It was a day like any other: bright, sunny, and there was a grand view of the green hills off in the distance. These were the green hills of Asair Etirranen, where Hiro Faryn made his living. It was dull in the hill country – much too dull and too quiet for his liking. Tedious work was being done in the fields, and Hiro had already been up atop the main wall early in the morning, to check in with the head of the security team he'd hired. There were guards out there, overseeing the other workers, but they were late for a shift change. The debriefing was overdue, and a mid-day meal was ready, going to waste in the kitchen off the main hall. He could have eaten some of it himself. Hiro groaned in disgust and shoved his foot into a boot that had belonged to the previous workman; he accidentally knotted the laces twice, and after fifteen minutes of struggle, he was able to put on his worn-out tool belt.
Sunlight streamed in through the only window in the foyer. Hiro stood up and moved forward to look out at the lands beyond, but he had been heard. The sound of Hiro's heavy boots were loud against the dark planking of the dusty floor. A voice called out to him from another room. He responded by whistling. The sound was something of a remnant from a private joke; in his adult years it turned into something which could have meant whatever he wanted: amusement, anger, irritation, even acknowledgment – which is how he currently meant it. He was irritated, however, and quite a bit angry, though the person he was being summoned by was not the object of his ire. Hiro muttered about the usual lateness of his guard captains, and finished buckling his belt after adding his dagger in its worn sheath, which he was hoping to replace with a new one. Hiro was finally running out of spending money. The workman dropped his spare folding knife, which he was always misplacing, back onto a cluttered tool bench, and made his way back into the main room of the house.
The homestead had a library inside, which was spacious and full of books, recovered war records, scrolls and numerous boxes of trinkets. It also had a wrap-around balcony. Hiro passed through the parlor quickly, squeezed past mismatched furniture that had seen better days, and gazed up at the woman above, who was peering over the railing.
“What is it, Saiya? I need to check in with the guards. Why are you being so impatient today?”
Saiya Aurien descended to the first landing of the staircase with another of her dusty notebooks, frowning at Hiro's agitation. “I need to get one last box out to the carriage before it leaves.”
Hiro stomped up the stairs to aid her. “We own the carriage. It will wait for you! Why are you going, anyway? Another meeting?”
Saiya shook her head and disappeared back into a maze of shelves above them. “Translation work, as usual,” she called out. “You know what happened last year – well, you do now. No more expeditions – ah, well. At last, here they are. Maybe. I only need to pack a few books in the chest and drag it outside to the end of the path.”
Hiro swept his unkempt hair back from his eyes and followed after her. The back of the library was lit dimly, but it was not bright enough to see where she went. He listened silently for movement while he searched, eventually finding her among a row of book cases at the back of the room. After tripping over a pile of torn up pages and what was three tall stacks of textbooks on the floor, he found her, poring over a box of notes she needed delivered. “What did we agree on?”
Saiya laughed as she deposited the box into an open chest beside her. “You agreed to help me find one more important book written by our dear, absent mother,” she replied.
Hiro muttered under his breath, but there was not much trouble to it. It was not long before he found one of his mother's journals, even though there were many books to search. The one he sought out was stored among many volumes of a lengthy series of children's books. There was another set of handwritten stories next to it, about a group of youths who had somehow been transported to another world, full of spellcasters and warriors. He'd given up trying to finish them the previous year, finding the concept rather odd, even wondering about the person who had written the tales, some red-haired lass he'd met a few times. Finally, Hiro found his mother's book, on another full shelf right at the end of a dusty row.
“Well, here it is. Another tome on the northmen? Why are they important to your research, I thought you specialized in the local culture?”
Saiya watched her brother struggle to read the minuscule, green handwriting on the margins of an early page of their mother's book, and laughed again, this time at how clumsy her translation of the text was.
“War seldom makes sense to its victims, or so say the Raiiya, who know best the old ways. For the Raiya people, warfare is our sole purpose. The most dangerous enemy one can ever face in battle is the one who knows he is right. We have faced such a foe before. We lost. If tales of our rebellions do not frighten you, you have never faced subjugation to an enemy who knows all.”
Hiro did not protest when Saiya snatched the book from him. The workman watched scowling as she continued her search for something else. He went to sit down on a sofa he'd shoved against the wall on the other end of the room, during the spring, to make room for a newly discovered cache.
