Polite Temper Boy Book One: The Hermit Read online

bruised but growing paler–and seemed to shrink and shrivel in the sky. Hints of blue ran between them like small rivers, and the odd sliver of sunlight fell through in long golden rays, igniting many of the corpse’s muddy armour on the field below him in clean white light. A radiant light. Oddly, there was no rainbow in sight, but that could have been behind him. To his left, the view of the ocean was only a thin strip of black reflecting nothing. Just a strange emptiness, like a line cut into existence with an invisible blade. A wound which would never close. The shore was not in view what so ever, lost somewhere under the overlooking cliff, making the dark waters appear even stranger. To his right the rolling grassy hills went up, and up, and up. During the summers, those hills would bear tiny blue flowers with reflecting petals, and would flow over to the open fields of Fellakose. Now the hills were only a silvery brown under the light of a strange winter sky, and had no sign of flowers.

  Vincent glanced down to his black Vellonian armour; it was encrusted in thick streaks of mud. Everything else around him was as well. The rain had unleashed itself for just enough time to do the damage it intended, just enough time to turn a world of frost to a world of mud.

  Directly ahead of him, towering so far in the distance that they were of a ashen blue, he could see pieces of the Gallanock mountaintops. They were sharp, jagged, and snow-capped–but from where he sat they looked like something torn from an old painting, ragged scraps placed up in the sky by the hands of a giant. Hiding the rest of the mountains–and the Izavila waterfall–more rolling fields led up to where the battle had begun: a forest of maples and hemlocks, the tree line sparse and uneven. It was those distant trees which seemed to be trying to hide the view of Vellanon from him; instead, showing him the home of the enemy, the home of the Backlanton tribes. He couldn’t see behind himself, but knew that way only led to more ocean. More poisoned black waters. The battle had devoured itself on an arm of land which reached out into the south-western waters like a broken hand, a place which seemed as if it were once a mountain, now no more than a muddy hill sloping down to a field surrounded by broken stones and an uneven cliff line, the odd dead tree reaching up from its crumbling sides as if to ask forgiveness for crimes committed in past lives.

  “Gonna be dark in a few hours,” The medicine man said, turning around and gawking out at the view of fallen soldiers sprawled out under those distant mountains. The old man wore only muddy rags, and his long white hair and beard streamed out towards the western waters. He slipped the rusty dagger into the frayed little pouch on the tattered belt wrapped around his shoulder, reached for a nearby walking stick, which was gnarled and misshapen, and paced out into the mud with bare feet.

  “You can’t take me!” He squealed out into the sky. “Never!”

  Vincent tried to move, and the pain of the arrow twisted and clawed through his shoulder, turning his thoughts black and red. Making them flash. He didn’t cry out, but a grunt caught the old man’s attention. The hermit turned around, and stared at Vincent with wide eyes.

  “Either finish me off, or untie me!” Vincent shouted out at him, not caring of the consequences.

  The old man spat out a wheezy laugh and began to dance, clapping his hands, and trotting his feet in and out of the mud with slightly bent knees. His walking stick managed to stand beside him in the mud all on its own.

  “Aye, you look like a tough bugger,” he said, still dancing, clapping, and laughing, “if you’re meant to die then you will. Fate my dear boy, fate is the only decision maker round here.”

  Breathing heavily, Vincent tried to calm himself down.

  Focus or die. One thing at a time. Think.

  His sword, where was–

  The old man dashed towards him, and slapped him so hard that blood spewed from a split lip in a long splattering string. “I saw yah! Saw yah looking for yer blade you dirty bugger!”

  “Where is it?”

  The question of how the hermit had read his mind danced at the edge of Vincent’s thoughts, then vanished.

  The old man spat out another laugh, drool hanging from his uneven mouth. “Well, well. You’re a fast learner aren’t yah? Know not to play games with this here old fella.”

  Vincent lost control of his temper, and lunged for the old man–and not just once. He did it again. And then again, trying to tear away ropes, screaming out as the pain of the arrow ran through him like dry lightning. Even as the hurt coursed through every muscle he didn’t give up, continued lunging against the ropes, his hands feeling as if they would tear away. He screamed, and veins bulged from his neck and temples as if they were about to burst. His eyes were mean and cruel now, eyes of a savage yearning to murder and devour his foe, to stab and tear and never stop. Eyes which were not his own.

