Chapter
"Jake, I know the shame that your father has brought on you is great. But I will offer you a chance to redeem yourself and your families name" the king said as his gnarled fingers gripped the handle of his cane, Jake Bluto, one of the youngest soldiers of his army, kneeled low enough in front of this king, that the king himself couldn't even see jakes face. They spoke inside the depths of castle Das'rel, considered by many of the city to be the most terrifying place imaginable. No good word was spoken of their king, or the iron fist he controlled his territory these angered voices only spoke in hushed whispers out of fear of the city guard.
"What is your offer Lord Das'rel? Tell me so I may redeem my families honor" Jake said through gritted teeth, though he hated the fact he still was tethered to the army of this dying man. He hated the idea of redeeming his father even more.
"there are rumors in the air" lord Das'rel said through his toothless grin "a kobold army is growing to the north, I want you to take care of it without alerting suspicion from the rest of the army, if you can do this, I will lift the burdens that have been placed on your family, and you will be free of me. Your servitude will end if you can bring me the head of their wizard."
"why his head?" Jake said caring more out of curiosity then some distorted sense of duty
"the kobolds living to the north the one of the few things that keeps me from overthrowing the many provinces to the north, his head would also prove to me that you are a proper servant, and will do as I bid you to do" he smiled" with them gone, it is only a matter of time before my power will stretch from one side of the continent of Griffenford to the other" the king said with a wicked grin, even in his old age he was still mad for power it would seem. Around him sat trophies of the many kingdoms, fiefdoms, and province he had conquered and pillaged in his sixty five year rule. All these lands his prison, and he the warden. Even within the walls of the city of Das'rel, not a soul could leave, even travellers were caught in his web, merchants and vagabonds now crowded the city as they had come to peddle their goods and were soon ensnared and never released.
"sire, if you don't mind me saying …our empire already stretches for more then half of this land, only bogs, mountains and temples to Pelors knights lay beyond our control, why claim these wretched lands?" Jake knew he was out of line for asking his king such a question, and the king replied in his typical fashion, he waved over two of his knights clad in their silvery armor, who quickly grabbed Jake by his shoulders."Speak out of turn like that again Jake Bluto. And I will carve your tongue from your mouth without a second thought" the king then motioned for the guards to remove him from his chambers. They led Jake straight outside and latched the gate behind him.
"he expects me to take on a whole horde of kobold alone?" he said staring into the vile thief ridden city, a stark contrast at the foot of the beauty of the castle. "I lack the ability or know how to take on a battalion of those vile dragon kin. Jake what have you gotten yourself into?" he said miserably
A caravan of ragged wagons covered in thick colorful banners rolled towards the city walls. The city guard lulled from their collective boredom. Approached the coach at the head of the line of carts
"what have he got here? A circus?" the guard said behind the safety of his heavy steel helmet
"not a circus my good sir, THE circus!" the portly man from inside the cart fired back suddenly "this is the Mahou Circus Extravaganza, my acts are all from the furthest reaches of the globe. No other act like mine in the whole world" he said primping his suit trying to hide the holes that had been eaten in it by moths
"is that so?" the guard said with a laugh
"none like it in the world" he reiterated
"fair enough, so Mr- the guard began
"Mahou, Wesley Bartholomew Mahou"
"odd name" the guard laughed
"none like it in the world" Wesley laughed back
"so why bring this….magnificent of a circus to our fair city?" the guard said trying to hold in his laughter
"none like it in the world" Wesley said as he snapped the reins to the horse that pulled his coach
The guards opened the gates, knowing full well that this "extravaganza" was now trapped within their walls, And would stay trapped for as long as the king saw fit.
At the back of the wagons sat the performer's carts. And as Wesley promised they were from all sides of the world. Some of them used the circus as a way to hide from authority some using it just as a way of life, and still some that tagged along just for the adventure. The last wagon in the trail housed only four souls, the smallest number of any of the carts. Lillia an elven women who worked as the fortune teller of the Circus, her adopted sister dusk, a catfolk acrobat who was using the Circus to hide from authorities currently hunting her, hunting her for the crimes of a life she once led as a thief, And lastly in the corner of the room sharpening the edge of his sabre, the Circus's animal tamer, Aust Vann Thallenmasser, a Desert elf from the far off continent of Rust. Next to him a native of his continent, an orange furred cheetah named Marilia, his companion through all of his travels, these four friends were by far the most foreign to these lands.
