The Shining Wyrm

2.8

Eventually Father along with what might very well be the entire household’s contingent of footmen and even the Knight of Garmendan Lothlar arrived.

Sopping and soaked to the bone.

Carrying storm lanterns barely alight in the downpour.

They cast the once pleasant meadow into gold-traced gloom, revealing the muck of the torn up battlefield it had become.

Dragging an empty tun-sized cart pulled by four draft horses that seemed to be having a difficult time with the sucking mud that had become of anywhere that was not spongy weaves of grass, tangled knots of roots or treacherously slick stones.

Jewel was mostly put together properly again. Nothing was actually wrenched out of place anymore.

But everywhere she had gotten her joints pressed back together either felt tender, sprained, bruised or otherwise over stretched or twisted.

Muscles and ligaments and crunchy gristle Jewel could have gone without knowing was inside her were so pained and overexerted it made moving almost as difficult as before.

But according to Fizzbunches and Tsulogothulan, she was well enough to heal on her own now, given rest.

It helped that her Wyrmflame was stoked to near full, almost brimming out of her in the torrents of the storm and the way the lightning danced percussively through the sky.

So she was able to at least hold herself (carefully) aloft on that alone, making herself a little presentable.

“F-father, I’m sor-UReeeK”

The crushing hug around her neck enveloping her was not doing anything good to her overly sore muscles. Especially not where the boar had crushed her windpipe closed.

He abruptly released her at the improper squeal of pain with a squint of apology to his eyes.

“You’re alright? When Alexander came I feared the worst but you look quite hale! Good job dau-”

Fizzbunches yowled loudly and sharply.

“Lord Rochford, your daughter was for all accounts and practicalities a corpse with a heart beat when we reached her. The boar had trampled and crushed her, pulled every limb out of joint and place and crushed her throat until it stuck that way! It’s been the effort of all THREE of us to revive her as well as we did and I shall only not be charging you for the trial above and beyond the promised service of one of us because the chance to study her skeletal structure and incredible tenacity to survive where any mortal creature would succumb is within the remit of study you still have yet to fully finalize the agreement for.”

The dark glint in her father’s eyes hinted at violence before he heaved with a sigh and bowed his head towards Fizzbunches.

The conceit drew a startled meep from Jewel and a few surprised glances from the accompanying household.

Though Muriel seemed too exhausted and sodden to react. She had finally, after Jewel’s admonishments, gotten her sword out of the mud and even made an effort to dry it out under the downpour.

But it likely would need a solid treating and oiling after tonight.

“Lord Sorcerer Fizzbunches, for this service here? I pledge that if you include the full care towards healing and protection you showed toward my daughter this evening you will have your writ of access for your arcane studies, and if you so vouch for them I will even extend that to any that bear your seal. On the stipulation you are responsible if any should use such seals to bring harm or dishonor to my house or mine.”

The smug cat wizard was incredibly smug, dry as a bone despite the downpour. Looking up at Father in a way that somehow was still looking down his nose at the great man.

Jewel focused on keeping herself aloft and as gently cradled in her Wyrmfire as possible.

“Such a momentous decision I can accept in principle. But we should wait till we are all well rested before committing it to writ and vellum. I will hold no obligation to your house for tonight regardless how you feel in the ‘morrow.”

And with that he spun around a corner and left them all standing there in the rain.

Of which only Jewel and Tsulogothulan seemed entirely unperturbed by it.

Even Euewyn was a bit sodden and unhappy looking under so much precipitation. Constantly throwing eddies and zephyrs of chiller, cooler autumn wind up and about to rustle the raindrops from her leaves.

Releasing whistling agitations like the keening displeasure of sparrow and the arguing of squirrel and other tree vermin that Jewel was pretty sure was as close as the Autumn Wizard would manage to cursing in a way not taken literally.

Father turned to address his gathered Footmen and nodded heavily to them before marching over to the absolutely massive hillock of a corpse that had been the boar.

“Kraok! It was you who struck the blow who felled this beast?”

The footman stood up and marched over to father to nod, a head shorter than him now that Jewel could see them standing together.

“My Lord, it was a group effort, Lady Jewel was tangling with the beast and the Governess Murial also was making strikes. Further more Arberson and... Gimletson... It is not my honor alone.”

Muriel shouted over the thunder and the roar of water crashing into the forest, wind in the leaves.

“Sod off it Kraok! While we were being flung about and toyed with like babes at a tournament you lunged yourself UNDER the beast to skewer its heart!”

Father raised a hand for ‘silence’ although the storm refused his orders, bringing thunder and lightning and if anything even heavier torrents of rain.

