"Servant of Empire" - Ch 6

Rendo found me, some time after dawn. The sun hadn’t reached above the walls yet, but I could see its glow painted across the top of the inner Western barrier.

“You spend a lot of time thinking,” he said.

“Lots to think about.”

“I suppose that’s true. I can’t imagine what I’d do if my village was just gone.” He shook his head and sat down across from me.

“Can we perhaps talk of something else?”

“Sure. Bit of a sensitive subject, huh?”

“A bit. How long have you all been traveling together?”

“About a year, I guess, it was last summer that I met up with Wynter and Nix. Sered joined us in the fall.” He grinned. “There was this goblin hive that was raiding Wynter’s township, Howard’s Mark, and the town elders hired us to stop it.”

“What about the Arrol?”

“Rhorahl? He joined us about a month ago, we’d decided we needed a full hand for Orandor’s job.” He picked up a few pebbles and started juggling them in a low arc.

“That explains why you all seemed to take his loss so easily.”

He looked over at me while tossing the stones about. “Didn’t have a lot of time to build up any attachment. He was nice enough, though hard to understand him. He couldn’t talk so well. Besides, we sort-of expect problems in this life. High-risk, high-reward, I guess. You said you were in the military back home?”

“Yes, in the war against his people.”

“Ohhhh, now I get it. So when you saw Rhorahl, he was your enemy, wasn’t he?”

I nodded. “They were a threat to all races – if we hadn’t beaten them down, they would have turned every last one of us into cattle. So we were forced to annihilate them.”

“Why so harsh on them? Your people were slavers, couldn’t you do that? Why try to wipe them out?”

“Some tried to make them useful, but never successfully. Even raised from eggs they were too vicious to be of any use other than a guard-beast. The adults were universally followers of Zuihor, fanatics. They only saw others as food. I don’t think one could ever domesticate them, at least not in a lifetime. I’m actually surprised you were able to find a tame one to accompany you all.”

“Maybe they’ve changed a bit since your time. Do you know how it ended?”

“The war? Yes,” I paused to consider it. “We found where they bred, their egg-nests, and destroyed them. Killed most of their breeders as well. I had thought all, but obviously I was wrong.”

“That didn’t stop their armies, though, did it?”

“Not immediately. We’d done a good job of putting them in their place militarily, but they bred faster than we did, which would put us at a long-term disadvantage. So while our armies held them and beat them back, we sent a recon force to wipe out their breeding caste.”

“Didn’t you say you did recon work?”

“Yes, I led that force myself.”

He whistled low. “Didn’t realize you were that deep. Must have been tough.”

“Yes, it was a very difficult mission,” I said. I couldn’t help but wince a little at the memory. “But it guaranteed the victory. It would probably take ten years or so for us to see the result of it, but my company broke the back of the Arrollians. When we finished, they couldn’t replace their losses.”

“That’s pretty big stuff. Got all kinds of medals for that, I bet.”

“I was recognized, yes. Promoted to Commander from Lieutenant for it, and it’s how I got my title, though that really doesn’t seem to matter much now.”

“You were royalty?”

“Technically, all Shadrim are descended from royalty, but yes, I was made a Count for my service.”

“I bet your mission there will make for a good story over beers someday.”

I sat back, uncomfortable with that. “Maybe. It’s still pretty raw for me. Only happened a year or so ago, so it might be a bit before I can really think it through and tell it properly. I lost a lot of good soldiers, some of them friends.”

He looked at me. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think about that. I always say stupid shit like that, sorry.”

“We all do from time to time.”

He paused. “Well, I’ll be interested in hearing about it when you do. Why are you looking at me like that?”

I shook my head and looked away. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just a little confused still. Talking to you like this, as equals, it’s not normal for me. Feels strange just to hear complete sentences like that.”

He frowned. “You mentioned that already, yes. I’ll try to take that as a compliment,”

“I guess I can see why, though. I’m a free man, though, not a slave. That going to be a problem?”

“I don’t think so. It just feels a little weird. I mean, when we found your people, they were scraping out a living on this little island, hunting miniature elephants and giant rats. Barely even had a language of their own. If I may beg your patience with me while I’m still adjusting to this change, I’d appreciate it.”

“Fair enough, but you don’t need to mention it any more. And if you get too ordery with me I might have to bust you one.”

“I’ll make sure to wear guards on my shins and ankles.” I had to dodge quickly to avoid being pegged by a small stone which sailed past my shoulder.

“Yeah, you’re going to fit right in with this crowd, I think,” he said.

“As an adventuring company, do you all have a charter?”

“We do, yes. We’re known as the ‘Grey Wayfarers,’ licensed in Mirn.”

“Mirn…that’s the big city?”

