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Lord Reeves
Arguen Garth
Hardir O’ Fardor
Lord of Morn Taras
Monarch of Sinya Goras
King beyond the Pale Mountains
Aniculo Rokae
Tales of the Peninsula | Firestorm
Part I
-The Jackal’s sword-
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He’d felt it growing up in Shroudcoast.
The same feeling.
Didn’t mind it then.
Or maybe he did, just didn’t remembered it.
Then Glen had found another man’s hidden loot.
The Bank’s stolen coins.
The smaller hoard, since there was another bigger pile still missing.
Stumbled on the corpse and took his name. His clothes and title.
Sailed away in the blind on a cracked old boat, found a haunted dagger and glimpsed of Wetull afore he ever stepped foot there.
Learned how the real world worked following the knight around.
And gazed upon a Princess’ flesh.
Emerson had given him a lifeline and a lot of heavy cuffs upside the head.
Opened himself up and got to know different people than other petty thieves hiding under bridges.
Eating rats on a good day.
A willowy Gish, a hairy dwarf and a giant.
The bountiful Zola, heroic Marcus and a brave horny thief.
Half of them now dead.
A lot of quirky Zilan, each one crazier than the next.
Them he wasn’t so sure about.
Dukes, crooks, evil witches and ageless assassins.
Trolls, Arachne and a couple of giant mother-fucking Hydras.
A den of plaguing lions and a wyvern he’d named Biscuit.
His life had taken a very different path at some point than Glen had envisioned growing up.
Still felt the same but his needs had changed.
Still wanted things from time to time but Glen had realized inside the Crimson Palace that he already had a lot. The basket was too full. The road up ahead bumpy and things about to spill out. A man of the trade knows when he’s carrying too much loot and Glen had been trying to avoid losing it ever since. His instincts right.
Glen didn’t want to lose anything but he had. Ruffians ever be gathering. He could feel it in his bones. The sense of someone watching him, be it gods or demons, ready to snatch what Glen valued away. Strip him naked with each loss.
It shaded all else. Soured his happy moments.
And the old feeling had returned.
Flying over Wetull Glen had felt it keenly as the wyvern was more interested in making food breaks. For him. Glen had no appetite. The last time he’d taken to the skies for so long Sen had been with him, her hand in his. Now Sen was sleeping in a sarcophagus behind an ivory mask and covered in funeral shrouds. She still wore her crown and had sparkly opals in her eyes.
But they weren’t hers.
We make do lad, Emerson had told him many years back. Wit what’s given and pray it’ll make a difference.
Gold is your care, Lith had added that same night in Oakenfalls. Treasure what you seek.
Your heart’s desire.
Glen had found treasure and his heart’s desire. Not in the gold and in the riches he was now spending any chance he got. Earned or given it didn’t matter to him. Glen didn’t want to give any of it back.
Even if that was how things worked.
The law of the trade, Jinx had told him. Keeps balance.
Fuck that.
It made him happy living among his friends and family. Sweet Inis-Mir. A precious being. A part of him and a part of Sen whatever that Seer had said.
Fuck her too.
He didn’t want that feeling returning. Didn’t like it.
Wouldn’t give in and let part of his life slip away.
Back the fuck off, he warned the gods. I don’t concede.
In that, the young Monarch and the knight were different.
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That’s the city, Uvrycres reported. It got Glen out of his sullen contemplation.
“Which city?” Glen asked and tried to see for himself over the wyvern’s large scaly head. “Fuck’s sake! Stop eating.”
Yeah… nope, Uvrycres replied and dived towards the sea. The wind blowing on Glen’s soaked face drying it. Flying inside clouds was a wet experience.
He caught a glimpse of the large harbor and the buildings under them. Merchant ships and fishing boats sailing out with their sails open. Glen spotted the ugly square amphitheater near the desert plateau and cursed.
“That’s Fu De-Gar. It’s a city but not the one we are going,” he told the wyvern, remembering the maps. “Follow the coast east.”
The wyvern banked right hard, Glen’s body moving sideways, the wet scales slippery under him. He yelped but grabbed a half-sprouted out horn behind the two larger ones, sliced his glove on it afore stopping the momentum.
