Authors: R.A. Salvatore
“Kill who?” Aydrian asked again, and he dropped the deer and faced the mother squarely.
“No one who’s any o’ me own business,” she answered curtly. She pushed Nikkye into the house before her and shut the door.
Aydrian stood staring at the closed door for a few moments, then sighed, shook his head, and turned to retrieve the deer. He saw a couple of other people regarding him then, including Kazik, with whom he had not spoken since he had won the sword. Kazik hadn’t been happy with him, and Aydrian could easily understand jealousy to be the source of the young man’s resentment. For Aydrian had what Kazik, what all young men their age, most wanted: the respect of the village men.
“Bandits,” Kazik answered, and Aydrian stopped cold even as he bent over to grab an antler, as surprised that Kazik had spoken to him as he was by the answer itself.
“Bandits?” he echoed.
“South,” Kazik said, his tone rather sharp. “Waylaid a group from Roadapple, not two days’ march from here.”
“Word says they’re heading north, our way,” added one of Kazik’s companions, a handsome young brown-haired woman with dark eyes that reminded Aydrian of Brynn Dharielle’s.
“Wicked bunch,” said Kazik, staring at Aydrian intently, obviously trying to intimidate him. “Killed one o’ the men. Took his heart out right on the road.”
Kazik’s words did not have the desired effect. Aydrian knew of Roadapple, had seen the village a couple of times during his travels. He had even spoken with a group of huntsmen from the southern town, guiding them to a meadow where he had noted some deer. Bandits, he thought then, and his heartbeat quickened at the notion of finally finding a mission for which he believed himself worthy, one that seemed a hundred steps removed from guiding hunters or blasting beaver dams.
“Take the deer to the shed,” Aydrian said to Kazik.
Kazik stared at him skeptically.
“Are the leaders of the village preparing a party to go out to find the highwaymen?” Aydrian asked.
“If they were, they’d not invite you,” Kazik remarked.
“They’re more likely to prepare the defenses of the town,” the young woman answered, “in hopes that the bandits will stay out on the road. Yer deer’ll be welcomed.”
“Take it then,” said Aydrian, and he walked away, leaving the deer. He found Rumpar soon after and informed the man that he was heading south, to Roadapple and the bandits.
“I will put your sword to good use,” he promised the man with a smirk.
A bit of a flash did shine behind Rumpar’s eyes at that remark, but it was fast replaced by the same cynicism and anger with which he had viewed Aydrian ever since the boy had humiliated him and taken the sword. “Ye’re to get yerself killed, then,” he snarled. “And me sword—the pride of Festertool, the blade that slew a hundred goblins and powries in the Demon War—will fall into the hands of common thieves. Give it over, boy, afore ye get yerself murdered!” He held out his hand as he finished, but the only thing Aydrian put in that hand was the weight of his iron-willed gaze, the same look he had used upon Rumpar and the others when he had won the blade, the look of confidence and strength.
“I will add to the legend of Rumpar’s blade, not replace it,” Aydrian said calmly—too calmly for Rumpar’s frazzled state. “Though it, and you, are not deserving of my generosity.”
He walked out then, leaving Rumpar’s house, crossing the town under the scrutiny of many villagers who were already whispering the news that strange young Aydrian was planning to go out to hunt the bandits.
He heard their whispers behind him. The old lady angrily hissed, “He’s to get hisself kilt, the fool!” One sturdy huntsman echoed an even more cynical view: “More likely, he’s to join with the murderers, and good riddance to him!”
Aydrian took it all in stride, even smiled to himself as he imagined the changed tune he would hear upon his return.
His victorious return, he believed, and he dropped one hand to the hilt of his somewhat crude and unbalanced sword, the other into the pouch holding his more powerful weapons.
S
adye and De’Unnero were welcomed by the people of Tuber’s Creek with open arms, the folk of the small, secluded village seeming glad for the new additions—even if a few, mostly older women, raised their eyebrows and offered some judgmental tsk-tsks at the spectacle of the older man with a wife little more than half his age.
