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Lightmoon 4, 2604 R.M. — Holtod, Holtod, Litheran
“SO, HOW WAS MY SPEECH?” Searin asked as they left the city gates.
“Well, it won’t win any awards, but it sure convinced the Mayor to give me a shot!” Derith Sylvarado said with a smile.
“That was almost enjoyable,” Searin said with a shrug. “I see why you like doing that.”
“Doing what?” Silver asked.
“Monologuing. You love to give speeches everywhere and to everyone.”
“I do not!” Silver huffed.
“Yes you do,” he retorted. “If I had a tenthmark for every time you gave an impromptu speech, I could live like a king in a mansion in Bladrill Castle Town.” Normally, a mark was the amount of money it took to buy one adult-sized amount of food for a day, or the going price for an average room in an average hotel for one night. A tenthmark was, as the name suggested, a tenth of that, and, therefore, no great sum.
Silver smiled weakly. “All those marks won’t do you any good if Carht’s too tough and kills all of us.”
Searin slapped him on the shoulder. “He won’t. You’re getting too tough for things like this to stop you. Think of this as your next test to become a true Ladrian warrior. Come on. Let’s go bag us a slime monster.”
********
IT WAS NEARLY NOON when Derith Sylvarado and his compatriots reached the summit. Once at the top, it was relatively simple to discover the entrance to the monster’s lair. Above a ghastly cave with stalactites and stalagmites coming together at the entrance to look like a dragon’s maw was a sentence cut out of the stone:
ROUN’NÉR CÓPET JEKLINS. TRWTULTH FRIFACH TRAPPHÏN ‘ORASYÉ.
I cannot read the second half, Niri told him, but the first part is Elvin. Roun’nér cópet jeklins means “Master of the Point here dwells.”
Almost as if he could hear Niri’s thoughts, Searin responded in kind. “I can’t read the first half, but the second part is in Ladrisi.” He hesitated for a moment. “Trwtulth frifach trapphïn ‘orasyé means...” He sighed. “Those who enter shall be... eaten.”
Silver frowned. “So, it means ‘Master of the Point here dwells. Those who enter shall be eaten.’' He tried his best to make his face into a smile, uncomfortable though he felt. “Wow, that’s a happy welcome mat! I’d bet my lucky coin Carht spends its time in here.” Something struck him then. “Wonder how it learned to write in Elvin much less Ladrisi...” If Ladrisi was, as Searin suggested, a contrived language nearly impossible to master outside of total immersion in Stracht, how did a slime monster write it perfectly?
They stepped slowly into the cave, only to find the inside was as bright as the out. The walls were lit by a series of glowing orbs strung on long thin wires. The ground was covered with fur that acted like a thick, plush carpet. How did a monster learn to do this? Silver wondered.
They proceeded down the stone hall into a large circular cave. In the center, in a large, beaten armchair, was a short and very fat man wearing rugged brown pants and no shirt. He made no move to hide the red Ladris Unit that streaked across his enormous girth in the pattern of a twisted spider web. His face had cancerous splotches along it which, when coupled with his massive jaw and double chin, made him look like a pit bull. Most distracting of all was the man’s third nostril in the middle of his nose, which flared as he breathed.
“Welcome, Ladrian.” The hefty man said without looking up. “To quote a cliché, I’ve been expecting you.”
“Are you Carht?”
The plump Ladrian stood. “To quote a cliché, it seems my reputation precedes me. I am Carht of Holtod, one of the elite Ladrian in the service of King Uthak Tairyth. And you are?”
Silver glared angrily. “I’m the source of your demise.” He growled. “You will die by my hand for what you have been doing in Holtod!”
“My, my! Aren’t we angry!” The fat man smiled, his rolls jiggling as his face moved. Silver shuddered. The man chuckled. “To quote a cliché, you look ready to hit the ceiling, my friend.”
“Never call me your ‘friend’, you fat, filthy fiend! I’ve been sent here to take you down!”
Carht laughed, his enormous belly jiggling disturbingly. “The boy is a young pup but he thinks he’s a big dog. How cute. Foolish. Arrogant. But cute.”
Silver clenched his fists together, digging his nails into his palm so hard, they almost drew blood. “Is this how the King works?” he spat. “He has you murder dozens of people and terrify many more to take a tiny town?”
“Of course not, fool.” Carht bellowed out with laughter again. “This pitiful dwelling is already his, and rightfully so. He has me murder dozens of people and terrify many more to take you. You are, to quote another cliché, a hard man to find, Derith Lican Sylvarado.”
