Chapter 8
Elara Dawnstrike scribbled down numbers on her papers. Rations of food and water, something to break up her thoughts and derail their direction.
She flicked back her hair behind her horns noticing her black nails were chewed down to her purple fingers. She ran her hand over the standard looking armor. Those temperature runes worth every bit of copper.
The door was thrown open to the office beyond.
Riven Ashfist stomped out of the office, his eyes smoldering. His head held no horns, or hair, his skin black as onyx his eyes were a splash of aquamarine spark. His armor encased him, well cared for, without the polish, old damage repaired but left as reminders. His expression smoothed into a grin as he caught Elara’s gaze.
She rose to meet him.
“Still got your head stuck in your numbers.” He said, leaning down to hug her.
“How’d it go?” She asked.
He shook his head against her shoulder and released her. “Stuck in the current situation. Without other options.” Some of the anger from before returned to his gaze.
“A new gambit is upon us, one I’m sure you’re about to learn.” His lips didn’t move but his words slipped into her ear. “I hope you are better than I to convince him to leave this lizardshit behind.”
“Look after yourself Elara.” He hugged her again.
“And you too Riven.”
She’d held onto her papers throughout, straightening them and her jacket before she went through the doors, pulling them closed.
The runes activated, locking them away from the rest of the world.
Torin looked up from his desk, the shadows under his eyes turning towards bruises. His eyes shattered green among black, the same as his wavy hair and his cloak.
How he wore the thick thing Elara never knew, but it did make him look imposing. Though terrifying once he removes it to fight .
His skin was the pallid white of the material planers or those from the mixed regions. Leaned against the desk was his longsword. Though his attention was dominated by the map infront of him.
“Elara,” the word brought a smile to his face, strained and tired as it was.
“Well looks like you’re not getting much sleep Torin,” She clicked her tongue and flopped down into the empty chair, crossing her feet up on his desk.
“Not much time to sleep,” Torin opened up his arms to encompass the world as he leaned back into his seat. “What can I help you with?”
Stopping this idiocy and getting the hell out of here would be a start .
His silver ring that denoted his position as the ruling Earl of the area glinted off of his hand.
“Supplies.”
“Of course,” Torin sighed, giving her an amused smile.
“We don’t have enough.”
That made him falter. “We can get more though. The Cinders are behind us.”
“Everyone knows the situation we are in, prices are at four times their normal. Our people have been mobilized to fight so our crops are going to be lacking this year. The Cinders are asking even higher prices.”
“They gave us a lot in the last few months,” Torin grabbed onto straws.
“I asked Lyra with this line of thinking,” Elara said. "Have you ever heard of the traders joke, the first one’s on me?”
“No?” Torin frowned.
“Trader comes into town, people don’t care for his wares, some kind of tea. He tells them, look, I’m not going to make anything on this trip, so I’ll share it with you. First cup is on me.” Elara checked he was still following. “They all get a cup of tea, after all its something new and why not? Its free. They have it and damn if it ain’t the best tea they ever had. He sells them a few packets and says that he’ll be back. He comes back and people love the tea, they get a bunch. He comes back, later this time, most of them ran out of tea waiting. This time they buy more than before. Third time he comes back, apologetic like, he doesn’t have much tea. Hard season and all that. They bid against one another for the little remaining tea he has left. The trader continues to come back, having a supply that’s enough to meet people’s needs, but not stretch it to the next time he returns. The price has gone up steadily. The trader sells them other things now and for a few bundles of tea he can get nearly anything.”
“Okay, seems silly for tea, I feel there’s more about it than you’re just saying,” Torin said.
“He always had plenty of tea to sell them. He’d stop before he got to the village, store some of it, then go in and make sure to keep them hooked and paying top coin for it. He’d trained them, with plentiful, with little. Just enough to string them along.”
Elara pulled out her books. “The numbers were the first things that confused me. Cinders love their rules, follow it right to the letter. When one of the Magmists says something it gets carried out. Think they’re real smart and well the Ash Sovereigns, they run a volcano that works and keeping people in-line.” She took out a page and tossed it onto the desk.
“At the beginning of the fighting, they gave us food for cheaper than market prices, then it rose to market prices. Then it soared as they didn’t have enough. They have enough. They have more than they need. Lyra confirmed. They are holding back what they sell to us.”
