Bacorium Legacy (4 page)

They entered the yeti's view, with Luca's orb of illumination following behind him. The beast looked up and saw two humans, and it dropped the severed arm it had been in the process of consuming. The yeti gave out a bellowing roar of rage, and it drew up and started towards its enemies.

“These guys can be a bit tricky, so I'll take care of this,” Lodin said, stepping forward and drawing his sword from his belt. Luca gave no objection - his father knew what he was doing.

The yeti leaped towards Lodin, swinging its claws in a slash that would decapitate Lodin if he failed to dodge it. The ageing man moved with surprising agility, sidestepping the swing. He swung his sword, wielding the blade like it weighed nothing. It swung through the yeti's neck like a knife through butter, beheading the beast in an instant.

The head flew off into a dark corner of the cave, and the body collapsed, bleeding out on the floor. The yeti had no soul, therefore it did not disappear after death. Its body remained, cold and dead.

Lodin wiped his blade off on the beast's fur, and he looked with disdain at the remnants of its unfinished meal. The arm it had been gnawing on had come from a human. The arm had not been turned into mana, which meant it had been removed some time before its owner's death.

“Well, now we know what happened to the people who were camped out at the entrance,” Luca offered with a wry chuckle.

“Indeed,” Lodin replied. His face had grown pale. “Son - over in the corner.”

Luca looked to where his father was pointing, and saw what truly was bothering him. A small nest lay in the corner of the room, where three infant yeti slept, undisturbed by the slaughter of their mother.

“I see,” Luca muttered, knowing at once what needed done. “Go ahead and take it out to the net. I'll meet you at the entrance.”

After quickly summoning an illuminating orb of his own, Lodin heaved the dead yeti over his shoulders by its legs and left, while Luca went over to the nest.

He hated to do it, but it was better than leaving them. Without their mother, the creatures would inevitably die, so there was no sense in sparing them. He drew his hunting blade and quickly drove it into each of the three children. It was a quick, clean kill, and they never woke from their sleep.

His deed done, he turned and left the room.

It wasn't the first time such a thing had happened on a hunt. Lodin always made his son kill the children, for he could never bring himself to do it.

Lodin never told him why.

<> <> <>

Luca could see the bright glow of the bonfire in the distance as he stood, leaning against the back of his hut. The celebrations of the village's annual festival were underway, and his father was likely busy getting drunk. The snowstorm had finally died out while the two of them had dragged the headless yeti body back to the town, where they had been greeted with applause by a few dozen people.

After returning to the village with Lodin, Luca had slipped away and gone to the elder's hut. The elder had told him that a ship was due to arrive in Frostbite in about a month - just enough time for him to travel there with a single companion.

The night was due in an hour or two, and the villagers were too distracted with their celebrations to notice anything. His small number of belongings were packed away in a bag at his side.

His books remained in the shelf in the hut, with the exception of the traveller's journal, which he had stuffed away in the bag. There was really only one other book he would have felt the need to take with him, but he knew that one by heart. And he wouldn't have wanted Arlea to see that one - it might hurt her to realise just what kind of person Luca was.

They would depart under cover of darkness. Not a soul would witness them, and their absence would not be noticed until the next morning. Truly, the circumstances of their elopement could not have been more perfect. Still, Luca had his doubts.

Something felt wrong.

He frowned as he noticed Arlea approaching. She was dressed in travel clothes, as he was, and she carried a bag at her side, just as he did.

“We're going?” she asked hopefully.

Luca sighed. He needed to give her an answer. It was not a matter that could wait, and they would not get another chance like this to carry it out. He had no idea how his father would react should he find out, but he knew the elder would never permit Arlea to leave. She was only a few months short of marriageable age, and the village was shy of young women as it was. Perhaps that was why she wanted to leave so badly - she knew that Luca was her only chance of escaping a marriage with someone two decades her senior.

Arlea watched him, expectantly awaiting his answer. He opened his mouth to tell her...

And then he noticed something strange.

