Private Tales Something Amiss

[Saul Talith]

Briefly Saul considered saying something about what would have happened if they hadn't come for him.

Very likely all of the Rangers would have been dead, or worse. A frown touched his lips for a moment and he slowly shook his head as if internally deciding against it.

Best not to bring such things up. "Wasn't exactly sanctioned, was it?"

Saul had the authority to make this call, in fact he knew that he wouldn't catch any official rebuke at all. Hunting Liches was his job, it was why the Templar existed in the first place. The Old Man would only congratulate him on the kill. There would be some snide comments from the other Commanders, but no real consequences.

He couldn't say the same for the Rangers.

 

[Kaska]

Kaska grimaced, thinking back on things she had previously sworn to not dwell on tonight.

"Not in the slightest," she admitted.

A silence fell over her, her thoughts drifting over her and Lia's conversation. She felt around for a flask but recalled she left it back with Lia. She sighed heavily, looking sideways at him.

"If I'm being honest... I don't think they expect us to come back at all. So this..."

 

[Saul Talith]

He frowned. "They don't?"

Alarm bells rang in his head.

What the did she mean? The Rangers had known the danger? Did they not have faith in their own people? His lips thinned for just a brief moment before he continued on. "Do the Rangers not have enough men to send to your aid?"

He knew that wasn't so.

The Rangers had more men and equipment than the Templar did, in fact they had ten times the number. Close to it anyway. There was no reason for them to send anyone to their death. Unless of course it was on purpose.

 

[Kaska]

"They do," she allotted, voice soft.

She looked away, pressing her lips thin is shame. It was one thing to consciously work through your differences with your rivalry, but it was another to admit your weaknesses to them. She sighed and slowly shook her head.

"Lia and I have been handling this case together for months. We first encountered the lich on a mission. He stole a magical object we were task to transport to a new vault. It was very powerful and very dangerous. Our mission was... an utter secret. I didn't even know what I was being sent on until I was already off," she added, trying to stress the circumstances to him.

"And yet, that lich did. He knew what to look for and he... caused us a great deal of trouble trying to get it. When we returned with the object and the news ... our Commanders ... lacked appropriate concern. Lia pressed for resources and permission to deal with the threat. In the end, they gave us ten men for one lich."

Suicide, she understood now. She wondered if they saw it the same back home.

"Perhaps... it was ignorance..." she tried to reason.

 

[Saul Talith]

"Doubtful." Saul said, sounding more than a little bit troubled by what he had just heard. The ramifications...if it was true, could hit harder than most people would suspect.

What Kaska was describing was not only corruption, but outright collusion with a Lich. That idea was frightening, especially considering that the Rangers were all but an army in their own way. Sure they weren't trained and organized like the Anirian Guard or the Allirian City Watch, but...well they had numbers.

His hand came up, stroking his beard softly as he glanced up at her.

"This is troubling." An understatement. "Whoever sent you likely did mean you to die."

He frowned. "Who was it?"

Which one of the majors had approved this? Certainly not her father.

 

[Kaska]

She pressed her lips together, slowly shaking her head. Her brows were pinched in distressed, even her eyes shining a little more in the firelight.

She trusted herself to say nothing more.

 

[Saul Talith]

When silence greeted him Saul frowned, his head shaking.

"Fair enough." He commented quietly.

The Commander had shared nothing of what had been going on in his own Order, why would he expect the same thing from her? Ranger business was Ranger business...except when it spilled out into the rest of Alliria. His fingers tightened for a moment and he took a breath.

"Whatever happens." He said quietly. "You'll be in danger now."

A pause, then slowly he continued. "They'll want you dead."

 

[Kaska]

Her breath caught. She hadn't thought that far yet. But he was right. This was more than just frightening corruption, her life was on the line here. She was caught up in something large and forces that she didn't understand had all the power to keep her blind and take her out.

They had defied expectations. They knew something they shouldn't. They were someones enemy. It just sucked that they didn't know who.

"I..."She swallowed hard, then sighed again, her tension keeping breaths in far longer than they were meant to be. "Yeah. I guess so.

