[The Old Realms saga is published on RR for free. It is also re-posted on Scribblehub and that's it. It is in the author's plans to publish it on Amazon and other platforms at some point. If you see it offered anywhere else, or someone tries to charge you for it, please report him. It is illegal to sell, or take advantage of intellectual work without the author's permission.]

read it at Royalroad : https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46739/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms

& https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/47919/lure-o-war-the-old-realms

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& https://www.scribblehub.com/series/547709/the-old-realms/

Glen

Arguen Garth

Hardir O’ Fardor

Monarch O’ Morn Taras

The Last night of summer

Part I

-So what’s on the morrow?-

Now what? Glen thought cracking his neck left and right, eyeing in warning Lyceron that was approaching him. The Zilan carried a long staff held awkwardly with both hands, nervous as a virgin mare. Still though, it was a solid piece of wood.

So there’s that.

“Are you deaf? ATTACK IMBECILE!” Anfalon bellowed at his unsure trainee. Several of them had gathered around in a semi-circle in the middle of the square. Anfalon wanted to move them into the training grounds, near the banks of Taras Lake –the castle lake in other words- but Voron's workers hadn’t finished clearing the place from the felled trees.

“Attack Arguen?” Lyceron asked just to be sure in the dialect everyone had started speaking. A mixture of Glen’s Common, old Imperial and the ‘Street’ Imperial a jargon the strays used. A mess, but it worked unless you wanted to write something down, then you needed Formal Common, or Imperial since the strays never wrote down anything.

But for Phina, she loves words. Then again Phina values everything new wit a passion.

“Anfalon, I’m pretty banged up…” Glen started not really interested in whatever this was, but Anfalon paid him no attention.

“Rush him afore he gets his weapon out fool!” He blasted Lyceron and the Zilan moved at last.

“Hey!” Glen warned him, but the Zilan feared Anfalon more than him and didn’t listen. He covered the distance between them fast and swung in a great arc with his almost three meter long staff.

Shite.

Glen ducked under it, the sturdy polished wood whooshing and touching the back of his head. He heard a crack –probably his back protesting, or worse- stepped to the side still stooped, but saw Lyceron raising that staff over him in a great chopping move the Zilan’s eyes wide as saucers, so a cursing Glen stood up and hopped away.

Everything started hurting again.

Glen landed and went for his sword, dodging to the right on instinct.

He got the blade out, but the dodge failed in epic fashion, his injured foot shuffling too slowly and Lyceron caught him above the clavicle full force, mercifully on the still shielded part of his shoulder.

Glen went down on his knees with an angry groan of pain, whilst gasps of surprise were heard from the watching Zilans, the staff bouncing off his shoulder leaving the arm numb.

“Ah,” Lyceron muttered shocked, not believing he’d managed to nail Glen and the ‘former’ thief swung with his sword from where he’d dropped to disembowel the distracted Zilan. Lyceron downed his staff to block his blade and Glen chopped it in two unequal parts. “Eh,” Lyceron grunted, as Glen got up grinding his teeth and swung at him again aiming for his head this time.

Lyceron jumped away, barely saving his neck and Anfalon called for an end to the test fight, apparently.

“You failed spectacularly and are probably dead,” he admonished his new pupil. “He’s crippled for some reason, always distracted staring at Diryel, or other females,” Glen glanced at Diryel and the Zilan trainee beamed a toothy smile –lots of pointy teeth there in excellent condition, a couple of her friends in the group equally interested at their teacher’s words perking up. “GODS DARNIT! What did I just say?” Anfalon snapped furious. “Diryel get your gang and run up the plateau to inform Voron I want the place cleared by tomorrow!” He ordered them.

“That's an hour away master!” She protested. Glen was certain the distance was much greater unless you used a horse. He eyed the fit female with interest, while moving his numb arm up and down to get the feeling back.

He stopped hearing another warning crack.

Fuck.

“You better get moving then! Lyceron!” Anfalon barked and walked towards the Zilan holding on to the chopped parts of staff awkwardly. “You owe me a new training staff. I expect one made by tomorrow lad. There’s wood aplenty near the lake.”

“It was Arguen that cut it—”

“You’ll accuse Hardir for your failings? Frankly I’m ashamed to stand so near you!” Anfalon rebuked him and Glen agreed, nodding with his head, while watching the young female trainees running towards the plateau having a blast at it.

“Apologies,” Lyceron replied. “I’ll have one made master Anfalon,” he added with a bow of his blue head.

“You could’ve have warned me,” Glen told the scowling Imperial Hoplite, when Lyceron run after the females, less eager and carrying the long sticks in his hands.

