The Founding of Tiranis, CH 05 (Patreon)

Three years after they arrived, a full six months after the last attack, he saw another cloud in the distance. He hadn’t expected it. It had been so long, he thought they had finally learned their lessons. But this was going to be more of the same.

They stopped a good distance from his shack, and as he walked to them, he studied the group. Eight in total, four humans and four Furkind, with one of each at the lead.

The human was short and overweight, but he carried himself with authority. He was used to being obeyed. Although he’d been riding for weeks, his clothes were clean and comfortable. He wore a gun at his belt, and Ellarkay could tell it wasn’t there as a decoration. This man wasn’t afraid to use it.

The bull’s attire, in contrast, was all practical and well-worn. Leather jerkins, chaps, shirt under a buckskin vest. He didn’t carry a gun, but there was a sense of danger about him. The lynx got the impression he didn’t need a gun to get what he wanted.

He didn’t mind meeting them this far away. It meant fewer chances someone from the village would get hurt. The last time Keaghan had been shot in the leg, and two of the villagers had died. He didn’t want any of them endangered again.

Looking at them, he knew it would be a waste of time to warn them away. This close, he got an idea who the human was. The bull nodded at him once, as if they knew each other.

The human studied Ellarkay for a moment, annoyance in his eyes. “So you’re the one responsible for all this? For costing me so much?”

The lynx smiled. “I’m not aware we’ve ever done business.”

“You stole from me!” The man’s face gained a red tint.

Ellarkay’s ears canted to the side. “I’ve never stolen from anyone who properly owned something.”

The bull snickered, which earned him a glare from the human.

“Look,” the man said, focusing on the lynx again. “This has gone on too long. Do you have any idea what you’ve cost me? Not just the labor you took, or the advances to the bounty hunters, but what my rivals are saying? Just tell me your price, so I get what’s mine and leave.”

Ellarkay shook his head. “No one belongs to another person. That used to be the law, and it’s the law I still honor. You don’t have any property here to buy back.”

“Oh, for crying out loud, everyone has a price.” The man grabbed a loaded saddlebag off his horse and threw it at the lynx’s feet. It opened, and gold coins spilled on the ground. “There’s five hundred gold coins in there. It’s yours if you give them back to me. And just to be fair, I’ll let you keep whoever was born here.”

Ellarkay watched the coins for a moment, glinting in the sunlight. He could make out the cotton plant embossed on them. The cotton trade certainly was good. He looked over his shoulder at his home, the shack that now looked even worse compared to the houses Keaghan had erected. The human kept asking to build Ellarkay a new home, but the lynx wouldn’t let him. It was his. He had built it with his own hands. He didn’t need anything else.

He looked at the man on the horse, putting a surprised expression on his face. “Do I really look like someone who cares about gold?” He pushed the bag back with a foot. “You can take that back.”

The bull roared in laughter. “You haven’t changed at all.”

Ellarkay looked at him, his ears tilting in question. “Do I know you?”

The bull tilted his head. “I’d heard you’d given up on who you were. Buried yourself in helping others, even ruling them, I’ve been told.” He indicated the village. “You back to doing that?”

Ellarkay studied the bull, certain he’d never seen him before. He got a sense he was fighting. A battle, no, a war. The bull was at his side. Machines that hadn’t been seen for a very long time. Then a voice from the past. “LRK-87, VDK-56. You two are taking the ridge. Their infantry is positioned there and we can’t proceed until you kill them.”

“Veedee,” Ellarkay whispered to himself.

“You do remember!” the bull jumped off his horse. He was almost two heads taller than the lynx. “Look, the last time I let you live because of the history we share. I can’t do that this time. Just give the man what he wants and take the money. Use it to buy yourself you own village. Hell, you can buy a whole city with it.”

As the bull spoke, Ellarkay remembered fighting against him, but he couldn’t remember over what. He did remember lying at the bull’s feet, bloodied.

He shook his head. “If you know me like you claim you do, you know I won’t do that. They asked for my protection, and I gave it. I will not abandon them.” The way you did, a voice whispered at the back of his head.

“Ell, be reasonable. You can’t do anything. Look around. Do you think it’s a coincidence we came today? That we stopped here? The sky’s blue, no clouds. You can’t strike us down. There’s only dry earth as far as the eye can see. You can’t call fire to burn us.”

“I still have these.” Ellarkay patted the butt of the revolvers at his belt.”

“Jesus F Christ, you think you can take me down with guns? Ell, this is me I’m talking about, not them, me.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

The bull sighed. “Alright, fine, You won’t take the money. Then do it for me. Ell, don’t make me do this. They aren’t worth it. They’re just civilians. Please.”

