Rickero

(RICKERO)



The sound of the drums came from all directions and the rain continued to pour in the darkness, there was no way out. Some where in the wet, muddy terrain the enemy was advancing, an army of ten thousand strong.



"What is your command, my Lord?" said a hoarse, familiar voice in his ear. Cader was soaked to his skin, his dirty brown hair plastered to his forehead like paint.



"What is your command, Rickero?" He repeated,  his voice turning into an echo.



Cader slowly faded into the darkness all around him, the roaring drums were quited and the rain vanished back into the invisible sky. All went to silence around him and all Rickero could hear was the echo.

He opened his eyes to the real darkness and realised that the echo was merely a scream. A thin line of light slanted through the upper window, now sealed shut with heavy iron. Well almost, Rickero imagined they had left him the tiny hole of light just so he could remember,  remember what it was that he was being deprived of.



The smell of his excrement was overpowering. He had lost track of the days a long time ago but judging from the smell he imagined it had been a week before his last visit from Bones. His bony fingers searched the hard stone floor for his flagon. He lifted the metal to his cracked lips and took a light swallow, he never thought water could have ever tasted like a sip of heaven.



Rickero Stormsong, only son of Ruben Stormsong, Lord of the Mountains of Monti. The White Tiger, his men had called him. As he sat in his cell, however, his ebony black hair long and filthy, his body meagre skin and bones and his strength withering by the day, Rickero felt like nothing more than a pup.



His eyelids were heavy so in a haze he allowed weakness to overcome him yet again, and he closed his eyes. The visions that haunted him when  his eyes were closed were worse that anything that the Dart henchmen could ever do to him. At times he felt that was the only thing that had kept him alive, he was only alive because with death came sleep,  a welcome solace yes, but it brought a terrible companion, it brought dreams.

Do the dead dream? He often wondered, surely they must. Maybe dreams were all that was in the land of the forgotten.  His people believed that when good people died their spirits continued to exist within those great mountains of Monti. They could be heard whispering in the wind on a cold night, or seen blowing flower petals down the mountain sides in summer.



As a boy, Rickero used to ride deep into the mountains were the streams flowed warm even in winter and caves were swollen with enticing rhythms that drew you in. On a windy afternoon, when he had seen his thirteenth moon die, Rickero had saddled his favourite horse Takirr which meant sadness. For hours he had ridden on the back of his black horse, two melancholy spirits lost in the vastness and beauty of the Valley Deep.

Rickero's crusty lips curved into a smile at the memory. He was his father's first born and his only son but Niva had always been more like Ruben than he ever could have hoped to be. Rickero was a man of seclusion,  he preferred his own company to anyone else's and because he often rode alone,  he knew Monti better than anyone.



"Lord Stormsong!" barked Bones sarcastically,  "you must enjoy the smell of your own shit better than most Lords."



Bones was a grotesque, stockish, stick thin man with pale and pasty skin. He always wore the same brown thick robe that covered him like a bandage and always smelled like vinegar. He had a metallic, nervous voice that clinked like a fallen spoon and when he spoke, his words were accompanied by a splash of saliva.



The man looked fragile and just about ready to break but he was as strong as a bull, just as Rickero had learnt.



A clank of keys and then a blinding light flooded the tiny cell, Rickero shielded his eyes. He knew that he was deep in the dungeons of the Divident and the light was not from the sun but from candles that lit the way for the turnkeys. However, he had spent a week in absolute darkness and the light cut into him like a thousand sun rays.



"This is your lucky day my smelly lord, the King would like to gaze upon your filthiness" said Bones, dragging him from his cell.



"A few years in the dungeons with Bones and he will be ready to sell us his mother for a quick death." The King of Arctuus had said, his brown eyes malicious and cruel.



The only thing King Thomus Dart wanted more than to rule forever was to extend Arctuus to the Death bay, to make Monti part of his kingdom.



If the Sarprons were to be believed the Darts had arrived in Arctuus from beyond the Great South, on the fourth year of the War of the Rock. They were led by a warrior they called the Black Bull. A freakishly tall man, almost as tall as the Lyringa of the cold deserts. They say he wore impregnable armour that was made from Buffalo horns. Black horns engulfed in red and yellow flames were sewn at the back of his grey cloak. Thoricus was his name.