“Well, my job is done,” Hiro said. He yawned and slumped back against the cushions. “Remind me not to keep bringing you new books home from abroad.”
The siblings lived in the main house of a villa property; it had been built nearly sixty years before their arrival in the quiet countryside; the structure looked even older than it was. Hiro's eyes wandered over the many shelves and mismatched side tables on the library balcony, and the cushioned chairs, which were equally varied in design. He'd bought those abroad, too, for quite a large sum. Their shared homestead was full of books from many lands, books written in languages Hiro couldn't even pretend to understand, though he tried. He waited for his sister to come back around one of the dark corners of the room, and pondered the meaning of the quotation scribbled in her oddly florid handwriting.
“The Raiiya phrase you told me back in our youth – the one referenced in mother's journal. . .it was carved into the monument back in Baron's Respite, wasn't it? What use could notes about that thing be to you now?”
Saiya came back around the corner with a heavy rucksack he found for her in a shed earlier in the day. There were a few too many notebooks stuffed inside already, and she was holding another sheaf of torn pages in her hand. She dropped the rucksack onto the side table and began to place them inside of it.
“Not much, but you never know. You want to ask me something else, don't you? Go on, then. I won't get angry.”
It had been a long week, and the past four had left Hiro withstanding another of the same boredom-inducing labor. Even the harvesting had ended, and the yearly guild competitions, and there was little to do but send away their last remaining shipments. He was regretting the idea of reciting from the notes he found in his mother's book. The workman glanced at another pile of tomes on the sofa beside him. There among them was a sketchbook full of landscape drawings. Hiro lazily flipped through some of the sketches before it, too, was snatched away from him by Saiya when she reached his side. She stuffed it into the rucksack as well, and turned away to hide her reddening face.
Hiro grunted. “What are you hiding in there? Anyway, maybe I do have questions. See, I found the Elder's request in the incoming post yesterday. News to share? Again, why are you rushing away? The palace is staffed by many translators! Could the Elder have them do it, instead?”
Saiya shrugged and brought one more book to put in her rucksack after checking a nearby shelf. “I haven't been to Raiya Kalin's monument since we were – never mind. Don't talk about our old home, Hiro. Please. I am tired of hearing about your theories on why it was attacked. But the book will help, so – thank you! I have to work – I feel as though I haven't done anything useful since last year. I am only restless, that's all. I've been stuck here as well. I know how you feel. If they ask for my assistance: I go. I am not required to go, but I want to.”
Her brother pressed the issue. Hiro, too, despised the place where he was brought up, recalled by other surviving children as the 'dead blacksmith's poor son'. “I can't see how, and yes it has been over a year, I am well aware. Those sorry councilmen are useless. Why are they changing their minds now?
“Wait a moment. You aren't going back to those tombs, are you?”
Saiya slung her pack over one shoulder and beckoned. “No, no more delving for relics, only translating for them. We aren't allowed back inside, and in any case – the tombs are quite useless for finding new discoveries. There is not much to do in the south, except exist and endure the drudgery. Maybe something has been found near there again, but the looters and treasure seekers are too dangerous, and the guards are tired of escorting a scholar-in-training to such ruins.”
Hiro rose slowly, dragged a chest along after her, and he moved it downstairs carefully. “I shouldn't think so. Not after what your caster friend did, blowing up those garden tombs. Quite beautiful, I hear, even though I've never seen them.”
Saiya blushed again. This time it was caught by Hiro, who sniggered, but he dragged the chest quicker when she swung her canteen at him. He left Saiya to put on her own boots, opened the large doors at the end of the foyer, and whistled. Two workers came running to grab the chest, and hauled it off to the back of a feed cart facing the end of the lane. Hiro watched them for some time before going to help them get it on the cart. He went back up the hill immediately after, only catching the end of their whispers. A sudden jerk of his head, and the glare he gave them, shut them up quickly. The workers grabbed hold of the cart and pushed it to the gate at the other side of the compound.
Sweat dripped from Hiro's forehead; he didn't wipe it with his rag until he got up to the hilltop and reached the foyer again. Saiya was done lacing up her boots. She smiled at him. It faded quickly. There was something unusual in her gaze. It made him wonder if she had some secret in mind. There were two knives on her belt now, their leather sheaths attached to it with iron-cord, a locally-made material used for many things.
