by Dan O'Brien
“Don’t they?”
The screams suddenly stopped.
The silence drew Aeschylus’ attention; he knew that it was not indicative of hope, but something much more sinister. With a swift stroke, he separated the mind from the body of the older soldier, and then stepped over what had once been a complete Scythian.
The building’s door was heavily gashed as if a mammoth creature had raked its claws through the door’s gnarled wood. Peering through the gashes into the interior, Aeschylus saw what he had anticipated, the carnal spoils of war. Stealth abandoned, he threw his entire body weight against the door. As it burst inward, a cloud of dust erupted into the air, obscuring the faint moonlight filtering inside.
Pants still around his ankles, a rotund excuse for a man turned. His greasy beard, marred with blood and hay, hung over a sweat-soaked tunic that clung too tightly around his midsection. Not wasting time with insults or self-righteous speeches, Aeschylus drove his blade through the man’s stomach and then sliced upward with ease, as if he were chopping an apple. A gurgling whine escaped from the man as he collapsed into an uneven heap at Aeschylus’ feet.
The Pa’ngarin guardian stepped toward a woman who was thrown over a hay bale, her dress pulled over her shoulders. All manner of disease and depravity was dried upon her skin. As he approached, he could see shadows lurking at the fringes of the room, but they did not move.
The guardian challenged, “Is this the strength of Scythia, the glory of war?”
The shadows stirred; some looked like scarecrows parading as men. A weasel-looking man with a wispy mustache stepped into a ray of light, revealing his gaunt cheekbones and sharp jaw.
Aeschylus smiled.
He knew the men of Scythia did not share a common bond with the men of Pa’ngarin. The men who served as guardians and soldiers to the Society of the Dawn were sneered at and seen as subhuman by both Scythians as well as the ruling class of women in Pa’ngarin. “I do not stand for raping, Scythian. Show yourself and I will see you stand for nothing the rest of your days.”
The other shadows whispered among themselves, while the mustached man stepped completely out of the shadows. His body was long and his slender arms and legs were wrapped in gray and black fabrics that were stiff in places from dried fluids. He carried a short blade, stubby around the hilt with a hooking edge.
“Join us, slave. In Scythia, you could have your pick of women. You could be a noble soldier of the Crimson Throne…”
“The Blood Throne,” retorted Aeschylus.
To call the tyrant who sat on the Crimson Throne cruel would be to denigrate cruel men the lands over. Born to a herder and the Pa’ngarin woman he stole, the future ruler of Scythia entered the world in a simple thatched hut on the plains that nestled the Arcadian Mountains. In the four decades since he had ascended the Crimson Throne at the age of 15, he had waged a bloody campaign against all of the lands around Pa’ngarin.
“Only those who stand in Scythia’s way fall before our blades. That whore city you protect and the lands that surround it will fall before the might of Scythia’s armies. Even if you kill us here tonight, we will surround and devour Pa’ngarin.”
“As you wish….”
The guardian moved forward and relieved the mustached soldier of his blade and hand. His scream was momentary as the Pa’ngarin slave spun and drove the point of his blade through the man’s slender neck.
The other shadows remained stationary.
Eyes watched him from the darkness as the mustached Scythian slumped and fell.
Aeschylus pointed his blade at the shadows, blood still hot upon the steel. “Run home and tell your lord that Pa’ngarin will not tolerate this senseless violence against the Society of the Dawn. Flee like the cowards you are.”
The shadows hurriedly whispered among themselves, then shuffled out the back of the building. Aeschylus turned back toward the carnage and noticed the woman was still prostrated over the hay bale. He approached slowly, reaching his hand out in a soothing gesture.
“I am a soldier of Pa’ngarin, you need not fear me. Are you a Child of the Dawn?”
She did not move.
Stepping closer, the guardian touched her arm gently. With a sigh he brushed her auburn hair behind her ears, revealing a beaten and bruised face that was once beautiful. Her eyes were wide open, but she did not blink.
