Blood Mercenaries Origins

by Ben Wolf

  “Something funny to you?”

  Aeron’s smile faded, and he shook his head. “I don’t owe you any explanation.”

  “You do if you mean to live under my roof again.”

  Aeron glanced at his mother. The same range of colors spiraled slowly behind her. They made her look as radiant as she had the day he left. “It’s mum’s roof, too.”

  Pa’s eyebrows arched down, and he stood upright again. “When she brings in the kind of coin I do on a daily basis, she’ll have an equal say. Until then, I’m the rule of law in this house. Make no mistake about that.”

  Mum didn’t look up from her embroidery, nor did she say anything.

  Aeron frowned. So much for the sympathy vote.

  The colors evolved, blending in touches of purple and pink—effects of the two shrooms he’d taken mixing together. He’d combined these types many times before, specifically for the effect now playing out in his vision, for the relief they gave his back, and for how well they quelled his anxiety.

  Gods… I. Am. Lit. Aeron fought off a smile. High as a spire.

  He could’ve climbed ten trees and saved at least forty cats, feeling the way he was feeling now. Maybe forty-five.

  “What in the third hell is wrong with you?” Pa snapped his fingers in front of Aeron’s face, and sparks of bright green light flickered in and out to accompany the sound. “You need to answer my question. Why did they discharge you? Your last letter said things were going well. Is it because of your injury?”

  “No.” Aeron sighed. That was sort of the reason, but not entirely. His injury didn’t bother him when he took the shrooms. “Well, kind of.”

  Pa just stared at him.

  “It doesn’t help my case that I have chronic back pain…”

  “But?”

  “…but that’s not the only reason I got discharged.”

  More staring. More silence.

  “I had a difference of opinion with my commanding officer,” Aeron continued. “He saw fit to use it as a reason to discharge me.”

  It was true, broadly speaking.

  The colors morphed again, this time deepening from oranges into reds and browns. The effect was heightening. Normally he’d take another shroom right about now, but he doubted it would fly with his parents in the room.

  “You only got half your severance pay,” Pa said. “The army only does that when the discharge happens under sour terms.”

  Aeron glowered at him. “How would you know? You never served.”

  Pa’s jaw tightened. “No, but I’ve shod their horses and hammered out their armor, swords, and shields for the better part of forty years.” Pa pointed a calloused finger at Aeron. “So don’t try to play high and mighty with me, boy.”

  “Stop calling me that,” Aeron grunted.

  “Come again?”

  “I said, stop calling me that,” Aeron repeated, louder. His voice sent the colors into a brief tizzy, then they resumed their calm flow. The effect calmed his emotions as well. “I’m thirty-one years old. Not a boy by any stretch of the imagination.”

  His mum looked up at him with a hint of sadness and longing in her tired eyes, then she returned to her embroidery.

  Pa leaned close to him, squinting. A wreath of earthy colors encircled his head. That, combined with the scowl on his face, made him look like a pissy old lion.

  “Are you…” he started. “…high?”

  “What?” Aeron blinked and looked away. “No.”

  “You are! You’re high.” Pa huffed. “You come into my house, hoping for a handout—”

  “I don’t want a handout!”

  “—and you’re high as a cloud. What in the third hell are you thinking?”

  “Pa, no.” Aeron looked at him again. “I would never—”

  “Don’t lie to me, boy. I can see it in your eyes. All bloodshot and glazed.”

  Aeron blinked hard and stole a glance at his mum. His anxiety was building, but the shrooms kept pushing it back down. The push-and-pull made it hard to focus on what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it.

  Mum’s eyes held even more sadness now. She softly shook her head and frowned at him.

  Aeron couldn’t keep looking at her. A pang of regret hit his stomach. He didn’t want to see her cry. He didn’t want to cry, either.

  “Admit it,” Pa growled. “You’re on something.”

  He turned back to Pa. “I’m just tired, Pa. It was a long walk from the fortress, and I didn’t get much sleep last night. I’m tired.”

