The Knight of Tanner's Square

8

The Minoans believe they are the chosen people, the last of the children of Xarl. There is little of the father’s blood in them that remains. The proud cousins of the Grimm in their plight for survival tainted their bloodlines with the mongrel races that dwelled in the surrounding mountains.

It is true, Xarl led the twenty into the Blackstone Mountains and created our noble cousins. The twenty is a group mistaken as the ‘chosen’. To give prestige in meaning to the minds of their descendants, but the twenty were young women, daughters of noble chieftains or common clan maidens. It did not matter to Xarl their status as long as they were beautiful.

Xarl the father didn’t mean the mighty creator, whose touch performed miracles such as conception, as the Minoans worship. He created children like any common man, bedding them all, and impregnating them with his godly seed.

The twenty were his harem, and they didn’t come alone. They brought slaves, but you will never read about them because they were unimportant, forgotten, and would stain their glorious story.

The One Path - Dmitri Pinoak

The Priesthood

Mero had a lot on his mind while halted by two of the priesthood guards, broad, Nuhrish men, pale and wearing frowns as he approached. He judged them to be seventeen or eighteen, small lads the last time Mero dwelled in Karn, tucked away in the lower temple and kept away from commoners.

They may know him by reputation, but his reputation made most men here uneasy as they waited for him to address his business.

“Please alert your master he has a visitor,” Mero said, bearing a warm smile.

The guards looked at him like he was a lunatic. They were doing their jobs, grasping hard to their military forks and looking intimidating. The priests of Karn were bald with pudgy cheeks, wearing their faded orange robes, and most looked alike to Mero, the only real difference being their skin tones. It was a game Mero used to play with his master, Eivar, a guessing game of what village they bought them from.

The priesthood of Karn was an order of unwanted orphans, toddlers bought from starving mothers, or lords wanting to make the burden of hungry mouths disappear from their lands. They were always willing buyers, taking in any unwanted male child as long as they were under five years old.

The boys were well provided for, educated as any noble, trained in military bearing, and proficient with their weapons of lore: the military fork, a two-pronged spear that found many a man’s throat in the eastern lands, and the Khopesh, a curved sword with a weighted end that not only split a man’s skull but caved it in with a single stroke. They were taught as lads with slings and were deadlier than most archers in a battle.

“You tell him Mero Farnesse seeks an audience,” he mentioned, waiting curiously to see if his name would stir them.

The two eunuchs still were having trouble with him, looking at one another and then leering back at him. “Is there a problem, lad?” Mero asked.

“Mero was a man who fought alongside our master twenty years ago. You don’t look the part. Remove yourself, please, and get the proper clearance from below,” one guard told him.

Mero laughed aloud and dug out a parchment for them to glance at. The two didn’t appear to care for his joke as they grunted, then stood aside while Mero passed them to begin the climb of the winding stairwell that ascended the front drum tower.

He was here when they first built over a decade ago. The mud-brick structure was eight floors high and butted up against their newest, taller tower — the Tower of Lupretia, an obelisk that stood higher than the walls of Breeston. Mero looked up, grateful that Magnus hated heights and he wouldn’t need to climb to its top as it stood sentry over the fortress that the order called home.

Mero climbed the winding stairs that passed alongside entrances to training halls. Some they used for knowledge or military exercises, and some were for sorcery, and they always locked those doors from the inside. The order was the only people who practiced the old Grimm art, something considered criminal or evil in societies that followed the Gospel of Xarl.

Inside the fortress, it was always quiet, even though hundreds were passing along the hallways, through the in-between doorways and the stairwell itself. Mero passed many young men as he ascended upward to an entrance to the top level. They would glance at him once, never longer than a breath, then pass him like he never existed.

He learned that Magnus’s quarters had moved, stopping one eunuch, who pointed him down a hallway that led to the center of the obelisk. Mero noticed doorways to either side, locked with a man outside.

His thoughts wondered what dark things they were doing in the name of the mother, nodding to each man who never nodded back until he entered its center, a circular foyer with another stairway leading to the obelisk’s top.

Mero had many questions since he left Lonoke, and it irritated him to have learned of Eivar’s death weeks after it happened. Mero believed Magnus’s spies would have known of the tragedy but declined to inform him.

An older man sat behind a cedar desk, one of the few trees that grew in the arid land with a quill in his hand, scribbling on a parchment, flanked by two standing sentries, so Mero coughed to get his attention. The older priest looked up and blinked at him several times. Mero observed his wrinkled head — a Breestoner, but he didn’t need to guess that, as he knew the man.

“Mero?” the man blinked in disbelief. “I hoped you would return.”

“You acquired more wrinkles on the top of your dome, Frederick since we last talked. I am happy to lay eyes upon you again.” Mero was glad to see a familiar face.

The order had grown immensely, it seemed, since he left. The youth they had locked away had grown into adults and manned the familiar places, as the veterans from his time had either died or been promoted to other positions inside the tower above.

“It’s a blessing from the mother to see you; you haven’t changed since you left, you look so bloody young,” Frederick said as he came around his desk and embraced him hard.

He was near seventy, but fit as a middle-aged man with vigor left in his life. The eunuchs lived a generation longer than the normal commoners. Frederick was an elder, having been in the order several years longer than Magnus himself. The last of the men from the western cities when the priesthood had a presence there.

“My travels took me through your old homeland. It looks to have seen better days,” he informed the elder.