“Animals,” the guardian whispered angrily.
A whimper echoed from the darkness to the side of the bale. A small boy was huddled there, his knees pulled to his chest and his head buried in a tangle of skinny arms.
“I will not harm you,” spoke Aeschylus.
Looking down at the expired woman, he pulled her dress down and then took a step toward the cowering mass of knees and elbows.
The boy darted to the side for the back door. With a few short steps, Aeschylus caught up to him and seized him. The boy flailed and kicked, and in every way possible, tried to disengage himself from the guardian’s steely grasp. His auburn hair, layered in tufts and curls, shook wildly and his bright blue eyes bore into the guardian as he struggled to escape.
Wrapping his arms around the boy, Aeschylus tried to calm him.
“I am not going to hurt you.”
The boy struggled more defiantly.
Sitting down on an overturned barrel, Aeschylus held the boy with one arm and smoothed his auburn hair with the other.
“Was she you mother?”
At the mention of the word mother the boy went slack; his will to fight drained from him. Tears replaced gnarled fists. His chest heaved and his little body shook. “They said she was a whore,” the little boy whispered.
“What is your name?” asked Aeschylus as he loosened his hold on the boy.
The boy shook his head.
“I promise that I will not hurt you, child. I am Aeschylus, what are you called?”
A sniffle and then a reply. “Helius.”
“Was she your mother, Helius?”
He nodded quickly.
“Where are you from, Helius? You and your mother, are you Children of the Dawn?”
Helius shook his head, then slipped from the guardian’s lap and took a few tentative steps toward his mother’s body. His bare feet were caked with mud and smudged with the horrors of the battlefield. He reached out as if he were going to touch his mother’s dress, but drew his hand back shakily.
“She is gone, isn’t she?”
“I am afraid so.”
The small boy took a few steps back. His hands shook. Frightened and angry balls of broken nails and pale skin beat against his legs in rhythm.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked quietly, with little emotion in his voice. He stared at his mother and remained very still except for the percussion of his fists.
“The journey that we take in this life is not decided for us, young one. We can only take each step along the way and be judged by the strength and conviction of our actions. As for what you are supposed to do now? That is up to you.”
“I want my mother back.”
Aeschylus stood, adjusting the blood-stained hunting blade at his side.
“She is not coming back, Helius.”
“Then I want vengeance. I want them to suffer as I have suffered.”
The guardian looked at the boy, seeing the seriousness in his youthful eyes. “Vengeance will not bring back your mother, Helius. Blood will not repay blood. You may feel sated if men fall beneath your steel, but it will be empty.”
The boy continued to stare at his mother. “I do not care if it will not bring her back. I will feel better. I will feel less useless, less hollow.”
“Do you wish to bury her? Burn her?”
Helius shook his head. “We believe that once the light has gone from the eyes, the person we loved is no more. That body is just flesh that looks like my mother. I know that.”
Aeschylus waited patiently, neither moving nor speaking.
“I know that, yet I feel such sadness
, such emptiness. And rage. Hatred so large that I fear it will crush me,” the boy continued. “I know she would want me to continue, to reach our home.”
“Where is your home?”
“We are from Elitlh, to the south,” the boy responded as he moved closer to his mother. He could not hide his disgust and disdain at the ravaged state the Scythian soldiers had left her body in.
“Elitlh? That is dark country, governed by neither Scythia nor Pa’ngarin. Swamplands and marshes as far as the eye can see. What would compel you to live in such a place?”
Helius touched his mother’s face, gently brushing back her hair. Matted strands crumpled together into dunes upon her head. “My tribe is small. My mother used to come to Duedonia once a full moon to buy supplies. I had never accompanied her this far north before.”
“Can you ride?”
The boy nodded wordlessly.
Aeschylus moved toward the edge of the fractured door, peering out into the darkness. There were raised voices in the distance, reinforcements perhaps. “We cannot linger here any longer. It would not bode well for us if we were caught amongst so many dead.”
