Knock, knock, knock!
“One moment!”
“I have your morning meal sir, all packed to go, just like you requested.” The voice of the young girl was skittery, nervous outside the door.
“Is everything allright, friend? It is a bit noisy there, are you well my cloaked traveler?”
A man’s voice, very familiar. The girl’s too, he knew he had heard them before. “Foroza?”
“Yes, yes, you remember me my strange friend! Is everything well in your room then?”
“A bit of repair will be in order I am afraid.” Kendari got dressed quickly, not feeling he had slept much at all, his muscles tight. He looked to a nightstand, the mattress, a dresser, and a small chest that were all cut and destroyed from his swords. He remembered none of it. Scabbards in place, blades sheathed, jewelry in the right places, and his other boot pulled high, Kendari opened the door.
“My, you did have a rough night of it then, my friend.” Foroza gasped a bit, as did the young girl of ten or so years. The Nadderi stood still, hood draped low over his face, yet the girl stared up at him.
“How much?” Kendari waved his hand at the wreakage of the room.
“Five gold, friend. Five should do fine.” Foroza seemed nervous, not wanting any trouble from this stranger who tore the room apart so, not with his daughter here anyway.
“Of course five, I should have known that.”
“What was that, my friend? I do not underst---“
“Nothing, nevermind.” Kendari smiled from under his cowl, and handed five gold coins to Foroza.
“Thank you, strange one. Nareene, hand him his food now.”
Kendari froze, his fingers fidgeting to reach for his blades. He looked to the girl holding up a wrapped white cloth of breads and cooked lamb sausage and cheeses. She stared with her dark eyes into his, her messy hair and skirts all as he remembered.
“What is it, friend?” Foroza put a hand on his daughter’s shoulder.
“Did you say, Nareene?”
“Yes, my daughter’s name, why?”
“Where would she get a name like that here in Kivanis? It is not a Kivanite name.” He was close, near the moment he would pull steel and kill quickly.
“True, you are well traveled then. My wife’s parents came from the islands to the far west, from the city-states of Yallah, Garoug, and Bamorah. There, it is a fairly common name among---“
“---among the priestesses and clergy of Vasentanessa.” Kendari relaxed, finishing the man’s sentence for him, blinking a moment. He accepted the breakfast.
“Indeed, she was named for her grandmother who was in fact, a high priestess in Garoug before she passed.” Foroza relaxed, as did his daughter, seeing their guest calm a bit with his strange behavior.
“He has green eyes, like the grass father. But his face is scarred or painted, he should see a priest, he looks sick.” Little Nareene spoke in whispers to her father, assuming Kendari could not hear her.
“Ssshhh! I am truly sorry friend, the mouths of children. Nareene, those that are decorated so are blessed. To insult them would be to bring bad luck to the harvest and our people. Now, apologize.” Foroza pointed his finger to little Nareene.
“I am sorry for your painted face, I don’t want bad luck please. I didn’t really mean to say that.”
“Ssshhh, ssshhh! No, not like that, ahhh, one moment please, friend.”
“I hate Kivanis.” Kendari walked past the two in discussion. Down the stairs past a group of men who sat drinking and eating. They all stopped and stared as he walked out the doors into Tillis.
“One, three, six, seven. Of course there were seven men there. I truly hate this kingdom.” Kendari spoke aloud, reminding himself he was not in his recent nightmare, yet much was the same. He turned, shielding his eyes more than the hood already did, and looked to the inn he had just left, morning haze lighting the outside.
“Night n’ Gale Inn and Taverne. Of course, of course. I am going insane, truly.” He walked north, heading out of Tillis at a brisk step.
It took only minutes, and the small town was behind him. Wet marshland glistened in the morning moisture, low fogs stood still, then a gust of breeze would scatter them to the next farmstead. The two jagged stones were still there on the east side of the road. He knew it was the road to Stillwood, yet it looked completely overgrown and unkept. Regardless, he knew that was the way to where he needed to go. Kendari stopped at a cluster of northern palm trees across from his hidden trail, sat down and opened his bundle of food. Five bites into some bread and cheese, and he heard it. People running, fast footsteps his way, then another bite of cheese. The seven men surrounded him at his little oasis, he let them and took a bite of bread, saving the lamb sausage for later. They drew daggers, sabers, scimitars, machetes, knives and all manner of blade. He looked up, measuring the men all ranging from twenty to fifty, all the Kivanite men from the inn, Foroza and his little Nareene behind them pointing fingers.
