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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ExDis" data-source="post: 888671" data-attributes="member: 10799">Adventures Beyond the Edge - Tyran's JournalTyran Stron’s ramblings and OriginsBlood. Red hot and steaming, coving my hands, wrists, and arms almost up to the shoulder like a set of gloves and bracers that had been left out in the sun to dry. Running down my face, my cheeks, my chin, my mouth, the taste salty and like steel. Sword and scalpel.Its funny. I remember my youth, but I do not remember being young. The events of my youth are like stories that I have read in a book. Stories of events that happened to someone else. It is as if my life, MY life, the one I have experienced began on that sunny day, on the battlefield. With my baptism in blood.How did I get there? I remember, as if it were a dream, the youthful excitement I felt now just a whisper. I was old enough to accompany my father to war. My father, Pathor Stron, was my hero. He was a learned man, educated in the finest intuitions and a member of “The Society” (the Brandobian Society of Science and Natural Law). He had been the physician to some of the most powerful men in the three kingdoms. How did he end up lying at my feet? His blood embracing me?But I get ahead of myself. We set out from our country estate (neither grand nor humble by the standards of my father’s peers), on Midsummer day. My mother waved a limpid fair-thee-well from the gates. She was the most beautiful woman in the world. We were late and rushing because of me. But father still took the time to check my supplies. I had not packed the proper unguents in my healer’s kit.“Hogwart and Mossworm?” my father thundered looking through my kit, “Are we to assist some farmer’s fat wife to spit another dirt grubber out? We are on our way to WAR boy.” He said while cuffing me across the back of my head.The word WAR sounded romantic and scary and like the adventure I had been waiting my whole life for. This was my chance to show him. But he called me a boy and the rebuke stung more than the cuff. I had fourteen summers. I was a man and I would make him proud of me.I dashed back to the manor running as fast as I could, sliding on the wet cobbles of the yard, still dewy in the morning. I ran up the steps and burst into my room, breathless, only taking a moment to calm myself before rummaging though my physician’s trunk. I adjusted my kit for the necessities of battle while a steady litany of self-aimed rebukes was issued under my breath. Quarthine for pain, and fire nettle to stop bleeding, “stupid stupid”. Lots of bandages, “I know better… stupid”. And a hand saw for the poor unfortunates who could only be saved by losing a limb.Kit and saw in hand I dashed back down the stairs and through the courtyard, past the kitchens and their beckoning scent of fresh bread. My mind should have been on my feet and not my stomach for I slipped on the cobbles and smashed into the side of the archway leading out of the hold. I was bruised and bleeding but I did not have time to feel the pain. I gathered the kit and hand-saw from the ground and prepared to sprint out the arch and down the road to where father waited. That was when I noticed the saw was bent, the handle broken. I turned white when I realized what had happened. The saw had been a gift from my father. A sign that he felt me able to handle one of the most difficult tasks a healer had to carry out. But more importantly he would scold me if I set out without the tools to do the job ahead of us. I had to think of something. I did not know what to do. I must have made a noise, lamenting my fate because the cook, Dougal, came out of the cold house next to the kitchens and demanded to know what the pitiful sounds were about. “Are you a kitten to be mewing in the yard?” he asked. My eyes lifted to him. His smug look began to make my hopeless situation complete. The hand of depression pressed firmly down upon me. Then I saw what he was carrying and I had an idea, the weight was lifted. I knew what I would do. Dougal had been cutting bacon strips from the hanging hogs for the staff to break their fast with. In his right hand he held the sharp sparing knife.In his left he held a cleaver.I caught up with my father on the road, and we set off after he looked through my kit, the rising sun at our backs. I was going to assist my father in his role as battle physician to Lord Morgan, Earl of Eldor. “Unusual hand-saw you have there son.” was his only comment. High praise indeed.He called me son. I knew he was proud of me and my quick thinking. He prized the ability to be quick on the feet and swift to action. I beamed when he laid his hand upon my shoulder.War was not the adventure I had planned though. I spent my time carrying water, heating water, preparing bandages (we went through our prepared supply in two days) and befriending death. Death began as a strange and horrible wonder. To see the last breath a man would take, to hear the dying rattle deep in his throat as his soul shed its bonds was something that continued to stop me in my tracks and inhabit my sleeping thoughts; at least the first few dozen times. As I said, Death began as a stranger, than became a curiosity, than an acquaintance, and finally a commonplace nuisance or even non-event as we began to not bother burying our dead. The cleaver served me well the time or two I had to use it.The elves ambushed us at every turn in that god forsaken forest. They would not stand and fight. Our lines of supply were cut, our outriders ambushed and our infantry harassed. The forest demons would always melt away when we maneuvered to meet them. The flow of men into the infirmaries was a steady trickle. And I spent my days working harder than I had ever before. Then suddenly, things changed, the trickle became a river, than the river a flood as the flow of men doubled and then doubled again. Father sent me to find out what was going on. We must have