Sword and Sorcery Box Set 1

by Dylan Doose

  “That will protect him from the seekers’ eyes only as long as he does not summon his magic,” Theron said, taking the silver medallion set with an ancient ruby from his sister’s hands. “It will not protect him from the lure of what the magic may make him become.”

  “We must trust that he will protect himself from that.”

  “As our mother protected herself?” Theron asked, and was not surprised that Chayse could offer no answer.

  “Get off me, you fat bastard!” Aldous said in a tone more than a bit too high-pitched for a boy of his age, which was really a man, but the noise he’d just made was enough reason for the others to continue calling him boy .

  “Fat? Fat? It is muscle, you little toothpick. Maybe one day when you become half a man you will grow a bit of your own,” Ken said to the pinned Aldous as he held him on the ground and pinched him. The boy screamed bloody murder at every pinch.

  “I doubt Aldous will have the capacity to travel down the same road as our mother,” said Theron. For if he does travel down that road, I will render him headless before he reaches the end of it.

  “You left them! You deserted our children, you devil. You deserted me! For what?” the man roared at the top of the tower in the rain, in the cold, in the dead of the night.

  “I told you not to come. I told you to stay,” the woman said calmly, her voice faint on the wind of the rising storm.

  “And let you walk away with him? With them?” He drew his sword; the rune carvings down the blood groove glowed their magnificent red. “I think not. You will die before I allow that!”

  The woman’s laughter cracked the sky and summoned lightning and thunder that shattered and roared at the high tower. “You haven’t changed, not after all these years—after all I have taught you, you haven’t changed. Your arrogance consumes you, husband.”

  He lunged toward her. “Let us dance one last time, wife.”

  And so they danced high on that tower under a blood moon as the sky screamed and a great deluge poured down from the heavens, such a great lover’s quarrel was that.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Campfire

  A ldous stared at the glimmering red gemstone in the campfire light. It looked like any piece of jewelry, really, but when he’d put it on three days ago in Theron’s mother’s secret lair, it had a similar but much more mild effect on him as the staff. He had felt as if his mind and thoughts were not his own, but the sensation had quickly subsided. Theron said that his mother had enchanted the necklace; it was enchanted with a spell that would cloak him from the seekers. As long as he wore the pendant, the seekers could not sniff him out until he himself revealed his magic by summoning it.

  “It looks good on you,” Chayse said, then gave Aldous a little punch in the arm, as the beyond-drunk Kendrick and Theron roared in laughter at some raunchy tale about one of the hunter’s great adventures in womanizing.

  “She had enough hair below that I thought she was birthing a full-grown Northman when I took a peek! Thick black right to the navel and halfway down her legs,” Theron said in words broken by laughter.

  “So what did you do, you vile bastard?” Ken asked, leaning in.

  “Well, I was drunk, Ken,” said Theron. “I was very drunk and young, you see. It had been five months since I had even seen a woman. ”

  “You, Theron Ward, are a man most foul!” Ken shook his head, tears of merriment swelling in his eyes; his hard-scarred face was red from drunkenness and mirth and mushed up by his ridiculous smile.

  “You think?” Aldous said to Chayse, as he managed to get his focus away from the other two.

  “Well, it is a bit feminine,” she teased.

  “I suppose it is.” He paused. “There is nothing wrong with a woman who fights and eats like a man,” Aldous teased back just as Chayse let out an enormous belch.

  Chayse went solemn for a moment, and regret slithered through Aldous. Perhaps I am not at the tease-back stage yet. Why am I such a fool? But Chayse relaxed and laughed, a most heavenly sound.

  “What was she like?” Aldous asked Chayse, looking at the pendant once more.

  “What was who like?” It was not Chayse who responded but Theron; his voice was stern and he sounded completely sober now, despite the fact that he had downed a good liter of ale. “You ask about my mother?”

  Aldous cringed and nodded.

  Theron scowled, and, as usual, Aldous felt a fool. He wished to be a man, but he still had the curiosity of a child, and no matter how much he chastised himself, he never seemed to learn. Ken would never have blurted a question like that. Would he?

