Broken Crown, Part 4 (Patreon)

***PART 4: Broken Bridges***

The steady clip-clop of the horses beneath him upon the barely-cobbled roads had Jericho incredibly uneasy.  He adjusted his seat in the padded saddle, trying to stifle a rising cough in his throat.  It was getting worse.  The dull, gray dawn had brought with it yet more mist, emanating evidently from the vast marshland to their collective right.  The Half-Elf cast a wary gaze out across the forbidding treeline that cast that whole direction in seemingly perpetual shadows.  Sharp eyes picked out a dilapidated pair of stone markers on the side of the road.

Heavily overgrown, a wide path entering the woods was flanked by a torn-down stone fence.  He could barely see fifty feet into the gloom of the forest, but he recognized some Elven elements about the once natural entrance.  Time, rot, and a lack of upkeep had led to its current state.  Jericho shuddered and tore his eyes away from the path as his horse slowly trotted on.  He could swear he had seen eyes staring back at him from the shadows.

Casting his gaze once more forward, he saw the dim and dismal continuity of the once lush and verdant fields of Bardon.  Everywhere one looked, there were bodies.  The fields were choked with them, laying so thick that at first glance the ground appeared to be nothing more than a vast stretch of uneven, gray earth.  Now aware of the forgotten country's dark past, it was impossible to not be able to pick out the rotting faces of the countless dead.  Corpse-birds flitted here and there, the ugly carrion-eaters veritably rejoicing for the vast selection of food upon which to glut themselves.  He gagged when he saw one particularly mangy specimen dig inside the skull of its current roost and pull out a rotting eyeball before quickly swallowing it.

Forcing his eyes firmly away from the grisly spectacle, he beheld the armored and cloaked back of his cousin.  Sitting astride a once-fierce stallion, he remained regal-looking despite their grim surroundings.  The old, gray warhorse he rode had lost much of his spirit over the many years.  Jericho's own mount was a spirited but jumpy filly, whose bridle named her Grain, fittingly, since her coat was a bright blonde.  He patted her neck consolingly, for the horse seemed as unsettled as he was by their surroundings.

They had been riding since early that morning, setting out ahead of the wagon column.  While it had been cold then, by now the humid, tight, suffocating air soon had every man and woman sweating.  Nothing about Bardon seemed consistent, other than the stench and the dreariness.  It might freeze one night only to boil them in their clothing and armor the following morning, and all without a single ray of sunlight.  There was almost something magical about the phenomenon, but much like the countless dead around them, Jericho suspected that it was dying magic.  So much death and desecration no doubt played havoc with the environment.  It was a wonder how they had not all been struck down by the plague, in such constant close proximity to the carrion fields.

A fit of coughing overtook him, which he frantically tried to muffle in his arm.  A rasping stickiness clung to the inside of his throat, and his vision swam for a second.  He wiped at his lips, grimacing at the dark stains on his wrist.  Grain seemed to pick up on his distress and flicked an ear, whinnying softly and seemingly trying to trot a bit more evenly for his sake.  He stroked her mane in gratitude.

"Holding up back there?" called Hadrian from up ahead.  He and his warhorse were a few extra paces than they had been earlier.  He pulled on the reins, causing his mount to slow and allow Jericho to catch up.

"It's this weather," complained Jericho, trying to sound, if anything, inconvenienced rather than the sickly gauntness that clung to his features as of late.  "It's enough to make anyone haggard."

"So you've said before," his cousin commented dryly.  They shared a weak chuckle.  Hadrian cast his eyes over toward Jericho then, those piercing blue boring right through him.  His cousin's face was grim, drawn, and almost savage looking.  The dark rings around his eyes were even more prominent, his high cheekbones stood out much more than they had, and his close-cropped dark hair was somehow messy and disheveled.  "And how are you really?" he probed.

Jericho sighed.  He could feel his chest rasp a bit even at that, and it made him have to take a few deeper breaths to recover.  "Honestly, Hadrian, I'm fine.  I'll be glad to be out of Bardon; the sooner the better."

