The Fight for Tréon: Chapter One

Peril on the Road

Willem Lerner despised carriage rides. The roadways were always bumpy, the seat cushions had woefully little padding, and the horses consistently stank. Of course, it didn’t help that Willem had been cursed with an excellent sense of smell—what good was having one when so many of the world’s scents were wretchedly malodorous? 

This particular carriage ride was even more dreadful than usual, as it was exceptionally long, and Katherine was in an exceptionally foul mood. Then there was the suffocating humidity, and the fact that he couldn’t open his window for fear of the many giant buzzing, biting, stinging insects.

Willem explicitly avoided traveling between kingdoms whenever possible, but he’d been pestered into attending his cousin’s wedding in Nagos. Personally, he didn’t see the point. Willem knew marriage painfully well, and as far as he was concerned, he was traveling three hundred miles to watch two people commit to a lifetime of misery.

Silently cursing his caring nature, Willem rested his forehead against the window glass and stared at the passing scenery, growing more bored by the minute. As the carriage rolled annoyingly slowly along the dirt road, he considered the line of tall trees and shrubs that ran adjacent to it. Willem had traveled alongside the Darkwood Jungle many times, but still, its shadowy depths made him uneasy.

Nothing merited the anxiety, of course. The last conflict between the Velan tribes and the kingdoms had been several years before his birth, and he was now approaching fifty. Truthfully, the many other creatures that called the dense forest home were the bigger threat, but few of them were ever seen out in the open. Still, Willem would be relieved when their carriage emerged onto the rolling plains that signaled entry into the Valley of Nagos.

“What are you staring at?”

Willem pulled his focus from the trees and turned to his wife with an incredulous look. “We’re in a carriage, dear,” he said as condescendingly as he could, “so I can either stare at the floor, out the window, or at your scowling face. Rather easy choice, wouldn’t you say?”

As if to underscore his point, Katherine glowered. “So you’d rather look out the window at nothing than have a conversation with your wife?” she asked crossly, knowing full well they had nothing to talk about.

“Why, yes darling,” Willem replied with a bemused expression, “I thought I’d made that obvious.” As she gaped, anger enveloping her features, Willem made a show of shifting his body toward her and lacing his fingers in his lap. “Alas,” he continued, “we all must make sacrifices. So, what would you like to discuss, Katherine? How you deserve a much larger, more luxurious carriage? How much weight I’ve gained this year, perhaps? Or should we venture into a new topic?”

“A new topic sounds lovely.” Undeterred as always, Katherine cut through Willem’s sarcasm like a blade through warm butter. “What are you planning to get Desmond for his wedding gift?” she asked. “You should have bought him something nice in Holis before we left; you know the shops in Nagos are full of dreck.”

Willem sighed loudly. “They’re to be married; won’t their love for one another be gift enough?”

This time, his wife of nearly twenty years met his derision head-on. “Why don’t you tell me?” she replied acerbically, bitterness and annoyance mingling in her tone. 

Willem smirked, showing his appreciation for his wife’s display of wit. “You make a good point,” he conceded, “I suppose I really should have gotten him something nice. The poor fool has no idea what he’s in for!”

“Yes, and on that note, perhaps we should give his lucky new bride a chest of priceless rubies and emeralds,” Katherine replied, mustering her sweetest smile, though it didn’t reach her eyes.

When they’d been young, naive, and in love, Willem had adored his wife’s clever tongue. They’d often shared warm, genuine laughs and tender displays of affection after teasing each other. But after decades together, fondness gave way to tolerance, which eventually gave way to resentment, which was well on its way to becoming full-blown loathing. There was no longer any trace of that affectionate humor between them; when they bickered, real venom slithered behind their words.

As Willem prepared for his next quip, his train of thought was interrupted by their carriage coming to a sudden halt. There was no reason to stop before reaching Nagos, and they were at least an hour away. A quick glance out the window confirmed that they hadn’t even made it out of the jungle yet. Willem could hear the muffled sounds of questioning voices from outside the carriage, but he couldn’t make out the words.

