Grimdux
I. This is the direct sequel to Touch O' Luck
Touch O' Luck
II) It serves as a prologue to the Old Realms series.
It will be a superior reading experience
to start this story from the beginning
Please give it a good rating if you liked it, it will help the story reach a much bigger audience:)
Chapter specific maps of the realms
Maps of the Realms
Sir Glen Reeves
Garth Aniculo
Hardir O’ Fardor
Who takes a Wyvern in a Bazaar?
Part II
-Do not be alarmed-
A young boy run past him, arms pumping up and down, head thrown back and screaming out of control and at the top of his lungs. Glen pushed through a couple of slaves, violently shoved an old man on a bench with beautiful pottery and jumped over a wild barking dog to reach the epicenter of the incident. Four men armed with knives and long blades had their backs on him, standing in an arc, with another six armed men across from them. They had left a five meter opening between them.
Glen unsheathed his sword and pushed towards this congregation.
“SOMEONE GET A SPEAR!” A burly slave-master bellowed amidst the general chaos.
“FIRE, BRING FIRE!” Yelled another, holding a cleaver and wearing the apron of a butcher.
Biscuit standing on his hind legs circled a kneeled hurt woman, a little crying girl pulling at her arm to get her away from him. The wyvern now standing as tall as a dog walking on its hind legs, opened its leathery wings and shrieked. The woman panicked and shoved the girl away from her.
“RUN!” She yelled at her.
No dammit! Glen thought bursting through the group of men, sword in hand.
The little girl turned and started running away, made four strides to cover a meter and Biscuit flapped his wings once, jumped twice that over her mother and then dived on the desperate trying to escape child. Jaws snapping shut around her ankle.
“AH! Good grief!” Someone gasped in shock, a woman next to him fainting abruptly. She collapsed face first on the gravel and mire street splattering her nose, just as a heavy-breathing Glen stopped -boots skating on the grit- the sound of small bones crackling and the mother’s screams penetrating his skull.
Fuck.
“LET GO OF THE FOOT!” Glen bellowed, voice cutting through the noise, the dog barking hysterically undeterred, now circling in its turn the wyvern and Biscuit paused chewing at the young flesh, teeth bloody and looked at him.
RRRRRR
“Buddy, let it go,” Glen told him and Biscuit let go of the mangled bloody ankle. The girl had collapsed unconscious from the shock.
“What’s this tomfoolery?” A man asked, sounding incredulous. “Yer gonna debate the fucker?”
“Get it wit that sword lad! What are you doing?” Another urged him, with a third one wondering aloud.
“Is that sorry dupe talking to it?”
The dog encouraged by all the people gathered around charged the wyvern, jaws snapping furiously trying to grab at his wings and thin forelimbs.
“GET IT JACK!” The butcher cried, himself not moving to help.
“That’s it boy, grab that shit!” An ogling Cofol merchant urged the brave bazaar dog.
Biscuit sensing it coming sidestepped, almost missing an arm in the first attack, jumped nimbly back with a hiss to avoid the second and stricken the charging dog with his swinging tail, right at the throat. The dog gurgled and retreated whimpering. The wyvern turned to look at Glen and then at the woman crawling to reach her daughter.
“No, ye can’t,” Glen told him and Biscuit snorted not pleased.
“Fuck just happened?” Someone asked in bewilderment.
“Hey, what’s the matter wit Jack?” A kid asked, sounding worried.
The dog whined once softly, then just froze and toppled on its right side, all muscles locked up, looking fully dead.
Jack is gone, Glen thought with a scowl.
Turned food for worms.
On the wrong side of the grass.
Oh well.
“What in tarnation?” The butcher wondered trying to grasp what was going on.
Glen realized he needed to grab ahold of the situation fast, steer it the proper way, afore more intelligent questions are asked.
“STAY BACK!” Glen barked decision made and raised his sword to keep everyone away. The crowd slowly increasing again in size, after the initial fright had worn off.
“What’s this vile thing?” A woman asked, a mixture of terror and excitement in her voice.
“Move aside stranger!” The merchant with the long knife snapped, as if he was going to take the matters into his own hands. Glen turned his wild eyes on him.
“ANYONE MOVES A MUSCLE,” he yelled twice as loud, voice raspy at the abuse. “I run him through!”
“Fuck is your problem?” The slave-master queried.
“What is this gawking fool doing?” The merchant asked the others, opting not to address Glen directly.
“Do you know what this is?” Glen asked him, sweat on his forehead and a hand reaching inside his soaked robes.
“A monster?” The merchant chanced turning to stare his way, slanted eyes calling Glen an idiot.
“Some thing or other?” the butcher replied, much more open to debate on the matter, but not willing to commit on a name yet.
“A rare black cockatrice?” The young boy that had run away asked, showing vast academic knowledge, wild mess of a head popping out from behind a woman holding her hands on her mouth shocked.
Huh?
Glen blinked, as several more names of exotic, mostly imaginary animals, were thrown in the mix, the crowd arguing with enthusiasm and Biscuit after looking about him with curious burgundy eyes, hopped to where the dog had died and sniffed it.
“ENOUGH!” Sir Glen Reeves barked again to cut through the confusion. “It’s a bloody wyvern,” adding with righteous indignation. “Fuck’s sake people, open a fuckin’ book! This is embarrassing!”