Those sharp eyes narrowed doubtfully, but he shrugged and looked away.  They were nearing a curve in the road, blocked from view by trees, but he pointed.  His grin, once a handsome, teasing thing had become closer to a sarcastic grimace.  "Well, we've not much longer then.  There is the same path to the bridge just there that we crossed to get here.  A little longer and we will be into the kingdom of Rhodes.  A few more days travel and this bounty business will be behind us."  He winked then.  "Come, race with me.  This old boy still has some fire in him, don't you, Stugart?"  He patted his warhorse, who snorted fiercely and trotted more proudly than he had been a moment ago.

Grinning back, Jericho touched his heels to Grain's flanks and the filly shot forward with eagerness.  The stallion behind him trumpeted in challenge.  Together, he and Hadrian took off down the path.  Hadrian was on the inside curve, but Grain was faster than Stugart and rounded it first.  Whooping, despite how it tore at his throat, Jericho looked back at his cousin.

Hadrian beamed at him, reminding him of days in their childhood where they did much the same, racing their ponies around the courtyard of the estate, dodging their studies, and eager to see who had the greater command of their mount.  He could almost feel the bright sunshine of those long-forgotten days, the light breezes not choked by corpse-breath.  Then Hadrian's eyes went wide.

"Jericho!  Stop!"

Whipping his eyes forward, Jericho cursed and hauled on the reins.  Grain whinnied in protest and fear as she tried to slide to an abrupt stop from her full gallop.  Her hooves skidded and slid on the muddied cobble-stone path, coming to a halt bare inches from the end of the path.  Hadrian's horse came to a stop right beside him and the two men stared, dumbfounded, at the bridge.  Or rather, where had been the bridge.

A gaping hole stretched in front of them.  The wreckage of the stone bridge lay on the floor of the riverbed it once crossed over.  The supports, from what they could see, were dark and warped, rotted beyond repair.  How they had crossed it at all in the first place beggared belief.  Jericho turned slowly to look at his cousin, seeing his worry reflected in those bright, blue eyes.

"W-what happened?" he asked as if Hadrian would have any better explanation for the destruction of their one guaranteed way out of the most miserable country on the earth.

Trotted a pace or two closer and peering down over the edge, Hadrian grimaced sourly.  "I've not a clue.  The bridge was strong and sturdy when we crossed it only a week or so ago."  He sat back in his saddle, one of his legendary rages beginning to build in his face.  "The gods curse my luck once again..."

Jericho did not comment.  He patted the heaving flanks of Grain, trying to comfort her, and himself at the same time.  Another heavy set of coughs wracked his frame as dread truly began to settle in.  How would they get across?

"Corpses and crows," muttered Hadrian at his side, turning his horse back around at the sounds of the wagon train beginning to round the corner.  "Pull yourself together, Jericho," he commanded.  "Meet me back at the train for a staff officer's meeting so we can decide what the best course of action is going forward."  He trotted off, hollering at the top of his impressive voice.  "Halt the column!  Bridge out!"

The command was echoed back several times as it was passed along the wagons and various soldiers.  Jericho wiped at his lips again, spitting out a mouthful of blackish fluid onto the ground.  It tasted like foulness and oil mixed together.  He wiped at his stained lips, then gently turned Grain around to follow after his cousin.  Today had gone from passable to horrible in but a moment.

***  A short time later ***

Hadrian pounded his finger down against the map of the local area.  "We cannot ford the bridge crossing!" he growled for what felt like the sixth or seventh time.  "We do not have the proper materials."

"Sir!" barked Sergeant Harris obstinently.  "Materials are all around us!  We have but to chop down a few trees and build from there!"

"That would be unwise," commented Yana, seated cross-legged nearby.  Everyone turned to look at her.  "The trees in these parts contain ill spirits and much of the living wood is afflicted by the same foulness that inhabits this whole region.  There is no guarantee that the materials would not spoil as soon as they were cut from their already dying hosts.  Only the trees deeper inside the area would be less affected."  At her side, the masked Yan nodded vigorously in agreement.

