To Defend and Dissuade

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

 

     The scattered clusters of silver and purple sang gloriously against the drab stone and tattered standards of the courtyard below. These were not the chequered tents and pennants of provinces, but the united colours of Queen Madeleia, and it was among them her soldiers massed, clearing ash and debris to build forges and workshops. The fortress had been conquered just that afternoon, and, once prepared, it would be the ideal staging ground for the next attack against the Barbaric North.
     But, while the soldiers toiled under the eye of the lesser commanders and the dying winter sun, there was nothing more that Sir Pecheran of Montaria could presently do to further their goals.
     So he turned from the tower window, huffed and rubbed his cold hands together, then pinned them beneath his arms. "Where is Sir Gacharan?" He asked as he rejoined the other knights gathered around the glowing hearth.
    "Fortifying the outer walls," answered Belechar of Eiderstag before draining his mug. Not a drop rolled down the grizzled man's chin. "With Alestír."
     "Alestír?" Pecheran felt the blood drain from his face. "He's here?"
     "Arrived this morning."
     Rozilig the Grey shook his head to himself, fingering the Lord's talisman that hung around his neck while Pecheran returned, ashen-faced, to his stool. "I don't like this. It grates. It feels...underhanded. The very existence of that heathen's magic is an affront, and to use it is--"
     "The prerogative of the queen's champion." Lord Welden cast Sir Rozilig a condemning look from where he leaned in thought against the cold stone mantle, immediately silencing his discontent. "Sir Eckter the Silver is our commander. We follow his commands. We do not question them. Queen Madeleia appointed him, and we owe Her Majesty and her consort our unwavering allegiance."
     "But we are knights, my lord," Rozilig dared. "Does such a method of war not sit foul with you?"
    "Certainly does with me," Belechar muttered. Then he cast a weathered eye from the depths of his hood towards the others. "Have you seen his powers?"
     "I have," Ethelred of Treleian said darkly into the depths of his tankard. "I've seen him unmake the steel of armour and melt the knight alive inside it."
     "Don't you mean melt the steel around the knight?"
     The look he sent back to Sir Pecheran was even bleaker. "No."
     "I've heard things." Rozilig leaned forwards, pulling his cloak tighter about himself against the chill, and turned a grave look across them all. "He twists and unmakes the made. He is no illusionist. What he does is...it's real. Even when impossibility and the laws of our Lord say otherwise...he does it. He turned the air to water and drowned the front lines of the Saxi'ans--"
     "No," Belechar shook his head, "he removed the air entirely. There was nothing in its place."
     "That isn't how the matter went," Lord Welden declared, but Pecheran's alarm was already pressing him on over him.
     "But how?" The knight demanded of the others, managing at least to control the unease in his tone if not his eyes. "How can he do this?"
     "He's bound to something unholy," Rozilig sneered, "of that, there's no doubt at all. He makes a sound, like a guttural chant, a demonic hymn - it's wretched, whatever it is. His voice shudders the earth and bleeds the ears."
     "His voice?" Belechar frowned. "I thought he'd bottled the throat of a demon..."
   "It's unnatural, whatever it is," Ethelred muttered to himself, refilling his mug with the ale appropriated from the fortress's looted stores. "But it comes from his own lips, I'm sure of that much."
     "But is that not the incantation alone? Where does his mastery of it come from? There are stories that he eats the bones of the vanquished to rejuvenate - surely that cannot be true..."
     "Why not?" Belechar asked, raising Pecheran's concern that little bit higher. "A demon's heart sits in place of his own. Perhaps that's how he keeps it beating. And that foul heart is explanation enough, is it not?"
     Rozilig growled. "By the Lord's rights, it is. What other cause could there be for someone being able to boil the eyes of a man in his skull just by looking at them? Or to carry the strength of fifteen men in one hand alone?"
     "And charm even the fairest and most chaste woman into bed."
     No one missed the note of jealousy in Belechar's voice.
    Then Ethelred frowned. "If he has the strength of fifteen men in one hand, how can he love her without crushing her?"
     "It is unfitting," Lord Welden announced in a calm yet destructively authoritative voice, putting an end to their rumourmongering, "for Knights of the Realm to speculate. Alestír is the Champion's ally, and if he deems the man's arcane to be necessary, he is well within his rights to use it. And you forget, in your ignorance, that the Lord would not allow such a power to exist if it truly came from the heart and soul of a demon. The man would have been smote down at birth."
     "Then why does he have it?"
     "Because," Welden replied frostily, "the Lord permits it. For the good of the Queen, the good of our lands, and the good of our people does He permit it."
   Pecheran blanched when he caught Belechar mutter beneath his breath: "That's a convenient argument."
     But then Sir Rozilig spoke up, and turned the austere commander an open look. "Do we truly need him?"
     His steely gaze didn't brush him. "It is not our place to decide."
     "No, but it is your place to advise. My lord, the Northerners are slow-witted! We don't need sorcery to overcome them, whether the Lord allows it or not! We are far more adept - we could defeat them with one arm each tied at our backs!"
    "Sir Eckter the Silver wants him," Lord Welden continued just as rigidly, "and if the queen's champion wants him, he will have him, and he will use him. It is not your place to question it, nor is it mine. I trust our commander's judgement, and the Lord's guidance over him." Against possibility, he straightened even further and raised his chin even higher. "Perhaps you should worry instead about your men, and your honour. Do not strike fear in yourselves over your enemies - real or imagined - or you will lead all of us to graves dug deep into foreign soil."
     "That's giving the Northerners too much credit." But the grizzled, hooded knight turned his eyes away from the scathing look the lord finally lanced him with.
     Then the creak of the old door sent a flash of white panic through everyone's bones, feet were leapt to, and swords rang free of the scabbards kept habitually in reach. The man that stepped inside, however, didn't seem to notice.
     Sir Pecheran frowned as he returned his blade, and approached Sir Gacharan carefully. He was pale - even the orange glow of the fire couldn't cast any colour into his cheeks - and his eyes were wide. Haunted. Terrified. As if he'd been shown his own heart after watching it be surgically removed from his chest.
     "Gacharan," Pecheran said while the others stared on, some sheathing, the rest too unsettled. "What's happened?"
     His half-glazed eyes focused onto them from the distance and he stopped mid-stride as if stunned to see them. His voice, when he finally found it, trembled.
     "He...he fortified the walls..."

This story is not to be copied or reproduced without my written permission.Copyright © 2020 Kim Wedlock

