Avengard: The Fall of Senvia

Chapter 2 - Offers from Strangers

On the first day of spring, I managed to pour only fourteen pints before the first stranger approached me. The sort of stranger who could recognise what I was. He would not be the last. He spoke with a mottled voice, and he carried a sealed letter in his left hand, which he lay on the counter for me.

"One hundred avens," he said. "As an advance."

I smiled, and turned to my fifteenth customer. He scurried around the bar, following me.

"Look at you! I'd bet a hundred avens you could take on a direwolf with your bare hands. Fight for the former province of Heldren," he said. "A thousand per season, and help the old government be restored, before Senvia's interference. You will not see a better offer!"

I smiled again, with less enthusiasm this time, and turned to my sixteenth.

The man would not be broken by a smile. None of them ever were. Nor would he be satisfied with a simple answer. He would wait, and wait, and wait. Eventually, I might pour him a pint, and mix in something stronger. He would get drunk quicker than expected, and finally leave. A lack of patience was what wore them out, never my answers or lack of them.

"You would be a wealthy woman if you did," he said. "By the twin gods, one of the finest specimens I have ever seen! A true Kindred, if any of them are! Fight for me! Fight for Heldren!"

I poured him a drink. The shittiest whiskey we had. Even if I had wanted to fight, a thousand avens a season was a terrible offer for someone like me, even without including the advance. Not that he would have ever known that, no more than he could tell the quality of his drink. It was reasonable for most Kindred. Of course, he had no idea who I was.

I barely even knew that myself anymore.

Plus, he was no Stonekeeper, the demonym for the citizens of Heldren. The province had no gods. Worshipping any deity was still illegal there. Atheists were allowed, and as far as legal religions went, Pathoticism was... encouraged, to say the least. But the open worship of Duun and Laog would have him imprisoned and eventually exiled.

This man was from Lysina. They were the only ones left who prayed to the twins. I had met some of the Lys before, when I was very young. A few of their nobles had come to court to appease Empress Lyana with their silks and a siqlatin sundress. It was a custom among neighbouring nations, to deter the threat of immediate invasion. It was a practice adopted even by Cinia and Eaden Helm, the very few neighbours unafraid of any attempted invasion. Senvia would never have dared.

But Lysina was also under no threat, for entirely different reasons. They were across the world, on the other side of the Inner Sea. The easiest way to get there was to sail across it, and that sea was suicide. To them, the silks were not a deterrent. They were a gift. That made it all the more special to me, back then. I was a gift too, from another part of the world, given at the age of six by the lord who had trained me, to foster into Lyana's care and be her shield.

I don't know who gave me. She never told me, and even now, I don't remember. I don't really care.

I was an expensive gift. More expensive than those silks. I was Kindred.

It was the same reason these strangers continued to pursue me.

I did not ask him why a Lys was scouting for Heldren. It would be nightfall before I strengthened his drink to make him leave, and further conversation risked inviting him to drink less and stay longer. The bar at the inn always opened too early and closed too late. There were many drinkers, these days. Since Senvia's fall, and since the Empire crumbled. Some revelled in the chaos. Others just wanted to forget.