by Jesse Teller
Aaron grinned, his arm a blur, as he slapped Demetri across the face with the side of his sword.
“Foreplay time, I guess,” Aaron said. Demetri nodded, a black hate seemed to rise up within the man, hot as a flame and just as hungry.
Aaron was cut four times before he could step back. Demetri let him retreat.
“I’m going to slap you on the left side of your face until that scar of yours rips open,” Demetri said.
Aaron rushed in with a flurry of sword and dagger. Demetri stepped left as Aaron swung on the man’s flank.
Demetri was gone, and Aaron felt a sting across the left side of his face.
He turned and growled and touched his cheek. Aaron came in again.
Slap to the face so hard it felt like a searing iron. Aaron stumbled back and grinned.
“Told you,” Demetri said.
Aaron grinned, squeezing the handle of his dagger. He stepped in, leading with a feint before Demetri slapped again. This time Aaron was ready for him. He did not try to block the hit. It was coming too fast for that. He just needed to know where it was heading. He moved his dagger, skewering Demetri’s hand on the blade. Aaron pulled the hand wide and sliced Demetri’s leg.
Demetri’s hand was still run through with Aaron’s dagger. The dagger was jerked wide, cleaving the hand through the middle from the palm and exiting the span between the ring and middle finger. Aaron spun away and Demetri hopped back.
He glared at Aaron with a pain-soaked face, and Aaron nodded.
“My father is going to have fun with you,” Demetri spat.
“Send him out here and let’s see what he can do. I’m about done with his baby boy,” Aaron said.
Demetri was across the room faster than possible. Aaron was hit in the chest with what could have been a fist or an open hand. He lifted off the ground, flew back twenty feet, and slammed into the wall.
Demetri sheathed his swords and pulled a bandage out to wrap his hand. “Crawl to my master and let him pet you, Sleepless. You’re done,” Demetri said.
Aaron got to his feet and ran. Demetri set his feet and pulled his sword. Aaron dropped a moment before collision and kicked up with crippling force to land a foot in Demetri’s groin. He stood, as Demetri bent over, and connected with his knee on the man’s face. Aaron brought his sword handle down across Demetri’s back and swept the man’s legs out from under him.
With a swift stab to the shoulder, Aaron nailed the Hoodsman to the floor and sliced a cut across his cheek. Aaron stumbled back, rubbing his chest and groaning.
“I want one,” Revenge purred. She looked at Aaron with real lust. He turned to join the Venture and the Manhunters on the other side of the bar.
“I want my sword back when you pick that beast up,” Aaron said as he dropped to his seat and propped his foot on the table.
He felt as if his chest had been cracked in two. He rubbed it again, and Sabrar pulled the sword from Demetri’s shoulder and helped him up. Sabrar handed the sword over to Saykobar, and the vile man looked it over.
“Where did you get this?” Saykobar looked at the weapon and shook his head. “Looks like plain steel. Demetri, did this whelp beat you with a mundane sword?”
Demetri stood and looked over his shoulder at Aaron. He nodded grimly and walked to the bar.
“You buffoon, this is a simple sword. How could he beat you with an ordinary weapon?”
“He is Aaron the Marked,” Demetri said. “We are evenly matched. If we fought again, I would likely win.”
Oak scoffed.
Demetri turned to Aaron with a strained face and nodded. “Will you allow me to regain my honor?” he asked.
“We are being a little slapdash with the term, aren’t we?” Tyga asked from the corner.
Demetri snarled at him.
“We can go again. Heal him up,” Aaron said. “And I need that sword back.”
“No healing, and come and get it,” Saykobar said.
It was the most painful night Aaron could remember. Demetri Clasta and Aaron the Marked fought thirteen times. They fought into the night. Outside, vampires hunted. Somewhere in the city, Rayph Ivoryfist prowled. Pirates plotted, and the Head Hunters hunted, but in this abandoned bar in the Bilious Quarter of Hemlock, Aaron the Marked strove against Demetri Clasta for pride and honor.