A glow emerged from the far side of the square, the whispers growing ever louder. Not chancing another moment of deliberation, Aeschylus grabbed the boy roughly by his ragged tunic and rushed out the front door of the building.
The guardian and the orphaned child from Elitlh rounded the side of the building, racing past the smoldering buildings for the silent forest at the edge of the village.
“Where are the horses?” asked Helius.
Despite the dire situation, the guardian managed a bemused smirk.
“Now you are concerned about the horses?”
Once they reached the tree line, Aeschylus put Helius down and gestured up a steep incline of twisting, angry roots and slick dew-laden grass. They made their way up the hillside as it gave way to tall trees and darkened shrubbery.
The subtle shifting of hooves and soft neighing grew louder with each step.
“You will have to ride on my horse with me, but we can acquire a new mount in Ma’oren. Being a guardian to a Maiden of House D’naia will allow us to secure what we need on the journey back to Pa’ngarin.”
With his shoulders slumped, Helius broke off a branch from a nearby tree and twisted it in his fingers for a moment as he spoke. “Must we go to Pa’ngarin? My mother said to never go there. She said that I would be treated like an animal.”
The guardian pushed back some brush to reveal a proud mare who snorted ever so slightly upon seeing her rider. He touched the rich coat of his mount and patted the white freckles of her mane. “Pa’ngarin is where I must go. My charge makes her way there, so must I. I can understand your hesitancy and it might be well met, for no man has authority in Pa’ngarin. I cannot make this decision for you, but I will protect you along the road.”
Helius did not respond.
The mare grew impatient, stamping and throwing her head from side to side as Aeschylus stood looking at the boy. “You may ride first. I will walk for a time, and then we can switch to keep our legs fresh. You may leave when you see fit, young Helius. I do not bind you, nor do I command you.”
The boy took a few hurried steps toward the horse.
“I thought you said we would ride together?”
Aeschylus looked back into the darkened town below. Duedonia had seen much horror that night, but the guardian did not think the Scythians bold enough to advance beyond the village. “They will not give chase, young master. The Scythians meant to send a message. These were raiding parties not infantry lines.”
Placing a small foot into the mare’s stirrup, Helius sat atop the mount in a moment. He seemed even more diminutive on the horse. “How can you tell? They seemed ravenous enough.”
Pulling the reins forward, Aeschylus led the mare to a slow trot. He walked just to the side. With his hand on his hilt, he watched the dark forest around them. “They did not wear the colors of war or the dress of protracted battle. Only light mail and hunting blades instead of charmed, runic armor and skull cleavers,” replied the guardian grimly.
Helius did not appear comforted by such knowledge.
“What will become of me in Pa’ngarin?”
“I do not know, young master.”
The boy pondered this.
“Will I be enslaved like you? Will they let me return home? To Elitlh?”
“Do you have anyone that can retrieve you, any way to contact your home?”
Helius shook his head sadly. “There was only my mother and me. We were considered outsiders in our tribe. Mother said we would soon move deeper in the Selthan Marshes, far away from Pa’ngarin and the Scythians.”
The path meandered this way and that, the dirt and grass underfoot well packed. With the moon high in the sky, the horizon threatened wisps of light.
Night would soon give way to morning.
“I cannot promise you much, Helius, but I will protect you for as long as I can. Speak and act with caution the closer we get to Pa’ngarin. Ma’oren is governed by a Minor Ascendant, a Daughter of the Dawn two decades my charge’s senior.”
The boy stared forward, absorbing the sobering news.
They did not speak much more on the road to Ma’oren, except to comment on the passing forest or to discuss some aspect of the Society of the Dawn with which the boy was not familiar. There was a sense of foreboding all about them, a deathly pall that threatened to upset their journey. As the night passed into day, Aeschylus allowed the boy to sleep atop the mare as he walked resolutely beside them with his thoughts ever upon Aurora.