  “She is like no other,” said Chayse.

  “Chayse—” Theron said.

  “No, don’t ‘Chayse’ me, Theron. Stop hiding things away. I thought you had moved past this when we gave Aldous the staff and the gem.”

  Theron ran a hand through his hair and fell back onto the grass.

  Aldous thought he would not speak, that he would simply drift off into drunken sleep.

  And then Theron did speak. “If I’m going to tell you about Mother, I’ll have to tell you about Father, too,” he began. “My father inherited Wardbrook from his father, and he from his, and so on, all the way back until the original Wards were granted these lands by a king long dead now. Generation after generation, the Wards flourished in farming and trade. Four generations ago our family was so filthy rich we just became landowners, and all our further income was provided, and still is, for the most part—except for my modest hunting contracts—by our tenants.

  “Father was supposed to marry some woman from some other wealthy family. I think the Stenmires. Yes, he was to marry into the Stenmire family. He was nineteen years young at the time and he had little interest in settling down, even though that was a reasonable age for a gentleman to get married. There was a ball held at the Stenmire estate, where Father first met the girl he was supposed to marry.” He paused. “And I really do mean girl. She was all of thirteen. My father was, and still is in some ways, a very intelligent man, and upon their first meeting, Father knew that even though she was just a girl, Lady Stenmire would never grow to be an intelligent woman. Father broke away from his socializing with her in search of drink, which he found, along with my mother. Mother was a guest, you see, at this Stenmire ball, a friend of the older sister who was already married. Mother was tall, full, and mentally mature—brilliant, really. She had some monies—at least, to hear Father tell it, she did—but nothing in the way of the Stenmires.” Theron’s voice droned; he did not tell the tale like he did most of his stories—usually they sounded rehearsed, as if they had been told a thousand times. The beginning of this tale was weak at best, and Aldous wondered if that meant it was more or less likely to be true.

  “Skipping ahead now,” he continued, as if he was aware of what Aldous was noticing, “they eloped. Grandfather Ward, of course, was furious and he threatened to negate Father’s inheritance if he did not return and marry the young Lady Stenmire. Father didn’t care. He didn’t give a damn. He only wanted to be with this brilliant, beautiful woman, a woman who always knew exactly what to say and when to say it. She knew how to push Father ever further, to awaken in him dormant talent. Father had served in the army when he was sixteen until his nineteenth birthday, even though he didn’t need to because of his social position, but he always loved adventure. He always wanted to be a character in a storybook. He used to tell Chayse and me. I can see now that Mother helped push him, and mold him into that character. She made him into a hunter. That was what she was, and had been. It was how she knew the older sister Stenmire, for she had fulfilled a contract for her years prior.”

  “Sorry, but I must interrupt,” said Kendrick. “How old was your mother when she met your father? Either she was a young lady of unusual poise and skill to influence him so, or a lady whose years surpassed his own.”

  “We don’t know,” said Chayse. “Sorcerers and sorceresses can conceal their age and preserve their bodies with
magic.”

  As soon as she said that, Aldous thought of the Emerald Witch and her dark hair sprinkled with gray. Yet Theron had told him she was young and fresh as dew the first time he saw her.

  “The great ones can live for hundreds of years, even changing their appearance. A pointed nose becomes rounded. A rounded chin becomes sharp. Hair changes from gold to brown,” Chayse continued. “And trust me, if you had ever had the chance to hear our mother speak, you would think she had already been living for an eternity. Not because of her voice, but because of the things she used it to say. There was always a detached, inhuman logic to her, something acquired beyond the life cycle of the average mortal.”

  “If they are capable of living that long, multiple lifetimes of ordinary mortals, well then, is it possible that you have siblings you know nothing of?” asked Ken.