The bonfire of the annual festival was very bright. Too bright. His hut was some distance from the village square. He shouldn't have been able to see the orange glow so well from where he was.

“Luca, what is it?” Arlea asked.

He stepped past her, not answering her question. Something was definitely wrong. The fire seemed to be growing brighter by the moment.

Then he heard a dying scream and his blood ran cold.

“What was that?!” Arlea exclaimed.

“Stay here!” Luca shouted. He drew his short sword and took off at a run, leaving Arlea behind. Her confused questions carried in the wind behind him.

It didn't take him long to reach the village square and see what was wrong.

The village was under attack by men in black armour.

The huts were on fire, the celebratory bonfire having been used as a weapon by the attacking people. Dying villagers were vanishing all around, leaving only blood and clothes behind as oblivion took them.

It was a massacre. The feast was abandoned, several villagers were dying on the table, arrows sticking out of their backs. Other villagers ran in fear, men in armour pursuing them with swords raised. A woman screamed as she was cut down, crimson blood spilling out and staining the snow. A man cried out as a fireball incinerated him.

It was a one-sided conflict. The villagers were helpless innocents - few of them even carried daggers, much less knew how to fight. The men in black armour moved without hesitation or emotion, carrying out the slaughter like machines.

Luca quickly searched the few survivors for someone he knew. He saw no one. The village elder had been killed already - only his blood-stained robes remained. Lodin was nowhere in sight.

Luca cried out as pain suddenly filled his leg.

He looked down, and saw an arrow was stuck fast in his left thigh, only a few millimetres away from his knee. It hurt, but it was not very deep. He could still walk.

He looked around and quickly found the archer. The armoured man stood at a distance, and was already in the process of firing a second. He released the string and the arrow flew towards Luca.

He rolled out of the way, and the arrow missed him. With the first arrow still in his leg, he took off at a run, quickly closing the distance between himself and the archer. Between the breastplate and helm, he spotted a gap where pale flesh could be seen - that was the spot where he drove his short sword.

The man did not cry out as he died. He simply collapsed backwards, Luca's blade sliding out as he fell. He vanished into nothingness before he hit the ground, and the black-painted steel armour broke apart into many pieces in the snow.

Luca then realised that he had just killed a man. Somehow, he had expected something more. It was odd how numb he felt - it almost frightened him. He'd thought it should have been harder - but this faceless soldier he had struck down hadn't felt like a true human being. Killing him had been easy - too easy.

But there was no time to dwell on such things. Luca turned, seeing the small and pathetic village he resented in flames. He looked for his father, but he was nowhere in sight. Luca feared the worst, but he refused to accept that it was true until he saw it happen with his own eyes.

A woman cried out as she was killed, and Luca spotted the soldier who had done it. The man pulled his sword up, still covered in her blood, and Luca was suddenly filled with blind rage.

“Bastard!”

The soldier turned to him, his armoured face looking towards Luca with no indication or surprise, regret, or humanity. As Luca ran towards him, he approached with a slow, unfettered march.

Luca swung his short sword, and their blades met.

“Why are you doing this?!” he demanded. “Who are you people?!”

The soldier was silent.

After two blocked strokes, a small fireball hit the soldier in the back, throwing him off guard. Not wasting the opportunity, Luca sprang forward and decapitated him.

Arlea ran up to Luca, still emanating mana from the fireball she had thrown.

“Are you okay?!” she asked him.

“I told you to stay back at the hut!”

She ignored that. “What's happening here? Who are these people?”

“I don't know.”

Arlea noticed the arrow in his leg and gasped. “You've been hit! Goodness, you're bleeding!”

“Forget about that!” Luca shouted. “You have to get out of here! It's not safe, there's soldiers everywhere. Start running - I'll cover you so you can get away!”

She shook her head and Luca cursed her obstinacy.

“Damn it, get out of here! Everyone is dead already and this place is burning! All you can do is save yourself at this point!”

