Chapter 1
The morning sun was already high in the sky before the
northernmost buildings of the city were lost to view.
Karel Durick had, out of a force of habit, kept a close
watch on his back trail, watching for any kind of pursuit. As economically
strapped as the city was it would take no stretch of the imagination to think
there would be some individuals who might consider him an easy mark. Of course,
they would find out differently but Karel had not survived as long as he had by
being careless.
When the ship had entered the harbor, he had stood as far
forward as possible. Leaning against the rail, straining for the first glimpse
of the city he had not seen for over fifteen years. He had not expected to find
a city whose lifeblood had all but dried. The closed shops, vacant streets, the
quiet desperation in once proud faces did not match the memories of a young,
gullible country boy. Of course on that day he had seen little of the city as
the recruiters had hurried him, and the other poor bastards they had cajoled
into joining up, through the city straight to the docks. Still, for a boy who
had traveled no more than a few leagues from his village before that day it had
been his first view of the real city. Knowing what he did now, he realized
that, even back then, the city had been in steady decline for several years.
On the mainland, he had seen cities great and small. Cities
full of life and cities full of death. Such was the life of a mercenary among
the ruins of the Twelve Great Kingdoms that had ruled Sargael. At first, he had
been horrified by the carnage they had both inflicted and attempted to stop
others from inflicting. On the mainland, at least in the realms of men, there
was carnage enough. Of the Twelve Kingdoms that once divided the land only two
had survived the massacre of their royal families with some semblance of
solidarity. The rest had splintered into various forms of cruel, warring
princedoms: Each squabbling with the other, trying to keep what they held or
expand their holdings by force of arms.
Horrified he may have been yet over the years he had learned
his trade well. In the beginning, he had sworn that the instant his initial
term of recruitment ended he would book passage back to the Great Isle and
leave the misery and terror of the mainland behind forever. By the time that
two-year term ended, however, he had become hardened to the horrors of war;
accepting them as merely another facet of life. Six times he reenlisted, rising
through the ranks and watching friends and comrades come and go: some
attempting to return to some semblance of a normal life while others lay
screaming or lying quietly as their lifeblood drained away on the battlefields.
Fifteen years spent fighting other people's wars. Many times not knowing and
not wanting to know the why of it.
He knew, as did his superiors, that he would have continued
his rise. Perhaps one day running the company or starting one of his own. He
made a name for himself on the mainland, a name he was satisfied to leave
behind him. Wolfblade they had called him, the nickname obviously derived from
the name of the mercenary company of which he was a part: the Black Wolves. Few
were the men or women that would willingly face him alone in combat, his twin
blades slashing out as if they themselves hungered for the blood of his
opponents.
Yet enough was enough and the Wolfblade had seen one too
many meaningless slaughters for the greed of petty men and women who cared
nothing for the people they supposedly protected or the men and women who
fought, bled, and died in their endless squabbles. Yes, enough was enough. He
had completed his final term and then, to the disgust of his superiors, he had
simply resigned. The night before his final enlistment tour had ended he had
painstakingly removed the patches and emblems of the company and, come morning,
he had laid them on his commander’s desk, turned, and walked out.
The next three weeks had been spent traveling through the
war-torn mainland to the port of Trevier to book passage back to the Great
Isle. Of course, it had not been an entirely uneventful journey. Rumor flies
fast and the word had gone out that the Wolfblade was now a free agent.
Recruiters eager to claim him for their company had badgered him along his way
as had some few eager and foolish young warriors determined to make names for
themselves. The former he had refused out of hand, no matter what promises or
threats they offered. The latter he attempted to dissuade by any possible
means, fighting only as a last resort. In only one case did such a fight end in
a death. As for the other encounters, in each case, he had been able to disarm
his opponents or render them unconscious without seriously injuring them.
Twice he was accosted by brigands after which the word had
gone before him, steer clear for here was no easy mark.
Upon reaching the port city he had sold his horse and booked
passage on the first available ship. Ironically, the only ship available had happened
to be a recruiter vessel for his old company. Only once did the recruiters
attempt to persuade him to reenlist. After that, he was left alone. During the
three-day long voyage, he kept to himself, seeking the company of neither the
ship’s crew nor the recruiting team. He knew that it was with bitterness that
they watched him walk away on the docks.
The road that ran north of the city quickly became little
more than a path and the wild vegetation along the edges was slowly growing
back to reclaim the seldom-used lane. He distinctly recalled the deep wagon
ruts that had been, all those years ago, disappearing as seasonal rain after
seasonal rain worked to smooth what years of steady traffic had accomplished.
The ruts were completely gone now leaving nothing but two bare lines bracketed
by man height foliage to either side and a wide strip of knee-high weeds in the
middle. It would not be too many more years before the road vanished completely.
He didn't attempt to push the horse along but rather allowed
it to amble along at its own pace. Back on the mainland, he would never have
chosen such a horse. It was an elderly beast with a swayed back and broken
spirit. A far cry from the horse he had sold in the port of Trevier yet the
best to be had among the meager pickings in Svowmahni. She was a battered old
horse and the gear he had purchased with her was just as bad. Not that he
minded that much. If nothing else she would fit the plow easily enough for a couple
of years before being put to pasture.
He grinned and shook his head at the thought of plowing a
field. It would certainly be a change of pace. But then he wasn't quite sure of
the reception he would receive when he returned to his family's village.