Uvrycres refused to answer to his accusations flying over the south shores of Greenwhale fast, the Peninsula greener than what Glen expected it to be, but he could see the golden desert starting beyond the distant mountains and the rich oasis sprouting near the rivers.
They reached a half-gutted city in less than an hour and the Wyvern slowed down again so he could watch from above for any landmarks.
Well? He asked Glen.
“I think these are our ships,” Glen replied and realized he wasn’t holding the dagger. “You piece of shit! You could do it at will?”
It’s a spell, Uvrycres explained. It tires me and I learned it growing up. Stop being so uptight.
“How am I…?” Glen groaned and kept his eyes on the half-burned city under them. “They did a number on Ta-Ne.”
Wouldn’t know. Most cities I’ve seen are mostly ruins. Maybe it’s a style, Uvrycres replied. Do we finish them off?
“What? No, you dumbass they are allies… sort of.”
Are they friendly though, hmm?
“We are not here to attack cities Uvry,” Glen grunted.
Ha-hah! The Wyvern guffawed and shrieked, his whole body vibrating. They flew over a large camp with small people running about outside the city’s borders and then the Wyvern cut towards the sea again afore returning nearer the shores.
The mouth of the Khanate Gulf appeared suddenly, flat land travelling north, the size of the natural gulf immense. Uvrycres flew lower and Glen scanned the blue waters splashing over remote beaches trying to get a grasp of the unknown terrain.
Where’s the city? Uvrycres asked. I need to make a stop soon.
“Are these ships?” Glen probed his mind elsewhere.
Sure. I’m following them.
“The ships?”
You know where Que Ki-La is?
“Don’t you?”
No.
“Why?”
I like the wilderness? Clean air?
Just don’t care?
Pick any answer you prefer.
Glen groaned in frustration. The Wyvern dived through the straits abruptly, banked west hard all but toppling him over and started flying over land. The terrain rushing under them making Glen nauseous, but his entrails lodged in this throat keeping the vomit in.
Another city port appeared, diamond shaped and also showing signs of damage at its walls.
Is that it? Uvrycres asked.
“Ahm…”
You run out of words?
“The next one!” Glen yelled irate. “Second port after Ta-Ne!”
We flew over another small port earlier.
“It’s a big port!”
What?
“IT’S A BIG PORT!” Glen bellowed, his cheeks ballooning with air and face distorting.
Muah-hah-ha-hah! The Wyvern roared as it was a jeer and he’d fallen for it.
Glen tried to kick his ear, but didn’t want to risk ungluing his legs from the Wyvern’s neck so he got the dagger out and banged its pommel a couple of times on the back of Uvrycres cranium.
I can fly upside down, the wyvern reminded him and Glen stopped with a scowl.
Another small village appearing under them, Uvrycres was flying very slowly now and behind it a large city showing signs of ruin like Ani Ta-Ne. Some parts of it still smoking especially in the blackened forested part beyond its north walls.
“The camp!” Glen barked spotting the white tents. A lot of them next to the village. “That’s Emerson!”
You sure?
“He’s probably besieging the city. Look at the broken gates, the walls.”
I’m bringing us down.
The wyvern curved its long leathery wings forward, gradually angling both against the wind whooshing and pushing them the other way as they dived for the ground. Uvrycres long neck rising and pushing backwards as they rapidly approached the ground west of the half-ruined village. It seems that every city or village on this side of Greenwhale coast has taken plenty of damage.
Some of the tents were occupied, animals at the near and some civilians looking to repair some of the collapsed buildings of the village. The city now unseen as they lost perspective due to lower altitude.
“LOOK!” Glen yelled as Uvrycres flapped its wings back and forth to land. “They are waving at us!”
A lot of soldiers were running and yelling, arms flailing up and down in panic, or pointing towards the piles of debris, several civilians pausing to gawk at the large Wyvern coming down and then running and screaming as well.
Uvrycres touched the ground with his hind legs, the notion smooth but the momentum sending Glen sliding up the long scaly neck, a budding horn tearing a hole on his new black leather pants, right over the knee pad. A roomier pair but still tight enough not to look fat. Glen cursed as he tumbled back down to the base of the neck and landed on the wyvern’s back next to the large leather sack he’d tied on it.
