Disclaimer: I in no way own X or AD&D. Don't sue; I'm simply an E5 in the USN, therefore I have no money. Ha.
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He hefted the heavy pack, setting one strap over a thin shoulder that already sagged with the weight of the world resting upon it.
Just a few days ago, Subaru had rejoined with the road that was his home and dearest friend, reuniting boot and dust in their redundant union formed by year and mile compiled. Once more his backpack contained every vestige of his life, every item necessary for his continued survival, every precious thing used to grant him whatever comforts could be gained upon his unending journey. His pack, laden with whetstone and torches and flint and steel, with wineskin and carefully wrapped rations and bags of trail mix, with a spare pair of breeches and a clean tunic and soft boots purposefully stuffed under everything else, with his rolled blanket tethered to its top, was his bedroom, his wardrobe, his dining room made portable. It rather reminded him of traveling with his family.
He truly missed home at times.
It was rare for him to think of those he'd abandoned in his earnest attempt to chase the man who'd slain his sister and destroyed what remained of his fragile soul. HE tended to stay away from memories that interrupted his quest, which took his focus from that horrible, sweetly smiling slaughtering machine driven by the sakura tree that dominated his home isle's center. Thinking of home made him regret, made him fear, made him more sad and miserable than the recollections of awakening with his dead sister by his side and her murderer smiling cheerfully at him as he laid nearly frozen in the snow normally maintained him.
He missed his grandmother. She who had nurtured and loved both him and his twin after their parents' deaths, their mother having perished at their birth and her husband having fallen to a horde of roving undead just a year later. She who maintained his secrets with her carefully woven spells, who strove desperately to keep even their own clan unaware of his true nature to the best of her abilities. She who pushed for his leadership, who maintained faith and trust in his abilities, who had no doubts when it came to his dedication for finding the man who had decimated one of their numbers as was his duty as the head of his clan.
He even missed some of the other persons he'd grown close to in his clan, few in numbers as they were. Most of the nomadic Sumeragi had all but exiled him from their numbers, refusing to recognize him as the leader he was assigned to be. Most had thrown him forcefully from their sights, declining to speak to him, to listen to him, to have any contact with him. But there were exceptions, a few priceless individuals who maintained him as a friend, a clansman, a kindred soul working for the decimation of all things unnatural and wicked that plagued the Faerun for the time the Sumeragi were to make this Crystal Sphere their home. It was those understanding people he cherished and missed, longing to see them again before his ultimate termination.
He missed his isle home with its warmth and its gentle humidity, its snow in the winters in the highest of reaches which a curious child could reach in but a day's hike and satiate their desire to encounter with a night's worth of safe camping in those white fields. He missed the waves of summer flowers that sprawled as far as the eye could see, the white glistening sand that made up bright beaches touched by crystalline water that lapped in calm waves, the tall trees that were the skyscraping cathedrals of the natural world. He missed the majestic brown mountains, in summer bare upon their heads and capped with white in the winter, who held back the glacial northern ice which threatened at all times to crush the forested plains but was a vital source of marvelously pure water during the summer's heated days. He missed the secret grove within those mountainous ranges, held but a ridge away from that frozen waste the glacier created that was the Sumeragi summer home due to its thick mountainside plumage and fresh flowing water, with its marvelous sakura with their pink petals.
He missed those trees and their spring bloom that signified the return of life to the deceased mountains. He missed even that horrible testimony to death that ruled supreme in the midst of that grove, its rosy blossoms flourishing nearly year round, its façade that of a soft off-color cloud floating in an infinite white sky during the most harsh of winter months while the grove about it sang of lifelessness and misery.
It was the tree that his prey served. That tree that bound them together, inseparable until the death of one or the other, or the impossible destruction of that ancient plant turned prison.
As he stared down the road he was set on traveling, he let a calm and serene sigh meet his lips. This was now his home, having come to replace the isle paradise he had originally claimed as such with time. This dusty road, whether leading along the Sword Coast or into the sprawl of Cromyr, whether snaking along the Dragon Sea or skittering through the fields of the Shining Plains, was his residence. It was here that he now felt most comfortable, calling its dirt his floor, its sky his ceiling, its trees his walls, its boulders his family.
