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Glen
Arguen Garth
Hardir O’ Fardor
Monarch O’ Morn Taras
Gifts in her cradle
Part I
-It’s good that you didn’t-
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> Clink.
The sound of gold striking the polished tiles.
Uh? A sweaty Glen gasped in his sleep.
Ding-a-ling, the child cooed in her cradle.
The night hot despite the open window.
Soul Kin, Uvrycres rustled. With thin blood.
Glen smacked his lips, the darkness heavy. His mouth tasting of orange and whatever else Sen had used in her bath water.
There was that clinking sound again. A gold coin rolling on the granite tiles.
Hmm.
He found the edge of the large bed and placed his feet on the cool floor. Glen couldn’t see anything, no light coming from the open window. The size of the latter impressive as everything the Zilan had built. As if the summer night had turned starless all of sudden.
Big walls, big doors, he thought standing up.
The coin found its destination with a loud clank, the sound different in quality.
Metal on metal.
Treasure.
Precious, Uvrycres appeared to agree initially, before going another way. But very fragile.
How can I hear you? Where have you been? Glen asked afore remembering he didn’t have the dagger near.
Ah, damn it, the former thief thought and woke up for real.
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“Uhm,” Fikumin murmured, watching him coming down the stairs under bushy eyebrows. All Glen could see protruding over the table was that gigantic head of his, lots of thick hair all over it, two stubby hands and a bit of neck where the short robes parted.
Lots of hair spilling out of there too.
Whoa my dude.
Fikumin could make himself a new wardrobe by just going to the barber once a week and keep the produce.
The thought raising his spirits somewhat.
“Is that sheep milk?” Glen probed finding a chair to sit. Fikumin pulled the cup away from him, but Glen stooped deftly and snatched the bowl with fruit that was his real target all along.
Haha.
Ye sucker.
“A good thing they built roomy halls,” he told the scowling dwarf, whilst murdering a peeled banana. He just shoved the whole thing into his mouth, not bothering with the spillage. Fikumin couldn’t really criticize his manners seeing as Glen had copied the dwarf’s eating habits. He paused to swallow most of the mushy material down, afore continuing his diatribe. “Else it would have been impossible to survive their humid, hot summers. In a sense them fools know what they’re doing. Right?”
“It is an established fact,” Fikumin grunted.
“It’s what I’m saying dwarf.”
“Nobody had ever disputed the Zilan’s ingenuity Garth, or their frugality, afore you came along,” Fikumin elucidated, as if Glen hadn’t gotten what he was saying.
“Isn’t that contrary? You don’t make sense.”
Fikumin stared at him solemnly. “No, it isn’t.”
Glen shrugged his shoulders. “Let’s agree to disagree,” he retorted. Fikumin just wouldn’t admit when he got something wrong. The poor man is drowning in his insecurities. Glen decided to cut him some slack.
He slapped his thighs with both hands. “So then, ah… it’s good to wake up early so we can have these talks my friend. Get a bit of work out of the way sort of speak.”
Fikumin glanced at his scrolls, while Glen reached for a slice of an oversized neatly cut ripe mango.
“I don’t believe we talked about anything of substance Garth.”
“Here’s yer chance then,” Glen retorted readily, gathering the juices from the sides of his mouth.
“There’s a meeting in a couple of hours.”
“Listen, I’ll try to make it, but if I don’t, go ahead without me.”
“The reason being?” Fikumin probed, being an annoying little shit.
“I need to visit Voron and that’s a trip and a half in this heat,” Glen told him and looked for a towel as his fingers had turned all sticky. You find yourself covered in sweet juice in Goras, you better clean up fast else the bugs will get you.
“Voron sends reports at the end of each day. Very thorough.”
“You don’t expect me to read that moron’s scribblings right?” Glen protested and glanced to the side alarmed hearing a swooshing sound. Seeyu’s tired face almost gave him a heart attack.
Seeyu’s uncanny ability to appear unannounced would get him in trouble someday, he mused.
“Master Garth,” the slave said pensively. “I can prepare breakfast.”