When neither could stand, they lay the floor groaning. Demetri had won seven bouts, Aaron six.
“Bring him to me,” Saykobar said. Sabrar waved a hand and Aaron floated into the air. The crew of the Venture, and the Manhunters, leapt to their feet.
“You can’t have him!” Oak yelled.
Saykobar burst into flames. The floor blackened out around him, and he stood. “I can have anything I want!” Saykobar screamed. “I am Saykobar of Dragonsbane. If I want him, I’m going to take him!”
Drelis stepped forward. She walked across the room and waved her hand in Saykobar’s direction. Aaron thought he saw dust fly toward the furious mage before he sneezed and passed out. Saykobar hit the floor like a stone, and Drelis looked at Revenge with a curtsy.
“Is he still alive?” Revenge asked.
“Yes, sister, he is,” Drelis stated. “I will, however, kill every man who stands with you if you try to take Aaron the Marked. You, I will leave unharmed for the love of our order.”
“When he wakes up, you had better be gone,” Revenge said. “I will defend Aaron in your stead. I give my word, no harm will come to him.”
At that, Drelis nodded and left the room, going out into the night alone.
“We had better go with her,” Smear said.
“Look out for a demon of rock,” Aaron said.
Smear nodded. He pointed at Aaron and smiled. “I’ve dealt with it before. Can we talk later?”
Aaron nodded. Then he passed out.
Saykobar sat at the other end of a long table from Aaron. Oak sat at Aaron’s left with Sabrar at Saykobar’s. Everyone else stood.
“You serve a king,” Saykobar said.
“I do. He needs me, and I will get back to him.”
Saykobar waved a hand. “To the hells with him, join me.”
Aaron felt instantly sick. “Never.”
“You say that, but you don’t understand. A war is coming.”
“I’m already fighting a war,” Aaron said.
“A global war is coming. It will be long and horrible, and millions will die screaming. Armies are even now being formed and great forces aligned. We are one of those armies.”
“You are five men.”
“Actually seven, but that is not the question. That is not the issue at hand, and that is not what you should be watching,” Saykobar said. “See, fools like you always think they see the real danger, but it takes a man of vision to watch it all rising. Timea will burn. Her races will die, and her gods will flee for their lives. The dark and terrible will grasp the world, and the righteous will perish fighting to stem the bloodbath.”
Saykobar shook his head. “Armies like ours will hold it all back. We will stand for the…” he waved his hand dismissively and rolled his eyes, “for the meek and all the worthless, and we will beat back the nightmare with our own flavor of horror. We need the invincible to fill our ranks, and you are just dark enough, and just vicious enough, to stand beside us.”
Aaron thought of Peter. He thought of the death Drelis had promised, and the betrayal that death implied. He saw a life of servitude to an ungrateful man, and he saw a way out. Aaron looked at the five monsters standing before him, and he thought of home and the hate and fear his tribe so far away held for him.
Maybe Peter was planning to kill Aaron. Maybe that had always been the plan. Harness a true bastard, lead him, make him think he was loved, and before he gets too powerful, slash him to the ground. Aaron chewed on the idea and could not dispel it. Peter was a man he would never understand, a man he could never fully grasp. Why serve a man who would one day kill him? Why fight for a homeland that would despise him always? Why
march beside the Redfist and bind himself to the will of his murderer?
But Aaron knew the answer to all these questions.
“Ever had a friend, Saykobar?” Aaron smiled and shook his head. “Ever fight beside a brother and know that man loved you enough to lay his life down for you? Ever met a man you would die to protect?”
“Friends are worthless. They can be good pieces to move about for a benefit, but bosom pals? They are morons. Any man who is ready to lay his life down to save mine has been fooled by me.”
“Then one day you will stand across a foe you cannot defeat, and you will look to your left, you will look to your right, and you will look behind you, and you will find the emptiness of death around you. Because no one can fight their way through this world without a brother.
