The Saldean War, Chapter One
#2 of The Saldean War
Yeah, second installment in my Saldean War series. This will be the last chapter featuring Erivagar and Felicia, for now. After this I will be writing some chapters from a different point of view (and a different part of the world) before these two characters will appear again. I would greatly appreciate comments as I'm always trying to improve on my writing. Also, if you find any major typo's or grammatical errors, comment on it, so I can correct it. And, alas, we are still several chapters away from any yiff-scenes. *sigh* I know, but I will make them worth the wait.
The Faun Inn
The rain drizzled down outside The Faun Inn, located seventy kilometers away from the capitol of Kanarn. Even though the land was only going through its eighth season, the weather was bad enough so the inn didn't recieve as many visitors as the innkeeper would like to. Therefore he was happy when an old, lean ocelot staggered though the door, supporting a young tiger woman who seemed to be in a daze. The innkeeper's first instinct was to ask whether something was wrong, but he could easily see that without asking. He wiped off his hands in his grease-stained apron and moved forward to help the old man support the woman. He didn't take more than a few steps before the ocelot halted and looked up, and his left hand, which wasn't supporting the woman, shot up and pointed at the innkeeper.
The ocelot then shook his head, took down his arm again and said; "Good sir, would you please help me escort this young woman to any of the vacant rooms you might have?"
The innkeeper nodded and moved forward again to help supporting the woman. The inn was built in two stories, and rooms could be rented both on the ground floor and on the first floor. Due to the bad weather, not many traveled through those parts of the country and all except two rooms were vacant, and all on the ground floor were vacant. Therefore, the innkeeper escorted them to one of the rooms on the ground floor. He held her stable with one arm and unlocked the door with one of the keys in the massive keyring he had stuck on his belt.
The two men, one in his forties, the other in his late sixties, gently guided the dazed woman to the single bed that stood in the room and put her down on it. The innkeeper stood back and let the old man tuck her in like you would tuck in a favorite niece. The old man's face reflected much sorrow, but also a bit of hope. The innkeeper didn't know what to make of that, so he didn't and put it aside to another time.
"Uh, mister? Why don't you leave the girl alone and come out to the main room again? I can serve you some food and a mug of warm ale, you sure look like you need some," said the innkeeper.
The old ocelot looked up and nodded, he patted the young woman on her head once before leaving the room with the innkeeper. Together they went into the common room of the inn, the old man sat down by one of the tables while the innkeeper went out in the kitchen and quickly warmed up some soup from the day before and a mug of ale. He went back to the old man's table, sat down the steaming mug and the equally steaming bowl of soup, went back out in the kitchen and made himself a mug of ale and sat down on the opposite side of the old man's table.
"Cheers, old man. May your days be long and your nights restful," said the innkeeper and hoisted his mug so they could salute. The old man banged his own mug against the innkeepers and muttered:
"You too, and may you see light in the days to come."
"Now that we have saluted, we can exchange names. My name is Argos Althea, the owner of this fine inn, may I ask your name?"
The old ocelot nodded and said: "The name's Eriv, and if you're curious, the girl's name is Lucia. I might as well tell you what happened; we were on our ways to Redding, but the wind snapped a branch off a tree and she took it right to her face. It knocked her out cold, it did. I was able to wake her up, at least partially, but I doubt we could have gone on like that for more than a kilometer. We would have collapsed on the road if your inn hadn't been lying right here. Thank the gods." Eriv made a movement with his hands that in another world would have been the symbol of infinity, here it was a sign to call on the gods and ward off evil.
Eriv and Lucia had arrived at sunset, so it was quickly becoming dark. Argos lit some braziers and he and Eriv talked in their glow until midnight. Eriv bid Argos a good night's sleep and made his way into the room next to Lucia's, he fell asleep like a brick.
He was awoken by a scream next door, he flew up from his bed and paused with shock, not knowing where he was. A split-second passed where he stood inert, then his brain sprang into motion again and he remembered the horrible day before, and the inn they now resided in.
Damn, it's probably Felicia, he thought
Erivagar ran out of his own room and into Felicia's, she was all screams and tears.
"Erivagar, where are we, why am I lying in this bed what has happened whereisfather?" Out of simply hysteria the pace of her voice picked up until Erivagar couldn't understand her.
"Silence!" Erivagar said, moving forward at the same time. "You're in an inn, I brought you here yesterday."
"But why are we here? It doesn't make any sense!" Whined Felicia
"Calm down, girl," Said Erivagar, then he moved even closer to the bed where she was still lying and lowered his voice to a whisper, "your parents were murdered, don't you remember?"
She did, and started shrieking. Normally, Erivagar was a calm person, but that didn't prevent him from shouting at Felicia:
"Shut up! We are on the run from those who killed them, do you want to alert every assassin from here to Saldea to our presence? Please Felicia, be silent."
She took a few calming breaths, her shrieks redused to muffled sobs, tears running down her face.
