Chapter 1

CHAPTER 2: The Lion Knight

ARI

The cart rattled as it hit bumps along The Thorny Road. The trees were bare, wiry, even in the spring. Zani watched them bounce by in awe, and Ari envied his youthful bliss. She was losing that.

"Ari! Ari!" he yelped, grabbing her arm. "Look!"

In the meadow, there was a flock of Featherbellies pecking at the dirt for worms. Ari smiled at Zani. A mere four or five years old (Ari could rarely keep track of the years passing), this must have been the first time in his life he had ever seen such quirky birds as these. They must have looked like walking bushes with tree trunks for legs and necks, hold up their avocado-sized heads.

"What are they?!" Zani implored.

"Featherbellies," Ari answered, trying not to speak too loudly. She did not want Raster to hear them from the front of the cart. Thankfully, the rattle of the cart seemed to diffuse most of the noise in the back from reaching their master. He did not care for the slaves' "personal conversations."

Zani's eyes darted back to the road to soak up whatever else they might pass on the journey to Goro. Ari saw a lot of his mother in the boy. She had known both his parents, Reema and Hazu, very well.

When Ari was about seven years old, she was led to a boat in the Third Hell that was travelling downstream to Greengraves. Reema and Hazu had been working that boat for about a year, and watched over Ari carefully. They must have pitied me, she recalled. A few years later, Reema became pregnant and their master at the time, Lancelot, beat Hazu to death in front of her as punishment for burdening his worker with a child. He sold Reema to a man named Frost, but gave the baby, Zani, and Ari to Donn Raster.

Ari had always kept an eye on the boy. She felt that Reema deserved that much.

"Ari, I'm hungry," Zani pled. "I'm starving."

"Keep your voice down, Zani," she commanded. "The Master does not like it when you shout."

"But Ari--"

"If you be still and be silent, he might feed us. But you need to behave. Can you do this?"

Zani looked anxious and looked around at the road again. Now, Ari knew he was telling the truth, not just being a child. He was hungry. His face had lost some of its circumference. He was thinning. The boy needed to eat.

Ari was a little hungry too. She felt that hunger sharpen when she smelled something savory in the distance, bacon, maybe. She looked ahead to the temples of Goro coming into view over the hill.

"See that, Shitbags?" Raster yelled to his slaves. "The land of opportunity!"

Ari grabbed Zani, pulled him in tight and kissed him on the forehead. "Be still," she warned him. "Be quiet. We are so close to eating. Be still."

SIR OLIVER

Oliver sipped his ale by the minstrel in the corner. One thing that remained a consistent satisfaction from land to land was music. This minstrel's squawky tone, however, managed to prove Sir Oliver wrong. Music could sound unsatisfying.

Sir Oliver sat there nonetheless. He was afraid that if he got up off of his stool, he'd be one step closer to his journey to Nightingshire to fight this "dragon." Sir Oliver had seen three dragons total in his many adventures, none of them threatening enough to deserve a title other than "sleepy crocodiles." There were certainly no firebreathing monsters they sang about in the legends.

The tavern owner asked Sir Oliver if he wanted a refill. He felt guilty for his overindulgence, but told the tender yes anyway. Sir Oliver tried not to drink anymore. Drinking always brought out his demonic lethargy, but part of him, today, seemed to want the lethargy.

The ale gargled out of the drum, foaming over the top of the mug. The tapster slid the pint down the oily bar and it started to wane off by the edge. Sir Oliver's fingers thought for him and he bended the air around the mug to keep it from falling off the edge. The tapster gave Oliver a weird look. Magic was forbidden outside of necessary force, but the tapster looked like a man who might turn a blind eye to many a foul deed in Goro. He nodded at Sir Oliver and went about his business.

The knight could not help but feel guilty, though, for using his telekinetic abilities to prevent ale from spilling, especially since he had just dug into Tobias Snow and the Order for inappropriately using high magic. Oliver tried to sip away his shame when he heard some words from the minstrel that caught his ear.

"Lion Man, oh, Lion Man

Who wanders every Hell

Slayer of the Angry Trees

Toller of the Bell..."

Some of those in Cambria referred to Oliver as the "Lion Knight" due to the crest on his breastplate and shield. Oliver heard from some of his fellows in the Order that ballads had been written about his adventures, but this was the first time he himself had heard any of it.

