Glen

Arguen Garth

Hardir O’ Fardor

Law of the Trade

“Stop!” Glen grunted an hour and ten stops later. Jinx sighed and helped him sit on the ground, glancing at the base of the staircase a couple of meters away.

“Don’t you want to sit on the stairs?” she asked and Glen groaned and bend at the waist to remove a pebble from his maimed foot. Having a flap of skin dangling in front of his eyes didn’t help his fragile mood.

“I’ll sit wher’ I god darn like!”

“Ye don’t have to shout—”

“I’ll shout as much as I god darn like!” Glen bellowed twice as loud and ‘Cat’ started hissing and jumping about excited.

Glen eyed the cub’s acrobatics for a moment and sighed. “I can’t walk anymore Whisper. I’m done,” he said much calmer now and stared at his injured left hand. He’d three nails ripped out there and worn the tip of his fingers to the bone going down. While the healing potion had stabilized his condition and stemmed the bleeding, there was a lot of damage done to him in the lioness’ lair. The pain coming in jolts from surprising spots.

“Let me try to bandage it,” Jinx offered looking at his foot. There were four toes there instead of five, the outer part of it missing and he could feel the throbbing pain starting at his scrotum for some reason. “Get you out of this armour at least.”

Yeah, the armour was ruined. Parts of it hanging, the leather torn and it had holes where the lions had taken bites at him. The one on his shoulder still leaking. Flix’s potion was either useless, or he’d been too damaged to heal even hours later.

Glen stared at Jinx and the Gish smiled. “I won’t be able to climb up the stairs.”

“If that’s ye asking whether I’ll carry ye on me back, then I will,” Jinx replied sternly. “But I can’t make it up there. You’re grown too much Glen.”

“Not fat Whisper,” Glen retorted.

“Not fat,” she yielded with a tired smile and a light appeared coming from the stairs.

Ah, Glen thought seeing the shadows growing inside the ominously silent Den. The cavernous dome massive per the Zilan modus operandi. This better be good news.

“How long since I went missing?” He rustled, the sound of people coming down the staircase growing.

“Hours,” Jinx replied and reached for her new recurved bow. Made of aged yew wood, it was a beautiful weapon. She took a step to the side and placed an arrow with a steel tip on the rest, tied three of her fingers around the bow string. The back of that same hand touching her round chin.

“Nice bow,” Glen commented neutrally. “I like the engravings.”

“It’s a gift,” Jinx replied blushing and then cleared her throat and asked with a huge voice for such a small person. “WHO GOES THERE?”

Those coming down stopped making noise. A tense couple of moments followed and then Maeriel’s voice was heard coming from the dark entrance of the stairs leading back to the temple.

“It’s me Drool,” the Huntress said and Glen raised a curious brow, whilst Jinx turned a darker shade of pink. “Don’t shoot, I’m coming out.”

“Milord,” Kirk said worried and eyeing him as one does a sad hapless roadkill.

“Damn it Garth,” Sam Mathews quipped. “Did ye fall down the stairs, or something?”

Glen grunted and pretended indifference. A pretty Zilan wearing a shockingly short leather piece, pretending in turn to be a ‘dress’ being the main reason. Maeriel and Jinx kissing a meter from him, being the other. He was too distracted.

“Ayup,” he rustled. “Right into a lion’s lair.”

“That bad eh?” Sam asked and eyed the empty darkness surrounding them apprehensively. “Where’s the lion?”

“Dead,” Glen replied and eyed the pretty, long-legged Zilan with the impressive lengthy braid, kneel in front of him. “All of them, but the cub.”

Cat hissed hidden behind him and sneakily watching the newcomers with fearful glowing eyes.

“Right,” Sam replied with a grimace and then shook his head. “Can you walk?”

“He shouldn’t,” The Zilan female replied for him, with a small smile. “Hardir is injured and requires assistance.”

“Are you a healer girl?” Glen asked, pushing that piece of skin from his eyes and Maeriel stepped in to nip it in the bud.