Surprisingly enough, neither his father nor his mother had gainsaid his
decision to join with the mercenary company. They had only asked him to think
it through carefully. The reactions of his brothers and sisters had varied.
Some excited and envious, others quarrelsome or resentful. It had been the same
with the other families in the village. None encouraging him and most actively
trying to dissuade him while showing nothing but scorn and thinly veiled anger
and just a bit fear towards the recruiters.
Three other youths from the village, two boys and one girl,
had joined with him that day. All three had perished in their first battle. He
had written to their families but had no way of knowing whether those letters
had been delivered. Mail, on the mainland, was a chancy thing. In the old days,
before the splintering of the Kingdoms, mail services had been established that
allowed any and all to send letters across the mainland and even to the Great
Isle. Several of the Kingdoms had even made scribes available, at a cost.
Those scribes could write the letters dictated to them by the illiterate and
then read them back to the equally illiterate recipients of the letters.
That was all gone now. Now the delivery of letters depended
on couriers. In all the time he had been on the Mainland, Karel had received
few letters from his family: Those coming mainly from his mother and his
favorite sister, Shira. Yet there had been no letters for slightly over three
years. At first that had not concerned him. Often times the letters he did
receive referenced letters that had never arrived. Yet, even so, three years
was a long time with no word of the family and he had to admit he was feeling a
bit apprehensive.
At the pace he was going, the trip from Svowmahni to his
family's village would take close to three days. He could have shaved a day off
that time if paths or roads had been cut in a more direct line between the two.
To do so, however, would have meant traveling closer to the Circle of Stones.
Though the Great Isle only boasted one such Circle of
Stones, there were several scattered across the Mainland. He had yet to come
across anyone who knew anything factual about these Circles. There were
legends, myths, and outright flights of fancy, but no one seemed to have a real
clue as to when the Circles had been erected, who had erected them, or why they
had been erected in the first place. Perhaps the Sisterhood of Dyera had that
knowledge secreted away in one of their many strongholds. If so, they were not
sharing that knowledge. One thing he had found to be true, whether here on the
Great Isle or on the Mainland; people tended to avoid the Circles of Stones
whenever possible. No one, it seemed, would willingly travel close to, much
less actually enter, the Circles.
Of course, he had never entered such a Circle himself,
having only seen them from a distance. Even the great mercenary companies were
not immune to fear of the unknown.
Karel traveled through the day, pausing only briefly to
stretch his legs and relieve his bladder. He ate his lunch in the saddle, a
practice he had gotten used to over the past several years. Mercenary companies
on the move rarely stopped for lunch and recruits learned early on to pack
enough dried rations to last the march.
He made camp as evening drew near yet well before full
darkness fell. He edged the old nag well off the path in a small thicket of
woods to the right. He quickly considered and then dismissed the notion of
building a small fire. While hot food would have been welcome the heat from the
fire was unnecessary at this time of year. Still in the process of changing
from summer to fall, the nights were still warm and a fire, no matter how
small, would only serve to attract potentially unwelcome visitors to his camp.
While he had no fear, the practices of the past fifteen years were hard to
shake.
He removed the bridle and saddle from the horse and rubbed
the nag down with some dry scrub brush and then carefully replaced the bridle
and saddle before tethering her to a tree. She deserved to stand the night free
of the gear yet again his experiences had taught Karel that it was wise to be
ready to move as soon as one awoke. The time it took to ready a horse for
riding could mean the difference between life and death. He removed his belt,
making sure it and the sheathed swords it held were close to hand as he lay out
on his bedroll and closed his eyes.
On the third day, he was tense: His eyes roaming the path
ahead and to either side, one hand on the reins, the other hovering above the
hilt of one of the swords. He had encountered no one on his journey for the
past two days. Such was not unheard of in such out-of-the-way places and even
on the Mainland, there were stretches where a man could ride and not see
another soul for days at a time. This was not the Mainland, however, and by
now he should have caught sight of some signs of life. If memory served, he
should have passed two or three outlying homesteads. They would have been well
off the path but smoke from their cook fires should still have been visible
through the dense foliage. His unease had actually started the previous day and
heightened during the night when the absolute silence of the area dawned on
him. There were no sounds of birds during the day and the normal sounds of
night creatures, large and small, were absent as well. It was as if the entire
area was devoid of all but plant life. He had not even noticed a single insect
and, at this time of year, mosquitoes should be swarming.
The tension got to him long before he reached his
destination and so it was that he entered the village of his parents with bare
steel in his hand.
He paused as the first of the ruins came into view. Whether
she was picking up on his tension or she sensed something else within the
ruins, the nag was skittish, refusing to go beyond the crumbled remains of the
first building.
Karel sat for a moment on the motionless horse, surveying
the devastation. Weeds were springing up in the roadway and many of the visible
buildings, or what was left of them, sported wild vines that in some cases
threatened to hide the rubble from view. Whatever had happened here had not
happened recently though obviously within the past few years. Was this then,
the reason he had not heard from his family? Were they all dead?
He swung down from the horse and, with sword still in hand,
began to walk down the center of the road that ran through the main portion of
the village. The thought of archers hidden within the rubble occurred to him,
yet if there were people here, his people, the last thing they needed to see
would be a mysterious black-clad warrior skulking through the rubble. If they
were his people he hoped they would hold their fire long enough for them to
recognize him. It had been over fifteen years but he hoped he had not changed
so much that they would not know who he was.
