The wolf paused at the door of the Recruiter's office, her smile waning as the unmistakable smell of a mess hit her nose.
Normally she just lingered in the lounge reading other people's applications, she had not yet entered the office itself.
Canid pushed open the door and was confronted with Wyvern's office.... which could only be identified as such by someone who already knew it was.
Behind the "desk", the famed, overweight lizard with only two legs and a pair of wings was in the middle of forging people's signatures on checks.
The wolf carefully selected a path across the softer articles littering the floor, cleared a large portion of Wyvern's desk with a magical bark and lay on it a scroll of parchment.
Canid sat back to wait.
Laying down the sword
“You get paid 1000 in gold each day of the five years, battle or no-“
“Your war is predicted to end in four… it says here I have to stay the full five.”
“Yes. If the war ends before your contract time’s up, you’d spend the remaining year training our soldiers.”
“There’s no negotiation?”
“”Sure, we might even be able to pay you more during-“
“I mean in the contract time.”
“Ur, no.”
“I’m not a teacher.” Taylec stood up and walked out.
1000 gold per day was a lot, but all of his employers offered a lot. His life was fighting. His parents had died before he knew them. He had no friend, no lover and wanted none of either. He had taken up the wielding of weapons further back than his memory reached and loved it with as much love as he had known, which wasn’t much.
He didn’t need to fight any more. He had wealth anyone would envy as he was an excellent fighter and was paid a lot. He just didn’t spend any of it, had nothing to spend it on. His employers provided him with housing clothing food and good weapons. The best of each a fighter could get. He could not fathom what more he could want.
Taylec had been looking for a new employer for two weeks now, the longest time he’d been out of battle since 16. It wasn’t his fault, there were simply less kingdoms fighting. Left to their own, they would have kept at it until humans were extinct but the Dualli Peace Seekers had been introducing new methods of solving the problems of neighbouring kingdoms.
Taylec rather resented the Duallis. He had said many times, even when the organization was in its infancy that it was “none of their business.”
Ahead was his horse. A good, fast, strong horse as far as he was concerned.
Something black flittered around the legs of the horse and Taylec watched it carefully as he approached. He didn’t slow down or even move his head… if it thought he hadn’t noticed it, he would stand a better chance of killing it when it tried to take him by surprise.
That wasn’t its plan.
The creature climbed atop the horse and stood on the saddle looking at him. It was small and feathery-light with limbs that looked like thin rope and a face with little detail beyond a couple of pointy teeth, two pricked ears and as he saw when he came closer, two smoke-black eyes that did not reflect any light.
“Marstar wain yek tight.” It said.
“I speak English.” replied Taylec as he brushed it off his saddle and watched it out of the corner of his eye as he mounted the horse.
“Sos dev E.”
Its dark eyes loomed up at him from the ground, expecting him to understand. Taylec sighed and began to ride away. The thing sped after him, easily keeping pace with the horse.
“E sed marstar wain yek tight, ight ins army.”
This time Taylec realized that what it said was very poorly pronounced English. He stopped the horse and commanded the thing.
“Say it clearly.”
“Mine maaster want you to ight ins army.”
The sentence was enough that Taylec understood. The creature worked for someone who wanted him in their army. “Lead me.” He commanded the black thing. It grabbed the horse by its nose and pulled. The frightened animal was no match for the creature’s strength and followed, making noises of pain and dripping hot red blood on the ground.
The walk took less than a day. They passed into a kingdom thick with black fog. Disconnected eyes peered out from curtained windows. The creature led him to a tower and into a small building nearly pitch black. The creature lit a lamp and half the room flared into light, the other half was a shroud of moving living darkness with vaguely human form.
The creature disappeared behind the figure and Taylec waited.
It began to speak. Its voice was human but that did not change the atmosphere of the room.
“I’m offering you a 15 year contract. You must serve the full time, there will be no shortage of battles; I already know your concerns. You won’t be teaching a person, just fighting. Pay is half a million in gold each day.”
A contract had been pushed onto a table that stood between them. It was written in silver on a shiny black sheet.
Taylec looked over the contract. The man was a mage: a man possessing unusual abilities of magic. Taylec had seen this sort of display before, a scare tactic, to impress. He wasn’t scared. What mattered to him was what was being offered. He had never had an offer of such large pay. Fifteen years was a long time to be employed by one person, but he would spend them fighting anyway.
“If I accept?”
“You go into a three month training course before starting battle,”
“I don’t need training.”
