Six Warriors

Floating City - (Sam)

He woke up with pain and burning in his back. Opening his eyes and moaning, Sam had noticed that all of his companions were gone, with the exception of his cousin, Katrina.

"What happened?" He asked.

"How am I supposed to know?" Katrina scolded, confused and irritable.

"Where are the others?"

"I'm as confused as you are, okay? But something must have supposedly gone wrong on our crossing."

Sam got up and patted his clothes to get the dirt out.

"Does this happen all the time?" He asked going to offer his hand for the girl to stand up.

"No, you are one hell of an unlucky one." Katrina joked.

Sam looked around. It was a vast meadow, surrounded by very high mountains, but most surprising of all was that in the sky there, in addition to clouds floating around, there were also islands of land. The boy took a deep breath and then smelled a familiar wind smell, a smell he had already smelled before.

"I've been here before." He said, "This air smells just like it used to be, though it's a little warmer now than it was before. The floating islands indicate that it's really that place. But I don't remember the island being that big."

"Fearann Ard has many islands, Sam" Katrina said, "the main ones are almost the size of entire states, it's bizarre!"

"So do you know where we are?"

"Not exactly, on some of the islands, probably. And don't look at me like that, I know what Fearann Ard is, in the Order we don't just train for combat and adventure, okay? And another one that cities on floating islands draws a lot of attention, stay hard to forget." She smirked and stuck out her tongue.

"Alright, wait a minute here, I'll be right back." And then Sam concentrated strength in his legs and the next moment he jumped really high, taking another jump in midair and… well, that was amazing! He saw the mountain range with its snow-white tops, and fields and meadows spreading out vastly, he didn't jump that high, but it was enough to see a lot, including a mill that was nearby.

"Wow, was that just to show your skill, cousin?" asked Katrina pretending to be impressed, "Darius can do a lot of jumps in the air, it's like he's running on the winds."

"Is that so? Wow, guess what, I didn't ask. And another one, I saw a mill not far from here, could we go there and get some information, how about that?"

"Okay, okay, we can go there, just show me the way, okay?" And then they started walking, "By the way, Sam, looks like Third Class made a good impression on you and your friends, so the others ended up liking you guys or... getting used to the idea of having you guys around too."

"How nice, I'm flattered!" Sam replied feigning interest.

"Well yeah, they ended up saying a few things about you guys, like, a Third Class guy named Glabro said your friend who uses earth magic is an honorable warrior and Aretha said that the one who controls the light is a gentleman, though have the fault of being a philanderer. They talked about you, too, aren't you interested?” She gave him a smile and looked at him as if waiting for an answer.

"Uh... to tell you the truth, not much, they kept repeating that we weren't worthy this, that we weren't worthy that, damn it."

"Wow, you got really upset, huh? Try to understand the Guardians' side, they trained for a long time and you and your friends just came out of nowhere, understand?"

"Where do you want to go with this, huh? This whole story is over, it doesn't matter anymore."

"Yeah, right, ok, I ended up digressing a lot, the question is, one of you wasn't all that well received, you know?"

"You call the Guardians' treatment being well received?" Sam laughed mockingly, "okay Katrina, who's the unlucky one that no one really liked, even after the won the fight?"

"One of your friends practically killed one of the Guardians, the boy named Aita is still receiving intensive treatment even with healing magic."

"So what? Who did this?"

"Your friend who is the bearer of the Dark Kerd."

"Fenrir?!" For the first time Sam looked at the girl with interest, "wow, what did he do to make you so scared?"

"I don't know what kind of attacks he uses, but I believe he almost tore Aita in half, you know, it was like he was attacked by a... wild animal, something like that."

"Wow, you know what? I always knew that mask of constant calm hid some kind of… madboy under it."

"Actually I only told you all this because…I kind of thought he was cute." Katrina gave a shy smile.

"What?!" Sam looked surprised at his cousin, "well, you can forget about it ok?"

"What is it? Jealousy?" Katrina teased.

"Yeah. His, not you. They're my friends, okay? And you know what? Enough of this weird conversation, look, we're getting to the mill." Sam pointed to the facility.

When they arrived in front of the mill, they saw a peasant there who appeared to be a very small man, shorter even than Sam. They asked where they were, to which the short gentleman replied that this was the island of Ynys Gorm, belonging to the islands that formed the floating archipelago of Fearann Ard.

"What about you? Are you travelers? How did you end up in this distant region? Gorm City is to the east, that's where the magical portals of travel are."

"We came here by accident." Said Katrina, "We don't know how we're going to go our way."

"Well, don't be ashamed, no, well, I can give you a ride into city!" Said the little man with a smile on his face, "but on one condition."

"What condition?" Sam wanted to know.

"That you come eat at my house, of course!"

The little man said his name was Abo, he said he belonged to the 'fiore' race, who were similar to humans but smaller and hairy-footed, to Sam they were halflings. Abo wore simple peasant clothes and took them to his house, a simple country house, but which Sam found beautiful and welcoming.

In the house there was a woman, actually an elf, she was a little taller than Sam, she had blond hair tied back and she also wore simple clothes. Abo said that this was Boa Amnestria, his wife, and that they had three adopted children, Abe, who was now a blacksmith, Bel and Bela, who were rangers of the islands troops. Abo was very fond of listening and telling stories, and that's what they did as they savored some cakes and teas that were given to them. Abo told how Amnestria used to be an adventurer and asked if the two of them were adventurers, Abo also asked what their relationship was as if insinuating something, to which Sam soon cut him off saying they were just cousins. They stayed for an hour or so talking about various matters and then Abo said he could take them into town in his horse drawn-cart.

Going down the road without worrying too much, humming a song or smoking his pipe, or even both at the same time, Abo didn't seem to care about anything, he said in the greatest tranquility in the world.

"Well, you better know, Gorm City is having some problems so it's kind of dangerous these days."

"Just now you say?" Sam asked.

"It's not like you guys have any other choice, is it?" Abo replied calmly with a smile as he gulped down his pipe. Halfway through, all the tranquility coming from Abo, from his idyllic farm and from his conversations and cakes, was left behind, when Sam and Katrina saw in the sky beings mounted on flying creatures, fighting against men with big bat wings, Abo looked at it like it was just any Monday. Those were warriors mounted on griffins, fighting what appeared to be demons, one of the demons pierced one of the griffins that fell from the sky roaring in pain right in front of Abo's cart, whose horses were frightened, the warrior mounted on the griffin seemed unconscious too. After that, something stranger happened, Darius appeared, taking several leaps in the air as if he could climb the winds, he didn't fly, he walked on the wind and then he slashed one of the demons and knocked him down in the air, the others fled, the griffin guards descended from the skies on their mounts and surrounded the fallen man-demon and Darius surrounded him too.

"Darius?! What's going on?" Sam asked impressed.

"So there you are" Darius said, "a lot has happened..." Darius pointed at the man-demon "this guy...he and his cronies have captured the Polo!"