Over the Eastern Horizon - Ch, 1

1

Trouble in the Mind


         We had known little of those that dwelled within the heights of the Hilleshi mountains.  They kept embassy with no courts.  They conducted trade with no nations.  They cared not for us, nor did we for them.  We considered them insignificant.  The Kellsh King, Alleb Umarian III, hungry for what resources and wealth the people of the Hilleshi might possess, sent an expeditionary force of five thousand men, into the icy and snow covered mountains during the high summer of 1365.
         Months passed, seasons changed, and yet still they did not return.  The King, furious with the loss of men and arms, demanded answers.  With the coming of spring came a response…  In the form of pounding war drums and clattering of iron.
         Legions of armed warriors flooded out from the mountains and into the highlands of Kellona like volcanic death.  Along the northern frontier entire villages and towns were razed to the ground, the crops burned and livestock slaughtered.  Though sadly, these horrible deeds were nothing compared to the unthinkable acts done to those the invaders captured.
         During the Kingdom’s final days, as we watched the columns of invading warriors amass along the Dethsis river, just outside the capital, the King had said to me, “There could not have been any other way my friend.  For I knew not the danger of my actions.”  I replied to him before departing, “Very few do.”

- Oratory of Hessen Padua, Eladonian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Kellona 1351-1365 T.A.

Year 1371 T.A. - 13th of Eyanwain - Gaethick Ruins

Stark whiteness.  That was all that existed in this place.  A place where emptiness and silence reigned absolute.  This was a world with no substance.  The embodiment of nothingness, if such a term could be used.  A place that lacked animals, plants, friends and family, ground or sky.  Not a single landmark or object could be seen through the empty expanse.  Just a never ending curtain of white, stretching out in all directions, enveloping all in blinding light.
         There was nothing comforting about this place… this dream world.  A limbo where the physical senses of ones body fought to grasp a hold on anything, but failing completely.  Confusion and fright dwelled here as one, and just when they seemed to reach there limits, the dream would always end.  Unfortunately, time here had just as little substance as everything else.  Existing in nothing, minutes felt like an eternity, until eventually collapsing into itself.
         It only added to the discomfort to know that this time, something had changed.
         After some time, breaking through the sensory abyss, had come the faint but familiar sounds of crashing surf, bringing with them a sense of relief from this numbing place.  But these sounds had never been a part of this dream before.  Why had it changed like this?  Perhaps the dream was indeed ending, and these sounds were seeping into the dream from the outside world, it was common enough, but never had it happened with this dream.  The soft sounds of gentle waves were comforting.  Perhaps they were coming in through an open window in his bedchamber, but that couldn’t be, he didn’t remember falling asleep in his bed…
         “Bhenithius…”
         The voice came from nowhere, and everywhere, all at once.  It almost hurt as it tore through the silence. The tone was soft and birdlike, a girl’s voice, strangely accented, but full of urgency.
         “Bhen!”
         Bhenithius awoke laying on his back, comfortably nestled in the soft grass.  The bright midday sun shining through the web of bare tree limbs above was blinding.  He quickly turned his head away, covering his face with his right arm, and exhaled deeply, becoming aware of a throbbing ache in his head.  This had always happened upon awakening from this dream.  As though the dream itself had been ripped from the depths of his mind, leaving only destruction in its wake.
         Bhenithius had been having these odd dreams ever since childhood, although in those early years he considered it more a nightmare than anything else.  A dream that ended nightly with a sweat soaked bed, a painful ache in the head, and a bedchamber filled with the sounds of his own screams.  It was a time when the thought of sleep itself had cause involuntary shakes and cold sweats.  But that was years in the past, though the dreams still came, and with growing frequency now.  He was in his sixteenth year, and had almost grown used to them.
         Judging from the position of the sun it was nearing noon, though the air was still cool and damp.  Winter was now behind them, but the full warmth of spring had not yet reached northern Brynwyck.  The last remnants of snow had slowly melted away over the previous weeks, revealing an endless expanse of rolling green hills and rocky outcroppings.  Bhenithius was grateful for the change.  The sting of winter’s bite in the northern highlands meant endless days cooped up inside, and few opportunities to enjoy the outdoors.
