Chapter 3: Blood Moon

It was the festival of the blood moon. A sacred holiday in honour of the great maple goddess, when the second of three moons that graced Gardyan’s nightly sky was seen in full state. This was only the case once a year and when it happened, unbridled instincts drove the children of the world maple. Their blood boiled under the oath their creator had once sworn. Her flesh would turn to wood, her fiery red hair to ruby maple leaves, so that she could forever watch over her children as Rayan’s most powerful creature. She gave up her divine body for it and vowed under the red moon that her descendants would be forever bound to their own land in bloodguilt. If, yes, if only they were to live forever.

Arayona was a proud goddess. Her creation, the Rayonaigh, were everything to her. Elven dragon warriors and their matriarchs, who were once born from the blood of the divines under the tops of giant maple trees. But as perfect as their form, as irrepressible was her thirst for blood. They desecrated, slaughtered and murdered every night. Animals, travellers, yes, even themselves. And this instinctive behaviour put their goddess to shame. It was only possible to restrain thanks to ancient rites and a strict hand of leadership. Female leadership.

Back then already, the daughters of Arayona kept their inclinations in check far better than her sons. Therefore, with her last breath, the goddess decreed that Rayan would be subject to matriarchy until the end of time. And matriarchs were to steer the fate of the empire from then on. With harsh discipline and draconian punishments for disobedience, they subjugated their brethren and formed them into the dreaded warrior caste of the Raji’Draq. A mighty warrior order that fought the bloodiest of all duels every year at Blood Moon in primeval frenzy: the Blade Dance of the Dragon’s Claw. Aaron usually abstained from this activity, instead meditating in the deepest vaults of the maple grove of Zakuray until the night was over. This year, however, everything turned out differently. It was to be the night in which his son saw the light of day.

Even the nights before, he hardly got any sleep. Dark thoughts tormented his mind. He chased her and she screamed for help. But no one would help her, no one would be able to save her from his rabies-like state of mind. His hands were claws, his arms trimmed with red-golden fur. He stalked her, cornered her in a rocky gorge of the ruby forest. His mouth foaming, he growled at her, the mother of his unborn child. And when she let out a last desperate scream, he attacked her with the intention of tearing her apart. Bathed in sweat, he was startled every time before he could complete his cruel work within his dream. He couldn’t have lived knowing something happened to Adra and it was his responsibility. The feeling guilt about what he potentially was capable of doing to her and the child almost drove him crazy. Which is why he decided to let off some steam in battle and stay as far away as possible from their country estate at the Eastern boarders of Rayan for the night. Adra wasn’t exactly delighted by him leaving her to head North to the capital of Rubinburgh while she was about to give birth to their son. But what he did was for her own and the boy’s protection.

Driven by unrest, he left his temporary accommodation in a fancy town hostel and in the deepest darkness of night, took the arduous journey to the foot of the Ray Mountains. The forest path between the town and the ascent to the arena was steep and poorly lit. It would have been easier to walk it drunk, but Aaron had every drop of alcohol removed from the house after being informed of Adra’s pregnancy. So, his innate night vision and iron will had to do the trick mastering the rocky path to the mountain pass. When he got there, most of the war dragons were already asleep on their rocky outcrops. Only one was still awake. Rasheku, his old companion, still insisted on his role as guardian dragon and greeted him as he climbed the stone spiral staircase. Noticing the familiar smell of the two-legged creature, the animal whispered throatily and lowered its head from its resting place between the foothills. His huge skull made the nightly shadows around Aaron even darker for a moment. The great dragon himself was surprised about his dragon rider arriving at such late hour. Usually, it was only the eager youngsters who came here to test their strength during the blood moon. But this time their Lord General would not only be present at the bloody spectacle, but probably also inflict a few injuries on one or two of them.

Calmly stroking the back of the majestic reptile’s snout, Aaron had to think for a moment about the last time they had actually taken a sightseeing flight over the plains. It had been quite a while. With all the bureaucracy that had plagued him like an annoying official duty since his promotion, he hardly found time for all the things he had done in his spare time as a simple hunter prince. And then, of course, there was her...

