by RG Long
“Sorry girl,” he said as he brought his hand up from the man’s throat. “Didn’t think I cracked his skull. He’s deader than his friend.”
“Dammit,” Elise said. “If they found us here, Tucker...”
“I know,” the cook said as he wiped his hands on his apron making, it more of a mess than it already was. “I know, time to move again.”
He looked around at those who had either stayed seated in shock or had moved to get out of the way of the fight.
“What are you sticking around for? Everybody out!” he shouted. “If you haven’t paid up yet, consider yourself lucky! Go on! Get!”
There was a general scraping and moving of chairs as the patrons left in a hurry.
“What was that about?” Ealrin asked if he looked down at his feet were two dead men lay.
“There’s a lot of explaining,” Elise said. “And I don’t think you’re ready for half of it.”
Ealrin reached down and looked at the man’s face. Underneath his right eye, he had a black triangle pointing downward. Ealrin looked at it for a long while. It reminded him of something.
Something that he remembered.
“Rebels,” he said as he looked the dead man in the eye.
Everyone in the room and cleared out except for him, Tucker, and Elise. He looked up and saw the room start to swim at the realization of it.
The two of them didn’t say anything to him.
He looked at them and saw in their faces many questions. As many as his own.
“We’re rebels,” he said. “Fighting against the Blackthorn gang and the king of Rerial.”
37: For Sport
He sat at the table outside of the few small buildings they had constructed in the clearing and held court like a king. The men and women at his disposal treated him as such. He was one to be feared and respected and obeyed. If all went according to plan, the small group who had successfully stolen airships and conducted raids on four different countries would be the beginning of his loyal subjects.
And the first who would see the spoils of his war.
“Sir!” a man said he ran up to Ferdinand Arimon and bowed low. “Found someone sneaking around outside with two accomplices. We could have them killed or brought to you for questioning. What do you wish, sir?”
Ferdinand took his feet off the table and sat up. It has been a while since someone had seen their clearing in the deep forests between Rerial and the Court.
“I wonder who this might be how they had successfully snuck in. Perhaps they should not die without first being interrogated. Bring them to me,” he said as he fingered a small dagger.
It had been a while since he had drawn blood. Two, maybe three days.
Long enough for him to want another test of his blade.
Speakers at the entrance of the fort lifted up the logs that held the wall in place and guards brought in two females and the largest elf Ferdinand had ever seen.
They threw them down at his feet.
“Bow down,” the soldier who had come to report said to the three. “You’re in the presence of power.”
The elf and one of the women reluctantly bowed their heads. The last, a woman with short hair and fire in her eyes refused.
Ferdinand smiled.
He like them when they put up a fight.
“I hear you’ve been sneaking around,” he said as he got to his feet and walked around the table. He leisurely picked up a mug and took a sip of the ale inside it. The subtle burn felt wonderful in his throat.
“Not many can find this encampment. So deep within no man’s land of the Court and Rerial. Judging by your clothing, I’d say you’re with the Court and not Rerial pilots. What would bring you so close to my dominion?”
“This clearing in a forest is your dominion?” the short haired woman asked. She scoffed at him. “This is the lowly court indeed. I wonder what would happen if the Court of Three knew that you were claiming their territory as your own?”
Ferdinand smiled down at the woman. Then he struck her with the back of his hand.
“You know not to whom you speak!” he said with rage in his voice.
The men who had gathered around him smiled up at their leader. They knew when he was going to play with the prisoners they brought in. Each of them enjoyed the show almost as much as he did.
To his surprise, the woman did not cower or shrink back. Instead, she looked up and stared him in the face. She bled only a little from her lower lip. Licking it, she grinned up at him.
“Nor do you,” she said.
Ferdinand bristled of this. He was the mastermind of ten thousand crimes. The killer of a thousand men. He was a warrior, a thief, and executioner. And he was not someone to be trifled with.
“Who do you think I am?” he asked the lady at his feet. “Do you know what killers and criminals you’ve stumbled up on? This is not a small thieves’ outpost of the delusional or the disposed. I am Ferdinand Arimon. I am the mastermind of the Blackthorn clan. I rule with an iron fist and I will one day rule the continent of Redact under my banner. Who do you think you are, scum?”
The woman smirked.
“I was once a gutter rat,” she said. “Someone who was told she was worth nothing and capable of nothing. They found out I was good with a blade. They put me in the Court of Three’s army. I expect they thought I wouldn’t last the week, but I proved them wrong. I’ve killed more men than any of my rank. Men stronger than me. I’ve tortured hundreds. I command thousands. I am the lady of the eastern Garrison. I am Cyna Sandwing. I am on a mission for the High Court. And I don’t think they would very much like to hear that you fancy yourself ruler over them.”
“Ha!” Ferdinand laughed as he heard her speak. “The eastern Garrison do you say? That pathetic border between Rerial and the Court of Three? That’s a little more than a no man’s land. Sand and dunes and nothing. Especially sense my own men burned your eastern most fort to the ground. You claim to be good with a blade? Let’s see it then.”
