Glen

Garth Aniculo

Ruins of the Realm

A week into their journey, one of the Cofol horses died. You won’t hear this detail in tales, or tavern songs, bards avoiding the mundane like the plague these days. Always aggrandizing their retellings, putting more stuff in, to make up for the ‘not as important’ things, they’ve taken out.

In the end, stories reflect the bard’s character, which is why perhaps, more heroes appear familiar do-gooders, or low-key crooks, pretending to be good people, Glen thought, pulling at the reins to stop Outlaw.

Anyway, the horse just died on its feet, no sound made. It toppled to the side, hit the soft desert sand and bounced once, then slid half-a-meter to the edge of the dune peak they were following, went over it and disappeared from sight.

Although you could hear it tumbling down the slope.

RREEH?

Biscuit is darn right, “Shit, now what?” Glen asked, turning around on the saddle, the night almost gone.

“Ah, you just get our stuff on the other horse,” Flix explained, Gimoss riding alongside him, hands crossed on his chest and rigid as a board per usual, staring at the waning stars above, quite engrossed.

Glen groaned and jumped down. The terrain tricky, the sand moving under his boots, until he sunk some in it. “We are going down there?”

“See if there’s anything worth the trouble first,” Flix elucidated some more. “Better to camp on this side of the dune.”

You’re going down solo, was his meaning.

“Can you help?” Glen asked, the half-healed corpse. Well, Gimoss still looked like a dead person, decently preserved, large black and green welts on his body and face, one eye white, the other… weird and the patches of hair on his dilapidated head not helping.

“Hah,” The corpse retorted. “Haha… hah!”

Glen puffed his cheeks out. “Is that a yes?”

It was.

Glen started down the slope, the sand moving, everything shifting, boots sinking at places, gliding at others. He cursed the desert, intending to go on a legendary tirade, but half-a-minute in, Glen kind of spotted the dead horse at the bottom of the large sand dune and focused on that instead.

For about another minute.

Then Gimoss, who was following him, walking down the slope much like he rode every night, looking straight ahead and inflexibly proud, flew past him. The corpse didn’t sprout wings, -that would’ve been too weird- he just lurched forward, after he tripped, head hitting the soft sand, the momentum catapulting him past a stunned Glen, down the almost fifty meters to the bottom. Gimoss managed another four complete somersaults, feet over head and in complete silence, before crashing right next to the dead horse.

Ruining the illusion, he’d perhaps performed the whole stand on purpose.

“Luthos bloody turd!” Glen gasped, gliding down the slope to reach him. Flix was heard chuckling from the top, finding the whole situation hilarious.

Gimoss got up, just as Glen reached the bottom himself, the coming dawn turning the sky a deep red above their heads. The corpse put a dirty index finger in his mouth, dug around for a bit and then slang the gathered material away, mostly mud from swallowed sand and spit.

Hopefully.

It was disgusting.

“Hmm,” Gimoss declared, sand still pouring out of his pants and sleeves.

More left on his ghastly teeth.

RRREEH?

“Yeah,” Glen agreed, Biscuit had made the journey lodged on his back and now jumped down and hopped towards the dead horse and the… corpse. “Are you all right there? It was… quite the fuckin’ drop.”

Gimoss grunted.

Glen stared at the dead horse. Biscuit had reached it and was now working feverishly, scratching with his talons, biting at the saddle’s leather bindings and making funny guttural sounds.

“Wanna give me a hand? The little guy is doing all he can,” Glen asked the corpse. Gimoss was staring at the slope, he’d come down from.

“Order that cock-pleasuring whore down here,” He spat. Then spat some more, tongue working on his front teeth troubled.

“Why?” Glen asked patiently and turned hearing strange sounds coming from the dead horse.

“It’s stupid to climb that, laden with supplies,” Gimoss explained, making a whole lot of sense suddenly, although Glen was still looking at the dead horse, a frown on his tanned face.

“Where’s Biscuit?” He asked and Gimoss turned to give him a stern stare.

“The idiot toddler?” The corpse queried.

“Aye. He was there, just a moment ago.”

“Pfft, he’s there still. Inside,” Gimoss replied and raised his creepy eye to the sky. “Stars are all wrong.” He added, this time making no sense at all.

Glen blinked and stared at the shuddering belly of the large animal.

“How do we get him out of there?” He asked, leaving the latter part alone.

It was a thorny subject for the dead wyvern.

“What’s the point?”

“Can he breathe?”

“Hmm, how should I know?” Gimoss said, with a shrug.

“You were a plaguin’ wyvern?” A miffed Glen pointed out.

Gimoss frowned, thought about it some and then sighed deeply.

