by Justin Sloan
“What’s this you bring us, boy?” one of the women asked, pulling back on an arrow. “A trial, you say? Kill ‘em all, says I.”
Alastar held a hand up to Rhona, like she needed to be told to hold off on using her magic. Although if she were being honest with herself, she felt the shadows calling to her. She felt at one with them, as if she could become a shadow herself and kill every one of these people.
“They strike me as innocent, actually,” the boy offered. “But it’s not purely up to me.”
One of the men approached the edge of the roof, lowered himself to a ledge below, and jumped the rest of the way down.
He was tall, with white hair and a beard that hadn’t been cut in years by the look of it. In his hand was a crossbow, and he had a war hammer strapped to his back.
“Best to kill them, Lars,” the woman urged, returning the arrow to its quiver and lowering herself down too. Now that Rhona could see her, the woman looked to be about the same age as the man, her skin like leather, her white hair disheveled. Two more took their places above, and a third joined them at ground level, this one a boy who couldn’t have been older than sixteen. He wore long robes and carried a staff way too long for him; nearly eight feet, in fact.
“A Storm Raider?” Rhona asked, more to herself than anyone else.
The boy with the staff grunted. “Storm Caller, actually. As much as your people like to think there’re Storm Raiders, it isn’t true.”
“Explain that to the men and women your kind have slaughtered over the years,” Estair spat, hands on her swords, teeth gritted as she glared.
The older woman stepped forward, arrow nocked in an instant, but the old man, Lars, held up a hand.
“No need for that,” he said. “Not yet, anyway.”
“The people you’re referring to,” the Storm Caller continued, rolling his eyes, “are the Barskall. They come from the lands to our west.”
“They’re just as much a terror to our lands as they are to yours,” Lars added, nodding. “But the focus here is what you’re doing in our home.”
“This is your home?” Tina asked, voice full of more pity than curiosity.
“As the paladins of your land have shaped it, yes,” Lars replied.
“But there’s nothing stopping us from slitting your throats and getting out of here,” the woman snarled. “Assuming we make it past those paladins.”
“And find their boat, Kim,” Lars cautioned. “And let’s not forget about the guard.”
“We didn’t leave a guard,” Alastar told them, stepping forward bravely. He stood tall even when confronted by armed hostiles. “And you’re welcome on our boat, but first you must help us.”
Lars looked at him skeptically, then glanced at all the swords. “Why haven’t you attacked us? Why haven’t you tried to kill us? I don’t think you’re intimidated, even though we have the upper hand. So what is it?”
“We’re not here to kill anyone,” Alastar said. “We came for one reason, and that’s the Sword of Light.”
At this, Lars couldn’t help but laugh.
“Is that all?” he asked, then turned to address his companions. “All they want is the sword, and they’ll be on their way.”
“You know where it is, then?”
Lars spun on him, expression now dead serious. “Of course I know where it is, but not one of you paladins has ever actually given a damn about the sword. Oh, we hear it shouted as your friends slaughter the people of Sair Talem. ‘In the name of the Sword of Light,’ or ‘By the Order of Rodrick,’ they call out, then run them all through, men, women, and children.”
“What…what are you saying?” Stone asked, bewildered.
Lars scratched his nose, then clenched his hand into a fist. “Paladins have been coming here for years and talking about their holy quest, but they all have one mission—to slaughter anyone they find alive on Sair Talem. That’s why they leave the remnant alive, so that they too can help kill off anyone who might still roam these lands.”
“You’re a madman!” Alastar exclaimed. “You have no idea what you speak of.”
“Oh?” Lars gestured out at ruins surrounding them, then pointed toward the opening they had come from. “The paladins are just on the other side of those ruins, are they not? Go find out for yourself. If you return, we can finish your trial.”
Rhona cut in with a simple, “Why?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why did they do as you say? Assuming we believe you…why?”
Kim was the one who spoke now. “They first came some time ago, from what we hear. This one, Crete,” she motioned to the boy who had brought Rhona and her companions to the courtyard, “his grandparents and others went into hiding when Rodrick the Slayer arrived. First he pretended to be fighting for us, taking care of the crazies in the days of madness, but then he turned on us. Said Sair Talem was cursed, that our land had brought what he called the Age of Madness, and that all people of Sair Talem must die for the greater good.”
“Fuck you, that didn’t happen!” Stone pulled his sword out and pointed it at her.
“Fuck you,” Lars spat, drawing his own sword now and squaring off against him. “We came much later, when the boy’s family was still alive. We sought help from a group of paladins, paladins from Roneland. They told us that we were to be killed for the greater good in the name of Saint Rodrick. So that the Age of Madness should never return.”
Stone stood there, sword shaking in his hand. Rhona looked at Alastar, whose hand was on his sword hilt, but even as she watched, he collapsed to his knees. She rushed to his side, wrapped her arm around him, and helped him to stand. She could feel him convulsing, and heard a muffled sob.
“It can’t be true,” Alastar finally managed.
“Tell that to my parents and sister,” Crete shot back. “You’ll find them buried in the tombs, along with the thousands of others slaughtered over the years.”