  “Admit it, or I won’t give you a thing. Not coin, not a job, not a place to stay.”

  Mum said to Pa, “Farico, that’s—”

  “Not another word from you, wife,” Pa snapped. “It’s you he takes after.”

  Mum’s mouth clamped shut, and she resumed her embroidery with tears in her eyes.

  “Don’t talk to her that way.” Aeron had wanted to yell it, but the shrooms were inhibiting his will to be aggressive.

  “Don’t change the subject.” Pa’s eyes narrowed. “You’re high, and I know it. We all do. So stop pretending you aren’t. Admit it, or you’re out of here right now.”

  Aeron hesitated. He didn’t want to let Pa win the argument, but he had to stay somewhere for the night. His family home was all he knew, all he could rely on.

  “Last chance.”

  Aeron caved. “I—I took something for my back pain.”

  “I knew it. You blitzed little bastard.” Pa shook his head. “This ends today.”

  Aeron rolled his eyes. Yeah, Pa. Your commands will just stop it altogether. They tried that in the army, and look how that ended up.

  “Here’s the bottom line,” Pa said. “If you mean to live here, you will pull your own weight. You’ll work at my blacksmith shop without complaining, you’ll pay room and board, and you’ll do it all respectfully and without being high. Crystal?”

  “Forget this.” Aeron pushed himself up.

  The room folded in on itself, then it reset. He’d seen it before when on shrooms, but it always tripped him out. The reds and browns had faded back to oranges, pinks, and purples again. The shrooms’ effects were beginning to fade.

  “You wanna leave?” Pa snapped. “Shut the door behind you on your way out.”

  “Go to hell, Pa.”

  “Curse me all you want. Walk out that door, and you’re never walking back in.”

  Were it not for his mother, Aeron would’ve left right then and there. He could live without them both if he had to—he certainly had for the better part of the last sixteen years. But never being able to see Mum again was a steep price.

  Something touched his hand—soft, like the fur of a cat. He looked down.

  Mum held his hand in hers. Callouses and dry skin marked his fingers and hers, but she still felt soft and warm against him. Definitely the shrooms again.

  She squeezed his hand, and the sensation calmed him.

  “Stay tonight,” she said. “Decide in the morning.”

  Aeron blinked, but the colors and the sensations remained.

  “No,” Pa said. “He decides now or he—”

  “Farico,” Mum hissed at him. “Enough.”

  Now Pa went quiet.

  Mum turned back to Aeron. “What’ll it be, Aeron?”

  Chapter Two

  Aeron woke up the next morning in his old bed, totally sober and totally in pain. A pair of blue eyes stared down at him from a familiar round face—but one sixteen years older than he’d remembered. He smiled, and so did his sister, Kallie.

  “You’re home,” she said softly, then she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed.

  His back pain heightened, and he yelped.

  Kallie let him go and recoiled, her hands cupped together under her chin. “Oh… I’m so sorry. Mum told me, but I forgot.”

  “It’s fine.” Aeron labored to get himself upright on the bed, wincing all the way. The fingertips of his right hand tingled with numbness, and the muscle
s in his right forearm near his elbow ached, two of the more recent side-effects of his back pain.

  He looked Kallie over. When he’d left, she was only five—a surprise baby, eleven years after he’d been born.

  Now she was a full-grown woman of twenty-one, but with the same long, blonde hair, and absolutely stunning. She wore a blue dress that made her look like a princess.

  “You’re all grown up,” he said.

  “Yeah.” She smiled again, her teeth white and bright but not straight, just like Aeron and the rest of the family. “You were gone a long time.”

  “Yeah. I was.”

  “Pa told me what happened. About you being discharged.”

  Aeron rubbed his eyes. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  She sat next to him. “So it’s not true?”

  Aeron stopped and looked over at her. “It’s complicated.”

  “What about Wafer?”

