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Rhys Vardran
‘Dar Tulca’*
Dar Tulca
Part I
-A whiff of Redleaf-
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> *From ancient Imperial Tul-Luka, the ‘golden shimmer’ or ‘almost precious’ for the shine of the metal, or another word for ‘sickly yellow’
>
> *The ‘C’ is pronounced like a ‘K’ accentuating the last syllable as a sharp ‘ka’.
-
> Summer of 173 NC
>
> Gilded Peaks
>
> The forested area between Son-Zan River’s mid and south tributaries
>
> Forty kilometers from the city of Dinar to the south
>
> Three hundred and twenty kilometers from Rin An-Pur to the west
>
> Eplas, the Great Khanate
> Dar Eherdir stopped the old horse he called Dar and stared at the wild bush the ‘boy’ had picked to ambush him. Not him specifically. Anyone approaching. His tutor had another horse following him and a mule with supplies. The second horse was also occupied.
>
> “Boy,” the assassin said in a snarly voice. “Unload the horses.”
>
> The moment to make a move was lost. But ‘Boy’ had been confused and worried hearing so many animals approach and stalled for far too long. You can take down one opponent, tired and alone in the wilderness. More than that, it becomes a guessing game. Not always set to end in your favor.
>
> Odds matter.
>
> He got out from behind the thin thorny branches, custom dagger in hand. The gap in his teeth making his tongue park there. The young boy looked at the tall hooded freak apprehensively.
>
> “You needed a better weapon for that. Hmm. A better dagger too but not for the ambush. To carry around.” Dar Eherdir decided and swung a leg to get down from his horse. The old stallion neighed and the assassin cast a thoughtful glance at the animal, then pursed his mouth. He’d two pairs of large fangs in there, one next to the other that could scare the hairs off of a dog’s hide if Larn smiled at you.
>
> Which the man rarely did.
>
> Boy wasn’t sure whether he was the latter.
>
> A human that is.
>
> “What about the girls?” Boy asked and Larn glanced back at the second horse and the two small girls on the saddle. No more than five or six. Both of them with Cofol or Horselord blood. Probably the former given the softer slant in their innocent light brown eyes.
>
> “Caught a small caravan on the road,” Larn started, his ice-colored eyes flickering between the girls and him. Boy clenched his fingers on the wooden handle nervously. “Had to get some supplies and animals as I had left Rin An-Pur in a hurry and old Dar can’t handle the load.”
>
> This was months back.
>
> “What were you doing in the capital?”
>
> “Listened to the young Princes of the Khanate talk.”
>
> “What did they talk about?”
>
> The fact that Larn had gotten close enough to the palace to do it not really surprising.
>
> “They dream of clearing out the north from brigands.”
>
> Boy nodded. “A good thing?”
>
> Larn grimaced hideously. “You stir up things boy, it creates problems. Monsters pop out of the watery mud and fiends come out of the shadows.”
>
> Right.
>
> “How is the mouth?” Larn asked him next, looking at the scared girls watching them.
>
> “Hurts.”
>
> “Hmm. Made camp near here?”
>
> “Near the banks. The maple trees.”
>
> “Still got the pliers and the skinning knife?” Larn queried and unbuttoned his cloak revealing the custom weapon harness underneath. Various blades sheathed on the right side of his chest, a bolts quiver on the left. The small metal crossbow secured on the inside of the cloak itself.
>
> “I do.”
>
> “Bring them here.”
>
> “Why?”
>
> “Time for you to move on boy. You survived the wilderness for months on your own. You stopped listening. I want you gone before the summer’s end.”
>
> The eleven year old glared at him. “I have no proper weapons.”
>
> “You’ll pick more weapons on the road or you won’t.” Larn replied indifferently and went to get the girls. “But I’ll fix your dagger. Come. It’s early enough in the day to begin training the girls.”
-
More than twenty years later
The woody thoroughfare outside Rusted
The edge of Tongue Peninsula
Duchy of Scaldingport
More patrols.
