Freedom Pt. 09-10

No sex here! Only story.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Freedom Part 9: Mercy

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Four days had passed since the assault on Villjord. Fires were still spreading around the city in places, their dancing flames yet defying the chill rains of early spring. The dead of Villjord had been tallied in the hundreds. This number would be tolerable for an Imperial city, but was certainly devastating for this remote city on the edge of the world.

Talos paced furiously in a room of an inn, the building now turned into a makeshift hospital to care for the wounded from the assault. He hadn't left this room for two days now, except when he had to. His friend and mentor, Sigismund, occupied the room's only bed. The veteran breathed, but the breaths were shallow. His heart beat, but only just. Both the city's healers and Casiama had told Talos the man would be fine, that he would recover from his wounds. Talos didn't believe them.

His dread spiral only persisted, for he blamed himself. Sigismund had not wanted to be here in Villjord; he had wanted to go elsewhere as soon as he had learned of Tatiana's gift, long before the attack had occurred. Yet, he had stayed, just for Talos' sake. Silvia had fallen shortly after, rushing forward to help Sigismund when he fell defending his flank. Tatiana would have fallen too, had she not fled at the first sign of trouble. Two friends gone in an afternoon due to his hubris.

Oddly enough, Tatiana was the one who had visited Talos the most after the battle. More than Vex, more than Markus, and even more than his own love Casiama. He couldn't provide much decent conversation for the girl dressed in black, yet she attempted it countlessly. She had never known loss like he had, but she had certainly read of it. She had read of heroes bouncing back from their losses, of their friends comforting them in their times of need. She did her best in that regard; yet, their conversations always returned to the creeping darkness. They spoke of things that no strangers should ever utter to one another, and they spoke openly for hours at a time. Talos never thanked her for the efforts to support him, but he did appreciate them nonetheless.

Talos was a brittle man at this point, whether he knew it or not. He was a man who had assembled a mercenary company as a mere boy of sixteen, a man who had slain so many foes in his thirty-three years. Yet here he was, pacing around a room worriedly expecting his friend of seventeen of those years to die at any moment. Just like those few who had come before. He wouldn't allow another to die on his watch. Not because of him.

He ached for a simpler time, his own life but just a year ago. A wanderer never had to deal with these feelings. A wanderer couldn't waste his time feeling remorse for the dead. A wanderer gets past it, as if its just another confirmation of the world's twisted reality. That a man's life is mere chaff to separate from the wheat. A wanderer had known this before last year. It just hadn't stung him yet.

The door opened, and Talos glanced in its direction. Casiama stepped through, softly closing the door behind her. She held a strong gaze for his sake.

"Talos..."

He turned away from her, as if the action was required to hide his thoughts from her. She stepped towards him, placing an infuriating hand on his shoulder.

"He'll be okay," she said calmly. He again didn't believe her. "We're having supper just down the street. Join us."

He shook his head, shrugging his lover's hand from his shoulder.

"Please? For me?" Casiama frowned.

Hatred would get him through his misery, he knew. When one's spiteful, their mind hides their fear behind an overriding need for vengeance. A solemn promise to one's self that the simple act will make it all better in the end. Adrenaline demands it, your soul aches for it. He pondered how he could retribute this misery when the enemy had all but fled, then thought of a girl dressed in black.

"Fine," he grunted.

Talos glanced at his fallen comrade one more time before leaving the room with Casiama. He trundled slowly down the street with her, as if avoiding his destination for as long as possible, yet the pair made it to the tavern eventually. All without sharing a word.

They found Vex, Markus, and Tatiana around a table in a corner of the quiet tavern hall, sharing a meal of fish and bread. Markus, grinning, glanced his way when he entered. His grin fell away, as did his gaze.

Does he blame me for Silvia's death? Is he afraid of me?

Do I care either way?

"'Sup," Talos greeted gruffly, finding a chair next to the sorceress in black. His choice of seat forced Casiama to the other side of the table, not that the man was particularly cognizant of such things at the moment. He received nods from his friends from Imperia, while Tatiana was the only one to greet him in return.

"Hello, Talos. Glad to see you out of that room," she said with a smile, passing a plate of fish his way. "We were just discussing our next destinations. Once things have calmed down here."

