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> Don’t take the trade, let thine dreams fade
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> It is not the past’s flood, but this is thine blood
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> -
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> Nesande’s divination
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Aelrindel, of Edlenn
Moon of Neil-Dan,
Nesande’s Shade Moon Daughter
The Pact
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Aelrindel woke up with a headache on top of her right arm hurting as if she’d left it in the oven for some reason. Then she remembered that she had sort of speak. The sorceress didn’t recall having her head smashed on the oven's door though, the back of it tender and not in a good way.
“Ugh,” she moaned and fluttered her eyes open wishing that she hadn’t. The sun blinding, the parts of it that reached her through the tree’s branches. A good day, she mused and tried to get up, her body reacting sluggish and her left arm –not the cooked one- not working as it was supposed to. Then she remembered the rest of it.
There was no oven involved, but a hell of a lot of cooking.
“Gah, oh shit.”
“Hey, there,” a pale-faced Lithoniela quipped lightly, the kind of thing one does when they are about to say something unpleasant.
“What happened?” Aelrindel asked and looked about her. “What road is this?”
Other than the sparse palm trees they had found cover under, the terrain was rockier and looked nothing than the fields. “How long was I out?”
“Ah, a bit over twenty four hours.”
Whoa there miss specific.
“Let’s call it a day,” she groaned. “What happened?”
“Do you want the short, or the long version?” Lithoniela asked, her left arm bandaged heavily and looking like she hadn’t slept for any of those twenty four hours. “I haven’t slept at all,” the Princess said on cue, as if she was reading her mind. Which of course she couldn’t, Aelrindel thought and grimaced, her head a mess.
Fuck happened to my hair?
No.
She jumped up panicked. “Where is he?”
Lithoniela pointed a finger at a partially recovered Gimoss sitting under another palm tree and staring at the road. Two spears, that shovel and a pickaxe in a leather bag next to him. Partially meaning he was now looking like a recently deceased one –freaky- eye person and not a burned up and put through the grinder corpse.
“He seems much better,” she commented, her stomach burning ready to revolt at the memories coming back up. Speaking of coming back up, Aelrindel stooped and spat down, dry retching a couple of times in the process. “The short version,” she croaked, her head hanging.
“He burned up the fields,” Lithoniela said. “Killed some people.”
“The soldiers,” Aelrindel said, figuring as much.
“No. Yes, them too. I was speaking of last night,” Lithoniela explained. “A small group of merchants. The animals too,’ she pointed that same finger a bit to the right and the other side of a group of trees they were standing under. The dazed sorceress saw four fresh corpses bunched up there missing body parts, two mules and three camels. A woman amongst them. “Eh, he wanted to juice up the process,” Lithoniela explained and Aelrindel bent between her filthy legs again and puked properly this time.
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“You want some wine?” Lithoniela asked a moment later. “We have a lot of supplies.”
Hopefully some decent clothes in those packs.
“I get it,” Aelrindel grunted and grabbed the flask to pour some in her mouth. She spat it right out and tried again. “I can’t, it’s bitter.”
“You get used to it. I can’t burry them,” Lithoniela explained rubbing her broken arm. “What are we going to do?”
“We probably have to move… wait, how did I end up here?” She asked with a frown, the pain in her head a constant. Did I hurt a rock in that tumble?
“He carried you,” Lithoniela explained.
Ahm.
“Alright,” she said unsure, glancing at the silent Gimoss. “Shit, I need to sit down. Must have hurt my head and didn’t realize it.”
“Well, you did,” Lithoniela agreed helping her sit down. “He kind of tossed you like a sack of potatoes on that tree, when we stopped,” hey there, Aelrindel stared at her warningly. I’m just a bit top heavy, “I thought he killed you,” Lithoniela murmured.
“YOU PICKED THE SPOT SNEAKY LITTLE HARLOT!” Gimoss blasted her without looking their way.
“YOU DROPPED HER! STUPID MURDERING FREAK!” Lithoniela screamed back at him fiercely blushing probably equally embarrassed and angry. “PERVERT!”
