Broadswords - 17. The Truth

Broadswords

Chapter Seventeen
The Truth

Birten rode away from Elsior's cabin, glad to be getting away from the gatherer for a while. He hoped Daegon would be alright alone with him. Of all people, Daegon could take care of himself. But there was still the odd feeling about their new acquaintance that made him feel uneasy.

He circled around the village, heading toward the area furthest away from the mountains. If the dragon had been circling the skies overhead, this would have been the direction it would have expanded into to find additional sources of food.

There were several swampy areas that he had to quickly avoid. Some were small while others were vast, but all of them happened in random places. The ground would suddenly change from dirt and grass into marshes, and the last thing he needed was to get too far into it while on horseback. He couldn't imagine getting a horse out of a deep swamp would be an easy task.

His mind wandered back to the vials on the wall in the cabin. Some looked innocent enough, but many of them didn't look like any spices that Birten was familiar with. While he was no chef, he'd been to market enough times to know what common herbs and other additives looked like. There was the possibility that many of them were from distant lands, but it didn't seem likely. Elsior didn't seem to have the means to travel far to obtain them.

It was also peculiar that the cabin was devoid of much, aside from the few pieces of furniture and baskets, yet there was an extensive collection of spices. For a man who was preparing food for one, how many different seasonings could he really utilize in his dishes? Birten was sure Kep would be able to assess the situation with more knowledge than he could. While he knew it was actually Kep's brother that did the majority of the cooking, Kep would still know if everything on those shelves was legitimately used in food preparation.

Birten hoped he was just being paranoid. He didn't have a whole lot of information to go off, after all. It could just be his imagination running wild. He had often been warned by others that he overanalyzed things to a point of toeing irrationality.

Then again, he was usually pretty astute with his instincts. He actually prided himself on his cautiousness, and was sure it had helped on slays in more than a handful of occasions. But at this point, since he wasn't with Daegon and Elsior, there wasn't much that debating it in his head would really solve. So he turned back to the task at hand.

He was a decent way out from the village before he found a spot that was a clear indication of a dragon landing. It was a relatively lush area; a significantly larger quantity of bushes and saplings were located there. However, several of them had been stamped down, broken limbs and torn leaves abundant. He slowed his horse and surveyed the area. Sure enough, he was able to decipher large, reptilian footprints in the soil. They appeared to be bigger than he was used to, so he slid off the horse to get a better look.

Upon closer inspection, his assumptions proved to be correct. The prints were far grander than any he had ever seen. One print alone was nearly the length of his wingspan. In his time as a squire, the longest footprint he'd seen was maybe half that length. He knew there were bigger dragons out there, but none that he was aware of that could leave prints so great. Something with this massive of feet would be larger in overall mass than he could even fathom.

The other thing that stood out was the number of toes in the print. There were seven per foot. He made sure to check all the prints he could find, just to ensure that it wasn't one footprint laid overtop of another. But indeed, each had the same seven-toed impression. Most dragon breeds had three or four toes per foot; there were even a few rare breeds that had two or five each. But seven was unheard of.

Before he'd left the cabin, Elsior had described the dragon to them. He'd made it seem pretty clear that it was a Dark Colossus, but based on these prints he was far from correct. While a Dark Colossus was an extremely large breed, it didn't compare to this. Nor did a Colossus have seven toes. Either Elsior was severely mistaken about what he'd seen, he was awful at dragon identification, or he was lying. No matter which of those was true, Birten knew that he and Daegon were in for something much more intense than they'd ever expected.

He knew he was supposed to continue on to see how far the dragon had travelled, but he wasn't sure that it would do much good anymore. They were dealing with an unknown breed, and so they wouldn't have as much insight on its habits based on its flight path. It could be a temperamental type that didn't fit into the feeding patterns they were used to. The discovery of the prints was more integral, at this point. He needed to relay the information to Daegon.

Concerned, he turned back to mount his horse. But it wasn't where he'd left it. In fact, it was nowhere to be seen. The dirt where it had stood was scuffed up. It looked like something had spooked it and it had darted off. How he didn't hear it take off, he wasn't sure. He must have been so engrossed in inspecting the footprints that he'd somehow tuned it out. But now he was without transportation, and he was a sufficient distance from the village, and even further from the cabin. He'd be lucky if he could make it to the heart of town by nightfall.