He barely stopped himself from setting foot on that road, from leaving the clearing in the tall green grasses that had served as his campsite.
All that kept him in the area was the clamoring of the small impromptu party that had organized itself around him and his quest as they attempted to break down the remainder of their camp.
It was a clamor with which Subaru was entirely unfamiliar, his journey having been a practice in loneliness for the last nine years he'd attended to it. Never before had he thought to entertain maintaining companions with him upon his desolate quest, pondering the usefulness of such as he traveled without company.
Companions were persons one would come to rely on, persons one would depend on for extra strength and altered positions on strategy in combative or difficult situations. Such dependency was anathema to him. He viewed it as a hindrance towards the development of the individual, instead encouraging the growth of social interaction - a skill he could foresee no use for in his quest. His was a duty of man against man, of individual against individual, with no room for other persons to interrupt or interfere.
It wasn't that Subaru abhorred the presence of other people. It was simply that he saw them as hindering the expansion of his own latent power, of his own skill, instead encouraging him to depend upon others. He wanted to depend on no one for his goals. He knew that, when the time came for him to finish what the servant of the sakura had started so many years ago, that it would be him against the Sakurazukamori. No one else would be allowed to interfere. Anyone who dared would likely be slaughtered.
In his vain attempt to develop his own person, he'd actively avoided associating himself with adventuring parties, choosing instead to face the road's dangers alone. Now, however, the Vistani dream seer was encouraging such odd behavior.
Why, he could not begin to fathom. His quest was to target the murderer of his twin. His quest was being twisted and distorted to take care of another threat to the Realms without deviating entirely from its original path.
His prey had caused the trouble he was being sent to remedy. Such was the only justification the young Sumeragi necromancer could see in Hinoto's insistence that he be involved in her impromptu adventure.
But why she had insisted that he take Kamui was still far above and beyond him. A boy without skill, without experience, without knowledge of the vast and great secret he held within himself would be of no use upon the road. A boy that would scoff at the very real fact that he was, indeed, a polymorphed silver dragon could be of no assistance. He'd be exactly what Subaru had intended to avoid all of these years - a hindrance, a potential casualty.
The fact that Kamui had to come along upon his journey by relative order of the powerful prophetess upset Subaru. That he came with a mandated adventuring party made it worse.
Subaru stared at the road as he considered each of his new companions, pondering just how much they would either enhance or inhibit his own personal development. Kamui could almost be justified as an aid in his quest to become strong enough to be a worthy opponent for the vain savant of the sakura, as his relative helplessness would require additional effort and attention on the part of the necromancer. Like a damsel in distress, the boy could prove a motivator or perhaps a means to see more action. The Sumeragi had no doubt that, reflective of the boy's inexperience, he'd be ambushed much more often than he'd been in the past years while maintaining the violet-eyed youth in his company.
Sorata was a wildcard Subaru was wary of. The boy had seen the road before - granted, it had been for naught but a jaunt to the City of Splendors to the south, accompanying his master on a trip for rare spell components and traveling with a well-armed caravan. However, that touch of experience made him cocky and self-sure about his lacking, apprentice-leveled abilities. Subaru couldn't grasp his confident mindset, owing to his early exposure to the harsh realities held by the world regarding his own capabilities and
those of his enemies - when a person begins their monster-slaying career as a necessity driven by clan honor and demand while still a prepubescent youth, a person grows wise quickly or dies foolishly believing himself more powerful than he truly is. Whereas the experienced wizard saw himself as yet incompetent and unworthy to stand up to his most hated foe, the chocolate-eyed youth with his wide smile and quick laugh saw himself as naught but a few steps below the master of wizardry who'd raised him as his own upon finding him upon his cottage's steps as a babe. Sorata had a decent working knowledge of the monstrous population of the continent and of local city politics due to his continuous exposure to his master's vast publications library, but Subaru wondered how he'd react when he found his book smarts wouldn't serve him as well as he apparently thought they would when they happened upon the wilder reaches of the Faerun.
