The Bringer of War

Grunting with exertion, the girl strained her muscles to the fullest. Her fingers grew white, arms shaking as the stubborn object refused to bend to her will.

“Come on, Allfather damn you!” she said gutturally in a gasp.

The girl’s fingers slipped, sending her flying backwards onto her rump. Her spectacles, already with tenuous purchase on her sweat slick nose, slid off to land in her lap. The indigo pointed hat on her head slid down to cover her large gray eyes. Rather than compose herself she sat still on the floor for a few moments.

“Why me?” she said, pulling the hat off at last. She was a waifish figure, thin boned and short. Her large eyes and pink lips seemed to suggest she had not seen more than fifteen winters. Her slightly upturned nose bore a pair of red marks from the nose pads on her spectacles. Her dark hair was cut simply, long bangs hiding her forehead and always threatening to hang in her eyes. An indigo robe of fine silk adorned her body, but it was worn with travel. Symbols that resembled stars and the moon were woven into its surface, but many of them were faded and stained to the point of near invisibility.

Picking herself up, she rubbed her rump and groaned. The room she was in was miniscule, not more than six paces across. The bed was a flea ridden nightmare with springs that poked out at random intervals, but the in keep had told her it was the only chamber with a table he had available. Sunlight filtered in through a greasy, cracked window, splashing over the dingy environs.

She stared hard at the object of her obsession, a large leather bound tome sitting square in the middle of the table. The book was almost two feet long and nearly as wide, its cover bereft of decoration. The parchment within had its visible edges coated with a thin layer of silver to protect against moisture. The girl put her hand on the cover as if to open it.

“Okay, Stella,” she said under her breath “you can do this; You’re a wizard, you’re smarter than A DAMN BOOK!”

She strained to open the tome once again, and despite her desperate struggles is remained firmly shut. Slapping her hands over her cheeks, she shut her eyes tight and shook her head.

“C’mon,” she said “Please? I just want to see the incantations for curing wheat blight!”

Reaching down half-heartedly, she gently tried the cover and found that it opened immediately. Sighing in relief, she began to thumb past the pages. The text within was strange, not the Cyrillic scrawl of a quill pen but blocky letters that appeared to have been stamped upon the page. There were numerous illustrations included in the text, often depicting different configurations of the human hand. She stopped by a section that depicted one fist held suspended over an open palm. Stella poured over the book, leaning low like a glutton shoveling food into his face. Her lips moved silently as she read, eyes scanning back and forth over the pages. She did not look up when a clap came outside her door.

“Witch!” came a masculine voice. “You have not paid for three days!”

Stella rolled her eyes and sighed. She looked at the open book, reaching as if to close it, but hesitated. Sweeping off her pointed hat, she placed it over the book to conceal as much of it as she could. The clap came again, and the doorknob wriggled as someone tried to open if from the other side.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” said Stella, stomping across the floor and flinging the door open wide. Standing framed in the passage was a man of some forty years, thick arms crossed over his chest. He wore a stained leather apron over his even more stained trousers and shirt. His bald pate shone in the sunlight from the window, the only hair on his body she could see other than a bushy mustache.

“Where is my coin, witch?” he said gruffly.

“I will have it by this afternoon,” said Stella through gritted teeth. “Now, please go and leave me in peace! I am engaged in delicate research-”

“You’re making enough racket to wake the dead,” he said in a low growl. “You either pay me six silver by sundown, or so help me I’ll break off me foot in your arse!”

“No need to be so...graphic,” she said, wrinkling her nose “I’ll have it, I promise.”

“You had better,” said the man, turning to stride down the hall. She heard his booted feet clumping on the stairs to the common area. Sighing, she closed the door and turned back to her table.

“Noooooooo!” she wailed, as the book she had carefully left open was now tightly shut, her hat lying on the floor.

** *

Fennick whistled cheerfully as Raff dropped the shiny silver into his waiting palm.

“Eight...nine....ten,” said the farmer through tight lips. A few feet away from them, Seamus stood next to an iron dome shaped cage. Within its bars sat their little feathered dragon, baring its teeth fiercely and snarling like a beast four times its size. Seamus seemed as if he were afraid the creature would tear through the bars and rend him limb from limb, as every time the dragon so much as twitched he would leap backwards and hold his sword towards the beast.

“Thank you, master Raff!” said Fennick, clapping the man on the shoulder, which was not well received. “Your dragon problems are a thing of the past.”

“A swift resolution,” said Raff, glaring suspiciously up at Fennick. The dragon slayer smirked and swept into a low bow.

“We live but to serve, my good man,” he said. Raff grunted and nodded his head towards the feathered serpent.

