The Conciege
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(THOB) Chapter 139: March
🕑 Added 2024-01-25 05:45:08 +0000 UTCMost Reverend Father Bratvi Arrufa was a muscled, middle aged man with a clean shaved head. When he spoke people were forced to listen. His pale skin marked his heritage as somewhere not within the realm which made him a compelling sight, and his brogue, if it could be described as one, was flat, almost as if the man didn’t understand what intonations were. Perhaps his vocal cords didn’t care for the nuisance.
Men like him were rare in the realm, but among priests, outsiders weren’t so unheard of.
While most children brought or offered to the seminary were indigenes of the realm, it was not unheard of to find the occasional discord of outsiders. Unkuti, for one, had been the outsider in Ezril’s group. Usually, these outsiders were brought back by evangelists who’d found luck in finding a child with promise beyond the reaches of the realm.
Bratvi paid Ezril and a surprised Levlin no attention when they were brought before him. With a simple visual confirmation of his new subjects he’d all but dismissed their existence into the singularity of many priests he had under his care as the priests shoved them along.
A few hours before being taken from their shared cell, they had been given a warm bowl of porridge and a cup of water each. Ezril had a feeling it was the only reason the scribe was able to walk. The priests had his Sunders in their possession as they led them into some segment of the cavalcade that assembled behind the Most Reverend. Oddly, Ezril felt a level of anger when one of the priests, a man so young he was technically still a boy, discarded his bow into a brown sack as if it were nothing but trash before adding his sheathed Sunders into the mix. Ezril spotted Apparit lost in the fray without a rider as the priest with his weapons looked around in search of something.
The horse stood at attention, tamed as the others around it. Without a rider, it seemed the odd one out, but if that bothered the stead, it didn’t show it.
“Reverend Taeval,” the young captor of his weapons said.
Somehow the name drew his attention. If anything, he was certain he’d heard that name once before. The face would not come to him, and that came as no surprise. He knew the name but doubted he had ever put a face to it. Most likely a name he’d heard from one of his brothers, most likely Takan. The man was the only one of them who liked himself a gossip about one sister and priest or the other.
“Here,” the priest said while Ezril continued to watch Apparit. “I here he’s to be in your care through the journey. A piece of advice: don’t let him have them unless he absolutely has to; he’s a dangerous one.” He tried an awkward laugh. “It would seem you drew the short straw on this one.”
Ezril grinned. They didn’t have a clue. He could still deal enough damage. He looked down at his still cuffed hands. All he had to do was find a way to slip his cuffs. But that wasn’t what he planned. Truthfully, he intended a peaceful march to a brutal war.
“Not really…”
Apparit’s hold on his attention toppled at the sound of the voice. He almost berated himself for having forgotten the name. Although, in his defense it wasn’t a name that had been used to address the priest quite often. He turned and almost laughed at the sight.
“…I volunteered to watch over him,” Baltar told the other priest. “You see; I know him well enough. And if you think he’s that dangerous, I’d advise you hurry along before he comes for you.” He pointed a discrete finger in Ezril’s direction and the priest followed his gaze. “He seems to be planning something sinister. Tell me, brother,” he reclaimed the man’s attention. “Did you offend him by any chance?”
Ezril could feel the new priest’s terror. This time he didn’t hold back his smile. “Stop scaring the newly ordained, brother.” He would have gone to meet his brother had the priests beside him not already made a point of have twitchy hands. He found he didn’t like how they handled him, so he remained where he was. Instead, Baltar came to him, grinning.
“I see you’re still causing trouble.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say, brother.” Ezril returned the grin. “I dare say you slander my name. When have I ever been troublesome?”
Baltar put a finger to pursed lips. “I seem to recall a seminarian who always got into trouble with Father Talod for night prowling.”
“Father Talod always had it out for me.” He smirked. “Doesn’t mean I was troublesome.”
“What of when you took one of moonshine’s girls?”
Ezril shrugged. “Team effort.”
Baltar laughed and nodded in agreement. “Team effort,” he said. “But then, there was that thing with the older boys.”
Ezril almost laughed. Through his chuckle he remembered what his brother was talking about. “Saneed’ mates,” he said. “In all fairness,” he raised a shackled hand, “it was never proven that I was the one.”
“No,” his brother admitted. “It never was. But there wasn’t a soul that didn’t know it was you, brother.”
Ezril couldn’t forget that night.
He had snuck into one of the older boys’ rooms in the Konvac tower. He’d figured the theft would be harder to trace back to his room if it happened in a faraway tower. That night he’d gone hunting for a new hunting knife in a bid to avoid trouble with Gareth. One of the boys who should’ve been fast asleep had woken up during his search. It had been too dark to see and he had escaped without direct recognition but it hadn’t mattered. Most of the seminary knew of the boy who’d lost one of the weapons keeper’s babies as the man called them.
The following night the boys from the room came for him. There’d been a small brawl which Ezril and his brothers easily lost. Punishments were doled out and the issue was forgotten. Two days after, he still had to bear the brunt of Gareth who’d had him clean out the entire cavernous construct that was the weapon’s storage. He’d ended the day with enough cuts to make him treasure the man’s babies better.
“We march!”
Bratvi’s voice shook him from his reminiscing and the priests flanking him stepped away.
“Get your stead, brother,” Baltar told him. “What was it called again? Apartheid? Appanid? Apparition?” He shrugged in defeat, laughing. “You know what? I don’t care, just get the thing and come on. You march with me.”
“Apparit.”
Baltar shrugged. “I was close enough.”
“I can’t argue with you on that,” Ezril admitted then, sparing Levlin a brief glance, said, “can I bring the scribe along?”
“The Merdendi?” Baltar frowned. “I don’t know, brother. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
His reluctance was understandable.
“I’ll watch him,” he promised, then quickly added, “He steps out of line even once and you can do whatever you are allowed to him.”
Baltar turned and left without a word. Ezril took it as consent.
He turned to Levlin. “You step out of line and I won’t stop him from doing anything he does.” He went to Apparit, mounted the stead, and spurred it towards the scholar. The cavalcade was yet to move. “You’re with me,” he told the man and then a thought crossed his mind. Where’s his horse?
