by Heath Pfaff
"You do. We need to go north. That's where the trolls are taking him. That's where he has to go to fully awaken." The words struck like the tolling of a funeral bell, heavy, somber, and unavoidable.
"What does that mean?" Xan was confused by the words, yet fully aware that they were correct.
The imaginary assassin laughed and grinned, an expression that never reached his cold gray eyes. "I don't know, but I know it's true! There is something in the mountains that he needs before he can claim his power, Xan. We need to get there before he does."
The injured Xan frowned. "I thought you needed me to decide what our next move would be?"
Young Xan just shrugged and continued grinning like a mad man. "I am you, so you did just decide what our next move would be."
Xan nodded slowly trying not to look as confused as he felt. "I suppose that's true."
Walking was more difficult than Xan would have liked. The hole in his chest, the one that passed right through to his heart, had torn through some muscle that pulled painfully with every step he took on his left foot. He'd been forced to stop only an hour after his slow trek had begun to apply a makeshift compress. The wound wouldn’t stop bleeding. For a man trained in murder, the blood leaking from his chest in the place where his heart should have been beating was a source of constant anxiety. Xan couldn't look at the damage without remembering that he should be dead. Humans don't just walk away from a punctured heart.
When he was able to drag his attention away from the fatal wounding he'd taken, he was forced to face the reality of the decisions he'd made that had brought him to his current point in life. The Reach was dead. The Drayid had decimated the population that lived there, and he'd destroyed what remained of the Drayid. The emptiness of the place was a sobering reminder of all that had happened in that once great city. The younger version of him had said the trolls were coming to take the place, and they could have it for all that Xandrith cared. Yillan Reach was a cursed place, and it was only fitting that a cursed people would choose to live there. It might have been wrong for him to think that way, but he didn't really care.
It took him well over a day to reach the city gates. When he finally did, it was like reaching the end of a terrible nightmare. Passing beneath the massive steel gates and out onto the road beyond lifted a terrible weight from Xan's shoulders. He would never forget what had happened in the Reach, never forget what he'd done to the Drayid, and what had come to pass with Kassa, but leaving the city was like leaving behind a corpse. At least he didn't have to look at the mangled mess anymore.
"Do you really think the trolls will want that place?" Xan asked, and as if summoned by his voice the younger version of himself walked up beside him. That seemed to be how he worked. Often times he was just gone, but if Xandrith addressed him he was always there.
"Of course they will. The Reach is an amazing stronghold. It can keep people in and out depending upon what they want to use it for. Also, it's a symbol of humanity's fall. For all the negative things you see in it, the trolls will see a positive. They've won, and Yillan is just one of the spoils of victory." Young Xan sounded regretful.
"They haven't really won. Not yet. We're still fighting them." Xan said, trying to remain positive.
Young Xan looked surprised. "Do you really think so? After all we've seen? We're so far north, but we've encountered the plague and hordes of trolls. Trolls hate the cold, and yet they're all over up here. If it is this bad in the north, can you imagine what it's like in the south?"
Xan shook his head. "The humans and orcs won't give in so easily. We're stronger than that. With a threat like the trolls they'll band together and fight. The fae will help as well, I think. It's probably not as bad in the south as you think."
"When did you become so positive?" Young Xan's expression was skeptical.
"We've got a lot to do, yet. If everyone is already dead, why would I even bother trying? I need to have something to fight for."
"Revenge." The illusion answered coldly. "We're fighting for revenge, Xan. No one takes things from us and gets away with it. We're going to find that shit swilling false god, and we're going to shove our dagger into his chest again and again until he is as cold and dead as the dirt he'll be crashing into."
Xan chuckled, a dark, dry sound. "I do like that idea. That sounds like something to strive for." He looked to his side to see that the false-Xan had vanished. It didn't matter, though. He'd gotten what he needed out of that conversation.
