Scab shrugged and took a big bite, swallowing it after a second of chewing. “You sound like you’d make a better cook than a soldier. Looking for a new job perhaps?” Scab said over a mouthful of his next bite.
“Mm. Maybe a retirement career. My Pa used to, he—” he cut off, sighed, then sniffed. He looked down at his boots and lines of tension formed on his forehead.
Walter understood. It was easy to fall into speaking in a way you were accustomed too. The loss, the brutal change hadn’t quite set in yet. Time would scour us all from the realm eventually, he thought. He took a sip of the elixir, filling his mouth with its delectable bitterness.
“So.” Scab sliced through the heavy quiet. “Who wants to play dice?”
“Alright.” Grimbald nodded and tore into his sausage. “Thank you, Scab, this sausage is great. Been craving a good one for a while now.” Grimbald wiped the damp from his eyes with his free hand and forced out an awkward laugh.
“Just doing my noble duty to my noble employer. You two looked like you needed some cheering up.” Scab snorted and spat a yellow glob of mucus, almost hitting a man’s boot. It seemed like Walter wasn’t alone on the mucus front.
“The elixir is great,” Walter conceded. “Your servant knows what he’s doing.”
“He wasn’t cheap. He formerly worked for the Earl of Helm’s Reach as his first chef. That debt was paid — with him.” Scab rolled three dice in his hand and dropped them on the table. “Nine, Dragon’s Eyes.” Scab pushed the dice to Walter, who grabbed them.
Walter let the ivory dice tumble in his closed hand, enjoying their cool touch. “So he’s your slave then?” Walter let the dice tinkle onto the metal table. “Eighteen, Phoenix in flight.”
Scab whistled and peered at Walter. “You’re not stashing weighted dice under that cloak of yours, are you?”
“Yes, by the hundreds.” Walter snickered and tugged on his tunic sleeves to prove they were empty.
Scab crossed his arms. “Alvis is my servant. The word slave is so very brutish. It leaves a sour taste in my angelic mouth.”
Walter almost spat his elixir onto the table. Some dribbled from the corner of his lips. “Whatever lets you sleep at night.” We need to tell ourselves all manner of lies to live with the atrocities we inflicted upon the world for our own betterment. It was so much easier to turn a blind eye to the unfortunate.
Grimbald chuckled with genuine amusement.
“He could leave anytime he wanted.” Scab protested.
“But then the Earl would still owe you a debt?” Walter asked.
“Yes. And?”
“And the slave just changes hands,” Grimbald added.
“Well, if you look it at that way.” Scab took a slurp of his elixir. “Everyone is master and slave to someone else, right?”
“I suppose.” Grimbald and Walter said in unison.
“We’re spending too much time together,” Walter smiled at Grimbald and slid the dice over. Grimbald narrowed his eyes at his friend. “What?” Walter asked innocently.
Grimbald had a sausage in one hand and grabbed the dice with the other. His hairless head shone with an oily sheen. They clattered from his hand and spread across the table. “Three, Bite of the Sand Buckeye.” He frowned and chewed.
“This round goes to our fabled leader.” Scab poured himself another mug of elixir. His fingers were studded with rings, metal pitted and jewels a hard rap away from springing from their settings. “Remind me which decrepit, demon-filled town will we be making our pilgrimage to today?” The dice tumbled beside his mug. “Unlucky seven; seven of broken swords.”
Walter stared at the dice Scab slid in front of him. “Breden,” he finally got out. Why was it difficult to say? “It’s been too long.” The prospect of returning home felt like he might be entering a dream or a nightmare.
He looked from Scab to Grimbald, both going to work on their food. If what Nyset’s man Isa, the Tower assassin, said was true, there might not be much of a need for anything there except for putting the dead to rest. Isa went there on a scouting mission on Bezda Lightwalker’s orders, the late Arch Wizard. Walter had to go to see it with his own eyes. He had a duty to his people. Had a duty to Nyset’s and Juzo’s parents. He threw the dice. “Huh. Eighteen, again. Phoenix in flight.”