He paused here and there to move closer to piles of rubble
that matched locations of buildings in his memory. There! That had been the
Baker's house. And over there? The Smiths. One glimpse of white, bleached,
skeletal remains was all it took. After that, he looked no closer into the
remains of the buildings he passed.
The home of his parents, the home in which he had grown up,
lay at the far end of the village and he was understandably reluctant to enter
the ruins. His eyes narrowed as he took in the condition of the rubble compared
to the rest of the village. Was it his imagination or had his home been hit
harder than any of the others? Very little remained as if those who had visited
this destruction upon the village had been determined that few stones remained
atop any other when they reached his parents home. There was no roof and few of
the interior walls of the large home remained standing.
Steeling himself, he picked his way through the rubble. He
stopped in what had once been the great room and looked around. The large
wooden table around which the family had gathered for dinners lay broken and
splintered and partially burned. Great scorch marks adorned the few remaining walls.
Magic. His insides roiled with conflicting emotions. Grief and despair battled
with impotent rage. This had been his home for as long as he could remember.
Though his mother and father had never tried to hide from him the fact that he
was adopted they never treated him any different than his brothers and sisters;
their natural children. There had always been enough love to go around and
punishment had never been doled out unfairly. Though he recalled now, of all
times, that his mother would at times remind him that however much he was loved
he was not blood-related and would often make veiled references to some future
time that seemed to involve him and Shira.
Yes, he had always been aware that there were things his
parents knew or guessed about his past that they would not share. For whatever reason,
they never discussed his birth parents other than to say that they had lived on
the Mainland and that he had been brought to them after their deaths. Nor
would they mention who it was that had brought him to them. They would say only
that it was the will of Dyera that he had come to them. A curious statement in
itself since the Fire Twins, of whom Dyera was the female (and only surviving)
aspect, were not among the Benign Gods greatly revered on the Great Isle.
His parents, like most who lived on the Great Isle, held
Lithian, The Slain God, in reverence but actively worshiped the White Goddess,
Relnia.
Relnia occupied a unique place among the gods; being counted
neither among the Benign Gods or the Dark Gods. Originally one of the six gods
to follow Cardoch, the second born of the fifteen gods and goddesses and he who
would later and forever more be known as the God Slayer, the Kin-Slayer, or Cardoch-The
Black Hand, Relnia repented her allegiance when Cardoch ruthlessly murdered
Lithian, the youngest of them all and the one the Great Mother had placed over
them all before she disappeared into the ether. Relnia had fallen to her knees
before Ahrnoc, he who was known as The Wise, when Cardoch and those that did
not repent fled. In their anger, Dyer and Dyera, the Fire Twins, would have
slain Relnia had not Ahrnoc stopped them and, in his mercy, offer forgiveness.
Yet still a penitence was demanded and so was Relnia banned from the heavens
and sentenced to live separate from the Benign Gods upon the Great Isle until
Cardoch - the Black Hand and those that repented not were brought to justice.
Or so the story went. For himself, Karel had yet to meet a god, benign or
otherwise. There was enough evil in the world without tossing gods that might
or might not exist into the mix.
Karel struggled to bury his emotions as he sifted through
the ruins of his home, searching for some clue to the fate of his parents and
brothers and sisters. He dreaded coming upon their remains, yet if they were
here, he would find them and at least make sure they had a proper burial. He
found no remains but did discover signs that he was not the first to pick
through the ruins. Perhaps this was a good sign. He could not hope that all his
family has survived this devastation, but perhaps one or two had. Perhaps a
brother or sister had been here before him. Perhaps they had found the remains
and had already buried them.
He spent the rest of the day rummaging through the rubble,
working constantly to keep his emotions at bay, and stopping only when the
lengthening of shadows in the darkening sky reminded him that evening was
approaching. Making his way out of the ruined house, he returned to where he
had tethered the horse. He didn't mount, choosing instead to walk. He led the
horse back down the narrow road to a crossroads. Going to the east was the path
he had traveled from Svowmahni. To the west, the path continued and would
eventually wind into the foothills of the mountains. The nearest village,
however, lay five or so leagues down the southern path. He took the southern
path for half a league before turning aside to make camp in the thick woods to
the south and west of the village. He would return to the village on the morrow
to search for answers. If he found none on his own, then he would ride south
and discovery if the people of that village, Sytier, could provide any.
***
It was the panicked whinnying of the nag that wakened him in
the still of the night. He lay motionless, save for the slow-motion of his
right hand as it groped for and found the hilt of the sword he kept close by.
At first, he heard no sound and then...
"I know you're awake, brother dear." A soft, deep,
yet obviously female voice came from the darkness. "You're breathing
changed."
His eyes opened and he sprang to his feet, searching the
darkness for the source of the voice. He felt he recognized it but fifteen
years was a long time. Still...
"Shira?" He ventured, his eyes still searching the
edges of the clearing in which he had made camp. Whether he had unconsciously
picked up on some movement or perhaps noticed some deeper darkness within the
shadows he couldn't tell, yet he was looking right at her when his younger
sister stepped into the open.
"Are you planning to run me through with that?"
Shira demanded, indicating the raised sword he still held. He lowered the blade
but did not relinquish his hold on it. He stood where he was, waiting as she
approached. Until he was certain in what little moonlight that filtered through
the trees that she was who he thought she was.