Hiro looked at the knives on her belt and then back at her distressed face. “Why are you taking weapons?”
“I don't know. Maybe you should have tried to get back into the war quest tournaments, to avoid skills fade.”
She said it as though it were a joke. Hiro knew it wasn't. He sat on the bench across from her and wondered at the state of her clothing and her choice in equipment. Saiya watched as he fiddled with an eagle-shaped pendant, some sentimental trinket, made of ivory, hanging around his neck.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Don't try to distract me with other topics. Why are you worried,” he said.
Saiya avoided returning his gaze for some reason, and Hiro raised his voice. “I can tell. I thought I was the resident worrier here? Another hard spring, another brutal summer, three bandit raids – what are you not telling me?”
Saiya smirked. “Nothing you can't get in reports you pilfered from the guildhall. I brought some of my own copies for Da. Why did you take the originals, and not the backups? Do you know we have people looking for them?”
This time, it was Hiro who was embarrassed. He ignored her jibe and spoke again, looking up once at the doorway. “Have you got any news to share, before those gossip hungry bastards come back? I do count on those reports, and I heard a lot of rumors out of the west on my last few delivery runs. Beasts have been driven from their dens in the marshlands, the Elders called for another evacuation drill, and you are not telling me something – wait, your father is an officer, he already has access to those reports!”
Saiya nodded. “Exactly. So quit stealing them, and wait for me to bring some copies home.” She picked up her rucksack off the floor and put it over her shoulder. “I'm sorry. You know their rules.”
Hiro rose too, and followed her out of the wide doorway. He continued his persistent questioning. “For the past week, I've been thinking about all this 'inactivity'. The bandits have stopped raiding the farms around here, and there hasn't even been a lone transient attempting to steal bread or well water this week. Of course, all they'd have to do is ask, and I would give aid – to anyone.
“Whatever. It's exactly as it was before the evacuation back home. They're back, aren't they? It is them! Exactly like before. We haven't seen your spellcaster friend in so long, and he shows up to see you again now? The pack you have – it used to be his. Tell me what happened, Saiya!”
“Is he not your friend, too?”
Hiro sighed, but relented in his questioning. He may have been too harsh. “Of course. I still care – he saved my life, dear, dear sister. I only meant. . .never mind. But where is he, I wonder?”
Saiya stopped at the top of the steps leading down to the road; she looked across the compound for a long time before gazing back at him with tears in her eyes. “Whatever I learn today, I will tell you when I return – I promise. He might come later, with Da. You know, there's nothing to find out there in the wilds. We couldn't find anything worth talking about. Nothing even worth digging up, except the oldest graves, and he hates doing such work. If you read his reports, you know as much as I do.”
A guard came up the path to the porch to fetch Saiya. Hiro entered the house again. Before closing the door, he called after Saiya. “Don't forget your training, 'relic hunter'.”
Saiya smiled, but didn't look back or reply; she only followed after the guard escorting her to the gate of the villa, and pondered the possible outcomes of the coming meeting. Her thoughts were interrupted twice by the sounds of their workers; she greeted several in turn, and their young children. She only looked back once at the house after this, but the doors had closed again. The woman continued on to the gate; her hand remained on her abdomen the rest of the walk. Hiro had gone back in, and there was no time to speak of more important things than a dull meeting of councilmen and their scribes. Saiya recalled a tale of many journeys to faraway lands as she climbed into their private carriage. She recalled the spellcaster Shiden Muiras, and the horrific news he shared with her, alone, just before dawn in her private quarters. The woman pushed strands of her light hair behind her ear, sighing softly. After a second or two, she knocked twice on the front wall of the compartment, and the coachman drove the horses on toward the palace.
You said you would tell Hiro what's coming, and our secret, but why didn't you, love? We both need your bravery, and your honesty. Now, more than ever.
Hiro returned to the parlor after locking the front doors to the house. He stopped as reached the fireplace and looked up at a framed sketch of his sister's late grandparents. They had been his appointed guardians, too. It had gathered a bit of dust, and was mounted above the mantel beside a mortuary tablet bearing their names. Hiro recalled the urgency in Saiya's voice when she asked him to become the new manager of the villa; his shoulder bothered him even then, but Hiro had only come of age at the start of this year. He'd only turned twenty. Three straight victories in the city's annual 'War Quest' tournaments had been enough, he supposed; reminiscing on his youth would do nothing but irritate him. Still, he did not walk away.