“What?” Grimbald said over his mug, his eyes going wide at the dice.
“Impossible!” Scab barked.
“You’ve got the Dragon’s own luck, I’ll tell you that.” Grimbald slurped on his mug and wiped his mouth on the back of his arm.
“It’s a good thing I decided not to turn this into a betting game,” Scab mused.
Walter snickered. That was certainly odd. It was rare to roll an eighteen in one game, never mind back to back rolls.
Grimbald tossed the dice. “Six of spears. Well, at least the sausages are good.” He skewered another and dipped it in his elixir.
Scab’s face contorted with disgust at Grimbald. “You uncouth ogre. How could you defile such a delicacy?”
Grimbald stared at Scab and started chewing with his mouth open, releasing the sounds of slopping food and smacking lips. “Mm.”
Scab shook his head. “How do you travel with this pig?” Scab said it without a hint of humor.
“Let’s not forget the nature of our relationship,” Walter said. He decided to not mention that Scab had the appearance of the most destitute of vagrants.
“My apologies,” Scab muttered and rattled the dice in his hand. “Three of… turds.”
Walter snickered.
“Isn’t it three of Shroomlings?” Grimbald asked.
Scab looked to Grimbald and his eyebrows crawled up to his forehead in disbelief. He slid the dice over to Walter. “Will Breden welcome a band of mercenaries beyond its walls? Assuming it has any.” Scab leaned across the table. “Does it?”
Walter leaned in to meet Scab, the dice rolling in his hand. “It was my home, so you’ll not be pillaging it if that’s what you had in mind. I like you, Scab.” Walter stood tall. “Besides the gleam in your lecherous eyes and questionable ethics, you’re alright.”
“Don’t forget my insatiable desire for marks, and thank you for the most generous words of admiration.”
Walter raised his mug. “Hits the spot.”
“That’s good. As long as your Arch Wizard delivers on our agreement, you won’t get any trouble out of me or my men. That I can assure you.”
“I trust you. You seem to have control of them, mostly.” Walter’s eye found Wart skirting around the men. His malicious eyes scanned the group for sleepers. He nudged a man in the back with the sharp side of his mace.
“They’re good dogs, just have to keep them sorely whipped and they obey.”
“Is that what makes a good leader? Rule by fear?” Grimbald asked, his head cocked.
“Well, well, well.” Scab planted a hand on his hip. “I forgot we had a Captain of the Falcon with us. Do tell me, what do you feel is the proper way of leading?”
Grimbald scratched the back of his neck and popped the rest of his sausage into his mouth. He licked his lips and stowed the skewer in his pocket. “Power.”
“Is that not another form of fear?” Scab asked.
“Not quite. I, we — people follow him,” Grimbald nodded to Walter. “Not because he abuses anyone, but because he can do what no one else can.”
“Which is?” Scab wildly beckoned and precious elixir sloshed from his mug.
Grimbald shuffled his feet, looking ponderously up at the sky.
Walter felt his cheeks flush. The rattling dice in Walter’s hand seemed to slow, beating like a drum in his head.
“And what’s that?” Scab poured the last of the elixir into his mug. He stared at Grimbald. “Hello?”
“Kill giants. Fearlessly stand against the demon god. Return from the dead.” Grimbald spread his arms. “Not murder his own.”
Certainly not intentionally, Walter wanted to add. Walter let the dice t
umble from his hand. They spun, as if drifting through water, each edge glinting with light as they rolled. They clattered onto the silver table, the first two landing on six. The third spun on a corner for what must have been at least five seconds. They all watched it with open mouths. The die finally came to rest, six side up. Walter gasped.
Scab’s jaw hung slack.
“Eighteen again. I don’t believe it.” Grimbald grunted.
“This is shit! You’re using the power.” Scab balked. He took a step back from the table and raised his fists over his head. His cheeks quivered.
“I’m not. Swear it on my parent’s graves!” Walter said.
