Of Martyrs and Sages: Ch. 1

Of Martyrs
and Sages

I pity the man tolerant of tyranny. Those content with nothing deserve nothing.

Chapter 1

Like Lambs to the Slaughter

The horses were antsy all night. The constant nervous tapping of their hooves made a good evening’s rest nigh impossible. Not an uncommon burden so deep in the unreasonably twisted forests surrounding the old Tred’an pathway. Though commonly used by various merchants on their way to Sanc’tu, it began to fall into a state of notoriety as of late. The thick brambles of the forest screamed anguish, and the morning fog always seemed to resemble an inviting dance from the restless dead. Had they not been painstakingly tied down prior to sunset, the horses would have not lasted long past midnight.

“Useless animals,” Captain Gerald scowled as he wiped the sleep from his eyes and began to roll up his sleeping sack.

“How’d you sleep, sir?” Bryant, a young vindicator tasked with the third night’s watch, asked from his post in the branches of an old elm tree.

The captain groaned, his vertebrae loudly popping from a great morning stretch. “Boy, what in the Hell are you doing up there? Get down. You’re a proud member of the Vindicators, son. Act like one.”

Bryant carefully navigated to the lowest branch and hopped down. “That bad, eh? Was it the horses, sir? I heard them too. All night. Something’s got ‘em more spooked than usual, sir.”

Captain Gerald clamped on his armor piece by piece with a series of tired grunts. He surveyed the campsite and sighed in disgust at the sight of his men still snoozing around the warm, barely lit embers in the fire pit. “How precious. They look like such angels,” he scoffed.

“Only when they’re sleeping, huh sir?” Bryant awkwardly chuckled.

Gerald abruptly smashed his war hammer against the side of a large boulder three times, causing an obnoxiously loud crack with each blow.

“Wake up, worms! Come on. The sun’s up, and so are you!” he bellowed.

The men began to stir and groan in their sleeping sacks. “Request to be murdered, Captain,” one vindicator whined. “At least we’d get some sleep without having to hear the goddamned horses every five minutes.” A few of the men chuckled. Others rolled over and fell back to sleep.

“Don’t tempt me, boy.” Captain Gerald muttered under his breath. “Bryant, since you’re the only one of these men with any scrote, make sure they’re up and ready to go by the time I get back. I’m counting on you to take charge for a bit. Think you can handle it?”

Bryant’s eyes widened with anticipation. “I won’t let you down, sir!”

“I know you won’t, kid. You’re young, but you’ve shown promise. Keep it up and you’ll go far. Heru’ doesn’t overlook hard work and drive. We’ll all get exactly what’s coming to us. Remember that, boy.”

“I won’t, sir. Um, may I ask where you’ll be going? When can I expect your return, Captain?”

Gerald rested his enormous hammer onto his right shoulder. “I’ve never heard the horses so restless. These are Vindicator stallions, Bryant. Some of the best steeds in Sanc’tu, second only to the mares of East Andule. You hear how scared they are. It’s not right. I’m just going to scout the area.” The captain dusted off his shoulder with a flick of the wrist. “Who knows, maybe I’ll stumble upon that Tred’an phantom everyone’s been talking about and help myself to a promotion and a medal,” he grinned.

With a final salute the captain leisurely strolled into the depths of the forest and became enveloped by the eerie morning fog. Bryant could faintly make out the wet crunching of Captain Gerald’s boots stomping along the moist, dew-laden grass. Every now and then he would hear the sound of a stick breaking or the rustle of brambles until the captain’s footsteps inevitably became consumed by the silence of the woods.

“Okay, you’re in charge. Don’t screw this up. All you have to do is take command. You can do this, Bryant.” A surge of confidence coursing through his veins, the young vindicator clapped his hands loudly and excitedly. “Come on, guys! Wake up! Rise and shine! We break camp as soon as Captain Gerald gets back. Up! Up! Move it!”

“Come on. Five more minutes.”

Bryant sighed. “Guys, I’m serious. If the captain gets back and we fall behind, we’ll all be paying for it later. You know that. Please.”

“We’re sick. Our tummies hurt. Wake us up at noon. I’m sure we’ll be feeling better then,” one vindicator replied with a sarcastic whimper.

“If you’re not going to cooperate then I’m going to be the one ending up looking incompetent. Please, guys, just get ready. I don’t want to have to get nasty,” Bryant pleaded.