“Elaniel is my student,” the Huntress replied. “You should tend to his wounds child without any of this foolishness!”

“Mistress,” Elaniel said with a bow and reached for her leather satchel, after removing her own bow and quiver and placing them next to her fit thighs.

Eh, that’s more a shirt. Poor thing, Glen thought and whipped his head to the side, caught Kirk ogling shamelessly. “Guard the stairs Kirk,” he ordered him in a no nonsense kind of way. “I want none o’ that.”

“Milord?” Kirk replied coming about. “Of course sire.”

“I will have to touch you,” Elaniel whispered and then placed different leaves and cut pieces of root into her mouth.

“Sure,” Glen murmured and watched her chewing mesmerized, drawn into her blue glowing orbs, before he caught himself in turn and grunted in frustration.

“Don’t do that,” he warned the naughty Zilan and she blushed as much as a giggling Jinx.

“Apologies Hardir,” Elaniel replied. “You are too handsome.”

Well, there’s a sharp lass. Glen thought, everyone finding it very funny and tension breaking, but for the old lady Maeriel that scowled at her student.

“Just try to be professional and discreet,” he cautioned her. “I’m a married man.”

“Of course Hardir,” Elaniel replied smiling. “I can be discreet.”

“That’s not what he meant child,” Maeriel intervened again. “Don’t make me ask you a third time.”

Glen frowned not getting what her problem was and then Elaniel spat the foul mixture on her palm shockingly, before using the soothing green and moist paste on his wounded foot.

“It’s a quick salve,” Maeriel explained seeing him weirded out. “Not to get it infected.”

“Ahm,” Glen mumbled staring at the Zilan massaging his hurt toes softly. “I used a healing potion, but it was old.”

“It explains why you’re still breathing,” Maeriel replied and scanned the area. “A healing potion is fine for a year. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Glen frowned. “It was a bit older than that probably.”

“Eh, it can help I guess for a couple of years, but it’s not as potent,” Maeriel reassured him. “That doesn’t mean you can forget one in a chest and use it twenty years from now. I’m not a sorceress, but I’m pretty certain that’s a death wish.”

Glen lodged his tongue in the gap of his teeth thoughtfully.

Flix probably had them for longer than that for sure.

“Do you have a fresh potion?”

“Soletha promised to make more and Vaelenn can help, when she recovers a bit. But you can’t take another for a day.”

“What happens if you do?”

“You’ll get sick depending on the time since you’ve taken the first one,” Maeriel replied. “Or slip into a coma.”

“Will it heal you?”

“Glen she just told you,” Jinx protested, but he stopped her raising his hurt hand.

“It might Hardir,” Maeriel grunted and Glen nodded having gotten what he wanted to know. You don’t always get a day of respite to heal yourself back up. Sometimes you have to power through things. Elaniel started dressing his wound with a thin clean bandage, working methodically and keeping her eyes on the task.

Then he heard a lion’s roar reverberating inside the dome and cursed Luthos for taking the fucking day off on him.

“We got to move him,” Sam said tensely, eyeing the dark dome expanding for hundreds of meters from their spot.

“There’s no need,” Maeriel replied and got her bow out. “I’ll drive it away.”

Elaniel got up, just as Jinx started protesting.

“No yer not.”

Maeriel touched her cheek with a hand tenderly. “I can run circles around him my heart.”

“Him?” Glen asked looking up. God darn it, that’s a criminally short piece of clothing, he thought, when Elaniel stepped in front of him.

“The male returned,” Maeriel explained. “Jinx told me you fought a lioness.”

“There were males involved in the fight,” Glen retorted not likening her innuendos. “Cock and balls hanging, the whole deal!”

“I’m coming wit you,” Jinx said ignoring his outburst, very annoyingly.

“No yer not!” Glen blasted her. “It’s too dangerous,” he added to reason with her.

“So she can go, but I can’t,” Jinx hissed suddenly very angry. “Ye expect me to accept this? Fuck you!”

