Death Comes To All (Book 1) (4 page)

He
believed they were heading south, though he was not even certain of
that. Neither of his parents had ever taught him to navigate by the
stars. People who never left their farms did not need to know how to
find their way. They knew every tree, rock, and bush on their land.
What use could they have for knowing how to navigate outside those
borders?

They
didn't stop for long. Drom would have built a fire and set up camp
for the night if it had been his choice, but these two didn't seem to
have any intention of doing that. They rested in silence, and after
about fifteen minutes set off once again. They didn't stop moving
again until mid-morning.

When
they finally stopped Drom had no idea how far they had gone. He had
even less of an idea as to where the two planned on going. They had
indeed been traveling south, he had known that for certain once the
sun rose that morning, but he knew nothing beyond that.

"We
should be safe here for a few hours," Garan announced. "If
we travel due south from here we will be close enough to the trade
city of Lando by nightfall that I can point you in the right
direction. You shouldn't have any problem finding it. Once there you
should be able to travel with one of the merchants heading toward the
sorvinian farm lands. I am right, aren't I? You are a sorvinian boy?"

“
How
did you guess that?” Drom asked. “I know how I look. I
don’t look like other sorvinians.”

Or
anyone else for that matter.

“
It
was your ears that gave you away. The rest of you looks, well, I’m
not sure actually. Human maybe? Still, those ears are pure sorvinian,
through and through. Regardless of your lineage, you’ll be
better off going back home. The world is no place for a young boy,
especially one that stands out as much as you do.”

"I'm
not going back there," Drom replied sternly. "I didn't want
to live the life of a farmer, and I'm not going to run back with my
tail between my legs now."

Not
that I have a tail. Just one more thing that makes me different than
everyone else back home.

"What
do they call you boy?" he asked, ignoring Drom's statement. "I'm
assuming there's a story behind you, and I would be interested in
hearing it."

"My
name is Drom," he replied, moving over to sit on a large fallen
log. He felt like he needed to sit down before he fell down. "There's
not really any story behind me though. I didn't want to be a farmer
so I left. That's really all there is to it."

"You
don't look like any other sorvinian that I've ever met. You look like
you should be old enough for your horns to start coming in, yet you
don't seem to have any. Surely a hornless child shouldn't be out on
his own in the world. I would think that it would be better for you
to go back home. Once you're old enough to make such decisions, after
your horns grow in, the farm might seem like a safer, better place
for you than it does now. For young boys such as yourself adventure
seems like a grand thing, at least for humans. I'm sure it's no
different for sorvinian boys. However, as you can see, the world is
far more dangerous than you realized when you left. I'm sure your
parents miss you very much."

Garan
came over to sit on the log next to him. The strange hooded woman,
who had hardly said a word since they left the inn, sat directly on
the ground several yards away and began cleaning her sword with an
oiled cloth she pulled out of a travel pack on her back.

Drom
noticed that the two carried only a small amount of gear with them,
far less than he would have expected for people who obviously planned
on traveling at a moments notice.

Perhaps
the packs they used were magicked to carry more than they appeared
to
, he thought. Such things were very expensive, but not
impossible to acquire for those who had the coin to pay for them.

In
the bright morning sunlight Drom could see sparkling emeralds along
the crosspiece of the thin blade the woman cleaned, and a large ruby
sat at the very base of the pummel. He knew almost nothing about
swords, though he had seen a few amongst the traders that came
through the farm. From what little he knew of such blades he would
have thought that such a large jewel would have upset the balance of
the light weapon.

It
must have cost her a small fortune
, Drom thought to himself.

The
dragonling, who had alternated between sitting on Garan's shoulder
and flying above them in the trees while they had traveled, flew off
his master's shoulder to land on the branch of a tree nearby and
began cleaning its scales, as if it were a bird preening its
feathers.

Drom
had been picked on all of his life by the sorvinians around him. He
knew when he was being baited, and wasn't going to let it get to him
now. He knew that the man could tell that he was already an adult,
and yet he purposefully continued to call him boy.

"I
am not a child. I will never grow horns, because only my father was
sorvinian. My mother was a human woman named Katrina. I never got
along much with the sorvinians around me. I looked too different. I
didn't belong there, so I decided to leave. Maybe I'll find a place
where I do belong, or at the very least a place where I don't feel so
out of place as I had there."

Garan
paused, looking hard at Drom's face, though what he was looking for
was anyone's guess. "Any one of the port towns or the trade
cities would take you in," Garan said after a moment. "Outside
of those cities you'll find that the different races pretty much keep
to themselves. They won't chase you off or anything, at least not
most places, but you'll never really fit in. What you need isn't a
place where you belong, but a lifestyle you can fit into. Can you use
magic?"

It
was a question Drom had not really considered much since his
childhood. His mother had a only small amount of magic. Most humans
did. Outside of human kin though, very few of the races had any
magic. For those races that did have magic it was very weak, and was
generally specific to that race alone. Certainly no sorvinian that
Drom had ever heard of had magic.

"Not
as far as I know," he answered finally. "My mother only had
a little bit of magic. She almost never used it. I always assumed
that my father's blood would prevent me from having any. When I was a
kid my mother always told me that I would never have any. I would
think that if I had magic I would have seen some evidence of it by
now."

"That's
fine. Few of the races have it after all. There are still plenty of
things you can do without magic." Garan absently pulled an apple
out of the pack he carried and threw it to Drom before pulling one
out for himself. "You already know that you don't want to be a
farmer, but have you given any thought to what you do want to do?"