“That’s right. Used to be the seat of a pretty fair-sized kingdom, until the Hangtusk orcs washed through it like a wave. They’re still rebuilding today, even trying to re-establish their borders. We’re right on the Northern edge of their territory here.”

“They haven’t quite worked out the internal security then, have they?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, they have a seemingly self-organized group of trolls harassing their citizens. That seems to show me that they are weak at patrolling their interior.”

“Oh, they’ve got more than just that. There’s still orcs and goblins and the like.”

“I see. So the borders they claim are more of a placeholder thing, then?”

“I guess you could say that, yes. I’m sure eventually they’ll get things clean, but until then there’s plenty of work for folks like us.”

“Have you been to Mirn?”

“Just the once. I liked it a lot, though it’s a bit creepy at night.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, half of it is deserted old stone buildings, a few districts are still almost completely abandoned.”

“So there’s enough people to populate it, but it’s still ruins from when those orcs overran it then?”

“Yeah. There are adventuring companies like ours that never leave the city, they get enough work clearing the sewers and occasionally old buildings.”

“So what brought you all out of that?”

“Well, Rohrahl was a strange case, and Sered there doesn’t really fit in well either. So we stuck it out for a while, but we were more comfortable heading out into the countryside to try our luck out here.”

“Surely there have to be a variety of races in the city?”

“Yes, of course, they even have a few of your people there, if I remember right. Not a very friendly place for them to be, but they’re there.”

“Interesting.”

“But overall we just wanted to get on the road for a while. We saw this poster up about Orandor, and we figured the money looked good, so we came to check it out. Here we are.”

He looked up as the sound of a bell rang from somewhere inside. “Hey! Breakfast!”

I stood with him, realizing that I was rather hungry.

“Oh, before we go in?” He looked at me a little sideways. “Something you need to know, since you’ll be travelling with us, and you’ll eventually ask anyway.”

“Yes?”

“Wynter. He, well…he’s a little…strange. Did you notice?”

“This must be something big, to call something strange when considering what I’ve been through these last few days. No, I didn’t notice.”

He thought it through for a few minutes. “Remember how I told you I met up with Wynter and the others? Back when there were raiders hitting Wynter’s township?”

“Yes?”

“Well, Wynter died.”

Understanding hit me. “Oh, we had priests in the Caern Jale, they could perform the Ritual of Return too. You had to be pretty well deserving in the priest’s eyes, or at least had family that would pay well…”

“No, I’m not finished. There was no ritual.”

Understanding fled me. “Go on.”

“He was killed while we were routing the goblins. We’d found a couple of trolls that were directing the band, and while we were fighting the trolls one of them killed him. Hit him with a blow that bent in his entire chest-plate, dropped him like a sack of potatoes.”

“I understand, so far.”

“We killed the trolls, and we drove the surviving goblins away. When we returned to town with Wynter’s body, we were all set to bury him the next day. We’d got him out to his family farm and all. Dropped him in the ground, said the words, and his uncle put us up in the stable overnight.”

His face turned grim. “Next morning, he was waiting for us outside the door. Covered with dirt, filthy and miserable. He came back, but he was still dead. He was sobbing, he couldn’t cry – not enough water left in his body. We almost burned him there, but he convinced us that he wasn’t harmful to us. Kept going on about finding the king of the trolls, the ones that were pushing those goblins around.”

“To kill this troll?” A self-propelled undead…that was unsettling on a number of levels.

“Yeah. Said it was him responsible for a lot of his friends dying, for him dying, and he couldn’t leave. So he kept his place with us.” He looked back to the stones beneath his feet. “I figured you’d notice he doesn’t eat or drink, or any of that other stuff. Better to tell you now and save an awkward conversation on the road.”

“Thank you.”

“I gotta ask on this one too, is that going to be a problem?”

I thought about it. “I don’t really know. I mean, undeath is forbidden to my people, but he’s human – a subject race. There’s no restriction on it for those who aren’t already Promised…wait, look at me, pretending my laws still matter.”

I shrugged and said, “I suppose not, outside of some personal revulsion, but I’ll try to get past that. Are there any peculiar quirks he has since…since he came back? Sensitivities?”

“Aside from being dead, no.”

“I take it you never found the troll king?”

“Not yet, no. We promised him that we’d go after him if we ever did find a lead, but so far nothing’s cropped up. He’s pretty insistent, so we might head back toward where he’s from soon. With this job being done and all.”

I scratched my head. “I see. Weird, I can’t recall ever hearing about trolls organizing into a kingdom. Bands of two or three on occasion, but they always seemed too animalistic to really lay down the foundations of a government. They just don’t tend to travel far. Trolls, that is. Unless there’s no food to be had at all, and they can eat some amazingly awful things if they get hungry enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that if there is a king of the trolls, he’s probably within a reasonable distance of where you ran into the trolls at the goblin lair. We would occasionally use them as shock troops, and they required a lot of supervision. If you found a few separated from their chain of command, but still following orders, then the next link in the chain had to be very close by.”