“I shall go with her,” Elaniel offered and Maeriel glared at her.

“You’re neither ready, nor dressed for this,” she explained evenly. “Stay with Hardir and work on his remaining injuries.”

Elaniel bowed her head. Glen frowned and returned Jinx’s glare.

“Fine,” he yielded. “It’s all Fikumin’s fault. I told him to have yer armour made,” he groaned and pressed his lips tight.

“She’s not ready Hardir,” Maeriel insisted and Glen pushed the flapping piece of skin from his eyes to stare at her warningly.

“If anything happens to her, I’ll have Uvrycres eat you.”

Yes, the dagger whispered.

Sam gasped horrified and most of the others recoiled at the statement, but Maeriel grimaced and nodded accepting it.

“I’ll die first Hardir,” the Huntress promised and Jinx punched her hard on the shoulder almost sending her down.

“You say this shite again I’ll kill ye myself and then piss on yer corpse,” Jinx warned her and then turned her head and glared at the watching Glen. “Then do the same to you, ye thick-skinned prick.”

Glen watched them walking away, soon only their light showing and then eyed the rest of their silent group. “I have to keep them on their toes,” he explained and Sam Mathews nodded appearing troubled. “I wasn’t going to feed her to Uvrycres for crying out loud!”

“Sure Garth,” the adventurer replied with a grimace. “It’s just kinda peculiar ye thought of it though.”

“Can you move the arm?” Elaniel asked him, more guarded now after his outburst. “It’s not too tight?”

“It’s fine,” Glen grunted and fiddled with the bandage on his forehead. Elaniel had promised the salve won’t leave too much of a scar, but her knowledge of healing had been gained around fellow Zilan and not humans. Either way, Glen had enough bandages on him and sported scars in several places to care about one more scar.

“Can you stand on that leg?” Sam asked him and he tested it.

“It will take a bit of getting used to,” Glen replied. “My balance is wrong.”

Sam nodded. “Talk with Angrein,” he offered.

“About the toe? I get talking to him about new armour, but I don’t see him fixing me a pair of boots,” Glen retorted.

“The Zilan say he’s quite the artist,” the adventurer replied. “He makes furniture, I wager ye he can get a pair of boots made.”

“Since when do you socialize with Zilan?” Glen asked him curious walking slowly around to get his feet under him. He was hurting as a dog kicked repeatedly in the balls, but he was also determined to get himself going again.

“There’s a city of them, with more popping up every day in New Goras,” Sam replied. “Letting the strays and exiles back in opened the floodgates Garth.”

“What do you mean?”

“You got to start thinking about a hierarchy and rules,” Sam replied. “A caravan came from the port the other day. Had a slave-merchant in tow. The Zilan with gold to spend bought him out.”

“Gold?” Glen queried.

“Old Imperial coins,” Sam replied. “Last I checked they were plenty good on Eplas and Jelin as a matter of fact.”

“What’s the name of that priest?” Glen asked scrunching his face, he kept lodging his tongue in the gap in his teeth and it was annoying.

“Voldomir,” Sam replied. “Did you hear what I said?”

“This is Eplas,” Glen told him. “There’re slaves up wazoo here, so it’s not as easy to have the culture changed,” Sam made to protest but he stopped him raising his bandaged fingers. “I will issue an official order to prevent the locals from reintroducing them into the food chain.”

“What?” Sam gasped crooking his mouth. Glen pointed at the staircase.

“Those cells you came by were filled with slaves,” he explained to the frowning adventurer. “They were used as fodder for whatever they kept in here,” his instincts telling him it was the Wyverns. “And food for the priesthood and local residents that forgot the Queen’s rules the moment the going got tough.”

“Good grief!” Sam exclaimed in disgust.

“Not all of them are like that,” Glen told him. “Keep that in mind, but also remember that all of them are manipulative and use magic all the time.”

Elaniel looked at him hurt, but Glen shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

“It’s in their nature,” Glen continued returning her stare. “Am I wrong lass?”

