Chronicles of Pietro Ludvigs (original fantasy)

[Academia Nut]

Well, while I wait for Chris to finish looking over the last chapter of Thousand Shinji, I thought I would try something a little different. Tell me what you think.

---

Prelude: The Mountain Side

Pietro Ludvigs. His name was Pietro Ludvigs. He had to remember that, had to cling to that. He clung to his name the way he clung to the memories of blue skies and warm sun shining down on his face, of running his hands across the tops of the grains in his father’s fields, the wheat heavy with grain in the hot autumn air, bowing in rippling waves with the thick wind that cooled the skin.

With each moment however it was getting harder to focus on those memories. The very act of breathing drew in more of the sharp, biting air of these northern mountains, the cold like a knife upon the lips and tongue. His clothes felt like they were soaked even where they were dry, the cold clinging like moisture to the fabric. In the places where his clothing had been soaked, the water had already turned to ice and burned his flesh with a bitter chill.

Pietro didn’t know what was worse, the way the chill burned, or the way everything was going numb. He had already lost all feeling in his feet, his heavy, hobnailed boots having filled up with snow that promptly melted and then froze again. He kept tripping in the drifts, his insensate feet not telling him when the ground beneath the mounds of snow was unsuited to tread upon. This in turn got more snow and ice on him, numbing him further.

His left hand was going stiff, the heavy fur mitts completely encrusted with ice that was becoming harder and harder to crack when he tried to flex his fingers, while the ice was probably all that was keeping his right hand connected to the leather bound pommel of his sword.

The worst numbness though was coming from his gut where that damned dart had hit him. He had pulled it out with a great deal of pain some time ago, exacerbating the wound, but he had felt the numbness spreading out from it, and had remembered the campfire tales he had heard since coming up here. Bastards poisoned their darts. It was a special kind of poison that clouded the blood to prevent bleeding, but also clouded the mind. It made everything numb and stole a man’s memories from him.

A man shot by one of those darts probably wouldn’t die, at least not at first, but would keel over into a deep sleep, perfect prey for the monsters that fired such things, and when he woke up he would have no memory of his past life. No memories made such things as escape harder to do. Not that anyone had ever escaped.

His name was Pietro. He kept that thought central in his mind, having once spoken it but as his lips cracked and his tongue swelled up and his lungs burned with the effort to keep going in this hostile environment, he found the act of speaking impossible, so he just repeated that thought over and over.

The wind that had been cutting into him for nearly half an hour suddenly went hush, the cold settling upon him like still water. The only sound was Pietro’s ragged breathing, his breath flashing to icy mist in front of him like smoke, the thin fog settling about his head now that the wind had died down.

High above, the crystal sharp stars set against the frozen black sky were drowned out by curtains of light interposed between them, rolling green and purple sheets that some might have called beautiful if not for the dark things they heralded.

Pietro turned, his boots crunching on the wind hardened snow. He would not be run through from behind. He would not die a coward’s death. Besides, he knew he could run no more. His knees quaked with the effort of holding him up, and the trail was too treacherous on this snow covered mountain path to move at any great speed even if he were in a fit condition.

They stood behind him, their feet too proud to sink into the drifts like his. They wore no boots, just laced sandals, when they deigned to wear footwear at all. Creatures of the far north, they needed no clothing to keep them warm against the ravenous cold, their smooth, pale, hairless skin welcoming the alpine air. Their flesh was tight and athletic, telling the tale of their inhuman agility and strength. Their features were hard, uncompromising, and angular with muscle and bone where a human would be rounded and soft. Each one had their long blond fading into white tied up in a bunch at the tops of their heads before falling down to their shoulders or beyond. Some had this in a braid, where others let it run loose after that single tie.

If you did not know these creatures, you might call them comely and handsome, and they knew it, flaunting their skin when lesser creatures bundled up in heavy, androgynous furs. A few wore loincloths made from wolfs heads, and a few wore cloaks made from bearskins, but these were more trophies than actual clothes. None of them, not even the women in the group, wore tops, preferring to let the whole world see their sculpted pectorals or heaving bosoms, see the ritual scars and tattoos carved into their skins. Long necklaces of teeth were the only things they allowed to obstruct the view of their chests.

Pietro tried to get his right hand to respond, to tighten upon his sword so that he would go to the afterlife with his weapon drenched one more time in the blue blood of these demons.

Drenched in the blood of these elves.

The leader of the band stepped forward. You could tell he was the leader because of the enormous set of stag’s antlers he wore upon his head. Or, at least, Pietro hoped that the elf was wearing them. He was also wearing the most trophy clothing, the animal teeth on his necklaces interspersed with human finger bones.

The leader levelled his spear at Pietro, pointing at him silently for a time, his breath too good to fog in the air like the human he saw before. Eventually he said in a frigidly deep, rumbling bass voice that carried all the weight and power of an avalanche, “You have been a stubborn one human.”

Pietro was too tired, frostbitten, and numb to respond. He merely stood there, panting, keeping the bastards in his sight and keeping his legs from collapsing beneath him.

“I must admit, few have ever gone to the lengths you have to survive and been quite so successful. I salute your prowess as a warrior,” the hunt master told him.

Taking in a deep breath, Pietro coughed twice before he managed to get out a ragged, “Then… you’re… pathetic…”

He would not give his enemies the satisfaction.

The elves seemed taken aback by this insult, the hunt master snarling and preparing to say something else when Pietro finished his comment, “This… was… my… first… fight…”

The elves all blinked at this as the true nature of his words sank in. Three elves and one of their nightmare mounts lay dead at his hands and he was a rookie. They liked to taunt the skilled warriors that made their hunts interesting by congratulating their skills right before they slew them, but how do you taunt someone who admitted that they had no skill. It just made you look bad for taking so long to finish them.

Pietro himself wasn’t quite sure how he had survived quite this long either, but he thanked the Deathlord for His blessing against these monsters. Pietro wished he were a priest or one of the knights instead of a mercenary on his first mission so that he could sing a song of death before falling in battle.

Finally the hunt master recovered from his shock at this embarrassing turn of events and gestured with disgusted idleness, “Send him to his corpse god then.”

The first kill Pietro would always attribute to blind luck. When this hunting party had first fallen upon the caravan he had been travelling with as a guard, their fell magic had twisted the perceptions of everyone, allowing them to close to spear and sword range quickly, the only death coming from Pietro’s crossbow hitting an actual elf in the head instead of one of the phantoms.

The second death was more of an accident. He had been shot with one of those damn elf darts in the gut and dropped his crossbow in pain. That had in turn saved his life as with his hands free he managed to get them up in time to partially catch the lasso that snared him, the elf urging its flying mount skyward, no doubt either to choke Pietro or drop him from a high height. Pietro did not choke though, his hands just barely holding the taut rope away from his throat. By an extraordinary effort of will he slipped his right hand free and drew his sword, plunging it into belly of the flying horse.

It was only divine providence that Pietro survived the fall that splattered dead nightmare and its rider against a mountain side. Falling free through the air, he had slammed into another mounted elf, knocking the bitch free from the back of her steed. Tumbling through the air, Pietro by pure chance landed on top, a deep snow drift and the elf providing plenty of cushioning against the impact. Somehow he also managed to retain his sword through the tumble and he had immediately plunged it into the elf’s heart, ending her monstrous life with a spray of blue-green blood.

His fourth kill though, that he could claim as entirely his own.

From some well deep inside him, he found the strength to lunge forward and tackle the nearest elf rushing him. There was no subtlety to the action, just a big burly farmer’s son in heavy furs and mail slamming into a nearly naked elf. None of them had expected him to do something so bold seeing as the path was too narrow for wrestling.

Pietro and the elf went tumbling down the side of the mountain, triggering a minor avalanche in their descent. Pietro was the heavier and harder of the two, so as they rolled, the elf took the brunt of the damage, although bits of rock and ice as hard as rock quickly took their toll on both. Somewhere along the line Pietro hit something hard and unyielding and with a crack a tree limb snapping off in a storm, his right arm broke. His sword finally tumbled free and was quickly lost in the confusion of the fall.

Eventually the sound and fury of the moment stopped. For a time, Pietro just wanted to lay back, close his eyes, let the cold seep in completely, and wait for the Deathlord to come claim him, but he wanted to finish what he had started.

Lifting his body as much as he could, he found that his legs were only partially buried under a light pack of loose snow, and he quickly kicked free. Once his head stopped spinning and his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he looked about and found that he was in a cave of some sort, the entrance all by blocked by the slide of snow he had triggered with his fight. A thin, weak blue light leaked through the top, the snow and ice of this land making even the illumination chill.

The elf he had grabbed lay nearby, his legs completely buried under the snow, his body unmoving except for the slow, rhythmic rise of his chest. Numerous cuts and scrapes adorned his body, his trophy tooth necklace having broken up and scattered in the descent, several of the items impaling the elf’s flesh in place. There were also several lumps and discolouration indicative of broken bones.

