Category: Renado

Ren could hardly keep it straight.  He’d asked Karsef to start keeping a notebook—and, thankfully, Sarno did too.  King Turim attended a sort of gladiatorial games each week with King Aggo and Novilo occasionally attending as well.  King Ulren, on the other hand, more or less lived in a brothel called Statha’s Girls.  Ren would have been concerned if other Mage Kings had shared that routine in the same whorehouse.  Meanwhile, Lotha remained a prisoner in King Turim’s cells. Continue reading Renado 41

The enormous stone walls of Ith came into view as they descended the last tall hill.  A few more bumps of land stood in their way, but they were nearly there.  Kazra looked across the valleys at it, and let out her breath at the sight.  If she had been in a good mood for the sight, it lasted only as long as that breath, then she kept on walking.  Renado paused a little more for Virn, Sarno, and the others.  They had never seen anything like it, and they were not in the same scowling state as their leader. Continue reading Renado 40

The Circle warriors were unstoppable.  They walked for twelve hours a day, and only stopped at the end of that because Ren and his men were exhausted and winded.  At night, they stayed awake, speaking silently.  Sarno and his soldiers were incredibly fit and could march further than Renado’s group—but they at least slept.  Kazra and Virn seemed to have no need of rest whatsoever. Continue reading Renado 39

“It’s time,” Halrum said.  The man wore a small hood over his balding grey hair, further disguising his heavily bearded face.

Renado paused, panting for breath.  He lowered the wooden sparring sword and leaned it across his knees.  He looked at Asar, similarly winded from their training, and then at Woodro who had been spectating them.  “Woodro, go get Karsef.  Meet us on the road.” Continue reading Renado 38

The dealer scattered cards to each player, and the small audience fell silent.  There were three players at this game, and each guarded a good-sized pile of coins, silver Vagren crowns.  These were the sorts of people who won more than Renado ever had at cards and lived off those winnings.  For them, the onlookers held breath and tried to sneak glances at their carefully hidden cards.

Ren stood across the table from the young woman, Ira, who had won the last two nights he’d watched her play.  He glanced briefly at the other two players: a man with veiny arms sat next to the man in front of Ren, with his thick black beard and braided hair.  Then he looked back at Ira. Continue reading Renado 37

The wooden steps up to the front door of Nalisa Orr’s home looked even more worn before.  Renado had not spoken with Irrith in almost two Moons—he lived in Vagren and slept slumped over a bar more often than not.  He was being paid for it, so, by the gods, why not?  He had divvied up the coins that Halrum brought his men each week, and that was the only responsibility he had.

Until the summons came.  Ren followed Woodro up the steps to the front door of the organization’s safe house.  The familiar tension between Ren’s warrior and the warrior of a fellow faction seemed to settle into a place that had been empty without it.  Woodro’s shoulders rose, and his gait picked up.  Ren felt a certain clarity form in his mind as he stared down Irrith’s usual bouncer, like a hole forming in the clouds. Continue reading Renado 36

Streaks of chimney smoke and grey brick towers obscured the slate blue sky as Ren and his companions awaited their entrance to Vagren.  Ren had never been to a city with a closed gate policy, at least not of this size, nor one with a maintained curfew.  Quiet and contemplative, the camps outside the city waited patiently for entrance, and the cloud-emptied overhead seemed to agree. Continue reading Renado 35

“Enough,” Karsef said, panting.  He’d been sparring with Asar, primarily using his left hand.  The right hand was out of its sling now, but it was still sore.  He did a few easy bouts with the healing arm, but wanted to keep up his skill with his left, as much as was possible.

Ren sipped his canteen again, the small wooden nozzle filling his mouth with bitter water.  Their little camp was nothing but a ring of sleeping cots and trampled dirt.  It was past time to roll up their beds and The duelers paced around one another, breathing heavily. Continue reading Renado 34

Between the massive ridge-like walls of Ith the rising slope of Pranan’s Hill barely seemed like a hill at all.  This was compounded by the thousand structures built upon it—towers manned by archers, estates attended by armies of servants, and sprawling commercial shops invaded by the privileged citizens of the district, hose citizens who had never tried to revolt because they owned slaves and because their assets were protected by the Mage Kings. Continue reading Renado 33

They spent a few hours each day exploring the various districts of Ith.  It seemed some regions of the metropolis remained untouched by the failed revolution and the Mage King’s onslaught.  The enormous walls were not all as large as the first they had marched through, but the unseemly slabs of rock still dwarfed, in scale, any wall Renado had seen before.

In a way, after those eerie days among a city’s haunted populace with mythical overlords mere miles away, Ren could relate to the jittering paranoia of Darr, their peculiar guide.  A few days after the scrapes and bruises earned in the cinders of Axar’s home had begun to heal, Darr took them into the dense streets of Pranan’s Hill.  He showed Ren and his men the place where he had turned back, abandoning Lotha and her loyal followers to whatever fate awaited them. Continue reading Renado 32