| Subject: Chapter Three |
Author:
Mike
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Date Posted: 02/21/05 2:58:22pm Mon
In reply to:
Mike
's message, "Chapter two" on 02/21/05 2:55:04pm Mon
The man who walked out of that forest, finally, after nine months spent there, surviving, traveling, trying to find his way, and honing his skills, would never have been recognized as the simple farm boy named Rethan.
For one thing, there was the armor. He wore a set of cuirass, greaves, bracers, pauldrons, and boots, all deep gray in color. Crafted originally by backing strips of hard raw hide with a layer of molded leather, then coating and sealing it with a mixture of tree sap and finely ground ash, it was better suited by far to a warrior than a man who made his living as a farmer.
Then, there was the silence of his movement, hardly the crunch of snow under his boot. And of course, there was the bow, held in his hands, drawn back with the ease and skill of a professional archer.
Rethan knew even more about the longbow, and about his own abilities now than ever, but this was a moment of uncertainty, standing half concealed on a ridge overlooking a band of marching unfortunates, prodded, poked, and lashed by brutal masters.
Three days earlier, when Rethan had first come back to the world of the civilized upon contact with a small village, he had discovered women weeping over husbands, sons, and daughters. Grandparents stared vacantly, coming to grips with sons and grandsons taken by slavers.
It was a scene he suspected had been left in the wake of his own capture. It was a scene that touched his heart, and he had set off after the slavers.
He had caught up to them here, and circled around, climbing the ridge for advantage, rough terrain, large rocks, scrub, and loose footing made the slope hazardous.
Still, in spite of everything, Rethan hesitated for what seemed, to him, an eternity, though it was only a moment. He had landed deadly shots on deer and wild boar at this range dozens of times.
Deer and wild boar however, do not raise an alarm. They don’t have swords, and usually just run, startled if you miss. Lead the target, compensate for the angle by adjusting your aim, compensate for the distance by aiming just a touch above your target’s head.
And then, when you find that moment, the moment when you can see from the tip of your arrow… let go of the string. The only thing to let the slaver know of his fate, was the whistle of the speeding missile, and never heard in time.
Blood blossomed from the slaver’s neck, and in that moment, Rethan, committed to the task, calmly drew another arrow from his quiver, and took aim again as men turned, look for where on the ridge the arrow had come from. There were twelve of them left. Six began to scramble up the slope.
Repeat the process, this time it was different, more difficult, for now they spread out, avoiding straight line movement, trying to prevent themselves from being easy targets.
It didn’t matter. The arrow thudded home, a stone tip piercing the skull of another slaver. Rethan didn’t even really stop to notice the man fall to the ground before his aim shifted to the next man, trying in vain to scramble up the slope.
Another arrow flew, and another man fell, strangling on the shaft that had cleanly impaled his windpipe.
A crossbow bolt just then, might have ended the conflict, but Rethan had been keeping an eye on the slavers still on the road, and ducked just as the man had finally finished with the crank and then brought the heavy weapon up, leaving the bolt to whiz past him and chip the stone behind him, before he came up, another arrow drawn.
The men were closer now, and Rethan was running out of time, but he needed to take out that crossbow. His aim seemed slow to him. His aim seemed sluggish to him. Unfortunately for the man with the crossbow, Rethan’s aim was neither.
Now, the men were closing in, practically right on top of him, Rethan suspected he had time for one shot before he had to see how fast they were. He turned, and his cold smile stopped a slaver in his tracks, only moments before the arrow flew from his bow, unerringly embedding itself deep in the man’s chest.
Then, Rethan became a blur of motion, leaping from his place on the rocks, he practically bounced down the slope, swift legs pushing him directly out of range of the wearied slavers as he knocked another arrow, and made a running shot at one of the five remaining men who hadn’t tried coming up the slope after him.
