by Aaron Dennis
She was referring to the mystery of Scar’s origin, but her words of dissent regarding the King of Satrone sent the Kulshedrans into another fit of anger. Scar’s mouth went agape and his fury swelled. He had little concern over their menial bickering.
“Not fifteen minutes ago it had been possible that the leaders were working together to have us find the truth and bring it to the people, now you believe the assassin?” Scar was incredulous.
“You know I’m telling the truth,” Hachi griped. “Just think about it. Sulas sent his son to find you, to convince you to fight for Kulshedra, right? But what did he have you do as soon as you met with him? He sent you here at the same time he sent us here. You’re all supposed to be dead, and that damned paladin–”
“Once again I’ve been lied to and manipulated?” Scar hollered over Hachi’s assertion. “First Zoltek and now Gilgamesh? That’s it! I have had it with these confounded kings and their, their, their…blatant disrespect! I am not a tool! I am not a disposable weapon!”
Hachi let out a coughing spurt of maniacal laughter and added, “You see it now, don’t you? Without me, you are all too stupid to work together, too stupid to consolidate your people’s forces and drive out the evil. Your kings argue just like you do; a bunch of spoiled children with inflated egos! We are all tools, we are all puppets! Know your place.” He yelled into the grass fluttering from his breaths. “Hashnora has foreseen this! Only Bakunawa, the God of Light, can shatter the darkness of the world!”
“Damn your Dragon,” Scar cried out before dropping the knife and torch.
The mercenary violently bashed at Hachi’s head with both fists until there was nothing left but splattered blood. In his mindless demolishing of the assassin, Ylithia called out to him and knelt beside him with her hands on his arm.
“Scar, please,” she begged and gazed into his eyes. A modicum of control returned to him, though Delton, Lortho, Jayna, and Hija appreciated the display. “You must calm yourself.”
“Why?” he cried. “Do you not understand? I have trusted these men blindly, wanting only to know who I am, and time, and time again they have pissed on me.”
He stood sharply, shook the blood from his hands, and stormed off into a shack to find some water and cloth. Ylithia followed him in to help in whatever way possible, which left the others to either argue over or contemplate upon the deceased’s words.
“Scar?”
“Ylithia, I can’t do this anymore. Dragons be damned…let those out there find their way. I am through being a pawn.”
She pushed her hair back. It was difficult for them to see each other in the dark, and more difficult for Scar to find anything with which to clean his hands, but after some fumbling, he found a small cloth, and Ylithia poured water onto his hands from a pitcher off a table.
“So what does that mean?” the knight asked. “You won’t search to find what the Dragons are up to or avenge the death of your friend?”
“Why should I even care? Hachi is dead now. I have enough blood on my hands to last a lifetime.”
“People need your help…I think…Silwen must have thought so.”
“Mekosh must not have. Damn the Gods, too. Silwen used me to her end. She has also failed. I will do as I please for my own reasons, make my own way in life.”
“And what way is that?”
He didn’t have an answer. As he plunked on a chair that barely supported his weight, he tossed the rag into a corner. Scar considered the life he recalled; Zoltek had hired him to kill Kulshedrans under the pretense of false promises. To that end, Scar had killed many. Then Dumar tried to kill him for letting a Kulshedran flee. Following that blunder with burns on his skin to repay his trust, Lovenhaad came bearing the will of Mekosh. That led to a friendship with a generous man, Labolas, who was only following the orders of a king, who was evidently only plotting more war under the guise of peace, a peace he might have actually sought, but not with Scar as part of the picture.
Those empty promises of placing Scar on the high seat of Alduheim were too much to bear, and to add insult to injury, the Goddess of Love played him, too, albeit in a much more enthralling manner. Tears fell between Scar’s cupped fingers. Ylithia sighed and sat next to him with a consoling rub of cold gauntlets to his back. Then N’Giwah walked in after a polite knock.
“We heard what you said,” the dark skinned man told him. “She is right. We can use your help.”