“Fuck’s sake,” Glen said. “Don’t sneak up on me mate!”
“He was standing right there all along,” Fikumin grunted.
“Well, I hadn’t woken up fully,” Glen defended himself and his peripheral vision. “Anyway, enough about your problems Fiku, I have stuff of my own to attend to,” he stood up and stretched his arms out.
“What do you think Seeyu?” Glen asked the smiling slave.
“Master Garth is in excellent form,” Seeyu replied honestly.
“Yeah,” Glen agreed grinning. “Eat every day, fuck a lot and exercise,” he advised them and walked away intending to head for the stables. Two strides in, Glen paused with a frown and turned around to the expecting duo.
Damnit.
“Seeyu,” he said all serious. “Run upstairs to get me my boots and a shirt.”
Ye can’t waltz outside barefooted and that’s a lot of stairs to climb back up again.
“Your blades Master Garth?”
“Them too,” Glen grunted a little frustrated with the sniggering dwarf.
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Cat jumped him the moment he stepped outside, a flushed Phinariel running after the small lion to pick him up. The Nimra cub unwilling to let go of Glen’s boot.
“Arguen Garth,” the pretty Zilan gasped, a high pitch in her voice. “You got up so early?”
“I always do,” Glen lied helping her up. Cat snarled and then sneezed loudly failing to reach him with its small paws. Actually the cub was much bigger than a cat already.
Perhaps a different name was in order.
Hmm.
Big Cat.
Eh.
“I didn’t know,” Phinariel admitted.
Paws.
“Is there a reason behind your diverse schedule?” The curious teenager probed further.
Fucking.
“Eh, I’m a busy man,” Glen told her instead. “I get tired.”
One could argue rolling in the proverbial hay was as tiresome as digging.
Absent callouses.
Phinariel chuckled hugging the snarling Cat fiercely. “I’m such a fool! I always forget it. You are not a Zilan Arguen Garth. There’s a song to remedy that.”
Right.
“Ahm, Fiku is awake Phina,” Glen told her. “So go along now, you don’t want to be late. He needs yer help.”
Phinariel beamed, bowed deeply and twirled around to run inside, taking the furious cub with her.
A drowsy Alan Kirk making way for her, giving the long-legged female a thorough onceover, followed by a frown.
“Bing woke ye up?” Glen asked him.
“Aye, told me you were leaving,” the bodyguard replied with a yawn. “What’s wit the short skirts fuck’s sake,” he blurted out, afore catching himself. “Pardon me language milord.”
“She’s young,” Glen replied. “The strays are like that.”
“I’ve a sneaky suspicion all of them are,” Kirk said conspiratorialy. “Just pretend they aren’t to please their elders.”
“How would you know that?”
Kirk stood back not expecting the query.
Hmm.
“You visited Folen’s ‘Hall of Pleasure’ I take it?” Glen asked him.
“Milord,” Kirk replied solemnly realizing he was caught. “I have.”
Glen blinked.
Wait a minute here.
“Aren’t Cofol slaves working it?”
“I admit on sampling the expensive catalogue Milord,” Kirk said with a sigh.
Expensive…
Glen scrunched his nose. “Was Folen there?”
“He wasn’t. His mother was,” Kirk replied with a grimace.
“And?”
“Ahm, we didn’t talk much milord,” the guard said puffing his cheeks out.
Glen frowned at the implications. Then he realized they were standing in the middle of the street talking about brothels, a small crowd slowly gathering around them to listen to their argument. He stood up straighter, wearing his –still under construction- Monarch’s grin. Several Zilan stepped back alarmed at his manic grimace.
“Greetings friends! The sun will come up fully soon,” Glen told them. “Now ye better use the time to get to your businesses right?”
“As you wish Arguen Garth!” most of the citizens present replied, with a couple of them just nodding, before they all run away to follow his instructions.
The street emptied spectacularly fast.
Son of a whorin’ goat!
“Eager bunch right?” Glen commented and Kirk who was standing next to his left shoulder glanced at him unsure.