“The Cinders love to play their political games. I have the word of the Ash Sovereigns, it’ll be someone playing their stupid games,” Torin leaned on the table. “I’ll get this—”
Elara threw another piece of paper on the table. “Lyra checked that too. The Ash Sovereigns are looking the other way. They gave their permission in a roundabout way and are handing down numbers. Traders can only sell up to that number.”
Torin frowned. “We’re allies and working together against a common enemy.”
“Don’t want to have the upstart mercenaries next to you getting too strong now.” Elara uncrossed her boots and put them on the ground. “We’ve gone from nine months of food stored, to less than three, and that is slimming everyday. Our treasury is way down with the commitments we made with the Nether Forge Consortium.
“What do you want me to do? We need food, with those weapons we’ll crush their barriers and walls. We’ll charge into their heart.” His eyes took on a wilder edge as he leaned forward.
“Torin I have supported you from the beginning, but why?” Elara asked.
“This is our home now. Our place to settle down after all of the fighting. This is ours .” He tapped his knuckles on the table firmly. “Don’t tell me you forgot how they attacked our outposts.” His voice took on a heated edge. “With those weapons we’ll crush their barriers and walls. We’ll charge into their heart.” His eyes took on a wilder edge as he leaned forward. “We’ll tear them up by the roots for their attacks.”
Elara calmly shifted through her pages, taking out one. She stood and put it to the desk, her finger on the name.
“Endross,” She removed the finger and stepped around her chair. “Insubordinate. Regularly found fighting with his fellows and with the locals. Has been reprimanded four times with harassing others. I stopped supplying the platoon under his command as he would keep on badgering my people. Only stopped when his platoon couldn’t fight and the higher command looked into it.”
“He turned the group into a rabble. Loss of cohesion, treated it like a despot.” Torin’s ire grew with her words. “Why is such a snake still serving?”
Elara reached the door and held onto the handle, turning back.
“We couldn’t lose the manpower. Don’t worry, he’s not serving anymore.”
“No?” Torin looked up, confused.
“He’s dead. The people of Ilus killed him after he lead his people on a raid of their city.”
He grabbed the piece of paper. “I thought—"
“He’s the one your fighting to avenge right?” She asked. “Five months. That’s all the gold we have left to pay our people and buy up the food from the Cinders. At that point the Ash Sovereigns will rule us in name, not just spirit.”
She opened the door to his office and walked out. She’d seen the aftermath of sacking a city. It was never worth it.
***
Petor sat across from Valter in his silence spell as his mind drifted back to the past.
Afternoon was fading fast, shadows stretching from the trees along the ground.
Petor looked up from his pile of tinder, he’d found several leeched trees and shrubs near the camp, a bit of shifting them around he’d brought them close.
He took out the alcohol shaking it over it all, careful to not get it on himself. Dry enough that I could set the whole thing aflame.
He stared around the forest. It would just take a flash of lighting and this whole place would turn into an inferno. The ash might actually allow the forest to regrow from its leeching.
Before his thoughts could turn on one another he pulled out flint poppers, cylinders of wood shavings.
He pulled the strings on the ends, the smell of flint making his nose flare as he blew on them, feeling the heat build.
Smoke started to rise from them.
Hope this works . He tossed them out in twos and threes into the shrubs and trees.
Alcohol went up in a breath of heat.
Time we were moving .
He snatched up his spear, tracing a path through the forest and around the camp, an eye to patrols or hunting groups coming back and the guards around the camp edge.
The guards on watch were less bored than before, but instead of focusing on the forest they had constant visitors and were looking towards the center of the camp.
His nose soured with the smell of the camp’s slit trench as he slowed his pace, advancing slowly but steadily, acknowledging the smell and pushing it from his mind.
The closer he got the less of the camp he could see and more of just what was in front of him.
He settled down in a defilade in the ground.
Maybe the fire went out, too fast to catch on anything?
He studied the nearest guards without looking at them directly, most animals, no matter the plane they originated from, got a sixth sense for when someone was looking at them.
There was a growing quiet in the camp and people started to move in one direction.
“Fire!” Someone yelled out on the edge of the camp closest to where he’d set the fire.
Guards around the camp rose from their perches. Excited chatter spreading through the camp.