Rhys shushed his horse that was chewing on a soft leafy twig. The horse didn’t want the wood but he hungered for the leaves. He rubbed a gloved hand on the white stubble at his chin and then started walking through the trees following the road. Rhys could see the white gravel shinning between the branches and the undergrowth.
He stopped near a half-skeleton and looked about for anything useful. The clothes had been torn as predators worked to get at the rotting flesh. When that was cleaned the bones had come loose from the leather armour. The rain had ruined the joints first and then rust had weakened the mail on the chest. The armour pretty useless now. Rhys found a nice curved knife though.
So he picked that up.
Not as good as his. The blade the size of his hand from wrist to fingertip. Nice soft pale-leather at the handle over the polished wood. A custom job.
Rhys narrowed his eyes hearing a horse approaching through the wilderness, branches snapping or moved about to make room. He glanced back, but his own animal had stopped to graze at the moist grass near the roots of a tree. The man turned around and reached for a moss-covered trunk. Touched it with his left hand, rounded it, the knife in the other and came out the other side.
The greyish horse appeared a meter away now grazing just like his and blocking the forest path.
“I’ve a tree trunk on my back,” Rhys told the hidden assassin and Selussa chuckled from somewhere behind him.
High.
“My bolt can see the top of your head,” she told him.
“You have the quiver in the saddlebags,” Rhys retorted through his teeth. His tongue touching the gold fangs carefully. He could see the bolts sticking out. “What if you miss?”
“I won’t,” Selussa replied and jumped from the branch she had climbed up to. She landed with an oomph and rolled on the muddy grass to jump on her feet again. Her Cofol face all grown up and filled out. Lithe as a jaguar. “What?” She taunted seeing his stare.
The little girl was almost twenty six now.
“You need to clean up,” Rhys rejoined raising the corner of his mouth. “And see to that ankle.”
Selussa hissed in frustration but then grimaced and reached to rub at her left calf over the tight leather pants.
“Not an ankle,” she spat angrily.
“It’ll still hurt by morrow,” Rhys retorted. “We have two hours before the next patrol comes. We need to move.”
“I should be in charge,” Selussa griped walking stiffly towards her horse.
“Dar Eherdir said otherwise,” Rhys replied.
“Taking the Oras Eye from her won’t be easy.”
“I don’t need it.”
“But you want it,” Selussa taunted and Rhys turned to look in her face. She was a pretty woman in her own way. He was always fond of the cute lines on Cofol faces. Yeah. He licked his lips. Not like the sorceress though. ‘Moira’ was beyond exotic, exceptional in the smaller details. Standing above the scales like a paradox for you didn’t know how much of it was real.
Not that it mattered.
“I got the vote that counts,” he finally said. “Dar Mori-Yaule can attest to that.”
The Dark Cat.
The female assassin’s Servant name that of the jaguar.
Selussa pursed her mouth tightly. Then reached at the bindings of her hardened-leather vest. Started working to untie them. “I’ll need help with the pants,” she teased him.
Rhys gulped down. “You could always wear them looser.”
“Is that a no?” Selussa asked getting out of her vest and starting at the ebony-wood buttons of her shirt.
It wasn’t.
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“You should use the water,” Selussa told him an hour later, drying up by the small spring she had discovered much deeper in the woods. “It’s not too cold.”
“I’m good,” Rhys rustled listening for any predator approaching as this was a busy animal trail. He glanced at her naked back. The skin wrinkled there from shoulder to a hand above her fit hips. A square piece missing that had healed in time. Missing wasn’t exactly true of course. Rhys had most of it around the handle of his dagger. She didn’t know that though and probably remembered very little from that day.
He did.
Zestari had gotten it worse in a sense but not in another. Depends what you miss more. Every Servant must surrender something, Larn always said and one could tell what he’d lost. Just a bit at the top of the ears, Rhys had thought then. It turned it was a bit more than that but still, unless it was a matter of pride for the Zilan, Dar Eherdir had come out of it better than anyone else.