“Magnus keeps me informed. He has mentioned you often,” Frederick answered him but was struggling to find words. “When I heard, it stunned me. Stunned us all that served with him. Eivar Farnesse was a hero to the Priesthood.″ Then the man choked up, nearing tears as he composed himself.

“I learned of his fate before I departed,” Mero said with a pit in his stomach. “Of all the places to die. I hope that Magnus has news.”

“Of course. He has been waiting since you arrived in Lansky. Once you arrived at the docks, a brother rode here immediately.”

“Then I should have gotten an escort,” Mero quipped.

“We have rules; no talking to outsiders,” Frederick remarked, scolding him. “How many did you approach and aggravate, being the miserable thorn you are?”

“Everyone I could,” Mero said, playfully jabbing the older man.

“Nothing has changed.” he japed. “Go see the master. Your drones all informed me; they have the wits of a dead tree. It must be a relief to be so unburdened and be a worker bee in this hive.” Mero replies mocking the droll tone that the order speaks in.

“You still love chastising our ways, but look how much we have grown. They reduced our order to under a thousand after the dark days of Nuhr, and now we have over six with twice that much in training,” Frederick said. “Things are changing for the better, Mero.”

“Wars have been good for business, I hear,” Mero replies to annoy him. He had heard that many rebellions in the lands of Nuhr have helped slavers bring many children to the priesthood.

“Stop that nonsense. Go see Magnus and quit goading an old man. You haven’t changed one bit,” Frederick said while directing him to the door behind his desk. It was a stained red oak from Nuhr, a heavy thing that Mero had to lean all his weight in to open.

“Are you ever going to put something new in here? You still have that bloody heavy door?”

“The path to purity is never compromising,” Frederick said with a laugh. “You complain too much. I have to open the excruciating thing over a dozen times a day.”

Mero put in a shoulder, and after a hard grunt, it moved, creaking after every inch until he slipped inside.

“Don’t you complain about that door,” an older man yelled at him from within.

“They say you are such a wise man, Magnus, but why must you insist on keeping this infernal thing?”

“It is our only remnant from the old temple, and many men died bringing it here. I can’t dishonour them by taking it down.”

“Hang it on a wall, with a sentimental engraving like a memorial,” Mero said. “That is what most cities do to honour legends.”

“It is a reminder of the dark days,” Magnus said. “I open it to remind me of them and keep the rancour in my heart to the usurpers. You were there, my friend.”

The old man was welling in tears. He looked good for a man of sixty, his frame hadn’t thinned from old age, and it surprised Mero how strong he looked. His bald, Nuhrish head had a few spots on it, Mero had noticed, but not much had changed since he last laid eyes on him eight years ago. “You have aged well, not the wrinkled prune like I imagined you would be.”

“You jape after what has happened?” Magnus scoffed.

“I am tired of shedding tears,” Mero said in anger. “I didn’t find out until I finished that job your lackeys asked of me. My search was hard but a success. This item I retrieved? I have questions about this relic.” The relic was Grimm, Mero knew, but it was the name of the gravestone that has haunted him since.

“We can discuss that later. The matter is not important right now. Are you aware how he died in Breeston?” Magnus said, flicking his hand in annoyance, the gesture put ire into Mero as he tried to remain patient

“Yeah, like a dog in a filthy ward,” Mero replied. “What was he doing there? I heard nothing of this when I talked to your men in Lonoke. His murder should have been known by then and relayed to me.”

“They were unsure of the matter, thinking it nonsense at the time. The urgency of the task in Loreto outweighed the grave news, so forgive them, many of them there are young and ignorant of the strife we went through together.”

“They knew that by telling me, it would mean you couldn’t get the item in the grave.” Mero quickly cut him off. “I will see to it when I return to thank them properly.”

“This treasure you brought me was of the most importance,” Magnus answered, shaking his head. “Let’s bicker about this another time”.

“Why did he leave? What did he tell my brothers before he departed?”

“Why he left, I have no answer for. He disappeared without leaving a word, including your brothers as they were quick to bare their fangs at me.” Magnus spat back with a scowl. “I became worried, so I sent men after him, even your black savage and his beast came with my men.” The high priest then banged his fist on a large table.

“Tell me anything,” Mero pleaded, “Anything that would explain his behaviour; he had no reason to go west. I think I am inclined to answers.”

The high priest remained steadfast, repeating he did not know why Eivar left unannounced. He informed him that his mentor had grown a habit of drinking with Osgrey. He was an elder Mero knew, a lower rank within the order, who served alongside them in Nuhr before they usurped King Alexavier.

A fellow soldier who had suffered with Eivar as they mourned. The two would sit and dwell on better days while ingesting the sweet and sour wine that the priesthood fermented from the dates and figs that grew in the red soil.

Magnus had told Mero at first when Eivar disappeared, he feared these new invaders. A race of savage men called the Assan Rue had snatched him while he was riding his palfrey away from the city, a favorite thing that Eivar would do when melancholy gripped him, something he had suffered from for as long as Mero was with him.

It relieved the high priest when his men told him they found his palfrey in Lansky. A hostler had bought it from him, so they detained him and questioned the man long into the night for all he remembered of their encounter. “He crossed the sea and did his best to keep it unknown. Why would he do this, Mero? We are like brothers.” Magnus complained.