  But there was nothing he could do.

  Helpless and frustrated, he stopped.

  After he calmed down, every ounce of him hurting in a dull pain, he half expected the old man to pull out that rusty dagger and take out his eyes–almost welcomed it–however, his frustration was only met with more laughter.

  “I’m glad you fell behind the lines, got some spunk in yah. My temper be something a normal man wouldn’t wanna reckon with my dear boy, but you do got some spunk in yah” the old man said, clapping his large hands twice. “We’ll get along just fine.”

  Vincent stopped moving, his eyes reaching towards the medicine man in a vulgar hatred, reaching out and trying to carve their way into his thoughts.

  “I’ll tell you what,” the hermit said, “I’ll make us a fire. Right here.”

  3

  The old man was gone for hours, and Vincent watched as the sun rays in the fractured sky shrank and then faded into shades of red and purple. The night would be a cold one. He could already feel it creeping up, could feel the presence of the winter sunset as if it were a living thing with a bitter scent. The wind had picked up to something much stronger than it had been earlier, forcing the darkening sky to moan and howl. It was a lonely sound, but then again being alone was ok right now. In fact, not having that lunatic anywhere in sight was better than ok.

  “Here!” the old man shouted, emerging from the premature dusk, and throwing something at him.

  The katana fluttered through the air like a dizzy arrow, twisting and spinning like a drunken dancer falling from a high stage, and slid halfway into the sticky ground roughly teen feet ahead of the soldier tied to the tree, the leather handle pointing slightly to the western sky above the ocean like a finger in search of a specific star. The blade made a slick, soggy sound as the cold metal glided through the mud, but made no splash. Vincent glanced over to the ocean expecting to see something, but saw nothing. Just a reflex. But still, he expected something. Expected anything. The black water was hard to make out now that day was becoming night, and looked more like part of the sky then a strip of the ocean.

  “You left it down there on the battlefield.”

  At first Vincent didn’t answer, his mind still stuck on the sword.

  “Hard to find in the dark.”

  “What of my horse?” Vincent asked absent minded, not even realizing he had spoken at first.

  “Wha?”

  “My horse.”

  The old man laughed and didn’t answer, only strolled back up the hill in a merry amble, a grin sprawled across his craggy features like a torn blanket with eyes. He had only his walking stick with him, and it emitted a deep discomfort, radiated a dehydrated misery.

  “I thought you went to get firewood?” Vincent asked.

  “Firewood? Now why would I do a thing like that?”

  Vincent didn’t answer.

  “Plenty of it right here behind yah. Stacked it there awhile back. For being smart, you sure are a dumb bugger.”

  The old man crouched in front of him, wide eyes deranged and gawking.

  “Went for your blade,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe I’m scared of the wolves that haunt these here parts. Rusty blade’
s not much good for a pack of those devils. Maybe for one or two, but for a pack hell no, boy. Hell no!”

  He danced over to behind the tree, came back with an armload of firewood, and stacked it in an uneven pile before the bound soldier. Then something odd happened: the fire somehow lit itself. It was as if the split wood was just there as a decoration, and that the fire would of started anyways, would have given birth to itself without the need of anything but the eyes of those who would dare stare at its self-creation. And Vincent did stare, the murmuring flames somewhat hypnotizing. Like a suicidal man staring at the ground before slamming against it, Vincent found himself concerned about the crimson arms of those flames, almost scared of them. Would they be his end? Would they slam into him, and make him hurt some more? Make him scream?

  The wood began to crackle.

  “You ever been out there?” the old man sat down at the other side of the fire, and pointed out towards the ocean, a slowness now in his movement.

  “No one has.”

  The question was an odd one, considering he had previously said himself that the waters were poison.

  “Yah,” he looked down, “yah true.” There was regret in his voice. “I’ve been alone for so long that what I say gets muddled. Spent years deciding what to say, but now it all tangles into one big knot. Chokes itself. Confuses–”

  “You saw the battle end?” Vincent interrupted, trying to tear his