“There, him, he said he hated me and my daughter! He is a cursed one, she saw it. He must die or his curse will remain on Tillis!” Foroza was not smiling.
“I said I hated Kivanis.”
“The same! See, he walks our lands spreading evil, I felt it when he came last night, and now he leaves broken wood in my home and business, a sign of his passing and his curse. It is known, he is marked with his dark gods vengeance!” Foroza was shaken, drunk on superstitions and fear.
“Let us see your face, stranger!” One of the men with a blade demanded.
Kendari stood, the men silent, and he flicked his neck revealing his pointed ears, black hair tied back to show his swirled and marked black over his pale face. He glared at Foroza with his deep green gaze, smiling. “Satisfied?”
“He is a demon father, a monster. Make him go away.” Little Nareene pointed, tears in her eyes.
“I did go away, you followed me here. Now leave---“
The sunlight gave him away, a glimmer of turning steel caught Kendari’s eye, from behind him the men rushed with blades. A moment before two men plunged their daggers into his back, Shiver pulled loose and arced with his turning feet, disarming both weapons. The second longsword, with a small step in the turn, cut across two chests and left the men split wide open and dying on the road.
“I am warning you, leave---“
The remaining five charged him from all sides, sabers and knives brandished and leading with furious strokes. Foroza watched a seared and severed hand fly through the air holding a dagger, then a man fell holding his bleeding throat. The sound of steel ringing was so rapid he could not tell who was doing what to whom. A saber flung end over end and stuck into a tree, Foroza ducked it at the last moment. Two more men dropped to a knee, legs singed through smoldering robes, then their screams stopped as their heads tumbled from their shoulders, crimson spouts dancing in the air.
The innkeeper backed up, holding his daughter’s shoulders. The points of two longblades shot through out the back of another guest of his from this morning, then he fell dead. The last Kivanite standing turned and ran, then suddenly slowed holding his insides with one hand as they tried to loose onto the ground, he leaned against a tree as he groaned. A curved shamshir flew end over end, diving through his back and impaling him into the tree, his head dropped against the trunk staring down, dead.
Foroza looked to this cursed elf, standing over six dead men in a mess of blood and bodies. It had been but less than ten seconds, he had not breathed since it began, and still did not need his breath. Then he looked, his body shaking, to the seventh man stuck to the tree, hoping he would move. He did not. “Please, please friend, do not kill us. We, please, we misunderstood is all.”
“I am often misunderstood, that is indeed true.” Kendari walked forward, sheathing the crossblade of Cristoff after wiping it across his cloak. He smiled, lowering Shiver to do the same, then plunged it into Foroza’s chest. The popping and sizzling of cloth and flesh lasted a moment or two, then he
released the blade and sheathed it before the corpse hit the ground behind the little girl.
“Now, little Nareene, take all the gold and silver these men have in their robes. Take a dagger or two, and here, ten gold coins from me. That is double what I paid your father this morning.” Kendari smiled, wiping the blood from his face. He watched the girl, shaking, trembling, likely in shock she was. She did as she was told, and turned, blank faced to this marked swordsman. She said nothing.
“You have until the count of ten. If I see you, or any of your village when I open my eyes, I will kill everyone, including you. Do you under---“
She ran, faster than she had ever run before. Then she screamed so loud the whole of the kingdom would likely awaken. She kept running, back to Tillis, screaming all the way.
Kendari picked up his food, then threw it back to the ground as it was covered in blood. He listened for a few moments to the shrieks of the little girl named the same as the demon that haunted and owned his elven soul. He smiled to himself, “I should have said if I hear you or see you. I have no way with children, that is a fact.”