“In the course you will first be exposed to our weapons and tactics,”
“I don’t need training.”
“then you will learn how to use them.”
“I need no training!”
The black creature moved out from its hiding place under the darkness of its master. “Weak umans… 75% uman dieing thrained…. Not rom wounds” It grinned evilly. “Nee creatures not hurt be thraining, demons…”
“Teach your servant to speak properly.” Said Taylec, looking in disgust at the spindly little creature trying to talk. He had finished reading the contract, it was good. The gold was enough for his dignity that he could endure a few months of training. He took a quill from the table, dipped it in ink provided and added his name to the sheet.
“Show him the weapons Rive.” Said the mage from his shadow. The lamp went out and the spindly creature pulled him through the door.
“Longest life here is 2 year.”
Taylec was lead to a weapons room. Most of the weapons were much too large for a human but against the one wall were two small racks, each with one type of weapon lining it. The black thing took down a whip and held it aloft.
“Chanted. Will always wrap aroun arget, never touch you.”
Taylec did not bother trying to understand the black thing’s language but picked up the whip and looked at it. It had four cords and each was studded with metal thorns as sharp as those on a rose bush. He noticed the whip flayed out around him as he held it, touching him nowhere but where he held it.
“You will practice.”
The thing handed him a second weapon, this one was a large cross bow. The arrows had bulbous metal heads, clumsy things that would be hard to fire but Taylec had succeeded with worse.
The creature spoke again. “Not chanted, can hit you. Splodes when hit, poison.”
The black thing grabbed his arm and led him out. Taylec began his training.
By the end of three months, Taylec understood why so many had died during the training. What they learned was how to run for 36 hours and sleep a grand total of one. The edges of the training camp were lined with black monsters that watched them and physically drained their energy as they ran. The monsters were demons; Taylec did not need to be told this. He viewed the “training” as pointless. It was a waste of energy, though at the end, though he did not admit it to anyone, least of all himself, he was able to fight with his normal gusto with less sleep and less energy than he had ever been deprived of in his life.
The black thing was a demon as well, though a lesser demon. It was named Rive and it seemed to command operations. At the end of three months, it removed Taylec from training quarters and deposited him outside a hut on a muddy field.
“Bed.” It said and left.
Taylec opened the door to the hut and stepped in. Immediately a voice piped up. It was well practiced and calm.
“There is a man five huts down who was planning to sleep, I am only resting my–“ the voice cut off as the man’s eyes opened. He was laying on one of two beds in the room. There was a tray with empty bowls and a cup on it but aside from that the room was bare.
“They’ve sent me a bunk-mate then; the demons like to play pairs against each other.”
The man did not sit up as he spoke and had even closed his eyes again. The flesh under the lower eyelids looked thin and red; in a couple places drops of blood had begun to form on top.
Taylec placed his weapons against the wall next to the other man’s. “What do you mean planning to sleep?” he asked.
The man continued to lay still and keep his eyes shut but replied promptly. “You are less likely to survive sleep than battle, the demons love to torture you while you sleep.”
Taylec lay back on his bed. “Ridiculous; you have to sleep sometime.”
“You sleep while you fight.”
Taylec dismissed his hut-mate as crazy and dove into sleep with the practise of three months “training” behind him.
The noise of his hut-mate closing the door with a sigh roused Taylec. Outside he could hear the noises of soldiers treading towards what would undoubtedly be battle. Taylec was on the verge of opening his eyes when the images struck him. Torturous, tormenting sickness the likes of which a normal man would never dream had he lived to see all the pain of the world. They flushed through his brain, unstopped by the barriers of battle Taylec had always had; tearing at him with a pain that caused him to double over in his bed. The images were what he had dreamed and through eyes that were half open and throbbing with blood running through vessels never meant to take such amounts, Taylec saw the wicked face of a demon watching him with pleasure through the door.
The face of the demon brought one, perhaps life saving, thought to Taylec’s mind: the demon had sent him the dream. The thought was there and gone in a second as the images made a fresh attack and the demon made itself invisible. With desperate instinct Taylec thought of battle and flung away the horrid memories of the dream as quickly as he could. He stopped convulsing in pain and lay flat, still thinking of the battle ahead.
As soon as his muscles had stopped convulsing, Taylec tried to stand up. Fear washed over him slightly, though dulled by his experience in battle it never-the-less made an appearance as he found he could not move even a finger.
