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Ifan stood up, walking over to the remains of his allies. Lifting the rubble piece by piece, he tried to find any trace of them. A badly burnt bone here and there was about all he could find amongst the ash. Collecting a small number of the more intact bones, he stuffed them into a leather pouch, keen to return to Trefynnon with something to bury in their graves.
Satisfied, he clasped his hands together and closed his eyes, praying over their final resting place. He was broken out of his mourning by the pained groans of his unlikely ally.
“Find your way to the heavens, Rhian. Angharad. Kolt.” He stood back up, and returned to Fendrick, still doubled over in pain, and slowly bleeding out into the slowly filling battleground basin. Each step was a struggle, and the fatigue from utilising so much magic was settling in.
Bending over Fendrick, Ifan pulled his prayer beads out and began closing the wounds on his legs.
“Thanks,” said Fendrick through pained gasps.
“Don’t mention it.” Ifan continued, and the healing wisps worked their way over the swollen puncture wounds, full of blood. Making their ways over once, twice and three times, the wisps finally dissipated. The wounds had barely closed.
“Something wrong?” Fendrick tried to contort himself to look at his legs, wincing in agony as the damage had clearly not been restored, especially to his shin bones.
“My healing prayer. It isn’t working. Not well at least.”
“That tracks. Healing magic has always been hit or miss on me. Thought that yours might be a bit different, it being the ‘Divine Breath’ and all.”
“Then the best I can do for you is to bandage it, and let your body do its work. Chances are you might lose the leg if it ends up infected. Sorry.” Ifan pulled out a small roll of gauze from a leather pouch, and with little regard to Fendrick’s well-being, began wrapping the wounds tight.
“Careful, prince!” Fendrick winced and struggled in pain as the bandaging continued.
“Quiet.” He continued, tying the bandage tight. “A knife. You got a knife?”
“Left-hip.” Fendrick leant over to make it easier for Ifan to retrieve the blade.
Severing the bandage just above the knot, Ifan gave the job a quick once over, before beginning bandaging Fendrick’s forearm with the leftover gauze. A minute or so later after completing the wrapping, Ifan took the blade and placed it in his own belt and stuffed the bandage back into his hip pouch. “There.”
“Thanks.” Fendrick pushed himself upright, slipping lightly on the slick rock under foot. Ifan caught him before he tumbled back to the floor and tugged him upright. “Thanks, again.”
“Can you walk?” asked Ifan.
Fendrick put his weight on his injured leg and pulled it back on instinct following a shooting pain up his body. He limped a few steps forward, relatively successfully, and turned back to Ifan, “That answer your question?”
“Just about. I’ll help you over to the road,” Ifan knelt down next to Fendrick, offering him a shoulder.
“Well thanks, prince.” Fendrick accepted the help, placing his weight on Ifan’s arm.
“Looks like the damage stretches out for miles. I can barely see the end of it.” Ifan spun around, trying to find a suitable place to shoot for. He settled on a piece of flat land between two hills. If he was correct, it was Glyn-melyn, a valley with a few hamlets of dwarfs and halflings that worked the land. He pointed in its direction, “We’ll go that way. Find a place to stay and recoup. You can stay or go or do whatever you want to when we arrive. I don’t care. Just don’t hurt the people there.”
“You have my word.”
Ifan placed an arm around Fendrick, and pulled him forwards, stepping carefully on the now wet, craggy ground. They walked together in silence for the next few hours, eventually arriving at a small traveller’s inn in the Glen.
“Two rooms.” Ifan asked the receptionist, a stout dwarf with braided hair and beard.
“Aye… You two look worse for wear, you involved in that explosion to the east?” The receptionist raised a sceptical eye at the pair, Ifan stood at the reception bureau itself and Fendrick sat on a nearby couch for visitors. “Fifteen marks, for the two, total.”
Ifan rustled through his pockets, pulling out a screwed up and dusty collection of small bills. Counting them out for the receptionist, he reached ten marks before coming up empty. “If I said we were would you give us a discount? It’s all I’ve got, sorry.”
“I might. So, you were involved in that mess? How close were ya?” The dwarf reached over the bureau and grabbed at the bills, flicking through them with a wettened thumb.
“Too close,” said Fendrick from across the room.
“We got lucky. Barely escaped with our lives,” added Ifan.
“What was it like? That close? All we saw was a great flash of white, and then… nothing.” The dwarf spun around on his plush velvet chair, reaching into a set of cubby holes to retrieve two sets of keys.
“Can’t say I saw much more than that; I was unconscious for most of it.” Ifan looked over to Fendrick, “He saw it all though.”