         “Bhen! What are you, deaf?” shouted a familiar voice from above.  Bhenithius grudgingly removed his arm from over his eyes and squinted against the bright sunlight, rose thorns seemed to be twisting behind his eyes for the effort.  A dark silhouette was straddling a thick branch overhead.  “Wake up, wont you!  We‘re wasting time laying around here all day, and I plan on eating a venison tonight!” the shadow exclaimed.
         “Why cant you just enjoy the peace and quiet for once Andros,” Bhenithius replied with an exaggerated sigh, “There hasn’t been any deer in the area for more than a year.”  The shadowy silhouette snorted a silent rebuke before resting his head back against the sturdy branch.
         The painful ache in Bhenithius’s head had quickly subsided to a dull throb.  He raised himself up to rest on his elbows and forearms, getting a better look at his companion, who lounged lazily above, like a mountain lion after a full meal.  No animal could better describe Andros Graie.  Both were strong of body and will, and above all they were stubborn to the core.  Even Andros’s shoulder length golden brown hair resembled a mountain lion’s coat.
         “Ugh!” Andros grunted, “My bow is itching to be loosed.”
         “Just enjoy the solitude Andros.  Think of it, when do we ever get this much freedom?” Bhenithius asked, content to do nothing more than lay in the sun and relax.
         Andros allowed his arms to drop over either side of the tree branch.  He swung them from side to side like a restless child might, though he was seventeen. “We’ve waited all winter for this, and it was your idea to go hunting this morning.  We even skipped first meal!  If I don‘t die from starvation, it will be of boredom!”  Just then Andros lifted himself up and began to grab at his chest, like an old man suffering from a failing heart.  He grunted and groaned in a mock display of pain, his face a horrible impression of a dying man’s last moments.  Bhenithius found the amateur performance not at all impressive.
         Suddenly Andros fell flat and limp against the thick bough, then slowly slid off the side.  Bhenithius sat up in surprise, expecting to see his friend plummet to the ground.  But as Andros began to fall, he reached out with his left hand and griped the tree limb.  He hung in the air, swaying with a self-assured smile on his face.  Andros was often one to try to impress and entertain whenever the chance.  A trait in his friend that Bhenithius both enjoyed and sometimes found maddening.
         Rolling his eyes Bhenithius yawned, as though bored by Andros’ antics, and laid back down upon the grass. Although the breeze was cool, the little warmth from the sun that soaked into his skin was comforting.  He felt like the ground upon which he lay, having spent many long months frozen and only now beginning to thaw.  He relished every moment of it, unlike his friend, who continued to grumble silently.  Andros was not one for standing idle.  He always needed to be doing something.
         Surrendering, Bhenithius stood to his feet, and picked up a smooth gray rock.  He judged the distance for only a moment, before sending the rock flying through the air.  It struck Andros’s hand with a loud thwack.  Andros yelped, losing his hold on the bough, falling through the air, and landing on his backside with an even louder thud.
         Andros’s face held an expression the like Bhenithius had never seen, frozen with his mouth hanging wide open and his eyes squinted shut.  Bhenithius felt the laughter wanting to escape and couldn’t resist any longer.  He buckled over in hysterics.  Andros could always be trusted for a good laugh, whether intentional or not.
         “Fine, fine, have it your way!  We’ll hunt,” Bhenithius conceded laughingly.  If he held out any longer, Andros’s antics were likely to leave him with more than a sore arse.
         Bhenithius stretched, taking in the view of the expansive highland landscape.  This region had once been populated by the Gaethicks, the ancient ancestors of his people.  In their time the Gaethicks had lived alongside the magical giants, who had called these lands their home, long before man ever came to this peninsula.  The Dae Whyn.
         The Gaethicks revered, even worshiped, the Dae Whyn.  Whereas the Alosians to the south preferred to worship the Eladonian Pantheon of gods and goddesses, brought over from the eastern continent.  The theological differences between the Gaethicks and the Alosians inevitably led to fighting and tribal warfare, and inevitably it was the Alosians that won, over the more passive Gaethicks.
         Many scholars believe that it was with the eradication of the Gaethicks that the Dae Whyn decided to leave, supposedly to find somewhere safer to call their home, but even with their absence, they had undoubtedly left their mark.  Generations of interbreeding between humans and Dae Whyn had produced human children who were magically inclined.  Even after all these centuries, any human with even the slightest bit of magic could trace his or her heritage to a distant Dae Whyn ancestor.  Not that such heritage was a good thing.
