Anfalon, of Orloriel

The Beasts are restless

Light changed into many different hues and colors as it came up behind the Goddess Wall. It screened itself using the thick mist at its highest peaks and turned into an almost silvery-white. The light became a bright orange next when it touched the thick jungle surrounding the Hfrial Depths and transformed the lake’s waters into a sinister but beautiful cerulean, a frothing milky white where they poured into Merodras branches.

Anfalon stopped and looked towards Nenderu’s Lookout, the tall peak directly northwest lost inside the clouds as always. He checked on the lake’s banks next over his right shoulder and caught a glimpse of the dangerous bubbling waters behind the lush vegetation. Dangerous because they could eat your flesh from the inside, if you were foolish enough to taste them.

The sight of the lake wasn’t what had made him stop though. The culprit was a branch snapping over his head. It brought the Imperial Hoplite’s energetic trot to a stop. The damage had disturbed the ancient tree and the jungle had responded with a swishing sound. Birds flew away chirping panicked warnings, white-headed monkeys hooted and the leaves sang disturbed.

“Phinariel,” He groused and tipped the helmet off his face. “What are you doing?”

“Following you?” The young Zilan said after a moment of silence, interrupted by the sounds of the jungle and the buzzing of the lake near them.

“Jumping from branch to branch,” Anfalon noted with a grimace.

“Yea, I was bored running after you.”

“We are traveling towards your community.”

“Tis a village and you haven’t said a word in two days!” Phinariel protested and started climbing down from the tall tree, her small feet finding purchase skillfully using her toes.

“We are traveling,” Anfalon repeated, thinking she hadn’t heard him the first time. Phina jumped down lithely and approached him.

“People talk is what I meant.”

This is very time-consuming, he thought. What was it she wanted to say?

“Speak clearly Phinariel, you are not making any sense.”

“Ahm, forget about it. What is it?” She asked seeing him narrowing his eyes and tensing up.

The woods are still uneasy.

“How far to your village?”

“It’s at the crook of the mountains, under the tallest peak.”

“It’s not,” Anfalon corrected her. “Not the tallest. Its name is Nenderu’s Lookout.”

Phina stared at him with large green-silver eyes impressed.

“The peak has a name?”

“All peaks do. All things have, like you.”

“What about the lake?”

“The Hfrial Depths,” Anfalon explained.

Phina chuckled, her face lighting up.

“What about…”

“Phinariel you said a lion attacked your village,” Anfalon interrupted her enthusiastic interrogation.

“A two headed one.”

“Why two heads and not two lions?”

“People saw it.”

Hmm.

“They have seen the lion?”

“Its shadow, it hunts at night,” Phina replied.

No. They usually don’t.

Anfalon stared at the uneasy thick jungle, then at the distant tall peak and finally the noisy lake’s waters.

“Keep near,” He advised the frowning Zilan teen and resumed his march towards her village. Phina was heard murmuring as she run after him.

“Whoa, wait! I thought we were gonna talk some more!”

The jungle gave way to a more rocky terrain near the base of the mountain range, but the village was built right at that limit just before its slopes and at walking distance from the woods. A series of cone shaped huts out of mudbricks from clay dug from the lake’s banks soft soil and bamboo roofs. As everything built from the Zilan the village had grown in a semicircle, or half-wheel, the rows of huts growing in lines similar to its spokes.

Though the similarities ended there.

Anfalon counted at least a hundred huts standing at the edge of the jungle. The lake wasn’t visible from that spot, but one could see the rich shrubbery and the bamboo forest hugging it from its west side.

“That’s a lot of huts,” He commented thoroughly surprised. “Why built so close to each other?”

“Protection? Company? Why not?” Phina replied with a series of queries.

“That’s not how it is done.”

“Done where?”

“In the Empire, where else?”

“I’ve seen the ruins,” She said thoughtfully. “Who needs so much space?”

People that like palaces and space.

“You shouldn’t have built here,” Anfalon said instead.

“Not again with the Imperial land stuff Anfalon,” Phina protested.

“It’s between the mountain and the lake,” He explained. “A busy place.”

“We picked the place to have more options for food,” She argued.

Anfalon nodded, while listening to the sounds of the jungle.

“All creatures have the same needs Phinariel and mostly the same ideas.”