He swore as the arrow missed, and fitted another into his bow before the man could properly recover from his lucky dodge, and fired again as he came down to a point of ground that was nearly level . The man dropped to his knees, only wishing his was dead, for Rethan’s arrow had struck him in the groin.
Rethan knew these odds were bad. Somewhere in the back of his mind, clouded by righteous anger at slavery, and hatred directed at the slavers, he knew that he had made a dangerous error in judgment. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he smiled.
Before the slavers could properly react, he had two arrows in the air, not pausing to take a serious aim, only one struck home, embedding in the chest of an unfortunate, the other went a bit wide of the target, costing Rethan more time.
The slavers returned fire, letting loose with a volley of their own, leaving Rethan grateful for his armor, as two of the arrows, fired from short bows, bounced harmlessly off hide and ash coating as he sprinted across the roadway to try and avoid the assault… seeing how poorly their attempts at archery fared, the slavers drew their blades and gave chase.
Rethan however, was fast. Rethan was fast enough in fact, that he quickly put distance between himself and the two men who had had the heart to chase him. Enough distance that he was able to turn, and knock an arrow. Enough distance that as one fell, and the other nearly came within range to deal out sword blows, that another arrow flew at a range too close to give the unfortunate slaver any chance to avoid it.
And then Rethan was running again, this time not away from, but towards the slavers, not even pausing as he ripped arrows from the flesh of his most recent victims, replacing the first gore coated shaft in his quiver, then drawing the second back on his bow.
This running shot hit home, taking one of the men in the eye. Rethan was pulling another arrow back when he realized that the slavers had decided that this young archer, seemingly barely a man, was too much trouble to bother with, and the slaves weren’t worth enough to suffer further losses over. The slavers were running away.
In spite of this realization, Rethan let fly with another arrow, his target at considerable distance, only just barely in range. He didn’t see the impact. He didn’t have to… he heard the man cry out.
The slaves watched him in an eerie, uncomfortable silence while he retrieved his arrows and rifled through pockets, taking small items, mostly coins, and passing over the heavier items, including the swords, for he had very little skill with a blade, and though he intended to remedy that, it would be on his terms, and none of these swords caught his eye.
It was a long moment before he walked toward a slave, looking into his eyes. There was the sound of metal, and the slave, having just seen this savage youth’s capacity for violence, wondered if his time was over. His hands were bound tightly, as were the hands of all the others, and there could be no real fighting on such terms.
The ropes that held the man’s hands fell to the ground cut cleanly by a well worn blade. Without a word, Rethan flipped the knife in his hand, and offered it hilt first to the now free slave.
With more than a touch of hesitation, the man took it from Rethan’s hand, then nodded gratefully and turned to freeing his fellows, while Rethan began the gruesome work of dragging corpses off the road, though he had no intention of burying them. The dead couldn’t appreciate such an effort.
Almost three days later, Rethan, with freed villagers in tow, arrived back in the village they had been taken from, where he was welcomed with open arms, and an intrigued eye by the village elder, who took him aside amidst the celebrations that evening.
“Is it true, what they say? That this boy who is not yet grown to man, struck as though many, that this boy who is not yet grown to man can use the bow with skill of man?” The elder, a very old man, asked Rethan, confusing him for a moment, for the old man’s pattern of speech was difficult to follow.
The old man however, did not give him further time to answer, but instead, answered his own question, “True then it must be, for silence speaks of humility in the boy not yet grown to man. Let the boy say his name, that I may draw words and give them with you to the house of six stars into one, the great house Andael.”
Now Rethan was truly confused, but managed to utter, “My… name is Rethan, sir.” With this, the old man gripped him by the shoulders, startling Rethan, who was not used to being touched.
“This is good then, Rethan who is not yet man. Go to the sky of the six stars, and speak to the one who may speak to the stars, Emeril, and give him my note,” He said, then practically dragged Rethan into a hut, scribbling down barely legible words onto parchment, folding the paper and dripping wax onto it, then stamping it with a ring and pushing it into Rethan’s hand. “Now go, off to Nemos City with you, along the road, over the hill, Rethan who is not yet man, swifter than an arrow fly and you will be there the day after the morrow,” He said, and practically shoved Rethan out the door.
