Broken Blades Don't Sing (Tales of Ashkar Book One) (18 page)

If the girl was looking for her parents, then
perhaps he could help. While Arwynn had had a head start, Erendil
caught up to her easily and followed her as she waded through the
crowds of people, glancing up at their faces and calling for her
parents. Nobody seemed to pay her any mind, and she seemed
invisible to the other villagers. They focused their attention on
Erendil instead.

Have they not seen a towrth before?

No matter where he went, it was as if the eyes
of humans were pulled in his direction and held there by an unseen
force. Even the costumed man that called himself ‘The Ujok’ hardly
garnered any double-takes when Erendil was around.

Despite having such unnerving thoughts, Erendil
brushed them away in favor of more practical, and beneficial,
pursuits. He continued to follow the child, moving through the
villagers that looked at him with a mixture of disgust and
curiosity until the little girl stopped in her tracks. Erendil
followed her sight and discovered two lifeless bodies on the
ground, blood pooling from under their corpses. One was male, and
the other was female.

They had been slashed down mercilessly—their
clothes bloodied from grave wounds.

The child buckled onto her knees, sobbing
uncontrollably. Her anguish shook him to his core, and while he
could not say that he empathized, Erendil sat down next to her. He
gazed intently at the grieving child.

He had never known such pain, and he guessed
never would. His thoughts shifted to his own parents. Even though
he had never met them, Erendil imagined what they looked like and
who they were.

Are they dead as well? Would I even want to
know them?

Several moments passed, and the poor child's
sobs gradually diminished. They both sat in silence, simply staring
blankly into the distance.

"I never knew my parents", said Erendil,
breaking the silence. "I don’t know if anything can help you right
now, but at least they died for you because they loved you. I will
never know what that feels like."

The child looked down, and remained silent.

Erendil sighed solemnly.

To be abandoned as an infant... Master Sora,
you are the closest thing to a parent I’ll ever have. Is your love
the—?

"Tanaria, listen to me!" blurted Raxxil as he
charged toward them. "Nothing will ever hurt you again, of that I
promise."

Startled, the child quickly stood up and
scuttled behind Erendil. She peeked over his shoulder, eyeing
Raxxil warily.

"I told you, my name is Arwynn!" she squealed
back.

"Leave her be, Raxxil", ordered Serraemas from
behind the flustered hothead. "We must tend to your wounds, and
this is no time for your antics."

Raxxil looked down and cursed under his breath.
It seemed as though he hadn't even noticed the injuries inflicted
upon him. The confused elementalist looked up again and glanced at
the child with melancholic eyes. He opened his mouth to say
something, but paused and decided otherwise as was evident in his
audible sigh.

Serraemas pulled Raxxil aside again, and once
more they were locked in an argument—the former making several
gestures with a disapproving look and the latter pointing in the
direction of the girl and offering rebuttals. After several moments
of the exchange, they both turned in Erendil’s direction and walked
his way.

"Why does that man keep calling me Tanaria?"
asked the little girl inquisitively.

Erendil shrugged. "I'm not sure. Raxxil is
insa—"

"You three!" boomed a feminine but firm voice
from behind the group.

---

"You fool!" chided Orbo harshly from within
Aramal's blade. The demon’s voice was distorted, fluctuating as he
spoke. "Your arrogance nearly spelled our doom."

Aramal trudged weakly through the thick trees
just outside of the road. He was completely drained, and would have
been struck down at the hands of the staff-wielder just then if it
had not been for Orbo's spells. To Aramal’s dismay, that took an
even greater toll on his body.

"I need your vessel alive and the grimoire
intact before the summoning!" continued the demon in scorn.

"Shut the hell up already", Aramal retorted
hoarsely. "I know what I have to do." Aramal coughed violently. He
staggered, losing his balance slightly, and placed his arm on the
trunk of a nearby tree to catch himself. Aramal took a deep breath,
slowly lowering himself until he sat at the base of the tree and
out of plain sight. It was clear that those three elementalists
would continue their pursuit at the first chance, and he needed to
stay low until the cover of Merchant's Keep. The forest ran all the
way northeast until his destination, so the trees would be able to
cloak him until he could fade into the crowds.

