They returned to the crowd, weaving through it with Olbi and Salem at the lead. They made a conscious effort not to move too fast for the sake of Cren. After a while Ezril understood that Olbi was specifically leading them away from the brothel.

Something’s wrong, Ezril’s noted as they moved. His instincts were all over the place. His eyes darting around in search of something. What exactly they sought, he did not know. Yet his awareness flared. The time spent in the Elken forest had sharpened his vision greatly so that he saw almost too much. His eyes were picking up things he did not yet understand as they moved.

The guild will not take on the seminary, he reasoned, but one well-placed arrow could end it all.

A moment later he realized what worried him. His eyes moved to the rooftops as he made his way closer to Cren. His worries grew with the observation. There were too many houses and too many rooftops around them. The crowd kept them invisible to eyes on the floor but it wasn’t as efficient for eyes searching from above. Then he saw it.

Archers.

His hand shot out at the last second and grabbed an arrow before it pierced Olbi’s sister.

“Faster!” he bellowed, pulling her to a lowered position.

This is not principle, Ezril thought. The shot had been well placed. To have achieved such a feat against a target concealed in a crowd was no joke. There was no way a person of such skill would be sent after them simple to uphold a principle in such a petty problem. He had thought the only reason the guild chased them was because they refused to lose to a bunch of children, or it was just the men they’d fought being vindictive. But this level of determination was not that. No one brought an archer skilled enough to pick out a moving target in a crowd so easily.

Or is it just luck? He shook his head. No. She knows something they don’t want anyone else to. They want her dead.

Ezril and his brothers pulled out to the main road. they moved quickly. The moment the Ummunna forest came into view, they dashed into its sea of trees that surrounded the seminary, hoping their presence would be lost within it. But Ezril knew better. The guild members still followed. Running a few more miles, they ended up before the mist.

And the sight of Father Fravis.

The priest stood as still as the trees, hands hidden behind his back. The look in his eyes told them he knew of the events of their outing. Word was always known to travel fast.

“Have you no fear?!” the priest roared, eerily maintaining his stillness.

It took Ezril and his brothers a moment to understand he hadn’t addressed them as their assailants stepped out from behind the trees. Their bowmen remained perched on the branches of the trees. They were fifteen in all with three bowmen amongst the trees.

“Fear, old man?” One of the men on the ground asked. “Peace has made all of you weak, a shadow of what you once were. No,” he declared. “We have no fear for past glories.”

Fravis’ jaw twitched mere seconds before he acted. Ezril would’ve liked to say he moved graciously but, in truth, he didn’t see the man move. Fravis was merely a blur.

What ensued was nothing short of a display of the seminary’s power. Fravis, disarmed and broke bones while evading thrusts and slashes and arrows flying from the trees. He covered every distance required in a single step that carried him wherever he wished to be. Ezril and his brothers knew the technique. It was called the Hallowed Step and it was a trade mark of the seminary. He and his brothers would learn it when they became Hallowed.

In moments, all Fravis’ opponents were on the ground moaning in pain. They cradled broken bones and bloody noses. The bow men had just begun their retreat when Fravis called out.

“Vi Antari!”

In this Ezril moved with a precision. He readied his bow and released three arrows into the trees in quick succession. His name was all the command he had needed. He knew what was required of the First Bow. First came the cries of pain, then the thudding of men falling from high places. Certain everything was over, Father Fravis turned on them.

“You stole something from them!” he growled. His eyes spoke of an unseen rage as he turned to them. He looked at Cren, grunted a sound they could not interpret as his rage returned behind a contemplative expression.

“The Monsignor will decide what will be done about her,” he added quietly.

Turning towards the mist, Olbi spared no glance at Cren before they walked into it. Engulfed in its moist atmosphere, they navigated their way to the seminary gate in silence. Ezril found himself wondering if they would one day grow to be as strong as Father Fravis, and how many of them would truly survive to live as long as the priest.

Would he have been mad if I’d killed them, he wondered, as they approached the gate. He could’ve killed the men in the trees when he’d fired his arrows but had thought it better not to. He wondered if Fravis would interpret it as self-control or a lack of skill.

After passing the information of what had happened to Father Ulrich, Ezril and his brothers retired to their rooms under his command and awaited their judgement. Unkuti raged audibly at the loss of his day.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

It was a while before Father Talod walked into their room with a disappointed expression. Oddly, he seemed more disappointed in himself than he did in them. It something they had not seen before.

“This mess could’ve been avoided if you had just killed them,” he muttered in disgust then turned his gaze on Darvi. “Something you could have done easily if you paid attention to your lessons.”

Darvi stepped forward. “I thought it best not to take any lives.”

Talod ran a hand across his face in frustration.

“Of course you did,” he said, voice resigned. “You did right,” he muttered. “Yes… You did right.”

It was as if he was reminding himself more than he was commending it.

“What is our punishment?” Olufemi asked, surprising them as Talod turned towards the door.

“Punishment?” Talod asked.

“Yes, Father.”

“Your brother will lose his family a second time,” Talod said looking at Olbi, “and you are unable to enjoy the rest of your day out. I think that is punishment enough. Would still have been better if you had just killed them.” The last part he muttered under his breath as he left the room.

A while later Salem brought out a wooden box from within his cloak and placed it on the floor. Opening it revealed a game of war. The box housed its wooden pieces and opened fully to serve as the game board. Apparently, he had bought it despite how the day had gone.

