EDIT: I put the Mani Katti back in because it’s kind of important? But then I left out the Band of Mercenaries battle. I might put that one back in tomorrow but right now I gotta sleep, and it’s a foregone conclusion, and no one really gets any character development in it, so I probably won’t after all. I’ll just keep watching Oh My Goddess and writing the next chapters. Also the Astebreed OST is pretty awesome! I mean, obviously.

 

Chapter 1: A Family’s Call     Chapter 3: Bandits’ Pride

 

Chapter 2: Lyndis’s Legion

 

It had been a day, and Lyn came to Ceniro in the morning. “I have a request.”

“What is it?” he asked anxiously.

“It’s nothing important,” she assured him, smiling. “I was just thinking, there is a shrine to the spirits along the road we are journeying on. If we have time, I would like to visit it.”

“Ooh, a shrine?” Sain asked. “That’s to do with the Sacaean veneration of things like the earth and sky, right?”

“It’s nice to see the old traditions respected,” Kent said, smiling a tiny smile.

“Something like that,” Lyn said. “The Sword of Spirits is housed in this one, and I’d like to ask it to bless my journey.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to ride my horse?” Sain asked Lyn for the third time.

“I’m sure,” she said, but without the heat she’d had the day before. Sain was just like that, they were learning.

They continued journeying south, chatting idly on their way. Ceniro felt like he had never met such friendly people, and mostly let the others talk and listened to them; he liked it that way. Kent was rather quiet, and Sain was a bit loud, but they were both good men and clearly the best of friends. Lyn wanted to know as much as she could about her grandfather, and was quickly reassured that he was a good lord, whose people were industrious and prosperous and loved him very much.

They reached the shrine after a couple hours, but when they went to the door, a woman stopped them with frantic gestures. “Please, please help! There are wicked men in there. They mean to steal the sword!”

Lyn’s hand went to her katana. “We have to help!”

“All right,” Ceniro said. “Just let me take a peek inside. Is there a back door to this place?”

“N-no,” the woman said. “But you could break a window, I suppose. The priest won’t mind if you succeed!”

“We’ll succeed,” Lyn assured her. “How does it look?”

“There’s eight of them,” Ceniro said, a little nervous about the difference in numbers. He could do it, just… he hadn’t managed it in training without someone getting hurt. “Some of them have swords, some have axes. The priest or whoever looks all right, he’s in a corner. Not a lot of room to manoeuvre in there, so… Kent, Sain, we’re going to block the door and draw them outside where you can run them down. Lyn, once we’ve gotten their attention, you go for the leader from a window. I’ll… hmm. I think it would be better for everyone involved if I stayed behind the knights.”

“Got it,” Lyn said. “I can take the leader if you keep the rest off my back.”

“I’ll get the door,” Ceniro said. “Let’s go!”

He slammed the door open, and backed away behind the knights immediately. With Sain’s effective taunting, the men in the shrine charged at the knights. When they had almost reached the door, a window shattered and Lyn made a neat dive-roll onto the stone floor, picking herself up again to charge, hair streaming, at the leader.

Said man was livid, almost frothing at the mouth. “How dare you! This sword is by right mine! Back off before I use it on your unworthy skulls!”

“You can’t even get it out of the sheath,” Lyn said. “It has rejected you! Who are you, anyway?”

“My name is Glass! The mercenary feared by the gods! This sword is the only one worthy of my skill!”

“Never heard of you,” Lyn said. “But for attempting to defile the Sword of Spirits, you will be punished!”

“I’d like to see you try!” the mercenary roared. “Fear the swift strike of my sword-”

“Shut up!” Lyn yelled, attacking and forcing him to block.

Ceniro checked in on her, and turned back to directing the knights. Half the other mercenaries were down, and it wouldn’t be long before the rest followed suit. These mercenaries weren’t very good, and their gear old; certainly no match for trained Lycian knights and their well-maintained equipment.

The mercenary fighting Lyn was a bit better, but not as good as she was. His swings were wild, and she slid past his defenses to stab him in the chest. Ceniro flinched. He was glad that his job was not to kill anything. He probably wouldn’t be able to do it.

The priest in the corner slowly got up, and Kent, entering the shrine on foot, hurried to help him while Sain looked around to see if any of the mercenaries had been missed. The priest approached Lyn and Ceniro at the altar. “So the Mani Katti is safe. Thank the spirits… and thank you, young travelers, for rescuing me and the sword.”

“I beg your pardon, but what did you call it?” Kent asked.

“The name of the Sword of Spirits is the Mani Katti.” The priest laid a hand on the sheathed sword fondly. “It has been waiting here for its true master for many years. The one who forged it has been forgotten, as have any past wielders. Now it serves mostly to bless travelers. Is that why you have come?”