“AHAHAHA!”
Right, ahm… Aelrindel puffed out exasperated. She had nothing.
Lithoniela was shaking all over. “Are you alright? I haven’t heard you raise your voice another time,” she asked her.
“I haven’t,” Lithoniela admitted hoarsely. “We are saved. Why are we still friendly with him?”
“How’s the arm?” She asked her.
“Bad. I have no potions.”
Gimoss snorted. “Eat the corpses you dumb cunt! Put some calories in!”
“I can’t cast for a while,” Aelrindel told her. “He used me back there to burn the soldiers.”
“Yeah,” Gimoss agreed. “Hearing the word from your mouth makes me think of hard fucking, why is that witch?”
An insane on top of murderous and apparently also capricious Wyvern that’s just great, Aelrindel thought.
The spirit of a Wyvern, her practical mind noted.
“YOU’RE A PERVERT!” Lithoniela blasted him again.
Gimoss tipped his dilapidated head back and roared another one of his thunderous laughs, just as a group of riders came down the road from the North.
From Rida, Aelrindel thought. The city probably more than twenty kilometers away.
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Faelar’s stoic expression was ruined despite his mostly blank stare by a slight nervous twitch in his left eye. The two hard men riding along with him, carrying another two free horses with packed saddlebags behind them, didn’t appear as bothered seeing the two females standing up to greet them.
Especially given that Aelrindel’s long ears were visible through her shortened and disheveled washed-out blue hair. Lithoniela had put her hood on again, but the cloak-less sorceress didn’t even want to think about spells at this moment.
I need some clothes.
A bath and a healing potion.
A fine bloody meal and fruit juice.
Orange with avocado.
“Well,” one of the men said, a Lorian with a wild black beard sprouting out of his face, a gap in his front teeth. He was wearing a leather brigandine with padded shoulder pads, “I can see the appeal Brit,” he said in Common. “Exotic Ladies, we have water, if you want to clean up.”
“That’s right,” his friend Brit agreed with a leer. “We’ll keep watch hehe,” The bald Lorian having a heavy Lesia accent and sporting similar armor, but with less padding and a longer sword. A long beaded goatee, instead of a beard and all his teeth to compensate for what he is missing in hair and manners.
“This is Brit and Caruso,” Faelar grunted, glancing towards the still sitting under his tree Gimoss. “We packed as fast as we could. There’s chaos in the city and we barely made it out. We had to wait for dark again. It is good you decided to move further down the road. There are some very angry patrols scouting outside the city’s walls,” he paused with a grimace. “Is there an explanation for what I’m seeing here?”
“I made a trade,” Aelrindel said and moved to look into the saddlebags for any clothes, Brit looking down her chemise with interest, the flimsy torn up cloth very loose around her, on top of scandalously short for the Sinya Nora. “No clothes for me?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Brit told her reassuringly. “We’re not bigoted and I personally think you’re fine as spiced wine ayup. Mud and all.”
“It’s blood and shit in there also,” Aelrindel retorted with a gnarly smile that made him back off on the saddle.
“I’m still willin’,” Brit said faking indifference.
“I’ll look at the packs,” Aelrindel decided and turned around to walk away.
“I’m not comfortable Doll,” Faelar warned behind her back and she paused. Gimoss slotted his index finger in his ruined eye and plucked it out, tossing the unformed piece away to start again properly. Good grief, she shuddered not expecting it. Aelrindel licked her lips and made to answer to the ranger but hesitated again, when Gimoss got up and put the Charioteer’s bronze and silver full masked helm on. A copy of an ancient Imperial Rokae full face helmet, the expression on it sober, as each knight used a different design and the slain Cofol had honored the tradition unlike the Khan’s Cataphracts.
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“You,” Gimoss said from where he stood, about five-six meters away. “Smell familiar. You owe me an eye.”
“Right. Now I’m not squeamish but that’s weird for me,” Caruso said raising a brow. “Who’s this guy?”
