Ralnor

A bag of bones

In the old days,

creatures came out of the sea

looked like people,

but such people no one had ever seen

they walked ‘n watched, still behind every reef,

then caused much mischief

—

Ancient Zilan lullaby

Unknown date

Such a waste of perfectly fine flesh.

The man had died staring at the dark branches over his head. Or perhaps, he’d opted in those agonizing final moments, to glance for a final time at the sky and then died wallowing in disappointment. Rot had set in a day later at the most, turned those eyes milky, the bugs getting at them next, leaving two sinister black caverns behind. The smell putrid and stomach-turning and the Issir laid next to him -once a friend, or foe- didn’t fare, or smelled, any better.

“I think, I’m gonna puke,” Mezera gasped, standing way back at the edge of the forest, the funeral pyres still smoking behind her. Several of them, small burning mounts sprouting at regular intervals, inside the remnants of the Prince’s war camp.

“Stay with her,” Ralnor advised, a little annoyed.

“I don’t know where she went.”

Vanity and lack of intelligence make for horrible partners, he thought and pressed further inside the woods. Perhaps someone had survived the fight, then remained hidden in the chaos that followed and hopefully died more recently.

Ralnor found more corpses as he moved through the trees. Mostly Cofols, but there were Issirs and Lorians mixed in. Dragged by their mounts, too injured to regain control, until they dropped and bled out, before getting eaten by predators. The dead had decomposed fast, their soft flesh melted away, or consumed, whatever was left un-eatable. The forest would claim the remains inside a month, leave nothing behind, but rusting armor and bloody weapons.

Forty three corpses later, Ralnor reached an opening. A stream running amidst the tall trees, narrow enough he crossed it with a stride and found the first set of armor, neatly arranged in a pile. He kneeled and checked the weapons, looked around him for tracks and finding what he was looking for, he followed it. Over the stream to the other side and into the woods again. Ralnor found a second set of armor and a third.

Lorian weapons. Riders of Raoz. What were you doing so far into the woods? Why not ride the other way, or towards the river? What happened to the horses?

At first he thought, the moldy disgusting pile was excrement. The stench so horrible that even him, well-versed and older that most trees in this part of the woods recoiled. Ralnor gasped, his eyes watering and it took him a long moment to recover enough, to stoop again and examine the rotting pile of flesh. Soft and gluey, a shocking green and blue amidst the crimson, the soil under it sick and vile. The strips of rotted flesh long, a palm wide and one rather long slice, even holding the remains of a decomposing nipple.

No animal has done this, he thought getting up. And no animal had dared approach since, to claim this meal.

The sound of a small fire crackling alarmed him, although he was already tensed. Near, perhaps twenty meters, even less. Ralnor moved through the trees, the canopy above him thick and the light lessening with each stride. He proceeded without hurrying, the forest eerie silent, as if it was holding its breath.

Or it stood traumatized.

Ralnor went into the thick shadow of an oak tree, when another small clearing appeared suddenly, the fire burning at its middle bright. He’d touched the moist trunk with a palm, to cast the spell, taking care to make no noise. Not that he could, the skill being second nature to him, having learned to move silently, when he was still a youngling. Brass and fearless. Easily duped and fascinated by the stories of the Realm. The stories Edlenn loved most of all. In the old days, the dead sorceress used to say, before the wars, creatures came out of the sea. They looked like people, but they were not.

The Issir man, broad back naked and wearing a loincloth, turned slowly and looked his way. Ralnor licked his lips, but kept his calm. The Lorian standing two feet to the Issir’s right, got up from his spot and turned his head towards him as well. Ralnor reached for his curved shaft hatchet and released it from its sheath.

They can’t see you, he repeated to his worrying brain. No spell was cast.

To counter his.

The third man didn’t turn. He kept clearing something with a thin long knife and then threw it in a large leather bag, he had next to his right leg. He appeared very tall and lanky, despite seating on an upturned flat rock. The man had a hood over his head hiding his eyes. Ralnor could see his pointy jaw clench as he worked diligently with his hands.

Breathing slowly, the two men still staring in his general way, Ralnor backed away, deciding this wasn’t worth the risk. He wasn’t a youngling anymore, and while curious, the whole incident had rattled him.

