by J. S. Morin
There was no sign of the lost soldier when they arrived, though his armor was piled in a heap by the cottage door. The hermit assumed he had gone for more firewood and said nothing more of him, instead turning his attention to Iridan’s condition.
“He is a sorcerer,” Brannis said. “His name is Iridan, and he saved our lives this morning using magic that was beyond his power to command.” Brannis wanted to be sure the man knew of Iridan’s bravery and sacrifice, before revealing his foolishness: “The aether raged out of control and nearly destroyed him. He survived but is as you see him now. Can you do anything for him?”
“It is good that you brought him here to rest, for it is rest he needs most. I do not know how far you dragged him along behind you, but it did no good for his condition,” the young hermit said. “I can tend to him to speed his recovery, but he would do best to stay put while he convalesces. There is likely no lasting damage, if he has lived this long after the incident, but he has likely burned his body’s fluids dry and needs to recover them. He will awake again with a headache I do not envy, but he should wake again.”
“How long until he will be well enough to travel?”
“If you are fleeing from the goblins like my other charge was, be at ease. You may abide here until your sorcerer recovers, which could be by morning or in several days. I have seen goblins while walking about these woods, but they do not approach this place. Patience in matters such as this serves well.” He waved a hand vaguely about the area. “There is game to be had here, if you fancy more than herbs and plants for your food.”
“No, we cannot stay. Even if it is safe here as you suggest …” Brannis glanced somewhat suspiciously as the hermit. “… we need to get word to the Empire of the presence of such a large force in Kelvie Forest. Do what you can for Iridan, but we must leave in the morning.”
“Then at least leave your sorcerer here to recover. I admit that it will not harm him further to travel, so long as someone tends to him, but neither will he recover quickly. Think this over before making your choice.”
“All right, but I do not like to think of leaving Iridan behind, especially considering what he has just done for us.” Brannis stood to go check on the rest of his men as they made ready to partake of dinner before turning in. “By the way, I am Sir Brannis Solaran, commander of the Eighth Battalion of the Kadrin army.” He removed his gauntlet and extended his hand to the hermit.
The hermit accepted the outstretched hand with a wry smile. “Solaran, is it? A name for sorcerers, or so I was given to think. Is your young sorcerer friend descended of the Westel line, then?”
The Westels were an influential noble family with a long history of distinction among the Kadrin military. Brannis raised an eyebrow.
“You have more knowledge of the Empire that I would expect of one who lives out here.”
“Tales of children raised by wolves are no more than fanciful stories and folklore. Even those who choose to live in solitude come from somewhere. It is only the most recent portion of my life that has seen me living thus.” The hermit turned his attention back to Iridan for a moment, then, looking satisfied with his patient’s condition, stood up from where he crouched beside the still form of the sorcerer. “I believe I should find out what has become of our deserter friend. It should not be taking him this long to find his way back.”
The hermit calmly turned and walked off in search of the soldier who was lost once and appeared lost again. Without the din of his own men’s footsteps all about him, Brannis noticed that the hermit made hardly a whisper of sound when his soft shoes touched the forest floor, though he made no visible effort to quiet his footfalls. It was not until the strange young man was out of sight that Brannis realized that his offer of his name had not been returned in kind. The man’s question about Iridan’s ancestry and the comment about his own family legacy of sorcery had put him off his guard and distracted him from his first line of thinking.
Who is this peculiar man who lives in Kelvie Forest?