“Makes sense.”

“Or, they had a strong remote connection and used magic to enforce their orders. But if it’s a troll king as you say, I can’t imagine it having any sort of arcane talent. Hard enough to believe it was smart enough to become a king in the first place.”

“You know what?”

“What?”

“I think maybe we should talk to Wynter about this. None of us knew that much about trolls – outside of Nix knowing the breeds and how to kill them, that is. If there might be a chance to help him, I feel like maybe we should do that.”

I nodded agreement.

“Besides, I’m hungry and the food’s not walking out here to us,” Rendo rubbed his stomach in emphasis of his point.

“Agreed.”

We headed inside.

The tables were laid out with common fare – bread, some cheeses, a bit of ham. Milk, coffee, and hot water for tea were also present. Some racks held bread over the fire for toast and I could smell eggs cooking. Everyone was eating and chatting.

Except Wynter. I suppose now that I was attuned to what I should watch for, I was noticing it now. He talked with the rest, but didn’t eat or drink at all. He smiled a bit here and there, but his hands never moved to his lips. Come to think of it, he didn’t touch his face at all, either. That was one of the things they taught us in the Caern Magistra for spotting infiltrating undead – they generally don’t touch their own faces. Living people do all manner of things with their faces constantly…we scratch, we wipe our noses, adjust our hair, all that. Thousands of times a day, we touch our faces.

Undead just don’t do that. I guess they don’t itch or something. The instructor had said that only very smart ones, vampires and such, knew how to imitate living creatures and made an effort to imitate them, but that even they sometimes fell into a pattern of habitual motions rather than natural contact.

Orandor was there, sitting and eating alongside us. Once everyone had a full plate, he stood and tapped his glass a few times with a fork.

“Gentle persons, I have been glad to have you guest with me. As I mentioned before, I have work to do in preparing things, and will require time. I would say at least a month will be necessary before I can deliver the goods I promised. You already have your cash payment for the job you’ve done for me.”

As he said this, he pointed towards the far side of the room, where a few small wooden boxes sat.

“Should you need to, you are welcome to return, though I will have little time to speak with you until my work is complete. I have prepared your mounts in the stables, and you will find two weeks’ consumables for yourselves and the animals among your bags.”

He looked us all over. “Thank you all, you have done me good service. I look forward to doing business again in the future. And now, I will take my leave and wish you a good journey.”

With that, he retrieved his coffee mug, bowed shallowly, and left the room.

“Guess that’s the nicest way anyone’s ever told me ‘please leave,’” said Nix.

Rendo laughed at that.

The rest of us ate our fill, and went out to the stables to find our mounts waiting for us. As I had no mount of my own, the two stablehands showed me the few extras in the stable. One was enormous, and I was told it belonged to Rhorahl, while the rest were Orandor’s own. I chose a chestnut gelding of normal size, leaving the enormous animal that had belonged to the Arrol for Orandor’s use. The saddle they provided was worn but in good condition. Sered, being particularly tall, had a black stallion that was of a matching size to the Arrol’s; Rendo had a marbled pony, and the rest had fairly unremarkable horses.

“So, where are we headed now?” I asked of no one in particular.

“The crossroads is a few days’ East, then the village of Evelineton is only a few more days South on the Great South Road, and after that there’s Grunweld, about a week further.”

“That’s near to where I am from,” Wynter said. “Grunweld is a few hours ride from Howard’s Mark.” He had mounted a grey mare behind me.

“Rendo told me a bit about your home, how you all had met.”

“He mentioned your thoughts on the trolls this morning,” he drew up alongside.

Sered threw his gear over the saddle of his horse and leaped into the saddle. “Seems we should investigate, don’t you think?”

The others variously voiced agreement. I shrugged and nodded, mounting the horse.

We took our mounts out the front gate, which swung shut slowly after we’d exited. Wynter rode beside me for a while.

“You really think the leader of the trolls will be nearby?” He asked. I kept expecting his voice to be a monotone, dull, but its depth of expression still came as a surprise to me. I could feel the curiosity bubbling up.

“I do, but my impression is only of what I have been told, and may be very outdated. I don’t know what trolls are like here.”

“Filthy, large, smelly, and tough to kill.”

“There’s that, I guess they’re still that way then.”

The road wound around the side of a hill, its green grass and awakening boles smelled like spring when the wind drifted towards me. The bite of winter was still in the air, faint and distant, like the last twilight fading away before the break of the sun.