Taylec lay still for five minutes, straining to move before, starting with a shudder in his neck, the after-affects of the demon’s attack wore off. Taylec rose and grabbed his weapons then shot out the door and followed those still leaving.
Rive passed by him and nodded to his single question; “Battle?”
Taylec almost enjoyed his new contract. They moved to a new battle sight never less than three times a day and sometimes fought as many as seven. They had two hours in which to rest muscles, eyes, eat and if they dared, sleep. He tried sleep again two days after the first attack but was paralysed for a full half hour before he shakily got up from the second experience and after six days, accomplished the feat of his hut-mate; he slept during battle.
It was an odd experience. The only joy Taylec ever had was fighting and not being conscious to enjoy it was what he might have used as an example of a great shame had he ever been asked to give one. His fighting would be mechanical, trained actions for everything his eyes, still open, took in, but some how, he managed to be unconscious despite this, like an advanced and intentional form of sleepwalking. The demons, their foul desires fulfilled in the murder of the enemy, would leave the sleeping alone then.
The weapons were very effective. The whip would catch on an enemy’s armor then skin and wrap around, digging in the jagged little thorns. When pulled back, it would shred whatever material it had been in. The clumsy cross bow fired off a heavy metal head which hit the target and exploded sending poisonous shards of metal flying in all directions.
The demons never had the chance to play Taylec against his hut-mate. The other man died only a few days after Taylec arrived, killed in their 8th battle.
Taylec dropped his weapons against the wall and flopped on the bed. He could smell the food that had been left for him but wanted to rest his eyes first. He was two months into the service for the mage. The skin under his eyes had begun to thin out as the man who used to share his hut had suffered. It came from the lack of sleep. Having his eyes open all day had its drawbacks.
Taylec closed his eyes and felt a wet drop of blood roll from the lower lid. Taylec ignored it. There was no point wiping at it; that would just break the skin there completely.
He inhaled the aroma of the soup and let his head fall to one side before his brain shut down for sleep.
The familiar sounds of footsteps outside the hut brought Taylec back to consciousness. Sick and twisted images filled his head with no delay this time but strangely, Taylec stood up and gathered his weapons anyway.
Horrors pierced every part of his mind as he marched amongst the demons and men toward battle. They moved onto the plain and Taylec saw the enemy, mostly human and dressed in white, swarm out of formation to avoid the flying metal already being fired by those in front.
Taylec broke into a run along with everyone else beside him. The images still rushed through his mind with torrential power and suddenly he was in control of his muscles again.
His arms shook violently as he raised his cross-bow to aim at the white army facing them. As he released the metal arrow, his arm spasimed downwards with the rush of the horrifying images. The metal shaft sped through Taylec’s foot with a crunch and one of the metal shards drove itself up his leg straight through the bone just before he blacked out.
Even as he slowly returned to consciousness, Taylec began to analyze his surroundings; planning for escape if needed with what little attention he could muster between fading in and out of heavy sleep.
The room was large and white and had two other bedridden occupants. Nurses in white robes moved in and out silently, bringing bowls of soup and finely sliced fruit that they undoubtedly fed to him when he was half-conscious.
Taylec was aware that he could not move his leg and was also suffering from the poison of the shaft on top of that. He doubted that the mage would have had either these facilities or this much concern for his life, but until he had recovered, he had no reason to quarrel with his current captors.
After two weeks, Taylec was finally able to bring his eyes into focus enough to read a blue sign above one door: “Dualli Peace Seekers”. Taylec immediately felt his old resentment surge. In the mindless days of working for the mage, he had not possessed the energy to even think about his old grudges… or anything in fact but the battle ahead.
The Duallis… again. He could guess how this had happened. The Duallis had received a large number of scrolls detailing the mage’s attacks on different kingdoms and had responded with their last resort – taking down the enemy. Thanks to that, Taylec was now not only in their custody, but he was injured through their war! Taylec began considering how he could kill a few of them on his way out. That would make the mage happy, certainly; but he would do it in revenge before returning to the mage to-
Taylec stopped, feeling slight fear at what he was thinking. Going back? He could find other work and the mage had shown him such poor respect through the conditions he was expected to work in that there was no point. He was one of the greatest fighters in history and such a job did not give him that recognition.
One of the nurses came in and wheeled a cart towards him. Taylec looked up at her, opening his eyes wide to show his alertness.
“I’m sure you know about the weapons that injured you…” she said, as she tilted a plate to show him the sliced peach on it. “We have been working on a remedy for the poison in your system. You will start receiving it tomorrow if everything goes well.”
