Lord Bilvion was a difficult man to please. Apart from the men he brought with him from whatever part of the realm he came from, no one at the fort liked him. Every soldier is regarded him with a moderate level of disdain however much concealed. Even his men often showed a hint of dislike. It was obvious the man had either proven his mettle to them in some way or he'd simply grown on them.
Skirmishes. This was all it was. A few hundred men engaged in battle, drawing blood from flesh. Sethlzaar frowned. Soartin was right about one thing; the war was yet to come.Sethlzaar sat on the grassy hill with his brothers. The morning was young; a few hours past midnight. The crescent moon could still be seen in the sky. It proved their only source of light. There had been no fire the whole night as they'd made camp. A hundred men in all, Lord Bilvion had assigned them to move with Captain Noem. The man towered over all of them easily and was prone to speaking with a voice like a blow hor
The fight raged on below them. With no signal, it seemed to go on forever. Sethlzaar found himself being reminded of Father Ordan's trainings on the days of the blade during his early years in the seminary. For a moment he forgot the battle before him and flexed his left hand. All of them had been required to learn the use of both hands, and they had learned it well enough. He looked at his brothers. There had been a time when he hadn't been ambidextrous. The things I've learned.His memory of the night at the alley came to mind. He frowned. No. There
Corpses riddled the ground as far as the eye could see. They had lost as much as the Merdendi, maybe more. But that was a worry for another man. For the first time since he set eyes on her in the battle Sethlzaar ventured towards Saelin, closing the distance that had once served as a forbidden zone of sorts. How could he not when she stood in place rooted to Ayla for all she was worth. Her swords dangled from her grip on both sides. Her face was turned to the sun. He would have thought her entranced by its beauty had her eyes not been closed.No. She simply bathed in its glow, although he did
Bodies burned black.The flames continued their feast.The sun was beginning its journey to the other end of Ayla when a soldier came running in a panicked haze. At first he seemed maddened, crazed from the heat of the sun, or perhaps some over-indulgence in some form of the soldiers' alcohol, a crime to deserve a good
Sethlzaar rested uncomfortably beneath the tenth fashioned for him by the soldiers. His wounds beneath their bandages ached in severe discomfort. He had been patched up by a healer whose name he neither remembered nor was bothered to attempt reminiscence of. The man having done a great job of stitching him up and bandaging him properly had moved on to other men.He turned to observe his veils embedded in the grass. The lost twin had been found by Soartin.
Sethlzaar woke with a start. His hands finding the hilt of the veil beneath his pillow with easy accuracy, he drew it. He stopped, veil halfway free of its scabbard as his gaze focused on what had instigated his action.A soft curse escaped his lips.He clenched his teeth, holding back his annoyance. "Did you forget ho
The next day proved uneventful, and so did the days that followed. Two days became three, and three became four. In time, seven days grew by with boring, unprecedented monotony.The days lumbered by in agonizing sluggishness. Sethlzaar found solace only in the nights he spent with Saelin when she told him tales of ancient times and ancient people.
Morning found Sethlzaar at the smithy after mass. It was as hot as every smithy he had ever had the displeasure of entering. Its walls bore scorches at random spots that had him wondering if the blacksmith shaped only metals or if the man had a propensity to forget the walls were made of stone and brick. Despite the scorch marks, the smithy was in surprising order.Weapons intended for repairs laid arranged at one corner while the man's works dangled from nails fastened to the walls, each sword and axe, a beauty in their form, waiting in hopes that one day they wo
Darkness has never truly been a thing of worry here. Basically, it’s most often dark here. Most of us don’t like it, but time is enough to make anyone adapt to it. Still, it’s not like we have much of an option. Wether it’s dark or bright or generally colorless, it wouldn’t matter, this is the life we live. We would claim we didn’t choose it, that it chose us. But I’ll be honest, we chose it as much as it chose us. Every action we ever took has led us here; at least all the actions I ever took led me here.
Maekil snapped his finger in recognition. “Yes,” he almost exclaimed. “The Shadow Child of the Conisoir. Even the Lords employ it to scare their children from bad deeds.” He placed a finger to his bottom lip in puzzlement. “Although, yours is different. Why is that?”“Because it is the true tale.”“And you believe this
Red wine twirled within a transparent cup made of glass and fashioned for the simple and unnecessary sake of aesthetics. By Truth, Maekil never could understand the desire to be pleasing to the eye. Perhaps it was because all his life he had been nothing but pleasing to the eye, perhaps it was not. He dropped the cup without taking a sip.He would only taste of the wine when the night was over and the morning greeted him with the light of the sun. Normally this wasn’t the case: not in his manor.
Valerik came awake screaming and gasping. His cassock was soaked in sweat and a terror grasped at his heart as he cried into arms that held him with so much untainted love. But somethings were greater than others and he knew that no love or hate or indifference could triumph over the terror that held him.“What’s wrong, father?” a voice asked.He knew who
Valerik opened his eyes from his slumber, instinct propelled to reach across him to ensure he bow still lay where he’d left it last night when he’d bedded down for the night. The bow was the livelihood of his people. A man with no knowledge of where his bow lay at all times was a failure of a man. Assured it was where he’d left it, he rose from the ground to a sitting position and watched the man who sat on the log on the other side of a fire that was nothing but ash. No doubt it had fizzled out sometime during the night, considering no one had paid it any attention.
Sethlzaar blinked the darkness away, but he might as well have waved away the air. Unable to see, he sat up with ease. The floor was covered in grass and served as a soft bed to his rump, so much so that he hesitated to rise to his feet. But he did.Around him was overshadowed in a familiar darkness, and when he took a step forward he frowned at the sight before him.A rub
They couldn’t afford to let the fight drag on. But if there were no wisps, how could he change its course? If Berlak evaded him at every turn, how could they turn the tide? The answer came to him as quickly as the question. There’s more you can do in the dark.Stepping forward, he moved his hand in as he spun from the cover of Cenam’s back to oppose Berlak. The god turned away from his attack easily, striking a closed fist against the flat of Cenam’s veil.
Sethlzaar saw the moment the fight was decided. The climax to the torrential build up. Cenam swung the veil in his left hand. A downward stroke designed to take his enemy’s head. Berlak reacted as fast as the stroke itself, his longsword striking the veil from Cenam’s grip, taking away the priest’s advantage. But Sethlzaar had seen such decisions before. Cenam had intended it. The strike, although intended to take the man’s head, had never truly been expected to. Not a feint. A sacrifice.Cenam’s second ve
The war raged on within the city walls, though the carnage was not as depressing within as it was without. Sethlzaar carried himself in a full sprint, his previously perceived fatigue ebbing away at the touch of darkness as he followed where Cenam led. Bratvi kept pace beside him and paid no obvious attention to his broken wrist. One thing was certain; even if the Most Reverend could fight, it would be impossible to use both veils.There was no doubt that those who had given the once mythical city of Arlyn its reigning title had never stepped foot within its walls. Still, there wa