The rather short in height Zilan recoiled seeing the armoured Hoplite getting out of the jungle and raised a long staff he carried defensively.

Given the short distance and the apparent lack of skill Anfalon could have skewered him with the spear in a second.

Perhaps two.

He had the weapon slotted on his back under his shield.

“That’s Sylvar, our Elder,” Phina said quickly and run in front him, blocking his attack options. Anfalon paused and reached for his sword. “Sylvar this is Anfalon. The Warrior.”

Sylvar’s hands started shaking.

He was young, for an Elder.

“Phina what did you do girl?”

“He’s a friend,” She explained and looked at him nervously. “Here to help.”

“Help?” Sylvar croaked and another Zilan approached him, a female. Also young, her body fit under the custom garbs made out of hide and her eyes sparkling a brilliant silvery-blue. She had a long knife in her hands, of Imperial design.

“You’re here to help us Warrior?” She asked, not hiding her fear in her song, or her interest. The latter shockingly blatant and unvarnished.

“This is Lym. My friend,” Phina elucidated with a broad grin introducing her. “Ahm, Lymsiel, of the… woods. She’s a healer. Mostly single.”

“Of the woods?” Anfalon croaked.

“She’s jesting,” Lymsiel explained blushing, her long light blue hair gathered at the top of her head in an elaborate bun.

“About the name? Or the profession?”

Lymsiel grinned nervously. “The mostly part, it’s fully single the truth of it.”

“You would discuss your prospects in the open?” Anfalon admonished her.

Lymsiel’s face fell. “She brought it—”

“Silence!” Anfalon stopped her, stunned at her attempt to shift the blame elsewhere. He turned on the looking freaked out Sylvar. “You, Elder of this community,” He started and walked towards him. Sylvar backed away immediately ogling his eyes. “Phinariel informed me of an attack.”

“There was another one,” Sylvar blurted out, shivers running through him.

“Another… what is this?” Anfalon queried seeing him on the point of collapse. “Are you ill?”

“Alas I’m fearful Warrior,” Sylvar explained his teeth rattling.

“There’s nothing to be fearful about!”

“He means you’re terrifying,” Phina explained. “It happened to me too, until I got used to your character. It’s fine Sylvar, he’s here to help.”

Anfalon blinked and removed his helm. “I will not harm you… unlawful citizen. Not for trespassing. Now if there’s something else—”

“Hey, you’re doing it again!” Phina interrupted him. He gave her a warning glare and Lymsiel turned a deep red losing control of her song completely. Anfalon sighed and turned to her.

“Apologies for arousing you,” He told her earnestly. “Young Phinariel riles me too much at times.”

“It’s fine,” Lymsiel droned. “I don’t mind it all.”

“Thou should,” Anfalon admonished her. “It’s unseemly for a commoner to flirt with one of the Favored. I find your lack of decorum disconcerting.”

Phina broke the awkward silence a moment later.

“Sylvar who else got attacked?” She asked sounding worried.

“Itham,” He replied looking slightly better now. “He was killed this morning.”

“Where’s his body?” Anfalon asked.

Almost fifty Zilan had gathered by the time they reached the place of the attack. They kept a fearful distance, but their interest was palpable. There wasn’t a single proper ‘Elder’ in the large group. Sylvan being the oldest at a couple of centuries. Lymsiel for example wasn’t in her hundredth year yet. It was insulting she held a profession at an age a youngling would start learn their class usually.

Itham hadn’t been much older than her.

Whatever had killed him had done it efficiently. Worked mostly on his face and torso, going through the ribs to reach the internal organs, mainly the lungs and heart. The cuts and marks mostly near the wounds and the broken bones.

Made by the fangs of a big carnivore.

“He didn’t fight back at all,” He thought aloud and Phina nodded. “Was it the same with the others?”

“It was.”

“How many?”

“That’s the fifth murder.”

Hmm.

Anfalon stood up and looked about the place. The Jungle ended there, very near to the village, but on the side of the mountain. The trees not as thick at that spot, but tall enough with some of the trunks almost two meters wide and reaching thirty meters in height. He smacked his lips and watched the faces of the Zilan watching his every move. Not a warrior amongst them. Some decent prospects in the lot, still young and capable of learning hopefully.