“You can use me,” Scar shook his head from his hands with a heave. “I’ll not be used any longer.”
Then Marlayne walked in and said, “We need to stop these Dragons. It is Kulshedra and Bakunawa who have conspired against us today. Please don’t abandon us…you’re the only one who can help.”
“You have that book. Your answers are in there,” Scar snapped back.
“I can’t read it,” she retorted.
“Certainly you can find a way from everything else inside that blasted castle,” he argued. “Find your own way. I’m done.”
Outside the shack, heavy hearts pondered over their loss. Loved ones and friends were killed, their leader pro tem no longer wanted to provide aid, and the Dragons were still out there somewhere, vilifying the hearts of kings. Pater thought Scar just needed some time to calm himself, and said as much. Lortho suggested they bury the dead. While they worked to that end, Shamara sang a song of peace and prayed that wherever the souls of the departed actually did go, since she no longer believed the Tiamatish went to Thalatte, they could at least find a well deserved rest.
In the meantime, Scar buried his face in his hands, the scent of the traitor still on them. Ylithia rubbed his shoulder. Silwen had had an effect on her, too. She didn’t know how, but she knew when she first laid eyes on Scar that she was going to fail Mekosh. The God of Severity had clearly also known and abandoned her before she even pointed her sword at the pale warrior. Some faint sense of solace washed over her as she stood next to the teary eyed brute. She didn’t know him, but she liked him.
“I have no desire to go after the Dragons either,” she volunteered. “I certainly would like to see them dead for their lies, but I have known of their lies for ten years, and yet I have never seen a Dragon…I can’t even begin to imagine where they are or how to defeat them.”
“You can’t,” Scar mumbled through his hands.
“Can’t what?”
“Kill them,” he breathed. “In the vision, Drac said that men can’t kill Dragons. I don’t know what that soldier did with that gem and lance, but Drac didn’t die, none of them did,” he said then looked into her emerald eyes. “We should forget them. Let men war as they might. We could travel…perhaps we could spend time together, and lend a hand in small towns driving out bandits, or I don’t know…I was never meant to be more than a mercenary…I’m no King of Alduheim…I’m just Scar, a man with no past, but I may yet have a bright future if I stop relying on the wishes of kings.”
“The burden of severity has left me,” she whispered and looked at the door. “They all seem like good people, but perhaps you are right. After twenty years of serving Fafnir and ten of serving Mekosh, I have very little to show for it…I, too, would like to see what life has to offer beyond servitude…besides, I know of a quaint village on the outskirts of Closicus near the Lake Grekka. Not a lot of bandits, mind you, but good fishing and hunting…I suppose two friends could get along well there.”
Scar chuckled and touched her face with the backs of his fingers.
“You would spend time with a blubbering fool who thought he was a king?” he asked.
“I would do more than that if you care learn who I am beyond a woman forgotten by Mekosh.”
“Let us sneak off then…they are good people out there and will not understand abandonment.” He paused a moment then added, “Kings and pawns can play their games.”
“To live life for ourselves…I should like to see how this turns out,” she chirped with a smile.
So Scar exited the shack with Yli
thia, retrieved his sword, and in doing so felt a familiar weight in his heart. He shrugged it off, took Ylithia’s hand, and they merged into the stones, trees, and darkness of Alduheim to head east through Malababwe north of the Sudai border, and into Closicus.
Chapter Nineteen- Life in the bosom of love
It was a long trip through the country of Malababwe for Scar and Ylithia. Many days were spent travelling on foot, searching for fruit bearing trees, cool streams, small game, and hunkering down in safe areas during the torrential downpours for which the thick jungle was known. In that time, the two learned one another’s mannerisms; Scar’s rolling of the shoulders during tense situations, his popping of the knuckles. He learned of her coy smiles and the way she crinkled her nose when she found something she didn’t like; the cute things appreciated in sound relationships.
