This story is being rewritten! The new version, A Price in Memory, can be found here.

I highly suggest you read the new version as this one won't be completed. Also, there has been a lot of changes so you won't be able to continue with the other where this one left off.

Lying on his back, Y’rid stared up at the patches blue sky visible through the branches looming over him. He had been awake for half an hour already, his sore body reminding him of its need for rest. His eyes were heavy yet he couldn’t return to sleep. Not that he wanted to. What little sleep he had got was disturbed by the light of the early sun’s rays and plagued by visions he didn’t want to relive.

So he began thinking. There was still a few days before they reached Lok and he needed a course of action. This world was filled with dangers he couldn’t face and to his mind that left him with two options.

Either he had to do everything he could to avoid those dangers or he had to overcome them. Both paths had their drawbacks. If he chose the first he would need to find a place where he would be safe from the things he saw the previous night. That pointed to a city, preferably one with bigger walls than the last.

Considering what he had heard that morning, this posed a problem. Lok seemed to be an unforgiving place where one would need plentiful coin or skillsets to survive, neither of which he had. The coin he had got from the mage wouldn’t support him for more than a term, even less since he had to support both himself and the boy.

He also didn’t have any skills he could rely on. Stealing had barely allowed his body’s previous owner to keep himself alive and he had no intention to live like that kid had. Could that even be called living? Besides, the idea of feeding off of other people to support himself didn’t sit right with him. Not when everyone was struggling to get by.

From his own memories, the only things of use seemed to be a few half-remembered lessons at wielding a sword. That might be enough to get him a position as a guard but that would put him back into the danger he was supposed to avoid with this course of action. Even if he found the idea oddly fitting.

The other choice was to face the threats of this world, and for that he needed strength. He would need to learn how to protect himself against the monsters that roamed this land. And he had only seen one person in action who could actually do that, Ritter, one of the six hunters and the reason he was still alive in the first place.

Holin had said they could train him after all. However, the impression the man had left was less than favourable. He was skilled, definitely, but he also seemed a bit deranged. Y’rid realised he was still holding a bit of a grudge against the man but how could he not? The man had attacked him because he thought he smelled strange.

Were these truly the people he had to turn to for help?

Thus he began racking his mind to find other option, only to arrive at the same conclusions as before. Like he had done for the last thirty minutes.

The sound of people moving through the crowd drew his attention away from this dilemma. Some of the guards were walking through the crowd of people and speaking to them after which they started gathering up what little they had.

Y’rid watched as one of the guards approached another group close by.

“Start getting ready, we’ll be moving soon,” the guard said before moving on towards him and the boy that was still sleeping a few feet away.

The man had just opened his mouth when Y’rid spoke.

“I heard. Why are we moving again so soon, I thought the monster horde wasn’t coming way?”

The guard looked annoyed but still responded.

“One of the beast eaters found another group of survivors a few hours’ travel from here. We are going to join up with them.”

He proceeded down the line of people repeating the message.

Y’rid looked around him at the gathering crowd before his gaze settled on the boy. He had been awoken by the commotion as he was sitting up and observing those around them. The dark circles around his eyes a clear indication of the same tiredness Y’rid felt.

At least he got more sleep than me.

“Come on.” He said before standing up. He picked up his sword in one hand before offering the other to the boy. Hadi stared at it for a second before he reached out. Y’rid pulled him to his feet and they began making their way down the road along with the rest of the people.

Even though the pace at which they travelled wasn’t as fast as when they left the city, they were still moving at the speed of a brisk walk. The tall looming trees began to pass them by, the sun glinting off of the dew that clung to the moss on their roots. The scenery creating a peaceful atmosphere that belied the danger forest concealed.

Hadi scanned everything around him with a curious expression as they walked, gazing at the silent green giants and the clumps of wildflowers that grew between them. The resilience of the child’s amazed Y’rid as he observed him.

This is probably the first time in his life outside the walls of a city.

