The hour was late, and the moon high as it cast its silvery glow over the barren landscape. The embers of Drak’s campfire had burned low, but they still cast their flickering glow over the vicinity, and it was from those dancing shadows that Maria stepped. She loomed ominously at the fridges of the dim light, her eyes glinting with an amber wolfish hue. Melding out of the darkness, her arrival was swift and silent, but no effort was made to conceal her presence. This man who pursued her wanted to be found, and so she had come to him, lured by the light of his campfire, and the acrid reek of tobacco.
“Took you long enough,” Drak said calmly. “Found a deer on the way here. I hope you do not mind venison stew.”
He stepped from some rocks with a pot and ladle and put it on the fire to warm. His hands still slightly bloodied from carving up the kill. He looked at her with his face still masked like always. His grey eyebrows and blue eyes the only visible thing on his face.
“Drak,” Maria replied. Her voice was almost a low growl, her words thick with her northern accent.
Maria cast the pot a glance, knowing well how rare such a meal was to come by south of the Koramyr river. Drak was spared a hard look as she assessed his presence before she finally approached. Wild locks of unkempt hair framed her steely gaze, and there was something almost feral to the way she moved, the way she looked at him. Clothed in the remnants of tattered hides and animal pelts, it was evident that she hadn't frequented civilization in a very long time; though she had always had a wild streak to her even in the days of old.
“The years catch up quickly, don't they,” she remarked.
“They had caught up with me twenty years ago. It just advances worse with time,” he said with a hushed tone. “How are you these days?”
Maria shook her head at his inquiry. “Twenty years and now you seek me out to ask how I have been?” she asked with a touch of reproach. “What brings you here, Drak.”
“The Ridge sent a cleaner for me and also gave me a note telling me that Gilnaes has fallen,” he said as his tone grew icy.
“Gilnaes was always soft,” Maria remarked dryly.
“Soft but skilled with a blade and mace. I do not see him falling easily. Something is amiss.”
Maria snorted. “If that's all you came to tell me, your time might have been better spent elsewhere.”
“I guess then that Bharash being dead means nothing to you either,” he said looking over to her. He ladled the stew into a handcrafted bowl and handed it to her.
A touch of a frown reached Maria's eyes at that revelation. “I'm sorry,” Maria offered. “He was a good man, and a fierce warrior.” Accepting the bowl, the hostility in her was slowly warming towards something more neutral and she took a seat. “I warned him,” she muttered to herself.
“Warned him of what. I do not know of any warnings,” he stated with a normal tone. For Drak to raise his voice to a normal persons tone was not normal at all. This was distress for him. His eyes locked on Maria and he sat looking at her with the ladle paused in the stew in mid action of pouring himself a bowl.
“That no good would come of things. Nothrak have been crawling their way down out of those mountains for years now,” she growled lowly. “Do you think I'm out here for my own health?” She spat then. “He said it was over, the war was done. Go home he said.” She snorted her disdain over her bowl of stew.
“What is a nothrak. I am unfamiliar with that term.”
“Shadow beasts.”
“I thought the shadow beasts were dealt with. Thats what Gilnaes said, Bharash too. The said that releasing the urn would take all of that out. I only agreed based on their recommendations,” he stated in a low but purposeful tone.
He then ladled the stew into his own bowl and for the first time lowered his mask in front of Maria. She could see his weathered face and skin as he lifted the bowl to his lips. In times past he would always leave to eat so he did not reveal his face even to those who were supposed to be his friends. The years had been rather unkind to his skin but his eyes pierced through nonetheless.
“Bharash knew,” Maria remarked bitterly. “He just didn't want to accept it. None of them did. The rumors? The attacks along the borderlands?” she asked. “Wild animals.” She snorted in disgust at the thought.
Drak sat there silently and sipped his stew. He knew that tactically at the time their decision was sound. The aftermath was unknown and untold to him. He sat contemplating the new issues. He set the bowl down and then put the mask back over the majority of his face.
‘“Then I will be leaving soon to correct this,” he said with a short icy quip.
“Leave where?” Maria asked with an abrupt arch of her brow. “Back there? You'll never make it. Even I don't venture that far south, and the years haven’t been near as hard on me. That place is crawling with worse than nothrak.”
“North. To Volos Prison in Tiria. I need to find him. I will probably go by ways of Lorandor and then a trip farther north. I’m old. I will take the scenic route.”
With this his shoulders rolled back with amusement and he sat back looking over to Maria. He took the ladle and stirred the pot of stew. He ladled up some more and offered it to Maria with a slight lean of the spoon towards her bowl.
“North? How north are you talking?” Maria asked suspiciously while waving away the offered stew. North was the complete opposite direction she would have expected him to be headed.
“I think I will travel first to the wild lands of Terra for a while. I think a trip to the eastern lands. I have never seen the east. Once I have located a few people and maybe some more supplies and knowledge I will go to Volos Prison for one last person,” he said while lost in his own thoughts.
“We need to take a trip first off however to a small village about two days from here. There is a certain old codger who loves lighting things on fire we will need to expedite our travel a bit,” Drak stated knowing this would probably not sit well with Maria.
“The Eastlands?” Maria asked with no effort to conceal the utter incredulity within her voice. “What in Skall's name could you possibly want to do in the Eastlands? The void has taken your mind, old man.” Maria snorted.
“Fine fine.. I have always wanted to see them with other people but I guess we can stick to the west. I know how you prefer your cover of trees and such. Best not to drag you through the desert. You would never forgive me.”
“You forget the last time we traveled together,” Maria remarked. Turning her head to one side, the ragged scar that ran down the length of her neck from ear to sternum was visible in the campfire light.
Drak thinks and pulls a katar from his sleeve. The mithrill filligre designs over the folding parts of the punch dagger were ornate and pulling the handle spread the blades and gave way to a ornate designed knife inside of it.
“They would not do for men in armor but I think it might give me a couple of seconds. My knee still remembers you every time it gets cold like this,” he stated pointing around at the sky motioning everywhere. “‘I think I will be fine. I am sure you may have learned a modicum of control in the many years since our last scuffle. If not I have brought curatives for both of us,” Drak stated plainly.
Maria snorted derisively, but offered no further answer.
“In the three to four years we traveled together you injured me once. You awoke in restraints the rest of the times. Except that one time when we just let you do your thing on an enemy encampment. That was amusing.”
“It was reckless,” she retorted with a grunt.
“It worked,” he said back matter of factly.
“I need to patrol the east ridge,” Maria remarked abruptly. “There's been a lot of activity out that way. Something has the nothrak riled up these past few weeks.” Discarding the empty bowl, she rose to her feet and departed as abruptly as she had arrived.
“Then gods help them. Because no one can contend with your spirit Maria,” Drak said grabbing a knife from a fold of his cloak and leaning back. He lowered his cowl slightly and let the fire dance in his eyes till he drifted to sleep.