For whatever reason, the comment about Iridan nagged at him. He and Iridan had been close friends ever since they met as students at the Imperial Academy, which was as far back as Brannis’s recollections of childhood stretched; he could hardly remember a time in his life before they had known one another. It had always been a sore point with the sorcerer that he came from common stock. His magical talents had developed at a very young age, and he was taken in as a ward of the Academy to hone his skills in service of the Empire. Most of the students at the Academy had sorcerous bloodlines that could be traced back innumerable generations. A few talented peasants and children hailing from the occupied lands were allowed admittance but were widely scorned by the better bred students. Small and frail, as unimposing as a child can be, Iridan’s life would have been miserable if a certain gregarious prodigy had not taken him under his wing. Brannis had originally felt a sense of noblesse oblige toward protecting Iridan, a strong sense of superiority being a trait learned early as a scion of the Solaran clan. Eventually a genuine friendship had developed and then remained into their adulthood. Iridan was, in fact, the only sorcerer who was willing to join the expedition under Brannis’s command without being coerced. It was little wonder of course; Iridan owed him many favors. He still remembered the first …
* * * * * * * *
“Ouch! Hey, stop it! Help!”
A young boy lay on the grassy courtyard of the Academy grounds, pinned by one his fellow students, who was pummeling him. It was mid-winter, and the chill in the air kept all the students bundled warmly in woolen coats, hats, and mittens at the insistence of their instructors. Despite the fact he could not make out the features of either combatant from where he stood, some dozen paces distant, Brannis recognized the voice of the boy being beaten. It was that quiet boy, Iridan, the one who had taken to following him around for most of the week since he had first arrived. It seemed that he could not leave the kid alone for even a few moments without him getting bullied.
Well, hopefully the mittens help keep the punches from hurting too much.
A quick sprint covered the distance that separated Brannis from the action, and he tackled the boy who had pinned Iridan. He landed heavily atop the aggressor and knocked him clear of where Iridan was lying, pinning the bully in turn, face down in the cold grass.
“Thank you, Master Brannis,” young Iridan addressed his savior.
Iridan scrambled to his feet to get out of the way of the fighting. Brannis was the tallest boy in their class, and this was not the first occasion when he had to step in and defend his diminutive friend in the short time they had known each other.
Brannis did not answer back right away, instead struggling to roll his opponent over to pay him back for hitting Iridan. The boy was Brannis’s size, which meant he must have been an older student from one of the other classes, and he was putting up a mighty struggle to get out from under Brannis. Still, Brannis was determined and held the advantage of leverage. Eventually he managed to turn the older boy over so he could punch him in the face a few times, just as he had done to Iridan. Just as Brannis had drawn back his fist to land a wicked punch, he stopped short, stunned.
She is a girl!
There were nearly as many girls enrolled at the Imperial Academy as there were boys. Still, the last thing he expected to see when turning over the “boy” who had been beating Iridan was a pair of sparkling green eyes looking back into his own—the eyes of someone who was, quite clearly, a girl. Brannis’s moment of surprised inaction was short lived, for along with those eyes came the furrowed brow and clenched jaw of a very angry young girl who happened to be a bully.
After a brief moment of darkness, Brannis’s vision cleared, and he saw the sky framing that same face of the girl who had, as far as he could tell, just slugged him in the face. Another blow followed the first, as the girl had pinned Brannis in turn—but he was not Iridan. Heaving the girl off him, he rolled back on top of her, but he could not very well punch a girl. After another br
ief struggle, Brannis managed to pin the girl face-first on the frozen ground, and this time, instead of trying to hit her, he simply sat down on her back.
“Hey, get off me!” she yelled.
She kicked her feet and tried to punch at Brannis, but she could not put any strength behind her punches. When she tried to struggle to her feet, Brannis just pushed her back down. There may have been little difference in their height, but Brannis was clearly the heavier of the two; the girl was tall, but scrawny.
“Not until you say you are sorry to Iridan, and promise to leave him alone.”
“What? No, you cannot make me,” came the indignant reply.
“Well, I have nowhere to go until dinnertime, and I am not letting you up.”
“I will get you for this! You had best let me up.” The girl was starting to sound frantic now.
“Well, I would say that is not a very good reason to get off you. What if I do not want to be ‘got,’ huh? Maybe you just cannot hear me clearly. Lemme help you with that,” Brannis said and plucked the knit woolen hat from her head.
