Shooting the Messenger

[Earthwalker]

Solo, due to lack of interest by others. This quest is the Pro-King part of quest concept number five.

Though the temperature was mild, the world seemed frosty, cold stone on cold stone, with little green to soften it. This was the capital of his homeland, Leander reminded himself, again and again, but the harsh rigidity of Knife’s Edge was nothing like the Salvar he had grown up in. The hodgepodge of buildings felt constricting, in a subconscious, disturbing kind of way. That the majority of them were ramshackle in addition to hodgepodge didn’t help – he could hardly stop from hearing his father’s criticisms of such wastefulness in his mind. Cities, if they were going to be enclosed and inorganic, should at least be ordered about it. There was a sense of madness that permeated the buildings of the town, of chaos and violence about to spill out into the rest of the world. Knife’s Edge truly felt like a town balanced precariously against the edge of a knife, razor sharp and full of promised harm.

However, Leander had a task to carry out. Nestled safely within his satchel, he carried a number of bundled herbs, wrapped and carefully deposited several days ago on the bequest of an herbalist a few fiefdoms over, who had complained heartily to him about the dismantlement of the church’s portal system by the government. Leander had agreed to the man’s arguments that it would inconvenience folks, and could understand the herbalist’s worry over these time-sensitive herbs – the closing of the portals had even made his source of income less constant, though the extra running it allowed Leander over the course of his deliveries was a silver lining to an otherwise grim thunderhead.

As for the church and state themselves – here, Leander was more conflicted. While he understood that in some locals, the local Lords and Ladies of the fiefs might be harsh and uncaring, the king himself, Leander knew, was not apathetic to the plight of his people. However, this did not make the Church of the Ethereal Sway any less a force of public good as well, and while it’s individual priests might be more or less power-hungry, it was the same, in Leander’s mind, as the failings of the state – both were good establishments, but both were plighted by individuals of a less than upstanding demeanor.

Leander passed a pair of guards, leaning against a large garrison that looked as if it had taken slightly more than its share of abuse in the past few days. The two of them gave him a look as he passed, their attention strangely fixated on the red messenger’s sash he wore across his chest. Ignoring the guards, Leander gazed up at the various signs denoting the shops in the area, before finally finding the mortar-and-pestle logo that he had been told to look for. Tentatively, he pushed the door open, finding the dark interior of the shop inside. Plants occupied every available space, except for a small work area directly in front of the entrance. Behind the alchemist’s tools that occupied the space sat an aged woman, powerful in build despite the weathered gray that dominated her hair, the tight bun she wore it in almost proudly displaying the pale roots. A dark and worn eyepatch tried but failed to cover the large scar that worked its way down the left half of her face, stopping just shy of her mouth. Her expression was irritated, her one good eye looking grimly up from her work to observe Leander’s entrance. Suddenly reminded of his relative youth, Leander squirmed slightly under her gaze, forfeiting his chance to make the first move.

“You got a package for me, boy?” the older woman practically growled, her short-temperedness even more evident than before. “Make it fast, boy – open warfare on the streets may be good for business, but it sure ain’t good for my free time.” Seizing a handful of one of the herbs nearby, she threw it into a half-full mortar and began grinding it into the green mess already within it with a frustrated vigor. “Stupid folks all go and get themselves cut up, and then expect me to provide salves for the entire lot,” she continued, hardly pausing as she worked away at the mortar. “Next thing you know, and they’ll be wanting me to go out and bind all their little cuts and scrapes too. You gonna deliver that message, boy, or what?”

Still cowed, Leander nodded mutely, and pulled the carefully wrapped herbs from his pouch, placing them carefully on one of the few clear spots on the workbench. Looking away from her grinding momentarily, the grizzled apothecary reached out to seize the package – although her manner was rough, her grip on the package showed a careful finesse – and returned her hand with a small pouch of coin, which Leander gratefully received. Before there was even time for the woman to mutter “Be off with you, then.” Leander had executed a quick bow and an even hastier retreat. Stumbling out the door and into the city outside once again, he practically ran headfirst into the roughly burnished breastplates of the guards from earlier. Muttering a quick apology, he dodged around the pair, seeking to put as much distance between the frightening apothecary and himself as possible.

“Halt, there!” one of the guards called after him, raising a gloved hand as if that gesture in and of itself would drag Leander to a stop. “You are a messenger?” he continued, his voice more commanding that querying.

Leander turned back to face the two, stepping back into conversational range. “Aye, that I be,” he responded, curious and wary of the pair. “You need a message sent?”

“Then, by the order of the King himself, you are to come with us.”