“Get that harlot down here.”

Right, Glen thought and turned to call Flix, still waiting at the top of the large dune, when Biscuit burst screaming out of the torn horse’s belly, in a thunderous explosion of guts and blood, almost giving the young former thief, a heart attack.

“Haha,” Gimoss gurgled, seeing him falter holding his chest. “Hah… haha!”

RRRRREEEE

“No stay!” Glen snapped, pushing Biscuit away, the small wyvern covered in gore and a mixture of mud made of sand, entrails and blood. “Clean yourself up, buddy!”

Biscuit glared at him, then burped loudly. It turned into a part-cough, part-croak as if something had lodged in his throat.

“If he dies,” Gimoss commented staring at his shenanigans, with a critical freakish eye. “I’ll take his talons. These weak-arse fingernails are good for nothing!”

Glen gave him a warning stare and Flix who ended up keeping almost nothing of the ruined stuff tied on the dead and torn apart horse, sucked on his lit pipe, with closed eyes, before talking.

“We need to find shade, or move towards the knolls,” He said calmly. “Sun is almost up.”

Glen stared at the distance, the endless dunes interrupted by a real mound of limestone, the top of it flat, as if cut by a sharp knife. The solid mountain wall itself pretty huge, for a knoll.

“That’s an hour away, even two. You expect to find shade there, Flix?”

“I might. Here though, we might as well burry ourselves in the sand.”

Ahm.

He turned to ask Gimoss for input, sometimes the corpse did offer useful ideas, but he’d climbed his horse already, hands crossed on his chest, the right still swollen, half the fingers on it crooked, the forearm curving unnaturally. Gimoss stared at the sky one more time, despite no stars being visible and then got the horse going towards the mountain sprouting out of the desert.

“Right,” Glen said and glanced at Flix. The Gish shrugged his shoulders, the cloth cover he had on his head, a strange construct like a small canopy, twice the size of normal straw hat, back in its place. “I guess, we get going.”

They reached Gimoss twenty minutes later, the corpse riding straight without waiting for them. Biscuit, who Glen had forced on a different horse at the back of the line, managed to reach his, half-flying and half-jumping and climbed on his back again, long tail wrapping around his waist for support.

“He’s cleaner now,” Flix commented, seeing him rolling his eyes in despair.

“How did you manage that?” Glen asked and got a snort in reply and a lick on his damaged ear.

“Used the horses hide,” Flix said with a chuckle, adding in between chortles. “You need to feed him more.”

“He just ate through a fuckin’ horse!” Glen snapped and Biscuit burped loudly at that. “See? He agrees with me!”

RRRRRR

“Hey,” Glen yelled at the still leading their group Gimoss. The corpse riding rigid, back straight and arms always crossed on his chest. “How much does he need to eat? We’re running low on biscuits.”

“Huh?” Gimoss grunted and turned to look at them. “Fuck should I know?”

“Ahm, you were a wyvern?” Glen repeated shaking his head. “Where did you come from then?”

“Come from where, when?” Gimoss queried.

Glen sighed. “Flix told me the story. You weren’t born on Eplas.”

“Hmm. Were you?”

“No. What’s that got to do, with my question?”

“It’s the same answer fool!” Gimoss snapped and turned his head forward again.

Good grief.

“There is no other continent right?” Glen insisted and Flix hissed in frustration. “What? He can clear the argument in no time,” He told the old Gish, his face under heavy shade, despite the sun burning over their heads. Glen needed to learn how to make these gigantic ‘canopy hats’, he could feel his brain slowly boiling in his skull.

“There was more green,” Gimoss replied, his voice reminiscing, though still creepy and guttural due to his throat only partially working.

His words.

“Like forests?” Glen probed, to get him going.

“Green, hmm.”

Great. At least we got that out of the plaguin’ way!

“You are talking about another continent right?” Glen insisted.

“I don’t remember the name,” Gimoss said.

“Mistland,” Flix said.

“Was that the harlot? Tell him he is wrong.”

Flix murmured under his breath.

“So no name?” Glen continued.

“There were two mountains like this one, but apart,” Gimoss said, disregarding his query. “Perhaps a little taller. Creating a valley between them, nice flat terrain running through it. Green. I build a wall. Solid rock blocks, from base to the top, barred the approach and sealed it shut.”

Wow, Glen thought.

“How tall?”

Gimoss smacked his lips and glanced at the wall of limestone, they had approached, before turning his horse using his knees, towards the end of it. They had to navigate big boulders to get there, as the sand gave away to more solid ground near the base of the mountain.

“Where is he going?” Flix asked.

“Ahm, I’ve no idea,” Glen replied. “We should stay on this side.”