A long cascade of reddish-gold hair fell loosely to the ground about the girl’s head, tied with green silk ribbons that would have been quite pretty had they not been crushed up under her hat along with her tangled hair.
“Hey, give that back!”
“No.”
She remained silent after that, refusing to give in. Brannis was running short on ideas and was starting to think that maybe he should just let Iridan punch her a couple times and call it even. Then he noticed she was starting to tremble. It was a bitter day, made worse by strong breezes that seemed to cut right through clothing and chill one inside and out. Though the mop of hair that had fallen from her hat obscured her face, he could still see her ears, and they were beginning to redden from the cold. Then there was the sniffling, and that was the deal breaker.
I have gone and made her cry, he thought in dismay.
Trying to maintain his tough attitude despite feeling as low as if he had just kicked a puppy, he pressed the hat roughly back onto the girl’s head and got off of her. Still sniffling, though she did not seem to be aware she was doing so, she stood up and glared at Brannis. Hair stuck out every which way from under her hat, which had been pushed down nearly over her eyes, red rimmed and watery. Despite her pitiful state, she looked Brannis squarely in the eye.
“I do not care if you promise or not,” Brannis told her, “you are not going to beat up Iridan anymore, got it? He is my friend, and I am not scared of you.”
The girl thrust out her chin in defiance but spun about and ran off towards the girls’ dormitory before she began to cry in earnest. Brannis then turned around to check on Iridan, who had hidden behind him when the girl got up.
“Umm, Brannis … your nose is bleeding.”
* * * * * * * *
Ah, Iridan, how long have I been keeping you out of trouble.
Brannis’s thoughts returned to the present. He had always thought of Iridan as sort of a younger brother, though in truth Brannis was the younger by half a season. The girl, he had learned shortly after that incident, was Juliana Archon, the high sorcerer’s granddaughter. She was a summer ahead of Brannis and Iridan at the Academy and was now a member of the Imperial Circle.
With so many more pleasant memories of Juliana to choose from, he wondered why his wandering thoughts had chosen that one. After a brief moment of reflection, he supposed it was because he had been thinking about Iridan before he began daydreaming and Iridan had not been present for any of the best ones.
* * * * * * * *
By the time the hermit returned to camp, Brannis’s men had set a small fire and begun eating from the meager rations that had been salvaged from their campsite. Having left their broken pots behind, they had taken the liberty of searching the hermit’s small home in hope of finding something suited to the task of cooking a meal in. Finding the tiny cottage to be sparse of all but the barest of amenities—less than the barest by some estimations—and with no pots or kettles to be found, they had been forced to spit the meat on sticks and hold it over the fire. Two small bowls were all that the hermit kept to eat from, and they were of little use in cooking meat.
Following the hermit was a brown-haired man carrying an armload of firewood. He was a stranger to Brannis and his men, though Jodoul’s mouth gaped dumbly at his first glance of the man.
“Tod! You are alive!” Jodoul cried out in the man’s direction.
Forgetting all else, Jodoul let his dinner slip from his hand and fall back into the fire. He rushed over to Tod with almost childish glee. Tod smiled and dropped the firewood in self-defense as Jodoul bowled into him, crushing him in a bear hug.
“Well, for the time being, until you squeeze the last of my breath outta me,” Tod said.
Jodoul eventually released him from his grasp and helped him gather up the firewood. During the remainder of the evening, Brannis listened as Tod and Jodoul exchanged tales of their escapes. By Tod’s account, he had been lucky to escape with his life. He described the feeling that his flight had been dogged by the goblins, though he could never catch sight of them. From what Tod had been able to gather from the hermit, his course had taken him mostly to the north and east from where Sir Ferren had met his demise. When Tod had come to the river—the same one that Brannis’s men had crossed just that morning—he had decided to chance a fording in the hopes that the goblins would not be able to follow. His plan had worked, at least to his mind, for the nagging sense that he was being followed had not returned since he reached the northern bank of the river, and some hours later, he had been found by the hermit.