Why do you care? He asked himself.

You are not recruiting for the Phalanx.

Still one doesn’t inhabit Imperial land and runs away from the responsibilities that come with it. You take something, you must give something back.

“Lymsiel,” He rustled and the comely Healer perked up flushed. “Had he drunk water from the lake perchance?”

She stood back surprised. “We don’t. It’s foul. We gather water, or use the springs.”

“Where are the springs?”

“On the mountain.”

“Could he have eaten something else? A fruit, purple seeds?”

“No. We live in the forest, everyone knows what is good, or bad.”

Anfalor sighed and stared at her face. She smiled warmly and he frowned not expecting it. He cleared his throat and turned his eyes on the mangled and half eaten corpse of Itham.

“His liver is swollen and its veins black,” He explained to her, what a true Imperial Healer should have seen immediately. “This man was poisoned.”

Then eaten.

There was a murmur from the ever increasing group of Zilan that had gathered to watch an Imperial Hoplite up close. Strays the lot of them, still Anfalon hadn’t seen such a crowd in centuries and it affected him.

“What lion poisons its victims?” Someone asked, a young male.

“No lion did this,” Anfalon explained in a clear voice and loud enough so they could hear him.

“It was a lion with two heads,” Sylvar insisted. “We’ve seen it watching us from the trees.”

“No lion with two, or more, heads exists,” He explained. “That can poison its prey. But there is a beast that does it. A number of them in fact.”

Anfalon stared at the clear sky above them. The absence of clouds making it a rare such day for the season. A strange silence came over their spot of the woods, the crowd watching him alarmed and the animals opting to keep their heads down. Birds and crawlers. Predators and grass-eaters alike. Even insects stopped buzzing.

What are you?

Where did you come from?

Such a sloppy kill.

“What beast?” Phina asked him and he grunted.

“Are the springs up the slopes?” Anfalon asked her instead.

“They are.”

“Take me there.”

“I’ll do it,” Lymsiel volunteered. “Phina is too young.”

“You’re a young as well,” Anfalon rebuked her, but Lymsiel eyes and song told him she wasn’t.

Much to his surprise, he found himself agreeing.

“It’s better to wait for Maeriel to return,” Sylvar said interrupting their staring contest.

“What is she?” Anfalon asked.

“A Hunter, the best we have,” He explained.

“When will she be back?”

“Any day now,” Sylvar replied.

Anfalon nodded. “I’ll check the springs in the meantime. I advise you to stay in the village.”

Anfalon washed his face and head with the clear water coming out of the crack on the rock and refilled his flask with it. He breathed a couple of times deeply and sat near the clean brook of water going down the slopes and into the earth. Further down Phinariel was talking with Lymsiel, their youthful voices surreal to his ears after so many years.

The girls had really enjoyed the water.

“Why come here?” Lymsiel asked him getting up, the smile easy on her lips, those long legs and feminine figure reminiscent of the vacationing of yesteryear's at the Eternal Springs in Goras, alongside painful to conjure saccharine lovers.

None of them living now.

“Animals can’t quench their thirst at the lake,” Anfalon replied, his voice hoarse.

“Beasts you said. Like what?”

“A Wyvern.”

Lymsiel frowned and stared at Phinariel singing an old Imperial hymn. The Song of Dawn. Where have you learned it? He wondered, but Lymsiel interrupted his thoughts.

“No one has seen one. You can’t mistake a wyvern for something else,” She said.

“How would you know, if you haven’t seen one afore?”

“Have you?”

“Many times,” Anfalon replied.

“Which one?”

“All of them.”

“You think that’s a wyvern?” Lymsiel probed.

“I don’t think so.”

But perhaps an assassin had more cards hidden up the sleeves.

Secrets meticulously kept veiled in shadows.

Hmm.

There you are.

Anfalon got up. Lymsiel’s interest in him was obvious. He could feel it on his skin, touching the membranes on his brain. The lurking predator’s interest mixed in with hers. The needs similar and so very different. Beasts and lovers. He reached for his helm and put it on, the familiar weight comforting. Anfalon got his spear out, famed Wraith’s leaf-shaped blade gleaming in the afternoon’s winter sun. Then he went for his shield.