“I was stuck beyond the river. Constructs up the wazoo, neither the opportunity to pop my head out of cover, nor supplies, but an Aken’s rotting foot. Got the news we had stopped fighting a bit late,” Faelar replied with a grimace at the memory of the slow to notify its advanced units Imperial Army. “That was the Hallowed you fought against and the three sibyls’ covens. It’s a fourteen centuries old memory, so I may be wrong on the details.”
“Fuck is wrong wit him?” Brit asked and run his hand over his bald head. “Is he a leper, or something? That shite is dangerous, right?”
Gimoss snorted.
“Any of them cunts still living?” he asked the Ranger his manner surprisingly civil.
Fuck is this? She thought with a pout. Camaraderie?
Faelar nodded. “Nay. Last I heard they were with the Queen in Oakenfalls. Reinut took care of that.”
Aelrindel glanced at the strained face of Lithoniela concerned, but the younger Zilan said nothing.
“Don’t give a shit about him. Thing is I can’t get the fucking eye to work! FUCKING BULLSHIT!” Gimoss grunted and crossed his arms on his chest frustrated. He was wearing an expensive new green robe, long but without sleeves. A woman’s white sash out of silk strapped on his waist, very wide in style. The whole attire bordering the absurd with the addition of the Chariot helm.
Although Aelrindel liked that sash a lot.
Ugh.
“Hey,” Brit said eyeing him. “The deal was to pick up the girls, the Zilan females was my meaning,” he corrected himself seeing their scowls afore adding. “It’s not a good thing to change the details in a deal.”
Faelar pressed his mouth tight and glared at Aelrindel. “I wasn’t aware we’ll have an extra… person.”
“AHAHAHA!”
“What the fuck?” Caruso recoiled at Gimoss’ outburst. “He’s right Faelar. We’re professionals. We have a name in this business.”
“The illustrious Brit and Caruso,” Faelar mocked him.
“We’ve associated wit some good people,” Caruso protested. “The Marauders, Adrian Stoner, Myrna Tiploft.”
“Tell him friend,” Brit agreed.
“Never heard of them and Myrna runs a tavern last I checked,” Faelar retorted. “You’re working for Ralnor now, which means you work for me.”
“We didn’t bring an extra horse for him,” Brit argued and Aelrindel who had walked towards the packs left from the slain merchants to look for something to change into, heard Gimoss walking to his spot. The mask wearing undead stooped to search in his bag.
“I’ll take Lithoniela on my horse,” Faelar offered and Lithoniela frowned unsure. Aelrindel turned to glare at the Ranger seeing his angle. For all his talk about her the fact of the matter was tutors don’t mate with their pupils. If he wanted to train Lithoniela, then he couldn’t bed her.
Whatever the logistics, or needs dictated in order to preserve their lines, she wouldn’t allow that.
“We’ll make less miles like this,” Caruso countered and Brit agreed returning to his previous point.
“Listen, the man’s clearly sick. Not much left in him,” he told a scowling Faelar. “At the end of the day, we don’t have a spare mount mate. Sorry,” Brit finished with a shrug of his shoulders, just as the whooshing sound of something heavy flying was heard in the small copse by the side of the road.
Faelar flinched on the saddle at the crunching sound, blood spatter on his chest and face. Lithoniela gasped in horror and Aelrindel who’d suspected something like that sighed deeply and hanged her head.
Brit, the narrow pointy end of the pickaxe protruding out of the back of his bald head, the rest of the bloody tool lodged in his caved in distorted face, slowly toppled down from his horse without a word fully dead.
The illustrious duo reduced in half.
He crumbled on the ground in a pile and rolled once afore coming to a stop afore Gimoss that knelt and yanked the pickaxe out of the mutilated mercenary’s/outlaw’s face leaving a horrific bloody mess behind and something that didn’t look like Brit’s head at all.
“I know he claimed we were friends,” Caruso said quickly when the masked Gimoss stood up again and stared at him behind his sober mask. “But that was an exaggeration on his part. Truth is, I never liked him,” he added.
“I’ll take the spare horse!” Gimoss blasted him hoarsely. Caruso blinked comically and nodded with enthusiasm.