The guard nearest Petor dropped down from his place in the crook of a tree and hurried off in the direction of the talking.
A voice rose talking over people and bringing silence. Petor eased past the foul smelling slit trench and along the sides of tents he’d marked before, places where people rarely moved.
He stayed low, moving between ropes and random gear between the tents.
He stilled, spear down on the ground, huddling against some gear, an Amakk stalking past without shooting a glance between the tents.
As much as he wished for the security of the night’s shadows. They’d only hinder him while the Amakk would see him as clear as he could right now.
He reached the edge of the tents, hunters were running off in the direction of the fire, smoke rising above the trees. Families stayed close together and moved for their own tents, preparing their belongings if they need came to move.
The chief turned from the smoke and stalked across the camp to his own tent.
Petor rose to his full height and walked across the opening between the tents he’d moved between and the food preparation tents with the confidence of someone that belonged there.
Someone walking purposefully wouldn’t attract near as much attention as someone seeking to hide in broad daylight.
He reached the larger food preparation tents, rectangular and open at all sides, but with hanging shelves of rope and wood that created walls.
Wood lay between the tents to firm up any mud.
Parts of meals lay around, half-finished.
The only sounds came from the living tents and the direction of the fire. A child cried out as adults hurried around.
Petor stole through the food prep areas, coming to a crouch next to a table, watching the camp.
The Demon’s cage had been pulled to the side of the camp, closer to the food tents, the remains of the deer leeched of everything and caught up in the bottom of the cage as it had been dragged.
Petor rose to his feet and stopped as a hunter ran into the camp.
“It is a small fire, we need water from the river!”
People emerged from their tents and move towards the hunter.
Women and men ran off with him, grabbing anything that might carry water, several ran to the preparation tents.
Spear’s too big to fit under the tables, stick out one end.
Petor stabbed his spear next to shelves with food and crept under a nearby table, holding the supporting cross beams to hide his hands and feet.
“Get the big cooking bowls!” A voice yelled out, Petor’s breath catching in his chest. He let it flow out, heart thudding as feet moved around the tent.
He watched Amakk’s rush shelves and tables, dumping out whatever was in the larges bowls and pots. A pair of feet stopped so close he could touch them. He felt them grab the pot from the table at his back and dump out something.
They turned and left.
No more feet moved, or pots crashed against one another. Petor peeked out from his hiding spot. Amakks were rushing out of the camp, the elderly and young left near the living tents.
Petor slipped out, grabbing his spear, the tent in disarray from the bowl looting.
He checked the distance between him and the cage, releasing the spear reluctantly. Spear might draw more attention. I’m the height of one their adolescents. He grabbed a stone axe used as a cooking utensil.
Letting out a sigh he stepped out of the tent and moved towards the cage, trying to not look around too much more than natural.
He crouched down as if checking something near the cage.
The Demons were in a pile with one another, the eldest was cut in several places and one eye swollen. Its brothers weren’t in much better shape.
He was small now, but maybe it was his green cat-pupil eyes, the way he stood in front of his brother. There was a power to his stance. This one’s going to be trouble when he grows up. He checked for others nearby. Have to make sure he can grow up .
The youngest backed up, the others snarling and hissing.
Petor shifted his tongue in unnatural ways. “ Hello. Allies. ”
Wasn’t the most advanced infernal tongue. Though he’d learned enough to say simple words. Demons were a favourite of those looking to bind a terrible creature for their bidding.
The trio were caught off guard by his infernal. While they were quiet he raised the axe, getting hisses. He gestured at the lock on one side, made a circling motion to all of them and then pointed away from the camp.
“I help you escape,” He said. “ Allies. ”
Petor got closer, keeping the axe visible they backed up, watching him, but held their hisses.
The cage was well built, wood stakes lashed together with strong rope. Though it was built to keep things in, children, not keep adults from getting in.
With a glance around, checking his escape route, he cut out with his axe, cutting through rope and wood. Each powerful blow broke more of the cage, he ripped the first wooden bar of the cage open, the runes on the cage flared as he grabbed a second and pulled it free, the wood cracked as he pulled off a third. Another blow and he had a fourth.
A roar tore through the chief’s tent.
Fuck.A.Duck.