"Mm," Talos grumbled, stabbing one of the fishes with a table knife, and bringing it to his own plate. He didn't make another move to skin or eat it, but glanced over the party instead. "So, what have you all decided on?"

Markus and Vex shared a soft smile. Vex shook her head, answering first with a rare calm. "Imperia. Going to reopen my oddity shop, like I had in Catriona."

Talos feigned a smirk. "Nice." He glanced towards Markus, nodding again.

"I, er - well, I was gonna join Vexima there. Never know when someone wit' an oddity shop will need... muscle, I s'pose."

"Mm."

Talos understood their conversation of a better future all too well. In his old mercenary days it was more of the same. Before and after combat, always the same. Speaking to your comrades on where you will retire, if you survive the coming days. Speaking of the whore in whichever backwater Imperial town would receive your newly-found wealth.

Men and women alike dream of stability, whether or not they admitted to it, and Imperia was the city of unshakable foundations. Talos should have felt happy for them that they even had a plan for their upcoming life. He hadn't yet thought of one for himself, although one had been decided for him months ago.

"Catriona for us," Casiama smiled, nodding as if on cue. Talos was on a knife's edge whether or not he would accept such an arrangement. He could not seal his revenge from Catriona. He could only hide; a lucky-enough warrior who could live out the rest of his days in safety.

No. He would not accept. Talos spoke before thinking.

"I'm of a mind to ignore my inner cowardice, and remain here to hunt down the remaining reavers."

Talos skinned the fish on his plate in the following silence, not risking a glance to any other member of the table. No one spoke for a good minute, until Markus cleared his throat.

"I'm not bein' a coward, cap'n."

"Not sayin' you are," he shrugged.

"You... sure as fuck are."

Talos shrugged again, slicing part of the fish on his plate and bringing the morsel to his mouth. He raised his sight to Markus as he chewed, a smirk present on his face. Another silence. Markus couldn't hold eye contact, and glanced away.

"H-how do you plan on finding them, Talos?" Tatiana asked nervously. "They could be a hundred miles from here. Now."

Talos looked to his left, towards her, only for his gaze to be rebuked by her falling sight and a nervous smile. He knew exactly how he planned on finding the reavers, and wondered if Tatiana had thought of the same solution.

"No idea," he grumbled. She nodded quickly, devouring what was left on her plate as the table fell to silence once more. Tatiana quickly rose from her seat, and her cat lept from the table a moment later.

"Well. I'll see you all tomorrow," she bowed, wiping her mouth with a napkin, then hastily walked towards the nearest exit.

-

Tatiana quickly shut the door behind Dusk, exhaling sharply as her boots met the cobblestone street. She only gave herself a moment to catch her breath before she started walking down the quiet roads of a city still on edge.

And everyone was still on edge. She was, maybe most of all. She had just met these people, these... strange people, yet felt oddly connected to them. She even felt the pangs of sadness for the scary-looking older fellow Sigismund, although she did not know him at all. She certainly felt the loss of their healer, Silvia.

Tatiana heard the door open behind her, freezing her in place. But she did not turn towards it.

"Wait up, Tatiana," a man commanded behind her.

Talos. She did not want to speak to him just now. Would it be strange if she teleported away, just then?

Tatiana instead turned to face him with a manufactured half-smile on her lips. "Hello, Talos."

He stepped towards her, his green eyes piercing straight through her lie. Tatiana pouted instead. "Tell me how capable you are," Talos said coldly, "Can you teleport another? And not yourself?"

This was not the question she expected Talos to ask. Yet, Tatiana had done what he said many times, mostly when assisting fellow sorceresses from the College of Redstone to travel to distant locales.

So Tatiana nodded, hiding her trembling hands behind her back. Her eyes darted away from him.

"And the destination. Does it have to be a place? Or can it be a thing?" Talos asked coldly once again. His hand was planted on the glowing sword at his belt, and his eyes firmly on Tatiana. Her breaths hurried as his footsteps neared.

"Both are the same, Talos," Tatiana answered hastily, wincing when she realized her words had sounded snooty. She hadn't intended them to. It wasn't his fault he didn't understand how teleportation worked.