Traveling by foot eventually grew awkward and tiresome for the knight in bulky armor. Regardless, they marched on, finding their way into small settlements where they were both easily recognized; the Ghost of Zmaj turned Kulshedran champion and the bare faced paladin. When the supposedly neutral townsfolk brandished weapons, the two left the Tiamatish to their own devices. The warriors of Malababwe, though impartial in the territorial wars, were quick to throw out those they saw as foreign invaders, but other larger towns were more tolerant of them, more tolerant in general, so long as foreigners sought peace in lieu of violence.
In the town of Elanjo, a place where houses were built into the trees by way of molding limbs into a framework, Scar and Ylithia secured passage on a trader’s cart in exchange for news of other countries and security in the event of roaming brigands. Even Malababwe had bandits as Labolas had once predicted. The wayfarers were glad to converse over matters outside the realms of Gods and Dragons for a change, but spending time with a paladin always prompted religious questions.
While conversations stayed mostly on the topics of current events such as Gilgamesh’s ceaseless war against Zoltek, the cart master, M’babo Tumba, often asked after Ylithia’s patron. She was reticent to incite any kind of discord with talks of Gods. Scar also kept his meeting with Silwen a secret. After the third day and the third question of her relationship with Mekosh, Ylithia only stated she had served Mekosh, the Severe, in the past, but recently abandoned her quest in the name of severity for a life of peace.
“A wise decision,” the old man with green patterns like tiny darts on his arms said. “Peace and hard work are far more rewarding than killing those with different ideas from your own.”
“That is something we have both learned,” Scar assured.
“Why off to Closicus?” M’babo asked as he transported them over a muddy road during one misty morning. “Is Malababwe not to your liking?”
“There’s a small town in the east of the country called Othnatus,” Ylithia obliged. “I visited once when I was small girl and was enchanted by the good people who lived near Lake Grekka. Their love of gardening, fishing, music, and reading is something I desire to witness again.”
“I have never been,” M’babo said. “It sounds nice though. Fafnirians are always welcome guests. Quicker to draw wit than blade, they are.”
M’babo’s route took them along the Sudai border and then south into the town of Agir. It was a lively city laden with sandstone buildings. Their architecture utilized round wooden posts, which could often be seen protruding through the stone finish. The Gyosh used arched rooves in place of flat ones unlike Kulshedrans and Zmajans, but the square design of the homes, warehouses, and government buildings were similar. Adults and children freely ran about cobbled streets in the day time wearing the customary light colored thin robes. They were an effective garment for keeping the blistering sun off the skin. Days were warm even in the cooler months.
“This is as far as I can take you,” M’babo informed them after stopping at the bazaar, a thriving scene of stands, shops, and kiosks with an abundance of customers and sightseers.
They thanked one another for the short friendship and while the cart master took to haggling and trading in the busy marketplace, Scar and Ylithia perused clothing stands, fruit stands, and trinket kiosks. They had grown happy in the few weeks they spent together. Both were thankful for Scar’s meeting with Silwen. Their bond of friendship, though marred in part by abandoning those in need of hardened warriors for a valiant cause, was quickly tempered by their openness, their honesty, and most importantly, their mutual interest in simply living a life of free will.
“I’d very much like to see you out of that black armor and in more comfortable attire,” Scar flattered as he rifled through soft robes in a stand managed by an older, sun baked woman.
“Yes,” she chirped. “It’s too bad we have no money.”
“Maybe we could work here a while before moving on to Closicus.”
“In this heat?” she scoffed. “What would you do?”
He gazed into her placid eyes and smiled. “The heat is no concern of mine, and what would I do? I can work in a warehouse.”
“Lifting heavy crates, no doubt,” she joked.
“I’d work the camel stables if I had to.”
It was her turn to smile. The man she had been ordered to kill, the man that slaughtered Kulshedrans, Khmerans, and even tortured an assassin in front of her eyes, was the farthest thing from a brute. The new lack of war in his life allowed his gentle, caring side to emerge freely.
“In Othnatus you could work as a guard, something I think is more suited to your bearing…plus you wouldn’t come home smelling of camel,” she laughed.
