“Everyone but you can see it, my friend. Do you have any feelings for her other than as your Captain?”
The darkness of the night hid Tornin’s blush, but could not conceal the stammer in his voice. “I find her presence fairly thrilling as well,” he admitted.
“That is good,” Lorace said reaching up to clasp the guardsman’s shoulder in the same gesture that Tornin was fond of using. “Think about how thrilling her presence is while we are on our journey. I daresay when you return you will have a much better idea of just what your feelings are for the good Captain.”
“I shall, friend Lorace.”
“Now, what is this guardsman’s tourney that you are champion of?” Lorace asked, pressing Tornin for details he had not shared freely.
“It is a melee held during the Moon of the Child, when the grasses bloom after the winter rains have fled. There is a tournament of one-on-one bouts with sword that I won, as well as the grand melee at the close of the tourney.”
“Is that due to the incredible speed I saw you use when you defended me from the wolves?”
Tornin stopped again. “Lorace, I used my gift because your life was in danger, I would not so unfairly use it in a contest of arms.”
Lorace could see how adamant the man was and his estimate of Tornin climbed another notch.
“I apologize for making that assumption,” Lorace said with genuine candor. He remembered the words of the warrior priest, Taggi, implying that he too was gifted in some way. “But tell me, if you will, of your gift.”
“Well, I am normally quite quick and agile,” Tornin said with some reservation, “and I have been well trained in the art of the sword. My gift, however, is swiftness. I can put myself in a state where the world around me seems to slow down to a crawl. It is exhausting to maintain for more than a few moments, however, and its use leads to quite an appetite. Ehddan feeds me generously though.”
“How did your gift first manifest itself to you?” Lorace inquired.
“I was a child,” Tornin said as his face clouded with unpleasant memory. “I was very scared and alone, and I ran away from that which frightened me. It is the last memory I have of my parents. We slept the night high in a mountain pass of the Stormwall’s, it was very cold and I had not eaten, my parents had not eaten for even longer, having given me the last of their food. When I awoke, the cold had taken them from me. I was embraced in their stiffened arms, and I panicked in fear and ran. I ran very fast. I ran from the cold of death. It was elves that found me, lying upon the ground in complete exhaustion. I had fled through the pass and into the Keth valley.”
Their conversation broke off as they approached and opened the door to the inn. Within it was quiet, the hall now empty of townsfolk. Lorace thought long and hard over the guardsman’s words.
“I am sorry, Tornin, that is a terrible thing for a child to have to face,” Lorace said quietly in the empty main room.
Tornin smiled down at him. “It was long ago and I cannot complain about the upbringing I have had at the hands of Halversome’s folk. This is my family now, and it will become yours as well if you spend any time among us at all.”
Ehddan emerged from the swinging doorway that led to the kitchen, wiping flour from his hands with his apron.
“Ah you return to us,” he said with a smile. “I have placed some clothes in your room, Lorace.”
“Thank you,” Lorace said with a short bow to the innkeeper. “I am honored to accept your hospitality.”
“Bah, it is what anyone here would do for any pilgrim, and far too little for a new friend,” Ehddan said with a dismissive wave as he led them both upstairs to a long hall of rooms. Tornin’s room was right at the top of the stairs and he pointed to the door opposite for Lorace. “Good evening my friends.”
Tornin opened the door to his own room while Ehddan descended back toward the kitchen.
“Thank you for all your assistance again, friend Tornin,” Lorace said before the tall young man could close the door. “Can you tell me where I should go tomorrow to gather supplies for our journey?”
“On the north side of town, near the Keth Gate, are many craftsmen, and you can acquire preserved foods from the storehouses there. Halversome has a surplus this winter. Your needs will be well met.”
“Should I get anything for you since you will be on watch?” Lorace prompted.
Tornin smiled at Lorace’s consideration. “Whatever food you wish for yourself, get twice as much for me. I have a bedroll of my own already. Oh, and I have something else you could use.”
The guardsman retreated into his room to return with a leather satchel dyed pale blue, with a long strap made to hang over the shoulder and across the body. “Your godstone can be placed in here; you may need both hands free eventually.”