         Unfortunately, when there are those with power, there are always those who covet it.  In the year 944 of the Third Age, when the newly formed Kingdom of Brynwyck was barely a century old, the Order of Alyn Fraie, a fanatical sect of the Alosian religion, began playing on the paranoia’s of their monarch, the young Queen Gunnila Ilhan I.  They convinced her that spellcasters were the source of the Kingdom’s many woes.  Over the course of her short five year reign, countless thousands of suspected spellcasters, were burned to cleanse and purify the country of it’s filth.
         It hadn’t only been enough to burn the spellcasters.  Magic was an inherited “curse”.  Once a spellcaster had been found, their entire lineage was rounded up and eliminated as well, whether they could wield magic or not.  It had been a time of genocide. 
         The Throne amassed great wealth through these persecutions, for in those times adept spellcasters could live quite lavish lives by the selling of their services.  The estates, possessions and gold of any suspected spellcaster would have been held in trust, pending the verdict of a trial.  But to Bhenithius’s knowledge there had never been a documented case of anyone having been deemed not guilty.  Through it all, the Order of Alyn Fraie, had cemented themselves as the favoured religion of the nobles and the Throne, and still was to this day, with some expectations.
         History had always been a favoured subject of Bhenithius’s, as it was also that of their tutor Doria .  She was never one to pass up on lecturing the boys on the long dead rulers of old, like Emperor Ulmamatheppe Ottoersa XII, the last despotic ruler of Lupanothia, who’s tyrannical reign, and eventual brutal murder by the hands of his own people, effectively ended the longest recorded ruling dynasty, entering Lupanothia into an age of oligarchy.  She would say something like, “And what lesson can one learn from this?”  In which Bhenithius would reply, “That rulers depend upon the love of the people to maintain their power.”
         As he and Andros walked along the faded dirt path, over earth that once was home to the Gaethicks, his mind was full of questions.  Ones that could not be answered by ancient texts, since few Gaethick texts survived from that time.  Questions that only the unspeaking land itself could answer, having witnessed history as an unbiased observer.
         All around the ground was studded with slabs of broken blue grey stone, the fallen remnants of the Gaethick temple that once sat less than a hundred feet uphill of them, of which only toppled pillars and crumbling walls still remained.  The elements, aided by the passage of centuries, had reduced the once great temple to little more than ivy covered ruins.  Bhenithius enjoyed coming here.  He could almost feel the energy in this place.
         “Why so quiet!” Andros nagged, cuffing Bhenithius playfully across the back of the head.  “What’s with you today.  You’re all lost in the clouds.”  Andros had a smile on his face, but Bhenithius could see the concern in his friends eyes, and he didn’t blame him.  The dreams always left him out of sorts.
         “Sorry,” Bhenithius replied solemnly, having decided not to tell Andros.  He look up to the sky, needing to block the brightness of the sun with his hand as he said, “Damn, the sun’s high.”  Running a hand through his lengthy chestnut brown hair, he removed a thin piece of leather thong from his side pouch, tying it back in a simple tail.  “We don’t have much time to find dinner, now do we?  Now that you let our entire morning dwindle away to nothing!”
         “Me?!?,” Andros exclaimed incredulously, “You’re the one that-” the words shot from his mouth like fire arrows but abruptly stopped, his head tilting to the side as his eyes starred off into the distance. 
         Bhenithius held his breath as he tried to listened.  Aside from the steady rhythm of his own heart beat the only sounds he heard were of bare branches scrapping against one another in the wind.  Keeping his voice to a whisper he asked, “What is it?”
         With a smile Andros replied, “I do believe its our dinner, my friend.”
         Bhenithius watched as his friend strode forward, with a graceful focused silence, like a great cat encroaching towards its prey, over to the base of a tall conifer where they had discarded their cloaks and bows.  In one hand he grabbed the larger of the two bows, made of a light tan wood and engraved with Brynwyckian scrollwork.  In the other hand he took a single bronze tipped arrow from the quiver.  Andros rounded the base of the temple hill, silently climbing over vine covered rocks and broken statues with natural ease.  Bhenithius struggled to keep pace, but stealth had never been his strong suit.  If there was game up ahead, he prayed to the gods not to stumble, or trip and scare the animal off.
