A/N: Whoosh! that's the sound of Trenin updating more than once a year!
Here's what's up with all my flashbacks... I like flashbacks. I think they work better for going over past events in detail without a long dialouge paragraph that bores everyone to tears. But also, this story is being written for the Romanticide Contest "Bringing Back the Past."
Therefore I am resorting to this weak and overused device to meet more challanges of the contest.
If one large flashback a chapter gets annoying, think of it as another story that got paperclipped onto the main story.
... which is probably something all authors should avoid doing... oh well
In other news... Updates will hopefully come about once a Friday. Unless school gets in the way (which it will). Wonderful stuff, school. I get on the bus at 6:30, 6:53 they radio in because school's cancelled for snow & ice and all the buses have to turn around and take us home. All the snow's melted by noon, and they still call a two hour delay for the next day (which nobody knew about because the radio didn't say - most of us found out via looking at the school system's webpage). Also on the webpage, because the buses were en route, the cancelled school day counted as a full day. Glorious school systems. No Child Left Behind on their grebnaks and they still let us off...
Thanks to the beta readers (even if I'm fairly sure they need to be a lot harsher); Sepik, Pixie10111, and schuldige7
A medium sized company of perhaps seventy-five men, women, animals, and others plodded on a red dirt road across a great expanse of rolling fields filled with tall dried grasses and weeds. Although it was late in the day, the group was lively and just beginning to come abuzz with the constant murmur of small talk. The sun was setting in the horizon, its last rays glinting off of what little arms and armor the traveling party still carried after the long, hot march.
"Why're we escorting some snot-eating noble whelp?" An incredibly short, bald, man riding on the shoulder of a colossal granite golem composed of boulders of various sizes complained.
"It pays," came the bored reply from the ground below. The one who had answered his question looked up at the man with a pair of bright pink eyes. With a graceful leap, the thin woman soared up to land next to the bald man. "This is probably safer than rushing into the middle of a war... and what kind of mercenaries would we be if we turned down jobs this lucrative?"
"Smart ones! Don't care how much we make, Jinx, this just ain't worth it!" The bald man added, "And what kind of name is 'Rorek' anyways?"
"Gizmo right. Not worth it," the golem grumbled in a slow, rocky baritone.
The woman stuck out an elbow to lean on the golem's head. "Aww, but aren't they cute?" Her vertically slits pupils were fixed on two children in the back of a wagon.
The two 'cute' children stared at each other. The older one, as evidenced by his size, had a head of short, unruly, brown hair. The younger one, no more than a few years old, looked as though he were intimidated by the other. The brown headed boy, on the other hand, was entranced by the hair of his junior. An inquiring finger reached out to poke the fluffy white mass, and was promptly bitten by a sharp set of teeth. The older yelped in surprise. Responding to the sudden loud noise, the white headed boy began to bawl.
"Cute. Right," the bald man drawled sarcastically. "I'm just glad I'm not on brat-duty."
Far below the group of three, a dark-skinned woman clothed in yellow and black rushed over to the children.
"And what about Malchior? Why's he still hanging around?" Gizmo spat, taking care for the spittle to clear the golem's shoulder.
"Shut up," Jinx said coldly. "Malchior is one of us now. We still owe his father that much – saved our lives more times than I care to count. It's the least we can do to look after his son."
"I'm just saying, sooner or later, between those two snot noses, we'll all get killll-," the last word transformed into a panicked scream as the golem reached up a hand and brushed Gizmo off of his shoulder. Catching the falling body before it could splatter against the hard packed dirt road, the golem slowly lowered the bald man the rest of the way to the ground. A murmur of laughter spread throughout the company at the golem's antics.
Jinx giggled, "Who ever said there's no honor among thieves?" Stretching her neck with a satisfying 'crack', the woman continued, "Oh, look, I think they're going to be fr-"
Rorek and Malchior broke their renewed staring contest as a loud, wet thud emanated from just behind their wagon. The brown haired boy was the first to scamper over to get a closer look. His piercing keen was quickly echoed by the anguished cry of the golem, and then taken up by the rest of the traveling party.
Jinx – or what used to be Jinx – was lying in a bloody mass on the road with the tail end of an arrow still sprouting like a young sapling from the center of her back. A stray bone splinter poked up through the skin of her arm.
"Jinx!" wailed the bald man, who had only moments before been dethroned from his perch as the most visible target. As he rushed towards the body of his friend, an arrow hissed out to lodge in the meat of his leg. Staggering, Gizmo fell with two more buried in his head.
"To arms, to arms!" yelled a large black man. "Defend the wagon at all costs!" He was cut short by an arrow clipping his neck. Without another word, the man clapped a hand across his split jugular.
"Stone!?" The woman who'd attended to Malchior and Rorek suddenly appeared by the man's side.
Chuckling, Stone's hand glowed blue, leaving only a pink scar on his neck. "It'll take more than a little arrow to kill me, Bee." He unsheathed a huge two-handed sword from its worn scabbard on his back, "Have some faith." Glancing at the mounting number of fallen bodies around him, he boomed in a battlefield voice, "BURN THE FIELDS! BOTH OF THEM!"