Out of the Circle.
The Servants didn’t know of the Circle but they knew of loss because Larn wished it so. Rhys always feared he’d get rid of the girls sooner or later but for some bizarre reason, Larn hadn’t. He kept them around for years was the tale, far beyond anyone else. Rhys hadn’t seen them for years and probably Selussa didn’t remember him as that boy in the woods.
Or maybe she did.
Rhys wanted to reach Wetull. Larn wanted them to turn around and head back to Jelin. He always thought it was to get him away from the Sorceress but perhaps Larn was looking for a plausible reason to keep Selussa away from their merry group. Why? The sorceress didn’t mind the company and Lith was a very private person for the most part.
Was it the Gish?
Or the Gish’s friends?
The numbers told him it was fear.
You could see the final number all about you. Three young birds in a fungus-covered nest chirping and a serpent approaching, its mate coiled on a nearby branch.
Three plus two.
Minus those the serpents will surely get.
At least one.
Selussa hummed a tavern song she had picked up in Castalor, a leg splashing at the running water’s surface. The skin on her naked back paler where the monstrous scar was, for she usually kept it covered.
Out of shame.
Fear and shame.
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One of two had survived.
The girls.
Larn had send them away to protect Selussa.
-
Two days later
3rd of Quintus 194 NC
Scaldingport
Civilian port authorities’ office
The Issir port-master pulled at his white beard thoughtfully. He’d a small barrel of salted sardines next to him and fished one out of the stinky pile to refill his mouth. Rhys stood back unwittingly.
“No ships for…” He paused to look at the sitting Rhys in between chomps.
“Rosebush.” Rhys hissed trying to maintain a veneer of civility given the place.
“Where’s that?”
“Regia?”
“No ships for Regia.”
“I just need two spots in a merchant.”
“Are you a merchant?” The Issir snapped aggressively.
“I’m in a similar profession,” Rhys retorted.
“What are you dealing in?” The Issir asked looking at his papers afore gulping down. He kept working his tongue on his teeth though to get at all those fish pieces left behind.
“Services mostly.”
The Issir stared at him. “Listen now, I’m not an Uher believer and you sound foreign despite yer coloring so you might not know how things work, but most places don’t officially condone it.”
Whoring was his meaning.
“What about Scaldingport?”
“The Duke is a forgiving man.”
“Not what I heard.”
“On this matter,” the Issir official elucidated. “The girl works the ports?”
“She’s a partner. We are in the lost and found business.”
“That a thing?” The official asked with a grunt and raised his head. Some pieces of leftover sardine flesh on his beard. “I’ve lost my cat. Big ole pussy with fluffy fur. Fat as fuck. Most here think he got drown in the docks but I’m not as sure. Think you can find him?”
Rhys clenched his jaw and Selussa snorted trying to keep her chuckle in.
“Find a cat?”
“Ayup.”
“For a couple of spots in a merchant ship?”
“Didn’t say it was a merchant ship. Don’t jump into conclusions mate. I can see you’re not from around here as I said. So I get it. Know that folks run the routes, given the current developments.”
“You mean the war?”
“Sure that too.” The official squinted his eyes looking at Selussa more carefully. She had remained standing by the door behind Rhys. “Are you a Cofol lass? Get your pretty face out from that hood. You wear pants I see. Brave choice. Stay away from Midlanor.”
“I’m a half-breed,” Selussa lied with a hiss.
“Same thing,” the Issir grunted pursing his mouth. “Sorry to hear it. That’s it then.”
“No it’s not,” Rhys cut in with a grunt. “What does it matter?”
“You serious with that?” The official snapped getting all worked up. “We’re fighting them slanted-eyed bastards!”
“You are fighting Horselords,” Rhys corrected him and the man blinked, then stared at him as if he was an imbecile.
“Same thing,” he repeated with a grimace. “Get her out of my office afore I call the guards!”