The Calling

Estimated reading time: 20 minutes

     The long, flat drone of a horn ricocheted across the frozen, rock-studded landscape. Even in the throes of sleep, there wasn't a doubt in Katriga's heart that it was for her.
    She was out of bed in an instant, startling the little red dragon that had been curled up at the foot, and ran out through the door before he could even peep in surprise. Nothing but the gods themselves could have stopped her as she darted through the house. She didn't pause to snatch a breakfast, nor even call 'good morning' to her family - and the idea of actually waiting for them was as far from her mind as the fresh coat of paint on the front door.
    But they would come. They had to. The Calling was the most important day of her life.
    Somehow, despite being no bigger than a week-old kitten, Mogar managed to catch up before she was half way across the village, and the tiny little dragon took his place on her shoulder as she ran for its boundaries and out to the frosted valleys beyond.
    The Calling. Yesterday, Kat had turned eighteen and experienced the Kúkhulænn in all its painful glory, besting every challenge her clan presented - even if the challengers had all been the better part of drunk. But she had to admit - to herself, never out loud - that she was still a little sore from those duels that morning. She'd been in no fit state to stretch when it was finished, and even now she felt nauseous. She didn't believe for a moment that it could all have been nerves. Whatever trial awaited her out here, she knew she wasn't going to pass it with flying colours...
    But the night had been worth it, and today would be even better. Once she'd answered her ancestors' call, the world would open up before her, and she would finally be able to travel!
    Kat couldn't suppress the grin on her face as she tugged at the straps of her new plated fists, and her boots pounded harder over the ground.
    A chill wind chased her across the jagged valleys, just as it harried the rushing rivers and bent the creaking pines. And ahead at last, where the rough-hewn ground finally levelled out, guarded by ancient standing stones and shaded by bowing trees, stood a single, perfect, grassy mound.
    Only with the barrow firmly in sight did Kat finally slow down. Winded and dizzy, her excitement carried her ahead of it all. She barely noticed the crowd gathering a short way behind her; there was only the dense, heavy weight of a dozen presences ahead.
    Her breath caught in her throat when she understood what she was feeling, and her blood-red eyes flicked across the barrow in a fever, searching for...well, she wasn't really sure what for. A clue, she supposed. Because she'd arrived at the source of the horn blast, which itself had long since faded; she'd answered the call. But nothing at all was happening.
    She blinked and looked down at her feet. Perhaps she was too far. She took a few steps and stopped again.
    Nothing.
    A knot tightened in her brow. Was she supposed to wait? Or maybe say something? But what? And what if she said it too loud and angered the spirits? Maybe she was still too far - maybe she was supposed to knock? But knock on what?
    Maybe that was the clue. Perhaps she should go in.
    She gasped at a sudden hand on her shoulder before she could take a step, and Mogar snapped and puffed his own fiery little warning. But her head snapped not towards spirit or draugr, but the clan shaman - though he was a startling sight, himself, painted as he was by tradition. But the look he gave her stifled any other sound her anxiety could shape, and he suggested, in his usual muted gestures, that she calm down, and breathe.
    So she did just that, albeit with tremendous effort; closing her eyes, she smothered the fire in her heart at least until her hands stopped shaking, and came at last to notice something else laced into the air.
    Chanting. Voices. Not those of anyone she knew, and yet she knew them better and more deeply than her own mothers'.
    Then drums joined them, a slow, reiterating pattern that grew stronger with every cycle, shaking their way deeper into her bones until her heart beat in time with them.

     The crowd gasped, and Mogar peeped in startlement as he plummeted to the ground where Katriga had been standing just a moment ago.

