Crickets were chirping. The sound, poignant yet occasional, slowly piqued the little hairs in Renado’s ears and lifted their lids of his eyes. It was dark, even when his eyes were open. But groggily, Ren could see a boot through all the blurriness. He took a deep breath and his sight clarified. It was Asar’s boot, with the respective man attached to it. Continue reading Renado 31
A man with a loose, sweat-stained grey shirt hanging around his malnourished shoulders offered his hand to Renado in the alleyway shadows. Ren grimaced, but clasped the stranger’s greasy skin nonetheless. The man nodded and said, “I’m Darr. As the lovely lady said, I was there, that night. I let fly arrows at Axar’s house.”
Ren nodded. The source had finally surfaced, and the days of sending Asar to walk past this alleyway had paid off. He licked his lips to speak, but was interrupted. Continue reading Renado 30
The story in Ith was a chilling one. Renado and his friends had pieced part of it together, but sat together in the Verdant sharing drinks in near disbelief. It seemed that Lotha’s plan to defeat Axar by turning the rebels against him had succeeded, though no one yet knew of Axar’s fate, nor Lotha’s. When the mob had stormed the streets, a proper riot had ensued. Flaming arrows fell on sleeping houses, and cudgels broke the most important skulls. The revolution had, as Irrith suspected, claimed another Mage King. Continue reading Renado 29
The last hill before Ith became Ren’s new home for a few minutes. Though the city covered several hills, its walls obstructed most of the city. Where Ren had been impressed by Vagren’s walls, he was in awe of Ith’s. The walls loomed over a hundred feet tall in some places, massive stacks of stones that dwarfed anything built in Sheld aside from the Worker’s Rise. While the enormous dome was nothing but memories, Ith’s winding defenses were right there, challenging his senses.
Woodro impatiently tapped his sword. “Are we going in?” he asked. Continue reading Renado 28
Ren had never seen a creature like the Vorin Buck before, but Karsef assured him that’s what they had seen. The little troop of mercenaries marched swiftly across the valley floor. They were still a few days from Ith, and apparently had ended up right in the middle of the territorial beast’s land.
They had first seen the buck trotting along a hilltop at their flank. It has paused with a good vantage to examine them, and then galloped out of sight. According to Karsef, who’d spoken at length with a Raderan about the creature, it would confront them if they didn’t soon leave its domain. It was a burly creature, covered in thin brown and black hair. Wide horns splayed out to each side of its head, sometimes sharpened by their habit of marking trees. Continue reading Renado 27
There was a decent sized town on the route Ren and his men took toward Ith. Avoiding the Crimson Highway was a risk. As corrupt of an organization as it was, the Highwaymen did offer a reliable security along their road. Bandits roamed the wildlands, but Ren and his men found safety in Olston.
The village appeared to be a mining town, at first glance, but Ren noticed an entire district of some two thousand people that had been freshly built far from the mine. Refugee housing, he assumed, when he saw the ragtag inhabitants there. They had arrived from the wrong side of town and walked through the northern gate after going around. Compared to Vagren, it was no gate at all, just an opening in the palisades, patrolled by a couple of guards.
“Where’s a good place to stay?” Ren asked one such pedestrian as he walked.
The man stood up and stared at Ren, but said nothing. Woodro waved his hand in the man’s face as they passed and shrugged. “He’s blind, maybe?” he asked, but the man stammered and flushed in irritation.
They passed a patrolling guard, a man with a stiff, straight arm but a veteran’s set jaw. Asar spoke up before Ren decided to. “Are there any inns here?”
“Look for the Old Granite Inn,” the guard replied. “Head down here, through the market. Then go left, downhill. It’s just in front of the old mine.”
“Thanks,” Ren said, turning around but continuing forward, to take a few steps backwards as the guard continued past the group of warriors. He nearly tripped over an old woman when he spun right away around. He got an exceptionally dirty look, but kept walking with as much of a friendly air as he could manage. Some small towns didn’t like armed guests wandering their streets.
His men walked silently. They had a long way to go before they reached Ith. Travelling over the hills was slow work for the group of smugglers turned sell-swords. They were tired and eager for a good rest.
The innkeeper of the Old Granite Inn was an awkwardly tall man. “Welcome,” he said. “I’m Ogivar, and I’ve run this tavern all my life. Can I get you and your men a serving of our evening stew?”
“It’d be appreciated,” Ren said. “We’ve never travelled this way before. Are the newer houses to the northeast for refugees?”
“You don’t look like refugees,” Ogivar said.
“We’re not,” Ren replied.
Ogivar shrugged. “They’re for whomever would like to escape to Olston, apparently. I’ve been serving more unfamiliar faces than familiar ones, for about a year now.”
Ren blinked in surprise, before going to find where Woodro and the others had found seats. This land was in constant flux. He remembered Sheld, for a moment, his lost home. Perhaps all the world was changing, but perhaps that was just his new perspective. Most people lived and died within a span of miles of their home, but Renado had seen islands and countries aplenty. He spooned stew into his mouth in silence that evening, and let his men enjoy their own banter. He felt adrift, like a boat with torn sails. Perhaps reaching Ith and getting some focus would help.
Halrum appeared in the common room of the Down Dunrall one morning. When Renado stumbled down the steps from the second-storey quarters, he rubbed his eyes sleepily. The hair near his temples was still wet from washing, but his clothes only showed wrinkles where they’d been neatly folded. He reached the common room and stared at the strange errand runner.
“My mistress has news for you, Master Renado,” Halrum told him. Continue reading Renado 25
A handful of gambling tables filled the common room of Down Dunrall Inn with business during the evening of every night that week. Karsef played a game or two—he was a good player, with a stoic, impenetrable expression, and he won more coins than he lost. Renado, brother of Lerran, figured he could out-bet Karsef, but he didn’t play. He spent his time at the bar, drinking lightly and learning what he could from the inhabitants of Vagren.
“Just a cider?” the barkeeper asked him, walking by. Continue reading Renado 24
Renado and his men waited the rest of the next day for the courier they hired to bring Gravagan’s contacts in Vagren. They waited the night of the 12th too, and then a few hours after dawn on the 13th. When their voucher finally arrived, it wasn’t a man in a robe like Telan, or a wise wizard, like Gravagan or Pralla. A citizen of Vagren waved at their camp from the palisade gate in between those dividing stone walls, a middle-aged man with silver lining in his coat and leather trousers folded neatly above his soft shoes. Continue reading Renado 23
A few days of walking convinced Renado that he preferred to cross the miles on the crest of the waves, not the pacing across miles and miles of grass. In the past six years, he’d never been on land as much as he had now, he felt.
“Look,” had said Asar, on their third day out of the village of Terben. The seasoned mercenary had pointed across the hilltops from the crest of one. The spectacle he had seen first was now a daily sight, as they approached the city of Vagren. Continue reading Renado 22