My Father's Swords (Warriors, Heroes, and Demons Book 1)

by Dave Skinner

  “Mother!” Lee cried. “How can you say that? Especially after all the beatings he gave Bray.”

  “I am just appreciating a natural talent, and you have to admit that Bray has recovered nicely. I think you were saying that yourself the other day.”

  “I … I never said anything of the sort.”

  “It must have been one of the other young women then.”

  “Are you ready for your trueone challenge?” Shawn asked, turning the discussion away from his sisters blushing face.

  “I believe that is what the challenge is meant to determine,” Bray answered.

  “You will do fine. Just pick a beast that is not too big. Remember, it only has to be a bear or lion. There is nothing in the rules that specify cave bear or sabretooth. Waycan said he heard whispers that some of your classmates are thinking about killing a sabre tooth like Ran did. That would be a mistake.

  “Emulating Ran is something I would never consider.”

  “Good. Now, if you will all excuse me, I am off to see Mara.”

  * * *

  Kat watched Shawn stroll away from the cabin. He has turned out to be a fine trueone, his father would be proud, she thought. Kat felt a swell of emotion accompany that thought, something that had been occurring in the past few months. She was feeling the grip of loneliness closing around her. Bray would be a trueone soon, she was sure he would return to Nadia. Shawn was gone most of the time now, and would marry Mara soon. Lee was growing up. What would she do when they were all gone? Who would keep her company on long spring evenings? She heard footsteps as someone joined her on the porch.

  “I must find Waycan and review my plans for my trueone challenge. I should be back before dinner, and I will chop some firewood for us,” Bray told her. “You might want to talk to Lee. She seems upset about something. I told her I was going to Waycan’s and she snapped at me about not caring what I did. Did I do something wrong?”

  “I will talk to her. I think she is mad at me not you.”

  Kat returned to the kitchen and started clearing dishes. Lee sat at table looking cross. “Are you going to help me?” Kat asked.

  “How could you say that in front of Bray?” Lee blurted. “I said that to you in confidence. It was embarrassing, Mother. Why would you do that?”

  Kat sat at the table and took a moment to think before she answered. “You are right. I should not have said it. I…I have been feeling lonely lately. That is the only excuse I have.”

  “Maybe you should return some of Waycan’s attention,” Lee suggested. “He likes you. I can tell.”

  “Waycan reminds me too much of your father. They were like two bees in a hive when they were younger—always together—always competing— more like brothers than cousins. When they both asked me to marry I thought it was one of their competitions.”

  “Waycan asked you to marry him?”

  “Yes, they both did.”

  “What made you pick father?”

  “I did not have to choose. Waycan disappeared during an excursion to Bearclaw territory. He was missing for almost a year and we thought he was dead. By the time he returned your father and I were married. Waycan chose the travelling life shortly after that.”

  “But mother, father died a long time ago. You could marry Waycan now, if you wanted. I think he still loves you.”

  “I think so too, but he has never mentioned it. I am unable to answer a question I never hear.”

  “What is holding his tongue? Do you know?”

  “My guess is he feels he would be dishonouring your father’s memory if he was with me.”

  “How?”

  “An oath taken, a misunderstanding, or just a man thing, really, I have no idea.”

  Chapter 24

  The procession started with two honour guards in ceremonial dress uniforms, their polished breastplates and weapons shining beneath their white cloaks. They were followed by two bridesmaids, the bride, two more bridesmaids, and the bride’s parents all dressed in sparkling attire. As they reached the end of the aisle, all turned towards the dais on the left. They took up their positions around the back of the raised platform while Mearisdeana took hers upon it, facing the members of her party.

  The bridal party was followed by the groom’s, made up of two guards, two groomsmen, the groom, two more groomsmen, and followed by king Terrintay and queen Saratay wearing the jewelled crowns that announced their sovereignty. Their party turned towards the dais on the right and positioned themselves as the bride’s group had.