The fact he’d never opened one himself, escaping him.
A stunned silence followed his words, finally interrupted from Flix’s voice, the old Gish had approached in the meantime and the sound of Biscuit gnawing at the dog’s head through the bone.
What in Luthos’ cock, is that little turd doing?
“Garth, what happened?”
Glen swung his head around. Flix looked a little green in the face, eyes bloodshot.
“Heal the girl,” Glen told him and the old Gish rushed to the silently wailing mother holding her unresponsive daughter.
“What is it doing to Jack?” The sharp boy asked breaking the crowd’s shock.
The sound of skull-bone shatter, reverberating chillingly in the background.
“A Wyvern he says!” The stupid merchant cried out, Glen’s words finally dawning on him. “That’s… preposterous!”
The butcher puffed his cheeks out and took a step back. Most people following his example, the circle around Glen growing.
“Aye, a wyvern,” Glen said walking towards the blissfully tearing at the dog Biscuit. “Mine. Nobody touches him.”
“Are you insane?” A brave woman asked. “Put that thing down!”
The crowd made to support her claim, but then quieted down again, several pairs of eyes facing Glen ogling in horror and bewilderment. Gimoss’ laughter coming from right behind him.
The decrepit corpse’s delight at the happenings palpable.
“Haha…ahahaha…hah!”
“Everyone calm the fuck down!” Glen yelled, himself the most hysterical of them all. Breathing heavy and sweating buckets, all that expensive soap and oils gone to waste, he glanced at the leering oddly colored corpse.
He even noticed some orange, betwixt the green and purple welts.
“Can you help with the girl?”
“Why? She’ll be rotting away fine on her own.”
A tick appeared on Glen’s left temple, the eye next to it blinking. He pressed a finger on the throbbing spot to avoid an aneurysm and sighing he tried again.
“Whatever ye have planned won’t work, unless we win these people over,” the former thief explained. “Now.”
“Saving the girl won’t make them forget, fool!” Gimoss blasted him and Glen got his purse out in response.
Curse ye Luthos, for forcing me to do this.
“Do it Gimoss,” he ordered him and Gimoss snorted, but turned around and walked unsteadily towards a pale faced Flix, stooped over the girl bleeding away. Her mother watching in stunned misery. “A gold coin,” Glen announced to the unruly crowd of almost a hundred people gathered around. “For everyone walking away right now.”
Where the actual fuck have all these people come from?
“Seriously? Wow… that’s a lot,” someone debated and Glen almost cut his offer in half.
“What about the Wyvern?” The persistent woman asked and Glen sheathed his sword, then opened his heavy purse, fished a gold Eagle out and tossed it to her. It smacked her in the chest, the woman slow to react and then dropped before her feet.
The crowd murmured. The butcher stepping forward again, this time with a smile on his face. Glen tossed him a coin and he snapped it out of the air, gave it a good bite and then pocketed it in his bloody apron.
“Hey!” A fat merchant asked. “What about the girl?”
“We will heal the girl,” Glen replied, glaring at him. “Good as new. The woman with the messed up face too. Not need to worry.”
“And Jack?” The boy asked, his hand tended to accept a gold coin. Glen grimaced, cursed his lineage inwardly and pressed a silver in his palm.
“Hey!” The boy protested unhappy. “Why not gold?”
Ye little ungrateful turd!
“Yer too small to get one,” Glen deadpanned with an evil smirk.
The boy tried to kick his shin, but someone pulled him back by the shoulder.
“The dog kept me company, got me through some difficult times,” a sad merchant said next, all an act, standing in front of him to accept his bribe. They both watched Biscuit for a silent moment slurping at Jack’s spilt gory brains. Glen murmured under his breath at the end of the pregnant pause and added another coin. The Cofol merchant bowed deeply, his sadness forgotten.
“Ah, gratitude milord. I feel better now.”
“Yer fuckin’ welcome,” Glen rustled with a glare. “Next!”
It cost him a hundred and twenty gold Eagles to calm down the crowd. Also nine silver eagles, as more kids were brought by their mothers to get paid. The amount outrageous. It almost all had gone to waste, when Gimoss healed the girl’s ankle in some manner, or other. The corpse’s milky eye popped in the attempt and spilt down his sunken cheek causing a riot. Glen finally managed to break through their collective horror, explaining that what Gimoss had, wasn’t too contagious far as deceases went, providing one kept his distance from him.
Absolutely everyone decided that it was better to give Gimoss the widest berth possible and quit whilst they were ahead.
An hour later found him collapsed on a chair, soft pillow under his arse not as big a problem now, inside Lon-Iv’s well-lit spacious office. The desk, the man himself sat behind, a rich mahogany, with gold finishing at its edges and heavy engraved bronze legs. Two large open windows on each side of him, with sheer white drapes letting the afternoon sun in.
Glen glugged down the cold beer the Sopat scion had offered, his throat parched and his body in need of a fresh bath. Lon waited for him to finish before talking, the mark of a very patient man. Metu rushed to take his large cup away that same moment, leaving a silver goblet in its place.
“Wine?” Lon offered with a small smile. “You seem to like it afore and too much beer, could cause indigestion and a bit of bloating.”
Glen smacked his lips unsure about the latter, but went along with it.
