Alarik's Crusade

Chapter 26: Lessons to Learn

Alarik and Farmund sat at the banks of the river, holding their newly made fishing rods with the small additional pieces packed by the empire. Metal hooks and fishing line - just the barebones to carry, but the rest was easy enough to come by. There were plenty of worms that had come up from the rain, and while the ground was muddy to sit on, they were so dirtied by the extensive travels that they hardly cared. The two sat, drying in the noonday sun as they were still wet from the deluge yesterday.

Where Inaya was, they weren’t too sure. She had become far more isolated ever since she had lost her friend. She’d slip in and out of the camp, occasionally providing meals as were her duties. It wasn’t direct insubordination, and Alarik knew she wouldn’t care much even if it was, but as long as she performed her basic tasks there was little Alarik could complain about. If she didn’t wish to speak, so be it. Her interruption at the disagreement between the two men earlier in the day had been the most she had spoken in quite some time. For one reason or another, she still seemed invested in the crusade. Both Alarik and Farmund wondered if it was purely just so she could get back alive, but they were certain that if the three were alone, an experienced shaman trained in the Khorsuli ways of the hunt would be far better suited than either of them. That said, they doubted it was due to their personal well being. Either way, the intrusion served to, at least somewhat, mend the fences between the two.

At least enough to sit side by side and not say a word.

Alarik attached another worm onto the hook of the fishing rod. He was clumsy and had pricked his finger more than once and had the worm slip from his fingers more often than not. Without a word, Farmund would lean over, take it from his hands and do it for him. Sometimes the captain forgot Farmund’s upbringing, realising that someone born out of the city would be much more experienced in such matters. He gave a cursory thank you each time, one of the few words spoken between them.

The waters had calmed significantly from yesterday, the rains seemingly having caused them to rush much stronger. They were relatively quiet now, but none of the three of them were confident in being able to swim across. Nevertheless, it did provide a few fish, mostly by the hand of Farmund. At his side sat three large ones, the sun shining off their scales and looking delectable. He had spent the day fishing with one hand still in his metal gauntlet, a sight Alarik found peculiar until he saw why. Upon catching a fish, he’d put it down and strike it swiftly with a strong fist, preventing it from dying a slow death gasping for air. It was brutal, and an action that would make most of the city-dwelling Vanderik shy away from, but it was the right thing to do.

“Good of you to do that,” Alarik said after a long wait. “The… the striking of the fish, that is.”

“Mmhmm.”

Alarik cleared his throat. He could feel the heat on his exposed scalp, more open to the sun than ever with the hair that was rapidly fleeing his head. He thought back to the beginning, just before leaving for the crusade, and waiting outside Colonel Willamar’s tent, roasting like a pig on a spit. It didn’t bother him so much now. He felt he had gone through so much worse than heat, it seemed hardly worth the attention.

He cast a line from the makeshift fishing pole into the water, something he had just managed to do as the big man at his side already hooked two. “You’ve a talent for this,” Alarik noted.

“There was a stream by my house when I was younger,” Farmund responded. “I went out there often. Good fish there.”

“And what village would that be, if I may ask?”

“Eryx.”

Alarik went ashen faced. He knew the story of Eryx well. A small border town near the river that stretched between Khorsuli and Vanderik territory, it was an early casualty in the war between the two nations. Eryx was burned to the ground, the population massacred. “Your home…” Alarik started, unsure of how to proceed.

“Yes. It’s a miracle I was left at all. A moment of mercy to let me live, although at the time I had wished they didn’t.”

Alarik knew a common tactic of the Khorsuli was to leave a single surviving member of their defeats to sow discord among the rest of the enemy population. It didn’t seem like a fact that would help very much at the moment, and the captain wisely kept it to himself. He checked his fishing line, thinking for a moment there was a bite. There was nothing. Farmund reeled in another in the meantime. How the fish managed to know who the experienced fisherman was, Alarik would never understand. He shook the fishing line, thinking that maybe a twitching worm would be more enticing.

“Just show patience, captain. The fish will come when they decide to. You can’t tell them to come any faster.”

Alarik chuckled. “My father taught me how to fish. He would get so frustrated he’d charge into the water and try to snag them out of it with his own two hands.”

Farmund smiled. “See, the farmers… we never really had a reason to wait. There was always something to do. But, that’s why I loved fishing. There would be moments that all you could do was wait. It was a forced reprieve.” He tilted his head back to absorb some of the pleasant morning sun. “Fond memories, those.”

Alarik checked his line again, finding nothing. Farmund pulled up another, adding to a growing pile at his side.

“Permission to ask you something personal, captain,” Farmund asked hesitantly. Alarik nodded, still staring at his line. “In Khorsul. You were one of the leaders of the first army, correct?”

“Yes,” the captain responded.

“You’re still leading. After all that.”

“Indeed I am.”

“How do you come back after having lost everything?”

Alarik breathed out deeply. Good question. If you find out, let me know. Instead of telling the truth, he told a lie that felt much better. “You need to look at who you are, where you’ve come from, and where you can still yet reach. Remove yourself from the one particular spot in time in which you’ve collapsed, and view it as one would view a whole lifetime. When you’re in a pit, the last thing you should do is give up entirely. You’ll never see the sun if you don’t crawl your way out of it.”

Farmund nodded. He threw another line out into the river. “And just how am I meant to start crawling?”

Alarik shrugged. “Awful dark in that pit, isn’t it? No reason to stay in it. Your mind already wants out of it, it just isn’t seeing a way yet. You’ll find one. Something to cling onto, something to guide you. Might be a hope, might be something to work towards, I don’t know.” He lied a little further. Easier than saying that sometimes the pit is too deep. “For me, it was the idea of righting the wrongs of my past and succeeding where I’ve failed before. It’s why I took this expedition in the first place. Why I find myself in the middle of a rainforest leaving behind the…” He trailed off. Not the time, nor the place to remind them both of a body count. “It’s what brought me out of the pit to keep on pushing for the sun. And we’ve got no shortage of that.” He touched the top of his balding head and felt the sunburnt skin, wincing. “No shortage of that at all.”

Farmund chuckled. “Just think of it as getting a tan. Isn’t that what you folk stuck in the cities wish for? To get a tan, to look like the farmers like me you look down on? Never much understood that one.”

Alarik laughed. “I’m beginning to think there’s some merit to the farming life. Would probably need a hat from now on out, though.”

Farmund just smiled, and waited for another fish to bite. Alarik, meanwhile, had not learned his lesson, and tried shaking the fishing rod again. “Patience,” Farmund suggested. “This day is meant to be a reprieve.”

“Patience,” Alarik repeated. “And here I was thinking the lessons were mine to give.”