Seiichiro Aoki was one companion that Subaru found himself twisted over end about as far as his opinion of the man was concerned; he was both happy and disgruntled that the priest of the Wind Goddess Akadi had decided that it was his duty to accompany the boy he'd claimed as his nephew years ago upon his first quest. A priest, no matter which deity they proclaimed, was always a handy
addition upon the road. Free healing was a luxury Subaru wasn't about to turn his nose up towards, however he also saw it as a luxury he would be better off not having. It would save him considerably so far as the pocketbook was concerned - it could cost him dearly so far as his dependency upon his own skills was regarded. Relying upon a healer, upon a priest's protective magic and worthwhile combative abilities, were traits Subaru didn't wish to adopt. He was fearful of losing his own focus, coming to depend upon a priest being at his side, weakening him for his confrontation with his prey.
Kasumi Karen, for like reasons, wasn't well received in the Sumeragi mage's mind. While not so senior at adventuring as Seiichiro who was Kamui's founder upon his hatching, she was a force to be reckoned with owing to her reckless inclusion of herself upon any battle she had seen fit to throw herself towards during her time upon the road. She was a capable sword for hire, nearly as capable as she'd been as a lady of pleasure for sale in the years she'd lived before she'd met Akadi's savant, Aoki-san, and picked up a sword to make herself a worthy companion for him - her discovery of his marriage hadn't stopped her, but had rather reinforced her resolution as she appointed herself as his shield so he'd safely return to his wife and daughter at the end of his journeys (which apparently, so far as Subaru was able to discern, was a decision that rather upset the priest - he didn't want anyone offering to sacrifice themselves for him). That dedication frightened the Sumeragi; he recognized her as a fighter who'd rush to his side to assist him rather than allow him to take his beatings in battle to teach and strengthen him.
A screech erupted behind him as a tent collapsed, burying two inexperienced youths under its fabric and drawing the mage completely out of his mental evaluation of his impromptu party. Rolling his eyes, he cast a cold glare behind him to view what was occurring. "What are you doing?" he sourly grunted.
The collapsed tent writhed as a creature with its own life, muffled squeaks and chirped yelps coming from under its fabric skin. After flailing for many a moment, a ruffled-haired head emerged from under one of its flaps, brown eyes glittering and a cock-eyed smile upon long, thin lips. "Eh, just trying to break it down!" Sorata said with a chuckle.
Across the clearing, Seiichiro chortled and shook his head even as Karen laughed behind a slender hand.
Subaru turned his gaze to the heavens, a sigh of dismay leaking from his lips.
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It had taken hours to pack camp. The necromancer was still astonished at how very long it took the party to roll tents and sleeping blankets and reorganize their rations in their packs. More than once he'd nearly walked off down the long road towards the sparkling destination he sought to reach before nightfall without his party, his inherent impatience close to bettering him. Every time he took a step though he carefully reined himself in, berating himself for his anxious desire to continue his quest and his sour attitude towards that gathering that accompanied him driven by the odd quality of the Vistani prophetess' orders, and stopped his journey.
When they'd finally gotten the last of the youngest members of the party's equipment properly stowed, the conglomeration of unlikely companions continued their southbound journey. They were nearly late in catching the caravan Subaru had intended to travel with, swinging into the vicinity of the long train of horses and cars with their accompanying soldiers in mismatched armor denoting their 'for-hire' status rather than a force established by a lordship or guild both on horseback and on foot upon its tail end as the cobblestone path the merchants followed intersected with the dirt road followed by the small adventuring party.
It had taken a lot of quick words, swiftly made promises and a handful of silver to buy the gathering a place in the caravan's already hefty compliment of guards, purchasing safety, warmth, carts to ride in when weariness overtook the feet and, most importantly, free food for the remainder of their trip.
Subaru inwardly squawked at the price it took to purchase passage for them all. He'd been accustomed to the measly two or three copper and small display of magical power it took to get him inundated with a caravan.
He woefully looked at his small, steadily depleting supply of coins within his pouch and let a sorrowful sigh leak past his lips.