“It’s how we interact with everything Hardir,” Elaniel replied fearfully. “There’s no malice in it.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Glen deadpanned.

“Fuck,” Sam grunted next to him. “Now this explains it gods darn it!”

“Explains what?” Glen asked looking at him and the adventurer frowned deeply troubled.

“You remember that mule I had tied at the back of the wagon?”

Glen nodded, though he hadn’t seen that mule in days.

“Gave it to Siriel,” Sam explained puffing out.

“Who’s she?”

“The girl…”

“Siriel is in her fifth century,” Elaniel corrected him calmly. “She sells salves and aromatic oils in the market. Had a son that died in the war and used to run a big shop in the center of Goras.”

Sam cleared his throat and Glen snorted, gave him a side glance.

“Did ye get ‘anything’ for it?” He asked evenly.

“Nah, just couldn’t leave her carrying them heavy bags all the way back to her home,” Sam replied shaking his head. “Seemed like the right thing to do you know?”

“So… no oils, something for the foot?” Glen queried and Elaniel chuckled finding it funny. A sweet little sound, like a caress. Glen stilled his eyes on her for a long moment, the pretty Zilan turning an darker shade of red with every passing second. “Sam?” Glen asked keeping his eyes on the blushing huntress to be.

“Nothing Garth,” the adventurer replied sadly. “I really liked that mule.”

“Did ye like Siriel?”

“Well,” Sam replied unsure. “Sure… she has a certain air about her, how she—”

“You will get back there,” Glen cut him off not wanting to hear anything disturbing and then cracked a smile. The cub rubbed its back on his foot and whined softly. She was hungry and Glen was hungry as well. “Ask her for yer payment on the morrow. She owes you, isn’t that right Elaniel?”

“The ancient Law of the Trade Hardir,” she replied huskily. “You offer something, you get something in return.”

“Aye,” Glen agreed and tossed her a square gold coin. She caught it deftly with one hand and pouted cutely. “For yer services,” Glen rustled and that was that.

You’re done, Glen thought looking at the darkness inside the ancient Den. You know I’m talking to you. I don’t know what you are, but ye are not going to get what you want anymore.

It ends here.

I’m not the stupid kid that found you in Oakenfalls.

He saw the light in the distance, licked his front teeth with his tongue, found the gap in the left lower part of his jaw and touched it. Glen tasted blood in his mouth. Sighing he stooped and took the cub in his arms, rubbed it between its small hairy ears. Cat chuffed and made a whiny noise grabbing his hand with its front paws.

There was no broken step, the dagger hissed.

You’ll get nothing for this, Glen replied. I set prizes for the trades. No more snatching people right and left. No more killing unless I tell you so. You do something nasty and I find out, you’re going back to the box.

They wanted you dead to prove a point, the dagger whispered using his own voice. All of them are plotting behind your back. Knife them afore they knife you.

Who’s they? Glen asked and seeing Jinx’s pink head popping out of the darkness let out a sigh of relief.

What is the trade?

Glen rubbed the small Nimra’s soft belly with his bandaged fingers thoughtfully.

Kill Pelleas.

He’s too far away.

Ah, Glen thought remembering his dream. He’d gone out of the glass dome, even reached some of the city, before returning. Thank you.

You need me thief, the dagger hissed.

“Haha,” Glen guffawed and set the chuffing cub down. He turned his eyes on the two approaching females. The taller lanky Maeriel and the much shorter Jinx. “How did it go?” He asked them and Maeriel tossed the lion’s head to his feet. It rolled on the ground leaving a bloody trail behind. Cat cried out scared and jumped on his leg shaking.

“The Nimra is dead Hardir,” Maeriel reported clenching her jaw. “The Wyvern’s Den cleared.”

“You’ve done well Huntress,” Glen replied matter-of-factly. “You shall be rewarded. Claim the pelts and bring them back to New Goras. Your pupil will have his armour and you will get a new position.”

