Year 942,

The feast had had a more devastating effect on the crusaders than the battle itself. Many, dead drunk, had failed to find their cots set up in some of the historic buildings in the old quarter of Surelekem. Viryl was among them. In the morning Lyndabel found him lying in the same flowerbed and in the same position as the night before, his face in a puddle of vomit.

“Get up, you idiot!” she shouted in his ear. In an instant the desire to declare her love to that damned drunkard had completely burnt off.

Viryl shielded his face with his forearms and muttered, “No, Mom, I don’t feel like having lasagna today.”

Lyndabel looked at him puzzled, and then kicked him in the shin.

Viryl jumped on the spot and shouted, “Ouch, what the fuck?!”

“Move. We must go visit Calgara,” Lyndabel ordered him coldly.

Viryl looked at her as if she were a ghost. Lyndabel could tell by his expression that he was trying to figure out where the hell he was. “Okay, but first I need a drink of water,” he said.

Lyndabel sighed. There was no point in denying him that little request. After some thought, the girl decided to take him to the knights' quarters where she had been sleeping.

She helped Viryl to his feet and led him out of the gardens, to the inn a couple of alleys away that the crusaders had reclaimed from the invaders. On the ground floor were three tables and a counter full of provisions that thirty knights were using for breakfast.

Viryl staggered to the counter, grabbed a waterskin, and began drinking greedily.

Radios was sitting at one of the tables, and when he saw Lyndabel and Viryl appear in the room he was biting into a hard bread slice smeared with honey. He quickly swallowed it without chewing it too much and rose to go to talk with Lyndabel.

“Hey,” Lyndabel greeted him when she saw him arrive.

“Viryl went wild last night, huh?” Radios observed, glancing across the room. Viryl’s Adam’s apple was bobbing up and down and his face was covered by the black leather of the waterskin.

“Indeed.”

There was a brief moment of silence.

“I don't know how you see it, but I’m a bit worried by his situation. And yet it's strange, it seemed to me that he had cleaned up lately,” Radios added.

“He did. I hadn't seen him like this in over a year. I don't know what got into him last night. At the beginning of the crusade he seemed a little different than usual, but then as the months went by he was back to his usual self. Then, yesterday he got all gloomy again.”

Radios thought for a while about how to respond and he finally asked, “What will you do when you return to Ferlonia?”

Lyndabel struggled to come up with an answer. “We haven’t talked about it yet. I think we’ll bring it up on the way back.”

“Will you stay with him in Corlona?”

“I don’t know…” Lyndabel trailed off. “I learned a few things about myself during the crusade. I don’t really want to go back to the life I had before. I wish he could stay with me, but—”

“But he has no intention of changing his life. He's clever, but he's never been a particularly ambitious guy, I know,” Radios completed her sentence.

Viryl wiped his mouth with the hem of his uniform sleeve and set the waterskin on the counter. Then he headed toward Lyndabel and Radios. From his gait, he looked better already.

“Sorry Radios, but we have to go see Calgara,” Lyndabel started to say goodbye when Viryl had almost reached them.

“Right, I heard he had a tough time in the battle. How is he?” Radios asked with some apprehension.

“I don't know yet. After examining her the surgeons said that they had to operate immediately. But Neugena is dead, and that is not a wound that can be treated by any doctor.”

“I could come visit her too,” Radios offered promptly.

“Are you sure you have time? You’re a busy man,” Viryl observed, adding to the conversation.

“Hey, we fought together for the entire summer campaign, I feel I must pay my respects too. And then the crusade is over for me as well. I am waiting for new instructions like anybody else.”

“Don’t listen to his nonsense, Radios. You’re more than welcome,” Lyndabel replied warmly. Then she headed out of the inn and invited her two colleagues to follow her.

*****

The three knights descended the steps of the old town of Surelekem between low, cubic buildings covered with thatched roofs. After about ten minutes of walking they reached the eastern gate of the quarter, beyond which was a square. On one side of the square was the city hospital.

The beds inside were not enough to accommodate the disproportionate number of wounded soldiers from the battle, so a field hospital was set up in continuity with the pavilions of the ancient building.

Viryl, Lyndabel and Radios walked through the tents where the dying and the inoperable were piled up, moaning incessantly. The nurses were trying to give them some relief, bustling around them. Lyndabel approached a nurse who was dressing an amputated limb and asked him for directions. He directed them to the third floor of the right building.

Once they reached the indicated floor, it was not difficult to find Calgara.