The Black Bull led an army of two hundred thousand strong. In battle he trampled upon his enemies with merciless savagery, his  blond hair seen flying on top of the rest gave incredible strength to his men. He tore through every defence, piercing and burning like the horns on his banners.



The Darts arrived to find a kingdom already torn apart by years of war. The death of King Archer Groenttosher had sent the kingdom into turmoil. Leaving only a daughter to succeed him, the King had taken ill after his fifty fifth moon death and died two days later.

A woman could never rule in Arctuus so the Princess Sarolla was expected to marry her oldest uncle Dario and have him crowned as king. However, the princess had refused and claimed the throne for herself. As far as it went she was not the most handsome of maidens but she could wield a sword better than most and was unstoppable with a dagger. When his oldest uncle was found dead in his chambers, a dagger with a griffin encrusted on its handle sticking out of his chest, they all knew who had done it.



The great Groenttosher army was divided, some rallied behind Princess Sarolla and others behind Archila, Princess Sarolla's younger uncle who had laid claim to the throne as well.



The Lords of Arctuus, great and small were divided as well. With others forming alliances with Lord Beckens Broadship who had been second in command to the late King. He claimed that the King had named him as his heir and successor while he lay dying. Many suspected he had helped the king along but none would speak of it.

One night when the moon was high and as crimson as the roses that grew in Vetisam, Lord Broadship attacked Ttosherdome the home of Princess Sarolla. He raped and killed her mother and then hung her naked body on the walls, along with the few men Sarolla had left to gaurd her when she went to the capital.



It is said that when Princess Sarolla received the news, she hacked off the Black Messenger's head in a fit of rage and left the body rotting in her chambers when she rode for Ttosherdome that very night. It is the greatest sin to kill a Messenger of the Black and White guild, unforgivable by the gods and men alike.

Many claim that,  that act was the beginning of her undoing.



When the Darts arrived with Thoricus Dart in the front lines, they did not meet much of a fight, the three sides had driven each other to the ground and Arctuus was smoke and ashes.

In all this chaos, Monti sat silently behind her mountains, watching but not seen. No one could get to her not even an army of two hundred thousand strong.



Now after the arrival of the Darts the story differed from one Sarpron to the other. Rickero's Sarpron, a fierce lover of Princese Sarolla and her  Griffins, claimed that  Thoricus Dart had lost his heart at the sight of her defiant spirit and her unmatched skills with a small blade and begged for her hand. That was not a widely believed tale, however, Thoricus was as heartless as he was cunning.



The Dart king that Rickero was dragged infront of,  however, was nothing like his ancestor. King Thomus Dart was a sickly man, his blond hair was stringy and his skin translucent and pasty. He often had to pause between sentences to entertain a wet cough and swallow the lump that jiggled in his throat.  To his left sat his pink and plump son, a boy of maybe twelve moon deaths, Rickero guessed.  The fat prince sat stuffing his face with blood cakes, the red juice running down his lips and hands.  The sweet smell of the cakes filled the entire throne room and scratched down Rickero's throat.



"So you still will not talk huh?" Asked the pasty king in a low voice.

Rickero was silent.



"I thought they called him the 'white tiger', he looks more like a rat to me," he said to a pinch faced woman who sat to his right.



"And he shmells like one koo..." said the prince through a mouthful.



The entire court burst into laughter. The Lords stood in a straight line next to the prince and the ladies in all their finery stood next to the pinch faced woman who Rickero assumed was the queen.



"What is it they say behind the mountains, Tobius?" Thomus asked his son.



"Gey shey..." he swallowed. 'They say, "The mountains know, the white tigers know"' said the prince, mocking the words with a few head jerks and not once looking up from his tray. No sooner had the words come did  the cakes start going in.



Rickero longed to close his hands around the fat prince's throat but his face betrayed nothing,  he was as calm as still water.



"How so very vain, claiming to know it all." Said a short, grease haired Lord in a green robe.



"Do you know what it is they know Lord Beckens?"



"The way," said Prince Tobius, his brown eyes at last lifting from the tray and resting on Rickero.



"Yes, the way..." smiled the King,  "and you shall show it to me." An unsteady long finger pointed directly at Rickero's face.