Heir's Legacy

by Vlad ben Avorham

  In the early morning hours, Pavel noticed his dream changing. He was back home in his smithy. Sitting snugly by the fire was Rea. He felt happy again for the first time in weeks. Shock coursed through him when Rea shrieked with excitement "It worked, I'm really here!" and then popped out of his head just as fast. He was being shaken awake. Seems rather than guard duty, they had all been tasked for a predawn road march.

  Stumbling out of bed wondering if it was really her, Pavel stumbled toward his gear. Horses saddled and packed, and at the ten mile mark by dawn or there would be extra duty for days.

  Catrin

  Catrin regained consciousness as painfully as she had lost it. Her hands bound on the stout oak beam of the horse of pain. The soft flesh between her legs bruised from long hours on the unyielding beam. With a moan she forced her weight back up on her arms. Her shoulders cried out from the abuse but the change in pain brought some relief from pain below. She had no idea how long she had been like this. Her throat dry and cracked from thirst, and her body soaked with the sweat of her exertions. Her eyes managed to focus for a moment on the only possession remaining to her, a small golden ring with its ruby glinting darkly in the dim light. She thought of the boy who had given it to her, he wouldn't be coming to her rescue this time. For a fleeting moment she wished he had missed. Had spared her this suffering, but she quickly smashed that traitorous voice in the back of her fear fogged mind.

  The pain in her shoulders eventually grew too great, and she collapsed back down hard on the wooden beam. Rivers of fire and pain exploded through her body, and she cried out. She steadied herself trying to find the least painful position until her shoulders could recover enough to relieve this pain, and the cycle could start again.

  Her desperation was almost too much when something finally changed. A door opened and a bright light came streaming into the darkened room. Two men approached and uncovered the sky light letting in the bright noonday sun. The light was painful after the hours in the darkness. She sobbed tearlessly as the men unshackled her from the device. They did not, however, let her go. Instead, they strapped her by her ankles to a large wooden frame that rushed all the blood to her head. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the new light in the room, a small rat-faced man in a blood-stained apron was fussing over a table strewn with the most intimidating array of pincers and tongs and knives and devices she couldn't even imagine the purpose of.

  "What is your name?" Rat face began.

  "Please let me go!" Catrin croaked.

  A pair of tongs brutally bit down on her thigh, she screamed out. "You will answer my questions. What is your name?"

  This interrogation continued until the sun had moved from directly overhead and was casting long shadows on the wall. Then a woman came in, dressed in an elegant, noble woman's gown. She looked at the shaking sobbing, but surprisingly uninjured Catrin. "Welcome to the Finishing School. You've just passed your first exam. Lesson one is as follows: Do not make mistakes. Any mistake you make no matter how small or large in our profession can have your life ending in a place much like this one, on a much longer and slower timeline. Now that I think lesson one has been properly absorbed, they will take you to rest and recover. No one here wishes you harm." Rat-faced man began to loosen her shackles.

  He smiled kindly at her as he helped her to rest comfortably on a low stool. "I hate it that my introduction to the young women here is always so traumatic. I'm the gardener. If you have a preference for a certain type of flowers for your room, please just ask."

  The woman handed her a small cup of water. "There's more where this came from, just take it easy at first. You've been through a lot."

  Two girls in servants' uniforms came in next and wrapped her in a soft cotton cloak. "Mia and Savean will help you get your bath and bring food and drink as it is appropriate for you. Rest in your own bed tonight, and tomorrow we will have a brief meeting before lesson two. Any questions?"

  "What is this place?" Catrin hoarsely croaked.

  The woman smiled at her. "This is the Finishing School, much like the Boarding School your father attended. He plans for you to follow in his footsteps becoming a master spy. Here you will learn all you need of tradecraft, and manipulation to complete missions most would deem impossible."

  Catrin was stunned. Her father a spy? She to learn to be one too? This was all just too much for her to think about at the moment. So she was grateful when the girls helped her to stand and led her off to where a steaming bath was drawn and ready for her to soak away the abuses of the last day.

  War's End

  Alarming News

  Catrin was on her third mission for the Finishing School. She had just completed her "Final Test" with the last mission, and this was mostly just to get her some start up capital before leaving the school. She knew she could always meet up with her father and soon she probably would. She had forgiven him for his choice of such a harsh profession for her long ago. She was good at this; her instructors all said she was a natural. Still it was good form to greet her father on equal footing. The recovery of an emerald necklace for Baroness Harvor that the unlucky Barron had lost in a game of chance with the Comté d' Arroyo is really a fairly petty use of her skills but it is sure to be profitable.

