Vessel of Dark and Light Ch. 01

She laughed at him, "You flirt with many executioners?"

He shook his head at her, "No, never met one before. I stayed away from trouble, until now."

She smiled, "No, you have been surrounded by trouble your whole life. It just caught up with you now. Now we need to get you another long lead away from these 'men' until you are truly ready to fight."

Chazzen looked at her, "I will be dead soon."

She nodded, "To this town that is true."

She hit him with some type of powder and that was all he remembered of her.

He awoke, it was night, and he was outdoors. He rolled over to face the Sword Lord who talked to several others in this camp. The Sword Lord noticed he was awake and they scattered, like wisps of fog into the night. Chazzen spoke to him, "How did I get here, wherever here happens to be?"

The Sword Lord came over to him, "You are still in your cell. Until that magistrate orders your execution. Then you will be dead."

Chazzen looked around, "You are saying my eyes are deceiving me."

He chuckled, "If your eyes were open then I would agree with that statement. You are in a dream state."

He nodded, "Those you were just talking too, why did they flee?"

He smiled, "Your hunting skills serve you well. You saw them for a split second anyway. We need to know more about you."

Chazzen sat up and looked at him, "Who are we?"

He looked away, "I cannot tell you that, not yet." He handed Chazzen a half dozen vials with a clear liquid.

Chazzen looked at them, "What do you want me to do with these?"

He looked at Chazzen, "Drink them one at a time. The order is unimportant. They will answer more questions than you will be able to answer. Remember, I am the one who has worked to save you."

Chazzen signed and grabbed one of them and downed it. It burned like grain alcohol. The one and only time he tried dwarven spirits it had that kind of bite. This was different It tasted of garlic.

The elf looked at him as he asked, "What do you taste?"

Chazzen sighed, "Strong alcohol and garlic."

He pointed, "The next one. Again, any order."

Chazzen pulled one from the middle and drank it. He nearly gagged, "Sweet like it is one step away from solid sugar but liquid."

He grabbed the third as he waited and drank it. This one caused his skin to burn, at least in that one shoulder. He pulled off his shirt and looked and the mark was gone and the skin was had a circular white spot but no brand or indentation from being cut away. Chazzen looked at him, "That one caused my skin to burn. Now the brand is gone."

He nodded, "This time it is truly gone. They will have a harder time tracking you. Those patrols will not find you by simply staring at you like they did that last time."

Chazzen looked at him, "That is all well and good until I wake and they cut my head from my shoulders. Then place it upon the city wall."

He nodded, "There are 3 vials left."

Chazzen drank the next one and smiled. He looked at the Sword Lord, "Tastes of winter peaches. A taste I have not experienced in years. My mother used to preserve them. It is sweet but it is not like the sugar of the previous vial."

He had 2 left and he popped the lid off of one and drank it. He looked at the elf again, "Tastes of water."

He walked over and took the last one said some incantation and poured it into the fire. It went up in smoke as though it contained lamp oil. Chazzen looked at him, "Some type of oil?"

He shook his head, "No, they all contained water. Holy water. We just worked to cleanse your body. It will not last forever, but hopefully long enough."

Chazzen looked at him, "Long enough to die when I wake?"

The elf looked at him, "You are lying dead in your cell now. You will not wake. At least the illusion of you that we left behind. I will make the formal inquiries required, but they will go nowhere. Your death will be reported back to those in power."

He looked at him, "Which powers would those be?"

The elf looked back and pointed. Chazzen saw a field of battle. Fighting ragging. He asked, "What do you see?"

Chazzen looked at him, "A massive battle with men dying. The air heavy with smoke but from where I could not tell you."

He nodded, "What do you know of your father?"

Chazzen stood and walked around for a few minutes, "Nothing."

The elf looked at Chazzen, "You know more than that. You have been cooperative thus far, please continue on that course."

Chazzen looked at him, "I know nothing of him. My mother's journal said she was made a 'bride' to a leader to bear him a child."

The Sword Lord looked at him, "Not a child. A son and heir."

Chazzen looked at him, "I want nothing he would have to offer."