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“Fuck,” Rhys cursed getting out on the busy street and parking on the verge of the pavement to avoid the traffic. “We could have found a darn cat.”
“Any cat?” Selussa asked lowering the hood over her eyes.
“Well, yeah.”
Feed her for a couple of days if need be.
“Don’t think it is what he had in mind.” Selussa stated.
Rhys smacked his lips and stared at the boats moored in the port. “We need to get the horses to a stable.”
“She might not be in Rosebush,” Selussa pointed out.
“I need to make an effort to talk with her.”
“The word probably reached everyone by now.”
“Yes, but it is more polite to have a talk with the previous head,” Rhys explained. “Get everything in order and avoid problems down the line.”
Usually the head just died and no talk was needed.
“Ralnor has spoken. It is done,” Selussa assured him.
Yeah that is not how the world works lass.
I don’t much believe in him like you do.
“I want to ask for the pendant,” he opted to say instead.
“She won’t give it to you.”
“I can use that to smoothen the transition,” Rhys replied.
“Ralnor has already talked to her. He told me that,” Selussa argued and walked towards her horse.
“Where’s the inn?” Rhys asked as he hadn’t visited Jelin in decades. Not that he remembered much from before.
“The third building, on the third street facing west.”
For Ora, the third God.
“Ever been?” Rhys asked her and Selussa glanced at him.
“We didn’t use them. Ralnor likes to sleep near the trees,” she replied. “I sort of got used to it.”
Right. There’s that of course, he thought.
“You know we can use the info he gave us,” Rhys told her and Selussa paused a foot in the stirrups. “Take that ship to where it’ll lead us.”
She smiled and it was a nice smile that, Rhys thought as it wasn’t common for her to let her guard down. You grow up with Larn or Ralnor as a father figure, you turn up guarded at the very minimum.
The girl’s smile had evaporated from her face.
“What?” Rhys grunted not liking it.
“You barely talked to me around her.”
“She is a Zilan sorceress,” Rhys defended himself, but he was very pleased he had caught her being jealous. “Very particular and prone to fits of anger when ignored. You heard Larn right?”
“Yeah,” Selussa murmured thoughtfully. “I heard him.”
“Right. Then, what do you say oh, ‘jaguar of the evening’, do we try the strange ‘folk’ the port-master mentioned? Skip the visit to that dumpster?”
He’d used the moniker to tease her.
“What are you doing?” Selussa hissed picking up on his sudden change in demeanor. Well, there was no change really. Rhys was just scared shitless to flirt with her near Larn.
Or the sorceress.
A man has to have priorities and self-preservation at the forefront of his mind.
“Finding us a ride, what else?” Rhys replied readily, getting back into his groove.
> The schooner had brought them to Aldenport. It was pirate-run transport ship using Scaldingport’s flag –or other flags- to do business. Apparently the Duke didn’t mind turning a blind eye to piracy as well to suit his needs. Then again, the rebel princess Selussa knew very-well was calling herself a pirate queen.
>
> Or didn’t object to people using the term.
>
>
-
5th of Quintus 194 NC
City of Alden
Southwest corner market, Commoner’s District
Molten Cherry Inn
“The King left!” A boy yelled running down the street with enthusiasm. “The whole legion is marching away!”
Rhys run his tongue over the golden incisors inside his mouth and glanced across the street at the two-story Inn with the weird name at its label.
“I don’t know,” Rhys murmured thoughtfully watching the patrons entering and exiting the place. “Seems busy.”
“She used to run Horned Hen afore moving here,” Selussa explained.
“What was that like?” Rhys asked glancing at her and she bit at her lower lip thoughtfully.
“Different?”
“In what way?”
“What does it matter?” Selussa snapped and pulled at the reins to lead her horse across the busy market street. Rhys followed after the hooded female leading his own mount by the reins and watching the locals moving about their businesses.