“Gratitude Hardir,” Maeriel replied. “May I inquire as to the position?”

“You get to be the leader of Goras rangers.”

“I’m an Imperial Huntress.”

“Not anymore you aren’t,” Glen replied. “How soon can you find more pupils?”

“Glen,” Jinx said, but he stopped her with a wave of his hand.

“You’ll take strays into an Imperial unit?” She asked and Glen grinned.

“This is a city kind of, a much sprawled out town more like,” he said and picked up the scared cub again to calm it down. “So any unit would have to be equivalent to that. This is what I want Maeriel. Shall I look elsewhere?”

“Hardir’s Will Be Done,” Maeriel replied stiffly and bowed her blue head.

“Make it yer motto,” Glen suggested teasingly and Jinx rolled her eyes with a grimace of incredulity.

On the long tiring climb back up the stairs Glen paused four steps before the first turn and examined the steps carefully. There was nothing missing there. No broken step and no void. Just flat perfectly sound slates of granite. Sturdy enough to last a lifetime.

This was the most decrepit Zilan Glen had ever seen. His tattered blue robes had long been washed out of color and turned to a pale turquoise with white patches covering it at the front and back. He’d unwashed hair cut very short and wore no shoes. His toes and feet covered in filth.

Voldomir was tending to a garden outside a large villa next to the pyramid, the place kept surprisingly clean and well maintained. He raised his wrinkled head watching them approach and scowled, murmuring something under his breath. Kept murmuring agitated seeing Glen hobble his way with Sam Mathews, Phina and Kirk in tow. Jinx had stayed back with Maeriel and Elaniel to skin the lions mainly, find another entrance into the Den secondly, as the one at the back of the Pyramid had collapsed in the earthquakes.

The lioness’ lair had one for sure, but Maeriel wanted to look for something better.

People get eager when they are promoted.

“I’m looking for Voldomir the Priest,” Glen said realizing the Zilan wasn’t going to talk to him. “I have a job for him.”

“I serve the Goddess,” Voldomir hissed crooking his mouth. “Leave me out of this.”

“Out of what? You don’t know what I want,” Glen grunted and watched the cub sniffing the flowers sprouting out of the grown well-maintained plants.

“Clean the high priestess place, keep the fire burning in the Goddess Temple, this and that,” Voldomir continued in his tirade. “I have no time to spare. No time left, everything is gone to waste. The end of days came and I was left to carry the load.”

“You heard of New Goras friend?” Glen started and got his attention. “A new city where the old one was. Trade is opening again, roads being built and people returning. I have no need of your temple, or any temple really and anyway it’s too far away for what I have in mind.”

“A city without gods is doomed Hardir,” Voldomir pointed out and got up cleaning his hands on his robes. He was as tall as Glen, but half as wide. “What you have in mind will not work without divinity.”

“The new ‘city’ will incorporate the port of Sinya Goras stretching to the lakes. Both of them. Another port facing the sunken Navel and a castle up on the Eternal Springs plateau. It’s a big place and that’s three towns in a sense spread apart, but connected with good roads and caravans going back and forth between them. Spreading the wealth. A road could come here, as good as the old one, or it might not. We found a den of lions in yer Temple. The next pride that arrives might come here first.”

Voldomir stared at him in calculating silence.

“Say I want legitimacy and the ear of a God, or a Goddess, I could clear the woods, even pay adventurers to explore the Talons. Now I could take any of the Five Gods for that, built them a two-story place to pray and call it a day. I have room aplenty.”

The Priest grimaced and stared at the whining cub.

“Or I could do the road thing, tell people to find solace in the Goddess embrace.”

Voldomir stooped and petted the cub. “What is the high priestess’ wish?” He asked thoughtfully.

“Vaelenn seems more political to me. She’ll bargain and look for gain in the material realm,” Glen told him. “You on the other hand never visited the city, or bothered to come and see Hardir O’ Fardor. How many priests and priestesses in the Temple look up to you?”

