Chapter Fourteen: The Revenge of Ravan the Great

When Ravan disembarked in Preshire in the Bonn Empire, all he could think to do first was to find lodging and then hole up in what appeared to be the most popular tavern in the area. There, he would spend the next few days reading pamphlets and educating himself on Bonn culture, recent events, and current politics. The following month was arguably the most uneventful, aggravating, and uninformative month of Ravan’s life. He had even hired a few people to obtain information on Captain Fadi, but he didn’t hear back from any of them for what felt like an eternity.

Ravan’s luck changed while he sat at his usual corner beside a grimy window in his new favorite musty tavern. One of the scouts rushed in while he read over the day’s pamphlet and sat across from Ravan at the sticky wooden table. Ravan set the pamphlet down with a sigh.

“I really hope you have some news for me this time,” Ravan moaned. He took a swig of his beer, fully expecting yet another round of useless information.

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir,” said the nervous scout. “I managed to overhear a conversation between Graf von Mauve and his Lumber Warden about a lumber jack who used to be a private centurion captain from another empire. The graf wants to make him his mercenary captain.”

Ravan grew steadily more interested in what this scout had to deliver. “That’s fine, that’s fine. Now where does he live?”

“The graf?”

“No, you simpleton! The lumber jack! The former centurion!”

“Oh! Oh, I don’t know. But I know the lumber yard where he works!”

