Calris and Ban loitered on a pair of empty crates in the dank warehouse, waiting for the last few supplies to be delivered. The building had a cloying smell that seeped into your clothing and skin, but after a mere half a morning, Calris was already adjusting to it. To tell the truth, as sickening as it was to most, he quite liked the smell. It was nostalgic, reminding him of the Tide’s periodic patrols burning out smuggler camps during low tempo periods afloat. He and Ban had been many places and fought in many campaigns since they joined the marines, but, as much as he complained, he had a soft spot for Marduk.

He clung to the nostalgia, not just for the easy thrill of hunting criminals along the coast, but for the old normalcy he felt slipping through his fingers like sand. There had been no mages, no magical weapons, and no demonic monsters back then, just good, honest soldiers fighting over prisoners and loot while trying not to get eaten by a swamp drake. The way things were meant to be, man against man, steel against steel.

He was pulled back to the present, as always, by Ban being a dick.

“Think fast!” Ban said as he hurled a mouldy canvas sack at Calris. It hit Calris’ face with a dull slurp and stuck firmly in place. He gagged as he peeled it off, the damn thing smelt like rotting vegetables and fermented excrement, and he shot his friend a vehement glare.

“What the fuck, Ban?”

“Just checking if you were still with us… which apparently you weren’t,” he replied with a punchable smirk. Calris had to admit, though, it had been a good throw. From where he sat, he could barely make out his friend, even though he was just a few feet away in the dark.

“You might not be able to tell, but I’m glaring at you so hard right now,” Calris said.

“Oh, I can see. I just don’t care,” Ban replied as he hopped off his crate. “What’s eating you?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s something, Cal, I can always tell. Sulky because Jaz still won’t look twice at you?”

This time it was Calris’ turn to hurl something, though in place of a mouldy sack he threw a rotting crab pot that smashed as it hit Ban’s chest. He didn’t even flinch.

“I’d say that’s an overreaction,” the stocky marine said.

“You’ve had it coming for a while, for just generally being an arsehole. But no, it’s not about Jasmine. I couldn’t care less about that,” Calris said. It wasn’t a complete lie, at least.

“Then what is it?”

Calris stayed silent, stubbornly staring at a patch of nothing in particular on the floor. With a sigh, Ban jumped up on the crate next to him, freezing for a second as it groaned dangerously under their combined weight. When he was satisfied it wouldn’t collapse, he turned to Calris.

“Come on, if you can’t talk to me, who can you talk to?”

“My girlfriend.”

“Oh? You have a girlfriend? And who might that be?”

“My right hand. Low maintenance, always puts out, and she’s a great listener.”

“Ha ha. Hilarious, Cal, but you never poke fun at yourself like that unless you’re deflecting. Out with it.”

Calris groaned and got off the crate, putting some distance between him and Ban. If he didn’t give Ban something, he wouldn’t shut up about it for days, but at the same time he wanted to make it clear he was not happy to be talking about it.

“I was just thinking about the last time we were here. How much simpler things were back then. No magic, no monsters, no criminal empires trying to bring us down. It was just soldiers on one side of the field and raiders on the other, having a good old crack until one side ran away or died. But now? Since that bloody Key, everything seems so far beyond us; a mage almost flayed me alive and I couldn’t do anything to defend myself, and then the entire squad was thoroughly whipped by a guttersnipe with some fancy magical doodads.”

“Don’t talk about my future wife that way,” Ban grumbled.

“She’s out of your league, mate. Anyway, as I was saying, I think we’re a bit out of our depth here.”

Calris turned to find Ban staring at him. He could practically see him chewing over his words.

“So,” he said, drawing out the word. “Caveating all this with the observation that I wasn’t almost flayed alive by a mage, and so my experience of this all is different to yours, I’ve actually been enjoying it.”

“Seriously?”

“Sure! You can’t tell me you didn’t get a kick out of fighting those monsters, especially with our super strength.”

“Yeah. The strength thing was pretty great,” Calris admitted grudgingly.

“Exactly! Look, Cal, the raiders were fine. Skjar, Emrinthian, whatever. But don’t you feel they had been getting stale? When was the last time you felt like we were pushing ourselves in a battle?”

Calris hesitated. “I don’t really know. It didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the work, though.”

“No, no, I understand. I did too. But we didn’t join for ‘comfortable’, did we?”

“No.”

“We joined to get out, see the world, find new experiences, right?”

“Right.”

“And here we have magic, monsters, and other worlds! You can’t get much more exciting than that, right?”

“I guess?”

“So maybe this isn’t so bad?”

Calris huffed. “I don’t know. I can follow your logic, but I’d rather skip the excitement if I’m not up to the task.”

Ban rocked back on his crate, an obnoxious ‘aha!’ coming out of his mouth. “So that’s what this is about. You are up to the task Cal, you’re the fourth best fighter in the company! If you can’t handle it, no one can.”