He cursed aloud, under his breath. He knew there wasn't much point in dwelling on the situation at hand, though, as there was nothing he could do about it. He had to get somewhere before it was too dark to travel. All of his belongings, including his weapons and torch, were on the horse. He didn't even have water. If he didn't get a move on, he'd face more serious issues. And so he began walking back in the direction from which he'd come.

As he'd expected, the sun was an oily orange as it hung tentatively above the mountains by the time Birten approached the main strip of Dorre. He had arrived a little sooner than he'd initially thought, but without his horse he still wouldn't make it to Elsior's before it was too dark to see. He'd have to hope that he could bargain with the villagers to stay overnight. Based on the previous interaction they'd had, however, he didn't find it likely. But he didn't have too many options.

As he rounded the buildings, he was hesitant. He didn't know where else to go besides the inn. He stood before the door, debating on entering. The sky wasn't getting any lighter, though, and he took a deep breath as he entered. It was this or nothing.

Almost immediately upon stepping inside, the waiter, Brev, was in front of him. "You! We told you already, cohorts of Elsior aren't welcomed here!" Several men in the room stood, staring daggers at Birten. He was well aware that their eyes weren't the only danger at hand, as many of them clearly had weapons at the ready.

He held his hands up in a defensive pose. "Please, I need your help," he uttered, fear and nerves tugging at the steadiness of his voice.

While most of the onlookers didn't seem to be impacted by his statement, Brev appeared to relax slightly. "You're working with our enemy. How and why would we help you?"

Birten could sense the lessening of the tension in the room, and took a deep breath. "My compatriot and I, we are in fact from the kingdom of Jhirdyr, and—"

"Aha, you did lie!" Brev bellowed, and the tenseness in the room swelled. The spectators looked furious.

"Wait, please! We did, yes, we did lie. But we were unaware of the situation at hand. Please let me explain. We're a dragonslayer and squire from Jhirdyr, and we were called here by Elsior under the impression that a dragon had the town under siege. He asked us to help." The crowd seemed to lose their cool at that comment, and Birten had to hold his hands up again and raise his voice to continue his explanation. "We have no prior experience with Elsior. We were told he was the one to bring the dragon's existence to light."

An uproar of chatter bellowed throughout the room, but Brev waved his arms to quell it. He seemed to be somewhat accepting of what Birten was saying, and kept the conversation going. "So you were beckoned here under the impression that Elsior wanted to save the village from the dragon's destruction?"

"Yes," Birten said simply and honestly.

Brev seemed uncertain if he believed Birten's answer, but continued nonetheless. "In a way, Elsior is the one that brought the dragon's existence to light. But not in the way you may think."

Birten didn't know how to respond to that. He had expected that the gatherer was not who he said he was, and he had expected that there was more to the story than was being told, but he had no idea where Brev was going with his statement. So he remained silent, and Brev explained the truth about the man that had been exiled to their village.

"Elsior arrived in our village some years ago. We were tentative, because it isn't often that anyone relocates to Dorre. We're a village of ancestry. Those who live here have always lived here. Outsiders are rare. He found his cabin, it was empty, and he chose to reside there. It had been empty for years and it was off the beaten path, so we didn't mind. He came into town occasionally to exchange goods, and for a while it was fine. We dealt with it. Not a huge bother. But it wasn't long before things began to change.

"He became darker. Angrier. Demanding, and aggressive. As you've certainly gathered, we don't take well to that kind of attitude. Especially from outsiders. He started asking about odd things around town. Dark magic, and spells. We're a simple village. We don't know about that kind of thing. And we don't want to. So we began to shut him out. But he found a way to get his answers. Peddlers come through occasionally, of course. Traveling merchants. Purveyors of the black arts. Sometimes they sell dark artifacts.

"We assume that's where it started, but of course we don't know for sure. It seemed like the dealers that came through town gravitated toward his cabin. Straight into town and directly to his place. It was like that for months, maybe even a year. At that point, his visits into town had become incredibly uncommon. We were glad. It was starting to feel like everything was back to normal.

"Until the dragon came. We've never had a dragon in Dorre. Not once. But this beast suddenly rose from the swamp, birthed from the marshes like a corpse rising from its grave. It was gargantuan. Demonic. A terrifying, horrific monster like we've never experienced. And when it fully lifted itself into the air, we saw Elsior standing there, arms raised, chanting."

Birten was floored. He was scared to ask his next question, but he managed to get it out. "What are you saying?"

"Elsior summoned the dragon. He brought this thing into our village, and he's been keeping it here."