Excerpt: The Margravian Prophecy

“Alright, since you know everything, where is it?” Jamie asked in a quiet voice.

Firali rolled his eyes and pointed to a large leather book resting on a plinth over to one side of the room. “That’s what the inventory is for, Jamie.”

“Fine,” Jamie said in a long-suffering voice.

He walked over and opened the book then leaned against the plinth and looked over at the elf. “Does the orb have a name?” he asked pleasantly. “Or is it just called ‘the orb’.”

Firali grinned. “It should be called the Orb of Gralen though who knows what the savages here have chosen to call it.”

“Better hope that they’ve called it the Orb of Gralen or we’re going to have to search the whole place,” Jamie muttered under his breath as he started paging through the inventory.

He started by looking up ‘orb’ but found nothing there then he moved to looking for Gralen and found what he was looking for. He gave a sigh of relief that it was proving to be so easy. He wasn’t all that sanguine about breaking and entering and stealing but he had to do what he had to do. It seemed that almost all of his choices had been taken from him by this wretched prophecy that he didn’t even believe in.

“That door,” he said, pointing to one on the far side of the room and closing the inventory book. He walked over and opened it. The room beyond held row upon row of shelves and Jamie walked in and looked around. He walked down the shelves and oriented himself then hurried down one set of shelves until he found what he was looking for.

The Orb of Gralen was a rather innocuous thing and Jamie could understand why it wasn’t on show. It was small and round and grey and would have been indistinguishable from an ordinary stone if not for the three veins of a strange purple material that ran through the centre of the stone.

Jamie paused with his hand hovering over the orb. “This isn’t going to turn me into a penguin or anything, is it?”

Firali gave a short laugh and shook his head. “It’s not going to do anything until you put it in the place it’s meant to be in the ritual chamber.”

“If you’re wrong, I’m going to peck you to death,” Jamie said before picking up the orb. He held it just an inch or two over where it had been resting for a moment then, when he didn’t turn into a penguin and nothing else unpleasant happened to him, he tucked it away in his belt pouch.

“I guess you’re safe then,” he said, turning to look at Firali.

“I’m so relieved,” the elf replied dryly. “Shall we get out of here?”

“Definitely,” Jamie replied, heading for the door. “Breaking and entering then stealing is bad enough. I’m not in the mood to be caught breaking and entering and stealing.”

Firali laughed and followed Jamie out of the storage room and then up the stairs. They made their way to the back door and crept out into the shadows where Firali locked the door again. Once that was done they both gave a sigh of relief and turned to go back to their inn.

They both jumped and gave half-screams of surprise when they saw the grim-faced dwarf standing just a few feet from them. They could see the bright embroidery of the patch that indicated a sheriff and they could definitely see the large axe the dwarf held in his hand.

“My name is Baern and I am a sheriff of Arcum,” the dwarf growled. “And you two are under arrest.”

Firali’s hood had slipped back when he’d turned and at this point it fell down completely. There was just enough light where they were for Firali’s race to be blatantly obvious.

Baern stiffened and raised his axe into a more overtly threatening manner. “You brought an elf into a human city?” he snarled at Jamie.

Jamie took a step forward, moving just the barest bit in front of Firali. “It’s not what it seems.”

Baern snorted. “Not what it seems? You were caught breaking and entering the Museum of Arcum with an elf. What else is it supposed to look like?”

“He does have a point,” Firali said in a low, amused voice.

“You’re not helping,” Jamie muttered back.

“And I suppose you have some sort of explanation for this?” Baern said with trenchant sarcasm.

“I do actually,” Jamie said with a confidence he didn’t exactly feel. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was supposed to convince someone else of the truth when there was still part of him that didn’t believe it himself. “The elves and the Night Walkers have formed an alliance and we’re trying to stop them. Firali has been exiled from the elves and the alliance has already made two attempts to kill me. We needed something from the museum in order to stop the alliance and the item we took wasn’t even on display.”

Baern listened to all of that with an unchanged expression then he snorted derisively. “And I suppose you expect me to believe you?”

Jamie hesitated for a moment. “Actually I don’t really care if you believe me or not. The fact remains what I said was true and we are going to be leaving Arcum with the object we just obtained. We can either do that quietly and with no fuss or we can do that in a hurry after cutting you down. I’d rather not do it that way but if you force us down that path then so be it.”

Baern raised an eyebrow. “Are you threatening me?”

“Sounded like it,” Firali said with mock innocence.

“Will you shut up?” Jamie hissed over his shoulder.

Baern gave them both a strange look then hefted his axe in his hands. “Then I guess you’ll just have to go through me. I am a sheriff of this town and will not stand aside.”

Jamie sighed and reached for his sword. He’d hoped that the dwarf would be sensible even though he’d hardly given him a reason to be so. Now he could only hope that they could deal with the dwarf and get out of here before they drew too much attention to themselves. It also meant that they’d have to change their plans entirely and leave immediately which added a whole new level of difficulty since he didn’t know a way of getting past the walls once the gates were closed for the night.

He had only just started to draw his sword out of its scabbard when movement caught his eye and he turned his head to see Night Walkers bursting out of three nearby alleys, snarling silently and with weapons in their hands.

“Night Walkers,” Firali snapped, stepping back from Jamie and pulling his bow from his back and notching an arrow.

Baern looked startled when both Jamie and Firali suddenly stopped paying attention to him and drew their weapons. He turned to follow their gazes and saw the Night Walkers approaching at a run. He froze for a moment. There hadn’t been a Night Walker infiltrate a human town, let alone Arcum, in decades and he had the barest moment to wonder if all that rubbish the man had spouted might just be true. Then the Night Walkers were on top of them and he no longer had time to think.

