Andric: Chapters 1 and 2

This is one of those story ideas that's been chewing my grey matter for a while. So, I took today to write something that has no immediate consequence but would help clear some chaff from my brain. Feel free to weigh in if you want. Otherwise, enjoy! ~Eric

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Chapter 1

Andric hunched a little more as he tried to cross the street, trying his best to be as unnoticeable as possible. He only needed to make it another dozen steps, and he’d be safe until the end of the day. His boss, Varant, wouldn’t tolerate any disruption in his shop. While most shopkeepers would struggle to impose such order in their businesses, Varant had opened his shop after a long career in the army. He’d made an example of some people several years before. It had been before Andric had gotten his job at the little mercantile, but he had heard the story. Some aspiring criminals had marched in, knives in hand, announced the shop was under their protection, and demanded a fee for that protection. The stories varied after that. Some said Varant immediately stepped out from behind his counter and proceeded to beat the men unconscious. Others said the shopkeeper had politely declined their protection, only to draw a short sword and cut them down when the criminals got angry.

Andric had never asked the large, taciturn man about that story. He hadn’t dared. He only knew that no one ever started troubled in the shop. All he needed to do was get inside, and he’d be safe for all those precious, glorious hours until the shop closed. Many days, he did make it safely to the shop. He wasn’t above running through those doors with his tormentors close behind. If that made him a coward, it was a shame he bore with far less discomfort than bruises that took weeks to fade or broken bones. Varant had proven entirely willing to pretend he didn’t notice when it happened, often times sending Andric into the back to straighten things up. Things in the back never needed to be straightened up. Varant kept an orderly business. It was just a quiet kindness to allow Andric to catch his breath and wipe the sweat from his face before he started the real work for the day.

It happened so fast that Andric didn’t even realize something was wrong until his vision went white and terrible pain started radiating out from the back of his head. His vision hadn’t even cleared when a kick caught him in the ribs. He was vaguely aware that he was on the ground and tried to curl into a ball to protect himself, but another kick slammed into his stomach. Andric emptied his breakfast onto the street. He heard mocking laughter from above him. He looked up, his vision doubling, which only made things worse. Instead of one Tellam Corran, which was twice the trouble Andric could manage on a good day, there were two Tellams. Andric blinked a few times and the Tellams shifted back and forth, merging into each other and then splitting apart again. Even in his dazed state, Andric noticed a few things. The first thing he noticed was the length of wood with a bloodied in Tellam’s hand.

The thing he noticed most of all was the look in Tellam’s eyes. It didn’t matter that Tellam was smiling, there was something dark and ugly in those eyes that Andric had never seen before. Something that made him want to run away. He didn’t know what had changed in the other young man, but something had changed. Feeling sicker by the second, Andric realized for the first time in his life that someone meant to kill him. Tellam had decided in childhood that Andric was an appropriate place to vent his frustrations. That had been unpleasant, but Tellam had usually contented himself with chasing Andric or leaving him with a black eye. Things had changed when they had all approached their Endowment. Tellam, for reasons only the universe knew, had not gotten one. And he had been determined that Andric wouldn’t get one either.

The scuffles had turned into beatings. Four years running, Andric had been beaten so badly that he physically couldn’t attend the Endowment Ceremony. His mother had demanded action from the Lawkeepers, but she was poor and a widow. Nothing had been done. Andric had resigned himself to being one of the Unchosen. Those pitiable souls without endowments who were cursed to spend their lives as cheap manual labor and servants to their more fortunate betters. It was then that Adric realized that there was another ceremony soon. He’d simply wiped that fact from his mind, certain as he was that he would not be allowed to attend. It was easier to forget than to have that hope crushed again, but it seemed his acceptance wasn’t enough to satisfy the other young man. Tellam had come to ensure that Andric never reached that ceremony, and what better way to guarantee that than to kill him.

