---

---

Glen

Garth Aniculo

Hardir O’ Fardor

I see him afore me

Part I

-Angrein O’ Mecatan-

---

---

 

 

Once Hardir O’ Fardor appears

Seek anything but its favor

Guard for the signs o’ yesteryears

If you sense greed’s flavor

Don’t attempt to alleviate thine fears

The beast shan’t be the Realm’s savior

—

Sintoriela’s Admission

(aka, Lament of the Third Era)

-

Edlenn, of Sintoriela

High Priestess of Nesande

(Unknown Date, presumably First Era)

 

 

Ninthalor’s Last Bridge reminded Garth of the Great Bridge over Yeriden back in Rida. The ancient Imperial stone bridge still stood and with a width of six meters it was easy to cross. The view of the boasting Felmond River whence you stood over it impressive. We spend the rest of that first day traveling towards Laun River, the land turning more fertile and green, although Garth after spending months in the Desert, had trouble getting reacquainted with South Eplas flora and fauna.

 

 

“AAH! DIE YE DEVIL!”

Came the gut-wrenching cry followed by the heavy buzz of a flying beetle. Biggest dung beetle Glen had ever seen, its crust a gleaming black with thin green wings. As big as a pregnant cat. The former thief recoiled in panic, left leg kicking out reflexively and almost plummeted down from Outlaw’s saddle. The large bug went over man and horse, made a sharp buzzing turn flying low and then started rising again as he headed for an irate Glen.

“Hah… haha…ahahaha!” Gimoss roared greatly amused.

The wiry ‘Mister Garth’ tried to turn the horse away, but Outlaw snorted and stilled his legs, so running out of options Glen unsheathed Sir Emerson’s old sword and hacked at the onrushing bloated insect manically, catching it on the second try.

“HAH!” Glen cried in triumph seeing the green fluids oozing bug tumble to its death sliced in two. “Buzzing motherfucker!” He added teeth clenched and hairs risen on his arms.

“What was it?” Jinx asked turning around from their carriage, pink hair hidden under a large ridiculous hat, similar to the one Flix had.

“Another bug,” Sam Mathews said, handsome face relaxed into a smile.

“A Royal Scarab,” Flix elucidated. “Basically harmless.”

“There,” Glen said still shook. “Basically the insect scholar said. Not always. You never know if you’ll catch it hungry—”

“Don’t they eat shit?” Jinx asked with a frown.

“I’ve no idea—”

“Damn, yer full of it,” Jinx said interrupting him. “Ye might be in danger Glen,” she added giggling, then paused and turned around. “Alix is that yer hand per chance sweaty?”

“Just resting one arm at a time luscious pink Goddess,” the third Gish of their group replied in a compliant manner.

One could hear the anger in Jinx’s voice. “On me darn tit?”

“No better place,” Alix deadpanned truthfully and Jinx hissed like a cat, followed by the sound of a hand slapping skin and connecting fully.

Alix gasped in pain and Glen sighed, his uneasiness lessening.

“Well,” he started and looked around for somewhere to wipe the blade of his sword. Finding nothing at the near he murmured something under his breath and climbed down from Outlaw, careful not to step in bug entrails and other gooey bits. Uh, this thing stinks horribly. “I suggest we make a stop whilst there is time to make a decent camp.”

“We can just pull at the side of the old road,” Fikumin griped. “Sleep for a couple of hours and then start again. We can travel in the night and this old imperial road is pretty decent.”

Glen wasn’t in favor of killing themselves trying to travel as fast as they could towards the rivers, but he did want to get over with it soon and send for Sen.

So he agreed with Fikumin on this one, which was rare.

“Has anyone seen Biscuit?” He asked looking about their small caravan.

But no one had, nor they paid him a lot of attention, so Glen gave up and went to clean the blade on the nearest mule’s hide.