"Ill spirits," scoffed the Sergeant.  "Then we gather wood from further within the forest!"

"I doubt the Sidhe Elves of the local area would like that," Jericho interjected hopefully but quailed when several grim eyes fell upon him.  He sat back away from the group, sipping at a cup of tea that Yana had made for him.  Hadrian tried not to let his worry for his cousin show.  He looked worse than he ever had, and he did not like how the Half-Elf's chest rattled whenever he breathed in too deeply.  “The Fair Folk have little liking for the Kemen in general, as they call us, meaning the Children of Earth.”

"What does it matter what some tree-loving forest sprites like or don't like?" objected Harris crossly, then seemed to remember himself, and who he was talking to.  "What I mean is..."

Hadrian cut the Sergeant off.  "It matters because these are their lands, and I've no interest in picking a fight when we are towing a dangerous criminal.  So building a crossing is out of the question.  Even if we had the proper materials, it would take too long."

Everyone nodded.  Abelaard cleared his throat.  "There may be an alternate path, my lord," he stated dryly.  "I spied a road leading into the forest only a short ways back.  If the map is accurate, we can cut through it to the other side, and return to a better road there, on a side that is not bordering Bardon.  We would simply need to be careful not to disturb the Elven settlement located at the center of these woods."

"Elves..." muttered Harris darkly.  "More than likely Wild Elves."

"You have some issue with the Sidhe, Sergeant?" Abelaard asked with an amused tone.

"Err," the man hesitated.  Hadrian chuckled.  "Well, it's only that...I've...had several conflicts with them in the past.  During my time as a soldier for another lord.  The Elves we fought were Wild Elves.  Savages peppered my position for days with arrows, killed several men I'd trained with, but never once came close to ever exchanging honest, honorable steel with us.  Their laughter still keeps me up at nights."

"One wonders what your lord might have done to draw such ire from them," teased the Dark Elf.  "In any event, it matters little to me.  My kind and theirs are not on good terms, but I personally bear them no ill will.  I trust you can put such matters behind you for this current situation?"  His tone was gentle and friendly, but the sheer sweetness of it had everyone present, besides Yana and her silent twin, shifting uneasily.  Those honeyed words sounded far too dangerous.

Sergeant Harris' mustache quivered a bit and he swallowed noticeably before he nodded.  "Sir!  Will do, Sir!"

"Excellent," chimed Abelaard brightly, and he turned his white-eyed gaze back onto the nobleman.  "If you would proceed, my lord?"

Stifling a chuckle, Hadrian looked down at the map.  His levity vanished quickly once again.  "So we've no other choice than to go through the forest," he said, making sure to ascertain the assent of all present.  No one else had any other suggestions.  "Then it's agreed."  He stood up, cracking his back, and folded his hands behind it.  "Sergeant, Abelaard, have the column turned around.  We double back, take the forest path, and make all haste to its exit.  How are our supplies?"  He turned then to his quartermaster, Jericho, who was sipping still at the bitter brew.

"We've enough, with our current numbers, for perhaps a week," his cousin explained.  "If we could stop at the Elven settlement, we might get a chance to restock.  Maybe even one of their number could give us directions as to the quickest route out."

"Then that's what we will do."  Hadrian cast an eye over at Sergeant Harris.  "There are no objections?"  There was a long pause.  "Good.  You may all return to your posts.  Abelaard, I want the convoy moving within the next ten minutes, close formation.  Sergeant Harris, post a full six-man team to be working as active scouts.  We've no idea what to expect in a forest that borders a place like this."

They all jumped to follow his orders, although, at his motion, Abelaard hung back.  The Dark Elf did not even seem surprised to be once again called for private counsel after he had finished giving the orders to move the column.  He inclined his head once the others had walked out of earshot.

"Continue your report from last night," ordered Hadrian.

"As you wish," the Dark Elf replied.  "We are being followed.  The scouts have not seen much in the ways or signs of such, but my eyes are keener at night than any of your men.  Things lurk on the outskirts of our position and have been trailing us for the last day or so.  I do not wish to cause undue alarm, but this situation could become serious should it be what I fear."