  “If our father had been a sorcerer, it would be more likely,” said Theron. “For a sorceress, when she conceives her first child, her womb enters an irreversible standard life cycle. No one knows why; that is just how it is. Yet it is possible we have siblings running around, just as anyone else may. Likely none are as handsome as I, though.” Chayse punched him in the arm. “Ow!” He rubbed the spot and shot her a glare. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. This is not a scientific dialogue. This is the prologue to Chayse and Theron Ward.” He scowled. “Do not interrupt it again.”

  “Sorry, Theron. Continue,” said Ken.

  “Where was I? ”

  “Your mother is a hunter. She taught your father to be a hunter,” Aldous said, hanging on every word. “Wait… did he know she was a sorceress?”

  “I am getting to that,” Theron said. “No. He didn’t, not right away. When they hunted together, Mother would use sword and bow, until on one of their hunts, four years in. They were nearly overrun by a swarm of fiends, and sword and bow weren’t cutting it. So Mother turned them all to cinders, and my father finally had the real answer to the walking stick she always had strapped to her back but never used.” Theron yawned. “I do apologize, but my own story is beginning to bore me.”

  “That is because you’re not in it, you ass,” Chayse said.

  “You are right,” Theron said, unashamed. “Well, they survived, obviously. Eventually they returned to Wardbrook. Father was twenty-six years at this point, if I remember what I was told correctly.” Theron paused and snickered. “Yes, you must all bear this in mind. The story I now tell you was only told to me once, and it was told to me once by Sir Hakesworth, nearly ten years ago. So all of this is really not exactly certain.”

  “Wait!” Aldous said. “He told you the story and you asked no question? You never asked for the story to be retold? You heard it once and let it go?”

  “They were gone. What does it matter?”

  Aldous jumped to his feet. “My father was gone. My mother was gone. But I retold their stories in my mind night after night for the entire time I was as the monastery.”

  “I am not you and you are not me. Sit,” Theron replied.

  Aldous sat.

  “So why are you telling us this?” Ken asked, then yawned and belched.

  “Because I’m drunk and I thought it was important when I started telling it,” Theron said, and then asked, “Why am I telling you this?”

  “Aldous asked about Mother,” said Chayse.

  “She is insane, Aldous. Absolutely mad,” Theron said. There was no emotion in his tone .

  “What?” asked Aldous.

  “Not in the beginning, not when Chayse and I were very young,” Theron said.

  “Wait,” said Ken. “What happened to the young Lady Stenmire? And how did your grandfather allow your father to marry your mother and still hand over the inheritance?”

  “Were you not just listening to me, Kendrick? I told you that I heard all that hubbub when I was fifteen. It was the same day Mother left us and the first time I got drunk. Grandfather is dead, so I can’t ask him, and who in the hell is the young Lady Stenmire?” Theron asked then sat up and had a sip of ale.

  This response made Ken look all the more confused, and he also appeared to be wondering why he cared who this Lady Stenmire was. He pulled the jug from Theron and took down a big gulp.

  “May I continue?” Theron asked, drunk and frustrated.

  “Yes,” said Ken. “Please do.”

  “No more bloody interruptions,” Theron said, jabbing his finger into Ken’s chest.

  “I’m sorry, there are just a lot of plot holes,” Ken said.

  “Plot holes? What the hell do plot holes in the story of my conception matter? I exist, don’t I? And I rule the estate named Wardbrook. My very drunken presence at this campfire can fill in your bloody plot holes, Ken.”

  “All right. I’m sorry,” came Ken’s toneless, even apology. “I was just trying to picture it, is all. Carry on.”

  “What was the initial question, Aldous? Quickly, ask it again so I can respond before I fly into a rage,” Theron said, and before Aldous could reply, continued. “Chayse, why would you say I should tell the story? You tell it, or answer the question, or whatever it is that we are doing here.”

  Chayse responded with a snore, out cold or at least pretending to be. Either way, Aldous was stuck getting his question somewhat answered by Theron, and as he thought of the question¬—had he known this would be the response—he would have never asked it in the first place. But it was too late to back out now; he had to get something for his efforts.