“Yeah, I guess- wait, what? Who the fuck’s better?”

“Captain Erwell.”

“True.”

“Sarge.”

“Yep.”

“Me.”

“Fuck off!”

Calris leapt at Ban and wrestled him into a headlock. Ban would usually have made it more difficult, but he was laughing too hard to mount an effective defence. After a few seconds of choking and some concerning sounds from Ban’s throat, he tapped out furiously and started waving off into the darkness.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Cal, get off! Someone’s coming.”

The men separated and gazed in the direction Ban had waved.

“The porters aren’t due back for another half hour.”

“I know.”

As they stared, they made out the form of someone tall walking towards them. While there wasn’t anything inherently menacing about the figure, this was Port Pirie and you assumed anyone you didn’t personally know was a threat. Calris rested a hand on his sword hilt and was moving to put the crate between himself and the stranger, when they passed through an errant beam of sunlight streaming through the broken roof.

The figure was only illuminated briefly, but Calris took in as many details as possible, just in case. They were tall, well over six feet. Slight build. Golden skin, flowing black hair, deep brown eyes. Adam’s Apple.

Beside him, Ban whispered. “Cal, she’s stunning.”

“That’s a bloke, Ban.”

In the gloom beside him, Ban scoffed. “Bullshit.”

“I shit you not. ‘She’ has an Adam’s Apple.”

“I think you’re seeing things, Cal.”

“Want to put some silvers on it?”

Ban was silent while he peered at the newcomer, who had slowed their pace, clearly angling towards Calris and Ban.

“Maybe. Let’s just wait and see.”

“Coward. When they get closer, say hello. It’ll settle it when they reply.”

The two men searched the stranger’s gait and manner, looking for clues as to their gender, but neither could make out anything definitive. Finally giving up, Ban called to the figure when they were only a couple of metres away. The figure hesitated before stepping closer.

“Good morning gentlemen, I apologise for intruding, but I have come to speak to you concerning matters of great import.”

The voice was bizarrely androgynous. Calris scoffed and threw his head. “Shit. That doesn’t help at all. Ban you have any idea?”

“None whatsoever, mate. This is bizarre.”

“Ah, to hell with it. Oi!” Calris shouted, addressing the figure. “Are you a man or a woman?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you a man or a woman?” Calris said, louder this time.

“I… a man? I know it’s dark, but surely that was self-evident.”

“‘Evidently’ not. What’re you here for?”

“As I was saying, I have come to speak to you of matters of great-”

“What’s your name then?” Ban cut him off.

“I… have been known by many names over the years,” the mysterious man said, taken aback by the abrupt question. “You may call me… Barb.”

“Barb is a woman’s name, though,” Calris conceded. “Short for Barbara.”

“Really? Since when?”

“Uh… I’m guessing roughly as long as the name Barbara.”

“Well, it’s not short for Barbara. It’s short for Barbarus. Barbarus Callidae, a male name.”

“Never heard of it. Ban?”

“Me neither. Maybe it’s Tok Risim? Sounds similar to some of Badger’s curses.”

“This fella doesn’t look Tok Risim though, does he? His hair isn’t curly, and his skin tone is different.”

“True, but I’ve never seen that skin tone before. It’s like honeyed whiskey and sunlight,” Ban said wistfully. “Maybe he’s a mix?”

Barbarus coughed loudly to interrupt the marines’ back and forth. From what Calris could tell from his body language, he was getting annoyed.

“Gentlemen please! If I might get this conversation back on track,” Barbarus began before recoiling. “Are you sniffing me?” he cried.

Ban was, in fact, sniffing him.

“Ban, why are you sniffing the man?” Calris asked.

“He smells like cinnamon.”

“Bullshit.” Calris leant in and sniffed the increasingly uncomfortable man.

“By the gods! He does, doesn’t he?”

Barbarus hastily withdrew a few feet. Though Calris couldn’t see his expression, he imagined it must be somewhere between disgusted and pissed off.

“I must be honest,” he said through gritted teeth. “The two of you are making me very uncomfortable.”

“Sorry,” Ban replied, “it’s just that I thought you were a very attractive woman when you approached us, whereas Calris thought you were a very attractive man, and it quickly became a point of contention between us.”

“I take it you are both satisfied as to my gender now?”

“We are, yes.”

“Good. Then may I continue?”

“Yes, though if I may say, I still think you’re very attractive,” Ban said with a wink.

“Uh… thanks?”

“No worries. Now, what were you saying?”

The figure in the dark folded his arms. Or, at least, Calris assumed he was folding his arms. He could have been doing anything, really. Maybe scratching himself. At any rate, Barb did something with his hands and harrumphed.