"And that would be?"

Abelaard met his eyes evenly.  "Ghouls."

Grimacing, Hadrian cast an eye about their surroundings but saw nothing out of the ordinary.  "Where?  How many?"

Shaking his head, the ex-paladin did the same.  His eyes narrowed as he fixed his gaze on a spot far away.  "Not far from where we are now.  You need a trained eye to see them, amidst their preferred camouflage, but I've come across feeding grounds such as these more than once.  I'd estimate their numbers as low as a score, and as upwards as sixty."

"So a full pack."  Pausing for a moment, Hadrian steeled himself for the worst possibility.  "Any Packlords?"

"Most assuredly," quipped Abelaard.  "At least one Ghast.  Our numbers should deter them for the most part, but we can expect they will get much closer over the next few days.  The men will need to be on constant watch, or those Pyrlings will seem as a flock of sparrows in comparison.  We have something they want, and they won't let it go without at least one hard try."

"And what would that be?" asked Hadrian, although he suspected he already knew the answer.

"Our flesh."  Abelaard's eyes narrowed in distaste.  "Dead flesh is as trail rations to their disgusting palates, and living is tantamount to a feast.  They'll care not for how they get it.  Truth be told, if the pack is too large, they may even be placated by our cutting down of a few of them.  Cannibalism made them what they are now, so more is the least of their perceived worries."  Putting an armored hand on the hilt of his slender-bladed sword, the Dark Elf took several steps away to the edge of the road and fixed his attention on a mound of corpses a few hundred feet away.  "Oh yes, I see you," Hadrian heard him mutter.  "The Lady of Thorns is a jealous woman, and how she voices her missing of me amongst the faithful."

"You don't seriously think your old Goddess would go so far as to send Corpse-Eaters to kill you?" joked Hadrian.

Abelaard looked over at him, and the sad weight of that look made Hadrian's stomach clench.  "She has done much worse in the interest of reclaiming her own.  We of the Creed are bound until death.  Whether we walk away or not, we are Hers."  He laughed then, and it was a bitter, cold sound.  Hadrian was reminded of the first time he heard it.  "Or perhaps I am a superstitious old man, and the Ghouls simply are eager for their first warm meal in a long time."  He patted his sword.  It, his white eyes, and his flanged armor were the last remnants of his old ways as a Knight of the Barbed.  "I will feed them well of their own misery."

Recognizing the old glint of sadism in his oldest friend's eyes, Hadrian touched his shoulder.  "Remember your promise, Elsys Montegraine," he said softly, voice low and warning.

"Oh I remember it always," replied Abelaard, turning his head and beaming at Hadrian widely.  His sharp features, pointed teeth, and long ears made the look entirely alien and inhuman, which was fitting.  "As I trust you will remember yours, my lord."

Hadrian grinned back.  His sword hilt jingled against his hip.  "Never fall, only to the earth," he intoned.  "Your ways are your own, and faith is not a sword, but a cloak.  You may divest it at any time, without losing who you are.  But he who forsakes the faith that causes only damnation of his own volition, in pursuit of freedom, may always find a friend in Draytn.  And should you rise once again, in Her ways, mine is the sword that shall shear the flower, and to the earth ye shall return to rest."

Abelaard's scarred face softened, and the smile he gave Hadrian was unlike the one before.  Sad, but genuine and pure.  "Truly, my lord, yours is a service I shall never regret."  He turned, extending an armored hand.  "I will always be at your side, so that you never lose your path.  Dark it may become, but always forward we march.  My sword is yours, then, and now."

They traded grips, Hadrian chuckling to offset the serious moment.  "Well come on then, my bitter old friend.  Let us move on.  The past is out there, with the corpses of those long forgotten.  The world of the future waits for us to find it."  He turned and walked off to rejoin the column, but Abelaard stayed behind a moment longer.