“It goes without saying! Aye!” He agreed and Faelar reached in his saddlebags for a cloth to wipe the late Brit’s blood and brains from his face.
“With that settled,” the Ranger said somberly afore turning to her. “Aelrindel, if it’s not a terrible inconvenience, put some fucking clothes on. We’ve all seen what you have there. So start with his pants. He won’t be needing them.”
Eh, she thought, not favoring the suggestion, or his tone.
“I’ll see what else is available in the packs. It’ll only be a minute.”
Or two.
“Doll get the darn pants on now and hop on that saddle,” Faelar grunted his patience running thin. “We are parked next to an ever increasing pile of blasted bodies!”
Fine.
Old prick.
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They followed the road towards Queen’s Oasis until sunset without stops or further incidents. A small caravan crossed paths with them, but the guards didn’t appear suspicious of their group, both Aelrindel and Lithoniela covering their heads to keep a low profile and the news of what happened not yet spread far. Faelar had his hood on as well. A few looks were thrown on the stiffly riding Gimoss, but the masked freak just stared back at them with his sole alien eye and that was it.
Faelar ordered a camp made near a rocky slope, as the terrain started changing the closer they came to the Great Desert. Caruso started a very small fire to prepare some tea and Lithoniela helped getting a quick meal ready. Aelrindel walked near the staring at the stars Gimoss determined to put their truce into a proper context.
“Fuck off,” Gimoss said before she could get a word in. “I’M BUSY!”
“We need to talk,” she told him with a scowl. “You don’t have to yell.”
Gimoss looked at his saddle bags where his tools where.
“If we want this to succeed, you need to start being strategic,” Aelrindel added. “And stop brute-forcing solutions. And yelling, no need for that too.”
The freak turned to stare at her.
“What I’m trying to say,” the sorceress continued. “Is I can help with your problem, but I need you to give me the time to sort some things out first. Like where to live.”
Gimoss said nothing.
“Right. So, I don’t like you. But I’m willing to see past that and into the future. You obviously managed something very difficult here. How did you do it?”
“You don’t have a clue how to solve my problem,” Gimoss said in a normal voice. That is slurring and with his teeth clattering disturbingly, but hey at least he didn’t yell, she thought. “THEN WHAT GOOD ARE YOU? FUCKING IDIOT!”
Ugh. I spoke too soon.
“Follow me,” she told him and walked away from the camp site. Aelrindel stopped next to a big grey boulder three meters high and six wide, its surface eaten away by the elements. She put her back on it, feeling the rock through her shirt and Brit’s leather pants rough on her legs.
“Reach through the robe, pull that cock out and start sucking,” Gimoss said stopping in front of her with his hands crossed on his chest.
“Noble Goddess! Stop it!” Aelrindel hissed. “What is this madness?”
“You can’t fulfill your end of the bargain, I assumed you brought me here to work some of the debt off another way,” he paused thinking it through. “Is this foreplay? Ah, witch you’re way ahead in this. Go on.”
“Arggh!” She snarled and snapped her fingers to shove him away.
But she was completely drained. Her trained body had instinctively prevented the sorceress from damaging herself.
Shit.
Gimoss uncrossed his hands, removed his helm and dropped it on the ground. While part of his face had recovered somewhat, his Lorian characteristics, nose, position of the ears and reforming mouth were slightly different than before. Parts of his face remaining absent flesh underneath and the skin loose over the bones.
Not to mention it was the wrong color.
“Where did you find the body?” Aelrindel asked curious forgetting her fear and then remembered it again when the freak grabbed her by the throat, banging her head on the rock once as if testing it.
Ouch.
“Brittle bones,” Gimoss said and she screamed a panicked croak afore he could try it again. She could feel blood running down her neck, through the hair. “WHAT? SPEAK UP!”
“Ah… Can’t… Breathe,” Aelrindel gasped trying desperately to dislodge his fingers from her neck. She managed to break one and rip it away, but that was just about it. “Gah…”
Fuck.
Help.