“Sleep well, Tornin,” Lorace said, accepting the satchel with a bow.
“You as well my friend, I look forward to our journey.”
Lorace stood for a moment staring at the closed door of the guardsman’s room. His brows knitted together as he went over the events of the day. He could not have imagined the half of it when he awoke on the beach with only a child’s vague memory. He had carried himself as a man, thinking and acting with a man’s honor. There was still a deep uncertainty and doubt within that he knew would shame him if ever he set it free.
He placed the godstone sphere into the satchel then opened the door of his own chamber and entered the dim room. A single guttering candle upon a small table was the only source of illumination. Upon the overstuffed bed was a neatly folded pile of clothes and at its foot were a pair of low, soft soled boots, a bit worn but serviceable. Next to the candle was a fired clay basin of water. Lorace divested himself of the cloak and his ruined shreds of clothing to wash.
His leather belt hung up on the remains of the back of his shirt when he tried to remove it. After a few tugs it came free and Lorace found two empty dagger sheaths attached to the wide band. They were made to hold wickedly curved blades, reminding him of the scars upon his body. Fresh shame flooded him, disrupting the tranquility he had been enjoying. There was an unmistakable pattern to his scars. Now that they lay fully exposed, they were more than just a random assortment of battle scars. They seemed to be the marks of ritual or intention, though Lorace could not determine their significance.
He tossed the belt away, then washed in the basin. Once he felt clean, beyond removing the dirt and stains of the days march, he searched among the clothes on the bed to find a nightshirt to hide the dreadful markings on his body. Then he lifted the soft woolen blankets, and the even softer white linens of the bed and climbed into its soothing embrace.
Soon he was asleep.
chapter 6
monster, murderer
Twenty-Third day of the Moon of the Thief
-in Halversome
Lorace dreamed of a city far removed from Halversome. He walked a street as alien to that of the City of Thunder as he could imagine. It was a rutted dirt street with piles of mud and refuse littering the walkway. The buildings to either side, poorly constructed wooden hovels, were as refusing and hostile of entry as the stone homes and buildings of Halversome were open and welcoming.
He was keeping to the shadows as he walked, his eyes ever going to the back of a man that he was following. It was a heavy set man who breathed through a gaping mouth when stopping to rest in the stifling heat. Whenever the fat man looked about him, Lorace ducked deeper into the shadows.
Finally the man halted before the door of another closed building, and while peering both ways down the street he produced a large metal key and unlocked the door. When he entered, Lorace rushed forward to enter behind him before the man could shut the door. He dipped his shoulder and shoved the man staggering into the room, then closed the door behind him.
The fat man trembled and whimpered. He looked into Lorace’s cold countenance with tear-filled eyes. He pleaded, asking pardon from any perceived wrongdoing, he offered money, favors; an
ything he could to try to sway Lorace. Lorace was silent, but he could feel the muscles of his face bend his lips into a thin, heartless smile.
Lorace was not in control, he was just an onlooker to the drama unfolding before him. He screamed at himself to stop when his hands drew forth a pair of curved blades from sheathes at his back. His screams grew louder and more frightful than those of the fat man as the blades stabbed deep into the man’s heavy belly. Hot blood poured over his hands, he could hear it spatter to the floor over the sound of his own screaming, and he watched helplessly as moments later the man crashed down dead.
With the fall of the fat man’s body to the floor, the door of Lorace’s inn room crashed open, startling him awake, the sound of his scream echoed in the room which appeared to have been picked up and thrown around. His once neatly folded clothes were scattered everywhere and the blankets from his bed were still settling in a pile across the room.
Tornin stood in the doorway with an arm across his face as if to fend off a strong wind.
“Lorace, are you all right?” the tall young man asked with concern as he dropped his arm and stepped to his bedside. “I heard you screaming and throwing everything around in here, was it a nightmare?”
Lorace nodded shakily, and looked out the narrow embrasure letting fresh air flow into the room. It was still dark outside.