While staring into Rasheku’s large lizard pupils, he suddenly realized that his life would change even more drastically in the next few years. Therefore, he patted the dragon on the chin once again in friendly a manner before continuing his way upwards.

It was about six hundred steps to the plateau of the Draq’enar Arena. Located in a deep rock hollow, it laid surmounted by one of the oldest maples in Rayan. Araqon, the dragon’s blood tree, shone in the sanguine moonlight like a sea of red clouds. It towered over the battlefield, whose facades were hewn from solid marble. Around the circular masonry, ruby crystals broke through the rocks in their purest form. The arena had been built in the middle of a crystal vein. A memorial that commemorated the Second War of the Great Houses.

Brutal battles were once fought on this ground for the precious blood of the earth. And so, Rayan’s first matriarch, Aaron’s mother Araya, decided that the ruby mines shouldn’t belong to either faction. Instead, the area of the Draq’enar was to become the new headquarters of the Royal Guard, where the warriors of both sides were formed, trained and accommodated. This Araya’s self-will was to claim her life. But her will was law and would be upheld to this day. With one nightly exception, of course.

At the foot of Araqon’s mighty tree trunk, some onlookers had gathered, who roared euphorically down into the pit. Only the bravest of his young warriors stayed in the hollow, wrapped in the blood-red war tunics they usually wore only on ceremonial occasions. Parcival and Peroy, two of his lieutenants, greeted the general with a surprised expression on their faces when they saw him coming up the stone stairs.

“Aaron, my friend! What are you doing here at such late hour,” Peroy asked in amazement, before he took his sworn brother into a headlock with his strong arm.

“He must have gotten lost,” Parcival joked and pinned a drinking horn with blood mead into Aaron’s hand, knowing full well that he had been out of the public eye for days to deal with his animalis in his own way as always. This time in vain it seemed.

Together, the two officers shooed a few of the life-weary newcomers off the ground to clear the way to the senior servants’ seat for themselves and the Lord Commander. They knew he wasn’t here to watch if attending again after all these years.

The commander scanned the scene. The night camp of the Raji’Draq had grown amazingly since his youth. In the past, there were perhaps ten or twenty of them here to smash each other’s skulls. Meanwhile, there were probably at least a hundred life-weary warriors gathering regularly. And as then, it was the Blood Blades against the Blood Drinkers. The former were Raji’Draq swordsmen, the latter lethal berserks. An old feud that would never subside. Some things might always stay the same. But there was no trace of an orderly man-to-man duel these days. Like a pack of wild dogs, three or four of them attacked each other in the arena. They broke each other’s limbs, beat each other with treacherous weapons and tore the flesh from each other’s bodies with furious bites. They hardly held back their animalistic transformation. With claws and fangs, they attacked each other.

One could clearly see the disappointment at the decay of old customs with the few lieutenants who were still assembled as conciliators. Dangerous customs had developed. Without a massive bite wound, cut, occasionally even with severed limbs, rarely one of them went out here. They might have been immortal, but the pain remained. Often, the wounds also began to fester badly after a few days. And that would be it for the next few months when it came to training. An incapacitated warrior was a burden to most mistresses. And quite a few lost their patron among the city nobility as a result. Worse, the danger of permanently turning into a beast was ever-present. It became all the greater the more often the transformation was carried out. The mistresses of Rayan would not tolerate such a beast. Which is why in worst case, they ended up either in the dungeon or as a castrated fighting dog in the even more merciless city arenas. That would mean the end of a career as Raji’Draq. It was one of the few decorated professional careers granted to a man in the social hierarchy. Very few got a second chance to get promoted.

A game with fate. Like every year. It would not take long till Aaron’s first victim should be found. A hulking youngster from the new additions of the Blood Drinkers thought it was a fabulous idea to impress his new general in battle. Skilfully he had wrapped his tunic down to his waist and thus converted it into a war kilt. An old custom that he mastered much better than the right tone with his superiors. Proletarian and slightly tipsy, he stood up in front of his peers gathered in a circle around the campfire.