"Good girl, relax." Erivagar, sat down on the bed and gave her a comforting hug, she clutched him as if he was the last solid thing left in the whole world. At that moment Argos chose to walk in the room, through the still-open door. Felicia was busy crying her heart out on Erivagar's chest, so it was only he who heard the creak of a floor-board and turned his head around. He gave Argos a nod and then another nod, this one a nod of dismissal. Argos took the cue and left the room silently, leaving the alone again.
After exchanging heartfelt 'thank yous' and 'farewells' with Argos, Erivagar and Felicia were on the road again. Argos had offered them shelter and food for at least a couple of days, but Erivagar was stern on the fact that they needed to hurry, and get as far away from the capitol as possible. This was leading to a discussion with Felicia which he found very annoying:
"But why don't you just teleport us further away, like you said you did yesterday?" Felicia asked imploringly, the unaccostumed to pain of walking making her edgy.
"Because it is much easier to trace a teleport spell, it leaves a very distinct pattern to those looking for it. I have already cast several shieldings upon us, so we cannot be tracked by normal magical means, the effect of that is that we have to travel on foot... or by horse, if we can find any."
Felicia's mouth snapped shut and the next ten minutes went by without a sound, then suddenly she stopped, a startled expression on her face, as if she had just realised something.
"Erivagar? Where are we going?"
Erivagar sighed, feeling as if he had a heavy load on his shoulders.
"I don't know, girl, we are fugitives in our own country, so we can't stay here anymore, that's for sure. Mayhaps we will go to one of the merchant states in the south, or perhaps Saldea... Saldeans are not at all as prejudiced against Kanarans as vice versa."
Felicia gasped; trekking in a country which she still, in some way or another considered hers, was not nearly as frightening as traveling to an unknown country hundreds of kilometres away. Erivagar started walking again, using a staff he had conjured from some extradimensional storage, but she stood still, pondering her situation- their situation, she quickly corrected herself. What could they do? If they went to the merchant nations, she was sure nothing good would come out of it. They would be forced to come foreward as beggars, and she didn't want that. Even though she knew Erivagar was a powerful wizard that didn't change their situation much, it was from the merchant nations that Erivagar had got the idea to establish a mage guild in the first place.
So Saldea it was. As far as Felicia knew, Saldeans didn't know much about magic, instead they resorted to shamanism, she snorted at the thought. That meant Erivagar's powers would be in demand.
"Erivagar, stop!" she said loudly.
Twenty metres down the road he stopped, turned around and said in a tired voice:
"What is there, Felicia?"
"Don't use that voice at me! I have decided what we are to do!" she declared proudly, walking excitedly foreward. "We are going to Saldea, your arcane skills will come in handy as a mean for survival there."
Erivagar shook his head in dismay; now, of all times, did she choose to act like a princes and not like some shy farmgirl. Not that it bothered him much, she would need her royal pride to get through the tough times ahead.
"Saldea is as good a place as any to go, as I said before." He hesitated, a new thought spinning in his mind. "But perhaps it is not the best place at all, Lord Byron is insistent on attacking Saldea, and it won't do us any good to flee to a place and then flee again."
The forner princess chewed a bit on this, then a new idea struck her:
"If Saldea is attacked, and we are there... We could lend ourselves to the war-effort. I would like nothing more than smashing King Byron's armies to a bloody pulp!"
To this, Erivagar merely stared at her.
"And how do you suppose we do that? The Kanaran army outnumbers the Saldean three-to-one, and what could you possibly hope to contribute with? You are nothing more than a girl who is able to read and write. Remember; all the things you know as a princess can be used to naught in the cold reality outside Castle Odarkeen."
Hearing such a blunt message, Felicia's cheeks reddened in anger under her fur. Her voice, as she started arguing, was much deeper than usual:
"I don't care! And I know you can teach me the ways of the world, you are a natural teacher. Not only that, you once told me that I have the gift. Teach me how to use it, I want to stand over Byron's corpse as it is vaporized by my power!"
As she spoke her hair began to bristle, and multicolored notes started to appear and dissapear around her body, but she saw it not, all to absorbed in her anger:
"Also, I will track down he who killed my parents, then I will kill him. But you must teach me first, the gift is nothing if it remains intangible for me. Erivagar, I com-" Now she noticed the lights floating around her, as if responding to her shock, the notes of light exploded in small pops of light.
Erivagar was staring incredously at her, she noticed. No, not incredously, but as if she had revealed something he was both happy about and afraid of.
"What are you staring at?" she demanded.
The old mage said nothing and kept on scrutinizing her. After a whole minute of saying nothing he finally opened his mouth:
"We will go to Saldea. I will train you. Let's move out."
He turned around and started walking, Felicia was staring dumbfoundly, before realizing she was falling behind. She ran to keep up with him, and fell into step besides him.
"So, Erivagar, are we going with my plan?" asked Felicia in a measured voice, not wanting to submit to her anger again.
He looked at her sharply, and lifted his hand as if to slap her.
"If I'm going to train you, apprentice, then you'd better learn to call me master. Understand?"
At the notion of calling someone master, Felicia almost laughed, but then she realized her situation; She was alone in the world, she was hunted and Erivagar was the only person she could depend her survival on. Her face twisted at this sour thought, but she had no choice, she would have to submit, for now."
"I- I understand... Master"