The Legend of the Twelfth

PROLOGUE

The shore was quiet. The burnt out houses a few meters away were quiet. The sky was quiet. The corpses sprawled all over the place were all quiet.

It was a peaceful kind of quiet, but the sight they beheld betrayed it.

The man in a long, black robe sighed in dismay as he surveyed what was once a lively village by the sea. He motioned to his companion to come closer.

"This is a waste, wouldn't you agree? Here I get the whitest of pearls I give to milady. They give me nothing but the best, these poor folks," he grunted, as if suppressing his sadness.

The woman nodded in agreement, although her eyes, dark and calm, gave nothing of her emotions away. Dressed with a muffler to warm her neck and shoulders, expensive cloth covering for her breasts, and a long black skirt with slits on either side that went from her waist down to her feet, she looked nothing like what she was; a sorceress.

She blew wind to her palm and a gust of white smoke graced the seashore, like what the villagers must have seen coming from their houses before they were massacred.

The two bowed and muttered their prayers for the dead.

The man was first to move. He walked towards the body of a child which was almost getting caught up in the waves slapping the sands. He picked the body up and set it down in the middle of the remains of the village.

He stayed looking at the frail tiny body for a while and then rejoined her.

The woman could not see his face; he had this tattered black cloth wrapped around his whole head but his gray eyes. His eyes, like the woman's, gave nothing away, although she was sure he grieved for the death of these people.

"Mama..."

Their heads swung back to the child, who stirred from his sleep.

The child was alive.

The man took a step forward, slowly at first, gaining haste as he realized he could still save someone. He laughed, the first time in days, as he neared the boy's body.

But he was late.

An arrow came flying through the village, accurate, straight to the boy's body. It pierced through his flesh, and the murmurings stopped abruptly.

He was dead, for real this time.

A band of red armored men came out of the woods a few feet from the village. These were enemy, the two reckoned almost automatically. They were laughing, like hysterically, as they approached the two adventurers.

The man trembled. He was furious.

"Why'd you kill the boy?" he spitted out.

"Huh?" The mercenaries, the woman observed, threw another fit of laughter.

"Sorry," one of them said, "but orders were to leave no one alive."

"I see," the woman said. "Let us be in our way, then. We wish not to interfere in your business."

She walked and grabbed the masked man by the arm. "Shall we, Mystral?"

"Not so fast." The band of mercenaries had started walking towards them. They were spread out as they did so, intentionally blocking the path for the two. "I told you, we were instructed to leave no one alive."

"And you have succeeded," the woman said, her voice soothing and not in the least alarmed by the situation.

One of the armored men pointed to the two of them. "Oh, I doubt it." He pulled his sword and licked the blade. "We are always eager to hunt wild boars."

The crowd of red roared in laughter. They nudged at each other as they walked.

And then, one of them started screaming.

The mercenary fell down on his knees, both his hands on his ears. After him, two more let out horrified shouts and the noise sent birds in the trees retreating. Their screams continued, much to the alarm of their allies. The normal ones all drew their swords and warily approached the masked man and the woman.

"Kill these sorcerers!"

And one by one, as the swordsmen launched forward, they fell down at the same spot, five feet away from the two travelers, terror filling their lungs and coming out like brutal murder in the night.

Only one was left.

He was immobile, as both the masked man and the woman walked towards him. Finally, he understood what was happening.

Mystral and the woman stopped walking, the mercenary between them. He dared not use his sword and only sniffed the snot back to his nose.

"That child wouldn't have made a difference to your report," the masked man said, almost regretfully. "If you wake up from this nightmare, please tell me if the boy's life was really worth that arrow."

The last word heard was a crisp "If".

As he and the woman walked past him, the mercenary cried out, feeling the uninvited hysteria creeping into his backbone. At the corner of his eyes, an abomination loomed.