Rulvas sat back in the plush wing back chair, raised the cup of mead and drank heavily. It was potent and sweet, he smiled and licked the residue from his lips.
Looking across at the Chronicler before him he smiled, she shivered and flushed; gripped her quill tightly “Please continue Rulvas” she said with a quaver to her voice.
Fixing his black pit like eyes on hers, his honeyed tone soon made her relax.
“OK, so I’m from Wolfdel or that’s where my father brought me up. He was a good man and at one time well regarded by his kin folk and peers. But he had fallen from grace when he had come under the beguile of a Succubus, for a year and a day he pandered to her every whim and was rewarded by great knowledge. When he left her service, he brought a boy child with him back to Wolfdel.”
“My fathers’ wife was non-too pleased and neither were my half brothers and sisters at having a bastard demon spawn for kin. She fled to her family taking her children and promptly divorced my father it all but broke his heart. He dedicated his life to raising me and keeping me from my dark temptations, early on a lot of the pets from the local neighbourhood went missing and naturally the Demon Child was blamed. My father’s business struggled but he kept us clothed, warm and fed.”
“When I came of age that’s when things really got interesting. All of a sudden, I was the popular kid, I was cool. The girls all came a knocking and so did some of the boys” Rulvas barked a sharp laugh making the Chronicler jump up from her seat.
She turned a red as a beet and begged her excuses to use the lavvy.
Shortly returning she walked back in her face damp and cheeks flushed from obviously cooling her face.
“Are you ok my dear?” Rulvas asked politely, she looked at him with a scowl that soon softened as their eyes met. Rulvas stood, towering over her he reached out and gently pushed back the loose hair from her face, her eyes lingered on the black stained razor taloned fingers of his broad strong hand. She reached up grasping his hand. Hot to the touch it made her shiver again. Rulvas leaned down and firmly kissed her, scooping her up into his massively muscular arms she sighed and responded in kind. Gently they parted, their blood flushed. “Are you ok to continue?” asked Rulvas, he inclined his head and stroked the side of her neck. He could see the pulsing veins, oh how easy it would be to tear that long and delicate neck, spewing the glorious scarlet ichor it contained within. Focusing back on her eyes Rulvas gently stepped back and plucked a jug from the table beside his chair and refilled his cup. He raised it and offered it to the Chronicler who took a sip.
She coughed “We plenty of time for that later, you promised me your tale”. She quickly moved back to the desk and sat using the journal and quill as a shield from Rulvas.
“OK so I did, any way as I was saying once I came of age all of a sudden I was the popular kid, my father had plenty of customers in his Apothecary and life was pretty good. That was until the summer of my 16th year when an odd group of people arrived in Wolfdel. The began hanging around the shop and seemed to be everywhere I went.” Rulvas’s voice quavered and he bit down the emotion that flooded up. “On the eve of my 16th birthday that’s when they first spoke to me and said that if I came with them they would promise me a life of luxury and want for nothing, my father would be set for life and I wouldn’t ever have to worry again, all I had to do was leave with them and never return to Wolfdel or see my father and my friends”.
“I declined their kind offer and said we were fine as we are thank you, they became a little upset by this and I told them to go away. I honestly thought they had, then as I was coming back from the bath house later one night a group of thugs jumped me and dragged me off, trussed me up like a chicken put a bag over my head, worst part is that bag smelled real bad. It was the first time I’d ever lost my temper, my blood flushed and I managed to tear my bonds, next thing all I knew was they were all dead slashed and torn. That was the first time I’d felt the Wrath come over me it was glorious and terrifying at the same time.” The Chronicler sat wide eyed and looked somewhat paler than she had earlier. “You getting all this down?” Rulvas asked softly, she flushed and nodded, scribbling quickly with her quill.
“Any way I cleaned myself up as best I could and ran home and hid in my room until next morning”. When I eventually emerged, it was the talk of the town that 4 bodies had been found in the warehouse district some sort of animal attack they said, I knew but said nothing in fear of being punished for their deaths”. Rulvas took another long draught of mead, cleared his throat.