“Most follow Vaelenn these days,” Voldomir admitted. Glen knew that of course. “The place got tainted. Nothing is like it was.”

“Vaelenn knew about the slaves? She should have. People would have gone to her to plead to lift the Queen’s ban on flesh. I bet it was a difficult decision. Realism and life, or loyalty and death.”

Voldomir clenched his jaw. He wasn’t going to tell him anything else.

Glen had all that he wanted though already.

You look for the first decent fool out of the batch.

“Will they follow you?” He asked, taking him by surprise.

“Ah, what do I got to offer?”

Glen clasped his hands behind and regarded for long the massive temple, the avenue with the giant statues and then the endless forests spreading to every direction.

“A castle and two cities for the people,” he said finally. “Another for the gods and one for those lost to us. Your Goddess’ Temple the first deity honored. Everyone else can built in her shadow. But not near the honored dead. I will keep this for myself, but people could walk through it. We shall call this place the garden, because it’s what it reminds me of. The Garden of Statues.”

He turned his head and stared at Voldomir.

“What do you say High Priest? Should I go forward with it?”

“What do you want in return?” Voldomir asked him solemnly and Glen forced a smile on his face.

“Loyalty,” he said. “Keeping the locals on a tight leash.”

“I’m not a wizard, I’m a priest,” Voldomir replied. “But I can be loyal. Replacing Vaelenn is not something Hardir could do. You’ll insult Nesande’s priestess?”

“I could have her killed instead, spare me the drama,” Glen retorted without batting an eyelash.

“It will taint your position, weaken you for no gain,” Voldomir argued. “Hardir couldn’t do it without a valid reason. But the King could, or a Monarch.”

Ah, Glen thought and watched the Nimra cub he’d named Cat because he couldn’t think of anything better, chasing her tail around the small garden. There it is then.

“You asked me what you would have to offer them,” Glen said finally and heard Uvrycres shrieking high above them back from his journeys. “How about a Monarch’s favor?”

Voldomir nodded in understanding. “What would a Monarch want in addition to loyalty?” He asked. “Because we both know that was… bullshit talk lord Garth and an unbalanced trade is no trade, but a mummer’s scam shunned by the gods,” the priest added with a half-smile.

Sam Mathews, who was standing next to the curious Zilan teen, almost drowned in his own spit. Glen in his turn let out a relieved chuckle, then scratched his brow with a bandaged finger and replied with one of his favorite words.

“Gold.”

Arguen Garth visited Nesande’s Great Temple and cleared the Wyvern Den of a score of lions in the same day. He also decided to force an injured Vaelenn to resign for her own good, raised in her place as High Priest of Nesande the then unknown priest Voldomir, making him in turn the religious head of New Goras. Garth returned to New Goras injured and with a treasure in gold coins. While very few had realized it at the time Hardir O’ Fardor had already decided what road to take. The reasons for it not for everyone to know, other than the fact that this burden few were willing to shoulder, but only him could bring through the finish line.

‘There is a scale for each one of us,’ he used to say to this scribe reminiscing. ‘Ye shove things on it if you’re greedy. Always more, never looking back. But it moves ye see, one side going up, the other sinking to the bottom. Ye earn on one hand, lose on the other. You can’t win if you don’t balance it. But you can lose, good grief you can. You blink one day and people are gone. You can lose it all.’

He didn’t have a throne yet, or a crown. He slept in a house without doors and windows. The army was months away from forming a mere unit and the fleet was one ship, captained by a scoundrel pirate.

That day Hardir O’ Fardor decided he wouldn’t judge going forth per the prophecies, but he would rule instead. Some say it’s the same, but those that matter disagree.

So rule he did.

Phinariel, the Boorish Poet,

Royal Scribe,

Member of the Queen’s Council

in

King’s Anabasis

(Sinya Goras)

-Monarch Arguen Garth, O’ Nielek Aniculo-

Chapter II

Part IV

-King’s Cub-

Final paragraph

Winter-Summer of 3396 IC

(190 NC)