Tyzmon: The Last BladeHunter [1st ½, Act 1]

1st ½, Act 1: Chapter 1

First, tell us your story, start at the beginning…

Chapter I: The Soldier

I was the youngest of seven children, all boys. My father was the ninth child, but also the seventh son. The significance wasn't lost on my him; he joked about it and made me feel more important than the small lad I was. Until I was seven, I'd always been one of the smaller children in any group. But then I, I don't know, I sprouted, is how my mother put it.

My mother was her parents' third daughter and she had always wanted girls. I was the youngest and she used to put me in dresses to have tea parties with me as the guest of honor. This, I was told by my brothers when I was older, if it is true, she must have stopped doing it around the time I was four. She did, though, sometimes seem to call me 'Rachel' and other feminine names, but I ignored it for the most part.

When I was fourteen, a girl who lived on a neighboring farm became pregnant and we were forced to leave our hamlet of three dozen souls. We were taken in by a company of soldiers who had been advised by a certain order of monks that charitable works would pave the way to some sort of glittery afterlife. Lucy miscarried, contracted an infection and died.

I was sick for weeks, fever and mourning, I do not recommend it. Before I fell ill, I'd intended to return home to tell Lucy's parents her fate; I felt they deserved to know, in spite of how they'd treated her. The soldiers brought me to a monastery where several monks took an interest in my well-being. I was visited by many of these soldiers whenever they were in the area. Everyone felt very bad about what happened to Lucy, to us. They were very charitable, quite kind.

Anyway, when I was strong enough that I would be in the way should I have stayed longer with the monks, I re-joined the soldiers and became a soldier myself.

In spite of my auspicious beginnings, the company, save the captain and myself were wiped out the very next day; they being ambushed and murdered by thieving marauders. We were spared—but only because he stayed behind to train me in hand-to-hand combat with knives and swords.

We decided the best course of action would be revenge, aye, this is not the first time I've been thought dead and become free as a consequence.

I called the captain 'Earl', though I never really knew if that was his name. We managed to hunt down and murder the thieves one by one over the next dozen years; we lived as gypsies, camping in the open at night, questioning and sleuthing in the early morning, killing in the afternoon. …When there was a target, of course.

But we also took odd jobs here and there; revenge doesn't pay well enough to impress the ladies. Always a coin to grease palms and impress wenches. Certainly we made our share of mistakes, but justice wasn't exactly my goal and I cannot speak for Captain Earl.

Somehow in all this, we became well-known mercenaries, well-paid assassins. We were summoned by the Earl of Brechyn where we were made to wait in an octagonal, domed anteroom of unusual dimensions.

Earl and I had been discussing business while we waited. Suddenly, my throat was quite dry and he began gasping. A green, grainy haze seemed to be filling the room and I was aware of a low-volume hiss from above.

We hadn't been separated from our weapons—as would have been customary, to tell the truth—so were able to exit the room and the building. We stepped over the bodies of our host and his bodyguards on the way to fresh air. We didn't know … anything.

Were we the targets? Was Brechyn? Did someone want both parties dead, the Earl, his house, staff, bodyguards, and the Captain and I? Was the whole sordid affair an accident?

The truth is, I still don't know. Earl and I decided to be much more careful after that, let me tell you one thing. We hired prostitutes and street urchins to deliver or retrieve our work orders, we used encoded messages and drops. It all became very complicated, like the stories of lying children.

We became somewhat rich and by this time had a staff of our own soldiers. It had been over a dozen years since Brechyn, and another ten still after the demise of our company. We were still nominally indentured to the royalty and made our survival known. The captain made a donation to the crown, was given a duchy, and retired, settling down in a modest home with a round-faced wench who had a sharp tongue.

I still felt young and left Sommarsward – the captain's duchy – with my coin, and a promise that “Mit hus er dit hus.”

I joined the first collection of motley soldiers I could find and the very next day we met our fate in this valley, coming under a hail of huge round river stones, some the size of boulders. Before I awoke in your presence, I swear I saw giants and large green birds in the distance.

The gem? It belonged to Lucy. She wore it around her neck. As she lay dying, she told me her grandmother had given it to her on her own deathbed. That's when I came into possession of it.

Look at it! Ah how it glints, glows, even. If this fire wasn't here, I swear it would be a beacon in the night, a bright orange, studded with gleaming yellow rays.

By the way, you haven't seen any giants? Or any mysteriously huge, green birds? I'm sure it was just the last dream of a dying mind, but I swear I heard the screams of my comrades and … it's not important.

What is important is that we're here, enjoying this meat, this fire and we're alive.