  “What was your mother like?” he finally asked again, not caring anymore about the answer and wishing he had asked something better, such as how she controlled her power, or even how much power she had.

  “She was absent. Always there physically, but mentally and emotionally she was hollow. Father was the same. They spoke of their adventures when we had guests, and I loved listening to that. So did Chayse.” Chayse let out another snore, ladylike and delicate, ending in a huffing snort. “Yet when no one from the outside world was around… But they were our parents, and when they left, our massive house became hollow. Chayse and I read and sparred every day; we played and we rode horses. We fought.” Theron laughed, then had another sip of ale. “But you asked only about Mother, and so I will answer. She was just a wraith, a strange wraith in the house that gave strange guidance, and did so from a distance. Then one day she was gone.”

  Aldous felt that must be strange for Theron and Chayse, for their parents to simply be gone. In a twisted way, Aldous was glad that he at least knew his parents were dead. They left him because they left this world. Theron’s parents left because… because why?

  “That’s all you get, Aldous. I’m not sure if that answers your question or not, but I must sleep. Tomorrow will be another long ride.” At that, Theron quickly nodded off, Ken not far behind.

  Aldous wondered if it was the drink that caused the slurred and immensely blurry narrative, or if Theron just pretended it had. A distant mother who picked up and left on a whim, a father who did the same, never to see their children again. To completely abandon a life of wealth, to just vanish. Aldous looked at Chayse sleeping close by. He thought of Theron’s assertion that he had asked Hakesworth about it only once. He thought of the tidy telling, as if deeper details did not matter, or perhaps did not exist. He thought the telling scrubbed clean of anything truly important.

  To any man who brings the fugitive Kendrick Solomon Kelmoor, also known as Kendrick the Cold, before His Royal and Exalted Majesty the King of Brynth for punishment, he shall be awarded the outlaw’s weight in gold. If the outlaw is brought in as a corpse, the man shall be awarded the outlaw’s weight in gold. The fugitive was last seen fleeing the city of Norburg, allegedly after murdering his own wife. His list of crimes now stands at: desertion, the murder of an officer of the king’s army, and the murder of his wife, a citizen of Norburg. Take caution, for he is a man most violent and most wicked, well versed in all forms of melee combat.

  Bounty notice circulated throughout Brynth, eigh
t months after the arrival of the Rata Plaga, written by Count Salvenius and sealed by the king.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Duke Duncan of Dentin

  T he Dukedom of Dentin was pleasant, Theron thought, as the four of them slowed their steeds to a trot now that Duncan’s keep was in view. It was not a city like Norburg, not even close. They passed villagers in a lush valley, one of the very few green valleys other than Wardbrook Theron had seen in years. A stone keep stood atop a low hill with squat stonewalls, maybe eighteen feet high, but the hill gave them the appearance of being taller. A fine cobbled path wound right up to the front gate of the keep, perhaps a mile and a half in the distance.

  A year ago Theron would have stopped at the inn to the left of the road. He would have cleaned himself up from the journey to Dentin, had a shave. He would have taken off his armor and put on fine cloth, combed his hair and tied it tight at the base of his skull. Indeed, a year ago he would have done all that nonsense; he would have played the game.

  That was before his home was attacked; it was before he watched his people die. His life was no longer a game. It was time that he stood as what he was, and Theron Ward was a hunter above all else. So he left his sword on his back, he kept his chain mail over his shoulders, and his hair flowed with wild savagery in the wind. He wore his helm, and he did not smile at strangers.

  Carts stopped as they passed down the road to the keep. Villagers kept their heads down or stared with fear and respect at the four riders that rode into their land.

  They reached the gate to the duke’s keep, and only then did Theron remove his helm.

  “State your names and your business in the Dukedom of Dentin,” said a lazy guard who had just risen to his feet as their party approached.

  “I present to you the mighty Theron Ward, renowned hunter and Lord of Wardbrook. The man to his left and the woman to his right are his humble apprentices,” said Aldous, with a little less exuberance and a few less titles than Theron would have liked, but it wasn’t bad for a first time.