There was a saddle design of sorts available, but given he didn’t want to see Angrein to built it –the blacksmith was still locked in the tower- and Laedan’s used one from Voldomir’s cellars had resulted in the temple’s devotee they used to test it plummet to an early grave from the testing site –a needlessly fifteen meter high gallows-shaped construction- Glen had opted not to risk using one on Uvrycres until the right design came along.
Or someone digs out a new one.
RRRRRREEEEH
Uvrycres trumpeted and the soldiers scattered behind cover, one breaking completely and running away towards –the kilometers away- Que Ki-La screaming like a kid hunted by wolves. Everyone is either screaming, praying or crying, Glen realized jumping down and then started stretching his legs and arms energetically to get the blood going under the scrutiny of those near them. A couple of houses on their right, debris littering the ground in front of them, the tents beyond that and a crude palisade of sorts, nothing to their left or west until one reached the lush palm trees.
The soldiers were gawking at him with disbelief. Glen grimaced, signed for the heavy breathing Uvrycres to stay behind, paused to straighten his steel hoplite cuirass with the red details and the engraved wyvern at the front in gold as it had turned a bit during the landing. Upon finishing that he assumed a lordly expression and started walking towards the first group of covered soldiers looking at them.
A weighty silence had fallen inside the village and its periphery.
“There’s no need for alarm!” Glen yelled in the Common Tongue using his late wife’s accent a mix between Imperial and Old Cofol, slotting a clenched-teeth grin at the end to sell it better. “It’s a friendly Wyvern local folks!”
A well-dressed officer looked over the half-standing half-collapsed wall, the rest of the stone house probably used on the fortifications he could see behind the large camp. Giant. Two camps really or three combined or built one next to the other.
“Are you a timeworn wizard?” The officer asked, signing for an archer to take a shot at Glen but the archer refusing. Glen rolled his eyes.
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“Don’t mind the hair!” He yelled back standing ten meters away and crossed both arms on his chest. Thick white curls dancing wild on his head, posture, exotic armour and the wyvern making him look even more wizardly.
“Is that a real wyvern?” The officer asked incredulously, squinting his eyes at another archer to take a pot shot at him.
This is ridiculous.
“Listen up!” Glen shouted and Uvrycres growled gutturally, the rumbling making the ground shake. He turned to ask the wyvern to calm down and an arrow whistled over Glen’s head afore breaking apart on Uvrycres’ black snout.
RRRRRR
Glen twisted around and glared at the officer.
“Have you lost yer plaguin’ mind?” He barked and an archer stood up to fire another arrow. Glen reached for one of his blades warningly. The archer hesitated but then loosed the arrow forcing Glen to whip his sword out and then swat it away with the flat of the blade.
Whoa, Uvrycres commented at the not fully lucky display and the officer got out from behind the wall a stubborn look on his weathered face.
“KILL THE WYVERN!” He ordered gruffly pointing an accusing finger on Uvrycres. “GO FOR THE EYES!”
What? You piece of slanted shit! Uvrycres protested, then turned serious. I’ll turn your lineage to ashes if you try.
Fuck it.
I’ll just do it anyway!
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“Don’t shoot!” Glen barked at the Cofols peeking out from their covers. Houses, piles of debris, tents and wagons. “WE ARE FRIENDLY GODS DARNIT!”
The officer stepped out of cover, scimitar in hand and Glen spotted his armour. A leopard pelt covering his shoulder pads, two pieces dangling at the front of his scaled armour.
Luthos stepped on a plank, got his foot stuck on a nail and hollered.
“You’re with that prick? Goat fucker,” Glen hollered face distorted in a comical grimace turned sour at this new development. The officer frowned not getting his meaning –Glen had spoken in Imperial jargon instinctively- and an archer rushed him with a sword bursting out of cover.
He made two quick strides in the open, Glen angling that way as he’d spotted him out of the corner of his eye and had already the peleg out. The archer went for a slash but Glen slashed first and broke his scimitar right at the handle with his Kopis. The Cofol shuddered with a gasp cut short when Glen smacked him once on the forehead with the Zilan-type small axe.
Split his cranium open like a ripe coconut.
The amount of damage caught Glen unawares.
