Fable - Ask To Be a Praetor

[Ruslan Gildal]

FIVE YEARS AGO​

The chill of the mountainous heights of the Spine bit into Ruslan's bones. The freezing rain was coming down hard, and the dark clouds above smothered the light of day and covered the hardy forest of trees in a uniform dimness. He was pressed to the ground next to a thick batch of roots, peering cautiously over the ridge and down the little slope. Tightly did he grip his fighting axe. He couldn't see her. He couldn't see the jin either. Just the pouring rain, the trees, and his breath.

He had to risk it.

"Anfisa!" he called out. "Are you alright!?"

* * * * *​

Days earlier, they were at the War College in Gild.

Field expeditions are what they were officially called. Some called them assignments or missions instead, but it all came out to the same thing. Young Praetor students needed experience, real experience, the like of which could only be found outside the classroom and outside the training grounds and outside the very walls of Gild itself. Ruslan, as well as other Fourth Year students, was by now no stranger to these field expeditions, but one's final expedition was meant to be harder than all the rest. It was called "the Capstone" for a reason.

Unchanged from all the previous expeditions was that pairs, even small groups, were required. No one went out alone, even if one was heading to an army or maniple in the field and would upon arrival be surrounded by fellow Gildans. It was about building comradeship with one's fellow Praetors as much as it was in Gild's interest to protect its young, up-and-coming warrior statesmen. Never did it hurt to have someone watching your back.

Ruslan already knew who he wanted to have at his side.

After his class was called to attention out on the College parade ground by the Senior Instructor on the platform, and after said Instructor gave his speech, they were all given the task of pairing or grouping up for their Capstone expedition.

Ruslan approached his friend, the very same he had met on the day he enrolled into the War College. His favorite redheaded dwarf.

"Anfisa Ironhammer," he said, "why not end our time here as we began? Meeting the challenge together."

 

[Anfisa Ironhammer]

Anfisa was a late bloomer. Not just because she was a dwarf, maturing more slowly than her human or ogre counterparts, but as well because she only became aware of her Praetor power the year before she was enrolled into the War College. She was twenty-six years of age then, freshly past her adolescence and into the earliest years of her adult life. Her family, her father and mother and brothers, they were all happy for her, yet even all of their pride and well-wishing was eclipsed by that of her Uncle Ordin. A devoted convert to Jura, given to Gildan culture through and through, Uncle Ordin's very beard bristled with effervescent pride when he found out his little niece Anfisa was going to become a Praetor, that the Clan of Ironhammer had been so blessed by Regel, that the Clan with a Praetor soon to their name will have cemented their place in the Community.

If he could see her now! Nearing the end of her Fourth Year, on the eve of her final field expedition, he would be bellowing out encouragement. Doubtless he would be present at her Holy Accolade—Anfisa just hoped he could hold in his celebratory bellowing until it was proper to cheer.

Still...she had her doubts. Her apprehensions. It was quite a lot, wasn't it? The day before she had discovered her Praetor powers was so much different than the days which came after. The entire outlook of her life was different. Yet within one simple arc of the sun, everything had changed. The responsibility of being a leading citizen of Gild rested on her shoulders. The pride of Clan Ironhammer rested on her shoulders (and, in her most fearful thoughts, perhaps also the enmity of the Ironhammers who in the schism stayed in Belgrath). Anfisa lacked the outgoing nature shared by all her brothers; no less dutiful, she was quiet and reserved—shy, even. All of this mixed together to make a potent medley for the cultivation of concern. She hoped, she wished, she prayed dearly to Regel that she would not make for a disappointment. Such great promise was now ascribed to her. She had to live up to it.

The Senior Instructor gave the assembled students their leave to group up. And, before she knew it, none other than Ruslan Gildal, one of the few who was both a nobleman and a Praetor student in the College, came up to her.

She beamed. Seeing him, just being around his surety, made her nagging doubts disappear.

"You found me before I had a chance to find you," she said happily. Of all the people Ruslan could have chosen for this final mission, he chose her. And that warmed Anfisa's heart.

Made her think everything would be alright, and couldn't be anything but.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

"Of course," Ruslan said. "Where else am I to find the most reliable companion amongst the Fourth Years? Who else carries the name of Ironhammer?"