“What is it?” Lymsiel whispered getting up. The fear changing her song, round breasts visible through her soaked vest and the skin on her neck almost pink. Anfalon walked slowly towards the still humming Phinariel, the young girl standing at the edge of the flat rock the springs flowed on. The stone near her slowly eaten away and the tiny canal running at a straight a line and then dropping for about four meters. The noise from the water a constant, covering all other sounds.

Like sharp claws climbing up the rocky raise they had been relaxing for almost an hour now.

A paw grabbed the edge near the falling water, a lion’s distorted head appeared next and then another this one horned and resembling a hideous goat with a carnivore’s mouth. The Chimera pulled herself over the lip of the small plateau, a head looking at the approaching Hoplite, the other at the still humming unsuspecting girl.

A young one, Anfalon thought and raised his shield as he charged the last couple of meters.

Lymsiel screamed on his back, Phinariel’s eyes opening wide in shock at the bull sized beast that had appeared so near her. The Chimera let out a menacing snarl and turned to attack the Hoplite. A mature beast would have just grabbed the girl and jumped off.

Too many easy kills, too soon.

Where did you come from?

Why did you move?

Anfalon got her below the goat’s throat, the blade sinking in and then twisting as he’d jerked his arm right and left. The beast growled, blood pouring out and fell on him. Anfalon was shoved violently back almost three meters, hobnail boots scrapping at the stone, claws and jaws assaulting Umbas his named steel shield. He set his feet, pulled the spear out of the ghastly wound and heard the hissing sound, as the Chimera twisted its massive misshapen body away. Anfalon flinched his head to the side at the last moment, the viper’s fangs missing his face, poison covering the front of his armour. With a grunt he let go of the spear and went for his sword.

The long-shafted weapon clanged when it hit the hard ground and the monster jumped at him again trying to bring him down with pure strength and their difference in weight. Anfalon sidestepped in one breath, a claw landing on his shield with such brutal force, his hand almost snapped absorbing the impact and slashed high with the Acharn in the same breath decapitating one of the two beast’s heads.

Lymsiel grabbed the screaming Phinariel and pulled her away from them. The wounded Chimera, now missing the goat’s head, retreated a couple of steps, losing blood fast and her dark brown pelt turning rubicund down its front. Anfalon seeing his opportunity run the small distance after discarding his shield and sheathing his sword, rolled under a retaliating swipe, the claws on the beast the size of daggers, found his spear and turned just as the young Chimera stood on its hind legs dwarfing him and roared so loud his eardrums blew.

Anfalon used both his arms on this final lunging attack. The spear went through thick hide, flesh, bones and the beast’s heart cutting its roar short. The Chimera went down with a desperate gurgling sound, the long viper fangs ripping out his left arm when it did and spraying poison everywhere.

Ah, goddess, he thought seeing his skin turning black there.

“What does it taste like?” Lymsiel queried with a frown, looking at him as if he was already dead.

“It’s a poison, to cancel a poison,” Anfalon explained and her eyes lit up.

“How do you make it?” She asked now very interested.

He could barely feel his mouth, even his nails were hurting. Every nerve on his body on fire.

“I’ll tell you another time,” Anfalon croaked and put a hand on a sniffling Phinariel’s head.

“I’m fine,” She said between sobs. “Got scared a bit is all.”

“Good. Now water,” Anfalon said, turning to Lymsiel.

“No I don’t need more thanks,” Phina replied absentmindedly and he groaned in frustration.

“Healer. Bring me some more water,” Anfalon repeated and Lymsiel snapped out of her own reverie and run towards the springs.

Their lack of even basic training is glaring, Anfalon decided and grinding his teeth got up and went to the dying Chimera, his sword in hand.

It took him a coupled of tries to finish her off.

“What do you mean that was a young Chimera?” Phina asked him on the way back. This time Anfalon took his time, as he could barely walk. The antidote doing its job, but the beast had also given him a huge dosage and he couldn’t just piss it away.

He had glugged down though enough water to cross the Great Desert.

“What word you don’t understand?”

“It looked pretty big to me.”

“No argument there, but it was a young one,” Anfalon said.

“What if it wasn’t?” Phina asked very troubled.

“Then we’d all be dead,” He replied.