“I then sent word to my men in the inner isles and to the town of Rubrick. He had slipped past them,” the priest complained. “My men had picked up nothing. Eivar could be like a spirit, you know that as well as I, and I kept my best eyes there,” Magnus boasted.

“Would he have any reason to hide?” Mero pressed the high priest, but Magnus only shook his head taking offense to his question.

“Why would he? I would do anything for him if he asked.” The priest continued, “The last couple of years, we had dined less, I admit but we never grew cold to one another.”

“The affairs here keep me tied down, and he would never ask for an audience. He was in his dark moods, much more since you left, Mero, but that is neither here nor there.” the priest would lament then continue his thoughts on Eivar’s moods.

“I would have to track down Osgrey to learn of his well-being. The man, may the mother keep him, had spent more time with him than your blood-hungry brothers to ask how he was.”

“They have names, Magnus: Okrid, and Grolut. No need to throw barbs about my brothers; they may be savages, but you don’t use rigid words toward them when you need them for making corpses,” Mero said in annoyance at his slight.

“It is true, they are useful for such a purpose,” Magnus added. “But they are what they are. True devils.”

“I will tell them you sent your regards, so please continue,” Mero said, wearing a frown. “May the mother keep him? What is the meaning of that?”

“A misunderstanding. Your brothers, as you corrected me, in haste snatched Osgrey after I had an audience.” Magnus huffs in frustration.

“Their audience with the poor man made his heart give out. You know how hard it is to keep the peace sometimes when those two act before thinking, now we have no Osgrey, just in case something slipped his mind because he’s dead!”

Mero gave no response as Magnus studied him, the priest then rubbed tears from his eyes and continued.

“When Lucius put eyes on him, he was already deceased in that wretched city,” Magnus adds, his voice laced with ire. “They slew our poor comrade, these Yellow Hand demons. The constables had covered the place so my spies could not collect him.”

Magnus then bemoaned, looking at him in agony. “I was sending a man to lay claim to his corpse, but they say Eivar’s body had disappeared. I had an odd hope he had recovered like a miracle from the mother. The man had abilities that confounded me my whole time with him,” the priest confessed while he listened.

“Where could his corpse have gone? It saddens me, Mero. I wanted to bury him here, see his body so I could say goodbye. Witness the man I admire, because I can’t believe he is dead,” Magnus said, then cried aloud.

“I feel like I failed him somehow. It has been so hectic since this invasion. The refugees from the east side of the continent have poured in here for sanctuary from those savages.” he complains as Mero listens in judgment.

“I had to make a deal with that dishonorable king as he is calling himself now. King Hammalcarr of Nalz!” Magnus spat. “He wants peace, but his chiefs like to raid the innocent. He lacks the numbers to challenge me, so he wants an alliance. His time is coming, and I will squash him like a beetle.”

The savages had taken Wooster and Alm, sold the people into slavery, and killed their lords, Magnus had told him. Men who fought with them alongside King Alexavier. “I told them over a decade ago not to send envoys to those mongrels; they would only double-cross them and take everything they had.”

“Those lords never liked you, priest. Why shed a tear over those traitors? Those savages killed men who would have killed you if they had a large enough army. Your sympathy is a little inflated, old man,” Mero scoffed.

“If you have them neutralized, so why wait? You have a large army and growing every year, and I noticed that you have coin flowing through your lands. I counted three carracks trading at the docks of Lansky. You should end them now.”

“In due time my friend, but yes, things are better in that regard. Why, yes, I have merchants coming from Nuhr and Elbe now. We have grain in our holdings and they are bursting.” Magnus’s despair changed in an instant to gloating.

“The old pink weed that grows like grass here. Eivar called it bitter collards when he was trying to find a use for it. He understood plants better than anybody else.” The priest commented with a prideful laugh followed by sarcasm.

“His last gift to us was a poultice from that nuisance, and we have been selling it for silver to the outer cities. They need us twisted clerics now, those same greedy louts who mock us, the hypocrites.”

Mero thought back to what Edmund had told him in Loreto while Magnus rambled. The way the lad described this healer, convinced him the man was a Grimm like him in a false flesh that stole Eivar’s body, smuggling his bones back to their homeland.

What confused him was why, and how did the man learn about him? Did this healer witness his corpse after the slaughter, or did he know his master all along? Did Eivar see this man before he perished? He had many questions as Magnus kept going about the priesthood’s new plans.

He had wondered on his journey back here, if Magnus had played a role in his death. He had known the man for over thirty years, and he couldn’t believe that, but the gravestone was bothering him, and his mind couldn’t forget what he witnessed in Loreto.

His thoughts kept wandering back there, each day on the carrack he dwelled on it. He was still puzzled with Edmund, who wasn’t aware that he crossed paths with a Grimm, not only once, but twice, and the lad and his brother had survived tragedies that should have killed them both. They were mauled by those dogs and when he talked with Edmund his skin was as if he was reborn.

Mero also understood if he mentioned Edmund, then it would just intrigue Magnus into sending his men to inquire about the lad. If the old priest had spies as crafty as he liked to boast, then they would have known about this man Peregrine, Mero thought to himself. He had to do his own investigating, to get out of here and retrace Eivar’s steps.

“What have your eyes discovered about this Yellow Hand?” Mero asked, interrupting him as he tried to keep his focus on the priest. “I have heard rumblings about this group raiding and robbing innocents.”