  Adamtay’s parents were followed by the person of authority who would perform the marriage. In this case, Adamtay’s uncle, the Royal Wizard. He took his position halfway between the two daises. The guests sat. The members of the bride’s and groom’s parties trooped out and took their seats in the front row leaving the bride and groom alone on the raised platforms still facing away from each other. The ceremony started.

  Adamtay listened carefully to every word that was spoken. This was his and Mearisdeana’s day. He knew there would never be another for him. Divorce was possible under the law, as was remarriage in the case of tragedy, but neither of those options were for him. Mearisdeana was his one and only love, his soul mate.

  “The guests will now rise,” Adamtay heard his uncle say. “Please close your eyes in preparation for the dawn of the first day of Mearisdeana’s and Adamtay’s new life together. Now, with eyes closed, the bride and groom will turn to face each other.”

  “By the authority of my position as Grand Wizard of KaAn, Wizard to the royal court of Tey, and through my blood tie as uncle to the groom, I grant the bond of marriage to Mearis of the house of Deana and Adam of the house of Tay. May their lives be filled with happiness from this day forth. You may now, for the first time, look upon your partners in the new life you have agreed to undertake together.”

  Someone screamed. Adamtay’s eyes snapped open. Across from him Mearisdeana was outlined by a circle of dark nothingness as tall as her. She was straining forward, reaching for him. Her dress was stretched backwards towards the rift. He leapt from the dais and raced towards her. She screamed his name as she was pulled into the blackness. Adamtay flung himself at the rift, only to crash against an invisible barrier. Stunned, on the ground, he watched helplessly as the rift disappeared.

  Chapter 25

  Bray finished binding leather strips on the handle of his second flint knife. The rules of the trueone challenge did not specify how many weapons of each type you were to make, but Bray felt better with two knives in his hands. After two years of specialized training it felt natural. Not that these knives were anything like his Nadian blades. These were crude stone knives chipped from flint.

  Binding finished he placed the blades aside and gathered the last few berries from a bark-bowl beside him. A sparrow landed with a chirp on a stone of the fire and hopped immediately to his knee her little claws digging into his skin. With a bop of her head she proceeded to scold him for taking her berries.

  “I left plenty behind for you, little mother. You have nothing to scold me about. I’ll leave you to your berries soon.”

  Three days into his challenge and he had supplied himself with a flint tipped spear, two knives, ten flint arrow heads, a loin cloth, pouch, moccasins, and a sleeping skin made of deer hide. He had traded the meat from his kill for the latter. The trade also availed him of someone’s labour to clean the hide. He did not see who he traded with. That was the way it worked. You hung what you were willing to trade in a tree, spoke to the greenery around you, and if the bargain was accepted you awoke to find the exchange complete.

  It only worked if the person was known to the little people. Many Tawshe were. It was an accepted means of acquiring items for the trueone challenge, under the condition that the raw materials for the items came from one’s own labours. No one could trade for metal weapons because those raw materials were outside of what the inductee could obtain during the challenge.


  Sliding his stone knives into their sheaths, Bray picked up his spear and other possessions, ensured that his arrowheads were secure in his pouch, doused his fire, and set off at an easy jog. The distance he proposed to travel before sunset was significant, but he felt confident he could make it. He alternated between jogging and walking, a combination that ate up distance.

  Close to midday he stopped to consume the meat he had saved from his previous evening’s meal. After eating he climbed the end of T’Han Bluff. It was a difficult climb but, once on top of the ridge, it was an easier run, and overall much shorter than the alternative route through the valleys. At the top he rested a short while before setting out at a steady walk along the ridge top.