Silver was shocked at hearing his full name. “How do you know my name?”
“Oh, we know more than that, Silver,” the heavy Ladrian answered. “You met a Ladrian on a hunting expedition, received his power, were banished and now have come here leaving a trail of events in your wake. You have so impressed the King that he has an offer. Call it a life-long contract, if you will, with more benefits and chances for fame and fortune than you could ever hope to receive as a game hunter in Maresde.”
Why would a tyrant King want me? “What if I refuse?” he snapped, gritting his teeth at the mention of his hometown.
“That word is, to quote another cliché, not in my vocabulary. If you are so foolish as to not accept the offer on your own free will, this village will be reduced to a pile of ashes, I will crush you in mortal combat, and then you will come with me...”
“Let me guess. ‘To quote a cliché, whether I want to or not.’”
“Actually, I was going to say ‘Without your limbs intact’. But that works just as well.”
Silver growled. “You could never defeat me!”
“Is that true? Well then, what do you say to you and me settling our differences in Irriumnitér?”
Silver thought back to his training with Searin. “A Ladrian duel?”
“Yes. Not to the death, merely until one of us manages to push the other from the circle. Believe it or not, the King wants you alive.”
Silver ground his teeth so heavily that sparks started coming out of his mouth unintentionally. “I’m not gonna gamble an entire town’s wellbeing on a game,” he spat. “And I’m surprised you would either.”
“Why?” Carht chortled, allowing his girth to jiggle again. “Because I said I hail from this little hovel? Certainly, you of all people understand how one can become...” he bit his enormous lower lip searching for the right word, “Disenfranchised from the town they once held dear, simply because one is discovered to be Ladrian. Of course, that was many years ago for me, long enough ago that the sheeple living here don’t even remember. But you probably still feel a little heartache about your situation, am I wrong?”
Silver had to breathe deeply, both to prevent himself from tearing up and to prevent his red-eyed anger mode from awakening. He loved his hometown and, whatever their reasons for banishing him, which he had already come to terms with anyway, he would never hurt any of them. Especially if the King told him to do so.
“I’m not going to wrestle you for permission to kill people,” Silver said in an abnormally quiet voice.
Ignoring his sentiment, Carht spread out his puffy arms. “Here are the terms of the duel: If I win, you will come with me willingly. If you win, I will leave willingly. The village will be spared either way.”
Silver knew what he was agreeing to. He knew the binding nature of the Irriumnitér. If he had any hope of sparing the City, he had to fight Carht. The duel would require Carht to keep his end of the bargain whether he won or lost. If he fought Carht, the only way to escape becoming the King’s slave would be to defeat him. He sighed. He had only one choice. “I accept.” He was firm in his conviction. He would fight Carht to spare the City, and he would not lose.
“Then draw your weapon.” He himself drew a long dagger with a mint green blade and the same red pattern as his Ladris Unit.
“But I don’t have...”
“Yes, you do.” Searin interrupted. From his pack, he pulled a crimson bow with spikes running along the top spine and a quiver of a dozen bright red arrows.
“Thendor’il?” Silver could not believe his eyes. Searin had been carrying the legendary weapon with him without so much as mentioning it. Since Silver was the better archer, he almost wondered if Searin had been planning for Silver to use it all along.
“I couldn’t desecrate it by leaving it on Nesileér Plateau,” Searin commented, “and there are no more monks to return it to. There’s no point in a weapon that can’t be used. You’re a hunter, you have as much claim to it as anyone else. Maybe more, Derith.” He emphasized Silver’s Elvin name, an uncommon enough word made only more uncommon in that Searin never called him by his real name.
Silver nodded and clutched the legendary weapon. It was cool to his touch and filled his heart with courage. Whether the weapon was magical or not, it made him feel he had heaven’s blessing just by holding it, and he had felt for himself just how painful the force of a thousand battering rams could be. With such a masterpiece in hand, there was no way he could lose. “My weapon, Carht, is the bow Thendor’il.”
“How interesting...” he nodded, seeming to recognize the historical significance of the mighty longbow. “Mine,” he stated, “is this dagger. I don’t spend time giving a tool a name.” He chuckled. “I guess, in that case, you’ll have no need for a name after this is over.” Silver glared but said nothing.
He stood and waited. After Carht stood unmoving for several moments, holding out his dagger, Silver nocked an arrow and released it at the man’s rotund stomach. Carht moved just a few inches and sliced the arrow in half with his dagger.