Aurora
Aurora had never journeyed so far alone. In the six years that Aeschylus had been her guardian, she had left the city of Pa’ngarin no more than a handful of times. She touched her saddle horn and rubbed the pearl there delicately. There was something soothing to perform such an act of compulsion and repetition.
She thought about the day Aeschylus was chosen as her guardian.
It was her twelfth birthday, a milestone among Maidens and Children of the Dawn. Her aunt, the Lordess Ascendant, the beautiful and powerful ruler of Pa’ngarin, had picked Aeschylus for Aurora among the horde of unseasoned and dirty men who worked the mines and fields.
Her aunt’s words had been soft that day.
Soft speech was not the way of the Lordess Ascendant, yet this day when Aurora was presented before the Court of the Nine Blossoms, she spoke in hurried, loving words. She told the young Maiden that this man was the strongest among the bloodthirsty and hate-mongering species of men.
That he would protect her until his death.
Her new guardian would be her steadfast companion for as long as she saw fit. He would see to all her needs, and if she required, be her First, marking her ascendance.
Aurora smiled as she remembered how Aeschylus looked. He was already a man when he was appointed as her guardian. Strong-jawed and tight-lipped, he was a cordial, but removed, warrior just a moon past his eighteenth birthday.
What she had not known then was that Aeschylus had been following her around long before he had become her guardian. His mother had been among the dead in the same Scythian raid that killed her own mother when she was an infant. Every time Aurora wandered without supervision; it was this strange boy who came to her aid.
But his assistance had a price.
When he was only thirteen he carried Aurora from the orchards after she had fallen down and injured her foot. It was against Pa’ngarin law for a man to touch a woman without consent, especially to treat her as if she were powerless to help herself. His act of compassion earned him ten lashes at the center of the Court of the Nine Blossoms. After that incident he became more careful, making certain to remain hidden from view as he dogged her footsteps, always ready to help her if she stumbled.
Aurora shook herself from her reverie.
Before her, along the side of the road lay a heavy black stone, etched in sparkling silver lettering
.
The letters read Ma’oren.
Ma’oren was a powerful, rich town built around mining and forestry operations and run by a Minor Ascendant named Eris.
Aurora could not remember having ever met her.
Rows of tall, hearty trees obscured her vision to the north and south, but she had little fear in her heart despite the circumstances of the previous evening. The silence enveloping the surrounding forest would have been disarming if Aurora did not know that mining drove the creatures of the forest deeper into the woods. There were few dangers to a woman of her station in a society governed by women. If she were attacked and kidnapped by brigands, they would swing in the Court of the Nine Blossoms.
The trees lining the road soon gave way to cramped male dormitories built upon each other like sloping cliffs. The buildings had no windows except for a wide opening on the second floor that had been broken from the inside.
A man stepped out of one of the dormitories’ slanted doors. His long gray hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail and his brown eyes, wide and wise, watched the young Maiden pass. He did not meet her eyes, but instead stared intently at her mount, for he knew the penalty for looking at a woman, if not asked to do so, was the sealing of the eyes.
Opposite the dormitories there was a vast cavern that dug deep into the earth, beside which sprawling mining equipment was placed. A piercing whine filtered from the mine’s entrance, as if a whistle were being blown deep below.
Aurora spurred her mount forward through the haze of dirt and dust spewing from the mine and made her way up the road toward the city proper.
As if by magic the haze disappeared as a gleaming citadel rose in the distance. A Dawn Sphere was situated at its base; a great, ribbed structure composed of symmetrical, ivory pillars from ground to sky.
The Dawn Sphere was where the Minor Ascendant dwelled.
As Aurora neared the city proper, she could not shake her concern over recent events.
Thoughts of Aeschylus came to her.
He was certainly not an ogre of a man. Kind and brave, he valued life and justice. She often studied him, observed his movements and behavior. Her guardian rarely smiled, though when he did, his eyes smiled brightest, cerulean and translucent. No matter the time of day he smelled of cold wet dirt and prairie fields.