“Everything is fine, Lorace,” Tornin said in a low, soothing voice as he crossed the room to retrieve the blankets and spread them over Lorace.
“I dreamed I was hunting a man, Tornin,” Lorace murmured while he pulled the blankets up to his chin like a young child. “I stalked him through a dirty town, and I killed him. It felt like a memory. I screamed to make myself stop from murdering him, but it would not stay my hand. I could feel my body smiling all the more for my screaming.”
“It’s not possible, Lorace. You bear the godstone, remember, only the most pure can feel its touch. It was just a nightmare, probably from being hunted by wolves yourself today.”
Lorace shrugged to his friend doubtfully. The nightmare pained him like a fresh cut among his other scars. He felt remorse and guilt, but revulsion most of all. The belt he had worn had held those daggers.
He took a deep shuddering breath while the night air flowed into the room, cooling the sweat from his forehead and soothing some of the harsh emotion away.
“I had to get up anyhow, worry not about waking me,” Tornin said with a pat on the bed. “I have to get suited up and to the Pilgrim’s Gate. I will meet you outside the smithy when I am done, all right? Try to get some more sleep, it’s very early still.”
With that, the guardsman departed his chamber and closed the door softly behind him.
Lorace tried to release the remaining tension, but the vivid imagery of the nightmare was slow to fade. He remained that way as sleep eluded him. He listened to Tornin dressing, his armor jingling as he slipped the coat of chain over his head and shrugged it into place, his sheathed sword hitting the post of his bed as he strapped it around his waist. Finally he heard the stairs creak as his friend descended to exit the inn.
With each breath, he relaxed from the nightmare vision and allowed his mind to wander over the sights of Halversome that he saw the previous evening. He retraced his steps through town in his imagination, rather than the late afternoon and early evening of his memory, it was misty and dim in the current predawn darkness. Fishermen were descending the great clanking lift to the fortified harbor bearing their nets and lines. Guardsmen, bundled in their cloaks against the chill upon the battlements of the great towers, were gratefully accepting the greetings from their relief watches. When he looked toward the Pilgrim’s Gate, however, it was strangely empty. The tall figure of Tornin approached the guardhouse entry in the wall, and Lorace’s mind’s eye followed the guardsman in. Tornin climbed a stairway that ascended within the wall to the battlements, at the first landing it opened onto a long narrow barracks room with a row of cots laying along each wall. Upon the cots were dead guardsmen, throats slit in their sleep and bodies hacked apart. Dark blood, glistened everywhere.
Lorace leapt up and ran barefoot out of his room, slowing only to grab hold of the satchel that held the godstone sphere. He ran through the sleeping, predawn city in only his nightshirt. He passed no guards nor did he cry out to anyone in the darkened homes and buildings. He hoped this vision was another aspect of his nightmare and just illusion, but the very realness of it drove him to run with all possible haste.
The Pilgrim’s Gate was unguarded and ajar. The gatehouse barracks door was open as well, just as he had seen it in his mind’s eye. He entered without pause and ran up the stone steps, his bare feet making very little sound, into the scene from his vision.
Tornin was standing in the far end of the long narrow room with his sword drawn, beyond the bodies of six guardsmen cut apart upon their beds. Hurn, small and dark, stood facing Tornin, laughing at the shock and horror written on the young man’s face. Hurn held his bloody black sword drawn and in a threatening stance toward the tall guardsman.
“What have you done, Lieutenant?” Tornin asked in a hushed voice. Neither man noticed Lorace’s presence beyond them in the dark entryway of the chamber.
Hurn laughed again, an intimidating sound, thick with foulness and terrible glee. “What I will do to you. What I would have done if you had been present in one of these bunks as I so eagerly hoped you would be. You could be enjoying your eternal slumber along with them. Did you think the walls of this city could really protect you from all harm? Halversome falls this day.”
“No!” Tornin cried and darted forward with his amazing speed to skewer Hurn on the end of his sword, but his blade snagged on Hurn’s sturdy chain armor. The power of the blow only staggered the Lieutenant back a few ungraceful steps.