"the guard's aren't going to let us leave the city" Lillia said as the gates closed behind them
"Not let us out, my ass!" dusk said in a humph "we'll see what they say after they taste these" dusk said as repeatedly extended and retracted her claws. Lillia smiled as she began running a brush through dusks white coat of fur. Dusk was small,standing only a little more then three feet tall. Her humanoid form was covered in a cats white fur, complete with black face was shaped in a roughly feline form as well, complete with whiskers and the high pointed ears of a kitten. Her gloved hands and bare feet took on the rounded shape of a cats paws complete with the aforementioned claws. Lastly hanging loosely out the back of her acrobats outfit was a long tail covered in the same white fur as her body.
"Violence isn't going to be what gets us to safety, at least not violence from you, dusk" Lillia said with a genuine smile
"well it should, I'm getting sick of being so bored, there's nothing to do in this circus" dusk said relaxing against the bristles of the brush as they scratched her ear
"Grow bored of it all you like kitten, its home and its your life now" Vann said stoic as always
"Easy for you to say, you've never tasted the pleasure that the open road can offer" dusk said pulling away from Lillia
"Tasted its pleasures, no, drowned in its wrath. Yes." Vann said, suddenly sounding more upset then serious
"As I've said before, I came to this country searching for a sword that was stolen from my family generations ago, through all of my searching and prayers I was guided here to this land. Yet the more I look the farther I feel I have gone off course." He lifted the Falchion he had been sharpening into the air "the blade I hold is the sister to the one I seek. Within the blade I seek is the soul of one of my ancestors; he was sealed forever in its edge as his final wish. So that forever he may stay on the battlefield which he loved"
"no matter how many times I hear it, it surely is a beautiful story" Lillia said smiling at Vann
"more like a boring story" dusk said, now clearly just trying to set off Vann
"Thank you lillia" Vann said glaring at dusk "maybe within these city walls we will find something that links us to the end of all of our voyages"
"I'm sure you will" Lillia said
it was clear to dusk by now that there was more between Lillia and this desert elf then they were letting on. She knew Lillia was just hiding it out of embarrassment. Lillia viewed the diminutive dusk as her little sister, perhaps to replace the little sister she had lost.
Over a hundred years ago Lillia had told her, more then dusk could imagine as she was still only 18 years old, Lillia's village was attacked by a colossal green dragon, its seething rage at the towns refusal to leave their forest home, drove it into a rage, a rage that destroyed everything in site, ripping the buildings from their foundations and drowning the people of the town in its chlorine gas desperation and panic for the safety of her family, a young Lillia tried to wake her mother and father but they had already died from the gas, she ran in fear for her little sister's room in hopes she was still alive. But just before she got to the room, the dragon's tower like legs kicked through her sister's wall, its eyes set on killing one of the few still remaining alive. Lillia seeing the dragon destroy the wall and fearing her sister dead, screamed in panic, but the insidious dragons fear scared her more then even the loss of her family could. She found herself running as fast as her little legs could carry her, she ran and ran, for days she told dusk, until she arrived at mahou's circus where she has lived ever sense.
And with this thought Dusk sat up from the chair in front of Lillia
"Is everything okay sis?" Lillia asked setting the hair brush on her lap
"Nothings wrong, I just want to see what the city looks like" she said through a fake smile, as she climbed out the wagons window and up onto the roof of the cart. The city was much larger then she imagined, and the wind was now rushing through her white fur. She sighed aloud. She really wanted to stay for Lillia who had been so lonely all these years, but at the same time her instincts told her that her life was on the road.
"maybe she'll be happy if she just stays with the desert elf" she mumbled to herself, trying to sort out her thoughts. She saw the way they looked at each other. The way Vann went out of his way to be with her. Maybe it was better if dusk did leave.
"everyone leaves their families someday, maybe its time for me to leave this one too" she said to herself through yet another sigh
"too young are you to be so sad" she heard Vann say from behind her, she spun around out of sheer surprise to see him, the sickle he used to tame his animals in one hand and his falchion in its scabbard strapped to his back, His long red hair blowing in the wind behind him.
"Far too thoughtless are you to think you can sneak up on a thief" Dusk shot back
"Hide your sadness with your feigned annoyance as much as you wish" Vann said coldly in return, dusk turned, defeated, and watched the city pass by as the wagons rolled through. It would be night fall soon and the caravan began to pull to a halt in the town square. Nightfall, she thought, the time for her and Vann to go hunting through the town for what ever excitement they could find.
She knew Vann was a kind soul, and in the years they had travelled together she found his company to be enjoyable. He was a bright and happy person, even if he hid it behind a veil of secrecy and seclusion. Maybe that's just how desert people are she had told herself time and time again.