He sheathed his own dagger and reached at the table he was holding court on. There was a small short sword on it and he threw it at her feet.
“You versus five of my guards,” he said with a sneer. “Think you could best all of them? Or even one?”
His men had seen this type of treatment before and knew what to do. They pulled away her two companions and went to cut off her restraints. The one that did her in would be rewarded handsomely.
Five of his closest fighters reached for their weapons and surrounded her at the same time that her ropes were cut loose.
Ferdinand had just about set himself down in his chair when the woman called Cyna grabbed the blade of the ground and shoved it through the throat of the man closest to him her.
He was impressed.
She withdrew the blade as it splattered red all over his table and nearly on his boots. He paid them no mind. Instead, he continued to watch this fight he suddenly found much more exciting. Two men with spears drove in towards the woman. This would be her end. But, again, she surprised him. When one man thrust his spear at her, she pulled it from his grasp and shoved it into the chest of the another. Abandoning both spear and dead man, she threw her blade into throat of her third victim.
The last two soldiers looked weary, but knew to disobey Ferdinand was punishable by death. But he had other things on his mind.
“Enough!” Ferdinand shouted.
She pointed her blade right at him
He did not cower. Her body became enveloped in orange as three of his speakers cast spells of restriction on her. The color on her face turned to purple as they slowly cut off her breathing.
He put his hand into the air to stop their spell and the woman fell to the ground. She was gagging when one of his soldiers removed the short sword from her grasp.
“I like you,” Ferdinand said as he observed Cyna on all fours next to his table. You would make a good addition to my group. If I could prove your loyalty.
She coughe
d and shook her head.
“I know men like you,” she gagged weakly. “There’s no proving loyalty. Only death.”
Ferdinand shrugged his shoulders.
“You’d be interested to know how often those two things are conjoined. You came with two companions, subordinates of yours I imagine. If they were friends, I’d have you kill them now to prove yourself to me. But seeing how you fight; I doubt killing these two would do much use for you or for me. Perhaps you would be glad to be rid of them. So that won’t do.”
He stroked his goatee as he thought.
What to do what to do.
He thought he heard a rustle from behind him and turned his head.
He was just in time to see a small dagger whiz past him. The woman Cyna had grab one of his guards and shoved him in front of her to take the blade.
She was now four to his last remaining challenger.
Well done, Ferdinand thought.
The man with the dagger in his chest coughed and fell to his knees as he died.
Three people in white robes jumped down into their midst.
Ferdinand observed them.
“This used to be a private place,” he lamented. “Speakers?”
He saw his speakers cast magic in the direction of the white wearing robed ones, but it seemed to stop short of them. Rather, it formed an orb around them that did not seem to touch them.
“Ah!” Ferdinand said. “Now here is an interesting proposition. Assassins from the High Court. Some of Anith’s it seems to be. This will prove your loyalty to me, Cyna! Kill these three who seem to be more intent on killing you then worrying about me and I will know you are loyal at least enough to keep you alive. Should they succeed in killing you, their deed will be done and they will die as well. Either way...”
Ferdinand put his boots back onto the table.
“My afternoon has become much more enjoyable.”
Ferdinand wished for the day he would watch the world burn. Until such time, the sport of killing would do.
38: Visions
Laserie walked warily through the forest alongside her Skrilx companions. If that’s what they could truly be called. She wasn’t sure if she trusted them wholly yet. But she would not distance herself from them for too long of a time. There was an evil in the woods that she knew she could not face alone. An ancient thing that would surely strike her down as it had done the other acolyte. If she was to reach the other elf tower and warn them of the fate of their Rimstone, she must travel with these creatures for the moment.
The forest was dark and foreboding. It was as if the trees themselves blacked out more sunlight than their leaves could normally shade them from.
This was a magical darkness. Something beyond her reckoning.
Eight of the Skrilx she had encountered walked alongside her. They did not crowd her, but they also did not give her much space. They seem content to walk at exactly the same pace she did, matching her step for step. She felt a little unnerved that they were so close at hand. Then again, she could not imagine walking through the forest unaccompanied.
She did not know much of these creatures other than she had read him books.
Which reminded her.
“I have thought all of your kind had been exiled to the island in the middle of Redact?” she asked as they walked deeper into the forest. There was a very small path that they followed exactly. Laserie had a hard time discerning what came before or after the path they were walking on.
Just beyond her sight was the edge of the darkness. It seemed farther away than what she would normally judge. Darker as well. The trees did not move as she had seen them move before they came to this part of their journey. The wind did not move the leaves above her. The darkness felt complete. Absolute.
The Skrilx in front of her had apparently chosen to not answer her question. She looked over her shoulder at the one who had addressed her earlier. Acred was at least somewhat talkative.
He shook his head.
“Most of our kind have yes,” Acred said. “There is a small contingent that stays on the mainland in order to...”
