The Tale of Venator

Something was amiss about his departure; he would not of done such a thing so carelessly and without consulting his family, even if his fantasies had dwelled on leaving for battle since his arrival into the boring life of a peasant.

Before he left the father of Venator tossed him his pendant, of which the very young boy wore over his neck, where it would gleam under only the sun like nothing crafted by the hands of any mere human. At times Venator felt he could almost sense his father in the metal of the mercurial object, and as his fingers ran over its surface memories of the man he had loved ran through his mind in an unstoppable montage.

Years later, when Venator was a young man, only his father's axe returned. He had been struck down by a terrible monster, a creature that ravaged its helpless victims only in the chasm of night, a being of overwhelming evil and lust for delicious blood that dwelled in the deserts to the south. Venator had grown wise even at his young age, and knew that he would have vengeance; he swore that he would, but he would have to wait until his body was ready for the task, for it was still weak and young. He laid the battleaxe by his bedside and continued with his life, the weapon his investment for vengeance in the future, an object that ensured the memory of his pledge.

Late in the afternoon, when he was still young, Venator glimpsed the flapping beast over the horizon and through his window. Although he should have felt afraid, like his father was, he felt no fear, no terror, as this thing was undoubtedly meant to instill dread beyond the wildest nightmares of the human psyche. He could see a rider atop it, a terrible demon of pale skin, much larger than any man. The pendant seemed to burn ever so slightly while the great wings flapped in the distance, and it continued to do so until it disappeared. He rubbed his fingers over the surface of the pendant, and they stung briefly. He thought of his father, looked to the battleaxe nearby, and remembered the pledge for vengeance.

"Fate often saves an undoomed man when his courage is good," he said to himself, the sun setting in a bed of its own light outside his window, "my courage is good."

A morning many years later a vast caravan of horses and wagons pounded their way through the fields of yellow autumn grass, the thumps of their horseshoes heard many hours before they arrived in the center of Ivlüv, where, later, money and items were eagerly exchanged between screaming buyers and their groping customers. Venator heard the commotion and joined his fellow citizens, his body taking him to a fat and elderly shopkeeper who appeared to be lacking even the slightest interest in the surrounding horde of customers (several of whom were shouting angrily at him). Venator asked him of the news from outside Ivlüv's borders.

"The same wars still continue," said the man as he coughed, viciously, "only they have newer names, since they halted for brief periods of peace every now and then, but the same people are still fighting over the same things. You're lucky to live in a province of Trachos that is far from the fighting; far from the hot wastelands to the south."

Venator thought otherwise. "Is your caravan heading to the desert?"

The toothless man widened his mouth with surprise. "Why would you ever want to go there...from here?"

"I have my reasons," he quickly replied.

There was a pause, and Venator's keen eyes noticed an air about this man. You are old, thought Venator, to himself.