He threw the wood to the side and gestured to the demons. They clambered towards him and the opening, squeezing through.
The chief burst out of his tent, runes burning on his cheek focused on Petor, some fifteen meters away.
Petor turned the axe in his hand, getting the measure of its weight, the chief ran towards him.
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
Petor hurled the axe the Chief raised his right arm, the axe sticking in deep as he let out a growl of pain.
Petor turned and ran for the food tents, throwing his cloak back with a shrug of his shoulders, grabbing it and tucking it through his straps along his back, trapping the hood between its neck tie and his back.
A demon let out a screech.
Petor turned his head, dropping his shoulders instinctively as the axe he’d thrown was returned, crashing into the food tent.
He tore his spear free from the dirt, turning in position.
The chief was moving to the crate, kicking at the two demons still in the cage, a third was crying and screaming as it ran into the food prep tent.
Amakk children were running towards the tents, the adolescents grabbing weapons, a few ran for the forest.
The adults and hunters would be back soon.
The Demons hissed out in anger and fury as the chief kept kicking them back into the cage, his eyes jumping between them and Petor, drawing his long knife.
“Why are you doing this?” Petor yelled. “Why seek out the power of defiler, sacrifice innocent children you’ve abducted from another plane?”
“You force your goddess and ways upon the land! What place is there for creatures such as us! Even when we run deep to the forest, years later you cut down our woods, pull roots from the ground and raise your fields!”
“Yasseen spreads out her bounty wide!”
“Blades to clear the path so that her followers might spread and grow! To fight a god, you need to have a god on your side. Radas offers us the power to protect our families, our land and homes.”
“There is no need for bloodshed and death, we can come to an understanding, a way to co-exist.”
“Co-exist,” The chief chuckled. “We know the song-tales, passed by wanderer to wanderer, tribe to tribe. The armored fists of Yasseen, blessed with her power and gifted weapons of power. We have sough to live in peace before. Your people turned upon us, or the blessed ones cut us down. Just like you. We do not trust those under her service. Tricksters and word turners, murderers.”
“Paladins exist to bring peace not war.”
“You exist to expand your goddesses power!” The man snarled and rushed forward.
“I’m not going to let you kill children to steal their power.”
He moved towards the chief, his breath evening out bracing his shield and stabbing with his spear.
The chief tried to hit the spear back with his knife, but Petor’s stab was too fast, he raked the wide spear head across the inside of the chief’s thighs, drawing blood and anger.
Petor jabbed again, the chief grabbed the shaft of the spear with a gloating smile. Petor tore the spear back, cutting through the chief’s left arm. Hesitation, gloating all drilled out from him.
Left arm and hand not looking too good.
He thrust out again as the chief cried out, holding his hand. Petor raked the inside of the other thigh, cutting deep, thick blood pumping onto the ground.
Each attack goaded and pulled the chief from the cage.
“ Allies. Run. ” Petor bit off in infernal stabbing again. The chief hit his spear away, jolting Petor’s shoulder, leaving him wide as the chief charged him.
His stomach sucked into the back of his spine as he raised his shield, bracing himself, power, warm and inviting flooded through his body from his medal.
His muscles bunched and tightened, flooded with incredible strength, tearing a roar from his own mouth, adjusting his grip up the spear’s body.
Shield met Amakk, Petor’s entire form was compressed as he jabbed out with his spear driving it into the chief’s stomach, turning and pulling it out as his knee buckled. He stumbled, falling to his knees, trying to fall to the side.
The Amakk grabbed his shield, yanking it across Petor’s body, pulling shoulder from socket hitting PEtor’sback ribs with his mangled arm, swinging it from his shoulder.
Metal dented, bone cracked, Petor hit the ground, releasing his spear lest he impale himself. The chief was bleeding from his thigh’s arteries. It was a matter of time till he died.
The chief roared in pain, raising the shield up, and the attached Petor.
Petor pulled on the quick ties, screaming through his teeth at the agony of his shoulder, his arm came free, the chief stumbled back as Petor hit the hard packed ground.
He rolled up to his feet, knee and shoulder in agony. The chief stumbled towards him, eyes getting glassy they focused on him as he took two lumbering steps forward as Petor kicked up his spear, Drill instructor would lose his mind grabbing it and stabbed out, it scraped along the Chief’s side as he grabbed Petor’s neck.
