by Brian Beam
After pulling my cloak hood up again, I nodded thanks to the stable boy and set Telis off at a brisk pace. I wanted to just break him into a gallop, but that could draw unwanted attention from Brennor and company if they were still around.
I trotted Telis out to the main road and was two blocks from the inn before I finally let out a pent up breath that I hadn’t even realized I was holding. That was when it hit me. Literally.
I didn’t even see the thick wooden staff until after it had already slammed into my chest and knocked me off the saddle and onto my ass on the cobblestones. The whole falling on my ass thing was starting to become a really bad habit.
I know I said that my morals kept me from fighting and hurting people unless necessary, but I consider being physically attacked with a weapon a case of necessity.
I jumped to my feet and drew my sword with my right hand just in time to catch the attacker’s staff against my blade with a grunt. Dropping my bag, a disgruntled growl sounding within, I unclasped my cloak and let it drop beside it. I didn’t recognize the man with the staff, but I somewhat recognized three others from the previous night’s card game as they poured out of the alley that the sneaky staff-man had jumped me from.
I say somewhat recognized because their faces were swollen black-and-blue versions of what I remembered. Their clothes were the same from the night before except for the addition of some crusty blood stains around their collars. Galius must have had his former lackeys take care of them while I was taking my punch-induced nap at the tavern. The man twirling his staff back towards my face was unscathed. He must have not been at the tavern or was just really lucky.
I painfully blocked his two-handed swing with my right forearm and used my free hand to help make his face match those of his buddies. The man dropped his staff and staggered back, holding his nose. His three companions quickly filled the opening and came at me all at once.
The townspeople walking about the street cleared the area around the fight. Some stood cheering at the edges of an invisible circle, some fled, and some were surely reporting us to the city guard.
Two of the men appeared to be unarmed, coming at me with raised fists. The third man—the curly haired, tanned man with the tendency of punching support beams—had what looked to be a short- handled axe with a thick, dull looking blade. I guess I had caused them enough trouble to attempt murder in broad daylight.
I twirled away from a punch from the first man and positioned my sword under the axe blade of the third. With an upward swing, I yanked the axe from his hand. The weapon clattered loudly on the cobblestoned street. Chasus had always emphasized the importance of a firm grip on your weapon. The brute with the axe evidently didn’t understand that concept.
Being the only armed man in the fight didn’t slow the attack against me. The second man took the opening I created while taking on the other two and grabbed my sword arm. He proceeded to give me a hook to my left flank. I followed with a good old fashioned head butt. Sure, it hurt me, but with his face in much worse condition than mine, it hurt him much more. Plus, it dropped his guard long enough for me to wrench my arm away and bring my pommel down onto his head, dropping him to the ground and out of the fight.
The man I had dodged at first landed a successful punch behind me to my lower back. I guess an honorable fight was out of the question. The punch caught me off guard, causing me to arch my back and preventing me from keeping track of the the de-axed man who kicked my sword out of my hand. Apparently he wasn’t the one who didn’t understand the concept of a firm grip. How a man of his size could dexterously pull off a move like that was almost as shocking as a magic talking wizard cat.
I maladroitly regained my footing—in a fashion that would have embarrassed my uncle—and dropped under another punch from the back-punching coward. A quick punch to his inner thigh disabled his balance for the second I needed to spin my leg around and sweep his feet out from under him.
Dodging a kick aimed for my face from the de-axed brute, I rolled towards my sword and leapt to my feet with my sword back in hand. With a cat’s hiss as my only warning, I spun to deflect a staff swing with an angling of my shortsword. I retreated back against a white plastered, half-timbered house into a defensive position Chasus called The Observer. I held my sword high at a downward angle while using my forward and peripheral vision to assess the situation. I took in the bloody-nosed staff-man to my forward right and the black-and-blue-faced man who had regained his axe to my forward left as they cautiously stepped towards me.
A quick flash of eye contact between them with a slight tensing of their grips on their weapons was all the warning I needed to be ready for their upcoming synchronized attack. As they screamed their battle charge and I tightened my defensive posture, something zipped past my face and hit the house behind me.
The attack was upon me before I could investigate what had shot past me. The axe started dropping before the staff was swung, so I leaned towards the house letting the axe drop into the empty air beside me and swung my left elbow into the man’s throat. He dropped to the ground as I brought my left hand back around and grabbed the staff between the other attacker’s hands and brought my sword hand crashing into his face. If I hadn’t broken his nose with my first punch earlier, the audible crunch said this punch did the trick.
Another shape zipped past my side under my arm. Looking ahead of me, I saw Brennor across the street, his too-tight vest straining against his tensed body as he started to reload a crossbow. Turing to the house behind me, I saw two crossbow bolts embedded into wooden beams. Thank the gods that Brennor was a bad shot.
“Nice to see you, crack-shot,” I called to the hairy lout with dried blood caked on his beard. Before I could start towards Brennor, I noticed that axe-man, staff-man, and back-puncher were all back on their feet. I was getting nowhere. I was just wishing that Max would intervene when Telis came galloping towards me, covered in flames.