“Wonderful.” Ravan pocketed the pamphlet, stood, and dropped some crescents on the table. “Take me.”

~~~

Ravan spent a couple days observing the lumber yard before he finally spotted the dirty, sweaty Captain Fadi (or now just Fadi) working low-class heavy work. Ravan patiently waited for Fadi to finish his day before he followed him to his home; a dilapidating cabin in the Farstead Forest. Indeed, pieces didn’t go very far when converted to crescents.

Ravan didn’t bother studying Fadi this time around; he already knew what he needed to know about the former captain. Instead he waited patiently until the man was alone. He didn’t have to wait long before Fadi exited the cabin prepared for a hunt. Ravan watched as Fadi promised his wife that he would be home before Northern sundown, kissed her farewell, and marched off deeper into the Farstead Forest.

Ravan followed Fadi quietly into the florally-fragrant forest. There, the bright hues of the lavender and hot pinks trees which spotted the many green ones burned his one remaining eye. As impatient as he was to finally see this mission through to the end, he forced himself to wait to make his move until he felt certain the time was right. He kept his distance and rolled his feet with every step to remain quiet. Once Ravan felt they were far enough away from the cabin, he burned away Fadi’s bow and arrows so that they fell from his hands in ashes. Terror showed on Fadi’s face as the smoke from the burnt remains of his only means of defense filled his nostrils. He slowly stood from his crouch and glanced around for his old enemy.

“Didn’t think I’d ever find you again, did you?” Ravan taunted as he emerged from behind one of the hot pink trees.

Fadi turned to face Ravan and said nothing as the cloaked psychopath stepped in front of him. Ravan tossed a sword at his feet.

“Pick it up,” Ravan demanded.

“No,” Fadi challenged.

Ravan drew his sword and shrugged. “Then I’ll just cut you down here and now. Won’t be as fun but at least I’ll have finally satisfied my objective.”

“Have you no honor at all?”

“It’s laughable hearing that from the very man who took it from me and forced me to watch. The man who directs the slaughter of children and pregnant women.”

“Orders are orders, Son,” said Fadi.

“Curses, if I hear one more asinine word from you I’ll just take your head and be done with it. Are you going to pick up the sword or not? I don’t care either way.”

Fadi glanced at the sword, contemplating, then finally picked it up. Ravan grinned and attacked the former captain before he was even ready. Nevertheless, Fadi continued to prove himself to be an avid swordsman, sufficiently challenging for Ravan. Not to mention Ravan had to remind himself that Fadi was far more familiar with Farstead Forest than he was and could easily use this mysterious knowledge against him. Ravan understood that not all characteristics of Farstead would be as evident as the lanterns which hung from branches, or the many shrubs and bushes which naturally formed into the shapes of various animals. So Ravan would have to be wary of what he couldn’t see. Such as the fact that nothing around him would catch fire, which he learned very quickly.

Meanwhile, Ravan gave Fadi his all, who returned in kind. Ravan refused to allow anything to distract him, including the mushroom pixies who scurried away from the warriors to safety, or the rocks which rolled about the forest floor on their own accord. Ravan grew suspicious that Fadi was intentionally leading him somewhere, especially when they approached a stream. Concerned that there may be something to fear about the stream, Ravan forced Fadi into it first, bringing him down to his knee. Fadi was quick to return to his feet, though not necessarily to exit the water. So Ravan obliged to step in along with his opponent. They continued to fight each other down the babbling brook and Ravan involved the rocks that nature had placed for his disposal, but Fadi did well dodging them. Both fighters attempted to exploit the uneven riverbed to disadvantage the other, but both of them had refined footwork and the rocky floor wasn’t going to make either falter.

Ravan and Fadi swung their swords at each other with all their might, and the sound of the blades crashing together frightened the birds from the trees. They battled their way downstream and into a cavern where the ceiling was coated in shimmering blue glow worms. There they continued to fight in the dim blue light. Soon, Ravan decided that the battle wasn’t ending fast enough, so he utilized his knife.

“That’s not fair, Son,” said Fadi with a couple steps back.

“Do you remember who you’re fighting against?” Ravan asked. “I’m not engaging you for sport.”

Ravan slashed at Fadi with his sword and then caught him with the knife, but Fadi appeared unmoved by the injury. So Ravan kept at it. No matter how much Fadi was able to ignore the pain, the more injuries Ravan inflicted on him the weaker he would become. And such was the plan. And such was what he accomplished. The battle grew bloody, and Ravan recognized Fadi’s strength leaving him. Then finally, after patiently wearing his greatest adversary down, Ravan spotted an opening and plunged his sword through his enemy’s abdomen. Fadi dropped to his knees in the stream beneath the blue glow worms and peered up at his long-time foe. The look he gave showed no surprise — Fadi was well aware that his days had been numbered since Omid.

“At long last, my mission is complete,” Ravan said as he gazed deep into Fadi’s dying eyes, even through his eye patch.

Then Ravan sliced off Fadi’s head with one clean swipe. He drove his enemy’s sword into the riverbed and mounted the head of his most prized kill atop the hilt before he quit the cave. He took his time as he made his way to the nearest tavern, which was located in the neighboring town of Woodland. There, Ravan found relief in the homey aroma of musky ale and body odor. He spent the remainder of the day pondering the events of the past five years over multiple steins of beer: The many men he had slaughtered like the animals at Omid’s slaughtering house because of the way they had slaughtered his growing family; how each kill had made him feel and how it made him feel then; how long it had taken and how he had fathomed every minute. While he did feel a massive sense of accomplishment, there was also a lingering feeling of emptiness which refused to quiet. Hopefully, a few more steins of beer would put it to rest.

~~~

As the Northern sun began to set and her husband still hadn’t come home, the former captain’s wife steadily grew anxious. Eventually, she thought it best to go out and search for him before it got too dark. So she made sure the children had something to play with before she donned a warm cloak and followed her husband’s usual hunting trail. She noticed some disturbance in the foliage off the trail, though she tried to keep in mind that this could simply be her anxiety playing tricks on her eyes. But then she spotted a dose of red flowing through the stream and she knew this was no hallucination.

