by BJ Hanlon
Grent nodded. “Anyway, we walk into a nicer establishment, Baisel’s, that offers comforts to meet our desires. We ordered like a noble after a good tax collection, wine, food, some herbal remedies…”
“Lathel weed,” Horston said. A known substance that dulls the mind and relaxes the body.
“Yes. I wanted to unwind but one of our men, Elordin, an islander from Yijon Atoll, not used to civilized customs decided to beckon women his way. He took a bag of coppers, a small bag, maybe thirty but it was still heavy, and he heaved them at a petite red head. I watched it fly through the air… it seemed like it moved slower than it should have. Like when I move as fast as I can… the world seems to slow.”
Edin knew the feeling… it’d happened before with Dexal.
Grent started to laugh again, his chuckle becoming a hearty growl deep from inside his stomach. “She toppled over like a tree being felled by a lumberjack and tumbled into a barmaid with a tray of drinks. The drinks spilt on another guest who ripped off a different courtesan’s shirt…” Grent took a drink.
“Two others saw this and didn’t like it. Some sort of courtesan code I guess. They were the tallest of the lot, close to Elordin’s height.” He reached a hand above his own head almost six inches. “They offered to take him upstairs. Me and a few mates were sitting in the lounge when about a fifteen minutes later, Elordin comes barreling down the stairs, hobbling like he had saddle sores. He was completely nude, covering himself with hands that had literally ripped a man’s head off a week earlier. The women followed, one with a large horse whip, the other with a glowing red fire poker.
Elordin was in such shock he ran straight out the door and into the street, still sans clothes and crashed into a merchant stall knocking everything to the ground. People ran up and started grabbing things, Elordin was lying in the street nude, his butt cheeks pointing toward the sky completely. We watched it all from the windows laughing. Since then, we call making a notable exit, leaving the Elori-way.”
Edin wiped his eyes when Grent finished the story, his stomach hurt and he almost threw up his meat. Picturing the man made him laugh harder and deeper than he’d ever laughed before.
Master Horston and Grent were chuckling as well.
Dephina appeared moments later, she was clean and looked the way she had when he first saw her those many months ago at the Dancing Crane.
“What’s so funny?” She asked but no one answered.
A little while later they continued on. Edin walked next to the horse and continued practicing his powers. They were coming easier to him.
His powers had gotten him far and saved him, but the words Grent said still rang true. “Without his power, he’d be helpless.” In the cave, they failed him and all he had left was his own will. Edin needed more training with the sword. He reached his hand into his pocket and felt the gemstone. It was still cool in his palm like an ice crystal as if it’d never left the cavern.
The hills began to smooth out to a nearly flat grassland. Near Yaultan, farms were hiller and the forest merged into the foothills of the mountains.
Edin had thought that it was how the whole of the world was. Yes, Horston and Grent told him of mostly flat grasslands and terribly dry deserts, but they were so far off. Now he was sure that there was much more to the world than his small village. The thought of home panged him. Then he pictured his mother and Kesona in the flames… he saw their fear.
Edin gritted his teeth. At the time of the manor’s destruction, his talents weren’t enough to save them, save himself. The men in black, the mage hunters, would’ve burned him alive with the two women he cared most about. Or if Dephina was right, try and conscript him.
Barges floated past them in both directions. Upstream they were pulled by horses strapped to some sort of harness. They began to cross a series of small wooden bridges over streams that carried water into the farm fields that began appearing on either side of the river. Small rows of leafy green plants sprouted from a tilled deep brown field.
They were careful not to trudge through them. They were foreigners in a different land and making enemies was not something they could afford right now.
The sun began to set and Edin couldn’t make out the Great Cliff anymore. To the west a hundred or so paces away Edin saw a man walking slowly behind a large beast with a plow.
Edin cared little about farming and turned his attention back to the road.
