Previously on The Path of Poison…
Sepp, apprentice healer and hexer, fled with three other refugees from their war-torn village to forge their own path, but soon found themselves attacked by beastmen, and Sepp was forced to use his hexes, poison magic with an infamous reputation, to save them…
Chapter 5, plus links to previous chapters, can be found here
He had been with these people a mere few hours, thought Sepp, and look what happened. They had all sat down to eat and cool off, but also to think. A weird mixture of mild discomfort and shaky relief was in the air. Sepp had asked them to keep those hexes in their pockets for a little while longer, just to be sure. Never knew if something else might be watching, and he had a score of things he could throw about if something like a capalhead came nosing around. He’d said as such to try and seem confident, but he still didn’t feel right. He had his individual concerns about the group. Barosh seemed fine, for now. Skivor was openly opposed but not hostile, again, for now. And Seva, she had been earnest in her thanks, but something about it clearly bothered her.
Sepp sighed. Barosh and Seva looked at him. Skivor was still picking at his stew.
“Look, I think we should all have a talk,” said the apothecary. “If anyone has anything to say, questions...please say it. I’d like to get it out of the way.” He set his stew bowl down and brushed his dark gold mop of hair back under his brimmed traveller’s cap, casting his eyes downward.
“Sepp…” Seva spoke up uneasily. “Did…” she sounded like she almost had trouble getting the words out, “did you ever make any of these things to hurt someone?”
Sepp went very still then.
“Neither myself, nor my father,” he looked up as he said this, “ever made any of these to hurt anyone. We were...are apothecaries,” he looked back down, “hexes are just another way to help people, beyond tonics and poultices. So, if anyone found out how to hurt using what we made, we sure weren't the ones who told them. And it’s not like regular medicines can’t cause harm anyway.”
“You know,” Barosh suddenly said, examining the hex he’d taken out of his pocket, “I saw, pfff, I don’t know how many exactly like this around the farm back home, thought it looked familiar. But you know how farms are, there’s charms and trinkets in every crevice, over every doorway, all that. Never paid them any mind, neither did the boss. Sure, he probably bought them all.”
They both appreciated Barosh’s reassuring intrusion.
“They can’t, uh, hurt us though, can they?” he added warily.
“No, no. Not unless you mess up the little illustration hanging off the bottle neck in the right way. It’s called a bloom and it sort of directs the poison. Right now that vial is, ah, it’s like a shield meant to stop anything less powerful than itself from affecting you.” Sepp stopped and sighed again, frustrated. “There’s so much more to this stuff than illness and madness, but I can’t expect you all to see it like that. You’re not apothecaries.”
“Got something to say myself.” Skivor sat forward. They looked each other straight in the eye. “You seem like a bright young lad, Sepp. I appreciate what you did, and what you said. But I expect bright young lads to know that sorcery’s a poison path that leads strange places. I’m a woodsman. I live my life out here. I know things. I’ve seen things. So I know what I’m saying, nevermind me not being a healer. People think as they do for a reason.” But he said so, to everyone’s surprise, without a hint of harshness, and he downed the last of his stew. Sepp spoke after a quiet second.
“So you’re...not gonna kick me out?” he appended with pretty much the most awkward chuckle a human being has ever uttered.
“God no,” said Seva, with that kind earnestness of before. “Just...understand we don’t really get this stuff. You know it has a reputation and all.”
“I do. I know. Thank you. Really.” He didn’t continue on the subject, he kept it in mind to try and broach it with Seva later—she clearly had experience with this stuff, and he needed to know what it was.
They filled in their fire pit after a short sit down, going over the plan again for the sake of something else to talk about. Make it to the town, find somewhere to sleep, take it from there. The idea was perhaps find a caravan or something heading west, maybe even find their way to a river and see if there’s any craft going to Farhaven. That’s when Sepp asked about money.
“That’s what we were talking about when you came over to us, actually,” said Barosh.
“Yeah, Skivor and myself,” Seva gave a glance around at the group, “we’ve got some funds we decided should be group funds.” The woodsman grunted in assent. “We’re all in this together.”
“And I’m sure townfolk’ll take service, too, if needs be. Have a healer, a good cook, able workhand, woodsman.”
“I’m hoping we won’t have to work for our beds for a while,” she said with a smile. “And I’m sure you can repay me in future.” She said so with a laugh and light nudge into Barosh’s side. Aye, I’m sure he’d be more than happy, Sepp thought to himself—pleasantly surprised at his own humorous thoughts.