“Lord Sion! Do you remember how to do it,” he called provocatively over to Aaron. “I’ll be happy to teach you again!”

For a laugh from his colleagues, he risked his place in the army. An exceedingly stupid decision. Because although otherwise known as the buddy-like mentor who liked to fool around, the Lord General was not in the mood for jokes tonight.

“Oh yes, I desperately need that, boy.”

He pinned his drinking horn to Peroy’s chest, who accepted it quietly grinning to himself and just shaking his head.

“Shall I lend you one of my blades, general? Or have you thought of your own?”

The giant enjoyed the amusement he received from his peers. Aaron left it to him for the moment. After all, he wanted to take off in peace first.

“You’re lucky, my friend. I’ve got them all with me.”

His tunic was way too tight for him anyway. He had truly outgrown it over the years. Or rather, his shoulders had.

The young fool’s face turned to stone for a moment as he watched the Raji’Draq drop his armour on the table under the rank leaders’ pavilion. The strap held three of his best swords, two daggers, a sabre, and an espada. He had dragged the weapons up the mountain under his tunic and they did a great job of tensing his neck on the way. He briefly stretched it to both sides before rolling up the leather on the table in front of him. Fleetingly, he glanced at the battle runes he had tattooed on both his arms during his training, wondering if he would need them tonight. Probably not. Then he looked over at the cheeky idiot at the campfire.

“Well, what is it? Do you want to put down roots over there, or what?”

Under the tense gaze of his pack, the young warrior now suppressed the last insolence in his chest.

Whether it was because of the dragons who were about to land behind the arena and carried a few guardsmen of honour in the saddle, or because he, despite his size, looked a lot more slender than Aaron after the Raji’Draq had exposed his torso, the general didn’t really care.

“To the blood, commander.”

The reckless giant got a casual snort in reply. He would soon be able to taste the blood.

After he had professionally tied his long golden mane backwards into a knot, the Raji’Draq calmly made his choice of blade. Well, at least he intended to do so... A few of the first-year students had very clear demands.

“Rune Fox! Rune Fox!”

They definitely drank more than they could handle tonight and lounged around in the stands like the gentlemen of the arena. During their overzealous prayer, one of them almost fell off the parapet.

 “If you finally shut up then,” Aaron grumbled back.

Always the same. The legend of his Scimitar Rune Fox, with which he was said to have once peeled a powerful warlock’s depraved soul out of the bastard’s chest, was still in circulation. And it was Parcival’s fault. He knew it wasn’t true when he took a sip from his drinking horn in amusement and glared at Aaron. Who had simply slashed the witcher open and torn out his heart. But that didn’t concern the whelps much. They hooted and cheered when their warlord gave in to their less than formal request. This limited his second choice quite a bit.

Rune Fox was rather large for a saber. The general’s two-handed swords were thus already gone. What remained was a dagger or the rapier. And again, the puppies chattered in his way.

“Sanguinar! Take Sanguinar!”

He snorted, because he only liked to be put under pressure by one and wanted to stay away from her tonight. Grumpily, he reached for Sanguinar. The espada weighed light in his hand and was also very narrow and agile. Nevertheless, this boys’ choir in the background gradually got on his nerves.

“Shut up, I said!”

Moodily he spat on the ground while he fixed the cheeky whelps up there with a flaming look. Only when they fell silent with a cackle did he walk towards the arena with both blades in his hand. Closely followed by the juvenile challenger, who had definitely taken his mouth a little too full that night.

The tumultuous scenes in the arena quickly came to an end when Percival blew his war horn. The primitive slaughter troops dispersed only reluctantly and growling wolfishly. Their retreat revealed a bloody area in the middle of the pit, in which lay a completely exhausted and badly beaten newcomer. His upper arms, his back, oh what, his whole body was cut open by powerful paw blows and completely disfigured. His blood-covered head looked like a damaged pumpkin. One eye was mightily swollen, the other hung half out of his eye socket. Two arbitrators dragged what was left of the guy out of the ring.

