Present day.
Year 489 after the Great War.
━━━━━━⚔︎━━━━━━
A rough shove snapped Pertheran back to reality, back from the swaying belowdecks of the Drisian dead-carrier vessel where he'd woken up five years ago, and he found himself looking into the narrow eyes of the bandit leader whose men Captain Reylan had hired for a special job. Around him, the Calbridge Castle bustled with soldiers. This time of the year, new recruits would arrive.
"I'm talking to you, lad!" The bandit leader's breath reeked of cheap ale. "Where the fuck is your captain?"
Pertheran looked him up and down. Poor man. If only he knew who he was yelling at, he may have been a bit civilized in his approach.
He sighed. No matter. Captain Reylan would soon give him the order to kill the man anyway.
Pertheran pushed himself off the wall he was leaning against. "In his office. Right this way."
As the man barged into Captain Reylan's office, Pertheran swung the door shut behind him and stood quietly. Waiting.
"Where the hell are my men?" The bandit leader emphasized his words by slamming his fists down on the captain's desk.
"Ah, so they haven't returned to your hideout yet?" said Captain Reylan with genuine worry in his voice.
"No." The man's anger was rising by the second. "Last I heard of them, they came here to inform you that the job was done."
Pertheran hid his blood-smeared hand beneath his cloak.
"And what about my payment?" said the man.
Captain Reylan smiled-- a dangerous smile. Those who knew him well would bolt right at this moment. "I believe you remember we had some conditions that required to be fulfilled in order for you to receive the full payment. Unfortunately, while your men have indeed delivered the man I seek, they have also abandoned eight of my soldiers in the process," he said, "and since they have not returned, nor will your men."
The bandit leader froze where he stood. "We had a deal. And you're not gunna hold up your end because you lost eight of your soldiers? Eight?"
"I value every one of my soldier's lives. Not even Draedona can take them from me," he said. "Yet your men abandoned them in Kinallen, because they were too busy saving themselves. Drisians collect their own dead, as I'm sure you have heard. But now, I cannot even do that."
The captain steered his chair away, possibly to get away from the bandit's foul breath.
"There is only one kind of payment I can now offer you," he added.
The bandit leader's eyes glittered. "And that is?"
Captain Reylan gestured. "Perth?"
The young man swung his broadsword out of its sheath, with such unwavering ease the old Pertheran, who had left his farm five years ago, could never have managed. But things were different now. He was different now, down to his very soul.
Even Mother said he'd left home as one boy, and came back as another.
The bandit now turned around in alarm. "So you finally show your true colours, eh Captain?"
The captain shrugged, then resumed whatever paperwork he'd been doing. "Be quick with this one, Perth. And mind my new carpet."
The bandit leader roared with laughter as his eyes found Pertheran. "Do you jest, Captain? This boy, match blades with me?"
This was nothing new, of course. All Pertheran's victims made the same mistake of underestimating him. Perhaps it was his face that was to blame.
It's too innocent, Royal Sorceress Avalyn, The Wielder of Chains, had once remarked.
"Alright. Forget the blade then," said Pertheran. He sheathed his sword and strode up to the man. With one hand, he grabbed the bandit's head, then slammed him against a wall with inhuman strength. Ribs cracked.
"What the--" Bloody spittle flew from the man's mouth.
Pertheran tightened his hold on his head.
The bandit leader uttered a scream and tried to pull back, but only managed to snag some of his grimy hair.
And Pertheran tightened his hold. Skull bones began to crack under his grip.
The man's eyes looked as though they were about to pop out of their sockets. Apparently oblivious to the cutlass at his belt, the bandit clawed at Pertheran's neck. Dirty, yellowed nails tore through his skin. Black blood oozed out of it.
And before the man's eyes, the wounds healed-- closed up of their own accord, the flesh rebuilt anew. Pertheran grinned, too wide to be considered sane.
Oh, the things you can do when you have an immortal soul.
You are no less than a God in the flesh of a mortal.
A true Vasaen from the dark days of the Great War.
And Pertheran tightened his hold some more.
With a sickening crunch, the man's head burst open. Blood splattered across his face; Pertheran felt its metallic taste against his tongue.
The dead bandit leader hit the floor with a dull thud.
"Well, Captain?"
Pertheran glanced at the captain, hoping to be acknowledged, or even praised for his work. But instead, the captain frowned in annoyance. He then pressed one finger upon a silver ring he wore on his right hand, and muttered a quiet incantation.
Oh, how Pertheran hated that blasted ring-- a present to the captain from the Royal Sorceress, Avalyn. Quite a pair, the two of them.
The runes on the ring glowed bright, and a burning pain shot up in the never-healing wound on Pertheran's chest, the wound that had once killed him. He groaned and fell to his knees. Black blood blossomed on his linen shirt.
"...Why?" he demanded, eyes on the floor. The pain faded as abruptly it had come.
"For spilling blood on my carpet. Third time this week, Perth," said the captain, then strode past him.
Had it not been for that damned ring, Captain Reylan would've joined the dead bandit on the floor.
Such were the downsides to having an immortal soul. Pertheran could never go against the will of the one who pulled him out of Draedona's realm with the Chains of Ancient Sorcery. Same was for every other dead resurrected after him. None of his undead brethren, despite their godlike strength, could stand against Avalyn. And thus, the Royal Sorceress had earned her title: The Wielder of Chains.
A mere misstep, and she could make them relive the agony of the moment of their deaths, as Pertheran now did. The sorceress had imbued some of her powers within that ring the captain now wore.
"Get up, now. We've got work to do."
Pertheran looked up with a scowl. "More to kill?"
"Hungry for blood, aren't we?" Captain Reylan chuckled. "but to answer your question-- no. We are to welcome our guest for whom we went to so much trouble."
Minutes later, Pertheran followed the captain down a set of spiral stone stairs to the dungeon of Calbridge Castle. Or rather, one of the many hidden dungeons.
✦✧✦✧
If by extraordinary luck, one of the unfortunates locked up in the dungeons of Calbridge Castle managed to fool the guards, they would not be able to escape the confines of the cursed walls. Countless secret passages and hidden doors, hallways leading to nowhere, and even if they managed to get a window open-- a sheer drop to jagged rocks several feet below.
That poor soul would wish they never escaped their cell.
Thankfully, Pertheran knew his way around this place.
Down in the dungeon the air was damp. Torches flickered in sconces set high upon the rough stone walls. The passage was lined with cells on their left, two guards flanking each. Captain Reylan stopped before the one at the very end of the passage.
“King Krugmann welcomes you to this land," said the captain, with that dangerous smile Pertheran feared the most.
Chains clattered against the cold floor. Weary feet shuffled, and a man's face came into view out of the gloom, his square-jawed face sunken from exhaustion, dark hair shot through with white. Two calloused hands reached out to grab the bars.
Pertheran's heart seemed to stop for perhaps the second time in his life.
The man behind the bars was the Midaelian officer, who had ended his misery at the stormy shores of the Brihurst Isles, five years ago. His was the face Pertheran had seen right before Death dragged him into her realm.
What was his name...?
"Whatever you want from me, I don't have it," said the captive Midaelian.
"I have knowledge of your correspondence with Lucian Rodormann. There's hardly any point in lying, Karyk."
The name struck Pertheran like lightning. He flinched in alarm, and both Captain Reylan and Karyk glanced at him.
"What's wrong with you?" Captain frowned.
The Midaelian man was staring directly at him, eyes wide open despite his exhaustion. A rueful smile crossed his chapped lips.
It's a small world indeed.