The crew hastened to obey him. The meaning of those shared conversations with the sailors dawned clear upon the Killer. He had been planning this event with them. They flipped the vessel’s dinghies and lowered them into the becalmed sea, while the ever intimidating sword point kept the Killer well clear. Even the betraying priest was safe from his wicked blades as sailors loaded everyone onto the boats and pushed away from the ship. He growled again at the knight revealed before him. This was no target, no mere fighting man. This was a paladin; a holy warrior of his god. None on any ship would have doubted the man’s word. The Killer’s growl became a howl of rage.
Faced with an implacable foe, the Killer turned feral. He bared his teeth and snarled, while his shoulders rolled forward into a threatening stoop. All pretense at humanity dropped from his visage and he leaped and struck like a beast—like a demon.
The paladin said not a word as he sidestepped the Killer’s charges, yielding the deck while giving the ship’s boats time to get further away. The large caravel was now an isolated battle ground for the two of them. Finally the holy warrior was satisfied and he began his attack. Enough rationality remained for the Killer to pull both his wickedly curved blades up to parry the deftly arcing blow, bracing to absorb the force with his arms. No impact came, just a slight tug of resistance as the sword of the paladin passed through his blades.
The Killer halted, open-mouthed, as the blades of his weapons fell clanking to the deck, sheared off clean. He could only stare numbly when the paladin began barking out a series of foreign words, somehow igniting every rune of the ship to a blaze of bright blue fire. The intense light surrounded the Killer, but did not blind him. No, he could clearly see the tip of the dull silvery sword plunge into the center of his chest. There was no pain, but he heard a slight sound come from within the core of his being, like the snapping of a metal wire, and then release.
chapter 3
awakening
Twenty-Second day of the Moon of the Thief
-on the west coast of Erenar
Lorace gasped. Brine spewed from his lungs. He floated, gagging again. His limbs convulsed, his feet struck ground. He ran.
A blur of trees whipped past on either side. He giggled as he ran, chasing an amber butterfly with golden sparks trailing from its wings. His hands reached and groped only to close on emptiness. The butterfly vanished in a shower of more sparks. The trees parted before a field of round blue flowers like full moons. They filled his senses with their heady perfume. His hands brushed through their petals sending up glittering fountains of silver dust.
The woman who rose before him in the sparkle of stars was tall and perfect, like his mother. It was the Lady, her statue stood in the main hall of his home. The boy knelt down as she gazed upon him with eyes full of light. She bore a dull silvery sphere in her hand which she held out while her gaze filled with luminous tears.
“I have held you close, my lost one, until the storm passed,” the Lady said in a rich contralto as he accepted the metal sphere the size of a large citrus fruit in both hands.
“Why do you weep, my Lady?” Lorace asked.
“It is the destiny I set before you that causes me to weep. None should have to endure what you will endure, but all is at risk and I shall not see you again until your task is complete.”
She set a fingertip to his forehead. “Awaken, final warden of Vorallon! All is at risk and I must sleep.”
Rounded stones pressed into his back, shoving his senses away from the dream. He flinched at the crash of waves and the ensuing splash of cold salty spray. As the world squeezed in, the run through the forest faded. Another thunderous peel of surf drove away the Lady’s voice and shining image. Yet another splash of bitter cold and the reflexive flinch into the stones ripped the last tatters of dream away, all but the four words echoing in his mind.
All is at risk!
He pried his bleary eyes open upon a sea tossed by the winds of a departing storm. A pale blue half-moon hung directly overhead in the gray dawn.
All memory was slipping away with the foam of the last receding wave. He shivered in the shadow cast by towering cliffs at his back and tried to reach back within himself.
He grasped at what little remained, trapping one memory while everything else fell away to the shattering cold and noise. A woman, dark haired and delicately featured smiled over him as she softly called, “Lorace, it is time to wake up.” A young child’s first memory of warmth and happiness, the only balm he could hold onto. All else fled with the last vestige of his dream.