He tried to swallow but it was shoved in the back of his neck, he let out sputtering noises, the spear too long, he dropped it, grabbing his knife and stabbed the offending arm, the chief yelled in his face in pain but held on.
Pain tore through Petor, like barbed lines threading through his body. His Yasseen blessed strength started to dip as his blows came weaker and weaker.
His hands wrinkled before his eyes, his bones creaking in their positions.
Green light traced up the chief’s arms, his smile vicous as he grabbed Petor’s arm holding his knife.
His thigh wound .
Fear and frustration gripped Petor. A wave of fatigue coursed through him, the kind that came from over training, or blood loss.
The chief shuddered, almost convulsing, his spear and axe wounds closing.
He snarled in pain and flinched away. Familiar screeches sounded behind him.
His grip relaxed on Petor’s neck as he reached back. Petor drew power from the medal, flowing through and soothing the very lines tracing his body the leech attack had torn through.
He stabbed into the back of the chief’s wrist.
He yelled out as Petor worked it back and forth, the chief pulling away. Petor gasped, grabbing the Amakk’s thumb, wrapping his legs around his arm and over his chest. He pulled the arm against the way it was supposed to bend naturally. The chief fell forward, Petor tucked his shoulder to protect his head.
Petor’s clamping his muscles harder, overriding the agony in his shoulder. He tore the knife free with his right, flipped it in his grip and hammered it into the Chief’s neck, tearing it out on an angle and stabbed again and again. Each attack weaker than the one before.
The chief slumped and stilled. It felt like he was being stabbed in the gut, tendrils spreading out throughout his body.
Power started to flow into his body, spreading into his leg, healing it. He focused on that, pulling the wound closed, the muscle, the tendon, the veins and skin. He hadn’t even known about spells, or the ability to use them on himself then.
“That’s how I opened my core,” Petor returned to reality, the here and now across from Valter. The other man watched him, a weight a calculation to his gaze.
He breathed deeply and looked to the side.
“Me and a close friend of mine, we went hunting for a powerful beast to open our cores. I lost a leg, he nearly died, but opening his core saved him. Several years later we found ourselves on another battlefield. Him as a chosen, me as a smith. We were sent out to defend a pass near our home.” He leaned forward cupping his right hand in his left.
“Hundreds of the rank and file, a strong force. Though we were up against dozens of enemy chosen, powerful ones that knew spells. They tore through our forces. I was able to kill one through a fluke. Nearly died myself, core forming saved me.” He bit the inside of his cheek, reluctant to continue his story, though he forged onwards like a man to the gallows. “The attackers made it through, attacked the city, they were searching for their children that had been kidnapped I would later find. In the attack they struck my home, killed my wife and daughter. My son, he had been taken in by my sister. I was thought dead. Rage ruled me.” Valter’s words were the ashy remains of regret and lethargy left by white hot anger.
Petor’s stomach clenched, regret and worries, from his own experiences where rage and anger had ruled him.
“We were descending into war with several groups upon our borders. Chosen were appearing across the land. Those who lost limbs or were wounded were visited by the Sacrophytes, pedaling their limbs of metal and rune. Their Sarcophagi Immortalias.” Valter pressed his eyelids together. “A walking war machine of metal and armor. I don’t know, maybe I was looking to turn the pain and anguish within myself into physical pain. I at least knew how to deal with that. I wanted a way to visit destruction upon those that hurt my family. If only I had known the truth, the raids, the kidnappings, all so Xander could slaughter stronger and stronger opponents to grow his mortal form.” Valter shook his head, lip curling in disgust. “We were just the wranglers for his slaughter.”
He worked his mouth as if finding a foul taste.
“When you are fitted to the armor, they essentially shatter your core, your very soul and fuse it into the armor.”
Petor’s skin crawled with the definitive monotone voice Valter spoke with, covering the immeasurable pain.
“That doesn’t sound like the healthiest situation.”
Valter grunted. “When it happens, there’s an interesting byproduct. If you carve the capturing formation into steel then the capacity of that shard of your core is set at solid orange, Mithril you get yellow. Your capacity increases dramatically if you have a lower grade core.”
“And if you have a higher grade core?” Petor asked.