"Typical humans”, babbled his condescending
partner. “Your kind is consumed by avarice and pride. Your nature
is your failure."

Aramal paid him no mind. Instead, he drowned out
the demon's conceited words. He sighed deeply, staring off into the
distance. The sun was beginning to rise, illuminating the dark sky.
The air was still save for the occasional sounds of nearby
fauna.

Birds chirped. Foliage rustled nearby. The
quietness now felt welcoming. Aramal looked down at his hands. They
were rough and dirtied, with deep calluses that revealed a lifetime
of labor. He continued to stare at them blankly for a considerable
amount of time. He knew the hands were forever stained red.

---

"I don't care if she is her or not", Serraemas
snapped coldly to the hammer-wielder as they approached Erendil.
"We had a mission and
your
carelessness allowed him to
escape."

Raxxil merely shrugged, instead focusing his
attention to the child that had been able to disrupt him so easily.
Under normal circumstances, Serraemas would have chased after the
fleeing stranger, leaving the others to catch up. Given Raxxil’s
grievous wounds—and perturbing dilemma—some things were unwise to
be left untended to.

The villagers, and the soldiers that accompanied
them, gazed upon the traveling elementalists. The townsfolk
expressed stern visages, whispering amongst themselves and pointing
in their direction. Serraemas noticed the lanky guard from earlier
speaking to a young woman. The soldier shifted his eyes to where
they stood, gesturing in their direction.

"It's all right honey, you're safe", Serraemas
overheard a woman not too far from where he stood say between
gentle sobs to who he assumed was her son, "But… you've grown
nearly three inches, and you look older! How is that possible?"

Serraemas shifted his attention in the direction
of the mother and her child. He furrowed his brows and narrowed his
eyes. Surely that was not a coincidence.

"Our target must have had a hand in that",
Zaranet affirmed.

Serraemas strode up to the boy, who looked to be
in his teens. "Did a bearded man approach you? He was an outsider,
and wore tattered clothes."

"Yes", replied the boy with a nod. "The strange
man asked me to read from his book, and gave me some coin for it. I
don’t know why, but I had an odd sensation after I did. I was
drained, as if I had exerted myself much too hard."

Serraemas looked around at the other children,
and it seemed that some of them had fallen prey as well; their
families were just as shocked to see that they had seemingly aged
several years overnight, with hardly anything to point fingers at
except magic or some odd ailment inflicted by rotten meat. The mind
was powerful, and considering that most education here involved a
trade and nothing more, an answer was to be found somewhere,
whether it be complete fabrication or not. Now the villagers had
laid eyes upon the wrath of demons, which meant that most answers
would come in the form of the monsters man feared most.

"Did that man create what attacked us?" asked
the boy’s mother.

Serraemas nodded, but otherwise remained silent.
He turned, heading back to where Raxxil stood.

"Thank you for saving us!” exclaimed the
woman.

Serraemas did not stop to turn around.

“Ashkar needs more heroes like you to defend
those who cannot protect themselves from fiends, like that man and
the terror he loosed upon us", she continued gratefully after
him.

Serraemas paused, clenching his jaw and flaring
his nostrils. Still, he remained with his back to her, and after a
few moments, took a deep breath. He released his tension, then
decided to continue without acknowledging her words. Just as he
rejoined his allies, he braced for the inevitable confrontation
that was about to take place, for the armored woman that had eyed
them warily now focused all her attention in their direction, as
was evident by the rhythmic beat of her plate boots striking the
ground and the clinking of her armor that grew steadily louder.

"You three!" shouted the woman abruptly. She
stepped forward with her blade drawn and raised at them. The
soldiers behind her followed suit, though their numbers had
dwindled significantly from the battle. If there had been a dozen
at the beginning of the battle, there was now half that.