         The terrain soon became more traversable as the rough trail, covered with crumbled stonework, made way to a stone pathway leading up the hill towards the temple ruins.  A stone colonnade supporting arches ran the length of this side.  Some of the arches had given way and collapsed, but some still held, and one could use his imagination to picture what this place must looked like so long ago.
         Every ten feet or so sat square bases of hard stone, most of them were empty, while upon others stood the destroyed remains of statues.  These would have been made to resemble the Dae Whyn the Gaethicks worshipped,  but time and hatred had erased them from existence.
         Ivy had found its way up the stone walls, columns, arches and statuary, digging their way into cracks.  In another century or two, these too would fall to nature’s will.  Bhenithius found the notion ironic.  Man could cut, clear and build upon the land for his own uses, but given enough time, nature could always reclaim what was lost.
         Andros stopped halfway down the rows of columns and crouched near the ground.  Bhenithius did the same, quietly listening to the wind.  He could hear the faint sounds of rustling leaves and laboured breathing coming somewhere northwest of them.  “I think I can hear it!” Bhenithius whispered excitedly.
         “Its not an animal,” Andros stated pointedly, a hint of tension in his voice.  “It’s a group of horses.”
         “What?  Are there riders too?” Bhenithius questioned nervously, though the answer was obviously.  Horses didn’t travel on their own.
         “I think so,” Andros replied, “I think I can hear then talking, but their still too far away.”  Andros sat down, resting against one of the stone pillars, and looked back the way they had come.  “I wish I had brought my whole quiver instead of just a single arrow.”
         Alarmed, Bhenithius asked, “Are you thinking their brigands…”  The number of bandits and pirates operating around the Kingdom had increase steadily over recent years, as coin and food had decreased in availability.  The north had been spared the brunt of these bands, but small groups of armed outlaws found their way through these parts now and again.
         Andros replied, “Perhaps.  There’s no way to tell.”
         Bhenithius poked his head past one of the columns.  His eyes followed the rolling hills until they reached a dirt road several hundred feet away.  The dense patches of conifers that spotted the region obscured his view of the oncoming riders.  He cursed under his breath and said, “I cant see anything.”
         Andros readied the bronze tipped arrow in the bow and pulled back a couple times flexing the wood.  He swung his head out from behind the column for a second and then brought it back again, replying, “Nor can I, though I can certainly hear talking now.”
         Bhenithius almost strained his ears trying to hear them too but couldn’t.  “What should we do?”  he asked.
         “We wait my friend.  If they carry on up the road we wont have to worry,” Andros said assuredly.  “If they’re indeed brigands, I doubt their curiosity will lead them to investigate a bunch of ruins-” he stopped before finishing the sentence and peeked back around the column.
         Bhenithius did the same.  He could clearly hear the sounds of hooves , and he was certain that he now too could hear faint chatter, though he couldn’t make out any words.  They both just sat and watched the trees swaying gently in the wind.  After waiting there in silence for what seemed like an eternity they finally saw them.
         One by one a mounted rider left the cover of the conifer thickets.  Bhenithius counted four horses in all, trotting at a steady pace in a westward direction, but only three hooded riders.  They didn’t seemed to be in any rush to reach their destination, wherever that might be.  He quickly looked them over, trying to spot any telltale colours or insignia on their clothing, but his heart skipped a beat as the light of the midday sun glinted off the polished surface of iron swords.  “Look!” Bhenithius whispered.
         “I see it,” Andros agreed.  “You stay here, and keep yourself out of sight.  I need to get my quiver.  I’ll only be a moment.”  Bhenithius nodded and pulled out a long dagger from his ankle sheath.  It had been his paternal grandfather’s, Bocanius Wulffe, the 6th Earl of Gangle.  The iron blade had darkened to a near black from age, although the sunlight gleamed of the surface from the oils Bhenithius rubbed regularly into it.  Their were many silver scars and nicks that marked the heirloom, each one surely having a tale to tell, and forever locked in mystery, his grandfather having died long before Bhenithius‘s birth.
         “What do you plan to do with that, against men with swords?!?” Andros inquired gravely.
         “Protect our hides,” Bhenithius replied with a nervous smirk, then added, “Mother would skin me if I returned without you.”