She quickly expanded on her answer. "A place is just a collection of things." Tatiana wasn't looking at Talos, and had to wait for him to speak to know if the answer was sufficient.

The man instead drew his sword, raising it skyward. He breathed deeply, smirking wickedly at the sight of the blade. It glimmered in the night, as if the alley was alight by a midday sun.

"Take me to that fucking boat, Tatiana."

Tatiana grimaced, but refused to shake her head. She knew the boat of which he asked, of course. And she could easily picture it in her mind. She hadn't wanted to tell Talos she could send him there. An assault on that massive vessel, alone? It was suicide.

Tatiana knew she could still port away from here. She could be in Redstone now, enjoying a book, curled up beside the fire as Dusk rested on her lap. Give the man a couple of days to think through his idiocy, to let him settle. Had he not more to say?

She instead looked into Talos' eyes. Portals which held commandments, a fierce dread which fathomed of one thing only. He would not be persuaded, and he would speak of nothing else.

"What of your friends? What of... me?" Tatiana squeaked.

"No one else needs to suffer on my behalf." His glare bored into her.

What of you, you idiot?

No. He would not be persuaded. She extended a gloved hand towards him.

"Very... well... do you want to go now, Talos?" she asked waiveringly. A wanderer nodded. Tatiana exhaled, shutting her eyes and picturing the massive reaver vessel. The man disappeared an instant later, engulfed by a flaming void.

-

Talos had his sword raised as the world transformed from a stone alleyway into a wooden ship in an instant. It was cold, windy, and so very dark here, being far off to sea. His heart held enough guilt to last a lifetime, and his eyes only knew of vengeance.

The blonde, scarred man in front of him held naught but a surprised face at a swordsman materializing before his eyes. The reaver froze, hands unsure of what to do with the information his mind passed to him.

A wanderer did not hesitate, and he brought Dawnbringer down to slash through the unready soul's cuirass in an instant. He knew he was atop the massive reaver flagship, a giant deck teeming with souls. He spied two ballistae at the end of the deck, as well as a girl locked away in a pillory between them. Two dozen reavers were between him and the bow, all turning towards him in slow motion.

Adrenaline coursed through a wanderer's veins. He stepped towards a man drawing an axe, then slashed his sword horizontally with one hand to sever head from body. He glanced at another, the blonde man's jaw agape as Talos brought a hand to his shoulder and thrust his blade into his guts.

Shouts from the men. A wanderer slashed through another, kicking a worthless body to the wooden planks. They pointed at the swordsman as he pirouetted towards another, severing another reaver's legs from his torso. A wanderer did not speak. His eyes only knew rage.

Weapons were finally being drawn as Dawnbringer was thrust to pierce the eye of a reaver, then hastily withdrawn to slash across the doomed soul's throat. An axe was thrown where Talos was a moment ago by a man torn from the world a half-second later.

Dawnbringer hummed it was brought down clean through a reaver's axe, the impact not halting the forward momentum of it's blade. The ancient elven weapon slid across the head of an another axe in a flash, brought away only to be driven into the axeman's side.

If one were a fly on the railing that day, they would have seen a swordsman materialize out of thin air and cut through two dozen experienced raiders in less than a minute. But a fly on the railing wouldn't feel the pain. A fly wouldn't feel the fury. The swordsman stepped towards the bow of the vessel, not bothering to clean his sword.

A wanderer knew that, alone, he was an unstoppable force of nature. With no friends to slow him down, he could slaughter every soul aboard this ship for a chance at redemption. No chance of loss. No chance of despair.

"Please," a wanderer heard to his left. He brought the tip of his sword to the noise before looking, having missed the threat earlier. A wanderer tilted his head towards his blade.

He spied a naked, blonde-haired girl bound within a pillory. Her eyes held all the same rage his did, and felt an immediate connection to the soul. He removed his blade from her throat.

"Please," she repeated with a whimper, then spoke in a tongue the wanderer did not understand. He stared intently, not noticing the three longboats to the left and right of the Mercy now rowing closer.

"Ildmagicka," the girl said louder when he did not respond, pointing to her neck under the wood it was fixed within. Now magic, that's a word the wanderer understood. He unclasped the pillory's fastenings, bringing it up to release the girl from her bonds. She stumbled, then collapsed to her knees.