  Memories of flying among the clouds on his wyvern’s back surfaced in Aeron’s mind. “They kept him. Wouldn’t let me take him with, even though we’re bonded. They’re going to try to bond him to someone else, but it won’t work. I’ve researched it. Best they can do is make him fly for an unbonded rider, and that won’t go well.”

  Kallie nodded. “I don’t know anything about it except what Mum read to me from your letters.”

  “I feel empty now that I can’t be around him. Like a part of me is missing.” Aeron rubbed his back. “I want nothing more than to get him back, but I have no idea how I’d even do that.”

  “I’m sorry. You’re smart. You’ll think of something.” Kallie put her hand on his shoulder. “Anyway, Mum sent me up here to fetch you for breakfast.”

  “Alright. I’ll be right down.”

  Kallie kissed his cheek then left the room and closed the door behind her.

  Alone again, Aeron dug under his lumpy old mattress stuffed with ancient goose down, pulled out the sack of shrooms, and opened it.

  Despite being somewhat squished and flattened from hiding under the mattress all night, they glowed up at him with familiar, faint blue light and a myriad of colored spots and stripes.

  As Aeron reached into the bag, Pa’s threats echoed in his memory, and he hesitated.

  By the end of the day, Aeron had re-familiarized himself with his father’s blacksmith shop, despite his claims sixteen years prior that he would never return to it. Pa had done well in Aeron’s absence; the shop had doubled in size thanks to the gradual growth of his business over time.

  But that just meant Aeron had twice as much to despise.

  His back was killing him. Blacksmithing made for hard labor, albeit with some craftsmanship involved, and his back couldn’t tolerate it without the aid of painkillers. And he’d neglected to take any shrooms that morning out of a noble but foolish attempt at obedience to Pa’s demands.

  And worst of all, nothing he did here would bring him any closer to getting Wafer back. He was just wasting time, performing the same mind-numbing tasks he’d done before he left to join the army sixteen years earlier.

  After his day at the shop concluded, he headed back to his parents’ house, headed straight up to his room, dug out the bag, and scarfed down two shrooms—one with yellow spots and one with purple stripes, both irradiated with that familiar blue hue.

  Their effects hit him immediately; the yellow one dulled his back pain, and the purple one cast his vision in the same orange hue he’d enjoyed last night. The purple one also relaxed his body and soothed his anxieties—the color show was just a bonus.

  Aeron considered grabbing another shroom, one with green specks on its cap, to eat once the color show really got going, but he held off. He was already risking a lot by showing up to supper high again.

  “Aeron?” Mum called from downstairs.

  Aeron jumped and stuffed the sack under his mattress again, careful to make sure it wasn’t sticking out, then he draped his blanket over the edge just to be safe. “Yeah?”

  “Supper’s on the table.”

  The color show intensified, and his back pain numbed. “Be right down.”

  Aeron somehow managed to survive supper without Pa realizing he’d taken shrooms. Aeron retired early that evening, but right as he went to grab another shroom to help get him through the night, a knock sounded from his door.

  “It’s me,” Kallie called. “Just wanted to say good night.”

  Aeron abandoned his search and beckoned her inside.

  She shut the door behind her and sat on the bed next to him. “Pa was right, wasn’t he?”

  Aeron swallowed. “About what?”

  “Your back. And how you deal with it.”

  Aeron sighed, then he nodded.

  “Why do you take them?”

  “Kallie,” Aeron said, his voice low. “I wouldn’t wish my back pain on you, or Mum, or even Pa. Ever since the accident, it’s never been the same. I take the shrooms to manage. That’s all I can hope for these days. I’ll probably carry this ailment for the rest of my life, and I have to do something, otherwise I can’t even function.”

  She nodded. “I wish there were another way.”

  “It’s not illegal. It’s not even immoral. Lots of people take them for far less noble reasons.”

  She nodded again, staring at the floor. “I know. I just wish I knew of a way to help you permanently.”

  The numbness in Aeron’s fingertips prickled, and he closed his hand into a fist. “Me too. Believe me, I’d rather I was whole.”