  A number of trees from below were tall enough to reach the top of the ridge, but not many. He could see the tree-covered land below him as it stretched out to the lake, visible off to his left. Some bare areas appeared as slashes in the greenery. Bray knew them to be natural meadows and the rocky tops of low hills. Off to his right, rearing out of the stretch of forests, and a three-day fast march from the ridge he walked, the central mountains of the Tawshe peninsula rose. The forest was a solid cover on the land between the mountains and the ridgetop trail he walked. He could see smoke from other Tawshe villages in a number of places. Overall, it was a wild, majestic and beautiful land, but it was not his home. He was Nadian, and he would return there someday as soon as he completed his trueone challenge and retrieved his father’s swords. Bray held to that purpose despite his love for the Tawshe lands and his adopted family. He would miss Shawn, Kat, and Lee most of all.

  Bray was about to start jogging again when something in a clearing below caught his attention. A slight thinning in the trees allowed him to see the ground clearly. It was one of the openings formed by a small knob of stone protruding out of the earth. Someone had drawn a design on the stone outcrop, a combination of lines of varying lengths. It looked like spear points extending from a central circle with other circles at the ends. A robed figure was moving about the design, and there were four Tawshe crouched in four of the circles. Bray moved to the edge of the cliff and studied the scene. He could hear a murmur on the wind. The robed figure seemed to be talking. The Tawshe were not moving. Bray recognized Shawn at the same time he realized the Tawshe were bound.

  He dropped to the ground at the edge of the ridge and looked for a way down. He could do it, but it would be a slow decent. The only other option was to jump for one of the trees that edged up to the cliff and rose almost to the top. Deciding that the cliff decent was his best choice, he dropped his spear over the edge and looked for a place to start the downward climb. Picking a likely spot he glanced again at the scene below.

  Just then, the robed figure stopped walking and made a motion with one hand. Bray saw the four Tawshe start to struggle against their bonds. Sunlight flashed off a knife blade as the figure spoke a long sequence of sounds before reaching down and slitting the throat of the Tawshe furthest from the cliff face.

  Bray rose to his feet as the killer started walking around the circle of captives. Luckily his direction of travel put Shawn at the farthest point on the circle.

  Taking three steps back from the cliff edge, Bray stopped, raced forward, and jumped for a tree. Crashing through the new growth at the top he bounced off a few stronger limbs before he could control his fall. Dropping from limb to limb, supported for less than a heartbeat by foot or hand, he reached the ground quickly and charged out of the trees into the clearing just as the figure cut another throat. Bray sprinted towards Shawn.

  He was close enough now to recognize that Ran was the next person on the killer’s route around the circle. He could not save both of them. Ran would die. Shawn would live.

  The killer was halfway to Ran when he noticed Bray. He paused for a moment and then made a gesture with his hand. Bray felt a slight resistance but broke through it without slowing. The killer was almost at Ran when he noticed Bray again, stopped chanting, and disappeared only to reappear by Shawn. His knife slashed across Shawn throat.

  ***

  Mearisdeana could see Adamtay and her family as if through a haze. She was screaming Adamtay’s name and reaching for him when he launched himself through the air towards her, only to be brought up violently by some barrier before fading from her sight.

  As a freezing blackness enveloped her, she automatically brought on her dayskin. The burning sensation she had been experiencing stopped, the cold remained. For a moment she was lost in complete darkness before she saw a hint of light begin to grow in the distance. It continued to expand until she could make out a scene as if through a round window. There was no sensation of falling, but she seemed to be moving from a great height towards it.

  She saw a pattern outlined in blood red flames. Something moved on the pattern like a spider on a web. As she watched the creature, it made a gesture with a silver-hued item it carried. Red energy blossomed from the object it touched. She surged closer. The spider moved slowly to another object, performed the same movement. More red energy spewed forth. Her progress towards the scene surged anew. The creature started to move again just as something burst into the periphery of her view. It charged towards the pattern.

  Mearisdeana was close enough now to realize that the spider creature was a man, as was the thing that was charging towards the pattern. Further, she decided the creature had to be a wizard because it made a hand gesture towards the running man, and she witnessed a blue tinted energy flowed out. The blue tinged spell did not appear to affect the runner. He charged straight through it.

