Author: Jericho_Foehammer
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Today was going very well.
The battle-scarred orc wiped his lips with the back of his hand as he stared into the old man's saddlebags, scarcely comprehending his good fortune. "Looks like you have goodies after all, eh?" he bellowed in heavily-accented Common. He brandished a fistful of riches at the other bandits, who hooted in appreciation.
"Hurrrhurrrhurrr," chortled the eyepatched orc restraining the old man with very little effort. Gurrn had gotten to kill the last one, so this feeble merchant was all his. Sweat trickled down the man's left temple as he struggled uselessly.
"You pick wrong day go through our lands, you think?" Gurrn announced. The assembled thieves laughed uproariously. "Not good day for you at all."
"Hurrrhurrr--what?" The orc holding the old man turned his good eye into the brush, towards the sudden rustle. The two bandits closest to the noise turned, too, then back to their leader.
Gurrn had heard the noise as well, and gestured to the two bandits, whispering orders in Orcish. They peered out into the thick brambles and then crashed out into the woods with their clubs drawn. The old man tried to cry out behind the thick, meaty hand covering his mouth. Eyepatch whispered, "You stay quiet, or he find dead man."
"You better hope just animal," sneered the bandit leader. "If friend, you both die very painfully."
Another noise, this time from the east. Gurrn set his crossbow and aimed it into the woods, while the other bandits scanned the thick woods off the road for movement.
A footfall and a thump sounded behind them. Gurrn turned to see the old man bounding off down the path, and Eyepatch slumping unconscious to the ground before a ragged-looking human with a long, and rather painful-looking, quarterstaff. The newcomer was a good six feet tall, bearded, his eyes wild, a big bruise healing on his upper forehead, covered in a long brown robe. As their eyes locked, he lunged at Gurrn. The orc leveled his crossbow expertly and fired, hitting his attacker in the left shoulder.
Undeterred, the man swatted aside a bandit taking a swing at him from his right, sending the hapless orc flying a few feet to rest on the roadside. Trogash, the new guy, tried to skewer the man from the back, but he dodged quickly, spun around, parried a half-hearted followup swing with his quarterstaff and gave the orc a solid whack on the side of his head, denting the helmet noticeably. The bandit fell heavily to the ground, leaving Gurrn to face the bearded man alone.
Gurrn gave up trying to reload the crossbow, drew his sword and rushed at the silent rescuer, swearing in both Common and Orcish. The man set himself against the charge, catching the first swing and barely missing Gurrn on the counterattack. Gurrn was a good hand with a weapon, but this one was better, he could now see, as each thrust was parried, each swing ducked, the man fighting through obvious pain. Finally, Gurrn saw an opening and brought his blade down in an overhead swing, only to catch empty air as the man dodged and brought his staff up into Gurrn's unset jaw. With a sickening crunch, Gurrn's body fell as the man staggered a few steps away and dropped into the dirt, the world turning dark around him.
***
"That was either the most brave or the most stupid thing I've ever seen."
The pain in his shoulder made a convincing argument for the latter, he thought, turning blearily to see that the bolt appeared to have been removed, and a neat, makeshift bandage placed over the wound. The old man looked down on him against a blue backdrop. He'd been out several hours.
He tried to get up, and his head swam. "Don't do that," the old man said, unnecessarily. "You need a good night's sleep." By the time the rescuer had returned his head to the burlap bundle to rest, he was doing just that.
***
The sun must have come up again, because it was definitely morning, vaporized dew clinging to him as he turned to look about. His head was better, and the scent of bacon was in the air, along with the hiss and pop of a fire. He rotated toward the makeshift campfire, and the old man was regarding him carefully from over a cast-iron skillet. This time, he chanced the effort of sitting up. Okay, no problems there.
"Feeling better?" The little merchant assessed his condition with apparent expertise.
Nodding, the man felt his shoulder wound. A little tender, still, but, somehow, he thought it would be a lot worse. He moved his left arm, gingerly, wiggling his fingers. Good enough, he supposed.
"So," said the merchant, carrying over a cup of what was presumably coffee, "who do I have to thank for the welcome assistance?"
A short pause. "Drayford," the man replied. "It seems I have thanks of my own to convey. You are?"
"Martin," replied the merchant, extending his hand to a healthy grasp from Drayford. "Hey, got your strength, still. That's good."
"Mm." Drayford got a better look about. They were still in the forest, off the road a bit, but he could tell it was about fifty yards away through the trees. "What in the devil are you doing out here? The Kitihicor is no place for idle travelers."
"I have business with the halflings. These platform boots don't sell themselves, you know." Martin looked over his charge carefully. "You look as if you've been out here a while."
Drayford nodded. "That I have." The smell from the fire was making him hungrier than he'd ever remembered being. Martin, apparently an accomplished mind-reader, turned to the skillet and started poking around with a fork, reaching for a plate out of the open backpack off to the side.
"In a haunted wood?" His tone was incredulous.
"Cuts down on visitors." Martin handed him a plate. Pretty much everything had been fried, for which he was very grateful. He attacked the breakfast ravenously.
"I very much doubt you came from Neriak," Drayford said, between mouthfuls. "Freeport?"
"Spot on," replied the merchant. "Ever been there?"
"Not recently." His voice had an odd sort of tone to it. Drayford ate in silence for a few minutes.
"Bit of excitement there a while ago," said Martin, offhandedly. "You heard Lucan D'Lere was assassinated?"