Hurn was surprised by Tornin’s speed though he was quick to recognize the genuine threat he faced. He trapped the young guardsman’s sword with his mailed hand and held it immobile with a frightening strength. Tornin struggled to free his blade, but a moment’s delay was all Hurn required. He slammed his black blade down upon Tornin’s trapped sword and broke it with a loud snap. Continuing forward, Hurn grabbed for the guardsman’s arm while he was still stunned at the loss of his sword.
Hurn’s lunging hand snapped shut on empty air, and he found himself grappled instead. Tornin had sidestepped the lunge and clasped the wrist of Hurn’s sword arm with both hands. In the following instant Tornin lifted the smaller man bodily from his feet, almost shoving the black blade into the ceiling of the chamber.
The smaller man did not struggle or fight. His calm certainty was unsettling, despite his precarious position in Tornin’s grip.
“I forgot about your gift,” Hurn said with a slow drawl as he hung from Tornin’s grip, “but I am prepared nonetheless. My mistress equipped me well.”
With deliberate slowness, Hurn reached up with his free hand to take hold of one of Tornin’s wrists. Lorace’s gut wrenched and he slid a step forward. There was foulness in Hurn that Tornin could not suspect. He expected fairness in his opponent’s actions where none existed.
“Drop your weapon!” Tornin shouted at the dangling man.
“I think not,” Hurn said so softly the words were barely audible to Lorace, who slid another step forward, toes sticky in the pooled blood.
The sharp crack of snapping bone was distinct, followed by Tornin’s agonized cry of pain. Hurn had broken the tall guardsman’s forearm with just a squeeze of his fingers. Tornin dropped his arms reflexively, landing Hurn back on his feet, giving the small man the leverage to throw him up against the wall.
Hurn yanked Tornin off his feet like a child and threw him into the wall again, shattering an intervening bunk and scattering the dismembered body it held. Hurn held tight to Tornin’s arm which was now twisted at an odd angle.
“I am going to break every bone in your body as partial payment for killing my wolves,” he said with a leer into the dazed guardsman’s face
.
Hurn pivoted on his feet and flung Tornin into the opposite wall with another sickening crunch of bone. The young guardsman sagged limp and moaning in the foul man’s relentless grip.
Hurn’s strength was monstrous. Lorace was stunned at the sight of him reducing Tornin to a tangled rag doll. If only his friend could have struck the traitor down with his initial blow, this brutalization would have been avoided.
“Stop this!” Lorace cried as he ran forward to intercept and somehow stop Hurn. He had no plan, no weapon, only the will to save his friend at any cost.
A new light of dark mirth sparkled in Hurn’s eyes when he turned to face Lorace, still dragging Tornin’s limp form by the arm. “It is an honor to see you again pilgrim, I thought at first that you might have been one of my own comrades, such were the remains of your clothing, but I quickly saw that was not the case. You are indeed a pilgrim to this city and you will be enslaved with the rest of them,” Hurn’s dark eyes looked Lorace up and down before his lips curled into a leer. “Perhaps I should kill you instead.”
He swung Tornin bodily into Lorace, knocking him off his feet to skid along the bloody floor almost to the point where he had first entered the room. Lorace looked up half stunned as the chuckling murderer advanced toward him, dragging Tornin.
The scene shocked Lorace with memory, a memory so similar in its action and detail that it blended over the top of his current circumstance. It was not Tornin that the foul beast dragged along; it was the dark haired body of his mother. It was not dismembered guardsmen that surrounded him; it was the body of his father and several other loved and trusted comrades. It was not Hurn the murderer and traitor, it was a towering creature of ebon black hide and hideous aspect that now held up his mother’s body almost tenderly. The creature appeared vaguely serpentine, like the copper sign over the Green Dragon Inn, with its long neck and narrow elongated jaw full of glistening black teeth. It towered in the hall, a room much bigger than this barracks room, and it laughed wickedly at the child who cowered before the statue of a tall elegant woman.
Gifts of Vorallon: 01 - The Final Warden Page 6