A part of Andric railed against that cruel fate. It wasn’t so much that the idea of dying bothered him. He wanted to live, but death was everywhere in the world. Every child of poverty learned that. Wars could come. Beasts could come. Sickness could come. Life was almost often a brief, temporary condition for those without an endowment. What he hated was that Tellam would be allowed to get away with it. In some other place, a city perhaps, where powerful chosen were more common and the Lawkeepers were less beholden to them, the crime would be punished. In a small town like Greenflower, though, Tellam’s father was one of a handful of chosen with potent magic. Without his strength, the town would fall prey to one of the many hazards that roamed the continent. To avoid angering the man and losing his protection, people would turn a blind eye.

Adric would be murdered on the street, before witnesses, and no one would speak up save his mother. He could almost picture the scene. His mother, her eyes puffy and red, hair disheveled, pleading with the Lawkeepers. They would give her sympathetic looks and say something about investigating but with the caveat that they could make no promises. His mother would get a hard look on her face, certain that she could overcome their reluctance with determination, but that look would fade in a moment or two as she recognized the callous disregard hiding behind those sympathetic faces. She would remember the other times she had demanded action, demanded the Lawkeepers fulfill their oaths, and received nothing but words. She lacked the strength to move their hands if they did not wish to move them. And they would not wish to help her. She would rise from the chair, try to summon some shred of dignity, try to hold back bitter, hateful tears, and leave. All she would have then was a murdered son who not be avenged.

Blind fury took Andric as that moment played out in his mind. He didn’t remember clenching his fist. He only barely remembered lashing out at Tellam. If his mind had been less choked with anger, Andric might have realized the futility of that act. He was lying on the ground. Even if he had managed to connect, it likely wouldn’t have done anything. Maybe leave a bruise on Tellam’s leg. He’d never been trained to fight. No one would teach someone without an endowment anything about combat. So, his blow was wild and met nothing but air as Tellam stepped back. The mistake was punished immediately as a boot connected with Andric’s face. There was another explosion of white in his vision. When his vision cleared, he was being hammered with kicks. Tellam’s friends had joined in. Andric vaguely registered that Tellam was screaming at him. The words were so distorted by rage that they were barely understandable.

“You stupid goddamn bastard! You never knew you place! Always showing me up! Always with her! Always getting int the way so that she’d never even look at me! And now you dare raise your hand to me!”

Andric was in so much pain that the words were just noise. There were white hot flares of agony competing for space in his mind, drowning everything else out. By the time he understood the next thing he heard, it was too late.

“I’ll make sure you never raise your hand to me again.”

Andric heard the bones breaking a split-second before lightning tore up his arm from his left hand. He thought Tellam was screaming again until he realized that howling, animal keening was coming from his own mouth. He couldn’t feel his fingers anymore. He couldn’t feel anything below his wrist, not the way he was used to feeling it. There were just the electric shocks that made him try to vomit again, except there was nothing left in his stomach. Andric had curled around his shattered hand without even realizing it. The blows had resumed for a time, but then they stopped.

“Look at me,” commanded Tellam.

Andric just sprawled on the ground. He couldn’t think. He could move. He could only hurt.

“I said look at me!” shrieked Tellam.

Andric forced an eye open. The other had swollen shut. Tellam was standing over him, that length of wood raised above his head. The other boy didn’t even look human anymore. His eyes were wild, and his face had been contorted by some kind of madness that had overtaken anything human. Their gazes locked for a moment that felt like it stretched on for hours to Andric. Then, Tellam swung that unforgiving wood down.

Andric had heard stories about what it meant to be brave. He’d read tales about courageous heroes who met their fates with unflinching nerve, staring death in the face as it came for them. He’d always hoped that he’d be one of them. He wasn’t. He tried, but he couldn’t bring himself to watch his death come for him. He closed his eye and did what he could to prepare himself. There was a sound of wood connecting with skin and Andric flinched. It took him a bleary second to realize that he hadn’t been hit. He didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t help himself. He opened his eye again. He didn’t understand what he was seeing at first. His mind finally figured out what his eye was seeing. Someone had caught the wood and was holding it in place. Tellam looked momentarily confused, and then he looked furious. He jerked at the wood, only for it to remain exactly where it was. It was as if the hand that had caught it had fixed it in place.

