
The Black Pilgrimage
I
Marble Dreams
Remyan…Why do ya fight me so? Fightin’ ya nature, like a bird fightin’ da wind or a fish fightin’ da water. I be no enemy to ya. Blood is a fine wine, bazra, it age with each kill, and that makes yours a rare vintage. Beware, my precious Remyan, great peril awaits ya…for de marble road you travel leads toward palaver with de Black One. His thralls will try to end your lore, but will add to it. It has been foreseen, sala. Endure these marble dreams. Soon de nightmare will be here.
II
No reward can be spent in the grave.
He could tell that they wanted to kill him. Remmy had seen the look on their faces before. It was a visage dripping with angst, anticipation, and anxiety. He knew it well because he had worn it on more than a few occasions.
The three men sat at a table across the tavern from him, each one armed with blades from shoulder strap to belt. Remmy knew one of them by name, a particularly vile bastard known as Agmar the Blight, who had earned his name fighting the hill men of Ramone for coin and plunder, or at least that was his reputation.
And Remmy Southwind knew a thing or two about reputations, for he had one of his own. He knew that wherever the name followed, there would always be a steady stream of men looking to steal it’s glory for themselves, with or without the reward.
Markum’s wife, Dreama, walked in the side door of the tavern, carrying a wooden pale at her side. Her beauty hadn’t betrayed her at all in the eight years since her wedding night. He could tell immediately what attracted Markum saw to her.
A precocious young girl ran in behind her. One glance at her smirk and you could immediately see her father’s face.
“Dreama” he said in salutation.
Wordlessly, she kept walking, with little more than an icy glance.
Remmy didn’t take offense. He was a bygone memory in her husband’s past. A memory filled with blood and bile and war. Who wants to see those sitting at your table, drinking your ale, asking to see your husband?
Agmar still hadn’t taken his eyes off Remmy. One of his drinking buddies was a dwarf with black tattooed lines etching the contours of his face and shaved scalp. His short trimmed beard covered a pointy chin, and was half soaked in excess ale and gods knew what else. He sat there in a stupor, either scared or drunk or both, while the other, a stocky lad, hadn’t looked up from his ale since Remmy sat down.
And that made him smile. “Know my name, do you boy?” he whispered to himself.
He was right to be scared. They called him “Deathless.” It was a useful, all be it undeserved moniker, he had to admit, for Remmy was most definitely capable of dying. That being said, he didn’t think “Lucky Remmy” or “Remmy the Fortunate” sounded as good, so he never bothered to correct it.
A big hand clapped down on his right shoulder. Reflexively, he reached down for the dagger at his side, but when he looked up, a familiar voice greeted him for the first time in 8 years.
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