Even though he thought the boy was only distracting himself from the memories of the night, it still pleased him to see him take an interest in something. It gave him hope that the boy would recover from the trauma he suffered.

Unintentionally his thoughts began to stray back to his own problem. No, it was their problem he supposed, though he didn’t expect the boy to actually help solve it. A weary sigh escaped him.

Having had enough of his thoughts running in circles, he decided to follow the boy’s example and gazed at the forest around them. For the first time he actually just looked, enjoying the sight of nature thriving around him. The Looming trees rising up from the undergrowth, their height easily thrice that of the massive walls of Riversedge he had seen. As if mocking mankind’s pitiful constructions.

The trees quickly grew in number as he peered past those next to the road, and soon his entire sight was blocked by a wall of wood. The bark old and gnarled, strange creeping plants stretched around their moss-covered roots and up their trunks, searching for whatever few rays of sunlight they could capture.

As he felt himself becoming immersed in the sight, faint sounds started to reach his ears. A small animal scurrying through the undergrowth, A bird chirping far off into the forest, its call carried by the light breeze that weaved silently through the trees.

Y’rid closed his eyes took a deep breath savouring the crisp freshness of the air before opening them again. It was hard to connect this peaceful sight with the things that dwelled deeper in, so he didn’t try. He just enjoyed the experience.

Y’rid realised something as he looked towards Hadi. This might have been the boy’s first time outside, but it was his as well. Sure the Y’rid from before had gone outside of the city walls in the past, but never into the forest. Afterall to go into the forest alone was to court death. Most people would spend their entire lives hauled up in the city, hiding behind its walls and the safety they promised.

Safety?

Y’rid thought with a snort. What safety? There was no safety at all, only the illusion of it to calm the minds of the people. A mass lie they chose to believe in so that they wouldn’t give in to despair.

An overly cynical perspective perhaps, but one that he felt was rooted in truth.

As he looked around at the forest he realised that was not the life he wanted. He didn’t want to stay hauled up in Lok for the rest of his life, hoping that no monster horde would come to end it. He wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to do but as he looked out at the forest surrounding them he suddenly felt the need to see more.

The mercenary he had met in Riversedge had spoken of his travels, and at the time Y‘rid simply listened to the parts he wanted to, searching for something familiar and ignoring the rest. But now he wondered what the great jungles actually looked like. He wondered what the beastmen and seaborn were.

It was a superficial desire but he clung to it. Up until now, he had only wanted two things. To figure out who he was, and to get to safety. The first was an enigmatic web he had no hope of unravelling quickly. He had a feeling that it would come to him with time, either that or it wouldn’t come at all.

The second was merely a desire stemming from the primal fear of death. A fear shared by all and certainly not something he could truly call his own. So he held onto this new want that sprouted inside him.

However, this was not something he could pursue at the moment. It came with a price, the very least of which required him to be able to defend against the monsters out there. And it wasn’t just himself he needed to defend, he thought, gazing down at Hadi walking a step behind him.

And there was only one place that he knew of that could offer him that strength. There, far down the line at the very front walked a pair of people. Many of the others seemed to be hesitant to get too close to them, isolating them in the leading position they had assumed.

“Follow me,” Y’rid said as he tapped the boy on his shoulder and started quickening his pace.

They quickly moved through the crowd to the front where Y’rid found the man who had started the fire a few hours ago along with another woman carrying an unstrung bow on her back.

The man turned to him as he noticed their approach.

“Back again, I see,” He said.

“Who is this?” The woman beside him asked looking at Y’rid with curiosity.

“He came out of the city with Ritter…” the man replied before looking questioningly at Y’rid

“Ah,” Y’rid said, realising that he never gave the man his name. “I’m Y’rid and this is Hadi. Sorry for not introducing myself earlier.”

“No problem,” the man said. “I never gave you my name either did I? I’m Rhone and this-“

“I’m Kali. It’s nice to meet you two,” said the woman with a friendly smile.

“The same to you,” he replied. “I had a few more question to ask you if you don’t mind. I actually wanted to do so before but…”

His voice trailed off, not exactly sure how to bring up the subject of the other man attacking him. Seeing this, Rhone guessed at the reason and chuckled.