She approached until she was close enough that he could
reach out with his left hand and touch her. Shira! Younger than him by a
full-year, she had always been his favorite. The only one, with the exception
of Ma and Da, who went out of her way to make him feel as if he truly had a
home. She and her twin sister, Shara were the closest to him in age and his
constant companions throughout the years. Though identical in appearance, with
the exception of their hair color, that was where the resemblance between the
sisters ended. They were like night and day. Shara was brooding one. Always
solemn, ever quick to anger. With the exceptions of their parents, her sister,
and himself, others avoided Shara. Never willingly seeking out her company. He
recalled that even some among the villagers thought of her as cursed. Some even
considered her pure white hair to be a sign that she had been marked by the
Dark Gods. Of course, they never said so within her hearing or that of Shira or
Ma and Da. And in some ways, the villagers may have been right. Shara was known
to have a tendency towards cruelty and meanness that could only be tempered by
Shira or himself. Shira was the exact opposite. Always bright. Always the one
to find a silver lining. Always willing to go out of her way to help another.
Always smiling. She was not smiling now. Whatever it was that happened,
whatever she had gone through, had hardened her. Unless...
"No, I'm not Shara." She said as if reading his
mind. She stood silent, studying him for a long moment, much as she would
someone or something she had never seen before. She then reached out one finger
to trace a small scar that ran just above his left eye into his hairline. He
was surprised that she could see such a faint mark in the dim lighting.
"You never mentioned wounds in your letters."
"I didn't want you to worry." He said with a
shrug. He tentatively touched his fingers to her cheek and then cupped it in
his left hand, watching as her eyes closed and her nostrils flared as if she
were taking in his scent. "Shira, what happened here?" His voice was
rough, the emotions he had bottled up threatening to break through.
As if his question brought her back to the present, she
moved away from his hand and bent to begin gathering twigs and dried wood for a
fire. Sensing that he would get no answers at the moment, Karel pitched in and
before long, between the two of them, they had a good-sized fire going.
"I take it you're not concerned with attracting
attention." He commented as he seated himself on his bedroll. He was
convinced that this was, indeed, Shira. Though obviously the flighty girl she
had been was gone. He was not sure if he truly knew this steely woman that
crouched before the fire.
"No, not really." She shook her head. "It's
been a long time since any... undesirables... entered the woods around the
village. I make sure of that." He invited her to explain with raised
eyebrows but she declined the invitation. "You've seen the village."
It was not a question yet he nodded anyway. His face a mask devoid of emotion.
"I've seen it." He said. "Mother?
Father?"
"Dead." She responded, her voice cold and precise
as if she were discussing nothing more important than the changing of the
weather. "Of the entire village, there were only three survivors. You and
I are two of them." She could not hold the mask completely and her voice
cracked with the last sentence. Her eyes closed as if she were once again
reliving whatever had happened. "They came in the middle of the night.
Orcs and..." she shook her head. "I don't know what they were. They
appeared human but they were cloaked and hooded. I couldn't see their faces,
but their hands...their hands were more like claws than hands. And they were
magic users. They cast balls of blue fire at buildings and people. Da was hit
by one and...and there was nothing left of him. Nothing. The orcs killed
everyone else except for me, Ma, and Shara. Ma and I they captured and drug
before the sorcerers. They tortured her to death, Karel. They held me
motionless with their magic, forcing me to watch. They wouldn't even let me
close my eyes. They didn't use any tools or weapons. No blades touched her.
They used their magic to rip her skin from her body, one small strip at a
time." She opened her eyes and Karel could see the flames dancing in them
as she looked at him across the fire. "They were looking for you,
Karel."
"Me?" He demanded, jumping to his feet and glaring
down at the dark-haired woman.
"Not by name, at first." Shira shook her head.
"They wanted to know about a dark-haired orphaned baby brought from the
Mainland. It was clear from the descriptions and the times they asked about
that they could only be talking about you. Ma told them nothing. She screamed
as they tore the skin from her. But she never begged for them to stop. They
just wanted information about you and she gave them nothing. I thought at
first, that they didn't know who you were, that they were just fishing for
information. I was wrong. They knew your name and they knew you were on the
Mainland in one of the mercenary companies. That wasn't what they wanted to
know. They wanted to know who your parents were, where you came from, how you
ended up with us. Who brought you from the Mainland. And they demanded to know
what connection Ma had with the Sisterhood of Dyera!"
"That doesn't make sense, Shira." He turned his
back to her, looking for a moment into the darkness until a thought occurred to
him and he spun back around. "You said the Orcs got everyone but you, Ma,
and Shara and then you and Ma were captured. Did Shara escape? Is she the third
survivor?"
"Yes, Shara survived." Shira answered after a long
hesitation, her voice full of bitterness. "She didn't escape. She wasn't
captured. She led them to us, Karel. She was with them, one of them." Her
fists clenched in her lap. "She was the one who pointed out Da to the
sorcerers. They didn't have to hold her while they tortured Ma. She enjoyed it.
She encouraged them."
Karel felt his knees trembling as he stumbled back to seat
himself on his bedroll before his legs gave out.
"How did...” he paused unsure how to finish his
question.
"How did I survive?" Shira gave a bitter laugh.