The men didn’t acknowledge the authority of the young vindicator in the slightest. Frustrated and exhausted from the previous night’s watch, he stormed off into the foggy thicket to gather his thoughts and regain his composure.

“I don’t even know why the captain put me in charge. The buffoons barely even listen to him as it is” Bryant huffed while trudging through a thick pile of soggy leaves. “Lazy swine. Do they let anybody be a vindicator these days? I should have trained for that paladin opening when I had the chance. At least then I’d get some respect.” A particularly sharp bramble managed to wrap around his leg and pierce deep into his calf. “Damned wretched forest. I can’t stand it here,” he snarled.

Bryant scanned his surroundings for a dry area to sit and unwind the thorny nuisance. As he leaned against an oddly shaped tree trunk he couldn’t help but notice that his path was leading him into a dense, unfamiliar labyrinth of great elms with no visible signs of a clearing. The cool breeze gently rustled the leaves above his head, causing minuscule droplets of dew to moisten his thin, short hair.

A soft, lighthearted voice caught Bryant’s ears. “That’s not a nice thing to say, you know. How can anyone hate this place? It’s so peaceful here.”

“A… a little girl?” Bryant stuttered, frantically scouring the surrounding trees for the source of the voice.

“Up here, buddy,” the girl giggled, carelessly resting in a high branch above Bryant. Her long blonde hair dangled wistfully over the sides of her treetop perch. The paleness of her soft skin appeared to be contrasted only by a pair of cloudy, blue-gray eyes that whispered tales of misery from behind their translucent shells. “This is my home, you know. You shouldn’t insult someone else’s home. I figured you big, strong vindicators would at least know about the concept of manners,” she remarked with a condescending eye roll.

The young vindicator gave a sigh of relief. “Heru’ be praised, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. Say, girl, how can this be your home? Sanc’tu is miles away; and how in the world did you get so high up in that tree?” he asked, again struggling to remove the prickly thorns without drawing too much blood or tripping over his own feet.

“You really hate them, don’t you?” laughed the girl.

“You… you could hear me? From all the way up there?”

Bryant could feel another calm wind blow in and rustle the trees surrounding him. Goose pimples jumped from the skin underneath his armor as the sound of the girl’s bubbly giggle made a terrifying echo, haunting the branches overhead.

Her laugh almost seemed to grow increasingly more sinister as Bryant awkwardly gazed into the distant fog. The young vindicator did his best to conceal his cowardice. He nearly drew blood attempting to stifle the quivering of his bottom lip with a firm clamp from his front teeth.

“They’re all dead, you know,” the girl grinned.

With a shrill yelp of pain, Bryant unceremoniously ripped the embedded brambles from his flesh with a final tug. Blood oozed from the wound and crept down his aching calf, causing the young Revenant to stumble and collapse into a pile of wet leaves. “W-who? Dead? What are you sa-”

“All of them,” the girl grinned. “Dead dead dead,” she chanted softly with a wicked smile.

The young vindicator abruptly rose to his feet. “The Tred’an phantom,” he gasped with a pathetic limp towards the direction of the campsite. “The Tred’an phantom!”

“Phantom? Me?” the girl chuckled. “No, you must be mistaken, Mr. Vindicator. I’m not the Tred’an phantom.” Her laughter ceased. “However, I’d imagine she’s tracking her next victim as we speak.”

Bryant nearly choked in a vain attempt to stifle the pain emanating from his leg. “Quit speaking in riddles, witch!” His cry resembled the desperate screech of a panicked animal in a hunter’s trap. In his frantic state, he failed to notice the gentle footsteps creep closer and closer from the trees behind him. A careless mistake.

The girl closed her eyes and gently tilted her body backwards, smiling while her soft, blonde hair danced in the morning breeze. “You guys sure are clueless, aren’t you?” She turned her head and gazed down at Bryant. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Vindicator, but I’m afraid this is where we part.” An innocent, childish smirk crept onto her face. “Just don’t scream,” she added with a wink and the slightest of gestures.

With little hesitation, as if queued by the girl’s remark, Bryant’s stalker darted from behind the closest tree and pierced the young vindicator’s lower back with tremendous ferocity, pinning him against the trunk of a nearby elm. The foul, metallic taste of blood filled his mouth, causing him to gag and sputter crimson blotches onto the bark in front of his face. His teary eyes drifted downward to see the blurry, blood-coated twin blades of his attacker’s gauntlet still protruding from his abdomen. With a final agonizing groan, Bryant’s legs collapsed; the young vindicator’s last breath drawn.