  She slipped in the servant's entrance to the Compte's Challet and past the guard who was occupied chatting up the young scullery maid. Up the stairs on all fours, spread to the edges of each step to avoid squeaks. Past the guard's barracks and into the Compte's bed chamber. The strong box with the jewelry and on a solid table along one wall just off to the side of his Ladies dressing table. Catrin considered picking the lock here but was concerned it would make enough noise to rouse the sleeping couple just a few feet away behind the bed curtains. Instead, she wrapped the box in undergown that had been set out for the morning and tied it into a neat bundle. She tied off one end of the rope wrapped around her waist to the stout window frame and dropping a couple of drops of oil on the latch, eased it soundlessly open. A heart beat later she was lowering the strong box and herself to the ground below. Slipping soundlessly into the stable so as not to wake the groom sleeping there she, tied off her prize to the saddle of the horse kept ready for the Compte's guard and walked it out into the night air.

  She smiled a half a mile from the Challet as she tightened up the saddle for the horse and rode off toward the sleeping village below. All that was left to do was provide the necklace to the Barroness's man and then dodge the probable assassin who would be sent to clean up her as a loose end. Perhaps the Barroness would be wise enough to forego the last but it was unlikely. When she asked about payment, the Barroness had said that the other jewels she could lift should be payment enough. People who don't want to pay you are all too often willing to pay someone else to shut you up. She would deal with the Barroness later if that were the case, for now she was more interested in putting some distance between herself and the Compte's lands. '

  The Barroness had sent a known agent of hers to meet with Catrin. This was bad trade craft and Catrin knew it for a clumsy mistake. Still her part of the mission was complete and the fallout for the Barroness was her own issues and none of Catrin's concern. As she handed the large armored guard the necklace he grabbed her by the wrist. "Now just one thing left, shame you sure are a pretty one." he said as his other hand went for the dagger at his belt. Catrin was a bit shocked, she expected an assassin, but for the Barroness to think this clumsy oaf could do the job was an insult. Catrin didn't try to pull away, instead she moved in toward him with a swift flowing movement ducking under the arm and drawing her hair pin with her free hand. At the new odd angle the guard would have to spin her back around to bring the dagger into action. Catrin was ready for that and surprised him by going with the pull. She sunk the tip of her poison laced hair pin, right through the rings of his chainmaille and deep into his chest. Now it was just a matter of seconds. Seconds count when a man much larger than you has a blade but Catrin wasn't a defenseless woman, she was a trained a
gent. Avoiding increasingly erratic swings from a blade as his pounding heart pushed the poison through more and more of his body was not a real challenge.

  Catrin look around as the body collapsed to the city street. No alarm had been raised. No immediate threat could be detected. She hesitated only a moment before deciding to put the emerald necklace in the corpse's mouth and leave him there where he would soon be found by the village watchman. Let the Compte deal with the Baroness if he chose, it would give him a place for his outrage other than Catrin.

  So it was on her third night, posing as a traveling merchant that one of her recently hired guards told her of news from the tavern. Seems the hold outs at Three Rivers Keep had finally been crushed and Duke Oliver would undoubtedly be the new king. The long war of succession was finally over, and while that was good news, it meant that Duke Oliver would take a renewed interest in Echal and his family.

  Leaving orders and money in a letter to the chief of her guards for them to continue on to the shop of one Jayen Smith and to deliver all the goods there. She bought herself a fresh horse and a spare and began the hard ride toward the frontier outpost her father had told her was the training location of Echal. This would be her chance to bring warning and in part pay back what he had done for her all of those years ago.

  ***

  A Messenger

  Catrin made her way in record time to the small keep. Telling the guard on duty that she was a courier, with a message from home for Echal Some. To her surprise, they not only let her in but she found herself waiting for Echal in Weapon's Master S'ven's private office. The old man was watching her with a calculating eye. Even with all of her training, she found it disconcerting. The nearly crippled old weapons master was not some Baroness's henchman. Even in his current state, should he decide her a threat, she would be in danger.

  Catrin was about to make small talk to ease the tension when a familiar young man strode confidently into the office. Catrin felt her entire world skew slightly. It was Echal, there was no disputing that but gone was the young boy she knew. In his place was a confident and competent warrior much as she imagined Weapons Master S'ven must have looked in his prime. The too big features of his face had now assumed their proper proportions. She would need to look up to see him now, and gone was any trace of the uncertainty she had sensed in him, replaced with a confidence earned taming this wild frontier with its monstrous inhabitants.

  Echal was reporting in as asked. It was unusual for the Master to send for him in the middle of the day like this; perhaps the orcs were getting restless again. He made it most of the way into the room and almost faltered in his salute to Master S'ven as he recognized Catrin sitting there starring oddly at him.

  "Catrin!" He exclaimed and rushed to greet her. She only just managed to gain her feet before he had her off of them in a great bear hug. "You look amazing! What... What are you doing here?"

  The old man behind the desk coughed politely and with a crooked grin, "At ease, Echal."

  Echal's face reddened as he realized his broach of protocol. "My apologies Master S'ven. Catrin is an old friend whom I have not seen in many years. I was just overcome with surprise to see her here."

  He nods and coughed again. "Well It's as I suspected. She knows?"

  Echal nodded, "Yes Sir, she knows. It was her father who gave us warning."