“Well?” Katherine asked impatiently. “What are you waiting for? Get out there and find out why the hell we aren’t moving! I’d like to actually have time to freshen up before dinner, and we’re already running late as it is.”

At this, Willem smiled indulgently at his wife. “Quite right, dear, we must get you there in time for a bath—otherwise, there won’t be a soul left with an appetite.”

Before Katherine could process his words and slap him, Willem had already hopped down out of the carriage, gleefully shutting the door in her reddening face. She’d make him pay for that later, but it was worth it; when they went back and forth like that, it was the most passionate their relationship ever got anymore. And he had to admit, he enjoyed riling her up; in a way, it reminded him of the spark that had once burned brightly between them.

As he took his first step onto the dusty road and glanced toward the trees, his breath caught. For the briefest moment, he caught a glimpse of quick movement in the forest. He stared at the spot for a few breaths, searching for the source, but there was nothing. “Probably a squirrel,” Willem muttered to himself as he walked to the front of the vehicle.

When he peered past the idle horses ahead of the carriage, he saw immediately why they’d stopped moving. Standing maybe thirty yards ahead, aligned deliberately to obstruct their passage, were three pale-skinned, bare-chested men. Each of them had dark, swirling tattoos that weaved complex tapestries across their chests and arms. Although Willem had never seen them in person, he knew enough to immediately recognize the distinctive tattooed designs. These were men of the Vela.

The tribesmen held no weapons, but what appeared to be short spears were slung across their backs. As Willem stared out at them uncertainly, not one of them moved; they may as well have been lifelike sculptures. Willem swallowed, suddenly regretful of his decision to leave the relative safety of the carriage.

Fully aware that Katherine would call him a coward for years if he rushed back inside, he steeled himself and walked up beside his horses, eyes locked on the rigid Velans. It had been his two coachmen who he’d heard yelling, clearly unsure what to make of the strange, unexpected obstacle. Now, they shifted nervously while glancing around at the trees on either side of the road. Even the horses seemed jittery, both steeds fidgeting anxiously as their breath formed a thin mist in the waning daylight.

Willem looked up at the nearest coachman expectantly. “Well, what the hell do they want?” he demanded, trying and failing to hide the unease in his voice.

The uneasy-looking servant gave a helpless shrug. “Dunno, sir. We tried calling out to ‘em, but none of ‘em moved or said a word. What do you think we oughta do?”

As both men on horseback looked to him with pleading eyes, Willem suddenly regretted firing his previous pair of coachmen. They’d been ungrateful fools, but at least they were men with some experience. But these two—seeing their faces now, Willem was surprised they hadn’t asked to bring their mothers along on the trip. Of course, he would never have hired them under normal circumstances; with the wedding approaching, they’d needed quick replacements, and these timid pups were the best he could do on short notice.

Willem rolled his eyes and sighed. 

Must I do everything myself?

“You there!” he beckoned down the road, taking a few small steps forward and summoning the commanding tone he was so practiced at using with household servants. “What is it you want?”

There was nary a hint that any of the three men had heard him.

“We are attending an important event in Nagos, and we must continue onward. If you do not clear the road, we will be forced to push past you.”

When, predictably, the men gave no response, Willem turned back to his coachmen. “We can just push past them, right?”

The riders looked at each other uneasily, but when the closer of them turned back to Willem, he nodded determinedly, clearly trying his hardest to appear confident. “Of course we can, sir, it’s just—well, the spears. I’ve heard tales about the Vela, heard their warriors can spear a man through the eye from fifty yards.”

Willem sneered at the cowardice in the young man’s eyes. “Well,” he said, keeping his voice free of the concern he felt for his own safety, “I’d wager they’re already quite a bit closer than fifty yards, wouldn’t you say? So I suppose they could have already skewered all three of us if they felt like it.”

