by Heath Pfaff
"You are right, Reamis. I had forgotten that there is more to the world than what lies in this village." He looked sadly out over the place that had been his home all of his life. "I wanted to save them. . ."
"I know, Orthisius. The chieftain, he is consumed by his grief. He has convinced himself that if he can stifle the news of the truth, then he can change what has already come to pass. It is madness. You can see it burning in his eyes. I saw it when I spoke to him." Reamis said, already beginning his march from the village, Orthisius in tow. "The townspeople will not go against the word of the chieftain.
"We will make as much distance as we can this night. We can cut a straight path to the village in the next valley. We will warn them, rest while we might, and then we will move on and warn another village. For our home, we have done all that we can. Our words are meaningless here, a pebble in a stream. Perhaps if we spread word far enough, it will come back here, and the stream will heed the will of a thousand pebbles." Reamis had thought about his decision to leave the village since he had returned with news of the doomed children. It had been a difficult choice to make, but he had seen the necessity. He hoped only that Orthisius would see his point of view as well.
Finally, the great huntsmen nodded. Orthisius had seen the light. Together the two men began to run. When the village found Orthisius missing, there would be trouble. Neither man was sure whether or not the chieftain would send hunters, but as long as it was a possibility, the two tired men had to keep moving.
Thus was begun the great Call to Arms of Orthisius and Reamis, a legend of the people of the Tett. The two friends ran from village to village over the course of the next six years, warning every group of people they encountered of the threat coming from the mountains, and it was well they did, for not even a year after they began their run, the cave fay came down from their rocky home, a tide of terrible hunger and death.
The Tett were just beginning to come together, forming war parties, and establishing a central method of communication. Individual chieftains assembled to discuss what was best for their people as a whole, and all of them looked to Orthisius and Reamis for their answers.
"We must bind together, forming a wall of interlaced stone that no enemy can push through! If we do not, those creatures, those hungering masses, will devour us all. Death to the Hungering!" Orthisius's message to the people was clear. They must unite or perish. The Tett listened. A line was formed, brave warriors from all the villages coming forward to stand and fight against the horde, and behind them stood even more of the Tett, for our people came in great numbers. When one of us fell, another came forward and took their place.
For a time it seemed we would be successful. We held the Hungering at bay, pushing them back when possible, and never letting them advance. However, this constant battle waged on for years, and even our most hardened warriors became tired. The cave fay, those creatures which Orthisius had named the Hungering, kept on coming. If we killed one, ten more stepped forward, each new set more skilled and dangerous than the last. They learned, and grew more deadly. Our line could not maintain, and we were forced to fall back, losing more of our lands, and more of our people to the terrible horde.
We were desperate for help. We needed a new way to fight our enemy before we were wiped out entirely. Our salvation came in the form of an old Chieftain from one of the villages furthest from the center land. He called himself Uwian, and said he was the protector of lost knowledge. He bade Orthisius and Reamis come to him in private, so that he might impart information that would aid in the war. Orthisius and Reamis did not wish to leave the front lines, where they had fought hard from the very first day of battle, but they knew that if they did not find a new way to wage war, the Tett would be consumed.
So it was that Orthisius and Reamis left the front line and traveled to the remote village of the chieftain Uwian. There they would discover the secret to the salvation of the Tett.
Uwian had long guarded ancient secrets sealed in two scrolls kept beneath the chieftain's hut for countless generations. The care of those scrolls, and the secrets they held, had been passed down from chieftain to chieftain over the course of the history of the Tett, and had finally come into Uwian's possession forty years before. He had been instructed to never open those scrolls unless a time of great crisis occurred, and so had thought his scrolls would remain sealed for the extent of his life. The Hungering changed all of that. As the Tett fell further and further back, losing more and more of their bravest warriors to the enemy horde, it became clear to Uwian that his people's time was running out. However, he would not open the scrolls on his own. He knew that such a terrible secret should never be contained by just one man.
Orthisius and Reamis approached Uwian's hut with skepticism, but also with a frail hope. Both were battle weary, scarred and tired from years of hefting the spear. The days of the hunt seemed long lost for them, buried beneath the endless war.
Uwian waited within the darkness of his hut, a single torch burning, and the recovered scrolls sitting on the table before him. There were two scrolls, and each was sealed with the original blood wax seal that had been placed on them when they were first rolled. The old chieftain wondered, and not for the first time, if he was making the correct choice in opening the ancient secrets. He had been warned that such magics as they contained could be either a blessing or a curse, depending entirely upon those who wielded the power.