  Catrin recovering from the spin of emotions in seeing him again and of course the exuberance of his greeting finally found her voice, "He can be trusted?" she asked Echal who looked at her if she asked if water was wet. "Then I'll give you the message now, the war is over. You'll no longer be safe here, nor your family. These hasty identities worked well so long as things were uncertain. You must leave and soon, to find the others and make what plans you will."

  The old man nodded sadly. "My boy, it will sadden me greatly to see you go, but once the King is crowned and official word reaches here, the Brotherhood's neutrality ends. At that point even I would be duty bound to turn you over, and I don't think this old heart could take that. Send your friend on, have her wait for you with her spare horse a few miles away. At dinner tonight you will ask to go home. I will tell you it will do no good, and to take your anger out on the orcs if you must. Stride out angry. Meet up with her and smear blood upon the saddle of your horse. Leave it to return to us. We will all grieve the loss of Echal Some. As that will be the official record, none will question deeper from the Brotherhood and both you and I should be safe enough. I will miss you, but I have done my duty to your father. You are the man he would have wanted you to be."

  And just like that, his old life ended and a new one began.

  ***

  Surprise Surprise

  Echal mounted up on the spare horse. "I need to make a stop in the village before we can continue."

  "OK, but we shouldn't be long and it won't do for you to be seen." Catrin said.

  Echal smiled sadly. "It won't take long, and it's important. Besides, there are things I need to pick up as well."

  They rode mostly in silence the handful of miles into the village. It was a small affair, probably not more than three or four hundred souls. Catrin waited with the horses as Echal approached a small house. Through the window she could see a very young and very pregnant woman crying as he told her he would leave. She saw him push a hand full of silver coins into her hand and kiss her once lingeringly and then pick up his baggage and leave. She thought her heart would break, how could he just leave her like this? Who was this woman?

  They rode silently in the dark for several miles until Catrin could no longer hold it in. "She could have come with us, you know?"

  Echal lost deep in thought just grunted, "What? Who?"

  Catrin was getting angry. "What do you mean who? I saw her through the window! You broke her heart!"

  Echal sighed. "Oh, you saw Elly. Look, it's not what you think. The kid isn't mine. Elly was just a young woman who got herself into the family way. I took her in, and yeah we had a thing. I decided long ago that the best way to make sure I didn't bring a child into this world I would have to abandon was to make sure she was already pregnant. Elly knew this wasn't forever, but she doesn't deserve to be left for questioning should anyone dig too deep." She could see him shrug in the pale moonlight, "I gave her enough money to get a fresh start in a new town. Somewhere she can claim to be a war widow and not have everyone know better. It's better for her this way too, she isn't suited to the life I may have to live."

  Catrin felt her head spin a bit. This still didn't seem right but considering, he wasn't acting the lout she had judged him as.

  Reunion

  Well, it worked once.

  Echal rented them a suite of rooms at an inn that had obviously seen better days, in an area of town that most would not venture after dark. Once in the rooms he began his transformation. His Brotherhood armor and colors were carefully stowed in a wooden chest. Out comes his custom half plate, this was his own design and built by his own hand in stolen weekends while he wasn't on patrol. He takes a few moments to buff out a couple of small patches of rust. He's been preparing for this eventuality for a long time, and from each of his missions in to the mountains he brought back souvenirs which he had turned into custom gear. A large ettin skin cloak, it's mottled grey color broken only by the intricate tooling pattern that also broke up the eye making the wearer very hard to spot against the stone of the mountains. He was particularly proud of this cloak; he was the only one of Master S'ven's students to ever single-handedly kill an adult ettin; it earned him no small amount of respect among his sword brothers. Echal sighed. He would miss them, but his life was meant to be more than just clearing monsters from the frontier to make it safe for settlers who kept arriving by the dozens, year after year.

  Catrin had slipped off in her courier guise and made her way across the bridge to the Spire's Quarter. To her disappointment the Guardians of the Tzadi, weren't as hospitable as the Brotherhood of the Well. She was forced to wait at the gate for
what seemed to her an eternity before they would even send anyone for Pavel. She couldn't help feeling exposed. Oh, she knew it was too early for serious agents to be dispatched to seek them out, all of her training assured her that she was as completely anonymous as any of the thousands of other people going about their daily lives in Archive, though, she couldn't shake the sense of urgency that gripped her.

  Finally Pavel arrived, and the shock on his face as he recognized her was far more obvious than it should have been. She reminded herself he didn't have her training in these matters. She met his eye and ever so slightly shook her head. He seemed to get the message, because as he approached he did not call out her name but rather started by calling her Courier.

  "Courier, where is the message from?" He asked loud enough to be heard by the gate guard before approaching close enough for a more private conversation.

  "Pavel, it's good to see you. Here." She handed him a letter with a rather bland 'letter from home' on it. Keeping her voice pitched low, "The game is up. We need to get word to Rea, time to go."