“Yeah, Holin can have that effect on people sometimes. Most don’t know what to make of him, and I get the feeling he prefers it that way.”

“What happened with Holin?” Kali asked.

“Your regular meet and attack,” Rhone said with the hints of a smile on his face.

“No harm done,” Y’rid quickly said his hand subconsciously touching the thin scar on his cheek. “At least not much.”

Kali looked between the two of them seemingly confused which Rhone chose to completely ignore.

“Well, we still got an hour or two to go before we reach the camp the Blackguard set up. So what’s on your mind?”

Y’rid’s hand tightened around the sword’s hilt. Despite his efforts to stay calm a hint of anger entered his voice.

“The Blackguard huh?”

The change in his tone didn’t escape Rhone’s notice as he looked at him with a frown.

“You had trouble with them?”

“Not exactly personal,” he said. “But they used the people as decoys for their own escape. If Ritter hadn’t come along…”

“Shameless bastards,” Kali said in disgust.

Y’rid turned around when he heard Hadi’s footsteps come to a halt. The boy was staring out in front of him with vacant eyes. He mentally cursed himself speaking thoughtlessly. Y'rid stepped towards him and laid a hand on his shoulder, causing the boy to look up at him.

“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” he said.

“Is he your brother?” Kali asked in concern as she stepped up beside him.

Y’rid paused before shaking his head.

“… I see,” She said before kneeling down in front of the boy with a bright smile.

“Hey,” She said in a conspiratorial tone, “want to see something secret?”

Hadi paused for a moment and looked at her before nodding his head unsurely.

“Come on, I’ll show you,” She said and grabbed his arm before starting to pull him away to the side of the road. “I found it this morning.”

The boy looked back at Y’rid in confusion before following her into the woods.

“Don’t worry about them,” Rhone said. “Kali can handle anything that might still be around.”

“If she can cheer him up, then that’s more than I can do,” he replied.

“I wouldn’t doubt that. She’s good with children, also with people in general. So what happened?” Rhone asked.

Y’rid sighed before starting to recount the events that happened the previous night as they walked, from the point where he followed the Blackguard, to where he pulled the boy away from the corpse.

Rhone shook his head sadly, “I would like to say that their actions surprise me, but truth be told, these types of things are more common than you’d think. Kali said she saw a large group of people and a couple of the Blackguard pass her by, before the main force, while she waited outside the city. No doubt those were their family. The nobles usually have a lot of ways of keeping their people loyal.

After all slaughtering innocent civilians to save yourself might seem unthinkable. But what if you thought it was keeping your family safe and would also be your best chance of seeing them again? People often do horrible things when placed in bad situations. Do you blame the one who gave the orders? The one who did the action? Or the monsters for their very nature?”

He sighed, “It would be best if you could take it in stride.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Y’rid replied, the scene of the woman getting cut down replaying in his mind.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you can’t. If it was only your life to think about, but it isn’t really though, is it?” Rhone said nodding in the direction Kali and the boy and disappeared in.

“Well I wasn’t planning on seeking justice against a legion of armed knights,” Y’rid replied dryly.

Rhone laughed, “I didn’t think you would. But just harbouring a grudge and telling people of their actions would already earn you their scorn, and out here… No one would think twice of someone disappearing when going out to take a shit.”

Y’rid’s eyes widened in surprise and he felt a chill run down his back. That’s right, they were out in the wilderness, a place where monsters roam. If the Blackguard were willing to kill someone who didn’t cause them harm to suit their own needs, why would they refrain from doing the same to him if he became an obstacle?

“Anyway, let us steer away from this topic, it’s not good for my health. You said you had questions?”

Y’rid was silent for a few moments before he made up his mind. If he did not want to contribute to this very system that he found himself despising, then he would have to find a different path, and for that, he needed the strength these red-eyed hunters had.

