Arden
02-22-16, 08:03 AM
Prologue
“Give me one reason, just one, why I shouldn’t hunt him down myself!”
The challenge echoed through the war room, resounding in the ears of the advisers who had gathered in the dead of winter. The torch brackets in the long, cold corridor that lead to the sanctum in which they sat flickered, as though trembling at the speaker’s rage.
“Arden, listen to me. That is exactly what he would want.” Lillith’s soft voice crashed against her brother’s anger.
The leaders of Chronicle sat around the table shuffled papers and tapped the well-worn wood nervously. Everyone silently hoped for the hostilities to end come spring, both in the fortress, and out. Nothing would get done if they could not resolve their differences.
“Do you forgot his crimes?” Arden took a deep breath, exasperated, and tried to calm himself. He balled his hands into tight fists to stop them shaking. He rolled his neck left to right to ease the stiffness of a tiring afternoon of rhetoric and accounting.
“Nobody here could possibly understand what you are going through, Arden.” Leopold spoke with more charisma and command than Lillith, but with equal heart. “But remember Revenant cut chords we’ve all had to reweave.” The sentiment was well-placed, but lost on the swordsman’s blistering emotions. In the days to come Arden would look back on the merchant’s words and be humbled by them.
It was always something. Grief, slowly evaporating from their lives, all too readily burnt in resurgence. It was an intolerable beacon on the horizon, one constant in the everyday they could not be rid of.
“So at least sound like you are with me.”
“Of course we’re with you, you fool!” Lillith reached for her wine glass and drained its contents. She set the empty vessel on a trade agreement with Salvarian princes and patted her stomach. “We just rather fancy you alive, and not chasing ghosts alone.”
The war room was a rectangular chamber in the easterly wing of Brandybuck Castle. Part of the castle’s original structure, prior to the refurbishments paid for from the profits of the Winchester Rose Trading Company, it smelt of damp and cigars (though nobody could tell if this was due to its current, or previous owner). A fireplace ten feet tall and equally wide burnt like a forge on the north wall, giving the occupants comfort and light in equal measure. The crack of embers and the rush of heat up the chimney served as an ambient backdrop to the long proceedings.
“Does that mean…,” Arden asked, after a long, awkward pause, “that you’ll help?”
Leopold, Lillith, Arden, Reginald, and Otto raised their hands. As was custom, the motion was carried without fanfare. Nobody bar Arden had any doubt in their minds that they were going to bring the demon to justice. The real questions, to which they now plied themselves, were how to find him, and what form that justice would take.
“It is a matter of logistics, Mr Janelle, not conviction.” Reginald partook in another sip of his tea, from a teapot he treasured more than Arden treasured swordplay. “We need to know what resources to dedicate to this cause, and how we are going to maneavour our forces should we require…,” he cleared his throat noisily, a skill all librarians used to indicate forthcoming wisdom, “use of excessive force.”
“He means to say he doesn’t expect Revenant to come quietly,” Leopold explained.
“Could you blame the blighter?” Otto had joined the cause long after the rise and fall of the Ixian Knights, but even he had heard about the fire wielding madman. The footpads of the Corone Armed Forces had many names for him. Revenant was the least terrifying. “I’d kill a hundred mystics before giving in…”
“Oh. Wonderful.” Leopold rolled his eyes.
Otto was seldom one to put his foot in his mouth. Upon realising his mistake he returned to counting the tallies set out before him. If one good thing came out of his evening, it would be correct accounts and paid invoices for the goods they had purchased from Radasanth’s merchants.
“It’s okay Leopold. Kyla’s passing was not Revenant’s doing. Jensen’s madness, though incited by the former captain’s rebellion, was a by-product of his immortality. No.” Arden stood. He rested his hands on the table’s edge, gripping it tight enough to deaden his fingers, and leant in to see the area of the map that detailed rural Corone. “I want to gut the bastard for letting Cassandra Remi slaughter the soldiers I was supposed to protect.”
Arden Janelle had once been a soldier. Charged with the training of the Ixian Knights recruits, a peacekeeping force by and large, his purpose in life had been to give hope and bravery along with a shield and sword. On that fateful night, nearly seven years ago, he had watched hundreds of young men and women slaughtered whilst they tried, and failed, to defend Ixian Castle. The creatures he had seen, the unending horrors of the Cult’s debauchery haunted him still.
“Those men died protecting something they believed in, brother.”
Despite Lillith’s protestation, Arden continued to stare intently at the map as though searching for answers. After a few minutes, the group began to discuss the sightings of their quarry and how they might lure Revenant into the open. To the swordsmen, they were words and empty promises. A new fury filled him, zealotry unbridled, and he promised himself there and then that he would see this through.