So he had to dive out of the way. The huge bloody splash of gore spraying his cuirass some and his pants as he rolled on the ground, minding not to poke himself in the eye with his weapons and stopped with a scowl. The officer had a look of constipation on his stunned face.
Just like when a hard turd that started sliding out of yer rectum sticks abruptly and won’t budge.
“Get. The fucking. Wizard!” He ordered his men and all bows turned on him. Fired almost all at once aiming for Glen. They were a second late. Glen had rolled near a half-wall, jumped up at the end of it, arrows striking the ground where he’d been a moment afore and a couple following after him. Those struck the stone wall as Glen cleared it adroitly using a forearm as lever.
“Not a wizard ye cuck!” He cursed upon landing behind the wall.
The hairs on his head rising, the air turning dry. A strong breeze blowing south, rattling the tents and dislodging poles. The animals neighing and galloping away in panic. Shite. The ground shook and a whooshing clamor started, stones cracking and dropping on him, the afternoon sun dimming.
“Uvrycres!” Glen bellowed peeking out of his cover but his voice got drown out as the air ignited with an explosion and a three meter tall torrent of fire erupted out of the impossibly wide jaws of the pissed Wyvern.
Glen ducked for cover, crawling away on all fours, nose touching the ground and behind him a tremendous racket started, the ground rocking and cracking open, weakened buildings collapsing, a flash of light expanding outwards as the fire doubled its size in a second. Then doubled it again the huge cone of destruction spreading towards the camps and parts of the village, liquefying or dissolving tents, melting metal and turning stone to glass. People, animals and wood just vanished.
“STOP!” Glen roared his left arm on fire as the leather shirt had spontaneously combusted, the emanating heat so disturbingly strong Glen couldn’t breathe or see and he had to dive inside a half-destroyed burning stable’s large water trough to douse it out. He landed with a splash and got out immediately toppling the trough, the water splashing down and turning to vapors.
The flames roaring everywhere.
Glen got out of the stable’s back doors, grimaced at the fire raging in half the village and stared with disbelief the gargantuan smoke clouds that had engulfed the large now burning bright war camps.
With a crackling sound the stable collapsed behind him and Glen had to move south away from the fire, coughing and blinking to clear his smarting eyes and throat.
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Climb up, Uvrycres told him twenty minutes later, the fires still burning the village, though they had subsided or even gone out inside the war camps. There was a huge black burned patch of cleared land where the tents and wagons had been.
Nothing left standing or left period.
Glen wiped some of the soot off of his face tiredly and tried to clear his hoarse throat.
“I told you to stop.”
Can’t interrupt a fire spell. Too dangerous.
“We don’t know if there were innocent people in there.”
They fired on us. Wanted to take out my eyes! Uvrycres roared and then roared again angrily his scaled head raising towards the skies.
ERRREEEE!
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Glen cleaned himself up as best he could, eyes gazing at the total destruction.
Well?
“We need to find where the Chiliad is,” he grunted. “North, towards the city seems logical, but we didn’t see anyone fighting near the walls. They might have retreated towards the desert after being cut off.”
He stepped on the Wyvern’s lowered shoulder and climbed up.
West?
“No,” Glen replied staring at the unseen city. “Over the city. I can’t orientate myself in the desert.”
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Que Ki-La has been hit with a sledgehammer as well it seems, Glen supposed sourly. Parts of the wall still stood, but several buildings had collapsed, burned, raided and looked afflicted one way or another. The streets were littered with debris, broken up windows, doors, piles of bricks and rotting bodies. Dogs and rats burst out of side alleys, with parts still smoking almost to its center. The west gates facing the palms, the date and lotus trees had been damaged as well, the tower standing half-burned but occupied by soldiers.
Six of them operating a Scorpio turned the machine on the approaching wyvern, the sound of alarm sounding inside the gutted city. Uvrycres dived over the gates to scare them, a couple of soldiers jumping from the fifteen meter tall tower and squashing on the street, the others firing a bolt at the rising wyvern.
Glen heard it whistling under them.
What was that?
“Seriously?” Glen growled and glanced back at the tower. “Those sons of bitches have taken the city too!”
Uvrycres twisted around sharply with a prolonged shriek that covered the sound of gongs and bells ringing under them. A desperately trying to hold on Glen smelled brimstone, felt the wyvern’s neck expanding and a heat rising between his legs, not in a pleasant way.