Scab’s fists crashed into the tray, launching mugs and plates spinning through the air. Hot elixir spattered against the side of Walter’s face. The tray flipped over and smashed Scab squarely in the face. “Damn it!” He growled and pressed a hand to his nose. Blood streamed from it and trickled into his greasy mustaches.
A few laughs came from his men.
Walter couldn’t help but join them. A mug had crashed into a man’s plate, throwing the majority of his oats onto the ground. “You slimy bastard,” the man said, squinting down at his ruined food. Scab sent all the malevolence his face could produce at them. They went quiet and turned to resume their morning chores.
Grimbald bent down and picked up a sausage coated in gravel and started brushing it off. “If you didn’t want this, you could’ve said so. Waste of a perfectly good piece of meat.”
“I know you were using the power, there’s no way that could happen!” Scab jabbed his index finger into Walter’s chest.
“So much for that needing to let go business, eh?” Walter grinned at him. “Embracing the chaos and all?”
Scab’s crusted eyes narrowed, puss flaking onto his shoulders. He groaned and then spat out a glob of bloody mucus. “Let’s get a move on. The day wanes.” His voice came out nasally and he stumbled away. “Fucking cheater,” he muttered.
“I can hear you,” Walter snapped.
Scab sneered and walked on. “I didn’t use the power, I swear on my parent’s graves,” Scab said in mock imitation of Walter.
Grimbald shrugged, bit his sausage, and smiled.
Chapter 4
Marcine
“After every sunset is a sunrise. Within pain and struggle, joy can be found.” -The Diaries of Nyset Camfield
The forest of the Woodland Plunge closed like a slowly spinning vice after entering its clutches. Most of the narrow path had grown in since Walter was last here. Back when Juzo, Baylan, and Wiggles were still alive. Before Nyset was more powerful than King Ezra of Midgaard. It used to be kept well cleared by the king’s trailblazers, a stray growth a rarity. His horse’s legs were being scratched by thorns every few feet. He eyed a dying a tree, its leaves turned the color of ash.
Walter led the group, with Grimbald trailing behind. Behind him, Scab and his tail of mercenaries followed. The sounds of clopping hooves were echoing louder than they should have been. He’d expected some of the sound to be swallowed by the trees and mingle with the singing birds.
The forest had a strange weight to it. Towering trees loomed over the path and blotted out all but a rare shaft of light. The birds weren’t singing. When he thought about it, he couldn’t remember the last time he saw any bird here. They had only been down the path for about ten minutes, but he remembered this place as an avian sanctuary. Perhaps they’d moved on to a place where fewer demons roamed the lands. Something else was off, something he couldn’t quite finger.
Something skittered and chirped from a tree, likely a squirrel.
“Hey, Walt?” Grimbald asked from behind.
“Hey,” Walter croaked, finding his voice. He ripped the cork from his waterskin with his teeth and let its cool water soothe his aching throat. Sickness was taking up residence in his throat, no doubt about it now. Shouldn’t the Phoenix be able to heal these things? There had to be a way. It didn’t seem to happen on its own like wounds had. He imagined his gravestone reading: “Here lies the last dual wielder. Taken back to the Shadow mother by the hands of the common man’s cold.” Nothing could surprise him anymore.
“What do you think it will be like coming home?” Grimbald asked.
That very question had been biting at his mind for some time now, with the tenacity of a dog to a bone just out of reach. Lots of answers came: miserable, beautiful, exhausting. “I don’t know,” he answered.
“I think that’s a good approach. I-I couldn’t stop thinking how nice it would be to finally see my Pa. All that hope,” he sniffed, “I imagined seeing him smiling at me, offering me some bacon-elixir ale. Me taking it, tasting the delicious brew only he could make right. I’d tell him about our adventures and he’d tell me how proud of me he was.” Grimbald cleared his throat and there was a long pause. Walter heard him take a swig from his waterskin. Scab barked something at his men.
They came around a bend where the forest relented, letting in a bit more of the sun. The light cut down from the sky and washed the world in glowing greens, reds, and blacks. Small insects danced in the rays, seeming to float on the light itself. Walter watched a wary Shroomling jab its spear into the mouth of a Sand Buckeye, making it snap shut. The Shroomling bent over to retrieve an acorn, its butter-yellow head glittering. It hoisted its prize over its shoulder and glared at Walter as he passed.