They introduced themselves as Callo and Sadye Crump, with De’Unnero taking obvious pleasure in the subtle, teasing aspect of the alias. The first was obviously his own name shortened; and the chosen surname, Crump, was taken directly from Bishop Marcalo De’Unnero’s most infamous act, the execution of a merchant
named Aloysius Crump. If De’Unnero enjoyed these name games, as he had perverted Father Abbot Markwart’s first name, Dalebert, into his previous alias of Bertram Dale, then Sadye positively basked in it. The cryptic nature, leading to possible disaster, seemed only to spark her insatiable hunger for adventure and danger.
They were welcomed with a host of questions, but nothing sinister or prying, just the normal interest of a group of secluded people thrilled to get news of the outside world. And who better to deliver the happenings than Sadye the bard? The couple was given a temporary place to stay, with promises of a permanent residence in the form of a dilapidated old house of one villager who had died the previous year.
Two days after their arrival, on a day when the weather was too fine for hunting, the whole of Tuber’s Creek joined together at the abandoned house, and by the time the sun set that evening, the place was again habitable.
“The warmth of homely home,” De’Unnero said, somewhat sarcastically, when the villagers had all left and he and Sadye were alone. “Soon we must obtain all of the best furnishings!”
Sadye laughed heartily, sharing his obvious disdain for the commonplace. “As warm as you make it,” she said, a twinkle in her eye. “Even a peasant’s shelter can be charmed, for it is not where you are that is important. It is what you do while you are there.”
It was an invitation that Marcalo De’Unnero had no intention of refusing.
Much later that night, with a fire burning in the fireplace before them, while Sadye played and sang quiet songs of love lost and wars won, De’Unnero allowed himself to truly relax, to reflect upon his past achievements and errors, to consider his life’s course to this point, even to ponder what road he might next walk.
When he considered his present company and her refreshing take on the world, no course seemed improbable, his options limitless.
But his options seemed limited indeed when he considered that he could not walk those roads alone, or even just with Sadye, when he reminded himself that another creature would always accompany him.
He basked in her song, then, and in the quiet crackle of the fire, not allowing his frustrations to tickle and tempt the release of his darker side.
A
ydrian figured that he was closing in on Roadapple, for he had put over fifteen miles behind him, but still, he saw no sign of any bandits. The one road was clear—and had been all the way south.
When he at last came in sight of the town, nestled in a small wooded valley between two round-topped hillocks, he veered east. Perhaps the bandits had taken up a position on the southern road out of Roadapple, he thought, so when he had circled the small village, the road in sight again, he turned south and started to follow it.
Thinking he had found his prey, Aydrian smiled widely when he saw movement
in the brush along the side of the road. He kept on walking nonchalantly, one hand resting easily on the pommel of his belted sword, the other holding a graphite and a lodestone. He focused his thoughts on the graphite first, ready to loose a stunning bolt should the enemy spring upon him.
And so they did as he continued his stroll—more than a dozen men, many holding bows, leaping from concealment, shouting at him, some charging at him.
Aydrian released the graphite energy, not in a concentrated and devastating bolt, as he had learned, but rather in a general shock, a force that radiated, crackling in the air.
A few of the ambushers tumbled to the ground, mostly those who had been charging and suddenly found that they had temporarily lost control of their legs. All of them felt the stunning blast, felt the disorientation. One archer let fly, his arrow soaring nearly straight up in the air, while another stood shaking as his arrow fell from his grasp.
Aydrian, thinking his victory at hand, drew his sword and leaped ahead, closing fast on a pair of seemingly helpless men.
And then … he stopped and stared at them, suddenly seeing them not as bandits but as farmers and hunters. Realizing his vulnerability, he rushed ahead again in a moment, seizing the closest man and putting his sword tip to the man’s throat.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“Shoot him dead!” the doomed man cried. “Kill him, for he’s the one, to be sure, that taked ol’ Tellie’s heart out!”
Aydrian gawked, confused for just a moment, before it registered what was going on here. These were no bandits but were a group from Roadapple, out to secure the road.
“Hold! Hold! Hold!” the young man shouted, spinning away from the villager. “I am no highwayman but have come, as you have, to rid the area of the vermin. I am Aydrian.… I am Tai’maqwilloq, ranger of Festertool, sworn protector of the region.”