A tavern wench greeted them at the entrance. A comely young thing with perky breasts and carelessly left unbuttoned front on her simple dress. A lot of rouse powder on her cheeks and a naughty smile that surely brought a lot of customers back, Rhys thought and smiled afore he could control himself. The wench recoiled but caught herself immediately.
There’s a professional.
“Welcome to the Molten Cherry!” She managed to croak and Selussa stopped abruptly to turn around and glare at him. The wench hadn’t greeted her as warmly. “Love the dental-work!” The wench added with a wink having completely recovered her wits now. “Is it real gold?”
What are we darling, some cheap vagabonds?
“A hundred percent,” Rhys replied warmly. “Want to touch them? I won’t bite.”
The brunette-haired wench chuckled, Selussa groaned at the cheap wordplay and a grinning Rhys snapped his mouth shut teasingly at the wench afore following the female assassin inside.
“You know I think that worked,” he told the walking briskly in front of him Selussa. She easily navigated the tables whilst heading for the counter.
“She’s a whore,” the female assassin hissed.
“Eh, don’t get all wound up about it.” Rhys told her and eyed the middle-aged Lorian woman writing on a ledger behind the bar. The tavern owner raised her head to look at them approach, Rhys already busy looking about as he’d spotted several more rather fetching waitresses tending to customers with enthusiasm. The attractive, heavily painted matron raised a trimmed eyebrow curious. Then her eyes met Selussa’s and she paled under all that make up.
“Ah,” Rhys said noticing her worried eyes. “Remain calm, we’re just here for the rooms.”
He had smiled at that and gotten a different reaction from the matron than he’d expected.
“I take it traveler you want more than a room?” She droned and Rhys glanced at the counter to spot the coin Selussa had slapped there. An Old Imperial gold coin with Oras’ eye carved on it. A piece of gold every member carried around. You could use it if you were in a bind, but good luck finding another one or even catching up with Larn to get a new coin.
Fuck’s sake girl.
“Why traveler?” Selussa asked, since she seem to love that part while Rhys was shaking his head wanting to get this over with.
“There’s a lot of road on that cape,” Madam Verano said. There was a painting of younger Verano on the wall behind her and Rhys could read the name there. The scene depicting a fancy brothel and the naked Lena holding a hen in her hands to protect her modesty.
Everything but half-a-nipple visible.
“I can’t name the road nor speak of the sea,” Selussa replied with religious fervor whilst a disappointed at the realization of the true character of the venue Rhys tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling with a groan. “Shades have no tongue and all dead sound alike…”
“To the Servants of the Fading Light,” Lena Verano said and Selussa stepped aside to present the grimacing Rhys to her. The woman blinked, a touch of sadness marring her aged though well-maintained face. “We bid a warm welcome.”
Ah.
“She’s not dead,” Rhys explained to her. “Just decided to take her talents elsewhere.”
Verano gulped down and kept her eyes on his face. “Is this true?”
“Yes.”
“What can I offer to…?”
“Just call me Rhys,” he told her in a friendly manner. “We want a room.”
“Two,” Selussa corrected him.
“Are you scared?” Rhys taunted. “No shame in it.”
“I see what you’re doing,” Selussa warned him.
“I’ll get the keys,” Verano said with a curious glance at their faces. “It will be but a moment.”
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Rhys locked his window and barred it. He locked the door of his room as well although he’d left nothing of value behind. He paused outside of Selussa’s door for a moment but then walked down the half floor’s corridor for the stairs, his hand touching the guardrails and an eye at the mostly empty tavern underneath.
Rhys spotted nothing out of the order and hurried down the steps, ducked under a wench carrying a large platter with dirty cups to the kitchens, glanced at Verano’s spot but found it empty and then walked outside the inn. The night warm for the time of year, but Alden didn’t have the harshest climate and if one ventured south a bit more, springs smelled of summer.
Yeah, he thought and found one of the inns outside decorative supports to rest his back on. His eyes paused at the now closed market stands. The tables still there, some covered under the shades, others left with discarded produce on. Some empty. A small-bodied, very short old woman sitting on one of the empty ones, sucking at her pipe with closed eyes.