  “So…” She paused. Then she looked up at him again. “What’s it like?”

  “Magic mushrooms?”

  She tried to stifle a grin but failed.

  “Or chronic back pain?”

  She rolled her eyes. “The mushrooms, obviously.”

  “It depends,” Aeron replied. “There are lots of different kinds. Probably an endless number of combinations between enchantments and types of mushrooms. Aside from magical creatures and sentient races, mushrooms are one of the only other things capable of retaining magic. I know a little bit about it, but I’m by no means an expert.”

  “Well, what happens to you?”

  “The ones I take dull my back pain and relax my body,” Aeron said. “Not usually to the point of putting me to sleep—though those types of shrooms are out there. They’re crazy potent, though, so I stay away from those.

  “These ones do enough to get the muscles in my back to stop fighting whatever it is that’s causing the pain. That combination is my usual preference.”

  “Come on.” Kallie nudged him. “They do more than that. What aren’t you telling me?”

  Now Aeron fought to quell a smile, and he failed as miserably at it as she had. “I see… vivid colors. And they change. Things kind of slow down, and I get sloppy and lazy, but in a good way.”

  “Like at dinner tonight?” She elbowed his ribs lightly.

  Aeron grinned. “Do you think Pa noticed?”

  “No. And if he did, I know Mum told him to lay off you for it anyway.”

  “And he listened?”

  “I guess we’ll find out.” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t recommend flaunting it in front of him, though. You never know what he’ll do.”

  “Believe me, I won’t.”

  “Well, I’m off to bed.” Kallie kissed his cheek and stood.

  “Hey, before you go, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are there any young men after you that I need to beat up?” Aeron asked. “I mean, I have all this combat training, and I can’t let just anyone near my pretty little sister.”

  She smirked. “With your back the way it is, you wouldn’t be able to beat any of them up anyway.”

  He tilted his head and eyed her. “Hey, that’s not nice.”

  She giggled.

  And then it hit him. “Wait—what do you mean by ‘them?’”

  “Good night, Aeron.” She winked at him and slipped out of his roo
m.

  She’s too spunky for her own good.

  Aeron fetched a yellow-spotted mushroom from his sack, devoured it, and stashed the sack again. Then he eased himself down onto the bed, careful not to agitate his back, and he fell asleep.

  Morning came far too quickly, and fresh pain accompanied it. He took the yellow painkiller shroom alone. It didn’t make him trip as hard, and he hoped it would be enough to keep him from hurting all day.

  Thinking better of it, he stashed a second one in a pocket for later. It didn’t matter if it crumpled or broke—the effect would still be the same.

  The hours at the blacksmith dragged by, but at least Aeron managed to stay busy. The old skills he’d learned working alongside Pa for so many years came back quickly, with a few stern reminders on how Pa liked things done.

  Aeron had just started hammering on an iron shield when the sound of approaching hoofbeats caught his attention. He leaned to the side and glanced out the nearest window.

  A green flag crested the hill in the distance, heading toward the blacksmith shop. It bore a golden insignia that Aeron couldn’t make out from such a distance, but he knew what it was anyway. He’d worn it and served under it for sixteen years.

  It was the sigil of Govalia and her armies.

  Human heads, then torsos bounced into view as their horses trotted up the hill. All of them wore forest green armor, including their helmets.

  Aeron’s heart pounded, and he worked to still it. He hadn’t spent much time around the cavalry since his promotion to wyvern knight some twelve years before, so they likely wouldn’t know or recognize him. He wouldn’t have anything to be embarrassed about.

  Then he heard the shriek of a wyvern high above, distinct against the repeating hoofbeats and the harsh sounds of the blacksmith shop. Wingbeats followed, growing ever closer, ever more ominous.

  Aeron both reveled in the familiar sound and knew its terror.

  His eyes widened, and he searched the skies. He saw nothing at first.

  Then a massive gray reptile landed on the street no more than twenty feet from the window with a thud. Townspeople scattered, and the wyvern spread its wings and hissed.