Shamed by the lust incited by Silme's grief, Larson said nothing. Between sobs which shook the sorceress' body, he vowed vengeance on the red-eyed half-man responsible for her pain. For his own peace, he swore he would earn Silme's love and respect and one day bed the sorceress who was sapphire Dragonrank from Forste -Mar.
Chapter 4
Wolfslayer
"Brother fights with brother, they butcher each other; daughters and sons incestuously mix; man is a plaything of mighty whoredoms; an axe-time, sword-time shields shall be split; a wind-age, a wolf-age, before the World ends."
– The Spaewife's Song
The dream-reader crossed the barren tract before her cottage and studied the main street of Forste -Mar through cataract-hazed vision. Four figures approached, too distant to discern through her aged eyes. Yet she identified her visitors without mortal sight. The woman at the lead glowed with a life aura bright as a barn fire, surely Dragonrank and therefore unmistakably Silme. Beside her walked a boy suffused by light so pale the dream-reader attributed the illusion to reflections of Silme's glory and her own near blindness.
Behind Silme strode her bodyguard of several years, the ronin, Gaelinar. To believe the rumors, he'd fought a thousand duels in the Far East without a loss and had been lured to the North by stories of fearless pirates commanding longboats carved in dragon form. No one knew how Silme had persuaded the Kensei to her cause, but his loyalty was beyond question.
The dream-reader knew the sorceress' last companion from gossip exchanged in the village market. The citizens named him a light elf. But even through diseased eyes which blurred Larson to an outline, the dream-reader found little comparison between him and the slight, giggling elves who whisked through her cottage on infrequent visits. His tread was heavy as a man's, his manner cautious and careworn.