Sea water soaked the burnt shreds of clothing still clinging to him. What little remained of his pants and shirt held no memories. His brown hair hung stringy and damp about his shoulders. He clung tightly to a dull silvery sphere with one hand. Something about it felt important, but he could not focus. It ducked his attention, hiding behind his bitter shivers and chattering teeth.
Lorace stood to look about, but could only stagger dizzily for a moment as he fought for balance on unfamiliar legs, a man’s legs. He almost fell back to his hands and knees upon the rocky shore. Through the disorientation of his out of scale body, he sought comfort with his mother’s smiling face and warm voice. He held tight to that memory and it sustained him, easing him away from the threatening emptiness.
The pale skin of his arms was scarred with long, pink and white lines. They led up to even heavier strokes upon his shoulders and chest, marking him like a possession. Deep knife cuts disfigured him with an unspeakable identity, taunting his memory with their marring. He traced them with his finger, some white with age and some lividly fresh, unable to fathom any purpose for their existence. A shudder forced him to accept it all and seek a path to shelter and warmth.
“All is at risk!” the rich voice echoed in his mind again. He wanted to believe it was his mother’s voice, but knew it was not. The words were spoken with urgency, though any meaning behind them was lost.
Lorace choked on a gasp of air, tasting sour brine in his mouth and turned to search his surroundings. He called out, but the rocky beach was empty.
He craned his neck at overhanging cliffs, undercut by ages of the surf’s chiseling and smashing. Beyond their obscuring barrier, he imagined rolling hills carpeted in rippling waves of yellowed grass, and further toward the rising sun, blue snowcapped mountains rearing higher.
Looking up and down the beach he sought escape from the cold that seeped deep into his core. A whim, the slightest of urges, turned his deadening feet north along the beach.
He staggered and slipped over slick rocks, catching himself repeatedly with just one hand, while the other maintained a tight but forgotten grip on the dull silvery sphere. When he did fall, his solitary memory would shift slightly and urge him on. “Lorace, you must get up!”
He stumbled through a narrow stream of running water cutting a straight defile in the cliff. The icy shadow parted to a narrow window of sunlight, but he stepped fully into cold again before rousing to the warmth. He wrenched himself around, the action threatening to spill him back to the rocks. A few wobbling steps brought him back to the stream and into the sun’s embrace. The water was freezing, but he drank deeply before turning to work his way up the narrow stream.
He followed its course, ascending through the defile until only a slight embankment separated him from the level of the cliff top. He climbed up on hands and knees to flop onto his back in a sea of tall yellowed grass. Raising himself on his elbows, he saw the hills with mountains beyond and smiled. No new memories came to him, but the familiarity was comforting.
He climbed to steadier feet, turning and stretching his body in the thin sunshine until the numbness and pain eased away.
The tickle of grass at the back of his legs urged him into motion. A subtle lean to the ground eased his steps northward again. The wind from the sea was his constant companion; it bent the grasses flat before him as he trudged onward. When the sun climbed higher the wind calmed, allowing the grass along the cliff t
op to lift and beckon him on with gentle nods.
When he came upon more streams descending from the hills, he paused only long enough to slake his thirst; he could do nothing about his growing hunger. He passed many white stained nests in the grass, but they were empty of eggs. Pairs of long winged soaring birds, doubtless the residents of the nests, drifted along the cliff with him. The steady wind filled their pinions eagerly, dancing with them in their graceful movements.
Scattered trees upon the hills had gradually collected into a dense forest of deep reds and bright golds. The breeze sped through the treetops, delighting him by fluttering the leaves into blazes of color across entire hillsides. The gusting air had forged a connection with him throughout the day. Now, when it ruffled his wavy hair it did so as an old friend.
The cliff rose beneath his feet to crest in a broad headland as the sun began lowering in the west. Beyond this promontory, a wide field spread down to a fortress city overlooking the sea.