All around him came doubting, confused murmurs, but the archers did hold their shots, and a couple even lowered their bows.
“I heared o’ him,” one man said after an uncomfortable few moments. “He cleared the river. That was yerself, eh?”
Aydrian held his sword out wide and bowed low.
“Bah,” spat the man Aydrian had just released. “Just a boy!”
“A boy with power,” another chimed in. “Ye felt his shock. And how’d ye do that, boy?”
Aydrian put on a confident look. “Return to Roadapple in the knowledge that the road will soon again be secured.”
“Because we mean to secure it,” the man he had released, his pride obviously wounded, snapped back.
“As you will, then,” Aydrian said, bowing again. “Lie in ambush if you choose, but I’ll not join you.”
“Who asked ye?”
“But I will return to you,” Aydrian promised, ignoring the comment. “You will learn the truth of Tai’maqwilloq, the Nighthawk.”
“Fancy name,” Aydrian heard one man grumble as he started away, sliding his sword back into his belt as he went. The young man only smiled all the wider, for he meant to live up to every implication of that lofty title.
He spent the rest of that day and all of the next searching the area for signs of the bandits, but to his dismay he found nothing definite. Either the highwaymen weren’t in the area, and hadn’t been for a while, or they were very good at covering their tracks.
Frustrated after yet another fruitless day, Aydrian set his camp in the open on a hillock that night and brought up a blazing fire. He wanted to be a target, though it occurred to him that being so very obvious might imply to the bandits that he and the camp were no more than decoys. Frustration fanned the flames of that campfire, and only then did Aydrian realize how badly he wanted—no, not wanted, but actually needed—to find the highwaymen. This was the first opportunity for him to begin to separate himself from ordinary men, and Aydrian was already beginning to understand that such chances in times of peace would be rare indeed.
His agitation had him pacing long into the night; though after a while, he gave up believing his beacon fire would bring the highwaymen to him and he let the flames die down. But even as the fire dwindled, his frustration mounted, and Aydrian finally took a deep breath and realized that he was losing his edge, the fine calm that kept a warrior’s thoughts clear and focused in times of crisis. He immediately found a comfortable place to sit and reached for his gemstones, seeking the smooth and inviting depths of the hematite.
He used the magic of the gemstone much as he used it at Oracle then, to fall deeper within himself that he might more clearly define his honest feelings and perhaps guide those thoughts along more positive avenues.
But then something happened that the young man did not quite understand: the gemstone pulled him deeper into its magic, asked him to step right into that gray swirl, and thus to step right out of his own body!
Aydrian recoiled, stunned and afraid. The mere thought that he could somehow separate his spirit and body horrified him—wasn’t that the province of death, after all? And this was not like the time when he had entered the spirit realm briefly to do battle with Lady Dasslerond. No, this time he would fly free, truly free, of his corporeal form.
Despite his very real reservations, the young man didn’t shut out the gemstone altogether, kept enough of the magic swirling and speaking to him so that he could further explore this darker side of hematite. For a long, long time, Aydrian sat there, oblivious of the potentially disastrous consequence should the highwaymen walk into his camp and simply murder him. Transfixed, he moved closer and closer to that narrow opening, sidling bits of his spirit up to it, trying to peer beyond, hoping secretly that he might be seeing the other side of death itself.
A little closer he went, allowing the opening to widen, peering in.
Peering in, and then widening it a bit more, following his curiosity almost blindly into this promising and dangerous tunnel.
And then, suddenly it seemed—though in truth more than an hour had passed—he fell free of his body, was standing across the fire staring back at his unmoving form.
After the moment of horror passed, Aydrian realized that he could return to his body whenever he wanted. He could see it as a glowing spot in the darkness of the spirit world. The hematite was there, holding open the portal. Aydrian’s trepidation gradually diminished. He turned away from his physical body, looking at the wider world around him through spirit eyes. With the fear gone, he found that he felt free, freer than ever he thought possible! He wondered why the Touel’alfar hadn’t shown him this side of the hematite. Perhaps they didn’t know of it, or perhaps Lady Dasslerond had been afraid to show him this power, fearing that he would fly out of her valley, fly beyond her control.