"Lion Man, oh, Lion Man

The Greatest Knight, Sir Oliver

Seen all the world but could not find...

...

A word that rhymes with Oliver."

That managed to get subtle laughs from a few men packed into the corner booth. Sir Oliver did not chuckle. He gripped his pint tightly as pressed it to his furry lip and sipped. The minstrel's vexatious lyricism proved to Sir Oliver that he needed to step out of the tavern.

This story they told of him, of this great knight, seemed foreign to him. The ballads carried his name, but not what happened, what really happened out in the Hells.

Sir Oliver dropped a quarter shilling onto the bar, grabbed his travel bag and departed.

ARI

"Ari, please," Zani begged. "He no feed us. Hungry. Ari!"

Zani nearly pulled Ari's arm out of its socket as they trudged through the muddy alleys of the bazaar. Her free left hand held a bucket for filling up on ale. Zani had a bucket as well in his right.

"Raster wants the keg at the cart filled," Ari told her young friend. "We don't have enough shillings to buy food right now."

Zani stopped in his tracks and gave Ari a desperate stare. "I am so tired, so hungry," he told her. "Please, Ari..."

Ari rolled her eyes and looked around. She, too, was starving. Raster fed them when he liked. Sometimes, it was pig slop. He did not view his slaves as too different from his pigs.

Ari sighed. She knew what she had to do, but did not want to do it. She grabbed the back of Zani's head and pulled the boy in close, in hopes to brand this message hot into the back of his mind, "Never do what I am going to do. Do you understand? Respect others. Think about them before you act. Your actions can hurt others. Do you understand, Zani?"

Zani earnestly nodded.

"Give this to the man by the drum over there," Ari said, pointing the merchant selling ale behind the tavern. "Fill these buckets. Don't spill any. Wait for me to return."

"Where are you going?" Zani asked as Ari put her hood up and started walking off.

"We will eat," she answered.

Ari crept up to the stable by the barn where a few of the patrons had tied up their horses. There was a stable boy, who was most likely charged with guarding the horses and their respective saddle bags, but seemed to be captivated by the half-naked belly dancers giggling as they walked by.

Ari walked up to the first horse on the right. The saddle bags were fine leather with lion sigils carved onto them, so she knew someone wealthy must have owned the horse. The beast snorted a little as she lifted a flap on the saddle bag. Ari's eyes darted to the stable boy, who was now leaning over the wooden railing, trying to court the belly dancers to no avail. She kept her eyes on him as she reached into the pocket, felt some bread, some sort of small totem and, finally, two shillings. She palmed them and began to slowly walk away when she heard a voice from behind her say, "May I help you?"

She turned quickly. A hooded man in a shabby brown cloak stared her down intensely. She was caught. He grabbed her arm to try and get her to drop the shillings. "People lose their hands for stealing," he warned her.

Ari felt something she had never felt before, an intense burning fear that she had just ruined her life in one quick motion. Her nerves peaked, a bead of sweat dripped down her side, but it was more than nerves. There was a desperation she could not articulate, coupled with another feeling that vaguely resembled...

...will.

She somehow broke loose of the man's grasp and punched him in the arm, even sending him back a little. It took her by surprise, but him even more so. If his eyes had widened anymore, Ari might have thought they would have fallen out of his head.

Pulling herself together, she realized she had to run. She would not get another window to escape.

Ari's would-be captor slid back in the mud, and she slipped a little as she took off, but kept running. She ran and ran through the crowded bazaar of Goro, pushing through merchants, knocking some over. She eventually came to some solid dirt and ran like she had never run before. She lost a sandal, and the rocks beneath her hurt her foot, but she kept running. The man she stole from was still hot on her trail. He is fast, she remarked.

Ari was headed out to the plains near the bazaar, thinking maybe she could lose the man in some woods. She could see trees about a half-kilometer ahead of her, but in front of her, only open field, perfect for running, perfect for--

Ari lost her footing and her knee pounded the grass hard. She was awestruck. How could she have fallen? There were no branches or roots to trip on. An aggressive arm lifted her to her feet.

Her angry assailant informed her, "You really stole from the wrong man."