She was in a room with a single bed, plastered in white. The ceramic tiles on the floor were bottle green. There was an open window along one wall, and the sheer curtains were gently billowing. Calgara was stretched out on a cot, covered only by a sheet. From an IV bottle, cerulean infusion was slowly dripping into a vein in her arm. She was conscious.

Lyndabel entered first and stood at her bedside. Calgara turned and looked at her without interest. Then Radios and Viryl entered too and stood at the foot of the bed. No one seemed to want to speak.

“Hey,” Lyndabel began, breaking the ice.

No response.

“How are you?” Lyndabel insisted.

“Never been worse,” Calgara replied tersely.

“The operation went well at least,” Lyndabel tried to convey a modicum of positivity.

“They had to cut out two meters of intestines and my abdomen is a shithole. Does that mean it went well, Lyn?” Calgara retorted dejectedly.

“Look at the glass half full, it could have been worse. You will certainly have a long convalescence, but — ”

“But it will be months before I can swing my greatsword again, if I ever can. They’ll send me home, and I can’t accept that. I can’t just go away like this, do you understand, Lyn?” Calgara’s voice trembled with anger. The sedatives and painkillers hadn’t been enough to detach her from her emotions.

Lyndabel nodded.

Calgara’s eyelids filled with tears. “It all happened so fast, too fast… we were running together, and then she fell, and the next moment she was gone. If instead of wasting time with that stupid bat I… I thought she would get up again, that she would throw herself to the side. It can’t have happened like that, do you understand?”

Viryl sighed. In his mind, the image of the immense elephant leg descending inexorably on Neugena's body formed. A vivid scene, crystallized in his memory, indelible. He imagined himself throwing himself on the pachyderm's back with his spears in hand, or lifting two pillars of rock from the ground to block its advance, but none of his fantasies had the power to change reality.

“It can’t have ended like this. It can’t have happened that such a vile bastard took her from me so easily. I can’t accept it. I can’t accept that I didn’t kill him with my own hands. I can’t accept that he ran away from his sordid deed and disappeared into the lines of his troops. I won’t rest until I know he’s still breathing. He has to die, do you understand that, Lyn? I have to break every bone in his body. I have to listen to him scream, for hours. I have to spit on his corpse. I have to flush him out of his filthy lair, wherever that is. I have to go now, I have to — ”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Calgara began to stir and rose up on the mattress. The sheet fell on her thighs, revealing her muscular abdomen, marred by a long vertical scar. Drops of blood appeared between the stitches.

“Hey, calm down, Calgara,” Lyndabel tried to stop her, “You will, I promise you will, but first you have to get better. No one will take you back to Ferlonia if you don’t want to, someone will have to stay in Surelekem to defend it.”

Calgara cried and screamed in pain and anger, “Don’t stand here explaining to me what to do, you stupid idiot!”

With wild excitement the woman snapped the IV tube and tore off the bed rails, and continued to rant, “You don’t understand me, Lyndabel, you never have, you fucking know-it-all bitch! What the fuck do you know about it, with your pretty pink cheeks and your soft, scented hair. You’ve always pitied me, you pathetic whore, and don’t you dare deny it! You don’t know what I’ve lost, after working so hard to find it, you don’t know what it means to me to be forced into this shitty bed!”

Viryl was shocked by the sudden and unexpected turn of events, and looked at Radios. He was tense and unruffled.

“Calgara, you are still too weak. If you go now you will die,” Lyndabel replied with unnatural patience, as if the avalanche of insults she had just received had slipped off her.

“Will I die? My fucking business! What do you care if I die? You never cared about me! Where were you when it happened?! Where?! Where?!" Calgara howled and leapt off her cot, throwing her arms out as if she wanted to grab Lyndabel's hair. For a moment Lyndabel saw a murderous glint in her eyes. But then her legs gave out and she fell to her knees, the wound opening and bleeding profusely onto the floor and the sheet that was caught between her thighs.

Lyndabel crouched down next to her friend to try to get her back into bed, and Viryl could only say, “Shit.”

As Calgara still tried to push her away with her last crumbs of energy, Lyndabel turned to Viryl and Radios and shouted, “What are you doing standing there?! Go get a doctor!”

Viryl immediately ran into the ward, and Radios followed close behind. Viryl's screams could be heard in the hallway, and then a doctor and nurse appeared in the doorway. The doctor was carrying a glass hypodermic syringe filled with a clear, yellowish drug. As Lyndabel held Calgara down, the doctor firmly lowered the needle into her thigh and pressed the plunger.