At his command, golden-red flames raced across the dry grasses, devouring everything they touched.
"Brace yourselves!" No sooner had the words left his mouth than a line of heavily armed men rushed out as a single mass from both sides of the road and slammed into the company.
In a wordless roar, the golem fell into great, dead chunks of granite among a fireworks display of red explosions. What used to be its head smashed into the wagon in a hail of wooden splinters, neatly flipping it with Rorek and Malchior still inside.
After their painful crash landing onto the packed dirt, Malchior wisely clapped both his hands over the younger child's mouth and dragged them both deeper into the safe haven of the crushed wagon.
What little light came through from the fire and dying sunlight was halved when the headless body of the woman in yellow and black fell in front of the main opening to the outside hell.
"Bee!" Stone's bulky legs could be seen kneeling in front of the body. With a wild scream of rage he stood, but quickly joined the woman in blocking the entrance to the boys' haven. Head lolling to the side, he seemed to smile at the children before a sword came down to sever his torso from his legs. Stone's blood sprayed out in all directions, splattering across the hidden boys.
Malchior screamed for the second time that day, but it was thankfully muffled by the wagon and the continuing ebb and flow of deafening warfare.
An eternity passed. Malchior's teeth dug into the skin of his lower lip as silent tears trickled down his face to splatter onto Rorek's white hair. The young noble was sobbing, but Malchior's hands still smothered his cries. The silence emanating from their safe haven remained unbroken.
A rhythmic sound of footsteps began, growing ever closer, accompanied by the sound of metal sliding in and out of flesh. The impending doom reached the boys as a blade fell and rose again out of Stone's motionless neck. No blood rushed forth this time. All of his life had drained away to run over Karen's body below, and then down to stain the dirt and turn it to mud. But the footsteps passed, and continued on; the sickening sounds growing ever fainter.
"Where is the boy?" inquired a gruff voice, seemingly right behind Malchior's head.
"No one's seen him since the ambush," replied a nearly identical voice from a bit farther off.
"Sir, I think he was on the wagon."
"Maybe he was crushed? Pulverized, smashed, decimated..." another man hissed.
"No," interrupted the first voice, seemingly the commander. "You four, right the wagon."
"Sir! Someone's coming!"
"What? Hurry! We must finish here," the leader shouted.
Malchior felt the planks of wood begin to shift across his back. A fresh, cold night breeze whispered in under the rapidly growing gap between the ground and the remains of the wagon.
A man let loose a dying scream, but the wagon continued to rise. More far off shouts followed along with the sound of metal ringing on metal, then a scream close by. Malchior gripped Rorek even tighter as a corner of the wagon collapsed back to the dirt road. Within moments the other three corners had also fallen. The force of the impact caused the ceiling above them to sag down, pushing Malchior's chin into Rorek. An eternity of uncomfortable waiting passed before the wagon rose again. This time, the protective covering was entirely removed.
A man clothed in white, smelling of oil and rust, knelt down by the two boys. He lay down his sword and shifted his heavily armored bulk around a bit before extending a blood stained gauntlet towards Malchior and Rorek. "I am Raguel of Azarath. You're safe now."
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Malchior's eyes shot open. Blinking a few times, it occurred to him he'd just had a nightmare, but the exact nature of the dream was eternally lost to him. The first glimmerings of dawn danced across his room like drunken fairies. Shuddering at the thought of drunken fairies as he swung his legs off of the bed, the purple haired mage glanced at a wardrobe before twitching his fingers slightly. An assortment of expensive shirts and trousers floated out for his viewing before marching back into the wardrobe. Only a single set of relatively plain - if such a thing could be said about anything he wore - clothes remained. Dressing slowly, he exited his room and entered a long stone corridor.
The torches burned brightly and cleanly, offsetting dark walls which would cause a run-of-the-mill oppressively dank and musty feeling. Malchior grinned. Overall, his castle exuded a warm, homey feel – and he liked it that way. Taking his time strolling across the large paving stones while listening to his own bare feet slap across them, the mage contemplated installing carpets. First stopping to examine the rock beneath him, Malchior sighed before continuing his leisurely stroll.
After many more thoughts of interior design, he reached a huge pair of double doors.
Malchior paused to straighten his shirt. A mirror detached itself from its place on the wall to hover in front of his face. Quickly conjuring a comb, the vain mage tidied his hair. Taking a deep breath, he allowed the comb to fade back to non-existance and the mirror to return to its perch. The mammoth doors gave a massive shudder and creaked open to reveal a great hall that utterly dwarfed the raven-haired woman standing in it, impatiently tapping her foot.
Seeing Malchior strut in, she matched his grin. "You took your time coming, sometimes I think you spend more time preening than a gaggle of handmaidens." Looking him up and down, she continued, "although you definitely do a better job of it. The dark blue shirt certainly compliments your eyes."
Malchior beamed. "Why thank you Kyrie, it's a bit of a natural gift. But my own good looks are secondary..." He paused while she snorted in disbelief. "Hmpf. I see you've improved your ladylike behavior. Shall we begin?"
Cracking her knuckles, Kyrie frowned slightly before smiling again. "Yes, let's summon a dragon."
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