Wanna talk with them? Uvrycres asked mockingly and afore Glen could reply, spat a fireball the size of a wagon on the tower. The Wyvern missed by two meters, the fireball exploding at the tower’s base, amidst the guards rushing to witness the winged beast diving on them and the gates left supports. Glen all but went blind from the fiery detonation as there were probably flammable materials and oils housed at the gates. The tower crumbled first and then the gates along parts of the wall came down as well.
Uvrycres fired a second one that landed a hundred meters deeper inside the city as they flew over the main avenue not even fifty meters from the ground, the sound of several large secondary explosions coming from behind them and fires leaping outwards uncontrolled.
The Wyvern glided over the second much more spread out fiery cone caused by the fireball and then banked sharply right, Glen groaning in panic as they missed a bell tower for a foot before Uvrycres started rising again.
Glen looked behind him and couldn’t see anything but an inferno raging near the lot surrounding the destroyed west gates tower and spreading deep inside the city.
“That’s enough,” he raspingly told the wyvern that was about to turn around again for another pass. “We need to find Emerson.”
The wyvern flew over the north gates, Glen watching people running under them to lock themselves inside houses or cellars in panic, a loud lament rising from the city with thousands crying out in panic and the sound of the large bronze gongs coming at regular intervals.
Dong.
Dong.
Dong.
Uvrycres dived towards Lotus Lane, groups of horses running away under them and fired another fireball on a group of riders obliterating men and animals before a livid Glen ordered him to land.
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Glen jumped from the wyvern and landed by the side of the blackened gravel road leading away from the city to the north. He stood silent upon the hundreds of mutilated, half-burned, slain soldiers and animals laid on the ground all about them. Mostly on the large country road itself, the gravel burned and disturbed, but also up the east slopes heading into the woods on one side and across the road heading towards a lake he’d spotted from the air in one of their passes.
He’d never seen so many people killed in one place since Rida and even the battle of Serpent’s Canal didn’t have so many casualties. There were clearly obstacles constructed on the road and he found caltrops littering the blackened gravel. Small traps and holes dug to harm horses and a ruined about fifty meters long ‘bridge/pathway’ constructed out of now burned out planks, used to clear the trapped part and open a route.
Glen stood back numb, his jaw clenched as there were a lot gladiators amidst the killed and it was clear to him the attack had come from the south and the city. Why retreat this way? Why not head west out of harm’s way? You wanted to stop them from reaching the bridge? Why did you care?
He felt a shiver running up his spine and it took him a moment to realize the sword was vibrating on its sheath. The sword Angrein had remade with the silver elk shaped-handle, its large antlers spreading out to form the guard near the tang of the blade. Glen reached over his shoulder and got it out of its sheath. The Elk cackled like a Jackal.
There’s death here, the wyvern said growling and clacking its black teeth near his ear. Beast’s hot breath smelling of brimstone and boiled flesh. And in them woods.
Glen glared at his large burgundy eyes and Uvrycres licked his black lips with a long pale tongue, then swallowed audibly.
I’m famished, the wyvern finally admitted. I’m practically walking on food! Show some blasted compassion to yer friend’s plight!
Glen grimaced and walked up the slight slope going past broken up and burned chariots. More corpses. Masked and unmasked soldiers he remembered from Rida and Hellfort. Horse archers, Cofols and Lorians. Many of them. Northmen as well.
“Mercenaries,” he told the following behind him on foot wyvern. Uvrycres stooped to check on one, large nostrils expanding as he sniffed at the bloating corpse. “It’s been a while since the battle. Hours even.”
I shouldn’t have stopped at the village.
But he hadn’t expected the Prince to have reached the city so fast after witnessing the ruined Ani Ta-Ne. Glen believed the Prince had gone for the port there and Roran would stop him. Could he though? The Zilan old heads are remembering a world where nothing challenged them. But it was an illusion for challenged they had been.
Glen stared at the sun turning to the west and he could barely see it over the distant treeline. It would be dark soon but he wasn’t afraid of the dark. The sword vibrated again. They walked inside the forest following a chariot’s tracks. Its wheels had carved lines on the soft ground. Howling was heard not that much deeper inside the loose trees.