Serraemas, Raxxil, and Erendil stood together in
the center of the village as the woman firmly approached. She was
clad in silver armor that enveloped the entirety of her body save
for a helmet. The plate was pristine and unscratched, as if it had
just been forged. If she had participated in the battle, she must
have had a second set of armor to preserve her image—perhaps to
uphold her men’s morale, for she did not look the type to pay much
heed to vanity given that she must have been a person of rank.
Either that, or she was as swift as the winds, which would offer an
inkling as to why such a young person would even hold leadership.
If anything, the most obvious answer was the one that held the most
truth.

As she drew closer, Serraemas was able to make
out her facial features clearly. She had relatively shorter red
hair that fell to her shoulder plate while her bangs fell down to
her brows. Her face was chiseled with a strong jaw, though her
complexion still held the femininity of a young woman, dotted with
freckles along her nose and upper cheeks. Fire from a nearby torch
flickered in her sea green eyes that were filled with stoic
purpose.

The young woman stopped several feet from where
they stood, keeping her blade raised and pointed it at them. The
remaining soldiers followed behind her with weapons raised. Even
the costumed man joined, crossing his arms and looking at the
traveling elementalists sternly.

"Who are you really?" she barked. "I've no mood
for deception or games."

"She’s right!” repeated the burly man with an
accent. “The Ujok wants to know who are you really, eh?"

The woman turned her head in his direction and
contorted her face incredulously at the costumed hero. The other
soldiers followed suit. Silence befell the village. Despite the
collection of gestures, the man seemed to pay no mind and continued
to fixate on the trio. If the costumed man was aware of the woman’s
reaction, he did not acknowledge it.

Serraemas stared at the young woman blankly. “We
are—“

"I am Raxxil Nemudel!" interrupted Raxxil as he
stepped forward, placing his hands on his hips and sticking out his
chest proudly. He then gestured to Serraemas and Erendil. "That's
Serraemas Mavrin, and the other guy's the 'Green Wonder'."

Serraemas stared at the back of Raxxil's head
and sighed deeply, shaking his head disapprovingly in an
I-can't-believe-you-just-did-that look. Beside him, Erendil
shrugged with a confused expression.

The woman contorted her face again for a moment,
then smiled at herself before giggling, a giggle that gradually
escalated into laughter, as if the more she thought of the answer
the more amusing it became. The other soldiers looked at each other
in confusion, but then joined in the laughter. One of the soldiers,
an elderly man who seemed to be a veteran amongst their ranks, did
not indulge in the clamor.

Abruptly the woman ceased her laughter.
Effective immediately, the remaining soldiers silenced as well.

"I'm so honored to be in your presence",
bellowed the woman sarcastically with a smirk. "The Lord of Frost
and the Volcano are gracing the quiet village of Bellis!" She
looked at Raxxil. “So, if you are who you say you are, then you’re
nearing ninety, and…” she turned to Serraemas. “…you are about to
reach a hundred ages. Am I right?” Suddenly her face darkened,
leaving no time for neither Raxxil nor Serraemas to answer. "I said
no more games! What happened here?"

Again a silence fell before them, and even the
other villagers had stopped what they were doing to catch whatever
bits of the altercation they could. Raxxil's playful complexion
disappeared as he defaulted attention to Serraemas, who mulled over
his words.

"Your village was attacked by a man dealing with
demonic powers, as you just experienced", Serraemas answered calmly
as he stepped forward. The tip of the woman's blade was now mere
inches from his forehead, and he locked eyes with her. "If not for
us, you would have been overwhelmed and lost even more people,
including your own men. Perhaps you would have completely lost the
battle, leaving everyone here to perish most untimely. "He
continued to stare at her with an unmoving expression, awaiting her
response.

The woman narrowed her eyes at Serraemas, as if
dissecting his words and attempting to see through, what he assumed
she held suspicions of, his false guise. After a moment of eyeing
all three of them meticulously, she softened her face and cleared
her throat. "Your words ring true, but that does not so easily
constitute an alibi”. The young woman lowered her weapon and
sheathed it. "What of the girl?"

"The little girl likes you dangerous men too
much, eh?" interjected the costumed man, though his efforts
continued to be ignored by both parties.