Warrior on the Edge of Memory (The Tale of Azaran Book 1)

by Zackery Arbela

  Azaran joined Segovac, who still knelt on the grass, eyes closed and lips moving in prayer. A pair of tears trailed their way down his cheeks. He waited patiently until the man's eyes opened again.

  "Feeling better?" Azaran asked.

  "Better than I have in years." Segovac rose to his feet. He took his back and slipped it across his shoulders. "This land is in my blood and bones. A tree dies when it it taken away from the soil that holds its roots. Here I am alive again."

  For a moment Azaran felt a twinge of jealously. He had no such place to call his own...at least as far as he knew. "So, where do go from here?" he asked, more to stave off the melancholy than to hear the answer.

  "North." Segovac looked about, getting his bearings. A line of trees began not far from the beach.. To the west green fields could be see. "Through the forest. A friend of mine lives close by. He'll put us up for the night. And I can find out how things stand among my clan."

  "North it is."

  They found a trail headed away from the beach. The trees enveloped them, the late afternoon light turning dappled. Tall oaks and beech, a far cry from the small pines of Tereg. Squirrels with dark green tails and chittering voices scrambled among the branches. Azaran spotted signs of deer, stepping nearly around a pile of scat. Birds flashed through the leaves and branches.

  He didn't see the first dead body until Segovac almost tripped over it. The man uttered a number of very unpriestly oaths, "Bloody tree roots...oh, never mind."

  Not a tree root. An arm bone, reaching out from under a small bush. More bones could be seen beneath, including a grinning skull looking upwards. Moss clung to exposed surfaces, making the skeleton difficult to spot.

  Segovac knelt down and pushed the bush aside. "Not right," he murmured, "leaving the dead like this."

  "There's another one over there." Azaran pointed a pile of branches beside an oak that turned out to be another skeleton, curled into a ball and half-covered in dead leaves and dirt.

  "There will be more." Segovac stood, holding a broken arrow pulled from the ribs. "Looks like an ambush."

  "Were they your clan?" Azaran asked.

  "Hard to say." Segovac tossed the arrowhead aside. "Makes no difference in the end. Dead is dead."

  They continued on, leaving the site behind them. The trees thinned and they emerged from the forest into a wide field marked at the edge by rough stone wall. The space beyond was covered with bramble and weeds. On the far side were two houses, the roofs open to the sky, the walls scorched by flames. Crows perched on the top watched them pass by. Azaran peered through one of the broken doors and saw a shattered table, cracked in half from some terrific blow. From the amount of dirt and dead leaves piled up against the walls, this had happened a while ago.

  They didn't linger. The wall running along the northern end of the farm was shattered, large gap torn in the center large enough for three men to ride through abreast. A pair of rabbits sat in the gap, nibbling on strands of grass. They fled as the two men approached. More abandoned farms lay on the other side, most no more than an acre or two in size. Weeds choked the fields. Bones of cattle and sheep lay open to the elements, weathered by wind and sun and long ago picked clean of any meat. Houses were scorched by fire, many pulled down until the stone walls were piles of rubble. No sign of the folk who lived here. Their homes were plundered, the broken walls filled only with dust and debris. War had come through this place, consuming all in its path like an ever-hungry fire.

  "Who did this?" Azaran asked as they passed by yet another broken farm house.

  "Ganascorec," was Segovac's reply.

  "A warlord?"

  "A king."

  Azaran looked around. "I know nothing of farms or their tending," he said. "But it seems a strange thing, to leave good land like this empty. Wouldn't he replace the dead with new folk to work it?"

  "Leaving it empty is the entire point. There was rebellion here. He put it down, cleared the land of its people and left it empty as a warning to others. And there is that."

  Segovac pointed to a pile of stones heaped near the house. At first glance it looked like any other heap. But painted on the wall above it was a faded symbol, almost gone from the wind and rain. Azaran could still make out a triangle, with three open eyes placed before each point. In the center was the figure of a woman, arms out, one hand holding a knife, the other a severed head.

  "The mark of the Ghelenai," said Segovac. "They likely did the killing, after the battle was over. Men, women and children....move those stones and you'll find a pit with their bones in it. Killed for a sacrifice. The land is cursed, no one will live here."

  "Are they warriors?" Azaran asked.

  "No." Segovac shook his head. "They are...it's hard to explain. And best not done here." He hurried on, leaving the site behind as fast as he feet would carry him.

  Eventually they reached another patch of woodland. A wide trail went through the trees, ancient hoof marks still impressed into the dried mud. "Cetam lives in the trees," Segovac said. "He's a woodcutter. His wife gathers herbs. I've known both since we were children."

  Unspoken in his voice was the question if his friend was alive. Azaran didn't have it in him to ask.

  They followed the trail for about a mile. It was getting late, dusk wasn't far away. The trail narrowed until it was little more than a track. Tree stumps bearing ax marks appeared, mingled in with younger saplings. A rusty ax head was embedded in the trunk of a tree, the handle broken off half a foot below.

  The land rise sightly to a low hill. A long stonewalled house stood near the top, surrounded by smaller sheds. Segovac cupped his hands and placed them to his lips. "Cetam!" he called out. "Hello the house!"

  No answer.

  "Cetam!" Segovac called out again. He lowered his hands. The look on his face said enough. They would find no one here.

  "Here too," he whispered.

  "Maybe they fled," Azaran suggested. "You're friends might be waiting on the other side, talking of the day when Segovac returns in glory."

  "Maybe the rain will turn to wine as well." Segovac replied. He stepped towards the house, headed up the hail. "Come on. Best get this over with."

  They went up the hill. Vines clustered the sides of the house. The thatch roof was half-gone, wide holes open to the elements. The place was filled with an eerie quiet, with not even the birds chirping in the neighboring trees. Despite the warmth of late summer, a chill seemed to hang over the place, a cold as much of the spirit as the flesh. Azaran's hand drifted to his sword, the back of his neck prickling with each step. Something terrible had happened here and the land remembered. The trees remembered. The earth cried out with each step.

  Cetam's home was clustered around an open area in the center, with the house on the southern side and sheds to the north and east. The doors to the house were broken, hanging off their hinges. A pen for livestock was trampled to splinters. In the center of the open area was a well around which five stakes were driven into the earth. Impaled on them were the heads of pigs and dogs, the flesh little more than leather strips dried by the sun, their eye sockets dark pits.

  A large hole was dug in the ground some distance away from the well. Placed on the ground before it was a long flat stone, with the symbol of the Ghelenai carved into the top. Dried blood still cling inside the grooves and lives carved into the stone. The woman cut in the center stared out at the world with eyes lit by madness.

  Segovac walked over, face pale with fear and sorrow. He glanced into the hole then look away, closing his eyes. "Cetam," he whispered. "And his family."

  Azaran looked into the hole. It was full of bones. Human bones.

  The story continues in Shadow of the Ghost Bear, now available on Amazon!