Chapter One
Ashes of War
“Cinero?”
“Hmm?”
“I asked if you were with us.”
“Oh,” Cinero said. “Yeah, sorry.” He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. It was getting longer again. “I’ll be right there,” he added, and looked back at Caledon Keep. Once a gorgeous building, it overlooked the valley like a silent guardian, its white walls a bastion to keep the people of the Southern Shelf safe. Now it was a ruin. What exactly had happened eight years ago was a mystery. A mystery, Cinero knew, they were hoping to solve.
“Were you lost in your own head again?” Caerella asked. She looked down at him as he walked up, if only figuratively. “We’ll need you present in the next few hours.”
“Let the boy look,” another figure said, swallowing a mouthful of dry bread. “The Keep’s not what it used to be, but it’s still quite the sight. Besides, this is as good a place as any to take stock. We’ll be in the thick of it before long.”
“Very well, Rubicus,” Caerella said, and shot Cinero a glance he would once have thought to be withering, the woman’s subtle sense of humour going right over his head. “Looks like you get off easy. This time.”
Cinero saluted, pushing down a smirk only most of the way. He saw the corner of Caerella’s mouth go up a bit. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I could start a fire,” the last member of their party added. “If we’re taking a break.”
“Nah, I’d rather not waste daylight,” Rubicus said. “But we can still take a moment to eat. I don’t want to have to fight on an empty stomach.” He chuckled. Rubicus was tall, a mountain of a man who had been in his prime some time ago and had done his best to stay there a bit longer, but his temples had greyed and the grooves around his eyes betrayed a harder life than his easygoing smile would suggest.
“You think there’s going to be fighting?” Cinero asked.
“Could be, Stoneface. Could be.” Flaveo knelt down on the rock next to him, resting his arms on his knees. “The place has been abandoned for nigh on a decade, anything could be in there.”
“Wouldn’t the gates have kept the wild animals out?” Cinero looked at the castle again. He’d been out with the group a few times, but this was definitely the most high profile assignment they’d ever taken. That they weren’t expected to succeed wasn’t exactly doing much to alleviate his anxiety. Well, the anxiety on top of his base-level anxiety.
“Nah,” Rubicus said, still chewing. “Gate’s gone.”
“How can you tell from here?”
Rubicus pointed. Down. At the base of the mountain. “I can see the gatehouse down there.” Cinero could see it, only barely. Something had shattered a part of the Keep, and thrown it down the mountainside.
“What happened here? Thank you.” Cinero accepted the piece of jerky Flaveo handed him, and he chewed it gingerly.
“The Empire attacked,” Caerella said matter-of-factly. Rubicus shot her a glance, and she smirked.
“I think the boy knows that much,” the larger man said. “The thing is that we only know bits and pieces. After Caligon was slain, the last of the Imperial forces made a desperate push to get into the Southern Shelf and kill King Lucius. They hit the Keep, but the Prince stopped them. Something happened up there,” Rubicus said, pointing at the tower, “and it killed the Cavean and his demons, but Prince Clarus never made it out.” Cinero looked out at the devastation. He’d heard a lot of this already, of course, but he had no idea of the devastation that had been wrought on the area, and the castle overlooking the mountain pass. “The few survivors, the ones who were outside the Keep, told us that the plants grew in seconds, sealing everyone inside. We don’t know what caused it.”
“And we have to get in there and get the Prince back out?” Cinero asked.
“Yeah,” Rubicus said. “What’s left of him, anyway. I don’t think a decade on there’s going to be a lot to pick up. Especially if wild animals got in.”
“Don’t be morbid, Ruben,” Flaveo said, grinning. “We’ve got a noble goal, might as well act like it.”
“You never do,” Caerella said. Flaveo shrugged, his face a mask of innocence. “And it’s entirely possible we’ll fail.” Flaveo looked a little hurt, putting his hands on his hips, but before he could retort, Caerella cut him off. “We’re far from the first attempt to enter Caledon Keep, and we’ll likely not be the last. And I’m not dying in there just to bring the King back a corpse and what’s left of a crown. If it becomes too much to handle, we leave.”
“Yes, yes,” Flaveo said. “But what if we didn’t, though? What if we do bring Clarus back? The King will shower us in gold, praise, maybe some landed titles…” He put his hands behind his head and stretched. Flaveo was… extravagant, when he allowed himself to be. Thin, on the lanky side of things, with greyish blonde hair, but Cinero knew not to pick a fight with him. More than one boisterous wrestling match had ended with Flaveo tying his opponent into knots.
“Yes, I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic to see his long-dead son’s lifeless body,” Caerella sneered. “Are we all ready to head out?”
“You’re not eating?” Cinero looked up at her, and she shook her head.
“I work better on an empty stomach. Besides, I had a full lunch.” She turned on her heel and started to walk towards the small path that led up to the Keep.
“Two whole carrots,” Rubicus whispered as he walked past Cinero.
“She’s practically bursting at the seams,” Flaveo quipped as he put the last of his rations back into his pack. “Honestly, I think she’ll have to watch her weight.”