“So I’m told there’s a Wyvern, loose in Merchant’s Triage,” the man said casually as if reciting from a list of household items, while Glen switched to the stronger beverage. “Who takes a Wyvern in a bazaar?” he wondered leaving it vague.
“It’s mine,” Glen replied. “It just followed me. An oversight and a bit of a misunderstanding.”
Lon stood back on his comfortable armchair.
“But… a Wyvern? The rumors are true?” He glanced towards Metu, the slave staring at the tiled marble floor.
“A real one,” Glen said.
“Goddess you’re serious,” Lon stared at him, mouth half opened. “Where did you buy a Wyvern?”
“I found it,” Glen replied. “In an egg. It hatched.”
“How? Where? Are there more?”
Glen raised an arm to stop his questions.
“I don’t know about more, but there is one here.”
“In the stables?”
“Ah,” Glen tilted his head to the left and glanced beyond Lon at the large window. The drapes moved, a dark figure behind them, a long tail probing the floor, then a black-scaled leg with three talons touched down. Metu standing beside him gasped in silent horror, as the drapes parted and Biscuit walked silently through the window. “Do not be alarmed,” Glen reassured the frowning merchant, who’d noticed his slave’s reaction and turned slowly towards the small wyvern.
Biscuit made a guttural sound, between a click and a cackle and eyed the pale faced Lon curious.
“Is it dangerous?” The merchant whispered, showing remarkable restraint and Biscuit snorted, as if he could understand him.
“Come here buddy,” Glen said and Biscuit approached him to accept a piece of rock-like hardtack. He proceeded to chew on it with enthusiasm, while Glen turned to a flabbergasted and quietly watching Lon. “He is, but only under certain circumstances.”
The whole thing, he’d made up on the spot.
“Please give an example,” Lon urged him eyeing the door to his office, the wyvern blocking the path.
“He gets hungry easily.”
That was where Glen’s knowledge ended.
“We should feed him. What does he like?” Lon immediately suggested.
“Meat, biscuits,” he glanced at his cup of wine, brought it close to the curious wyvern and he watched it flickering its forked tongue in it a couple of times. Biscuit burped and Glen put the goblet on the floor to give him better access. “Anything really.”
“We should prepare a good roast. Metu!” Lon decided and barked an order surprising Glen at first, afore he remembered this was an actual name. The merchant had turned to his servant. “Ask the kitchen to slay a cow posthaste!”
“No need to roast it,” Glen said and Lon blinked in shock, but quickly recovered.
“Heard the man! Cut it up and bring the meat here!”
“Aye master,” Metu replied and left with a bow and another look at the blissfully lapping up wine wyvern.
“Well then,” Lon said, the moment Metu left them alone. He eyed the wyvern at Glen’s feet and smacked his lips. “I now see… Phon-Iv’s cryptic ‘best available candidate’, wasn’t an exaggeration, Sir Reeves.”
“Phon doesn’t know about the wyvern,” Glen corrected him and reached for another goblet, Lon had filled for him.
“I see. There’s more then,” Lon rapped his fingers on the table, the noise drawing Biscuit’s attention, forcing him to stop. “Can you control it?”
“It’s better not to test it, friend,” Glen warned him. “It cost me a fortune to silence the crowd.”
“Don’t worry about it, I shall handle their questions. This is a Sopat matter, but the word will spread,” Lon reassured him, ruining it at the end.
“I will leave here soon.”
“You’ll need protection.”
“Nah, I’ll be fine,” Glen countered.
“Sir Reeves, I can’t… we must protect the wyvern and you, of course.”
Glen sat back on his chair.
“You think people might attempt to grab him?”
Lon blinked. “Of course they will. I mean, a wyvern. Hah, we have to handle this carefully. Everyone will be interested.”
“Everyone?” Glen asked.
“The Khan, why… every king and lord, not to mention knights the moment they hear about it. Sure there’s a war now, but soon the news will invite people.”
“I intent to reach Eikenport, master Lon,” Glen reminded him and Lon nodded with a sigh. He got up from his chair, Biscuit’s eyes turning on him and walked to a wall where a map of the east coast of Eplas was drawn with vivid colors.
Glen, remembering the cartographer’s room –the name offered by Flix- he had discovered back at the ruins of Tarsos, got up and approached him to look at this slightly different map himself.
“There’s Rida,” Lon said, tracing his finger down towards Eikenport. “Eikenport, up the rivers to Merchant’s Triage. I was to take a caravan and follow the Merchant Path back to Rida. Meet Phon there, to iron out the details.”
“What stopped you?” Glen asked, staring at the map.
“Issirs landed on Eplas, burned Hi Yil to the ground, but not before destroying Tsuparin’s command,” he pointed at a spot on the map. “They cut us off from the Path. Everyone approaching is put to the blade.”
“The Khan’s soldiers did worse in Rida,” Glen told him.
“Ah, you’re probably in the right, but I see it in fiscal terms. We’re stuck here, unless…” He glanced at the map again. “We could take a caravan towards Eikenport; sure it’s not exactly working fully, but it’s a port. Sen has your ship you said, hmm…”
“What about the other cities?” Glen asked.
“They’re garrison villages, Dia Castle… well, sure they always need stuff. Jadefort was abandoned last time I checked and the Tyeusfort might be dangerous for you.”