“Then the small remains of core within your body keeps increasing, but the shards of fused core doesn’t. Also the shard of core within your body, is how you recover mana. Its cut down to a fifth of its size, so you could have the capacity of two orange grade cores, though you have the recovery of a fifth of a white core.”
“Quick and dirty way to increase capacity of your core,” Petor said. “So are you saying that your armor is essentially part of your core and when I was leeching from you I was taking out of that massive capacity?”
“Yes. It is also why I am so invested into learning how to make stronger weapons and armor. That way I can increase the capacity of my armor’s shards in-line with my internal core,” Valter said.
“Well thank you for sharing, that helps me. Now I know that if Desari is topped off to send it in your direction.”
“I appreciate it, I have worked in enchantments to most of my armor to increase the rate at which I recover mana too.”
Petor nodded. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”
“Not great I can tell you that much.” Valter sat up and leaned back into his chair. “Once the rage feel away, once I learned of the real story around the attack, about our venerated god-king. It all seemed so hollow. Your life, your cause, nothing but a lie, one that you bought in to cover your own pain, your own fears, your sadness.”
Petor pressed his hands together, those people, those lives, the wars. He rubbed his hands, wetness rising to his eyes. “To be a part of the very thing you wanted to work against. Your work vapors in your hands.” He opened his and looked at them, empty. The fighting they’d gone through, the things he’d done with them.
“I joined Yaaseen’s order to be a paladin, to ‘right my wrongs’. To make good on the things I did in war, to atone. I’d been told it was bad, again and again, countless times, so many times I believed it.” Petor caught Valter’s eye. “When you’re in the middle of it, fighting for your damn life. There is only one goal, save the life of the other person beside you.” Valter gave the heavy nod of someone that understood and recognized that same experience.
Petor held out his hand to the world. “There are some bad fucking people out there, people that, death is the only solution. Though the vast majority are just trying to get by.” His hand landed heavily on his thigh again. “To be safe, to have food, to have that extended to their family and friends. Something for them to work on and grow, and to have some fun.” A smile cracked, the taverns, the fields, the laughter at celebrations and festivals. Those times he’d sat back, to see those around. Just to watch the people, the joy, the life within.
He took in a shakier breath through his nose.
“Many people think that the most powerful emotions one can feel is anger, hatred, the rage.” Valter sounded distant, contemplative. “I have lived with it, lived because of it. Though I think it is just a product, hurt honor, frustration spiked in the right way. To me, the most powerful emotion, is sadness.”
His words hung between them, Petor waited, giving Valter the time he needed.
“Sadness will bring the strongest among us to their knees. It changes lives. What seemed impossible are no longer even goal posts, just markers along the way. Sadness can consume, though it can also grow. After the rage, the anger, I had sadness. It never went away, it only deepened. I had to come to terms with it, before I could move on.” His eyes moved across the ground, unable to meet Petor’s gaze. “Killing Xander became my focus. Without it—well—I don’t think that I could have continued on. Since my wife and daughter died I didn’t see my son .” The word came out raw and terrible. “What kind of father does that? I told him I would join the Immortalias, and then I went to war . So much so that I became it,” Valter threw up his hands his words coming out in a yell. He slumped down the next second. “I could’ve gone to him, talked to him. Once I came to my senses I was little of a man. I had become akin to my armor, a man a thing of war. To be pointed and released. For the first time in a long time I picked out where to be pointed.” Valter picked up a rock from the ground, tossing it in his hand and sighed. “The last battle, Devin was there. My son, he’d joined the army,” Valter’s lip was trembling, tears falling from his eyes. He turned those red ragged things on Petor. “He joined so he could be close to me. To make me proud . It nearly broke me.” He closed his eyes, pushing the tears out. “He became a chosen on that battlefield, gained a core, for the Veldian kingdom. I knew what would come next, the oaths that would bind him core and soul. I couldn’t even talk to him, there were too many people around. I could just give him my journal. I hugged him.” Valter pushed himself upright, a small smile that trembled in pride. “I told him how I loved him, how I should have been there for him. How I was not worthy of forgiveness. How I hoped that he could find happiness, that his blade turned into a plow. To live a future that just made him happy .”
Valter’s exhale was a shaky thing.
Petor rubbed the tears from his eyes and waited.