High walls gleamed pearl and silver on its three landward sides to end atop the cliffs in great watchful towers, tall, round shepherds, alert to any danger. Three tiers of notched battlements capped the walls, like three steps of a giant’s stair leading to a secure embrace. The fortifications, heavy and solid as they were, offered Lorace their protection rather than rebuke.
A channel of water cut straight through the perfect square of the city like the stream that had saved him from a cold death of exposure on the beach. The flow spewed over the cliff and into the sea as a thunderous plume. The water entered through a narrow twisting defile in the eastern wall, its restricted flow forming a sizable, mist covered lake behind the city. Beyond the shrouded lake a river flowed in curving sweeps out of the deep patchwork forest. A wide stone quay on the lake’s northern shore hinted at the presence of river traffic with some other city or town further inland.
Beyond the city, and climbing up the far side of the wide valley, were plowed fields of dark soil and pastures where scattered clumps of cattle grazed.
Penetrating the wall facing him was a single narrow gate set deep within an embrasure. Between him and the wall stretched the broad expanse of a bare field. A battlefield, he thought.
In his mind’s eye he imagined the people of such a city adorned in colorful clothing of reds, yellows, blues, and whites proudly striding its streets. They leaned from tall windows to call warmly to passing friends and pushed finely made carts laden with crafted goods, ribbons and cloth, carved shell jewelry, and fresh baked bread. He imagined guardsmen dutifully walking the three tiers of battlements. They wore shining steel chain link armor under blue surcoats trimmed in white with an upward pointing triangle of white upon their breast.
The sound of a wolf howl spun him to face the nearby woods. It was an ominously hungry sound. He envisioned a pack of three huge gray wolves hunting. They raised their sensitive noses to the wind to pick up his scent as it blew inland on the sea breeze. Then they started through the woods at a dead run, kicking up a wake of gold and red leaves in their wake.
Lorace laughed nervously then broke into a trot down the rise of land toward the small gate. That howl at least was not just a whim of his imagination. When he descended to the level of the field he paused to look back over his shoulder just as three dark shapes plunged from the woods in pursuit. He turned and ran flat out toward the gate with all the energy remaining to him.
He did not need to look back again to know the wolves would easily make up the distance separating them. They would drag him down before he had crossed half the broad field. All too soon, he heard their paws drumming behind him and their eager panting as they closed upon him. The call of the fortress city urged him on while the memory of his mother lengthened his stride.
The gait of the lead wolf broke as it prepared to spring and drag him down. Lorace turned to meet it with upraised arms and a sphere of metal in one hand, bracing for an impact with its heavy body that did not come. Instead he flinched away from a blurred figure running past, incredibly fast, to intercept the leaping wolf with a drawn sword.
A tall blonde guardsman had appeared before him to send the wolf’s head spinning with a single quick stroke. The twitching carcass slid unnoticed to Lorace’s grass stained feet while he gasped at his savior.
He wore the blue and white livery, exactly as Lorace had imagined. He stood a full head taller than Lorace, though he crouched now toward the remaining wolves, dripping sword held out to the side protectively. His broad chest heaved from whatever burst of exertion had allowed him to appear in the midst of an empty field. The wolves halted to face off with the guardsman before trying to circle past him to their original quarry.
An angry light lit their yellow eyes as they focused in on Lorace. They panted out a foul air that corrupted the fresh sea wind with its stench.
The guardsman tried to drive the last two gray beasts off with shouts and waves of his sword but he was forced to kill them as they continued to close. Two more blurring strokes whistled in the air, killing them clean. The man wiped the blood from his sword upon one of the wolves then sheathed it before turning to Lorace with an open smile and an outstretched hand.
“Welcome to Halversome,” he said, whipping his long ponytail to his back. “I am Tornin. We have been trying to drive off these wolves for several moons.”
The guardsman’s face grinned in genuine exhilaration at his valiant, but brief contest with the wolves.
“Thank you,” Lorace said, giving the guardsman his name.