The Sword Lord looked at him, "None would, except those in that first battle. Those who sold their souls to lay waste to their enemies. Thousands of years ago. Every thousand years a new leader is brought forth. That leader was supposed to be you. Your vessel anyway. The loss of you means they will be walking the lands again soon. How long ago did you escape?"

Chazzen looked at him, "I was to be collected four years and three months ago. Culled as it were."

The elf stood and paced, "They are not after reclaiming you. They only want to kill you. They have to kill you to continue and restart the ritual for a new leader. The old one is dead now, likely ripped into pieces."

Chazzen nodded, "Good start."

The elf shook his head, "No. It is not. An army without a leader has no direction. The one of them who kills you becomes the new leader for a thousand years. Another kills you and it goes to the nearest one. They steal that essence from you and the cycle begins anew. You evaded them for too long for the old leader to have survived.

He would have had until the next 3 lunar cycles to complete the ritual. That has passed. He would have had to complete it before your eighteenth birthday. You are not just another escapee. You are the beginning and the end to them. The fulfilling of a contract that cannot be fulfilled. Look at that battle again and tell me what you see."

Chazzen looked again at the bodies and the dead upon the field were not men. They were elves. Chazzen looked at him, "They sold their souls to kill your people?"

He looked away with disgust. Then sighed, "Yes, some of the first humans my people encountered. Horseman and hunters. Skilled in the wilds but not protectors of the wilds. This was their preferred battleground. We had won the day. There was only a handful of them left.

They slaughtered thousands and numbered in the hundreds of thousands before it all. Yet the herd from the hells came and spirited their greying and sometimes screaming corpses from the field. You do not become them, they inhabit you. Your vessel is no good to them anymore. Not to be occupied anyway.

It is only a threat to undo the promise of the original leader. That could end them. We have just over a year to train you for that day. They will find you regardless at that point if we do not complete the purification. You will end them or the cycle will start anew upon your death. Weakened from the permeant losses we can strike until your death. First, we have to get you past the enablers."

Chazzen looked at him, "The enablers?"

He nodded, "Some in your village kept tabs on you and the others correct?"

He nodded, "Yes, the few men of the village not of their blood from what I understand."

He nodded, "Born out of the cycles and keepers of records of the damned. They were not the only ones. You faced one earlier today."

Chazzen looked at him, "The magister?"

He nodded, "His reaction confirmed it. If he knows who you are, and we do not doubt that is the case now, our plan for your death will not work. He will have reported your capture and my interest. His job is to keep them an unsubstantiated legend.

You have challenged his role, we have challenged that role. He will see you dead if we do not act soon to truly free you from that place. You will be hunted. He will come for me as well, but I am not so easy a prey to fall to a simple00 enabler."

----

Chazzen awoke in the cell. He sat up and his shackles fell way. He looked around and saw his gear in the corner of the room. He walked over to it and saw the note.

"Fight your way free. Kill the magister in the process. Head further south and we will find you."

He dropped the note and it burned into nothing. He sighed, "A fugitive and a murderer."

He went to the bunk and sat down, "No, I would rather die than have that happen."

He heard her voice again. "He said you would likely be stubborn about what needed to be done."

He looked at her. "What do you know of him or me?"

She sat down beside Chazzen, "Ten years ago I was you. I escaped them. Not all of the riders are men. I escaped a year before the culling and then the Sword Lords found me a few years later. I have been working with them ever since.

I was not the child of the leader but they still destroyed the village of Treemond when I escaped. That is a hundred miles from Evergreen and further North. Or it was."

Chazzen looked at her, "You look my age. Who are you?"

She nodded, "The vessels do not age. You will look to be this age, the age of when you were purified, for a thousand years to work on bringing an end to this. Now get your gear on. I will help you to escape this place with as little loss of life as possible. The magistrate has to die. He has to die by your hand. We have your horses and others wait for us. Move it. Time for pleasantries later."

Chazzen stood, "Why do I have to kill him?"

She nodded, "One reason, they will sense it was you who killed him or another if that is the case. They will know you have been purified, at least partially. At that point, they will know you are the one who did the task. The other reason is we need to know you can do what must be done to bring this to an end.

