• Mature • What is Owed, What was Promised

[Kasoria]

28th Trial, Ashan, 719a
Yaralon
Midday

They were a strange yet simple party, marching out of the Harbor along the cliffs. No holy man or priests were among them, yet it was clear from their mien and cargo they were there to see off a comrade. The corpse they carried between them was clue enough. There was no weeping widow or child to accompany the procession. Just hard-faced men, some still sporting bandages and barely-healed wounds. The little man at the rear of the group dragged his right leg as he walked, forcing the rest to walk at a slower pace than normal. Not quite an amble, not quite a stride.

Kasoria was just grateful he could actually feel the limb anymore. For a trial or two, he was worried sensation would never return.

Which would be fitting and all, he thought darkly, as his feet crunched and ground across the scrub lining the cliffs jutting out into the sea like broken teeth. He makes a tsunami to save us, and dies. I cast a shield that helps us, helps myself, and get crippled. Seems fair.

He snorted softly to himself. Mister Kelly, the helmsman, looked over his shoulder for a moment, a question in his eyes. Kasoria gave no answer. The sailor turned back around, keeping his curse in his head. Weird little sod, was "Mister Thagoras". But damned if he wasn't useful a few trials ago, when they'd been on the verge of being swamped by fucking pirates. Between him and the Defier, they'd-

No, Kelly reminded himself. Legonne. His name was Legonne.

The Captain brought up the head of the procession, as was proper. Patch covering the hole where his right eye to be, but now the raw, red, angry flesh around it. The healer on land had told him if would be trials, even seasons before his skin got anywhere close to normal again. Losing an eye, it was... hard for the body to adjust to. He'd mentioned something about "a fearsome visage" and Captain Senter had laughed.

"I was already a scary cunt, when I wanted t'be," he'd said. "Now I'm just a scary cunt with one less eye."

He was stone-faced as he walked. So was Kilmain and his two underlings, sellswords like the tattooed Rharnian. Between the three of them, they carried the body, wrapped in a white sheet that did little for the smell. A small group of men, walking past caravans and traders and travelers and columns of sellswords and whores and jabbering races some had never seen before. Yet their eyes did not waver from the only direction that mattered.

Forward. Onward. Beyond. Up the winding path to the city, then turning smartly to the side. Along the cliffs, until they reached-

A long, short pyre of dried wood. Set into an area carefully cleared of scrub and grass. Two men stood by it, sun-baked and dark-skinned, like most natives of this city. Senter nodded his thanks and greeting to them as his men came to a halt. A coin was pressed to each hand, gold and glittering in the sun.

"Thank you," he said. "We can take it from here."

The Yari didn't try to protest. They knew the solemn gaze that all these men wore. Somewhere between stoic grief and cold purpose. Most of all on the face of the last man they passed, the little man with the limp, that didn't even look at them as they walked away. The one with one hand who stroked some trinket they couldn't quite make out. Kasoria heard one ask the other... something, in their barbarous tongue. An answer that was the verbal equivalent of a shrug was given.

He didn't wonder further. Didn't care to ponder. Just kept his eyes on the pyre, and the body Kilmain and his lads placed upon it.

Just like you wanted, boy. We can do that for you, at least...

[Kasoria]

Two trials before

"Still not dead?"

It was an old joke that was hardly funny the first time Oswald had made it, and Kasoria was in no mood to hear it again. But the healer was a necessary evil. That meant he had just sit there, stewing and sullen and sickly, while the man did his work. He didn't particularly like the idea of submitting himself to a healer with shag-sores all over his lips, but he still did. He just made sure not to look at them while the man slipped his arm out of its cast... and flicked it.

"Shite!"

"Not as bad as yesterday," the whore-mongering healer said with a foul grin. "Looks like your arm is doing better. It's setting nicely, but'll probably be useless for another twenty trials, at least. Wanker really thumped it, eh?"

Kasoria grunted as he remembered the senseless but jarring pressure when Otrar had broken his arm. Or fractured it, more accurately. Traitor Claw had been in his hand, so the pain of it had been dulled... not to mention given right back to the treacherous wee cunt moments later. But even a charmed weapon like that couldn't stop the damage being done; just the clamor of the senses. The moment he'd taken it off, Kasoria had nearly swayed into unconsciousness as the pain hit him. The throbbing, shuddering, internal screech of bones scraping against bone inside his flesh.

"Aye," the little sellsword grunted, then gave a half-smile. "Din't live long enough t'enjoy it."

The smile grew into something broad and hideous, and Oswald looked away. He'd kept himself under the deck and away from trouble during the battle. He wasn't a fighting man, and more importantly, his value as one wasn't even close to that as a healer. His little surgery-slash-bedroom had been awash with blood in the aftermath, and would stink for trials, maybe even seasons to come. But he still watched, from careful cover. Saw his friends fight bravely and launch themselves at reavers who were for the most part better fighters, more cunning warriors. He watched his Captain duel the pirate lord on the Vulturus Rex, taking grievous wounds until quick thinking and a splash of his own blood and brought him victory.

