Chapter Eight: The Hero's Hosts

Previously:

Tyruc rescues the town of Bodra from an invasion of monsters, receiving help from a young woman named Sareit. However, his companion Asena seemingly sacrifices herself to protect him.

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“Quit fretting, Oli.”

“But what if this is our fault? We leave the inn unattended one time, and the guest wakes up, jackals attack, the Matuva girl gets lost and—”

“How could any of that be our fault?”

“What if we angered the Fel? What if we tempted the Nol? What if—”

“Nonsense.”

“Oh! You are no help at all!”

“Shush, now, I think he’s coming ‘round.”

Tyruc opened his eyes to a pair of faces hovering in front his own and flinched.

The smaller face flinched as well, but the big one cracked a grin and laughed, “It looks like he’ll live.” The two moved to the foot of the bed, the same one Tyruc had awoken in earlier. And they were not alone. Nearly a dozen people crowded into the room with yet more peeking from the doorway.

The grinning man was tall, broad-shouldered, and paunchy like a grizzly bear in men’s clothes. Light fur covered his exposed skin, including over a face with a heavy brow, a sloped and blunted nose, pointed ears, and a smiling mouth revealing sharp canines.

The portly woman next to him clung to his sleeve. Her features were similarly bestial, but hers brought to mind a mink, curious but wary. Gray streaked her long hair which was pulled back into a matronly bun, and she wore a simple blue, gingham dress.

The others were a mixture of tribes, primarily Beastfolk and Mountainfolk. The gray-skinned Volok and his shy little sister stood out from the crowd, as did a middle-aged drake with golden scales covering his face.

Tyruc and his audience eyed each other for an uncomfortable amount of time before the large man, at the prodding of the woman at his elbow, cleared his throat and spoke. “It’s an honor, sir, to see you awake and to formally make your acquaintance.”

Tyruc’s eyebrows raised at being addressed with such respect. He had never been an honor to meet in his life.

The man struck a thumb against his own chest. “My name is Dallor. This is my wife Oliette.” He indicated the woman in gingham, and she bobbed in an inelegant curtsy. “And it was our daughter, Sareit, who assisted you out there. We’re the Honeywillow family, proprietors of this inn.”

“And my husband is the mayor of this town,” Oliette added.

Dallor sputtered at his wife. “Will you stop telling people that? I am not the mayor; we don’t have a mayor.”

“Well, you’re practically the mayor,” argued back Oliette. “If we had a meeting—”

“—no one would come because they would all have a dozen better things to do,” Dallor interrupted.

The townsfolk laughed. Several openly agreed, and the golden-scaled drake clapped Dallor on the shoulder.

Oliette threw her hands up and returned her attention to Tyruc. “Regardless, Sir Wolf Rider, thank you so much for saving our town. We don’t know what we would have done without you.”

Assents from the gathered townsfolk bubbled up. The drake’s guttural harrumph caused the ache in Tyruc’s head to throb. He brought up a hand to steady himself, and the crowd fell into a hush as though his motion was made to silence them.

“There is no need to be humble, sir,” Dallor said. “We truly owe you our lives. The carnage those things would’ve brought down on us is too awful to think. But not a single hair was harmed on the heads of our townsfolk. You waking up when you did was nothing short of a miracle.”

The other townsfolk babbled in agreement, inching forward in heated gratitude.

Tyruc pressed backward into the headboard, drawing away from their awed expressions. He managed above the din, “Um, thank you for saying that, but please, I’m just Tyruc. I’m not a miracle worker—” he was nearly cut off by the crowd’s rebuttal but pushed on with a raised voice, “—because nothing I did came from me. I’m merely Tyruc, Herald of Som.”

The moniker came naturally off his tongue like a surname.

Tyruc had not necessarily expected his words to ripple through the gathered folks like a wave of revelation, nor for a clarion bell to ring in his mind to assure him of a job well done. But the muted response and looks of confusion were nonetheless anticlimactic.

The reverence in the room evaporated to be replaced by polite bemusement, like one might feel for a child presenting mudpies as a masterpiece. A few mumbled the name “Som” in confusion, and a low snicker came from the hall.

“Well,” Oliette broke the awkward gap, “we’re all so grateful. Isn’t that so, honey?” She bumped her husband’s elbow, prompting him to vigorously nod. “I’ve seen to your cuts and scrapes, Sir Tyruc, and we will have some food brought up to you in a jiffy. You must be terribly hungry.”

Tyruc became aware that he was absolutely starving. “I wouldn’t want to impose any further…”

Dallor guffawed, earning a scornful look from his wife which he ignored. “No imposition for the Wolf Rider! We’ll have you bursting at the seams, sir.”

Dallor shooed the onlookers from the room, and Oliette smiled sweetly at Tyruc as she moved to the door. Tyruc cringed against the phrases he heard from the hall of leaving the “hero” to his rest.

