Ash. The Legends of the Nameless World. Progression Gamelit Story by Kirill Klevanski (essential reading .txt) 📗

turned it upside down, earning himself a grateful nod from his companion who hadn’t noticed that he had been looking at the map the wrong way.

Swallows soared between the clouds, disappearing and reappearing between the fluffy balls of cotton that hovered above the endless plains of Arabist. Sometimes, they’d fly above the hills covered with flowers, occasionally perching on rocks sticking out from the green.

What the birds didn’t know was that these weren’t rocks and boulders, but parts of walls, towers, and temples that had burnt down during the war. They didn’t understand that what they were flying over wasn’t a meadow, but a graveyard.

Ash never liked swallows as they reminded him too much of Arabist, the country, that he didn’t want to return to. He had vowed to never step foot there again.

“Maaaaaryyyyy,” he whined. “I’m hungry.”

“Be patient,” she hissed. Ash was always hungry. You could give him enough food to feed a small village, and he’d be whining after an hour that he’s starving again. At such moments not even the pipe that he’d occasionally take out of his bag would be enough to fend off the hunger.

“Tuuuuuuul!” he whispered a bit too loudly. “Give me a pie, she won’t know.”

The archer glanced over at Mary whose left eye twitched in annoyance. Her face seemed to be saying “just touch it and see what happens.”

“Sorry, mate, you’ve already eaten all the pies.”

“He did what?!” Lari and Blackbeard shouted in unison and turned to look at Ash with a mix of anger and grief on their faces. They had been looking forward to eating mother Zelda’s famous meat pies!

“Guido,” Ash whispered nervously. “I think we should run...”

A strong gust of wind brought with it not only dust and sand but also a leaflet that stuck itself to Ash’s face. He tore off the piece of parchment and read it, and then howled with joy as if he had just won a game of thimbles.

“Mary! Mary!” he yelled.

Guido approached her horse in a heartbeat; it snorted warily but didn’t run away. The mounts had gotten sort of used to their fanged relative.

“Mary, Mary, look!” Ash waved the leaflet like a flag on the dome of the palace of a defeated enemy. “We’ve been invited to a wedding!”

“What?” she asked in surprise.

“Well, they didn’t invite us by name, but still! Listen!” Ash cleared his throat and started reading. “Old or young, beautiful or horrendous, lady or sir, we hereby invite you to the wedding of Baroness D’Lamena and Marquis of Soya! Feast and a good time guaranteed!”

“We don’t have time for that.”

Ash slapped his face with the flyer. “What do you mean we don’t have time for fun?! There’s always time for relaxation!”

“Mary,” Tul said, examining the supplies. “He’s right. We do need some rest. We’ll go to the wedding and be on our way. The Forest of Shadows is our last stop. There’s no civilization past that point.”

“He’s right,” Lari agreed.

Mary snorted. Ash was being a bad influence on the squad, filling their heads with food, jokes, and love for entertainment. Soon enough they’d be known as the Wandering Jesters and end up joining the circus, performing all sorts of tricks for a couple of copper coins.

“Ah, a wedding,” Alice said dreamily, closing her eyes.

“Blackbeard.” Mary turned to the, in her opinion, the most reasonable member of their group. “What do you think?”

“The boy has a point,” he replied after a couple of silent moments and put up the folded map away with the others. “The plan was to stop at Zadastra and get some food... But if we go to the wedding perhaps we’ll manage to get more. Moreover, it’s on our way.”

“Are you suggesting that we steal?” Mary asked, raising her brow. She had never broken a law in her entire life.

“No, no...” Blackbeard smiled slyly and began to comb his beard. “Food’s free, we’ll just borrow as much as we need...”

“That’s...” Mary whispered but fell silent, not knowing what to say.

“That’s brilliant!” Ash exclaimed instead and moved closer to Blackbeard to hug him. “I knew that in the depths of your beard hides a lover of fun!”

Mary looked skeptically at her squad and then waved her hand. If they wanted to miss the opportunity to get a reward from the king, that was their problem.

“To hell with you all,” she grumbled. “Don’t come back running to me later...”

“Yay! We’re going to a wedding!!” Ash cried merrily.

That evening

By the time Mystral started shining on the north side of the night sky, the Stumps had reached the marquis’s castle. It was located on the outskirts, almost five days of riding from the capital. Ash wondered why the castle was here of all places. Had the marquis been exiled by some chance or a poor man, he wouldn’t have owned such a luxury, to begin with.

The drawbridge was lined with even wood tiles, the gate was a wrought-iron lattice guarding a pair of heavy oak doors ten feet in size. When they passed between the doors, Ash noticed that they were glittering with gold details. An obvious show of marquis’s luxury.

The courtyard looked like a town square, with high walls and all sorts of outbuildings, ranging from guest houses and servant quarters, as well as outhouses. By a modest estimate, the courtyard could easily accommodate six hundred people.

To their surprise, there was no one else at the castle, save for the gargoyles and nymphs that observed them from the spires and parapets. Angels stared at them from stained glass windows, as if accusing the marquis from stealing them from their temples. The group admired the garden full of lush trees, shaped into various animals by skilled gardeners. A dragon and hare sat together, silently watching a griffin chase a roe.

“We seem to be