The giant trudged behind Aaron into the battle circle. Eyeing him suspiciously, the challenger rammed his broadsword into the sandy ground behind the sideline while Parcival did what he did best. Demonstratively he stood next to the spot where the poor devil had crouched before and cleared a lost finger out of the way with his foot. Then he looked around, from the campfires up to the grandstand.

“So, you flat pipes! Now that we were able to look at the worst selection of bloody scrubs in duels like every year, may I present to you something with a little more talent for a change! Our Lord General himself is doing the honours again after almost ten years and has also brought a training dummy with him!”

The laughter was great. Only one didn’t find it funny. The young giant who had challenged Aaron felt humiliated. But instead of crying like a toddler, rage drove him. He tore his clunky broadsword out of the ground and let out a battle cry.

In the meantime, the honour guard had supplied its mobile dragon squadron. Emphatically they threw out the teenagers who had spread out in their regular seats in the stands. They always came around midnight, after the beginners had let off steam. At least one practice that hadn’t changed since Aaron’s youth. Looking up at them, he nodded. He still knew most of them as his teachers. They had just returned from their routine flight over Rayan’s outer borders, as they do every blood moon night. It was their job to make sure that none of the blood lusted ones got too close to the forest lines of the neighbouring queendom of Nemesava. The pact of the two sister matriarchies demanded it. Fortunately, most of them stayed away from the border area voluntarily. Nemesava’s night striders made sure of that. The entire edge of the forest was covered with their banishing runes, which imprisoned uninvited guests in agony. They would not release the imprisoned souls until they were either acquitted or dead. This made the work of the guard of honour much easier. Nevertheless, the flight was not a walk in the park. The air in altitude was cold, the weather was not always pleasant, and the flying reptiles at full moon were no less capricious than the guardsmen. Dragons and dragon riders alike had to struggle with their hubris under the lunar natural phenomenon. To put up a good fight and to celebrate the end of the day together with plenty of alcohol was therefore more than their right.

They raised their horns in greeting for Aaron. An honour, even for him. Aware of this, he took the exercises and ritual fighting ceremonies they had taught him all the more seriously. A formal salute in their direction, then he turned to the cheeky challenger.

“So then, you mountain of an idiot. Let’s see if you’re suitable for a blood drinker.”

The general tryingly swung Rune Fox around its own axis, as he first had to get a feel for the control of the sabre again. The broad, curved blade was made of the finest damask. The handle was wrapped in red linen fabric, which prevented calluses on the hands pretty well. Quite the opposite of Sanguinar. Its grip, made of dark cherry wood, rubbed more or less in the palms, depending on the intensity of the fight. He would have preferred a dagger. But what a man wouldn’t do for the fan community on the cheap seats.

The giant whelp lost little time. Gripping his broadsword tightly, he immediately began to strike with another battle cry. The first mistake of every beginner. His open attack came to nothing. It was little trouble for Aaron to adeptly dance around the blade of the sword that was rushing towards him. And while the sword-wielder was still struggling to keep his balance after his sprint attack, the commander was already countering.

Rune Fox did what it was notorious for. A quick, biting stroke at height of the giant’s hip gave him a first taste of the consequences for ponderous footwork in battle. The giant growled angrily but forbade himself any cry of pain. Hastily, he stumbled forward and slapped his arm in front of his loin to protect the open cut from excessive blood loss. The wound however did not stop him from another life-weary attack. On the contrary, he stormed towards Aaron again in a rage, as if he hadn’t learned anything.

Once again, the commander nimbly dodged his attack, this time giving him a kick in the buttocks on his stumbling path forward.

“Is that all? I would have expected a little more, boy,” he snarled, visibly disappointed by the lad’s performance so far.