Tottering to his feet, clutching his own broken arm, Pietro looked around for something to suit his purposes. Stumbling forward, with great difficulty and protestation from his battered body, he bent over and picked up a fist sized rock from the cave floor with his still mostly uninjured left hand. His fingers barely moved, but after three false tries, he managed to get a decent grip on the stone.

Staggering back to the elf, Pietro collapsed to his knees and raised the stone high above his head.

The elf’s eyes snapped open.

“You don’t have the-” Whatever the elf was going to say was cut off by Pietro slamming the rock into his head just above the nose, right between the eyes. There was a loud crack that echoed through the depths of the cave. The stone feel from Pietro’s numb fingers.

He picked it up again, this time taking four tries to get a grip on it. He slammed it down again, and once more lost his hold on it with the impact. He repeated this motion again and again, taking a good five minutes or so to reduce the elf’s head to a dark, pulpy stain on the cave floor.

Finally Pietro let the rock just roll off into the shadows, his task complete. He hoped that the elves would not dig him out of this cave before he expired; a certain peace was already coming over him and he did not want to be rudely awoken by the torture instruments of the elves.

As his eyes closed, he remembered forgetting something. What was it?

Oh yes… his name…

He was Pietro Ludvigs.

He wondered if his actions today had earned him a place in the Deathlord’s Tome of Honoured Dead. That would be nice…

Just before his eyes closed he heard something say from the back of the cave, “Well, well, what do we have here?”

Damn.

---

So, what do you think? Does this idea have merit? What should I call it? Would you like to read more?

[Sidewinder]

The story was a bit confusing. At the beginning, it seemed Pietro was walking through the wilderness, e.g., a forest or a mountain path, while the end of the story revealed he was in a cave. Nonetheless, I found it interesting. Were the elves inspired by the Dark Eldar in WH40K? Do they share the same motivation, e.g., an arrogant and sadistic desire to hunt prey that can use somewhat intelligent tactics to fight back?

[Losonti Tokash]

Very cool. Had trouble getting into it at first but once I did I was hooked. Got some Warhammer vibes, especially from the "corpse-god" bit but it's probably a coincidence.

Sidewinder, when he tackled the elf they rolled downhill into a cave.

Lifting his body as much as he could, he found that his legs were only partially buried under a light pack of loose snow, and he quickly kicked free. Once his head stopped spinning and his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he looked about and found that he was in a cave of some sort, the entrance all by blocked by the slide of snow he had triggered with his fight. A thin, weak blue light leaked through the top, the snow and ice of this land making even the illumination chill.

[Academia Nut]

As I describe the theology of this world, the "corpse god" comment will become clearer, its just a coincidence. The fact that Pietro makes reference to "the Deathlord" should be a clue though.

Also, while there are some Dark Eldar parallels, that is simply because I'm drawing basis for these elves from a shared origin, namely the nasty fuckers of old. These elves probably have a stronger relationship with the elves of Terry Pratchett's Discworld however.

[LadyTevar]

Yes, I think you need to keep this one going. I'm waiting to see what finds Peitro

[Academia Nut]

Chapter 1: Home

Pietro was born the fourth son of Mateja and Giorgia Ludvigs, a wealthy farming family in the Upper Eilyna Marches of the Kingdom of Thrane, where they owned their own house, and enough land for a small garden and field, while they worked a much larger set of fields for the Right Honourable Baron Ivan Moreland. Throughout his childhood, Pietro had worked the land with his family, paying his respects to the nobility and the Church of the Deathlord.

He had few ambitions in his life. As the fourth son, he had little chance of inheriting what little his family owned, and by the time he had come around much of his family’s free finances were tied up for the education of his three elder brothers, so he only had the chance to learn a few letters from looking over the shoulders of his siblings.

His eldest brother Mykyta had received a good education in reading and writing so that he would be able to manage the farm when he inherited it. Edvin, the second eldest, had been given a much better education in accounting, with the hopes that he would help out the family even after he moved away from the house, and that should the worst happen he would still be capable of managing the farm, even if he wouldn’t be the best farmer. Gustavo, the third son, had managed to get a lucky break when the blacksmith in town had needed an apprentice and selected him. While he had moved away from the house at a young age, he still stayed in touch, and of course having a blacksmith in the family was invaluable for helping out around the farm.

No one had ever said that the Ludvigs didn’t know how to create a network.

Of course, by the time Pietro had reached the age of five, there wasn’t much left for him, but that didn’t particularly get him down. There was a lot of unclaimed land out here in the Marches that a sturdy man could work. All he needed was permission from the Baron or the Right Honourable Marchioness Dorota Weiss to stake a claim, something that he could do with a down payment of about four hundred Thranish silver talents and proof that he could make the venture succeed.

Four hundred talents was a lot of money, but over the years Pietro had managed to get together about a quarter of that safely stashed away, which was enough for Edvin to be able to talk a money lender he worked with in Eilynapur into giving Pietro a loan of about six hundred talents, the extra money going into buying the supplies necessary to start up a farm.

‘Proof’ varied, but generally some form of military service or being married was enough. Despite being on the borders of the mostly lawless Vanyian Mountains, the Upper Eilyna was a quiet area for the most part and both the Baron and Marchioness were looking to expand for the glory of the kingdom. Pietro wasn’t a violent man, but he had taken up learning the sword and spear in his spare time just in case he was called up for military service, and because it wouldn’t hurt to show he could defend himself when making his case.

What he did intend to do however, was marry Marta Draganov, the second daughter of Manuel Draganov, a successful pig farmer on the other side of town. She was quite pretty, was of sturdy Vanyian ancestry so would probably bear plenty of strong, healthy sons, and most of all, her father was a proud, doting man who would undoubtedly provide a dowry larger than the bride price offered. That would probably mean a pig or two, depending on how much Pietro offered, which would come in quite handy.

The fact that Marta seemed to like him was simply an incidental bonus for Pietro.

With the autumn harvest almost entirely in, Pietro had time to sit back, relax, and start tallying his gains for the year. He had about a hundred twenty talents, and he planned on earning another fifty over the winter. Come spring, he would have enough to get the loan and offer a good bride price for Marta. Showing up with the required down payment plus extra plus a wife and a pig or two would show that he was ready and set to start claiming untamed land for the nobles.

With Mykyta having brought a bride of his own into the household and the past seasons having brought in bumper crops with taxes being not too severe, the household had the money to help Pietro clear some land up in the hills. Gustavo, who was in on the plan, had already volunteered to give Pietro a considerable quantity of tools as a wedding gift, which would help immensely. The Draganov family would probably also lend a hand in the whole process as well.

By the end of next fall Pietro had high hopes that he would have a sturdy house built and enough land cleared that he could meet payments for taxes and the loan while also having enough food for the winter. If not, then he expected to have enough money left over from the initial loan to last until the end of the next year. It would be tough, but the Ludvigs were a tough family. He would manage.

And maybe, just maybe, if he were lucky and good enough, he would see his grandchildren buy their house from the Baron. That was always a proud day, when a man could say that his family owned land.

It was early evening. Pietro had been down at the town with Gustavo, helping him haul about some goods and materials during the day as a merchant had rolled into town. Gustavo had done good business, shoeing one of the horses and selling some finished iron goods in exchange for enough iron ingots to last the winter. Both had come out well ahead in their transactions, as had the merchant. Out in the marches, not all settlements had a proper blacksmith, making finished goods quite valuable if you knew where to sell them.

As the two brothers walked towards the house they had been born in, Pietro spotted light coming out of the lower story windows and noted, “They’re up late.”

Shrugging his broad, thickly muscled shoulders, Gustavo replied, “So are we. Today was a good day, they must be celebrating.”

Thinking for a moment, Pietro then snapped his fingers in realization, “Oh yes, now I remember! Mykyta stopped by today, remember? He said that Edvin was going to be at the house later.”

“Ah! No wonder they are still up!” Gustavo said with a laugh.

The Ludvigs house was a large, sprawling affair, started generations ago as little more than a hut and expanded upon with each generation, adding new sections of wood and stone onto the previous structure, creating an architectural jumble of many different styles that someone occasionally tried to blend together into a cohesive whole. As the family had come to own more and more of their own land, they had also added more decorations to the house, with whitewash giving way gradually to a variety of bright paints.

It was home.

Opening the door wide, Pietro and Gustavo found the whole family sitting about the table in the main room, dozens of candles and a good sized fire lighting up the house. They were immediately welcomed by cheers and raised mugs. Edvin was indeed sitting at the table, and he immediately rose to greet his brothers.

Pietro was the first one to reach Edvin, wrapping him in an enormous bear hug while he said, “My brother! You need to get out in the sun some more or you’ll never find a bride!”

