Chased By War by Michael Wolff

Author:Michael Wolff [Wolff, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Published: 2018-01-16T22:00:00+00:00

XXXVIII

It was a difficult morning, waking at dawn, at the wisps of dawn, twilight not yet faded. It was a struggle to stagger to his feet, but Mykel did so. He’d spent most of the waking hours staring at Shayna, seeking solace to the riddle that was her. Shayna the Companion. Shayna the singer. Two points of a line with the middle gnawed at both ends. Analyzing Shayna’s personality yielded no answers. She would die before betraying the Citadel’s ideals. Yet she resigned that future and took up a singer’s cause. Something terrible had to happen for Shayna to reverse her allegiances like that. Ultimately the librarian abandoned the whole thing. He simply didn’t have enough knowledge to decide one way or another. He shook Shayna awake, and silently the pair just started walking.

It took longer than Mykel would have liked. By nightfall they had reached a shelter in a small forest, ate their fill, and went to bed. Rather, Shayna went to bed. Mykel did not. There was a crucial decision to make. Irismil was a long way away, a lengthy trek by any standards. Suspicion lay thick in villages as to choke the air. Of manor or castle they could not dwell, lest they become pawns in the games noblemen played. Outdoors offered little protection. Sooner or later the Versi would be at their heels, with Myrrh following. Mortal walls could naught hope to repel such horrors, but better in a mortal castle than dying in their sleep like wizened dogs. Mykel knew there was only one place that would offer protection without foreknowledge of their guests.

Thus, it was that the duo came upon the plains known as the Wolf’s Den, and then to the Fenrir Manor, home of the Fenrir family.

Home, Mykel thought, not without a hint of dread. As such as it could be called. The doors before them were a familiar sight, large stone slabs engraved with moons in all its phases. The two guards standing watch were stone still until the company crested over the hill, and then they hurried about opening the gates like frenzied rats.

Mykel managed an inward chuckle. As a child, he had made a gamble with little Aron Neobi that he could get the guards to talk, but became so frustrated with their silence that he broke down crying right on the spot. The other children howled in glee as they ran on their stubby little pig legs, chanting taunts in singsong. They never approached him again. He could see their ugly mothers now, scolding them for teasing the cripple boy. You know better than to do that, even if he is a lord’s son. Not one advance; just children’s hot eyes, gauging, laughing silently, always reminding. We made you cry. Never forget that.

Aron Neobi died three years ago from a hunting accident. Mykel chuckled.

Inside the courtyard there were more decorations, more symbols of the House Crest. Instead of the mammoth shaggy

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