A Spark in the Wind

Chapter 12: Wisdom of the Ancients

Vilyánur twiddled the fork around the pierogi, waiting for them to be cool enough to not burn his mouth. "I swear they would work," he said, "the only thing our horses are fearful of are bigger horses."

"Do horses that big even exist?" asked his sergeant.

"Yes, and no," said Vil, biting into the soft starchy flesh of the dumpling, the taste of soft meat mingling with the sauce, melting in his mouth with the grace of a thousand suns. With another bite he engulfed the whole bag, half the size of his fist, into his mouth.

"Neighing horse-shaped beasts, no," Vil said, steam leaving his mouth, "but giant beasts you can ride, yes."

"Well, why don't we get one then?"

"Because they're expensive to maintain," another soldier inserted, "and they aren't like horses anyway. It'd be less like riding a horse and more like sitting atop a walking tower."

"Damn, the very mention of it makes it sound like something so great," a squire replied.

"I know, and it feels glorious too," said Vil, taking a sip of the soup, "fit a cannon atop one and you'll have mobile artillery pieces that can flank and strike from naught."

The soldiers looked at each other, widening their brows. "What kind of behemoth could carry cannons?"

"You'll see them when they're here," said Vil, "and whoever rides them will command a great force. It'll be like riding a wyvern, only if wyverns were walking behemoths."

And so their chatting continued, Vil observing from behind. Some of them chugged their brandy, others tasted their pierogi, active in discussing a variety of questions about these 'great horses'. Where do they live? How do they act? What do they eat? Who rides them? Why do they even let other people ride them?

...

"My lord," a maid approached Vil, breaking his semi-reverie.

"Uh, yes?"

"There's someone outside who wants to meet you, he said he wants to talk to you on matters of flight and fire."

"Oh," Vil's eyes widened, "tell him to wait, I'm coming."

The maid nodded and left, Vil quickly finished his food and followed out.

There, adjacent to the main road stood a renowned scholar and good friend of Vilyánur. Larkon of Alinor, arguably the second most knowledgeable people on Alledoria in the field of medicine, the most ambitious apprentice of the House of Healing. The very sight of his waist-length black hair and dark eye-shadow brought a sense of peace to Vilyánur.

"Larkon," Vil embraced him, tapping onto his back. "How are you, comrade?"

"I'm fine," he replied, "and you?"

"Fine as well," said Vil, "so did you make any new discoveries?"

"Not yet, but I did do something: and you'll love it."

"Will I?"

Larkon nodded, pointing to the cliff, "come," he said, taking Vilyánur with him to the cliffside.

From the cliff they looked over the rolling hills of Vyro: those elegant cairns of green and grey which dotted the landscape of Vyro: the small blue planet revolving around Arcturus, it was much different from Alledoria, built atop an arcane nexus, awash with arcane energies, built up not as an outpost but as a research facility.

But there was something else that Larkon had brought him to show, not the rolling hills: something which glided over those rolling hills like a gust of wind, slithering and soaring through the benign skies like a snake through silt: at first it was an eagle, then a lion, then something else entirely.