Orthisius and Reamis stepped into his tent, and he looked for the first time upon the two men, strong huntsmen, who had become legends over the course of their own lives. Uwian needed only to look into their tired eyes, their sad faces, and his doubts fled from him. If ever the Tett needed the ancient knowledge, he knew that it was time. He bade the two warriors take a seat on the floor before his low table, and they did so without speaking a word. All in the little hut sensed the importance of what was about to transpire. Uwian picked up the first scroll, and with the utmost respect and care, broke the seal. A wisp of blue fire consumed the wax, and the paper unrolled, exposing the first of the two great secrets.
Those three assembled men, Uwian, Orthisius and Reamis, read the two scrolls, and learned the processes by which they could save the Tett. The magic detailed came in two parts. The first scroll described the process by which one person could be strengthened through the sacrifice of their own longevity. For every year of life given, the individual could gain a degree of power, making them stronger, faster, and tireless. This was a dangerous magic. Such power, in the wrong hands, could create an unstoppable killing force, whose only downfall would be its own shortened life span.
The second scroll, however, was the more frightening of the two. It described a way by which one person could take years from the lives of another, or several others, and add them to their own life force. The effect would not lengthen the life span of the person accepting the years, but would grant them additional strength and power for every year of life taken in this way. However, it was limited in that only those who willingly gave their life force could be used for the magic.
Uwian, Orthisius, and Reamis all saw that these magics could provide the power to save their people, but they also saw that a great possibility for corruption existed. They knew they would have to find a way to balance the power received so that those monstrous beings created, would not become a greater menace than the monsters they were created to fight. They thought long and hard on the matter and finally came up with what would later be named the Silver Rules.
A huntsmen who wishes to take up the mantle of power must never have been accused of unusual cruelty, or unaccustomed violence. They must stand as a pillar of strength, and justice amidst the community.
A huntsmen who wishes to take up the mantle of power must first be willing to sacrifice half of their own remaining life to the cause. Such a sacrifice shows a conviction of character, and distinctly limits the amount of trouble such a person might create if they did decide to use their powers for ill.
A huntsmen who wishes to take up the mantle of power must first find 100 of their fellows who are willing to give up 5 years of life each, in order to grant them power. Such a sacrifice, from so many people, shows that those people have confidence in the warrior, and believe he will serve their cause with nobility. This assures that a corrupt man will never obtain such dangerous power.
Word was spread throughout the lands of the Tett, and volunteers came in, though not as quickly as Reamis and Orthisius had hoped. The prospect of losing half their lives scared many men and women away. In the end, twenty candidates, and their two thousand supporters, came forward, not including both Reamis and Orthisius who also agreed to take on the mantle of power. They would not force a sacrifice on others that they were not willing to make themselves. Two thousand and two hundred men and women, along with the twenty two chosen warriors, came for the magical ceremony. It was a massive number of Tett to assemble in one place, and it took no few from the front lines, which worried all involved. Some held less confidence in the success of the magic than others, and all feared that the weakening of their line would spell the end for them, rather than lead them to salvation.
Uwian began the magical rights quickly, knowing that those who'd given their time to the cause were needed elsewhere. There was no celebration to be had, no preparation beforehand. There was not time for such foolishness. The chieftain came before the assembled huntsmen and he called out to them in a voice that boomed with importance.
"Who would go first into the place from which you may not return?" His words were not meant to frighten, only to state the uncertainty of the day. The magic that they were about to perform, had not been tried in the lifetimes of any man alive.
Many people looked to Orthisius, expecting him to stand first and volunteer his life, but it was not that most famous of huntsmen who stepped forward. Reamis stood proudly, pressing through the throng, his hundred volunteers stepping forward with him. There was pride on the faces of his supporters, for Reamis proved himself brave and worthy of the life they were each willing to give.
"Follow me." Uwian said, gesturing for the group to stay close to him. They walked into the woods, beyond the limits of the village, until they reached a wide clearing. There was a brazier burning in the center.
"Reamis, come with me, the rest of you need only to sit and make yourselves comfortable. Your part in this is played merely by being present and by having consented to the ritual." The chieftain led Uwian to the center of the clearing, and began the magic rite.
"Malice, Noble, you have looked upon me and possibly thought that I am Tett, a prime example of my people, but that is not the case. The Tett are like those of the kingdom of men, for the most part. We are generally shorter, and our skin is, indeed, the same ashen color as my own, but we have the same eyes as do your people, and hair in an assortment of similar shades. These silver eyes, this dominating stature, and my hair of spun moonlight, these are the effects of the secrets of Tett magic. It is not my place to divulge those secrets, and I do not know all of them, or even a good portion of them, anyway. I can tell you that the process is painful, but not long lasting."
When Reamis stood up from his transformation, his silver eyes blazing in the light of early dawn, his muscles sleek and firm as they had never been, and his hair blowing about him as though he'd captured the essence of the moon in its strands, those assembled people gasped as one, and bowed to him as though he were a god.
