The peninsula of Tiba was a wide, blunt dagger of land that thrust itself down into the Sea of Mirras, just east of Begierde. There was a short range of difficult mountains that ran down the edge of the peninsula at the edge of the sea, but for the most part the peninsula itself was covered in rolling plains.
As the Anglish Empire expanded its reach from the continent of Rothgar from the south, it first occupied Einsamkeit and then Begierde, sending exploratory fingers of pioneers and homesteaders into the untamed wildlands.
The only city of any worth that grew from that initial plunge into the peninsula was Doran, remaining active even after the War of Liberation, and then an additional three hundred years more, as the Anglish Empire struggled to maintain its clutches across five continents after the dynamic upheavals that almost complete annihilation of Darnell, the Golden City, the Capital of the Empire.
But that cataclysmic war occured a continent’s length away. To the farmers and homesteaders on the peninsula, there was only the regularity of the seasons, the harvests, and the responsibility to send the wheat, barley, rye, oats, and other foodstuffs to Doran.
Villages died out through plague, through raids by bandits, elves, and beastmen, others simply sprang into place as others disappeared.
----------------------------------------
Daveth rode with a group of light cavalry, their goal a small village further down the peninsula, one of the cavalry proudly bearing the banner of the Seventh Seal. He was certain his horse hated him, but there wasn’t much that could be done about that. Daveth himself was a massive giant of a man, fully seven feet tall and weighing five hundred pounds. He tended to go through horses quickly.
He would have preferred to travel by foot, but the point of the mission was directed around speed, so he didn’t have a choice. Besides, he looked ridiculous on the thing, like a full-grown man trying to ride a burro too small for his size.
As the cavalry passed a copse of the ubiquitous aspen that dotted the plains, Daveth suddenly blinked a few times, and raised his head, sniffing the air. He glanced around with a frown, down at his hands, and then checked the line of trees off to the right.
The bannerman caught his sudden burst of activity, and Daveth glanced at him.
“Have to take a necessary.” Daveth mentioned shortly, in a low voice. “I’ll catch you up.”
The man nodded, and moved his mount, allowing Daveth to slip out from the tight formation.
----------------------------------------
After the cavalry trotted past, Daveth took his horse a little off the path and dismounted. He adjusted his cloak a bit, tugged on his beard, and with a sigh strode up to one of the trees.
“Come on out, Eleven.” He demanded roughly.
"I wonder how it is that you can find me so easily, Daveth." a dry, mellifluous voice called from the tree Daveth had addressed, and Daveth's mouth twisted.
"It's because you make it so easy." he replied irritably, and as he did so, parts of the tree's bark seemed to shed and crumble away, revealing a woody gray-brown skin that was rapidly turning a fleshy pink as the camouflage was shed.
The woman that stood before him only came up to his breastbone, but her antlers added an additional foot of height. Her eyes were the green of forests, of emeralds, of riotous new growth, a bold green that was both vibrant and unsettling. No human had eyes that green. Her ears seemed to hint at an elvish origin, but they twitched and swiveled about like an animals', and she wore a simple peasant’s dress.
"It's been a year now since you wandered upon my road." She started rhythmically, but he rolled his eyes extravagantly.
“Not this shit again.” he muttered, but she continued blithely on.
"The price must be paid; a story must be told." She finished, and he sighed, and poked her in the chest with a thick finger.
"These are woods, in case you didn't notice, Eleven." He replied sarcastically, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "And that's an army. If you're wanting to keep your hide intact, I'd think you should find somewhere else to be." He warned angrily, punctuating his warning with jabs from his finger.
She captured his finger with her hand and smiled up at him. In truth that grin looked a little wild, a little strange, as if some hysteric lunacy bubbled just beneath.
"You're the only one that has ever been able to find me when I didn't want to be found." She replied, and her face twisted into a sorrowful one briefly. "Every time we meet it's like this. You're so mean to me! Why won't you tell me a story?"
Daveth ground his teeth and growled at her, who only laughed.
"Remember who saved your life." She reminded him.
"I've only your word for that." he countered.
She raised a sculpted eyebrow at him with a playfully skeptical expression on her face. “Do you really think that?” She asked, and he gave her a frustrated, pent up sigh as response.