“Kind of appeared scared to me Milord.”
“Haha! You have a problem mate! But there’s no need for alarm,” Glen assured him with a grin, then slapped at his steel shoulder pads once and walked towards the stable. “I have it too when I’m fresh out of bed. Always miss stuff. Eat lots of fruit and everything comes back.”
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Glen stopped Outlaw midway up the widened and paved road. He groaned, the sun in his eyes and poured water from a flask on his face, afore pushing his wild hair back. Kirk riding his own horse came to stand next to him and they both watched the disfigured Zilan that was Laedan, trotting down towards them, a worn out guard following him. A Zilan city guard from those Anfalon had cut months back.
Laedan paused seeing the two riders standing in the middle of the rebuilt road and glanced back at the approaching soldier.
“Should I?” Kirk asked.
“Nah, let him pass,” Glen replied.
Speak to the Denmaster.
Glen flinched hearing the dagger’s suggestion.
“Belay that, follow me Kirk,” he said and clicked his tongue to get his horse moving towards the scowling Zilan.
Why talk now? He asked, but the dagger remained silent.
Fuck you. I’m not doing it, Glen cursed and pulled at the reins stopping the horse, sending dirt towards the waiting Laedan.
“Great,” the Denmaster hissed, one side of his face permanently maimed, the damage to the nerves, or something irreparable. Soren had done a number on him, Glen thought. “Not only do I have to wait for this tool to catch up with me, I’m getting covered in dust from our annoying palace resident!”
“You have a difficult personality,” Glen told him stooping on the saddle.
“I’ve trained Wyverns for a living,” Laedan retorted. “It rubbed off on me.”
“Were you at the castle?” Glen asked with a glare at the huffing and puffing soldier.
“Hardir,” the Zilan soldier greeted him.
He wore the heavy hoplite cuirass in bronze, but carried a sword instead of a spear.
No helmet.
“At ease my friend,” Glen said returning the nod. “Take a breather.”
Laedan snorted and shaded his eyes with a hand to stare at Glen.
“I went to see what that idiot is doing,” Laedan walked towards Glen and reached for his flask of water. “Imagine my shock. Ugliest building I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s a sturdy castle,” Glen defended his ‘creation’.
“It looks like a big black turd protruding out of the ground, fatter at the base and sharpened up to not look like one. Is that an octagon? One could only hope. Could have been a gigantic obelisk, a tower to the heavens, but nah, he just lopped off the top of it. The man has brain damage for coming up with that and I’m the one with the cracked skull,” Laedan hissed and glugged down some of Glen’s water. “You want it back?” He asked.
“I have another,” Glen replied sourly.
It was a sturdy design. Difficult to sneak into.
“You carry two flasks of water with you?” The Zilan probed curious.
“I’m well prepared.”
“For a trip up the ‘castle’?” Laedan snorted.
“It’s half a day.”
“So? You got any food with you? I’m famished.”
Glen always had food with him.
“Ahm,” he glanced around them, the open cleared ground offering no shade and then up towards the plateau. Glen sighed, turned around and stared at the city they’ve left behind.
“There’s shade near the lake,” Laedan helped him and pointed with a finger. “Much closer.”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“Can you walk?” Glen asked him, deciding to talk with him a bit more.
He didn’t want to, but continuing up the road had lost some of its appeal.
Fine, Glen was curious about his dream also.
“Are you offering me your horse?” Laedan asked securing Glen’s flask on his old belt.
Glen wasn’t.
The query was rhetorical for starters and he barely tolerated the Denmaster.
“I’ll head there. See to catch up,” he told him with a shrug and turned Outlaw around. A slight press of his knees and the warhorse bolted east out of the paved street and towards the lake’s shores.
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Glen reached the west side of Taras Lake ten minutes later and jumped from Outlaw, under the shade of a group of palms that had been spared just before the beach. Looking to the south he could see the light bouncing off the buildings of the market where his own house was. Given the distances involved, Sinya Goras -the port- hundreds of kilometers to the east was a completely different small city, with the much more developed, resort-like Taras Lake District being another and the ‘nearby’ construction site at Morn Taras plateau a third.