'There is no one else I trust to manage it', Saiya had told him. Hiro sighed and picked up both objects. He went over to a sturdy, wooden chest, and opened the lid to place them inside. There were several other things within, purely sentimental in value. Hiro wondered if he should take the ceremonial shield mounted over the fireplace above the sketch, but let the thought pass. The shield was useless. There was even a drawstring bag inside his chest, full of small stones from all the places he'd ever visited, and an old journal; he added the sketch and the memorial tablet to his belongings.
Also inside was Hiro's most treasured item: a book, containing his favorite stories – two tales bound in a single tome, contained in leather, dyed red – with their much longer supplementary volumes. These had been translated long before his birth, by a linguist, when the world was young. Hiro slammed the lid of the chest, locked it, and went to the other side of the parlor. He dropped onto the tattered sofa there to rest. The guards could deal with their own management problems for once. He was exhausted.
Yet this is, of course, not the world of those adventures, and is a tedious one to endure a life in. Maybe Shiden was right about my hobby.
Hiro tossed and turned as he slept, for four hours, despite his trepidation. The sound of a great rumbling stirred him up, and a terrible feeling came over him like nausea. He choked and vomited onto the floor when he woke up suddenly, shivering from some force which now had him clutching a hand to his chest. The dread in his heart was enough to move him to flee. He still had his boots on and his dagger was on his belt, but Hiro instinctively went to fetch a sword, made for his training lessons at the request of his aged guild master.
There it was, across from him, on a rack nailed to the wall by the passage to the foyer. He did not make it; the projectile of a blast spell slammed into the front doors, and broke them. Hiro recognized the type of spell as he was knocked into the wall; the workman struck his stubbled, scarred face. The force of the spell shot debris, smoke and flames into the foyer. The ceiling fell in along with the bed and many objects from the guest room above. Hiro backed away and pulled an old handkerchief from his pocket. After wiping his mouth of blood, Hiro dropped the soiled rag, turned away and ran toward the back of the house. The dining room was at the end of the hall, and there was another stairwell to reach the second story where Saiya's room was; but she was still gone, he recalled with some relief.
More projectiles slammed into the house. Windows burst and a severe heat came indoors, glass and flames shooting inward through them. The high portals overhead in the hall shattered one by one as Hiro ran, as though he were being chased by some fell phantom of the underworld. He knew it was a spellcaster's work. He'd been on the receiving end of it before. A balcony door was off the right hand side of the hall, but there was a heavy bar there Hiro's arm was now too weak to lift, especially after a bad injury in his last War Quest attempt.
Another blast slammed against the exterior wall and Hiro stopped moving of his own volition. He was taken up along with the dark wood planking, and debris from stone pillars outside the house as the doors broke and fell to pieces. The spell's shockwave forced him into the wall on other side of the hallway. He slammed into it and collapsed. Yet he rose up when he could, trying to avoid inhaling dust and smoke. His native blood had led to Hiro's resilience to spells. It had certainly been what saved him from the spell's potency, but the pain of its physical aspects was like any other standard military weapon he'd trained to go up against.
Beyond the breach in the house's wall, there was a steep part of the hill, but Hiro escaped, crossing through the opening slowly. After a moment of waiting on the grassy hill on his hands and knees, he took a deep, rasping breath, rose up and stumbled down it. Workers were fleeing, even some children and a few women. Hiro wiped his mouth again; he had bitten his tongue. There was blood on his long sleeve when he looked, and his hand had been cut badly by broken glass. He did not even look back at his damaged house. Hiro's leg gave out as he reached the road. One of the workers came to help him up.
“Where are the guards and the feed carts,” Hiro yelled. He seized the front of the man's tunic. The worker was addled by a concussion, perhaps, for it took a repeat of Hiro's queries before he tried to respond.
“Are the houses clear?”
The worker shook his head. Blood was upon his face, and there was a deep gash along the side of his head. “Gone, gone away west! The other shipments have all been sent north, and we have already done much in clearing the barns – there was another fire on the north end of the compound.”