The Sword Lord cannot be involved in the magistrate's death. He will be with others to establish his alibi during your escape and to question who 'aided' you in your escape. He will be tasked with leading the hunt against you."

Chazzen looked at her with a note of disgust, "That is a good thing?"

She nodded, "He can keep them close but far enough away. The riders will pursue his course because they cannot sense you anymore. He will find more enablers this way. It is the way of things. I did it before I was trained. Now you will do it."

Chazzen grabbed his weapons and geared up, with his bow in hand. He pointed at the door, "Lead the way."

She looked at him, "I will be around if you get in trouble. You have to find your own way out."

Chazzen rolled his eyes as she downed the potion and disappeared. "Like they will not realize someone helped me with my gear suddenly being available."

She did not respond to his statement. He opened the door to his cell and could see the torchlight from the guards headed down the stairs toward his location. He looked around and in the cell. He ran toward the door, got a foot on the brazier near the entrance and his hands against the ceiling. He moved his feet to be on top of the doorframe with his hands pushed against the rough ceiling.

He left the door cracked. He looked down on anyone entering the cell as he suspended himself from the ceiling and the iron lipped top of the doorframe. He heard their armor as they picked up speed and approached the cell.

The 'guard' looked at the door, "He's escaped. That magister said he would keep him here for us."

The other voice spoke, "Maybe others got to him first. I don't sense him or them though."

The first spoke again, "We kept him from telling the others. If anyone deserves to kill the little shit it is one of us. If we have lost him then the others will be pissed at us."

The other guard chuckled, "We did not lose him. The magistrate lost him. We just have to ensure he does not talk to the others."

The first sighed, "He's protected from us. You know that. He could be contacting the others right now and informing them about our failure."

They pushed open the cell door and looked at the empty shackles. One of them stepped further inside. Chazzen knew if they turned toward the door, he would be spotted. He gave it a second longer for the other to get further inside the small cell. Then he could drop onto both of them.

This thought was interrupted by the waves of flames engulfed the two of them from the hallway. They rushed forward and further into the cell to escape the attack. Chazzen dropped down and pulled the door shut as the spell ended. She threw four glass vials into the cell and they screamed again as the cell erupted in flames. Chazzen looked at her, "Oil?"

She shook her head, "Holy water...of course oil!"

Chazzen shook his head as she locked the door with the keys she had. She sighed, "You cannot see them now. Not until you get trained to see them again. Not after being purified. They will use any vessel to get to you they can. Interrogating your female friend from the tavern."

Chazzen looked at her, "We have to save her."

She looked at him sideways, "They got to her last night. With your escape you will get blamed, the tavern was burned to the ground. There was no saving her, only avenging her. Get your head on straight."

Chazzen spun quickly and caught her right against the throat with the end of his bow. She laid on the floor trying to catch her breath from the bow strike. He looked down at her, "I have no reason to trust you any more than those men. I will save her if I can."

He went bounding up the stairs and left her there. He got to the top of the stairs and another locked door. He thought, 'Fuck she had the keys.'

The door was aged, wet, and in poor shape for an interior door. He drew back his bow and aimed for the hinges, the wood around them gave way. He launched a dozen arrows into the water-soaked wooden door and finally managed to weaken it enough to force his way past it. The direct route went through the magistrate's court. The indirect route went to the ramparts above the city and more guards.

He thought for just a second and went up, "They want the magister dead then they can kill him."

He wanted out of this place. He made it to the woods and he could survive on his own. He loaded up one of his specialty arrows; the ones he used to get up a tree in a hurry.

He went out on the rampart and found he was on the south side of the city. Not far from the inn or stables and could see the inn was destroyed. He thought, to myself, "She did not lie about it being destroyed. The question is who destroyed the inn? They could have saved her if they truly knew what their actions would be."

He saw the guard before the guard saw Chazzen.

