Yet today, I feel...different. I feel like the pain of a thousand worlds has descended upon us, threatening to break us, to shatter us. But we held fast. We have survived the tribulation God had sent our way. Every race has reached their lowest point. We can only get stronger.
***
Indra was rushing into the main room when Thaen's secret was revealed.
The five of them were sitting on the benches in front of the fire. Skaria and Kyra were striking up a conversation about how Skaria got into the business (after taking out two serial killers and burning down half a city), and Laidu was making sure that Thaen and Karik'ar weren't about to kill each other. They settled, for the moment, on glaring at each other.
Thaen looked at Laidu. "Why are we still here? And where were you guys going?"
Laidu sighed. "We're taking Kyra home. To Caeldar."
Thaen paused. "Okay, start from the beginning."
Laidu nodded. "That might be best." He stretched his neck. "I was patrolling the Redleaf Forest when I stopped some slavers. I found Kyra inside, and we went to a tiny village called Three Pines. There we met Skaria, Indra, and Karik'ar. And then we ventured here, but I ripped my pants somehow." Of course, he was leaving out the voices, or that monster. He didn't like to think of that monster.
"And we can't leave because of..."Thaen began to ask.
"Indra."
Indra was still working on an alchemy project, or so she had been telling everyone. So when she barged in, Laidu wasn't surprised. However, what did surprise Laidu was the way she fell. He didn't know what she tripped over, but the second she began to tip, Laidu knew this was not just your run of the mill tumble. No, this was the big one. The fall every prankster and mischief-maker prayed for. The Big Crash.
The pile of stuff she was carrying ejected from her hands at the speed of a panicked horse, flying into the air and scattering. It was mostly paper, but a vial of something flew past Laidu, nearly hitting him on the horns. It landed in the fireplace, and with a pop, exploded. The flames sputtered, before bursting with new energy. The scrolls and papers flew all over the floor as Indra slammed, facefirst, down into the hardowood floor.
"Indra!" Skaria said, stunned. "Are you alright?"
"Yes, I decided to just take a nap on the ground," Indra said, annoyed. "Does it look like I'm alright?" Thaen got up and began to help her. "Thank you, Thaen. You're a very nice young man." Kyra joined him, bending down on her knees, scooping up papers.
"I'm not a man." Thaen kept picking some of the papers, stacking them up. "The ears are a dead giveaway. And these aren't in any particular order," Thaen said, indicating the papers."
"I know you're not human," Indra said. "And it doesn't matter. The individual pages are the notes." She frowned. "But where is that vial?"
Laidu cleared his throat. "Um, Indra, I think it burned up." He pointed to the glass shards in the fireplace.
"Well, then," Indra said. "I'll just check my theory tomorrow," she said.
"Theory?" Kyra asked.
"That it's flammable."
"Trust me," Laidu said. "It is."
"Well, I need to see how much." Indra picked up the papers, but something tumbled out. A stone. It hit the ground, and oddly enough, it bounced, landed on Thaen's forearm, and stuck there.
"Oi!" Thaen said, alarmed, staring at the stone with wide red eyes. "There's a stone sticking to me. Should it be sticking to me?" He eyed the stone, before moving to brush it off. Except then it stuck to his hands.
"No, it should't," Indra said, confused. "It's magnetic. Attracted to metal. And unless you have metal bones, you should be non-magnetic."
"Oh, that explains it," Thaen said. "Yank it off me please." Indra grabbed the stone and pulled it off Thaen's arm. "I have metal bones."
"I don't remember hearing that," Laidu said. "And I lived with you for a year."
Thaen paused. "Well, before I did my Trial...I took a drink from the Warrior's Spring."
The room went dead silent. "You what!?!" Skaria asked. "That's two steps away from suicide! The pain alone could drive you insane!"
"Wait, what's the Warrior Spring?" Kyra asked.
"A spring of old magic, of the wild kind," Karik'ar explained. "Those who drink of it are transformed. Their bones are reinforced with metal. But the change itself is one of the most painful things to experience." Karik'ar looked at Thaen. "The pain can drive you to madness."
"The first pain," Thaen said, holding up a finger. "Which was why I didn't drink from the spring straight up. First, I chugged a gallon of poppy oil."
"You nearly poisoned yourself on pain relief." Indra rolled her eyes. "It couldn't be that bad, could it?"