They traveled a few more days down the road, passing through small hamlets with not much more than an inn, a general store and cottages. Rusty farming implements sat in fields or leaned against buildings and fences; loose animals seemed to roam the dusty roads. A pack of brown, black, and white dogs greeted them in one town and didn’t leave until Master Horston tossed scraps of meat to the hounds.
“Mutts,” he whispered shaking his head.
Edin smiled and petted a few of them, they didn’t seem vicious in any way, though they also didn’t seem to be lacking food.
In the late afternoon on the third day of following the winding river they crested a small hill and spotted the gray walls of Frestils.
Large turrets were positioned around the battlements, but Edin saw no sign of life on them.
Farms extended on both sides of the river as far as Edin could see though the workers didn’t pay them any attention which Edin was thankful for. As they got closer, Dephina peeled off and headed through a field of pointy leaves.
“Where’s she going?”
“She’ll meet us inside,” Grent said, he looked up at Edin who was on the pack horse and shrugged. He remembered how she’d disappeared when the Frestils cavalry appeared and didn’t come out even when it was safe. Maybe she was as wanted here as Edin was in his home… Edin wouldn’t ask.
The river road ended in a small gate manned a pair of guards who wore the same gray tabard and blue stag as the cavalry. They barely paid any mind as they approached.
One of the guards yawned putting a fist to his mouth giving Edin the same urge. Edin did and almost missed his partner stepping out and barring their entrance.
“Hold, what is your business in Frestils?”
Grent stepped forward and spoke in an accent that was far from any Edin had heard. Drawling words. “Good evening sire, I here am escorting this there tutor and his boy to the university. The boy here wishes to study history and become a, how do you say it… archeologist.” Grent said with a slight bow. Edin could barely remember the meaning of the job.
The guard looked Grent up and down for a second then toward Master Horston who nodded.
“History ehh?” The man said eyeing Edin last. “Who was the Great Duke that destroyed the magi and founded the Por Fen?” The man said looking back to Master Horston. His tutor opened his mouth but the man put a finger up to silence him. “I want your student who carries a sword to answer. I have never met a historian who carries a blade.”
“If that is the most difficult question you can ask, I assume you haven’t met many historians,” Master Horston said haughtily.
Edin raised an eyebrow toward the tutor who bowed his head at the guard.
The man was tall but very thin, wiry Edin might say. The yawner on the other hand wasn’t, his muscles bulged beneath his tunic. Maybe wiry was a new guard. He was certainly more alert to his duties than the other.
The guard moved his hand toward his hilt as if he were getting ready to use it. No one else moved. Edin knew Grent could take them both out, heck Edin thought he could. But they needed to get into the city without trouble. Grent promised a warm bed at an inn and Edin was excited at the possibility.
“It is a trick question,” Edin said. “The duke was Restican, the slayer of the abomination Lorno, Master Mage of the First Order and the Prime Master Mage Tilliac. Restican slew both men by himself near the Great Cliff with help from the first wan stone that sapped both abominations of their power and left them helpless.”
“And what pray tell is this trick in my question?”
Yawner snorted at his partner’s dumbfounded look then spoke himself. “Where are you from?”
Edin swallowed again.
“We travel from the town of Clyd,” Grent said quickly.
“And why are you both carrying swords?” the man asked.
“I am his protector,” he leaned closer to the guard, “and he wishes to pretend like he’s a warrior. He can’t handle it at all.”
The man smirked, Edin felt his face go red under the mocking gaze of the man.
“The university is near the palace on the south side of the Duke’s square. The city is safe at night, normally, but there have been talk of Resholt spies, possibly an abomination.”
“My word…” Horston said pretending to be shocked and doing a pretty good job of it.
Yawner nodded. “A few Por Fen brought news… though it sounds like an abomination disappeared with no trace and their spreading their fishing net as it were. I don’t trust Resholt Hunters any more than any other vile Resholtian so it’s probably nothing to worry about.”
