Legends of Gravenstone: The Secret Voyage

by Alex Aguilar

“Well,” Malekai sighed. “Let’s just say he… took something from me. I admit, it’s not reason enough to kill him for it, but considering how many lives would be at stake if I allowed him to live, well… I’d say I’m doing us all a favor by hunting him down. Wouldn’t want a cold-blooded savage like that roaming around our beloved Woodlands now would we, Kiira?”

  Kiira grew even more nervous and twitchy. And so, with a deep sigh, she leaned in and whispered, “I don’t know where they went exactly… but I did overhear them saying they were heading west. To a town called Grymsbi, I believe.”

  “They…?” the captain raised a curious brow.

  Kiira hesitated. For a moment, she saw a look in the man’s eye that wasn’t quite as friendly as he made himself out to be.

  “I’m only trying to help, my dear Kiira,” Malekai said when he noticed her looking at him suspiciously. “Anyone who travels with him is in grave danger. He absolutely cannot be trusted.”

  There was a brief silence, as Kiira searched around for Miss Rayna one last time.

  Come on, I’ve got you… I’ve got you and you know it, Malekai thought to himself. Tell me now, my love. Tell me what I want to hear…

  When she didn’t speak, he released a deep convincing sigh.

  “I mean, I suppose it doesn’t really matter anymore,” he said, lifting the ale casually to his lips again. “Whoever was with him is certainly dead by now.”

  “A girl,” Kiira blurted out suddenly. “A farmgirl with black curls… Sh-She was with this orc, along with a one-eyed fox… She was very kind, that one.”

  “I’m quite sure she was,” Malekai said with a grin. “Thank you for this information, my dear Kiira. I hope to one day return with the news of this beast’s death.”

  Malekai lifted the tankard up to his lips and began chugging the beer like water. Suddenly, however, a loud shrill voice startled him, causing him nearly to spit it all back out.

  “What in all hells are you doing ‘ere?!”

  Malekai took a last painful gulp and set the tankard down, pounding his fist against his chest a few times to release the air. He then gazed up at the intimidating figure of an angry middle-aged woman in a red housedress and a tangled bun of grey hair.

  “Pardon me, do I know you?” he asked.

  “No,” she approached him boldly from behind the bar. “But I know you, you murderous bastard.” Miss Rayna’s eyes had never been redder. Even Kiira stepped away in fear, as the woman faced the man fearlessly. A good half-foot taller, he was, though it made no difference to Miss Rayna. Had the bar not been between them, the woman may have struck him by then, or at least her eyes surely suggested it.

  “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t have my Edmund crush you like a fly right now!”

  “Easy there,” Malekai stood up from the stool with his weaponless hands out in front of him. “Why so hostile, love?”

  “Get out. Now!”

  “Could I at least finish me ale first? I did pay for it.”

  Miss Rayna swung her hand over the bar and shoved the tankard viciously. The ale splashed all over the floor, some of it sprinkling onto the captain’s boots.

  “Oh, darling. Tsk tsk,” Malekai mocked her as he glanced at the puddle of ale on the floor. “You’ll damage the wood that way.”

  “Worth it. Now get the fuck out!” she raised the bar and stepped towards him.

  “You’re a fiery one, aren’t you?”

  “Tell me, is your blood the same color as your leather?” Miss Rayna asked heatedly.

  “Never checked, love.”

  “Call me ‘love’ one more time and we’ll see.”

  “Easy there…”

  “EDMUND!” she shouted.

  The ogre just outside the tavern doors snorted and woke up suddenly. And with one last grin, Malekai adjusted his coat, bowed his head, and scurried out of the tavern, leaving a trail of tension behind him and a silence that lingered throughout the bar. He snuck around Edmund and kept walking, and the ogre was far too muddled and confused to even notice him.

  Meanwhile, inside the tavern, Miss Rayna’s rage died down slowly. And it was then that she realized how many eyes were on her. Miss Rayna’s tavern was notorious for many quarrels much like these, everyone knew. But it didn’t make the woman loathe them any less. “What’re you all bleedin’ looking at?!” she shouted furiously.