Her hooded head half-shaded in white smoke.
“You’re here,” Selussa said and came to stand next to him smelling of Verano’s soap and bath oils.
“We can leave on the morrow for Rosebush,” Rhys told her. “Then we can travel the coast, go as far as Lesia. I want to see Cediorum.”
“Work might come up,” Selussa said, her short braids now undone and moist curls of black hair framing her tanned face to the slightly round chin. She glanced at him and Rhys grinned a golden smile, literally.
Doesn’t get more expensive than that, unless one goes for diamonds. Rhys wanted to have the missing teeth fixed, but he’d gone ahead and did them all. Fashioned the front just like his tutor’s, to better remember him before he knew what Larn really was.
Rhys didn’t expect to see Dar Eherdir again after so many years.
“You look like them,” Selussa murmured.
“I look like him,” Rhys corrected her.
“No, you don’t. You think this is a joke?” She hissed in frustration.
“I’m doing this far longer than you,” he told her. Rhys was thirty two, so not that much older than her and once upon a time the difference had appeared much greater. Still, Rhys had also lived for himself away from Dar Eherdir’s influence for much longer.
A lifetime.
Go now, Larn had told him. You can make it.
There was a whiff of Redleaf in the air. A smoke too expensive and exotic to find in the Commoner’s District of Alden.
“He’s too consumed with her. Just like you were,” Selussa said in a low voice and Rhys turned his attention on her again.
She was worried. For him?
“Don’t worry about Larn,” Rhys told her. “The only thing he values is surviving.”
“She can break the shadows,” Selussa said sounding bitter. “Even make flesh anew, if she wanted to.”
Hmm.
“Sure. She can also grow bigger tits, change the color of her skin, sprout an orange tree in the middle of the desert and make a cat talk,” Rhys teased and Selussa pouted.
“Why turn everything into a joke?”
To cope, make light of life and keep the monsters inside the watery mud sleeping.
“It’s my character darling,” Rhys replied with a grimace. Selussa had slapped his shoulder annoyed. “Barely felt that,” he teased her.
“To hells with you Rhys!” She griped in Imperial and turning on her heels marched back inside. Her words traveling across the now empty night street and reaching the stands. The assassin snapped his stare there, suddenly feeling watched, but this part of the market was now empty. Just the tiny whiff of that aromatic smoke remaining behind.
Hmm.
Curious, Rhys thought and turned around to walk back inside the Molten Cherry. The moment he entered the now quiet tavern, Selussa called for him to join her at a table near the door. Rhys smacked his lips, gold teeth clinging in his mouth and grabbed a chair. He placed its back against the wall and sat next to the refreshed female assassin.
“I want to taste a fruity liquor,” she told him taking a scroll in her hands to read at the menu. “It says it right here. ‘Pleasure strawberry’. Do you think it prudent?” Selussa queried and Rhys took the square piece of parchment in his hands to look at what Verano had scribbled there. The prices exorbitant on some of the items. At the bottom edge of the parchment black letters started forming as if burned on the paper with a red hot stylus.
“Rhys?” Selussa asked seeing his sobering expression.
“Who is Storm Nattas?” Rhys asked her and the female assassin furrowed her arching brows.
“The name is vaguely familiar,” Selussa finally said. “A minor lord I think. I’ll ask Lena about him.”
With that she got up to visit Verano’s quarters but paused to look outside the open doors. “Huh,” Selussa said curious. “I think a Gish just walked across the road.”
“What Gish? Jinx?” Rhys asked absentmindedly looking at the name written on the tavern’s menu.
“A female, aye. But not her you dork. She had an old dress on,” Selussa replied with a shrug.
Rhys remembered the aged woman resting by the market and nodded, not thinking much of it then. His mind preoccupied with other matters.
“How would a minor Lord know my name?” He asked and got up as well. “I haven’t visited Jelin in twenty years!”
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