     A sudden harsh, salty tinge wrinkled her nose, and her eyes opened to a raging twilight sea.
    Kat swore and staggered backwards from the precipice, stumbling until she crashed to her rear, her heart hammering in her ears over the roar of the wind. It took a long, stunned moment before she dared to crawl forwards and peer over the edge to the swirling white crests below. Her heart lurched even higher into her throat.
    She stole a look behind her despite the certainty that the edge would creep closer if she took her eyes off it. The peninsula was probably no bigger than the hall of the jarl, her mother, but it was uneven, and half of it sloped enough to send her tumbling into the sea. Vertigo made her equally certain that she was already falling.
    Her fingers dug into the hard earth until, slowly, she pushed herself up. With a deep breath, she grounded her feet and looked around. A fjord opened a ways back behind her, and the mouth of the river opened up to the sea, with other rocky, tree-topped towers scattered in between. The sky above it was purple, streaked with long wisps of cloud, and the sea below stole a great deal of its colour for itself. But it was nowhere she knew. And, she suspected, nowhen.
    "What..." She had no idea what her own question would have become. This wasn't what she'd expected. Anything could happen when one was Called, it was true - but she'd expected to fight, not be abducted...
    It wasn't until a voice sent a tremor through the ground that she realised she stood alone.
    "Katriga Ormslíkir."
    She managed not to slip as she spun around to find it. "Yes?" She could see no one at all. "Where--"
    "You seek to travel," the voice boomed on. It sounded like an accusation. "To leave your ancestral home. Your roots. Your people. What do you expect to find out there that should be worth leaving your family?"
    Dizziness forced her to stop spinning, but she was given no chance to answer.
    "You have reached your eighteenth year. You have answered our Call. And now, you will be challenged."
    She wasn't sure if she should feel relieved at that or not, but at least something was happening now. 'Show respect, don't argue, and succeed.' That was the best advice she'd been given the night before, among plenty of worse, and some she couldn't think for a moment would ever have been applicable. But as simple as even those words were, it was the best she had, and she would heed them to the letter.
    Kat straightened and placed her fist over her heart. "I'm ready."
    In that moment, all colour bleached from the world as a fog closed in. It consumed the sea, the fjord and the very precipice in a heartbeat. She fought against taking a single step backwards in case the edge had moved after all, but the cloud thickened quickly, pressing in, smothering, seeping into her very lungs.
    And then, as alarm began to creep up her spine, she saw a shadow moving through the veil. Then another. And another. Five of them circled around her, vanishing and reappearing in the depths of the fog, until one of them broke from its path and lurched its way towards her.
    Here was her fight.
    Her fist tightened. She had no weapon but her plated knuckles - but that was just fine.
    Before the shape could fully coalesce, she drew back her arm and loosed a rapid hook. The shadow shrieked, its voice distant and muffled, and staggered backwards leaving a trail of grey in its wake. Had she hit it? She hadn't felt her fist strike anything...
    She was given no time to think on it before a second closed in.
    "You can punch me," the same ghostly voice rumbled through the ground, "kick me...and cut me...but always...without blood or weapon...will I march back upon you."
    She could barely spare a moment to curse, let alone comprehend the threat, and continued to lash out as, one by one, the shadows attacked, retreated with a hiss, and lurched their way forwards yet again.
    "What...am I?"
    'Riddles?!' But her immediate answer remained firmly behind her teeth. It wouldn't agree with showing respect. She continued instead to fight them off, growling against their unearthly snarls, channelling her frustration into her strikes. But for every one she repelled, another fell right back upon her. And every blow yielded nothing but that same grey wisp.
    Doubt quickly set in. Her fists had never failed her before - but she'd never fought things like this before, either. She couldn't even be sure that any blow was actually landing or if they weren't dodging backwards at just the last moment, trying to wear her down before setting upon her in earnest. And if she was hitting them, and those shrieks were shrieks of pain, it didn't seem to be doing a damned thing to stop them.
    And the fog helped nothing, disorienting her as each shadow vanished and reappeared after every attempt. How many were there? Really? She'd counted five at first, but was that just a trick? Were there more? Less? Or were there others waiting just out of sight, and each strike she made defeated one entirely, only for it to be replaced by another from uncountable ranks?
    Kat's boot slipped on the frosted ground and a startled curse barked from her lips. She grounded her feet again and stopped herself from spinning. But the assault continued from all sides.
    They were tireless, unstoppable; always they closed back in. And as for what they were, how was she supposed to know?! And how was she supposed to defeat something that didn't bleed?! It was as if they were made of the fog itself!
    The thought struck her so hard that the momentum of her punch overtook her.
    Perhaps they were made of fog. And how was fog overpowered?
    'It isn't...'
    Her teeth clenched as her fist passed through another misty figure. It was a chance. But if there was no substance for her fist to hit...maybe they had no substance to hit her with, either...
    With a deep breath, Kat lowered her arm and loosened her fingers. The shadowy figures slowed to a prowl and watched her through the cloud. The deep voice came again: "What...am I?"
    "The fog."
    The creatures slunk back into the grey. Then, slowly, the haze began to lift.
    Katriga released an unsteady puff while the voice reverberated again, quite without a note of congratulation: "Not everything can be fought. Not everything should be fought. Some things will only drain your energy and leave you exposed when a true danger arises. Learn to observe and reason, and trust that some things will pass on their own."
    But, as the last of the fog evaporated, an earth-rending roar shook the pinnacle and seared fresh alarm into her heart. And towering flames swarmed all around her.
    She spun around, shielding herself against the heat of the crackling flame, and found herself staring into the seething ruby eyes of a dragon. Its great maw cracked open, and another roar bellowed free.
    Instinct alone burst a matching roar from Katriga's own throat. Her boots grounded, she stared the great creature down, and it rightly shrank away. But before she could attempt to approach it, another roar gusted against her back, and the ground blazed in another wreath of fire.
    She staggered away, cursing colourfully, and watched between barred arms as the second dragon ignored her entirely, snapping its maw at the first and swiping at its answering bellow. And she found, despite all rationality, something almost familiar in that first colossal beast while it stood its ground just as stubbornly as she had - familiar enough that she felt a sudden surge of rage when the attacker's talons raked across its face.
    "I am as small...and as light...as a feather." She heard the voice perfectly clearly even over the fury and flames. "But the strongest man...cannot hold me for long."
    Her fists tightened again, though she had no clue what she could possibly do, and dove forwards to try to help the smaller dragon.
    "What...am I?"
    Even in the scuffle to avoid the teeth and talons of both beasts, her mind had just room enough for a thought. But it couldn't possibly be Mogar, could it?
    "Wrong," the voice boomed, and the dragons continued their fight while she scurried about between them, thrusting her fists against the attacker's scales. "You are thinking...about yourself..."
    'Thinking about myself? While trying to defend this massive thing?!' And then another thought tumbled in. 'Not everything can or should be fought...' So she should do nothing?
    Another roar rent the air, and the burning ground shook with an advancing step. The smaller dragon inched backwards, and for a moment she caught the briefest flash of fear in its eyes. A dragon rarely showed such a thing.
    She couldn't do nothing.
    So Katriga threw another punch into the attacker's hide with another draconic roar of her own, then another, and another, until she noticed her footing begin to slip. The ground was thawing. A snatched glance behind her revealed the crumble of the edge - and another to the side that the attacker was losing ground far more rapidly than its victim. If it kept breathing fire so furiously, it was going to make itself fall off.
    When the smaller dragon roared its hatred and retreated another step backwards, Kat moved in. She ran around the larger dragon, punching against its impenetrable hide, making a nuisance of herself more than anything, if the thing had even noticed her. But she ran and struck anyway, doing all she could to draw its attention. A sharp flare of heat across her back suggested it was working.
    Flames followed her in spurts and bouts, and the ground beneath her feet continued to soften, crumbling stone continued to fall, until, at last, the beast's great wings unfurled and it took to the sky with a frustrated howl of defeat.
    "What," the voice came again, "am I?"
    She stole a moment to breathe as she watched it go, then turned back towards the smaller dragon and held her hand out towards its burned muzzle. She smiled as it pressed back against her palm. "Fire," she replied, and with a rumble of approval, the dragon pulled back, spread his wings, and lifted off with a single powerful beat.
    "Some weapons are double-edged," the voice intoned as the surrounding flames began to thin, and the pinnacle ceased its collapse and began instead to rebuild. "Learn when to press on them, and when to hold back, or you risk undermining your own efforts and carrying yourself to defeat."
    She watched the dragon vanish among the thickening clouds above, smiling after it even while she considered the words. It was only when a chill prickled at her cheeks that she looked back to her surroundings and found, once again, that the fjord, the sea and the edge of her cliff had vanished in another thick fog.
    'No,' she thought, 'not fog...' It was too white, too cold. Then something small and wet struck her cheek. She lifted her fingers to it, then saw another land on the back of her gauntlet and spread from a small white speck to a single, crystal drop. Snow.
    Kat looked up and around herself while more flakes brushed her cheeks, and watched the cloud grow denser. Little grey discs drifted through the air for as far as she could see, growing gradually larger the higher she looked. The chill, too, began to bite, and she pulled her clothes tighter before squinting at a grey shape in the distance.
    'Again?' A growl slipped through her numb lips, but she prepared for the assault anyway, gritting her teeth against the cold, and fought her mind to focus. Slowly and steadily, the shape drew nearer. And, unlike the last, clearer. Something that looked like enormous antlers rose from the top of its head, and the pad and click of feet through the snow numbered four. 'Caribou?'
    She inched backwards as a face formed clearer through the cloud. Caribou didn't have tusks. Nor, she noticed as it continued its approach, claws. Her fists tightened, but movement to the left drew her eye as another beast appeared. Then another.
    By now the snow was thick, and visibility had dropped to mere feet, but the creatures kept coming. Something about their slow and steady pace unsettled her, and she boomed a great draconic roar towards the first to frighten it off. It flinched and hesitated, but the second was undeterred. The first soon resumed.
    She spun and roared again towards another, and it, too, faltered in fear. But the hesitation was shorter than the last. And more had since appeared.
    "As two...as five...as seven...as nine..."
    She spun and backed away as six antlered, fanged and clawed beasts slowly closed in around her.
    "Without a face...the voice shouts loudest... Without identity...the heart rings strongest."
    There were too many of them, and yet not one of them was attacking. A chill moved up her spine as confusion spun her around even faster. 'Why aren't they attacking?!'
    "What...am I?"
    'What are you, what are you...think, Kat, think!' She stamped her feet, in part to warn off the creatures, in part to warm her legs. But the cold was already seeping in. 'Fog, fire, snow. One, five, nine, loud voice - wind, snowflakes.'
    "Snow!" She shouted, making towards a break in the approaching wall of antlers.
    "Wrong."
    The wall closed before she could reach it. The creatures slowed further and clustered around her. Tusks drew close, and furry muzzles sniffed at her face. Mouths opened and chewed at her clothes. She stiffened, more than prepared to strike back, but still not one of them touched her beyond the warm gust of a snort through their noses.
    The knot in her brow tightened. They weren't attacking. They weren't attacking, because she wasn't a threat. Not while there were so many of them...
    Her gaze passed over those gathering further out. It was a whole herd of the things. Some were huddling together, looking at her but making no attempt to get close and investigate like the rest. And there were smaller ones, younger ones, bouncing around without a care. Because they knew they were safe...
    A tentative smile tried to tug at her lips, but doubt kept it at bay.
    "What...am I?"
    The young beasts bounced and bleated. Finally, her smile came through. "Family."
    The creatures didn't turn and leave. The snow didn't relent, the wind didn't fade. The chill continued to bite.
    Her frown grew deeper, until the deep voice rumbled again. "Community. ...But 'family' will suffice." On that cue, the animals moved on and continued their migration, paying her no more than a final, cursory sniff as they passed.
    "Accept and embrace the people around you. Strength comes from within, it is true, but together, that strength can move mountains and protect things far greater than yourself."
    The cloud and snow vanished, and Katriga found herself standing back on the pinnacle with the fjord behind her, the purple ocean crashing against its foot, and the sky touched again by only a few wisps of cloud. The air felt almost warm. She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of comfort. Whether she was built for the cold or not, it didn't usually come on so suddenly.
    But she started in fright when she opened her eyes again and found a figure standing before her, one that flickered between a ghostly woman and the dried husk of a draugr. But she didn't raise her hand towards it. Instead, she bowed with her fist over her heart. When she rose, more spirits stood behind it.
    "Be sure of yourself, Katriga Ormslíkir," the ancestor said in the same booming voice, one that still seemed to originate from everywhere and nowhere. "Be sure of your choices, and do what needs to be done. Take strength in your hands and wield it. But don't shun the help of others - among your kind, or the world beyond. It will be a lonely, dangerous place if you confine your trust to your clan alone. And," the draugr's lips peeled back into a crooked smile, "Mogar doesn't count."
    "Mogar!" The thought struck her before she could even try to mull over her words. "What of him? The prophecy said--"
    "'Upon whence your kin is born of dragon's blood, so shall this creature bond with them'." The ancestor nodded sagely. "The prophecy said what was needed."
    Kat's face screwed up in dissatisfaction. "That's not really an answer."
    "And yet," the ancestor flickered back into a ghost and gave her another crooked smile, "it is the absolute truth. Patience, Katriga."
    She was about to protest when she felt something strange pass over her, and fought breath back into her stunned lungs. "What was that?"
    "A boon. Fortitude. Luck and awareness on your travels, wherever they might take you." The ancestor stepped forwards - it was one step, she was sure it was one step, and yet it covered the length of the seven or so strides between them, and her cold, dry hand was suddenly pressed over her heart. "Live well, Katriga."
    Then the world went black.

     A startled squeak turned immediately into excited little peeps as Mogar swept back up onto Katriga's shoulder, and she blinked back towards the barrow. Trees had replaced the sea, standing stones the ancestors, and the fjord, as she whipped around, with a crowd of people, her family beaming among them. Her youngest sister Ragna was the only one who hadn't yet turned eighteen, and she stared back at her from their side with a mixture of fright and blazing fascination.
    When her mothers, Skurta and Jarl Thorhalla, stepped forwards and embraced her, the rest of the crowd burst into cheers, and she felt the tension in her ribs finally ease.
    She'd done her clan proud.
    And now...now she could chase adventure...