“Yes,” Lyn said. “I am making a journey to Lycia and thought I would stop by.”

“Then lay your hands on the sword and may the spirits hear your prayer.”

“Thank you,” Lyn said, smiling gratefully, and reached out, closing her eyes.

But when her fingers touched the sheath, light began to spill out of its top, and a low hum began to resonate through the church. Lyn opened her eyes, jerked her hand back, and blinked as the light faded.

“Oh my,” the priest said. “Could it be…”

“Why is it doing that?” Lyn asked anxiously. “Was it damaged in the battle?”

“I don’t believe that is the cause,” the priest said. “Please, touch it again.”

Again, light began to pour out of the sheath.

“I think it has chosen you to wield it,” the priest said to her.

Lyn dropped it on the altar again, startled, and backed away. “What? No. I couldn’t- I can’t! It’s… It’s the Mani Katti, why would it choose me?”

“If you require further proof, try to draw it from the sheath.”

Lyn swallowed and reached for the sword. It slid effortlessly from the sheath, ringing quietly in her hand, still glowing. Ceniro remembered how hard the mercenary had tried to draw it and nodded.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“It is the sword’s wish,” said the priest.

“It is remarkable,” Kent said in quiet awe. “Lady Lyndis, I believe the sword is correct. Many legends tell of similar tales. Why should it not happen to you?”

“You look magnificent,” Sain told her. “Like with this sword at your side, nothing can stop you.”

“Very well,” Lyn said. “I accept the wielding of the Mani Katti, and I will use it to defend everyone who needs my help.”

“That is why it has chosen you,” the priest said with satisfaction. “It knows you will use it for good. Now, you have a long journey ahead of you, don’t you? I will not say good fortune be with you, because I know good fortune is with you.”

“Thank you, sir! …Thank you!” Lyn cried, almost overcome with emotion. She took the sheath and sheathed the sword, and put the sheath through her sash next to her old sword, and the glowing ceased. “Let’s go, you three! We have a long way to go!”

“Right behind you, my lady!” Sain cried.

 

They passed into North Bern, heading west on the south side of the mountains between Bern and Sacae. The region was hilly, forested, and generally known to be infested with bandits. But it was the fastest way to get to Lycia, so while they laughed and chatted, they were also on alert.

“So where are you from, Ceniro?” Lyn asked the first afternoon in Bern. “You’ve been very quiet.”

“I don’t mind listening to you all,” he said shyly. “And… well, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“Ooh, Master Mysterious over here,” Sain teased him. “From your accent, I would say… Pherae?”

“Santaruz, actually,” Ceniro said, giving up. “I was born in Araphen, but my parents moved to Santaruz when I was young. Something about better taxes… I don’t really know. I was more focused on going to school and helping my father. He’s a carpenter.” After he said that, he braced himself, suddenly realizing that he had just outed himself as a peasant’s son. Lyn was a noblewoman, both in Sacae and Lycia, and surely Kent and Sain were also highborn. Would they treat him differently?

The answer, as it turned out, was no. “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” Lyn asked.

“An older sister, and a younger brother.”

“Are you going to visit after Caelin?” Sain asked. “Santaruz is very close to Caelin.”

“No, not really,” Ceniro asked, and hoped they wouldn’t ask more.

“You don’t want to see your family?” Lyn asked.

Her whole journey was to see her family; it was only natural she would find it a little odd. Ceniro lowered his head, hiding his eyes behind a fringe of light brown hair. “I… had a fight with my mother before I went to Ostia for training as a tactician. She doesn’t like it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lyn said apologetically, and Sain changed the subject.

“Have I told you yet about my fiancée?” he asked, grinning excitedly.

“You flirted with me relentlessly and you have a fiancée?” Lyn cried indignantly.

“Absolutely,” Sain said shamelessly. “Her name is Salir and she’s from a little village named Coril. All the boys are crazy for her! Just like all the woman fall for my manly charms.”

Lyn rolled her eyes, and Kent exhaled a little more strongly than usual, the ghost of a smile playing over his mouth. “I think there must be a few woman who somehow manage to resist.”

“Every woman is a precious jewel to this earth,” Sain said earnestly, but his eyes were twinkling. “My lovely Salir is, of course, the cutest and most playful of them all.”

“They’re of very similar minds,” Kent said gravely.

“Have you ever heard them have a serious conversation?” Ceniro put in, smiling.

“Once. Maybe. When he was showing her how to curry his horse.”

“Oh, come now, Kent!” Sain rejoined in good humour. “What about the time that… no… wait… Or the time that…”

“Heads up,” Kent interrupted suddenly. “There could be trouble ahead.”

