Chapter 5 A Contradiction in the Bloodline, Step up Jérome!!!

The next morning me and the twins woke up. After getting dressed we greeted the soldiers who had stood guard tonight telling them to have breakfast as I would take over their duty in the meantime.

The soldiers thanked me and started eating with the twins afterwards the soldiers went to sleep. Suddenly Jérome came in through the front, holding fresh livestock in his hands.

In his left hand an owl like creature and over his right shoulder a Sabretooth. Seeing the Sabertooth Aegrith suddenly asked with a frightened look on her face "Is it really dead?" "Of course it is" Jérome said with a smile. "Otherwise i'd be riding it" he said as a joke. "Mmm I never had Sabretooth blood before" I said, ready to try it. "Then lets try it together" Jérome said. Asking if anyone else wanted to join came with a long moment of silence. Okay Jérome said as he cut off the front paws and hanged the creature upside down. Cheers he said as the blood started streaming out the dead sabertooth. Cheers I responded, enjoying the seemingly good taste of fresh sabretooth blood. As I drank the sabretooth's blood I started to feel more energetic then ever before and apparently so did Jérome who was sucking up the last bits like a madman. After finishing up Jérome would remove the carcass of the sabretooth giving it a burial, yet he put the paws in separate crate.

"And what are you going to do with the paws" I asked. "I know a trader in town who makes slippers from feral beast paws as a hobby.

"I know pretty crazy right, but very comfortable." he said. "Maybe he'll give me a discount on my next purchase if I give this to him" he explained.

He then took the carcass and walked through the hall to his room, where he put down the crate and took the carcass and walked towards the plateau.

A few days later Jérome came to me with the guarding schedule and the crate with the Sabretooth paws, explaining to me that he was on scouting duty today but he wanted to go and visit the trader, as he could not keep the paws much longer. Aegrith who was with me then said that she would do it. We agreed on that and I smiled seeing how much braver Aegrith had become and I will go with you Jérome, I want to meet this crazy trader. With that all being said Aegrith went through the front as we made our way through the hall where we saw Maelith.

As she saw us, she saw Jérome holding the crate. Aaahhhh Are you going to trade the paws, I want to go with you. Taking another look at the schedule we saw she had guard duty tonight. We came to the conclussion that if we hurried on our way back it would be possible it should work. "I do not care about that, do you Jérome?" I asked.

Not at all, the more the merrier" he said smiling.

With that said we made our way to the city.

Once we arrived I was shocked to find out the trader was the same trader as the one who owned the mine. While greeting the trader Maelith started looking around seeing all kinds of weapons and shields. Jérome put the crate on the ground and showed the trader the paws. "What can i get for this" he said.

"Hmm lets see" the trader said.

Twelvehundred Ori right here or if you buy something right now fifteenhundred Ori off that purchase. Jérome not agreeing on the price started to haggle, in the meantime I focused on Maelith who had never been in such a store before.

She was looking at every weapon comparing it to her staff in her mind, making the remark none of the stores weapons were made for magic stones. "And still you sell a magic stone" She said pointing at a bright yellow stone in a shelf next to the counter. "Yeahh well... uhhh" the trader chuckeld trying to find a way out of the conversation. "Do you even know what happens if someone buys it who is compatible with one of the elements that stone is linked to, I don't see a warning sign."

"Then why don't you buy it, "young miss" only

twothousand Ori. And if you want me to embed it into a weapon threethousand Ori.

"Young miss?" she asked, "I'll have you know that i'm older then you, I served Count Volgar's Grandfather Vaegir when this part of town was still an idea in his head." She screamed.

"And then something else I'll take it in that weapon" pointing at a morningstar made of stainless steel. "for twentyfivehundred, take it or leave it." she said, slowly calming down. Agreeing on the price he told his blacksmith to adjust the morningstar so to embed the stone in the morningstar. After which he started taking his focus back to haggling with Jérome. When the blacksmith was finished he came to the store with the morningstar, while Jérome and the trader were still haggling.

Then Jérome said "eighteenhundred or I'll take it with me to burn it, I will not go any lower. And you can take it off the price of the morningstar on the term that my men can try it out first Maelith." "but of course" She said, explaining that was her idea as well. The trader then apologized to Maelith for his comment earlier and accepted Jérome's offer.

