Web of Lands 2

by Brent Tyman

  “Very well, I’ll let Eklis and Flavious know of your location and we can talk about the Vulenchians later,” Eliandra said. The women all gave me a kiss each, with Lunara practically forcing her tongue into my mouth, before they bid me farewell. Their personal guards followed them as they left the market square.

  I let out a sigh as they were out of sight and looked around. I had my personal guards with me, and soldiers from my army, so no one would dare approach me. Perhaps exploring some stalls would give me some further insight on these humans.

  The market square in the center of the capital was huge as every building around me was a business and stalls were packed against each other. I didn’t want to cause a needless commotion, so I headed nearer the edge of the marketplace to the lesser populated areas.

  I saw a stall that sold some sizzling meat on a stick and decided that perhaps buying food wouldn't be a bad idea. I doubted any of it would be poisoned after all.

  A young woman manned the stall, with a simple grill in front of her. It was literally a cooper slab with some of it sectioned off to let a small fire billow out from under it. It looked hastily put together, but as long as the food was good, it didn’t really matter to me. I have had much worse over the decades.

  I approached the woman and examined the meat she was selling. It was red meat, tinged with black on the sides. It smelled good, so my stomach rumbled at the display.

  “What is this meat?” I asked as I tried to decided which one I wanted. When I received no answer, I looked up.

  The woman looked at me and especially the guards with a profound fear. Her eyes were wide and her hands practically shook as she gripped one of the meat sticks.

  I rolled my eyes and sighed. No doubt the group of guards behind me had scared this peasant. She likely thought I was someone of importance. She was right, but I would not harm her for no reason. We were all on the same side now.

  “Oh, uh,” the woman said hastily. “It's a Hoks breast m’lord. It’s all I can catch with the traps I can afford. It's a small rodent that pesters the farmers, not that popular with the nobles. It’s really chewy, might not be to your tastes.”

  If the woman was trying to sell me her wares, she wasn’t doing a very good job with it.

  “I’ll take that one,” I said as in pointed to one that didn’t seem too burned. The woman quickly scooped up the stick in question and slowly handed it to me, her eyes darting to each of the guards behind me.

  “Here you go, m’lord. That will be… uh, some coppers?” The woman said. I tried not to laugh at her fear. Dryan would likely grin at the display and cause the women to faint while Lyan would ask if she any drink to sell too. Utalis would smack the pair on the heads. Gods, I missed them.

  I took a bite of the meat and let it linger on my tongue. It was chewy, and sort of tasted like she cooked it a few days ago. It wasn’t that bad though, better than the rations I had to ensure during my time as a Tier Five.

  I kept a coin bag on my belt with a few gold coins, more out of habit than anything else, and used my free hand to grab some. The gold coins glinted in the sunlight as I exposed them to the open air, and I dropped them into the woman's hand. Her eyes went wide and her mouth agape at the wealth she held. Humans seemed to be regard these coins with an almost worshipful gaze and I found it interesting. We used to have a monetary system in Frostburn, but that was decades ago. It all changed when food and water was worth more than gold.

  “M’lord, this is too much,” the woman said, but I was already walking away, with my Hoks meat in hand.

  “My king, that peasant didn’t recognize you,” a guard said, and I nodded.

  “Yes, I noticed that. It is to be expected though. I’ve hardly shouted out my name to the masses yet. They will learn of me, in time,” I said as I looked around for the next thing to do.

  Perhaps some jewelry for my women? That’s what humans do for their wives. My people cared little for any trinkets, mostly because you couldn’t eat a trinket and there wasn’t really anyone we could sell them too.

  I prowled around the stalls here and ignored the stares me and my men got. Eventually, I found a table that had a variety of jewels, rubies and emeralds, fashioned into all kinds of jewelry.

  An old man sat at the stall this time. He supported himself with a long piece of wood that looked like a walking cane. I eyed his wares and paid particular attention to anything the women would like.