"Neh, what's wrong Subaru?" a bright voice erupted next to him, startling him out of his reverie and drawing his attention. "You look down."
Gaze settling upon the amethyst-eyed boy that trod wearily at his side, the mage let a small smile tug at the corners of his lips. "It's nothing. Just reflecting on the fact that traveling with a party is much more expensive than traveling by oneself."
"Oh," Kamui said, blinking once. "What do you mean?"
Refusing to let himself outwardly guffaw at the boy's lacking experience with everyday matters of the outside world, Subaru simply let his eyes close instead, his experienced gait keeping him walking in a straight line with even, steady steps. "When I travel alone, it takes me only a couple of copper pieces and a few magic tricks to win my way into a crowded caravan with paid meals and a place by the fire to sleep. Traveling with a large party boosted the price asked nearly ten-fold due to the extra expense of food and the extra liability incurred by accepting a gathering of people who's prowess on the road is unconfirmed."
"Prowess on the road?"
"Our abilities. Kamui, you don't have any viable weapons on your person. Your knife is of high enough quality to be utilized as a dagger in close-quarters combat, but usually such a weapon is one of last resort and not commonly used by persons who have familiarity with the road. You can't be seen as an asset to this caravan if we come under attack. Sorata is too young to be a mage of much experience in the eyes of the caravan leaders. Myself? I've traveled with this group before, so they know what I'm capable of - it's on my good word that they've taken us in, even though they're
already strapped for food and over-manned as it is. They recognize Aoki-san as a cleric thanks to his holy symbol and robes, and Kasumi-san verily radiates proficiency with that sword and that armor of hers, plus they've been roaming these roads for quite some time so their contribution in the event of an attack aren't so heavily questioned."
"So it's me...?"
"You and Sorata," Subaru quietly said with a nod. "Don't let it get you down, Kamui. It's always like this - until you're a known in the area as a proficient adventurer, you always run into questions and hard times."
"Oh," the boy grumped, disillusioned.
Their conversation was interrupted as a tall black gelding trotted to their flank, coming to a walk with a prancing hop and a few snorts of frustration with being forced to come to such a slow pace by his rider.
Subaru looked up, then nodded in greeting. "Matthew-san. Didn't expect to see you traveling with Elmack-san's caravan."
The gelding's rider, a stately man in a full suit of chain-link armor with a matching cap, heavy gauntlets with tall armored boots and a hefty mace dangling within a beaten leather hanger hanging from a loose leather belt strapped about his waist, smiled a broad grin that lifted the corners of his strawberry-colored moustache and showed even white teeth at the pair that walked at his side. Dark blue eyes sparkling in the early afternoon sunlight, he laughed with a deep rolling voice that sang majestically before bowing his head and lifting his hand to his brow in kind salutations in lieu of tipping a cap. "Greeting to you as well, Subaru. It's been quite some time since our paths last crossed!"
"Two years," the necromancer confirmed with a nod. "And still you roam these roads? I thought you'd have retired by now."
A bark of a snort escaped the man's nostrils. "Retired? With all that
echoes from the East? A man with a penchant for justice would hardly retire at such dire times."
Instantly one black brow arched with interest over an emerald eye. "You know about Threeswords?"
"That name is a dark word to mention these days, young friend," the soldier said, his voice somber and quiet.
"Why?" Kamui instantly burst, his voice bright with nervous energy. "That's where we're-"
"Taking interest," Subaru cleanly interrupted. "I've heard rumors, but have no eyewitness reports as to what's going on. After I accompany this group to Waterdeep, I was thinking about checking it out personally."
Matthew nearly reeled, his eyes wide as he stared at the mage walking at his horse's side. "Are you crazy, boy? Accompany this group to Waterdeep, and stay with them. Only a fool goes to Threeswords."
"Yet you wander the roads? Are you a fool, Matthew-san?"
Kamui sucked his breath through his teeth, unable to believe the words of his partner upon the road. "Subaru," he whispered softly in warning.
"I am no fool, Subaru," the soldier snorted quietly. "I've been as far as the crossroads south of the Dragon Sea, three days west of the dire city as the crow flies. Even so far removed is the evil so thick and ominous that I could not convince my steed to carry me further."