Edvin may have been an accountant, but he was also the son of a farmer, so he had more than enough strength to avoid being crushed to a paste. The sun comment however was quite true, with Edvin already taking on a somewhat unattractive pallor, his ruddy-olive skin having dropped a shade or two now that he was indoors so much.

Released from the grip, Edvin ran his fingers through Pietro’s partly sun bleached hair, and said, “You simple farmers, hair is where it is at!” Edvin obviously believed that comment, for he kept his curly locks of terra cotta hair neatly trimmed and oiled, as was the style in the larger cities.

Nodding thoughtfully, Pietro agreed, “It is true that you have nice hair brother, although I think you should thank mama for that.”

From the table, Mateja laughed at his sons before hugging his wife close and saying, “Why do you think I married her?”

Giorgia Ludvigs nee Nicchi was of Lower Eilyna stock, her father having been a mercenary who settled down in Upper Eilyna after the last major war over fifty years ago, and thus she had inherited the distinctive Imperial Scarlet hair common in that more southerly land. Long and tightly curled naturally, it was the kind of hair that royalty would occasionally pay ludicrous sums to have made into wigs if their own locks were insufficient.

There was general laughter all around before Gustavo caught Edvin in his own bear hug, the powerful blacksmith coming much closer to breaking bones than Pietro’s had, although Gustavo knew his strength quite well so there was no danger to his smaller brother.

Settling down at the table, a plate of roast chicken, gravy, potatoes fried in lard, and heavy wheat bread freshly baked from the recent harvest was placed in front of him by his third sister, Alfreda. Thanking her quietly, Pietro dug in with gusto for a moment before he asked, “So what brings you all the way out here Edvin?”

Glancing about at the smiling faces of the rest of his family, everyone else having already heard the story, Edvin said slyly, “I came because I have good news.”

“Do not be so coy brother, we are simply country folk in comparison to your city ways,” Gustavo said while shovelling chicken and gravy into his mouth with a thick slice of bread.

Laughing, Edvin sits back and with a smile said, “I’ve been accepted as a junior clerk for Saturnino and Sushil in Thranapur.”

“You’re moving to the capital?” Pietro and Gustavo asked simultaneously in shock.

“Yes,” Edvin said with a broad smile.

Standing up, Pietro cried out exuberantly, “Why is there no wine out then?”

Everyone burst out laughing at this before Mateja rose along with his son and bellowed, “Because we were waiting for you two slowpokes! My lovely daughters; bring the wine!”

The laughter and smiles continued long into the night as the wine and beer flowed freely, the family breaking deep into their stocks in the cellars for this celebration. By midnight the candles had burnt out and the fire died down to glowing red embers, with only the Pietro, Gustavo, and Edvin still up and about, the rest of the family having gone to their beds already. Mykyta had wanted to stay up, but one look from his pretty young wife had told him that there was more fun to be had elsewhere.

So the three youngest brothers sat outside in the cool air on the edge of the porch, watching the stars and moon above, passing an amphora of wine from Lower Eilyna between them as they chatted and made rude comments about the noises coming out of the window to Mykyta’s room.

“Ah, we will miss you brother. We barely get to see you these days what with you working in Eilynapur, and that’s only two days journey away! How far is the capital?” Gustavo asked while taking a pull from his amphora.

“Six weeks by land, but if you go down the Eilyna and then hop across the Molnod Sea its cut down to two and a half. Of course, the cost triples and there is the risk of pirates, so I’m going to be taking the slow route,” Edvin explained dryly.

“By the Deathlord, how did you get a job so far away then?” Pietro asked before taking a drink of wine.

“I caught an error in the paperwork of a count that would have cost him over six thousand talents had it not been corrected,” Edvin replied casually.

The deep purple, sweet wine in Pietro’s mouth exited much more quickly than it entered, forming a fine mist in the air. By some comedic act of synchronicity Mykyta’s little wife let out a loud wail from the room at that exact moment, causing all three brothers to burst out into uncontrollable gales of laughter for a good minute, Pietro trying, and failing amidst the side splitting laughter, to painfully to clear his nostrils of the wine that had flooded them. His tears, coughing, and the fluid leaking from his nose only served to make his brothers laugh all the harder, and for Pietro to join them.

It really was rather funny.

Coughing a few times to clear his throat and then wiping his face with his sleeve, Pietro said with as much exaggeration as he felt he could get away with, “Don’t be so casual about such things! I nearly died!”

Passing the amphora to Edvin amongst the chuckling, Pietro then sighs and asked, “Will we ever see you again brother?”

Taking a drink, Edvin shrugs greatly before saying, “I honestly cannot say brother, but we probably will never meet again, unfortunately.”

Shaking his head, Gustavo replied, “It is a pity we will lose you, but imagine what good having the Ludvigs name in the capital will do.”

Nodding, Pietro added on, “Yes brother, you will go further than any of us could ever go in our wildest dreams. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if with your clever wit you managed to get a great-grandchild into one of those great merchant families!”

Shaking his head ruefully, Edvin just sighed and told his brothers, “Now let’s not let this go to your heads.”

“Bah! You are too modest! The Deathlord smiles upon you. You should smile back and enjoy the blessing,” Gustavo announced while smacking Edvin on the back hard. The drink had fuzzed his reflexes a little, so the accountant received significantly more force than intended, knocking him flying off the porch.

It took them another full minute to stop laughing, all of them. Eventually Gustavo just looked at the amphora and said, “I fear I may have had too much brothers!”

Waving it aside while dusting himself off, Edvin replied, “No harm, no foul my brother.”

Sighing and looking up at the stars, Pietro noted with a touch of nostalgia and remorse, “You know, little Severina has already started attracting the eyes of possible suitors. I expect Alfreda will be married off soon as well. I can’t help but feel happy for you brother, but saddened by the things that you will miss. Life is so much better with family.”

Going quiet for a moment, Edvin finally said, “Actually brother… I have some news for you that I wanted to tell you myself, which is one of the reasons I came here, aside from wanting to say goodbye.”

“Oh, is it equally good news?” Pietro asked before taking another swig from the amphora.

Sighing, Edvin said, “No. It’s about the loan.”

The wine turned to vinegar in Pietro’s mouth. Lowering the jug and setting it on the ground, he asked with barely controlled panic, “What about the loan? I thought you said that all I needed was to have a hundred talents to show I could raise money and the lender could set me up.”

Nodding slowly, Edvin replied, “I did. Unfortunately someone took issue with the lender’s repayment plan and stabbed him. I think it may have been a hit from one of the criminal organizations in the cities.”

All the food and alcohol in Pietro’s stomach turned to lead and sat there like a lump. Eventually he asked, “What… what does this mean?”

Sighing and shaking his head in sadness and anger, Edvin told him, “I had a good working relationship with that man which is why I managed to secure such reasonable terms for you. I don’t think I can find anything so good for you in the time I have left before I leave for the capital.”

Pietro blinked a few times, trying to get his head to clear, before eventually he just sort of lurched to his feet and began to stumble away. Both his brothers were at his side quickly and Gustavo said, “Maybe you should go to bed…”

Shaking his head, Pietro shook them off angrily and replied, “No! No… I… I need to take a walk now… I need to stop by the church. Yes, I need to do some praying brothers. Alone.”

Pietro lurched away, and Edvin and Gustavo respected his wishes to be alone. It wasn’t like he could actually get hurt out there seeing as the air had yet to have a winter chill settle in. The most likely thing would be that he would wake up in the morning with a hangover in the middle of a field wondering how he got there. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened.

Somehow Pietro managed to keep his wits about him enough that as the eastern horizon began to have a tint of red in the blue sky he stumbled upon the Church of the Deathlord. It was quiet and dark inside, but the door wasn’t locked, as usual. The church was a sanctuary, open to all, and it wasn’t like there was anything worth stealing. Not that anyone would dare steal something from a church like this.

The only light was a single votive candle burning away in front of the altar, giving faint, shadowy illumination to the entire structure. Walking forward, Pietro reached into his pockets and pulled out what change he had on him at the time. Looking at them roughly, he tries to count out what he needs before he just dropped them all into the donation bin and picked up an unlit candle from a box for just this sort of purpose.

He hoped he had given enough. He would check in the morning when he woke up.

Lighting his candle from the flame of the one burning, he set it down beside the one already in place before backing off and dropping unceremoniously into one of the pews in the front. The motion was a bit too much for his drunken brain to process so everything swam for a time.

Eventually he found himself staring up at the ceiling. The church was a simple place, but a generation or two ago someone had scrounged up the money to hire a half decent artist to paint a reasonably good fresco on the ceiling, telling the tales of the Deathlord.