Drayford stopped eating for a moment. "I hadn't. As I said, I've been out here a while." Another thoughtful pause. "What happened?"
"Well, it was actually during the final assault on the Temple of Marr," recounted the old man, distantly, as he pulled a pipe from his bag and began to stuff it with some dubious-looking tobacco. "While the Temple's followers were busy getting the locals to safety, a small party of mercenaries slipped into the headquarters of the Freeport Militia and defeated Lucan in a pitched battle. When his lieutenants returned from sacking the Temple, they found him dead, the victor's sword still impaling him to the floor."
Drayford stood up to move towards the fire. The ground stayed where it was supposed to.
"The sword belonged to a squire of Marr named Jericho Foehammer." Drayford started to make a second plate while Martin talked and puffed his pipe. "Not even a paladin yet. Just some boy with a few friends. I don't think they ever caught him."
"Still," noted Drayford, "murder is murder."
"Well, yes. But what is it when it's war?"
"Was it war?" The man had developed a certain intense look.
"Of course it was," Martin responded, dismissively. "And war has a way of making unpleasant tasks necessary. If he did it, I have no doubt but that he had to." The merchant blew a smoke ring, followed by another. "Besides," he continued, "Lucan was a complete bastard. Good riddance."
Drayford didn't look convinced, chewing absently on his eggs. "Still," finished Martin, "I'm not too worried. I'm sure he's with the rebels."
Drayford had stopped eating. "What rebels?"
"I think they're being led by a man named Garin, or somesuch."
Drayford leaned forward, his food forgotten. "Gareth?"
Martin's brow cleared. "Oh, yes! That was it! Gareth." Another thoughtful puff. "He's building an army to retake Freeport, so they say. But he's doomed," he remarked, matter-of-factly.
"Doomed?" The word carried an unmistakable gravity.
"Yes, poor fellow. See, he can't move against Freeport until he's taken care of Verrax, the lich. A little hard to muster your forces when you're constantly fighting off zombies, what?"
Drayford nodded, as if afraid to interrupt.
"So, I ran into one of the rebels on the edge of the Wood a few days ago. Very nice fellow, but he was deserting. Said Gareth was taking a few men into the ruins of Befallen to destroy the lich. Not a cleric or paladin among them." He tapped the spent tobacco from his now-extinguished pipe. "Like I said, doomed."
"Befallen, you said?"
Martin gave him a careful look. "That's right."
The man collected his quarterstaff, and was looking around the camp absently. "Thank you for breakfast, Martin," he said. "I hope you can make it out of here all right."
"I'm not the one I'm worried about. Where--"
"I'd forgotten something...rather important." He glanced back east for a moment, then saw his robe and grabbed it. "I do apologize, but..."
"You're going east?"
"That's right. Look, after the pasting we gave those bandits, they're not likely to come back. Just follow the road and take the right branch. You're half a day from--"
"No, no, wait," started Martin. He headed towards his wagon purposefully. "If you're going back that way, I wonder if you'd do me a favor?" He began to rummage through his cargo, unfastening bags and opening boxes while muttering to himself in a voice too low for Drayford to hear.
Drayford looked uncertain, then thought better of it. "The very least I can do, leaving you out here," he replied, eventually.
Martin took a long, rectangular jet-black case from the cart, closed with a hasp, and gave it to his stunned companion. "I made this for someone back in Freeport, and I wanted to be sure he got it, since I'm never going back there. Could you find him and deliver it for me? He's already paid for it."
The man was mesmerized by the solid black sheen of the case, momentarily forgetting his hurry. He turned the case in his hands, over and over. It was cool to the touch, cooler than the forest air, in fact. He could have sworn it was wood, but he'd never seen wood like this before. The sounds of the woods twittered and snapped as he beheld the case in utter silence.
"What is it?" His voice sounded a million miles off.
"Destiny." Somehow, the response didn't sound at all cryptic. Drayford contemplated the case quietly for a full minute.
"Well, I'd best be off, too," said Martin, breaking the spell, while beginning to gather his things and extinguish the fire. "Don't want to be here when the skeletons come out."
"Er," said the man, articulately. "Do you mind if I--" he indicated the case.
"No, no. Not at all. In fact, that would probably make it easier to carry."
The man opened the hasp, and the case creaked open to reveal, padded by some wadding he didn't recognize, a longsword with an ornate hilt, ensheathed in a worked leather scabbard. There appeared to be silver--or platinum?--set in the hilt and on the end of the grip.
He lifted the blade, which felt oddly light. The sounds of the forest disappeared, but the man didn't notice as he removed the glowing blade from the scabbard. Flames seemed to leap from the weapon as the blade cleaved the air, back and forth.
The man's jaw gaped at the beauty of the deadly accuracy of the burning blade. "My heavens. This is the weapon of a great warrior."
"It is called Soulfire," answered the merchant, his voice coming from many miles off. "And it isn't a warrior's weapon. It is the blade of a paladin."
The merchant's voice seemed to drift even further away. "Its owner, by an odd coincidence, is Jericho Foehammer. And I have every confidence that, if you go east, you will find him there."
As Drayford turned to register his surprise, he realized he was alone in the forest. No camp. No horse. Nothing but him, the sword and the long road ahead. Suddenly, the penny dropped. Martin. No. "Marr-tin." With two "r"'s. Very funny. He took a moment to consider the path before him. And suddenly, Drayford had outlived his purpose.
"All right, no need to hit me over the head," said Jericho as he resheathed the sword and started east to Befallen.
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