Fadi’s wife followed this red cloud upstream and as it grew darker and thicker, the pressure in her chest grew heavier. She rejected her worst fears and told herself that this was only blood from the stag her husband had killed for their supper that night. But then she reached the cave where the blood ran thickest and she noticed something which stood deep inside among the dim blue light of the glow worms. Now trembling, Fadi’s wife slowly approached the object and her eyes fell onto a large mass which lay in the water just a few feet from where the silhouetted object stood. As she approached closer, the fallen figure cleared to a headless body and she recognized its familiarity with that of her husband’s attire. That was when she realized that the object which stood a few feet farther was her husband’s head posted on his own sword.

The widow exploded into sobs and she threw herself onto her husband’s beheaded body. She screamed in denial at the glow worms above her, and clawed at her husband’s blood-soaked tunic in hopeless agony. Once she was finally able to think clearly again, she realized who the assailant was, and she remembered how her husband had told her that the perpetrator frequented taverns. So she bolted out of the cave to rush into Woodland before the last of the sunlight left the sky.

During this time, Ravan remained in the local tavern drinking his eighth stein of beer when Fadi’s widow burst through the doors.

“Where’s Ravan the Great?” she hollered.

Ravan downed the last of his drink and stood from his seat. “At your service, madam.”

The widow stormed up to Ravan and he knew exactly what was coming. He let her slap him across the face and listened as she shouted her piece.

“You coward! You have no honor killing a husband and father!”

“That’s ironic coming from the wife of one who kills children and pregnant women,” Ravan replied calmly.

“How dare you accuse him of such atrocities!”

Ravan gazed at the widow. “You mean he never told you why I was after him and his unit?”

“Of course he did! You owed the baron money and when you refused to pay, he slaughtered all your horses!”

“Horses!” Ravan laughed. “Do I look like a man who could own numerous horses? I don’t believe this: All of Rivas and Mael know what happened, but the captain managed to keep you sheltered from it this entire time!”

“What are you talking about?” the widow spat. “What’s your version of the story?”

“Oh, Sweetheart…” Ravan considered telling her the whole sordid tale, but he didn’t think he could manage. He removed some crescents from his pouch and handed them to the widow. “Go back to Rivas and learn for yourself. It’s the talk of the town.”

Ravan took his seat at the bar and ordered another stein of beer. The widow clutched the crescents in her fist, insulted.

“No, I want to hear it from you! You owe me that much!”

“I just handed you twenty crescents, I owe you nothing.”

“You killed my husband!” the widow wailed. “I deserve to know why!”

“Fine!” Ravan roared as he jumped from his seat. He looked the widow dead in the eye as he obliged. “Yes, the baron wanted money. I had served my time under him fair and square, and when he refused to release me, I fled his servitude. I started a family and was minding my own business when your husband came to collect five hundred pieces. Now where is a brownsmith with a pregnant wife and beautiful, beautiful, five-year-old little girl supposed to get five hundred pieces?”

Ravan choked. He couldn’t look at the widow anymore. He swallowed his sobs and forced himself to continue. “When I couldn’t pay, your kind-hearted husband forced me and my wife to watch as they slit our daughter’s throat, and then I was forced to watch as they did the same to my pregnant wife. She would’ve delivered our second child the following month if your husband had been as gracious as you perceive him to be. But he was a savage, and he left me alive to bury them. I buried my daughter and unborn child!”

Tears streamed down Ravan’s face and somehow he managed to bring himself to make eye-contact with the widow again. “So I don’t care what kind of pain you think you’re feeling because it pales in comparison to mine. I won’t apologize because I’m not sorry and if provided the opportunity, I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Now unlike your husband, I spared his family and even paid for your journey home. So go find a proper spouse and leave me to mourn.”

Fadi’s widow stood wide-eyed in stunned silence, not having expected such a passionate response from the man she had long-regarded as a monster. But to be convinced that it was in fact her husband who was the monster was hard to swallow with the sorrow that she still felt over losing him. All she could do then was hang her head and leave the tavern, bursting into sobs on the way out.