“More than that, by my count,” Kim added.
Rhona breathed deeply, trying to process this. “If this is true, it means the High Paladin, all of them…”
Alastar looked at her, finally, and nodded. She couldn’t believe he had already accepted it as fact.
“It’s just a story,” she said, trying to deny it even though in her heart she knew it must be true. “They… They’re making it up.”
“A month ago, hell, a week ago, aye,” Alastar said, clasping her shoulder, now playing the stronger role, “you can be sure I would have thought the same. But now I’m less than certain.”
“Could there be any truth to it?” Tina asked. She earned glares from the strangers, but continued, “Is it possible the Age of Madness came about because of a curse on Sair Talem?”
Lars shook his head. “We’re from Kaldfell, where we saw the madness too. There were stories, one from a traveler from Arcadia who lived among us. There’s no doubt the Age of Madness, as you call it, had a far reach. The chances of it starting from Sair Talem are slim, and the chance of it being something as dubious as a curse, even slimmer.”
Tina ran her hands through her hair, glancing over at Stone with doubt. “And you were never part of it?”
“Me? By the Saint, no!” He stepped back and held his hand to his mouth, then spat.
Rhona guessed why. If this was truly what their “saint” had done, any form of worship or reverence would no longer be part of their lives. If they accepted it, that is, and right now she didn’t see how anyone could ignore what these people were telling them.
“So, what now?” Alastar asked. “Where does this leave us?”
“We take you to the Sword of Light, then you get us out of here.”
Everyone in her group shared a look, and she was wondering the same thing she was certain they all were. If this was the truth, what good would the Sword of Light do them?
“We came here for it, we get it,” Rhona stated. “Everything we know might be a lie, but the fact remains that we have to protect the people aga
inst the sorcerers, and if we have a chance of uniting the lands, even temporarily under a false banner, we must take it.”
“Agreed,” Alastar finally said, and squeezed her shoulder. He turned to their new acquaintances. “There will be no trial, and, until we have a chance to present the sword to the High Paladin and confront him, we will take what you have said as fact. It is a sad day for me and my friend, but we had already left the Order of Rodrick before coming here, so the cut is not as deep as it would have been.”
“It still hurts like a snake biting your arsehole, though.” Stone sheathed his sword.
Alastar nodded, but said no more. Rhona focused on going forward—what this meant for their return to Roneland and what came next—but as Lars began to speak, she realized that all came later. For now, they needed to focus on one step at a time.
The rest of Lars’s group joined them at that point, and he turned to address them all.
“There’s a party of paladins out there, so our first priority is avoiding them.”
“And a horde of remnant to the west,” Estair reminded them.
He gave her a nod of acknowledgment. “Since we head north into the Forgotten Tombs to obtain the sword, we are in luck. Come, we must not waste time or risk being found.”
They mumbled agreement, and soon the party was on their way to recover the sword.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kia took a step into the circle around the large fire, eyes searching for her father. Men and women in plaid passed around mugs of ale, cheeks rosy from its effects. Their laughter was boisterous, and several were dancing on the other side of the fire.
“Looks like we should’ve come to this village first,” Volney said with a chuckle.
“Then I would’ve had to rescue you from a ditch,” Larick replied with a roll of his eyes, “instead of these two rescuing us from a cell.”
“Still might have to!”
Ignoring them, Kia saw some idiot showing off fighting moves against the air, teetering dangerously close to the fire. She was turning away in disgust, never one for finding drinking very humorous, when a sinking feeling hit her gut as she noticed that the man wore the same green plaid as her father. Even before looking more closely to confirm it, she knew it was him.
“You three! Hold up here,” she directed, already walking over to her dad. “Or mingle. Whatever.”
“Where’re you going?” Lannis asked.
“To play babysitter…again,” she replied, not even turning to answer. She didn’t want him to see the way her eyes were watering. She had thought those days were over—her father, lost in grief over her mother, burying his sorrows in the cup.
But when she drew close, she was surprised to see that where normally there would be tears of sorrow, instead there were tears of joy. He was laughing! She took a step back, caught off guard, and watched as he put an arm around the guy next to him.
“I’m telling you, she’s the world and the stars, this woman,” Donnon gushed, and Kia realized he must’ve been talking about Rhona. She smiled, thinking it was sweet.
“We comparing stories?” the man pressed against Donnon asked. “I’ll tell you about the last time I went south, when this one lass—”
“Dad,” Kia quickly spluttered, not wanting to hear more than she had to. Having lived in the clans most of her life, she had heard enough drunken boasting to know she didn’t want to hear any more of those stories. Not that she wasn’t curious. It was more that she had always hated how women were objectified in the men’s stories and how men were belittled in the women’s stories. If drunken bragging was any indication of how relationships went, she was glad she was too young to even be considering boys in that way yet.
Donnon turned to her, blurry eyes taking a moment to process that it was indeed his daughter, and he instantly seemed to sober up. A bit, anyway.
“Where’d you get off to?” he asked, leaving the man and half-stumbling over. He walked as straight as he could, in that way he always did when trying to make an effort to show he wasn’t drunk.