  Lunara always wore earrings, even though her flowing hair made them hard to see. Eliandra wore a variety of bracelets, and Tessa preferred to stay in her slave attire. She typically wore whatever I gave her.

  Rings! I had to get them wedding rings now. Lunara and Eliandra deserved the best I could afford. Tessa would never agree to marry me, as she considered herself a simple slave, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t wear a ring from me.

  I considered if it was best to get the rings here, instead of commissioning them from the jewel makers that the nobility use. I was here now, so maybe the old man knew where I could get some wedding rings made.

  “I require some wedding rings for my women, do you know of any goldsmiths?” I asked the old man. He looked at me through wise eyes and tilted his head slowly.

  “Women you say? You must be in over your head. I can barely handle my one wife, never mind more of them,” the old man laughed as he slapped his thigh.

  “I ain’t got any rings fit for a wedding, but I know how to craft em. Many a lord came to me to craft a pretty ring for their pretty wives, back a few years. Had my own shop and everything,” The old man said.

  I examined his wares in greater detail. Now that I really looked, the craftsmanship was commendable. Excellent even, strange for an out of the way trader here.

  “Why aren’t these nobles coming to you now?” I asked curiously. The old man spat at the ground in distaste.

  “Damned old king wanted to elevate another goldsmith for the nobility to use, and ruined my reputation to do it,” the old man said. “Threatened my wife to a battering if I sold any more of my wares to the nobles. They hated me after for not selling to them, and the common folk couldn’t afford my work. My wife uses some elixirs to help me shape the metal, and I have to wait days for it to take effect. Once we ran out of coin, we sold up everything we owned to afford enough food for the rest of our days. And here I am.”

  I honestly couldn’t tell if what the man said was genuine or not. It seemed like it was, but I trusted the Vulenchians before they invaded us, so I was wary of any further deceit by humans.

  Still, if he could craft the wedding rings, then I might as well make use of it. I would only lose a few gold coins at the most if his claims were false. Plus, it would give me a good reason to execute him later if he lingered in the city.

  “Hmm, fine. How much for three rings?” I asked.

  The old man stroked his scraggly beard in thought as his eyes gleamed.

  “Ten gold a piece, those elixirs aren’t cheap and…” I waved off the rest of his comments as I reached for my coin bag and grabbed a handful of coins. I checked to make sure there was at least thirty of them and dropped the lot onto the stall in front of the old man. The coins clinked together as they rolled on the wood.

  “Have the finished rings sent to the palace within the next few weeks,” I said as I moved off.

  “The palace?” The old man asked, but I was already on my way. It was appealing to see if my women liked this old man’s work. If he didn’t pull through, then I would need to commission a dark elf goldsmith in Dunara. There was no telling what design of ring they would make.

  Nothing else in this part of the market square interested me, so I was about to head back to the palace when I spotted something strange.

  A lone woman was watching me with a black hooded cloak. She was taller than the average sized human, but what caught my eye was that she was one of my people.

  Since we all had runes on our skins at birth, my sight allowed me to see another’s rune if
I so wished. Even when I didn’t focus this ability, there was an aura of sorts that emanated from anyone that came from Frostburn.

  The fact that she tried to hide amongst a human crowd was odd enough, but I pushed some prime into my eyes to get a clearer picture of her face.

  I almost froze in my tracks as I examined her. Her black hair covered a good part of her face, but I could see that her skin was unnatural. The runes suggested that she was the same age as me, but there were so many deformities on her face that it was hard to tell if that was true. Her skin looked like it had melted off, strikingly similar to how Julia, my former love, looked before her end. It was when I saw her stare directly at me I recognized her.

  “Solie?” I called out, shocked at seeing the woman. She was one of Julia’s bullies, a truth sayer candidate that was jealous of her. She should have perished when that black portal sucked her in, along with Julia and two others.

  What was she doing here?