“What about Wetull?” Glen asked him.
Lon turned to see whether he was jesting.
“Ahm, there’s nothing there anymore.”
“What about before?” Glen insisted.
Lon licked his lips unsure. “When the empire was there, the Sopat traded from the sea with them. Now it’s… too dangerous to navigate the reefs and there’s nothing there, as I said… probably.”
“No other route?” Glen probed.
“Not that I know of,” Lon replied looking at him curious. “Even if there’s… what are you suggesting?”
“I’m not suggesting anything,” Glen replied. “You have no way of reaching Rida from the coast. You need a port, but you also need a way to make the journey from the Peninsula faster and crossing the desert is… as you’ve suggested, an ordeal. It seems worth trying something else.”
“You’ve seen the Peninsula on a map?” Lon asked, nigh impressed. “Few Lorians ever bother looking beyond the Shallow Sea.”
Glen was not a Lorian.
“I have,” Glen replied with a scowl and walked away from the map. “Somewhere in the desert.”
“Let’s say, we take a caravan down the rivers, cross the bridge at Tyeusfort avoiding questions and reach Eikenport—”
“Why not head straight there?”
“The old road is not used, as I said, Eikenport is not a fully functioning city. Bah, it’s not a city, it’s mostly a ruin, with a port. Filled with pirates.”
“It will be easier to avoid patrols, if we don’t travel on a road,” Glen said. “You can’t expect Biscuit to remain stuck in a carriage forever.”
“Biscuit… ah, why not?”
“He’s constantly growing,” Glen reminded him and glancing at the wyvern working on the large cut of red meat the slaves had brought in a bathtub, he added. “And I wouldn’t like it either way. Would you?”
Lon sat back on his chair and pursed his lips. He made a grimace, after a contemplating moment and then nodded. “The caravan leaves tomorrow, after sunset,” the man informed him.
“What about my clothes?” Glen asked. The other merchant had brought his two rolls of silk earlier.
“The tailor shall work on them en route,” Lon replied.
“Will he agree?” Glen queried and Lon blinked, a little perturbed.
“He has no say in the matter, Sir Reeves,” the Sopat scion replied. “Worry not.”
The next night Lon-Iv, flanked by three servants and Metu holding a lit torch, waved for them to hurry. Glen followed by Flix and Gimoss, Biscuit riding on the fourth remaining mount, reached them minutes later. The merchant was waiting at the end of the ten carriages long caravan, camels, mules and horses mixed in with two pairs of cattle, three sheep and a dozen chickens, making enough noise to wake up the sleeping Triage, but for the fact their rendezvous point was almost a kilometer from the last tents.
“Garth,” Lon said conspiratorially, “use the last carriage for your pet. The driver is mute.”
“Paid off?” Glen asked, getting off his horse.
“Ah, no I had his tongue removed,” Lon replied, a little confused.
“Good grief, is the man alright?” Glen recoiled at the brutality.
“Eh, of course. That was years ago, he’s my slave since birth. It’s a minor procedure.”
Right.
“Well, then—” Glen started, saw Lon stand back shocked and paused with a frown of his own. Turned around and flinched himself, his heart lodged in his throat, Gimoss’ face in the light of the torches hideous. The black empty cavity of his left eye unsettling.
Really the whole thing was the stuff of nightmares.
Whoa, holly bloody cow!
Put a hood on it my dude!
“That’s your… manservant?” Lon asked a hand on his mouth, eyes ogling.
“What is this perfumed cocksucker implying?” Gimoss bellowed, half the caravan guards and drivers turning to see what was happening. Fortunately they were standing some distance away, towards the first carriages and wagons.
Lon blinked thoroughly shocked, made to answer angry, but Gimoss stepped forward, moving surprisingly fast for a person that had died centuries ago, grabbed him by his ringed ear and pulled at it hard, his intention clear. An alert Glen immediate jumped on the corpse’s hand saving the Sopat scion from a serious maimed face, or worse.
“Arggh!” Lon groaned and backed away scared. “What is this freakish madman doing?”
“That’s Gimoss,” Glen explained, parrying the corpse’s returning punch away from his own face, using his elbow. “He’s killed men for less.”
“For nothing!” Gimoss blasted him angry at skewering the facts.
“Why… I didn’t mean…” Lon had lost his ability to speak momentarily, his ear probably throbbing something fierce.
“Do not be alarmed,” Glen reassured him for the second time since he’d met him, adding a snake-oil’s salesman grin, while Flix put a hand on Gimoss’ cock to calm him down. The detail nigh disturbing for Glen, but he wasn’t going to open that fuckin’ can of worms anytime soon, or ever. “He’s a little sensitive… due to his condition. Of rather mellow character, once ye get to know him. Even friendly.”
“Ah, wayward harlot,” Gimoss rustled, pulverizing Glen’s argument. “Fine, I’ll let you have it.”
“What condition is that?” Lon croaked, regaining some of his color, though still rattled, after they both watched the corpse-looking freak walking towards the carriages following the short old woman. The Cofol merchant apparently much more flexible than him in carnal matters.
“Ahm, he had a bout wit death,” Glen retorted thinking on his feet and only half-lying. “Hasn’t recovered fully yet.”
For some peculiar reason Lon-Iv Sopat, just took him on his word and this matter ended there.
