(THOB) Chapter 88: The Scholar (Patreon)

Ezril woke with a start. His hands finding the hilt of the Sunder beneath his pillow with easy accuracy, he drew it. He stopped, Sunder halfway free of its scabbard as his gaze focused on what had instigated his action.

A soft curse escaped his lips.

He clenched his teeth, holding back his annoyance. “Did you forget how to knock, brother?”

A grinning Takan gave a simple shrug. His gaze shifted from Ezril to Lenaria’s place atop his bed and back. His mythical grin slipped from his face. “Darvi needs us in his room now,” he said, then left, closing the door gently.

Ezril checked on Lenaria as he slipped into his cassock, the quickest of his attires to adorn. She let out a soft moan then turned to the side, pulling the sheets tighter around herself.

Ezril took his Sunders along with him, closing the massive wooden door softly behind him, yet, as had been the case with Takan, the hinges let out a soft groan, defeating the purpose.

He recalled the soft glow he’d seen behind his brother when the door was open. However, the quiet hallway bore no form of illumination. Takan had purposely left the light he carried with him outside. Thought he would see something I wouldn’t want him to, Ezril realized with a smile. He shook his head, and engaged the dark hallway.

The route was short and familiar. Before long he stood at the door to Darvi’s room. Hand on the handle, he took a deep breath before stepping in.

Darvi was the first to set eyes on him. “How are your injuries, brother?” he asked after Ezril took his place at the edge of the table, all five brothers present and accounted for.

“It only troubles me when Takan tries to sneak into my room.”

Darvi cast a sharp glance at Takan who lifted his hands in surrender. “I reckoned I’d see something nice,” he said with a smug smile. He turned his attention to Ezril. “Was even rooting for you, brother. Didn’t expect to find you sleeping on the floor, without a blanket to boot. S’posed you’d have gotten a good shag y’self, even.”

Ezril let out a frustrated sigh, rubbing his forehead. “Always an ass,” he muttered.

He rolled his shoulders consciously. The throb in them was gone. A sure sign his injuries had healed sufficiently. Nixarv had made sure of it, checking on it every day since their return to the fort.

Over two months had gone by since the battle for the encampment. An encampment Ezril and his brothers had left before the end of the first month, accompanied by Lenaria.

The couple’s battle, the soldiers were calling it. At least, when they believed Ezril and his brothers weren’t within earshot. Even the maids now told of it as though they had been present at its occurrence. Once, Ezril had heard a maid telling it with such detail to the others while they made dinner.

“… And when Father Urden noticed the priestess was not amongst the retreated, he turned on his heel and charged into the heart of the horde where she was, arrows flying,” she’d said, as enamored by her own tale as her audience. “They both single handedly held back the horde until the soldiers returned with reinforcements. Only Truth knows how long they fought…”

There were other versions, perhaps three more. All focused on the same similarity: Lenaria, a priestess crazed with the need to draw the blood of the Merdendi, and him, a priest dashing into the depths of death to save the one he loved. Idiocy, was all Ezril thought of the tales. However, Lenaria seemed to enjoy his mild discomfort at them.

“I’m so glad you saved me,” she said once, in a voice very much that of a damsel, clutching his arm and batting her eyes at him. “If you hadn’t been there only Truth knows what those savages would have done to me.”

Her flair for the dramatic could’ve earned her a place in any theatre.

Ezril returned his attention to the gathering to find Darvi staring at him, a question on his lips. “Are you fit to fight now?”

Ezril nodded a response. He had been telling Darvi the same thing for the past month but his brother had refused to listen, having called off their involvement in any of the Lord Commander’s battles when the man fixed them into one of his plans barely two weeks after establishing the camp. It was quick and simple. Darvi had given no arguments, from what Ezril learned. He’d simply walked out of the war room and given them his command. A command Lenaria had followed, too.

“Good,” Darvi continued. “I fear we may not be able to avoid Bilvion’s war much longer. News has come from the Monsignor: The King grows worried of the realms safety; we are to render whatever services the Lord Commander requires, as long as it does not go against the Credo.”

“… And the end of our pastoral work?” Salem asked. Of all the brothers, he always seemed the most eager to leave the fort, or perhaps it was to begin the work of an exorcist.

“By the year’s end,” Darvi answered. “We are granted leave when the snow thaws. We are to report to the seminary, then register at the cathedral.”

Salem nodded in satisfaction. Their pastoral year had become two, but at least it was coming to an end.

Their brother sufficiently addressed, Darvi’s attention swiveled to Ezril. “The night’s blue,” he said. “It is time we address it, brother.”

The night’s blue. Amongst other things, it was a name they’d learned from a Merdendi’s mouth.

The interpreter had arrived at the encampment six days later than was scheduled. After Lord Bilvion’s vivid display of his discomfort of the issue the man had been sent to the captives.

Leviln was a man of young age, no older than Takan. His robe was the color combination of blue and dirt brown, as was the identifier of a newly elevated scholar. He moved with a grace almost effeminate, and when he spoke there was a timidity to his voice. A man easily cowered by greater oppositions, Ezril thought him. But beneath it all, though thin, the man was of average muscular build, not the kind trained to fruition, rather, a gift of his birth. His face was handsome, with a crooked nose that spoke of at least one fight in his life, and eyes the common brown of the realm.

There had been doubt, for obvious reasons. When Leviln met the captives, he addressed them in the realm tongue and, as was expected, garnered the same reply that was always given: silence, save one, a young Merdendi boy perhaps no more than seventeen who had always been prone to bouts of savage lexicon that didn’t need understanding to know they were insults. As usual, what followed was a reprimanding look from an older man they had deduced was the accepted leader of the group.

Leviln turned to them, a puzzled look in his gaze.

“I thought you said you knew their language?” Noem raged, his fury drawing looks of puzzlement and what seemed fear from their captives.

“…And I thought you said they didn’t know ours,” Levlin shot back, unafraid of the larger man. “They know it well enough, if you ask me.”

Bilvion turned, perplexed. “What did you say, young man?”

“They understood what I said well enough. However,” he continued, shooting Noem an annoyed look. “Your captain over there just made my job difficult. I suggest he learn to hold his tongue from now on or prove himself absent from my interrogations.”

Bilvion nodded his agreement to the dismay of Noem before proceeding to ask: “What can you get from them?”

Levlin returned his attention to the captives, and for the first time since Ezril first saw the Merdendi, he saw an expression he had all but thought them incapable of. They had slaughtered their men and women who had ventured into the battlefield, disrespected their dead, but not once had their eyes borne the malice turned upon the scholar, strong gazes that spoke of nothing but accusation.

Leviln shook his head at the lord commander. “I doubt they will say anything more today. But from what the young boy said…” the sixteen-year-old retreated more into himself, like he could disappear from sight. No one paid him attention “They think the only reason you win is because you dishonor our gods by allowing them fight alongside you.”

“And what would these savages know of Truth?” Teradin scoffed in disgust, his face wrinkling more than it already was from age.

“Not Truth, General,” Levlin corrected. “They speak of other gods, specifically the goddess of war and…” his brows furrowed in thought. “Someone called the Night’s blue.”