Chapter 3 - Storm A-brewing

Melodi watched as the city of Quiroso faded in the distance. She couldn’t help but feel a little gloomy. Instead of enjoying the festival a little more, she had been forced by her teacher into the back of a wagon on a rocky road.

“We still had a few days of the festival left. Why’d we have to leave so soon?” She glanced at her teacher sitting next to her in the wagon. Melos glared at her.

“Because I said so. And if we stayed any longer, the guards would've eventually found out. And someone here decided to fool around instead of coming back straight to me."

"Just who is that boy?" Melodi avoided his glare and glumly looked at the boy sitting in the middle of the wagon.

"Don't know." Melos shrugged. "I was just hired to retrieve him. Now I need to get him to Antiqua. Quick, easy job. No need for questions."

"Antiqua? Where’s that? And if this is supposed to your job, then why did you make me do it?" Melodi grumbled.

"Well... I'm not very welcome in Quiroso. Hell, I’m not welcome anywhere in Sentulus."

"Sentulus?"

"Stop asking so many questions at once and let me answer them.” Melos grumbled. “First off, Sentulus is a country. Antiqua is one too.” Melos took out a dagger and stabbed it into the wooden floor of the wagon. He began to carve out a crescent moon. The points of the crescent pointed left.

“This right here is the continent of Alurca. Its name means the moon in some language, hence the shape.”

“In what language?”

Melos clicked his tongue. “Didn’t I just say to give the questions a break?” He sighed and continued. “In some language that I don’t know. Anyways, right here is Sentulus.” He pointed at the southern part of the crescent moon. “It’s fertile land, well suited for farming and the such. There are many hills in this country, and Sentulus’ most well-known seven cities are built upon the most prominent hills. And one of those cities is Quiroso, the one we just left. They’re holding a festival right now to celebrate the birthdays of their twin lords.”

Melos then pointed at the northern part of the moon. “And this is Antiqua. It’s a desert country that doesn’t associate itself with Sentulus that much. They send trade ships to each other, but that’s about all. And we’re going to board one of those trade ships and sail to Antiqua where my client is waiting before we get into any more trouble.”

“We’re going on a ship? Isn’t Antiqua just north of Sentulus? Why are we sailing-” Before Melodi could finish her barrage of questions, Melos smacked her on the head.

“Firstly, once we get on a ship, we won’t have to worry about anyone pursuing us. Secondly, we can’t just directly move north.” Melos began to carve little triangles in the middle of the crescent moon. “This right here is the country of Monsigna. They’ve built their cities upon the mountain range, so the path is blocked.”

“Why don’t-” Melos instantly shut Melodi up with a glare.

“We can’t go through Monsigna because Sentulus just happened to get out of a 10 year long war with them. There were many factors involved in the reasons for that war. But to put it simply, Sentulus had a controversial King rise to the throne, and Monsigna saw this as a chance to attack. Sentulus managed to emerge victorious, not through pure strength, but through atrophy really. Monsigna’s land isn’t suited very well for agriculture, so Sentulus just prolonged the war until they couldn’t use any more resources. Now that the war is over, the fighting’s stopped but the bad relations have worsened. So there’s little chance that we could cross Monsigna without being stopped.”

“Which is why we are sailing?”

“Yep. We’re headed to Viminello, the city on the coasts of Alurca.” Melos pointed at the very southern point of the crescent. “It’s the biggest port city, so there’s likely a trade ship that we can board there. It’s about three days worth of traveling from Quiroso to Viminello, so we’ve got some time.” Melos let out a sigh. “There. I answered your questions, so just shut up and let me sleep.”

Melos closed his eyes and leaned back against the wagon. Melodi looked at Melos; it was obvious that she had more questions to ask. The wagon continued onwards for a few minutes before Melodi gave up.

“When are you going to teach me?” Melodi blurted out suddenly. Melos opened up one eye and looked at her. And he smirked.

“Well let’s start your training right now.”

“Really?” Melodi straightened up with excitement.

“Yep.” Melos stood up and grabbed Melodi’s arm. Before she could react, Melos picked her up and threw her off the wagon. She fell and landed on the ground very unceremoniously.

“What the hell!” Melodi cursed as she quickly got up. She ran back towards the wagon as it sped away. As she reached out her hand to grab on, a dagger came from above and stabbed at her. She quickly drew her hand back with a yelp.

“Hey! What are you doing?” She yelled. Melos sat on the wagon, looking at her with a lazy grin on his face. He twirled a long dagger in his right hand.

“This is your training. You’re not going to get any stronger sitting on this wagon. So you’re going to run instead.”

Melodi looked at him with wide eyes. “You can’t be serious…”

“Oh but I am.” Melos span the dagger on his fingertip. “Unless you’re no longer fond of your fingers anymore.”

Melodi clenched her teeth and ran after the wagon, tears in her eyes.

As Melos and Melodi began their training session, neither of them noticed the dark storm brewing behind them. A giant of a man sat in a wagon of his own, following the path right behind Melos and Melodi. He had a long scar on his face that seemed to pulse with a life of its own. Normally, it was pale and dull, showing its age. But today, it was red and angry.

As the scarred man sat, he rubbed the hilt of his sword. Like the storm above him, he seemed like he was about to burst with thunder and lightning. The driver of the wagon glanced back at the man in the back, but the man completely ignored him. Which was good for the driver, because the driver was very afraid of the man and the large blade he carried. He already regretted agreeing to take the man as a passenger. He whipped the reins of the horses to goad them a little faster. He just wanted this journey to be over as quickly as possible.