“I had this big, very grand speech prepared, but I’ve forgotten it now. Something about the struggle of good versus evil. Doesn’t matter, even if I remembered it, I wouldn’t recite it because you ruined the tone of this meeting, so I’ll boil it down to a few key points. The two of you have been marked by fate. Ordinarily I’d be suitably vague and aloof, but you both know I smell like cinnamon, so I think a fair chunk of my mystique is already gone. Just stay with the Key, no matter what happens, and kill everyone who tries to take it, alright?”

Calris did a double take. “You know about the Key?”

“I know a great many things, boy.”

Beside him, Ban shifted his weight. “Not many people are supposed to know about that, Barb,” he said, hand inching towards his axe.

Calris placed his hand on the hilt of his sword as well. “Yeah. Us, the king, and the bastards who keep trying to kill us.”

Barb looked slowly between them both, eyes tracking the movement of their hands to their weapons. But if he was concerned, he didn’t show it.

“I would advise against that, boys. I’m pinning a lot of hopes and dreams on you two. It would be unfortunate if I had to leave you bleeding in the muck.”

“You think you can take us?”

“I know I can. But you’ve more important things to do than die in a rotting warehouse. I don’t suppose you would believe me if I said I was the one who told the king to send you?”

“Not a chance,” Calris replied, drawing his sword in a broad sweep as he shot forward.

His blow passed through thin air. Barbarus smiled pleasantly at him, still a few feet away.

Calris furrowed his brow. He hadn’t seen any movement, but the tip of his blade had missed Barb by a solid foot at least. Adjusting his feet, he shot forward and to the side, thrusting as Ban came at the man from the opposite direction. He saw the movement this time, barely, as Barbarus simply stepped to the space between them, delivering a lazy slap to the side of Ban’s head that sent him sprawling.

“Now, now children, that’s quite enough.”

Calris cursed and danced back out of slapping range. “You bastard!”

“Oh! You wound me, young man! Of all the insults I’ve ever received over the course of my long life, ‘bastard’ is by far the most creative and scathing.”

“Sarcasm. How original.”

“I- you appreciate the irony in that statement, don’t you?”

“Shut up!”

Calris darted forward, delivering a flurry of thrusts. Barbarus was quick, and clearly strong if he could fell Ban with one blow, but he was still unarmed and at a disadvantage in terms of range. Calris just needed to keep up the pressure until-

Whump.

He collapsed to the floor as Barbarus’ fist found his solar plexus. The golden stranger had seemed to flow past his sword, faster than Calris could react, and the force of the blow made Olic’s feel like a love tap. Calris lay writhing in the dirt, alternately gasping for air and retching, his eyes wide and rolling until he felt a firm pressure on the side of his head.

“Tap my boot if you’re done being a little shit.”

Calris glared at the man around the sole of the boot. He hated to concede, but the pressure in his head was building, and he knew this stranger could pop it like a melon if he so chose.

“Fine!” he hissed through gritted teeth as he tapped the boot.

“There’s a good boy,” Barb replied, removing his heel from Calris’ head. Calris pulled himself into a seated position, wincing as he rubbed his bruised face and nursed an even more bruised ego. Barbarus eyed Calris closely before turning on his heel and sauntering over to Ban, helping the gasping marine to his feet.

“I know blood lines can be vulnerable to degradation over the generations, but I sincerely hope you both have more fight in you than that.”

“What the fuck are you on about?” Ban asked as he steadied himself on his feet.

“I was so hopeful when I saw what you did in the Keep, though I see now that had more to do with the boon borne of your blood than actual skill. Nevermind, if you fail there will be others.”

“Fail at what? You’re raising a lot more questions than answers, Barb.”

“As is my right. Just heed my words and don’t fuck up. There is a malevolent force that has been hunting for the Key for centuries. If it ever gets hold of it, the entire world is in mortal danger.”

“Sounds grim,” Calris wheezed.

“True, but risk and opportunity are two sides of the same coin. Your escapades may draw it out. When that happens, I want you to destroy it.”

“Fair enough,” Ban interceded. “In that case, what is this malevolent force, and would you be so kind as to help us kill it?”

“Oh my, no,” Barb replied with a hearty chuckle. “I am eager to see you two realise your full potential. You wouldn’t if I allowed myself to be used as a crutch.”

“Can you at least tell us who or what the malevolent force is?”

“Surely you know that by now?”

“What? You mean The Guild? Or Politis? No love lost for either of them, but a criminal underground and a dickhead fire mage hardly seem like world enders.”

“And you would be correct. As I said, I am keen for you two to figure this all out for yourselves. I am sure the answer will come to you, eventually.”

Barbarus turned to leave, but stopped as Calris called out. “Wait. At least tell us, who are you really?”

Barb stopped and faced him with a sly grin. “Omnia et nihil. Farewell boys. I sincerely hope you don’t die.”

And then he was gone, leaving Calris and Ban in the dark. Battered, bruised, and full of unanswered questions.

“Sarge is going to want to hear about this.”