You needed almost a week to travel from Morn Taras to Sinya Goras port following the road. But the Zilan didn’t see it that way. Goras encompasses everything was their deeply rooted belief, so human residents just went along with it in their presence using the ‘District’ descriptor, despite clearly differentiating between the three cities slowly forming over the ruins of the old one and calling them by different names.
A bunch of bullshit, Glen -who wasn’t ‘married’ to either belief camp- thought. He walked near the cool water that despite coming out potable up on the Eternal Springs, it really wasn’t since that darn Hydra had ‘died’ in the lake. It would take time for the waters to clear again and Glen had to sign an order for people to avoid drinking it. People as in humans, since the Zilan knew that instinctively.
Ye can swim in it though, he thought and removed his boots, to check on his maimed foot. Glen washed it with water first, afore stepping in the lake to his knees to cool off for a bit. He used a towel he’d brought from his saddle to clean his feet, before stooping to examine his missing toe. The wound had healed, but it had left an ugly rough and blackened patch of skin behind that made walking difficult with Angrein’s fake toe on. The whale-skin boots had helped him with that. Vycaris had done a good job and Glen made a mental note to send a gift to the leather artisan and Oelinael his mate.
Hope they haven’t killed each other, Glen thought and heard light trotting approach their position. With a last glance at the distant resort shore, where Zilan and humans were probably swimming to combat the heat, Glen turned and walked outside of this shallow part of the lake.
Laedan reached the thin shade provided by the palms, smacked a fat blue bug away, a fist-sized sugar-fly preying at the sugarcanes located at the north side of the lake near the waterfalls, led astray from the heat and started undressing. The ascetic, but wiry Zilan tossed his old robes away, then the leather belt over them, removed his worn out sandals and walked to the lake without a word. Glen and a blank-faced Kirk watching him equally silent go past them, skinny arsed and hairless but with a long meat rod dangling between his legs.
“What the…” Kirk finally gasped in shock when the Zilan jumped into the water and swam away from them.
Glen whipped his head towards him, equally shook and grunted. “Enough talk,” Kirk blinked as he hadn’t really said anything in half an hour, but nodded. “Good. I have a fine piece of smoked ham rolled into a cloth in my bags, cut us a couple of good slices will ya? Don’t touch anything else.”
“Right away Milord,” Kirk replied. “May I help meself as well?”
“Of course, it goes without saying. Bring the whole thing here, the biscuits too,” Glen said and rubbed his face to get his bearings back. The question though still lingering after what he’d just witnessed. “How was Luthoris?” He asked the soldier and Kirk paused searching his bags unsure.
“Ah, Luthoris Milord?”
“Folen’s ‘Mother’ fuck’s sake,” Glen hissed at his ignorance. “You didn’t actually believe that, did ye?”
Kirk frowned, unshaven jaw clenching hard. “Milord, I asked her. Who would lie about such a matter?”
A female conman?
Would that be, a conwoman?
Hmm.
“She lied. It’s a ruse to get more coin in festivals from kinky fools,” Glen elucidated. “Nothing to be ashamed of,” he reassured him proceeding to ask in a sterile scientific manner. “Was she any ‘different’ given what we just witnessed here?”
It was a knowledge-seeking query first and foremost.
A man should know what is what and where stuff go.
“Eh, to tell ye the truth Milord, it was a peculiar experience.”
“You got lost in her roominess?” Glen chanced to keep it civil, but also justifiably intrigued.
“I honestly think the experience is tailored to each person,” Kirk replied a little flushed and Glen frowned. The fuck does that even mean?
This shite is universal for crying out loud!
From horse to man.
Eh, perhaps fish are exempted.
Laedan coming out of the water with his tool bared cut their conversation about Zilan female anatomy short and they both gave the Denmaster a wide enough berth to get his robes on.
Glen had to tell him as a matter of fact.
It quickly deteriorated in a yapping rebuke.