 

---

 

The sun was setting over the distant desert, everyone gathered in two groups, the Gish and Soren, along with Fikumin being one of them, Jinx annoying the frowning dwarf to no end and Metu with Sam Mathews and the soldiers on the other. Glen spotted Gimoss pulling his horse towards the road, shovel strapped on the saddle. The possessed corpse climbed on top of it and crossed his arms over his chest, as if ready to depart.

Glen got up and walked there curious.

“Hey, where are you going?” He asked him.

“I need to talk to the witch!” Gimoss snapped and turned to glare at him, face still a patchwork of normal skin, with portions of it half-rotten and only the weird one eye working.

“The witch?” Glen looked about them. “Why in Luthos shaved balls do you want to do that?”

Gimoss snorted. “Can you be less of an idiot for once?” He blasted him.

Glen grimaced and Jinx who had sneakily approached them, always as curious as Glen, spoke before he’d time to reply.

“I want to learn that to,” she said.

“Young harlot,” Gimoss retorted surprisingly calm, but for the last part where he’d managed to infuriate himself again somehow. “What you want I can’t give you right now, but you’ll receive upon my return a plenty. I find your kind much more convenient in this weak-arse form!”

Uh.

Jinx blinked and reached for her short-sword. Glen without looking her way, put a hand on her elbow to stop her from committing suicide.

She pulled her arm away with a snarl. “Are ye fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” Jinx hissed glaring at Glen as if he was responsible. “Where did you find this freak?”

Eh, perhaps I’m bit to blame, Glen thought.

“I can’t explain it in a way you can understand,” he told her and she stood back even more riled. “I don’t fully comprehend the mechanics was my meaning,” Glen added quickly to save it and Jinx shook her head right and left.

“You know something, he can fuck off anyway,” she decided. “Dude looks like he has one foot in the grave already.”

“Hah...ha-ha…AHAHAHA!” Gimoss roared at her back and Jinx, pink ponytail swinging left and right under her large hat, pirouetted fully and gave him the middle finger, before continuing towards her group.

“On that note,” Glen said and glanced at the still chuckling corpse. “Why do you want to find the witch again?”

“She knows where the Aken is!”

“Good grief, ye don’t have to yell all the time you sack of rot!” Glen snapped, then paused and asked a little confused. “Why do you think that?”

Gimoss stared at his spade probably considering using it on Glen and then replied with a pained grunt.

“First, this is my natural voice. Wyverns don’t whisper like cunts! Second, never has a dumber hero or as big a sham of one, walked this realm or crawled in it! Then again, how to measure true idiocy? I may well be mistaken! The second part though, I’m fucking certain!” The corpse decided and then added bellowing at the top of his lungs, mouth opened wide and rotten gums showing. “The dagger you carry for years is made out of my talons… you blasted fool!”

Everyone had stopped talking and turned to stare at them with interest, but for Flix who got up and walked slowly towards their way.

Glen smacked his lips, but kept his calm. You talk with Gimoss, expect to get belittled and yelled at, he thought. So in a sense it’s yer plaguin’ fault!

“Your meaning is?” He asked in order to get to the bottom of this.

Gimoss stared at the reddish sky for a long moment.

“My meaning is,” he finally replied the volume undiminished. “The Aken knew where my body was and they told her!”

“Didn’t ye die… eh, got un-bodied, like a thousand years in the past?” Glen asked.

“So what?!”

“Ugh, how can there be a body left?”

“Wyvern bones are like stone or glass,” Flix said standing next to Glen. “Even sturdier and long lasting.”

Right.

“So where will you find the sorceress?” Glen probed the corpse.

“They knew where she was then,” Gimoss replied. “They know where she is now. She’s in Rida, if you remember the map you’ve looked at, the mountains near Hellfort and Eikenport have one thing in common,” Gimoss grunted. “You create a circle with Rida as its center and a diameter that starts at Eikenport and ends at Hellfort, its circumference will be perfect and engulf them both.

Glen blinked having understood only about a quarter of what he was saying.

