Chunk 11
A bit closer, although not quite caught up yet. Until the counter-widget catches up, I'm at 19,547. And hey, our first actual fantasy scene is in this chunk! :D



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Arden gathered up the clothing into a bundle, tucked the sheathed swords under his arm, and followed the soldier out into the main room. Luka was still squatted down near the fireplace, staring at something in his hand.

"I got your clothes," Arden said. "Bought them off of a looter. And these." He rattled the swords and their wooden sheaths clacked together. Luka spun around to stare, and flailed around to find his balance.

"My swords--!"

My swords," Arden corrected, "at least for a while. I hope you understand if I don't give them to you right away. I'd like to think that you'll retain enough of your sense not to kill me in my sleep so long as I'm the only one who knows where to look for Tochi, but it's hard for a newly enslaved man to settle down and accept his lot and I'm not going to gamble my life on your being sensible about it. If you give me a reason to trust you for more than a few hours, I'll let you have them. It'll be handy to have a companion on the road who can fight.

"For now, though, we'll have to count on your looking fierce to frighten off any bandits."

Luka threw him a hateful look, which was no more than Arden had expected.

Arden turned and headed out to the horses, asking over his shoulder, "What did you find there?"

Luka started to follow him, then stopped said, "It's mine."

Arden just tilted his head, a silent reminder, before turning to stow the clothing in Luka's empty saddlebag.

Luka grimaced and turned away, not quite turning his back on his "master" but turning his shoulder at least. Finally he paced forward, slowly, his steps obviously reluctant. "It's the Tevarion badge. My fourth grandfather won the right to it at the Battle of Tevaric -- the king honored eight men as 'Tevarion' after the battle, for their valor." He paused and gave Arden a quick look, then opened his hand and held out the badge. He didn't extend his arm fully, as though ready to snatch it back if he thought Arden would try to take the badge away from him.

Arden knew any number of men who'd have taken it just for that, as a lesson. That would've been stupid under the circumstances, and Arden wasn't stupid. He examined the thing in the dim moonlight but didn't try to take it, even to see it better.

It was of metal, what looked like polished steel. Definitely not gold nor silver. It was engraved with a device comprised of a ram's head and a tower, with a pair of swords crossed beneath, their blades pointed up. The badge was pierced around with holes, as though it were intended to be sewn onto a cloak, or a leather coat, or even laced into a shirt of mail. It was worn and plain and had clearly never been fine, even when new. No delicate metals nor brittle enamel work for this; it was meant to be worn in combat, to take a beating along with a man's armor.

He nodded and said, "You may keep it. You might want to hide it in your boot, though, or someplace similar. You never know what's going to happen on the road, and if your horse gets swept away in a river or slips over a cliff or some such thing, I don't want you to kill yourself chasing after it."

Luka snorted and looked away, but he did stuff the badge into his boot.

They looked around for a few more minutes, but there was nothing worth salvaging and Arden could see Luka getting more tense by the minute as they searched through the wreckage of his family's home and living. Finally Arden said, "There's nothing else here. Let's go," and they left.



It took four more stops to get Arden outfitted, although not as much money as it had for Luka. Clothes were cheap and he ended up with two changes of sturdy clothing for travel, and one set of finer clothing, in case he needed to impress anyone.

Clothes were cheap enough, in fact, that he could have gotten whatever he wanted for free, if he'd been willing to root through shops and homes himself looking for it. That kind of grab-scrabble looting had always been something common soldiers did, though, not officers and certainly not royal officers. Common troops scrambled for used shirts and dishes while noble officers pointed a finger at a building; both said "Mine" but one of them got a lot more for it and with much less effort.

Arden had no interest in acquiring property in Parakovac Ruvor, however. All he wanted was clothing to fit. He was broad-shouldered and thick-thighed, even for a Molani, and most clothing made to fit a Ruvori man would tear as soon as he bent or flexed, assuming he could force himself into it at all. It was faster to bargain with troops who were approximately his size, rather than go sorting through the rubble himself.

Their last stop was at a temple of Ashti. The Ruvori goddess protected travellers and it was never a waste of time to get some divine favor at the start of a long and rough journey.

Of course, she was a Ruvori goddess.

No one had set up any Molani temples yet, though, and since their purpose in travelling was to find a Ruvori boy, Arden hoped she might overlook the blood in his veins and help them along for Tochi's sake, and Luka's.

Most men had enough brains not to desecrate a temple, no matter how rich the pickings might seem. If it needed to be done, it was for the arch-priests to do -- hopefully someone better at his job than the one screeching blasphemy back at the palace. At any rate, one who could be sure in his own mind that his own god would protect him from the wrath of the god whose shrine was being looted. Most gods disapproved of shrine-looting on principle, so it helped if your god actively despised the local god for some reason.