In the dim, flickering light, the still images of the old tales seemed to take on their own life, dancing and moving before Pietro’s eyes. He could practically hear the ring of swords as the First Wars were fought, the scream of men and horses as the first humans pushed the demons back into the wastes from whence they came. Sparks flew and hammers rang as men took the Lesson of Iron from the Deathlord and forged better arms and armour in preparation for the next conflict. Crows and ravens cawed and feasted upon the heroes of the First Age, completing the compact between man and god made so long ago.

The Deathlord had given man death. It was their tool and blessing. Their tool for in the ages before the Deathlord there had only been suffering at the hands of the strong with no escape. The first death in the world was when the first prophet had struck down one of the demonic tormentors and began the First War. It was their blessing for death defined every action men took. From birth they hurtled towards a meeting with their god, a meeting where they would have to prove their worth in life.

Death was what told them that life went on.

Pietro closed his eyes, exhaustion and drink overcoming him, but he resolved that he when he woke, he would find a way to make this all work. Life went on.

[LadyTevar]

A very interesting mythology. I'm waiting to hear more.

[Academia Nut]

Tell me, what would you prefer: continue in chronological order to get up to the point in the prelude (which was basically just a way of hooking readers by showing that there would be ass kicking) or flip back and forth between past and present? Thus the next chapter would pick up in the cave, and the one after that would show what happens when Pietro wakes up, etc.

Also, this mythology was sort of dreamt up in response to the typical RPG mythologies you find, wherein every species but the humans has their own deity or even pantheon, but the humans are the odd ones out despite often being portrayed as the most powerful and influential. So I've toyed around with several fantasy settings wherein the reason for humans being such monumental ass kickers, and having shorter lives in comparison to everything else, is because their patron deity is the god of death and introduced the damn concept to the cosmos via his servants.

[Ford Prefect]

I like the mythology there, and I think you should flip back and forth between the past and the 'present'. I like that sort of writing.

[White Haven]

I've always been a fan of the converging flashback, the historic timeline moving up faster than the present-day one until they merge. It's a nifty vehicle for hiding things from the reader about the present and revealing them bit by bit, plus it's just fun to read.

[Academia Nut]

Yeah, that's what I was sort of thinking too. By flipping back and forth between the past and the present, I could move the overall plotline forward while also being able to take some time to show how Pietro got up in the northern mountains in the first place, as its more than a bit of a journey. Of course, since he's not supposed to have been in a fight before reaching the elves (or he could have just been lying I suppose) the trip would be a bit... unexciting at times. Then again, with what I have planning, just describing neat little trip across the nation of Thrane and up into the wilds would make a nice counterpoint to the absolute chaos of the present.

[LadyTevar]

I agree with White Haven and Ford. FlipFlop the timeline, drop us hints and then reveal slowly.

[Sidewinder]

I agree with the other readers, the Deathlord's legend is very interesting. Does the Deathlord have a name, or is he (she?) like the Emperor in WH40K, a nameless god of unknown origins?

[Academia Nut]

I'm not sure of that myself yet, although if pushed I may simply claim that its a translation convention. The name may very well be something like Mortalitas Dominus, or stranger as latin isn't exactly used in this world, but the meaning is Deathlord. That's all the people really care about. Their god is the god of death and their lord, simple as that, and since this isn't the sort of story where the gods come down all the time to beat up on mortals, he isn't exactly giving out an informal name.

The Deathlord does however have an origin story that will be revealed in time. There is a reason that the elves use insulting language.

[Academia Nut]

Chapter 2: Awakening

Life went on. Pietro wished it hadn’t. He was swimming in and out of a sea of pain, barely conscious at the best of times, although it was impossible to tell the difference between waking and sleep most of the time as there was no light, just the indication of movement, almost like the rocking of the barge on the Eilyna.

There was no time. There was no space.

The only way that Pietro knew that he was not dead was because he had yet to be brought before one of the Judges to give an account for his life and be placed in one of the appropriate Books. Pietro figured that he should at least earn a place in the Book of the Dead, if not the Tome of Honoured Dead, safe from the dreaded Scrolls of Oblivion.

Eventually Pietro found consciousness returning to him solidly. As usual, he could not tell if he had his eyes closed or if it were merely dark, but he suspected the latter. The pain had subsided a great deal and Pietro could feel his surroundings beyond simple aches in most places.

The first thing Pietro discerned was that he was tied down to something with some form of rope, immobilizing his head, limbs, chest, and hips. There was also some sort of gag in his mouth. From the sensation of the ropes, which were remarkably smooth and unlike any of the hemp ropes he had ever handled before, he was almost certainly naked. Troubling, but since he had probably been captured, to be expected.

Pietro then tried to take stock of his injuries as best he could, finding to his delight that he could still move all his fingers on both hands, and that his right arm even appeared to be set. That latter bit confused him somewhat, as all the tales of the elves told that they weren’t big into healing. True, they knew how to keep you alive when you should have died four times over, but once something broke it tended to stay broke.

More troubling though was the loss of sensation in his toes. There seemed a very good chance that they had been frostbitten, something Pietro had only ever heard rumours of during the mild, wet winters back home, but he had been strongly warned against once the caravan had moved into more frigid climates.

Damn. He had liked his toes. Well, he liked them as much as most body parts he supposed, it’s not like he had particularly thought about them before, but when you start losing appendages it really makes you sit up and take stock.

As Pietro began to shift and move about to feel his body, he began to feel a curious tingle, like hundreds of pinpricks on his skin, moving a shifting. The closest thing he could compare it to was the funny feeling when you slept on a limb wrong and woke up in the morning and it stung of pins and needles as sensation returned, but that was more visceral. This sensation was… external to him. The best description, he supposed, was that there were… things… crawling… on… him…

As the thought settled in Pietro jerked in fright, moaning into his gag as the sudden motion aggravated his arm. The tingling, pricking sensation suddenly became faster and more insistent, the points of feeling progressively leaving his body via the edges until finally they stopped.

Pietro shuddered in fear. Something, or rather a lot of somethings, had been crawling all over him and had retreated once he started kicking about.

Perhaps his pained moan was what drew them, or perhaps it was merely a scheduled check-up, but there was a sudden flare of light in the darkness, muted by what appeared to be a sheet between him and the source. The shadows were still deep and the forms about him still hazy, but Pietro managed to make out that he was in some sort of cell, strapped to a table, and on the other side of the sheet there were at least two humanoid figures, one of which was holding what was probably a candle.

The sheet was lifted up and more light flooded the cell. For a moment Pietro was blinded by the light, his eyes having been in darkness for too long. Looking away, he managed to spy what had to have been the source of the pricking on his skin.

Spiders.

Pietro was surrounded by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of shiny black spiders, the smallest being the size of the eye of a needle, while the largest were the size of his thumb. They had retreated a safe distance from him, but only that, remaining as close as possible, so he could still make out all sorts of unwanted details on the larger ones. Like the fact that their front legs appeared to end in tiny hooks perfect for digging into flesh. Or the way their beady little eyes flashing with the orange light of the candle, watching him so silently and patiently.

He also noticed the dozens, perhaps hundreds of tiny little marks all over his skin and the fine gauzy webs that covered him. They had been biting him, eating him, weaving a web around him like a fly captured in a larder.

Pietro screamed into his gag as loudly as he could while thrashing at the bonds that held him.

A soft, smooth hand rested upon his shoulder and a feminine voice said something in a language he did not understand but that seemed to be composed mostly of hissing, clicking, and popping syllables.

Pietro blinked and looked up.

He screamed and thrashed louder and harder.

The… the creature he was looking at was not human, and it was not an elf. It was certainly more terrifying than both.

Humans were familiar, comforting, and even the most sadistic bastard sent to torture him would have at least been natural and within Pietro’s context to process.

Elves were monsters through and through and they even looked the part, but they were a monster he had grown up knowing about. He knew all the signs for identifying an elf: angular features, a disdain for clothing, pale skin, blond hair, blue eyes, the works. He also knew that they not only did not know the Lesson of Iron, but they had been cursed by the Deathlord with the Iron Curse and could not tolerate its touch. He knew that for all their strength and speed, their weapons were inferior, made from stone and bone or copper and bronze at best. Pietro knew, like all humans knew, that elves could be fought.

What he saw before him was neither. It was neither familiar nor something he had any idea how to fight.

The creature appeared like a human woman, but it wasn’t. It was very, very close, but it was also so very wrong. Humans were earth and iron, the soil they tilled and the metals they worked having soaked into them over countless generations. Hair and skin and eyes all fell within some spectrum of reds and browns. This creature was monochrome.

The thing had two colours. Only two colours. Exactly two colours. One of those colours was black, and the other was white. And not any sort of specific black or white that implied subtle tones and gradations, just full on black or full on white with nothing in between. Not charcoal and silver. Not jet and alabaster. Black. And white.

It wore a loose, long tunic of some sort, hanging from its shoulders down to its knees, white of course, although the shadows of the room and the yellow candlelight made it hard to confirm immediately. The voluminous folds seemed excessively loose and draped scandalously low by his standards, although the gossamer nature of the fabric made it a bit of a moot point in any case. Far from being titillating though, the see-through nature simply emphasized the unnaturalness of the thing.