  Nervously, the bard began playing again and the guests continued chattering among themselves. With a deep sigh, Miss Rayna walked back towards the counter, and Kiira stood there with a nervous look in her eyes.

  “What did you say?!”

  Kiira hesitated. “Um… N-Nothing, Miss Rayna…”

  “What did you say, girl?!” she asked again, as if she could read Kiira’s lie through a stare.

  “H-He was searching for the orc,” Kiira confessed. “The one from last night. The one traveling with the farmgirl… Th-That was all, I swear! I just told him they were headin’ west…”

  Miss Rayna turned towards the door as if trying to relive it all in her mind. And then she sighed, a long exhausted sigh, before muttering, “Damn it all to hells, Kiira…”

  * * *

  They were mere miles away from Grymsbi. Nyx swore he could practically smell it.

  He sat perfectly still, his eye staring forward at the tip of a sharp arrow that was aimed right at his head. Though he could tell the arrow was sharp enough to kill him, he was rather calm, staring at the jagged tip as if welcoming it.

  “Get on with it,” he said.

  But the arrow didn’t move.

  Had a passerby spotted them it would have made for quite a peculiar sight, a girl aiming an arrow at a one-eyed fox from just two feet away while an orc watched from afar. And it only became more peculiar when the girl grew restless and set her arrow down, and the fox urged her to shoot him again.

  “The more you think on it, the harder it will be, Lady Robyn.”

  Robyn could hardly hold her grip on Spirit, her hands were so slippery. “I can’t,” she complained. “Not while you’re staring at me.”

  Nyx sighed. “Will it help if I look the other way?”

  “Please.”

  He tried, and once again Robyn couldn’t bring herself to shoot. She stretched the arrow back and aimed it right between the fox’s ears.

  Get on with it, Robyn. You’ve killed loads of squirrels and rabbits without thinking twice.

  And she had… but none of them had been Nyx…

  She felt her fingers start to cramp, her palms growing sweaty again. She almost let go, but her fingers slipped instead and the arrow fell to the dirt before the bowstring could thrust it.

  “Damn it… Give me a moment,” she said.

  “Fuckin’ hells,” the Beast said gallingly, reaching for his axe. “Move aside girl, I’ll do it.”

  “No! I have this,” Robyn said with a forced determination in her eyes. They were hidden among the trees, right at the border of the Woodlands and the kingdom of Halghard. It was the farthest out of the forest the Beast had ever traveled, and for this he was rather nervous. He tried to hide his distress, but it was far too obvious. Both Robyn and Nyx could sense it, because the orc was quite talkative all of a sudden.

  “Then do it ‘n’ stop messin’ about!” the Beast growled.

  “I will. I got it!”

  “Ye couldn’t kill a wolf if it ran up ‘n’ bit ye in the arm!”

  “I could!” Robyn glared angrily at him. “I have! Several times!”

  “All right, ease up, you two,” Nyx said as he stepped in between them. “I’ll come right back, Lady Robyn, I promise you. One good shot will do.”

  “Or one good swing,” the Beast muttered under his breath.

  Robyn sighed anxiously and nocked an arrow again.

  Come on, you… Just let the damned thing go…

  Nyx made the mistake of looking up. He could see how much it pained her to do it. Reluctantly, she found herself loosening her grip again and puttin
g her bow down.

  “I-Is this really necessary? Maybe we coul-”

  “Gods’ shite,” the Beast grunted suddenly. He stepped in front of Robyn and before she could protest, he brought his axe down with a single powerful swing. Robyn gasped and looked away; all she heard was the sound of steel sinking into bone and then a body dropping to the dirt. She didn’t even have to look; the mere image in her mind was haunting enough.

  “I said I had it!” she shouted at the orc. She wanted very much to punch him but couldn’t bring herself to do it. The Beast yanked his axe out of the fox’s head, and the look on his green face was stern and emotionless, as was usual of him.

  “Did ye?” he shot her a glare. “Looked more like ye were pissin’ yerself.”

  “I was focusing!”

  “If ye need to stop ‘n’ think about the kill, ye shouldn’t be killing.”

  As they argued, Nyx’s lifeless body began to emit a trail of smoke into the air. Robyn, however, was so enraged she hardly took notice of it.