Grimdux
I. This is the direct sequel to Touch O' Luck
Touch O' Luck
II) It serves as a prologue to the Old Realms series.
It will be a superior reading experience
to start this story from the beginning
Please give it a good rating if you liked it, it will help the story reach a much bigger audience:)
Chapter specific maps of the realms
Maps of the Realms
Sir Glen Reeves
Garth Aniculo
Hardir O’ Fardor
Who takes a Wyvern in a Bazaar?
Part II
-Do not be alarmed-
A young boy run past him, arms pumping up and down, head thrown back and screaming out of control and at the top of his lungs. Glen pushed through a couple of slaves, violently shoved an old man on a bench with beautiful pottery and jumped over a wild barking dog to reach the epicenter of the incident. Four men armed with knives and long blades had their backs on him, standing in an arc, with another six armed men across from them. They had left a five meter opening between them.
Glen unsheathed his sword and pushed towards this congregation.
“SOMEONE GET A SPEAR!” A burly slave-master bellowed amidst the general chaos.
“FIRE, BRING FIRE!” Yelled another, holding a cleaver and wearing the apron of a butcher.
Biscuit standing on his hind legs circled a kneeled hurt woman, a little crying girl pulling at her arm to get her away from him. The wyvern now standing as tall as a dog walking on its hind legs, opened its leathery wings and shrieked. The woman panicked and shoved the girl away from her.
“RUN!” She yelled at her.
No dammit! Glen thought bursting through the group of men, sword in hand.
The little girl turned and started running away, made four strides to cover a meter and Biscuit flapped his wings once, jumped twice that over her mother and then dived on the desperate trying to escape child. Jaws snapping shut around her ankle.
“AH! Good grief!” Someone gasped in shock, a woman next to him fainting abruptly. She collapsed face first on the gravel and mire street splattering her nose, just as a heavy-breathing Glen stopped -boots skating on the grit- the sound of small bones crackling and the mother’s screams penetrating his skull.
Fuck.
“LET GO OF THE FOOT!” Glen bellowed, voice cutting through the noise, the dog barking hysterically undeterred, now circling in its turn the wyvern and Biscuit paused chewing at the young flesh, teeth bloody and looked at him.
RRRRRR
“Buddy, let it go,” Glen told him and Biscuit let go of the mangled bloody ankle. The girl had collapsed unconscious from the shock.
“What’s this tomfoolery?” A man asked, sounding incredulous. “Yer gonna debate the fucker?”
“Get it wit that sword lad! What are you doing?” Another urged him, with a third one wondering aloud.
“Is that sorry dupe talking to it?”
The dog encouraged by all the people gathered around charged the wyvern, jaws snapping furiously trying to grab at his wings and thin forelimbs.
“GET IT JACK!” The butcher cried, himself not moving to help.
“That’s it boy, grab that shit!” An ogling Cofol merchant urged the brave bazaar dog.
Biscuit sensing it coming sidestepped, almost missing an arm in the first attack, jumped nimbly back with a hiss to avoid the second and stricken the charging dog with his swinging tail, right at the throat. The dog gurgled and retreated whimpering. The wyvern turned to look at Glen and then at the woman crawling to reach her daughter.
“No, ye can’t,” Glen told him and Biscuit snorted not pleased.
“Fuck just happened?” Someone asked in bewilderment.
“Hey, what’s the matter wit Jack?” A kid asked, sounding worried.
The dog whined once softly, then just froze and toppled on its right side, all muscles locked up, looking fully dead.
Jack is gone, Glen thought with a scowl.
Turned food for worms.
On the wrong side of the grass.
Oh well.
“What in tarnation?” The butcher wondered trying to grasp what was going on.
Glen realized he needed to grab ahold of the situation fast, steer it the proper way, afore more intelligent questions are asked.
“STAY BACK!” Glen barked decision made and raised his sword to keep everyone away. The crowd slowly increasing again in size, after the initial fright had worn off.
“What’s this vile thing?” A woman asked, a mixture of terror and excitement in her voice.
“Move aside stranger!” The merchant with the long knife snapped, as if he was going to take the matters into his own hands. Glen turned his wild eyes on him.
“ANYONE MOVES A MUSCLE,” he yelled twice as loud, voice raspy at the abuse. “I run him through!”
“Fuck is your problem?” The slave-master queried.
“What is this gawking fool doing?” The merchant asked the others, opting not to address Glen directly.
“Do you know what this is?” Glen asked him, sweat on his forehead and a hand reaching inside his soaked robes.
“A monster?” The merchant chanced turning to stare his way, slanted eyes calling Glen an idiot.
“Some thing or other?” the butcher replied, much more open to debate on the matter, but not willing to commit on a name yet.
“A rare black cockatrice?” The young boy that had run away asked, showing vast academic knowledge, wild mess of a head popping out from behind a woman holding her hands on her mouth shocked.
Huh?
Glen blinked, as several more names of exotic, mostly imaginary animals, were thrown in the mix, the crowd arguing with enthusiasm and Biscuit after looking about him with curious burgundy eyes, hopped to where the dog had died and sniffed it.
“ENOUGH!” Sir Glen Reeves barked again to cut through the confusion. “It’s a bloody wyvern,” adding with righteous indignation. “Fuck’s sake people, open a fuckin’ book! This is embarrassing!”