They set back out to find the edge of the woods, which as their guide now told them, didn’t seem to be terribly far off, if the thinning trees meant anything, though no one but Skivor could tell. The ground was as rough as ever, not a place that likely saw many people passing through. So when Sepp saw movement deeper in the trees, it caught his eye. He assumed it was beastmen watching, but not daring to make an approach. That was the thing with them, they weren’t animals even though they acted the part, they just thought differently. Búcher had once mused that they were free of things that stop them from being like people, and never quite explained what he meant by that, but the timbre of his voice had bade Sepp not ask. He felt around in his pack for hexes, looking down only once or twice to check blooms. He’d rather keep his eye on those shapes, just in case. The others still had their hexes, and he’d a mind to let them keep them, too, if they wanted. He wouldn’t force them, but perhaps they’d come to trust the things if they saw they caused no harm.
The sun was already well into setting before the village came into view. It was further out than they had thought. Most likely the refugee group wouldn't arrive until tomorrow morning, but they had been expecting that anyway. The four of them would probably get there by sunset, which was probably for the best. No having to wander around a strange town for several hours, just find an inn and get some proper rest. They could see the place clear enough. For one thing, it had walls. The village hadn’t had walls, but this had great stone stone walls with a couple turrets—almost like a castle, but much smaller. A large, conical structure dominated what they could see, probably that was the lord’s house. Voerlund had a monarchical structure, with the monarch at the head, several dukes under it, and then a mess of knights and counts who held various sizes of land. Sepp understood the latter two to essentially be the same thing save that knights were military men and headed their own standing forces, while counts employed men-at-arms, who often held a lot of sway themselves. Silverden was a theocracy, where archvenerates dwelt in monasteries who oversaw the welfare of their cantons, comparable, Sepp was told by his foster father, to a duchy. Instead of knights and counts, they had venerates and phylarchs and such. Silverden had once been a part of Voerlund long ago, and probably had decided retain a decent amount of the familiar power structure. That being said, the dynamic between the various levels of society in Voerlund was vastly different now to how it had once been. Despite an immense fondness for his adopted home, Búcher had always raised a glass on certain nights to the Lunderman family.
With their eyes on the goal, they began the trudge back to the road, and onto the town. Barosh whistled a tune, which no one seemed to mind.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking…” Seva turned to the apothecary with a slight hesitation in her voice.
“What is it?”
“How did you, or your father I suppose, even come to sell the hexes in the village?” This really was bugging her, he thought.
“Well, when he first came to the village a couple decades ago, a young mother visited the shop a few times. She was very quiet, but clearly very nervous. He eventually figured out she was taking care of someone with...a problem. A lotus addict.” Barosh turned with a quizzical look. “Yeah, I didn’t think that was a thing in the village either, apparently it wasn’t really, but you know, sometimes it passes through with caravans or merchants, sticks for a while. Master Búcher, being the man he...he was, offered some stronger stuff at the same price, and eventually when that wasn’t helping, called her aside and explained he had something else. Hexes.”
“Did they help?” Seva asked, with a half-concealed eagerness.
“They did,” said Sepp with brightness. “A bloom was drawn up, very complicated, and he was very proud of it, to target the withdrawal the fellow was feeling. See, that stuff is like a poison itself, so it was pretty natural to hex it. Basically beat it into submission until he was cleaned up. After that, I guess word kind of spread, and people came to him asking for more. Then one day I walked in on him preparing vials and he had to tell me everything.”
“By the way, uh, how is it you keep calling him…?” Barosh butted in.
“Oh, yeah,” Sepp gave a slight chuckle, “Búcher is the proper Voerlund pronunciation. Think kind of it like ‘book’ with a thick ‘h’ sound. Took me a while to get the sound right, but he was my foster father, so I got it. He never minded the way Silverden people said it anyway. It was softer on the ear, he said, like most things in Silverden, and he liked that.”
The sun had gone more than half beyond sight, lending the sky a deep navy shade, and the land under it a murkiness in which only vague shapes were visible. But the town walls were visible in the twilight and torchlight, and they had that same stately grey that Sepp was coming to quickly associate with Voerlund. Guards patrolled lazily on a walkway just behind them at their top, and looked down from wooden towers over the gates. Two guards with impressive long-handled axes stood watch at the dribble of people who came and left the wide open gates, though people were mostly going in now. The four moved with these people, but a guard quickly stepped aside and called to them. He looked much like the fellows back at the tower, paler than the Silverdenners, with pale gold eyes and hair showing from under a padded hood. He began speaking with a particularly heavy Voerlunder accent, but after a second they puzzled out his words. The speech of either nation hadn’t grown much distance in the centuries, but it was different enough to make native speakers of both pause. Mostly it was pronunciations that tripped folks up.
“Sorry, you folks from that refugee party?”
“Aye, we are,” answered Skivor quickly.
“Oh, where’re t’others? Hey, nothing happened, no?”
“No, no, we got separated, there were beastmen near the path, caused a stir. Thought it best to take the same road and wait for them.”