"Oh, yes it was." Thaen shuddered. "Steel is being forged directly in your body." He handed the last of the papers to Indra. "But I'm feeling fine now." Laidu eyed him.
The door slammed open, revealing Jon. "I'm home!" he shouted out. Rhea poked her head out one end of the kitchen doors. "There you are, dear," he said. He gave her a quick peck on the lips, before looking at Laidu. "Oh, and word spread that you're here."
Laidu's heart sank. He wanted to get to town and leave sooner rather than later. But now people knew he was here...they'd do to him what they did to every Ranger. Ask him questions, demand he recall all his adventures. They assumed that Rangers were all good storytellers.
Though, to be fair, they were mostly right.
"Let me guess, they want to meet me?" he asked.
"Yep. At the Green Ivy in the middle of town," he said. "Tomorrow." Laidu sighed. It would be one crazy day. And if it was at a tavern, Laidu had the sneaking suspicion that most of his visitors would be drunk. But then again, that was any town. "I suggest you get some rest. Tom's been talking to the other kids about you."
"Oh dear," Laidu said. Tom was way too excited about Laidu.
"So your bones are actually made of metal?" Karik'ar asked.
"Not made of metal. Reinforced with it, though," he said. "Take a shot." Oh no. This wasn't going to end well.
The blow Karik'ar gave him sent the Vesperati flying across the room. He hit the wall and slumped over, groaning. The Kai'Draen yelped, shaking a fist. "Blood and thorns, you weren't lying!"
"Blood and thorns, my teachers weren't lying when they said you guys hit hard," Thaen said, rising to his feet. "Does that satisfy your curiosity?" he asked.
"Yep." Karik'ar massaged his knuckles. "You have to tell me where that spring is."
"Nope." Thaen frowned. "I doubt you could drink enough poppy oil to get you desensitized. You'd need to drink at least a dozen gallons. And you don't have that big a stomach."
"Don't forget, you can always condense it down to a more potent form," Indra said. Laidu stared. Thaen and Karik'ar weren't trying to kill each other. It was a miracle. A wish come true. All it took was a punch that would have killed Thaen.
"I am going to go to bed," Skaria said. "Come with me, you're going to make sure you don't get into fights," she said, grabbing Karik'ar by his long braid.
***
"So, really, that's what you do?" Thaen asked Karik'ar. "You don't do anything with your culture?"
The six of them sat down at a table in the spacious Green Ivy. Kyra had a mug of steaming tea in her hand, and she leaned in, close to Laidu. Skaria sat between her and Karik'ar. Indra and Thaen faced them. Indra had her face buried in a book.
"Have you seen what Red Claw ceremonial tribal wear looks like?" Karik'ar asked.
"No. Most of our experience with the Kai'Draen has been with plains and mountain tribes." Thaen paused. "And most of that experience involves slaying them as they try to storm our homes. We didn't really pay attention to their culture. All I know is that it had a bunch of loincloth-clad savages charging us with reckless abandon."
"Sounds about right. But don't you dare take the fight to one of the Claw Tribes," Karik'ar warned. Laidu frowned. Was he trying to pick a fight?
"And why not?" Thaen asked. He wasn't angry or defiant. "They charged us with sharpened sticks and slings, mad with battle rage. Our steel was more than a match for them."
"I've yet to see you fly, but I'd assume you have to go on the ground at some point," Karik'ar said. "But we'd have the home advantage in the swamps. They are a deathtrap to outsiders."
"I think I can manage," Thaen said confidently.
"I doubt it." Karik'ar sighed, and leaned in, his massive forearms bulging with every flex of his hands. "Do you know how to spot red creeping vines? Or how to distinguish snareroot from normal ground?"
"On the second part, no," Thaen said. "Though I'd stick to treetops. And as for red creeping vines, well, I'd look for creeping vines colored red."
"In that case, you're dead." Karik'ar sighed. "Red creeping vines are colored green, but when you touch them, you contract the poison. And your eyes turn blood red as you go blind. You bleed into your eyes. And then you bleed to death."
"Sounds fun," Thaen said.
"That is one of a hundred dangers in the swamp. If you want to go in, you're going to need a native guide," Karik'ar said. "A swamp born guide."
"Oh." Thaen frowned. "So, what is your ceremonial garb?"
"War paint and a loincloth."
"That would explain why you don't go to parties and events in that." Thaen shrugged. "What do you wear?"