They spoke of his state as Edin did of theirs. Enemies forever he thought. How the kingdom had ever existed he didn’t know.
It was getting dark when they passed through the gate and walked down a wide road lit by the fading sun and the occasional oil lamp in a window. The buildings were tall, wooden structures in dull grays, browns and whites, windows were accented with faded shutters. The place had the smell of human waste. He was made more certain of the smell as a woman dumped a bucket of the yellow brown liquid from her third story window. It hit the road and began flowing in the direction they were headed, leading them like a horse to water.
In the shadows, figures moved slyly and purposely. The few glimpses he got of them showed their clothes and appearance were worse than Edin’s.
A few shops at the ground level were closed, some with horizontal boards across looked to be that way permanently.
Edin noticed the silhouette of a man in a second-floor window. The shop below read, Brolo’s Tomes and Scrolls. Like the rest of the area, it looked unkempt.
“Where are we meeting Dephina?”
“The Drunken Boar,” Grent said.
Dephina had no hesitation about being near them in daylight, only when the Duke’s men were near did she hide. What would’ve happened if the meeting with Elva didn’t turn out the way it did? Would she have fought with them or hid? Edin wondered.
They pressed on, the horses’ hooves clapping the stone next to them. It apparently was a law that only the duke and his men rode in the city’s walls. That was what the guards said.
The road narrowed further, the buildings seeming to press in on them like a funnel.
When it was only about ten feet wide, they met a much broader road that sloped toward the center of the city. A splashing of paint on a sign read King’s Avenue.
Slowly, the sounds of the river reached him. A sound he was accustomed to. The city stopped as the dark waterway cut it in half like a belt severing the torso from the legs.
They crossed a wide bridge with a few unruly looking people on. Some glared with malice in their eyes, others shied away when he looked at them.
On the other side, he noticed the buildings were in much better shape. Potted flower beds sat in front of nearly every building possibly as a shield from the city’s inhabitants. It gave a cacophony of floral odors converged with different, spices and perfumes. Every other moment he met intoxicating smells followed by ones that almost making him retch.
More people began appearing on the streets as they walked toward the city center. There were merry makers singing drunkenly, quiet folks enjoying the cooler night air on outdoor chairs or benches, other people milling around as if they had no worries.
The road and buildings were lit by yellow fire lamps probably a hundred feet in the air. The black outline of multiple towers began to take shape.
“That’s the duke’s palace,” Grent said nodding to darkened towers that were almost invisible in the sky. Only the lights high in the sky gave him an indication of where to look.
“Here we are,” Grent said pointing at a four-story building on the opposite side of the road. The sign hanging above the door read Drunken Boar Lodge with a brown pig lounging in a couch with a mug of ale in its thick hoof.
Sounds of a party came from inside.
“As good a place as any,” Master Horston grunted. “There’s never been a peaceful inn has there?”
“Sure, there has, if you want quiet, head to South Town. The inns there are easily six times the cost and generally filed with nobles, wealthy merchants and top military officers.” Grent said walking the pack horse to the side of the building. “You’ll have to pay your own way however.”
A stable boy appeared from out of the gloom and walked up toward them. He was a few years younger than Edin, but much skinnier, his cheekbones were like the posts holding a tent for wintertide. He had long and thin fingers whose nails needed a trimming. His ragged hair hung down covering the tops of his eyes and he constantly huffed while blowing at the bangs.
“Can I,” forceful blow. “Take your horse sirs?” Forceful blow. The boy said. He gave up and tried brushing the hair away. It dropped back.
Grent nodded and handed him the reins and a coin.
Edin followed them into the inn and was met by the same sounds and smells he had at the Crane. There were long tables set up across the room with nearly every seat taken. There was a mix of men and women. Some folk were covered by hoods, cloaks or scarfs despite the warmth emanating from the fireplace twice the size of the manors. Why reasons they were covered made Edin uneasy.