The fact he’d never opened one himself, escaping him.
A stunned silence followed his words, finally interrupted from Flix’s voice, the old Gish had approached in the meantime and the sound of Biscuit gnawing at the dog’s head through the bone.
What in Luthos’ cock, is that little turd doing?
“Garth, what happened?”
Glen swung his head around. Flix looked a little green in the face, eyes bloodshot.
“Heal the girl,” Glen told him and the old Gish rushed to the silently wailing mother holding her unresponsive daughter.
“What is it doing to Jack?” The sharp boy asked breaking the crowd’s shock.
The sound of skull-bone shatter, reverberating chillingly in the background.
“A Wyvern he says!” The stupid merchant cried out, Glen’s words finally dawning on him. “That’s… preposterous!”
The butcher puffed his cheeks out and took a step back. Most people following his example, the circle around Glen growing.
“Aye, a wyvern,” Glen said walking towards the blissfully tearing at the dog Biscuit. “Mine. Nobody touches him.”
“Are you insane?” A brave woman asked. “Put that thing down!”
The crowd made to support her claim, but then quieted down again, several pairs of eyes facing Glen ogling in horror and bewilderment. Gimoss’ laughter coming from right behind him.
The decrepit corpse’s delight at the happenings palpable.
“Haha…ahahaha…hah!”
“Everyone calm the fuck down!” Glen yelled, himself the most hysterical of them all. Breathing heavy and sweating buckets, all that expensive soap and oils gone to waste, he glanced at the leering oddly colored corpse.
He even noticed some orange, betwixt the green and purple welts.
“Can you help with the girl?”
“Why? She’ll be rotting away fine on her own.”
A tick appeared on Glen’s left temple, the eye next to it blinking. He pressed a finger on the throbbing spot to avoid an aneurysm and sighing he tried again.
“Whatever ye have planned won’t work, unless we win these people over,” the former thief explained. “Now.”
“Saving the girl won’t make them forget, fool!” Gimoss blasted him and Glen got his purse out in response.
Curse ye Luthos, for forcing me to do this.
“Do it Gimoss,” he ordered him and Gimoss snorted, but turned around and walked unsteadily towards a pale faced Flix, stooped over the girl bleeding away. Her mother watching in stunned misery. “A gold coin,” Glen announced to the unruly crowd of almost a hundred people gathered around. “For everyone walking away right now.”
Where the actual fuck have all these people come from?
“Seriously? Wow… that’s a lot,” someone debated and Glen almost cut his offer in half.
“What about the Wyvern?” The persistent woman asked and Glen sheathed his sword, then opened his heavy purse, fished a gold Eagle out and tossed it to her. It smacked her in the chest, the woman slow to react and then dropped before her feet.
The crowd murmured. The butcher stepping forward again, this time with a smile on his face. Glen tossed him a coin and he snapped it out of the air, gave it a good bite and then pocketed it in his bloody apron.
“Hey!” A fat merchant asked. “What about the girl?”
“We will heal the girl,” Glen replied, glaring at him. “Good as new. The woman with the messed up face too. Not need to worry.”
“And Jack?” The boy asked, his hand tended to accept a gold coin. Glen grimaced, cursed his lineage inwardly and pressed a silver in his palm.
“Hey!” The boy protested unhappy. “Why not gold?”
Ye little ungrateful turd!
“Yer too small to get one,” Glen deadpanned with an evil smirk.
The boy tried to kick his shin, but someone pulled him back by the shoulder.
“The dog kept me company, got me through some difficult times,” a sad merchant said next, all an act, standing in front of him to accept his bribe. They both watched Biscuit for a silent moment slurping at Jack’s spilt gory brains. Glen murmured under his breath at the end of the pregnant pause and added another coin. The Cofol merchant bowed deeply, his sadness forgotten.
“Ah, gratitude milord. I feel better now.”
“Yer fuckin’ welcome,” Glen rustled with a glare. “Next!”
It cost him a hundred and twenty gold Eagles to calm down the crowd. Also nine silver eagles, as more kids were brought by their mothers to get paid. The amount outrageous. It almost all had gone to waste, when Gimoss healed the girl’s ankle in some manner, or other. The corpse’s milky eye popped in the attempt and spilt down his sunken cheek causing a riot. Glen finally managed to break through their collective horror, explaining that what Gimoss had, wasn’t too contagious far as deceases went, providing one kept his distance from him.
Absolutely everyone decided that it was better to give Gimoss the widest berth possible and quit whilst they were ahead.
An hour later found him collapsed on a chair, soft pillow under his arse not as big a problem now, inside Lon-Iv’s well-lit spacious office. The desk, the man himself sat behind, a rich mahogany, with gold finishing at its edges and heavy engraved bronze legs. Two large open windows on each side of him, with sheer white drapes letting the afternoon sun in.
Glen glugged down the cold beer the Sopat scion had offered, his throat parched and his body in need of a fresh bath. Lon waited for him to finish before talking, the mark of a very patient man. Metu rushed to take his large cup away that same moment, leaving a silver goblet in its place.
“Wine?” Lon offered with a small smile. “You seem to like it afore and too much beer, could cause indigestion and a bit of bloating.”
Glen smacked his lips unsure about the latter, but went along with it.