If it wasn’t the war drums of the arena that sent the newcomer into an angry bloodlust, it certainly was this condescending manner. Maybe it was the mead or the wine, too. He had already enjoyed both abundantly the afternoon before. It was a miracle that he was still able to hold his sword in this condition, let alone fight a duel. Well, he didn’t do the latter very professionally, to be fair. The berserker in him was strong, but not very smart. Nevertheless, his superior attended his animal transformation with the necessary prudence, as it began shortly after the fight.

The anger about the fact that he was paraded by the commander only made the animal in the novice break out even faster. He visibly lacked instruction in dealing with this bestial side, which was characteristic of every Rayonaigh.

With wild eyes he tore his head around to Aaron, baring his fangs in blind rage. In this state, he was pretty beefy, you had to give him that. Unleashed on a Rayan suburb, he would no doubt have stirred him up. He would have done the Raji’Draq all honour, if only he had the necessary restraint to curb his urges and this adolescent desire to prove himself. But as it was, he would unsuccessfully take his anger out on a beast tamer who had already trimmed larger blocks.

He looked like a raging toddler who, screaming and thrashing, was working towards nothing more than exerting himself excessively. With each futile attack, his rage only grew, and his form took on more and more monstrous proportions. First, his eyebrows became bushier, then his beard and cheek hair, and finally, after the sixth or seventh failed attempt, all his upper body hair. The boy had completed the first stage of the Rayonaigh’s metamorphosis—the blood fox. Secretly, Aaron had hoped that he would finally have to deal with a Dragonborn once more, but very few had mastered the full potential of Arayona’s legacy so far. The transformation required unimagined forces, exponentially increasing in amount the higher the animal forms of shapeshifting became. And the lad already appeared relatively overwhelmed by it. Nevertheless, Aaron would show no leniency.

The beast started to jump. With the sword still in his claws, the young blood fox heaved it down on his opponent from a great height. With a deafening scream, he smashed the blade into the bottom of the arena, splitting several cobblestones in two. His jump stab was followed by a no less powerful side blow, hoping to mercilessly clear the Lord Commander out of the way with his sweeper. But the Raji’Draq jumped backwards instead of sidewards, which gave him the opportunity to make the shoulder of the monstrous puppy acquainted with a well-aimed blow of Sanguinar’s blade. An agonizing howl resounded through the arena, accompanied by a cheering murmur from the crowd. But then it became quiet. That blow found substance. The wounds may have healed faster in the course of the shapeshift, but painful they were, nonetheless.

The leader of the Blood Drinkers knew no mercy. His lesson was hard for the half-strong to bear, as he tried again and again to inflict a notch on the battle-hardened Raji’Draq in a brutal way and was rewarded with another deep cut into his flesh each time.

“Come to your senses, boy.” The commander’s eyes glowed boiling red under the blood moon as he watched the fool, who was making himself the laughingstock of the arena. He was just about to get ready for the whelp’s next act of desperation when a voice all too familiar to him cut through the silent rows of spectators.

“Don’t you think you’re getting a little too old for such banter, dear brer?”

Aaron froze for a moment. Then his gaze wandered swiftly from the blood fox over to the crowd of spectators. They still continued to stare at him, or rather, behind him, where a well-known local legend was casually leaning against one of the stone arches that surrounded the arena grounds of the Draq’enar. Another figure one wouldn’t have expected here tonight.

“A... rajon?” The general meant to scan the surrounding for the troublemaker with his eyes. An extremely ill-considered reaction, because the puppy he had just reprimanded with bloody blows was far from done. Seeing his chance in the distraction, he rushed towards the Raji’Draq again and could have seriously hurt him if he didn’t have the savvy reflexes that have saved his ass so many times before. Nevertheless, he caught a slight stroke of luck from the furry colossus’ broadsword this time round, deep enough to slit Aaron’s cheek flesh lengthwise. Cheeky enough for him to finally lose his temper.

The Raji’Draq dropped his weapons and touched his cheek in perplexity as it began to pulsate and fill his mouth with the taste of molten iron. When he pulled his hand from the gaping wound again, he literally saw only red. The bloody palm in front of his eyes seemed to deform. At first it was only a tremor, then an increasingly insistent quake, until finally sharp claws burst out of his fingertips.