Baern and Jamie spread themselves out in front of Firali, just far enough that they did foul each other’s weapons but close enough that one of the Night Walkers couldn’t get past them. As they did they heard the sound of a bow string singing and an arrow whipped past them and buried itself in the chest of the Night Walker who was in the lead.

After that the world devolved into action and reaction, attack and defence. The Night Walkers fought in absolute silence other than the sound of their weapons striking those of Baern and Jamie or thumping into armour. It was unnerving and strangely enough forced Baern and Jamie into silence.

The Night Walkers died as silently as they fought and when nearly half of them had died, the rest suddenly turned tail and disappeared back into the darkness. Jamie, Baern and Firali didn’t follow, just stood where they were and drew in deep breaths as they regrouped slightly.

“Believe us now?” Firali asked sardonically after a few moments.

“Night Walkers,” Baern muttered as he pulled a rag out of his shirt and began to clean the blood from the blade of his axe. “Night Walkers in my city.” He looked over at Firali, his eyes narrowed. “So if you’re right and there’s some kind of alliance, why did they attack him?”

Firali rolled his eyes but Jamie answered before the elf could say anything that might make the situation worse. “He’s been exiled. I told you that. They don’t like him.”

Baern scowled. “And neither do I.”

“Does it matter?” Jamie said bluntly. “You’ve had proof that what I told you was right. Are you still going to stand in our way?”

The dwarf looked narrowly at Jamie then over at Firali before returning to Jamie once again. “You trust him?”

“He saved my life,” Jamie said simply. “And as far as I can tell, he hasn’t lied to me since this started. So… yeah, I suppose I do trust him.”

“He’s an elf,” Baern protested.

“How observant of you,” Firali said mockingly.

Baern growled and started towards Firali. Jamie quickly jumped in between them then elbowed Firali sharply.

“Enough,” he snapped at the elf then he turned back to Baern. “Look, I’m sorry about him. He’s prone to saying inappropriate things at the worst possible moment.” He shook his head. “Look, I know he’s an elf. He’s also the one who knows these people and knows how to defeat them. He’s also an exile, which is apparently a hell of a lot more meaningful than anything we do. He has reason for wanting to do this.”

Baern stared at Jamie with narrowed eyes as he thought this through. “So what are you doing involved in all of this?”

Jamie sighed. He’d actually been hoping Baern wouldn’t ask that question. “There’s a prophecy. One from the Night Walkers. It says that I’m the only one who can defeat them. That’s why they’ve tried to kill me twice so far. Three times if you count tonight.”

Baern’s expression had become gradually more sceptical as Jamie had been talking. When the mercenary finally finished Baern gave a snort of derision.

“A prophecy? You don’t really believe that, do you?”

Jamie shrugged. “I don’t know. But as Firali pointed out, it doesn’t matter if I believe it or not. The Night Walkers and the elves believe it and they’re going to keep coming after me until either I ruin their plans or die. Frankly, if those are my choices I’ll take the first one.”

“And you’re planning on doing this on your own?” Baern paused. “Well, you and the elf.”

“I won’t take risks with anyone else’s life,” Jamie replied. “We both know what we’re getting into.”

“We’re you planning on telling the king about this alliance?” Baern asked.

Jamie nodded. “We left word with the Mercenary’s Guild in Tevendale. The alliance… they… attacked my Company. They killed everyone except me. I… had to report that so I left word about the alliance as well. I… I’m not sure if they believed me but once they see the bodies in the compound, I think they will.”

Baern made a contemplative sound and stared at Jamie and Firali for a few more minutes. “I’m coming with you,” he announced decisively.

Jamie stared at him, wondering if he’d heard that correctly. “Uh, what?”

“I’m coming with you,” Baern said with a firm nod.

“Uh… why?” Jamie asked as Firali snickered quietly behind him.

“There’s trouble coming and it needs to be stopped,” Baern said in a matter of fact tone. “I’m a sheriff. We’re supposed to stop trouble. This seems like a good way of getting ahead of things.”

“Uhuh,” Jamie said suspiciously. “What else?”

Baern smiled thinly. “I also want to keep an eye on him.” He levelled one finger at Firali. “You may trust him but I don’t and I don’t like the idea of an elf wandering around without any sort of supervision.”

Jamie opened his mouth to protest but closed it quickly when Firali poked him in the ribs.

“Let him come,” the elf murmured. “We could use the help and you know I’m not here to do anything suspicious. It’ll certainly make it easier for you to have someone else with a blade… or an axe in this case. So far the numbers attacking us have been small but since we’ve proven we can defeat those groups, we’ll get larger groups coming after us.”

Jamie hesitated for a moment but he had to admit that Firali had a point. They’d been lucky so far. Neither of them had been injured but they couldn’t count on that continuing, especially if the numbers they were facing started to increase.

“I suppose we’d be hard pressed to stop you,” he said dryly to Baern.

“Damn right,” the dwarf growled. “Right then. You two get out of here. I know where you’re staying so I’ll meet you there tomorrow morning an hour after dawn.” He gestured to the Night Walker corpses. “I’ll deal with this lot.”

Jamie cocked his head and frowned. “How do you know where we’re staying?”

Baern snorted. “I’ve been following you all day. You two need to pay more attention to your surroundings.”

Firali sighed. “I’m just not used to being in human cities. Too many people and too many different smells and sounds.”

“Fine,” Jamie said with a wave of his hand. He’d never claimed to be a stealthy man so while he was concerned that they’d been followed, he did think that if the only one who’d twigged to them being there was a sheriff then things couldn’t be going too badly. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Firali drew his hood up and over his face and he and Jamie hurried off into the night. Baern watched them go and once he was sure they were well gone, he pulled a whistle out of his tunic and blew threw short blasts. At least coming up with a story to explain this would be easy enough but he felt it would be about the easiest thing he did in the next few months.