11-28-2017, 11:59 PM
The Dyranesti's Gold:
Vrain slurped the juice from a recently bitten apple, as he gazed out the window of the carriage. The princess of Shariste, riding across from him, next to Megar, watched the world around her with such determined curiosity.
“What is it, your highness?” Meger inquired, ensuring that Csarisa hadn’t seen some flash of a highway robbermen, or some glint of a mirror flashing messages to would be troublemakers further on.
“Why is the grass so….” Csarisa turned her nose up, “brown? Why is everything so brown and dreary?”
Meger looked up as Vrain expelled a bit of food in laughter.
“Oh, you mean our absence of green? Just last night you were donning blizzard hooks for the snow for our descent down the mountainside, and now? You’re disappointed that Meredian grasslands aren’t the right shade of green? Well, It’s quite simple really… see In Sharistae you get all the rain, tons of it, enough for swamps and forests, and fold, and thick marshes, and long grasses of green, but here? In Merede? Not so much. Sure, there’s green grass in a few places but really? We’re in a buffer between the harshness of ‘ole Jemiscra, and the fertile Shar lands….”
Meger, relented to Vrain’s ‘wisdom on this subject as Vrain continued to explain why…
Vrain chortled… “A hundred times, a hundred times, we’d go back and forth through the three fingers of the Dreadlands… me and my compatriots, battling scourges and vileness.“
Megar rolled his eyes “…Dreadlands? Only pirates, old women, and children call those roads Dreadlands. Don’t pay attention to that nonsense… Just because a road is weathered and rocky doesn’t mean that’s any less safe than this one.”
Glass crashed against the side of the caravan, exposing their fiery bellies, and a splash of Greek fire began engulfing the wooden panels. Csarisa shrieked as Meger jumped up. Vrain reached back, opening the tiny window separating him from the caravan driver, and whispered some unintelligible babel to the dark-haired woman driving. The horses gait increased, as the carriage lurched from the hurried stance. The horses now in a full gallop raced down the bricked road, the rocky outcroppings offering a hundred places from whence this attack could have came.
“Princess, stay low!” Meger shouted as he peered out the window. Sure that no more volleys of fire were being aimed towards the wagon, he pulled out a bladder skin to spray down the outer wall of the carriage. The watery spray lept out of the bladder skin and doused the flames, and mist splashed back into Meger's eyes. Wiping them off, he looked out and to the road. Eyeing small details as one does in the service of the king, he looked back into the carriage cabin.
“That damned driver’s on the wrong road now. Nothing but gravel and sand and weeds, we’re not on the Raven’s Road.”
Vrain looked back. “Are you sure Meger
“Of course I’m sure, you Meredian prack! Look! I’m going to tell the driver to first, slow down, and then find a sideroad to take us back to the Rave…. URGH!”
Meger stopped short of his last syllables, staring into the eyes of Vrain, pain grimacing across his face. Csarisa turned her head to look at why the conversation had stopped, and let out her second shriek of horror in this day.
Meger staggered backwards, a long-hilted dagger sticking out of his chest, angled slightly inwards from the left, a perfect strike to get to the heart and take a lung out in the process. Meger clawed out for Vrain, futilely trying to grasp, clutch, and attach him. Vrain slapped the wood window again between himself and the carriage drive. The carriage slowed, as Meger dropped to his seat. Csarisa, in a trained defense, grabbed the chest-sheathed dagger, and pulled it out. In a twist she lunged after Vrain. He sidestepped and swung hard with his fist, flooring her with one hard meeting of his knuckles to her now reddened cheek.
“Oh Meger, I must admit my dagger would have killed you, eventually, but… this is pure tragedy, your own trained student, killing you by letting that red blood run so free. Its poetic. Well, can’t have you bleeding all over the pillows can we?”
Vrain bent over and pulled Meger to his feet. As dead weight, he was unable to withstand his own disembarkation from the carriage and into a pile of dead muscle and sinew on the side of the path, his burial, it would seem, in a pile of brambles and ivy.
Csarisa stirred as the black-haired driver came into view. “Vrain, you drive, the next road… west… don’t stop until we see the standards of Jemiscra….”