 The following story was written for Brooke, who owns all the characters and their histories.This story is not to be copied or reproduced without both mine and Brooke's permission.Words copyright © Kim Wedlock

It's Just Business

Estimated reading time: 26 minutes

   "An escort job? Who?"
   "Not 'who'. 'What'."
   A crease formed between Taria's eyebrows as she looked from the contract to the humourless man behind the desk. "All right, what then?"
   "No idea."
   "That's not really good enough..."
   "It'll have to be," the man replied, then squinted through his apparently disinterested demeanour to regard once again her sun-kissed skin and almost inhumanly angular features. She didn't flinch from the stare. "Where did you say you were from?"
   "I didn't. Nor," she handed the contract back with a deliberate smile, "do I take on illegal jobs."
   The man's eyebrows rose. "A mercenary with a moral code, how about that. Well, there's nothing here to knot up your precious sensibilities. It's a historical thing of one kind or another - acquired and sold by above-board means."
   "'Historical thing'? A relic? Books? A statue?"
   But he only shrugged. "Couldn't tell you. It's going to Jarl Marland in Kora." He moved out from behind the desk and walked towards a map pinned up to the wall, covered in so many old pin holes that some of the settlements had been completely eradicated.
   She studied where his finger struck it, a city to the north east, then traced her own finger along potential routes from Reyviin. "Three days," she deduced.
   "Two and a half, at most."
   "Demand?"
   He shook his head. "Landscape. So?"
   She pursed her lips while an errant summer breeze slipped through the window and brushed her short, red hair over her eyes. "Fine," she said eventually. "I'll take it. For a hundred and twenty krona." She didn't need to look to know the man had turned red.
   "A hundred and twenty?! This says--"
   "Ninety. I know. I can read."
   "B-but i-it's a small job--"
   "And 'historical things' are valuable." She turned him another deliberate look. "And when the clients are so tight-lipped, that tends to mean they're even more so. Which means the road may not be quite as smooth as it could be."
   His already squinted eyes narrowed further, and he opened his mouth to speak.
   "And I can't help but notice," she continued before he could, "the date on the request, and the fact that the request is still here. If you fail to get it to him in the next four days, the contract will expire and you won't see a penny of it. Am I right or am I right?"
   Words she didn't catch were grumbled under his breath. "Fine. Hundred and twenty." He shoved the contract back into her hands and stormed off behind his desk. "Get out."
   Taria grinned and left.

   "Hold here, Ten," Taria told her horse, and peered up at the fine house standing regal near the more manicured of the public gardens. A frown creased her brow. Historical research paid this well?
   She shrugged it off and dismounted at the gate. No one was around to guard or greet her, so she went ahead and wandered up the path and knocked at the door. The man that opened it was old and humourless, and didn't say anything beyond "courier?" before closing it again and marching off. Apparently, she wasn't permitted inside.
   Muttering his lack of manners, she satisfied herself instead by peering in through the window beside it at the array of trinkets and valuables on open display. She whistled in astonishment. It was just as well she was above thievery. This place was just begging to be looted.
   Taria darted back when she spotted movement inside, and the door was quickly snatched back open. The stiff old man gave her what she assumed to be a disapproving look, then stepped aside and let a younger man out instead. Again, no words were exchanged when he closed the door.
   Taria sneered after him, then turned her attention onto the new fellow who she found staring back at her, wide-eyed. He couldn't have been more than twenty, but it was as if he had never seen a woman before. He flinched when she smiled, and offered her hand. "Taria."
   "E-Edred. Edred. Lord Ingar's apprentice." He shook her hand nervously. Then stood there, staring at her again.
   She nodded slowly, then looked to the package in his arm. It was large, probably about two and a half feet long, but it didn't seem particularly heavy. "Is that it? What we're delivering?"
   "Wha--oh, yes, yes it is." And then he stared again.
   She smiled uncomfortably, then turned on her heel and led him away. "You have a horse?"
   "In the stables," he hurried along behind her, "yes."
   "Good." She took Tenebris's reins and gestured for Edred to lead the way, which he did with a strange, hurried shuffle, as though he wasn't moving at all from the knees up.
   Far from her surprise, they barely spoke at all along the way, and once they'd mounted up outside the city walls, the silence quickly began to prickle. Taria wasn't inclined to endure it. But then, she never had been. It was only out of courtesy for his clear discomfort that she'd restrained herself for the last fifteen minutes, but it was rapidly becoming more than she could bear.
   "So you're an apprentice," she said before she could stop the words from tumbling out, and gave him as friendly a smile as she could while he looked back at her with wide, startled eyes. "What does that mean?"
   "O-oh, uh, yes, well, uh, you see, every few years, Lord Ingar takes on one aspiring historian and teaches them his methods. Then, when they've advanced far enough, he'll write a referral to the Fellowship of the Hiso--"
   "No," she chuckled, "no, I know what an apprentice is. I mean what do you do? For him?"
   "Oh!" He managed a meagre chuckle, himself. "Well, I organise his work..."
   She continued to smile patiently. "...And?"
   "...And learn the processes he works by..."
   "...And you do your own research in between?"
   "Uh, no, I-I help him with his - organise his files, check for errors, corroborate his connections, strengthen them where they need to be, collect what he needs from libraries..."
   She couldn't keep the frown at bay for much longer. "You do none of your own work? At all? It's all his?"
   "Mhm!" And he sounded proud of that.
   "I...see... Oh!" Her smile returned in triumph. "I see! So your name will be on it beside his when he publishes it!"
   But his sudden chuckle erased it again. "Gods, no! No, of course not! It's not my work!"
   "Mm. Seems to me that it kind of is... Well, how long have you been in his tutelage?"
   "About three years."
   Her eyebrows flickered. "And how much longer?"
   "The same again."
   "Half way?! You're half way, and you're still only doing clerical work?!" She shook her head as his wide eyes blinked. "How will you possibly know you've advanced 'far enough' if you're not given any chances to prove it?! When I was an apprentice, I might've had to gather sword oil and wrappings, but at least I was still able to hone my own skills in between..." She cast him another furrowed look. "You seriously don't do any of your own research?"
   But his expression had stiffened, and he held himself with a sudden pompousness that certainly didn't suit him. "Miss," his tone had risen foolishly, too, "it's a manner of work you don't understand. Master Ingar is a fair and highly-sought master. I'm fortunate to be chosen."
   "And I daresay he's fortunate to have someone so...obliging..." She sighed and drew out her map at a fork in the road. "Well, what drove you to history, anyway?" She glanced up when he didn't answer, and found him frowning at her peculiarly.
   "You're not much like I thought a mercenary would be..."