"Listen, I just wanted you to know. In case something happens. With magic. Just... thought you Templars deserved to-... walk in with a clear picture. Save a few lives. Or something."

 

[Saul Talith]

He nodded slowly, almost solemnly really. "There's few things we can do."

Saul admitted quietly.

"My Chapter is...fractured at the moment." Might as well tell her. "The other Commanders and I disagree about our current path, and our Lord Captain is old."

For a moment he paused, then slowly continued. "In the coming days things will get...complicated for me."

A soft way of putting it.

 

[Kaska]

Her shock was well masked, yet there inside of her none the less.

Silence built between them, the reveal leaving her with a few things to puzzle through. In the end she wasn't sure what she should say. A condolences? A joke? Ask if he will be okay?

They weren't friends, she reminded herself. Colleague at most, and if she wanted to get through this, she needed to take a page out of Lia's book and act that way.

"Then I will do everything I can to keep it from further complicating things for you." How in the world she would accomplish that, she didn't know. But this was ranger business and it was only right that only they fix it.

 

[Saul Talith]

He nodded in appreciation, though he knew that such an attempt likely would not hold to much. If this spilled out of the Rangers, it was very likely that all of Alliria would be affected in some way.

Though just what way remained to be seen. "I do not know how long things will last."

Saul commented, taking a breath.

"Though I know that I'll win." This was a fight that he could not afford to lose, one that he refused to lose in fact. He had been preparing for it, as much as he hated to admit it. He'd known since he'd first made contact with the other Chapters that things were heading this way.

An unfortunate side effect.

"When things are settled." He began again. "There would be no shame in calling for aid."

 

[Kaska]

She laughed a little dryly at that, loosening up enough to kick a leg up and lean into it.

"How do you do that?" She asked, both at a loss and amazed by that unwavering confidence of his.

 

[Saul Talith]

He shrugged. "These times are difficult."

To say the least.

"Compromise is a must." Saul had accepted that years ago when he'd first taken on the task of reuniting the Orders into one. "You cannot move forward without working with others, not if you are to get what you want."

Was it so different for the Rangers? "The Templar have been fractured for centuries, millenia really. Broken into pieces to a point where killing a single Lich becomes difficult."

He frowned.

"Once, it would have been routine." A sigh escaped him. "Compromise, working together, that is what will bring us back to that."

 

[Kaska]

"No," she corrected softly, a touch more solemn as she studied his features. "How do you remain so put together in front of such crushing uncertainty? Seizing power like that, going up against your own men-- none of that is easy. How do you remain so sure that you'll get through?"

 

[Saul Talith]

For a few moments Saul did not say anything, he only remained silent.

It was not a question that he had expected, nor one that he really had the wherewithal to properly answer. A minute passed, then another, then finally he spoke. "Somebody has to be."

What was he going to do? Fall apart? Step into line?

No.

That wasn't him. That wasn't what he wanted. He stood tall because he had to, he did what he did because nobody else would. Those around him gave him strength, but he was the one that needed to stand.

"I know my convictions." Saul said quietly. "If I don't do this. If I don't move forward. I abandon who I am."

 

[Kaska]

"Wow."

She rubbed her good arm around herself, rubbing at the other self-consciously. The proceeding silence was broken by a leaf of fish being served to Saul, a friendly wink and nudge from the Templar as he also offered his commander up a flask before walking away.

"Same goes to you," Kaska concluded, finally speaking. "Things do go south-- or you just find yourself with a need-- Well I am a Major's daughter. I can pull strings." She smiled at him, a twinkle in her eye as she did so.

 

[Saul Talith]

He smiled for a moment. "Perhaps it will end there."

Saul mused.

"That or at the end of a rope." It was a dark thought, but a distinctly possible one. As much as he hated to admit it. There was no assurance that he would end this crusade in victory. In fact, most betting parlors would have put the odds entirely against him.

It was something he knew, though he would never have said it out loud to anyone following him. It was also the reason he asked for volunteers and never commanded. Those that followed him would likely follow him to their deaths.