"Not
really," Drom answered, taking a large bite out of the apple. He
had only finished half his meal the evening before, and had already
been hungry then. "I just sort of figured I would find a job
once I reached the port. I hadn't really thought about what job that
would be. I'm young and strong. I'll find some sort of work for now,
and can decide on a career sometime later. There's plenty of time.
Isn't your friend hungry?"

The
woman glanced his way, knowing somehow that she had become part of
the conversation. Drom would have thought that she had been too
intent on her cleaning and too far from the two men to have heard his
inquiry, but perhaps he was wrong. He heard her chuckle, and could
see her amber colored eyes shining out from underneath the hood that
she wore.

She
really had heard me
, he realized.

"I'm
not interested in eating apples," she said, sheathing her
freshly oiled weapon. She stood up and walked a little closer so it
would be easier for her to join the conversation. "There's a
small waterway a few miles ahead. I'll catch us a few fish there.
That's a bit more to my liking. I know that such a meal won't
interest you, but I'm sure Garan will join me."

She
reached up and pulled back the hood that had, up until that moment,
hid her features from Drom's eyes. Short, tan and black colored fur
covered her entire face in an intricate pattern, with white around
her eyes and the inside of her sharp, pointed ears. Her ears were
black along the backs, with bright white tufts of hair at the very
tips. The black lines continued passed her face to the back of her
head, changing from lines to spots as they progressed, continuing on
until they were obscured by her clothing. His mother had taught him
about this race in her histories, and one of the books she had spoke
briefly of them as well, though he had never expected to see one.

"You're
a feral!" he exclaimed.

"Thank
you for noticing," she replied sarcastically. "I don't
think I ever would have known if you hadn't told me. The name is
Raine by the way."

"I'm
sorry," Drom said sheepishly. He hadn't realized how rude that
must have sounded. "It's just I never thought I would meet a
feral. What little I've read about your race said they all keep to
the jungles on the other side of the world, and don't have much
contact with outsiders."

"That's
mostly true," she replied. "I'm one of the few to leave the
jungles. I, um, had some disagreements with my elders. They make all
the decisions for our people. In our culture it is thought that the
elders can do no wrong. They are considered the wisest of our people,
simply based on the fact that they have lived longer.

“
They
were fools, in my opinion. Following them would have had us
worshiping long forgotten gods again and working in stone instead of
steel. Our people would have regressed as a culture, simply on the
belief that tradition was more important than progress. Don't
misunderstand me, I agree that traditions are important. Knowing our
past allows us to learn from the mistakes of our ancestors. Our past
traditions make up an important part of our culture. Who we were
helps us to define who we are, and allows us to consider who we
should become. However, it shouldn't mean that we should go back to
old ways that were discarded once before, with good reason.

“
Our
elders wanted to go back to those ways, simply because they were
unable to look forward. I couldn't do that. In the end they agreed
that it would probably be best for everyone if I were to leave."

"Wait
a minute," Garan interrupted, looking at Drom. "Did you
just say you can read?"

"My
mother taught me since I was young," Drom answered. "I was
never very good at it, at least not as good as my mother would have
wanted me to be, but I know my letters and can read most words
passably enough."

Garan
looked thoughtful for a moment. "Can you read me this letter?"
He asked, handing a small note to Drom. He looked over the note.

"Two
thousand gold pieces for removal of Brill Darkheart, trog guard in
Port Dayton. likely to frequent...."

"OK,
that should be enough," Garan said quickly, taking back the
note. "I'm impressed. There are not many men who can read or
write. You should have no trouble finding work in any port you want
to visit. Merchants would pay good money for a worker who can both
handle the heavy labor and read the ledgers."

"Did
you really get paid two thousand gold pieces for killing that trog?"
Drom asked, fascinated. "I've never heard of anyone making that
sort of money at anything. My father would be lucky to make five
hundred gold for his entire season, and most of that would go to
paying the workers. Do you think maybe I could learn to be an
assassin?"

Garan
gave Drom a hard, harsh look. "Anyone can kill a man," he
said seriously. "Killing is easy. As easy as it is to kill a man
though, few people could ever hope to become an assassin. Most people
could never handle killing like that, which is probably for the best.
Unlike most men in my trade, I can pick and choose the contracts that
I take. I only kill those men that deserve their deaths, like that
trog certainly did.

“
Even
for someone like me it's far from being an easy life. I live outside
of the law, and that means that at any time I could be set upon by
guards, should they learn that I'm in their city. Also I've had
assassins sent after me on more than one occasion. I could die at any
time. I live for the excitement, and a few other reasons of my own,
but few others could do what I do. I wouldn't suggest this life for
anyone who had the opportunity to do otherwise."

"I
could do it," Drom declared defiantly. "I already don't fit
in anywhere I go. I can't live as a sorvinian, and I don't look human
enough to live as one of them either. I'm already living on the
outside. I have to admit though, I can't fight the way you can. If
you can teach me to fight, I will do whatever you tell me to. Just
give me the chance to prove myself."

Raine
walked over to Drom, looking him over closely. "He looks fit,"
she declared. "With a bit of training he could potentially
become a competent swordsman at least."

"She
thinks I can do it," Drom said hopefully. "All I need is a
good teacher."

"A
man who’s nothing more than a competent fighter is a dead one!"
Garan yelled, pulling his blade from its sheath in one smooth motion.
Too fast for Drom to see, nothing more than a blur, Garan attacked.
Even if he had a sword to defend himself with, Drom wouldn't have
stood a chance. He raised his hands over his face in fear and closed
his eyes against the inevitable blow.