Tornin’s face clouded with concern as he scrutinized him from head to toe, lingering only briefly upon the metal sphere that was forgotten in Lorace’s hand.
The guardsman gestured to the exposed scars on Lorace’s chest and arms. “You look to have suffered at the hands of foul men; are you all right? And what is that you carry?”
“I do not know—I am not sure. I cannot remember anything but my name,” Lorace held up the sphere. “I awoke clutching this. I have no idea what it is, but it belongs to me somehow.”
In addition to his chain armor and blue surcoat, the guardsman wore a light gray woolen cloak which he removed and threw over Lorace’s scarred shoulders.
“No one here will take what is yours. If you are an escaped slave, you need not worry,” Tornin said. “You are safe here. All people of Halversome are honest, free men. If anyone knows how to aid you, I will help you find them here.”
Lorace nodded and relaxed his back under the feel of Tornin’s cloak. “Thank you, I need that help. I am lost and hungry.”
Another guardsman trotted up to them from the gate. A smaller, stout man with black hair and a dark look about him. Lorace withdrew into the concealment of the gray cloak, drawing the dull silver sphere out of sight. Where Tornin’s character was open and sincere, this newcomer’s was hidden somehow. Though dressed in the same livery as Tornin, he wore a heavier looking sword with a long black hilt.
He surveyed the dead wolves and the dark look on his face blackened to a brief scowl. When he looked up at Lorace and Tornin his face showed only neutrality. “What happened here, Tornin?”
Tornin clasped Lorace’s shoulder in a protective grip, “Lieutenant Hurn, this is Lorace. He is a pilgrim who was beset by these wolves. I tried to drive them off, Sir, but they seemed half mad with hunger for him. I had to kill them, Sir.”
“A pilgrim, eh?” Hurn said with a cursory look toward the cloaked Lorace. A hint of predatory yellow flickered in Hurn’s glance.
“Yes, Sir. I ask leave to escort him to the city, if I may, Sir.”
“Very well, Corporal,” the dark haired guardsman nodded. “Stop at the gatehouse and send a detail out with shovels to bury these carcasses before they draw any more scavengers. You are dismissed for the remainder of your watch.”
Lorace raised an eyebrow at Hurn’s choice of words. Any more scavengers?
Tornin put his arm around Lorace’s shoulders and led him toward the gate, but halted when Hurn spoke again from over the dead wo
lves. “Tornin, I want you on dawn watch at the Pilgrim’s Gate.”
“Yes, Sir,” Tornin turned to say. Lorace peered back over his shoulder to catch a slight smirk on Hurn’s lips.
“That man does not like you,” Lorace whispered once they had put some distance between themselves and Lieutenant Hurn.
Tornin chuckled. “He is my superior officer. He’s not supposed to like me.”
Lorace let his concern about Hurn slip away when he drew near the walls of Halversome. The towering ramparts were made up of lustrous gray stone blocks, each almost equal to his height, joined together without mortar. He extended his free hand to touch the wall, to trace where one pearly block dovetailed into its neighbors. The stone felt polished and seemed to have a hazy depth he could peer into. He slid his hand to a silver glyph set into the stone’s surface, a complex circular rune twice the size of his outstretched hand.
“The Pilgrim’s Gate,” Tornin said, leading him onward into the narrow embrasure. The air flowing out of the gateway welcomed him with warmth and scents of spice.
-on the east coast of Ousenar
The dark, shapeless spirit was flung about at the mercy of the wind. It raged and hungered; raged at the wind that never released it, and hungered for the small sparks in the unreachable distance. At last, on the barest whim, the despised wind blew the spirit through a tiny spark. Its light vanished as the spirit fed. Now it felt strength, very little, but enough to break free of the maligned wind. It pulled itself toward the next closest spark, a small thing, just a lowly crawling thing, but it too fed the dark spirit. It became aware of many dim sparks, the surrounding plants and trees, but they failed to provide the sustenance of the brighter sparks of insects and animals.
Gifts of Vorallon: 01 - The Final Warden Page 3