“A story, then?” She asked, and laid her hand lightly against his chest.
“Why should I give you a story?” He asked, a pained expression on his face. “I’ve got things to do, you know-” He began, but she cut him off with a finger across his lips.
“A gift for a gift.” She explained. “A price for a price.”
“I already paid that price.” Daveth reminded her.
“As you say.” She agreed, laughing. “Shall we strike another bargain?” She offered. “I have something you will find extremely useful in the days and months to come.”
Daveth glanced back towards where he’d left his troops to confront this strange, whimsical woman.
“Tell me what it is.” He began, but she shook her head.
“A coin for a meal, a meal for a coin, but nothing for nothing.” She stated, and folded her arms across her chest.
In truth, Daveth had no idea who or what Eleven was. He didn’t even know if that was her real name. She always insisted he address her as such. She always showed up in the strangest places, and he was utterly incapable of understanding how he knew she was there, waiting for him.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
He pushed her back against the tree she’d camouflaged herself against, and leaned down into her face.
“Okay. On the continent of Hesperia, there was a perfectly ordinary man who was occasionally tormented by an antlered mutant that fancied herself a mystic. She kept popping up in different locations at different times, always demanding the same thing: a story. She was a royal pain in the ass. The end.”
The girl stopped struggling. “What an absolutely horrible story.” She accused disgustedly. “Hardly worth the coin for a meal.” she finished sullenly, and then looked up at him curiously.
“Wait. Antlers? I don’t have antlers, Daveth.” She retorted casually. Daveth silently gripped one of them in his massive hand and pulled upward, causing her head to tilt and raise up. He could lift her up by them, if he so chose. She was small and lithe and light, much like his elven scout, Audra.
“What’re these, then?” He asked, and she smiled. “Let me go and I’ll show you.”
He let go, and she shocked him by effortlessly plucking them from the sides of her head as if they had not been solidly attached a scant second earlier.
“See? Not really real. They’re just an affectation.” She remarked, and tossed them to the ground casually.
Daveth took a step back, jaw dropping. They were most definitely attached, and pretty solidly, too. If he had kept pulling either it would have snapped off or he’d have lifted her up by them.
“Affec-” he struggled with the unfamiliar word.
She nodded. “An accessory.”
He shook his head, even more confused.
“I put them on just for you.” She added helpfully. She appeared thoughtful for a moment. “What was it you called me?” She asked musingly, and then her eyes lit up and she laughed, revealing long, fang-like canines. “Ah, yes. A mutant.”
She turned and twisted and danced a little in front of him, leaves swirling around her feet.
“Do I look like a human to you?” She asked, preening under his shocked gaze and Daveth took another step back, his hand going to the hilt of his sword reflexively.
“Ah!” Eleven exclaimed suddenly, and held up a warning hand. “Your present.” She reminded him, and from somewhere produced a short leather pouch with her other hand and presented it to him.
He gave her a wary look and eyed the thing like it was a poisonous snake.
“What’s that?” He asked.
“Your reward. A price for a price. I’m sure it will come in very handy for you.” She explained to him, as if he were extremely stupid.
“A pouch?” He asked skeptically. She shook her head.
“A magic pouch, Daveth.” She explained. “A magical scabbard. Capable of storing any weapon- every weapon- you have. All you have to do is put your weapons in the pouch, and then, when you need them, think of the weapon you need, and you will be able to pull it out.” She explained, and proffered it to him again. “Here.”
He took the pouch she offered, and examined it. It looked like any ordinary belt pouch.
“Go on. Try it out, if you like.” She encouraged. “You paid for it fairly.”
He eyed her, and carefully drew his sword. He slipped the tip into the pouch, expecting it to come out the other side, punching through the leather easily, but it went in and in and in, swallowing up his sword within its strange depths.
“Now take it out.” She offered. He obediently reached into the neck of the pouch and his hand closed on the grip of his sword, and he drew it out of the pouch as if it was a scabbard.
“It’ll work with my daggers, too?” He asked, and she gave him a brilliant smile.
“It will work with all of your weapons. Remember, all you need to do is think of the weapon you want. Put a sword and a dagger in there, think of the dagger, and you will pull it out. Think of the sword instead, and that is what you will draw.”
