Short Stories

The Stray Message

       Ivan hums idly, his patrol had gotten longer due to recent bandit raids in the trading village nearby. A day of travel away from his homeland, tired, bruised, and ready for a break, Ivan couldn’t wait to return home to his original unit. He takes a seat on an old tree stump and as he rests on the stump, looking to the starry night sky, cricket chirps fill the air playing their tune. Their song carried on the sweet smell of summer, breezes by on a warm wind. It truly was a perfect night. Suddenly the symphony of silence is torn by a horse’s neigh then the shout of men and cries of pain. Ivan grips his sword tightly and sneaks through the brush, listening for anything more. The bright crescent moon fills the clear night sky, the soft light guiding him through the trees. Shadows surround the woods as treetops occasionally plummeting him into darkness. Yes, he knows he should wake the others, but something was calling him forward, the voice of reason being drowned by adventure. The cries of pain are silenced, rushed and hushed murmurs echo through the trees, Ivan now in a sprint to the fading sound.

      Ivan looks below, as the moonlight reveals the scene. A horse, dead on the ground, with royal crests on its pouches. A group of men attacking a young lad, assumed to be the rider. The lad is gagged and tied as the men beat him further. Ivan slides down the hillside, quietly. One of the men spots him and notifies the others, Ivan grins. His stance reveals his shining armor in the moonlight.
“Isn’t it quite late? I think you all should take your leave.” Ivan states his knuckles white around the handle of his sword. The lad looks at him with tremors of fear as the men start to surround Ivan in a vulture-like circle.
          “A royal guard, huh, what are you doing out in the middle of nowhere with such expensive equipment?” The men snarl.
“My job,” Ivan states, pulling his sword from its sheath, “Part of that job is to protect the innocent.” 
He braces for a fight, thanks to his background, he did have one advantage, the darkness.
    The three men lunge at him, attempting to overpower Ivan. He moves swiftly, his sword gliding through skin and bone as he dives it through of the men. Pulling it out, it glistens with crimson in the dim light. One of the men tackles him from behind, hanging tight to Ivan’s throat as another attempts to grab the sword. Ivan shifts his hand, letting the man have the sword, but kicking him into a tree. Ivan slams the man behind him into the hill side, turning around and beating him into the dirt. A yell echoes behind him as the man with his sword pounces, catching Ivan off guard. The sword plunges deep into Ivan’s arm, his eyes shimmer blue and crimson spills down his sleeve. Ivan’s breath is shallow and heavy, the man smiled triumphantly, that smile soon replaced by a contortion of pain. Ivan had dove a small dagger into the man’s heart. Wincing as he pulls the metal out of his arm and stabs it into the man below him, just to make sure he has passed.
       His arm screams to him as he pulls out both blades and places them back into their sheathes, his dagger being hidden under his shirt.
“Are you alright?” Ivan questions, untying the lad and offering him up with his good arm. The lad grabs his and wearily stands, Ivan holding him up with his body weight. He takes out the gag and  sighs heavily.
“Physically no, though I doubt that’ll matter. I’m supposed to deliver a letter to the king of Pheaxira, but I’m terribly lost.” The lad hangs his head, looking to the ground.
            “My name is Ivan, I am one of the guards from the kingdom Pheaxira, you’re quite close, but with your injuries I doubt you’d make it alone,” He wraps the lad’s arm around his neck, “ My unit can take you to the king, if you wish.”
The lad smiles softly.
            “My name is Jack, I’m one of the military messengers from Hellstire.” he rubs the back of his neck, “This is my first message to deliver this way, I would appreciate it if you helped me there, but the issue is, it was stolen and torn. I was able to get it back, but it’s not in the best of conditions.”
“That’s alright, we can rewrite it if need be. Let’s just head to the camp, before your injuries leave you here, as dead as your horse.” Ivan puts on a smile, Hellstire isn’t the most friendly of kingdoms and this could mean trouble.  

          The two head back to the camp. Ivan’s commander, furious at him for leaving his post,  lightens up at seeing the injuries on Jack. He takes Jack to the medical tent and Ivan goes back to his tent with the torn up letter, using some old cloth to cover his wound. Ivan groans, still in pain, but too tired to bother with it. He picks up the letter, reading what he can, a lot of it is smudged and it’s obvious the letter had some sort of contact with water, so it was barely eligible. The military seal on it was broken but could be put back together, to Ivan’s annoyance, he knew he would have to. 
          “Who ever this Lucious guy is, at least he had the decency to ask,” Ivan sighs, grabbing a piece of paper and quill to rewrite the letter, pausing to look at the handwriting, “ Well, not my place to intrude further than I must. God his R’s look like Mr. LR”
         Ivan sighs, unable to stop the memories from flooding his mind.
Ivan was about ten when he forged his first letter, the man keeping him had requested him to write to the general in some royal’s handwriting. He was given a letter from the royal to see what the writing looked like. He spent hours on that letter, wracking his mind for words from royals. His hands felt as if they would fall off, tensed and stiff he wrote, and once he finished, it was his pride and joy. Until it had to be sent. It wasn’t until he was sixteen he learned it was illegal, and most of what the man asked him to do and helped him do, was a similar story. The man was arrested and hung when Ivan was twelve, the townsfolk had chosen to put him into the military to correct what the man had taught him. 
For the most part, it worked, but some things he couldn’t help, like forgery. He kept it in practice with whatever he could find, burning most of the letters, but one of the letters had escaped him and was sent to god knows where. He thought nothing of it, until he got a response a few months later.