   Mercifully, by the dawn of the next morning, Edred had relaxed considerably. Her constant pestering of questions she just couldn't for the life of her hold back had sufficiently worn him down, and he laughed at her story over a breakfast of fruit and cheese.
   "He slipped on the wine," she grinned uncontrollably, "the mug flew from his hand, hit the lamp, the last flame burst in a sputter and fizzled out, then he's on the floor, wailing like a cat. Two more come at me, but I could see them just about clearly enough with the window behind them, but all they could see of me was the light reflecting in my eyes - so I closed them, crouched, scurried forwards and tripped them as they ran. Then, while they're rolling about on the floor, cursing and wheezing and the rest, the cobbler flips his pancake, even in the stiff darkness, and says 'I had more onions in the back'!"
   "You're making that up!" He guffawed.
   "Not a word of a lie!" Well, mostly.
   While he continued to grin and partially collapse as he repeated his favourite bits to himself, Taria noticed someone approaching from the road. She rose and positioned herself smoothly between him and Edred. She could see even from that distance that the tawny-skinned, well-muscled man was another mercenary.
   Her hand loosened, ready to reach for her blade even as she relaxed her tone and smiled. "Morning," she called once it was clear he was definitely heading their way, and he replied in kind.
   "Morning - are you Ingar's couriers?"
   Her hand flicked closer, but her smile widened amicably. "Certainly. And you are?"
   "Yaruun." There was little friendliness in his voice. "He sent me to join you."
   "Oh? Why would he do that?"
   But the man's eyes immediately slipped onto the apprentice. Edred duly paled. "Why?" He managed not to stammer, looking back to her in confusion. "He didn't say anything to me about it."
   "Why would he send you if I've already been hired?" She asked as he came to a stop a polite few paces away.
   "You were hired on Jarl Marland's behalf. I'm working on Ingar's. It's as simple as that."
   Her hand twitched again as he reached towards his hip, then withdrew a folded sheet of parchment from his belt. He extended it warily, and the pair stared back at the seal.
   Somehow, Edred paled further. "He doesn't trust me..."
   "I can't attest to that," Yaruun replied, tucking it away again. "I'm just here to make sure you don't feign theft so your jarl gets both it and a refund. It was an after-thought, though, so I'm being paid well whether I end up being necessary or not. All the same," he turned pointedly to Taria, "if you are up to no good, I advise you to leave now. You can't stand against me. I will be able to stop you."
   Her eyebrow twitched, but she smiled all the same. "I appreciate the warning. But I took a contract, so I'm sticking around. I need the money."
   "Well, I'm paid either way, so it makes little difference to me. And if you're lying, at least I warned you." He turned and marched back to the road where his grey horse waited. "I'm ready when you are."
   Taria gathered up her tidied bedroll and clicked Tenebris over, strapping them back to his saddle. She noticed Edred's nervousness as he tidied away his own. "Not one for people, are you?"
   "I admit," he cast another uneasy glance down towards the man, "I prefer seclusion. Just being out here is several great leaps from my comfort zone. But...he makes sense..."
   "Yes, unfortunately, he does. So it's just as well we're not up to no good. Right?"
   He smiled nervously. "Right."

   Edred had stiffened back up in the company of this man, but Taria was unconcerned. If anything, she found herself even more interested in breaking down the mercenary's walls than she had been the apprentice's. She trotted Tenebris up beside him, and heard Edred draw his closer for safety.
   "Do you have any idea what we're actually transporting?" She asked him. "Edred won't tell me."
   "It's not my business to know," he replied flatly despite his lilting accent, his eyes unmoving from the road. "It's my business to escort it."
   "Even so, you're not curious?"
   "Why should I be? It's intellectual business, and I don't have the head for it, no matter how much my mother might wish otherwise."
   "She disapproves of your profession?"
   "Yours doesn't?"
   Taria's eyes pulled back to the trees, and she shoved away the small crease from the middle of her brow. "I wouldn't honestly know..." Her gaze drew back to him easily enough, and she smiled once again. "You're not from here."
   "No. Ivaea."
   "That's it?" She asked, picturing the deserts, mountains and grass plains to the north. "Just 'Ivaea'?"
   "You need more?"
   "I suppose not..." She looked again at the serpent crest on his scabbard, and the matching image on his shoulder. "Are you part of a guild?"
   "Yes. The Dralagsi."
   "But you're working alone?"
   "Not all of us are cut out for working in groups, and not all jobs need multiple hands. Surely you realise that. You're out here without your guildmates, too."
   "I don't have any. I always work alone."
   "No guild?" Despite the vaguest hint of surprise in his voice, he still didn't look away from the road.
   Taria smirked to herself. "'Not all of us are cut out for working in groups'. But I did train with one."
   Yaruun grunted, but that was all.
   "What do you usually work on?" She asked after barely a moment. "What's your speciality?"
   Finally, he looked her way, and his eyes were brimming with suspicion. "You ask a lot of questions."
   "As far as I'm aware, it's not a crime."
   He looked indignantly back to the road. "It's considered rude among my people."
   "Oh...well...we're not among your people. Really, though: what's your speciality? And why did you start? If your mother doesn't approve, it can't be a family business."
   "It isn't."
   Silence.
   "...So why did you?"
   His answers became only more tight and closed off with every question she asked, and before long, he stopped answering altogether, leaving them to ride on in what silence Taria would let sit. But they wound up making good time - mostly because the mercenary seemed to be pushing his horse in an effort to get away from her, but she supposed she couldn't blame him. And anyway, she was being paid by the job, not the day, so the sooner it was done, the better. And it looked to be an easy matter, too. With two mercenaries, thieves were less likely to try anything - though his unwillingness to talk made it difficult to gauge his likely reaction if they did. All she could really guess was that he would probably either try to take charge, or try to do it all himself. Either way, it looked like her part would be defensive. But giving in to that position early on was easier than trying to break down someone's stubborn pride...

   It was only when Taria peered at the map and tried to work out if the forest ahead was Tuskroot or not that she realised just how dark it had gotten. Kora was surely only two hours away by now - but Edred was tired, the horses were tired, and there was every chance that the jarl would not appreciate being woken in the middle of the night to deal with the arrival of an old relic. And the last thing she needed was to upset a client and have him pay the middleman less. That would mean less for her.
   So they made camp just hours from midnight at the edge of the birchwoods that sheltered the old city, ate their dried meat and tough bread - a meal that didn't seem to sit too well with the apprentice, as it hadn't the night before - and turned in, leaving Yaruun to keep watch.
   It took some time for Taria to find any sleep. Her mind kept knotting and twisting and racing. It wasn't often that that happened, but Yaruun - a man who didn't belong here in Turunda any more than she did, and who followed the path his profession laid out just the same - had made her think on her own home. Or, what little of one she had. Bouncing between orphanages hadn't exactly instilled a sense of 'belonging' anywhere. But she'd made the best of it, and she couldn't say she didn't enjoy where her life had taken her - especially seeing what passed for an apprenticeship in this place. But...she just couldn't shake the question as she lay there in the restless, smothering summer warmth: would her mother have been proud of her, if she'd had one? Or would she be disappointed? Or would she just be scared for her, risking her life and sleeping rough as she so often did?
   She lost herself in the matter for a long while before the sheer power of the knot in her jaw reminded her that the answers weren't for her to know. And that, honestly, they didn't really matter. She was happy with her choices.
   Taria closed her eyes and breathed, and sleep settled in easily once she let it.

   The world was black when she jolted awake, and only one sound touched the air. It wasn't an owl. It wasn't a cricket. It wasn't the wind. It was one sound she'd heard more times in her life than should probably have been healthy if it invoked an immediate sense of purpose rather than fear. Did that make her survival instinct broken, she wondered absently as she reached for her sword, or heightened?
   Well, she wasn't dead yet.
   She pushed herself up as the sword withdrew from Edred's body, and watched him hit the ground with a heavy thud and a gasp while Yaruun lifted the package from among the apprentice's belongings.
   Yaruun met Taria's burning stare. "He wouldn't hand it over." His eyes, in the half-clouded moonlight, were neither regretful, nor cold. It was just business.
   Edred's, when her gaze flicked back to him, were wide with shock. But the wound in his shoulder wouldn't be fatal - assuming she could get him help in time. Which meant dealing with Yaruun quickly.
   She'd already shoved herself to her feet, and her blade waited ready in her hand. All the numbness of sleep had fled with the sound of it ringing across her scabbard's locket.
   Yaruun was on her before she could ask a single question. And she realised too late that she was at an immediate disadvantage. His longsword had far greater reach than her shortsword. There was little use even trying to compete.
   Daggers, however, required an entirely different fighting style.
   She barely sidestepped his thrust as she lunged aside for the smaller blades, and danced her way around a second. He must have expected her to take a moment or three to adjust to the difference, and that incorrect assumption gave her room to get in an easy shot at his unprotected side.
   Or so she'd thought. He turned just fast enough to knock her dagger away with his sword.
   "I've warned you," he told her coolly.
   "I know," she replied much the same.
   "Stand aside, Taria. I have a contract."
   "So do I. But more than that," she made for another quick strike, which he didn't deflect in time, "you drew innocent blood."
   He pushed off, disregarding already the shallow cut in his side, while she leapt back, found distance, and exploded into a quick attack towards his legs. Her blades moved in a flurry, and she hit him a handful of times before his boot fired her backwards and sent pain flaring white across her face.
   She cursed and shook it off as fast as she could, and barely managed to sidestep and duck beneath his next rapid strike. He kicked at her again before she could react, but she saw this one coming and slashed a blade across his calf. He grunted, but that was all. His sword still flashed upwards into a skyward arc.
   But Taria didn't steal distance this time. She twitched back and let his momentum continue, leaving his torso open. Then she shot around his exposed side, moved up to his sword arm, and feinted just as he engaged his next attack. Her foot hit the side of his knee with all her strength.
   He crumpled with a curse, and she kicked him forwards as he fought for balance before stamping hard on the back of his other.
   Despite the crunch and howl, Taria's attention turned immediately onto Edred.
   "You okay?" She asked while he stared past her, pale, at the man trying to push himself back up, grunting through gritted teeth.
   His wide eyes soon crashed up onto her "You won't finish him?" He somehow managed both to whisper and shriek. "He'll come after us!"
   "Not with his ligaments in that shape, he won't. And anyway," she smiled, turning her attention quickly to the extent of his bloodied shoulder, "I don't take lives if I don't have to. He was only doing his job. Now come on: to your feet." She dragged him up and clicked the horses over, helped him up onto his own, gathered their things and left Yaruun there. The Ivaean mercenary didn't ask for help once.