“You think the Aken are near the sorceress?” Flix asked him. “Orbiting her in a sense?”

“I do. They’ve used her once already! That dumb cunt is the perfect tool!”

“Where have they used her?” Flix asked him suddenly very interested and Glen forced himself to stay on top of the difficult to follow conversation.

“Where do you think?” Gimoss retorted.

“I’ve seen the bodies of the Wyverns,” Flix replied. “There was no spell involved. They looked diseased, poisoned.”

What? Glen thought surprised and stared at the old Gish.

“Gish, when you learn a trick, you work on it. Improve it further or make it simpler,” Gimoss explained and Glen nodded agreeing. You are faster to pop a lock after ten tries, can work on it with closed eyes after a hundred.

Same thing with the blade or all things really.

“There was no reported Aken sighting in Wetull at the time,” Flix argued and Gimoss after looking at him for a brief moment he let rip like usual.

“Ha-ha…hah…ahahaha!”

 

 

Gimoss, the ancient Wyvern god living inside a corpse, left to return to Rida at the start of our journey. No one believed they’d see him again nor did they really wanted to, but sure enough we did. After a week of following the old Imperial road we made it over the bridge at the river Laun. Half a week later we reached the one over the Dragontoe River late at night. We made a stop there intending to cross it early the next morning.

 

 

Glen stood atop of Outlaw, back hurting and clothes soaked under his armor and watched with a spyglass the area beyond the bridge and the river. Rushes and cattails dominating its banks. Bugs of all sizes and types, but mainly mosquitos and hornets.

The latter the size of pigeons.

“There’s Jadefort some kilometers beyond the river,” Metu explained, a headscarf covering the top of his head.

“Khan’s soldiers?” Glen asked.

“Rumor is, it’s being rebuilt, but it’s an old rumor.”

“It might be finished,” Glen translated. “You think they’ll give us trouble?”

The slave shrugged his shoulders. “They shouldn’t,” he paused to take a step away from Biscuit and the Wyvern watched him with curious big rubicund eyes and then belched.

Who knows what he has glugged down, Glen thought with a frown.

“Well, I’ll stay to keep Biscuit calm and we’ll send… ehm,” Glen glanced back and caught Jinx napping with her head on Fikumin’s shoulder, the dwarf looking none too happy about it. “Whisper!” Glen yelled and she flinched. She raised her head, eyes unfocused and drooling heavily. Fikumin gave her a cloth to wipe herself up.

“Glen, what the actual fuck?” Jinx asked annoyed, while cleaning her face and most of the drool away. “I haven’t slept in weeks ye dork!”

“Apologies yer grace,” Glen replied wryly. “I want you to go over that bridge and give me a report on what’s near the fort.”

“Where’s Alix?” Jinx asked.

“I don’t… what does this have to do with what I asked?”

“He’s probably already checking the fort out,” Jinx explained and jumped down from the carriage. She then walked behind it to climb on her horse. The Gish paused half-way up, let go to return to the ground and then went to untie the reins murmuring under her breath.

Fikumin grunted and used the cloth she’d tossed back at him to dry up his shirt from her drool.

“Are ye fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” Glen snapped seeing she wasn’t going to elucidate further on the matter. “What if they see him? We shan’t behave like crooks here Whisper!”

Jinx shrugged off his worries. “Alix is a pro. One of the best. They’ll never see him. He’ll be back without a hitch.”

No sooner than she had finished talking, a desperate cry for help was heard from the not that distant bridge. The small caravan had stopped about twenty meters away. Glen brought that spyglass on his eye carefully, as he still feared an eye-ending injury there and looked through it beyond the other bank. Someone was coming fast towards them following the road leading back to the bridge.

It was the male Gish running like his life depended on it, usually well-combed pinkish hair all messed up and behind him a couple of riders giving chase. They looked more like Horselords than the Khanate’s regulars to Glen.

Luthos cock caught in a bear trap.