“Get that thing off my land,” he said.

“Right away, sir,” said Fennick, turning to address Seamus. “Ho, brother, bring the caged monster along. And mind your fingers, lest they be snipped off by the beast’s jaws, for despite its tiny size it is a killer without peer!”

Raff shook his head. “Right, it is.” he said. He turned and strode from the two brothers, grumbling about having been conned.

The little dragon kept up its fitful act until they were well up the dirt road from the farmstead. Abruptly, it quieted down and began to stare at Seamus eagerly from where its cage rested on the back of their two wheeled wagon. Fennick looked back from the traces to roll his eyes at the big man.

“You’re going to let her out again, aren’t you?” he said ruefully.

“She’s naught got room to stretch her wings in there, brother,” said Seamus, smiling as the little dragon leaped out of the cage and onto his arm.

“What kind of dragon slayer keeps one as a pet?” said Fennick.

“The successful kind,” said Seamus, giving the taller but thinner man a glare.

“I do not dispute that Roikza has been...lucrative,” said Fennick.

“Twas a good day indeed, when we found that little red egg...” said Seamus wistfully.

“If I recall,” said Fennick with a smirk “you wanted to eat it.”

Roikza’s jaw’s gaped, and she began hissing loudly at Seamus, buffeting him with her wings.

“Damn it all, Fennick, you know she understands what we say!” said Seamus as he endured the chastisement.

“Oh, please,” said Fennick, turning back to lash their mule into movement. “She probably just got spooked or something. It’s a stupid flying lizard, leave it at that.”

Roikza stopped hissing at Seamus and turned towards Fennick’s back. Her forked tongue stuck out briefly in his direction, drawing a snicker from Seamus.

“Where are we off to now, brother?” said the big man, leaning back against the rough board that counted as their back rest.

“Keep heading north, I should think,” said Fennick, peering down the road. “We should get at least a day’s travel away from Raff’s farmstead, as he will no doubt warn his neighbors of us. After that, well....what’s on the map?”

Seamus dug a thick leather parchment out of an oiled tube at his side. He carefully unrolled it and glanced at its surface. His finger traced along their route and tapped on a city marked by a ship.

“Port Gar,” he said “looks to be a fairly big town. We could maybe get on as hands to one of the merchant vessels, ply our trade in Drakken’s territory-”

“What?” said Fennick, staring at his brother with contempt. “Have you gone daft, man? Walk right into a nest of Templars? Plus, you know there’s much, much bigger dragons than Roikza in the north, right? I don’t fancy having my testicles chewed off.”

“Actually,” said Seamus smugly “dragons have acid in their spit, their blood...you’d probably get them melted off.”

“Acid?” said Fennick, his mouth forming the strange word.

“It’s a northern term,” said Seamus “it means a liquid that burns like fire. Can melt through flesh, bone, even steel from what I hear.”

“If it can melt steel,” said Fennick “how do you slay the beast? Would your sword not melt upon the merest nick?”

“I have no clue,” said Seamus “though I have heard tales that the Templars enchant their blades to resist it.”

“They would,” said Fennick, spitting in the dust. “Bloody Templars.”

“You’re just pissy because you almost-” began Seamus.

“Shut your mouth,” said Fennick “or better yet, use it to tell me of the folk of this Port Gar. Are they simple, easily parted with their coin?”

“It’s a big city, brother,” said Seamus “you have more experience with them than I. However, you are always saying that-”

“Marks are everywhere,” he said, nodding sagely.

“Then let us go forth, brother,” said Seamus with a grin “with a light heart and a heavy purse.”

Roikza growled low in what may have been approval.

** *

Stella crept carefully down the uneven stairs leading to the common room. Across her back she bore the large tome, held on with heavy straps. The room was dark, most of the candles and torches unlit. A scant amount of illumination filtered in through windows nearly opaque with grime. She shuddered as a rat skittered across the floor, stopping to stare at her and twitching its nose.

She stepped over the bold little animal and trod on the dirt floor towards the exit. The innkeeper was no where in sight, which suited her mood just fine. Wincing at the sound the door made as it scraped across the hard packed dirt, she squinted in the suddenly bright light. Grumbling, she walked out the door and stood on a ill kempt road. Shabby structures surrounded her, most with the glass windows broken and boarded over. She could see the masts of the larger sailing vessels over the buildings to her left, smell the salt of the sea on the air. Turning away from them both, she walked purposefully towards the taller, more modern buildings in the center of the city.

She was harassed by catcalls as she passed a group of sailors leaning against the outside of a tavern. The waifish wizard quickened her stride as her cheeks flushed.