"It was part of Shara's agreement with them. She led them to us, pointed
out those who might hold the information they wanted, gave any aid desired, so
long as I was spared. As black as her heart had become, she was obviously not
ready to see her twin killed." She gave a deep sigh. "I only found
out when Ma told them nothing and they wanted to start in on me when she died.
Shara had to remind them of their agreement. I thought they would ignore her
but it seemed as if she held some power over them as if deep down they feared
her." She stared into the fire, her fingers clenching and unclenching. She
was silent so long that Karel began to think she was finished. Yet before he
could speak, she went on.
"That was three and half years ago." She said,
turning to look him. "Those sorcerers kept me motionless while they and
the orcs finished destroying the village. They killed everyone but me and when
they were done they simply turned and walked away, leaving me there with Shara.
I thought perhaps she was going to try to convince me to come with her, to join
with them. She didn't. She told me she had finally found her place. A place of
she could be herself. A place where she no longer had to live in my shadow or
in the shadow of her famous mercenary brother. While she was talking, she was
pulling out a small medallion she was wearing on a thin chain around her neck.
It was a small red disk with the emblem of a black hand in the center. She made
sure I saw it, then stuffed it back into her tunic, hiding it from view. She
told me the spell that held me would wear off in an hour or so. She started to
walk off then, following after the sorcerers and the orcs. But before she was
gone she turned back one more time. She told me to run as far as I could.
Forget that I had a twin sister. And to stay as far as I could away from you.
She told me she would not save me a second time. And then she was gone."
She stood and began to pace, the light from the fire caused
her shadow to lengthen and shrink in accordance with the flames.
"When the spell wore off, I found those of our family
that I could and buried them." She went on in a hushed voice. "I
buried a few of the others in the village but there were so many I finally gave
up." She said.
"And so you've just been hanging in the woods around
the village since then?" Karel asked. He knew, of course, that this
couldn't be the case.
"No." Shira shook her head. "I left. But
several times a year I come back, looking for you, knowing that sooner or
later, you would come home." She stopped her pacing and glared at him
across the fire, her feet slightly apart, her hands on her hips. "I blamed
you for this, Karel." She admitted. "I thought perhaps you had made
some powerful enemies over on the Mainland during one of your campaigns." She
shook her head. "That wouldn't explain Shara's involvement. I didn't want
to admit that my twin could... could..." she sighed, unable to continue
for a moment, looking down at her feet. But when she looked up, Karel could see
the anger and determination in her eyes. "I discovered that while it was
all about you, it had nothing to do with your mercenary life. It was simply the
fact that you lived. When your birth parents died, you were supposed to have
died as well. You were not supposed to have been spirited away and brought to
Ma and Da."
Karel spread his hands and looked at her through the flames
of the quickly dwindling fire.
"Shira, you know as well as I that neither Ma nor Da
would ever tell me anything about where I came from. You heard me ask them many
times. I loved them, Shira. As I loved all of you. But I always wanted to know
where I really came from, who my real parents were, and how they died or even
if they were truly dead. I begged them to tell me, but you heard what they
said. They would either say it was the will of Dyera and Relnia or that it was
best I never knew."
"I know." Shira nodded. "It was hard, Karel,
but I finally realized that I couldn't blame you for something you didn't
cause. Not purposely, of course." She turned and started to walk back into
the shadows. "Enough talk. Get some sleep. We've got a long way to go in
tomorrow. I'll come for you in the morning."
"Shira!" Karel called to her, starting to stand.
She stopped just before entering the shadows to raise a hand.
"No, Karel." She commanded. "Stay here and
sleep. We'll talk more tomorrow. But we have to leave this area quickly before
someone, the wrong someone, realizes you're back." With that, she turned
and vanished into the darkness.
Taking his sister's advice was not an easy task. For the longest
time, he lay on his bedroll, her tale echoing again and again in his head. Eventually,
he did drift off into an uneasy slumber. He awakened once, his sword gripped in
his hand. He could have sworn he heard the anguished scream of a large cat off
in the distance, yet with the exception of the nervous noises of the skittish
nag, the woods remained as devoid of sound as the two previous evenings.
He awoke the next morning to the smell of breakfast cooking.
Opening his eyes he saw Shira squatting by a fire she had obviously rekindled,
stirring the contents of a skillet.
He studied her in the light of day and noticed that, like
him, she was dressed all in black. Formfitting britches hung low on her hips,
the legs tucked into near knee-high black boots. For a top, she wore a tight,
long sleeved, and low-cut half shirt that left her midriff shockingly bare and
emphasized her medium-sized breasts in a way no living male could fail to
notice. Her coal black hair, once reaching clear to her buttocks, was now cut short,
barely falling past her shoulder blades. The black leather garments, nearly a
match for his own, were not something that could have been purchased in their
village, or even those nearby. Neither could she have purchased the sheathed
long sword that hung at her waist. He had wondered about that but had said
nothing. And now, with the practiced eye of a veteran of the Black Wolf
mercenary company, he could see in the way she moved that the blade was not
just an ornament. He would wager that she knew how to use it and use it well.
She was not dressed as a warrior woman of the Black Wolves would have dressed,
but rather in a way that bespoke of freedom of movement and ease of travel.
With a start, he realized that while he had studied her, she
had been looking him over as well.
"You sleep like a log." Shira commented, turning
her attention back to her cooking, as he sat up. "If you slept like that
on the Mainland, it's a wonder you didn't get your head chopped off."