Why in the world did you think this was a good idea? She cursed herself.
“It was a corpse an Arachne had taken over,” he told her and released his grip on her hurting throat. She almost went down on her knees, the wound on her head bleeding freely. Gimoss stooped to pick up the torn off finger and started chewing on it thoughtfully. The image so casually revolting it took her a moment to register. “I pushed her out and took over, but haven’t been able to make it work fully. Some parts I just can’t remember, too much time spend drifting aimless.”
“Arah… eh…” she croaked doubled over. “How… did… you…shit, I’m hurt bad.”
“You stopped feeding properly,” he told her. “It’s good your Faelar brought fresh food with him. I’ll kill him in his sleep and give you the head. I don’t like it.”
“No,” she gasped with a shudder. “I meant… how did you reach out? Djinns need a medium.”
“Fuck you blubbering about? I ain’t no Djinn you dumb meat bag! WHAT’S THIS A BLOODY NOVEL? And you still haven’t recovered from casting a couple of good spells!” He stooped over her face. “I used a medium,” Gimoss told her calmly, still working that finger in his mouth, the bones crackling and blood spilling out of his exposed teeth.
Aelrindel shook her head, a hand touching the back of it coming up bloodied as well.
Damn.
That might be a cracked skull right there.
It could have been the face though, so take solace in that.
Thank you Noble Goddess.
Fucking bitch!
“Something of you. Not any medium ugh. Where you near your body? Why not grab an Aken for crying out loud? They can take a fucking beating!” She asked finding purchase on the rock again.
“I had your fucking dagger!” Gimoss blasted her furious. “STUPID BITCH!”
Wait.
“Where did you find the dagger?”
“That idiot had it! Fuck! YOU’RE USELESS!” He bellowed as loud as he could, spittle, finger bones and pieces of rotten flesh flying out of his mouth. Then punched the rock. Very hard. He was going for her face, but Aelrindel ducked under it and then rolled out of the way expecting it. “SHITE!” Gimoss growled staring at his four broken fingers, then gulped down the remains of the mid one.
“Glenavon?” a heavy breathing Aelrindel asked perking up and Gimoss turned to glare at her frustrated.
“Glenavon my arse!” He grunted. “Glen! Like a gorge sneaking through a valley! He was fucking lying about everything and you dumbbells slurped it all down!”
Lying?
A plan to fool me?
Mmm.
Why, you naughty boy.
“He may well be Hardir O’ Fardor if he tamed the Wyvern,” Aelrindel told him and Gimoss stood back shocked. Then started laughing hard at her serious expression. “What?” Gimoss shook his hideous head right and left as if not believing it. “He’d a reason for it is my meaning! Right?” Aelrindel protested remembering the young man outside the walls of Rida gazing at her toes with interest.
Those were some good sandals.
Unfortunately lost in the fire.
Eh.
Gimoss sighed, then raised his arm high, the one with the broken fingers –minus one and slapped her once right on the left cheek, snapping her head violently back afore sending a senseless sorceress twirling on the ground.
“Gah… fuck… why you did…” Aelrindel gasped seeing flashes of light in the darkness, lower lip split and gulping blood, whilst crawling on her knees dazed.
“To get it out of your system,” Gimoss explained. “Are you aroused?”
“I’M… IN PAIN YOU SICK FUCK!” Aelrindel growled irate still trying to get up, but failing and landing on her arse.
“Good,” Gimoss retorted and stooped to pick her up by the hair with his good hand, ripping some of it off. “There. Now tell me about the Aken.”
“What?” she croaked trying to save her scalp from his clutches.
“This trade you failed to fulfill,” Gimoss explained calmly. “HEY! FOCUS!” he roared, not as calm. “I need you to help me find them.”
“Let go. Of my hair,” Aelrindel warned the freak, but she’d no problem agreeing to his suggestion.
As Faelar commented seeing them return, her covered in blood and him missing body parts, ‘you need to break eggs to make omelet’. While they didn’t make an omelet, the only thing broken being fingers and partially her skull, they had settled on a pact.
Sort of.