Andric blinked at that hand once or twice before his eye followed the arm back to the body it was attached to and then up to a face. It was a face that was both familiar and unfamiliar. Andric recognized that it was Varant, but he didn’t really look like Varant anymore. The Varant that Andric knew was quietly pleasant. He didn’t talk that much, save for a few pleasantries, but he always had a small smile to spare his customers. The Varant that Andric was looking at did not look quietly pleasant. He did not look like a shopkeeper. His face was… It was empty. There was no expression there at all. It was like the man had become some kind of flesh statue. The only thing that gave Varant even a semblance of life was his eyes, and they were so cold that Andric shuddered. It felt like that coldness had seeped into his bones.

Tellam swung a vicious, angry look at Varant and froze. He jerked his hands off the wood and stumbled back. He tried to regain control of the situation, but there was no strength in his words.

“Mind your own business shopkeeper,” said Tellam.

Varant didn’t say anything or do anything for few interminable heartbeats. He broke that pause with a move that struck Andric’s battered mind as impossibly casual and impossibly fast. Varant flipped the length wood end to end, then struck out with it. There was a dull crack that seemed to echo off the buildings. Tellam collapsed to the ground, clutching at his thigh and letting out shrill screams. Andric looked at Varant, but there had been no change in the man. His face was still blank. His eyes were still cold enough to rival the worst winter nights. He turned those arctic eyes toward where Tellam’s friends must have been. Andric tried to turn his head to look, but it hurt so badly that he had clench his jaw to keep from joining Tellam in his screams. Varant disappeared from sight for a moment, but Andric heard more bones breaking and more agonized cries.

Andric tried to stay conscious. There was a clawing fear inside him that if he slipped from consciousness, he would never wake again. The fear kept him awake a little longer, but it wasn’t enough. He’d taken too many blows. Suffered too many injuries. Breathing was hard. Moving was hard. Thinking was impossible. His one eye fluttered a few times and then darkness swallowed him.

Chapter 2

Varant cursed himself for a fool. He’d lived in this little town for nearly eight years with only that one incident early on. He knew that tale had grown in the telling over the years. All he’d really done was physically throw someone out of his shop after he caught them trying to steal. It wouldn’t have caused even a minor stir in any city, where similar scenes played out dozens of times a day, every single day. Here, though, it had not only drawn attention, but grown into a local legend. That legend had some utility value. It kept people from acting out in his shop, which was just the way he liked it. So, he let them talk and just shrugged whenever anyone worked up the nerve to ask him about it. He was happy enough to let that story do the work for him. Everyone was very polite when they came into his store, and nobody over the age of about five ever tried to steal anything. He wasn’t happy when young kids took things, but there was only so much accountability you can expect from a child of three or four.

All-in-all, it had been a peaceful life. He’d put a lot of effort into making sure it stayed that way. It was why he’d stayed out of it when Andric had trouble with Corram’s spawn before. He’d honestly expected that the Lawkeepers would deal with it. That had been a lesson in how these small, outlying towns worked. He had been none too pleased about that revelation, but he’d also had no desire to take their place. He’d concluded that, in the end, it just wasn’t his business. Plus, that Tellam brat never seemed to take things too far. Andric got hurt, but getting hurt was just part of being alive. Learning to cope with suffering was a crucial skill. He’d thought that this beating would be more of the same.

He’d thought that right up until Andric started screaming. Varant knew screaming. He’d heard it on battlefields. He’d heard it in the kind of solitary stone rooms that people don’t come out it when the questions are done. He knew when it was real, and what caused it. Those screams had been real. They only came from one person doing something truly destructive to another person. That sound had taken him back to a hundred places he didn’t want to go. Cradling the mangled bodies of his friends, his allies, and his lovers after they had made sounds like that. Then, finding the people who had carried out those acts and making them scream. He shook his head hard, trying to forcibly clear away visions of blood and heartache. Varant lost a second or two reaching to his hip for a sword he didn’t wear anymore.