Calgara continued to struggle for a few moments and finally went limp. The doctor and the nurse each took her by one leg and Lyndabel lifted her by the shoulders. Calgara's abdomen continued to drip blood. With difficulty they dragged her onto the bed, then Lyndabel and the nurse walked away, the doctor came closer to better examine the patient's wound.

“It would be best if you came out now,” the doctor suggested to Lyndabel, while he tried to staunch the wound with a clean edge of the sheet. The nurse had gone into the corridor to get a trolley with dressing supplies.

Lyndabel nodded. Before leaving, she reached into her pocket and pulled out Calgara's medal. She left it on the nightstand beside her bed.

*****

The Immolation Shore was the most sacred place in the Zephyrian religion of the Lazulian rite. Before they captured him for his death sentence, on a small beach near the port of Surelekem, Lazul the savior pushed himself into the waves with his arms raised to the sky, until he let himself drown. His white body, swollen with salt water, was returned by the surf to his devotees and then buried in a stone cave nearby. After three days Lazul was resurrected. In that modest bay of coarse, gray sand, the history of humanity had changed forever. There, a man had given the first indisputable proof of his divine nature.

It was unthinkable for a faithful Zephyrian to make a pilgrimage to Surelekem and not stop by to visit the Immolation Shore. Once they had left the hospital, Lyndabel had suggested they go, and Radios and Viryl had agreed to accompany her. They had visited the Sepulchre, lit a candle each, and then walked to the beach. At two in the afternoon the three knights were sitting among the cold dunes. They had not eaten lunch. After the events of that morning, none of them had much of an appetite.

The weather had suddenly changed and thick layers of clouds had accumulated in the sky. The sea was gray and foamy. The shrubs were bent by the wind that carried saltiness.

Lyndabel had a strange pout. If Viryl hadn't known her as he did, he would have said she was disappointed by that stupid little beach so fabled in the pilgrims' chronicles. But no, that was the expression Lyndabel wore when she was brooding over something. An expression of impatience and almost disgust.

The silence was starting to get heavy.

“Well, Lyndabel, what are you thinking?” Viryl asked her, even though he was sure he already knew the answer.

“We can't just leave like this,” Lyndabel replied.

Viryl felt almost relieved by that statement, but his expression didn’t show it. “You want to avenge her,” he said.

“What did he say his name was? Ashlem al-Suleym, Herosk of Elkaroth. Arothia, the capital of the potentate of Elkaroth, should be about ten days’ walk to the northeast,” Lyndabel began to mutter dreamily.

“I think Calgara made it clear that she wanted to kill him with her own hands,” Radios objected.

“Calgara was out of herself. She won't rest until she knows that Neugena has been avenged. She may still not feel any better after that, but until this matter is closed for good, she can't even try to move on. And even though I know how strong she is there's no guarantee she'll ever be able to do it, given her condition. I feel terribly guilty for thinking such a thought in such a sacred place, but I'm the one who has to kill that man. I have to do it for her.”

Viryl felt completely indifferent to the aforementioned aura of sacredness. “Then we will kill that man,” he said casually.

“If some of the crusaders continue to march, they will go south, past the lands already liberated by the Gregherians after their landing,” Radios observed. “The next strategic objective, if there is ever going to be one, will be to conquer the entire coast of the Salaman Channel. No one will go east. If you attack the potentate of Elkaroth, you will be alone.”

“It doesn't matter, al-Sulyem's army was hit hard in the battle and is now exhausted. We can handle this alone,” Viryl reaffirmed his intentions with determination.

“And in any case I must go. If I don't I'll never be able to look Calgara in the eye again,” Lyndabel added.

“If that's the case, I'll join you,” Radios announced. “We're talking about toppling an entire potentate. I can't leave all the glory in your hands.”

Lyndabel stood up, her boots sinking into the sand. A few drops of rain began to fall scattered across the shoreline.

She proudly proclaimed, “Then it is decided, we will leave tomorrow at dawn.”

*****

The spring of that year was particularly capricious, and during the night the weather suddenly reversed its trend. At dawn on the tenth day of Zephyricus the sky was clear and a blinding orange sun rose over the arid hills east of Surelekem.

Outside the walls, gravediggers were already hard at work, carrying bodies to the mass graves. The entire valley was filled with the smell of putrefaction. Lyndabel, Viryl, and Radios were moving briskly through it, carrying large backpacks of food, potions, and other supplies. Everything the logistics staff had allowed them to carry. Approximately, the supplies would last a dozen days.