She offered him a peach slice. Taylec knew better than to alienate those helping him when he was weak and took a bite.
He was weak.
Taylec pondered over the idea resentfully while the nurse fed him. He tried to picture what he would do if his leg – whose bone he remembered had been crushed by the shaft – never healed. He felt a sudden flush of blocked hatred of the mage. It surprised him because it had never emerged before.
“What about my leg?” he asked after swallowing another peach slice.
“It will heal… we have some healing magics that will restore it.”
Taylec smiled as he thought of how he could hurt the mage.
Why hurt him?
Because… The hatred had gone. He frowned. Why?
It was a week later that he was fully healed. The thought to kill some Duallis on the way out immediately occurred to him but before he touched his weapon he was planning his path back to the mage.
That stopped him. He did not want to go back to the mage. Whenever the thought came to kill a Dualli, so did the thought to return. Taylec left without new blood on his sword.
Taylec set about finding himself a horse. He rented a room at an inn and meandered around the town. It was not until late that he found an animal he deemed worthy. He knocked on the door, let it open and offered a just sum which was quickly accepted.
At the inn he began listing potential employers in his mind. Reindalth would never succumb to peace – they would always be there to accept him. He could try the Denors again if they had not been overthrown. They had always been on the verge of being defeated. He could always go back to the mage if all else…
Taylec stopped right there and went to sleep; angry at himself.
Taylec made a point of not thinking of fighting as he kicked his new horse into motion towards Denors. He would find out on the way if they were still going and veer off if they had fallen.
His resentment of the mage started seeping back into his mind and he smiled. That felt natural. He let himself glory in loathing the mage and reached a town midway to his destination soon after noon.
He bought himself a pie and made his enquiries. Denors was struggling with a small, well armed kingdom after receiving a nasty blow from a blue mage. They would be desperate. It was perfect.
Taylec kicked his horse back on the road and let himself dream of the battles to come.
It was well after nightfall when he saw a castle on the horizon. It had taken much longer than it should have. Maybe it was the horse.
He rode closer, eager to claim his deserved position among the front ranks. The castle darkened in front of him, tall desolate towers coming dimly into view over high black and familiar walls.
The Denors did not have such structures.
Taylec slowed his horse instinctively The caution taught from years of battle sharply in place. This was the mage’s kingdom, not the Denors.
Something black flitted about the feet of his horse and Taylec drew his sword. The black thing made itself visible a short distance before the horse – Rive.
“Marrstarr wait si-e foo. Come inish onrac.”
Taylec held the horse steady. “Speak clearly Rive.”
“Marstar waites you to inish you conract.”
The glory of fighting – he would work for the mage and get to fight. It was simple; what he wanted. Why was he here when he had headed for Denors?
Taylec paused. He had been thinking of fighting. When he thought of fighting he wanted to fight for the mage, when he did not, the thoughts that seemed right were there….. this was magic. When he had signed the contract, the mage had put this upon him.
Rive was reaching for his frightened horse. He pulled suddenly on its reins and it reared up. Taylec brought his sword down on Rive, cutting the feathery demon in half; its blood sticking poisonously to his blade.
He had been tricked. Taylec knew he stood no chance against the mage, whose magic could crush any material skill. It was his job as a warrior to know that immediately, so he turned his horse around and galloped in the opposite direction.
He knew what was going on now, would it…?
Taylec thought of fighting as an experiment and immediately felt his hatred of the mage dampen in magical reaction.
Taylec stopped thinking of it and shook his head, riding on. His life was ruined.
Taylec awoke on an inn bed. The empty plate with bread crumbs on it on a table beside him. He stretched, arose and looked out the small wooden window.
Taylec went down the creaky staircase, through the tables in the entrance and out onto the road then wondered along, honest depression sinking in. It was a new emotion.
After an hour, he chose a shop at random. He looked at their stock. They sold quills, parchment, ink, sealing wax and the services of their horses for hefty fees. Taylec still had his money. He purchased a stack of parchment, three quills and some ink for the sake of doing something other than walking without purpose. A warrior always had purpose. Taylec chose to go back to the inn and walked there. Having a destination was purpose.
He sat down at a table and ordered a drink, looking at what he bought still feeling empty.
Taylec opened one bottle of ink, dipped in a quill and started to write.
Edited by: Canid at: 7/23/02 10:13:07 pm