been approaching someplace important to the elves. They were standing and fighting and dying. But we were dying too. Two weeks into the forest and we had finally found one of their cities.Eventually we were able to smash their line and move into their city. Alien and disturbing are the words I would use to describe it. It was obvious no human mind could conceive the strange sights and dwellings we saw there. Most of the populace had already escaped, time bought with their dead. In our rage we burned and destroyed it. We cleansed the land of their demon art and abhorrent city. We burned everything.Few survived the counter attack and the fires that escaped our control which began to burn wildly. I only remember bits and flashes. Horses riding at me, the beast itself screaming, arrows flying around me, tickling me like a knife tickles the flesh. Men screaming. Fire everywhere. I remember a dead elf with a hideous wound to her face. And finally, finding my father, the broken shaft of an arrow sticking from his neck, the Elven fletching in his hand. I worked on him. I did my best. I removed the arrow and tried to stop the flow, but it would seethe and jet from between my fingers, soaking me in a red cloak. I began to wake.Prelate Astor, Lord Morgan’s battle priest, found us. He cured my father’s wound and led us out of there. He kept on glancing at me, a wary look on his face. I think he expected me to be in shock. Indeed, I cannot explain why I was not more troubled. Maybe it was death’s constant presence, or maybe something else was happening to me. Whatever the reason, I was not in shock at my father’s injury and the horrors around us. Just the opposite; my senses where sharp, my thoughts quick, I felt alive and vital. I mentioned “my baptism” before. And that is exactly what I think it was. Just as in some religions it is a ceremony to mark the passing into something new, so I had passed through and was remade.We rode for days without food on the Prelate’s horse. I don’t even remember what happened to the Prelate, he did not make it. It turns out we were just a few of the handful of survivors from that great and glorious army. Lord Morgan survived as well. We stayed with him at his estate while my father recovered. I remember everything from those days. Indeed they are some of my “first” memories, at least the first ones that feel real.The horrible debacle of Eldor’s army was laid at Lord Morgan’s feet. He was charged with gross negligence in the field and even treachery against the crown. I was fascinated at how he dealt with these accusations. He thundered his indignation. He made an example of those who dared to accuse him (he was not a believer in the old adage “don’t kill the messenger”). It became that none dared to utter words against him in or out of his hearing. Fear kept them his enemies at bay. I took note of all this and thought on it while my father and I journeyed home.My father was never the same man. He had lost too much blood. Later, in my researching and schooling I would learn that it was common for a man who had lost blood flow to the head to become like my father became. Lost and wandering, like a child in the world of men. I would even experiment with it on occasion. Alas my technique was too imprecise and the subject would as often die as become the slackwit I had intended. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.He was too weak of spirit to stop the jackals from coming in to finish off the wounded prey, to pick the bones clean. While he saw his wife taken away to be a richer mans mistress, his estate and beautiful surrounding lands confiscated, his freedom reduced to a small cell he never lost the quaint look of bemused confusion. All this done by his peers, his “friends” and those he trusted. I took note of the men, nobles and gentlemen, who carried out these deeds. I remembered their names, their faces. I would not forget.I was sent to live with my Mother’s brother in Mendarn. They continued my education and finished raising me to full adulthood. As a minor noble, a gentleman, my path was clear. I would be a surgeon. I would learn how to heal with my hands like my father. I would surpass him. And I would never, ever let the jackals pick at the corpse of the Lion again. I would gather influence and power. I would make sure that fear of me and my retribution would forestall anyone acting against me and mine. If the examples I had to made just happened to be those that destroyed my father, so much the better.But the veil of foggy half-lived experiences descended again. It was another person who lived with my Aunt and Uncle. It was another person who began to suppress the real me, the “I” that had been born in blood. Years passed. I finished school and a surgeon’s apprenticeship; I “negotiated” a membership to the Society. Now I was a member as my father before me. But I did not belong. These men had the hearts of sheep. And I could never be happy in the endless searching for answers for curiosity’s sake. What to do with myself? Despite the promises I had made to myself when I was younger I had abandoned my revenge. The plans I had made to make others pay and establish myself with fear and terror so I would be above assault seemed like the fantasies of a wounded child. And they were. I was no longer that child, or so I thought. Directionless and searching for meaning I stumbled from position to position in both Mendarn and Eldor. I never stayed long enough to establish myself. What I was looking for I did not know.It is dangerous to show talent and skill (as I had) but not protect one’s self with the armor of seniority in an institution or the favor of a powerful lord. I had neither and so I was a target. I was unfairly manipulated into resigning my latest cushy royal commission looking after some minor household. Why? To meet royal staffing promises made to the war council. I was given a military posting by decree. I had no choice.I dreaded returning to the military. I had had nothing