The Rawn Chronicles Book One: The Orrinn and the Blacksword: Unabridged (The Rawn Chronicles Series 1)

by P. D. Ceanneir

  It was these thoughts among all others that swam around his head as he sat on the hillside and prepared to meditate. He looked into the silver globe of Tragenn’s pommel that was the Muse Orrinn, and focussed on reaching a trance state.

  He felt suddenly tired from the long journey up the hill, most of it on foot holding Dirkem’s reins, the ground being treacherous with loose shingle, and his eyelids fluttered closed. His body went loose and his head fell forward; his brow touched the Orrinn.

  He made a link with his sleeping subconscious mind, and a lightning flash of images flooded for an instant into his head.

  …He saw a boy with frightened eyes, a trinket box under oak flooring, a man with bushy red hair and beard carrying an axe, a girl in a wicker cage, and a huge bear with a maimed claw. He saw Skrol carved on a stone cairn, pieces of a broken sword, a dwarf covered in sweat and dirt hammering at an anvil, two sky ship’s and a beautiful white-haired woman in a purple robe ready to strike him with her sword…

  His visions change suddenly as they took him to a different place.

  …he could see he was sitting on a small branch in a pine tree. His left arm felt such terrible pain, he was sure it was broken. He fell from the branch, attacked from behind, but bit back at a long ferret-like creature with his hooked beak. He landed on soft pine leaves and started calling in a high-pitched, shrill voice…

  He woke and pulled his head back, clutching his broken arm, but the pain had gone and his arm was fine. He stared at the Orrinn in shock and saw what looked like silver clouds closing up around the pine tree scene and that shrill calling was fading. He looked around, astonished. Some time had passed, but the sun had not sunk behind the mountains yet; the images were only a split second in length.

  He had made a connection, yet could not fathom out anything he saw. The only thing he recognised was the sky ships; they were Sonoran. He forced himself to memorise every detail of what he had seen, then he tried to perform the link again, but could not even hold the trance state.

  He did not sleep well that night; he was too excited.

  In the morning, he was up before sunrise and killed two rabbits with his bow; he skinned and gutted them. He cooked one on the small fire he had made, allowing it to roast on a spit for a couple of hours, then carved it into bite-size chunks, which he wrapped in leaves to keep them fresh. He would have the other later that day and decided to head down the mountain and look for some berries and tubers to make a hearty evening meal.

  He was on a sheep path in a small valley when he heard an insistent high-pitched calling from somewhere close behind him; he turned to look at the path he had come along, but could not see anything. His Rawn talents told him that there were no animals close by. He frowned and shrugged; the calling had stopped, and he clicked his tongue at Dirkem to continue.

  At the head of the valley, he found some berries and some root vegetables that looked like large onions, though had the taste of garlic, hot like raw radish. He was putting the bulb into a pouch on Dirkem’s saddle when he heard the shrill chirping again from behind him.

  “Where is that coming from, Dirkem?”

  The horse nuzzled his back. It seemed louder now and he walked over to some shrubs, but there was nothing hiding behind them. It stopped.

  “I think I’m finally going mad,” he said, rubbing his eyes.

  He was walking back to Dirkem when the keening screeched again, this time behind his head. He looked at the stallion with wide eyes.

  “No, it can’t be,” he said.

  He reached behind him, pulled out Tragenn and looked at the Orrinn, then put his ear to it. His whole body jumped in fright when the sound started again.

  It was coming from the Orrinn.

  “What the...?” He paced up and down, with his ear to the silver orb feeling slightly self-conscious. He noticed that it faded when he walked in one direction and got louder when he walked back the way he had come.

  He jumped on Dirkem.

  “We have to find the source of this sound, Dirkem; I feel it is important.”

  They galloped out of the valley, and then onto a flat, bare ridge. The direction could be a choice of east or west; he chose east, but, after a few hundred feet, the sound faded, so he turned back. The calling took him to a large pine forest further down a steep slope on the other side of the ridge; Dirkem trotted slowly through the trees.

  “We are close. I remember seeing pine trees in the Orrinn last night.”

  It took them a while to find the right direction through the thick trees; eventually, Dirkem’s ears pricked forward and he stopped; the sound was much louder now; that was because Havoc could hear it in the Orrinn and in front of him.

  He dismounted and crawled under branches towards the sound. Then he saw a young female red kite sitting at the foot of a pine tree; her left wing looked crooked and she eyed Havoc warily.

  “Hello, little one, don’t be afraid.”

  He picked her up and took her to Dirkem, who nodded at the feathery bundle in his arms. The wing was broken. Havoc understood the pain she was in, having felt some of it last night. Whatever had attacked her was long gone; she was lucky to be alive.

  He made a camp in the forest and used the arts to heal the kite’s wing. The effort weakened him more than he thought. Healing others with the Rawn Arts used more energy than healing himself. The bird was in shock and weak from her ordeal, so he wrapped her in Dirkem’s blanket and took the uncooked rabbit from his saddlebag. He cut little slivers of raw flesh off the carcass and fed the kite. She was unsure at first, then gave in to hunger and ate all she was given. She must have felt safe in Havoc’s presence, because she fell asleep. Soon, a tired man and his horse did, too.