[Earthwalker]

The guards had not been harsh with Leander, merely insistent, keeping a close eye on him to ensure he did not run, and pushing him slightly whenever they felt he had slowed. Leander wasn’t about to argue with a pair of guards, especially when each one had a sword longer than his arm. And it wasn’t just the swords that stayed Leander’s escape – it was entirely possible that this was nothing serious, a simple note to be carried three towns over, or some such. In that case, fleeing would only create a problem where there was none. However, the comfort of these thoughts was completely negated by the grim and silent expressions upon the two men’s faces. How could this not be a serious matter, if the two men were taking such care to prevent his escape? They flanked him on either side, slightly behind, their hands hovering near their swords like they expected trouble. A relieving concept found its way into Leander’s head – there was a civil war going on, was there not? It would be perfectly normal, then, for the guards to be on edge. They were on the lookout for rebels, and could even suspect Leander of being a rebel himself.

Leander almost laughed at the concept out loud – him, a rebel? But a second consideration left him more in doubt than he would have liked. Forced to make a choice, who would he choose? The king was… well, the king. He and his forbearers had ruled the kingdom since long before Leander had been around, and nothing had gone horribly wrong. They knew how to do things. Sure, not everyone agreed with all the decisions that the King made, but pleasing everyone was impossible. Plus, it wasn’t like he was around enough to have a real stake in it – the King’s words applied mostly to those who lived here, and he was out of the country far more than he was in it. It wasn’t like Leander was against the church, either – the Ethereal Sway was, so far as he could tell, a fine religion. He’d almost converted to it at one point, before his mother had fully explained how important paying homage to the Wild Folk was. The idea of the Sway was a beautiful one – but the Wild Folk helped to ease the rigors of travel, and the Sway didn’t seem to help much during overnight forays into the deep woods. He did not hold any grudge against the Sway for their inaction in his personal life, however – he’d still bow at their alters when he passed them, and nod his head at the holy days. If actually forced to decide, however… the choice was far beyond difficult.

Leander’s pondering was interrupted by his two guards pulling him to a halt. They had stopped before a sturdy, if cosmetically battered, building. Leander had barely a moment to glance at the outside of the structure before one of the gloved hands of the guards pulled him inside through a gouged, though intact, door. Now that he was paying attention, Leander got a brief look of the interior as his two guards ushered him quickly through. Like the outside, the first room of the building showed signs of conflict, with the smell of blood barely dry lingering in the air. As they moved further in, the rooms became progressively more intact, and the signs of conflict less frequent. Finally, their quick pace through the passages of the building slowed, and the two guards stopped before a thick oaken door that showed not a scratch upon its aged surface. One of the guards opened the door, entered, and closed it, leaving Leander to stare awkwardly at the remaining guard. After a wait just past this side of uncomfortable, the first guard returned, and the two men grunted Leander inside. For a second, it looked as if they intended to follow Leander inside, but the door swung closed, leaving Leander within, and they, without.

“You! You’re a messenger, are you not?” Strong, commanding words pulled Leander’s attention away from the door. A large wooden desk dominated the center of the room, upon which rested stacks of half-sorted papers and small items such as a scribe might use. The man behind the desk, however, did not have about him the air of a scribe – his manner was as commanding as his voice, powerful and sure. His garb only served to further this impression, well-kept cloth mixed with just enough metal plating to make him dangerous.

“Yes, sir.” Leander answered, his voice sounding far more secure than he felt. While the woman in the apothecary had been frightening, this man was merely intimidating – and, as such, Leander knew that the best way to come out ahead was to put on a brave face. In his time as a messenger, Leander had weathered a great many powerful merchants and grim guard-captains – and this man looked to be the latter.

Following a imperious hand gesture from the Captain, Leander moved to sit in a chair opposite the man, with only the empty middle of the desk between the two. It was quite clear that Leander was the lesser of the two – he stood almost six inches shorter, and a good deal lighter, than the loud and powerful figure opposite him. “You are aware of the rebellion of the church, and our efforts to maintain order?” Another question that seemed more a command than anything else.

“Yes, sir.” Leander could almost feel where this question was going, and didn’t like it. The Captain would eventually ask him what side he was on, and Leander didn’t want to lie to the man – that would only make things worse. But telling the truth would only make his interrogator angry – it would look like an evasion, as if Leander was trying to hide his true allegiance, and that would only invoke suspicions that he was on the other side.

“And who do you fight for?” There it was. Leander felt trapped - the Captain intoned this question with a voice that clearly indicated that there was a wrong answer to this question, but there didn’t seem a way he could avoid giving it.

“I don’t fight, sir.” It took a lot of effort not to squirm in his chair as he said it – he could practically feel the world collapsing down around his ears. He was going to be accused of associating with the rebels, and he wouldn’t be able to defend himself.