He turned to the bodies. “I hate Kivanis, and I hate Kivanites. All of you, every last bloody, dead, inbred one of you.” Kendari pulled the saber from the tree, releasing the held body that annoyed him. He walked across the road to the jagged rocks, in between them, remembering the trail to Stillwood from many centuries past. He watched the shadows of the trees, the fog, and kept his eyes open all around in the land that was haunted with old curses, much like him.
Lavress III:II
Southwind Keep, Chazzrynn
Commotion, slamming doors and pounding of stone, Lavress had heard it for hours now. The yelling of orders was nonstop, yet he could make out little from his cell. His window revealed nothing when he jumped and held on to the bars to see outside. It was midday, the sun threw no shadow to the grasses outside. He tied his hair back with his bone clasps and feathered straps. His enchanted falcata from the Hedim Anah was polished, wolves chasing each other down the guard and hilt that were one piece, forward curved edges sharp. His curved kukri dagger was in his other hand, the magicked steel felt weightless. His bow, the bow Bedesh the satyr had used, was tight across his back all he needed was the hide quiver. Tan leathers, brown tattoos of leaves and moons, his topaz eyes stared at the door to his room in Southwind, knowing any moment it would begin. Lavress Tilaniun was ready.
He waited, hearing groans from true prisoners from other rooms, as lunch was over an hour late. The door at the end of the hall opened, soldiers and knights of Southwind rushing in. Lavress could smell the blood and the sweat. They laid a young boy down, his white tabard with the feathered cross in red was stained from the bleeding wound on his head. They yelled at one another, indecipherable in the desperate moment. The injured one looked to Lavress from the stone floor, blood running now across his face as they put pressure with cloths to the wound. Lavress stared, then saw the cloth lift revealing a broken spear, the tip buried into his skull. The boy stopped moving, eyes open, not breathing. The older knight with the falcon crests on his plates and shield hung his head low, then stood and charged back out, his men following, leaving the dead soldier behind. Lavress reached his arm out from the bars, and closed the eyes of the boy that had died.
In the rush of noise from the open passage, Lavress had forgotten to ask to be released, not that anyone would have listened. His ears perked, he focused, the sound of battle rang clearer now as the door to the prison rooms in Southwind was left open a crack. He heard roars, not human at all. Then hisses, definitely trolls by the following screeches that they used to communicate. A voice, Chancellor Marcus, issuing commands to knights and archers, he heard it strong amidst the yells of horror and charging of horses into war. Another voice, it was unknown, but it had an elven accent to the Agarian commands it shouted. It was Eliah Shenndrynn, yet something was not right, the voice had differing tones.
Lavress looked across, through his bars, to the pack with the tome of High Elven Magick, then he remembered. He had to escape, there was no time, he was here in Southwind Keep with an army to wage war for the book. He reached down, over to the corpse of the young soldier, reaching in his pockets, empty. His hand felt around his neck and produced a golden feathered cross on a necklace. Good enough, forgive me Alden.
The hunter of the Hedim Anah grabbed the chain, breaking it with a quick yank. He took the small symbol off, placed it on the stone floor of his cell, and cut it in half with his kukri dagger. The gold was quality, it cut with a short snap. Reaching with half a broken gold wedge, he put his hand around near the small lock as he lay on his back, head staring at the ceiling and pressed against the bars. He turned, felt with his fingers, and listened, then clank, it unlocked. He kicked the door open with his feet overhead, continued the roll in a backwards somersault, turned as he landed upright, pack and quiver slung over his shoulder in a blink. Lavress sheathed his blades, drew the longbow, nocked an arrow, and stepped over the dead soldier into the keep.
The sight was bleak as he stepped cautiously and quickly into the spiraling stairs, up onto the stone battlements of the east tower. Men held the bridge facing the west, barely twenty of them now, with ten archers above them raining arrows down into the mass of ogre. The north wall had been breached, a crumbled section allowing more ogre access to the inner courtyard. Lavress saw Marcus Mederris there on horse, full armored regalia, commanding other knights to hold the inner yard. To the south, trolls clawed their way over the walls to the catwalks, some being cut down and shot off the castle, yet they healed and resumed their assault moments later as the men of Southwind tired. Retreating to the east through arches and fortress towers, dropping portcullis and the dead behind them, the injured and reserve soldiers tried to protect themselves and a small group of commoners.