  Havoc dreamt. It was not as disturbing as his previous dreams. It was more cryptic and abstract...

  …He was walking through a dark forest.

  He wore a black hooded cloak, yet the next moment the cloak burst from him as shadow, which merged with his own. The shadow shifted, grew tall, loomed imposingly and radiated sinister, malicious intent.

  In front of him glowed light, not unlike moonlight. It cut through the trees like sunbeams. In his hands, fingers long thin and pale, were the two Nithi daggers. On their hilts was a symbol of a feather, one in silver and the other in a light blue. He had not noticed them before. He put them back into his boots.

  As he walked on, the glow dimmed, and he could see a tall white archway with its silver gate beneath it. On either side of the arch sat plinths with one large Skrol symbol on each; he looked at them, trying to focus as if he was looking through water.

  The one on the left said:

  He knew, somehow, it said SIN.

  Then he looked at the one on the right.

  It said:

  This was the symbol for DEX. However, he could not remember seeing these symbols before.

  “The names of the dragons that watch the entrance to the land of the dead,” he said with a dry whispering voice.

  He looked up.

  The dragons were there on their plinths so large that Havoc wondered how he had not seen them before. He looked at them in wonder.

  Both were black and identical in feature. He knew from the old fables that Sin had a silver stripe down her spine ridges and Dex’s was gold. They looked the same, because the myths tell of them being twins, the only dragons born from the same egg.

  They were sitting down on their hind legs; their backs were ramrod straight, the front claws gripping the edge of the plinth. Black vapour seeped from their noses and their thin horse-like heads turned towards his direction. He noticed that each of their eyes had two reptilian pupils of red on a yellow iris that covered the whole eyeball, and they blinked at him with heavy eyelids.

  “Am I dead?” he asked Dex, still in that harsh whispering voice.

  Dex said, “We have not been made aware…”

  “...Of your passing,” finished Sin.

  Havoc was aware that these two formed one unit. A larg
e forked tongue flicked over the male dragon’s sharp white teeth. Sin blinked and Havoc could see she had a softer face compared to her brother’s, and longer eyelashes.

  “Then why am I here?”

  Sin said, “You must ask something...”

  “...From us,” finished Dex in a deeper voice.

  “What must I ask from you?” Havoc frowned.

  “The use of...”

  “...Our names,” Dex growled.

  He had no idea why he needed their names, but he asked anyway.

  “Can I please use your names?”

  There was a pause as the dragons looked down at him.

  “Of course...”

  “...You can,” finished Sin, and they looked away from him and became as impassive as stone.

  Havoc was very confused by the whole conversation. It was, after all a dream, so he shrugged.

  He looked at the gates. They shone brightly in the gloom; he could see through the ornate grillwork, but everything beyond them was indistinct. He took a step closer, but felt an invisible force resisting his every step until he could move no more.

  “It is not your time yet,” said a voice behind him.

  He turned around and saw Verna in her blue dress holding Prissie upside down by one leg. She had her fine brown hair in pigtails and he could see clearly the brown freckles over her nose and cheeks. Havoc was pleased to see her, but he looked again at the gates and then back at her.

  “I thought you would be in there,” he said.

  “I have much work to do before I pass through the gates of the dead,” she said with a very serious expression on her face.

  “What work is that?”

  “Vengeance,” was her only answer, and Havoc could see a raven fly in and land on the ground beside her, dispersing the thin mist that was forming over the ground. It regarded him with a beady black eye.

  “I want that too,” he said to her.

  “Of course you do, for you are Death,” she said which confused the prince, and yet at the same time, explained much.

  More ravens flew in from the darkness beyond and soon they littered the ground and trees all around.

  “I have called them. They wait for the death toll you will bring them,” said his sister, indicating the ravens. “You are my envoy and I’m your queen.”

  Havoc was about to speak when he felt something in his hands; he looked down and found he was holding the Nithi daggers again. He did not remember taking them from his boots.

  “Find the girl, brother, save her from evil.”

  “Girl... What girl?”

  Verna was turning away and walking through the mass of ravens, which obediently made a path for her.

  “Your destinies are entwined.”

  “Who is she? How do I fine her?”

  “Follow the daggers.”

  Then the growing darkness around them swallowed her up. As she vanished, all the ravens took off and swarmed around the prince. He tried to fend them off with the daggers...

  ...And rolled off the furs shouting at such a volume that Dirkem jumped awake and trotted back a few steps. Havoc got up breathing hard and looking around him. He was holding the daggers; he must have pulled them out of his boots while asleep, he concluded. He looked at the hilts and saw the feathers, faintly worn and the colours were fading. They were much clearer in the dream.

  Follow the daggers – what did that mean?

  Dirkem’s blanket was empty; the red kite had gone in the night. He wished it well.

  In the early morning, he broke camp and headed north. He did not know why; he just felt compelled to. The daggers were Nithi and that meant south, but he just knew he had to start in the north. At midday, he stopped by a stream and filled his canteen; he ate some dry biscuits he had made from some wild wheat he had found growing in(a) clearing a few days ago. The trickling sound of the stream was soothing, so he sat and munched the biscuits and sipped the cold, fresh water. The sun was beating down and a cool breeze ruffled the collar of his woollen shirt. Above him, he heard a high-pitched keening and looked up through the trees to see the red kite flying above him in a circle.