“Crusaders, they like to call themselves, but that is bollocks. My men say they confused him for a rich merchant, an act of terror to spread through the wards. They chose the wrong man, and he took as many of those vultures along with him.”

“Are your men looking for these brigands?” Mero asked.

“You think I will let this lie? That man was like a brother!” Magnus answered with a raised voice.

“I will find whoever is behind this, the real head of this snake, and his suffering will last. I will guarantee you that.” Magnus reinforced his anger by slamming his fist again on his table, sending parchments twisting to the floor. He calmed himself and apologized to Mero for his failure, composing himself with a look of worry. “What are your plans, friend, if I may ask?”

“What can I do? He is dead, and that is that. I am thinking of going to Breeston, trying to figure out his murder my way,” Mero said in disgust. “I need validation, not words on a parchment.”

“Let my men find out more. I am expecting information any day now with more details.” He pleaded with Mero to stay calm; the high priest required him, he mentioned, to change the subject. “I had hoped that you could help sway Okrid to do a task. He has been difficult to do business with since he heard about our dear friend.” Magnus then offered him a proposition.

“Go talk to your brothers, please sway them and do this task I am in desperate need of, and when you all return, I will have a name and then you will have all my resources in revenge for our brother.”

Mero nodded in agreement, more anxious to speak with his brothers as his instincts felt something was amiss. Magnus walked to the large door and summoned out to the foyer as a boy returned with a skin. “I will try to sway Okrid, but I am afraid that he will be bitter toward me as well,” Mero remarked.

Magnus shook his head, annoyed with the mere mention of Okrid. He poured the bleak contents into a pewter cup and toasted to Eivar, sharing the wine as they passed time in bits of conversation. He could sense Magnus was settling after his tirade, so after a second goblet, he got to the other matter that brought him here.

“This relic you had me retrieve, it’s a book. It seems more than what your men informed me of,” Mero inquired, getting to the point. He declined to inform Magnus about what he witnessed about the dogs.

Mero had found the book in a lean-to the man used as a shelter, a league from the grave that Magnus had sent him to dig up. He kept it to himself that the Loreton transformed into a wolfhound, something he had never heard of, and still found it unbelievable even though he watched the man change after he killed him.

Magnus never mentioned that the bones inside the grave didn’t belong to a Loreton. They were the bones of a Grimm, he thought, and he wondered if Magnus knew. He spent days looking for this item the man had taken from the grave, and fortune smiled on him when following the old tracks that the wolfhounds left behind that led him there to that structure.

“What about the name on the gravestone?” Mero asked, the stone had nagged him that Eivar Farnesse was etched on the stone. “Your men said the gravestone was marked by the sign of the mother, three acorns, one on top and two on the bottom. It had a name.”

“I don’t know about a name or cared about it, our friends thought the name would be worn off over time, he was sure the mark would still be present,” he said annoyed that Mero was back to his inquiry.

“You want to pry about this? I guess I can inform you with some little details if that eases your mind.” The response baffled Mero, it was hard to believe to him that Magnus would send him on an errand being ignorant.

“What are these friends?”

Magnus lowered his voice, nearly giddy, mentioning that he had a new ally. A new city they had discovered that no other city had ventured. They were friendly to the order, which Shelby Conoway, a priest under the guise of a ship captain was fortunate enough to stumble upon.

It dwelt mong a hidden grouping of islands he found after a storm altered his direction. “The man has two things I covet — gold and power — Mero. It is our new friends that desire this book you retrieved.”

The words stuck in his throat, but he never hinted upon his face the dread in his gut. “You should be more skeptical, old man.”

“What makes you say that? He has shown skill in the old art. A skill I could only dream of, and he is offering us this advancement for an errand” Magnus remarked. “It is this new friend of ours that told me about the grave and the marking.”

“If I give him that book, he will advance our cause further than I ever imagined. We will get our revenge, no more stalling, Mero,” the high priest told him in a morbid tone, as he watched a fire build behind the man’s eyes.

“I will build an army and crush the usurper and his treachery. My new ally is a spawn of the mother herself. A Grimm, can you believe it, Mero?” Magnus says with a sly smile, the mother had sent him to us.

“You haven’t a clue, nor do you know what a Grimm looks like.” Mero laughed in mock, as a pain nested in him. The man surely was being grifted, Mero then thought of this Peregrine from Edmund’s story, his mind was moving too fast as he tried to compose his worry. “This ally probably sees your desperation, and is deceiving you with false promises.”

He snickered as Magnus became angry at him. “What is it with you, Mero? When you told us about Loreto, it seemed the mother sent this new ally to us months later, can’t you accept that this is Lupretia’s favour?” the priest was obsessed with this venture that his dogma was giving him signs to follow.

“It was her grace, her will that you bring this item to me, so I can pass it along. Who cares whose name is on the grave.”

“So you are ignorant of the corpse I stole it from?” Mero asked in disbelief.

“Okay, you must have something that bothers you,” Magnus says while throwing his hands up in annoyance. “Tell me who was in the grave? Then tell me why it matters to you.”

“You didn’t ask this so-called Grimm?”

“Of course, I asked,” Magnus remarked, looking away from him confused. “Our ally said it was of no concern, bring the item and he would expand our knowledge in the art.”

All his life, Magnus had worshipped the first race of men. The priesthood felt a kinship with the first men due to their worship of the mother, Lupretia. The priesthood liked to fashion themselves as the new followers, the new children, taking up the mantle the Grimm tossed aside.