It took perhaps five minutes to be pointed down the road towards the city of Nemos, and, much to the surprise of those he had helped, he left, traveling for a while, until the last vestiges of twilight faded from the sky, then sleeping in a tree, before moving on.
Nemos itself, was a fair sized place, admittedly not huge, but fair sized, and almost everyone there seemed too busy to point him in the right direction, and it was only by accident that he happened into the entrance of House Andael’s great hall.
There, he handed his letter to Emeril, who almost seemed ready to laugh until he looked at the seal on the letter, then practically tore it open. As he looked the letter over, his eyes grew wide and he began to glance up at Rethan repeatedly, then turned to the guard quickly.
“Call Lord Areym,” He said, as guards stepped in behind Rethan, swords drawn. “I wouldn’t call it wisdom to try anything either, Rethan,” Emeril added with a gesture at the guards, “They’re quite skilled, really.”
There was a long, tense moment as Rethan waited, the guards had made no further move, but Rethan was not so naïve as to believe that would not change if he made a move for his bow, nor was he so overconfident as to believe that even with his bow in hand, rather than on his back, that he’d be able to avoid the swords of trained soldiers.
At last, Lord Araym, an impressive man with steel gray hair, arrived, and took the letter from Emeril, reading it over as Emeril had done, raising his eyebrows at Rethan when he had finished. “Guards, stand down, and fetch a servant to bring refreshments… this young man is not an enemy, but rather, a cherished guest,” he said in a deep, commanding voice.
“My apologies for the less than hospitable welcome, Emeril is overzealous about recruitment, and according to Tas, you are a very promising candidate,” he said as several pitchers and a variety of fruits were brought, along with a table and two chairs.
“Tas?” Rethan asked, still unused to the sound of his own voice as he reached for the small flagon of chilled ale that had been poured for him, and, for the first time in over a year, was able to savor one of the comforts once lost to him.
“Tas is my third cousin, and a knight of house Andael, he was forced into retirement by a serious injury some years ago,” Lord Araym replied, then noticed Rethan’s stifled chuckle.
“I noticed he was a bit… well…” Rethan said, gesturing that it must have been a head injury Tas had suffered. Lord Araym, at this, suddenly howled with laughter, causing Rethan to fall out of his chair.
“Oh… my….” Lord Araym said in between laughs, “His sense of humor strikes again… talking like… a madman, when it was… his arm that was injured.”
“You mean?” Rethan said, picking himself up off the marble floor and dusting himself off. “He isn’t just a senile old man? That was some sort of jest?” he said, half wanting to run for the hills.
“A fine jest indeed, he likes to play that prank on those who do not know him… I assure you, he is quite sane, and when he refers to the six stars, he refers to present lesser houses that make up Great house Andael,” Araym replied, then offered his hand.
“And it seems he would like for me to take you into the service of the house, as according to this, you shall rise far indeed,” Araym said as Rethan tentatively shook his hand. “However, this can not be done lightly, those taken into service must take an oath of obligation, in return for the shelter, training, food, and stipend they receive each year, they are required to perform a season of service each year. One rises in rank by doing services to Andael outside that time of obligation… even one of common blood may rise to the highest ranks of the house, should they have the talent and ambition… and of course, a certain interest from the lesser houses.”
It took Rethan a long moment of careful consideration before he finally answered. On one hand, he would again be in the service of another, yet on the other, the ones he served would treat him fairly, not as property, and if he understood properly, he could be respected for his talents.
In the end, there really was no choice at all for Rethan, who looked up at Araym, then nodded, “So when does this… service… start?”
Neither Araym nor Rethan saw the man in the shadows, looking at Rethan with a glint of malicious recognition in his eyes.
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