That short pink dude is darn quick on his feet!

Alix ducked instinctively to avoid an arrow. Twisted away from another still running and almost died to a third reaching the bridge, the arrow going through his cape but missing him for a hair. Glen was still thinking of a way to resolve the situation when he saw something dark landing behind the running Gish and before the fast approaching riders.

Biscuit, now the size of a normal person, stood on his hind legs and extended those long-spanning wings fully, before letting out a blood-curdling screech.

RRRRRRREEEE

The first Horselord in the process of reloading his bow recoiled and dropped it, his mount stopping in panic and trying to turn away almost unhorsing him. The second ogled his eyes in disbelief and pulled hard at the reins to also turn his mount around.

“Well,” Glen thought with a grin, watching them galloping the other way as if their arses were on fire. “That’s one way to do it, I suppose.”

Jinx standing next to him on her own horse, spat down and scratched hard at the point between her two small nostrils, before replying to him.

“Yer the most unruffled cunt I know,” Jinx said but upon seeing a completely freaked out Glen flinching left and then right trying to dodge a large circling hornet, she added. “And the most panicky.”

“The hells are ye talking about?” Glen protested vehemently, while using the dagger to kill the hornet. “That gigantic flying turd tried to poke me in the plaguin’ eye! Look at the stinger on it for cryin’ out loud!”

 

---

 

“Damn it majestic divinity,” Alix blurted between large intakes of air, doubled over his knees and covered to his neck in mud. “Ye look fantastic on yer steed.”

“It’s a mare ye blind Gish!” Jinx admonished him all nerves. Probably it’s her time of the month, Glen decided. He’d learned about the condition from Sen.

Very nasty stuff.

“Goddess, folk use the term reciprocally,” Alix argued with a leering smirk.

Re what?

“Mister Walker, leave flattery aside,” Glen rebuked him, afore this turned ugly. “Who were those ruffians coming after you?”

“I have no idea dear Garth,” the member of the thieves Guild admitted.

Neither did Glen.

“Surely you’ve done something to rile them up!” Glen argued, moving on to the next point.

“I barely approached the fort. Pretty, help me out here,” Alix said.

“Nah, I ain’t getting involved,” Jinx deadpanned. “Glen hasn’t had a proper roll in the hay for some time now. He’s right vicious when horny.”

“No, I’m not,” Glen argued, looking about him embarrassed.

“I stand by me opinion,” Jinx insisted and crossed her arms over her chest.

Glen let out a groan exasperated. “They looked like Horselords Alix,” he hissed turning to the other Gish.

“I admit not looking back much dear Garth,” Alix defended himself.

This will probably take us the whole day to figure out, Glen thought.

“Metu?” Glen asked looking at the troubled slave that had followed him at Sen’s insistence.

Metu was very helpful around the camp.

A solid friend.

“Ehm, they didn’t behave like a regular patrol master Garth. Perhaps a raiding party?” Metu offered.

Hmm.

“That’s a small raiding party,” Soren said, as he’d approached as well.

“Right. We cross right away then,” Glen decided. “Whilst they are still rattled by Biscuit.”

“What about the fort?” Flix asked, face barely visible under that gargantuan hat.

“Well, if they don’t bother hunting down raiders, I doubt they’ll come after a caravan,” Glen replied.

 

---

 

The Horselords returned about an hour after they had gone over the bridge, the wagons wheels moving slowly in the mud-covered road. Glen was trying to get Biscuit on the one prepared for him, but the Wyvern refused and kept following Glen’s horse around. He bumped on to Eikenport’s newest crime lord, not a safe action with those protruding horns and kept turning its wedge-shaped head towards the distant mountains and making sad guttural sounds.

RREEH?

Of sorts.

“Damn it you,” Glen protested. “We got to keep moving. I can’t do this day after day!”

REEEE

“What?” Glen turned to look at the foreboding mountain range, one of its peaks disappearing into the clouds. That is what they could see over the massive jungle beyond Jadefort that wasn’t covered in thick mist. “What’s over there buddy?”

