Open Chronicles The Wolf and The Bat

[Ishar Morrad]

"I am." Ishar said blankly.

Unlike her he had not had a night of sleep. The last night for him consisted of having every single bone in his body broken, every muscle stretched, and every ligament torn.

Then after that they had walked nearly forty miles.

He was still a Templar, a small part of him. He could march across the world and back, but he was getting older, and his body was worn. Ishar needed rest at the very least.

A day of it at best, in truth.

 

[Rose]

"Oh. Right. Course." She squirmed a little more, then looked to their supplies. She perked. "I can pack this up if you wanna," she made a vague gesture, looking no less high strung that a kid on candy. She cast another glance at the bar, now just considering flat out theft again.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

He nodded, reaching down and grabbing a small sack of coins. It was the money they had left. "You may want to save a few for the other side of the Spine."

Currency was of course different in different places, but most small villages would accept one coin or another depending on it's weight. If it happened to weigh more than the local coin? Well all the better for whomever you were paying in the first place.

"We'll have cold nights ahead of us." He reminded her.

This was going to be hard, even for them.

 

[Rose]

She nodded in understanding, letting him take the money without resistance. “I’ll um. Be up soon,” she promised, not letting herself look at the bar and turning to their bags instead.

“Save me a pillow?” She began to pick at the puzzle that would be their organization, things such as thick blankets needing to be rolled and strapped to the outside to make space for it among their possession.

She had never carried so much before. He seemed skeptical about their survival, but with all this before her, she felt they would be more than fine.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

Ishar nodded, standing and grabbing the sword that had been leaning against the wall.

There were no other words as the old Templar made his way to their room. It was the first time in as much as he could remember as being in a bed so soon after a change.

It seemed odd to him that it happened now, though perhaps it was a small reward to counter the fact that he would be spending the next month crossing the spine. Misery would set in then, he knew that, but perhaps remembering a warm bed would be enough to keep him sane.

The only upside of this would be during his next change he'd be as far from anyone as possible.

 

[Rose]

Sleep did not come easy to her, but the soft bed she had been left with had been much appreciated. Ishar would wake to find her a lump of quivering blankets, clearly awake but unwilling to come out as she sang breathly to herself.

Their bags were packed and leaning against the wall, the morning sun lighting them in an almost ethereal yet forbidding illumination.

She stopped moving when she heard him sit up. Her head poked out, wide awake.

"Hi!"

 

[Ishar Morrad]

Ishar frowned, lips thinning slightly.

He was not stranger to waking early. For most of his years in the Templar he had been awake at the crack of dawn, and many times before it. The Blightlands were not kind to anyone, but it's ruler was particularly cruel to the Templar.

They'd had to deal with constant attacks, harassment, and small skirmishes.

It had kept him watchful. "Right."

He said with a frown, dragging himself out of the bed. It only took him a few moments to dress, pulling on the rest of his clothes and sending Rose to ensure they had breakfast before they left.

 

[Rose]

And by breakfast, he had meant milk. Right? Right.

That was what Rose had spent her portion on. Four tankards of it. Who knew that milk was so cheap compared to meats and breads and jam? Well, she knew. That's why she did it.

When he came down he'd catch her trying to pour the second one into one of her waterskins, her eyes very wide and lips pursed in concentration.

A platter of food was waiting for him across from her, untouched by her as she sported a distinct milk mustache.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

Ishar did not comment. Instead he sat himself down opposite Rose and began to eat. A pensive look formed on his face as he wolfed down the food, lips thinning in thought.

The path he knew that went over the Spine was an old one, remembered only from a map that had been within the central Hall of the castle. The road, if it could be called that, had been carved by the ancient Templar Order, back before they had split into dozens of different Chapters.

As far as he knew it was mostly forgotten now, which meant disrepair.

It would be a dangerous journey, but also the only one that could get them over the spine this far north.

 

[Rose]

Rose flopped backwards, all of her own waterskins filled with milk. They would hold for a few days at least, leaving her quite chipper as she patted them down into the top of her bag. She pulled forward the last half full tankard and sipped slowly, savoring the experience.

"Are there... other animals in the spine?" She asked, almost unwilling.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

His head snapped up, shaken out of his thoughts by the sound of Rose's voice. For a moment his mind did not seem to catch up with what she said.

Ishar paused for a second in thought, frowning then seemed to finally process. "Wolves, goats, caribou, Trolls, Griffins, some others."

They would have to hunt, he was already prepared for that.

Oddly enough food was the least of his worries. It was the cold, the wind, and the storms he knew would eventually come that truly bothered him.

 

[Rose]

"Oh. Okay. Good." She relaxed at that, her concern over her unusual state of hunger diminishing. Usually she was spared of the effects of her disease for a few days at least after a feeding, but her experience with the sheep was making her think that only applied to humans. At least she had been able to feed from an animal, she could now admit that that was good. Her next main concern was losing it in the middle of the wilderness and taking it out on Ishar with no other feeding source in sight.

