“You, er, called?” Ike came through the foyer, watching the corners and people as he did.
There was a certain expectation that came with childhood heroes. The Arcani Order was that for Ike, a dream in the land of nightmares. Shining knights in armor who slayed beasts with ease and created order out of the blight. The stories people would tell about them could’ve saved the world twice around and still landed on a pile of demon corpses high enough to reach the moon.
Reality was sour. People always mentioned the Arcani in armor, a luxury of survival. The three warriors in the sitting room all wore armor, but just padded cloth. A green and brown mesh embroidered with black spots, probably invisible in the field. The people themselves weren’t exactly the hero types either.
The man who’d called him down had spotted brown skin, leathery as an old bat came flying out of his cave. He carried the age well, even under the padding he could tell the man had arms enough for two men. A sharp gray and black beard dominated his face, right under the funny little crown-hat on his head.
The other two mirrored each other on long sofas. To the left was a man with black and gold hair swirled in a crop, eyeing Ike with the venom of a pissed off crow. A woman lounged on the left, picking at the threads of her armor.
Walking out of the room was one thing. Coming down here to meet new people was making him nervous, and ready to jump out of his skin at the first sign of a mistake. His earlier sprite of spite at Nerinai was beginning to fade in the face of new people.
The old man held out his hand in a dramatic introduction. “Welcome! Excuse the lack of decorum but, well, you don’t seem the kind to hang up on such things. You seem a good sort.” He turned to the others, pointing to each one at a time. “Here is Knight Victoria Gardeni, and this is her brother Knight Augustus. My personal guard, the proudest warriors of the Order.”
“She’s got plenty of pride for the both of us,” grumbled the knight Augustus. His sister promptly flicked something at his head, and Ike nearly went for his shovel.
Should he introduce himself, or leave? For a terrible handful of seconds he froze in the entranceway debating between either with his mouth glued together by frightened spittle. He was well aware he looked like a moron, and that was the least of his growing concerns.
“And you?” asked the old one who had yet to introduce himself.
Ike cleared his throat, risking a few steps to the back of one of the chairs in the room. “Ike. Muck-Guardian, Ike. Guardian to the Raveness. Yes.”
“Take a seat, I promise we’re not so rough as we appear,” he said through a chuckle.
Ike obliged. Keeping his eye on one of the trio at all times, he fumbled the shovel off his back and put it in his lap as he sat across from them.
“Oh dear. My dearest apologies, where are my manners? Call me Donnahais. Martial of the Sifords province. Are you familiar?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“It’s a beautiful place isn’t it? Some of the strongest communities in the world. I’m proud to represent them.” Donnahaias didn’t stop smiling. He watched Ike with an endless confidence.
Ike belatedly realized they were waiting for a response and he simply shrugged. He hadn’t heard of Sifords before today. Though the Martials gaze was piercing and attentive, gazing over every little movement with an uncanny humor, Ike thought the other two looked bored. There was a strong possibility he’d walked himself right into the jaws of a social trap, and was now thoroughly webbed.
How would he get out? Probably profuse lying, and many failed attempts to summon a faux confidence in himself and his intelligence.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you a great deal.”
“You have?”
The Martial steepled his fingers, crossing his leg over the other. “Why, of course I have, dear boy! What an honor it is to meet a Guardian, heir to such an impressive line of the bravest of us all. They say behind every wise Raveness is an equally strong Guardian. The pairing? Unmatchable!”
“Tell me, because I am a curious old man, have you heard the story of the Guardian Tepes?”
Ike shrugged, and leaned forward. “No. How much do you know about the other Guardians?.”
“The other guardians!!” Martial Donnahais threw back his head and barked out a laugh to mock god. Then he looked at Ike with a face so utterly consumed by a smile, every muscle in the cheeks pulling and stretching to show his immense joy at this little comment. “Oh how sheltered you must have been growing up in Cadeloch. So strange. All the other Guardians were quite prolific, don’t you know? Practically saints in the right circles.! The Guardian Tepes is one of the bravest Guardians there have ever been.”
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“Unless you count Silvio,” interrupted the sister.
Donnahais shot her a look, but she threw up her hands in a ‘What?’ gesture. Luckily for Ike, it was the brothers turn to interrupt.
“Silvio and Tepes were legendary, sure. The latter almost succeeded in clearing the north of the continent of blight.. Wasn’t very clever though. Silvio? Frankly, he’s the only Guardian I have any respect for. Him and his charge made the Abyss wait and paid the cost in blood, fighting demons for twenty years straight and only breaking after losing his arm.”
The way Augustus looked up at the ceiling, Ike had a suspicious feeling he wished he were there for it. It was his job to kill demons though. Was fighting just a sport to them? Counting heads as they stroll along abandoned roads, waving swords in the air like a bunch of human shaped Len?
