CHAPTER 27.
The Trickster
That night Khran-Av'ees yet again sprung awake in the middle of the small hours, bedsheets tattered and torn under his tossing and turning as gentle as a rockslide. The nightmares were not satisfied with only a single disruption, but kept elbowing him up every once in a while till the horizon turned pale gray. Somewhere around then the warlord yielded, buckled up his loincloth, and slouched into the upmost kitchens with dark shadows under his eyes. It was the serving boy's luck that he apparently spoke Morning-Grumpy Khran fluently, and from "GrrmhhbrrghGROAHsrrhllpffhhmph!" understood to fetch him a tankard of col
CHAPTER 26.
Odds and Ends in Rha-ghi'Leh
The soldier's kneeguards clattered against one another, as he trembled just outside Sir Gha'rmach's Small Dunggate, staring at his fellow. Or what remained of him, after having cackled against the face of the travelstained stranger and thereafter attempted to 'teach 'em bloody lyin' boaster ane o'em bleedin' good lessons'. The axe he had brandished mere seconds agone lay half-molten on the gently smoking cobbles, beside the... well. The only positive thing in this whole affair was that his family would save a great deal in funeral costs, as there barely remained aught to bury.
Granted, the ole serge
CHAPTER 25.
Tales of a Drunken Princeling
One and a half weeks later the humdrum everyday had largely resumed its course in Uhageiden Rho-dkhlhaakgz, even though an atmosphere prominently stuffed with tension and somberness remained. The heaven's recent emoseason had luckily stolen away, and the winds had brought along warmer and drier days. Neither had mobs bearing feathers and a barrel of tar smashed down Mrs. Mhesch's front door. While Hiid was thankful of this to whomever up or down there observed at the tides -- and also to those random fluctuations of quantum in the space-time frame that possessed some quirk for sending young la
CHAPTER 24.
Burials
Hiid had no conception as of when and where she had dozed off. But the morn hardly blazed open with a golden sunshine and tweeties tweedledee'ing blithely in a rainbow-adorned sky. Instead of multicolored bears with cute little imprints of hearts and ice cream cones branded onto their stomachs -- which sounded rather painful when you seriously thought about it -- the sensation of her brainpan being used as a kettledrum and the hot, uncomfortable dampness of the surroundings flooded her awareness, as someone kept persistently shaking her awake.
She also must have slurred her first curses in English, as the figure looming
CHAPTER 23.
A Somber Night
As the bells continued to boom those sepulchral, deep tunes commonly played at local funerals, Aaschgh'rd was the first to find his words again, as if he had been expecting the whole proclamation. While the bewildered customers kept peeking out of the windows or staring into the ceiling, as if foolishly hoping to behold through the solid roof some kind of grim omen looming in the sky, the man fixed his glare again on Hiid.
"And thus are brought forth the dire fruits of the calamity..." he hissed, his voice rising with every syllable, "Imprudent wench, able nay to keep your foolish curiosities locked into the deep
CHAPTER 22.
In the Wild
The night's blackness was finally about to close its greedy jaws over everything. Ghaagh'urih had attempted to squint through the last flecks of dirty-gray twilight, flying as low as possible to distinguish the road and hopingly high enough to avoid any probable foes from easily spotting who actually slumped in the saddles. Now, however, landing was more than obligatory. Fatigue prickled at his runny eyes, and the chill of the winds seemed poring through every fiber of his not-so-dry clothing. He was scarcely alone in this discomfort.
A cliff with one steep, sheltery edge loomed dimly amid the tarpit mass of vegetat
CHAPTER 21.
Umbrage of the Bane
Khran-Av'ees felt the cold dampness of rotten, wet leafs sticking to his cheek. For a moment, in the blurry anarchy reigning in-between the realms of trance and reality, he wondered whether he was waking up from yet another one of those blasts that had torn apart the plain filaments of his essence. A horrible drowsiness was upon him, and every inch of his muscles stung and throbbed, as if he had hauled to and fro small planes for a fortnight sans a picosecond's sleep.
Yet he shook the fog from his eyes, and propped himself up on his elbows on the muddy ground, noticing for the first time that he was free to m
CHAPTER 20.
First Clash
"Ach, Av'ees of the house of Khran does nay happen to be utterly ignorant, then. E'en thou judging by the bearing of yours, your wits ought to have been the closest kinsmen of a particularly dullard nuljaskh!" the old man cackled.
Sweat ran down the crooked bridge of Khran-Av'ees's nose. Well. He had for a good while kenned that the seed of the elderday kings still bode its time somewhere deep in hiding; it would be pointless to start sputtering worn-out sayings such as 'But ye all were supposed to be dead!' or, indeed, as the most desperate item of small-talk, 'You won't get away with this!'
And yet, yet... he nee
CHAPTER 19.
The Heir Emerges
For several days on end, ragged clouds of fog had been hovering above the overgrown and miry forest road. The yestertides had undoubtedly been the worst hitherto: already in ten meters' distance, a wavering whiteness had swallowed the landscape almost entirely. All the grander or lesser bands of highwaymen lurking behind the mossy, boulder-shaped gravestones that oftentimes fringed the trail had obviously believed that their supreme heyday had arrived. Ah, what easy looting, as the sodden buggers dauntless enough to dare place a foot in these woods would not even see whither to escape!
Or, thusly had these path
CHAPTER 18.
Dorkiness Continued
"Looooomb?"
"Nay, tis be eem dreenk ov mein, ye teer yer ovn vater has."
Sighing, Hiid lifted up the mug half-full of dhulisch'uoniz from the scratched table. The lomber, which had been circling at the dish and craning its stalk hopefully over the rim for a while, now sniffed and gazed forlornly up at her with its nozzle, its petals suddenly drooping.
"Loooooomb? Snuuf?"
Egads. That had to be the plant equivalent of a puppy-dog stare, Hiid rolled her eyes. Some of these little buggers had obviously a great fondness for energy drinks. Four years agone by the Sheliak ruins, she had been constantly molested