Forest lions, Uvrycres informed him, the wyvern pushing aside saplings and uprooting young trees to widen the path for itself not minding to be stealthy. Glen grimaced and moved towards the large opening. Not natural. Hunter-gatherers or woodcutters had opened it and he could see paths leading further inside the forest.
The brown female lion raised its golden eyes to stare at them, paws hanging a bloody female torso and jaws gnawing at a ravaged face. The skull cracked and the brains scooped out.
RRRRRRR
The lioness snarled and its partner half way up a fig tree jumped down and responded with a growl of his own. A young male. Its snout covered in gore. Glen glanced at the bodies lying dead inside the opening. A half-eaten black horse. A dead Cataphract not that far from it. A large pool of blood around his body, a ghastly wound on his right leg showing the bone. A female warrior, her face missing and her naked breasts ravaged and bloody, part of the ribcage exposed. Another lion came out of the foliage behind the fig tree.
What are you two doing there? Glen thought and Uvrycres walked past him on all fours and let out an even more thunderous roar that rattled the trees and disturbed the branches, reverberating inside the mostly quiet forest and sending flocks of unseen birds of prey watching from above to scatter and fly away screeching.
The scared lions snapped away from the wyvern, bolted to the edges of the opening, paused to snarl once in defiance at the smirking smugly Uvrycres and then disappeared inside the woods.
“Well,” Glen started and a man dropped from the fig tree afore he could finish. Landed badly on an ankle, but managed to stand with a pained groan and a curse, holding his bloody armour. He grimaced, face distorted from agony and covered in gore and then saw the wyvern looking at him and the open-mouthed Glen.
But mostly the wyvern.
“Fuck… me luck,” he croaked woefully, eyes gawking in horrified disbelief. “Come on man—”
The wyvern’s stinger had stopped his words mid-sentence. The Cofol looked at the gory meter long black glass-like protrusion bursting out of his chest cavity and then Uvrycres jerked his tail and hurled the broken gored body on the fig tree with a huge bang that brought three buckets worth of fruit down.
It sounded like a quick burst of drums.
Rat-ta-ta-tah.
Glen snapped his head at the hissing wyvern frustrated.
What? Uvrycres asked and clacked his teeth. He looked just like the others!
Glen groaned and hang his head down, the archer coughing up blood once afore giving up the ghost under the tree.
“Don’t kill anyone else,” he grunted, the blade vibrating again in his hand. “The sword is restless.”
Sure. What does that mean?
“You don’t know?”
What am I, a sword dottore? Ask Angrein. He made it!
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Glen would have made a comment about his behavior but his keen eyes had spotted another body some meters from the half-eaten horse, sitting with his back under a Lotus tree. With so much gore on his mutilated face and wrapped steel armour Glen shouldn’t have recognized the knight.
But he did.
A wave of sadness overcame him and the Monarch of Wetull walked near Emerson’s body like an automaton. Glen hesitated realizing there was nothing he could do. Some of it though was cowardice and Glen couldn’t disrespect the noblest man he’d ever known, so he forced himself to approach even more and kneel next to the dead knight. Glen swallowed, his mouth tasting like poison and reached to close the sole eye staring towards the sky. Emerson’s mouth crooked in the hint of a bizarre smile. Lined face covered with crusting blood and buzzing flies he waved away trying to clean it some.
People are coming, Uvrycres warned.
But a dismayed Glen just collapsed next to the still knight, their shoulders touching, when the much younger man placed his own back on that same trunk.
“Ah,” Glen groaned his eyes blurring. “Fucking hells,” he croaked and stared at the forest opening. The restless wyvern twisting around to watch the road. “You had to make a stand… Why?”
The knight didn’t answer him.
“The slave girl and the boy? I can get them out of here. What did you fear? What drove you back inside this accursed forest?” He breathed in and out slowly, tears running down his dirty face. “Help me understand this part. I can’t get it gods damnit!”
He wasn’t going to get an answer.
Glen wiped his unshaven cheeks with the back of his hand.