Both coachmen glanced back toward the mysterious men, shifting uncomfortably in their saddles.

“Right, then” Willem continued, “we’ve wasted enough time sitting here already. Let’s get moving.” He took another wary look at the eerie figures down the road, then locked eyes with the young coachman. “And… try to pick up some speed.”

“Yes, sir.” The new servant nodded without hesitation, but he had the look of someone being marched to the gallows. Willem knew the expression well—it was the same one he’d worn as he approached the carriage to embark on this trip. As he made his way to rejoin his wife, he wondered if facing down a feral spear-thrower might not be preferable.

Just as he reached the carriage door, a strange whooshing sound filled the air around them, quickly followed by a soft thud and a short grunt from the front of the vehicle. When Willem turned back to the coachmen, it took him a long moment to understand what he was seeing.

The thud he’d heard had evidently been the sound of a spear burrowing into the young driver’s temple, the butt of it now nearly touching the ground as his lifeless body slumped to the side. Wesley—that had been the young man’s name, Willem suddenly recalled. This morning, he’d been eating an apple when they departed, whistling a tune between bites. As the gruesome reality of the boy’s sudden death dawned on him, Willem suddenly felt as though he were looking through someone else’s eyes. His ears rang, and the only other sound was his heart pounding in his ears.

Tearing his gaze away from the growing pool of blood in the dirt, Willem gaped ahead at the three tribesmen, none of whom had moved or even removed their own spears from their backs. He then glanced at the trees on his left, his mind finally catching up to what was happening. The edge of the forest appeared empty—only undisturbed bushes and softly swaying branches. Still feeling as if he was moving slowly through a foggy dream, he locked eyes with the remaining coachman, who also seemed to be in a state of shock. At that moment, though, his eyes widened with realization, and he frantically leaned forward in his saddle, his arms sheltering his head on both sides.

The rider’s last-second instinct saved his life. 

No more than a heartbeat later, that familiar whooshing noise filled Willem’s ears once again as a second spear zipped above the coachman and buried itself into a thick tree trunk on the opposite side of the road. Although it had felt an eternity to Willem, he realized as his mind began to clear that it had only been a few seconds since the first spear was thrown. He also realized that he was still just standing there, defenseless, fully exposed to whoever had just murdered his servant. The only logical conclusion followed: He was about to die.

Roused to action from his brush with death, the surviving coachman frantically tugged a hunting knife from his boot and began slashing at the ropes that kept his mount attached to the carriage. As it dawned on Willem that his servant planned to abandon him and flee, he probably should have felt panic—or at least, rage. Instead, he was only amused at how little the young man had hesitated. Too late, it seemed, Willem realized that there was value to be had in maintaining loyal servants.

As the desperate coachman severed the last rope, the whooshing sounded once more, followed by a pained yelp as the point of a spear buried itself in his right shoulder. Still, the resilient rider managed to turn the horse around with the reins in his left hand, and with a violent kick, the mare was galloping up the road, racing back the way they’d come. As Willem watched his former servant shrink into the distance, spears from each side of the road sliced after him. The fortunate young man must have made it past fifty yards, as the weapons clattered to the ground just shy of his horse’s pounding hooves.

As the rapid click-clack of hoofbeats faded into the distance and utter silence enveloped the road, Willem’s senses finally returned to him. With his clarity of mind restored, it didn’t take long to conclude that his situation was not particularly favorable. Of his two coachmen, one was halfway back to Holis, and the other was… in no condition to ride. He supposed he could try to drag the man’s body from atop the horse, climb into the saddle himself, and attempt a heroic dash to freedom. However, being nowhere near as spry as he once was, the odds of doing any of that before being impaled with a spear seemed exceedingly slim. As that thought occurred to him, he couldn’t help but wonder why it hadn’t already happened. 

