Thrain - Part 20: A Growing Shadow
Tylen awakes, and hears the story of his father, but as grief grows so does the shadow
Need a recap? Chapter summaries
When he came to, it was by the pull of pain throbbing in his jaw. He opened his mouth as if to shift his face away from the hurt, but that made it far worse. Groaning, he forced his eyes open.
His senses were coming back like someone unlatching a bunch of locks on a door. Typically he opened his eyes and had full command of his faculties; now he was distinctly aware of the strange sensation of seeing Torp and Rivall talk, but initially not hearing them. It faded in slowly.
“Ho, Kiernan, that will problems cause, you can’t expect to keep the fear in him forever?”
Torp shook his head. “I’ll do what I need. Whatever I need.”
Rivall sighed in exasperation. “And that is the worry, look where it’s got you so far, Torp.”
“Your name is Kiernan?” He managed to croak it out from the bed they had him on. Sun shone through the window, so it must have been the same day but his throat felt like it hadn’t tasted water in a week.
Torp turned in surprise, and looked ready to deny it, but his shoulders sagged after a moment and he nodded. “Torp was a nickname I had in the Warcrest. Kiernan is my real name, yes. Mean anything to you, kid?”
It had been a long time. “The same one my mother knew?”
“Yes. Did she--” His eyes widened. “ ‘Knew’? What happened in the raid?”
He shook his head. “She…called you my uncle. I want to know why first.”
Torp looked at him, face pale and stressed. After a long moment of silence, he grimaced and acquiesced. “Not by blood. But yes, I knew her and Arthin well. She blames me for his death.”
“You knew my--” but his voice gave way to coughing, the dryness preventing him from going further.
“Ho, where are my habits gone.” Rivall went to the corner of the room where another sink like the one in Torp’s room sat. He returned with a glass of water.
“Yes, kid. I have been in the Warcrest before, your mother was an herbalist.” The anxiety didn’t leave his brow but he settled into the story.
“I had joined, like young boys without much better to do. Didn’t help I had a talent for Runecasting.” Some memory of joy rested on his face for a moment. “My old man always seemed so foolish to me before I joined up; afterwards I remember telling him he’d gotten a lot wiser. Wasn’t until he passed I understood why he’d laughed so hard at that.”
Stepping past the foot of the bed and grabbing a chair, he set it close to the bed and sat in it. “I was often up to anything I could be, and nearly as often getting away with it. Runecasters get away with a lot. And that…” The happiness was replaced with something darker. “Anyways, my antiques caught up with me finally, and I was sent to be the counter-mage in the forward contingent. They power the inscribed warplates, which stops an enemy Runecaster from wiping them away like ants. It was there I met your father.”
Tylen clutched the Emblem tight in his hand. If Torp said even two sentences about him it would be more than his mother had told him in years.
“He was rather clumsy. The story he told me was that he’d tripped in the grub line and flung soup all over Lieutenant Haverth.” Torp must have seen his face fall. “Courageous! Don’t get me wrong kid, your dad was the best kind of person there could be, the sort of person to which war is not kind. And your mother, well. I had, or--” he stopped himself, scratching his beard and Rivall made some loud sound over at the sink.
“She and others I talked to, as the knit-tent was further back, nearer where the Runecasters quartered. After several long skirmishes, each of which was sending your dad back to the tents, I introduced them.” Rivall sounded like he attacked the sink.
With some red in his face, the Runecaster rushed on. “Your dad won her heart immediately. As much as he kept getting injured, they were able to see each other quite a bit. She got pregnant.” He smiled at Tylen.
“Your father had signed for five years and good land; only three of those years were up, but Irene can be…convincing.”
The flicker of memories made sharp and painful rose in his chest, and ache for something never to be again.
“She got the Warcrest to agree to that post in the north. Your father would man the tower, and tend to the horses. He was very, very good with horses, as you probably know.”
He didn’t.
“For a year, they were truly happy. The war centered around the mines, and the contingent of guard at the tower was more a large group of friends than it was grizzled soldiers. Your parents were outliers, wanting to go up there, most of that garrison was older folk, or injured. Then there was Irgath.”
Tylen knew that look on the aged face suddenly full of wrinkles. He felt it every time he saw a red sunset, and smelled burned wood.
“Kalovame then was young, hungry, and in charge of a small group of casters including me. Haelstra had succeeded in establishing a small fort west of the river, and it was looking like they might take control of at least a portion of the mines, if we couldn’t do something about it. He came up with a plan to take the fort by surprise.”
Looking increasingly aged, Torp leaned down and set his head between his hands. “Your father was summoned down from Eldan’s Hearth to assist with the horses. The path intended was treacherously narrow, under the cover of night, and required the animals to lay flat multiple times. I think he could have been convinced not to go, if he and everyone else hadn’t known he was the best choice.”
“Him and I were reunited though, for the first time in roughly a year.”
He went silent, for a span of several minutes. Not even a week ago, Tylen would have questioned it, or prodded him to continue. Now, he sat with him, and let his own tears fall with Torp’s.
“One day, close to when we were to ride out, he turned to me and said ‘Torp, take care of Irene if anything happens.’ I looked at him funny, told him we would be fine -- especially him, since it was me and others who would be first sneaking into the fort. He made me promise.” His hands moved across each other, searching for something but not finding it.
Torp looked distantly up. “I never did understand… Well. The day came and we took the horses through the mountain pass, dead night. Your father had a control and trust of those animals I haven’t seen since, and without him I have no doubt we’d have failed. We got to the wall though.” The last part he said sadly.
“I and others then snuck in. Then they discovered us. Our immediate plan, even with the sneaking, was mostly ruined. The intention was to sabotage the gates and open them, so that our invading force an hour behind could get in. Their Runecasters and soldier swarmed over that before we had much chance.”
“Kalovame, though. Kalovame would not be stopped.” His brow grew heavy and anger hardened his face. “There is a Rune which allows one Caster to channel the energies of another. He had us each cast this Rune. Then–”
He took a halting breath, half coughing. “He blew the wall down.” Torp finally looked up at him. “It collapsed on top of the horses and men outside, including your father.”
Silence fell. Tylen hadn’t thought to call grief a friend but he greeted it often now. In hearing this story it washed over him again. He had thought there was a limit to the pain and sadness one could feel but it seemed there was always some new wound that could be stabbed out of him.
“Your mother had asked me to protect him, and for him to die just before he would see you was to her the cruelest turn, and she blamed me for it. That, I do not hold against her, though I wish dearly to see her again.”
The shadow loomed into his mind, a blood and fiery apparition.
“She’s dead.”
Rivall had not entered the tale, but his face dropped in shock. Torp’s hand began to tremble.
The shaking took the grey-haired man’s arms, then his shoulders in bucking waves. Bowing, his face contorted in agony and tears began to fall as all of him shook in weeping. Even in that, there was silence again.
Tylen felt the grief grow hard and knotted. From what stories he had managed to srestle from Hal, who bore Irene’s wrath if it ever got back that he told them, he’d though his father was mighty. A brilliant swordsman and Knight of rare caliber, Arthin lived in his head like a giant. Not only was hearing of his death somehow painful itself, but he felt cheated. Torp wasn’t to blame, though.
No, someone else had stolen both his father and dream from him. Murderers deserve to die. Like a whisper carried through the wind the thought came to him. He balked at first, and tried to run. There was no running from the pain. It caught him and thrashed him again until he fled to the shadow and together they parried away the agony with the answer that brought relief.
He was going to kill Kalovame.
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"He was going to kill Kalovame."
Ummm good luck kid.