What Magnus wasn’t aware of, was that a Grimm was sitting on the other side of the desk from him. He was sure the man had suspicions about him, but Magnus was born with barbarian blood, and the art of his false flesh kept him concealed.

“What does he look like, old man? This new friend, describe him.” He was angry at Magnus by then, and the priest wasn’t appreciative of his candour. “Since you were so drunk on this power on this promise, that you blindly violated a corpse for him.”

“He was pale like his skin was polished pearl, and it seemed to glow, and he looked like all I had dreamed a Grimm would,” Magnus spat. “He had deep blue eyes, bright reddish hair, and he looked like a sage. His city is beautiful and he lives in a palace.” The high priest became obstinate, his voice high and ecstatic.

“He wants to assist us in our cause and spread the love of the mother. He lived amongst them; he touched my hand and I got a glimpse of her in my thoughts and I cried aloud.” Magnus exclaims, as his eyes welled in tears, the man couldn’t hold back his joy. “She is coming back, Mero, and she’s calling out to her children.”

Mero became worried at his old friend, he peered at him in worry while the man was rubbing his hands. Eager to hatch this plan now that Mero had this object. Who was this ally? Whoever it was, he had his hooks in Magnus and even he had a glimpse of what it meant if a hint of it was true.

The priest was acting a fool in his pursuit of personal revenge. If this was indeed a Grimm, he had bewitched Magnus, and fear was building in Mero as dread was racing in his mind.

The book he found was in the old language, a language even he, a Grimm himself, did not understand. The script was something Eivar had never taught him, maybe his mentor couldn’t even identify it, but Eivar always became rigid when he mentioned the name Grimm or Minoa or even the lands of Abingdon, and he never wanted to talk about their people or their homeland.

This book is dangerous, and I let my greed for gold get the better of me. He knew now, he made a mistake in bringing this thing, and it compromised Mero, and there was no way he could take the book and run at this point.

He knew when he left the book with all the tortoise leaf in holding, it was instantly retrieved before he walked a league he bet. The thought made him afraid. If this new ally is a Grimm, would he know of Eivar? Maybe they were soldiers long ago. Eivar was a soldier, he mentioned it once while deep in wine.

He was certain Eivar knew of the grave now, and then he cursed his foolishness the whole time. Eivar left here because something compelled him to, and it never hit him because all he wanted was the gold promised.

Mero began to feel ill. The book was nothing but a tool to further Magnus’s own goals. The man had grudges, and he wanted to end them in blood. He wanted to punish the Nuhr and build his priesthood into an unstoppable army.

His mind was looking into the past, holding onto an old dream to finish what the dead Alexavier had wanted: to conquer all of Lorraine and make it the power his old king thought it should be. And last, he wanted to conquer Nuhr, a folly that obsessed him since he witnessed Alexavier’s head sent to the priesthood in a box.

The man still pined for the affection of a dead man, a king that was an old lover, a man who mingled with both sexes, and that hatred toward his murderers never died.

“Magnus. Alexavier can never come back, they extinguished his line and murdered him with his family. What do you believe you can accomplish by revenge?” Mero pleaded with him.

“The usurper who killed our king is dead himself, been dead for over five years, and his son hasn’t been able to hold Nuhr together any better than he had. They have been in one civil war after another and when one rebellion ends, then another begins. Why not just dream a new dream and live with that?”

“I can’t let it go, my friend. I loved him. Our Eivar loved him, and he was never happier than when he was in his service.” the priest bitterly replied.

“Golan and the other turncoat lords killed all our dreams, murdered many of our priests, our young warriors, and burned our temples. I dream of nothing else but their end,” Magnus said in a rage. “Will you fight alongside me when the war starts?”

“You shouldn’t have to ask,” Mero said, consoling the old man. “We can discuss this later,” Mero says, as sorrow began to grip him as old memories of their time in Nuhr began to sadden him.

“Look, the items I brought, please think clearly. I caution you to be careful with this ally. This relic seems dangerous. You should keep it, study it.”

“This book will be what begins it. He has gold, and he is paying well for it,” the high priest remarked, ignoring his warning. “He has the steel to arm all my men, and soon we will take the invaders down. Then I will have my eyes on Nuhr!” The priest clenched his fists and embraced him, thanking him for always being there.

“Thank you, Mero,” Magnus added, embracing him hard. “I am so sorry about Eivar. We will avenge that as well, my friend, I swear it! Frederick will give you your gold.” his old friend said, vowing, excusing himself to attend to other matters.

He watched, feeling hollow as the old priest slipped through a concealed passage behind his desk. He wiped a tear from his eyes, everything he had grown to loathe in this place had surfaced. These plans of vengeance, shook his head as Frederick met him on the other side of the heavy door.

“He is beyond consumed with his revenge. Why will he not change course?” He asked Frederick after leaving the parlor.

“We are old, and the time is now or never, Mero,” Frederick answered him. “Your retrieval of this relic has him more focused on that than ever.” The elder sighed.

“If time allows it, we should share some wine later and discuss this matter alone,” Frederick remarked while reaching for a leather bag under his desk. “Here is our end of the bargain.”

The bag Frederick gave him was heavy. Two thousand five hundred in gold Elbish Havmands was his payment for the book, another one hundred and thirty-three for the tortoise leaf. He never believed he would gain such riches. “I feel like I should have asked for more. This new ally, Frederick. What can you share with this old friend?” he whispered to him.

