The Paragon Series, Part II by Matthew Terry

Rate this Story (5 best) 1 2 3 4 5

However, he understood the penalty for letting me slip after being so close after all these harvests, and only facing one soldier, I could slip indeed. With hesitant determination, he turned from his horse to me, and unsheathed his blood-blade, ‘axiom.'

In years my rage had boiled down into a thick crust that ruined its caldron. No one wanted to be near me, except Alyiss. She had never cared, only giggled and pulled my new gray hairs, counting them. I taught her up to one hundred.

My companions on the High Council would only mock me for my attentions on ‘that dumb peasant wench.' Hunting one evening, Sir Ried the elder had decided to elude to this fact, and asked why I wasted time with a peasant girl, especially if she wasn't even that comely. He didn't understand when I told him it had to do with the apples. Ayliss had never been afraid to take them from the tree.

I pressed the last soldier with a puissant flurry, forcing his heels into the barely breathing form of his squad mate. A low moan from below and a scared, pitched yelp from above met my stab in a perfect union of gut and edge and blood.

However, dust and sweat will always become mud. One more unchangeable truth.

He understood finally, Sir Ried the elder. Following the Siren's orders he found Alyiss on the Hill, tending the orchard. All young women were to be taken to the Grand Oubliette, for temporary holding, as per the High King's ultimatum. Ayliss had thrown an apple in his face. It had exploded in wormy mush.

I kicked the last soldier's face, twisting his neck too fast for his spine to keep pace. I was done listening to people who did not matter. I reminded myself to breath slow and even, as I turned and stepped away, to face Sir Ried the younger.

In battle, everything is in its place.

So I was in my place, and Ried in his. I wondered if anyone would remember our dance today. Maybe the poor, orphan daughters of Acron, if they ever saw the sun again. They wouldn't. Nothing could help them really. I had most likely doomed more than this lot with my lunacy.

I had been there, with the Siren, and not on the Hill, the day she had the ‘Exalted Vision.' I watched the mutes scribe her words in ink made from butterfly wings, and I had carried the message to the Chancellor. The day Alyiss was defiled and left to bleed slowly on the roots of old trees.

We carried out the orders until I remembered nothing else. I often thought I had done much wrong in my years. The constant badgering recollection has turned my once rage fueled self into an algid, cunning, coward. Forever in hiding from the fox on the hunt.

The wind died, as it always will. Ried slid into a perfect Porta di Ferro; the fox had found his quarry at last. I had never been indefatigable, just angry. Now I had nothing, it seemed, worth continuing for. Nothing could fix all my mistakes. There was no use in even lifting my blade.

I moved into my own Posta di Donna, and began counting to ten.

Regret had always been my lover, and tonight it seemed, she was waiting for me.