Its front was primarily white, reaching down at least as low as the crotch and all the way up to the top of the forehead, with the sides at least being black, presumably the back too. Along the torso the black colouration intruded, forming a pattern of stripes along the rib cage, curling up under the breasts to almost meet in the sternum, if not for a very thin line of white separating them. The creature’s nipples were, of course, black, in contrast with the rest of its skin in that region. There was a stripe of black down each collarbone, leading up to the shoulders. The inner side of each arm was white all the way to the tips of the fingers.

Along the neck the band of white thinned considerably, finger-like stripes reached out about the throat but never quite connecting. Once the band reached the chin it widened out considerably. The chin was a small circle of white connecting to the mouth at the corners. The lips were black except for a tiny line of white in the middle, just beneath the nose. The cheeks were large circles of white, their circumferences joined by the corners of the mouth and the corners of the eyes, while the forehead was a solid patch of white that ran up to the hairline. A line of black ran from the tip of the nose, up the bridge before splitting into the eyebrows, forming a T-shape. The eyebrows themselves were lines of short, wiry white hair, while the hair on the top of the head was long and held tight at the back in a short pony tail, bands of black and white alternating at regular intervals across its scalp.

The worst part though was the thing’s eyes. They were deep pools of black interrupted only by the purest white irises that seemed to just float there, staring at him.

The thing suddenly looked annoyed with him and continued to try and tell him something before finally it leaned over, its face right next to Pietro, causing him to stop thrashing as he concentrated on trying to get as far away from it as possible. It regarded him for a moment with a look that on a human would be roughly interpreted as annoyance, before it said something slow and low.

It then smiled, allowing Pietro to get a good look at its teeth and the way its canines were perhaps a bit too long and pointy for a human, although not by much, just enough to be noticeable if you looked at them as closely as Pietro was forced to. It then lowered its face to his shoulder, and with curiously little pain, it bit him.

After a few seconds all of Pietro’s muscles below the neck suddenly went slack. He could still flop his head about, within the confines of his restraints, but without the rest of his body for support he couldn’t do much. All he could do was look and continue to scream as the thing retreated.

Holding out its hand next the table, the creature had numerous of the spiders still waiting on the periphery climb on. Examining him, it lowered its hand over the wound in his stomach caused by the dart from the elf and dozens of the spiders hopped off and began to crawl around. Whatever poison had been in the creature’s bite had only paralyzed him, not dulled his sense of touch, so he felt the ever so tiny pinpricking sensation of the spider’s legs moving over him.

His panicked screaming reached a fever pitch when one of the larger spiders used its hooked forward legs to peel open the wound, allowing the smaller ones to swarm inside. The sensation was bizarre and disgusting, the visceral feeling of things crawling about inside him, poking and prodding at him. As he watched in horror, the swarm returned to the surface carrying miniscule bits of him that the others began to feast upon before returning, like miners coming and going with hauls of ore.

The movement of his chest from his screaming was still distracting the spiders, so one of the larger ones bit down into him, its sharp fangs plunging into a vein, allowing it to taste Pietro’s blood. Several others nearby then migrated to his throat and bit him just next to the jugular. Pietro’s world swirled for a moment, and then he suddenly found himself light headed and unnaturally calm. He was still frightened beyond belief, but he found himself suddenly unable to care enough to react. Instead, he just watched.

The large spiders that bit him immediately began spinning their webbing, their nimble limbs manipulating the gossamer filaments and using them to weave his flesh together again, sealing up the wounds. The scuttling creatures then licked up whatever blood had leaked out, other spiders coming in to continue the cleaning when the first ones seemed full.

All across his body the spiders flooded back, swarming over him and returning the work they had been doing before he awoke. The wound in his gut was finished being excised, some of the spiders knitting it back up while others ate the detritus that had been cleared out. Other wounds were checked, old webbing torn up and eaten while fresh material was put down. Scabs were tended to and smoothed out. A whole team was devoted to cleaning and sealing the bite wound that had paralyzed him.

It was all remarkably industrious.

But still… spiders.

The humanoid creature that had bitten him was shortly joined by the other one, holding the candle. It was also female looking, although Pietro had no idea if these things even had gender the way a human would. The patterns of black and white on its body were rather different, but overall the effect was the same, and the eyes were the same. The two of them watched the spiders work.

The two of them looked over Pietro, and a certain look entered their eyes… one of hunger. They were looking at Pietro as if he were a piece of meat.

Whatever they were thinking of doing next was interrupted by the sudden arrival of a third one of these creatures, this one subtly yet immediately strikingly different. First of all, this one was not monochrome like the others, it actually had a third colour, blood red, and also to a certain extent tones between white and black.

The creature’s clothing was somewhat thicker and of a tighter weave and more voluminous than the others, although still shamelessly cut to Pietro’s eyes, and it featured in the centre a large, red abstract symbol that looked somewhat like a watchtower or a badly distorted ‘I’ or possibly a bunch of triangles and rectangles mashed together. The clothes were also interspersed with other, subtler designs picked out in black against the white of the fabric.

The patterns on its body were also significantly more intricate, with the white patches in front not actually forming a continuous line from crown to crotch, but there were also intrusions of white into the black. For example, the stripes about the ribs on the others had thin lines of white running down their centres, and there seemed to be white stripes reaching about the back. The stripes that curled up between the breasts actually met up on his one before branching off to meet the stripes running down the collarbones. The stripes on the throat were full blown bands of white and black. The facial markings were much more florid, with demi-spirals and blade-like stripes of both colours marking it.

But most of all was the red. Instead of the white irises and white hair of the other two, this one had deep, scarlet irises and red and black banded hair.

Those eyes locked on Pietro and the way he was lying still and the patched over bite mark on his shoulder.

The newcomer immediately started chattering angrily at the other two in whatever language it was the spoke, the syllables flying fast and furious, its arms and hands gesticulating wildly. The other two immediately joined in the intensely somatic conversation, the three of them hissing and clicking and waving their limbs all over the place.

Judging by the way they were all pointing, Pietro guessed that the discussion was about him. Apparently the newcomer, the one Pietro was labelling Red in his mind, was upset that Biter had bit him and that Candle had not stopped Biter… or at least that’s what Pietro guessed. Biter was protesting this, or at least was obviously protesting something. Candle was protesting as well, but it seemed to be more of an ‘I’m not involved’ sort of protestation.

Finally Biter threw up its hands and reached down for something beneath the table Pietro was strapped to, coming back up with a large clay jug. Placing it on the edge of the table, it urged the spiders inside, which they did with haste. Once the streams of spiders had finished flowing into the jar, Biter sealed it up, sniffed in annoyance and left the room.

Red then gestured to Candle, who sighed and set the candle on a small platform designed for just such a thing. Candle then began to untie Pietro from the table while binding him with the same sort of smooth ropes they used on the table. He had his hands bound together at the wrists, although considering that his right arm was still in a sling there wasn’t much he could have done anyway. It shackled his feet about the ankles, ensuring he could not run faster or far. Finally it wrapped a long rope about his neck and handed the other end to Red before releasing the final restraints.

Pietro was freed from the table, but he was still paralyzed and the world was still wrapped in a fuzzy blanket of calm. Red looked patient enough to wait for the first to wear off before it took him away.

Not for the first time since the attack, Pietro suddenly regretted leaving home.

Looking into those red irises, Pietro really regretted leaving home.

---

And the playing with fantasy tropes continues.

[LadyTevar]

What are they?!!?
Not drow.... Drakalfar?

[Academia Nut]

Considering the fact that I had to look that word up, no.

These creatures are not quite like anything you have ever seen before, but obviously I'm ripping certain aspects off from elsewhere. While I doubt I'll ever be able to completely file off the serial numbers of a lot of my creations, I do hope that I can at least stamp my own numbers on firmly enough that no one cares.

[LadyTevar]

Drakalfar = "Dark Elves" As opposed to the fair-haired, fair-skinned LiosAlfar (Light Elves) ... who fit the description you gave of the elves that nearly killed him.

So what *are* these beings? Sluagh, the whisperers in the dark?

[Academia Nut]

Well that would be telling, now wouldn't it? I suppose if you would like to volunteer to help me make this story work I could let you in on all my little secrets, but then you wouldn't get the fun of all the little surprises that would come along, now would you?

These creatures are rather strange though, and probably unlike any single thing from mythology, modern or ancient.

[Academia Nut]

So I wrote another chapter, these things are short, and since I don't have a beta reader for this story, there's less delay time.

---

Chapter 3: Possibilities

Pietro awoke mid-morning, after the sun had risen well into the sky, when his ears detected the scratching of bristles upon the wooden floor. Cracking open his eyes, he found Father Mykola attempting to sweep about his sprawled out form, Pietro having slumped out of the pew at some time during the night.