“Hardir, he’s but sixty years of age and completely untrained,” Anfalon replied. “I wanted to give him a chance.”

“Right,” Glen murmured. “He’s… fast for his age. Ahem… good reflexes. What was he doing afore?”

“He gathered berries,” Anfalon said with a grunt, as if Glen’s observations were ridiculous. “He’s very good at it that’s unquestionable, but he decided to take his life in another direction. Personally I would have turned to fishing, or growing mushrooms. I’ve met rocks smarter than him and had an old dog in my youth that could outrun him half-asleep.”

“Hardir,” Angrein greeted him, covered in black soot and drenched in sweat. “Day’s cooled off a bit yes?”

Glen stared at the setting sun unsure. The blacksmith’s workshop felt like the inside of a huge –cathedral sized- furnace. The five forges themselves covering one side of the massive building he’d appropriated and sporting thick metal doors that failed to keep the heat trapped inside.

“Ahm, not really no,” Glen said and lodged his tongue into the gap in his teeth. “I may need an armour made.”

Angrein fixed his blood-colored irises on him, the blacksmith’s stare disconcerting.

“I’ll have five cuirasses ready for Anfalon, in the next two days,” he said. “I’ve gotten myself some assistants, but they really haven’t worked metal before, or in centuries. Plus I’m missing iron ingots and if you want more made, serious investment in personnel and coin must be considered.”

“Can Vycaris help?” Glen asked, the haughty Zilan’s workshop right next to Angrein’s building.

“He works with leather,” Angrein explained. “Pants, vests and boots.”

“How about armour?”

“You want him to make you armour?”

Not when ye put it like that, Glen thought.

“I want a cuirass made for me,” Glen said with grimace of pain. “I also need a new set of clothes made and boots for a person with four toes.”

Angrein wiped his hands with a cloth, not really getting the soot off and pointed towards a bench very near the forges.

“Sit over there,” he told him. “I heard a rumor ye got attacked by way too many lions, but walked away unscathed. Obviously the rumors weren’t true.”

“Who spreads them?” Glen asked limping to the bench freely, now that he didn’t have to pretend.

“Phinariel,” Angrein grunted and waited for him to remove his chewed boot. It was sad losing the corpse’s old footwear, but Glen had gotten a lot of mileage out of them.

“Good-good,” Glen said ungluing the nasty bandage from his maimed foot. “Shit this looks bad.”

“Let me wash the mire away,” Angrein murmured. “You shouldn’t walk on it. Hmm, yeah it’s treated a bit. No healing potion at the near?”

“An old one,” Glen retorted.

Angrein nodded thoughtfully. “You are brave Hardir,” Glen shrugged his shoulders pretending indifference, but the blacksmith added with a snort. “Or incredibly stupid,” Glen narrowed his eyes.

“Listen… friend,” he started warningly. Angrein cut him off with a pat on his thigh.

“I have a prosthetic somewhere in my stuff,” he told him with a toothy smile and stood up, his huge muscles bulging the armless shirt he wore.

“A… emetic?” Glen grunted unsure, as the strange man started looking about for his bags.

“I don’t think it will come to that,” Angrein replied absentmindedly, “It’s a painless procedure.”

Glen wiped the sweat from his forehead. One side of him was slowly boiling sitting so close to the burning forges. “I don’t really like the sound of that,” he croaked and looked around himself to find a bit of water to cool off.

“Why,” Angrein said riffling through big and smaller boxes. “I have a good set of fingers here,” he murmured and Glen glanced his way alarmed. “You can even paint the fingernail at the end of it haha! Hmm, this one is still charged, moves around a bit.”

Luthos pissed in his cup.

“Ye just keep them around?”

Drunk the whole thing down.

“They won’t spoil,” Angrein replied coming back with a small silver box. Actual silver, nicely engraved like a jewelry box.

Containing metal toes in it of various sizes.

Ugh.

Good grief, Glen shivered all over and stood back.

“You just slot the prosthetic on the remainder, or the bone,” Angrein explained seeing him all pale and weakened.

Ah.

Of course.

That doesn’t sound dubious at all!

“What if there isn’t?” Glen asked collapsing on the bench, sweating profusely.

“I’ll make a brace for it, wrap it around the foot with soft leather. Think half-a-sock,” Angrein elucidated on the technique, making a fool of himself. “Just needs cleaning after each day and it will help you stand with a bit of training, much better than you do now.”

“Let me think on it?” Glen said, feeling unwell. “I can come back in a couple of months, or something?”