“Idiot!” he yelled. “Take my knife, cut your mark, return it to me and then we will begin.”
Silver stepped forward and grabbed the knife. He let the blue mark show and sliced it open. A wave of dizziness shot through him as he recovered. As he handed back the knife, he saw it coated in thick, blue blood.
Carht sliced his stomach. The blue blood mingled with red. Carht seemed to take no mind of the pain. He thrust the knife into the ground and a purple ring stretched around them.
“Will you follow the Irriumnitér law to first removal?”
“Yes. I swear to follow the Irriumnitér law to first removal,” Silver said, the words seeming to flow from his mouth without his choice. He knew he had just sworn to serve Tairyth if he was unable to defeat Carht. That was no problem. He had no intention of losing.
“I also swear to follow the Irriumnitér law to first removal,” he said. “Let us begin. I will enjoy this.” He banged the Ladris Unit on his belly with his fist. “To quote a cliché, hit me with your best shot.”
********
SWEAT POURED FROM EVERY pore in Derith Sylvarado’s body. He was bruised in hundreds of places and many of the bruises were serious. Several ribs were cracked, and he was worried he might have punctured a lung. Carht did not show any sign of tiring. Silver wished he had chosen to get a proper amount of rest the night before, since his body was quickly reaching its limits.
Three hours had passed in the ring. In that time, Silver had assumed many forms, including a hawk, a dragon and the sword-nailed wraith he had used to slay the men of the pretender Fìmn. He had never so much as been able to push Carht the necessary three inches over the purple line and win the duel. Carht had remained in only one form: a brightly colored mound of impenetrable, gluey slime with a small spherical sac floating in the center.
Carht never moved. Instead, he kept Silver moving all around the ring to launch attacks from every direction. Every strike reflected off the gooey membrane. When Silver struck, he would be sent flying backward at such speed that the jarring impact of hitting the ground left him bruised and contorted. He had already healed himself three times, and as he tried this fourth time, he did not have the energy to mend more than his ribs and a few of the major contusions. He did not know how much more he could stand before his body forced him to surrender.
Carht’s gargled laughter showed his delight at pushing Silver to the utmost limit of his strength. Silver knew he had bitten off more than he could chew. Carht could have easily beaten him now many times over. It was just like a man of Carht’s size to play with his food before eating it.
Silver rose to his feet and shot three arrows from Thendor’il in rapid succession. Each glanced off and ricocheted back at him, forcing him to dive out of the way of his own attack. With a roar, Silver transformed into a golden lion and slashed at the slime with his massive claws. With a sound like rushing wind, the Carht slime sucked Silver in and his claws stuck fast in the jelly-like membrane. He reverted to his normal form and struggled in a vain attempt to wriggle his hands and feet free. As he fought, he felt a tingle rising in his arms.
He pulled with all his might, shattering his right hand in the process. It felt almost like being crushed by a block of stone. As his muscles contracted, the slime absorbed him. On the inside, Silver tried to breathe in, filling his mouth with a blood-flavored gel. He kicked and scratched as the Carht slime reared to spit him out across the border of the Irriumnitér. He kicked furiously, swimming upward to escape the beast’s stomach.
Carht blew out air like a geyser. Silver was caught in the vortex. As he struggled to avoid both being re-ingested by the creature, and being thrown out over the side, he caught a glimpse of the peanut-sized entity floating above him. With his broken hand, he stretched out to it, and caught it just as his other hand slipped free from the monster’s stomach. With all of his might, he crushed the floating sack suspended in the creature’s gelatinous belly.
The monster stopped thrashing. After a loud noise like the sound of a bass drum crashing to the ground, the creature imploded, sending a wave of toxic sludge in every direction. Silver was thrown forcefully into the center of the ring. He sharpened his good hand into a claw and dug into the dirt, stopping his feet mere inches before the ring.
Once again in his normal form, Carht fell to the ground. Hitting with full force, he too clawed his hardest at the dirt to stay inside the ring, but rolled to a stop outside it. The circle faded. Silver’s wounds automatically mended themselves, and the fatigue in his limbs melted away like the battle had never taken place. Carht struggled to his feet. The look of rage on his deformed face was evident. Silver wondered if he would try to tackle him. He readied his stance.
Carht merely clenched his teeth. “To quote... a cliché...” he gasped. “You haven’t heard the last of me.” Carht threw a pinch of flash powder and vanished in a cloud of blinding red smoke.