“So I’m told there’s a Wyvern, loose in Merchant’s Triage,” the man said casually as if reciting from a list of household items, while Glen switched to the stronger beverage. “Who takes a Wyvern in a bazaar?” he wondered leaving it vague.
“It’s mine,” Glen replied. “It just followed me. An oversight and a bit of a misunderstanding.”
Lon stood back on his comfortable armchair.
“But… a Wyvern? The rumors are true?” He glanced towards Metu, the slave staring at the tiled marble floor.
“A real one,” Glen said.
“Goddess you’re serious,” Lon stared at him, mouth half opened. “Where did you buy a Wyvern?”
“I found it,” Glen replied. “In an egg. It hatched.”
“How? Where? Are there more?”
Glen raised an arm to stop his questions.
“I don’t know about more, but there is one here.”
“In the stables?”
“Ah,” Glen tilted his head to the left and glanced beyond Lon at the large window. The drapes moved, a dark figure behind them, a long tail probing the floor, then a black-scaled leg with three talons touched down. Metu standing beside him gasped in silent horror, as the drapes parted and Biscuit walked silently through the window. “Do not be alarmed,” Glen reassured the frowning merchant, who’d noticed his slave’s reaction and turned slowly towards the small wyvern.
Biscuit made a guttural sound, between a click and a cackle and eyed the pale faced Lon curious.
“Is it dangerous?” The merchant whispered, showing remarkable restraint and Biscuit snorted, as if he could understand him.
“Come here buddy,” Glen said and Biscuit approached him to accept a piece of rock-like hardtack. He proceeded to chew on it with enthusiasm, while Glen turned to a flabbergasted and quietly watching Lon. “He is, but only under certain circumstances.”
The whole thing, he’d made up on the spot.
“Please give an example,” Lon urged him eyeing the door to his office, the wyvern blocking the path.
“He gets hungry easily.”
That was where Glen’s knowledge ended.
“We should feed him. What does he like?” Lon immediately suggested.
“Meat, biscuits,” he glanced at his cup of wine, brought it close to the curious wyvern and he watched it flickering its forked tongue in it a couple of times. Biscuit burped and Glen put the goblet on the floor to give him better access. “Anything really.”
“We should prepare a good roast. Metu!” Lon decided and barked an order surprising Glen at first, afore he remembered this was an actual name. The merchant had turned to his servant. “Ask the kitchen to slay a cow posthaste!”
“No need to roast it,” Glen said and Lon blinked in shock, but quickly recovered.
“Heard the man! Cut it up and bring the meat here!”
“Aye master,” Metu replied and left with a bow and another look at the blissfully lapping up wine wyvern.
“Well then,” Lon said, the moment Metu left them alone. He eyed the wyvern at Glen’s feet and smacked his lips. “I now see… Phon-Iv’s cryptic ‘best available candidate’, wasn’t an exaggeration, Sir Reeves.”
“Phon doesn’t know about the wyvern,” Glen corrected him and reached for another goblet, Lon had filled for him.
“I see. There’s more then,” Lon rapped his fingers on the table, the noise drawing Biscuit’s attention, forcing him to stop. “Can you control it?”
“It’s better not to test it, friend,” Glen warned him. “It cost me a fortune to silence the crowd.”
“Don’t worry about it, I shall handle their questions. This is a Sopat matter, but the word will spread,” Lon reassured him, ruining it at the end.
“I will leave here soon.”
“You’ll need protection.”
“Nah, I’ll be fine,” Glen countered.
“Sir Reeves, I can’t… we must protect the wyvern and you, of course.”
Glen sat back on his chair.
“You think people might attempt to grab him?”
Lon blinked. “Of course they will. I mean, a wyvern. Hah, we have to handle this carefully. Everyone will be interested.”
“Everyone?” Glen asked.
“The Khan, why… every king and lord, not to mention knights the moment they hear about it. Sure there’s a war now, but soon the news will invite people.”
“I intent to reach Eikenport, master Lon,” Glen reminded him and Lon nodded with a sigh. He got up from his chair, Biscuit’s eyes turning on him and walked to a wall where a map of the east coast of Eplas was drawn with vivid colors.
Glen, remembering the cartographer’s room –the name offered by Flix- he had discovered back at the ruins of Tarsos, got up and approached him to look at this slightly different map himself.
“There’s Rida,” Lon said, tracing his finger down towards Eikenport. “Eikenport, up the rivers to Merchant’s Triage. I was to take a caravan and follow the Merchant Path back to Rida. Meet Phon there, to iron out the details.”
“What stopped you?” Glen asked, staring at the map.
“Issirs landed on Eplas, burned Hi Yil to the ground, but not before destroying Tsuparin’s command,” he pointed at a spot on the map. “They cut us off from the Path. Everyone approaching is put to the blade.”
“The Khan’s soldiers did worse in Rida,” Glen told him.
“Ah, you’re probably in the right, but I see it in fiscal terms. We’re stuck here, unless…” He glanced at the map again. “We could take a caravan towards Eikenport; sure it’s not exactly working fully, but it’s a port. Sen has your ship you said, hmm…”
“What about the other cities?” Glen asked.
“They’re garrison villages, Dia Castle… well, sure they always need stuff. Jadefort was abandoned last time I checked and the Tyeusfort might be dangerous for you.”