“Exploring,” she replied.
He nodded and put an arm around her, then noticed Lannis and the other two standing there.
For a moment he stared at the mystics, then asked, “Do I know you?”
“We’re disguised,” Larick responded, waving his hand so that he appeared as himself for a second. “Ran into trouble in the next village over.”
Donnon’s jaw dropped. “That was amazing.”
Larick, back in generic-clansman form, shrugged.
A noticeable silence came over the crowd just then. Kia looked past her father to see a group of five men and women arriving, boiled leather armor over their plaids, expressions grim.
“What’s the meaning of this?” the leader demanded, stepping forward. She was a short woman, but her arms were well defined and muscular in the way Kia could see herself becoming later in life. She instantly liked her, in spite of the frown.
“You’re just in time, Mae,” a man replied, an older gentleman Kia guessed was a village elder or the mayor or something. “We’ve agreed to a pact, the clans to stand united in the face of the great evils coming to Roneland.”
Mae licked her lips and weighed her words, then turned to stare straight at Donnon. “Strange, considering the fact that I lead our army. Without my approval, that won’t happen.”
The old man looked flustered and opened his mouth to argue, then threw his mug into the fire before stomping away.
Kia saw her father pale, but she wasn’t about to let this all fall apart.
Ignoring the look of caution from him, she stepped forward and addressed the woman. “If it doesn’t happen, you won’t have an army left to lead. Not when the sorcerers return and plow through here.”
Mae scoffed. “Who is this girl?”
“That would be my daughter,” Donnon told her, seemingly gaining courage from Kia’s action. “And she’s right. A single clan doesn’t stand a chance, not if we’re right about what’s coming.”
Murmurs of agreement rose from the crowd, but they stopped as soon as Mae lifted a hand to point at Donnon.
“The clans have survived this long just fine.”
“This long?” he asked. “We were one united land before the Age of Madness. The only reason we separated into clans was because our parents were all running for their lives, searching for dark corners in which we could stay alive until it was all over. Then magic happened, and we were segregated even further, going to war with each other, and why? Because we have different powers? Because, as some of us believe, different spirits choose us? Well, there’s a lot of misunderstanding about that, and much for every one of us to learn.”
“And a lot of alcohol on your breath, I’d wager,” she replied, earning a laugh from her companions.
“And yet, he seems to be in a clearer state of mind than you,” Kia snarled, hands on her hips as she came to her father’s defense. “Do you have any idea what we’ve seen?”
“We’ve been out there fighting the remnant and the paladins,” Mae replied, voice rising in anger. “Don’t presume to tell me—”
“This is so much larger than remnant and paladins,” Donnon interrupted, holding out a hand to stop Kia, who was about to go off on this lady in spite of her initial respect. “There are those outside of these village boundaries who have been forming a force of sorcerers and partnering with who-knows-who else, with the mission of overthrowing Roneland, Gulanri, and more.”
Mae considered him a moment, weighing his words and likely his drunkenness. Finally she nodded, face stern.
“Sorcerers, you say?”
“Aye. We know the remnant are more worked up than they’ve been in years and the paladins have upped their declarations of war, but we’ve seen a glimpse of what’s to come. If we don’t unite the clans, it won’t end well for any of us.”
In three quick strides, Mae stood in front of him and grabbed his arm. “You and your daughter,” she gave Kia a b
rief smile, “make quite the pair.”
Then she leaned in, still clutching his arm, and seemed to think Kia couldn’t hear when she said, “But for your daughter’s sake, control yourself in front of her. No child should have to see their parent this sloshed.”
She leaned back and released him, but Kia was surprised to see red marks where the woman had been clutching him.
He gave Kia a sheepish smile and nodded. “Excuse me.”
“Where’s he going?” Lannis asked, and she realized he had walked up beside her.
“I think to sober himself up,” she replied. “Often that means dipping his head in a bucket of water, or—”
She was interrupted by the sound of splashing, and a moment later her father appeared, walking past with his hair now soaked and hanging around his face like a wet dog.
He gave her a smile. “Just a sec, dear. Just…give me a moment.”
“Is he often like this?” Mae asked, turning to Kia now.
She shook her head. “He’s an honorable man. Just since the loss of my mother…”
Mae nodded, a look of understanding in her eyes. “Take care of him. We can’t have this alliance falling to spirits. The bad kind, I mean. Alcohol.”
Kia chuckled and nodded. Before Mae could walk away, Kia said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know how to talk to him about stuff like this. Drinking, I mean. Thank you for that.”
“We ladies have to watch out for each other.” Mae winked. “Now, since you lot are going to need our help convincing the other clans nearby, why don’t you and your friends there join us inside for a bite to eat, so we can get to know each other.”
“Yes, we’d…” She turned around, wondering how to approach the issue about Larick and Volney.
“Don’t worry, the mystics too.”
“What? How?”
Mae smiled, beckoning them over as she led Kia to the door of one of the houses. “We stopped by the next village on the way and heard. Don’t worry, they’re pricks anyway. Your secret’s safe with me.”