Winterhorn (Tokens Of Benevolence Book 1)

by Nicolae Ovidiu Baiculescu

  “What in heaven’s name are you doing here, Lorian?” Fiera, the fisherman’s wife, whispered angrily at me, her round face with those dark, small eyes failing to make of her a frightening sight.

  “I…” the tears started falling faster on my face and they couldn’t stop.

  She hugged me with her chubby hands and pulled me to her wide chest.

  “You shouldn’t have come here, lad!” She whispered as she stroked my hair, clearly displeased that I had to witness such a sight.

  I held her tightly, thinking it was that, perhaps, what a mother’s hug would feel like. Only when I had no more tears to cry, did I remove myself from her embrace. No words had been needed, none that we could have voiced and instead we had looked in each other’s eyes before I ran back towards the hall.

  Inside, everything was calmer, quieter and felt more optimistic, if that was possible. Nana and a few other women talked quietly, seemingly grateful of how the day had ended, given everything that had happened.

  When she joined me, we retired to our assigned beds and lay down; the best thing that had happened to me for the entire day.

  Finally, resting. Finally, silence.

  No more screams and shouts or babies crying or playing. My eyes felt heavy and the blanket was awfully comfortable and warm. It had taken me a sigh to fall asleep though it felt like a minute afterwards that I bounced up when a hand touched me.

  “You did a good job today, cripple,” said Kuno, who arrived with Henek from their guarding round.

  I had no idea if minutes or hours had passed and before I decided to strike back, I realised what he had said. He actually praised me, something that had only occurred twice from his side during my lifetime. I knew he meant it well; his kind words were rare but honest, his offensive ones were ample and meaningless.

  I smiled aimlessly in the candle-lit space and acknowledged the one positive fact about the whole day; a compliment from one of my brothers. Happy about myself I chose to let my gripe pass and slur a ‘thank you’ instead. It would’ve been far too easy to get him back; he was already asleep on the double blanket he had chosen for a bed.

  My grandmother was on a chair by the bedside, apparently not able to asleep.

  She was softly muttering some indistinct words, almost like a song when I took her hand, “Are you alright, Nana? You have been awfully quiet. What’s the matter?”

  She stopped humming and took a slow breath. She then unfolded the blanket from her shoulders, and abandoned the chair she had preferred, to come and sit closer to me on the bedside. With a swift gesture, she covered our backs with the blanket in what appeared to be more a gesture of preventing the others from hearing us rather than keeping us warm from the chill of the night.

  She grabbed both of my hands in hers and said, “I know where the fire came from!”

  Winterhorn

  Lorian

  “A long, long time ago, when my parents were still alive,” my grandmother started with a soft whisper.

  I was always enthralled when her stories started with passion and intensity, even more so now, as her tearful eyes were gleaming with a touch of sadness.

  “They often took me and my sisters to Naghnatë, the village’s healer. She was very good with plants and herbs and she was also a very entertaining storyteller, which was the reason why kids often gathered around her house in the hope they could be entertained or shown a trick. But everything about her indicated she was a witch – much later I came to learn that. The way she looked, dressed, behaved and talked; the foul smells inside her hut emanating from odd looking jars and pots containing curious-looking creatures. All seemed to indicate she came from a different time, foreign to our own. One evening, during the spring celebrations, she gathered all of the villagers around the big fire and told us the story of the Drakhahouls and the tokens of benevolence, a story of magic and dragons, which in that cold night frightened even the bravest of men. That’s the only time she told us where she came from and that she was three hundred and seven years old.” Nana smiled.

  “Three-hundred-and-seven years old?” I exclaimed in a daft whisper. “You haven’t told me this story before, Nana.”

  “Well, according to her this is not just a story. Dragons did exist and still do to this day. I’ve never seen one of them, yet I don’t see any reason not to think that other creatures might have walked the earth than those we know. And yes, I’m certain she was of an unnaturally-long age, I saw her.”