“Of course, and… her?” Vrain sneered… “You going to slice her?”
“Oh no, you tiny naïve simpleton… if you had any idea how important this bruised royal was, you’d have never struck her. “
“Oh? Wait… what do you mean?”
The blackhaired woman slyly grinned… “The Darkness wanted her unharmed. Now, if all goes well at the Raven’s Mount, we’ll have both of the brats, and a stranglehold on the whole heart of Kharis…”
“That’s fine and everything, but The Dyranesti don’t do nothing like this unless they get paid… so where’s my gold?”
The black-haired woman, grinned, her eyes bright against the charcoal markings in the sockets of her eyes. “You want gold? Do your job. Drive the damn carriage… unless you’d like to join Meger in the briars over there. Betrayer and Betrayed… fitting. In fact maybe I should just dispatch you. No, no, I can’t do that… I need someone to blame for the big whelp on the future of Sharistae’s cheek.”
For Jemiscra!
A lone messenger raced into the encampment, flanked on sides by pikemen carrying fiery torches aloft. Past the towers, the trenches, he made his way to a large tent in the center of the makeshift hold. Dismounting, he pulled a large scroll case from his warhorse, and ran inside.
“High-lion Vitrius! News from the south!” A soldier clad in ruby-like scales rushed in the room, and with a swift motion, dropped to a knee, holding aloft a fine vellum scroll. Turning from his glare over a war map, a seasoned man of roughly a man-and-a-half’s stature looked over his shoulder.
“From the south? Nothing ever happens in the south…” Vitrius calmly reached for the scroll, and with his huge thumb, pressed into the waxy seal until it crumbled.
“Ah, so the Khan thinks he’s going to sneak the Sharistaen heir behind my lines? By Jemiscra, he will find his fruits rotten on the vine. Send word to the Warmongers of the south… a carriage is heading towards Jemiscra, carrying the only heir to the Sharistaen throne… a hundred thousand Sovereigns to the one who brings her here to me.”
The messenger nodded, “Yes my Lion… Yes, my Lord” and rushed back out of the tent.
To be continued in Daughter of Dystopia
Vrain slurped the juice from a recently bitten apple, as he gazed out the window of the carriage. The princess of Shariste, riding across from him, next to Megar, watched the world around her with such determined curiosity.
“What is it, your highness?” Meger inquired, ensuring that Csarisa hadn’t seen some flash of a highway robbermen, or some glint of a mirror flashing messages to would be troublemakers further on.
“Why is the grass so….” Csarisa turned her nose up, “brown? Why is everything so brown and dreary?”
Meger looked up as Vrain expelled a bit of food in laughter.
“Oh, you mean our absence of green? Just last night you were donning blizzard hooks for the snow for our descent down the mountainside, and now? You’re disappointed that Meredian grasslands aren’t the right shade of green? Well, It’s quite simple really… see In Sharistae you get all the rain, tons of it, enough for swamps and forests, and fold, and thick marshes, and long grasses of green, but here? In Merede? Not so much. Sure, there’s green grass in a few places but really? We’re in a buffer between the harshness of ‘ole Jemiscra, and the fertile Shar lands….”
Meger, relented to Vrain’s ‘wisdom on this subject as Vrain continued to explain why…
Vrain chortled… “A hundred times, a hundred times, we’d go back and forth through the three fingers of the Dreadlands… me and my compatriots, battling scourges and vileness.“
Megar rolled his eyes “…Dreadlands? Only pirates, old women, and children call those roads Dreadlands. Don’t pay attention to that nonsense… Just because a road is weathered and rocky doesn’t mean that’s any less safe than this one.”
Glass crashed against the side of the caravan, exposing their fiery bellies, and a splash of Greek fire began engulfing the wooden panels. Csarisa shrieked as Meger jumped up. Vrain reached back, opening the tiny window separating him from the caravan driver, and whispered some unintelligible babel to the dark-haired woman driving. The horses gait increased, as the carriage lurched from the hurried stance. The horses now in a full gallop raced down the bricked road, the rocky outcroppings offering a hundred places from whence this attack could have came.