“And what will you do? Work the local tavern?” he jested. “I can picture you in an apron mopping up drunkards’ barf.”
She playfully smacked his arm before adding, “Seriously. I’ve no need of these robes for now. Let’s see if we can’t find somewhere to stay for the day and start our search for transportation tomorrow.”
Scar agreed. Finding free lodging was a nightmare, but the warrens, a place where the poor scrounged for a night’s sleep, was accommodating enough. The numerous felines of Agir kept the rats at bay. Only the stink of the unwashed was bothersome, but eventually sleep came, for Ylithia. Scar, on the other hand, found it difficult to even doze.
As he watched the lady knight breathing peacefully, her head on her outstretched arm padded by an old cloth he prayed had no mites, he thought about N’Giwah, Borta, Marlayne, Poland, Gilgamesh, and Labolas. It will be a trying event, forgetting those faces, but I think I like this one better. He pushed her wavy hair from her face and closed his eyes, but sleep did not come. Instead, a chill fell on the cramped housing. Nights in the deserts were frigid, and the hot season was behind them.
The following morning they managed to convince some traders, Gyosh brothers with large almond eyes and big noses, to provide passage. Scar’s proposition included information that a group of Dracos had been terrorizing the trade routes. When questioned about his intelligence, Scar offered up the name of General Sulas.
“I worked with the general under the orders of Gilgamesh himself,” Scar stated. “No doubt you’ve heard the Master General of Strategies has eyes and ears everywhere. Why, it was only recently I had to kill an assassin in Malababwe.” The mercenary neglected to inform them of the fact the assassin had been Bakunawan. “These are dangerous times, especially for traders.”
The brothers were shocked. It was a known fact that Dracos often raided the towns bordering Sudai, but it was practically unheard of that a group of them had made it so far north. Still, the name Sulas held some sway, and no Gyosh was going to doubt the white man who had abandoned Zoltek for service in the name of the esteemed Gilgamesh. After all, even though the Gyosh disagreed with the premise that Kulshedra was the one true God, it was a well known fact that Kulshedrans sought peace and hardly if ever lied; the prime reason for the alliance between Munir and Gilgamesh.
“You’ll make a fine Fafnirian after all,” Ylithia joked.
It was just as much a well known fa
ct that Fafnirians were masters of the spoken word, generally peace loving, and a Paladin of Mekosh with no helmet certainly had to be telling the truth about her casting aside her so called God. There had never been tale of a Paladin of Severity showing his or her face.
“Well,” one of the brothers started. “I suppose having you two along for extra security is worth a free ride.”
“Are you sure?” the other brother asked.
“Better free labor than expensive labor,” his brother replied.
So they agreed to provide passage figuring Scar and Ylithia were easily worth four guards or more. The two climbed on the back of the cart once the brothers were ready to move out of town. The three Gyosh guards who were already employed by the traders introduced themselves. That was how Scar met Risha, Halhalu, and Atbar, and the two brothers called Jehu and Samir.
As it turned out, the Gyosh were even more interested in storytelling than the Tiamatish. Ylithia was quick to provide a story regarding her days as a night patrolman in Genova. While they rode southeast to trade throughout neighboring towns, she regaled them with the time she had to escort an old man who enjoyed exposing his genitals during festivals, the time she patrolled the shipyard and two boys caught the biggest fish she had ever seen, only to see a dock worker steal it from them. She promptly arrested him and joked about how he kept saying, “please don’t tell my mother, please don’t tell my mother.”
The days progressed and when night fell, the moonlight glistened off the scimitars the Gyosh guards carried. Finally, they demanded stories from the mercenary. After sharing a hookah filled with home grown tobacco, Scar told them stories about what he witnessed in Usaj like General Dumar’s axe turning into a spinning blade, and the Kulshedran bandit who knocked Relthys onto his hindquarters. Ylithia called him a speaker of horror tales, and that’s when Scar realized how turbulent the last few months had been. The only lighthearted story he had was about Brandine, and that just ended with a fat woman puking.
