The Silver Arrow

by Larry Itejere

  Gina had walked out from the storage room at the corner of the main desk, drawn by the sound of footsteps.

  “He is gone…but he left this for you,” she said as she extended her hands out with a sealed envelope.

  “Thank you,” Elena said behind a stab of anger at Iseac for leaving without saying good-bye.

  “Is his room occupied?” Elena asked.

  “No, it’s still vacant.”

  “Could I have a few minutes alone up there?” Elena asked.

  “Of course you may,” Gina replied.

  “Thank you again,” Elena said and she made her way upstairs, trying not to appear too eager.

  Once alone, Elena broke the seal that had her name written in front and began to read.

  *******************

  My Dearest Elena,

  Words cannot express how marvelous it was to see you again.

  The desire to stay that I might see you once more shook me to the core and threatened to split my heart asunder, for it will not be consoled.

  I leave with this void and hope soon my path will lead me back to where it might find rest in you.

  The course I now have to take I must take alone, as fate has chosen a different path for me.

  My hope is that my presence here has not endangered these people. I do not know when I will again return, and do not expect you to wait.

  You deserve better, someone that will be there and care for you, someone you can raise a family with and live a normal and happy life.

  I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused you.

  Iseac

  ********************

  Elena sniffed as she wiped off the tears from her eyes. There was nothing else on the note. She knew that Iseac was being trained by a Patron in Bremah, which required him to travel, but this had been the longest he’d been away from home. His knowledge and understanding of the four Kingdoms seem to ground him even more, and this was one of the things she loved about him. She enjoyed listening to him bring history to life when he spoke of events centuries ago as if he had seen them in person.

  And after all this time away, he still held her heart.

  “Mother used to say that men are hard to understand. I now see what she means, and even though she might be right, he is the only one for me.” She folded the note and tucked it into her bodice.

  After taking a second to compose herself, Elena walked out of the room.

  ***********************

  Iseac and Mosley, on the other hand, rode through most of the morning. By midday, the clouds had gathered into a grayish blue; it was about to rain.

  “It looks like we are going to be riding in the rain for some time,” Mosley commented as he pulled his hood over his head, the wind carrying his words.

  “Stay by my side,” Iseac said in reply, not wanting to talk too much; his side and head still throbbed with pain.

  Concentrating, he cast a spell, and the air above them shifted in a twirling motion. A second later, it settled into a transparent shield just before the first raindrop hit the ground and it began to rain.

  Iseac pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and they rode at a canter with the rain bouncing off the invisible shield. This, however, did not stop the draft from the wind.

  The rain broke through several times as they rode due to Iseac’s wavering concentration, caused by the mounting pains in his side. Durack’s continued motion exacerbated his still-healing wounds.

  Throughout the day, there were occasional breaks from the heavy downpour; by dusk it had diminished into a drizzle, but Iseac didn’t feel like spending the night in the open.

  He knew there was a cave about a mile from their location. The question he was debating was whether it was still there. He sometimes second-guessed himself when it came to things like the landscape. His knowledge of this cave could have been from a more recent predecessor, or over a hundred years ago.

  He could see why before and after his unlocking, Gabram was insistent that he study the more modern maps of the Kingdom, which helped to confirm his knowledge of the past.

  They veered left off the main road as Iseac released his spell and they rode at a trot through the woods that became more sparsely separated the farther in they went. They stopped at the base of a hillside. Iseac stepped off Durack and started walking along the corner of the hill.

  Mosley recognized the place, but he wasn’t sure what Iseac was looking for.

  “Can I be of any help?” he asked, stepping down from his horse.

  After a long pause, Iseac spoke as he continued searching for something. “I’m not…” and that was when he saw it.

  “There!” he said as he parted the shrub that was hiding what he was looking for, a board that was old and weathered. It was the entrance to a tunnel that was about five feet tall, with a thick wooden frame mostly covered in dust and cobwebs.

  Gritting his teeth, he kicked the board in, splintering the wood around the area were his feet landed. Iseac leaned forward and began pulling off the remaining planks with his hands.

  “We should be dry in here tonight, but stand back. “He motioned for Mosley to move to his right. When he was satisfied that he and the horses were a safe distance from him, he raised both hands over his head and moved his arm around almost in a circular motion. Something above him began to stir; as he swung his hand forward, a gust of air swept in through the entrance, making a hollow swooshing sound as it brushed the fore-walls of the tunnel, fading into the distance.

  “That is better,” Iseac said, rubbing his wet hands together as if cleaning them. His wet hair that had been pushed forward by the wind fell back into place.

  Iseac was glad to be on his feet again; the jarring motion from their ride had left him sore more than he’d thought. Looking around, they gathered as many dry twigs and wood they could find−which wasn’t much−and they got a little fire started, which provided little warmth. As they sat inside the cave away from the wind, Iseac closed his eyes and placed his right hand on the ground, the palm raised so only his fingertips were touching the ground.