“See, Saykobar, I have two. I have bled and died for each of them. I have fought impossible odds and killed impossible foes, and I can say that I will forever dedicate my life to their safety and happiness. If my king loses his way and kills me, then they will be there to save him. But as long as they live and I live, I will be standing beside them. I will serve them and serve beside them because they have earned it.”
Aaron stood and drained his mug. He nodded at Demetri, who smiled and nodded back. Then Oak, the crew of the Venture, and Aaron the Marked left the dry and dusty pub behind.
“You are worthless and weak!” Saykobar called after him. But Aaron could barely hear him. He was thinking of his friends and the peril they were in. He had a place to be. He had a job to do. He had a king to serve.
Vanyel Eteral
“I’m not sure how to come back to you,” Rayph spoke in crumbling voice through emotion that threatened to break him. “I have been away so long. I have been far from home and feel so alone and broken. The Citadel told me to leave, and I was devastated. They ripped out a piece of my soul. You had promised me—sworn to me—I would take over leadership, and they ousted me from the school and threw me out of the country. Did I turn away? Before that day, did I linger on any deviating path, give my allegiance to any other endeavor?
“Your priests taught me to love my enemy, taught me to save a restless soul if possible. These lessons I took to heart, only to have them torn away from me. Only to be damned by them.” Rayph lowered his face to the dirt-streaked floor of the dingy abandoned pub and curled his fingers into fists. He pounded his fists on the rotting floor and screamed.
“I obeyed your lessons, I took your teachings to heart and lost all of it. My whole life imploded and all was lost. I wandered for years before finding a home in Lorinth, and now what has become of me?
“I don’t know how to do this. I’m still so mad. I’m still furious at you for breaking my heart and shattering my future. Now, in my moment of need, I have nowhere else to turn, no other source to seek myself in but you. So, after millennia of seeking another road, I find myself before you, begging.
“Give me some hope. Please, Mighty Vanyel, give me a path. Place me before a portal I can cross into the light. It wasn’t rage. Rage did not force me against those men and women in that bar. It was pride. He made me grovel, and when I left your presence, I told myself I would never grovel again. I told myself I would not scrape and cow myself to any man or any god. I was not going to ever lower myself to this position again. But here I am.
“I was proud. A trimerian warrior mage, trained all my life to ascend to the highest levels of the nation’s powers. I knew few rivals. I made myself into a weapon for good and light. How many of your enemies did I bring low? How many times did I serve your cause by treading the dark and dangerous into the ground? It was my mind that did it all, my power that elevated the righteous over the wicked. I served your cause in spite of you.
“Why did you not guide me? Why did you see me doing your work and not reward me for it? You could have brought me back to the Crystal Citadel at any moment. Did I not earn a reinstatement? Did all the service I gave you while in Lorinth not buy me a trip home? But you never came for me. You never called your son back. Never even helped me with my quest to free a suffering soul from captivity. Now I have found the bottom of my hope and the bottom of my soul. I see what I am since you abandoned me, and I despise it.
“I want a reason why. Tell me what I did that you would oust me from your service and rip my life away from me. Why would you stunt my growth and exile me from my people?
“Before I came to this place, I was annoyed by humans, as most trimerians are, but I was forced to live among them. I was bound to them and my opinions, over time, changed.” Rayph felt something, some kindling of clarity in his heart. A slight thread of hope stitched into his soul, and he couldn’t think. It was slipping away. Some piece he had found. Some epiphany he had stumbled into.
“Glimmer was not that way. Tyga, Comely, Tesry, and Crystal, they spoke often of the soul of man and its purity. They talked about the passion that grips a mortal man or woman, the verve for life. They spoke of learning lessons from man that no other being could have taught them.” Rayph let his mind wrap itself slowly around the words, and he felt a lightening of spirit. “No source could have driven that lesson home except a human. And what did you give me?” Rayph sat up but kept his head bowed. “You gave me a nation of them.