   Despite the circumstances, she still gasped at the sight of Kora: the ivy clinging to the outer walls, the high merlons cut into the shape of leaves, clear even in the moonlight - and, above all else, the back of the city, cut straight from the quartz-studded cliffs, glinting and glittering like a sheet of stars.
   Edred was in little state to admire it, nor answer her flurry of questions. He half-slumped over his horse, clutching his shoulder, and looked about with listless eyes.
   Her concern hiked, fascination sharply forgotten, and she urged her horse faster. "Hurry, Ten! Hurry!" He snorted and obeyed, dragging Edred's leashed horse into a canter behind him.
   The guards at the gates gave her directions to the medica, and she kicked forwards without a second to waste, weaving on up through the sleeping hillside city until the old rounded building appeared ahead through the quiet streets.
   Despite few being on hand inside, Edred was seen to immediately, and she was pulled aside to have her nose poked at, too. She was fine, and assured them of it multiple times, but they insisted.
   She sighed and sat back down while a young man began pressing clinically at the bruising across her brow, and stifled her curse. She'd worked it out along the way there. Actually, she'd worked it out the moment she'd heard his blade cut through Edred's flesh. Yaruun had been hired to steal it back. Of course he had. He hadn't tried hard enough to get rid of her, so she hadn't noticed it at the time, but with her dead beside this unlucky apprentice, the jarl would be satisfied that thieves or bandits were to blame rather than any kind of underhand deception - maybe he'd even get his money back and compensation from the contract office, and the seller, evidently protected by some obscure liability clause or rule in the transaction, would keep both the jarl's money and the...whatever it was...
   She frowned down at the package she'd carried in, not daring to leave it outside to be stolen. She still hadn't been able to work out what was inside it, nor why it had made a noise when she'd grabbed it.
   Once the medic had concluded that she was, in fact, fine, and gave her a salve to cool the swelling, she left the poor, pale apprentice in their care, assured that he would make a full recovery, and sought out somewhere to stable Tenebris and find herself some rest - after casting back a cursory note that there was another man out at the edge of the forest that might also like a little bit of help, of course. She wasn't a monster.

   She slept well until she awoke beside her horse to a blinding strip of early dawn light falling across her eyes.
   She cursed and shielded them behind her arm, then found the tiptoeing stablehand apologising profusely for waking her, though he looked bemused at the same time. Why would she sleep down here when there were beds in a tavern literally on the other side of the wall? But, honestly, she couldn't even remember making it to the stables. Something in the salve must have made her drowsy. They really should give warnings about that kind of thing...
   After a quick bite that often consituted a breakfast on the road, Taria went to check on the apprentice, but he'd apparently lost more blood than she'd realised and the medics refused to discharge him. He was given no opportunity to argue, though, because he had yet to actually wake up. So it was left to Taria to take the mysterious bundle to the jarl, who the medics told her she'd find in library in the cliff face itself. She couldn't help a skip of fascination in her step as she hurried along towards it.

   Her eyes adjusted quickly to the dark of the library, and when she turned around to glance back out through the glass doors, the morning light almost blinded her again. She snapped away with a strained murmur and set off further into the building. Or, carving.
   Bookshelves lined the walls and segmented the hall, reaching all the way up to the tall, far-off ceilings. She saw, as she craned her neck, the images cut into it, though she couldn't make them out, and wound up spinning on the spot trying to find the right perspective.
   "You there!"
   She stopped and snapped around at the voice, then spotted two men hurrying towards her, both well-dressed, though the older of the pair held himself with a distinctly prouder bearing than the other. Both of them carried an eager light in their eyes.
   She bowed. It had to be the jarl. He didn't seem to notice the gesture, though.
   "You've brought it!" The jarl beamed. "Marvellous!" He all but snatched it from her, but before she could confirm her latent presumption that a fat purse meant fat fingers, he handled it with at least as much care as Edred did.
   She watched the pair of them stare at the wrapping as if they were suddenly afraid of what might be inside it.
   Then, suddenly, the jarl's head lifted and his eyes crashed back onto her. "Come! You've ferried it all this way, it's only fair that you get a look!"
   She wasn't about to argue, though she did have to hurry to keep up, and followed them into a well-lit back room where the jarl set the package on the table. Taria frowned as he all but leapt back from it, then the younger of the two moved forwards, and she watched him stare at it for another long moment. It was only at the jarl's excited command that he finally began to unlace it.
   Her eyebrows dropped when he drew back the cloth. "A tattered old fiddle? That's what we were bringing here? A fiddle?"
   "A nyckelharpa," the young man corrected in a voice barely above a whisper, his green eyes glittering. "Pre-magic elven, First Era, about one thousand four hundred years old, one of the earliest versions of what became the most iconic instrument, even in our own age!"
   "Really?" She took a more interested step closer. He caught her hand before she could pluck at a string.
   "Really."
   "Anthis."
   They both looked back to the jarl, his eyes as thick with fret as his voice.
   "Can you restore it?"
   Even she turned a cautious look back towards him as he circled around the table, mindlessly ushering them out of the way to look at it from all angles before daring to finally touch it. Never mind that it had been jostled about and strapped to the back of a horse for the past two days.
   Finally, he nodded. "I can. I think. I know a luthier who should be able to help..." he breathed a sound that was either a gasp or a stifled squeak. "It's so old... How much did you--"
   The jarl's cough and far from subtle nod towards Taria cut him off. He straightened instead and enforced composure over himself. It did little to chase away the glee in his eyes.
   Then the jarl was suddenly in front of her, shaking her hand vigorously and pressing a note of confirmation into her other palm, all while ushering her towards the door. "Thank you for your help, young lady. It trust it wasn't...too much...trouble..."
   She turned her head away while he stared at the bruising across her nose and brow, probably only now noticing it for the first time, and smiled offhandedly, freeing herself from his grip and making towards the door for herself. "No. None at all. And it took me only two days - you might want to let the oaf in Reyviin know that. Otherwise, gentlemen, best of luck with your fiddle." She reached for the handle, but she couldn't help casting back a curious smile. "I should like to hear it, if you get it working."
   Anthis smiled and gave a single nod of his head while the jarl descended back into staring at the thing, then Taria stepped back out into the library.
   Her smile promptly withered, and her eyes dropped down to the note of delivery. "Now to try to get my money out of that weasel..."

Taria and Tenebris belong to Patricia of FairyLiterary. Set in The Devoted's Turunda by request. This story is not to be copied or reproduced without both mine and FairyLiterary's permission.
Words copyright © Kim Wedlock

One Öre

   This month, The Zi'veyn turns 2, and The Sah'niir has its 1st birthday,

so I wrote this month's short story in connection to it.

It takes place on the morning of The Zi'veyn - no prior reading needed!