Stopping just short of where I stood, Telis reared up on his hind legs and snorted out bursts of flame from his nostrils, his eyes glowing as red as the flames. Axe, staff and crossbow were dropped as terror struck the four men.
“Rizear’s bloody steed,” I heard someone gasp as the brutes and all of the spectators cleared the area. Rizear is the god of death and supposed to be the balance to Loranis, the god of creation. Legends of the gods describe Rizear’s fiery steed. Telis was the spitting image of the horse from those stories.
With a grin, I sheathed my sword. Grabbing my cloak and shoulder bag, I quickly mounted Telis without fear of the fire; I recognized the fire for the illusion it was. Max can be very clever with his magic.
“Thanks, Max,” I told him as I set Telis to a gallop towards Geeron’s western city gate, hoping to outrun any meeting with the city guard. Before Max could respond, the illusion of flames disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. When Max casts complex spells such as illusions, they never last long.
“As always, you owe me,” he replied, his voice muffled from inside the bag. “Take the road out of the city towards the forest. Now let me sleep.”
I smiled. Even smaller spells can tucker Max out even though the only energy he uses is in directing spells, not creating them. The illusion spell was quite a bit more complex than many of Max’s typical spells, though. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Max had passed out immediately after casting it. Sadly, I could only let him sleep as far as the forest.
As I galloped through the street, my thoughts went to the gem. I figured that once I found and returned the gem, I could get back on track to Estus, the capital of Urdale, where perhaps my birth parents ruled.
Considering that I had almost been killed and was in danger of becoming Galius’ slave, I started to question my use of a Contract to finance my quest. The whole having my life in danger thing was really hampering my progress.
Unfortunately, Brennor’s attack wasn’t the last attempt on my life that day.
Chapter 4
A Night In R
uins
Thankfully, news of an armed fight and a flaming horse hadn’t made it to Geeron’s western gate. I still received concerned looks from the guards posted at the gate as I raced through, but no one pursued me as I followed the dusty dirt road out of town. After I had set a good distance between the city and myself, I slowed Telis back to a trot to conserve his energy and give Max a little time to sleep.
Open green fields expanded for miles around me. The few trees in the fields as well as the forest on the horizon were painted in the yellows, reds, and browns of the season. Sometimes you have to sit back and admire the beauty of the world around you. You never know when five guys might try to kill you. Well, that’s what life had taught me recently anyway.
Lifting the flap from my shoulder bag revealed Max sleeping peacefully on my spare blanket. He must have really pushed himself to be able to sleep through the jostling of our escape. I wished I could have let him sleep through the day, but he’d be lucky to get thirty minutes before we made it to the forest ahead of us.
I gently closed the flap and leaned to the side to rifle through the saddlebags. Telis’ feed bag was filled to the brim with oats. Vesteir bless that greasy, wide-nosed stable boy. The second bag I checked had the stick Max had mentioned in it.
Now, when you think of someone whittling a stick, you think of it being carved bare of bark to a sharpened point of some sort. Not this thing. On a stick no bigger than my finger, the Kolarin had carved a beautiful pattern of swirls and waves on the outer third of either side with a panorama of a sunset over mountains in the middle, the bark whittled to various thicknesses to make the shading realistic. Granted, I had to squint to make out the scene, but it was flawless. The Kolarin had probably been making it as they walked and discarded it as nothing more than something that helped them pass the time. It made me wonder if the Kolari could truly comprehend the value of their work.
I placed the stick back into the saddlebag, mentally noting that when I made it back to Huran, I would give it to Mathual. I could already picture his smile and doing so made me smile. My mood sank a little after a moment, though. Being on your own for seven years doesn’t make you invulnerable to homesickness. Mathual and Harriet were my parents and I intended to see them again.
After ten minutes or so of riding, passing only the occasional wagon or horse rider on their way to Geeron, the road veered away from the forest, but I continued forward—off the beaten path as they say. Another fifteen minutes brought me to the edge of a dense, twisted section of the forest I had seen. The earthy and floral aromas of the forest grew stronger as I entered the wood. That smell always takes me back to playing in the nearby woods as a child back at the Karell farm.
Max took a little coaxing to open his eyes, but finally awoke and climbed out onto my lap, stretching. “If sleep is the cousin of death,” he yawned, “I won’t be dying anytime soon.”
“Wouldn’t matter with your nine lives,” I responded, scratching his head behind his ears.
Max arched his neck into my scratching and started to purr. “Nine lives? I am pretty sure that being around you all the time, if I only had nine, I’d be in trouble.”
That brought out a little chuckle from me and helped me to take my mind off of home. “Max, thanks again. I wouldn’t have made it out of that mess without you.”
I took Max’s return grunt as a “you’re welcome” and brought Telis to a halt as Max jumped down to the forest floor. After some sniffing, he jumped and clawed his way back up the saddle to my lap. “That way,” he announced, pointing with his black nose in a northwesterly direction.
Taking down my cloak hood, I set off into the forest. The hills and gnarled underbrush of the wood kept me limited to a slower pace, but any time the land flattened out, I’d set Telis to a canter for a short distance. Slow or fast, every step Telis took was painful for me. I was in pretty rough shape. Heck, I’d had it from Brennor’s gang twice and Galius’ thugs once in just over a day.