After they had gone, Tyruc closed his eyes and rocked his head back against the headboard. The throbbing in his head had not abated. Itchy bandages squeezed the foot he had cut on the glass. Worst of all, there was no sign of Asena. She shielded me. I didn’t command her to do that… did I?

No, you did not.

Tyruc sighed in relief at the sound of the now-familiar voice in his mind.

I am fine, as is my avatar. You can call her forth again when you desire.

“Thank goodness for that.”

It is something to beware of, however. The avatar is of my nature, and she will instinctively protect you as I would in her place. But she is made from your own essence, and a grievous blow to the avatar will, unfortunately, be reflected onto you.

“Then that’s why I blacked out when you, er, she got hurt?”

Precisely. A summoner’s avatar can withstand some physical toll without burdening its caller, but not much.

Tyruc began to understand Asena’s instructions on how to treat the avatar with a creeping guilt. “‘Command like a soldier, care for like a child, love like myself,’ right?”

A scratching whisper drifted to Tyruc from the far end of his room, interrupting his train of conversation with Asena. A figure sat in one of the chairs by the low table near the fireplace.

“Miss Sareit? I didn’t realize you were still here.”

The young woman looked up from the notebook held close to her face, her ornate pen ceasing its dance across the pages. “Evidently,” she responded. Her sharp features carried an inscrutable expression. “I hope I did not… interrupt you.”

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Tyruc only then realized he had been speaking with Asena aloud. “No, not at all,” he assured Sareit. “Thank you for your help out there. That was some magic.”

Sareit blinked in surprise, then struggled to contain a smile. “It wasn’t anything all that impressive. Just your basic conjury.”

“Even I know that was more than basic.” He gestured at her robe. “You’ve received formal training, right?”

Sareit adjusted her collar. “The Great Library of Zurin,” she confirmed. “I’m certified as a third level archmage.”

“How many levels are there?”

Sareit’s chin lowered a few fractions when she answered, “Technically, five.”

Change the subject, Asena warned.

Why?

Just keep moving.

“W-well, that’s more than I know!” Tyruc stammered.

Sareit regarded him again with her studious stare. “Sir Wolf Rider, the magic you use is like nothing I’ve seen before. If you don’t mind, I would very much like to ask you about it.”

“Oh, Sareit, there you are!” Oliette said from the doorway, a tray of food in hand.

Sareit flinched and looked askance.

“Head downstairs and help your father, please.”

Sareit nodded, squeezing past her mother into the hall with a long backward glance.

“Sir Tyruc? My husband is working on some fresh hot food, so may I offer you some cold goods while you wait? I so hope they are to your liking.” Oliette set the tray of food across his lap.

“Thank you all so much for everything,” Tyruc said. His self-restraint struggled against his famished stomach to keep him from diving into the plates of cold ham and buttered bread.

“Please, dig in,” Oliette said with a knowing smile.

Tyruc obliged.

While he ate, Oliette tittered as she bustled around the room. She drew the curtains on the waning day, rearranged the logs in the fireplace, and dusted various surfaces with a rag.

Around a mouthful of food, Tyruc mumbled, “Thank you, ma’am, but you don’t have to do all that for me.”

“It’s no trouble!” she insisted. She stepped to the side of his bed and said in a reverent tone, “It’s just become part of our daily lives, taking care of this room and of course taking care of you yourself.”

A realization descended over Tyruc. “O-oh, really? You’ve had to—”

“Clothe you, bathe you, cut your hair, shave your face, and all of that,” she confirmed cheerfully. “We let you grow a little shaggy recently—just got so busy before the harvest market—but I’d be more than happy to trim you up if you like.”

“No!” Tyruc felt sick. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t realize I’ve been such a burden to you.”

“You were no burden at all! It was our honor to look after you. In fact,” she confessed, “once the others injured from the war started to recover and head back home, taking care of you gave us a sense of purpose.”

Tyruc did not have an immediate response. Oliette’s words were so well-intentioned, but shame hung around him. Then another, more awful thought occurred to him. “Did Sareit ever have to tend to me?”

Oliette let out a peal of laughter. “Heavens, no! That hardly would have been appropriate. I alone have been your nursemaid, if you’ll forgive the term. At most, Sareit helped tidy the room and cut your hair. And dear,” she touched his shoulder motheringly, “I grew up raising my younger brothers and have raised a daughter of my own. I once worked as a chemist’s assistant, and I’ve dealt with my share of drunkards in the tavern. Taking care of you has been tame by comparison.”

“But I’ve occupied a bed in your inn, one you could be renting, and then there’s food and the labor of everything for three years of work,” Tyruc reasoned. He dreaded to ask the next question but knew it was only right. “How much will I owe you?”

“‘Owe’ us? You owe us nothing,” she replied with all sincerity. “To begin with, you haven’t been a burden to our business whatsoever. We live off the land around us, as most do here in Bodra. We get the occasional traveler, and harvest festivals see us renting out most of our quarters. But giving you this room has never impeded us. Second, food hasn’t been an issue because you haven’t eaten a thing until just now.”