Lavress counted quickly from his high vantage at the top battlement with but one young archer up with him. Eighty or more ogre at the walls, a dozen or so inside, forty more in the field atop brahmas. He counted fifty or more trolls, and not one dead, just some filled with arrows that barely slowed them. Eliah Shendrynn it must be, standing on a black cloud like a small personal whirlwind out to the west, over the battle in the open field some fifteen feet off the ground. The hunter looked again, seeing fifty cavalry of Southwind battling in the field, then those on the bridge, and maybe twenty here in the keep. The injured men and the dying numbered over one hundred, removed from the battle and protecting the east wall under cover. Eleven archers, counting the one beside him, held the walls as spears flew from two sides up at them, most of the bowmen dead already. It looked as if Southwind Keep would not survive another few hours.
“What..what do we do?” The soldier beside Lavress nocked another arrow.
The youth, in full chain and battle dress, could not have been more than sixteen. He stood, trembling, next to the flagpoles high over the keep, his post under the black falcons on red banners. He looked at Lavress, who looked back and then to the field of battle. He grabbed the boy by the tabard, pulling him down the stairs to the lower balcony, closer to the battle inside the keep.
“Throat, groin, or face.” Lavress took aim over the edge of the wall into the keep and fired. An ogre near Chancellor Marcus dropped, grabbing for the arrow that lodged into one side of his mouth and out the other. As he paused, Marcus lowered his shield and cleaved into its back, then again and it fell in roars of agony.
“What, what did you mean, I don’t…I..” They boy stammered as he raised his bow, taking aim next to the savage elf he knew was some sort of prisoner here. He did not care, not now.
“Throat, groin, or face. Their hides and chest muscles will stop an arrow from killing outright in the torso. The face will distract them, the groin as well for sure, and the throat will kill. Cause a fatality or an injury that will allow your men to finish them off. How many arrows do you have?” Lavress took aim again, fired again, hitting another ogre with a giant sword in the throat. It fell holdin
g its own neck, struggling on the ground, blood running down its chest like a river.
“Ten, twelve, I have twelve!” The soldier aimed.
“Then I expect twelve hits that produce twelve dead ogre. What is your name?” Lavress counted his flights, fifteen was all.
“Liogan, Liogan Andellis of House Andellis.”
“Very well Liogan Andellis, take aim. Slow, watch the motion, eye on the spot of the ogre you wish to hit. Breathe, then stop your breath, and release.”
He did, the arrow flew into an eleven foot tusked ogre marching towrd the east tower with two heads in one hand and an axe in the other. It dropped to a knee, dropping what was in its hands, and reaching for an arrow through the groin. The howl was like nothing they boy had ever heard.
“I did it, I hit him in the shankers!” He jumped up, excited for a moment, then a spear from an ogre came right for his chest.
Lavress threw his elbow into the boys’ midsection, knocking him to the left as the spear grazed his face and imbedded into the stone wall behind them. Blood ran across Liogan’s cheek and neck, he wiped feverishly, shaken but not dead.
“Watch your enemy, save your excitement. Make that your first and last scar of this battle, Liogan Andellis. Here are my arrows, make them count. Get more off of the dead when you run out.” Lavress slung his bow, pulled the boy up to his feet, and drew his blades. The boy nodded, his eyes focused and grateful without a word.
“Where are you going, elf?”
“To take as many ogre heads as I can.”
He rushed down the spiral stairs to the open courtyard. Crouched low, stepping over the dead and dying, Lavress came upon the ogre with the arrow in the groin who was just standing back up. The falcata slashed his hamstrings, the kukri reached around as it dropped down, and slit its throat open. The hunter kicked it forward, then walked across its back to face a charging ogre savage with a spear, both the ogre and its weapon twice as tall as Lavress.
The Exodus Sagas: Book III - Of Ghosts And Mountains Page 26