         “My gods!  Then what would she do if I returned without you?!?” Andros countered with a look of mock terror on his face.  Bhenithius quietly chuckled as Andros gave a wink and started off back down the line of pillars, to retrieve his quiver and arrows.  Bhenithius only wished they had brought iron tipped arrows, instead of the bronze hunting ones.  Bronze wouldn’t stand up if these potential brigands were wearing armour.
         Bhenithius watched as Andros jogged down the stone path, heading away from the temple hill, and disappearing behind a thicket of trees, the joking atmosphere vanishing with him.  Looking back to the group of cloaked riders, Bhenithius’s heart pounded like stampeding oxen in his chest.  They had stopped on the road, and seemed to be conversing amongst themselves, though Bhenithius couldn’t hear anything but low mutterings.  One of them pointed up towards the ruins.  Bhenithius hid himself from view, hoping he hadn’t been spotted.
         The city of Lethgartten sat only five miles east.  If the riders did come, Bhenithius guessed that he and Andros could reach the city walls in less than an hour’s time at a full gallop.  Brigands would surely lacked fine steeds like theirs, but if they had bows it wouldn’t be hard to pick off anyone riding ahead, making such a getaway possible suicide and only a last resort.
         Bhenithius couldn’t say how long it had been since Andros had left to retrieve the quiver but it seemed like several minutes.  Far longer than it should have taken to run down the hill, collect their things, and return back up.  Unable to resist, he peered out from his cover.  Two of the riders had dismounted from their horses, and were making their way towards the temple, while the other one stayed with the mounts.  The two approaching had not drawn their swords, but that meant little.  It was easier to run when your balance wasn’t being offset by heavy steel in your hand.
         Clenching the dagger firmly, Bhenithius look down the path, Andros still nowhere in sight, and decided it was best not to stick around.  Keeping himself crouched and hidden, he slowly crossed back down the colonnade, until he reached the wide stone path that led down the hill.  “Andros!” he called as quietly as he dared, though doubted his friend could have heard it, but he dared not to call out any louder.
         He began making his way down the stone path, looking over his shoulder several times, hoping not to see the two cloaked figures behind him.  As the stones ended and the path turned to dirt and stone debris, Bhenithius had a much tougher time negotiating his way.  Twice he had to catch himself from falling over the stonework that poked up out of the ground.  He looked back to check for signs of the riders but saw none.  He didn’t like the feeling of this, and fleeing on horseback was looking like a better avenue with each passing minute.  Running the road would be dangerous, but if they could keep to the pockets of small woods, they may have a better chance of escape, even if it meant losing their horses and hiding anyway they could.
         “Andros!” he called, and again was met by no response.  Up ahead was the large conifer where their packs and quivers had been lain, but he immediately noticed that they were now gone, with no Andros in sight.
         Bhenithius cursed, his mind racing for what to do next.  Andros must have collected their belongings and headed around the temple hill, rather than back to where he had left Bhenithius.  With no way to know where his friend had gone, Bhenithius thought the wise choice would be not to back track.  The temple ruins were not small, and the maze of colonnades and anterooms within were easy to lose yourself in, but the riders obviously had an agenda, and whether or not they were brigands, Bhenithius didn’t want to run into them by going back.  He decided to go the route he felt Andros had likely taken, going around the base of the temple hill.  It seemed logical.  Their horses had been tethered near the eastern base of the hill, where the melting of winter’s snow had formed a fair sized watering pool.
         Running as silently as he could, Bhenithius followed the trail, passing the stone path.  Tall cedars stood along the trail, filling his nostrils with their rich, resinous scent.  He picked up the pace, and with each footfall his panic intensified, gaining more footing of it’s own.
         Rounding the base of the hill, he came upon the pool of water, and his heart dropped when there was no sign of Andros, or their horses for that matter.  “Andros!” Bhenithius called out into the wind.  When he heard no reply, his panic began to transform itself into a mix of fear and anger.  Could he have fled?  The thought made him feel sick, but he quickly discarded it.  They had been friends since childhood, and the Graie family were seemingly born out of loyalty.
