Knight of Strolm

by A L Hardy

  “And might I persuade you to go and wait for me there? It has been some time since I’ve had… quality company.”

  “I am otherwise engaged for the night,” the first woman replied, “But I’m sure my friends wouldn’t mind a courtesy night in return for the services you have just given. I must ask though, what of the two men that the thugs will kill? And do you expect the three of us to share a bed with those ruffians? Whores we may be, but our standards are still higher than those disgusting creatures.”

  “You have nothing to fear my lady. They won’t kill them; the old one is a master Knight and I’m sure he’s training the other in swordplay. I just didn’t want them to have another opportunity to bother anyone.”

  *

  30 years ago

  Ilays sat on a wooden bench at the side of the sparring arena. Her hands rested on the hilts of her wooden training swords, with the points in the ground and her elbows on her knees. Despite her exhaustion, she practically bounced with excitement as Ramier spun through forms with another soldier from Romieth’s training regiment.

  They were in the fifteenth bout of their duel, and neither had yet gained the necessary advantage to claim the victory. Each wielded a gladius and buckler with masterful precision in the Lythrain style, and each had scored (and taken) some fairly painful blows; but for each blow landed, another was returned.

  The bout ended with Ramier’s gladius being slapped harmlessly aside by the other soldier’s buckler. The two warriors stepped apart, giving each other a chance to catch their breath before the next bout began. It was Ramier’s turn to begin, and he raised his gladius and buckler and began to advance while the other soldier still gasped with his fists on his knees.

  Ramier lunged forward and the other soldier whipped his gladius up with startling speed. Ramier’s attacks came fast, landing harmlessly against blade and buckler as the other soldier danced away. The ending blow was sudden. Ramier’s fifth blow swung wide, exposing his right side. The other soldier moved in quickly, slamming the edge of his buckler into Ramier’s side and bringing his blade in a downward slash as Ramier recovered.

  Sprawled on the ground, Ramier rolled to avoid the other soldier’s third and fourth attacks and barely managed to parry the other soldier’s fifth attack with his buckler. Ilays rose from her bench as the other soldier helped Ramier back to his feet.

  “Well done!” the sergeant called to the pair, “Now let’s practice a different scenario. The pair of you are the last of your patrol along the border of Talar. You were surrounded and ambushed, but you managed to get around the main body of the Trelain ambush. As you stop for the evening, exhausted from a day of running and fighting, one of the Trelir out runners has located you and attacks!

  “Ilays will act as the Trelir out runner. She will take the first attack.”

  Lifting the tips of her blades, Ilays rushed forward as she assessed the situation.

  Outnumbered, she thought, and they’re older, stronger, and more skilled; but they each just fought sixteen bouts against each other. They’re tired and sore!

  Ilays drifted to her right as she advanced, keeping the pair to her left and putting the other soldier between herself and Ramier. Using her first attack in her feint, Ilays ducked under the other soldier’s buckler and landed both of her wood scimitars against his thigh. Spinning her left blade into an assassin’s grip, Ilays kicked out to trip the other soldier and drew her left blade up along his neck.

  Facing her brother, Ilays parried and dodged away from his strikes. Taking only a hit across her left shoulder, but being drawn away from the fallen soldier; giving him time to rise.

  The soldier approached from behind, landing the two blows he needed to stay in the arena before she could roll away. Ilays leapt back to her feet, spinning to parry the other soldier’s remaining attacks.

  Ilays stepped back to gain some room before the second bout began. Using their numbers to their advantage, Ramier and the other soldier moved into flanking positions. Ilays shifted carefully, unsure which of the pair would take their turn first. They approached together, slowly advancing as Ilays raised her blades.

  They rushed together, leaving Ilays uncertain which to defend against until Ramier’s blade had bruised her right arm and ribs and the other soldier had knocked her off balance and slammed her to the ground.

  Romieth clapped slowly as he walked onto the arena and helped Ilays back onto her feet.

  “You fought well Ilays,” Romieth commented, “Ramier, take her home and get her some rest.”