The white eyes fixed on the fields before him again, and the Dark Elf rested his hand once more on the hilt of his dark-steel sword.  "Coldshear," he muttered softly, feeling the old enchantments rise eagerly.  "We may dance again, soon."  The sword rustled in its scabbard.  His eyes narrowed again.  "I see you out there, She of the Damned Barbs.  Move on, you jealous hag.  I've found where I belong."

A dry breeze ghosted past him, caressing his scarred cheek as gently as a lover's hand.  "Sweet talk me all you like," he muttered.  "I've done your killing long enough.  Now I kill for myself, for a man whose heart, while not pure, is true to its purpose.  You may betray any you see fit, but not me.  Not again."  He turned, shrugging off the placating, invisible hands of a ghostly past, and heard, but faintly, a mournful cry far away.  His pale eyes met the iron cage just as it began to rumble to movement once again, fixating upon the armored figure seated on the floor of it.  They stared hard at each other for a long moment, and he felt a shudder go down his spine.  So close to what he had almost become.

The Dread Knight inclined its head to him, mockingly, as if it knew what he was thinking, and who he had just been talking to.

Gritting his teeth, Abelaard stalked away from it and away to the front of the column.  He could not wait to be rid of their foul passenger.  Yet again, he restrained the urge to just cut its throat and be done with it.  Yet again, he reminded himself that such would never have been enough.

*** Later on that day ***

The journey down the forest trail was by no means a more pleasant one than the wagon train had already experienced while following the main road they had been forced from.  The trees crowded around them, black branches looming high above as if ready to reach down and strangle the men and women beneath.  Every so often a tree would creak or groan as if it were shifting to watch those who dared enter their domain.  Everyone's nerves were on edge,  all except for one.

Jericho had no time to be unsettled by their surroundings.  Given his earlier ease with the task, he had been put in charge of riding on the Dread Knight's wagon, as no one else wished to do so.  The nearest wagon was barely ten paces away, but even then so were every other living soul of the company.  The grim atmosphere only seemed to intensify the intimidating aura the warrior put off.  He had not been allowed to procure his notes, however, simply told to guide the horses pulling the wagon and refrain from conversation with the prisoner.  So instead, he busied himself with reading an old journal, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, which he constantly had to adjust due to the uneven ground they rumbled across.

It had been over an hour since they had entered the treeline, and barely anyone had spoken a word.  Guards had been posted at the front and rear to maintain constant vigilance.  He was frightfully curious to see what was evidently following them, but given the seriousness of their surroundings, he thought it best not to try prying into his cousin's already fraying nerves.

After a while, however, he heard his passenger clear her throat.  It was still a little disconcerting to hear how her voice echoed and rasped within the fully-encasing helmet.  "Did someone die?" she probed, sounding amused and sarcastic, and yet at the same time maintaining that emotionless, deadpan voice throughout.

"No," answered Jericho curtly.

"I only ask for the serious air your fellows all seem afflicted by."  He heard her chuckle in her own way.  It still made shivers crawl down his spine.  "Even you seem tense; I would have thought nothing could suppress your nauseating cheerfulness."

He did not answer, picking up his handkerchief to cough into it again.  He tried to swallow the dark bile rising in his throat but he gagged and instead just spat it into the cloth and folded it.  Another one ruined.  The trees groaned around them again.  His head pounded, and his chest was tight.

"Still, all things said, you and yours seem to be rather chipper, given what is following you."

He took the bait, casting an eye back at her armored frame.  Shadows danced across the dark plates, making the etchings and ridges expand and shift slightly here and there.  "And what would you know about that?" he asked hesitantly.  Hadrian had whispered the very same to him before they entered the treeline, explaining just what might be trailing them and to be extra alert because of it.

She inclined her head to the side.  The gleam of her emerald eyes behind the fanged visor shone in the gloom.  "Finally, he turns and looks at me," she teased, monotone voice somehow making it all the more barbed and irritating.  He was not usually this jumpy or irritable.  "I speak of the Corpse-Eaters that have been slowly drawing closer to the wagon column with every day since my capture."