Aaron still tried to stop the transformation. But the death-addicted whelp wanted otherwise. Believing himself confident of victory, he intended to add a second goal to the first one. When he approached the Raji’Draq with his arm extended far in order to strike, however, he already felt the paw of another fox beast around his throat. It didn’t just grab but dug its claws deep into the wannabe butcher’s neck. Then there was a strong jerk, and the blood fox was hurled in a high arc to the other end of the battlefield.

In the standing areas of the Draq’enar, the youngsters raged violently. Now the lad would experience a real fight among blood foxes. On the touchline, Parcival and Peroy became restless. Not because they feared for the well-being of their fighting brother, but for his self-control. The fear was justified. Aaron had not activated a single battle rune before the fight began. There was nothing to keep the beast within him in check now. A flaming aura took possession of their friend as he darted after his victim’s trajectory like a cannon projectile. His ruby-red irises saw only prey in front of them. And before his victim could kiss the ground, he had smashed in the guy’s jaw with full force.

The novice no longer knew what was happening to him. Rudely he collided with the cobblestones, where a second punch was received from above. He spat blood, and not too little – even more of it when he tried to roll away to the side in panic. Meanwhile, a threatening shadow towered over him.

“Well, look at this. You drink blood quite well already.” Aaron’s voice no longer sounded as rational as before. There was a peculiar touch of madness in it, interrupted only by an impatient growl as he spoke.

“Damn shit.” Parcival flung his drinking horn on the ground. He intended to enter the ring and stop the fight but Peroy’s hand grabbed him by the upper arm and held him back.

“Are you tired of life?!”

Their leader hadn’t even fully completed the transformation, and his bloodlust already could hardly be stopped. The last time it got this far, it took three men to free a bruised buck from his throat bite. Out of frustration, the bastard had insulted Aaron’s wife Adra as a dirty whore while drunk due to her having turned him down. After that, the bachelor party came to an abrupt end.

Reproachful and help-seeking at the same time, Parcival and Peroy glanced at the man who had helped prevent his cousin from committing an honour killing back then. How could Arajon interfere in a blood fight like that and derail it when he knew what his cousin was capable of in a fit of rage? And now he stood there, cool as a frostbite, letting the situation run free.

Arajon rolled his eyes. He knew pretty well how it would end – with or without his involvement. Probably would’ve taken a couple more slaughtered lambs in the ring, but Aaron would’ve gotten there one way or another. After the last incident, he had actually hoped his cousin had become a tad wiser. Alcohol, longing and the blood moon were not a good combination to enter the battleground. He was lucky Arajon was in town at all. In professional stealth, the commander of the Blood Blades had followed his cousin inconspicuously through the nightly shadows up to the Draq’enar. He had left his two claymores at home. But his tranquilizer darts and blowgun were reliably in his jacket pocket, as always. He finally pulled out both thanks to the penetrating looks of his old schoolmates.

Not a second too late, because otherwise Aaron would be still set about disembowelling the poor guy on the ground in front of him. Tensing his paw to slash the novice’s stomach open, he was about to swing. But before he could complete his assassination, he felt a stabbing projectile in his neck. Startled and angry, he looked around for the shooter. The culprit after all gave up his lookout behind the rows of spectators and strolled down the stone steps to the fighting ring, unimpressed. The last thing Aaron saw was a crowd forming a corridor for the dreaded blade master. Then his vision blurred, and he collapsed next to the half-dead beaten initiator.

“Really always have to save your ass, don’t I,” Arajon muttered to himself as he came to a stop next to Aaron. For a moment he looked at his cousin. The two fair haired guys still looked confusingly alike after all this time, with the difference that Arajon usually approached things with much more composure and his mane looked much neater. The upper part of his hair smoothly groomed and tied into the man bun of a swords master, and the battle coat paired as it should be with the adequate uniform shirt of the Raji’Draq, his figure resembled an old hermit throwing around stern wisdom on some mountaintop. But right now, his glistening appearance was visibly dimmed by the gasping sound of a creature almost choking on its own blood.