  “How –”

  “And stop pestering me and let me get to the point before I forget it!” she snapped at me.

  “So, where was I? Oh yes! Naghnatë recounted she came from a faraway place called Arkhanthï, a very difficult place to reach and be granted access to. In that period of time, men and animals lived a very different life than we know it; they were not master and servant, so she said. They were all equal and, to everyone’s surprise, king of all the land was not a man, but a Drakhahoul; a mighty dragon, whose name was Yrsidir-Two-Tails. He was so big that when he spread his wings the whole Arkhanthï castle was covered in shadow. Nobody dared to challenge him and nobody had reason to, because the dragon was a strong and fair ruler, of the purest and noblest heart.” Nana paused briefly.

  I followed attentively, her story was different to the ones she normally recounted.

  “For many, many years the city thrived and flourished and everyone lived happily, though the king’s powers were fading with age. So he approached his advisor, a wise and powerful elder wizard, Felduror, to whom Naghnatë was a student herself in the arts of magic. Now, the dragon, according to the witch, asked the wizard for advice on what to do to keep peace and harmony in his realm. Felduror was a cunning serpent, dreaming of being king over the beasts and humans himself. He had always considered animals to be inferior to the human race, let alone to enlightened minds such as his. So he suggested that the king not only gave his blessing to the new successor, but he’d also have to aid his reigning years by sharing some of his own powers to whoever he considered fit to entrust with such a gift. Obviously being the king’s advisor, Felduror, the wizard, hoped that the dragon would choose him. Fortuitously, that was not the case, for Yrsidir-Two-Tails had decided to give one of his talons to another dragon, Belrug-the-Black, a younger and auspicious Drakhahoul.” Nana stopped with a querying face.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Do you remember what the tokens are? I know you’ve read about them. You and Elmira never stopped talking about them,” Nana asked.

  “Of course I do,” I started, “some called them dragon stones, some called them tokens and some called them artefacts. Whatever their name, they are the same thing. They are part of a mighty creature’s body, willingly offered towards creating a powerful stone or artefact. The parts can be as small as tears or blood drops and as big as claws, scales, fangs or even whole fingers and they will be encased within a common object and instilled with some of the powers of their owners.”

  A noise from outside made my grandmother stop and look around alerted. Once she was sure there were no prying ears she continued.

  “Good,” she said with a smile. “To the new possessor they’d be of great help and importance and throughout history, the witch said, there have been only a handful of times that this happened. So, the dragon king had chosen a younger dragon to rule and take his place, while he would retire in solitude for his remaining days. But he did so after having fulfilled his promise. From his talon, a master dwarf-smith crafted the Blight-Stone, which the young dragon wished to encase in ember and place at the centre of his wonderful chest plate.”

  “Whoa,” the soft exclamation left my mouth against my will.

  Nana smiled briefly and checked the surroundings once more.

  “At this part of the story the witch was angry and stern with her words, I recall it very well,” Nana continued. “She said that the magnanimous king hadn’t considered that the young dragon’s mind could be easily corrupted by the adverse influenc
e of Felduror, the wizard. So, he departed for unknown places never to be seen again while Belrug, the young black-dragon, became king over Arkhanthï’s territories. The astute wizard had been ready for such an event and didn’t have to wait long to initiate his evil plan. He used all his powers in preparing an unusual concoction that was served in low measures to the new king. This special potion was not aimed in killing the dragon, only in weakening his mind, confounding and clouding his judgment. Although physically he was still strong, his mind was not. Thinking he was ill and dying, the new king summoned the wizard for help. Alas, this only made it easier for the wizard to fully insinuate himself inside the mind of the helpless young dragon, binding his mind to his own will. Weak and defenceless Belrug-the-Black soon became a puppet in the powerful wizard’s hands. Or so the witch believed.” Nana broke off her story.

