I reach the top of a steep incline, and look out over the valley ahead. The pack mule is loping along at the end of a long lead rope, and I twitch it out of habit. In front of us the trail turns right, and goes steeply downhill into a copse of live oaks that obscure its next turn. However, well down the mountain, I can see where the path comes back out of the forest, and rejoins another path at the edge of a stream. That junction is about a thousand feet down, and probable a mile and a half away, as the crow would fly. It’s going to be a steep traverse.
As the mule catches up to me I look back the way we’ve come. Though the past few miles have been steep, the path wound its way up a very broad hogsback before this, much less steep but more exposed. I can see the path along that ridge, but it dips below my sight and follows a creek into a different valley. That was was the kingdom of Aegir, where I lost my faith. Ahead is the kingdom of Southron, where I hope to find it.
I have been traveling for weeks now, following a rumor that is sometimes whispered, sometimes silent—about a band of righteous redeemers who have harried the Raidensblud and the Dark Hand, who have consecrated evil places and driven out black-hearted men.
The rumor is that they are seeking my supreme foe, Bandesingh—and they, like me, will sacrifice everything to bring justice to him for the countless atrocities he, and his minions, have committed.
It’s just past midday and fortunately the sun is behind clouds, but it is still possible that I will be seen from one of the many far-off vantage points with a prospect upon this high point. My mule and I start the descent down into the cool shadows of the trees, keeping a relaxed pace. The crossroads I saw, may well be the furthest we make it tonight.
Raiden, hear my prayer—that I may indeed find this band of heroes, that they may include me in their ranks, that we might, together, expose the Raidensblud for the traitors they have become. A chill goes through me, as it always does when I make this prayer. I know that Raiden hears me, but does he approve? Turning my back on the Raidensblud, after my initiation, was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, and it still pricks my conscience, even though in my mind I know this to have been right action. Breaking oaths is wrong, is it not? Even when the oath is to someone—or to the divine order—that only pretends to be righteous?
For months, after learning the duplicity of my order, I kept still and silent hoping that some additional information would contextualize the truths I had beheld, and help me to understand and assimilate those facts, with the divinity and purity that my order espouses.
But it was not to be. How could I have been hesitant? Seeing my fellow priests and acolytes, sacrifice a child on our altar, in a secret ceremony to honor, not Raiden, but a darker and unnamed god. Hearing them talk about the decision to sanctify the king and use his sanctity to fuel the Raidensblud’s choke-hold on Aegir. Witnessing with my own eyes, the master clerics of my order tattooed with corrupt symbols and repudiations of the true god Raiden. They should not have let me see, but they did. They should not have let me hear, but they did. They should not have let me run, but they—all but Kennic—did let me run, and they should have known better than to think they would catch me once I was outside the friary. I am too wise for that.
Kennic. I blow my breath out of my mouth, not from weariness for now that the path is downhill, I am walking easily, but instead as a learned behavior, something I do whenever the death of my friend comes into my mind. He tried to stop me, first in the friary when I was gathering my short sword and shield, then again at the gate when he realized that my ruse—telling him I was not leaving, of course not, but merely backing up Frollor on his third night shift in a row—was unlikely to be true (Frollor being injured and recuperating in the infirmary after all).
He had stood in front of me, blocking the cobblestone path that led around a last bend and gave out on the small courtyard surrounding the curtain wall’s camouflaged ranger door.
“Ca’armine, you can’t leave,” he said to me, his hands facing me, palms out. “Raiden’s command is for all his loyal soldiers to stay here tonight, to prepare for the coming sortie of the elves, to ready themselves to rally to Aegir’s banners. They will kill you if they see you outside the gates!”
Kennic was not wrong, they would at least try to kill me, if I were seen on the road. The guards on the towers guarding the main gate, would use their crossbows or even the ballista, if they were to see me and my laden donkey sneaking out through the spy gate.
They would send a chase squad after me. They would not want a consecrated priest—not even an acolyte anymore!—striding out into the dangers of the outlands, loaded down with all his possessions. Even at my relatively inexperienced stature I knew many secrets, and the lies told to make others believe.
Kennic would not hear reason. I sensed that his motive was selfish, yes, but not evil—he did not want to be associated (as he would have been) with a cellmate who had abandoned the post and the Order. He needed to stop me, though I am sure he knew that it was not possible. He stood in the road and I advanced on him, dropping the donkey’s rope.
Kennic had studied the martial path, as I had when I first arrived at the Temple of Raiden’s Blood. But where I had branched out into wilderness training, he had stayed focused on soldiering. He hefted his halberd, and pointed its cruel spike in my direction.