Scrambling to get out of the way, Pietro found that his hangover just meant that he found himself on a different part of the floor. Chuckling, the middle aged priest helped him to sit up in one of the pews, saying, “Don’t worry Pietro, you’re not the first one to end up in the church with a hangover, and you won’t be the last either.”

Waiting for the world to stop spinning, Pietro finally managed to mumble out, “Forgive me Father, I…”

“You’re having problems,” Mykola said while sitting down next to him.

“How did you know?” Pietro asked while trying to rub his headache out via his temples.

“Generally when someone stumbles in here drunk in the middle of the night and lights a votive candle, then something is bothering them,” Father Mykola says with a smile.

“I… I actually wasn’t drinking to forget. Edvin is in town,” Pietro said apologetically.

“Is that why you came in here?” Mykola asked suspiciously.

“No, that’s just why I was drunk,” Pietro replied wanly while trying to get his eyes to not feel like they had spikes shoved through them every time he looked at something bright.

“So you are troubled?” Mykola asked patiently.

“Yes… yes. I… I thought I had my life all planned out, and now I find out things aren’t going quite as I had planned,” Pietro admitted.

“Ah, so you came seeking some inspiration from the Deathlord?” Mykola inquired calmly.

Nodding and then wincing at how that made his head rattle about, Pietro said, “Yes. I… I don’t know exactly what to do, but I do know that I’ll just have to forge ahead. Life is for living.”

“Ah. Very astute of you. Might I presume something then?” Father Mykola asked.

“Uh… of course father,” Pietro said in confusion.

“This has to do with money,” Mykola stated plainly.

“Uh… yes,” Pietro said, dumbfounded by the priest’s knowledge.

“I thought so. Yes, when woes and accountants go together, money is usually involved somehow,” Mykola noted.

“Yes… yes… I was planning on having enough money that I could get a loan so I could have enough money to get married to Marta Draganov next year, but something happened that caused that to fall through. Edvin is leaving for the capital, so when I get enough money to qualify for a loan I’ll have to do the negotiations on my own and… and yeah… by the time I get all that squared away Marta will be married to someone else for sure,” Pietro explained, letting all his troubles out for Mykola to see.

Nodding sagely, Mykola eventually replied, “Yes, that is a situation that would be troublesome. Still, you are young and the area is not hurting for eligible maids at the moment, I am sure that you will be able to find a suitable wife when you have the money.”

Sighing, Pietro said, “That is true Father, and it is probably what will happen. It is simply… aggravating for something like this to occur. If only there was some way for me to make two hundred talents by spring…”

Mulling this over for a moment, Father Mykola finally said, “Actually, now that you mention that, I am reminded of something that Mitrofan, that merchant who was in town yesterday, told me. Apparently there are several trading companies in Eilynapur that are desperately in need of guards for their caravans and are willing to pay quite well.”

“Really?” Pietro asked.

“Well, that was what he told me. I would ask your brother Edvin, he would know better about the happenings of the city, but that is what Mitrofan said, and he has little reason to lie to me about such a thing,” Mykola said with a shrug.

“Do you think he is still in town?” Pietro inquired.

Shaking his head, Mykola replied, “No, he left shortly after seeing me, wanting to get a head start on the road further up into the hills. Time is money for merchants, especially this time of year when they want to get done their circuit before the snow starts falling.”

Nodding, Pietro said, “Thank you father, you have been a great help to me,” before he tottered to his feet.

Rising, Mykola smiled broadly and told him, “You are welcome here any time Pietro. Be sure to congratulate your brother on his new job for me.”

“I will,” Pietro said with a nod before leaving the church behind.

Exiting, Pietro blinked a few times in the bright, warm autumn sun, before forging on. He was rather hungry and thirsty and considered heading home first, but he was closer to town anyway. Gustavo would probably be at his shop, and Edvin would most likely be there as well, preparing to leave.

The village was really just a small cluster of shops around the cobbled highway the kingdom had built several hundred years ago. There was the smithy, the butcher, the tanner, the inn, and the general store, and that was about it.

From the clang of iron on iron, Pietro knew that his guess about Gustavo had been correct. Entering the sprawling workshop, Pietro immediately turned to the small shrine to the Deathlord and bowed his head as was custom. Since the Deathlord had also given humanity the Lesson of Iron, every place where the metal was worked was sacred. While out in the country smiths were of a more pragmatic bred, in the big cities the role of smith and priest could blend together. Pietro had heard stories from Gustavo, Edvin, and even Father Mykola that there were entire orders of priest-smiths that devoted their entire lives to the study of iron and steel and the crafts made from it. They were apparently in quite high demand by knights as they made by far the best arms and armour.

“Brother?” Pietro asked, causing the clanging to stop and for Gustavo to come out of the forge section of the smithy.

Spying his brother, he lifted the face mask used to keep most flying sparks out of his eyes and said, “Pietro! Are you feeling better?”

Nodding, Pietro replied, “A bit hung over, but I went to the church and had a talk with Father Mykola.”

“Ah, yes, that was a good idea,” Gustavo said with a nod.

“Is Edvin here?” Pietro asked.

“He’s over at the inn right now, waiting for cart to head back to Eilynapur so he can hitch a ride,” Gustavo replied with a jerk of his head in the direction of the inn.

“Thanks, I need to have a chat with him,” Pietro said before leaving his brother to his work.

Heading out of the smithy, Pietro wanders over to the inn. While really more of the town pub, it did have some guest rooms for the occasional traveller passing through on the highway. Heading inside, Pietro found Edvin all packed up and ready to go, sitting at one of the tables enjoying a beer.

Sitting down next to Edvin, Pietro asked, “How are you today brother?”

“Well enough. You?” Edvin asked over his mug.

“Better than last night, I think. I had a chat with Father Mykola,” Pietro told him.

“Ah, good man Mykola. I really should have stopped by to see him,” Edvin replies with a shrug.

“He sends his congratulations by the way. Anyway, I was talking with him and he brought up an interesting fact. He said that there are a number of companies in Eilynapur looking for guards for their caravans,” Pietro said.

Edvin’s face soured when he heard that. Setting down his beer, he looked at Pietro and said, “That is because after the Council of Kelvast two years ago it was declared that trade with the dwarves was non-heretical for the first time in a hundred years.”

Pietro blinked and asked, “Dwarves?”

“They’re a… nation, race, kind of spirit… the church is still arguing about the classification. They look somewhat like humans, if about a head or two shorter than normal and stockier than most, but they’re not,” Edvin explained dismissively.

“So they’re… like elves?” Pietro asked, thumping his chest in warding.

Shaking his head, Edvin detailed out, “No, they hate the elves like every other sane creature, and comparing the two is a sure way to get in a fight. Dwarves are hot headed little bastards who dig into the deeps of the earth and have a love affair with metals. The church has had an on-again off-again relationship with them since the days when the Deathlord taught men how to wage war. Mostly it has to do with whether or not the dwarves discovered the Lesson of Iron first.”

“That’s blasphemy!” Pietro exclaimed.

“Exactly. Occasionally the little bastards get it into their heads to take the official stance that they know everything there is to know about metals, at which point the church forbids trade with them and technically a crusade is declared, but open warfare is rare. Dwarves like to live in deep mines, deeper than men dig, down to where the earth starts to get hot. They can tolerate an incredible amount of heat, so much that some say that their smiths handle red hot metal with their bare hands. So because they live so deep and in such hot places, actually fighting with them is rather difficult, and they have similar problems on the surface,” Edvin detailed out.

“So why do we even care if they live so deep?” Pietro asked.

“They make really good stuff out of metals and crystals. Really good, I’ve handled some of their goods before in my duties and they’re incredible. The only place we have them beat is with iron and steel. The iron priests can make some crafts that make dwarf iron look pretty pathetic, and they’re actually admitting it these days, which is one of the reasons why the trade ban was lifted. Dwarves also have really bad food down in their caves, so they like to import stuff from human lands, plus some of our crafts, especially paints, are exotic to them. So they have stuff we want, and we have stuff they want, so when we can, we trade,” Edvin explained.

“Okay, so what does this all have to do with why guards are scarce?” Pietro asked.

Edvin was about to say something sarcastic before slapping himself on the forehead and sighing. Eventually he said, “Sorry, everyone in Eilynapur is talking about this so I forgot that you don’t really know what the trouble is. See, we don’t normally go to war, but a long time ago when there was one of these spats, the dwarves started undermining several settlements and destroying mines, so there was a massive crusade that ended with every dwarf stronghold south of the Olvanyian Mountains wiped out. They still carry a grudge about that by the way. That means that the closest places where we can trade with dwarves are in the Kelvanyian Territories. That’s elf land.”