“So, as I turned 17 I joined the service of the Lord of Wolfdel as a soldier, although I was a good learner I wasn’t well suited to the discipline of the life of a soldier and soon found myself pensioned off. I was then the odd group came back and said I had to go with them or there would-be repercussions, I acquiesced to their demands this time and gave my father a bullshit story about a job and that I would be back by Hallows Night” Rulvas almost choked this time, his eyes wet he chugged at the cup and regained his composure.
“Off I went with this group who turned out to be a right bunch of head fuck crazy zealots let me tell you” The Chronicler flushed at the crude language and took once again to concentrating on the ledger before her. “So, wow it was like a month on the road until we got to their temple… pah! temple, run down rathole it was. The put me in a cell and took away all my possessions. I accepted it as I didn’t want any thing to happen to my father. That was when they started spouting on about The Dark Ravager and the end of times. I didn’t like any of this one bit let me tell you” Rulvas nodded his head and grated his teeth. “Then one day they said I needed to be in a ritual to make me a member of their church and embrace my destiny, bastards tried to drug me and I played along it wasn’t until they used this dagger” Rulvas pulled the wicked long blade from his belt its serrated edge glinted in the firelight by his side. “Cut me they did and it was deep my ichor spilling out into a bowl, it was a bloody skull you know?” Rulvas lay the knife down on the table and took a deep breath “any way so there’s me bleeding out and next thing I know there’s this voice in my head, I think I heard it when I was younger. It tells me to stop being a pussy, stop bleeding take their knife and butcher the lot of em” Rulvas looked down at the floor then back up at the wide-eyed Chronicler. “Like I was sayin, now this voice kind of made sense so I pulled myself free of the bonds ripped the throat out of the big guy with the knife and then proceeded to make my way round the room stabbing anything that moved, some of them tried to get away but I found them and their lackeys hidden through the rest of the temple”. Rulvas looked again at the Chronicler, she looked terrified. He smiled softly and her face began to soften. Standing up he moved to the desk and filled her cup with mead, rested a hand on hers momentarily. She quickly calmed and her breathing softened.
“I managed to find my stuff, took a horse and some provisions and I rode home. Took me weeks and it was the day after Hallows night when I got to the gates of Wolfdel. That was when I met her, the beautiful golden-haired lady in the blue dress, she had sad eyes. She told me that my father had been murdered by the cultists after I had left and that I needed to protect myself from them and that she would teach me to do that. So, the Lady took me to her bosom and let me mourn the death of the one person until that time I had loved. I spent a year and a day with her and her kin in the Great Hall on the Mountain, I honed my Martial skills, learned my manners proper and even learned to play music, after a fashion. I don’t have the finest voice but it manages a song now and again. That was when I discovered under the Lady’s guidance to shield myself from those that would hunt me down for their dark purposes and we discovered not only had I a talent for death but I was a healer quite unlike any other. She called me a bridge between worlds and that my path was that of balance and protecting those how deserved it and meeting justice to those that didn’t. Now I take my code very seriously as its important to me”.
The Chronicler sat opened mouthed aghast of what was being told to her. Her mind was struggling to grasp that this Demonic Windkin was favoured by the Gods. Still he was very handsome and…. She shuddered managing to drag her thought back to the task in hand. She looked up at the statuesque masculine form in front of her, his smile was “beautiful””.
Rulvas stood and headed around the desk lifted the quill from the Chroniclers hand taking her hand in his he led her away from the desk and through the door to the bedroom beyond……
Rulvas sat atop his chestnut mare and bounced along the dirt road towards what appeared to be a town a few miles distant. His ringmail clinked with every bounce. He smiled wistfully thinking of the Chronicler from the other day and hoped maybe he might meet her again.
During his time with the Chronicler he’s told her of the summer he’d spent as a bandit on the Bleakmoor and the weeks he’d spent in the hospital as he aided the Physiks in treating a terrible malady that had struck the town. And of course, the cultists that found him now and again. She had omitted much of the colourful and highly violent descriptions he’d provided from her journal about his encounters with them.
Low on coin and his clothes now looking somewhat tired Rulvas needed a new employer or a windfall to land his way….