"I could have sworn I heard a big cat last night."
He said, ignoring her comment as he stood and stretched. "I didn't think
they came this far into the lowlands or this close to the coast."
"They don't." Shira said without looking up from
her skillet. "The one you heard will be gone before long." She
removed the skillet from the fire and sat it on a fallen log. She moved to a
large black horse she had tethered some distance from the nag and removed a
single metal plate and eating utensils from the saddlebags and motioned for him
to join her as she moved back to the skillet. She scooped some of the contents
onto her plate and then handed him a spoon and indicated that he should eat
from the skillet itself.
After eating, they cleaned the breakfast gear and packed it
back in Shira’s saddlebags and while Karel packed up his bedroll, dried the
morning dew from his sword and returned it to its sheath, buckled on his belt
and adjusted the twin swords on his hips, Shira scattered the small fire,
stamping out the coals. Within minutes they were ready to hit the trail.
Shira swung up on the big black horse and gave an amused
grin as Karel hoisted himself into the nag's saddle.
"Nice horse." She commented, eliciting nothing but
a grunt of acknowledgment from Karel. He nudged the horse alongside the larger
beast his sister rode and grimaced when he noticed that he actually had to look
up at her.
"So are we going or what?" He grumbled.
"Of course we are." Shira said, urging her horse
into motion. "But aren't you the least bit curious as to where we're
going?"
"I assumed we were going to Sytier." He said,
naming the town that lay just a few leagues further on down the southern path.
He set heels gently to the nag and allowed her to follow the larger horse’s
lead.
"We'll stop there for a bit." Shira nodded.
"We'll have to trade that nag in and get you a horse more suited to long
or hard and fast traveling. I'm afraid if you were able to get that old thing
into a gallop, which I highly doubt, you'd cause her heart to burst."
Karel didn't disagree. He'd chosen the old nag because she
had been the best available in the dying city of Svowmahni. He had not
expected to need any more than the nag could give when all he had wanted to do
was return home and settle down.
At that thought, what he had found at the village and
Shira's tale from the previous night jumped to the front of his mind and any
rejoinder he thought to give died unvoiced. Instead, he spurred the nag on
until she was once again abreast of Shira's horse.
"So if we're not staying at Sytier, where we are we
going?"
"Away from here." She answered without answering.
Karel shrugged and let it go. He was professional enough to
understand that his judgment was, in his current emotional state, questionable.
Besides, where else would he go? If he chose to leave Shira here, his only
course of action would be to return to the mainland and the Black Wolf company.
That would bring him no closer to answers. Answers he believed Shira had but
was not yet willing to share.
"You said last night we would talk more today. So
talk." He demanded. "You mentioned Shara wearing the Black Hand. You
want me to believe that she has fallen in with followers of Cardoch?"
Shira glanced over at him and shrugged.
"Whether you choose to believe or not doesn't change
what is." She said. "If she does not follow Cardoch, then why would
she try to make me believe she did?" She shrugged again. "Yes, I do
believe. Not that she has fallen in with other followers but that she has given
herself fully. She is not just a minion. She's a leader. I said the orcs and
the sorcerers feared her. It was obvious that they hated her but they feared
her. It took me a while to figure it out but finally, I realized she had not
only led them there, she was the one in charge. They obeyed her orders. They
may not have liked it, but they did as she said. "
"So now you think the followers of Cardoch were after
me?"
"No, I don't think the followers of Cardoch were after
you." Shira turned her head to look in his eyes. "I know they were!
And they probably still are!"
"That's ridiculous, Shira!" Karel exclaimed.
"Is it? You said yourself last night that we know
nothing of where you came from. We don't know who your parents were or why they
were killed."
Karel grimaced and tried a different tack.
"You also mentioned the Sisterhood of Dyera. You said
the wizards demanded to know what connection Ma had with them." He said.
He knew of the Sisterhood of Dyera, of course. To the best of his knowledge,
the Sisterhood had only a small presence on the Great Isle but they were well
known on the Mainland. Perhaps not as prevalent as they had been in the past,
the Sisterhood was still a force to be reckoned with. Wise leaders of mercenary
companies never signed a contract without first determining whether or not the
Sisterhood was involved with the campaign. He himself had met some of the
sisters and had even seen them in action. He had come away from the experience
with the sure knowledge that he never wanted to tangle with them
professionally. As confident as he might have been about his own abilities, he
felt sure that if the Black Wolf company ever met an equal number of the
sisters on the battlefield, the Black Wolf company would soon cease to exist!
When she shrugged and said nothing, Karel again felt as if Shira
knew something she wasn't ready to share. Well, he wasn't going to leave it
alone this time.
"Dammit all, Shira." He swore. He took a moment to
rein in the suppressed emotions that threaten to break out. "Why the hell
won't you tell me what's going on?"
"Because it's not my job!" Shira snapped back.
"And take it from me, Brother dear, you wouldn't believe a word I
said."
"And I'm supposed to accept that?" He sneered.
"They had valid reasons to be looking for you,
Karel." Shira retorted. "Just leave it at that, for now."
"What? Did they think I was some long-lost heir that
somehow survived the night of the Royal Deaths?"
"You're what, twenty-nine now?” Shira asked in return.
"About that." Karel nodded. "Ma always said I
was less than a year when I came to them."
"Well you couldn’t very well have survived the night of
the Royal Deaths then, could you?” Shira demanded, scorn in her voice.