“I can hear you both,” Caerella said from a ways ahead, and Rubicus grew red in the face. Flaveo didn’t even have the decency to pretend. He just kept the clever grin on his face and followed after.
Cinero felt weird about the whole exchange. Caerella and Rubicus had taken him under their wing a few years ago. After the war, he’d been orphaned, and mercenary regiments always needed hands to help with all the things mercenaries didn’t want to do themselves. That’s how Flaveo had started out. Technically, that’s what he still did, although at this point, he was essentially their little party’s cook, field medic, archivist, and accountant. Quartermaster general. While Cinero had been essentially under his command for a lot of his early days, Caerella and Rubicus had both been teaching him more martial skills as well.
And he’d resigned himself to it. With some luck, he’d one day be able to retire, or take a posting at a noble’s house for guard work. Less interesting and worse pay, but he wouldn’t be wearing uncomfortable armor all day, and, much more importantly, wouldn’t be risking his life and putting his body through extreme pressure on a regular basis. Life with the mercenaries had made him tough, and he hated it. He was athletic, and hated every second of it. All mercenaries were. Even Caerella. She was beautiful, sure, but in the way a knife could be beautiful, all steel and sharp edges. He hated that he was becoming like that, although he wouldn’t even get to be elegant like her.
He’d talked about it to her, once, one night when he’d first started to learn to drink wine, beer and mead, explained to her in a moment of vulnerability that he didn’t want to become what a fighter would make him into. That he didn’t want to grow up to be a tough man like Rubicus. That if the choice was his, he wouldn’t be a man at all.
Caerella hadn’t understood. She’d tried. She’d empathized. But she hadn’t understood, not really. She’d told him that most people who end up in mercenary work were there against their wishes. That she too had given up on a life she’d wanted. That people like them had to make the best of things. Cinero had cried that night, and that had been the last time. He’d been fourteen. His stoicism had earned him his nickname, too. He didn’t cry. He didn’t laugh. Cinero, the Stoneface. It made things easier. A little bit. Not very much at all.
“Cinero!” Flaveo waved at him.
“Coming.”
The path up to the castle would have been, once upon a time, well traveled. It snaked up the side of a cliff-face, five paces wide, and an attacking army would have been in view of the Keep the entire time. How the Imperial army had even been able to push up that far was almost beyond belief, but it had, and it had destroyed the Caledon Keep gatehouse in a fight Cinero didn’t really want to talk about.
He pulled gently at the collar of his armor, hoping to let some air in. He didn’t like wearing armor, especially on long treks like this, but Rubicus had been encouraging him to carry the weight, get used to it in every situation. Not that he thought he ever would be. It made him feel big, bulky, and he hated it. Not everyone had to wear it, which felt even more unfair.
“When you can dodge an arrow,” Rubicus had told him, “you can wear soft leather armor like Caerella. Until then, you wear the plate.” That had been the end of that whole conversation.
After about an hour of walking, the path became more difficult to traverse, because a lot of it had crumbled away. Cinero frowned. Eight years shouldn’t have been enough time to do that kind of damage. The answer to the question that formed in his mind came into view after a twist in the road. The cliff wall had partially crumbled, but the giant bolt was still embedded after all these years. It had clearly been fired from the Keep, and there were several more like it.
The way became more difficult to traverse after that. Rocks littered the ground, and there were marks on the ground that were vaguely shaped like bodies, shapes Cinero didn’t like to talk about.
Not that Cinero had never seen a dead body before, of course. He’d been only three when the war had broken out, and eleven when it had ended, more than enough time to see some death. But these blackened shapes were the wrong shape, and the wrong size. He recognized the silhouette of the infernal shapes, even after all this time, and he wished he hadn’t. They were all over, scorched into the ground, like they’d burned up where they’d fallen.
“You seen them too?” he heard Flaveo quietly say to Rubicus. His ears perked up, but he kept his distance. He got the feeling the other two would try to keep things light if they knew he was listening. It was a weird balance. On the one hand, he didn’t like that they would sometimes still treat him like a child. But then again, he also didn’t like that they expected him to already be a real man, which wasn’t any better.
“Yeah,” Rubicus said. “More than I expected.”
“Do you think there’s going to be any up there?”
“Doubt it,” the older man said, “but I don’t want to rule it out. Keep an eye out and some magic ready if you have it.”
“I’ve got something saved up,” Flaveo said with a chuckle, “don’t worry.”
“Don’t get cocky,” Rubicus added. “I’m not looking to get killed in here today.”
“That would be a rather disappointing end to our story, I agree.”
They grew quiet again, their boots on the ground a constant rhythm as what was left of the gatehouse and the entrance to Caledon Keep, came ever closer. Even from here, the mass of thorny vines was easy to see and from the looks of things, the climb was likely to be the easiest part of their journey.
Cinero had cried that night, and that had been the last time.
poor sweet baby. they don't deserve any of this.
If you can dodge a wrench you can dodge an arrow
That if the choice was his, he wouldn’t be a man at all.
how interesting... xP
Oh heck yeah! New story time!!!