“Don’t make me hurt you Ca’armine. I have the watch tonight, the inner gate watch, and it is my job to stop deserters one way or another.” He spun his halberd in his hand, so that the sharp blade was now at the 3 o’clock position. A backswing from his right hand would bring that blade into slicing position, but so far he had not raised the weapon to a fighting stance.
“I cannot remain here, Kennic.” I said simply. “You have not seen what I have seen, nor heard what I have had to hear. I envy you my friend; I wish things had gone much differently. However, now that I am enlightened, I cannot ignore the evil heart of our order. I must depart. You could join me Kennic, but you cannot stop me.”
My hands were open at my sides, no weapon in either—offering no resistance other than my words. He stared at me in disbelief. “Still you go on about corruption in the Raidensblud? How can you say things like that! The light of Raiden shine upon you, as it shines upon me and all of the Raidensblud. Let it shine on you, and in you, and purge the taint of your sorry soul.” His eyes flicked to something over my right shoulder. I spun to follow his eyes, and saw Harbang, the acolyte, coming up the path behind me. He was carrying a mace in his right hand, and looked afraid. I was outflanked.
I shudder again, unable to stop myself from remembering the carnage that ensued. As I saw Harbang, I heard the slap of the halberd’s haft as it changed position in Kennic’s hands, and my training took over. I swept my short sword out of its scabbard and off of my right hip, at the same time as I drew my longsword with my right hand, from over my right shoulder. The acolyte startled, and I whirled without looking, launching backward from my left foot, spinning as I did so, both swords out full. Kennic had tried to close the gap when he saw me turn to face the approaching acolyte, and he had swiftly moved to engage me. However, he was no match for my swords. He used his halberd to deflect the long sword, but it was a wild swing that left him undefended, and my short sword followed through, slicing through his throat as I continued turning, and ducked my own rebounding blade.
His hands, no longer holding his weapon, clasped the gaping wound in his throat as he gurgled, and crumpled to the ground. My movement continued, bringing me all the way back around to face the acolyte again. I brought my two blades back together across my body, and saw the fear in the acolyte’s face. He turned to flee, and I decided that my best chance to escape undetected was still this present moment. I grabbed the mule’s lead rope, and hurried to Kennic’s unmoving form. I dragged him into a shadowy alcove by the rear entrance of the Snapping Crab tavern, where a stack of empty barrels would keep him from being discovered for at least a few minutes. I sheathed my swords and the donkey and I resumed our progress toward the spy gate.
I looked down at my Raidensblud cloak, unmarred by the sudden violence I’d just wrought. When I looked up again I had reached the gate, where Subrack was on guard. He saw me coming and stood up from the rock where he was perched during the long night shift.
“Ca’armine, what are you doing here? You know it’s too late to leave the fort, by this gate or any other! What are you doing with a laden mule at this time of night?”
“I have orders, Subrack. After consecration, Father Blythe asked me to take a message, I’m to be on the road 8 days. Heading east.” I pulled a piece of parchment out of my robe, and handed it to him. There was nothing on it, but it did the trick of drawing his attention and his hands. As he looked at the parchment and flipped it over to look for the orders, it was merely a twitch of the arm to bring up my studded mail glove and strike him behind the ear, a hard blow. I am very strong and Subrack, not hearty—he went down hard. I quickly pulled down on the counter-weighted rope to retract the spy gate’s spiked portcullis, and took the rope with me as I led the mule past the threshold. Once through the gate I lowered the portcullis, and tossed the rope back to rest close to Subrack’s motionless body. At least I did not have to kill that one!
From the spy gate, I followed the path, which eventually led back toward the main gate. Obscured as it was, by a hedgerow, I could not be seen from the walls nor by anyone other than perhaps a beast of the forest, come down at night to scavenge food from the scraps routinely thrown out over the city wall. I left the road and went behind the hedge, hard against the cliff-face that formed the rear of the citadel. The mule and I kept close to that rock wall as we worked our way past the thick hedge. The ground went sharply downhill, and I followed that, eventually making my way to the edge of the forest. The trees had been cut down , between the hedgerow and the cliff, to prevent someone like me from doing exactly what I was doing now—sneaking out a largely unmonitored gate, in the middle of the night under a dark, moonless sky. The mule and I stayed close to the hedge, rather than staying to the cliff-face, even as both plunged down into a ravine. Moving slowly so as to not catch the eyes of the guard on the tower, and keeping myself hidden against the hedge, I made my way down the slope and eventually came to a small waterfall, where the cut trees began to give way again to saplings and, close enough, to tall trees. The mule was not fond of the steep, rough terrain, but at least it was forest duff and not dry, packed dirt.
