Chapter 12
“Phew! Alright… let’s continue on.” Gawain steps out of the dirt pathway between two stone buildings, and tightens the belt around his waist as he displays a wry smile. “The Hell? You fiddlin’ with that again?”
Samuel offers a slow shake his head while re-adjusting the strap holding the fourteen-inch kukri dagger at his left thigh. The forward-tilt and weighty head of the blade provided enough power to easily lop off a man’s arm… but it was also damned aggravating to walk around with. All the implements of demise were in roughly the same positions as his previous daggers, but the additional weight that they all held was going to take some getting used to…
The bearded male impatiently folds his arms across his broad chest as he watches his ‘trainee’ move on to check his equipment for the up-teenth time. Master Karthwall had provided a beautiful frontal piece of four-in-one mail that would protect the boy’s front and sides, held taught with mere cords across the lad’s almost-completely-exposed back. That was fine, however, since a Knight of Aegis would never be caught running from a Daemon. But the clothes he was wearing was much more suitable now than the blackened leather armours he’d been wearing before. A simple well-tailored long-sleeved white shirt hid the mail beneath, and a fashionable pair of thick dark-blue velvet trousers helped to lend an air of respectability. Which he needed, what with all the leather strappings and sheathes that covered a fair portion of his body…
The long-haired boy tests the fit of the thin, flat, double-edged short-sword at his lower back, grasps the handle of the tip-weighted sabre poking above his left shoulder, glances down to the dirk strapped to the outside of his right calf, then finally gives a nod of acceptance, and starts to move along the cobbled stone street once again. If felt odd to be in clothing that felt so freeing while packing almost eight times the bulk in blades. The mail fit well, surprisingly, and even after a few rolls in the dirt behind the smithy, he’d found that the additional protection did very little to hinder his flexibility. “Where do you suppose Mistress Deglace and Miss Hilda are now?”
Pointing ahead and up to the top of a rather run-down warehouse towards the north-east, the stocky warrior then flashes a wide smile coupled with a shrug. “Benefits of the Bond, lad. We know exactly where each other is at all times, as well as their feelings. Hildie’s bored, her feet hurt, she’s hungry, and she’s currently very angry at Angie for some reason.”
The wiry swordsman nods in appreciation of the strange magicks as he forever searches the crowds around them for signs of corruption, which, in this case, were supposedly beady eyes, profuse sweating, shifty behaviour, bad breath, and seemed to indicate every single damned person in this section of the city. Additionally, his ‘tutor’ had explained that if the influenced individual were to get a glimpse of the silver triangle embossed on his shirt, then they would surely flee. However, after twenty minutes and the fifteenth person that ran away from the sight of two heavily-armed men, it became abundantly clear that the older man’s theory had been dis-proved. “So they haven’t found the spirit yet, either…”
“Nope… but he’s here, for sure…” Gawain sweeps a hand off to the side to indicate everyone on the street. “Look at ‘em. Terrified, they are. Timid as church-mice.”
YOU ARE READING
Aegis and Order: First Light
Fantasy"It’s shoulders were wide and powerful. At four metres in height, it was almost as large across as it was tall. The arms of the hulking beast hung nearly all the way to the ground, and were thick with rope-like muscles that bulged with even the sl...
