Chapter 26: Defining Success
Gyrd took a swing; his opponent blocked the hit and took a swing of his own. Gyrd blocked it, but stumbled backward. The sound of metal clashing with metal was all around. Every few seconds it was joined by the yelling of orders or the screaming of pain. Gyrd took his stance and thrust his sword straight at the gut of his opponent. His adversary dodged and pounded Gyrd’s hand with the hilt of his own sword. Gyrd fell to the ground awaiting the final blow. He closed his eyes; there was no time to think.
After waiting several seconds he noticed the most peculiar thing: all sounds had stopped. There was no more calling of orders or screams. No more running of people all around him. In fact the only sound he heard now was the sound of his own heavy breathing. Slowly he opened his eyes. A sword blade rested only an inch from his nose. Quickly he backed up and smiled from relief.
He could feel blood on the side of his face but that did not stop him from shouting with joy. The rose had been taken, and he the only one left to enjoy it. The only one besides whoever took the rose that is. He knew that with enough people looking someone was bound to find it. He wondered who actually took it. Was it the young man who stole that one book from that one person? Or maybe that one woman who refused to offer the palace guards her room for the night. Though it could have been the older man who ate the food that wasn’t his, he might have been the one. Gyrd did not have an idea as to what their names were; he only knew them by how they got put away.
He stood up and looked around, the sight was very strange. Every person there had the nastiest looks on their faces as they tried to hurt those wearing a different color. It amused Gyrd to see them like this; it was like he was in an outdoor museum. He finally knew what Oldo saw in keeping some as statues. They would give any person a look of superiority. He could see it now: when Oldo became leader everyone would know who the important people were. They would have statues in their entryways, maybe even in their gardens. The thought amused Gyrd even more than the frozen people did.
Gyrd felt inside his pouch at the rose he had taken from the forest. It saved him this time, and was now free to be returned to Oldo. He took one final look at the hundreds of statues and simply stepped into the Royal Region. The battle had, for some reason unknown to him, taken a turn toward the Royal Forest. Gyrd entered the next region and peered around to see if anybody had actually made it through and were not frozen. Two people had actually made it, one person in yellow and one in black. The one in yellow had the one in black by the neck and was hitting them with the hilt of a sword.
“Hey, hey, hey you can stop now the battles over.”
The girl in yellow looked up. Her name was Vensa, though she was known by Gyrd as ‘the young lady who joined in Ijnus. She dropped the palace guard; who moved around in pain but did not get up. Vensa looked at Gyrd expectantly. He was taken aback by her readiness to follow him.
“Uh, aren’t you going to ask why the battle is over?” He could not help noticing the blood stains in her black hair. He also could not help but notice her black hair. She was from the Mountain Region.
“I trust my leaders.”
“Thank you, but I will tell you anyway.”
“I do not need do know. I just need to know what I am to do next.”
Right, well, go to Oldo and tell him that things are going as planned and that we need the remaining troops that are in his new palace. We will need help to take out the old palace.”
“Sir, getting to master Oldo will take at least a day by foot, and I am without food and water.”
“Yes, sorry, I forgot. Besides I already sent someone with a prisoner, they probably took the last of the horses. You will come with me. The faster we do this the better. You see we will take the sword from the palace. I believe I can get in now because I have . . . well I have a way in. After we take the sword the entire island will belong to Oldo and me.”
“May I step out of line to say something to you, sir?”
“Yes, absolutely, speak your mind.”
“It seems to me that this entire engagement consists of poorly thought out plans on both sides with the winner being whoever does not screw up as much in the final act.” Vensa stated frankly.
Gyrd did not know what to say, so he simply said: “But this was a victory.”
Vensa shrugged. “How do you define success? If it is with the freezing of all of your troops then we have succeeded.”
Gyrd was starting to sound annoyed. “I define success by having an opportunity to complete my mission. I can still complete my mission with or without the troops. Oldo asked me to take the last rose. Somebody of ours has the rose. I told all of them to go straight back to Oldo with the rose. All that is left is the sword. And I will take that tonight. Imagine how that will look, girl. Just imagine us walking in to Oldo together, someone with the rose and me with the sword.”
“How about the rose in that pouch?”
“Excuse me.”
“To speak my mind fully I must say that the strategists on both sides are as useless as a sun with no heat.”
“You do not have the right to –”
“When I heard Oldo speaking to me in Ijnus several days ago I heard someone ready to take Parli. But now I see that he spoke great words but does not have any war skills. Not that that is surprising. The last time a battle occurred my lord Ijnus was in it.”
Gyrd looked at this girl through narrowed eyes. “Who are you?”
Vensa ignored him for the moment. “We saw Ijnus’s spirit in Oldo. We believed that he was the next to try to take this land.”
“The next?”
“There has been more than one trying to take back Parli for Ijnus. It’s just that Oldo is the first to come from another region other than my own, and the first to actually get anywhere.”
Gyrd felt outmatched by Vensa’s verbal skills. “You are from the Mountain, not the Rough.”
