Carradinoris attack on Gite!

The Ducal plateau, weakened after the death of the Duke Yarnt the brave and the Commandare Redrick Darkstar, has been overtaken by a perfidious Carradin incursion. Without a doubt using unnatural magic, they are currently holding important members of Gite’s noblesse and bourgeoisie hostage but have yet to make demands. No other information has been given on what is currently happening on top of the plateau, as negotiators and diplomats sent there did not come back, a testimony of the truly barbaric nature of Carradinoris. The lack of knowledge about the method used by the Carradins to attack the plateau with such rapidity has sent the citizens in disarray, notably through rumours circulating that an Angel had come to the city. Three battalions from Leïn, one from Striavie, and Jarl the Bohemian himself were sent to subdue the Carradin raid.

“Well! Better late than never! I had time to start the fire.” Carle announced as Nay entered the room. He was on his knees and currently blowing inside the box fitted to the bathtub.

“Really, you’ve never been taught respect to your elders, have you?” The venom in her words surprised even her. She thought that the teenager would get angry, but instead of that, he simply scratched the back of his head.

“Sorry. You’re already quite patient with me, I know that.”

His tone had become suddenly serious, perplexing her.

“I should be the one apologizing, I’ve had some bad news, and took it out on you.”

He nodded. “I saw what was written in the newspaper.”

Her body tensed up.

He turned around to look her in the eyes. “You weren’t lying to me, were you?”

“I…”

“No, there is no need to say more. Maybe you do not know about that fact, but Tellers never betray secrets. Truth is only to be known by the person it concerns and the Tellers of Truth themselves.”

“But I didn’t ask you a question, and you can’t even give me a Truth anyway.”

“You saved my life; I think it’s worth at least that.”

Nay chuckled softly.

“I see. And you’ll still travel with, knowing that? The Angel is looking for me, you better not be in it’s way.”

Fear flashed through his eyes.

“I don’t know. Honestly, I should just give you up to Striavien soldiers and carry on, but we’ve been traveling for a week know, and I think I can say without the shadow of a doubt that you’re not a bad person. Now, I don’t really believe an Angel to be following you, if it is an Angel attacking Gite in the first place. A Carradin attack makes much more sense to me.”

Nay stared. “No, it is an Angel. As if Carradins could reach the plateau without sounding the alarm.”

He gulped. “If I stay with you, will it kill me?” The question was an honest one, giving Nay much more credit than she believed she was due. Even considering his shaken, perturbed Rreico, he was taking the news with an astonishing amount of calm.

“No.” She answered. “Not necessarily. It doesn’t know where I am, as long as I don’t use any magic.”

“You are God-Touched!?”

“I am.”

“Oh, Biach. That is a problem. Tellers are obligated to report any God-Touched they meet. I will have to warn my master about you. You shouldn’t have told me that.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Do what you want, I won’t kill you just to hide the truth.”

He smiled. “Is that linked to the stories about us? You believe in them?”

She smiled back. “No, at least not entirely. I won’t try to convince you, and I won’t harm you. I will not sacrifice a kid to protect myself. I believe that anyway, this secret isn’t going to be one for long, if it’s not out of the bag already.”

“I’m not a kid…Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“About why I’m being chased down by an Angel?”

He nodded.

“Nope, just want to take a bath.”

He seemed disappointed but didn’t try to push. “You’ll trust me in the end.” He decided.

She could recognise herself in those words, so Nay began laughing. “Good. Your turn to fill the bucket.” She put the item in his hands.

He didn’t say anything back, simply standing and started to get out of the room.

Just before he left, he turned around. “I’ll stay with you on the road, Nay. I cannot say why, but I believe my place is at your side.”

She did not know what to say, but he wasn’t waiting for an answer. The door closed behind him.

Warm water was a blessing. She did not stay in as long as she wanted, as she felt the teenager’s Rreico come dangerously close to give in to its more basic instincts. To his credit, there was not even a door separating the two rooms, and he could hear everything she did. In any case, he too deserved a little comfort, and she was happy to give her place up.

She heard him in the water now, sighing in content. She was laying on the bed closest to the window, lulled by the gust of fresh air and the distant sound of Frigelles. Carle had surprised her; she would never have guessed his reaction to the knowledge of the horrors pursuing her. It showed that the Rreico didn’t let you know everything about someone.

She thought about Marke’s master, her objective. She hoped that Vestigio could explain what this rhythm of life truly was. As her father very rarely used words, and more often just used a rigorous training cut off by scolding remarks, she was still very much in the dark on that particular subject.

She dozed off.

She woke up at the start of the afternoon, quite hungry. She took her gold pouch, and seeing the teenager sleeping peacefully on the other bed, decided to leave without waking him up.

The village was not exactly big, but if she managed to find here what she needed for the desert crossing, it would mean a trip less to a larger city.

In an adjacent road, she found the young woman who had welcomed them at the fountain plaza, currently knitting some sort of shirt, sitting under the shadow created by the elongated roof of her house. The two women discussed a short while, and Nay was pleased to learn that a Tailor/Smith was living here.

After shopping there, and receiving some tips from a travelling merchant, Nay had full confidence in her ability to reach Makaka, even accompanied by Carle. She reached the inn with a big smile, and even with extra fruit another villager had given her.

A slightly worried Carle was waiting for her inside.

“Ah, you’re there, I didn’t know where you had gone.” He said, sitting on his bed.

“Just went to get some food and equipment for our desert voyage. I wasn’t gone long, and I found everything we needed!”

“Do I owe you some money?”

“Nah, I’ll pay.”

