Book 7: Chapter 16 - A New Trial (RAW) (Patreon)

Chapter 16 - A New Trial

There is no hiding poverty, a sneeze, or love.

- Unknown.

I sat in the corner of the Guild, occupying a space of almost nothingness. Around me existed an area into which people did not enter, a bubble of absolute territory made not by walls, but by instinct. Some looked, some stared, but no one crossed the invisible border.

The clerk I had spoken to sent meaningful glances my way for a long while. Her name, I had learned through others addressing her as they came and went with their little jobs and tasks, was Sara. Not that it mattered. 

I did not speak, I did not attempt conversation, and I did not trade meaningful looks with the curious or the brave. I simply sat, and for the greater part, time lost meaning. I did not even think, as I simply let time flow past me as it had in the Dream, the world placed in fast forward while I remained still.

Then it happened, a change in the air. Greater substance and weight. There was a shift in pressure, a ripple of expectation moving through the Guild hall before the doors even opened. Men straightened at tables, dice stopped rolling, conversations broke, resumed, then broke again. Several adventurers near the great board turned their heads at once, like hounds catching the same scent.

The doors opened, and the first man through was large enough to make the frame seem small.

He was broad, thick-necked, and scarred, with a beard the color of old iron. His armor was a patchwork of quality and use: good mail, hardened leather, runed metal plates where they mattered, and repairs made by someone who understood that beauty was less important than surviving the next blow. A massive sword hung across his back, not ceremonial, not ornamental, but worn with the casual familiarity of a butcher carrying his favorite cleaver. A tool more than a weapon.

The Crimson Blades, I presumed, had arrived, and with them their leader, Vaska. Behind him came the rest.

They were men of the hardbitten variety, the sort who looked as though the world had tried to kill them several times and had only succeeded in making them worse. One was lean and dark, with a bow across his shoulder and eyes that never stopped moving. Another had the flattened nose and cauliflower ears of a brawler, carrying a shield scarred by things larger than men. A third wore a long coat over ringmail and had knives placed all over him. The last was of the heavy sort had an hungry axe at his hip, a biting spear in hand, and a face that suggested he had only known disappointment all of his life.

They were not pretty heroes from a tavern song.

The only one among them who did not fit the pattern entered last.

She was young. Too young, at first glance, to stand beside such men without being devoured by them or protected by them, and yet she moved as if neither possibility had occurred to her. As if she belonged. Her robes were dark blue, trimmed with silver thread, though travel had stained the hem and left dust along one sleeve. Too young to be a master… a student, then. But not merely that, for the air around her carried the faint pressure of restrained magic, subtle but present, like heat from banked coals. 

A prodigy of the arcane…

The Guild knew it too. Their eyes did not soften when they looked at her for they watched her with the same caution they gave the others. I had heard many within these halls feared Vaska because he looked as if he could tear a door off its hinges and beat a troll to death with it. They looked like they feared the mage the same way one would fear a bomb. 

“Vaska, I am feeling mighty thirsty after all that work,” wheedled the one with the long coat.

Vaska clapped one of his companions on the shoulder hard enough to make armor ring. “Then, drinks,” he called, his voice filling the hall with the effortless confidence. “And something with meat in it. If I see another bowl of road stew, I’m feeding the cook to his own pot.”

Laughter answered him from several tables, but not all of it was comfortable. And, poor Sara behind the counter, closed her eyes for the briefest moment, as if offering a private prayer for patience. Then she opened them and looked toward me as if for deliverance. 

I rose and the invisible territory around me shifted as men noticed the movement. Conversations thinned again. Chairs creaked. Eyes moved from me to the Crimson Blades, then back again.

I took up my halberd, rested it on my shoulder and crossed the room toward them, the armored feet striking the floor with each heavy step.

Vaska noticed me halfway there and his grin widened.

“Well now,” the big man said, looking me over with bright, amused eyes, taking in my dark armor and the swords at my hip. “That is either the most ambitious Bronze I’ve ever seen, or someone’s idea of a joke.”

“I was hoping you would prove less disappointing than the board,” I replied with a self-deprecating smile that did not quite reach my eyes. “I can hold my own. And I assure you, this is no joke.”

“Ignore the brat, Vaska,” the man with the axe and spear said. “Does he think we allow just anyone into our group?”

“Yeah,” the man with the knives added slowly, his eyes narrowing in my direction. “I’m with Roberts on this. Don’t fancy a smaller share at the end of the day.”

Their leader, Vaska, laughed, a rumbling thing that reminded me of one of my lost friends. The mage clasped both hands around her staff and looked down. The brawler with the shield merely watched passively.

For a moment, I considered ending them all. To make this a grand melee written in flashing blades and crushed skulls. But something stayed my hand. The veneer of being better than these curs who thought themselves my betters, perhaps. I am civilized. So I kept my smile fixed upon my face.