“Then I left him, before he could ask questions and I went to kill a god.” Valter cleared his eyes.
Petor took in an unsteady breath. “We’re just people at the end of the day, good, bad and ugly. Each of us, Desari, Mya, you, me. We’re all looking to right some wrongs we made, to reverse betrayals.” Petor tightened his hand into a fist. “We have to fight for that. We do fight for that.” Petor relaxed his hand and tilted his hands out wards from his lap. “Who can say that they get a second chance at this all? A city to save, a god to kill, a people to rescue, and well, hell I’m not even sure what I’m going to do.” Petor’s chuckle was dry and coarse. “Yaaseen has lied to her people for generations. Gods were meant to serve the people, their goodness why we venerate them. It is not for their power, their strength. Its for a quiet word, a nudge a helping hand here and there. Yaaseen is one god, Xander, the Geraxi Pantheon, those on Mya’s world Irdun, they are others. When did the pursuit of power become the goal? It is part of the process, where the goal should be to try and do some damn good to make these worlds a better place.”
“We’re no champions, Famine,” Valter pointed to him, then to Desari. “Conquest,” His finger shifted to Mya, tapping something on the piece of paper between them. “Death.” He turned his thumb on himself, looking back to Petor. “War.”
“Does not a forest grow from the burned ground?”
“It does, but we’re not really the types to leave anything to grow,” Valter said.
“Do you really think that?” Petor asked.
“You can literally leech the life out of the plants and soil around you.”
“Yes, and I can also inject it into the plants and soil around me. War fucking sucks, we can all agree on that, but sometimes, very very few times, there is nothing else but to go into it swinging. Conquest is a loss for one a victory for another, some may do it for territory, others may start upon a conquest to win over the person they love. Death, it brings about the endings of so many things. Though do we not enjoy those things that must come to an end, as we know it ends at sometime. Peace is not secure, everything we have takes work to create and maintain, and nothing lasts forever.”
“The four horsemen a force of good?”
“I’m not saying that, we’re just people trying to do the right thing. We’re going to fuck up. Everyone does. Though we’re going to keep trying and out of the things we’ve done already I like to think we might have changed things for the better. At least we’ve tried our best.” Petor opened a hand and tilted his head to the side. “At the end of the day, all we can do is our best.”
Valter breathed in deeply, his eyes flicking around in thought.
Petor looked over his shoulder, Desari was approaching.
“You know, no matter the other parts. I am glad to have met you Petor, to have met everyone. I was in a dark place when we met. Though things got a bit lighter, a little easier.”
“What are friends and teammates for?” Petor gave him a smile, that turned sardonic. “Also watch out, looks like Desari has a job for us.”
Valter turned in his seat as Petor folded away the silence spell, the world’s noise falling on them.
“Mya has a working ritual that should work, though it will take time to setup. I was wondering if we could use some enchantments to speed things up?” Desari asked as she came to a stop between them.
“I can take a look.” Valter pushed himself to his feet before storing his chair.
“Thank you.” She smiled at him.
He walked off towards Mya holding her chin.
A silence spell wrapped around Petor and Desari with an ease and finesse. Damn that’s some good spell casting.
“Anything I need to know about?” She raised an eyebrow.
Petor looked at Valter’s back for a few seconds before turning back to her. “Nah, just, well needed to chat about some things.” Petor stood from his chair and stored it.
“Okay.” She knew there was more, but didn’t press on it. Her spell melded away.
“Damn that is some good spell casting.” Petor muttered, heading for Mya’s table. Desari fell into step with him as he passed her.
“You’ll get there, time and experience. The fact you can sense it is already further than most. I’ll see if I can work past that.”
“You’re a little terrifying you know that?” Petor asked.
“Don’t forget it.” The corner of her mouth twitched upwards.
His face spread into a smile, looking at Mya who had noticed Valter was there and was rapidly explaining what was on her papers, gesturing to different sections.
“Its going to take some time for us to really get into the flow of fighting with one another. We’ve been used to different kinds of combat for too long. You, Valter and I fighting on our own, Mya commanding a ship’s crew.” He frowned.
“What did that get you thinking?” Desari saw right through him.