Certainly his other friends in their class might well be chafed by that, but was he not known for a healthy dose of teasing here and there? And besides, from what Ruslan could see, it seemed like the pairings and the groupings were coming along smoothly. There were, naturally, some cases where an unseemly and possessive spat or two might flare up, necessitating the intervention of Instructors to remind the young Praetors-to-be of their proper bearing, but for his class it looked like there would be no such issue.

 

[Anfisa Ironhammer]

Anfisa blushed a little, her natural bashfulness threatening to come out in full bloom. She shifted her eyes away for a second, ran a hand through her hair before rubbing at the back of her neck, and then she looked back up to him.

"You give me too much credit," she said. "The honor is mine. What number of great feats will me and mine need to do to lift the name of Ironhammer up to that of Gildal?"

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

Ruslan waved it off.

"The name of Gildal is proven, but the name of Ruslan far from it," he said, offering another genial smile. "In that way, Anfisa, we are equals."

His smile changing its character just a touch, adding in a pinch of playfulness (and a pinch of genuine curiosity, to be fair), he asked, "Wasn't your family set to Gildanize its name? You told me that...last year? Yes, last year, give or take a handful of months or so. What happened with that?"

 

[Anfisa Ironhammer]

Anfisa laughed, and even she could hear how it started out hearty and slowly became awkward.

"Well...it would seem that one of the things Clan Ironhammer is adept at doing is squabbling amongst itself."

It was a little embarrassing.

Okay, it was more than just a little embarrassing. At least to Anfisa. Rather would she have a sense of harmony over the bickering, the planting of flags in one's opinion and the obstinate defense thereof. Sometimes she did seriously wonder if her family's actual favorite pastime was squabbling, if they, each and all, though they might be loath to say so aloud, secretly loved the back-and-forths, the arguments, the contrarianism, this as though it somehow made their days more enjoyable.

"You see, we were set to have our Clan name officially Gildanized, and it was supposed to be 'Ironal'. I do not know who initially did it, but someone broke with the agreement, saying something to the effect of: 'What is Clan Ironhammer without the hammer?' And so this kinsdwarf put forward 'Hammal' as a proposition, but then that was quickly made into bolt fodder when others, who agreed generally with the 'hammer' idea, said it ought to be 'Hammeral'. 'Hammal' was abandoned for a while and then picked up again by one of my grandaunts, who thought it was a fine enough family name. 'Ironhammal' and 'Ironhammeral' have both entered into the contest as well. And now these five camps of opinion haven't much budged in more recent times."

Anfisa sighed. What can you do? said that exhalation.

"How did we make something so simple so complicated?"

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

"Never underestimate that of which families are capable," Ruslan said with an exaggeratedly sardonic grin. More teasing, this time at the very core of civilization itself, the family. What could be more precious and more imperfect at the same time? With his own legion of uncles, aunts, cousins, and relations further remote, the House of Gildal, not unlike other noble houses or beyar clans or families of any blood, any size, found all throughout the whole of Arethil, was not without its own rough edges.

All the same, he would die for them, if he were so called.

As the young Praetors-to-be were finishing up with the pairing and grouping, Ruslan had time to ask, "You've a keen intuition, chiseled like sculpted stone. What do you think our mission will be?"

 

[Anfisa Ironhammer]

"Well, the war is over," Anfisa said, only in the precise moment after having said it remembering that it was Ruslan's own father, the Consul Kadir Gildal, who signed the treaty with the Ommites (which many Gildans saw as an unnecessary and shameful surrender), and realizing that she didn't know how he felt about it. Sheepishly, she tried to swiftly move past it, "...s-so, I imagine we will have to go further afield now, into the Spine or beyond it. Likely it will be some manner of monster hunting; though, so I understand from those who earned their Holy Accolade before us, it may not necessarily involve combat."

Magic, threaded throughout the whole of Arethil, was not overly abundant nor was it vanishingly rare. Its peril could be found by those who sought it, whether that peril was in the form of a cabal of hedge wizards, some place or artifact tainted by a dangerous enchantment or curse, or in monsters born of or warped by the arcane and the occult.