“I built something in the most unlikely of places,” he continued a deep scowl marring his face. “You would have loved seeing it. Maybe not. But it’s a good place. Eh, it takes some getting used to. It gets lonely sometimes, aye,” Glen pressed his lips tight for a moment. “Could really have used the help, but mostly the company. I never finished the lessons but I’ve been reading and writing some lately. Keep everything in a single page but it ain’t easy. I think Inis is smarter than me. She spots errors in the darn spelling,” he grimaced hearing people moving inside the trees.
Glen reached for the sword he’d tossed next to him. The fingers laced on the handle, the sword heard whining. He frowned but pushed himself up. Glen stood over the dead knight and sighed deeply.
“I fixed yer blade,” he told him and closed his eyes to keep the tears in. “It’s better now hopefully. Ever kept sharpened and out of Imperial steel. Good leather strips on the handle not to slip yer grip. A good sword, aye, made out of two blades joined.”
Behold what thou asked for, Nesande’s Seer shushed crowing like a hag, although Glen hadn’t asked for that. He’d been given a choice though under veiled words. Truth or infamy. Return the Jackal’s helm and his sword, she added. Remember even the gods err, Glen. Not the heart though, never the heart.
“It was never my father’s blade. Maybe you knew it and didn’t care,” he told Emerson apprehensively for the deception had been weighing him down. “But it was always yer sword.” Glen smacked his lips and opened his eyes. “As for the helmet, I’ll see to find it.”
He felt Luthos snickering and frowned.
A young blond girl got out of the bushes four meters away from him holding a steel helm in her dirty hands, her cheap tunic covered in blood. Blue eyes on a cute Lorian face full of freckles, but there was nothing sweet in her expression, only sorrow.
The girl paused in surprise seeing Glen over the knight and then her eyes drifted sideways towards the large onyx wyvern waiting silently fifteen meters away. Uvrycres could be very sneaky when he wanted to. The Wyvern grinned broadly showing dagger-sized black teeth, seemingly made out of glass.
The girl screamed and made to dash the other way but Glen’s voice stopped her, the sword touching her thin shoulder.
“Where did you get that?” He grunted, his blood boiling. “Did you steal it?”
“It’s Mista Savar’s helm,” the shaking girl croaked. “Please.”
“Give it to me!” Glen blasted her and grabbed the sculpted helm from her hands with his free hand. “Fucking thief!”
“I’m no thief!” The girl protested angrily and Uvrycres let out a menacing growl. Her eyes fluttered and she paled seeing Glen’s angry face. Then she opened them wide just as more men entered the clearing. Their voices stopping abruptly seeing a large wyvern resting at its center.
Glen turned his head to watch the newcomers, quickly realizing the muscular fighters weren’t part of Nout’s army. Their armour and races were all over the place. Not a man amongst them uninjured.
“Lord Reeves?” The girl gasped a hopeful query and Glen froze, his wild amber eyes returning to her. “It’s you! Allgods,” she croaked and went to hug him, Glen’s sword hand lashed out to stop her but the blade somehow slipped from his fingers with a snarl and clattered down before his legs.
What?
The girl was looking in puzzlement at his reaction.
“It’s me,” she said a bit hurt. “Little Kelly?”
“Never seen ye afore in my life!” Glen barked and stooped to retrieve the sword from the ground.
“You helped us out of Rida. I never stopped thinking about you milord,” Kelly informed him blushing to the roots of her hair and Glen scrunched his face unable to recall it, until he did.
Ah.
Shit.
I never thought about ye once after that girl.
Better not to tell her that.
Girls can be weird at that age.
“My mother was killed,” Kelly sniffled and pointed at the half-eaten faceless corpse. “She’s somewhere over there,” hopefully not recognizing it. “I think. I couldn’t leave her.”
Glen grimaced, glared at the dead Emerson for shoving burdens down his throat from the grave and then scrunched his jaw, grinding his teeth audibly.
“I remember you,” he croaked, made to walk towards the stunned but unwilling to retreat gladiators, about seven of them, but paused and turned to stare at the knelt by Emerson’s body sobbing girl. “Your troubles are over. Never call me Reeves again. I’m Arguen Garth.”
Kelly sniffled and looked at him confused. “Who’s that milord?”
“A foreign king,” Glen replied hoarsely that feeling of solitude returning and glanced at the silent knight afore adding. “Ruling beyond the Pale Mountains.”
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