 

[Kaska]

Her face abruptly contorted in distaste at the thought.

"And all these men here?" A darker thought, her gaze sweeping out over them. Another person might expression concern, might tell him his crazy or ask him to reconsider. It all did sound quite crazy. Not quite a coup but also not a revolution. A seizing of power in an exchange as raw and gritty as it gets.

She didn't bother saying anything. She knew men like him. Her words would do nothing, and besides, they were colleagues.

His, men, however...

 

[Saul Talith]

"They all have their choice." He said softly, glancing around for a moment before he continued. "Though most of them will follow me."

The idea was one that he acknowledged long ago, that his actions would bring the death of others. Yet they all did it because they believed in him, because they followed his cause.

Saul didn't know if that was right, but he knew it was true. "They believe in the same dream as I do."

That was really what it came down to in the end. They believed in him, even if it meant death.

 

[Kaska]

She skimmed their faces, landing on Leane's. The sharp woman looked up to her in an instant, scanning the scene and checking for-... no, everything was fine. The gaze was held, expression neutral.

Kaska looked back down, struggling to accept that every face here could be dead by the years end.

"What is your dream, Saul, Commander of Templars. What out there is worth you and all your men dying for?"

 

[Saul Talith]

"I wish to reunite my Order." It was not a secret.

Saul had been fairly public about his goal for quite some time now, longer than most of his own Order would have liked in fact. The Old Man enjoyed it, though he'd never considered it more than the dream of an idealist.

"To bring us together once more." He continued. "Stand as a bulwark against Evil."

A smile touched his lips. "So twelve Rangers don't have to fight a Lich alone."

A breath filled his lungs.

"So a village doesn't disappear overnight." His fingers tightened. "And appears the next day as a necromancers thrall."

Saul knew that even with more people such things would still happen, knew that there would never be a perfect solution, but it would be better. Right now he barely had two hundred men. Two hundred men for thousands of miles. He needed more. This world needed more.

 

[Kaska]

"You paint a pretty picture," she told him, trying not to flame any more ego than she had to. She uncurled her leg, reaching out and grabbing for the fish he wasn't touching.

"I see why your men follow you. Just-..." No, she wasn't going to say it.

"You're really no use to me dead. So try not to, yeah?" She shoved the fish in her mouth, preventing other words.

 

[Saul Talith]

He chuckled, then slowly nodded.

Saul knew how difficult his dream was to achieve, knew that it was an uphill battle even on the best of days, but it didn't mean that he wasn't going to try.

There was no to be done yet.

Eating quietly the Commander thought about the coming days, and about what Kaska had told him. A part of him couldn't believe it, but it made sense in an odd sort of way. Why would the Rangers only send a dozen men to fight a Lich? They were fools, but not utterly incompetent.

Something had to be wrong, and the fact that there was put him ill at ease. Even with his own problems at the forefront of his mind still.

 

[Kaska]

Kaska stepped onto the boat the next morning, nursing a celebratory hangover and her arm. She dropped her stuff into a pile next to Lia's and leaned agains the railing besides the woman. "Let me guess, not a single ache," she grumbled, quite the disheveled mess and not carrying for it.

The men all squeezed their way onto the ship. As it turned out, they could all fit coming back now that their numbers had been thinned. An unfortunate fact, really. But at least they weren't walking. She rubbed her eyes and tried to smooth her hair back, catching sight of Saul talking to his men across the way. And then they were off.

 

[Saul Talith]

The trip on the river was short, at least shorter than one might expect.

Lia informed Saul that their destination was at the other end of the Sayve, the Rangers heading back to where they had been dispatched from instead of Alliria. There was folly in that, but the Commander held his tongue when speaking to the Sergeant and simply nodded his head.

With a small amount of negotiation Saul convinced the Ranger and the ship Captain to take him and the other Templar to Arengale, a village on the very mouth of the Sayve. There the they would be able to buy Horses and make their way back home without too much of a delay.

At least it helped with the sea sickness.