Maelith smiled at the trader as she paid the sevenhundred Ori, while the blacksmith gave the morningstar to Jérome. "So Maelith how would this work?" Jérome asked, holding out the morningstar.

Maelith took the morningstar and explained that you would have to hold the morningstar while focusing on the stone, and if you were compatibel the morningstar would changed into that element or at least let the element leak through.

As she held the morningstar she took a breathe and focused, nothing happened.

A few moments later she said, "as you can see nothing is happening, as such I am not compatible with the elements linked to this stone." holding out the morningstar to Jérome. "Okay now let me try" Jérome said, grabbing the morningstar. Suddenly more focused then I had ever seen him in our sparring matches, he held on to the morningstar as a white light started to shine through. It was at least as bright as a sun.

"No way, No way Impossible!!!" the trader screamed. "Jérome you are a Lé Darc, you have well known ancestors who have used the element of "Darkness" or "Black" how are you?" he asked not being able to finish his question because of Jérome interrupting.

"I don't know and I care even less" coming from a half laughing Jérome. "Anyways I am keeping this" he said to Maelith. Maelith nodded after which we made our way back to the bases.

Halfway through the plateau I suggested that Jérome should train with me using the morningstar, oh and I also think you should be promoted. "You care about everyone in the bases, know them better then I do, and I really thinking u have what it takes to lead the southern base" Completly silenced thinking of the ideas of how he could command a base it took him a few moments, after which he accepted and made his way to the southern entrance thanking me for my trust in him.

As dusk came we were back at the eastern base where Aegrith was waiting for us.

telling each other what a great day they had.

After dinner it was their turn to stand guard.

Not having done much today but standing by as everything just happened around me, had me pumped to stay awake so suggested to Maelith and Aegrith to take their first hours of their shift so that they could close their eyes for a while.

They accepted my offer and as I took place at the front of the base they went to bed.

At midnight when they came out of the hall telling me they would now take over.

I nodded, smiling at them as I went to bed.

Starting the next day I rearranged the working schedules of everyone making sure Jérome and I could train at least three times a week with succes.

From then on during our training we would also discus strategies, tactics and formatitions.

Two weeks had passed and Jérome had made some weird changes to the southern base, the front of the mountain on which the base was located was made less steep, Horses were brought to what looked like a stable and grass was brought to the horses every few hours.

During the training I taught him how to sense magic, it apparently worked as he started to sense which of my attacks were with and which were without magic, yet I was able to do the same.

As we were training two soldiers came our way, one from the southern and one from the eastern base.

Scouting parties had reported that the war was getting closer, and now at our doorsteps, my fears had finally arrived.

It would not take long before all parties in the war would get to know our presence, our location, if they had not already.

We had to start acting now.

I told them to return to their postion as we would find the twins and discuss how to act.

Once gathered we decided that we would make the first move from the moment that the enemies could be sensed from the bases.

Sending the twins to take charge of the Nothern base for now asking two soldier from there to relocatie to the eastern base for now.

"Mikael is joining next week, if I can hold off any threat for a week with the soldiers who will then be stationed in the eastern base I will be fine." I explained.

"Jérome you can hold the southern base with your cavalry right?" I asked.

He nodded confident.

"The scouting parties of the northern base have not yet had the war alarming close to them but if it happens I have you two there to assist the soldiers." I said, explaining to Maelith and Aegrith what their role wil be.

Full of confindence they told me to trust them with this task.

"Everbody wil also have to think of anti-ambush tactics or formations, Maelith and Aegrith please do this with your soldiers as they will probably know a bit more of this then you two" I said

Everybody now knew what to do and made way to their base.

Not much later two soldiers reported to me.

I gave them the night shift as I retreated to my office, now with a desk and a chair for me and three chairs on the other side, painted black with creative thin swirls of purple slightly resembling the stone in my hand.

That night I had to come up with as much formations and tactics for the eastern base in case of ambushes.

The next morning a crow came in with a message from Jérome, he was woken up at dawn alerted that it was certain the southern base was discovered by at least one side of the war.

He had taken a few troops on horseback and would keep me updated with crows.

At the end of the day while standing guard the long awaited crow came.

Jérome had fled the battlefield using the blinding light of his morningstar when the tides were seemingly about to turn.

Casualties: two wounded men.

And so I send a crow back, congratulating him with the positive end of his and that of whole southern base's first battle of the war.

Looking at a cloudy sky knowing my ordeal would soon follow...