But that wasn't a problem. They had trolls.

She watched him as he ate, conscious of his own stress. She almost didn't want to ask him. She didn't want to invite a conversation where he could change his mind. She couldn't help herself though, it didn't feel right to not check in.

"Are you... alright?"

 

[Ishar Morrad]

"Exhausted." Ishar said honestly.

There was nothing to do about it of course. He was tired because he'd been on the run for a year, never stopping for more than a night or two. He was tired because he had just changed, he was tired because he was getting old.

Ishar was just tired. "Let's get going."

He told her.

"The more daylight we have the better." They would need to find a place with good wind cover by days out.

 

[Rose]

Rose didn't push her luck, ignoring the guilt and taking the offer. She downed her milk and grabbed her bag, slinging the heavy mass easily over her shoulders.

"Lessgo," she chirped, grabbing his bag from the booth and dragging out with her too.

She squinted as the morning sun washed over her, groaning and stopping just to let him guide the way. After that, it was a steady but silent march, Rose driven on by the sense of hope in her chest.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

The day, even this early, was surprisingly warm.

It was a pleasant gift, though Ishar knew that it probably meant they would have the dreariest cold when they finally got to the most dangerous part of their crossing.

A pessimistic thought, one common in soldiers.

"This time we turn West." Ishar said as they moved towards the road. "Directly to the Mountains."

Then over them.

 

[Rose]

Rose looked to the sky, mouthing something to herself before looking around. "West, right, got it. My home's to the east. South east? Yeah I think it's..." She twirled and pointed behind them.

"That way." She gave vague gestures. "Somewhere. ...You?" She looked at him curiously.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

Ishar pointed towards the north. "The Blight."

All that lay to the North.

No one truly knew how the Blight became what it was now, though there were stories of it being just like the land around here. Rolling grassy plains, stark mountains, and forest as far as the eye could see. It was only a legend, but a pleasant one.

Slowly the two monsters began to ascend onto the path that lead towards the mountains.

 

[Rose]

She looked that way, nodding slowly as if she possessed the experience to understand what actually laid there.

"Sounds like it was pretty miserable there. You can't miss it that much ... right?" Better than being from a nice little place with warm fields and pretty views... Not being able to go back to something like that-- that would suck. She would know.

 

[Ishar Morrad]

"It's home." Unsurprisingly he'd had this discussion before.

When he'd been a young man the question had made him angry, the way of thinking, the ignorance of it.He'd argued more than once with foreigners that passed through, often ending in a throwing of fists.

"I spent twenty years defending it." He said quietly. "Thirty nine living in it."

The Templar shrugged. "It's home."

 

[Rose]

"You're old," she stated simply, thumbing her straps.

She walked on, accepting his logic easily.

"Well. If they they can find a cure for me, I sure they have one for you. You know they say we're like, cousins or something. Think it's cause of the bites-- so similar and all. You'll get to go back." She nodded as she spoke. "We'll figure this out."

 

[Ishar Morrad]

"Perhaps." He stated, entertaining the thought for just a moment.

A part of him had always wanted to return to the Blight, but in an odd way he couldn't allow himself to face it. Not when he was a danger to it's people.

"First we cross the mountains." He told her. "Then the Steppes."

Then a sea, and then the plains.

It was a far journey. Perhaps too far.

 

[Rose]

"Mountains, Steppes, mountains, Steppes," she chanted in sync with her steps. A comfortable silence was brokered as they moved. Rose had no intention of talking his ear off and making herself unwanted company. But after enough time, a question ate at her and she found her way to voicing it, looking up from the ground as they pushed up the growing incline.

"Hey, what's the furtherst away you've gone before? You ever go to this Elbion?"

 

[Ishar Morrad]

He shook his head. "The farthest I've been is to the West, not the east."

Ishar thought back to those times for a brief second, then continued.

"There is a Templar Chapter in the far North. The Tundra. I sailed there when I was just a recruit." It was for training of course, in order to harden the men of the blight to a point where nothing would break them. Some said it was why they survived so long in a land of death. "I've never been East of the spine."

Never had the chance until now.

 

[Rose]

"Ah. So it's new for the both of us. An adventure." She swung her hands around her, meeting them in a clap.

"Templar, eh?" She mused, giving him an up and down look. She let out a whistle, the comment almost unstated. He use to kill people like them.

She itched to know how he had gotten from there to here, but something told her that was not a conversation for so early in their... 'partnership'. She filed it away for another time.

"What was it like? Always fighting and stuff. I don't think I'd like it."

 

[Ishar Morrad]

He had forgotten how much she talked. "Stressful, exciting, any number of conflicting emotions that you feel all at once."

Often too many to even really process.

"The Blightland is not a friendly place." Ishar said quietly. "Less so to Templar."

It really had been constant fighting. "Sometimes it wears a man down, sometimes it forges him into a weapon."

His head shook.

"There's nothing easy about that life." He glanced at her. "But in a way...you know why you're doing it, and that you're doing good."