“The man is a mystery, but he will help the mother’s loyal priests to reclaim her rightful glory.” The elder was quick to cut him off. “Later, let’s not discuss this here. I will whisper this to you, something I found unsettling in the reports from our spies in Breeston,” Frederick mentioned in a low voice.

“Eivar went by an alias, calling himself Vincent. They butchered him in the early hours, and that struck me as odd. He was not mistaken for some merchant.”

He wanted to question Frederick and demand more, but the man was delicate, and pressing him would only silence him. “I will continue this later. You should go see your brothers, and try to ease their anger, they worry me so.”

He nudged him back to the hallway, reminding Eivar to keep the audience with Magnus to himself until they talked. “We are friends, but I must walk the mother’s path,” Frederick says, as Mero sighed toward his faith.

The core of the priesthood revolved around a book called the One Path, a pamphlet written by a charlatan, now a martyr called Dmitri Pinoak, who spread his religion to this order over a century ago.

He must have been charismatic, as most lunatics are, possessing the ability to gather people to follow them. To the nobility, he was a menace, a necromancer, but to the poor people in the wetlands outside of Ankirk, he was a savior.

The priests record the man Dmitri began attracting followers near the marshes on the fringes of the Levonshire Swamp. He did what many with power did as a start, found meek people who were under the boot of something stronger, and liberated them. People lived in clans back then, and still do in many areas of the lands he has visited. The rubes witnessed power and like all men, flew to it like a moth to a light.

His followers dabbled in the sorcery he taught to them, and his craft lived in the priesthood today. His mentor, Eivar, found the cult amusing, convinced that this Dmitri was a Grimm like them, hiding amongst the ignorant to turn the rabble into followers.

An easy feat if you can tap into the art, or the blood craft, as he called it. Eivar always told him that the craft destroyed the Grimm, sorcery was meant for the gods only, and when their people disobeyed their word for its power. It destroyed them all, but he also said that some Grimm still walked in their homelands, and occasionally they would live amongst the barbarians.

Something murdered this Dmitri Pinoak, as the legend goes, and Ankirk had his followers scattered, but they took his book, this One Path, and persevered, spreading like cockroaches. The Ankirk lords could not stamp them out and neither could the Guild after the militia was unleashed on them for buying unwanted orphans there over fifty years ago.

They multiplied, and endured, until a lord named Rolland Frix let them practice their religion, and gave them every orphan son in his lands. Later, that same lord led a rebellion and became the King of Nuhr, the grandfather of Alexavier, and the order would always have a home in his lands.

Their knowledge of the craft grew within the priesthood. The elder priests in the order could conjure light in flashes, blinding their adversaries while their soldiers gouged them with their forks. They could breathe underwater for over twenty minutes, or as long as their body could endure the strain.

The craft was a deadly art and could kill the user. Mero witnessed it with his own eyes, seeing them use this power to put men to sleep or forget things, instill fear in brutes and cry in wails that would make a normal man’s ears bleed, but Mero was sure he had not seen all the arts the priests could do.

The art of sorcery took decades to learn, and few ever mastered all the prongs of the trident as the priests named them. Its pursuit and training had killed many, and only one in maybe thirty ever got to wear the brands, the mark of the priest, while the others stayed a soldier, the prayer of the mother seared into their forearms. When the priests prayed, those brands would illuminate — the mother’s light, the priest called it.

The order would teach the art to their subjects at ten, a year after they took their walnuts from them, and burned them in sacrifice to the mother.

Mero still remembered when he first laid eyes on them thirty years ago. They were a disciplined lot, and secret, an army of bald, mixed men from all lands with one purpose, the mother’s guidance, but they were under a reserved leadership then. A fat, older man called Hamman.

Magnus was thirty then and fiery, too ambitious for the older priests with dreams of converting all the Nuhrish to their faith. He wanted to burn the Gospel of Xarl, a sore reminder of the enemy faith that lost them a foothold in the western lands.

He wanted a stronghold for their order, and no other theology to challenge them. Magnus was an envoy then to King Alexavier, who would comply with their wishes if they joined his ranks in expanding his kingdom in the lands of Lorraine.

They invaded these lands, taking them for the crown to the Nalz River. He created new lords and carved out these arid lands for the priests, a gift to their new leader, Magnus, as Hamman had passed away during a battle.

Alexavier then granted lands to serfs creating an exodus from Nuhr as the poor came out of White Harbor seeking freedom. The rancour among the old nobles began, and soon after, a rebellion broke, calling the king back home to put the minor skirmish down.

The King demanded only the men of Nuhr to return with him. The reasoning made sense; his nobles would not look kindly to them thinking a foreign force was invading their lands to squash a rebellion. His advice was his undoing as the nobles he trusted turned on him during the battle, cutting him down from behind, and the few ones loyal to him.

Mero’s thoughts were deep in the past as the city walls were ahead of him now. They were forty feet, and they had the men to patrol them now, as he passed two elders who spotted him and bowed in respect.

All this madness over a Grimm’s grave. Mero cursed as he passed by several young priests, who looked at him, whispering to themselves while Edmund’s story was rolling in his head.

Soon, he passed the gates into the outer village that nested beyond the fortress, entering rows of red brick dwellings that stood like soldiers along the streets of Karn.