Arden didn't know of any god who was feuding with Ashti of the Roads, nor did he know of any god who favored him enough for it to matter in any case. He entered with his head bowed in respect, stepping over the bodies of a pair of soldiers who'd obviously been mistaken about the eagerness of their own gods to protect them. The two men were clearly Molani, but Arden felt no pity for them. They'd been stupid and the singed, blackened patches on their bodies showed what it'd gained them.

A pair of priestesses knelt to either side of the altar on a dias at the back of the room. Or maybe they were acolytes; Arden didn't know enough about their regalia to tell. A middle-aged woman (who must have been a priestess -- surely anyone who was still an acolyte at that age would have been urged or even shoved toward another line of work by now) looked him up and down, then lifted her head in a proud tilt and glared down her nose at him. "Molani," she said. "Ashti allows you entrance so we must allow it as well. What is your business here?"

Arden gave her a respectful nod and kept his voice light. "Lady, we are setting out on a journey and seek Ashti's blessing."

The priestess's lips tightened in to a thin line and the light from the oil lamps gave her eyes an angry glitter. "Very well." She paused, then scowled and murmured, "Have you incense?"

"I fear we do not." Temples made a good deal of their income from selling small items for sacrifice and worship, and Arden prepared to be gouged badly.

"One silver kas. Or a lunar, if that's all you have."

Arden handed over a silver coin without argument and received in return a stick of incense. He held it carefully so as not to break it, and walked up toward the altar. He heard whispered voices behind him, first the woman, then Luka. Whether she wanted to comfort him in his slavery or chastise him for not fighting to the death, Luka was a grown man and could deal with her himself. Arden had a goddess to speak with.

He bowed low before the dias, then climbed the four steps, one for each direction the roads travelled. The statue of Ashti rose up to the high ceiling, clad in fine-hammered gold and garbed in old-fashioned travel robes of coarse cloth, but with gold and silver and polished gems at the pins and buckles. Her sandals were of woven straw set with gems in gold.

A trough of sand surrounded the statue in a semi-circle. Arden knelt on the smooth-polished wood of the floor, lit his incense stick on the glowing tip of a much shorter one, and stuck it into the sand. It gave out a stream of sweet smoke, rich and pungent. It swirled around his head and filled his nostrils, and encouraged him to close his eyes.

Footsteps approached, a lighter set which paused several paces away, and a heavier set which approached, then knelt next to him. A few moments later, the thick smell of incense grew even heavier; the priestess must have given Luka a stick of his own. She could well afford it, since she'd charged Arden enough for a good pound of the stuff.

Arden felt a spinning sensation and reached forward to grab on to the edge of the sand trough. His eyes flew open and he saw that the priestess was standing near him, facing him, swaying.

Then she changed, and only part of it was the glow coming off her skin.

Her hair, loose before, was now plaited back. Her skin was weather-roughened and her face showed lines etched by the harsh sun. Her body was slender, but wiry and strong-looking, as though she had walked thousands of miles in her lifetime and was ready to walk thousands more. She pointed at Arden and said, "Little prince." Her voice filled the whole world.

Arden managed to croak out, "Sacred lady." He shifted around until he faced her, then bowed until his forehead bumped the floor.

"You have taken on a task," she said, "which will serve your people as well as my own. I charge you to complete it, and to succeed."

That... was confusing. Arden dared to look up through his eyelashes, hoping for some clue as to what in all the hells she was speaking of. "Lady," he said, keeping his tone as humble as he could, "we seek a boy who was taken from the city. I don't understand."

"That one," said Ashti, sounding impatient. She pointed an imperious finger over Arden's shoulder. At Luka. "You have taken that one as your own. You have made him yours and so his fate is yours. He is yours to protect, as is his task."

"He has a task?" Arden knew he sounded like an idiot, but he couldn't help it. He heard Luka make some unintelligible noise behind him and took some comfort from the fact that the other man seemed just as overawed as he felt himself.

"Heed me!" the goddess commanded. "Your Baruno thinks to rule your empire himself. He thinks to hold all the lands the moon sees under his hand, so he urges your father to conquer all the lands the moon touches. He dreams of pulling down all other temples, leaving only his altars for sacrifice and worship. He thinks to starve all other gods into oblivion and have the world for his own.

"We will not allow him to have his way unopposed, but we cannot act in the mortal plane of ourselves, no moreso than he can. He acts through mortal agents, and so must we. That man--" and the finger jabbed out once more, pointing at Luka, as if Arden were likely to forget which man they were talking about, "--is fated to oppose Baruno, who has already tried to have him killed. His task is to thwart Baruno's dreams of conquest. Your task is to protect him while he does it, and aid him along his way."

Arden's mind swirled with confusion. He had no idea what she was talking about. Gods saw the world as if from a height, from horizon to broad horizon, and clearly could forget that mortals saw only one tiny part of it at one time. It was all fine to command that they "thwart Baruno," but some hint of how to go about it would be helpful.