  “He’s my friend! You had no right!” she argued.

  “He asked ye to shoot, scrap.”

  “And I had the shot!”

  “Right. And we woulda been standin’ here all bloody night.”

  It was then that Nyx’s body caught on fire, but still the girl and orc were too preoccupied shouting at one another to pay it any mind. Within seconds, Nyx’s body twisted and turned inward, and soon it was nothing but a pile of ash.

  “He’s my friend. It wasn’t your deed, it was mine!”

  “Yes ‘n’ what happens when it ain’t yer friend on the other end of the arrow?!”

  Robyn hesitated. The orc was right and she knew it. “I-I would’ve…”

  “Ye’d be dead. That’s what.”

  “Piss off!” Robyn finally landed a shove on the Beast’s shoulder.

  The orc allowed it. Once. But he was growing more and more enraged with every one of her shouts. His eyes moved from his shoulder back to Robyn. “Ye done?” he asked.

  “No!” she shouted. “Don’t you ever hurt Nyx again! You hear me?”

  “Who?” he raised a brow.

  “My friend!! The one you just killed!?”

  The Beast scoffed and walked away to sit on the boulder where he’d been sitting before.

  “Hey!” Robyn walked after him. “I’m not finished talking to you! I had the kill!”

  “No,” the Beast said as he pulled out a whetstone and began sharpening his axe again. “No, ye didn’t.”

  “What do you know of m-”

  “Listen, scrap!” the orc roared. “This ain’t yer farm no more! Ye best grow a backbone or ye’ll be dead before ye set one foot out o’ this damned forest!”

  Robyn took in the orc’s words like daggers to her chest. The knot in her throat was reassurance that he was right. She had killed a man before out of impulse, without intending to. The thought of killing someone else willingly was haunting to say the least.

  They felt a sudden gush of warm breeze at their feet, and both of them lowered their gazes down to the dirt. The fox was gone; there was nothing there but a mound of ash. But then something peculiar happened.

  The pile of ash began to move. There was still smoke rising out of it, but the pile began to shift into a different shape, as if something had been buried just underneath it. Robyn stepped closer first, and the Beast dropped his axe and rose to his feet, far too curious to remain seated.

  “Wha’ in all hells?” he grunted.

  Robyn lowered down to one knee, careful not to get too close. The pile of ash began to morph into a rope-like figure, rolled up into a pile. The first thing that emerged from the ash was a reptilian-like tail, scales as black as coal with thin white stripes running across. The tail began to move and sway from side to side, as if adjusting to its new form. Then a small head rose out of the pile and Robyn couldn’t help but yelp and hop to her feet, only to bump into the Beast’s broad figure towering behind her.

  “What is it?” the orc asked.

  Robyn’s lower lip trembled; she could hardly bring herself to look down. Nyx crawled away from the ash bit by bit, slowly coming back to life. When he spoke, it was as if his pink tongue had taken a life of its own. His voice remained the same but his S’s seemed to linger. “Did I misss anything?” he asked.

  “N-Nyx, you’re…” Robyn struggled to speak, the hairs rising at the back of her neck.

  “Yesss?”

  The Beast chuckled and shook his head. He began walking west towards Grymsbi, spitting on the ground along the way, a bit too close to Nyx’s tail for his comfort. Meanwhile, Robyn remained where she stood, wide-eyed and jaw-dropped.

  “Am I that repulsive?” Nyx asked.

  Robyn tried to chuckle, but what came out was more of a loud nervous exhale.

  She bent down to pick him up, her shivering hands slippery and weak.

  “Not at all, Nyx,” she said. “I, uh… I’ve just never been very fond of serpents…”

  * * *

  It was midday in the green plains of Halghard, and yet the sun was hidden behind a sea of clouds and the raging winds threatened the Wyrmwood camp with a potential storm.

  Sir Percyval Garroway and his recruits rode slowly into the campgrounds.