"I have a suit in Caeldar. I got it tailored to my frame, so I don't look completely out of fashion." Karik'ar shrugged. "I used it... once, maybe? And that was after I stopped a large bandit group that's been bothering the town."
"After we stopped them," Skaria corrected. "We were both required to attend a ball held by the Council."
"And what did you wear?" Laidu asked. Picturing Skaria in a dress was just...unimaginable. She wasn't that type of woman.
"A long-sleeved dress," Skaria fumed. "It was hot. Stuffy. It had too much lace and frills on it. It was an abomination in fabric."
"Why didn't you wear a sleeveless dress?" Kyra asked. "Sleeves went out of style a while ago and if you were hot...why bother?"
"Because the silly lords and counts don't like it when a woman has bigger biceps than them," Skaria said. "I ended up arm-wrestling a sozzled count and winning. And at that point, I believe we were thrown out."
"So, what do you wear?" Karik'ar asked. "You love steel so much, is that what you wear?" He looked at Thaen, genuinely interested.
"Glassweave." Thaen folded his hands in front of him. "Very tough to make. You can't dye the fibers, see. You have to make them the right color."
"And you do that by...?" Karik'ar asked.
"Making the fabric out of stained glass." Thaen smiled. "Only those Reforged in Shadows can wear glass. Well, them and royalty. But I ain't royalty."
"Royalty doesn't use words like 'ain't', in my experience," Indra said. She looked up from her book. "So you're a warrior of extreme prowess, then." She paused. "In all honesty, all accounts I've read of the Reforged tend to portray them as... stoic."
Thaen was drinking his mug of tea when Indra said that. He choked on the tea, swallowed it, and then set the mug down. "Stoic?" he asked. "Maybe when dealing with outsiders, but not around friends!" A few people filed in, mostly quarry workers. Laidu caught a few surreptitious glances, but no one attempted to talk to him.
"I noticed," Indra said, before returning to her book. At which point, Skaria decided to grab it. "Hey! Let go!" Of course, in a brute strength contest with Skaria, Indra was destined to fail. Instead of trying to get her book back, she stared daggers into Skaria.
"Relax, I just want to see what you're reading," Skaria said. She was silent for a while. Her expression slowly shifted from interest to disappointment to mild horror. "'Unification of the masculine and feminine parts?' What is this? 'Reconstruction of the ultimate whole, with a pleasurable outcome?'" She set the book down. "It sounds like smut. Smut written by a senile eunuch."
Indra yanked the book back from Skaria. "It's not smut. It's alchemical theory. It was talking about the two types of change. Masculine and feminine. Progressive and cyclical. And as for the 'pleasurable outcome,' it was saying how the unification of the progressive change and the cyclical change will produce a refinement in a substance. And it was comparing it to the practical counterpart." Her cheeks reddened. "We all know what that is," she said.
Laidu noticed that she slipped the book into her bag. "I think it's best if we put that away," he advised. Indra nodded, and Kyra smiled slightly.
"Well, at least it doesn't have Calixa," Thaen said, grimacing. Karik'ar frowned.
"Calixa?"
"If a human and a weed had a kid," Thaen said, "that would be a Calixa. Nasty things."
"Are you the Fever Blood Ranger?" someone asked. As if there would be anyone else who looked like they were part dragon.
You never know, you might have a brother! Rhaem said. And there were the voices again. They had lain silent for a while, but something had roused them, as usual. And the man might be friendly!
You should kill him, Kasran advised.
Or leave. This place is worthless. Everything is worthless. The sad voice continued on like that, before Rhaem gently hushed it.
Laidu nodded as he turned around. "Yes. I am."
"I thought so," the man, who looked like a miner, said. He was covered in stone dust. On second thought, not a miner. A quarryman. Since Baton's Mill was a stone mill, most of the people probably worked in the quarry.
"What gave it away?" Laidu asked. "Was it the scales or the horns?"
The man shrugged. "Pretty much both of those." He frowned. "And who's the bat?" he asked.
"A childhood friend," Thaen said.
"Some strange childhood," Skaria said. "What happened?"
"It's a long story," Thaen said.
"We got nothing but time," Kyra said. Laidu sighed.
Stories! I want to hear this one too! Rhaem said.
Laidu cleared his throat. "It's been a while," he said. "Let me see if I remember." That he did, but he needed a good way to tell it. "Well, one day, I was out in the woods..."