 

Estimated reading time: 18 minutes

   Garon frowned at the coins dropped into his palm. 'Two, four, six...' Seven öre and one krona. It was all there. And yet, bouncing them in his hand, it felt just a little too light...
   His grey eyes lifted back to the trader. The man's amiable smile had stiffened, and even as he looked offhandedly across the surrounding market, he seemed to be trying to shuffle off to the side and away from his cart. Garon smoothly caught his wrist.
   "What," he presented the coins, "is this?"
   "Your change, sir," the man replied without a trace of concern for his grip. His smile had even revived. There was no shame in his eyes at all. It was a perfect mask. And, logically speaking, nonsensical.
   Garon sighed to himself. This man knew exactly what he was doing. And he didn't have the time for it.
   Unfortunately, matters like these were his jurisdiction.
   He didn't release his wrist, and turned himself only slightly, but the shift of his cloak was enough to draw the man's eyes to the hilt of his sword, and the White Hammer insignia stamped on the flat of the pommel. At that point, the chipper colour drained from his face.
   The trader's gaze lifted back, his eyes suddenly as wide and innocent as a child's, and he opened his failing smile to speak.
   Then snatched the coins and ran instead.
   Garon cursed and set off after him, darting around the cart while the trader dashed away behind the rest before swinging down into a lane. He called over the startled merchants for the man to stop, but the words, as they always did, fell on deaf ears. They were little more than a formality. Leaping as easily over the crates and debris thrown in his way as he did, the man must have known he could never outrun him. But he would try. They always tried.
   And so Garon wasn't remotely surprised when the man barrelled out from the far end of the lane to the street beyond, and crashed straight into the side of the horse. A surprising number of alley chases ended that way.
   While the cart-horse squealed and stamped its surprise, coins scattering all over the cobbles, Garon strode out to the street, seized him by the wrist, dragged him to his feet, and dutifully intoned: "I am arresting you for possession of and intent to distribute counterfeit coins, suspicion of counterfeiting, and treason." His grip didn't falter while the man tried to struggle his way out of it. Nor when his effort doubled at the timely arrival of two guards.
   Garon all but shoved him into their care. "Detain him, and recover those coins. The Hall of the White Hammer will be in to collect him in due course. I'm following up on something else at the moment."
   They straightened and nodded their agreement, then began calling for the civilians to keep clear while a third guard hurried over to help them.
   With a grunt of satisfaction, Garon turned and strode away. He had another, greater matter to see to.

*

   One bronze öre rolled its way beneath the wagon and bounced across the cobbles. It wove its way out between boot and hoof, narrowly avoided striking the well, and missed the eye of the local miser.
   It was only when a single misstep sent a foot grazing and stumbling over the uneven stonework that its roll for freedom was broken.

   Petra cursed and cast the road a spiteful sneer, restraining herself from kicking it. She was about to move on when a bronze glint caught her eye.
   Her gaze narrowed, and a thought puckered her lips. 'Luck,' she wondered, 'or just chance?' Was the question even worth it?
   She bent down and lifted it from the stone, when a voice rose behind her.
   "Are you Petra Dalin?"
   A smile flickered across her face. 'Luck.'
   She turned as she rose, and considered the armed man who waited a wary few steps away. About fifty, almost twice her own age; a strong frame, but lean rather than bulky; a scar running from his cheekbone down through his beard; a confident bearing - trained, not inherent, and probably deserved. A soldier, she surmised, until not that long ago.
   This wouldn't be an easy win.
   Petra straightened and moved her cloak aside, deliberately placing one hand on the sword at her hip. The gesture was made only in part for intimidation. "I am." Her eyebrows rose when he bowed his head.
   "Then I extend a challenge, if I may."
   "You may. And more politely than I'm used to."
   "Don't misunderstand my honour as chauvinism." There was a steadiness in his eye when he looked back up. "I know well of you. I won't hold back."
   "In which case," her eyes similarly hardened, "neither will I. Where?"
   "The square."
   "When?"
   He drew his sword.
   A smirk flickered across her lips, and she drew her own in answer. "Lead the way."
   A number of people followed them from that busy street. She could hear her name, and his, flow throughout the growing crowd, and when they reached the town square, marked by a small and poorly maintained public garden, it had swelled to perhaps three dozen.
   She glanced over them as they came to a stop, removed their cloaks and prepared themselves, but her evaluation of their wealth was cut short by the cold. She fought back a shiver and swung her arms to warm up her shoulders. Spring felt further off than it should have been. Surely the ice floes had moved off by now...
   'I'll have to try my luck north in Kasire one of these days...'
   She shook the useless thoughts away. She was wasting time.
   Her attention returned to her opponent, watching his warm up, looking for injuries and where he was taking more care. There were plenty of small weaknesses, but they appeared mostly healed. But even if some of them were nothing more than left-over ticks from an injury healed a decade ago, they could be exploited.
   Her own most recent had cleared up a few days ago, and she did her best not to show any subtle hints of protection. But she had the distinct feeling that even that level of physical wellness wouldn't last for much longer.
   The soldier ended his warm up. "I am aware of your rules, Miss Dalin. We fight to disarm."
   "Yes, that's...all of them..." She shook her bemusement away. "No amendments?"
   "None. Are we ready?"
   Someone nearby started calling for bets.
   'I am now.' She stepped aside and unlaced her coin purse. It contained only about one quarter of the money she carried; the rest was in a pouch hidden inside her cloak. This was a show of arrogance. She was sure to feign a slight limp as she approached the collector.
   "On me," she said, and was about to drop the pouch into his waiting hand when she remembered the lucky öre. She drew it from its hiding place in her cinch just as a warning rose from the other side.
   Everyone scattered before she could finish her curse.
   She snatched her cloak from the ground and threw up her hood, covering her blood-red hair, and fled along behind them. A few corners later, she breathed a sigh of relief. The guards here were quick to move, but not to pursue. But no rules had actually been broken, so she'd been prepared to protest her innocence. As for the soldier, she would find him again later.
   Tying her purse back to her cinch, she looked down at the lucky coin and smiled. At least she'd made something, if only a penny, and, resolved or not, she'd found a challenger too.
   The mid-morning sun glinted across the bronze as she flicked it up into the air. Then a sudden doubt pulled at her eyebrows as she caught it. She squinted closer, turning it between her fingers. "This isn't..."
   She looked around quickly, spotted a beggar sitting hunched on a low wall, and dropped it onto his book.
   If Petra Dalin was caught with a counterfeit, it would destroy her.