“Hardir I’ve done it… a lot of times,” Angrein replied patiently. “You won’t feel it after a day.”

“Like magic?” Glen probed.

“In a sense,” Angrein agreed. “Aye.”

“Right,” Glen nodded in turn. “Fine, lets give it a try and get Vycaris in here to get my size for a pair of boots.”

“You can walk right out, once I fix it on,” Angrein explained.

Glen sighed. “Angrein I’m trusting you on this mate. It sounds weird as fuck and a right sham if ye want my opinion, but I’m willin’ to take the risk given our relationship.”

“Gratitude Hardir,” the blacksmith retorted with a smirk. “I appreciate your trust.”

“Speaking of trust,” Glen continued while washing his foot with a wet cloth, getting all the nasty bits and leakage cleaned. “Are there talking weapons perchance?”

“Metal cannot talk by itself Hardir,” Angrein replied watching him thoughtfully. “A magic dagger would though.”

“Uhm,” Glen nodded with his head. “So you know what it is.”

“If you are talking about your dagger, no I don’t,” Angrein said and stooped to measure the fake toes to his. Most were made of white ivory and looked like the real thing, only hollowed out. It was creepy as all hells, but it just might help me out. Glen had almost gotten beaten by a clueless Zilan with a stick earlier. “It is not a weaponsmith’s creation,” Angrein added.

“Why?”

Angrein stood up having chosen the right prosthetic for him. “You know more than me Hardir.”

“Still want to hear yer opinion.”

“Can I have it for a moment?”

“Sure.”

Glen unsheathed the dagger and offered it to him.

“Yeah,” Angrein murmured turning it this way and that. He gave it a good lick at the end of it, scratched the handle with a dirty nail. “Hmm, spell-forged. See the detail on the wyvern. Why, it looks like… hmm. Very interesting.”

“What do you mean?” Glen asked. “You are pretty good at carving metal yourself.”

“But you can always tell. An artisan could spot my work,” Angrein explained. “That I’ve used a cast, or an engraving scalpel for the details, but this…” he showed him the life-like miniature Uvrycres on the handle. “This was willed, a shape made out of a wizard’s dream, or a witch’s. Probably out of scorching hot liquid, why… the skill is superb, but it’s the artistry behind it that needs praise. The fact it’s slotted on a real wyvern’s talon is also telling. The small pinky one of the hind legs, but still…”

“What’s difficult about it?”

“You can’t fuse anything on draconite,” he glanced at Glen’s blank expression and smiled. “Wyvern bones are made out of this gem-like hard material. Alchemists called it draconite. Of course you can use a binding agent for it. They’ve no idea what to use, but of course a sorceress of her caliber would… if she was determined to find out.”

“What would that be?” Glen asked him. He’d no idea what half of what Angrein had just told him meant, but Glen could filter away the bullshit parts and find the important bits of it.

“If I had to guess whatever talks to you,” Angrein replied and gave him the silent dagger back.

“You hesitated there,” Glen noted.

“It just a bit strange,” Angrein replied. “Edlenn was a powerful sorceress, her spell-birthed artifacts… and creatures, still lingering inside the garden and her younger daughter is well known for having her talents. Why they say she made birds lull her to sleep in her cradle with real songs. Even so, this weapon is forged partly with Bonemancer’s magic, if I had to guess and no Zilan ever touched those kinds of spells. We are part of the living nature Hardir.”

“You are human yes? That we part got me confused.”

Angrein stared at him in awkward silence.

Right then.

“So you know of the dagger,” Glen said going another way.

“I only heard about its existence,” Angrein replied.

“Aken helped in their creation,” Glen paused to think it through, but decided he couldn’t solve this alone. “This one in particular.”

“Aelrindel told you that? And that she made more than one?”

“I haven’t talked with her, but briefly,” Glen replied, leaving some stuff out. “Very briefly.”

“You’ve talked with the Moon’s daughter,” Angrein repeated, very impressed apparently. “You know no one has seen her since Edlenn was killed? It’s been several centuries. Long before the empire’s demise.”

“Is that her mother?”

“Uhm… yes that was her.”

“Who killed her? The Queen?” Glen asked wiping the sweat off his brow.

“I don’t know,” Angrein replied. “Whomever done it must have been both very skilled and utterly insane. An Elderblood witch can cast spells in her sleep they say, when she dreams time stops, or when she dies.”

“A spell can linger?” Glen asked curious.

“A fire spell can burn on its own,” Angrein replied nonchalantly. “Over a great distance.”