“Considering that the Night of Royal Deaths happened nearly eighty years ago!"
The night of the Royal Deaths. It was a night of legends and
nightmares. Just the mention of it brought to mind visions of hordes of
assassins, sweeping down upon the Royal families of all twelve of the major
human kingdoms of the Mainland. By the time that night was over, every single
member of those Royal families, every man, woman, and child, was dead.
There was no doubt that the high priestess of Chardoch had
been behind the killings. From her citadel in the Great Waste in the east, she
plunged the entire Mainland into chaos. Only here, on the Great Isle, and
amongst the elves in their forest kingdoms and the dwarves in their mountain
halls, had her assassins been thwarted.
"Funny." Karel scoffed. "A fine joke, Shira.
But you will have noticed that I'm not laughing."
"Neither am I, Brother dear. Neither am I."
They rode the remaining distance to Sytier in silence, each
absorbed in their own thoughts. Shira was correct in pointing out that the time
frame in which he had been delivered to Falintor and Mira, his adoptive parents
and Shira’s true parents, could not coincide with the upheaval and confusion
that followed in the days after the night of the Royal Deaths. That much was
obvious. That night had happened, in all likelihood, before his true parents
had been born. It was a sure thing that neither of his adoptive parents had
been born yet. Nevertheless, it had become a child's game to them. Karel was a
long-lost member of one of the devastated Royal families of the mainland,
waiting to grow and reclaim his rightful place, with Shira and Shara at his
side as members of his court, to lead in the war against Hel - the high
priestess of Cardoch, whom it was rumored was actually Helastin, the dark
Goddess that had lost much of her power during one of the many battles between
the Benign Gods and the Dark Gods in ages past.
From her dread citadel in the midst of the wastelands to the
east, her darkness spread forth upon the land like a disease and in their
children's games they would lead the forces of the Benign Gods forth to victory
against her and the evil men and fell creatures she commanded.
But those were just fantasies of children. The truth was
much harsher. The Royal families were not the only ones to suffer that night.
That night and for several thereafter death didn't steal across the mainland,
it raged! None were spared in the confusion and outrage. From the highest of
nobles to the basest of commoners death came swiftly during the backlash of
panic and the epic struggles for power that followed.
During his travels with the mercenary company, Karel had
heard several rumors that at least one member of the Royal family from one of
the more western kingdoms was rumored to have survived and to have been hidden
away. Yet every rumor always spoke of that child as having
been a girl child. A young princess, forced to live in hiding, denied her birthright.
A fanciful tale, if one chose to believe it. Karel didn't. The Royal families
on the mainland were gone. It was possible that some had survived and probably
some had. But if so, they were scattered far and wide, and the kingdoms they
may have once inherited, for all practical purposes, no longer existed. As for
himself, if the parents of his parents had indeed been killed that night or one
of the following nights thereafter, they had most likely been commoners caught
in the wrong place at the wrong time. Caught up in the mass hysteria that swept
the land after that night. He had seen too many innocents die because of such
circumstances to believe that he and his parents were any different.
He shook away the dark thoughts and made a conscious effort
to pay attention to his surroundings. Shira had commented earlier that morning
on the ease with which she had entered his camp and began making breakfast
without waking him. It was true that he had been careless. It had been a long
time since anyone had been able to come upon him unawares as she had. It was
not hard to determine why. Plain and simply, he was in shock. He'd seen it in
too many others not recognize it within himself. The effort to control and
suppress the raging emotions he felt had dulled his senses.
As if thinking about the pent-up emotions was a cue, the
barriers he had thrown together to hold them back burst asunder. He swayed in
the saddle as feelings of rage, loss, helplessness, flooded him, threatening to
drown him in despair.
He pulled the reins of the nag, bringing her to a stop in
the middle pathway. He gritted his teeth and his hands shook and the scream of
rage that threatened to come out instead issued forth as a strangled cry. Every
pore of his body cried out for vengeance. But it was an impotent demand.
Vengeance against who or what? Even more than vengeance, he wanted reasons.
Why? Why the family that had raised him as if he were their own? What had Ma
done to deserve such a grisly death? And what, oh Gods, could have possessed
Shara to throw in with such people?
Shakily, he slid from the saddle but held tightly as though
afraid his knees would buckle. Even so, having no outside target, his flood of
emotions turned inward. He felt himself to slide to the ground, sucking in
great lungs full of air.
Since he had been trailing behind Shira he doubted she had
seen him stop and fall to the ground. Yet he was hardly surprised to feel her strong
arms wrap around him and pull him close. He could hear her muttering
meaningless nonsensical words meant to comfort.
He had no idea how long they huddled there together in the
middle of the road as the suppressed emotions poured forth, yet by the time he
felt he was able to regain control of himself, the sun had already arched
across the sky past midday and was setting swiftly towards evening.
Of course, he had seen it too many times before not to
understand what was happening. It was the purging of emotions before they could
fester, polluting the soul. He had also seen those who refused to allow such a
purge. All too often those who attempted to keep their emotions locked up too
tightly became reckless and careless and, soon enough, dead.
"Better now?" Shira asked softly, brushing the sweat-drenched
hair from his forehead. He nodded weakly, not yet trusting himself to speak.
Sometime during their huddling, his arms had snaked around her waist and now he
squeezed her tightly and even through his grief, a small part of him noted that
it felt good to hold her. Not as his sister, but as a woman.