Trees as big around as tool sheds rising hundreds of feet into the air and topped with fall-colored leaves gave quite an age to the forest. Plants, flowers, twigs, moss-covered rocks, and leaves covered the forest floor, shadowed by the dense canopy of the trees. I couldn’t imagine sunlight being able to penetrate the treetops when it wasn’t fall or winter. The sounds of running water, bird calls and insects echoed through the air, threatening to drown out the crunching of leaves and twigs under Telis’ hooves
“When’s lunch?” Max blurted out suddenly after hours of making our way through the forest, startling me. Though hard to tell under the thick canopy, it had to be past noon. I grabbed a salted meat strip and set it in front of Max.
“I light a Malki-blooded horse on fire and I get dried meat. You better be up for some real food tonight. I will catch us a rabbit or something.” Max’s complaints trailed off as he gripped the meat strip between his front paws and began chewing on it. I grabbed only an apple and a pinch of bread for myself. Almost getting killed had put a damper on my appetite.
Once finished, Max seemed a little more invigorated and stood on his haunches on the saddle in front of me, swaying uneasily as Telis continued forward. “So,” he began looking back at me, “what is the plan for this Kolarin? What kind of mess are you going to get into with them that I will have to pull you out of?”
“Your confidence in me warms my heart,” I replied sarcastically. At least he had his sense of humor back. Sometimes Max could remain moody for much longer after magic casting and so little sleep. Moody even for a cat. What he had said, however, may have sounded grumpy, but I recognized it for the playful banter it was.
As I thought about it, though, I realized that Max and I never had many normal conversations unless it had to do with whatever our current job was. As close as we are, Max still keeps a certain amount of distance. The way he held onto his past felt like an insurmountable wall between us. While it may seem weird to actually care about that, I have always viewed him as family.
“So, do you want to maybe tell me about what you did before you dedicated your life to saving my tail?” It couldn’t hurt to fish a little, even when the pond was drying up.
“Yes, let me tell you all about it,” he began. “I was the best mouser South of the Glacial Mountains,” I rolled my eyes as he droned on sarcastically in his raspy voice.
“You little furball,” I teased, mussing the fur on his head. “The day I believe you ate a mouse is the day I realize I’m really a rooster.”
“You never know,” he shot back. “Keep going this direction. I don’t smell or see any indication of change in the Kolarin’s path.” Curling up in a ball, Max promptly fell back asleep.
With only the sounds of the forest and the crunching of twigs and leaves to keep me company, I pressed onward. I kept Telis at as fast a pace as I could manage to narrow the gap between the Kolarin and ourselves without risking injuring him by tripping over a root, rock, or dip in the terrain.
With the near-silence, I was able to lose myself in thought. Again, I found myself going back to my childhood when Max had filled my head with thoughts of adventure. Even with my free life on the line and almost being killed earlier in the day, I was finding that I was somehow enjoying myself. With the exception of fighting monsters straight out of legend, I was doing just about everything Max described adventures to be—seeing the world, fighting for the cause of good, and making money doing it. Sure, he also talked of fame, but even before I left home, I matured enough to realize that that was something only for the heroes of legend. In the present world, there is no need for heroes. Amirand is mostly at peace with no need for heroes such as Quilock, the legendary wizard warrior who supposedly accomplished banishing the dragon race to the Snowy Waste.
Before I knew it, the forest had darkened further beneath its near impenetrable canopy, indicating early evening. It would be a good time to stop to rest Telis and get some food. Max was still sleeping soundly, but I knew he wouldn’t mind if I woke him up again if
food were involved. I was going to have to stop to get my lantern out and lit if we were to continue anyway.
Pressing on to find a good place to stop, I found myself approaching a crumbled stone wall covered in vines and moss. “Where are we?” I asked to myself as we passed the first set of walls into a wide area with dozens of crumbled heaps of stone and mud that looked to be the ruins of an old town.
My voice roused Max who stood up and arched his back in a stretch and surveyed the area around us groggily. “What did you say? Something about food?”
I brought Telis to a halt with a pull on the reins. “I was just wondering what this place was.”
Max continued to examine the landscape. “You know, I recall an old map I saw years ago in a library that had Geeron located in a forest. I bet these are the remains of where Geeron was originally built. ‘Old Geeron,’ if you will. I bet the old town was abandoned to reestablish it on a more practical trade route from the Dyanac Ocean.”
As I said before, my cat never ceases to amaze me. “How do you remember such a small detail from a map from years ago?”
“Well, I was trained from an early age to…” Max trailed off as he realized he was about to reveal something about his past.
“Trained to…” I prompted, hoping he’d continue.
Max looked back at me with an irritated glare. “Because I am smarter than you, okay? Now what did you say about food again?”
“I didn’t say anything about food,” I replied, confused.
“Exactly. And that is the problem,” he stated matter-of-factly as he jumped down from Telis onto the forest floor. “The scent of the Kolarin’s tracks is much stronger now. We have gained a lot of ground. I am going to go get us a rabbit.” With that, he was off. Cats can be so inscrutable sometimes.