“Have you no shame? Put some clothes on! Kids might come by at any moment!”
Laedan crooked the side of his mouth that still worked, the other permanently pointing down in a pout and looked about him.
“Children know everything since a young age.”
Glen didn’t.
It had taken coin, a cheap brothel and bravery for him to learn.
The experience mostly unpleasant and hazardous to one’s health.
“It kinda explains the mess at the Valimae Lilt!” Glen argued yelling at him.
“Garth, it’s a mating festival. Folk use it to unwind and enjoy life. Has Voldomir poisoned your ears? The Goddess wants servants, not slaves, or eunuchs. Naossis is her daughter. Reach far enough and you’ll touch her mother,” Laedan finished.
“Let’s avoiding reaching and touching stuff,” Glen dismissed his weird argument. “Dress up, or you don’t eat,” he turned his head around caught the soldier chewing on a piece of ham and barked. “Kirk, start cutting more slices for everyone and bring me that bottle of wine here. All this riding about has me famished!”
“Is that smoked mutton?” Laedan asked and Glen glared at him.
“Cover that cock my dude,” he grunted a final warning. “Else I’ll use my blade on it and have ye eat sausage.”
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Kirk snorted in his sleep, the guard had gone out after stuffing his mouth with the rest of Glen’s meal. Taking the opportunity Glen turned to a relaxed Laedan, the Zilan was dressed now thankfully.
Glen had send the soldier escorting him back to his unit. The guard was unfit to follow the older but much faster Zilan around anyway.
“So do you have dreams, while working with Wyverns?” he asked him, cutting to the chase.
“Uhm.”
“Care to elaborate a bit more?”
“Uvrycres is near,” Laedan replied, his eyes closed, hands behind his head.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“If he’s near and you have a connection,” Laedan said. “A wyvern will reach out for you. Communicate through dreams. But distance isn’t forbidding, if the connection is strong enough.”
“What determines a strong connection?”
Laedan opened his eyes to stare at him. “Time and kinship. You are obviously close in both parts, for he hasn’t lay waste of the city, or turn it into his feeding ground yet.”
“They do that?”
Laedan grimaced. “Yes Garth. It takes time for a wyvern to learn this.”
“No it doesn’t. You need to explain. Talk with it,” Glen told him.
“You use the Queen’s dagger to do it,” Laedan said and stood up on his arse. “She tried it as well against our advice.”
“Why? It’s a shortcut.”
“The witch’s shortcut assumes you are talking with a gullible person, but you aren’t,” Laedan explained. “Simple instructions are always better. When smart folks try to insert their logic and open conversations with a Wyvern they delve into the unknown against an alien intellect. It’s a slippery path to take. The Queen had the arrogance to presume she could influence their thoughts, talk to the gods through them. It’s not how it is done.”
“Why?”
“There are variants always in magic Garth,” Laedan told him and tended his hand. Glen frowned. “The Queen placed the dagger in Elauthin, traveled to Goras without it. Yet she had it on her leaving from Eikenport. Either the stories are wrong, or what you have there is something else.”
“Aelrindel made more than one,” Glen told him.
“That’s a very intimate detail to know,” Laedan said and Glen reached to unsheathe the dagger. He tossed it to him and the Zilan caught it deftly. “I won’t attack you, if you’re worried. Vaelenn told me of the things you’re doing for the citizens.”
Good on her.
“What do you think?” Glen grunted.
“I feel nothing.”
“No magic, or whispers?”
“Whispers,” Laedan murmured and flipped the Wyvern’s Tongue in his hand. “You know it’s different. Do you know of her failed plan as well?”
“Failed?”
“It’s been centuries. Whatever she wanted to accomplish obviously failed Garth.”
Glen nodded. “I believe that too.”
“Yet you talk of whispers,” Laedan said. “Ask of Wyvern’s dreams. What does it say?”
“Nothing.”
Laedan returned him the dagger hilt first. “It’s a medium, what she made. Laced a spell on it. I’m explaining it as plain as I can here. Witches of her mother’s school did that aplenty. Usually trinkets and charms. It’s still a tool though,” the Zilan continued. “A door anyone with skill can find and use to come through.”
