Rancorr's Tales
Comeuppance, Part 1.

Well, where do I start? The beginning, I suppose! Hmm. Perhaps a little more ale would loosen your collar. Drink up, and I'll try to tell better jokes.

Now, I was born four hundred and ninety years after the Great Battle shook the land of Vorill. My mother served the Lady Allhanan, in divine devotion and I spent most of my childhood in the hallowed halls of her convent. I was bored to tears -- quite literally at times. Of course, I loved my mother dearly, but it did not change the fact her lifestyle was, well, not for me. I sought danger and excitement at every turn, whether it was fighting imaginary monsters in my chambers or stealing bread from the kitchen. Now, the cook, there was a woman who could easily strike fear into the hearts of my imaginary monsters! Dragon's breath, you say? Try the cook's rolling pin! Needless to say my mother disapproved of my 'adventurous' ways. All the more reason to relish them.

When my father came to visit, he would take me to town, fill my belly with sweetdough and sugartenders, and fill my head with tales of his travels. My father was roving merchant, buying from one town and selling to the next. He would sit me on his knee and tell me of the sights he had seen and the places he had been. Oh, how I loved my father dearly. I loved both my parents equally, but I enjoyed the time spent with father more.

Mother said he filled my head with fanciful and ungainful thoughts. Father said she didn't let me enjoy my childhood. They didn't like to fight in front of me, but sometimes, when they both thought me asleep, I could hear them argue.

When I was older, almost a man, my mother took ill. Her Sisteren gave her soothing salves and potions to ease her pain, but they could not stop the unrelenting malady afflicting her. The last thing she told me was no matter what I did with my life, so long as it was true to me and I gave it all my heart, she would be proud of me. And she would love me even in death. I still remember the look of truth in her eyes. I have never forgotten her words and struggle every day to follow them.

She passed away peacefully in the night, without pain. She had bequeathed her chain and pendant to me, with the promise it would guard me against evil. I cherish it more than anything else I have ever owned. Not for the holy symbol of the Lady Allhanan it bears, but for the memory of my mother. See, I even wear it now, on the chain my mother wore, with the pendant hanging close to my heart. My father was my hero, but my mother was, and remains, my saint.

Father took me with him after that day. He took me as an apprentice, to travel the lands of Vorill with him. We became inseparable. In lands at once wondrous and dangerous, he taught me to wield a sword. You see, though I did not know it until then, before he was a merchant, my father was a Freeblade. Freeblades are a certain kind of warrior whose motives my father kept from me. He did tell me of how his love for my mother made him leave that life, but he was never one to sit still. As a compromise, he became a traveling merchant, still free to journey throughout the world, as his spirit was wont to do, but, by and large, out of harm's way. Though I knew precious little of what they really were, I secretly yearned to be a Freeblade.

One day, our caravan was a few days out of Lazari, where we had dealt with local merchants. One of them was an old, junk-collector who'd sold us an antique gauntlet. In the twilight of the approaching night, we were set upon by armed men. They outnumbered my father, myself and our guards by tenfold. Not that the bastards gave us any chance to surrender. Our attackers, sporting the symbol of a blood-red grail upon midnight-black, descended upon us like a pack of hungry wolves. Most of our guards were slain before they could even draw swords. Those who did manage to ready their weapons fared no better. Many of my father's friends died that day.

The men, who I later found out were members of a mercenary clan called the Blood Chalice, were led by a beast of a person. He was huge and ugly, bristling with stiff brown fur. He had long, sharp, yellowed, uneven teeth that stuck out from behind his lips. He was unbelievably strong and fearsome. He was a war ogre -- bred for battle, raised in violence. He struck me with one blow of his steel-banded club and sent me flying, like a rag doll, to land beneath a wagon. The last thing I saw, before my own blood blocked my vision, was that beast wrenching my father from his feet by his collar.

As I fast slipped into darkness I heard the war ogre speak to my father.

"I am Gruman," he snarled, "And, before I rip your worthless guts out, you will tell me what you've done with the Gauntlet of Ridain!"

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Jnauary 25, 2000. Copyright Angelo Barovier, 1997-2000.