“Shroomlings,” he muttered.
He realized what was bothering him about the Woodland Plunge now. The colors of the leaves. They should have been only green, not turning so early. As they traveled deeper into the woods, he noticed more dead trees. Too many. He had heard of diseases wiping out entire tracts of forest, but this didn’t feel right. Ancient oaks to young saplings were spotted and blackened with the signs of decay.
“But all that’s gone now,” Grimbald continued, his voice hard. “His life cut away by Death Spawn.”
Walter knew ‘Juzo’ was what he meant to say.
“Does it ever get easier, Walt? Does the pain ever go away?”
Walter swallowed. “No, it doesn’t.” He exhaled. “The pain never leaves you, really. Think about my parents almost every day. Some days I wake up and think they’re still here. Like today, for example.” Walter twisted over his saddle to meet Grimbald’s eyes, gleaming with wetness. It was a pitiful sight to see a man so large and built for war, wading in the throes of loss. Emotional pain was the great equalizer.
Walter nodded and turned back to face the path. “Some days are better, though.” Days where you don’t have to think about your mother being defiled by a demon’s talon. He swatted away a Rot Fly that landed on his shoulder. “Days where you can put your mind on something else.” He frowned. Days where you didn’t have to see your childhood friend’s blood leak from his skull, by your own hand, no less. “Things get better, just have to keep pushing forward.” Until there was no other place to push toward.
“Right,” Grimbald said. “Thanks, Walt, uh, sorry. Well, it’s nice to talk, you know.”
“It is. Makes you sort of feel less alone, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it does.”
“I used to always think my troubles were mine alone. The more people I talk with, the more I think that we all suffer the same,” Walter said.
Grimbald grunted.
What made death more terrible than anyone imagined was what lay beyond the veil of this life.
“Walt. What was it like there?” Grimbald asked, as if reading his mind.
He didn’t have to ask about the ‘where’ he was referring to. Walter took a deep breath and shook his head. He deserved to know the truth, but could he handle it? “It’s unlike anything they tell us here. They tell you in school and in books that it’s a place of rest, where you go to see your family when you die. Live in harmony and all that. It’s all lies, pure speculations.” Walter rubbed the brand on the back of his neck, a raised figure eight. The Shadow god had told him it was to mark him as food for her pets. For
him, it was a reminder to destroy her.
A cool breeze sighed down from the treetops. “I told the Shadow god it was supposed to be nice there. She told me none had ever escaped to tell the truth of it. Makes a lot of sense when you think about it.”
“It sounds like we’d be better off not knowing the truth,” Grimbald said. “To go through one’s life knowing only misery was on the other side of eternity would sure make it a lot less enjoyable.”
“You think? I’d rather live knowing the truth.”
“Maybe for you. But I’d reckon a lot of people couldn’t handle that. People need to believe that there’s something better around the corner. That’s what drives people, gives them hope. Knowing that their existence after death was going to be pleasant makes the hard work of life more tolerable.”
“I see your point, Grim. But just imagine the crushing disappointment you’d experience once you died and arrived in that world.”
Grimbald shrugged. “A price worth paying, I’d say. If pain was all that awaited us, nothing would ever get done. People would only drink, have sex, eat Fang Cress, and read fiction books. The world would become nothing but pleasure seekers. No buildings would get finished, farms plowed, roads maintained... like this one, for example. We need to know that our sacrifices matter, that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Walter nodded and thought about Grimbald’s words. Grimbald had a lot of wisdom he had kept hidden all this time. What else stirred below his warrior’s surface? Walter looked back at him. He swayed atop his Blood Donkey, his incredible form dwarfing the meager mount. He wore a pair of two-handed axes across his back, their butts twinkling. Blood Donkeys were incredibly powerful creatures.
“The realm needs to know the truth, for those who seek it,” Walter said.
A New Light (The Age of Dawn Book 5) Page 5