She looked up at him, pointing at her collar with a lifetime of anger in her eyes.

"Ildmagicka," she said once more. He understood. He gripped her shoulder tightly, bringing his blade's pommel to her collar as ladders were hoisted to the deck of the vessel.

-

Anger is a fire mage's best friend, and Hilde had enough bottled within herself to last a dozen lifetimes. She wasted no time with thanking the man who saved her. Hilde quickly rose to her feet, running towards the side of the deck to enact her revenge.

She swept a hand in front of her, incinerating a row of men crawling towards her on a ladder towards the deck of the Mercy. She raised both hands high then pushed them forward with a shout, a wave of fire descending from above to transform all before her into a cloud of steam and ash.

The man that had saved her was holding off advancing reavers from one of the ladders, as well as the reavers that were still running up from belowdecks, while Hilde focused on the two other longboats. She wanted it all to burn down around her, to see Kjartan's face when he realizes all he'd ever loved had been incinerated.

"Mercy through blood!" Hilde cried in the Isbryggan tongue. Her savior would not know what her words meant, but he certainly could understand their meaning. She pushed her palms forward, a jet of flame shooting from their grasp towards the longboat below, the ship bursting like kindling in her wrathful inferno.

The man noticed that her magic was lighting the Mercy as well in its fury. But the man didn't care, and danced through the reavers closing behind Hilde with his glowing sword. Hilde stepped to the next ladder, incinerating the armored men before her with palms outstretched.

"Mercy through blood!" Hilde roared.

-

Kjartan the Wanderer awoke to the smells of fire and ash on the air, to the sounds of a woman shouting and men crying. He rose from his bed in a flash, gathering his greataxe from the wall beside him. He was alone this morning, having left his wenches belowdecks for some peace and quiet. Fate, it seemed, did not want to give him either.

He kicked open the door of his cabin and was completely taken aback with what he found. His ship, his pride and joy created with magics of a distant realm, had been completely set ablaze. The fires would not be controlled at this point, he knew.

Kjartan's eyes drifted over the dozens of his reavers laying dead on the deck. His eyes slowly traveled up, spotting the fire mage with a man he didn't recognize slaying his reavers on the far side of the vessel.

"Three! You bitch!" he roared, striding towards her with greataxe aloft. The man next to her spun deftly to the shout, and for once in his life Kjartan was stunned. He knew what fear felt like as the man's eyes pierced him.

The swordsman advanced upon him with glowing blade and dreadful smirk.

And was halted by Three, who had outstreched a hand before him. The swordsman glanced towards her, then nodded unreadably. Three, instead, walked towards Kjartan with arms extended and palms raised towards the sky, wearing naught but a grin and the fire in her soul.

She stretched her hands towards him, still twenty feet away.

"My name is... HILDE!" she declared defiantly.

Kjartan only saw a flash of flame before he and all around him was rendered unto ash. Hilde had wanted him to suffer. But Hilde could not muster the willpower.

-

Talos stepped towards the shaking sorceress, who had just fallen to her knees and had brought her hands to her face. She had incinerated a quarter of the massive boat they were on with a single spell, which made Talos more than a pinch nervous.

Screams and wails could be heard from belowdecks, cries which Talos had figured belonged to additional reavers. More worthy souls sent to their fates. He gave the girl a moment of crackling, sparking silence before he interrupted her.

Because he had seen the girl's grief, and perhaps he may have shared it.

Talos knelt beside her, uncaring of the cries of wailing men and women below him. The sorceress turned towards him with teary eyes, and Talos smiled to cheer her up. He wasn't sure why that mattered, really, since he was trapped on a boat far out to sea which was in the process of burning to nothing.

"Me Talos," he said warmly, bringing his free hand to his chest. He pointed at her. "You Hilde?"

The naked sorceress nodded, somehow sharing his smile through her tears. He stood and picked her up from the floor, wrapping his cloak around her shoulders as the world slowly burnt to ash around them.

-=-=-

The wind howled angrily above a sorceress dressed in black, standing alone on a wooden pier at the port of Villjord. She stared towards the horizon with a pout, with regret, and in deep thought. She held a cat in her hands, stroking its ear gently. The cat's presence did not calm her.