Pietro blinked once before asking, “I thought you said…”

“Dwarves live deep in the ground and are excellent metal workers. Elves can fly on their nightmares. The two fight all the time but they can’t actually wipe each other out, hard as they try. The caravans only go to the closest dwarf settlements to trade, but even then the journey is long and hard and you spend at least a week in elf territory each way. Its dangerous and even those that don’t get attacked by those demons often get waylaid by bandits or vanish into an ice storm. To say nothing of the fact that they often lose men even when they’re successful,” Edvin told Pietro angrily.

“How much does it pay?” Pietro asked.

“It’s not worth it. That’s why no one is signing up for guard duty these days,” Edvin said bitterly.

Pietro glared at his brother and then said, “If it is as dangerous as you say then that will be good proof that I can take care of myself when I try to apply for a land grant. Now, how much does it pay?”

Sighing and shaking his head, Edvin said, “Fine. It typically pays 10 talents a day for a 10 week trip, plus a bonus if the trade is particularly good. But they only get away with that because they pay you at the end when half the guards are dead!”

Seven hundred talents and what could be roughly called combat experience, for one winter’s worth of work. Less even really. Pietro could already see the possibilities dancing in his mind.

“Damn it Pietro! Don’t do this! You’ll get yourself killed!” Edvin exclaims.

Placing his hand on his brother’s shoulder, Pietro looked him square in the eye and said, “Brother, this is divine providence, I can feel it. The Deathlord smiles upon our family. He has blessed our farm for generations. He has given you this opportunity to better yourself and the family name in the capital. He has brought Gustavo in amongst those that know the secrets of iron. I learned of this opportunity from Father Mykola. I am destined to go on this journey, I can feel it.”

Edvin looked back at his brother, his pale solid brown eyes locked with Pietro’s brown-flecked terracotta ones, before he broke it off with a shake of his head. “I can see I can’t stop you little brother. I’ll be long gone by the time you get to Eilynapur, I’m a schedule to get to the capital, but I’ll give you this advice. You have to bring your own equipment, typically a sword, a crossbow, and some armour, plus all the clothes you’ll need for the trip. You have a sword, correct?”

Nodding, Pietro said, “Yes, Gustavo made one for me when I recorded my name in the ledger for the king’s levies.”

“Okay, good, that’s one thing you don’t have to buy. Buy everything else on your own, do not rely upon the company hiring you to provide, because they will gouge you. So when you get to Eilynapur, find an armourer by the name of Valentin Petras. He makes good quality mail that will probably only cost you about 75 talents, maybe less if you drop my name since I did some bookkeeping for him last year. He should be able direct you to a good place to buy a crossbow, which will cost at least 50 talents for a decent one,” Edvin explained.

“That’s almost all of my money!” Pietro exclaimed.

Shrugging, Edvin continued, “I know, but if you’re going to do this and you survive you’ll have made it back several times over already. Plus in the event the kingdom goes to war you’ll have good quality equipment before the prices go through the roof due to demand, so it’s an investment. You’ll also need cold weather gear, but from what I’ve heard you’re best to just bring some of your own clothes and some spare money to buy what you need somewhere in the Olvanyian Mountains where they make heavier winter gear.”

After a long pause, Edvin asked, “Still want to do this brother?”

Considering for a long while, Pietro finally said, “Yes brother. I have to do this. Besides, I have confidence that nothing bad will happen.”

Edvin frowned.

[pieman3141]

The theology in this is quite interesting. A bit Tolkienian, in the sense that Man has the gift to die and move on, and that death is a good thing.

The political aspects, from what I've seen so far, resemble either Pre-Revolution France, or the Austrian-Hungarian Empire (more the latter, actually). Will there be more on this?

[Academia Nut]

There is certainly a touch of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as the whole region is a mishmash of ethnic groups, although as they say black and white will team up on green any day so there is far less strife than in the real world. Not that it doesn't happen, and wars between human nations are common, just that people blame things like elves for pigs being stolen four hundred years ago. There is also a bit of the Holy Roman Empire, but that will be expanded later.

Really though, I'm just winging it politically.

[Academia Nut]

Things get worse for poor Pietro.

---

Chapter 4: Enslavement

It did not take long for the paralytic agent to wear off and for Pietro to be forced to his feet by Red. Whatever was making him light headed and incapable of resisting was taking significantly longer to wear off however, so he just complied, following after the creature as it lead him along by the leash about his neck.

The lucid part of his brain being crushed by the chemicals flowing through his blood told him that he was a slave.

Slavery was not common in Thrane, only the nobles could really afford them and the peasantry was heavily entrenched, ensuring that they stayed off the farms. The Ludvigs had actually earned the land their house was on a hundred years ago when Upper Eilyna was reclaimed from Lotuvic by Thrane due to just such a fight. Lotuvic had better access to territories were they could take slaves and used them extensively on their villas and plantations, but when they tried to kick out the peasants in Eilyna they triggered a massive revolt that Thrane took advantage of. After retaking the land the King of Thrane had gifted most of the peasants involved small plots of land, typically just the family house or a garden, to make sure they didn’t keep revolting. That…

Pietro furrowed his brows. His mind was drifting. Far from wearing off, the stuff in his blood seemed to be getting worse.

Red was leading him through a dark set of corridors, the walls carved out of solid rock, the frequent doors only covered over by loose sheets. It was incredibly dark, only the occasional candle or strange glowing crystal thing providing any illumination. Red seemed to have no problem with the dark, but Pietro kept stubbing his toes, making the going even slower. Red seemed a little annoyed, but tolerated the slow going as simply one of those things.

As Pietro shuffled along, he really wished he had some clothes on. While the air was rather warm for being so dark and he wasn’t too uncomfortable, he was still quite embarrassed about the lack of clothes. Even a loincloth would be nice.

Eventually they exited the corridors into an antechamber, still carved out of solid rock but now with more decorations in the form of strange, alien mosaics depicting what looked like heavily abstracted battles involving humanoid figures and spider like beings, all illuminated by a number of large glowing crystal things. The battle lines were not very clear however, so it was hard to tell who or what was supposed to be winning.

There were a large number of the strange creatures out and about this room, most of them about a desk chattering away, but four in particular stood out, mostly because they were masculine in comparison to all the feminine creatures thus far seen, they formed up around Red and him, and most of all they were armed and armoured.

Their equipment was peculiar. Their armour was made of hundreds of small diamond shaped bits of metal woven together, perhaps on a backing, to make it look somewhat like the scales of a serpent or fish. That armour was all on the torso though, the arms protected by some sort of heavy leather, while the legs were almost completely unprotected, only a heavy, knee length kilt of some indeterminate material to ward off blows. Pietro noted that they wore no shoes, before making the observation that none of the creatures wore shoes. They did however have on rather ornate looking helmets.

The weapons they carried were equally strange to Pietro’s eyes. Admittedly, their spears were spears, but they were relatively short to the ten foot or longer military pikes Pietro was used to seeing, although from their thickness they were definitely thrusting weapons rather than thrown ones. The peculiar thing though was that their tips were made of steel, and that was probably the only iron they had on them, their armour most likely made from bronze or another soft metal. The short, leaf shaped swords at their sides were almost certainly bronze.

Still, their equipment was ornately decorated with various dyes, mostly red and black with the same symbol as on Red’s dress, and kept in good condition, so it was probably all very expensive for these people.

Despite being somewhat incapacitated mentally by the pharmaceuticals in his veins and head and being a farmer’s son, Pietro was not stupid. He had studied well the oral teachings of the Deathlord, and besides, it was a survival trait for a peasant to be able to identify people by their possessions and thus give the appropriate respect.

As Pietro expected, Red was a noble of some sort in whatever society these creatures had, explaining why she, Pietro begrudgingly allowed for gender specific pronouns, had apparently bought him. These four were men-at-arms, house guards most likely, which made them professional killers. From their gear, he knew one thing for certain and a few things were probable. The definite item was that they were definitely not elves, as elves could not tolerate a scrap of iron on their person, the sacred metal blessed long ago by the Deathlord to be toxic to the demonic creatures.

However, whatever these things were, they probably did not have a good grasp of how to work with iron. It was probable because anyone Pietro knew would have invested in better equipment long before putting on the embellishments these creatures did, but there was also the fact that their gear may have been ceremonial. Still, it looked like these guys meant business and were professionals, so unless these creatures were very different then their ability to work with iron was probably very limited.

In his dazed state trying to get those thoughts through had taken all of Pietro’s limited focus, so when he had finished puzzling out the guards, he noticed that he and Red were currently the centre of attention. Dozens of creatures had gathered about, peering at him and Red, who appeared to be preening under the notice. The guards kept them well back however.

Apparently these creatures did not see humans very often.

That meant that Pietro had just been bought by a noble and a high ranking one at that. Like any farmer, Pietro understood supply and demand. When the harvest was particularly good and everyone had lots of wheat, it didn’t sell for much, but after a long drought a few grains could be worth more than gold. If a human was rare enough to elicit this sort of attention then he had probably been sold for a very large sum, which meant someone with money, which meant high ranking noble.