“I would like to join you. Holin said you could train me, and I remember what you said of the life of refugees. I need to get stronger if I am to survive, and not just for myself.”

Rhone’s head snapped towards him, the surprise on his face making it clear that he never thought Y’rid would actually take the offer Holin had made.

“You would be better off in a city,” he said. “You have some talent. You could get a job as a guard or a mercenary, not the safest job but it pays well.”

Y’rid shook his head. “I have already thought about that. I don’t want to live caged behind a wall, never seeing the outside of it. And being a mercenary simply won’t work while I have to support Hadi. Besides, I doubt either of those would be able to give me confidence in my survival. I saw three of the Blackguard unable to fend off one of those kahtri and they were supposed to be the best trained and armed fighters in the city.”

“What do you know of us kid?” Rhone asked, his tone gaining an edge to it.

“Honestly, I don’t know much,” Y’rid replied. “I know that you’re a group of hunters. I know the people around here call you beast eaters, though I don’t know why. But beyond that, I know that you are also the most skilled fighters I have seen.”

“Beast eaters huh?” Rhone said his gaze becoming unfocused. “I doubt they even know where the name comes from. But there is an underlying truth to it.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is a price to pay for everything,” he said. “The more you receive the higher the cost. If you join us, chances are you won’t survive. This path you seek may very well claim your life, what would it have been for then huh? What would happen to the boy if the only support he has crumbles away?”

Y’rid stared at the man for a moment.

Chances are I won’t survive?

“No,” Y’rid said shaking his head, though whether it was to support his answer or to deny the hint of fear that crept into his mind, he did not know.

“I still want to join. If my choices are between living a life that isn’t a life, abandoning a child who relies on me or taking a chance at gaining the strength I need, Then there really is no choice at all.”

Rhone looked at him, his pale red eyes locked onto his own. After a few moments, he simply sighed.

“I’ll tell Holin what you said. He is the one who brought it up.”

“Thank you,” Y’rid replied.

“Don’t thank me yet.”

They continued to walk in silence for a few minutes before Kali and the boy showed up falling into step alongside them. Hadi was carrying a clear crystal with a blue centre that glowed in the sunlight. The whole thing was about the size of the boy’s forearm. A smile stretched across his face as he stared at it.

Y’rid could not blame him. He had never seen such a thing and he had to admit it was beautiful. The crystal seemed to have tiny impurities inside of it that created the illusion of movement as Hadi spun it around in his hands.

He wanted to take a closer look himself but seeing the expression of wonder on the boy’s face he simply let it be.

Kali seemed to pick up on the strange atmosphere between Y’rid and Rhone and gave the man a questioning look to which he only shook his head. She frowned for a moment before shrugging and began to tell Hadi of a circle of great trees far to the east that were so tall that their top branches pierced the clouds. And of the half-beast warriors who lived in them wielding blades and arrows of crystal against any monsters who intruded onto their lands. The boy hung onto her words and, after a while, Y’rid found himself drawn into the tale as well.

***

It took them another hour to reach their destination. Sounds of relief ran through the crowd as the makeshift camp came into view. A few knights in black armour were patrolling the perimeter of the camp. To the one side, an orderly line of tents stood next to a row of d’yari while on the other side a trio of lavish carriages was stationed with a few more of the Blackguard standing guard around them.

A few more caravans and carriages could be seen further into the camp, though these were much less ornate and guarded by mercenaries wearing a mixture of leather and steel. Off to one side, a crowd of civilians could be seen sitting and lying in the shade of the tall trees.

The Blackguard patrolling the area were the first to notice them, one of them running to the camp to report the situation.

A few moments later another of the Blackguard, this one wearing a red pauldron on his right shoulder, came out of a large tent and walked towards them.

“Did you lot come from Riversedge.”

Even though it was phrased as a question, it clearly was not.

“Yeah, we brought them here,” Rhone replied from near the front ignoring the man’s tone.

The guard turned towards him, his eyes widening for an instant as the man’s red gaze met his. The guard then nodded.