A long-bow carrying Zilan was waiting for them at the outskirts of the village. Lissome and appealing though hard-faced, clad in dark-green hard-leather Imperial Hunter’s armour, her gold-rimmed silvery eyes turning a shade of copper when she saw the Chimera’s severed heads Anfalon carried.

“Anfalon, of Orloriel,” She said and made a respectful curtsy. “The tales were true.”

Anfalon stopped and examined her face carefully.

And there’s your Elder, he thought.

“You have a name soldier?”

“Maeriel, of Nieleth,” She replied and pressed her lips together. A scar on her chin reaching all the way down her throat. “I didn’t have the time to serve.”

“You brought the strays out of the jungle,” Anfalon noted.

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Got tired of hunting alone,” Maeriel replied. “Was that a Chimera? Nasty beast.”

“It is. Not anymore. Your people are safe.”

“They are your people too,” She pointed out with a smile. “Else you wouldn’t have changed your routine.”

Anfalon stared at the Zilan getting out of their huts in droves and then at the two girls.

Hmm.

“Are you going to stay Anfalon?” She asked him and he sighed.

The night found him watching the fire burning in the pit outside Maeriel’s hut. He was still hurting, but less so. The weather was holding, the night sky clear and the moons illuminating the dark a plenty. The Zilan of Phina’s village were dancing and singing around similar fires, but for the two older ones. Maeriel was in her fourth century, but was still much younger than Anfalon.

“Why did you leave Sylvar in charge?” He asked her.

“I’m a hunter, a ranger… whatever one may call it,” She replied. “Not a leader, or a politician.”

“It’s a village. How much politics is involved in its running?”

“Anything above ten people needs a different type of skill than what I possess.”

“Where’s the rest of your squad?” Anfalon asked.

“Some died those first days, others left never to return. Where’s yours?”

“Buried hopefully,” Anfalon replied without hesitation. “With the Queen of Queens.”

Maeriel nodded and no one talked for a while.

“The Beasts are restless again,” Anfalon said finally. “Something disturbed their nests up on the mountains.”

“What kind of beasts?” Maeriel probed, using a long stick to push the embers into the fire again.

Anfalon thought of Nym, whispering in the shadows.

“All kinds. Men and monsters,” He murmured.

“Why?”

Anfalon shrugged his shoulders and they both turned to watch Lymsiel sing alongside Phinariel at the end of their third retelling of how the Hoplite slayed the Chimera. The song the same she was humming at the springs, and while it was an old hymn of the distant past, they had learned from a now blushing Maeriel, it wasn’t old for Anfalon, nor was it distant for someone who was born in the First Era.

Sing O’ Muse, so the past’s greatest heroes be remembered,

The Zilan had sung by the fires with the fervor of the young and gullible.

Of the Towering Quiceran and Nuala, the Lissome

Let thy tongue roll O’ Goddess, so our heart’s desire be tempered

Of Ninthalor, the Brazen and the Insolent Baltoris

Hum tenderly O’ Garden’s Mistress, of splendor surrendered

Of Moon’s sacred daughter thrice blessed and thrice cursed

Let thy tongue whisper O’ Divinity, allow a caress tenderly entered

Of Master Elas, the Wise and the Great Anfalon, the Sentinel of the egress

Still standing guard at your Realm

Anfalon grimaced, the memories more bitter for someone who knew those that had passed away with all their virtues and their faults. He looked again at the night sky over their heads to hide his sentiment for what was no more. Nesande’s Moon creating a blue halo shining bright and full over Oras Eye. The light illuminating the not so distant Pale Mountains and touching softly the Goddess’ Wall, its drops and high rises. The basalt vertical slopes and the chasms horrors always inhabited, now stirring disturbed.

Ah, curse you.

Maeriel turned hearing him gasp and seeing his expression casted the Long Eye to perceive what the Imperial Hoplite was observing dumbfounded. She searched the tall peaks one after the other, her well-trained eyes ever moving to the east and there coming down from the towering Ovinet’s Nest Maeriel saw it.

Black as Oras heart.

You can’t mistake a Wyvern for something else, young Lymsiel had said to him earlier that day and she was right.

Guard the Gates Great Anfalon and never lose faith, the Queen had told him two hundred years before that. For after me, there will be another.