Vycaris, a fancy dressed in soft red leather Zilan, with short well-combed hair and a black silk scarf hanged loosely from his neck, raised his head seeing him walking tentatively inside an hour later, barely avoiding getting run over by a couple of young Zilan teens hoofing it out of the shop giggling. All limbs and gleaming flirting eyes.

Glen grimaced murmuring under his breath and entered the roomy shop. Despite the darkness creeping up outside, Vycaris leather workshop and clothes store –given the fancy label over it- was well lit with lightstones secure in their glass boxes.

One could argue, too much light is used.

Fuck’s sake!

“Arguen Garth,” Vycaris greeted a scowling Glen warmly and rushed to help him to a comfortable bench next to his huge desk laden with scissors and sharp tools. The large building, right at a busy corner of the slowly coming to life outer city, was jam-packed with equally crammed with wares tables. Be it rolls of cloth, piles of leather and even sandals. A door led behind the building and the large yard where leather-drying racks and a boiler stood. Vycaris had transferred everything he had in his old workshop, the moment Glen had given him permission. “It is with a heavy heart I was informed of your injury.”

“I’ll live,” Glen croaked and pushed his hands away. “How is business?”

Vycaris sighed and eyed a sour faced female that had appeared from the back of his workshop/store. “Honestly it’s as much a relief, as it is a chore Hardir,” he admitted pensively.

The woman snorted.

“Not much clients?” Glen replied removing his ruined boot carefully. Cat that had followed him, sniffed at his foot and then backed away.

“Too many, but few willing to pay for my services,” Vycaris replied sadly. “These plebs have no idea about monetary compensation. Why, I’m getting offered produce and hides, small animals,” he eyed the lion cub strutting around his shop nervously, “Even insects in exchange.”

“Sex,” the female added eyeing him like a bug, you can’t wait to squash with yer boot once the visitors are gone. “Don’t keep things from Hardir Vycaris.”

Vycaris scrunched his face and reached for a measuring tape with one hand, a large piece of soft wax with the other.

“Oelinael is my partner,” he explained taking Glen’s foot and slotting the flattened wax underneath it. “Step on it for a moment,” Vycaris prompted him. “Anyway she had a cloth shop next to mine for some time—”

“Four centuries!” Oelinael blasted him irate.

“Yes dear,” Vycaris sighed. “Anyway she lost that and I had her move in with me in the Favored district. We’ve been working together ever since.”

“You piece of shite,” she snarled, all teeth and meanness. “I’m ripping that cock off next time you get it near my face!”

“Good grief,” Vycaris shook his head. “Here then, we have a casual, open relationship with no strings attached—”

“That’s not what you told me! The moment these young cunts popped out of the woodwork you turned around and started prancing about like a young rooster, you old sack of crap!”

“Hehe, I must mention here, I’m quite younger than her,” Vycaris explained nervously, with Glen unsure how to handle their disagreement, or why he should bother interfering.

Don’t my dude, he advised himself.

“Oi! Hello there!” Phinariel greeted them getting inside with an exaggerated twirl, then let out a scream of delight seeing the snarling cub glaring at her. She run after it, the cub panicking and running away screaming in turn.

Phina needs to get herself a pair of pants, Glen thought seeing the young Zilan stooping under a table to go after the hiding cub. He glanced sideways caught Vycaris gawking at the careless teen and raised his arm high, cuffed him once across the face. The sound of the heavy slap reverberating inside the tall walls of his shop. The Zilan stumbled sideways stunned and almost went down.

“Hahaha!” Oelinael guffawed very pleased. “Serves him right. Darn pervert, he isn’t getting any tomorrow.”

“Dear,” Vycaris protested flushed and holding his face. “I had the whole night planned!”

“I don’t care!”

All right then, Glen thought and stepped away from the wax, leaving his foot impression on it. “I’d like a pair of boots made posthaste,” he started then paused, as Phina had jumped up triumphantly holding on to a miserable looking crying cub with both hands.

“Can I have him for a night?” She asked and Glen thought about it.

“No,” he finally replied sternly.

“Thanks!” Phina beamed and run outside with the whining cub in her arms.

Glen scratched the side of his face with a finger, then grabbed a fancy looking piece of cloth and wiped it thoroughly as well. He stared at the sad-looking Zilan artificer and asked dispassionately. “So, what’s on the morrow?”

Vycaris blinked and returned his blank stare. “Why, the last night of summer milord,” And seeing Glen had still no idea about what he was talking about, Vycaris added with a deep disbelieving sigh. “Valimae lilt Hardir.”

Ah.