"And you wouldn't have anything to do with that, would you?" asked Jericho softly, narrowing his eyes at another rustle not far away.  He glanced in its direction, then returned his gaze to her.  To his frustration, she reclined more easily in the wagon, looking relaxed and at ease with everyone else around her so uneasy.

"Perhaps," she drawled.  "But a Dread Knight has as little to do with the Undead as they have to do with the living.  They bothered me not at all during my stay in Bardon, so why would they follow me now?"

Having no answer, Jericho just sighed and turned around to face the front again.  "Listen, I'm not supposed to be talking to you right now.  Hadrian wants the quiet maintained as much as possible."

A dry rasp of cold breath brushed right past his ear, as if she were leaning directly behind him.  "Then speak quietly, as you would to a lover."

He jerked forward, looking back at her with a strained look on his face.  He tried to ignore the burning in his ear tips as he met her level gaze.  As he had suspected, she had not moved at all.  "Could you stop being so bloody creepy for five minutes?" he asked, voice heated but hushed.

"No," she answered, eyes gleaming again.  "Is it not normal to you that a woman desires your conversation and company?"

He turned away from her again, face hot and his eyes narrowed.  "None of your business," he growled softly.

She chuckled again.  "T'would seem I've touched upon a nerve and a sensitive one at that.  Did you wish to continue your questions from the other day?"

"I thought you were growing annoyed by them and were planning on killing me very slowly?" he teased back at her without much enthusiasm, but unable to keep himself from doing so.

"I've plans to kill every single member of this caravan, were I free to do so, or wished such.  It is the inevitable outcome of an over-active imagination and too much free time.  Whether or not I actually would, who can say?"

He coughed a tiny bit, glancing back at her.  They shared a long look before he looked forward again, wiping at his lips with a sleeve.  "At the very least, your wish for my sickness to spread seems to have been accurate.  I'll probably drop dead in a day or so, and then you'll be unburdened by my questions for good."

She was quiet for a moment or two.  Then, "If you do not wish to continue with your questions, I have thought of some of my own that I wished to ask of you."

Sighing, Jericho tapped the reins of the horses, making sure they knew to keep going forward.  "Fine, go ahead."

She waited for a few moments more, then he heard her armor rustle.  He glanced back to see her facing away from him, arms crossed over her breastplate, and gazing back the way they had come.  The cage's magic sizzled a bit as she touched it.  "The Umbra-Sidhe, the one who follows your cousin around like a valet."

"Abelaard?" Jericho asked, curiously.

"Yes.  How is a Knight of the Barbed Queen seen alongside a Human noble?"

Chuckling, the Half-Elf thought back.  "I don't know the whole story myself.  Supposedly, he and Hadrian met during a series of raids perpetrated by Adradne and her followers upon the hamlets of the kingdom of Mordest.  He and Abelaard crossed swords in the burning ruins of a castle."

"Your cousin must be an adept swordsman to do so with one of those knights.  I've seen and heard recountings by others who attempted to do so, and living or dead they all claimed that the Warriors of the Thorned Goddess are some of the deadliest in all the realms."  She sounded as if she stressed that last word only a little more than she would have ordinarily.

"He is," remarked Jericho proudly.  "Hadrian's always been the pride of the family when it comes to swordsmanship.  But that wasn't what Abelaard respected.  From what I've learned, they talked as they fought, and eventually, Abelaard was forced to see the damage his Order was causing the innocent folk of the kingdom.  He had blindly followed his orders and officers, believing it was a crusade of the enemies of Adradne.  He abandoned his faith in her, choosing to follow my cousin instead due to his strong morals.  He's kept Hadrian to them when he was most at risk of losing himself to despair the last few months.  He claims he's completely forsaken his Queen, but there are times when he's polishing that sword of his that I see real love in his eyes.  I feel like she let him down, rather than him breaking his oath to her."

"The heart that was bound was changed," intoned the Dread Knight softly.  "Truly, there is no oath that can hold a soul in check should that happen.  It is as if your Abelaard has become an entirely different person, and so became free of the honus of his pact with his Goddess."

"I suppose so," Jericho murmured, although he felt rather clueless as to those kinds of details  "Anything else?"