“Who’s interested?” he asked. It was a question that had them lining up save Unkuti who left the room in anger.

…………………………

As the night drew nearer, Ezril found himself at the stables, brushing the horses. He had gotten to play two games with Salem, losing both before leaving the room and making his way here. Salem proved adept at the game. Darvi proved himself the only challenge for him but lost nonetheless. Truthfully, Salem’s skill at the game had come as no surprise to them. The boy had always been the smart brother of them all.

“One of yours is inside,” Njord informed Ezril as he cared for a horse, stepping out of the kennel and heading for the stables’ exit. “Since you are here, watch the place for me.”

It didn’t take long for Ezril to find himself inside the kennel. There was only one person that could possibly be in the kennel.

One of yours, he remembered Njord’s words. It was the only way the stable master addressed the rest of his mates when speaking to him. There was only him and those related to him. Once upon a time one of his brothers had told him that the man had referred to them as one of his when they’d entered the stable at another priest’s behest. It seemed that as far as the priest was concerned, Ezril was the representation of his brothers.

Unkuti was squatted in front of the wolf’s cage, holding out a piece of meat. Ezril knew his brother was aware as he was that the wolf wasn’t going to take the meat… and yet he tries… Every chance he gets, Ezril told himself.

“He has grown since I brought him here,” Unkuti said, staring into the darkness of the cage.

Ezril approached him and squatted next to him.

“Have you cooled off?” he asked.

Unkuti spared him a quick look before returning his attention to the cave. “Not really.”

“You should know that it’s not so easy to let go of family.”

“I don’t see how we had to suffer for her.” Unkuti frowned. “She’s not our family, and we don’t even know her.”

“We did not do what we did for her,” Ezril corrected. “We did it for our brother. He is the one that is family.”

“…And I didn’t get to have fun because of this,” Unkuti complained, his voice losing its anger to something saddening.

Ezril smiled. “Don’t worry, brother. You’ll get another chance for a good shag another time.”

The moment the words left his mouth Unkuti’s lips curved into a knowing smile, one that gave him a very strange look. It was a look Ezril had seen on the brother when they were at the bar. Dropping the piece of meat on the ground between them Unkuti leaned in closer.

“Njord will not be coming back anytime soon,” he said, his voice husky and barely above a whisper. He rolled the words in a strange way as he added: “Maybe you can finish what the girl at the bar started.”

His now wet lips curled in desire as he enunciated each word.

Ezril could feel his brother’s breath on his skin. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt it. He’d felt it countless times on the training grounds grappling under Father Fravis’s lessons, practically during all their training sessions. But to feel it now, with no provocation, came with a discomfort that almost had him squirming. Then there was the predatory look in Unkuti’s eyes, his pupils dilated, and his attention sharpened, yet they seemed almost clouded.

The world seemed to warp around Unkuti, like wisps of nothingness caressing his skin at the edges of his form and with the distortion in Ezril’s view came a slow thrum of an ache in his head. He was seeing things again. Wisps of darkness clinging to people. He was seeing things he was not supposed to see.

When he opened his mouth to speak, he realized his lips were barely an inch from Unkuti’s, so much that he could taste the boy’s breath if he tried.

“Quit with your jokes, brother,” he said with as much false calm as he could. It was a calm he did not feel as his heart raced in fear of what his brother would do and what he would have to do in reaction to it. If this wasn’t played right, a lot of things could go horribly wrong.

Unkuti paused.

“You’re no fun,” he said, then he moved away from him, all desire gone from his voice. Ezril chose not to dwell on what had just happened.

Reaching for the piece of meat Unkuti had dropped, Ezril picked it up as Unkuti left him for the exit and offered it into the cage. He heard the low growl before he saw the blue eyes. The wolf stepped into sight, walking past the different pieces of meat scattered across the ground.

Ezril found himself transfixed by its gaze as it moved, each step proving more majestic than the one before it. Feeling the power from its gaze, he understood how such a beast was a predator, a king unto itself and, for a moment, he thought he saw something in its eyes, something an animal was not meant to have.

Is it intelligent?... How does one lead such a thing? … How does one rule a ruler?

“…How are you not divine?” he found himself asking in a whisper.

“I see you’ve made a friend.”

At Unkuti’s words Ezril realized what had happened. He hadn’t intended to voice his, words but they’d found their way into the world. With the freedom from his enamor came the realization of what he had said, and he wondered if Unkuti had heard his words; thoughts intended for the recesses of his mind but made manifest in them.

His hand felt odd. The weight of the meat was gone, replaced by a furry warmth. Looking down, he found blue eyes looking up at him, the wolf easing its head against his hand.

When…? The thought left him perturbed while he kept his hand still, not wanting to provoke the creature. He had heard stories about how being calm worked well in the presence of dangerous animals but, in this moment, he didn’t trust them enough to be calm.

“I’ll let Njord know,” Unkuti said after a while and left the kennel, unhappy.

Ezril had noted the tone of his voice. It had been present in the words that had brought him from his trance. The tone conveyed a feeling he had once felt towards Alric’s friendship with Darvi before the winter test. He felt bad for invoking it in another person. But unlike him, Unkuti had a right to it. Jealousy.

Looking back at the head still pressed against his hand and the eyes still looking, watching and assessing him, he asked himself one more time.

How do you rule a ruler?