Ellarkay smiled. “That’s what we fought over the last time, isn’t it? This idea that ordinary people aren’t important.”

“And what happened?”

“I lost.” The knowledge didn’t hurt. There was nothing wrong with losing a battle, so long as he didn’t give up the fight.

“You’re going to lose again.”

Ellarkay shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I gave my word.”

The bull turned his back to the lynx. “Damn it!” he cursed.

Ellarkay didn’t move. He would let the bull make the first move. He felt he owed him that, somehow.

“Fine.” The word was so soft the lynx barely heard it. The bull faced him again, his face hard, devoid of emotions. “One last chance, Ell. If I ever meant anything to you. Give the man his property back.”

Ellarkay had a memory of the bull holding him as the world exploded around them. ‘We’ll be safe, Ell. Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.’

The lynx gave the bull a sad smile. “Like you said, I left who I was behind. We don’t belong in this world anymore, Vee. We haven’t for a very long time. Maybe it’s time we leave it.”

The bull’s eyes flashed, and pain erupted in Ellarkay’s chest. He fell to his knees, clutching it.

“I told you, Ell. You can’t win. You never could against me.”

The lynx chuckled, then winced. He looked up, fighting the pain. “You forgot something, Vee.”

“What’s that?”

The lynx raised a trembling hand. He extended a finger. “Air.” Another. “Fire.” A third. “Water.”

The bull staggered, his skin gaining a sheen.

“You didn’t beat me because you were stronger than me. I still loved you back then. I still hoped you could see how wrong the path you’d set yourself on was. I still believed you could be redeemed.”

Water beaded on the bull’s skin, then dripped to the ground. He tried to hold on to the horse, but his legs gave out as his body sank in on itself. He opened his mouth, but only a wail escaped it. His eyes pleaded.

Ellarkay didn’t look away. “You were wrong.”

The others shrank away as more water poured off the bull.

“We were supposed to protect them, Vee. Don’t you remember? That’s what we were designed for, to keep them safe. That’s what you left behind.”

The bull collapsed to the ground, unmoving. Water continued pouring off him for a moment, then it stopped. Leaving a desiccated husk in a pool of water. Then his fingers began to crumble into dust, mixing back into the water it had contained.

Ellarkay groaned as pain stabbed his chest. It hadn’t stopped. It wouldn’t stop. He was lucky, in a way. If Vee had killed his brain, instead of his heart, he wouldn’t have had the time to protect his charges.

But the attack had made sense from Vee’s point of view. He’d thought he owned Ellarkay’s heart. After the wars they’d fought together, the times they had comforted each other in the middle of horrors even they should never have had to witness. The bull had thought Ellarkay would follow him anywhere he went, agree with all he said. He thought that when it came down to it, the lynx would follow his heart, instead of his duty.

Ellarkay managed a smile as he remembered he had loved the bull, a long time ago, before he’d become obsessed with fighting, killing. Before he’d decided seeking war was the reason they’d been made, not enforcing peace.

Feet landed next to the lynx’s head. “Well, looked like you saved me the trouble of having to pay him, which is too bad. He did carry through with the end of his bargain; you aren’t in any position to stop me from taking back what’s mine.

Ellaray looked up at the human and smiled. He extended a fourth finger. “Earth,” he whispered before pain forced him into a ball. He sent his mind down, his power, to awaken his dormant friend. “One last favor.”

The ground shook once, and the human stepped away from the lynx.

It shook again, with enough force that anyone standing fell down.

A sound, worse than thunder, traveled the land, and when it shook a third time, the very earth at Ellarkay’s finger tip broke.

A line appeared in the ground, as far as the eye could see in either direction. Soil fell in, and then, with a tremor that shook down the houses Keaghan had so carefully built, the sides parted.

    *

I know, this probably isn’t the happy ending you were hoping for, but Ellarkay did what he promised. The man who would take his slaves back now stood on the other side of a chasm hundreds of feet wide, and while he didn’t know it then, he’d never be able to cross it. The chasm extended from the mountain all the way to the sea.

Over the following years, the sea slowly filled the chasm, and it became a river, the same river that runs through the middle of your wonderful city. It still bears the name the villagers gave it. The Trench, because it was the trench that kept them safe.

As you probably guessed, they named their village Tiranis, in his honor, and it grew, at first from them having children, but in time others joined them, and it became this city of soaring dreams. A place where the wonderful happens, the fantastic walks the streets and the terrifying can something be glimpsed.

The place that Ellarkay protected with his dying breath.

What? Of course the story’s true. I’m a storyteller. I’d never say something that is untrue, would I?