  She must have recognized me as the woman bolted away further down the street. I needed answers, so I rushed after her. My guards’ heavy footsteps resounded behind me.

  “Stay on that women, I want her alive!” I cried out to my guards behind me.

  Solie was fast on her feet, almost unnaturally so. She pushed past any human in her way and caused a massive commotion as she grabbed anything she could get her hands on to block us. I jumped past a few rolled over crates of potatoes and shoved aside a human too slow to retreat from me.

  Her cape billowed out behind her and I glimpsed a shackle tied to her ankles. Why would she wear those? She barely made a sound as she ran, which told me she had developed her prime powers to some extent. Her ability to blend into a crowd was almost seamless, had it not been for the runes I noticed on her.

  We had long passed the market square, and I was unsure where she was running to. The buildings I passed suggested we were in the rundown part of the capital, where the poorer peasants lived. Solie showed her strength by quickly casting a gust of wind against a wagon on the street that was in her way. An unseen force raised the wagon off the ground and it flew through the air, smashing into a nearby house. The horses attached were killed instantly in the destruction.

  I was about to push some prime into my legs when she turned a corner and disappeared down a dark alleyway. I followed in after her and found myself confronted with multiple paths. Each one led a different direction, and there was no sign of the woman.

  “Fuck,” I said as I came to a stop, my guards right behind me.

  “Spread out, find her,” I ordered before I choose a path at random and ran down that way. I pushed some prime into my legs to gain more speed, in the hopes I could catch up to her if this was the right path.

  The alleyway ended next to a wide street, and there were only a few humans that milled about on it. I couldn’t spot her anywhere. I was not good at tracking through a city and was unsure where to go from here.

  It was a long shot, but I climbed up the building I was near to see if I could spot her from a higher vantage point. I charged up my legs with prime and leaped forward. My body shot upward in an arc and I landed with a crash onto a roof of a human’s home.

  I quickly fed prime into my eyes, then my ears, and focused as best as I could to find her. This part of the city had low, single-storied buildings with planks that even covered the alleyways. I could hear nothing other than the humans that complained about my guards that combed through the area.

  After a few moments, I knew I had lost her. I jumped down to check in with my guards. It took a while to find one, but the news was just as bleak.

  She was gone.

  Fuck.

  I had the men I could find gather up the ones that still searched and we compared our findings.

  “The woman disappeared without a trace, my king,” one of my guards said.

  “Was that a truth sayer? She destroyed that wagon in seconds,” a second soldier said.

  “No truth sayer would run from our king, and it was one of us,” a third added.

  I waved my hand to cut the idle chatter. Now was not the time.

  “It doesn’t matter who she is, I just want her found. Have some trackers investigate her whereabouts. Put up signs with her face, offer gold for any information. Find her,” I ordered. The guards saluted as a few of them went off to perform my bidding. The rest looked at me wearily.

  “Are you okay, my king?” someone asked, and I sighed.

  “No,” I said. “I just saw a ghost.”

  Chapter 12

  Once I got back to the palace, I was undecided if I should let Flavious know of Solie’s existence. The more I thought about it, the less sure I felt that it was actually her.

  It seemed I needn’t have bothered to think about it, as the man himself came rushing out the palace doors to meet me in the courtyard.

  “Yes, yes. It is good to see you, my king. I heard rumors of a ghost in the city, a ghost with a melted face,” Flavious said as he stroked his white beard.

  I supposed that it was only natural that the men would spread word of a woman that the king himself was after. The humans likely saw her face as she ran through the streets.

  “It was Solie, from my childhood. Her face was a real mess, but the similarities were striking,” I said. Flavious did not seem pleased with the news. He frowned as he tilted his head.

  “Hmm, Solie. One of Julia’s… acquaintances, if memory serves. She should be dead,” Flavious said.