She knew from the little he had told her and Lillia that he had came here with Marilia by boat a decade or so ago, short in the narrative of an elf. Searching for the lost treasure of his family, a sword with the soul of his ancestor sealed inside. It was said the sword could see things that not even the greatest of sages could see. Vann had made a living as a ranch hand and doing other odd jobs while he was on his quest.
Eventually he wound up with some trouble from a guild of thieves. four members of the guild beat and tortured the young desert elf and left him for dead in an alley, Stealing all but the clothes on his back in the process. A few months before hand, dusk had been part of this guild. She had left when her mission was to kill her mentor, the one person who had taken her in when no one else would. Instead of completing her mission and moving higher up in the rank of these thieves', she ran, she ran as fast as her paws could carry her.
Now she found herself being chased by her former allies, their lust for power overtaking the feelings of comradely that they had once shared. As she ran, hiding from not only the authorities but also her former friends, she secretly had been watching this red headed foreign elf traverse through the city for sometime, his rare weapon amazed her, and the thought of how much gold a sword from such a far off land would fetch on the local market was a tempting thought indeed. The night before Vann had been attacked, she had broken into the Inn he had been staying at, and stole the sabre without vann even waking from his slumber. But now as she turned to leave, knowing the damage her old guild could inflict on someone they set out to kill.
it was then, at that moment. That dusk realized that, though at times her line of work forced her to participate in some rather malevolent acts, to maim and leave an innocent man to die, was below anything she could tolerate. She ran back to the abandoned warehouse that she used as her hideout, a place she hated even more then the streets themselves, its air rich with the stench of mold and excrement. She walked over to the small number of items she kept in an old crate and took out the mans falchion, it was the only thing she considered of worth in the small number of items she had accumulated these past few months, and ran back to make sure the foreign elf didn't die of his injuries.
When she found him though, he was far from dead. She saw light spring from his hands healing the wounds on his tan arms and legs. Within moments he seemed to be back to full strength. It was as if he hadn't been attacked at all.
"bring me my weapon…I trust that you aren't a member of those bandits?" he asked cold and calmly to the small cat folk that carried the large weapon to him. His mouth still wet with his own blood, his voice still horse from the screams he let loose while the band of rouges shot him over, and over again with their arrows.
"you sense correctly, although I once was" dusk said as she approached him. He stood, leaving what was surely the largest amount of blood dusk had ever seen, pooled at his feet.
His was an odd breed, desert elves. Standing almost as tall as a human, and just as muscular, with hair as red as the blood he left behind on the streets of the alley. Tanned skin covering toned muscular bodies that seemed all but covered with white ceremonial tattoos, His long elven ears covered tip to tip in a multitude of piercings, another right of adulthood, much like his tattoos, she was later an understanding of the land as something truly sacred and wonderful, something that was lost on most races of Galea.
"so, former bandit, have you come to watch while I reclaim my honor?" Vann said after strapping the sheathed falchion to his back. She noticed then that he wore few clothes and little armor what so ever. And even the tatters of cloth he had on had been badly torn in the attack her past allies had moments ago completed.
"Surely you aren't going to fight them?" dusk said confused by his actions. Did he mean to fight the thieves who had wronged him? He wore thin looking leather armor only over his right arm, and left forearm. Beyond that all he wore was a silken vest that was left open, leaving his chest and upper body for the most part exposed and pants of a similar material, though they certainly covered him better then his vest did, they obviously would offer little to no resistance to a sword or an arrow shot.
"suren I shall" the desert elf said as he pressed his fingers to his lips, forming into a shape that allowed him to emit a loud whistle…which quickly caught the attention of the bandits who were still fleeing the scene of their crime. The four of them came running back towards the small alley way, two stood in front of vann, and two more stood behind those two, using their friends as cover while they lifted their crossbows high into the air.
"guess he aint had enough" one of the four men that dusk had once known as a friend, said as he pulled the morning star strapped to his hip up ready to fight again. The two men in front came running at him while the two in back readied their cross bows, ready to strike Vann down before he had a chance to even know what peril he had surely got himself into. But before the men holding the bows had a chance to even load their bolts, they felt the horrifying pain of having their hamstring ripped right out of their bodies. Sheer horror filled them as they fell seeing the sight of an exotic giant cat, its mouth rimmed with their blood, looming deathlike above them.
"by gods!" screamed the man who had previously been so intent on smashing in Vann's head with his morning star, he now had stopped, and stared in horror as the giant cat gored and disfigured the bodies of his comrades.