“Do you kiss your mothers with those mouths?” she muttered to herself. The trek to the city’s marketplace was not a long one, but bearing the heavy book across her back in the humid air had her gasping for breath by the time she saw the first tented stall.

She passed a seller of spirits, who thrust a jade green bottle beneath her nose. Stepping around the man was difficult, as he followed her movements halfway down the street. Only the sight of an urchin casing his wares made him break away from her. She grumbled, knowing that her attire fooled many into thinking her wealthy, or at least possessed of some coin they could filch.

A horse flesh peddler tried to entice her into purchasing a sway back gelding he claimed was of pure Royal stock. She was able to duck her short frame under the horse’s distended belly and avoid his patter. All about her similar scenes played out as Port Gar’s market was in full swing. She wondered how crowded it would be in a few week’s time, when the farmers brought in their harvest.

Shaking such thoughts from her shaggy head, she at last spotted her goal; A squarish warehouse on the corner of the street. Stella managed to get to the open doorway without being accosted by any other merchants, gratefully ducking into the shaded environs. She stood for a moment, allowing her eyes to adjust to the relative gloom. There were dozens of crates lined up on the splintered wooden floor, filled to bursting with oblong potatoes and yams. A little man who looked older than dirt and half as smart approached her, wringing his hands nervously. He was stripped to the waist, his surprisingly muscular chest glistening with sweat.

“Stella the witch,” he said by way of greeting “have you come to offer me more false hope?”

“I plan to actually solve your problem today, good master Whipple.” she said. “And I am a wizard, not a witch.”

Whipple shrugged. “I could never tell the difference.”

“Of course not,” said Stella, rolling her eyes. “At any rate, I do believe that I have just the thing to help your blighted stock, good sir.”

“That is what you said yesterday,” he said with an arched brow. “And the day before that!”

“The incantation I used yesterday was meant to help crops still in the ground,” she said “this one will save your stock, I am sure of it!”

“Very well,” said Whipple, casting his arm wide and gesturing to many, many more crates. The foodstuffs contained in them were besmirched with dark spots. Stella approached the wooden crates, casting her eyes back and forth to encompass all the blighted stock.

She closed her eyes, allowing her mind to slip into a near trance. Lines of energy pulsed behind her eyelids, weak ones coming from Whipple, strong ones coming from under the earth to arc into the sky, undiminished by passing through the warehouse’s roof. She tapped into the lines as a woodsman might tap a maple tree, taking the energy and drawing it into herself.

Stella continued to breath evenly as Whipple looked on with concern. The spell was half done, she had gathered the necessary power to enact the change she wished. Now it was a matter of shaping it. Holding her hands before her, she aped the illustration in her grimoire, holding one fist over an open palm.

“Pythia,” she said clearly, her voice seeming to reverberate off the wooden walls as if she had spoken much louder. As she spoke the word of power, she lifted her clenched fist into the air and opened it, acting as if she were casting a cobweb off her palm and casting it aside. She began to feel a bit light headed, and then her elbows were aching and Whipple was for some reason staring down at her.

“Are you all right, Wi-Stella?” he said with a trembling voice.

“What happened?” she said wearily, struggling to rise to her feet. Whipple was quick to assist her, seeming to fawn over her well being.

“You fainted,” he said “right after you cast off the blight!”

“What?” said Stella, blinking in the low light. “You mean that actually wo-I mean, of course it worked!”

She stumbled a bit as she walked the few feet to one of the crates. The tubers within did indeed appear free of the rotting disease. Whipple showed her a potato he had split in twain, revealing healthy yellow flesh within.

“I think you’ll find this most generous,” he said, handing her a burlap sack. It bulged with coins, making her eyes widen.

“Why, yes, I think this is quite...” she began, then frowned when she peered inside the sack. “Oh, these are coppers, all this weight is meaningless!”

“It’s twice what you quoted me,” said Whipple with a sniff.

“It’s fine,” said Stella with a sigh. Under her breath, she added “The old man never had to sell sorcery for copper...”

Bidding Whipple a good day, she left the man and began walking towards the ragged inn she had spent the last few nights in. Peering down at the purse in her hand, she realized that most of it would be gone, vanished into the in keep’s pockets, if she were to pay her debt. Sheepishly, she stuck the sack inside her robe and turned herself around.

“Sorry, old boy,” she said to herself “I’ll get you back next time I’m around, I promise!”

She was not sure, but she could have sworn the book grew heavier, as if it were trying to pull her back so she could justly pay what she owed. Stella wrote it off to weariness and stubbornly made for the opposite end of Port Gar.