We walked in the stream for a time, more than a mile, to throw off pursuers. I started out of the streambed on the side closest to the fortress, then doubled back into the stream and, half a mile further, exited the stream going the other direction, taking care not to leave a trace as I did so (and clearing mule tracks behind me with a switch), I went into the forest at the base of the cliff.
I did not stop my progress throughout the night and well into the morning, though fatigue was making me fear I had forgotten something crucial, and my mule was done walking for the night. Finally, some 10 wooded miles from the castle, I tethered the mule close to a gorse bush, and let him browse there while I wriggled under a pile of leaves and duff.
The ruse worked; mid-day I was awakened by searchers but they were well to the east, having been lured by my misstatement to the spy gate guard, and by the false trail I set for them to follow. I waited until they had moved off in that direction, then the mule and I began again, moving West Northwest, a direction I followed for the next two days before turning south, and heading due south through the afternoon and evening, putting more and more distance between myself, and the fortress.
I knew that once the Tavern opened they would find Kennic’s body, and all would be lost! If only I could have brought myself to kill the guard as well… but he was no threat to me, and by Raiden he was not evil. “Nor was Kennic,” my conscience told me, but I was not so sure. He had already been told, as I had, that Raiden’s mysterious plans sometimes required one to do something that at least seemed, to be inconsistent with Generous Raiden’s Divine Guidance, to help the poor and sick, to shield the world of men from tyranny. He had presumably done that thing, since he was not sneaking around the fortress at night. His soul, I told myself, had already begun the shift to evil.
That was three years ago. Not a day goes by, I think to myself, that I do not consider poor Kennic, my friend, whose death became a necessary prelude to my quest for the true light of Raiden. Many times I had prayed over that moment, and though I can find no alternative path, my soul feels disquieted by what seems like an unnatural act—killing a friend who stood in my way, who would not listen (though I tried!) to my concerns that the Raidensblud was not who they pretended to be. What would be Raiden’s judgment? Disobedience to the leaders of my Order could, at least in my mind, be forgiven and set aside, once their true nature was known to me beyond any shadow of a doubt. But killing someone who, though perhaps following evil, was not, himself, an evil man? Can any person be reduced to the ends they serve, and the masters they follow?
I roamed, I trained, I prayed, and when there was an opportunity, I helped. I helped townspeople to rid themselves of mercenaries who had camped in their forests and stolen from the town. I helped travelling bands who had been waylaid by brigands. All the while, Raiden still smiled upon me, and granted me to learn and grow in my spellcraft, and in my woodscraft. I grew stronger, wiser, and greater in my endurance. Mighty as I felt, the day I left the fortress to fend for myself in Raiden’s wild land, I now felt much, much stronger and more sure. I longed to take the fight to my foes, if only I could determine how best to do so.
Then, just half a year ago, I was in a tavern one evening, dressed in a woodsman’s cloak and staying a night in the inn to stay out of the rain. At a gambling table nearby, a braggart—flush with wine and with the winnings of two or three hands—was recounting an incredible tale of a mercenary band who wanted nothing more than to destroy King Aedelfred and ruin the Raidensblud. Nobody at the table was willing to believe his stories, and they mocked him, but that only made him more insistent. He said he had seen them with his own eyes, and they had asked him, scrawny little creature that he was, to come with them to Southron to meet their lord.
“Play dice or talk, you choose,” said one of the gamblers, cooly, “but if you won’t shut your gob I’m done with this game.” The braggart got back to playing, and lost three rounds in a row right after. But as he was gathering up what was left of his money, he couldn’t help but say, “you fellows think you know everything but you do not. King Aedelfred is an imposter, these fighters were saying, and they are going to expose him. He’s not even the king!” With that he headed for the door, and the bouncers were quick to pass him along and out into the night.
Wherever I went after that, I listened a little harder and asked enough questions, that people would tell me the rumors they had heard, as well. All the information I gathered, pointed to a Southroni connection who provided shelter to these heroes when they were not actively engaged in contending with the Dark Hand… or the Raidensblud, if they could even be said to be distinct entities any longer. Word was that they had not been that way in many months.
With those words in my ears, and no fresher intelligence about their whereabouts, I turned my mule towards the long road to Southron, to find these heroes or their Southroni comrade. One man, even a righteous man, can only do so much against the great tide of evil the Raidensblud have brought to Aegir. But with a team, one might do much, much more.