In his brief time in the hermit’s care, Tod had learned little of the man. The odd young man helped clean the small cuts and scrapes that he had incurred while madly scrambling to escape a foe he was sure had followed at his heels. He had then provided Tod with a bit of a meal in the form of some very tasty nuts that were to be found aplenty in the surrounding woods. After that, though, he had mostly let Tod alone to do as he pleased, disappearing into the woods on some unknown and unexplained errand for hours on end. Brannis noticed that in all Tod’s account, he never mentioned having learned the hermit’s name.
In time, the talk and tales died down as weariness of both body and heart overcame the beleaguered soldiers. The hermit took Iridan inside the cottage to shelter him from the chill breezes that were wont to grace autumn nights, and from any rain that might fall, for clouds had covered the night sky and threatened to storm. The rest of them, the hermit included—for there was no room for two to sleep within the tiny cottage—found what comfort they could on the soft forest floor. There were blankets to be had from the salvage of the battlefield, but not enough for all to sleep upon them. Brannis and Sir Lugren opted to allow the common soldiers what comforts they could find, and went without. The hermit merely sat cross-legged with his back against a tree and rested his chin on his chest, seeming unconcerned by the elements or the loss of the shelter of his cottage for the night.
It had been a long day indeed for those who slept beneath the forest canopy that night, starting at dawn with an ambush by goblins and followed by a long march through the woods carrying whatever they could manage, including an unconscious sorcerer. Within a span of several moments, Brannis heard a chorus of snores and slow, deep breathing and knew that others at least could find slumber. He was keenly aware of his own exhaustion and felt the welcoming call of sleep, felt quite keenly the need to give in and put an end to a day he had wished had never happened, but he could not. Something in him resisted the call; he was sure that the “something” that kept him awake was his conscience, for every time he closed his eyes, he saw Sir Aric’s face there, wincing in anticipation of Brannis’s killing stroke. Unable to help himself, and sure that his men were asleep, Brannis quietly wept.
A soft touch on his shoulder startled him from his reflection, and he quickly choked back his tears. The young hermit stood over him, though he had no
t heard him approach.
“Come,” the hermit whispered. “This is unseemly, and you would not wish to wake them to see it.”
With that, the hermit wove a path among the sleeping men and into the night. Rubbing his eyes to clear them, Brannis rose to follow. The sudden shock had brought his mind back to the present, and his curiosity had been roused. Having some other subject to occupy his thoughts was a welcome development.
The hermit did not look back to see if he was being followed—he seemed to know, though Brannis did his best to tread lightly and make no noise. They walked for a distance Brannis found difficult to judge in the dark, cloudy night, but they had gone well beyond sight of the cottage. That thought made Brannis wish he had carried his sword with him, but he was not in the habit of wearing his sword belt to bed, even on occasions when necessity dictated that he sleep in his armor. Massacre lay safely in its sheath, next to that very armor.
Arriving at last at a large fallen log, the hermit appeared satisfied they had reached a suitable spot, and he sat down upon it. He motioned for Brannis to join him.
“Why would a leader of men cry himself to sleep?” the hermit asked simply.
“What concern is it of yours?” Brannis answered. He had been sure that he was the only one awake, or he would have fought harder against letting his feelings overcome him.
“A fair question. I am one who sees too few people these days, and I make assumptions too readily about those whom I meet. One of my assumptions about you was wrong.”
“And just what assumption was that?” Brannis let his annoyance with the hermit’s prying push to the forefront of his thoughts to banish his guilt.
“Well, I had assumed you were a typical, cold-blooded, hotheaded knight who dreams of glorious battles and tales sung in his honor. Yet you were grieving for the men you lost today, were you not?”
“Just one, really,” Brannis admitted. “He was one of the knights I commanded. He had taken a belly wound and was going to die slowly. It … was the first time I had ever killed another human.”