         Bhenithius decided to go back.  Andros had told him to wait, but Bhenithius hadn’t listened.  Andros was surely back at the temple looking for him, and if there was to be trouble with these cloaked riders, Bhenithius would be there to stand at his friend’s side.  No matter the outcome.  He turned to begin the return trek, but was surprised when met with two cloaked figures, standing no more than fifty feet ahead.  Standing tall and silent, their faces were no more than dark shadows under their raised hoods.  Bhenithius’s stomach tightened as dread filled his gut.  He brought his dagger up, taking a defensive stance.
         “Who are you, what do you want?” he demanded, trying to make himself sound loud and strong, but it came out hoarse, like his throat hadn’t seen water in days.  The two men didn’t respond.  They just stood there, silent and still, like so many of the temples statues.  Bhenithius shifted his weight from side to side, debating whether or not he could reach the nearby thicket of trees before the men could reach him, but threw the thought away.  Andros was still out there.  He couldn’t leave him.
         He waited, expecting the men to start towards him, when a heavy force knocked Bhenithius in the back, forcing him to the ground, the dagger landing several feet away.  As the wind escaped Bhenithius’s lungs, a third man straddled him from behind, locking his arms behind his back and placing a hard knee down upon his shoulder.
         “Get off me, you bastard!” Bhenithius barked as he struggled, but it was no use.  The man was strong.  Too strong for Bhenithius to break loose from.
         “Why now, can you not free yourself lad?” the man asked humouredly.  His voice was gruff and carried hints of an accent Bhenithius recognized immediately.
         “Quain!”
         The man released Bhenithius, and extending a scarred and calloused hand, helped him to his feet.  The tall man stood proud, with a crooked smile on his aged and scarred face.  The largest of which was a faded pink scar that ran down the man’s left cheek, all the way to the bottom of his chin, but never moved when he smiled as the rest of the skin did.  “What?  Did I hurt you lad?” the man asked jokingly.
         “No, but you scared me half to death!”  He turned his head, peering towards the other two cloaked men.  They lifted their hoods revealing wide grins.  “Koro… Caine?  I though you were bandits!”
         They chuckled, the taller of the two, Caine, stepped forward and bowed theatrically saying, “Apologies my young Lord.  We spotted your horses from afar, and Master Quain thought it would be wise to check up on you.  There are real bandits about you know.”
         “You know your mother forbids you two leaving the city un-chaperoned,” Quain said matter-of-factly.  “If she hasn’t already, she’ll soon be wondering where you’ve gotten yourselves.  I doubt she’d be happy that you have broken the rules, again.”
         Bhenithius cringed at the thought of his mother knowing of their temporary escape.  “Do you think she knows?” he asked nervously.
         “No,” Quain replied as he walked by Bhenithius, crouching halfway between him and the two men, picking up the old dagger saying, “I should have sent one of the men to inform your mother of your extended excursion, but the Lady is under enough stress as it is.”  He rose to his feet tossing the dagger lightly through the air.  Bhenithius caught it by its enamelled hilt as Quain continued.  “Besides.  That is why your father has a swordsmaster!  To keep you safe, and out of trouble!”
         Quain was a native of Brynwyck’s northern most territory, a cold and mountainous region that stretched away from the little peninsula to the east.  Born in a time when those bitterly cold lands, rich in mineral resources, were in constant dispute between the Kingdom and the barbaric Northmen.  The old swordsmaster had never really shared much about himself, and so Bhenithius knew little of Quain’s previous life, except for that the man was a skilled and adept fighter.  Quain had come into the service of Bhenithius’s parents before his birth, being made his combat instructor since Bhenithius was eight.
         Suddenly noticing his friends absence, Bhenithius asked, “Where’s Andros?”
         Quain smiled that crooked smile again, “Sulking with your horses.  I found him round the other side of the hill, where you two so carelessly left your things.  Like you, he never saw it coming.  I must be failing in my duties, having boys who are so easily taken.  Perhaps I should work the two of you harder in your lessons, hmm?”
         Bhenithius looked to the dirt path, sighing glumly.
         Walking up beside Bhenithius, Quain patted a strong hand against his shoulder saying, “It’s a beautiful day.  Cannot blame you for wanting to enjoy it in such a setting.  It could almost make you forget that a war rages across the sea.  You should be getting back though.  I’m sure the cooks have been slaving over the fires all morning.  If anyone were to have noticed the two of you late, it would be Harrah and that pretty niece of hers.  Missing one of their fine meals.”