  Concentrating, he touched at the core of his mind, causing the amulet on his chest to unlace itself, revealing the fuchsia crystal within. Now that the crystal was open, he placed the image of a human at the core of his mind, which sent a vibration from his fingertips to the ground. The images of a human-like shadow formed within a fog that appeared in his mind. It returned no human form a mile around them, outside of Mosley, which it picked up immediately. All of this took less than a minute. When Iseac opened his eyes again, he began to speak, explaining where they were going and what they needed to find.

  All this time, Mosley had not once asked Iseac where they were going or what Iseac was trying to accomplish. His job was to protect him, and nothing else mattered.

  “We need to find a young man with dark brown hair and silver eyes that would be gray to most people. He might have a bow with him.” Iseac went on to describe the type of bow and the inscription on it, explaining that the young man they were looking for was most likely visiting the city for the harvest festival and not a local, which mean he would be known by an innkeeper.

  Bayshia was a large city with hundreds of inns and tavern. It was going to be like trying to find a spotted grain in a sack of corn, but not just one bag, hundreds. “I don’t know the name of the building where we will begin our search, but I will show you when we get there.”

  It had stopped raining the next morning as they prepared to leave. They had a quick meal, got back on their horses, and rode west away from the mountainside.

  Mosley was the first one to notice the charred smell in the air; it was faint as a result of the rain from the night before, but he could still smell it, and so could Iseac.

  “Do you smell that?”

  “Yes, but I don’t see any sign of fire,” Mosley replied.

  “Let’s head back to the road,” Iseac suggested.

  The smell of smoke grew stronger as they rode along t
he main road till they got to a junction with fewer trees. That was when they saw the birds flying in a circular motion ahead of them. These birds were red around the head and the rest of their feathers blue. Only one thing attracted these birds, and that was the blood of something dead or dying. There were many of them, which meant something terrible had happened.

  The road they were on split in two directions. One meandered down to the left, leading toward Orie, and the other curved slightly to the right into Chartum-Valley.

  While Iseac knew that every day spent on the road and not in Bayshia was valuable time wasted, the birds flying overhead were a sign that some might need their help. Besides, he knew a fast way through Chartum-Valley without losing time.

  “Let’s find out what is going on,” Iseac said as he sent his horse into motion. The horses seemed more spirited with the sun rising as they veered right. The mountain pass, which looked whole at a distance, opened up as they rode toward it. As Iseac and Mosley got closer to the crest of the hill, the first sign of their fears was confirmed.

  The birds were picking on something that lay on the ground. As they got closer to it, they could tell that it was the disfigured remains of a man in the center of the road. The birds around them flew a safe distance from Iseac and Mosley, their beady eyes shifting between them and the food that lay on the ground.

  “It looks like it’s been here about a day,” Mosley said, judging by the smell as they looked down on the discolored corpse with flies around it.

  There were arrows sticking out of the chest that they both recognized as Golan. The now-tattered shirt on the corpse had a symbol on it that flapped about, held by a single thread.

  It indicated that this man was a courier, the symbol partially covered in dried blood.

  Most small towns had a courier and a hawk used for sending messages across town, one confirming the other if there was any question. It also guaranteed that the recipient received the message. If the courier was killed by Golans, Iseac could not help but wonder what they could have done to the people of the town.

  He urged Durack on until they were past the crest of the chasm. At their distance, they could see smoke rising from within the town as they rode downhill. No one knew why Golans do what they do, which made them dangerous, so they had to be vigilant as they made their way toward Chartum-Valley.

  Chapter 15

  Gone in Flames

  The place had an eerie silence, stilled by inactivity as Iseac and Mosley rode into the valley. The scene was even more gruesome than they had anticipated. The acrid smell of burnt flesh and bodies starting to decompose hung heavy in the air like smoke. The streets on different areas were covered in bloodstains that stretched along the road from the rain the night before. Most of the buildings, from what they could see, were destroyed by fire. Their charred foundations were the only identifying pieces of the structures that were once there.

  The potent stench turned Iseac’s stomach and he threw up, unable to hold his meal.

  “Are you okay?” Mosley asked.

  “Yes, I’m fine. My meal just isn’t sitting well with me this morning.” Iseac wiped his mouth.

  “I haven’t seen anything like this before,” Mosley said with a sense of horror. “Whatever attacked this people seemed bent on destroying everything in its path. With this much carnage, I don’t believe they had any intention of taking prisoners.”

  “So what would Golans be looking for this far south, and why Chartum-Valley, is the real question,” Iseac said.

  “What did these people have that was worth destroying their town?” he asked himself as they made their way toward the heart of the town.

  The sound of their horses’ hooves against the cobblestones seemed louder in the silence that encapsulated the place.

  Mosley continued to scan their surroundings beside Iseac.

  Iseac got off Durack at the town square, releasing the shield of air he had held when they rode into town. There was a quicker way to check for survivors. He got on one knee, placing his right hand on the ground, concentrating.

  This was the fastest way to detect life and help anyone that might still be alive. As images of the dead swept past his consciousness, he felt a single pulse, and narrowed his focus on it. It was not far from their position, but before he could say anything, he heard a splintering sound. He released his concentration, opening his eyes to see Mosley standing in front of him with a piece of broken arrow on the ground.

