Chapter Nineteen: Familiar Faces

Previously: Tyruc enlists the aid of another mythical Herald and defeats the monstrous harpy, but the brave orc Thochag loses his life. Tyruc also discovers that Murth, a militia member thought to be recuperating in Bodra, is somehow still present in Zifa’s Farm.

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The steam carriage rattled like a coin purse as it pulled into the clearing just before noon. Sareit descended from the vehicle’s cabin with alert eyes, sparks swirling around her hands in response to seeing the wrecked state of the settlement. She deflated in relief when Tyruc stepped out from the shaded doorway of the windmill where he had been awaiting her arrival.

“Sir Tyruc! Is everyone okay? I worked as fast as I could, and I nearly quit and grabbed a horse a half-dozen times, but something told me to get the carriage fixed and—” She stopped mid-ramble when she caught Tyruc’s worn expression and his refusal to meet her eyes. “What happened?”

Tyruc carried an elegantly engraved axe in his hands, presenting it to her like an offering. The children had snuck out to dig through the rubble of Zifa’s cabin to find it, and it was Talfen who had fetched a pail of water and a rag to polish it. “There was a monster. We managed to put it down, but…”

Sareit stared at the axe. “That’s Thochag’s. Gillibrand made it special just to welcome him into the militia.” She opened her mouth to speak further, but no words came out. Just a singular sob as she collapsed forward, bracing her hands on the axe.

Tyruc held it firm to support her. “I’m so sorry.”

“What happened?” she croaked.

Tyruc.

I know. “I’ll tell you everything, but we don’t have time to wait here. We have to get back to Bodra as fast as the steam carriage can take us there.”

She stared at Tyruc, teetering on the precipice, until she sniffled and nodded. She squinted at the windmill and the ruins of Zifa’s cabin, then asked, “How many will we need to transport?”

“Just the three of us. The families here will need to come to town, but they’re sure they can do so with their own wagons. They also asked to be the ones to… bring Thochag back.”

Sareit nodded distantly. “Who’s the third coming with us?”

“T’would be me, my girl.” Murth emerged from the windmill. His obsidian skin absorbed the midday sun like an inky void, save for the faint glimmer of the horn that curled away from his right brow. He strode across the clearing in a confident swagger, but it was marred by a limp. When he drew near, he slicked his silver curls back and winked at Sareit.

Sareit gaped at him. “What are you doing here? You’re not here; you’re in Bodra.”

Murth’s smirk grew wider. “I sincerely wish that had been the case, lass, but I’ve been in this little villa for a couple days now. Must say, I don’t much care for the guest treatment.”

“I don’t understand.”

Tyruc replied, “Let’s get moving back to Bodra and I’ll explain everything I can.”

Sareit cast a suspicious eye over Murth before leading them both to the steam carriage. Murth went to the back hatch, which Tyruc had to help him step up into. Tyruc joined Sareit in the cramped forward cabin.

As he clambered in, Sareit stretched her hands across the metallic coils that looped down into the body of the carriage. With a sharp scent sparking in the air, she arced electricity into the apparatuses.

“Please take the wheel, Sir Tyruc. Steering and conjuring at the same time is harder than Gilli makes it look.”

Tyruc placed his hands on the helm-like steering wheel. How much different can this be than helming a ship?

Tyruc… you never helmed a ship.

But I’ve seen it done all my life. How hard can it be?

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As the carriage careened wildly around what should have been a gentle bend, a shouted string of words in an unfamiliar tongue came from the back of the carriage.

“Sorry!” Tyruc called out.

A reproachful thud in the metal panel behind his head was the only reply.

“He’s fine,” Sareit said, though Tyruc could not be sure if the tension in her voice was from his steering, her concentration on energizing the vehicle, or the events of Zifa’s Farm tumbling through the scholar’s mind. “Just keep us on the road and finish your story. You said Zifa was gone when you went to look for her this morning?”

“Yes. After Thochag… well, after everything was over and I found Murth, I went looking for her. She was just gone.” For Sareit’s sake, he kept secret the tracks he saw leading to the river’s bank. Tyruc’s thoughts drifted back to the broken shell she had become, of what that monster had done to her, had made her do.

But he was also angry. Angry that her failure to resist the harpy had resulted in so much suffering. It led to Thochag’s death. Tyruc was not sure he could forgive Zifa for that.

Som could.

“What?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Sareit replied.

Tyruc collided with a bump in the road, banging his head against the cabin’s ceiling and eliciting more shouting from the back.

As I was saying, should Zifa recover from this incident and seek out Som, He will forgive her. And we Heralds are to follow in His example; after all, who are we to withhold forgiveness when He has already granted it to us ourselves?

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Sareit studied Tyruc’s face while keeping her hands over the energized coils. “Is it the river spirit? What is he talking about?”

“It’s nothing,” Tyruc said.

“It really isn’t fair to keep these little conversations to yourself, you know.”

“Then get your own Herald.”

“I thought you were my Herald.”

Oh. “Nirivilo says that Som is willing to forgive Zifa for… everything that happened back there.”

Sareit cleared her throat. “Sir Tyruc, you are likely aware I have been seeking time to discuss this ‘Som’ with you.”

“Yes, I am aware,” Tyruc hedged. Why do I get so nervous whenever this comes up?

“You revere this figure. You speak of him like one of the Court of the Fel.”

