“Rookie!” Loki snapped. “What
did I say?!”
Sythius eyed the boy owlishly. “Said … do nothing. No matter
what … they say to me.”
“And what are you
doing?”
“Didn’t … say anything to me,” Sythius muttered, almost pouting. “Said … to you.”
Loki blinked. “You … that’s
your excuse? Let that man go! Now!”
Sythius looked back at the pitiful creature in his grip. The
man struggled vainly, clawing at Sythius’s mammoth arm, and the giant had a
look of something that looked like sick amusement before he tossed his prize away.
He turned back to Loki and looked expectant.
Loki sighed, shook his head, and gestured. “Come on.”
He filed a note away: this hunter from the north was very literal.
There was something Loki didn’t notice, though, until most
of the afternoon had passed them by. All the while—as the boy soldier
introduced Sythius to the various landmarks and accommodations of the city that
the old songs called the Homestead of the Stars—even through the seedier parts
of the Outer Ring where even the higher-ranked officers didn’t go without
keeping a hand glued to their weapons, there were no further incidents.
He wouldn’t think about the fact that the death of Master Akar’s
prized assassin would have spread like wildfire, until later. He wouldn’t think
about how impossibly Sythius had grabbed a fully-grown adult in one hand and
pitched him aside like a toy until later, either.
At the moment, all he could do was focus every bit of energy
into walking, because the last thing he wanted this hulking monstrosity to know
was that his natural walk was so much
more shunted and pathetic, and it wouldn’t do to show weakness to a new
recruit.
He had no way of knowing that Sythius Sil’nathin already
understood more about his physical condition than anyone in Moonguard, just
from watching. From listening.
From feeling.
* * *
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