“Right, well, you’d best head on up t’keep then, we’ll send some horsemen to see what’s going on. They’ve places for ye here, don’t worry.” The guard said so with a firm, reassuring smile. It felt good knowing even this far out someone cared. Ahead of them was a wide, stone road—stone, not bare earth—flanked by rows of stout wooden buildings topped by thin-peaked roofs, with larger ones behind them. This was a town, thought Sepp, a proper settlement, against which his home seemed a mere huddle of huts. Tall posts with lanterns hung overhead to provide a warm light in the growing darkness. There was a decent bustle even at this late an hour, but then he supposed this was when all the work was ended for the day. The road ended in a wide square, branching off into several others, where some more guards stood, some walked and talked, and even more people were moving. They each came a little closer to each other then because of a shared sense of slight smallness. They probably stood out a bit.
“I’m thinking maybe we find an inn or something?” said Barosh.
“Sounds like a good idea,” Seva replied, looking around. A weariness was descending upon them rather quickly. A sign stuck out then, and Sepp called their attention to it. The Axe and Mug, it read. Very Voerlunder, as was the thick, squarish, and stylized script it was written in. Axes were the national symbol of the kingdom. Búcher had a small one over the mantle. Sepp wondered what had happened to it, and hoped no mercenary hand had touched it. They represented the tool which tamed the wilderness, the weapon which slew their enemies, and the instrument of ultimate justice: the headsman’s axe. A somewhat grim addition to the identity from a more brutal age. It had a similar status in Silverden, though they were a lot less fervent about it. Now that he looked, he noticed that every guard had an axe on their belt or slung across the shoulder, of many makes and styles. Some were little more than arcs of metal set into a handle, some were wedge-shaped for hacking, some were broad crescents, a few had beards meant for hooking shields. Most had a short square head on the back, perhaps more befitting for town guard than a sharp, plate-piercing backspike. Some had hooks, though, and some and nothing at all. A few random people even carried them at their sides, though these were mere hatchets. Still, it spoke to their temperament.
Skivor pushed open the door of the Axe and Mug, and they entered into a low-ceilinged, smoky, shadowy but open chamber, with a roaring hearth at one end, a mess of tables on the floor, at the other end, a bar, with a tall fellow behind it, a long mane of very fine gold hair about his shoulders. They approached, and he perked up, studying them with much richer eyes than they’d seen.
“Ah, Silverden folk!” he said, not too loud. “We’re meant to be getting more of you folks in soon, hope you like Voerlunder ale down there, it’s all we have!” They appreciated his humour, but weariness grew by the second.
“You have rooms here, sir?” Skivor asked, side-stepping any pleasantries.
“Aye, we do, we do, how many ye’d be wanting?”
“One for me, one for my sister, one for her sons. And drink, if you please,” he added quite quickly. The innkeeper seemed pleased. No way they’d pass for Seva’s sons, though, not in anything but this dim light, thought both Sepp and Barosh.
“Coming right up. You’re paying money is it? We take just about anything here.”
“We are, yes.” With that, Skivor produced a bundle of pure goldleaf notes. Seva’s eyes went wide with surprise, and Barosh turned to Sepp with a subtle “what”. Thin coins of gold or amber lustre were the dominant currency across all societal tiers, goldleaf was, to be frank, not something you’d expect to see in the hands of a small village woodsman. If the innkeeper hadn’t been doing business with Skivor, hashing out the details, he’d have noticed their reactions. The innkeep called over a bar maid and bade her show them to a decent table out of the way, and assured Skivor he’d let him know when the rooms were ready. They’d keep their packs, said the woodsman.
“Where you folks from, anyway?”
”Ah, we’re from Yamesh, just over the border,” Skivor replied as he was quickly replacing his notes. The innkeeper paused for a second, puzzled at the name.
“We’re from Gamed,” Sepp piped up. The keep nodded with an “Ah!” as he offered his condolences to Skivor, who gave as close a thing to a smile as they’d seen in reciprocation.
They sat quietly, didn’t ask Skivor about his money, and neither did he proffer anything. Instead they enjoyed their cold ales. Divine nectar in these circumstances. Sepp usually preferred something sweet as a drink, but he wasn’t complaining. They’d each individually been studying the dark-panelled interior, which had fine woodcuts and little dim landscapes on the walls. Above the hearth a great axe rested on padlocked hooks. Sepp wondered what story went along with it, exaggerated or otherwise.
“So, Sepp," said Skivor looking down into his mug and taking a gulp. The lad’s eyes shot up. Skivor cleared his throat, as if preparing words. "You know any, ah, other Voerlund words we should know?
Another great installment of the tale. On to chapter 7!
Wow this reached me a day early!