"Yes," she said.  "The Grauthein, Demon-Children.  Yan and Yana, as I've heard their names."

Chuckling, Jericho nodded.  "Those two.  Yes, they are an odd sight amongst all these Humans, even more out of place than a single Half-Elf.  Hadrian met them during a trip overseas to their homeland of Ygan.  I've never been, but it sounds like an absolutely magical place.  They worship old gods, older than almost any I've ever heard of, and have no racial boundaries, just strict castes.  Hadrian enlisted them through some test or another, although none of them will ever tell me more."

Listening silently, the Dread Knight waited until he was done before she asked, "And why does this Yan not make a sound?"

Blinking, Jericho looked back at her.  "Well...he's a mute, as far as I can tell."

"Even a mute breathes."

His eyes widened a touch before he glanced away from her.  He couldn't see the twins from where he was, but they were never truly too far away it seemed.  "Breathes?  You mean Yan doesn't?  You can hear that or something?"

She nodded.  "It is a sense not unlike hearing, which we Dread Knights are privy to.  I can sense the breath of each and every member of this column, save for the void that is Yan.  He makes no sound, not even when he moves.  Even an Undead would make the occasional utterance of air or speech, the creak of a limb, the jostle of bones."

His lips crinkled in a small grin and he arched an eyebrow.  "Really?  So you can hear anything around us?"  She nodded.  He raised his hand and whispered as softly as he could "I know what your name is," into the palm of it before he lowered it and grinned wider.

She cocked her head slightly to the side, then shook it.  "No, you don't.  Now answer my question."

"Well..." parsed Jericho speculatively, trying to contain his good humor for her disbelief of his discovery.  "He is what some of our lands would call a Nigran, or a Vindicator; some kind of holy warriors that transcend the natural, mortal coil.  Maybe that's why."

"Perhaps..." she muttered.  Her head slowly swiveled to the side, fixing him with her complete attention.  He felt almost unable to look away from that single corner of her glittering eye from beneath the shadows cast by her visor.  "And what about you?"

"How did Hadrian meet me?" he chuckled.  "We've known each other since we were children."

"No," she said softly.  "Why are you out here?  I have ascertained that your cousin was banished from Human court for killing a rival in a duel.  A priestess of the Phoenix Lotus and her brother, an Undying Monk, a forsaken Dark Elf knight of Adradne, but you; you are wholly out of your element here amongst the despondent and homeless.  A lone Half-Elf amongst a sea of pure-bloods.  Not a warrior, not a spy, or even truly a magician in the traditional sense.  There is a story there."

His good humor vanished and he fixed his gaze sourly forward again.  "I decided to come with my cousin," he said stiffly.  "I'm fond of him, and I didn't want him to be all alone out here.  Plus it gave me the excuse to go out and see the wide world."

"You're lying," he heard her growl softly.  It sounded far too satisfied for the monotone her voice never strayed from.

"I am not," he objected, glancing back at her, although a terrible weight settled in his stomach as their eyes met.  "I...did come out here to support him."

"Perhaps that is part of the reason, but not the truth," she interjected, voice still flat and expressionless.  "You knew your cousin had his remaining soldiers.  He had his personal bodyguard, even a pair of deadly foreigners to keep him safe.  You have your own reasons for coming out this far, abandoning home, family, station, wealth, security.  I have answered your questions, and I am owed the truth, Mageling."

Gritting his teeth, he turned away.  He was rather soured by this conversational turn.  "It's none of your business."

She chuckled hoarsely behind him.  "Let us count the ways, perhaps we might find it together," she chimed, sounding wholly and horribly amused.  "Ambition."  She paused.  "Wanderlust."  He felt a little comforted for her to be so far off.  "Revenge, solace, a change of scenery, distaste for home, greed, glory, fame, foreign landscapes, pleasures..."  He heard her pause, and his blood ran a little cold.  "A death of a loved one.  A death.  A death of love."  He closed his eyes tight as her sinister, satisfied voice whispered in his ear again.  "A woman..."