  Mearisdeana was very close when the wizard seemed to transport himself to another location on the design where a bound figure crouched. A movement of the silver instrument the wizard carried caused another burst of red. The running man changed direction. She surged forward. Her feet touched a solid surface, and her vision almost cleared.

  The wizard transported himself again as the runner dove forward and knocked the last man away, somehow ending up crouched in the circle himself. The wizard reappeared, silver dagger raised, downward stroke started. The kneeling man’s hands shot out as he surged upwards. Before the wizard could complete his downward stroke he was struck five times. Mearisdeana thought the man was punching the wizard until she saw the red energy spew out from where he connected. Although the wizard’s back was towards her, the spewing energy suggested the strikes were to the groin, stomach, chest, armpit and finally the throat just as the wizard screamed a final word.

  The force and speed with which the man moved carried him in a leap above and over the wizard. He landed at Mearisdeana’s feet. The wizard collapsed. There was an explosion of energy and Mearisdeana passed out.

  * * *

  She awoke, dazed and disoriented. It took her a few moments to remember what had happened. She dragged herself to her feet and looked around. This was not her world. This was not KaAn, that much was obvious. Her world had not seen vegetation like this for ages. In her studies she had discovered pictures and texts that told of her world looking like this once. Most of her colleagues had scoffed at the idea, saying it was all fiction.

  She realized with a start that she was standing uncloaked in sunlight. For a second she was terrified before reason reasserted itself. Her dayskin was active. She vaguely remembered doing that as she was sucked into the rift. That memory brought back the picture of Adamtay rushing forward to reach her. Her hand grasped quickly for the medallion hanging around her neck. Reassured by its feel, she reasoned there was a chance that she would not be stuck on this world forever. Adamtay would come for her if it was at all possible, and if the spell laid on the necklace was substantial enough to traverse the distance to another world. Meanwhile she had to be strong, and do whatever she could to help herself.

  Obviously this sun was weaker than KaAn’s. It hung almost directly above her in a brilliant blue sky, but it did not cast the blazing white light she was used to on KaAn. Her dayskin was strong enoug
h to protect her she reasoned, but a cloak would be nice. Her wedding dress was nothing more than tatters now. She walked over to the body of the wizard. His cloak was caked in blood. She could not bring herself to touch it, but she wanted his dagger. First, it was magical. It might be useful in returning home and, second, it might keep her alive. It was still in the wizard’s hand and, when she attempted to pick it free, she realized his fingers were frozen in place around it. With viciousness she had never felt before, she smashed her foot down on the hand. It felt good. The knife came away easily.

  A short distance from the wizard lay the body of the man the runner had managed to knock out of the way. He was tied in an awkward position, but his eyes were watching her. She moved towards him and was relieved that he showed no fear. Maybe she would be accepted by these beings. She was wondering how to free him when he rolled onto his stomach presenting the ropes at his back for cutting. She complied. With his hands released he was able to free himself. He rose to his feet in a smooth graceful movement, and offered her his hand as an aid to standing. He said something she did not understand. She replied in her own language. He shrugged.

  The young man who had killed the wizard was kneeling beside the body of the one he had run towards first. She started towards him, but her new companion stopped her with a hand on her arm. With a flick of his head he motioned for her to follow.

  They made their way to a pile of packs and weapons stacked a little ways distant. He searched through the pile, pulling out a sword and knives which he strapped about himself. Picking up two other swords he again indicated for her to follow. They headed towards the cliff wall and the closest trees.

  He demonstrated what he wanted her to do, and in a short time they had cut four long thin plants into poles, along with some smaller branches, and a number of vines that could be used as bindings. They dragged everything back to the bodies. Her companion quickly built two bedlike structures using the items they had cut and two cloaks he retrieved from the packs. Mearisdeana grabbed a cloak for herself.