The widow sauntered back toward her home in the Farstead Forest under the dim light of the bright blue moon. The closer she approached the forest, the thicker the mist grew around her until it enveloped her, smothering her. All the while, she reflected over Ravan’s powerful words. They rang true, but it was painful to imagine her loving husband doing something so malicious. Then still, Ravan was so genuine in his pain. Soon all she could think about was her children. She already had to muster the strength to tell her children that their father wasn’t coming home, but she couldn’t bear to tell them about the crimes he had committed. Though surely, if they returned to Arderé, the children would hear the word spreading as Ravan claimed it was, and there would be nothing that she could do to stop it.

The widow considered staying where they were in Preshire to keep her children sheltered from the talk of the town, but how could she raise them on her own in a foreign land about which she knew so little? Not to mention now that her husband had been killed by Ravan the Great and the news had already been announced in the tavern, word would quickly spread through Preshire as well. It seemed inevitable that it would reach her children. How would they be able to live with such knowledge? How would she be able to live with such knowledge?

This shame which her husband had brought upon her and their family, and the fact that they had been so ignorant of it for so long devoured her heart like a merciless predator. The widow continued to evaluate her hopeless situation and considered her options, as well as the many horrifying possibilities awaiting her in the future. After pleading with whatever higher power for it all to be a lie, she finally came to terms that it was all truth and she reached an unfortunate conclusion…

~~~

Meanwhile, Ravan returned to his slumped position over his stein of beer. He lifted his eye patch to release the tears which had pooled inside, and wiped his face. The eyes of the patrons who weren’t sure how to react to the spectacle they had just witnessed burned through him and it was all Ravan could do to ignore them. He placed a gold coin on the counter for his drink.

“That one’s on the house,” said the barkeep. “That was quite a display.”

“You think I was wrong?” Ravan asked without a real care.

“I couldn’t say for sure,” the barkeep replied as he proceeded to wash dishes. “It would appear more people are hurting now. Children are without a father. Your family is still buried. At the same time, being a father and husband myself, I can understand where you’re coming from. Tell me though, do you feel any better?”

Ravan stared at his drink and took a moment to consider the question and think about his family. He mostly pondered specific memories centering around his daughter, Braelynn. How excited she and Evietta were to move to Roshire and live in an onyx cottage in the middle of golden fields beside emerald forests. He recalled how he had taught his daughter to read with the Fairy Circle book, which he no longer had — also the fault of the captain.

“I don’t know,” he finally answered the barkeep. “If I manage to sleep tonight, I’ll have my answer.”

Ravan’s train of thought led him to the realization that he was on the continent Noelle, which had the Maja Forest where the Fairy Circle was said to reside: the creators of all World Wonders. There were only seven Wonders at this time, and Ravan tried to recall all of them. However, he couldn’t remember, so he pulled out his journal to review. Unfortunately, Ravan had only notated his favorites before he had married Evietta. Which of these could provide Ravan with the most power? He figured that if he wielded enough power, he could alter time and prevent the deaths of his family. He knew there must be at least one Wonder which could get him close, but his research failed to provide him the exact location of any, except one.

After reviewing his notes, Ravan concluded that he would require the Eye of Raida to find anything on Xyntriav that would give him power sufficient enough to alter time. However, while everyone knew where the Eye of Raida was located, Ravan would require the help of a fairy to obtain it. Unfortunately, the Maja Forest was protected by a fairy spell and he would need elf magic to penetrate it. Ravan pulled out a handful of crescents and flagged down the barkeep.

“Know of any elves in the area?” Ravan asked. “Preferably of pure blood.”

“You’re looking for elf magic, is that it?”

“That’s it.”

The barkeep pocketed the bribe and shook his head. “You won’t find that in Bonn. To my knowledge, what you’re looking for is north in the People’s Empire, at the base of one of the mountains along the Armagnac Mountain Range. I forget the name of the particular mountain though.”

“That should be good enough for now.” Ravan stood from his seat and threw on his cloak. “Now where can I find a horse?”