He whirled around to face her, face hot, chest twinging, ears burning brightly.  She gazed at him levelly out of the corner of her helmet.  He could almost see the pleased smirk she wore.

"You ran away from home," she drawled out softly, slowly, as if reveling in his discomfort.  "Because of a woman."

"Shut up," he warned her, gripping the reins tightly in his hands.

"Oh how delicious," she chuckled again, making his hair stand on end.  His skin went prickly and sensitive at the sound of her almost seductive, hissing voice.  "A woman refused your advances, spurned you, and rebuked your affections in favor of another.  No, she never returned them at all.  How tragic, little Mageling.  How long did she lead you on?  What miserable, shattered hopes did you have for her?  What did you do for her?  And when you had given exactly what she wanted, come for her to see if she would finally accept your passions, only to find her eagerly moving on, how much did it hurt?"  She made a giggling sound, almost sounding pleasured by it.  His skin went prickly and cold at it as if being rubbed down with a wire brush.  There was no joy in such an admittedly girlish utterance.  She might as well have been a viper, hissing at a cornered mouse.

His gut clenched hard and the bruise on his chest twinged again with the memory of it.  "Shut up," he growled again, eyes hot and his face burning with shame.  "You don't know what you're talking about."

She leaned physically closer to him, turning to look at him fully.  "What was her name, little forlorn Half-Elf?  What name haunted the corners of your schoolyard journals, what pretty face lingers in your dreams?  Whose voice still wanders the confined corridors of your mind, echoing with her refusal?"

He looked away from her, biting back bitter tears of shame, regret, embarrassment, and guilt.  "Nuada..." he muttered softly, unable to keep it from rolling off his tongue with all the venom of a viper.  Memories of her pale, attractive, Sidhe-Elven face haunted his vision as he closed his eyes tightly.  He slammed that door shut before the memories could flow.

He heard her armor rustle as she settled back into her seat.  "Tell me."

"Why should I?" he demanded hotly without turning around.  "What good does my suffering and misery do you?"

She grunted out a small laugh.  "Misery and suffering are as natural to me as happiness and joy are to you.  Besides, you are a curious soul, Mageling.  A riddle.  Perhaps my Draconic blood makes me weak to them."

"You mean I'm curious by nature?" he probed, unable to resist asking.

"No.  Because you are interesting," she supplied.  "And if you are honest with me, of your origins to these events, perhaps I shall divulge to you the same.  The only soul who will likely ever hear them.  They are not things I speak of lightly.  I know you are also, yes, curious by nature.  Wouldn't your scholar's mind want to hear what drives a soul to become a Dread Knight?  What sin could I possibly have committed to become what I am?  You cannot deny that my price is small; to know of foolishness, blindness, and longing.  Perhaps it reminds me of what I so swear to relay upon the conclusion of your own tale."

There was a long pause between them, the only sounds being the creaking of the trees, the muttering of the men all around them, and the jingling of armor and weapons.  Jericho thought it over.  Deep down, he knew that she was right.  He wanted to know, rather badly.  He hadn't ever told anyone else why he had really come along with Hadrian, not even his own cousin.  No one else knew of his secret, shameful weakness.

"Or perhaps we shall sit in silence until the Corpse-Eaters overtake us," she said, sounding, if possible, teasing and huffy.

"Fine..." he muttered.  "But you'll keep your sadistic tongue in check.  I don't appreciate divulging the worst, most embarrassing part of my life to someone only to have them tease and mock me at every turn."

"I make no promises.  We are what our natures make us after all."

He cocked an eyebrow at her.  "And what do our natures make the two of us then?"

"A romantic," she whispered.  "A trusting fool.  One betrayed.  A bruised and bitter soul, who once hoped for a wide world beyond, only to draw within.  Both of us."

"Uh-huh," he snorted, although there was a strange, vulnerable light to her eye just then, although he was convinced that was just another ploy to manipulate him.  "I somehow doubt we are all that similar.  But I guess we'll see."

"That we shall, Mageling," she said, leaning in close to him.  "We shall see, indeed."

***END OF PART 4***