“Princess, stay low!” Meger shouted as he peered out the window. Sure that no more volleys of fire were being aimed towards the wagon, he pulled out a bladder skin to spray down the outer wall of the carriage. The watery spray lept out of the bladder skin and doused the flames, and mist splashed back into Meger's eyes. Wiping them off, he looked out and to the road. Eyeing small details as one does in the service of the king, he looked back into the carriage cabin.
“That damned driver’s on the wrong road now. Nothing but gravel and sand and weeds, we’re not on the Raven’s Road.”
Vrain looked back. “Are you sure Meger
“Of course I’m sure, you Meredian prack! Look! I’m going to tell the driver to first, slow down, and then find a sideroad to take us back to the Rave…. URGH!”
Meger stopped short of his last syllables, staring into the eyes of Vrain, pain grimacing across his face. Csarisa turned her head to look at why the conversation had stopped, and let out her second shriek of horror in this day.
Meger staggered backwards, a long-hilted dagger sticking out of his chest, angled slightly inwards from the left, a perfect strike to get to the heart and take a lung out in the process. Meger clawed out for Vrain, futilely trying to grasp, clutch, and attach him. Vrain slapped the wood window again between himself and the carriage drive. The carriage slowed, as Meger dropped to his seat. Csarisa, in a trained defense, grabbed the chest-sheathed dagger, and pulled it out. In a twist she lunged after Vrain. He sidestepped and swung hard with his fist, flooring her with one hard meeting of his knuckles to her now reddened cheek.
“Oh Meger, I must admit my dagger would have killed you, eventually, but… this is pure tragedy, your own trained student, killing you by letting that red blood run so free. Its poetic. Well, can’t have you bleeding all over the pillows can we?”
Vrain bent over and pulled Meger to his feet. As dead weight, he was unable to withstand his own disembarkation from the carriage and into a pile of dead muscle and sinew on the side of the path, his burial, it would seem, in a pile of brambles and ivy.
Csarisa stirred as the black-haired driver came into view. “Vrain, you drive, the next road… west… don’t stop until we see the standards of Jemiscra….”
“Of course, and… her?” Vrain sneered… “You going to slice her?”
“Oh no, you tiny naïve simpleton… if you had any idea how important this bruised royal was, you’d have never struck her. “
“Oh? Wait… what do you mean?”
The blackhaired woman slyly grinned… “The Darkness wanted her unharmed. Now, if all goes well at the Raven’s Mount, we’ll have both of the brats, and a stranglehold on the whole heart of Kharis…”
“That’s fine and everything, but The Dyranesti don’t do nothing like this unless they get paid… so where’s my gold?”
The black-haired woman, grinned, her eyes bright against the charcoal markings in the sockets of her eyes. “You want gold? Do your job. Drive the damn carriage… unless you’d like to join Meger in the briars over there. Betrayer and Betrayed… fitting. In fact maybe I should just dispatch you. No, no, I can’t do that… I need someone to blame for the big whelp on the future of Sharistae’s cheek.”
For Jemiscra!
A lone messenger raced into the encampment, flanked on sides by pikemen carrying fiery torches aloft. Past the towers, the trenches, he made his way to a large tent in the center of the makeshift hold. Dismounting, he pulled a large scroll case from his warhorse, and ran inside.
“High-lion Vitrius! News from the south!” A soldier clad in ruby-like scales rushed in the room, and with a swift motion, dropped to a knee, holding aloft a fine vellum scroll. Turning from his glare over a war map, a seasoned man of roughly a man-and-a-half’s stature looked over his shoulder.
“From the south? Nothing ever happens in the south…” Vitrius calmly reached for the scroll, and with his huge thumb, pressed into the waxy seal until it crumbled.
“Ah, so the Khan thinks he’s going to sneak the Sharistaen heir behind my lines? By Jemiscra, he will find his fruits rotten on the vine. Send word to the Warmongers of the south… a carriage is heading towards Jemiscra, carrying the only heir to the Sharistaen throne… a hundred thousand Sovereigns to the one who brings her here to me.”
The messenger nodded, “Yes my Lion… Yes, my Lord” and rushed back out of the tent.
To be continued in Daughter of Dystopia
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