“That’s enough now, you rascal,” he spoke tonelessly down to his cousin’s tormented aspirant, who, suffering from complete exhaustion, was gradually losing his bestial appearance. “Let the healers patch you up and pray that you’ll be ready to work again in a few days.”

That was Parcival’s cue. Sighing in relief, he scurried like a snow flurry with waving arms to Arajon and the two mock corpses in the ring.

“Good guys, you had your fun,” he announced loudly. “Now it’s time for the tap! Go beat each other up in the forest or something.”

His jokes were not so well received by the viewers. They were anything but enthusiastic about the interruption.

“Ayyy, what’s that supposed to mean!”

“Boo!”

“RIGGING!”

“We’re not at ye annual family meeting!”

The audience found clear words for the premature termination of the fight.

“Great job you’ve done there,” Parcival hissed sullenly at Arajon, who in turn, visibly unnerved, had to take a deep breath before personally addressing the audience.

“Right, listen up, aye?! This is still MY arena! If you have a problem, come down and I’ll fix your hair with an axe!”

There they were again, the unmistakable blood relations between two  Raji’Draq, whose roar could always be heard loudest whenever they were present somewhere. But the crowd was no longer intimidated by this.

“Shit, man!”

“It’s blood moon!”

“Why do you always have to fuck things up!”

They behaved like toddlers.

“Yeah, yeah, shame on me. Now cut the crap, girls!” Provocative as always, Arajon stirred up the crowd. In the meantime, the violated giant seriously had enough and quietly crawled away from the scene in the background.

“Who would’ve guessed you’re all so obsessed with mediocre fights!”

Like his cousin, the commander of the Blood Blades rarely was at loss for words, but much more pleased to upset his audience.

“Then be of use, man!” roared a guardsman of honour from the stands, who was far too well supplied with schnapps. The rest of the pack agreed with him via loud roars. Even Peroy and Parcival took part in the theatrical uprising with a smile. Arajon sighed.

“Fine! The next round in the Golden Pheasant is on me!”

After these words, applause was his. Free mead was always welcome. Men who did not hold an office in the guard of honour or that of a high-ranking officer were usually short of money in Rubinburgh. This undoubtedly applied to the majority of those gathered.

While the cheering crowd made its way to the exit like a lively avalanche, Arajon picked up his blood brother’s weapons from the ground – excellently accompanied, of course, by marginal comments from the two arena guards.

“You’re lucky even the most bloodthirsty spectators can be fobbed off with alcohol,” Parcival cackled.

“And you’re lucky our mothers are good friends!” Arajon’s bickering sounded unmistakably pissed off. “What did I hire you two for if you regularly turn the Draq’enar into a slaughterhouse?”

Parcival swallowed hard.

“Oh, come on, Arajon,” Peroy chirped. “Don’t act as if you haven’t already dismantled some big jerks here yourself.”

The commander knew that his lieutenant was speaking the truth for once and therefore he remained silent. The respect that the soldiers paid him was no coincidence. It was hard-fought for. In forest fights, tournament duels, tavern disputes and all the other confrontations men have in a trial of strength. But precisely because he had a certain reputation and now felt obliged to act as a role model, he wanted to set a good example for the newcomers. 

“Now help me to bring this berserk here to the palace.”

Together they shouldered the sedated blood fox alpha, who had taken on a more mannered and, above all, easier to transport shape again thanks to its stunned state. On the way from the Draq’enar down to the city, the troubled commander was doomed to listen to all his and Aaron’s pranks in detail, which Parcival and Peroy had meticulously documented since all four of them had begun their apprenticeship in the halls of the Raji’Draq. The stories visibly cheered up Arajon’s mind. This despite the fact that more than just one worry was going through his head these days. There were reasons why he had been looking for Aaron the night before. But in this state, it was hardly possible to talk to him. And so, the urgent matters had to wait until the Lord of the Dragon Peaks had slept off his bloodlust.