  Without another word, Romieth turned and walked away.

  Ilays slid her wooden blades into her quiver and slung the fine leather case over her shoulder. Her head spun as she bent to retrieve her bow, and she had to remain still to catch her balance before she could begin walking. Ramier hadn’t waited for her, but he wasn’t far ahead; the sounds of his conversation and laughter drifted back to her as he walked alongside his sparring partner.

  She caught up at a leisurely pace before the sparring arena was out of sight, but she also knew that Ramier wasn’t headed home well before he stopped outside his favorite tavern. Only acknowledging her long enough to give her a parting hug, Ramier went in for his evening drinks with his friends.

  Ilays was all too familiar with the darkness of night in Reth. The vibrant leaves that cast blue and purple light across the forest floor in the day let none of the moonlight through at night, and Ilays had to resort to magic to see beyond the tip of her nose. She pulled her belt pouch from where it rested in her quiver and withdrew an amulet set with a small emerald. Focusing through the emerald, Ilays cast rage and envy into a ball of flame that hovered a scant inch above her hand, and tempered the heat with a thread of hope.

  It was a simple spell, one of the first that every young Lythrain learned; though tempering the heat was her own addition that she had learned to include after burning several pages from one of her father’s books. Light flooded across the forest floor as she walked, staying close to the route that she knew the evening patrols would be taking at this hour until she arrived at her home.

  Still holding the flame above her hand, Ilays cast the Key of despair and sorrow that briefly opened her father’s Lock. Once inside, she released the Key and let the Lock seal the door again. Cutting off the thread of hope, she placed the flame in the fireplace and fed it a few logs. Ilays breathed a sigh of relief as she released her Focus and her body relaxed. Walking to the cupboards, she retrieved a kettle and set it under the narrow aqueduct running to their house and opened the valve.

  While the kettle filled, Ilays removed her quiver and padded sparring leathers and hung them in her closet; donning her green robe of an arcane apprentice instead and clasping her emerald amulet around her neck. Ilays returned to the kettle and closed the valve, dumping a splash of excess water out of the tree before carrying the kettle over to the mantle and placing it over the fire.

  Focusing again only long enough to cast frustration and humiliation into the fire, increasing its temperature to help bring the water to a boil as she admired the pair of scimitars hanging above the mantle, etched with her mother’s falcons. They were crafted fully in the Fey style, though of Penshalt mithril rather than the traditional enchanted arborsteel that would have made them true Fey scimitars.

  Stepping away from her mother’s scimitars, Ilays stepped into the library and took a mid-size spell book from the Conjuration shelf before returning to the kitchen and settling in at the table. Another flame of rage and envy lit the pages, and her unique tempering with hope kept the pages safe.

  The book was an elementary study of the Backlash caused by planar travel to Summon elementals, and Ilays drank up the information with careless regard until the water was boiling over the kettle. Taking some vegetables from the cupboard, Ilays cast confidence and determination to shape the air into a series of blades. Once properly diced, Ilays dumped the vegetables into the pot and dashed the mixture with spices.

  Eagerly
returning back to her reading, Ilays became completely absorbed in a hypothesis by Danyele Roseblood suggesting a possible explanation of why basic elementals cause less Backlash than their complex counterparts; so engrossed, that she didn’t sense her father outside Focusing or notice the sounds he made as he entered their home. She was not aware of his presence, until his hand slapped down over the page she was reading.

  “Your class is studying Evocations and air flows, not Conjurations!” Romieth had delivered this stern accusation countless times in the years since her mother’s death, though despite his insistence Ilays felt little inclination to give up the practice that her mother had taught her of working ahead of her peers.

  The thought crossed her mind to throw one of the Air Blasts her class was learning at her father’s backside, but she knew aggravating her father would only lead to disaster. Her father had been on edge since her mother’s passing, and the part of him that lead the assault against the Tyrnish tribe always lingered just behind the purple in his eyes. She avoided that part of him, that part that she knew wasn’t really her father, but only his sorrow; Ramier however was not so wise. Her brother thrashed against their father’s authority, both in the home and in the barracks, and he typically stayed out late drinking before retiring to the barracks with his comrades in arms rather than returning home to deal with their father’s anger and disappointment.