He stopped for a moment. Laserie turned her attention in front of them in case there was something ahead that he saw. She noticed nothing other than the normal woods.
“To understand movements and goings-on of the other nations.”
He finished the sentence as if it was not what he had intended to say at first.
Laserie did not blame him. She had heard much about the Skrilx from her books. How mistreated they were. How they were killed and nearly eradicated.
She shook her head.
“Why have you never come to the tower of the elves?” she asked genuinely. “I’m sure there could’ve been help for you there. Perhaps even there are things we could learn from one another.”
She observed another long silence but did not look behind her. The Skrilx would answer in their own time, she knew. That or they would say nothing at all and she would have her answer anyways.
As she observed the area around them, she realized she heard less and less of any natural sound. Their own footsteps, light as they were, died in the ground and Laserie couldn’t hear the crunch of dirt or leaf.
There were no birds that sang, no small creatures that moved along in the low grasses. Laserie was certain she did not even see insects fly through the air. There was a heavy feeling on this part of the forest. It consumed everything around here.
It unnerved her.
“The elves hold grudges longer than they give themselves credit for,” Acred finally said.
“I’m sorry?” Laserie replied. She did not know of any grudge her kind a held with the cat like creatures.
“It need only take one generation to forget,” he said to her. “There was once a time when elves and our own kind were considered friends. But there were grievances between the two of us. Grievances that concern the ancient power we are now moving towards. The Skrilx wished to destroy it with the help of the elves. They wanted to study it.”
One of the cats ahead of them hissed.
“Fools,” he said.
Laserie looked over her shoulder to see the Acred nodding his head.
“The elves were foolish, Tert, yes. But was it worth the war that was fought over it?”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“We were foolish to try to wage war against those older and wiser than we. We were already weakened, though there were a few who saw fit to see it. The Skrilx once ruled over Redact entirely. Before the men and the elves and the dwarves. But we are no such empire anymore. We are a whisper of a shadow.”
“And in our pride, we thought we could subdue the elves to our bidding,” the gray haired Skrilx named Tert said.
Laserie heard Acred behind her agree.
“An ancient race though we are,” he continued. “We have no gift of magic. That was our undoing. The elves and their rimstone used in battled reduced our once great empire to ashes. This is why the men of the north were so capable of driving us out. This is why we are what we are today.”
“A wisp. A flame on the end of a dying in her,” he finished.
“Hush,” said Tert from ahead of them. “You speak too freely.”
Laserie was glad that she had heard this. There were no books in her great library that explained what she was hearing now. No record or mention of a Skrilx war with the elves.
She wondered. Where there other secret she did not know? Other things she had not yet considered?
No, she shook her head. Such things would be silly. She trusted the elders. She trusted them completely. What they kept from her, they did so with good reason. She must not be deterred from her quest. She must tell the other tower of the pending threat on their rimstone. Isn’t that what these Skrilx had just said was the greatest strength of the elves?
It was.
The Skrilx at the front of the line held up at paw as a signal for them to stop. Laserie did so, but she put a hand on th
e small dagger at her side. She could feel the presence too. Something had changed in the forest. Something was coming closer.
The Skrilx all around her acted as one. They removed their weapons from their sheaves and held them up as it ready to fight off a formidable foe. Laserie could see no one. She could however, feel.
It was coming.
“Whatever you do,” Acred said forcefully from behind her. “Trust only the voice of the Skrilx. Listen to my voice and know it. It will be your guide. Do not listen to other voices, be their friend or foe of whatever kind. Mine is the only voice you should hear and heed.”
Laserie thought this was odd instruction, but she nodded all the same. In front of her, she saw that the forest was changing again.
Small green tendrils began to creep through the air. They were like the blackness that was invading their rimstone. Laserie gasped as he realized what had been infecting their stones. It was not a disease from within themselves. It was the plague that was reaching out.
“Laserie,” she heard from behind her. She turned around and gasped again.
Standing before her in the forest was not the Skrilx she had come with. It was her parents. She didn’t know how she understood that these two elves near her were her parents. She had been an orphan as long as she could remember. Raised by the elders and made an acolyte of the tower. Her parents died shortly after her birth.
Or so she had been told.
But her parents now stood here before her. She knew this. They felt warm and inviting. They were calling her to safety. To life. Not to a quest to find out why LaGrove’s rimstones were falling apart. To a home.
“Well done Laserie,” the male elf who must her father said with open arms. “You’ve done it. You’ve discovered what has possessed the stones. You can come home now. With us.”
“We’re so proud of you,” the female elf said. She looked like Laserie. She had the same hair and same eyes. Her smile was soft and warm.
She held out her hands as well as if inviting her into a loving embrace.
The darkness of the forest was gone. They were instead in an open field. It was surrounded by beautiful mountains and filled with the most luscious flowers. The place was beautiful. Laserie wanted nothing more than to stay here for the rest of her life. With her parents. In a home.
