Hullo, got another part here, and about two more on their way. Try and keep up if you can, it's getting pretty confusing by now, and going to get alot worse when all the chapters start connecting into each other...
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The first thing Vedrin became aware of, was the hot, throbbing pain in his right shoulder. The second, was that he had been bound, hand and foot, and was lying, rather awkwardly on his good side, inside a small, dark tent. It was devoid of any furniture or ornamentation that he could see, with the exception of a rickety wooden stool and table, that would not have looked out of place in a farmhouse. What little light there was, came from a lantern hanging from a pole just outside the entrance, its weak rays barely illuminating the figure of a broad-shouldered man in a long green cloak, embroidered with a white wolf and three stars, sitting with his back to the tent. Vedrin tried to sit up but instead toppled over on his shoulder, groaning in pain as he hit the cold hard ground.
“So you’re awake then. For a while there, I was wondering if you’d let yourself die, just to spite me. You Nyrians can be a stubborn lot when the mood takes you.”
Vedrin’s eyes widened in surprise at the sound of a woman’s cool voice, tinged with just a hint of weariness. He had been unable to see behind him when he woke, but his ears were so sensitive, he could hear a man breathe at fifty paces. Had his senses been damaged along with his shoulder? Suppressing a moan, he made to turn around and face his captor.
“If you want to be able to fire a bow again, I suggest you stop acting like a worm with all that squirming and lie still.”
That stopped Vedrin dead in his tracks. Everyone knew what happened to members of the Serpent guard once they became unable to perform their duties. The fate of a common soldier would be no different from even the Captain himself.
“You don’t really think you’ll ever be allowed back into the Guard do you?” said the voice, as if reading his thoughts. “An entire squad killed and it’s captain captured? Hardly something the Lords would want broadcast to Nyre. They’ve done much worse to keep their reputaitons intact.”
Vedrin opened his mouth angrily just as the tent flap was cast aside and a tall, dark-skinned man, carrying what appeared to be a long thick staff of polished oak padded into the room. His dark red baggy trousers, stuffed into the tops of knee high leather boots, muscular bare chest, tattooed face, and crimson scarf wrapped around his head to cover his mouth and nose named him one of the Fianna. It had been nearly fifteen years since Vedrin had set his eyes on one of the elusive band of mercenaries, but it was not an experience you soon forgot.
He closed his eyes for a moment, and summoned up the memory easily enough…
Vedrin stretched to see over the heads of the crowd, as they swelled and rippled with excitement. The Fenian Warrior, bound hand and foot, and naked, was being herded from the elaborate wooden cage, by a pair of spear-weilding guards, trying to look as though they were in control, while keeping as much distance between themselves and the condemned man as possible. Vedrin, like the onlookers, did not particularly care, where the man was found, or what he had done; it was irrelevant. What did matter, was that he was Fianna, and even the most witless of fools, knew they had served The Nightmare Lord in the War. The tales were full of their bloody escapades, fighting alongside the Crowmen and the Wolves. Their lives were forfeit. Then and now and forever…
It took the crowd a second or two to realise what had actually happened. One moment, the man was being prodded and poked towards the gallows, the next, one of the guards was lying on the ground, bleeding from a gash in his temple, and the prisoner, who had somehow managed to free his legs, was making a run for the main gates, blood running down his chin.
The crowd knew better than to do anything but remain perfectly still. The prisoner had barely made it ten paces, when the death-song of Nyrian arrows sounded through the air.
The first struck him in the leg, just below his knee. There was a hush in the crowd, as the second buried itself deep in the small of the man’s back. He faltered, and twisted, but did not stop. A second arrow, this time in the thigh. Another, slicing across his shoulder. A final arrow in the back, and he was down in a pool of blood and splinters . A cheer went up from the crowd, but stopped suddenly, when the warrior gave a jerk, and rolled over. Slowly, he pulled himself up, and reached behind him, clenching the arrow shaft in tight bloody fingers. There was a snap, and it came loose. Even more slowly, he reached for the next, and the next. The crowd watched in silence. The archers held their bows at their sides. Finally, the last shaft was torn out, and the man sat back on his legs, exhausted. Slowly, and with purpose, his gaze raised from the ground to the still crowd before him. He opened his mouth as if to say something, and then closed it again.