In the valley opening before them, there were a couple clusters of houses huddled beside the road. Too small to really be called villages, they looked rather pathetic. And closest to them… the charred remains of another cluster of huts.

The two knights and Ceniro stared. “We didn’t take this road coming north,” Sain said in a low voice. “This is…”

“We are close to Taliver Mountain,” Lyn said, her shoulders tense. “It is home to the most ruthless band of outlaws in Elibe, the ones who destroyed my tribe and my family. It only took one night… But the rest take their cue from the Taliver.”

“Why doesn’t their marquess do something?” Kent asked. “It’s horrible. Surely any ruler would want to keep the highways safe.”

Lyn laughed shortly. “This is Bern. This valley has no marquess. The settlers hang on as best they can. Travelers fare no better.” She turned her head to look north at the mountains. “Someday I will return, and I will break their axes beneath me like twigs beneath a stallion’s hooves.”

“When that day comes, my lady, take me with you,” Sain said, earnestly serious.

“I will come as well,” Kent said.

“I’ll come too,” Ceniro said. “Even if I’m out in the middle of nowhere.”

Lyn’s expression lightened a little, and she gave them a melancholy little grateful smile. “Everyone… Thank you.”

A girl’s cry echoed through the forest. Lyn spun, her hand going to her sword. “There are bandits ahead now!”

“We must help their victim,” Kent said. “Ceniro?” Ceniro had had a battle to get the knights to stop calling him ‘sir’, but he had won out in the end and felt better for it. In return, they had also easily allowed him to call them by their names without titles or honorifics, which was something that he had always forgotten about far too easily. Lyn, unfortunately for her, had lost a similar battle, and both knights insisted on calling her ‘Lady’, and Kent still wasn’t convinced it was fine to call her ‘Lyn’ instead of ‘Lyndis’.

“We need to find out what’s going on, first,” Ceniro said, quickening his pace. “I can’t see anything from here.”

“Is that…” Lyn ran forward, past the tactician, off the road and through the forest. “That’s a pegasus!”

“A pegasus?” Ceniro asked, his face brightening.

“You like pegasus knights?” Sain asked with a wink.

“I never worked with a pegasus knight before, not even in training. I admire them, though.”

“It is!” Lyn cried. “And… Florina!”

So much for surprise, but he could work around it. At Lyn’s cry, the pegasus rider turned towards their rapidly approaching group with a cry of joy, pulling away from the thugs who had a tight grip on her slender wrists. “Lyn!”

Lyn ran to her, heedless of the danger of the men, and hugged the girl tightly. “Florina, what are you doing in this place?”

Florina sniffled, clinging to Lyn. Her eyes were hidden behind a curtain of tumbled lavender hair, but her cheeks and nose were still red from crying. “I… I was coming to visit you, after your mom… but then I heard you left Sacae with three strangers, and I was worried, so I… I-I landed here to see if anyone had seen you, but I…”

“She stepped on my friend here, and she’s going to pay!” one of the thugs announced, holding out a fist threateningly towards Lyn.

“Don’t be absurd,” Lyn said, irritated and showing absolutely no fear. “Can’t you just let a little accident go? I know Florina, and she’s probably apologized many times already.”

“Many times,” Florina said. “But they wouldn’t listen!”

“That’s not good enough! Who’s going to pay for his doctor’s bills, hmm? She owes us, so she’s coming with us!”

Lyn’s face darkened. “You’re not Taliver, are you?”

“What? No! Those ones will even kill women and children.”

“Crazy, I tell you,” said the other thug mournfully. “Absolutely crazy. Such a waste.”

“But I’ll tell you what. We’ll let your cute friend go if you come with us instead.” The first thug let a heavy hand fall on Lyn’s shoulder.

“Unhand Lady Lyndis!” Kent demanded, drawing his sword.

“Let me go or I’ll gut you on the spot,” Lyn hissed.

“Fine, we’ll capture you fair and square. Deal?” The thugs ran off.

“They’ll be back in a moment, undoubtedly,” Lyn said. “They’ve just gone to get reinforcements. Do we run, or fight?”

“We fight, of course!” Sain said. “A lady’s honour has been insulted! We must make sure they never do that again!” Kent nodded slowly.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Lyn said. “Ceniro? What do you think?”

“We can fight them,” Ceniro said calmly. “This might be tricky to co-ordinate, but I guess I don’t have to get too fancy out here.”

“Can you fight, Florina?”

Florina hesitated for a moment, seemingly having an internal debate with herself. Then she rubbed her eyes, patted her cheeks in a bracing manner, and turned to her pegasus, retrieving a long, slender spear. “…Y-yes, I can fight. But, Lyn, who are all these… men?”