  From the hall’s entrance, which stood opposite our bed, I could clearly see sharp shadows being cast on the muddy ground by the full white moon, seated above our village like a restless guardian. Glistening ruts marked the streets like scars on a battlefield while steaming embers continued to release the heat trapped within. The screams, the agony and the crackling of the fire heard throughout the day, were now a tiny persistent noise in my ears that refused to go away no matter how hard I tried to yawn. Although it had been a long and exhausting day I did not want to sleep, not until I heard the end of the story.

  My grandmother drank some water then continued.

  “Belrug-the-Black had grown weaker and the cunning wizard had finally put his hands on the Blight-Stone. With it, he became unstoppable; he became Belrug himself. His mind was of his own but his body was that of the mighty black dragon, the king. To the eyes of the Aranthians, the king had been miraculously cured. In truth, the king was fading, trapped inside the wizard’s mind. Felduror, in the body of Belrug-the-Black, convinced everyone that the king, had been poisoned by an evil force using these powerful artefacts forged across millennia, dragon stones that needed to be retrieved and brought to him to be destroyed. He then declared that anyone who opposed him would be considered an enemy of Arkhanthï and therefore tried for high treason. Almost everyone was thankful that the king recovered so they naively accepted his words, unsuspecting of the wizard’s plans. Only a dozen loyal servants reluctantly consented, secretly determined to understand what was really going on. They were the most loyal followers of the former king, Yrsidir-Two-Tails, and together they formed the Drakonil Order.” Nana tilted her head and moved closer to me. “And who do you think was part of that order?”

  “Naghnatë!” I said.

  “That’s exactly what she said, that she had been there from the very beginning. She had been one of the wizard’s acolytes, and very soon found out that his heart was not pure and so, she slowly stepped away from his apprenticeship. She also said that, of the many dragons that roamed around the northern lands, very few remained at the citadel, but many more decided to run away from the wrath of the mad wizard. Those, she considered, were the ones that knew what really happened, and still cowered away, not wanting to have anything to do with his evil plan. Similarly, the dwarves have been the second to take their leave, suspicious about the wizard’s corrupted nature. They retreated inside Mount Nrom, the Mountain of Iron. To Felduror none of this mattered, the futile threats of the hiding dwarfs or the absconding dragons were not a real hazard to his plan. All he wanted was to find the powerful and precious stones and be unrestricted in his scheme.”

  “And what has today’s fire to do with all this, Nana?”

  “Patience, I’m getting there,” she replied.

  “The witch told us that the first token of benevolence the wizard had found afterwards, was the Lux or the Stone of Light, a powerful dragon stone made hundreds if not thousands of years ago. Many believe it to be one of the very first to be created and that it contains the last teardrops of a dragoness called Irridae-the-Brave. A dragoness who suffered a deadly wound on a battlefield against some wild beasts, and decided to give her tears, imbued with her Drakhahoul powers, as a token of benevolence to the queen of the elves, Loreeia, a beloved friend and faithful fight companion of the dragoness. The elven-queen had the tears placed inside a necklace which she wore wherever she went. And so she did for many years until a similar fire, such as today, fell upon the citadel in the forests of Elmenor. You see, the elves are creatures of strength, with inhuman endurance, and skills, so that day none of them perished during the fire. Only, Loreeia inexplicably lost her token. Naturally, everyone had their suspicions that the fire was the wizard’s doing, but the elven-queen did not want to break the peace that at the time ruled amongst the realms. According to Naghnatë, the Lux made the wizard even more powerful; where any other light failed, the Lux succeeded, and so he ventured beyond the darkness, into the depths of the Earth, and summoned to his service the faithful Gholaks, which as you know…” Nana trailed off, seemingly waiting for me to confirm it.

  “They are the uglier, taller and stronger variety of the common orcs,” I added with certainty, replicating the words she preferred using in her recounts.

  “Exactly so.” Nana smiled and all of a sudden, her face became firmer. “The witch’s story conveyed, that during the ill-fated day a great fire had descended upon Elmenor, the elven city where the elven-queen was residing. You see, Lorian? Fire descending from the clear sky just like it happened to us today, here in Sallncoln!” My grandmother’s breathing appeared heavier than before.

