advantage of Viryl’s pause.

“As usual. The last time I went to see him, a little over a month ago, he was on a drug spree.”

“They offered him a chair at the University of Corlona, right?”

“Yes, but I don't know how long he can keep it. He's not cut out for teaching, I don't think so at least,” Viryl explained, amazed at how well informed Radios was about his old friends.

“Your partner is coming,” Radios whispered in a thin voice.

“Would you please stop calling her my — ”

“Hey, I didn’t think you had friends on this ship, too!” Lyndabel’s voice trilled brightly in Viryl’s ears.

Turning around with a dazed look and a slightly red face, Viryl retorted, “Yeah, well… childhood friend , he’s — ”

Radios stepped forward, grabbed Lyndabel's right hand, kissed it, and took the words out of Viryl's mouth, “Radios of Zelfiria, the Shining Sun. You must be Lyndabel of the Radiant Sparkle, I presume."

“Don't flirt with her, Radios,” the tall black-haired woman snapped back, towering behind Lyndabel. The gray-haired woman had followed Lyndabel too, and hearing those words she casted a fleeting, reproachful glance at the tall woman.

“She is Calgara of the Lunar Peak, from Alanzasu. I have often spoken to you of her," Lyndabel said almost solemnly, introducing her friend.

Viryl raised his right hand, looked at it for a moment, lowered it, and then raised her left. “Yes, it’s true. I’m finally meeting you, Calgara.”

A wild, rushing torrent of strange thoughts clogged Viryl’s mind. This woman was… strange. And her voice was strange, her build was strange, her face was strange. Even the fucking name of the place she came from was strange, but well, Sargazia was a strange island with a strange dialect. Regardless of the strangeness, Lyndabel could have told him at least a little in advance about Calgara’s main physical characteristic, which was that she was crippled. Viryl expected Lyndabel’s best friend to be a plain girl like herself, not this hulking—

All of Viryl's internal dialogue was silenced when Calgara squeezed his hand tightly, and almost spitefully replied, “The pleasure is all mine, Viryl of the White Gale.”

“And then, the knight who is at her side is Neugena of the Green Stem, from Sermodia,” Lyndabel continued.

“And I'm Calgara's girlfriend ,” Neugena added, emphasizing the point with the inflection of her voice.

“They make a pretty good team, you know? They’re really close-knit,” Radios confirmed.

“Oh, I see,” Viryl nodded, and shook Neugena’s hand. She was a pretty girl, in her thirties. Her eyes were the same color as her hair, and she had funny dimples at the sides of her mouth.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Viryl had a hunch about some unspoken conflicts in the conversation, and to test his theory for a moment he thought about adding that he and Lyndabel were a good team too. But his dizziness had gotten worse, and the spring midday sun was getting to his head. So he quickly concluded his introduction, “Well, it was nice to meet you, but I’m not feeling very well and I really need a nap. Tell me, where are the knights’ cabins?”

*****

When he woke up Viryl rubbed his eyes and rolled over on the other side of the bunk, burying his face in the thin pillow. His cheek felt wet. He had been drooling in his sleep. Judging by the intensity and color of the light coming through the porthole of the cabin, it must have been late afternoon.

Viryl tried to stifle his thoughts and let time pass until nightfall. There was no point in leaving before dinner. After all, the activities he could have engaged in, from playing cards to sitting on the deck reading a book, would involve interacting with the other knights, and for now he wanted to avoid that.

For about thirty minutes after he woke up, Viryl managed to vegetate on his cot without anyone bothering him, then his homing crystal vibrated. Viryl began to decode the sequence of pulses of the message. “Melfis here - stop - any news.”

Viryl scratched his skull and grunted. After the unfortunate incident at the armory of the Fortuna Serena, Melfis was having trouble getting his Exoplion repaired. The blacksmith had recovered, but now he wanted nothing more to do with him. So, before Viryl moved to the Ace of Swords, he had asked him to ask the Ferlonian blacksmith for help, for a fair fee of course.

In fact, the matter was of great interest to Viryl himself, since he had almost exhausted the Fuligine Stone coating on his Exoplion and ground operations on the Elk Peninsula would begin in a few days. It wasn't a problem that could wait.