"Do not bow to me." Reamis said to those who'd given him a piece of their life. He dropped to one knee, and he bowed his own head to them. "It is I who must thank you for giving me what is necessary to fight our enemy. I am but one man, yet each of you has given me a precious part of your life. I shall do all in my power to make sure you never regret that choice. I will fight a thousand years' worth of life, for the five hundred that has been sacrificed."
The people cheered for him then, though it only seemed to embarrass the silver-eyed warrior. Reamis was stout of heart, and strong, but he was not accustomed to praise, nor did he expect it. They departed the clearing together, and the other volunteers got their first look at what was to become of them.
"How do you feel?" A voice called.
"How strong are you?" Another questioned.
Reamis could not be sure himself. He felt much as he had before the magics had affected his body, but it was as though all limits had fallen away from him. He had feared the core of his being might change, yet he still felt like Reamis, only stronger in every physical way. He decided to test himself.
He ran, pushing his body forward, and found the world blurring with speed around him, his legs pumping with such vigor that it seemed he almost flew across the ground, rather than moving over it. The assembled people were awed by his display of speed, and even Reamis laughed with an uncontrollable excitement. To move faster than the wind and to feel so boundless was a rush he hadn't anticipated. Reamis approached Orthisius, who stared at his changed friend with a mixture of apprehension and fear.
"You've become something different." Orthisius said quietly.
Reamis shook his head. "I've only become stronger. I am still Reamis the huntsmen."
Orthisius nodded, and slowly smiled at his friend. "Good, because our world would not be worth saving without the likes of Reamis the huntsmen."
The two friends clasped hands, though Reamis had to check his strength. He remembered what it had been like to clasp hands with Orthisius before, how the man had almost seemed to crush his fingers every time they did so. It now seemed to Reamis as though he were holding hands with a frail child. He could only guess as to how much stronger he had become.
Uwian spoke up loudly, cutting off the chatter that had begun to fill the village. "Who will go next?" He asked.
There was no shortage of volunteers this time. All twenty-one of the men stepped forward, eager to become like Reamis, the silver-eyed warrior. Now that they knew the process would not kill them, and had seen how effective it was, their fears were alleviated, and their hopes high. For the first time in as long as any of them could remember, there was a reason to believe that the Hungering might be defeated. With the silver-eyed warriors, the Tett found their hope again.
Uwian performed his magic rite non-stop throughout the day and well into the night, never taking a moment to rest between rites. Each time he returned from another group, he looked more and more worn and tired. By the time he reached the last of the twenty-two groups, he looked as though he could barely stand on his feet. Great dark circles had formed beneath his eyes, and his skin was pale and cold to the touch. He, however, insisted that the process be completed that night, and so, out of necessity, the warriors of the Tett let Uwian continue his work. Time was short, and they had faith in the old chieftain.
With the twenty-second silver-eyed warrior done, Uwian collapsed. The last of the new warriors picked him up gently, and carried him back to his hut. The chieftain's breath was ragged, and he looked far older than he had when he began the process. Orthisius and Reamis stood at his bed side all through the night, finding that they did not need to sleep any longer.
Uwian woke just before the coming of a new dawn, though his eyes seemed far away.
"We have hope again?" He asked in a frail voice.
"Yes, Chieftain Uwian. You have given us hope." Reamis told the man, taking the chieftain's frail hands in his massive powerful ones.
"Hope is our best weapon. So long as we hope, we can fight." The chieftain said softly. "Put the scrolls back in their place, and make sure they are not touched again until they are needed. . . . I must go now." The chieftain closed his eyes, and breathed out his last sigh.
For every ceremony performed, the chieftain had given one year of his own life to the cause. He had told none of them of this, and the truth of it was not found until later, as Reamis was in the process of sealing the scrolls away. Uwian was given a warrior's sending, and laid to rest at the head of his village's burial ground, above even the founder of the
village.
"The greatest bravery is so often not to be found on the battlefield. . ." Reamis said as the last of the earth was placed over the chieftain.
Our warriors returned to the front lines, twenty-two silver-eyed battlers among them. Many feared it would not be enough. There were only twenty-two of them, and even some of those who'd taken the silver eyes wondered what so few could do against such a massive enemy force. They had underestimated their own potential.
The revitalized forces of the Tett slammed into the weakening front line of the Hungering as though the very rock of the land had risen up. They were unstoppable. The Hungering lines fell back. It would be more accurate to say that they were cut back, for they gave no ground so long as they lived. The Hungering do not retreat, no matter how badly outclassed they become. The Tett pressed them all the way back to the base of mountains from which they'd first risen, but there they could go no further.