Then turned and walked, boots squelching in the muddy bog that had been made of this side of the meadow in the rain and the churned up mess the boar had made in its battle with them.

He looked over the four-tusked beast that Alexander had baited out of the woods and taken poor Gimletson’s life.

That corpse was already wrapped tight in burial cloth, sans quite a lot of the innards which were probably mixed into the mud at their ankles right now.

Finally Father spoke with a heavy tone.

“This beast took the life of one of my subjects and your comrade right before your eyes and would have murdered my only son. It brutalized my daughter to the brink of death and likely would have slain her as well if not for you.”

Father turned to Kraok and clasped his shoulder in a hand that nearly brought his fingers to the shorter man’s throat.

“This beast could have cut all of my line down this very day. But it did not because you struck with honor and bravery against a foe no one could expect you to survive.”

He brought his brow down to meet Kraok’s own and was still a moment, everyone was silent.

Father’s words cut through them all as he held the footman there speaking firmly over the wind and rain.

“You have earned the right to call yourself my Knight.”

He stood and Kraok stood straighter.

“I name You Sir Kraok Boarslayer and grant you all the privileges and responsibilities deserving that station, including the right to a landed title and a dynastic household yourself. I swear to defend this honor by my house and name.”

He turned back to the muddy heap of a corpse.

“Now let's get this monstrosity gutted, cleaned and loaded on the cart. I don’t know about all of you but I’m ready to get indoors and dry by the hearth fire and then a soft bed.”

A laugh from the footmen as Father beamed even in the dark of the woods at dusk in a torrential downpour.

“We have a feast long-delayed today so there will be plenty of food to be had. But tomorrow I declare a festival! All of you and all of my demesne shall enjoy the fruits of Kraok’s victory! A hunting festival for the champions who took down the Terror-Boar!”

And with that, the many hands of the foot took to work preparing the colossal carcass and hoisting it up onto the wagon, whose heavy wheels sank deeply into the mire that was being made of the road.

But Rochford’s draft horses were sturdy as oxen and far more clever and sure-footed.

Where the wheels would not turn through the muck the man and beast alike pulled and pushed to simply slide the burdened cart over tree roots and stones and through the near-streams that some of the deer paths had become in the rain.

On the way inward into the woods brush had been cleared and even the smaller saplings had been cut down and torn up from their roots.

But the way back was still incredibly slow.

The cart had passed unburdened into the woods and now it bore the weight of a mountain of boar flesh that pressed it ever deeper into the mud with every pace they seemed to get it forward.

This continued at a crawl until Tsulogothulan finally seemed to have had enough watching them struggle and took to the head of the procession.

“Really now! You are going to work so hard when you have the stated service of a Sorcerer and Weird of bog and all that steps, crawls and swims in its waters and mud?! Fools all of you! Behold!”

And after that quite a few men had to leap back and the horses had a momentary fright before their ability to move was taken from them.

For as had been done with repairing and shifting Jewel’s own broken body, the mud and water of the forest’s impromptu bog swelled up around them all and carried cart, horse and any footmen too slow to get out of the way bobbing along and through the woods. Swallowing the animal and men alike up to their necks to hold them fast and speed them ahead and along the route.

Tsulogothulan’s laughter was the most inhuman Jewel had ever heard the wizard, sounding more like a murder of crows having great delight than any sound of human throat.

But it somehow complemented the ride and after the initial shock those men caught in the mud made the most of the situation and hollered in merriment along with.

It was barely much faster than a trot yes, but significantly better than the sluggish trudge they had been going before. And likely meant they would indeed reach Fort Rochford before sunrise.

Jewel honestly would not have minded the slower pace. It would have meant she could take it easier.

She stayed close to Father riding astride one of the tallest warhorses from their stable, Midnight Justice; an imposingly powerful beast so black and shining he hardly stood out from the night in their scattered lantern light.

He would have been entirely invisible if not for Father and all the glittering metal of the stallion’s full kit.

One of the few beasts beside Zephyrvam that could bear Father’s weight for longer than a short circuit around the courtyard.

Hovering and moving as little of her body as possible though Jewel could just about keep pace. Barely moving a limb if she could help it, pressing herself up on almost entirely the will of Wyrmfire alone.

She could see him wincing when he saw her own pained care with her every limb.

“Don’t worry father! I kept Alexander safe, and the Wizards say that I probably will recover entirely. You don’t need to concern yourself with me.”

Which got nothing but the saddest chuckle she had ever heard her Father ever make.

With the pain of the talking and the shame she felt over not having somehow stopped Alexander before it all happened Jewel remained silent.

But her Father’s warm presence was enough.

Jewel was starting to think she did not in fact like hunting after all.