Gimoss had done something similar. Had he used the dagger to channel his magic and snatch the corpse? Could one… use it to bring forth magic and cast a spell? How does it work?
“How does it work?” Glen asked him. “Could you channel magic through it?”
Laedan shrugged his shoulders. “You need a sorcerer to figure this one out. You speak of summoning spells, portals and dark magic. But this has nothing to do with a communication tool. I just don’t understand why the witch would built something like this. Even stranger is the fact you have this knowledge.”
“I know stuff Laedan,” Glen grunted.
And talked to gods probably.
“That’s the weird part about you,” Laedan agreed and stood up, his robes covered in leaves and dirt. “You are a crook and that’s fine, since the wyvern doesn’t appear bothered about it. But you are also more than that clearly. Even if it’s luck, you know everything is on a scale Garth, never free and you’ve only lost a toe so far.”
“Friends as well,” Glen spat, getting up as well. “This is what I’m trying to prevent Laedan. I have a lot at stake here.”
“Hardir would,” Laedan murmured thoughtfully, paying him no attention. “Have a lot at stake, whilst beating the odds. Somewhere amidst the lies and the luck, there is a bit of skill obviously. A lot of it, but what is it I don’t know. If I had to guess I would say cunning and dogged grit in godly doses. But what’s the fuel for it? Greed? Fear? Love? Haha,” the Zilan chuckled finishing his thoughts.
“What’s so funny about it?” Glen asked him, while giving Kirk a kick to wake him up from his stupor.
“Reinut was like that allegedly,” Laedan replied still chuckling. “It could be as simple as that. Life making circles.”
“Uhm.”
“Milord? Are we leaving?” Kirk mumbled trying to find his footing.
“No magic was the wrong word,” Laedan added while Glen helped the soldier to stand up straight. “What I felt was an increasing cold emptiness more like and it’s not the same, nor it is natural,” the Zilan continued and Glen glanced his way surprised. “Magic needs something to work, a trade, it doesn’t work in a void, but everything can be a source for it. Bear in mind I was never a skilled student, hence the dens. This is a hot day and a great practitioner of the dark arts could had faked the whole thing through a simple trade. Made fools of us all.”
Fake the emptiness was his meaning.
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Glen left Laedan at the market, avoided the temptation to visit Folen’s establishments and rode straight to the stables. Kirk stayed to deal with the horses and Glen walked towards his villa troubled, not paying much attention to the surroundings.
The small crowd gathered at the entrance taking him by surprise.
“What is this?” He barked and run the final couple of meters, shoving people right and left to open the way. Bing spotted him and came out to help, most citizens stepping away from Glen when they realized who he was.
“Milord,” Bing said with a worried grimace. “Thank the gods.”
For what?
“Move aside,” Glen ordered him and went inside his hall. Fikumin was standing at the top of the stairs leading to his quarters. Seeyu was laid on the floor, neck turned the wrong way, a leg folded underneath him in an unnatural manner.
What in Luthos painted toes!
“What happened? Did he fell down the stairs?” Glen grunted and stooped to examine the clearly dead slave. Good grief, he thought, turning him around. Ye poor sneaky fool. Seeyu had a strange color about him. A bit of blood leaking from the side of his mouth, but not much else.
That color bothered Glen immensely.
Was he poisoned?
“Stand back,” Angrein grunted from the top of the stairs and Glen turned his head to see what it was all about. The Blacksmith appeared next to the scowling dwarf, Fikumin had his pickaxe with him and then started coming down the stairs carrying what appeared to be a piece of fat black rope in his hand.
The end of the rope stuck on his forearm weirdly.
Glen blinked and felt a shiver running down his spine.
That was no rope.
“Sen?” he croaked and jumped to his feet panicked.
“She’s fine,” Angrein replied. “The little one too. Seeyu stepped inside with her milk and took its mind away from the cradle.”
Glen’s mouth felt parched, his gums gluey and he tasted of bile.
