Continued from here
14th trial, Saun, 721
Westguard, Etzos
Midday
Westguard, Etzos
Midday
He didn't know exactly where to find him, but he could guess. In an educated fashion, of course. Blindly picking a place or a time or a face rankled him on an instinctive, visceral level. It wasn't how he'd been trained, nor how he lived. Such recklessness killed more men in his world than blades and arrows. You studied your quarry, you learned of them, so when you did make a guess, or were forced to, it was not blind more broad. It was... informed. Logical. Based on history and observations.
Which is why he was at their tree, on their hill.
The old man stumped up the incline, dust kicking up with every footfall. Before the invasion and the vast, hideous draining of the land by Lisirra's beasts, there'd been heather and grass a foot tall here. Now there were scratchy weeds and budding sprouts of fresh grass. Nothing more. The soil has been sapped of life where it hadn't been poisoned. Where once they looked upon a horizon of fields and wheat and crops from this height, now there was just... fallow land.
Kasoria stopped under the tree and found the faded marks in the trunk. Vertical scratches, from ground to almost up to his chest. Every day his son had come up here to train. Next to some... was another, parallel notch. Deeper and straighter. From a surer, stronger hand and keener blade.
His hand. His blade.
Barely one in twenty. You weren't here nearly enough.
That changes now.
Does it?
"Glad you kept coming," he said, lowering himself to the ground, back against the trunk. Above him, branches creaked and leaves rustled with polite attention. "Not a skill you want to let get rusty, 'specially when you're young..."
No answer. Just rustling. Creaking. Sighing. That last one from him. He rubbed a hand across his face and seemed to feel every scar and wrinkle. When had he gotten old?
"I ain't gonna stall yeh or bullshit yeh," he said eventually, voice coming out as a sigh. Resigned but resolved. "What youse've heard... it's true. I am... I am what they call me. The Raggedy Man. All that... shite."
Which is what it was, in this place. Not a coin to be trafficked like in the Big Rock, where a name's reputation could solve more than even gold and blood. Out here he was a tale of horror to the good citizens. A reminder of the greed and savagery that could turn proud Etzori into killers. A living, breathing evidence of the city's dark side, it's underground economy, it's underworld and criminal element. He had become... something more than that, after all that drama in the Arena. Those same citizens had seen him fight for his city, go blade to claw with the closest Idalos had to a goddess. Slaughter his way through monsters and traitors and, at the end of it, emerge alive and on the winning side.
"I know... I know what you must think of me, boy. I know that... that hearin' of me fightin' against Sintra, that ain't enough. Cuz what I am, what I hid from yeh... goes back long a'fore that. And it wunt because I was fightin' for me city or me people or any of that shite." His eyes unfocused. He was looking back, now. Back trials and arcs and seasons and every one that past, a flurry of faces were whispering by. His eyes were closed again when he spoke. "It's what I was good at. What I knew I could do well, an' make good enough coin for youse an' yer Ma."
No answer. Kasoria sighed and bowed his head. What was he expecting, here? A quick, flat explanation and his son would bound down, shrug his shoulders, embrace him and forgive all? Forgive a lifetimes of lies and falsehoods that he'd swallowed, eagerly and without question? He'd made his father into something noble and pure and... and good. Kasoria was none of those things. Now the boy knew, and the path he wanted to follow, the life he wasn't to imitate... it had all been a lie. Now the ground was gone beneath his feet and what did have instead? A dying mother and a dying town.
"Son... if jus' sayin' sorry would take it back, I'd say it every trial from now 'tilI died, but that won't fuckin' do it. I'm here now. I aint goin' nowhere. I stayed so youse an' yer Ma could be safe. I stayed in the city an' I did what I do best t'make sure that when I was done, youse could come back here an' live. All I did, all of it, I did fer youse. I never had anythin' to give me life meanin', until youse came along. Until I held you in my hands, all sticky and warm and you looked at me and..."
He remembered that morning. Jessye panting and pale on the bed. Smile plastered on her face along with wet hair. He didn't want to hold the thing at first. Never had before, apart from his sister, arcs before. She nearly had to bully and yell at him to just come over here, you idiot, and hold you-
"Son."
Kasoria had spoken the word as he'd looked down. Into those tiny eyes scrunched closed that opened when they felt their sires warmth on their back. He looked into those eyes and every hideous thing he'd done sloughed away like dead skin. This was his future. His past was... powerless. He wouldn't allow it to hold him back anymore. Not when he had this tiny life to guard and provide for.
"Martyn."
He'd named him a moment later. Fifteen arcs later, he spoke the word again, to rustling leaves and creaking branches. He looked up... and he snorted.
The boy wasn't there.
Shows what you know, old man.
"Fuck me..."
Slowly, with cramped muscles and complaining joints and bemused Sparks buzzing in his blood, Kasoria got back to his feet. The town as a half-break walk from the hill, and somewhere down there was his son. He frowned at the half-built collection of wattle-and-daub roofs and fresh masonry, then started walking. He had another guess or two in him. Next time, though, he'd wait for sure before he wasted his fucking breath...