“It was a great blast of magical energy. Unbearably hot. Then everything vanished into the light. I felt the ground beneath my feet disintegrating slowly as it was swallowed up, and then the light went… Poof… and everything was gone. For miles.” Fendrick raised his eyebrows at the receptionist, and caught a glimpse of the cleaner who had stopped mopping the floors to listen in. “Then I had to fight the thing that cast the spell. A fucking monster with wings, breasts, and a big fucking dick. Bigger than mine. Or his.” He laughed, and the dwarves joined in.
“Your friend’s a comedian. He’s joking right?” The receptionist handed the keys to Ifan, his hand lingering over them as they fell into Ifan's.
Ifan pursed his lips, and shrugged. “Believe what you want. If it gets us five marks off the rooms, then that’s what happened.” He closed his hand around the keys, pulling them to his side.
“Well, he’s got a knack for story-telling. You lads have a nice night, the bar’ll be open until eleven, feel free to pop round, I’m sure the locals would love to hear yer tale.” The dwarf shuffled off of his chair and walked to the nearby staircase and gestured up them. “Two rooms, next to each other, up these stairs and on the right.”
“Thanks. I think I’m gonna call it a night.” Ifan tossed the other key to Fendrick.
“I’ll stay downstairs for now. Can anyone help me over to the bar? I need a mountain of drink to deal with this fucking arm and leg.”
The receptionist waddled over to Fendrick and offered him a hand, providing the necessary support to get him over to the bar a room over.
Ifan walked up the stairs, located his room, and within seconds, fell asleep on the barely padded bed.
Fendrick woke up, his head pounding from the ‘mountain of drink’ he consumed over the night. The locals were keen to hear his war stories, and with reckless abandon, he spilled secret after secret about The Forgotten’s military operations, the booze and mortal peril a surprisingly good social lubricant and truth serum, he found.
His throat was sore from joining in the songs and jeering, most of which were completely foreign to him, but they were simple enough to catch up with on the second go-around. Rolling out of the bed, he realised that his arm and leg were still very much injured, as shooting pain pulsed up and down his limbs.
Fingers crossed the bar is open early for breakfast. He stood up and sniffed at his armpit. He reeked. He had slept fully clothed: the dirt, sea water and blood mixing with the booze and stale sweat to produce a particularly foul aroma. A bucket was near his bed, betraying the previous night’s debauchery. It was half full of shit, piss, and vomit. He’d gotten used to the smell throughout the night, but after taking a glance the odour clicked into his awareness.
“Fucking hell!” He struggled to keep from being sick again and made his way to the room’s front door. Fumbling with his key, he tried to unlock the door, and realised he had left it unlocked all night. No harm, no foul. He opened the door and stumbled out towards Ifan’s door. He knocked on it, shouting into the crack on its left, “Breakfast, Mr. Prince!”
There was no response. He tried once more, before giving up and heading downstairs.
“Morning, Gregg!” Fendrick waved to the receptionist, who reciprocated with gusto.
“Morning, Fendrick! How’d you sleep?”
“Perfectly, thank you. Does this fine establishment have a washroom? I seem to have produced quite the stench overnight.”
“By the Gods, that you have boy!” The receptionist pinched his nose, “It’s down the hall there, around the back of the building. If the buckets are empty you’ll need to head to the well out in the town to refill ‘em.”
“Thank you, Gregg. By the way, is the young prince awake?” Fendrick stepped backwards a few steps, to save Gregg from his stink.
“Ifan? I believe he vacated his room earlier this morning. Headed to Trefynnon, hired a horse from the stables too.”
“Ahh, is that so? Well then, I’ll go get myself cleaned up, see you in a bit!” Fendrick waved goodbye to the dwarf and headed off to the washroom.
In all his life, Fendrick had never felt so free and at peace, than as he poured the cold well water over his naked body, and vigorously scrubbed the bar of soap into his matted chest hair. He stayed here for the next two months.
Two days into travelling back to Trefynnon, Ifan stopped off to rest his horse at a farmstead. He offered a day’s work to stay in their barn, which the small, humble family accepted.
The work was hard, but honest. He tended the cattle and helped haul hay bales from one end of the farm to another.
The night fell, and he took his meagre meal of bread and stew into the barn and ate resting against a wooden support. Tears rushed down his face as he worked his way through the food. The nights had become unbearable. He was plagued with visions of his failure. His allies, Gustov, Rhian and Angharad. His sister. The trolls of Aberhaf.
He awoke the next day, shook the hands of each of the family, and rode on to Trefynnon. A week of vagabonding later, he arrived at the town. He struggled onwards to the guild, unready to inform his colleagues of their loss.
THE END