“This person is Ceniro, and he’s a tactician whom I just met one day. He’s very nice, and he’ll give you good directions, so you don’t have to worry about him. These are Kent and Sain, and I’ll explain why I’m with them later.” She turned to Ceniro. “I… know it’s another thing to ask, but we should warn these hamlets that we’re fighting. We don’t want the bandits to take advantage of the confusion and destroy anything else.”

“All right. Florina, that will be your first job. The bandits look like they’ll be coming from the northwest, so Lyn, Kent, Sain, we’ll head that way. I’ll give you more detailed instructions in a moment. Florina, I want you to warn those houses about this battle, and then fly up and tell me where the enemies are and what kind of weapons they have, if you can see them.”

“G-g-got it!” She swung onto the back of her pegasus and with a whoosh of wings, she was off.

A few minutes later, Ceniro heard her scream, and swung around. “Kent-”

“It’s all right,” Lyn said, though she had started and almost taken off running. “She’s not in physical danger, just startled.”

“Old friend of yours?” Sain asked.

“We grew up together. Her mother was too weak to birth and raise her in Ilia, so they stayed with my family when I was small, and we stayed in touch afterwards.”

Bushes rustled behind them, and they spun around again, to be greeted by a young man with a cheerful grin and a bow on his back. “Hey! The nice girl said you’re fighting the bandits?”

“We are,” Kent said. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Wil. I’m an archer, um, obviously, and I want to help! These guys have been a real pain and I can’t get home to Lycia until they stop it.”

“That explains why she was startled,” Lyn murmured to Ceniro. “She’s shy of men, but she’s always afraid of people with bows. She’s afraid they’ll shoot her pegasus out of the air, even if she knows they’re friendly people.”

“Ooh, I see,” Wil said. “I’m really sorry about that. I’ll try and keep out of her way.”

“In any case, welcome to the fight, Wil,” Ceniro said. “We’re actually waiting for it to get going, and we are attacking uphill… Never fun.”

“Totally agree,” Wil said, unslinging his bow from his back. “So who’s in charge?”

“He is,” Lyn said, pointing at Ceniro. “This is Ceniro, our tactician. My name’s Lyn. This is Kent and Sain.”

Ceniro looked to the air, and Florina swooped down to land beside them. “Th-they’re coming… I think it was four people with axes, three people with swords, and an a-a-archer.” She saw Wil and started, and Wil gave her a friendly wave.

Ceniro squinted up the hill. “The bushes are too thick for me to really see, but here’s what we’re going to do…”

 

“So Florina,” Lyn said once the bandits had either been killed or retreated, “what brought you to visit me?”

“Well… you remember the knighting ceremony of the Pegasus Knights of Ilia?” Florina chirped, completely happy now that the danger was over.

“Vaguely,” Lyn said. “You’ve been knighted? Congratulations! That’s wonderful.”

“Um, so you see, I’m supposed to join a group of mercenaries for further training. So, I… um… I wanted to get your advice first.”

“Hm, but Florina, most groups of mercenaries are men, aren’t they? I can’t imagine you’d be at all comfortable with any of them. Why can’t they just put you in one of the Wings?”

“The Wings are for knights who’ve proven themselves already, though,” Florina said. “It’s to ensure that anyone hiring a knight from a Wing gets proven quality.” She lowered her head. “I… I just thought I’d be able to work it out somehow…”

“Beautiful Florina!” Sain cried, throwing his arms wide. She squeaked and hid behind Lyn. “Why not join us? Lyndis’s Legion is a fine group of mercenaries with the addition of Wil here, are we not?”

“Wait, did you just include me?” Wil asked hopefully.

Kent smacked his palm into his face. “Sain, Sain, Sain…”

“Yes, do you need me for anything?” Sain said impudently. “What do you say, sweet Florina? You can travel with your friend Lyn and do your training under a master tactician!”

“That’s laying it on a bit thick,” Ceniro mumbled, blushing.

“I-I would like that,” Florina said to Lyn.

Lyn chuckled. “All right. I’m glad to have you with me, Florina. Wil, sorry for dragging you into this.”

“It’s no problem,” Wil said, smiling easily. “I mean, you’re going to Lycia too, right? I’d be totally happy to join, ah, Lyndis’s Legion and get safely through the rest of Bern.”

“Both of you are very welcome,” Kent said earnestly.

“So, um, what are you guys going to Lycia for, anyway?” Wil asked.

“It’s a bit of a story,” Sain said.

“Which you are not going to tell,” Kent interrupted. “Lady Lyndis?”

 

Chapter 1: A Family’s Call     Chapter 3: Bandits’ Pride