"And what were you doing there in the first place?" Subaru pressed.
"I'd heard of the strife of the people in that city, since a horrible tyrant took their freedom from them."
"Tyrant?" Kamui quipped, staring with huge eyes.
"A tyrant from evil lands," Matthew said with a nod. "They whisper that this tyrant is not of the Faerun. That he swept in from shadowy lands from far beyond to pilfer Threeswords of some riches that it contains in secret."
Subaru frowned, brown furrowed as he lifted gloved fingertips to hic chin. "Threeswords, holding some secret that would attract such a tyrant? Fairly unbelievable, if you ask me. That city has had nothing in it worthwhile since it was pillaged for the Regalia of Evil's Orb which was located within its Lordship's Keep's foundation and stripped by the necromancer who visited us from his Crystal Sphere. That evil has been long removed, spirited off to wherever that man's stronghold should happen to be - so long has it been gone that the town had actually recovered from the vile plague that covered it and nearly completely rebuilt to its prior state before death set its foot upon its lands."
"Neh, what's-"
"I'll explain later," Subaru promptly bit, cutting Kamui's questioning off.
"So you've been up on the times, eh?" Matthew observed with a nod. "Then you should know why I was there."
"Let me take a wild guess. People are suffering, so you rode to bring the light of the almighty Torm, given by his laws and justice, to ease their pain."
"You scoff my beliefs so?"
"He's a paladin?" Kamui chirped.
"No. A cleric," Subaru clarified.
"But he's not in robes!"
A soft sigh leaked past Subaru's lips. "Clerics don't have to wear robes. He's a cleric of a warrior God, so he's encouraged to wear armor and wield his weaponry in the names of his God's laws and justices to bring glory to Him by servitude to the people. Or something along those lines," the mage said with a nod. "That would be like saying that, because I practice the art of Necromancy and worship Kelemvor who reigns over the realm of the dead, I am required to wear heavy black robes with a hood drawn over my head at all times and wield a tall walking stick with mystic runes etched on its sides and a skull mounted upon its top."
Matthew laughed heartily at the description even as the boy bowed his head sheepishly. "Ah, take heart, lad. Subaru's always been this biting, for as long as I know. But his fangs are hardly poisonous, and never pierce with anything save sarcasm. Take not his words to heart."
"Mm," Kamui mumbled with a nod.
"But to the original subject. You rode to ease the suffering of Threeswords' people," Subaru said, arching a brow once more as he shot his most piercing of questioning looks to the horse-riding cleric.
"Yes," the armored man replied with a sullen nod, his merriment falling from his face as water over a falls. "Nearly a week out of that city was when I started encountering the undead."
"Undead?" Both Subaru and Kamui's voices sounded at the same moment, the necromancer's hissing with dreaded expectation and the boy's with shock.
"Quite a bit, actually. Zombies, skeletons, ghouls, ghosts, and no end to wraiths. Their masses did naught but thicken as I approached the crossroads. By the time I'd reached the roads that lead east, the evil in the air was so thick and palatable that even the grass had withered from its touch and birds and insects refused to fly over the lands. We trod upon the limbs of the deceased left to rot in the pale sun by those creatures of the night that infested the lands, so thick were the numbers of the massacred. I can not blame Sampson for refusing to set his hooves upon that path," the cleric sighed, reaching down with a gauntlet-covered hand to lightly pat his horse's flank.
"Wraiths..."
"You think perhaps it's your dear friend?" Matthew questioned, quirking a brow.
"He's capable of such, but that's not his style," Subaru softly answered with a shake of his head. "He has no interest in ruling lands or peoples, nor in any riches or artifacts of power. His only interest is blood and death."
Matthew shuddered. "A man who kills for the sake of killing alone. Quite terrible."
"Plus he's been in this region recently. I was perhaps a few days behind him when I arrived in Neverwinter a bare month ago."
Kamui choked on the breath he was drawing. "You know the guy that murdered all those people? That turned them into those... ghost things?"