“Just follow him for now,” Flix said with a sigh. “You have any water left? I’m out.”

“Nah.”

“You’re lying, Garth.”

“Yep.”

There was no shame in that, Glen thought.

Gimoss rounded the flat ridge to get to the other side, the terrain scorching, as they were well past the time for a break. Traveling during the day bordered suicide, it was as simple as that. The living corpse paused, when he reached his destination and looked around the bombarded landscape, collapsed rocks peppering the ground, big boulders cracked and split all around them, but the mountain wall ended at that point. About a kilometer beyond its dry yellow-white slopes, the flat desert started again. The sands shifting at the distance like an ocean’s waters.

A golden sea.

“Hmm. A wall,” Gimoss told them, looking at this field of rocks. The sides of the limestone mountain appearing cut, where they were not collapsed.

“Ah, aye… you’ve told us about that,” Glen noted, stopping a snorting Outlaw next to his mount.

Gimoss turned to stare at him, left pupil split right in the middle, one part blue and the other green. “There’s a wall,” He repeated and raised a hand to point at it.

Glen smacked his lips, turned his eyes to the spot Gimoss was indicating, then squinted trying to make out boulders from large pieces of rock and failing.

“I think he’s right,” Flix commented and reached to get his pipe out. “Not much of it.”

Then Glen saw it as well. A two meter protrusion, made of cut limestone blocks, the size of large bricks. Well, he thought a little dejected and pressed his knees to urge the mount forward. I would’ve found it myself.

“There’s another half-wall over there!” He roared to get some of the credit, stopping and climbing down the saddle the next moment. “More ruins, me thinks. Is this a city, Gish?”

Flix sucked on his pipe and blew the smoke out of his nostrils.

“More like a village.”

“You know of it?” Glen inquired, walking to the remnants of a house, the heat coming from the brittle rocks nigh uncomfortable.

“I don’t.”

“But you’ve been here before?” Glen insisted.

“I have. It’s been more than a hundred years. This, I don’t remember. The desert sands move, Garth.”

Right.

“We can make shade here,” Glen suggested. “Unless there’re spiders lurking, or something?” The latter he said to Gimoss, who had come down his horse as well and was now staring at the vertical sides of the mountain.

“A quarry,” Gimoss replied, probably not to Glen’s question. “Turned into an outpost.”

“You know of it?”

Gimoss grunted and turned around to walk behind a cracked massive boulder, without answering and that was the end of that particular conversation.

“I swear on Luthos toes,” Glen said an hour later, the shade created by a blanket they had managed to attach to the wall, then secured on two straight long sticks, providing little comfort. He gulped down some of his water, warm as piss and smelling of old leather, sweat rivulets running down his tanned face and neck. The front of his tunic soaked. “He’s incapable of making simple conversation.”

“It’s a miracle, he talks. The fact he also walks about and is apparently healing, borders the bizarre.”

Flix was not in a good mood. Glen tossed him his flask of water.

“Gratitude,” The old Gish said.

“We need to find more,” Glen warned him. “You don’t look well.”

“I’ll be fine,” Flix replied stubbornly.

“I’ll go find Gimoss,” Glen said, not believing him. “See what he’s up to.”

“I’ll join you in a moment.”

Glen glanced at his pale face. “Take yer time.”

The corpse stood next to a thick wall of cut granite, it towered over him. It was made out of four large pieces of it in fact, lined on top of each other, the ground flattened around it, desert sand blowing over what appeared to be the outline of a square building. The only intact part of it left standing that which Gimoss was examining. The insides of this unknown ruined building impressive, although covered in a thin layer of sand. It measured at least twenty meters in length and as much in width. Glen had walked the darn thing to make certain. A perfect square.

“What is this?” He asked, wiping his sweaty face. “Where’s the rest of the granite?”

“Cleaned out,” Gimoss replied.

“As in stolen?” Glen guffawed. “Hah, who would do that, in the middle of the fucking desert?”

“I meant pushed down, glided if you prefer,” Gimoss explained, showing a line of darker stone debris about fifty meters away and at the bottom of the slight slope across from their camp.

“Tumbled?” Glen queried, spotting more material, half-covered in sand. The desert was encroaching near the small plateau, determined to claim it again. “Huh? And went that far?”

“If the building was tall enough. A collapsing wall could reach quite the distance.”

Glen blinked. “How tall was your wall?”

Gimoss crossed his arms to his chest, all indignant. “No less than four hundred meters!”

What?

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve built that darn thing!”

“Yourself? Wow!”

“I used labor!”

Glen sighed. “Gods, will ye calm down? Did you pay them?”

Gimoss glared at him. “Do you pay the cutthroat?”