~~~

Weeks after Ravan had left for the People’s Empire, Quinn Forsythe arrived in Preshire and made his way to Captain Fadi’s cousin’s residence: a rickety little cottage beside Adaneli Lake. He was pleased to find the windows to the abode thick with steam as it was a sign that the wife was in the process of cooking supper, and Quinn was famished. Simply the thought of a home-cooked meal was enough to relax him from his weary travels. He tried not to knock too eagerly on the front door and was relieved when the captain’s family welcomed him into their home with open arms.

“Mr. Quinn Forsythe! My cousin has told me much about the man with two names. Please come in, let me take your cloak.”

Quinn removed his cloak to hand to the cousin and followed him to the cozy living room.

“You must be exhausted,” the cousin continued. “I hear it’s a mighty long journey from Arderé. Fortunately, you arrived just in time for supper.”

“I very much appreciate your hospitality,” said Quinn. “How is Captain Fadi? It’s been long since I last heard from him.”

Quinn noticed a pause in the cousin’s step before they proceeded to a couple chairs beside the small, empty hearth.

“There is much to catch you up on,” said the cousin. He addressed his wife. “Niva, bring us a couple toddies, please.”

Quinn took a seat on the bear-pelt arm chair. “I’m not sure I like the sound of this so far.”

“Indeed, the news isn’t good.” The cousin took a seat across from Quinn. “Fadi passed a few weeks ago.”

Quinn processed this news for a moment before he asked, “He passed, or he was killed?”

The cousin gravely nodded his head. “Yes, he was killed. Brutally beheaded actually, by a man who goes by — ”

“Ravan the Great,” Quinn finished for the cousin. He solemnly shook his head.

“I see you’ve heard of him. Lina confronted him in a tavern and he mocked her in front of the patrons before giving her money. The man is a rare breed of monster.”

Here, Niva entered with toddies for the two gentlemen. Quinn accepted his and waited for Niva to leave the room before he asked, “Where is Ravan now?”

“Rumor has it that he left for the Armagnac Mountain Range in search of elf magic,” the cousin explained.

Quinn squinted his eyes at the cousin’s words. “Elf magic?”

“Yes, who knows what he could want with it — or do with it if he finds it for that matter.”

“Where would he find it?”

The cousin sipped his toddy as he tried to recall. “At the base of the tallest mountain. Something along the lines of Mount Terry, or Mount Carrie. I can’t quite remember.”

Quinn nodded, deep in thought about Ravan’s possible motives now that he had supposedly obtained what he had originally been after. Then he asked, “How’s Lina and the young ones?”

The cousin hesitated and wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. “Not well.”

“Do they require any aid?” Quinn asked.

The cousin’s gaze fell to the floor and he shook his head. Quinn felt his stomach flip and he set his cup down before he lost his grip on it.

“What happened? Did Ravan do something more?”

“Not directly, no.” The cousin sucked in a deep breath before he continued. “Lina… took the young ones. And then she took herself. I found their bodies when I went to go check on the family after I got word on Fadi’s fate.”

“Heavens…” Quinn rubbed his face hard. “Oh, savage sprites what a tragedy. Where are they buried? I wish to pay my respects before I quit the empire.”

“There’s a cemetery near the coast,” the cousin answered. “I made sure the family was buried together.”

“You’re a good man.” Quinn sighed heavily and he thought about how he would bring justice to Fadi and his family. “You said Ravan left for the People’s Empire a few weeks ago?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you know who he got his information from?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” said the cousin.

“Very well. Would you mind if I spent the night here? I’ll be heading north at Southern sunrise after paying my respects to the family.”

“No, of course, we don’t mind at all. Do you intend to go after this man?”

“I am a bounty hunter, after all,” said Quinn as he sat back in his seat. “While Ravan may be my greatest challenge, he is also my greatest prize. Not to mention matters have become personal. I will find Ravan, and I will avenge the captain and his family.”