Carle grinned to his teeth.

“Once more, proof that following you is judicious.”

“Pray that you’ll never have to change your mind about that.”

“What a joy-killer.”

“Not the first one to say that to me. Here, instead of lacking even more respect for your benefactor, take a figelle, they’re fresh.”

The two travelling companions stayed in the inn for the night, and left the next morning, without anything special happening. There had been the son of the innkeeper trying to break into their room, but one smile from Nay waiting for him at the door, and he had freely admitted he was just there to steal their key, so they’ll have to pay its replacement.

Nay was too tired to get angry, and just let him flee freely.

Carle had not even woken up.

One week passed, and Nay and Carle were starting to know each other. The road was a place where relationships formed faster than anywhere else. Nay knew it already, and experiencing it again reminded her of her parents.

Now added to all her other worries, Nay did not know if they would find Vestigio at Makaka or not. The city was apparently almost as big a Gite, and the only thing she was certain of, was his name and that he was old.

Nights had become freezing cold, and days boiling hot. Water, wood, and game were getting scarcer and scarcer.

Sun had just set, and Carle and Nay had begun their walk under the fading day.

“We’re getting close, aren’t we?” Carle asked.

“Yes, but we’re still not inside the desert. According to the smith, it starts when the road gets swallowed by the sand.”

“We have enough water?”

“With the spiky tree yesterday, yeah. The crossing should not take us more than two days, and, at night, if we follow Adienha’s star, we won’t get lost. During the day, I’ve got a brand-new tent to keep us cool.” It wasn’t the first time Nay explained this, but even to herself, repeating it was reassuring.

“I hope I won’t get bitten by a scorpine.”

“Me too, don’t want to carry your rotting corpse through the desert.”

“Charming. Thanks Nay.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You’re not worried about it at all?”

She couldn’t tell him about the Rreico, and how it let her know exactly where every scorpine would be, so she didn’t answer.

“Pff, mysterious adventurer, its only fun for a while.” He complained.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I’m more worried about meeting a Jivynn.” She said.

The young teenager mocked her. “A Jivynn? That doesn’t exist.”

She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “That’s what they say about Angels and mages, and I know for a fact both exist.”

Her sentence stripped him of his smile, and with much more seriousness he asked: “Erm…and so…what would a Jivynn be, exactly? What should we do?”

“No idea. My dad just told me to avoid bleeding around them. They are scavengers first, and if there is nothing attracting them, they usually let the living alone.”

“Oh, well, not such horrible then.”

“Maybe not. The description he made of them still puts chills on my back though. By the way, if female travellers are so badly seen in Striavie, it is because of the Jivynn. Related to the day of the woman and all that.”

“Interesting. My master would be delighted to talk about this. He loves everything concerning cultural origins.”

“One day, maybe I’ll have that talk with him.”

Carle cleared his throat before asking: “And, your father, can we trust his word about the Jivynn?”

“He was born and raised in the Striavie desert so…”

“Biach.”

“Like you said.”

“Couldn’t monsters just stay inside story books?”

“If it helps, Firantes is just a made-up word.”

“Really!?”

“Oh yes, the true nature of Firantes is much worse.”

“And how was that piece of information supposed to reassure me?”

As sole response, Nay began laughing. She took out her bottle, took a sip, then gave it to Carle.

They reached the edge of the desert one day later. The road disappeared inside a dune the size of two houses, and, after a quick climb, a vast, seemingly unending yellow expanse permeated the sight beyond.

They decided to put their camp there. Nay struggled with the tent a bit, managing to make it stand despite the crumbling sand. Here, nothing grew, everything was inexorably swallowed.

Without any major problems, the encampment was set on top of the dune, and the two travellers waited for the day to pass and for the merciful weather of the sunset to come. They played Comptoy part of the time, ate, and tried to sleep despite the wind shaking the tent and the rays of the sun piercing the white cloth. Nay heard Carle fall asleep after ten minutes or so, but she did not manage to do the same so easily.

Besides the noise and the light, there was another weird feeling. That something was coming towards them. She thought about the Angel, but what was an abnormally large Rreico was coming from the south, not the north. Something or someone was leaving the desert. She had no idea how far, or what its intentions were, she had only one certainty. It was getting closer.

She opened the tent occasionally, but the horizon stayed the same, nothing perturbed the ocean of dunes.

She woke up a few hours later, the fatigue of her long voyage had claimed its toll. Carle was still sleeping, unaware of the sudden unease gripping her core.

It was a Rreico, human in origin, emitting an emotion, or more like screaming it, so loudly that it had woken Nay up.

Nay opened the tent. From their encampment, she observed a silhouette visible through the reddish haze of the setting sun. His shadow was vanishing inside the growing darkness.

She got out and rose to face the stranger.

He was standing on top of another dune, fifty yards away. He was an old man, with golden eyes and long, shiny, fiery hair. His face was clean-shaven but wrinkled and darkened by what had to be a century. Still, he stood perfectly straight, as if his age did not matter. He wore simple green priesthood robes and was bare-footed. His Rreico, in a strange way, reminded her of her father’s. Nay had sometimes felt it almost seem to overflow. Now, in front of her, the Rreico was a tidal wave growing well beyond the man’s flesh.

Nay instinctively understood what such a phenomenon meant: God-Touched. As such, she also had little doubt about the stranger’s identity. But instead of being relieved of having found so easily the man she was looking for; it was a completely different emotion that was clenching her throat.

She was afraid.

Because this man was sending unmistakable killing intent. His rage was immeasurable.

And it was all aimed towards her.