Respite & Resolve

[Adrian Kane]

Arikan

The humid of evening dusk had fallen by the time Arikan stalked the courtyard between the fortress and the gate. The stench of animals and stables rose up to meet him, but he was accustomed to the working world, and for all the nobility of his clothing, he walked straight through the aroma without even so much as a grimace.

The sky had fallen to plums and blacks. The pin prick of stars would show soon. Beneath the swath of building darkness Arikan entered the stable where his horse was stowed. Hay dust and the pooled light of a single lantern met him there.

Despite a glance at the animal stabled in its stall, he walked prominently past it, going to the tack shed. The door rolled open on old hinges that labored like they were caked with rust. When his shape filled the doorway, a scrawny face looked back at him. It was the stable hand.

His eyes were wide as he scrambled to his feet. “My lord?” he asked with that stupid Illianer accent. He entered, pulling the door closed behind him. The tack room was cramped with both of them in there. The walls were filled with tools. Brushes, scrapers…

A slow study of the options landed his attention on a row of leather tools: mauls, bevelers, punches, skivers, stamps. The sorts of things used to repair saddles and hammer in stirrups. It was the awl, a handheld tool with a sharp metal point used for marking or piercing leather that he selected. Then he looked at the stable hand, who was watching these things with a mixture of confusion that slowly transformed to fear. There were certainly sadistic lords in the world, and perhaps he worried that the guest of his master was one such individual.

If he only knew.

Arikan sharpened his own accent as he spoke.
“Have you ever seen this?” he said, smoothly kneeing. There he used the point of the awl to draw a symbol into the dirt floor.

When he looked up, the stable hand was white as a ghost, and he promptly knelt to one knee.

“Show me,” he told the darkfriend. When he stood he kicked away the symbol he’d drawn and allowed himself be led away.

He was taken to the blacksmith’s hut. It was little more than a single room structure built against the cliff at the rear of the fortress. There was a half-wall leading along a narrow walkway between the cliff face and what he presumed to be the service exit from the kitchens. A glance over the side found nothing but darkness yawning below, but his study from the upper windows guessed it was a five hundred foot drop or more. Likely that was where the kitchen refuge was dumped as well.

“My lord do you desire anything else?”

He’d almost forgotten the stablehand was there.

He turned, awl still clutched in his hand and seized the one power as he approached. There was a gasp of realization and a short struggle. The man was dead before he stabbed the awl through the side of his neck, but on the off chance the body was found, they wouldn’t suspect a channeler. Plus no blood would spatter his doublet.

The cape swirled as he hefted the body over the side of the wall. The carrions would have a decent meal tonight.

A knock on the blacksmith’s door summoned footsteps behind it. There was no way of knowing the rank of the darkfriend that worked this backwater shop. It couldn’t be much more than a repair forge. Certainly nothing of significance was created there.

He was still holding onto saidin when a familiar sense of darkness flared to life inside.

The door shattered on its hinges. Wood sprayed forward and Arikan hid his face with the shield of his arm. A channeler emerged. He was taller than Arikan. Dark haired with slanted eyes and golden skin. The flows of a shield were already formed, but recognition stretched a sudden pause between both.

“Dark blood and flaming bones,” Valtin uttered, eyes wild.

A dreadlord. Hiding at the end of the world in Illian? Arikan snorted. Plans assimilating.  
“We have much to discuss,” he said and pushed his way inside.

An hour later, he was seated in the library again, eating the dry meal he himself brought on the journey. No matter what Talin said, he’d not eat anything he didn’t prepare. Especially not with so many flaming darkfriends on the grounds.