“I am better than you all,” I said, my voice not entirely my own. “I have seen more of death, battle, and the dark things of this world. Where you travel, you will need me, lest you wish to cross the Shallow River. I had companions once, and they crossed too soon. You are not worthy to stand in their shadows.”

The temperature seemed to drop a few degrees. I saw them bristle. Bristle at the temerity of it all. Who was this boy, to dare speak to them? Let alone ask to join them? What they did not understand was that I was not joining them. They were joining me.

“I need knowledge of Trials,” I continued. “Challenges of power to test me. Not how to beat them, nor why, but where they are. I seek challenge, not wealth. Though if artifacts of power are involved, that too can be negotiated.”

“The balls on this one,” said the brawler with the shield.

“Your name?” I asked, letting menace enter my tone.

“It’s Jean, as most would know if they mattered here. But what’s it to you, short-stuff?” he shot back, though his words shook at the edges.

“Interrupt me again, and your thread will be cut short,” I replied, not even looking at him. “So, Vaska. What do you say?”

The big man had stopped laughing. He was seeing the threat for what it was now: an armored thing of black Adamantium, with two swords from legend at its hips and a master-crafted weapon resting upon its shoulder.

But before he could answer, the girl decided to add her piece. “Mana screams around him,” Clara declared, her voice touched by something ethereal. “It is consumed. He is most puissant.”

“Most puissant, Clara? And screaming Mana? My, that sounds mighty fine indeed,” Vaska replied with a guffaw, his frame shaking with merriment that was, at least, only partially forced. “An asset you may be, my armored lad, but to bring an untested blade is…”

“Are those ears merely decorative?” I asked flatly. “I have killed more men and monsters in my time in this world than you have had hot dinners. Untested blade? Do not make me laugh.”

“Like Jean said, the balls on this one,” Vaska said, his eyes widening.

“Wait, Vaska,” Clara said. “He does not speak with idle boasts. There is truth in his words. His ire would cost you greatly.”

Her violet eyes looked timidly away as she spoke.

The big man scratched his head, whatever he had been about to say seemingly forgotten. Whether Clara’s words had helped my case remained to be seen, but something had taken hold of the Crimson Blades.

Doubt, perhaps. And perhaps a modicum of respect.

“Of course,” I said, shrugging my armored shoulders, “you may be the so-called most powerful and skilled adventuring group in these parts, but those at the top too often rest upon their laurels. If you will not aid me, then I will find the group below you, and then the Crimson Blades will no longer be the premier group in Meridian.”

“Nobles are always arrogant…” Jean muttered.

The one with the knives raised a hand, stopping him. “A lesser share ain’t great, but there’s no price that can be put on reputation. It walks before a man and guards him in his sleep.” His eyes settled on me. “You think you’ve got what it takes to cut the same as us? Not for nothing are we called the Crimson Blades, mate.”

“I could kill you all, and it would barely be a struggle,” I answered. “I have defied gods, and in doing so, I walk always beneath their hateful gaze.”

“Now that’s the part that worries me,” Roberts, the one with the axe and spear, grumbled.

Vaska looked at his group, his expression torn between caution and ambition. But his was the type that always wanted more. I could see it in his stance, in the brightness of his eyes, in the way fear had not driven him back but sharpened him.

“Well, untested blade or not, little man, we have a task,” Vaska said at last. “A Trial to clear, my armored little friend. We shall see how you fight. We’ll cover your back, but we will not risk ourselves to save you. You had best pull your own weight. We’ve had bad experiences taking on those from the lower ranks, no matter what talents they claimed to have.”

He grinned. “And besides, Clara says you’ve got something, and you’ve got the balls to stand up to this lot. Usually, people are wetting their britches just at the sight of their horrible mugs,” he said as he guffawed again, a roaring laugh that did little to hide his trepidation.

Clara looked at him worriedly, as if she were about to speak, then closed her mouth.

“Boss…” Jean protested weakly.

“It’s done, Jean. But as I said, whether he lives or dies is up to him, his skill with his blades, and the thickness of his armor,” Vaska said coolly, patting him on the shoulder. Then he looked back at me. “Little man, what is your name?”

Little man was becoming irritating rather quickly.

“Gilgamesh,” I answered.

“Strange name and can’t say I’ve heard of it. But a name can always be made. Remade too, if you fancy.” His eyes grew wickedly cold. “We have a Trial coming up. Something no Guild group has ever returned from.”

His smile widened. “I, Vaska, promise we shall clear it three days hence!” he declared to the entire Guild hall, causing many to raise their cups or stamp their feet. “The Echo of the Hills!”

He drew me close, and for a moment I considered stabbing him with Zariyah. “We meet at the west gate at dawn three days hence,” he offered with a wink. “Don’t be late, and come prepared.”

Then he moved off with his men. Clara turned back, bowed slightly from the hip, and hurried after them.

They had essentially told me my life was worthless to them. However, in turn, their lives were worthless to me. And each of them would pay for the insults. There were many names written upon my ledger, but this debt, I thought, would be easily settled.