Chazzen fired the arrow and caught him in the leg. The silk thief's rope spun off of his arm as the arrow sunk into the guard. He screamed out. That only got louder when Chazzen jumped over the side setting the hooks from the arrow into his flesh. The momentum pulled his body across the ground as Chazzen swung down and then into the Fretan river below.

He released the rope, a good 50 feet up to keep from pulling the guard over the wall. He landed with a splash. Followed by the hissing of crossbow bolts fired at him from the city ramparts. He got hit by 2 of them in the left shoulder. He let the current carry him downstream.

Then he remembered. "There is a waterfall ahead."

It was when this revelation hit him that he pulled the 2 bolts right before going over the falls. He tried to dive forward and away from the rocks below but still smashed his right leg against them and felt it snap at least twice in the process. It fucking hurt. He used the one good leg and one good arm, having been shot in the opposite shoulder was the only 'good news.'

He pulled himself to the far end of the river bank and out of the water. Far enough from the city not to be seen. He thought, "They will look for my body in the rocks if they look for my body at all."

He looked around. There was nothing decent to make a crutch with but there was one fairly large log. He pulled it into the water and floated further downstream with one arm wrapped around the log for now.

He thought to himself, "No healing potions."

He did not have the ability to cast the spell. Not yet anyway. He could afford a healer if he found one that he trusted. His best bet was the wand in his pack. He needed to be out of the water and he needed to set the broken leg first before he could use that. Doing that without being tracked by a Sword Lord would be next to impossible.

The legends of these wilderness warriors were vast. Then there was the journal he found months ago. The Sword Lord would find where he went ashore and surmise Chazzen's condition. He went back into the water because of the drag marks from the log and his body. He would know he was hurt.

The blood, ground markings, and lack of progress on the shore would give him that information. He needed out of the water sooner rather than later. Repair the damage to his body and then set a new course. South was the direction they talked about. North was the direction of Evergreen and the last place he wanted to go was further north.

That left east and west. The river headed south whichever bank he got out on he could surmise the direction he was headed. East or west. The river was vast enough that changing direction would not be seen as viable. Especially the closer he got to the open sea. The trade routes were west.

He could find work there and it would be the obvious choice. If he were not a ranger and comfortable in both environments. He decided he would head away from the trade routes. He needed time to collect his thoughts on the matter and while he could find me his associates might have a harder time tracking him away from society. Chazzen played into the Sword Lord's and his own strength, but he was under no illusion. The Sword Lord had the advantage no matter which course he set.

---

He was out of the water within the hour and healed up enough to travel a few minutes after that. He sent the log back into the water and headed toward the other bank. He used the stones to obscure his journey ashore. He traveled east, then north getting into the higher country but not on a path back to Evergreen. He headed for the Brazen forest.

Said to be an ancient elven home at one point it was long abandoned by them due to the encroachment of man. He hoped this was still the case. Small villages in the hills but he was headed tree side. The trees were massive here and instead of his pursuers tracking him on the ground, they would have to track him in the air. He had a few of the rope arrows left.

If he maintained them, he could create quite a few breaks in any tracks by swinging away into other trees further away. It had been 6 weeks since his 'great escape.' He left more of a trail than he wanted, having taken out a couple of small bandit camps in the woods. But he gathered additional supplies including potions and such.

He knew his luck would not hold out forever. He set his sights on a cave set high in the hills. He had been traveling at a breakneck speed for six weeks and he needed a chance to get serious rest. Something a Sword Lord did not need unless injured. That was when he found it. Buried inside his pack and thrust into the seam was a tracker stone.

He sighed to himself and searched all of his gear and found 2 others. He threw them in a fire inside the cave and rigged a deadfall. He slept above the cave in a tree. he saw three go into the cave. He tripped the deadfall and moved on. He knew it would only slow them down but he hoped they would be impressed by his finding their stones and setting a trap for them.

He did not know why he wished to impress his pursuer. Maybe it was their reputation. Maybe his own ego or that journal he had found. Regardless, he wanted them to know he could be resourceful and patient. He found a small village a month later and settled in. Being a skilled hunter, he had plenty to trade. Six weeks later he arrived home to find the Sword Lord sitting on his bed looking at him.