  Tonight however, they were not so lucky. As her father ascended the stairs she felt someone Focus outside and cast the Key. Ilays shut the book, released the flame that had been providing light for her reading, and slid the tome back into its place on the shelf. Rushing over to the door, she intercepted a highly intoxicated Ramier and cast an Abjuration of empathy and concern to clear his intoxication, followed quickly by an Enchantment of empathy and depression with a thread of remorse to make him feel guilty for his behavior, and finally an Evocation of confidence and determination – the same that formed her Air Blades and Air Blasts – to switch her brother across the ears.

  “Father is already in a rage,” she warned, “and you come home drunk!?”

  “I… I…” Ramier stuttered, still trying to take stock of the situation after Ilays’s barrage of spells.

  Before he could complete his response, Romieth came storming into the room with eyes glazed completely purple – he was not himself.

  Ilays shrank before her father’s rage, ducking out of his sight, but Ramier had taken stock of the situation and began to cast defensive Evocations. Despite the speed with which Ramier worked his magic, he was not the wizard his father was; Romieth’s Guarding and Binding Evocations cut through Ramier’s defenses with ease, leaving the young Lythrain Guarded and pressed against the wall.

  “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” Romieth roared.

  Ramier’s eyes flared, enraged by the ease with which his father overwhelmed him.

  “I was out,” Ramier replied, “with…”

  “I DON’T CARE WHO YOU WERE WITH!” Romieth interrupted, “YOU LEFT YOUR SISTER TO FIND HER WAY HOME ALONE! AGAIN!”

  Ramier shifted slightly in his Bonds to get his finger against a decorative torch sconce in the wall.

  “Ilays is no longer a child,” Ramier argued as he began to Focus through the sconce.

  Romieth cast another Guard between Ramier and the sconce before the younger Lythrain could lash out with his newfound Focus.

  “You have been told before,” Romieth whispered, the rage still hanging in his voice like icicles during deep winter, “There is no excuse for this childish behavior. If your sister is no longer a child, then neither are you.

  “A man respects his duty to his family before wasting his night away in a drunken stupor!”

  Ramier scoffed at his father’s rebuke, “As if you have never gotten drunk! I practically raised Ilays after mother died waiting for you to pull yourself from your drunken stupor!”

  The angry hiss of water splashing on the fire brought both men’s attention from their argument as the soup boiled over the pot. Ilays dashed from her hiding place and pulled the soup from the fire. Seeing his daughter working on dinner, Romieth released his Evocations holding Ramier and the purple glaze cleared from all but his irises; it wouldn’t clear from his irises for several hours after the amount of magic that he had Focused to overwhelm and restrain Ramier.

  Ilays wiped a tear from her eye as she served the burnt soup into bowls for her father and brother.

  “I’m sorry Ilays,” her father offered, all trace of his temper gone.

  The three ate in silence, with nothing but glares between Ramier and Romieth; and Ilays excused herself after only one helping.

  In the silence after Ilays departed, Romieth finished his food and rose. Before he ascended the stairs to his loft, Romieth stopped and turned back to Ramier and calmly said, “You will clean up after the dinner that your sister made; and I will have no more of you socializing with the soldiers. No sparring with them, no sleeping in the barracks, and no drinking.”

  *

  After they found an inn with an available room for the night, Xardan told Jurod that they needed to go out into the city and get supplies. Jurod followed Xardan around Erethil as he wandered aimlessly around the town stopping at random vendors and leaving again without warning. Despite Xardan’s odd departures, Jurod did manage to get Xardan to buy him extra clothes, a bedroll, a full quiver of arrows, and a well-crafted rosewood bow. They were currently on the east gate road at a swords vendor and Jurod was admiring his handiwork. The blades were hardly comparable to Xardan’s sword, which was crafted of Faelhart mithril and soft black leather with a matching, ornate sword belt. His sword even had a large black diamond in the cross guard. Xardan explained that it was traditional for a Knight’s sword to have a gemstone that could be used as a Foci, even though the Knights couldn’t use it.