Viryl sat down on the cot, pulled on his uniform boots, stood up, and scratched his right buttock, which was itchy. He also had to pee, but he didn't want to pick up the filthy potty under the bed, which had been used by who knows how many others before him, so he decided to find a latrine to do his business in later.

The knights' cabins were in the poop deck, on the first level. They were built along the outer perimeter of a large hall and each was very small in size, so as to accommodate up to fifty knights. The bunks opened onto a central hall, covered with a burgundy carpet with green and gold floral patterns.

In the center of the hall were a few tables and green leather sofas. It seemed like the perfect place to relax, away from the chaos on deck and below.

When Viryl emerged from his bunk, the hall was deserted, save for two knights playing chess in the center of the room. At the creak of the rusty hinges of the wooden shutter of the cabin, the two knights' eyes rose from the chessboard and rested on Viryl.

They were the two nobles who had studied with him at the Academy of the Spheres of Lazul.

“Viryl of the White Gale. Long time no see,” the male began. His voice sounded neutral, monotone, but there was an indefinable unsettling quality to it, something dark.

Without being able to understand why, Viryl felt unnerved. It wasn't the presence of the two knights that had that effect, but the fact that they were alone, in total silence, their features relaxed and expressionless, almost fake, the dim light of the room and the stale smell of the upholstery. After sleeping, the dizziness seemed to have disappeared, and now it had suddenly returned.

Of course Viryl remembered the man's name, for ten years they had studied in the same classrooms, attending the same professors' lessons. Obelard Asparone, the Black Serpent. As for the woman, it was a little more difficult. He remembered her because she was beautiful, maybe he had even had a crush on her, even if they had never spoken directly. He wasn't proud of remembering it, but maybe, maybe, on a couple of occasions, he might have had a couple dirty thoughts about her. What was her name? It had something floral about it.

“Viryl, are you happy to see us again?” the woman asked, as expressionless as Obelard.

Viryl tried harder to think about them. All the information he could recall. He remembered that they both frequented the same club. They were members of the Laboratory for Research on the Magical Arts. He, on the other hand, had been a member of the Laboratory for Alchemical and Medical Sciences.

“I don't know, Camelia, our plebeian friend thinks we're snotty assholes ,” Obelard replied disconsolately.

Viryl's breath caught in his throat. A mind-reading spell? Impossible. Reading the target's brainwaves meant altering them. You couldn't rummage around in people's heads without them knowing it. And Viryl couldn't sense any sympathionic flow, they weren't using magic. Unless they'd developed a new technique that allowed them to read minds stealthily, and if that was the case, that meant—

“But he thinks I'm beautiful, and that flatters me,” the woman replied.

“Oh, Camelia, women are so vain. It takes little effort to let it go to your heads.”

Viryl felt his mouth go dry and he needed to swallow, and suddenly all the hair on his body stood up. Shivers ran down his spine. A sense of dread had taken hold of him, a fear that was too much for that context and he couldn’t identify the cause. This was an artificial sense of dread.

The outer door of the hall swung open, and the afternoon light filled the room. With the gloom, Viryl's fear dissipated. The knight turned toward the source of the light, and saw Lyndabel's figure in the doorway.

“Hey, so you’re awake. I was looking for you. I got a message from Melfis, I think he wanted to remind you to go talk to the blacksmith,” Lyndabel began, unaware of what had been going on in there before she arrived. Then she turned to the other two knights and added, “Oh, Camelia, you’re here too! What were you two up to? Reminiscing about your academy days?”

“Something like that, dear,” Camelia replied amusedly, a delicate smile on her lips.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt you.”

“Absolutely not, Viryl's all yours.”

Lyndabel smiled back at Camelia, then motioned for Viryl to join her. He did so without a word. When he was beside her, Lyndabel grabbed his wrist, pulled him out, and closed the door.

Amid the excited chatter of the sailors on deck, Viryl breathed a sigh of relief and asked his friend, “Do you know them?”

“Who?”

“Obelard and Camelia.”

“I can't say I know Obelard very well, even though we went to the same club. Camelia, on the other hand, I know quite well. Calgara and I were in her dormitory, and she was in her sixth year when we started the academy. We had more opportunities to bond,” Lyndabel explained.

“Oh.”

“Well, then, shall we go to the blacksmith?”