“Ahm, so they were slaves?” Glen asked. “How many?”

“What does it matter?” Gimoss grunted, sounding frustrated. “They were labor and food. That’s it.”

Glen gulped down, his throat dry again.

RRRR

“Stay with Flix buddy,” He told Biscuit, the small wyvern approaching, walking on his awkward hind-legs. “So you blocked a canyon and built… a nest?” He tried again, using his boot to stab hard at the ground, the hollow sound coming from underneath, informing him this was a floor after all.

“A nest? What nonsense! I built a fucking warehouse!” Gimoss blasted him. “Biggest there was!”

“Alright then,” Glen said quickly to calm him down. “What did you put inside?” He asked trying again with his boot, Biscuit choosing that moment to jump on him. Glen raised his arms to catch the screeching wyvern that managed to kind of fly the distance, using its bat-like leathery wings, twist its long scaly body between his outstretched hands and smack him hard on the chest, with a squealing cackle. The boot came down harder than he would’ve preferred, the limestone floor tiles cracking, the wooden supports under them rotted away a while back and Glen, by then falling backwards with arms flailing, a panicked look on his face, realized he might’ve made a mistake.

RRRRREEEEEEE

Biscuit shrieked in excitement, Glen following suit, but less so, his back hitting the hard tiles and going through them the next moment, everything breaking around him, pieces exploding outwards, most of the floor caving in.

It wasn’t a big drop and there was enough dust and sand in the room he ended up, along with ancient webbing and a large table that turned to fine powder the moment Glen landed on it, to barely cut down his momentum.

“GAH!” Glen groaned, bouncing once off the dark room’s tiled floor and rolling to the side, Biscuit landing next to him a moment later, those large burgundy eyes glowing like torches. “Fuck it, argh… god damnit!” He cursed, feeling his back broken.

That little shit almost killed me!

“What happened?” Flix asked, voice coming from the large hole above his head. It thankfully send plenty of light down the dark massive underground room, Glen was laid into groaning in pain.

“He fell into the hole,” Gimoss replied, sounding bored.

“Garth!” Flix yelled. “I’ll get a rope. Use the lightstone!”

“I can see just fine, Gish!” Glen spat, with a grimace of discomfort and got up.

“Check the walls for Arachne!” Flix insisted and Glen almost jumped out of his skin, all his pain forgotten. He got the lightstone out, smacked it a couple of times to get it working, cursing its lineage, when it didn’t immediately, head snapping right and left energetically to catch any suspicious movement.

RREH?

“Shut up, ye little bugger,” Glen hissed. “Check over that corner.”

“Hey, fool,” Gimoss said, stooping dangerously over the opening, three meters over Glen’s head.

“What?” Glen snapped.

“It’s empty,” The corpse reassured him. “But there might be another floor under your feet, so this time don’t jump around too much. Get it? Haha… hah. Hahaha!”

The corpse’s joke flying over Glen’s head.

“Pull at the bloody rope!” Glen yelled -more a screech- the falling dust smarting his eyes. He was tied with the hemp rope along the waist and holding it with both arms.

“I have it tied to a horse!” Flix yelled back at him, the old Gish obviously under a lot of stress, the young thief decided. Him spending time exploring the ruin, getting on Flix’s nerves probably.

In the end getting out, was a two minutes affair, the strong light and heat of the desert almost as unwelcome as the pain on his battered back. At least Biscuit had enjoyed the ride greatly, his sense of fun pedestrian at best.

“What did you do down there?” Flix asked him, while Glem gulped down water greedily, pouring some on his head to finish it off, under the old Gish’s scrutiny.

“Looked about,” Glen croaked and wiped his face with a cloth Flix gave him. “There were some interesting frescoes on the walls, not much else. Everything else had turned to dust.”

The loot was nowhere to be found.

Flix sighed.

“What kind? Imperial?”

Glen shrugged his shoulders. “I wouldn’t know, twas a painted map. A big ole thing, wall to wall, not all of it clear though.”

“A map of Eplas?” Flix asked, taking the flask to have some water, finding little left, the dark circles under his eyes twice the size of what they were the other day.

“Of both continents,” Glen replied. “This place is called Tarsos, for example,” He turned his eyes towards the east. “We need to head that way.”

“Not without water Garth,” Flix argued, sounding tired. “We are running low.”

“There’s water here, where the mines used to be,” Glen replied with a smug grin and then turned to stare at a silent Gimoss. “I think I know, where you came from.”

“Did it show Wetull?” Flix asked him, now intrigued.

“It did,” Glen said and walked towards his horse, minding to avoid the large gaping hole on the floor. “Cities and everything.”