"Your first mistake" Vann said as he walked towards the man, now looking away from him, and wrapped his sickle around the mans throat and pulled hard, relieving the man of roughly thirty pounds of useless flesh and bone. His other hand quickly found the sword dusk had returned to him, on his back and pulled it from its scabbard.
"now its only you and me it would seem" Vann said staring fire into the eyes of the odd man out, who hadn't been killed by his cheetah nor himself…yet. Vann felt the soft brush of fur as dusk ran up beside him and drew from her back the bow she had used to perpetrate these kinds of crime mere months before. Now ready to bring it to his aid.
"Make that you versus, us" dusk said pulling the bow string taut
"TRAITOR!" the man wailed in protest, his former associate now aligned with a desert traveler who was easily more skilled as a fighter then he, stood in front of him, and to his flank a strange tiger lusting for his blood.
"no, thank you for the help child. But let me take care of this" vann said putting the sickle into its oddly shaped scabbard at his hip.
"CHILD! Im an adult thank you very much!" dusk said in protest, reluctantly pulling her bow down out of its firing position. She saw that it didn't matter what she said, the desert elf couldn't even hear her. His eyes were glassy now as he recited ancient words now holding his free hand over his sword, the white tattoos covering his body seemed to glow with some internal fire, then just as they lost their light she saw the entirety of his sword enveloped in a burst of fire, though she could feel the heat, it didn't even sting the hand that held it.
"a wizard!" the thieves both yelped in surprise, the cheetah behind the man that Vann had now clearly marked as his enemy , was growling to keep it, and its masters prey from moving.
"close" Vann said with a smirk, his eyes still rimmed with a deep internal flame "my people prefer to call me a druid!" Vann yelled as he launched himself forward, his swords flaming form slicing the bandit clean in two, his sickle off his hip suddenly made the halves into thirds as the sickle beheaded the lifeless form. Vann stood motionless as the blood poured from the disfigured corpse that lay behind him.
Dusk, horrified, could hardly find her footing. She would later remember this as the moment she decided that the life as a thief was too dangerous even for someone who craved excitement and who crawled in the shadows as she did. Because if someone who had seemed as no more then a dirty tramp could turn out to wield the very power of nature itself in such a way as this, then it might be safer to explore the wilds of the world, not the towering walls of the city.
"this is why you are a child to me" Vann said after a moment of silence as he wiped the blood from his cheetahs mouth "so fickle your heart to betray your companions like you did. Although I trust the soul of a rouge to still house the same moral compass as anyone else in this world"
"then you sir are the one who is a child" dusk said as she placed the bow back onto her back "to think everyone has the same naive view of the world as yourself" dusk said a smile creeping across her whiskered face. Vann spun around quickly removing the smile from her face as he wrapped his sickle around her neck, close enough that dusk could smell the blood of her fellow thieves still staining its blade.
"then if I am so naïve, why did you offer to protect me?" Vann said, calm and stoic as always "because I was the winning party? Or was it that you felt some form of guilt for robbing me? Or was it that you felt sorry for the me as I lay in this alley gagging on my own blood?" Vann whispered as his Falchion came out to accompany his sickle
"I now see your point" dusk said, her head foggy and unsure of the correct answer with such sharp edges pressed so close to her furred skin
"so you call me naïve?" vann said lowering the blades, sheathing both in one fluid motion
"well to believe that the world all is guided by one moral compass, yes I believe that to be naïve" dusk said, her courage returned now that her throat was away from the curved blades.
"then perhaps the two of us can learn from one another" Vann said calmly
"learn how?" dusk said, curious as to the mans meanings
"I can learn of the different views of the world that the people of this society seem to share, and from me you can learn all the good that this world has to offer" Vann said, a rare smile creeping across his lips
"sure beats getting killed for being a traitor by my old guild" dusk said with a laugh as she reached her paw out to shake the hand of this strange Desert Druid
From that point on, dusk followed the young desert elf and his companion, later learned to be named Aust Vann Thallenmasser and Marilia respectively. They traveled far and wide through the vast emptiness, as he searched for the heirloom that was rightly his. After many months they came upon a circus that was under attack by Orc raiders. The three came to the rescue of the performers and all else who called the caravan their home. And were rewarded with passage and room and board with the caravan, a reward they liked so much they decided to live there for the remainder of the next two years.
But now dusk wasn't sure if it was a good idea to keep the safe life she had grown accustomed to, and to a larger extent bored of. Or to return to the life of excitement and horror that she had left behind two years ago, when she witnessed her former companion sliced in to thirds by a magical flaming saber and a small crescent moon shaped knife. The choice seems easy to a soul unspoiled by the mysterious aroma of adventure, but to dusk, this decision was almost impossible.