I couldn’t help but notice a faint trace of a dusty odor coming from Wynter when it didn’t.

The stars had been the same the previous night, at least there was that in common. I recognized a few constellations, and the moons of course. Birds, and I’m sure the elusive forest animals would be similar if not identical to what I was used to.

“I hope you’re right,” he said. “I’d like that, if there wasn’t far to go.”

I nodded. “I guess I hope so too,” I said. “Makes things a little easier to find.”

He rode a short way ahead then, and didn’t say much. I spent a bit of time looking at the light copses of trees as we went. I knew most of them, and more than a few had familiar spherical blooms of holly clinging to their branches. The leaves were starting to grow in on some, while others remained stubbornly bare, as if unwilling to wake up with the oncoming Spring.

The trees to either side had buds all over them, the light green of oncoming spring. Soon enough they’d be full of flowers. This was a mixed wood, firs scattered throughout the hardwoods. A few birds called, enough to know they were there, not so many as to be overwhelming.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Nix had pulled alongside while I was preoccupied.

“Yes, I suppose. I’ve never been one to spend a lot of time appreciating nature, it’s always been more of a question of surviving it, you know?”

She nodded. “I’m a city girl myself, but I can’t help but enjoy wandering around outside here like this. What about you, Sered?”

From some meters ahead of us, Sered cocked his head back a bit. “I find it very enjoyable, yes.”

“Well, there’s something you two have in common,” Nix grinned.

Towards evening, we pulled aside to a clearing and unpacked our sleeping gear. Nix and Wynter pulled a large tarp and several long metal-headed posts, and erected a wind-wall while I got the fire started. Sered gathered a fair share of wood from among the trees, enough to see us through the night. Rendo disappeared for a while, long enough that I was about to ask where he’d gone, but he returned just then carrying a brace of three rabbits.

Here and there, small patches of snowbells and buttercups were rising around in the grass and moss. It really was a pretty area. Several creeks and small rivers had passed through the road, meandering on their way. I guessed they would all empty themselves into the Rur Denal, the largest river in this region (though I had no idea what it was called today). Some even had small trout or other fish in them. I was never a fisherman, so I didn’t know what the Denal had in it, but these were definitely new to me.

The fire was going nicely by then, and Nix retrieved a pot from the animals, which she set unceremoniously among the burning coals. Rendo got to skinning and cleaning the rabbits, while Wynter gathered some snow from the more deeply shaded areas into the pot. I watched while Rendo sectioned the rabbits into quarters and dropped them in the pot, as Sered cut up a few potatoes and two carrots to join them.

“Pretty well-organized,” I said. “My company mess would have liked this.”

“We’ve been at it for a little while,” Rendo said. “The first time…”

“Don’t say it,” Nix threatened.

“…Nix got half a burned branch in the food.”

“Prick.”

“Took a while, but we finally got most of it out. Sered was picking splinters out of his teeth for a week though.”

“When are you going to let that lie, you little weasel?”

“Maybe a few weeks after I’m dead. I’ll pull a Wynter and keep giving it to you for a little though.”

I think I saw Wynter smile.

The stew that developed in that pot was not too bad, as trail food goes.

The days and nights went much like that for several days. The next night I helped Rendo and we bagged a small doe, and Rendo also found a big patch of bear garlic, which gave us enough to work with that we made some really good meals. I could almost see why they liked to stay on the road. (There’s not enough beer or Brevare in a road camp for my tastes.) That doe kept us fed for the next couple of days. I contemplated keeping the hide, but it had been scarred and was so full of ticks that ultimately, I just discarded it.

During those days, I practiced their dialect of the Traders’ lingo, and discovered that where my own linguistic skills fell short, the Imperial sigil on my hand was filling in. I would hardly have a moment to wonder what a word was before it would thrust itself into my mind and roll clearly off my tongue. I almost wished it didn’t, as I was concerned that it might leave me as quickly as it came, and I didn’t want to be speech-disadvantaged if that were to occur.

I thought over what Orandor had told me about it, and it set me back a step. For it to still to be able to perform such mind magic – reading my intent, offering me the correct solution – this was far more than just a magical brand. For what little I knew of such magic, this was very delicate and powerful stuff. That it appeared as a part of my own flesh reduced the power required to work in my mind, but still there had to be more than just a simple set of abjurations or transmutations within it – this required a store of knowledge somewhere. Facts don’t simply materialize, they aren’t like forces or energies. My guess was that it had the soul of some infernal or demon bound within it to provide such, but I had no way to know.

It did make me wonder what else this thing might be able to do. Or was doing.

(All content here, outside of those elements attributed otherwise, is copyright (2025-) Thomas Theobald. With the exception of AI training, personal use with attribution is granted.)