Bryant’s killer pried her wicked metal gauntlet from his lifeless corpse, careful to ensure a clean extraction from the torso. She used her free hand to detach the blades from the rest of the glove, and gently wiped the crimson streaks clean with an old rag from her back pocket.

“Neni, come on down, girly. I don’t think this one will be stinking up our forest anymore.” She looked down at the bloody mess next to the tree and wrinkled her nose. “Well, you know what I mean.”

With a careful leap, Neni dropped from her branch and landed in the soft grass. “Too bad. I kinda liked him, y’know? He was cute.”

“Cute? Ooh, does Neni have a crush? Uh oh, what monster am I? Taking away your beloved like that!” the young woman teased as she carefully swept a lock of rebellious brunette hair to the left side of her face with her fingertips.

Neni frowned with a blush of embarrassment. “Shut up! God, not like I could ever love one of them anyways. We’re trash, remember? Besides, everybody knows how heartless vindicators are. It’s a miracle that they even reproduce.”

“Heartless?” the young woman chuckled softly. “Bullshit. You just gotta know where to stab.”

“You’re a regular romantic, Adri,” Neni giggled. “Teach me how to get a guy, love mistress!”

Adri laughed as she pulled out her dual blades and reattached them to the gauntlet on her left hand. “Oh yes, haven’t you heard? I’ve already found the key to a man’s heart,” she boasted with a faux dramatized battle stance. “It’s just beyond the sternum; about a quarter of an inch to the side to be exact, and preferably with a forward thrusting motion!” she exclaimed with a gesture mimicking a bout with an invisible foe.

“How can any boy resist!” Neni smirked. “So, how’d that other guy handle your charms, huh? You know, the one with the tough guy attitude and the oversized, ‘I’m clearly compensating for something’ hammer? He looked kinda strong.”

Adri shrugged. “I’ve seen bigger.” She dug deep into her pocket and pulled out a beautiful necklace with a glimmering green gem carefully embedded in the center. “He wasn’t without his treasures though. This might sell for a pretty copper. How many meals do ya think this little lovely will buy us, eh?”

Neni reached out and angled the dangling necklace into the sunlight, causing the green gem to shimmer magnificently. “Wow, that’s rare. My gram-gram used to have a ring with that exact stone. It’s called… umm; I think it’s an emerald, but don’t quote me on that. I’m no expert on rocks or anything. I saw a trader with a few bits of emerald jewelry on his way from town the other day, actually.”

Adri’s grip tensed. “Wait, what did you just say?” she asked; her voice growing noticeably concerned.

“There was some emerald stuff being sold by a trader that I saw coming from town a little while back. Why? What’s wrong, Adri?”

“Neni, Rachel hasn’t come back from Tred’an yet. How long ago did she leave to buy goods?”

Neni’s eyes widened. “Do you think…?”

“That small group of vindicators made a little stop before heading to our neck of the woods. Think about it. We’ve never been able to take out an entire troop like that before. There are many others like them probably still dicking about town as we speak.”

“Ray-Ray never could stay out of trouble…” Neni sighed with a hint of nervousness hidden within the recesses of her tiny voice. “What do we do? We can’t just walk into a town full of vindicators. That’s crazy!”

Adri nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it would be crazy… but what choice is there, huh? If anything happened to her…” she closed her eyes and tilted her head downward with clenched fists. “I won’t let anything happen to either of you. I won’t lose anybody else,” she remarked, struggling to keep her honey-hazel eyes from growing moist. “I’m through… I’ve done enough crying.”

Tears filled Neni’s eyes and gently fell down her tiny cheek into the grass. “Lead the way then,” she squeezed out with a warm smile.

The two girls sprinted through the fog as fast as their legs could carry them. With every step, a heightened sense of urgency escalated courtesy of an onslaught of haunting visions regarding the missing Rachel Vauters. Adri’s mind fluttered with the familiar sounds of Verboten agony at the hands of overzealous Revenant crusaders.

Adri began to pant as she noticed her stride begin to feel the effects of her mad dash, but she refused to slow down. She could not slow down. The sound of light footsteps confirmed that Neni had not trailed too far behind. Neni’s seemingly endless supplies of energy proved a fortunate trait on numerous occasions, helping the girls escape a variety of hairy situations in the past. Adri could see the tops of Tred’an shops on the horizon, which gave her a sudden boost of much needed stamina.

“Rachel, you dumb bitch. Please be okay,” she muttered. “Please be okay…”