“What about Wetull?” Glen asked him.
Lon turned to see whether he was jesting.
“Ahm, there’s nothing there anymore.”
“What about before?” Glen insisted.
Lon licked his lips unsure. “When the empire was there, the Sopat traded from the sea with them. Now it’s… too dangerous to navigate the reefs and there’s nothing there, as I said… probably.”
“No other route?” Glen probed.
“Not that I know of,” Lon replied looking at him curious. “Even if there’s… what are you suggesting?”
“I’m not suggesting anything,” Glen replied. “You have no way of reaching Rida from the coast. You need a port, but you also need a way to make the journey from the Peninsula faster and crossing the desert is… as you’ve suggested, an ordeal. It seems worth trying something else.”
“You’ve seen the Peninsula on a map?” Lon asked, nigh impressed. “Few Lorians ever bother looking beyond the Shallow Sea.”
Glen was not a Lorian.
“I have,” Glen replied with a scowl and walked away from the map. “Somewhere in the desert.”
“Let’s say, we take a caravan down the rivers, cross the bridge at Tyeusfort avoiding questions and reach Eikenport—”
“Why not head straight there?”
“The old road is not used, as I said, Eikenport is not a fully functioning city. Bah, it’s not a city, it’s mostly a ruin, with a port. Filled with pirates.”
“It will be easier to avoid patrols, if we don’t travel on a road,” Glen said. “You can’t expect Biscuit to remain stuck in a carriage forever.”
“Biscuit… ah, why not?”
“He’s constantly growing,” Glen reminded him and glancing at the wyvern working on the large cut of red meat the slaves had brought in a bathtub, he added. “And I wouldn’t like it either way. Would you?”
Lon sat back on his chair and pursed his lips. He made a grimace, after a contemplating moment and then nodded. “The caravan leaves tomorrow, after sunset,” the man informed him.
“What about my clothes?” Glen asked. The other merchant had brought his two rolls of silk earlier.
“The tailor shall work on them en route,” Lon replied.
“Will he agree?” Glen queried and Lon blinked, a little perturbed.
“He has no say in the matter, Sir Reeves,” the Sopat scion replied. “Worry not.”
The next night Lon-Iv, flanked by three servants and Metu holding a lit torch, waved for them to hurry. Glen followed by Flix and Gimoss, Biscuit riding on the fourth remaining mount, reached them minutes later. The merchant was waiting at the end of the ten carriages long caravan, camels, mules and horses mixed in with two pairs of cattle, three sheep and a dozen chickens, making enough noise to wake up the sleeping Triage, but for the fact their rendezvous point was almost a kilometer from the last tents.
“Garth,” Lon said conspiratorially, “use the last carriage for your pet. The driver is mute.”
“Paid off?” Glen asked, getting off his horse.
“Ah, no I had his tongue removed,” Lon replied, a little confused.
“Good grief, is the man alright?” Glen recoiled at the brutality.
“Eh, of course. That was years ago, he’s my slave since birth. It’s a minor procedure.”
Right.
“Well, then—” Glen started, saw Lon stand back shocked and paused with a frown of his own. Turned around and flinched himself, his heart lodged in his throat, Gimoss’ face in the light of the torches hideous. The black empty cavity of his left eye unsettling.
Really the whole thing was the stuff of nightmares.
Whoa, holly bloody cow!
Put a hood on it my dude!
“That’s your… manservant?” Lon asked a hand on his mouth, eyes ogling.
“What is this perfumed cocksucker implying?” Gimoss bellowed, half the caravan guards and drivers turning to see what was happening. Fortunately they were standing some distance away, towards the first carriages and wagons.
Lon blinked thoroughly shocked, made to answer angry, but Gimoss stepped forward, moving surprisingly fast for a person that had died centuries ago, grabbed him by his ringed ear and pulled at it hard, his intention clear. An alert Glen immediate jumped on the corpse’s hand saving the Sopat scion from a serious maimed face, or worse.
“Arggh!” Lon groaned and backed away scared. “What is this freakish madman doing?”
“That’s Gimoss,” Glen explained, parrying the corpse’s returning punch away from his own face, using his elbow. “He’s killed men for less.”
“For nothing!” Gimoss blasted him angry at skewering the facts.
“Why… I didn’t mean…” Lon had lost his ability to speak momentarily, his ear probably throbbing something fierce.
“Do not be alarmed,” Glen reassured him for the second time since he’d met him, adding a snake-oil’s salesman grin, while Flix put a hand on Gimoss’ cock to calm him down. The detail nigh disturbing for Glen, but he wasn’t going to open that fuckin’ can of worms anytime soon, or ever. “He’s a little sensitive… due to his condition. Of rather mellow character, once ye get to know him. Even friendly.”
“Ah, wayward harlot,” Gimoss rustled, pulverizing Glen’s argument. “Fine, I’ll let you have it.”
“What condition is that?” Lon croaked, regaining some of his color, though still rattled, after they both watched the corpse-looking freak walking towards the carriages following the short old woman. The Cofol merchant apparently much more flexible than him in carnal matters.
“Ahm, he had a bout wit death,” Glen retorted thinking on his feet and only half-lying. “Hasn’t recovered fully yet.”
For some peculiar reason Lon-Iv Sopat, just took him on his word and this matter ended there.