The worker tried to flee, and Hiro followed him, barely keeping up. “What of the carriage? The second carriage!”
The worker hurtled along the lane, and turned toward safety without answering him. Hiro did not attempt to follow. He searched for survivors even as the fires spread, clutching his left shoulder as he went on trying to staunch the blood flowing from a horrid cut upon his upper arm. The man searched through the rubble and found only three dead at first, but he expected there would be many others.
One of the storage sheds had been broken into, and one of the barns was burning. There was nothing Hiro could do to stop it. There was another worker impaled on broken fencing to his right. Sure enough, when he passed along the lane back to the main entrance, he saw other bodies ahead of him. He was right. It was exactly like the dreadful days he endured so long ago, the week of another raid. The attack then had left Hiro and Saiya homeless alongside many other refugees.
Hiro made it back to the crossroads nearest the villa entrance – and amazingly, he thought – he managed to reach the vast main gate with its stone horse statues on either side. His actions had been too taxing. Hiro collapsed in the fair garden inside of the entrance, beyond the water well and the crossroads. He fell gasping for air beside an oak tree which had caught fire. A burst of embers struck the tree, leaping from the burning wooden beams of the outer wall, as though it had been commanded to do so. Hiro did not see, but others did. Help had arrived. He stirred as a tall man picked him up and carried him all the way up to the open gate. Hiro's rescuer lowered him to the road beside the treeline of the woods on the other side of the villa's boundary.
A foul voice whispered hoarsely – his words came out in an almost sing-song way. Smoke and ash came from Hiro's mouth and nose as he lay twitching upon the ground. When the smoke faded into the pale hand clutching his own, the voice ceased, and all Hiro could see when he recovered and looked up was a man he hated with every fiber of his being. The spellcaster dropped to the road next to him suddenly, his body pierced by many steel crossbow bolts. Hiro's eyes closed as he fell into a swoon.
Why are you still haunting us, bandit? Was my father's life not enough, you craven, deceitful lunatic?
Several knights went over to the garden's metal gate, waiting for a signal and orders; their captain came to Hiro with three local healers, and helped them place Hiro on an army stretcher. These healers left swiftly and took Hiro away by cart. The head of their unit stood over the fallen spellcaster and shot a crossbow bolt into his chest. Dark blood poured from the man's torso. The captain shot him again after setting another bolt in his crossbow. Another knight came up and looked on the corpse. “This was his work! Cinar Raiya, dead? Well done, Captain Aurien.”
“He just destroyed my villa. If it were a job well done, we would have spotted this chief of vermin sooner. Check the grounds – his spell is fading. Squads 2 and 3 can cover the other end of the compound.”
Aurien looked about him, and then down at the corpse again once the other knight left his side to follow his commands.
He was not working alone; he would not use our people's strongest arts unless he was ordered to. Not this spell.
Rustling drew the attention of the captain; he looked over his shoulder. There was nothing visible in the shadowy woods, but he still felt uneasy, as though he were being watched by a hidden figure close by. His people would not be reckless enough to walk up unannounced. The captain Aurien went back to his duties, ignoring the sensation, whistled, and an aide brought up one of his horses, climbing down from the saddle after riding out of an encampment some distance away. The captain ordered his other men to continue their search, mounted the horse, and rode away in the direction of Etirran's central district. He needed to make preparations. War had come again, even if the Council was not ready to admit it.
Series Preface
space ranger sorry, "Relic Hunter", actually DO? What was in the mysterious note that our handsome protagonist Shiden received from his mum at the end of Chapter 2? Why did Cinar Raiya attack our heroes in the first place? Who is the mysterious fire wielder that burned down Hiro's epic starter base? Who was creepily watching the gallant Captain Aurien from the woods around his daughter's house? Where would the civilians of Etirran even go for safety during an attack? Why was the capital so full of smug, black-armored, elitist jerks?! - and what the h*ck are Runners, anyway? Find out next time on...okay, we won't do that reference. I just wanted to avoid spoiling anything, this is only the first chapter. You're gonna stick around, right?
Volume 1's 20 Chapter Limited Edition on Ko-Fi - 150 epub copies
Volume 1's 17-chapter Standard Edition
