Tales of the Five Kingdoms

Irsa of Makurov (Part One)

Author's Note: As of posting, this tale is at the same point chronologically as the current main storyline in MAGE SLAYER. Irsa of Makurov was originally going to be the viewpoint character of that book's interludes before I decided to go with Elise instead. The largest reason I cut Irsa from Mage Slayer was because we've already seen Altier Nashal and wouldn't get much new setting-wise from Irsa's story, and part of the interlude chapters' purpose is to go to places the story wouldn't otherwise go. By now, there've been as many Altieri characters in the main story as any other nationality, so Irsa would've been a little redundant. That said, she and her story about fiends will show up again in Book Five, ROYAL ASSASSIN.

Seventh of Steed, 601 NE

Altier Nashal Hinterlands

Two Days Before the Battle of Sandharbor

Spoiler Warning: This tale contains mild spoilers for RUNE KNIGHT and BLOOD RUNNER.

"There's worse than fey out here," Rex said. He kept his voice low so that it wouldn't carry further than the evergreen thicket he knelt within. "Ogre could ruin your day if he don't much like your face, and the goblins here about are touchy after the slaughter over in the Protectorate. You got dryads and naiads, wendigos and spriggans, but not a one of them is half so dangerous as a fiend."

Irsa wrinkled her nose into an incredulous expression. "Hasn't been a fiend 'round Makurov in... Waves, in floundering years. What makes you so sure that's what's killing the herds? Taking those kids?"

"I just know it, and you'd best believe me when I say so."

The foliage concealed the pair within the forest thicket. Rex leaned forward in the brush, letting the stiff brim of his hat push aside brambles as he looked out into the clearing ahead. He'd taken some snow from the ground and put it in his mouth to stop his breath from puffing into the air. A crossbow that seemed too large to be used by a single man was held at the ready in his hands. The weapon seemed closer to a siege engine than personal armament.

There was a lot about Rex that Irsa found unsettling, and nothing she'd seen from him since their first meeting earlier in the day had dissuaded her from thinking so. His eyes were a brown so dark as to be almost black, tilted and narrow in the manner of the Althandi people. His accent was Althandi, too, enunciating each word clearly as if trying to put on airs above the station of a gamesman.

You couldn't really trust Althandi. They had a tendency to get big heads what with being from the first of the Five Kingdoms. Of all the foreigners who drifted through the outpost town of Makurov, Irsa trusted Althandi the least. And Rex Hunter, least of all.

He was a small man, at least by Altieri standards. The Althandi might've called him average. Rex couldn't have stood taller than five and a half feet when Irsa was used to men being over six; she herself had a few inches over him. He was fair-skinned, not as pale as most of his countrymen but still paler than the ruddy complexions most often seen locally. Rex wore a hardened leather cuirass, battered and worn. It might've come from the armory of some northern house, intended for an armsman. It bore scars from hard use, claw marks and gouges. The armor looked ready to fall to pieces, and the man underneath was little better.

Rex was missing half of his left ear. He had a cleft upper lip from a slashing wound. Burn scars marred the right side of his face in a ropey expanse of boiled flesh, he'd lost the tips of his ring and little finger on the left hand, and his neck bore ridged marks from where it looked like someone had tried hanging him. Irsa found herself thinking that enough people and beasts had tried killing Rex that at least a few of them must've had good reason.