Never start a fight, when distracted, or unsure and Lithoniela materializing in front of him, proved the dictum correct. She frowned sensing him so near, regal face spilling some of her annoyance in it, but quickly regained her aloof composure and froze in place, when Ralnor came out of the shadows, a finger on his lips, urging her to keep quiet.

“I have no meal to offer,” The man wearing the hood said, without looking up. Lithoniela raised a cobalt eyebrow Ralnor envied, as they both turned towards the fire and the three men. The one that had spoken, threw whatever it was he worked on into the leather bag and reaching closed it shut this time.

“Who are you?” Lithoniela asked, despite Ralnor’s grimaces of annoyance. There was no way they had been spotted, he thought furious, nor any reason to engage.

“A visitor,” The man said, his words coming out swishing and incoherent, his common almost ineligible. “Step into the light, weary travelers.”

“Were you at the battle?” Lithoniela asked moving towards the opening, Ralnor grinding his teeth at the folly of nobility.

“We arrived after it,” The man said. Lithoniela walked through the two still eerie standing men and stopped in front of him. Ralnor, sharp hatchet still in hand, eyed the Issir, waiting for a reason to cut him down. The man shrugged his shoulders slowly, turned and walked near his friend. They both sat down, in the spots they held, when Ralnor had first reached their creepy camp, in the middle of nowhere.

“Do you know if Prince Sahand’s wife traveled with him?” Lithoniela asked, as if she was interrogating a guard at her palace.

“Mistress,” Ralnor grunted, livid she was giving away information, without getting anything in return.

“Ah, there it is,” The man swished and Ralnor could see his skin was white, from the mouth, down to his neck. Painted. “Are you her friends then, or enemies?”

You see, Edlenn used to say turning the worms he’d gathered into flowers, they could walk and talk. But they weren’t individuals. Each was as the other, despite their differences and sometimes there was none. They thought the same and served one master. Or so we thought.

Ralnor turned his attention on the two men, now watching him with their dead eyes. One of them smiled and a second later his friend followed.

“We would like to see her,” Lithoniela explained, not realizing to whom she was talking to. There were no monsters in the Palace, or her cradle, Ralnor thought, taking a step back. Not when a Wyvern was guarding it.

“I pray you do Zilan,” The man replied and used that long knife to stir the fire. His arm impossibly long and veiny, painted white as well. “Don’t be alarmed,” He added, seeing her stunned at the revelation. “As I said, we’re visitors,” With that he grabbed his heavy loaded bag, the contents clattering inside and stood up. Well over two heads taller than Lithoniela and Ralnor. “I will leave you the fire,” The Aken hissed, snake tongue slipping in and out of his mouth. He set his eyes on the incredibly tensed Ralnor, his fingers clenching the hatchet so hard, his knuckles had turned white. “The past is long dead, pupil of Nym.”

“What was that?” Lithoniela asked, when the three men disappeared into the woods, heading towards the river. “Was that an Aken?”

Ralnor let the breath he was holding out and collapsed on the flat stone the creature was resting on.

“You shouldn’t have said anything,” He finally said, putting the hatchet away.

“I asked him where your friend was,” Lithoniela replied with a frown. “Why?”

“It was a risk, what if they attacked us?”

“We are not at war with them, Ralnor,” She noted and then grimaced. “This forest is sick, I don’t like this. Too much death.”

“Yeah,” Ralnor replied and got up. “Better get back then.”

“I’ve never met an Aken before,” Lithoniela told him, on the return trip. The experience somehow had lifted her spirits. An unexpected positive out of the encounter, since Ralnor have had enough of her mourning over the loss of the Reeves spawn. Whatever there was Lithoniela had thought, she‘d seen in him, it wasn’t enough to save the young noble.

Of course she’d kept those details private and Ralnor hadn’t earned her trust enough to press her to learn them. In a sense she was very much like Aelrindel in this. They couldn’t hide their belief he was inferior, a lesser person. It spilled out of them, in little signs and tells, subtle looks and the way their songs wavered unsure, when he was around.

That and they perhaps feared his profession and skillset a little.

Hmm.

“What do you think, he had in that bag?” The daughter of Baltoris asked, her eyes turning a pale blue to entice the answer out of him. While a childish attempt, Ralnor, a very solidary creature, felt flattered.

And then he admonished himself for selling out so easily.

Ralnor sighed, his inner turmoil probably a byproduct of the dangerous encounter, his partner hadn’t even sensed, or felt remotely threatened by and replied with one word.

“Bones.”