  “So you are still with us, are you?” he asked, and turned to the stallion. “Maybe she wants to say goodbye properly.”

  To his surprise, the bird’s call issued again from the Orrinn on his back; he unsheathed Tragenn and looked at the orb. It had opened. He could see into the Orrinn; its silver surface became grey clouds that blew away from the surface to reveal mountains and forests.

  “Dirkem, its showing me trees,” he said excitedly; the horse shook its head and snorted.

  He could see the trees coming closer, as if he was falling on top of them from the sky, then, as the tops of the trees became bigger, his view rose through a gap in the canopy.

  “It’s going to show me something,” he said as he gripped the hilt tighter in anticipation.

  The view was nearly at ground level now and he could see a small river flowing over rocks and pebbles, then the view changed as it tilted left, and a dead tree stump took up the entire picture. Just as the image was going to fly over the crest of the stump, it stopped and he could see...

  ...Himself.

  He was shocked. He could see himself in the Orrinn sitting looking at the silver globe. He heard a flutter of wings, and turned to his left and saw the red kite sitting on a dead tree stump further down river and looking straight at him.

  “I’m looking through the eyes of the bird,” he said, but somehow that did not seem right. “No, I’m looking into the Orrinn and the Orrinn is looking through the eyes of the bird. The Orrinn is for seeing things at long distance; this is amazing.” He called to the kite and she flew over to his arm; he was conscious of those sharp talons on his bare flesh.

  “I will call you Mirryn; it means Loud Voice.”

  Mirryn keened as if in acknowledgement of her new name.

  She jumped off his arm and flew back the way she had come. Havoc looked at her flight passage in the Orrinn, as she got higher and higher; it seemed as if he was flying with her through the clouds; his stomach flipped as she banked and swayed in the currents of air. She was looking around for something on the ground and, when she found it, Havoc frowned.

  A few miles away, a thick column of black smoke was drifting out of the trees.

  Chapter 14

  The Countess of Haplann

  Three riders were watching from the heights of a steep valley as Havoc took the boar path into the trees. He knew they were there, but he ignored them; they were not making a move to intercept him and they seemed content to just watch for now.

  With the dream still fresh in his head, he and Dirkem trotted towards the source of the smoke. He sensed something terrible had happened and curiosity was getting the better of him. To cap it all, last night’s dream made the decision easier for him. He had been planning for a while now to leave the mountains and to seek out the destiny his sister had mentioned. He now knew how to control the Pyromantic energies, simply by meditating away the volatile emotions every second day. Also, his control of linking said energies to his Rawn Arts was improving with every attempt. The dream was all he needed to acknowledge his plans and give him the incentive to leave.

  The smoke he had seen was too thick and black to be a simple campfire and it troubled him. As he got closer to its location, he could see ruts in the road made by a large carriage of some kind, and they led off from the path and into thicker deciduous trees. He jumped off Dirkem and left him to graze around the thick bolls as he approached the source of the smoke on foot.

  The first thing he saw was the carriage. Its size struck him as odd. High, wide and long, it looked like a home on wheels. Judging by the broken furniture scattered around that was its purpose. It was on its side; he could clearly see the thin, flat suspension plates on each wheel axle. There were two other smaller carts beside the larger one; these were empty; their contents were scattered all over the forest floor, which ranged from fabrics a
nd dresses, pots and smashed plates and three empty barrels of ale. One horse was dead the rest were gone.

  Most of the dresses and furniture fed the fire, which smouldering away on its own. The chemicals and dyes in the dresses creating the black smoke. He was about to go put it out when he noticed a tree with rope lashed around it and a pair of hands tied around the trunk. He looked around it to see a man bound to the tree; he was plump, in his forties and richly dressed.

  He also had seven arrows protruding from his chest.

  The next body he found must have been the man’s wife. She was about the same age. She was naked and tied to the ground, arms and legs spread wide; her throat opened with a wide-bladed knife. The blood had soaked into the ground and covered the leaves around her head. Havoc shook his head in disgust. It was not difficult to imagine what had happened here.

  He saw the last dead body on one of the small carriages. She was young, maybe the same age as himself, and quite pretty. She had been tied face down onto one of the wheels and her dress cut up to her neck, exposing her bare buttocks and legs.

  Havoc concentrated on quelling his anger and looked at the macabre scene with a cold detachment. A rich family that had fallen prey to bandits, but where was their detachment of guards?

  Havoc buried the bodies in a clearing. He dug shallow graves and covered them with stones and wood, and then he returned to the carriage and looked inside. Its contents ransacked, the furniture and chests of clothes now lay outside. The velvet curtains ripped off the windows, fine porcelain plates and ornamental pottery lay smashed all around. The bandits had tipped it on its side to search underneath; they had been thorough. However, as Havoc looked inside the carriage, he noticed the oak floorboards. There seemed nothing untoward about the belched surface at first, but he had seen it before in the Orrinn.