The three knights kept each other company with lively chatter, excited for the task ahead. Since they had met for breakfast they had not remained silent for even a minute. The conversation had touched on various points, such as the route to follow, the oases at which to camp, the strategies to use to succeed in identifying the enemy contingent. Eventually Radios reviewed the supplies and Lyndabel commented by saying that it was thanks to Alfredo Clarovante's blessing that the storekeepers had been so generous with them.

“It's a good thing the Roaring Lion let us go so easily,” Radios said.

“He understood my reasons,” Lyndabel retorted. Even if he hadn’t, she would have left anyway.

“More than anything, it’s convenient for them to have someone hot on the heels of the routed Infidel army,” Viryl observed.

“Yes, that's also true. The Roaring Lion said the generals would send a vanguard to Elkaroth, but it would be days before they set out. When he saw that we were so motivated to go now, he jumped at the chance,” Lyndabel confirmed.

“Nomenas told me I was crazy to follow you,” Radios said.

“He could have come if he was that worried,” Viryl retorted.

Radios laughed heartily. “Nomenas worried about me? I don’t think so. He simply told me he’s had enough of the desert. It wasn’t a walk in the park for him to cross the Elkabahl Plateau.”

Lyndabel looked back for a moment, at the three tracks in the red sand. The walls of Surelekem were growing in distance. She had never seen a desert, but the thought of walking through one was overwhelming, she had to admit. An endless, empty expanse of sand and rock. She looked again in front of her, and tried to psyche herself up. She told herself she would never look back until she had Ashlem al-Suleym's severed head in her hands to take as a gift to Calgara.

Thirty-one years later, third day of Neviticus, 10:34 am, Meridania, Borgo Vecchio square,

After his altercation with his colleagues, Melfis went to a bistro on the edge of the old quarter of Meridania where he satisfied his craving for salty food. He ordered a slice of potato, mushroom and cured ham quiche and a liver and cheese toast, accompanied by a cappuccino and an orange juice. He ate and drank slowly, reading a newspaper. At first nothing in particular caught his attention.

As for foreign policy, a war between the kingdoms of Fortenbrit and Avuel for maritime supremacy was expected soon. The emperor of Rokmar was ill, and was about to proclaim his successor. Also in Rokmar a new heresy was testing the nerves of the Inquisition. The editorial line of the newspaper seemed to look sympathetically on this new heresy. The head of the Yuthsenian Sailors’ Guild had renewed his trade agreement with the Kràs of Surelekem: a preferential price on the duties for crossing the Salaman Canal and the promise not to attack the League’s colonies in the Eskaelia archipelago in exchange for free access to the League’s ports for Ashalmazite merchants. The news brought a half smile to his face, and he thought he should check the local news page.

A Meridanian pastry chef had won a cooking competition in Gregheria. The Belladian police had recently discovered a hundred horribly mutilated corpses in a small town in the Oiran basin. A woman had stabbed her husband because she found out he had done some disrespectful stuff behind her back. No mention of accidents or strange occurrences in the country houses outside Meridania the previous night.

As he flipped through the paper, Melfis noticed a man in a black cape standing at his table and looking at him. Pretending to continue reading, Melfis tried to study him. He was about the same age as himself, his hair slicked back, graying but verging on blond. He was sure he knew him.

“Stop pretending you didn’t notice me,” the man said.

That fucking Ferlonian accent. Now it was clear who it was. Melfis lowered the paper and asked very bluntly, “Are you here to kill me?”

“Maybe.”

“For what it’s worth, I was just doing my job.”

“I’m just doing mine.”

“I won’t question that.”

“Then why don’t you try to help me?”

Melfis set the paper down next to his empty plate. “I would if I had any fucking idea how to do it. But I guess you already know more about this than I do.”

Radios tilted his head. It was probably true.

“As I thought. So you really did come to kill me.”

“I think it’s up to him to decide whether to kill you or not.”

What? Viryl didn’t even have his Exoplion anymore. He couldn’t do anything to him in his condition.

“If you’re not here to kill me, you’re here to ask me to come with you.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“Good, don’t do that, because I couldn’t oblige,” Melfis said, lighting a cigarette and taking a greedy drag.

“Just tell me if you know who’s funding that fucking clown who claims to breed dragons and why he wants Viryl dead.”

“I don’t have the faintest idea, but I can try to find out if you want.”

“You’re fucking useless,” Radios said, turning away from Melfis.

“Wait… tell me, is he still alive?”

“Yes, but not for long. His vitals are weak. If you can't help me, goodbye. I'm in a bit of a hurry.”