  Already they could feel the hostility in the air. It began when one of the watchmen caught sight of the troop and ran off as fast as he could to inform the others. The camp was vast, and right at the entrance there were a few tents and fires where the assigned watchmen would rest and trade places with one another. The only reason the watchmen allowed the troop to enter was because Sir Percyval was in the front lines. As they strode along the muddy path, the tents grew in abundance, as did the men. Carts and armory stands were set up at every twenty or so feet, all of which bore the green banners with King Alistair Garroway’s golden emblem.

  Sir Percyval had his chin up and his gaze forward, but through the corner of his eyes he could see his brother’s soldiers staring, scowling, spitting on the dirt with disgust.

  Keep riding, he told himself. Let them stare.

  As they rode by, conversations would seize and soldiers would turn their gaze up, shaken and thrown aback at the sight of the nonhuman recruits riding alongside the rest. Others were spreading the word already, shouting unwitting insults like ‘rabbits’ and ‘moles’ to alert their comrades of the intruders striding through their camp. As the crowds gathered, the chattering grew… It was as if Percyval’s troop was some sort of spectacle on display…

  Nervous and wary, the Woodland recruits rode closely together. Some of the humans even moved their horses towards the edges, shielding their comrades from the soldiers’ unwelcoming glares. But there was no way to hide them all. The elves and gnomes stood out like a wine stain on an ivory mantle. With the stares, of course, came the mockery. And both Percyval and his recruits knew very well to expect it.

  “What in all hells?!” they grunted.

  “Is he bloody joking?!”

  “Dirty freaks.”

  Percyval sighed. He had to fight the urge to confront the men with his blade.

  Let them talk… It isn’t their approval you need…

  In the distance he could see it, some fifty feet away, the only tent in the camp dyed moss green like the banners, with the golden emblem of the serpent wrapped around the lit torch painted on both sides. It wasn’t a very large tent, for King Alistair was never one to boast, he was a man that believed in efficiency over comfort, and he was the only man whose consent Percyval strived for.

  The gods are with us, Percyval told himself, over and over again. No one will fall tonight. No one will fall, for the gods are kind to those who serve them.

  Riding among the elves and gnomes was Viktor Crowley, his eyes much less weary than before and his face with a bit more color. He looked alive again, no longer the weak and pale figure he’d been days prior. He no longer wore any armor; instead he was dressed like a common mercenary, with brown and black
leathers in place of his steel. The shirt he wore had a hole in the chest where an arrow had struck the man that wore it before him.

  Dead men have no need for things, he’d told himself, in an effort to ease the sick feeling in his gut when he stripped the man’s body of clothes and weapons.

  The new outfit suited him. He looked like the type of man that fought for himself and no one else, all the while remaining true to his noble bearings. Even when Cedric had tried to fulfill his squire duties and sharpen Viktor’s blade, the man had refused, claiming Cedric should sharpen blades for no one but himself.

  “So this is Halghard?” Skye asked, as always beginning a conversation from out of the blue. Viktor was no longer startled; he’d learned to expect Skye to sneak up and surprise him. In fact, they were the few moments in his day that he truly looked forward to.

  “Part of it, yes,” said Viktor. “Halghard is a vast kingdom with many cities and villages. Why, it’s almost as large as the Woodlands.”

  Skye rode stiffly and fretfully, glancing everywhere with only their eyes.

  “Does it always smell this way?” they asked.

  Viktor chuckled in a friendly manner. “That’s not Halghard. That’s the men.”

  “Never seen so many men in one place before,” the elf remarked. And it was no overstatement; there were thousands in the camp.

  “Most of them have never seen so many elves in one place, I’m sure. So long as we stay together, we’ll be fine. Just keep your eyes ahead.”

  Skye shot him a smile, but it wasn’t all that convincing. The elf was undeniably nervous. “You’re looking better,” they said.

  Viktor’s face lit up. “You flatter me… But thank you, I’m feeling better.”

  “Good. It’ll serve you well on your journey.”

  “Yes, well… I certainly hope Viktor Crowley, the mercenary, will have better luck than Viktor Crowley, the knight, ever did.”

  They smiled, riding in silence as they fought the urge to glare back at the Wyrmwood soldiers. By then, nearly every soul in the camp was out of their tents. Raiders and sellswords, they were accustomed to; they had recruited a great number of them already. But it soon became obvious that the elves and gnomes would not be welcomed as warmly.