*

   Anthis blinked at the coin on his page. Glancing up from beneath his tattered hood, he looked about from one passing figure to another, but there was no knowing who'd done it.
   So he shrugged and pocketed it, read on to the end of the page, closed his notebook and tucked it into the satchel beneath his travel cloak. After dusting the moss from his rear, he hoisted the bag, bundled himself up and left. Why was it still so cold?!
   He shook his head to himself as he drew the cloak tighter around his neck. It would be fine once he was moving. Or working. Or just not thinking about it. Which was difficult when it was everywhere.
   'Silverwood, Silverwood, Silverwood...'
   That seemed to do the trick.
   He'd been to the ruins in that old, pear-speckled forest for two days on the trot, comparing notes from that ruined archway to notes on others from over the length of the country. No one else took much of an interest in them, but that was probably just as well - depending on how you looked at it. No one was around, which meant no interruptions, and the rest of the Historical Society didn't seem to give two sniffs about the thing. Too far beneath them, probably.
   Anthis scoffed to himself. That was their attitude on so many things. Armchair historians, the lot of them. The Fellowship was riddled with them, ironically. He was one of only a few who actually went out to investigate his theories.
   But on the other hand, that also meant that there was little he could fall back on. Any discovery would be entirely his own, but it would also be hard-won. And you know what they say: two minds, yadda yadda.
   Not that he could rely on many of them. He wasn't well-liked, and more or less precisely because he didn't attend sherry nights. But that didn't really bother him. Was he lonely? Perhaps a little. But he was also never happier than when he was out in a ruin, following up on his own research. And 'ornamental stones' or not, the archways were fascinating. They always stood alone, all of them, and he was sure they had once been gateways - intangible, yes; metaphorical, symbolic. Had they been made by post-magic elves, they could well have been actual portals, but these all dated - all of them - well back before the elves were gifted their magic, way back in the First Era, and they all seemed dedicated to Nara, the God of Hands - Vastal's face of craft and toil.
   But not all of them. Some were instead dedicated to Doru, the God of Mind, Vastal's face of intellect and compassion. And yet they all looked the same, aside from a few small engravings.
   They had to cross over somewhere, beyond simple aesthetics. There was a reason they all looked the same - same shape, same height, same dimensions, same coiling ornamentation. Weather and ruin not withstanding, of course. There was a link between these two of the Goddess's aspects in elven culture - but he'd been to seven sites in Turunda and several more in Kalokh and Doana, and he couldn't find it! Even just pondering it now, as his feet carried him almost feverishly through Edam's streets, he could feel a frustration clawing at the insides of his throat.
   Which face was dominant? More arches seemed to be dedicated to Nara, but was that just because they were crafted? Were they actually dedicated to Doru instead, and built with a higher, intellectual purpose? Like the communication between themselves and the gods? The 'gateway' to better understanding them? Maybe Nara only came into it at all because they had to be crafted by hand. Or maybe Doru was only relevant because it took planning and co-ordination to get so many so identical.
   He shook his head over the matter for the umpteenth time. Elves and their damned context. It was never simple! And while they left their stories engraved all over the things, so many words had multiple meanings that it was impossible to know for sure without a broad study. Which is exactly what this had been so far. Needlessly so. So broad, in fact, that he was beginning to wonder if they were linked at all - which was something he was hoping would've been answered five sites ago. Give it another day or two and he'd be off, no doubt, to yet another.
   He huffed to himself, loosening his cloak.
   He didn't notice the smile already creeping over his lips half a heartbeat later, nor the haste in his feet as he rushed out through Edam's town gate. Nuisance or not, the mystery, the search for the answers, they were what he lived for.
   Nodding at the guards as he left, he spotted a trader just ahead, and hurried forwards at a thought. "Excuse me," he called, already running in his previous excitement, "excuse me, sir!"
   The trader turned. It seemed a cumbersome movement with the pack on his back trying to overbalance him, but he grinned amicably enough. "Good morning, sir! However can I be of assistance?"
   Anthis returned his friendly smile as he puffed to a stop beside him. "Do you have any pencils?"
   The man blinked. "Pencils? Graphite?"
   "That's them exactly, yes. No one in Edam had any and I think - I hope - I'll need them." He watched the man tap his chin as he mentally noted off his inventory, then smiled in relief as the man snapped his fingers and lowered the pack from his back.
   "So, artist, are you?" He asked, rifling through one of the side pockets, which itself could have rivalled his own over-stuffed satchel.
   "Oh, no - historian. I'm heading out to the arch in Silverwood." He could see the man had already lost interest. Fortunately, he'd also already found the pencils.
   "Ah, here we are. Well, I can't see what good staring at old stones will do for a people as long-gone and as foul as the elves, but each to their own. I'm sure it has meaning to someone." He presented three wooden pencils. "Half an öre each, or all three for one."
   Anthis nodded and pulled the bronze coin out from his pocket. "All three, please."
   "Lovely jubbly."
   Anthis stuffed the pencils into his bag and thanked the man profusely. The trader watched him go with a bemused look on his face. "You're in a rush! The rocks ain't going anywhere!"
   "But the past grows only more distant!" He called as he hurried on away.
   The trader blinked then shook his head. "...Can't argue with that."

*

   One coin heavier, the trader followed the road from Edam towards the highlands, and the trees began to close in, ash and alder giving way to spruce as the ground climbed. He puffed along that wretched route with such a weight on his back, but he didn't consciously notice the strain. He whistled to himself whenever he had the breath to spare. There were easier routes, but this one was lucrative.
   And, after a few hours of travel and passing a handful of other trundling customers along the way, two figures emerged up ahead from among the trees: a grim-looking man, one who'd surely never smiled a day in his life, and a child.
   The trader narrowed his eyes as he always did, but never voiced his questions.
   "Morning, sir," he hailed the pair, and unstrapped the bundle tied to the side of the pack without taking it off. He paid no mind when the man ushered the child behind him. Hermits would be like that.
   The man handed him the money immediately, and he in turn the package. His burden felt wonderfully lightened, and his purse that beautiful degree heavier as he counted the coins and dropped them in. But he was twenty öre over.
   But the glint of the man's silver took him.
   He drew the strings together.

   "Taxes have gone up again," the trader told him before he'd even turned back to see Rathen's waiting palm. "On account of the war." He shrugged and smiled apologetically enough. "Sorry, friend."
   Rathen growled and dropped his hand, but he didn't pursue it. "Mead?"
   "No change on tax there."
   The usual grim lines in his face deepened in irritation. "Do you have any?"
   The pack came off of his back, and Rathen waited while he opened one of his many compartments. A moment later, he presented a bottle. Rathen managed not to sneer at the flourish. It was only a bottle of Edrich. The man thought he was an idiot. But what could he do about it?
   Plenty, really. But this thief didn't know that.
   And it was better that he didn't.
   Rathen reached out to take the bottle, but the trader immediately moved back. With another grumble, he drew his meagre coin pouch from his sleeve. "How much?" He didn't need to look up to see him eyeing his coins hungrily.
   "Two krona."
   "Two whole krona?! You said the tax didn't change!"
   "No," he smiled in that wretchedly apologetic way again, "but it's in demand at the moment. On account of war."
   "Of course it is." He handed over his last silver coin and took the bottle. A subtle tug came at his side, but he didn't look around at it. "And sugar."
   "Ah." That sounded sincere. "That one's not so easy, on account--"
   "Of war," Rathen finished. "Yes. Well, find some. Or it won't just be my purse strings getting cut." He made sure the look in his eyes was unmistakable, and rather enjoyed watching the man flinch.
   "R-right-o," he stammered. "In that case, I'll scour my storehouses, and raid my competitors'. Now, if that's all--"
   "Yes, thank you. Go." He watched the trader hoist his bag back onto his shoulders and move at surprising speed for his load. He shook his head to himself, but managed not to curse. "Thief."
   He saw the little hands grabbing up beside him in their usual desperation to help. The package was heavy, but the bottle could be smashed. But she was more likely to fall with the package.
   "Be careful," he said quite precisely, handing her the bottle. "If you drop it, don't try to save it."

   "I won't drop it, Daddy." Aria wrapped her arms around the bottle and held on both as tight and careful as she could, even as she watched the trader go from beneath her thick hood. It was a long moment before she realised her father had already turned and started back up the hill away from the road.
   She gasped and hurried along after him, feeling danger nipping at her bum. She raced at first, then remembered the heavy, sloshy bottle and instead took long but careful strides. Only when she was back and safe at his side in the shadow of the woods did she puff a sigh through her cheeks. Then she turned him a frown. "What did he steal, Daddy?"
   "Anything he can get his grubby hands on, I'm sure..."
   "But," the knot in her forehead tightened, "you gave him the money for all this."
   The smile he gave her was tired, but his ruffling of her curls through her hood was firm enough to rattle away her confusion at least a little. "Yes, little one, I did. Maybe I am an idiot."
   "You're not an idiot, Daddy."
   "Thank you for saying so."
   "'Dim-witted', Kienza says." She hid her smile behind the bottle while he turned a flat look down at her, then lowered it and gave him a careful grin. "Please still make me a cake."
   "Might not be able to. On account of the war."
   "Mmm," she pursed her heart-shaped lips in thought. "I suppose soldiers need cake, too..." Her eyes drifted back up to him, noticing again the same strange line between his eyebrows he'd worn since morning. "What's wrong?"
   "Hm?" He glanced down at her, then seemed to notice it himself. He forced it away, and it didn't come easily. "I don't know, little one. I just have a...feeling..."
   "About?"
   She watched him shake his head, then he stared forwards into the forest. "Like something's about to change..."

Words copyright © Kim Wedlock

No part is to be reproduced without my permission.