“No, not without-”

She never finished that sentence. An arrow came flying, perhaps meant for Luca, and struck Arlea in the throat. She stumbled back in shock, choked out a sound that may have been his name, and collapsed, fading to nothing before she hit the ground.

Everything seemed to stop. Luca felt cold. Colder than he had ever felt before. He couldn't believe his eyes - it didn't feel like it had really happened.

“Arlea...”

Blind rage filled Luca.

He turned with a feral growl and spotted the archer who had killed Arlea. He charged, a second arrow somehow missing him as he closed in, and swung his sword, slicing open the man's throat with a single stroke. The archer hit the ground and twitched helplessly for a moment before death took him.

That was three of them he had killed so far, he found himself thinking.

Luca slipping away from view, hiding behind one of the few houses not yet on fire. Few villagers remained now. It was clear these people had come to kill, not to pillage or rape, but to simply kill every person present. It was an extermination.

“...why?!”

“Luca!”

He turned. Lodin had appeared behind him, his face pale and eyes wide. Luca exhaled in relief, thankful that his father still lived.

“Arlea was with you, wasn't she?” Lodin asked. “What happened?”

“Dead,” he said in a cold voice.

Lodin's face grew paler. “Come,” he insisted. “We have to flee. There's nothing we can do here now.”

“Flee?”

Luca didn't understand. His father had never been a coward, nor had he ever been one to let innocent people die. Why would he want to run away now?

He noticed that his father's belongings were packed as his own were. But Lodin's things had still been stored away in the hut when he had last been there. Which meant...

Luca glared at my father. “You have been packing while these people were being slaughtered?”

Lodin blinked, his eyes filled with deep regret. It was the same look he had whenever Luca asked about his mother, or what it was that they were running from.

“Son - sometimes you have to give things up,” Lodin said quietly.

“You gave up awfully quickly,” Luca spat. “You were a better hunter than any of these people! A better fighter! How many of these people could have been spared if you would have defended them?!”

“Luca, don't be a fool!” Lodin urged. “We can't fight these men! These are Acarian soldiers!”

“Perhaps you can't. But I won't let these people die in vain. I won't let Arlea's death be meaningless. You can run. I'm going to take out every one of these bastards!”

“You don't understand, son - their leader-”

Lodin stopped, his eyes growing wide like he had just seen a ghost.

From the white haze, a black figure emerged. A tall man with a handsome face of indeterminate age, He wore the same red-trimmed black armour as the soldiers, but lacked the helmet. The man's right eye was covered by a patch, and his left glowed a deep red. His hair was black and shoulder-length, with a single strand by his left ear braided.

Lodin gasped. “Zinoro...”

The man called Zinoro stared at Lodin expressionlessly.

“Hello, Lodin,” he said in a cold, low voice. “It has been some time since we last met.”

“Your face...! After all these years...”

“Yes,” Zinoro said, his single red eye gleaming. “Some things have changed, but some things have not. You certainly carry the weight of your years.”

Lodin said nothing. There was a great sorrow in his eyes - a kind of resignation Luca had never seen in his father. Lodin had often been sombre, but never weary. Now, he suddenly looked many years older.

Luca stepped up to his father's side.

“You're their leader,” he said. It wasn't a question, but a statement that expected an answer. “You're the one responsible for all this!”

Zinoro gave him a brief glance with his single eye, then returned his gaze to Lodin.

“Your son has grown since we last crossed paths. It must be nice, for a father to see his son's childhood, hmm?”

Lodin's mouth tightened.

“In that case, I find it fitting that he should be forced to watch his father die,” Zinoro said. “Draw your sword, Lodin. You have run from me long enough.”

Lodin hesitated.

“I've found you,” Zinoro said. “You know there's no escaping this time.”

Finally, Lodin tossed his bag aside and slowly slid his sword from its sheath. He gave the blade a long glance, as if saying goodbye to the weapon.

“Siora...” he muttered so quietly it was almost lost to the wind.

Lodin then tossed the sword aside into the snow.

Zinoro's face twisted in rage. “What is the meaning of this?! Pick up your sword, you coward!”