Footsteps on the cobblestones made the only noise in Nyre as Surian Oakthorne, captain of the serpent guard, stepped forward, raised his longbow, and fired a single arrow…
For weeks afterwards, Vedrin could not sleep. The face of the fallen warrior was burned into his mind and would not let him rest.
They were nomadic nowadays, The Fianna, and had strange customs, made stranger, by their refusal to interact in any way with the outside world, with the exception of their mercenaries. They often faced persecution from those who felt they still served The Nightmare. Nyre took persecution to an extreme.
Vedrin had tried his hand at a bit of research after that day, but all he found in the vast Nyrian libraries, was an extract from some obscure prophecy.
The cursed ones shall be cleansed, In their blood shall they find retribution, The dagger of the night shall strike at its own heart, And those who are bound, be released,
It had been the word “bound” that had interested him. Fianna meant “those who are bound” in the old language. A mere coincidence? Maybe…
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Reluctantly, he pushed his memories aside. He would have plenty of time to reminisce, once he got out of this place alive.
“Don’t tell me you’ve begun interrogating him already Ocema?” said the Fenian, in a strange rough voice, that seemed an amalgamation of several accents.
“Could you help our …guest to his feet please Seraph?” the woman said in a warm tone.
Vedrin did not resist as he was grabbed by the collar and roughly dragged to his feet. The woman he could now see for the first time, gestured to a stool, and he sat. Ocema, the man had called her. He began to study her face, engraving it into his memory. The crime for imprisoning a captain of the guard was death. Silver-white hair fell around a perfectly proportioned face in a mass of wavy spidery strands to her waist, though her face showed no sign of old age. Those convicted of such a crime would be hung in the palace square. She wore simple travelling clothes fit for a modest merchant perhaps, but the rings on her fingers were too valuable for them to be the hands of anything but nobility. He would bide his time…
Reaching her hand slowly into a pocket of her brown woollen robe, she withdrew what appeared to be a few narrow, sharp splinters of wood, followed by a long grey arrowhead, glinting in the lamplight.
“What is the extent of your knowledge of The Exile?” she asked calmly, setting the fragments on the table.
“I’ll not answer your questions blasphemer!” he spat, and with a surge of will managed to break free from the man holding him by the shoulder. In the next instant he heard the low hum of a staff whizzing through the air, as his shoulder exploded in pain and he hit the ground hard.
A woman’s stern disapproving voice sounded foggily through his mind as the pain shot through every inch of his body. He twisted and turned in agony, uttering oaths that would make even a Ghardall blush. Suddenly, he was aware of Ocema’s hands cradling his head, and in the next instant, it seemed a flood of cool waves washed through every fibre of his body. He was in his home, on his modest farm in the grassy hills that overlooked the marble walls of Nyre. Ralin was with him, and they were happy together. He hadn’t seen his son with a smile on his face since the boy’s mother died.
In another painful instant, all that was gone, and he was back in the cold, damp tent, staring at the roof, with Seraph and Ocema staring down at him. The pain was gone, all that remained was a faint tingle. The strange woman seemed shaken by what had just happened, despite all her efforts to hide it, and the other man, this Seraph as she had called him, kept glancing back and forth between the two of them, a concerned look for Ocema, and one of utter disgust, for Vedrin.
“He is little good to us as a cripple Seraph!” Ocema chided, but before the man could answer her, she turned back to Vedrin. “I will ask you again Vedrin dal’Shar, what do you know of the Exile?”
The image of the arrow exploding in mid-flight flashed through Vedrin’s mind once again. In fifteen years in the Serpent Guard, he had never missed. Never failed. And now look at him. Captured and disgraced , his squad dead, and he at the mercy of a heretic, who had Exalted and Fianna to do his bidding.