Glancing up the road once again, he was concerned to see that the three tribesmen had finally moved, and were now strolling toward him at a leisurely pace. Willem ascertained that taking out his coachmen had been the priority; with them out of the equation, the stoic strangers knew that he and Katherine weren’t going anywhere.

“Willem! What in Tariel’s name is going on out there?”

As if she’d been able to sense Willem’s thoughts, Katherine, entirely oblivious to the situation unfolding, chose that moment to squawk impertinently from inside the carriage. Willem, as he was quite practiced at doing, ignored her.

While the casual footsteps of the Velan men grew closer, Willem flitted between feeling petrified and cautiously optimistic. After all, he’d provided the spear-thrower with the easiest target imaginable, yet they had chosen not to kill him. But even if the tribesman didn’t intend murder, his current position was not an enviable one.

Despite the fear mounting within him, Willem raised his head to face the three stoic men who now approached him, not a trace of triumph, anger, or any other emotion in their faces.

“What can I do for you lads?” Willem asked, dubious of the idea that they could understand him, but doing his best to keep his voice calm and friendly. To his great surprise, the man in the middle answered immediately in the common tongue, though he clearly wasn’t fluent.

“Where is our gem?”

The tribesman spoke as if he’d memorized the words and practiced them just for the occasion. He was the oldest of the three, possessing a wiry frame, a wrinkled face, and scraggly gray hair that fell past his bony shoulders. Like all Velans, the man had eyes and ears roughly twice the size of a normal person's; it was said that their kind required exceptionally sharp senses to survive in their treacherous jungle environment.

Willem had no idea what gem he was referring to. The only ones that came to mind were the sapphire and topaz that adorned his rings, which he promptly removed and offered up to the man uncertainly.

The leader of the group squinted down at the pieces of jewelry before taking them, much more gently than Willem expected. After rolling the rings around in his palm for a moment, he reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled out a folded parchment. He unfurled it, evidently in no rush, and looked pointedly back and forth between it and the rings in his hand, comparing each gem to whatever was on the paper. 

Eventually, the tribesman frowned and tossed the handful of expensive jewelry into the bushes. Willem cringed, then realized how ridiculous it was to worry about his rings as he knelt at the mercy of Velan warriors—Velan warriors who had just killed one of his coachmen and maimed the other.

The leader of the group, looking only mildly annoyed, turned the sheet of parchment around so that Willem could see it. Drawn in exquisite detail was a cut circular gem, its vivid shades of turquoise leaping off the page unlike any paint Willem had ever seen. Even in drawn form, it was magnificent; if Willem ever encountered the real thing, he imagined its beauty might blind him. The tribesman, who held the illustration with obvious reverence, tapped at the drawn gem with his long, pale finger.

“Where?” he asked patiently.

Willem could only shrug up at the man and shake his head. He had never seen a gem of such brilliance in his life, and if he knew where to find one, he’d be on his way there instead of being trapped on this accursed road.

For the first time, the stoic tribesman looked disappointed, a hint of melancholy in his expression. He turned to one of his companions and said something in their language that had the cadence of a command. The younger man gripped the sizable spear from his back and walked toward the carriage. Willem considered yelling a warning to Katherine, but what was the point? His wife was many things, but a fighter was not one of them, and she had no hope of outrunning these tribesmen—or their spears. “Please, don’t hurt her!” he pleaded. “She can be insufferable, but she is no threat to you.”

The tribesman, who probably didn’t understand a word he’d said, paid Willem no mind. He could only watch with morbid curiosity as the armed warrior reached for the carriage door.

“I am sorry.”

The soft words from the group’s leader pulled Willem’s attention away from his wife’s fate. His voice sounded strangely gentle, and his face betrayed a genuine sadness, but also a firm determination. In one smooth motion, the weathered Vela drew his spear, flipped it around, and jabbed the butt of it towards Willem’s temple. The tribesman’s resigned expression was the last thing Willem saw before his vision went black.