The chest he kept talking about. That healer had to be a Grimm, they must have taken him home. Why else would his bow be in a Nuhrish boy’s hands? Mero was aware there had to be more to that story, but he didn’t want to press Edmund anymore.

The lad had cheated death and was in mourning, nervous while sitting in that tub, and he was nothing but honest when he wanted to hand his master’s bow to him.

Mero was skeptical, not interested in lingering here, his mind catching the next carrack while heading east of the city to where his brothers lived. The pair lived in a redoubt that Eivar had Magnus’s men build fifteen years ago. It wasn’t for defense so much, but to keep eyes off of them from Magnus himself.

The brick structure lay ahead, surrounded in red clay and wattle yurts with thatch roofs woven from the inedible grasses that grew wild here. When he approached, someone halted him as four men in armour met him in haste.

They were ex-soldiers from Alm and Wooster, he guessed. Magnus must have given these men to Okrid to train, as he could smell meat cooking from inside many of the yurts.

“This one we don’t mess with,” one of them said. “He is the one Okrid is waiting for. Sir, please follow me.”

Mero didn’t need this man’s help. He had lived in that redoubt long ago. He tried not to offend the man from his amusement; he was sure the soldier wanted to take him to Okrid, so he could get appreciation from him.

Mero would wager Okrid trained his men just as Eivar had trained them, which was as an unbearable taskmaster who would grind you into instant sleep with wooden practice swords until dusk, and then stand over you at dawn, barking for more. The man led him inside the redoubt, and from the light of several sconces inside, he laid eyes on his brothers.

Okrid looked a little older than in his thoughts. When Okrid saw him, he flicked the soldier away with a hand gesture. “Let no one in!” his old comrade made his point known in a sharp tone.

His eyes would unnerve a man; they were the colour of smoke and they had no white in them. They looked amphibian and left a man wondering if he was looking at them or somewhere else, but those eyes could see further than his Grimm eyes.

He had no eyebrows, and his eyes were far apart with two little slits for a nose that lay flat. Long, black, coarse hair draped his narrow shoulders and his skin looked clammy but dark, the look of burnt ash.

The Lazaar, his race, didn’t look intimidating in size, nor was he physical in stature. He loved misery, laughed at someone’s misfortune, and found amusing any morbid outlook on things.

He would anger an optimistic man, and anger Eivar the most, who would tire of his black humour, but when you witnessed him dance with two sabers, it was a maelstrom of steel, beautiful to behold and nothing made him happier.

Okrid wasn’t laughing at the moment, though. He was still in a mood about Eivar’s death. “I hope you learned more than what little that bald priest has shared with us.”

“Perhaps, brother.” They embraced as he looked over at Grolut. The Morgruud was eating a huge bowl of boiled potatoes, ignoring him. “He isn’t mad at me, I hope, or is he making it a point to avoid acknowledging me?” Mero whispered in Okrid’s ear.

“He blames you for everything that goes wrong,” Okrid remarked with a cackle. Mero was used to its sound; it reminded him of an echoing cricket, but much louder. “He is glad to see you, but don’t wait for him to say it.”

“Hello, Grolut.” His much larger brother just grunted while digging for another potato. Morgruud were large, but Grolut was large for a Morgruud. He was an inch over eight feet and he was almost as tall as Mero while sitting in his massive chair. Mero could see his ears flick.

They were long like a hound and stuck up over his head. At first glance, a man would mistake him for a wild animal. His hide was covered in reddish black hair, a fine hair that made him look like an ape from the lands of Elbe.

Mero first thought he was a bear when they found him after the savage mountain clans burned his village over a century ago. They lived far north of the Nuhrish kingdom. He was a meter in height, a youngling and Eivar made him suffer in the cold highlands for years while his mentor was brooding on what to do with him.

It was Eivar who taught him to speak, and Mero saw the man underneath the fur walk more upright into a giant. He had yellow eyes with green centres, and a huge, square head, but he wasn’t a flesh eater like a man would think. He found root vegetables and legumes a delicacy, eating with an appetite that lacked no end.

Grolut stood and placed a hand upon his shoulder, its width as long as a stabbing sword with knuckles of hard bone, the natural weapon of his race. “I am restless, Mero. I don’t know where to place my anger.” His words were slow, with a faint growl, taking twice the time to say them.

“Sit down, brother,” Okrid said, pulling out a chair.

“We had looked for this Osgrey when he first went missing. Magnus detained him, so we got suspicious. We snatched him after, and Grolut squeezed his head until he emptied his bowels all over that orange robe of his,” Okrid mentioned, getting to the point as he sat beside him. “We were disappointed about his heart though, and thought the man was more durable.”

“The man had nothing to say, but he cried a lot,” Grolut added as Okrid laughed, recalling the audience.

“I am struggling on why he felt he needed to go to Breeston in secrecy,” Mero said.

“It sounded like he was looking for you,” Okrid said. “Someone led us to believe that.”

“That is false, his mind was on something else,” Mero said, his words getting a long grunt like a growl from Grolut. “All these years, the man made me avoid our race, said no good was of it. Now things are presenting themselves.”

Okrid looked at him confused, as Edmund was trying to explain. He had no reason to hide any information from his brothers, so he passed along his visit in Loreto, explaining the encounter with the dogs, and the story of this Peregrine, but not including Edmund, omitting him, but admitting that he discovered Eivar’s bones were taken by a Grimm he believed.