"Wraiths," Subaru corrected with a nod. "Yes."
"How?"
"Another time," the mage answered with a sigh before turning back to the cleric upon his horse. "It's not him. He has no capacity for animating the dead in any form other than that of the wraith."
"I see," the soldier sighed. "You said you were thinking of going?"
"Aa."
"One simple word of advice then, my friend. Don't. No man has walked beyond that junction my horse and I reached and returned alive within this last fortnight."
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Kamui stared nervously at the necromancer while the older man let his eyes rove calmly over the pages of an ancient book he had opened upon his lap. "So," the boy quietly began, "this 'Threeswords' is a den of evil, and we're going there. Why?"
"I wish I knew," Subaru muttered, his gaze remaining fixed upon his tome. "The prophetess wants something done about it. Most likely, she wants the return of this 'tyrant' to its home plane. So I'm going to see what I'm supposed to do."
"Why am I coming with you?"
"Because you wanted to," Subaru said with a sigh. "Also, she directed me to bring you."
Kamui hugged his knees to his chest and petulantly placed his chin within the cradle created by his arms. "I wish I knew why. I don't know what good I can be to you, Subaru."
"We'll find out."
"You think so?"
"I'm fairly positive," Subaru said with a nod, lifting a nearly forgotten apple that sat on the ground at his side to his pant leg to wipe the road's dust from it before taking a bite. Chewing thoughtfully, he lifted his emerald gaze from the book's ancient pages and set it instead on the pouting boy at his side. "Don't worry. I don't consider you a liability."
"You don't?" Kamui asked softly, his voice belaying his lack of conviction in the necromancer's declaration.
"Really. I don't. There's got to be something vital that only you can do, and Hinoto-hime knows that. It's simply not been revealed yet."
"But in the meantime, I'm worthless. That's why you had to pay extra to the caravan leader, right?"
A light smile taking his lips, Subaru let his shoulders slump. "If it makes you feel any better, I suppose I can teach you the sword."
"Really?" Instantly, energy and excitement flooded the boy's amethyst eyes.
Subaru nearly dropped his apple as the superimposed dragon visible to his vision bounded up and down in place, its tail thwacking solidly into the ground every time it landed and its wings beating excitedly at its sides.
"Aa," he answered with as straight of a face as he could manage. "Whenever you like, I can teach you."
"Not magic?"
"I don't think you're ready for magic," Subaru said with a clip of his head.
"What do you mean?"
"Can you sit for ten hours a day reading the same two pages over and over until you have every stroke of every word memorized in perfect detail?"
Kamui's brows knitted as he scowled. "The sword will be fine."
"Thought so."
"So, can we begin tonight?" the boy happily exclaimed.
Subaru took a moment to consider what he'd just committed himself to. Before he could berate himself on his eager attempt to please the boy having resulted in less time for him to reflect upon the magic that would be his making or breaking in the coming battle with his prey and more dedication to the sword with which he was so verily outclassed, he sighed and let a smile take his lips. That smile reached his eyes as the boy nearly burst at the seams with transparent happiness upon seeing such an expression upon the normally melancholic face.
Carefully sweeping a long blade of grass between the ancient tome's pages to keep his place, he shut his studying material and laid it gingerly upon his sleeping roll. Rising, lifting his katana from its place beside that carefully spread roll as he did, he nodded to Kamui. "Very well."
He's barely straightened his stance when the caravan master's horn blew and the camp burst into motion.
Matthews galloped by upon his black steed, shooting one glance to Subaru. "Move, necromancer! We're being attacked!"
Kamui's eyes lit in fear as he edged his way towards the heavily walled wagon his and Subaru's bedrolls had been rolled out next to. Without a moment's hesitation, he dove into its protected recesses and contented himself with staring at the proceedings from the wagon's makeshift windows and doors.
"What is it?" Subaru shouted, even as he tossed the saya that encased his blade onto his bedroll and twirled the blade expertly in his hand once to garner a feel for its balance instantaneously.
"Undead!"
Subaru sighed, shaking his head even as he followed the galloping cleric as quickly as his tired legs would allow.
tbc...