“Knights. Let’s stay on course, shall we?”
“Gus started it.”
“What? You were the one who brought up Silvio.”
“Did you guys mention waiting? You can wait for the gate?” Ike’s question was promptly ignored by everyone in the room.
Augustus and Victoria might’ve been twins, but they argued like one had pissed in the others soup every day for twenty years. At first he tried to keep up with what they were saying, then it degraded into nonsense talk. History, mostly, and some military and knightly strategy that made utterly no sense to him. Occasionally he’d hear a break in the argument and try to politely ask about something they’d mentioned, which would lead to one of the siblings turning it into another argument.
This was getting exhausting, and Ike was still starving for something to eat and distract himself with. Listening to them argue was a shock at first, but they just kept going. Even Donnahais had settled to sip his liquor instead of getting between them again. Neither got up, or threw things, just kept spitting back lines at the other. It was mean, occasionally funny though Ike didn’t dare crack a smile, but there was a familiarity between them.
That was, right up until when Victoria sat up on her couch and mentioned “...Batanatan Field!”
Silence. Augustus shut his mouth and looked to the Martial, and even his sister deflated, recoiling from her own exclamation.
At the back of the room the old man set his drink down on his lap, staring straight across the glossy wooden coffee table at Ike. Suddenly he was missing the argument a lot, but he couldn’t help himself.
“What’s Batanatan field?” More silence, a very thick tension suffocating the room. The Guardian muttered out a little “Sorry,” that probably nobody heard.
Donnahais slapped his glass down on the table and slid it forward. Then he reached into his coat, pulled out and tossed two daggers onto the table. Each landed with a thud as their blades struck the table on opposite sides of the glass, sticking up at odd angles but still striking up in such a mesmerizing way. Ike briefly considered what kind of psychopath he was dealing with who had the accuracy to pull of something so perfect, just before realizing those daggers could have easily gone directly into his own throat.
The Martial stood, and started to walk around the table to the midpoint where he put his hands on his belt and looked down at the map, sort of sinking into his beard to look down at it. He was a big man by every means. Towered over the room and made the table look like a small, long forgotten memory.
“Batanatan Field? It sounds like a field, but really the words are a curse. A day.” He reached down to lift one of the knives, runes carved into the blade burning with bright orange energy. “I can recall every moment of the day. Snowfall in the morning, just a flutter of white padding the ground beneath our feet. The ground we marched on was solid as rock.. Tell me Augustus, you were just a boy then, but how many times have I recalled to you the way voices broke in that cold weather? The red cheeks of frail little shamans wrapped in their dingy cloaks?”
Augustus shrugged. “Many times, I dare not hope you’ll tell it again,” he said with a sigh..”
Donnahais slammed the knife down into the glass, cracking it down the middle with a firm and passionless strike. “A whole field of shamans had gathered there in the early morning. Rebellion on their tongue, They’d rallied from small settlements around the continent. Left them to die. Said the world looked at them and spit,” he said, then turned to stare straight into Ike’s face, “which it should! That is what I told them then and I hold firm to today. Bastards! Witches! Criminals, and soft hearted fools who put their faith in the whims of devilish creation that has brought nothing but pain and suffering to the world. Hundreds, thousands, millions, more! Dead for what?”
He waited for an answer Ike could not provide. All he could think to do was blink, and look at the split glass.
“Power. Just power with no regard for the lives of normal men and women. Batanatan Field was the day I personally carved the life out of two hundred and fifty seven women with the sword you see on the table here. I counted each one. They surrendered around nightfall, but by then both sides of the field were just a single column of stumbling flesh.”
Obviously the Martial meant to follow that up with something positive. A pleasant note that, despite all the pain and suffering, the world had become better for the slaughter. That their fight had meant something.
He said nothing and wandered back to his chair, found a bottle behind the seat and refilled his glass with brown liquor.
Ike finally stood up and grabbed his shovel to go. “That sounded very difficult. I think that, um, perhaps I should be going.”
“So soon?”
“Yes, I haven’t really eaten all day. Should probably go… do that.”
“Yes. Of course, boy. Just be careful who you trust, understand?”
Ike’s sharp nod of understanding put a grim smile on the old man's face. It was as much of an excuse to leave as he was ever going to get, so he wheeled around on one heel and carefully prodded himself out of the room.
No wonder Nerinai was worried about other people in the building. Martial Donnahais hated shamans, that much was clear. Just hearing the word witch sent a shiver down his spine. A curse like that wasn’t said without a certain meaning behind it, a certain hatred, that Ike had never felt for a thing in his life. He followed the smell of something familiar, too busy in his own head to watch his feet.