“Is it dead?”
“What?” Angrein asked pausing, as he’d turned to walk outside.
“Did you kill it?”
“It used its poison on your slave Garth,” Angrein explained. “Sucks on my blood to replenish itself. It’s harmless now, so I’ll return it in the lake.”
“It’s not a snake,” Glen grunted and reached for his sword.
Angrein face darkened, his red-rimmed eyes sad.
“Put that shite down,” A wild eyed Glen ordered him, his blade in hand. A Jackal’s cackle reverberating inside the walls of his hall. Angrein nodded and forced the eel’s mouth open pressing on a point of its covered with small white dots neck. Blood pouring out of the gnarly mouth. The Blacksmith tossed it high between them, the creature letting out a freakish hissing sound and coiling changing direction mid-air.
Glen’s blade catching it and slicing through its slickly body turning it into many bloody pieces. The different parts splashed on the floor, the one with its head still moving until Glen’s boot came down hard on it and turned it into a disgusting bloody pulp with a loud crunch.
“Lock the doors,” Glen grunted, his heart beating wild and in a murderous mood. “Search everything,” he ordered and the returning Kirk stopped dead in his tracks seeing the mess on the floor and Seeyu’s crashed lifeless body. “Nobody leaves Kirk,” he added and turned to run up the stairs to find Sen-Iv.
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They found nothing more lurking in the corners. Glen searched every little spot thoroughly himself, Sen’s shocked demeanor what infuriated him the most. Two hours later and with the large villa declared clear, all lower front-facing windows closed shut and the crowd outside dispersing, Glen stood on his throne-type chair glaring at those still present.
Not that anyone he’d found inside had been allowed to leave.
The reason for it simple.
“How did a plaguin’ venomous eel living in the god darn lake,” he growled hoarsely, Sen’s fearful gasp creating more wrinkles on his forehead. “Found it’s fuckin’ way inside my DAUGHTER’S CRADLE!?”
“Garth,” Fikumin started. “Nobody brought it here.”
“Are you serious?”
“Probably slipped inside a bag of supplies for the kitchen,” the redhead Iskay said. “Snakes do that Master.”
“It wasn’t a plauguin’ snake!” Glen growled. “It’s a fish thing living in water! It doesn’t opt for traveling in bags away from it!”
“Glen,” Sen whispered to calm him down.
“Someone brought it inside the villa,” Glen continued grinding his teeth. “Why are you here?” He asked Angrein.
“I asked him to keep me company,” Sen-Iv told him. “He’d nothing to do with it. I was with him all the time.”
“What about you?” Glen turned to the dwarf. “Who did you meet with today?”
“Phinariel was here and Metu earlier,” Fikumin grunted, insulted at his tone. “The meeting held in the hall, nowhere near your quarters.”
“Bing?” Glen queried the distressed guard.
“Sam Mathews,” Bing replied. “Metu paid him and they left.”
“He went upstairs?”
“Of course not!” Fikumin snapped. “Everything was done right here Garth.”
“What about the others?” Glen grunted.
“They stayed outside,” Bing replied.
Fuck.
“Could someone had climbed the back wall?” He probed. “Were the windows open?”
“It’s five meters to the second floor windows Garth,” Fikumin reminded him.
Glen could climb that easy with a good pair of shoes, or no shoes at all.
An assassin?
Then your friends are in danger as well, Nym had warned him.
Who would try to kill a baby girl for fuck’s sake?
Where was Din?
Glen blinked, the late hour making the light from the torches create shadows their radiance failed to reach. Din stepped out of the shades and stood next to his left shoulder. Everyone else gasping at the sight of him.
Glen glanced his way.
“How?” he asked him.
“The Wyvern’s window is always open. Found wet dirt at the base below it,” Din told him, his voice metallic and assured. The fact he’d no tongue to make any kind of noise unknown to the others. “Whomever did it, climbed that way, without fearing the eel’s deadly kiss.”
“Who would do that?” Glen asked, his eyes flickering to the frowning Blacksmith.