to do with war since the horrors of my childhood. I was not looking forward to reliving my experiences. But a small voice, growing louder inside of me by the day, began to whisper excitedly.Two days before reporting for duty, while putting my personal affairs in order, a friend asked me cover for him in the public wards. I had few friends and valued those I did. I loathed the public wards but I told him I would cover. Descending the stone stairs into the public wards I fell in hate with them all over again. The dirt and filth was everywhere. The unwashed peasants and guttersnipes pawed at me. The lost and joyless laughter goaded me. I gritted my teeth and set to work. Few were glad of my administrations. It was in pox wards that I came upon her. She was in the last stages of Reanaarian Rot, the whore’s disease. And suddenly, I was awake again. Or at least I began to wake, as if from a long sleep. The sight of her there, covered in lesions reminded me of all that had been taken away. It reminded me of the realities of this world and what it took to not be its victim. I put my mother out of her misery with my own hands. With my newfound awareness I looked forward to what was to come. I would complete the circle; I would find my way in war. I served in a number of campaigns establishing a reputation for myself. I served as both surgeon and eventually war commander as my natural leadership and intuition made themselves known. The minor skirmishes with Cosdol whet my appetite for the coming war with Elves. Everyone knew it was coming. Eldor’s king used the threat of the Elves to keep his most powerful nobles in check, throwing one at the forest demons if it looked like he was becoming too powerful. Lord Sedd, in whose army I now served, was often said to be massing too much power to remain free of this fate.Finally, the day came when we marched against the slant eyes. I had risen to a lesser position in Sedd’s councils and I was able to listen to the planning. I was delighted to hear that he had very specific goals. He would find an Elvish stronghold and torch it, with this victory he would return to Eldor victorious and, it was whispered, the clout to challenge even the king. He carried out his plans excellently. The Elves resisted again as they had before when Morgan’s army had approached their city. But the day came when once again I was staring at the weird Elven architecture. It was with relish that I lent my hand to its utter demise. Great was our preparedness, yet greater still was the Elves wrathful assault. I was working with the wounded when as if I was reliving my life the wounded began to pour in again. A river of pain and suffering entered our tents. The work was going too slow. I could not hack through bone and sinew quick enough with my saw. Then I remembered the tool I used for the job in that earlier war.I came back from the mess tent with my new implement. The cleaver was shiny and unused (not much use for one out here, we had little meat). I set about taking off limbs and my vision began to haze red. Blood spattered over me. I began to finishing the process of waking. I saw the faces of all those that had destroyed my father and laid my mother low before me. I saw the imagined faces of all those foes who would ever set themselves in my path instead of my patients. I do not know at what point our position was overrun. All I know is that I continued to swing that cleaver. With each swing it felt lighter and I felt stronger. With each new baptism in the blood of my enemies I was renewed and made greater. When our soldiers regained my position they found me surrounded by the bodies of Elven warriors. I had three arrows in me. I had not even felt them.I had never felt so alive before! I returned to Eldor with Sedd’s army. He rode at its head triumphantly into Dalen while the crowds cheered his every move. He died under an assassin’s blade. He was a fool.But I had already moved on. I again remembered the promises I had made to myself. I set out to make them a reality. My first victim was Lord Virgil Ottercod. It was he who had taken my mother away. I blamed him for her long slide into putridity. I insinuated myself into his circle of friends; his confidence. It was easy, with his predilections towards beautiful women (even at his advanced age), to introduce him to a lovely specimen to whom I had introduced the same Rot as had plagued my mother (without her knowledge, of course). As his closest medically inclined friend and peer, it fell to me to treat him. It is strange, with all my work his condition seemed to steadily worsen. Even when he began to scream from the pain my medicines availed him not. He was a boon to me in his final days, fore if ever I felt down or out of sorts all I needed to do was pay him a visit and soon my spirit was uplifted again. I told him who I was before the last. In my triumph I even boasted of it to his friends. After all, what could they do? What could they prove?I had many successes. Years passed and my name gathered notice.I was putting together my plans for my next targets. Lord and Lady Mindew had been the ones to manipulate me back into the army. She was as guilty as he, pushing him to higher positions at the expense of those like myself. Actually I owed them thanks for unintentionally leading to my re-awakening. But I still felt like they would make an easy target. I would not finish them off; just make another public example of those that crossed me. I wanted my reputation to grow.I never saw the blow that brought the darkness. I had been meeting with the Mindew’s barrister. Some simple blackmail had put him in my pocket and I was outlining my plans to bankrupt the Mindew’s with his “help”. A bar fight seemed to erupt spontaneously around us. I was quick to my feat, cleaver in hand. I had just taken off one of the ruffians arm at the shoulder, the battle song coming to my heart when the lights went out.</blockquote>

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