Words bubbled forth from Tyruc unbidden. “Som is greater than the Fel.”

He was met with silence.

This was it. The reason he felt ill each time this conversation had been nearly broached. The dismantling of what he had once thought he knew, and the inevitable rejection that would come from those whose respect he desired.

Everything Tyruc and, he assumed, most other humans had been taught painted the Court of the Fel as the supreme beings of the universe. But Som was undeniably something more. Someone more. And if that was true, then everything he thought he knew about the workings of the world was called into question.

Tyruc braced for Sareit’s reply. Would she be patronizingly polite? Would she cut him down with her logic and schoolings? I’m going to be sick.

Sareit spoke after a lengthy moment. “I suppose that makes sense.”

“What?” Tyruc asked, astonishment causing him to jerk the wheel and send the carriage weaving.

A few harrowing moments later, when the carriage puttered down the straightaway once more, Sareit continued as though their lives had not just flashed before them. “The magic you wield is special. You consort with beings such as the Great Mother of Wolves and the River of Secrets. If I believe that you are genuine and truthful, which I do, then it would only make sense that you are involved in something greatly mysterious.”

Sareit bit her lip in consideration before continuing, “I have actually had my own theories on the nature of the Fel that I would love to discuss with you in light of all this.”

Clever girl, is she not?

Is now really the time for this? Tyruc asked his guide, relieved by Sareit’s open-mindedness but still uncomfortable with the conversation’s trajectory.

Sareit answer for him. “But all that must still wait for another time. Please, continue with what happened at the farm.”

“That was pretty much it, actually. But the reason we need to get back to Bodra should be obvious now.”

Sareit pulsed electric energy from her hands into the coils, jerking the steam carriage forward in acceleration. “The other Murth. The one that got onboard the carriage and you carried into the inn.”

“Yes.” Tyruc recalled the confused conversation he had with the man inside the windmill. “Apparently Murth, Gillibrand, and Thochag were trying to fend off the harpy back behind the windmill. Murth was holding them off until—”

A sharp, sliding sound next to Tyruc’s head startled him. He swerved the carriage sharply, and a particularly colorful epithet was shouted next to his ear. He dared a glance over his shoulder to see an open panel in the metal wall between the forward cabin and the back of the carriage. Murth’s face hovered there, the whiteness of his gritted grin in stark contrast against his blue-black skin.

“Firstly, Wolf Rider, I could drive this rolling tankard better with my teeth. Secondly, if anyone should be regaling dear Sareit with my daring-dos, it should be me.”

“Yeah, well, the next thing you did in the version you told me was faint.”

Murth scoffed. “I did not faint. I told you; something struck out from the riverbank and must have knocked me unconscious. Next thing I remember is being dragged into the windmill by Thochag and nursing a hideous headache the likes you’ve never imagined.”

“So then who is the ‘Murth’ back at the inn?” Sareit asked.

“I can’t be sure,” Murth replied, “but I believe it may be less of a ‘who’ and more of a ‘what.’ If my guess is right, we’re facing yet another monster.”

Your Deepfolk companion is correct, Nirivilo whispered to Tyruc.

No chance you’re going to tell me more about this monster, is there?

What awaits you in Bodra is a particularly nasty entity, but that is all I can say at the moment.

Can it be any worse than that harpy? Tyruc wondered with bitter cynicism. However, he then recalled the harpy’s final refrain, a warning taunt sung by Zifa herself. The bout of chills that descended on him threatened to vibrate the helm out of his hands. “Do monsters typically take a name for themselves?”

“A name?” Sareit and Murth repeated in unison. Sareit’s question had been out of confusion, but Murth asked sharply. He continued, “Have you met a monster with a name, Wolf Rider?”

“The harpy. Before it died, it called itself ‘Auntie Agony,’ and Zifa mentioned another name. A ‘Sister Sorrow.’”

Murth did not respond.

“Does that mean something, Murth?” Sareit asked.

“Not… necessarily. Best not to speculate without more to go on. Now, if you’ll excuse me and if the Wolf Rider can keep us out of the ditches, I’m going to rest my eyes.” He slipped backward into the dark and slid the panel between their compartments closed.

Tyruc pressed on the hand break to slow the carriage some and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Sareit. There’s one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“Murth recognized me.”

Sareit leaned closer to hear Tyruc over the rumbling of the carriage. “As the Wolf Rider?”

“No. He knew me before. As soon as he realized I didn’t recognize him, he clammed up and has been calling me ‘Wolf Rider’ ever since with an annoying little smile on his face.”

“Murth likes to play games,” Sareit said, “but believe me, he’s not malicious. He arrived in Bodra after the Final Battle with minor injuries and, according to him, fell in love with my dad’s cooking. He’s been a fixture in the tavern ever since; apparently, he was some kind of hunter over in Orynheim. He was the first person to agree to join my militia.”

Tyruc’s stomach roiled, which could have been from the sudden dip in the road but was more likely from the seed of worry that had nagged at him ever since meeting Murth. Something about the nyx man’s crooked grin and the subtle sarcasm in each mention of the name “Wolf Rider” made Tyruc sure Murth did know something about him, and Tyruc was becoming increasingly afraid to find out what.

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Next Time: The party arrives in Bodra, eager to asses the situation. Tyruc also has an odd encounter in the inn’s tavern.