Grent made his way to a small counter, behind which a short balding man with a round face and gray whiskers. He stood with a wide smile and pulled one end of his mustache.
He bowed his head slightly. “Evening sir, how can I assist you,” the man said.
“We’d like a room for two nights and dinner if you have it available.” The man smiled and nodded, “I do have a few rooms left, all on the top floor. Dinner is just about over, however, if you find seats I will have Estillan take your order. Do you have luggage that needs storing?” Grent nodded. “I will have it taken up for you…” His eyes went to their swords. “I hope I don’t have to tell you not to make trouble or Kanti will take matters into his own hands. He doesn’t call the watch.”
The innkeeper nodded to a man in the corner of the room, he had short cropped black hair and copper skin. He wore a black leather vest with a pair of swords on his hips. The man was slowly moving his gaze across the room. He caught Edin’s eyes and Edin looked down.
“Don’t worry about us,” Grent said nodding and handing over the payment in exchange for small metal key.
“One room?” Edin groaned.
“When you have money, you can get your own room,” Grent said.
“It will probably just be the two of us,” Master Horston said to Edin. “You can bet that our illustrious protector will find other arrangements.” The old tutor nodded in the direction Grent was headed.
In the opposite corner from the big bouncer sat Dephina. She rolled her eyes when she saw them. Edin noticed a man at her table, he looked at the group and turned back to her.
“My dear Grent, can you please get this drunken fool away from me,” Dephina said in a soft tone. Edin could see a bit of fire in her eyes and it was clear that she was half a heartbeat from stabbing the man through the eye. The man wouldn’t even know what hit him.
“Him? You prefer him over me? I am a soldier of renown… this whelp can’t do anything,” the man said pointing his mug in Grent’s direction. Ale slopped over the top of it and onto the drunk’s foot. “Hey, you made me spill my ale.”
“Move,” Grent said quietly. The man tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t hold him and he stumbled back into the table causing it to slam into the wall with a thud. A second later, Kanti was next to them looking dow
n at him.
“Are they bothering you madame?” Kanti said. His biceps were seemed nearly a foot around.
“Only this one.” She pointed at the drunk but looked away as if he were not even worth the energy she needed to gaze upon him. “These three are my companions.”
“We don’t wish to cause trouble,” Grent said.
Kanti grabbed the man by the front of his tunic and lifted him as if he were a feather.
“Hey,” the man said. Kanti slapped the drunk across the face. The man gasped for air as the bouncer carried him out the back door.
“A terrin,” Grent said.
“Figured,” Dephina said, “you’re all hotheads trying to bully us into doing what you want…” She shot Grent a coy smile and patted the chair next to her.
Edin grinned and sat next to Master Horston.
A few feet away, sat a swinging door from which women in tight blouses swooped in and out with mugs and plates of food. Edin was tired but watching all of the different types of people made him feel curious. He heard accents that were deeper and conversations in languages he’d never heard. Grent had an arm around Dephina, they both looked content.
“I’m Estillan,” a woman said in an even, possibly annoyed tone. She wore a tight purple corset over a low-cut and quite reveling blouse. Dark circles hung beneath her eyes and though she smiled at them it was clearly forced.
She deposited four mugs and set them before the group. “We only have pork shoulder and potatoes left, if you’d have come earlier, then you may have had our spearfish from the Mirasa Sea.” She said her eyes flicking away from them toward the innkeeper.
“That will be fine my dear,” Master Horston said grabbing his mug and raising it. “Too a nice warm bed.”
“And a strong lover,” Dephina said.
Grent coughed but raised his mug.
He took a drink, the ale was warm and had a bitter taste to it. Not good he thought then put it down. “Well, we made it.” Edin said, his mind drifting to the blonde woman, the huntress.
“We’re not there yet… and we are not going to your mountain.” Grent hissed as if reading his thoughts. “I don’t care how much you want to.”