“Bullshit,” the Captain’s tone was dismissive and harsh, his hand sweeping aside, as if removing the possibility of neutrality with his gesture. “I can hear your Salvarin accent – you were raised here. Don’t tell me you don’t have a stake in it.”

Leander paused for a moment, thinking of a response that seemed even marginally safe. “I don’t like war, or even fighting. I’m not involved, and I don’t want to be.”

The Captain paused in return, considering Leander’s response for a moment before replying himself. “Doesn’t mean you don’t have a side.” He smirked briefly, as if enjoying a joke, before returning his expression to its original harsh state. “This war’s been going on long before there was open warfare in the streets. All those muskets the Sway has – they didn’t come from nowhere. There were smugglers, black market dealings, crime rings, a whole network of people disguised as normal folk going about their daily, and what’s to tell me you aren’t one of those?” Heavy gloved hands slammed down on the desk with emphasis, making inkwells and papers jump. “Do you think I’m just going to let you waltz out of here, messenger boy?” the Captain hissed, leaning across the table to growl in Leander’s face, his voice low between his clenched teeth. “And don’t think you can get away just because there isn’t enough ‘evidence’. This is wartime. I’m a Captain. I don’t need-” The door opened, interrupting the guard captain mid-threat. He looked up, angry at the disturbance, but he had barely glanced up when his expression changed drastically, becoming the living incarnation of respect and obedience. “General!” the Captain saluted, standing up straight and throwing his body into a ridged military position.

“At ease, Captain.” Leander glanced back at the door, seeing a man of much similar build and make as the captain before him, though the General’s clothes were slightly more embellished, and he sported a rather elegant officer’s cap, which he had tucked under one arm at the moment. The General glanced quickly at Leander, noting the red sash, before looking back to the Captain. “The train is all set to leave. I know this is hardly enough time, but it is urgent that we get the message out as soon as possible. What is your impression?” The two men began talking as if Leander was not in the room. Fascinated, and somewhat worried, Leander watched the dialogue between the two with the pressing interest of a young man watching his fate determined.

“He hasn’t lied to me yet, sir. I’d trust the lad – he doesn’t seem like he’s got much stake in the matter. He reacted honestly when I accused him - even though he did try to shape his answers to make me less angry, he doesn’t seem the type to lie so well that I wouldn’t know. If I had another ten minutes, I could be absolutely sure, but…” He trailed off, pressing his knuckles together in a distinctly ominous fashion before shrugging his shoulders.

“This’ll have to do – I trust your judgment. I have to apologize for the roughness of your greeting – we are pressed for time, and so we had to ensure that we could trust you fairly quickly.” It took Leander a moment to realize that they were talking to him, now. The General was extending a hand in friendly greeting – numbly, Leander shook it, though the shaking was mostly an extension of the General’s firm grip. The Captain, who, moments before, had appeared as if he were about to strike Leander on the face, was now looking a whole lot less angry, though his stance was still strong and powerful.

A sharp tug on his hand caused Leander to stumble forward slightly – the General was pulling him towards the door with the hand that moments before had been engaged in a handshake. “Come on, lad, we’ve got to get you on that train. We’re in a rush – things will be explained once you start moving. We will compensate you, and you will be well-guarded.” As the General talked, he dragged Leander back out into the hallways, the two of them practically at a run – the General, out of haste, and Leander, as to not be pulled off his feet.

Leander was very confused.

[Earthwalker]

The train engine was a marvel of Alerarian technology, spewing steam and smoke in all directions, its metal dark and stained with progress. It seemed to Leander to almost resemble some kind of dangerous beast – the kind that might kidnap maidens and devour honest soldiers until a single valiant hero chanced upon its cave midst its nap, and slay it after valiant battle. Soldiers surrounded the hissing and groaning monstrosity, swords and even a few firearms visible. In fact, the entourage that the General and Leander had acquired before leaving the garrison was similarly well-equipped – one of them carried a long rifle like they knew how to use it, and the other’s swords were of quality befitting a general’s bodyguard. The apparent power of the individuals Leander seemed to have stumbled into was staggering to the poor messenger – he could see no other option but to comply with what they wished. It wasn’t like he could make a break for it now – not only were their heavily armed guards all about, but a number of people had gotten a very good look at him – were he to flee, he couldn’t imagine himself not becoming a wanted individual across almost all of Salvar.

The General gave a greeting to the guards as they approached, shouldering their weapons for a moment to salute his passing. A moderately decorated soldier, sporting a few subdued patches and a single medal about his neck, hailed the General, slamming his fist into his polished breastplate as a greeting. The two held a quick and whispered conversation while the General’s bodyguards loitered about the group, keeping a loose perimeter about the pair. Despite his straining, Leander could not make out the words of their conversation – he stood between several of the bodyguards, and didn’t want to draw attention to himself by moving closer. Finishing their quick conference, the General waved Leander forward, seemingly not noticing the messenger’s horrid attempt to look like he had not been listing. “Get up here, boy! You’ll need to know some of this.”

