The Fall of Aldermark - Chapter 7: Lies (Patreon)

This will be the last of the Fall of Aldermark chapters for a while. Band of Blades is a cool RPG system but there's way too many moving parts for a solo playthrough. I really like the characters and story I've made so far, but I'd like to focus on other projects for a while. 

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Valeria was hung over. The journey from the Kingfisher Knight’s cave was short and terrifying. No dead crossed their path, but the signs of them were everywhere. The grass was yellowing and the ground smelled putrid, like fresh corpses were buried just beneath the surface. Voyis kept the twins and the other Ghost Owls entertained with stories from his glory days, but Valeria suspected there was something else to it.

She felt it once, the day after the assault at the cave, when Voyis had run out of breath and no one else had anything to say. There was a tightness between all of them, an unspoken dread left over from their encounter with the flying woman. Gada called it a shadow witch, a new undead that Breaker had used in Karlsburg, made by stitching a piece of her own flesh into a living host. 

Valeria noticed that Voyis felt this too. He wasn’t scared, he looked guilty. He knew what this was, that everyone was wondering how they could possibly survive this. His storytelling was a way to ward this corruption, but he couldn’t keep it up. Maybe he spent too long in that cave, she thought.

The ground around Plainsworth was similarly plagued. Many of the refugees who had been begging for entrance into the town had moved on. They could sense it too. The armies of the Cinder King were getting close, and the very earth was surrendering before them. 

The legionnaires welcomed Voyis with applause and shouts. He soaked up the attention and held court throughout the day as the Marshal tried to keep everyone on task. They were moving out again. Quartermaster Silver Listening Glade had acquired food and horses from the locals, and the rest of the day would be another Liberty day. They were abandoning the town, though no one would say so. Summer was ending, it wouldn’t be long now.

Shreya was standing on the wall when the Ghost Owls arrived back in Plainsworth, and she remained there for the day, motionless, staring into the West.

Valeria and Arun watched her atop the Tantari wall as they passed a wine bottle back and forth. It was a Bartan red, the last from the crate Voyis had insisted on bringing. Valeria could see the wisdom in it now. They sat on the stoop of an abandoned building on the outside of the courtyard. Refugees had moved inside, and they could occasionally hear them rearranging or investigating whatever the previous occupants had left behind.

“What d’you suppose she thinks about?” Arun asked.

Valera shook her head, “I have no idea. Never much cared for the Gods, to be honest.”

Arun looked taken aback. “Not one for the Builder, the Shaper, and the… the other one.”

“The Maker.”

“Ah. Well, no wonder. It’s all the same thing isn’t it? Why bother with three when one could do?”

Valeria smiled. “That’s rich, coming from a Bartan.” She gently pulled at one of Arun’s dreadlocks, woven with symbols and seashells. She shook it back and forth so the materials jingled together. Arun slapped her hand away and smiled. “How many do you have anyway?”

“I lost count.” Arun took another pull from the bottle. “But seriously, she’s from Or, right? You don’t know if she was a marquess or whatever?”

Valeria remembered cherry blossoms again, but thinking about the smell made her stomach turn. “Like I said I don’t know.” Arun gave her the bottle and she took another swig. The hangover had faded and was turning back into a pleasant warmth. Marching would be rough tomorrow, but it was worth it.

Arun was peering at her under his tattooed eyelids. “You know every time someone mentions Shreya you look like you’re about to jump off a cliff.”

Valeria tried to look innocent. “What?”

“And you aren’t a great liar. Pretty good, but I’m pretty sure I’ve had more practice.”

Valeria looked at the dirt on the step beneath them. “You’ve never been to an Orite party, you get plenty of practice.”

“And you’ve never been to an Aldermani prison.” Valeria could feel his eyes on her. “You’re hiding something.”

Valeria took another pull from the bottle. She trusted Arun, more than anyone else in the Ghost Owls, probably more than anyone else in the Legion. But she didn’t know where to even start.

“What do you think the gods want, Arun? I mean… what do you think they’re doing? When all this is happening, when the Cinder King arose, when he broke the first Chosen, and then nine Chosen arose all at once. Why not just kill the undead? Why not just end the Cinder King once and for all?”

Arun looked at her for a little while more, blue eyes meeting hers in the middle of two dark sunburst patterns that covered his eye sockets. “You know it doesn’t work that way.”

“But why not? Why fuck with us like this? It’s so…”

“Unfair?”

“Arbitrary.”

Their eyes eventually found Shreya again, still standing above them on the wall. It was dark, but she glowed faintly with golden light.

“That… thing, on Voyis,” Arun said. “I've never seen anything like that before. And what happened with those relics… I’ve never seen so many signs that the Gods are trying to protect us. But at the same time I’ve never felt so distant from all of them. I pray that they will make things right, but I think they are, in small ways. I mean just look at Rakash.”

“The new Chosen,” Valeria chuckled.

“Old Bartans don’t get reckless like that without the Gods.” Arun took the wine bottle from her. 

“And you think that’s a good thing?” Arun shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he gestured up at Shreya, “but I know what you think.”

Valeria could feel herself blushing.

“I don’t know who she was to you, but you know Asrika’s chosen don’t last. If there’s anything of the Shreya you knew left in there you don’t have long to find out.”

Valeria nodded. “I know. I know.”