More than anything, he remembered the little man with the Etzori accent. The way he'd carved through men and never even watched them fall. Took like after life without care, without pause, without mercy. Screamed so loud even he jammed his hands over his ears, trying to stop that demonic shrieking from infecting his dreams.

He remembered what happed to Otrar too. Damn him to the blackest pits for his deceit, for his murder, but even then... the boy did not deserve that kind of death.

He would have given it to us, though. The wages of treachery...

"Twenty trials, y'say?"

"Looks like, based on what I've seen before." The healer washed his hands thoroughly in a bowl of water. For all his fetid appearance, the man took his duties seriously. "Just need to give it time. Bones need to meld back together. You keep working, keep moving, you won't give them the chance to. So, keep the splint where it is, let it do it's job and-"

"-and don't bloody touch it."

"And don't bloody touch it."

The healer made a mild face as the sellsword finished the line for him. Every visit, every inspection, the same damn words. Clearly other men had needed to be told more than once. Kasoria was not so reckless. He didn't need infection or improper setting to rob him of his arm. He thought of those handful of scratchers he knew, from far away back home, that had their careers ended with a crippled limb. They didn't take well to civvie life. Not at all. What worried him more yet cheered him that day, was his leg.

It was still dumb, but not as numb. That morning, when he'd poked it with his dagger, he felt pain. Dull and distant, like his nerves were wrapped with cotton wool... but less layers than the trial before. Hopefully that was a sign of better things. But for that trial, and the immediate future, it meant he dragged his limb across Oswald's room. Struggled and cursed as he looped his arm back into a sling. Down an arm and most of a leg. Fine example of manhood.

Aye, well, no-one's tried to take advantage yet, anyway.

"So..."

He could tell from the tone, the unspoken words, the way the sentence was left flapping like a loose limb, what the healer wanted to talk about. Not out of any medical concern, he'd wager. The bodies of the crewman had been disposed of, and easily enough. Donated to the healing colleges in the city (for coin to be sent to their families), or simply dumped into the bay. But one had not been. One still lay in a corner, body stiffening and starting to molder. The desert heat would mean that soon Oswald's polite insistence would be replaced by professional outrage that a corpse was within his place of healing.

Can't have that. Not even him.

"Has the Captain said anything about when-"

"Couple a' trials, the Captain says," Kasoria muttered as he started to walk slowly from the room. "Got some locals t'build a pyre. They're gonna watch it, 'til we get there."

"Oh... Oh, well, that's good. And, ah... and when-"

"When we carry him outta here," Kasoria said with a little more growl in his voice. "Trial. Mebbe two." He looked over his shoulder and met the healer's eye. "Clear?"

As has been established, Oswald may have been a pox-scarred figure, but he was not a dolt. He was not fooled by the apparent weakness in that shambling figure. Anyone that could endure that sort of pain, cast that kind of magic, and still be upright and moving, well... he was best not pushed. It still surprised him, though. This... concern. He stopped by the white-wrapped corpse as he left. Paused and clutched its shoulder, as if in reassurance.

"Not long now," Kasoria said with a smile, feeling a fool and speaking pointless words anyway. "Not long..."

[Kasoria]

"we shoulder get started."

Senter thought it was odd how they seemed to defer to Mister Thagoras when it came to Legonne. Yet it seemed fitting to. There was nothing forced or awkward about the arrangement. Once he'd gotten over his cynicism, and saw the little man unconscious next to the mage when they'd docked in Yaralon... the Captain had just understood. They had only been friends for a handful of trials. But sometimes that was longer enough.

He'd seen the mage and the mercenary talk at meals. Discuss and chatter. Little man from Etzos never spoke as much in a whole day as he did around supper with Legonne. The Captain guessed it was about magic, at first. Pumping the boy for information. But more had been shared. Mostly by Legonne. That Thagoras, there was a vice clamped shut around so much of his past, his motives, his very being. But Legonne had no such limitations. He chattered and he opened up to the older yet more inexperienced mage. Told him about his home and his family, showed him the-

-bracelet, of rough-cut stones and feathers, that Thagoras held right then. Still smeared with the mage's dying sweat. Still warm with him. Impossible, after so many trials. Undeniable, if you'd actually held it.

"Yeah," the little man said, eyes fixed on the corpse and never wavering. "Might as well."

The Captain was the one to place the torch. He'd paid for all of this. Legonne's last wish, muttered in between coughs and retching to Kasoria as he'd lain dying. This was the first part. There were three. Captain Senter had almost laughed in amused outrage when he heard all of it, but then he remembered what the man had done for them. What he'd died doing. He supposed a mage like him could have worked some wyrd or conjuring to whisk himself away. Save himself, flee the Lucky Lady and leave them all to die.

He didn't. Not only that, but he expended the last of himself saving them. Giving them one last, grand spell to hurl their enemies into disarray. Buying them precious trills with his own life, that they could lay waste to the bastards and survive.

"He didn't have t'do that. Didn't have t'die fer us."

Kasoria's eyes flickered to the Captain, and he nodded. Well he knew the first rule of the sellsword: no contract is worth dying for. Yet Legonne did. Because... Fates, he didn't even know. All he knew was that he owed the man, for giving everything so strangers could live. He clutched the bracelet that a little girl far away in Rharne had made for her Papa. She'd never see it, or him, again.