         Bhenithius and his escort walked down the dirt path, rounding to the north facing side of the temple hill.  As the trees cleared he spotted Andros standing with their horses, cradling his bow against his chest, his head down and looking miserable.  If anyone would take Quain’s little trick to heart, it would be Andros.  As they approached, Andros looked up to them with a sour look on his face.  Bhenithius couldn’t help but crack a smile.  Andros’s mind would undoubtedly be thinking up ways to get revenge on their swordsmaster, but although Quain was old, his mind was sharp and quick to strike.  Andros would certainly find himself on the wrong end of his own prank.
         “Try not to look so cold lad!” Quain shouted jokingly, “Ladies don’t care for the touch of frost against their skin!”
         Caine added laughingly, “They crave the taste of fire in their mouths!”  The forest erupted into guffaws as Quain, Koro, and even Bhenithius himself joined in.  In the end even Andros gave in and smiled a little.
         Bhenithius’s pack had already been secured to his russet gelding, Undo, who grazed contently on the damp grass.  Undo had been a gift from his father on his thirteenth birthday, to replace the pony that Bhenithius had outgrown, and had been a trusty mount if ever there was.  Rubbing the underside of Undo’s neck, Bhenithius’s thoughts drifted to his father, reminding him of the fact that the Duke would be departing within days for the war again.  Trepidation overcame him.  His gut became tight as anxiety began to seep in, until Quain’s heavy voice broke the spell.
         “I trust you two will find your way back  to the city just fine?”
         “Your not coming with us?” Andros inquired half-heartedly.
         “Nay.  We’re off on an errand for the Lady Suffia,” Quain explained.
         With a raised brow Andros pressed, “Of what sort, pray tell?”
         “Tis not the concern of the two of you,” Quain stated bluntly, “If her Grace wishes to share, she will.”  Quain signalled Koro and Caine and the two bowed their heads to Bhenithius and Andros before jogging away, presumably to where they had left their own steeds.  “Do not fret young sirs,” Quain said with a wink, “I will be back before long.  Four days, perhaps three if I make haste.  I will have to remember to increase our lessons upon my return.  I cannot allow the Duke’s son to become sluggish and soft, eh?”
         Bhenithius stifled a moan.  Quain’s lessons had never been easygoing, and the thought of them increasing in intensity brought about a feeling of dismay.  Many nights Bhenithius had gone to sleep with his body an aching mess, only to awaken hardly able to move, and covered in bruises that had not been their the night before.
         “Four days, maybe three without your enlightening presence?” Andros asked with mock sorrow, “Tis a horrible thing.”
         Quain softly cuffed Andros against the ear and said, “Consider it a holiday lads.  Though I suggest the two of you keep up with practice while I’m gone.”  Quain looked to the sky, one hand shading his eyes from the sun overhead and said, “Time I take my leave boys.  It will be dark before I know it, and it’s a long ride ahead.”
         Bhenithius thought of pressing Quain for more of an explanation of this errand, but knew his teacher too well. 
         “Safe travels,” Andros said, his glum mood having seemingly vanished, “And may your secretive mission be a success!”
         “Earia bring you luck,” Bhenithius added.  Earia, was the goddess of air, and thieves. Hopefully she would look after his father’s honest men on their mission as well.  Quain bowed and briskly disappeared, shadowing the route of Koro and Caine, making little noise as he did.  The man may be old, but he could move as silently as leafs in the wind.
         “They sure played us,” Bhenithius said with a grin.  In a strange way he sort of enjoyed the whole fiasco, even though the wits had been scared right out of him.
         “Sure did,” replied Andros with less enthusiasm.  Mounting his black stallion he sat in silence, his light brown eyes starring off into the horizon.  His mind seemed a world away from Bhenithius.  Then cracking a wry smile Andros said, “We should use these days of freedom to plan our revenge.”
         Grabbing the reins Bhenithius lifted himself onto Undo’s back and sighed deeply as he replied, “Kicking a pot of boiling water will get us little more than wet boots and scalded feet.”  Nudging Undo into a trot, Bhenithius set route towards Lethgartten.  Home.
         The two rode in silence for a short while before Andros spoke up with great humour in his voice, “Perhaps, my friend, but I can live with burned feet.”