Apprehensively, Leander walked up to the two men, watching as the second man, who appeared to be a field officer, called over a further two of his men. The officer’s manner was terse and stern, much like the Captain’s had been, back when Leander had been interrogated. Thinking of the Captain’s sudden change of personality, though, Leander felt unsure of whether to trust this outward appearance. Beardless, and with a sharp chin, the man had the air of a weapon, like a spear sharpened to a razor edge by the harsh filing of his experiences, his face a mixture of efficiency, discipline, and a vague sort of contempt for those who lacked those qualities.

The pair who the Commander had called over, having reached the group, snapped a pair of fast salutes in unison, leaving Leander feeling inadequate for his lack of military professionalism. Both of them were nowhere near handsome, the closest having a face that seemed almost entirely made of scar tissue, as if from some great fire that had consumed his head, though the further soldier seemed not to have any sort of artificial disfigurement to blame for his lack of good looks. It wasn’t really even anything specific that Leander could distinguish about his face – the man just looked ugly. Despite his unpleasant appearance, there seemed to be something more to this man, a weird limberness to his joints and an odd roll to his walk, that dissuaded Leander from dismissing the man outright.

“At ease,” the Commander said, waving his hand in a way that definitely did not seem at ease. “Sergeant Baird, your men are ready?” His words were a statement, disguised as a question, directed at the unscarred man, who looked coolly back for a moment before delivering his reply.

“Y’sh, C’mm’nder.” His voice was deep and flat, the words unenunciated, as were his facial expressions. He sounded like a man who won lots of poker games – he also sounded like a man people might go out of their way to avoid hearing speak. “Th’r all ‘n place. H’ve you f’nd th’ trait’r y’t?”

“Not yet, Baird, but this trip should lure him out. I want you to keep a keen eye out for anything suspicious – and you too, Dan.” The commander looked from one man to the other, his gaze piercing and harsh. More than before, Leander had the impression that there was much, much more going on here than he was aware of. Rather than try to understand it all, he figured it was probably better if he just tried to stay out of the way as much as possible, go with the flow, and claim honest innocence if anything went wrong.

“Dan, you’ll be guarding the courier here.” The Commander gestured at Leander, and the scarred man nodded to him, his eyes dark among his strangely distorted skin. Looking more closely at his new guardian, Leander noted the conspicuous excess of armaments Dan wore about his body. A plain scabbard held a similarly plain-hilted dagger to his right hip, with what looked like a strangely shaped hatchet hanging behind it. On the other side, a middle-length sword occupied most of the space, though, more impressively, the scarred man possessed a small revolver, elegantly engraved and polished to a perfect sheen. It was housed in its own special holster, right next to a small pouch that presumably contained spare ammunition. For armor, he wore the standard breastplate of the guards here, polished to the same bright perfection. In addition, he carried an open-faced helm, unusual only in that a three inch long metal spike adorned its crest, underneath the crook of his arm, clutching at a faded purple length of cloth in his hand. Leander was slightly confused as to the purpose of the cloth, and disturbed by the helm – was there actually a call for something like that in combat? It was hard for Leander to imagine someone ramming another human with a spike affixed to their head.

It took Leander a moment to realize that the group had descended into an awkward silence, and was now all staring at him expectantly. “Satisfied?” the General asked, though he didn’t give Leander a second to answer before continuing. “You will be delivering this message. Keep it stowed safely away, and don’t give it to anyone except Ambassador Holden in Ettenmire. The train behind us will take you almost up to his doorstep – you need only walk from the station in Ettenmire itself, and even then Dan will take you to where the Ambassador resides. Ambassador Holden will compensate you adequately for your troubles when you arrive – you can expect knighthood, as well as money, for your efforts. What you are doing here is vital to our ability to continue fighting against the rebel forces that threaten our King and his noble rule – as an honorable and upright citizen under his righteous reign, it both your duty and your privilege to serve in such a manner. Take this message, er… what was your name?” the General paused, his stirring speech interrupted by his lack of knowledge.

“Uh… Leander.” The response was somewhat surprised, not from the question so much as the sudden burden being laid upon him.

“Take this message, Leander. Our fate is in your capable hands.” The letter was presented with a deeply formal gesture, and the General’s words had possessed a highly stylized feel, as if he were inspiring a group of soldiers – which, Leander supposed, was very close to what he was trying to do. Reaching out a hand, Leander took the message, a plain tan envelope affixed with a red wax seal and a ribbon.

Carefully tucking it into his bag, he wondered how much trouble he was getting himself in to.