*****

The blacksmith was puzzled by Viryl's request, but he showed some understanding when he learned that Melfis had had a disagreement with his League counterpart. Viryl and Lyndabel took the opportunity to have their Exoplions fixed, and were happy to see that their blacksmith was no slouch compared to the League's, who was certainly very good but also quite an asshole .

A couple of hours later, after leaving the armory, the two knights went to the mess. Lyndabel helped herself to a portion of spaghetti with tuna, capers, and black olives, and devoured the entire dish in less than five minutes. Viryl chose cod and crostini, and ate much more slowly. As Viryl brought the second crostini to his mouth, Lyndabel raised her face from her empty plate and looked at him, a little ashamed for having been so ravenous. There was parsley between her teeth. Viryl laughed because she looked like a tooth had fallen out.

After dinner, the two knights went on deck to walk a bit under the stars. There was hardly a soul on deck, only a cabin boy mopping and a few sailors busy with the rigging. The moons had begun their cycle again, and in the sky there was a white crescent moon.

“Things are going to get serious in a couple of days, huh?” Viryl began.

Once the land campaign began in the potentate of Elkamahr, the westernmost Infidel stronghold in the Sebiru region, the crusaders would be given no respite. No galleons to return to, no rest after battle. Only assaults, conquests, marches to new outposts.

“I can’t wait!” Lyndabel replied happily, energy bursting from every pore.

For the first time since he’d left, Viryl didn’t feel pressured to pretend to share Lyndabel’s excitement. He was a little excited himself. “We’ll crush these monsters and bring peace and freedom!”

“We will liberate the Holy Sepulchre!” Lyndabel echoed.

A gust of wind ruffled Lyndabel's bangs and her hair fell over her eyes. Viryl gently brushed her locks aside and looked into her eyes. Her cheeks were red and she was shivering a little in the cool spring breeze. Her eyes suddenly watered, and then she opened her petulant little mouth again.

“Just try not to die, Viryl. Understand? You've been weird ever since we started the crusade. In a few months Surelekem will be ours, and then we'll have our whole lives ahead of us again. We'll go back to Ferlonia and — ”

“I won't die, Lyndabel, and you won't die either. No matter what happens, I'll always be here for you.”

Thirty-two years later, day two of Neviticus, 11:43 p.m., Meridania’s red-light district,

Flinging open the door to the inn where the Grand Master’s team of knights had gathered, Hammerless’ body slung over his shoulders, Melfis ordered, “Get this moron back in shape.”

“What the fuck happened? Who did this to him?” Bubbleblower, a knight in teal armor, asked, slamming his hand of cards on the table and leaping to his feet.

Melfis set Hammerless down in a chair, and simply replied, “I did.”

“Huh?” Boartusk, another fat knight, huffed questioningly, looking up from his cards and at Jawbreaker in confusion.

“He was going to put a nail in the brain of a whore in the middle of a crowded brothel, and you’ll agree with me that would have been a real pain in the ass to fix,” Melfis explained succinctly.

“Yeah, but… I mean, you had no other way to stop him than to beat the shit out of him, Jawbreaker?” Rustball asked in a trembling voice.

Melfis gave him a very telling look. Everyone in that room knew what a dickhead Hammerless was when he put his mind to it.

Without saying anything, as a couple of knights rushed to help Hammerless, Melfis turned his back on everyone and walked back toward the door he’d come in through.

“Hey… where are you going?” Rustball stopped him.

“I’m going home.”

“And we’re going to continue the search alone?” Bubbleblower asked.

“Do whatever you want. My wife is waiting for me, and it’s getting late tonight as well. She’ll kick me out eventually if I keep this up.”

Out in the alley, Melfis lit a cigarette and took a drag. Viryl was proving to be a tough nut to crack. Not that he’d ever had any doubts about that. They’d been chasing him for almost an entire day and no one had any idea where the fuck he was. It wasn’t out of the question that the son of a bitch would get away with it this time.

A smile played involuntarily on Melfis’s lips, and he took another drag on his cigarette. What the hell. He had no desire to tarnish his reputation by failing the mission, but he just didn’t like what he was doing. Given his personal relationship with the target, his participation was a given, he was too valuable an asset not to use. He couldn’t say no. But damn, it was Viryl they were talking about. How could he not root for him? He and that bald guy had been together in some deep shit back in the days. Something that was hard to understand for the newest kids who had never been at war.