“What’s its limit?” He asked. “How many can I fit in there?” He asked, and she shrugged.
“As many as you can fit.” She replied ambiguously.
“Why are you giving me this?” He asked, suspicious.
“Because you paid the price for it.” She offered blithely.
“And if I’d told you a different story?” He asked, and she laughed, turning back to the tree. She placed her hand on it, and the bark seemed to swallow her up, sheathing her figure in wood, and then she was truly gone, her presence fading away.
----------------------------------------
As he rode to catch up with his team, Daveth experimented with the pouch. Any weapon he wanted to draw would have to have to be without its scabbard, because if he drew the weapon, it would come out sheathed. If this was to be used in combat, he'd have to discard their scabbards, and then recall whatever weapon he wanted in order to draw it properly.
He gave no more thought to the creature that had given him the strange gift. She was strange in and of herself. She often claimed she'd saved his life, and thus he owed her, but the circumstances in which she claimed to have saved his life were dubious at best, confusing and contradicting at worst. After all, the day after the incident he was captured, arrested, and sentenced to death by hanging. It was only through Aldric's arrival in town and conscripting him literally from the gallows that he was alive.
----------------------------------------
The village they’d expected to meet with was burned to the ground; with only the shattered remains of a few stone fireplaces and charred timbers to indicate that it had been a village at all. Even the ground had been scorched.
Daveth ordered a search, but there were no bodies to be found. There were great, gaudy splashes of blood splattered everywhere, as if a massacre had taken place, but whomever it was that had burned this village to the foundations had taken the bodies with them.
“Commander, what do you make of this?” one of his men called out to him, and he trotted over, kicking charred wreckage out of his way.
Driven almost completely through a tree trunk was something that at first glance resembled an arrow, or perhaps a short spear, but it was about four feet long, and made from iron.
Daveth settled his weight and dragged it through the tree, eliciting a murmur from his troops at his prodigious strength.
The thing was heavy, and certainly held an arrow’s shape, but even the fletchings were iron. It looked to be cast from a mold. He bounced it on his palm contemplatively. It lacked the distinct notching that indicated it was fired from a bow or a crossbow. He looked back the way it had come; someone or something would have had to launch it with sufficient force to get it through the tree.
He eyed the ground, but it was so churned with boot tracks and hoofprints it was impossible to reliably pin down its point of origin. A mystery; who or what could have launched such a thing? He absently tucked it into his pouch. He’d show it to Aldric.
He toured the village slowly. The fire likely happened a day or so prior. The ashes were still warm in some places, but whatever had happened here, the fire had stopped because there was simply nothing left to burn. They’d been a day too late to save them.
“Back to Andersnacht.” Daveth ordered. “We missed them.” A feeling of frustration welled up in him; if this was to be a fight, then let it be a fight; unarmed peasants getting caught between them didn’t deserve the indignity of dying trapped between them.
It was something he’d picked up from Aldric. True strength was to be leveraged between those that deserved to wield it. A barfight deserved a barfight; a soldier deserved a soldier, an army for an army. Daveth had been in barfights before, but he didn’t wage war in them. A barfight was a grand meless of smashed tankards and tossed tables and bloody fists; a fight between soldiers was a thing of knives, swords, and implements of war.
“This was needlessly pointless.” He muttered to himself, and petulantly kicked a loose stone that tumbled away. Whoever had done this, they’d explicitly done it to send a very specific message. The fields were unspoiled; someone could theoretically build a new village and populate it with those that knew the skill for farming and they could immediately pick up where the previous residents had left off without interruption.
It wasn’t a grudge against the village, else the fields would have been burned as well. If whoever was doing this was destroying other villages in a likewise fashion, it didn’t point to actual banditry either. This was a message.
A message to who? The obvious recipient was Ulric. But if the message was to Ulric, why the need to burn villages to the ground? Why not attack him directly?
Another noble? When nobles were squeezed, it was the peasants that felt the pinch. A disgruntled noble, pissed at Ulric, decides to undermine him by destroying his investment. How? He hires mercenaries to flatten villages.
“Fuck.” Daveth spat, frustrated.