“I haven’t? For three years?”

“Sareit could explain it to you. She called it a ‘stasis’ or some such. The way I understand it, whatever it was keeping you asleep was the same thing keeping you from needing food or water. If you want my personal take on it, I’d call it a miracle.”

“A miracle,” Tyruc mused over the use of that word again. “Miss Oliette, just how did I come to be here? How did I become your responsibility?”

“You came with the other injured folk from the Final Battle.”

Tyruc’s head tilted of its own curious accord. “The Final Battle?”

“That name is a bittersweet one. It proved the Endless War was not so, but the number of lives that ended with it…” she trailed off, wiping tears from her eyes.

“How did it end?”

“It ended with you. You ended it.” Oliette smiled at him with a look of quiet adoration. “Just like what you did here today, you rode the wolf and put a stop to the awful things there. And to the war.”

She shouldn’t look at me like that.

You are correct, but you will have to endure it for now. She does not yet understand.

Oliette sniffled and continued. “The stories are like nothing we’d ever heard before. Both sides of the war did terrible things across the years, but that night was the worst of it. Villages caught in the crossfire, monsters on the battlefield, and so much death. In the end, both King Wulfric and Duchess Noaji fell, but even with their deaths, the atrocities unleashed on that battlefield didn’t stop.

“Then the Wolf Rider appeared to put it all to rights, and you even brought the two armies’ generals together in the center of the battlefield. And then they shook hands. Just like that. No one would ever have imagined that either of those two could put aside their pride, much less that both of them would.

“But it happened, and every living soldier on that field supported it. Something happened that night. A different kind of magic. The soldiers went about burying the dead and gathering the injured, no regard to who belonged to which side.

“I’ll never forget the day the first scouts arrived. We had already received messages of the end of the war, but that’s not something you can just believe on somebody’s word.

“Almost three years ago to the day, I was sweeping away some of the dust on our front steps. I dust when I’m anxious. And when I looked up, there they were. Eight soldiers coming down the lane, four in blue-and-white and four in black-and-red, laughing with each other like a band of brothers and sisters.”

Oliette took a moment to swallow against the tears that had formed again. “That was when I knew it was real. Sir Tyruc, war is all any of us in Jorza have ever known. But ‘hatred for the enemy?’ That was something reserved by the royals and their loyalists. Us normal folk don’t actually have anything against each other. We’ve just been tools in someone else’s feud. And now that they’re gone, rest their souls, we don’t have to fight anymore. The fact that nearly everyone has realized it is another miracle.”

“Wow,” Tyruc murmured. “And everyone stepped in line?”

“I didn’t say that. We’ve heard of factions who oppose the peace treaties, and the border is still patrolled by both sides. But it has been a quiet few years, the quietest this land has known for a long, long time.”

Oliette sighed. Tyruc watched her face and found a small smile, but there was a conflicting tenseness around her eyes. Hope tinged with wariness.

“As far as how you got here, part of the initial peace deal between the generals was to move the injured and recuperating to Bodra. We’re technically part of Merros, but we’ve been as close to neutral territory as you can get on Jorza for centuries. Getting everyone here from the battlefield was no small feat, I imagine, but it was worth it for the vote of confidence it gave.”

Tyruc nodded along. “So I was injured pretty badly?”

“Not exactly,” Oliette quibbled. “The healers and chemists fussed over you something fierce, trying to figure out what was wrong with you. Best they could figure was your body and mind gave out from strain. It wasn’t until Sareit came home from the Great Library and took to ‘studying your case,’ as she called it, that we realized you were more than just passed out.”

Oliette took Tyruc’s tray, which he had thoroughly demolished. “I’ve spent enough time prattling away, and too little tending to our other guests. Though you are the most esteemed, you are far from the neediest,” she chuckled. “Why don’t I go draw you a bath while you wait for dinner?”

“Please, don’t bother with me,” Tyruc insisted, his feelings of uselessness resurfacing. “I don’t want to be any more of a burden.”

She moved toward the door. “Sir Tyruc, there is no shame in receiving help, and when someone has chosen to come alongside you to help bear your load, you are not a burden. You’re practically family.” Her hand shot up to cover her mouth. “I hope I haven’t overstepped. We’ve just become so used to having you here as our guest. Three years is a lot of time to know someone, even if he did spend it all sleeping.”

Tyruc struggled to formulate words. Family?

When in doubt, speak with gratitude and sincerity.

“Thank you, Miss Oliette. For everything.”

The kindly woman touched her cheek bashfully and said, “It’s been an honor.” Tyruc could hear her sniffling as she retreated down the hall.

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COMING UP NEXT TIME:

Sareit finally gets to ask Tyruc her questions, but Tyruc has questions of his own.