“Someone fortified against all poisons,” the assassin elucidated calmly. “Or unalive.”
“The eel bit you,” Glen told Angrein and the muscular artificer shrugged his massive shoulders.
“I’ve had the Saereg,” Angrein replied simply and Glen caught out of the corner of his eye Sen coming out of her gloominess, to listen to the Imperial Blacksmith’s words.
“Anyone else wit your particular fortitude?” Glen hissed.
“Not that I know of Hardir,” Angrein replied. “It’s a highly risky endeavor, few survive it. But I have been away from Wetull for centuries.”
What the fuck? Glen shocked at the public admission.
“Find out,” Glen ordered Din and the assassin nodded once with his hooded head. “I’ll talk wit the culprit afore having him executed,” he added harshly.
Probably feed his remains to Laedan, if Uvrycres isn’t here.
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Sen-Iv had fallen asleep a couple of hours later, her breath coming out haggard, an arm covering their daughter’s small body protectively. She had moved her back to their bed and Glen hadn’t voiced any objections. Iskay was sleeping as well on a couch brought next to the bed.
Glen stood at the large open floor to ceiling window, the narrow balcony outside of it not even a foot in width and stared at the late night sky in silence. He was too stressed to sleep. The two moons light coming through this time, unlike in the strange morning dream.
He saw the outline of the large Wyvern approaching whilst staring at Oras Eye. A black shadow right at the center of all the cold brilliant white. Uvrycres wings extended backwards as he dived for the ground, but then he banked hard left and traveled over the silent dark district at an incredible speed, barely missing the rooftops of the tall buildings. The Wyvern reached the open window silently and levitated there unnaturally for a moment, all that speed gone in the blink of an eye, its leathery wings extended outwards. His bulky rubicund eyes gleaming so bright, the glassy black scales of his elongated snout turned a shade of crimson.
Glen stepped away from the window and Uvrycres put a scaly large claw on it to step inside. He barely made it through. The Wyvern had grown at least a meter since Glen had last seen him.
Uvrycres snorted, the heavy smell of burning brimstone filling the large bedroom, glowing eyes examining the sleeping females carefully afore turning to look at the silent ruler of Goras.
Glen brought his hand on the dagger’s handle.
“What did I miss?” Uvrycres asked in his crackled baritone voice.
Somehow it didn’t disturb the women sleeping peacefully.
“Don’t be a fool,” the Wyvern admonished, reading his thoughts. “I used magic.”
Glen stepped forward and hugged its trunk-sized head tight. The Wyvern felt warm to the touch and comforting. A black talon touched his shoulder and he pulled back to stare into Uvrycres glowing eyes, the large creature’s breath burning on his chest.
“We almost lost her,” Glen finally replied with a glance at the bed. His daughter had sneakily crawled to the edge apparently awake, her pretty eyes awed and glued on the sinister wyvern standing inside their bedroom, blocking the light coming from the windows. Everything having a shade of red, from the shadows to the furniture and the expensive long silk drapes.
“It’s good that you didn’t,” the Wyvern told him. “I’ve brought her a gift.”
Inis-Mir chuckled and Uvrycres other arm extended towards the bed, talon like long black fingers opening when it reached the edge, then dropping a large sphere next to his smiling daughter.
The red shades and the red rays caught a warm golden hue in the blink of an eye, the scaly gold sphere rolling near the baby girl who stopped it with her tiny hands cooing and deeply awed at the spectacle.
Is that a fucking gold ball? He thought with ogling eyes, remembering Arock and his stupid game. That’s a couple of kilos worth of it at the very least.
“Qo… dras,” Inis Mir mumbled and Glen stood back shocked at hearing her talk.
Ah.
Shit.
“Shsss, curious youngling,” Uvrycres whispered soothingly. “Let him sleep for now.”
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read it at Royalroad : https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46739/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms
& https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/47919/lure-o-war-the-old-realms
Scribblehub https://www.scribblehub.com/series/542002/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms/
& https://www.scribblehub.com/series/547709/the-old-realms/