A splash of smoke on the horizon drew the assassin's eyes up from the road. He hadn't seen any signs of habitation since he'd left Yillan Reach, but smoke trails almost always meant that someone was around. He gauged the distance to be about a day's trek out from him, at least at the pace he was making with his injuries. He needed supplies, and he could use a night of rest with others to provide lookout. Fire didn't always imply that whoever had lit the fire was friendly though. Lately it seemed there had been a drought of sociable people, and that was before taking into account that Xan wasn't precisely looking his best.
It had been well over a day since Xan had eaten, and his supply of fresh water was down to its last drops. He could probably replenish the water easily enough. Most roads were near enough to some form of flowing water, but he wasn't quite up to hunting for his own food yet. His chest was getting better, and though it was still bleeding it had slowed to a mere seep. Still, agitating the wound by running around through the woods chasing game was probably a terrible idea. Xan let out a sigh. He already knew he was going to investigate the smoke. He was attempting to talk himself into it, and that was a sure sign he'd really already thrown caution to the wind.
"I'll be careful about it. It's not like this is the first time I've had to take a risk to resupply." He said to no one in particular. He half expected the other half of his mind to talk back to him, but he remained silent. Xan took that lack of feedback as agreement. If he disagreed with Xan's chosen course of action, he probably would have said something. "That's stupid. He's me, why would he disagree with me?" Xan mulled that over for a moment before frowning. He was putting way too much time into this circular thinking. He supposed he was looking for something else besides recent events to think about. His mind jumped unbidden to Kassa’s warm eyes gone cold and black. Xan pushed the image away and decided circular thinking was preferable.
Eventually Xan was forced to break off from the main road in order keep the smoke ahead of him. He followed a small trail for the better part of an hour before that led back onto a larger road that was rutted with the signs of recent passage. He stopped and examined the tracks. The prints left in the partially frozen earth were strange, even to his trained eye. There were what looked like at least five sets of deep wagon tracks, but Xan could only make out the sign of two separate horses. That many wagons should have had at least three or four horses each to pull the kind of weight the depth of their tracks was implying. There were no other signs of beasts of burden and few of the people traveling, so what was pulling them?
The assassin looked down the roadway leading directly towards the smoke in the distance. Judging by the age of the tracks, Xan guessed that he was approaching some sort of camp. Soon enough he would know what had pulled the wagons down the road. It briefly crossed his mind that it might be some sort of troll progression, but Xan had never heard of trolls riding horses, and he had seen a few human footprints in places as well. Humans probably wouldn't be traveling alongside their troll cousins. The family relations were somewhat tenuous. Xan’s curiosity was working against his natural caution of the unknown.
He could still just circle around the whole mess and resume his trek northward, though he wasn't entirely certain where he would locate his final destination. The mountains was entirely too vague a goal. Xan struggled over the particulars of each choice for a while, but in the end his stomach won out. If there was a chance that he might resupply, he'd have to take it. He couldn't very well march into the mountains with what he had on him. H
is pack was mostly empty, his boots were too tight on his feet, and his clothes had been stolen from dead men and still had some less than appealing stains.
His decision made, he set a strong pace for the smoke ahead of him. He wasn't moving as fast as he would have liked, but he was slowly getting better. That wasn't something that many men who'd been pierced through the heart could say. "I'm resilient." He said to the open road. It didn't bother to reply, but Xan was alright with that.
It took him the better part of the day. Just before the day was settling down to rest and the night was waking to fill the sky, the familiar sounds of a busy camp drifted on the wind past the assassin. The smell of meat being cooked over open fires, and the sounds of people, families, talking, laughing, and playing were like music in the air. Xan's tension slipped away as he realized that his gamble had paid off. Whatever these people were, they weren't part of a war camp. Xan pulled his hood over his head as he drew nearer. Under normal circumstances he would have approached without his hood since hooded men rarely appeared trustworthy, but Xandrith was guessing that a man with horns was probably even less trustworthy than one wearing a hood.