Vensa ran a finger through her black hair that came down to her shoulders. “I was born in the Mountain but at a young age I found myself connecting with the travelers from the desert. They spoke to me, literally and figuratively. I felt a bond with their free lifestyles and their open societies.”
Gyrd was about to speak when four people came out of the woods. All four had the same hair color, a sandy brown of the Rough. They each wore the yellow jumpsuits that had become the official battle wear of Oldo’s soldiers. Though, unlike the others, they had customized their uniforms. A large and muscular young man had his sleeves torn off and one pant leg torn to the knee. A scrawny boy had one sleeve torn off past the shoulder, making him look as if he were wearing a toga. The oldest looking one, a man in his mid-twenties had cut out several pieces of is jumpsuit on various places around his body. The last newcomer, a young lady about the same age as Vensa, had torn her uniform almost completely in half at the waist. She wore a white shirt and had the top part of the uniform hanging behind her. The four came up to Vensa and stood behind her.
“What have you done to your clothes?” Gyrd asked feeling annoyed that he had not thought of customizing his own uniform.
“Vensa, look what we found.” The large muscular boy said. “We got some meat. The forest is full of little rabbits. We got a lot because we didn’t think one was enough for each of us, seeing as they are so scrawny.” His voice was deep.
“We sure did, we sure did, we really did.” The scrawny boy said. He was jittery and looked in about thirty directions in the time it took to say one sentence.
“Good, very good.” Vensa nodded happily. “That should do nicely tonight.”
“Creen thought that you wouldn’t like them.” The girl said of the older one in the group. “But I knew you would.”
“Hey!” Gyrd suddenly shouted, feeling that he was losing power every second. “Explain yourselves.”
Vensa took a step back to be right with the others. “You want to know of us? Sounds good, I’ll tell you. This here is Creen.
” She put her arm around the older group member. He waved at Gyrd. “He joined only a few months back. Hails from the north desert, he came to Ijnus to follow our great lord after his wife ditched him for some rich old man.”
Creen dropped his head at this. “‘‘Tis true, ‘tis true.”
Vensa moved over and put her arm around the fidgety boy. “This here’s Gubba—I didn’t name him—He’s our weapons master. His dad is a blacksmith and makes us some knives on his off time. He’s an older member, joined about three years ago.”
Gubba pulled a knife out of his boot and twirled it around. On one side was carved the head of a dragon. “My dad l-l-l-likes what we d-does.”
“He sure does, Gubba.” Vensa moved over to the other girl. “She’s Hordna, don’t let her looks fool ya. She may look good but she never acts good, member since age twelve—so about four years.”
Vensa moved onto the last one, the big muscular young man. “Lastly here’s Hatchet. If I were you I would not ask how he got that name. Me and him started the club about six years ago. And that’s pretty much it.”
The look on Gyrd’s face was one of awe and fear. He had listened carefully just in case he got a chance to introduce these kids to Oldo. Just in case he could say that he put the group together. While listening, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. All his life had been spent in the Rough after he moved from the mountains, and he had never heard of a group of kids becoming some sort of dangerous club. Most in the Rough were really actually nice. Those long hours when he and Oldo planned this whole takeover he never mentioned that for fear Oldo would not make him the leader of the Rough.
“What club is this exactly?” Gyrd asked quietly, his secret plans seen in his eyes.
Vensa stepped up and smiled with cruelness never shown on even Oldo’s face. “We are formerly known as: Ijnus’s minions. But now you can call us: Oldo’s minions. We will do anything for the success of master Oldo, even follow his insane orders.”
The mountain half of the boundary came down, revealing the statues on the other side. Oldo’s minions looked with pleasure at the frozen faces. Not even Gyrd had looked with that much pleasure. He breathed deeply and reminded himself that he was in control of them, not the other way around.
“Our next step, minions, is to take the palace. I have a rose and can finally make it through this maze of a forest. Tonight we feast on real food.”
Vensa cleared her throat: “We want something.”
“Like what?”
“Just a little something when this is all over, for our hard work.”
“Like what?” Gyrd repeated.
“Maybe like a region of our own, right guys?” The minions whistled their approval. “Someplace that we can control, like the Rough.”
“No, no, no, the Rough is mine. If you do help out greatly, and this is not final I still need to talk it over with Oldo, then perhaps you can have the Bay.”
Hatchet called out: “That’s perfect, Allard lives there.”
“Who’s Allard?” Gyrd asked, feeling stupid that he did not know.
“Allard is the person who sends everyone to the jail. He has the final say on who goes in and who comes out. Let’s just say, not many come out.”
Gyrd made a mental note of this Allard fellow. “Now is the time to go.” He felt the rose in the pouch and headed off into the direction of the palace. The minions scared him a little but he knew they would make great followers or great scapegoats, whichever was needed first.
Hatchet and the others did not take after Gyrd right away. They waited for Vensa to decide what to do. When she started in the same direction, everyone else followed. The minions looked at each other with excitement, a disturbing blood thirsty excitement.