“Now we have another Grimm? You Grimm are popping up everywhere.” Okrid laughed again, as Grolut huffed in aggravation.

“I suppose you heard the old man’s groveling over his new partner, a mystery man he gets all testy over if you ask him his name. It’s a Grimm he declares, sent by the mother, the fool is drunk on this encounter, calling it a blessing.”

Mero had enlightened them of his task of getting Magnus the book. The foolishness he felt, allowed greed to possess him instead of thinking about the risks. The selfish act brought a rebuke from Grolut as Okrid asked him to be calm for a moment.

“So like a fool, you bring this item, that you witness can be used to conjure the dark art for gold?” Okrid shrugs. “You complain of Magnus being grifted, but you are guilty of a lustful pursuit yourself.”

“Eivar would be disappointed!” Grolut growled in disgust.

“Well, he is not here to judge, and for what gold they gave. Maybe it is time we do like Eivar, and catch a carrack and live off the land like in our youth.” Okrid ponders adding. “Well, and not get ourselves killed in the process.”

“It’s something else, the item was in a grave.”

“Ah, the story is getting better, do tell brother,” Okrid asks.

Mero tells him the name on the grave, the bones of a Grimm inside, and the mark on the grave, believing that Eivar buried what was there causing Grolut to shake his head, calling him a fool again. “Our brother seems to be right on the matter, Mero,” Okrid mentions as he thinks for a moment. “Have you ever asked yourself one question?”

“I am not following you, brother.”

“Maybe, Eivar Farnesse never existed. This name he went by all these decades, centuries I assume since we have no idea how old our father was. Maybe he had a different name.”

“We are Farnesse,” Mero says in defiance.

“You were the useful idiot that Magnus needed,” Grolut grumbles out. “I should slap you into that wall for being such a dullard.”

“What are you implying? Mero asked bewildered as his brothers judged his thinking.

“Mero Farnesse is just an alias, Mero. Think for a bit, our father loathed his very race, and what better way to abandon it than discard your name, hide in an incantation of other people, and live in refuge from most cities.” Okrid explained to him.

“I never would have thought Eivar could be so funny, to carry a name from a stone that he put the body underneath it.”

“I have to go back, look into this for us, for our master. You can’t blend into those lands, so it is up to me to find answers, for us,” Mero tells him.

“Wanting answers is why you left to begin with,” Grolut scolds him, deflating his idea as Okrid agreed.

“The only reason to go to Breeston is not for answers, but to kill the Yellow Hand, and ask why they slaughtered him.” Okrid pondered a bit more as Grolut poured a large draught of the bitter wine into a pewter goblet the size of a pitcher. “And if by chance this murder ties to Magnus, then we deal with that in due time.”

“I do not believe in that.” Mero protested.

“But, you will go back to confirm this,” Grolut says in a threatening way.

“Anyway, I am assuming that Magnus is wanting you to barter us into this task he has been needling us to do,” Okrid says, smiling as he looks toward Grolut while the behemoth laughs a bit.

“Tell him, we accept. We all will take our new men that the eunuch has given us, and get on a carrack and sail to the northern edge like he wants, embarking on some reaving and killing to draw this Assan Rue into following us.”

“So how long will that delay me?”

“It will not, because the captain of this carrack is a smuggler, a friend of ours, and will change his course when we use this gold you foolishly accepted from Magnus. He will drop you off in Abingdon and us in Nuhr.” Okrid assures him. “It is time we helped with this rebellion he is embroiled in, not that we care, but killing Nuhrish will be fun.”

Grolut was quick to agree as Mero handed half his gold to them. The guilt of it sickened him as the Morgruud smiled at the sight of it. “When will we rendezvous? “ Mero asked.

“Shirley goes to Ethelly, once every two rotations to deliver the Nuhrish wheat for olives, silver, and black pepper. Await him, and then we will plot our next journey.”

“Byron Shirley?”

“Yes, he isn’t in Magnus’s good graces these days, the older one is now a shipping merchant. You have been away too long, the twins are grown now.” Okrid then laughs a bit. “Barbara and Milton, their father must be rolling in his grave, if we knew where that was.”

Grolut told him about Byron’s younger siblings with disdain toward Magnus, and how things have become twisted since he left. The twins were near seventeen he figured.

His massive brother informed Mero that Barbara was being gifted to this Assan Rue barbarian as a bride for a truce while Magnus eliminated the younger brother of the barbarian, his rival, as a way of securing his trust. It seemed that the invaders were fracturing and the priests wanted to eliminate them in phases, saving the last, this King Hammalcar for a reckoning.

“The meek lad Milton? What of him?

“He’s keeping Magnus warm in his bed.” Okrid laughs at the jape. “You should have come here first, brother. I would have liked to have seen this item.”

“Magnus would have sent a large squadron to have an audience.”

“Yes, and perhaps we could have ended the old man’s miserable life and considered it a fair trade for losing Eivar.”

“I don’t think he had anything to do-”

“But, you will confirm that!” Grolut says in a gruff manner.

“I have to meet with Frederick before we depart.”

“Don’t be stupid, the man will just lie to you,” Okrid adds with a glare. “No more misinformation, find out where Lucius Vanderlay is in Breeston and treat him with extreme hostility.”

Mero nodded, feeling miserable for ever arriving here.