(THOB) Chapter 101: Arlyn (Patreon)

It wasn’t long before Ezril and Lenaria were leisurely walking the encampment grounds surrounded by soldiers on every side engaging in the day’s work. Save the opportunity to keep an eye on Lenaria, Ezril was thankful for his freedom from his duty of tutoring the young Foln. Although, he did find himself wondering on occasion if anyone else had taken up the task.

“You do know you have nothing to worry about.”

Ezril turned to Lenaria. “I’d be lying if I say I know what you’re talking about.”

“Me having friends,” she clarified. “I have no interest in it. One is more than enough for me, always has been. It’s not that I can’t have friends, I just find I don’t like people very much.”

Ezril said nothing. He hadn’t thought about it much because she had always been a girl without friends. But now he found himself considering it. She was beautiful. Being a priestess did much to deter the men, but he knew it was not enough to deter all of them. Like the women, there were men who were more than enamored at the thought of tasting what was forbidden. And by Truth, he found the thought of it angered him more than it should have. More than he had a right to be.

“And not that I’m worried,” Lenaria continued, “but I think you should reduce how much time you spend around Sister Alanna.”

“Wait…” Ezril stammered. “T…There’s nothing between me and the sister.”

“I’m not worried that there is. I’m simply saying be careful around her. I’ve never liked her. She’s too… attentive. No healer is that attentive.”

“You don’t like her because she’s too attentive?”

“Too attentive to me.”

He paused. “Perhaps she likes you.”

“I’ve been in the convent long enough to be able to say this, Ezril.” She looked at him so her eyes met his. “No sister likes me.”

Ezril found no problem believing her. The little he had heard from Alanna during his spiritual year and the way the sister spoke of Lenaria on the few occasions when she did were more than enough to support Lenaria’s theory.

“So what time are you coming back tonight?” Lenaria changed the topic casually, her gaze returning to the road before her.

“Nightfall.” He turned his attention to the road. “No earlier. I’m to meet with the captain to discuss things I would rather not discuss. And I’m fairly certain Darvi will want to have words after that.”

“With you?”

“No.” Ezril’s thoughts wondered to what would happen if the meeting sent them to war. Takan would be furious. “Not me alone. With our brothers.”

The war room within the encampment was fashioned without ceremony. It bore only enough space to house the men that stood within it and the table that stood between them. Its grounds, cleared quite effectively, was covered in nothing but dirt, leaving no trace that it had ever borne grass at any point in its life.

The tent was of the same material used in every other tent Ezril had come across and, though he felt his assumption may be wrong, he thought it different from that of the tent that housed the prisoners.

He stood beside Darvi, his bow strapped firmly in place, the weight of his Sunders reminding him of their presence. Darvi, as always, stood with a relative ease within the tent. As Noem spoke to his men, Ezril noted how were it not for the presence of the Captain his brother could have easily been mistaken for the person in charge of the meeting. It made him wonder what Darvi would be like after five years as a priest.

After a few minutes of saying words Ezril took no interest in, and pointing at locations on the map on the table, Noem looked up at Darvi.

“What do you know of the lost city of Arlyn?” he asked.

“It is nothing but a rumor,” Darvi answered, uninterested.

In truth, Darvi was right. The lost city of Arlyn was nothing but a rumor spoken amongst the subjects of the realm, although, it was not a popular one. Ezril could attest to its fame being a thing of the capital city. While in the underbelly he had heard of various rumors and myths, this had not been one of them.

The lost city of Arlyn was a story that proved alive only in the city of Ardin. The reason for it had been easy to deduce upon learning of it.

It had been on a faithful evening in the seminary during one of his escapes to the stable. Njord had been talking of animals rumored to have been seen in the Arlyn forest during his childhood.

“Rumors, nothing more,” Njord had said. “Just hopes concocted by animal enthusiasts hoping they could find something that once was.”

“But if they were once there they could still be,” Ezril had replied.

It was his reply that had brought about the information the priest had given him that evening.

He had told of how animals of the kind the rumors spoke of could have possibly inhabited the Arlyn forest all those years ago before the realm had been the realm. But the priest had claimed that animals had the ability to migrate when the need arose, and that most of the animals spoken of in the rumors could have so easily migrated with the arrival of men in the Arlyn forest.

“…Either that or we did what we do best,” Njord had said, solemn. “Drove them to extinction.”

“Men?” Ezril had asked, confused.

All his life he had known the forest to be one of the few around the realm that people had never settled in. It had had a few groups pass through it on more than one occasion, but never truly settle. It was then that Njord had told him of the rumors of the city of Arlyn that had once stood long before. A story of how men had made their way to the forest and built within it a city, and survived off what the forest and Truth’s tear had to offer. It was said that in time a different group of people had stumbled upon it and sought to make it theirs. There had been scuttles and, in time, wars. The citizens had survived. But what few of them were left felt it a better option to move away from the place.

In the centuries after they had left, the forest had reclaimed the land taken from it by men. This was a tale known mostly amongst the elite. A tale, but an insignificant one, mostly whispered amongst scholars.

“…A myth amongst scholars,” Ezril added after Darvi.

“Perhaps,” Noem agreed, ignoring Ezril. “It may be nothing but rambling amongst the elite, or—”he spared Ezril a brief gaze“—rumors amongst drunken scholars.” Now he turned to the map and circled a spot with his finger. “However,” he continued, “to my scouts it is this point upon this map at the far edge of the Arlyn forest. We have driven the savages away from our borders. Now we will clip them at their source.”

Darvi’s and Ezril’s focus grew more attentive. The thought that a myth was not a myth proved more appealing than they had expected.

“And what do the scholars have to say about this?” Darvi asked.

Noem’s answer came easy. “Nothing. They do not know of it.”

Darvi’s attention grew skeptical. “Why?”

The Captain shrugged. “Because this is a matter of war, and until every enemy in those ruins has been slain I will not have a scholar causing political confusions based on how this war should go. We will have the blood of our enemies then they can have their myth.”

Ezril saw no problem with the captain words. Judging from Darvi’s expression, neither did he. Certain that there were no objections, Noem delved into a series of instructions intended for each man.

Of them all, the one bearing the most risk seemed to fall to the priests. Ezril and his brothers were given the task of surveying the ruins and devising the best means of attack. If possible, they were to find a tactical way into the ruins, and find out if an attack from within was possible and capable of securing a victory in the event of a battle. The most confusing aspect of their mission was the fact that a lost city that was meant to be lying in ruins was confirmed by Noem’s scouts to be surrounded by walls over fifty feet tall.

As they left the tent Noem saw it fit to offer them a piece of advice, one Ezril saw no need for.

“Do not get caught alive.”