“Just how Mya creates this smoke screen that she’s flying by her britches and that everything is a wild adventure. Though under that, she is one cunning and understanding woman. She gets us, plays to our emotions and our minds.” He slowed his pace, giving them time.
Desari came back after a few beats. “It would make sense that a trader knows how to figure out others. As a Captain it is an undeniable skill. Allows one to see through possible issues before they arise.”
What depths are in each of us that we’re holding back?
Hells one of Desari’s elementals had been a turtle with a library in his shell—that just had to be magical—and was the size of a small island.
“I think we’re due for a chat soon to iron things out. We’ve got years, decades of training and instincts to change. Though we should start down the path if we’re expecting to be working with one another for the long term,” Petor said.
“I agree,” Desari said as they closed in on the other two.
“You can do that?” Mya asked.
“Yes, we’ll have to have Petor fuel the enchantment, then you guide it and attack the soul head on,” Valter said, he had a note book out and his book of metal, looking between them and the ritual that Mya had drawn out.
“I’m guessing this section is to hold?” He waved his pencil at a section.
“Yeah, we’ve got a holding section here, then the other is a consuming part,” Mya pointed to the different parts.
“Two wills operating as one, elegant,” Valter said.
“Two wills?” Petor asked.
“You’ll be empowering the formation while I’ll be directing it. Rituals are versatile allowing multiple people to work seamlessly together,” Mya said.
“Call me your walking mana bank,” Petor muttered, none of them were convinced by his tone.
“How do you know what page to use when your spell casting?” Petor asked.
“Have you memorized them all with some secret dark art?” Mya leaned forward, one eye wide, the other half lidded like the sketchiest of merchants.
Desari let out a sigh and pulled out her spell book, she ran a finger down the tabs. “Each has a physical impression that I know, they’re broken down by element, then by effect. They’re meant to add onto the spells I craft a way to refine a spell beyond what my nodes can do.”
Mya squinted with the wide eye, looking even more skeptical.
“I thought it was going to be something real complicated, but that, that’s pretty basic and simple,” Petor shrugged.
Desari’s lips pressed together in a pout and put a hand to her spell book protectively.
“Best to go with the simplest solutions than complicated ones in the heart of battle,” Mya said.
Desari raised her head and nodded.
“Agreed, smart to make a system of categorization you can understand by feel,” Petor said.
Mhmm Desari agreed, running her thumb down the tabs.
Petor shared a look with Mya out of Desari’s sight to mouth. Thank you.
She smiled slightly and turned back to her work.
Seeing there was nothing for him to do, Petor got out his chair again and sat down, drinking from his canteen and drinking snacks.
He sat side saddle to his chair, the armrest holding up his armor turning it into a backrest. He started humming to himself, some tune he’d heard years back.
“Do you think now is the best time to be sitting around?” A guard nearby hissed.
“When you can sit, sit, when you can lie down, lie down, when you can sleep sleep. Same for food and drink. I’m just here to make them all look better.”
Petor turned his head over to meet the acidic glare, eating his jerky and slowly raised his hand up the back of the chair, with only one finger raised.
He looked horrified.
“Oh I’m sorry, didn’t know that was going to happen.” He chuckled. “But then I was minding my own fucking business.” He flared his eyebrows, his silly oh-no smile on his face.
He went back to humming and eating jerky and picked up stones from the ground with his free right hand.
“I think that you’re all just pretend-“ Petor interrupted him by flicking a pebble at the man, his armor ringing slightly with the impact.
“Pre-“ Another stone, this one louder and stronger. Petor rolled up another and flicked it, louder. Another followed, this one breaking on the man’s armor as it collided.
“Fuck,” Another stone. “Off.” This one actually left a dent on the armor. The guard looked at Petor in surprise, that shifted into quick anger.
“You-“ A crack of displaced air and a thermal burst went off at the same time, throwing the man one way, then another and overall backwards.
Petor shielded his eyes as he skipped on the ground several times before coming to a rolling finish. “Good thirty meters on that one.” He turned back to Desari and Valter looking at one another. They shrugged and Desari went back to reading, Valter back to carving into a plate of metal.
“When will people learn if you don’t have nothing useful to say, you could just shut the hell up,” Mya grumbled, she’d got out her own chair too and was checking some of the books on the table.
That got a resounding grunt of agreement from everyone.