Kasoria sighed and bowed his head. He was not a man who prayed. There was nothing pray to, save beseeching indifferent Fates whose will and shapings would be done no matter what mortals said. There were no gods in the world. No beings who peered into lives and dreams and nudged paths into success or failure if the right words were said, the right sacrifices made.

He sacrificed. He gave himself. Had a wife and a child. But he didn't hesitate. He died, so us... worthless bastards that we are, could live.

"So we remember," he said, some timbre of ancient anger under his voice. "We do right by him." He pocketed the bracelet. Tiny feathers tickled his wrist. "Today, an' after."

Captain Senter nodded as the flames greedily consumed the wood, the sheet, the flesh and ate down to the bones. The cliffs, called the Crags by the locals, were as dry as the savanna behind them. Every footstep raised dusty and snapped long-dead twigs and plants. The wood was just as dry, and within bits instead of closer to a bell, the spoiling body of Legonne was burned down to black bones.

No-one spoke. Not captain, or sellsword, or sailors. They watched as the flames turned to smoke instead, and Senter nodded to the pile.

Without being told in words, the other men with them collected the bones and ashes into two great jars. Kasoria watched them scrape the engine of an entire life, flesh that had made flesh of itself, that had worked magic enough to conjure waves, hurl fire, show heroism even when there was naught but survival to be gained from it. And then, not their own. All those scraps, now. All those dead bones and burned hunks of meat scorched to cinders.

He felt an old rage grow in him, as he heard muttered words from the sailors. Prayers. Offerings. Words that asked the gods to be kind to their friend, who had given his life for them. Names he recognized and was instantly revolted at the sound of were among the prayers. He held his tongue. He reached with one hand and accepted one of the jars. Then, once Senter had his, they exchanged a nod, and started walking to the edge of the cliff.

Kasoria remembered.

"They all protected me. Fire. Air. Water. My whole life. They were there. Helping me. Teaching me. Protecting me. But now they couldn't. It's not their fault. So give me back to them. Burn my body. Throw my ashes to the wind. Let them fall on water. Fire. Air. Water. Let my Guardians have me. One last time."

"Mister Thagoras?"

Kasoria blinked and jerked and hissed and he was back. Legonne's pale, barely moving face vanished from his eyes. Instead, there was Senter, hand on his shoulder, nodding out to the precipice. Both men walked over... and waited. Until their clothes billowed around them. Until the breeze from the sea was reversed, and they felt the scampering gusts whistle over the plain and into the bay-

-tipping out the jars, ash and black bones hurtling down or being snatched up by the breeze.

They watched a thing invisible given form. Black dust dancing in the heavens. Shucking this way and that, as if indecisive or excited. They watched as what was left of Legonne became solid for one more moment. Stretching black wings into the sunlight, and then was torn apart... gone forever.

The two men turned around and started to walk away. The crewmen fell in behind them. Soon they had passed "Mister Thagoras", and Kasoria was bringing up the back again. He didn't look back at the smoking pyre. He knew he wouldn't see some ghostly form, waving farewell at him. He didn't want to entertain the hope there would be. Instead he focused on what was real. What he could touch and smell and know. He stroked the bracelet in his pocket. The one that had belonged to his friend. He'd have to find some candles in Yaralon, and remember his Signalism.

If ever a man deserved a light to guide him to peace, it was him.

The sellsword smiled softly, then like ash in wind, the gesture was gone. He was just a lonely figure, stumping across the dust under the sun, away from the pyre, and towards the city.

[Rakvald]

Comments

Okay, I played the music, and going two posts into this full length solo, I was very confident that I would not cry a single tear. Where my heart should be is a pit of black despair, full of misery, and devoid of any feeling.

Then I get to the final post, and god damnit. Curse you...

I can find no fault with this thread. It's always hard reviewing threads by writers that are way above my pay grade, which includes almost all writers on this site. Nevertheless, I have a job to do.

I admire your ability to tell a story that stands on its own, even though there was clearly much more that preceded it. The thread did not suffer for not having read what came before, this could have easily been the beginning of Kasoria's story as the middle or ending.

I hope I get to read more of your threads soon. Sorry it took so long for me to review this one.

Knowledge

Skill Knowledge:
Medicine: Setting a Fracture
Medicine: Washing Your Hands
Medicine: Splinting a Fractured Forearm
Medicine: Rotting Bodies Spread Disease
Philosophy: Dues to the Dead
Philosophy: No Gods, Just Us

Non-Skill Knowledge:
NPC Oswald: Healer Aboard the Lucky Lady
Yaralon: The Crags
Yaralon: The Harbor Outside the City Proper

Loot

A beaded and feathered bracelet belonging to Legonne's little girl in Rharne.

Injuries/Overstepping

Fractured Arm, set but still healing (out of commission for at least twenty trials); lack of full sensation in right leg, thanks to Overstepping (probably will come back, but VERY slowly)

Renown

+10 for holding a moving memorial service that nobody present will forget.

Wealth Points

n/a

Experience

10/10