“What did you do to me witch?” he demanded feebly.
“I will answer your questions, if you return the courtesy.” Replied Ocema.
“All I know” Vedrin began, “ Is that I would have killed your damned Exile if your magic had not interfered!”
“Magic?” the woman paused. Vedrin thought he detected a faint sound of bemusment in her voice. “Yes” she said, “I suppose you might call it that. But not mine.” Ocema rain her fingers along the broken shards of wood on the table. “Unfortunatly, it would seem, our mysterious friend is no longer with us. He hid his tracks well.”
Ocema trailed off, lost in her own thoughts. Vedrin was puzzled. Why deny that she had stopped the arrow? He could feel a low, throbbing pain creeping back into his head. This was becoming too confusing.
“He knows nothing Ocema, you waste our time.”
The tall, imposing figure of The Exile striding into the tent sent anger bubbling up inside Vedrin, but he dared not speak. The memory of Seraph’s staff was far to fresh in his memory for that.
“You should watch your tone when you speak to one of the Exalted!” Seraph’s unbridled anger surprised Vedrin, he had thought the man a subordinate of the Heretic half-elf.
“ Seraph, be at peace.” Spoke Ocema quickly. Vedrin could not see the half-elf’s hand beneath his heavy grey cloak, but he was almost certain he had heard the sound of a blade sliding from its sheath.
“My Lord, he meant no offence, truly.” Ocema continued, her humble tone surprising Vedrin almost as much as Seraph’s outburst. The Exalted, a secret society of philosophers and clerics, could go almost anywhere they wished, even in Nyre, unchecked. The punishment for falsely claiming to be an Exalted was harsh to say the least, but then again, he was sure if anyone would be capable of it, this Ocema woman would.
“It was by your order this man was not killed along with the others, and I have yet to see why.” The Exile interrupted. “Explain yourself.”
“His name is Vedrin dal’Shar and he is the captain of the serpent guard of Nyre.” Vedrin blinked in surprise at these words. How did she know his name and rank?
“All the more reason he should have been dealt with before now.” The cool, slow voice of the Exile sent chills down Vedrin’s spine, though he refused to show his fear on his face.
“You lost many men today, needlessly. I warned you the Nryian council would not sit by and watch as you gathered an army outside their very gates.” Said Ocema in a commanding tone. The Exile opened his mouth to speak, but she continued;
“This man has more years of military experience than all the men in this camp combined. You cannot lead an army all by yourself. You know this is true.
“Nothing would give me more pleasure than to use an assassin against his employer Ocema. But what makes you think the men will accept him? He is a pure blood elf. And what are we to him, but blasphemers and heretics? Why would he ever lead an army against his own land?” said the Exile in an agitated tone.
“The men will accept him in time. Everyone’s blood is the same colour on the battlefield. As for the his willingness...” Ocema looked down at Vedrin, a touch of a sad smile on the corner of her lips.
“I am afraid we did not trust Surian when he sent the message, we did not think him capable of it. That is why you nearly succeeded. Despite…..”
Ocema sighed softly and produced a scroll from the folds of her robe…
“Vedrin dal’Shar” she began, watching as Vedrin’s eyes grew wider with every word “ Captain of The Nyrian Serpent Guard, born in Wintergrove fifty six years ago. One wife, Riasha dal’Shar, deceased. One son, Ralin, sixteen. Gemev Sai, Aludras Movek, SurdanVaines, Berrodin Dren, Andro Kran” she went on, naming each member of his elite squad. “Do I need to continue?”
Vedrin shook his head. He had been taught how to protect his thoughts from mindreaders. There was no way she could know that information unless she had read his confidential file. It was all so bitterly clear to him now. Why there were more bodyguards than there should have been. Why he was chosen specifically to perform such a seemingly ordinary mission. Why that arrow had been fated never to find its mark. He had been set up…
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More later if you're not bored by now -Dark Phoenix
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