Worse yet, if these creatures aged at all like humans then Red was young, perhaps a few years younger than Pietro. That meant that she was probably still attached to her family, which meant that she had purchased him with her own money, or at least with her allowance. To be able to purchase a rare slave with her allowance and have four bodyguards meant that her family was very wealthy and very powerful.

Red’s guards, joined by what appeared to be the guards for this place, quickly moved the crowd back, allowing Red to advance forward smugly out the front doors of the building, Pietro in tow.

Pietro blinked when they exited. They were in some sort of enormous cave structure, the ceiling barely visible overhead it was so high and the gloom so great. Illumination was scarce in this place, inviting the darkness to sit upon it like a brooding hen. The only light Pietro could see was weakly spilling from the doors behind him or from the crystal topped staff carried by a female creature.

Eight more guards bearing the Red’s symbol surrounded them, along with several male and females who appeared to be servants.

This boded poorly for Pietro. Whoever or whatever Red was, she was obviously very important, and whenever peasants like him mixed with very important people, it was the peasants that got crushed. Mix in the fact that he was a human surrounded by monsters and it didn’t take a genius to know that he was in for a world of hurt and trouble.

Because he had nothing to better to do while following Red like an obedient dog, Pietro tried to figure out as much about these creatures as he could. The first curiosity was of course their utter lack of footwear. Despite walking on hard stone, none of them placed anything between their feet and the ground.

Okay… one, they didn’t seem to like clothes much, judging by the way they seemed to try and minimize both their coverage and the thickness of what they did wear. The air was quite warm, but it was still strange. Unless of course it was a cultural thing…

Pietro remembered the commentary by the Olvanyians about the leader of the caravan, how they were shocked by how pale the middle class men were in comparison to the guards, despite the fact that everyone from south of the Vanyian Mountains was still darker than them. Their nobles spent a lot of time sitting in the sun, so it was a shock to see darker skinned people who didn’t share this practice.

So maybe these creatures had some sort of religious or social belief that demanded them to have contact with the ground? It would explain while a high level noble like Red was walking. Pietro had seen some strange cultural practices since leaving home, a group of freakish monsters that liked to walk barefoot everywhere wasn’t that unusual, all things considered.

Pietro could not see far into the darkness around him, just enough to get the vague outline of large buildings and structures of the cave from some of the light spilling forth from their insides, and things moving about from the light the servant was carrying. He could however hear a great deal of activity. Pietro could hear the rustle of clothes, the slap of bare feet upon stone, the murmur and chatter of alien voices, and the scuttling of things. Things he doubted he wanted to actually see, as they sounded large.

In the distance a strange light began to grow, a ribbon of faint red like the rising of the sun on the horizon, but there was no sun and no horizon in this deep down place. Pietro also noticed that the previously sluggish air had a life to it now, blowing in his face hot air that carried an unusual scent, both fresher than the stale taste of before, and yet also tainted by the slightest hint of rotten eggs.

As they approached the glowing line along a broad boulevard, the breeze became stronger and the smell greater. Pietro also noticed that there was a break in the light. Peering further, he realized that there was a bridge up ahead. There was some sort of chasm up ahead, at the bottom of which there was a something hot and glowing.

Reaching the bridge, Pietro peered down and let his eyes go wide at what he saw.

Deep, deep down below there was a river of fire, shedding heat and light and smoke, but lining the walls of the chasm was a vertical forest of strange things that seemed to drink in the fury of the river. And tending to that forest were hundreds, perhaps thousands of great black spiders the size of wolfhounds. The chasm stretched on as far as the eye could see in both directions, some patches stripped bare by the industrious creatures while other sections were being replanted.

Soon they were off the bridge, a mercy as the stone was unpleasantly, almost painfully, hot on Pietro’s soles, heated by the river of fire far below. Now they were in a different area, the dense urban structures left behind in exchange for stone walls occasionally punctuated by large bronze gates. This would probably be the noble district of the city.

And then they reached a particularly large wall disconnected from all the other, its sides smooth except for glints of black glass stuck in between the joins of the stones that would make scaling the structure a nightmare. In the gloom Pietro could see soldiers patrolling the tops of the walls. As they approached the gates of this place, adorned with what was obviously the family crest, began to swing open for them.

Inside the walls of the estate it was as bizarre and creepy as the creatures that had built it. There were great tree like things without leaves that had long, grasping limbs from which hung great sheets of gossamer material, apparently the same stuff as what some of these creatures wore. Servants were tending to these things, gently lifting the material off the twisted, naked branches and folding the stuff into baskets. Others were sprinkling what looked and smelled like offal about the base of the things.

It took them several minutes to get beyond the gossamer forests, at which point they arrived at a great manor, carved from dark stone and built like a fortress. It was at least five floors high, built in an enormous step pyramid style, and only the creatures knew how deep it went. There was some more illumination here, the family apparently rich enough to afford lots of the glowing crystal things, but it was only enough for Pietro to see the shadowy outlines of the dozens of guards patrolling the parapets.

Curiously, the banners flying from the walls had the same family symbol, but unlike Red or the guards surrounding her, they were black and white rather than red. This meant that the guards were probably her personal retainers, rather than just the family house guards. The kind of money and power meant that this family was at least the equivalent of a duke in terms of power, if not greater.

Pietro had a sinking feeling.

As they reached the great doors to the manor, eight of the soldiers peeled off, leaving only the core four behind to escort Red, the servants trailing along behind. The inside was about as creepy as the outside, but the closer proximity allowed for the weak lighting to reveal more. Great tapestries hung on the walls detailing… things. Again, Pietro had no idea of the significance of any of them. Most looked rather gruesome though.

Eventually the group entered into a large chamber, the ceiling shooting up high enough that Pietro suspected that they were in the second or third ring of the structure. At the far end of the room was a great stepped dais upon which was a single, massive throne carved from dark stone an inlaid with intricate metalwork in spider web patterns. Lounging lazily upon the throne was one the creatures, a female. She wore clothing similar to Red’s, but even in the dim light Pietro could see that it was made of gold somehow pulled into incredibly fine fibres and then woven together and ornately decorated with various other colours to create strange, abstract designs. Her eyes were white like many of the others, but there were also many subtle flecks of blue and gold that stood out like stars on in the night sky.

And resting upon her forehead was a simple iron circlet set with gold filigree and various precious gems.

A single thought ran through Pietro’s mind.

Oh shit, I’ve just been bought by a princess.

Upon seeing what her daughter had brought back, the queen creature began chattering excitedly, seemingly a bit annoyed. Perhaps she felt that the purchase Red had made was too expensive.

Red then started talking back in the rapid fire language, before gesturing to one of the servants, who was carrying a large, heavy looking bag. Walking over to Red, the servant opened it up and pulled out the contents, handing them to Red.

With a familiar metallic rustling sound, Pietro’s mail hauberk unfolded while the coif struck the floor, pulled out with the rest of the armour. There was a gasp of disbelief amongst the various creatures gathered about, and something in Pietro’s stomach fell harder than his coif.

Iron, let alone steel, was rare enough to these creatures that royal retainers had only spear points made of the stuff. It was probably worth more than its weight in gold here. To these things, his mail, of good quality but purchased for cheap at a simple smithy in a provincial capital, was probably worth more than the gold dress their queen was wearing.

Handing off the hauberk to one of the servants to bring to the queen, the servant with the bag then pulled out one of Pietro’s boots. Taking it, Red turned it over to show the iron hobnails. Great, more evidence in their eyes that he was some sort of fantastically rich and important person.

More items were pulled out. His knife and empty sword scabbard, which was banded with iron. His belt, with an iron buckle. The list of iron items he had on him grew. He even had an iron needle for patching his clothes. The also seemed impressed by his other clothes, mostly the heavy wool ones. The status of these creatures seemed to relate to the thickness of their clothing fabrics, probably related to those gossamer trees he had seen. The commoners got raw gossamer while the nobles and royals got things that required actual weaving. And of course since they lived underground they had never seen wool before.

Pietro could see from the looks in their eyes what they were all thinking: that they had on their hands some sort of warrior king from the far off and exotic human lands. What an incredible prize, what an incredible trophy for the royal family to have come into possession of!

Of course, if they ever found out that Pietro was just a farmer’s son wearing stuff that was average at best and purchased at a discount half the time, they would probably be pretty ticked.

Unfortunately he could only watch as the court of these creatures jabbered on about Red’s good fortune.

[LadyTevar]

At least he understands why he's fucked.

[Academia Nut]

There are many stories that involve brave knights and princesses that have happy endings.

Peasants and princesses? Not so much.

Pietro may not have much formal education, but he's no dummy.

Poor, poor Pietro.