“I’ll inform the city lord of your arrival. You can move to the civilian area over there,” the man replied pointing at the group of people in the shade of the trees.

“Sure,” Rhone said in an easy-going tone as he walked towards the area with the rest of the crowd following.

They quickly arrived at the group. Some of their own immediately went over to others they knew, warmly greeting them as they never thought they would see each other again. Other simply found a spot and laid down, exhausted from the travel.

Rhone and Kali found a place a little away from the rest of the people and sat down. Motioning for Hadi to join them Y’rid turned and walked towards the woods, when nature called you had to respond.

As he made his way, he scanned through the camp until his eyes caught onto a particular caravan standing by itself away from the rest of the camp. The caravan’s sides were covered in glowing runes pulsating with a light visible even in at this distance. On the front of the caravan sat a girl Y’rid recognised. It was the mage’s apprentice he had met in the tower.

So they made it?

It didn’t really come as a surprise to him. In fact, if anyone was to make it he supposed that spot would go to the man seemingly capable of breaking the rules of reality.

Pushing the thought out of his head he made his way past the perimeter of the Blackguard and into the forest, stepping over roots and around bushes. It was not easy going but eventually the camp disappeared from sight.

After he had relieved himself and was making his way back he heard a shout just as the camp came into view.

“You there! Stop!”

Y’rid paused and looked to the side see one of the patrolling Blackguard walking his way.

“Where did you come from?” The man questioned.

Y’rid pointed over his shoulder to the forest.

“I went to take a piss.”

“The rules specifically state that if you want to relieve yourself you have to go in groups of at least two, where is the other person who went with you?” the man asked.

“I didn’t know. I just got here with the new people,” Y’rid said looking confused.

Why would they go in groups?

The man narrowed his eyes and looked him over before his gaze stopped on the sword Y’rid carried.

“Where did you get that?” The man asked, his hand closing onto the hilt of the sword at his side. “That’s a Blackguard’s sword.”

Y’rid’s heart began to pound in his chest. He doubted this man would believe him even if he told the truth, in fact, he seemed on the verge of attacking him. Y’rid mentally prepared himself for a fight as he opened his mouth to speak.

“I-“

“Is it?” A familiar voice interrupted him just as he began.

Both he and the guard turned towards the sound to see a man leaning against a tree a just few feet away. How neither he nor the guard had heard him approach was beyond Y’rid.

Holin relaxed against the tree with one hand resting on the hilt of one of his swords. An easy-going smile that stretched across his face yet didn’t seem to reach his eyes. His focus centred on the guard causing the man to take a step backwards as his red eyes made themselves known.

“Doesn’t look like one to me. Must be a trick of the light,” he continued.

The guard looked around for support but found no one. Hesitantly he started to repeat himself.

“The rules-“

“Require people to go out in groups. Does the two of us not count as a group?” Holin interrupted the man.

“You weren’t here-“

“Now how would you know that? You didn’t seem to notice me earlier,” The smile on face stretched a bit further causing the guard’s face to drain of colour.

“I’m glad we agree. Run along now.” Holin said his free hand making a shooing gesture.

The guard hesitated for only a moment longer before turning and retreating at a fast pace.

“Thank you,” Y’rid said. “I didn’t know they had such rules, in fact why do they?”

“Hmm?” Holin asked turning his attention towards him. “It’s quite common actually, it’s a preventative measure against shapeshifters as they rarely travel in groups. Of course, a shapeshifter could easily have killed the guard but the method’s obvious holes haven’t made it any less popular.

Come on, we only have a few hours of light left, and we have a lot to do.”

With that, the man turned around and started walking off leaving Y’rid standing with a confused expression on his face.

“What do we have to do?” Y’rid asked, hurrying to catch up with him as he seemed to glide over the ground, his steps smooth and soundless.

Holin looked over his shoulder as he walked.

“Rhone told me you want to join the order,” he said with a grin that seemed a bit sadistic as his eyes focused on him. Y’rid couldn’t help but draw a sharp breath.

“It’s time for some basic training.”