  “Does that mean…” I said as the thought caused ripples in my mind. If Solie was alive, then…

  “My king, my king,” Flavious said abruptly. “Do not trouble yourself with this, it will only distract you from your duties. You have other obligations to attend to.” Flavious’s eyes narrowed in understanding at my plight.

  I sighed. Gods, even the possibly sent shivers down my spine. Flavious was right though, as much as I did not want to admit it. If I let it, the goal of finding Solie again would consume me, to wring out any answers from her.

  “Fine, I’ll let you handle this. But I want any news you receive as soon as possible,” I said. Flavious nodded his head.

  “Of course, of course. Now come, we should talk about this deal you made with these creatures,” Flavious said as he grabbed a hold of my arm and directed me to walk into the palace.

  He was silent as he led me to the throne room. Either he was thinking about Solie, or about Zelenia’s deal. Since I was king, I technically didn’t need to answer to either him or Eklis but it would be detrimental to not have their support. My people had survived Frostburn by sticking together, we would perish alone.

  I noticed there were quite a lot more guards in the palace than there were before we left for the Fancern forest. They would have recalled a lot of troops to help us against the Vulenchians eventually, but there shouldn’t be this many.

  “Why so many guards?” I asked Flavious as we walked. He looked thoughtful for a moment, as if conflicted on what he wanted to say.

  “My king, my king. It’s a matter we can leave for the end of our talks, then you will understand,” Flavious said. I shrugged at that. It seemed more problems had occurred in my absence.

  Once we reached the throne room, I saw that all of my women were there, around a giant circular table in the middle. Eklis was also hovered about and…

  “Ordan, you beautiful bastard,” Dryan said as he crushed me in a hug. I laughed as I squeezed back.

  “About time you snapped out of it. You look far better now than you did a few weeks ago,” Dryan said in my ear. I could feel the grin on his face, never mind having to see it.

  I pulled back and gave Dryan’s shoulder a good smack. Gods, it was good to see him. Another figure approached, and I laughed even harder.

  “Lyan you are here too!” I said as I enveloped the man in a hug of my own.

  “If only my slaves greeted me this way when I ask for drink,” Lyan remarked with a laugh.

  Lyan pulled back and gave me a
wide grin. “Here you are, the Slayer of Saina!” Lyan shouted with reckless abandon. “The slayer of traitors.”

  My grin fell a bit at his remark but the fool simply grinned back as if there was nothing wrong. Sometimes I wished I could just give him a good pummeling. I doubted that would work to tighten his lips, however.

  “Is Utalis here too?” I asked.

  “My king,” Utalis nodded to me from further back in the room. I counted it as a victory when Utalis talked at all, so I rushed over to grab him with a hug.

  With the trio at my side, I could accomplish anything. I truly believed that.

  “Welcome back, my king. If you don’t mind, lets all sit down. There’s a lot to discuss,” Eklis said with a nod. It seemed he was all business today.

  Me and the trio approached the table where I sat next to Eliandra and Lunara. Tessa had gotten up and had a group of slaves behind her.

  “Any refreshments, master?” she asked as everyone else got seated.

  “Wine and ale,” Lyan said to her and Tessa rolled her eyes as she looked at me for confirmation.

  “Water for everyone,” I said, and she nodded. She disappeared around a pillar with the group of slaves that followed her.

  “Come on Ordan, we can’t discuss anything serious without some drink,” Lyan complained.

  “Drink water,” I replied.

  “How was your time in the city?” Lunara asked, but a cough from Eklis stopped me from answering her.

  “Right, everyone is here. Let’s get this meeting underway. My king, if you would be so kind to let everyone know of the recent developments in the east,” Eklis said.

  I went over the battle against the Vulenchians in brutal detail. Eklis and Flavious already knew about the outcome of the battle, thanks to Eliandra’s reports. This was mostly for the trio’s benefit. I glossed over the fact that I had abused my power yet again, as Flavious would no doubt give me a lecture on the merits of not being so reckless. He likely already knew, though, as Eliandra liked to give the same lectures.