Old instincts and thoughts flooded into him. He didn’t need a sword. He had never needed a sword to be dangerous. He planted a hand on the counter, vaulted it with a nimble dexterity no one would have ever believed he possessed, and got outside in time to catch the makeshift stave that would have brained Andric. He took in the boy’s condition at a glance. He saw the bruises and cuts. He noted the misshapen, swollen thing that was the boy’s hand. By the time he looked at Tellam, the persona that Varant had been wearing these last eight years fell away. It hadn’t been anything so devious as a mask. He’d simply pushed down the things that weren’t needed in a place like this. It seemed that he’d been wrong about that. They just weren’t needed as often.

It had been absurdly easy to break Tellam’s leg. He knew someone else might have hesitated to inflict such a brutally painful injury because of the boy’s age, but Varant had seen younger men take up arms and die on the battlefield. He’d steeled his heart against those considerations long ago. More importantly, he’d seen the murder in Tellam’s eyes. He didn’t know where it came from. He didn’t know why it had been directed at Andric. He also didn’t care. The time for caring about those things had come and gone long before this incident. This was the time of consequences. Varant considered the two lackeys that followed Tellam around like stray dogs. They had been prepared to watch him murder someone. No pity for them either. He broke one leg apiece.

Part of him knew this would all mean trouble later. He’d been quiet. He’d been careful. That had been the agreement. But he wasn’t about to stand aside and let Andric get murdered. He’d hired the boy out of pity, only to discover that Andric was smart and worked hard. Varant appreciated those qualities. Varant had even grown vaguely fond of the boy, which was an accomplishment for both of them. Sentiment had largely been burned out of Varant. He didn’t think he was capable of anything as deep or complex as love anymore. Rousing even that sad echo of actual emotions in him was more than anyone else had done in a long time. Varant supposed that meant Andric was the closest thing to a friend or family he had left in the world.

He was aware of the townspeople all standing there, staring at him in shocked incomprehension. Their thoughts or opinions of this matter weren’t of concern to him. He just needed to make sure that none of them did something absurd like try to interfere. He knew he needed to be quick about this, because Andric needed to see a healer immediately. Those injuries, especially the one to his hand, needed to be tended by a healer. Varant walked back over to where Tellam was writhing and shouting for help. He stood over the young man who had aspired to murder.

“Put your hands on the ground,” ordered Varant.

Tellam glared up him with rage and insanity in his eyes.

“I’m not going to—”

Varant drove the end of the length of wood into Tellam’s stomach. The boy retched and tried to catch his breath.

“Put your hands on the ground,” repeated Varant as he put his foot on the broken leg and started to apply pressure.

Tellam tried to scream, but it mostly came out as a gurgle. Looking terrified, the young man put his hands on the ground. Varant lifted the wood as though he meant to bring it down, and then activated a little piece of his endowment. There was a spray of blood as Tellam’s hands were neatly severed at the wrists. There was a look of dawning horror on the young man’s face. Varant paused just long enough for it to sink in, then activated that same little piece of his endowment. Tellam’s head fell free from his body. There would be no healing from that. Varant turned to see the local Lawkeepers racing toward him in a tight pack. He would have to deal with them. He supposed there was no reason to look the other way anymore. Varant considered other parts of his endowment that he hadn’t used in a long time, but never reached a decision about what to use. There was a throaty laugh that seemed to come from everywhere. The Lawkeepers stumbled to stop, looking around wildly.

“Oh, Varant,” said a woman’s voice. “Here I was thinking that you really had lost your nerve. I owe you an apology for that.”

There was a whistling sound that Varant remembered all too well. The Lawkeepers didn’t scream. Varant didn’t know if they even had time to realize they were dead before their bodies literally fell into pieces. Then, there was a tall, lean, blonde woman standing less than a foot from him. She carried a slender, silver blade that was as free of blood as the woman herself. She beamed at him, and he could see complicated emotions dancing in her eyes.

“Did you miss me?” she asked in a husky tone that had no business being used in public. “I know I missed you.”