“You made me serve them. You made me live with them. Travel this world as their ambassador and guide. You gave me time to settle into an understanding no trimerian could have given me. What is the commander of the Trimerian Knights without a fond heart for the other races? He is a tyrant. He is prideful, a power of such potency, he wields only darkness for the world and sows hate in his people’s heart for every person outside of their borders. If I were to learn to respect man, I would have to live with him, see his foibles and his triumphs and witness his love. I would have to experience the power of man and the legacy he leaves behind.”
Rayph wiped tears from his eyes and kept them closed. “Pax and his blood, The Rider, the house of Nardoc, the nation of Lorinth. So many men I have called friend and ally, so many men have struck fear in my hearts. Saykobar is but a human, but his power dwarfs my own. Father Morgan La Guy, the greatest swordsman that ever lived, was no more than a human. How many times did his story cross paths with a trimerian trained by Tyga or Glimmer, and how many times did he defeat them? Human, and other races as powerful and bold, as daring and unvanquishable as a Trimerian Knight. Never would I have learned this lesson if I hadn’t been forced to live among them.
“Was that your design? It would almost have to be. You had to have thought of my racial arrogance and sent me here to learn this lesson. You would have seen the necessity for change in my heart when dealing with the other races. No way you would let me command an army such as the knights while holding the rest of the world in disregard. So, has this all been a lesson? Has the entire life I lived from the moment I was handed the mission of destroying Fannalis been your plan?
“Is Thomas part of your plan? I sense danger for this nation on the horizon, a man will be needed, a man like Thomas to protect this place from destruction. Was your plan for me to train him? Was there any other way to do that?
“If this is truly the scope of your design, then I stand humbled by it. Give me a sign you planned my exile to prepare me for leadership. Give me a sign that the life I was trained for is still possible.”
But was it arrogant to ask for a sign of a god? Show me your mind. I deserve it, and when you give it to me, I will serve you. Was there anything so arrogant as that?
“Give me nothing, mighty Vanyel. Let me live and find your wisdom in my time. Let me work this out and find my peace, and give me understanding as you deem fit. I beg no sign. I beg only the fortitude to see this all to its end. And wisdom to find your hand in my life. Give me hope if you want me to wield it. Give me forgiveness or some way to earn it. And this I beg with all of my heart, stay by my side and never let me doubt your presence again.”
Rayph stood, the boards under him groaned, and he looked down at the scuffl
ing marks he had made while lowering himself to the ground. The mark of the knees in the dust and the place washed free of grime by his tears where he had placed his face flush with the ground. The shapes were perfect. There was no denying the perfection of the symbol his prostrations had made. Three perfect eyes, the top eye shining bright and clear. It was a perfect rendering of Vanyel Eteral’s sacred symbol. Rayph lowered his head and cried as he stomped from the pub.
“Be with me and show me the way to honor once again. If I must suffer to see justice done for my crimes, then give me the strength and bravery to see it through.” Rayph headed out into the night to find his crew. He needed to give apologies, needed to set a few things right. He needed to get his head right and set his shoulders against his enemies. Hemlock was dying. It was time to stop the bleeding.
The Rattlesnake and the Ivoryfist
Rayph grabbed Dissonance by the shoulders and turned her to look at him. Her face was stone, her eyes blazing with disappointment, and Rayph thought he saw some embarrassment there as well. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it before she said the words. She searched his eyes, and her face changed. She saw something there, something that had been absent. She grinned and smiled.
“Welcome back, Ivoryfist,” she said.
Rayph didn’t know what she saw exactly, and in that moment, he wanted to. Wanted to know what he had gained and what he had lost. “Thank you,” Rayph said. “If you are going to leave, go with my blessing, but I do wish you would reconsider. Talk to your god and I will respect any choice you make. But remember what you see in my face now and know it is not going away.”
She nodded.
“We are going to be doing things a little differently from now on. We can’t do it all alone. I was a fool to think we could. Arrogance, selfishness, a little bit of fear and pride, all horrible things to allow into your mind when you are leading a group of heroes. It changes now.” He turned to Drelis, who looked at him with a smirk, to Trysliana who only nodded. Sisalyyon walked over to him and kissed his cheek. “You are glowing,” she said.