“Give me one reason, just one, why I shouldn’t hunt him down myself!”
The challenge echoed through the war room, resounding in the ears of the advisers who had gathered in the dead of winter. The torch brackets in the long, cold corridor that lead to the sanctum in which they sat flickered, as though trembling at the speaker’s rage.
“Arden, listen to me. That is exactly what he would want.” Lillith’s soft voice crashed against her brother’s anger.
The leaders of Chronicle sat around the table shuffled papers and tapped the well-worn wood nervously. Everyone silently hoped for the hostilities to end come spring, both in the fortress, and out. Nothing would get done if they could not resolve their differences.
“Do you forgot his crimes?” Arden took a deep breath, exasperated, and tried to calm himself. He balled his hands into tight fists to stop them shaking. He rolled his neck left to right to ease the stiffness of a tiring afternoon of rhetoric and accounting.
“Nobody here could possibly understand what you are going through, Arden.” Leopold spoke with more charisma and command than Lillith, but with equal heart. “But remember Revenant cut chords we’ve all had to reweave.” The sentiment was well-placed, but lost on the swordsman’s blistering emotions. In the days to come Arden would look back on the merchant’s words and be humbled by them.
It was always something. Grief, slowly evaporating from their lives, all too readily burnt in resurgence. It was an intolerable beacon on the horizon, one constant in the everyday they could not be rid of.
“So at least sound like you are with me.”
“Of course we’re with you, you fool!” Lillith reached for her wine glass and drained its contents. She set the empty vessel on a trade agreement with Salvarian princes and patted her stomach. “We just rather fancy you alive, and not chasing ghosts alone.”
The war room was a rectangular chamber in the easterly wing of Brandybuck Castle. Part of the castle’s original structure, prior to the refurbishments paid for from the profits of the Winchester Rose Trading Company, it smelt of damp and cigars (though nobody could tell if this was due to its current, or previous owner). A fireplace ten feet tall and equally wide burnt like a forge on the north wall, giving the occupants comfort and light in equal measure. The crack of embers and the rush of heat up the chimney served as an ambient backdrop to the long proceedings.
“Does that mean…,” Arden asked, after a long, awkward pause, “that you’ll help?”
Leopold, Lillith, Arden, Reginald, and Otto raised their hands. As was custom, the motion was carried without fanfare. Nobody bar Arden had any doubt in their minds that they were going to bring the demon to justice. The real questions, to which they now plied themselves, were how to find him, and what form that justice would take.
“It is a matter of logistics, Mr Janelle, not conviction.” Reginald partook in another sip of his tea, from a teapot he treasured more than Arden treasured swordplay. “We need to know what resources to dedicate to this cause, and how we are going to maneavour our forces should we require…,” he cleared his throat noisily, a skill all librarians used to indicate forthcoming wisdom, “use of excessive force.”
“He means to say he doesn’t expect Revenant to come quietly,” Leopold explained.
“Could you blame the blighter?” Otto had joined the cause long after the rise and fall of the Ixian Knights, but even he had heard about the fire wielding madman. The footpads of the Corone Armed Forces had many names for him. Revenant was the least terrifying. “I’d kill a hundred mystics before giving in…”
“Oh. Wonderful.” Leopold rolled his eyes.
Otto was seldom one to put his foot in his mouth. Upon realising his mistake he returned to counting the tallies set out before him. If one good thing came out of his evening, it would be correct accounts and paid invoices for the goods they had purchased from Radasanth’s merchants.
“It’s okay Leopold. Kyla’s passing was not Revenant’s doing. Jensen’s madness, though incited by the former captain’s rebellion, was a by-product of his immortality. No.” Arden stood. He rested his hands on the table’s edge, gripping it tight enough to deaden his fingers, and leant in to see the area of the map that detailed rural Corone. “I want to gut the bastard for letting Cassandra Remi slaughter the soldiers I was supposed to protect.”
Arden Janelle had once been a soldier. Charged with the training of the Ixian Knights recruits, a peacekeeping force by and large, his purpose in life had been to give hope and bravery along with a shield and sword. On that fateful night, nearly seven years ago, he had watched hundreds of young men and women slaughtered whilst they tried, and failed, to defend Ixian Castle. The creatures he had seen, the unending horrors of the Cult’s debauchery haunted him still.
“Those men died protecting something they believed in, brother.”
Despite Lillith’s protestation, Arden continued to stare intently at the map as though searching for answers. After a few minutes, the group began to discuss the sightings of their quarry and how they might lure Revenant into the open. To the swordsmen, they were words and empty promises. A new fury filled him, zealotry unbridled, and he promised himself there and then that he would see this through.