Out in the open Xan was spotted quickly by one of the men sitting at the edge of the camp. He was a younger man, late into his teens, with a scraggly blond beard and hair that looked like it had been trimmed with a dull dinner knife. He called back over his shoulder as he stood up from where he'd been sitting with his back against one of the nine peculiar wagons that were circled around the camp.
They were larger than most wagons that Xandrith had seen on the road, like large wooden boxes with a bench seat attached to the front. They had a sloping panel of instruments coming up in front of the front seat. Oddest of all though was that there were no mounting devices for any sort of animals, and there were bits and pieces of intricate metal work winding their way from the driver’s area in the front down to the underside of the carriages. The wagons weren’t pretty. They’d been designed in a functional manner, with an emphases on strength over form. They looked almost haphazard.
"Guys, we've got a visitor!" He shouted, and before long more men, seven in total, were walking out of the circle in Xan's direction. They all wore weapons, though only two of them looked terribly comfortable with their chosen implements of war. The man closest to Xan had drawn a rough looking broadsword and held it firmly in both hands, the point leveled at the assassin. His stance was good, but not great. He knew what to do with his sword, but he wasn't immensely skilled. If Xan had been at the top of his game he guessed he could have easily made short work of these men. Xan knew he wasn’t well yet however, and he didn't want to get into a fight if it wasn't necessary.
"We are well met, friends." Xan spoke, making his voice as jovial as possible. He raised his hands to show that they were empty, though he kept them tilted and curled so as to hide his missing fingers. Until he knew the nature of the men he was facing, it was better to keep his secrets to himself. There were men who would make trouble for an Eight like Xan just because they wanted to win favor with the mages. Or there had been people like that, Xan wasn’t so sure how much weight the mages carried anymore.
"Well met, maybe, but we'll have to see about 'friends.' These are not exactly times suited to meeting new people." One of the men spoke. He was shorter than his fellows, with long, straight brown hair that covered half of his face. He wore a small mace on his hip, but he hadn't yet drawn it. "Forgive our caution, but we don't know you and we have a camp to protect. Who are you stranger, and what is your business here?"
Xan held his place and nodded his head. "These are dangerous times, and you're wise to be cautious. My name is Trast Gleamsteal." The assassin pulled up an old, often used identity. He would adapt his made-up history as he saw fit, based upon his interaction with the men of the camp. It was better that they didn't know who he really was. "I am traveling north to find respite from the wars to the south. I was waylaid by bandits three days ago. They took my horse, and most of my supplies. They stabbed me and left me for dead, but I was lucky enough that the man wielding the dagger was inexperienced and didn't drive it in deep enough." He pulled open his cloak and exposed the bloody hole in his shirt and the wound beneath. "I am looking for some place to get warm, to rest without worry of attack, and maybe for something to eat. I haven't eaten since my supplies were taken, and my water skin is empty as well."
"Waylaid by bandits, but they didn't take that knife you're wearing, eh?" One of the men asked, pointing to Haley's blade that Xan wore at his hip, suspicion evident in his voice.
Xandrith thought fast. "I'm ashamed to say I stole what little I have from corpses I found along the road a day ago. After the attack, I didn't want to travel without some kind of protection. I wouldn't know what to do with a sword, so I took this knife. I assure you, it is only a weapon of last recourse."
The seven men were closely examining Xandrith now. He could feel their eyes ripping away at him, looking for some flaw in his demeanor that might make him a threat. They hadn't even seen his face yet. How was he going to smooth over that bit of strangeness? He doubted these men would outright attack him, but with no food or water, and no clear way to obtain supplies, being sent away was not an option that Xan could survive.
"If the knife is a problem, you could keep it until I part ways with your group. Please, if you send me away empty handed, I'll die." The truth was sometimes the most compelling part of any lie. Xan didn't even have to try that hard to sound desperate.