  “Someone is here,” Mosley exclaimed, his voice raised.

  “I know,” Iseac replied as he ran for cover.

  “Golan,” Iseac thought as Mosley took cover on the opposite side. He only sensed one; unless something had changed, there should have been more arrows aimed at them.

  Golans were known to go in a pack of four, and only if the others were killed would you find one alone.

  He needed to know what had happened to these people, and whoever had just shot at them was their key to finding the answers.

  Looking around, nothing provided any real cover. Iseac crouched down against a waist-high stone wall, the edges charred by the fire that had consumed it.

  “I will attack him head on while you go around,” Iseac said to Mosley, who acknowledged the plan with a nod.

  “And we need this person alive,” he said as the air around him pulled itself into a solid mass in front of him.

  “Now,” Iseac said as he ran out from cover, rushing forward to meet their assailant, his feet barely touching the ground with his cloak flapping behind him like a flag.

  Mosley watched as Iseac sprinted in the direction the arrow was fired, and he darted to his left, his eyes focused on the general vicinity where the intruder was hiding. Iseac caught a slight rustling in the woods as he rushed in, just as his shield deflected another arrow. That one had been aimed for his head.

  He could not get a clear view of the Golan between the rustling branches as the Golan was retreating. So he ran faster to close the distance, bursting into an open clearing inside the woods. The sun peered through gaps in the trees, its rays illuminating the rich green and brown leaves that covered the open area.

  As Iseac looked for signs of the Golan, he heard the swooshing sound of something zip by. He turned to face it, ignoring the sound of something slumped to the ground.

  Iseac could see Mosley putting his hand down. He had just killed their only witness, he thought, as he turned his attention to the Golan, which was the slumped sound he had ignored.

  “He is not dead,” Mosley said confidently as he walked over to the body, joining Iseac.

  “His head will be throbbing when he gets up, that’s all,” Mosley said, picking up his knife. He had knocked him out with the head of his knife.

  Iseac pulled the hood off the face of the Golan and was shocked at what he saw. It wasn’t a Golan, as he had suspected, but one of the young men in his dream.

  “It’s him!” Iseac exclaimed in disbelief. “The one we needed to find in Bayshia.”

  Mosley looked at Iseac. He had no hint of surprise in his expression, but his eyes showed that he was perplexed.

  The young man’s face had patches of dirt over it; his cloak was damp and dirty. He was dirty all over, with dried blood on his arm and lower ribs. Mosley stooped down and picked up the limp body from the ground. Iseac picked up his bow, and they walked back toward the town square.

  That night, there was a stir as the young man rose from his makeshift bed on the ground.

  “Ah…our mysterious archer, how do you feel?” Iseac asked as if talking to an old friend. “Sorry for the bump, but that was the only way we could stop you.” He watched the young man blink while shaking his head to clear it.

  The motion must have been painful, because he placed both his hands on his head, which was wrapped in a woolen cloth to cover the wound he received from Mosley’s knife.

  “You’ll find meat and fruit on the plate next to you, if you are hungry,” Iseac said as he bit into his own food.
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  The young man said nothing, but instead looked to the right and left of him, past his plate.

  “Looking for this?” Iseac said, his voice drawing the young man’s attention as he placed the bow in front of him. The young man stared at Iseac, wondering what was going to happen next.

  “Are they going to kill me?” he wondered. “If they were, then why am I not in a restraint?” the rational part of him said. “And why would they bind my wound?”

  “Okay,” the young man thought to himself, unsure what to make of his current circumstance.

  “You can have this back,” Iseac said, pausing for a second, “after you tell us what happened here first.” The young man stared at him, somewhat confused.

  “Do you have a name?” Iseac asked.

  “Yes,” he muttered after a minute.

  “I’m Iseac, and he is Mosley,” he said, gesturing to the Ackalan, who nodded his head in salute before sitting down. “You now have our names, but I don’t believe we got yours.”

  “Samuel,” the young man replied with some reservation as he stared at Iseac, who appeared to be about the same age as Faray. This thought sparked feelings of anger and sadness as he remembered seeing Faray lying on a wagon, bloody. He needed to get out of here and find his family. Iseac’s words cut in on his thoughts.

  “Well, Samuel, why don’t you get something to eat?”

  Iseac needed to get Samuel to relax, so he began to speak.

  “We were heading to Bayshia and decided to stop by the valley for some supplies. When we arrived, we were shocked to see the town destroyed and all the people killed. We were searching for survivors when you showed up.”

  Samuel listened as his head slowly shifted from a throb to a dull ache, with his eyes adjusting to the firelight that danced several feet from him.

  As his senses returned, the aroma of what was cooking over the fire pricked his hunger. He remembered Iseac saying something about food being next to him.

  He picked up the plate and placed it on his lap. “If they were going to kill me,” he thought, “they wouldn’t have gone through this trouble.” And there was a sense of honesty and openness about the man who called himself Iseac.