  She clenched the mug at her side before draining all the water from it.

  “The witch understood that in order to find the artefacts, Felduror had to use the power of the Drakhahouls, who were able to scout and unearth the precious stones. They had a special power to sense the tokens and when they found one, they would spit flames from the skies to reveal and isolate the place. Of course, being forged through magic, they could not be destroyed by dragon fire nor by any other fire or metal for that matter, though they could be revealed from where they were hidden. Only magic, the witch said, could undo what has been done through magic!”

  I sat silently bemused; I saw the damage the inexplicable fire had done, but I couldn’t believe that such a dragon stone was hidden in our village. Who on Earth had ever lived here and was powerful enough to own an artefact? And what kind of a token was it? I had so many questions I was eager to find an answer to.

  “The witch ended her story saying that nobody to that day knew how many artefacts the wizard had found, nor what kind of powers they held. She said that the entire world would have to suffer and no army would become powerful enough to stand in the wizard’s way if everyone ignored the seriousness of these threats.”

  “Nana, what happened to Naghnatë? Is she still living in your old village?”

  “I left that village many years before you were born. I hardly think there’s anyone still living up on that cold mountain,” she replied.

  Her words loitered until a shiver ran down my back and made me jerk and realise how sore and rigid my body was. I yawned and stretched, grasping forlornly, that it was already dawn.

  Kuno woke up and curiously asked if we slept at all, shaking his head in confusion when understanding that we hadn’t. He went outside the hall shivering in the frigid air, soon followed by Henek.

  There were many things that still rang loudly inside my head as grandmother lifted herself and went talking to other women that quietly started to gather inside the hall. I assumed they were assessing how many lives had been lost.

  At her return she suggested that we should go home and rest, now that others had come to help.

  On our way home, I diverted once more towards Elmira’s house which did not make me find anything new; their place was just as it had been before, locked and safe. A clear sign they had left and a promising portent of their well-being, though it still made me wonder where could they have gone.

  There was no more smoke puffing from the burnt embers of our cottage, even if the air was still
damp and rich with the scent of fire against the cold of the morning. Kuno was already inside the undamaged kitchen trying to fix us breakfast among the pile of things we previously placed inside. The kitchen was situated on the right side of the house, right under the attic room, which was my little room.

  Many objects lay on the floor, irregularly placed in a rush after being taken to safety from my brothers’ room that sadly suffered the most damage. My grandmother and I were silently contemplating the damage that our cottage had suffered, measuring in time and coin the amount of energy it would take to rebuild. One side of my brothers’ room was completely deprived of walls. Yesterday it had seemed only a small portion of the roof to have been damaged, today we comprehended that the main beams were charred and useless, and that embers still fumed in the cold air of the morning. Part of the roof had collapsed and shattered Henek’s bed while Kuno’s had been miraculously spared by the fallen beam, which prevented the ceiling rubble from causing further damage. The fire hadn’t caused too much destruction internally but, alas, there would be plenty of work to do in order to restore the room completely.

  Henek reached us not too long after, Firebreath pacing at his side, happy to be in our company again.

  The four of us had Kuno’s breakfast with tea, bread, butter and jelly, eggs and cheese. We silently enjoyed each other’s company, grateful that none of us had been harmed. After we finished our breakfast, I helped clean the table, thanked Kuno for the food and climbed in my tiny, smoke-smelling, warm attic-room and fell dead asleep on my beloved bed.

  I woke up late afternoon, my aching body feeling wearier than before. My head started spinning as soon as I got up and I had to prop myself against the roof’s beam to recover from the flimsy ordeal. There were noises down below, and as I descended the ladder to the kitchen, I saw it had been neatly cleaned. My grandmother was cooking a vegetable soup while my two brothers were quarrelling about what needed to be done to repair the missing walls inside their room, which already was in better condition – they had temporarily fixed the missing walls with wooden boards externally and tanned skins internally.