  The sword Jurod was examining now was longer than he would have liked and was crafted of poor quality iron that he knew wouldn’t last long against a fine steel blade; but it was the nicest at the booth.

  Jurod asked the hawker, “How much for this one?”

  “One drop, fifty beads.” The hawker replied.

  “Cheap for a blade,” Xardan commented halfheartedly, looking distractedly down a side avenue, “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s an older blade,” the hawker replied, “Not of local make. And iron blades require a lot of repair.”

  Xardan winced at the mention of the iron, “I suppose it will do for now.”

  As Xardan turned back to the merchant and began haggling over the cost, Jurod strapped his sword onto his back and looked down the alley hoping to see what Xardan had been staring at so intently. Like most situations, he had to wonder what was going on in Xardan’s head, since all he saw was a group of cloaked figures talking to some thugs. Deciding that they were not of interest, Jurod turned and looked down the east gate road. Dozens of people were on the roads going about their daily business. Everyone was moving or talking with the merchants, with the exception of one man. He was a short man with a dark cloak wrapped around his small frame; the cowl of his hood covered any features of his face. What most caught Jurod’s attention however, was that while the entire city bustled around him, the man simply stood leaning against a building across the road.

  Just as Jurod was about to point the odd man out to Xardan, a loud roar echoed from out of the avenue Xardan had been watching. The odd man straightened immediately and began dashing toward Jurod. Turning back toward the avenue, Jurod saw two of the thugs had fallen, though he couldn’t see their attacker; the odd man from the east gate road was almost upon him. Before he could react, a firm grip took his upper arm and pulled him away from the cloaked man.

  “Do you remember how to get back to the inn we chose earlier today?” Xardan asked.

  Jurod nodded that he did as he heard several voices from the same alleyway conversing.

  “Good,” Xardan continued, “Go there now and lock yourself in the room. Do not open the doo
r under any conditions, understand?”

  Jurod nodded again and Xardan pushed him out of the way. He stumbled from the push and ran down the street, the sound of Xardan’s sword sliding from its scabbard echoed behind him.

  The Charging Knight was a small inn right on the north gate road. The common room was full of patrons that ignored Jurod as he quickly moved to the stairs and up to his room on the second floor. After sliding the bolt into place, Jurod unloaded himself of the various straps and belts he had acquired to hold his new equipment as well as the belt knives that Lewk had given him all those years ago, stripped to his small clothes, and laid on the bed farthest from the door. It was an uncomfortable bed in an overly cramped room and Jurod found he was unable to sleep. To ward off boredom, Jurod untied his bedroll and rolled it onto his bed. The padded mat was made of woven straw and the blanket in it was thin and had multiple holes worn through it. Taking the blanket off his bedroll, he replaced it with the thicker, warmer blanket from the bed. He folded his two extra shirts and his extra pair of trousers and placed them on the bedroll before rolling and tying it again.

  After placing his bedroll back with his belongings, boredom overtook him again. Music and laughter drifted up to his room from below, though Jurod didn’t understand any of what was said. It took him by surprise when a rough voice in the common room silenced every other sound he could hear.

  “WHERE IS THE HALF-BLOOD?” the voice barked.

  “What half-blood Algeb?” another patron replied, “There hasn’t been a half-breed in Erethil since Faelhart’s foolhardy war began.”

  “There’s one here tonight,” the voice named Algeb growled, “And he was followed to this inn. I am here for his head.”

  Laughter filled the common room before a third voice boomed over it, “ENOUGH!”

  The inn’s patron spoke to the new voice, “You’re siding with this lunatic, Eagan!?”

  “Yes I am.” The voice named Eagan stated, “And you will either tell us where the half-blood went, or you won’t live to regret protecting him.”