RRRR

“Garth,” Fikumin said warningly from his own mount. “We have company.”

Glen turned his head around and saw the riders coming from the direction of the fort. Its worn out walls less than a kilometer away. Somebody had cleaned up the terrain thoroughly, but everything had turned to mud with the now more frequent rains.

“Oh, that’s just plaguing great,” he grunted and climbed on top of Outlaw again. “Biscuit stay back.” Glen ordered the restless Wyvern and Biscuit snorted apparently not agreeing.

He flapped its leathery wings once, started running on his hind legs throwing mud everywhere and then jumped high. With a screech the Wyvern flew up, circled over their caravan once and then went over the approaching Horselords that stopped their mounds and stared at the creature bewildered, before with another loud warning shriek, Biscuit left to the direction of the distant mountain range.

For fuck’s sake, Glen cursed. What’s this shite? Does nobody listens to instructions?

“Hardir O’ Fardor,” a tall muscular man said, not a Cofol and not an Issir. Doesn’t much look like a Lorian as well, Glen decided. Perhaps a mix of all three races. Eyes a very dark red, with gold details in them. The only guy there not carrying a bow, or any weapon. “I knew the road will bring you this way eventually.”

Had Glen not touched the dagger the moment he heard the seer’s name for him, he wouldn’t have understood the hale stranger. The man had spoken in Imperial.

 

---

 

“Garth,” Flix said warningly, but one of the Horselords pushed his horse forward and Glen turned his attention on him. The warrior had a bronze fake hand, dangling down his sides and a hard sun-scorched face full of lines and scars.

“Is that him, Angrein?” He rustled examining Glen with calculating eyes.

“That was a Wyvern Kalac,” the first man replied. “You’ve seen it.”

“Aye, I did,” Kalac replied and greeted Glen in rough Common. “I’m Kalac, son of Duham. We rule this land,” he boasted.

“I’m… Garth,” Glen replied, not impressed, but opted to keep it simple. “I’m an explorer.”

A deathly silence fell over the two groups of men. Some of the Horselords eyed each other confused, while a couple outright cracked up smiles.

“Garth,” Kalac started, looking at his men and then at the skies above them for Biscuit. “Is many things it seems,” the Horselord said with a predatory smile and this time everyone almost chuckled.

Flix interrupted the weirdly festive mood.

“Angrein O’ Mecatan. It warms the heart to be in your presence,” he said reverently staring at the strongly built stranger. “You recognize Hardir O’ Fardor?”

“I do,” Angrein rustled. “I see him afore me.”

“Will you challenge his right of passage?” Flix asked switching in Imperial.

“Where do you seek passage to Nym’s slave?” Angrein asked.

Glen realized no one else could comprehend their words, just as Angrein had figured out Glen could understand them as well.

“We seek to walk Quiceran’s Road,” Flix explained, a little strained. “My bonds are broken, alike yours.”

Uh?

Angrein scoffed at the old Gish’s response. “He speaks the tongue, but does he walk amidst the trees, can he listen?”

“What does this mean?” Glen asked him and Angrein turned his strange eyes on him. The eyes of the man in his dreams were similar though more black, Glen remembered. Even the race matches, if that’s a race.

“You’re not like Lith,” Fikumin said, who apparently understood enough of the Old Tongue to follow their conversation.

Not a Zilan.

Ah.

Fucking bigots.

“Would that be a problem?” He asked the carefully watching them stranger.

“Not for me Tamer of Monsters. Do not presume the way unguarded, or absent perils,” Angrein replied and turning towards Kalac, who was also watching their exchange with religious zeal, he added. “You should let him pass.”

“What will I get in exchange?” Kalac rustled.

“Favor,” Angrein replied without hesitation. “Trust me it would be enough, to have all doors opened.”

Glen found the agreement fair and most of all cheap as fuck.