Davius Emerus

Genesis

This is an account of my childhood, as it may help to explain my outlook on life and things in general.

My father is a Thyatian trader operating throughout most of Karamikos and Darakin. Davius Emarus Snr. is a heavily built man, which is where I inherited my build, although he has developed a bit of a belly lately. My mother, Geraldine, is a waif-like Traladar who was given to my father as a wife as payment for goods, although my father would have me believe that they married out of love. She is unhappy with my father, but has no real choice.

My father is a violent man, beating both myself and Geraldine often for any mistakes. One time, when I was nine, I actually lashed back at him, he seemed to go mad, attacking me full-out. When he eventually stopped, he had broken some of my ribs, my arm, and my nose. He then forced me to carry on loading his wagon before taking me to a healer some hours later.

I regularly heard him beating my mother while I lay in bed, unable to sleep for the sounds of fist against flesh and her whimpers of pain. I have always hated my father for this, and I will eventually make him pay. Hopefully, his recent stint as a slave may have changed his view, but I doubt it!

There was another time when I had talked back to him, and as punishment he put me into a special "cupboard". This wasn't an unusual event, but what made it memorable this time was that he had managed to lure a spider into laying a nest in there.

He left me in there while the eggs hatched, and spiders started ... started swarming all over me, getting in my ears, my eyes, my ... nose, everywhere. I felt like I was drowning in spiders, slowly being choked and bitten to death. I had passed out by the time my father had removed me from the "cupboard" and brushed off most of the spiders.

The only good times were with my mother. I felt so sorry for her, being married to him. I often suggested the subject of running away, but she was too scared of his anger if he ever caught up with us.

She was the only one who loved me, and that ... man treated her like she was less than the earth beneath his feet.

He tried to teach me the art of trading, wanting me to carry on the family line of traders, but even though I understood it, I pretended to be no good at it, as it was my only real form of rebellion against him. Since I showed no aptitude for trading, or so he thought, he started taking me to sword-fighting lessons, determined to make me a "great and mighty warrior who would carry on the family name".

I didn't have much choice about failing in this, as we were taught with real weapons, and you had to put a lot of effort into it, or else you were hit with the sword! I once saw one child, no more than ten years old, decapitated when he failed to parry, and this made me into the warrior I am. I have seen it all, and I have done it all. Death is not a good thing to be involved in...

Exodus

My original combat training is something that I am not proud of, but I feel that it must be included in this book.

I began my training upon joining the Order of the Griffin. I was assigned as a squire to Bortius Tarrinus, a fellow Thyatian. He was a nasty piece of work, always demanding his armour shining and his weapons gleaming after being splashed with blood, which was hard work considering what our Order went around doing.

The years were hard, but I eventually became an accepted Knight of the Order of the Griffin, and it was then that I found out where all the blood had come from!

The first introduction I had to our tasks was the "so-called" cleansing of a village that was apparently sympathetic with "the enemy". The basic events were that we entered the village just before sun-up and started slaughtering the population. They had given me some form of drug before we started, and that gave me an extreme blood-lust which allowed me to perform the various atrocities that were expected of me. Most of the events have become a blur over the ages and the drug-use, but there is one thing that I can never forget.

She was young, looking only about 17. She was scared, but strangely quiet, like a rabbit in a hunters torch-light. She didn't resist when I threw her to the ground and mounted her. All she did was stare at me while I raped her, her emerald green eyes staring into mine.

She didn't scream once, even when I thrust my sword through her chest after I had finished with her. She now haunts my dreams, just staring at me, her blood all over her body, and splashed onto her face, marring her silky-soft, blonde hair. I never did find out her name.

After nine years of this barbarianism, something happened to me. I'm not quite sure what happened, but for some reason I suddenly realised that this was wrong. It wasn't a slow event, it just happened in the space of a second. Suddenly, I was awake, and aware of what I was doing, and I knew that I had to stop the destruction of these villages.

I threw away my flaming torch, and came up with a plan. Noticing some explosives in the Blacksmiths, I hid them inside a bag that I filled with gold, and lit the long fuse. I then turned over the bag to my Inquisitor as a prize, and as payment for his assigning me for learning the ways of a Paladin of Vanya. As I returned back to "resume my work", I heard the explosives go off. I immediately turned around to make sure that they had done the job, and saw him writhing on the floor near to where the explosion happened. It seemed that he had passed the bag to his personal guards as loot, and was further away from the explosion than they were. I moved up to finish the task, but I saw that the others were coming over to find out what had happened, so I left quickly, disappearing into the fog that had just started appearing.

Redemption

I suppose that this section ought to be about my salvation and conversion to the worship of Lynx.

After running from my old Order for several long hours, through dense forests, I eventually passed out.

When I awoke, I was in a tent, undressed, and my wounds bound. I had a splitting headache and a bandage around a rather large bruise on my forehead (I found out later that I had run into a low tree branch).

I put my trousers on and took a look outside. Sat by the small camp fire were two women, holding each other closely. The shorter of the two noticed me and got to her feet. I noticed she had elven features as she walked over to me and introduced herself as "Ellianne Liameirrha, Priestess of Lynx". The other woman, a human, said nothing but gestured at Ellianne. Ellianne then introduced her as Anna Nightstone, and explained that her vocal cords had been cut, and now she couldn't speak.

Ellianne told me that I had potential as a Paladin of Lynx, and that she was here to aid in my understanding of the religion and my initiation into Paladinhood. I was sceptical at first, but after listening to her talk about Lynx for several days, and then reading some entries in various theological texts, I began to see that I could follow this religion. I began my training in earnest, learning as much as I could about the religion, and about becoming a Paladin of Lynx.

Over the next few weeks, I also noticed that the women were all but inseparable, even sleeping together. I had heard about women that preferred other women, mainly in rather adult stories that my father collected, but this was the first time that I had actually come into contact with women who were open about their love for each other. They were nothing like the women in the stories, they didn't hold orgies with all the women who were nearby, or invite men to join them so that they could "experiment". They were like any other loving couple I had seen anywhere.

The last time that I saw them, before leaving to start my new tasks as a Paladin of Lynx, was at the waterfall. They were swimming around while I was collecting my gear together and preparing to leave. They didn't seem to mind that I could see them naked while they swam, they just seemed to be celebrating that Lynx had rewarded Ellianne for the work she had done with me (at least that's what I managed to figure out from fragments of Ellianne's voice that reached me at the bank).

As I started off, I noticed that they had moved behind the waterfall, so that I could no longer see them. I suppose that modesty has some limits, even with elves.

I hope that they are still alive and together, and maybe I will stumble across them again, after I return from this long journey on the Princess Ark. I hope so...