And with that thought, he disentangled himself from her and
gently pushed himself away, attempting to stand. His sister, for Dyera's sake!
But she wasn't really, was she? A small portion of his
analytical mind refused to shut off, even in the midst of grief. They had been
raised by the same man and woman. But they were her parents, not his. It was
through her body that their blood flowed, not his. And though they showed him
the same love and attention they showed their own children, they never tried to
hide the fact that they were not his real parents. Sometimes they made it sound
as if caring for him was a duty they had taken on willingly and a trust they
had been honored with. What a hell of a thought, while in the middle of
grieving for the dead! Yet that thought flowed into another, and at that
moment, something his adopted mother had told him so long ago, years even
before he had even heard of mercenary companies, came back to him. A memory he
had just considered the day before while combing through the ruins of what had
been his home A very solemn talk it had been for a young child, but perhaps she
had known there would be little opportunity thereafter.
"You'll see and do great things together, Karel."
She had told him. "Together, your magic will save you both and many
others."
"She knew." He whispered but refused to explain at
Shira's questioning glance.
He had to have her help to get up to stand on unsteady feet.
Rubbing his eyes, he looked to the skies.
"It'll be dark soon after we reach Sytier." He
said. "I know they had an inn last time I was there with father. If it's
still there, perhaps we should consider staying there for the night. Besides, a
hot meal, a couple of tankards of ale, and a bed even marginally softer than
the ground will do me wonders."
Shira regarded him with an unreadable expression for a brief
moment before nodding curtly.
Soon they were once again in the saddle and on their way.
Shira set a good pace, yet not one that would cause his nag
to be overly worked. This gave him time to settle his grief a bit and even
allowed him to see a bit of humor in their surroundings.
Several times during the growing and harvesting seasons,
their father would make the trip from their small village to Sytier, an actual
town, to sell their produce and purchase items that couldn't be obtained in
Near Sea Village. Each time he would take one or two children with him to help
out. On the times that he had accompanied his father, he remembered being awed
by what seemed to be a fast, thick forest that spread from the outlying areas
of one village to the outlying areas of the other. Now, as he and Shira passed
through the woods, he couldn't help but grin at how naďve he had been as a
child. What he took as a vast forest was nothing more than a sparse woodland
that patched the northern portions of the Great Isle. So sparse that they were
rarely even marked on maps. Nothing like the dark forests of the Eldar that
blanketed much of the southern portion of the Great Isle. Or so he had been
told.
It had become quite an embarrassment during his time with
the mercenary companies to discover exactly how little he knew about his own
home. Indeed, he knew the mainland far better than he knew the Great Isle.
Throughout his entire boyhood, he had known only of his own village and the
town of Sytier. As a simple recruit, his lack of knowledge had meant little. He
had seen the same trait in newer recruits. Had they never joined with the Black
Wolves, the chances were they could have spent their entire lives without traveling
more than a few leagues from the villages and towns they were born in. Yet as
he advanced in rank, he began to come into contact with more and more
well-traveled people. Upon learning that he was from the Great Isle, he would
often be questioned about people and places he was expected to know.
He found maps of the Great Isle and had diligently memorized
many of the features, villages, cities, and towns but that was no substitute
for actually visiting and seeing these places with his own eyes.
Now he wondered how much of it he would see this time
around. True, they were going to Sytier now, but it was obvious from Shira’s
comments that morning that the small town was just the beginning. A place to
purchase him a better horse before they moved on. She hadn't mentioned where
they were going to be moving on to, but he was determined to rectify that when
they stopped for the night.
The sparse woods thinned even more as they began entering
the outlying areas of the town. Homesteads and farms began appearing much in
the way he had expected them to appear as he had neared his own village. Signs
of habitation as chimney smoke wafted into the air from distant buildings.
He recalled that his father would sometimes stop at one of
these homesteads, either as they entered or left Sytier, to visit relatives,
but he could not for the life of him recall exactly which homesteaded it had
been or what relation those that lived there had been to Falintor.
And that brought up another memory. Looking back now, he
could recall that each such trip with his father had been preceded by an
argument between his parents. His father arguing that it would be good for him,
while his mother obviously feared for his safety. Oddly enough, it had not
registered on the mind of the young boy he had been that there had never been
such arguments when it came to one or two of the other children going along for
the journey.
"Mother never wanted me to come here with father."
He half whispered to Shira as the village proper came into view. "She
never had a problem with any of the rest of you coming here. Just me.
Why?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Shira snorted. "She
didn't want you leaving the village. They were supposed to be hiding you,
Karel. That was the task they'd been given. "
"Dammit all, Shira," Karel swore. "If they
were supposed to be hiding me, why in the names of the Benign Gods didn't she
argue with me about joining the mercenaries?"
"Again, obvious brother dear." Shira drawled.
"They knew they wouldn't be around to protect you. So you had to learn how
to protect yourself. Plus, you had reached an age where they knew they could
not hold you, should you decide to go in any case. And finally, they had been
told that you would join a mercenary company when you came of age, and they
were not to gainsay you." She urged her mount forward and Karel, scowling,
applied his heels to the nag and followed. By the gods, even when he was able
to drag an answer out of her, it only led to more questions!
To be Continued……..
-- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2015 by Clay Clearbrook
-- and may not be reprinted without permission.