The men leaned in close together, whispering to one another. Xan did his best to remain calm and appear harmless. It wasn't exactly something he excelled at.
One of the men, the shorter one again, stepped forward. "Take off your hood, Trast. If we're going to consider letting you into our camp we'd like to see who we're dealing with."
Xan winced inwardly. He hesitated, his mind churning over this next move. This was the breaking point. What he did next would decide his fate with these people. A part of him, the part that was all instinct and violence, told him to strike while he had the advantage. That was, of course, a foolish thing to do. These men were not really hostile, and they hadn't done anything to deserve Xan's wrath. Besides, Xan wasn't sure if he could actually take them in a fight with his injuries. His ability to reason regarding this surprised him. It occurred to Xan in this moment that he seemed remarkably level headed overall; his unnatural aggression seemed to be gone. He found that strange, considering he looked more troll than ever. Xan tucked away that realization for a more convenient time. A plan formed in his mind between stray thoughts and he immediately put it into action.
Xan raised his hands to his hood. "I'll do this if you insist, but you won't be happy with what you see. I've made enemies amidst the mages." Xan spread his hands, showing off his missing fingers. There was at least one gasp and several exchanged glances. "They cursed me for what they considered my crimes." He pulled back his hood, revealing his altered flesh and the two small horns rising from his head. "As you might imagine it has been difficult to make friends since this happened to me."
Seven shocked faces with varying degrees of panic looked on. Xan watched as they huddled together and discussed what to do next, not quite taking their eyes off of him. All seven of them were holding their weapons now. Xan had to force himself not to draw the knife at his hip. The situation could turn to violence at any moment, and without that knife in his hand the assassin didn't stand a chance.
A shuffling of cloth at his side drew Xan's attention. The younger, better dressed version of himself was standing next to him. "I can't believe you haven't drawn that blade yet." He said.
Xan was about to speak when he recalled that the other Xan was a figment of his imagination. He closed his mouth sharply.
"Of course, drawing that blade would probably end in you being killed. Besides, you need these people right now." Young Xan added after a moment of tense silence. He turned his nose to the air as a smile slipped onto his all too familiar face.
"Can you smell that food cooking? That is definitely the smell of roasting meat. I don't know what kind, but I'm game for anything right now, what about you?" He made a show of smacking his lips and rubbing his stomach. Xan frowned at his double.
A voice startled him from his angry consideration of his phantom twin. "We'll be taking your knife. You can recover it before you leave. Keep your hood up when in public, and keep your distance from the families. Not to give offense, but we don't exactly trust you. We're not going to turn you away though. You can stay the night. We'll see what happens in the morning." The shorter man spoke again.
Xan pulled his hood back over his head and offered a slight bow of appreciation. "You have my sincere thanks."
"Lottan will show you where you can get some food and make camp for the evening." He gestured towards a narrow shouldered man who was carrying a heavy metal implement in one hand. It didn't look like it was specifically designed to be a weapon, but it seemed like it would serve the purpose well enough. "I'll be telling the men to watch out for you tonight. If you stray from where we put you, you'll find yourself out on your arse long before the morning sun rises."
Xan nodded. "That seems fair enough."
Lottan stepped in the assassin's direction, holding out his hand, palm up. "Your knife?" His question was short and sharp. This man had clearly not been on the side of letting him in for the night. Xan reached for his knife scabbard and freed it with a snap of the metal pin that held it fastened to his belt. He stepped forward and laid the blade, his gift to Haley and now his last remnant of the girl, into the palm of the man with the angry eyes. It was foolish to be sentimental, but Xan promised himself he'd have that weapon back before he left. If he found Haley again, if she still lived, he would have that to give back to her. That was if she wanted anything to do with him, he and Haley hadn’t been on the best of terms when they’d last been together. She’d taken in the axe, and the bonesteel blades didn’t seem to be on Xan’s side of this little war.
